It's been a whirlwind year...

It's been almost a year since I last posted -- time really flies. I've been extremely busy at work (more about that soon), and have managed a little bit of travel in the last 12 months too.

Where do I start - we have much ground to cover:

So, as you know, I started working for Google last year. We spent 3-and-a-half months in Mountain View, California where I learned the culture, the tools of the trade, and the names of a handful of my colleagues, afterwhich we returned to Zurich; not, however, before we managed a short trip up to Calgary to spend some time with my brother and his family.

Getting back to Zurich was quite welcome - D loved living in California but I find the American way of life somewhat superficial (then again, she's currently ready People magazine, I'm reading Bill Bryson's book about his European travels -- kinda says it all, eh?). Things worked out well for us, as I'd rented out our apartment while we were away, but the tenants didn't take occupation -- the protagonist of the clan was dispatched to Frankfurt instead of Zurich -- so we received a bit of income for "free". I started working in our Zurich office in late October, 2006.

Cue December, and D fell pregnant with kid #2. February I attended a Google even in Courmayeur, Italy (1 day of presentations, 1 night of late-night revelling, 1 day of skiing). Fast forward to March, when she and A flew to Cape Town. I embarked the day after she left, on a business trip to Nairobi (Kenya) and Kigali (Rwanda), returning to Zurich in time for attendance of the Google European Engineering summit in Davos (once again 1 day of presentations [I presented twice] and 1 day of skiing), and then joined them towards the end of March to attend my cousin's wedding. We stayed for Passover, and returned to Zurich in mid-April.

By this time, I had some results to present on one of my projects, and was summarily despatched to deliver them to some of the head honchos at work (Founder, CEO, 2 VPs etc), so I once again packed my bags and travelled back to Mountain View where I spent days at work, and weekends crossing off shopping lists for D.

End of May was time for a much-needed vacation, so we spent 10 sunny days in Israel - a welcome break from my daily routine. We visited most of the major cities in the northern half of the country, and went only as far south as Masada (went up the cable car) and the Dead Sea (A and I splashed about a bit, I floated). Other destinations included Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Netanya, Ra'anana, Rechovot, and Jerusalem (old and new cities).

Beginning July, my manager informed me that my request to manage a group has been acknowledged, and in addition to my daily tasks, I'll now be managing a small group of engineers working on local projects. I've always said that people make their own fate and that my employer offers good career prospects if one is self-propelled ...

Also, since we're soon going to be four instead of three in our home, we bought a bigger place earlier this year -- new build, and only ready in May 2008, but it can't come soon enough. We need to sell our current apartment before we move, but it remains to be seen whether we'll be able to move directly into the new place, or whether we'll have to move twice. I'm hoping for the former, even though space will be an issue for a few months (we have only two bedrooms here).

I've been cycling a bit this season (sometimes to work and back, sometimes just out for a spin on a weekend with Aron in his kiddie trailer, sometimes alone) and can feel my body yearning for me to return it to its former state of fitness ... that which it experienced in my late teens when I was cycling reasonable distances 3-times a week ... I need some peer motivation to get myself "out there" -- so if anyone reading this is in Zurich and wants to go cycling, *PLEASE* contact me :-)

And so we're running on cruise-control until the end of September when baby #2 pops out to greet us, afterwhich it will once again be turmoil and chaos in the Colman family ...

California Dreamin'

Sorry for the silence ... It's been quite a ride.

So, I left you last in Vegas.
We had a wonderful meal at Bouchon restaurant in our hotel - not cheap, but definitely better than the foodcourt or fastfood we'd been eating. Dvora had chicken, I had trout. Delicious!

The night before we left, I popped down to the casino to do the necessary. I played the 25c slots (means my money lasts longer before the inevitable)... Turns out, the inevitable, isn't.
I walked away around $40 richer, leaving as soon as I struck the windfall.

We left Vegas really early Wednesday morning, and flew to Los Angeles, where we got a car. Drove to our downtown hotel, and dropped off our luggage. During our stay, we saw Beverly Hills, Bel Air (magnificent homes!), Santa Monica (we walked along the beach, and had lunch at the pier), Venice Beach, Hollywood (photographed the sign, visited Mann's Chinese Theater) and Malibu. We wanted to visit a studio, so stopped at Sony Studios but they don't permit children under 12 so we were turned away.
We also tried Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits, as recommended by a few friends ... unanimous (amongst Dvora and I, anyway ;) ) is that KFC wins *hands down*, no contest!

After 3 nights in LA, we drove down to San Diego, where we spent the afternoon at Sea World. Wholesome family fun - highly recommended. That night we went to dinner with Searle, a school friend of mine, and his girlfriend.

Sunday morning we departed with much time to spare, heading for the airport. Of course, using my uncanny sense of direction we got hopelessly lost and I raced into the terminal to be told we'd missed our flight. I then unpacked all our luggage, took the rental car to its depot, and returned, only to find out that there was an earlier flight into San Jose - we were on time for ours. Yay!

Arrived at San Jose, got a lift with another passenger to the rental car depot (was going to take a cab, but she offered...). And we've been in Mountain View for 4 weeks now.

Life here is pretty good - the weather is great, and work is really good. Learning loads, and the content is nicely challenging. I'm working with some really smart people.

I bought a bicycle (Marin - aluminium frame, carbon forks/seatstays, tiagra components) after a week, and have been a two-wheel commuter since. It's great. For the past three weekends, I've joined colleagues on a leisure-cycle in the local hills. Last weekend we tackled a stretch called "Redwood Gulch", which rises at over 18% incline in parts. Yesterday I did "Old LaHonda" during our 3+hour stretch, which while much longer than the Gulch, is much easier on the knees (and the lungs ;) ). I definitely want to do both again before we leave.

We've had take-aways from Subway and KFC a number of times [yum], had lunch at Olive Garden (mediocre) and joined a colleague and his wife yesterday for lunch at an Italian restaurant on Castro Street (quite tasty).

D joined a friend's wife and her kids for a trip to Gymboree, and to the beach. They meet once or twice a week for playtime. She also joined up with a few local mums in a park one afternoon.

I opened a local bank account with Wells Fargo, and received a debit card. This makes local purchases much easier, as we don't need to use our Swiss cards nor carry around wads of cash.

I'll upload some pics to our Flickr account in the next day or two, and hopefully will keep it a little more up to date, so be sure to check back there frequently.

We made it... eventually

Beaming live from The Venetian hotel foodcourt (casino level) in Las Vegas from my Nokia Communicator (thanks Monzoon) over free hotel wifi.
Where do I even start - so much has happened.

We finished packing just in time on Saturday, and sat ready at 09h45 for our arranged taxi.
09h55 we were still waiting, so I phoned the company (private chap who advertised in our municipal paper, and on flyers at the post office), and he FORGOT... said he'd be at us in 10mins.

So, stirred but not shaken, we headed for the airport 30min later than planned.
We were dropped off at Terminal 1 where the Star Alliance flags were flying, to be told that United leaves from Terminal 2.
No problem - off we go. Stand in line, get to the counter, and we were charged $25 for a suitcase that weighed 24kg where the allowed weight is 23kg (even though another bag was only 7kg) - a bit unfair.
With no time to argue, we ran to get to midfield Terminal E.
All sweaty and smelly we arrived to board last, and the flight departed quite surprisingly at exactly the scheduled time.

We got to Dulles (Washington DC) airport, grabbed our cabin baggage, picked up stroller (now somehow minus the chocolates and sweets we had in it on loading) and headed to immigration... realised we had left a thermos flask in our seat... no time to get it. Got to the front of the LONG immigration line for non-US citizens only to be told that we were missing some forms (United misinformed us on the plane). so, step back, complete the forms, and pass through.
We collected our luggage, and raced to customs. passed through pretty quickly (not counting all our luggage toppling off the trolley), dropped off our bags at transfers, and hot-tailed it to our gate, to see the airbridge moving away from the plane.
Very calmly, we arranged to get to Vegas via Denver instead, and walked down to our gate (again, sweaty and of course smelly :-) ).
We boarded the flight, and uneventfully tranferred at Denver, finally arriving in Las Vegas after 10pm. We headed down to get our luggage, but of course it wasn't there... turns out, our bags were still in DC and the car seat went to Los Angeles?!

So, we left the terminal buildings and found a shuttle to our hotel (The Venetian), arriving closer to midnight than we originally had planned. Checked in, and we were assigned a room on the 3rd floor overlooking a loud air-conditioning compressor. Aron by this time was ready for breakfast (9am Zurich time) and had trouble adjusting to our new timezone. It was a wonderful 2 hours when he finally did sleep.
6am local time Sunday morning, and we went for a stroll around the hotel and attached shopping mall (all but a coffee shop was closed). Later, we found a food court and had a pecan-topped cinnamon bun and a bottle of apple juice.
I wanted to call to check on my baggage, but this phone had switched on in my pocket, and too many invalid PIN entries had locked the SIM card. Thank you Andrea for saving us - I got the PUK number and unlocked the SIM.
Then we headed out to walk the strip...

It was warm in Zurich when we left, sweaty and smelly in the 25-30 degree summer sunshine.. but nothing prepared us for the 40+ temperatures that we were to enjoy here in the Nevada desert. Inside, it's cool if not somewhat frigid. Outside, it's blazingly dry, and the ground radiates the latent heat back upwards. We walked past the Wynn hotel, and stopped in at the Fashion Show shopping mall for lunch (steak burrito and large root beer for me, a chicken dish with rice for D, and Aron ate his usual "mush from a jar" :-) ). The portions here are huge, and neither D nor I finished our food. It's no surprise that Americans are, by and large (hehe) overweight. We then continued onwards up the strip to a Walgreen's, where we bought some snacks, toiletries and drinks, before heading back to the hotel to rest. Dinner was from the foodcourt in our hotel - D had a chicken burger, I had beef with broccoli and steamed rice which we took to our room.

This time Aron was on a better schedule, and after a bath went straight to sleep, while we ate. Our luggage arrived just as we were falling asleep, at about 10pm. Aron awoke once in the night, and slept till 06h40 local time, which was great - we all felt very rested. The fax/printer in our room sprang to life too, for no apparent reason (sounded like printer head alignment or cartridge cleaning) sometime in the wee hours so I unplugged it.
I took Aron for a walk to the lobby where I got information from the Concierge, then informed check-in about the printer issue and the airconditioning compressor outside, and we were given a new room - nicer than our 3rd floor suite (all the rooms here are suites) on the 32nd floor. Now we have a great view of the strip, the pool deck, and can see the airport and mountains in the distance.

Yesterday we walked the North strip, so today we headed South. Passing each hotel, we'd pop in for a quick look around (and a chance to cool down), before meandering onwards. In every hotel entrance, one is greeted by the ringing & chiming of slot machines, and the air of hope (or perhaps it's despair) hangs over each player. We haven't yet made our donation to the casino lords yet, but I anticipate being a handful of coins lighter before we leave. No high rollers in this family, fortunately.

One of the highlights today (other than a refreshing Italian ice cream - Pina Colada, and Mango flavours) was seeing the fountains at the Bellagio. Check it at at www.youtube.com - it's brilliant... much bigger than I had expected (then again, here everything is massive!) and brilliantly choreographed to classical music.

Contemplating dinner at either Planet Hollywood (unlikely), Outback grill next door (more likely) or a restaurant in our hotel (most likely). More once we know.

40kms of rolling terrain....

Arranged with our neighbour a while ago to go cycling together, and have been threatening for a while to arrange something. Finally yesterday we went out - and we're a good match for one another. He's pretty strong on the flats and downhills compared to me, and definitely much much fitter (windsurfs a *lot*, cycles on avg 10000km per year although this year has been slow, etc..). Being 20kg lighter (and 20 years younger), I'm quite a bit faster on the hills - but he kept his heart rate below 150 the whole time [I should mention at this point that he has a triple chainwheel], whereas mine was - as usual - hovering around the 170-180 mark on the hills (granted, I was going about 50% faster than him on the uphills). I really need to work on my fitness.

So, thanks to my trusty Polar Heart Rate Monitor which is also my cycling computer, I have nice stats about altitude, speed, cadence (pedal rpm), etc...

Our route took us from home (Binz is *just* above Zumikon on the top-left of the map linked here) through Zumikon, and parallel to the highway heading east towards Egg. Just after Egg we turned southwards, and over the Zollikerberg down towards the Zurich lake, joining it somewhere between Obermeilen and Männedorf. Then head north-west along the lake to Meilen, and back up the hill to Egg, and track back to home. 40km in all, with around 600m of climbing (I started my clock a little way into the ride because I was fiddling with my wireless chest strap for heart rate pickup).

Here's a PDF ouput of the ride, all nicely graphed

As you can see, I'm not the fittest cat on the block, but I can "comfortably" maintain 180bpm for quite a while going uphill so I suspect my lactate threshhold is at least at a decent level compared to my heartrate. A couple of these rides a week and I'd have no trouble with it at all, and could probably increase my pace considerably.

As Greg LeMond said: "(It) doesn't get easier. You just get faster".
True words.

10 days left in Zürich

10 days left in Zurich ... 8 working days... then we're off to USA.

It's looking reasonably positive workwise, in that I'll get all my major projects completed before I leave (the reason I stayed on until the end of June rather than leaving mid-May as per notice period).

Going out for dinner with colleagues on Tuesday night - I know it's going to be a sentimental time for me [as will Friday next week, my last working day].

Weather here is a bit dodgy - really hot recently, rain and thunder last night, and probably again tonight ... I'm supposed to be cycling with my neighbour this evening, so it'll be interesting whether that transpires or not. Either way, if it's not raining I need to get out and do a lap of my local loop ... I haven't cycled since Thursday!

We're in the process of packing up some of our stuff, and will have to make a concerted effort this weekend to purge our drawers, cupboards and shelves of things we need to pack away before we leave (either to take with us, or to leave in the cellar until we get back, as we're renting out our apartment during our absence). Still need to organise with a neighbour or a friend to mow our lawn while we're away... And send out details to companies that we'll be away... I plan to prepay all bills (health insurance, mobile phone, Cable TV/Internet, and so on...), but if I miss something glaring it would be nice that they're preinformed and can just drop me an email as necessary.

Google Puzzle Solver (1-14 in shape of a G)

Wei-Hwa's latest puzzle follows, along with - once again - a solver written in Perl.
The puzzle is as follows:


The image on the right shows 18 available positions for placement of the numbers from 1 to 14. Of course, 4 positions will remain unused. The trick is to place the numbers incrementally such that the distance between each successive increasing pair is larger than its predecessor.

ie, the distance between 1 and 2 must be smaller than the distance between 2 and 3, which must be smaller than the distance between 3 and 4, and so on, until you've used up all the numbers.

I won't give the solution out here (unless you ask for it), but I will attach a piece of code I wrote in Perl (as always? :) ) that solves the puzzle through recursive brute-force attempts. A puzzle like this is perfectly suited for using recursion, and lets face it - these days so few people even remember recursive programming (LISP / Scheme, anyone? :) ).

Download my code here

Have fun!!!

Cycling

Considering the great weather we've been having, I had to get out in the saddle a few times this week again.
Monday I commuted to/from work by bike - it was quite enjoyable, and definitely a much more pleasant way to get to work than sitting in traffic on the highway.
Thursday, with the pending rain forecast for Friday, I went on my standard loop around the Greifensee - anticlockwise (I seem to alternate directions each successive ride).

Here's the output from my Polar heart rate monitor:

As you can see, I'm not the fittest cat around (my heartrate is an indication of the exertion, and I'm in my top zones a little too often), but my speed is reasonable and I'll improve as time goes by.


One thing I do notice, quite markedly, is how much more comfortable I feel going up our local (roughly 7% gradient) hill. It's 3km of man-vs-machine, and after a very long time off the bike I certainly feel its effects.. but ride a few times within a couple of weeks, and it's no longer such a meanie. Yay progress! Yay me!

Now I just need to force motivate myself to get out there more often and spend time in the saddle, where it counts.

Population + 1, Tour de Suisse cycle tour, baby carseat

Last week my sister-in-law (brother's wife) gave birth to a girl -- Zahava Ariella.
I'm now an uncle three-times over.

I'm slowly managing to get back in the saddle - went for a ride on Thursday night and Saturday morning, around the Greifensee, and cycled to work today... The weather being what it is, it's too-good an opportunity to pass up. I'm still looking for a commuter to use in California - not wanting to pay more than a few hundred dollars, but I don't want a rust-bucket either. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll be riding something with far less lustre than what I have now - which is fine ... but I definitely want to get something that I'll still enjoy taking out for the extra hour a few times a week, if for no other reason than to burn off the calories I'll be consuming in extra food while we're there (staff canteen, eating out, etc). That, and a bicycle is such a brilliant way of discovering an area.

snip snip

Yesterday we went to the Bris - a Jewish circumcision - of the son of our Rabbi. We're finding more and more that the community here is a good one, and people are inclusive and quite friendly... moreover, everyone speaks English (pretty well, if not natively) .
The weather played along nicely, and it was warm and sunny. We had to park about 700m away though, and were running late on arrival (I missed the turnoff to the right road), so we were a little warm on arrival ... soon remedied though.


Today marks 16 working days left at Monzoon :-o
I will complete the last pieces of code in my software development upgrade, and over the next couple of days I need to migrate a server or two... Then I'll have reached my target before I leave.


Remembered recently that another school friend now lives in San Francisco. I dropped him an email, and we'll meet up when we're over there ... Seems we may have ourselves a mini reunion of sorts ... or at least, I'll catch up with lost friends if nothing else.