Jame's Blog

Memorial Day Ride - Pescadero

2010-05-30T13:02:00.001-07:00

I took off on the bike Saturday with the basics of a route in mind and then just wandered around the hills until I made it to the ocean. Since it's Memorial Day weekend, I was a little worried about traffic, but apparently the route I took was treacherous enough to keep the majority of vacationers away. I spent the majority of my time switching between 2nd and 3rd gear, and when you're riding a moto geared as a dirt bike, that means you're cruising along at about 15-25 mph. The turns were extremely sharp, and the roads narrow. It gave me a great opportunity to practice my vanishing point technique. Here's the route I used on the way out to the Pacific:

Despite what the time estimation says, I was on the road for over 5 hours after everything was said and done. Although that included a couple "wrong turns" (I use the term loosely because I wasn't really going anywhere to begin with) and some time at the beach.

When I finally made it to the ocean, I wound up at Pescadero State Beach. It's a decent distance south of Half Moon Bay, which is one of two extremely busy South Bay beach destination (the other being Santa Cruz). I never encountered any sort of crowd at any point on the ride, so that was a relief. I parked the bike and snapped a couple pictures with my phone (sorry for the poor quality).

There was a group of sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks down by the water, so of course I had to get some pictures of them. I had to descend a sheer wall of loose gravel and dirt in my full riding gear (sans helmet), so that was a little interesting, but well worth the effort. I just wish I had grabbed the camera before taking off.

On the way back into the hills, I stopped at Pescadero to fuel up and wandered into a small grocery store. They had an interesting selection of fresh "mostly baked" breads, so I picked up some cinnamon English muffins and a loaf of cranberry walnut sourdough.

Lick Observatory

2010-05-16T23:09:00.000-07:00

Today I took the DRZ out for a pretty nice ride up Mt. Hamilton to the Lick Mill Observatory. It's about a 20 mile trek up the hills after passing through downtown San Jose. It's fun to go from tight urban streets to wide open twisties all in the matter of 3-4 miles.

As you can probably tell from the number of bikes in the picture of the observatory, it's a pretty popular destination for weekend motorcyclists. It's pretty easy to see why if you take a look at those curves leading up to the observatory. The road actually continues on inland for another ~50 miles before the nearest civilization. Some day I'll have to continue East, but for now that's really pushing my luck as far as fuel range. I'm intending to replace my stock gas tank (1.6 gallons = ~80 mile range) with a 4 gallon tank. Whenever I decide to pick that up, I'll definitely make a day trip heading up and over the hills.

I sneaked around to the back of the observatory for a more pristine wilderness view. I parked the bike on the edge to take some pictures, and then walked away for a minute to send a text message to a friend. Apparently, I placed it right in the way of some woman's snack-time view. She told me to move it in a fairly demanding tone. I asked if I heard a 'please' in there, she rephrased and I happily moved it to a parking spot so I could finish my text.

Overall a great ride. It was my first long ride with my new boots and riding pants. I was a little nervous about my choice of boots because they were really tight and restrictive on the first couple short rides I took last weekend. However, I made a point to wear them to work several times, and they loosened up quite nicely. They felt natural and comfortable on the ride today.

I've done a few modifications to the bike on my own thus far. First, I put on the handle guards. They provide a wind-break for my fingers as well as block insects. But most importantly, they'll protect my clutch/brake levers from snapping off should the bike ever fall over... moving or otherwise. I found a freee replacement baffle for the muffler and replaced the airbox. The guy that owned the bike before me cut a huge hole in the airbox, which allowed a huge surplus of air into the carburetor. This made the bike run like crap. So a quick fix was to reduce exhaust flow restriction by tossing away the baffle off the end of the muffler. So I was left with a loud bike that ran semi-crappy. Everything works very well together now, and I'm extremely happy with the bike.

My Motard

2010-04-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I got my California Class M license. Initially the intention was simply to rent a bike with my dad while on vacation in Maui (side note : I've been meaning to put some pictures Maui up, but still haven't gotten around to it). Anyway, I've been shopping around for starter bikes now for about a month. I looked at a couple over the past couple days and even rode a few.

Everything I looked at or rode all pointed to a particular bike... the Suzuki DR-Z400, a 400cc dual-sport bike (dual-sport means it's a street-legal dirt bike). As I started looking around at these bikes, I kept hearing about popular modifications people do to them in order to make them better on the pavement. Basically once you take a dirt bike a put smaller slick tires on it and change the rear sprocket so that it will go highway speeds comfortably, you have just created a "Super Moto" or a "Motard" bike. Companies like Kawasaki, Suzuki and KTM have all observed the demand for this Motard class of bikes and started offering them as stock bikes.

As I looked around, the Motards really intrigued me, even if I had to do the modifications myself. As it turned out, I found a really nice bike for a price I was willing to pay. I ended up buying a 2008 DR-Z400 SM... a stock Super Moto.

http://www.suzukicycles.com/Product%20Lines/Cycles/Products/DR-Z400/2008/DRZ400SM.aspx

I've been out riding it for a few hours and the thing is a blast. Plenty of power for my uses, and actually rides comfortably on the freeway. Although, 65 mph starts to wind the engine a little tight. I can't wait to get it out on the hills for some swervy roads.

Mission Peak -- First Hike of 2010

2010-02-07T21:01:00.000-08:00

Andrea is currently down in Mexico getting her visa and loan paperwork in line for Foothill College. So I've been "bach'in it" for the past couple weeks. We finally had a break in the rain today, so I dragged Moose on a hike up to Mission Peak in Fremont (ironically, he was the one doing most of the dragging once we got on the trail). Andrea and I had been on the Mission Peak trail before with Moose, but the weather was poor and we didn't make it to the top. It's basically a trail through an enormous cow pasture all the way to a peak at the top of the East side of Silicon Valley.

Dogs are allowed off-leash anywhere along the Mission Peak trail. Which left plenty of opportunity for one of Moose's favorite activities... eating cow crap! At the bottom, he was running around completely berserk because of being pent up due to rain, but we quickly knocked most of the wind out of his sails as we started up our 2,300 foot elevation-gain. A couple petted him somewhere about half-way up, and he thought that was a good time to sprint in 50' circles. The guy said something to the effect of "I knew labs were high-energy, but damn!". Damn indeed sir! Around that point, I stopped for a breather and took some pictures of the bay & valley.

The keen observer will probably notice several hang-gliders and para-gliders in these pictures. Well it turns out, there was a swarm of them all over today. They were launching from about 3/4 of the way up the trail and floating around all day. I counted 10 in the air at one point while snapping these pictures.

As we neared the top, the terrain got fairly harsh. The grade increased and the trail became a sort of hop-scotch over boulders. There was a herd of cattle grazing in this area, and Moose was captivated by them. I thought he would just like to go up and smell one... because that's sorta what he does to everything. Turned out he had a less tactful approach in mind. He started yapping at one of the calves... which, of course, pissed off the herd. 60 lb. lab vs. a gang of half-ton cows doesn't seem like a winning situation. I grabbed his choker and hurried him the hell away from the cows and all was well.

Once we got to the top, we sat around for a bit so I could catch my breath and take some pictures. The temperature seemed to drop 20 degrees up there (probably from the wind) so we didn't spend to much time on the peak.

While leaving the summit, I saw several hang-gliders practically buzzing the people on the top ridge. So I snapped a few pictures of them flying nearby. They were actually close enough that it was difficult to frame them on the camera, but I got a couple keepers. The last two are pictures of the hang-gliding camp (well below us at the time) and then people packing up their gliders back at the bottom of the trail.

After the hike, I was beat... not to mention hungry beyond comprehension. But Moose was filthy from running around in the mud and eating crap for the three hours we were on the trail. So I bathed him and to my amazement, he was still wired! His burst of energy was short-lived, however, and I was finally treated to some peace...

New Couch

2010-01-31T21:04:00.001-08:00

Per request, here's a picture of the new couch I picked up about 2 weeks ago. I started off browsing Craig's List for used couches, and then ended up finding a new couch for almost the same price I would have spent on a used one. The free delivery and disposal of my broken Futon sorta sealed the deal. As you can see it's brown leather, and very comfy. I may go back to this store and pick up a bed frame at some point.

Pointless Moose Videos

2010-01-23T01:07:00.000-08:00

One week straight of rain, preventing Moose from going out for his daily runs in the park, results in a lot of pent-up energy. I discovered a little while back that he gets nuts whenever I blow on his nose. So of course I take the chance to mess with him as often as possible. Here's a video of Moose and me break-dance fighting.

This one's a little older, but for those of you without facebook...

Andrea was watching a show on Animal Planet profiling unusual pet products. One of them was a special cat door that recognizes a chip that gets implanted under the skin. The door then only unlocks itself when your cat tries to push through. Moose took interest in the cats onscreen... but when they showed a close-up of a cat coming through a pet-door, he lost it.

Finally, Andrea bought some shoes. When we got home with them, Moose took and instant liking to the box.

Moose Goes to the Beach

2009-11-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

Andrea has been back here in California staying with me for the month of November. She had been trying to convince me to take Moose swimming since probably the start of summer. I always shot the idea down because we had no good way of transporting him to and from without making a total mess of my car. Well, thanks to Mom and Dad for picking out a collapsible dog kennel that fits snuggly in back seat... and thereby removing my excuse.

Some friends had described a beach near Halfmoon Bay to Andrea a while back. A beach where dogs can run off-leash (sort of a rare beach to find). So we set out on Saturday to get Moose his first experience with the ocean. We even convinced our friend, Samara, to bring her dogs along as well.

As we were driving out to the coast, the weather wasn't looking very hospitable. In fact, it was raining for most the drive. But as we arrived the rain let up and eventually the sun came out and everything worked out rather well.

Moose was more or less content to run around in the sand and did some splashing around in the water, but he wasn't enthusiastic about actual 'swimming'. He certainly got more comfortable with the water as the day progressed, but it may have had more to do with the tide going out and him being able to touch bottom.

Samara's dogs (Charlie & Sophie, the 2 Boston Terriers in the pictures) were either scared of the water, or too chilled to the bone to even think about going all the way in. It looked like they still enjoyed themselves. They had a game where they would wait for Moose at the edge of the water any time he went out to fetch a toy. When he got back with it, they'd take off like a shot thinking Moose would follow.

There were also a number of other dogs that came up at various points. One especially lively Pointer mix started wrestling with Moose and then tried to coax him way out into the ocean. He thought she was a lot of fun until that point.

Sophie, the one with the black face, is an extremely enthusiastic digger. She always gets scolded when she tried it at the school, but this is the beach! Samara let her try and dig to China. Moose was there for moral support, and Charlie tried to help out but just seemed to end up with sand on his face from standing behind Sophie.

Here are some final shots of when the tide started really going out and the sun came out. By this point, Moose would chase pretty much anything I could throw out into the water because it was shallow enough for him to bounce off the bottom.

Overall it was a big success. We spent 2-3 hours at the beach, then left the dogs in the cars to pass out as we got some lunch. Then of course it was back home for mandatory bath time. We'll have to do this again and see if Moose can actually learn the doggie paddle.

Behemoth Kidney Stone

2009-10-13T00:02:00.000-07:00

I just passed the largest kidney stone I've ever seen. This bad boy's been bothering me going on 3 months now. But with work being complete insanity, I haven't made time to go see a doctor about it. I guess things just worked themselves out.

Dirtbombs Show

2009-08-30T21:06:00.000-07:00

I drove up to SF to see the Dirtbombs on Saturday at the Rickshaw Stop. This was probably the first concert I've seen for my self in about two years, and what a way to jump back into it. Mick (lead singer & guitarist... formerly of the Gories) and the gang sure know how to rock a room.

I noticed a while back that they were playing at the Outside Land festival in Golden Gate Park. Initially, I thought maybe that would be an interesting experience, until I saw that tickets cost roughly $200 each. All that money for one band I actually care about... not so much. Luckily they added a show at a small venue Saturday night after their performance at the festival, and I jumped all over it (good way to save $190).

I noticed one guy standing up near the stage, but he was constantly facing the crowd. Apparently he was security trying to prevent people from getting too energetic and ramming into Mick. His efforts were meaningless because at some point (during an exceptionally wild song), someone smacked his microphone right into his teeth (energy tranfer's a bitch). Mick bent over for a few seconds to regain his composure, and then just jumped right back into the song. I was impressed. Hats off Mick.

After what appeared to be a short set, Mick started calling people up onto the stage. Some dude from the crowd (probably the same guy who hit Mick in the teeth) put his leather hat on Mick... so generous. Mick then instructed everyone to shake their asses as hard as they could for the last verse of the song. As you can see... that tiny stage was packed, and pretty chaotic. The song ended and Mick said "see ya next time!".

Of course they came back for an encore. We were treated to a highly improvised version of Kung Fu. At the end, everyone holding a guitar (of any sort) started going crazy and playing them above their heads. It was pretty clear they were winding down for the finish.

At the same time, the left drummer (yes, I said left drummer... the Dirtbombs have always had 2) jumped up from his seat and started carrying drums into the audience. He then went back for his stool, sat down and started to play without any PA support right in the audience. It was a high-energy ending to an amazing show.

Andrea's Farewell / Birthday Party

2009-08-30T14:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, our friends Dennis and Kris were kind enough to offer up their new house as a venue for a little get-together right before Andrea had to leave for Mexico. Her birthday was approaching (about a week later), so it was sort of a double celebration. Sain came out as well to partake in the festivities, and much food & drink were had. Dennis and I were in charge of the bulk of the meal, as we were making heavy use of his brand new grill.

We met Dennis and Kris at the park running our dogs together... so what would a party be without some K-9 horseplay? Moose was hyper (as usual any time he gets into an unrecognized surrounding), and someone threw a handful of treats at me. So this is me trying to get Moose to focus enough to do a trick before handing him a cookie.

Here we have the feast. It included two types of steak, a pork chop for Andrea (since she's been pork-deprived for the past year), sweet corn, sauteed mushrooms, marinaded zucchini and a salad I whipped up.

In Mexico, apparently they have a special way of eating corn on the cob. Normally it involves white corn (not sweet corn), but we work with what we have. To top off the corn, you rub it down with lime, smother it with mayonnaise, and then dust that with chili powder. I tried it before, and it is interesting... but butter just so good. Here we have Dennis trying Andrea's way of eating corn because he loves all things mayonnaise (Andrea actually addresses him as Mr. Mayo when she calls his cell).

I made a Banana Nut cake in honor of Andrea's coming birthday (baked the night before and frosted that morning). Kris and Dennis didn't really believe how heavy the cake is, and were contemplating which flavor of ice cream to serve alongside it. The rest of us sort of chuckled. Needless to say, no ice cream was served. And in fact, the cake's density was compared to the "depleted uranium" if I recall.

And finally, some dog shots for the road...

Thanks again to Kris and Dennis for the wonderful hospitality. Thanks for coming out Sain, and sorry we didn't get a chance to see Tsien. Thanks to Rigby for kicking Moose's butt when he steps out of line.

Ham-Daddy

2009-08-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

On the way back from San Diego, I made arrangements with Mike Hamler to hang out for a little while. Apparently he's busy working on a new movie, and we still had lots of miles to travel after a disappointing first leg of our trip... so the visit was short and sweet. We headed up to his apartment to check out the pad. Andrea was 'ooo'ing at all his Dreamworks memorabilia.

We had lunch at a 'fancy' Americana joint called the Granville Cafe downtown Glendale. Mike specifically recommended the Mac'n'cheese and Andrea ordered it. I was impressed that I could stomach it when I tried a taste (not a fan of the mac).

After lunch, Mike asked if we'd like a tour of the Dreamworks studio. It was a tough sell, let me tell you. The grounds were impressive. They had pictures of all the voice actors from the various Dreamworks films as well as several cases with awards (including 2 Oscars... but Mike said those were probably replicas). The halls were lined with artwork of various forms, all focused around Dreamworks films. In the middle of the campus, there was a large outdoor eating area with a large Koi pond & fountain at the center of everything. There was a fancy outdoor grill, which apparently gets use daily for all the employees free food (*jealous*). It was all very cool to see, and it really didn't feel like a place one comes to 'work'.

Mike's work-space was a pretty normal cubical except for 1 thing. He works on lighting, which means everyone around him is concentrating on subtle variations in light on a computer screen. Everything they do is very sensitive to ambient light, so they do pretty much everything in the dark. Mike said the only time the overhead lights get turned on is when someone needs to install a new computer or something of that nature.

While we were at Mike's cube, he showed us a fair amount of footage from the movie he's currently working on: How to Train Your Dragon. It looks like another great movie, hopefully on the same scale of success as Kung Fu Panda.

Thanks so much to Mike for the awesome tour. I enjoyed it, and I know Andrea appreciated it immensely.

Tijuana

2009-08-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

Andrea's current visa expires on the 27th of August, so the plan was to drive down to Tijuana over a weekend to cross the border and come back with a new visa. Andrea's sister called the American Embassy to make sure this was possible, and everything seemed to check out.

So last week, we made arrangements for Moose to stay in a kennel, reserved a room in San Diego and headed off on a grueling 2 days of nearly non-stop driving. We left around 8am on Saturday after dropping off Moose. The drive seemed to be going well. We were covering good ground, and everything suggested we'd arrive at our motel in San Diego around 4pm... and then we hit LA. The traffic on highway 5 was unbelievable starting on the north end of the city, and it just never let up. I basically cruised the entire length of Los Angeles in 1st and 2nd gears. My feet started getting blisters from all the shifting and clutching.

There were some cool things to play around with in traffic, like the carpool lane. They have limited access in LA and always active (unlike here where you can drive in them on non-peak hours). Although it didn't help much... especially for a particularly memorable segment where the carpool lane was backed up more than the normal lanes due to an accident.

After we passed South of Orange County, there was a little relief. But it was short-lived. As highway 5 made its way to the coast, the traffic picked up again. After another hour in stop & go conditions, we finally drove out of it, and I was shocked to see the cause. There was some sort of marine training exercise taking place on the beach, and people were simply slowing down to see it. I literally screamed!

We finally arrived in San Diego around 7pm, checked into the motel room and then headed out to walk across the border. Of course I was too tired to even think to bring the camera... and that was probably for the best because there were several people who had theirs confiscated.

We strolled over to Mexico, and then looped back to pass through the American customs check. When we showed our passports, the customs agent sort of raised an eyebrow at Andrea. He wanted to know how long she intended to stay, because clearly her current visa wasn't sufficient. We were separated temporarily, and then sent back to an office to wait in line for a chance to apply for a new permit to enter the US. After an hour and a half waiting in line, we finally got to the front. The agent was, again, apprehensive in dealing with Andrea. In the end, he denied her a new visa. He allowed her to enter the US again on her current visa, but said she would be in big trouble if she didn't get her butt back to Mexico before August 27th.

So Andrea is on her way back to her mom's in Mexico City next Wednesday (August 26th). She's already said her goodbyes at the zoo since we're not really sure when she'll be able to return to California. It's definitely a sad time. She's requested an early birthday celebration, so I'm going to put something together this Sunday and make another banana nut cake.

Teddy Bears' Picnic

2009-07-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

Before I say anything... yes, this is me wearing various bear suits.

So how did this happen? It certainly was a surprise to me. Andrea has been doing volunteer work at the San Francisco Zoo, and today she was asked to help out for half a day with an event called the Teddy Bear Festival. When she takes public transit to the zoo during the week, she has a 3 hour commute each way. So, I decided to drive her this morning and save her roughly 4 hours on buses. My plan was to just hang out in the zoo while she did whatever they asked and then drive her home. She signed in at the volunteer's board, and we went back into a conference room to wait for a volunteer director.

The guy took one look at me and decided I would make a good teddy bear. Apparently they had planned for people to walk around all day in these 4 bear suits and greet children at the entrance as well as make appearances at the event. One of the guys who was supposed to this didn't show. So I got to spend the entire morning putting on and removing bear costumes and getting mobbed by small kids... well, the ones that weren't terrified of course. I don't understand how anyone could be afraid of this:

Nevermind, I kind of freak myself out with that one.

Andrea was assigned as my "guide" because your visibility is pretty much non-existent inside those suits. Andrea had to call out directions for where kids were coming up to hug me or take pictures.

One of the rules of wearing the suits was that you weren't allowed to keep one on for more than 30 minutes at a time because they are so hellishly hot. Luckily this was San Francisco, so it was a mild 65 degrees. It almost didn't matter, because I sweat through every suit I put on. Especially when they had me sit there for story time. Andrea said I left a big sweaty butt-mark when I got up. If I stayed standing and moving around it was tolerable, but any time I sat still for too long it got pretty uncomfortable. Now I'm back in Sunnyvale, and it's a balmy 90 degrees outside. I can only imagine what that suit would have been like in this heat.

Of course we had a changing-tent so that we didn't scar small children by pulling off a teddy bear's head in front of them. While I was changing in the tent, Andrea tried on one of the masks to check out the visibility.

Broadcom drops their Emulex takeover bid

2009-07-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE5683PD20090709

If you recall what I wrote when NetXen got bought, it probably had something to do with Broadcom's positioning to buy/take over a network fabric company called Emulex. QLogic bought NetXen as a reaction in order to stay competitive with a potentially large competitor if Broadcom were to acquire Emulex.

It looks like QLogic emerges from the fray as the only company able to service 10Gig NIC as well as FCoE and iSCSI needs.

TOEFL 2: Redemption

2009-06-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was a bit of an adventure. Andrea scheduled her next TOEFL attempt in Oakland on that day. I took the day off work to drive her, and her friend Christian (who's in town staying with us until the 20th) tagged along for the ride.

The test began at 11am, and I'll admit I took a bit more of a conservative approach than was necessary. Fearing the bridge traffic on 880 in the Oakland area, I had us leave at 9:15am, which put us at the testing center around 10am. We sat around in a Starbucks to pass the time, then took Andrea up to the testing area to get her checked in.

This time Andrea actually got to take the test, so Christian and I spent the middle of the day wandering around Berkley. We walked up and down Telegraph and got to see all the hippies. After we had seen enough of Berkley, we headed back to Jack London Square to wait out the rest of Andrea's test. Things seemed to go fine from what Andrea was saying, but we'll know her score in about another week and a half.

When we got home, Andrea signed on and found this email:

Dear Andrea Paulina Ramirez Olvera,
I have received your inquiry regarding the iBT TOEFL that you had scheduled to take on May 15, 2009. Please accept my apologies for the problems that prevented you from testing. As an exception I have processed a full refund of your test fees. Please allow 7 to 10 business days for the credit to post to your credit card account. If you have further questions, please contact me. Good luck on your test today.
Sincerely,
Steve Krimstock
Educational Testing Service
Test Taker Advocacy
609-771-7285
skrimstock@ets.org

This response is the result of the Better Business Bureau complaint we registered the day she was turned away for the first TOEFL test. The system actually worked for us, as strange as that sounds. We were both tickled that this finally got resolved, but still shocked that this refund was anything more than a no-brainer.

Mystery Bruise

2009-06-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

Andrea and I went hiking on Saturday. After we got home, I was showering and caught a glimpse of this awesome bruise on the back of my arm in the mirror. I have no idea where it came from. We've been racking our brains for the past day and a half trying to come up with an explanation, but we've got nuthin'. So for your viewing pleasure, I present... the Mystery Bruise!

Moose Gets Neutered

2009-05-31T01:38:00.000-07:00

We took Moose in to the vet early this past week for a little procedure. You're still a man in my eyes buddy (don't hate me)! He's healed very well, and it's actually a little hard to keep his energy level down where it needs to be. Supposedly he needs to be confined to a small room or kennel for almost 2 weeks. We've allowed him the run of the apartment, even if he just bulls through anything in his path with his spiffy new collar. Walls, legs, speakers... nothing makes him think twice. He's stuck in that collar 'o destruction and forbidden from running outside for another 10 days. I don't know if he's going to make it without exploding.

We also had the vet take some xrays of Moose's hips and elbows while he was under for his surgery. They said his hips look "good", but not perfect. Meaning there's a low probability he'll develop hip dysplasia (we were quoted 10% chance), but it's possible he'll end up with some form of arthritis. His elbows looked fine. No surprise there, except for the extra $100 they charged me for the third xray.

The consultant who examined the xrays mentioned that Moose is a touch overweight. So poor Moose gets neutered and his food cut back. Sounds like the start of the best week ever.

TOEFL Disaster

2009-05-15T15:41:00.000-07:00

Andrea had signed up to take the TOEFL exam this morning. It's the first step on her way to certifying her veterinary credentials here in the US. Well, apparently they weren't satisfied with her documentation and turned her away.

For those who don't know, people in Mexico carry 2 last names, or family names. One from their father and another from their mother. On most of the online sheets we've dealt with thus far (including international airline ticketing), Andrea's father's surname has been sufficient and the only thing expected. TOEFL is cryptically different. When she entered her name online, she left off her mother's surname (as usual). But when she presented her ID at the testing center this morning, she was turned away because the name from the online form didn't precisely match the name on her passport.

A rational person would think "hey, no big deal... get a refund or get signed up for a later test date", but we're not dealing with rationality here. Because Andrea couldn't read minds and give the TOEFL people what they wanted in the online form, we're forced to forfeit the $150 registration fee and pay again to sign up for a later test. I was honestly shocked talking to these people on their customer support.

So what can I do? More screaming at people who don't care obviously isn't doing the trick. So I give up. I registered a complaint on Andrea's behalf with the Better Business Bureau and called it a day.

Hiking at Russian Ridge

2009-05-13T04:44:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, Andrea, Sain and myself all headed up Page Mill Road to the Russian Ridge Preserve. After the grumpiness that followed last week's 10-mile hike at Ranch San Antonio, I decided to take it easy on the gang this time around. The trail I plotted came out to just under 5 miles with some fairly minor elevation change.

One difference between this place and Rancho San Antonio is that you start off much higher. This preserve involved driving up a narrow winding road to reach (and I must say I enjoyed driving to and from the hike). The plus is that you get to enjoy phenomenal views throughout the entire hike. Supposedly, it's possible to see both the bay and the Pacific Ocean from the top of one of the hills (Borel Hill), which tops off at around 2,570 feet.

I'm sure I speak for Sain when I say I'm equally thrilled with my smile in my solo shot as he is with his. At any rate, our day culminated with a steak dinner. There was a sale on filet mingon on Friday, so all 3 of us gorged on a big ol' hunk of red meat. Nothing like undoing all the calories we worked off earlier in one meal.

Andrea's been bragging to me the past 2 days about how she's not sore at all from this hike. She has no idea what I'm going to come up with for her in the near future. Muahahaha!

I want to end by saying a big congrats to Sain on finding a date! Hopefully we get to meet Shin for mah jongg (and probably more food) some time soon.

A Nice Raise

2009-05-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

Since I was displeased with my offer to stay on at QLogic, I had a little chat with Govind, the founder and former CEO of NetXen. You see, I had a manager back when I was hired 3.5 years ago. He was the only person in the company, apparently, with any knowledge of my compensation. He gave up his management position roughly 2 years ago, and Erik (my friend from grad school) became my manager. I explained this to Govind, as well as the fact that my salary was still less than an offer I received over 4 years ago from Intel to work in a cheaper area.

So from there, Govind had to talk with some of the higher-ups in QLogic. Yesterday, QLogic HR got back to me with the terms of a revised offer made based on the resume I had outlined for them. The change was a ~21% raise in base salary. This certainly couldn't come at a better time because I'm recovering from paying double rent from the month we moved into the current apartment, puppy expenses and the check I had to write to Uncle Sam at tax time.

The HR lady explained to me that they don't normally give raises of that magnitude, but mine was sort of an extreme situation. Govind came by yesterday to tell me I should have never let things get that far out of hand, and admit that mistakes had been made on the management side as well. In the end, I'm happy with my compensation... so I suppose I'll put away my resume.

NetXen is no more

2009-04-30T19:17:00.001-07:00

I've been sitting on bits and pieces of this for a while now, but the company I've been working for the past 3.5 years, NetXen, was officially purchased today.

I guess the story of our acquisition starts a few weeks ago. Our main competitor in the 10 Gigabit Ethernet market, Broadcom, made its intentions clear that they were looking to buy a network fabric company named Emulex. The offer to buy eventually morphed into a hostile takeover.

So what does this have to do with NetXen? Well, Broadcom makes Ethernet cards that compete with ours, and (assuming the takeover goes according to plan) they now have the capability to integrate their product into larger-scale markets by pairing their Ethernet cards with Networking Fabric products from Emulex. Emulex only has one real competitor in its market-space... and that would be QLogic. QLogic sees its only competitor potentially being gobbled up by a corporate giant, and decides to grab its own slice of the pie... NetXen.

NetXen sold to QLogic for roughly $21M... which is kind of sad since our evaluated worth was probably 10 times that just a year ago. But the merger allows us to move on and into larger markets. We've beaten the pants off Broadcom in terms of design wins over the past 3 years, and QLogic leads over Emulex in market share by a healthy margin. All signs say the QLogic / NetXen merger should be a success, but the only way to find out is to wait it out.

What's this mean for me? Almost nothing, sadly. I've been working my butt off after grad school with the hopes of my options paying off, and it looks like all was for naught at this point. I feel like I'm sort of at a cross-roads here. I'm finally ready to walk away from my job if they don't start paying me more in line with what a computer engineer with a MS in EE and almost 7 years of experience is worth.

Andrea's First Hike - Rancho San Antonio

2009-04-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

After a botched attempt last weekend, Andrea and I finally got out to do some light hiking on Sunday. I took her to a little preserve that I use to condition, Rancho San Antonio. It's fun to get a bird's eye view on the south bay and SF, although we didn't make it up to the top this run.

Our hike totaled roughly 4 miles and I'd say about 1000 feet of elevation change. Not bad for Andy's first time out. I think we're going to try and make this a weekly outing for a while because it's such a great way to get in shape and get some color. We'll definitely be making a trip to REI to pick up some proper shoes for her some time over the coming week.

We had several close-ups with wildlife during the hike. First up was a large family of quail. There were probably 8-10 of these little buggers running around, completely oblivious of our presence. This one seemed to like the camera, so I snapped a couple pictures.

A little later on, we rounded a bend and came up on a pair of deer. They were both standing on the trail eating without a care in the world. Andrea and I stood back, assuming they would run if we got any closer, but they never really spooked. We probably could have touched one of them as we passed, but after a few awkward stares it jumped off the trail into the woods.

Andrea keeps reminding me of how tired her legs are... and I keep reminding her that she's got to get ready for the 12-mile conditioning hike I want to eventually take her on. Baby steps are probably the correct approach here.

2 Weeks of Moose Pictures

2009-04-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

All the Moose pictures are building up, so here he is in all his spoiled glory.

He started off so afraid of this toy. But as you can see, he warmed up to it.

Among his other favorite toys are an empty gallon orange juice jug and anything made from rope. He actually gets pretty crazy with the orange juice jug because he can't pick it up easily. It's exceptionally loud when he gets rolling with it, so we've had to limit it to daytime use.

We found this excellent dog park where we can take Moose to run around without a leash. It's also an excellent opportunity for him to socialize with other dogs as opposed to enrolling him in "puppy school". It's funny how many people around here have these tiny dogs... and Moose is already a bully to them. I hate to see how he's going to turn out 40 lbs from now.

We've begun Moose's frisbee training, although we have to be careful not to overrun him because it's bad for his hips when he's this young. He loves going after the frisbee as long as I don't throw it too far. We already had one incident where I tossed it up into a tree. Moose was exceptionally forlorn when I lost his toy, but all was well. I got to climb a tree to get it back.

Anything that runs around as much as Moose needs to crash at some point. I think he knows when we're getting the camera that he needs to put on his best puppy face.

No... I'm not having bladder issues... near my knees. I thought this Labrador thing would mean a little less slobber on my legs than Rottweilers. Oh how wrong I was.

Last but not least... we had dinner over at the Nystrom's for Easter today. Moose was a little wired being exposed to young children, but a quick trip to the park was the remedy for that. He didn't even last 20 minutes with the frisbee before laying down and hinting towards home.

New Glasses

2009-04-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

For the first time in almost 10 years... I got new glasses! I've been getting headaches pretty regularly over the past year, so I figured it was time to update my prescription. I liked the look of my old glasses so I went for a similar style. The frame and arms are both black plastic this time. Exciting stuff, let me tell ya.

Moose - A new puppy

2009-03-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

Andrea and I drove down to Bakersfield (a 4.5 hour drive each way) this weekend to pick up a puppy. He's a 19 week old Labrador Retriever we've named "Moose". He'll grow up to be slightly shorter and stockier than what most people think when they hear the word "retriever", but that's fine with me. So far he's been delightful. He only cried for like 5 minutes when we put him into a kennel for the first night. He loves everyone and doesn't really complain about much. I plan to teach him to play frisbee whenever he's capable.

The other puppies in his litter all sold for ~$1200, but poor Moose kept getting calls from interested families who'd change their mind. The breeder (Lacey) said we were the 10th set of people to contact her about Moose. Since he's a bit older than puppies normally are when they're adopted, we got him for half price. Which was nice since it was about the same as we would have paid in adoption fees for a rescue dog.

He has a little cut on the left side of his snout... a keepsake from one of his uncles, I believe. But it's almost healed over now. Andrea and I are shocked at how good Moose has been. No messes to speak of. And he's very good about chewing on his toys as opposed to things like... I don't know... furniture, cords, clothes, shoes, blankets.

Our apartment has several floor to ceiling mirrors that serve as doors to various closets. Andrea called Moose over to one, not even thinking about it. The puppy caught a glimpse of his reflection, then turned around and bolted for me. He leaped into my lap (I was sitting on the couch) and just buried his head. There have been a couple other instances where he's been scared witless by something pretty ordinary. Automatic doors at Petsmart come to mind.

Instead of buying a normal water bowl we'd need to fill daily, I picked up one of those special water dishes that keeps itself filled with a 3 gallon plastic tank. I think Moose drinks more than he actually wants just so he can watch the bubbles.

At any rate, we're enjoying ourselves by welcoming Moose into the home.