My last few days in San Diego, I really felt the love. Tuesday night, before my last day at work, Hyun-chul (visiting researcher and desk-neighbor), Fragkiskos, Alberto (summer interns from Cyprus and Italy, respectively), and I went out to downtown San Diego for the first time together. We had a good time together, laughing about all the little idiosyncrasies of working at CAIDA. I'm sad that we waited that long to hang out like that, but even so, it was good while it lasted.

Wednesday, Colleen (my supervisor) bought some pizza to throw a little going away lunch for me. Everybody gathered around in the "elf bin" (the nickname of the large room in which I and ~9 others work). It was really nice. I had picked some red bayberries off the bush Josh found on campus, and (after washing them!) made 2 fresh fruit pies out of them, which I shared with all the elves (i.e. CAIDA people). They had a strange texture because the bayberries are bumpy, but it was tasty nonetheless.

Thursday, after catching "Ratatouille" at the matinee, I spent the day cleaning and packing. In the evening, my roommates and I went out to eat. They asked me what I'd like to eat, and I said I'd like Indian food, which I hadn't had all summer. We found "Ashoka" in downtown La Jolla, and it was really tasty. Not quite as good as Sushant's cooking from last summer, but surprisingly close! I had my favorite dish: bhindi (i.e. okra) masala. Conversation was good, too: they told me I'd been a really good roommate and that they were said I had to leave.

Friday was a very full day. Matt and Eric picked me up around 1pm to go surfing one last time. What a great way to say goodbye to San Diego! The conditions were great (except for some nasty, dense bits of seaweed polluting one area of the surf). I managed to get up once for about 15 seconds. Booyah, I am officially a surfer! :-) Next, we grabbed some food (In 'n Out, yay!) and got cleaned up to go to the horse track, where Cake (yes, the Cake!) was playing that evening. After that, we went to Matt's, then Eric's, drinking some beers and playing cards. Fragkiskos and Alberto joined us, as well. It was quite a good farewell party. Matt, with his typical sarcasm, dubbed it a "good riddance" party. :-)

A typical work day at CAIDA went something like this:

• Alarm goes off around 7 or 7:30
• Get out of bed around 8, shower
• Either spend some devotional/prayer time in the morning, then catching a bus (2nd half of the summer) or walk to work while listening to a sermon on the ipod (1st half of the summer)
• Walk is 35 minutes one way, or, when taking the bus, ~20 minutes from bus stop at edge of campus to work
• Get to work maybe 9:30 or so, unless the bus (which runs every half-hour) is full, which happens fairly often because we're one of the last bus stops before campus. Sometimes I'd goof off in the morning and get in as late as 1pm; other times, I'd get in by 8:15.
• Spend a half hour or so checking email, news, etc.
• Work typically consists of thinking of ways to analyze data, writing bash and perl scripts to automate analysis, and reading websites or papers when the scripts are running
• Lunch: Tuesdays, go to Hi Thai for some Pad Thai (at student center) with coworkers; occasionally, play Go with Emile on the balcony at work; most days, go to food court (eat at Subway) with coworkers. Before mid-June when the spring quarter was over, we ate at Cafe Ventanas, and I would practice juggling with Emile or Josh before lunching.
• Work more, until I have at least 8 hours in (excluding lunch)
• Wednesdays, leave around 6:10 to walk to church small group, or leave around 6:30 to catch a bus to church small group
• Fridays, leave around 6pm, to be picked up later by Matt for our traditional Friday afternoon beers
• Walk home (1st half of summer), or walk to bus stop (2nd half of summer), unless I stayed late and missed the bus
• At home, get some dinner: maybe go to Chipotle, or Ralph's for a loaf of sourdough bread, or nuke a bowl of beans and rice...something easy
• Maybe try to find something good (i.e. not a complete waste of time) on TV while eating, but usually not
• Read books/websites/the Economist in the evening...generally, be an introvert
• Get to sleep around 11, hopefully
• Rinse and repeat. :-)

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. :-)

Last Saturday, I went by myself to the nearby beach, La Jolla Shores. I wore my swim trunks, aqua-socks, and a t-shirt, and I carried a minimal amount of stuff in my backpack (keys, $20, cell phone, and student ID for the bus)--you know, in case my bag got stolen when I was playing in the waves.

Well, it did--or so I thought. I slathered sunscreen on my back and shoulders (hear that, Mom?), set my bag and t-shirt amongs lots of people a ways up the beach, and pretended that I was master of the waves. Unfortunately, when I tired of being battered and thrown around by the waves and getting tangled up in seaweed, I couldn't find my bag. I had kinda lost track of where I was when I was in the water, so at first I figured I was just overlooking it. But, after I carefully combed the beach five times, I started to worry that somebody had, in fact, snatched it. I even went to the lost and found, and they said they didn't have it, but they said I should wait until dusk when the beach closed, and maybe it would turn up.

I wouldn't have been that worried about it. I wouldn't have to cancel any credit or debit cards. I need a new cell contract anyway, so replacing the phone wouldn't be a big deal. I would lose a lot of numbers, though. Including Brendan's, who I had made plans to meet up with in downtown La Jolla that evening. As the shadows lengthened, I gave up hope of finding the bag, and hated that Brendan had made a trip downtown for me, a flake with an uncommunicated excuse. I eventually got back in the water a while, thinking I might as well make the most of being there.

When I got out, I combed the beach a couple more times, with no luck. In resignation, I went by the lost and found one last time. And they had it! Even the money was in there! Booyah. I hurriedly called Brendan (an hour late). Thankfully, he was still downtown, so we met up and had a beer and a meal at my regular La Jolla haunt, the Bull and Bear.

It's true, what they say about San Diego weather. Here's my current forecast:

Wednesday: mostly sunny, 74º
Thursday: mostly sunny, 74º
Friday: mostly sunny, 74º
Saturday: mostly sunny, 74º
(I'm not making this up!)
Sunday: sunny, 76º
Monday: mostly sunny, 76º

The weekend before last, I was busy working on the INFOCOM paper. Thus, by the end of the day last Thursday, I had already accumulated over 40 hours, not including vacation time from the Independence Day holiday. Thus, I opted to take Friday (the 6th) off. :-)

Matt (my buddy from college) and Eric take alternate Fridays off, and that Friday was their day off. So, we all went surfing--yay! :-D They work for the Navy (computer/IT work), which means they rented me a surfboard for $10. That's quite the steal. I had only been one other time, going to Del Mar with them when I was here over spring break. This time, we went to La Jolla shores, which is the closest beach to where I live, about a 45 minute walk away. Also, this time I didn't need a wet suit.
( waves own me )
All in all, it was a fantastic weekend!

Craigslist is da bomb. I hopped on there to look for summer housing today, realizing that I am planning on flying in to San Diego in T-minus 2 weeks. Well, after a few emails and phone calls, I found a place. It's a bit south of campus. I think it will be about a 1.5 mile walk to work. I'll try walking it for the first few days, and if it's too long, I'll look into the bus routes or maybe a bike. Oh yeah, groceries, restaurants, and whatnot are an easy walk.

Hmm, maybe I haven't mentioned this yet. I won't be taking my car to California. It's too long of a drive, and too expensive, and I think I can live just fine without it. I'm letting Daniel, a friend at church, borrow the car for the summer, so it's not like it will be just sitting there.

Now, to book a flight for Sunday, May 13th. ;-)

The workshop was over Wednesday afternoon. Matt, my friend from U of A who now works in San Diego, picked me up from the hotel. I dropped my stuff off at his place, then we went out to eat at Islands restaurant, where I had a very tasty burger. We went from there to downtown San Diego, called the Gaslamp district, to meet up with Teemu, Wolfgang, Alessio, and Daniel. It was a pain to hear from them (I couldn't call Teemu since his number is international, so he had to call me), and it was a pain to find parking downtown, but eventually we met them at the cramped bar of a Brazilian restaurant.

Downtown San Diego is pretty cool. There are bars and restaurants everywhere, stretching for many blocks in all directions. We had a really great time hanging out one last time before everybody went their separate ways. I realized I'd actually miss those guys, even though I had only met them a couple days earlier. Crazy. I think Matt had a great time meeting and hanging out with them, too.

Thursday, Matt worked, but he was kind enough to lend me the keys to his Jeep Wrangler. I drove it up to La Jolla (~20 minutes up I-5), because Alessio told me I had left a binder in my room. On the way back, I stopped at Crown Books and found some dirt-cheap ($5!) hardcover books. I bought 2 copies each of "Ilium" and "Olympos" by Dan Simmons--one for me, and one to thank Matt for letting me crash at his place. I still can't believe I found them that cheap!

Thursday night, Matt took me to Lefty's, a hole-in-the-wall Chicago-style pizzeria. It was delicious, just like he said it would be. After being stuffed by just 2 slices, we walked down the street to the Bluefoot Bar. They had the NCAA basketball tournament on, and I got to catch a few minutes of UNC's first-round win vs. Eastern Kentucky. Go Tarheels!

Friday, Matt and his good buddy Eric were off work. They work 9 hour days so that they can take alternate Fridays off. We had some tasty breakfast at Maria's Diner. That place was straight out of the 50's.

Friday afternoon was the highlight of my trip. I got to go surfing! We rented a board and wetsuit for only $10 from the naval base (where Matt and Eric work), and then drove up to Del Mar. The waves weren't too big, but they were mostly big enough that I could have ridden them--if I was any good! Paddling out there and then paddling forward to catch a wave plumb wore out my puny shoulders! I did manage to ride one wave on my knees for a few seconds, but then the front of the board caught under the water and I was kicked forward to let the wave have its way with me. But dude! I surfed! I wish I had pictures to share with you, but I don't.

Friday night, we were famished from surfing. Matt and Eric took me to Baja Betty's for Mexican food. It was in the Hillcrest district, which is apparently the gay district of San Diego. Hillcrest ain't got nothing on San Francisco's Castro district, though! While at Baja Betty's, we saw a group of 4 sequinned girls walk in. They soon started doing some serious Irish dancing. It was impressive! They were hitting like 32nd beats in there--all synchronized! And their tightly curled hair was really bouncy.

Eric was tired and went home after that, but Matt and I stayed up and watched Jackass: Number 2 at his place. Saturday morning, I woke up, we went to the airport, and I came home. (Well, the trip home wasn't nearly that simple, but that deserves its own blog post...)

Monday through Wednesday I attended the first "DatCat Community Contribution Workshop" (or DCC1). DatCat, or the Internet Measurement Data Catalog, is an online resource for networking researchers. People can search for data to poke around in, or they can contribute their own data for others to use. The idea is that DatCat will enhance networking research because it enables reproducible research and the sharing of well-documented data. DatCat is a CAIDA project, i.e. the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis.

I am sort of in charge of making our network traces available to others, so I was invited to come to DCC1. Not only was I invited, they paid for my travel and lodging! (Or, at least, they promised to reimburse me.) Anyway, the workshop went OK. I managed to submit a small portion of our data to the catalog. In doing so, I discovered that the timestamps in these data are weird, due to a known bug in the software we used to capture the traces. So, I wrote a well-documented script to fix up the metadata descriptions. I gave it to the people at CAIDA in case they can use it, so hopefully that will be useful to them.

I would really like to work for CAIDA this summer. For me, while the workshop was good and I definitely endorse the idea of the DatCat, my favorite part of the workshop was getting to know the people at the workshop. There were some really great people, both those who work for CAIDA and those who do not.

Sunday I flew to San Diego for a workshop. The workshop is now over and I'm still hanging out in the area with my friend Matt from Arkansas, but I figured I'd post about Sunday.

Russ drove me to the airport. I got there around 12:15. My flight was at 1:25. Everything was pretty routine despite the Orange Alert, until I got to the security check. I took my shoes off and emptied my pockets and whatnot, and got through the metal detector fine. My tray, however, didn't make it through. The dude stopped me, held up my keys, and said "Are these yours, young man?" Whoops. I forgot to take my 4" knife off of my keychain. I'm pretty sure I could've gotten in big trouble over that, but thankfully, I just gave up the knife and that was that. Yeesh. (I also found out I was supposed to have taken my laptop out of my carryon bag for the check. Duly noted.)

The first of two flights was to Atlanta. I sat by Luther, a young professional-looking dude, who was going to Atlanta to recruit teachers to the Wake County school system. On my other side (the aisle side) was Laurie (I think), a 40ish mom of two. She was flying to Florence, and was going to meet up with her friend 3 days into a 10 day tour of Italy. She had quite a tale to explain why she was running late!
( Laurie's Tale )
I got off the plane in Atlanta and hurried to the nearest sports bar to watch the last few minutes of the ACC championship. Our pilot, knowing that the game concerned many of those on a flight from the Triangle area (Carolina was playing NC State), informed us at halftime that Carolina led by 8. I found a bar with 7:20 left in the 2nd half. State was closing the gap, but we held them off to become the 2007 ACC Champions. Woohoo!

The next flight went straight to San Diego. To the aisle side sat Mason (or Davis, maybe?), who was in the Army Reserves. He was flying back from Panama. I don't remember what project he was working on, but it was basically a goodwill project to help out the Panamanians, so that was cool. The weather was just barely good enough in Panama for him to catch his helicopter to the airport. If he had missed it, he would have had to go home after his orders expired, which means he would have had to pay for his own flight.

To the window side sat Sam, a 9-year-old. I don't really consider myself good with kids, but Sam and I had some fun. We talked (well, he talked, mostly...he was a chatterbox!), we played rock-paper-scissors, he listened to my iPod, and he watched the movie for about 5 minutes. At one point, the lady in front of us turned around, smiling, and made a "Mr. Chatterbox" motion with her hands where only I could see. Of course, the flight was like 4 hours long, and that's a long time to sit still if you're a 9-year-old. I think another couple hours and I would have gotten pretty tired of entertaining him, but it was OK as it was. Mason also helped entertain Sam. Heh, Mason asked him if he liked football, and Sam said he did. Mason said "I bet you're a Raider's fan, huh?" Sam, of course, was a Charger's fan. You should have seen his face, all pinched up in disgust. ;-)

We landed and went our separate ways. I caught a shuttle to the Radisson La Jolla, talking with the driver, a Brazilian named Felipe, on the way. I got to my room and met my roommate, Alessio, an Italian going to school in Napoli. He was busy working on a paper, so I left him behind and went out for a walk. There was a shopping area very near the hotel, so I thoroughly checked that out.

Across I-5 there was a beautiful, shining structure of some sort. I walked a while and found a gate, but it was locked. A motion-sensing camera clicked at me. I retreated a bit, found a good vantage point, and just stared at it for a while. I was just captivated. It was so beautiful. (Here is a picture.) It turns out it is a Mormon temple, and apparently only Mormons are allowed inside.

I eventually left there, grabbed a gyro at a place called Daphne's, and got back to the hotel around 10:30. I fell asleep quickly and slept well. I fell asleep on Eastern Time, and awoke on Pacific Time, so I was quite well-rested for the workshop.

I'm currently at my parents' place in Russellville, AR, right now. I left Berkeley Saturday afternoon and drove to Williams, AZ. (I'm pretty sure you could fit the population of Williams, AZ, into the many hotel rooms there.) Anyway, I got up in the morning and drove to the Grand Canyon. It was amazing, and I'm glad I went. I was at my grandparents' place in Amarillo, TX, by the end of the day. I had a great time hanging out with them and my other grandma, playing Xbox and watching TV. It's been a good break so far.

But anyway, on to the point of this post. While I was in Berkeley this summer, I got used to everybody caring about things like the environment. It was really interesting to be immersed in that sort of culture. Now, though, I'm starting to see things with new eyes. As an example, everybody told me they were grateful I brought some good rain with me from the west, because Amarillo had been in the middle of a dry spell. Yet, I saw a lot of beautiful green lawns there. The point is, Amarillo as a town is less outward-focused than Berkeley. I'm not condemning Amarillo or anything--the vast majority of towns are more self-centered than Berkeley. And, heck, it's kind of the American Way to put oneself first. I just found it interesting that I noticed such a thing. Yes, my Berkeley friends, I'm starting to understand. ;-)

Last weekend, Jason, Alok, and I traveled to Yosemite. Friday, I spent a few hours at work planning the trip, including calling a couple of dozen motels. I finally found one in Mariposa with vacancies on both Friday and Saturday nights and with relatively reasonable rates (~$95/night). Friday evening, I stopped by the drug store to get water and granola bars, then hit the road to the south bay to pick up Jason and Alok in Santa Clara. After stopping at an In-n-Out Burger (those are good burgers, Dude!), we were on our way.

The most convenient road into the park, highway 140, was closed due to a rockslide, and only passable in a caravan during certain times of the day. We thought we could take a smallish detour around the closed part of the road, but when we got there, some locals informed us the road should not be attempted by anything without high clearance and 4-wheel-drive. So we turned around and drove quite a while to get to the south entrance of the park, where the Mariposa Sequoia Grove was. The parking lot was full, so we had to go up the road a bit and catch a shuttle to the grove.

( cut for length )

To those dear friends who told me I must drop everything and see Yosemite before I left the state: thank you!

Last weekend, Sarah, Jason, Jeff S., Ajith, Jeff's friend Robert, and I went to San Francisco's Castro district. For those of you who don't know, The Castro is famous/infamous in San Francisco for its predominance of gay men.

After grabbing a bite to eat at Jupiter's in Berkeley, we headed for the city. We all met up at Moby Dick's, a bar in the area. On the walk from the bus stop to there, a beggar asked for money. When I shook my head, he tried a different tack, saying "oh, you are cute!" and "Look at that butt!" I found this pretty funny.

Once we got there, Jason and I were a bit appalled at the bathroom, where there was a trough backed by a mirror covering the entire front wall. (Think about that for a second.) Thankfully, it was fairly dark in there. The bar was packed, but there were only half a dozen or so girls in the entire place. I went to the bar to get a drink and talked with the bartender for a minute while the Guinness was settling, and he ended up buying my beer. I think Jeff S. was jealous. ;-)

On the way to the 2nd bar, we saw a naked man walking down the street. I'd like to forget that, but I suppose it is worth mentioning. We soon bounced from the 2nd bar and danced a while at a club down the street before heading home. All in all, it was quite an experience!

Unfortunately, the night did not have a good end, because when we got back to Berkeley, we discovered Jason & Sarah's rental car had been broken into. Their backpacks were stolen. Although it was nothing too valuable, it was still a major inconvenience.

Last Saturday, Jason S. and I ventured to Marin County, which is on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. He took the CalTrain up from Santa Clara to meet me in San Francisco around 9:30. I picked him up, and we headed north. Crossing the Golden Gate was a disappointment because it was so foggy.

We soon got off the freeway and began driving along a 2-lane highway, through some really beautiful countryside. The goal was to get to a beach during low tide, which was at 11:16am that morning. We didn't make it to McClure's Beach in time, but the tide was still low enough when we got there to walk through a ravine to the "secret" beach nearby. This beach disappears during high tide. Though it was too foggy to get any breathtaking views, it was still pretty awesome. We saw live mollusks on a rock! The tide started coming in, though, and we had to leave.

We left there, went to Kehoe Beach for a little while, then drove east towards Novato. We stopped at a funky-looking restaurant named Peppers, which was tasty enough (especially since we were starving), but wasn't as wacky as it looked from the outside. A short drive later, and we arrived at the Stafford Lake disc golf course. That was pretty fun, though it was pretty hot outside. We didn't know the course, and I'm pretty sure it was more common for us to throw at the wrong basket than otherwise. It was a really pretty course, and pretty much unpopulated (thanks in part to the $8/car park entrance fee, I'm sure). We saw ground squirrels, rabbits, ducks and geese, and even several deer. We each found a disk while searching for ones we had thrown in the tall weeds, but I lost my new disc in some cattails by the lake.

By the time we got done, we were so thirsty! We even skipped ~6 of the last 8 holes to finish quickly. Jason was frothing at the mouth he was so thirsty! ;-) We stopped at a gas station to drink up, then started driving back to the city. We ate some not-too-tasty burritos on Mission St, and then Jason caught a train home, and I drove back across the bay. Good times!

I know it's been too long since I posted because I can't remember what I've done since then! But, I do remember the Day of Tourism last Saturday.
( This one ain't too short, either... )
It was a very full, and very awesome, day.

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!