Blight

Love Psychedelico

Love Psychedelico played live today in San Francisco's Apple store, and I was there to enjoy the show. They played 4 songs in front of a tight crowd and succumbed to the applause to play a final 5th song before leaving. They were there to spread awareness of the launch of their first album in the USA.
I met up with them again later that same day in Japantown at the Kinokuniya book store.

From their website:

They had a limited supply of 100 CDs available and fortunately I got in line early enough to snag one of them. I spoke briefly with Naoki (guitar/keyboard) and Kumi (vocal/guitar) congratulating them on their launch and wishing them success.

Unfortunately I always feel a bit like I'm wasting their time when I speak with these musical artists. After all the only message they probably hear is "blah blah, I like your music". I don't have anything else worthwhile to say to them to really express how I appreciate their music, or at least I don't believe that they would really bother to try to understand my opinion. It's not like I'm a music expert or critic.

Labels: California, music, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 10:59 PM 7 comments

Cherry Blossoms

Also known as "sakura", the beautiful pink little cherry blossoms have come into full bloom recently. Luckily I was able to take some pictures of the trees just a couple blocks away in the heart of Japantown beside the peace tower.

It was a great excuse to have a festival here and lots of people turned out - totally closing down Post street as kimono garbed ladies and teriyaki beef stands made their presence known.

Labels: California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 8:31 PM 0 comments

China Town

After some interesting interactions with my landlord, I hit the streets of San Francisco and part of my travels took me through China Town. I haven't ventured this way for a while, and this time I took my camera with me to capture the sights. I tried to time this one to catch the elusive yellow light.

On the way back, somewhere up on nob or russian hill, I found this little traditional ice cream shop that makes their own product - and it was absolutely delicious. I was so impressed that the first thing I did when I got home was post a review on Google maps.

Labels: California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 2:12 AM 2 comments

Disneyland Dreams

I have returned from my company sponsored foray into the wonderful world of Disney. The trip was definitely a blast! I got to go on all the rides for both Disneyland and California Adventure (the new adult friendly park owned by Disney) and hit a couple shows as well. My favourites were the haunted mansion, the hollywood hotel, the space mountain "in the dark" rollercoaster, and the Indiana Jones temple adventure ride. I definitely recommend checking those out if you go.

The only thing that was not as great as I expected was the food. Now they had amazing stacks and racks full of so much crazy candy that I almost went blind but as far as proper food they only really had snacky food. To supplement this I purchased a tin of Pringles, and a V8 at a local convenience store.

Now after a full day of trekking through the land of happiness, Dalban (who joined on the trip) felt like taking a rest so we walked back to our hotel. After watching the Super Tuesday results start to come in, we headed back out to get the party started.

We were treated to great buffet food and open bars. I had a smattering of different drinks, including a triple Courvoisier on the rocks. I didn't feel too affected by the alchohol, but I think that comes with the effect of stomping beats and mashing bodies in a seething mass of dance. However, video evidence obtained by a fellow coworker proved otherwise, and she kindly entertained my other coworkers with footage of my dance moves.

Who'd have thought that I would get caught dancing under the influence at Disneyland?

On the way back from the party we decided to walk this female coworker back to her hotel, seeing as it was after 1am and she had quite a bit to drink. Well while we were on our way, trying to find her hotel, we had a run in with the law... a squad car pulled up along side us as we walked on the sidewalk and stopped.

The officer rolled down his window and asked us if we had been drinking that night. Of course we answered that yes we had. He then proceeded to ask us if we knew what we had done wrong. Of course we answered that we did not. Well long story short, he accused us of having run through a red light, which none of the three of us believed that we had. In any case, we just agreed with him and apologized because he threatened to take us down to the station if we continued to lie to the police. He gave us a warning and we hurried her on her way via taxi while we made it back without further incident.

Anyway nothing bad happened but it was a shocking incident nonetheless.

Labels: business trip, California, Los Angeles

posted by Blight @ 5:20 PM 6 comments

Going to Winnipeg...

Actually, this plane isn't going to Winnipeg. It's going to Disneyland! Forgive the allusion to the famous Canadian Tire advertisement.

Anyways, my employer has seen fit to send me and a few of my coworkers down to the magic kingdom for a week of fun. I don't think we'll be doing any work down there, other than bonding with each other over the course of our stay.

The best part: the park should be child free during our stay!

I have no complaints - and I plan to diligently enjoy this business trip!

Labels: business trip, California, Los Angeles

posted by Blight @ 1:53 AM 11 comments

Homework, ants, games, work

Somehow I managed to get a lot of unrelated things all worked together over the past few days:

• Translating an article from Korean to English
• Dealing with swarms of ants in my apartment (the nightmares I have had recently I tell you!)
• Finishing "Shadow Hearts", a game my parents got for me for Christmas about 6 years ago
• Getting a cold/flu from my team leader
• Eating lots of chocolate chip cookies
• Driving around Oahu in "Test Drive Unlimited"

Also, I no longer think ants are cute.

Labels: California

posted by Blight @ 10:06 PM 6 comments

Space Time

Last night I took my place in a fleet of tour buses to attend the annual holiday festivities put on by one of the disruptive forces in the bay area. A series of tents had been transformed into futuristic and retro space discos and lounges. The DJs were spinning, the live band was rocking, and the bars were open. Not to mention the exquisite culinary delicacies that accompanied the liquid offerings.

There were three main rooms, all connected by a central airlock. The two largest were the blue (live band) and orange (DJ), and the third room was a chill lounge where people could mingle and the lines for the facilities were the smallest.

Everyone was dressed up, except for a few poor souls who either missed the suggested attire detailed in the invitation, or who just didn't feel like changing out of that T-shirt that managed to get them this far in the week.

I had a great time, and definitely appreciated the event.

Labels: California

posted by Blight @ 12:41 PM 4 comments

Obama

Yesterday we had another amazing guest at work: Barack Obama!

I think it would be pretty cool if he became The President. I know I'm not the only one thinking about "24" when I imagine Barack in office.

You can watch the video of the event here. (YouTube video)

Labels: California, YouTube

posted by Blight @ 2:53 PM 4 comments

Tony Bennett

Today I had the extreme pleasure of hearing Tony Bennett speak, and witness him perform live, at work! How lucky is that?!

He had a lot of interesting things to say about the arts and how there should be more focus on arts in schools. He has put his money where his mouth is and recently founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts public school in New York with his wife.

After hearing from Tony, he let loose with a couple numbers, and dedicated his last song "Kiss the Good Life Goodbye" to Britney Spears.

Now I am seriously thinking about dipping into the Sony-Columbia catalogue and picking up some Tony Bennett.

Labels: California

posted by Blight @ 6:33 PM 1 comments

Earthquake in SF Bay Area

Yesterday marked my entry into the not too terribly exclusive club of earthquake survivors. We had a quake, 5.6 on the yowza meter, and I definitely felt it in San Francisco.

It was pretty scary since it took me a moment to realize what was going on. The floor was swaying and my TV started wobbling. It felt like I was on a pirate ship, minus the pirates. My first thought was to stop my TV from wobbling, the second was if it was going to get worse and how long it would last. It didn't last long, maybe 10 seconds, but it was an experience I will remember.

I just hope that I don't get to experience anything stronger. Otherwise I may just need to get myself one of these, a free-rolling earthquake-friendly house.

EDIT: I found this interesting quote about not getting upset over little things, although now I don't have a car...

"Don't get upset when you do get a speeding ticket, just remember it's only one ticket for the hundreds of times you were actually speeding."

Labels: California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 3:40 PM 0 comments

Family Reunion in San Francisco

My parents came down to San Francisco a couple weeks ago and we had a great time.

On the weekend we toured around together and took in an art museum as well as the Blue Angels flying over the Golden Gate bridge. During the week they enjoyed exploring the city while I worked, and we shared California wine when I came back to my apartment.

Unfortunately they had to rough it on an inflatable mattress that left them a little closer to the floor in the morning than the night before, but I did my best to provide clean sheets and keep my Xbox 360 noises to a dull roar.

Fortunately, my mom was able to take the week off, and my dad was able to work remotely.

I'm glad we were able to share exploring San Francisco together, and have our thanksgiving pumpkin pie too!

Labels: California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 1:48 AM 1 comments

Water skiing on the 4th of July

This morning was the start of a holiday, the fourth of July, but instead of sleeping in I started it by waking up pretty early.

I drove down to my coworker's house and after all of his friends showed up, we headed out. First we grabbed some snacks, sandwich supplies, beer and wine at the local organic grocer and then we started or journey to Bethel harbour.

The drive was fun, I occupied myself by listening to the conversation between the two girls sitting in the back of the open coupe. They were talking about why they don't want to get married and settled down... girl stuff. After about an hour and fifteen minutes, we arrived at the harbour and headed down to the dock with our goodies.

We loaded the boat up and started out into the deltas. Soon we were wake boarding (like snowboarding), skiing, and tubing. I got up on my third attempt, and had a good time crossing over the wake and not falling down. My coworker was amazing - like a real professional - doing tricks and jumps.

At the midpoint of our day we docked in the middle of nowhere and broke out the sourdough baguettes, fat tire beer, and white wine. We ate and drank, and indulged in a little bit of horseplay as well. It was a lot of fun swimming around in the fresh water, the temperature was just perfect, and the water wasn't overloaded with watercraft.

On the way back we stopped by the Mexican equivalent of a greasy spoon and satiated our hunger. Then we enjoyed watching the 4th of July fireworks on our way back into the bay area. All in all, it was a great way to spend the day!

-- brief aside:

Unfortunately one of the girls was injured when she fell from water skiing. I checked her out with my bronze-cross skills, and I couldn't feel any broken bones, but she thought she may have torn some ligaments. In any case she was in quite a bit of pain, but selfishly we didn't take her directly to the hospital. She didn't convey that she was in as serious pain as I think she may have been experiencing, and that led the rest of the group to think she was okay. In any case she survived until we got back and then she drove herself to the hospital.

Labels: California

posted by Blight @ 1:37 AM 3 comments

San Francisco Walking

Yesterday I drove down to San Francisco south pacific heights area to take a look at an apartment. A co-worker's friend was looking for a roommate and I had not had a chance to look at any places yet so it seemed like coming down to the city was a great idea.

Of course, before heading out I used Google maps to find my route, but I also used "Street View" (link to youtube video) mode to actually look at the front of the building. Now that feature is amazing!

If you have not tried "Street View" out yet, I think you'll be very impressed. Check it out!

After taking a look at the apartment, which was really nice, I took a gander at the surrounding area. There was a jazz festival going on down Fillmore street, which I briefly enjoyed before taking a stroll down Post through the heart of Japan town. After picking some Pocky (a Japanese snack) up, I walked down Laguna all the way to Market.

Up Market through the heart of downtown to Grant, up Grant through the heart of Chinatown to North Beach's Little Italy where I had brunch with a friend. Then I walked all the way to Harbour Front for some Afghani dessert with Dalban and his missus before sauntering over to his place. We had a little Wii party, drank some beer, sake, and ate some delicious chocolate chip banana bread.

Finally I walked back to my vehicle (on the other side of the very steep hill known as Pacific Heights) and headed home.

Detailed path available on maps through this link. You could follow along in a virtual tour of my walk using "Street View"... if I haven't plugged that enough yet.

My feet aren't sore yet, but I have a feeling my legs may be tomorrow.

Labels: California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 12:01 PM 3 comments

TGIF

Today was my first TGIF - a weekly party that my employer throws for all employees. As a new employee, I got the privilege of wearing a beany hat and a placard with "fun facts" about me on it. All this PLUS free beer!

Really though, the most exciting part was seeing the company founders live in person. When I went to grab my beer, they were grabbing THEIR beer, and no more than a metre in front of me!

Finally the weekend is here, and I'll be travelling to San Francisco proper for a look at prospective residences. I also hope to pick up a cellphone (probably not an iPhone), meet up with friends, and have fun!

How are you planning on spending your weekend?

Labels: California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 9:16 PM 3 comments

New Beginning

First of all, some fairly huge news: my Toronto working life is on hiatus, as I have resigned and taken a position at another company.

Secondly, you may notice that I have added a disclaimer to my blog. Although it should be obvious, it is needed for legal reasons to make it clear that any content expressed here are my views and are not necessarily shared by my current employer.

Sunday night I successfully made it through USA customs and immigration's secondary screening area (also known as the zone where dreams are crushed and hopes are dashed) without being turned away with tears streaming down my face - as was the case for the half dozen people ahead of me - and hopped on a flight to San Francisco. Mere hours later I would be starting my first day of my California working life at the #1 company for tech hopefuls in the world.

It has been exciting and delicious so far. The free gourmet food has been the most apparent perk, but the 30" LCD screens don't hurt either.

Unfortunately aside from those details I cannot divulge anything further due to the sensitive nature of my work.

I have a lot of immigration and relocation issues to work through... my temporary housing only lasts for 30 days.

Labels: business trip, California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 8:33 AM 4 comments

Horrifying Zombie State

On the run up to the executive briefing for a major grocery company, I found myself working 13-16 hour days. That included working over the weekend, and driving back to Pleasanton from SF in the wee hours of the morning.

I arrived at the Pleasanton Hilton just in time to get some sleep before waking up Monday to work more than 30 hours in a row without any sleep. You may have seen 28 days later, or be thinking about watching 28 weeks later. Well let me tell you that while both of those are scary, 28 hours later isn't much better.

My coworker and I found ourselves playing chicken with the negative productivity zone, and occasionally we would break out into giddy laughter over something mundane like the "don't rock the pop machine" sticker. I'm not sure what my manager thought of all that, but he managed to retain his composure and let us get it out of our system. We were all huddled around a tiny desk in my manager's hotel room, my coworker and I having wheeled the chairs from our rooms over.

It was intense, and while a good bonding experience (comrade-in-arms), it was not something I would like to re-experience immediately.

In the end we were very successful, and it felt rewarding, but now I'm in San Jose (just ate lunch here at Don Don) doing another customer pre-sales educational activity. This time I will be explaining our programming model and how you can expose pieces using web-services.

Hopefully I eventually find my way back home. I ran out of clean clothing a week or two ago.

EDIT: Just ate supper with Dalban, we went to Gooyi Gooyi, and had the best marinated korean bbq I've eaten in a long time. Tomorrow I get a ride to Cupertino to sell my wares.

Labels: business trip, California

posted by Blight @ 6:13 PM 5 comments

Back in San Francisco - Westin St. Francis

I find myself in San Francisco again, continuing my travels around California. Now I'm staying at the "Westin St. Francis", the oldest hotel in SF. I'm staying in the historic wing, which means that everything is old. In some ways it is cool because the hallways and doors look like something out of an old 1930s detective movie. In other ways it is annoying because the hallways smell like mothballs.

It is quite obvious that the place is pricey, and I wouldn't be staying there on my own dime. I recommend dropping by for coffee though.

Labels: business trip, California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 10:00 PM 3 comments

Hollywood - Happy Madison

Here you can see the Happy Madison offices for Adam Sandler, and his sweet ride.

Labels: business trip, California, Los Angeles

posted by Blight @ 2:35 AM 4 comments

Hollywood - Santa Monica

If you look closely at the full image above, you can make out the iconic Hollywood sign off in the distance. We took a drive out to the sign to take the requisite tourist photographs of it.

Then we drove off to Pink's, the most famous hot dog stand in LA. I had a Rosie O'Donnell 10" stretch chili dog with sauerkraut. It was delicious, and the price was very reasonable. Although the lines were quite long, it was totally worth it.

After eating we went out to Santa Monica beach and strolled out on the pier. I lathered up with some sunscreen this time, I had a bit of a burn from the previous day. I guess I wasn't ready for all the sun they get down here.
Finally time caught up to us and we had to head back on I-5 to Pleasanton... this time it only took us 5 hours. It was a great little break.

Now off to bed and back to work!

Labels: business trip, California, Los Angeles

posted by Blight @ 3:41 AM 5 comments

Hollywood

I had a big post but Blogger ate it. So I'll keep it short and sweet. I hit Beverly Hills (pictured above), Rodeo Drive, the Sony Pictures International Headquarters, and Korea town.

Cameras were not allowed on the movie lot, so I had to secretly snap this picture of a huge inflatable spider man mounted on the side of a sound stage.

I saw Brad Pitt's trailer (he's working on a new movie... about a boat and snow - secret stuff) and Adam Sandler's pimped out golf cart.

Oh, and when I walked up to the famous Chinese theatre in the morning, after eating breakfast at the Saddle Ranch Chop Shop (warning it's noisy), I found my star on the walk of fame.

Labels: business trip, California, Los Angeles

posted by Blight @ 4:45 AM 5 comments

Cali Coast

Yesterday I drove down the California coast on a twisty-turny trip from silicon valley to Las Angeles with my co-worker. The view was spectacular, but it was definitely the slow scenic route. Blind turns and the threat of plunging over cliff edges kept us well within the posted speed limits.

We stopped pretty often to enjoy the view, snap some pictures, and say hi to the elephant seals.

The throttle opened up a bit once we got closer to LA, and we made the trip in a total of 10 hours.

We're staying at a nice hotel on Sunset Blvd in west Hollywood. Last night we walked up and down the strip and saw blinged-out babes in crazy-tight jeans, richy-riches with status-symbol sports cars, and a good share of wannabes.

Today I'm meeting up with an old school buddy who will be showing me around the local movie studio. Maybe I'll catch a glimpse of someone's trailer...

Labels: business trip, California

posted by Blight @ 1:45 PM 1 comments

Pleasanton Remix

Well I'm back in Pleasanton again. This is trip number 3 down here, and hopefully the adage of "the third time's the charm" will prove true. This emergency opportunity is huge, strategic, and unfortunately ripped me away from my long-awaited Las Vegas trip.

So far everything is going great, and my team was treated to some high-class Mexican dining. Right beside the neon sign pictured above is the "Blue Agave Club", where I tried a tasty dish called mole poblano. Mole poblano is a tender boneless breast of chicken, stewed for hours in a dark rich sauce made with chocolate, chilies, seeds and nuts. Hungry yet?

I'm not sure if I'll be able to return to Toronto for the weekend - this is a long haul march - but I'm doing my best to finish all my tasks early. Otherwise my babies might die while I'm gone!

Labels: business trip, California

posted by Blight @ 11:49 PM 2 comments

Cold Welcome

I flew in from San Francisco last night, and this time I was prepared for the cold weather. I took a photo from the plane and in the Toronto airport. They have made many improvements to the main terminal - Terminal 1 - which is the home for all of Air Canada's flights.

I can't complain this time because I got to fly business class both ways and no-one stole my luggage. The service was nice, and the food decent. I didn't bother watching "Dream Girls" and played my Nintendo DS instead.

There were some interesting characters in business class. You have the frequent fliers (like me), the upper-crust and comfortable, and the rich glitterati. I'm not sure which category the man behind me fit in, but he seemed to like to hit the back of my seat. But the girl ahead of me and to the right was super glitterati wannabe diva style to the max. She had a diamond ring hat was really 6 diamond rings, with diamonds all around them. Also, she sported snake skin cowboy boots and other cheezy accessories.

After arriving and ignoring the scoopers (undercover drivers trying to get passengers despite having no license), I was just glad to be headed home.

My plants (Thai basil) were still holding on, and intelligent life had not arose out of the dirty dishes in the sink.

AND I had a new game in the mail from Game Access - "Contact". I will write about in at The Game Chair in the near future.

Labels: business trip, California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 10:05 PM 5 comments

California Reprieve

You may or may not have heard of the wicked winter storm that hit Toronto and most of southern Ontario. Freezing rain, trees falling over, power outages, delayed and cancelled flights were all part of the unfortunate mess we found ourselves in here in Toronto. In fact the police had to close Front street because of huge pieces of ice falling from the CN Tower.

In addition to the effects of weather, we're also dealing with a severe fuel shortage which has left almost every gas station displaying a "00.0" - unfortunately meaning no gas, not free gas.

Fortunately, I'm heading back to California tonight (if my flight isn't cancelled) and I'll be able to enjoy the warmer weather there for a couple days. It's for work, a re-visit of the last stint I pulled there, and this one will be much more intense.

Essentially I'm responsible for doing a 4 hour programming content style bake-off versus several major competitors. This would be challenging enough but I have to deal with this little extra: my every move will be projected on a screen in front of the decision makers.

To the Pearson International Airport!

Labels: business trip, California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 5:41 PM 4 comments

Happy Lunar New Year!

Tonight I celebrated the lunar new year at the Empress of China restaurant with Dalban and his circle of friends. We were actually already stuffed from eating handmade noodle soup and dumplings at a Korean restaurant in Sunnyvale's Korean town, so the two of us barely touched the dishes but the rest of the group made short work of them. I love fortune cookies so I made sure to grab one before they were all gone. My fortune is pictured above, and I'm pretty satisfied with it. One question though, why does it say "will be" ?? I kid.

Then we tried to hit a local bar on Grant street, the heart of the famous San Francisco China Town, but it was full of creepy old men in trench coats. Occasionally one would wander out to the door, fish something out of his coat, and throw it into the street.

BOOM!

I thought it was a gun shot, but it was just a firecracker.

We wrote fortunes for each other on pieces of paper, stuffed them in red decorative envelopes, and randomly handed them out at midnight. My fortune said "Porky was a pig, and look how far it got him. Where's the yayo?" but I have no idea what that means. The funniest was "When the sunshine hits your face and wakes you in the morning you will find a black thong on the floor." I wrote a nice one for whoever got it, with a cute drawing of a happy pink pig.

Happy lunar new year!

Labels: business trip, California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 6:12 AM 4 comments

Dining at Google

Last night I met up with Dalban and had a delicious meal at the Cheesecake Factory before heading back to his place in Palo Alto. That was just a prelude to the amazing buffet of "smart water", organic beverages, food, and geek-core tech goodies that surrounded me during my visit to the Google campus today.

Google has a ton of buildings down in Mountain View, CA. We signed in and met up with Dalban's UVic buddy who proceeded to show us just how cool the work environment here is. It's very social, very convenient, and very tempting. I admit that I was filled with a reasonable amount of geek-envy at the multiple 22" widescreen LCD monitors and machines adorning each workstation.

The social atmosphere reminded me of my time in highschool when I shared an art studio with Derelict. These days my own team is so often working on disparate projects that we need a weekly bulletin just to realize what each other is doing. Personally, I would love the kind of collaboration that seems so ingrained at the Googleplex.

Benefits that stood out:

• Google shuttle service equipped with wireless Internet to commute from San Francisco
• 20% flex time to work on your own projects
• No questions asked hardware requisitioning; want another 22", no problem
• Smart and motivated co-workers
• Working on some of the illest and newest tech and web solutions
  
• 360 degree peer reviews influencing bonus payout
• On site haircuts, oil changes, and $5 massages
• Free food, beverages, and electric scooter rides from building to building
• Being able to invite buddies over to "visit" and enjoy the free food too!
  

The weather is pretty nice down here too... no need for a jacket these days, it feels like late spring, early summer, at least for Edmonton.

Tonight and tomorrow I'll probably head over to the city (San Francisco) to check out the Lunar New Year (it's not really CHINESE new year - other cultures recognize it too) festivities.

One note of caution... if you searched on Google's website today, I might have seen it. You see, they have a wall where they project the current searches people are submitting, filtered for obvious nasty words I assume. It was pretty neat seeing searches coming in from all over the world, it really hit home to me just where I was.

Labels: business trip, California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 5:57 PM 6 comments

Snowstorm Avoided - Pleasanton, California

From snowstorm to peaceful serenity, I managed to barely escape the rumbling dump of snow hitting southern Ontario and catch a flight to the solace of San Francisco last night.

I was rather lucky because it seemed that half of all flights were cancelled. Likely because they were unable to make it in from their origins in the storm affected regions of the USA.

I arrived around 11:30pm, drove my Neverlost GPS enabled Ford Taurus for a good 30 minutes (doubling back a couple times for good measure), and arrived at the Hilton Pleasanton just in time to spend Valentine's day alone in an unfamiliar city.

Today will be an intense set of preparation for my 90 minute blitz with my customer tomorrow. Then I plan to stay a couple nights hanging out with Dalban, probably going out for Korean food at some point. Although I'm sure that in California the Mexican food is a must-try. Oh! I can't forget to revisit the delicious In-and-out Burger!!

Labels: business trip, California, San Francisco

posted by Blight @ 12:38 PM 4 comments