Looking for a New Car

Since I'm pretty sure that my old car is totaled (moment of silence please) I've been looking for a new car. I'm still trying to decide what car to get. So in typical geek fashion I have made a webpage. I think I'm going to go with the Toyota Corolla again. I really liked my last car and it treated me well. Though this time I'll get a higher end model: it became very annoying very quickly having to remind everyone to lock their doors.

Now I'm left with finding the right price and place to buy said car, and, of course, trying not to get cheated too much by the car dealers. It should be interesting. I think that if anyone tries to tell me that there's a mirror on the back of the sun shade I will throw a screaming fit and walk out. It should be fun and I'm still feeling fragile enough (about the accident) to pull it off well.

Car Accident

Saturday morning at 2am I was driving four friends back from Santa Cruz to Mountain View. The five of us had been hanging out at a friends house down there and had a great time. It was rainy on the way back over 17 so I was going the speed limit (40) as we came around a blind turn. Unfortunately there was a car in my lane very soon after we went around the turn. The other car had no lights on and was turned so that the side of it was facing us. I was in the right lane of the two lanes going in to the bay area. I tried to get in the other lane to avoid it because there was no way that I could stop in time, though I did slam on the brakes anyway. Unfortunately I ended up hitting it, and another car came around the corner and rear-ended me. Fortunately no one was hurt. Though I suspect that my car is totaled because the big SUV that rear-ended me ended up parked in my trunk. Also when the police tried to put my car on the tow truck they couldn't move either car under it's own power. They had to use a police car to push them forward for the tow truck and to separate them. When they were doing that I could see the right front wheel of my car and it was neither turning or rotating.

I think the most annoying part of this whole thing is that I wasn't doing anything wrong: I wasn't speeding, I was alert and paying attention to the road, yet I'm the one who got most screwed from this whole thing. I'm really glad that no one was hurt, but I don't know why the first car that I hit wasn't out of the road. There was no one in it, and they were able to move it later, in fact they drove off with it at the end of the night. If they had even gotten it half off of the road I might have been able to avoid them: I managed not to hit them head on. Argh! However, I really should just be glad that everyone is ok, and not play the what-if game.

The best quote from this whole situation is:
"Are you the five people in the Volkswagon?" - CHP Officer
"Actually it's a Toyota" - Clara
"Doesn't matter, it's a beer can now." - CHP Officer

Beaujolais Nouveau

Last night we had a party to celebreate the release of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau. It's wine that is made from grapes harvested just this summer and fall. So it's very young wine. It's not bad, kind of a combo of red and white. Theoretically if you knew enough about wine you could tell how this year's vintages will be. I don't know that much about wine. I just enjoy drinking it.

This was the second party we'd had at our new house since we've moved in. The previous one was exactly a week before. Neither of them were really large. It is just nice to have the social space and social mass to bring people over to our place.

Moving

Moving is a pain in the ass. Not only is it terribly annoying to have to pack up and cart off your stuff you then have to unpack and reorganize. Last weekend I spent the whole weekend moving things to my lovely new house. It was terrible to have to pack everything up. It took trips Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Fortunately I had people to help me on all of those days. On Friday it was EJ, Breen and I moving my bed, random other stuff and Aurora. Aurora was less than thrilled about all of this so she spent her first day in the new house locked in my bathroom. I didn't want her to get "confused" about where the litter box was. On Saturday EJ, Breen, Mindy, and I did lots of packing and moving. Then I took them out to dinner as a thank you. Sunday EJ and I got the last loads from my old apt. All I have left there is my bike, a vaccum and lots of cleaning to do.

The new house is spectacular. I'm living there with Mindy, Andy, and Bryan. The four of us have all moved in now, and are sleeping here. I'll put pictures up very shortly. Words don't really do the lovely house justice. Though my room is still messy and unorganized. I'm still working on putting everything away. I've almost taken everything out of boxes.

Cold

I'll be glad to go back to California. I'll miss the people and places here in New England. I like Dartmouth and New England. There is beautiful scenery that changes with the seasons and the georgeous architecture. California is nice, I much prefer the average temperature of where I live there to the average temperature of New England. However, it seems to lack the sense of history that I get from Dartmouth and parts of Maine. I also prefer the architecture of New England to that of California. New England has a lot or brick and stone, but California mostly has Spanish inspired architecture. Both are nice but I prefer brick to stucco.

Recruiting

I'm in Hanover, doing recruiting for Google. I flew out early and have been visiting with friends and family. Saturday I arrived and stayed that night with my sister Rachel in Boston. It was really great to see her again. We went out for sushi and then stayed up late talking and playing with her adorable three month old kitten, Killer. Mom came down to Boston on Sunday and the three of us went to lunch at the Union Oyster House, which is apparently the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the US. It also has really excellent oysters. I had lots of them for lunch.

Today I'm sitting in the top of the Hop at Dartmouth. I have an excellent view of Baker Tower and the rest of the green from my seat. It's very strange to be here and watch the students go by, they seem young. I also checked my old Hinman box. Some how I still remember the combination to it and it worked. They don't chance the combos on those! That is very bad, I could have stolen that poor kids mail.

I'm staying with Hilary and Alex for a few days and having lunch with other friends and professors. Tomorrow I'll do some recruiting and then stay at a hotel after the dinner for interviewees and profs.

Also even though it says I'm posting these at 6am, that's Pacific time. It's only 9am here on the East Coast. Though it still feels excessively early...

Birthday

My birthday was more than a week ago, on Halloween. It was a very lovely birthday. I had a really nice weekend thanks to friends and family.

Saturday Mindy, Dave, Breen, Bryan, EJ, and I went to Napa and Sonoma. We drank lots of wine and bought even more. My birthday present to myself was to buy as much wine as I wanted to and not feel guilty. It was quite fun and I did get lots and lots of wine. We visited three Wineries. V Sattui, Sequoia Grove, and The Wine Room in Sonoma Valley. Breen suggested V Sattui because he had some very excellent madeira from there. Fortunately he had a Cellar Club member ship so we were able to avoid the hordes at the regular tasting ara and go to the nice quite cellar where we tried lots of wine. They were also very good about bringing our cases out to the car for us. (All that wine wasn't just from me, there were five other people there too!) Sequoia Grove was a new place, but we probably won't be going back there. It wasn't bad wine, but it wasn't anything special. The Wine Room is probably my favorite tasting place in Napa or Sonoma Valley. It's a collective tasting room with 6 different vineyards supplying wine. They have lots of excellent wine, but the best is probably from the Sonoma Valley Portworks. I love their Deco Port and the Amuse Muscat.

Sunday I slept in late and then EJ and I went to Santa Cruz. We were at the Well Within Spa for an hour and then went to dinner at ShadowBrook. At the spa we had a room with a hot tub, which was really relaxing. The Japanese garden was lovely to look at while sipping tea in the spa. There were even koi in the garden pool. Dinner at ShadowBrook was also very excellent. They had good vegetarian food and excellent wine.