And We're....Done!

I have had a week that felt like it lasted a month. I don't really know why, it was pretty good and kind of fun. I've just been walking around looking at things here like it's been a really long time. Kind of weird.

Onto my week! Sunday, I left and headed to San Jose, CA. The whole week before this trip I kept humming, "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" by Dion Warwick. It was actually kind of cold the first day. Unfortunately, my mom got a little lost trying to find the hotel.



Monday thru Thursday I attended the Embedded Systems Conference. This conference was really interesting! Yeah, yeah, I'm a manager now, but I remember some of my EE background. I can do technical. I'm in a dilemma at the moment. Not sure where to go with my job. Technical, stay in managerial? I don't know. That's probably a blog for another time. Though if anyone wants to tell me what to do next. I might just try that. I learned lots at the conference and think I'd recommend it to others.

After the conference mom and I went to Carmel/Monterey area. The drive down was nice, we saw a lot of Artichokes and Strawberry fields. A lot of agriculture in that part of CA. It was really pretty there. We drove the 17-mile drive and saw seals and birds and ocean and really expensive houses and all sorts of nice things. This is one of my favorite pictures.



We then decided to take a "quick jaunt" up to the Redwood Forest area. Unfortunately, I misread the GPS and it took over an hour to get up there. It was impressively uphill and very windy roads. Always good when it takes over 30 min to go 10 miles. We finally arrived at the Big Basin Redwoods State Park and asked where we could find the big ones. Unfortunately, the forest was closed (yeah, I didn't know that was possible). I assume there was a lot of rain or something and they were cleaning the trails. Though I did get to see this example of a large Redwood.



Check out when this started...



and ended....



After that, we were beat! We drove back to the hotel and slept. The next day we took the train to San Francisco. It was sunny and warm and I got a nice sunburn. I went to San Francisco back in college and it has changed a lot. I was surprised at how different it was from my memory. Though, it was still nice. The cab ride back to the train station took us through the hilly areas and such. I guess we got our $12 worth!

I just love the arrow!



Sunday was a relaxing day, we hung around San Jose and went to The Tech. This museum was a museum about technology. It had lots of cool experiments. I was even able to experience a simulated earthquake. First, it was a 6 something that occurred in California and then an 8.3, I think that was in Japan. My facts could be wrong.... Definitely they would've thrown me off my feet!

Anywho, please take a look at the pictures to see what we did! They are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/smilingkid/California#