Jack-o-lantern BURN

After spending like 3-4 hours carving our pumpkins Sunday, and feeling really proud of the results, my wife's Japanese friend posted hers on Facebook... Well she reached bankai while we're struggling in our shikai :) (If you have never heard bankai or shikai before go watch Bleach!)

Shikai (始解) level jack-o-lanterns

Bankai (卍解) level jack-o-lanterns

Trick or treat!

Unlike last year, when nobody knocked on our door, this year we had plenty of trick or treaters. First of all, you need to decorate the house otherwise no one will come, second you shouldn't live in an apartment complex where there are only Indians live :)

Left: neighbor's decoration
Right: our house decorated using stuff from DollarTree and self
carved jack-o-lanterns

Some pictures of our little trick-or-treaters:

Before you'd throw your phone on the ground and step on it multiple times jumping...

.. do a factory reset. Unbelievable, but after two OS updates it seems to be necessary. First I couldn't connect in MTP mode, and today it was damn slow. Like I don't react to any tap, button slow.

Solution: factory reset. Sad, but true. You need to reimport your contacts (export first, and backup the SD card!), get the apps you had, set everything... pain in the ass. About 2-4 hours. Depends on how much you used your phone.

I think I remembered my vow now, not to buy a Motorola phone ever again. And I did. I have to switch back to Sony (Ericsson is going away from Sony if you can believe the news...) The SE w910i was my first phone I loved from the first instance, and the usability was the best ever, too. As soon as I'm upgrade eligible I'll check out the Sony phones Verizon will have...

Jack-o-lantern

Cool, hm?

Bye bye driver's licence

Apparently you can stay and work and get paid on a pending visa application, but you cannot get a driver's license. Well I kinda knew since I dig up the whole Internet reading forums in the topic. But I also found that someone showed up with a letter from the employer and was issued with a temporary 60 days license. Well, we were not. So we legally drive our cars until next Thursday. I need to check up on my bike. Well there's a slight chance that the visa decision comes until then, so fingers crossed.

But so that everyone knows, in California, driver's license is tied to your immigration information, and there's no loop hole. Pending application with employer's letter is not enough to get even a temporary license. Be prepared for biking and riding the almost non existing public transportation.

Rancho San Antonio

If you look at the map below you can see, that the whole bay area is one big settlement with millions of people living here between San Francisco and San Jose. Knowing this makes it really surprising that the small stripe of hills between Silicon Valley and the Cost of the Pacific gives home so many animals.


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Which are surprisingly domesticated. Yesterday afternoon we took a little walk in Rancho San Antonio. This county park is about 15 minutes away by car from our home. Children were using the trails as running tracks in their afternoon gym class, elderly people were walking and on the trail there's even a small farm with animals (cow, sheep, pig, chicken, rabbit). From the vista point on the top of the hill you can see the whole Sillicon Valley, which seems surprisingly green (as you can see on the picture below) from this angle.

But the best part was that we saw many wild animals spending their afternoon next to the trail without minding people walking by. Well, I know that in the hills in Hungary there're deers, foxes and other animals living, but I never had such an experience. And here with a park so close to the highway and people these deers seem to be domesticated (but they're not).

Turkey as a wild animal. They are from this continent after all

Bunny rabbit next to the trail

Deers taking a nap about 20 feet from the trail

Right next to the running track

On the trail allowing me to take some pictures

Hurka: the food of Gods!

My wife just found this show: Bizarre Foods on Travel Channel. Somebody on the Hungarian Facebook group just posted that its Hungary episode is on. Luckily sliced up to 3 pieces it's available on YouTube as well and now I'm sharing this with you here.

Andrew Zimmern is a good guy, he called hurka the food of Gods! In your face!

Watch and enjoy!

Take it easy...

I found this song somehow years ago, but today it came back to me. Next week will be fun and interesting. Changes in my life in a country that's quite strict and odd with its immigration policy. Let's see!

Workin' out

When my friends came for a visit in April, I managed to get rid of 16lbs in a couple of weeks by paying attention to my diet (total calorie intake below 2000-2500kcal/day) and do some cardio each day. Wasn't easy. They went back home and slowly I gave in to Mr. Bacon, bagel, beer, hamburger etc. So I became 225lbs (101.25kg) again. Well I'm 6'3" (192cm) so it is still not bad, but still.

So I decided to take one last chance and reach my dream weight. Something around 180-190lbs (80-86kg). It will be tough! So I called for help, and my Motorola Droid 2 is helping me now.

I have tree applications:

1. miCoach from Adidas for my cardio
2. JeFit for my workout
3. MyFitness Pal - Calorie Counter for keeping track of what I'm eating

Unfortunately only exercise or only cutting back on calories do not seem to work for me. I need to combine them. Believe me, I would rather run 2 hours every day just to be able to eat everything I want! Well I used to be bigger in high-school. My record was 262lbs (118kg). If you have so much extra fat on you, even the slightest changes in your lifestyle can make a big difference. Especially if you didn't really do any exercise before. Unfortunately your body (that bastard) gets used to exercising and will not burn calories that efficiently after a I while (it seems to me). So back then not eating after 6pm and doing step aerobics 3-4 times a week helped, so I managed to go down to 213-218lbs (96-98kg) in 1-1.5 years.

Well my goal is now to loose at least 2lbs (~1kg) each week so, by Christmas I could be 190lbs. Challenging. Especially that I think there's something in the American food, that makes you feel happy when you eat. It is addictive as a drug... I never felt that way before about food. I did like eating and I always enjoyed a good meal but who doesn't?! Feeling happiness is new, regardless if it's candy, pastry, meat or bacon...

So I'm using modern technology to help by achieving my goal, and the purpose of this post is to review these applications I've found very usefull.

Counting the calories

MyFitnessPal

This app is just great for keeping track of the calories. It can scan the bar-code from the packaging and has a huge database including even some home made dish. Even things like NO-Explode from BSN is in its database! The workout part of the app sucks and mainly because of the list of exercises available is pretty lame.

You can set a daily limit so you can see if you are still allowed to drink that beer in the evening or not! When you synchronize, it even gives you a little bit of encouragement and tells you (based on your stats you enter) that in a couple of weeks what should be your weight if you'd continue what you just did today. You can keep track of your weight each day to see the progress, too.

Pros: easy to use, huge food information database
Cons: workout part sucks, it's just better to type in the calories you burned by any of the physical activities you performed throughout the day.

Move
Even though I had no problem on step aerobics (well after a while) or on a spinning class (which I loved since it helped with stress big time!), running was not my thing ever. I rather used the elliptic trainer instead. The reason was that after 15 minutes I felt like coughing up my own lungs. Well, not any more. It seems that being overweight and fit can strangely coexist. After giving up smoking, my lung capacity and stamina increased drastically. Now I would not trade the treadmill or running with anything else!

miCoach from Adidas

I like the treadmill because I can control my time and speed. If you don't keep up, you fell off the band. I have now no problem running 60 minutes at a 9:30-10:00 min/mile average pace. Maybe it's not much, but running 6 miles (10.8km) an hour is damn good to me.

Running outside however I never liked. Until I've found this application. It has built in workout plans. Even for strength training but I don't like that part. The running part is the strong property of this application. It is either using Adidas gear and/or your built in GPS in your device to track your workout and it has a various number of workout plans you can highly customize online and sync it to your phone. It keeps track of your route, and stats; and a voice will talk to you if you run too slow or too fast so you keep your set pace, and on a regular basis it also tells you how much you already achieved. You even have a wide variety of voices and languages! This last two feature what makes this app great. My problem was mostly that I cannot control my speed unlike on a treadmill, but now this problem is history!

Those U shaped parts are the red lights when crossing the road

A good advice though if you want to start running: get a pair of good running shoes, otherwise you'll hurt your joints. It doesn't have to be an expensive one! I got a Nike Air for $45 on sale from Sports Authority and I love it! Another thing as the weather turns colder and mornings are chilly is proper clothing. I just bought a pair of Nike running leggings. (I wear a pair of short over them, so don't laugh!) It's better than pants since it's not disturbing because it's tight, it absorbs sweat and breathes and keeps you warm. Again on sale it was $45.

Pros: it manages your music, talks to you, keeps track of route and other info, makes sure that you stay in your pace zone, it works without the Adidas gear
Cons: it's a bit hidden on the website to create completely custom workouts, stuff apart from the running part is a bit not my taste.

Working out
They say the more muscle you have the more calories your body burns while you're idle. Being a software engineer means you sit in front of your computer the whole day. You stand up and leave your desk only to grab something to drink or eat. So you're idle the whole day! Plus who doesn't like muscles on a guy?

JeFit

This app is just perfect. From the web page you can select from numerous workout plans other members already compiled and you can sync them to your phone, or you can use the built in database of workout exercises to compile your own routine! If something is not in the database, you can even create your custom exercise! For built in ones you can install a small package that shows animated drawings how to execute each exercise properly. It keeps track of your workout and body stats so you can see how much you achieved, and even manages the resting time in between sets, so you don't sit on the bench doing nothing for too long.

Since I'm using it I only found about 1 or 2 exercises missing from the database, but they were related to the machines my gym has. My problem was most of the time that I forgot how much weight I used the last time, and with this application it's not a problem any more.

Pros: huge workout plans and exercises database, sleek user interface, simple but does everything you need, animations
Cons: with the last update my plan is messed up, on the ordering screen the ordering is OK but on the workout screen the ordering is messed up; it's either a corrupt data issue or application issue; the online community is not too strong, but you don't really need it anyways!

Please support this petition: H4 visa holders to work

I understand that the economy is bad. Bud it's not bad in every segment! For instance high-tech industry in the Bay Area (aka. Silicon Valley) suffers from the strict immigration policy of the US. And a foreign worker who's here is very vulnerable. Well no offense, but we cannot be sure enough that USA is still the land of freedom, and something like American Dream still exist. Maybe it's time to be more civilized...

In a bad economy however it is a political suicide to make immigration easier though. But just imagine: if my visa extension is submitted not on time, and my I-94 expires, but I can stay until I have a pending case; if that extension is declined I need to leave the country in that instance. You think it is possible? How to sell my car, how to get a plane ticket in such a short period of time, etc. And it's not like in Europe that I can go to another country by car in a couple of hours!

Workers being here on an H1B visa can work. Their dependents are on H4 visas, that doesn't allow them to work. For spouses it means boredom at home and with house chores, for children it means no summer jobs.

Why is that however that the family members of intra-company transfers being here on an L1 can work?

I feel this situation is a bit unfair and puts a big responsibility on the one's shoulders holding the H1: the only person in the family who can provide... And H1 employees are mainly here to help your country! Even though they try to become part of the country.

So please support this petition! Thank you!

Paprika, peppers: this is what people know about us

While we Hungarians are proud of our women and wine, the rest of the word knows the Pußta (Germany), the csikós (horse rider in traditional outfit) and apparently all what Americans know about us is our paprika. Did you know, that the whole world is using the same Hungarian term for this vegetable?

Anyhoo, Americans don't know where Hungary is, but who could blame them. I have no idea where South Carolina is, and it is way bigger then Hungary. Some of them do know about Budapest, and surprisingly large number of Americans were in Budapest once, or want to go there. But when I tell them that I'm from Hungary when they're ask where my accent comes from, they just say 'Ah, I see!' or 'How lovely!'. And the next question they ask: 'And when do you plan to go back?'. I've been here for a year, for God sake, I have no plans yet! But it's a lie. I do, involving a green card ;-) There was one honest guy so far, the helicopter pilot in Las Vegas. He just simply asked 'And where the hell is that?' :-D

But back to our topic of the day: paprika!

I had a post about a year ago about how happy I was to find red paprika powder from Szeged, Hungary in the local Safeway store, but this weekend I visited the farmer's market with my wife. It is on every Saturday morning in Sunnyvale downtown (yes, that one street behind Macy's). Lots of organic vegetables and fruits, but the best we found was this one:

They look and taste just our own paprika!

And for those, who feel funny, yes, here the Californian paprika is just called simply paprika or peppers ;-) But it does taste significantly different, and one of my favorite dish, the stuffed paprika in tomato sauce cannot be made using them. But, after more than a year my lovely wife was kind enough to make me some stuffed paprika. This was her first try, and it is delicious! Just like my mum used to make! (Yeah, my wife reads my blog, too, but I do say it honestly!)

Yummie!

At the Drive-In

I was looking for a picture where
Dino already has his head through
the roof, but couldn't find any ;-(

Drive-ins are part of the American culture.There're drive-in fast food restaurants (well those we can find in Europe, too). They're convenient, located next to the road, even next to highways and if you're on the road why would you want to get out of the car. Well maybe if you're sitting in a Smart or any other kind of bumper-car-sized-mini it is understandable. There're drive-in movies as well. I've seen those in Hungary, too but never been to any of them. Probably none of them is still in business. They became obsolete together with the garden movies...

But this is not the full list of drive-ins! There're drive-in pharmacies, drive-in banks, liquor stores (!!), post offices, Starbucks, dairy stores; we can get married  and can express our condolences at a funeral while driving. I'm not crazy. This list comes from Wikipedia, and except for the diary stores, post offices and funeral homes I've seen at least one example for each!

Drive ins except for the movies are however called drive-thrus, where thru means through... Easier to spell, now doesn't it :)

So the first drive-thru thingy was a bank in St. Louis, Missouri opened in 1930. However if you're driving on Rt. 66 you'll learn that the first drive-thru was a McDonalds restaurant opened in Arizona on the Mother Road near Fort Huachuca. According to a local legislation soldiers could not enter any shop or restaurant wearing their uniforms. Now this way they didn't enter the restaurant, now did they :) Problem solved.

So I can completely understand the concept especially that people don't walk here. Well, they do walk up to their cars though ;-) Because they drive. Only exception is probably the centers of big cities like Manhattan, or San Francisco downtown. But otherwise people drive everywhere. If you don't have a driver's license you're pretty much screwed, since public transportation is inconvenient.

So like here in Sunnyvale, the 'main road' is El Camino Real. There're many small businesses as well as big super markets on this street. Basically everything is on that street. The thing I don't understand how people know about Anne's Laundry Service, or Bob's Comic Book Store? If you drive by you don't see these shops. If you'd walk, then surely you'd recognize them. Ads in local paper? Coupons? Mistery!

Anyhoo, think about those car wonders Americans had throughout the 50's, 60's and 70's. Do you want to get out any of these babies? I doubt!

Today most of the Americans don't think about their cars as their beloved subjects, but as a mere transportation tools. But can we blame them? When exactly did the American Dream turn into this one, or whose dream (not nightmare!) could it be:

I think thanks to this significant shift in designing automobiles, the whole drive-in and drive-through industry began to fade. But it shouldn't be! It is part of the American culture, and it always should be. You know, every non-American guy, who loves cars (and by cars I don't mean the super aerodynamic rolling electric gadgets that all look alike only the emblem on their front is different) wants to have his own American old-timer. As a matter of fact they have their own favorite from Dodge Charger through the Mercury Cougar to the Pontiac Trans-Am. Probably only had their chance to see them once on a car show, but they're desperate and cannot be convinced why the Cougar is better than the Charger! And why is that? Looks and performance. America's symbol was these automobiles! That was the American dream! You worked hard to get one of those! Well today most of the domestic cars are cheap copies of European models. A Lincolns look like a Seat (bit bigger though), Chevrolet is Daewoo and Opel... No magic!

Which one is ore of a Chevrolet Impala? The first or the second one?

Together with the remains of Rt. 66 some of these drive-ins are still here showing us how things were in the past. Thank God!

So last Thursday we tried one out. The company was established 70 years ago! Screen is about as big as in any other theater, price is half of an AMC ticket price, plus all movies are double features, so that is 25% of any multiplex price all together. The sound of the movie comes through your radio (unlike in the Flintstones where you had to hand the speaker on your car). Each screen has its own frequency. If your battery dies because of the radio, they give you a free jump start :-) There one giant tent shaped building in the middle and under its roof there're the movie projectors.

Screen from the car

The projectors

Screens right next to each other

Empty arcade

Sorry for the crappy night pictures! They were taken with my phone!

On the ground floor there's a huge arcade and this is where you can buy your soda and pop corn (and other very healthy snacks). The place probably has seen better days, but Tuesday's are specials (==cheaper) so probably they fill up. When we were there the arcade was totally empty, and there were about half a dozen cars at each screen. The parking place in front of the screens are totally dark, so now I understand why the American teenagers like drive-ins as their make out place. I bet half of a generation was made in the drive-ins on the back seat :D


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Shakin' the Rock'n'Roll with you is blastin' good

"A Rock'n'Roll-t rázni veled bomba jó"

I think this song is _the_ best for workin' out or running. And the genre might be hip again. Country is hip now! Remember in the finals of the last American Idol season the two contestants were country singers! The guy who won the whole thing didn't not sing but country songs throughout the whole season. Maybe even Rock'n'Roll is coming back, too next year. Red lipstick, blush, 50's like dresses are already in :)

And just get on the treadmill while you're listening to this if you don't believe me. Running at 7-8mph will not be a challenge, and your sides will not twinge either :D

Your guide to choose an Android phone

Well, it's not a gadget blog, but I do own a white Motorola Droid 2 Global for a while now. And my wife and iPhone 4. And I do see differences.

I understand, that if you know your hardware you can size your software. And it's true for an iPhone. While on the Android platform you have cheap phones, with weak processors, and you have excellent phones with dual core processors. With the same OS and apps. Yeah, it is a problem!

I would never go for an iPhone. Don't exactly know why, but I somehow wouldn't. Blackberry? I don't know too much about it. We used to call it 'I have no life anymore badge'. I think the market segment and the functionality is too well defined. And that's RIM's biggest problem. Windows Mobile? I used to have a Windows powered PDA, no thank you! Without question the two platform that gets the most support (and I mean apps and other content here) is Apple and Google.

So my choice is Android.

Here's what I've learned so far by owning my phone. First of all I need to make it clear I love my phone. The QWERTY keyboard is a must. At least to me. Yeah, you can learn how to type on the screen. And if you rotate your phone the whole screen becomes a big keyboard. But if you have the real buttons, it's different. I can write long emails, blog entries, Word documents on it. Easy to get used to it, and way better than the on screen keyboard. Remember I work as a consultant, so sometimes I do have to write long emails, explaining stuff in the evening (thanks to that India is not in the Pacific Time Zone).

One thing which is a must I believe is dual core!! What I learned the hard way. When my phone (which is single core) is busy with something. like downloading an update, etc., it lags like crazy. Even though it has a 1.2GHz processor! My desktop PC i replaced with a Intel Core i7 machine 2 years ago was about that fast! But still, Android is a real multitasking OS, so it needs multiple cores. Not to mention the heterogeneous hardware. You cannot fully optimize your software so you need more craft! Now I understand why Apple does not allow multitasking on its device except for a couple of privileged applications. But even dialing is challenging if your phone is busy with something else. Priorities are not handled very well. Basic functions like text, dialing, screen response should be prio 1. All the time by completely suspending other running tasks if it is possible. Maybe that should be the real problem solver for single core hardware. Select the functions to handle with immediate attention, and when it's done, background processes can be resumed.

The other thing that's important is the OS version. I had the chance recently to upgrade from 2.2 to 2.3. Huge difference! And the Android platform is over 3.x version now. So I think the user interface, that is customized mainly by vendors has to be decoupled from the OS, and treated more like a plugin. So I can update the OS, and the UI sticks the same. Win-win. Well I don't know if it is something that could be achieved with the OS' architecture. I'm still too lazy to read a book on Android programming... But getting the latest OS all the time is essential.

Third thing is battery life. It will never be enough. My last Sony Ericsson w910i phone, which was considered to be a smart phone (multimedia support, emails, RSS, browser etc.) could last up to 4-5 days in the beginning. I got my Droid with the standard battery. Most of the time I had to plug it in to charge in the afternoons. When I was traveling to a client, it was a nightmare hunting outlets in a conference room or at the airport to get a couple of drops of energy. So I bought the extended battery. Best decision ever. With average usage, in the evening it is still only in the orange zone. So, there's a reason why manufacturers make extended battery packs! Buy them, you need them! It's a shame they don't sell the phones with them by default. Or you could choose when you purchase it from your provider. Environment friendliness... What do you do with your never ever used standard battery pack? I keep it in my desk drawer and eventually I'll throw it out...

4G speed? I don't know. Yes, sometime I need to wait, but I still get my things faster then on the office Internet. So I'm not sure. If you're on the budget, then I think this is the least important. Probably if I tried a 4G phone on a 4G network, I'd think differently...

So I think Android is a great platform, but it has some major challenges. Dual core is a must, and latest OS or easy OS upgrade is strongly preferred. I need the real keyboard, but maybe I'm old fashioned. I'm 31 years old after all :)

Meanwhile in Sunnyvale...

So first of all summer is over. It is raining for 4 days in a row now and there's a 4-8 inches thick snow in the Sierras. And it's cold! I had to find my hoodie. And switch on the heating in the mornings!

Yesterday brought a little excitement to our life. Sunnyvale is in the top 10 safest cities (compared to cities with similar size) for ages. You can forget your keys in the door for a night and a half a day, and no one robs you. Or you can forget your garage door wide open for a whole night having your Lotus in there, and not even a single screwdriver will be missing.

But since yesterday local news is full with a guy who shoot 10 people, 3 of them are dead. It is a mysterious case. Friends say that this guy was always cheerful and happy, but 2 days ago something flipped and he was not friendly for a day. And then he shot some of his colleagues at a meeting at his workplace 4am. Well if I had to go to meetings 4am on a regular basis, well my switch would flip, too :) Well, nobody knows yet what happened, but I believe news stations didn't have such a story for decades so we'll get full coverage. I feel sorry for his children, though. Police reported that after 28 hours manhunt, they shot the suspect, and he's dead.

Sunnyvale PD had to dust the armored SWAT vehicle (see above) for this case. I bet it wasn't used for a long time now! There were helicopters hovering, they've closed Homestead Rd. They've used K-9 units to find the guy. I bet those dogs faced some difficulties catching the smell in the rain... Anyway it was really a manhunt. I think they've found like 4 weapons of the guy, whose name is Shreef Allman. So he was armed and dangerous. I pretty sure it was in order to shoot him on site...

More information here.

Unlike the Hungarian police. I bet it works like this: a call comes in to 112; A colleague of mine stormed into our meeting at shoot 6 of us, 2 dead 1 is dying, please come, hurry! Police reply: did you catch they guy, is he still there? No, he ran away. All right, then I send an ambulance, and let us know if you captured the guy and we then go to the scene. Otherwise you get a letter after 6 months that they have closed the case and they have identified no criminal charges...

On unrelated news, yes Steve Jobs died. I bet he's a hero in man people's eyes. And he did save Apple Inc. and did revolutionize how we consume digital media today with his iPod, iPhone and iPad. He discovered a great business model by not just selling the device and OS but the content for it. I guess this is where Windows Mobile and Blackberry desperately failed to realize. I don't support DRM protected content, and that someone else decides if my applications is good enough to sell or not. I believe in the freedom of content and the power of an open source society. But he did bring revolutionary changes!

The Internet is already full with some memes about Jobs' death. Apparently there's no 10 year rule any more:

And a sea-lion was found on US101 this morning. It's a 10 lane highway. Why would a sea-lion want to be there?!

So many excitement and happening in just 2 days! In this peaceful town in the heart of Silicon Valley. But seriously! Sunnyvale is in the middle of Tech Heaven. Intel, Real Media (yeah I know, but they were revolutionary too! Before YouTube you were watching all the streaming videos/musics in Real format! Remember, dammit!), Yahoo!, Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu. Just a small list of big companies heaving their HQ's here. But you only hear about Cupertino (Apple), Palo Alto (Facebook, VMWare) and Mountain View (Google) in the news from Silicon Valley. Maybe San Jose (Adobe), too.