trisweb.com

I’ve got a new photolog! Now that I have a digital camera, I think a photolog is much better suited to me than a regular blog, so I decided to make one. That doesn’t mean I’ll abandon this, just that you’ll have to check two now.

The address is: http://www.trisweb.com/photo/

(or http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~tharward/photo/ if that doesn’t work.)

I’ll link to it on the main trisweblog page soon enough, up at the top. Maybe I’ll even put a little thubmnail showing the latest picture… but that’s harder. ::

Been a while. Enjoy the pictures, I’ll write later, Go Bears!

First, the camera I used to take all the pictures this trip is a new one:

Very small, very portable, and makes decent snapshots, if not photographs.

An Arizona sunset, driving to Tempe on Christmas Day.

Morning rehearsal the next day. I was in the line that stood still while everyone else did stuff. Heh heh heh.

Our drum major making the final post-rehearsal ladder announcements.
And no, that’s not a halo.

Marchup, game day. The game was at the AZ Diamondbacks’ stadium, Cal vs. Virginia Tech.

With the game tied 49 to 49 with 3 seconds left in the 4th, we were set for a perfect center 35 yard field goal, and it was good! At the right is a blown up part of the pic on the left, which clearly shows the ball going through the uprights.

That resulted in a final score of 52 to 49. Go Bears

Then we went to the Grand Canyon. More later, I’m too tired now. ::

CS Final: Check.

Ski Trip: Packing! Leaving tonight! Woo!

Christmas: Less than a week! Crap, I need to buy presents…

Bowl Game: Only 8 days away!

That is all. More after skiing. (WOO!)

::

After my CS final anyway…. urgh.

It shouldn’t be too bad. And besides, that’s not the point. The point is, it’ll all be over at 3:30 tomorrow. And moreso, I’ll be skiing at 8 AM the next morning

I really truly seriously can’t wait. It’s like Disneyland only better… it’s like as much fun as Disneyland would be without lines, like if you and all your friends were the only guests, except that there are lines and me and my friends aren’t the only guests… it’s just that good. And the weather is looking fairly good as well, with weather.com reporting a comfort index of 7 and 8 for Friday and Saturday respectively. If it’s snowing too hard I’ll need to get goggles… left mine with the parents’ ski gear last year… but other than that I’m about as equipped as one can possibly be for a simple 2-day ski trip. I guess that’s what you get when your dad works for Patagonia... I have to explain this to everyone, of course, to explain why I wear a different jacket every day…

I also now have to tell my mitten story. I tell it to everyone who plans on purchasing a new pair of gloves (as in, the separated finger thingies).

So, I was at Sugar Bowl last year on this ski trip, and I was doin’ my own thing for a while on some of the black diamond runs… yeah… and went up the chairlift with some pro skier dude (he had all the gear for it anyway). I was wearing mittens. Patagoina synchilla mittens. Needless to say, my hands were toasty warm. Too warm, in fact, verging on Hot. So I took my mittens off, shook off my hands, enjoyed the cool wind… and the whole time, the guy next to me was looking at me weird. “You’re hands are hot.” he said inquisitively. “Yeah.” I answered. He was amazed—“Man, I can’t feel mine they’re so frickin frozen.” I laughed, “Mittens.”

So, the moral of the story is that Mittens are better than Gloves. It’s true. And they’re no less tactile either. In fact, I’d say that since a glove pads each of your fingers like an inch thick, and a mitten doesn’t have to since they’re warming eachother, the mitten is much more tactile. They are also better for making snowballs, and we all know that’s the only real important tactile thing you ever have to do while wearing gloves anyway.

Anyway, it’s Northstar on Friday, and Sugar Bowl on Saturday. I’ll be skiing, and wearing mittens, and in a big green one-piece ski suit (thank you Dad!). But first, I need sleep for final! Wish me luck!

Saddam Hussein Captured Alive in Tikrit

This is seriously the most breaking news you’ll ever see on this weblog… I just happened to be up, and Jason started up his browser to check something, and there was the news story… it said the press release would be 7 AM Eastern, and we looked at the clock and were like, “Crap, that’s right now” and we turned on the TV and just then the military officials walked up to the podium. The first thing they said was “Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him.”

Anyway, I’m not trying to be political about this. I have opinions and hopes, but they don’t particularly matter at this point. All I need now is sleep. Goodnight. ::

I can’t believe my third semester is already over (except for finals… argh). It’s been a good one; band, school, friends, family…

Oh, what am I doing—I hate reminiscing. Pretending to anyway. Yeah, it’s been fun, but I’m a little more occupied with the present than the past.

“It’s a beautiful thing when you feel this sort of harmonic consonance of the past and the future all meeting in one place, all meeting in you, you’re old enough now to contain the past, and drive forward into the future.” ~ Garrison Keilor

I’m listening to the Prairie Home Companion… I heard that wonderful line just as I was writing the one before it; I had to share it, becuase it was just so coincidental… I love when that happens.

Anyway, I really need to go to sleep; as always. I’ll be studying a lot this weekend, after the fall formal… tonight now. So I think that quote and small sentiment is good enough for now. Goodnight. ::

Last night’s reads a little weird when you’re mostly awake. Oh well. It made sense when I wrote it.

Headlines!

• Cal is going to a Bowl Game! The Insight bowl, in Phoenix, Arizona on the 26th of December. Bad timing, but it should work.


• It has been raining for the last two days. I love the rain. Walking home from dinner, it poured like I haven’t seen in years, and none of us had rain material (it wasn’t raining when we went to dinner) so we all just got soaking wet and loved it; some more than others…


• It is the last week of classes


• It’s beginning to look a lot like… ... you know.


• and I can’t stop thinking about Skiing

I really need to get some sleep. Had to wake up early yesterday to keep my promise of going to every single class on the last week of school. It makes me feel better about all the other weeks. So goodnight. ::

I don’t want to go to sleep. I want to stay awake for the rest of my life—I feel like I miss too much in sleep—I could listen to so much great music the whole night through—or read all the books I could never have time to read otherwise—or write all the books I could never have time to write—or—just—think the whole night… I’d just have time—time I don’t feel like wasting anytime in the next ten minutes….

Or, maybe it’s just because I watched Vanilla Sky tonight. “Wake Up!”

Yeah, it was about sleeping and dreaming and it shouldn’t be watched before one needs to sleep. And I have good music to listen to, and thoughts to type, so what’s the harm in staying awake for another few minutes?

Went to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving, which I suppose we haven’t done in at least three years. My parents met me there; beat me there, actually. I took the Fremont BART train to the end of the line, and Grandpa picked me up; and drove me home, bless his eyes. The turkey was good, and the stuffing, fancy, with oysters. It was a very classic Thanksgiving with the Family.

Friday, I finally got a haircut. It was the only thing I bought that day.

That evening, I watched my parents drive away from that house for the second time ever, just as I had driven away with them dozens of times more than that before last year. I shook my head as they drove off, collected my memories, and took them inside to watch TV with me. They uncannily reminded me of Grandma and Grandpa’s living room before the rennovation; the TV was old, not flat, and less than 52 inches, and probably had a better picture (Grandpa got the big TV, the satelite dish, the TiVo, and the 400-disc DVD changer, but somehow missed the point of connecting the components with anything other than coaxial cable). My memories remembered that the living room used to be like the family room, but more lived-in, and with even weirder-colored carpets; they reminded me of hanging the stockings on the fireplace—which they left in the rennovation, but not quite if you know what I mean—and Christmas mornings around the tree, and Grandma cooking in the old kitchen, with the oven that Grandpa knew how to use….

Things change. I know, I’ve seen ‘em do it. As I watched my parents drive away that afternoon, I could do nothing but smile, slowly step inside, and watch the new big-screen TV.

That’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average … coincidentally, my Link of the Day.

I think… I think I feel like sleeping now. Good night. ::