Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Jon and Stacy's Wedding in St Louis


After my trip to Israel, I was home just long enough (1.5 days) to unpack, do laundry, then repack to head to St Louis for Emily's brother's wedding. This is why I have been so slow to get these posts up.....things are happening faster than I can write! But I guess it is a good problem to have. :) We had an awesome time in St Louis visiting with family and enjoying all the wedding festivities.

dim sum

the groomsmen hanging out on Friday before the rehearsal

rehearsal in Forest Park

Mom and Dad looking great

Emily's Aunt, Grandma, and Mom


Jon and Stacy toasting at the rehearsal dinner

The rehearsal dinner was a 12 course traditional Chinese meal including lobster....we ate like kings

Emily's Mom's side of the family - Aunts, Uncle, Mom, and Grandma

the wedding party table

traditional Chinese tea ceremony at the house: each couple is served tea from the bride and groom in exchange for gifts and jewelry

Em got emotional at the tea ceremony - so happy for her little brother!

at the ceremony in Forest Park - the lawn in the distance was decorated with a flag commemorating each of those lives lost in 9/11 (the ceremony was on 09/10/11 - a day before the 10 year anniversary)

the ladies looking their best at the wedding

Jon and Stacy's First Dance

Congrats Jon and Stacy - we are so happy for you both and wish you a lifetime of love!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

The Dead Sea

On my last day in Israel, I got off work with just enough time to drive 1.5 hours to the Dead Sea before the sun went down. Driving through the West Bank is akin to being on Mars; it is very desolate, hot, arid, and shows absolutely no signs of life. The only water present is so saturated with salt that nothing can live in it, nor can it even come close to being used as a refreshing respite for a parched traveler. The Dead Sea is aptly named.



the road to the Dead Sea

yours truly at a roadside vista with the Dead Sea in the distance

a resort appears as an oasis

I pulled over near a hotel resort and had some time to take a float in the Dead Sea. It is a feeling that everyone should experience at least once in their life. Put this on your bucket list. I would argue it is worth the plane ticket just to have this experience. Imagine walking out into an oily hot bath only to have your feet float out from under you. You float on top of the hot salt water with zero effort and bask in the sun with a feeling of zero gravity. As you move, the viscous liquid flows around you in ways that make you appreciate all those lectures in fluid mechanics. You suddenly become aware of the differing buoyancy of your different body parts. Lying on my back, if I lift my leg out above the surface, my overall weight stays constant while my displacement lessens....and I sink an extra inch in the water. If I use my muscles to force my legs deeper into the water, my displacement increases so my body floats a little higher on the surface. You simply cannot get this graduated level of buoyancy in regular water nor can you experiment like this because, in regular water, you are usually expending a great deal of effort just to stay afloat. Now I am floating with zero effort. It actually takes effort to attempt to sink. I fail to completely submerge my body. This is fun....I start to laugh....out loud. As other tourists delight in a similar ethereal experience, they too giggle and profess their fascination in their many different languages. You can tell immediately who is a first timer by their giddy expressions. You can soak in the salt water for hours and the skin on your hands does not pucker, it looks the same as when you got in. When you get out of the water, the drops never dry and you do not experience evaporative cooling, despite the fact that it is a very hot and very dry climate. The minuscule amount of water in the drops on your skin is so tightly bound by the salt molecules that they will not let the water release into the air. Eventually, however, evaporation slowly wins and you are left with a thin layer of salt crystals coating your skin.
After a quick rinse, I hit the road for a final trip to the hotel to get my stuff and head to the airport for my return trip home. It was a memorable trip, but hopefully next time I will have more time to see the rest of the country.

Floating on the Dead Sea was a relaxing way to end a trip that was anything but relaxing.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Jerusalem

My time in Israel was quickly running out, and I had been working so much that I did not have a chance to see any of the other famous historical places. So, I decided to try and squeeze in some sights after work in the evening. Jerusalem was only about a 45 minute departure from my normal route home from Kiryat Gat to Tel Aviv, so I took the scenic detour and arrived at dusk. In all honesty, I think this city looks best at night, as the ancient stone buildings bask in modern artificial light.
The Old City


East Jerusalem


The Western Wall

I ventured to East Jerusalem to take some B&W shots of the stone streets. I did not know at the time that this was not the safest neighborhood to be walking around at night alone. I could sense I was being followed by 3 men. I tried to keep walking to keep my cool. Unfortunately, the street dead ended, and I was forced to turn around and walk towards the 3 men I believed to be watching me. They began speaking to me, however it was either Arabic or Hebrew, so I had no clue what they were saying to me. I ignored them and kept walking. As I passed by them, they grabbed me from either side and attempted to rob me. After a short scuffle, I managed to break free and ran as fast as I could. I held tight on my camera as they were trying to pull it from my possession. I was especially concerned since I had just splurged on a new Cannon DSLR 18MP just days before the trip. Later, someone reminded me that I should have been more afraid for my own safety....however, at the time, I gotta admit I was thinking more about my belongings and somehow knew I would be able to hold my own (although it did not even cross my mind that they may have weapons). I must say that all the martial arts training in grad school was worth it in this brief moment. It's not that I went Chuck Norris on them, but the training gave me great confidence and even better body awareness/presence in difficult situations. A couple swift moves to break their grip was all it took to avoid a potentially dangerous situation. After running to a safer area of town, I found a nice restaurant and sat down to treat myself to an amazing meal. Somehow I felt I deserved it or that I was celebrating getting out of such a situation completely unharmed. I just sat there for awhile after the meal, alone, enjoying the view of the city at night, and thinking, "damn, I am lucky, and I have been through some cool stuff, and I have seen a lot of cool things in my life". As I am always rushing through life to see more and do even more, it sometimes takes something drastic for me to stop and reflect on what I am actually doing here. And then I quickly slipped back into my old self and resumed walking around taking pictures at night like a fool (albeit, now staying in safer parts of town)....I hope you enjoy the pics as much as I did taking them! :)

I saw a car that barely made it up this steep road



a typical street in the Old City


the exterior walls of the Old City of Jerusalem


After exhausting the safe areas of Jerusalem, I ventured towards Bethlehem....however it proved to be a little rougher than Jerusalem. After my encounter in Jerusalem, I thought it would be best just to do a quick drive through Bethlehem and not get out of the car to take pics. Also, I didn't have a GPS, so I was winging it old skool style with a paper map.....which screams tourist....so I didn't venture far. After driving by a burning dumpster (below), I concluded that I had experienced enough adventure for one night and drove straight back to Tel Aviv to the safety of my posh hotel. Sometimes you gotta know when to say when...and quit while you are ahead.

OK, I did actually get out of the car once in Bethlehem at night...but only to capture this dumpster fire

(one more final Israel blog coming soon)

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Tel Aviv, Israel

After finishing the Hood to Coast race (previous post), I jumped on a flight Monday morning to head to Israel for a work trip. Intel has a newly built chip fabrication (fab) facility in the town of Kiryat Gat, located about 1 hour south of Tel Aviv. If you were watching the news around that time, you would know that Kiryat Gat is in the southern region that was getting hit with rockets from Gaza. Luckily, they agreed to a cease fire a few days before my departure.
So I proceeded with my scheduled trip to Israel for an internal company audit to make sure their local fab is setup correctly and running according to spec before they start running production material. Audits are more fun when you are the one on the auditor side of the equation. :) My schedule was hectic, but I did get to squeeze in a few hours of sight seeing during my week long trip.

the Mediterranean Sea near Tel Aviv

the view from my hotel room in Tel Aviv (23rd floor)

walking around Tel Aviv, you will find a mix of old and new buildings:





the city at night

While I was visiting, there was an ongoing protest against the high taxes and high cost of living. For instance, when you buy a car in Israel, you pay over 100% tax on the car. On top of that, gas costs about $8.50 per gallon. Housing prices rival those of the most expensive American cities. Many middle class citizens struggle to make ends meet, despite having well paying jobs. The locals protested by living in tents in public areas of the city.


Finally, on September 3rd, there was an organized protest in which 400,000 people participated. It was the largest protest in the history of Israel. After getting home from work in the evening, I took my camera and hit the streets to immerse myself in the action! I can honestly say that I have never observed so many people concentrated in one area. It was great to be a part of this historic event.


of course I found some drummers to hang out with


It started getting late (the protest did not start until 10PM), so my jet lagged body forced me to retire to my hotel room before seeing the end of the festivities....besides, I had to get up at 6AM for work the next day......I was working through the weekend and I had been working the previous days from 6AM to 1AM and 6AM to 3AM....it's the Intel way ;) Time for some well deserved sleep.

(more Israel blogs to follow)

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Hood to Coast

On August 25-26 Emily and I participated in the 2011 Hood to Coast (HTC) Relay with a team of Emily's co-workers. Emily was team captain, so I was able to weasel my way onto the team at the last minute due to some injuries that forced a teammate to dropout a week before the race. HTC is a 200 mile running relay that starts at the top of Mt Hood and ends at the small Pacific coastal town of Seaside, Oregon. Each team has 12 runners split between two shuttle vans. The runners take turns while the vans leapfrog to the next exchange point. Each runner completes 3 sections and each section varies from 4-8 miles, so you end up running about 16-17 miles over the course of a day. The fun part is that there are no breaks in the race....it goes through the night. We started early Friday morning and finished Saturday afternoon. It was an amazing challenge and a great experience. Running through the pain on a back country road at night with just a headlamp to dimly light the way can take you to some places in your head that you didn't even know existed. If you are a runner (and I don't claim to be), then this is an event that you will look forward to doing again. I think I only slept about 2 hours in the van, yet I logged a pace 30 seconds per mile faster than my usual; I guess those late nights on call for work have prepared my body to function at peak performance no matter what time of day. :) ....or was it the Redbull and an energy bar for breakfast?




gearing up the team van (van #2) at our house before the race...in case you can't read our spoof corporate motivational signs they state "blurring Vision", "wavering Commitment", and my fav "begging for an Execution".....which pretty much sums up how you feel after running 17 miles on hardly any sleep!


looking to the start in the morning

powering through my first leg - a rolling 5.87 miles

exchange to teammate Chris (Emily's former manager)

donning the reflective vest for the night run

night exchange point - somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Oregon

Em running at 3AM

Em hands off the baton after finishing her night run

then we got stuck in traffic from all the vans...sometimes the runner beat the van so we had to get out and run an extra mile or so to make the exchange in time for the next runner

vans waiting at the exchange point

people get creative on where to sleep - this guy had a full matress in the back of his truck

Em heading down the final stretch to the coast to bring us across the finish line!

the AGX12 team

at the finish on the beach - time to party

after the race, we got massages then sat on the beach and just soaked in some sun and the views

Registration just opened up for next year......we just need to find 10 crazy friends to do it with us again.