That interests thingy

[cjsmith]

dangerpudding asked me about this handful of my LJ-interests, and I finally got around to writing about them.

(Should I be working? ABSOLUTELY. Well, I'm eating lunch now; let's say this is my lunch break. Should I be doing NaNo instead, then? ABSOLUTELY. Oh well.)

Amr Diab: Egyptian singer. I first heard of him while sitting in an airport by Abu Simbel. My travel companion and I both enjoyed the music that was playing in one guy's little stall by the waiting area, and I shelled out for the CD. After our return home, I was bemused to find I could buy this thing on Amazon -- I had no idea at the time how popular this dude was -- so I bought my friend a copy of the album, as a memento of the trip.

Financial independence: As defined by the book Your Money Or Your Life, this is the point where (I'm going to paraphrase) one's passive income, from investments for example, meets or exceeds one's expenditures. The concepts in this book really changed how I think about money. What do you really make per hour? Is this album, that latte, this cute skirt, or that spa trip worth that many hours of my life? I would love to reach financial independence some day. That's not likely without radical changes. I plan to make radical changes.

Mary Chung's: One of my favorite restaurants of all time, a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. To this day it is run by Mary Chung herself. When I was at MIT, "Mary's" was on Massachusetts Avenue just a bit north of campus. Student groups would pile into the small dining room, stumbling blindly because everybody's glasses had just fogged up, and order vast quantities of "ravs" (Peking pan-fried dumplings for you West Coasters), "suan" (Suan La Chow Show, the spiciest soup I've ever had), and entrees such as "mouth peel beef" (orange peel beef). We had a whole protocol for holding up fingers (or partial fingers) to order ravs. Good food. Good memories.

mywaves: A small but growing startup feeding video to cellphones. I work here. I write what goes on the phones -- well, only half of it now, since we hired someone to work with me!

N47490: The first (and so far only) plane I ever owned. Shortly after my first solo flight, a group of three of us signed the papers for purchase of this 1978 Piper Warrior (PA-28-161) located in Minnesota. Rick, the licensed pilot of the bunch, bought a one-way ticket out there to get it. It was a sweet little trainer that flew well for its type. The rest of my primary flight training occurred in this plane, including my checkride, and I took it to Colorado for a family reunion once. It was only when both of the guys wanted to move up to more expensive stuff that we sold this one. It lives in Oregon now.

Pitts: One of the most fun and still accessible aerobatic aircraft types flying today. I have about fifty hours logged in Pitts S2Bs, and back at the top of the stock market bubble of the turn of the millenium I actually test-flew an S2C with an eye to purchasing one. (Then the bubble burst and I got a Pitts embroidered polo shirt instead.)

SIPB: An MIT student group where I was very active for nearly four years. We answered questions about anything from Apple desktops to Cray supercomputers. I tend to describe it as "where people who are too geeky for the rest of MIT can hang out", and when I was there, that probably wasn't far from the truth. I met rfrench there, as well as several of the people currently on my LJ-friendslist. Guess what the group's favorite restaurant was.

Comments

[ckd]

Funny story:

When Mary lost her space on the north (logical east) side of Mass Ave due to the Bioran expansion, there was a long long hiatus during which we had to survive our suan cravings by going to Royal East. (Which isn't exactly a bad choice, but it's a second choice IMO. Others may disagree; they're just wrong.)

She eventually reopened almost exactly across Mass Ave from the old place; the reopening was in January 1995...during the annual USENIX technical conference, which that year was in New Orleans.

Upon my return from NOLA, I naturally had to go out (despite the crappy weather) and go to Mary's. When I arrived, it was quite busy (having been open for only a couple of days) and I saw many familiar faces around..."hey, I haven't seen you since yesterday in New Orleans!"

Yes, what seemed like the entire Boston contingent of USENIX attendees had had the same idea.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Which isn't exactly a bad choice, but it's a second choice IMO. Others may disagree; they're just wrong.

I agree wholeheartedly, as it happens. :-)

Yes, what seemed like the entire Boston contingent of USENIX attendees had had the same idea.

Hah! Perfect.

[jtidwell.livejournal.com]

Funnier story:

The day she reopened, Rich and I went. (Like CJ and Rob, Rich and I also met at SIPB and courted via Zephyr. Geeks? Oh yes.) I ordered suan la chow show with great anticipation. And yet... it was downright mild! Where was the hotness I remembered so fondly? What was wrong? Was Mary's a shadow of its former self?

We went back two days later (long story as to why). I ordered suan again, and this time I asked for extra hot pepper. Well, I tried to eat it, and it absolutely set my mouth on fire -- it took me the entire rest of the meal to get through it, eating it one tiny bite at a time. I asked Mary about it as we were leaving. "Oh," she said, "we had a problem with the peppers on that first day. But now everything should be hot enough. Was it hot enough for you?"

Hot enough? Oh yes.