http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-13-backlash_N.htm

My sister rocks USA Today

Electric_Jellyfish-0754, originally uploaded by enderMC.

Last friday night was a little different than I had imagined. It started out with my probability final, a quick bite and drinks with classmates at Mad Mex and finally a trip down to Gooski’s to watch the Electric Jellyfish. But the night didn’t end there. After the show, the night continued with the band crashing at my apartment and playing Rock Band till 3 in the morning. Haha. Good times.

I heard from a classmate that there was a recent video of Gore from the TED.com series on “A Greener Future?” recorded in March 2008.  Sadly, it was much of the same message even two years after The Inconvenient Truth even with the progress that’s been made.  He calls for “bold moves” by society.  Hopefully we’ll see that soon.

I don’t have any bold moves up my sleeves just yet.  But I took a small step in the right direction by picking up a bunch of CFLs (compact florescent lightbulbs) from Costco today and was trying to figure out how much money I’d save or how much it would cost to use these instead of the 11-60 watt incandescent bulbs I’ve found in my apartment.  Each of the bulbs I bought output the same amount of light as a 60 W bulb but only use 13 W of electricity.  The bottom line: we’ll be saving a ridiculous amount of electricity and more than pay for the new bulbs.  For example: if I ran my room light for 1 hour every day for one year, the cost of the 4 bulbs in my overhead fixture would be $11 versus the $2 I would pay with the new bulbs (assuming $0.12 per kWh).  In other words, buying CFLs to replace every single bulb in your apartment or home is the way to go - both financially and environmentally.  Why are they still selling incandescents at all?  I hope I wasn’t the last to figure that out too.

8.23.08 LY 069, originally uploaded by enderMC.

I guess since classes have officially started and I’ve finished building all my Ikea furniture, I can officially say that I’ve settled in. It’s been a long four weeks since arriving in Pittsburgh (PA not CA) but a whole lot of fun. The weather has been really great but unfortunately I hear that means the winter will be especially hateful. We finished off orientation with volunteering in East Liberty, playing team building games at Seven Springs and white water rafting down the Youghiogheny River. Yeah I don’t know how to pronounce that either.

My list of PA gripes:
1. Lack of real food (and Yelp): seems like bar food is the staple around here and Yelp reviews are minimal. Pittsburgh is not a foodie town.
2. PennDOT: no DMV is ever run as efficiently it should… Pennsylvania’s is no different
3. The Roads: there was no planning involved when laying out the roads in Pittsburgh but thankfully someone invented GPS
4. Drivers: bumping cars while parallel parking is generally accepted, as is driving when you really shouldn’t be
5. Beer Distributors: beer must be bought from a beer distributor. in other words, the supermarket and Costco do not carry alcohol - my biggest gripe.

My list of nice things about PA:
1. The weather is great in August (which will not last)
2. The bar food is rather delicious
3. The beer is cheap
4. Housing is relatively cheap
5. People are nice

A short 2 days after getting back into the Bay Area from Asia, Jen and I made a trip out to New York to go to Girish and Angie’s wedding and to play. It was my first trip to New York outside of winter and even though I was still sick from my return trip from asia, I had a great time helping Jen eat our way through New York. The Iroqouis New York made the stay really excellent. It’s a small but very well run hotel just a short walk from Times Square. We hit up Joe’s Pizza (from Spiderman), the Clinton Street Bakery, two different dumpling places on our “dumpling crawl,” Shake Shack and a bunch of other places. Avenue Q was a nice addition too. =) So what do you do with a BA in English?

DSC_0635, originally uploaded by enderMC.

After a brief but very memorable trip to Japan, Alex and I headed to Thailand on July 10th. Unfortunately, I can’t say that I had all that great of a time and think I would have rather stayed in Japan for a few more days. Bangkok was just too much of a contrast to Japan’s clean, courteous and efficient culture. Bangkok was far from that. We did get some pretty awesome suits made though which brought back memories of Marshall at Barney’s back-of-the-pet-store taylor. =)

I did make a last minute trip to Phuket on my own for some diving. Unfortunately the Viking hotel was closed. Yeah, there was a giant viking helmet on the front of the hotel. Haha. My 2 dives at Racha Yai were nice but I’ll have to go back and do the Phi Phi islands sometime.

DSC_0605, originally uploaded by enderMC.

July was a very busy month. There were two weddings (one on each coast of the US), a trip to Asia with Alex, keg kickball and of course a giant move out to Pittsburgh, PA. Not to be confused with Pittsburgh, CA. But I’ll just cover Mt. Fuji for now…

This little adventure started out at the crack of dawn on July 7th where we caught a bus out of Tokyo to make our way to the trailhead on Mt. Fuji. We started hiking around noon and made our way up to the mountain hut in the early afternoon - about a 4 hour hike. Our Japanese guide was leading us at a snails pace but the view was too gorgeous for me to care too much. After a quick dinner, we napped till midnight to continue our climb in the dark. The point was to get to the top and be able to watch the sunrise from the top of Mt. Fuji. Unfortunely, after another 4 hours, we were just surrounded by clouds. A sunrise from the top will have to wait for another trip. =) All in all it was a pretty fun climb and brought back memories of Mt. Whitney, Shasta and Olympus from my Boy Scout days. That would take another trip out to Japan which I think I could manage. Yum. =)

On a normal weekend, running a morning 10k and brunch would have been more than enough to make for a great day. Haha. But these have been anything but normal weekends.

The Birthday Party

So what happens after a night of shenanigans? Well… seeing as it was Easter Sunday in San Francisco, there was only one thing left to do: Bring Your Own Big Wheel 2008. I first heard about this ridiculous event last year and took my camera with me to document the madness. I promised myself that I would do it the next year and so Alex and I got on our trusty plastic Dora the Explorer tricycles and hit Vermont Street like there was no tomorrow. =) And in our Halloween costumes of course. It was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever done in San Francisco and one of the most fun. I love this place. Thanks for the photos Girish.

Bring Your Own Big Wheel 2008, originally uploaded by patangay.