Emily and I went out to explore downtown San Luis Obispo. We toured the Mission and walked around some of the shops. There were quite a few kitschy souvenir shops and (of course) an Apple store, but the highlight for me was two-story toy store full of LEGO sets, puzzles, games, and anything else you can imagine. It also had the most bizarre window display I’ve ever seen. The setup was an Iron Chef style cooking show but the chefs were sock monkeys and the secret ingredient was Smurfs. There was also a little bit where Kirk, Sulu, and McCoy from Star Trek apparently beamed into various inconvenient situations (Kirk in a boiling “hot tub” with some Smurfs, Sulu half sticking out of an Easy Bake Oven, and McCoy materializing in a monkey’s butt. No lie).
Another intriguing find was an alley completely covered in old chewed gum. The walls (and sadly the ground) were lined with it. People had made shapes and messages with it. It was at the same time really gross and really fun. Pity we didn’t have any gum to add to the collection.
Mike, his girlfriend Cristine, and Greg met up with us as we were finishing lunch and we went through the Mission again then walked along the creek before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the rehearsal.
The rehearsal went, as they are wont to do, with many repetitions of complicated operations such as “finding your escort”, “standing in line” “walking” and “standing still”. It was surprising how many tries it took us to successfully walk down the aisle with a partner but eventually we nailed it and were dismissed to dinner.
After making the mistake of listening to Ted and ending up at the wrong restaurant we made our way to the right place: F. McLintocks in Pismo Beach. Dinner was another steak and I treated myself to another Firestone DBA (never seen it before but they were all over the place in SLO). Emily and I sat with Ted’s father and stepmother and Mike and Cristine. I found out that Cristine is a Pats fan (I had dared to hope otherwise despite her being from Boston) but with much internal struggle I managed to forgive her.
Once the usual merrymaking was finished we were treated to a delightful parlor trick. The tall waiter who’d been doing tricks with his water pitcher all night strapped on a blindfold, climbed onto a chair, placed a cup on Ted’s head, and filled the cup from the pitcher he held a few feet above. It was a sight to behold, even though Ted claims some water made it down his back.
Headed back to the hotel, Ted in tow as he was to crash in Greg’s room tonight. We gathered in Mike and Cristine’s frankly obscenely large suite (the kind that’s so big they have to give it a name and a plaque. Damn Mike and his Hilton Points!) and shot the shit for a few hours before heading to bed.
Kirk and Smurfs Hot TubGum AlleyMcLintock's Blindfolded High Water Head Pour
Up early; to the airport! Headed to San Luis Obispo, CA for Ted and Sara’s wedding.
Breakfast in TGI Friday’s. Pretty decent Western omelette.
Flight to Phoenix was uneventful. Read through about a quarter of A Clash of Kings.
Flight from Phoenix to San Luis Obispo was delayed about an hour. Probably because the air conditioning unit melted in the 110°F heat. They said they fixed it. They lied.
Arrived in beautiful San Luis Obispo. The weather was sunny but not too hot, and the airport was the cutest little thing I ever saw. They have a gate (there is a second one marked, but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere). They also have a cute little metal detector and a cute little rental car desk.
Acquired a car at the cute little rental car desk and drove into SLO. Stopped at Men’s Wearhouse to pick up my tux then drove an absurdly short distance to the hotel. We checked in and dropped off our bags, then met up with Greg at the free cocktail hour in the lobby. Tried a Firestone DBA, which I’d never heard of before. Pretty good and locally made!
Later in the evening Ted joined us and we went out to a nearby steak house (after Google Maps lied to us about the existence of a different restaurant). My sirloin was excellent and I thought I was starving but perhaps due to the time difference my stomach would not take more than half.
After work Emily and I met Oskar at Yo Rita in the South Side for some farewell tacos, as he’s off home to Sweden on Monday. I tried the potato, braised chicken, and calamari tacos. All three were tasty with just the right amount of kick, but the chicken was definitely underwhelming compared to the other two. They went great with an East End Big Hop.
Home to pack for the trip to San Luis Obispo this weekend, and cleaned up my desk. It’s mostly in a usable state, just in time for me not to use it for a few days.
Emily made baked pasta with summer vegetables for dinner. I’m going to nom the hell out of those leftovers. Very tasty.
We took a walk to Rita’s on Forbes for some of their custard and Italian ice. It’s a bit cooler out than it’s been so the walk was mostly pleasant but the frozen treats really hit the spot.
When we got home I decided that I don’t have enough challenges at work so I’ve upgraded my work laptop to the development version of Ubuntu, which isn’t due to be released in October. The upgrade went well, and there’s lots of nice new bling in this version. Most of it even works! It’s nice to be keeping up with Ubuntu development again (my work is mostly with released versions).
Adjusted my work setup to accommodate the super seekret hardware. This is a work in progress.
After work headed out to Greg’s to hang out for a while. He managed to get me hooked on the relatively new Tales of Monkey Island games. Their controls are pretty clunky, but much of the magic of the old games is still there. I’ll probably pick them up when I’ve cleared out some of my video game backlog.
Home later than I should be, but time for bed nonetheless.
Being the nerds we are, we spent the afternoon at the Carnegie Museums looking at dinosaurs and art.
It was almost as hot as our wedding day so once the museums closed we went across the street to Kiva Han and cooled off with some smoothies, then we sat in the Cathedral lawn for a while watching some tiny kids play tee ball and some somewhat larger kids play cricket. I still have no idea how cricket works.
Dinner was at the Gypsy Cafe in the South Side, which is where we ate the night we got engaged. We followed that up with a ride on the incline up Mt. Washington where we could take in a nice view of the city.
We stopped for ice cream at the little shop on Shiloh Street then rode back down and headed home.
We finally unwrapped our cake topper and realized just how much cake we had to deal with. It held up pretty well and was still tasty, but there’s far too much of it.
We exchanged anniversary gifts. The traditional first anniversary gift is paper, and we both took that to mean books. I got Emily two books by Dave Eggers, who she’d mentioned an interest in a few weeks ago and she got me the third and fourth volumes of Absolute Sandman, which means now I need to read the whole thing again.
Met two each of my aunts and uncles in the Strip District for lunch at Primanti’s and some shopping for questionably-licensed Steelers memorabilia. My uncle Tom was just in town after winning his battle with leukemia and everyone was in a mood to celebrate. Emily and I showed my relatives the new Pittsburgh Public Market and we sort of lost each other in a party store.
This evening my aunt (A different aunt from the two mentioned above. I have lots of them.) threw a party for my uncle. There was way too much food and lots of toasts both happy and sentimental. It’s always nice to get the family together to celebrate a happy occasion like this.
Up early; collected my stuff and headed to the office for half a day’s work.
Said goodbyes to my coworkers and caught another shuttle to the airport.
Short flight back to Pittsburgh, where I was met by an approaching storm. Unlike last time this happened, they were able to get our bags off the plane and I got to my car ahead of the storm.
Driving home was a bit of a challenge, as I was arriving during rush hour and there was a Pirates game this evening. I had to take a roundabout route through McKees Rocks and the North Side to get home in any reasonable amount of time. I barely beat the storm which was stalking me all the way home.
Home. Very happy to see Emily and the cats again. We ordered some sushi and hibachi and settled in for the evening.
Having accomplished most of our goals, and the customers needing to catch a plane we bade them goodbye. It was a very productive sprint and the rest of the project will likely go much smoother for it.
With the evening to myself I decided to set out to finally find a book store. Google Maps, having failed me twice before actually came through for me. There is a Barnes and Noble about 2.4 miles from the hotel. Having been on the Sprint Diet™ (mostly pizza, sandwiches, and Fritos) all week I felt I had a duty to my body to walk there. Even at night it was 85°F with over 90% humidity so it was a challenge. Drenched in sweat and having skirted a few jaywalking ordinances I finally made it and collected my prize: a copy of A Clash of Kings, the sequel to A Game of Thrones, which I finished reading a few weeks ago.
Armed with something to read on the plane ride back I set off back to the hotel to take a cold shower and go to sleep.
After work we took the customers out for dinner and drinks at the Foundry on Elm in Somerville. On the way we drove through Cambridge and I got a good look at Harvard and MIT. Harvard looks exactly like Harvard looks in every movie you’ve ever seen about it. MIT has some really funky architecture. I wish we’d had more time to stop and walk around.
After much less revelry than a typical UDS night it was back to the hotel for more Daily Show and more sleep.
