adrian is rad

The other day, I saw a ThumsUp! while eating at an Indian restaurant. I decided to have it with my Desi chicken flatbread wrap.

This is my rating:

It tasted old timey–like Coke with sugar or Pepsi Retro. I like that old time taste!

Two postcards were in my mailbox yesterday.

1. One from my friend Gums from Darjeeling and addressed to me, San Francisco
2. One from Donegal address to Stockton-on-Tees ,Cleveland. That’s not even in this country! How did it get here? To me? I can think of no reasonable explanation.

I literally groaned when my alarm when off this morning. Time to get more sleep, I think.

The other week I saw a photoset of a very cool building mural/ graffiti in San Francisco, based on an icanhascheezburger image (this one to be specific).

I was running errands in Chinatown during lunch and thought some things looks familiar so I went around back, down the alley and saw this:

It’s still there! As it turns out, the building owner consented to having that painted on there. It’s still pretty cool, though.

I’m not saying out this out of want or need of pity and I’m not here to use the internet as some grand confessional. I’m just stating a fact (that probably won’t surprise anyone close to me): there was a time when I had a lot of self-hatred. Do you know what helped me greatly in this regard? Losing my hair.

As a 21 year-old struggling with an immense pile of school work that never ended and problems or failures regarding relationships, faith, weight, and any pursuit that I once fancied myself good at, the realization that the hair at my temples was too far up to be normal was not warmly received. Self-love dipped even lower.

Five and six years later, along with the realization that once someone is a couple years past 25, they don’t really change much came the realization that I’m balding. This is life. I can’t change it (unless I want to vainly clutch at something that’s not mine), so why let it cause any stress or consternation.

1. challenging each other to eat cake after a large meal. mid-afternoon at a local diner, surrounded by regular patrons and served by a pleasant waitress. after finishing a meal that was larger than any of us thought it would be, looking at a dessert menu and practically demanding that friends get a slice. then: devouring despite the already-present stomach pain.

2. sitting on shaded grass, eating fast food frozen dairy desserts quickly. after the rehearsal, realizing none of us had eaten for many hours, deciding to sneak off before the rehearsal dinner to a close-by fast food restaurant. surreptitiously eating the chocolate shake-ice-creams while taking a minute to relax in the shade by the parking lot before sneaking one to the groom.

3. hugging pillows. with some having gone off to run errands and pick up supplies, watching mediocre TV filler and making inane jokes that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else (and often didn’t make sense to us) about hugging pillows (while hugging pillows)

4. frantic typing and nervous suggestions. mid-afternoon in a hotel room, people hurrying about and dressing. half tuxed, ten minutes left till we were to leave for the ceremony, groom and friend debugging and typing out a last-minute script to make the big project work. (it worked.)

5. radiant smile and glowing cheeks. early evening by a pond and many flowers, under the shade of trees. above a magnificent and flowing white dress, a radiant smile and glowing cheeks and eyes staring into her partner’s.

It’s Bike to Work Day and it’s going to be a hot one. I’m drenched.

Also, I think they forgot a very important aspect of this day: biking from work.

The left side of my butt chin is bigger and lower than right.

And you know what they say about symmetry.

1. Coronado, a beach near the Hotel Del. Mid-afternoon. Walking across that area of sand that’s firm because water has run over it recently and dipping my fingers into the chilly Pacific and pondering aloud if the military planes roaring overhead on their way to the base were Harriers. I don’t think they are.

2. A bar in South Park. Night time. Between local bands giving it their all on a small stage in the dark club and packed in among the local young hipster population, discussing merits of a variety of many recent bands on the scene with a new friend.

3. Balboa Park, near the Moreton Bay Fig. Late afternoon. Lying on my back on the slightly damp grass, staring up at the deeply saturated sky, talking about finances and how it’s strange to be an adult with an old friend.

I’ve done awfully awkward “you too”s before. The guy ripping my ticket at a movie: “Enjoy the movie” “You too…if you happen to see a movie sometime soon…”

Well today, I was flying back to San Francisco. I slept the whole flight. I was drowsy when getting off.

As I was exiting the plane:

Flight attendant: Thanks for flying.

Me: Bye. Have a good flight.

I think I might have meant “night”. Otherwise I really have no excuse.

Zante’s Indian Food and Pizzeria. I went here on Saturday. Tandoori Chicken Pizza doesn’t necessarily sound like it’ll work, but it does and really well. It’s really tasty and their drinks are cheap too. I’ll take every one of you (that I actually know) there when you visit. (Note: this is only an offer to take you there, not to pay and in fact, I think this trade seems more fair: I introduce you to a great restaurant, you pay.)

–

SFist points to a Eater SF article about and summarizing points in a NY Times article about over-legislation in SF. SF is pretty crazy it turns out. Here are some of the points:

• Business owners must offer health care, typically a rarity in the restaurant industry except for managers, to all employees.
• Employers must offer 9 days sick leave to all employees.
• Chain restaurants must post nutritional information for all menu items.
• Minimum wage is $9.36, more than $3.50 above the federal rate, and will increase next year.
• Plastic bags are banned from supermarkets, Styrofoam containers banned at all “food outlets.”
• The Board [of Supervisors] wants to fine stores and restaurants that sell items with high fructose corn syrup.
• The Board proposed to prohibit new liquor stores within 500 feet of churches or recreation centers.
• The Board proposed to require permits and insurance for events including weddings, parties, and benefits.
• The Board proposed to fine office buildings that leave their lights on overnight.
• The Board proposed to make all lobbyists wear name tags when doing business.

Some of those I don’t care about: no plastic bags, fine. High minimum wage–doesn’t make any difference to me and it’s expensive to live here.

But other…I prefer products without corn syrup and sometimes go to lengths to avoid them but is it really the place of gov’t to ban them? I mean, this seems like a bit step beyond NYC. Trans fat by many accounts is very very bad for you. Fine, ban it. Corn syrup probably isn’t great but are there studies that show it to be the worst thing ever? (What I’ve read is pretty inconclusive.)

I think this is how it went:

1. start liking corduroys
2. start buying corduroys
3. stop wearing corduroys

[time passes]

4. stop buying corduroys

As a result, when I was unpacking this last time, I discovered many corduroy pants, including a couple pairs with their tags on still.

I’ve been to the Bed Bath & Beyond on 9th St. a couple times to get things for my new place. It’s ok, but one thing leaves me with a dropped jaw is their shopping cart escalator. It’s a pretty nice mechanism that catches the wheels with little pegs that pull out of the way at the top.

crappy cell phone photo

It appears to be the same model as the one in this video I found:

It’s like some curved escalators I’ve seen in Hong Kong and Macau. Those things are pretty sweet too.

When learning machining, turning parts on a lathe seemed so graceful and intuitive[1] whereas milling seemed much more cold and, well, machine like.

But after that initial time, I’ve had much more opportunity to mill than to lathe and so I’ve become very comfortable on the mill, to the point where I can do many things automatically. Today for the first time in a couple years, I used the lathe again. It was like coming back to a town you used to call home, that same very familiar feeling.

[Update: note added]

[1] Its overall intuitiveness didn’t stop me from confusing the r and z axes on three hours sleep once or twice.

I finished and efiled my taxes. I always feel (perhaps irrationally) happy and proud when I’m done. I do things that are quite a bit harder–in absolute terms–and I don’t nearly feel as accomplished when finishing them.

I don’t think anyone but my brother and I know about this. Maybe my parents knew, but I’m not sure. This story takes place after we moved to Pittsburgh, but before my brother entered high school, I think, so that’d put it in the 1989 to 1992 range.

When we were young we watched some TV, especially during those gloriously long summers between school years. There’d be commercials and they’d say “Call this toll free and we’ll send you a free informational video!” (Or information packet, or any number of other things.) And we’d say “Free video? That’s awesome!” and so we’d call up that 1-800 number and ask for the free stuff that they wanted to send people. A few days later it’d arrive.

(I have no memory of doing anything with most of the stuff once it arrived. The moment was finding it in the mailbox.)

We got information packets. We got a video about those beds that adjusted and tilted and whatnot with motors. We even got the Book of Mormon, which we gave to my mom, and though she tried to seem appreciative of the “present” we could tell she didn’t want it. (Looking back, that has to be among the top five most awkward presents I’ve ever given.)

I remember the day we stopped. There was an ad for a hair loss clinic on the TV. They wanted people to call to get their video cassette, so we did.

Here’s how that conversation went:

Brother: Yes, we’d like the free video from the commercial.

Operator: Uh, how old are you? Why don’t you have your dad call?

Brother: Oh, he doesn’t want the video. He’s got hair.

Operator: Why are you calling then? Do you know someone else that’s losing his hair?

Brother: No, we just like getting free stuff in the mail.

Operator: Oh. Oh! Well, then! <mumble>

<click>

And so ended our foray into free promotional materials.

I woke up today at “7:10am”.

Weird things:
a) I’d set my alarm for 7am and have no memory of hitting snooze.
b) After reading some email and heading to the shower (but not yet getting in) I realized it was 5:10am that my alarm went off and the clock requires hitting at least two buttons (”time” and “hour” or “minute”) simultaneously to change it. I have no memory of doing that either.

[I’m only going to have I love/ hate posts from now on]

I love when the barber trims my neck/ behind my ears with a straight razor. It’s so smooth! Infinitely better than any other shaving method.

I went to Willy’s Barber Shop during lunch today. It was possibly the cheapest haircut I had (in the U.S.) since living in Pittsburgh. (I wonder if Lenor barber is still $8?)

And it was great. The guy even gave me a one minute head/ neck massage at the end. I’m going back.

In the old days I didn’t like change. In the city days, there are many uses for change: street cars, subway, parking meters, etc. Gotta make sure you have change and small bills.

It’s been just over three weeks since I moved to San Francisco.

It’s been going pretty well. I like the place I’m living. It’s a nice space and my roommates are nice. I’m close to BART (and BART is close to work). The neighborhood is flat so I can bike around it without too much trouble. Within a few blocks I have a grocery stand, a supermarket, a few bars and a lot of restaurants (mostly Taquerias–I picked the wrong neighborhood given that I’m only so-so on Mexican food).

I don’t think I realized how much I disliked driving. It’s a semi-walkable city so even stuff outside my neighborhood I can get to by walking. Public transportation is decent but the Trip Planner is extremely useful. NextMuni is even better; bus and light rail times-to-arrival based off of GPS.

It’s not all roses. Things are more expensive. Yogurts, which I buy for my lunches, are about 2x the cost. The drive into KZSU on Tuesdays at 5:15am is some simple but intense sort of torture.

About 11pm at about 20th and Valencia on Friday, a guy half in my path said to me as I walked around him: “Come on, man. Are you going to go home and watch TV or are you going to be a real motherfucker?”

I really didn’t know how to answer.

The bulk of my dad’s cautionary advice has been about the following three topics:

1. avoiding going into debt
2. avoiding excess sun exposure/ skin cancer
3. avoiding excess sound exposure/ hearing loss

Last night, I ended up walking from the Sunset to my place via Tank Hill (that is, a steep hill to walk up and then down again; also it has a pretty sweet view of a large chunk of the city).

Boston you could walk across in a few hours and it was pretty flat so no knee problems or anything. I remember being exhausted after walking a lot one day and figuring out that I’d walked 11 miles that day. I was pretty pooped after yesterday’s 5ish (the above walk + some miscellaneous stuff) miles.

But I’m really liking being able to walk places. That’s fun.

Decisions: do I bike the Wiggle or take one of ‘em Muni buses?

Oh learning new things in a new city!

As of February 2, I’ll be a resident of the city and county of San Francisco.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles has certified me to ride “any two-wheel motorcycle, motor-driven cycle, motorized scooter, motorized bicycle, or bicycle with an attached motor”.

Fewer class restrictions! Victory for the proletariat!

I’m back in the ol US of A. The flight was surprisingly smooth and went by relatively quickly. It’s yet to be seen how I’m doing with jet lag but early signs are promising.

More later!

A couple weeks ago I went swimming. The next day my left ear felt a bit weird and my hearing felt muffled. I thought there was some water still in it. After a few days it still felt weird so I had assumed it had developed into a minor ear infection, “swimmer’s ear”.

After two weeks, I decided I should have it checked out. I’m going to be place next week where it’ll be even harder to go to a doctor, so with the help of some coworkers I went to a doctor this evening and he checked me out.

There’s no water, ear wax or ear infection in there. The doctor things it’s noise trauma. Basically (hopefully) short term partial hearing loss. (Ironically, I’d light-heartedly talked about thinking I was going deaf in my left ear because my ear buds were breaking about 3 weeks ago.) His instructions: no ear buds/ headphones and try to limit limit noise for a few days.

The short term is unpleasant: no ear buds at work (at night I can play music softly on speakers that I have) means no music and I don’t like being without music. It makes me antsy. I’m going to be on planes and trains for most of Friday, alone and that would be a particularly nice time to listen to some tunes. More than it being nice, at times I almost find it necessary. After a bad or long day, after a frustrating decision, when I need to drown out this foreign world or mitigate loneliness, music is often my first resort. It may not be the best thing to turn to but it’s certainly better than turning to the bottle. This is a bit distressing.

The longer term, the prospects, the possibilities, at least, are traumatizing. That there’s even a possibility of longer term hearing loss is scary. Music is a big part of my life and between being a college radio DJ and having a music blog it’s more like a vocation. That that might be endangered or altered permanently is not a prospect I look forward to.

Just to note, I’ve always been very careful about the volume of my music on earphones and other people who try my headphones often think I listen to music too softly. I wear ear plugs at concerts, even advocating them publicly. If there’s one probable culprit here it’s listening to music on the bus and/ or while walking along streets here. Both are quite noisy and can encourage a louder-than-healthy volume on ear buds.

I just made a sufficiently embarrassing phone call.

“Hello, [Hotel/ Apartment]”

“Yes, this is Adrian in room [x]. I managed to lock myself in my kitchen. Could you send someone up to let me out?”

Good things:
a) I have a cell phone.
b) I carry an address card for the hotel with me all the time. It has the phone number.

And, yes, for whatever reason, the kitchen door has a lock.

I’m looking for good charities for my annual birthday charitable contributions.

Charity Navigator is good at finding good charities that spend their money well. I’ll probably split it up 1/4-1/2 international (South Africa/ Africa focus), 1/4-1/2 national and 1/4 local.

I sort of thought that maybe I just needed to hide away in my room for the evening, that seeing friends wouldn’t help. But it did. Thanks, guys.

But it’s been too many. I’m only twenty-six after all.

Times like these make me think of this a e housman:

“Is my team plowing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?”

Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plow.

“Is football playing
Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?”

Ay, the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands, Up, the keeper
Stands Up to keep the goal.

“Is my girl happy,
That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
As she lies down at eve?”

Ay, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep:
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.

“Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?”

Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.

Yesterday, I went to the Taiwan Cultural Office of San Francisco (in Sunnyvale) yesterday. They serve some consular functions and I was investigating visa stuff for the fall.

I got there and there are people sitting around, forms, papers and signs everywhere, but no one is speaking, reading, writing in English. It ended up taking me 15 minutes to find where to get the forms I needed.

I’m sure I showed a little of a deer-in-headlights look in my eyes, but my mental dialog went something more like “oh my gosh what am I doing?! how am I going to do four months of this when I’m having a hard time with fifteen minutes?!”

It was pretty sweet. I’m sure it’ll work out.

There are very few things I can convince myself to do daily. Brushing my teeth, getting dressed, eating and showering are about it and those I notice very soon if I don’t.

Things that take a longer time to see the effects of, I’m not very good. Physical therapy I can do for a while but it’s hard to stick with. Exercise I can handle on the times per week basis, but not on the daily basis.

Starting today, I’m going to start two things (that may or may not help me in the long run) that take 90 days (at least) to see an effect: Glucosamine and Minoxidil.

Glucosamine is a supplement that’s been shown to help some portion of the population’s joints in rebuilding. Now, I don’t have joint problems because I’m not old (and only old people have joint problems), but if I did they’d be left ankle, right and left knees, and right elbow and to a lesser extent left elbow, right and left shoulders. The dose that’s been studied is 1.5g (1500mg). This is a very large pill.

Minoxidil is just for fun. Any problem that it treats that you might think I have is a figment of your imagination. This problem simple does not effect me.

Menlo Park is dead at 10pm on a Sunday.

[personal thoughts, ramblings after the jump]

(more…)

I was talking to my friend Jesse on the phone. He was about to head to a bbq with some mutual friends.

me: Say hi to people for me.
Jesse: I probably won’t actually do that but I’ll say I will because it will make you feel better.
me: …

Thanks, pal.

I lived in Germany during the summer of 2002 and I traveled nearly every weekend. I arrived in Germany May 28 and left August 23. Sometimes I use this blog to put things down that are at the edge of my reach memory-wise, so I can make a record of them. I actually have all of this written down in a notebook, but I can’t find it.

• May 31- June2: Bremen, to visit Colin[1]
• June 7-9: Düsseldorf to visit my Oma[2], Frankfurt to visit Sam Breuning[3]
• June 14-16: nothing
• June 21-23: Solingen, Köln to visit the cousins Füser[4]
• June 28-30: München[5, 7], Bayrischer Alpen[6] for MIT-Germany/ MIT Club of Germany meet up
• July 5-7: Vienne, Strasbourg France for the Vienne Jazz Festival[8]
• July 12-14: Berlin, for LoveParade 2002 and visit with Justus[9]
• July 20-22: Hamburg[10], Lübeck[11] w/ Christian
• July 26-28: Karlsruhe for the “Savage Seven” ultimate frisbee tournament as a part of die Sieben Schwaben[12]
• August 2-4: Romantic/ Clock Road, Rottweil; Stein am Rhein, Switzerland; Rottenburg ob der Tauber w/ Meredith Gerber[13]
• August 9-12: Pittsburgh, USA for Colin and Heather’s wedding. Surprise![14]
• August 16-18: Köln (to see Bugge Wesseltof) and Frankfurt, w/ Sam Breuning[15]

Footnotes:

1. Bremen smells like hops when the wind is the right direction because of Becks. The Schnoor area was neat, with its small and odd houses.
2. My Oma didn’t realize I was related to her for the first hour of my visit; the Alzheimers had started to take its toll. This ended up being the last time I saw her. I regret not having stayed with her for the whole weekend, but at that point I thought I was going to visit again that summer.
3. Sam was a cool British kid also with a German father; he’d been on the Cambridge-MIT exchange. We ended up hanging out a number of weekends that summer. I’ve since lost touch with him.
4. My dad’s cousin (my “Tante”/ “aunt”), her husband and kids (my “cousins”) were all gathered at their palatial family estate in Solingen for a sculpture showing of a local artist set up in their gardens. At one point we all, including the artist, were sitting under some trees eating a snack and they asked me if I liked one of the statues near us. I said, in stilted German, that I did (it was actually one of the few I did). It came out wrong and they made fun. I said “echt!” in vain. At another point this weekend, another cousin-by-marriage of my dad’s who was also visiting announced, after having talked to me for five minutes that I spoke “perfekt Deutsch.” Right…
5. We all met at a Biergarten, all the current students and the MIT Club of Germany members. I was stuck at the Club table for most of the night, which was extremely awkward. At some point I excused myself and snuck over the student table. Seeings as it was social interaction with people I didn’t know well, it was still awkward, but not nearly as much.
6. We went hiking in the Alps and stayed in a rustic ski cabin that one MIT Club member had access to. Sam and I got a ride down with a guy who spoke with a typical German accent except, because he’d spent multiple years as a ski bum in the US, mixed it with ski bum slang and inflection all the time. At the cabin, I learned I was ace at splitting logs with an ax, usually splitting decent sized logs in one swing. During one of our day hikes we stopped at an inn, where a 10 year old kid was drinking a 1 litre “maß” glass of beer.
7. It was the day of the final when we got back to Munich and I had the surreal experience of watching Germany play (and lose) in a World Cup final with 10,000 Germans in a public square where they’d set up screens. Turkey won the consolation match so there was some celebrating. (Note: Turkish is the largest minority in Germany by a factor of 4, at least at the time.)
8. Vienne has a Roman amphitheatre with gorgeous acoustics. Sam knew the mayor of Vienne so we got VIP passes into the events, including into a VIP area the first night where we passed the London Times jazz critic. Vienne was about 450 miles from Stuttgart, a good 7 hours, which we drove non-stop on Friday afternoon, on half a tank of diesel in a pretty amazing VW Passat TDI. We still missed most of the first act. Also, French radio sucks. I bought a CD-tape adapter after this road trip.
9. The LoveParade is a parade along a mile-long route on which 40 heavy duty trucks with world-class DJs and sound systems drive for an entire afternoon. Estimates for my year were 500,000 in attendance. Oh and there were a lot of topless girls there.
10. My (second) cousin Christian lived in Hamburg at the time. He’d stayed with us in America in the early 90s and he was out to repay the favor by showing me a good time. We went out with some friends. On the way there, he’d talked to them and said he was bringing his cousin (”eine Cousine from mir”) with him. We got there and the friend said “this is your hair dresser (Friseur)??” See, they might sound alike on the phone; yes that doesn’t work in English and I don’t care. This was the first night that I drank more than one beer in a night, in fact, probably quadrupling my total beer consumption ever in just that night. The goal was to stay up all night and go to the Fischmarkt when it opened at 6am, but it ended with me falling asleep in a bar at 4:30am, having had multiple beers (mostly Heinikens while watching a crappy, but, let’s be honest, fun American cover band) and a good quantity of vodka. Incidentally, trying to explain complicated concepts in German wasn’t easy, let alone to a group of strangers in a loud bar while intoxicated. And, Malta, I can’t say your name correctly sober either; but you can’t say “squirrel” to save your life, so there.
11. The bells of the main church had fallen and melted from the bombings in WWII. They’d be left as a beautiful and poignant reminder. Lübeck in general is a wonderful small town.
12. “Savage seven” means no subs (the seven you have to start is all you have). Having gotten roped into this at the last minute, I played seven games of no-subs ultimate frisbee in two days. I can still remember the intense pain, mostly in my calves that I felt for the rest of the week. Walking on flat ground and up stairs, my right calf hurt intensely; my left calf hurt similarly walking down stairs. I couldn’t, and didn’t, win. Of course there were 6 flights of stairs between my office and the cafeteria/ train level at work.
13. This was a fun little road trip with another MIT-Germany person; Meredith was in Munich for the summer. We went to some classic historic German places. I also made my only trip to a Switzerland, to the town of Stein am Rhein, which was noted by the “strict” border crossing. “Passports? No, we don’t need to see those. In fact, you don’t even have to come to a full stop. Just roll on through!”
14. After the rehearsal dinner, I had some friends over, got tipsy on Mike’s Hard Lemonades and had to search for the right words to use in English. That I was thinking partly in German was a big step for me and I noted my progress.
15. Bugge Wesseltof had impressed Sam and I with his electro jazz stylings in Vienne. Plus we liked his awesome name, so we drove like maniacs (once again) to get to Köln by show time, only to be disappointed by his collaborative work with a female jazz singer.

“Now your gums are bleeding a little bit because you don’t floss enough.”

I’d beg to differ. I believe my gums are bleeding because you just spent the last half hour jabbing them with a crude shive.

Seriously, why do we take this from dentists? This is the 21st century and they’re sitting there with midieval steel tools ready to poke my teeth and gums. What’s next? Blood letting? I could probably have my gallbladder removed less invasively than having my teeth cleaned.

Dave and Tina were in town yesterday, so I headed up to SF to hang out with them in the afternoon and evening.

We walked from Ghirardelli Sq, down Columbus to Giordano Brothers, a restaurant that serves “Pittsburgh-style” (aka Primanti’s) sandwiches. I love this place. They do this style of sandwiches well and it always helps/ calms my nostalgia needs. There’s also some good people watching in the area.

We then walked down Columbus (past the transamerica building) and then down to the Embarcadero. From there we made our way down past all the piers (picking up a much needed Slurpee near the end) before going to Musee Mechanique. It’s on Pier 45, right at the end of all those piers by Fishermen’s Wharf.

Musee Mechanique is a collection of coin-operated devices: penny arcade games, photo booths, flip-card movie machines (“Mutoscopes”), fortune tellers, moving dioramas and music boxes and other music machines. The collection has items from the late 1800s up until probably the 1990s, but most of them probably come from the first half of the 20th century.

It’s an amazing collection. More importantly, it’s a lot of a fun. I’m a big mechanical geek so the intricate mechanical ones are really cool to me. It’s pretty cheap: free admission and the games are 25 or 50 cents each for the most part, so for $5 or $10 you can play a lot of them.

An ancient and gorgeous sounding disc-based music box

After that we headed over the Mission to eat at Walzwerk, the always-delicious East German restaurant. Good food, good beer, not too pretentious. Winners!

Mel’s Bowl rounded out the night. It was really quiet, save a bunch of Warriors fans in the bar. We were one of two groups bowling. There was this really cute old couple next to us. The wife was asleep while he bowled. He was slower but was obviously good in his day. He had a lot of finesse still and was pretty good (he could easily beat me). I was cheering him on the whole time.

I bowled pretty badly with a 113 and 115, but I still beat out Dave to be the absolute champion.

more photos after the jump (way below)

(more…)

I have interesting friends.

At an engagement party/ shinding tonight.

me, to the engaged: Congratulations!

him: you don’t look fat!

I’m training for one of the Alcatraz triathlons. Today and last Thursdays I’ve done biking and running in a row and it has hurt. Today was slightly better than the last, I think.

What I did:

• swimming:
  • goal: 1.5-2.0 miles
  • actual: 2x 1.0 miles = 2.0 miles
• running:
  • goal: 9-10.5 miles
  • actual: 2x 3.5 miles + 1 X 3.0 miles = 10 miles
• biking:
  • goal: at least 15 miles
  • actual: 1x 16.0 miles (+5x 1.65 miles to/ from work) = 16.0 or 23.2 miles, depending what you count
• brick (bike then run):
  • goal: at least one
  • actual: today 16 miles biking then 3 miles running w/ ~ 3 minutes transition time

I bought one of these this week. It was nice to have water on the longer runs, especially when I’m in the sun. It think it’ll also be nice to have if I decide to do something like run to the pool, swim, and then run back. It has a little pocket where I can keep my keys and maybe one of those gel/ goo/ power shot sort of things.

Next week, I should do something like:

• swimming: 2.0 miles
• running: 10-11 miles
• bicycling: 15.0-22.0 miles
• brick: at least one

I don’t want to over do it. I have been starting to ache quite a bit, both muscularly and in joints and tendons and whatnot, so I’m not going to push it much this week.

I went to bed last night. I always fall asleep to music. I wanted to fall asleep to Beatbeat Whisper’s song “Play Me a Time” (a lullaby, so very appropriate), but I also wanted to hear their “Old River” (3:55) and “The Cowboy’s Lament” (3:02). If felt like a century trying to stay awake for that 6 minutes and 57 seconds before “Play Me a Time” was to come on. In the end I didn’t make it. I think I got into the middle “Cowboy’s Lament” before falling asleep.

I’ve always been able to fall asleep easily. If I have my head on the pillow for more than seven minutes before falling asleep, it’s a truly extraordinary night. The only times I can’t/ couldn’t fall asleep easily, at least usually, was the night before my first final and when riddled with jetlag.

Last week I sent out my goals for triathlon training for this week (my training weeks go Saturday-Friday for this, for whatever reason).

They were and how I did:

• swimming:
  • goal: 1-1.5 miles
  • actual: 2x 0.75 miles = 1.5 miles
• running:
  • goal: 8.5 miles
  • actual: 2x 3.0 miles + 1 X 2.5-2.6 miles = 8.5 miles
• biking:
  • goal: at least 15 miles
  • actual: 1x 15.0 miles (+4x 1.65 miles to/ from work) = 15.0 or 21.6 miles, depending what you count
• brick (bike then run):
  • goal: at least one
  • actual: today 15 miles biking then 2.5 miles running w/ ~ 3 minutes transition time

The brick was a whole new experience for me. I’d only biked and run in the same day once before and those were hours apart. It feels very strange to do that to your legs. They’re already tired and then you ask them to do a different and (for me) more painful movement. The feeling was assaulting. It wasn’t pain necessarily, not acute pain at least, but just a general feeling of wanting to not be running at that moment and tiredness in my legs.

I know it’s no great physical feat and wasn’t about to collapse, but I’m not quite sure how I did it. I certainly wanted to give up. I think it was very mental: if I couldn’t do that today, then I certainly couldn’t ready and do a triathlon. I had to prove it to myself.

Really one of the things that got me through the run part of the brick was the great album from Beatbeat Whisper which I just posted about on my music blog.

Next week, I should do something like:

• swimming: 1.5-2.0 miles
• running: 9.5-10.5 miles
• bicycling: 15.0-22.0 miles
• brick: at least one

I scanned and uploaded a bunch of black and white photos to my picasa thing.

Galleries include Pittsburgh over Christmas, my first try at fisheye, the Oakland A’s last game of their sweep of the Twins in the playoffs, Jose Gonzalez @ Stanford, and John Vanderslice @ Stanford.

5 odd questions people (totaling 5) in my car were asked by a member of the MPPD after being pulled over for an out left tail light on Sunday:

• “Hey, engineer in the back, what operating system do you use?”
• “Are you brother and sister?”
• “Are you married?”
• “Saving on gas, are you?”
• “What do you have against the regular units?”

And, yes, I’ve replaced the bulb; it’s fixed.

on the phone a minute ago:

me: hello, this is Adrian

caller: Hi, this is X.

me: Oh, hi X. how are you?

X: good. how about you?

me: good. how about you?

X: …

me: <awkward laugh> so….what’d you call about?

[fin]

Note to self: don’t let brain go into autopilot.

Happy New Year’s.

I don’t know if you’re like me. Maybe you went out and had a blast…NYE (as they call it in the business) is particularly geared, it seems, towards large parties. I’m not a huge fan of huge parties so that’s one reason I have a feeling of dread as NYE approaches.

The other thing about New Year’s is that pesky reminder that time is passing. I’d like to say it hasn’t always been this way, but I think that’d it’d be a lie; I’ve always been too ambitious, had too many goals, to enjoy the fact that time is passing and that I have less time to accomplish them. (Birthdays also remind one of time passing, but somehow I mostly avoid that same dread with my birthdays and instead I meet them largely with joy.)

Another thought: Weezer’s Weezer (the first one) is a dang good album throughout.

Andy said that yesterday: “I had embarrassing teen years.” He was going through some boxes of stuff that his parents wanted to get rid of to make space. I laughed at him. I’m not embarrassed by my teen years, I thought. I did alright with them.

Here’s one gem Andy found yesterday:

[yeah, I should crop this and make it a smaller file.]

It’s the original lyric sheet to the Where’s Luke theme song. This was when we were preparing for the coffee house that they hosted at Westminster Presbyterian. I think we might have just been asking Colin if he’d be our drummer.

Tonight I went through my drawers in my desk tonight. I was laughing again, this time at myself. Despite myself I did have an embarrassing adolescence. I found all sorts of ridiculous things that I saved. The pot of gold at the end of the embarrassment rainbow was the half-drawer full of love notes, poems and drawings from a high school girlfriend. I was smiling so much at the ridicilousness of it that I almost cried.

I walked out my back door this morning to grab my bike and head off to work. There was a lid of a container that had overturned and filled with some water. This water had turned to ice. I think this is the first time I remember seeing naturally formed ice in Palo Alto or Menlo Park. There was frost on the neighbor’s grass.

I need to figure out if I own gloves in this state. My hands didn’t work for many minutes after I got to work today.