Keeping it short: Scuba, phone, work

I got to try out my underwater camera for the first time a few weeks ago. Misha, Sen, Kathy and I went scuba diving in Dutch Springs It was excellent. I'm certified. Thats cool.

I'm totally getting an iPhone this week. I'm sweatin' it so much. I think those things are slick as hell. Apple just seems to be making all the right moves. Its nice.

In short, work lately has been hostile. Its a bunch of bull. I want out. I'll explain when I can.

I've been biking a hella lot more lately. I'm finally getting rid of my winter insulation and feeling a hella lot better about myself. The only problem now is how can I get Kathy to bike with me.

How the weekend went...

Thursday:
Basically on Thursday I hung out in Palo Alto all day. I went to this mall near Stanford which reminded me of the mall in San Diego in that it was all outside and the sun was outstanding. Very nice.

Walking around Downtown Palo Alto was also outstanding. I found that I really enjoyed the entire area. If I were to live in the Valley, that is probably where I'd live. University Avenue reminds me of Georgetown or Park Ave in Rochester. It just seemed like a very pedestrian friendly place to be. The little shops were great and the only major/familiar/non-local companies were Walgreens and Borders.

After I picked up Kathy from the Airport we had dinner with Cory at The Creamery. We tried to meet up with Sonya but it didn't happen.

Friday we went out in San Francisco. We got breakfast at a little deli on Mission Ave. Walked around South Beach for awhile, got a twitter shirt, checked out AT&T park, and had lunch in South Park. Later we went over the Golden Gate and checked out Muir Woods (Redwoods are awesome) and went to Mt Tamalpais (best view EVER).

Saturday we went to Scharffen Berger lol and had a tour of some high end chocolates and their factory. We went to the UC Berkeley Arboretum which was sweet, had Lunch at Jupiter per recommendation by Illian from Bulgaria/Google/first-trip.

Back to SF to see the Coit Tower, Crissy Fields, and a walk across the Golden Gate, Golden Gate Park and an outstanding dinner with a view at the Cliff House (highly recommended).

Sunday we went to Golden Gate park again and saw the Haight Festival which was sweet, another arboretum and a whole bunch of Gorilla's doing the Thriller dance, no joke. Hilarious.

Wrapped up with a trip to Half Moon Bay which was outstanding and another trip to Stanford to see the campus.

It sucks to be [on the way] back. :(

Its bound to happen one of these times...

I'm out in Cali for another vacation. I think this is my 4th time to the west coast this year. I've got a pretty busy weekend ahead of me.

I'm meeting up with Carolina and Sonja Selena Duarte for Sonja's farewell party in Palo Alto. She has joined the cast of Blast! and will be leaving for Japan next week. Great news for her.

I'll be meeting up with Ma, Cory and a whole crew of engineers several times this weekend. That should be interesting.

The trip started off not so well. I ended up missing my first flight ever. I was supposed to go to SJC at 6:10. I got the next best flight to San Francisco at like 7:30 which put me here a bit later. Also made me miss a meeting with Carolina tonight. I was going to try to meet up with her for dinner or something if I got in at a reasonable time. So much for that.

So I'm in this Marriott Suite and its pretty large. I may have overpaid for the hotel. oops. I'm picking up Kathy tomorrow at the airport and we'll be staying at another Marriott in SF in or near the South Park area of SF. That will probably rule.

We have a full weekend of things to check out (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104998986066977447486.00000112bf473213e3573) so it should be quite excellent.

I gotta go find a local pub.

San Francisco and my new goals

I got a chance to go to San Francisco a few weeks ago. I'll tell ya, it is now my favorite place in the entire continental U.S. (thanks Jason for the accurate portrayal of my feelings). The place was outstanding. There were two things in particular that were just perfect.

1. Jobs - In terms of technology, this is where its at. Companies like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, VMWare, Twitter, etc. are really driving so much of what is important to me. Hint Hint: This is why I went out there.
2. Biking - Someone described this as the most biker friendly area in the country. I'd buy that. There were bike lanes on so many of the roads that I went on. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a massively inefficient way of getting from point A to B in that area.

Of course, I had to meet up with my cronies. I got to grab a beer or 2 with Cory the night before my "meeting" which was awesome. He is living the life. So much great stuff going on for him. He will be world famous some day I'm sure.

Met up with Jon Ma as well. He is a clown. We got completely annihilated twice there in what I would call some of the most successful nights of drinking I've ever had. So many absolutely hilarious memories I can't even believe it. Also pictured are Jinen, Slin and Dileep. Son.

I also got so see the lovely Carolina and Sonya Selina Duarte from my Glassmen days. Oh the memories :(. Sonya knows about the horrible pictures that came out of that night. I totally made Carolina cry, but in a good way, it was awesome.

On the way out there, I ran into a friend from LM ELDP. That was outstanding. We talked the entire flight out there. He is up to some REALLY big things. Best of luck to him. While talking to him, we ran into a girl who was interviewing at Facebook. Pretty cool stuff. She was very nice. Turns out she got the job, so she will be leaving the DC area very soon for the greener pastures of Palo Alto. Speaking of that, Facebook has a pretty fun job application process.

So basically it was like the best weekend in a very long time. I fell in love with the area and I would love to get out there more.

Onward, I've been biking quite a bit lately. I think I'm getting out about 3 times a week which is pretty decent for me. I went out on a group ride a week or 2 ago and we were out for about 6 hours. Sadly, due to like 4 flats and horrible road conditions, we only covered about 55 miles. That sucked. I was so hungry.

I'm going scuba diving next weekend. Stoked.

I've got nothing else.