And so much to be optimistic about ... getting married on Thursday, batteries recharged after a slow week in Pittsburgh, and i just saw Chelsea put another three in the net against AS Roma. The team is really coming together, and all the pieces are performing. The Roman side managed just two shots on goal all evening, and new keeper Petr Cech had each of those easily in hand. Our central defense of John Terry and William Gallas never looked very challenged, while wing back Paulo Ferreira looks to have put the misery of Euro 2004 behind him, opening up a number of good attacks. Perhaps most impressive is the midfield (and it should be, given its price tag) ... Geremi has put in two excellent performances now and appears to be staking his claim for a starting spot, while Joe Cole has been very effective in two games as an attacking midfielder. The match began in a similar vein to the one in Seattle, with Chelsea (playing in their new black and silver away kits) immediately launching into the attack. On ten minutes Joe Cole received an excellent through ball from Geremi, and put it under the advancing Roma keeper to make it 1-nil Chelsea. Kezman and Gudjohnsen each had excellent chances in the first twenty minutes, but were unable to find the net. Service to the strikers so far this preseason has been superb. The rest of the first half played out testily, as play became more physical and both teams began to get frustrated ... Roma because they couldn't buy offense and Chelsea because the ref was becoming annoyingly pro-Italian. At the outset of the second period of play, Mourinho replaced Gudjohnsen with new signing Didier Drogba, and also inserted Wayne Bridge, William Gallas, Arjen Robben, Alexei Smertin, and Frank Lampard. Chelsea resumed their assault on the Italian defense, while Roma were lucky to string two passes together in the Chelsea half. Frank Lampard was able to send Arjen Robben down the left wing, and after coming all the way to the end line the Dutchman sent the ball to the middle of the penalty area where Mateja Kezman was charging. Roma keeper Carlo Zotti got a hand on the shot but couldn't keep it out the net, and the Serb deservedly upped his preseason tally to 4 after some fine play.

This being Pittsburgh, something low brow had to happen. Shortly after the goal, Olivier Dacourt shamefully kicked Arjen Robben in the hamstring after being completely burned on a run. Robben went down in pain, and Mateja Kezman sprinted over to stick up for his new teammate, pushing Dacourt back. A scuffle ensued, and when the dust settled the ref red carded both Dacourt and Kezman. The right decision ... Kezman has been fantastic so far this preseason but needs to keep his temper in check. We got our revenge soon after though, as Zotti was unable to hold on to a typically wicked Frank Lampard screamer, and Didier Drogba opened his Chelsea account by side footing the rebound into the net. He'd made a series of penetrating moves already and totally deserved reward, even if it was a garbage goal. Robben looked in pain and was subbed not long after. Hopefully the hamstring won't keep him on the bench ... however the substitution meant the entry of Damien Duff, out since May with a dislocated shoulder. He started a bit tentative, but soon was making excellent turns and feints down the left side. An excellent back heel springed Lampard on goal, but the shot went wide. Final whistle, an impressive 3-nil victory for Chelsea, only slightly detracted by the sending off of Kezman.

The match was only half the story for me, though. I left my hotel at 6:45pm so i could walk to Heinz Field along the river. I arrived there about 7:15pm, and tried to buy a t-shirt but was told the credit card system was down. Oh well, i'll just go in and get money later. However, the security guard takes a look at my messenger bag and tells me "I don't know what that is". Hrm??? "I don't think you can bring that in." What about those women and their purses? "That's a different kind of bag." But it's smaller. "Doesn't matter." Well are there any lockers i can put it in? "No." Jesus Christ! Thanks for the help! Immediately ruling out the idea of chucking the bag somewhere, i was able to find a taxi to give me a five minute ride back to my hotel. Ran upstairs and left the bag in my room, ran downstairs and caught another cab. This one gets me onto the bridge over the river and by the stadium, but then we find the stadium exit is completely backed up ... big surprise. When the cabbie asks me if he can let me off somewhere, i say sure, i can walk. So he stops the cab ... on the friggin freeway! I ask if he can get off the expressway, dumbfounded, so he drives past the stadium exit and heads to the nearest surface road. Apparently this was close enough for him, so he again tries to put me out on the freeway! We finally compromise on a back road just after the first exit past the stadium, so i ran the half mile up to Heinz Field, arriving in my seat at 8:10pm, just before kickoff. Whew! Oddly, my seat was in almost the exact same spot in which i'd sat in Seattle, sixth row, even with the top of the left penalty area.

Tomorrow i bring my Pittsburgh adventure to a close, and i can't say i'll miss the steel city. Next stop, marriage!

Pittsburgh is a weird town. When my philosopher/cabbie drove me downtown at 8am on Monday morning, i was immediately struck by the interesting geography of the city, with the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers providing the northern and southern boundaries of downtown, respectively, converging into the Ohio River just south of Heinz Field (formerly, and more appropriately, Three Rivers Stadium). But having spent a few days here, i've noticed the odd mishmosh of architecture and general evidence of decay. There's no consistent design aesthetic, buildings range from gothic stone to Victorian brick to hideous seventies blocks to hideous nineties gothic glass abominations. The bridges that traverse the rivers all share the same construction, a mundane steel arch painted yellow in apparent homage to the Steelers. It's certainly a blue collar town, but it almost feels like the entire populace never recovered from the decline of the steel mills. New industry and the "culture district" can't mask the sense of malaise.

I took a two hour walk today to collect these observations. Since i saw the Mariners play in Seattle last weekend, i toyed with the idea of checking out the Pirates as i walked by PNC Park, but decided i wasn't enough of a baseball or Pittsburgh fan to watch nine innings by myself in a strange place. Luckily, Heinz Field is within walking distance of my hotel so i can avoid taking a taxi to tomorrow night's Chelsea/Roma match. I keep wondering if i'm going to run into John Terry, Frank Lampard, and co. in a diner downtown somewhere.

My talk at the AAPM meeting Tuesday afternoon went very well. The conference on the whole has been a bit of a let down though. I'm just not interested in 90% of the work being presented, and for some reason the organizers scheduled the 10% i am interested in during conflicting sessions. Combine that with the most ridiculous awards ceremony i've ever seen (although i have to give props to my friend Mark for his induction as an honorary member of the AAPM), and i just can't see myself attending this meeting again. This is the conference that my division at Stanford (Radiation Physics) attends religiously, but i can't see why i should waste $1000+ a year coming here when it's doing nothing for my career. The annual SMI meeting, coming up this year in October, is cheaper, more informative, and infinitely more exciting.

Forgot to mention that while i was at home with Ana before heading across the country, i got reacquainted with Cartoon Network as that's what she demands on the television 24/7. I used to know all about CN's lineup ... Cow and Chicken, Dexter's Laboratory ... heck, i remember watching the original Johnny Bravo short that led to his series. But these days, other than Adult Swim and the fantastic adult humor shows therein, i have no idea what is on CN. Turns out there's all kinds of good things. My new favorites are ¡Mucha Lucha!, featuring an elementary school for aspiring young masked wrestlers like Ricochet, Buena Girl, Snowpea, and the Flea, and Teen Titans, loosely based on the DC comic of the same name featuring a superhero task force starring Robin of Batman And ____ fame. I even found myself getting into heretofore incomprehensible Yu Gi Oh!. V and Arlene seemed amused by my engrossment, but i must say that Cartoon Network is keeping up it's tradition of excellent original toons.

Not quite Sal Paradise, but i am in the midst of trekking across the country. After spending Thursday afternoon and Friday with V, her mom Arlene, and her little terror ... ahem, sister Ana, they departed Friday evening for LA and bridal shower number 2 for V, being thrown by Dionne and Michelle. I spent the evening decompressing a bit from a fairly stressful week. Michael picked me up and i spent the night at his house, so we could maximize the amount of sleep we got before heading to the Oakland Airport for our 6:05am flight to Seattle. The occasion? Chelsea, bitch! We made it the Emerald City at 8, grabbed breakfast and a few hours of sleep at our hotel on the southern shore of Lake Union, then headed for my second and Michael's first Blues match. I had seen the Blues on their home pitch Stamford Bridge in London in 2001. I remember just praying that i saw the boys score a goal ... i didn't care how, didn't care if we won or lost, just wanted to get that thrill of seeing a blue put one in the net. Naturally, they lost 1-nil (to Charlton, a mostly mediocre team against which Chelsea have a fairly appalling record), and played so terribly that they succeeded in turning Veronica against them forever. My silver lining was that i got to see the amazing Gianfranco Zola play.

We got to the beautiful and relatively young Seahawks Stadium around 12:15pm, plenty of time for us to buy t-shirts and beers before the 1pm kickoff. Turns out this was the second hottest day in Seattle history, with temperatures reaching 96° during the match. Supporters of opponents Celtic constituted about 65% of the crowd and the majority of the noise, but the blue fans were seen and heard as well, with Michael and i both sporting our home kits. The match opened with Chelsea on the attack, creating several nice chances from good work by Mutu, Cole, and Geremi. Alexei Smertin, a Russian international who was signed during our summer 2003 spending spree and then much to his annoyance immediately loaned to Portsmouth for a year, is now fighting for a place with the Blues and impressed in the defensive midfield role typically occupied by Claude Makelele. And it was he, after about 25 minutes, who unleashed a brutal shot from 30 yards out that crossed the face of the goal and buried itself in the upper right corner of the net. Michael and i, in the sixth row almost even with Smertin, leapt to our feet and exploded. There's the joy i wanted three years ago. Unbelievable feeling. Celtic managed to capitalize on a defensive miscue by the Blues before halftime, equalizing the scores at one goal apiece.

The second half rolled around and Mourinho used almost his full complement of subs, with Lampard, Makelele, Kezman, Robben, and Ferriera all entering the fray. Robben immediately showed his skills by working down the left wing and centering to Eidur Gudjohnsen, who had time to pick his spot and beat the Celtic keeper from 20 yards out to make it 2-1. Then Kezman showed why he might be the steal of the season as he scored his second and third goals of the preseason. Celtic got another from a header on a corner kick, but Chelsea still ended a very impressive performance as 4-2 victors. Reviews? Mutu shows promise in creating chances, but still lacks that final touch that keeps him from being truly dangerous. Smertin, essentially the old man of the squad at 29, is looking a fine addition to the team. Arjen Robben is young but has undeniable potential. Our striker situation may actually be workable ... Mutu, Gudjohnsen, and Kezman each have individual and complementary styles that may allow us to create a variety of looks and attacks up front. This Thursday is the Pittsburgh match against AS Roma, and hopefully i'll get to see more breathtaking Chelsea goals, as well as the debuts of Didier Drogba and Tiago Mendes and the return to health of Damien Duff.

After the match Michael and i walked out with the masses, ducking into a Vietnamese restaurant for some goi cuon and Heineken before walking some more to a pub up the road that featured a $10 bucket of iced coors. There we whiled away the afternoon, chatting with several friendly Celtic fans. That evening we hooked up with Oakland exports Ryan and Megan for some more drinks and pub grub in the Fremont district. On Sunday we hoofed through various areas of lovely downtown Seattle, including the public market and Capitol Hill, took in the Mariners victory over the Angels at Safeco Field, and ate more pub grub and some nice oysters. Michael headed south to the airport at 8pm, but i had a few hours to kill before my 11:30pm redeye to Pittsburgh so i managed to meet up with my parents, also vacationing in Seattle, who drove me to Sea-Tac, ending a very nice weekend in the Pacific Northwest. If i was to live anywhere other than the Bay Area, i'd have to say Seattle tops my list.

There's no two ways about it: redeyes stink. I cannot sleep on planes. Doesn't matter how exhausted i am, there's just something about the seats that prevents me from being comfortable enough to drift off. Knowing that i faced five hours of flight, i decided to buy another novel to supplement Touching From A Distance, the excellent biography of Ian Curtis written by his widow Deborah that i pulled out to reread. Somehow i ended up with James Patterson's 1st To Die, a thriller about a serial killer gruesomely murdering newlyweds. Great book for someone getting married in two weeks. Speaking of marriage, the Ian Curtis biography allowed me to reflect on the idolization of icons and their less than admirable behavior in their personal lives. I'm not saying i'm a deranged epileptic like Curtis, but more than one has called me moody, and it's something i found helpful to think about as i commit myself to Veronica. It's an odd mix of anticipation, anxiety, and worry that has enveloped me in these last days before marriage. Excitement definitely characterizes the mood, but there's also an apprehension of the uncertainty of the future. Which encourages me to take action to ensure my marriage vows ring true for years to come.

Anyhow, i did make it to Pittsburgh at 7am, and in my sleep-deprived state was treated to a half hour rant by my ex-hippie cabbie on the nature of god and spirituality. While i was getting the distinct impression his off-freeway shortcuts were just to add money to the fare while he distracted me with his philosophical baloney. He segued into a discussion of how he was trying to organize a taxi driver's union in Pittsburgh as we approached the hotel, but luckily we arrived not long into that treatise. Naturally, my hotel didn't have any rooms for me to check into (i was a tad earlier than the 3pm check-in time), so i walked over to the conference center to check out the AAPM meeting. What a site i must've been ... in grungy jeans, a t-shirt, and sambas, sunburned and exhausted from my Seattle experience, wandering around dazed through the conference. At 10am i decided to return to the hotel and relax in the lobby, and luckily about 15 minutes later they were able to set me up in my room.

Tonight was spent having an excellent sushi dinner (featuring two absolutely incredible Alaskan snow crab rolls) with Becky, Peter, and former Stanford postdoc Sandeep, after which i excused myself so i could return to my room and polish off a talk for tomorrow. I was asked to fill in for my grad school advisor Sarah late last week ... glad to be invited to speak, but now struggling to prepare. I think i'm ready, should be all good.

Keep an eye out for a new photo album once i return to SM ...

the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes "AWWW!"

It's pretty sad that it wasn't until last week that i realized that summer 2004 was in full swing. Probably the last proof i needed that the days of lazy summer afternoons, free of travails or other such headaches, are gone for me. Hello, adulthood.

The offseason wheelings and dealings of Chelsea should've warned me of the time of year, but for some reason i didn't connect the two. The Blues' summer moves are now 99% finalized, with the signings of Marseilles hitman Didier Drogba and Benfica wildcard Tiago Mendes all but done. It's a bit worrisome that new coach José Mourinho appears to be gambling on talent unproven in the fast and physical English Premier League. Particularly at striker, where we've let our primary goal scorer of late, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, depart to Boro and brought on Mateja Kezman, a scoring machine in the Dutch Eredivisie, and Didier Drogba, last season's French League 1 footballer of the year. Can they adapt to the English game? If not, we're left with the talented but erratic Eidur Gudjohnsen and the as yet unimpressive Adrian Mutu. It doesn't help that the man making these bets, Mourinho, is entering his first season in England and may not be the best predictor of success in the EPL. At any rate, his confidence and stubborness as well as his insistence on establishing a definite pecking order in the squad gives me hope. Michael and i will get to see a fleshed out Chelsea squad next week.

On Friday night V and i had Gary and Leah over to hang and play some Mario Kart: Double Dash. I kept my temper in check despite further evidence of a conspiracy to defeat me, and yet managed to come away with 15 wins to Gary's 10. Take that, Schumacher.

Saturday morning V had to go to work at 6am, so the 5:15 alarm scared the s#@t out of me. Once i'd grabbed some more shuteye, i met her for breakfast at Stacks then headed home for some video diversions. I'm really missing the excitement of Ninja Gaiden ... the Hurricane expansion pack comes out on Xbox Live on August 2, so in the meantime i've reverted to Winning Eleven 7 International. I'm not so keen on the new mechanics of the Master League, so i updated Chelsea's roster and have been playing a club league season. If it's any indication, Kezman is the third leading scorer in the league and Robben is a constant threat on the left wing. Fingers crossed ...

That evening V took an extended disco nap before heading to Rocket in the city with Gary and Leah, so i managed to watch S.W.A.T. on HBO. I hadn't marked my calendar or anything, but i figured it might be a decent action flick. As decent action it passed muster, but as a flick it proved hopelessly wanting. So many lousy film clichés on display. I might've gone 2 for 2 in crappy movies that evening had i noticed that Bad Boys II was on Cinemax immediately after. Instead, i played some more WE7 and hit the hay.

Marcus and Javier invited us for a park bbq on Sunday afternoon, so we popped over to Berkeley to pick them up, bought some marinated carne asada at a Mexican market on San Pablo, and drove to a park in the Oakland hills. It was a relaxing summer activity with great food and a short excursion on an off limits trail over a hill to, what else, see what was on the other side. We got home at 7:30pm and chilled for the evening, watching Subterranean on MTV2 and retiring early at 11pm.

Now i'm at work preparing a poster for the AAPM meeting next week in Pittsburgh. Hard to concentrate when i'm more excited about seeing the new face of Chelsea take on Celtic and Roma. Go you blues!

Euro 2004 has wound to a close, the European leagues have long since wrapped up the 2003-2004 seasons, so now we direct our efforts towards preparing for the next campaign, to begin in August. New Chelsea manager José Mourinho has already made a name for his stern pronouncements of the way the squad will be structured, quashing talk of waves of transfers and instead seeking to construct a 21 player squad with a defined pecking order. To achieve this, Chelsea have inverted last summer's mantra of "Buy, buy, buy!" and have begun offloading players who, while comforting to have around, were just not going to break into the first team regularly. Juan Sebastian Veron's whining got him sent back to Italy on loan to Inter Milan after a more or less fruitless year at Stamford Bridge, Jesper Gronkjaer and Mario Melchiot are off to Birmingham City, while Marcel Desailly and Mario Stanic have been released from their contracts, ostensibly retiring. The biggest exit was that of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, a world class but slowly aging striker who was released from his contract and immediately snapped up by Middlesbrough. That one is the most troublesome as JFH still appears to be in form, and now he'll be lining up against Chelsea at least twice next season.

Our new arrivals have been limited to Arjen Robben, a Dutch youngster who made a name for himself on the wing for Holland in Euro 2004, Paulo Ferreira, who decided to follow Mourinho from FC Porto before Euro 2004 and proceeded to have an awful tournament for Portugal at right back, and Mateja Kezman, a prolific striker who played with Robben at PSV Eindhoven but mysteriously attracted little attention from the big name clubs. A deal for Olympique Marseille striker Didier Drogba may be proceeding, as Mourinho has given an ultimatum to Hernan Crespo that either he gives 100% to Chelsea or he can leave. I personally think Crespo could be a 20+ goal scorer in the Premiership, once he gets through the rough transition from footie on the continent. He seems ready to follow fellow Argentinian Veron's lead and run back to Italy though, so Drogba may be our Mourinho-mandated fourth striker.

While Mourinho's dealings certainly appear more considered and strategized than last summer's "let's buy him, too!", it's a bit of a let down to no longer be contemplating a squad featuring David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Pavel Nedved, and Alessandro Nesta playing at Stamford Bridge. Hopefully we can keep everyone happy with this more manageable team size, and allow younger players like Joe Cole and Scott Parker to develop without getting frustrated by not being regular starters. The striker situation is problematic as, unless Crespo gets his head screwed on straight, we still don't have a 20 goal scorer in the mold of Thierry Henry, Ruud van Nistelrooy, or (dare i say it?) JFH. Mutu started strong last season but fell off dramatically. Gudjohnsen is a good foil for a target man but won't be lighting up the scoring tables. Maybe Kezman and/or Drogba will become a first season sensation, but that may be a tall order for young imports during their first season in England.

So here's the squad as i see it now, leaving off the younger players like Alexis Nicolas who shouldn't really count against Mourinho's 21 as they may play 15 minutes all season. I count 19, so we have two slots left that should probably be filled with a defender and another striker.

Goalkeepers
Carlo Cudicini
Petr Cech
Marco Ambrosio

Defenders
1. John Terry
2. William Gallas
3. Wayne Bridge
4. Paulo Ferreira
5. Glen Johnson
6. Robert Huth
7. Celestine Babayaro

Midfielders
8. Claude Makelele
9. Frank Lampard
10. Damien Duff
11. Arjen Robben
12. Scott Parker
13. Joe Cole
14. Alexei Smertin
15. Geremi

Strikers
16. Mateja Kezman
17. Eidur Gudjohnsen
18. Adrian Mutu
19. Hernan Crespo/Didier Drogba

Can we unseat the Arse with this bunch? We've certainly got the individual talent, it's a question of how they gel. Luckily the leaders of the team (Terry, Lampard, Gallas, Lampard, Duff) have been together for a year (or more) and should find their feet quickly. Our new additions have a lot of promise, but can Robben, Kezman, Ferreira, et al. hit the ground running? Stay tuned!

On a mostly unrelated note, Michael found the 1909 Chelsea squad photo on eBay. Don't think there were many Argentinians, Portuguese, Dutch, French, or Serbians in this team. Hell, i doubt any of them lived outside of SW6.

Be sure to keep an eye on the album of the ~week section, since if you throw out the first two entries it now really is album of the week.

The date of my last post is July 2, which means it's been a good ten days since i was able to put some Ted news up here. I apologize for the delay. However, the astute reviewer of the site will note a few things have changed recently (just not in the journal department). One is that the photos interface has been overhauled ... albums are now selected from a droplist, which presents a set of thumbnails that can be viewed by clicking on them. I think it's a bit easier to navigate than the old version. I also added some admin scripts so it doesn't take me 30 minutes to organize and caption a new album. Taking advantage of this, i've added two new albums, shot with my new digicam. The first are pics of Leah's new kitty, who came to visit our house after being adopted in Menlo Park. The second is a collection of scenes from the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, a place i've always thought is incredibly beautiful and perfect for relaxation and reflection. I have this idea for a movie (or, more accurately, an idea for a scene in a movie) where a man and a woman walk through the park and have a conversation about the figures at the top of the pillars, wondering what they're studying up there. After losing his love (somehow), the man revisits the Palace of Fine Arts at night at the end of the movie and sees one of the figures turn and put her finger to her lips, as if to protect the secret they now share. Too sappy? Shut up.

That album was shot while i was giving east coast Bill a whirlwind tour of San Francisco a couple of Saturdays ago. He was in town for the World Wide Developers Conference at Moscone, but had some time before he flew out that evening to sightsee. Naturally we picked the day when not only were the Giants playing, but also the Vans Warped Tour was happening at Piers 30 and 32. Luckily it didn't slow us down too much. We started with a burrito in the Mission (El Farrolito, of course!), then took a quick stroll through the Castro, a jaunt up Twin Peaks (unfortunately the usually spectacular view was obscured by fog), a stop on the Haight to check out Amoeba Music, a drive down Lincoln to Ocean Beach, up around Sutro and over through Land's End to the Presidio, a stop at the Golden Gate Bridge, and finally down Lombard, past Rudha's apartment on Washington, and back to San Mateo to get Veronica. After dinner at the wonderful Kan Zeman in Palo Alto, we fit in a quick trip through Stanford before dropping Bill off at SFO. I must've been a tour guide in another life.

That night we had Gary over to resume our long standing Mario Kart: Double Dash rivalry. And my ugly poor loser disposition was exposed. Paranoid that Gary and Veronica were conspiring to prevent me from winning, i prematurely ended our GameCube session. As it turns out right after Veronica had just won her first race, which looked really bad although truthfully that wasn't why i was upset. I then demanded that we play Scrabble, and when it became clear i wouldn't win at that either i gave up. I should play with little kids, then the sparks will really fly.

That Sunday was July 4, which we celebrated in the fairly unconventional manner of watching the final of the Euro 2004 footie tournament at an English pub with Jeremy Popscene. Despite the lousy video feed and mediocre bangers and mash, the match proved to be an interesting contest between the defensive-minded underdogs Greece and the hosts Portugal. Greece managed a headed goal from a corner in the middle of the second half, during a rare excursion into the Portugal penalty area. Their defense put up the same performance that had frustrated favorites France and the Czech Republic, and at the end whistle the unfashionable Greeks had taken soccer's second most prestigious award, leaving Portugal and Manchester United wonder boy Cristiano Ronaldo sobbing in disbelief. After that ended at 2pm, we drove home and resumed a more typical July 4 regimen including barbecuing a lot of meat. I forgot the side dishes, so Veronica and i dined on marinated ribeyes with a side of hot dogs and hamburgers. V politely requested that i bring some non-animal items to the party next time. Good advice.

After being reminded on my expedition through the city that July 5 was the last day for the Art Deco exhibit at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, V and i headed there on Monday for our post-July 4 holiday. Amazingly we were able to buy tickets at the door, unlike when we went to the Georgia O'Keefe exhibit on the last day and were forced to become members to get tickets. The exhibit was an interesting mix of art, furniture, clothing, accessories, and even an automobile from 1910-1937. I think i may now understand the aesthetic of art deco, with its focus on contrast, simple geometric primitives, and angles. They showcased many of the inspirations from which art deco drew as well, from Mesoamerica to ancient Greece and Rome. A few times i found myself looking at a piece and being a bit perplexed over it, then reading the caption and seeing it was from 400 B.C. and was an "Art Deco source". But altogether a nice afternoon.

This work week ended up being crammed into three days, since Monday was a holiday and on Friday i went to UCSF to work on finishing a paper i wrote with Sarah about three years ago. Didn't help that a grant preproposal was due on Friday, which i had to motor through by Thursday. Or that a colleague of mine needed a few pages from me for inclusion in a grant of hers. But with a little headache and elbow grease, everything was completed to my satisfaction. I even managed to work in a trip to the eye doctor to get an exam and order new glasses, to replace my two year old pair that are scratched to hell and keep giving me eyestrain. It's always comforting when your prescription doesn't change, reassuring you that you're not slowly going blind.

At the Euro 2004 final an ad for the Champions World Series played, as part of which Michael and i will be seeing Chelsea play Celtic in Seattle on July 24. I recently booked my trip from Seattle to the AAPM meeting in Pittsbugh, but it wasn't until seeing this ad that i realized that Chelsea were also headed to Pittsburgh after Seattle, to play AS Roma on July 29. Cursing myself for not being more observant, i managed to push my flight back a day, book the hotel room for another night, and buy a ticket. So i get to see the new streamlined Mourinho-led Chelsea squad in two matches this summer, and hopefully more this winter in London!

After returning home from UCSF on Friday i found some time to finish Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox. What a friggin amazing game. The cinematics are astounding in their clarity and composition, and the gameplay is excellent. As i said previously you must learn how to fight effectively, button mashing will get you slaughtered in no time flat. But when it clicks and you are stringing together long graceful combos, you earn a real sense of fulfillment. An Xbox Live upgrade featuring an improved camera, faster gameplay, smarter AI (eek!), and new weapons and monsters will be available next month, and i can't wait to play this one through again. Up there with Grand Theft Auto 3 as a genre-defining game.

On Saturday evening Veronica's cousin Naomi and her boyfriend Geoff drove up from LA. They'll be relocating to SF next month and were looking for housing, but stayed with us so we could hang and catch a movie. Spider Man 2 was the selection, a movie that has been called "one of the great action films" by more than one respectable critic recently. Maybe it was the hype, but it didn't do a lot for me. The visuals were certainly amazing, and the story followed the comic book well, and Doctor Octopus is one of my favorite Spidey villains, but somehow the film seemed less than the sum of its parts. A totally unnecessary setup (essentially a commercial!) for Spider Man 3 before the final denouement had me grumbling. Afterwards we grabbed a pizza and headed home to watch the best of Will Ferrell, volume 2, on Saturday Night Live. The man's a comic genius, but i thought they did a pretty lousy job picking skits for this one. Another Roger and Virginia Smythe sketch wasn't needed, and the Bill Brasky segments are more a concept and less a showcase for Will. Where was the skit where Will as the devil offers to sell Garth Brooks a hit song for his soul? I guess i was just unpleasable on Saturday night.

Naomi and Geoff were successful in their SF housing search Sunday morning, so they headed back down the peninsula to meet up with us as we headed out to the Tri-Valley SPCA to look at doggies. V and i had gone to see puppies on Saturday morning at a rescue event in Woodside, but we came to the realization that we don't have the time to devote to properly train a very young dog. So the four of us picked up my sister Hilary in Fremont and went off to play with a couple of older (1-2 years) dogs in the heat in Dublin. I feel sad at those shelters, i just want to take all the lonely doggies home. One shivering, frightened little girl named Pumpkin Pie had me really blue. But V and i decided we should probably wait a while more, until we have time to dedicate to integrating a new dog into our household, so no new pets for us yet.

I intended to spend the rest of yesterday evening whipping up a presentation for this morning's radiobiology faculty meeting, but i instead became obsessed with diagnosing and fixing our recent home network problems. Lately both my PC (wired connection to a Linksys wireless router) and Veronica's Mac (wireless connection) have had intermittent internet connections. It manifests itself in different ways: sometimes web pages will load slowly or will give DNS errors while instant messenger runs fine, other times it's the reverse. I ended up spending two hours fighting with it, determining the problem was with the router and not the ISP. Many solutions were tried and failed, and as a last ditch i went through the Linksys instructions for setting up a router with an RCN cable modem connection. Upon restarting my computer i went to clean a few things in the bedroom. I came out into the living room to see Veronica merrily surfing the web and chatting on AIM. Connection restored. I hate it when you fix something and you're not sure how you did it. Makes you less confident you can fix it next time. Anyhow, i took an hour break to watch Mr. Show, now a regular Sunday night activity, after which i dove into the presentation. I had 15 information packed slides by 12:30am, so i called it a night. I got up at 6am though so i could have an hour before the 8:30am meeting to put in a few figures from papers in my office. All in all, it went fairly well despite my lack of preparation. I tend to fluctuate between cautious optimism and reckless pessimism about my job these days. It has really gotten me down at times, and i have to fight to stay motivated. Veronica and my UCSF friends tell me this is the nature of academia, that not all your grants are going to get funded and you have to be ready to answer constant comment and criticism. It's a baptism by fire, and i suppose i haven't become completely flameproof yet.

And then there's that pesky wedding that keeps getting ever closer ...

Not that anyone will notice, but i've just implemented a number of the admin features i wrote for Veronica's site on mine, such as the ability to add, edit, and delete posts and albums of the ~week on the web. Makes managing the site so much simpler.

*beaming smile*