A short week after returning from the Bay Area, my family and I visited my guardians in Ossining. We went up on Saturday the 17th of September, immediately after I had finished the TA orientation administered by the McGraw center. Bruce and Beverly were justifiably astonished that our family was able to make it on time for once.  These are pictures of before and after the Aquavit was served that evening. On Sunday they cooked turducken for us, which I definitely recommend - and I think some other rascals would agree with me. As the temperature kept rising, some of the birthday party's attendees decided to dress appropriately. Luckily one is easily forgiven when one is adorable like Isabel and Miles.

The subsequent weekend I reunited with various Cornell friends. The event was Elaine and Grace's twin birthday bash, and I brought Forrester along for the occasion. The name of the restaurant escapes me at the moment (help?), but it was an enjoyable evening in a large company. Here you see Dhruva Karle, Tracy Wang, and I posing behind the birthday girls.
On Wednesday the 28th I made an evening trip into the city to watch Lion King with Hannah. I forget what Hannah wore, but I wore the dashing sweater I received from Bruce and Beverly as a birthday present (thank you!). Unfortunately Disney forbids you from taking pictures after the curtain goes up, so this is the best I got. I had a splendid time - thanks Hannah!

After a needed break from the city (needed to do work), I returned with Janek on the 8th of October to welcome the Kangs back from Korea. (Thankfully they forgave me for being immortalized on Google.) We ate at a Middle Eastern restaurant in the East Village called Mamlouk. They served a prix fixe meal at $35 which was quite tasty (although the final fare was a tad more expensive due to two solid Lebanese house white wines). Here you can see Ahreum Kang and Dawoon Kang giving their full attention to the suave Mr. Janek Klawe. The always irresistible Karle-Wang (*drum roll*). And random people who wanted me to take their picture also. Afterwards we headed to a bar, where the boys smoked the girls at pool (I don't think they hated us for it). The next day we had another wonderful brunch at Second Ave Deli before heading our separate ways back to normality. A special thanks goes out to Tracy and her "host family" for housing us for the night.

For those who are curious, here is a picture of my desk at the CS department. And a picture of my desk in the room I've had in the New Graduate College for the past year and change. While on a photo rampage, I took a picture of Janek, Xiaojuan, and Melissa, the latter two being officemates of mine. Here are my final two officemates: Phil and Amit. I have a gorgeous background on my computer. And this is Janek before and after Melissa told him that the bright lights from a flash are detrimental to the spikes in his hair. Oh, and here is a picture of the floor at the Engineering Job Fair at Princeton, where William and I did some recruiting for Data Domain. [The undated photos are due to Melissa.] A short week later (18th through 22nd of October) I traveled to Berkeley to attend IMC thanks to the generosity of my advisor Prof. Rexford (thanks!). The conference was held at the Claremont Resort & Spa, which had a beautiful view of the bay, the San Francisco skyline, and the Golden Gate bridge. Here are two pictures of before and during the sunset after one of the conference days. There was a small fellowship@bayarea dinner and associated party on Friday but unfortunately I forgot to take pictures - sorry!

The first fellowship@nyc dinner in almost a year was held on 10/29 at Alfama. I will post pictures of this momentous occasion as soon as Kori gives me some.
On 11/11 I went with various friends to Sushi Sen-Nin@81, since the downtown location is under renovation. You here see the happy bunch before they devour the fine raw fish that is set to arrive. And a picture of me and Ahreum and Tracy and Dawoon. The next day contained a hectic program, starting with a quick visit to Central Park, where I implored everyone to make love to my camera. Ahreum & Tracy did their best to oblige once alone, and twice with Dhruva: with and without the New York skyline. And here is a picture of Mr. Karle and me. Afterwards we went to the Norwegian Church for some porridge & watch a soccer game, followed by a Korean party - pictures of the latter might be forthcoming.

Here is a picture of my dashing younger brother - Helge Ringerg - taken for his high school yearbook.

Thanksgiving was, as tradition would have it, celebrated with the Shrivers. When we arrived up to Ossining, Bruce and Beverly were already hard at work preparing the juicy turkey and various sides. Matt and Karen arrived shortly thereafter with their boys, Jack and Lukas, to join the happy bunch. As expected, the dinner was splendid - doubly so due to the company. Bruce Jr. & Sarah joined us for brunch the following day - here you see Isabel and Miles anticipating the arrival of waffles. I think the proper phrase so summarize the sentiment would be "thank you."

On Friday the 9th of December, Tracy threw a surprise party for her hubby (here seen cutting the cake). It was not much of a surprise though, as Dhruva and Tracy read each others' emails (the subject "Dhruva's Surprise Birthday Party" was a subtle hint) and he also was able to determine the exact date by telling Ahreum "I will see you tomorrow" on Thursday - to which she responded as well as deer respond to headlights. It was a wonderful time nonetheless, as can be witnessed by this happy group photo (back: William, Tim, Aditya, Dhruva, Tracy, Emanuelle, and Eshanya; front: Jasmin, Dawoon, Ahreum). Before heading to the after-dinner activities, people took turns having their picture taken in front of the Christmas tree in Dhruva's lobby: Dawoon & Ahreum and William, Dawoon, & Aditya. [I have a premonition that pictures next to much better Xmas trees are forthcoming.] The mentioned late-night activities were held at Zanzibar, where Dawoon became tipsy & coy, and the crew left highly content.

The annual CS Holiday Party was held on Wednesday the 14th. As is customary, free alcohol makes for happy graduate students. A dire lack of chairs and tables, however, certainly does not. The evening started out with fascinating conversation, and then turned even more interesting... The evening posed an interesting conundrum: what do you do when the Dean asks you to catch a grape in your mouth? The answer, obviously, depends on the person you ask. Courageous people with experience in party games face the challenge head-on, while the son with less mouth-eye coordination presumably uses more of the "evil eye" approach. While we did not all leave equally sober, we all left happy as a clam [sic] at high tide!

The Shrivers held their traditional Christmas party on the 17th of December. My family (minus an ill father) in addition to several of my friends attended. Helge also brought his girlfriend, Jessica. As always, the only thing better than the food was Bruce's tree. Christmas pictures in the order they were taken: Jessie, Ahreum, and Dawoon; Miles, Haakon, Isabel, and Helge; Haakon and Miles; Haakon and Ahreum, Aditya, Dawoon, Helge, and Jessie; Bob Flynn and Dhruva; Helge and Jessie; and Aditya, Dawoon, and Ahreum. Finally: city girls are unable to resist taking pictures of deer...

Christmas was spent in the cozy confines of my parents' Lawrence apartment. The entire intimate family was gathered for the event, and my parents did a wonderful job of cooking. You here see mom and her two boys on the couch, with one son being noticeably more tired than the other. The elder son was much less tired once he took his sweater off, and so another picture was taken with his parents. I will round out the award-winning "Couch Series" of photographs with the crown jewel: "Two Brothers and Thing." The whole family and two girlfriends got together for a wonderful Christmas Eve meal. The next day we (minus one girlfriend murdered by Thing) had an afternoon Christmas Day brunch where my brother remembered to take the "food photo" before we ate.
On the 27th, during the period between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve referred to in Norwegian by "romjula", I took my brother and mother on a quick tour of NYC. It is, as always, necessary to tune down one's plans as "everything takes longer than you expect" (#3), especially in NYC. We thus focused on Fifth Ave - always a tourist favorite - and stopped by both Saint Patrick's Cathedral [wiki] and my favorite chocolatier, Teuscher [web]. We then had a wonderful dinner with Ahreum at Sushi Sen-Nin on the upper east side, where I believe my mother and brother had the best sushi of their lives. A day later I got my haircut from a woman who cannot resist putting gel in my hair, followed by a much appreciated visit by Bruce and Beverly to our humble home. We took them on a brief tour of rainy Princeton - with the briefness exasperated by Bruce's illness. Bruce and Beverly then helped us cook a fabulous dinner (also note the light blue knitted sweater I received from my grandmother as a Christmas gift) before heading back to Ossining.

As I have not yet received pictures from Kori of the first fellowship dinner this fall, I will now tell you about the first documented fellowship dinner of the season. We held it on the 30th of December at Le Colonial [web] and were lucky enough to be visited by many fellows, including Ankur Agarwal, Polly Israni, and Nasheet Zaman; Dhruva, Tracy, Haakon, and Michael Scullard; Hubert Chao, Sergey Grankin, and Aditya Rao; and the mysterious Mr. Ariful Gani who was not photographed. After a quick stay at a local bar, most of us went back to Mr. Rao's place for a marathon Mafia session. And thanks to Mr. Rao we were all able to come together again for New Year's eve, where we had a fabulous time. Even a few of Ahreum's friends (here with Mike, Sandy, Jaime, and Brian) showed up, for good measure - thanks! It was a nonstop good time; so much so that certain people were unable to contain their enthusiasm. There were even some Karaoke tendencies, but the evidence is being closely guarded pending the outcome of various lawsuits. Our empirical research also indicates that people who don't drink at social gatherings have less fun. And if you put three brown boys together, they will be unable to resist writing you a piece of software. You here see the Cornell boys toasting in the new year, followed by the entire crew coming together for a blurry photo (a steady hand and flash always helps things). Thank you all for coming, it was great fun!

On the 21st of January, I went skiing at Mountain Creek. Not only was it confusingly warm for a Norwegian, but the amount of natural snow was also disconcerting. Still, odd conditions rarely faze Norway's Raspberry Spacemen. You here see Dawoon and Helge preparing to set off on a day of snowboarding. In this picture it looks like my brother is contemplating deep thoughts, but the truth is that he had to keep his neck at exactly that angle to prevent it from aching after his back-braking fall on the rails. Here's the little rascal with Ahreum. After a few hours of action (or sliding down the mountain on your ass, for some) the crew took a lunch break by consuming all sorts of unhealthy sustenance. After a few more runs, we took a final well-deserved break with a few beers. You here see my brother with Dhruva and I, respectively.

Warning: random pictures from the life of a grad student will follow! Tony feeling the love from Google: "It totally fits!" The crew decided to celebrate the arrival of March by making the trek to Bent Spoon (damn you and your "renovation", tsweet!) - you can see Harlan is totally enjoying his girly ice cream while Janek is enjoying life in general. Also, if you look very carefully, you will notice that I'm only eating a napkin - it's my new diet. Then, on one very crazy Friday in March, all of the inhabitants of office 313 (aka funky town) were in attendance. Please take note of the new dual screens on my awesome desk (thanks Kai! :-), which are driven by two computers. While not occurring on the same day, the following is a quote from Melissa commenting on Phil's recent proposal: "He just whipped it out. It may not have been romantic, but it was effective;" suffice it to say Mr. Shilane is engaged. And, to round out the paragraph, I can report that I spent March 12th in NYC at Mezzogiorno with my family and guardians. It was wonderful to see Bruce and Beverly for the first time since Christmas, and the food was delicious

Ramona was in Ithaca for a diversity recruiting dinner during the last weekend of February, and so I trekked up to the old stomping grounds to reunite with some great friends I hadn't seen in six months. Our first group activity was a sushi dinner at Plum Tree on Friday - it's no Sen-Nin, but it definitely hit the spot! Afterwards we headed to Nash's crib where we were invaded by Indians, which is always fun. And if you have ever doubted the healing effects of vodka, look no further than Ilya before and after he had gotten his hands on some "Russian water" - ah, it warms my soul! Afterwards we spent an hour at Ithaca's new happening joint: Level B club. I won't go into the details of what other people were doing there, but our crew certainly enjoyed itself.
On Saturday we divided our time between Ramona's pimped out Statler top-floor room, Castaways, and Level B. I must thank Ilya for providing us shuttle service throughout the weekend! You here see Ari, Nash, and I; Ilya and I; and a great group picture of Ilya, Maya, Ramona, and myself - all at the Statler. We had a wonderful (as always) dinner at Taste of Thai: Ari, Ramona, Maya, and Ilya; Ilya and Maya; Maya and Haakon; and Gordon and Attila. After dinner we attended Castaway's Carnival celebration in honor of Maya. It was great until some Brazilian gradate students decided to hijack the party with their, erm, voices. It was still good fun, and we'll do it for real in Rio next time, Maya! ;-) Oh, and this picture makes be look very tall! It was indeed a successful weekend, with love spread for all: Berts, Chicas, and Ari.

Spring arrived in full force by the time my grandmother and mother came to visit from Norway. My brother took a picture of Magnolia trees in full bloom near Woody Woo, another one of Witherspoon street, and my mother took a picture of what I believe to be the Nassau Presbyterian Church. On the 9th of April we all went up to visit the Shrivers, where my grandmother was reacquainted with Matt's awesome chair. The weather was again wonderful, as you can see from the faces of my grandmother and I. My guardians and mother are laughing here because my brother is one of four people who simultaneously decided to capture the Kodak moment of Bruce preparing our meal. And, to no one's surprise, the meal was amazing: thanks Bruce & Beverly!
On the following day, we went into the NYC for some exploration with my grandmother. We first visited Lincoln Center, where my grandmother and mother were supposed to hear a musical performance at Avery Fischer Hall. Unfortunately the conductor decided not to show, so we had some time to kill: here in front of the NYC Opera. We had a beautiful walk through Central Park, and then down 5th Ave for some window shopping. We ended up at the Norwegian Seamen's Church, where we got to hear Norway's Princess read a chapter of her new children's book and also experience a live performance from Nidaros Cathederal Boys' Choir, which was impressive.
A little later in the week we had dinner at Nassau Sushi & Bagel's. We also went to visit U. Penn, which is Helge's girlfriend's (Jessica) new alma mater: congratulations! The real reason that I seem grumpy in this photo is that my mother takes half an hour to position herself for a point-and-shoot! My grandmother is here admiring a nearby blooming bush. I have to admit that Blanche Levy Park is a beautiful place to relax, and presumably study, which I feel Princeton lacks. My brother and grandmother are here standing in front of College Hall. While I appreciate the architecture and environment of Penn, I unfortunately can't say that I appreciate Penn's choice in art, nor does my grandmother apparently, as she is here blinded by the hideous button. ;-) Happy Easter everyone!

The first weekend after my generals was also my last weekend before heading off to Paris for the summer, both of which necessitated some socializing. On Friday evening we therefore had a post-generals dinner at Masala Grill. In attendance were Melissa, William, Janek, Jamie, Haakon, Harlan, and Alex. Afterwards we headed to a post-generals party, but luckily no photographic evidence survived this event. Feeling fresh and energetic on Saturday morning, a few of us headed up the the Bronx to watch the Yankees beat the A's in an exciting and close game. I felt very special since I belonged to two groups of friends in attendance: Melissa, Haakon, Harlan, William, and Forrester; and Jason, Dawoon, Ahreum, Dhruva, and Haakon (thanks to Melissa for the powerful lens that captured us from afar! ;-). Afterwards we hung out in Central Park to kill some time before dinner at Don Pedro's. On our way there we actually stumbled upon the fabled dog [Balto] that Tracy had been talked about for years: turns out she doesn't make up all her stories, after all! Our subsequent dinner had good times and good food. Group pictures: Aditya, Jason, Dawoon, and Harlan; Dawoon and Haakon; Forrester, Hubert, and Tracy; Haakon, Harlan, and Dhruva. Thanks for a wonderful weekend!

During the spring of '06, Helge and I played soccer together on the same team for the first time. The team, Princeton United, coincidentally went undefeated through the entire season! My father attended most of the matches and took some nice photos of us, including this team photo, which includes most of the regular players. The pattern for most of the matches was a solid first half of play but without goals, a motivating half-time pep-talk (here with Grunde), and then beating the opposition into the ground in the second half. Here is another such team huddle, where Helge is talking to DeForest, Geoff, and Grunde. There are some good action photos of Helge running with the ball, passing the ball like Stig Inge Bjørneby, and soaring in the air for a header. This is Geoff pushing the ball forward, with me coming in from the side to provide lateral support. And finally, a photo of me hanging out on the pitch. PU will return in the fall for more domination! [only photos]

On the day of my departure, I had a last-minute brunch with Tony, Forrester, Harlan, Melissa, and Jamie (photographer). It was a good farewell before I headed off to Paris...