It's never too early in the morning for cotton candy. Never.

Yay California, v8.0!

For a family vacation, I did a pretty good job of not spending any time with my (immediate) family. Ah, the benefits of visiting the same place for the nth time; no one expects you to actually visit the same boring touristy places with them again.

Shockingly, my mom was tired about 30 seconds after we got to the hotel on Thursday, so the beach was replaced with the pool. We met up with Sean, Aunt Iris, and Ron for dinner, then brought Brent's to him at Blockbuster.

After dinner, Toaster picked me up at the hotel. Friday we went to Fry's (okay, so I went to an electronics store on vacation just so I could say that I've been to a Fry's), Hollywood (where, oddly enough, I've never been as far as I can remember) and Santa Monica. The carnival at Santa Monica was pretty fawesome, though we failed to win a stuffed dragon at one of those ring toss booths. A second attempt at victory was thwarted by the presence film crew. Saturday I had to play family vacation again for a few hours, so we met up with my mom and Marc at La Brea Tar Pits.

For some reason, my mom thought it would be a better idea to go all the way back to the hotel then go to the beach. That idea didn't kill a couple hours. We did manage to get in a few hours at the beach before certain people (for the record, not me) got cold. For dinner, I went with Sean, Brent, and Francine to a Mexican restaurant. Afterwards went to Tilly's, mostly because it was there. Francine got a purse shaped like a radio, and I was bestowed with two pairs of earrings.

Sunday I went to Knott's with Sean. He picked me up at the hotel, after we took advantage of the free breakfast for guests (and people the guests sneak in). Conveniently, Francine works at Knott's so we were able to jump some of the lines. It's a pretty small park and we finished everything good by 5. Afterwards, Sean and Brent's dad treated everyone to dinner at ESPN Zone. Next came the concert. Of all the bands I've seen live, The Presidents of the United States of America is one of the better ones. Some of their new songs weren't up to par with Lump or Naked and Famous, but I am considering getting their latest album. Especially since Some Postman has been stuck in my head.

On to Monday and Disneyland. It was Disneyland. I got a tiara. And it was the first full day with my mom and Marc. Need I say more?

Tuesday resulted in San Diego. Approximately 80 miles away from the hotel lies the San Diego Zoo. The trip there took 80 minutes (okay, so I had fun driving on 5). It was entirely too hot that day, so we were lazy and took buses and the skyfari everywhere. I hadn't been there in over a decade, so I didn't really remember much going in. The zoo itself was fawesome, partially due to the trained emu. The drive back took slightly over two hours. Damn traffic. We didn't get back in time to have dinner with everyone, but we stopped by Aunt Iris's house for a couple hours. I got to play remove-the-spyware and other exciting games.

We spent about an hour on the beach before leaving on Wednesday. Personally, I would have preferred staying, but that idea didn't fly too well.

The plane back landed twice. The first time we were close enough to the ground such that I could read various airport signs before the pilot changed his mind. Something about there being another plane hanging out on the runway. The second attempt, after about 20 minutes of circling, was much more successful.

LA interstates note: Much better road signs than the pitiful ones along the NJ parkway and turnpike, but much worse traffic during most of the day.

Grad school note: About 12 days ago I finally decided that I'm going to get a master's in cs before moving into the "real world." About 3 days ago I decided this would be accomplished at Caltech.

I'm leaving tomorrow morning for California. FYAY! FAREWELL!

Like all good Columbia students, I had a profound hatred for Citibank and their amazingly annoying ad campaign and business casual dress code. Until yesterday. At the Scarsdale train station, there is an awesome Citibank ad covered in bubble wrap

for the sole purpose of being popped. Of course, I will continue to hate them for everything except this one ad.

Arfin and I are planning a road trip to liberate Jess's 1978 Camaro from Hawaii. The current plan is to drive cross country via I-80 and across the Pacific on the back of a gigantic seaturtle. Once we've acquired the vehicle, we're driving to Vegas to elope. We'll get back on I-80 so we can stop at home for sandwiches. Then we'll continue to Grand Cayman via I-95 to get secret offshore bank accounts. Of course, we'll be back in time for the fall semester.

Of course, we're going to need a car to get to Hawaii in the first place. Tomorrow Skarfin's buying a 1996 Saturn and airmailing it to me. Now Jess just needs to fix the suspension before we get there.

Yay road trip!

I've been meaning to get an mp3 player all summer, and I'm finally doing it. One that plays oggs would be preferable, though that's not an absolute requirement - any suggestions?

My intership at Lehman is offically over. As glad as I am to be returning to sleeping until 9 on early days, I have to admit I'm going to miss it. Granted I didn't get the really interesting work until almost a week before it was over (optimization is fun, and yes, I'm a dork), but still. The people there were really awesome. And I like reading slashdot. On the other hand, after the warning about Citigroup Center came out last Sunday, 399 Park (the building directly across the street from Citigroup's main building and which happens to contain Citigroup employees on almost every floor) became really annoying to get in and out of. That and the commute will not be missed in the slightest.

Tonight was dinner at Yuka in honor of Jane's 24th birthday. And in honor of my right hand not being fully functional yet, I attempted to use chopsticks with my left hand. After much trial and even more failure, I gave up and started stabbing food and just ate the rice with my fingers.

In other news, a Victoria's Secret bag, containing a purchase that I never bothered to put away, keeps a certain brother out of my room when left on my bed.