Whale watching

I know you all want to read about my whale watching adventure today but first of all I make you read through the other things happened this week as they all have been nice.

Obviously the week started on monday. We all met to watch “How I met your mother” together. After this was finished we were watching some other series too. A nice and easy start into a promising week.
On Tuesday we were watching “Silverlining, The playbook” in the cinemas. The movie was very nice and accompanied by good music. Sometimes it was hard for me to follow the story. However I think the movie “The intouchable” which is in a similiar categorie is a lil better.
For our wednesdays in California we agreed on a BBQ night. This week was the first official BBQ night where everyone brings his own meat and drinks. The host is providing a salad and bread too. For desert we bbqed some chocolate stuffed bananas. This has to be improved as the chocolate was partly burned and the banana tasted mostly like smoke. However it was a very nice get together! I used my inline skates to get there from work which is an approx 8 mile distance.

Another adventure was launched on Thursday when 3 interns and I were meeting in Ventura at the Surfers Point to try some surfing. The waves were just too large and too close to each other for a nice start in my personal surfing season. Thanks to the wet suit my stay in the cold ocean was a pleasure!

Friday night we have spent in the Roof Top Bar at the “Standard Hotel”. The bar is equipped with a beer garden serving german beer and bavarian food for horrent prices, a swimming pool, water beds in red bowls and lounge couches. We tried a bit of everything and didn’t even skip the pool. A luxury evening at an exquisite location! Remarkable!

The daylight on saturday was utilized with a nice hike through the mountains of Ojai. The weather was sunny and the temperature lowered through the wind to an acceptable hiking temperature. Landscape was not as divers as in other parts of the planet but still nice. To treat us for this exhausting 2.5 hour hike we had a BBQ at an interns place. After dinner we went in an outdoor yakuzi for approx 3.5 hours until midnight. So nice and warm :-)
After this long and extensive bath we decided to have some desert. It was biscuit with chocolate and molten marshmallow. Yum!
Thanks to this nice eveing mates!

Now for the whale watching today. We have been damn lucky . Not just that we have started our tour with spotting fin whales the second largest sea creatures. Later on the way to anacapa islands we saw some seals and pelicans.  Already on the way back to our port, when everyone was already a bit upset because we didn’t see anything else, a large group of dolphins popped out of the sea in front of our boat. It looked like the dolphins were playing with the boat for a while before we finally started the last stage back to our port. Just in front of Oxnard, when noone expected to spot gray whales anymore, two massive fins were coming out of the water just three quarter of a mile away from our boat. The captain confirmed that these are the fins of a gray whale. We have been very lucky on our trip today!
The boat ride made us all hungry so we went to Souplantation for dinner. Its like one time salad buffet and all you can eat italian dishes. Man the salad buffet was incredibly large and tasty!

Work times were also fabolous! I implemented some progress bars to see the progress of heavy tasks run in threads. I also tried to fine tune the download to testbench function to avoid downloading of incomplete test parameters. For that I invented an object which contains all of the information for one test – now it should be possible to ask the object if an download is possible.

Now you all wait for the pictures, don’t you? I just don’t have them. I’ll upload them in the beginning of next week. Help yourself with the rss-feed and stay up to date!

Daily Business Pictures

Its only Tuesday and here are the pictures proudly presented.
Please cross your fingers for Sunday, I hope to spot some whales on the grand whale watching tour!

Enjoyy!

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Daily Business

Well many things happened. I did not upload an update on Tuesday as promised but again this week was very busy. My apology!
Just for your information, this is the 100th entry!

Today there is a two weeks to cover which is why I will keep it short, very short with mostly facts only.

On Monday evening two weeks ago I was cooking fish in creamy mushroom’n’spinach sauce along with noodles together with my housemate. This dish was delicious! Just the day after I went to the cinema with the other interns. We were watching “21 & over”, a movie where one of the actors turns 21 in the night before a very important math exam. Obviously he is getting wasted during the night and his father is very upset in the morning recognizing what his son did all over the night.
Wednesday was my house mates birthday which is why he invited to a BBQ. Meat was great and I made a pasta salad as side dish! Just another perfect BBQ! We were eating the leftovers just the day after for dinner.
Friday night we all decided spontanuously to go for a night out in Santa Barbara because our first decision “Sunset Room Discothek” is closed forever. The night in Santa Barbara was not very delicious but fun though.
To recover from the party I made a pancake breakfast on Saturday. We ate the pancake on our sunflooded terrace along with apple sauce and maple syrup. For that day a BMW3 was our companion to Hollywood. We were driving along the Pacific Coast Highway and buying some strawberries on the street side. These strawberries here are so sweet and delicious – scrumptious! In Hollywood we walked the walk of fame up and down and taking photographs with star dubles. Later we were gazing at the HOLLYWOOD sign from the Griffith Observatory. We met some telescope guys there who showed us the Jupiter as a small white dot in their telescope. For dinner we went in the Saddle Ranch where we had to wait 2 hours for a table. Just after dinner I was riding a mechanical bull which was so much fun! But in generall the whole evening was fun if you don’t ask for the parking fee. The night was the change between summer and winter time. Until 3 AM the parking fee was 10$, after 32$. Now we came back at 2:06 winter time to the parking lot but it has been already summer time: 3:06 which cost us 32$.

Sunday was the trip to the Universal Studios as mentioned in most recent entries.

This week started almost like the previous with a cooking session on Monday. This time we made meat balls in mushroom cream sauce companied by noodles and baby carrots. Tuesday was again cinema night where we have been watching “Dead Man Down”. A mans family is killed by some evil peoples for some reason. The evil people think that they have killed him too but he has survived the shooting. So he was taking revenge on those evil guys one after another. Good entertainment! On Wednesday was the farewell party of 4 colleagues who are leaving this month. The menu contained roasted pork/beef, spare ribs, sausages, noodle salad, potato salad, roasted potatoes, dips and some more really delicious sides. I thought I can win a chess match but lost in not too much time. The chess table is just amazing and the figures are all hand-carved.
We planned to go to the St Patricks Day Parade on Saturday which is why we did not anything big on Friday evening. The decision fell on a movie night at a colleagues home with the movie “The Fast and the Furious”. One scene was about a meal in Neptuns Net, a restaurant at the Pacific Coast Highway where I have been for Lunch already. Other than that were a few views of Los Angeles included which are not unknown to me.
I bought a hat and “Lucky” sign for me for the St Patricks Day Parade. Yesterday I was standing on the pavewalk in Main Street in Ventura and was cheering the parade. They had a lot nice vintage cars and Beauty Queens passing the crowd. I liked the dance act of the sports associations most! A few drinks in the afternoon in an irish pub before we went to Surfers Point in Ventura to watch some surfers and have a taco in a beach shack. I had a baked banana in cinnamon crust as dessert – yum!
PlayItAgain is a second hand shop for all kinds of sporting gear. I have been buying a wet suit and inline skates to make myself burn some fat cells during my stay in California.
Yesterday evening we went again to Santa Barbara. This time we made sure everyones having their passport so that the entry in the club “Savoy” is guaranteed. Music was great, moves were great and I think everyone enjoyed the party! At one point we were taking over a VIP table with a half full bottle of Goose Vodka, a bottle of VOSS water and other drinks belonging to two girls. This was a legendary evening with legendary drinks!

Today, the sunday was not meant for big adventures. Instead I was driving with a Mini Cabrio to Oxnard where I was enjoying the nice weather along the beach on my inline skates. Happy St. Patricks Day!

What happened at work? I was cleaning up the project structure of the calendar program, adding some functionality for the differentiation of 2WD and 4WD tests, shifting some code into threads to unblock the GUI during heavy operations and changing some GUI elements to make the software more intuitive. Need to know more?

Now for the pictures. They are not ready yet but I will provide you with them soon!

The end of the incredible day in Universal Studios Hollywood

Please don’t forget to read the other 3 entries about the Universal Studios Hollywood.

The Jurassic Park Theme ride was a roller coaster with a water track. Water was splashing into the carrier from all sides especially when passing a water fall or falling down a slide. The effects and dinosaurs on the way through the jungle were made in a quite realistic manner.
The Transformer Ride was the highlight of the day! It was less a rollercoaster but more a perfect combination of tilting slowly moving carrier and motion picture. Tilting and the motion picture made the experience a perfect illusion of a fast thrilling roller coaster ride. Mission completed!
The next stop was the NBCUniversal building with authentic props,wardrobe and artifacts from past, present and future Universal production put on display.
Before leaving the Lover Lot I took a ride in the “Mummy” roller coaster. The set of the coaster was themed by the movie “Revenge of the Mummy” with moving arms hanging from the ceiling. At one point of the ride the carrier was accelerated to its maximum speed at minimum time – what a thrill!
The Shrek 4D experience was the last stop in the theme park for today. The creators of the short movie used water drips to simulate sneezing or sparkling champaign. Air vents were used to simulate falling from heights and pressured air was used to stimulate the legs feeling like small insects having a feast on your legs – incredible!

The stroll along the Universal Citywalk was a nice conclusion to the fun day @ Universal Studios Hollywood.!

However, I catch up on sleep. unfortunately I do not have much more pictures:

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Water world@universal studios

Lunch gave me some of the power back needed to survive the day.

A short photo shooting with scooby doo, then the show water world. The show featured an explosive fight for dry land. Water ski, jet ski, boat an air plane and many more things were part of the show. We were sitting on benches In a so called soaking area.that is probably the reason why we have been soaking wet at the end of this fun show.

We strolled through some sets, took some pictures with wax vin  diesel, had some Ben and Jerrys ice cream and headed towards the lower lot to launch the next adventure: jurassic park ride.

See the pictures

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Special effect show@ universal studios

The Simpsons ride was an adventure but not an actual roller coaster. Once in the cart the safety bar was lowered and the cart was lifted In a large room with a huge screen dome. Hence the show was more a show than a ride.the car was tilting in all directions during the ride which was adding more thrill to the experience.
no pictures were allowed:/

Now is lunch, a chicken bbq platter which comes with baked potato and corn bread.

Welcome to universal studios

The week was amazing and packed with nice things but I need to ask you to be a bit more patient. I just arrived in the universal studios Hollywood and would like to treat you with a live blog about it.
I promise last Weeks story is coming up not much later than Tuesday!

After a long night and less sleep I woke up at 8 am because ppl say:
the early bird catches the worm

After paying the entry fee of 80 $ all waiting time and rides are included. First stop In the park was the Studio Tour with spectacular views on different ages, shark attacs, car explosions, king Kong jurassic park mixture 3d experience and more. The wait in the queue was no longer than 10 minutes.
Now I am out and about to ride the Simpsons ride roller coaster. Expected queue time is approx 25 minutes.

Have a look at the pictures:

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One sad week full of farewell get togethers

Its sunday again. Three of my friends have finished their internship and left for New York. It’s sad that those people had to leave after all that fun we had in the last 4 Weeks. On the other hand, two more friends have arrived on friday, they will commit their internship tomorrow.

Another fun and action packed week has passed but the weekend was not filled with hour long drives to far far away destinations. This however was not a problem.
At work I was initiating the survey of how to improve the usability of the Calendar program for the test benches and suggested accordingly a few changes for the database.
After work hours were filled with cinema on Tuesday, window shopping on Wednesday, Farewell BBQ on Thursday and Pub hangout on Friday. The movie on Tuesday was about a person who is usually not a drug dealer but gets caught on his first deal, a deal which he didn’t even want to take part in. The person is sentenced for 10 years with possibility to reduce to 2 years if he helps the police to SNITCH (the title of the movie) another drug dealer. However the person is not willing to get that much in trouble just to shorten his time in prison. Meanwhile the person is treated badly by his inmates. The father of the person sees his son in bad conditions and starts then himself to help to police to snitch another drug dealer. This works out pretty well and his son is released immediately. On Wednesday i missed the shooting inside a shooting range but went shopping in the Oaks mall with those guys just afterwards. I didn’t spend anything on clothes but it was nice to stroll around and look at the items. A very yummy cheese cake at the Cheese Cake Factory was a nice round off for this evening. The BBQ on Thursday was initiated by three colleagues to herald their end of their time in California. The beef steaks were massive and the salads provided by the hosts wife were tasting awesome! The whole meal was accompanied by light discussions and superb drinks. Friday night was another meeting between colleagues in Camarillos Bar BandIts, again to herald the farewell. It is a bar with nice mexican ambiance. Peanuts are for free and the peanut shells can be left on the floor. Its a weird feeling walking on all the peanut shells. At half past eight, I decided to join 2 more colleagues and their friends in Santa Barbara which is a drive of roughly 1 hour. I was dancing little and drinking a coke in the Sandbar and left Santa Barbara at roughly half past eleven to not go to bed too late.
Saturday started with a breakfast and chillout on the sun lit terrace in the garden of my home. Later a few of us and I went to Venice Beach to stroll along the beach and to discover the differences of the people who are living there. We were not the only ppl going there, hence we searched a parking spot in Venice for approx an hour. The weather was nice and the sand very fine grain but the water was freezing cold. Hence noone of us went for a bath in the sea. We found several pot treatment centers which were advertinsing “for medical evaluation”. The open air gym on the beach was another sign for great life style as well as the beach front houses. I witnessed that these people there do not have a bad life too. Another BBQ at a colleagues place took place once we reached back to Camarillo. The massive beef steaks were accompanied by a grand Salad bowl and XL potatoes garnished with sour cream, bacon and cheese. What a delicious feast!
Sunday times were filled by a hang out on Oxnard beach shore. The wind was cold but the sand here was also very fine grain and white. Also there were 4 swings which we used extensively, a basketball ground where we precisely threw the ball in the basket and a few volleyball grounds which we didn’t use. I guess its a nice place to come back when it is getting warmer in Cali! Night times we watched the movie “Into The Wild” in my cute lil room with microwaved popcorn and Lays chips plus everyones favourite drink – mine was Arizone ice tea for 99 ct a liter.

I think you need to wait a lil longer for some pictures, there are no pictures of the week neither on my digital camera nor on my mobile ;-)
Stay tuned pictures will come earlier or later!