The summers are no longer relaxing

Only the second post of July so far! Bummer. A lot has been going on, and it is always more interesting to think about things and comment on them as they are happening since the little details are still there, but I've been too busy to sit down and write for a while. I have to go all the way back to July 7th to get up to date.

B was in San Francisco visiting some friends that weekend, and my friend Joe, who incidentally has a music blog called Listening Man, celebrated his 28th birthday by throwing a party at this house in Studio City (I prefer to say 'in the Hollywood Hills', since I arrived there by way of Mulholland Drive, but hey). I usually feel pretty ambivalent about parties, but I ended up having a lot of fun at this party despite going alone. I even took a lot of pictures. (Blogger is not letting me upload pictures at the moment...these will go in the next post. Pretend they are here.)

The second week at Caltech was much more fun socially, but academically frustrating for me, as the subject matter covered was almost pure physics: classical and quantum mechanics as applied to NEMS devices. It took me a while to get what a lot of the speakers were talking about. What I mean by that is so many of them started off running as if they were giving an actual lecture as opposed to talking to a more general scientific community, or graduate students that are not experts in the subject. Towards the end of the week, all of the participating students threw a BBQ in one of the courtyard of one of the undergrad dorms (Dabney). The undergrads gave us some looks, but didn't say anything. After the food was eaten, and people had drank more of the whiskey and vodka, some people jumped in the jacuzzi (yes, in the courtyard of the dorms), and some people jumped in the ballpit (like you find at McDonald's, and again, yes, in the lounge of the dorms), trying to make up rules as they went along for possible ballpit tournaments. For the second time in a week, I took a lot of pictures. I was glad I did. Those aren't ready to be posted yet though.

On my last night in Pasadena, B drove up for what was supposed to be a free catered dinner, with open bar, but apparently the order was never confirmed and there was no free dinner. So B and I decided to go to this great Mexican place called El Portal. Pasadena was really hot during the daytime, but I have to say the evenings were so, so pleasant. Maybe I'm just jealous because, although it is cooler here on the westside where I live, my apartment is so hot in the late afternoon and I get so little circulation that I have to turn the A.C. on to be mildly comfortable.

I think this about the halfway point of the post, but I'm feeling rundown from the long day (and not enough sleep last night), so maybe I'll postpone the rest until tomorrow night. I don't suppose too much will happen between now and then. Just some highlights of what is to come: my new niece, car troubles, fancy dinners, and violin updates - wow!

Listening: Modest Mouse - Building Nothing Out of Something