Checksum Arcanius

Yesterday was Christine’s 22nd Birthday, and since I was wearing my “I’m blogging this” t-shirt I guess it is my duty to faithfully recount the events. I actually had the sublime opportunity to both start and end the day with her; such the the opportunity of a Bioengineer to always be doing homework around midnight. The day technically started at midnight, as we were working on our Bioengineering 481 project plans — we decided to do some homework together after the CREE kickoff. After wishing her the first of many Happy Birthdays, I dropped her off at home.

Bioengineering 357 was cancelled due to the instructor’s illness, so I got to sleep in a little before meeting up with Jason to go over our 403 presentation. Following this, I grabbed food at the Hub (salad & breadsticks) and lunched with Christine in the confines of the CSE building where we printed out our 481 project proposals. Next came Surface Analysis with Buddy Ratner, then Bioengineering 481, where the party really started to get going. The previous night (really, that morning, before sleep), Alice and Hoyin baked a cake for Christine, which was presented during the 481 break. Pretty much every junior in the department sang Happy Birthday, and then we all had some cake, which definitely helped keep me awake for the next hour of class.

After 481, the four of us (Alice, Hoyin, Christine and I) dropped each other off at the HUB, Bagley, and then Alpha Phi before I headed down the the intramural fields for a corec Ultimate game. The team that I was playing with — and hav enow joined — won handily, so I raced back home, picking up Dennis along the way, showered, and then picked up Christine, Hoyin, and Alice and headed to the downtown Cheesecake factory. Pnina met us there, and we had a grand time with some good food and occasional good service (my roommate Dan was working, but didn’t have our table, which is unfortunate because he was much better than the server who was assigned to us.)

We walked Pnina back to her place (a beatiful condo with a view of the sound), where Christine opened her present (a second Wii controller), then she and her boyfriend drove us back to my car, and I took everyone home. About the time I got Christine home, it was again midnight, so I got to end the day with her as well. As an extra treat, Chrstine said that it was one of the best birthdays ever. Good friends and good times lead to good memories.

Ben McElroy, of BEMdesign.com has given me the opportunity to try out his new WordPress theme, Hibachi2. Check out the link in the upper-left to switch over (or, if you have already switched, the link will probably be on the lower right). Or, if you’re reading this from an RSS reader of some sort, you’ll have to actually show up “in person” to see what in the world I’m talking about.

As time goes by, I will try to move some of my other features into the new theme — the picture bar, for example.

Today I awoke at the rude hour of 6:30 AM to head north to Steven’s Pass with Kunlun and his Boeing friend Alex. Last night, I visited the parents to pick up my skis and ended up staying for a good chat as well, but that lasted until about 12:30. By the time I got home and ready for bed, I only had about five hours of sleep ahead of me.

Kunlun picked me up his his shiny new yellow Mazda3 (News flash: Courtney just got a shiny new purple Mazda3!), and we headed to Mill Creek to pick up Alex on the way to the Pass. Alex had some sort of discount that got me $12 off the $52 price tag (yeouch!), so that worked out well for me. We his the slopes about 9:30 in the AMs.

It is Kunlun’s second season snowboarding, but only Alex’s first, so Kunlun and I spent a lot of time waiting around until Alex bit it kind of hard and decided to rest off the cobwebs while Kunlun and I went to the backside of the Mountain to get ourselves a real workout. I managed to not fall once, which was good because I managed to forget my jacket — my outer layer was my newfangled Titan Robotics Club sweatshirt, which got a few lift operators excited with the thought of Battle Bots. My lack of fallage also means that either I’m really good at skiing or that I’m not pushing myself hard enough. I’ll let you decide.

After skiing, we deposited a sore Alex back in Mill Creek before going to my parent’s for a scrumptious dinner. Now I am back at my place digesting as fast as I can in anticipation of a 10:30 run with Christine.

I figured that this was the last weekend I could spend having fun before school really gets going. Dinners with friends Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, some Frisbee, Poker, and Skiing thrown in, and not a bad sprinkling of homework, I think I did alright.