Happy Earth Day, everyone! Quite coincidentally, I carpooled to work today with a friend who just started at EA. EA has also decided to phase out paper cups in our kitchens, so I got a sweet new mug!

Uploaded to Flickr on 21st April, 2008.

Sunday night we went to see The Waifs play at The Independent, one of the few concert venues I know of that allows photography. I took my 100mm lens and got off a few decent shots, but I maintain that concert halls should be filled according to height order. It would make things a lot easier for me.

The rest of the photos are here.

Uploaded to Flickr on 18th April, 2008.

Cal won 9-8 in overtime.

Probably the only sports shot I've ever taken and actually liked.

Most of you have probably noticed that all of my neat Amazon links over yonder <--- are broken. This is because Amazon recently upgraded their web services, and the plugins I use to generate those links only work with the old version.

I took a quick look at the plugin code and Amazon's website about migrating to the new version, and I'm pretty sure I can get things working again. At least it should be a nice little lesson in cgi and perl.

Edit, 4/21/08: It's fixed!

Uploaded to Flickr on 17th April, 2008.

We found this on the floor after Enzo had chewed it up.

Dumb dog...

Edit: Large size

Assuming that dreams are a window into the inner workings of the brain, some wacky stuff is going on in my head.

Here are a couple dreams I've had in the past few weeks:

• I was in the world of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I received a call on my cell phone from Cameron, the "good" Terminator, who was being uncharacteristically emotional. She told me that she was having a really hard time living up to everyone's expectations, and that she didn't know what to do. My reply was, "Don't worry about it. Just be brave. All you have to do is be brave." Then I lowered my voice to a whisper and added, "And protect John Connor.".


• I don't remember much of this dream, except that at the end, I looked down, and my pants were covered in blood. My friend Camila was (understandably) concerned, and inquired about why my pants were covered in blood. My explanation? "Oh, it's okay. Only about half of it is mine."

As I was walking Enzo this morning, I noticed several "Polling Place Here!" signs around the neighborhood, and remembered that today was the special election to find a replacement for Tom Lantos. I wasn't really going to vote, seeing as I had completely forgotten, but I decided to do a quick check online to make sure nothing else was on the ballot. What convinced me to finally vote was this quote by one of the Republican candidates, Greg Conlon, about the special election: "...I think I could steal it with a low (voter) turnout next Tuesday."

At least he's honest.

As a birthday present, Buddy got me the lead climbing class at Planet Granite. I'd been wanting to take it for a while, so Buddy offering to pay for it was just the push I needed.

It was three hours on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and it was a lot of fun. There was a little bit of talking about gear and techniques, then it was straight into practicing clipping in, and then doing mock leading (leading while also tied into a top rope). Tonight (Thursday), we did real leads, and I led a 10c, which I did cleanly up until the last move, where my brain/body sort of gave up and I fell. Still exciting, though.

Part of the lead class is also learning how to fall, so the instructor had us do some pretty big falls (I'd estimate 10-12 foot falls), which was a little scary. I mentioned that I had bungy jumped before, so one of my classmates asked me how the fall compared to bungy jumping. My response? "Same amount of terror, but shorter."

As a perk for taking the lead class, we also get 20% off lead climbing-related gear, so I finally picked up a belay device and a locking carabiner. I'm also considering picking up a rope, but they're pretty expensive.

Who's up for some climbing trips this summer??

In a mostly-related note, I also found out today that Planet Granite is opening a San Francisco location! Anyone want to go to the open house with me?