Chan's Personal Blog

Two weeks ago, Chad & Justin came down to visit me in California. They're the first guests I've had from Canada. I've posted a photo album of some of our exploits while they were here for the week.

If I had to summarize this week, I'd have to say that Chad is addicted to Santa Cruz (a nice beach town in California). He has decided to move there and buy a house along the coast, and marry a girl from Nevada. It's good that he found his life's calling.

Some notable mentions. We went to IKEA to buy a mattress and a bed frame because I couldn't fit it the last time I was there. Some how we managed to fit it all in his tiny Ford Aspire. Whether it was legal or not, that's debatable, but hey, I'm not a lawyer.

The Friday that they were here, I gave them a tour of the Yahoo campus. The best part of the tour is the cafeteria food which is always good. Unfortunately, our lunch was interrupted by a fire alarm, and we had to evacuate the building. Anyway, when we got back, Justin took full advantage of the free drinks. I think he downed like three 21oz drinks?

On the weekend, we hit up Downtown San Jose and visited the museum district. The architecture of some of the buildings was really amazing. We visited the Tech Museum; admission was only $8 and that includes an IMAX film. What a great deal! You can't get that back in Victoria. Lots of really fun interactive exhibits as you'll see in the photo album.

I'm a bit behind in posting stories about my time in California because work is getting crazy busy. In either case, here's a set of pictures at Parcel 104 which is a fancy restaurant at the Marriott. Our team went there for my official welcome lunch, as well as a farewell lunch for some of our international team members which were heading home to their respective Yahoo offices worldwide.

This restaurant was pretty swanky. Even though I was wearing jeans that day, I didn't feel under-dressed. I guess one of the nice things about working in Silicon Valley is a lot of us programmers insist on dressing comfortably, and it'd be unwise for businesses to look down upon us because of it.

We started off with appetizers, and we went with the seafood calamari. It was an assortment of squid, scallops, and shrimp. The batter was a bit too light for my liking. I prefer true Greek calamari. (Eugene's restaurant back in Victoria has spoiled me with their amazing calamari.)