Back to the great white north

Well, the adventure has come to an end; I completed my research a few days ago. My supervisor was extremely pleased with my work. On Friday, we had the last bash of the year to toast the departure of the Fall interns. I was up until 2am packing but was able to board my flight with no major hiccups.

I guess it's only appropriate to make a few closing comments about my experience working in Silicon Valley. The biggest difference for me was the complete dependence upon cars; If I am able to return, I've decided to take up driving. I also found most of the Canadian myths about the pushy ignorant Americans to be rather exaggerated; they're not as different from us as we'd like to believe; well, at least not in Northern California. It must have something to do with that fact that the ethnic diversity in The Valley (and ,to a lesser extent, the entire state) is very high.

Cruising for gear

Kirill & I had something of an adventure today. We drove to a clothing store somewhere in Sunnyvale so he could pick up a jacket but got lost upon leaving the store and ended up driving around aimlessly in some very hilly areas with lots of sharp cuurves in the roads. Eventually we found our way to downtown Palo Alto and decided to have dinner at the same place I'd had lunch at yesterday.

Interestingly enough, there was a belly-dancer competition going on there when we arrived! Unfortunately, we got a table with nary a view of the whirling forms. The music was pretty decent though. After dinner we went to Fry's so I could pick up this dirt cheap 802.11g wireless router that had been advertised in yesterday's paper. However, it turned out to be an error on the part of the newspaper and I had to spend a little more than I had been expecting, although the router is still pretty cheap for what it offers.

I've configured it and it works, although it turns out I can get a better signal from somebody else's open WLAN in my bedroom!

A visit from Renata, Matt & Forrest

Renata had been saying all term that she, Matt & Forrest would take a road trip to visit me in Santa Clara. Since this weekend was their last shot at doing so, they finally made it over. They didn't have any trouble getting to my place, although Forrest seemed to be completely exhausted from the previous day.

After giving him a little while to rest, we went to visit Matt's brother Jason at Stanford. He showed s around his dorm & then we went off-campus for lunch. Before eating, we spent some time poking around the UN store, which reminded me of 10,000 Villages. Jason treated us to lunch at this Mediterranean wrap restaurant, which was quite good. We ran across a bubble-tea place so I insisted upon going in, since it had been months since my last one.

There are an impressively high number of indie cinemas around campus but we didn't really want to spent 2-3 hours watching a movie when we could be enjoying the sun instead. While we were finishing off our desserts, I spotted a fellow Sun intern, Ryan Singer, who was wandering around town in an attempt to avoid writing an essay. I introduced him to the Sacramentonians before we decided to drop Jason back, since he had an exam for which he needed to study.

After depositing Jason in his dorm, we went to the Stanford Art museum, which had a most impressive collection of sculptures. I especially liked Rodin's The Gates of Hell, which is the most awe-inspiring piece of sculpture I have ever set eyes upon. Another interesting thing we saw was the Stone River, constructed out of hundreds of rocks formed into a curvy wall inside a long pit.

By this point it had started to get dark so we soon left, stopping to rent Bruce Almighty en route to my apartment. Renata & Matt made jalapeno poppers, which were terrific but very spicy. Fortunately, I had enough eggnog to deal with that :-)

I gave Renata my plant to take home, since I won't be here too much longer & she promised to continue the excellent job I'd been doing nursing it back to health.

Chapter 7, in which I learn what US turkey-day is all about

Down here, most people seem to get 2 days off to fondly recall that touching moment in North American history when friendly natives taught starving European explorers how to live off the land so that the grateful explorers would be able to eventually repay the favour by slaughtering virtually the entire native population and annexing their land. Because these 2 holidays conveniently make for a very long weekend, I had plans to visit my cousin David's family once last time before I returned to the Great White North. I took an Amtrak train to Sacramento on Wednesday and was picked up by David, Jane, Josie & Mikey.

After taking the minivan through a car-wash, all of us went to Jane's sister's place for Thanksgiving lunch on Thursday, where I demonstrated my prowess on the trampoline in their back yard. All present were suitably impressed, even after I divulged that had taken lessons last summer. Renata & I made plans to hang out with some of her friends on Saturday. Once we had supped, several of us went for a walk in the local park before David & Jane took Josie, Mikey, me & 2 other cousins back home.

After being subjected to much Disney propaganda on TV, we convinced Josie to play some board games with us. She had a chess set so I taught her how to play chess, Tony-style; all the pieces talk and have their own distinct personailities (except the pawns, who are like agent Smith from The Matrix). She seemed to enjoy the game a lot, even though I was ruthlessly crushing her. The game was made even more interesting by Mikey, who kept trying to snatch pieces off the board.

Friday was spent playing with Mikey & Josie, discussing various social issues with Jane & listening to David tell stories of the family from days gone by. I also taught David & Josie to play hangman, although they didn't seem to taken by it. Jane needed to get some work done on her car so we went out for lunch while it was being fixed up. There had been plans to visit lake Tahoe but the threat of rain skittled those.

On Saturday we went to Jane's sister Ruth's place for a photo shoot by her son Ricardo, who's a budding photographer. Among many others, he took some pictures of me with Renata, David, Mikey & Josie. After lunch, Renata & I headed off to her place, which makes the Geekhaus look clean by comparision. However, they did have a wireless LAN, which I made good use of. Renata, Matt, Dan & I went briefly explored a nearby botanical garden & watched a few episodes of the Animatrix before heading off to her friends' place for the night.

Once there, we sat around talking for a while before playing Balderdash, followed by a rowdy game that combined Charades, Pictionary, wordplay & Trivial Pursuit. Eventually we had to leave, although we did stop to check up on somebody's dog en route to Renata's place. This dog had, in addition to it's own room, it's own water-filtration system! Instead of going to sleep as we had plannned, we ended up having a late-night discussion about theoretical Physics.

Jane took Josie, Mikey & me out for dinner on Sunday, while David did some work at home. The next morning I went in to work with David & walked to the train station from there. No sooner had I made it to the station than it began raining. Fortunately, the rain had stopped by the time I got to Santa Clara.