Happy Birthday Cal

Today I am so tired. Didn't get as much sleep last night and I am paying for it today. Anyways, so earlier this week Elysia had icq'ed me asking if I wanted to go to Waterloo to surprise Cal for his birthday. Since last time it took so much effort to get in there on time, I decided against it, but I didn't end up calling her. Well, I mentioned yesterday she called me and so she told me there were some heading in later, and so I said yes. So after work, I drove all way to Oakville to pick some people up and I drove into Waterloo. I don't remember what time we got in, but it was probably about 8:45-9PM.

Sometimes I wonder why I ended up going in, we go in so late, didn't stay very long, but it was a nice thing to do for him, hope he enjoyed it. So I thought about how much it costs to go into Waterloo and back out, and I think, man, it's pretty expensive. It was not like a short drive, and I think it costed me about $15-$18 gas to go in and come out. Not a cheap trip when I think about it.

If I had known earlier I was going into Waterloo, I would of kept some of the brochures and posters for Campus Challenge and brought them in with me, would of made some sense. But I didn't, I decided like Thursday late afternoon to go, and so, too bad I guess.

I saw some people I haven't seen in a while, which was very nice. Got to talk to them about how they are doing and stuff. One question I have been very careful from asking these days are directed to grads, and what they plan to do afterwards. For some reason, I always get this vibe that it's not a topic to talk about, yet I always ask. I think it's been a hard topic to talk about, cause we've been stuck in school for so long and now we think, what's left for us? where do we go from here? and what's a bigger problem is a lot of people I talk to are in engineering or tech. school background, so since market has still not gone up, jobs are at a premium, so it bring further question to the future. Five years ago probably most grads would be dumb not to have a job secured coming out of University. I don't know how I'll deal with it when that time comes for me.

So when we got into Waterloo, we went to East Side Mario's, where we were celebrating Cal's birthday. So I was very hungry, so I when the waitress came around to ask us if we were ready, I do my regular talk. Whenever I go eat for something, if I feel it's okay to take up their time, and I don't know what good, I always ask the waitress. I totally trust their judgement, cause if they work there, they will have tasted most things, and they will know what's good, even if they've had it tons of times. So this girl, she was so courteous, she decided to take a seat and explain all the pros/cons of the dishes. It was so elaborate I lost track. But I thought it was such a nice thing to do, taking so much time to explain the menu. But too bad for us, we got the waitress who was a vegetarian. I need meat! So here is what I ate and what I thought about it. She said this dish was one of the favourites. So anyways, she was so nice about it, I was impressed.

So I can't remember the name of this dish, but it was the first pasta on the menu, and it was a linguine with alfredo sauce with tomatoes and chicken in it. So here's the deal, hardly ever do you find tomatoes and alfredo together. Because tomatoes have their sauce, and alfredo is a white sauce, totally non-tomato. So it sounded intriguing. I would say the pasta was good, but I thiunk the tomotoes are too much. the tomatoes never really mixed well with the alfredo sauce and everytime I ate a tomato, it had this awkward taste to go with it. So I'd give this a 7/10. The ceasar salad was good though, however the bacon bits were not broken up, so that was one downfall, still worth it.

Weird thing, we went back to Cal's, and I talked to one of the guys there. He lives in east-end Scarborough. And he asked me, "Are there any East Side Mario's in Toronto?" where have you been? There are tons in Toronto!

Oh, I didn't really want to drive into Waterloo, but I decided to anyways. It wasn't so bad, and I didn't think it would be either. But one reason I don't like to drive, is becuase I don't consider myselfa great driver, sometimes I drift into other lanes slightly, not extreme that it'll cause accidents, but I think one arm pulls the wheel stronger than the other arm, so it drifts once in a while. But I am not a fan of driving to Waterloo, or outside of GTA. I found the roads for driving extremely hard, because there are no lights for me to see the road, it's like I have to guess beyond 100m. I like the lights of Toronto so that you know what to expect. Anyways, I'm all against the no lights roads, so dangerous. Oh, and I tend to look a little nervous when I am driving in unknown territory. I like to consider myself good with directions, and I remember roads very easily. But when I don't know then well, it's harder. So when I dirve to work, I've done it so many times I can drive with hands at 6, but into Waterloo, I can't see roads clearly, and don't know exactly where I am going, so I had my hands at 10-3. Had to be careful. Not very relaxed. I don't like driving.

Oh, got something more to write about, but I think it deserves a blog of itself, so next one, "Sense of Direction"