Haven't been updating for a while. 2 week ago I went hiking at castle rock state park near Saratoga. The view was so-so compared to previous hikes and the weather was a bit too hot. I met another 2 Malaysians at the hike. Man, there are actually many malaysians around bay area. When an oversea malaysian met another malaysian, especially the chinese, the topic would be none other than bashing the government back home. Chinese just likes whining:)


Along the way we saw some rock climbers. It's cool but I don't think I have balls for that, and probably physically not fit enough. Look at the picture, this is how high they did!

Since rock climbing is too physical for me, how about a half-marathon? I signed up a half-marathon (13+ miles) in early october. Registration costs 75 dollar, which is really expensive. But I just want to give it a try. It's a city route around San Jose downtown so it may not be as nice as those SF run. To prepare for my first half-marathon, i have been running 5-miles route for the past few weeks. If I can sustain well then I should try out full marathon in the future.

8/8/8 Olympic! I missed the opening ceremony. Since I came to the US, I have missed many of these grand sport events, like previous olympic in Athens, world cup, thomas cup etc. It sucks that I don't have cable TV but thanks to NBC live streaming, i could still watch live games/matches online. Right now it looks like China is the leader of gold medal standing. What about Malaysia? Will we get a gold this time? I wonder why squash is not an olympic sports. If it is then we probably already secured a gold.

And 8/8/8 is a good day to get marry too. A colleague in our group actually got married on that day. Our whole CPU team went out for lunch the day before her marriage in a chinese restaurant. A few of us were seated at a table with another 2 directors. Because of their presence, it was kinda awkward because everyone was quiet. Both of them left in the middle of the lunch and suddenly the atmosphere was lighten up. Haha... it was just funny.

I took a 2 days motorcycle course over the last weekend. It's a rider training by Motorcycle Safety Foundation. I passed the course so right now I just need to take my written test to get my M1 license... woohoo! It has been almost 6 years since I last rode my 110 cc Kriss II. It's really fun to be able to ride again. The difference this time is we were practicing on a full-clutch 240 cc honda nighthawk, a big bike compared those in Malaysia but it is among the smallest in the US. The control wasn't that hard actually. The course itself is well designed for beginner like me as it covers the basic skills like upshifting/downshifting, throttle control, clutch control, friction zone, counterweighting, cornering technique etc. Those are like brand new skills to me though i have riden before. These days I have been searching on craigslist but it's really hard to find a used Ninja 650R. I am keeping my option open for Suzuki SV650 and Yamaha FZ6. These are pretty good looking bike and beginner friendly too.