Some of the great people i know

I have no regret of making this trip although it was tiring. I suffered a jet lag about one week. However, think about my "Intl-G8" summit, this pain is nothing.

Apart from introducing my boss Chris pattinson, there are numerous people worth to take an opportunities to intro them.

Spencer Kimball - A QA specialist in Zombie Automation. Without his assistance and patience, i doubt i can have a full overview of Testing Automation. Spencer is one of the most senior QA gurus who committed most of his time for Delphi Project. His expertise for Delphi product was really not a jokes, he started off even when Delphi version 1 / 2 is released to the market. Apart from mentioning his great experiences in Delphi, another area is something i should not miss, is about his knowledge in music. We had a wonderful chat in one of our lunch, he told me about blue and jazz music, and some wellknown singer. Spencer is a nice friend to make, apart from having a profound knowledge in technical expertise, he is also someone who appreciate life and his family very much.
--> here is spencer.

M.Mina - Our QA specialist in international Delphi, also a great colleague of mine. She is also a fun loving person and someone who love to smile a lot. Not to mentioned she is a very dedicated person in her work, she often take responsible and ownership. Being trained in delphi, her forte is in C++ area and able to do a good coding. Personally, mina also someone who 'americanized', she played game very well and i got beaten up in our 'Dead or Alive' game. Never under estimate a women gamer!
--> Here is mina :) (she prefer not to publish her photo although she has a photegenic face)

Benjamin, a switzerland buddy of mine while my training. At the young age of him, he was often inspired to have a dream of owning a chocolate business. He has a golden tongue that every single good quality chocolate will not be able to run away from his taste bud. During the stay, he helped me a lot in work area, even invited me to his Church. We have developed a great friendship and christian fellowship. He is a cool guy when come to work, often driven to be result oriented, focus and delivered high quality of work. One of few incident i never forget is when Stefan, Ben and i went to big basin for hiking, he has shown his mischief and we had spent a great outing.

--> A choco toast to Ben

Here is Stefan, another switzerland buddy of mine. He was cool and calm when come to programming. Despite the fact we do have much opportunity to work together, i do often ping him and disturb him in work :) so sorry about that, buddy. Stefan was assigned to do automation in VMWare. So i guess he has a relatively good programming skill. One of the regret i had is not able to see him before i leave Scott valley. But during our hiking in B.Basin, he showed his cares and leadership in leading us in finding the jungle route. I have managed to took quite a lot of nice portrait of this handsome man.

--> A toast to Stefan.

Ok, here is a guy not to be left out, Tom Pennings - a Racer from McLaren - BMW team :) I must thank him for taking me a good a ride in his VW R32 for lunches, while my staying. He was from Belgium, but work for Borland Corporation, Scott Valley as a Research Development Engineer . My impression of Tom is, he was a person with fine gesture, someone who enjoy life and appreciate life well. He may looks cool in appearance, but oftenly i was suprised by some of the jokes that he broke out. Here is a small jokes, Tom is a very fair person in his complexion, when we talk about his complexion, he made a small joke and said as if when he lift up his shirt right before the Traffic Light, most of the car will start taking it as a wrong signal and start crashing into each other :) Another thing not to be miss to mentioned is about his 'Need for Speed' driving, in his stylist VW Golf R32 Sporty version. Having a great, steady driving skill, Tom often 'exercise' his acceleration to top speed limit. We often felt suffocated by his thrilling speed when we sit in back seat. I often wondering, if he was a racer before he work for Borland? I took 50 mins ++ driving to Big Basin Camp site, but i heard Tom took less than 25mins to reached the entrance of Big Basin National Park at bending and winding slope, phew, no jokes?!

--> Toast to charming Tom Pennings.

Craig, a QA specialist for Eco Modeling. He is who i am liase closely with. He was helpful while my staying. In fact, i felt a bit dissapointed for not able to take a good portrait of him even before i leave. They had a long Delphi All hand meeting even in the last i stay in S.V. Craig has hippies looking, but he was overall very kind and warm person when come to work. If i don recalled wrongly, he was almost come in same time as spencer.

--> craig.- picture akan datang!!

Leonides Saguisag, our R and D specialist for Delphi intl builds. Fun loving guy, someone who appreciate a lot of japanese stuff. When you dropby his office, you will understand what i am saying. I felt pity of not able to catch up with him this round because his tight schedule in update 2. I heard about he is a cool sniper when comes to counter strike type of games. Too bad i don get a chance to see for myself. During the stay, he shown his goodwill hospitality of showing me at many spots. I must thanks him for this.

--> leo - picture akan datang!!

Great people often come at last, Calvin Tang! our program manager, a great colleague of my boss. My first impression of Calvin was, he don talk much, but as you can see he think very fast when come to making decision and playing games. He is a good gamer when comes to Strategy plotting games. Oftenly, i saw Chris and him partnering each other in cyberspace, i guess both of them must be good at covering each other. He also guided me in 'Dead and Alive' game, when the last day in Chris's house. Until the moment i saw him picked up some hails storm's snowball in his palm, i suddenly realised he also has an innocent side. How cute is Calvin! :P I want to take this chance to thanks him for the friendship and showed me some wonderful spot in California.

--> To Calvin!

Mike henderson, who coached me in cwRsync file transmission machanism. I owe one to him, however i do not have any chances of talking to him much. I will remember him.

Jeanne Hanson and Sheree Ervin , i regret of not able to take photo for both of them. They are the Delphi Archictect specialized in Re-factoring, project manager, object inspector, Code insight, and many other major component of Delphi. Again, they were not around the last Friday.

Santa Cruz BroadWalk

Here is place not to be missed in this trip, the Santa Cruz Broadwalk and its coastal line. It was build along a pier. located at the center of the coast line of Pacific Ocean. Here, you will often get to enjoyed by the bone shivering chillness of Pacific Ocean cold current.

I was lucky to made a trip to Broadwalk right before my boarding to SQ1 flight at midnite of 11th march. My adrenalin starts to emit and made me feel so excited, it was a life time experience whereby i get to see a lot of 'sealions', 'seadog', seagulls'. The sunset of Santa Cruz was indeed wonderful compared to other coastal areas. It was accompanied by the chilling cold breeze, and great view of the Light house.
--> some great shot of us, chris and ben.

We stopped by at a small restaraunt on top of broadwalk and had some food. Ben and i had creamy pasta. Chris had a fish and chips. As usual, no good chocolate can escape from benjamin's golden tongue, he immediately called the waitress to find out how they made a great choco drink :) We had a wonderful fellowship, chat and enjoy the great view of Pacific Ocean from a small hut restaurant.

My big basin trip

Having to optimize my trip in california, i have made my way to Big Basin RedWood Forest National park, one of the well-known spot that worth a visit.

On the 4th of March 2006, California time, is our hiking day to National Park of Big Basin in north Felton. Benjamin, Stefan, and i planned this trip almost 1 week early. Thank God for offering us such a great weather ahead. We met each other in Borland Scott office and pooled one car before we set off our journey. Acrossing many scenery view of Felton Village, golf course, along highway no.9, a very curvy slope, we are heading to the direction of entrance to Big Basin.

In fact, almost two day before the trip, California was badly hit by a heavy down pour, roads were wet and slippery. When we saw the sunny day on Saturday morning, we were relieved and filled with excitement, we went to a Super Market at Scott Valley Town to buy some sandwiches as our lunch. Then, we are set off our way to meet the "Father of the forest" and "Mother of the Forest", the tallest and the biggest trunk in the world. Driving in highway no.9 was not fun, it was a curvy and winding country road, we could not drive too fast but maintained at a moderate speed.

The whole journey tooks us about 50 mins, and we see the entrance of the Big Basin, greet by greenish big trees. I pay USD 6.00 for the park and we found a shieled parking for my car.

Soon after we parked the car, everyone rushed into restroom :) . I guess three of us were the lucky chap, when we step out from the rest room, we were greeted by a very rare species of bird from the forest, 'its' was so obedient such that it stood at the stool and let me take its picture.
--> picture of the bird

This is only the begining of the story. It was a sunny day, greeted by freezing cold breeze, my wind breaker was not enough to keep me warm. We then start inpecting our gears and our bags, and we moved on to find the trails of the hiking track.
--> picture of entrance.

We saw a small family from Asian country, but we are not sure where are they come from. We also met an US family, i took a photo for the chubby baby boy when he keep starring at me. He was.....damn Q! His family has not stopping me from taking his photo :grin:
--> photo of baby boy.

Since no more surprises, we move on to the starting trail of the track, start to feel amazed by the million years' trees. We found the memorandum plate of the person who saved the forest.

The forest was very nature, you often attracted by the nature composition of trees trunk, small drainage, and the million years moss. I was impressed by all the special shape of the trunks, wood log. I can tell some of the trees were really awesome.
-->> some picture of tree and mosses, drainage.

With a pleasing mood, we often tease each other in the forest. Ben and Stefan were great buddy while my staying. I ended up taking a lot of photo for them in the forest. Benjamin is cool guy, often come out with candid poses for me, A great model indeed. Stefan also is another charm looking guy, ended up i made a lots of good portrait for him. With the real nature as backdrop. I must says, great picture comes from great people , hehe :)
--> some awesome shot for three of us.

About 25 mins after our trails walk, we were finally stunned by an awesome gigantic 'Father of the forest' and the 'Mother of the forest'. Obviously, we can not miss it but took out my tripod and took our group picture.
--> picture of 'father of the forest' and 'mother of the forest'.

This is not end of the walk yet, three of us continue to find our way to the 'mini water-falls' - SEMPERVIRENS fall, we walk from another route without having a proper trail. It was a steep, wet, slippery route. Without a good grip, i slipped and felt down in the forest, dirtied half of my wind breaker and palm. What a close shave, i almost drop my precious Nikon into the fudgy muddy pad. My jeans was soak with mud too *_*
--> picture of dirty wind breaker.

Much later, we've decided to make a small de-tour of the route. We go through the main road and we walked about another 25 mins. We stop at a spot called the 'Begining of the World". Although sun light was strong, yet the wind blew our faces and we felt the stiffing coldness. Stopped for 15min, we had our "Cold Sandwich lunch" here.

It was approximately 2.45pm then, we could not affort any single waste of time, we continue to find our route to find the water fall and other nice spot.
--> water fall.

After a short visit to water fall, we decided to not to walk the same route back to main camp site. We make a de-tour, to find other nice spot. It was not wasted our effort, we've managed to find some awesome trunk in the forest, some funky wood craft in the forest.
--> broken gigantic trunk

--> some shots in bridge - three of us

--> some shot in small drain

--> interesting stair case cut by trunk wood.

We can not bear to leave this wonderful place..but its time to say good-bye.