Ooh That Smell, Can't You Smell That Smell

It seems that every step of this adventure comes with its own twists and turns.  Well, the latest one stinks.

But let's back up a bit.

Andrina and I have had a whirlwind recent couple of months. This past few months have seen:

• Our house in Kamloops packed into storage containers (many thanks to many people for their enormous help)
• Andrina moved to California and started her new job with Marcum LLP
• Andrina and I became members of the Raider Nation

Andrina really got into Raider football

• We packed my apartment and moved into a bungalow in Menlo Park
  

• With much help, I loaded a moving truck and drove the 21 hours to Menlo Park to fully move into our little house
• Kelsey joined us for a wonderful Christmas vacation




• We brought in the New Year with the Kuromi tradition of a delicious Fondue

It's been a pretty wild ride this past few months, exhausting to say the least. So, it was with great anticipation of rest that we settled into this new house. Upon moving in we noticed a musty/funky smell but we dispatched it Andrina's love of candles a couple fires in the fireplace. The smell was gone but the rest we hoped for eluded us. The neighbour's dog woke up at all hours of the night with incessant barking and Ghost was constantly pacing. Something was definitely "up." In a desperate want of sleep, Ghost was kicked out into garage a couple nights back. Just as I was drifting off, I was woken by a commotion in the back yard. Evidently, Ghost figured out the dog door and was rustling through the bushes after something. Well, with that rustling came a wall of smell wafting through the window. This was a smell that burned the nostrils. 

We have a skunk.

It turns out a skunk had taken up residence underneath the house. Ghost was able to find it anytime it moved below the house which caused the skunk to get scared and spray. The house then stunk to high heaven. We lit candles and burned fires and then the cycle repeated. 

As it turns out, skunks like dog food. Yesterday, with great trepidation, I opened up the crawlspace to underneath the house and started building a Hansel and Grettle style trail for the skunk into our back yard. I then sealed up the other entrances to the underside of the house with cardboard and rags of ammonia (skunks don't like ammonia).  And then we waited and sealed up the house once the food was gone.

So with very little anticipation of success, we proceeded to enjoy our New Years Eve. And with much thanks to wine, sleep came for both us and Ghost. 

So, here's to a new year. We hope it will be a little less action packed and a little more restful. 

Only in the bay

I'm pretty sure that I live in a pretty special area when it is not only possible but almost a non-event to see a self driving car cruising around town. I love it.

This isn't a great picture but this is the Google  self driving car, complete with useless passenger in the drivers seat.

Old Man, Blue Caravan

It had to happen, eventually. Things had been too easy, too pleasant up to now. So, today it finally happened.

Of couse, *it* is "getting into it with a motorist who is incapable of driving with cyclists on the road." Since I moved down here, I've been shocked at how courteous the drivers here have been towards me as a cyclist. I ride my bike to work usually 4 days a week (I get food delivered to the office on Tuesdays, so I drive that day). Nearly everyday, at some four way stop, of which there are many on my route, a driver who has the right of way will wave me through so I don't have to come to lose all my momentum.

Clearly someone would eventually ruin my streak of great conduct by being a complete asshat and it has now happened.

As I drove home today, I came to a stop at a light which has a right turn lane. As is typical, rather than in the turn lane and have traffic turn right in front of me, I stopped at very right hand side of the thru traffic lane. I then scooted my rear tire over to the left a skosh to make sure I was out of the turning lane.

Enter Old Man Blue Caravan.

Old Man Blue Caravan who was the first car waiting at the light did not like take kindly too me moving my bike ever so slightly in front of his. In fact, he disliked it so much that he felt it necessary to get out of his vehicle to accuse me of cutting in front of him. I'm not sure how what he thought was going to happen. Did he think the light would turn green and I would pull ahead of him and force him to drive at my leisurely 15km/hr home? Or I wonder if he feel slighted, as though he had earned that propitious first spot in the lane and would not have some punk cyclist stealing it away from him. Whatever the reason, after a heated debate as whether I was cutting him off or not, the light turned green and I accelerated and moved over to the right as soon as safely possible. I was rewarded for this by Old Man Blue Caravan roaring past me within mere inches of my rear wheel.

I'm happy to say that there was no accident and the rest of my ride home was uneventful. Oh, and yes, someone did wave me throw a four way when it wasn't my turn after that on my ride home. So screw you Old Man, you're the exception.

Surfin USA

As part of my desire to either be assimilated by norcal or be entirely cliche, I started learning how to surf this part weekend. I've been wanting to get out a little more during my free time and explore the beautiful north of California. As a result, this past weekend I headed down to Santa Cruz aka Surf City, USA.

Santa Cruz is really cool, hippy sort of town about 45 minutes west of Palo Alto. It's well known for its moderate temperatures, being part of the beautiful California coastline, and home to this super cool boardwalk, amusement park.

Santa Cruz is home the venerable Santa Cruz Skateboards company. If you've been around skating or snowboarding every, you're aware of this logo.

Last, but not least, Santa Cruz is very well known as being one of the surf town's of California.

Thanks to Yelp and the all powerful google, I managed to find the Santa Cruz Surf School. They are one of the few licensed surf instructors allowed to teach in the city of Santa Cruz. The instructors that I worked with were all incredibly nice and I managed to actually get up on my very first wave. So, I could say that it had nothing to do with good instruction but I'm certain it was due to good technique.

I'd have to say that I now understand the "craze" and am pretty excited about getting back out on the water. The feeling of getting picked up by the wave is something that is hard to describe but very cool.

In addition to getting out surfing, I also did a little hiking this past weekend at California's state park, Castle Rock. 

The drive up to Castle Rock through the hills between Palo Alto and the coast gave some great views of the bay:

Castle Rock parked was a zoo, there was probably hundreds of people hiking in the area.

Evidently, Castle Rock is a place that rock climbers like to come to practice there game.

Things Americans Say

My crossfit gym had a workout at the nearby Sequioa High School track this past Saturday. A new comer to the the gym and I were chatting prior to the workout starting. During the conversation he asked, with a straight face, "are tracks smaller in Canada? You know cause you measure them in meters?"

Two months later

It's been nearly two months since I moved down here. Holy crap, time has absolutely flown. I had great intentions of writing every week but, clearly, that has not happened. I've been completely consumed in the world that is Sendhub.  That has been a pretty easy thing to do. The team that I work with is incredibly passionate about the product that we are building. That passion is really infectious and I am happy to be regularly putting in 10 hour days, and pushing code on weekens and after hours. When you really have the opportunity to be more an integral piece in a company's direction, you want to do everything you can to move in that direction and get to the goal.

With all that excitement and how happy I am with work, my personal life has been pretty shallow for the past 6 weeks. By that I mean, I haven't done focused much on my personal life. I realized today that this is the first time in my life that I have been "on my own" (no family or pre-existing friend group). It's been a challenge. I will definitely admit that it has taken its toll. It's hard to feel shitty when you look out the window and it's 25 degrees and sunny everyday but not having my family and friends close has been exceptionally hard. Luckily I've had a couple of breaks along the way.


In early June, I headed over to Las Vegas for Collin Hollas and Robyn Paul's wedding. Five days is a long time in Vegas but it was a blast and it was also Andrina and I's first time in Vegas together. It's funny how in Vegas every night ends up the same. That is, crawling into bed at three in the morning after sitting at the 3 card poker table for the past several hours.

Leaving the bay

I can't say enough about Virgin Air. One of my best flight experiences

Flamingos at the Flamingo

The view from Mix was awesome

Vegas Baby

Fremont St 

Matt Gise and his really really big dinner

Andrina and Kelsey and Kelsey's friend Amy came down for a visit at the end of last week, starting on July 5th. It was an action packed weekend and after a month of not seeing Andrina, totally necessary. I'm sad it will be another month until we get to see each other again.

When they first arrived we went to Martins West in Redwood City. Dinner was delicious but the Bacon  Ice Cream Sandwich was a hit.

We tried to go to Alcatraz but weren't aware that you need to book weeks in advance. So, we just spent the day checking out San Fran.

A store called It's Sugar filled with every kind of candy you can think of. I wonder why there is an obesity problem in this country.

How cliche :)

We tried to check out Gordon Biersch brewery for dinner in Palo Alto. It turns out BC drivers licenses which have been good enough everywhere else in this country are not official enough to allow us to order a wine. Here is the manager explaining that it's policy and he can't exercise judgement or common sense.

Needless to say, we left Gordon Biersch and went next door. Despite the look in my eyes, that was my first wine of the day.

Saturday was filled with outlet mall shopping. The girls rewarded me for taking them shopping by suggesting we go to the Oakland A's game.

When the sun goes down, Oakland gets freaking cold!

And Sunday was all about Six Flags, Discovery Kingdom. I haven't done the amusement park thing in awhile. I have to say that I expected more of Six Flags. It was good but I wasn't blown away. The two hour line up for the Superman ride definitely was not worth it.

Two hours later and we did ride this thing.. and yes it does do a barrel roll at the top

I had to get back to work on Monday so the girls did some more shopping and checked out Santa Cruz on Monday.

Santa Cruz

We met up for dinner at Mango Caribbean Restaurant in Palo Alto. So good!

I was very sad to see the girls head home on Tuesday. I can't wait to come home next month for a few days and deliver the car keys that Andrina left behind.