July 9, 2002

No, I'm Not Dead

Well, it's been a while since I made an entry. The reason for this is that I was... on vacation! Yes, I was down in Sunny Southern California for some much-needed and (I might as well be honest) company-enforced R&R. (This year I was prepared for the company's 4th-of-July week shutdown, and I had wisely saved up enough vacation days. I'm slow, but I do learn.) I had planned to do some journal writing remotely using Eric's computer, but Eric bought Warcraft III last week, so really who was I kidding? Not that I don't hunger to just blog, blog, blog during my vacations just like all the other hardcore people out there. ("Hey look everybody! I'm blogging SXSW!!" Feh.)

The other reason it's been a while is that my ISP has gone from bad to worse. But I'm not going to talk about that. The way I figure it, I could spend this entry ranting about my ISP, or I could talk about my wonderful vacation. Heck, experts predict^* that at the current rate of expansion, rants about ISPs, web hosts, spam, and telephone service will constitute over 50% of Internet traffic by late 2005. So let's not go there, okay?

Note: qualifications and even physical existence of "experts" subject to liberal interpretation.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

• Monday, July 1: Drove down to Santa Barbara. Crashed at Rachel and Ben's. Went out to dinner in downtown Santa Barbara and had key lime pie that was not radioactive green. Played pool at Fig & Haley's and was whipped soundly by both Ben and Rachel. Rachel didn't even have to make fish faces to distract me like in the old days. Sad really.

  Take home lesson: I'd love to be a fly on the wall when Rachel and Ben start raising kids. "No, honey, you can't play with those. Those are Mommy's Warhammer 40K miniatures."

• Tuesday, July 2: Drove down to LA at a very leisurely pace. Stopped at Carpenteria beach to read Christina Hoff Sommers's Who Stole Feminism? Tried to convince myself that Sommers is talking about only the most extreme elements of far-left academia, and mostly succeeded. Continued down to Culver City, visited sister Elana, brother-in-law Adiv, Adiv's mother Judy, Adiv's sister Julie, and Julie's sons Toby and Evan. (Would they be my nephews-in-law? Probably not.) Toby, 3 1/2, is energetic. Evan, 1 1/2, is energetic and very drooly. Late in the evening, arrived in Venice Beach and met up with Eric and Susan.

  Take home lesson: Toby decided he needed to distinguish between me and his little brother, dubbing me "Big Giant Huge Evan." From the mouths of babes...

• Wednesday, July 3: Stayed home most of the day. Warcraft III was released today. Eric made a pretense of going to work, but called in "sick", even going so far as to call Susan and me and tell us he wasn't feeling well. Exchanged quizzical look with Susan... does he think he's kidding us? Spent a couple of hours slaughtering evil ghouls and other undead nasties. Felt suitably righteous. In the evening, visited Jessica with Elana and Adiv. Retrieved my Thinking Physics and my Arfken & Weber Mathematical Methods for Physicists from her keeping, where they had resided for the last two years. Discovered that Jessica's boyfriend Ashley is only 26. Wondered why he looks five years older than me, and then remembered: he's a Ph.D physicist.

  Take home lesson: The secret to eternal youth -- bail from grad school, the earlier the better.

• Thursday, July 4: All-day barbeque at Eric's, from 10am to 11pm. Ate all sorts of meats, including real East LA carne asada. Spent a fair amount of time talking to a Swedish au pair who expressed her desire for a green card and mentioned that she really needed to find a nice, rich American man and marry him soon. Wasn't sure if she was kidding about that last part. Decided to retreat to the safety of the living room to play Boggle. Saw Elana and Adiv, plus Byron and Karen... who are engaged! And flying off to Norway for a year to sail Viking ships. Yes, really. Party was at certain points crawling with gorgeous women, nearly all of whom were friends of one of the guests, a fairly good-looking friendly guy named Jose. (Their refrain: "Where's Jose?" "Have you guys seen Jose?" "Why yes, I am a friend of Jose's, how did you know?") Also saw fireworks on the beach, but these were partially overshone by the ten-year-old boys next to us, who decided to dig a large pit and ignite all their fireworks in it at once.

  Take home lesson: There are a lot of very attractive women in LA. Not to mention Santa Barbara. I'm just sayin'.

• Friday, July 5: Recovered from party. Read in paper that the FBI is unsure about the motives of the LAX gunman. Blinked rapidly in surprise. Briefly discussed the idea of going to law school with young lawyers Eric and Susan. Decided that this idea was pretty half-baked and that Eric and Susan are bad influences on me. Not that this disqualifies the whole thing out-of-hand. Took old college mentor, role model, and personal hero Peter Saeta out to dinner. Saeta & family had just returned from a year's sabbatical in Paris the day before. Despite his fatigue, oldest son Brennan (11) gamely stayed up late to ask me Macintosh questions. Peter then showed me the Statistical Mechanics textbook he's writing. He started it in March, and the first draft is almost done. And it's pretty darn good, from the excerpt I read.

  Take home lesson: Writing a book in a workman-like manner without all the angst and fretting and writer's block and writer's groups and blah blah blah seems... I dunno, wrong somehow.

• Saturday, July 6: Read paper. FBI still confused about motives of LAX gunman. Had brunch with Elana and Adiv. Adiv borrowed Thinking Physics -- guess I'll never get that book back home. Adiv strangely uninterested in Arfken & Weber, though. Headed up to Glendale with Eric and Susan to have dinner with Jason and Megan, who I hadn't seen for about nine years. Jason tracked me down last month through the Internet. (Yay Internet!) They are married and very happy in their new house. Managed to catch them up on nine years of my life in five minutes or so. Figured that must be some sort of record.

  Take home lesson: Carignane is usually used to blend other red wines... but the pure stuff from Ridge Winery is definitely a winner.

• Sunday, July 7:Left early. FBI still confused about motives of LAX gunman. Had a nice brunch with Jeff and Renee in Ventura. Made another leisurely drive up the coast to meet Ryan. Relaxed in some natural hot springs, then went to Taco Roco for some excellent cheap Mexican food. Bid Ryan adieu and continued north. Discovered FM 107.3, which plays "Real Rock", not to be confused with "New Rock", "Alternative Rock", "Modern Rock", or any other such namby-pamby predecessors. Despite a few unfortunate glitches in the lineup, generally found it to be superior to every rock station in the Bay Area. For example, every night at 8pm they have something called, "Mandatory Metallica". Now this is an idea whose time has come. Unfortunately 107.3 pizzled out near King City. The next best thing in this NPR-forsaken swath of the state was a station playing Jody Watley. Rest of drive home very depressing.

  Take home lesson: You can never have too much Metallica when driving, or too little Creed under any circumstances.