I played bridge today. It wasn't even that bad.
So, today. Woke up around 10am or whatever. Got packed, changed, etc. Carl and I walked over to Beeler to get the car, then drove back, grabbed our stuff, threw it in the car, and I drove Carl to the airport. However, I had forgotten some details about how Pittsburgh highways work. Notably, I had forgotten that the South Oakland entrance to 376 only goes EAST, and you have to take Fifth Ave to go WEST. Ugh. So we were stuck for like 10-15 mins just getting to that entrance, then I'm like "oh crap". We took Second Ave downtown, then futzed around and luckily Carl told me to turn left on Grant St. randomly and it happened to take us right to the Fort Pitt tunnel. I guess we got to the airport a little after 1pm for his 2:30pm flight. Hugged goodbye (I have noticed that I think the only times we actually hug is when we're saying goodbye) and then I drove back towards town. I decided to stop off at Robinson Town Center, at the Quaker Steak and Lube, and got wings, because I was vaguely sad/grumpy and direly starving. Man! I had forgotten how good QSL wings are! Mmmm, wings.
Drove to campus for lack of anywhere better to go after that. I wandered through Wean a bit - stopped by some people's offices, most of whom weren't there. I was in the elevator on Wean 4 about to go upstairs to exit the building and wander more, when I saw Justin Weisz down the hall and jumped out of the elevator. Ended up standing around in the hallway talking to him for a good hour or so, and we went upstairs so I could see his office, and he's down the hall from Andy Myers so I stopped in to say hi to him as well. (Oh, and Deryck walked by while we were in the hall! Wheeee Deryck! I didn't know he was still here.) Justin's so damn cool, but after a while I felt bad and told him to go do work and I'd wander more.
It was 4pmish by then, and I went over to UCC, where I went up to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blk's office. Called mj2q, and kind of planned on hanging out at Barbara's place, maybe doing something else fun. I gave Barbara a ride back to her place, and then helped her prepare dinner - I cut carrots and onions and stuff, and right about when cutting onions got to be too much for me, Mark and katybeth and sethml and the kids and the parents and all showed up. So instead I sat in the living room playing games with David and Justin. They are easily the most adorable kids on the planet. Justin wanted to teach me this "fox and geese" checkers game, and it's really frightening how good he is at games for a 6-year-old. David wanted to play Backgammon with me, but it was more like a game where he would roll dice, announce the numbers on the dice triumphantly, and move around the backgammon pieces randomly. Still very cute. He also went nuts taking pictures with Mark's digital camera, mostly of the inside of his shirt pocket, since he kept proudly proclaiming that he had a pocket.
Mark wanted to go play bridge, and despite my better judgment, I agreed to. I asked Charlie where the games were, and he said the best bet was for us to play at Temple Sinai tonight. So we did. Oh man. It was so confusing for me, I am SO out of practice... But, all the people were happy to see us! They all have this sort of "we remember when you guys were just a pair of little college students!" thing going, and they all wanted to see Mark's pictures of his kids, and they were relatively nice even though I was playing really slowly because my brain is so messed up. (Oh, and forrandom_boy's benefit... Steinar Hauan was there! He's apparently still working at CMU in the chem department, and playing bridge every week.) We saw the Surrealistic Precision guys, and Mary Anne, and Margie, and the Kleins, and other people whose names I have of course totally forgotten.
The funny thing is, we scored a 45% game or so, which is better than I thought we'd do for having not played together in two years (and I have not been to a duplicate since I went withnickjong sometime in 2002). I only played 2 hands out of 24 boards -- I was bidding fairly conservatively/timidly, although to be honest, most of my bids were dead on, I didn't have a lot of points most of the time. I even managed to make some great/clever plays along the way, which felt good. They didn't all work out but it was good to be thinking the right way.
So, yeah. In a way I really did enjoy it. It reminded me of a time of being much younger and going to bridge with Mark. Can you believe it's been EIGHT AND A HALF YEARS since we went to our first duplicate bridge game together?
We came back to Barbara's and ate leftover chili and hung out playing some games with her and Katy and Seth. We did Ricochet Robot for a bit, and then Biting Off Hedz or whatever, which is not too bad a Cheapass game. Then I caravanned back to Mark's house with him because there's like 90 people staying at Barbara's and nobody here. We sat up talking a bit, then Mark went to sleep at a reasonable hour and I am of course still up and online because I am an idiot. Ah well, it's not like I have much to do tomorrow. I want to go to Mad Mex for dinner, and PNC Park to the Pirates team store, and those are my only goals. (Oh -- Megan -- is there anything you want from the Pirates store, or from CMU or anything else in Pittsburgh?)
Raaaaar.
Drove to campus for lack of anywhere better to go after that. I wandered through Wean a bit - stopped by some people's offices, most of whom weren't there. I was in the elevator on Wean 4 about to go upstairs to exit the building and wander more, when I saw Justin Weisz down the hall and jumped out of the elevator. Ended up standing around in the hallway talking to him for a good hour or so, and we went upstairs so I could see his office, and he's down the hall from Andy Myers so I stopped in to say hi to him as well. (Oh, and Deryck walked by while we were in the hall! Wheeee Deryck! I didn't know he was still here.) Justin's so damn cool, but after a while I felt bad and told him to go do work and I'd wander more.
It was 4pmish by then, and I went over to UCC, where I went up to
blk's office. Called mj2q, and kind of planned on hanging out at Barbara's place, maybe doing something else fun. I gave Barbara a ride back to her place, and then helped her prepare dinner - I cut carrots and onions and stuff, and right about when cutting onions got to be too much for me, Mark and katybeth and sethml and the kids and the parents and all showed up. So instead I sat in the living room playing games with David and Justin. They are easily the most adorable kids on the planet. Justin wanted to teach me this "fox and geese" checkers game, and it's really frightening how good he is at games for a 6-year-old. David wanted to play Backgammon with me, but it was more like a game where he would roll dice, announce the numbers on the dice triumphantly, and move around the backgammon pieces randomly. Still very cute. He also went nuts taking pictures with Mark's digital camera, mostly of the inside of his shirt pocket, since he kept proudly proclaiming that he had a pocket. Mark wanted to go play bridge, and despite my better judgment, I agreed to. I asked Charlie where the games were, and he said the best bet was for us to play at Temple Sinai tonight. So we did. Oh man. It was so confusing for me, I am SO out of practice... But, all the people were happy to see us! They all have this sort of "we remember when you guys were just a pair of little college students!" thing going, and they all wanted to see Mark's pictures of his kids, and they were relatively nice even though I was playing really slowly because my brain is so messed up. (Oh, and for
random_boy's benefit... Steinar Hauan was there! He's apparently still working at CMU in the chem department, and playing bridge every week.) We saw the Surrealistic Precision guys, and Mary Anne, and Margie, and the Kleins, and other people whose names I have of course totally forgotten.The funny thing is, we scored a 45% game or so, which is better than I thought we'd do for having not played together in two years (and I have not been to a duplicate since I went with
nickjong sometime in 2002). I only played 2 hands out of 24 boards -- I was bidding fairly conservatively/timidly, although to be honest, most of my bids were dead on, I didn't have a lot of points most of the time. I even managed to make some great/clever plays along the way, which felt good. They didn't all work out but it was good to be thinking the right way.So, yeah. In a way I really did enjoy it. It reminded me of a time of being much younger and going to bridge with Mark. Can you believe it's been EIGHT AND A HALF YEARS since we went to our first duplicate bridge game together?
We came back to Barbara's and ate leftover chili and hung out playing some games with her and Katy and Seth. We did Ricochet Robot for a bit, and then Biting Off Hedz or whatever, which is not too bad a Cheapass game. Then I caravanned back to Mark's house with him because there's like 90 people staying at Barbara's and nobody here. We sat up talking a bit, then Mark went to sleep at a reasonable hour and I am of course still up and online because I am an idiot. Ah well, it's not like I have much to do tomorrow. I want to go to Mad Mex for dinner, and PNC Park to the Pirates team store, and those are my only goals. (Oh -- Megan -- is there anything you want from the Pirates store, or from CMU or anything else in Pittsburgh?)
Raaaaar.
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I hope you're having fun and enjoying your trip.
Oh, i just noticed your last sentence.... you're so sweet. If CMU had a nice hooded sweatshirt i'd like one of those (since i get hassled a lot for my Washington State). Can't decide if i'd want the zipper or not -- maybe not. Maybe in a large. I guess i also want a long sleeved pittsburgh shirt (old school baseball style, you know, with like a yellow body and black sleeves, or something?), but every time i look they don't make that.
But, don't worry about it if its any trouble at all, okay? Will be happy to pay if you come across something. =)
whee, its almost like being in Pittsburgh.