Uploaded to Flickr on 31st July, 2007.

And if you find this funny, you're a nerd, too!

Also, apologies for the total lack of "real" photos on my stream lately... I've been so busy with the move, and I don't have internet at home yet, so uploading has all but stopped. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of things soon. I have two weddings to upload!

Uploaded to Flickr on 29th July, 2007.

Buddy, Emily and I ran the first half of the San Francisco Marathon this morning, and it went really well for all of us. Buddy finished in just over 2 hours, and Emily and I finished around 2 1/2 hours. And unlike my previous marathon, no walking!

Emily and I were planning on taking the MUNI to the start line, so we were waiting at 4th and Irving at around 4:45am, along with another runner. At around 5, (when the MUNI was supposed to be there), a car pulled up and asked if we wanted a ride, so the three of us hopped in. It turns out that the driver worked at UCSF, and that Emily had exchanged e-mails with her several times, but they had never met. Big city, small world. Because of the ride, we got there earlier than expected, and decided to start one wave earlier. The course was great -- started near the Ferry Building, went up along the water, across the Golden Gate Bridge and back, and then ended in Golden Gate Park. Emily and I stayed together for about 10 miles, and then met up again at the finish line, where Amanda was waiting for both of us. We also found Buddy, who had finished about 30 minutes earlier. Afterwards, we all headed back to our place for an awesome home-cooked brunch. It was a lot of fun! If we stay in shape, we may do the Angel Island half marathon in a couple weeks.

Edit: Race results are already up! I ran it in 2:31:54, which is an average of 11:36/mile.

Edit again: Here are the official marathon photos.

1. Poke holes in the eggplant before baking it.
• Corollary 1: Eggplants are well-sealed and build up a lot of hot steam inside them while baking.
• Corollary 2: Poking a sealed, heated eggplant with a fork creates a small opening through which aforementioned steam can quickly escape.
• Corollary 3: Chopsticks are very useful for picking up pieces of exploded eggplant from a hot oven
2. Vanilla yogurt != Plain yogurt
• Corollary 1: It is possible to use a large spoon to quickly remove a large quantity of vanilla yogurt from a pan with no ill consequences.
• Corollary 2: Cottage cheese makes an acceptable replacement for plain yogurt, in a pinch.

Despite these hard lessons learned, the Baingan Bharta actually turned out excellently. If you decide to try the recipe, the ginger garlic paste can just be replaced with finely diced ginger and garlic.

Another busy weekend, as has been the norm recently. I took Friday off of work so that I could pick up Enzo from the vet that afternoon, and that evening I went up to Berkeley for Sophia and Forrest's wedding. Sophia was really nice and said that I could take pictures at the wedding (i.e. move around during the ceremony and such), but I was a little self-conscious of the loud clack my heels made on the brick, so I didn't actually end up moving around much. I think I got a few pretty good shots, though I haven't actually had time to load them onto my computer to see. The ceremony and reception were at the Brazil Building at Tilden Park, and it was a lot of fun.

Saturday was X-Treme Packing, where Amanda and I attempted to fit all of my worldly possessions into small file boxes purchased from Office Depot. It actually ended up going pretty well, and I was ready to go at 9am on Sunday morning. I used the Delancey Street Movers, and they were just as good as everyone said they were. They were friendly, fast, careful, and got the job done for way under their estimate. Plus, there's the warm fuzzy Karma bonus of helping out a good cause. Amanda took Enzo to the park while the movers emptied out my Mountain View place, and while we were up in SF unpacking, Amanda started cleaning (with Enzo to help, of course.) We finished in the early afternoon, and I said goodbye to my landlord, and turned in the keys.

We've done a bit of unpacking, but mostly the apartment still looks like an Office Depot box bomb exploded in it. The cable guy came yesterday (I yelled at the poor customer service lady for the guy missing his appointment by an hour, so I got a $20 credit), so at least I'm not going to miss So You Think You Can Dance. This is very important, you must realize.

So far, SF living is great. We're all adjusting to walking Enzo in a city, and figuring out street sweeping days is always a test of patience, but I'm having lots of fun!

The apartment is a disaster, but I now officially have a new zip code. Yay!

Enzo has been sick for a couple of days, so I brought him to the vet. His kidney values are high, so they are going to keep him overnight and give him IV fluids, which will hopefully help him feel better.

Send him happy puppy thoughts, please.

It was a busy weekend. Friday night I went to my 2nd-ever baseball game, Giants vs. Dodgers. The Giants got creamed, but I had a good time. I had a hot dog, garlic fries, and cotton candy, and I even have a new arbitrarily-chosen favorite player, #1, Benjie Molina (my old arbitrarily-chosen favorite player, Todd Linden, got traded to the Marlins). Thanks to Justin for getting tickets for us!

Saturday was painting day. Our landlord offered to pay for the paint if we wanted to paint the apartment, so we painted the hallway Mountain Peak white (from a crazy yellow color), and the living room Silken Pine, a pale green (from white.) Big thanks to Yar, Jan, and Abby, who helped us out. The rest of you? Dead to me. Painting took most of the day, but I took a break in the middle of the day to help Yar and Jan and Bruce move their furniture back after getting sweet new carpeting in their house.

That night we met up with Eli, a high school friend of mine, for dinner at New Eritrea which was delicious, as always. We also stopped by Holy Gelato! for dessert, where I had hazelnut and coffee dutch almond. Yum.

Sunday morning Emily and I went on an 8-mile training run, which went pretty well, but I was super tired the rest of the day. After that, I helped Amanda and her Dad move stuff (nothing like carrying heavy things to energize you after a long run), and did a bit more organizing before heading back to Mountain View to meet some folks for dinner.

This week will be Mad Packing (tm) to get ready for my move on Sunday!

As usual, last night EA had an advance screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth Harry Potter movie. I thought it was entertaining, but pretty much exactly the same as every other Harry Potter movie. I have a very strange memory block when it comes to the Harry Potter books and movies, where I pretty much instantly forget them right after I finish them. So in my head, all five movies are pretty much one long mish-mash of a movie. It makes things kind of confusing.

In other news, I got a Samsung Blackjack yesterday. My new apartment gets poor Verizon reception, so I switched to Cingular. With EA's corporate discount, I got a pretty decent deal on a phone plan, and the phone itself was only $75. I have been wanting a Smartphone for a while mostly for its calendaring features (I tried using a Palm Pilot for a while, but found I never wanted to carry it and my phone around at the same time), so I decided on the Blackjack mostly because it looks cool. I've found the interface to be in many cases pretty confusing, and overly complicated. On the other hand, I can check email and surf the web from my phone. So hopefully after some getting used to, it will help keep me organized. Or if not organized, really, really distracted.

Warning: poop talk ahead

When I got home from Chester, I noticed that Enzo's appetite wasn't normal. He was still eating, but slowly, which is really unusual for him. I talked to Bob, his dog walker, and he said that on Sunday morning, Enzo also didn't seem too interested in his food. I was a little worried since Enzo usually lives for food, but I decided to keep an eye on him. Last night and this morning, his appetite seemed to be back to normal, which I took as a good sign. But I was curious about what caused his upset stomach the day before.

When I was walking him this morning, on the grass across the street from my apartment, Enzo did his little poo-prep spin (dog owners should know what I'm talking about) and what should come out in his poo but 4 pieces of balloon (green, white, and yellow, if you must know) and a whole rubber band. The bonus was that the rubber band needed my help to....emerge completely.

I'll bet you wish you had my dog.

This weekend Amanda and I went up to Chester, CA (Where? Here.) to work on Sara's parent's cabin. In exchange for us providing manual labor, her parents paid for our lodging and all our meals. We shared a place with Sara, her husband Jeff, and their AWESOME dog, Dora. The place we stayed at was...interesting. I'll just say that before we arrived, Sara told us "I apologize a thousand times over for the place we're staying." It wasn't actually that bad, but it definitely had its quirks. But hey, it was free!

We arrived late Friday night and hung out with Sara and Jeff for a while before going to bed. We woke up early Saturday morning, and after getting dressed (and after I had spaghetti for breakfast because the only other breakfast option was cereal with lactose-y milk), we headed over to the cabin construction site. The day was spent mostly doing cleanup at the construction site (wood scraps, tar paper, rocks, tree branches) and doing runs to the dump. At one point Amanda overturned a rock and found a bunch of huge ants and their little grub-y babies, so I covered them in bug spray, then felt bad about it when they instantly died. I'm not sure what I expected to happen. We took a break in the late morning to watch a cattle drive down Main Street towards the rodeo grounds. It was pretty much like it sounds. After we finished up at the cabin, we all headed down to the lake to do some swimming (or wading in my case), then went back into town for dinner, followed by a chocolate-dipped soft serve cone for dessert. Yeah, life is hard.

Sunday was a much shorter work day, though I did get to use an electric saw to cut up some wood scraps and a belt sander to sand down some of the big logs inside the cabin. Yay, power tools! After about a half day of work, we had lunch a bit outside of town, then headed out. On the way out, we stopped by a waterfall to hang out for a bit. Jeff and I tried fishing until the line got tangled, but we didn't catch anything. On the way back to the Bay Area, Amanda and I stopped at Picante in Berkeley for dinner, and to wait out some sort of waste spill on 80 west. The Yelp reviews bounce from 1 star to 5, but I really liked my chicken tostada salad.

All in all, a great, relaxing weekend. Hopefully we'll head up sometime later to help them out again (and hopefully I'll remember to bring a swim suit). Pictures coming soon.

Too tired/busy for full sentences. So here is my past week in review:

• Stopped by the Poo Party at The Boys' place. No, that's not a typo.
• Saw Alison Krauss at the Berkeley Greek Theater. She has the purest, most amazing voice I've ever heard.
• Hung out with Domi and took some pictures of her.
• Stayed at the new apartment, and slept on the floor on a mattress, crack-house style.
• Been better about running consistently, but still no long-distance runs. Getting nervous about the half marathon.
• Worked many many hours.
• Still managed to get July 4 off, and went to a BBQ. Made delicious veggie skewers, and watched the fireworks at Shoreline.

The End.