Day 1: the journey begins

Farewell, Sweet Movember.

I started the day off right by getting on the elliptical and putting in 30 min of workout.  One of my goals during my vacation will be to continue working out, getting exercise from various activities and trying to lose some more weight.  It's going to be tough as there is lots of good food (and bad food) calling my name.  Prime directive #1, satisfied.

The month of November has now passed, and it was time to shave the moustache I had growing for Movember.  Can't say I did a whole lot to actually promote the awareness of men's health issues and testicular cancer, but I did what I could.  Which is to say I grew a moustache, and now it's time to shave it off.  V was certainly happy about that, she doesn't like me growing a moustache.

Then it was off to the Great Mall in Milpitas to meet a few other car club members, fellow owners of BRZs and FR-Ses.  We met in the covered parking garage area so we didn't have to stand out in the rain, so we were able to hang out for a while and talk about cars, racing, and other guy stuff.  The weather was a little too wet and the roads too slippery for anyone to want to go for a mountain drive, so we decided to stop by a Toy Drive charity event and car meet at a local high school.  I popped into the mall before we headed over, to pick up a toy to donate to the cause.

I don't shop for kids very much, and I don't have any myself, so I'm never sure what to get.  In the end I generally get something that I would myself like and hope that works out for the intended recipient. I left the store with a box set of 2 helicopters, a firetruck and a police car.  I also got some Hot Wheels looping track for myself.  Awesome.

We got to the meet a little late and the weather was generally dismal, but it was quite heartening to see this massively long row of tables nearly all covered by toys that people had donated.  That made my day.  And so, prime directive #2 has been met.

It was funny, that at the car meet, one of the other owners asked me if I got a lot of reactions or compliments on my car, and I said, honestly, I had not seen a whole lot of reactions like that since getting the car (aside from other owners of the car, at these car meets).  People seem to ignore me or maybe I just don't pay enough attention while driving to see what other people in cars are doing, maybe they are freaking out and going gaga and I didn't see it.  I thought it was just that in the Bay Area, we have plenty of nice cars around and people just take it for granted - I certainly will gaze admiringly at a Ferrari or Aston Martin when it rolls by but a lot of people just seem to not notice.  And my car is certainly not that nice or expensive.  Generally I just drive it to and from work so there's not much time for human interaction.  But then it was lunchtime and while I was standing around near my car I got like 2 compliments within 5 minutes.  Interesting.

I took these two panoramic shots using my iPhone 5, it really is quite useful for these kinds of pictures.  If I had tried to take them with my SLR I would have been cutting something off in the process, or wishing I had a wide-angle lens.  It's not perfect but here it seems to get the job done.  OK these aren't shots worthy of the Ansel Adams gallery or anything, but I do believe I've managed to hit directive #3 too.

Bonus discovery of the day!  Perhaps not huge news to the most tech-savvy geeks out there, but I realized that you can use the iPhone 5 as a wireless access point to tether things like iPads and laptops to the 4G data service on Verizon.  That basically means I can now use my iPad or Nook tablet anywhere I go, without need for an independent wifi source as long as I've got my phone and I'm in a 4G service area.  So in theory I could type out lengthy emails and blog updates on the road, wherever I go.  Geek-o-rama!