Steph and I made some delicious Tom Yom with Caryn and Nima. They came over to help us cook, and it was a lot of fun. Since we prepared everything so quickly, I don’t think we got as much of the spice in the soup as we normally do. We had the soup the next day and it was very tasty. Nima and Caryn seem to be doing well, and we should hang out with them more. They are really fun people. They invited us over to their place some time in January for some Persian food, and I’m really looking forward to it.
This book takes the ethical dilemmas of the previous book in the Ender series and pushes it more into the abstract. It looks at many of the grey areas and talks about how manipulation of another being is also wrong, but to a certain degree. This is well exampled as the two viruses at the end, the first is understood and accepted by the aliens, but the second is forced upon an unknowing populous. Both of these seem right in the given context, but they are very differently implemented. I look forward to the next books. The metaphysics was a little odd, especially when the Peter and Valentine show up. I wasn’t expecting that, and it is a big grey area in itself. I think there will be a lot more about it in the next book since he talked about that in the post-word.
This book is good, but not as good as Founders Dilemma. The book touches on a little bit later in the process, and on business instead of people. The focus is nice and we will be doing this very soon, and are already starting on it now. The book talks a lot about good structures about finding out what you don’t know. There is also a great bit about how you should take lots of risks in the short term, but always have the long term in mind. I need to follow my tenant of not having fear, but looking at things logically.
Stephanie and I went to dinner and had a good time about it. We got a lot of small dishes and shared them. They had some of the best stuffed grape leaves I’ve ever had; even Steph liked them and she doesn’t normally like stuffed grape leaves. The beet salad was really good, and we got fries for good measure on filling up. We got desert which was pumpkin bread pudding and galaktoboureko, a dish that had cream filled fried pastries with ice cream. The bread pudding was good but the other dish was better.
This dinner was for us knowing each other about 2 years now. It has been the best 2 years of my life for sure.
Steph and I hung out at Beachhead with Tina, David, Candice, Jeremy, and Lindsay. I worked some while the others painted a bit on the minis and played Mario 3D on the Wii U. We then played some open faced chinee poker. It was fun, and as usual I was having large swings. We all went for long outs on the final hand and all busted, which was pretty fun. Jeremy was the big loser in the round with everyone else being positive. I enjoyed the time just hanging out, but would have liked to have time to join in on the Mario 3D.
Steph and I stopped by the Chocolate Garage yesterday and got some really tasty chocolates. There was one maker that we will probably sign up for a bimonthly delivery from. He is a chocolate maker that lives in Hawaii and grows his own beans. One of the Chocolate Garage owners let us try some of the samples he had sent her. They were delicious.
We then stopped by the Whole Foods and got stuff for more Tom Yom, as well as some milk for hot chocolate and cheese making. We went back to Steph’s place and met up with Jeff, Patty, and Candice. They all had some of Steph’s amazing cheese, and we talked about company stuff.
Steph and I went to dinner at Los Charros with Jeremy, Andrew, and Lindsay. I biked there and it took about 50 minutes. I nearly got hit by a guy that came flying off the interstate at about 70 mph onto a 35 mph road, right through the crosswalk that I was in. Lindsay was a little late, so the rest of us all ordered beforehand and got the wet burritos. They were absolutely massive, at least 50% larger than the average human stomach. Being Americans and the burritos being delicious we promptly ate the entire thing. After dinner we stopped by Tea Era for some boba.
We then went to Jeremy’s where they tested out some wine aerators. I had a bit of trouble poring one of them as it splashed everywhere when going through the aerator. We talked about all sorts of things and had a relaxing time.
I played Acquire with Chris, Chris, and Jeff. It started out a little slow for me, but mid-game I was able to get a few really good mergers in my favor. I barely beat out Chris on a few of them. The biggest thing was that I was first, second, and second in the companies that survived. From that I was able to come out on top by not quite 10k. I took the strategy of getting second in a good number of mergers early on, since I wasn’t able to found. Once I could found I made sure I had the majority share in that company. I generally like to be involved in 4 of 7 companies and ignoring the rest.
Michael got back in town yesterday so this morning we went to the gym at Stanford to work out. We had a good set of arms, and then went back to our places. He came over for lunch and I gave him some of the left over tom yom and curry. He really liked both, and he also was impressed with the state of the game.
It's an Exciting World 