California

Shutdown 2006 - Day 8 to 12 - My Grand Exit

2006-07-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

**I am not updating this blog anymore. Please peruse the 76 posts below and relive my California experience from May 2005 to June 2006*

Today we drove through the desert from San Diego to Las Vegas. As I sat in our Ferrari I reflected not only on the past 8 days but the past 13 months as well. This internship has changed my life. What has been seen cannot be unseen. I think back to the grueling 3rd year of Engineering Science and I think about how determined I was to land this job. I skipped tests to make sure I was fully prepared for the interviews! And I certainly do not regret a thing. Once I got the job and flew to California, I spent the next 13 months making sure this would be the best experience of my life. And as I barrel down I-15, I realize I reached my goal. As the the sun beats down off the red rocks of the Mohave Desert chilling with my best friend Chris I am so happy and proud of what I have accomplished.

As I see the Nevada welcome signs I realize this is the last moment in the golden state. But it's OK because I realize that I am truly the "Caliroger" and I will bring this extroidinary experience to everything I touch for the rest of my life.

Let the celebration begin!!!

As you approach the city, you can start seeing the massive hotels along the trip. At the south end of the strip, you can see the Mandalay Bay first (Below). This is a very luxurious hotel. To stay here, you need to have money.Just north of Mandalay Bay is the Luxor (Below). This hotel is simply amazing. It is the 2nd largest hotel in Las Vegas with slightly less rooms than the MGM grand. The entire Pyramid is completely hollow with rooms only along the side. They have the "inclinator" to get you up the pyramid to your room. In the center there is a huge casino.
Next up is Excalibur (Below). Actually, Mandalay Bay, The Luxor and The Excalibure are all owned by the same organization. You can take a mono-rail between all 3 hotels. This theme of this hotel is magic and scorcery. It's a really cool Hotel.
The shopping centers in Vegas are amazing. Each and every hotel in Las Vegas has a Casino, a large pool, a night club, and shopping mall. Below is ths "Forum Shops" that are part of Ceasers Palace.
We stated the Imperial Palace. Right across the street to the IP is Ceasers Palace. Just north of Ceasers is The Mirage (Below). This is where Sigfried and Roy keep their lions and where they perform. I walked through here and there are some white tigers that look amazing. We also went to "JET" nightclub in The Mirage and it was really nice in there.
One of the newest Hotel Casino/resort is the "Wynn" (Below). This was named after the Casino developer Steven Wynn. This building is one of the tallest buildings in Las Vegas and stands at aproximately 60 stories. It was built under by a contractor. This Casino was structured together so that
And you can't forget the fountains of Bellagio below!

Shutdown 2006 - Day 5 to 8 - San Diego

2006-07-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

This blog is about the San Diego Section of the trip. Below is Emerald Bay. We just randomly stopped along the highway and hiked through to the shore. I can't believe people live here. It's insane. We were driving from Newport Beach to San Diego. We stopped at Pacific Mall in Laguna Beach.We got to San Diego just before Sun Set. Our first stop is La Jolla. This is one of my most favorite places. La Jolla means The Jewel in spanish. This places is considered the Jewel of San Diego. It's like Beverly Hills but for San Diego.
You can walk over the cliffs along the side. It's really cool.
Chris catching the sunset.
Me catching the sunset.
San Diego is a huge Military city. There is a huge Navy Port and a there is Miramar where they train the fighter pilots. About 1/4th of the economic structure is completely related to defense spending.
Here is Jon, Chris and Alex Noble and Myself. This was on the way to Corando Island. This is a peninsula out into the San Diego Bay. It has a beautiful beach with the warmest water I could find on the west coast. They have a famous hotel/resort on the beach. It's called "The Hotel Del Coronado" or they call it "The Del". We got some icecream there. And hands down, it's the best ice cream I have ever had! The don't sell Icecream, the sell Frozen Dreams!
Simand was driving!

I wanted to put this picture below for a reason. This was on our way out of San Diego through the Mojave Desert. This was the last time I was in California!

Shutdown 2006 - Day 2 to 4 - The City of Angels

2006-06-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

Crusin down highway 1 through Malibu. This is the beach in the show Baywatch. We were on our way from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. There were lots of surfers out on the water along this stretch and we were able to see some dolphins jumpin in the water too. The Highway 1 goes right through the 27 mile stretch of Malibu beach front. The houses in the hills are homes to many entertainment stars. Below is one of the beaches we stopped at.
Just beyond Malibu we enter into Los Angeles County. First stop was the Famous Santa Monica Pier. This place is pretty cool. You can see below all the stuff they got on the pier. Restaurants, Arcades, Museums, and Rides. It's crazy. This is also a good spot to get tickets for the different shows in Hollywood that you can sit in on. We got tickets for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. LOL, and Snoop Dogg was on it. Jokes..
Below is another cool picture of Santa Monica State Beach. After Santa Monica we went in-land to Hollywood. We did the usual Kodak Theatre, Hollywood Sign and Chinese Grauman Theatre.
After we saw the taping of the Late Late show down at the CBS studios we headed over to Venice Beach. This is really cool, and I didn't know about this until I visted Venice beach this time that they actualy have canals! One of the builders/owners back in 1905 built a bunch of canals to drain out the marchy lands that used to exist there. Afterwards they built a lot of structurs with an Italian style and kept the canals. They called it the Venice of America. Below you can see one of the canals.
Once you get out onto the actual Venice Beach, also known as Muscle beach cause there are a lot of people on the beach lifting weights, it's really really nice. They have all kinds of activites on the beach you can do, basketball courts, skateboard parks, and even walls and structures meant to grafitti on.
Off in the distance we could see a huge mass of people on the beach and we couldn't see what they were doing. So we decided to head over to check it out. To our suprise we found a huge drum party. Everyone came to the beach and brought a drum instrument with them. And they just kept the beat going and going and going... It was really amazing.
Afterwards, we spent the night out on the town. Hollywood has some pretty good clubs and bars on Sunset and Hollywood Blvd.

The next day we headed south of the city and got a hotel in Orange County. Orange county is the county right below Los Angeles County. The most famous city there is Newport Beach where they film the OC. Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach are also in the OC. We hit the beach and played some Vollyball. So much fun.
Below is the famous Newport Pier.
Here is the group of us catching the beautiful west coast sun set. It was amazing !
Before leaving LA we stopped by Beverly Hills. This is where all the movie stars live. It's a really beutiful area. Below is Beverly Hills Highschool. It was really nice. What I found interesting is the backdrop of coporate america. After this we drove down the street to Rodeo Drive.
Lastly, We grabbed a beer from the Manhattan Beach Brewing Company. The beer here was pretty good.

LA is made up of many boroughs much like New York City is made up of Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn..... Along the coast some big ones are Santa Monica, Venice, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Rodondo beach. Inland you have Burbank, Hollywood, Pasadena, Inglewood, Compton, Torrance, and the list goes on... This city is really huge. You can see why this is a really good example of urban sprawal.

Shutdown 2006 - Day 1 - Santa Barbara

2006-06-23T06:10:00.000-07:00

The company I work for shuts down for a week in the summer for everyone to have a vacation and usually this is the perfect opportunity to do some travelling. We have spent an entire month with the new interns that have come to replace us while we go back to school and we hvae been rallying them to come on the big Shut Down Trip. Since today was also my last day of work, I do not have to come back to work after the trip. So, we have decided to extend the trip and use it to travel accross America while the rest of the new interns head back to the bay area. The plan is to make it to Dallas and fly back to Toronto from Dallas. My buddy Chris and I will take 17 days for the trip which is amazing!!!!

Itinerary:
Day 1 - Drive from San Francisco to Santa Barbara
Day 2-4 - Spend 3 days in LA
Day 5-7 - Spend 3 days in San Diego
Day 8-12 - Spend 5 days in Las Vegas
Day 13 - Spend the day in Grand Canyon and Phoenix
Day 14 - The whole day is spent traveling from Phoenix to San Antonio
Day 15 - Spend the day in Corpus Christi, Texas
Day 16 - Spend the day in Austin, Texas
Day 17 - Spend the day in Dallas, Texas and fly home

Day 1 - Highway #1 and Santa Barbara

My buddy Chris arrived the night before in San Francisco and we had a chance to check out a small number of the sites around the city like the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street. We slept in a bare apartment that night because I was completely moved out!!! After the trip I was moving back to Toronto. We woke up early that morning to meet up with the rest of the new and old interns that were going on the trip. We had 5 cars total heading south for the trip and we were all excited. Chris, Alex S, Alex N and myself hopped into the "ferrari" and headed south to Monterey where we picked up Highway #1. The clouds were rolling over the coastal hills and it looked pretty cool:
We headed south from Monterey along the coast. This takes us through Big Sur State Park and it's beautiful. This is probably the most scenic portion of the Highway #1 drive. Although most of the drive is very very scenic and I would recommend driving along it at any spot you can. I took this picture at a random location along the highway cause I thought it was nice.
As we were driving along the highway, I don't know how Chris saw this but in the distance through the trees he saw a waterfall. So we stopped the car and hiked through the forest. And sure enough he was right and we found this huge waterfall and pool. This is the first "Ill Nana" of the trip. So we decided to do some swiming and check out behind the waterfall. Check out the cool pics:

We ended up climbing to the top of the waterfall to get an excellent photo and view of the pool below. You always need to do a little exploring to find the real gems of each place you travel to because a lot of the time, they are off the beaten path. We packed up and kept heading south and then we happen to see some strange things on the beach and we didn't know exactly what it was. So we stopped and got out and the beach was covered with Elephant Seals. I had never seen so many in one spot just laying and soaking in the sun. This was "Ill Nana" number two! We were off to a good start of the trip.
After following the coast we made it to Santa Barbara for the sun set. This is by far my favorite city in California. It is nestled on the coast between the beach and the green hills. It faces south-east so the sun sets behind the city instead of on the water. Here is a great pic of Chris and I when we arrived.
Another great thing about Santa Barbara is that it has a very vibrant night life. We were very excited and we quickly cleaned up for a night on the town. This day was definitely a great start to a great trip! Ill NANA!

Monterey

2006-06-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

Sonia, Marcus and I took a day trip down to Monterey. Montery is about 1.5 hours south from the bay area and about 45 min south of Santa Cruz. The weather was beautiful and we got out and roamed around the city. There are a few main attractions such as Cannery Row. Cannery Row started when Chinese Fisherman settled in the area. The fishing industry turned into a canning industry in the early 1900s. And during WWI the demand for canned food exploded. The main canned goods were Sardines.
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck told of the exploits of a band of bums on Cannery Row, surrounded by bordellos, flophouses, a Chinese grocery store and the laboratory of a man who, in reality, was quietly revolutionizing modern marine biology: Ed Ricketts - the "Doc" of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.Another intersting fact is that Monterey used to be the capital of California from 1777 to 1849 under the Mexico and Spain flag. Only on July 7th, 1846 did the American Navy seize Monterwy and raise the American flag.
I found this great picture of Monterey and I thought I would share it.

San Luis Obispo

2006-06-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

San Luis Obispo is a cool place on the west coast 3 hours south of San Fran and about an hour north of Santa Barbara. We ended up going here last summer 2005. It is also the home of CalPoly Technic which is a fairly famous technology school. Andrew had a friend of the family living here renting houses to the students and we were lucky enough that no one was renting their house at the moment and we stayed there for a night. It worked out very well. A very popular thing to do in SLO is to go out on the sand dunes with dune buggies or ATV's. We chose ATVs. These are Honda 250ex's which is a midclass size that you can rent. We took them out on the sand dunes for about 2 hours.
These things are pretty cool. Check us all out in a line. We were whipping around the san dunes all day. They are really bumpy and later we would suffer much soreness in our lower back afterwards.
Check out Marcus flying off a little sand dune and getting some air. We ended finding a few different small jumps that we got air off of and I have never seen a crazy fall like Andrew did. I can't believe he got up. Good thing no on got seriously hurt. And I am particularily happy that I did not get hurt because I did not have any HEALTH INSURANCE! It was fairly risky not to have it.
Jonathan is part of a fraternity back in Toronto and we spent the night hanging out at their frat house. It was good to get to know some locals and they told us where we could find the nude beach called Pirates Cove. You can see it below in the picture. Don't go their unless you want to see old men that look like leather. I warn you..
The coast line is very beautiful on this stretch between Santa Barbara and Monterey. I really like it. The beach here was very long and wide. We spent the afternoon soaking up the sun.
Up north about 43 miles there is a place called Hearst Castle. This is the home of the legendary William Rudolph Hearst who was a newspaper mogul. I suggest you read up on this guy, he is pretty interesting. The movie Citizen Kane written by Orsen Welles is loosely based on Hearst's life story.

Thanks Marcus for the pics and the info form your blog.

Highway #1

2006-06-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

When Michelle came down in October 2005, one of the places we went to was Monterey and 17 Mile Drive. I already posted some pics from the first time I went there with Marcus so I won't talk about that. However, when Michelle and I were heading back to San Francisco I drove a stretch of highway #1 that I haven't driven before. That is from Santa Cruz to San Francisco (Highway #1 goes over the Golden Gate Bridge). The coastline is utterly amazing and as we Drove north along highway 1 I snapped some great shots. The first one below is from the Highway 1 itself, the others I took while we stopped along the way. Please scrool through them and check them out.

I did want to put this picture up from 17 Mile Drive. As you drive through it, the road is pretty windy and all the houses are up in here. It's pretty cool.

Memorial Day

2006-06-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day, the time to remember the men and women who died in military service for their country. We used this 3 day weekend to party in the Arizona Desert and celebrate the beginning of summer.
The Hoover Damn is only one of 50 or so damns along the Colorado River. Behind the Hoover Damn is now Lake mead which is a huge reservoir that literally transforms the desert into a wet oasis. If you follow the Colorado down furthur into Arizona you come across a similar Oasis called Lake Havasu. You can see in the picture below the Arizona desert horison with the blueish green Colorado River running through it.
Every Memorial Day, thousands flock from the surrounding states packing beer, bathing suits and boats and turn this desert oasis into one of the biggest parties of the year. And we can assure you, that we did not miss this opportunity.
8 of us grabbed two rental cars and all our camping gear and heading 8 hours through the night to Lake Havasu on the Arizona California Border.
I could not believe the number of people there. We set up our camp on an island in the middle of the Colorado River. And we got our party on.
Here is Potapov with some lovely pasty white ladies. LOL>
One interesting thing is the London Bridge we used to cross the River onto our camp site. The story is that back in 1960's, England discovered that the "London Bridge Is Falling Down". So they put the bridge up for Auction. Lake Havasu ended up winning the bid and they started the process of taking it apart and shipping the bridge across the world to Lake Havasu where it was reconstructed. Below you can see the bridge.
On our way back, we drove through Las Vegas. Gotta love this place. We hit the Bellagio for some Memorial Day Buffet!!! mm good.

San Francisco

2006-06-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

Michelle came down from Toronto late April and early May. We travelled all over the state, and of course went to San Fran. San Francisco is one of the nicest and unique cities on the west coast. I always check out the Golden Gate whenever I can. Here is Michelle hanging out on the north side of San Francisco Bay. The Bridge connects San Fran on the south to Sausalito to the north.The Golden Gate Bridge was the largest suspencion bridge ever constructed when it was completed in 1937 and it is an internationally recognized symbol of San Fran. Coming here also reminds me of Prof. Collins in our Civil Engineering class in First Year. We studied this bridge in depth and we learned how Joseph Strauss Designed and accompolished this great feat. And Prof. Collins was right, there is a life size statue of Strauss on the south side of the bridge and Strauss was a very short man.

Sequoia

2006-06-02T00:13:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Sequoia National Park. It is located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains east of Fresno, California. It was the third national park to be established in the USA in 1890 (the first is Yellowstone, the second is Mackinac National Park). We orginally planned to camp out here at the park but I am really glad that we did not because of the threat of falling trees and of course the 2 feet of snow on the ground !.
This park is well known for the massive trees called Giant Sequoia's (Sequoiadendron giganteum). These trees are in the same family as the Redwood trees (Sequoia sempervirens) we saw on the coast close to Crescent city (See Crater Lake Blog). These trees are usually shorter and fatter than the redwoods on the coast. When these trees fall down due to natural causes, they obviously leave gigantic carcasses. Often, the national park service will simply put the path rought through the dead tree like you see above.

This is General Sherman. This is the largest (by volume) living thing on the planet. Yes, some trees are taller, and yes, some trees have a larger base but this tree is the largest by volume. This tree grows in the Giant Forest which contains 5 out of the 10 largest trees in the world. Another notable tree in the Grant Grove is the General Grant which stands 268 feet tall. President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed this tree the "Nation's Christmas Tree" in 1926. It is also the only living object to be declared a "National Shrine", a memorial to those who died in war, so proclaimed on March 29, 1956 by president Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Here is Michelle and I and the General Sherman. Check out the facts about General Sherman in the picture below. This is one of the places Michelle and I visited when she came.
As we left the part, we were stuck with an excelent view. I didn't know whe had traveled to heights greater than 6,000 feet as we entered the park. As we were driving out, I put my car in neutral and cruised down the mountain. I didn't use the gas at all for about 25 minutes total. we dropped back down to almost seal level.
This was an excellent adventure. I am very happy I got to see this park.

San Diego

2006-05-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

Michelle flew in to town and we planned a whole bunch of stuff to do. I took some time off of work and we headed down to San Diego. The funny thing was that Marcus and his girlfriend Monica were planning the same trip as us. When Michelle landed, we first went to Santa Cruz which is an hour south of Mountain View. We cruised through UCSC and it is very nice. The campus is huge and it is all inside a very beautiful forest. We kept heading south. Our first stop was at Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is my favourite city. That night we met up with Marcus and Monica at Santa Barbara Brewing Company on State Street. Good Beer. We filled up the growler and we had a great time.

The next day we headed to the Santa Barbara beach. We chilled there for awhile, soaking up the sun and then we continued down the coast through Los Angeles. Just south of Los Angeles is Orange County. This is where Huntington Beach, Newport beach and Laguna Beach are located. We enjoyed the sites and sounds of of Orange county this evening and we slept in San Diego that night.

We woke up Saturday morning in San Diego and we headed to the San Diego Zoo. This is a world renouned Zoo and we definetly wanted to check it out. It is located in Balboa Park in San Diego. It boosts more than 4000 animals with 800 species. This particular Orangutan above intrigued me. She was really interested in womens make up and purses. The Orangutan wanted to see inside everyones bags. And she got really excited when you showed her lipstick. We were instructed not to show her cigarettes because she used to be addicted to cigarettes and it would upset her. I thought it was amazing that this animal could be addicted to cigarettes.
The main attraction at the Zoo while we were there was the Panda Bears. There was a huge line to go and see them. They were very lethargic. Panda Bears are in the Bear family and are carnivores, but what is interesting is that their diet is primarily shoots and leaves. They live almost entirely on bamboo. This Zoo is definetly worth checking out. Afterwards we headed a bit north of the Zoo to Old Town San Diego. This was very interested section of the city that exibits what life was like between 1821 and 1872. During this time period, San Diego was California's first Spanish Settlement.
Here is Marcus and I at the Coronado Beach. Coronado is an "Island" in the San Diego bay. There is a huge bridge that will take you over to the island. The beach there is huge and the water is the warmest that you can find on the west coast.

Aferwards we went to crab some food in the Fish Market. The Fish Market offers the widest selection of seafood in the city and we all had some good eats. That night we went out to the gaslamps district to have some fun.
Above is La Jolla. I find this place to be absolutely beautiful. This place is known as the "Jewel" of the Pacific Shoreline.
Here is Myself, Michelle, Hanna, Monica and Marcus. We are on a harbour tour that tours around San Diego Bay. There are two tours you can take. The North and the South. We decided to take the North Tour. There are many interesting facts to learn a long the way. For example, the airport is right downtown San Diego, so all pilots that fly in and out of San Diego have to go through a special program that certifies them in flying very close to large buildings.

That day we started heading back to the bay area. But first, I took a detour through the desert trying to make it to Joshua Tree National Park. Unfortunately, it took a lot longer to get there than I thought so we didn't have time to actually go into the park and explore. I still want to there ! We finally made it back to the bay area very late at night to conclude a very excellent trip!

Crater Lake

2006-05-26T02:29:00.000-07:00

This is our Crater Lake Vacation 2006!!
We left from work at 6:00 PM on Friday night on our way up to Northern California. Our first stop is Chico State! Chico State was rated by playboy as the 2nd best party school in America. Check out the link: PlayBoy
We had a great time in Choc Partying with the Locals. It is about 4 hours away from the Bay Area so we got there in time for the party.
In the morning we kept on treking up north. On our way we encountered Mount Shasta. It is one of the biggest mountains in California. Check it out above. Amazing. After we got around Mount Shasta we encountered a city called Weed. This is a city that is very proud of their name. You can found souvenirs in their gift shops that say "I Love Weed". Anyway, we thought the Cop car picture below was a little amusing.
After we drove through Klamath falls we were starting to get close to Crater Lake. First we saw about a foot of snow on the ground. As we kept on driving, the snow kept getting deeper and deeper. As you can see below the snow depth got very very deep. The snow height was above the height of the car. It was really amazing. Crater Lake is one of the spots in America that get the most snow. Check out how high the snow is compared to our MiniVan below.
We finally reached Crater Lake and we very very Amazed. Crater lake used to be a mountain the existed a long time ago. During a volcanic eruption, the Mountain caved in on itself loosing about 1000 feet of height. The caldera of the Volcano slowly collected water over the years and eventually became known as Crater Lake. This is one of the deepest lakes in North America. The water is really blue!
There is still a lot of snow there at Crater Lake and we could not drive around the caldera. We were able to get a very spectacular view of the lake.
After we saw crater lake we headed out to the Oregon Coast. By the way Crater Lake is in the city of Oregon. We saw some very nice scenery along the way like this river below.
We crossed the border into Northern California in Crescent City and we were able to catch this magnificant sun set. Another interesting fact about crescent city is that it is the only place in North America to suffer a fatality due to Tsunamis. As we drove around northern California we were confronted with many evacuation paths in the case of Tsunamis.
We started heading south down the coast and we confronted the great Redwood forests. One of the spots that we stopped off at was the Pual Bunyan tribute you can see below. We got see some really tall trees.
Some of the trees were so big that you can drive through them. Check out the picture below were we could actually drive through the tree.
We continued to drive down the coast and check out Highway one. After this trip I pretty much drove on evry mile of Highway One in California. It was very amazing. We also stopped in Eureka to see the Lost Coast Brewery were we had some lunch and good beer. The west coast is a very pretty place and this turned out to be a very very great trip!

LA Adventure

2006-05-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

Andrew, Mike, Steve and I headed down to LA this weekend. I used this chance to check out some of the stuff that I havn't seen yet. First, we checked out Grauman Chinese theatre. This is where all the major movie premiers are held. Also, all the actors press their hands into the concrete. I thought R2D2 and C3P0 was pretty cool. Check it out below.
From there we saw the Kodak theatre where every Oscar ceremony has been held and got a good look at the Hollywood sign. We cruised down Rodeo Drive and took Santa Monica Blvd. out to the coast where we hit Venice Beach. Venice Beach is a pretty cool place and some very interesting characters can be found there like the "Worlds Greatest Wine-O" below. All kind of stuff is happening on the beach like the muscle heads pumping iron and a pick-up game of basketball or hand ball.
You can pick up Highway One in Venice beach and head south along the LA coast. You will go underneath LAX and through Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach. The picture below is Redondo Beach. It is very pretty, the peninsula in the distance is Palos Verdes and it is the home of some very rich people.
Heading back into the Down Town Core we got a good view of the Horizon. I posted it below. I really like LA. There is so much of the city to see and do. It is amazing. But ofcourse, the pressure from the auto industry has caused most of LA to become a parking lot in exchange for no public transit. Anyway, below is a good view of the downtown sky line.
The best night life that we could find was in Hollywood. There are many clubs and bars that you can go to. In the morning we woke up for some Famous Roscoe's House of Chicken N Waffles. There is nothing like waking up for some Fried Chicken and butter/syrup drentched Waffles. This place is definetly recommended.
After some waffles we headed through the fashion district in LA and went down to Long Beach. On our way, we went through Compton. We wanted to know where our music was coming from. Ofcourse, it was no where near as bad as it is portrayed we definetly apreaciated the experience. Long beach was not what I expected. It is a huge city in the county of Los Angeles with over 500 thousand people living there. There is a huge long beach there too with people doing all kinds of stuff like flying kites, wind surfing, boogey boarding. We found a good spot to stop and eat and it had a good view of some harbor buildings and some kind of cruise ship. Check out the picture below.
We had a good time exploring the city this weekend. Very fun.

Spring Break 2006

2006-04-27T02:10:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder how you do Spring Break in one weekend? I will tell you...
First you and 3 friends (Marcus, Andrew and Bijan) buy tickets to San Diego on Friday evening about an hour after work is done for the day. From San Diego you rent a Ford Taurus (Make sure you have Mexican Drivers Insurance) and head to Tijuana. Don't stop in Tijuana!!! And drive about 20 miles south to the town of Rosarito. Park the taurus and walk around Rosarito until you find the club with the loudest bass that shakes your body a mile away. Get in there and party. PS.. check out the girls riding the automated bull riding machine...
When the sun starts to rise, get out the camping gear you lugged onto the plane and set up on the beach near the fire and the homeless mexican. If a bunch of mexicans come buy with a case of beer.. Bonus!
Wake up and check out the surroundings. Rosarito is a coastal town with a very nice beach. This is a very popular destination for College students to come during Spring Break because it is very close to San Diego and easily accessible.
Hop in the car and drive down to Peurto Nuevo. This place is about 20 miles south of Rosarito on the coast and it is known for seafood. Especially Lobster.
Look for the seafood restaurant with the long line comming out of it.. Trust me it is worth it. You get a whole lobster for dirt cheap. Just look at that!!!
Head back to Rosarito cause you are missing the action. What would Spring Break be with girls going wild? I thought I would run into Snoop Dogg.
During Spring Break a lot of big headliner musicians come down here to Perform. Xzibit, Gunit, Sean paul... Marcus and I hooked up tickets to see TI peform at one of the clubs. It was $30 to get into to see TI and it was all you can drink. We had a straight up blast there!!!
The next morning (Sunday) wake up and enjoy the city and the mexican food. Grab a burrito and the local eatery and watch the mexican city life pass you by. Head back to Tijuana early cause there will be a super long line to cross the Boarder back to San Diego.
When you get back to San Diego be sure to stop at Pizza Port for some good pizza and craft beers. It was an excellent way to relax sunday evening. Afterwards, go into the Gas Lamp district in San Diego and catch the night life before you head to the Airport. Good think you will be very tired cause you will be sleeping in the terminal until your flight back to the bay area at 6:45 AM. When you arrive back in SF run home and take a shower and be at your desk for Monday!!!

This is the way you do Spring Break. We had such a great time. I won't forget!

Happy Birthday

2006-04-18T00:21:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Amra (March 15th) and Mike (February 29th HOW COOL IS THAT). We got to celebrate a few birthdays while we were here. And ofcourse we had to throw a party for each one of them.
For Amra's Birthday we went out to Ruby Skye downtown San Francisco. Ruby Skye is the nicest club I have ever been to. Stained-glass portraits circa-1814 highlight the club's decor while maintaining an old-school flavor. (The place once housed the historic Stagecoach Theatre.) The lighting system casts an oceanic effect on the dance floor--very Cirque du Soleil feel. We had a lot of fun and we didn't get home to 5 am.
For Mike's party we went out to Delerium Cocktails. This place played some good music and had a nice rock feel to it. The neon sign in front reads: "Service for the Sick." Here you will find all the things that help make great bars: a pool table, pinball machines, rock-and-roll poster art and TV monitors tuned to ESPN. There's also a great back room equipped with vinyl banquettes and a DJ booth. The dance floor was rammed with people. This place was pretty cool.
Happy Birthday Amra and Mike!! We all had a great time.

Mission Peak

2006-04-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

Mission Peak is just outside Fremont, CA. It has an excellent view of the South Bay. In the picture you can see the most southern tip of the San Francisco Bay. And to the left of that is where San Jose is. This is the Heart of Silicon Valley and as your drive around the valley you will see that it is littered with high tech companies.
Jonathan, Marcus and I took the 2 hour hike to the peak in the afternoon. The elevation of the peak is 2,517 feet and the hike is about 5.6 miles long. You climb the elevation pretty quickly. The funny part is that the whole area belongs to a farmer who lets the cows graze all over the mountain side so we had to dodge some cows.
Looking east (instead of west above) you can see the typically rolling hillside California. It is not yet summer so the hills are still green. Normally all the hills turn "gold" in the summer time due to lack of rain. Hence the state is called "The Golden State".

Ofcourse, we stuck around for the sunset over the bay. It was very nice. As we were coming down, you could see all the lights from the bay area and it was amazing. I wish I got some good shots of that. Anyway, Good Hike!

Full House

2006-03-15T21:25:00.000-08:00

The houses in the background are called the Painted Ladies. This is the set of houses that are featured at the beginning of "Full House". Although, this may be one of the lamest shows in history, I bet we all watched it when we grew up. Marcus, Jonathan and Myself walked by here on our way to Toronado Pub down town San Francisco. There was a Barley Wine Festival happening there. We were able to taste some very excellent Barley Wines. I think that Toronado is my place of choice in San Fran. There are great drinks, there is a Pizza Place on the right and a Sausage Factory on the left. Later that evening we met up with Jonathan's Frat Alpha Epsilon Pi at a club on the other side of town. Here is Bijan, Marcus, Jennifer and Myself at the club (I like the blue Haze on the picture).

Great Time!

Lakers

2006-03-03T19:30:00.000-08:00

March 3rd 17 of us went to see Kobe and the Lakers play the Golden State Warriors in Oakland. I have never been to see a NBA game before. It was a lot of fun. Kobe is unbelievable, he doesn't miss any foul shots and he ended up scoring 42 points in the game. Lakers beet Warriors 106 to 94. Golden State play a lot more like a team compared to Lakers. For the lakers it seems like Kobe drives to the net and someone gets the rebound... Everytime. However, I don't know that much about Basketball. Tony, I was thinking of you and Kobe when I was at the game, he is pretty amazing to watch. Golden State Warriors play at the Coliseum in Oakland. We took the BART to the game from Union City. This was only because the traffic was rediculous. It stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit. This was actually the first time I was on the public transit while in the Bay area (Minus the trolleys in SF).

There is Amra chillin near the court. We had seats much higher up but it was pretty good. Amra is a Corporate Application Engineer in my group (I am an Applications Engineer). All 17 of us had a great time and we partied it up at Jon and Andrews house aftwards.

Lake Tahoe!

2006-02-21T00:12:00.000-08:00

This weekend we went to Lake Tahoe. This place is simply great. You can do anything you want in Lake Tahoe. This is my second time going here. The first time we went in the summer and we did jet skiing, hiking, swiming and chilled on the beach. This time we hit the slopes. We went to Alpine Meadows on the North West part of the Lake. As you can see from the pictures above we got a great view of the lake. I rented a snowboard because all my gear is back in Toronto. Marcus, Justin, Steve and Andrew rented skis. We snowboarded from 10 to 4 straight. Afterwards we went down to the lake and got that cool dock picture.

The night before we stayed in Reno. Reno is like old Vegas. Lots of old style casinos. We played some black jack. Reno is the biggest little city in the world!

Great trip!

Santa Barbara

2006-02-09T22:39:00.000-08:00

One of the coolest places in California is Santa Barbara. The city lies on the coast about 2 hours north of LA. The city has a great Night Life and the people there are really nice. One of the first places I went to was University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). I must warn you, the 3 pictures below are all on the UCSB campus!

If you went to this school you could go surfing between classes! There were lots of students hanging out on the beach. Some reading, doing homework, having a good time with friends and sketching the perfect landscapes.

Also while I was in Santa Barbara I visited the Santa Barbara Brewing Company. It is a brewpub on State Street. They make a brew called Hypopotemus, which is Double IPA. It is very strong and very good! Santa Barbara is definetly a place I recommend visiting!

So Beautiful!

Henry W. Coe

2006-02-05T00:03:00.000-08:00

Today we went to Henry W. Coe State Park for a hike. Bijan, Amra, Tina and Myself went there in the afternoon, the weather was beautiful. This park is the largest State Park in California with over 87,000 acres of space. I saw this place on my bosses background at work. The park is only 40 minutes away from Mountain View so it is really accessible.

There are some really big leafless trees in the park. We hiked for about 3 hours total and half way through we stopped a nice lake and had some food.

This park is really peacefull and beautifull. I wanted to go to this place for sime time and I was happy that I got to go.

I also wanted to know who this Henry Coe person was. It turns out that Henry Coe was a Cattle Rancher who owned all the land privately. He died in 1943. His daughter later bought the land and donated it to Santa Clara County in 1953 and was a county park. It became a State Park in 1958. Since then, the Park has grown in area to its current 87,000 acres.

Birthday Party

2006-01-31T18:35:00.000-08:00

January 21st was Marcus's Birthday party. We headed into San Francisco for the night. It was good to be back in town. I love San Francisco. We went to a bar called Amnesia. It was really good. An amazing selection of beer. 12 of us went down in 3 cars to San Fran. We had a great time.

It didn't take many 9% beers before we couldn't walk straight. And we headed home. A birthday part wouldn't be complete either without our game of choice: Poker. Our drink of choice: Beer (Rogue - Shakespeare Stout brewed in California and Allagash Dubbel). And of course, some celebration cigars.

I got two cigars: a Cuban "Cohiba" and a Dominican "Monte Cristo". All in All we had a great time and it was a good way to start the new year.

LA Weekend

2006-01-19T23:21:00.000-08:00

I got a chance to go out to LA again. It is so nice. The main destination was Pasadena. Before, I have heard the name but I didn't really know anything about it. Well, Pasadena is home to the Rose Bowl. This is the tournament of Roses. The first games were held in 1890 which included ostrich racing. "In New York, people are buried in snow, here our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let's hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise."

The festival began to grow and included marching bands and motorized floats. In 1902 the first football game was included in the festival, Stanford against Michigan. In 1923, the Rose Bowl in picture above was constructed. This has turned into a huge tradition over the years and as I drove into the city, there were huge bleachers still setup from the parade. Now, the top college football teams meet for the championship here.

Another massive attraction to Pasadena is CalTech. As an Engineer, I really wanted to check out the infamous campus.

The building above is kind of like Convocation Hall at UofToronto. They hold big presentations and events here. The campus is really nice. The buildings are beautiful.

On our way out of the city I went to Manhatten Beach. This is very nice beach. I actually didn't expect there to be a beach this nice in LA. Infact, I have a better opinion of LA now after I got to see Pasadena, Montebello and Manhatten Beach.

The houses along the beach are so beautiful.

I took Highway one out of the city and I drove under LAX. It's cool because Highway 1 goes under the tarmac where the plans take off. Good Trip :)

The Sharks

2005-12-16T19:06:00.000-08:00

It's Ova Ya Heard?

Canada's National Sport - Hockey! As our PEY winds down for 2005, The Sharks Game really got me in a Canadian Feeling. I am really looking forward to coming home tomorrow morning and seeing all my friends and family.. Although Toronto just got 15 cm of snow it will be a very different climate. Ok, So I will be home from Dec 17th to January 2nd. Give me a call at home:

905 453 6054

Back to the hockey game, So the company I work for has Box Seats at HP Pavillion (Shark Tank) in San Jose. The picture below is taken from the Box. It is really nice. Leather couches a few TVs and a small bar. The Sharks were playing the Carolina Hurricanes. The sharks won 4-3.

Give me a call over the break, Happy Holidays and catch you all in the New Year.

The Breweries

2005-12-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

One of my colleagues back at UofT EngSci that I never really got to know was Marcus. Not knowing many of the other interns out here, we decided to share the Rental Car/Oakwood hookup giving me the chance to know him a lot better. Over the last seven months I have subsequently turned into a Beer Geek Apprentice. As we toured around Southern California siteseeing we visited all the different breweries that we could along the way. I am really learning to appreciate/understand the taste of beer.

The BrewPub Trip
One of the trips we went on was exclusively dedicated to visiting as many breweries as we possibly could in one day. We went north from San Francisco and reached Santa Rosa before we were to drunk and dehydrated to continue.

We assembled as many interns as we could and we had a great time. Here is us at Russian River in Santa Rose. This BrewPub was one of my favourite in Cali. We also visited Marin in Larkspur, Moylan in Novato and 3rd Street Ale Works in Santro Rosa. On the way back from Santa Rosa we drove down Highway 1 to San Fran.

Sacramento
Marcus also brought us on a pilgramage to Sacramento for the Fair Oaks Beer Festival. You pay 15$ and you can have as much beer as you want from many different local Cali breweries. The most notable breweries that were there were Lagunitas, Bison Brewing, Sierra Nevada, Hoppy Brewing, Kona Brewing, Mendcima Brewing, and a funny one called Great Sex. We also visited Arnold Schwarzenegger Office. Arnold is the Governer of California and Sacramento is the capital of Cailifornia.

San Diego
We visited many other Breweries on our way to San Diego and around the Bay Area. We woke up early and went Ale Smith and Ballas Point. I think Ale Smith is one of my favourite Breweries. Here is Marcus in his element: The Ale Smith Bar at the back of the Brewery.

We bought tasters of Speedway Stout, Yule Smith, and their IPA. I also bought a bottle of their Numbskull which we will save for a special occasion.

Local
There is also an amazing amount of BrewPubs in the Bay Area. The BrewPub we have visited the most is BJ's in Cupertino neer Apple Headquarters, Tatonka is my favourite beer there. Also Fault Line and Sanoma Chicken. In San Fran, Thirsty Bear, 21st amendment but I don't think we have been to the best ones yet which are Toranado and Magnolia.

After my extensive training, I have found that I like IPA's the most, that is Indian Pale Ales. India Pale Ales were orginally brewed in England for export to India at the end of the 18th century. IPA's tend to be deep gold to medium copper in color and hop character is more assertive than malt. It usually is kinda fruity or floral aromas and tend to be extreemly bitter. Usually they are also higher in alcohol than pale ales. A very interesting website about IPA's go here.

KanyeWest

2005-12-08T00:54:00.000-08:00

Tonight Justin and I went to the HP Pavillion (The Shark Tank) in San Jose to see Kanye West perform live. It was really well done. The show started with Keisha Cole and then Fantasia. Then Kanye hit the stage.

"If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. A lot of people don't appreciate the moment until it's passed."

"Nothing in life is promised except death"

We had a great time, HP Pavillion is big, the show was amazing.
More about the show HERE minus Jamie Fox. No one famous lives in San Jose.

Fabulous Las Vegas

2005-12-01T21:30:00.000-08:00

Michelle and I flew from San Francisco to Fabulous Las Vegas for my Birthday. We had a great time. The Big event we attended was Cirque de Soleil's "O". This show is amazing. We saw it in Bellagio and we had the Bellagio Buffet too! Soo Good. Ofcourse, the Hotels in Las Vegas are a big attraction too. We went through all of them. Here is sphynx at the Luxor. This is a pretty cool hotel. We stayed here the first time we went to vegas.

Below is a shot of the strip near New York New York. It shows the Brooklyn bridge. I really like this hotel because it captures the New York Feel.

Ofcourse we walked over the bridge. We also went to Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden at The Mirage. There were some cool animals like these Lions.

And ofcourse, the 2nd smartest animal on the planet, the dolphins.

So Long, and thanks for all the fish.
We had a great time.

Los Angeles

2005-11-17T22:55:00.000-08:00

This is my 2nd trip to Los Angeles. Michelle and I went down there for 4 days in October and we had a great time. We headed down there after work on Wednesday. It takes about 5 hours to get there from San Francisco. We stayed in Hollywood the first night.

Day 1
Today we woke up early and drove from Hollywood to Burbank to visit NBC studios. We were here for a taping of The Ellen Degeneres Show. We spent all day in the sun waiting inline with Die Hard Ellen Fans. Crazy. They finally let us in to the studio. It was pretty cool. Lots of technology and work goes into taping a show. Everyone is very professional. Ellen is all about dancing so the crowd had to do a lot of dancing. The guest on the show was Matt LeBlanc. He is a cool guys so it was pretty entertaining. After the show, we headed across town to Anaheim to go to Downtown Disney. This is a nightlife attraction of Disney with a lot of good restaurants and clubs. We ate at the House of Blues. It was good.

Day 2
Today we spent all day at Disney. This place is great. I have been to the Disney Resort in Florida twice but this was the first time I have been to the LA one. We tried to go on all the classic rides like "It's a Small World" and "Peter Pan". I think my favourite ride is "Indian Jones". It is really cool.

When the day came to a close, we watched the Main Street USA parade and the 50th Anniversary Fireworks show was amazing. The castle is a lot more spectacular in Florida.

Day 3
We drove back down to Hollywood. Since we were in Hollywood, we had to check out all the movie attractions. Here is Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. It was built in 1927. This is the most famous movie theatre in the world. All the famous movies are premiered here such as the Wizard of Oz.

On the steps of the theatre is where all the movie stars press there hands and feet in the concrete. Tonnes of famous people have done this. I took a picture of Johnny Depp's because I think he is cool.

Just up the street there is the Kodak Theatre. This is where the Oscar's are hosted each year. As you walk into the theatre, you see all the names of all the Best Pictures ever awarded on the walls.

That evening we decided to spend some money and we went to Justin Timberlakes restaurant called Chi. It was real expensive but it was really good.

Day 4
Today we woke up early equiped with a celeberity map and searched out all the famous stars. The houses we saw belonged to: Mel Gibson, Brad Pit, Jennifer Anniston, Tori Spelling, and many more. The coolest one was Ronald Reagan's house. He used to be the 40th president of the USA and was also an Actor before. His house is really nice and well protected. After that we followed Santa Monica Blvd out to the sea. From there we drove up Highway 1 to go home. I can't get over how nice the coast is:

This was a great trip. We saw a lot of stuff. And it ended with a beautiful sunset.

Remembrance Day

2005-11-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

Today is Remembrance Day.

What do I have to remember? I was never in a bloody confrontation, I never stood on a battlefield, I don't know anyone who died there, I never lost a limb, I don't have shell shock.

I guess that is precisely why I should be thankful. That the sacrifices of many people a long time ago have given me and everyone I know a safe and secure existance with a strong economy and a happy future. I also, don't want to forget the suffuring and sacrifice that continues to happen in armed conflicts all over the world, many of which are in the name of our society.

If America was the "Arsenal of Democracy" during those times, the Bay area was the Arsenal's shipyard. The remnants still linger. Here is Moffett Federal Airfield that is right beside where I work.

What I want to talk about is the white building in the background. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the military decided it needed aircraft to patrol the Pacific for submarines and mines, and the Navy responded by restarting the ligher-than-air project with small blimps (246 feet in length). This building in the background was built in 1942 along with another to support a large traffic of blimps. These bimps helped keep secure the largest American port on the west. Also at this time, Jet airplanes were being developed that took off here.

The amount of military infrastructure that was created in the Bay Area during WWII was hailed as the "2nd Gold Rush" and the vibrant economy and culture left over are everlasting. An economy and culture that I am obviously taking advantage of.

Alcatraz

2005-11-05T13:28:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Rock.
First, This island was a Military Fort from 1850 to 1933.
Second, it was aquired by the Department of Justice and converted into a prison from 1934 to 1963.
Third, American Indians took over the island in 1969 to protest the government and were forced off two years later.
Now, Alcatraz is a historic location attracting millions of tourists each year.

Take a walk down Broadway:

My family visited me near the end of August, and this was one of the big tourists spots we checked out. I also came here a second time when Michelle visited. This island has a lot of history behind it. Many infamous criminals were housed here like Al Capone.

We went out in the courtyard to see were the inmates were allowed recreation. It kind of reminded me of The Shawshank Redemption. Here is a photo of the yard:

What was really interesting about the island is the families of the Wardon and the guards lived on the island with them. There was a small town on one end of the island and it had a school and a small market. All of these buildings were burned down during the American Indian occupation. The picture below is where these buildings stood, above is the lighthouse of the Rock.

It was very interesting to visited one of the most revered prisons in the US justice system. And I really think those two guys who were able to escape from their cells (a lot like Shawshank) and make it down to the waterfront were able to swim to the otherside. It is not that far.

Death Valley

2005-10-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

Death Valley is amazing because it is the lowest, hottest and driest place in North America.

Hottest = Second highest temp ever recorded on earth at 134 F.
Lowest = 282 feet below sea level near Badwater. Badwater is shown above.

Badwater is a huge salt flat at the bottom of Death Valley. As the water trickles down to the bottom of the basin it carries salt (Sodium Chloride) from the mountain sides. This salt remains as the water evaporates creating a huge salt flat. It is really cool, there was a 2 inch deep lake sitting on the salt flat while we were there. We took off our shoes and walked out on the water. AWSOME.

I like this place because it is very calm and quiet. I could whisper across the lake and you could hear me clearly. As I mentioned above, Badwater is the lowest point in the western hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. If there is a big enough quake this will keep falling lower and lower.

Surounded by the Sierra Nevada Moutains, we climbed out of the Valley on our way back to Mountain View. We drove 1100 Miles total in the trip and it was well worth it.

Thanksgiving

2005-10-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

On a damp summer day in 1869 there were five horses pulling a particularly heavy load up a cobblestone pathway in San Francisco. A man by the name of Andrew Smith Hallidie watched the heavy load drag the five horses to their death. Hallidie employed his Engineering ingenuity and solved the problem by inventing the Cable Car. I was lucky enough for my family to visit in late August and we rode them through the town. (you gotta do this if you come to San Fran)

From left: Brent (Raps MVP), Mom, Lindsey, Dad and Me. Thanks Jesse for taking the picture. These things are pretty cool and it is America's only MOVING national monument. And ofcourse we road hanging of the side.

Anyway, I am really thankful you guys were able to come visit me and I still can't believe the amount of travelling you did while you were here. I hope everyone had a great CANADIAN THANKSGIVING!!

Here is another cool picture I took of the Financial District in downtown San Fran. I took it from Coit's Tower.

The pyramid looking building is called the Transamerica Pyramid. It is the tallest and most recognizable skyscraper in San Fran.

Sports

2005-09-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

A BIG part of Cali Life is sports. Actually, Sports is a big part of all American Life. We tried to see all the major stadiums when we travelled across California. I even got to see a few games. No Hockey yet though, that starts next week. In LA we saw Dodgers Stadium and Staple Center. Candlestick Park in San Fran. PetCo and Qualcom in San Diego. Arco Arena in Sacremento.

Anyway, The first stadium we went to was McAfee Stadium. This is where The Oakland A's play. What was even cooler was that they were playing The Blue Jays. The Jays lost... I think Oakland has the craziest Fans Too. Check it out:

I also got a chance to go to SBC park in San Fran. (Some people call it PacBell). This is were the Giants Play. I saw them playing against the Cubs. The giants lossed. I think that this Stadium looks the best. And the funny part is the people who sit in boats in the canel waiting for homeruns. Here it is:

College football is really cool. There is sooo much school pride I can't believe it. We saw Stanford Play University of Cali at Davis. UofT could learn a lesson about pride. And about football... We saw the game at the Stanford Campus stadium in Palo Alto. Lots of people there. Check out the stadium:

Anyway, We had lots of fun. Lots more games to see down here, Especially The Sharks!

99 Infiniti G20t

2005-09-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, So this is how I get around California. 99 Infiniti G20t. The t stands for tuition because thats what it's worth.

I bought it used and I am really happy with the condition of it. I bought it sometime mid July. It has 4 cylinders, 2.0 liter, automatic, 4 doors, Air Conditioning, Power Steering, Power Windows, Power Door Locks, Tilt Wheel, Cruise Control, AM/FM stereo, Cassette, Single Compact Disc, Premium Sound, Front and Rear Side Air Bags, 4 Wheel ABS, Leather Seats, Sun Roof, Alloy Wheels, and it is the Touring model which means it has a Spoiler.

Here is another cool picture I took. The red car is Marcus's car.

Lake Tahoe

2005-09-03T20:50:00.000-07:00

Labour Day weekend we picked up our camping gear and drove to Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is nestled 6500 feet up in the Sierra Nevada mountains with the California and Nevada border splitting it in half.

This place is the perfect all year round vacation spot. Swimming, hiking, sailing, driving, camping, gambling, sking, snowboarding, rock climbing.. the list goes on !

The first place we went to was the beach. The water is pretty cold, but the scenery was beautiful. I think we all fell asleep in the sun on the beach. We were awake at 6:00 am to drive here.

We brought a bunch of meat to cook on the BBQ, It was really good. We slept in tents and it got down to 2 degres celsius at night! We all woke up frozen the next day. It was ok because it warmed up pretty good.

The next day we got out on the JetSkis. SO WICKED !.. Snowmobile, ATV, JetSki.. You gotta try these things. Anyway, Aniruddha decided to go 50 MPh and turn violently to the left. We flew off of the thing pretty far. haha.. ouch. The water was pretty choppy and we skipped over the waves like crazy.

That night we drove into Nevada to check out Virginia city and Reno. Virginia is a scary mining town. We also drove through Carson City which happens to be the Capital of Nevada. Reno reminds me exactly of Old Vegas. With all the crazy lights and smokey Casinos. Anyway, it was really cool to see.

On the way home we drove through a few small towns including Volcano City. Here we went down into some cool caves and saw some Stalactites and Stalagmite.

This was a pretty cool trip and we had a great time!

School's In

2005-08-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day at San Jose State University. There was a lot of Frosh stuff going on. It reminded me so much of Frosh week for Engineering at UofT. You probably wondering why I am going to this school. I am taking a Sociology Class which is a Humanities course credit that I need for my degree. This credit will transfer to my UofT Transcript.

Marcus, Tim and I are taking the class together and it is 3 hours of lecture each tuesday. The prof is really nice and knowledgable.

I must say, I think that this is the first time I have been happy about going back to school.

I hope all my friends back home have a great start to the School year!

Big Basin

2005-08-30T01:36:00.000-07:00

Today (August 13th, I am a little behind) we went to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. This park is the oldest State Park in California; it was established in 1902. Big Basin is also home to the largest continuous stand of ancient coastal redwoods south of San Francisco. These trees are huge.

This one greeted us on our way into the park. It looks like it was burned. And for some reason it became hollow. I am still trying to figure out why it is like that. Lots of trees in the park look like this. They must have had a huge fire at some point.

We hiked up to the top of one of the peaks and got a cool view of the area. It took us about 2 hours to get up there and 2 hours to go back down. The girls packed a lunch for us to eat at the top. It hit the spot.

California is a very beautiful place to explore.

CompOption CaliBranch

2005-08-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

As ambassadors to California, Eric, Marcus and I showed America how to kick it in the Comp Option Tradition. We went to University of Santa Clara where they have a cool Wings place called University Chicken. There were tonnes of students there, Some were getting initiated into Fraternities, and they were doing weird stuff. The wings were 35 cents each. I got 18 Nuclear Wings. !!!

Eric is in town visiting some relatives. He flew in from Calgary where he toured Jasper, Banf, Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. His pictures look really good. Good to see you again man.

Marcus is pushing the wings, and they were damn good. Nuclear Wings with Sierra Nevada. How sweet. Reminds me of St. Louis Bar and Grill.

Comp Option, sorry I missed the last Bash we made up for it! Miss you guys and the great get togethers.

Napa

2005-07-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Napa Valley.

This place reminds me exactly of Niagra-on-the-lake. The valley is scattered with wineries. To get there we headed about 100 miles north, acrross the bay and through Oakland.

We printed out a bunch of coupons and went to several different tastings. I don't think I am much of a wine drinker but I did start to understand how to appreciate the complex taste. I also learned a lot about how wine is made.

To me it seems like the most important factor is the weather. I noticed that in '97 the valley had the best weather for making wine and those bottles ended up costing more than any other year.

Another thing I found interesting is Francis Coppola has a winery called "Niebaum-Coppola Winery" in Napa Valey. In case you don't know who he is, he directed Apocalypse Now and The Godfather, and much much more.

We had a great day of exploring north of the bay, it was great.

SoCal - Day 10 - Yosemite

2005-07-04T00:52:00.000-07:00

July 4rth, Independence Day. Today in 1776 America claimed Independence from Britain.

Today in 2005 we drove clear accross Nevada from Las Vegas through Yosemite to San Francisco. When we started this morning it was so hot that I burned my lips on my water bottle that I left in the car. In the afternoon I was driving through snow covered mountains. Approaching Yosemite is Amazing.

I feel quite lucky to able to experience so much of south western United States this week. Now I can say that I have been in every state that Borders with the Atlantic Ocean. I can now say that I have been in every state that Borders with the Pacific Ocean (Except the freak states: Hawaii and Alaska). I have also been in every state that Borders with Canada.
We visited Yosemite a few weeks ago when we conquered Half Dome, Now we are entering from the other side of the park and we drove right through it. This park is spectacular.

Although this trip is coming to a close, I can assure you that I have so much more to discover in this world, but remember:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

My voyage was not in seeing all the things I have seen here on the trip, but being able to realize just how lucky I am to get to do this. I must not waste any opportunity to explore, learn and discover. I was lucky enough to come out there, then I must push the envelope and do as much as I can.

Peace.

SoCal - Day 8 and 9 - Vegas

2005-07-03T23:05:00.000-07:00

Vegas is a whole other world !

That atmosphere is really cool, Lots of gambling, Partying, Famous scenes, and People are everywhere. We went on the Independence Day Long weekend so it was PACKED.

My games of choice were Roulette, Black Jack, and Pai Gow, I also played some slots for fun. I also spent a lot of time watching Craps but I never got on the table. Poker was really big too, But I must say, It is really intimidating to sit at the tables so I didn't.

One thing you must do when you go to Vegas is go into all the different hotels on the strip. They are all really Famous.

The first one I want to show is Paris. This reminded me of my Sister and my Mom because they went on a huge trip to Paris, France a few years ago.

MGM Grand. The biggest hotel on the planet. It has 5034 ROOMS ! We also stayed at the Luxor which is the second largest hotel on the planet at 4408 ROOMS. Luxor is the Black Pyramid with light shining at the top and can be scen from space.

Next. New York New York. I really like this Hotel because they captured the feeling of New York City. They have a Replica of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. You can also see a Roller coast going through the picture. I never got to go on it.

Mirage. When you walking down the street and a Volcano starts errupting beside you, you are at Mirage. Its pretty cool.

Bellagio is my favourite. This is where they filmed the final scene of Oceans 11. All the fountains and everything. What you don't hear in the movie is the music that goes along with the fountains. Every 15 minutes they have a different Fountain/Music Show. Its really cool.

This is by no means all of Vegas, And I really urge everyone to come see this amazing city. There is nothing else like it.

If you venture north of the strip you go into Old Vegas. Its pretty rundown, one spot you want to go to is Fremont Street. That is where they have a massive Screen above the road way and they have light shows on it. Its also the place where a lot of music video's are filmed.

SoCal - Day 7 - Hoover Dam

2005-07-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

117 Degrees Fahrenheit is what the thermometer said..

In the middle of the desert runs the Colorado River. On the River lies one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. The Hoover Dam. On one side is Arizona. This is what it looks like from Arizona:

On the other side is Nevada. This is what it looks like from Nevada:

This thing is massive.

That is actually the color of water too. I learned a lot about concrete while I was here, It reminded me of Prof. Collins. For example, I didn't know that it would take 125 years for the concrete to cool down, when it cooled down it would create cracks and crumbling. They basically made a huge refridgerator that coold down the concrete in a few days.

Another interesting fact is that the lake behind the damn is called Lake Mead and it took 6 full years for the lake to fill up once the damn was in place.

Also listen to this: At the time Hoover Dam was the largest dam ever built, the most expensive public project ever attempted, and at over 6.6 million tons, the first man-made structure to exceed the masonry mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The dam stands sixty stories or 726.5 feet tall, twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty, and is two football fields wide at the bottom. The turbines in place today can produce a total of 2,998,000 horsepower and 2,074,000 kilowatts of electricity and is still one of the country’s largest. The powerhouse produces over four billion kilowatt-hours a year, which is used in Nevada, Arizona, and California

SoCal - Day 6 - The Grand Canyon

2005-06-30T23:14:00.000-07:00

"In the Grand Canyon there are thousands of gorges like that below Niagra Falls, and there are thousands of Yosemites. Yet all these canyons combine to form one grand canyon, the most sublime spectacle on the earth." -John Wesley Powell, 1895

Here is my roommate Justin. He is chilling on the Canyon Wall. You can see the Colorado River in the distance. I have wanted to visit this place for such a long time. We stayed on the South Rim in a hotel called The Red Feather Inn. It was about 6 miles from the National Park gates.

The South Rim is at an elevation of 7,129 feet and the North Rim is at an elevation of 8,145 feet. The average width from rim to rim is 10 miles. And the Average depth from rim to the Colorado River is 5,000 feet. So it is a long fall:

We stayed at the park until the sun went down. We got a better view at that time. The problem is that there were many forest fires in the area and the smoke was creating a haze in the canyon.

We ended up watching the sun go down, then we returned sometime in the middle of the night to watch the stars. We even came back for sunrise in the morning. Marcus has a wicked story about how we almost killed a pack of deer on the road. The skid on the road must have been 30 feet long.

This place is amazing.

SoCal - Day 5 - USS Midway

2005-06-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

Today I spent a good part of the day on the USS Midway. An Air Craft Carrier that was launched in 1945. Although this ship is extreemly old, it has much to say about world events today. Through its lifetime it fought in Vietnam and shot down Migs and had the first angled deck for airplanes to fly off of. It patrolled both Atlantic and Pacific.

This ship even brings us to 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The Midway helped protect Saudia Araia from an Invasion from Iraq. When Iraq would not retreat from Kuwait the United Nations gave Iraq an ultimatum deadline of 15 January 1991 for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. President George H.W. Bush addressed the nation on 16 January 1991 at 9 p.m. EST and announced that the libration of Kuwait from Iraq, Operation Desert Storm, had begun. The Navy launched 228 sorties from Midway and USS Ranger in the Persian Gulf, from USS Theodore Roosevelt enroute, and USS John F. Kennedy, USS Saratoga, and USS America in the Red Sea. In addition, the Navy launched more than 100 Tomahawk missiles from nine ships in the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. At 9 p.m. EST on 27 February, President Bush declared Kuwait had been liberated and Operation Desert Storm would end at midnight. Midway departed the Persian Gulf 11 March 1991.

We started our tour in the flight hanger underneath the flight deck. I allways wondered how they store the airplanes.

We toured all through the ship, we saw the post office, doctors office, kitchen, Flight Control It was amazing. Here is a picture from the Flight Deck of the Control Tower. It was massive. This place is so complex. I can't believe they could manage it during combat.

After we left the ship we took off from San Diego on route to the Grand Canyon about 5 hours away! it is really HOT !

SoCal - Day 4 - San Diego

2005-06-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

San Diego is known for having the best weather in America... They were right.

Me and Marcus got up earlier than everyone else because we had several major destinations to hit. We drove through downtown San Diego and through Balboa Park and then went to the University of San Diego. This campus was amazing, in my opinion it was very comparable to Stanford. Imagine going to your lectures in the building below. Wow..

The next Stop was Ballast Point Brewery. San Diego is a Major Hub for the brewing industry and there were several locations that Marcus wanted to check out. This brewery was closed so we didn't get to taste anything.

University of California at San Diego is massive. They even have beach property and it was littered with surfers. I think that they have a very strong Marine Life Program there. There was even a building there called Galbraith Building but I don't think it had anything to do with the Engineer.

We headed inland and it was HOT. Its not long before the conditions go from lush green to desert like. Ale Smith Brewery was our next stop. This place was open and we got to go into the brewery and see where they make their famous beer. We bought tasters, and it was really good beer. Marcus really liked it too ... I drove after that. haha.

On our way back to the hotel we drove through Miramar. Miramar is a Marine Corps Air Station. This is where the famous movie TOP GUN took place. The highway goes right in the middle of the base but you cannot see anyhthing from the road. It is all behind the mountains.

Our afternoon was dedicated to soaking up the sun. We went to Coronado Beach which is a penninsula in the middle of San Diego bay. This was beach is HUGE and very nice. There is a Military landing strip at the end of the beach so we got to see some cool airplanes land there too.

San Diego has a few Major Military Installations, Air, Land and Sea. Remind me not to get into a fight with America.

Mission beach was our last stop and this place reminds me a lot of Wasaga Beach. There were tonnes of young people just hanging out at the beach. Everyone is having a great time.

As sun went down in San Diego we got the most spectacular views. Nothing more to be said.

SoCal - Day 3 - The OC Beaches

2005-06-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

Today connects you from Santa Anna, just south of Los Angeles to San Diego at the South Western tip of the United States.

Newport Beach is very famous because "The OC" is filmed here. The OC, which stands for Orange County, is a hit TV show... I have never seen it but apparantly it is pretty good. Also Green Day came from this area. Below is a picture of the Beach with the Pier in the background. The beach is huge and we played a good game of Touch football there. It would be amazing to live in those houses facing the beach.

We then went to "Fashion Island" in Newport which is a really Fancy Mall. It was cool because it was just like Square One but there were no roofs. Everything was outside. One thing which was weird to me was that there were escalators outside. Anyway..

Lastly we went to Laguna Beach. We knew about Laguna Beach as soon as we got to California because there was a huge landslide there. The landslide demolished many Multi Million Dollar homes. It was pretty tragic. Laguna is very beautiful place. I am glad I got to see it. I didn't see any demolition from the Landslide. Below is a picture of the beach. Pretty Secluded.

As the sun set we drove off to San Diego about one hour away.

SoCal - Day 2 - LA

2005-06-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

Day 2 begins on the road to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara. We continue to take highway 1 south along the coast. Below we stopped to take a few pictures when we are greeted with a stream of Ferrari's. There must have been 100 of them. You can't really see but every car on the road is a Ferrari.

Our first major stop was Malibu. Malibu has about 21 miles of coast line and every single part is being surfed by surfers. It is fun to watch them surf, and I really wanna get a board myself.

The next major stop was Santa Monica. Santa Monica has a huge Pier and we went out on it. The picture below is taken on the Pier. Another interesting part of the beach is that one part of the beach was covered with crosses. Every single cross represented a soldier that died in Iraq. What I found interesting is that some of the crosses were not crosses but stars or moons.

Next stop, LA. The first place we went to in LA was The Getty Research Institute. This place is an architecture marvel. Jean Paul Getty was an American Industrialist and founder of the Getty Oil Company. He was one of the first people in the world to have a a fortune over $1 Billion. When he died, his money was used to build this Research Institute. You can see the smog in LA TOO !

From The Getty Research Institute we picked up Sunset Blvd and took it across the city. We drove through UCLA and through Beverly Hills and saw Belair. We took Rodeo Drive and saw a bunch of fancy stores where the stars shop. This part of LA is really rich and fancy. We then continued on Sunset until we saw the most photgraphed celebrity in LA:

It is suprisigly far away. It was hard to get a good picture.

Our next stop is Walt Disney Music Hall. Another architecural marvel (By the way, there were two architects with us on the trip) This building is really cool.

After we saw the Music Hall we head over to Dodger Stadium to check it out. We then drove around the city a bit, we saw Staples Center and we went through china town. And finally we headed to Santa Anna to spend the night. Santa Anna is a city south of Los Angeles. What a day that was !

SoCal - Day 1 - Highway 1

2005-06-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

I have a tale for you.

10 Days in Southern California/Arizona/Nevada. Today we start with Day 1.

"Stretching 644 miles along the coast of California, Highway 1 stands as an asphalt metaphor for the Golden State. It links the "Baywatch" beaches of Los Angeles, the sheer cliffs of Big Sur, San Francisco's Golden Gate and the charm of Mendocino."

We begin our journey on Highway #1 near Monterey. Highway #1 is one of the most beautiful drives in America. It wasn't long until we were struck with the amazing sights like the picture above. (Many car comercials are filmed on the bridge in the picture.) We drove south through Big Sur State Park and kept curving around until we reached Santa Barbara.

We started with 19 People and 5 rental cars. Our convoy is in the picture below. Let me tell you, it is not easy coordinating 5 cars through major cities and highways. Someone always misses the exit. Good thing we all had cell phones. The yellow Focus and its driver were heading to San Diego alone. The other 4 where aboard for the whole trip. My car is in the front and it is a Grey Grand Am.

The coast is absolutely beautiful.

We stopped at Hearst Castle along the way. William Randolph Hearst lived there and Citizen Kane by Orwell is loosely based on him. Hearst was born in 1863 and turned the newspaper into a combination of reformist investigative reporting and lurid sensationalism. It was pretty interesting to see what kind of power he had by controlling communication and how relavent his biography is today.

We reached Santa Barbara around dinner time and proceeded directly to the beach. We had a good round of volley ball and took a trip to the end of the pier. We then drove through downtown Santa Barbara and we were quite amazed with the night life. We found a hotel up the highway a bit, stored our bags and turned right around to come back to downtown. We spent the night in Santa Barbara and it was a lot of fun.

SoCal

2005-06-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

We are about to embarke on a Huge Southern California Trip. We leave Saturday the 25th in the Morning for 10 Days ! This is going to be great ! Below is the planned route.

Here are our Major Destinations:

1) Drive Along Highway #1 from Monterey through Big Sur State Park
2) Drive through Santa Maria and Santa Barbara
3) Los Angeles
4) The OC Beaches
5) Hollywood and Sunset Blvd.
6) Highway #1 to San Diego
7) San Diego Beach, Gas Lamp, Beach Club
8) TIJUANA
9) Cross into Arizona and see the Grand Canyon
10) Drive across the Hoover Damn into Las Vegas
11) 3 Nights in Las Vegas at the Luxor
12) Finish off the trip with July 4rth, Independance Day
13) Done

This is pretty "Ambitious". But its going to be one hell of an experience.

Yosemite

2005-06-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

Today we climbed Half Dome at Yosemite National Park. Half Dome's Peak is 8,842 feet above sea level. We began our Hike on the Yosemite Valley floor and we gained 4,800 feet to the peak. Below is a picture of Half Dome. It is pretty daunting looking up at it.

This was our agenda for the trip:
1) 5:00 pm Friday. Drive for 2 hours to Merced, the half way point to Yosemite. We got caught in traffic due to an accident and it took us 5 hours.
2) 11:00 pm Friday. Sleep as much as we can at the hotel.
3) 3:30 am Saturday. Wake up to drive to Yosemite National Park.
4) 6:30 am Saturday. Start Half Dome Climb from Yosemite Valley.
5) 12:30 pm Saturday. Reach the summit of Half Dome. Rest !
6) 3:30 pm Saturday. Start our descent back to the base.
7) 8:00 pm Saturday. Reach the base. Rest !
8) 9:00 pm Satruday. Start 4 hour drive back to Mountain View. This was dangerous, too tired.
9) 1:00 am Sunday. Back home.

The hike was very tedius, and long. From the base to the peak was 8.2 miles. The park is very beautiful, the snow is melting and there are waterfalls all over the place. Here is one of the biggest falls.

The hike was well worth it but it was physically demanding. I took breaks frequently and I had to tune into my iPod during the most challenging parts to keep my mind off of it. BUT !!!, then came the last 200 feet. The last 200 feet was taken by a steal cable up a near vertical slope. I think that I am affraid of heights because I was getting real nervous. This is what we saw before I went up. You can see the line of hikers up the face.

Here is another picture looking up from the wall. Marcus took this picture and Dan is going up infront of him. I can't believe I did this. If you fall, you are going down,.. All the way down. Crazy !

But I made it, reaching the top was well worth it. The view was spectacular. My lungs hurt a lot because I pushed myself pretty hard and the air pressure was lower. My body felt like after the CN Tower run. Check out the view.

The last time I was up this high was at Whistler. It is great to get back up in the mountains. I missed them. There was still snow at the peak so we could make snowballs. And the clouds slowly swept through us. It was great. We rested up here for a while, I fell asleep for atleast 30 min. Then we started the long trek back. That was not easy at all, But it was faster. We were all really tired, we slowly made it back to the base.

This was a great experience.

Geoff

2005-06-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday GEOFF !!!!

Yo man, I just wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday. Wish I could be back there to celibrate it with you. Party it up bro !

California is getting rocked:

- Thursday night, a magnitude 6.4 quake hit 127 Miles off of the Northern California coast near Eureka

- Thursday afternoon a 4.9 quake shook San Bernardino County near the town of Yucaipa in Southern California

- Tuesday a 7.2 quake hit off the Northern California coast near Crescent City, prompting a tsunami warning that was later lifted

- On Sunday a 5.2 quake shook Riverside County in Southern California

Whoa, I didn't feel anything. Check it out: I am headin to Yosemite this weekend. Should be back with some wicked picks. Catch you guys later.

Mystery Spot

2005-06-13T23:35:00.000-07:00

Before we went to Santa Cruz, all 19 of us stopped of at Mystery Spot. Don't, I repeat, DON'T go here. It is so "Cheezy". Quote is from the Santa Cruz Visitors Center. Anyway, its fun to go with a bunch of engineers who think they can figure it out. Anyway, Some farmer puchased the land a long time ago and he built a cabin on the top of a hill. The cabin ended up sliding down the hill and hitting a tree. After that, the house starting tilting to one side. From then on, it has been a tourist trap. Check out me..

Walking around in this place really gets you really disoriented but it was fun. DON'T GO.

Yo guys, Check out my buddy Divya and his Motorcycle trip from Toronto to Ottawa. This is really cool, and I am so glad that he made the trip, and safely. Divya literally told me about how he was going to go on this trip EVERYDAY last year. And it is so cool ! Click Here

Wicked man.

Graduation

2005-06-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

Congratulations Michelle !

Today is Michelle's Graduation Day from the University of Guelph. This is such a great acheivment, Michelle put in so much hard work and long hours. We are all so proud of you.

Santa Cruz

2005-06-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

Today, 19 of us went to Santa Cruz !
It was great, Vollyball on the beach ! It cannot get any better. While we were there, there was a tournament going on for 18,000 USD (2 on 2). This is the 2nd time I have been to Santa Cruz, last time we went to Natural Bridges on May 29th. This time I am going to bring you a wicked picture of the beach, boardwalk and amusement park. This is California's only seaside amusement park and its located on Monterey Bay. Check out the picture I got from the pier:

There is a roller coaster there called The Giant Dipper, it is white and red and it is near the right of the picture, and it is in several movies like "Dangerous Minds", "Sudden Impact" and the most famous "The Lost Boys". I have only seen Dangerous Minds. It was built in 1924 and now it is a National Historic Landmark. Some say that it is the best wooden Roller Coaster in America. Cool.

Later that evening we went into San Jose to have a few drinks. This is the first time I have been downtown San Jose and it was pretty intense. There were police everywhere and the guys who were showing us around were wondering why they didn't have the riot gear out this time! The entertainment district in San Jose reminds me a lot of Toronto's Entertainment district. Many people in the GTA head to Toronto to party, same thing in San Jose area. It is very busy in San Jose just like Toronto. We had a good time and it was good to check out the city. Cool.

iPod Shuffle

2005-06-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

I recently just opened an account at a bank, As a nice present they gave me an iPod Shuffle. Sweet. I am really liking it. HAHA, now I know why Eric is obsessed with Apple products. I heard that Apple is around here so I went on a little exploration. I found out that they are headquartered in Cupertino which is a city just south of Mountain View. They have a huge Campus at "1 Infinite loop". Also if you drive around a little there are buildings all over the place with little apples infront of them. This one below had a green apple infront of it.

The funny part was that many people walking around had iPod Shuffles hangin from their necks. I must say, they definetly have a style of their own, And thats why they won Brand of the year beating out Google.

Berkeley

2005-06-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

To start off the day we drove accross the Golden Gate Bridge into a small city of Sausalito. It is a very small town on the bay with lots of sail boats in the water. From there we drove along along the highway, And thats where I saw the sign for SAN QUENTIN. I didn't know that the prison was that close to here. I thought it was in Los Angeles. That is the prison that is featured in the Metalica song St. Anger. It was interesting to actually see the prison because from a distance, it doesn't look that much different than Alcatraz, except one is on an island and isn't used anymore. When we crossed the bay on the 580 we went through the city of Richmond and then stopped at University of California at Berkeley. The first thing we had to do was check out the Engineering Complex. Justin is trying to break in below, he must really miss UofT.

Suprisingly, UC@Berkeley reminds me a lot of the UofT campus. They even have an EngSci program of their own there. There was a lot of expansion occuring there and the layout of the campus reminded me of UofT.
After checking out the Uni, we headed down to catch an Oakland A's Baseball game against the Blue Jays... The Jays lossed. They play in McAfee stadium, it was cool to see the stadium.

New Place !!!

2005-06-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

Guys, I am really excited about this. MARCUS, JUSTIN, BRYAN. We have just signed a 12 month lease at Greendale. It is a housing complex and it's the most amazing thing I have ever seen. It blows my last place out of the water, in your face Victor Ng. There are 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a huge Living Area, a nice kitchen and a huge balcony that you can see in the picture in the top right that looks over the pool and hot tub.

There is also a nice plasma TV room, another pool, Fitness center and Billiards tables on the property. We also get a few parking spots. This is awsome, Marcus, Justin and I are really excited about this and I can't wait for Chris and Caroline to come check it out (hopefully). You guys will be the first from Toronto to come out here to join the party. We move into this place June 19th.

Again, I wanna thank Tony for putting me up for number 1 in the power rankings, thats awsome, I have a whole list on my page of things that I wanna do, so the pictures are still coming. I am going to see as much as I can out here.

Natural Bridges

2005-05-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

Before we hit 17 Mile drive we went to Santa Cruz. I thought it was cool because there is a big Snowboard/Skateboard Company called Santa Cruz. My buddy Chris had a snowboard once made by them. Santa Cruz is known for the beach. There beach here is huge. When we got there, we followed the coastline up north a bit from the beach to a National Monument called Natural Bridges. On the way we passed the Surfing Museum and there was actually a surfing Competition goin on. Here is a Natural Bridge, you can't see the part were the water actually hollowed out of the rock but it is there.

The California coast is really beautiful. I really enjoy travelling up and down it. I hope to drive along the whole California coast line by the time I am done here. Below is another picture I thought was awsome. It is taken in the same area as the Natural Bridges.

If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there

Pebble Beach

2005-05-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

Between Monterey and Carmel there is a beautiful coastal drive called "17 Mile Drive." It is a state park and we paid $8.50 to get in. It was worth it. As you can see from the picture below, there is a beautifull beach along the entire drive. Littered over the entire beach are these "Pebbles." The water is very clear and the sand makes a weird sound when you walk on it. HAH, Marcus is in the picture checking out the site. I Have only been to the pacific shore two other times in my life. Last year with Michelle in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and off of Torfino on Vancouver Island with my family about 7 years ago. It was good to be back.

This area is famous for golfing. The PGA tours Pebble Beach, And I know my Dad has this place at the top of his list when he gets here. This shot is a great picture of one of the holes on the coast. Dad, bring my clubs !

You should see the homes around this place too. Wow, this is some of the most expensive realestate in the country. I think that this is the best part of the trip that Marcus, Sonia and I took today. We also visited Santa Cruz, and the city of Monterey, Those pictures will be up shortly.

The Rock

2005-05-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

Our first stop in San Francisco was Fishermans Wharf. Alcatraz could be seen so clearly from the the Wharf and I began to think about how weird it would be if inmates were still kept there. You can see it in the background. Everyone who is planning to go to San Fran, you gotta book your tickets to Alcatraz 2 weeks ahead. Fisherman's Wharf and pier 39 are both at the north east corner of the city. They are both a huge tourist trap so thats why we ended up there. You get a great view of the bay, and many people launch their sail boats there as you can see.

Since we were at a major sea food area we all grabed a bite. I had a crab sandwich and it was sooo good. Marcus got Clam Chowder in a bread bowl. We plan to come back to this area to take a few boat tours of the bay aswell as take the boat over to Alcatraz. Pier 39 was probably the most impressive. The pier actually had 2 levels with many restaurantes and gift shops on it. There was even a place called "Bubba Gump Shrimp" where there was all you can eat shrimp. This was a pretty fun place to go because it was really busy with a lot going on. Below is a slightly better picture of Alcatraz. Don't worry, I am going to head over there in a few weeks so I will get pictures inside too.

Lombard Street

2005-05-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

So this is the famous Lombard Street. It is located downtown San Fran and it really shows the incline that some of these streets have.

It was pretty cool, And I remember playing San Francisco Rush and one of the tracks has this exact location in it and your car flies over top of it. Cool. We also drove down it and that was pretty cool. Good thing our breaks worked.

I can't believe people live on this street. Anyway, In the distance you can see Coit Tower. We actually went over there too but my camera ran out of batteries so I didn't get any pictures from it. The story is, Lillie Hitchcock Coit who was a philanthropist and admirer of the fire fighters at the 1906 earthquake fire left funds to the city to make it more beautiful. Those funds were used to build this tower. The tower's design is reminiscent of a fire hose.

Golden Gate

2005-05-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys, I know I said that I wouldn't Blog until after the weekend is done but after I was reading Tony's site: individual.utoronto.ca/iamkobe/ I just had to drop one of my latest pics. Tony currently rates me #1 in the Blog Power Rankings. Thats awsome, Thanks Bro, I love exploring this place and briging my findings to you guys, Don't worry I am going to keep this up as long as I can. This is me at the Golden Gate bridge. Marcus, Natalie, Justin, Anniruddh and I went to San Francisco for the day. We were dead Tired at the end, and for good reason. We saw so much stuff ! Don't worry, those pics are coming.

The Bridge is 4200 feet long and we walked it x2. It was finished in 1937 after over 4 years of construction. The chief Engineer's name is Joseph B. Strauss and sure enough as Prof. Collins said, There is a life size statue of the man at the starting of the bridge on the San Fran side. And He is very short like Collins said too. This site is amazing and it truly is one of the most beautiful examples of bridge design. Don't worry guys, Lots of pictures are on the way.

Pre-Long Weekend

2005-05-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, This weekend is a long weekend for Americans. Memorial Day Weekend. Sorry I didn't post anything last night, We went to the Empire Grill and Tap in Palo Alto. Marcus knows all the good Bars with a wide range of Taps. I had a Rogue Hazelnut Brown. It was pretty good, it kinda tasted like chocolate and hazelnut. At the moment me and Marcus plan to go to San Fran today and Monterey/Carmel/Santa Cruz tomorrow. So I definetly plan to have some wikid pictures up at the end of the weekend So SIT TIGHT.

For now, Peace out and Enjoy the weekend.

Stanford

2005-05-26T23:51:00.000-07:00

WOW. That was the most beautiful campus I have ever seen. I would be stupid not to apply. We walked all over the campus and it was amazing. Below is a picture of the curch just behind the main building at Stanford.

The whole area of Palo Alto is really cool. To get into Stanford you enter a large gated entrance and then there is about a mile of Palm trees until you get to the big court infront. We went to the library, residence, other library, we didn't get to see the Engineering Complex but we plan to come back. Apparently there is even a Lake there called Lagunita but I didn't see that either. All the students there drive golf carts or bikes around to their classes and stuff. Exams were still going on so it was still pretty busy there. No wonder this place costs so much to go to.

THIS IS AWSOME

2005-05-26T19:59:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone leavin messages on my site. I just got back from work today and instead of leaving a new picture and a message, I decided to participate in HAPPY HOUR with all the interns here at the Housing Facility. This is how it works: get your free alcohol, then: good times ensue.

Tonight we are going out to Palo Alto, That is where Stanford is located and aparently they have a bunch of Bars along University Street. I will keep you guys posted and hopfully get a few pics too. Anyway, keep posting so I know you guys came.

oh yah, check out chris joes blog (thanks bro) : http://fuckengsci.blogspot.com/

NASA

2005-05-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

There is a huge military base where I live and it includes this NASA research facility. Me and Marcus reached the front gate where there is a massive security gate. HAHA.

We were kind of scared of taking a few pictures and ending up at CAMP X-RAY. Apparently during WWII airships like the Hindenburgh were built and launched from this base. cool.

Silicon Valley

2005-05-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the Valley. Silicon Valley. Google, Oracle, National Semiconductor, Cisco, McAfee, Sun, SGI, Siemens, Lycos ... A Computer Engineers Heaven.

Can't believe I am here guys...

Santana Row

2005-05-24T22:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight me and a bunch of interns went to a really ritzy place in San Jose bordering on Santa Clara. I think they check your Credit Limit before you enter !!! Here is a few of us infront of a Hot Rod. The name of the place is Santana Row.

We walked around here and saw all the Ferrari's and Porches. Crazy.

Google

2005-05-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

Today was my second day of work, and it was my first FULL day of work. 9:00 to 6:00, wow, thats what I am going to be doing for the next year. Thats definetly a change. My manager is really nice and I think it is going to be a great experience. Today we went out for lunch and a nice Mexican Place. It was really good. On the way we drove right by GOOGLE. Check out the pic:

I thought that was pretty cool because I use Google all the time. Even this blog is hosted by Google. DON'T BE EVIL.

Housing Facility

2005-05-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

Here is where I stay. It is so Beautiful. My room backs onto the pool. This place reminds me of a tropical resort. My room is circled in red in the picture below.

We also get a pirated wireless connection here and I can post my blogs. Excuse me while I jump into the pool. Peace out!

New Car

2005-05-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

Today Me and Marcus got a new rental car. It is a Hondai Accent. It should get us arround for the next little while. Here it is:

For the next month I will be trying to secure a new car for the rest of the year.

First Day

2005-05-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of work. The people there are really nice. We covered a lot of paper work that deals with our employment. The facilities are really nice, there is a gym available that I hope to use. Me and my colleagues are working in a wide range of departments spanning 2 buildings. I hope that I will be seeing them during my internship.

BBQ

2005-05-22T22:32:00.000-07:00

This evening was really exciting. We had a BBQ at the Housing Facility with the current interns. We really bonded well. And I got a good idea of what the my first day would be like. Paulson will be my mentor and he is really nice. I think we will get a long very well.

The funniest part was when some of the old (current) interns threw one of their colleagues into the pool. Halirity defenitly ensued.

My New Home Away from Home

2005-05-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

My temporary address for the next month is:
555 West Middlefield Road
Mountain View, CA 94043
USA

My temporary phone number for the next month is:
650 960 9402
You will either get me or Marcus

You can allways email me at:
bryan.rogerson@utoronto.ca

Limousine

2005-05-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

HI, When we landed a Limousine took us from the airport to the corporate housing facility in Mountain View. I have never been in a Limo before so it was a great experience. Here is a picture of Me with Natalie and Marcus. Marcus is on the right and he is also my room mate.

The Limo was full of our luggage I am suprised that the shocks didn't bottom out. Aniruddha and Micheal on the other side took the picture. All 5 of us flew in on the airplane. We flew Aircanada and it was pretty comfortable.

Hello California

2005-05-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone !

Today I flew into San Francisco Internation Airport to begin an Internship associated with the University of Toronto.

This is great.

I am going to record all the stuff that I get to see and do on this website. Please leave comments !