Yesterday was Pi Day and I did my best to make sure everyone knew of this wonderful holiday. I of course had pie and shared it with friends. Like a true nerd I even did some soldering yesterday. If there was any doubt at work that I was geek, it was removed yesterday.
After work I went out with co-workers to have a couple of drinks. It was great to see people outside of the office and in a more social setting.
Later that night I made a brief stop by an AACTS meeting, a young catholic group at St. Phillips. I was going to meet an old friend from undergrad there. Sadly, I arrived so late that I got to play one round of Pictionary and then it was time to go. I was supposed to go to mass today, but something came up. I will try to make it next time.
On my walk back to my apartment I saw this ... 
My powers of deduction (and a nearby brochure) told me that this was part of the Art Night in Pasadena. Basically, 13 free art exhibits were staged around the city. The picture above was at PCC, it was a floating memorial of 4,000 origami boats created in collaboration with local high school students and community members. I sat there for a while, just admiring all the lights. Pasadena set up a free shuttle service between all of the sites. The events ran until 10pm, so I only had a chance to catch a shuttle to one more location, The Shumei Arts Council.
The council building had a beautiful lecture hall where they were having a watercolor exhibition. The watercolor paintings consisted of flowers with a Japanese poems, my favorite one is below. With the translation quoted below.
At the time I thought life was the most important, it was the most painful to live. On the day when I found there was something more important than life, it became joyful for me to live.
At this point I apologize for the poor quality of pictures. Since this was an unexpected outing I had to rely on my camera phone for pictures and video.
The last thing I saw was a Japanese Taiko drum performance. I took a short video below.
This performance was amazing! The poor sound quality does it no justice. The last performance was called "Rai" which is the Japanese word for thunder. Because of the small auditorium and huge drums it really did feel like thunder.
I caught a shuttle back, only to realize that it was not going to PCC. The driver (after much protest) was kind enough to drop me off at a nearby corner. I ended the night by grabbing some chili cheese fries from Tommy's and watching Felicity. This of course was after finishing some homework for my Saturday morning class (which is cancelled for the next three Saturdays!).
The rest of the pictures from the night were added to the end of my camera phone set HERE.
Overall it was a wonderful night. Now I need to clean for my weekend guest, more on that later.
