Thursday, August 14, 2003

Lunch with Patrick at Beijing on Irving: He had hot and sour chicken ("not too hot") and I had chicken with mixed vegetables. The lunch specials here are a great bargain. As low as $4.95, and you also get the soup of the day (usually either hot and sour or egg drop), a small egg roll, steamed rice, and hot tea. Patrick is especially humored by the waiter's zealous enthusiasm to welcome his guests. My fortune: Answer just what your heart prompts you. Patrick's fortune: You have had a long-term stimulation relative to business. Met Felicia Silva and Robert Weinberg after today's CSC meeting—they seem like very nice people and had decent responses to my queries about getting wireless access points set up for the student lounge in October. Met with one of our Pharmacy students Jennifer Lu whose computer got hit with the Blaster/A virus. This afternoon a power outage occurred in the northeastern United States and in parts of Canada—50 million people! It's the largest power outage in United States history. The photos on Yahoo! News are weird and creepy at the same time. Times Square dark. The skyline mostly dark. The Empire State Building dark. I've never been to New York City, but it still creeps me out just thinking about it. All those people and no electricity. Dinner at home with Patrick: deep-fried wontons, sizzling rice soup, mint Darjeeling tea—everything homemade by Patrick! He's so wonderful! Watched Back to the Future 3 on DVD. I had forgotten parts of this movie completely, so it was a lot of fun to watch again "for the first time." It reminded me of something Don Dornblaser had said to me a long time ago. It was probably around the time when Back to the Future 2 was new in theatres and we had probably gone to see it with Dough Steckman on opening night. He said—no, *lamented*—that he wished there were a way to erase a movie from your memory entirely. The joy of seeing a pleasing film for the first time only happens once. Every time after it's not the same—you know the punch lines to the jokes, the suspense never grabs you the same way as the first time. Wouldn't it be great, he thought, if somehow you could experience that same first-time joy over and over again—or at least more than just once? That made sense to me then. How young we were to think that we'd never forget anything!