Travel

Yes, I'm already moved into my new apartment in Brooklyn, and I start work tomorrow. But I'm also behind in my entries, so you get this one first.

The week after term ended, I went down to visit New York with Vikki, Molly, and Oliver. We used Molly's soon-to-expire military ID card to get cheap rooms at the Soldier's, Sailor's, Marine's and Airmens' Club on Lexington Ave, near Grand Central Station.

I had this plan that I would somehow use the trip to look for an apartment, so as soon as we checked in, I called a few phone numbers I'd found on Craigslist. One said the apartments in the listing weren't even built yet, and one tried to fit me in a couple days later, but another one was able to see me that afternoon. So we rushed over to Brooklyn on the subway (my second trip on it ever, after my first that afternoon) and she showed us around to a few places. I liked one of them enough that I called her back that evening to say I wanted it. I (with Vikki) met with the landlords in the Empire State Building the next afternoon, and put down the deposit the next morning. So within 24 hours of arriving in New York, I'd gone from having a couple phone numbers to signing a lease. Not bad.

We found time to fit in more interesting things on the trip, too. We visited Toys 'R' Us, the New York Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw The Producers on Broadway, which was a really good show. And we played on a couple playgrounds.

A couple days later, Vikki went of to California for the summer, and I spent a week at home in Virginia. I visited the dentist a couple times, and got my back tooth put back together (again). I saw the Lord of the Rings Symphony put on by the Fairfax Symphony... It was pretty good, but either the first half was better than the second, or I was just too tired to pay attention all the way through. (It's kind of scary how much of the movies I can remember from just the music.)

I saw the Nationals win 3-2 to kick off their 12-1 homestand (which I take full credit for, of course), and I even agreed that home run should have been called a foul (though apparently it really should have been a home run).

And I lay around and read a lot.

Then was back up to Boston with my parents and my brother for commencement. Not much to say about that, except that the weather and the speaker weren't all that bad. I commenced.

I went down to New Haven for a day, with some old friends from 21L.703 last year, to see a performance of Travesties. They made the play lighter than I remembered it, but then I was writing essays about it and they were trying to keep people entertained for three hours, so that makes sense. And it was good to see people from the class again.

While I was in Boston I also had a couple graduation/going-away parties, from the Supertech group and from the ringers. I got a towel.

I went to the Aristocrats sneak at MIT. Funny, in a very very obscene kind of way. And I worked my last ever (probably) shift, subdirecting Good Will Hunting.

I rolled all my change and ended up with over $120.

I visited Vikki in California for a weekend. Mostly it was just good to be with her again, and I got to meet her parents. We also went hiking a little bit, saw Howl's Moving Castle, and had my brother (who's also out there for the summer) over for dinner. And played video games and watched Star Trek.

And on the way home, I learned that flying through Phoenix is a generally bad idea. We sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes waiting for a reroute due to weather, but before we got it, an engine overheated because it was 110 outside. We finally left on a different plane, three hours late.

I went to the 12-bell ringing in Toronto, and did (surprise!) a lot of 12-bell ringing. (And even a little bit of Suprise.) I got my first quarter of Maximus (Plain Bob), and my first quarter of Grandsire Cinques in three years. (Not to mention a few quarter attempts that went nowehere.) It's always strange to ring on that many bells, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

I went on a bar crawl for Molly's 21st birthday. The only ill effects were when I got home and tipped over a water bottle onto my keyboard, but I could see myself doing that sober too.

And in my free time, I finished writing all the code I said I'd written in my thesis, and I revised my thesis to talk about the complicated parts that I didn't forsee when I was writing it the first time. So I got it signed again, and went and swapped the new for the old with the department. And with that, I was really done. (Except for bug fixes, and helping Angelina figure out what my code is supposed to do, and revising that conference paper...)