santaclara – Made by Mikal

Dave and Busters

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 18, 2006
Post category:Travel

To celebrate a recent launch the team went out to an "adult arcade" called Dave and Busters today. An adult arcade is pretty much what it sounds like -- imagine a huge collection of arcade games, pool tables, bar, and restaurant. I of course had the most American thing I could find, which was a double cheese burger. It was sufficiently huge that I didn't really have dinner, just a light snack. Dave and Busters was cool, and I recommend having a look if you ever see one of them. The food is generic, but of a reasonable quality and quite cheap compared to what you would pay in Australia. The games are expensive, but given I have basically never been to an arcade in Australia I don't know if that is run for the course or not. I had fun, and I suspect that James with his fifty fluid ounces of Guinness did too. Oh, thats 1.47867648 liters by the way.

VTA station for the Santa Clara Convention Center

Post author:mikal
Post published:April 21, 2006
Post category:Travel

I'm doing public transport research for MySQL user's conference next week. Here is how to get from the VTA station at Old Ironsides to the Santa Clara Convention Center.

Public transport to San Francisco from Santa Clara

Post author:mikal
Post published:March 22, 2006
Post category:Travel

Colin wonders about public transport in California, which I must say is much better than the public transport I m used to in Canberra. Colin, to get to San Francisco, jump on the VTA light rail and head to the Castro Street (Mountain View) station. There, jump across to the Caltrain station, which will take you the rest of the way to San Francisco. I would think without having done it that you should allow about 45 minutes for the journey. Here is the Caltrain trip planner for that journey... $7 seems pretty fair to me. I don't really believe the two hour estimate that it gives there, but I guess it might be right.

Jet lag

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 21, 2005
Post category:Travel

Apparently I'm not over my jet lag just yet, as it's 5:30am and I can't get back to sleep. I've been up for about an hour now. Oh well.

Arrived yesterday

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 20, 2005
Post category:Travel

So, Andrew and I arrive in Santa Clara from Canberra yesterday. It took about 24 hours of travelling, and a lot of queueing to make that happen, but we're here finally. I must admit I'm really liking things so far, I was a bit worried about the expense of rent until we went and saw am apartment complex this morning, and I'm not worried about that now. The mall is nice (the local one that is), the temporary apartment is nice (photos soon), and the rental car is crap, but that's ok. On a musical note I only just recently discovered the Black Eyes Peas, so I picked up Elephunk this morning. Damn that's a good album -- it's rare for me to find a disc that I like every track on, but this is one of them. Anyways, here. Alive. In Santa Clara for now. Must wander off now...