Schiller partay along day and night

Whew I have no time for anything it seems, though not for bad reason. We've been partying with Quintin for the past week and a half, and partied with Craiggy too Saturday through yesterday. List of things we've done:

Sunday: Q arrives, we play beach volleyball at Revere near Dan's place
Monday: Q has banquet
Tuesday: Wagamama with Q and Laura, Inception (!) with a million folks
Wednesday: Ultimate frisbee on the Common
Thursday: Dan's birthday, cake and giant marshmallows at his sister Emily's place, meet Q at the field with Laura, talk about Inception for 2 hours
Friday: Night off--Uno's and Tory Row with the MIT folk
Saturday: C arrives at Bus terminal, dance sleepover party with strobelight at Dan's place in Revere. Slava, ultimate multi-way bromance, late night ocean swimming, indoor camping, non-submerged beach phone.
Sunday: Masa for brunch, freedom trail, nap, GoldenEye (ah childhood), water balloon fight at Laura's, Red Bones n ice cream (n Meet the Parents ha)
Yesterday: Trivia at the Warren Tavern (Space Weather defeated on the final question!)
Today: relaxation, errands, Q stops by

Nice! *high five* *snap*

Quintin arrives!

Quintin has arrived for a two week stay for a Space Weather workshop at BU. Last night we met up for some dinner at Wagamama in Harvard Sq before heading over with a billion people to check out Inception, which was fantastically creative and a total mind-%#!$. It was the repeat topic of discussion with many folks last night and throughout the day today.

Then tonight Q and I and Dan B joined the weekly ultimate frisbee games out in Boston Common, which was pretty great. Not sure how I haven't ever heard of or sought out such events, as surely they are happening all the time. Maybe this will kickstart (no Inception pun intended) getting involved in more city-related activities. Most likely, though, when IM sports get started again, I'll forget any of it happened.

Quality double-beach weekend

Two days. Two beaches. Saturday I went with my MIT buds down to Carson beach, where the sand is nearly everything but smooth: rocky, shelly, slimy. Sunday I met up with Quintin (!!) and DanBlue out at Revere, where we played 3 hours of MeetUp sand volleyball. Good times.

Mike heads out

Last night we headed over to River Gods for some beers for a temporary goodbye for Mike before he heads home for 6 weeks and we exchange him for Marty, who is returning from australia. Then today I caught up with Diego for a beer. He's been struggling to find a job as an exploration seismologist following the deep-water drilling moratorium imposed by Obama due to the BP oil disaster. I definitely feel lucky being a grad student.

Wolf Parade

Tonight we checked out the Wolf Parade concert at HoB. Incredibly it looked half-full at best, which was very strange given Wolf Parade's prominence in the indie scene. Perhaps I'm not the only one around who isn't a huge fan of their albums post-Apologies to the Queen Mary. In any case, the opener was this hilarious and awesome pop-dance band from Tokyo called the Moools (yes, with three o's). The drummer looked 50 years old, and the lead singer could barely speak any english, but his crazy afro hair and totally uninhibited rock dance style (including on three occasions picking up the harmonica, wiping it off like he was going to go crazy on it, then playing a single note and letting it slide out of from his hand and drop to the ground) was infectious and the crowd grew to love him. He wasn't much of a singer, but he more than made up for it with his unbridled enthusiasm for, well, everything ("I love Red Sox").

Wolf Parade then put on a surprisingly good show in which I very much enjoyed their newer stuff that I hadn't been a huge fan of, and then in general didn't like what they played from their original album that I love so much. Very strange, but I'm glad the show wasn't a big bore like I had thought it might.

Night bike ride

Laura and I went out last night after the rain stopped around 10p on our bikes. We checked out her new place up between Union and Porter. Then headed to IHOP, which then changed to my place via the river, which then changed to crossing the pedestrian bridge (actually two in succession) near Harvard, which took us through Harvard Business School and then out to some part of Allston that I'd never seen before. We ended up on Western Ave, which meant a straight shot to my place. We got back to the river and then my tire went flat. We walked over to the new park at the corner of Mem Drive and Western (on the side opposite the river), where we invented a new two-person sleeping position on the park bench that was pretty damn comfy. I actually did fall asleep, but we soon got cold and so walked home. Fun times.

MIT WHOI PIcnic

I finally took an opportunity to go out and check out Woods Hole yesterday, joining in the MIT-WHOI afternoon picnic set up by GSC but mainly involving EAPS kids (and a surprising number of TPPers as well). We arrived by bus, ate some tasty grilled treats, played frisbee for a bit, then played a round of MIT v. WHOI kickball--which ended in a fitting tie--then finally headed over to the beach where we consumed some beer while chatting with the WHOI kids knee deep in the salty blue ocean. It was really a lot of fun, caught up a bit with "whoi dan" and generally had a great time under the hot sun.

I can understand now the appeal of living out there: quiet, serene, natural, with very easy gorgeous beach access in the summer time; the winter might be another story. But at the very least, clearly it's a contrast to the hectic city life, where there's always something to do to take up your time, of which you never seem to have enough.

Freedom isn't free.

And then the real party started. Friday morning we brought our packed bags over to Anita’s place for another round of World Cup breakfast, this time to watch Germany trounce Argentina 4-0. Then we headed out, myself and Seb with mom and dad… er Christine and Neil… in Christine’s car and Malte, Mike, Anita, and Diane (and her Chihuahua Oscar) in a rental car. Diane got far too drunk the night before and managed to puke in the car, forced to carry plastic bags of vomit for an hour on the road.

We all met up initially immediately after crossing the MA-NH border, where we promptly joined the throngs at the fireworks store. Conveniently, when you enter you’re herded to a counter where you show your ID (I looked 19 somehow according to the girl working there), and then sign a form that allows you to buy 1 get 1 free of any equally-priced item—of course, they then managed to price nearly every item slightly differently, thus requiring you simply to buy two of everything. There was a hilarious variety of patriotic-themed fireworks, many small but just as many packaged in quite large flag-draped cardboard boxes. We picked up the $70.00 fireworks assortment package (well, two of them), full of all sorts of goodies, as well as extra boxes of tanks, sparklers, loud spinning bright noise-makers, and other fun things. For the extras, we picked up two boxes of mini tanks like the ones we used to light in Quintin and Craig’s driveway back in the day, as well as two Tankinators, which were simply giant, awesome tanks. More on them in a bit.

We then picked up liquor and food (at Grant’s supermarket, this great little supermarket a few minutes away from the cabin) on the way up to our cabin in the ski town of North Conway, NH in the white mountains (though not really at altitude), about a 3-hour drive from Boston. Our little cabin was awesome, just off the highway, with a great deck facing away from the road and overlooking a small rocky stream 100 feet below. The interior had a nice kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms, as well as a decent screened-in porch. We first all hopped down to the babbling brook for a bit of a break and chilled out on a big rock for an hour or so at around 6p. Then we moved back up to the deck and began grilling on the nice gas grill available for our use. Veggie burgers and real burgers, chips, corn on the cob, yum. We capped things off by walking over to Gino’s (?) ice cream and soft serve a 1 minute walk from our place, where I had some peanut butter soft serve that was alright—its been years since I last had soft serve; others actually went to a DQ near Grant’s supermarket, so apparently soft serve is a big deal around here.

The night got started with continued drinking as we played first catch phrase and then charades, which kicked off with me completely failing at acting out Toy Story, including my attempts to get them to think of a child by demonstrating live birth followed by playing with toys in a way that apparently made no sense whatsoever. Neil somehow managed to one-up my ineptitude for “Catcher in the Rye” by outlining with his finger the shape of New Hampshire, the home state of the author JD Salinger, which of course nobody had any idea what he was trying to say. In any case, our team of Malte, Christine, Neil, and I picked up our level of play over time and began to match talents, as each side tried to come up either with tricky ones or overtly sexual ones (e.g. Missionary position, which I was lucky enough to act out directly ☺. After several hours of quality acting n drinking, the ladies headed to bed around 2a, which then prompted the guys to start a raging dance party via the iHome, including such classics as Save Tonight and The Way. At one point Anita even came out slightly annoyed at how loud we were and Malte yelled back “Anita hates freedom!”, which was brilliant.

We danced and sang and yelled until around 3a, when the now-infamous J-dawg (Jess) announced his arrival by knocking on our front door yelling “Police!”, which was distressing only until the silhouette of a baseball cap turned 45 degrees to the left emerged through the window. Our buddy Jess happened to be walking home from work as a head chef—“the youngest head chef in the Valley” (still not sure what valley he is talking about)—and heard the party and decided to crash it. He brought along his “bat” for smoking, which was just this little all-metal pipe that vaguely resembled a baseball bat. We stepped out on the porch since he apparently had no qualms about smoking inside our cabin, and then out emerged all the glory that Is J-dawg: a “jack of all trades” who “isn’t great at any one thing but can do a little bit of everything” including time working in New Mexico as an electrician for famous celebrities such as Julia Roberts (“a bitch with a horse mouth”) and Val Kilmer (“a dick”). But then he came back to NH—perhaps leaving his wife as well?—where his family is from and now lives life to the fullest as the aforementioned head chef extraordinaire, whose masterpiece item is none other than a chicken sandwich “with basil aioli, basil mayo, pretty much basil everything”. We were convinced he had stuffed his bat with basil as well. After we humored him for a good 20-30 minutes, we all were ready to crash and moved inside ready to sleep. Apparently during this time J-drizzle stepped outside to puke. Upon his return, he returned to knock on our door, unfazed by an interior that was now pitch black and a door that was locked. Mike opened the door for him and there was a momentary pause in the black silence, all of us in bed and awaiting sleep at 4am, followed by the incredible utterance “Aw, you guys are lame.” After a little coaxing, J-lo finally headed off into the night, only to live on in our stories and imaginations from now into the future.

On Saturday, we awoke around 10a, watched the all-too-predictable wimbledon final, ate some pancakes and 90% heated potatoes, and then finally headed out in the cars for some hiking at Sawyer Pond. The hike was very easy, only perhaps 2 miles one way and full of families with small children, and ended at a nice little pond. After battling through a not-so-nice wooded bit of trail that could have used a machete or two, we waded in the very shallow water near the shore and then ate the sandwiches we had prepared for lunch on a log lying at the edge of the water. Even Oscar was enjoying himself despite his obvious fear for venturing past his knees. We then headed back, picked up some more food and beer, got home, played a bit of soccer, prepped the fireworks, and a few of us took showers and naps.

Dinner consisted of frozen pizzas with our own red peppers and onions, as well as garlic bread, and salad. In the process, we began shooting off a few random fireworks here and there. After dinner, the fireworks celebration began. We blew up all sorts of things, most of which were small but a few of which were bigger and shot actual fireworks high into the sky. Importantly, we initiated the event by lighting one of our two Tankinators. And wow did it not disappoint. It had like 8 stages, shot things all over the place, and even launched little spinning fireworks that bounced all around it; all in all, it takes like 20 seconds to actually complete, which is pretty impressive. Even better, afterwards we proceeded to light it on fire. To honor its glorious existence, Malte began to sing our national anthem. And so we joined him, hands over hearts. It was amazing, singing the national anthem, led by a foreigner, in honor of our fallen battle tank. Clearly, we had redefined 4th of July patriotism.

Following a nice spark-induced burn hole in a pillow and a fallen firework that launched sideways but luckily not directly at us, the night came to a crashing halt when Scrooge came over and proclaimed “I’ve tolerated this for q while now, but I’ve got a 2 year-old kid trying to sleep and a wife with a heart condition” to which I replied “Oh ok we understand we’ll just finish up our last few and then head back in” which received then somewhat unexpected response of “Why don’t you just skip those last few” and then Grumpa marched on back to his cabin. We were all taken a bit by surprise by all this and so didn’t have a chance to think things through, which it became clear was too bad when we realized that it happened to before 10p on the 4th of July. I don’t care what your situation is, it is ridiculous to complain about people making noise at such an early hour in general, but in particular on the freaking 4th of July. In any case, after some brief debate, we went in annoyed and played some poker, making comments along the way mocking the guy and gradually feeling less and less bad about it as time passed. Poker was fun but devolved a bit at times into random yelling/bullshit, as often is the case in poker. Then that ended and we rocked a badass dance party for the second night in a row, this time with the ladies involved as well. Soon Mike and Anita sought out the beds but we were not keen on letting them get anywhere near sleep, barging into the room regularly to sing, dance, tackle, teabag, typewriter, etc. etc. With classics as our remix of Rhianna’s famous song “My Vuvuzela” (zela zela eh eh ehhhh-eh), you couldn’t go wrong. The dancing and singing continued through the night, ending this time around 230a. Incredibly, Mr. Grouchy Pants never complained about these ridiculously loud dance parties. If only he had seen the Tankinator, he would have understood.

Finally, on Monday morning we awoke at 830a, ate some cereal and cleaned up the cabin back to (semi-)new, then headed outside to fire off the grande finale of fireworks. Indeed it was not as exciting as it would have been at night, but nonetheless it was fun to blow them up, and then we were ready to head home. On the way, I cashed in multiple $3 and $6 winning crossword lottery tickets (the best game around!) for new lottery tickets. After beginning with $12 worth of tickets (4), I was down to 1 remaining ticket by the time we reached the NH border. Alas, it waits for the next trip across the border.

What a great weekend.

Rural Juror

Friday night I met up with hippie Chris for the first time in quite some time. I met up with him and his friends Matt (Mike?) and Rurijk (sp?) pronounced “ROO-Rick”, the latter of which has a name that is immediately reminiscent of the “Rural Juror” from 30 Rock. They grabbed dinner at the Beacon Hill Pub on Cambridge St. over by Malte’s old place, which was a good time despite the hundreds of ambulances and fire trucks blaring their sirens every 20 minutes presumably because a rich old woman got stuck in her closet (or some similar dire emergency). Phil, Jordan, Jim, and Boma all from TPP joined up with us afterwards, which was great since I haven’t seen any of the TPP kids for several months now. I don’t know Boma well at all but she is definitely very cool as well. It turns out that Jim, like seemingly everyone else in the world, just came back from Peru and had good things to say about his time there. It’s just dawned on me that my August traveling adventure begins in a mere three weeks, which means I should really get moving writing up a proposal of some sort.

Afterwards, I headed home and rocked MATLAB for another couple of hours until my idea for a simple TC model continued to be non-functional.

Netherlands v. Brasil

Just got back from Seb's place where we watched the Dutch defeat the Brasilians 2-1 in a surprise upset. Perhaps more importantly, I ate 4 delicious, delicious croissants (two butter, two chocolate) that Seb picked up from this amazing bakery in Brookline. Yum.

Sailing

Yesterday I had my first ever sailing lesson at the MIT Sailing Pavilion. It's the first in a three-part series of courses. In the first class we just sit and listen to someone tell us far more things than one could ever conceivably remember about the boat, jibing, tacking, etc., and then they show us some of those things in an actual boat. But they save us actually entering a boat until the next two classes.

Sailing isn't something I think I'll get too into, but it's fun to learn how it's done, and maybe I'll start going out with Malte or others more often in the future.

Hot and humid

Yesterday was up around 94F and humid, but we never got the relief of a big drenching and cooling thunderstorm unfortunately. Storms passed just to our south, leaving us high and... moist. Today appears to offer much of the same, but a cold front will actually pass through tonight I believe.

In fun news, this weekend a group of us will be heading up to NH to a ski resort somewhere to "camp" (which was the original plan) and party in honor of the 4th of July. Should be LOTS of fun, I can't wait...

Hiking n camping

Just got back from a great weekend of hiking and camping with laura in the Berkshire mountains on the Appalachian Trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine and takes 4-8 months to traverse in its entirety. We started on friday afternoon from central square, picking up a rental car from the nearby corner Enterprise that Laura secured with a little flirtation for a mere $67 for fri-sun (returnable at any time!); this followed picking up food from Shaw's and Harvest for the trip.

We headed out, directions in hand, out down I-90 west through MA-20 to Jacob Ladder Scenic Way, about a 2 hour drive due west. We arrive, park the car at the designated spot, then wandered around a bit trying to find where the trail actually begins (for us). Finally, we locate the stairs to descend southwards across I-90 and through the woods 1.6 miles from the parking area. We first follow the wrong trail about a quarter of a mile, not fully appreciating the fact that the A.T. (as it's known) is clearly marked by white "blazes", or paint marks typically on trees, every 100 feet or so, and so following orange diamonds is certainly not the correct path. But we figured it out and arrived at our destination: Upper Goose Pond Cabin. And quite a cabin it was indeed. It was in fact someone's old house donated to the AT and so was well-equipped with a full kitchen, living room, front porch etc. There happened to be a bunch of hikers there at the time, including RoboJesus (explained below), but we arrived right around sundown and were hungry, and given that hikers apparently typically sleep right at sundown, we were quick to put up a tent and get in to take advantage of the fancy kitchen to cook some food.

As an important aside, I found out right away that it is tradition to have a trail name different from your real name and that this trail name is to be your official name that you give to others on the trail. Typically this trail name is given to you based on some initial encounters early on in the journey, but occasionally folks name themselves as well. For us as simple weekenders, we named ourselves first "Smores" as a unit but then changed to myself as "Hurricane" and Laura as "Ant Hill". Folks found them to be unique.

As we cooked and set up, we interacted with the cabin caretaker Maaret (muh-RHET), who was a bit of a strange girl in her mid-20s from New York who had been working as caretaker one week per summer each year since she was eight. She is of dutch origin, and apparently her dad attempted to give her a Dutch first name but failed to follow basic Dutch grammar rules (two consonants following double-a's? something like that) and thus ended up bestowing upon her a name that is a combination of Finnish and Estonian. She works with deaf people, and was fun and nice though certainly odd at times. We also met RoboJesus, who was this middle-aged man with a cute dog named Patches (who also had a trail name, but I can't remember it) who told us of a story where they were on the trail and Patches was going to the bathroom, and RoboJesus saw a bear flying down the hill aiming to snatch the dog. He quickly ran towards the bear yelling and slapping his walking sticks against everything until at the last moment the bear noticed him, slid to a stop, and ran back up the hill. It was cute, he clearly loves his dog.

Our final notable social encounter was a bit more interesting. We were readying to eat our food (couscous, refried beans, cheese, salsa--not actually a great combination unfortunately) when Circle Walker (sorry, all I ever want to say is circle jerk), a nice quiet, though surprisingly timid middle-aged woman, comes in exclaiming that there is a bear near our tent. We were immediately shocked and weren't sure what to do. According to her she was in her tent very near to ours, heard something loud and heavy rustling outside, looked out and saw the animal hovering around our tent but not moving, and she quickly moved away and into the cabin; soon after she noted that she never actually saw the animal, and so perhaps it was something else, too. Nonetheless, we became very concerned that the tent retained some residual food scent from its recent use by Laura's sister Dana and her fiancee Colin at Bonaroo last week. After cautiously cleaning our dishes out back, us two and Circle Walker ventured over to the tents to check it out. We saw nothing, and it appeared our tent was undisturbed. That said, none of us had any interest in sleeping in tents while bears are around, and so headed inside for the night; this decision was also made based on RoboJesus noting earlier that he too was pretty sure he saw a bear lingering around the cabin earlier in the day.

Laura and I crashed with our sleeping bags on the floor (the upstairs had open bunks, but everyone was sound asleep and apparently it was extremely smelly up there), and Laura taught me how to play Hi-Lo-Jack, which is quite similar to a combination of Dirty Clubs and a couple of other trump games that I can't recall but have learned.

The next morning, we packed up, cooked breakfast (eggs, bagels), took a quick ride in the canoe on the lake, and then headed out. This time, we went back north to the parking area then continued northwards on the trail another 7.5 miles to the October Mountain lean-to (a simple shelter with a few wooden bunks). It was a fairly tiring hike, full of plenty of steep inclines and declines, as we went up to the top of Becket mountain (~2300 ft), then across a couple of similar peaks, then down to Finerty pond, around and up Bald top, and then back down to the lean-to.

Along the way, we stopped a couple of times to rest and eat, though the weather was generally cool and cloudy, and it drizzled a bit for a time but nothing significant. We also passed Lights Out, an older, jolly man who would later catch up to us at the lean-to. He also caught up with us after we followed a portion of the trail that had been remade as a detour but which still lacked blazes, but which clearly was the correct path after we also found the old path (including blazes) lined with trees and large branches, obviously indicating that it was no longer the correct path.

By around 430p, we arrived at the lean-to, set up the tent (so that we'd have plenty of time to see if any bears showed up before sundown), pumped some water using Laura's new filter, and relaxed a moment. In the meantime, Archeopteryx, another less jolly older man who claimed to be from New Zealand, and Boo and Scout, an interesting couple in their mid-50s (though they looked younger), had shown up. Laura and I announced our intentions to build a fire and cook, something that was unheard of among our fellow campers to our disbelief--most apparently simply boil water over a camping stove, and moreso eat basic undergrad-like things such as ramen. We first took a walk into the woods (shelter in sight, no bears), had a little fun, then wandered back and began to build our fire. We sauteed the remainder of our peppers and onion, cooked up some couscous, and made some delicious veggie quesadillas to the awe of our older compatriots. We shared a bit of our extra food, and then all of us indulged in our large stash of smore ingredients as we shared stories, mostly from the couple.

According to the couple, they were classmates in highschool in texas, grew up separately and "had families and jobs" (Boo a lawyer, Scout in administration), then ran into each other again "35 years later" (so around 50) and decided apparently on the spot to quit their jobs, presumably leave their families, and run away to go on adventures. They lived in the DR, went diving, hiking, etc. What emerged from all of this was an interesting realization of who actually embarks on the complete AT journey, which requires at least 4 months of your life: those who can choose to have no responsibility for at least 4 months in a row. The people we met who were hiking the full trail were typically older men alone, or else small groups of young people, along with this couple.

In either case, we imagined that, ignoring the simple young adventure-seekers, perhaps the AT-ers can be broken up into 2 categories: the ones looking to find nature and the ones looking to escape the real world (not necessarily mutually exclusive). In the former, we have the uber-outdoorsy, many of whom likely did the trail when they themselves were young adventure seekers and who, with the kids out of the house, are now more free to take on the adventure once again. In the latter, we have the life-seekers, many of whom were spurred on by a traumatic, life-jarring event: a divorce, a death, a mid-life crisis--anything that makes one re-evaluate their life and/or their past decisions such that they want to get away from everything to find/remake themselves again.

Obviously, these are far too great of generalizations. But Boo and Scout were perfect examples of this latter group: they actively gave up their former lives ("we're homeless.... we have a house, we just don't live in it") and all of the responsibilities attached to them in order to seek adventure and absolute freedom. Similarly, among the plethora of older men that we encountered, the obvious question that arises is: where is your family? Perhaps they remained single throughout life, perhaps they had a family and left it, perhaps the family left them. Whatever it is, it's hard to imagine in our modern society someone maintaining a complete lack of responsibility: people have jobs and pay bills and have loved ones to attend to. Thus, it's hard to imagine that a single person can pursue a journey like the AT without first severing--or having severed--important ties to a well-established life. Exploring the motivation of these hikers would make for quite a fascinating documentary.

In any case, following dinner and smores, we headed to bed in our tent and, after a good 30 minutes of general fear and discussion about the possibility of a bear coming near us and our complete lack of knowledge of what we should do in such a scenario--regardless of whether the bear actually cares about our presence or not--we fell asleep, awoke the next morning, and had a leisurely breakfast of oatmeal by the fire. Boo and Scout headed out shortly after we awoke. We then cleaned up and headed back to the car, playing 20 questions and team construct-a-sentence games along the way.

On the way home, we grabbed some delicious strawberries from a road-side berry farm and store, and then grabbed some tasty food at the Shenanigans at Westfield (I thought this was a chain, but I think that's just from Super Troopers). I'll only note it briefly, but Westfield was depressing, as literally probably half of the stores were shut down permanently--an abundantly clear sign that the recession continues.

And now I am home. Quite sore, but well worth it for a great weekend.

Catching up

It's been a while since I've entered here, mainly due to simple forgetfulness. Last weekend we hung out on Malte's roof for perhaps the last time. Saturday I went with Neil, Christine, and Seb to the American Craft Brew Fest, for tons and tons of great great beer. We were plenty drunk, walked all the way from the World Trade Center through the city to Beacon Hill to get pizza at Upper Crust. Along the way, I chatted with Seb in french the whole time, which was pretty great. We munched on some delicious pizza with Tara and John, a random couple who lived out in a suburb an hour away. Pretty entertaining stuff, as we were well intoxicated and enjoying the beautiful day. I followed it up in Harvard watching a random act (with a super cute lead singer) playing outside of Peets' Coffee with Malte, Morgan, Christine, and a drunkenly angry and dramatic Neil. We attempted to grab a drink at Charlie's Kitchen, which was pretty great except that I couldn't handle any more alcohol (and haven't since in fact).

Sunday I went to RI with Laura for Father's Day. I was still exhausted from the marathon drinking the day before, but we just hung out and swam a bit in their pool.

This week there has been crazy sport: yesterday morning I hosted the second edition of Breakfast 'n World Cup, this time with some tasty scrambled eggs. USA won 1-0 on a crazy final goal that sent us all out of our seats screaming and jumping on each other. Then yesterday and today (and two days ago) the Isner-Mahut Wimbledon match rolled on for 11 hours, finally ending with Isner winnint 70-68 in the 5th set, an absolutely insane (though welcomed, as I can finally get some work done) finish. World Cup + tennis + NBA finals last week means not a lot of work has gotten done recently. It's awesome, but I definitely would like to get back into a regular work routine.

New roommate, new look apartment

Ash(ley) moved in this weekend, and in doing so brings all sorts of fun new things for the apartment. With the addition of a super nice new couch and matching chair and a big new tv, we decided to finally revamp the livingroom/kitchen layout. With couches and chairs lining the back and far side (i.e. across from the windows) walls, we now have space to seat 9 people (very) comfortably onto soft furniture, and plenty of floor space in the middle. It's really amazing, the place looks totally different and much, much more spacious. We also now have a wii, the N64 is working, and the piano fits nicely in the corner.

Laura and I also went to a truffle-making workshop yesterday, which was really fun. It turns out that the ganache on the inside of those fancy chocolates is remarkably easy to make: boil some cream, pour it over chunks of your favorite chocolate (no vegetable oils!), add a little butter, and mix into a pudding-like substance. We were told not to put it in the fridge, but after attempting some grand marnier ganache overnight it's clear that the fridge overnight is needed to get the ganache to firm up enough for rolling into balls. Then you roll those balls in your favorite cover (for me it's cocoa powder) and eat. At the workshop we got to make a bunch and put them in a fancy box just like at the store. To make the true shiny shelled chocolates, though, you need to temper (i.e. heat, cool, then heat) chocolate in a tub and then you dip your truffles into this liquid chocolate and let dry for a few minutes. We got to do a few of these at the workshop, and I was surprised to see how easy it is to make chocolates that look just like those that you get for $5 in boxes at chocolate shops. Pretty cool.

Charlotte cuisine le diner pour nous

Last night, Charlotte cooked us some yummy pommes de terre and interesting bake tomato things (they were better than I make them sound). We dined at the SidPac lounge with a good group of friends, drank plenty of wine, and the headed over to the Thirsty for some super nerdy trivia (integrals, really?) and random on-stage dancing to michael jackson. This morning I was totally exhausted, wow. I really need to catch up on sleep.

End of Philly, back to reality... not really.

The final evening in Philly was a genuine Philly experience. Rory and I headed out to a local bar to watch the Flyers in Game 5 of the Cup finals vs. the Blackhawks. We first grabbed Pizza from Gusto nearby to his sister's place, which was pretty good. Then we headed over to the small bar a block away. We walked in, it turned silent as all 30 or so people looked right at us, and then a woman's voice on the PA said "Welcome! We've just started, would you like to join us for Quizzo?". Rory noticed that the TV was playing the game but muted, and so he promptly said "um, no", and we were promptly booed out of the bar by everyone. It was hilarious, and not something that happens too often.

We headed over to Grace bar, where a super drunk belligerent bowling ball of a man yelled profanities at every player seemingly every moment of the first period. And no one seemed to blink an eye, not even the dude's friends. Clearly this is standard fare in Philly, for which they are quite well-known (note our relief that we weren't kicked out of the previous bar with a round of batteries). Philly lost, but it was a great game, and Rory chatted with a big semi-drunk dude in a bright orange shirt with a surprisingly strong knowledge of movies for much of the game.

Early the next morning I ventured over to the French bakery/cafe nearby, only to find that it is closed on Monday. Lazy, lazy french people :) Luckily there were cards at the Dollar General, so I picked one up and wrote a nice note for Catherine, Ryan, and Rory. Last night laura and I made a nice big salad, as I needed something to offset all the greasiness I consumed over the prior three days.

Today I headed into work in a very relaxed fashion and spent my "working" time checking out new Mac computers. Still haven't decided on which to get, but it was surprisingly quick and easy to select one with the features I need. Then we headed over to the Scooperbowl in City Hall plaza in Boston for $8 all-you-can-eat ice cream. Awesome, but then gross. I'm definitely still on the gross side of the fence as I write.

Partying in Philly

I took the Amtrak down to Philly on Friday morning. It's a 6 hour journey that is quite beautiful between Boston and New York as you pass through lots of cute little small old towns. But then in stark contrast you pass through New Jersey and all of its dilapidated buildings and abandoned (or maybe still functioning) industry. I spent the whole time, including the 3 hours stuck next to a really fat guy despite the existence of open double-seats elsewhere, brainstorming the logic or my global warming website, which should be interested to see how I can transform it into a user-friendly science website that is accessible both to scientist and layperson.

In any case, I arrived in town, wandered around downtown around Rittenhouse Square for an hour or so, picked up some sweet sandals from the Puma store, then met Rory outside of a Sonoco station somewhere and walked over to his place, which is actually his sister Catherine's and her husband Ryan's place. It's quite nice. We headed over to Resurrection bar, which had fantastic beer and even better food. Rory informed me that Gourmet magazine declared the fried chicken the "best in America" and so I had no choice but to try it out. And they are absolutely right. They fry the chicken, then cover it in honey, then fry it again (then supposedly add more honey). Needless to say, it was one of the tastiest things I've ever eaten. Then I followed this up with a pork belly sandwich, which melted like butter when it touched your mouth--the second installment of one of the greatest things I've ever eaten. Ryan is a very cool guy, apparently everyone loves him. We watched the Flyers beat the Blackhawks in Game 4 of the Cup finals--getting fans who apparently don't normally care about their hockey team to be excited--then headed over to Grace Bar to meet Sean and two female friends of his from his lab. One was a Kiwi and we spent most of our time making fun of New Zealand stereotypes. Fun times.

Yesterday I woke up after a glorious night of sleep on an air mattress in their study, which is wonderfully air-conditioned. We got up, grabbed dark chocolate and banana waffles at Bonte Waffles ("Bonte means happiness in French" "no it doesn't" "what?"). Then I stopped over at the Mutter museum of medical oddities, which was awesome: tons of conjoined twins (including the livers of the original Siamese twins), nasty tumors and other awful medical conditions that make you so grateful for modern medicine. Needless to say, it was one of the coolest museums I've been to, though the shop was highly disappointing in that I was totally willing to spend multiple tens of dollars on something unique and awesome, but they were sorely lacking in any such items (I did by a yellow ceramic magnet with a skull on it).

Afterwards, I came back, we headed over to Pat's (not Gino's, who is racist :) to get the obligatory Philly Cheese Steak (I got the "mushroom provy wit"). It was pretty tasty, though not something I really need to experience again in my life (unlike the fried chicken). We came back and joined Catherine and Ryan's cocktail party with friends, which was a good time and lasted from 5-midnight. Their friends are pretty cool and nearly all have cute kids ages .5-3 (except Aaron, who is gay). We chilled out inside and out, had many drinks and lots of hors d'oeuvres, and talked seemingly the entire time about movies--the Lucey family and friends are really the ultimate movie connoisseurs. Then we headed over to Sean's sweet apartment and chatted til 230a with Sean and Paul. It was great to see Sean, but unfortunately he's got his qualifying exam paper due Monday and is apparently quite far behind, so he hasn't really been able to hang out much. Kind of annoying, but also I understand after having gone through the process myself.

Today's plan: watch(ed) the French Open final (kind of a sad effort by Soderling) and then head over to Paisano's which apparently has the best sandwiches you'll ever have.

Note the theme: it's been a great couple of days here with some quite memorable activities. Clearly, at the least, Philly has a great food scene.

WOOOOHOOOO I PASSED!!!

Yeah!!! I passed, finally. It was a big relief, although a little surprised to find out that we now have our thesis proposals due by mid-September, rather than 6-12 months as seems to have been done in the past. Hopefully that's still totally doable given that I planned to be gone virtually all of August. I'll meet with Kerry next week to discuss, but nonetheless finally finally I am officially a PhD candidate. Hooray :)

DONE!!!

Done with the oral!!!! It went alright I think. It felt more like a discussion most of the time, and I felt like I had a response or could at least discuss the prospects of most questions. The atmosphere was relatively friendly overall. Deep down I am confident, particularly given that I've gotten a fellowship to pay for me for the next few years and I presented an interesting theory (though Kerry never made any comments), but I still won't feel relaxed about everything until 11am tomorrow when they let us know. One way or the other, I'm done with generals, and that feels good.

Under da sea

Had my scuba open water test yesterday and today. Yesterday we went to Hawthorne Pond in Barnstable, MA. The weather was gorgeous and the upper few feet of water were really warm, but then it got quite cold deep down, as is expected early in the season. Unfortunately the water was really really murky and so we could barely see anything at all. We did get to swim around in a sunken boat, though, which was pretty awesome. Since visibility was so low (more because of darkness down there) any holes in the boat looked like infinite black chasms. As sebs lowered himself down in the water he didn't realize we were standing around one such opening on the top of the boat, and he was coming right down in the middle of it. When he looked down he freaked out and flailed around, it was pretty hilarious. There's also supposedly a car and a tractor somewhere in the pond, as well as an eel or two, but we didn't get to see any of those.

Today we went to Sandwich Beach (also on the Cape) and went in the Atlantic Ocean! It was pretty awesome, very cold but the wet suit really does wonders in keeping you warm. We got to see a bunch of lobsters, a crab, some flounder--which lie flat on the bottom and have both eyes facing up, weird--and tons of tiny hermit crabs, among other random things. The visibility wasn't great there either, though, but relative to the pond it felt like we could see for miles. The second of our two dives today was the first time I felt totally comfortable, really like we were just floating around in the water and enjoying myself. I want to grab a lobster but it's a little freaky I have to admit, they have big claws and really do run around with their claws up in self-defense; you have to grab them from behind over the tail where their claws can't reach.

Off to Malte's tonight for one final hoorah with Sebs :( burrito time...

Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaah

Finished the written portion of generals! What a relief. Today was an amazing day, as I played tennis twice (winning my league match), had a Corona with lunch under the amazing warm sun, did some laundry (admittedly not that exciting) and then headed over to Mike's place in Ashdown for a dinner and to meet his girlfriend Gemma, who never seemed to exist until now. Good times, including sundae making with alli and I with ice cream and hot fudge and caramel pecan and whipped cream and "hundreds and thousands" which apparently is slang for rainbow sprinkles in both the UK and australia. ha.

tomorrow morning bright and early: SCUBA time!!!!

Tired. So tired.

Doing my generals exam. It's going fine. But I started yesterday morning at 10a. Right now, I am so so exhausted. And it's 90F and sunny outside.

It's finally here...

Finally, generals have arrived. Written exam starts tomorrow, 10am. I am nervous, but also excited both to get it over with and to get a chance to try to answer some interesting questions. Should be good, as long as the questions aren't too wacky. Getting the first one out of the way will feel fantastic.

Roofs and brunch

More glorious weather. Last night we headed over to Malte's to make some pasta and hang out on his roof after a couple hour rest following our bike adventure. Unfortunately by the time were there and had made food it was already totally dark and a bit windy and chilly up on the roof, although we did still get to have a nice meal up there. We introduced Marty to the bean game, which was a blast. It's a game that one of us will have to purchase now that Sebs is heading out to Cal Tech next weekend :(

This morning we got up and headed over to Luna Cafe for some amazing brunch outdoors. The sun came out and it warmed up in a hurry. I ate my delicious delicious lobster eggs benedict, as well as some fruit and mascarpone stuffed french toast. Yum. Tonight we're headed back over to Malte and Roxie's place for some burritos, this time at 5p so we can enjoy the bright warm sunshine (hopefully it wont get cloudy) with our food...

Fantastic bike ride

Today I ventured out with Malte, Marty, Anita, and Peter to Concord via a string of side roads and back country roads. A quick Google Maps estimate puts it at about 17.2 miles between my place and downtown Concord, so approximately 35 miles in all. The weather was beautiful, and, technical issues aside (Anita's flat before we even left, my busted pedal), we had a great time. It's really nice to hit stretches where the road is nice and smooth and there aren't too many cars. A great idea would be to map out the smoothest ~30 mile ride possible from Boston. When the roads are smooth you're finally set free from staring at the immediate road ahead to steer clear of big potholes and can finally just look all around and soak in the view.

Tennis at long last

Finally got out for a league match with Tennis Northeast today. It was an absolutely beautiful day out. I hit with Abel up at Tufts on the blue courts, which are really nice. The bright sun was a little bit of a distraction for a while, but it didn't matter since we both played pretty terribly anyways. It's always strange when I hit with Abel, he never seems to play very well against me and gets angry with himself quite a bit. In the end I won, but not after enduring some boring tennis where I wasn't able to put away short balls and so his lame strategy was just to slice balls softly back to mid-court, where I'd have to hit a low short ball. And if I was able to get a solid shot back, I couldn't hit a volley to save my life, so I was typically just losing on that subsequent shot. But we played a 3rd set tiebreaker and I finally stepped up, broke loose of the tension that always seems to be with me when I play an actual match (ah, tennis...), and started hitting solidly until I won with relative ease.

This has always been what I've found annoying about this league: everyone I play with (except for Phil) seems incapable of playing a great match regardless of how their opponent plays, so the general course of a match against me goes: 1) I start playing tight, but keep it close as the other guy matches my (bad) level of play; 2) I manage to take the first set, then start playing REALLY badly and lose the 2nd set; 3) I pick up my level of play in the 3rd, but the other guy can't do the same. All I want is for me to come out and play poorly and get my butt kicked. That's what forces me to play well (or else I lose badly), and then we can get a great match going. Unfortunately the story is either I play poorly and the other guy does too, or I play well and just beat the other guy. Oh well..

Ahhh too much studying

Generals are coming up. Finally. I say that with fear, but also with great relief that it'll all finally be out of the way in a couple of weeks. Ive spent many hours the past two days catching up on some of the studying I had got a bit lazy with over the past couple of weeks, but needless to say I've spent tons and tons of time studying over the past few months. My brain actually hurts right now, and unfortunately our wine bottle opener has gone missing :(

Contrasting parties

Yesterday afternoon/evening Cim hosted a bbq party at his place, which was full of delicious grill food, home brews, the most amazing cupcakes ever, and some cool late-20s folks, including a girl who was literally 6'7" and athletic. We ventured over to the park to play frisbee as well. Afterwards we headed over to Morgan and Christine's for a childhood-themed party, where we played beer pong, ate some mediocre store-bought cake, someone took a beer bong, and a pinata full of bad candy and small liquor bottles was beaten down with a broomstick, all while mingling amongst folks who all seemed to be under 5'8" and a few of whom actually looked like 12 year olds. It was strange. In the end both parties were fun, though I'm definitely partial towards the former.

Pasta party

Last night we hosted a going away pasta-making party for Caty, who is heading back home to Saudi tonight and then moving out to Pasadena with Sebs a month later. Sebs, caty, rosemary, kurt, kat, adam, max, malte, alex, grant, and my roommate were there throughout, and roxie and laura joined late. Pasta making was fun, I need to pick up a little mechanical pasta-maker, it's really quite easy to do, and home-made pasta is awesome.

Burning milk

The smoke alarm just went off for a little while after I completely forgot about the milk I was heating up on the stove for some hot chocolate. The smoke detector is all the way down the hall from the kitchen. So that gives you an idea of how long this thing was smoking--the milk had boiled over, covering the entire pot, and then in all places it had burnt onto the pan, including leaving this ridiculous thin black sheet at the top of the pan stretching across it, covering perhaps 50% of the area of the pot opening. Impressive. But now I need to buy Caroline a new pot.

Also, it's getting cold in here. The open windows and fans don't seem to be ventilating the apartment as quickly as one might think.

Carcassonne

Played some carcassonne with Laura last night, and finally checked out our beloved mayor Mumbles Menino on you tube after hearing off and on since I moved here two years ago that he is hard to understand and then the sketch making fun of his mumbling last week at the Second City show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabuH1PnUoo

Good stuff.

A capella n zombies

Last night I finally got to check out Ben's Harvard a capella group, Voice Lab. They sang at the TMEC amphitheater at Harvard med school. Overall they were pretty good, but definitely a lot of intra-group variation. Ben was fantastic, and had a hilarious spanish rap bit in a song that i assume was titled "Cuba" (represent represent). Otherwise there was one girl in a white dress who just had a magnificent voice, one of those people for whom a simple exhalation resonates at a perfect note so that her songs sounded totally effortless. It amazes me to hear amazing singers sing, my body totally relaxes and I just suddenly stop thinking and enjoy a moment that doesn't come around so often.

Today I slept in, got some brunch at Tosci's with Malte, Roxie, and Sam, and worked at my office and home after battling the awful windy cold outside. Tonight I watched Zombieland, which was ridiculously funny. Plus it had Bill Murray, whose role was basically to exist for the sake of noting that the characters get to meet Bill Murray, and that Bill Murray is awesome. Brilliant.

Tornado dream

On thursday night I had a tornado dream, just another in the long-running series that is my inner self being scared as hell of tornadoes.

This time, I was in a small river that ran underneath a large cement highway overpass. Suddenly there was a large black tornado nearby, and I watched from just above myself as the water swelled upwards toward the tornado with myself in the middle, as the twister tried to suck me up outer of the water. I grabbed one of the big cement pillars holding up the highway aloft, and I succeeded in saving myself. Then as I swam towards the shore (which seemed not to be very far away) some cement blocks from the highway fell down and smacked the water just behind me. I don't recall what happened after that, but suddenly I was in a room with some friends--there was a connection, but it quickly vanished the second I opened my eyes.

It seems that tornado dreams are one of the few ones that I actually remember. I am a very deep sleeper.

My life written down, sort of

I always get bummed that I forget so many cool stories, whether truly incredible or quaintly inane. It still amazes me to go back and read my pseudo-diary entries the few times in my life where I actually chose to do so, which were inevitably always on traveling adventures--studying abroad in Montpellier, traveling through Europe, working in Geneva, traveling in Ghana. What's amazing is your brain's ability to retrieve those memories, even as subtle as a brief encounter on a train ride, when given the smallest of reminders of the event. In the absence of such a stimulus, the event, though almost never deleted, is locked away deep within your brain, likely never to be heard from again.

So finally, FINALLY, I am stepping up and writing things down. Writing anything, it doesn't matter. A lot of this will be just "stuff". But interesting things happen much more often than you realize, and so until I have a camera taking pictures everywhere I go this will serve as the surrogate for a memory that is plenty good enough to remember all the details but cruel enough to lock them up and throw the key away forever.