More than I imagined, the past week has been much different than in any normal summer. I seem so far removed from everything I thought to be normal — going to class, then practice, dinner in the caf with everyone on the team, and then back to my room to do work. The whole team environment was a big part of my life and even in the summer I felt part of it with my training schedule and goals for the fall. Now I don’t have any of that. It’s like I’ve walked into a whole new world.
The wireless usb card came late last week. Unfortunately, it didn’t give me much of a signal boost but I can at least use my computer from the desk instead of jamming it awkwardly against the window. The connection is generally good enough so that I can browse the internet but I can’t upload or download any large files. I’ve got pictures from the trip and the past week that I’ve wanted to post, but I will probably have to walk to somewhere in range of the Ames network to do that. I can’t download any software updates either which have been released for my Mac.
I’ve been more or less cut loose to work on the agent communication visualization graphs and I’m in the process of trying to extract simulation data from a database and get it into prefuse so that I can make cool graphs. Everyone seems to be working on their own little projects here, but I don’t mind it. A lot of the other interns here aren’t computer science necessarily, some are more math oriented and one is in aerospace engineering I think, so they all don’t do software. Everyone who I’ve met who works here full time is a PhD, so I guess if I want to wind up here eventually, that’s what I have to do. I’m not really sure about spending that much more time in school, though. Also, most people who work here are contractors from an outside company — no more than a third from what I can tell actually work for NASA. Even within each group there are people from different companies.
On Saturday I went to Sacramento to see Keith since he would be there until Sunday night. He had been there all week because of his race. It sounded like other than the race, he didn’t do a whole lot except sit in the hotel, and it seemed to be getting to him. It took a little more than two hours to get there with some traffic. I will say that traffic on a weekend afternoon in the Bay Area is as bad as rush hour at home. I probably won’t complain about traffic at home much more.
Compared to Mountain View, Sacramento was hot. It was easily 20 degrees warmer. I met Keith at the hotel and we just hung out for some of the afternoon and talked about everything coming up. Like me, he wasn’t too happy about his college running career being over, but his graduate program will give him a lot to look forward to. In a month, he will be doing some work at CERN in Switzerland and then afterwards will be starting a grad program at Stanford.
In the late afternoon we walked across the street to a Jamba Juice. I’ve never been to one of those before and they seem to be all over the place around here. It wasn’t bad, but smoothies are something that aren’t that hard to make yourself if you have the right stuff (I don’t). Since I’m out here, I’ve always heard a lot about In N Out as well, so I’ll try to make it there within the next couple of weeks to see what all the hype is about. I’ve heard their fries can be a little weird.
I went with Keith and my coach to see Ocean’s 13, which I thought was pretty good. It was definitely better than the second one, but the plot was a lot like the first. There weren’t any romantic interludes or anything, they just cut straight to the chase. It also seemed like they tried to squeeze everyone from the first two movies into this one and a lot of the characters got brushed over. So far it’s been the only movie I’ve seen this summer and there are a bunch more I also want to see.
Following that, Keith and I got in the car and drove into Downtown Sacramento to get some dinner. We went into Old Town Sacramento which had buildings that looked like an Old West town. We walked around for awhile and then found a place along the river where we sat outside. We split a sourdough cheese loaf and I had a tuna steak, both of which were very good. It really highlighted how bland the food was that I’ve been eating all week.
I wound up staying until the next morning and we went out for a run along the Sacramento river. There were plenty of bike paths and trail offshoots like in Mountain View. We went through the Sacramento State campus and by the track where the meet was before heading back to the hotel. Too bad the more interesting stuff was during the week, otherwise I would have come to watch. It was also much warmer early in the morning than in Mountain View. The past week it has been in the 50s when I get up to run, which is weird to me. It’s a lot better than the 90+ degree days and nasty thunderstorms at home.
I headed out from the hotel in the late morning and on the way back thought about how weird everything is now that I don’t have a training plan or practice or anything structured like that. It’s more or less do whatever I want. I think being so far from home caught up to me while driving by the brown grassy hills that look nothing like where I live. I realized that so many people I’ve known at school have gone away to do their own things and it’s starting to happen to me too. Even though I’ll still be at school next year, a large number of teammates who I have known very well won’t be returning. And I won’t be obligated to go to practice, heck, I don’t know if I’ll even be allowed at practice if I want to go every day. I bet I won’t even have my locker anymore. But, sometimes you can tell when it is time to move on to something else, and I’ve had that feeling for awhile.
Instead of going back to the base, I went to the coast and drove for a bit on the PCH. It was a much nicer day than the only other time I’ve been there but it was still so much different than the coast I know at home. It was an interesting drive back into the mountains towards my new home. There were some big redwood forests and narrow windy roads. The trees were huge and almost blotted out the sun completely. The roads carved their way around rocks and cliffs and every so often some insane motorcyclist would come up behind me and pass despite the double yellow line and the blind curves.
I was thinking about how dangerous that was as another guy on a motorcycle suddenly appeared behind me and was about to pass. Then, around the next curve, another motorcyclist was sprawled out on the pavement with pieces of motorcycle and car all over the road. The motorcycle and car had both taken a lot of damage but the girl who was in the car seemed okay but was in shock as she walked over to the guy lying in the road. Some people behind me pulled over to help, but since there seemed to be enough people around, I just kept going since I’m not familiar to the area at all and probably wouldn’t be of much use.
Out of the redwood forests, I went along Skyline for awhile and stopped at a park to take some pictures. You could see all the way to San Francisco in one direction and to San Jose in the other. I could also see the tower at Stanford and the huge wind tunnel at Ames in the distance. It was a pretty cool view. As I looked I could hear some sirens wailing in the distance, probably for the accident that I just passed.
I found Page Mill Road, which made a long, windy descent into Palo Alto. There were tons of cyclists going up the other way and none of them looked to be having a good time. Before coming out here, I thought about taking a bike trip to the coast, and now I know what I’ll be facing: pain. There was at least eight miles of switchbacks and steep hills until the road straightened out.
I got the car washed and got a bunch of frozen stuff from Trader Joe’s for dinner the next couple nights. I would rather subsist on something other than frozen food, but it will be hard with the kitchen pretty far away. I put in a lasagna when I got back to the base and had some of that.
This morning, it was up again at 6:30 to run and then to work. As soon as I left the lodge and headed for the gate, there was a guy running up ahead of me. He was moving pretty good, almost as fast as I was. I turned towards the gate when I reached him and thought he kept going straight. I didn’t think much of it until I got out on the levee and had the feeling someone was following me. I don’t get that feeling much, and when I do, it’s usually a cyclist or one of my teammates when I’m at school. I turn to go across a bridge towards Shoreline and I see the guy is right back there, following me. When I get to Shoreline and turn again, I see he is even closer. This means war, and the battlefield couldn’t be any better. The big hill by the Shoreline Amphitheater is only around the block so I pick it up and then tear up the steepest part of the hill until I get to the top. That seemed to do the trick. I didn’t see him after that. It got me wondering though. How long will it be before I start getting older and slower and everyone is passing me on their runs?
And that was my first weekend here in California. My plan from now on is to try to do something interesting at least once every week while I am here. Next weekend I would like to run in one of those parks in the mountains that I’ve heard a lot about.
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