Goal Succeed! I had a good time in last night's multi-element debauchecrawl. Kidding, there was little to no debauchery per say, but some good old fashioned fun with alcohol, music, and conversationalisms. Started off the night with a primer on programming with perl, which me being a nerd with regrets for not having enough skillz, was actually quite exciting to me, and I think I'll try to continue learning it. Step B was attending a going away liquor tasting for one of the postdocs in the lab, a particularly entertaining if indecipherable and aloof japanese fellow who's managed to do some pretty damn good work with his time in the lab. During this hour, the ol' ticker started going pretty quick, as the next appointment was what my focus was unavoidably resting on: my first date with someone other than the nerd queen goddess in 8 years. And I was never good at dating in the first place.

Needless to say, I started it off well. Being the guy living in Cville for close to 7 years, I remembered there being something weird about the apartment complex I was to pick up blondie the southern bioinformatician belle from, that being the looooong one way street I would inevitably approach from the wrong side, having to make a sizable loop and be late as a result. I don't know if its good when the "how was your week" banter turns so readily into shop talk, but it is kinda nice being able to talk about what you do with someone and not have that blank hazy look come over their face.

In any case, a couple drinks, dinner and some karaoke later, ended up being a nice G rated night that I felt pretty good about. Mental turmoil to follow I bet....