Gary caught this pic of me celebrating shortly after defeating Sean and Manchester United in the SMFA Cup final. We're currently debating improved names for the tourney, which will hopefully occur regularly now that we've corrupted Matthew ... he bought an Xbox two days after the competition, determined to begin moving up the table. Sorry Dionne!

Bear in mind that it's about 5am in this photo. See the clock?

Going backward, i've been pretty darn busy. For good or bad, more than a little of my brainpower has been devoted to following Chelsea as their title challenge gains momentum. I was a smidge anxious the Sunday after our epic victory over Lazio, as we faced Newcastle at Stamford Bridge. If you had to pick a match for a let-down, this was it. But my Sunday morning was golden as i awoke to find that we'd decimated them, 5-nil. The win was punctuated by a sweeeeeeet goal from new hero Damien Duff, as he skipped past a defender and rifled a shot past Shay Given. Even better, Claudio Ranieri rewarded the heroes of Rome by not making any modifications to the squad. And lo and behold, this first repeat squad of the season is only one man off the formation i threw out a while back! Hasselbaink is out, with Mutu favored instead, but that i can accept. We're now in the midst of some off-time while international qualifiers happen. I can't wait to watch the further evolution of the Blues. It's been a great ride so far.

On Sunday evening we met up with my parents then headed north to SF. The occasion? Veronica's birthday was the day before, and my mom's is today (happy birthday Mom!), so we arranged to have a nice meal at Kuleto's followed by the live stage show of A Mighty Wind at the Warfield. Luckily Veronica and i had acquainted ourselves with the movie the night before, which is arguably even funnier than the fantastic Best In Show. On par with the all-time great Spinal Tap. We were all curious about how they would orchestrate the live show. As it turned out, all of the main players were there ... Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara as Mitch & Mickey, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and transsexual Harry Shearer as The Folksmen, and the collective New Main Street Singers featuring Parker Posey, Jane Lynch, and John Michael Higgins. Totally hilarious. And incredibly enough, the music stood on its own as well. Mitch & Mickey had several songs worthy of Simon and Garfunkel. Also represented was the host of the show, Jonathan Steinbloom (aka Bob Balaban) and PR director Amber Cole (aka Jennifer Coolidge). Great fun.

I came to work the Monday after having pondered whether to submit a short grant application to the Society of Nuclear Medicine for $8000 to develop software for planning radiation therapies based on multiple anatomic, functional, and/or molecular imaging datasets. I'd been going back and forth on this for a few weeks. With the deadline only four days away, my conscience decided to make things hard on me and not let me slack off. So i worked feverishly to produce a proposal, rationale, background, and budget. On Thursday afternoon it was Fed-Exed to the SNM, with the blessing of my Research Process Manager. I'm not thrilled with it, and i have my doubts as to whether it will be funded, but writing the application was a valuable experience that will undoubtedly help as i ask bigger and bigger agencies for more and more money. I was slated to attend that evening's show by The Rapture at the Great American Music Hall, but i was so worked that i came home and crashed instead.

A comparatively laid-back day at work on Friday passed, then i drove off to pick up Sean and Michelle at the SJ Airport. I chose to take the streets in fear of what the 101 would look like. It probably took about as long, but oddly enough i passed the Decathlon Club along the way, site of my junior prom way back when. After collecting the newlyweds, we went back to the Village for Veronica, then headed up to the city for some grub at the always scrumptious Pomelo. We then relived the old days at Trad'r Sams with Danny, Gary, and Dionne and Matthew (who hauled ass up the 5 once they heard what we were up to). At 2am we returned to the Village, where we played some informal FIFA 2003 until 5:30am. At least, that was when i called it quits, but apparently Sean and Gary kept it going until 6:30am.

Our grand designs for Saturday were hindered by the fact that we all slept until 1pm. We had intended to go to the city, but after getting all of us showered it was 4pm. We then had to go grab the cakes for that evening's Gary and Veronica birthday party/Veronica and Ted housewarming party. And fill our distinctly unhappy bellies. So our plans to go shopping on the Haight were shelved. We did manage to squeeze in a quick viewing of Hong Kong cinema classic Shaolin Soccer during the party preparations, after which Sean, Matthew, and i absconded to the Hillsdale Mall to purchase FIFA 2004. The small but intimate gathering got going around 10pm, and shortly thereafter the aforementioned SMFA Cup tournament was begun.

Again on Sunday we dozed late and spent a while getting ready. Our preparations were not helped by the fact that i succeeded in corrupting Veronica's Entourage database, and had to spend a while figuring out what to do about it. Matthew and Dionne headed back down the 5 around 3pm, and Michelle, Sean, Veronica, and i finally headed off to the city around 4:30pm. We got in some shopping at Villains and Amoeba, plus we picked up some pizza at Escape From New York before speeding off down the 101 so the Tracys could make their 8:35pm flight back to LA. I couldn't talk Veronica into catching a showing of The Matrix Revolutions in Santa Clara, so we headed home (a bit lonely after the frenetic pace of the weekend). V promptly passed out, but i mustered up the energy to clean the house of the post-party mess.

Now i'm back at work, preparing for the Stanford Radiation Oncology retreat at the beginning of next month. V and i are off to the airport on Saturday to pick up Veronica's dog Cobi, arriving from Iowa. Any bets on how long it takes Veronica to goad Cobi into biting me? I say about three minutes.