Lake Tahoe and Squaw Valley

Memorial weekend was a great one. After an intern barbeque Friday night, I found a car of people headed to X-men 3. I could nitpick, especially about the dialogue, but it was very entertaining.

Mid-Saturday I left with a couple of other guys that for a trip to lake tahoe, that had been organized through an email list. It didn't seem to take too long at all. Maybe 4 hours. After finding a place to stay in King's beach we had some time to walk along the water, including down a long dock that went out into the water. The views on the lake are just amazing.



We ate at a small burger-bar place, The Bridgetender. My chili burger was one of the best burgers I've ever had.

We got to Squaw Valley just about when rentals opened. I skiied, and the other guys snowboarded, until the slopes closed at 3. Though I'm not as intermediate as I remember :), I managed to get through unharmed. It was pretty warm, (except on the lifts), but I thought the conditions were pretty good. It's certainly a much bigger mountain than I've been on before. We had lunch at a barbeque stand by the pool and live band they had at 8000 feet. I hope I'll get the chance to take a couple more weekend trips this summer. This one was terrific.

Connect Unite Encounter

Starting to settle into a groove, but thats not a bad thing. I still enjoy the group I'm with and the work, and I'm slowly starting to get more responsibilities.

I can't believe ben is done with high school as of 24 hours from now. I hope he loved it, I know he did. I can't wait to come in for graduation in a couple of weeks, let alone having him come up to Ann Arbor in the fall. Alli, you better listen up and make the most of it. It's like the great roman orator Cicero said, "This too shall pass", "Carpe diem", "a pizza's a pizza's a pizza". Congratulations Ben!

Suffering as I do from a psychological condition where I can't go two weeks without making a website, I made the Connect Unite Encounter site for the interns this summer. The name was from someone else who made a discussion group for the interns, I don't get it. But the site pulls together topics from the discussion site, events on a google calendar I set up, links to review sites/places of interest in the bay area, and has a place for posting ideas for things to do memorial weekend.

Bay to breakers!

I had a great time this weekend visiting the Isaacs in Oakland. Getting to watch Zack in a baseball game is a rare treat for us Michiganders. Bay to Breakers, this morning was a ton of fun. It was the longest run I've done, but it wasn't too bad because there are so many people you can't always run fast, and because there is always something to look at. While it's nothing you won't see on an average day with Lilly Isaacs, there were some wild costumes (pictures below, more on flickr2).





I also found that taking the caltrain/bart up to Oakland was not a big deal at all (assuming I leave myself more time to get to the station next time. So that's helpful for visiting again, or other trips I hope to take around the area.

Entering the reality distortion field

The amount of learning needed to get up to speed is daunting, but I'm excited to get started, motivated to be useful, and really lucky to be with a great group, from both people and subject perspectives. That's all I have to say about that. And I think the lobby smells nice.

Santana Row farmer's market

Having read that Santana row has a sunday farmer's market, I rode back there today. My butt is now sufficiently sore.
(not my pic)

I got a tamale and roasted corn ear for lunch, and some oranges for snacks. Unfortunately, when I put the oranges in my backpack I didn't remember that sunscreen I purchased earlier was on the bottom. The result was a good example of the kind of perks that come with being me. As I've been into kettle korn lately, I was watched a k.c. vendor make a few batches from behind the stand. They have no tricks, as far as I can tell, just a machine that is large and dumps well. Note that he let the oil get hot before putting the kernels in, and there is only enough sugar to give it a sweet taste but not carmelize at all. I also did some actual grocery shopping at PW market and tried out the pool. This brings me to my first lesson learned this summer:

Farmer's markets do not necessarily have cheaper produce.

Things to do when in california

Calling all people who live or have lived in CA:

I started two online lists, one of things to do in CA while I'm here, and another of restaurants to try in this area. If you have anything ideas I'd love it if you added to the list or sent me an email with your recommendations. You can sign in and add at

http://danielfe.tadalist.com
uname: danielfe
pass: summer06

or you can just view them without signing in here:
Things to do:
http://danielfe.tadalist.com/lists/public/295777
Restaurants:
http://danielfe.tadalist.com/lists/public/296094

Reconnoitering

After reading about the area and upcoming events online I set out on bike to explore. I quickly came upon Infinite Loop for the first time. It's crazy to think that what we see in keynotes and shiny white stores starts there. I actually caught a glimpse of the buildings yesterday, and after a "cool", my first thought was that they are kind of ugli. But from this perspective it's really impressive.


I then biked the 6ish miles to Santana Row, an upscale outdoor mall. I walked around and got a few small things for lunch before heading back. It's great to have a bike, it the extended range will make a lot of good day trips possible. When I got back I found some public courts not too far away that I hope to use.



If you click one of these pictures, it will take you to my flickr account, where I am keeping a set of more than what I'll put in the blog.

Flew the Cupertino

The ticket said San Jose, but I think I landed in someone else's life. The combination of a scenic flight over the rockies, the two blocks of Cupertino that I've seen, and a really nice corporate arranged apartment is a little surreal, though incredible. Not to mention these crazy silicon valley grocery stores charge $4 for a gallon of milk!

When I got to the apartments one of the office staff helped me with my bags, and gave me a tour past the pool, exercise room, and gardenish areas. Unbelievable. My roommates havn't arrived yet, but I look forward to meeting them. And Monday can't come soon enough.

If you're here from the email I just sent, note there is a bunch of old junk below from last year. California posts, and pretty much any worthwhile use of english words, starts here.

A few pics from the day: