It's a snow weekend!
There's supposed to be a foot and a half of snow falling this weekend. it's snowing pretty heavily now, and it's real pretty outside. i'm glad i'm not out there though! Christian and i stocked up with goodies to keep warm inside: we got an xbox, and for our first game, i got ssx tricky :) of course i'm beating his ass since he's learning, but the xbox controls are different from the ps2's....the grabs are by different buttons and stuff. he's slowly getting the hang of when to prepare for jumps and stuff. i want to get the sequel, they're going for real cheap on ebay since the games are pretty old.
anyway, i had a real short week at work. monday was the holiday, and wednesday i got to go to baltimore for a last-minute U Maryland interview. it was really cool how the admissions director called me up at work asking me if i can come in. sure! it went pretty well, i had 2 faculty interviews. they both asked me what my favorite class was in college, and trying to be different, i talked about the philosophy series that i took. my 2nd interviewer was fascinated by my answers he wrote down some of the existential principles that i was quoting. i need to find out the name of sartre's essays to tell him in my thank you card.
driving back was an adventure. it had snowed during the day so there it was my first time driving in it! fortunately it had stopped coming down when i was leaving and so most of the good roads were already plowed through. unfortunately, whatever was in my windshield wiper reservoir had apparently frozen due to the cold temperatures and nothing was coming out....sooooo i couldn't really wash my windshield well. it was worrying me a lot during the drive home but i made it okay, thanks to people who cut me off and sprayed stuff onto my windshield. but i can't even clean it correctly either....when i went to the gas station to fill up, the little buckets that have the squeegees had frozen! i managed to do a half-assed job so i can see, but it's not the best....
ohwell now there's a bunch of snow on it i bet.
anyway. so wednesday i didn't go to work because of that, and thursday was a dc federal holiday because of the inauguration. an old colleague from uci works for a congressman at the capitol hooked me, erin, christian, and jeff with tickets for the ceremony as well as a luncheon for the congressman. christian and i never saw so many fur coats on the metro than that morning, with all these conservatives in town. when we got off the metro it was protest city, people both supporting and denouncing president bush. we tried to get through the security check on 3rd street, but the crowds were so big and they weren't letting everyone through efficiently enough that we gave up and tried to go to the restaurant, since we'd pretty much missed the ceremony. unfortunately, the crowd at 7th street was worse, and it bottlenecked before people could get to the security tent. now, this is bad planning - sure, whatever is done protects the president, but with big crowds at these few and far between security checkpoints, someone could have easily set off some bomb and killed a looooot of people at once. (pres. bush doesn't care about us, apparently, given the scenario). after getting smushed through, we finally got through the security tent just as something was going down outside with police and protestors.
anyway, so we got to the restaurant and immediately felt underdressed. turns out it was free food and drink from 12 till about 3:30, so we got our fill. we sat by the bar since there were no other tables available and planted ourselves there for the remainder of the afternoon. the bartender was really cool, he was about our age and hooked us up with shots and made strong drinks and everything. he also filled up my nalgene bottle with whatever expensive water they have from europe. that was cool. the food was really good too, good pasta and lamb and the most scrumptious hors d'ourvers and desserts. we watched the parade pass by as well. it was a good time and i have to thank sean again for hooking us up with tickets, even though we didn't get to see the ceremony.
that's all i'm gonna talk about now since my mom just gave me some really bad news.
anyway, i had a real short week at work. monday was the holiday, and wednesday i got to go to baltimore for a last-minute U Maryland interview. it was really cool how the admissions director called me up at work asking me if i can come in. sure! it went pretty well, i had 2 faculty interviews. they both asked me what my favorite class was in college, and trying to be different, i talked about the philosophy series that i took. my 2nd interviewer was fascinated by my answers he wrote down some of the existential principles that i was quoting. i need to find out the name of sartre's essays to tell him in my thank you card.
driving back was an adventure. it had snowed during the day so there it was my first time driving in it! fortunately it had stopped coming down when i was leaving and so most of the good roads were already plowed through. unfortunately, whatever was in my windshield wiper reservoir had apparently frozen due to the cold temperatures and nothing was coming out....sooooo i couldn't really wash my windshield well. it was worrying me a lot during the drive home but i made it okay, thanks to people who cut me off and sprayed stuff onto my windshield. but i can't even clean it correctly either....when i went to the gas station to fill up, the little buckets that have the squeegees had frozen! i managed to do a half-assed job so i can see, but it's not the best....
ohwell now there's a bunch of snow on it i bet.
anyway. so wednesday i didn't go to work because of that, and thursday was a dc federal holiday because of the inauguration. an old colleague from uci works for a congressman at the capitol hooked me, erin, christian, and jeff with tickets for the ceremony as well as a luncheon for the congressman. christian and i never saw so many fur coats on the metro than that morning, with all these conservatives in town. when we got off the metro it was protest city, people both supporting and denouncing president bush. we tried to get through the security check on 3rd street, but the crowds were so big and they weren't letting everyone through efficiently enough that we gave up and tried to go to the restaurant, since we'd pretty much missed the ceremony. unfortunately, the crowd at 7th street was worse, and it bottlenecked before people could get to the security tent. now, this is bad planning - sure, whatever is done protects the president, but with big crowds at these few and far between security checkpoints, someone could have easily set off some bomb and killed a looooot of people at once. (pres. bush doesn't care about us, apparently, given the scenario). after getting smushed through, we finally got through the security tent just as something was going down outside with police and protestors.
anyway, so we got to the restaurant and immediately felt underdressed. turns out it was free food and drink from 12 till about 3:30, so we got our fill. we sat by the bar since there were no other tables available and planted ourselves there for the remainder of the afternoon. the bartender was really cool, he was about our age and hooked us up with shots and made strong drinks and everything. he also filled up my nalgene bottle with whatever expensive water they have from europe. that was cool. the food was really good too, good pasta and lamb and the most scrumptious hors d'ourvers and desserts. we watched the parade pass by as well. it was a good time and i have to thank sean again for hooking us up with tickets, even though we didn't get to see the ceremony.
that's all i'm gonna talk about now since my mom just gave me some really bad news.
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