Steph and I met up with Tommy, Joe, and Jim for diving in Monterrey. We got up around 5:30, and I drove us to the dock. We got on the Escapade and headed out to Hopkins Deep and Macabee. The first dive was very nice, but very cold. It got down to 47F at the bottom. During the dive we saw some big ling cod, as well as a sea lion swimming up to Steph under water. She got a big surprise out of it, since it came up on her from behind. I had a good time on the dive, and need to remember to not have any of those 5 hour energies before diving. The vitamin B in them increases circulation, which can increase heat loss.
Stephanie and I biked into Palo Alto for a wonderful Saturday morning. We went to the Chocolate Garage and tried some new chocolates. We then went to Cladio Corallo chocolate, and got some more of the best chocolate I’ve had. We walked around a bit and ran across some people from Paypal giving out money. They had an offer, where if you used Paypal to pay they would cover $5 of the order. This meant that we got free ice cream sandwiches at Cream and I got a coffee for Michael. It was interesting to see them handing out so much money, with about $60 total possible to spend.
Steph and I went to SF on Sunday to meet with lots of people. The first group we met with was one of Steph’s friends from her robotics team. We had a tasty lunch of east Asian style sandwiches and then went to the Asian art museum to see the exhibit on yoga. The exhibit wasn’t what I was expecting as most of the history of yoga is a mix of Buddhism and Hinduism, without much in the way of taking care of the body. Most of the history of yoga was in fact focused on acetic life, and not having a particularly well maintained body. The body part of yoga came about from a westernization and reaction to scientific thought. This was almost completely separate from the religious part of the practice. The westernized yoga was then taken back to the west and westernized a second time to get what we would think of as yoga. This big change was unexpected, and there was surprisingly little about why it changed. I was a little disappointing at the lack of historical context given to most of the exhibits at the Asian Art Museum. Most of the time there would be a sentence or two on the wall when entering a room, and a description of each item that amounted to “this is a vase from the Han dynasty.” I was hoping for something more along the lines of a read documentary where it would say what things were used for, how they would be seen in daily life, what kind of person would have them, and so on. I still enjoyed the time.
We then went to an ice cream place and met up with Jeremy. This liquid nitrogen ice cream was from a small stand by a park, called Smitten. It was tasty, but there wasn’t as much choice, and a much longer wait.
We then went to Nick’s place to watch some Game of Thrones. It was nice to see Simon again, and I really enjoyed watching more Game of Thrones. The story did a lot of re-introduction, but that is to be expected in a season opener. I brought up the series over time breakdown of ratings, and we had fun pulling up different series, and seeing how they changed over time. Breaking bad had by far the most impressive point, with a 10.0 on an episode with 48,000 votes. Nothing else came close.
Steph and I went to Nima and Caryn’s party and it was pretty good. We played a round of pool and a round of Hanabi, which we didn’t do so great on. Nima cooked some fish and served some cake and ice cream. We then went back up to their apartment after the pool house was closed down. We played a good number of rounds of Cards Against Humanity. I did really well and we learned a good bit about the different cards.
We met with Lisa and one of Lisa’s friends for a picnic in Dolores Park. We got there right on time, but Lisa and friend were running about 20 minutes late. Steph and I went to get lunch really quickly and then we went back to the park to meet Lisa. We played Mr. Card Game, but I don’t think Lisa liked it. Steph seemed to be a little more enjoying it, but still didn’t understand the basis of the game. After the picnic we went back to our bikes and I had a flat. We walked over to Ritual Coffee to meet with Stefan.
We went to a picnic at a park for Jeremy’s 30th birthday. There were a good number of people there, and we had a good time. There was a pinata in the form of a wombat that Jeremy eventually had to take down with a practice sword. It was enjoyable.
We watched Sherlock, and played some FTL at Riley’s place on Sunday evening. The episode of Sherlock was pretty good, but the bad guy didn’t get as built out as I was hoping. The FTL was fun, as I showed Riley and Steph how to win the final boss battle. We then had the others play through a round with me coaching them in some ways. Riley unlocked 3 ships along the way, and Steph was in sector 7 when she got taken out by a slaver. Wit just picked up the game, and I think his introduction was by far the most painless one can hope for, but he is surely addicted now.
I have decided to help Adam with his pet project of making a 1 person plane. It is very interesting to me, and I am looking forward to learning some from him and the construction. He has just finished the listing of the parts. There were tons of parts, but that should be expected in something as complex and big as a plane. It will be very interesting to see it come together, and help along the way.
Steph and I joined Lindsay for yoga at Yoga Belly and signed up for a 1 month trial membership. The class we did was 1.5 hours and was at about 95F. I was sweating so badly since I overheat very easily. It was a lot of hard yoga poses held for a long time as well. I wasn’t able to keep up all the way through, and I realized my balance has gotten pretty bad. I plan to go back and take a few more classes, since I like yoga and since it will be good for me.
After yoga we went to get pho at Pho Vi Hoa for the salt and liquid. It was the perfect meal for post yoga. We met Andrew and Jeremy there.
It's an Exciting World 