Read Reid's Blog

July 23, 2005

Jenny said today should be called “The day Jenny made all the bad choices and Reid made the mistake of following them.”  After brunch Jenny pried me away from Harry Potter to go swimming – unfortunately the pool was closed because a ton of little kids were running around in speedos and goggles for some swim meet.  We biked back, Jenny was so distraught by her foiled plan that she took FOREVER to dress, and when we got to the CalTrain station to head to SF,  the train was arriving and the stupid machine wouldn’t take my card – we missed the train and had to wait an hour to get there – it wasn’t so bad though – we went to the Stanford bookstore in downtown Palo Alto and I read more HP.  That continued on the train. 

When we got there, we saw Eric Cheung, who graduated from Stanford last year and was working at a consulting firm in New York but who just happened to be sitting outside of the Starbuck’s we passed on the way to Chinatown.  He was doing some job training here – so we caught up with him and he took us to his apartment complex to get us a map of the city.  That proved useful and we found out way to Chinatown and Union Square.  We then met up with Steph and went to Fisherman’s Wharf.  By this time it had gotten really cold outside – and of course it was Jenny who said we didn’t need to bring warm clothes when I asked back at Stanford.  Anyhoo, we got our free sample of chocolate from Ghiradelli Square and walked to the wharf and got some clam chowder.  We saw the bushman – a guy who hides behind bushes and jumps out and scares people – a large crowd was watching him as he scared unsuspecting people who passed by.  Then we went back to Ghiradelli to get ice-cream.  Fisherman’s Wharf had a fairly vibrant nightlife – it always makes me jealous that Palo Alto is dead at night and I’m stuck on campus most of the time.  I think I want to live in a city after I graduate.  Sometimes though, I think my ideal lifestyle and my career are contradictory – how can someone who wants to be a professor end up living in a large city?  I guess I could ideally see myself as a grad student in someplace like Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles, but that limits my grad school choices and ignores the quality of schools.  Well, it’s something to consider later. 

I finished HP6 tonight.  I won’t give any spoilers here but I enjoyed the book and my prediction at the beginning was correct.  Now I’m like all of the other suckers out there waiting for the final book.  Hurry up JK Rowling.