All these years in California, I had never previously visited Mexico. No better year (and no better group of people) to change that!
I always enjoy starting a trip by visiting some of the exhibits on display at the airport. Just my luck, I had time to drop into the SFO Museum to see their exhibit on vintage Airline memorabilia. Good old Pan Am; "Gone but not forgotten".
Shortly after takeoff, I heard this great song come up on shuffle. Very fitting. You can have a listen to the song over here if you'd like: http://www.theriverbreaks.com/music/.
Thanks to my Mileage Plus Silver status, I got to sit up front. In addition to the extra legroom, I got a light lunch: shrimp salad with tomato bisque.
I touched down at SJD (San Jose del Cabo International Airport) in the late afternoon and stepped out into the 90+˚ heat. Hot, hot, hot!
The awesome view I had the pleasure of enjoying over the next few days at the Villa Vista del Mar. We spent ~90% of the time during this trip within the frame of this image (in the house or down at the beach).
Shortly after my arrival (everyone else had arrived a few days earlier), we started prepping the snapper for the grill.
The Cabo Crew in its entirety on the one night we had a full house.
Dinner time!
A beautiful sunset from the lanai.
Any time not spent eating or at the pool or at the beach, most likely got spent at this table. With these tiles.
Day 2. I'm still not sick of the view yet. You can see the early signs of sunburn on my cheeks.
We played a few other games too. But these tiles didn't feel the same...
Me, Troy & Cindy in the pool again. We had to kill time before dinner.
Another night, another dinner cooked on the grill. This time, we had marinated meats from the market (including carne asada and al pastor). A bit heavy on the salt, but very delicious.
Day 3 started out with some snorkeling and swimming at Chileno Bay. Click on the image for a (slightly) larger version.
We stopped off at the Costco on the way back to the house and picked up some excellent fixings for lunch. Then we busted out the sandwich press and made salami, provolone, avocado and mixed green paninis. So good!
Then, sadly, I had to say hasta la vista to Los Cabos. See you next year?
Despite being a very brief trip, I found it quite relaxing not to be running around all the time going from place to place. I got to lounge by the pool, eat a lot, splash in the ocean, catch a few waves, push around some tiles and do a bit of reading. Thanks so much to the Cabo Crew for inviting me to come along and share in the fun!
June came and went with a wide variety of fun activity. Let me recap some of highlights.
As evidenced by the many pictures of mahjong over the last several months, you can tell it has become a big part of the weekly routine amongst our group. Above, you can see an example of one big hand I managed to put together consisting of the 4-5-6 pattern repeated in all the suits. Woo hop!
The World Cup (of soccer) started up and the Abbott R&D group became slightly less productive for about a month. In the pic above, we hid in a conference room to watch the opening game (Brazil v. Croatia).
Sadly, our dear friend James (at the center of the above pic) moved away from the Bay Area to start a new job (and new life) up in Washington State. The goodbye celebration began on a Thursday night with burgers/baos/beers at Buffalo, then migrated onto Honeycreek where we ate the pictured "honey toast" dessert (giant piece of toast with ice cream, oreos, fruit and chocolate sauce). Susanna, Justin, Steph and I round out the rest of the crew in the "dessert selfie".
After the significant number of steps I took during the trip to Yosemite the previous week, I regained the coveted 1st Place trophy for the week. So proud I made it back to the top of the mountain as my coworkers have been setting the bar so high that I've otherwise struggled to stay in touch of their lofty step totals.
The weekend marked an important milestone for a number of friends: Stanford graduation! First up, Susanna got her degrees (MS and PhD). Lisa, Scott, Me, Jason, Imran & Chandana dropped by to watch the ceremony and show our support (by screaming & applauding when she walked across the stage).
After the midday ceremony, I hustled on home to host some friends for a big World Cup clash between England & Italy. While not terribly high scoring, it featured quite a bit of back and forth action. Deryck even joined us via FaceTime to watch the game since he couldn't find a good way to watch the game in HK.
After that exciting game, the party moved to James' place for a final farewell dinner shindig. We'll miss you dearly James! Hope to visit you up in WA sometime!
Then the next day, the commencement action continued and this time we celebrated Scott being conferred his PhD!
My 10 yr old French Football jersey looked a bit dated so I decided to grab the latest one to show my support for the team at this year's World Cup. Though Adidas doesn't make them anymore, Nike did a nice job making a simple, yet very sharp design. Allez Les Bleus!
A monthly occurrence in the summer, the San Jose Bike Party draws large crowds of cyclists together for a nighttime ride in SJ (with frequent stops for food and fellowship). Some crazy folks in the picture above lit fireworks which drew some unwanted attention from the local authorities. So much excitement!
The Menlo Park Pace Gallery's second show featured works by Tara Donovan who creates large scale sculptures made out of everyday objects. Check out what they had on display!
Colony, 2004. The full work to the left (Susanna shown for scale) and an inset close-up of the pencils used to create the sculpture.
Bluffs, 2013. The full view on the left and a close-up on the right showing the glued together buttons which form this work.
Haze, 2003. Probably my favorite work on display, this cloud like sculpture (top) gets its form from a large number of plastic drinking straws stacked together (bottom). So simple, yet so beautiful. I might be inspired to do a bit of arts and crafts at home one of these days. I'll post a pic of my efforts...
Dueling close-ups of Haze (Susanna vs. Me).
They had a small room with some other works, including the carryover Calder sculpture from the previous exhibition. Jason and I admire the works as I skim through the catalog showing most of the Tara Donovan works that we saw (including the ones I've shown in this blog entry) have been valued > US$100,000. Amazing.
While respectfully admiring the artwork (no touching), we decided to have a bit of fun with the Untitled, 2000 cubes (from top to bottom: straight pins, tempered glass and toothpicks). Amazingly, these 3 foot cubes don't rely on any adhesive to stick together other. Just friction and gravity.
Last but not least, a picture of Me taking a selfie with Untitled (Mylar), 2010.
The Tara Donovan show got extended and, despite originally being scheduled to end in June, now will be at the Pace Gallery till August. Go see it if you haven't yet! Hope you enjoyed the pics. Stay tuned for the next post in which I vacation in a country I haven't previously ever visited!
Hi there folks. It has been a while, but I'm back for another update. Today, I've got some pics from an early June trip to Yosemite National Park.
The trip began with an early Saturday morning departure from SF. We (Andrew, Brian, Grant and I) arrived in the park and immediately hit the trail. Our target for the day: Mount Hoffmann. Here I am at our first landmark along the hike: May Lake.
After a bit more climbing, we got this lovely view looking back down towards May Lake.
Grant, Andrew & I continuing the ascent. I should've brought a hat.
After more elevation gain, we passed the tree line.
We stopped momentarily for a snack before pushing onward and after a few hours of vertical progress (which didn't feel like much progress at all no thanks to the high altitude), we got to an exposed area leading up to the final ascent.
Getting oh so close to the top! Looking back towards the valley, you can see how Mt. Hoffmann compares to the other major landmarks in the valley (Cloud's Rest left of center and Half Dome right of center).
We made it to the summit!
The nifty watch confirms that shortly after 1pm, we got to ~10,600 feet (or so). That sort of elevation really gets to your head!
Grant & Brian at the top (with Cloud's Rest and Half Dome in the background).
Shortly after we took that picture, we noticed this little critter running around. We spent a few minutes wondering whether it might be an "alpine squirrel" or something along those lines before a fellow hiker politely (and correctly) suggested it could be a Marmot.
After all the picture taking and marmot watching, we sat down and busted out lunch. Here you can see Brian cutting up some avocado to put onto our turkey sandwiches.
And then we rested a bit before our hike back down to the trailhead. Grant even stretched out for a brief nap.
When we got back down to the car, we drove into the valley and settled into our accommodations in Curry Village prior to seeking out dinner. We started out eating burgers, but that didn't quite satisfy our hunger. So, we ordered a pizza. We opted for a plain cheese pizza because toppings cost a whopping $2 each and we didn't deem it worth the high price. Instead, we cut up the leftover turkey from our lunch.
And we put it on the cheese pizza. Delicious.
We got a good night's sleep and then the next day, hit up the Mist Trail. The name of the trail (presumably) comes from the proximity to waterfalls (mainly Vernal Falls) which cause a great deal of water vapor (aka mist) to spray all over the trail. It not only helps to cool hikers along the grueling elevation gain, but also offers plenty of chances to see beautiful rainbows.
Vernal Falls in all its glory.
The squirrels aggressively approached hikers in search of food and many of them wandered close to us as we rested near Emerald Pool. Grant dared me to pet a squirrel and you can see me as I attempt to do so. I got as far as brushing its tail before it decided that it didn't really like that and bolted off.
After the Mist Trail, we packed our gear and headed on out of the park. Before we left the valley, we stopped briefly for this photo opportunity. You can see El Capitan on the left, Cathedral Rocks and Bridalveil Falls on the right and the Merced River flowing down the middle.
And there you have our brief but sweet trip to Yosemite! Definitely one of the best places in the state to visit and always a location that never disappoints. Thanks to my hiking buddies, Andrew, Brian and Grant for the pleasant company. Hopefully we'll get back out there sooner rather than later! Until next time, adieu!
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