In-N-Out-N-About

A couple weekends ago, I went to check out the UC Berkeley campus. I've been meaning to visit the school for quite a while, but just never quite made it until now. It's one of the top Engineering schools in the US and I plan to apply here for my graduate studies. Visiting the campus took me back to my grade 12 days, when I went around to various universities to see what the campus atmosphere is like in choosing my undergrad school. The exact same feeling surfaced, except now I'm looking into graduate aspects.

Overall, UC Berkeley is awesome. It's secluded enough from the outside world that it's quite within, yet close enough to downtown to enjoy the benefits of city pleasures. The campus is clean, vibrant, and full of green space; very nature-themed. I'd love to attend this fine institution.

Last Saturday, a few of us went to see The Killers in concert at Bill Graham Civic in San Francisco. I like them, but I'm not a huge fan like some of the people in attendance, so I didn't have high anticipation going in. However, The Killers totally blew me away. They performed songs from both their albums and sound really good live. The concert was entertaining, interactive, and full of energy. They got the get-on-your-feet-sing-along-rock-n-roll-songs going for them. My respect for The Killers have gone up significantly since seeing them live.


Now yesterday, a bunch of us went to the Intel Museum. It's merely 10 minutes away from my house and admission is FREE, so you can't go wrong. We followed through the guided tour that explained how Intel started, their products, fab, and operation. A good way to waste a couple hours.

Los Angeles, the second coming

For the President's Day long weekend, we headed down to LA, the city of Angels. This is our second time there. I first went to LA during the summer shutdown last year. The first time, it was exciting cause it was new, cool, and flashy. It felt like there were so many stuff to do and see. The second time around, I guess the euphoria kind of died off. Since I've already seen what it's like, being there didn't quite have the "wow" factor to it. Still, it was cool.

The weather was absolutely amazing. Hot, sunny, a solid 80 degrees. Before going to LA, we hung out at San Luis Obispo first. This town is home to the Cal Poly university, the Gumball Alley, and also UFC champion Chuck Liddell. The Gumball Alley is a shady alley in downtown, packed full of chewed gum stuck on the wall. People started tacking them on since the 60's. There's an equal amount of coloured recent gums to rock-hard black ones. Certainly worth a look I suppose.

While in LA, I tried to go to as many new places as possible. We visited Venice beach, Little Tokyo, Kodak Theatre (where they were setting up for the Oscars right through the night), Huntington Beach, the Crystal Cathedral, Universal City, California ScienCentre (I know, I know...I'll explain below), USC, and UCLA.

One of the biggest problem this time was the lack of planning. We ran out of ideas by the third day, and were struggling to come up with something to do. We thought about film studio tours and talk show tapings on the spot, but they were all booked out. Lack of planning bitting in the ass. As a result, we ended up at the science centre. It was free though, that's always appealing.

I would definitely want to go to LA again, there's still a lot more I want to check out. Some picture from this trip can be found here.

Wine tasting tour

A few of us went wine tasting this weekend up in Napa Valley. California is quite famous for its wide variety of wines produced, and Napa Valley is the biggest region of wineries in Northern California.

There are tons of wineries located in this county. Unfortunately we only had time to visit a very few of them. Almost all the wineries have wine tasting sessions, a tour through their vineyard and processing plant, and some sort of shop to get you to fork out a little more cash. We were mainly interested in the wine tastings. There are some (a selected few) that offer FREE tastings of all their wines, but most charge ~$5 - $15 for their selection.

The wineries we visited were V. Sattui, Beringer, and Robert Mondavi. Sattui offered free tasting which was awesome. Their wine wasn't bad at all, as a matter of fact, I bought a bottle of the Rosé, which tastes ... strawberry-ish. I paid $5 for Beringer's offering, but their service made the difference. I learned quite a few things about wine today, that I couldn't have just by watching Sideways or visiting the local store. White wine tastes great just by itself, but most of the red wine were too thick or heavy solo, they definitely need food to go with. So next time you need help with a sauvignon blanc, I just might be able to help ya out.

Afterwards, we drove back to the city (San Fran) to have dinner on the pier and went to see some Indie bands, that I don't remember, at Café du Nord. I posted some of my pictures online.

Skiing at Lake Tahoe

"The air is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious, the same as angels breathe." - Mark Twain, on Lake Tahoe.

We went Skiing/snowboarding at Lake Tahoe this weekend. It's our second time there, last time in the summer, but this time to ski. We went to the famous Heavenly mountain resort. This is a great place to ski, because it's right next to the actual Lake, so the view is awesome! Also, it's on a real mountain, unlike the ski resorts near Toronto, so there's some true double-black-diamonds (I dare not touch them, but still). Heavenly is on the California-Nevada border, so you can ski in both states at the same time.

We took a couch bus service; left early in the morning from San Jose at 4:30am, arrived in Tahoe at 10-ish, got our rental gear and hit the slopes by 11. This is actually my first time skiing, so I was learning everything for the first time. I stuck to good ol' green slopes throughout. Being a newb, I totally exhausted myself in the first hour and felt a little sick. After eating a hearty lunch, I was refueled and ready to go. I picked up skiing pretty quickly, i think. By the end of the day, I was able to snowplow, turn at will, ride down a slope in its entirety falling down only once, and almost control to a stop.

It was a gnarly ski trip. Awesome weather, cool slopes, amazing view, and fun times!

Monterey - Carmel

The first weekend back in CA, we went to the Monterey Bay area. It was a close 1.5 hour drive from home. Both cities are on the Pacific coast. Keeping in mind the fact that it's January, the weather was still fantastic. It was actually pretty hot at one point.

First we went to visit Carmel. This little town has the world famous Pebble Beach Golf Course, an amazing super-white sand beach, and chalk-full of rich people. In its main road area, there are probably as many art shops and galleries as Paris. Carmel in terms of its urban design is a lot like Santa Barbara, and reminiscent of the classic small-European-town-on-the-hills in its atmosphere. Most of the buildings in the area are actually built from stones. The restaurant we had lunch at was very cozy, with an outdoor stone fireplace in the centre.

Monterey is a much bigger city, just ten minutes north. The main attraction was the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Their theme is conservation of marine life. That message is more important here than the display of animals. The coolest parts of the aquarium were the touch-stations. Here, you can actually touch and feel the various aquatic life. Some of the animals I got to play around with were: devil ray, starfish, crustaceans, sea cucumber and others I don't remember the names of. I learned that the world seafood supply is close to extinction if we keep at the pace we're currently on. As a matter of fact, the entire city is all about the conservation. All the seafood restaurants here will only offer dishes of fish that are currently sustainable.

It was fun to reacquaint myself with the Pacific coast again immediately after coming back from Toronto. More photos can be found here.

Home sweet home

I am back home for the Holidays after working 7 months in California. Boy, is it good to be home! I missed my parents, so seeing them again was great. All the amenities I took for granted while I lived at home are now back in the game. No cooking, washing dishes, laundry, or clean up; none of that here. I can sleep in and wake up as late as I want to. Getting into my old bed, being in my room, seeing my home again, feels really great.

In the few times I've been out since coming back to Toronto, I've noticed a few things that jump out at me as an observer, of the differences that exist between California, where I've been living in the past half year, and TO. Things which didn't cross my mind before when I was living here. Ya it's a weird feeling coming back after such a long time ...

Anyway, in the short time that I'm here, I'll try to spend and enjoy as much time as possible with my folks. Also try to catch up with some old friends. It'll be another 6-8 months before I get back, so gotta make the best of this holiday vacation.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEARS !

Thanksgiving weekend roadtrip

I just came back from the roadtrip we took for the extra long (American edition) Thanksgiving weekend. We drove to see the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and stopped by Las Vegas, Nevada.

Driving right through the night, we arrived in Grand Canyon early Thur. morning. I got about ~2 hrs of sleep that night in the car. But the tiring journey was definitely worth it, to see one of the 7 natural wonders of the world! If you haven't seen the Grand Canyon, trust me, you have to check it out, it's one truly amazing sight.


We decided to hike one of the trails along the Canyon. It was actually quite a lot of fun. The trail is literally going straight down the edge of the canyon, if you slip and fall, well... that's it. Can't help ya there. Going down was fun enough, but going back up ... that was a real bitch. I still get winded just looking at the pictures.

Next day, we made our way to the Fabulous city of Las Vegas. On the way, we stopped to stare at the monstrous structure that is the Hoover Dam. This thing powers pretty much all of the desert area in the Western US. It's scary and awesome at the same time. It's one of the seven civil engineering wonders of the US. Gotta pay my respekt!


We spent the next day and a half in Vegas, which coincidentally also included my birthday, Nov. 26. Vegas is always fun. Some underage illegal gambling, hitting up the Aladdin buffet, spending quality time with my hombres at DejaVu Showgirls, were all good ways to celebrate.


In the end, we collected a hella lot of mileages on our rentals, saw beautiful sights, came away with awesome times and good memories. Some photos found here.

Welcome to the Shark Tank

A bunch of us Actel interns, plus one Altera intern, went to watch a San Jose Sharks game last night at the hp pavilion. Sharks vs. Flyers. The game was quite entertaining, but lost enthusiasm near the end. San Jose won the game blowout style 6-1. That was the score by the end of second period, so the third was kind of uneventful. Nevertheless, seeing 7 goals scored was "niiiiiiiiiice", as Borat puts it. Interestingly enough, none of the big names got in on any of the action. Forsberg, Gagne, Thornton, Cheechoo, they were all really quite throughout the game.

The really cool part of the night was 1) everyone in the audience scoring free pizza from Round Table for the Sharks scoring 4 or more goals. 2)For one of those audience participation contests that goes on during the game, our section got picked to compete against another in a dance off contest. Basically, whichever section dances the best wins the prize. Thanks to some hip old dude who really tear it up, out entire section won $10 gift certificates to Dave&Buster's. He was sitting close to me, just one row behind. Now, what you're suppose to do, is grab one ticket and pass the rest on, but everyone was taking 2 or more. The stash even came back to me by the end. So in total I earned $40 worth of Dave&Buster's fun. All this for a $25 ticket, not too shabby.

This and that ...

T'was an interesting weekend. On Saturday morning, when I went to Fry's to buy a new alarm clock, I saw Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard (before the scandal), giving a free talk. She also stayed to sign her new book: Tough Choices. I was there, in perfect timing for the signing line-up and the talk. Didn't go for the book though: couldn't spare $18.


Saturday night was really fun at Golfland USA. It's a mini-golf place plus arcade right next to my place. We spent almost 3 hours there from 9PM and on. The holes were surprisingly tough, but really fun; like the Candystand golf. Definitely worth going back again.

On Sunday, we went to the Mazda Zoom Zoom Live testdrive event at the Oakland Alameda field. Good thing it was 18 over requirement, unlike the Taste of Lexus. It was really packed, so many people showed up. There were only 4 courses, so the wait-time was killer. The cars that I got to drive were: Mazda 6, Miata, RX-8, & CX-7. It was fun to drive them on the closed courses without a single care for the car. The cars themselves were pretty good, but nothing amazing. Same with the event; I was kinda disappointed by the overall organization: too much standing in line and too little sitting behind the wheel. Still though, I liked the sweet feeling of driving new cars.

Never thought I'd say it, but ...

I am now officially homesick. Due to the fact that I am actually sick. I don't know what caused it, but being completely taken out for the whole weekend is not pleasant, at all. I got my suspicion on the canned chicken soup or the dust in our place, but damn, my stomach got really screwed up, I had to vomit 7 times last night. Today, I even missed the intern vs. ex-intern paintball competition. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

The season's a-changin'. It's getting cold in California and for the first time in over 4 months, it rained last week. It's a good thing I changed new windshield wipers a couple weeks ago. I guess the summer has come to an end, but I'm interested to see how fall, oops I meant "autumn", looks like in Cali. Reflecting back, I must say, it was a really fun summer. Coming here to Bay Area, starting real work, finding a place to live, cars, and all that independence stuff, exploring California, and having a good time with the gang.

Last Monday, Michelle and I went to see Mariah Carey (or MC as they call her) at the Oakland Arena. Busta Rhymes opened for her, and was pretty good. Mariah's performance was also not too bad. She sang a lot of her old top hits songs, which was good for me, because I have no idea about her recently songs. I'm not that big of a fan of Mariah, but it was certainly fun times.

Lake Tahoe

For the Labour Day long weekend, we went to Lake Tahoe. We rented out a cabin, and a couple cars, and left straight after work on Friday night. We didn't arrive at South Lake Tahoe until midnight.

The cabin was pretty damn nice, except that contruction was going on around it, so gas was cut off, thus no hot water was available. When we complained the next morning to the management, they upgraded us to a giant cabin nearby. The new place had 14 beds, a jacuzzi, cable tv, barbeque, games, the whole sh-bang. On saturday, some of us went on ATV tour, but I went hiking instead. It was damn tiring, without water. We went to Stateline that night to enjoy the buffett and the small casinos on the Nevada border. Penny slots all the way!

On sunday, we went kayaking in the Lake. Quite a few of us fell in, fortunately I was able to balance myself the whole time. It was refreshing. That night, we drove 2 hours north to Reno, Nevada, the biggest small city in the world. It's the old school version of Vegas. The place was a little disappointing overall, especially considering I got kicked out of one of the casinos there. So not gnarly, dude.

The next day, we rented a power boat and a tube and went crazy all over the lake. Some of us got bruised and cut and had our shorts ripped off from it. I didn't do the tubing since I can't even swim, but I drove the power boat around, which was pretty exhilarating. I posted photos some here.

New guitar

I've finally got around to getting myself a guitar. I've long wanted to learn to play a guitar, but was always held back by something; work, money, time. I figure now that I have some free time on my hands, I could pick up the guitar as a hobby.

The guitar I bought is a brand new Epiphone. The sweet baby's perfect for me. It sounds great! (after I spend 15 minutes tuning it) I also learned that I have fat fingers, since almost every chord I play my fingers are touching a string it's not suppose to. My goal is to become fluent at it by the end of the year, such that I can play songs smoothly from the top of my head. I'm visioning myself with a pickup guitar at CalTrain stations playing some Coldplay, collecting Washingtons in my bucket.

Las Vegas

Our final stop was the crazy Las Vegas, the city that never sleeps. Everyone made a big hype about Vegas, and it certainly did not disappoint. We were there during the 4th of July long weekend, so The Strip was crazy packed.

The first night, we watched Cirque du Soleil, KA. The tickets to this show were $125 each. The show was pretty amazing, it was a total surround stage setup, and the actaully stages people performed on were totally gyrational. It was tilting and moving 360°, and at one point the performance was done with the platform tilted at 80°. The technical effects are absolutely second to none, some totally rad scenes were performed. All in all, a fantastic show, definitely worthy of checking out.

We walked down the main Strip and check out almost all the hotels/casinos. This is believe it or not a whole day affair. It takes a loooong time to walk around everywhere and it gets really tiring by the end of day. Here are things I noticed about the different casino and hotels:

• the most luxurious: Bellagio
• the biggest monster: Caesar's Palace
• the cooliest themed: tied Luxor & Treasure Island
• the best one no-one's ever heard of: the Venetian
• the one with most hot chicks: Mandalay Bay
• the bully: MGM Grand

What's a trip to vegas without buffets? We ate at a different buffet each day we were there, with the last being the best, the Bellagio Buffet. We went in at late lunch and stayed 'till dinner. Another absolute necessity in Vegas? the strip clubs. We went to the DejaVu one night, and this was by far (and I mean far) the best club I've been to. Anywhere. Most my friends would also agree. I had front row seats to jello wrestling match, which was a real treat. I don't think I can go anywhere else now after this.

On the 12-hour drive back home, we went through Yosemite National Park. This was a beautiful park with tons of mountain/snow/valley scenery. Too bad I slept through almost all of it.

San Diego

Our next destination is the southern-most city of San Diego. It's about 30 min. away from the Mexico border, and the city of Tijuana. Since the legal age in Mexico is 18, I went across the border on two nights, since I wouldn't get in anywhere in San Diego anyway. I also just wanted to check out what Mexico was like.

To which I respond extreme disappointment. Tijuna was very run down and ghetto. When we went to strip clubs, it felt really dirty and I had constant thoughts of a loooong shower. I didn't really feel like staying and if anything, the club turned me off.

Now back to the civilization of SanDiego. We caught the sunset at LaJolla beach the first day there. The interesting part is that, the water was actually warm here. All the other beaches, a dip was comparable to ice water, but here we stayed in the water for 30 min enjoying the warmth. We took a cruise around the Harbour and also checked out the University of San Diego campus. It was a beautiful campus; very clean and cool architecture all around. We spent a full day at the San Diego Zoo. It's pretty famous, but after looking through it all, it seems like any other zoo to me, except they have pandas here. Worthy to see nonetheless.

the OC

Right below Los Angelos county is the infamous Orange County. This is where Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, and Laguna Beach all lie. Newport Beach is where 'the OC' takes place, Huntington Beach is where Hollister CO. gets all it's inspiration from, and Laguna Beach is obviously where the show 'Laguna Beach' happens.

I must say Newport and Laguna are the two best beaches I've ever been to in my life. Everything about them is superb. Definitely wouldn't mind going there again, but next time, I gotta slather on hella lot of sunscreen. Going to all these beaches everyday did a number on my skin, I got burned on my shoulder and feet quite bad. Right now is the peeling-skin-stage. And the chicks, oh the hot chicks . . . wow. I was secretly hoping to catch a glimps of maybe a cast member from Laguna Beach, but... I don't think that happened.

Once away from the beach, the city themselves are quite impressive too. The residents here are mostly rich, which is reflected in the upscale downtown areas and starring at the huge houses on the hills was fun too.

LA

Next, we came to LA. It was really overwhelming, because there was absolutely endless stuff to do here. Every corner of this giant metropolis offered something unique to check out. The 3 days we were here seemed really short.

We first checked out Malibu beach. Again, awesome beach, worthy of its famous statuary. We hung out in Hollywood quite a lot. Visited the Universal Studios Citywalk, Hollywood Boulevard, where all the famous entertainment landmarks are; such as the Kodak Theatre, Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theatre, and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Some of us toured the NBC studio and lined up for taping of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, while others went to see the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I was sooo close to getting into Leno. In a line up of 400+, there were only 15 people in front of me before they filled up. While in Beverly Hills, we drove to the Playboy Mansion. It's actually quite cleverly hidden so as to avoid random visitors like us. It was gated real good, and we couldn't see much of the property, but the fact that we were at the gates of the Mansion is story enough. We also went to Long Beach, only to find a freakish scene of total absence on the stretched-out beach. We did however find West Coast Choppers. This is the bike shop where Jessie James works on the show Monster Garage. Pretty rad display of rides there.

One thing I have to mention though: driving in LA is absolute horror! the highway gets jammed on Sunday nights at 8, people honk at random, and no one gives any room. I was so glad when I drove out of LA.

Santa Barbara

Our first stop was the beautiful Santa Barbara. Just as important as the destination is the route to get there. We drove down the gorgeous scenery of Highway 1. It does not get better than this; wind blowing in your hair, California tunes cranked high, mountain side curves along the coast and the Pacific ocean to your right the entire way. This road is actually where a lot of car commercials are shot.

The small city of SantaBarbara is very lively with the college crowd. Everyone from UCSantaBarbara comes downtown to party at night. We were only here for one day, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere. Unlike other places we visited, majority of the crowd here is around my age, which was very good at the beach. Surprisingly, the sand was so hot, it was impossible to walk bear feet.

SoCal 2006 roadtrip

Whooooooooo!!!
I just came back from an 11-day roadtrip all through southern California and Las Vegas. We went to Santa Barbara, Los Angelos, Orange County, San Diego, and last but not least Las Vegas, Nevada.


All this came together with most of us Actel new interns, with some of the old ones too, who planned most of it. There was a total of 21 of us, renting 5 cars. Driving through Cali is absolutely awesome! It's great to be on the open road, but riding on the California west coast is way above anything. I'll describe each destination separately, and here are some of the (above par quality) photos I took along the way:

• album 1
• album 2
• album 3

Moving to new apartment

This weekend, Will, Joe and I moved into our new place. Our 1-month stint at Oakwood came to an end and it was time to move on...

Our new apartment is awesome. It's a townhome complex called Willowbend in Sunnyvale. This is where we'll spend the next 12 months. Our apartment is 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, living, dining, balcony, etc., but it's different than everyone else's in that it's two floors; bedrooms upstairs, everything else on first floor.

It was a hell of a job moving all the furniture this weekend. On Saturday, we went around to 5 old interns' apartments and U-Hauled everything into the living room. On Sunday, we organized the furniture into separate rooms, but it wasn't easy getting beds up the ridiculously narrow stairs to second floor. I originally bought a queen size bed, but there was no way to fit it through, so I traded it with my good buddy Jacques' double, which is actaully quite a bit better. I also like all the other furniture in my room; a desk, dresser, cupboard, floorlamp, chair, and drying rack. The whole room cost close to $200, but it's a pretty complete set.

Santa Cruz Beach

The beach is a religion in California. On recommendation of the old interns, we headed to Santa Cruz beach today, being a long weekend Memorial Day. It's a 40 min drive away, but we made an hour and half trip out of it.


The beach itself is beautiful. It's not as big as I thought it might be, but it was still way better than any beach in Toronto. I really need work on my tan. It was super crowded when we arrived, but was pretty spread out by the time we were leaving. The water was surprisingly calm, but cold as hell. None of us fully dipped in the water. Another cool thing about this place is the 'Boardwalk'. It's like a carnaval fair, with food, games, and rides, located right on the shore. Overall, a really fun day on the beach. Here are some pictures.