the beginning of the rest of vacation

i am now writing this to remember what i did during my vacation. i just finished surfing so i'm relaxing a bit and spending some quality time on the computer and in front of a bright sunny window. i'll work on my laptop tan - i'll be nice and tan except for my lap.

saturday morning, i woke up with a slight hangover and no recollection of the night before, except for flits of memory that would come over the course of the day. a few people were still around - johnny, anthony, and jason hwang, so we went out for pho. except it was 10 am and most places weren't open if they weren't serving breakfast. we walked to shattuck which took about 15 minutes, found that every place we wanted to go was still closed, and walked back to the dining hall at 10:30 and found that it too was closed. we ended up eating at a trattoria that had the most delicious, and hang-over inappropriate, alfredo and calzones.

rich had come up to berkeley to ref at the uc open, and we met up with him and sparky in the venue. over the course of the day i had to sneak in and worm around the stadium to avoid paying spectator fees. i wanted to tell people, "i'm a us team member" but i dont think they would have given us a free pass either. as i brooded over this lack of recognition, the loudspeaker announced, "jason hwang, anthony nguyen, johnny nguyen, bobby ren, and terrence jennings, please come to the vision booth if you are at the venue." we looked at each other, wondering if they would announce us as "honored guests from the us collegiate team" and open us to the public for photos and autographs. but then we met up with the girl in charge and she told us we were supposed to have checked out at 12 so we should go pack as soon as possible. honored guests, please leave soon.

later that afternoon, i took the bart to fremont to hang out with christine for the rest of the afternoon. she taught me to shoot an air pistol, and i was able to hit little farm animal targets in her back yard from about 5 meters. one pellet ricocheted off the fence, off the garage, and onto my foot, and we decided to put on eye protection from then on.

i have a few pretty cool photos from the tournament. one is johnny nguyen's first attack against his canadian opponent. i think i will try to adopt the "go crazy in the first 5 seconds to establish pace and dominance" method.



later in the day there was the tj vs canada front leg kick. it was just a bit ridiculous because i could see it coming, and i kept thinking, he better back out. he did not.




on sunday, i chilled at rich's place and played some fable 2 and recovered from some drinking. later, we went to palo alto to have dinner with tom. it was a pretty chill day overall. i enjoyed riding the bart from fremont to millbrae. it is kind of like taking the lincoln shuttle - you can find a comfortable seat and almost just sleep the whole way. the only problem is making sure you wake up at the right time - otherwise it's like a straight 1 hr 15 min ride, from one end of the bart to the other.