I was out in California the week before last (August 3 - 12) to celebrate the launch of iWork '08. I got to spend some time with my friends Jason, Josh, and David, which was great.
Trip Highlights:
- Friday night Jason picked me up at SFO and we headed straight to the Great American Music Hall to see The Format. Their lead singer had an amazing live singing voice.
- Saturday we went up to San Francisco and walked on the Golden Gate Bridge. The drive up to the city on I-280 was beautiful since the fog was rolling into the city over the mountains.
- After visiting the bridge, we headed to Rotee for dinner with Cathy, Owen, and Erika. The food was so good I just about had to bust a cap in the cook.
- Later that night we went to a house party in Mountain View, but I was so tired that I don't remember much of it.
- Sunday afternoon Jason and I played mini-golf with Josh in Sunnyvale. Then we headed over to Castro Street in Mountain View and walked around for awhile. Eventually, Jason's girlfriend Chrissy joined us for dinner at Maru Ichi. Ramen + soft boiled eggs = crazy delicious.
- After the launch event on Tuesday, I headed to Sky High Sports with a group of coworkers. We played dodgeball for an hour which was both really fun and a good workout. Then we went to El Burro. Note to self: El Burro has strong margaritas.
- Wednesday night was our launch party, which took place at Hotel Valencia in Santana Row. The theme was Casino Night, and it was very well executed. The best part was that we had both a ballroom and an open air courtyard, so when you needed some fresh air, you could just step out into the courtyard.
- On Thursday we went for a swim at the hotel pool (which required me to run over to Target and buy a swimsuit). Then we went to dinner at The Counter, which Jason recommended. It turns out that deep fried dill pickle slices are insanely tasty.
- By Friday I was starting to get burned out, so after work Jason and I just ordered a pizza and watched Layer Cake, a fun British gangster flick.
- Jason and I went to SuperHappyDevHouse 19 in Los Gatos on Saturday afternoon. I thought it was a blast, and I'd love to organize a similar event in Pittsburgh.
- Saturday evening we bounced up to the city and went to dinner at Mandalay with David, Aimee, and the always entertaining Iroro. After dinner, we met up with Cathy and headed to Shine (after a failed attempt to attend the Bootie 4th Anniversary party) and finished the evening with Crepes A Go Go.
- After staying up past 3 AM on Saturday night, I got up bright and early on Sunday to get to SFO for my flight.
I went with my coworker Max and his friend to see Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France at the OMNIMAX theater at the Carnegie Science Center today. Ostensibly, the film is about the workings of the human brain, illustrated via scenarios in the Tour de France. In fact, the science portion of the film was a bit light, but that's fine, because it provided an excuse for some amazing film of the Tour. The footage was from the 2003 Tour, primarily following Baden Cooke and the FDJeux team. If you've got any interest in professional cycling, then I recommend this film. It will be in Pittsburgh through May 2008.
(Yes, the title of the film is a little unfortunate, given the doping scandals in the past couple years.)
I got a new bike last week. It's a 2006 Cannondale R800.
I took my bike out for a few rides in the park this weekend, and it performed well. Its first big test will be the MS 150, June 9-10. If you're interested in sponsoring my MS 150 ride (it's a fundraiser for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society), visit my fundraising page.
I just got back from a 3 week trip to California. I stayed with Jason and worked from Apple's offices in Cupertino.
- I went out to lunch nearly every day with Jason and other members of the Soundtrack Pro team. We hit most of the major lunch spots near Apple, including Taqueria Latina, Yiassoo, Tanto, In 'N Out Burger, and even the fabled taco truck:
- We took a 4 day trip to Las Vegas. I already blogged about that. One thing that I forgot to mention is that when we got back from Vegas around 2 AM, Jason's girlfriend Chrissy prepared breakfast tacos for us. If that's not love, I don't know what is.
- Jason's coworker Iroro played an electronic music set at 111 Minna in San Francisco. We ate dinner at Henry's Hunan and then went to see the show.
- We went to a place called Sky High Sports, which was a warehouse that had been converted into a huge trampoline arena, including a dodgeball area and a foam pit. It was really fun (it's pretty hard to not have fun when you are literally bouncing off the walls).
- Jason found a place in Cupertino called Gamba Karaoke that offered Japanese-style karaoke. That is, private karaoke rooms where you can sing with a few of your friends. The only thing that was not authentic about this place was the lack of alcohol. But they did have Calpis, so I can't really complain.
- My last weekend in California, we went camping in Sonoma. Our campground was on the beach, about 200 feet away from the Pacific Ocean, and it was beautiful. We drove up on Friday night. On Saturday morning, we went for a hike along the beach. That afternoon, we drove to wine country and did some wine tasting. Saturday night we had a standard camping cookout, including smores. I posted a complete set of photos from the camping trip on Flickr.
Last weekend I went to Las Vegas. Jason went to work the Apple booth at NAB, so I crashed in his hotel room. I was expecting to sleep on an air mattress on the floor of the room, but our room was huge and turned out to include a couch with a fold-out bed, so it worked out very well. We stayed at The Venetian.
Trip Highlights:
- On Saturday night, we saw Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity show. My favorite part involved two female acrobats/contortionists in a giant fishbowl.
- Sunday afternoon I walked up and down the length of The Strip. I saw an IMAX movie at Luxor and the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. One of the most amusing promotions I encountered was the $1 margarita at Casino Royale. Yes, at Casino Royale, they charge you more for a bottle of water ($1.50) than for a margarita. That's Vegas economics.
- On Monday night, we saw Penn and Teller perform at Rio. Penn and Teller kick ass. Afterwards we went to the Voodoo Lounge on top of the casino.
- Tuesday morning, Jason and I took a trip to the Hoover Dam. We booked our trip through Pink Jeep Tours, which offers small guided tours of the area. We were the only people who signed up for the morning tour that day, so we ended up getting a private tour from our very knowledgeable tour guide, Tom. Tom used to work for Enron and lost his pension, so now he's giving tours in Vegas.
- On Tuesday afternoon, I sneaked into NAB. The two most interesting things I saw were (1) Apple's Final Cut Studio 2 (of course) and (2) NHK's Ultra-High Definition TV demo. 7680 x 3420 picture and 22.2 channel sound. They had some footage taken at this year's Pro Bowl. Even when the camera was zoomed out to show the entire field, you could still clearly read the numbers on the back of the players' jerseys.
- Tuesday evening we ate at Thomas Keller's Bouchon. Some of my co-workers would probably yell at me for ordering something as pedestrian as steak frites, but hey, it was really, really good.
