This has been a really busy week. I suspect (no, i actually have verbal proof) that Veronica is ready to wring my neck after my increasingly frequent stress-induced outbursts. But it hasn't been all bad. Let me explain. No, there is too much ... let me sum up.

Last Thursday V and i met up with Danny in the city (our first trip to SF since returning to California) and caught up with each other over dinner at Veronica's favorite Thai restaurant, the aptly-named Thailand Restaurant in the Castro. Come Friday morning i was feeling pretty crummy, so i took a day off of our errands to nap. That evening we went with my parents for dinner and a movie, catching Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl which was great. As Roger Ebert put it, Johnny Depp channels a drunken drag queen fabulously, creating an entertaining and original pirate captain. It's a fun two hour summer movie.

As Saturday dawned (1:30pm on my clock), we scrambled into Veronica's 1991 Tercel, cranked up the air conditioning, and putted down the 5 towards Los Angeles. By 7:30pm we had arrived in Downey and met up with soon-to-be-bride-and-groom Michelle and Sean. We had a laid back dinner at California Pizza Kitchen (CPK for those of us in the know, wink wink, nudge nudge), then headed back to Michelle's apartment where I managed to consume a six pack of Guinness by 2:30am. That got me so drunk i was even able to fall asleep on Michelle's living room floor.

I had sufficiently regained my senses by Sunday to head off to the L.A. Coliseum to see Manchester United take on Mexico's Club America as part of United's four game publicity tour of the United States. Although i was expecting a wealth of Mexican fans given the game's location, the crowd was predominantly United supporters. I had to bite my tongue on several occasions, and on several others i let loose with a couple of jabs at my mortal enemies. The first half saw few real goal chances, with play dominated oddly enough by C.A. However, Ruud van Nistelrooy opened the scoring for United in the first minute of the second half with an excellent strike from the top of the penalty area. Manchester doubled their lead two minutes later on a Diego Forlan header, and that was basically it. Forlan added another and C.A. got a consolation goal late to make the final score 3-1. Coming out of the game we had to wade past a number of singing United fans ("Number 1, was Georgie Best, and number 2, was Georgie Best, and number 3, was Georgie Best, ..." ad nauseum). Walking along Figueroa to the car, we were passed by a procession of red English-style double decker tour buses containing yet more enthusiastic Manchester supporters. As the last one passed, i couldn't help myself and shouted a nice anti-United euphemism. The contents of the bus stared at me as they drove on, as Veronica and Michelle prepared to distance themselves in case i was accosted. They were probably wondering why i was walking with Sean, who had on his United kit.

That night we had dinner with Michelle and V's cousin Naomi at Luminarias, the site of Michelle's wedding reception next month, before collapsing. The next morning V and i grabbed a quick lunch with Michelle before heading back up the 5. Around Livermore i began to feel decidedly unpleasant, and when we arrived home i ran in the house to bathroom. Dunno if it was Luminarias or the lunch at Mimi's (my suspicion is the latter, for even as i write this thoughts of that chicken caesar salad are making me nauseous). I really do hate puking. I'd rather have horrible stomach pains all night long than go through it.

So this week i've slowly recovered from the flu as i ready for my go-date at Stanford (tomorrow morning, bright and early). I've picked up some swanky new digs appropriate for my new job, and V and i are now ready to move into our new house in San Mateo on Saturday.

Oh so much we've done in the last few weeks. Oh so much still to be done. But i can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

swung from a chandelier my planet sweet on a silver salver bailed out my worst fears 'cause man has to be his own saviour blind sailors, imprisoned jailors god tame us, no one to blame us the sky is blue, my hands untied a world that's true through our clean eyes just look at you, with burning lips you're living proof at my fingertips walked on a tidal wave laughed in the face of a brand new day food for survival thought mapped out the place where i planned to stay all the way well behaved just in case it slips away the sky is blue, my hands untied a world that's true through our clean eyes just look at you, with burning lips you're living proof at my fingertips

... and i would be going berserk if i had to look for a house any longer. Veronica reminded me that we haven't gone domicile-hunting since 1998, when we spent the better part of three months looking for an apartment on both sides of the bay before lucking out and getting a fab place in the Presidio with a great roommate, the inimitable Alex K. Since then we've ... moved into an apartment near UCSF that was bestowed upon us by a friend from my lab, and moved to Allston into an apartment we found on Craigslist with relatively little effort. This time round we've spent about a week and a half looking at twenty-some-odd places. Not an exorbitant number, but cruising up and down the peninsula has been driving me nuts.

At any rate, we finally signed a lease this afternoon with our wonderful realty agent Slava from Prudential in Burlingame. We're renting a very cute two bedroom house in San Mateo, with a nice front and back yard, a one car garage, and a beautifully remodeled kitchen and bathroom. It's a little smaller than we were shooting for, but as adorable as it is and at the price we're getting it for, Veronica and i are thrilled. Although Slava tried to talk us into buying, we don't have the down payment at the moment. However, we had a nice chat with a loan agent and decided that in a year or so we'll be in the market.

Also, i returned Unreal 2 (still bummed that it didn't work on my computer) to EB, encountering far less (try no) resistance than i was expecting. I exchanged it for Red Faction 2, the sequel to a very cool first-person shooter i played on the PS2. It runs fine on my machine, and is pretty fun so far.

So i had a great time this afternoon with Michael, catching up on old times, trying to keep up with him on our pitchers of hard iced tea, and revisiting all the old corners of Berkeley. Turns out they've put an EB on Telegraph between Bancroft and Durant, so i popped in and popped out with Unreal 2. Upon returning to Fremont i dashed upstairs to try it out. Installation was a bit lengthy, but completed with no problems. The game loaded up nicely, and all the video and audio options seemed to be in order. After starting a new game though, that's where it got interesting. Despite the introductory menus having a nice backing soundtrack, the sound was completely absent after starting a game. Also, right before the first conversation between the main character and his superior, the game crashed with a general protection fault. So i started the 2 hour process of installing a variety of drivers for my graphics accelerator and sound card. I was able to rectify the crashing, but the sound was nowhere to be seen ... ahem, heard. After causing a multitude of other problems with my system, i rolled back to the original video and audio drivers and threw my hands up in frustration. Perhaps this was my conscience's way of telling me that i have several pressing Stanford-related issues to attend to. F$@&in' shame, because the game looked incredible. At least my system appears to be back to normal, as i was worried after i noticed a sound driver update caused pops in the audio output.

Listening to Rooney, basking in the 80 degree weather, about to head to Berkeley for a few hard iced teas with Mike K ... this is California.

Spent most of the last few days house hunting. Veronica and i saw a few apartments and condos, but they basically served to make me realize that i want a house. I'm tired of rude apartment neighbors, shared washer and dryers, and upstairs parties. We've seen a few nice house rentals, including a gorgeous 3 bedroom right off Skyline Blvd. in Burlingame and another 3 bedroom just a few blocks from Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo (watch out, here comes Veronica!). My parents and i did a 3 hour tour of Burlingame, San Mateo, and Millbrae with a realtor yesterday that turned up several nice prospects as well. Veronica has been down in L.A. since Friday in order to attend Michelle's bridal shower today. She'll be back tomorrow to resume our quest for a house.

I've managed to catch several movies in the last few days as well. Veronica and i watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on dvd with my parents a few days ago, that was decent. Call me blasphemous, but i'm pretty burnt out on the whole Harry Potter phenomenon. I've seen the entirety of XXX by catching parts of it at different times on cable. As Veronica says, it's a powerhouse action flick that rewards those who don't think about it too much. I went with my parents and their friends to see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen last night. Another movie that you shouldn't think about too much, and by too much i mean at all. It was entertaining though. Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray was a stretch. If Townsend was a poor man's Lestat in Queen of the Damned, he's the filthiest homeless beggar's Oscar Wilde here. And he's a superhero no less ... essentially immortal since his portrait absorbs all damage. I overheard two teenagers on their way out talking about how they'll have to read The Picture of Dorian Gray. Hope they're not expecting lots of scenes in which he absorbs gunshots and stabbings. It was strange seeing Naseeruddin Shah as kung fu master and submarine chief Captain Nemo the day after seeing him in the wonderful Monsoon Wedding, which my mom made me watch on cable Friday evening. That made me cry repeatedly, and had several great scenes with Shah as well as fantastic cinematography. I'm getting teary just thinking about it. Yeah, Ted's a softie, what else is new.

Other than that, i've been playing with my computer, which the movers dropped off Friday morning, and the new speakers i ordered from Amazon for my birthday. Need to go pick up a PC game or two to play ... Unreal 2 perhaps. And learning to play dominoes with my parents.

In the immortal words of Sam Gamgee, "Well, I'm back." (those words had better end this winter's Return of the King or i'm gonna be pissed).

I'm writing from my mom's G4 in Fremont, California, where we've been the last few days after our return from Boston. Our return trip was much less eventful than our epic week-long drive there two years ago. But that's to be expected as this time we had movers packing, loading, and moving all our possessions. Thursday evening was our last night in Boston. Veronica's former New Balance coworkers took her out to the Common Ground. I attended for a few hours before i felt the urge to walk the couple of blocks home and organize things for the movers. I disassembled our entertainment center and Veronica's eMac and packed clothes for my luggage until midnight, when Veronica returned from her merrymaking. I collapsed at 2am but she stayed up the entire night packing and cleaning. The next morning i left for my last day at the CMIR, sporting an LBMI@CMIR T-shirt given to me by my labmates, while Veronica waited for the movers. They arrived around 9:30 and proceeded to impress her with feats of strength, such as carrying 75 pound boxes of CDs three at a time. My last day at work was hurried, but included a nice CMIR pizza party featuring a going-away cake and a "You're the greatest!" balloon.

By 3:30pm our apartment looked like the picture above, and Veronica and her mom Arlene were in the last stages of cleaning. We grabbed a final burger at Sunset Grill before leaving Massachusetts for good and heading down to Rhode Island. Saturday was spent with Rob and Roo in Providence. We had a nice shopping stint in Warwick looking for Gameboy Advance games (F-Zero, Super Dodge Ball, and Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo for Rob, SPF2T, Wario Ware, and Chu Chu Rocket for Veronica), spent a few last hours with Olive, and then had a nice dinner at Downcity before checking out the Providence Water Fire. Basically a big street festival centering around a hundred or so fires burning in urns on the Providence River, it was a good time nonetheless.

Sunday (yes, i'm only up to Sunday) we hooked up with Arlene, Alan, and baby Ana (the triple A crew) and headed to Wickford RI for the annual Wickford art festival. Another big street festival, featuring booth upon booth of art for sale. Alan and Arlene made a few purchases, but i was content to follow them around with an Italian sausage or clam cake in hand. Ana was having a hard time waking up and was therefore quite grumpy for most of the afternoon. Around 4pm we headed to Narragansett to Mary Jane and Donnie's house (Alan's sister and brother-in-law, keep up), where we whiled away the evening watching The Matrix on Donnie's sweet surround sound system.

Monday we had a final meal with AAA at the Modern Diner in Providence before heading to T.F. Green Airport and leaving the East Coast altogether. We arrived exhausted in San Jose at 10:10 PST and met my mom. After sleeping in until a nice late 8:30 Tuesday morning (damn time change), we began our search for housing. We've seen several nice condos in Burlingame and Redwood City over the last few days, but Veronica and i are pretty much decided that we'd like to rent a house. A little more space, a yard, and more distance from your neighbors ... oh yeah, that's where it's at. We're heading to a Burlingame realtor tomorrow to try to improve our search methods, which currently center around Craigslist.

It's very strange to be back in California for good. However much i've missed being here, i do miss the CMIR, the Charles River, and Allston already. I'll close this rambling summary of our last days in Massachusetts and our first ones back in the Bay Area by giving a big thanks to all the people who made my time in the East Coast the wonderful experience it was: Rob, Rudha, Becca, Mike D, Vasilis, Ralph, Doreen, Andreas, Giannis, Anabela, Jorge, Nancy, Dianne, and all the others i'm too tired to keep typing out.

Haven't given a Ted update in a week or so, so buckle your seat belts, we're off!

Last weekend Veronica's friend Gary dropped by from San Francisco. They got in three nights of clubs at Campus, The Pill, and Manray, but in keeping with my recent boredom with clubs in general and the cold/flu that was bothering me, i stayed home. I did accompany them on a Boston Duck Tour, quack quack, and an excursion down to Wrentham and the outlet stores. The Duck Tour is at this point a Boston fixture: a fleet of seventeen amphibious troop carriers from World War 2 that have been converted into tour buses offering 1.5 hour trips around Boston and on the Charles River. A lot of fun, even with Veronica and Gary being gloomy non-participating sticks in the mud. I became the butt of most of driver Penny Wise's jokes after she found out that after Veronica's almost five years with me, she still doesn't have a real ring (Penny has only been waiting for two ... whiner). The intention of our jaunt down to Wrentham was to procure me a new suit, but despite trying on plenty at the Hugo Boss outlet, we came away empty in that regard. Gary and i did get new trainers and warm up jackets at the Adidas store though, and Veronica got some new shoes at Kenneth Cole. Gary left very early on Monday morning, after not doing much of anything Sunday because Veronica was laid up in bed with the flu.

Our roommate Emilio moved out on Monday July 1, so for a few days now we've had a huge empty room next door. It'll come in handy when we begin organizing things for the packing and loading process of the move that will be going down a week from Friday.

With only two weeks left at the CMIR, i've got several loads of work to get done. On Tuesday Doreen (despite being under the weather as well) and i stayed at the lab until 9:30pm and acquired a total of 22 fluorescence tomography datasets comprising my last experiment. I processed the data on Wednesday, and Thursday was ecstatic to find that the hypotheses of the experiment were verified, paving the way for my last paper. That's about halfway written. I'm also in the process of making my image analysis software Mac and Unix compatible, which may or may not be a massive headache. And i'm training Vasilis's new postdoc. And helping Andreas get our long-suffering time-resolved spectroscopy system up and running. And resubmitting my fluorescence tomography optimization paper, accepted after minor revisions to the Journal of the Optical Society of America A. And ... oh, way too many other things.

I've had the worst T experiences of my time in Boston over the last two weeks. Is this the city's way of saying "Fine! If you don't want to live here, get the hell out!"? A lot of missed trains, 20-30 minute waits, and rude passengers.

The Onion hits another nail on the head: Bush Asks Congress For $30 Billion To Help Fight War On Criticism.

Last night V and i walked over to the Paradise Rock Club to see Placebo. I'd seen them once before, at a Live 105 Christmas show in San Francisco, and remember them being good. But i've never been so inclined as to listen to their albums. However, once again they impressed me live. Highlights of the set were "Slave to the Wage", "Taste in Men", "Pure Morning", and "Black Eyed". The crowd was almost as much of a story as the band. We were a few feet back from the right side of the stage, right in front of the ... umm ... well ... the guy who's not Brian Molko and not the drummer. (Really, he plays both bass and guitar, and at times didn't play anything and just danced around like Bez) Anyway, the people around us were nice enough, until two girls showed up on my left and kept trying to inch their way in front of people. Several times one of them brushed my elbow. A few minutes later, i see one of them tap the other on the shoulder and start saying something, all the while pointing and nodding in my direction. The most unsubtle gesture i've ever seen. The other strange thing about the audience was that while everyone was energetic, all the dancers were doing these weird club moves that were totally incongruent with the music. Stuff you'd see in a Coolio video. I was pleasantly surprised when the band did away with the usual "Thank you, good night!" bullshit that separates the main set from the encore, opting instead for a much more truthful "We'll see you in a few minutes". However, they then proceeded to pull the regular crap for their second encore. The show closed with a cover of the Pixies' "Where Is My Mind?" that was a rendition worthy of the band's hometown. A drunk girl from the front row got onstage briefly to showcase her freaky dancing, but was, thank god, quickly shuffled offstage by a roadie.

No big plans for the long weekend, except for getting our apartment ready to move. Veronica's mom Arlene, stepdad Alan, and baby sister Ana arrive in Rhode Island for vacation with Alan's family on Saturday, so we'll probably head down on Sunday to say hello. Happy 4th!