SF Bay from above

First off a very special thanks to our pilot Bob Powell. Without him, this project would literally have never gotten off the ground.
We shot this June 2, 2011 with 4 cameras. Two GoPro HD Hero cameras were mounted to the exterior of the plane, while myself and second cameraman Chad Janusch operated a Canon T2i and Nikon D7000 inside the cabin.
Music is "Frequency" by Unouomedude. Download the track here.

...because there's a f*ckin' H in it

The hardest word ever to pronounce was water. Since we moved here my pronunciation improved, I think. I never lived in a country before where English was the official language (and I'm not always sure that I moved to a country where English is the official language), but I used it on a regular basis in the office, phone conversations, reading and writing before.

While you're watching movies in their original language you're not focusing on the different pronunciations or word usages. When you move here you realisze these differences only then. They way you learned English in language schools needs some adjustments here. If you ask for water (wouthah') your waiter/waitress will just stare at you. You need to ask for water (whaderl), otherwise you stay thirsty or need to ask for a coke :) The other that was really one of the first discoveries was the word direction. Which is a direction (d'rection) instead of a direction (dairection). And you take antibiotics (antaibiotics) if you're sick and not antibiotics (antiebiotics).

Let me quote my favorite stand up comedian here, who has a brilliant sketch on the topic:

4th of July weekend: New York (sponsored by Delta)

I'm looking forward to the weekend. We're spending it in New York. Work and live in the US makes you do the same many Americans do: use every long weekend and holiday. Long weekends here are much appreciated. Unlike the European standard of 25-30 vacation days a year (plus sick leave covered by your health insurance) people have usually 5-15 paid vacation days including their sick leave. So whenever there's a public holiday their company also observes they take off. Yepp, public holidays are there, but it's more like a guideline. I'm not sure if any of them is forced on the employers, at all. Like my contract says I have 10 holidays a year on top of my vacation days while a friend of mine got Christmas, Independence and Memorial Day only. Capitalism at its purest form.

And the good thing is, that many of these holidays this year are happen to be on Monday...

So I was flying a lot recently and earned gold level membership between last August and November with everyone's favorite airline, and got a bunch of miles. So we take off Friday and fly to the Big Apple for free, and there'll be still some miles left in the end on my account. According to Delta enough for a return ticket... But they never have tickets for 25,000 miles. Ever.

We'll arrive late at night on Friday and will come back Monday evening. The bad thing about going to the East Coast is that you most likely loose the whole day or you need to leave at dawn to make some use of that day because of the time difference (6-7hrs net flying time + 3 hrs time difference + to and from the airport + security + waiting + 1-2hrs delay (mandatory with most of the airlines here)), but when you're coming back you can spend a whole day there and fly back in the evening only (5-8pm) and still land before midnight. So you do get something back. Logistics.

I've been to New York only once 4 years ago for a similarly short trip. I bought my first DSLR camera on Broadway (because it was Jewish New Year and all the low price Jewish camera shops were closed) so I made pretty crappy pictures (see the one above) but hopefully during the years I developed my skills a bit and now I want to take this opportunity to do some better ones (my wife will kill me). And we will also see things I didn't see back then. I hope the weather will support us, too! I'll keep y'all posted!

Quote of the day from The Real Housewives: Orange County

"In high school I was anorexic. For a day."

The mystery of Fahrenheit revealed (partially)

According to Wikipedia only two countries are using Fahrenheit: the US and Belize (formerly British Honduras). The rest of the world keeps up with the standards...

So for an 'alien' like I am, it is hard to understand the weather forecast, but I came up with a hypotesis: you see, here the actual temperature you feel does not really have to do anything what they say the temperature is. Let me explain: they say it is 74°F which is around 23°C. It's ok, but if you leave the shades and you are under the sun directly, you feel as it was 74 degrees! So if the °F value is above 60 it represents what you feel: Freekin' hot!!*

However the solution below 20°C is still a mystery to me.

BTW, if you needed the very simple conversion formula that anyone could calculate without using a calculator any time (... NOT) is the following:

[°C] = ([°F] − 32) × ⁵⁄₉

[°F] = [°C] × ⁹⁄₅ + 32

Yeah, yeah, summer is here and it's HOT!

--
* Rule only applies to California according to the writer's observations.

OMG! It hurts and I'm speechless

via FailBlog

Spread the LUV

On my recent business trip because of high airfare and bad connections I ended up flying Southwest Airlines. My connection was in Las Vegas, so I wouldn't mind if I stuck there because of missing my connection ;)

Southwest is 40 years old this year. Probably the first discount airline in the world. Its unique pricing scheme revolutionized air travel in the US in the 70's by creating competition to traditional airlines, and lowering the prices. Probably the same thing what happened in Europe about 7-10 years ago when RyanAir, EasyJet, Wizz and many others appeared.

What's crazy about this airline is that they're the best. Lemme explain:

If you flew let's say EasyJet or Wizz before, you know that you probably don't want to check in your baggage because it'd double the price of your transportation. Seats are uncomfortable and are slightly closer to each other so an extra row fits in the aircraft. You get no service. Not a single cup of water without paying and you land on smaller airports a bit more far away from your destination with limited service etc. In return you fly ridiculously low prices (€30  Budapest - London, return, for example).

Now, flying on any US airline is a pain in the ass, am I right? They're always late, checked baggage costs money, no service on board (you cannot call 10 peanuts and 1.5dl coke service for a 5.5hrs long flight...), and 'normal' prices. They don't position them as discount airlines however their service would justify that. Southwest, says they are a discount airline. However 2 checked baggage fly for free (!), you get the peanuts and coke, but your flight is 4 hours? What the heck we throw in a bag of crackers, too! Time of arrival means that the plane landed, is at the gate, the bridge is at the plane, and the door is open. Departure means, the door is closed and the plane is being pushed away from the gate. At Southwest. They even arrived 20 minutes earlier on my way to my destination! Haven't seen something like that for a long time. Not with these fuel prices! And since baggage check in is free, people do it. So there's no fight over the overheads and the flight attendants don't have to check at least 10-20 people's baggage on board. Delaying the flight...

On board experience? Excellent! You cannot even compare. Flight attendants are helpful, nice and funny. There was a boy celebrating his 14th birthday on the plane, they made everyone to sing Happy Birthday! On another flight when we approached the airport after 4.5 hours they made everyone stretch together! Once people were already at the exit row, so I sat somewhere else. Leg room? 8-10cm (3-4 inches) between my knees and the seat in front of me (am I flying 1st class? Nope!):

And their route is like a distance bus line. You fly from San Jose to Denver? No problem! Do you mind if we stop in Vegas, so a couple of people can get out and a couple of new ones can get on board? You don't have to leave the plane, you're flying to Denver, not Vegas! Crazy :)

I fell in LUV with them!

TV series crazyness

I think there is something wrong with the average TV viewer here in the US. Writers have great concepts and lovely series. Like how the Desperate Housewives started or what we recently discovered: Army Wives. But the interesting and nice stories somehow does not satisfy the average TV viewer here. It seems that writers are forced in the 2nd or 3rd season to introduce violence, murder, stalking, crazy people in the story. A personal apocalypse. And that disappoints me.

We recently started to watch Army Wives on Netflix. My father was an army officer in Hungary. Of course, that cannot really be compared how it is for someone serving the the US Military, but still, somehow I felt connected. I loved the story. I found it fascinating and very entertaining and in same cases lovely. So as soon as I started to like the show, the whole concept changed. One is stalked, the other one is getting a divorce, got cancer, became a drug addict, got raped. And all these in the very same episode...

Do we/you really need this? Is it the viewer who forces these changes? Or writers just run out of ideas after 15-20 episodes and they then use the standard library of violence to compensate for their lack of creativeness?

Either way it is wrong. And sad.

Is this really a society that finds stalking, mass murdering, raping, drug addiction and the collapse of a family's life entertaining? Or is it just a few sick people in charge and the television networks?

Hummingbird invasion

My wife bought a hummingbird feeder 3-4 weeks ago. We immediately set it up on our eastern balcony filled with nectar and waited for the little birds to show up. We changed the nectar every 3-4 days as suggested on the websites we found on the Internet, but no hummingbird seemed to be interested.

My wife was very disappointed. But after 2-3 weeks of waiting finally the little birds started to show up and now the traffic is quite high around our feeder! There's a bird coming in every 5-10 minutes throughout the whole morning! Some of those seem to think that the feeder is only theirs and try to bundle off the others.

Usually they sit on a branch of the tree next to our balcony, singing and checking the area. After a couple of minutes they make it straight to the feeder. Then they hover in front of it for a couple of seconds and finally they decide to start eating. During the first couple of sips they don't sit down but after that they start to like the taste and sometimes spend a couple of minutes there drinking the sweet nectar!

Anyway it is real fun to watch!

Ein Stückchen Bayern im Herz von Silicon Valley

Our friends suggested Hardy's Bavarian Restaurant a couple of weeks ago. This is a small, almost hidden place at the CalTrain station in downtown Sunnyvale. I recognized the München and HB neon lights before driving by, but never had the confidence to try it out. It was a huge mistake!! If you lived in Munich, and you miss the good beer and Bavarian dishes (as I do) this is the perfect place!

Die Kellnerin spricht Deutsch, also ich konnte auf Deutsch bestellen! :) I had a Schweinshaxe and Ruß'n Maß and a small bottle of Augustinerbräu beer (my favorite)! The Haxe was better then the most you can get in Munich's Biergartens. First of all it was not a half but a whole one. And while they don't broil it perfectly in the Biergartens leaving the tendons quite tough here it was perfectly prepared. Almost like the the best one I ever had in Restaurant Karg in Murnau. The reasons while it was slightly less professional then Bavaria's best Haxe was a) the gravy was American, something like in KFC b) the tendons were slightly tougher. The size of the dish and the pain afterwards (from eating 1-1.5kgs of meet) was the very same I experienced multiple times in Murnau.

To prove, I'm telling the truth, some pictures:

There it is, my beloved Schweinshaxe!

Ruß'n Maß, tastes just like in Munich

My favorite: Augustiner

Echte, original!

Yummie

Look at the size! OMG!!

Zum Wohle!

World's air trafic

This video is just simply über-cool:

Talent shows - you need one judge with British accent

There're several talent shows on air these days. And they're quite entertaining. We just finished American Idol a couple of weeks ago, and that kicked off many other shows to start, like:

• America's got talent
• The voice
• So you can think you can dance
• Master Chef

And I'm sure there're many others I don't know about. These shows are very American. You most probably have their franchise versions in your local TV and even though they follow the guidelines and rules the result is not the same. I've seen the dancing show on the Hungarian TV2 (Megatánc) a couple of years ago, and the story was the very same, but the whole package from around it was missing.

Tell me, could you come up in Europe with  anything like an offer to have your own show in Las Vegas? Dancing in the Moulin Rouge? Have your show on a cruse ship? Sing in a club in downtown London? Nah, you cannot compare those to America :)

So it's cool, the prizes are great, you got the American flavor added, but it seems, to make the audience believe that what they say is culture and authentic, you need at least one judge with a British accent. They even topped it with a British show hostess in So you think you can dance.

Cat Deeley
Hostess of So you think you can dance - British TV announcer, actress and model

Nigel Lythgoe
Judge on So you think you can dance - British TV and film director and producer, former dancer and coreographer (BTW he seems like the figure Mike Myers formed Austin Powers. At least his accent and smile and mimic is very similar)

Piers Morgan
Judge on America's got talent - British journalist and television presenter

Gordon Ramsay
Producer and the show itself on Master Chef - Scottish chef

The Hangover Part II

Critics didn't like this movie. And because of that I didn't wanted to watch it. But after we went to the Wine & Art Festival in Sunnyvale this Sunday our Brazilian friends invited us to see it. And I would have sorry if I didn't see it! The basis of the story is the same, but the jokes are new and even better.

So anyone who was/is hesitating, don't listen to the critics and what the newspaper says, you have to see this!

Basically, it is like, you know...

Just like that. Every 2nd sentence. I would ban this phrase :) The second 'a' in basically must be pronounced!

I so hate laptops

Laptops are for managers I say. Why on Earth is it then, that I have a Dell Latitude with 4 gigs of RAM and Core 2 Duo P8700 CPU running at 2.53Ghz and a freakin' java build takes almost a half an hour? In max. performance mode. I bet if the same config was in a desktop PC it would be half the time.

And now I need to start this hybris server up, and do a system initialization. I think after that I call it a day :)

Trip to Yosemite National Park on Memorial Day weekend

Yosemite is just amazing! It is 2.5-3 hrs drive from the bay. The weather is much colder than at the ocean, the mountains are beautiful. The wildlife cannot be compared to the one in Europe. I did hike in the Tatra and Alps but apart from seeing birds or squirrels I didn't meet any wild animal there. Here the first evening a coyote was crossing the road in front of the car looking at us as intruders. He didn't really mind the car and took his time to cross the road. 2 days later when we wanted to do a short 2 miles long hike we had to stop right at the beginning because a huge North-American brown bear aka. grizzly bear was crossing the path looking for something to eat.

So yeah, it is very much different, and I just fell in love with the whole place. It fits in the American way of things: everything must look like in a fairy tale. In the suburb grass is perfectly cut, the houses look perfect etc. so is with the national parks here. The Yosemite Valley cannot really be described using words. You need to see it. So many waterfalls and not tiny ones! Huge rocks, green oak and pine trees, white creeks. Breathtaking.

I was quite surprised that even though it was the last weekend in May, so technically it was June, in some places there was at least 1-1.5m thick snow. Even though the weather was not that cold, something between 15-20 centigrade... One day it was snowing quite heavily. It felt like winter really :)
This time we covered the most important things to see, but the next time we go there we'll get out hiking gear and do a couple of hikes in the mountains for sure.

The places we wisited:

• Yosemite Valley: This is the downtown with the information/tourist center, places to eat, souvenir shops and many nice things to see. All you need is to look around :)
• Hetch Hetchy Water Reservoir: The whole SF Bay area gets the drinking water from this project. Public transportation and government buildings in SF are using the electricity generated here.
• Glacier Point: Elevation 2199m, with a 980 tall rock wall straight down to the valley
• Wawona Pioneer History Center: Some buildings from 100-150 years ago showing how people who discovered the area lived back then.
• Mariposa Grove: Home of the Giant Sequoias. 1800-2000 years old pine trees. Did you know, that they need wildfires to regenerate? Their shuck is fire resistant protecting the trees, and smaller plants killed by the fire blocking small Sequoias to grow. With the fire helping them reach the sun Park Management now sets part of the forest on fire on a regular basis. They just discovered this recently realizing that with preventing wildfires these trees started to disappear. Crazy.

Some pictures I took:




The same pictures placed on a map


Our route track for the long weekend