Recent News!!

05-Dec-1999 Manly, Australia As you can see, I havn't updated this for ages... 23-Feb-1998 Santa Clara The plans have been made! I managed to sell more than enough software in the last 6 months of work at Vantive to send me to President's Club! I'm off to Bali!!!! Since it would be a waste to only go for the 5 days of club, I've taken off two weeks to spend on Gili Trawangan off the coast of Lombok, near Komodo! Komodo is the only place in the world where the maps still say "There Be Dragons"...That's because there are Dragons here! Way cool. Also, we will be spending a few days in Seoul before we even get to Indonesia. I figured that since the plane stopped there anyway, and since SaraGrace and I have both never been there, that we might as well spend a few days partying at the DMZ. 15-Feb-1998 Klamath It's not often that Valentines day falls on a three day weekend, so to make this one special, I whisked SaraGrace 368 miles north of home to "Woodland Villas"; a collection of small one room cabins, at that wide space in road called Klamath, surrounded by Redwood National Park. We heard about this place from the Redwood AYH; their double rooms were booked, and they told us to stay here. At a mere $25.00US a night it's a bargain. We obtained a special permit from the NPS to drive down an old logging road, parked, then hiked 3 1/4 miles, with a total of 1200 ft in elevation change to see the 3 tallest and 6th tallest trees in the world. This is old growth forest - Temperate Rain Forest - in otherwords "The Forest Primeval". Ever seen the movie "Fern Gully?" 24-Jan-1998 Club Lanai After tiring of the tourist infested Maui, SaraGrace and I took a ferry to Lanai. I highly recomend it. There are next to no people on this Island, complete paradise. I am not a real fan of Hawaii to begin with; too many tourists of the type I can't stand. Lanai was a breath of fresh air. 22-Jan-1998 Molokini SaraGrace's Parents have rented a house in Lahaina for the month of January, and invited us to visit for a week, so here I am on a boat anchored of the coast of Molokini, having just dove with - Dolphins! Cool. Turtles are on tap for this afternoon, even more coolness. The Whales are out and tail slapping the water. What an incredible site! Too bad SaraGrace can't dive; she had pressure problems in her ear, causing a severe infection complete with blood and gooky stuff. 17-Nov-1997 Montpelier Well, Vermont was blast! Lots of testosterone. Beer was drunk, cigars were smoked, Tobacco was chewed, Chilli eaten, the porch was pissed off, and deer were shot. Yup, I shot my first buck. The trip started out in airline hell; my first flight to Chicago was deleyed for 3 hours, so I was re-routed (sans-luggage) through Pittsburgh, but when we got there, lo and behold! the airport was shut down due to freezing rain. We were diverted to Boston, where I was trucked to Montpelier. My bags didn't show up until I was ready to leave, but I had a great time anyway. Vermont is absolutly lovely. 08-Nov-1997 San Francisco I'm getting ready to head off to Vermont to go deer hunting with my girlfriends male relatives - Her Dad, Uncle, Brother and cousins. Looking forward to it. Should I be scared that they bought me a bullwinkle hat to wear in the woods? 12-Oct-1997 Montréal Le boun temps rouler! Well, I've been together with SaraGrace for 1 year now. I decided to surprise her with an anniversary trip to Montreal! She thought we were going camping at Kings Canyon, until I pulled into the long term parking at SFO. I then had her convinced that I was taking her to Detriot that's where we had to change planes). She tried to sell our tickets to anyone in the airport to get out of it! We had a fantastic time; staying at a little B&B in the Latin Quarter, and doing all of those touristy things like taking a horse and carriage ride, even a tour on the "Amphibus"; an amphibious bus. SaraGrace hadn't been here since she was in college (she grew up about 100 miles south in Vermont) and after a few drinks, was chatting away in incomprehensible (to me) French with the local Quebecois. We had a great time! 27-Sep-1997 Ensenada Well I did it! I finished my 6th ride. Boy am I in bad shape! My worst time yet. They had even opened the road to cars by the time I reached the summit of El Tigre. Also the first time we allowed girls on the ride - Tom brought his girlfriend Kristin, and I brought SaraGrace. We still had a fantastic time! 14-Sep-1997 Seattle Well, we're in Seattle. A friend of SaraGraces is getting married. Coincidentaly, both her friend and her husband to be were coworkers of mine when I was at Symantec. Cool. The wedding's on Whidbey Island, which is sort of the Monterey of Puget Sound. Tom is also in Seattle this weekend visiting his girlfriend Kristin; who was a freind of SaraGrace's in college. Small world. Also got to see Craig and his (relatively) new bride Sherry this weekend. Boy was that great! Havn't seen good old Crazo in well over a year. He moved to Everrett a couple of months ago after a 4 year self imposed exile to China. He's talking about joining us for the Baja ride in two weeks. Can't wait! And yes, it did rain, however Karim and Julie were very lucky that the weather was good for their (outdoor) wedding. 23-Aug-1997 San Francisco Again, it's been ages since I've updated this, so here's a LONG disertation on the recent months. I went on a week long vacation with my girlfriend, SaraGrace. We went to Italy, Vatican City, and San Marino by way of Amsterdamn. SaraGrace had never been to any of these places before, and I had never been to either the Vatican, or San Marino before. Amsterdamn has not changed. After being in Rome, I can understand why it's called the Eternal City. The Vatican was glorius! We saw mass sung by the pope himself and even recieved communion in St. Peters. We then went to Florence. Oh! The Duomo! Oh! The Duomo! If youv'e never seen it, GO NOW! Don't wait. It is the SINGLE most beutiful building in the world. Then on to Venice. Romance! What a romantic place to be. No cars, tiny winding streets. Fabulous. Then San Marino. SaraGrace could have killed me. It took FOREVER to get there, and she figured that I only wanted to go there because it was a country that I had never met anyone that had ever been there. It turned out to be the highlight of the trip! When I returned to California, SaraGrace started her new job, at Decicive Technologies with my good friend and fraternity brother, Tom Bromm. I figured that it was also time to move on from my job at Centura; it was going nowhere. They originaly hired me because of mu strong customer oriented background, and they were trying to return to a customer focus. Well, it turns out that they really wanted someone who would just say yeas to whatever engineering wanted to do. Not for me. I now work at Vantive, and LOVE my new job. 30-Mar-1997 San Francisco OK, I haven't updated this in yonks, so sue me! I've been busy. A lot has been going on. I've been skiing almost every weekend, and last weekend I partially tore my Gastron Tendon, so I am out for the next few weeks. I'll probably only go up one more time this season for my birthday weekend, which also happens to be my girlfriend's birthday weekend. I'm also leaving the country twice in the next month or so; once for the twice a year Baja Bike ride, and then again two weeks later to Rome for 10 days on vacation with SaraGrace. I also have some extremely BAD news; my long time friend, previous co-worker, and once upon a time roommate Dennis Fredrickson died last week. 05-Jan-1997 Tahoe City Well, we made it! This is the inaugural weekend of our cabin in Tahoe, and we had to brave a flooded Sacramento Valley, and landslide stricken Sierra Nevada to get here. House looks great! Skiing was mediocre though, as the recent deluge of rain has washed away a good amount of the snow. Looking forward to a good year of skiing to come though! 20-Dec-1996 Menlo Park Well, the Christmas trip to San Felipe is off. Chris's company is under a lot of pressure, so he can't go, Paul is interviewing for a new job, and Santanu has too much work to do (deadlines!!!). I didn't feel like going alone, so instead Christmas morning, I'm dressing up as Santa and giving out meals on wheels with my father, and then going over to SaraGrace's parents house for dinner. Merry Christmas to everyone! 10-Dec-1996 Menlo Park Chris and I were planning on spending Christmas in Goa, but after checking on flights, Chris decided that it was too expensive on such short notice (I was going on frequent flyer miles, so I didn't care), so instead we are headed yet again to Baja! San Felipe this time. We plan on camping on the beach, riding our mountain bikes, and generally partying it up. Santanu and Paul may join us. 02-Dec-1996 San Francisco Ok, a lot of my friends compare my life to the TV show Sienfeld; well this weekend it was more like Days Of Our Lives; I received a mysterious note to the effect that My friend Torre was dead, only to later find out that he was only faking it. To find out the whole story, check out http://www.webcom.com/mra/torre.html; it's too long and bizarre to get into here. 17-Nov-1996 Mammoth Lakes SaraGrace and I decided to take a romantic weekend away and get some skiing in to boot, so we drove up to Mammoth, which has been open for skiing for several weeks. Aaron wanted to tag along (Mr. Cody - I don't remember "Bring your mates along" as being part of a romantic weekend even in England), so we told him NOT! The ride up was surreal. Tioga Pass - closed (we expected that) So we decide to head for Sonora Pass. We need gas - but first we need an ATM. We find one, but forget to get gas! and head on up Sonara Pass - it's closed even though Caltrans' web page (http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/roadinfo/) said it should be open. So, we turn around and head back for a map to determine a new route. We stop at a gas station and buy a map - but forget to get gas again. The map indicates that we should head up Ebbetts Pass. So we zoom off towards Jumping frog country and highway 4. After passing Bear Valley, Highway 4 shrinks down to a single track. The gas light comes on. We turn around and head back to Bear Valley for Gas. Closed. OK, More gas stations must exist on Highway 4 right? Well, they do, but they are all closed, until we get back to Angels Camp; 1 hour after we turned around. After refueling, we head back towards Bear Valley, and out in front of us several racoons run out! Thump! THUMP! A bit sad, but I would rather have ran over them than flipped the truck. Highway 4 over Ebbetts Pass was torture! Twisty, seemingly unpaved one land road covered in ice. We made it though, and were soon zooming down 395, in desperate need of sleep. At one point on 395, I was hallucinating from lack of sleep and thought I saw a bicyclist in front of us! We eventually made it into Mammoth at 03:45. Too tired to ski Saturday, but we did Sunday! A great weekend. 03-Nov-1996 Washington Ok, I'm in our nations capitol, and in United Airlines hell. Plane delayed over 5 hours now. It's been over 40 hours since I've bathed, I stink so bad that I could be used for roach repellent. NEVER fly United if you can help it. 02-Nov-1996 Amsterdam Oh Amsterdam, Still as marvelous as ever. Hasn't changed 1 iota. Santanu and I exchanged messages on Bob's message board for a couple of days, until we managed to connect. There was a severe shortage of rooms that caused us to end up having to stay awake all night tonight. We'll end up sleeping in Shipol before our flight. Did get in touch with Leon, and he took us out to Rembrandtplein. Would recommend it to everyone. 31-Oct-1996 Brussels They have destroyed the charming victorian era train station here, and replaced it with a post-modern eurotrash building. It's more efficient, but lacks the comfortable atmosphere of the original. Between that and the endless rain, I've decided not to stop, but rather to head on to Amsterdamn and party it up with Santanu. 30-Oct-1996 Paris The conference in Paris was held at EuroDisney, and what a tacky place that was! Imagine if you took the worst bits of America; Hard Rock Cafes, Planet Hollywoods, Elvis sightings, etc., made them into showplaces, placed them next to Mickey Mouse, and maned these attractions with rude Frenchmen, and topped it off by crowds of fat Germans pushing their way through. I did meet an email pen pal of mine after the conference, and touched base with Jim Tappe who had moved to Paris 5 years before. He has an absolutely beautiful girlfriend and a great job with the OECD, but still has problems with his French. I did get so see some of Paris that was not as bad as I remember it, but am still heading off to Brussels this afternoon. My email pen pal is a story in itself - I received an email meant for someone else at my Compuserve address, but the content looked like it was meant for me. It was signed "Your neighbor Mer". I assumed that it was my friend Merideth from San Francisco - It took several emails to straighten out the confusion. Merideth from PA, now living in Paris turned out to be quite an interesting and attractive lady. I do feel kind of bad though, as I'm leaving for Brussels without spending much time with her. She has to prepare for a TV audition, and anyway I've started seeing someone else back home (Yes SaraGrace, I'm referring to you) so I didn't want to compromise myself (some of those emails from Merideth were quite risque...) 13-Oct-1996 San Francisco I never thought that I would catch myself saying this, but THE US NAVY ROCKS! This is fleet-week in San Francisco, and yesterday the Navy cruised the Pacific fleet under the Golden Gate bridge, with the Ben Franklin launching her F18's as it passed through the gate! Later on the Blue Angels screamed down Van Ness at Mach 0.99999999999999. That evening thousands of sailor boys were out in their rediculious bell-bottomed polyester uniforms. We saw dozens of San Francisco women being not-picked up on by these guys, but their planes sure are cool. 09-Oct-1996 San Francisco Off on another business trip at the end of the month - Destination Paris. Contrary to what most people would think, I'm not looking forward to this trip; It'll be lots of work, and Paris has always been a very lonely place for me. I do have a couple of friends there though; one that I worked with at Borland Eons ago, and another that I just met recently through an email accident; I hope to look them up. 29-Sep-1996 Rosarito Beach Bitchin! This trip there were 9 of us (Me, Aaron, Tom, Chris, Santanu, Howard, Abe, Perry, Torre) Up 2 from April. The bus ride back from the ride was worth the whole trip in itself. Trace peeing, Mo singing happy birthday to the president (Go Mo Go!), The whole bus doing the Tequila song! Then on Sunday, Chris and Tom disappearing with the two strippers who couldn't hold a coherent thought between them. (hope you brought your noisemakers boys!) Next time even better. 27-Sep-1996 Menlo Park Alright, loose end catch up. We finally did get a ski house. I went back to the real estate agent, and made an executive decision. Hot Tub, Lake View, around the corner from the other house. Too expensive, but what the fuck. Ramona turned out to be a bimbo. We went out that next Tuesday, and had a great time. We made two more dates; A double date with Torre and Carolyn (her friend; Torre's girlfriend) for Thursday, and another to go for a motorcycle ride on Sunday. On Wednesday, she canceled our date for Thursday, but she still showed up on the double date with Torre and Carolyn. And some guy named Andy. Wait a minute; Canceling a date with me is OK, I don't know her well enough to say she can't go out with anyone else, but cancelling a date with me to go out with someone else? And that a double date with my buddy? WRONG! She's history. Not too much despair, as this afternoon I depart for my 4th Rosarito-Ensenada Bike Race and PARTY! 16-Sep-1996 Menlo Park Did I ever have a good time Saturday. I went to my friend DHK's party up in the redwoods of Woodside Saturday afternoon, but left early as Torre had called me and mentioned that he had a problem. The problem, it turned out was too many girls. His current date had invited two of her friends over, and Torre wanted to make sure that the gender ratio was 1:1. So I relented, left the party and went to Torre & Cliff's house. Boy I am glad. In addition to Torre's date, there was Mariella, a Peruvian beauty, and Ramona. Cliff and Mariella ended up pairing off, leaving me with Ramona. What a gem! She was wonderful. Very pretty. Very nice. I hope to see her again (actually, it's more than a hope; I have a date with her already set up) 08-Sep-1996 Tahoe City SHIT! Cory, Howard and I traipsed all the way up to Tahoe this weekend to find a new ski house for this season. We found the perfect one - HUGE, sleeps 12, hot tub, lake view, plenty of parking, you name it. It was perfect! We filled out the credit apps and left a deposit. Howard and Cory, reassured that we had found our new abode, took off this morning to play golf at Northstar, me, I'm sitting at Izzy's Burger Spa next to Fanny bridge as I write this. It is gorgeous. One problem though, (yes that's what the SHIT! at the start was for); we didn't get the house. I went back to the realtor to check if she needed anything else, and last years tenants showed up and wanted it again after all. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! That means that I will have to come up again next week. 01-Sep-1996 San Francisco Wow what a weekend! While I was in Australia, I had written a post card to Leitha, telling her that I did not like her attitude. It was like a "Dear Jane:" letter. Well, while I was gone, my friend Torre <http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Footeprint/> (I'm sorry, but HTML does not allow you to have hypertext links inside of a text box) was watching my house for me. Apparently, she had called several times to talk to him about me, and they came up with a major conspiracy! Labor day weekend was the only three day weekend in recent history where I did not have any plans to go away. Well, Friday night, Torre calls me and insists on going out. It's his birthday. Well, OK Sure. I arrange to meet him at a North Beach restaurant called Figaro's; a place where Leitha and I had an all out shouting match last time she visited. When I get there, Torre orders some champagne, and suddenly , my eyes are covered by someone's hands; Surprise it's Leitha! 29-Aug-1996 Hong Kong I am just returning from my Asian trip. Wow! What can I say, I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of OZ; I was definitely not in Kansas anymore! Australia was just how I remembered it; Singapore was vibrant but sterile, Djakarta was so Alive, crowded, and dirty. Manila was how I expected it; strip joints on every corner. Taipei was so.... Chinese. In Hong Kong everyone tried to sell me everything. Macau - Very Catholic. And the food in China was godaweful. When my photos come back, expect highlights in my travel journal. 27-Aug-1996 Shen-Zen China does not appear to be as poor as I had believed. Buildings going up everywhere. This is a special economic zone though, so you never know what the rest of the country looks like. I did find a microbrewery in Shen Zen, and the beer was excellent. The Brewmaster introduced himself to me in halting English, and mentioned that he studied Zymurgy in Belgium. Good teachers lead to good beer I suppose. 26-Aug-1996 Macau I'm fucked. I didn't buy a round trip ticket, and all of the ferries AND flights to Hong Kong are booked throughout the weekend. Perhaps I'll have to go overland through Canton. 24-Aug-1996 Taipei What a boring place. I wouldn't recommend anyone come here for any reason whatsoever unless forced. I liked Paris better, and I HATE Paris. 22-Aug-1996 Manila Well, Manila is just as colorful as Jakarta was, but with more freedoms. I was taken out to see "The Real Manila" by some of the sales guys here. They meant the seedy Manila, as we went bar hopping from strip joint to strip joint. I eventually had to leave them, and even have my taxi drop one of the strippers off at her house. 20-Aug-1996 Jakarta One word - ALIVE 18-Aug-1996 Singapore One Word - STERILE 13-Aug-1996 Sydney Saw Randy oh, pardon me, Randall as he now wishes to be called as "Randy" has interesting connotations down under. He's still up to his old womanizing tricks, and loves Oz so much that he has vowed to never return to the USA except to visit. 07-Aug-1996 Menlo Park I will again be traveling this week and throughout the month. I have an extended business trip to Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and China. As I have never been to this part of the world before (well, except for Australia) it should prove interesting.