It was a big 2 weeks. First order of business was my PhD thesis defense, which I passed! There was a bit of drama around scheduling my defense (it was scheduled for Monday, but I had to delay it at the last minute, fortunately for only 3 days), but all's well that ends well. It felt warm and fuzzy being on campus, too. Three InfoLunches in just two weeks! After a year as a wage slave, I had lost touch with the energy and pulsating brain power that defines Stanford campus life.
The rest of my time in San Francisco was spent seeing friends and visiting my favourite spots in the Mission. I was so happy to be back. I really miss it. Squeezed in a couple of pub crawls and a whole lot of burritos and tortas. Not enough Al Hamra for my liking, but there's always next time, I guess. San Francisco has a different (though not necessarily better?) feel when you're no longer a poor grad student.
I then went to Toronto for a few days, mainly to hang out with my Mom, and watch not-tape-delayed coverage of the Olympics on our shiny new big-screen TV. Mmmm, home cooking. By the way, if you've been reading about longer security lineups at Pearson Airport lately (e.g., this article), it's basically all true. But don't worry, my Canadian friends, you don't actually need to arrive early. Just show up about 60 minutes before your flight, and there is a security guy whose job it is to let you cut to the front of all the security lineups, ahead of all the suckers that have been waiting in line for hours! Excellent! Don't blame me, blame Pearson/GTAA/CATSA/whoever, which has decided to waste everybody's time with its security theater. By comparison, at SFO I can get from my car to the gate in just 20 minutes. (I wrote this paragraph aboard UA 855 from YYZ to SFO, after I arrived with just 70 minutes to go and cut to the front of all the security lineups. Sweet.)
And now, some pictures from my trip.
Having our salad, um, prepared at Burma Superstar.
John, Tony and David drinking dirty martinis. Classy.
Andreas' experiment at InfoLunch. Something about planes moving backward, I can't remember exactly.
Outside Skylark, where I was nearly thrown out for wearing my hat. Huh?
Posing with zebra wood, on Tony's last day at his workshop in the Marina.
