The Sort of Unexpected San Jose Trip

This year I planned to go to New Orleans and San Jose.  New Orleans is for fun and San Jose is to see a friend.  Plus I planned to order a Kindle to be delivered at his place so I can take it with me home without fuss.  However, that plan was derailed by hurricane Issac hitting New Orleans.  The airport closed on my arrival date therefore my flight was canceled.  Good thing I got the airline app on my phone and I checked it before leaving my house.  I spent the night scrambling to have my hotel cancel and check all my options.

Luckily, the Booking.com agent contact the GM of the hotel that I booked a special non-refundable room with and the GM was nice enough to give me full refund due to special circumstances.  I also asked for refund from the airline too on the next morning.  Then come a week later, after seeing the new Kindle Paperwhite press release, I bought a ticket to San Jose for the first weekend of October.  That reduce my saving considerably since it took Delta almost 5 weeks to give me the refund.

My trip went off without too much hitch.  First, the flight attendant found an unclaimed bag on an empty seat.  Regulation dictates that the plane cannot take off with unclaimed bag.  After 25 minutes of all the staff walking up and down the plane looking for owner to no avail, the owner was finally being awake enough to claim the bag.  Luckily this didn't affect the connecting flight since we fly... with the wind?  So instead of having those 30 min. off plane, we just waste it on the ground instead.  Other than that, I was seated closed to a passenger who asked for diabetic meal.  When the planed landed I noticed that he and his family did not eat the bananas given as snack during the flight.  So I asked for them which I ate during the next flight.

We arrived at San Francisco International Airport without problem.  It was a blur as usual for international flight.  The immigration officer snark at me a little for answering his question of "Why are you here?" with my reason not my purpose.  Quote en quote "I don't want your life history, I just want to know why you are here."  I didn't snark back, for the obvious reason, plus he sniffling a bit which might explain his temper.

I finally cleared the immigration, got my suitcase and went out the exit gate.  My friend was there fiddling with his iPhone.  We greet each other and went to his car in the parking lot.  The weather was rather cool for me and soon I had to bundle up a bit in my jacket.

My first impression once we were on the road was that this is America, with wide open roads and endless landscape.  The freeway we took to drive us back to San Jose was the newer one (I think it was 280) which was landscaped to make the route looks like interstate road with trees blocking the view of the buildings and houses near by to give you the illusion of countryside.

We stopped by a small shopping area of the city.  My friend, Sean, wants to buy coffee.  And to my pleasant surprise, we went inside Peet's Coffee.  Another friend bought me a box of Assam Tea from Peet's a few of years ago and I like it very much.  I eventually bought their "Lemon Rose" and "Masala Chai" tea.

By the end of the first day in US, I was jetlagged pretty bad and crashed soon.  But not before we went to Fry's, an electronic store, to buy 3DS XL at discount price ;).  It roughly just 10% discount, not much, but it's better than nothing.  It pretty much say that the store will pay the sales tax for customer.

General Update

Work has been busy for the last few months.  The office got refurbish and we have to move computers around as well as the inventories.  On top of that, there were computer virus outbreak, server crash, and problems that make this the busiest I have ever been since I join this place...  I can't complain too much though...  At least I am busy...

I planned to go to US again.  I will see New Orleans again and this time will be 5 days then I will fly to San Francisco and see a friend that I haven't seen in a long time.  He is very nice and let me stay at his place.

I hope I will like SF and perhaps San Jose, more than NY...  Who knew, maybe in a few years it will be New Orleans and Las Vegas.  I will finally get to see Zumanity :P

Buying New Phone

After w810i and Nokia 5800, I am about to buy a new phone.  After waiting for a few months, I will buy Samsung Galaxy S II in a few days.

I choose Android phone over iPhone because I like the flexibility of it.  Plus the screen is bigger and the update is, hopefully, not long in the future (from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich).

With long holiday coming up, I will have the time to play around with the phone.  Rooting and maybe flashing it with good ROM.

Recent Activities

I know I have been lagging on posting (for almost a year now?)  I didn't realize that when I bought Kindle that it will also eat up the blog time as well :P

Kindle still works wonders.  Although it started to show some tears and wears due to accidental drop to the ground.  I am glad I got this cover when I bought my Kindle.  I am thinking that I will order the Kindle Touch when I went to US later this year for another Southern Decadence.  This time I will be seeing another friend in SF.  It would be a nice change from underwhelmed New York trip.

I have also been playing The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim for quite a while now.  Overall I feels that the experience is tighter than Oblivion.  Maybe because this time I didn't download too many mods and mostly just focusing on playing through different quests.  I haven't progress much on the main quest yet as I am still happily wandered the towns doing various quests.

This time I just abuse the console command to make the game more fun for me :P.  It helps that there were less gay romance novels released for Kindle that I have got time to play Skyrim.

But also because of Skyrim and Kindle, I haven't watch Dexter season 6 yet.  I planned to do that during the Christmas break but then both Skyrim and Kindle took most of the time.  I think I might try to finish Skyrim main quests in a few weeks so I will maybe went back and finish L.A. Noire.