A Fun Evening (Even if it was vegan!)

A busy few days at work; finished off a government contract deliverable that has been trying to give me ulcers for the past few weeks. A social highlight of the week was on Thursday--alethia_juturna was in town, and a few of us went out to dinner in Allston.

D. suggested dinner at Grasshopper Vegetarian Restaurant in Allston--it's the place that Crusher & Cat had their rehearsal dinner. I have to say, once again, that being back in town rocks--on a weekday afternoon, I could bail out from work, hop on my bike, and meet folks for a social event across the river, 3 miles away.



There were four of us at dinner--D., mollfrey, and NathanW. I'm not sure if I had met Nathan before (he's MIT/pikan), but there was a snippet that quickly made me realize: "Ok, same tribe as me... everything's cool"--D. was talking about Buddha's Delight in Chinatown (another vegan restaurant), and how the view out the window on the neon streetscape was very Blade Runner. I instinctually replied, "A new life awaits you on the off-world colonies." Nathan answered, "...a chance to begin again, in a golden land of opportunity and adventure." Heh.

Anyway, the food was very good--I know some of you are offended by faux meat, but I had no complaints. One of the highlights was the "Sweet and Sour Chicken Fingers with pineapple, celery and onions"--deep fried battered faux meat--the batter totally reminded me of corn dogs. And the Curry Coconut Vermi-noodles were very tasty as well--with or without faux meat. After eating there, I feel a strange compulsion to try their "vegi-squid" someday, despite my fear of what the product might be.

The reason D. was in town (I'm hoping I'm not stealing her thunder or breaking confidentiality here) was that the local public TV station is doing a web video series to try to interest high schoolers, in particular girls, in science & engineering; the series is being sponsored by the major engineering societies. One of their goals is to demonstrate that engineers don't spent all their time sitting in an office, working on equations. I can't imagine a more perfect and cooler candidate than D. for demonstrating this. They filmed her giving a hands-on demo to high schoolers on the ins and outs of water treatment, making them schlep jugs of water from the reservoir to gain some appreciation of the process. This dinner came at the end of a 9-hour day of shooting--yow.

The dinner conversation made it a delightfully fun evening--a long, free-wheeling, multi-subject conversation that covered everything from catching up with everyone, to US politics, to "...just how do you know him?"--i.e., figuring out the social connections ("Well, he dated X, who I had dated before, and..."), to comparing cell phone dorkiness.

Ok... time to tear myself away from the computer and go enjoy the weather outside today!