uncleskeleton

I spent roughly 24 hours in Bergen before flying out to Oslo and on to Reykjavik this afternoon.  Bergen is a very picturesque city, and seems like a good place to spend a few days. It doesn't have the character of a Berlin or a Budapest, but it does well for northern Europe.  Plus, it is very small (<250k I think).  I ate a fucking whale kebab at the fish market there!  How unsustainable is that?  

Reykjavik is small and cute, and you kind of want to pat it on the head and say "there, there, you're important too".  But the silly thing is that it is important, or was at least before its banking idustry exploded.  In any case, it is definitely 21st century with high end shopping, good cafes, etc.  There is a surprising amount of graffiti, which i feel is a little try hard, i mean, you're growing up in a world class, ethnically homogenous city in a land of great beauty and wealth, and a populace that embraces individualism - what exactly is there to rebel against?

Icelandic sounds very strange compared to what I thought - not Germanic at all to my ears, though I think it shares roots.  It's a pleasure to listen to, for some reason.  Kind of mellifluous, in a harsh way.  

I forgot, for dinner I ate a fucking puffin!  What is wrong with me?!  It was tasty, too.  Both it and the whale were very dark and heavy, and tasted ever so slightly fishy.  Tomorrow I resolve to solely eat foods we wouldn't be prosecuted for back home.  

Watching the sun set against the mountains outside of town.  I have the option of taking a day trip tomorrow, but I'd kind of like to just relax in the city.

I took the train from Oslo to Finse yesterday, then spent the afternoon hiking up to the Hardangerjøkulen, this huge(25 sq mi) glacier.  The terrain was beautiful, and very sparse.  At an elevation of 4000+ feet at 60 degrees north, no plants larger than 6 inches in height seem to grow.  The only things you could see were rocks, raging glacial melt streams, and greenish moss covering everything.  I took a few steps on the glacier, and I really wanted to go further, but Iæm not really set up for that kind of hiking.  If I had gaiters and poles I think I would have gone for it!

3 course meal last night in Finse at my hotel.  Total bill for 1 night, dinner, breakfast, and a packed lunch was $250.  I believe this is actually considered reasonable. 

Anyway, hiking to a glacier, what could possibly top that?  The Rallarvegen, thatæs what!  Itæs a gravel road that they built to create the train line to Finse (and along that high plateau in general).  I rented a mountain bike and panniers, and set out on the trail around 9:30am.  The first 1km was great, but then the trail got extremely rocky.  Without shock absorbers it became kind of painful to navigate, but, the scenery was unmatched.  As I gradually descended, the landscape turned from the lunar wasteland of Finse into a greener and lusher terrain.  Plants got larger, and after about 10 miles I saw my first tree (I think it was birch).  I cycled on and on, for hours, through gorgeous valleys, along cliffs, over glacial rivers, around lakes, past little red barnlike houses, and eventually got to Myrdal, the next town on the railway from Finse.  That part of the journey was around 25 miles.

At Myrdal, the railway continues on to Bergen, on the coast, and a spur juts into the Flamsdal, or the Flam valley.  But...the Flam valley is like 2000 ft below Myrdal.  How do I get down there?  20 switchbacks on the trail is how.  I walked the bike for most of them, since it was very rough, and I was a little top heavy with my backpack.

The Flamsdal is ridiculously picturesque.  I cycled past little farms for the next 12 miles.  Goats greeted me!  I canæt even really describe the valley, but imagine in your mindæs eye the most nostalgic Enid Blyton english countryside, rosy cheeked milkman making a delivery while a boy in knickers plays with a terrier.  Yeah, it was a little like that, but with 2000 foot cliffs and whitewater rapids. 

Eventually I got to Flam, tired, sore, and really wanting a cup of coffee.  Flam is kind of a tourist trap, but itæs pretty, and on the fjord.  I have a good room about 0.5km away thatæs much quieter.  Itæs very spartan, but it overlooks the fjord.
 

The computers I am using here are difficult to type on due to the keyboard not offering tactile feedback, so please excuse typos!  Weather was great here in Oslo today, and I spent most of the day outside.  First a filling breakfat at my hostel, with bread, salami, cheese, and cheapo caviar.  Then a ferry ride across the Oslofjord to another part of the city to see some excavated viking ships.  At another museum there they had the Fram, a ship used by Amundsen and other polar explorers.  It was huge and they had a multistory building around it.  The ship was icelocked in the arctic for 3 years during a polar expeditionø all survived. 

Spent the early afteroo at Gronkerlokka, kind of a hipster hangout in Oslo.  Saw a bunch of street fairs, including a bbq contest with a team named the Hungry Mullets.  Of course I got a pic.  Then worked my way north to the forest Nordmark, which encroaches on Oslo and provides many hiking trails.  I hiked about 3 miles to another metro stop, basically lost in the forest the whole time.  The trails are well signed, but very circuitous, and I swear they took me in at least two circles.  Passed en route by plenty of joggers, bikers, etc. 

Norway is extremely pricy.  A simple sandwich can go for $15, and a beer for 10.  Not impressed with an overwhelming sense of culture so much, compared to say Paris or London, but the city is very pretty and reminds me of Seattle in many ways.  Taking the train to Finse tomorrow.  Yesterday saw (obligatory) The Scream, as well as a 14th century fort.  Drank coffee at a cafe on the main drag, saw all kinds of sights (midget on skateboard, girl hanging out of stretch limo hummer screaming holding champagne flute, guy dressed in banana suit, 100 people chanting something as they walked into the Hard Rock Cafe)  

I realized I've done a lot of traveling over the past year.

Maryland over Christmas
Whistler in early January
Chicago in March
Amsterdam/London/India in April
Chicago again in June
San Jose in September
LA in October
Santa Fe over Christmas
Vegas in January
Whistler in February
Banff in March

My FOIA request from the Department of Homeland Security came through, after something like 8 months.  I don't understand most of what's in the packet they sent me, but I'll probably look around online to try to find help interpreting it..

The information came in a nondescript manila envelope the size of half a printed page.  Curiously, the envelope has "Penalty for Private Use $300" - am I as the recipient expected to report someone sending me private mail in such an envelope?  Are DHS employees that untrustworthy, and is that print really an effective deterrent?

Inside the envelope is 15 pages of material.  The cover page is from US Customs and Border Protection, and is personally signed (in ink!) by the FOIA director of the Office of International Trade.  How he is able to access Customs and Border Protection records, I don't know.  The cover letter describes 3 reasons that the enclosed 14 pages of information may be redacted (USC 552 (b)(2), (b)(6), and (b)(7)(c)).  The (b)(2) redactions are administrative stuff.  The other ones are related to personal privacy.

Pages 1 through 3 are a query of my "passenger activity" in what I believe is the "TECSII" system.  A google search indicates that is the "Treasury Enforcement Communication System".  A DOJ website says that this is "TECS II was created to maintain and receive information on persons entering the United States...".  The TECS II query is heavily redacted, having removed what appears to be the name of the immigration inspector, along with some administrative stuff.  I can't really guess what that stuff is.

According to pages 1-3, I have been scanned by authorities fourteen times since 1994, the earliest date in the log.  In some cases, the port of entry is missing, and in others, I appear to have been scanned by foreign authorities (why would US authorities have scanned me in Amsterdam, when traveling out of the US?)

Pages 4 through 8 are thinly redacted ((b)(2)) and contain a very detailed listing of the flight information of the trip I took to London in 4/2007.  Information that is contained includes flight numbers, prices, seat numbers, my booking agent, where the tickets were delivered, how they were signed for, etc.  Pretty standard stuff, but it's all in their database.  It's difficult to read because of a bunch of acronyms that I don't understand (basically gibberish).

Pages 9 through 14 are similar to the previous pages, but they include 2 similar (duplicate?) copies of my trip to Morocco.  Again, they are thinly redacted, but very difficult to read because of the acronym jargon.  Each copy is dated; one would have been at the start of my trip, and the other copy at the end.  

I think there's plenty of information missing - what about my trip this Spring, for example?  Also, the list of passport scans seems suspect, since it's not self-consistent and I believe is missing at least one trip to Vancouver in April 2006.  Also, sadly, there was nothing too juicy in the results, but I can always file for an appeal and see what else I get.

What should you take away from this?  Basically, for me, it's just confirmation that DHS knows all, and that this country is a giant police state that makes the former USSR look like the Klondike circa 1896.  They're collecting data on you at rates the likes of which the world has never seen before (because it's never been possible), and it's only a matter of time before it's used in ways it wasn't intended for.  I guarantee you we don't have the right privacy protections in place to prevent abuses.  And until the US populace view privacy from the government as a right every bit as essential as freedom as speech, we never will.

(as if you needed another reason)

 I called up the dishwasher installation contractor today, to find out what time they were coming on Thursday.  They said "some time on Thursday.  We'll let you know the window by Wednesday evening".  Well, that just doesn't work.  Don't these contractors realize that people have jobs?  I can take a few hours off work to babysit the installation, but at least tell me what times you're free so that I can plan in advance.

So, I got angry and told them to cancel it.  Then, I called up my backup contractor, who I got through www.servicemagic.com, but couldn't reach him (by then it was nearing 5pm).  

Later this evening, my thought process went as follows: if I can remove the OLD dishwasher, I can probably install the new one.  If I can't install the new one, I just hire a contractor.  And if I can't remove the old one, I just hire a contractor.

30 minutes later, I have two dishwashers sitting in my living room!  It was easy as pie to remove.  The hardest part was figuring out which circuit breaker controlled the dishwasher - I learned they're mislabeled.  I have every reason to believe that installation of the new one will be as simple, I just need to find my tape measure and purchase a level.

Plus, I'll save 100 bucks!

As the computer crashed 3/4 of the way into my post and I lost the writeup, I will be brief.  

* Virgin Atlantic is awesome.  The planes have a bar (not that I'd have a drink on an airplane, but it's neat to look at), they give you socks and a toothbrush, the food is good, the bathrooms are big, and they have a drinking fountain which is a GREAT step forward for long flights.  Oh, and our flight from London to delhi was nearly empty - nice.

* Agra is an oppressive 108 degrees right now.  After wandering around for 6 hours in the sun, Jen and I are in a nice and cool AC'd internet cafe...whew.

* I've got a little culture shock, more than I expected, but it's not that bad.  I quickly got into the habit of telling off touts and such.  The second day (today) is fine, yesterday was a little nerve wracking.

* I think Jen has a lot of culture shock :)  She's having fun, though.  We've had some pretty good Indian food so far, though our first meal - on Connaught place in Delhi - was Chinese, mostly because we just wanted something easy and safe and air conditioned.

* Today we took the train from Delhi to Agra (2 hrs) and then saw the Taj and Red Fort.  The Taj seems more impressive than it did last time I saw it, and I'm not sure why...maybe because I didn't get off an air conditioned tour bus right at the gate?  I actually kind of like negotiating with the rickshawwallas.

I can't remember if I wrote about my hotel the first night here, but it was amazing - situated right on a major street corner (Prinsengracht and Leidseplein), the room was huge and inviting, and windowed its entire length (on 3 sides!).  Plus, the bathroom counter was especially high (I notice these details).  Too bad it was too expensive to stay for more than one night.

I picked up Jen at Centraal yesterday morning - or rather, she found me, head buried in the guidebook sitting on the stairs near her arrival platform.  We went directly to our hotel to drop off the backpacks.  Here's a bullet list of what followed:

* The Rijksmuseum, where we saw the works of the Dutch Masters including Vermeer and De Hooch.  I really liked DeHooch as a painter, and I think the genre I liked best was the breakfastpiece - just still lives of breakfasts sitting on a table, with cheese, bred, interesting goblets (the same one which I saw in multiple paintings by different artists) and of course your occasional insect.
* Albert Cuyp market, a big open-air market near our hotel.  Plenty of camoflauge print was seen.
* Checking in at the hotel, which was pretty much uneventful (crisis averted...)
* A wander around the city.
* The sexmuseum, very, very lowbrow museum of, essentially, pornography.  For 3 euros it was worth it with some interesting stuff there.
* A search for kebabs for dinner (we found them)
* Stroll through the red light district
* A couple drinks at a British pub with very comfortable faux-leather seats.
* A smoke of apple tobacco at a hookah bar, spontaneously, on the way home.  Jen was the only woman in there - the rest were all middle-Eastern men playing backgammon while they smoked.  I gave the waiter a "shukran" (thank you in Arabic) and he got excited.

That sounds like a lot more than we actually did, but it's accurate.

On a side note, the night before last, I had some very wild and vivid dreams which I believe were caused by the mefloquine (a once a week anti-malarial).  I didn't have them last night, which I as happy about, because they were kind of nightmarish, honestly.  I guess this is an effect that occurs in 25% of people who take the drug.  I was worried about having more dreams, because the half-life in the body is 2-4 weeks, but I was okay last night.

On to the Anne Frank Huis!

I've developed a routine here!  I get on the 8:28 train to Delft, and return on the 5:43 back to Den Haag Centraal.  I'm starting to recognize the people at the train stations.  There's also a fry stand I pass by on the way back to the hotel that I have stopped at a few times.

Dinner last night was pork tenderloin in "farmer's sauce", which was pretty much your basic stew.  It was good.   After dinner, I txt'd Jen a few times, and then hung out at a cafe near my hotel for a bit before returning to wash socks.  Yes, I washed socks in the sink of a 130 EUR/night hotel, but trust me, it was the right thing to do.

The conference is taking place at NEN, basically the Netherlands' equivalent of ANSI.  It's kind of in the middle of nowhere, but it has an excellent cafeteria with salads, good lunchmeat, etc - in general higher quality food than at MS.  I had some amazing pastrami on Monday, but struck out on a fancy (but sweet - wtf?) cheese sandwich yesterday.

I've read a lot of things about poor service in the Netherlands, but I haven't had that experience.  Service has been prompt and smiling, and everyone's English is excellent.  Maybe the complaints about poor service are more about the tourist traps in Amsterdam? 

Yesterday, I went to see the Africa Museum, built around 1900 or so to basically show off Belgium's colonies.  Of course, it's changed slightly since then.  Belgium's colonial history isn't presented as up-front and negatively as I would have expected, but it's frank about some of the abuses.  There was a lot of space devoted to the history of the "Congo Free State", which is the euphemism Belgium gave their territory before formally annexing it as a colony.  Wikipedia seems to say that colonialism is still a touchy subject in Belgium.

The exhibits covered the flora, fauna, and cultures of Africa, and were generally very good (though written in French and Dutch).  Some of the original display cases were still there, holding all sorts of jars containing pickled animals - this must be an early 20-th century thing(?)  The museum has one of the largest collections of wood (yes ... wood) in the world, something like 56000 samples. 

To get to the museum, I had to take the metro out to the suburbs, and then a tram from there.  The tramway went for miles along a beautiful tree-lined boulevard - I forgot my camera back at the hostel!!

When I returned, I went out for a jog in the royal gardens, about a mile from where I was staying, and then went out for dinner and a drink with this Australian guy.  He was in Europe for the first time, and had just come from Amsterdam.  Actually, that was common to a lot of people at the hostel.  I think Brussels must just be a convenient spot while traveling from Amsterdam to Paris.  I'm not sure I'd recommend others go to Brussels.  I think Bruges or Antwerp would be more interesting.  For dinner I had little fillets of pork with peas in a pod and carrots.

Anyway, I woke up at 5:30 this morning to make a 6:15 train to Rotterdam.  At Rotterdam, I missed my intended connection to Delft Zuid (South Delft) because the stupid ticket machines only take chip cards (basically a debit card you use without a pin).  They don't even take cash!  I had to wait in line for a cashier, so, I arrived at my meeting 20 min late.  The compass proved valuable trying to find my way from the station to the meeting location.

Oh, and the chairs in this conference hall are not comfortable- way too low.  Which is weird, because Dutch people are tall.  I have like 36 more hours of sitting in them :(

I got about 4-5 hours of sleep on the flight to Amsterdam, so I was in pretty good shape today. Nothing, anyway, that coffee couldn't fix.  I took the train directly from the airport at Amsterdam to Brussels.  The airport was kind of funny - in the international arrivals terminal, everything was in English (and NOT Dutch).  I couldn't even figure out how to say "men" as in "men's restroom" until I got into the airport proper.

The train to Brussels was about 2.5hrs and an intercity commuter, so people kept getting on and off.  Not that it was a problem since I slept most of the way.  En route, I saw a bunch of garden plots, which interestingly enough looked just as decrepit and cluttered as the ones at Marymoor.

Walking around Brussels, Tintin is EVERYWHERE.  His visage graces bars, shops, even a museum, wherein I saw, among other artefacts, King Ottokar's Scepter, a box of Flor Fina cigars, and the scrap of canned crab label that said Karaboudjan.  Pretty sweet.  Tintin is like Superman in Belgium.

Other than that, I just walked around Brussels a bunch.  I met some people at the hostel I'm staying at - Andrei (German guy coming to Belgium to watch his team in a football game) and Alicia (Western Michigan student studying in London), but no one was really interested in going out for dinner or afterward.  They were all about buying doners and eating them in the common room.  So, I wandered around, found live outdoor jazz, and had mashed potatoes (stoemp) and a trappiste ale.

Good Night!

I'm trying to remember when I've gone to India.

1981ish - I know there was a trip around age 2, but I recall nothing.
1987 - This was when we were there for 4 months.  I was in second grade.  I think this trip had the frigid Frankfurt layover.
1990ish - I don't remember exactly when this was, but I remember thinking about it sitting in my 5th grade classroom.  This would have been the trip with Ashwin, Dad and me where stopped at Hong Kong and flew business class all the way.
1994ish - For Jaesma's wedding, with Dad, Uncle Ramu, V & V.  Saw the Taj as well.
2001 - With Dad, Ashwin, Evan, stopped over in Singapore.  This one is still on my passport.
2008 - Upcoming! With Jen.

I feel like I'm missing a trip or two in there somewhere.  Was Ashwin's first trip to India really in 1987 at age 5?  And which trip had the infamous Bombay layover?  It couldn't have been 1990 or 1994, because the whole family was there, and I remember it pretty clearly, so I don't think it's 1987.  Was there another trip in the late '80s, or one in middle school?  I can't believe I don't remember this!

edit: Okay, I remember the trip with the Bombay layover coincided with an airplane crash at Delhi.  That was part of the reason they grounded the plane and basically imprisoned all of us onboard.  The aviation safety database lists several crashes in '90, '93 and '94, but I was thinking it would have been more like '91 or '92.  I'm sure my memory is just faulty.  The 1994ish trip could have been 1995, and it would then make sense that the missing trip would have been '93.  

I give up!

I watched this movie last night at my mom's recommendation.  It was pretty good, and sort of reminded me of Lost in Translation.  There were some outright funny moments (like the changing of the calendars), but the movie seemed to kind of lack a point, and I couldn't figure out the characters' motivations or the tacked on god/devil symbolism.  And wouldn't the girl, who was born in Japan, and purposely moved back because of her love of the culture, well, understand the culture better?  Cut out 40 minutes and it would have been fine as a non-feature-length film.

Oh, and I liked Amelie-san's earrings.

And I watched a foreign film, and am therefore that much more cultured.

I was researching hotels in Amsterdam just now, when I realized that I'm putting quite a lot of time into this trip as compared to previous trips I've taken.  For instance, when Sharad and I went to Spain, Morocco and Tunisia, we never knew where we were staying in advance.  We'd get off a bus in a cloud of dust and wander around looking for a place to drop our packs.  It was fun, but perhaps more time was spent on logistics than should have been?  Anyway, I don't mind the planning I'm doing now, and I'm eager to see how much more time of mine it frees up to do stuff.

I remember arriving with him in Madrid in the morning, being so tired, and taking the train into the city center to find a place to stay.  On the way, we stopped at some random cafe in a shitty neighborhood to get breakfast.  It was slowly starting to dawn on us that no one in Spain spoke any English - I think we just figured, eh, it's Europe, we can count to 10 and say Si, we'll be fine.  An hour and a half off the plane, we were sitting at this cafe desperately googling Spanish phrases on my cell phone just so we could settle up the tab.  LOL.  It was actually a lot easier to get around in Morocco and Tunisia, due to their francophone history.

Later in the trip, we rolled into Douz at 5am...  here is the story of that experience:

Sharad and I flew Royal Air Maroc from Casablanca to
Tunis on the evening of the 11th.  The flight was
uneventful, but we ran afoul of the Tunisian
immigration authorities.  Sharad got through okay, but
the passport police guy called in his superiors
because he couldn't find the Moroccan exit stamp (it
was very faint).  We got a little bit of the grill and
the guy kept insisting that we could enter the
country, but that we would have to leave through
Casablanca, which we have no intention of doing.  He
didn't speak great English and our French may be
sufficient to get around, but not to negotiate the
finer points of Tunisian immigration law.  So
eventually, he let us in, but he marked "CASA" on our
entry stamp and insisted we could only leave through
Casa.  Who knows if they honor that or not, but we
didn't want to risk some beauracracy as we tried to
catch a flight to Rome.

At this point I was getting sick and felt like shit, I
must've caught a bug on the streets of Casa somewhere.
We were like, okay, whatever, and we went into the
country and found a hotel...trying to decide what our
next manouver was.  We discussed a lot of options
including changing our return ticket to Casa (we have
once since it was cheaper) to the day of our flight to
Rome and bargaining our way through immigration on
that...  the next day was Friday and would be
basically our only option to figure things out, since
offices would be closed Saturday and Sunday, and
Monday was MLK.  So the next morning we catch a cab
out to the American embassy and ask them to sort stuff
out.  They telephoned the folks at Tunisian
immigration who said it wouldn't be a problem to leave
for someplace else.  Hopefully this matter is settled,
we'll see on the 16th when we try to leave.  We have
the lady's ph# at the embassy though, so if they give
us trouble we're gonna put them in contact with her.

Anyway we caught this 9 hour overnight bus to Douz in
the south of Tunis.  We show up at this deserted
outpost at 5:30am, it's FREEZING, and all the signs
are in Arabic.  Fortunately the LP has a map (which
Sharad's hands were too cold to hold)...so we roll
into this hotel, me still sick, Sharad with
hypothermia or something and wake up the proprietor.
He's showing us to the room and all me and him want to
do is sleep, but sharad still feels the need to ask if
the water is hot.

Sharad: "Est-ce que l'eau est chaude?  A quelle heur
l'eau est chaude?" (Is the water hot?  At what time
does it get hot?)
Guy: Oui, chaude!  Du jour, chaude! A la nuit, chaude!
Toujours, chaude, chaude, chaude! BON NUIT!  (yes,
hot! During the day, hot! During the night, hot!
Always hot, hot, hot! GOOD NIGHT!)

Hhaahahahaha, it was hilarious.  Anyway I wasn't
feeling that great the next morning either, and Sharad
was talking to the guy about a 4x4 trip down to Ksar
Ghilane.  He pressed me for a definitive and I said
no, so he was gonna go by himself.  However I went out
and bought some bread and OJ, and after consumption,
felt 10x better, so I came along too.  We went down
the pipeline road, which is probably on the map.  It's
a new road and pretty decent.  The road was about
100km through desert, the most desertified desert
you've seen, way more than I've ever been through in
the USA.  We passed the huge encampment of some Saudi
prince who holidays in Tunisia for 2 months every
year.  Eventually we pulled into this huge oasis,
literally an oasis like you may imagine.  It was big,
though.  Stayed in a tent like at Guru F's, ate meals
in the eating tent, and left the next morning.

We also went on a 2 hour camel ride through an endless
sea of sand dunes near the oasis.  ENDLESS!!  A
gigantic sea of sand, the Grand Erg Oriental.  It was
desolate!!  I've got some pictures I hope will be
pretty good, one in particular in twilight that should
be amazing.  BTW, riding a camel for 2 hours is not
comfortable.

We saw stars brighter than I've ever seen them before.
Sharad mistook the milky way for a spotlight coming
from the nearby Pansea hotel.  It was pretty funny.

Returning from Ksar Ghilane, we took a jeep road
across the dunes.  And that brings us to this
afternoon.

Unlike the grilled chicken at Fatburger, I highly recommend TripIt.  I read about it originally on Joel On Software.  It's a service that collects and organizes all your travel information.  Flights, rental cars, hotels, etc - just forward your confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com, and the site will organize everything!  So far, it's managed to parse text, HTML email, and even PDF attachments, all from multiple travel vendors.  You can create multi-person itineraries as well.

You can also use your email account to automatically query your trip, by sending them an email containing commands like "get Chicago flight".  Supposedly SMS support is coming in the future.

I worry a little bit about the privacy aspect of sending information such as trip dates, confirmation numbers and flight numbers through email (and having it stored in a single place on their servers), but I guess it's no different than receiving that information at my gmail account.  In any case, in today's world, if you think too hard about the privacy implications of anything, you could probably go insane with paranoia.

In closing: I love this service.

This is one of those so obvious in retrospect things, but don't ever get a grilled chicken sandwich at Fatburger.  They're disgusting. 

Diana was having a party on Friday night, and several of us were all going over from the east side in kinda dressy attire, so I figured why not have a nice dinner out?  I called 3 sushi places and found them totally booked, and then I remembered Asteroid Cafe in Fremont.  I was there last year with Andrea, Chris, Jim and a few others, and the food was good, not too pricey, and the ambience suited the dresses and jackets that we (most of us) were wearing.  This is the same place that we asked the waiter what their most modestly priced wine was.  Haha.

Anyway, I wasn't feeling that great - kind of a headache - but I arrange carpooling and in less than an hour and a half, girls dress, boys comb hair, people get picked up, and we get to the restaurant right on schedule.  Yes!! Another logistical coup.  I love it when things work out.  And Leanora met us there just after we arrived.

The food was a combination of great (the olive plate and the fettucine), so-so (the salad) and meh (Jen's dish, whatever that was).  We probably spent more time there than we should have.  I guess the term is fashionably late?

Here's us!



The party was good - lots of food, a very nice house, and interesting people.  One of the hosts informed me that girls don't like robots.  Another partygoer couldn't stop talking about bodily functions.  And another couldn't stop talking about cheese!

Saturday was Jen's birthday.  After sleeping in and going for a walk to get lunch at Redmond Town Center, Jen and I met back up that evening to have dinner at Via Tribunali in Capitol Hill.  I'd heard about this restaurant before, and walked past innumerable times, but never been.  Caprese: 5/5 stars.  The authentic Neapolitan pizza: 5/5 stars.  This was amazing food.  About my only complaint was that the menu was in Italian!

We wandered over to The Garage at 7:30, where I had booked two pool tables.  People trickled in over the next 2 hours, and there was much laughter, pool, and paparrazi style photography.  A fun night indeed.



...AND, another logistical coup.  I rule!  But it was tiring.  This weekend I am not leaving my house :)

Continuing the car window saga of the last entry...  I took the car into the dealership today.  I guess I could have priced out alternatives, but the sky looked rainy, and I didn't particularly want to tape a garbage bag over the window.  The woman who drives the dealership shuttle is nice, but eccentric (she's driven me before).  She saw my name on her schedule, and it sparked the following conversational topics:

* Krishna's speech to Arjuna on his duty to fight, in the Bhagavad Gita, after Arjuna notices his family members on the opposing side of the battle.
* Senator Robert Byrd's speech to the Senate in 2003, imploring Bush not to go to war.
* The fact that some of the recent middle-east suicide bombers were mentally retarded (i.e. exploited).
* Some former child soldier from Sierra Leone who wrote a book about his travels, and how love healed him.  She actually called me at work later on to tell me the guy's name and the title of his book!

It was a little too much to deal with at 9am before any caffeine.  She's coming to pick me back up at 5:45, and I'm slightly worried that after a whole day of driving around, she'll be boiling over and I won't be able to keep up intellectually with her!

Oh, and not only is the glass broken, but the window actuator is busted.  Total: $750.  I called up some independent garages and received similar quotes.  Why did I buy a European car?

My check engine light went on this weekend.  Well, it was more than that - in fact, my car went into limp home mode.  Luckily, it did this after I had already turned into my complex, so it wasn't a big deal.  Later that day, it was working again.  (Jen, this is why I haven't gone to say hi to your cat.)  Anyway, this morning on my way to work I roll my passenger window down because it has a light dusting off frost on it, and it falls off the rails!!

On my way home from work, I stopped by Schucks to use their diagnostic code reader for the check engine light (ODBC or OBDC or some such).  It's free, and really easy to work - just plug it in under the dash, and start the engine.  I had two codes related to the throttle position sensor, but since the car runs fine now, I'm not too worried.

Anyway, after getting home, I figured I'd try to fix my window.  So I removed most of the things holding the door panel on, but got stymied by a funny looking screw (TORX 25).  Of course, I should have predicted this.  As my dad says, every DIY project requires at LEAST 2 trips to the hardware store (or auto store).  I dashed back to Schucks to pick up a 6$ T25 wrench before they closed.  It's even magnetized!  I love America!

Taking the door off, after that, was easy.



However, to get to the window, you have to remove that big gray spongy thing.  It's glued on.  Every step up until this point was entirely reversible, but, spurred on my confident reports on the internet, I forged ahead and removed it.  Inside, the window was definitely off the rails.  It was also BROKEN.



I guess I need to go to the dealership anyway.  They're going to think it's another failed DIY'er who caused more problems than they fixed, but the window was broken before I opened up the door! I swear it!

In any case, I could have done none of this without my trusty headlamp.

And I still have to take the garbage out, but I'm going down the dangerous path of convincing myself that I'll do it tomorrow morning...

On Saturday, Jim and I drove down to Crystal to ski/board.  We got a late start, and only arrived at Crystal around noon.  In almost every condition relevant to skiing, yesterday was diametrically opposite to the Whistler trip.  The day was sunny, the snow icy, the weather (relatively) warm, and the lift lines non-existent.  It was a nice change.

I think I set a new land speed record on the Gold Hills run.  I got from top to bottom in about 30 seconds, repeatedly.  It was crazy!  I was going so fast, at one point, that my contact blew off.  I was wearing goggles!!  The wind coming through the goggle vents apparently got strong enough to rip it off my eye.  It stuck to the inside of the goggles, so I was able to put it back in.  Still, though.  Wow.  

The view of Rainier from the ridgetop was exquisite.  I've been to Crystal more than a dozen times, and it's always blizzardy up there.  Yesterday, however, there was no wind or snow, no clouds, and the view of the mountain was beautiful.  I really, really, wish I had my camera.