Rob and the California George Family

Things have been very busy for me since the cruise. The week after the cruise I was in Montreal visiting my current customer. This was followed by a week of preparing for another prototype review for that customer. This week, I am in the Toronto area at another office for the same customer. However, I hope to find more time for blogging again.

Since it has been a while, this post will cover a lot of ground.

Andrew has been playing with a couple of bands and starting to make some money here and there. He is a lead singer and plays guitar and bass guitar. His band has had a couple of out-of-town trips with the most recent to Arizona where they played at a bar and Utah where they played at a wedding. Celeste had a chance to see him play at a local bar/restaurant near home while I stayed home with the girls.

Bethany has started the SAT/ACT testing process. You can definitely tell a motivated teenager when they are willing to PAY to get up early on a weekend and take a grueling test! She is especially looking forward to getting out of school. The day after her last final, Beth is off to Norway to visit Ina and her family for three weeks!

Hayley has continued playing volleyball. She moved up a level and has real coaching instead of just me now. Her skills have definitely improved with her specialties being serving and setting. Hayley is about to graduate from 8th grade and become a freshman at the high school.

Hayley and I went to see the latest Shrek movie last weekend while Bethany was taking her SAT Subject Tests. It was fair, but not as good as the first one IMHO.

Hayley continues to be my last hope for playing my board games. Bethany is not into them at all, Andrew will play some when he is around, and Celeste will only play a few. Hayley has really enjoyed quite a few of them and occasionally I pull out an old classic. The most recent classic was Battle Masters. This is close to minatures, but still on a game board. Granted the game board is around 4' by 5' and with lots of cool plastic pieces to move around (knights, orcs, archers, beastmen, etc.). We pulled aside the dining room table to have room to play and kept it around for the weekend. Lots of fun pulling out the old stuff!

As I write this, I am in the Toronto area for work. I am outside of town without a car since my hotel is across the parking lot from my customer. I can see downtown Toronto in the distance from my hotel room, but no time on this trip to visit. I've posted some pictures from there. Also, when I checked in they were out of regular non-smoking rooms. Rather than moving me to smoking (Yuck!), they upgraded me to a suite with a Jacuzzi and Sauna. Despite all of my trips to Finland, I have never tried a sauna. I did try out the Jacuzzi, so maybe I have to give the Sauna a try tonight. Maybe. I posted some pictures of that too.

I did take a nice walk last night and found a local geocache. I was disappointed to see the the geocoins that were supposed to be there were not. However, when I read the log today I see that a new geocoin was dropped off. If the rain stays away, I may go get that one.

My hotel is very near Pearson International Airport, so I can see planes in the final approach to landing from my room. The hotel is soundproofed nicely, so it is cool to watch. This is obviously a very international destination. Here are some of the airlines that I can remember seeing from my hotel this week:

* Air Canada
* Jazz
* Continental
* United
* American
* Korean Air
* LOT (Polish Flag Air Carrier)
* AlItalia
* Lufthansa

OK, that is enough for now. I'll try to post shorter blurbs more often for a while!

Here is the Toronto skyline as seen from my hotel window:

This is the jacuzzi and sauna in my hotel room:

Here is the jacuzzi in my room when I prepared it for use:

I found a geocache in that small tree behind me:

Labels: Andrew, Bethany, Blogging, Family, Games, Geocaching, GPS, Hayley, Ina, Movies, Rob, School, Travel, Volleyball, Work

The cruise industry is doing a lot to try to increase the revenue per person once they get you on the ship. Don't get me wrong - you can have a great time without spending on any of the extras. The price includes a room, food, and entertainment. A "service fee" is automatically taken at the end of the week to cover the standard tips for the restaurants and the room steward. You have opportunities for extra tipping, but it is for anyone special that you want to recognize or for some of the "extras" on the ship.

One extra that we partook of was the ship's photography department. We didn't purchase all of the pictures that they took and we bypassed some of the photo opportunities. However, we did buy a few photos and a scrapbook. Our arrival photo purchase included a photo of the ship and the scrapbook included another photo of the ship.

Here are copies of the photos that we bought.

Here is our ship: the Pride of America. This is the photo that came with our arrival photo.


This is when we arrived to the ship on Saturday, April 3. We had flow in from LAX, taken a shuttle to the ship, and we were about to check in and get on the ship. This photo was taken in the arrival area with a few hundred of our soon-to-be-ship-mates around us. They had entertainment and some reading to get ready for the first day, so overall it was a decent check-in experience.

P.S. They claimed that it was an important tradition to set me on fire upon arrival (see my hand in the photo above).


The ship's photography department had opportunities for formal portraits. We didn't do that. However, we did have some fun with some green screen photos. Below is the only one that Celeste and I liked. The girls were busy with the teen club and didn't join us.


At each port, there was a photo opportunity as you left the ship. We skipped the photo opp in Maui and Hilo. However, we got a nice family shot when we got off the ship on Wedneday, April 7 in Kona on the big island. We were on our way to kayaking and snorkeling (I have already posted a few of those photos).



On Thursday morning (April 8) we arrived in Kauai. Bethany, Udara, and I left the ship for another one of our shore excursions. More about that in a future blog entry.


On our final full day of the cruise (Friday, April 9) we left port early enough to sail along the Na Pali Coast of Kauai. As you can see from this photo, the scenery is very dramatic. This part of the island is off-limits to any development.


The next day, we got off the ship at around 9:15am (after one last buffet breakfast). Little did we know that we had more adventures ahead. But that is a story for another blog entry.

Labels: Bethany, Family, Hayley, Rob, Scouts, Vacation

I reviewed where my company has sent me for the last 3 Decembers. Are they trying to tell me something?

Dec 2007 (Mellansel, Sweden = temp around -10C)
An unbelievable amount of snow, yet people choose to live there!


Dec 2008 (Helsinki, Finland = temp around +3C)
Note: It is fuzzy, but you can see a temperature display in the upper right hand corner. Above freezing, so no snow. Still very cold!


Dec 2009 (Montreal, Canada = temp around -20C)
Yikes! It was almost as cold as my coldest day ever in Sweden (my personal low temp ever experienced is -26C in Sweden).


At least I got more sunshine in Montreal than on my trips to Sweden and Finland. They only get about an hour less sunlight than home in December (around 9 hours). In Helsinki, Finland there was about 8 hours of sunshine per day. In Mellansel, Sweden there was about 6 hours of sun per day - and it stayed very low on the horizon.

I am a native Southern California guy. What are they trying to do to me???

Labels: Rob, Travel

I have a new project that started in October. It has required 2 trips to Montreal, Quebec, Canada so far. If all goes well, I will be headed back there a number of times in 2010.

The unfortunate thing is that I am actually staying in a suburb of Montreal called Anjou. There is not much around. It is not like the trips to Helsinki where there are a lot of cool historical places in walking distance. I did get to drive into the main city with some co-workers one night, but that was it.

The area where I am staying seems safe to walk around, but there is not much there. Mostly strip malls and residential areas. Not much of interest.

I did take a few photos on my first week there (see below). Per Lee's suggestion, I checked out a Tim Horton's and had dinner there one night. I think I would appreciate it more if I were into coffee, but it was fine for a quick meal and a donut.

A typical residential street near my hotel. It will be snowing soon, but for now the weather was in the 30s and 40s.


The picture above shows apartments or condos. Not far away was an area of single family homes such as this one.


Below are a couple of pictures of park areas that I passed as I explored.



Everything is in French and sometimes also in English. The sign below was for a local election. The idea of marking up the signs seems pretty universal. I went to a couple of restaurants where they only speak French. I will have to have Bethany tutor me some (she is in her 3rd year from French at school).


More signs in French.



My hotel is on the right. Straight ahead is a major highway (freeway in California speak). The hotel is near the intersection of two major freeways. There is a mall across the freeway and a bit to the left of this photo, but it seems pretty quiet over that way in the evenings. I did not get a chance to go check it out.


Here is a self-portrait across the street from the local Tim Horton's. Tim is everywhere. I thought that Starbucks had a lot of locations in the US, but Tim seems to have them beat in Canada!

Labels: Bethany, Rob, Travel, Work

I never posted anything significant about my last trip to Finland (May 2009). It was my first time to travel with a co-worker. That led to some different experiences since I went to some restaurants that I did not want to eat at on my own. We also visited some places that I had not been to before. For example, there are some casinos in Finland. The main one in Helsinki (maybe the only one? I am not sure.) is run by the government with profits going to various social programs. Anyway, that is an example of one new place that I checked out.

Like with my trip to Sweden last June, the days were very long. It had to make sure to close the heavy curtains by around 11pm or so or I did not feel like sleeping.

Below are some of the photos taken on this trip.

The harbor is to my left. I have posted photos of that big church in the distance before. This was a very windy spot - the flags are flapping like mad! I took this photo from in front of a big Russian Orthodox church. That is some sort of barracks I think in the foreground.


Here I am in front of that Russian Orthodox church. It is a very impressive brick structure on a hill overlooking Helsinki harbor.


There are plenty of boats in the harbor now. Definitely a contrast from November/December!


Downtown Helsinki: train station on the left, trolley cars down the middle of the street, office to the right (including NASDAQ's Scandanavian HQ). I am standing at the top floor of a hotel where I stayed before (but not this trip). This picture was taken at around 9pm or so - still lots of sunshine! If you head straight and follow the street veering to the right, my hotel for this trip was down there. The Casino is blocked from view by the train station, but very close.


My hotel for this trip is on the left. The glass pyramid looks down into an underground shopping mall. There are a lot of those in this part of the city. The street veers to the right to the square where you find the train station, the casino, the hotel from the picture above, etc.


Some sort of polo-on-bicycle game was in progress here. It looked fun. The speeds were fairly slow, so the hardest part seems like keeping your balance on the bike.


This bird caught my eye and let me get fairly close to him. The trees just to the right of the bird are in Esplanade Park -- they were outlined with blue lights in my photos posted last December.


The two pictures below were taken from my hotel window at around 9:30pm and then 10:00pm. The sunsets went on for a very long time! By around 11:00pm it was twilight outside, but not very dark.



I've posted pictures of this bay before. You can see the Ferris Wheel from the amusement part in the middle of the photo. We had a nice walk around this bay before dinner on our last night. We stopped part-way through the walk to enjoy an "adult beverage" while I joined a Friday morning call back in the US. This picture is Lucas - my co-worker that I traveled with -- as we sat at a restaurant (where I took that call) with seating overlooking the bay.

Labels: Rob, Travel

While Andrew was in Boy Scouts, one of the things that I did was Map & Compass training. I did this about once per year mainly to cover some basic requirements at the earlier ranks. However, I did some more advanced training from time-to-time as well. I expanded this and covered Girl Scout requirements a couple of times too. However, right about the time that I organized it into a document laying out the details, the demand went away.

A few months ago, the troop tried to contact Andrew to help them with some Map and Compass training. Since Andrew is now living in Costa Mesa, has no car, and keeps himself very busy with other activities, he was not able to help. However, since I had the materials ready I signed up.

Last Saturday I did the class. I met the scouts at Riley Regional Park at 8am and kept them until a little after noon. We covered how to use a compass, how to read a map, and some other basic skills. I then gave each of them a topographical map of the park and had them trace a hike and profile the elevation changes. Finally, we used the map and compass to take a 1 mile hike.

They were a rowdy bunch: 17 boys in the 11 - 13 age range. Some of them really got into it, others were not interested at all. Pretty typical of past groups that I have trained (although a few more kids than I usually include). The leaders were really appreciative and I enjoyed getting the chance to use my materials again (and get out on a very nice day).

For the record, the Scouts completed these requirements:
* Demonstrate how a compass works and how to orient a map. Explain what map symbols mean.
* Demonstrate how to find directions during the day and at night without using a compass.
* Using a compass, complete an orienteering course that covers at least one mile and requires measuring the height and/or width of designated items (tree, tower, canyon, ditch, etc.)

The requirements have changed slightly from when I developed the course. However, I still cover the new requirements. This could be done in much less time than I spend, but I want to give them a chance to try out their skills and really learn it. Most of them will promptly forget everything, but for some it will stick. Maybe some basic land navigation will come in handy for some of them someday!

Labels: Andrew, Rob, Scouts

While I was in Sweden last week, I had my first ever chance to ride a snowmobile. It was big fun! Below are some photos taken with the camera on my phone.

Labels: Driving, Rob, Travel, Work

This posting is a little bit late, but still something that I meant to share. In mid-December, we had a colder-than-normal storm come through and drop snow in the nearby hills. It is not unusual for Saddleback Mountain to get snow a few times per winter. However, the nearby hills rarely do. This time, we had a lot of snow.

Before anyone comments about it, when I say "a lot of snow" you have to remember that I mean by local standards. I have been to Sweden and Finland in the snowy months and know what "a lot of snow" means by most people's standards.

Below are some pictures that I took from my office window of the show on Saddleback and the surrounding hills on Dec 18 and Dec 19. The camera phone doesn't catch it very well, but the snow is in the middle of the photos. Clicking on the photos to enlarge them helps. To borrow a quote from The Lion King: "Look closer!"

Labels: Rob, Work

Long time, no blog. Life has been very, very busy. However, with the holidays coming up (including a paid company holiday shutdown of about a week) and the completion of my 3rd trip of 3 scheduled trips to Finland I think that things will slow down a little bit.

As I write this, it is 4:30am in Finland on Saturday, December 12. I am in my hotel room in Helsinki, Finland about to shower and head to the airport. I have been up for about an hour. I usually sleep fine on these trips, but for some reason I woke up and could not get back to sleep. I may sleep a little bit on the flights, but probably not. I don't generally sleep much on airplanes.

My first flight will be from Helsinki to London. That takes about 3 hours. I have about 2 hours on the ground in London until my next flight to LAX. That will take around 11 hours depending on weather. After that, I get to go through immigration, customs, and then drive home. I should get home around 5:30pm Pacific Time on Saturday, December 12.

I am only worried about one thing right now - the weather forecast in London includes possible delays of around 60 minutes. If my inbound flight is delayed, I really hope that the outbound flight is too. I have to change terminals and go through security and 1 hour is probably not enough time for that.

A minor possible issue is that I am not sure what seat I have for the flight from Helsinki to London. It could be a center seat. I am not allowed to check in ahead of time to verify. I did get good news yesterday though -- my flight from London to LAX will be an aisle seat. I was previously in a center seat which is not fun for an 11 hour flight (been there, done that).

Beyond that, I actually look forward to time to read, watch the little TV monitor on the plane, and so on.

So from the time that I woke up (around 5:30pm Pacific Time Friday / 3:30am Central European Time Saturday) until the time that I get home (around 5:30pm Pacific Time Saturday) will be a 24 hour cycle of very little sleep. I am not worried about the drive home - I have done that before. However, the family claims that I am a bit goofy when I am that tired. Who woulda thunk it?

P.S. Below are a couple of pictures that I took around the city last night. The phone's camera was using Pacific Time -- I forgot to hit the travel location button. I had a nice walk around the city. The temperature was hovering a little above freezing, but I walked at a brisk pace and kept warm. I noticed that they use a LOT of lights in response to the long nights (days are around 6 hours long right now).

The front of my hotel as I start my walk.



This is one of the few boats left in the harbor right now. It is open as a restaurant for dinner.



One of the parks near the waterfront is nicely decorated. There are a bunch of little wooden huts where people sell Christmas gifts, decorations, and goodies.



They have some spectular old buildings around town. The churches below are amongst the most interesting buildings in town.



There was lots of lighting for shoppers and tourists who were walking around town.




The end of my walk at the back of my hotel. The display came out fuzzy, but the right side shows the temperature as +3C.

Labels: Rob, Travel