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Wow, today was a heck of a fine day. It started with
joining Edward at noon to play volleyball (and at one point, winning a
game with just him and me on the team). A trip to Hamburger Habit for
some refreshment followed at 4 o'clock (during which, he fashioned a little frog
that could jump half way across the table, using the paper
placemat!). Then, it was decided
that we, together with one of his other friends, would adjourn to Edward's
house to watch a movie, it having been discovered that neither of them had
ever seen The Big Lebowski. I went home and showered, then ventured off
to Edward's house for the first time, DVD in hand.
After watching the movie, the three of us hung around a while, doing various
computery and electronic things. At about eight, Edward's mother made us
dinner (I get the impression she is accustomed to making his friends at home
there). Then the geeking continued. Edward's other friend was at the
soldering station, and Edward was doing things with resistors and
an oscilloscope. He left me in charge of getting acquainted with PIC programming, having downloaded a simulator and reference manual. Edward's
newest project is to build some kind of robotic thingy, and he invited me
to join in on the software side. After reading
for a while, I started in on the first baby step: writing a function to
delay for a given amount of time. Around 11, his friend went home to bed,
and I was going to do so also; I left my work to that point in Edward's hands,
telling him that it probably wasn't right yet (having not put it into the
simulator). He said, "Well, let's give it a try!" I yielded the driver's seat
to him, and we then spent several hours side by side while we discovered things
that were wrong and experimented until it did finally work.
When he realized it was three o'clock in the morning, he announced that it was
time for bed. I immediately rose to leave, but before I left, I said I wanted to
tell him something:
Do you mind if I say something personal?
Not at all.
I want you to know why I've been perhaps coming on a bit strong lately telling you what a good friend I think you are.
I gave him the two-sentence version of my situation with Nolan, and my
recent discovery that all was not as I'd thought in that
department. It really means a lot to me that you actually
want me around.
Sure, I enjoy your company a lot. I think you're a really cool person
to hang out with.
And with that, we continued on the serpentine path to the front door of the
house, talked a few more minutes, and said good night. Monday morning, arriving
at work, he told me that he'd had a really fun time. Golly, he makes me happy :)