Month: August 2004

Hello everyone.

So it’s been awhile since my last update.

No photos today.  I’ve taken a lot in these last ten days or so, but those will come later.

I’m back home in Oklahoma now.  Nothing much going on here. 
In fact, I’ve seen much fewer people than I usually would have since
I’ve gotten back.

Last weekend I stayed with my roommate Dan at his house in Somerville,
Massachusetts.  On the days while everyone was working at their
internships, I wandered down Highland Ave. near Davis Square and
snapped a ton of pictures of typical Americana.

While in the Boston area, Dan, Tommy, and I went to the Skellig bar in
Waltham and competed in the trivia contest.  We started strong,
but ended with a fairly miserable showing, coming in dead last. 
One round left us with zero points earned.  Unfortunately we will
be unable to show them what we really are capable of because Dan and I
will have a Mathematical Analysis class in which we will prove the
calculus from scratch on Mondays from 9:30 to 11:30 pm this
semester.  What better way to pass the time.

I started and finished Fermat’s Enigma, a book on solving the most
famous mathematical problem of the last few centuries, Fermat’s Last
Theorem.  Since then I’ve completed the first four chapters of the
9/11 Commission Report.

The last few nights have seen countless hours spent on trying to get
multiplayer Red Alert, Red Alert 2, Quake II, Quake III, or Warcraft
III working properly.  Our best successes have been
cross-platform, ironically.

I will take a picture of my family’s new poker chips for the next post.

Last Wednesday Cagle and her friend Erin came from Alabama to visit for three days.

We wandered around the Big Apple and hit a lot of cool shops in
Greenwich Village, where I snagged some good vinyl and a really cheap 
hardcover
copy of Thomas Pynchon’s Mason and Dixon to add to my to-read list.

I found this picture on the wall at Famiglia’s Pizza, a nice New York pizza joint.  My brother will appreciate it.

Tucker, Cagle, Erin, and I went to Jacques Torres’s chocolatier in Brooklyn for my third time.  I found these chocolate sculptures in the back room:

We walked back over the Brooklyn Bridge, for my fourth time.  I
found this spray-painted into the concrete of the bridge walkway. 
I hate it when people spray paint messages on stuff using
stencils.  It’s tacky and rude, but at least in this particular
case it supports my political cause, albeit to an extreme.

We ran into a b-boy posse breakdancing for the crowd later that day.

The next day we ran into a large group of firefighters and police
unexplainedly axing their way into a Borders bookstore which otherwise
seemed fine.

We ate at a nice little Greek restaurant in the Village, and I ordered
pastichio, a traditional Greek dish that my mother and grandmother make
every once in a while since my grandfather has full Greek blood. 
The pastichio was excellent, the salad was wonderful in its feta glory,
and the baklava was just what I like, proving that I do indeed have
Greek blood running in my veins.

On Saturday after the two girls left Tucker, Mara, and I went kayaking
in the Hudson River.  If you go to the end of Riverside Park by
72nd Street, they have a little platform set up where you can hop on a
kayak for free for up to 20 minutes, or up to 2 hours on Fridays.

The journey offered a wonderful view of Manhattan, dominated in this particular area by a series of Trump condominium buildings.

Dan drove down from Boston later that day and stayed the night. 
We ran around town some more and ended up in Hoboken, NJ, for my final
trip to visit Emily at Stevens.  Dan grabbed some of my belongings
to help me in my upcoming move to Boston for the weekend before my
flight home next Wednesday.

On the way back from work on Monday, Tucker and I ran into a strange sight:

Sorry for the gruesome imagery, but whatever got to this bird left the
wings and only the wings entirely intact.  Very strange.

Today Tucker, Mara, and I ate at an Afghanistan restaurant.  I
loved it!  I didn’t expect to, since I had nothing to base
expectations on.  I am now convinced that orange rind should be
put into every dish.

After putting in a little more work on the synth, Mara and I watched a
bootleg copy of Fahrenheit 9/11, which I found to be suprisingly devoid
of any real argument or fresh, important details about its title
disaster.

I highly recommend the 9/11 Commission Report for anyone who wants a
serious look into the reality of the situation.  You can grab a
recording of an executive summary free on iTunes right now.  I
much prefer to read it, however, and want to buy a copy sometime
soon.  It’s now on my Amazon wish list.  Go be curious and poke around on it if you like.