A very busy few days

I turned in my last paper on Friday at noon. Yay! Ed and I then went to a graduation luncheon for the Sloan Fellows and then I headed out for a bike race. I stayed with my teammates Silke and Pauline and my former teammate Marianne in Bennington VT. We had so much fun talking and laughing. The race, on Saturday in Cambridge NY, was awful. I think I sweated off all my sunscreen before we even started. It was just so hot and I was so miserable. The hills were unusually painful. I quit after one lap, as did Marianne (who needed to save her legs for a big MTB race the next day), and we cooled off in the shade. Silke soloed the second lap and won decisively.

I had the following encounter at a Cumberland Farms where I stopped for some junk food. The man in front of me in line was sporting a FULL plumber and was buying a six-pack of cheap beer and some cigarettes. I was trying to avert my eyes from the plumberly glory.

plumber guy: Which lottery tickets are $2?
clerk: (very politely) The ones that say $2.
plumber guy: (long pause) Okay, I'll take one of those. (He pays and leaves.)
clerk: (to me) I'm so sorry about that.
me: (not sure how to react)
clerk: (earnestly) Working here is killing my faith in humanity.

He was very much like Ed must have been at his age when he worked at a video store. It made me chuckle all the way home. If I were a single 18-year-old living in Hoosic, NY, I would have totally tried to get his number.

After that it was back home on scenic Rt 2 (including a sighting of the very strange Big Indian Shop) and I finished listening to the abridged Guns, Germs, and Steel. I stopped in at another Sloan Fellows party. Brad, Kris, and I shared some early birthday pie with Ed (his birthday's today!). We again went with 8-bit architecture for the birthday candles.



On Sunday the kitties sort of called a truce.



Then Claudia and I rode the tandem. :) And it turns out many roads around here are totally ripped up right now. Apparently this is especially not fun for the stoker.



Afterwards Ed and I had some people over for dinner, I think for the first time since I started graduate school. Yesterday it was back to work and then off to a Syracuse networking event downtown. Now I'm enjoying being in for the evening and I'll probably skip the track tomorrow, just because it's so nice to be home. I need to sleep.