Meeting Kenny 2

Kenny₂ is here! Kenny₂ is an MIT student who will be my roommate at CERN this summmer. He got into Berkeley for Physics grad school so he dashed off an email to me saying, "I'm coming to visit!" and is now enjoying a free trip to Berkeley. Despite our unseasonal rainly weather (it's Cal Day, geeze) it's apparently still several decades degrees warmer here than in Boston!

Anyway, our strike team of hacker monkeys was prepared to entertain this guest... just a few days ago I received an email from Amy, who I met through Dan while working on our current Secret Hacker Project, inviting me to this 31337 `Almost Beltane Bacchanal' festivity. excellent! So DanS, Karen Nguyen, Twohey, Kenny₁ (easwaran), Nadia, Damon, and I departed Berkeley last night for Pacifica, picking up Kenny₂ at SFO to start his California experience with an all-night geek party in Pacifica. w00!

Party was very chill, and seemed to reinforce my notion that, at least among those of us who have been here 3-5 years, there is 1 degree of separation between any two people. Turns out Kenny had met Twohey earlier, and Josh, my TA from CS 184, was there. I'm supposed to write something on the subject of "What I learned at Berkeley" for engr news, and I think it might jsut have to have something to do with ultimately all the characters from the last five years chilling in the hot tub under the stars in the pleasant environs of Pacifica, swapping Hilfinger tales, favorite polynomials, etc..

Now it's a pleasant rainy day in Berkeley... perfect excuse to stay cozily inside. There was a Co-op alumni group meeting here this morning and they left us lots of yummy food, including a big plate of lox (smoked salmon). yum!

[obviously the words of the day are "chill" and "strike force"!] [Kenny₁ also wrote an entry about the party.]

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Wandered up to Loth to visit someone, only to be shooed off by an "elf" clad only in some well-placed palm fronds -- whoops, I'd stumbled uninvited into food orgy.