Last Wednesday afternoon, I flew to Little Rock to meet up with my old friend Mike (affectionately spelled "Miek"). Miek's stuff was mostly packed, but we hung out a few blocks away at Clay and Patria's house. Miek, something of a chef (and beer brewer), had marinated some pork in a scrumptious-smelling sweet cinnamon sauce. The plan was to take the meat to our favorite local pizza place, Damgoode Pies. They will actually cook custom meats into a pizza pie for you. But, they weren't feeling it that night--I guess they were busy--and they basically asked us to take our business elsewhere. So, we went to the supermarket, bought some ingredients, and made our own pizza pie. Heh, we made it in a casserole dish. It was fantastic! That meat was crazy good, too.

Thursday, after grabbing lunch and running a few errands with Miek, Miek, Clay, me, and an extra passenger hit the road for northwest Arkansas. We stopped by Russellville (my home town) on the way, grabbing a tasty burger. My mom met us there, so I got to say hi. I also grabbed a couple of long-sleeved shirts from her, which she happened to have in her trunk, ready for Goodwill. I had dumbly neglected to pack anything remotely warm, and we were going to Colorado. That's not the first packing mistake I've made. Ask me about packing shoes sometime... :-)

We got to NW Arkansas around 8, I think. We picked up Otto and Dan (Miek's bro), bringing the head count to 5. We stopped at Wal-mart on the way out of town to grab a tarp and some cables. That way, we could strap our luggage to the roof of Miek's parents' Expedition and use the back of the S.U.V. as a sleeping area. The tarp, unfortunately, was very annoying, flapping loudly in the wind. For the first hour or two, the navigator frequently opened the sunroof to check on everything.
( At this rate, this is going to be a long post... :-) (pics inside) )

Yesterday was Jason & Sarah's house party. They moved to a new place kind of north-east of campus, and they decided to break it in properly. It was a grand old time, in the proper tradition of computer science house parties. Here are some of the highlights:

• A bonfire, which a neighbor poured gasoline on
• A pony keg of some delicious Carolina Brewing Company ale
• Many first-years, hooray!
• An excursion halfway through to go see the wonderful mrsmalkav, who was in town (it was great to see you, Lisa!)
• A tree kinda fell over...dunno how that happened
• Many broken wine and margarita glasses from a free-standing cupboard that wasn't party-proof
• A very sticky floor
• A hole in the wall from another incident with the aforementioned cupboard
• A, ahem, messed-up couch (which thankfully had several layers of coverings)

Overall, it was quite the party! It's a testament to Jason & Sarah's relentlessly positive attitudes that they could recount the many mini-disasters with laughter.

Last Saturday (the 11th), I went to the world-famous San Diego Zoo. I asked several people if they wanted to come along, but none did, so I went by myself. I got up pretty early to catch the bus by 8:15, and I would have been there by around 10am, but I got a bit turned around while talking on the phone and took the wrong direction of the right bus at a transfer point. I also stopped over in downtown and grabbed some breakfast before going to Balboa Park where the zoo is.

The zoo is awesome. It's huge! Matt had gone with his folks a few weeks ago, and he said they didn't actually get to see all of it in one day because it was so big. I did see all of it, but just barely. They have all the standard zoo fare: lions, tigers, bears, elephants, rhinos, hippos, monkeys, etc. I particularly enjoyed the otters and the meerkats. There was an orangutan, looking tired, with some paper over his head. I saw a genet, and promptly text-messaged Genet to make her guess what I saw at the zoo. :-)

The most interesting thing I saw was a copperhead yawning. Have you ever seen a snake yawn? Check it out, it's bizarre.

The highlight of the trip was seeing the sea lion perform (those creatures are amazing). Also, at one point I saw several critters up close. They were being handled by trainers, but they weren't in a cage or anything. I can't remember the first animal, but I remember that it climbed up a tree a little. The second was a medium-sized cat (actually, 2 of 'em) with spots that was known for its jumping ability. Apparently it hunts ground mice with its superb hearing, and jumps to catchs birds as they fly. The third was a big rodent that looked a lot like a beaver, including long front teeth. It just sat there, eating corn off the cob. It wasn't trained, but it apparently wasn't too dangerous, because kids were allowed to go up there one or two at a time and get their pictures taken with it. The whole time, the black jaguar across the street behind us was getting loud and excited. Apparently it was time for its meal.

On the way home, I had to transfer busses in downtown, so I took the opportunity to have a couple of beers at The Yardhouse. The Yardhouse is my kind of place: it has about a hundred beers on tap, many of which I've never had. I love trying new beers.

This week, some friends from UNC were in town for the 2007 SIGGRAPH Conference. Saturday, a group of us (Jason, Nico, Avneesh, Ted, and some alumni) went to downtown La Jolla for beers and burgers at what has become my haunt, the Bull and Bear. For some reason, the prevailing opinion was that the short, pretty walk to La Jolla Cove wasn't a good idea, so we skipped straight to the drinking.

...or at least, that was the intent. We went to Garnet Ave in Pacific Beach. There are tons of bars and clubs there, and lots of people dressed very stylishly. Also, lots of long lines, lots of bars with cover, and, generally, just way too many people, many of whom were irritable from waiting in line and the superficial pleasures that such scenes offer. We finally found a not-too-crowded bar that wasn't charging cover and didn't have a line. Unfortunately, they didn't let our German friend in, who carried his state ID but not his passport. Two more bars told a similar story. It was laminated and had a holographic seal on it, but apparently that wasn't convincing enough. I reckon many of those bars have been hard hit by the underage drinking laws enforcers. We finally gave up on PB and drove instead to the gaslamp district in downtown San Diego. We settled on Henessey's, a good ol' Irish Pub.

Avneesh and I drove back to my place, where we both spent the night. Sunday, we got up and went to the beach (La Jolla Shores, that is). The water was a little on the chilly side. (Poor Avneesh wasn't moving enough and was shivering.) But, it was a good time. Later, we got cleaned up, and he packed for his flight back that evening. We got some food at Popeye's (yum!), and he dropped me off at church (the evening service at the Rock Church--not the one I usually go to), and then he was off to the airport.

Later in the week, on Wednesday, Jason and his local friend Tessa came to pick me up around 9:30, and we went back to downtown La Jolla. I had only met Tessa at Henessey's that Saturday, but we all had a lot of fun talking, eating, and drinking. That was the second night in a row I had stayed up late, so work on Thursday was a bit rough, but it was definitely worth it to hang out with such cool cats. :-)

As I mentioned earlier, my favorite part of the workshop in San Diego was meeting everybody there and getting to hang out with them. Monday and Tuesday nights both started off with CAIDA paying for a dinner. Monday we went to BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse. It was delicious, and the beer was pretty tasty too. People began to walk back to the hotel, leaving a core group of 4 of us there (Teemu, Wolfgang, Rob, and me).

We decided the night shouldn't be over, so we called a cab. Teemu and Wolfgang had scouted the area out on Sunday, so they decided we should go to downtown La Jolla, to the Bull & Bear. (Our hotel was in La Jolla near the UCSD campus.) We sat outside on the street. I loved the fresh air. We were very near to the sea, but all I could smell was a fresh floral (hibiscus?) scent, even though the only flora in sight were palm trees. We eventually caught a cab back to the hotel, where we quickly decided the night still wasn't over (it was only midnight or so). We went to a gas station, bought a few Heinekens, and went to Teemu & Wolfgang's room. Wolfgang drunk-dialed (or attempted to dial) several conference attendees, managing to wake up Daniel, from Italy, who was surprisingly patient.

Tuesday evening we went to the Rock Bottom Brewery for a catered meal and some delicious beer. We had the run of the upstairs, including the billiards table. Then, like Monday, several of us (the original 4, plus my roommate Alessio and Keith) went back to the Bull & Bear. We kept trying to convince Wolfgang, a serious ice-climber, to climb the palm tree near us. He wouldn't do it unless I did it first, so I climbed maybe 8 feet before giving up. (It was too big!) Wolfgang tried it too, to our cheers, but didn't get much higher. We got done and noticed our forearms were totally scratched up.

We met a girl, Alisha, walking her dog down the street, and invited her to sit with us. Her dog, a poodle named Peach, was fairly old, and he would sometimes get cranky and bite her. We talked about dogs for a while. It's fair to say she and I hit it off, though the guys exaggerated it greatly. They decided to call a cab and sneak off, leaving me behind with Alisha. We left the bar and walked a bit. We met a really interesting homeless guy named Andy. He was surprisingly smart and intelligent, and we talked with him for at least half an hour. I really wanted to see the ocean, since I hadn't seen it yet that trip, so we walked down there and walked along the ocean-front sidewalk for a while. We talked a lot about life, love, happiness, dogs, and philosophy, and really had quite a good conversation. But, it was getting late--and chilly--so I called a cab and left. The guys teased me endlessly about hooking up and whatnot, but nothing happened, not even a kiss. Just wanted to set that straight. ;-)

Monday evening we joked about creating a "beer" dataset to submit to DatCat. Tuesday, we exchanged a few emails, perpetuating the joke, quietly snickering as we read the latest email. People eventually learned about our joke, and it became a real dataset. One of the guys in charge even approved it! Check it out! (From left: me, Rob, Wolfgang, and Teemu.) Ah, good times!

Last weekend, Sarah organized a trip to Asheville. It was a package deal, including 2 nights at a hotel, a day of skiing/snowboarding, a "brews cruise", and a bluegrass CD. I almost didn't go because it was expensive (~$130, which is actually cheap for all that we did), but eventually I rationalized and banked on a decent tax rebate. What an awesome trip it was!

We got to Asheville Friday night. I rode with Jason, Sarah, and Nico. keith_lee, Xiaoxiao, and Li rode in Keith's car. Our car stopped in Hickory for some amazing Jamaican food. Oh, man, was that jerk chicken good!
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All in all, it was an absolutely amazing weekend! Serious props & thanks to Sarah for organizing everything!

Saturday night, Simon, Joy, Prachi, and I all went out on Franklin St. Simon is an old friend of mine from college, and Joy, his girlfriend, goes to Johns Hopkins for grad school. They are looking for a change of pace. Each of them is tired of where they currently live, and the Raleigh area is one of the place they're considering moving to. So, I did my best to persuade them that Chapel Hill is awesome.

Among other places, we went to Bub's for some table shuffleboard. I gave my driver's license as collateral while we had the pucks. When we got done, I handed the pucks in, and the barkeep handed me somebody else's ID. I told them that wasn't mine, and he took it back. It turns out that the other barkeep had handed some guy my ID! That guy was long gone, so I was ID-less! I gave him my name and phone number, and he said he'd call when the guy got in touch. I took it mostly in stride, but I was a bit concerned. How often do you actually look at your driver's license? I don't look very often, personally. If I do have to show it to somebody, I never so much as glance at it. And then Joy cheered me up by saying, "What if he gets pulled over and it goes on your driving record?" Sigh... Fortunately, the guy called Sunday afternoon. He apparently tried to get on a plane when they noticed he had the wrong ID. They still let him on, and he said he'd mail the ID to me.

Sunday, the 4 of us got together again for a driving tour of the area. I drove, since I was the only one familiar with Chapel Hill and Durham. (I drove carefully, and I figured it was alright since I'd never been pulled over. But I'm still glad nothing happened.) That was a fun afternoon, with stops at Starbucks, Firehouse, Play it Again Sports, and Maple View Ice Cream. I hope they decide to move here!

The weekend of the 4th of July, Jeff S. (decidedlyodd) came down to Berkeley, his old haunt, to visit friends. Friday was the day of the ICSI picnic, and that evening, Jeff arrived in San Francisco and caught a BART over to Berkeley. mrsmalkav and I met him at the downtown Berkeley stop, and then we all went over to grab some food at the so-called "Asian food ghetto". After that, we went back to my place, grabbing some beer on the way over, and hung out for a while before crashing in exhaustion.

Saturday was the day that England lost to Portugal in the quarterfinals [of the World Cup]; I caught that at a local pub. I then met Jeff's friend Kendra, and later, Lisa, Jeff, and I went to the city to grab some delicious tapas at "Cha Cha Cha" and beer at the very interesting, famous dive/biker bar, Zeitgeist. It was Matthias's last day in the States (before heading back to Munich). He came to the city to party one last time with colleagues of his and friends from the International House, and we met up with him at Majool, a fancy club. That was a fun time, although the drinks were expensive and the people seemed appearance-obsessed. It made for a nice view, though. ;-) And speaking of nice views, the roof offered one as well. On the way home, there was some bickering about which way to get back. Jeff, Lisa, and I were all going to the same place, so I decided to follow Lisa wherever she went, since she seemed to know her way around. Most of Matthias's crew called a van-cab, and they were kind enough to stop on the street and pick us up as they drove by.

Sunday, we slept in a bit, then picked up Jeremy, a former roommate of Jeff's. We saw the Berkeley Rose Garden, which had an incredible variety of beautiful roses arrayed in rows and along big steps of an amphitheater-shape. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of roses! After that, we went to Solano Avenue on the north side of Berkeley. I found a hardcover copy of Tom Clancy's "The Cardinal of the Kremlin" for $1 in a bookstore as we waited to be seated at Zachary's. Unfortunately, I was feeling rather odd, and not even a delicious stuffed pizza could evoke my appetite, but it was good talking philosophy and sci-fi with Jeremy and the group. Later on, Jeremy led us to a hidden, small farm in the hills of Berkeley. We saw cows, pigs, and rabbits, and we got to pet some friendly goats.

Monday morning, I got up early to take Jeff to the airport. Later on, Lisa and I saw "Superman Returns" at the Metreon in the city. It was pretty good--much better than I thought it would be from the trailer--and the Metreon's digital screen was beautiful. The Metreon is a pretty cool place in general. They had a food court, several stores including a Sony video store, Sony games store, and comic book/sci-fi store. On the 4th floor (above the theaters) there was a Titanic exhibition, though we didn't see that.

Tuesday, I slept in fairly late, and I didn't get out of my pajamas all day, even though it was the 4th. I was feeling very introverted, and I spent the whole day wrestling with my unstable computer and reading "Patriot Games". Then, Wednesday, it was back to work.

Yesterday after work, Jason F. accompanied me to San Francisco to visit the Rogue Ales Public House. I had a great time sampling all of Rogue's beers. Hazelnut Brown Nectar and Chipotle Ale are still my favorites, though. Jason and I had a great time discussing life, love, and happiness, and then a friend and colleague of his, Serj (who is from UVa and knows Vince), showed up, followed shortly by his roommates. It was a grand ol' time.

This was the first time I planned my own trip to the city. I had used 511.org's trip planner, and I printed out the itinerary, which basically told me which buses and bart trains to catch, where to transfer, etc.

Well, as I soon found out, the itinerary wasn't all that reliable. As instructed, I caught a Muni bus to a Bart station in the city, then I dutifully got off at the Oakland 12th St. Station to transfer. The itinerary told me to catch the last Richvale/Richmond/Fremont bus of the day. In comes a Fremont train, so I hop on, but instead of taking me north to Berkeley and home, it takes me south. After a stop at Fruitvale (which didn't sound familiar), I began to get suspicious. I soon deduced I was going south, so I hopped off at the next stop, San Leandro.

The Bart station agent was kind, telling me which buses to catch to get home. However, the bus wasn't coming. I waited around for about a half-hour, finally said screw it, and started walking. This was 1:30am. That's when the real adventure began.

I don't really have time to do the adventure justice, so I'll have to be brief. I walked miles and miles and miles through the city, trying to head in a somewhat northerly direction. Several times, though, I lost sight of the mountains (to the east) and the bay (to the west), so I would get all turned around. I did go the right way for a long time, but eventually I got twisted up in Oakland. I walked through decaying and decayed industrial areas; crummy, run-down, and dangerous-looking neighborhoods; new-feeling business districts with shiny stores and unlit facades; and just about everything in-between. Around 4:50 I finally succumbed to my tiredness--my feet, legs, hips, knees, calfs, and shoulders were killing me--collapsing on a bench and falling instantly asleep...but not before moving my wallet to my front pocket. (Oh yeah, and early on, I hid my debit-card you-don't-want-to-know-where and stuck my three 20's in my sock.)

I should point out that my cell phone didn't give me many options. The night before, it deigned not to charge even though it was plugged in, so it had no charge left and beeped at me every 2 minutes, all night long. Thanks a lot, cell phone, fat lot of good you are!

I woke up about an hour later when a bus drove by. The driver was yelling at me, waking me up and asking if I wanted a ride. I was discombobulated, so I just gave him the thumbs-up and he moved on. Then I woke up, and was like "what the heck did I just do??" Anyway, I hit the road again, walked for a half-hour, and found a Bart station. I figured I was as good as home, but then I discovered northbound Barts didn't leave until 10:20 or so on Saturdays, so I left the station, walked some more, and eventually found a bus. With a lot of help from the driver, I rode to the city and transfered to another line that took me home.

All in all, I walked for about 4 hours. I figure it was right around 10 miles. I was SO-O-O glad to crash into bed at 7:15 am! What a night!

This will probably be pretty repetitive to those of you who read mrsmalkav's journal. And probably much less entertaining. I'd skip it if I were you, unless I was bored and had some time on my hands. ;-)

( Warning: massive post within! )

OK, I'm done! What a weekend! Phew!

I'm glad the grocery stores here (well, Andronico's at least) has Rogue beer. For those who don't know, Rogue, based in Oregon, is one of the more interesting breweries out there, brewing such beers as the Juniper Pale Ale, Dead Guy Ale, Hazelnut Brown Stout, Honey Cream Ale, and Chipotle Ale. Those are the ones I've tried, anyway; there are a couple of dozen Rogue brews total.

I am currently enjoying a Rogue Chipotle Ale. From the bottle, "dedicated to Spanish author Juan de la Cueva, who, in 1575, wrote of a Mexican dish that combined seedless chipotles with beer." And ya know what? It's delicious! I mean, downright scrumptious--I'm licking my lips after ever sip!

The best news is, after perusing Rogue's website, I discovered that they have an ale house in nearby San Francisco! I'm going, and that's all there is to that. The only question is, can I wait for mrsmalkav to get here... If not, I'll just have to go twice! :-D

I just got done watching all there is to see of Firefly. In 2 days I polished off all 4 DVDs full of Awesomeness. Now, I am rehabilitating myself into the droll here-and-now. I just can't wait for the "Serenity" movie on September 30th!

Saturday night, we went to Patio Loco to celebrate Paul M's birfday. (He's an incoming student.) Then most of us (Andy, Srinivas & Debesmita, Julia, and I) headed to Hell to partake of the cheap, flowing Shiner Bock before getting our dance on. While there, Gennette snuck up behind me and dragged me upstairs to The Wetlands to watch Pepe Play the violin. And Play it he did! He is incredibly good at it. Gennette says he supports himself by giving lessons. Anyway, we went back downstairs, where it was getting increasingly crowded, and had more beer. Karl G. showed up. We danced for a while, but it was so crowded and hot. I guess I shouldn't complain about the heat, given our location, but still... We went outside, and everybody but me left. I went back to The Wetlands, where there was a local DJ spinning some pretty good jungle. I danced much harder there because it wasn't crowded and about 20 degrees cooler.

Ah, good times, good times!

After the habitual Friday beer break, Stephen, Andy and I adjourned to Ham's to get some good grub. Later, I picked up Russ at the airport, and then Andy and I went to La Rez and Hell. I am now a member of Hell. Where is my mind? Oh, and like The Reservoir, they had a questionnaire there. Weird law. One of the things it asked was "What is Hell to you?" I answered, "Being stuck in a department store with cheery Christmas music blaring out of tinny speakers." Ooh ooh, best part of Hell: $6 pitchers of Shiner Bock. Why has nobody told me this before now?!? (And have you ever heard of a pitcher of Guinness? That was a new one on me.)

I also introduced both Russ and Andy to Shpongle. Shpongle, for those of you who don't know, is capital-A Awesome. I mean, if I never find a wife and settle down, I will at least know that my life is not a complete waste, because (shout out to Miek!) I have discovered Shpongle. It will comfort me when I am down, and send my spirit to the ionosphere when I am happy. I seriously think that I could discover new aspects of the music on any of the 3 Shpongle albums even on the hundredth listen. In fact, I'm well on my way. OK, enough ranting, but if, through this extolment, you have a sudden blossoming of hope that you might be able to actually fill that hole in your life that has always nagged at you in your quiet times, ask me for my FTP info.

Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to going back to Hell for a little dance party. Should be fun!

Six of us went to Bailey's to watch the Major League Soccer All-stars tear Fulham (an English Premier League team) up. The final score was 4-1. Go MLS! Bailey's is a pretty cool place. They have 36 beers on tap, good food, billiards, and plenty of screens to watch games on.

After that, Carol and I decided we were in a movie watching mood. We originally thought to go see "Batman Begins" (me for the second time), but the last showing on a Saturday was at 4:55. Then we tried to see "The Island", but we got to the theater about 10 minutes late, so we decided to see "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" instead. I wasn't all that excited about seeing it at first. It just didn't appeal to me at all...I couldn't quite see how something like that could be made funny. In fact, my misgivings carried over to the first part of the movie, too. The juxtaposition of character development with humor seemed weird to me. However, by the middle of the movie, I was warming up to the style, and by the end, I was really enjoying myself. It really is quite a fun flick.

Stephen and I went out to meet Andy Jones, another incoming student. I am actually Andy's mentor, so we had already exchanged an email or two. We started at Top of the Hill, bounced to Goodfellow's, and ended up at Bub O'Malley's. We ran into Ben at Bub's, which should come as no surprise if you know Ben. ;-) I had a great time getting to know these two fine gents who, like me, have a healthy love of beer. While we were out, I was pretty impressed at how much nicer the bar scene is on a Saturday night during the summer. It's not too crowded, and conversation is not hampered by loud music and others talking. Actually, Bub's was almost deserted. Anyway, it was quite a pleasant night. Then I got home and sent a nice, long reply to Erin of New Orleans. I hope she can handle the thorough emails that I tend to send. ;-)