Pics from Eric's party

Some professional pics on PHATCATPHOTO.com -> http://phatcatphoto.com/events/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=cellar627

http://flickr.com/photos/28467516@N00/sets/72157600325620312/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alex_koudrin/sets/72157600305934612/

see san fran like you are there --- new google maps feature

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=791+Pescadero+Dr,+San+Jose,+California+95123&sll=46.539156,-0.341337&sspn=1.392344,2.219238&ie=UTF8&ll=37.83609,-122.469406&spn=0.099917,0.138702&z=13&om=1&layer=c&cbll=37.813658,-122.477889&cbp=1,360,0.477885182438,0

Trip to Los Angeles 26-28 May, 2007

I won't go into too much detail, only as much as time permits. A lot of things you can see from my general pictures on flickr. I have added some previous photos from San Francisco, Bay to Breakers, and modified/added more to Santa Cruz beach party photos. So check out everything. It might take a while, but you can skip whatever you want, or just sit back and watch the slideshow :) This particular trip is in this collection. Also there's some description on almost every set and the titles of some photos are commenting on what's happening. Unfortunately flickr does not allow to upload videos. So I'm still using my webshots account for that. The videos, all from day two of the trip are here. This includes the exclusive video of Torsten flipping his hair at the Whisky a Go Go club. (I got the camera only several days ago, so I didn't find the option to change video quality. The vids are 320x240 15fps. Now I found the option and from now on I'll be taking high quality 640x480 30 fps video clips).

Ok, here it goes. For this trip we hired a car as is the custom here. Peace of mind if anything breaks and the size of the car needs to be large for such a long trip and four people. It was me, Ben, Carlos, and Torsten. As usual the rental car agency gave us a bit of a headache. It was amusing how incompetent they were. All it was, they were not applying the IBM corporate rate for the car so it was almost twice as expensive (even though I've booked everything over the phone four days in advance). Anyway, instead of our planned 1600 leaving time, we set out around 1730. The drivers were Ben and me, everyone else could not be added as a secondary driver due to them being under 25. Anyway, it took us eight hours to get to our Motel as we got into a nasty traffic jam just outside San Jose. I slept or at least tried to sleep most of that trip in the back.

I don't know what I was thinking, maybe because Torsten smokes, but I booked a smoking room at the motel.... Somehow we got to sleep, but only because it was nearly two in the morning. Everything smelt like smoke. I changed the room as soon as I woke up the next morning.

Day 1

Day one was Hollywood boulevard with the Walk of fame. Then Beverly Hills, followed by us trying to see the Hollywood sign from a mountain opposite it, but the smog was too thick. Lastly we tried to go out to bars/clubs in Santa Monica beach.

Hollywood boulevard was a let down. The area looks like it hasn't been touched since at least 1970s. It's literally the Ghetto. Walk of fame was better, at least someone cleans the paving stones. A lot of famous and surprising people got a star there (see photos).

Beverly Hills was everything we expected including the fact that we saw trees instead of celebrity houses. Saw a white long hummer limo outside Playboy Mansion. Someone even told us there was a party there that night. Somehow I don't think old Hue had us on the VIP list though...

Looked for a couple of hours how to get to the mountain that overlooks the Hollywood sign. In the end we were too late (around 1830) and the smog became too thick.

In between Beverly Hills and going out we went to some area of Sunset (I think) boulevard that was actually a gay area ( you can see the gay cruises ad on photos). We ate at some Italian grill place and noticed a lot guys holding each others hands and other "unusual" activities. Only then we realised where we were... Oh well, a new experience :)

Santa Monica beach proved nothing new in terms of night life. Same old stuff... bars shut very early, some at 1 (if you remember in California the law prohibits sale of alcohol past 1.30 in the morning). We wondered into one bar after waiting for about 20 minutes at least. Nothing spectacular. Wasn't even worth a picture.

Day 2

Downtown LA was great, followed by the Community Center which held the 30 years to Star wars celebration. We finished our day with going to Malibu beach. At night we went out to some clubs on Sunset Blvd.

Downtown LA has magnificent architecture. I think it is far better than San Francisco. There are so many different style buildings and so many abstract art compositions. I don't think I've ever seen this kind of thing in such a large scale. If you are in LA, definitely check out the downtown (but only before 4 pm -- it becomes dangerous after that :)) Other dangerous parts of LA is Eastern and Southern LA.. the guides and the policeman, whom we asked for directions, all said to avoid these...

Star wars celebration was on that day (Sunday, 27 May 2007). We saw some dressed up fans, but not that many. You needed to go inside the Community Center to see everything. The entrance fee was $45 per person so we decided against it :O

Malibu beach was so so. It wasn't that warm and it wasn't very spectacular. Saw some surfers, some girls, the pier. Afterwards we went to the university that's located very near the beach, overlooking the harbour. Very cool to study here for sure!

In the evening we first decided to have the real American experience dinner at International House of Pancakes (IHOP). Of course, we all ate far too much. There is a picture of Carlos showing how full he is... Went out to first Whisky (a) Go Go club where there was live music (I have a short video, see link at the beginning). The club is one of the most famous ones. A few celebrities came there for a whisky -- there is a celebrity wall, which didn't come out on the photo. Saddle Ranch was our last stop. It was fun watching people fall off the mechanical bull. I've never seen that live before (see videos again). All in all not a bad night. There was an idea to go to a crowded strip club (as they are open later than bars). But decided to leave it until I/we get to Las Vegas :D

Day 3

Queen Mary ship and Russian submarine inside, followed by Venice-Muscle beach where a body building competition was going on.

Queen Mary is a ship built shortly after Titanic. It is bigger than Titanic. We didn't go inside as it was expensive in terms of money and time. Russian submarine, called Scorpion, was fun. It was build in the 1970s. It's a small diesel submarine that magically could hold over 70 crew members inside!

Muscle beach was great fun. First the beach is great, very wide --- basically Bay Watch kind of beach. Not that many people as the water was still about 16 degrees. The bodybuilding competition was the best thing. Even though I couldn't actually see much (or take many pics) it was cool. Got some free stuff, bought a muscle beach t-shirt. The best thing was (as I discovered a little later) that Ms Fittness America signed me a couple of her pictures :) And no, she's not a deep voiced mutated female bodybuilder. She looks like a (very very nice looking) model. You can check her out here. Anyway, the Californian atmosphere was finally present!

Journey back was uneventful. A large drink of coke at McDonald's and another stop in the middle of nowhere, that's all there was to it.

More Santa Cruz BBQ photos (I'm in it this time)

Here is where I got the photos from (Kristie, flatmate, took them): http://good-times.webshots.com/album/559122855BpzLPj

I got the best pics out of there and posted them on my webshots

(Soon I'll start using Flickr instead of webshots)

Check out these, done by Sebastian
Santa Cruz beach party
http://flickr.com/photos/student_yeah/sets/72157600237401228/
Bay to Breakers in SF
http://flickr.com/photos/student_yeah/sets/72157600236700559/

More pics from Santa cruz beach party and Bay to Breakers Masquarade

Pictures from Timo... Have a look. I'm on several of them... somewhere

Mount Hamilton http://www.flickr.com/photos/timopfahl/sets/72157600231655700/
Wasn't there that time, but cool pics

Santa Cruz http://www.flickr.com/photos/timopfahl/sets/72157600233752070/
Had barbeque, played volleyball, and had a bonfire with some guitar songs (I tried to sing some but failed miserably, of course. Luckily Daniela could actually sing...). Got kicked out at 2200 --- always the case.

Bay to Breakers http://www.flickr.com/photos/timopfahl/sets/72157600237375470/
This was Sunday, 20 May. Meant to be a run at 8 am, but it evolved into this dress up drinking carnival. Awesome atmosphere.. music pumping on the streets of San Francisco... 7 miles of this walk.

Some test photos from new camera

Here is the new album http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/559160546FtwsOD?vhost=entertainment
This is photos of our house, my car, frosty, Wednesday soccer. I'm just starting so some photos didn't come out as good.

As usual, you can see all my public photos here:
http://community.webshots.com/user/koudrin?vhost=community

Trip to Monterey/Pebble beach/Carmel

Hired a car for the day so it is big enough for five people and for safety/peace of mind. Was a fun trip. Here are some photos (done by Markus, whose 2.5 week visit ended this Monday, 7 May and he is gone back to Dublin, Ireland --- he works there, but he is German) http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/558988712hkXRyv
Again, all my public photos can be seen here http://community.webshots.com/user/alex_koudrin

Maybe will add some more to this, but not very likely. Enjoy the photos! By the way, I think the camera was in some weird mode, so photos look grainy and washed out. But still, it gives you and idea.

Here is more or less our itinerary.

Cinco De Mayo BBQ

Saturday had a barbeque at our house. Here are some photos, http://picasaweb.google.com/tim.bezold/TanzInDenMai
http://picasaweb.google.com/stefanknz/CincoDeMayoBBQ

New house and moving in

Moving out of Alla's place was not a big deal. Well, almost...

All I had was my baggage, but I did acquire one piece of furniture --- a queen mattress that Alla agreed to sell me for $50. While not free, the mattress is nearly new and it is posturepedic so it's very comfortable and good for back/posture. Transportation of such 20 mm thick, spring construction mattress was a puzzle until Jono and Alla (separately) told me the way to do it. "Put it on the roof of your car" they said. OK. So I got Brendan and Tina to help me with man power and their car, which is a four door sedan so it has a larger roof top. Borrowed a thin rope that Blayne luckily had. After wrestling with the rope trying to untie the knots we started tying it to the roof. Not exactly straight forward, but I think we did secure it in such a way that it wouldn't (shouldn't?) slide forward or backward. I drove the car, tried to be slow and smooth. But the wind! Yes, the wind was at times lifting the mattress at the front. We all had at least one arm holding it through the open windows. At several points I thought that we were either going to lose the mattress or lose traction with the road and become a flying carpet! We made it of course --- 2-3 miles is not that long of a drive, although it did seem a little longer than usual with the mattress about to take off from your roof...

My room is slightly smaller (I approximate it to be 3.5 x 3.5 m) than at the first place, but it's large enough for me. The great thing is that I inherited a table, for which I bought some "Ikea" kit set of draws, from the previous owner of the room. He also left me a table lamp, nice computer chair with arm rests, and a little shelf to go in the closet to put shoes/clothes in it. The house is pretty well insulated. I saw a lot of roof insulation in the garage and there are double glazed windows everywhere. As soon as you open my window that looks onto the neighbouring property, you can hear their pool motor distinctly. So double glazing is pretty great for noise dampening. Personally I always wanted to own an energy efficient/quite/dry super comfortable house. This one comes close on some accounts.

There is a cat in the house. I have written something about it before so I might repeat myself. The cat was adopted from a cat shelter about half a year ago by all the flatmates. The colour is white. The noise is semi continuous loud and nagging. The name, Frosty. He meows particularly in the morning. So alarm becomes almost obsolete with this cat around. I think the reason he meows so much is that there was some traumatising experiences prior to adoption. Perhaps on the streets or in the animal shelter itself. So now he cries until you pat him and generally be near him. Sometimes you even have to stand near him while he eats. In the evenings he would often lie near you in peace. Generally attention seeking cat is how I would sum him up. We did let him out a couple of times, but he is usually confined to the home. That could be another reason for his outcries --- he is all alone during the day when we are out. Oh, and he's a little fat so he is on relatively strict diet now --- dry cat food small bowl portion in the morning and evening only. I think what happened was he was very thin when they adopted him and probably over fed him slightly.

Hooray, there is finally TV. Here, at least for now, they have cable TV with quite a few channels. I think 200 but a lot of them are not included in the package, so perhaps only 100 channels. No Fox news and not sure about Fox and comedy central. But there's still a lot of comedy series that you can watch and the other day I watched the end of one of my favourite Jacki Chan movies. But for now I haven't been watching TV really. No time. Still, it's good that I have the option to watch when I come home. In the previous flat TV reception didn't exist at all.

For a whole week we didn't have Internet in the house. They previously had DSL, but nobody was using the land line. So when Christian moved out they turned off old Internet and signed up for Cable. After a series of problems and us trying to get it going in turn we finally got it going. Personally I'd give myself a little medal for getting it online when everybody else gave up. There were two things to get online, cable modem --- so the Internet itself, and the wireless router that we connected to the modem to enable all of us to use Internet wirelessly... Anyway, that's all sorted now. In the busy times, the speed test results (you can test your own Internet connection on www.speedtest.net) are ~1.2 Mbps down, ~350 Kbps up, ~100 ms ping time in < 50 mile radius. So it's not super fast, but it's fast enough to stream any online videos and that's what German guys do all the time. They watch German news broadcasts, or at least one of them does. For reference at IBM I get ~15 Mbps up and down with only 15 ms latency! See http://www.speedtest.net/result/114037800.png

As a consequence of not having a telephone land line I now HAVE to use Skype. So get skype on your PC and we can talk. My skype id is alex.koudrin I can use skypeout to call regular phones, but it costs me 3.9 cents for connection setup and 2.1 cents/minute for each call. Additionally the quality to phones is generally lower. But for those who don't have regular or good internet that's the only option and it's not really that expensive really.

Birthday at a Steakhouse

From the beginning I wanted to try an American steak at an appropriate location. My birthday seemed like a good excuse to make my dream a reality. Upon some investigation I chose Black Angus Steakhouse to have my celebration dinner. I certainly didn't regret my choice of the venue. It was a genuine American steak house. The place was similar to a ski lodge or a hut. Everything made of wood, sloping roof, wooden floors. Colours --- a dark finish. The layout was that there was a bar type counter in the middle and on the sides there were these semi private booths with three walls about a meter and a half in height with glass pannels spanning the top 30 cm. The atmosphere was a mixed one. On the one hand I was conscious of the ranch --- cowboy pictures everywhere on the walls. On the other hand I felt like I'd go outside and jump onto some dog sleds in one of Jack London's stories set in Alaska/South Pole...

The three of us --- Brendan, Tina, and I --- were shown to a table and some freshly baked round bun was brought to us with some souce. We then promptly ordered a sampler dish as an appetizer. I can't remember the names of these things now, but there was some vegetable stuff deep fried, chicken also deep fried, prawns, and a strange potato shell --- potato with most of its inside mass removed. Tasted quite good. To complete the American experience Brendan and I decided to order the Prime Rib Steak, a whole pound (454 grams raw weight) as our main dish. Suffice to say that we got pretty full after the total time of about two hours in the steakhouse. The meat was great, I ordered mine medium, and it was as soft as jelly! Note to self is to order steak medium well done to make it a little more chewy. On the side there was a large dish of salad, mash potato with garlic (surprisingly tasty!), and some boiled vegetables. The size of the steak was impressive, but not overwhelming --- nothing that I couldn't handle. It was probably the size of a good portion of steak... and twice as thick, about 2 cm! For the sauces to go with the steak I had mild horse radish and ranch sauce. Brendan ordered full strength horse radish and that thing was the most spicy thing I've ever had in my life! I put literally a drop of that radish on a tiny bit (less than 0.5 cm cube) of broccoli. Immediately I turned all crab red and my eyes started to water. That sauce gave me a whole new meaning to spicy. The spice in Wassabi, at least one that I've tried in the past, fails miserably in comparison to this horse radish. I won't attempt that stunt again in the future...

I mentioned to the waitress that it was my birthday so we got to choose one free desert. I chose a chocolate cake slice, which we each had a third of. I don't eat desert normally, but it was a special day in a special place so I made an exception :) The waitress also took a couple of polaroid pictures of us --- old school photography, but still cool. If we get hold of a scanner I'll post those pictures up later.

Overall impression of the place exceeded all my expectations. I was really impressed by the atmosphere, quality of the food, and the service. Not bad, for a reasonable $100 (including tip and tax) for the three of us. We were the last customers out of the place at around 11.40 and the place shut at 11 officially I think :D

Mission birthday celebration dinner --- accomplished. Over and out.