Best. Weekend. Ever.

500+ miles in 48 hours. 6 hours sleep. 12 hours partying. 30 Coronas drunk. 1 trip around Lake Tahoe. 107 cool people, 76 of them female. One british accent. Fun, fun, fun. Oh yes, fun.

I'll do a proper update tomorrow, and I'll try to sort through the 300-odd photos I have and upload some, when I'm not so utterly knackered.


Suffice it to say, that was a utterly brilliant weekend.

Another week, another entry

Well, my time here just seems to be getting better and better. This past weekend was one of the best I've had over here, not because I did anything terribly exciting, but because I spent the majority of it hanging out with new friends that I've made over here.

Got up nice and early on Saturday morning, and watched a few episodes of SG1 before Helene and Marija came and picked me up and took me to the San Jose university campus, where we met Anh, Patricia and Saldy. We hung out there for a bit in the sun, before we all, minus Saldy, went to the uni homecomming American Football game. Decided that I really don't like American Football all that much (too much stop-starting, no fluid play, and what's with the *3* teams?), but it was excellent sitting there, chatting and eating candyfloss in the sun. Good times.

After that, and with a brief stop at Helena and Marija's place to get directions, we headed up to Berkeley for a meal with some aiesecers there, including a new trainee from Poland, which was excellent. I was sat in the back with Helena and Marija, and we had fun singing songs. After finding somewhere to park the car, we walked to the thai restaurant, and I had an excellent Spicy Duck Curry. Delicious. Helena and I also sang the whole of Bohemian Raphsody.

I met a few guys from the Berkeley Aiesec LC, and after the meal Anna and Saldy joined us, and we decided to go and find a bar and go drinking. We found one shabby sports one, and had a drink there, then ended up wandering around Berkely trying to find someplace better to drink. Ended up going into a record store that was still open, and got directions to quite a cool, Wetherspoonsy-type place that was selling 4-pint jugs of Stella and Heineken for $10 (about GBP5.50). So we had a few of them. There may have been some chugging competitions.

A little tipsy now, we went back to the car and drove home, with more songs in the car.


Anna rang me and woke me up on Sunday around 9ish, and came and picked me up 20 mins later to go back into San Jose for a pancake breakfast. It's usually only a 20 min drive from my apt, but Anna and I got lost, making it closer to an hour. Muchos amusing, really. I was expecting just a small little event, but it was huuuuge. And there were many tasty pancakes. Met Agnes there too, and spent all morning there. Anh arrived later, and I also met some British girls who were there, was cool chatting with them.

Agnes, Anh, Anna and I (lot's of A's :S) decided to go watch Wallace and Gromit after that, so we headed off to the nearby cinema. I loved the film, although the animated short in front, with the Madagascar penguins, was rather rubbish. Anna and I decided to get sushi afte the film, so Anh attemted to take us to a good sushi house in Milpitas. Anna managed to get lost again (I may have told her to go the wrong way), and after we managed to catch up with Anh again, we got split up again not 30 seconds later (Anh turned left, she turned right). Highly amusing.

Anyway, we got sushi to go, then all went back to my hotel and ate it by the pool, relaxing in the sunshine. I got a basketball from the hotel staff, and Anh and I played for a while on the basketball court, before it got too cold and we all went inside, and chilled out in my room, watching bits of movies, flicking channels, and generally chatting and hanging out. Was great.

And I managed to finish SG1 Season 3 after they left too.

I'm having another Thai for dinner tonight with Anh and the other sun trainees from Scotland, and this coming weekend is gonna be a blast; 100 aiesecers in a cabin by Lake Tahoe, with lots and lots of alcohol. w00t \o/



I is having a great time here ^_^

I need a CMS that:

• Has a calendar you can edit and put events on, etc


• Has built-in member control functionality, where each user is assigned different levels, corresponding to different levels of access


• Has a photo album


• Is simple to use by the unwashed masses


• Ummm... I'm sure there were more requirements, but that's all I can remember

Suggestions please.

*hands out cookies*

So I've just finished my 3rd driving lesson over here, and had the whole 2 hours been my test (the actual test is between 20 and 30 mins), I'd have passed. Made no big mistakes, and only one or two little ones, so I'm booking my test for next week. I should have my license over here by the end of the month.

So, not quite as soon as I had promised...

But here's an update on my life. I'm sure you're all thrilled.

Last weekend was fantastic. Went out to Palo Alto with the other sun interns for foos and drinks, found an ok replica english pub, and sat drinking there all night. Was a good night out, up until the point where we tried to get a taxi home, and discovered that there really weren't all that many at all. Still, got home eventually, and then managed to burn $75 worth of phone credit on a 40 minute call to Australia. Rawk! I think it was then, anyway. The last few weekends have kinda blurred together.

Lazed around all day Saturday, watching more SG1 and playing lots of Haven, before going out with James, Peter and Kevin to a scary Indian place in the evening. Really good food though. Excellent stuff.

Sunday involved going to an AIESEC one-day conference, which wasn't really intended for me (being a trainee and not a member), but it was still pretty cool meeting people from other LC's. Ended up going to Denny's with a bunch of people (Me, Mads, Alex, Marija, Helene, Sean, Sarah, Ahmed, Saldy, Patricia, and one other I can't remember for the life of me). Food was ok, but it was really time, laughing and chatting and stoof. Again, excellent. Headed back to Patricia's after that (Mads let me drive, hella fun), and watched Love Actually. My mood kinda took a dive at that point, but I got over it.

Last week was pretty productive at work... got a bunch of stuff done on my project, and I'm learning new stuff all the time, which is good. In fact, I think all the technology used in my current project is new to me, so whilst I'm a little worried about the time it's taking me to produce functionality, I'm rather proud of what I've managed to accomplish. I have to do a demo of what I have written so far to the rest of my team on Monday, so exciting stuff.

Went out to Cattlemens (big steak joint) with the other Newark trainees on Friday, and ate a *lot* of food. 14oz steak, big corn-on-the-cob, huge potato, and lots of shrimp. Also, 2-pint steins are t3h w1n.
Managed to waddle home somehow, went up and spent the rest of the evening chatting in one of the other trainee's rooms, going through our assorted music collections and listening to a whole bunch of old cheese. Was great fun. Headed to bed around 1am, after giving my sister a call to wish her a happy birthday.

Woke up around midday yesterday, and spent the afternoon doing nothing much (watching Stargate SG1 and playing more Haven :D) before getting a chinese takeaway around 7, and then heading to Santa Cruz with Anh much later (Anh was late). Arrived around 2300 (Santa Cruz is about 50 miles south of San Jose, and I live about 30 miles north of San Jose. That's right, over here, we don't think anything of travelling 80 miles just to get to a party :P), and proceeded to drink my 12 pack of corona in under 3 hours, meeting a lot of new people. Great fun, and I came away with 3 phone numbers and 2 email addresses. My english accent rawks \o/

Anh needed to be back home for sunday morning, so we left around 2ish, iirc, and I got back home and was in bed by 4am. I was looking forward to a nice relaxing lie in this morning, but nooo... woke up around 10am with loadsa energy. S'all that calorific alcohol.

So yus, that's my life at the moment. Things're going swimmingly. I shall hopefully have my driving license by the end of the month too, which will make things even better. :D

And now, off to play more Haven. And maybe watch more Stargate. And maybe even read more of Tad Williams' Otherland series (I was weak, and bought the whole series, along with the Firefly DVD boxset. :D)

Oh, and finally, Serenity2. This may be of interest to any Firefly/Serenity fans in the vicinity of London in mid-november.

Well now

That was an... interesting weekend.

Spent Saturday mooching around, writing a tourney entry and then getting my hair cut. I have nice short hair now (and I look like I'm in the marines), much better than the shaggy monster I was becomming. Went swimming for a while after that, before sunbaking by the pool. Goodness.

Then headed out to San Fransisco for a party at the Bubble Lounge, via Sandy's appt in an (unsuccessful) attempt to fix her computer.
The party was excellent, after some fun and games with the management about being charged a $25 per head booking fee, but managed to sortit all out, and much fun was had. I was being an old man, drinking Port for most of the night. Good stuff. Got to dress up all smart too, with my black shirt and shiny cufflinks and all. Not often I get to do that, and it was really good.

So yus, had a most excellent night, chatted with everyone and met some new people. I met Daga, from Poland, and ended up driving her back to her apt, about 30 miles away (fun), and stayed there overnight before coming back home today. Didn't really get all tha much sleep, and I made the mistake of drinking lots of Mountain Dew on the Bus/BART on an empty stomach, so was all nice and trippy.

So, after a very good weekend, m'now feeling rather surreal. Good stuffs. I spent waaaaay too much money too, but that's all ok.


As a side note, it would be immensely useful if men could read womens mind's. Oh so useful. Grrrr.


Finally, I *hope* to get my boss to give me thursday and friday off this week so I can go camping in the Sequoia National Park with Agnes and Aldona. Would be awesome, but I think it's unlikely I'll get the time off. I can but try, though.

So, I'm having a great deal of difficulty stopping myself from buying a whole lot of Firefly/Serenity T-Shirts.

Went and saw Serenity yesterday, and minor niggles and heartrending moments aside, it was an absolutely amazing film. Like, totally awesomely superifically good. And then some.

Go. Watch. Now.



EDIT: And Kaylee is t3h lubbly. Inara is fine, but Kaylee... mmmmMMMMMmmm.