U-Pick

We went Brentwood to U-Pick cherries. We love rainier cherries so much, so ended up picking for 20 pounds. It was $2 a pound.

The whole place was full of various U-Picks. After we are done with cherries, we picked a couple of peaches and bought apricots.

Most Advanced vs. Newest

There were updates of operating systems at my former university. The way to describe the latest operation systems are slightly different and I thought funny.

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* Macintosh STCs will upgrade to the latest release of Mac OS X -- version 10.5, codenamed "Leopard," is the most advanced Macintosh Operating System yet.

* Windows STCs will upgrade to Vista, Microsoft's newest addition to the Windows family of products.
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Gym

After several months, I finally went to a gym, well not exactly a gym, but I took exercise. After I went to a gym to change, I felt like I want to jog outside. So, after I changed there, I went a hill next to my work place and jogged for 20 minutes. It was dark, so it was hard to run fast. Nevertheless, I ran out of breath so quickly.

My weight has been increased to 121.2 pounds. It's 1.2 more than the last time and 4.4 bounds more than the time I started to work.

Gym

I was planning to go to a gym today, but I realized that I forgot to bring pants for exercise. Oh well, next time.

Pants

I felt sick at work. It's partly because I was really exhausted yesterday and partly because all of my pants are getting really tight. I haven't been to a gym for a long time. I really need to go more often.

Going back to California

Since I couldn't get the ticket to go back to San Jose, where my car was, I had to fly to San Francisco. The boarding time was 5:45 am, so I had to wake up at 4 am. The line for the security check was unexpectedly long. I didn't realize that it was the first morning of the three-day holiday. A lot of people must be flying this morning to go back to their life. I nearly missed my flight again. My seat was given to another person, so I had to sit in the middle seat.

After arriving in San Francisco, I had to take two Burt trains, Caltrain, and a shuttle to go to work directly. I arrived the company 2 minutes before a meeting. Phew.

After the work, I had to get my car from San Jose airport. I needed to take a shuttle, Caltrain, and a shuttle to the airport, and another shuttle to the parking. But, I got off at a wrong station from Caltrain, so I took a taxi to the parking. It was very long day.

Missed the Flight

I missed the flight to go back to California... Since I got so used to fly nowadays, I didn't pay much attention to the time.

Mt. Rainer Finally

We went to ski to Christal Mountain again and finally saw Mt. Rainer from the summit. It was very beautiful.

Green

It was raining over the weekend and today I noticed that the hill I could see from my office was green. California is actually greener in winter than summer when everything is dry and brown.

Christal Mountain Again

Since the weather forecast said that it would be a fine day, we went to Christal Mountain again to ski. Unfortunately, the mountain was cloudy and we couldn't see Mt. Rainer again.

Christal Mountain

We went skiing to Christal Mountain. We had a bad memory that we drove down there about 2 hours only to figure out that it's closed a couple of years ago. But, this time, it was open.

Because of the heavy snow, we unfortunately couldn't see Mt Rainier, but the snow was great. We want to come back again sometime soon.

iPhone

We started to use iPhone. It's really well made. The interface works very smoothly and all functions are well connected. The problem is that it's closed and don't give us any chance to extend and play with unless we try some hacks.

Horseback Riding, etc.

I took visitors to Sea Horse Ranch in Half Moon Bay. This place is recommended because about one third of two-course is on the beach like the picture below. We don't have to make make one straight line like at other places. We can even make horses half gallop.

After the horseback riding, we drove down to Santa Cruz.

Then, we drove further down to Monterey. We walked around the fisherman's wharf and drove the 17 mile drive.

When we drove through San Jose, it was in the middle of Christmas in the Park. So, we parked the car and walked around.

Stanford

I had visitors from Seattle. We visited the Stanford campus.

U-Cut

I didn't know there was anything called U-Cut. Anyway, It's my first time to cut my Christmas tree.

My First Jack-O'-Lantern

I carved a Jack-o'-lantern for the first time.

This is supposed to be the cat bus from Totoro.

We put a candle in it.

We found that it produces a cool silhouette.

XFig

I launched xfig after a long time and was surprised that it now has the fancy banner. But, the application itself looks the same as before.

Gym

I haven't worked out for almost two weeks, so I went to the gym today. I ran for 1.5 miles and did some weight training.

My weight has increased to 119.8 pounds.

Maru Ichi Noodle House

I had a ramen at Maru Ichi for dinner. The Maruichi ramen special was pretty good.

ATM

I deposited a check using an ATM and was surprised that ATMs have been improved a lot. Before, I have to put a check an envelope and write down my name, account number, the amount, etc, and deposit it to ATM by typing the amount again. Now, ATMs can scan checks and automatically detect the amount of each check probably with OCR. All you have to is confirm the amount.