So, one of my long-term projects is to read one biography of each of the presidents, from Washington to LBJ, in order. I'm cutting it off at LBJ because that's civil rights, the Great Society, Vietnam, and because anyone after that is too recent, and any biography is going to be too slanted, because the biographer will likely remember the person, or maybe even actually know them.
I've gotten through Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Quincy Adams, and it has been very interesting so far. My personal evaluation of each after reading their biography is:
Washington: unchanged, but much more refined appreciation
Adams: up
Jefferson: down
Madison: pre-1790, up; post-1790, down
Monroe: up
Quincy Adams: up
I try to read 1 biography per quarter, but sometimes I fall behind. I also get sidetracked; for instance, after Madison I read David McCullough's 1776. If there is any piece of history you're interested in reading about, and David McCullough wrote a book about it, you should read his book. It's better than any other one on the same topic, I promise.
Sometimes I think about the trillion dollars we've thrown at Iraq and imagine all the things we could have done with that money instead:
1) universal healthcare
2) reducing class sizes to 10 for every class in America
3) funding research to create a doughnut that has the same nutritional impact as a multivitamin, yet tastes just like a Dunkin Donut
4) funding research to that would establish the ability of any person to regrow and transplant any part of their body (I need a new right knee, right ankle, right shoulder, left big toe, and 2 new thumbs)
5) gene therapy to restore hair loss (bite me.)
6) setting up a machine that could keep David McCullough's brain alive and functioning indefinitely, so that he could write a biography of each US president, and a book about each major event in world history.
I also got sidetracked because JOC made me read a biography of Ben Franklin, which I did enjoy, but which was motivated by his favoring Franklin over John Adams, and my pointing out that he's on crack for taking that position. After reading it, though, I realized that it was pointless to move on to Andrew Jackson until I read a biography of the other titan of the revolutionary period: Alexander Hamilton.
Prior to reading this biography, all I really knew about Hamilton was that he was shot and killed in a duel by Aaron Burr. I didn't realize he epitomizes the American dream in that he arrived in this country a penniless orphaned teenager but studied hard and eventually became Washington's most important aide during the Revolution, and then during Washington's presidency he more or less singlehandedly created America's financial system, while also helping to establish some of the principles of Constitutional law (implied powers, etc.) that we have built modern American society upon.
But all that isn't really what I think is most interesting. What I think is most interesting is a running theme throughout all 8 biographies I've read so far, which is, the extent to which partisan politics then resembles partisan politics today. If you're like me, you have a tendency to deplore modern politics, wondering why we don't have giants like Washington, et al., to lead us. But in fact, politics then was just as spirited, personal, and frequently bitter as it is today.
The two-party system basically was created out of the extremely bitter political infighting between Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, and his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. Washington was really the first, and only, "uniter, not divider" that we've ever had. Hamilton's group became known as the Federalists, who are the ancestors of the Democratic party, and Jefferson's group became known as the Republicans (who eventually became Whigs, and then became Republicans again in 1854). By and large, Federalists came from the north, and were businesspeople, city dwellers, and abolitionists. By and large, Republicans came from the south, were farmers, and functionally supported slavery. (I say functionally because Jefferson, for example, privately lamented slavery but continued to own scores of slaves while also supporting the right of the South to continue to have slavery).
It is fascinating to see the roots of the modern parties in these 200 year old struggles. Here is a little quote from "Alexander Hamilton", by Ron Chernow:
"It is tempting but misleading to think of the Federalists as the patrician party and the Republicans as representing the commoners. 'The controversy which embroiled the two champions was not basically concerned with the haves and the have-nots,' James T. Flexner wrote of the clash between Hamilton and Jefferson. 'It was between rival economic systems, each of which aimed at generating its own men of property.' In fact, the Federalist ranks had plenty of self-made lawyers like Hamilton, while the Republicans were led by two men of immense inherited wealth: Jefferson and Madison. Moreover, the political culture of the slaveholding south was marked by much more troubling disparities of wealth and status than was that of the north, and the vast majority of abolitionist politicians came from the so-called aristocrats of the Federalist party."
The parallels here, while not perfect, are nevertheless striking. The modern Democratic party continues to draw its support from the north, and from urban areas generally, while the modern Republican party continues to draw its support from the south and from rural areas generally. And how often do you hear Republican commentators refer to Democrats as "elitist", when
1) From a policy perspective, Democratic politics tends to be more geared toward fighting inequity than does Republican politics, and
2) Tons of Republicans are "elitist", as they use the word. Think both Bushes, who come from an old monied family and went to fancy Ivy-league schools (not that attending a fancy Ivy-league school is inherently bad :-)
I guess the big similarity to me is the success Republicans had then in portraying themselves as protecting the interests of the common man, while some elitist other party tried to screw them, when all the while they were in fact protecting the interests of a narrow slice of the population- a slice of the population that already had tremendous wealth and power. And the battles fought between the parties then were titanic, bitter, fundamentally ideological, and had ramifications for generations.
Just like today.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Spring trips: Monterey
I'm in the middle of a ridiculous string of consecutive weekends traveling:
5/10 - Houston, for Blanc's wedding
5/17 - NYC, for Alix's graduation
5/24 - Monterey, to visit with my sister and my brother
5/31 - LA, for Gina's wedding
6/7 - NYC, for my birthday and Keiko and my 1 yr anniversary of our 1st date
6/14 - NYC, for Alexandra's graduation
6/21 - NYC, for my annual Director's meeting at work
I am racking up the frequent flyer points on JetBlue, let me tell you. In fact, the 5/17 trip to NYC was free. I haven't written about the Monterey trip, so I'll do that now...
Keiko came in Wed night; it works out that the evening JetBlue flight out of JFK gets in around midnight, well after my last Wed night lesson ends. We crashed early, since my sister and her husband Dan were arriving late the next morning. Now, the original plan had us all heading straight to Half Moon Bay and having lunch there, but if you recall from my post about the NYC trip, I had slept through my flight, and as a consequence had to move a lesson onto Thursday at lunchtime. So, the trip got off to a somewhat inauspicious start when (a) we were 20 minutes late picking up Dan and my sister, and (b) I had to tell them to amuse themselves in downtown Palo Alto for a couple hours while I tutored.
Apparently, the 3 of them had a nice lunch somewhere, and when I was done we headed to HMB to pick up stuff for the trip. We had decided to take the coastal route down the PCH all the way to Monterey, which is a gorgeous drive. Because of our late departure, we hit traffic, and ended up barely making it down to the Martine Inn in Monterey just barely in time to change clothes and head to our dinner reservation. Since my sister was a party to this trip, we had fancy things like dinner reservations and itineraries of what we were doing on a given day. All that structure's a little much for me, but hey, I'm flexible.
The view from the front of the Martine Inn.
Sadly, I'd forgotten to print out directions to the restaurant, and the verbal directions involved a tunnel, and a street we couldn't find. But we knew it was near the wharf, wherever that was, so I just hugged the coast as much as possible, and we eventually blundered into the place, a mere 25 minutes late for our reservation. For me, this is a solid performance.
Fortunately, it's Thursday night, so the restaurant wasn't too packed, and we got seated. The food was yummy- a lot of seafood, predictably, but the best part was watching Dan attempt to get help choosing an entree from the waiter.
Dan: "Excuse me, I'm trying to choose between [entree A] and [entree B]. Can you recommend one of them to me?"
Waiter: "Well, is there one in particular you're leaning toward?"
Dan (looking confused): "Well, no, that's the problem. Which one is better?"
Waiter: "'Cause if there's one you're leaning toward, you should go with that."
Dan: "Uh, true, but-"
Waiter: "Which one jumped out at you first? That's probably the one you should go with."
Dan: "Well, technically entree A, but that's becau-"
Waiter: "Then I'd recommend that one, since it jumped out at you first."
Dan: "-se it's the first thing on the menu, so of course you see it fir- you know what, I'll just take entree A. Thanks."
Laszlo has a theory that you can tell the direction of the overall macroeconomy by examining the quality of service in places like restaurants and big box stores. When the economy is doing well, smarter, more skilled people get the better jobs, leaving all the entry level service jobs for, not to put too fine a point on it, dumb people. And dumb people are terrible at customer service. When the economy is doing shitty, smart people start losing better jobs, and supplanting the dumb people in the entry level service jobs. But smart people make for much better customer service.
Based on this theory, our experience in the restaurant says that the economy should be turning the corner any day now.
After knocking back a bunch of food and a bottle of wine, we headed back to the inn and turned in early. Keiko and I were particularly looking forward to the first part of Friday's itinerary, which I had lobbied hard for: sleeping in. Although we have a mutual fondness for Bed & Breakfasts, our track record for getting up in time to attend breakfast is pretty dismal, and Friday was no exception. So we had little food in our bellies as we headed out for item 2 on the itinerary: Monterey county wine tasting.
The first place we went was Chateau Julien, which had gorgeous grounds, and, I must say, decidely mediocre wine. We were all pretty disappointed. But the next place, Bernardus, was a jackpot. Everything tasted good, and some of it was really good, so Keiko bought me a couple bottles for my birthday and we headed to their restaurant for a late lunch.
Chateau Julien
Dan and my sister at Chateau Julien
Lunch at Bernardus was great, sitting outdoors in the sun, sipping awesome wine, etc. When we were done we realized we were all ready for a nap, so we headed back to the Martine Inn. Of course, being me, once there I got sidetracked by the 1950's era race cars that the owner of the Inn has stashed in a garage on the property, and then by exploring all the various halls and passages that led to other rooms, and then by the secret door that was hidden behind a giant mirror, which I believe leads into the wing of the building that the owner lives in, and then by the old pool table in the salon, where I dispatched Keiko a couple of times [for the record, she's actually pretty good], and then by the early evening wine & cheese that the Inn serves, and then by the sea lions that you can see playing in the water from the big bay windows in the room where they serve the wine & cheese. In short, ADD = no nap.
Sea lions on the beach by the Inn. These creatures understand how to live.
Check out that rack...
Eventually, it was time to get ready for dinner. When I said earlier that I'd forgotten to print out directions to the restaurant Thursday night, what I meant by that was that I'd forgotten to print out directions to every place we were going that weekend. Fortunately, this restaurant was actually situated on the wharf itself, and we'd discovered how to get into that area the night before, so we were only about 10 minutes late for this reservation, owing largely to having to park on the other side of the earth.
As you might guess, this was another place that largely served seafood, but I found some great pasta and had that. And we could see sea lions playing in the water as we watched the sun set. That, plus great champagne, made for another great meal.
After the meal, we were slated to head to the theatre to watch the Chronicles of Narnia. What transpired was a 45 minute blundering about of the entire Monterey peninsula, asking several different people where the giant mall with the giant theatre complex was, with no one giving even remotely helpful directions, until we realized what we really needed right then:
A teenager.
Sure enough, at the closest coffeeshop a 16 year boy gave us perfect directions to the mall/theatre, and we managed to get in just as the movie started. For the record, it was quite good. I really enjoyed the books when I read them as a kid, and I'm thus far enjoying the conversion to a cinematic format.
From there, we awaited the arrival of my little brother Mikie, and his new girlfriend Nini. No one in the family had yet met Nini, so my sister and I were very much looking forward to this. Mikie, you see, is a bit of a player, and he doesn't very often acquire GF's, nor keep them for terribly long when he does acquire them. For several years now, my sister had spoken wistfully of Mikie's last GF, "Darlene- Such A Nice Girl!" [henceforth referred to as Darlene-SANG] Well, she didn't last because Mikie, in a bold show of caring and empathy, helped Darlene-SANG's parents plan a surprise 21st birthday for her, and then that night, at around 10pm, after all the other guests had arrived, Mikie called up to say that he was on South Padre Island with his frat buddies, because it was his last possible frat event (he was about to graduate from college).
Naturally, Darlene-SANG was a bit upset by this. Crushed, really. Which, BTW, Mikie had a hard time fathoming. My sister felt so embarrassed for Mikie that she sent Darlene-SANG flowers on his behalf. But that was really the beginning of a pretty quick ending for that relationship.
My personal favorite Mikie story occurs a couple years earlier, when he and I were both home for the holidays. He and I were staying down in Willie's room, in the cat-shit-smelling basement, while Willie crashed at some of his stoner friends' places. This was not an imposition on Willie- he was a lot like an outdoor cat. He would disappear for days on end, and so you just put out some pizza rolls on a plate and eventually he'd turn up hungry and eat them.
As I was walking back from the bathroom in the basement, to our shared bedroom, I could hear Mikie on the phone:
Mikie: "Dude, if you're not comin', then it's just me and Nana [his best friend] and like 6 or 8 chicks in the hot tub tonight."
(pause as friend presumably is speaking...)
Mikie: "Well don't you worry about that, 'cause Big Daddy M can handle those ladies..."
Me: "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"
I was rolling on the floor- I nearly burst something. BIG DADDY M??? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Mikie was seriously annoyed.
Anyway, so Mikie had a new GF, and we were excited to meet her. They were driving up from San Diego, which is a pretty long drive, so they got in pretty late and we had to wait until Saturday morning to meet Nini. For the record, we like her. She is American, but grew up in Saudi Arabia, where her parents still work. She is smart, cute, and seems to be able to handle the Mikie-ness of Mikie, which is a pretty critical quality to have.
After meeting Nini, we went to grab lunch down by the Monterey Aquarium, which is awesome. Not the lunch, which was disappointing (I had disappointing fish & chips- Barbara's Fishtrap in HMB has the best fish & chips around), but the Aquarium. Our group broke down into the following components:
Me: happy to spend hours looking at all the exhibits, including putting my hands in the touch ponds to play with all kinds of slimy, scaly, bizarre-looking creatures of the sea
Keiko: happy to humor my desire to do the above, while keeping herself amused by taking pictures
Dan, my sister, Mikie, and Nini: bored after 90 min and ready to please-can-we-get-the-hell-out-of-here
I think we ended up spending 2.5 hours there, and I could easily have stayed longer. Fish are mesmerizing.
Jellyfish. I love this shot. It's quite good, which is how you know Keiko took it, not me.
Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...
Funky cool eels...
I kept waiting for one of them to tap dance, but no such luck. I think these penguins all have sad feet.
Sneaky dude, waiting patiently...
Look! Sea anemonemonemonees...
Sand dollars! Tons of 'em. It's like Nature created a giant, underwater, biological tip jar.
Sharks are so badass. I totally want to be a shark, but lacking gills, the closest I could get is I-banking (uh, no thanks), or corporate law (I don't want to die inside).
After the aquarium, we headed back to the Inn because Keiko and I were moving over to the hotel Mikie and Nini were staying at, and my sister and Dan were moving to a super-fancy place further south. So after relocating everyone and getting changed for dinner, which was at the Bernardus winery again, at their other, nicer restaurant, we met at my sister's room for some pre-dinner wine and some NBA playoffs.
Me and Keiko, and the view from my sister's room.
Mikie and Nini.
Dinner at Bernardus was amazing. Definitely one of the best meals I've had in a long, long time. Although we knocked back a lot of wine, we managed to get ourselves to the theatre again for a late show of Indiana Jones. Now, I'm the easiest touch in cinema audiences- I'll believe anything you want. The world is being invaded by a giant army of tiny, man-eating, one-pawed cats with green feet from the planet Felinus? Sure, I'll believe that- I can see them now, hordes of them hopping by the Secret Service and eating Dick Cheney. Just make your story internally consistent. I was a little annoyed that with decades to think about it, the writers couldn't come up with a story that was even remotely internally consistent. That, and if I wanted to see the X Files movie, that's what I'd do.
Anyway, after the movie we headed back to our hotels, and the next day met back at my sister's place for a very nice brunch on the patio deck overlooking the cliffs and the ocean. Very nice. Then Mikie and Nini headed out for their long drive south, and Dan, my sister, Keiko, and I all headed back up to HMB.
Once there, we dropped Dan and my sister off at the Ritz Carlton ('cause that's how my sister rolls- don't say the rest of didn't warn you, Dan), and they opted for couples massages, etc. Keiko and I opted for that long-awaited nap. Then we went back down to the Ritz to meet them for a walk on the beach. We got sidetracked by a wedding, which my sister wanted to watch, presumably because she's a woman and therefore thinks weddings are inherently interesting. As a guy, I think weddings are inherently boring as shit, and only become interesting to the extent that you actually know the people getting married. But the grounds of the Ritz in HMB are stunning, and the weather was perfect, and so we watched some strangers get married before taking our walk on the beach.
The view from the beach at the Ritz-Carlton HMB.
That's the Ritz up on the cliff.
Me and Dan, killing time while my sister waits for strange WASPy people to get married.
From there, we headed down to Mezza Luna, in HMB's harbor (just down the road from Barbara's Fishtrap). I've noticed that every major city in America seems to have a "Mezza Luna" in it, but the one in HMB is most appropriate (just in case you're not up on your Italian, Mezza Luna = Half Moon). Dinner there was quite good, and involved more wine (we drank a shit ton of wine on this trip), but we decided to call it an early night after all the weekend's activities.
The next day, I was all set to drive Dan and my sister to San Jose airport. We planned to be there to pick them up at 10, but were running a little late and picked them up at 1015. Now, Dan is the kind of guy who gets antsy if he's only an hour early for his flight, so my plan was to arrive early enough to take scenic route 84 to the airport without causing undue stress. With our late arrival, that plan seemed tenuous, but I figured we'd still get them there a full hour early.
Of course, it had been quite a while since I'd driven scenic route 84, and I kinda forgot that although it travels the same net distance east/west as the 92, which is the usual way I get in and out of HMB, it is a WAY windier road, and so you can't travel nearly as fast on it. About 1/4 of the way up into the hills that separate the coast from Silicon Valley, I realized that this was actually going to be cutting it pretty close. But still, we should get them there 30-40 minutes early.
Then we ran into the construction.
It's a one-lane road each way, and our direction is closed for construction, so we have to wait what seems like 3 days before all the traffic coming the other way has cleared, and we can proceed to use the one remaining lane. Conversation, incidentally, has now ceased. I am focused on taking every turn as fast as humanly possible, while everyone else is focusing on trying not to reveal how stressed out they are.
When we finally get out of the hills, I am relieved, because now I can get us on the freeway, and make back some of the time. If I speed like mad, I can probably get us back up to 30 minutes early. I get on the freeway, and immediately kick it up to 90 mph, which is about as fast as my SUV can realistically go.
And so, as I come around the first turn on the highway since I got on, I nearly pass a CHP officer in the next lane while going 90. This would not be good, as I got a speeding ticket 7 months and 7 days ago as of this writing, meaning I still have 10 months and 23 days to go before I can get another speeding ticket without it staying on my record permanently. So I hit the brakes and just barely manage to avoid passing him.
Now I'm forced to get in behind him and match his pace. But it's a long way still to San Jose, so I figure sooner or later he's going to pull someone over, or get off the freeway, something.
Wrong.
In fact, he stays in front of me the entire way to the vicinity of San Jose airport, which means he costs me 6-8 minutes. That might not sound like a lot, but given how fine we're now cutting it, that's a significant amount of time.
We get to the airport with 18 minutes to go before their flight is scheduled to take off. We all jump out of the car, exchange superfast hugs, pass off the baggage, and then they run like crazy. Poor Dan had an expired license, which he had to use until the new one came in the mail, so he had to go through extra security, and so when they ran up to the counter, the gate agents were in the process of giving their seats away to standby passengers, which they were only just barely able to head off. But they made it. They got on the plane, and so did their bags, and the story ends well there. All in all, a great weekend.
BTW, I hope you will note that with a crazy dramatic airport arrival, we have yet another happy ending. This fits the pattern I've been establishing about the folly of showing up early to the airport. I'll have more to say about that in my next post- 3 trips to NYC.
5/10 - Houston, for Blanc's wedding
5/17 - NYC, for Alix's graduation
5/24 - Monterey, to visit with my sister and my brother
5/31 - LA, for Gina's wedding
6/7 - NYC, for my birthday and Keiko and my 1 yr anniversary of our 1st date
6/14 - NYC, for Alexandra's graduation
6/21 - NYC, for my annual Director's meeting at work
I am racking up the frequent flyer points on JetBlue, let me tell you. In fact, the 5/17 trip to NYC was free. I haven't written about the Monterey trip, so I'll do that now...
Keiko came in Wed night; it works out that the evening JetBlue flight out of JFK gets in around midnight, well after my last Wed night lesson ends. We crashed early, since my sister and her husband Dan were arriving late the next morning. Now, the original plan had us all heading straight to Half Moon Bay and having lunch there, but if you recall from my post about the NYC trip, I had slept through my flight, and as a consequence had to move a lesson onto Thursday at lunchtime. So, the trip got off to a somewhat inauspicious start when (a) we were 20 minutes late picking up Dan and my sister, and (b) I had to tell them to amuse themselves in downtown Palo Alto for a couple hours while I tutored.
Apparently, the 3 of them had a nice lunch somewhere, and when I was done we headed to HMB to pick up stuff for the trip. We had decided to take the coastal route down the PCH all the way to Monterey, which is a gorgeous drive. Because of our late departure, we hit traffic, and ended up barely making it down to the Martine Inn in Monterey just barely in time to change clothes and head to our dinner reservation. Since my sister was a party to this trip, we had fancy things like dinner reservations and itineraries of what we were doing on a given day. All that structure's a little much for me, but hey, I'm flexible.
The view from the front of the Martine Inn.
Sadly, I'd forgotten to print out directions to the restaurant, and the verbal directions involved a tunnel, and a street we couldn't find. But we knew it was near the wharf, wherever that was, so I just hugged the coast as much as possible, and we eventually blundered into the place, a mere 25 minutes late for our reservation. For me, this is a solid performance.
Fortunately, it's Thursday night, so the restaurant wasn't too packed, and we got seated. The food was yummy- a lot of seafood, predictably, but the best part was watching Dan attempt to get help choosing an entree from the waiter.
Dan: "Excuse me, I'm trying to choose between [entree A] and [entree B]. Can you recommend one of them to me?"
Waiter: "Well, is there one in particular you're leaning toward?"
Dan (looking confused): "Well, no, that's the problem. Which one is better?"
Waiter: "'Cause if there's one you're leaning toward, you should go with that."
Dan: "Uh, true, but-"
Waiter: "Which one jumped out at you first? That's probably the one you should go with."
Dan: "Well, technically entree A, but that's becau-"
Waiter: "Then I'd recommend that one, since it jumped out at you first."
Dan: "-se it's the first thing on the menu, so of course you see it fir- you know what, I'll just take entree A. Thanks."
Laszlo has a theory that you can tell the direction of the overall macroeconomy by examining the quality of service in places like restaurants and big box stores. When the economy is doing well, smarter, more skilled people get the better jobs, leaving all the entry level service jobs for, not to put too fine a point on it, dumb people. And dumb people are terrible at customer service. When the economy is doing shitty, smart people start losing better jobs, and supplanting the dumb people in the entry level service jobs. But smart people make for much better customer service.
Based on this theory, our experience in the restaurant says that the economy should be turning the corner any day now.
After knocking back a bunch of food and a bottle of wine, we headed back to the inn and turned in early. Keiko and I were particularly looking forward to the first part of Friday's itinerary, which I had lobbied hard for: sleeping in. Although we have a mutual fondness for Bed & Breakfasts, our track record for getting up in time to attend breakfast is pretty dismal, and Friday was no exception. So we had little food in our bellies as we headed out for item 2 on the itinerary: Monterey county wine tasting.
The first place we went was Chateau Julien, which had gorgeous grounds, and, I must say, decidely mediocre wine. We were all pretty disappointed. But the next place, Bernardus, was a jackpot. Everything tasted good, and some of it was really good, so Keiko bought me a couple bottles for my birthday and we headed to their restaurant for a late lunch.
Chateau Julien
Dan and my sister at Chateau Julien
Lunch at Bernardus was great, sitting outdoors in the sun, sipping awesome wine, etc. When we were done we realized we were all ready for a nap, so we headed back to the Martine Inn. Of course, being me, once there I got sidetracked by the 1950's era race cars that the owner of the Inn has stashed in a garage on the property, and then by exploring all the various halls and passages that led to other rooms, and then by the secret door that was hidden behind a giant mirror, which I believe leads into the wing of the building that the owner lives in, and then by the old pool table in the salon, where I dispatched Keiko a couple of times [for the record, she's actually pretty good], and then by the early evening wine & cheese that the Inn serves, and then by the sea lions that you can see playing in the water from the big bay windows in the room where they serve the wine & cheese. In short, ADD = no nap.
Sea lions on the beach by the Inn. These creatures understand how to live.
Check out that rack...
Eventually, it was time to get ready for dinner. When I said earlier that I'd forgotten to print out directions to the restaurant Thursday night, what I meant by that was that I'd forgotten to print out directions to every place we were going that weekend. Fortunately, this restaurant was actually situated on the wharf itself, and we'd discovered how to get into that area the night before, so we were only about 10 minutes late for this reservation, owing largely to having to park on the other side of the earth.
As you might guess, this was another place that largely served seafood, but I found some great pasta and had that. And we could see sea lions playing in the water as we watched the sun set. That, plus great champagne, made for another great meal.
After the meal, we were slated to head to the theatre to watch the Chronicles of Narnia. What transpired was a 45 minute blundering about of the entire Monterey peninsula, asking several different people where the giant mall with the giant theatre complex was, with no one giving even remotely helpful directions, until we realized what we really needed right then:
A teenager.
Sure enough, at the closest coffeeshop a 16 year boy gave us perfect directions to the mall/theatre, and we managed to get in just as the movie started. For the record, it was quite good. I really enjoyed the books when I read them as a kid, and I'm thus far enjoying the conversion to a cinematic format.
From there, we awaited the arrival of my little brother Mikie, and his new girlfriend Nini. No one in the family had yet met Nini, so my sister and I were very much looking forward to this. Mikie, you see, is a bit of a player, and he doesn't very often acquire GF's, nor keep them for terribly long when he does acquire them. For several years now, my sister had spoken wistfully of Mikie's last GF, "Darlene- Such A Nice Girl!" [henceforth referred to as Darlene-SANG] Well, she didn't last because Mikie, in a bold show of caring and empathy, helped Darlene-SANG's parents plan a surprise 21st birthday for her, and then that night, at around 10pm, after all the other guests had arrived, Mikie called up to say that he was on South Padre Island with his frat buddies, because it was his last possible frat event (he was about to graduate from college).
Naturally, Darlene-SANG was a bit upset by this. Crushed, really. Which, BTW, Mikie had a hard time fathoming. My sister felt so embarrassed for Mikie that she sent Darlene-SANG flowers on his behalf. But that was really the beginning of a pretty quick ending for that relationship.
My personal favorite Mikie story occurs a couple years earlier, when he and I were both home for the holidays. He and I were staying down in Willie's room, in the cat-shit-smelling basement, while Willie crashed at some of his stoner friends' places. This was not an imposition on Willie- he was a lot like an outdoor cat. He would disappear for days on end, and so you just put out some pizza rolls on a plate and eventually he'd turn up hungry and eat them.
As I was walking back from the bathroom in the basement, to our shared bedroom, I could hear Mikie on the phone:
Mikie: "Dude, if you're not comin', then it's just me and Nana [his best friend] and like 6 or 8 chicks in the hot tub tonight."
(pause as friend presumably is speaking...)
Mikie: "Well don't you worry about that, 'cause Big Daddy M can handle those ladies..."
Me: "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"
I was rolling on the floor- I nearly burst something. BIG DADDY M??? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Mikie was seriously annoyed.
Anyway, so Mikie had a new GF, and we were excited to meet her. They were driving up from San Diego, which is a pretty long drive, so they got in pretty late and we had to wait until Saturday morning to meet Nini. For the record, we like her. She is American, but grew up in Saudi Arabia, where her parents still work. She is smart, cute, and seems to be able to handle the Mikie-ness of Mikie, which is a pretty critical quality to have.
After meeting Nini, we went to grab lunch down by the Monterey Aquarium, which is awesome. Not the lunch, which was disappointing (I had disappointing fish & chips- Barbara's Fishtrap in HMB has the best fish & chips around), but the Aquarium. Our group broke down into the following components:
Me: happy to spend hours looking at all the exhibits, including putting my hands in the touch ponds to play with all kinds of slimy, scaly, bizarre-looking creatures of the sea
Keiko: happy to humor my desire to do the above, while keeping herself amused by taking pictures
Dan, my sister, Mikie, and Nini: bored after 90 min and ready to please-can-we-get-the-hell-out-of-here
I think we ended up spending 2.5 hours there, and I could easily have stayed longer. Fish are mesmerizing.
Jellyfish. I love this shot. It's quite good, which is how you know Keiko took it, not me.
Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...
Funky cool eels...
I kept waiting for one of them to tap dance, but no such luck. I think these penguins all have sad feet.
Sneaky dude, waiting patiently...
Look! Sea anemonemonemonees...
Sand dollars! Tons of 'em. It's like Nature created a giant, underwater, biological tip jar.
Sharks are so badass. I totally want to be a shark, but lacking gills, the closest I could get is I-banking (uh, no thanks), or corporate law (I don't want to die inside).
After the aquarium, we headed back to the Inn because Keiko and I were moving over to the hotel Mikie and Nini were staying at, and my sister and Dan were moving to a super-fancy place further south. So after relocating everyone and getting changed for dinner, which was at the Bernardus winery again, at their other, nicer restaurant, we met at my sister's room for some pre-dinner wine and some NBA playoffs.
Me and Keiko, and the view from my sister's room.
Mikie and Nini.
Dinner at Bernardus was amazing. Definitely one of the best meals I've had in a long, long time. Although we knocked back a lot of wine, we managed to get ourselves to the theatre again for a late show of Indiana Jones. Now, I'm the easiest touch in cinema audiences- I'll believe anything you want. The world is being invaded by a giant army of tiny, man-eating, one-pawed cats with green feet from the planet Felinus? Sure, I'll believe that- I can see them now, hordes of them hopping by the Secret Service and eating Dick Cheney. Just make your story internally consistent. I was a little annoyed that with decades to think about it, the writers couldn't come up with a story that was even remotely internally consistent. That, and if I wanted to see the X Files movie, that's what I'd do.
Anyway, after the movie we headed back to our hotels, and the next day met back at my sister's place for a very nice brunch on the patio deck overlooking the cliffs and the ocean. Very nice. Then Mikie and Nini headed out for their long drive south, and Dan, my sister, Keiko, and I all headed back up to HMB.
Once there, we dropped Dan and my sister off at the Ritz Carlton ('cause that's how my sister rolls- don't say the rest of didn't warn you, Dan), and they opted for couples massages, etc. Keiko and I opted for that long-awaited nap. Then we went back down to the Ritz to meet them for a walk on the beach. We got sidetracked by a wedding, which my sister wanted to watch, presumably because she's a woman and therefore thinks weddings are inherently interesting. As a guy, I think weddings are inherently boring as shit, and only become interesting to the extent that you actually know the people getting married. But the grounds of the Ritz in HMB are stunning, and the weather was perfect, and so we watched some strangers get married before taking our walk on the beach.
The view from the beach at the Ritz-Carlton HMB.
That's the Ritz up on the cliff.
Me and Dan, killing time while my sister waits for strange WASPy people to get married.
From there, we headed down to Mezza Luna, in HMB's harbor (just down the road from Barbara's Fishtrap). I've noticed that every major city in America seems to have a "Mezza Luna" in it, but the one in HMB is most appropriate (just in case you're not up on your Italian, Mezza Luna = Half Moon). Dinner there was quite good, and involved more wine (we drank a shit ton of wine on this trip), but we decided to call it an early night after all the weekend's activities.
The next day, I was all set to drive Dan and my sister to San Jose airport. We planned to be there to pick them up at 10, but were running a little late and picked them up at 1015. Now, Dan is the kind of guy who gets antsy if he's only an hour early for his flight, so my plan was to arrive early enough to take scenic route 84 to the airport without causing undue stress. With our late arrival, that plan seemed tenuous, but I figured we'd still get them there a full hour early.
Of course, it had been quite a while since I'd driven scenic route 84, and I kinda forgot that although it travels the same net distance east/west as the 92, which is the usual way I get in and out of HMB, it is a WAY windier road, and so you can't travel nearly as fast on it. About 1/4 of the way up into the hills that separate the coast from Silicon Valley, I realized that this was actually going to be cutting it pretty close. But still, we should get them there 30-40 minutes early.
Then we ran into the construction.
It's a one-lane road each way, and our direction is closed for construction, so we have to wait what seems like 3 days before all the traffic coming the other way has cleared, and we can proceed to use the one remaining lane. Conversation, incidentally, has now ceased. I am focused on taking every turn as fast as humanly possible, while everyone else is focusing on trying not to reveal how stressed out they are.
When we finally get out of the hills, I am relieved, because now I can get us on the freeway, and make back some of the time. If I speed like mad, I can probably get us back up to 30 minutes early. I get on the freeway, and immediately kick it up to 90 mph, which is about as fast as my SUV can realistically go.
And so, as I come around the first turn on the highway since I got on, I nearly pass a CHP officer in the next lane while going 90. This would not be good, as I got a speeding ticket 7 months and 7 days ago as of this writing, meaning I still have 10 months and 23 days to go before I can get another speeding ticket without it staying on my record permanently. So I hit the brakes and just barely manage to avoid passing him.
Now I'm forced to get in behind him and match his pace. But it's a long way still to San Jose, so I figure sooner or later he's going to pull someone over, or get off the freeway, something.
Wrong.
In fact, he stays in front of me the entire way to the vicinity of San Jose airport, which means he costs me 6-8 minutes. That might not sound like a lot, but given how fine we're now cutting it, that's a significant amount of time.
We get to the airport with 18 minutes to go before their flight is scheduled to take off. We all jump out of the car, exchange superfast hugs, pass off the baggage, and then they run like crazy. Poor Dan had an expired license, which he had to use until the new one came in the mail, so he had to go through extra security, and so when they ran up to the counter, the gate agents were in the process of giving their seats away to standby passengers, which they were only just barely able to head off. But they made it. They got on the plane, and so did their bags, and the story ends well there. All in all, a great weekend.
BTW, I hope you will note that with a crazy dramatic airport arrival, we have yet another happy ending. This fits the pattern I've been establishing about the folly of showing up early to the airport. I'll have more to say about that in my next post- 3 trips to NYC.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Reminiscing, Chapter 2, addendum
I forgot to add one of my favorite Gina/Sarah/Gus stories...
Before I went away to business school, I spent four years working in LA in advertising and in tutoring, roughly 70 hours/week altogether, but I also spent 30 hours/week or so ballroom dancing competitively. Over the course of those four years I had two different dance partners, each with her own flavor of drama.
The second one, Debbie, and I eventually made it up through 5 levels of amateur competition to compete at the highest level you can as an amateur dancer. We danced the 5-dance International Latin event: Cha-cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble, and Jive. We only danced two competitions at the highest level before our drama as a dance partnership and our separate directions in life killed us, but in that second (and last) competition together we made it through quarterfinals and semifinals into the finals, where we placed 6th. It was a national level competition, and that was as far as we ever got. We basically got to the point where we could compete with any American couple, but we were nowhere close to being able to beat Russians, who dominate the sport (yes, it's a sport- if something as lame as golf is a sport, ballroom dancing is definitely a sport).
Some Debbie&Gus pics from the vault:
One of our first competitions. That was Debbie's first competition dress.
This competition must have been even earlier- Debbie has no dress, and I'm in a purple shirt. And a bolo tie. Eek.
But it took us 2.5 years to get to the top level, and I was dating Sarah for that entire period, so she had to go to a lot of ballroom dance events. For one of them, Gina decided to come also, and I was particularly excited because Gary and Diana McDonald were going to be flying out from NJ, where they lived and taught, to compete in the Open Professional International Latin event. They were generally regarded as one of the top 2 Latin couples in the US, and I had taken classes from each of them at ballroom dance camp. In fact...
This one time, at ballroom dance camp, I was taking a class from Diana McDonald, who was hothothot, and the TA was helping someone with the step we were doing, which was some kind of chasse into a double reverse spin in the Quickstep, and she wanted to demonstrate the step again, so she quickly looked around the room and then pointed at ME and said, "You- get out here and help me demonstrate this."
I'm just going to go ahead and admit it- I froze. I half turned my head to see if some taller, more obviously skilled guy had sneaked in behind me, but there wasn't anyone. Fortunately, my dance partner (the first one- Maria), put her hand in the small of my back and literally shoved me out there. For the record, this is what was waiting for me out there:
Diana McDonald. And Diana McDonald's legs. I used to weep every time I saw them flex. In fact, I think I'm tearing up now.
So I nervously walked out into the center of this giant room, with all these people around the edge watching me, and I held up my arms into dance position.
Now, one thing you should know about the standard dances- slow waltz, tango, viennese waltz, slow foxtrot, and quickstep, is that the three fundamental partner positions in these dances all involve the woman's hip being pasted onto your hip, and you are in part judged on your ability to maintain this connection through all the moves that you do. As I held up my arms, I expected that we would chastely demonstrate this move, with plenty of space between my obviously unworthy mortal body and her blonde dancing goddess self. So I was caught offguard when she immediately grabbed my hand and came into dance position like the D-train, fully pasting her body onto mine.
At that point, I felt a powerful urge to do what anyone would do in that situation- faint dead away. Fortunately, that powerful urge was trumped by an even more powerful urge: Preservation of Male Ego (PoME). My PoME reflex filled my brain with images of the mortification I would suffer if I did in fact faint dead away, so I managed to focus and execute the move perfectly, after which she sent me back to my spot. I was careful to walk back with all due swagger. Maria and I had gone as part of a much larger group, and for the rest of the day, the other guys in the group would come up to me randomly and say "I heard you got to dance with Diana McDonald... can I- can I just touch you?"
So, it was exciting to think that Gary and Diana would be coming to LA; they normally did not come out for the West Coast competitions, and so Debbie, Sarah, Gina, and I all went. By this time we were dancing a higher level, so we'd acquired better competition clothes:
A very well-centered picture, obviously.
Ballroom dancing is so expensive- and we were so poor. After every competition we'd scour the floor for rhinestones that had fallen off other people's costumes, and Debbie made all her rhinestone stuff, plus glued a bunch on a regular belt I had to make the belt you see in this picture, out of the stones we picked up off the ballroom floors of America.
I don't remember how we did that particular day; I don't think we won, but we probably placed. But later that evening, the event we'd all been waiting for arrived- the Open Professional International Latin competition. Debbie went to go sit with her crazy stalker boyfriend, whose name I don't remember, though I think it might have been Eric, but it doesn't matter anyway because I always referred to him as "Clownboy", or "CB" for short.
Clownboy literally stalked her, and was a big part of the drama that characterized our dance partnership. Although she broke up with him early on, he never really accepted that, and even though she made him give back the key to her place, she would still come home sometimes to find him there. He also would follow her around sometimes, etc. She would frequently wonder aloud what she was going to do, and I would frequently respond to that by suggesting calling the police, charging him with B&E, getting a restraining order, etc., but she always demurred, saying that he really wasn't a bad guy and that he just had "problems".
Duh.
Eventually, she adopted a different strategy altogether- reward the behavior by taking him back. This decision was baffling to everyone on planet Earth not named Clownboy, but I suppose we all have to make our own decisions in life.
Sarah and Gina and I had a table at the far corner of the dance floor, and we were standing with me on the left, Sarah in the center, and Gina on the right. Here are two photos from the evening:
Me and Sarah. Ah, to have hair again...
Me and Gina
Note two things: Sarah is wearing a velvety dress, and Gina is wearing a satiny dress. This is important for reasons you will soon see.
As the highlight of the competition, the Open Professional Latin event came near the very end, so we had been at the competition for several hours. And, it's a five-dance event, so it lasts about 15 minutes or so. So, about halfway through the event, during one of the dances, Sarah, who was getting pretty tired, sat down in her chair, which was right behind her. I didn't notice this, since I was fixated on the competition, and we were wedged in pretty tightly. Being a pretty physically affectionate kinda guy, at some point soon after this I instinctively reached out and put my hand on Sarah's hip, and slowly, sensually, drew it up the side of her body.
Now, 99% of my consciousness was focused on the event. That 99% was like a farmer working way out in his field, totally focused on what he's doing. The other 1% of my consciousness was like the farmer's wife, who comes running out of the farmhouse yelling something. The farmer can't really hear what she's saying, but he can tell by her body language that it's something important. So he starts coming in from the field. Which is to say, I slowly, reluctantly, started to shift more of my consciousness from the competition to my hand, which was continuing to slowly move up Sarah's body.
1% - something's wrong
5% - something's wrong with my hand
10% - something's wrong with the way my hand feels
15% - this feels smooth
18% - and satiny
25% - what does Sarah's dress feel like?
50% - velvety
75% - whose dress is satiny??
100% - GINA'S!!!
And that's when I turned and saw the following things:
1) my hand is now on Gina's upper body
2) Gina is looking at me in shock and horror
3) Sarah, who is sitting down and therefore has an eye-level view of all this, is looking at me in shock
And so I yelped.
Sarah and Gina, bless their souls, upon seeing how shocked and traumatized I was about it, decided it was actually quite funny. I got to that place too- like 2 days later. But that's the story of how I accidentally felt up a good friend in front of my girlfriend's face.
So, sorry Gabe, for feeling up your wife.
But, at least she hadn't yet started dating you then...
Before I went away to business school, I spent four years working in LA in advertising and in tutoring, roughly 70 hours/week altogether, but I also spent 30 hours/week or so ballroom dancing competitively. Over the course of those four years I had two different dance partners, each with her own flavor of drama.
The second one, Debbie, and I eventually made it up through 5 levels of amateur competition to compete at the highest level you can as an amateur dancer. We danced the 5-dance International Latin event: Cha-cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble, and Jive. We only danced two competitions at the highest level before our drama as a dance partnership and our separate directions in life killed us, but in that second (and last) competition together we made it through quarterfinals and semifinals into the finals, where we placed 6th. It was a national level competition, and that was as far as we ever got. We basically got to the point where we could compete with any American couple, but we were nowhere close to being able to beat Russians, who dominate the sport (yes, it's a sport- if something as lame as golf is a sport, ballroom dancing is definitely a sport).
Some Debbie&Gus pics from the vault:
One of our first competitions. That was Debbie's first competition dress.
This competition must have been even earlier- Debbie has no dress, and I'm in a purple shirt. And a bolo tie. Eek.
But it took us 2.5 years to get to the top level, and I was dating Sarah for that entire period, so she had to go to a lot of ballroom dance events. For one of them, Gina decided to come also, and I was particularly excited because Gary and Diana McDonald were going to be flying out from NJ, where they lived and taught, to compete in the Open Professional International Latin event. They were generally regarded as one of the top 2 Latin couples in the US, and I had taken classes from each of them at ballroom dance camp. In fact...
This one time, at ballroom dance camp, I was taking a class from Diana McDonald, who was hothothot, and the TA was helping someone with the step we were doing, which was some kind of chasse into a double reverse spin in the Quickstep, and she wanted to demonstrate the step again, so she quickly looked around the room and then pointed at ME and said, "You- get out here and help me demonstrate this."
I'm just going to go ahead and admit it- I froze. I half turned my head to see if some taller, more obviously skilled guy had sneaked in behind me, but there wasn't anyone. Fortunately, my dance partner (the first one- Maria), put her hand in the small of my back and literally shoved me out there. For the record, this is what was waiting for me out there:
Diana McDonald. And Diana McDonald's legs. I used to weep every time I saw them flex. In fact, I think I'm tearing up now.
So I nervously walked out into the center of this giant room, with all these people around the edge watching me, and I held up my arms into dance position.
Now, one thing you should know about the standard dances- slow waltz, tango, viennese waltz, slow foxtrot, and quickstep, is that the three fundamental partner positions in these dances all involve the woman's hip being pasted onto your hip, and you are in part judged on your ability to maintain this connection through all the moves that you do. As I held up my arms, I expected that we would chastely demonstrate this move, with plenty of space between my obviously unworthy mortal body and her blonde dancing goddess self. So I was caught offguard when she immediately grabbed my hand and came into dance position like the D-train, fully pasting her body onto mine.
At that point, I felt a powerful urge to do what anyone would do in that situation- faint dead away. Fortunately, that powerful urge was trumped by an even more powerful urge: Preservation of Male Ego (PoME). My PoME reflex filled my brain with images of the mortification I would suffer if I did in fact faint dead away, so I managed to focus and execute the move perfectly, after which she sent me back to my spot. I was careful to walk back with all due swagger. Maria and I had gone as part of a much larger group, and for the rest of the day, the other guys in the group would come up to me randomly and say "I heard you got to dance with Diana McDonald... can I- can I just touch you?"
So, it was exciting to think that Gary and Diana would be coming to LA; they normally did not come out for the West Coast competitions, and so Debbie, Sarah, Gina, and I all went. By this time we were dancing a higher level, so we'd acquired better competition clothes:
A very well-centered picture, obviously.Ballroom dancing is so expensive- and we were so poor. After every competition we'd scour the floor for rhinestones that had fallen off other people's costumes, and Debbie made all her rhinestone stuff, plus glued a bunch on a regular belt I had to make the belt you see in this picture, out of the stones we picked up off the ballroom floors of America.
I don't remember how we did that particular day; I don't think we won, but we probably placed. But later that evening, the event we'd all been waiting for arrived- the Open Professional International Latin competition. Debbie went to go sit with her crazy stalker boyfriend, whose name I don't remember, though I think it might have been Eric, but it doesn't matter anyway because I always referred to him as "Clownboy", or "CB" for short.
Clownboy literally stalked her, and was a big part of the drama that characterized our dance partnership. Although she broke up with him early on, he never really accepted that, and even though she made him give back the key to her place, she would still come home sometimes to find him there. He also would follow her around sometimes, etc. She would frequently wonder aloud what she was going to do, and I would frequently respond to that by suggesting calling the police, charging him with B&E, getting a restraining order, etc., but she always demurred, saying that he really wasn't a bad guy and that he just had "problems".
Duh.
Eventually, she adopted a different strategy altogether- reward the behavior by taking him back. This decision was baffling to everyone on planet Earth not named Clownboy, but I suppose we all have to make our own decisions in life.
Sarah and Gina and I had a table at the far corner of the dance floor, and we were standing with me on the left, Sarah in the center, and Gina on the right. Here are two photos from the evening:
Me and Sarah. Ah, to have hair again...
Me and Gina
Note two things: Sarah is wearing a velvety dress, and Gina is wearing a satiny dress. This is important for reasons you will soon see.
As the highlight of the competition, the Open Professional Latin event came near the very end, so we had been at the competition for several hours. And, it's a five-dance event, so it lasts about 15 minutes or so. So, about halfway through the event, during one of the dances, Sarah, who was getting pretty tired, sat down in her chair, which was right behind her. I didn't notice this, since I was fixated on the competition, and we were wedged in pretty tightly. Being a pretty physically affectionate kinda guy, at some point soon after this I instinctively reached out and put my hand on Sarah's hip, and slowly, sensually, drew it up the side of her body.
Now, 99% of my consciousness was focused on the event. That 99% was like a farmer working way out in his field, totally focused on what he's doing. The other 1% of my consciousness was like the farmer's wife, who comes running out of the farmhouse yelling something. The farmer can't really hear what she's saying, but he can tell by her body language that it's something important. So he starts coming in from the field. Which is to say, I slowly, reluctantly, started to shift more of my consciousness from the competition to my hand, which was continuing to slowly move up Sarah's body.
1% - something's wrong
5% - something's wrong with my hand
10% - something's wrong with the way my hand feels
15% - this feels smooth
18% - and satiny
25% - what does Sarah's dress feel like?
50% - velvety
75% - whose dress is satiny??
100% - GINA'S!!!
And that's when I turned and saw the following things:
1) my hand is now on Gina's upper body
2) Gina is looking at me in shock and horror
3) Sarah, who is sitting down and therefore has an eye-level view of all this, is looking at me in shock
And so I yelped.
Sarah and Gina, bless their souls, upon seeing how shocked and traumatized I was about it, decided it was actually quite funny. I got to that place too- like 2 days later. But that's the story of how I accidentally felt up a good friend in front of my girlfriend's face.
So, sorry Gabe, for feeling up your wife.
But, at least she hadn't yet started dating you then...
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Reminiscing, Chapter 2
This weekend I saw my friend Gina get married down in LA. Keiko came out for it, so that makes 5 weddings we've been to in 7 months. Fortunately, I'm down to just a few single friends left, and none of them seem particularly close to getting married, so I might have a break for a while. Keiko's friends are all in that mid-20's stage where at best a few of them will get married, and most of those will regret doing so, so there should be calm on that front as well.
When I was in college, Laszlo, his brother Steve, his friend John, and I all would hang out sometimes. Those 3 all grew up in Claremont, where Pomona College is, so this was their home turf, and when we hung out together we'd go to their favorite HS haunts and mostly talk about nothing.
One night, we went to one of the local parks and had fun being an acapella singing group. Ed, were he here to comment on this right now, would say "Dude, that's extremely gay", to which I would give my standard response, which is: "I have no problem with people being gay, but gay people:
1) Do not get all the fun music
2) Do not get all the nice clothes
3) Do not get all the yummy drinks, and
4) Do not get all the fun activities."
I really don't care if every other guy on earth who likes ABBA, soft sweaters, amaretto sours, and ballroom dancing, and uses the word "yummy" to describe anything, is gay- I'm not, and if you have a hard time believing that, you can, to quote Ed one more time, "lick my balls".
Anyway, so we sang songs for hours, in a manly, platonic, thoroughly fun way. After a bit, we somehow got onto the subject of marriage, and who might get married first. Naturally, this brought out the competitive posturing, and it all resulted in the 4 of us making a solemn oath/bet: each of us would throw $500 in a pot. The last person to get married would win the pot.
I vividly remember that night, and vividly remember attempting to talk the others out of it, out of a (in retrospect economically irrational) attempt to prevent them from losing money. Because, I knew they had absolutely zero chance of winning. At the tender age of 20, I already knew I would be very, very late to the marriage party. I could just feel it.
But the others insisted. After all, I was in a relationship with Tasha for over 2 years at that point, and they all teased me that I would in fact get married first. But as I responded I realized for the first time ever that I knew in my gut Tasha and I would never be married, and I tried to warn them. They didn't listen.
I won the bet years ago. Laszlo, Steve, and John have all been married for years and have among them 2, 3, and 2 kids respectively. But they all went on strike and said I don't get to collect my winnings until I get married. Which is a bit of a cop-out, but I don't have the leverage to force the issue. Anyway, I won and they know it, and most of the utility (in an economic sense) comes from that. But I do wish now that I'd gotten other people in on the bet; enough other people and it might've paid for a wedding someday.
Since it's a pain in the ass to drive down to LA, especially if you have a big honkin' SUV like I do and gas is 6 trillion dollars a gallon, I decided to fly down to LA. By using southwest, and having Keiko come in on JetBlue, I was able to time our arrivals at Burbank airport to within 1 minute of each other. Of course, that meant getting to the airport, which is all too often something of an adventure with me.
I managed to finish tutoring at 615pm Friday night, and took my stuff for the long walk down to the CalTrain station to catch the 712pm train. Catching that train was important because the next one wouldn't get me to the airport in time to make the 9pm flight. I reached Darbar, which is an Indian restaurant right across the street from the train station, at 630. As I passed Darbar, I decided to duck in and get some food. I made this decision based on the following factors:
1) There were still 42 minutes before the train was due
2) I only needed to cross the street and go through the tunnel under the tracks to the southbound side and buy a $4 ticket at the machine, and
3) Darbar has historically been pretty speedy about serving your food
I knew I'd be rushed, but I hadn't had a meal yet and we had an hour drive to Claremont coming after we landed and got a rental car, so I didn't want to have to stop us for food once we were in LA.
By 642, I was seated, with yummy chicken vindaloo in front of me, reading my book (The Great Influenza, by John Barry- quite good), and I set about eating quickly as I read. At 657, I told the waiter I needed my check because I had to catch a train across the street. He proceeded to go to the counter, pick up a check, and deliver it to another table, then greet a family coming into the restaurant, then seat said family, at which point I got up and walked up to the counter myself, trailing my suitcase. Then he ran up and gave me my check.
By this point, it was 705. I paid cash to save time, and at 707 was out the door, now feeling a bit nervous. I half walked, half ran across the street to the tunnel that goes under the tracks, now able to hear the train's horn blowing in the distance.
And that's when I discovered the construction.
Apparently, for the last year they've been building a new southbound platform. Of course, I haven't been here a year so I never noticed a change, but since the last time I took the train down to the airport, which is the only reason I ever take the train, the new platform apparently got finished. And so the old platform, and the tunnel leading to it, were fenced off and blocked by light construction machinery. There was, however, a sign telling me that I could find the new platform that-a-way, to the left.
Somewhere.
It's now 710, and I have no idea where the new tunnel/platform are, I can't just run across the tracks because everything's fenced off, and even if I did, I would probably get greased by the CalTrain, which is now beginning to pull into the station.
I run down the street in the direction the sign points. I can hear the train braking. I find the new tunnel, and race down it trailing the suitcase. I run up the stairs on the other side. The train is parked, and people are starting to stream off. Shit! Where is the ticket machine?? I find it, and start the process of getting a ticket. People are starting to board. I need to pay $4. I start feeding it $1 bills. The only other thing I have is a $20, and I don't have time to wait for all that change. The first 3 bills go in just fine. The last one gets spit back out. The last people are getting on the train. I swap the $1 bill for a different one. It's even older, and keeps bunching up in the feeder. I finally get it in, and a ticket drops out. I run for the train.
Too late.
The doors close as I'm running at the train, and it starts to pull away.
Fuck. Fuckshitdamnpissfuckitall.
So, now I'm in possession of a $4 ticket I'll never use, since the next train is useless to me. So I turn around and speedwalk back all the way to the office, reflecting as I go that maybe my decision to forgo getting gas on the way to work was unwise. As I left home, I looked at my gas gauge and thought, "Just enough to get me to the office, plus a small fraction of margin, so I can deal with this when I get back from LA."
Now I have to hope that the gas margin is big enough to get me all the way down to San Jose airport, because it's not at all clear that I have time to stop at a gas station. I get back in the office, jump in the GMC, and head off to the airport. It's now 730.
Fortunately, it's just past rush hour, so although traffic is heavy, it's moving. I employ all my most aggressive driving techniques, and arrive at the airport complex at 750. Now I've got to get into long-term parking, and get a shuttle to the terminal.
It's important, if you're someone like me, to know certain things about the airports you frequent, particularly things that help you move through it faster. For the record, you may wish to know that in San Jose's long-term parking lot, the shuttle stops go from A to S, and they form a giant wavy loop. The lot is designed to encourage traffic to flow from A to S, and the shuttle hits the stops in that order. But, if you ignore the way traffic is intended to flow, and make a couple of clever turns, you can immediately end up by stop S, which, because of the loop effect, is actually pretty close to stop A. And, stop S is the last stop the shuttle makes before heading back to the terminals.
So, I whip into the long-term parking lot, bail off the main path, and come flying into the aisle that has shuttle stop S, at which point 2 things happen:
1) The idiot light/sound effect comes on, which means I've got maybe 10-12 more miles of city driving left before I will run out of gas, and
2) The shuttle turns into the aisle.
By the grace of God, there is an empty spot just 15 feet from the shuttle stop, so I zoom into the spot, jump out of the car, grab my suitcase, and run for the shuttle stop, where I'm just in time to jump on. Time: 8pm.
The shuttle drops me off at the terminal at 810, and I check in and get through security by 825, so I am actually able to walk to my gate, where the boarding process is just beginning, at 830. Hence, I congratulate myself for arriving early, because after all, in Gus's world, if you were able to actually walk to your gate, and people haven't even started filing onto the plane yet, you have definitely arrived early.
The flight was a blissfully short 46 minutes, and we had no trouble getting the rental, or getting to Claremont. Both my dance partners lived in Claremont, so I used to drive out there 4-6 times a week for 3 years. I can do it in my sleep, and on some occasions actually have.
Saturday we got up and went for a walk around Pomona's campus. I always try to visit the old alma mater when I'm in town, and I like showing it to people because then it's easier for them to have a picture of what's going on when I tell Pomona stories.
Keiko on Walker Beach at Pomona.
You can't see the mountains in the background, because it was a pretty hazy day. I arrived at Pomona not knowing almost anything about it, since it was originally my 4th choice out of the 4 schools I applied to. In fact, I didn't know there were mountains nearby, and toward the end of August the air quality there can get bad enough that the haze completely obscures the mountains. So, I went through days 1 and 2 not knowing the mountains were there. No one told me about them. So imagine my surprise on day 3 when I woke up, went outside, and looked up to see mountains where there hadn't been any the previous day. It's psychologically jarring in a way that's extremely difficult to explain.
I only applied to Pomona at all because my guidance counselor Bonnie had a rule that you had to apply to at least 4 schools. (If I should ever run into her again, I will thank her for making me apply.) My algorithm for selecting schools was this: I needed a school in or near a big city, relatively small in size, with strong physics, psychology, dance, and russian departments, plus a strong commitment to foreign exchange, and to diversity in the student body. After spending 4 years in a school that was 100% male, 99% Catholic, and 98% white, I was pretty desperate for diversity. Turns out, not so many schools fit that category. I submitted my list as Rice, Oberlin, and University of Chicago. Bonnie made me pick a 4th school, and I ruled out the following alternatives:
1) Duke, because they'd only ever taken valedictorians
2) Swarthmore, because why on earth would you ever want to be in rural PA (sorry, JJM)
3) Reed, because it's in the middle of nowhere and a lot of people there seem to kill themselves
In the end, I picked Pomona because, quite literally, it was in LA, which meant it couldn't be too far from the beach, and I figured if for some reason I ended up going there and hating it, I could always just spend 4 years on the beach, and then figure something else out.
Rice was my first choice because I was in the midst of my first long-distance relationship, with Kate, whom I met in the Soviet Union on the train to Leningrad. [Literally every long-term relationship I've ever had has involved some component of long distance. My therapist keeps bugging me to think about why that might be...] She lived in Houston and was a year behind me in school. They also had a nice partnership with NASA, so I was pretty dead set on going there.
I never took applying to Pomona that seriously, so I decided to have a little fun with the application. My personal essay was a comparison and contrast between myself and Jesus Christ. Sadly, unless it's locked away in a dusty vault at Pomona, the only copy of that essay was on a 5.25" disk from our old Apple IIC, and is lost to history. But I do remember Jesus came out of it looking pretty good.
In the end, Rice wait-listed me, and I got accepted to the other 3 schools. I went and visited Chicago first, and thought it was, in a word, joyless. The students I stayed with said to me: "Don't come here if you want a social life." That's all I needed to hear.
Oberlin remains the site of the best college party I have ever been to. It stretched across 4 or 5 houses along a street, with what most have been hundreds of people drunk off their asses, including, pretty quickly, me. I lost track of the students I was staying with, and at 4am some kind other students helped me find my way back to the room I was staying in. I liked the people I met, but Oberlin is in the middle of a cornfield. So although I had a great time, it seemed to me like that party encapsulated pretty much all there was to do.
Plus, Oberlin was close to some of my mom's wackiest relatives, the ones who would provoke you into an argument about something over dinner and then whip out a pocket book of Bible verses to augment their case. Even though we hadn't told them I was going to be in the area, I think my grandma squealed, and they called up all excited that I might be nearby, and could come over for dinner sometimes. All in all, not a great case for Oberlin.
Pomona was too far away for us to go visit, and that plus my never really taking the application there seriously meant I knew nothing about it. The big determinant was going to be financial aid, since my parents couldn't afford very much at all. Oberlin gave us a relatively crappy deal, so that was the final nail in that coffin (sorry J-Rob, we would've made great classmates!).
Pomona and U Chicago gave essentially identical offers, and since I knew Chicago was joyless, I opted for Pomona, sight unseen. And I've always been glad I did. One of the best decisions I ever made. But I would definitely have gone to Rice if I'd been let in, so it's just another example of the universe having a better idea of what's good for me than I do.
Anyway, Keiko and I wandered around Pomona for a while, and then went for lunch to my favorite Thai restaurant on earth: Sinamluang. I used to go there at least 3 times a week in college. Entrees were $3.50 (Keiko, eyeing $5.50 entrees, "The food is so cheap!" Me, eyeing the $5.50 entrees, "It's so expensive now!"), the place was open until 3 a.m., and the cute Thai waitresses would teach us Thai words. They've really cleaned the place up now- no more animal carcasses hanging next to the cash register, and the bathrooms aren't horrifying, but I'm pleased to report that the food is still outstanding.
From there, we drove down to Temecula for Gina's wedding that afternoon. They had an outdoor ceremony at the Temecula Creek Inn, which was very nice...
Gina and Gabe
My friend Sarah was the Maid of Honor, and I'm proud to say I brought the two of them together; I introduced Sarah to Gina after Sarah and I started dating.
Gina and I worked at Katz together. She was in a different division, and I'd seen her around but never spoken with her. Then, late in 1995 we were asked to fly to NYC and learn the new computer system our company would be going on, and then come back and teach the other 70 people in the LA office how to use it. That was one of my formative tutoring experiences, BTW, and although the LA office was the 2nd biggest in the company, we ended up generating the 2nd fewest calls to the help desk in the first few weeks after we went live on the new system. Only Portland generated fewer calls, and they only had 4 total people, one of whom had gone to NYC for the training (every office sent either 1 or 2 people, depending on size). I don't remember much about the training except that Portland was cute, and the two girls from Atlanta were cute, and we went out drinking every night until 4a.m., and it made me wonder how anyone could possibly live in NYC and not rapidly become broke, alcoholic, and dead from sleep deprivation.
Another thing I remember about the trip was that Gina was scared of flying, and she spent the entire 6 hour flight clutching my arm in ways varying from a vice-grip to a death-grip, depending on whether the plane had just jostled a little or not. Numerous alcoholic drinks did nothing to lessen this. She swears she's better about that now, and I hope for Gabe's sake that that's true.
The wedding was very sweet, and the reception was fun. A few pics from that:
Me and Keiko
Me and Gina. And a lightning bug on my shirt.
Keiko continues to maintain that the lightning bug is not, in fact, a lightning bug, but rather is some kind of giant mutant flesh-eating bug monster from outer space. Or so I gather- I'm paraphrasing a bit. But I'm sure it's just a garden variety lightning bug, despite all her protestations to the contrary. Of course, her people did come up with Godzilla, so it may be natural to see monsters all over the place. [Hopefully this joke is funny enough not to get me into an assload of trouble...]
Me, Gabe, Gina, and Sarah
Hmm, placing 5'7" Keiko in 5" heels next to 5'1" Gina in 2" heels is maybe not the wisest compositional choice...
At the afterparty...
Eventually, Keiko and I bailed the afterparty because we wanted to be able to get up early enough to go to the beach the next day. This was partially successful; we did get to Will Rogers State beach late in the afternoon. But it took forever to get there and then another forever for us to find a place with beach towels, since neither of us remembered to bring one and there's not much in the way of services in Pacific Palisades. Plus, we had to leave to go meet one of Keiko's LA friends. We ate at a place called Buddha's Belly, near the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica:
Me, Keiko, Viv. And Buddha's Belly, which you can see hanging over my shoulder. Keiko kept patting my belly and saying it was good luck... that's her subtle way of calling me fat.
I was happy to hang around Santa Monica more, but Keiko, like most people, seems not to react well to my style of arriving at airports, so we left early and got to the airport at 745 for our 9pm flights. And in the process, I realized that it was actually a good thing that I missed the train, because by the time I would've landed in San Jose and caught the shuttle to the CalTrain station, I would've missed the last northbound train and been stuck in the middle of nowhere where there aren't any taxis. One small thing I do miss about Manhattan is the 24 availability of trains, and the copious supply of taxis (except, of course, when it's raining).
So I made it back OK, and found a gas station about 9 miles from the airport, so that was a little nerve-racking, but all in all a good trip. It was good to see Gina finally find someone; she's always been a sweetheart and deserved to find (and did find) a good guy.
I totally should've made her join the bet.
When I was in college, Laszlo, his brother Steve, his friend John, and I all would hang out sometimes. Those 3 all grew up in Claremont, where Pomona College is, so this was their home turf, and when we hung out together we'd go to their favorite HS haunts and mostly talk about nothing.
One night, we went to one of the local parks and had fun being an acapella singing group. Ed, were he here to comment on this right now, would say "Dude, that's extremely gay", to which I would give my standard response, which is: "I have no problem with people being gay, but gay people:
1) Do not get all the fun music
2) Do not get all the nice clothes
3) Do not get all the yummy drinks, and
4) Do not get all the fun activities."
I really don't care if every other guy on earth who likes ABBA, soft sweaters, amaretto sours, and ballroom dancing, and uses the word "yummy" to describe anything, is gay- I'm not, and if you have a hard time believing that, you can, to quote Ed one more time, "lick my balls".
Anyway, so we sang songs for hours, in a manly, platonic, thoroughly fun way. After a bit, we somehow got onto the subject of marriage, and who might get married first. Naturally, this brought out the competitive posturing, and it all resulted in the 4 of us making a solemn oath/bet: each of us would throw $500 in a pot. The last person to get married would win the pot.
I vividly remember that night, and vividly remember attempting to talk the others out of it, out of a (in retrospect economically irrational) attempt to prevent them from losing money. Because, I knew they had absolutely zero chance of winning. At the tender age of 20, I already knew I would be very, very late to the marriage party. I could just feel it.
But the others insisted. After all, I was in a relationship with Tasha for over 2 years at that point, and they all teased me that I would in fact get married first. But as I responded I realized for the first time ever that I knew in my gut Tasha and I would never be married, and I tried to warn them. They didn't listen.
I won the bet years ago. Laszlo, Steve, and John have all been married for years and have among them 2, 3, and 2 kids respectively. But they all went on strike and said I don't get to collect my winnings until I get married. Which is a bit of a cop-out, but I don't have the leverage to force the issue. Anyway, I won and they know it, and most of the utility (in an economic sense) comes from that. But I do wish now that I'd gotten other people in on the bet; enough other people and it might've paid for a wedding someday.
Since it's a pain in the ass to drive down to LA, especially if you have a big honkin' SUV like I do and gas is 6 trillion dollars a gallon, I decided to fly down to LA. By using southwest, and having Keiko come in on JetBlue, I was able to time our arrivals at Burbank airport to within 1 minute of each other. Of course, that meant getting to the airport, which is all too often something of an adventure with me.
I managed to finish tutoring at 615pm Friday night, and took my stuff for the long walk down to the CalTrain station to catch the 712pm train. Catching that train was important because the next one wouldn't get me to the airport in time to make the 9pm flight. I reached Darbar, which is an Indian restaurant right across the street from the train station, at 630. As I passed Darbar, I decided to duck in and get some food. I made this decision based on the following factors:
1) There were still 42 minutes before the train was due
2) I only needed to cross the street and go through the tunnel under the tracks to the southbound side and buy a $4 ticket at the machine, and
3) Darbar has historically been pretty speedy about serving your food
I knew I'd be rushed, but I hadn't had a meal yet and we had an hour drive to Claremont coming after we landed and got a rental car, so I didn't want to have to stop us for food once we were in LA.
By 642, I was seated, with yummy chicken vindaloo in front of me, reading my book (The Great Influenza, by John Barry- quite good), and I set about eating quickly as I read. At 657, I told the waiter I needed my check because I had to catch a train across the street. He proceeded to go to the counter, pick up a check, and deliver it to another table, then greet a family coming into the restaurant, then seat said family, at which point I got up and walked up to the counter myself, trailing my suitcase. Then he ran up and gave me my check.
By this point, it was 705. I paid cash to save time, and at 707 was out the door, now feeling a bit nervous. I half walked, half ran across the street to the tunnel that goes under the tracks, now able to hear the train's horn blowing in the distance.
And that's when I discovered the construction.
Apparently, for the last year they've been building a new southbound platform. Of course, I haven't been here a year so I never noticed a change, but since the last time I took the train down to the airport, which is the only reason I ever take the train, the new platform apparently got finished. And so the old platform, and the tunnel leading to it, were fenced off and blocked by light construction machinery. There was, however, a sign telling me that I could find the new platform that-a-way, to the left.
Somewhere.
It's now 710, and I have no idea where the new tunnel/platform are, I can't just run across the tracks because everything's fenced off, and even if I did, I would probably get greased by the CalTrain, which is now beginning to pull into the station.
I run down the street in the direction the sign points. I can hear the train braking. I find the new tunnel, and race down it trailing the suitcase. I run up the stairs on the other side. The train is parked, and people are starting to stream off. Shit! Where is the ticket machine?? I find it, and start the process of getting a ticket. People are starting to board. I need to pay $4. I start feeding it $1 bills. The only other thing I have is a $20, and I don't have time to wait for all that change. The first 3 bills go in just fine. The last one gets spit back out. The last people are getting on the train. I swap the $1 bill for a different one. It's even older, and keeps bunching up in the feeder. I finally get it in, and a ticket drops out. I run for the train.
Too late.
The doors close as I'm running at the train, and it starts to pull away.
Fuck. Fuckshitdamnpissfuckitall.
So, now I'm in possession of a $4 ticket I'll never use, since the next train is useless to me. So I turn around and speedwalk back all the way to the office, reflecting as I go that maybe my decision to forgo getting gas on the way to work was unwise. As I left home, I looked at my gas gauge and thought, "Just enough to get me to the office, plus a small fraction of margin, so I can deal with this when I get back from LA."
Now I have to hope that the gas margin is big enough to get me all the way down to San Jose airport, because it's not at all clear that I have time to stop at a gas station. I get back in the office, jump in the GMC, and head off to the airport. It's now 730.
Fortunately, it's just past rush hour, so although traffic is heavy, it's moving. I employ all my most aggressive driving techniques, and arrive at the airport complex at 750. Now I've got to get into long-term parking, and get a shuttle to the terminal.
It's important, if you're someone like me, to know certain things about the airports you frequent, particularly things that help you move through it faster. For the record, you may wish to know that in San Jose's long-term parking lot, the shuttle stops go from A to S, and they form a giant wavy loop. The lot is designed to encourage traffic to flow from A to S, and the shuttle hits the stops in that order. But, if you ignore the way traffic is intended to flow, and make a couple of clever turns, you can immediately end up by stop S, which, because of the loop effect, is actually pretty close to stop A. And, stop S is the last stop the shuttle makes before heading back to the terminals.
So, I whip into the long-term parking lot, bail off the main path, and come flying into the aisle that has shuttle stop S, at which point 2 things happen:
1) The idiot light/sound effect comes on, which means I've got maybe 10-12 more miles of city driving left before I will run out of gas, and
2) The shuttle turns into the aisle.
By the grace of God, there is an empty spot just 15 feet from the shuttle stop, so I zoom into the spot, jump out of the car, grab my suitcase, and run for the shuttle stop, where I'm just in time to jump on. Time: 8pm.
The shuttle drops me off at the terminal at 810, and I check in and get through security by 825, so I am actually able to walk to my gate, where the boarding process is just beginning, at 830. Hence, I congratulate myself for arriving early, because after all, in Gus's world, if you were able to actually walk to your gate, and people haven't even started filing onto the plane yet, you have definitely arrived early.
The flight was a blissfully short 46 minutes, and we had no trouble getting the rental, or getting to Claremont. Both my dance partners lived in Claremont, so I used to drive out there 4-6 times a week for 3 years. I can do it in my sleep, and on some occasions actually have.
Saturday we got up and went for a walk around Pomona's campus. I always try to visit the old alma mater when I'm in town, and I like showing it to people because then it's easier for them to have a picture of what's going on when I tell Pomona stories.
Keiko on Walker Beach at Pomona.
You can't see the mountains in the background, because it was a pretty hazy day. I arrived at Pomona not knowing almost anything about it, since it was originally my 4th choice out of the 4 schools I applied to. In fact, I didn't know there were mountains nearby, and toward the end of August the air quality there can get bad enough that the haze completely obscures the mountains. So, I went through days 1 and 2 not knowing the mountains were there. No one told me about them. So imagine my surprise on day 3 when I woke up, went outside, and looked up to see mountains where there hadn't been any the previous day. It's psychologically jarring in a way that's extremely difficult to explain.
I only applied to Pomona at all because my guidance counselor Bonnie had a rule that you had to apply to at least 4 schools. (If I should ever run into her again, I will thank her for making me apply.) My algorithm for selecting schools was this: I needed a school in or near a big city, relatively small in size, with strong physics, psychology, dance, and russian departments, plus a strong commitment to foreign exchange, and to diversity in the student body. After spending 4 years in a school that was 100% male, 99% Catholic, and 98% white, I was pretty desperate for diversity. Turns out, not so many schools fit that category. I submitted my list as Rice, Oberlin, and University of Chicago. Bonnie made me pick a 4th school, and I ruled out the following alternatives:
1) Duke, because they'd only ever taken valedictorians
2) Swarthmore, because why on earth would you ever want to be in rural PA (sorry, JJM)
3) Reed, because it's in the middle of nowhere and a lot of people there seem to kill themselves
In the end, I picked Pomona because, quite literally, it was in LA, which meant it couldn't be too far from the beach, and I figured if for some reason I ended up going there and hating it, I could always just spend 4 years on the beach, and then figure something else out.
Rice was my first choice because I was in the midst of my first long-distance relationship, with Kate, whom I met in the Soviet Union on the train to Leningrad. [Literally every long-term relationship I've ever had has involved some component of long distance. My therapist keeps bugging me to think about why that might be...] She lived in Houston and was a year behind me in school. They also had a nice partnership with NASA, so I was pretty dead set on going there.
I never took applying to Pomona that seriously, so I decided to have a little fun with the application. My personal essay was a comparison and contrast between myself and Jesus Christ. Sadly, unless it's locked away in a dusty vault at Pomona, the only copy of that essay was on a 5.25" disk from our old Apple IIC, and is lost to history. But I do remember Jesus came out of it looking pretty good.
In the end, Rice wait-listed me, and I got accepted to the other 3 schools. I went and visited Chicago first, and thought it was, in a word, joyless. The students I stayed with said to me: "Don't come here if you want a social life." That's all I needed to hear.
Oberlin remains the site of the best college party I have ever been to. It stretched across 4 or 5 houses along a street, with what most have been hundreds of people drunk off their asses, including, pretty quickly, me. I lost track of the students I was staying with, and at 4am some kind other students helped me find my way back to the room I was staying in. I liked the people I met, but Oberlin is in the middle of a cornfield. So although I had a great time, it seemed to me like that party encapsulated pretty much all there was to do.
Plus, Oberlin was close to some of my mom's wackiest relatives, the ones who would provoke you into an argument about something over dinner and then whip out a pocket book of Bible verses to augment their case. Even though we hadn't told them I was going to be in the area, I think my grandma squealed, and they called up all excited that I might be nearby, and could come over for dinner sometimes. All in all, not a great case for Oberlin.
Pomona was too far away for us to go visit, and that plus my never really taking the application there seriously meant I knew nothing about it. The big determinant was going to be financial aid, since my parents couldn't afford very much at all. Oberlin gave us a relatively crappy deal, so that was the final nail in that coffin (sorry J-Rob, we would've made great classmates!).
Pomona and U Chicago gave essentially identical offers, and since I knew Chicago was joyless, I opted for Pomona, sight unseen. And I've always been glad I did. One of the best decisions I ever made. But I would definitely have gone to Rice if I'd been let in, so it's just another example of the universe having a better idea of what's good for me than I do.
Anyway, Keiko and I wandered around Pomona for a while, and then went for lunch to my favorite Thai restaurant on earth: Sinamluang. I used to go there at least 3 times a week in college. Entrees were $3.50 (Keiko, eyeing $5.50 entrees, "The food is so cheap!" Me, eyeing the $5.50 entrees, "It's so expensive now!"), the place was open until 3 a.m., and the cute Thai waitresses would teach us Thai words. They've really cleaned the place up now- no more animal carcasses hanging next to the cash register, and the bathrooms aren't horrifying, but I'm pleased to report that the food is still outstanding.
From there, we drove down to Temecula for Gina's wedding that afternoon. They had an outdoor ceremony at the Temecula Creek Inn, which was very nice...
Gina and Gabe
My friend Sarah was the Maid of Honor, and I'm proud to say I brought the two of them together; I introduced Sarah to Gina after Sarah and I started dating.
Gina and I worked at Katz together. She was in a different division, and I'd seen her around but never spoken with her. Then, late in 1995 we were asked to fly to NYC and learn the new computer system our company would be going on, and then come back and teach the other 70 people in the LA office how to use it. That was one of my formative tutoring experiences, BTW, and although the LA office was the 2nd biggest in the company, we ended up generating the 2nd fewest calls to the help desk in the first few weeks after we went live on the new system. Only Portland generated fewer calls, and they only had 4 total people, one of whom had gone to NYC for the training (every office sent either 1 or 2 people, depending on size). I don't remember much about the training except that Portland was cute, and the two girls from Atlanta were cute, and we went out drinking every night until 4a.m., and it made me wonder how anyone could possibly live in NYC and not rapidly become broke, alcoholic, and dead from sleep deprivation.
Another thing I remember about the trip was that Gina was scared of flying, and she spent the entire 6 hour flight clutching my arm in ways varying from a vice-grip to a death-grip, depending on whether the plane had just jostled a little or not. Numerous alcoholic drinks did nothing to lessen this. She swears she's better about that now, and I hope for Gabe's sake that that's true.
The wedding was very sweet, and the reception was fun. A few pics from that:
Me and Keiko
Me and Gina. And a lightning bug on my shirt.
Keiko continues to maintain that the lightning bug is not, in fact, a lightning bug, but rather is some kind of giant mutant flesh-eating bug monster from outer space. Or so I gather- I'm paraphrasing a bit. But I'm sure it's just a garden variety lightning bug, despite all her protestations to the contrary. Of course, her people did come up with Godzilla, so it may be natural to see monsters all over the place. [Hopefully this joke is funny enough not to get me into an assload of trouble...]
Me, Gabe, Gina, and Sarah
Hmm, placing 5'7" Keiko in 5" heels next to 5'1" Gina in 2" heels is maybe not the wisest compositional choice...
At the afterparty...
Eventually, Keiko and I bailed the afterparty because we wanted to be able to get up early enough to go to the beach the next day. This was partially successful; we did get to Will Rogers State beach late in the afternoon. But it took forever to get there and then another forever for us to find a place with beach towels, since neither of us remembered to bring one and there's not much in the way of services in Pacific Palisades. Plus, we had to leave to go meet one of Keiko's LA friends. We ate at a place called Buddha's Belly, near the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica:
Me, Keiko, Viv. And Buddha's Belly, which you can see hanging over my shoulder. Keiko kept patting my belly and saying it was good luck... that's her subtle way of calling me fat.I was happy to hang around Santa Monica more, but Keiko, like most people, seems not to react well to my style of arriving at airports, so we left early and got to the airport at 745 for our 9pm flights. And in the process, I realized that it was actually a good thing that I missed the train, because by the time I would've landed in San Jose and caught the shuttle to the CalTrain station, I would've missed the last northbound train and been stuck in the middle of nowhere where there aren't any taxis. One small thing I do miss about Manhattan is the 24 availability of trains, and the copious supply of taxis (except, of course, when it's raining).
So I made it back OK, and found a gas station about 9 miles from the airport, so that was a little nerve-racking, but all in all a good trip. It was good to see Gina finally find someone; she's always been a sweetheart and deserved to find (and did find) a good guy.
I totally should've made her join the bet.
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