Friday morning

Another detail from Thursday morning: I saw a woman in a coffee shop who bore a strong resemblance to Marcia, my girlfriend in 1991-92. I made no attempt to initiate contact with the woman I saw.

More social, yesterday. I had lunch at BJ's (a microbrewery quite close to the Apple campus) with Yaniv and Josh from the Pittsburgh office, and Sue, Thomas, Jay, and Jay from Cupertino. The microbrew root beer was good but not overwhelming, and the grilled roast beef sandwich was very nice.

For dinner, Yaniv, Gur, Jay, Jay's girlfriend, and I went out for sushi. I was trying to argue for the Moroccan place, but sushi had already been decided upon. It was certainly good sushi, and good conversation.

This morning, I checked out of the hotel, and went to Hobee's for a last breakfast. At Eli's request, I had the banana streusel French toast sandwich. The topping of warm cherry compote was my idea, though, and if I do say so myself, it was a darn good idea. Mmm. It was all sweet, but not horribly sweet.

The class ends at about noon today. I have another lunch-with-locals planned, and then I plan perhaps some shopping:
- I'm considering returning the Creature Collection II. It has lots of nice concepts, but the CRs are just horribly wrong.
- I should visit the Apple Store and buy souvenirs.
- I'd like to visit the Learning Game store on Lori's behalf.
- I've read of a large used bookstore called Recycle Books in San Jose.

This evening, then, I plan to get together with Uncle Eric, and then to the airport to fly home.

Friday tidbits

I hadn't mentioned the men's room at Apple. The novel property is that there is no light switch--I believe the lights come on automatically when the door starts to open.

The lecture ended early. I did some of the labs for custom views, but bailed at lunchtime. I don't think more labs would have done much for me.

Went to lunch at a pizza joint named "Jake's" with a large quantity of QA people and others that I'll soon be collaborating with. I didn't talk with everyone; the table was too long. I enjoyed the Gilroy pizza with sausage, fresh tomato, and garlic cloves.

At Apple, had my last interchange with Karina Manzo, the receptionist whom I've been meeting most often. I would say that we've built up an acquaintanceship over this week--strong enough, at least, that I remember her name and might recognize her face, which is stronger than many of my relationships with receptionists. (And 'Karina Manzo' is a cool name. I could imagine using it as the name of a D&D character.) This last interchange involved her giving me directions to Recycle Bookstore in San Jose, and contrasts of the balmy weather here this week and the less balmy weather in Pittsburgh.

Speaking of which: as I drove around this afternoon, the sun was warm enough to call me to roll down the window, and the pleasant breeze made the weather utterly delightful. I felt that the weather was teasing me about my imminent return to Pittsburgh.

Bought t-shirts at the Apple store. Considered badge holder with Apple logo, but decided that the Apple logo on the badge would be sufficient. Discovered that I can purchase Keynote at 50% off, but did not do so.
Visited the Learning Game, a store selling toys and teacher supplies. Lori would love that store. Bought a little something for her.
Returned Creature Collection II at the mall.

Drove down to Recycle Bookstore. Noted the emphatic purpleness of the San Jose children's museum en route.
Had trouble selecting anything at the bookstore, because feeling slightly frotzed; found it hard to look outside my narrow habits. Spent more money than planned nevertheless: two Perry Mason books I've read but do not own, Squandering Aimlessly by David Brancaccio because I've liked his work on the Marketplace radio show, and the Lord of the Rings RPG, because at $22.50, it was well below MSRP.

Drove up to Palo Alto to meet up with Uncle Eric. Since I had extra time, I stopped at Cho's in Palo Alto for potstickers that reminded me of good times in my senior year. Cho's has expanded into a room next door; now, there are five tables in the whole restaurant, and one of them even has three chairs. The potstickers were very tasty and nostalgic.

Met Eric's wife Patricia. We went out to eat at a cantina called "Ay! Ay! Ay!" in Los Altos. The food was not terribly impressive (though it was also true that I wasn't very hungry), but the bar had a statue of a cow wearing high-heels and displaying itself in a slatternly pose, which you certainly don't see everywhere.
Good conversation with Eric and Patricia, but I wasn't at my most convivial. I felt mightily tempted by the thought of margaritas, but I felt concerned that doing so would leave me unsafe to drive. Eric paid for dinner despite my mention of the expense account. Had I know that all my meals for Thursday and Friday would be paid for by other people, I would have been more lavish earlier in the week.

Have gone the whole week without eating at any restaurant available in Pittsburgh. Go me. (I suppose that the Hilton might count as available in Pittsburgh, but I don't count it as a place that I would actually eat.)

Didn't come back in to their house; left for the airport so that there would be plenty of time to handle any complications. The rental car return is a very long way from the terminal, but even so, the net result was that I arrived at the gate for the 10:20 flight at 8:30. Oh well--I am happy to have extra-low excitement in my airline travel.

Wow, these 'random tidbits' journal entries get really long. Do y'all enjoy reading these ramblings?