tried all 13 channels, but they burned me out again 'cause it's over whenever they say i quit sending postcards, 'cause no one knew what to read in the mailman can't come in to explain so i'm out of gasoline, and i hate see, and it's hard to never mind it's hard to never mind i bought myself new candles, but they only burn old flames i guess it's all the same anyway went through my high school annuals to see who i still knew but my point of view's forever changed

Chelsea announced today that it has signed a deal with a US satellite radio company to offer live coverage of all the team's Premiership matches, as well as a weekly hour-long discussion show. The company? Sirius, of course! First Howard, now this? I love my satellite radio.

Speaking of Chelsea, my birthday present/payment for designing Ana's web site from Arlene arrived on our doorstep this morning, after i had driven down to Stanford but luckily before Veronica headed off to work so it didn't languish on our porch all day long. I'm looking forward to unwrapping a white long sleeve John Terry away kit and a navy hooded Adidas sweatshirt when i get home from my evening tennis match with Fred.

Picked up a 500GB SATA Seagate internal hard drive last night at Fry's to replace the filled-to-the-brim 250GB Maxtor i've got in my work computer. It was installed no problem, and is currently being inundated with my 232GB mp3 collection.

I just ran out of things to say. I guess that's to be expected as i'm in the middle of writing a big review article, and all my errant thoughts are being dumped into that.

So i'm playing God of War today, merrily slashing the heads off centaurs and breaking sirens' backs. I get to a cutscene that recounts the main character Kratos's deal with the God of War Ares, in which Kratos shouts a desperate prayer while about to be hacked apart by a blood-hungry barbarian. I'm listening to Kratos's voice and can't help but think i've heard it somewhere before ... is it that giant guy from the Green Mile who played Kingpin in Daredevil? No ... dammit! Enter the magic of IMDB, which also has voice acting credits in video games. A quick search informs me that Kratos is voiced by Terrence Carson. No photo on IMDB, but a subsequent Google image search pulls up a bunch of photos of that ladies man from the old Queen Latifah/Tootie sitcom Living Single. You're freakin' kidding me ... this Spartan badass is played by someone who was roommates with Overton?

All qualms about actors' histories aside, GoW continues to impress. I've just finished the third challenge of the gods and am now scaling the Cliffs of Madness on my way to recovering Pandora's Box. Combat never gets old, and is continually challenging as newer, more powerful enemies are introduced. The most recent were satyrs, Pan-like goat-hooved baddies with halbards. Looks like i'm nearing my final showdown with Ares, but luckily God of War 2 is due in February.

Weekend in a nutshell ... late meeting at Stanford on Friday evening, followed by a relaxing night at home. Took Tara to the vet to investigate what turned out to be a fat lump on her side, then picked up my Jetta from the dealer and had lunch at Panera and let Tara further socialize at the dog park. Saturday evening we met up with Naomi and Phil for dinner at Q, dessert crepes at Genki, a little socializing of our own at Jenz's housewarming party, then late night Guitar Hero back at Phil's. We attended my grad school friends Lance and Loren's wedding shower on Sunday in Berkeley, which was a great laid back affair meeting a few new friends.

I'm so happy to have my Jetta and Howard Stern back. I got to listen to a replay of the outrageous "Hodeo" while on the way to the dog park with V and T. If i never hear Woody, Tony, or Ravy say another word, it will be too soon.

The new Legends album Facts and Figures is out. I'm very curious to hear it ... both because i hope they can improve upon the morose Seventeen Seconds-era Cure disappointment of Public Radio, and because i'm curious what influences the band will be wearing on their sleeve this time around. The Labrador website describes it as this: "The Legends combine their love for heartfelt indie pop and soft 60's style melodies with the German precision of Kraftwerk and DAF. Perfectionism is mixed with the naive curiosity and experimental lust of a beginner. A hate of dance floors combined with dance music." Intriguing, to say the least.

The spectacle of Rock Star: Supernova came to an end last week, with AFI-meets-Slayer hybrid Lukas beating out nemesis Dilana for the "privilege" of fronting three marginally successful backing musicians for the next ten months or so. Allmusic has a great conversation about the show here. Choice quote: "How should we refer to this band? It was determined that they cannot be Supernova, correct? How about (affectionately): Clint Howard the Goth Topic Hedgehog & the Pawn Shop Flotsam Mayhem?"" I think that about sums it up.

Because i forgot about Lance and Loren's wedding on October 1, i had to put the kibosh on Matthew's plans for the fourth annual SMFA tourney in LA the same weekend. Unfortunately i'll miss the already scheduled paintball outing at the wooded environs of Camp Pendleton, which reportedly kicks ass over my previous experience with the guys at an outside arena. Doh.

Chelsea impressed with a key early season victory over rivals Liverpool on Sunday. Didier Drogba continues to burn up the scoring table, chesting down a cross then spinning and firing a first time shot past Jamie Carragher and Jose Reina for the winner. Unfortunately Michael Ballack got sent off for a clear stamp on Mohamed Sissoko in the second half. It wasn't malicious, but it was clear and right in front of the ref. However, i'm impressed with Chelsea's response: it happened, it wasn't violent or evil, but it happened so let's face the music and move on. The win coupled with misfiring Arsenal's surprising defeat of leaders Manchester United puts Chelsea one point off the lead, behind initial pacesetters Portsmouth. That'll end soon ... although a squad with Sol Campbell, Glen Johnson, Sean Davis, Kanu, and Lomano LuaLua may be more than a flash in the pan.

My fantasy footie squad is still eating s@$#. Let's not go there. I did marginally better on my NFL picks this week than my disastrous outing in the opening week, but i still haven't won anything. I'm amazed that the 49ers managed to beat the popular NFC West sleeper pick the Rams. Maybe Alex Smith and impressive new running back Frank Gore have the potential to lift this team out of the crapper. Meanwhile, the Raiders stink something awful. Bill Simmons has thanked the football gods for bringing once and current Oakland coach Art Shell back into the fold, if only for his comic ineptitude. After reading his description of Shell's glazed look under the headphones as his team implodes, i got to see it in action on Sunday afternoon. Ridiculous.

I guess baseball's drawing to a close. Whoop de freakin' doo.

Just downloaded iTunes 7.0 this morning. Quite a lot of new stuff in this one, as a whole number upgrade (6.0 to 7.0, as opposed to 6.0.4 to 6.0.5) should be. The new version passed my first test, ensuring that my COM SDK scripts still function, without a hitch. I haven't played with the new gapless option yet, although when i fired up the new version for the first time it spent a good two hours "determining gapless playback" for all the songs in my library. Being a cover art aficionado, i'm thrilled by the new view options where you can peruse your library by artwork. The "Cover Flow" interface is amusing, although i'm not sure i'll end up using it all that much. I also noticed that there is a new "album artist" field in the song information window, which from errant online forums i gather can be used to add sorting information for artists outside of the usual artist field. For example, i can use it to sort Miles Davis by Davis. I wish iTunes could do this behind the scenes (ie, displaying Miles Davis from the artist field while transparently sorting by Davis, Miles from the album artist field), but the current implementation is a step up regardless so i'll live with it.

Veronica had dinner with Jenz on Wednesday, so i spent my evening home alone in front of God of War. What a freakin' awesome game. It reminds me a lot of the Xbox classic Ninja Gaiden and its fluid gameplay mechanic and silky smooth visuals. The game is incredibly brutal, with lots of bloody animations of severed limbs and cracked skulls. I love the Greek mythology context of the story, and the tale is told with enough suspense and drama to keep the whole from devolving into a run-of-the-mill hack-and-slash title. I'm a bit sad i wasn't on the ball when this came out originally, but my inattentiveness did result in me picking up the game for a mere $19.99 as part of the "PS2 Greatest Hits" collection. Given that our friend Kevin works at Sony Santa Monica, the developers responsible for GoW and its forthcoming sequel, i'm looking forward to getting my mitts on God of War 2 in the new year.

Speaking of Kevin, i've been driving a silver Volkswagen GTI much like his all week. I brought my Jetta over to Fremont for a tuneup on Tuesday, and asked them to look at my rear windshield as Bob had noticed that one of the corners was coming loose. Turns out the window needed to be resealed, and the dealer wasn't able to do that until yesterday. So my one day loaner became an all week loaner. Luckily they got the job done, and were able to avoid breaking the windshield while removing it ... i was warned this was a real possibility and would result in me being charged for a brand new windshield. So now i get my beloved Jetta back tomorrow while taking Tara to the vet for her checkup. I've been pretty peeved all week as i had to listen to the god awful "Morning Music Co-op" on Live 105 instead of my morning staple Howard Stern. This morning they were ranting on about how they were going to get on Mythbusters determining whether a radio antenna could cook a turkey. Someone called in to tell them that the energy emitted by such an antenna is relatively harmless, to which the three radio hosts/budding Einsteins responded that microwaves are also radiation and can cook things very well. I don't want to get into an extended discussion of wavelengths, frequencies, photon energies, absorption spectra, and the like, so let's just say that Woody, Tony, and Ravy need to bone up on their physics.

The Xbox 360 release schedule is ramping up, with the latest Splinter Cell episode due next month, and the hotly anticipated shooter Gears of War set to appear in November. Rumors continue to swirl that the launch of the Playstation 3 will be delayed until next year ... the latest tidbit notes that Sony hasn't begun playtesting any of the launch titles yet, a scant two months prior to release. As much as i disapprove of Nintendo's business plan, V is enamored of the Wii so we may own one of those before the holiday season. My take is that the much-discussed control system (revolving around a position-, orientation-, and motion-sensitive remote control apparatus) will be amusing for a while, but unless Nintendo completely reinvents the gaming experience, its novelty will die off. Cross-platform games will take advantage of the powerhouse PS3 and Xbox 360 engines, and will feel like poorly-conceived ports on the underpowered Nintendo box. That will leave the gaming giants once again without substantial third party support and reliant on the same old slew of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games.

First things first ... i've heard the source material, and i still consider the Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" the greatest single ever. That said, i'm a bit surprised about the exact nature of the sample drawn from the Andrew Oldham Orchestra symphonic version of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time" that was used to create the Verve masterpiece. I always thought it was the central string piece ... you know, the "da da da da daaa daaa, da daaa daaa, da daaa daaa". Turns out it's the backing orchestrated piece, containing strings and particularly the tubular bells that provided an interesting accent to Ashcroft's song but are central to Oldham's rendition. This simultaneously pleases me (as it attests to the fact that the Verve song is not simply a straightforward ripoff of the original) and troubles me (as the backing bells in the Verve track were always one of my favorite nuances of the song). At any rate, Oldham's album of orchestrated Rolling Stones songs is an interesting time capsule.

Of course, halfway through my first full day back in Cali (during a Labor Day brunch with Bob and Veronica at the ever-delectable Lighthouse Café in Sausalito), i felt the first twinges of a cold coming on. And by that evening my health had gone decidedly south. Luckily my illness waited out my vacation, as well as my morning spent helping Jenz and Joselyn load up their possessions, stored in our garage, into a U-Haul for transport to their new apartment in the city. However, my return to work was delayed for three days as i languished in sinus hell while Tara tried in vain to cheer me up.

Didn't get much done in the meantime, except for reacquainting myself with the PSP and Lumines and finishing the career mode of the surprisingly addictive RealArcade soccer game i downloaded for my cell phone. Like i said, not much.

I did make it back to Stanford on Friday, and put out the most pressing fires. I had neglected my new postdoc Hu for the better part of two weeks, and was thrilled to see his great progress on the development of our microCT collimator. I made it until 4pm, when i decided to give my health a rest and pick up my dry cleaning and new parking permit on the way home. I was still mighty congested, and whiled away the night with Veronica watching tivoed episodes of the Soup as well as the 2006 MTV VMAs ... i found it grating, and yes i am older than the target demographic.

Saturday was more productive as V and i got a number of errands done. I ran over to Sherwin Williams in Mountain View to get more paint for the kitchen. On the way there i got a call from sister Emily, and was thrilled to learn she is 10.5 weeks pregnant with her first child. "Tadpole", as Jared and her have taken to calling him/her. Let the naming debates commence! I then fetched V and we drove up to the city for a futile search for an Adidas store, followed by some fantastic creampuffs from Beard Papa and a subsequent real lunch at Firewood in the Metreon. We then picked up a few games at the Playstation Store, the highly-rated cutesy PSP action/puzzler Locoroco for Veronica, and the equally-touted "PS2 Greatest Hit" God of War for me. I got in some time with GoW that evening while Veronica headed to San Francisco and the 14th anniversary of New Wave City, and was amazed by its brilliant and ultra-graphic gameplay. I climbed into bed around 1am and watched a truly disturbing British documentary on the Sundance Channel describing the U.S. and U.K.'s habit of denouncing torture, then sending their captured Al Qaeda suspects to allies like Egypt and Uzbekistan who are big proponents of such activities. I found the exposé genuinely shocking.

Today we took Tara on her third visit to the dog park in Foster City, and for the first time let her roam around without the leash. She was good, but seems a bit clueless regarding how this "playing" thing works. When other dogs came up to her and gestured to start running around or wrestling, Tara looked spooked. One dog came up and started barking in her face and Tara stared off into space, quivering slightly with each of the other dog's yelps. I felt like the father of the 98 pound weakling in the playground. However, i must say i was glad that she wasn't the schoolyard bully, and refrained from attacking any of the other dogs, despite growling and barking on occasion.

After i completed a whirlwind house-cleaning session while taking in an afternoon of mostly boring NFL games, we had dinner with my parents in Burlingame at the wonderful Indian bistro Roti. After a vanilla latte from Starbucks, we came home and i set about updating my neglected journal. I would've posted three days ago if my ISP Dreamhost hadn't crapped out. Turns out a network card in their web server died and caused their hosted webpages to fail in various ways over a period of several days as they solved the problem. My CGI-heavy pages were shackled because of an inability to find include files needed for the Perl scripts. All seems well now. I did manage to put up photos of our Hawaiian holiday before the site died, which you can now view here.

I'm still mostly pessimistic regarding the nascent Chelsea season. The signing of Ashley Cole? Good move. The ultra-messy departure of William Gallas? Troubling from a football perspective, and inexplicably disastrous from a public relations viewpoint. Allowing Middlesbrough to snatch a 2-1 victory with two late goals? Ominous, but not independently problematic over the course of the long Premiership campaign. Multiple lackluster performances against lesser opposition? Isn't that our modus operandi over the last two seasons? Nothing's won or lost yet, but i still see storm clouds brewing over Stamford Bridge.

I'm eager to return to expanding my music collection after my vacation-mandated hiatus, and have just picked up the Verve-sampled Rolling Stones Songbook by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra, as well as new albums by Kasabian (after one listen, i contend that it's horrible) and the Rapture (after one listen, i have a feeling this is going to grow on me something fierce ... "The Sound" is hypnotic).

Friday, August 25th
V and my holiday got off to an inauspicious start as i fudged our departure time. I recalled it being somewhere in the 4:45-5pm range, but when Bob and i picked V up at work at 3:15 and checked our itinerary (which i should've done hours earlier), i found the plane was leaving in a scant 60 minutes. A quick race down the 101 traffic, a healthy tip for the curbside skycaps, and a smooth inspection at security got us to our gate by 4pm, where my Stanford MIPS colleague Fred, his wife Amanda, son Ethan, and parents were waiting anxiously for us. The flight to Kona on the big island of Hawai'i was smooth, and provided entertainment in the form of United's "Halfway to Hawaii" game. At the start of the flight, the pilot gave us some details of the trip (distance, speed, departure time, wind), and asked the passengers to guess the time at which we would be halfway there. Being the engineer that i am, i filled the back of my ballot with a slew of calculations (including longhand division, not having a calculator handy) and came up with 3:57pm Hawaii time. Turns out i was off by one minute and 58 seconds, but the stewardess was so impressed by my chicken scratches that i got a consolation prize. This amused Veronica to no end. The flight attendants commented however that it's usually more fun when someone enters a computation-filled paper and ends up being off by an hour. We arrived in Kona around 6:30pm, and had two and a half hours to kill until our connection to Honolulu. I was struck by the Kona airport, as it appeared to be a collection of huts as opposed to an airport terminal. I was able to get us on an earlier flight, and we arrived on Oahu at 8:40pm. After collecting our bags and catching a cab, we reconnoitered with the Chins at our hotel, the Outrigger Reef Waikiki. Our crew was exhausted but managed to cling to consciousness for a late night meal at the Cheesecake Factory ... the only place still seating near our hotel. Then back to our abode above the beach and passing out.

Saturday, August 26th
Taking advantage of the time zone, we rose early and had a breakfast of a Starbucks english muffin sandwich and a Jamba Juice, then met up with the Chins to catch the shuttle over to Pearl Harbor. I got my first introduction to "island time" from our native shuttle driver, who (in my crotchety estimation) prattled on incessantly before sitting down to drive us, then again after arriving and before letting us get out. We got there around 10:45am and were pleased to get assigned to the 11:45 tour (as waits at the monument can reach 2-3 hours during peak times). I was quite impressed with the memorial, particularly the somber majesty of the sunken ship just below the surface. We then headed over to the nearby flea market, but weren't too enthused and left the Chins behind to head back to the hotel to relax. A 6pm dinner at Duke's down the beach in Waikiki with the Chins was our next activity, giving me another excuse to play peek-a-boo with Ethan. I think he was a bit surprised that he tired of the game before i did. We rounded out the evening with a walk down the Waikiki promenade, including a spot of ice cream from Baskin Robbins.

Sunday, August 27th
V and i had adjusted to the time change by Sunday, and slept in as is our way. We separated with Fred, Amanda, and co. for most of the day, opting to walk over to the Ala Moana Mall to shop and lunch at the highly recommended Mariposa atop Neiman Marcus. A fabulous meal, starting with popovers and pineapple butter and including chicken consomme, a zesty green salad, and mussels with chorizo. We then wandered through the high end mall before busing back to Waikiki. I did some shopping at the Adidas store, picking up a sweet retro Brasil 1950 World Cup t-shirt and a "World Cup's Greatest Moments" tracktop with the Argentina logo on the front and "Hand of God" across the shoulders (commemorating Diego Maradona's infamous goal against England). Despite an invitation to Hanauma Bay to snorkel with the Chins, we opted to stay local and go for a swim in the warm ocean just beyond our hotel. After seeing Fred and family off to the airport for their flight back to Kona at 7pm, we had a late dinner of burgers at a Waikiki joint, then located a nearby movie theater and relaxed watching Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. The movie had its moments, to be sure ... Will Ferrell is naturally hilarious ... but the plot was fairly idiotic and made the final product feel like it lurched from one bit to the next. Interestingly, the prime-time show was only $8.75 per person, perhaps the cheapest movie we've seen in a while.

Monday, August 28th
Our flight to Kona departed Honolulu at 10:40am, but we avoided our previous air travel difficulties and arrived in plenty of time, even rising early enough to catch the renowned breakfast buffet at our hotel. It didn't wow me, but at least i got a morning meal. We picked up our bags and rented a car from Avis without a reservation or too much trouble or expense. Turns out this was fortuitous because unless you have your own vehicle, you will be spending all your time at your hotel on the big island. We checked into our hotel, the Outrigger Keauhou Bay, then had lunch at a local Thai café before opting to drive around the island. And when i say "around", that's a pretty apt description. We started in Keauhou, near Kona on the west coast, then drove south around the island's tip and into coffee country. We stopped at the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach for a stint, then resumed our trek, arriving at Volcanoes National Park around 4pm. V and i elected to drive down the 18 mile Chain of Craters Road, stopping frequently to survey the craters and lava fields. The drive ended at the coast around 6:30pm, with the active lava flow into the ocean visible in the distance by the steam pouring from it. We parked and walked a mile past other earlier parked cars to the ranger station, then another mile to the end of the road, then a half mile out onto the lava field to the viewing point. With daylight having just died we could see the glowing lava finding its way into the water, an impressive sight. Unfortunately our poorly-planned expedition hadn't included flashlights, and we struggled to maneuver the volcanic rock back to the road in the darkness. Luckily a passing couple took pity on us and gave us one of their lights. Without which we surely would've suffered a broken ankle or two. Our drive also hadn't factored that everything would be closed during our two hour trip back to the hotel. Freaking out that i wouldn't be able to get us back, i exacerbated the situation by failing to stop at a gas station for a drink for the parched Veronica. We returned to Keauhou at 10:30pm and were denied dinner, falling asleep after slaking our thirst with tapwater.

Tuesday, August 29th
We awoke early to partake of the hotel's breakfast buffet, significantly better than that of the Outrigger Waikiki. The day centered around a pre-conference meeting i was slated to attend up the coast at the Hilton Waikaloa Village. As with our flight from SFO my memory again failed me, as it turned out the meeting was on Wednesday afternoon, a fact i learned when no one else showed up at the meeting room. Our day interrupted, we chose to wander around Waikoloa, taking in the burgeoning resort community. I was intrigued by the nearby petroglyph sanctuary, a collection of "ancient" Hawaiian rock carvings. Upon seeing them i was seriously peeved. Lured by the mystery of untranslatable etchings, i was annoyed to find a great deal of the carvings were only 100 years old and consisted of initials and dates. Hmm, what could "J.M. 1897" possibly mean? The older ones consisted largely of circles and dots and were thus not terribly awe-inspiring. Furthermore, i couldn't be sure whether the more complex carvings were old and authentic or more recent additions. Although previously tempted by travel guide descriptions of more elaborate petroglyph fields elsewhere on the island, this experience convinced me otherwise. V and i then returned to Keauhou and spent the afternoon swimming in the pool, before enjoying dinner at the hotel restaurant and listening to the "Marty Culp and Bobby Mohan-Culp"-esque lounge act.

Wednesday, August 30th
V and i rose early to try our hand at snorkeling at the nearby Keauhou Bay. We rented equipment at the beach, then waded into the reef via a sand channel. Veronica had never snorkeled and took a little while to adapt to breathing underwater with a mask and snorkel, but was soon staring at the fishies for minutes on end. We saw the native green turtles as well as a collection of colorful tropical fish. After about an hour and a half in the water, i felt two sharp stabs on my ankle. Spinning around i saw a little fish swimming in the other direction, but convinced myself i must've let my foot dangle and smack on the shallow rocks. Ten minutes later, i was swimming along blissfully when i spotted an iridescent fish darting and zig-zagging at me in a menacing pattern. I freaked out a bit and started flailing and backpedaling, kicking my fins at the little bugger. V saw the whole scenario and thought it was freakin' hilarious, until the pesky fish pecked her on the ankle as he had done me earlier. We decided to call it a morning and headed to the beach, where we discovered that the bastard had taken a chunk out of both of our feet. Further research suggests we were victims of the notoriously aggressive Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, also known as the Hawaiian triggerfish which is the Hawaiian state fish. After cleaning up, we then checked out of our hotel and made our way back to Waikoloa, where we checked into the mammoth Hilton and i attended my meeting. After taking in the opening plenary of the annual Society for Molecular Imaging meeting, i met up with Veronica and we spent the evening chatting with old and new friends from San Francisco, Boston, and Palo Alto at the opening reception, which featured native Hawaiian dancers retelling the legend of Pele, the goddess of fire.

Thursday, August 31st
I rose early to attend the first day of sessions at the SMI, which were interesting if not mind-blowing. Veronica had earlier asked me how people convince themselves to attend sessions in a location this extravagant, to which i replied it separated the men from the boys. However, like most of my peers i played hooky for a few hours in the afternoon, lunching at the lagoon-side café while watching a collection of hotel residents play with the dolphins. We made reservations to do the same the next afternoon, then i headed back to the meeting. V met up with us after the evening poster session, and we spent a little while at the Xenogen reception before dining with old officemate Lisa and a few other chums at the local Hawaiian restaurant.

Friday, September 1st
I again hit the meeting in the morning, this time seeing a great session on optical imaging of tumor biology. I however then played more hooky, rendez-vousing with Vroo to partake of our half hour with the dolphins. It was a lot of fun, petting the sleek and smooth sea mammals and watching them do tricks. We then headed over to one of the hotel's opulent pools and floated around for an hour or so, before i snuck back to the meeting. Poster sessions are becoming less and less useful for me, as instead of seeing research i end up running into ten people i know and chatting with them the whole time. This time i caught up with my PhD advisor Sarah, who was at the meeting to speak at one of the plenary sessions. V had made reservations for four at the hotel's Japanese restaurant, but we were unable to find dinner partners so we dined on our own at the Benihana-style place.

Saturday, September 2nd
By now my pattern was clear, and i again attended the morning sessions before ditching to meet up with Veronica. We spent a few hours in the pool relaxing, then served as photographer and videographer as the Chin clan waded into the dolphin lagoon. After showering and changing, we took in a magnificent Hawaiian sunset before heading over to the closing gala of the meeting, a "Paniola" (Hawaiian cowboy) style cookout. After having an eclectic meal of meat, seafood, and vegetables, we chatted with some new friends and then closed the evening catching up with Fred, Amanda, and Ethan, who were exhausted from their marathon of family vacationing. Before heading back to our room we ran into Stanford colleagues Chris and Tim, and bid farewell to them as they wandered over to close out the bar.

Sunday, September 3rd
Eager to avoid another "race to catch the flight" scenario, we packed, ate, checked out, returned our rental car, and arrived at the ticketing desk at the airport at 11am, well in advance of our 12:35pm departure. Unfortunately, it took us 65 minutes to get through the ticketing line, and when we arrived in front of an e-checkin terminal we were electronically warned that we could no longer register for our flight. Despite the booth's polite offer to go standby on the 9:15pm flight, i grabbed a ticketing agent and "forcefully requested" that we be checked in. She complied, despite the less-than-enthusiastic response of the gate agent over the radio: "i don't think so ..." We were sent over to security, where naturally we chose the slowest line. Passing security, i didn't bother to put my shoes back on and instead ran in my socks with Veronica across the tarmac and onto the plane. Having checked in late our originally requested seats had been released, and we instead got two in the last row of the plane. As it turned out this was a blessing in disguise as our three-seat row had one empty chair, giving us room to spread out. Also, as roughly 30 of my colleagues from the meeting were on the flight, i got to chit-chat with them when they inevitably wandered to the rear of the aircraft to stretch. We set down in SFO ahead of schedule at 8:15pm, and were picked up by our housesitter Bob who then took us for burritos in downtown San Mateo. Of course the Tara dog was in raptures when we returned to our house.