When I found out I'd be moving out to California and broke the news to my friends, a number of them excitedly said that they'd come out and visit. I, being a cynical young man, believed that most of the people told me they'd come visit never will.

Except for Pete. Pete said he would visit. Knowing Pete (and his propensity for traveling), I knew he'd be among the first to visit.

So Pete's visiting at present (my second visitor actually, as a friend stopped by on business last week). I've only been here for 6-7 weeks. He apparently had some time in August off and, since it was the best time, he flew out. He has a key to my apartment and is taking Caltrain into San Francisco during the day.

Anyway, I picked him up at the airport yesterday. Driving back to Mountain View, I suggested we stop by Stanford to see the campus (and perhaps, time permitting, rub in the 2000 Rose Bowl). We then headed back into Palo Alto, getting dinner and stopping in at what has become my frequent hangout, the Rose and Crown, an English pub off of University Avenue.

Last Tuesday, a few coworkers and I headed to the Rose and Crown for trivia night, where four-player teams compete round after round of trivia questions for points. Each round, the winning team wins a round of beer. We didn't do terribly well, but there were a lot of die-hard weekly teams there.

So yesterday, when I brought Pete to the pub, it didn't occur to me beforehand that it was trivia night. We got in around 9:10, ten minutes after the start. We grabbed two chairs at the end of the bar and grabbed an answer sheet.

After the first round of questions, the question caller asked for someone to volunteer to grade the sheets and tally points. As Pete and I were sitting right next to him, we offered. He gave us the answer key for the round and the scorecard. We started in on the teams' answer sheets and he said, getting the bartender's attention, "these boys drink free."

Excellent.