Thursday, March 18, 2004

Grandma and Grandpa's adventures in SF


Once in a blue moon, my grandma and grandpa will leave their nice home in Boston to come visit me and my uncle's family here in the bay area. During this time, I'll see a lot of my uncle's family, and my food intake is always more and of better quality during these brief stretches.

I think my grandparents like california. The weather is in general nicer and you can pretty much get by not knowing how to speak english, which is especially useful for my grandma. Only it's not as convenient to get around as Boston is...especially in the suburbs where my uncle lives. So despite the fact that they enjoy the time, visits tend to be short as my grandpa goes a bit crazy when he's cooped up and dependent upon others.

During our last trip, my uncle took us to a nice lunch at HK flower lounge in Millbrae. I was especially impressed by the dim sum there...it was obvious that it was made in house, which is more than can be said of most of the dim sum places in the area. We then went for a nice walk around the part of 280 close to san bruno. There was a beautiful reservoir there, which was shaded and paved in most places--probably a great place for running if it weren't so far away. We finished off the day with a jaunt through the richmond in SF, checking out the wares in the various chinese markets, comparing prices and purchasing pastries. It's always so great to see my grandma happy and comfortable, enjoying herself and her environment.

Saturday, March 06, 2004

Party on Oracle!

The one and only party I've been to at Oracle's expense was a 10g release party, which was held by the server tech (the profitable) division. they rented out San Francisco city hall, and decked it out with food, entertainment, and music. They had different rooms with musical and food related themes, but I remember many of them being pretty loud. Entertainment included cultural dances of various nations, including a dragon dance with the dragon throwing out candies at the audience!! All in all, I always love an excuse to get dolled up in formal wear, so it was a fun time.