One nice feature about this Canon is that it records in a widescreen format (as you can see in the LCD screen comparison below).
Looks like the Sony is going to eat the Canon!
Jay's birthday was on October 15th so Heidi and I chose to remember him by having one of his favorite treats, a cookie! We had it personalized for him...
Our San Jose Sharks start another season this Thursday against the St. Louis Blues. Can you smell the ice? GO SHARKS !!
We celebrated Heidi's birthday this year at CreAsian in Morgan Hill. The food was good and my Mom was nice enough to find the perfect bakery to create a chocolate cake with fresh raspberries and whipped cream. It was nice having everyone get together to wish Heidi a happy birthday.
We celebrated Steve's birthday on Saturday night at Elephant Bar & Restaurant in Cupertino. There was a good a good turnout of nine family members and the food was great. I know Steve LOVES to have his picture taken, but I was lucky enough to get a decent smile out of him.
Tried a new restaurant in Morgan Hill today with Robin. It's called CreAsian and it's selling itself as "Creative Asian Cuisine". Fairly large menu that seemed to mainly be Japanese dishes. I had the bento box that included chicken teriyaki and gyoza. It wasn't bad. I'll be back to try the thai chicken dish that Robin ordered.
This weekend we went for a little hike with our niece and nephew (Emily & Ryan) at Henry Coe. Emily wanted to go for a much longer hike, but we didn't go too far since we weren't sure how far Ryan could go. But Ryan kept up the whole way and was the first one to make it back to the parking lot!
My Mom has been wanting an iPod for quite some time and she got one over the weekend! She decided on a 5G 30GB model since it has a big screen. She liked the weight and size of the Nano, but the screen is just too small.
Logitech Ice & USA Hockey followed suit with the NHL and created new tougher rules on obstruction. There were a ton of penalties to start out the season. Basically, if you put your stick on another player, you're going to the box! Jeff, pictured below, was beating the opposing team's forwards to the puck all night long.
Heidi and I will be going on Saturday to the Dew Action Sports Tour at HP Pavilion. Hopefully we'll get to see some great Freestyle Motocross action and witness Travis Pastrana's amazing skills (although I doubt he'll be doing a double backflip outdoors).This picture is from the Denver stop of the tour. It should be fun!
Every vehicle has it's pros and cons and with my Element there are certainly some negatives (suicide doors & underpowered engine). But it also has some nice positives (clamshell rear gate & cargo height capacity). It's definitely nice being able to put our bikes in the back of the Element (without taking the front wheels off) and being able to run some errands or go out to lunch after the ride without worrying about people stealing or vandalizing your bike. Would I buy an Element again? Probably not, but it's still been a fun and unique vehicle.
Heidi painted two pieces with cycling themes for our upstairs TV room. They should go great in the room! We're also thinking about buying a complete vintage bike and mounting it on the adjacent wall for some added depth. If you have any ideas on the best way to mount a complete bike (with the least amount of hardware showing) please let us know.
Heidi and I finally finished our first scrap book album of our family trip to Kauai. It only took THREE months to complete! It's been fun sharing the album with family and friends.
Donald Trump has turned on one of his own, giving the axe to his longtime boardroom sidekick and Apprentice costar amid a newspaper report that TV fame had gone to her head.
You never realize how dirty a tire is until you have to hoist it into the back of your vehicle! :)
Get ready for a segregated "Survivor." Race will matter on the upcoming season of the CBS show as contestants will be divided into four tribes by ethnicity. That means blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians in separate groups.
SanDisk is going after the Apple Nano with it's new Sansa. This has 8GB of memory with an expandable microSD slot to boost the total memory to 10GB (for a total capacity of 2,500 songs.
A couple of weekends ago some family members met at Ping's Mongolian BBQ here in Morgan Hill for dinner. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet where you add vegetables, noodles, meats and sauces into a bowl and they stir fry everything on a large round grill. The food was good and reasonably priced. I'm sure we'll be back for more...
Jeff tried mountain biking with me over the weekend at Anderson Reservoir here in Morgan Hill. He's shown here acting like he's getting sick. What a sense of humor!
Handheld computer and phone maker Palm Inc. is to unveil the latest version of its Treo smart phone next month as it attempts to revive sales hit by tough competition and problems with previous models.Owen Nolan finally made it back to the NHL after his most recent injury kept him on the shelf the entire season last year. Wayne Gretzy is taking a chance with him and thinks he'll be one of the best power forwards on the Phoenix roster.
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The next generation of robots!
On Saturday Jeff and I went to Hollister Hills to go dirt bike riding. This photo of a "bowl" shaped area is one of our favorite spots to ride. You can see all the different routes you can take to descend and climb each side. If you enlarge the photo (by clicking on it) you will see Jeff on the other side. This kind of puts the size of these hills into perspective!
Just signed up for the 2006 Coyote Creek Cycling Classic. This is a fun ride put on by the Boy Scouts of America and it starts and ends at the Model Aircraft Skypark on Coyote Creek Trail. There are 12, 25 and 50 mile routes. I plan on riding the 50 mile route that passes by all three local reservoirs (Calero, Chesbro and Uvas). This is a ride I wanted to participate in last year, but it was too close to the Waves to Wine MS Society ride. If you'd like to learn more about this ride, below is the link to the main page:
Navy SEAL training pushes men to their limit to prepare for ever-tougher missions. In this picture, SEAL trainees bounce off the bottom of the tank to catch their breath during "drown-proofing", an exercise that toughens them for an escape.
I like this photo because everyone looks so relaxed and happy. This was taken by a nice person passing by who offered to take our picture. Supposedly, parts of the first Jurassic Park movie were shot in the background of this photo near the jagged breakwater.
Back in 2002 our hockey team had the opportunity to play an exhibition game on the same ice that the San Jose Sharks play on. Yea, we didn't get the fancy locker room, but it was still great playing on the same ice as the pros. Not to brag, but we won by a score of 7-0 or something like that.
Here's our neice Jayda celebrating Dawn's birthday with us at Mimi's Cafe in Gilroy (THE GARLIC CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, impressive, eh?)
This is the only picture I have of Robin, Scott & little Kami. I'm still working with Robin and Scott has moved to Southern California and is doing well working at Expo Design Center selling their products & services. Kami is a diabetic and needs two insulin shots each day (but that doesn't stop her from enjoying life).
Here's our neice Emily at City Beach in Fremont. Amazingly she wasn't scared at all and just climbed straight to the top on the first try. Needless to say, it was a proud moment. We'll have to make some time and go again. If anyone wants to go, just let us know. Maybe it'll motivate us to go on a regular basis...
A co-worker had asked me to be a pen pal with an employee in Japan who would like to improve his English. His name is Toshi and he is pictured with his father, sister(far left), wife (in the traditional Yukata dress) and their daughter Sawa (in blue). According to his latest e-mail, they attended the "Bon" festival and seem to be tossing back a few beers in celebration!
Heidi wanted to trying riding up some hills that I ride so I took her on the Llagas/Oak Glen/Willow Springs route. It's a short climb up to the Chesbro Reservoir (I think it's around 900 feet of total climbing) and Heidi had a goal of not having to "walk the bike" during any part of the ride. She succeeded (with a lot of help from her CamelBak).
Started off on what I thought was going to be a quick 20 mile ride through San Martin but when I rode over 101 I heard my front tire get a puncture and new I'd have to pull off and fix the tube.
Sat on the side of a road and pulled off my front wheel and proceeded to fix the flat tire. About fifteen minutes later after checking to make sure my front wheel is ready to go, I look at my bike on the ground and notice the back tire is also flat!
Now, my bike is completely disassembled and I spend another fifteen minutes on the back tire. I know, 30 minutes doesn't seem like long, but in the heat that has hit the Bay Area lately, it seemed like an eternity! Maybe I'll have to add some tire liners on my road bike to try and prevent tire punctures...
