Thursday, October 24, 2013
Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. Teaching and Learning Commons Day. Kirk H told me the name of the artist of the wallpaper on my phone: Damien Hirst. Speedtest at Kalmanovitz Library: 149 Mbps down, 134 Mbps up. Submitted a request to ITFS to set up a Brother ADS-2000 document scanner in the spare workspace next to Rick. Followup with Sara and Susie about Kidney Project branding. Helped Joel reinstall and configure PharmADMit 2012. UberX to House of Air. We got delayed enroute because of construction road closures near Doyle Drive which none of our GPS applications knew about. Visited House of Air for the first time, invited Sean, used free tickets given away at the kite festival a few months ago. House of Air is really fun. Dodgeball seemed to have been reserved for a private event, so it wasn't available. We were happy enough to open jump in the Matrix and 2x Bowl. We arrived a little after 7:00 PM, and it took us about 30 minutes to get oriented to the space, change into appropriate clothing, decide if we wanted grip socks ($2) or go barefoot (we both did barefoot), and figure out how the free lockers worked (pretty simple). Jumping sessions (aka flights) are timed, so you normally enter only on the hour or half hour, but there were very few other people participating at this hour, so we were let in to the space a little early at 7:20 PM. An employee (aka flight instructor) keeps track of when your time is done by a color-coded wristband given to you at signup. Jumping on trampolines seems as though it doesn't require a lot of effort, but it's really quite a workout. We jumped for about 10 minutes and then needed a break. It's probably not possible or easy to jump continuously for a full hour, especially your first time there. You're not supposed to rest in the jump space. There are a whole bunch of rules to follow to keep yourself and the other flyers safe. Video monitors provide these safety instructions in the style of Star Tours (kewchamma-kewchamma), showing animated stick figures with limbs breaking when the figures do something wrong—a bit shocking and a bit hilarious. I believe that it is probably very easy to injure yourself. Sean left with a few scrapes, but nothing serious. I did not have any injuries, but I felt like I came close to a few scrapes. It's probably a good idea to jump/fly at a low traffic hour the first time you go. They have a small cafe but we did not make use of it. The restroom area has a drinking fountain and showers and a few more lockers with which you can use your own lock. Sean and I took UberX to Church and 15th. Dinner at Warakubune with Sean. Nightcap at Sean's place. UberX to home. A really great evening.