Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Congratulations, Jacin!

One thing I love about my job is our sense of community. Case in point, my colleague Jacin is getting married on the 27th. To celebrate the occasion, his boss organized a little party for him today. Our executive assistant ordered a two-tier red velvet cake that resembled a miniature wedding cake. While an office party isn't the same as an actual wedding, the gathering almost felt like one. This is certainly one of the reasons Lab126 rocks. :-)

At any rate, I'd like to congratulate Jacin and his soon-to-be wife on their marriage. Here's to wishing them a happy life together in the years to come.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

my first foray into Meetup

I recently decided to sign up for Meetup. For those unaware, Meetup is a social network for organizing in-person meetings that has gained popularity over the years.

One of the advertised events was a Java user conference at the Google headquarters in Mountain View. I went to check it out as it sounded quite interesting. The program began with a networking session and a light dinner consisting of pizza and salad. The topic of the presentation was a next-generation database management system called NoSQL. It was an extremely fascinating concept.

I had to wait a bit for my ride home as the presentation ended earlier than planned. On the other hand, there was lots of leftover food; those two pizzas should last more than a few days. This was a overall cool experience. I mean, not many people can say they've visited the Googleplex before!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

turned 27 today...

I'm now 27 years old. Strangely enough, my 26th birthday feels like it was merely months ago. Time goes so fast these days... maybe a little too fast.

To celebrate the occasion, my parents took me to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. I picked this place because I've always wanted to try it out and that the birthday dessert looked nice. Outback Steakhouse wasn't a bad choice as the food was quite enjoyable. You can go here to see what we ate.

One of my birthday traditions was to post three facts about my childhood. However, because I've started running out of interesting ones, here are three facts about the number 27 instead:

  1. 27 is the third perfect cube.
  2. 27 is the only positive integer that is three times the sum of its digits.
  3. There is said to be 27 roads to the mythical El Dorado.

Although I didn't receive any presents this year, I did get two books for free - albeit completely unintentionally. About two weeks ago, I ordered some old Doom and Duke Nukem 3D level editing guides from Half.com to add to my collection. Two of the books were from the same seller, and one of them was missing an accompanying CD-ROM. When I contacted the seller regarding the issue, they gave me a full refund for both books while letting me keep them. It's funny how things tend to work out!

Currently watching: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Sunday, October 7, 2012

a festival and a fiesta

The weekend was a mixed bag at first but overall ended well.

One thing I wanted to do was check out Gaelebration, an event commemorating the 150th anniversary of St. Mary's College of California. However, the campus is around 55 miles away in Moraga. I'm also rather averse to driving alone and couldn't find anyone to carpool with me. This was kind of a let-down as Gaelebration looked really fun. While admission was free, I'd have gladly bought tickets for the event if it were closer.

On the other hand, I went to the Los Altos Fall Festival instead. The festival wasn't too impressive this year, but the cool thing is that I ran into the LAHS auto tech teacher, who was helping out with the classic car show with one of his former students. It was great to see a familiar face even though I never took Mr. Ely's class. I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up a work project from home.

Our family friend Fennah's reading club met tonight and was hosted at Henry's house this time. All of the food was delicious as usual. Like at most reading club events, there wasn't anyone else my age. Though Henry has a daughter who is slightly younger than me, she was busy working upstairs and couldn't join us. The gathering was nevertheless so much fun that my parents and I stayed for around six hours!

I've posted some pictures from the Los Altos Fall Festival and the reading club party here. Oh yeah, and my 27th birthday is coming right up. :-)

Currently listening to: "Oh Love" by Green Day