Habitational temperature raising event

Some of the best revelations of the night:

- Stephen Hawking talking dirty is a slippery slope that leads to Science.
- All-you-can-eat shrimp for $4.99 would not be a bad way to die.
- If there's something there's a ton of in heaven is dead parents.
- In a world ravaged by menstrual rage our only solace is switching to Geico.
- A bad thing to find in your Kung Pao chicken would be Lance Armstrong's missing testicle (although not necessarily the worst...).
- In 1,000 years, when paper money is a distant memory, you will pay for goods and services by licking things to claim them as your own.

Fleet Week Madness


Blue Angels 1 through 5, but where's number 6?



number 6 emerging from the fog


Portraits

Psycho chicken, murderous duck and stoned horse, continuing the animal theme.



Opossums

"Is that a giant rat I nearly ran over?" asks the lady at the gym parking lot.
Nope. Just a frightened adorable female opossum with babies in her pouch.


And this one I found outside my door, hiding in the bushes.

Boehringer Oktoberfest

Free beer, food, live music and a first prize won on the raffle by accident. Plus the giant cell culture bioreactors.





Pianos in the Park

Piano #1 makes its surprise appearance during a bike ride



Piano #2 with a family of curious deer as an audience



Piano #3 and the sunset concert overlooking the bay



Last but not least, piano #4 plus some hang gliders in the background


Sea Creatures

Moss Landing and its adorable sea otters



photographing sea lions at the Old Monterey Fisherman's Wharf


balancing perilously on a rock...



more sea lions in Santa Cruz




Velella


plus a seagull striking a pose



Keep on the grass, the boating incident and other dillycious adventures

In case you don't remember, Dilly and I have a tendency to find ourselves in weird situations and adventures, some of which involve water and boats. So it is not surprising that during her last visit to California we decided to do a bit of boating... you know, for old times sake!

Anyway, a row boat in a man-made, 50 acre, salt water lake seems a pretty safe choice. Unless, of course you end up adrift in the middle of said lake, with only one working paddle and the aquatic centre staff conveniently ignores your S.O.S. signaling. After a lot of struggle, we did manage to strand the boat and climb onto to the shore, only to find ourselves in the middle of a golf course and having to walk all the way back to the docks.




But hey, at least we got a refund for the boat rental so we got to have some fun - while we still had two paddles - AND exercise. For *FREE*! Which was very useful to burn all the calories of those delicious desserts we had just before the boating incident. It was a win win situation.


As for the rest of the week, we spent it visiting some high-tech companies/universities and keeping updated on the latest technologies available here in Silicon Valley.

iPhones 4, 5, 6 and 6 plus comparison...


...and testing out the iPhone 7 prototype (still think it could be bigger)


Messing around with Victoria at Stanford


Lunch at Facebook


Having some work done at Instagram


Fun with Google's androids and bikes



Meanwhile, in case the previous dessert photo left room for any doubt, the entire week was a succession of tantalizing meals and booze: Korean, Italian, Mexican, Portuguese, Japanese, American... you name it.

Katana sushi and sake


Chocolate overdose at the Ghiraldelli factory


that bottle of Malbec won at the EBBN raffle


Chicago style pizza


Whiskey and peppers


And as for all the sightseeing and other touristic activities we managed to fit into our busy busy schedule... well, lets leave that for another post :)