Scribbles

On Wednesday night, my good friend and I had the honor of presenting a BOF session in the Marriott.  Unfortunately, we were scheduled at the last possible timeslot at 10:30pm, which overlapped the after-dark bash from 7-midnight.  Never mind that in a predominantly male techy convention we were going against live female rock bands, booze, food, and games, they even hired Dennis Miller to perform right before us.

Having never seen Dennis Miller live before, I can only judge his performance against others I’ve seen.  He routine entertained, but I still felt like he mailed it in.  The guy was reading off notes and just firing off rants without any clear theme or direction. Of course within each rant, he delivered with his exceptional sarcasm and witty language, but that should be auto-pilot for him.  He sort of closed with his usual political rants about how we should support the President, something I’m not sure resonates with the mostly liberal (and European) crowd.

The good news: most people who cared enough to attend our presentation were the hardcore developers  (a good 30-40 of them) that didn’t even bother with the party.  They were clearly tired, but I think they walked away with some good information.  Our goal was to share some of what we learned in our scalability work so others don’t have to go through the grunt work we already did.  We left with a nice memento: the sign Sun posted out the door that announces the BOF titles and schedules.

Hey, it’s my annual pilgrimage to JavaOne again.  I try to make it to this conference each year, and I think I’ve only missed one in the last few years.  This time, given my situation, I approaching it with a different mentality and physicality.

Java has become a much more mature technology compared to back in the hayday.  This is apparent in the talks and sessions offered.  Other than it being a huge software developer conference (supposedly 15,000 this year) where people get to meet up, talk shop, and party, I wonder how many more years they can sustain it.  This time around, I plan on focusing more on the business aspects of Java related technologies and what intentions Sun has for their crown jewel.

Luckily I convinced my boss to let me book a hotel this time around, since I will be presenting a BOF session with a good friend and colleague.  This saves us the hour long commutes we’ve made in the past years, and allows us to participate in more of the after-hour events.  Last night we had an incredible dinner downstairs of our hotel, the Westin St. Francis.  It was the priciest dinner I’ve ever had, the seven course taster menu at Michael Mina’s with the wine pairings.  The pairings were incredibly well done, given the restaurant’s reputation for their wine cellar. I did find, however, the reds to be less impressive.

I’m excited about this week.  It’ll mark my last attendance at this wonderful conference as a developer.  I’ve made great memories in past events, and I don’t see it being any different this time around.

Took my TEF exam today, and I feel pretty confident about passing.  The fine tutors (thanks Valerie) at the language institute proctored the test today and it went relatively smoothly.  I was out the door in 4 hours.  The most difficult section was the oral comprehension; there were sections where I swear they were speaking jibberish and not French.  But all in all, I feel great about my competency in the language, and the exam reinforced to me what I already knew as my weakness – vocabulary.  So I’ll continue to hit the vocab lessons and catch the television lessons shown on TV.  I’m almost done with Pimsleur too, woot.

This also means I have a short respite for the weekend after being sandwiched between studying for this and many work related projects.  Perhaps I’ll pop by the annual North Beach Festival tomorrow.

In the late afternoon, I felt my concentration dropping and my will to be productive dwindle to the point where I decided to take a second walk.  I began by going a block south and as I glanced westwards, the backdrop of the ocean against the gorgeous summer day suddenly came into focus.  It didn’t take me by surprise that I could see it from there, since it wasn’t the first time, but an ambitious thought dawned on me.  Can I simply… walk there, right to the beach?  Why not?

A new path emerged clearly in my mind and I took note of each passing street as I traversed it.  41, 42, … and within a few minutes, I counted nine blocks.  And inhaled the view.  I could taste the sea as I swallowed the fresh wind blowing through my face, each strand of my hair, my clothes, my limbs, my entire self.  But it reached deep down inside, past my physical matter right into the essence of my being.

The sun loomed not too distant from the ocean horizon where I gawked at it from a high cliff of beach sand.  I could see people walking below on the beach with their dogs or by themselves as if it were nothing special to be able to just walk out the door and be in the presence of nature’s splendor.  But at that very moment, I could feel nothing but appreciation and wonder.  Then I realized that I am now among them.

I was walking on water.

After a productive working session from my apartment, I took a short break.  Since the weather was perfect, I decided to take a relaxing short stroll in the neighborhood, and buy some some munchies.  The closest little business section nearby is the intersection of Taraval and 40th, which is just 1.5 blocks away.

There’s a convenient Walgreen’s that sells 1-gallon Crystal Geysers for 99 cents.  Then there’s your pick of local mom-and-pop stops.  I bought some tasty pastries from the “European Cafe” run by an adorable and affable Korean couple.  The lady running the ship sends me such a motherly vibe.  When I came to see the apartment for the first time and stopped by her shop for a coffee, she was doling out advice to me on the importance of finding the right girl.  The husband found some training bicycle in the back, greased it up and started riding it around the block just for kicks.

Then there’s the convient mini-mart for lotto, a hair-stylist, and some Cantonese restaurants.  The L-train also stops right here to whisk you to the zoo or towards West Portal/Downtown.

I previously mentioned the street cleaning.  So depending on what side of the street you’re parked, you might have to watch out for this.

So on Tuesdays and Fridays, if you’re parked on the street, you will run into some trouble.  I actually saw the meter cart drive by followed shortly by the cleaning truck.  For local residents, I noticed a little musical-chairs effect on these days, where people moved their cars around to dodge this.  As a matter of fact, I participated in this game today.

It’s not horribly inconvenient since you’re most likely to be home when you’re parked here, but what about going on vacation?

Spent the last two nights at my new place – a quiet in-law sublet in Sunset near Ulloa Street.  (FYI an “in-law” is a section of a house separated into its own unit.)  The temperature here definitely falls to must-wear-jacket levels in the evening, something unusual in the South bay.  Anyhow, the very congenial student who lives here is visiting her motherland of Nippon over the summer, so I was lucky enough to sublet the place for the remaining duration of my stay in the Bay Area.  I promise I’ll take good care of the it,

The location isn’t quite the City, but it’s walking distance to a local Asian supermarket, Walgreen’s, and some simple restaurants.  Street parking is fairly easy, although I’m still getting a hang of parking within the short spaces between driveways and dealing with odd street cleaning hours (I’ll post a pic later).  But I plan to drive as infrequently as possible and am eager to get acquainted with the Muni system so I can get around without worrying about driving and parking.  The L line is supposedly a mere hop skip and jump away.

The unit itself offers a tremendous amount of living space and light, something essential to living comfortably.  I inherited that through grandma.  Something about the brightness that uplifts my spirts and gives me a boost in energy.  There’s a small kitchen at the entrance, laundry room in the garage (unfortunately no parking space for me), garden in the backyard, bathroom, bedroom, and monstrously large living room.

Some Simple Cooking

Soon to be messier.

Tai-Chi anyone?

Greenery… yummy oxygen

Remainders of my move

I look forward to my short summer stay in SF.  Subtract my various vacation and visits to other places, too bad I really won’t be spending much time here.  Regardless, here’s to the City!

I remember a quote in Fight Club, to the effect of  “The things you own, end up owning you…”  That’s how I felt after moving out all my things.  There were many moments I wished that my apartment would explode like Jack’s.

It all started rather innocuously.  I thought I was ahead of the game, planning the logistics and dumping stuff out two weeks ahead of the move.  In the process, I realized how one can just accumulate things little by little, and then one day, find oneself with a huge pile of things that fall in the limbo category of “things you don’t absolutely need but can’t quite throw away for whatever reasons, sentimental or economical.”  Soon the sheer amount of these things and difficult-to-move furniture overwhelmed me.  So in trying to find out exactly which category (thumbs up or down a la Gladiator) to place them, I attempted what any normal person would do: stall.  I toyed with the thought of buying some time by dumping things into storage… but then I discovered the cost of renting storage space nearby, and how this solution would become a financial drain.  Not worthwhile just to keep some semi-decent furniture.

The alternative was to ship things back home to LA.  Let’s just say that my experience finding reliable and affordable movers for this task was less than pleasant.  Just remember, if the movers arrive in the middle of the night, they’re going to be very eager to leave. My combo solution of shipping things down south and renting a small storage space worked out well enough for me to completely empty out my apartment.  Well, that and the help of some very willing recipients of free furniture.

One of my friend’s suggested to me that’s why people buy houses — so they can hoard their possessions.  Sounds to me like a recipe for getting more owned by Jack’s stuff.

Finally finished moving out of my apartment last night.  After one summer internship and 6 years, I left the one city I have stayed at longer than any other in my whole life.  Not only that, but even my time in that very apartment measures the longest I have stayed in any single residence — a whopping 3.5 years!

For those of you unfamiliar with Mountain View, it’s one of the cities composing Silicon Valley.  I did enjoy living there, as its location was perfect for me, situated between work and Stanford.  The city itself has its highlights and lowlights, but all in all, it never exuded an overwhelming sense of suburban sprawl, while providing the usual amenities and more.  Downtown around Castro street is one of my favorite hangouts for food and coffee.  The people are not much different than those in neighboring cities of SV, relatively friendly and polite.

And just like that, it’s an end of an era.  I will certainly look back with fond memories of friends, loved ones, and personal growth.