It's an Exciting World

Monterey Express Diving

Stephanie was nice enough to drive to Monterey at 6am to make it to the Monterey Express at 7:30. We made it there a little early and ran across a few really strong fog banks on the way.

When we got out on the boat we saw a pod of dolphins and went to follow them for a few minutes before making it out to the dive site. We decided to stay inside the bay since it was a little rough as soon as we got outside the bay. There was also a really intimidating fog bank that was at the edge of the bay. Our first dive was at Hopkins Deep. The visibility wasn’t very good, at about 8 feet, and the temperature was about 48F. The second site was much nicer at about 15 feet, but it was still not a good day. We saw a big blue rockfish at Nacho, a dive site just off outer McAbee that is a single pinacle that shoots up. There were a lot of sunstars and metridiums. At Nacho we saw a nice school of fish that was a dozen or so fish a foot and a half long.

April 20, 2013 0

Abiding in Mindfulness, Volume 1: The Body

This was ok, didn’t enjoy it too terribly. It did have some good points about how to continually think about what you are doing. I do try to be deliberate, but am very bad at it. I also try to be mindful, and again, I’ve very bad at it. I’m not sure I want to listen to the next to in the series for a while, so I’ll put it off for a while. There was a lot of pseudo-sciency things in this book, but I’m not terribly surprised by it.

Audible Link

April 19, 2013 0

Podcasts

Since I got my new phone I haven’t really listened too many podcasts. Today I downloaded a ton of them, and got to listen to some of the podcasts I’ve been missing for a while. The one i’ve listened to the most today is “Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe.” I’m really glad to hear them take apart some of the really stupid things that are published. It also got me thinking that it might be worth while to try juicing. I’m looking at juicers on Amazon right now for a juicer. It would be really easy to just cut up the veggies and juice them each morning.

April 19, 2013 0

Volleyball

I got to play some fun volleyball today, but only one game. I was on a 3 person team and vlad was kicking ass, so we ended up winning.

April 19, 2013 0

Blood Bowl: Team Manager

This was a really nice game. The pace was good, the theme was amusing, the chance wasn’t too overwhelming. There was a lot of chance as part of the game, but the ways in which it was deployed wasn’t bad. The frequency of the chance outcomes was a little much, since there wasn’t just a good and bad outcome: there was a good, neutral, and bad. The way in which the combat worked was really interesting and something I want to think about further with respect to my board game attempts. It was very elegant and simple to understand. The pace was a little slow since we were learning, and the some of the rules interact in strange ways. I’d really like to play this again.

I played one round of this at Games night against Chris and his high school friend. I won, but by very little.

BGG link

April 19, 2013 0

Holy Grill with Bo

Bo and I talked a lot last night at the Holy Grill, a little burger place just next to Zynga. I got the diablo burger, which was nice, but a little too fatty. Bo and I had two beers each and had a pleasant conversation. It was an interesting conversation where we talked a lot about where we wanted to go with the next stage of our lives. He is in a pretty tough spot and need to find something relatively stable. The biggest problem is that he still sees finding a job as giving up on his dreams. He doesn’t allow for the possibility of going after his dreams while working. I think once he does have a real job, since he hasn’t held one for any significant time before, that he will see that you can work towards your dreams and work a normal job. I hope he finds something that allows him to do that, but he may just have to settle for something stable to start out and then work towards the job that supports his dreams.

April 19, 2013 0

The God Delusion

This book is a really interesting case for Atheism. I’m not wholly convinced that there is no God, but I’m decently convinced that the god of the Judeo-Christian faiths is not there. I’d like to think that God is a personal God, but that is less likely than a Deist God. I plan to read the holy books of several different religions so that I can more understand them. The biggest thing right now in this arena is to amass more knowledge so that I can more fully understand the arguments for and against each religion. To start that I must understand what each religion says about itself, starting with the holy books. This will probably take a few weeks to work through, and finding audiobooks of all of them may not be that simple.

Audible Link

April 18, 2013 0

This evening I biked to the Chocolate Garage and had some tasty chocolate. The one I liked the most was a milk chocolate with nibs that I had already bought called The Boss. I didn’t get any, and after tasting some Riley and I went to Philz Coffee and I got a Chai Tea. The Chai there was fantastic.

After coming back Stephanie had already been joined at the Chocolate Garage by Candice and Brian. All of us then went to a pretty tasty place called Curry Up Now. I liked it, but not sure I’d want to go back. I’d prefer Umami over Curry Up Now.

April 17, 2013 2

Tuesday Drinks at Beachhead

Tina hosted a drinks night at Beachhead last night. It was a rather enjoyable affair, with Wit, Riley, Adam, Tina, Stephanie, and Myself in attendance. There were some really interesting conversations around fonts, Adams prospects in jobs, and core functionality of basic console commands. They pranked Riley by changing his console commands so that ls printed to the screen “I love Orwin” and which would not find the ls file that had caused it. I found it hilarious, but Stephanie wasn’t too interested since she hasn’t ever dealt in console. I broke out a bottle of the really good Riesling Heinz Eiffel, and also tried some of Adam’s Manhattan from Utah. The manhattan was decent, but I still much prefer the Riesling. We ate a bunch of Bolani, and Stephanie put bean curd sauce in with her egg salad tofu to make a splendid mix of flavor and texture. Tonight we can try the bean curd sauce with the spicy tofu, which I think will be even better.

April 17, 2013 0