2 Days in Santa Maria

Friday afternoon we took off for Santa Maria with clear skies and warm weather ahead. We arrived in Santa Maria around 5 PM, parked our plane at the hotel (very cool), picked up the rental car and set out. We planned to follow part of the path from the movie Sideways, as many people do who visit the area. We thought we’d hit the Hitching Post for a drink, but realized after arrival that we were at the wrong Hitching Post, we still stayed (Casmalia vs. Solvang – need to get the towns straight). After a drink and an appetizer, we played with the camera out by the back fountain.

We eventually went back towards Santa Maria for Dinner at Chef Ricks – nothing like Cajun food in California – the meal was great, good wine.

Saturday morning after a run around the south end of the airport, we went for the gut buster breakfast – if you’re going to drink – best to have a full stomach. We went to Bricks and had the omelets and then back to the hotel. We had a bit of time to chill and wait for the rest of the group to arrive. This was with the Fly Out Group – 6 planes, 18 people. The plan was to arrive on Saturday by 1 PM, we were the only couple to go down on Friday. There were only 11 of us to go wine tasting, but it takes some time to get coordinated. By 1:30 PM we had the group together and headed toward our first winery.

We found our Sideways map so we would hit the correct restaurants. We started at Foxen Winery, then Fess Parker Winery founded by the actor who played Daniel Boone in the 50’s & 60’s

From 2009 - March - Santa Maria Weekend

, and then Firestone Winery - I guess if you can mix chemicals for tires, why not try and make wine…(wasn’t very good)

We went to the real Hitching Post in Solvang for a drinks with the group and then we went to the Los Olivos Café for dinner. It was a long day, but a great one.

From 2009 - March - Santa Maria Weekend

Sunday we started off slow – after breakfast we made our way back to the Bay Area – glad to have the Instrument rating – a few people in the group were stuck until the morning clouds cleared.

There was an airplane accident at the San Carlos airport while we were away - the plane was still in the Marsh – not much detail yet, never know if the news is correct
.
I’ve posted a few photos from the trip – pictures always say more than words.

Until Next Time.

Travel’n Jay & Terry

2 Days in Washington DC

Another quick trip this week for the SAS user conference. I’ve been through Dulles airport 6 times this year and this is the first time that I’m actually staying in DC. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and made our way to National Harbor in Maryland – a new development along the Potomac with several hotels and a convention center.

We checked in for our sessions and then went into Georgetown for dinner at a Tapas restaurant. It’s a good place to hang out – a great place on a Sunday evening. We then took a drive down to Pennsylvania Ave to see the White House. There is certainly a considerable amount of security. We were not allowed to get very close due to the impending arrival of the Obama’s in Marine 1 in their return from Camp David. It was a bit dark for too many photo’s and getting late.

The guards weren't very appreciative of the creative photo's I wanted to take.....

Monday I managed to get a couple of free hours so I went back down too White House, the Washington Memorial, the WW II Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and the Capitol. It’s a great place to go for a walk – even on a Monday afternoon there are many people in the area doing the tourist thing.

Check out the photo’s if you have a minute – it’s been many years since I’ve been to the area.

2 Days in Rio de Janeiro

Thursday: We arrived in Rio around 6:30 PM and it was short ride to our hotel. We were right on Copacabana beach. A couple of things to note about the beaches in Rio – the first thing is that the beaches have lights and it’s common to find people on the beach at night. The second is that they clean the beaches each night and make sure there is ample garbage bins to collect the trash that accumulates on such busy beaches.

We had seafood at an open air café, having a drink and watch life go buy. A great way spend a Thursday evening - especially after 3 fairly intense evenings in Sao Paolo.

We wondered the board walk after dinner and found an open air market until it started raining and then went back to the hotel.

It is quiet this time of Summer in Rio due to the proximity to Carnival - which happened 2 weeks ago - they say that it will become very busy again in a another week or so.

Friday: The days start off warm at about 80 degrees with 110% humidity and it gest warmer from there. I went for a run and managed to catch the beach before it came alive.

According to our cab driver - this is one of the warmest summers on record and extremely dry. Of course they are expecting more rain again tonight and were very thankful for the rain the previous evening.

We were successful in our meetings with the Sun teams and Oracle teams in Rio and that evening decided to try and get some sight seeing in.

We decided to take the Gondola up to Sugar Loaf "Pao de Assucar" (pictured right) and get a view of the city. It worked out to be much more entertainment than we expected. We did make the trip to the top as the Sun set and a storm made it's way in. We had a fantastic view of a lightening storm coming our way.

We were captivated by the view of Rio at night as the storm approached. As a comparison the picture on the left is just before a strike.

Now the same picture on the right during a lightening strike - looks like the the lightening is trying to take out the Jesus statue - no worries we went and visited the next day - no damage)

By the time we realized this may be a bad time to be stuck on top of a big rock with nothing but the largest lightening rod (Gondola Cable) within 200 miles as our ride down - we were a bit late.

We did make it down from the top to Urca hill, but we were stuck there for about 90 minutes while lightening repeatedly hit various parts of the gondola cable - sent sparks flying, knocked out power, knocked out the backup generator for the top of the hill, and blew up a few light bulbs. (stuck in Gondola loading station pictured left)

After all the excitement we had dinner a bit later than planned, but it all worked out. I was still able to connect up with a fried from U of M Business School who was been down in Brazil since graduation working for McKinsey & Co - currently taking a sebatical to work with the Mayor of Rio. Felipe took us out for our best meal of the trip to Forneria Sao Sabastiao.

We visited a few bars near Felipe's house afterward - he made a few recommendations so we tried them all.

Saturday: We decided to make our way up to Corcovado to see the grand statue of Jesus. It appears to be quite the pilgramage for tourists.

We did make it to the top, but there was a layer of clouds and fog on the way in, which obscured the view a bit - second time that happened for us on the trip.

We then wen to the beach for an hour or so. Every vendor on the beach tried to sell us something. Mike being the savvy buyer that he is - bought 7 styrofoam airplane kites for 5 real (about $2 US). That was about as much Sun as we could handle. We grabbed lunch and watched a number of people playing volley ball, before making our way to the airport for the 15 hour flight home.

It was a good trip, but it's also good to be home. There are so many hours of work behind the scenes - these pictures really on portray a small portion of our time spent in Brazil (but I figured this is the more entertaining portion)

For more pictures click here.

4 Days in Sao Paolo

The First 4 Days in Brazil were in Sao Paolo for Oracle Open World. This is one of Oracle's 3 big customer events, a smaller one with 9,000 people. This was 4 days of meetings with the local sun teams, with Oracle and with customers.

Monday was a bit of a recovery day landing at 8 AM after 15 hours in an airplane, it was 2 flights both of which were sold out – not the easiest way to travel. We had a small break in the AM and had lunch by the pool (in doors due to heat) and then were off the meetings. For the Sao Paolo portion of the trip the dinners were the most interesting

Monday nights dinner was traditional Brazilian at Bargaco, we again avoided the many recommendations for Fogo de Chau, which is a big chain in Sao Paolo and the United States. (It would a bit like going to Italy and going to the Olive Garden). We told our hosts we wanted authentic food and they found it for us.

Dinner at Bargaco started at the traditional time of 9 PM (learned later this was early). We thought the appetizers were the meal, they brought a Moquecas dish with spicy sauce and a mix of sea food – fish, shrimp, crab, octopus, squid, clams, etc. The Moquecas is intended to feed 3 people – the 5 of us barely ate half. I would probably most closely compare it to Cajun (which makes sense since this more often a meal eaten in the Northeast part of the country). Finishing dinner at 12 AM makes it tough to get up and work out the next day.

Tuesday - I'll give you the highlights aside from a day packed with meetings.

Imagine if your family name was Apocalypse? Lunch was interesting – we shared a table with a number of other people – who were quite friendly, and helped Mike and I order our lunch. It turned out the woman sitting next to me had a last name, Apocalypse. That is the family name, she works at Oracle and her father has worked at IBM for the past 36 years and is quite well known here Sao Paolo.

More meetings in the afternoon, we ended the day in the Sun office. Traffic in Sao Paolo is not good during rush hour – it would be fast to walk (if they had sidewalks and cross walks). This city has jumped up to 11 Million people and is always on the go.

Dinner was Italian this evening. A very popular type of food – largest population in Sao Paolo (6 million Italians and Italian descendants) Again a late meal starting at 9 PM and ending around 12 AM. This week is going to be long.

Wednesday
Another normally long travel day with a couple of highlights including a session done in English by John on my team – aside from talking fast (which took the translator 10 additional minutes at the end of his presentation to catch up - he did well. We learned the value of a raffle - we give out an iPod Nano. No one left early – it helps with attendance

We finished up the afternoon meetings and then took a little adventure trip. In the spirit of seeing Sao Paolo, we tried to use the train system to see parts of the city. Our goal was to get to the historic district, but they have entire Metro lines that are closed. The cars are packed tight and it’s hot – not the most fun way to travel, but much cheaper than spending $100 to get across town and back.

We ended up in a Mall and Market area with clothing shops, fresh vegetables, fish, meats, etc. We weren’t in a shopping mood, but wondered around and eventually found a place to get a beverage. I stick out – so we had 4 people come and ask for money. We eventually had a toothless guy sit down next to us with a plate of chicken – he proceeded to pour 2 cups of sugar over his chicken (guessing that’s why the teeth were missing). A couple of beers were just what was needed to get back on the train. (picture has toothless guy)

We had planned to eat early and get some rest. So when we left for dinner around 10 PM, it was safe guess that it would not be an early night. We finally found a Brazilian BBQ at Baby Beef Rubaiyat. Not a great idea to eat tons of red meat, with wine so late at night. It was a fun night to break away from the stuctured dinners discussing work topics. We went out for a few drinks and called it a night.

Thursday - We started a bit later, packed up and did our last meetings here in Sao Paolo. It’s been a good trip to meet with customers, the ever changing teams at Sun and Oracle and to meet with key executives to promote some of our programs. The trip to the airport always gives a bit of perspective in urban planning.

For a few more pictures of Sao Paolo go to my google picture site.

Stay tuned till next time and the update on travels around Rio.

Travel’n Jay

Mammoth Day Trip – Saturday, March 7th

Looking for the perfect day, when the weather, plane, and the destination all work in perfect sync. This past Saturday was one of those days. Terry and I made a day of it. We were up early for breakfast at home with the paper. Off to the airport with Ski’s and Equipment in tow. Our first lesson at the airport was that there are not bathrooms close to Advantage and West Valley that are open off hours. The next lesson was to make sure you know the combination for the lock box that holds the keys to the plane. After a number of phone calls, we came up with the combination (and found a bathroom). The third lesson was that the parachute in the Cirrus SR22 doesn’t allow skis to fit well into the plane – so we just took our boots. I figure 3 lessons before 8 AM is enough for one day.

We had clear skies for our route of flight – a smooth flight across the Sierra’s and into Mammoth Lakes area. The wind favored runway 9, but the runway slopes upward from the opposite side so everyone lined up for runway 27. There were 3 of us that arrived about the same time – a Centurion 210 from Half Moon Bay landed just ahead of us, we landed, and then another Centurion 210 from Orange County came in after us.

Terry and I, the couple from Half Moon Bay, the guy from Orange county all rode over to the Canyons entrance to Mammoth mountain. After changing and renting skis’ we made our way out into the warmth of clear sunny day. The slopes weren’t too busy, few lines at the lifts and wide open slopes. We skied throughout the afternoon with one break for lunch at the Outpost by Lift 14. We wrapped the day around 3:30 to turn the equipment in, have a crepe in the Canyons lodge and then meet up with our crew from the morning to return to our planes.


The flight back was smooth – a few clouds below 10,000 feet along the edge of the Sierra’s, but they cleared by Merced for the long fast decent back into Palo Alto. We left the airport by 6PM with time to stop for groceries on the way home so we could make dinner at home.


This would be one of the perfect days in my book. Click Here for some of the additional photos we took during the day.

FOG Trip - Monterey for Dinner

Last night I met with a couple of other pilots that are part of the West Valley Flying Club Fly Out Group (FOG) to fly someplace for Dinner. We ended up going to Monterrey for Dinner. It was a great flight - there were a few clouds, but still a great sunset over the Pacific.





We had no problem getting into Monterrey - not to much traffic and they were landing both runways.

We decided to park at the Monterrey Jet Center, since they usually have crew cars available. We noticed the plane parked next to us has the US Seal - we could not find out who was in the plane, but our guess was that it was someone from Obama's staff.

We found a place near the water and had a great dinner - sea food of course. We had a great view of the harbor and found a fairly local place on the commercial pier (vs. the Tourist Pier and Wharf).

From Left to Right: Jason, Dan, Marc, Jude

On the return trip we flew into a couple of other airports to keep up our night flying experience. We flew into Marina airport (KOAR) and landed, but the lights were not that bright - took a second attempt to get lined up correctly. We then dropped in the Santa Clara County (E16) and then returned to San Carlos. Even with a few clouds - it was a great night of flying.

For the list of photos - still need to add a couple.

EMEA Trip - Day 4 - Walldorf to Munich

Another light coating of snow – the trail I went running on last night is now covered in Snow. I had to go outside since my room was in the basement – must not be on the frequent stay program with Holiday Inn (just what I need is another card).

From 2009 - Feb - Germany 3 Days

Sunrise over the SAP campus.

From 2009 - Feb - Germany 3 Days

This is the main headquarters – started here in this farm town in Germany and now has 55,000+ employees, it’s own futbol team, a work out facitility that would make most Olympic stadiums jealous, several bars, a bus service and a couple of restaurants.

Another long day of meetings – these trips would be so much more fun if I wasn’t working (then again, I probably wouldn’t choose Germany in February – unless I was going skiing). The day went well and it only took 4 hours to drive back to Munich this evening. I followed my GPS – bad idea – it doesn’t understand the concept of the Autobahn – much better to drive an extra 60 km (at 180 km) than drive 120 km through small towns and traffic lights in the dark.

Tomorrow is a travel day - I've only added the pics from above the Germany Album – looking forward to being home. Hope all is well with each of you.

Travel’n Jay

EMEA Trip - Day 3 - Munich to Walldorf

Starting the day with a light snow storm in Munich

From 2009 - Feb - Germany 3 Days

I had a morning full of meetings. Not much fun to report, I finished up in Munich around 2 PM and then took off for Walldorf. It’s a 300 km trip that takes about 3 hours (sometimes a bit less). I’m not sure driving 200 km/hr (124 mph) is a good thing for a brand new car, but it sure is fun. I did learn that at speeds over 150 km/hr (93 mph) that the wind shield washer doesn't work very well - it just blows over the car.

The town of Walldorf where SAP is Headquartered (there are 5 Walldorf's in Germany) is a small town - it doesn't cover the space that the SAP Campus does. It was a nice sunset.

From 2009 - Feb - Germany 3 Days

I took a chance to spend some time in the Sauna to warm up before dinner. We had dinner in an italian restaurant that is in the middle of SAP's sports complexes and their own football (soccer) team that is doing very well this year.

I've got one last day before heading home. I've updated the Germany Photo album. Looking forward to some rest.

Travel'n Jay

EMEA Trip - Day 2 - Paris and Travel to Munich

After a solid nights sleep thinking their metro trains were a bit noisy, I learned that was actually very strong winds making the noise and keeping the airport closed. The group I was with last night had to take the train this morning because the flights were continually canceled and pushed.

A good day of meetings and chance to wonder a bit on the way to the train station to catch my flight. There were 2 things that caught my eye on the way to the Metro. The first was a a scooter with 2 wheels on the front.

From 2009- February - Paris Day 1.8

Leave it to the French to get training wheels on backwards – evidently this helps on loose sand and dirt – when someone grabs the front breaks – it makes it less likely for the bike to slip and tip (not sure why they don’t just use the rear breaks – probably a law against it or something).

The second thing to catch my eye was an advertisement - I'm not sure what this is calling out, but as a pilot I will think about where I park my planes.

From 2009- February - Paris Day 1.8

I do wonder what type of Pilot Jimmy is (was)?

I also did a self portrait with the Eiffel Tower to prove that I was there.

From 2009- February - Paris Day 1.8

It was another cold wet day - looking forward to even colder weather in Germany.

I've updated the Paris Album with a few more photos.

Getting into Germany was no problem - I picked up my rental car - brand new VW with only 12km on it - I tried to take a short cut out of the garage.

From 2009 - Feb - Germany 3 Days

JUST KIDDING - Another advertisement that really catches your attention.

I'm in for the night - here is the link for my Germany Photos - look for future updates.

Travel'n Jay

EMEA Trip - Day 1.8 - Paris

After waking at 6 AM on a Sunday morning to catch an 8 AM flight, I arrived in Paris at 6:30 AM on Monday – yup – whole day gone with only remnants of a few movies that I caught between naps, 4 airline meals, and lots of dry air (maybe even a bit of a cold to boot). The 21st century sky warrior – fortunately I was upgraded to Business Class so I at least had great service.

I’ve arrived in Paris and it’s cold and rainy. Not a huge deal since we have a day packed with Meetings. Not going to bore you with the meetings, but a couple of interesting observations always add a new dimension to any trip. First, we went to a Lebanese restaurant for lunch and had wine, what else would one need with a large meal, Jet Lag, and lack of sleep to keep the afternoon meetings interesting. The interesting point was that our wine was from Lebanon also – so much for only drinking French wine in France. I guess they are getting over the importing issues.

After dinner tonight I had a chance to go for a quick walk (only rained a bit) and came across a second interesting point – electric bicycle automated rentals. I’ve take a picture of the machine and the bikes – you drop your card – pick a bike that has been charged and off you go – return it and you’re done. I’m curious about how long the bikes last between repairs and how well the electric bikes handle the excessive humidity (aka rain).

I picked up a couple of perspective shots of the Eifel Tower and the city through out the day. Here are the photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/jason.fiala/2009FebruaryParisDay18#

Hope all’s well.

Travel’n Jay

North Carolina Trips

I am running more and more behind on these, but figure I’d drop a line. I’m back from the second trip to NC in the past 3 weeks and I must have the magic touch – no snow this time, but a couple of the days the temperature didn’t get over 30 degrees. Ruling NC out as a place to live – too cold! The meetings were good – blah, blah, blah, blah.

I had a couple of hours before catching my flight so I took a quick trip down to the auto show in Raleigh. I somehow manage to be traveling whenever the show is in SF. Nothing too significant on the photo front, but I did take a couple. http://picasaweb.google.com/jason.fiala/2009NorthCarolinaTripsJanFeb#

I’m not going back until it warms up – appears to be any week that I don’t go there. Hmmmmm…….

Super Bowl Sunday 1/2 Marathon

To start the season off, I did a ½ Marathon yesterday. It’s a good way to start a Sunday morning with 5,800 other people in Golden Gate Park. It was a great day for a run, sunny and not too hot. Temperatures stayed in the 60’s and 70’s all morning. We started in Golden Gate Park near the Tennis courts where Terry plays. Here is the course info.

I finished in 1:48:09 which is an average of 8:15 per mile. I’m happy with the time – would like to figure out how to get down to around 1:35. I finished 191 out of 517 in my age group. (1384 overall out of 5816). The results are posted here

If you don’t want to scroll through the results – you can always search here:

Fiala is enough for the search or bib 1302

Always looking for good news – there was only 1 person over 70 that beat me and 1 person over 70 that tied my time. Good thing I have a few years to get better at this. Not planning on getting the 1:04 or so it would take to win the event.

I’ll post the pictures once available – last year they didn’t get any pictures of me.

First Angel Flight 2009

This year I'm trying to do more for others and at the same time build on my passion of flying. I've joined Angel Flight West, which offers a way for pilots a way to donate their time and their airplanes to help needy people get to medical facilities from remote areas of California. My passenger, Tim, is 19 from Red Bluff and has systemic sclerosis a tissue disease that can leave people in fairly poor shape - we didn't talk about it during the flight. It can be terminal, but he was upbeat and making plans for the future including community college and planning to build track cars for drag racing.

We flew from Redbluff Municipal Airport to Reid Hillview Airport. There was some low cloud cover so it was an IFR flight plan, but above the clouds the visibility was over 100 miles.

A few photos from the flight - leaving the SF Bay area there were some great shots of Candlestick and San Francisco with patches of low cloud cover.

Salt Lake City Trip

We are just back from the long weekend in Salt Lake. Ok, I'm a bit slow with these messages as I'm currently in North Carolina (no pics - short trip). You know the weather is funny when North Carolina has received more snow in the past 2 days than Salt Lake has in the past week (4-5 inches on the ground here).

Skiing & Friends:
We had a great weekend of spring skiing at Solitude, The Canyons and Alta - the slopes were all ours due to the film festival - skiers usually avoid this weekend. We also had a chance to catch up our friends Chris and Angie at the Bayou where we sampled beers of the world and had some good eats.

Film Festival:
For our second annual outing, the film festival was as enjoyable as ever and Sundance was celebrating 25 year anniversary. We had to learn some new tricks - last year we would wait in line to get into the movies, but the first 2 movies we tried to do that at - they cut the line off just after the people ahead of us (odds are fairly low of that happening). We caught 4 movies on this trip with a range of emotions (once we found a way to get tickets ahead of time).

Movies Watched
1) Helen - Ashley Judd was not there, but the director was in the audience.
2) Reporter - Documentary about Journalism and special interest pieces - these guys deserve combat pay. At the same time I wonder where I can sign up?
3) Mysterey Team - Belly Laugh Funny, immature film - the cast was in the theater with us
4) Carmo Hit the Road - Film set in Brazil - the entire cast was there in the theater

There are some fun movie titles - "Asshole", "Manure", and "My Surfing Lucifer" - not sure if these will ever be mainstream - maybe they will be on Netflix.

Star Sightings:
Aside from the stars in the theater - we only had 1 star sighting, probably because we only spent an hour in Park City outside the theater. Park City is a great town, but during the festival there are just too many people.
I almost walked into Andie MacDowell coming out of lunch on Monday - she went into watch Sex Lies, and Video Tape, along with the entire original cast and crew from the movie that was a Sundance Film Festival hit in 1989.

Photos
A few photos from the trip, Salt Lake is a great place to visit.