Standing in the back: Chris, my roommate. Sitting, from the left: James, my bastard of a suitemate, Rhythm, our sixth suitemate, Jay, a regular ping pong partner, Gill, a crazy (only slightly) South African girl I may travel with, Ed'd, the eccentric one here, and myself.

This photo was taken at the farewell get together I organised. These are the people I spent two quarters with.

Poking fun at engineers

Engineers

Understanding Engineers - Take One :
Two engineering students crossing the campus when one said, "Where did you
get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking
along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on
this bike.She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and
said, "Take what you want." The first engineer nodded approvingly, "Good
choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Understanding Engineers - Take Two :
To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is
half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers - Take Three :
A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a
particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these
guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I
don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey,
here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him." "Hi George!
Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't
they?"
The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind fire-fighters.
They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we
always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment.
The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for
them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my
ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The
engineer said, "Why can't these guys just play at night?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Four :
What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers - Take Five :
The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with an Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Six :
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible
designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer."Just
look at all the joints."

Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has
many thousands of electrical connections."
The last one said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a
toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Seven :
"Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features
yet"

Understanding Engineers - Take Eight :
An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was
better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he
enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring
relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because
the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, "I like both."
"Both?" "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume
you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and
get some work done."

Understanding Engineers - Take Nine :
An engineer was crossing a road one-day when a frog called out to him and
said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over,
picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and
said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will
stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket,
smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If
you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do
ANYTHING you want." Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and
put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter?
I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a
week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said,
"Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking
frog, now that's cool."

San Francisco

Last Saturday I went to San Francisco with two persons I had never met before, but who turned out to be charming. I have already told you a little bit about SF; let me assure you: I wasn't wrong, and I wasn't exaggerating. This town is truly beautiful. It has the same advantage as Perth: a bay. The presence of water must have a great relaxing effect on people, because like in Perth, San Franciscans are a relaxed and gentle people. But unlike Perth, SF is an international business centre, and I could see that very easily in the deserted business district. There, every block had its Starbucks, opened on weekdays, when masses dressed in black need their daily caffeine rush.
Which reminds me that Americans do not drink tea; they drink coffee, and plenty of it. Perhaps that is why they are such a fast people. Why they don't get out of the car to eat, and why time is constantly referred to as lacking.
Scroll down and enjoy these few photos.

PS: I am thinking of plans for next summer, and Madagscar has come up. Anyone been there?

San Francisco: a view from the piers.

San Francisco swells enormously every weekend, with tourists flocking in. Out of this shot, to my left, lies a very nice market.

I have to include this to remind you that we are still in America here. This monster easily spans more than ten meters.

Not much really. This is picture is a testimony to the quality of my camera. Lovely shot, out of a pleasant, but mundane (in SF) sight.

What the town looks like from our boat.

What is this? It looks like a platform, but it is a ship.

The bay and its passengers. No wonder people love this city.

Golden Gate: Part 1; the old and the ancient. These two ships make the Golden Gate feel young.

Golden Gate, part 2: grandly solemn

Golden Gate, part 3: from up close

Alcatraz, part 1: the world's most famous prison. Did you know that in the fifties a group of native Americans claimed the island for their own? They were the only individuals to be forcefully removed from the island.

Alcatraz, Part 2

Alcatraz, part 3

The Bay Bridge; one of the two famous San Franciscan bridges. This one links SF to Oakland. In a 1989 earthquake, a span of the other section of the bridge collapsed.

SF is more than the sum of its hills, its bay and Alcatraz: here is a sight from the high flying business district.

This church is in North Beach, a famous part of the town. This is where the beat movement started.

A typical street in SF

This little neighbourhood dominates the bay, on one of the highest points of SF. It is also minutes away from the business district.

A San Franciscan street in the business district. Can you see Bullit's car flying over the hill?

Played Ping Pong all day Saturday. The uni had organised a tournament; I came third as from the pools in singles and second after finals in doubles. Tomorrow: single playoffs.

What would you think if you were on that chairlift? Bloody awesome could describe it. Tree runs were amazing.

Ronald in total control heading towards me. Let's say he is about to go snow hugging.

Ronald after he skiied into me and fell down. A kodak moment. He wanted to remember me and asked for the camera.

The view Ronald has of me

This is actually a movie and it includes a nice "improvised" flip. The snow is very chopped up but so soft. A fun challenge.

GMail Invites

If you want an invite to GMail, tell me. You need one to register.
GMail is Google's approach to free web mail. It uses search tools. At this stage not many people have one, so you might be able to get a good name. I assume it will be big some day.

It has one GB of storage, which is primarly why I use it.
Send me an email if you want one.

Man who controls Iraq

Reading the Australian, I stumbled on this link:
http://www.sistani.org/html/eng

The cleric you see controls Iraq now. The party he endorsed has won the majority of the seats. This is quite a cultural shock. Of great interest are his Q&As

Leadership Conference

Today I attended a leadership conference. I have to go to so many workshops for one of my classes and going to this conference counts for half of that requirement. If it hadn't been for that class I would not have gone; I would have missed some very interesting speakers.

The session was divided in a few parts; first we had breakfast and socialised with one another. A politician then came and talked to us. His message was that we could make a difference. Mostly he told us stories of people who had gone against the odds (including himself) to achieve something great, even if only small. After being properly applauded out, we split into a number of sessions, according to our fancy.
I attended two such sessions:
1) The first was on MindBody Intelligence; a practical psychology approach preaching "know thyself". The man talking founded the approach and the clinic he runs. His purpose was to get us to write, in our own time, a mission statement, a set of guidelines that both provide an ethical and directional backbone. Having given this approximate presentation hundreds of time, his delivery was impressive. He had a good flow, and was very efficient.
http://www.mindbodyintelligence.com/

2) The second was on bad leadership and why people follow it. This presentation was given by one less qualified and less interesting than the previous speaker. She basically went over a book written by someone with the credentials. She asked us a lot of questions and while waiting for our answer, encouraged us with some impressive facial gymnastics. Still the matter was substantial, and gave some food for thought

Real food followed. Lunch was served, and on most tables sat an alumni from a different field. I sat with a civil engineer who was now going to business school to move away from engineering. We, the people at our table, asked him questions and he graced us without much prompting with long monologues on his life choices.
Lunch finished, we stayed in the same seat and heard a motivational speaker tell us about her model to success. What a speaker she was! Her energy was remarkable; her flow was smooth; and her voice was perfectly schooled to draw her audience where she wanted it to be. Her model is certainly not unique; in fact I had conceived of most of what she said, but hearing someone else say it in such a convenient package is a very different experience.
http://www.janntaber.com/

And that was the end of the conference. It seems like there is a lot of knowledge available to one that looks for it. And yet I never go to any such event in Australia... I tend to take them as a bit of a joke, but in fact the good ones are worth the time.

Our board and our less than christian (sorry Chris) comments

A typical morning sight, and sometimes an afternoon one in our living room

Rhythm loves this one

Rhythm sculpted

I took this photo while riding. My camera is great.

The main library

Rinal, right, is Rhythm(centre)'s sister. She came up to vist for a night. Jay on the right goes out with Rhythm, and has been for five years now. Their parents do not know. Indians believe in arranged marriage.

The building where I live: Castillian

Me at my best, or so my roommates say... They should know.

Computer is back

Yes it is! Cured, finally.

I had no idea what I had, and I had no idea how to fix it, so I googled, and I found this website called "castle cops"; there I submitted a log of a scanning software. Step by step, an expert told me how to clean up my computer. I used software I have never heard of before, and never wish to hear of again, but now the computer is clean.
The service the site offered was free: is this a not for profit site? The man who helped me, however good he is, must have spent at least half an hour on me. And there are hundreds of problems more everyday. There are ads on the site, but I didn't click through any of them. I would think most people wouldn't. It is possible that the site works on a commission basis. They have a lot of links to software that would help me in the future. Or it could be that malware/spyware/worm-haters have a strong enough passion to spawn a desire to help thousands of helpless victims like myself out of the goodness of their heart.

The site is:
http://computercops.biz/

Computer Problems

My computer up to yesterday was free of any virus and spyware. Using Mozilla Firefox, Spybot and Ad-aware made sure of that. Yesterday though, I tried to get a new icon for my AIM profile, and I dowloaded this application from this good looking website.
I was a little wary of an application being downloaded when all I had wanted was an icon but I ran it anyway. It installed a lot of junk on my computer, including DVMlite which doesn't want to go away, as well as CoolWWWsomething, which i can't get rid off either.
I try to run some diagnostic software that I found on a trustworthy site, and now I can't use Windows Explorer anymore. Windows Explorer is the interaction interface of XP, and so my computer is disabled.
Pity because the sun is out, temperatures have risen and I wanted to go take some nice photos of the outside world. I won't be able to post them until my computer is fixed. And there is always the likelihood that I will lose everything.

Any ideas from the IT experts would be welcome.

PS: If I have sent you anything with attachments in the last couple of days, do not open them.

The Memorial Union: one of the center points of the campus. In summer, this was full of people.

The campus bought this in the 60s from London.

A bleak winter road on campus

A fat squirrel

Two poker friends; the left one is Swedish and the right one is from the Netherlands.

America is all about size. This huge margarita is being drank through heating pipes. By mechanical engineers, of course.

The view of Lake Tahoe from the top of Sierra, the resort to which I go the most.

The camera didn't capture the purple in the sky, but still...

Beautiful, isn't it?

Oh, and some of the tracks are mine

my roommate when he's spent too much time with me

My roommate showing off

LAX greets the weary traveler with four hours of line and loses my luggage. Avoid it if you can -- worse than French airports.

Taipei International -- an airport that through someone's genious was made perfectly symmetrical. The shops are mirrored on both wings -- a great idea for the weary traveler looking for a way to kill six hours...

Back In Davis

Hello all,

I have been back in Davis for a couple of weeks now. And this is my first post for some time. I have recently acquired a camera, and I am looking for a way to upload some of the great pictures I have taken onto this blog. Anyone knows how?
Davis is cold; in the mornings, I am greeted by a fog, that on good days briefly lifts for the afternoon, and brings back its gloom at night. We oscillate around freezing, but there is no snow. When it rains, the clouds insulate the place, and the temperatures are too high. Two hours away from here, in Lake Tahoe, where all the ski resorts are, the temperatures are just right, and snow falls in bucket loads. I have been three times since I have come back. I have pictures; I will put them up if I can.

Classes -- no complaints. I am taking five:
Communication seminar -- just a fun way to get a credit point, learning little communication techniques, specifically tailored for the engineer.
Professional Responsibilities of the Engineer -- A class that looks at the legal aspects of engineering and also explores the ethical side. It is taught by a lawyer, who defends the State. His approach to teaching is very formal, and because of his great experience, it is very interesting.
Earthquake Loads -- California has earthquakes. We don't really design for them in Australia, but here, that bad seismic wave is often the most important factor in design. A practicing engineer comes at eight on Tuesday's and Thursday's and teaches us how to do what he does for a living.
Engineering Economics -- engineering firm economics. This class looks at the very specific of monetary decisions. The man teaching it is a grave buffoon.
Personal Finance -- Taught by my marketing teacher from last quarter, this is a very interesting class. I learn about living together, marriage and divorce, as well as about more mundane financial events, such as investments, loans, savings, taxes, etc. I won't be able to apply most of what I learn here unless I live in California, but at least, I will know what to look for.

Things are otherwise going rather well. Today, I got a free couch from my friends Thomas and Jimmy. They are leaving for Australia and they are getting rid of a lot of stuff. It has coloured thin stripes on a cream background, and suddenly the living room has become bearable. It breaks the monotony of white and grey the University Regents imposed on its tenants.

I am looking forward to going to Washington DC. I have found out that most civil engineering companies are on the same side of town as me. And these companies have 15,000+ employees worldwide. DC is on the East Coast; Californians have often slipped when hearing me speak about this upcoming trip, and have referred to DC as abroad. The East Coast and West Coast is more than a groundless rivalry. The coasts represent two different lifestyles. The busy self-important New Yorker, vs. the relaxed smugly content Californian.

Enough for now,

Albert

A man is killed by the police on campus

http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7227

This happened in student housing, in a different area from where I live. I ride through there every day.

Notice that all versions of events I have heard so far are very protective of the police even though they just killed a kid.

Upcoming days

Schedule:
Friday: Snowboarding at boreal, into the night. Play squash with pretty girl at night.
Saturday: Snowboarding at Sierra-at-Tahoe. Possible fresh snow.
Sunday: Rest, Sleep, Study, Projects
Monday: Snowboarding at Northstar-at-Tahoe. Fresh snow. Come back, give a very long presentation to class (mini-lecture, my first of the kind). Prepare morrow's test
Tuesday: Test, and then catch up on sleep.

Oh what a schedule! Yes I agree. Strainous, but I don't mind. I am even looking forward to it. And so now I got to bed anticipating days of fun.

I finished Pride and Prejudice. I understand why this is a worldwide favourite. Jane Austen's judgement of character is one of the best I have read. Actions make sense, and their reason are so exposed that I could not prevent bursts of laughter. This is a writer who wouldn't write about men talking to men only scenes, because she had never witnessed them. And to this attention to details, we owe such works as P&P.
Jane Austen is from a different breed of writers; ones that don't believe deaths and explosions necessary to a good story. I have been appalled at the success of Dan Brown. But I am prejudiced. Deeply so. The Da Vinci code is written horribly; a formula applied constantly and consistently. I wish that good writers would come forth, and show the world that classics get written; that they are not just the product of another age.

PS: Does anyone have advice on giving lectures? I was told by the professor to tell what I thought would interest the class. This relates to the marketing project I have mentioned. Papa, you should know one thing or two about the subject; delivery and content. And most of you are students with opinions on the matter.