About
Stuff and things I wanted to record and share with people interested in weird stuff I encounter every now and then. For some reason. Or something. Hope you are not a filthy pervert and enjoy this in a straight and/or politically correct manner, which some of the stuff may not be.
Index
All (54)
Computers (5)
Misc (14)
Mustang (20)
Oddities (6)
Places (9)
Politics (0)
Links
Earlier online
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Sun, 21 Aug 2005
Roadtrip to Oregon
While having a Ford Focus as a rental in place of mu Mustang, we decided to
exploit the good gas mileage. So we took off to Oregon with Henrik. On the
way there was a lot on highway 1 and some redwood forests, Oregon (0% sales
tax!!) and Mount Shashta.. Very good trip. GPS proved to be very useful again.
Unfortunately my 256M CF card acted again and I lost about 20 pictures. So long
redtrees.. :(
Visit to Lake Tahoe
Nice weekend trip to the Lake Tahoe. A lot of sitting in the car and more spectacular sceneries. Highly recommended, both during winter and summer.
Hiller aviation museum
Finally got the trip done due to inspriration from "the mythbusters", a TV
show on Discovery channel. I've driven past the museum for countless times and
always thought "next time I'll go there", so now it is done and I can cross over
on item more on my list "things to do before die". Nice museum, featuring
some local history, boeing 747 front end display including cockpit, some
experimental planes dating from beginning of century to 90's and other
interesting stuff. Recommendation: go and check it out!
Pics here
Grand Hyatt, San Francisco
Nice scenery from the top floor. Worth visiting if you happen to be around
Union Square in San Francisco. Pics on camera phone. Sorry.
Las Vegas
Second time in Vegas, so nothing breath taking. Cool place anyways.. $1 beer,
$5 blackjack, good food, nice "sceneries" and a desert around. Especially
long, high speed limit straights with just a few highway patrol officers
around. Well.. You can guess rest. No. No drink & driving, just testing
the horsy's performance a bit. And gas mileage. It happened so that gas
was $3.1+ / gallon in Death Valley. Of course I'm cheap enough to think
that I can make it to next gas station. Or make it next to next which was
out of gas, so it was 3rd. With just vapors in tank and 17 miles of gas left
(that is 2-3 liters or quarts), we arrived to a station we passed on the way
to Death Valley..
Otherwise trip was nice. Catching up with the another Ville, drinking,
gambling, checking out places. And driving of total 1500 miles during
4 days. And visit to Fatburger. Really good and honest burgers. Just in
the middle of the strip in a shabby "strip mall" next to Mc Donald's. My
friend's name (which is same as mine) was mutilated to "Phillip" on the
order after he even spelled the name for the waiter, so I decided to be
Bruce again. The girl behind the counter agreed after she got over the
surprise.
Fun! Pics here.
Andrea visiting
My friend who I met originally in IRC back on days when I was more active on
channel #wanhat (and also IRL due to the nice IRC meets we had on
that channel). She was on business trip in San Francisco, so I took her for
a spin around local sightseeings.
Pics here.
Trip to Helsinki
I was lucky enough to have a one and half week business trip to Helsinki,
Finland, returning about a week ago. Yes, sorry - I haven't been too busy
writing things down.
Anyway, not disclosing the business reasons for the trip, it was kind of fun.
Actually I've never liked Helsinki too much, reason being
it is a midsize town with people who think it is a metropolis.
Well, it is the largest concentration of people in Finland, but..
Anyway, the hotel room was nice. It had its own sauna since the hotel was
out of cheaper rooms. Too bad. I was in sauna for 3 times during first 12
hours of my stay. And approx 1.5 times every day, so I took most out of the
situation. Also I had a change to check out nightlife in the town. I'd say
it was a slight disappointment. Since Helsinki is 3 times larger city by
population compared to Tampere, it should have more lively nightlife.
However, it seemed to be pretty much the same. I'd give it 2 and half stars.
Pros were indoors smoking, moderate priced beer, good looking chicks. Cons
not too many places to go (ok, I did not go to all of them of course) and few
people out. Sure January is not the most popular time to go out drinking anyway,
so I may be wrong, but the impression is time-of-year-corrected and compared to
Tampere.
Monterey Aquarium
Nice daytrip to Monterey today. Weather was pretty, so I took myself and
Horsy for a run. The town itself requires another trip since due to too little
sleep lately, I slept late and left late for the trip. Aquarium was
concentrating on the local underwater canyon and wildlife sanctuary. Nice
display on kelps, utters and other things living in the Monterey Bay. Compared
to San Francisco aquarium, the display was not as comprehesive, but worth
seeing if you happen to be around and have about 2 hours to spare.
Xmas abroad
Santa gigs done, presents opened and some ham & potato mash consumed.
This year all 10 santa gigs took place in Silicon valley and neighborhood.
Pretty interesting to notice that finnish xmas traditions have so strong
foothold even after two generations in US. Another remark was that traffic
does not slow down noticeably compared to normal weekend. Possibly since
santa stucks into chimney around midnight and until then there is hurry.
Or something. Well, I'll retire to enjoy the warm glow of the idiot box and
perhaps enjoy some well deserved alcohol.
Merry xmas!