On Monday, Felix and his climbing friend, Tori, celebrated their respective birthdays at Felix’s place in Fremont. They were also celebrating their friend Carlos’ birthday, who’s in Australia at the moment. Felix and Tori were joined by a contingent of their climbing buddies, Stanford friends, and two Cal representatives (Go Cardinal!). I knew a bunch of them, such as Evelyn (repeat after me, Branner, Branner, Branner), Adrian, Loren, Suzie, Sophia, Christy, and Dave, but there were a number whom I was meeting for the first time, including Sarah (who’s slowly transforming into a Californian after years on the East Coast), Karen, Michele, Chris, Esther, Mike, Sharon and Ralf, Vinita, Cherie, and Alex.
The circle of Felix’s network is expanding before my very eyes! Meeting friends of your friends is a little bit like double-clicking on a folder and seeing dozens upon dozens of files appear in the enclosing directory!
Felix received a number of presents last night, including a spring coil hose (which has to be some sort of inside joke that I didn’t catch), a retirement clock (with an adjustable start time!), The Climb, a lovely plant from Vinita, and two CD’s. Since we have similar music tastes (judging from the music he plays at home), I gave him a copy of Jen’s new CD, For Now.
We had a good laugh with Tori as we watched her hack at the pinata with her mini baseball bat. She made relatively quick work of it, though, after discovering the weak link — the point of attachment between the pinata and the rope.
I didn’t know that Dave knew, and I forgot that Evelyn was suite-mates with Su Hsien back at Stanford. I hear that she recently got married and is living on the East Coast. Congratulations, Su Hsien! The web of Stanford alumni grows thicker as we approach Reunion in October, and it’s going to get even more entangled with the arrival of the Class Books next month!
Here are some random pictures from last night:
Loren was sporting his new Canon PowerShot S200. It’s a great little camera that he’s going to enjoy using. I have fond memories of my S100 (the predecessor to the S200), especially during my trip into Desolation Wilderness. I don’t know how I’m going to bring my camera equipment with me on my next backpacking trip. There’s a sizeable difference between the diminuitive S200 and the hulking 1D. Ah, the things we do to secure a pretty picture. “Should I leave out a day’s worth of food for this lens?” Hmmm…
Watch out everyone. Once Loren gets his 128MB memory card for the S200, I don’t think the camera’s ever going to leave his hands! Chalk up another one converted to the religion of digital photography!
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