Beginning New Year in Minnesota

I spent the last few days of my Winter Break staying with a friend named Joel in Minneapolis, MN. Although many of my friends from the Twin Cities have graduated and moved away, I enjoyed spending a lot of time with the few who still remained or happened to be back in town at the same time. It was by far the most relaxing part of my trip, and I felt very refreshed and ready to return to research by the time I left on Jan. 3.

Joel had recently purchased a new 52" plasma screen TV, and we both spent a good deal of time enjoying it. Although he had a wide array of channels available through his cable provider, I spent most of my TV-watching time watching C-SPAN (primary converge), the Discovery Channel (Myth Busters marathon), and Cartoon Network (Futurama marathon). I realized I had been watching C-SPAN for two too long when I saw a campaign speech by Bill Richardson twice. We also watched a few DVDs, including his new Danger Mouse DVD collection and part of the anime series Ergo Proxy.

We organized a small New Year's Eve Party at his house.

Joel is in the background in this photograph. Our friend Ruth is playing Guitar Hero against him.

I could offer the real and sensible explanation for this photograph, but I think leaving it to the reader's imagination will be much more amusing.

This is Lance; he is the same person lying on the couch in the photograph above. Here, he is playing a game intended to measure one's "mental age."

Joel introduced me to his new girlfriend.

I took a turn at Guitar Hero with fellow CSF member Andrea.