A taste of Northern California from my viewfinder

[High school students traveling to USA at the Beijing Airport]
My UA flight on July 12, 2008 was fully booked. Among the passengers, about 120 high school students were on board. I sat next to a couple of teachers/chaperons. They were excited and they had long shopping lists. One of them said to the other philosophically, "Let's not buy America to go." Travel and seeing things firsthand without hindrance is a first step to understanding and communication among nations. This is something good to see and I am hopeful to have a peaceful global village.




[The famous BlackBox at Sun's MPK campus]

Well, this might not be the original. It is in front of the MPK12 building, and I suppose that it is for the executive briefing tour. The future of networking, storage, and computing power are all packed in this box, with electricity and network cabled in, and information and heat out. I heard that the Pentagon liked this idea very much.






[Forced Tour at IKEA East Palo Alto]
I just needed to buy a gift certificate for my nephew's LA wedding. And I went in one way and had to quickly do a tour of everything. Here is a shot of a beautifully designed information post. I had to follow the winding road to reach the check-out counter at the end.














[Kaiser Hospital and my annual medical check-up]
I did my blood work and ultrasound a few days before I saw the doctor so that everything would be ready for his assessment. It was good for him to declare that I was good for another 6 months. This shot was at the women's ultrasound floor. Because of "load balancing," I was moved from the regular location to this one. Felt a little out of place at the beginning until I found a few other men there later. Kaiser Hospital at Santa Clara was part of the HMO network I still subscribe to.





[Pruneridge Golf Driving Range, my rare ritual these days]

You must be rusty only doing this driving range practice every 3 or 4 months. I don't even bother to go on the course, because we would hit the balls everywhere and be chased by the next group.














[LA Wedding, all in the family]

Driving down from San Jose to LA is about 6 hours. It was good to see my two sons and my mom again. It was an excuse to have a family reunion. My nephew John got married, the first in that generation. I found my position as uncle was well respected in the scheme of things.







[San Jose RHV airport: biannual flight review]

I did not look too thrilled. I wonder why? My private pilot license requires a biannual flight review to be current. It was one hour of ground instruction and review, and another hour or more air work with a required minimum number of takeoffs and landings. I took this shot in front of the at the RHV airport. It was a lot of mental and physical work to recover from installs and to simulate emergencies.





[Gate of Heaven: my dad and my mom]

My mom is living with my younger sister in Taiwan for the time being. It is her wish to visit the grave site of my dad at Gate of Heaven, a Catholic cemetery in Los Altos, every time she is in northern California. We cut the flowers from our backyard; Michael did a nice job in arranging them.







[Robin and Family in our backyard]

This was a great shot seeing a mother or father robin feeding the young chicks. Our family had a great time seeing this robin family doing their thing in our backyard.









[Century 22 Movie Theater]

I heard in a Toastmaster speech that not having reserved seating for movie tickets in the US was a surprise to Chinese natives. I refreshed my memory on this trip. This dome-shaped structure is a common for movie theaters in the US. We watched "The Dark Knight." This Batman sequel was entertaining and has some interesting philosophical thoughts in it.






[California Living: Castro Street in Mountain View, luncheon in outdoor cafe setting]

This Castro street is becoming a symbol of California living these days. California has nice weather with beautiful blue skies most of the year. It is dry, and outdoor living is feasible and enjoyable. Although California is lagging behind in terms of East Coast high culture and sport teams, and is not well known for public education K through 12, the weather has attracted many new immigrants in the last two centuries. In the boom days of the Silicon Valley, many domestic transplants came to this state as well.



[Police riding Segway in Mountain View, California]

I saw this in LA airport, but I did not have chance to take a picture. This time I used my iPhone to record the scene. It is like child's play to me. A little wild and unthinkable 10 or 20 years ago. The cops need to work more efficiently, I suppose. It is probably more acceptable than seeing them riding on scooters?