A office in Silicon valley

 A few weeks ago, my Indian colleague asked me to go to a partner office with him because he wanted to drop off something and go to lunch at same time. It seemed to be going to take longer as lunch time, but it was chance to look inside the office in silicon valley other than our office. In our office, there is nothing special. If anything , each people put own whatever one wants inside own cube, something like pictures, status. In my case, I put pictures of my motorcycle which can always remind of how enjoyable it is to drive a motorcycle. 

When I went inside the building where many companies, especially start-ups, share space, I felt really excited about how people encourage people to do special things. Inside the building, there are many flags for countries and comments from famous guys in Silicon valley on the wall, and it is lively. When I looked at those situation, I felt that people can get motivated every time when they enter the building, and consequently it makes engineers more efficient, more productive, more innovative. The matter of office environment depends on each person`s opinion, but I think this place is great in terms of keeping and increasing motivations at least.


In my opinion, environment like office and colleagues is very important for engineers in terms of engineer`s motivation and outputs. Productivity of engineer is highly relevant to that. If people can feel motivated, then people can stay focused on works more efficiently with more innovative ideas. Consequently people can output good results immediately. Finally, people can get new challenging jobs as reward for good jobs again. This works positively. I like this process and I believe that this is what situation should be.

Irish bar at Sunnyvale downtown

http://www.lillymacs.com/index.php/ 

Last Saturday, I went to the downtown at Sunnyvale to enjoy Irish bar first time. It was at before 5pm, so It was not crowded as much as a few peoples were there. The reason why I went there was to know what fish & chips is actually. Since long time ago, I wanted to try it. Actually there is fish & chips in menu as one of Irish food there.  I, of course, don`t hesitate to order it.


I had a glass of beer, fish & chips, and Irish music.


In the bar, Irish musics were played all the time, and it reminded me of the music which was played in the movie of Titanic. In the movie, it was used at the dancing party at Class 3 stage where Jack took Rose there to enjoy dance, beer, and traditional music.


I was really excited emotionally at this music, although I can not express my feeling properly. But It might be because that the similar music was used at RPG game of Final Fantasy which I used to play on much time. When I went to pubs in in the game, this kind of music is usually played. FF might be inspired by this music and culture.


From the poster, it seems that they play live Irish music almost every Sunday. So I need to check it out someday.

Beautiful sea at Capitola Santa Cruz California

Last Friday, I took day off to spend time with my wife because I had to host peoples from Japan for last three weeks and I did not have much time to spend time with my wife. My wife had wanted to go to Santa Cruz to buy something like turkish mosaic crafts which looks beautiful when you put a candle inside it. A mosaic craft consist of many colorful glass on the surface of transparent glass cup, so light comes out through these colorful glass to show you beautiful combination of color from one candle fire. Specifically, we went to a town, named Capitola, which is located at east of Santa Cruz. 


When I got there, it was just 13pm. This was weekday, but it is small town and was difficult to find parking place actually. So I tried to go a little bit away from downtown and we finally found parking place at higher altitude place where I could see whole Santa Cruz bay. What I was amazing is that water transparent quality is clearest I have ever seen. That is really beautiful. I don`t know why but, there is no wave and the sea is really quiet, although it mush be geographical reason. I have drove a car along sea coast from San Francisco to Moro Bay and I had considered there was no place like this place, so I was really surprised at this.

I think that this place is not major, but local peoples seemingly enjoy beach, restaurant, beer with comfortable environment, temperature, and blue sky. Coincidentally, I could visit this place, otherwise nobody come unless recommended.


Anyway, I need to come to this place again to enjoy full day.

Napa winery trip

For last two weeks, an engineer visited the office from Japanese Head Quarters in order to discuss closely about what we are working together recently. The work was obviously first priority, but she fortunately had two days holiday, so it looked like that he wanted to enjoy winery at Napa. So I would take care of it. When I asked by my colleague where I would take her, I answered to him "winery at Napa", then he said to me that he wanted to go together. When I told him that my car is too small to carry many people, then he was willing to take us by his big car. I really appreciated it from the bottom of my heart. Honestly, I wanted to enjoy wine tasting, too. As I wrote about my first experience of wine tasting, I was disappointed at that a little bit because it was not what I expected. However, as is always same with anything, I think that it is not good idea to judge anything by just trying something once. So I wanted to try to judge whether wine tasting is enjoyable or not for me by taking advantage of this opportunity.


Sunday morning, we gathered at San Jose, and headed for Napa before 9am, and got there before 11am without traffic jam. Although we approached to Napa, the road got crowded. It might be because it was really going to be fine weather and many people would come to enjoy wine tasting. 

We tried a few wineries from red, white to sparking wine. Honestly, I am a beer lover, so I am not familiar with wine, its history, how to enjoy, and how to make. However, my colleague is an American, and he is very knowledgeable. So during wine tasting, I was able to enjoy the lesson together. At any place, I could feel comfortable because people there enjoyed wine casually not too politely. When I visited "Domaine Chandon", I felt so most.


From this opportunity, I change my mind about wine tasting. I like it, but it depends on situations or locations.

Small trip to Carmel

Last weekend, I went to Carmel south to Monterey in respond to my wife`s request. She just wanted to go there to feel its atmosphere in order to compare other towns. When I left my apartment, it was around 2 o`clock, but highway 17 was a little bit busy due to the merge of lines from 3 lines to 2 lines just before Santa Cruz Mountain. This is usual, so I was well prepared for that, but it would be dangerous for those who do not know that because busy traffic comes suddenly and drivers have to handle that immediately. If you are less focused, you are going to cause a crash easily. When I was on highway 17 on the middle of Santa Cruz Mountain, I felt something wrong in my stomach. As time passed, I got to feel stomach pain unfortunately, and had been feeling it until I got to a downtown at Carmel. After that, I got to feel better gradually fortunately. Although I went there without any background information, what I thought firstly was that this town is place for adults in terms of restaurant, and shops other than beach. What I thought secondly was that this town is for artists because when I moved from main road, I could see many shops selling drawings. When we looked around shops, we happened to find a shop selling wide variety stuffs of Turkey. At this shop, my wife found very beautiful lamps, called Turkey mosaic lamp. This lamp usually made with many color pieces of glass which cover a core lamp, and its design as well as layout are beautiful. If you turn on light, light goes through each color and you can enjoy colorful lamp. Therefore, my wife was dying to want it impulsively, but I asked her to consider it deeply because voltage of power outlet is 110 AC volt but it is 100 AC volt in Japan. We, of course, are able to bring it back, but it is design for 110 AC volt, so it would be less illuminated or would not work in a worst case in Japan. After all, she decided to buy dishes in internet after we went back home. This time, we just stayed for two hours, and we could not enjoy this town fully, but we could feel its atmosphere well. That`s enough for us at the moment actually. At last, I have to say something important for those who concern restroom when visiting somewhere, do not worry about it, public restrooms are available. Moreover, they are maintained clean well. That`s important for those like me. It would be better for you guys to check locations in internet before you go there in advance. 


By the way, a few weeks back, somebody talked about "t" in the middle of name of "Montery", some people who are not born but live in California for long time said that "t" is silent, but an American who moved to California recently said that "t" is not silent but pronounced softly.
From point my view by listing to radios and watching TV news, "t" sounds silent. Last week my wife asked it to her English teacher who are an American and live here since she was born. According to her, "t" is not silent, and pronounced softly but clearly depending on people. So, "t" is not silent and the later are right.

Intorelance to a pineapple

These days when I go to the whole food market, I usually see a whole raw pineapple sold at $3.99. I had been thinking to buy it someday but I actually hesitated to buy a whole one because it looks big and I do not seem to be able to handle it. However, last Saturday, I bought it finally on impulse because I got intrigued with a pineapple somehow. At the following day night, I pulled the head of it, pealed it with knife, and cut it into good sizes. At one taste, it was really tasty, sweet, sour, and delicious. I was really feeling happy until I got something bad. After 30 minute later, I got to feel stomach pain gradually. As time passed, pain became strong, and it was really as painful as I could not move at all finally. I had to lie down on sofa. Fortunately, I could got asleep soon because I was a little bit tired due to walking at evening. One hour later, I woke up and felt better.

I got one thing for sure that the pineapple was something wrong because I have eaten only it at that night except a bottle of beer. So I checked immediately if someone has similar experience of feeling stomach pain after eating pineapple. And I found that many people around the world suffer from similar stomach pain. Additionally there is a dedicated web page, forum, chatting board about that. If I say from a conclusion, some enzyme which is contained in raw pineapple causes stomach pain for peoples, but not everyone. Almost all people can handle it. I`m a minority.


According to the reference, stomach pain is most likely related to allergic reaction of body system. I did not know this until recently, but pineapple is one of fruits which cause stomach pain due to allergic reaction. However, what we need to pay attention here is that some enzyme causing issue is contained only in raw pineapple, and it is gone after processing with heat. That`s why I can eat canned pineapple. According to scientist, stomach pain generally happens within one hour after eating it. Generally speaking, stomach pain is the results of inflammation in digestive system. When peoples who suffer from this eat raw pineapple, a body detects some material in raw pineapple as something bad which should be resolved and eliminated from the body. In order to do that, immune system reacts and tries to kill that substance by creating and increasing many antibodies against that. And peoples feel stomach pain during fighting between antibodies and some substance. According to the reference, one things to be made clear is that intolerance and allergy are different. If people suffer from not only stomach pain but also other digestive symptoms, then it is allergy against pineapple. However, if people suffer from only stomach pain, then it is just intolerance to pineapple. Most effective treatment seems to be avoiding and stay away from pineapple, although it is not essential solution.


Until recently, I did not know I am intolerant to pineapple. I am really shocked because raw pineapple is really tasty and affordable price now.


Reference 
http://www.livestrong.com/article/422674-pineapple-stomach-pain/

Deepest ocean expedition

Some of you may know a deepest ocean expedition last month. James Cameron, a famous movie director, dived into Mariana trench which is the deepest place in the earth. Supported by the national geographic, he spent hours hovering over the bottom and collecting sample, sucking sea creatures for study on the surface and video. One of his purpose would be search for a new 3D movie as well. Mt. Everest is about 5 miles above the sea level, but the deepest place in the Mariana trench is 8 miles below the sea level, so you can see how deepest it is. In higher mountain, oxygen density decrease as you go up. Some people can reach there without any mechanical support, although it is ultimate condition for human being. However, if you go down under the sea, oxygen density decreases, and water pressure increases, and light is gone finally. Obviously, it is impossible for human being to get to the deepest place without any machine support. You can know how ultimate place it is.

 Link
 
When I first heard of this, I was really excited about this because the surface of the earth is already explored but deep ocean is not explored yet by human being. As far as I know, some ancient fishes, creatures are still living there possibly. We do not know it yet but I think that we still have romanticism in the deep sea. Until recently, space explores has been focused and they are already done as much as possible so far except some high energy physics phenomenon. However, I think that ocean explore will be focused thanks to this expedition.