Jeez, it's been way too long since I've blogged...
So the last month and change have been awesome. I still love
CA. What have I been doing? Well, my day job is still
research at Stanford (I'm here until the 28th of August). What
has really kept me going, however, are the weekend adventures.
Let's see... I posted last on July 12th? Since then I've been all
over. One weekend I spent in SF, walking the Golden Gate this
time (it's even more amazing when you walk across it) going to China
Beach, visiting Golden Gate park (the Japanese Tea Garden is awesome),
driving down Lombard St. (the curviest street in the world), going to a
museum of old time amusement machines (fortune tellers like in the
movie "Big", player pianos etc.), and having dinner at an amazing
restaraunt in Little Italy. Another weekend I went down to the
Carmel/Big Sur area where for an afternoon I met up with family friends
I haven't seen for 7 or 8 years and walked the beaches of Carmel.
After the beaches I met up with my friends who had spent that time at
the Monteray Aquarium (which is supposed to be amazing). We drove
down Highway 1 to the Big Sur area where we climbed down a 1000' path
to the ocean. It's not really a beach there, just cragy
rocks. Anyway we had an awesome time exploring the cliffs, but
unfortunately my digital camera fell out of my pocket and landed on
rocks 20' below. Needless to say it was smashed. I was able
to recover the memory card though. Anyway after the rocks we
drove to an actual beach where it was windy as hell but still
awesome. I actually saw a sea otter in the wild (they are quite
endangered) so that was quite special. After the beach we went to
a restaraunt that my friends in Carmel had mentioned. It was at
the top of this 2000' cliff and it hung out over the ocean. Very
cool. Anyway, we parked by this place amongst Mercedes, Ferrari
etc. and felt a bit out of place (we were still in beach grime
mode...). We knew from my friends' advice that we weren't going
to be able to afford dinner there (and later found out it was $90 a
plate!) but wanted to have a drink anyway. I was the only one in
pants and a button down shirt so I went in and asked the hostess if it
would be alright for us to come in given our condition. Her
response was something along the lines of, "Of course! This is
California!" Man, I love this state. So we enjoyed amazing
wine (we treated ourselves) to a view of the sun setting into a bank of
fog 2000' above the ocean. The place was actually a VERY ritzy
hotel and this was its restaraunt. I can't imagine what it would
be like to stay there.
So that was two of the weekends... Let's see, what else? The most
recent weekend was really almost a week long trip. It started
with a bus picking up my group (12 of us here at Stanford in this
program) at 4am to get to SFO for a 6:40 flight. We flew through
Cincinnatti to State College, PA where Penn State is located. The
purpose of the trip was a convocation of all the students around the
country in this program (there are 12 centers with anywhere from 3 to
12 students at each site, all focusing on nanotechnology). Wed.
night we hit this pretty cool bar that had pitchers for $3 each.
And this wasn't just Bud Light. We could get Yuingling (I know
that's not the right spelling...) etc. for only $3! Anyway, I
ended up calling my dad to tell him to wake me up in the morning for my
presentation because I didn't have an alarm (my cell phone is one of
the few models ever made that doesn't have an alarm). I promptly
got quite drunk with my friends and had a great evening. My
presentation in the morning was O.K. I actually did a better job,
in my opinion, at the practice presentation that I did at
Stanford. Anyway, the whole thing was webcast and my entire
extended family that was congrigated in WI for my sister's wedding
watched it. Now that was nerve wracking! So that afternoon
I got back on a plane (the rest of my group was there for the rest of
the weekend for presentations etc.) and flew through Cincinnatti to
Green Bay, WI. My oldest sister and two cousins picked me up from
the airport and we got to our place by about midnight. I saw my
grandparents, aunt and uncle, great aunt and 2nd cousin before I passed
out in bed. The next morning was early (as was every morning the
entire weekend) and included a 'cello rehearsal, setting up chairs
etc. The wedding was to take place outside so there were lots of
chairs to set up etc. I don't think I could think of a better
place for an outdoor wedding. The setting was on the groom's
mother's summer property that overlooked Lake Michigan from about
200'. There was a view of 25 miles of open water if one looked
down the "aisle". The rehearsal was that afternoon and everything
went well. Then the rehearsal dinner. The food was
excellent and I got to see people, family rather, that I hadn't seen
for 8+ years. My toast to my sister and her fiancee went
well. I was glad for that, because I wasn't expecting to say
anything and then I found myself popping up to take the mic. Kind
of a scary thing when you don't know what your body is doing in front
of 150 people (it was a large rehearsal dinner...). After that
dinner I was still exhausted and I went to bed promptly. Saturday
brought another early morning and more physical labor at the wedding
sight. One last 'cello rehearsal at noon was relaxing. The
afternoon was spent relaxing in the middle of the bay and then
taking a nap before the wedding. The wedding was amazing.
As unbiased as I can be, I think it was the most perfect wedding I've
ever been to. But enough of that. The party that night was
awesome. Tons of people, tons of family, tons of friends.
Just awesome. If you can't have fun at a wedding in your family
you're a real blockhead. After the party I hit a local bar with
my oldest sister, aunt and uncle, 2nd cousin and some great family
friends. Now a bar in bumblefuck Wisconsin isn't an average
bar. Rather it's a hole in the wall place, jammed with people and
smoke, serving Leiny's (can't spell lienenkugel's (?)). That
night was Kereoke night which was absolutely hillarious to watch but
terrible to listen to. Anyway, we closed that bar and I collapsed
in bed at 3:30. Sunday morning was yet another early morning and
we had a brunch for 100 family/friends at our house. I have to
say we were quite blessed with the weather the whole weekend. I
don't think it could have been any better. We were talking on
Sunday night and realized that there wasn't anything about the whole
weekend that we could have done better. Absolutely amazing.
My family, which has been fixating on this wedding for the past 6
months, now has nothing to talk about! Anyway, I swam with my
cousins on Sunday afternoon, helped dismantle the wedding venue,
watched my sister and my new brother-in-law open a few presents and had
dinner. After dinner I shared about two hours and the best cigars
I could afford with my new brother. He's awesome. I
couldn't think of a better person to be the uncle of my kids someday.
Anyway, I flew back to Stanford on Monday morning. Whew, what a week/weekend.
So there is one more weekend that I can think of to talk about.
The weekend before my sister's wedding/Penn State two friends and I
went up to northern CA (Mt. Shasta area) to camp and fly fish for three
days. It was amazing. The first night we camped just 15'
from the Upper Sacramento River (where we were fishing) and met this
woman named Charlene who was quite a character. When we set up
camp we asked her if she knew where we could get some firewood.
She promptly offered us some of the stash that she had gotten free from
a local lumber yard. 15 min later when we were setting up our
tent, she came by with a box of freshly cooked chicken, salmon (!!!!!)
and Texas toast. We couldn't believe it. It was just past
sundown and we were going to fish for a bit and asked her if she would
like to join us for a beer after we got done fishing. We could
see that she was travelling alone. She excitedly accepted our
offer. We didn't catch anything that night and only got to fish
for about 10 minutes until it was too dark to see. The stars were
to die for. I only wish we hadn't been in a forest because the
view of the sky was very limited because of the trees... We all
got pretty messed up that night. The next morning Charlene was
gone by the time we woke up. I actually woke up early (7:30) to
fish for a bit but didn't manage to catch anything. We broke camp
at 10:30 (just after the other two got up) and headed to Dunsmuir where
we had breakfast and then consulted the local fly shop for some
tips. We went to the most amazing fishing territory I have ever
been to and I managed to catch 6 rainbow trout over the course of the
afternoon. Nothing big, but it was all catch and release
anyway. Northern Californians are very protective about their
trout. Even in areas where you are allowed to keep a couple of
fish, if you do and someone sees that you do, you are likely to return
to your car to find the tires slashed. Anyway, after fishing we
went on up to Shasta City and asked the visitor's office for a place to
camp. We ended up in the middle of nowhere at a lake at an
elevation of 7000'. There was NOBODY around and there were only a
few campsites. The lake was very small (only a couple of acres)
and not too deep. We set up camp, lit a fire and fished until we
couldn't see anything again. We cooked our dinner of hot dogs,
hamburgers and sausages on the fire and then started drinking. We
had another great night and were pretty sloshed by the time we went to
sleep. We were paranoid about bears because there wasn't a
bear-proof food cabinet like there was at the campsite the night before
and we were truely in bear territory. Anyway, we put everything
in the car and hoped it wouldn't be torn open like a tin can in the
morning. Everything turned out fine; no bears that we could
see. So, Sunday we drove up Mt. Shasta and my friends hiked up to
snow while I took a nap (I had a bum knee and I didn't feel like hiking
if there wasn't fishing involved). We went back to the same river
we hit the day before and fished a bit lower on the river and I managed
to hook 4 and land 2 fish. What a great weekend! We drove
back to Stanford very very happy.
So, that's what I've been doing for the last month. I'm sorry to
say that I didn't get to run with QA in the SF marathon, but one can't
really know when they are going to get mono...
Anyway, this coming weekend is my last here *tear* and I'm going to go
to a Giants game tonight and then hang out with a friend from high
school until tomorrow. After that, who knows.
Switzerland is coming fast. I leave on Sept 2. AHHHHHH! I hope I get my visa before then.
Ciao