My parents arrived in California on the 16^th but were spending their time in LA and San Diego before making their way up to San Francisco for the 23^rd of December.  While they were seeing things in southern California, I was finishing up my time at Apple.

Monday brought excitement in the form of a bowling afternoon out for the team at work.  WE went to a bowling alley for a few hours, which included food and beer, and bowling, this was a good way to make the day fly by and was also pretty enjoyable.

Tuesday night my team took me out to a Korean all you can eat BBQ place, which was basically a meatetarians heaven.  I had never been to a Korean bbq place before so the concept of cooking your own food at the table is new to me.  It was delicious and I definitely filled me to the brim with meat.

That night we were talking about  going to a karaoke place and so wince we were out of time, a few of us decided that the next night would be a good time to go.  So we planned for an after work excursion to a local Asian karaoke place.

I had been to a similar place when we went to Beijing where you go to your own private room and have food delivered to you.  I don’t mind this kind much, but I was very disappointed to find out that the place did not serve alcohol.  To me, karaoke is synonymous with having a few drinks and then singing your heart out to a room full of strangers, but this was quite a bit more tame.  I had a good time and I think my coworkers did too.

And with that my last day of the internship was upon me.  I really enjoyed getting an insight into how Apple does things and it was interesting to see another perspective from the one I learned at RIM.  It was a little sad having to say goodbye to everyone but there is a decent possibility that I will be back in the bay area for my next co-op in September 2012.

The next day was the day that my parents would be arriving at my apartment and so I had to make room for their bed which I needed to fit into my mess of a room.  I also need to start gathering the things I was going to take home with me.  It took me most of the morning to clean up my stuff and by the time I was done, it was 4pm which signaled the start of the Leaf game.  My roommate and I were both adorning our Leafs jerseys and one of his friends came over to watch the game and was also wearing his.  Near the end of the first period my parents showed up who were also all wearing their Leafs jerseys.  So by the time the second period rolled around there were 5 people in Leafs jerseys sitting in my California apartment.

The Leafs ended up winning the game and shortly after the end of that one my parents and I left for the Sharks vs LA Kings game in San Jose.  All three of us were wearing our Leafs Jerseys and when the out of town scores were announced we cheered loudly for the Leafs win over the Islanders.

Upon returning from the game we tried to figure out what we were going to do for the next few days.  My sister’s boyfriend has been doing his residency in LA for a few months and was going to be driving home around the same time .  So him and my sister had driven up to San Francisco for a night there.  We decided to go up to Napa Valley for Christmas and found a hot springs resort that was not booked.  Most of the places we tried were booked and so this was one of few that we could get a last minute reservation.

To be continued

Friday rolled around and I still didn’t really have a plan for the evening until I read a Facebook post from my friends who was celebrating his birthday that night.  I jumped on a bus and headed up to northern Santa Clara for dinner and some drinks.  We ended up at a hookah bar which I did not participate in but still enjoyed the company.  There were no buses home at that point so I decided to walk the hour home rather than pay for a cab.  It wasn’t that cold outside so the walk wasn’t too bad.

On Saturday I tried to get some of my Christmas shopping done and was successful in getting the one that I had set out to get.  The rest of Saturday was spent watching movies with the roommates.  On Sunday I worked on my work report a little bit and then the roommates and I went to the grocery store for some groceries and I ended up picking up a pretty large steak.  I kind of knew that our apartment complex had a BBQ but I never really asked about it or attempted to ever cook anything.  I should have done it earlier as that steaks was really good and not that expensive.  I can’t believe I waited until the end of the term I order to take advantage of the BBQ, although I have one in Waterloo and the winter weather will not stop me from cooking delicious meats.

With that weekend coming to a close I had 4 days of work left and then my parents arrival on the Friday.  They  had flown in a week earlier and were touring LA and San Diego before coming to the bay area to spend Christmas with me.

Part 3 is coming soon, so look forward to that!!!!

Prior to the start of the weekend, I got a random tweet from a Tshirt company that said i had won a free t-shirt.  I wasn’t following this company on twitter so i thought it was strange, although after visiting their site, i realized that their tag line was “SuperBright Casual” and I had tweeted about a super bright shooting star after my run on Wednesday night.  Anyways I picked out a free shirt and it arrived the night I was writing this blog, so thought i would include a photo.  It is indeed SUPERBRIGHT.  Check ou their website at www.volgaverdi.com.

Friday night started off with the usually wing party at work, where everyone orders wings and we all share flavours and pig out on wings.  After that I headed home and watched a few tv shows and worked on a bit of the blog.  The lunar eclipse was happening early Saturday morning so I went to bed early to make sure I woke up for that.

My Saturday morning started with a 5:45am wake up call which would get me dressed and outside far in advance of the 6:15am scheduled total lunar eclipse.  I was a little excited for this one as it was supposed to be fairly low in the western skyline for the duration of the eclipse, which meant that once it got lower in the sky it would appear huge. (see here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/20jun_moonillusion/) although cameras cannot see this illusion, it still would have been cool to see.  When I got out there the moon was starting to be covered by the earth’s shadow and was still very right.  As the moon sunk lower in the sky and the earth’s shadow began to cover it, things started to disappear.  It was a super clear night overhead but low in the sky, Fog and other things in the air made the moon almost impossible to see with the naked eye.  I was able to follow it’s progress by taking longer exposure photos, but was pretty disappointed that there was such an obstruction.  After the moon was low enough in the sky and the sun started to come up, I gave up and went back to bed.

Upon waking up again, a few friends an I were supposed to go hiking but it takes about 2 hours to get to any of the hiking spots by public transit and it get’s dark at around 5pm these days.  Therefore we decided to go outdoor skating instead.  They set up a rink in downtown San Jose every year and I heard from my roommate that it wasn’t all that good because they don’t flood very often but it is surrounded by palm tress, which we thought was pretty cool.  I brought my own skates but when I saw the ice I thought it might be better just to wear the rented ones, since it was the same price anyways.  I had a bit of trouble getting started because the rentals had almost no support and the blades were pretty dull.  It made getting confidence a little bit of a struggle but after skating for a while I became as confident as I was going to be in non supporting, dull hockey skates.

We skated around for a while and when we decided to go someone started a game of tag and with so many bad skaters around as well as shoddy equipment, this probably wasn’t a good idea.  Anyways a few minutes after starting one of our friends was chasing another and when she fell the chaser accidently sliced her hand with her blade.  I probably would normally have just left this part out, but I promised that I would include it in the blog.

After we were skated out, we meandered through the Christmas in the park displays, which were basically just a bunch of animatronic animals and elves doing stuff.  I am not super into this type of stuff, but it was something to do and I enjoy walking around.  Before people started to disperse home, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown San Jose that had mixed reviews on Yelp but despite being on the pricey side for what we got it was very tasty and had an interesting atmosphere.

As soon as we sat down for dinner I got my 10-minute reminder for the meeting that I was supposed to be having with FYIC potential delegates.  I had totally forgotten and ended up having Lisa talk to the people while I just listened in and threw in my two cents every once in a while.  After dinner despite my attempt at convincing people to join me for the Muppet movie, Casey was the only one to experience the awesomeness.  However, we got our time wrong and were over 20 minutes late for the 7:10 show, which we thought, was at 7:25.  We figured that this was too late and so we went next door to the safeway, grabbed a 12 pack of beer and went back to his place for some TV watching and beer drinking.  Forgetting Sarah Marshall was on and was just finishing up so we caught the end where he does the Muppet play which is fitting since we were going to see the Muppet movie.  After Sarah Marshal was over, Superbad started, but we didn’t get that far into it.  Casey was getting upset anyway because of all the censoring they do on the TV version.  We headed back to the theater with a few roadies on hand and made it in plenty of time.  The movie did not disappoint and Casey seemed to be glad that he went.  I don’t want to make this post much longer so I am going to say one thing about the movie.  GO SEE IT, IT ROCKS!!!

After catching the last bus home, I crashed into bed after a long day.  I woke up on Sunday and didn’t particularly feel like doing anything, and I had recently downloaded the Hangover 2 which seemed like a good idea.  The Hangover2 turned into Cars 2 which was followed by Cowboys and Aliens which was followed by Captain America which was followed by green lantern with the finale coming from the Tourist.  A 6 movie marathon took me to about midnight, at which point I decided it was probably about time for bed.  It was the definition of a lazy Sunday and I didn’t mind it at all.  I think I need to do a little bit more work in the future though as I am missing the first week of classes and I need to write my last work report his term.

You may also notice the strange artifacts in the video, they appear to be in the source video.  My apologies.

Hope you enjoy!!

There were two older gentleman that were figure skating in the middle that were very impressed with my edges.  I thought this was pretty funny since I usually get made fun of for my edges, but apparently they are pretty good for this area and when I told him I was from Canada he did a head nod.  The other funny thing that he asked me to do was a killian Choctaw which I did and he was very impressed, even though I am pretty sure it’s pretty bad.  He told me old sorts of stories about local figure skating and older people who skated in the area, but I was pretty lost as to what he was talking about.

The photos we got were pretty good despite the use of on camera flash which, I usually hate and the non ideal conditions that were an outdoor ice skating rink.

The day after the excitement at the skating rink, even more excitement was in store, because the Montreal Canadians were in town.  It being San Jose, it was not very difficult to get tickets and there were plenty of Montreal Fans in the stands.  Mike is from Montreal and was cheering for Montreal, but being a leafs fan, i was cheering for whoever was playing Montreal, which in this case was San Jose. It was a great game that went to overtime and then 7 rounds of shootouts.  Montreal ended up loosing which was good but the extra time made me miss my bus that runs every hour.  I decided that i didn’t feel like waiting for the next bus, so i just cabbed it home.

Credit:Michael Anthony Soares

Friday night was a relaxing night at home which was supposed to include room cleaning and homework, but ended up consisting of tv watching and book reading.  I made it more of a priority to finish the Steve Job biography, so I could move on to reading the text books and lecture notes for the classes I will be taking next term.  I will be missing the first week and a half of classes due to the conference I am attending at the beginning of January so I need to get ahead.  My work report is very similar to a report I am writing at work, so I have combined the two and will be working on that as part of my work duties.

I think the best part of the weekend by far was the guest we had staying at our place.  Macey is a Labrador Poodle who we were pet sitting for the weekend.  She was awesome and def made the weekend exciting, although it also made me miss Duffy, who is waiting for me at home.

Saturday was a pretty lazy day consisting of TV watching, book reading and a little bit of photo editing.  Sunday wasn’t much better although I added some of next terms notes to my ipad and organized them for easy reading later.

I was asked before leaving on vacation if I was available Sunday night as my roommate was playing a hockey game at HP Pavilion (the big arena where the San Jose Sharks Play) and he wanted some photos of the occasion.  I was happy to finally get out and shoot some photos and got a few decent shots of him and his team.  I am a little disappointed that the usher wouldn’t let me use the photography hole in the boards, but I doubt it would have made much difference.  The lights seemed to be a bit lower than normal which made things a little more difficult from a photography standpoint, but all in all I had fun and his team won 3-0.  After the game the team and supporters went for Pizza and Beer, which really hit the spot after a lazy day.

When I got home from the pizza place, I decided to start sewing on the patches that I had accumulated from the Road Trip, which brings my total up to 69!

One side of a leg

The weekend was a nice relaxing one after the craziness that was the week before, although now I find myself swimming in photos to edit and video to put together.  I also cannot belie that I only have three more weeks of work before it’s all over.  I don’t leave California immediately after finishing work, so i ill get about 6 days to see a few more things before leaving the warm coastal shores and immersing myself in the frigid temperatures of Whitehorse.

The way the coastal highway worked out we arrived at the actual coastal section of the highway right at sunset.  We stopped at Morrow Bay for some sunset photos which were unbelievable.  The photos do not even come close to capturing the beuty that was this site.  The waves were crashing against the rocks and the sun was creating beautiful colours over the water.

Photo:Michael Anthony Soares

I didn’t really want to leave.  North of Morrow Bay, the coastal highway actually follows the coast with winding cliff roads.  This is the reason why we had decided to drive up the coast but the problem was that it was pich black and there was no way of seeing anything beyond what was in front of us on the road.  It kind of felt like a rollercoaster and both mike and I felt strange when we stopped driving and took a break.  It was a little disappointing but we pressed on and arrived in Monterey at a decent hour.  We checked into the hotel and then went on a journey to find food.  We ended up at a pizza place down the street which served up a delicious ice cold beer, which was perfect after a long drive through perilous coastal highways.

The next day was our final day of the trip and we planned on hitting up the scenic 17 mile drive through the pebble beach area as well as the Monterey Aquarium.  We got up relatively early and headed for the beginning of the 17 mile drive, which is a coastal drive with many stops for beautiful ocean vistas.  It was a little bit surprising that a simple drive along the coast would cost $9.50 but I think overall it was worth it.  I never knew why Pebble Beach was so famous but I understand now because it is simply the most beautiful golf course I have ever seen.  We also saw the tree that makes up the Pebble beach logo, which was pretty cool looking.

After plenty of photos and a solid amount of taking in the beautiful vistas, we continued to the aquarium.  One thing that was a little bit misleading, was that the 17mile drive was not even close to 17 miles.

The aquarium is situated in an old canning factory and they still have some of the old equipment left over with a small exhibit on how it used to operate.  The aquarium has a ton of ginormous tanks with various types of fishies and sea creatures swimming in it’s midst.  They have sea turtles, penguins and otters as well as a hammerhead shark and some ginormous tuna.  I had seen a lot of wildlife in the past little while at the various science centers I have visited but it was still fun to see the ginormous variety of sea creatures.  After covering all that there was to see at the aquarium, we set out on a mission to find a solid lunch place.  We settled on the Cannery Row Brewing Company which was playing the bills game and had over 50 beers on tap.  I settled on the chicken fried chicken, which was fabulous.  After lunch we started out on the final leg of our adventure.  It took us through the windy highway 17 and eventually back to San Francisco where we dropped off the car.

Photo:Michael Anthony Soares

Think my favorite part of the zoo was the Panda’s even though they weren’t very active and didn’t provided the crowd with a good view, they were still super cute and worth the title of favorite animals.  I enjoyed seeing the animals as well as the beautiful summer weather in November, but by the end of the day both Mike and I were pretty tired and hungry.

Photo:Michael Anthony Soares

We had polled twitter and facebook the day before about good Mexican food in san Diego, since we were so close to the border there had bound to be great Mexican food around.  Twitter did not disappoint and we were pointed to a very good restaurant called El Zarape located very close to the zoo.  We both ordered the lobster burrito which was deeelicious.  After finishing up our burrito we headed to sunset peaks where we watched the sunset over the ocean, which was very beautiful.

Photo:Michael Anthony Soares

Wet then headed home for a much needed break! After a bit of a break we decided to go with the guy we were staying with to the gun range to shoot a hand gun.  Both Mike and I had never shot before but Jack was looking to get some practice as he wants to get into shooting.  It was surprisingly simple for someone to hand over a gun and some bullets to 2 newbs and an amateur shooter.   We got 100 rounds between the 3 of us because none of us were really looking to go nuts and bullets can get expensive fairly quickly.

Photo:Michael Anthony Soares

We each shot 33 rounds at a faceless orange man target with a 9mm handgun.  I used my first 10 rounds to aim at the head and was surprised at how well I had done, so I got cocky and tried the next target at 35 yards instead of 30 and was pretty bad.  I even missed the paper a few times when shooting at that distance.  We each took turns emptying the 10 round magazine and when we had all shot 33 rounds it was time to go.  We didn’t want the night to end yet, so we took more twitter advice and headed to a part of the city that was supposed to have a decent amount of bars.  We ended up at Bluefoot bar and lounge which was a pretty good chill bar.  We each had a beer but then realized that we had more beer at the apartment and no one would have to be DD there.  So we headed back home and watched some TV.  The day was pretty jam packed with things and both mike and I were pretty tired by the end of the night.

We then started our trek across the desert to LA.  We were planning on going to Universal Studios until we found out how much it cost for admission ($77) and at that point Mike and I both decided that it was not really worth it.  So we went to the California Science Centre instead, which had free admission, but was only open until 5pm (we arrived at 3pm).  The science center was pretty fun, but I have been to a lot in the past few weeks and a lot of exhibits are getting a little repetitive.  However, they did have the Apollo-Soyuz Command Module, Ham’s Mercury Spacecraft and the Gemini 11 capsule, which were pretty cool.

We got to our hotel near LAX and then went for dinner at a Pizza place we found close by.  We got a free drink as a special when checking into the place on foursquare, which is the second deal I have cashed in on using foursquare.  That pretty much sums up day 4 as it was more or less a travel day.

We woke up and headed out to the Hollywood hills where we found a park, which had a great view of the Hollywood sign.  After a few silly photos we headed to the Hollywood walk of fame and Kodak theatre.

I was a little underwhelmed by it to be honest.  I didn’t look any different than a normal Toronto street, but I guess some things become famous for various reasons and aren’t always obvious.   It was pretty empty compared to other days since it was thanksgiving day in the states, but we didn’t mind because it meant less crowds. After taking a short walk along the street, we drove by Beverly Hills and then continued to Santa Monica where we did another quick drive by, since we basically wanted to see what was up but had no real reason to get out of the car.

After this quick drive by, we began our journey to San Diego, where we would be staying with our friend Jack Wang, who is an intern at Qualcomm.  We needed to get dinner but the problem was that it was thanksgiving and nothing was open, although we were no longer staying in a hotel and the grocery store was open, so we decided to buy some food and cook it ourselves.  The top choice was Beer, Steak and baked Potato with bacon and eggs for breakfast.

It was a pretty good thanksgiving meal!  We got some good tips on a few good bars to check out in San Diego, but that fact that it was thanksgiving meant that they were all closed.  We ended up just skyping people that were online, which was fun!!  A lot of traveling occurred in the  past two days, so I was looking forward to having a non travel day the next day.