Settling in

Today I ran a bunch of errands, most importantly I signed a lease on an apartment and a found myself a car I like. I'll be settling things within the next couple of days and hopefully I will have some pictures.

I'll be very happy to stop driving the Mazda 6. Although it is a bigger car by Mazda's standards, it's not for me. I'll be glad to end the month long search for a car.

Tomorrow I should have more to post.
Alex

Adventures in San Francisco with Lies.

Happy Easter,

Today Lies and I took the trip up to San Francisco to check out the Pier, and the Embarcadero area. We got really lucky with the weather once again.

I really was impressed with the artwork done by the street vendor. I really wish I had some money at the time, I probably would have bought something. Hopefully next time.

The pier market.

Sea Lion posing for the camera

Cool picture of a battle ship in the harbour.... harbor.

Street artists making a really nice painting.

At Fishermans Wharf.

First Visitors! - Lies and I head to Santa Cruz!

It's only the 2nd week I've been in California, and I already have my first guest!

Lies is a good friend from University visiting from Calgary. Today we took the exciting trip to Santa Cruz. It was pretty awesome to check out the area again and we really lucked out on days, it was pretty good weather.

Here are some photo's!

Image of the beach, and Pier.

Super Excited to be on the beach!

Running from the waves

Hanging out on the beach.

Some Sufers off the coast of Santa Cruz.

First day at Apple!

Although this is a blog about my adventures, I just wanted to make a small note that I had my first day on the job at Apple. It was an exciting day, and I had a lot fun. (This is about as much detail as I'll ever mention about work, don't worry :p )

More to come this weekend.
Alex

Note: If you came here to know more about my experience at Apple, this information will never be posted here. Sorry for the misrepresentation.

My ILM Trip

Friday, I went to visit Mike at ILM. I couldn't take pictures inside (As is the case at most Movie/Tech companies) . Here are the pictures I took.

The drive through the Presidio

Sky bridge between buildings, this is where Conan did some of his interview a few years ago.

The Yoda statue at entrance of ILM

The awesome view from the cafeteria.

Road trip to Santa Cruz!

After the test drives, I took the trip to Santa Cruz. Here's some photos of the trip. Here are some photos

Drive past a lake on the side of the 17 Highway.

The stretch of highway from Cupertino to Santa Cruz (17) is very beautiful, and fun to drive. I can't wait to get my new car and test it out :)

Palm trees and the ocean.

Some sea lions (or possibly harbor seals)

The Boardwalk amusement fair, right off the beach.

More Car Browsing (Day2)

Although my plan was to spend most of the day taking care of the little things, I went by the Ford and Acura dealerships. I test drove the Mustang Convertible GT, Escape Hybrid, and the Acura TL.

The mustang was a lot of fun to drive, but terribly inefficient and impractical. There's really no room for surf boards, hockey equipment and people friends who have legs thicker than 2 inches (in the back seat)

Which brings me to why I looked at the escape hybrid. This is an amazing vehicle for gas mileage, but it isn't something that is fun to drive like the cars I have already driven. I found it like a lot of SUVs they are there to move stuff (period).

The Acura TL was fun to drive, and had a dashboard like a small plane - lots of small buttons everywhere. I actually liked all the features it had. It's definitely a car I'm keeping in mind.

Off a one year lease the Escape Hybrid is amazing on gas.

TL is the largest Acura car, but actually has the leg room necessary to fit a giant like me.

Car Shopping Day 1

I went out looking at cars on Tuesday. There is a long strip of Stevens Creek Blvd that has every type of dealership that exists in the US. I mainly looked at Volkswagen and BMW because they usually are much better on leg room then North American and Japanese car companies. I'm most excited about the Passat and the 328i (which I didn't get a photo of). I'm still looking though. Here are some pictures of the cars I looked at.

I didn't get a chance to check out all of the dealerships I wanted to, so I'll probably have to make this a multi-day event.

VW Passat

Porsche - Dreaming big

M35