Let’s see, what’s happened this week of note?

I have internet. Finally. Problems with the way the cable was originally run meant that the tech wasn’t even able to pull the raw cable out of wherever it was stapled to the inside of the wall. (Normally, when houses are built by intelligent species, about a foot of coax cable is looped inside the junction box We destroyed the junction box and a good chunk of drywall trying to get enough slack to splice in a connector. Why the hell didn’t they just put the connector in when they built the house? Not my problem, though, since it’s still under warranty and someone will fix it.

I bought a table from a church thrift store in the war zone (which the locals were more than happy to help me move into my garage) and a nice office chair to go with it. My computer is finally put together, and the whole setup is chucked next to the wall closest to the cable jack. It works. Don’t knock it.

Went on a hike today, on the La Luz Trail. Google it. I’ll wait.

So yeah, the trailhead starts at 7000 feet (2150 m). From there, it goes up. And up. And up. Six miles later it’s at 10,000 feet, and then clings to a cliff face for another two miles before stopping at the top of the world’s longest tramway. It’s one of the tougher hikes in the area, and originally our group of four had planned on a shorter hike. But for some reason we went on this hellraiser instead. I think they call it “La Luz” because it’s like the light you supposedly see at the end of a tunnel right before you die from exhaustion. But the views from up top are certainly beautiful.

My camera is still in storage, so no photos for you yet. Give it a few more weeks.

Second day on the job. Still no computer access, so I’m resorting to coffee shops to update. Going back to Winning was out of the question, since they kicked everyone out promptly at 10pm… right after I had posted that I found somewhere to use the net. The stingy bastards even shut down the wireless point five minutes before closing.

Right now I’m sitting in Satellite Coffee by the university. Not as bad as I’d originally thought. Before that I parked on a nearby street and asked the owner of a small bookshop whether they checked the meters after 6. She replied that no, they didn’t, and on a whim I went inside. “The Book Case,” as it’s called, is one of those beautifully, chaotically cramped used bookstores which is impossible to navigate while carrying a backpack or other bag, which I suppose is one way to cut down on incidental theft. I think the name may be based on “basket case” or “nut case”. It’s fantastic.

Then went to a cute little place called “Frontier Restaurant.” Apparently a staple of local college students, it serves anything from green chile burritos to cheeseburgers cafeteria style.

Still looking for furniture for my new place. I did get a very nice bed set at a consignment store; the seller told me it was “mission style.” I told her I wasn’t interested in the Kama Sutra, but that I’d buy the furniture anyway. There were some other interesting pieces at some other shops, but most are quite a bit more expensive than I’d expected. Even a basic sofa and loveseat set is over a thousand bucks. Looks like I’ll be blowing my first few paychecks on getting this place furnished. But I did find an artisan carpenter who makes some fantastic handcrafted wood furniture. The guy really knows what he’s doing, and some of his stuff is actually cheaper than the mass-produced crap in all the stores. Problem is that it takes him several weeks to make things. There are a few things in his warehouse, but since they’re made to order I’d have to buy an existing style of table or chair if I want anything now.

I’m finally getting my coffee fix and my internet fix after having arrived at my new place on Saturday afternoon. Starbucks failed when they closed at 8pm. Then en route to Borders I get there just as their cafe is shutting down at 9. The place I’m in, Winning Cafe, isn’t even usually open past 5 during the summer, but since there’s live music they’re open. Right now I hear drums, a keyboard, a guitar, a trumpet, a bassoon, and chanting. Perhaps I should put the word music in quotation marks. It’s more like atmospheric rock jazz instrumental native alien fusion. Must be from Roswell.

Seeing as how Comcast still sucks quite hard, they won’t even be around to think about looking at whether or not I can even GET cable at my place until the end of this week. I’ll likely be incommunicado for at least two weeks. Almost everything is still in plastic totes stacked in my living room. I bought a bed/endtable/dresser set, which should arrive tomorrow so that I don’t have to sleep on the mattresses on the floor. But I have no other furniture. No couch, no table, no chairs. No computer desk. No real office at work. No clue what I’m doing yet. But at least I have found a good cup of coffee.

I need to post here about all the stuff that’s happened in the last… long while. Okay, where do I start…

There was the fantastic trip to the San Francisco area to visit Joey and Monica. We went to this distillery called Hangar One for a tasting. By far my favorite was their spiced pear vodka, but they also have raspberry liqueurs and weird citrus or kaffir lime hard liquor. Monica drove Joey and me up to Sonoma where we sampled the local wines and chocolates. We even got a chance to hit up a concert, and I got to see Monica’s laboratory with the subterranean-industrial-evil-genius plasma whatsit. Very chic, I’ll have to put one of those in my underground lair someday.

I got a girlfriend. She was having lunch with a friend in this kinda hippie cafe place where I was reading a book and having some coffee. She got up, I started talking to her friend, and then wound up spending the afternoon with them at the local street fair. It turns out she went to my high school, and her older sister and I were in the band together for all 4 years. Since then I was invited to the older sister’s wedding. Fun, interesting, and yet very bizarre.

The end of the semester brought quite a bit of chaos as everyone threw parties for everyone else, and because my undirected graph of friends is well-connected, there were n squared parties in the span of a week. This in concert with the unexpected 40 hours per week expected time in for my summer research job had worn my sanity rather thin. Meanwhile my girlfriend had been wondering why I’m so goddamn busy. So we decided to just eschew work for a bit and go camping. That was its own adventure.

Meanwhile I’ve written a paper with lots of help from my professor and submitted it to a conference. If it gets accepted, I might have a chance to go to Europe and present it.

That’s all I can remember for now. I’m going to drag my camera a couple places and hope to get inspired. My lenses and equipment are fine, I just need to take them out of the bag and take some photos with them.

I think I’ve almost settled into grad school. I really enjoy tossing ideas back and forth with my fellow students, though at times I feel out of place: about half are from India, half from China, and there a handful of white guys like me hanging in there. I still feel ahead of the curve, but only slightly. My friend Monica says I should have gone to Berkeley, where coincidentally much of the current ECE research is being done, and perhaps she’s right. But I’m not sure if I’d be able to keep up there. Maybe for a PhD, someday, when I can think up clever things to write papers about. I need to prove myself first, prove that I really do belong. But school certainly makes a lot more sense now than it ever did as an undergrad. I needed those years in Japan to get my motivation straight, to allow me to really extract the most from my university experience. It’s like an idea bakery here, all the smells of genius and burnt failure mingling together in an inseparable melange. But when it all comes to a head in a couple years, spending the rest of my life locked away in industry is still no more appealing than it was five years ago.

Most days I feel as if I’m in the right place, but every once in awhile, like today, I’ll look back at things and it seems as if my soul is in a thousand pieces, scattered to the four winds. I took a swig of liquid courage and made a phone call back to the board of education to take care of some paperwork, and chatting with native speakers brought me right back to that point in my life… minus a few forgotten words here and there. I didn’t stutter too much. But days like this make me wonder if there are two people fighting inside my skull for control of my life. One wants to follow the logical path of my strengths as an engineer, while the other says I should give that up and go do something, anything in Japan. I’m in my element here, I’m in my element there. The real world says I have to pick one or the other. Maybe I need a door number three.

My good friend Diana invited me to go up to Phoenix this weekend to the comic con. I’m not the hugest fan of dead tree comic books (although I do read my share of online ones), but I’m not one to say no to a unique opportunity like that. So I went, and it was a lot of fun.

Even though I don’t read tons of comics, I’m still a colossal nerd. Or at least, I thought I was… but really I’ve got nothin’ on these folks. It nearly brought a tear to my eye to see my fellow geeks dressed as various comic book characters, mostly Japanese. *sniff* It definitely brought tears to my eyes to walk behind one or two rather pungent individuals who NEED SHOWERS BADLY. But it was all fun, mostly because I enjoy people watching in all its forms. These folks weren’t just dressed up, they were literally clad in glee. You couldn’t help but get the vibe that these people were coming together for an almost spiritual communion of sorts, a temporary graphic-novel Mecca.

I tagged along with Diana and her cast of characters to various panels and exhibits. Some of them were artists or writers talking about their work, which was interesting to listen to even if you hadn’t seen or heard their work (and yeah I was probably the only one… but I did buy the first book in a series that came highly recommended by everyone in the party and got it signed). Others were a little bit more interesting, like the body art seminar labeled ominously “18 and older”, which involved watching an artist apply paint to two very attractive women each wearing nothing but a thong. I’ll never think of the phrase “airbrushed models” the same way again.

Of course there was cool swag, like the Star Trek posters they were giving out, and the free DVD of “Death Race” I somehow acquired. And it was cool to go say hello to Wil Wheaton and thank him for his promotion of Child’s Play (he’s well-known for his role as Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but of course moved on to other things like books and voice acting by now). He’s become this sort of cornerstone geek icon recently, mainly by just being a normal guy with geekish interests like games and comics, who amazingly hasn’t tried to overplay his celebrity or let it go to his head. That’s pretty commendable I think.

I should post about my new RA position, but I’ll let it wait until I actually go in to see the lab on Wednesday.

Things have been hectic the past few days as I’ve been applying to graduate school and applying to graduate school, and registering for classes, and applying to graduate school. (I think there are several different departments which all have to be informed of your desire to apply to graduate school.) And of course, there’s getting money, and finding a place to live.

I’d planned on moving into a little pink house not a mile from the university earlier this month, but either communications broke down or they decided to ignore my phone calls, email, and the little note I slipped under the door. So last Friday after applying to graduate school (parts 3a and 401.7.lambda?) I took a look at a pair of share homes in the general vicinity of the university. I kinda fell in love with the second place, a beautiful 1920s era home with an eclectic owner. Tons of artwork, antiques, and knickknacks adorn the place. Sure, it has its flaws, chief among them substandard 1920s wiring (with no bathroom outlets, and no ground, ick), pipes that sometimes bleed orange if they haven’t been used, and no central heating/cooling. But its creaky wood floors and curved plaster walls give it a charm that modern cookie-cutter white square houses just can’t match. And not only do I have a bedroom, but also an attached study, complete with a 50s RCA Victor tube radio. All of this less than 2 minutes from campus by bike.

So I moved in the important stuff on Tuesday, hooked up the computer to a wireless network, and have been spending most of my time making the place look shipshape. It helps that my desk sits adjacent to an antique steamer trunk from an ocean liner.