Artiscence

Buildings of companies like Yahoo, Canon, Juniper Network, Motorola, Rambus, NASA Ames Research Center, e.t.c were the sightings that awaited me when I took the light rail to Mountain View in California. I wanted to go to Mountain View to visit the Shoreline Park and Trail. However, on getting there, I realized that Mountain View is a  distinct extension of the Silicon Valley. What do I mean by this? I mean that many of the high-tech companies were right in Mountain View, and very close to the Shoreline Trail.  Companies like Microsoft: 23andMe (a genetic testing company for health, disease and ancestry): and Google: Also right in Mountain View is the Computer History Museum, a museum aimed at preserving the history of the information age. I saw the oldest computer I'll probably ever see when I walked in to ask for directions to the Shoreline Park and Trail. Anyways..... Like I mentioned prior, the mai...

*So, it turns out I am going to do this backwards. That is, start from the end of my trip to California and end at the beginning. I might throw a dash of other activities in between as well. Let's see how crazy my creativity gets. Should be interesting.* While on the CalTrain going from San Jose to San Francisco, I wrote "what I saw" at each train stop.  I wanted to see and (try to) walk on the Golden Gate Bridge. So on my last day in California, because my plane doesn't leave till late at night, I decided to go spend a few hours in San Francisco. On getting on the train, I realize my camera was deep inside my bag, and I wanted to write as well, so I tripled up my iPod Touch as a camera, a nifty notebook and music player. The pictures look grimy, but I like how they describe (as is) the different stops along the ride to San Francisco. Gritty graffitti in Lawrence. A reminder of South Bronx. Clothes hanging in the backyard. Blazing sun in the dusty ...

Way back in May while I was in Nigeria, my family and I went to visit my sister and her husband.  They live in Ibadan, about 2hrs drive from Lagos (congested Lagos-Ibadan express way traffic factored in).  If the traffic was any worse than that, we might have been on the road a few more hours. My sister and her husband had just gotten married and they both attend the University of Ibadan. While there, they prepared amala and ewedu soup with goat meat . Yum!  Because eating such a heavy meal in the afternoon can make you drowsy, we decided to go to the University of Ibadan Zoological Garden and stroll around.  The temperature was high but offset by the cool breeze through the garden. There were lots of people at the zoo, especially school kids on excursions. Ah, I remember those days of excursions. Once a semester, a class would go on an excursion with two or more teachers acting as chaperones. The trips are usually outdoors like Olumo...

*Incase you wonder why I have random pictures showing houses and trees, read to the end. ;-) On Busyness: I've been so busy that I wasn't aware of the month of October creeping by. I thought September was busy enough but October proved me wrong. I've noticed that the busiest time of the academic year for me is always Fall. First, it's the start of a new academic year and there's always something to fill out and sign up for. Also, the days get shorter and I realize before I'm done with an experiment, it's dark out, whereas in Summer, it's still bright till 8:00pm or even later.  Second, conference season is usually in the Fall and so time is allocated to gathering data for presentations and travels. In October, I had to finish up a few small projects in the lab, prepare a presentation poster and attend two conferences. Although, there were times  work got cramped and I was afraid I won't get everything I needed on time, things fell into p...