after just a few hours of sleep, i woke up this morning and rode out to concord for my meeting with client L. by taking route 2 i would've made it in 30 minutes, but i prefer to ride on slower highways (45mph), so my trip ended up taking almost an hour. i was worried about the traffic since i was leaving at peak rush hour (8am), but i was going against traffic so congestion wasn't an issue. normally i'd get to concord via route 2A which runs parallel to route 2 along the minuteman trail. however, i decided to try a new route today, basically a straight shot on trapelo road, passing through waltham and lincoln and coming out at walden pond. everything went fine, and i rode through some very picturesque rural suburban neighborhoods. however, i still managed to get lost, coming out at one of these small side streets that exit onto route 2 (imagine a 30 mph road exiting onto a 65+ mph road with no lights). instead of exiting, i did a very bad thing and pulled a u-turn on a one way street, retracing my tracks. i finally did manage to get my bearings and arrived at the meeting exactly on time.

i wasn't looking forward to the meeting because i didn't know what to expect and there would be a lot of people there i didn't know. but it turned out to be a very informal gathering with free muffins. i basically met the original content developers and decided to push back the start of the project, partly because the new content weren't ready yet, partly to facilitate my own backlog of projects. the meeting lasted 2 hours.

heading back home, i took the wrong street (weston road) at a 5-way intersection and ended up traveling south until i hit route 20. not only that, but i was also going in the wrong direction until i saw a sign alerting me to the fact that i was heading west to sudbury. i was lost but trusted the fact that if i kept on going east, eventually i'd a see pointing me in the right direction back to boston. i ended up cutting across the heart of waltham through belmont to cambridge. i stopped off at the cafe around noontime for some lunch before heading back home.

the cypress vine growing at the cafe have white flowers for some reason. my own cypress vines have yet to bloom, not sure what color they're going to be, but they should be red. next year i really want to try growing a patriotic climbing trellis of just red-white-blue flowers. also spotted in the garden today: a great spangled fritillary. i've seen these a few times before (2004 2005) so they're fairly common.

i didn't find out about mccain's vice presidential pick until i finally returned home. i like sarah palin. as the first woman governor of alaska, she's has an impressive personal story. but just because a person is interesting doesn't necessary make that person qualified to be the president. now that she'll be under the media's scrutiny as the republican vice presidential candidate, all that attention is going to destroy her, to destroy what used to be a feel-good-story. who mccain picks as his VP is probably more important than your usual presidential candidate because of mccain's age and the fact that his VP stands a pretty chance of actually becoming president. i just can't see palin as the commander in chief though, no matter how many moose she kills nor seaplanes she lands. does her experience being the governor of alaska translate to being a good "governor" for the country? i mean, no offense to alaska, but what's the worst thing that happens there? polar bears getting into the trash again? eskimo unrest? oil spills? when i first heard the news that palin was the VP pick, i immediately thought, win or lose, we're either going to see the first (half) black man in the oval office, or possibly the first woman. either way, history in the making.

my mother called me to let me know that the chinese astronomy research scientist who was supposed to be living at my place since july has finally got his work visa and will be here in two weeks. i was already looking forward to living alone so the news came as a shock. i don't need a roommate at this point because i suddenly have a lot of work for the next few months so i'm not so strapped for cash anymore. if he was here for just a few months i wouldn't mind, but he's going to be here for the next 6 months. that's half a year, which is a long time. if it wasn't for the fact that my last roommate situation was so awful, i might be more opened to the possibility. but now it feels like a 6 months prison sentence. it'd be a good time to travel though.