my father is here on a business trip to lawrence livermore national laboratory (is it a business trip? it's all science and less business) representing the Department of Energy on whether or not to approve their fusion program. how crazy is that, he and 4 other scientists have the power to reject millions of dollars of government money to something as grandiose as livermore. the crazy thing is he doesn't even work for the Department of Energy.
anyways, we had dinner on monday and are going to have dinner again today. it's weird having dinner with just your father, especially when you've never really done it before. my dad really hates eating out, and makes sure the waiter or waitress knows it. everytime we eat out, he asks the waiter 2 questions:

1) does this food have MSG in it? i cannot take MSG.
2) is this tap water or is this non-tap water? i cannot drink california tap water.

the waiter always gives us a really weird look... like, "what the heck is your problem, DUDE." but at the sametime knows my father is a figure of respect and not to mess with him. the last time someone tried to mess with him, according to my sister, he literally screamed at the host and manager. i've never heard my father scream at a restaurant, but i've seen him cause several uncomfortable moments. he lets you know if he's pissed. in any case, i digress.
my father and i rarely ever have dinner together because he hates going out to eat. so whenever we do eat together, it's at home - when i'm usually still in bed snoring. so tonite, i know we are going to talk about grad school, getting a computer, and my sister's future. for grad school, he's going to push very heavily on me to make a decision for which grad school to go to and when. i think he's ashamed of me working in a lab. he keeps saying "no son of mine is going to be a lab assistant for his career." he wants me to come home and take grad school at the college of new jersey. about computers, he wants me to get a computer, probably so i can start learning about C++ or C# or some other language like that. he always thought that i would be good at programming - i hate it. about my sister, i am not sure what he wants to discuss about with her. probably what kind of computer she is going to get and how i can help out with paying for her tuition in the future. i can't believe the cost of college these days. Princeton costs 36,500 dollars a year (spending only 2787 a year just on books, food, phone, recreation, etc). that is insane. in any case, i'm glad that my father is here and it's definitely been a weird experience hanging out with him.