I woke up at 7:30 this morning. I almost NEVER wake up at 7:30 these days. But I thought that since I was sleeping on a couch in the lounge of a Stanford dormitory, that it might be a good idea to not sleep in. I had slept comfortably, covered with a small blanket lent by a pretty young woman I'd happened to have met at the party. My clothes were damp and clingy from running through the sprinklers the night before. I was sober, if groggy.
I drove home and had my sleep-in on me own bed, without the wet clothes.
Last night was Dave's 24th birthday party. Who's Dave? This guy, who goes to Stanford. How do I know him? I don't, really, but Patrick, one of my co-workers, knows him. So we went to his karaoke birthday bash.
When I arrived it was not that great. There was liqour, there was karaoke, but the people were not enough to make things happen. An hour ticked by, we sang. Singing is good. More people came, more people. I took another trip to the bathroom and stepped in to a scene filled with Bavarian blond women. In hindsight, probably the best bathroom trip I ever took, for during that brief jaunt in to the private world of taking a whiz, the party had, without my knowing, gone from pretty good, to fully matured. There were men, there were women, there was booze, and most of all, there was a karaoke machine, with its 75 laser discs of good times, which were had by all.
As I was talking to Thara, she mentioned that she had attended Harvey Mudd college. So of course, I asked, "well do you know Thaddeus Ladd?" Turns out she did, but then Harvey Mudd's a little smaller than UIUC. So, I turned to my cell phone, and found Ted's number, and he was on campus, just down the road. Wow. Ted, who I had not seen since Sean's party, was there! I have his card now. Since he was in Japan for a while, the back side is katakana. Neat stuff. He's in physics - not nanotechnology but quantum computing. Hard-core, intelligent stuff.
As the party wore down, Mike, Patrick, and I were cleaning up. Though, I was laying on the couch half the time. I still made some contribution to this effort. Thara returned from taking a shower. We had this task of cleaning up lots of spilled liqour and a broken beer bottle without the aid of a mop. Considering what we had to work with, we did an awesome job. The floor was left sticky, and dirty, but not an outright atrocity.
In the other room we found a zip-lock bag with some green stuff in it. Pot? I, for one, had not smelled any pot. And the little green stuff tasted like basil. I'm pretty sure that it wasn't pot, but if that's the case, one has to wonder all the more at the idea of Stanford students partying with a baggie of basil. Ho hum.
Last night was also great because the judge released the "findings of fact" that Microsoft is a monpoly. The document reads very well, and it sounds like most agree that he hit the nail right on the head. What is more interesting though, is what it is like working for a well-publicized, Silicon Valley startup. The wisdom of the office was that whatever personal thoughts we might have about Microsoft, are best kept personal for the time being, against the odd chance that the press might find and make something of them.
Of course, I don't have anything new to contribute to this whole hubbub. Let the Mercury do its job.
These are great times we're living in. We're jolly green giants, walking the Earth, with guns.
4 November
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