thanksgiving in sf

dad took the day before thanksgiving off to hang out with his kids. as eric and i were the only individual meeting the criteria at the house at that point, we took dad on a trip up mt. diablo.

at the top, eric and i got into a fight. it wasn't pretty.

but we made up.
then eric decided it would be fun to wear women's sunglasses. he let me borrow his visor in return.

thanksgiving morning we did a turkey trot of sorts. here's the crowd at the start. the competition was stiff. eric almost killed afterward, but he had agreed to "picking up the pace" so there's not much he could do. chris and julia won by quite a bit. dad did a pretty stellar job considering his minimalist training schedule heading into the race.

the family (and soon to be family) was all in sf for thanksgiving next year. my friend nicole and my parents' friend lisa also joined us. fortunately the noobs were a little slow on the uptake of the take-some-and-pass procedure around the table, but they caught on quickly. eventually everyone was stuffed and napping.

i started running a fever of over 100 degrees before we commenced eating. by friday morning it was up to 101 degrees. fortunately eric got sick too so we got to spend the day being sick together. my fever went down temporarily and we made it into berkeley to eat at my favorite restaurant (cafe gratitude) and meet up with anthony for a few minutes.

on the way home (sort of) we stopped to see the oakland temple. it was dark, so the picture isn't particularly breathtaking, but if you get a chance to see it in person at night or during the data, its beautiful.

we got back to austin saturday night. i still have a pretty nasty cough and i'm keeping my fingers crossed that its not bronchitis. illness aside, i had a pretty stellar weekend.

this week is the last week of classes. i'm focused on getting done with my class and getting healthy. i tried running today for the first time since thanksgiving day. unfortunately a cold front rolled in last night though, which meant my lungs were not having it. i hate being sick. it happens so infrequently that i'm not very good at dealing with it. bleh.

hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving!

passed!

i passed my qualifying exams last thursday. its been kind of surreal. i'm glad to have that hurdle out of the way though. i actually got 8 hours of sleep for the first time in a couple months on thursday night.

friday night, brooke, jason, eric and i went out to dinner and then wandered around south congress. brooke and jason showed us this neat little hotel that was nest in a neighborhood a block off of congress. we walked onto the grounds and there was an amazing calm there. experiences like this seem to abound in austin. there are all sorts of gems to explore around every corner. before we went home we stopped at the cupcake trailer (on s. congres), bought cupcakes and then sat and listened to bluegrass. it was a very enjoyable "austin" evening.

apparently people don't like running with me. they tend to come running with me once and say they're find...and then later i find out they call it a death run. well, two weekends ago eric came out running with me, called it a death run and then i just assumed that was the end of it. until friday night, he made a comment to the effect of 'after we go running tomorrow...' that just about blew me out of the water. so he came running with me again this past weekend, this time for a little longer. i've never had someone come running with me repeatedly like this. its fun.

later saturday afternoon, i got to experience ikea for the first time. its kind of neat how they lay out all the show rooms/kitchens/etc. i definitely recommend allowing a decent amount of time to take it all in though. the store is huge!

i have my last mid-term tomorrow. back to studying for me.

canoeing and the cathedral of junk

meet eric

dart, me and eric taking town lake by canoe

eric and i in the cathedral of junk

boys are good at making lots of noise

the cathedral of junk is multi-storied in more ways than one

the main entrance

saturday was a beautiful day for these adventures. its been crunch time in my world lately, hence the lack of posts. my proposal defense is on thursday. aaahhh!