Travel Day

Woke up blearily at 5:40am. Packed away the last few things. Winnie cutely shaved the back of my neck and some hairs that were growing between my eyebrows (she had wanted to do that last night). Said an affectionate goodbye to Mei Ai. Jim took us to the airport, and said goodbye with a curt, manly handshake. Winnie and I checked my bags, then headed up to the airport cafe to have one last fun conversation. We talked about Buffet’s long bet against active investing in the context of our numerous relatives whose actions display a striking confidence in their own abilities in investing. As we headed down to the security checkpoint, we talked about Winnie maybe visiting for Thanksgiving. We parted ways with a long long hug, and lots of waving and big smiles with only a trace of sadness. Waved at Winnie through the small aperture in the security checkpoint wall, and then she was gone.

I felt my usual surge of alertness and grittiness as I found myself in solitude once more, the rose-tinted glasses blinking to clear. Still, I hummed and sang as I went through security and walked to my gate and through another layer of security. I felt good, at peace with going back to the bizarre long-distance thing for a couple of months.

About to board the plane, I read up on the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm. Of course, as I waited in the skybridge, I found that Chrome had failed to pull down equations on the page I’d pre-loaded on the actual algorithm (!) (the properties of the discrete Fourier transform are also quite interesting)

Hopped on the plane, spent a long time reading Way of Kings and another long time in a contented nap, then got on the blogging thing. 

But I didn't finish the blogging on the plane, so I have to do it now! Crum. To brevify my reification: I had a long layover in San Fran and hung out with my great great-aunt Joan. We hung out at the beach and talked about my internship and the starlings that danced in and out of the waves. The rest of my route to my home and hearth in Laurelhurst was uneventful.