San Jose June 2008
Another seminar, this time in San Jose California. I had never been to San Jose and being kind of a computer geek I was excited to visit Silicone Valley. I was amazed that Northwest had a direct flight into San Jose, I had thought I would have to fly into San Francisco and drive to San Jose. I like flying west a lot more than flying east. my departure flight was at 10:00 am and I landed in San Jose about 11:45 am. If I head east on a departure flight I have to catch a 7:00 am flight to get to my destination by noon. Of course you pay on the return flight because I have to take the red eye home.
The seminar was at the Holiday Inn San Jose. The hotel is older but well kept up. My room was a little small by Holiday Inn standards but nicely decorated. The banquet rooms were far nicer that any of the banquet rooms that I have stayed at lately. I was in Woodside 1. All of the Woodside meeting rooms were located by the pool, the outside walls were glass to from floor to ceiling. Setup on Monday went mostly without a problem, the only issue that I encountered was a machine problem that I was aware of and I came prepared, I thought, to fix it. We have a machine that had a bad K2 relay on the power board, so I thought. As it turned out the problem was actually the expansion board, luckily I had a spare.
The classes were ok, I could have been better but that is the way it goes sometimes. The food at the hotel was great, usually we have pizza or sandwiches or lunch but we had stuffed turkey breast, fillet mignon, salmon and prime rib, and it was all very good. I am not sure what Kelly had to pay for lunches but the food was much better than what I am use to. The banquet staff was great, I believe Rose was the name of the person that served us our lunches and she was like a doting grandmother. We requested to have lunch by the pool so she set up tables for us by the pool, she had a great personality and she made sure that all if my students were happy. The only problem that we had was the air conditioning broke the end of the third day. It appeared that it was fixed for the last day of class but by noon it was heating up in the room again. they opened the sliding wall to Woodside 2 so we could get cool air from Woodside 2 into our room.
Usually I do not do much when class finishes for the day, generally I have room service and watch a little TV, I hate eating alone at a restaurant, I'll either call my wife and talk through dinner or I will bring a book or magazine and read. Every now and then I will buy drinks for the students at the end of the day and occasionally take them to dinner but we are not suppose to buy dinner for the students on a regular basis.
The nice thing about a seminar in northern California is you know the weather is going to be nice and there is a lot you can do when class is over for the day. We do not have Fry's in Minnesota and I needed a meter for class so I HAD to go to geek heaver- Fry's after class. I drove to Santa Cruse one evening. There is not a lot to see there. They have an amusement park which I drove past and a pier that you can drive onto with shops and restaurants. The drive to Santa Cruz is beautiful, it is a winding road thought the hills.
I went into San Jose one night, I was going to have dinner but I could not find any place that was interesting to eat at. I was a little disappointed, maybe I was in the wrong part of downtown, but it was a little seedy, drunks on the streets etc...
Los Gatos was my favorite town. It is a walking town, there are many good shops and restaurants within several blocks.I opted for Gardino's, it is a small Italian restaurant on the main drag of Los Gatos. It is small but the food is good, not great Italian food but good food. After dinner I went to a coffee shop just down the street and had a latte and checked my email.
I took the red eye home from San Francisco, it beat taking a 6:00 am flight on Saturday morning and wasting half of my Saturday. I actually did waste half of the day because I took a three hour nap when I got home. The temperature hit 101 F on my last day. My plan was to walk around Fisherman's Wharf and then go to North Beach to have dinner. It was hot in San Francisco, it had to be 90 F. I parked at the main ramp on the Embarcadero, I knew it was expensive but I was surprised to have to pay $28 for a three hour stay in the ramp. Since it was so hot I decided to drive to North Beach, a big mistake, there was no parking to be found so I just kept going and went to SFO and had dinner in the airport.
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