Happenings: August 2004 Archives

So, I am finally back in California, after having a pretty long (but fun) day yesterday at the wedding and surrounding festivities. We got a late start yesterday, going for breakfast at around 9:30 AM. We ate at "The Baglery", which is a local place that makes their own Bagels. It came highly recommended by Tanya when we first got into Bellingham, and she was right -- it was pretty good. After that we checked out Fairhaven, which is the older, artier, cafe-ier, and yuppier part of Bellingham. We were joined there by Mike and Sheila, who made a precision strike on Washington for the wedding. The weather wasn't great -- cool, cloudy, with some drizzle, but we didn't let that stop us from our mission -- celebrating Rushabh's birthday!

We left Fairhaven in order to deposit Jim, Chee Wai, and Bill back at their respective hotels, so that they could change into their tuxedos and begin the pre-wedding picture-taking process. The slimmed-down group checked out one of the art museums in downtown Bellingham. It was pretty decent, for a small-town museum. It seems like the Bellingham area has a productive community of local artists. Some of their work goes to shops in Fairhaven (I was tempted by some pottery, but didn't want to bring it home), and other pieces are shown in the museum. There was one artist, RR Clark (word doc, sorry), who had a big display on the 2nd floor. His stuff was pretty neat -- some of the first "painting-in-museum-art" that wasn't afraid to have a narrative (comic book style) or make use of written text.

After this, the group slimmed down again, as the wedding neared. Rushabh, Kristen, Hong Eng, and I spent about 2 hours together, before making our way to the church. I can now say that I have been to the "Big K" in Bellingham, WA. Sweet.

The wedding itself was pretty good -- the church was beautiful (I probably should have taken some pictures of it -- oh well), the ceremony was the right length, the priest cracked some jokes (I told Justin and Sarah that if he had made a Simpsons reference he would have had me), and everything went off without a hitch. The bride and groom rode off to the reception on an old Ford Model A, in lieu of being pelted with rice or bubbles.

As this was an evening ceremony, the reception followed immediately afterwards. There was food (which was pretty good), drink (I snagged a picture of Chris and Tanya's first diet Cokes as a married couple), and dance. It went until about 12:30 or so, and then I stayed to help with the clean-up of the reception hall. After cleaning up, depositing various peoples to where they needed to go, and getting myself and Jim back to the hotel -- it was after 2:00 AM. And of course, we had to get an early start in the morning, so that I could get Jim and Bill to SeaTac airport in time for their respective flights. So, I rocked today on 4 hours of sleep -- 28 years old and I've still got it!

All-in-all, it was a pretty fun trip. There was a lot of deja-vu to the Norway trip for me, because I spent the bulk of the week with that same group of criminal masterminds. I also got caught up with some UIUC people that I haven't seen in awhile while at the reception, which was cool. I met some of Chris and Tanya's friends from their undergrad, but I didn't really hang out with them too much. I was also happy to visit with Justin and Sarah again -- they are a lot of fun.

So, all-in-all, a successful trip, from which I return home tired. So, I will have to recover by going to work and doing a half-assed job...

-Andy.

I am on my way to Seattle this morning, in order to do a mini UIUC reunion, capped by Chris and Tanya's wedding. The security line at SFO was pretty crazy this morning, there was a throng of people, and it seems like security was heightened (I had to take my shoes off -- a strong indicator). These days, if you have a laptop, you have to take it out of your bag and send it through the X-Ray separately. After getting past the metal detector, you have to wait for your stuff. They can usually people through the metal detector faster then they can X-Ray all of the bags, shoes, belts, and laptops.

Anyway, so I'm waiting for my stuff to come down the line, and a woman has gone through the metal detector, and is waiting behind me. When my PowerBook comes out, she says "nice laptop!".

So, I guess there is one advantage to the new airport security regime.

-Andy.

I hiked to the top of Mission Peak again on Saturday, this time with Stan and Suzie, both of whom have never done this hike before. I don't think that either of them were prepared for this one -- it is a little bit rigorous (4 boots out of 5, according to Stan's hiking book). Anyways, we all made it to the top, and the view is impressive:

If you click on that picture, you'll be treated to a 6.5Mb, 19 second panorama from atop the peak. I took this movie with my new camera, a Sony DSC-P100 (which I plan to blog more about in the future). If you get past the wind on the audio track, you'll hear something funny at the end.

-Andy.

While Mike and I were in Portland attending OSCON, I snapped a couple of pictures with my phone, as we were walking around. I have been pretty forgetful about actually downloading them off of my phone, however, which is why I'm not blogging about it until now.

From top to bottom, some sort of Utility van that had a spiffy Ghostbusters logo on it. A random chinese restaurant that we walked by -- see if you can make out what it says underneath "chop suey". And the last one is of some weird sculpture that exists in downtown Portland. It is possible to move the center piece if given enough force -- it will swing around. I caught this guy trying to get his kid to do it. I think that the kid was actually able to move it a little. Cute.

-Andy.

Well, so far, things are going pretty good (at least from my perspective). My dad has had some disappointments -- he wanted to take the ferry to Alcatraz, but my mom doesn't like boats, so that got nixed. He also had a supreme bug up his butt to ride the "go car", but he couldn't get the whole family behind him. We could have bifurcated, and he and I gone and done it, but I guess that need for family separation hasn't crept in yet. If we go back to the city later in the week, then this will probably have to happen.

Anyways, we had lunch at the Buena Vista, where the Irish Coffee was invented (apparently -- my dad couldn't quit talking about it). And of course we saw the Palace of Fine Arts, the Golden Gate bridge, the Presidio, and Noe Valley. We picked the latter neighborhood, so that we could have dinner at a nice Italian restaurant with Stan.

Anyways, so far, things are going pretty good.

-Andy.

So, my parents and Sara arrived in the Bay area today, marking the beginning of their week-long visit here. My folks haven't taken a vacation in quite a long time, so this is truly a special event. I'm going to take the week off of work, but other than that, I'm not exactly sure what we all are going to do. In the immediate future, my mom is going to cook one of her signature "big meals" tomorrow, so that is going to be great. And I guess we're going to go out to dinner or something on Tuesday in order to celebrate my birthday. And one of my co-workers was really talking up Monterey and the 17 mile drive, so I may pull for a day trip down there...

-Andy.