College Football

I know some of you know this, but having been a "clarinet weenie" in the Cal Band, I'm totally crazy about Cal football and basketball. (Yes, there was a point where I would get depressed when Cal lost... which used to be quite often in the 90s.)

Ever since Coach Tedford though Falls have been lot easier to take. Of course, we have even gotten used to talking about the Mythical National Championship (which wasn't even close to being in the same conversation 10 years ago). I can remember when Garden State Bowl was such a cool deal!

I really look upon disbelief at the "newbie" fans who are questioning or unsatisfied with the team's play against Maryland last week. Light years from where Cal was.

Anyway, sorry for rambling...

Go, Bears! Beat the Eagles! (Cal is playing Eastern Washington this Saturday).

Did you know that SJ's Japantown is one of 3?

That's all that's left in the US now...

This is really sad since when I was growing up Fresno, Seattle, Portland and Sacramento had Japantowns. Fresno's was even seeing a bit of renewal in the 70s and 80s. But alas, they're all victims of urban changes.

Anyway, on September 29, the San Jose Japantown is putting on their Spirit of Japantown Festival. It should be a big deal with over 6 blocks of food, shopping and games. There's even
a whole block of suped up Japanese cars.

Unlike Obon, I'm only signed up to help out at a booth.

For more info on the Festival
For more info on CA Japantowns

Boy Scouts!

Some of you already know, but I'm the Assistant Cubmaster for my son's Cub Scout Pack this year. It's actually not THAT much work. As another Cub Scout/Boy Scout leader told me "Remember, it's only a hour a week!"

Anyway, despite what you might think about uniforms, etc. it really is a lot of fun and they reinforce "good" behavior through good role models and fun activities for boys.

More info at www.scouting.org

Starting...

Visited a couple of friends who are starting a business... very, very interesting. They're very bright guys so I would give them better than even odds to make good. They seem to get along pretty well as well which always bode well. Of course, they need to grow and that will takes skill and luck. IMHO, they've timed it right.

We'll see how it flies. It'll really be interesting to keep an eye out for them in the future.
They're still in stealth mode so no mention of who or what they're doing. (I promise to write more then they're in "We're Selling" mode!)

The Big Island with Kids

*Phew*!!

I'm finally re-adjusted back to our timezone. (Actually, I'm still quite not...but good enough).

For some reason, I'm really good gaining time (going west), but really bad coming back (going east).
But I'm doing all the things that's supposed to help like: getting a lot of sun, eating regularly, staying hydrated.

Couple of neat things on the Big Island. (Hawai'i).

• Kilauea is erupting. Well, lots of lava coming out and seimographs are pointing to even more eruptions. http://www.nps.gov/havo
• 3 more National Historical Areas/Parks. They are Puukohola Heiau, Kaloko-Honokohau Historical Parks and the Ala Kahakai Trail. They have a neat Junior Ranger program that covers all of them. The one mistake we made was that Volcanoes National Park has a separate program which we did. Anyway, the best plan is to do the combined one since that's easier to do then the one specifically for Volcanoes (and your child gets 6 badges!)
• Marriott Waikaloa was very nice. Not too much on the architectural standpoint, but the service and layout worked for us.
• Instead of the usual Costco run, we went to Target. :-)
• For all the falls, use lots of insect repellent.
• Akaka Falls is spectacular; Rainbow Falls is easy to get to; To really see the falls near the Boiling Pots, you need to hike down.
  
• Uma uma Falls is really pretty, but its a bit rough getting to.

That's about it for now! Gads, my kids are already starting school next week!

Oops...

URL for San Jose Obon is http://www.sjbetsuin.com

Here's the wikipedia article on Obon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obon

Gads, that didn't feel like the Fourth of July!

First, a caveat... we had a lot of fun camping during the Fourth of July at the Big Basin State Park .
But the major problem is that when one does that you don't get the Fourth of July experience.... yup, even if you bbq... not the same w/o the fireworks (which is a big no-no w/ the fire danger).

*sigh*...

Now, it's Obon season.... What's Obon? Well, it's a Japanese Buddhist holiday memorializing all the people that have passed... it's similar in concept to the Mexican El Dias de los Muertos.

San Jose has one of the biggest in North America with over 1200 dancers. It's a full two day event with Japanese (and American) food and cultural displays. Yes. there's Teriyaki Chicken. Of course, this means that the members of the community are SUPER busy this week. Last night, we just got done prepping the chicken. Over 80 people! Anyway, it's this weekend (July 11-12) and hope to see you all there! (I'll be in the main chapel for most of the time... playing docent... :-)

Thank goodness it's the weekDAY!

Phew! Survived another busy weekend!

Let's see it started on Friday with Campbell Union School District's Exhibition panelist. Went on to Saturday with my brother's birthday party and my son's children's choir recital. Sunday with sunday school, my son's sport program's picnic and a conference review meeting.

Not even a time to really breathe!!

Back to the grind of looking for a job. At least I got an enthusiastic call back from NetApp. It's one of the groups that I had worked with (and the 2nd level manager is someone I worked with). That's always nice.

Been looking for a FREE web hosting site for my instructional music stuff. To ease setup, I'm going to go with PayPal donations to start. And I'm still looking for a decent free hosting site.

Just found out about adsense....

I guess that's a neat concept.... but it'll take a while to get there.

Anyway a simple plug for the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Malibu Grand Prix.

Monterey Bay Aquarium really doesn't need much needed publicity, but they have a new
sea horse exhibit (which replaced the Jellies) which is rather neat. It just opened as is getting
popular so the best advice is to go early.

I haven't been to Malibu Grand Prix in years. (Since I used to work in Menlo Park, that's over
15 years ago). The place isn't that different which is nice. They've added a water bumper car ride and made their batting cage bigger. But the nice thing is that their mini-golf course isn't too difficult or too easy. Watch out for one of the holes (15? 16?) on Course 3; it eats balls. Of course, their arcade (like most) are zoos.

Hope that everyone has a nice Memorial Day!

Hello!

This is really strange....

I've been doing something like this for a very long time. (I created my first website in 1992!)

And I "blogged" as if my daughter wrote her site as she grew up.

Now, I'm at a bit of a crossroads. (It's only a "bit" since if one's introspective enough, EVERY moment is actually a crossroads.

I'm: unemployed, but quite busy (more on that later), I'm getting "up there" in age, I think many things are "simple" only to realize that they really aren't (it's just that I've done them so much that I think of them as such).

So I'm looking... for new opportunities (as outplacement firms like to say).

Things are actually quite odd in the job market (at least in the Silicon Valley in high-tech from my vantage point):

There are jobs... few, but a couple but there are a lot of applicants as well. So jobs get taken off the postings very quickly. And the people hiring are very picky.

The VC funding market which was starting to show a spurt earlier this year has fizzled. My guess is that the rainy day funds that the VCs had in reserve are now all committed.

BTW. I got hit with the Conflicker virus (and its aftermath of viruses that uses the holes that it opens).

Two things:

• McAfee is really horrible for spy/malware. It says it's malware protection but it doesn't detect whole bunch of them including "Antispyware Protect 2009." I'm dumping it as soon as my license runs out.
• There are a bunch of so-called malware "protection s/w" out there that's not worth its weight
• Spybot Search&Destroy is freeware (actually by-donation-ware) and it's awesome!