Ruizs Place

Finally was able to post some photos – see them here:

London Photos

Apartment / Flat Photos

Yesterday I ended up touring London’s museums, which I must say are some of the best in the world.  I had planned to hit four museums in one day, but I was a bit tired of museums, and tired in general at the end of the day.  I went to the British Library, British Museum, and National Gallery.

The weather was classic British weather, cloudy, cold, and wet – but luckily most of the day was spent inside.  The British Library was my quickest stop, as I really just wanted to see the “Treasures” room.  The documents on display were a whirlwind tour through history, including an original version of the King James bible, the original Magna Carta, original scores by Bach and Chopin, original scientific papers by Da Vinci, and even the original lyrics for quite a few songs by McCartney and Lennon!

Next stop was the British Museum, definitely my favorite for the day.  My travel guide says this is the greatest collection of historical artifacts in the world, and I’m inclined to believe it.  Among other things, they have the Rossetta Stone, which allowed translation of Egyptian heirogliphycs into other languages.  The Assyrian collection was a bit boring, but the Greek collection more than made up from it.  I bet the Greek people aren’t too happy about that one – they pretty much sliced up the Panentheon, and took the pieces back to England.  Come to think of it, that’s probably how all of these treasures got here…

Lastly, I hit the National Gallery, housing many original Monet, Van Gogh, Raphael, Michaealangelo (pretty much all of the Ninja Turtles), and the like.  I’m not usually a big fan of art, but many of these paintings were simply amazing.

Photos to come…

Saturday I headed out into the city, with the mission of hitting the major tourist spots.  I must say I was successful, and my tired feet and legs are proof of that.  I probably walked at least 7 or 8 miles.

I first headed to Westminster station, which is right next to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.  Both are quite amazing, and its definitely fun to hear Big Ben call out the new hour.  Even more amazing, in my mind, is the Westminster Abbey church – the architecture is incredible (and so is the £14 fee to get in!).  I walked around the outside, but didn’t get the chance to go in – I’ll wait till Angie gets here for that.  From there, I headed up Whitehall St. to Trafalgar square, another beautiful site site.  I’m not quite sure the significance, but the square is a nice open place in a crowded city.
One thing I’m not used to seeing, the square is filled with pigeons – although they’re called “London’s Rats”, I found it to be quite a beautiful sight – see pictures to come.
Finally, I thought I’d go see the famous Tower of London.  Lacking my tour book, I figured the “London Bridge” tube stop was the logical place to go.  Unfortunately, soon after I found out that the pretty bridge you think of in London is named the “Tower Bridge”, and London Bridge is actually about 2 miles away .  I ended up walking through “The City” proper, which is now the financial district.  I made it to the Tower, and the Tower Bridge – both beautiful, and a stark contrast to the financial district they border.

I arrived in London on thursday in the afternoon, and figured it best to stay awake until nighttime here, and I was actually able to adjust in 2 days. Since the country speaks english, its pretty easy to get by, although I have learned a bit of vocabulary. “Car park” instead of parking lot, “water closet” instead of bathroom, etc. The weather here is pretty much what I thought, cold but not freezing, raining but not pouring, grey but not foggy. Pretty dreary – no wonder those UK people are so white .
Noah, the other US employee out here, met me at Paddington station, showed me to my apartment, and showed me a bit of the town. We wandered around Picadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, and Leicster square, including chinatown. I bought a scarf and we grabbed some pub food, but I was generally tired, and headed back to the flat.
The flat – well, I must say thanks to my employer, the flat is quite nice. Hardwood floors, tasteful, modern decorations, and a full set of appliances, dishes, etc. I hear the rent for this place is somewhere around £1500 / month – the place is only about 600 or so square feet! The parking lot downstairs looks like a porsche dealer, with a bunch of BMW’s and a couple of Ferrari’s mixed in. Take a look here – Chelsea Bridge Wharf

Work here is a bit strange, for now, it is only two of us in the office, and we’ll be joined by another employee next week. Not quite the big team environment I’m used to, but not so bad. And its not too busy either, so that’s a plus for sightseeing .

After a bit of a delay caused by the previous plane at our gage, we finally were able to board and get on our way.  Virgin atlantic is a bit different than any airline I’ve been on — where else do you hear The Doors “Riders on the Storm” as boarding music, and an entertaining 3-d animation safety video?  Well, the flight was bundles of fun, as I wasn’t aware I was supposed to confirm my flight and reserve a seat 3 days early.  I had a middle aisle seat in the back of the plane, in between two rather large women.  Lets just say a 11 hour flight without an armest isn’t my idea of fun…

It’s been a while since my last post ( coming up on 6 months! ), but, gladly, I’m back. I just started a 5-week stint working in the UK, so in the coming days & weeks, I’ll have lots to post about, and will likely keep the site updated a few times a week. Check back soon (I’m waiting for my new camera card reader to arrive).

Well, I’m currently in-between jobs, and instead of just relaxing for two weeks, I decided to keep busy and do some home improvement….
I built 3 of these large cabinets about a year ago, but never really completed the project. Over the past few days, Angie and I built two more cabinets (one small and one large), installed everything, and painted the lot. It was quite a bit of work, but I think in turned out really well.

The worst moment? I was putting in the last screw installing the large cabinet, and I hear a gurgling sound behind the wall… As you can see from the photo below, I drilled right through one of our hot water pipes . Luckily, our plumber lives across the street, so he was able to fix it that night (a little un-planned cost of building cabinets).

I found some time and posted some pictures from our trip. I’ll probably posting some more work-related photos tomorrow. Follow the link below:

Photos from Shanghai

I just discovered Microsoft Internet Explorer will stop the page from working. If it does, you can click the info bar right under the address bar, and select ‘Allow’ to let the site work as designed. Or better yet, just switch to Firefox instead

Well, on the plane home now, had a great time in Shanghai, and also acquired some great experience at work. Didn’t do much but work the last few days, as Angie headed back home Wednesday morning. I worked until 9pm the last copule days, and was able to get pretty much everything done that I set out to do. Also, it was nice to actually get back to working out a bit, the hotel actually had a great gym. Will post again with more details and some pictures of work stuff.

One cool thing I almost forgot – I took the Shanghai Mag-Lev train back to the airport, 7 minutes for the whole trip! The train is the only (commercial) one of its kind in the world, it reaches a top speed of 431 kph, and stays there for about a minute and a half. Its pretty cool, at one point it goes alongside a freeway, and the cars just zip by like I’ve never seen before. The train levitates using electromagnets, so there’s no friction besides that of wind resistance.

Hmm, no weird food to report about in the last few daysâ?¦. We had Korean bbq & hot pot last night, which included octopus, clams, oysters, scallops, and shrimp, but those things are just “normal” food to me nowadays

Not as much going on today after a busy weekend. Just worked during the day, Angie and her mom generally just relaxed, and got another massage

At night, we decided to head down to the ‘Bar Street’, about 4 or 5 blocks of pubs & nightclubs in Pu-Shee (west Shanghai). It was an interesting place to be, but unfortunately reminded me a bit of bars in Thailand. Lots of seedy looking bars, all stocked with pretty young girls trying to get you inside ( and then to take them home later). An unfortunate consequence of this, at least judging from the way that people were staring at us, was they thought Angie was my, ahem, “escort”. White guy, walking around with a pretty young Chinese girl, I guess its understandable.

It was a Monday night, and nothing was really happening there, so we hopped in a taxi, and headed back to the German pub. Not really creative, but hey, itâ??s a fun place.

Well, today was another good one overall, but the highlight was definitely the food!!! Lunch and dinner today were definitely the best Chinese food I’ve ever had.. For lunch, we hit a nice restaurant for Dim Sum, and the quality of the food was leagues above what I’ve had before in the US. Ended up stuffing ourselves, and we went back to the shopping/swap meet place to walk it off.

After a long day of shopping, we were invited to dinner with one of Angie’s family friends. He’s, how should I put it, quite rich, so we new we were in for a treat. Ended up at a Cantonese restaurant in a posh part of town, and it was some top quality food. Didn’t stuff myself as much as at lunch, but the food was amazing – I wish we had a place like this in the US, but it would probably be mucho $$$ – tonight’s dinner was somewhere around $250 USD, which is super high for China.

After dinner, his Chauffer gave me a ride back to the hotel, and he treated Angie, her mom, and cousins to a massage at a place down the streetâ?¦ I’m sure she could get used to days like this â?¦

Quote of the day: “Look-uh, look-uh! Watches-uh, clothes-uh” -a vendor trying to sell us fake designer stuff

Well, it was my first weekend day here, and finally I was able to sleep in!! A great change after waking up at 5:30 AM yesterday.

Last night, we went out on the town for a bit, at least until I was basically falling asleep at the bar. Luckily our hotel is pretty close to downtown Pu-Dong, so the cab ride was only about $3 US each way. We went to the Jin Mao building, home of the highest hotel in the world. Conexant tried to book this hotel for me actually, but unfortunately, it was already completely booked.

We went to a bar on the 87th floor, with amazing views of Shanghai & the river. It was pretty cool, but not really happening. Had a good time with the wife just chatting and enjoying the view, but was glad Conexant was paying for most of it. We ended up spending something like $40 USD, for 1 drink each plus some ‘Asian Tapas’. Again, was very good, but not worth 40 bucks.

Today, we went shopping at the sort of swap meet out here. The place is really huge, but Angie’s mom was there to help out. I ended up buying to fake watches , both Tag Hueur, and quite nice looking if I may say so myself.

Tonight, we went out for my new favorite Chinese food, Sezchuan (pronounced suuh-schwan)â?¦ We stuffed ourselves, and generally couldn’t taste it towards the end of the meal (quite spicy),, but it was so good. On the weird-food-o-meter, tonight’s winner was Duck’s blood. Didn’t really enjoy it (like the other coagulated bloods I’ve sampled over the years ) , but did try it.

After eating, we ended up in a odd but fun place. uWe went to a pub, with quite a diverse crowd. We’re in China, we went to a German brewery (Pauliner, awesome beer), and listened to a Filipino band/singing group. Hey, who says asia isn’t multicultural?

The quote of the night was from one of the songs the band played. I guess something got lost in translation, but the original song (donâ??t know the name) goes something like ‘shake your bootie, shake your bootie.. shake shake shake, shake shake shake,â?¦.’. The verison tonight said ‘shake your Buddah

Well, my second full day here, and nothing major to complain about .

Although, last night I did discover the one thing that I don’t like here- the water. I’ve never tasted any water so foul. Of course, you can’t drink the water, but you know water is bad when you can smell it. Seriously, when you turn on the shower, you can smell the water – a sort of dirt / algae mix, and a similar taste (i.e. when brushing your teeth). We went out for Shanghai food last night, and it was generally good, but it seems that they cooked with the tap water, so any food cooked in water tastes like the Huang Pu (yellow) river, and is generally appaling. I can’t get over how bad the water is here.

Beyond that, it was a productive day at work. I got the new filer installed and configured, and moved most of the equipment around to its final resting place. Lots of heavy lifting, but hey, that’s what they pay me the big bucks for (or not, actually).

I did go out to lunch with Farmer today (The engineering manager @ Conexant Shanghai), and have some more stuff to add to my ‘weird foods’ list. Had an appetizer dish that was Sezschaun style, it was basically stomach and liver, with a bunch of garlic and chili, served cold. I really enjoyed it – it’s so strange that I’ve reached a point where the wierdness of a dish no longer prevents me from eating it. I guess that’s a good thing,I can go out with anyone and be satisfied with the food

Made it in at 6:30 pm last night, got to the hotel around 8. What a place! Definitely worth the 5 star rating, our room is amazing. We upgraded to the ‘club’ level, we get free breakfast, drinks, and laundry with our room for $20 more per day. Since we’re not paying for the hotel already, I figured itâ??s a bargain .
On Wednesday, we ate at the hotel restaurant, nothing to write home about.

It was a good day at my first day working here – the office is fairly small, but not bad. I only met a couple people, Farmer, Charlie, and Kenny today, and mostly worked with kenny. We went out to lunch for some noodles, I definitely enjoyed it. It only cost $53 RMB (about $6 USD), so I let the company pick up the tab

I do have quite a bit of work cut out for me, a good amount of equipment to install and configure, and a lot of reorganizing of the current equipment to do – the place is a mess.

Well, had a great time last weekend with my family (and associated significant others ) at Joshua Tree last weekend, and thought I’d post some pictures. It was a beautiful day, and good to just be away from a computer screen….

The requisite group photo…
Jessica photographing a lizard
Scaling rocks
Some interesting yucca?? blooms we found

Been busy lately, and here’s something to up that threshold a bit. Our realtor gave us a call the other day, she found a good deal on a place that just fell out of escrow. We’re looking at it, and trying to figure out what our options are (taxes, finances, etc). So nothing’s for sure, but just wanted to share.

Details – 4BR, 2.5BA, 2 car garage, big yard, nice floors, etc.

Click here to see pictures of the place.

Well, time for my first nerdy posting.
I work in the Engineering Computing group for a semiconductor company, as a Unix Sysadmin / App Developer / Metalworker / Manual Laborer / whatever the job requires. Our group, consisting of 6 people, supports our worldwide engineering computing infrastructure for 15 sites worldwide.
We just acquired a company in India, and on Tuesday, we were tasked with putting together a complete datacenter and shipping by Friday! Well, fortunately we made it (with absolutely no time to spare) and now its (hopefully) on a plane to India.
Take a look at the pictures below, this would be every nerd’s dream (and it also doubles as a heater!). It has 10 dual-Opteron’s with 8GB memory, 6 UltraSparcIII services boxes, and 6 dual-Xeon 4GB ram systems. Of course, there’s the standard out-of-band management, network switch, manged power supplies, and cabling. When we get them in, we’ll be sending out another rack, equipped with a 48 port gigabit ethernet switch, NetApp filer with 2 TeraByte capacity, cisco router, and a couple more compute servers. All the people in India have to do is plugin a network cable, a couple power cables, and they’ll be up and running.
It was quite a project, but the most challenging was getting this thing out of our building. The complete assembly weighs a good 1000+ lbs, and we had to get this 8ft moster into our elevator, which as a 7ft door opening. We had to tilt the thing and wheel it in (and out), without crushing ourselves and/or losing $200k of equipment. Needless to say, I didn’t need to hit the gym today. Who says a bunch of nerds can’t hold their own in on the physical side of things!

Server Rack – Front View
Server Rack – Back View

Every year around the holidays, the question comes up – what are we doing for new years?! Well, we didn’t have an answer until a couple days before. A bunch of our friends had booked hotel rooms in Vegas, and offered up their extra floor space, so we decided to go. We left New Years Eve, in the morning, and made good time.
New years in Vegas is pretty crazy – I don’t know how many people were there, but definitely more than I’ve ever seen. Mostly, we just walked around the strip (beer in hand, of course), with the occassional visit to the bar for a refill. We had a fun time, and the fireworks were cool.
After midnight wasn’t so fun… we were stuck in a stampede for about 25 minutes after the fireworks, and kept busy trying not to get in fights with cholos, cholas, and other various ‘badasses’. We finally made it to a casino, but we don’t gamble or smoke, and weren’t really up for any heavy drinking. We decided to just pack up, and headed home at 2:30AM. After and hour and 10 minutes to get to the I15 from our hotel, we made it home right around sunrise.
Its nice to say we’ve been to Vegas for new years, but I wouldn’t go again, nor recommend it. Go to Embarcadero in San Francisco, that’s a fun place to party with 300,000 other people – and at least they’re somewhat friendly (see entry for Jan 1, 2001 ).
The Beautiful wife and I

Ever seen the strip like this?

Just testing here….