Introspection: Travels: San Francisco '2000

A look into the boy :-P
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New Delhi, '98/99

San Francisco, '00

San Francisco '2000 (II)

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Lake Tahoe

We took 2 days off as well, to drive all the way to Lake Tahoe. It wasn't very spectecular. We managed to catch only snow on the ground, but there was no snowfall. :-( It was pretty cold, with temperatures hovering between plus and minus 5 degrees centigrade. The roads were treacherous too, being terribly slippery with snow and ice. We lost our way driving in the dark and ended up at King's Beach in Nevada.

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable experience, walking along the beach bordering the lake, in the early morning, getting frozen by the chilly winds. We went to Squaw Valley too, site of one of the winter Olympics, and hitched a ride on one of the near-vertical cable cars. Too bad we didn't have time for skiing.

Gourmet Haven

Seafood was abundant in the Bay Area, and we regularly ate succulent, meaty, crabs, lobsters, juicy prawns (or shrimps as they call it there), in every single way they could be cooked. We ate lobsters and steamed prawns at Chinese restaurants, boiled crabs at roadside stalls. Then there was the standard American fare as well, that was none the worse off.

And oh yes, did I mention that we took a day off and headed down to the vineyards at Napa Valley? It was a fantastic trip, with plenty of free wine :-P haha. The wine tasted great, the scenery was fantastic, and the rustic charm of the place unbeatable.

Glorious Weather

The warm temperate climate of California was a refreshing change from the sweltering heat of Singapore. Temperatures hardly exceeded 15 degrees centigrade in the day, and fell to single digits at night. The sun was nice and warm, the air crisp, fragrant and dry, the breeze soothing and cold. Of course there were the incessant rains that beat down too and turned the whole place gloomy and depressing.

Twisted Times

Jet lag was a severe problem for us on reaching there. We slept for more than 24 hours nonstop. Even after that, our concept of time was completely screwed up during the time we were there: we woke up at 11am every day, got to the office at 12pm, and worked till 2am before returning to sleep at 3 or 4am.

Work

Before I forget, we were in the Bay Area for an industrial attachment :-P. We spent lots of time in the office of the brand-new startup, poring over their system and technologies for a full week, during which they got us to re-create their entire server setup for testing. The rest of the time we spent writing this module for their system. It was this auto-respawning message board for their product catalogues, and we modified some software they bought.

The office was fantastic: there was a T1 connection out and Internet access was very fast. We spent quite a fair bit of time downloading nonsense and talking on ICQ. Haha. The pantry was great stuff too, with the refrigerator stocked up on microwaveable fast food and snacks. I think we managed to finish up their snickers for them. Those were the heydays of the Internet startup :-P.

"...but leave, before it makes you soft..."

[At the Squaw Valley ski resort at 8000 feet, or 2600 metres]

[At King's Beach, Lake Tahoe, on the California-Neveda border]

[At Mount Rose, 2500 metres above sea level, in Tahoe, California]

[A part of the Oracle compounds in Redwood Shores, California, with the beautiful sun setting]

[At the V Sattui Winery in St Helena, California]

[My classmate, a co-worker, and I at the office with their homemade server rack]