On a Wednesday

Wednesday was an interesting day, but first some setup.

Last time I mentioned I was going on a date. Two Thursdays ago we went to the Drum Barracks. It is a Civil War museum centered around a building that housed Union soldiers. I found the museum online when I searched for museums near Long Beach. I was surprised to find a Civil War site in southern California. We went on a Thursday morning to their 9 a.m. tour. There were three people in our tour group, the two of us and the docent. Our guide explained the different rooms at the barracks. One was decorated as a parlor with period furniture, another had bunk beds for several soldiers, and a third was furnished like a fancy bedroom of the era. The other rooms and hallways had exhibits on things ranging from guns and California soldiers in the war to selected topics of interest like the Battle of Hampton Roads or the submarine H. L. Hunley. The museum has a Gatling gun, which is one of the first machine guns. The docent cranked it and showed us the firing pins were still working. It was a good museum located in Wilmington near the port of Los Angles.

As we were walking out after the tour, the museum director stopped us. There was a reporter for the New York Times writing a story about the museum and he wanted to interview us. We explained what we thought of the museum. When the article is published I will drop a link so everyone can see it.

The date went well. There were few opportunities to talk, since our tour group was so small. I made her laugh a few times. She had some work to do before class so we could not hang out after the tour.

Wednesday
I attended a trade show. My supervisor in LA recommended I go there to see what new things were being developed. While it was mainly focused on medical devices, it also had groups of exhibitors in lasers, automated machines, plastics technology, and manufacturing. I am a sucker for any displays with moving parts, and there were a lot of those. There were machines that could sort randomly placed pills based on color, injection molding machines, and automated machines of many kinds. It was fun to see everything in action. I picked up a few items of interest, including plastic drinking cups that were made right in front of me and a pen that was laser engraved with my name in ten seconds. The exposition and parking were free since my affiliation with the City of Los Angeles made me an industry person.

Later that day I headed to the Beach for their Ash Wednesday mass. While I had signed up to be a Eucharistic minister ahead of time, they also recruited me to distribute ashes and do one of the readings.

At the end of the day I talked to the girl I went on a date with. She wanted to stay friends; she was interested in someone else.

I thought I would be sad or more disappointed, but I am at peace with it. However, considering the last few girls I liked told me they were not interested by 1) ignoring me after saying she would love to hang out, 2) telling me she had a boyfriend after we went on a date, 3) avoiding my calls, avoiding me, and detagging herself from my online albums, this is pretty nice.

There was also a subtext of me feeling sick as the day went on. As soon as I got home I crashed before waking up at 2:30 in the morning. I ate, went back to sleep, and then woke up 45 minutes later so I could go into LA for the day.

Facebook knows too much
When I was on Facebook earlier that day, the ads wanted me to buy people Valentine's Day gifts. It was eerie how good it was at selecting who I would want to send Valentines to. It listed five people, and the first three were ones I have real feelings for and would love to be with.

The first girl listed is the most interesting choice. She is awesome and I have some undetermined romantic feelings for her. The problem is geography. If we lived closer to each other I would spend time with her and determine how I feel about her. Since this investigation would be difficult, I see no benefit in telling her. However, if Terrance and Erin could get together living in Chicago and Baltimore maybe I should reconsider. We have not spent enough time together for me to be sure I am not imagining the whole thing.

The second one was the aforementioned girl I just went on a date with. The system probably knew I liked her because we planned the logistics of our date through messages or that I looked through the last 100 pictures she was tagged in.

The third person was someone I had a big crush on circa 2008. I made a couple of mistakes pursuing her, and she did not respond to my advances, at least not in a way I could spot. There was one point in 2011 (when Facebook put all private messages between two people in one long conversation) that I thought she might realize something was going on. In two and a half years we exchanged 50 Facebook messages totaling over 14,000 words.

The fourth person is my second cousin. Does this mean they condone this kind of relationship? If they do, they should have picked my other cousin, I followed a lot of her stuff online.

The fifth person is another girl I know from the Long Beach group. She is cute but we do not have the right chemistry.

Watch out, your online habits can be analyzed to reveal a lot of stuff.

Back at Long Beach and up to San Francisco

Last week classes started back up at Long Beach. This is awesome because:

• I got into the Nonlinear Control Systems class I wanted.
• The class is taught by the professor who is the graduate adviser for the program I am applying for. He also gave me an A last semester.
• My two best friends (also my only two friends) from classes at The Beach are in it. I have not had a class with them since 2011.
• This will hopefully be the last semester I am taking classes in the grey area of being non-matriculated and working toward a masters degree.
• I get to see the people from the Long Beach Catholic group and make some new friends.

Last weekend I was in San Francisco for the West Coast Walk for Life. Someone from the Beach Newman group is from Concord and her family offered to host anyone who was traveling north for the event. A group of seven of us drove up. Someone else did the driving, so this was the first time since 2005 I traveled to Northern California by car but did not do most or all of the driving.

I met some interesting people. One of the people we were staying with is a brony. He is a male fan of the TV show My Little Pony. I have heard they existed, but never met one before. I met someone who is a lot like Juliette from the Berkeley Newman group. As I said on the Facebook, "She has a whimsical personality, loves coloring with crayons, picks flowers to put in her friend's hair, shares [her] fashion sense, plays a harmonica, and laughs at everything." The next time I see her I should ask if she has stuffed animals of the entire cast of Finding Nemo or will be inviting 30+ people to a sleepover in her apartment.

As for the Walk for Life itself, it was good. It started at the Civic Center with some speeches. I ran into Sean who was filming things for the Salesians. Then the march went down Market street and ended at Justin Herman Plaza. Afterwards, we walked to Fisherman's Wharf and enjoyed crab sandwiches. Then we went to the National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi and attend a celebration of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, which is the proper way of saying we went to a Latin mass.

One of my favorite things about trips like this is how I get to observe and live someone else's life. We eat the same food, sleep in the same place, and are together all the time. This happened before when I visited Sidney, Amanda, and Chris (which I could not find a good post about).

I got to see what life is like for the family that hosted us. I saw what they normally do, watched the same TV shows, and meet one of their friends. After everyone got back on Saturday we all watched that day's episode of My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic. Our friend's mom was kind and made us breakfast both mornings as well as strawberry shortcake one night.

That is all great stuff, but the most exciting thing happened a few days later on Wednesday night. I talked to a girl at the Beach Newman meeting and we are going on a date next week. I have seen her at meetings for the last semester and she was on the trip to San Francisco.