Boot camp is going well -- I'm spending longish days there, but am enjoying it. (Actually, I wouldn't mind spending more time there, but Jason isn't a night owl, and I'm fairly dependent on his car.)
I did enough work before coming that I'm managing to stay comfortably ahead in the problem sets, without pushing particularly hard. I think I'm probably spending half my days talking to people there, which I think is fine. If I wasn't doing that, I might as well be working alone in my apt in Palo Alto. (If anyone is curious to see what I've been doing, it's all available from my boot camp workstation.) <% cr_cdots %> Thursday afternoon Philip and Alex dropped by to meet everyone -- Philip Greenspun is the CEO of ArsDigita/author of the book that brought me here. Entertaining guy; it was interesting to watch him hold court with the bootcampers -- his fan club -- even while I was gathered in the front row.
Alex is cool, too -- very dignified, it seems to me. Was fun to play with him. <% cr_cdots %> Have been getting to know more of the bootcampers, particularly those sitting around me: Justin Ross, Davi Bock, and Susanna Schroeder. And I've run into another guy who was at Dal a year or two before me -- Paul, one of the other students. Haven't talked to him much, though. He's apparently been working in Hong Kong.
Jason reminds me of Mark. Quiet guy, easy-going. It's sort of awkward to room with him because neither one of us tends to talk a lot, so our conversations often peter out. <% cr_cdots %> Met Jessica at her office near Kendall Square Thursday evening. It turned out that her company was moving out of the building that day, because it was scheduled for demolition. So she and some friends were staying behind after hours to go nuts painting on the walls. I helped.
Her friends, Deb and Richard, were cool people. <% cr_cdots %> Jason and I met Matt and Christopher Baldwin last night in Medford Square, way on the other side of Boston. There was a story-telling event going on at a bookstore up there, organised by another friend of Matt's, but with one thing or another, Jason and I wound up being late, then very late, then convinced we'd missed the whole thing. The event started at 7; we wound up not arriving until after 10, feeling doomed, that we were going to arrive at the bookstore after having travelled two and a half hours across Boston to find it closed and everybody gone.
I stepped off the bus in Medford Square and bumped right into Matt trying to get on.
I didn't even see him, but fortunately he recognised me. Fate was very kind.
We went back to his place near Davis Square and hung out for a couple hours, before having to run to get the last train home. Fun evening, but I still can't quite believe it really worked out like that.
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