So another weekend comes to an end...
This was a good full weekend. It started off Friday night at Darbar's with Evan, Lori, Fuson, Paul, Ming, John and Dave. Darbar is a good little Indian food place in Palo Alto. Normally it is pretty cheap too since there are a lot of 2 for 1 dinner coupons that we unfortunately didn't have this time around. Anyway, it was very good. We had a dish for each person and had fun passing them around in a circle. The portions worked out perfectly too.
After dinner we headed over to the Aquarius theater and watched "Goodbye Lenin". It was pretty good, though not as funny as I thought it was going to be from the previews. It was also a bit slow at times. However, I enjoyed immersing myself in the dialog and trying to ignore the subtitles (the film was in German, which I can for the most part still understand, except for the stupid political talk). I have to say that the movie paled in comparison to "Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind", which I saw the day before and I think was awesome. Right up there with "Lost in Translation", which I finally watched on DVD last week.
On Saturday morning I just did some house chores and general stuff. Went food shopping, put a new seat on my mountain bike, etc. Then in the evening I took Emily and Paul up to Gokart Racing in Burlingame where we met up with a group of high school friends and some friends they had brought from Davis. We ended up having 9 of the 10 people racing and a bunch of fans cheering us from the sidelines. It was a blast. This was my second time. Last time we did 3 10 minute sessions which were just for best lap time. This time we did Monaco style where there is a 5 minute trial period that decides your start positions. Unfortunately the one guy that wasn't from our group was really good so he was placed 1st, Alex Chew was placed 2nd and I was placed 3rd. Then the race began: a 15 minute gallop for top place. I have to say I think I did pretty well. I ended up placing 2nd and also had the 2nd best lap time. The unknown guy was of course first. It was pretty intense. These karts go pretty fast and we are talking like a lane or maybe a lane and half width at the widest sections. Sometimes there would be a jam of like 3 karts and its quite a rush to make a move to pass on the inside or outside. There were lots of tight turns that you could only slide through if you weren't laying on the brake. I for some reason had no problem getting into the don't touch the gas, just go mode. Much as if I were playing Mario Kart or some other such video game.
After kartings the whole gang went to Baja Fresh in FC and then headed over to Chris Taki's house to hang out and play some video games. It started to get late and we finally headed home.
Today I woke up early to get ready for another mountain biking expedition. Unfortunately I didn't set my clock ahead. Good thing I woke up extra early. Right as I was getting ready to eat breakfast I got a cell phone and I saw the time on the cell phone and panicked. So I called my friend I was supposed to carpool with and ran out the door. Got to eat a yummy powerbar for breakfast instead. Good thing my cell phone adjusted its time. Stupid this is my watch will too but I didn't have it on DST setting for some odd reason. Anyway, that was not to be my last powerbar of the day. I think I had 4 total. I met up with my friend and we drove to the Golden Gate Bridge and parked. We met up with our other friends (these are all coworkers of mine) and headed out. We were gone for almost 6 hours. We biked across the bridge, took a left, went up and over the mountain dropping down into a valley, up and over the next mountain dropping into yet another valley, went out to the beach and back, went back over the mountain and into the first valley again, the took a windy road through a small tunnel to Sausalito and back over the Bay Bridge. Thus the 4 powerbars, at least one per long climb. I brought a Camelback backpack but I drank all the water. All in all it was a good trip. I didn't have to stop on any of the climbs, though they just kept going and going. Stinking high coastal mountains. I did enjoy the downhill sections. While I am out of shape and was not first to make it to the top of the hill, I was always first to make it to the bottom (though being careful not to hurt myself again because if I got airlifted again I'd be in big trouble... mokey'd kick my butt :-D).
Bruised and battered (well, really only my butt is really sore... I liked the new seat, but man some of the bumps are killer on your sit bones) I made my way home. I then had dinner (Beef stew and artichokes courtesy of Paul, Banana bread courtesy of mokey :-)) and curled up with Mokey to watch a few Inuyasha eps.
So now I'm off to bed to prepare myself for another long week. Got a lot of time pressured assignments to finish of this week. Here's hoping I can pull it off.
After dinner we headed over to the Aquarius theater and watched "Goodbye Lenin". It was pretty good, though not as funny as I thought it was going to be from the previews. It was also a bit slow at times. However, I enjoyed immersing myself in the dialog and trying to ignore the subtitles (the film was in German, which I can for the most part still understand, except for the stupid political talk). I have to say that the movie paled in comparison to "Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind", which I saw the day before and I think was awesome. Right up there with "Lost in Translation", which I finally watched on DVD last week.
On Saturday morning I just did some house chores and general stuff. Went food shopping, put a new seat on my mountain bike, etc. Then in the evening I took Emily and Paul up to Gokart Racing in Burlingame where we met up with a group of high school friends and some friends they had brought from Davis. We ended up having 9 of the 10 people racing and a bunch of fans cheering us from the sidelines. It was a blast. This was my second time. Last time we did 3 10 minute sessions which were just for best lap time. This time we did Monaco style where there is a 5 minute trial period that decides your start positions. Unfortunately the one guy that wasn't from our group was really good so he was placed 1st, Alex Chew was placed 2nd and I was placed 3rd. Then the race began: a 15 minute gallop for top place. I have to say I think I did pretty well. I ended up placing 2nd and also had the 2nd best lap time. The unknown guy was of course first. It was pretty intense. These karts go pretty fast and we are talking like a lane or maybe a lane and half width at the widest sections. Sometimes there would be a jam of like 3 karts and its quite a rush to make a move to pass on the inside or outside. There were lots of tight turns that you could only slide through if you weren't laying on the brake. I for some reason had no problem getting into the don't touch the gas, just go mode. Much as if I were playing Mario Kart or some other such video game.
After kartings the whole gang went to Baja Fresh in FC and then headed over to Chris Taki's house to hang out and play some video games. It started to get late and we finally headed home.
Today I woke up early to get ready for another mountain biking expedition. Unfortunately I didn't set my clock ahead. Good thing I woke up extra early. Right as I was getting ready to eat breakfast I got a cell phone and I saw the time on the cell phone and panicked. So I called my friend I was supposed to carpool with and ran out the door. Got to eat a yummy powerbar for breakfast instead. Good thing my cell phone adjusted its time. Stupid this is my watch will too but I didn't have it on DST setting for some odd reason. Anyway, that was not to be my last powerbar of the day. I think I had 4 total. I met up with my friend and we drove to the Golden Gate Bridge and parked. We met up with our other friends (these are all coworkers of mine) and headed out. We were gone for almost 6 hours. We biked across the bridge, took a left, went up and over the mountain dropping down into a valley, up and over the next mountain dropping into yet another valley, went out to the beach and back, went back over the mountain and into the first valley again, the took a windy road through a small tunnel to Sausalito and back over the Bay Bridge. Thus the 4 powerbars, at least one per long climb. I brought a Camelback backpack but I drank all the water. All in all it was a good trip. I didn't have to stop on any of the climbs, though they just kept going and going. Stinking high coastal mountains. I did enjoy the downhill sections. While I am out of shape and was not first to make it to the top of the hill, I was always first to make it to the bottom (though being careful not to hurt myself again because if I got airlifted again I'd be in big trouble... mokey'd kick my butt :-D).
Bruised and battered (well, really only my butt is really sore... I liked the new seat, but man some of the bumps are killer on your sit bones) I made my way home. I then had dinner (Beef stew and artichokes courtesy of Paul, Banana bread courtesy of mokey :-)) and curled up with Mokey to watch a few Inuyasha eps.
So now I'm off to bed to prepare myself for another long week. Got a lot of time pressured assignments to finish of this week. Here's hoping I can pull it off.