stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley (no blather posts)

A failed attempt to visit Muir Woods

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 10:20:00 GMT

The day after Thanksgiving we mounted an expedition to Muir Woods. The drive from our place is quite interesting, as you cut through San Francisco on the way. When we got there it was really crowded, despite only being about 10:30am. In the end we had to park way down the access road. Because the kids would have been tired out by the mere walk back to the redwoods, we instead went for a wander down one of the other tracks near where the car was parked. It was really nice, although not very redwoody. In fact, the hills in the distance felt quite "Australia" with all their dead grass and eucalyptus trees. I was glad we went, even though we didn't see many redwoods.

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Some time in the park, and Andrew lost a front tooth

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I've been quite slack with putting photos online recently. This set is from the kids playing in the park a couple of weekends ago, as well as some shots of Andrew after he lost his first front tooth.

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Andrew and Matthew turn 2 and 3

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:34:00 GMT

Wow, these pictures are really old. I'm in the process of going through my photo collection and regenerating all the associated HTML. In the process I found these pictures of Andrew and Matthew's shared birthday party from when they turned 3 and 2 respectively. Heck, its only three years late, so I guess I should put them online.

Looking back, I think I forgot to put these online because about that time I was run off my feet with LCA 2005. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

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Random pictures from around the house

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Andrew and Matthew playing, some art that Matthew randomly did on the floor, and the pumpkins Andrew and Matthew decorated at the work Halloween party.

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James and Jeanette's wedding down the beach

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:45:00 GMT

I've been uber slack about putting pictures of James and Jeanette's wedding online. Given their wedding was ages ago, and the reception last weekend, it seems like I am running out of excuses.

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The children being cute at Halloween parties

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:20:00 GMT

The kids are cute in their Halloween costumes...

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A somewhat random collection of phone pictures

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 08:25:00 GMT

This is a relatively random collection of photos from the camera on one of my phones. I've been meaning to put them online for a while, so some of them are a little old now...

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Kamarura giant Buddha and Hasedera Temple

Sat, 24 May 2008 17:02:00 GMT

Caught the train from Shubiya to Karamura, and went wandering around. There is a giant Buddha statue there, as well as some really nice temples.

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Tokyo fish markets

Sat, 24 May 2008 00:26:00 GMT

Up at 5am to checkout the Tokyo fish markets. It was fun, and the uber fresh sushi was great.

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Ikebukuro

Thu, 22 May 2008 19:16:00 GMT

Ikebukuro is the electronics zone in Tokyo, so of course I had to go out for some shopping. The place is full of neon, and quite fun to just wander around. In general the electronics didn't seem all that cheap to me, although there was certainly stuff I hadn't seen in the US (and therefore lots of stuff that I wouldn't see in Australia). For example, the cool Toto electric toilet seats (link points to site with lots of pictures of bums) that we have at work were for sale there, and seemed to vary in price from about $40 US to about $1,000 US. Who pays a thousand dollars for a toilet seat!?!

I got to Ikebukuro on the JR Yamanote line, which I paid for with a Suica stored value card. Even tha train payment is cool here -- the Suica card is one of two options that is a contactless payment system for transport. I suspect there is a RFID token or something in the card, and you just wave it in the general direction of the turnstile at the train station. It works on all the train networks (of which there are four or so), as well as buses, some vending machines, and even in some stores. My first card was defective after one ride, which resulted in a lot of patiently not speaking Japanese customer service people, but it was sorted out in the end.

Mobile phones are cool here too, and thats what most of the cool stuff in the electronics stores were. For example a lot of the phones support live TV streaming, although I am told that is old school here now.

Anyways, lots of fun.

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Shibuya crossing and Shibuya 109

Wed, 21 May 2008 02:11:00 GMT

I wandered out of work a little early this afternoon. I wanted to get some shots of Shibuya crossing, which is meant to be one of the busiest street crossings in the world. It wasn't too insane when I was there, but the pictures don't do it justice. For a start there were three giant TV screens playing in the intersection as well.

I also wandered through all 8 stories of Shibuya 109, which is meant to be high fashion. Its basically wall to wall teenage and early twenties women, and the sort of clothing stores which attract young women. Oh, and most of the stores were playing loud dance music, so it was a bit like wandering around a bright pink night club, without the drinking.

So, a fun hour or two.

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Grumps was in town

Sun, 18 May 2008 20:20:00 GMT

So Catherine took him to San Francisco Zoo. Catherine's birthday cake this year was also an awesome Hello Kitty cake.

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Washington DC monuments

Sun, 18 May 2008 17:03:00 GMT

While in Washinton DC with Peter and Graham a few weeks ago we went for a walk down the Potomac and through Washington DC. Along the way we discovered a billion monuments. I have a theory that eventually all of Washington DC will be monuments, with no room for anything else.

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Taiwan

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:44:00 GMT

I just got back from a quick trip to Taiwan. So much fun!

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MGM Studios at Disney World

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:02:00 GMT

This is the last set of photos from Disney World. It will also probably be the last set of catch up images for now.

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Disney's Animal Kingdom and the Movie Allstars hotel

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:50:00 GMT

I'm still catching up on photos from ages ago that I haven't got around to putting online. These are from Disney's Animal Kingdom and Movie Allstar hotel at Disney World. Animal Kingdom wasn't as good as the Magic Kingdom, mainly because the kids weren't big enough for most of the rides, the queues were really long, and the crowd management not as good... And we went during the off season!

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Pictures from Kennedy Space Center and Disney World

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:17:00 GMT

It turns out I've been really slack about putting new pictures online recently. So, here are some left over shots from Kennedy Space Center and the shuttle Discovery launch (taken by Catherine on the second camera), as well as our day at Disney's Magic Kingdom.

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Shuttle Discovery STS120 launch photos, and cute hotel room cleaning at Disney World

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:14:00 GMT

Its a shame about the dirty sensor in my SLR, but apart from that I am very happy with these shots. Worst case I can crop the spot out of images, or do something with photoshop. These images are entirely unprocessed.

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More Disney World, and Kennedy Space Center day one

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:28:00 GMT

More shots from Disney World, including a breakfast with some people pretending to be Disney characters (which the kids were very excited about), and shots from Kennedy Space Center (which I was very excited about). This was the day before STS120 launched, and the shots of the shuttle you can see here still have the protective rotating part of the launch gantry in place. This is removed around 12 hours before launch, which would have been about 11pm the night of the day these shots were taken.

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Boca Raton, FL to Disney World, Orlando, FL

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 16:13:00 GMT

These are pictures we took during the drive from Boca Raton to Disney World. The beach is Delray.

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