CTHB

I had class Friday night, so what would have been a perfect time to travel was out of the question. I left Saturday morning and arrived at Ken's place in San Jose late afternoon, pretty much at the time that Sanjay had predicted that I would arrive, after I'd made the wild claim to leave at 8 a.m. and arrive by 1 p.m. Well, he gave me an out so I slept more. Had he not, I may have stuck with the claim.

Saturday, what was left of it then, was spent in the beach resort, Capitola (near Santa Cruz), with Ken, his girlfriend Cecily, and Sanjay. It's a quaint little place and I regret not hauling the 20D out with me and had to settle for a few pictures with the ELPH. With the sun setting and the really cute beach houses, it was really picturesque. We didn't get to sit on the patio when we went to dinner, though. Dinner itself was pretty tasty, but way overpriced. Next time, maybe one of the bar and grille type places would be a better value.

Sunday, Cecily had family obligations in San Francisco, so Ken, Sanjay and I were on our own for the day. We hit the Mystery Spot in the morning. It was pretty bizarre and the three of us being Engineering nerds meant that we were analyzing the hell out of the whole thing. It was somewhat reminiscent of Magnetic Hill in New Brunswick (the province, not the city in NJ). A lot of what came up looked like visual illusions, but there were things we couldn't explain. At some point, we may devise some experiments and replicate them in a non-Mystery Spot hilly location to see what we find.

Lunch was in Santa Cruz at Zoccoli's Deli. Decent deli, but nothing compared to NYC. I hate comparing it to NYC as it sounds kinda snobbish, but it's hard not to. It's just like comparing any sushi restaurant I go to with The Hump in Santa Monica. There's always something to push the bar up and have that be the new target to hit. At any rate, please forgive me if delis, bagels, and pizza all get compared to the stuff I ate back in NYC.

We hopped around wine tasting in the afternoon, breezing through Hallcrest, Byington, and David Bruce. Had fun, but after awhile all that tasting got to be a bit much. That said, though, there was a rather tasty Pinot Noir Saignee from David Bruce that I liked, so I bought a bottle. Saignee comes from the French, "to bleed," and in David Bruce's case it was the first bleed of their Pinot Noir, which happens after four hours of fermentation. Byington, by comparison, did their Saignee after the first 24 hours. Accordingly, I think, the David Bruce Saignee was sweeter, but what do I know about wine?

When we got back to Ken's place, we prepped for some grilling and then made our Father's Day calls. Mine is going through a rough spot now with a bit of sciatica. Sounds a bit like mine, only snaking up into the lower back. Something tells me that's a lot more severe than the Piriformis Syndrome that I've got, but I don't know how bad it is. Sounds like he's on the mend, though, and in good spirits.

Phone calls to Dad morphed into phone calls to other dads we knew and even people we didn't know were going to be fathers. Altogether, we called around a lot of our old college friends and got caught up, which was fantastic, as there were people I talked to that I hadn't talked to in years.

Lately, I've been in the mode of reconnecting with old relationships that I have generally let fall by the wayside out of sheer idleness, or sometimes shame from having let it lapse in the first place. Sometimes it's because I've done something that I don't want to face up to and it's keeping me from calling or writing. Sometimes it's mundane, like not knowing how to contact someone; if anyone knows how I can contact Carolyn Edsell, Cornell '98 (or thereabouts), please let me know.

A quick rundown:

• Congratulations to Jessica on becoming a Ph. D.
• Congratulations also to Jessica and Mark for giving birth to Christian a couple of weeks ago.
• Congratulations to Vicki and Michael on their upcoming baby, due 21 August.
• Congratulations to Nancy on her upcoming baby, due in early August. Alas, I don't know her husband's name.

(During and) After the phone calls, we grilled up a steak, a couple of fillets of Cajun catfish, a handful of Italian sausage and a burger and had a great little dinner while hanging out on Ken's patio.

The evening was cut short, though, as I had to get on the road to head back to LA. I left around 8:30 munching on cherries that I had bought at a fruit stand in Casa de Fruta off the 152 near Hollister when I was coming up. I was actually on track to get home by 1-ish, except that something happened about a mile north of the turn off to head inland to Palmdale.

I'm not sure I like the trend, but it seems like I keep coming upon accidents. On the one hand, it sucks for the people involved, but on the other I've discovered that I don't even think twice to stop and help now. Throws my own timetable off, but more and more it seems my timetable isn't quite as important.

Anyway, these six kids--they were probably in their mid-twenties and I'm calling them "kids," how droll--were in an SUV that flipped on its side against the center guardrail. My car wasn't involved in the mess, but I saw the dust being kicked up when they went crashing off the road. Judging by their comments, the car in front had braked suddenly, they swerved into the lane to the right, and then the car that had braked swerved into their lane and clipped their front end. Kinda like a reverse PIT manoeuvre.

The front car ended up on the right side of the roadway, having slid up an embankment. I didn't cross the highway to find out what happened over there. I was busy with the six people in the SUV who were just beginning to climb out of it when I ran up. Ended up staying for awhile to console a freaked out chihuahua while the occupants used my phone to call their parents.

It took awhile for the CHP to show up, but I guess that's to be expected when you're on the highway. Fire trucks and paramedics weren't far behind. Fortunately, the worst that happened were cuts and scrapes on this one guy in the SUV. The rest seemed pretty much unscathed, except for the mental anguish.

After that, I had no problem staying awake for the rest of my drive. I'd been riding the phone pretty hard talking to people to keep my brain stimulated up until then. Heard something over the weekend that made we wonder if I should get checked out for narcolepsy. Guess I should introduce myself to my new primary physician at Kaiser, not that I've selected one yet.

So, that was my weekend.