It was my birthday only two days before...

and I am still getting the frequent silly smiles from remembering my birthday party. My girlfriend, Zina put a lot of effort into the party, made more impressive because she had other duties that should have been taken care of first. She managed to sneak a look at my cellphone, copy all my friends' numbers, and arrange a surprise party -- not just once, but twice. We agreed that she would take me to one of my favorite restaurants, Chipotle, a burrito chain, for my b-day dinner. This was cool with me, and I figured that there would be a couple of friends join us for a meal. What I didn't anticipate was that EVERYONE would be there, including friends that I generally don't think of as mixing. After dinner, she invited everyone to come over to the house for desert. When we got there, I realized that someone had snuck off shortly after dinner and decorated the house! There were streamers, balloons, and at least 3 kinds of cake, including a delightful tiramisu from Trader Joes. The whole affair was quite pleasant and I'm still enjoying the moment.

Presently, I'm jammed into an airline seat on a Southwest flight to California, stopping in Las Vegas. Zina and I are both ragged from sleep deprivation: she had an academic project that devoured our late-night hours. Having burned the candle at both ends, and made the mistake of booking an early flight, we're trying to catch the odd snippet of sleep. It's nearly impossible: a balding gentleman with a gaudy gold ring is incessantly shuffling a deck of cards (obviously, he's getting off at Las Vegas), next to him is a woman with a baby who lets out a shriek periodically, and the Captain Bob's frequent, blaring Tour-Mobile guide imitations: "Ladies and Gentlemen, if you look out the window to the right of the aircraft, you can see that we're flying over Charlestown, West Virginia right now." and, no, I'm not making that up. I finally give up and get Zinas iBook out from the overhead compartment and start typing, which, on a turbulent aircraft, generates some unique and interesting typos.

You see the most interesting things from 36,000 feet

I've also been snapping pictures out the window at Captain Bob's direction. We see the Dunes National Monument, although my camera is still in the overhead compartment. As soon as the seatbelt sign -- due to turbulence -- is turned off, I get the camera out. We fly over the Grand Canyon and I'm yet again blown away by the enormity of it, even from 8 miles above. I hope I never get over that sense of awe every time I see it -- it would be a shame to lose that delightful feeling. As we travel, I enjoy watching the terrain change as if watching a movie. We continue to scroll across the country and begin our descent into Las Vegas. A gentle bump on the tarmac, and we're on the ground again. Captain Bob has done a great job: we arrive fully 50 minutes early. I drag Zina to the nearest lounge so I can have a cigarette and a coke. Zina is so patient with my ridiculous addiction to nicotine. Another horrendous line to check in, and we board the plane for the remaining short leg to San Jose. Again, we don't hear our names over the loudspeaker calling us for a new-since-September-11 random search. Not that we have anything to hide, but that I'd be irritated with having someone paw through my carefully packed belongings.

Another gentle bump on the tarmac and we taxi to the gate to disembark from the plane. I forget one of my two carry-on bags, and have to wade against the flow of travel -- salmon style -- onto the plane to retrieve the bag containing my clothes and toiletries. I'm such a geek -- I have no trouble remembering the bag with my camera and the iBook, but my clothes, I could care less about them. Truly, a quick trip to Wal-Mart would solve the problem, but I'd be pretty bummed to lose my toilet kit bag, a gift from my brother's in-laws.

Welcome to San Jose

Zina gets her bags from the baggage carousel, and we step outside into the San Jose sun to wait for her father, Zachary. We place a call to his mobile phone, and we are quickly met on the sidewalk. We then are whisked away to have lunch at an Italian restaurant near to Zach's work. We have a very nice, leisurely lunch, but have to rush off so Zack can get to a business meeting. After some minor confusion between an identical-looking Toyota Corolla, we locate the car that Zach is selling to Zina. We make our way to Zach's house and manage to crash out for an hour-long nap -- our cross country journey took approximately 12 hours, with about 4 of them spent standing on line with our bags.

We woke from our nap only semi-refreshed. I think we both could have continued to sleep until the next morning, but instead, we headed out to the market for veggie-skewer fixins, our contribution to the BBQ at Jen and Rich's house this evening. We made our way to Berkeley, where Jen and Rich own a lovely home. Both Zina and I sent invitations to all our friends in the Bay Area to join us at the BBQ. We later agreed that this was a significantly more efficient way to catch up with our friends: everyone comes to a central location rather than trying to schedule and execute separate visits.

   Jen and Rich are excellent and entertaining hosts. Their warmth and hospitality make me immediately comfortable. I genuinely enjoy the evening, visiting with my valued friends, Michael and Melissa, and making new friends over the course of the evening. The skewers are well received, and I particularly enjoy the yogurt bread made by a fellow named Chris, if I recall correctly. There is a wonderful mix of interests -- Zina knows Jen and Rich from her days at Yale, and there are many guests from the academic crowd. All three are motorcyclists, and have many friends from this arena, so motorcyclists are well represented, also. I spend most of the evening discussing the pros and cons of big bikes vs. small bikes, the attributes and benefits of large industrial metal lathes, and catching up on gossip with Mel. She recently had a great adventure with the Ducati Rides America tour for women, so she had some pretty fascinating stories. As the evening wore on, our long day caught up with us, and we retired about 10:30, Pacific Time.

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