The festivities jumped to an early start with my trip to the Academy of Sciences Thursday night.  I've been longing to visit every since they reopened and launched their campaign to portray the museum as a hip, revolutionary place.  I went with CPC people to attend the weekly Nightlife event, where the musuem opens from 6-10pm on Thursday, brings in a DJ, clears out a dance floor, serves drinks, and reserves admission to those 21 or older.  I didn't find any of the exhibits particularly special, but the whole atmosphere was fun.  I saw quite a few familiar faces, including a bunch of people from Saratoga High.  The most unique feature of the museum was probably the "living roof", a landscape of rolling green hills that bears an eerie resemblance to Teletubby Land.

I had the day off on Friday, so I decided to finally commence my half-marathon training.  After running only 2.5 miles, I was exhausted (and was sore for the ensuing 2 days).  In my defense though, I sprinted two 100m segments in an attempt to preserve my fast twitch muscles.  If I hope to finish the 13 miles, I'm really going to have to start running more.

Saturday, July 4th, I spent the entire day at home playing board games.  First, we played a few games of Scrabble, then Pictionary, then Nerts, and we capped off the evening by watching one of my favorite movies, Hero.  I hope my brother's interest in Chinese martial arts stories was piqued after watching this movie; I further encouraged it by reenacting scenes from the movie with him.  Ideally, after he gains interest, he may then start picking up those Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon type books and in so doing improve his Chinese.  This was the first time in years that we didn't go out to watch fireworks, but it was worth it.

Sunday, after church, the "cycling club" folks dropped by my house and kidnapped me.  We then proceeded to drop by various friends' homes.  On our bikes, the neighborhood seemed to shrink to a college-era size, where everyone was readily reachable.  That was a great feeling.