Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Kyle's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Saturday, June 27th, 2009
8:34 pm	Haiti June 09 I was in Haiti for Engineers Without Borders work June 5-15. Here is an account of it. First of all, two EWB chapters are working with this particular community. In San Francisco, our main project has been the design of a health clinic. Previous trips have surveyed the site, but there are still some kinks to be worked out. Also, due to very impermeable soil on the site, we will probably need a lot of space for sanitation. As a result, the church/school we are working with (OFCB) is in the process of purchasing the adjacent site as well. This also needed surveying. My personal priority on the trip was to see this completed, and to discuss some questions with the pastor of the church. The official reason, however was to be the professional mentor (for I have a license) on the Wisconsin chapter's micro-hydro project. The idea is to catch water in the river up in the hills, get it into a pipe, run it downhill, use the pressure to spin a turbine, and get electricity out of it. A certain location had been chosen because it is close to OFCB. We wanted to start with a small project and avoid too much transmission (sending it across long distances), and see how well it worked before trying anything bigger. The goal of this trip was to build the powerhouse (a small concrete shack that will ultimately house the turbines) and to more closely assess the rest of the project: nailing down where the pipe and the electric lines will go. Before getting to our residence, however, things were already amiss. About a mile away, a crowd was gathered near the bridge that EWB built a few years back. People were moving rocks. Flash flooding had occurred just a couple hours before, overtopping the bridge. The approach to the bridge was very muddy, and the bus in front of us got stuck for a while. Upon finally arriving, the internet was down (yes they get satellite internet and have a generator. A previous EWB project included solar panels, too). The potable water pipeline that serves the whole valley had been knocked out about a mile upstream of OFCB. Ultimately we made it to our residence just fine, and after church the next morning, we went out to the site to start clearing rocks. I had some concerns about slope stability, and no one who was down there was able to reassure me (people in the US might have, but the internet being down prevented it). The flash flooding brought up concerns about our pipe potentially washing away (this was, after all, mere monsoon flooding in a location very susceptible to hurricanes). There was a big discussion of these things, as well as the costs/benefits of the project, that night, and we ultimately decided to proceed. The the Wisconsin PM took the pastor out to the site to reiterate what we wanted to do the next morning, and when he pointed out how high the flooding gets and said our stuff would wash away, we stopped. Once we did get in touch with folks in the US and gave them data for how high the floods were the previous day, they confirmed just about anything would wash away. So our main project of the trip was not going to happen. We talked to the head of another nearby church/school about his concerns that day, and he expressed similar desires as OFCB. A real road would spur trade and create jobs, as would electricity (which would also allow the kids to study at night). A health clinic would be a great thing for the community, as the nearest hospital is an hour away but there are very few specialists there, so for serious things one needs to drive 4 hours. We assessed the broken water pipeline as a potential project. OFCB can do a quick fix of re-threading the pipes and putting them back together, but this doesn't change the fact it crosses a river. It looks like the river has scoured away quite a bit, and that this pipe was originally under the river here. So we are looking at going over (in a bridge/culvert-type structure) or under (probably also with some sort of concrete encasement), depending on whether it's scouring or depositing. Otherwise, lots of surveying. Lots of getting called "blanc". Lots of being followed by really cute kids everywhere, often wanting their photo taken or wanting to help. And lots of kids eating mangoes! Kids spend all day throwing rocks into mango trees this time of year, and this was indeed quite fun. One of the few phrases I learned in Creole was "Jodia ou mange combien mango?": "How many mangoes have you eaten today?". The average answer was 6. We also took a trip into Gonaives (the nearest City) to check out prices of construction equipment. That was also quite an experience. The craziest part was checking out the lake. In 2004, there was no such lake, but in 2004 tropical storm Jeanne flooded Gonaives terribly (basically their Katrina), creating a lake. The government started to build a bridge, until last year, when 4 hurricanes hit in one month (Actionnel showed us plant debris in rooftops throughout the City). This lake is about 5 miles across, has people fishing in it, and doesn't look like it's going anywhere. One of the more amazing things I've seen in my life. We also took a pretty awesome hike up to a French fort, with real cannons! As we progress into the future, the hydro project is not, in fact dead. From a Civil perspective, there are much better places to do a hydro system, but the electrical people are very skeptical. This will be a very interesting debate in the weeks ahead. And for photos, you can checkout my newly created picasa account at http://picasaweb.google.com/kcarbert/HaitiJune2009# (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 15th, 2009
4:52 pm	Busy and serious I go through phases of life where I enjoy happy things, and there are phases of life where I get pretty serious thinking about the world's problems and how silly my usual concerns are. I am in one of the latter right now. Particularly getting back from Haiti I found myself overhearing conversations and thinking to myself "really?! These are the priorities in people's lives?" Of course this was after being in a place where there are barely any trees, most people eat around one meal a day and there's virtually no sanitation. The trip really was great, though. I wish I could have stayed longer (only stayed 2 days). I did some soil tests and helped a little bit with the survey of the clinic site. I've sometimes had a concern with usefulness thinking about humanitarian mission type trips. Because to "volunteer" a lot of the time can mostly mean to go to a poor country, strain the resources more than some locals would, do something that could instead create a local job that would be much cheaper than me going there, etc. But that was not the case here (except for the resources part). We were indeed providing expertise . And on the ride back, Actionnel (the pastor and de facto regional mayor) pointed out that even if we didn't accomplish anything, the local kids would still have something bigger to aspire to. When he was a kid, the kids wanted to be things like bus drivers. Now they say they want to be an engineer or a doctor. And indeed, Scott from Wisconsin said that when he finished building a bridge, hundreds of people showed up and many kids told him they wanted to grow up to be engineers. But basically I have been pretty serious and not very social lately. My entire life outside of work has pretty much consisted of the following things lately: - Working on Haiti sanitation stuff - Spending time with Jane - Watching the Wire - Trying to convince friends to watch the Wire, with some success Which reminds me, The Wire is the best TV show I have ever seen and I have been obsessed lately. This does indeed provide some humor in my life, but mostly it adds to my seriousness and scoffing at some of the more petty concerns that people have. Im still in season 3 though so don't give me any spoilers! It is also official: I am taking a leave of absence from work to focus more on Haiti, read some books, chill out and not worry about my utilization for a while. I turned in my letter last week, and I'll announce it tomorrow. I will be a free man April 4th! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
1:41 pm	Historic election A couple things to put all this in perspective. When Obama was born his parents could not have legally gotten married in Virginia. Today he will probably win it. Get the kleenex ready for this one http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/eastside93/2008/11/i-didnt-vote-for-obama-today.php And just to brighten things up a little, it looks like Obama's was grandmother was able to vote for him, and her vote will be counted http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/11/will_marilyn_dunhams_vote_count (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, November 3rd, 2008
9:56 pm	Pre-election post You've all probably made up your minds or voted already, and I've already run my mouth off to about 40 people about the propositions, but just in case I missed someone. 1A: A simultaneouly reluctant and excited yes: We shouldn't be putting forth such a huge bond in a time of debt, and I've seen some legitimate concerns about the ridership, speed and price projections. But a couple of things make me comfortable with it. One is that California's population density is almost identical to Spain's, and Spain has had some of the greatest success with high speed rail. Also, I looked into my ridership concerns, and found that the high speed rail authority did a Very thorough report. Also, even if the projections are too optimistic, even if it does become a boondoggle, we are ultimately left with something that will fundamentally change California for the better. 2: Yes. Some egg farmers might leave California and prices might go up, but chicken cage companies might also make a new standard cage size and expand it to other states. Ultimately, just because you're scared of business going somewhere else where there's less regulation doesn't mean you should never regulate, because then no one would ever regulate. But in the end, it is more of a moral issue. There are some terrible conditions out there, and this seems a reasonable proposal to improve them. 3: No. No strong feelings here, except my budget concerns outweigh my children's hospital concerns. 4: No 5: Yes. Sarah assured me of some things just now, so I'll go with a yes. I do have my concerns so I understand a no vote. 6: No. 7: No. I'm not terribly against this, but it certainly says something when the Democratic, Green, and Republican parties, every major newspaper, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council are against a supposedly environmental bill. The concerns stem mostly from it being "badly written". Certain authorities sloppily overlap between several agencies. 30MW or smaller power stations (just about anything solar) does not count as renewable. I really don't find these things so catastrophic, except that this is a popular issue right now anyway, and the assembly is already putting forth a similar, more skillfully written bill, that is almost sure to pass. That eases any guilt I might have otherwise have had about voting no. 8: NO! 9: No 10: NO! Another very tricky, but far more heinous, Environmental law. First of all, this is a bond. Bonds should only be used for infrastructure projects with a large up front cost, especially in a budget crisis. Second, this is exactly the kind of environmental legislation we should not have. I am all for alternative energy, but this is the kind of bill that picks and chooses winners, rather than adding reasonable economic incentives to reach a certain goal. These vehicle rebates will disproportionately help natural gas vehicles, mostly helping Texas oilman (and Swift Boat Veteran for Truth) T Boone Pickens. As Nadav aptly named this proposition at my proposition party: "T Boonedoggle Pickens". Third, there is nothing in this bill stopping someone from buying a truck in California, getting a $50,000 rebate, driving it to Nevada, and selling it for $45,000 of profit. 11: Yes. Politicians in California draw their own districts to make sure they never lose. Proposition 11 isn't a perfect solution, but its surely better than the current system. Districts will be drawn by a somewhat randomly selected group of 14 that will include 5 Democrats, 5 republicans, and 4 "Others". There will be more rules to ensure that incumbents are neither protected nor discriminated against. I know a lot of my more liberal friends see this as a Republican power grab. And I admit, Democrats might lose a couple of seats. But that's only because Democrats are rigging the system right now. And another positive effect could be more moderate assemblypeople. One big problem is polarization. And this does hurt Democrats. When all of the Republicans in the assembly only have to pander to their base and win the primary, they are more polarized. They are far less willing to budge on anything. And so here we are, in a budget crisis with a Democratic majority, yet no matter how necessary it might be to raise taxes, such things require a two-thirds majority, which Democrats don't have. And not a single republican will budge. To see some beautifully gerrymandered districts, here is a map http://www.calvoter.org/voter/maps/statewide/assembly.pdf 12: Yes. And of course I am excited about Obama. Andrew Sullivan says it far better than I could, so that's all I'll say for now. Oh except to say that this is the first time I am really voting "for" a presidential candidate. And for me it comes down to his calm, rational, intellectual way of approaching problems. He gathers important smart people. He finds those who disagree with him to see what their concerns are. When he disagrees he does so respectfully, and demonizes his opponents far less than just about any politician I see out there. Yes, he has disappointed me at times and taken some cheap shots at McCain. I don't expect him to be perfect. But what he's doing is a drastic improvement over any other national politician I've seen. In life, I have been pretty busy with election stuff. I threw another proposition party, and 26 people came! I also took my non-partisan presentation show to work, and went prop by prop with a few others individually. So yes, I may have influenced the votes of about 40 people already, so I don't feel so guilty about doing an LJ post so late. Good night, and happy voting everyone! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
10:48 pm	America's pastime almost past Last time I was here I talked about how I'd be playing a lot of baseball this summer. Well things haven't gone perfectly to plan. I'm learning I'm not the baseball player I thought I was (haven't been playing too well) and I broke a finger which left me out for a couple of months. Regardless, I still played quite a lot, but it's coming to a close. Just a week ago my company softball team was crowned undefeated champions for the second year in a row. Go Harris! This past weekend, my hardball team played a doubleheader in Golden Gate Park. Coming into this game, I had only one hit all year, but went 3 for 8 on Saturday, making pretty good contact and even reading curveballs on their way in. There are few things in life that feel better than making solid contact off a pitcher throwing around 80mph with a wood bat. Even better, for the second game there were tourists watching us. At any given time there were about 10-20 tourists in the stands, enjoying watching us Americans play baseball. Afterwards, a French family asked to take a picture of their kids with one of the players and some bats. That totally made my day. This coming weekend looks to be the weekend of drunken baseball. On Saturday I'll probably play sloshball with some company folks, and on Sunday is the last hardball game, and apparently we're taking shots beforehand (actually the guys taught me to shotgun a beer between games last week, so not totally unprecedented). I have earned a new nickname as well. My baseball number is 49. Several small reasons, but nothing major. Anyway I've been learning about Chinese numbers (8 sounds like wealth, thus is lucky, 4 sounds like death, thus is bad). I was thinking about my number and realized I had a 4. Then I thought about the 9. In Mandarin, 9 is the same sound as wine, but I asked Hoi and he said it sounds more like dog in Cantonese (not too far off in Mandarin either). So I mentioned this to my teammates and they absolutely loved it. They almost never call me Kyle anymore, only "Death Dog". Current Music: Chef - Chocolate Salty Balls (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
9:35 pm	America's Pastime, Engineers Without Borders I was just thinking about how, including all my practices, my hardball league, and my softball league, I will have played baseball over 30 times this summer. If my attendance remains good, about 40. All this in addition to being in a fantasy league as well. I got to pitch little last week but didn't do too great. Other than that I haven't got as much playing time as I'd like in hardball, but plan to remain positive for a couple more games. Otherwise, I am joining an Engineers Without Borders project, and that is pretty exciting. The original project was to build a solar-powered school in rural Haiti. This has pretty much been built, but the plan just got drastically expanded. Not we are starting on a medical clinic... serving as the only medical facility for a region of 80,000 people. It will be quite a multifaceted project, including a wastewater system, hydropower, and a road to the place. Right now is very preliminary, but I already have a task: to learn as much as I can about basic surgical equipment and how much power, water and space it requires. So if anyone knows a surgeon, I would love to talk to them! Current Music: Sea Wolf - Leaves in the River (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
7:59 pm	Physical activity In January I was feeling a little depressed. Mostly because I was stuck at home, sick most of the time, unable to do the semi new year's resolutions I had made. I've been feeling a lot better lately. As soon as I was less sick, I started working out several times a week. I am now officially playing baseball. The past few weeks I've been practicing with the Brewers. It's a pretty high competition wood bat league, with a lot of former college players. My coach actually used to pitch for UCLA alongside Zito and Prior. Cool stuff. I've also been playing frisbee with more regularity again. Practicing, working out, and playing frisbee has meant activity almost every day. I feel motivated and healthy. Jane and I are doing no desserts for pretend lent. It hasn't been terribly hard, though the thought of a moist chocolate chip cookie is more tempting than it is when I can have one whenever I want. I'm not sure if it's the physical activity, not eating desserts, or eating less meat but I appear to have lost weight somewhere in the past 6 months or so. I am 128 right now, as opposed to 135 that I have been most of my modern life. Because of baseball and my need to bulk up my pitching arm, this is no good, and so I've been bumping the meat intake back up (but not on Fridays, also due to pretend lent). Those are the main things going on for me. Elections have been exciting, but that's dying down. I had friends come to the Harris ski cabin again, which was fun as always. Isaac and I went to a start/stop freeze flash mob a couple weeks ago. We had food with us, and one of the freezes had me midbite with my banana. It was only 30 seconds, but lots of saliva was produced. I warned Isaac about this. Then I was next to him for another freeze for a few minutes and people kept taking pictures of us. When it was all over I turned to see Isaac with his mouth open over his apple and a gigantic pile of drool on his jacket. So there must be some pictures of Isaac drooling all over himself on the internet. We haven't found them yet, so let me know if you do! Aaron Butler is coming in a few minutes to stay for a few days, so I should probably head out. I'll try to say more later. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
9:46 pm	Mega Tuesday! Do you Californians realize how exciting this is. This might be the only time in our lives that our individual votes will matter in picking the next President. And it is getting excitingly close! I myself am pretty gung-ho about Obama. Him and Clinton have very similar policies, but attitude and message make a big difference for me. Though I have never been this excited about a candidate, I've been having a disproportionately hard time articulating why. But for all of those who are undecided I encourage you to see for yourself by viewing any full speech of his on youtube, and/or to check out this article. The basic idea is this: politics these days is more about shouting down your opponents and demonizing them to win elections than it is about finding practical solutions to our problems. And, whether by her own doing or not, Hillary Clinton is part of this. Though I think she would govern reasonably well, those old battles of the 1960's and 1990's will follow her and continue to polarize this country. On the other hand, Obama, through his youth, energy, and message, has a better chance than any other politician to overcome this. One thing I've learned pretty well over the last few years is to listen for buzzwords or phrases that will just tick people off, either on the right or the left. Usually they are forms of name calling, or perhaps oversimplifying someone elses position. Almost all politicians use them at some point. But Obama virtually never does, while still saying quite a lot. He's not just saying "let's unify" in a direct way. He's saying it in his tone and in how he points out the problems we face without oversimplifying who is to blame. Im leaning no on all of the California propositions. 91: No need to discuss this one. 92: Prop 92 would add yet another restriction on legislators ability to fix a budget crisis or respond to the state's needs. It would increase Community College funding each year by the population growth rate of 17-21 or 22-25 year olds, whichever is greater, and even more when unemployment is greater than 5% (which is the case most years). It might make sense to use the total average population growth of 17-25 year olds (or even better, actual community college enrollment!) without the unemployment kicker, but this law dares to make this too strong in 2 ways, without even measuring the correct indicator (what if the UC's become more in demand for our economy? Are they ignoring the fact that the average community college student is 28 years old?). Also, lowering the fees from $20 to $15 won't do much except hurt the State's finances. Our fees are already the lowest in the country, and around a quarter of students already don't don't have to pay due to waivers for those who can't afford it. This is exactly the kind of unsustainable runaway spending that helped get us in this budget crisis and is making it so hard to get out. 93: The basic part of this makes a lot of sense. Rather than making lawmakers play leapfrog between houses for 14 years, they can stay in one for 12. I like that. But 42 current legislators will be grandfathered into having terms potentially longer than 14 years (they can serve up to 12 years total in their current house, so if they already served 8 in the other they could serve 20 total). This is one of those sneaky, disingenuous propositions. But I guess we gotta measure the benefits versus the costs. I'm leaning no. 94-97: No strong feelings here. I mostly just feel that limits to tribal gambling are important. I don't want to see huge expansions, so I'm leaning no. Please comment for debate! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, January 11th, 2008
8:41 pm	Brief Holiday Recap Not so good, it turns out. I've been sick three times in the past 2 weeks. I've taken 5 sick days, and have lost just about all of my sick-time cred. I did get to play rock band at a new year's party, which was pretty fun. The drums are totally the funnest. Some dude jammed along to a Clash song with his melodica. My New Year's resolution would have been something like this: work out three times a week, go to the batting cages, find someone to throw a baseball around with. Well, being sick has mostly hindered that so far, but this most recent illness should be gone tomorrow. In the meantime, I am perhaps making a mistake: The free trial of World of Warcraft is downloading right now. Jane and I saw Juno before Christmas. It was the best movie I've seen in quite some time. I highly encourage you to see it. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
9:49 pm	Sea Chanties, etc Brandi's birthday was a week and a half back and was very fun and memorable. We went to the Hyde Street Pier aboard an old boat and sang sea shanties led by the park rangers. These songs are old songs that shipworkers would sing, and apparently the song and/or tempo would be chosen based on the desired speed of the work or rowing. They are call and response songs, or if not have a chorus that repeats enough times so you can figure it and and sing along pretty quickly. The songs were fun and often hilarious (just imagine a crowd of 100 people aged 5 to 80, booming "they rant and they roar, like two yankee women!"). As it was cold, they served cider and hot chocolate. Allison brought some hard tack (flour and water, which preserves very well and was eaten by sailors back in the day. We explored the boat. I learned what "beating the dead horse" means. All in all this was the most fun I've had in a while. They do this the first Saturday of every month from 8 to midnight (after 11 they allow R rated songs) and I think it's just about the most fun sober evening in the city I can imagine. Brandi pointed out that all sorts of random folksy music gatherings happen around the bay area, and pointed me here : http://www.sffmc.org/ Me, Jane, Liat, Chris, Delena and sister went to an Obamarama a month or so back. It was pretty cool. Before then me, Chris and Cory saw Hillary. Less awesome but still interesting. Work has been super busy. Busier than ever before. I had one of the more intellectual conversations I've had in a while on Sunday. It was with a 7-year-old. Go figure. Current Music: Mana - Sabanas Frias (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 21st, 2007
12:02 pm	A Sentence Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
10:11 pm	Harry Potter and the Horizontal Directional Drill Rig Some of you know I started reading Harry Potter a couple months ago and am blasting through them (just finished 6 last night). It's a good escape, it's on my mind a bit, and I've had a few dreams about it. I've also been working late since coming back, and what I've been doing has been working on Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD). HDD is where, rather than digging a trench and putting a pipe in, the construction contractor drills a path for the new pipe through the ground, lubricating itself along the way. They then use electronic survey equipment and do some calculations to find out where the drill is so that they can guide it along the desired path and so it comes out where they want on the other side (but it is still connected to the entrance location by some long, snaking cords). It then grabs the pipe and pulls it back through. It's often used when a trench will be a big pain, an environmental problem, or impossible. For example, if a pipe has to cross a river (they HDD under it). In our case, we have a steep hillside in a State Park that the Park does not want to disturb. So now for the dream. Spoiler alert: this cut gives away a moderately important detail of book 2, but not anything shocking ( Harry Potter and the Horizontal Directional Drill Rig ) Yesterday, I did the Waves to Wine bike ride again. I did a bit better than last year, and it was a nicer ride, through SF, crossing the Golden Gate bridge (my first time walking or biking!), along Highway 1 in Marin, and into Rohnert park. 77 miles in all. I felt all cool finishing on my clunky old mountain bike. But I was nothing in comparison with someone else. Remember: 77 miles, some pretty big hills. One woman did it barefoot.......on a unicycle!!!!! And she did indeed finish the race. I saw her cross the finish line as I was leaving from dinner. That's gotta be one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 23rd, 2007
9:03 pm	The NYC and Boston hilghlights Even though it was the most touristy thing I did, the statue of liberty and Ellis Island were pretty cool. I went with Eric and some friends to the Apollo Theatre Amateur night in Harlem. It's kinda like American Idol, where they bring up different people to do song and dance or a comic routine or whatever. Except that rather than having an official judge, people booing or cheering decides the outcome. If someone gets booed off, the band plays a siren noise and this dude comes out and tapdances them off the stage. If they survive, they get to come back at the end and one by one, they get cheered. Whoever gets the highest decibel reading wins. Watching Dice-K bean A-rod in the first inning with no consequences, then strike him out twice later in key situations. Oh did I mention this was AT FENWAY! Unfortunately the Sox lost that game. Going with Seth to this party called "Soundscape". It was in a warehouse-type place with wall partitions and doorways in some walls. There were 18 musicians, each in their own semi-room. There was a map showing each musicians and where their stations were. It then showed their order. There was a line connecting the musicians. What was cool was that each musician was wearing headphones and could only hear the musicians directly before and after them in this line., within the sequence of this line, each one could only hear the one before and after them. So as you're walking around, you can probably hear 6 at a time, but they can't hear everything you can. There were some cool art exhibits and visual effects, too. Checking out where Seth lives: A converted biscuit factory! His room used to be an oven. And there was a historical plaque. I learned that Nabisco stands for National Biscuit Company. And that they seriously considered calling them Fig Cambridges or Fig Salisburys. A mini high school reunion with Adria, Orian and Carrie. On the flight back I watched some TV and caught an ad for Celebrity rap superstar and heard a clip of a new Minus the Bear song in it. How weird! And then it was confirmed: They are MTV's Artist of the Week Also, for the baseball fans out there, Seth pointed out this Onion article about Dice-K to me. It works on so many levels! Current Music: Minus the Bear - Dr L'ling (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
12:55 pm	My week of triumph Last Tuesday, my company softball team won the championship. An undefeated season, proving our superiority over other engineers. Over the weekend, I got confirmation that I passed the Professional Engineer test. So I am now an official engineer! I also won $80 in this kinda random baseball pool Im in. Also, my trip is formally planned. Ill be in NYC September 8-13, and Boston the 14-16. If anyone is there who I haven't contacted, let me know if you want to meet up! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, July 23rd, 2007
11:49 pm	Email I relate quite a bit to this article, and thought I'd share it. Soo true in my recent life. I chose not to email it to everyone for obvious reasons :P http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/07/23/onthejob.DTL I tried getting tickets to the Red Sox Yankees games in September. All sold out! Does anyone have any experience with getting tickets for this? How screwed will I be by scalpers? What should I do? Ill be in Hollister the next few days on business. Itll be a good chance to be by myself, read, chill out. Ive actually been reading! I read the first Harry Potter book last week, and am on to #2. One of my favorite co-workers is quitting. She is the founder of our "Environmental Task Force", the group that will ultimately make recommendations to the Board about how to be more green. I might end up taking it over. Pretty crazy. Jane and I went tea-tasting on Saturday, which was totally cool! Current Music: Kelly Clarkson-Never Again (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
6:43 pm	Spring 07 It's been a good day today. Jane and I slept in, hung out a little. The temperature is just right (I like fog!) so my bike ride to the gym was quite pleasant. I ran into Joe D. at the gym, who I hadn't seen in a really long time. I ate at Na'an and Curry, and they were out of seats so this pretty chill guy sat at my table and we had a good chat. I like relaxing moments and days like this. Too bad I'm always hurried and stressed these days. So in general life news: I took the PE test in April, but will still not know how I did until probably July. I think my odds of passing are about 60%. In the studying process, I discovered some pretty cool places. Gaylord's is a really cool, rockin coffeeshop on Piedmont where I studied a bit. L'Amyx was also a really chill tea bar where I studied a lot. In April there was also a frisbee tournament. I played with the UFO people, and it was much more competitive than I thought. Our roster was 12 people, but only 7 play at a time. I though I wouldn't get much playing time, but quickly realized that we got tired so incredibly fast that it was very necessary. We were playing to 11, win by two, and fell behind 10-8. I couldn't handle the pressure, so sat out the rest. We had to score at least two in a row to stay alive. We proceeded to score 3 and then the other team 1. The refs then said it was sudden death, for time was running out. And we scored tom take the first game. The second game was very sloppily played on our part and so we didnt go to the finals. I did have one funny moment, though. In sports like frisbee, where defenders "cover" the opposition, its easiest to use some defining feature about them or their clothing that is only one syllable to describe them. The guy I intended to cover appeared to be wearing thights, so I dubbed him "tights". When going downfield to cover our guys, some one asked "Who do you have?", to which I responded "I got 'tights'". Of course, "tights" was standing about 20 feet from me and upon looking up we made eye contect and had a good laugh. I love moments like those. We watched the other semifinals game, though which was pretty awesome because it was the varsity team against some former varsity guys. So yeah, had we not played reall sloppy we would have played in the championship against the A-team. I have also been noticing these new technologies changing our lives. When studying for tests before, and the book is unclear, I was generally screwed if I couldn't find someone to explain a concept to me. But now, I can look it up on Wikipedia or search elsewhere online for it, which I did quite a bit for the PE test. Also, when trying to make plans with Nadav and realizing we couldn't meet for the next couple of weeks, he just said "Ill share my google calendar with you, put something there". I am still hesitant to embrace this new way of life, but yesterday it got weirder. In the morning I sent out an email where I said that poker would be tonight (I reiterated Friday, but did not state the date) from my gmail account. After looking at responses, I noticed that one of the ads in the corner was from Google calendars, asking if I wanted to add Poker to my calendar for June 1st. Creepy! But cool, too. Speaking of google, I am finding the streetviews controversy quite entertaining. I would find it hilarious (and show it to all my friends) if I was caught picking my nose on the street by Google's cameras. Some funny pictures can be found here and here Aaron A. came to town last weekend, and that was pretty fun. Poker and a Hotsy Totsy trip ensued with comedic results. Other than that work has been pretty hectic and I've earned myself a few days off. But not yet because the project Im on is still going crazy. Current Mood: good Current Music: Hot Chip - The Warning (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
11:29 pm	Woah I think a smart spam bot commented on my last post. Trippy. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 20th, 2007
10:27 pm	Jehovah's witness movie Some of you are already aware I was once a Jehovah's Witness, and that it had a profound effect on who I am today. I still have a very positive image of the religion, and have bonded with some other ex-JW's in recent years. We talk a lot about the group, its flaws, but also, we note how it affected each of us in profoundly positive ways. Finally, someone has explained this in movie format. I highly encourage everyone to check out This interview with the filmmaker. He, too, was once a Jehovah's Witness and has made a film about them. I find his point about them being a model for how fundamentalists can fit into society very interesting. This movie is showing on PBS on Tuesday night. For those in the Bay Area, it looks like it's on KQED at 11 (one hour long). I know, kinda late, but let me know if you are interested. Really, though, read the interview. If you want to understand who I am as a person, this guy sums up a lot of it more articulately than I could. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007
5:37 pm	Bike to Work Day Don't forget to ride to work tomorrow (Thursday, May 17)! I will not be going over the Oakland hills this time but will satill ride from Orinda to Concord. A real update is coming soon. (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 15th, 2007
12:24 am	The mighty Stephen Hawking Omer pulled some strings and we saw Stephen Hawking last night. He was much more humorous and understandable then I had imagined. It was quite enjoyable. Afterwards we went to Jupiter for some cosmically named drinks and reminisced. So far, a majority of the people at work I have mentioned this to have not known who Stephen Hawking is. I find this shameful. In other news, I pitched a scoreless inning of baseball on Sunday. It wasn't pretty, and I didn't get to show off my junk much, but I did do it, and against one of the better teams in the league. Current Music: MC Hawking - F*%# the Creationists (2 Comments |Comment on this)