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Copyright |
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©2005 Jason Cross
All Rights Reserved
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 Saturday, November 9, 2002 |
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I spent most of Thursday at the convention in downtown San Jose. The turn-out was tiny but there were a few highlights. The best part was meeting Craig Dodge and Duncan Crawford from Advantage Communications - our tech support company. I've been talking to Craig for a few years now and to Duncan for the last year, so putting faces to the voices was really cool. They're from Prince Edward Island, Canada, so their scottish accents really stood out.
Matt and I went to Fry's Electronics that night. For those who have never been to Fry's, it's like a Best Buy on steroids. TONS of software, games, movies, music. Hundreds of computer components ranging from the mainstream to the hard-to-find. I've been ordering parts for my new computer over the last week where at Fry's every part is readily in stock. "Sports Night: The Complete Series" was on sale and newly released, so I bought the DVD while I was there. We then ate dinner at Over The Border, a Mexican restaurant with great Fajitas. I believe they are a chain (owned by the same company that owns Chilis) but they're not around Iowa.
As was bound to happen, Friday came - departure day. Matt and I went to Intel and visited the Intel Museum where they have several displays on the history of the company and how they manufacture their chips. It was pretty interesting, seeing silicon wafers with hundreds of Pentium 4 chips uncut. Plus it was just neat actually being AT Intel.
Following Intel we stopped at Jamba Juice for a smoothie as it had been highly recommended by Laura at work, our marketing director and a former resident of San Jose. I had a Grapeberry Splash that combined grape, blueberry and raspberry. Very tasty, and of course I had to call Laura and tell her I was there while drinking it!
We then went to Nasa's Ames Research Lab, a facility where Nasa has a wind tunnel and does much of their aerodynamic testing. To tell the truth, there wasn't all that much for the public there, but it was neat getting my picture next to an actual Titan missile.
We then drove down to Palo Alto to see the Hewlett-Packard garage - the place where HP was started and now a California state landmark designated as "the birthplace of Silicon Valley". It's funny because it literally is this little detached garage next to an ordinary looking house in this residential area. Except it has this huge rock next to the driveway with a metal plaque from the state declaring it a landmark.
As we were in the area, we decided to walk a bit through downtown Palo Alto again. There we visited the Apple store and browsed around the iMacs, iPods, and iBooks. It really presented the Apple lines well and works in their positioning as a great place for a Mac person or computer layperson to learn about and buy a Mac.
For lunch we stopped at World Wrapps - another place recommended to me by Laura. There I had a GREAT chicken caesar wrap. I really wish they had a World Wrapps in Des Moines. :(
Finally it was time for me to catch my flight and say goodbye to the bay area. The week certainly flew by and I know I wan't to come out to the area again before too many years pass by.
Favorite: Pleasure Pizza in Santa Cruz - the food, the atmosphere, the staff - all perfect California
Runner-Up: Tie: Stanford/Palo Alto and Downtown San Francisco
Sorry I Missed: Monterey and Carmel |
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