Catch up time!
Saturday: I drove up to Berkeley and enjoyed delicious foods with the rest of the cooking club at the house on Keith Street. There was spinach salad with walnuts and strawberries, sliced pineapple, and TONS of delicious lasagna. I had three slices. It was excellent. There was a cocunut cake with an amusing slant - one of the pans had tilted in the oven, so one layer was a normal cylinder shape, whereas the other was...much taller on one side than the other. Tasty, either way.
The conversations were entertaining as usual. Later, we split up into two teams of 5 and played Taboo. Justine and Jon Long and I are pretty awesome at Taboo, if I may say so - we won after collecting some 13-point lead after an equal number of turns. Perhaps part of this was Greg trying to answer "MYYYYYY DIIIIIIIIIIICK" to every description. One particularly funny exchange went something like this:
Me: Infinite mass, dark. (well, that's technically wrong, but the point was made)
Jon: Black hole! (Correct.)
Greg: MYYYYY DIIIIIICK!
Me: Well, it does have infinite mass.
Justine: And has never seen light.
(laughter until tears)
It's always a fun time with that crowd.
Sunday: I (along with Lora and Wes and Mark) helped Andy Carle move from his place in El Cerrito to his new place in Richmond. Moving large pieces of furniture is, as usual, a constraint satisfaction problem. One of the other guys at the apartment complex had left his underwear out drying on a plank of wood laid across the fence on either side of the walkway between the stairwell and the curb. This made for an unusual obstacle when moving mattresses and boxsprings and other furniture.
After we finished the move, we ate delicious pizza on the deck of the new house. There were a few fruit trees that I'd never heard of before with these small succulent fruits with huge seeds. Nominally tasty, though bees nearby scared me. I guess I'm still not over my stinging insect phobia.
I drove back to Palo Alto, and Chuan had moved in and Michael had returned from his travels. Brohaus is up to 6 bros now. The energy is excellent - I had forgotten how much I liked living with tons of people. I long to return to the dorms at A&M and MIT.
Our house has four ethernet switches forming a minimum spanning tree.
Monday: Wildly uneventful.
Tuesday: Before work, I called my mom. She's spent the past several months planning all the details of this giant trip to Boston for her church that they leave for tomorrow morning. I hope it goes well.
After work, I chatted with David Wagner on Skype about possible research collaborations. Fun stuff - I may have more projects to join come Fall.
Wednesday (today): mostly uneventful, but made some good progress on my project at work. When I got home, I googled one of the other imo interns and found his webpage. Turns out he's an excellent pianist.
On that topic: I need to get a tuning kit for this piano that I have at the house, so I can get it in working order.