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.
  
  

  Golden Gate Bridge
  
  
• 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.
  
  

  Launch Party
  
  
• 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.
  
  

  SuperHappyDevHouse Indoors
  
  
• 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.

Objective-C Gangstas

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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.)

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I got a new bike last week. It's a 2006 Cannondale R800.

New Bike

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.

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I just got back from a 3 week trip to California. I stayed with Jason and worked from Apple's offices in Cupertino.

1 Infinite Loop

• 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:
  

  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.
  

  Iroro
• 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.
  

  Karaoke
• 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.
  

  Me on the Beach

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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.

Hotel Room

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.
  

  Teller
• 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.
  

  Hoover Dam
• 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.
  

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How Do I Get To The Roof

Triggers

Last night I went to the Triggers show at The Quiet Storm. This show was to celebrate the release of their new EP, Elude the Suits. As with all of the Triggers shows I've attended (I think this was the 4th), their performance was excellent and the crowd was really into it. Attached to this post is my favorite Triggers song - How Do I Get to the Roof. This song is not on the EP, because it was included on an earlier Triggers demo disc. If you like it, consider buying the new EP.

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I drove straight home to Ohio from North Carolina. We had a larger Thanksgiving than usual this year. My aunt and uncle from North Carolina, my cousin from Los Angeles, and my other cousin and her husband from New Jersey were all there. We had the traditional turkey dinner on Thursday afternoon, and on Thursday evening my cousins and I went to see Casino Royale. It was $20 for 5 tickets, which amazed my cousin from L.A., since he usually pays $14 for an individual ticket.

On Friday we visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I hadn't been there in 10 years, but it was still pretty much the same. It was a good way to fill a few hours, though. On Friday night I visited my friend David, and we played some games on his new Nintendo Wii. On Saturday I went to the Mount Union football game, and watched them defeat Wheaton, 35-3. After that, I drove up to Cleveland to see my friends Angie and Tim. Angie had won free tickets to a comedy show at the Cleveland Improv. We got to the show about 5 minutes late, but the usher sat us at a table directly in front of the stage, which was awesome. It was the ultimate "fashionably late" arrival.

On Sunday, Angie, Tim, and I went to Tommy's for lunch, then I headed back to Pittsburgh. In just over a week, I managed to put over 1,300 miles on my car, which is quite a feat, considering that my car still has fewer than 27,000 miles on it. I really needed to get out of Pittsburgh for awhile, and I'm glad I did. Upon returning to a place after being away for a week, you see everything from a slightly different angle. I'm energized and ready to take on the world.

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I went down to Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (i.e., the "Triangle") this weekend to visit Josh and to touch base with some former coworkers from IBM. I got down there on Saturday evening, after driving all day (8 hours, 495 miles). For the rest of the weekend we went out to eat, saw a movie,walked around Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and otherwise hung out. It was fun to catch up with Josh, since we are in similar places in our lives and have similar goals.

On Monday, I met my Extreme Blue mentor John for breakfast. John is a great guy and did quite a bit of personal mentoring with me during my internship. I was happy that I got the opportunity to thank him for his efforts and to demonstrate that I'm doing pretty well, partially due to his help. Monday evening, Josh and I went to the Chapel Hill Bloggers Meetup, which was run by Anton Zuiker. On Tuesday, I got up early to meet Nick, the MBA intern from my Extreme Blue team. When I worked with Nick, he had no children, and now he has a 2 year old son. Tempus fugit.

Random Trip Notes:

• I think bike shop distribution and density may be a good metric for estimating the livability of an area. I generally dislike the Triangle as a place to live, because it's amassive sprawl. One of the few areas where I'd consider living in the Triangle is downtown Chapel Hill/Carrboro. Josh and I walked in that area on Saturday, and we saw 2 bike shops. I don't think I saw a single bike shop in the rest of my travels.
• Danny's Barbecue still has some of the best BBQ I've tasted, and Pepper's Pizza is transcendental.
• You know you're in a place with some semblance of an entrepreneurial culture when you're bumping into people that make a living from Google AdSense revenue. That kind of occurrence seems natural in the Triangle, but I'd be taken aback if I met someone like that by chance in Pittsburgh.
• Going anyplace in the Triangle takes 30 minutes. I put 75 miles on my car just driving around on Monday.
• The Departed is a good film. I've started drinking cranberry juice in response.
  

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