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I'm on the bus, heading back from the first of my packed weekends with friends. This weekend, however, was spent entirely with my lady Tina. We had a wonderful time, with the exception of her getting sick on Sunday.

One notable occurrence was our Saturday walk (a map of our walk). Tina wanted to check out the Village Gate Square in Rochester. It was a beautiful day out, so we decided to walk there. It turns out it is about 3 miles from her place, so we got a bit of exercise in the process.

On the way there, we noticed a clearing in the woods on the side of one of the roads we normally would have driven. It turns out it was a private(?) park and bird garden. We explored it, determined it was rather small, and continued on.

On the way back, Tina suggested a detour and we found Highland Park - one of Rochester's great secrets. Up a hill by way of concrete stairs, we found the top of a hill that overlooked the area. Also on the hill is a large reservoir - entirely not something we expected to find on the top of a hill. Someday we need to go stargazing from there. The longer I live here, the more I find that Rochester has a lot of beauty to it, it's just tucked away by the sides of roads and rivers.

Now I head home, back to an excellent job doing things I love. I have weeks and weekends planned all the way up through July. Now is the calm before the storm. There are girls on the back of the bus, singing in beautiful harmony and talking loudly. There's one man reading near me, one woman reading further up in the bus, and everyone else is dark and listening to music and sleeping.

A woman behind me seemed interested in my computer, so I told her about it some. I told her it had Internet access ("www comp" she called it) and she said she hadn't used it much. I figured I'd show her one of the more powerful things I've found on it - in my eyes: everything2. I asked her to name something she wanted to know more about, and she said "cigarettes"; she wanted to know where she could buy them in bulk. I showed her people talking about them, having opinions on them, saying "ewww" saying "try this brand" and other things e2 tends to have. She didn't seem interested in that, or even seemed to understand what it was. Later on the trip, she proceeded to smoke one in the bathroom at the back of the bus.

A Greyhound bus says a lot about people, as almost everyone is presented with isolation from their peers and native environment. [How] do you cope with isolation?

Grr. I keep getting comment spam on these posts. I'm going to disable commenting on them until I can find a better way of preventing it. Until then, you can contact me through other means and I'll update posts if you care to add to what I said. I simply don't have time to manually delete all the spam before it actually wins by increasing various search engine link ranks.

I have hope that a good system will be found. I've seen some nice ideas out there, some wacky ones, and some ones that would require action on the part of the user that parallels switching from English to Metric (GPG-signed FOAF authentication? Riiiight).

2004-07-17 - Party! (vcs). This will be my annual celebration of friends, life, and the number 23. Yes, dear readers, you are invited. Probably.

It begins at 19:00 and ends when I say so — which I probably won't do. There will be food (snacky stuff including one-day-delayed bun-less hot dogs), drinks (H₂O, H₂O + CO₂, CH₃CH₂OH), and of course people.

So, be there and let me know ahead of time if you can make it.

I just got back from seeing The Decemberists with Bludroses. The show kicked ass. There were some technical difficulties with the sound during the show, so they ended with 2 "unplugged" encores. They should play unplugged more often.

During the show, I thought it'd be cute to broadcast it to Tina, who wasn't able to come to the show. So I called her on my cell, after warning her about it with IMs/SMSs. I called her and left my phone in my front shirt pocket for much of the show, taking occasional photos with it, while Tina listened on. She told me later that she was at a Friendly's at the time, so she curled up in a corner and listened.

On the way home, trains near the venue were blocked due to an automobile that managed to make its way onto the tracks. It was smack in the middle, seemingly two wheels on inbound tracks and two on outbound. There was no/little obvious damage to the car, so it was probably just a very stupid driver who made a wrong turn. We took a bus instead and eventually made our way to Kenmore and caught the last train home.

Afterthought: On the way to the concert, I bumped into Susannah on the train. Seeing her is always interesting, as she's in that group of people who I see online more than in real life. It's as though we know each other better than we do, due to Internet-based communication.

The Decemberists are playing in Boston at the Paradise Club this Saturday (2004-06-12) at 21:00. I'll be going with Bludroses and Zøe - you should come too! If you can make it, drop me a note so we can meet up.

This Friday (2004-06-11), I'll be doing a showing of Wizard People, Dear Reader. It's an audio track that's meant to be played along with the first Harry Potter movie, instead of the actual soundtrack. If anyone cares to come watch, call my cell, leave a message here, or otherwise let me know.

Various things have reminded me that I've not posted much here recently, so here it goes. I'm back in Boston, doing another internship at France Telecom R&D. I'll be playing with shiny new cellphones that do all sorts of neat tricks with the Internet ("futurephones").

I (as of a month ago) have a lovely ladyfriend, Tina, who is now living in Rochester. She has made me quite happy as of recent and things with us should be going well.

This summer I packed light -- 3 bags: Clothes (the biggest), Books, and Tech. I have been pondering minimalism recently and how best to achieve it in my life. Materialistic minimalism anyhow; the technological minimalism will be for later.

As I'm staying at my dad's appt., I get to exchange my nice, private Rochesterian room for a mattress behind a couch. It's the trade-off I have to make to have a job that I enjoy and that pays well, I suppose. And looking at the bigger picture, a good job and a soft, clean bed is certainly nothing to complain about.

I look forward to a summer of friends, parties, days on the beach, and nights under the stars. Let's make that happen - whomever reads this and is willing. There are mountains to hike, river trails to explore, and minds to mouths for talking and learning. There are hands to caress, eyes to kiss, lips to stare into, and bodies to hold (however for myself, those will be reserved for a certain [sadly] yonder someone).

I'm going to enjoy this summer whether it likes it or not. Who's going to join me?