With my sister (RDS) and hubby (RSS) in town for Thanksgiving, and the beginning of TV advertising for the Vancouver Olympics, we hatched a plan for a Wii Olympics. It was originally going to include both a Winter and Summer games, but due to time constraints, we settled on simply the Winter Games. We each represented a country. AMD-The Phillipines; RDS-Australia; RSS-The Republic of California; JPD-Sweden JAD-Japan; ME-Mexico; SD-The Khmer Republic.
Here are the results:
Snowboarding:
Gold: JPD
Silver: RDS
Bronze: SD
Ski Jump:
Gold: JAD
Silver: SD
Bronze: RDS
Ski Slalom:
Gold: JPD
Silver: RDS
Bronze: SD
Penquin Slider:
Gold:RSS
Silver: SSD
Bronze: JPD
Snowball Fight:
Gold:JPD
Silver:RSS
Bronze: SSD
Saturday, November 28, 2009
San Francisco
San Francisco and the Bay area is one of my favorite cities to visit. Its setting on the bay, the architecture, the wonderful cityscaping, numerous culinary opportunities, the moderate temperature, and it absolute sense of place make it remarkable in a nation becoming more and more simply a series of cookie cutter cities with standardized freeway fungus shopping and such.
But this visit was more memorable mostly for the wrong reasons. I have been struggling with a cold/flu for the past month. So the flight in was rather painful. Fortunately, I had a short lay-over at LAX, and my brother was generous enough to drive over to LAX late at night and visit for a few minutes. But I spend a good portion of the meeting feeling like my ears were full of water.
Trying to be gluten-free in San Francisco is no fun at all. No wonderful sourdough sandwiches. Most Chinese and Japanese is out because noodles are made with wheat and the soy sauce is wheat based. Everything else you have to ask about. Did have a wonderful pumpkin curry dish at a great Thai restaurant.
Worst of all, my cold/flu left me with no energy. I could barely make it through a two hour session of talks before going up to my hotel room and crashing for 15-20 minutes to have enough energy to make it through the next one. So much for my plans to get up early in the morning and going running or biking along the Bay to the Golden Gate. I did manage to walk over to Coit Tower and go up for a lowly view of all those places I wasn't going to get to, and the houses on the way up Telegraph Hill had lovely landscaping and awesome views.
As a final insult to injury, not many people came to my poster presentation. After the enthusiam from the people at my presentation on the same stuff in Mexico, I am thinking that I may not attend this meeting any more, since it just doesn't seem like there is the interest in my field from this group of scientist anymore.
The hotel was the center of some of San Francisco's holiday celebrations, with a Disney on Ice show just outside the hotel and the lighting of a Christmas tree insight. So at least this was a nice start to the Christmas season.
So I will have to go back to San Francisco another time and have a better experience.
But this visit was more memorable mostly for the wrong reasons. I have been struggling with a cold/flu for the past month. So the flight in was rather painful. Fortunately, I had a short lay-over at LAX, and my brother was generous enough to drive over to LAX late at night and visit for a few minutes. But I spend a good portion of the meeting feeling like my ears were full of water.
Trying to be gluten-free in San Francisco is no fun at all. No wonderful sourdough sandwiches. Most Chinese and Japanese is out because noodles are made with wheat and the soy sauce is wheat based. Everything else you have to ask about. Did have a wonderful pumpkin curry dish at a great Thai restaurant.
Worst of all, my cold/flu left me with no energy. I could barely make it through a two hour session of talks before going up to my hotel room and crashing for 15-20 minutes to have enough energy to make it through the next one. So much for my plans to get up early in the morning and going running or biking along the Bay to the Golden Gate. I did manage to walk over to Coit Tower and go up for a lowly view of all those places I wasn't going to get to, and the houses on the way up Telegraph Hill had lovely landscaping and awesome views.
As a final insult to injury, not many people came to my poster presentation. After the enthusiam from the people at my presentation on the same stuff in Mexico, I am thinking that I may not attend this meeting any more, since it just doesn't seem like there is the interest in my field from this group of scientist anymore.
The hotel was the center of some of San Francisco's holiday celebrations, with a Disney on Ice show just outside the hotel and the lighting of a Christmas tree insight. So at least this was a nice start to the Christmas season.
So I will have to go back to San Francisco another time and have a better experience.