Prompted by 6 months of lack of updates on MySpace, I put together a quick “What’s happened in the last 6 months” post. I noticed later that I had already done a few of those months on this site. Oh well, consider this partially a rerun. 🙂
Here are the last 6 months of my life in list format:
October 2007
– Arse Elektronika – How many times in your life can you say you got to see a tongue chainsaw in use?
– LTJ Bukem at Temple (omg) – Incredibly good show that had me dancing even after the rest of the crew left, leaving me alone and smiling.
– Heather’s radioactive treatment for the remainders of the thyroid cancer. She did not gain any new super powers, but everything went well.
– Modeselektor (omg) – tiny little show that was unbelievably good. Dancing until we were dripping with sweat and couldn’t dance any more.
– UNKLE (meh) – finally saw UNKLE live and was unfortunately disappointed.
– Launched www.sklxthemes.com – After months of rewriting the code base I used for sk3themes.com, I launched my first site (www.sklxthemes.com) using the templatized code. Currently the site hovers between 8-9,000 visitors a day. My code stands strong so far! My bandwidth bills ended up shooting through the roof though, but luckily ad revenue still covers it.
November 2007
– Kai’s birthday in Monterey – Went down to Monterey with a group of friends to run around the Monterey aquarium in honor of Kai’s birthday
– Launched www.skslidethemes.com – Second site using my new code! Not as popular since the Slide had a lower adoption rate, but still not bad.
– Said goodbye to Gabby.
– Double date with Mella/Nicole that sparked a Top Gun obsession
– Thanksgiving with Heather’s family
– Mike Doughty – I finally got to see Mike Doughty, the man behind Soul Coughing who’s music I love.
December 2007
– Saw Bladerunner on the big screen – The final cut was released into theaters and we somehow managed to organize 20+? people to get to the theater and see it all together.
– San Jose art trip – Running around San Jose checking out art.
– Early Christmas in NC with my family – Heather and I flew out to NC to stay with my mom and celebrate Christmas early with them. I got to show her around my old high school stomping grounds and she got to meet everyone.
– Heather and I celebrated our anniversary at the top of the Mandarin Oriental – An expensive night, but a gorgeous view with a gorgeous woman that made it worth every bit!
January 2008
– New Years celebration in Joshua Tree – Spent the New Years weekend in Joshua Tree, camping in the backcountry. Millions of Joshua Trees, climbing mountains, freezing, fitting everyone into one tent, and lots of fun.
– Went and ‘heard’ Audium
– Rewatched The Wizard with friends. I love the power glove, it’s so bad.
– Trampolines and Sushi for my birthday (Wow, I actually made it past 27! Now what?)
– Work on 2pir started back up
– Heather and I moved in together into an awesome 2 bedroom right down the street from my old place and across the street from Rubin!
February 2008
– Day trip to LA for work – I love working in the Video Games industry.
– Nicole’s crazy Lego party – So many legos. I didn’t know anyone ever owned that many legos. We managed to put together a couple of sets, but spent most of the time organizing. Rubin made a cool time-lapse video of the afternoon.
– Annual Valentine’s Day Pillow fight in SF – Fun as always
– Snowboarding trip to Yosemite – Spent the weekend with one of Heather’s friends in her cabin in Yosemite. Finally got a chance to go snowboarding after so many years and found out that I still could do it. Next year, more snowboarding trips!
March 2008
– Danger Weekend – shooting semi-automatic weapons and skydiving. I got a chance to shoot an original issue AR-15 and loved it. It’s weird, I never thought I’d be interested in guns.. No interest in shooting anything other than targets though. We also went skydiving the next day. My second jump and it was a lot of fun.
– Bunki got sick (hepatic lipidosis) and had a feeding tube put in! 🙁 We’re not sure why she stopped eating, but she lost 40% of her body weight and her liver wasn’t functioning right. She seems to be on the mend and is eating by herself now. She hates the e-collar though.
– The new and improved Interpretive Arson webpage got built and launched!
– Pi Day (3/14) party at Peter’s – Last minute celebration of Pi day
– Sara’s Arcade Birthday party – A bunch of 20-30 year olds running around an arcade. What’s not to love? Tons of skee ball and crane games.
– (Pre)Easter dinner with Heather’s parents
Whew… Lots of stuff, I’m sure I forgot something or other, but that should be good for now.
Last night was an interesting evening. After meeting up with Rubin, Jake, and Audrey we headed to get sushi, only to find that BART was closed due to a suicide. Then during sushi at Miyabi, we thought we heard someone drop something in the kitchen. The sound was questioned, and we stopped eating to notice that the ground was kind of swaying. I looked up and saw the lights swinging from side to side. The other diners paused for a minute and you could see everyone waiting to see if things were going to subside or get worse. This was the first quake that I’ve been able to ask “Is this an earthquake?” instead of “Was that an earthquake?”. Being in the moment and realizing what was going on felt slightly more comforting. I even had a chance to flip open my Sidekick and send a Twitter message during the actual earthquake. Unfortunately for my “geek cred” Dan beat my to it by 4 seconds (I blame the Sidekick’s slow SMS sending).
Of course afterwards, we were all looking up info on the magnitude, watching the after shocks register, checking on friends, and deleting Twitters and IMs from just about everyone in the Bay Area. But everything is fine, very little to no damage around and as we waited for BART I noticed that the signs in the station said that there was an “earth tremor” and that trains were slightly delayed as tracks were being checked.
My favorite photo of the damage (as pointed out by s4xton) was this one:
Immediately after the 5.6 rumble, there were a number of after-shocks. These have continued through the night and today ranging in magnitude from 0.7 to 2.8. There are also forecasts of a 30% chance of an aftershock of 5 or greater. Hang on everyone!
This may be more interesting to the Bay Area locals, but I figured other people might find it neat as well. This is an old newsreel about the Bay Bridge opening up back in 1936. I love the style with which this news is presented. It’s exciting and sensational and for good reason.
Some fun facts about the Bay Bridge (via wikipedia)
* The Bay Bridge is 44,352 ft (8.40 miles) long.
* One of the busiest bridges in the US, carrying approximately 280,000 vehicles per day.
* The legal name of the bridge is The James “Sunny Jim” Rolph Bridge
* Construction began on July 9, 1933, with the bridge opening on November 12, 1936, causing one of the greatest SF traffic jams ever.
* The total cost came out to $79.5 million (equivalent to $1.07 billion in 2005 dollars).
* The toll started at 65 cents, dropped to it’s lowest of 25 cents.
* The current toll for autos is $4, collected only for westbound traffic. For comparison, the original $0.65 toll in 1936 would be $8.62 in 2005 dollars.
* The dirt excavated for the Yerba Buena tunnel (the largest diameter tunnel in the world) was used in part to build Treasure Island.
* Construction for a more earthquake-resistant replacement on the eastern span began in 2002, with an initial completion date slated for 2007. Now they’re looking at somewhere around 2012 or 2013.
Last Saturday was Bicycle Day. A great day had by all and a near-death experience for me and my very old bike tires. Pictures are here and favorites are below. A HUGE thank you to Ian and Nicole for organizing this, and an extra thanks to Ian for fixing up my bike both before the trip and during. The company was great, Marin county was beautiful, and the ferry ride back into San Francisco reminded me of how beautiful of a city I live in and how lucky I am to have the friends that I do. Here’s our route (thanks to Heather for mapping it out), and a quick rundown of the events:
– Waking up at 9am after getting home from Yuri’s Night at 6am to find that it is raining. We somehow get out of bed and catch the ferry on time.
– Last minute supplies at a bike store in Sausalito
– Bay Model
– Getting lost in suburbia. “I know everything about biking around here except for this exact one spot you are in.”
– Greenbrae Boardwalk (unfortunately noone took photos, but these will give you an idea of how unique of a place it is)
– Waiting for the ferry and watching the clouds grow in the distance over Katamari-esque hills
– A beautiful ferry ride south through the Bay into San Francisco
– A long BART ride back to the Fort where good food was made, fire was spun, and people hung out for hours
Life has been too busy to post regular updates of the caliber that I would like, so here’s a summary post of things over the past week or so.
New Laptop
The laptop is in. It’s nice. It’s small. It has everything I need (except maybe bluetooth but I don’t need that yet). It needs stickers. I’ve stopped hitting “q” instead of tab. Vista is actually kind of nice, although I’m not in love yet. I still don’t know why I get “Access Denied” when I try to open “My Pictures” but the Photo organizer is pretty cool.
Dinner With The Orb
Tuesday night was dinner with The Orb and Heather at The Supper Club here in San Francisco. We literally ate dinner with Alex and Thomas. Their bed at the supper club was next to ours. The food was absolutely wonderful. They accommodated my dairy issues quite well even! The courses? a sushi salad, pepper soup, scallops, unbelievably good organic beef cooked to perfection, some sort of strawberry/yogurt dessert thing, and then a little bit of gelato. The drinks at the Supper Club are also quite good. I highly recommend the Black Cherry Drop. The atmosphere of the Supper Club was surreal. I don’t even know how to describe it sufficiently. We ate dinner on a comfortable bed in an all white room, being served by a man in a tight silver vest and a silver painted mask. The man in an all tie-dye outfit danced with his matching cape, while The Orb (technically Le Petit Orb) played in the center of the room. People were getting massages from the two masseuses wandering around, while others piled pillows in front of The Orb and enjoyed the show lounging a few feet away. People dressed in elaborate costumes slowly moved around the room, in a half-dance, half-walk, providing nothing other than eye-candy. A woman in a gold bikini and gold body paint came out and did some of the best hooping we’ve ever seen. We were in awe and couldn’t take our eyes off her. While we were inside we totally forgot about the rest of the world. The Orb did a set for everyone that was there for the dinner, and then later in the evening the doors were opened to the rest of the world for them to put on another show. By then it was late, we could feel ourselves starting to sink into the bed, so we decided that we should call it a night, as it had already peaked with good music, good food, good company, and good conversation. We gathered our shoes and headed out with smiles on our faces.
Needless to say there are tons of photos and videos of this event as somewhere 1000 people turned out. Although, can anyone back that number up? hehe Here are my photos as well as a video I took walking through the heart of the battle. More photos and videos can be found over at Laughing Squid.
After the pillow fight, it was off to a sushi dinner with Reed before he heads off to the other side of the world for a few months. After who knows how long it’s been since I got food poisoning, I was finally able to eat sushi again, or at least I tried some. Some random postcards, a delicious dinner, and we wished Reed well. For posterity sake, here is a picture of Reed before he left:
Tonight is a “rabbit night” where I get to lock myself in my apartment and get things done that get put off while I’m out having fun. However the weekend brings all sorts of new fun to look forward to.
I never got around to posting about the weekend, and there’s just too much to post. I enjoyed the company of almost everyone I know in San Francisco this weekend at one point or another. I met some new people, yet didn’t really feel like I was meeting them as I was familiar with who there were via the internet. And it was kind of weird (but amusing at the same time) that people knew who I was. Some of the new (in-person) faces now in my conciousness:
