Page 2 of okaldhol Travel Blog Posts


North America » United States » Nevada » Las Vegas July 30th 2006

The company that hosts me has a datacenter i Los Angeles. Usually we just remote administrate the servers down there, but this time we had to go down to move som stuff around. Anyways, Marcos, my CTO(Chief Technical Officer) has a small plane, so he decided we should fly down in that. In addition to me and Marcos, Dave and Gabe was coming along. Dave is our sysadmin, while Gabe is a friend of Marcos that was going to Las Vegas, so we decided to drop him of there. After lengthy weight calculations on Marcos' part, he had us meet him at Palo Alto airport at 18.00 Sunday evening. You see, the problem with small aircraft like this, is not only the weight restrictions (they can only take som much load), but the balance is equally ... read more
View over Mountain View and Sunnyvale
Me at the controls
A view of The Strip


Sunday morning we decided to go swimming in the river. The locals had tipped us of on how we could get down there. We headed down, and first entered the river. Obviously the wrong spot, as all the locals were a hundred meters farther up. We finally located the trail that took us up there, and the place was neat. I actually remembered to get some sun tan lotion on, so I didn't even get burnt. Anyways, the first picture shows part of the stream. You can go into the stream to the right, and float out to the left of the picture. There is a gradient over the "edge", but its not too bad if you go over it. The locals also used a popup to cross the river. A popup is where the water ... read more
The surf/edge
The local wildlife
More local wildlife


We had rented a mobile home for our trip to Sequoia and Kings NP. The mobile home was stationed at Sequoia Motel in Three Rivers. A few of the group were sceptical, as living in a trailer has some bad vibes associated with it. This one was larger than many homes, as you can see from the pictures. It had a living room, with cable TV and everything. Further it had a kitchen, a master bedroom, a bathroom and a second bedroom. In addition, the sofa could be made into another bed, so there was plenty of space for the 6 of us. Another nice thing was aircondition. Living in a trailer isn't so bad after all.... read more
The hall
The master bedroom
The living room.


After we came back from Sequoia NP, we decided to head "downtown" to Three Rivers to scout out the local nightlife. Martin and Camilla were sceptic, but finally we all headed down. I volunteered to drive for the evening, since I didn't want to get "motionsick" for the long trip the following day. Well, the bar was, what can I say, authentic. A lot of locals and some visitors. I headed out to the veranda in the front, overlooking the river running through the village. While sitting there, I observed the bartender cleaning some tables. When he found some half-full glasses, he just threw the rest of the contents over the fence, spilling half of it on the floor, and the rest on the fence itself. This is really redneck was my reaction..... Well, as the ... read more
Alex shooting some pool
The bartender


Going there On thursday Svein asked me if I wanted to go to Sequioa and Kings Canyon National Parks with him, Carina(a fellow student), Alex(her American boyfriend), Martin(a colleague from PeerMe) and Camilla(his Danish girlfriend). Since I didn't have any plans, I said yes. A wise decision, as the trip turned out to be great. We were supposed to leave Mountain View at about 13:00 on Friday. Due do various circumstances, we didn't make it out of there until 15:00. Bad idea. We were locked in gridlock until way beyond San Jose. We arrived at the Sequoia Motel in Three Rivers late in the afternoon. More about the motel and Three Rivers in another blog. The sun was setting just as we arrived, so I decided to go take some photos by the artificial Lake Kaweah, ... read more
The road near Kaweah Lake
Sunset over Kaweah Lake
Bear sign inside Sequoia National Park

North America » United States » California July 9th 2006

As mentioned in my Pirates of the Caribbean entry, me and Armin decided to go diving on Sunday. I started out at approx 7:30, hoping to reach Armin by 8. I arrived, and since all the equipment was ready from the night before, we got in the car and proceeded south on the 101 heading for Monterey. We hadn't gone far before we spotted a police car. I slowed down, but too late, he had already spotted us. He came up behind us, lights flashing and told us to head to the Marsh exit over his speaker. I proceeded to the exit and pulled over. He approached the car on the passenger side, and informed us that he had stopped us for speeding, proceeded to ask for my drivers license, insurance papers and registration. I handed ... read more


UPDATE: Elise asked me to remove her portrait, so I complied(well, you know how it is with lawsuits and stuff). As the weekend approached, I decided to call Armin(a swiss guy living here), to check if he had plans for the weekend. I suggested going diving in Monterey. He was free actually, so we decided to go diving on Saturday. Came friday, and because of my supervisor going to India, I had to be briefed on systems maintenance. He was busy working with Marcos(our CTO) all of friday, so we had to do it on Saturday. For dinner friday, I stopped by the Safeway to get something to eat. I got a HUGE sub. Compared to Subways(a sub/sandwhich chain) 12" subs, this thing was a ginormous nuclear sub. It had two-three layers of roastbeef, another few ... read more
Safeway giant sub
Safeway giant sub contents
Arthur


Tom invited us to join him for lunch again. Today we went to Cascals, a very nice tapas bar. Me, Ivar and Carolyn headed out to lunch in my rental, while Tom had to arrange something first. Anyways, as we arrived, we met a former employee of PeerMe, and had a quick chat with her. We then got ourselves a nice table on the patio outside the restaurant, right on Castro street. We made our reservations, I chose the Spanish Tapa Sampler, which basically includes a lot of differen tapas dishes. We ordered Brazilian Hearts of Palms for Tom, together with some fresh anchovies and grilled sea scallops. Carolyn also had Brazilian Hearts of Palms together with some other side dish. I also had a bottle of Corona. Just as we got our food, Blakeney Stafford, ... read more
Fenwick & West


Well, we finally came back from the Gay Pride 2006 event. More on that in another blog. I am a bit sunburnt on my forehead, as I forgot to wear my trusty GI hat today. Even though it was overcast, the sun was still strong enough. Anyways, we had to do an interview with our CEO, Tom Lasater for our class with professor Nesheim. Tom was nice enough to invite us to this local place called Tied House. So after grabbing an hour of sleep I headed down to the fountain in the courtyard to find Carina and Tom already waiting. A quick phonecall to Ivar(Gjul, another intern at PeerMe), and we were on our way. According to Tom, Tied House is an old Silicon Valley classic. It is actually just down the road from where ... read more


Well, after having spent the day in San Francisco, we decided to go out for the night. I did the incredibly stupid mistake of leaving my camera behind at Alex'(an american colleague of Svein Magnus) appartment, obviously a dumb idea. First we headed out to find something to eat in the North Beach area where Alex lives. I was just in the mood for a quickie, but Alex led us to a place called Calzone's. Anyways I ordered a calzone with pesto-marinated chicken. Carina(PeerMe intern) decided on having some sort of Hawaiian fish, while Svein settled for a pizza. Alex went the whole way and ordered apetizers and wine and an expensive meal. I was kind of frustrated later when he just wanted to split the bill in 4, since he obviously should account for more ... read more




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