Happenings: April 2005 Archives
We had a "team event" at work today (read: excuse to goof off on the corporate dime). The event was a trip up to Redwood City, to ride some go karts and play mini golf and "Malibu Grand Prix". Driving the go kart was actually quite a lot of fun:
(Photo credit: Dung Ngo)The track is 1/2 mile long, and supposedly the top speed of the kart is 40 mph. The track has so many different curves, however, that it is quite hard to get up a lot of speed. I was told that doing the course in 60 seconds is "quite good". The organizer of the event claimed to have had a 56 second run. During my first 8 laps or so, the best that I could manage was 62.34 seconds. But towards the end of my laps, it started to rain, which definitely messed with the traction.
After it rained pretty hard, then stopped, and then dried off, I got to go out again. I did a ton of laps (I have no idea how many, but I was probably out there for 45 minutes to an hour), and managed to improve my time. I was stuck at 58.50 seconds for quite awhile, and thought that I was going to peak there. But near the end, I managed to get down to 58.25. Shaving any more time than that would really require me to study the track, and get the best lines down.
Still, for not having a ton of racing experience, I think that I did pretty A-OK. I also kicked butt at mini golf, until choking at the end by hitting the ball off of the course, which is an 8 stroke penalty... sigh
-Andy.
Doings that are a transpirin' (and that I need to remember):
- April 19th: Umbrellas - "Umbrellas"
- April 29th: Apple releases MacOS X 10.4 "Tiger"
- May 3rd: Fall Out Boy - "From Under The Cork Tree"
- May 15th: Bay To Breakers in SF
- May 19th: Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
- May 25th: Sleater-Kinney - "The Woods"
- May 30th: Memorial Day (where will I be?!?!)
- June 4th: Sleater-Kinney @ The Warfield in SF
- June 6th: Coldplay - "X&Y"
- June 6th - 10th: Apple WWDC (wish I could go!). Chris &Tanya in town.
- June 23rd - 28th(ish): In New York for Steve's wedding
- June 27th - 30th: JavaOne conference in SF
- July 1st: Woven Hand playing live at Schuba's in Chicago
Whew!
-Andy.
As Rushabh and Mark have already stated (twice), there was a big massive ski/snowboard trip at Lake Tahoe this weekend. This was my first time going to Tahoe, and my first time doing the skiing thing. Well, my folks claim that I was on ski's when I was like 5, that time we took a family trip to the Poconos. And I think that I went cross-country skiing once, when I lived in Illinois. Anyways, I declare that none of those other times count, and that this is the first time that I have done real skiing in my adult life.
The skiing itself went okay. My first day, I batted down Rushabh's assertion that I was ready to head down the bunny hill right away, and held out for the beginner's lesson. That proved to be a wise choice, because the bunny hill was actually kindof steep. The instructor of the lesson was something of "an acquired taste". There was 9 people in the class when it started, and 3 when it finished. I stuck it out, however, and I think I learned quite a few things that helped me out on the slopes. I stuck to the green slopes my first two days of skiing, and I think that at this point, i am ready to take the intermediate lesson, before trying to conquer a steeper slope.
One thing about the trip that Mark only alluded to was the incredible array of people that were all housed under one roof. The first night that I was in residence, there were 14 people (myself included). For the next two nights, we had 19. That is a lot of people, all of different ages and interests. It led to a situation where there was a group of people who wanted to stay up late and have a good time, and another group that was tired and wanted to sleep early. So, I was pretty sleep deprived until the last night, when I found a quieter spot, and managed to get like 6 hours of sleep.
But, I learned an important lesson: when I travel in a group situation, I need to always make sure that I have earplugs with me. :)
-Andy.
