Old to Begin

by Pavement from Brighten the Corners

Hello all, just another update for my ever dwindling blog reading audience. So what has been up? Well actually quite a lot actually. Two weeks ago, I saw the movie that I most wanted to see this summer. You guessed it: Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay. I have to say it delivered exactly what it promised, meaning plenty of gross out and juvenile comedy. Essentially it is a series of comedy bits and gags strung together to form a movie. While I do like the first movie better, I have to say it was money well spent. Unlike certain people, I wasn't looking for any underlying social message or context.

Yet another momentous occasion is that I actually went on a "date" two weekends ago. We went for dumplings and then watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I have to admit that it wasn't the best date movie. Funny though, just not the best date movie. Anyway, nothing really came of said date for well...I don't know. So I am 1/5 on my why to beating my dating resolution for this year. It only took me errr almost 5 months to go on one. So yeah, I probably need to get cracking on that.

Last week, I was again traveling for work in order to do some field studies. My first destination was Washington DC (or more exactly McLean, VA). Seeing that I spent around 30 hours total there I didn't leave with much impression. Other than that Virgina has many trees. Fortunately, this traveling also afforded me a chance to go to Ann Arbor because I had a field study there. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed out of Dulles to Detroit. So I ended up getting there way late. So I picked up my rental car and gunned it from the airport to Ann Arbor in record time. It was nice visiting again. I got to see the downtown Google office (which is coincidentally in the same building as my old bank from my grad schools day). I also met up with Jude and Serene to catch up, talk about SI gossip, trade our thoughts on Lost, talk about HCIish things, among other things. We had dinner at this pretty good Cuban place, Cafe Habana. After which Jude and I went to Leopold's for one last time. Apparently, it is moving away after many years which is a sad thing. I remember (well mostly remember) many a SI/SOCHI happy hour there plus I lived only a few blocks away when I was in grad school. As I mentioned in earlier posts, Ann Arbor seems like a foreign place to me now. I would like to say that I can't believe its been two years since I graduated, but yeah, it does seems like that long. I suppose I didn't have too much connection to the place since I knew going in that was only a stopping station to somewhere else. I did walk by my old place and yup, it still looks the same (aka rickety with a desperate need of a paint job).

This past weekend was quite fun. First off, it was my birthday. In my previous entry I already harped and fretted about what it meant to turn 29 so I won't repeat all that stuff here. I will probably completely wig out when I turn 30 next year. So yeah I am officially beginning to get "old." However, that didn't stop me from celebrating my birthday. Doris was nice enough to coordinate renting a house for all of us for the Tour De Cure bike ride in Napa. So the ride was on Sunday, so we had a few days to chill out in Napa beforehand. On Friday, we drove up along with Cari, Matt, CWP$, DJC, and Doris. On Saturday, we all went to wine tasting + Jen. Needless to say, I probably tasted a little too much wine because I ended up with a massive wine headache. However a whole bunch of other people came up that evening who are too numerous to attempt to name.

As for the ride itself, it went better than expected. I only rode 25 miles since well I sorta suck at biking. Everyone else biked 50 miles. So it turns out there are slower bikers than me, including really elderly couples and 13 year olds on dirt bikes. But to be quite honest, the ride was not as taxing as I thought it would be. There was only one really tough stretch where I was in severe pain and thankfully they had a rest stop set up there, where I drank really crappy energy drinks and ate peanut butter, banana bagels (which are quite delicious). Needless to say I had quite a bit of fun and I'll probably try doing 50 miles again. A big shout to Jinah, Camille, Amanda, and Walter who donated money for my ride to benefit the American Diabetes Association. Thankfully there were many pictures taken during the trip.

Anyway that is all from me for now. Hope everyone has a great May. Until next time, peace.