就要我滋味 - 劉亦菲

Wikipedia Biography

Born at Tongji hospital in Wuhan, China on August 25, 1987, Liu's birthname was An Feng. Her father was a university professor while her mother was a dancer and a stage performer. They divorced when she was 7 years old. After her parents' divorce, Liu lived with her mother, Liu Xiao Li and her name was changed to Liu Xi Mei Zi. She began modelling at the age of 8 and was trained in singing, dancing and the piano. Moving to the United States in 1998 with her mother, Liu lived there for four years. She returned to China in June 2002 to pursue an acting career and adopted her stage name Liu Yi Fei. In September 2002, she was accepted into the Performance Institute of Beijing Film Academy at the age of 15, She graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in July 2006.

Run For Your Life

It looks like this Koda Kumi video was shot in LA. Then why does the girl say, "We've been already at your house!" at 44 seconds into the video? Can't they find somebody that speaks English in LA?!

Trumpet Fanfare

Tonight was the first concert at the IVC Performing Arts Center. First on the program was a trumpet fanfare piece for about 50 trumpets. One trumpet can be plenty loud; 50+ trumpets is ridiculous. I'm not sure how it sounded overall since I was standing with 10+ trumpet players playing the same part; there were 5 parts in total. The group ranged from high school students to retirees to professional musicians. We were told to instruct any audience sitting directly in front of us to cover their ears.


Backstage before the performance. The conductor was about to take a picture with his cell phone before I handed him my camera.


The Performing Arts Center. What a lovely shade of red.

Late for church

I was running a bit late this morning. We were supposed to meet at 7:20am but I didn't leave the apartment until 7:00am. I was driving the Z at about 95mph on the 55 freeway when a(n?) Acrua TL blows by me. I thought, "Wow! That guy must be really late for church!" I didn't want to drive >100mph so I lost him by the time I got to the 57 freeway.

It turns out it was our keyboard player.

LEGO Mindstorms NXT

The mail room delivered my Christmas gift today. I quickly went home and opened the box, install the software on my Mac, and tried to build the demo machine. This is different from the LEGO blocks I had when growing up. I just had a box of blocks that I built random things with. Nowadays, LEGO pieces are all pretty unique and there are long instructions for each build. Actually, the instruction booklets are very similar to those from another Scandinavian company, one that sells a lot of cheap furniture.


This was what I started with in the Start Here! box. The goal is to build a three wheeled vehicle and run a demo program in the NXT controller, which is a 32-bit ARM7 microprocessor.


After about 30 minutes, I completed this. At least I think I completed it since there were three pieces left. Arg! It's exactly like putting together IKEA furniture. It did work though. Taking it apart afterwards is about as difficult as putting it together. A lot of the connector parts were very small yet fit very tightly.


Here are the remaining pieces in the kit along with 4 physical sensors (touch, sound, light, and ultrasound/distance). I haven't tried out the software yet but it seemed to install fine on my Mac. I'm using my Mac since there is Bluetooth connectivity in the NXT controller unit an only my Mac has a Bluetooth module (from CSR though).

Wind Symphony Rehearsal

Irvine Valley College cancelled classes yesterday due to the wildfires but we still had to attend rehearsal. Grand opening concert for the new performing arts center is next Tuesday and I don't think we're 100% ready, especially me. We have another rehearsal this Saturday to go over the physical transition between the choir and the wind symphony. Then there's one more rehearsal Monday night with 50 trumpets for a trumpet fanfare piece.

We did get to rehearse in the new hall however. The actual main stage is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. The building itself is pretty big, much bigger than the Irvine Barclay Theater but there are a lot more rooms at the side and back. The wind symphony barely fits onstage and there are very few seats in the audience. The rehearsal was three hours long; when I got back to my car in the parking lot, there was a new layer of ash.

SoCal Fires

Our CEO sent out an email about the fires this afternoon. The fire got within a block of our San Diego (Rancho Bernardo) office and our old campus in Irvine, occupied by Blizzard now, was also threatened. In addition, several employee's houses were burnt to the ground.

I took some pictures yesterday morning from work. You can see where the smoke started to block out the blue sky. By yesterday evening, the whole sky was filled with smoke. The fire situation is a bit better in Orange County today but a lot worse in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.


Looking NE from the parking lot


Looking W from the parking lot


Looking W from 4th floor conference room. You can barely see a Southwest jet landing at John Wayne airport from the south. Usually they land from the north but the Santa Ana winds were blowing towards the ocean.


Looking N from another 4th floor conference room

Easy come... Easy go

All the gains in Broadcom stock in the past few weeks got wiped out in a couple hours. It's times like these when I don't like working in corporate finance, i.e., subject to trading blackout periods.

With ~600M shares outstanding, that's more than $3B that got wiped off our market cap.

==========

Arg! It got worse today (10/24/07 11:05am). Now we're trading at ~$33, down almost $10 from the high yesterday.

Fire: NASA Satellite Image

NASA satellites continue to capture remarkable new images of the wildfires raging in Southern California. At least 14 massive fires are reported to have scorched about 425 square miles from north of Los Angeles to southeast of San Diego.

These latest images, captured by NASA satellites on the afternoon of October 22, show the thick, billowing smoke coming off the numerous large fires and spreading over the Pacific Ocean. Fire activity is outlined in red.

Dry, drought-stricken vegetation and Santa Ana winds, which can reach hurricane speeds, have contributed to the devastating effect of these blazes. The National Interagency Fire Center reports that the Santa Ana winds are expected to continue through Wednesday.

Christmas Gift

I just bought this for myself for Christmas... $250 from Amazon.com.

Earth, Wind and Fire

No, not the music group. Today has been a bad weather day. The Santa Ana winds started picking up around noon. Everything was fine this morning but by the 2nd service, the wind started blowing over the tents we set up for church. There was a lot of dust in the air and everything was a bit hazy... kind of reminded me of Chengdu.

Due to the wind and dry weather, there are several fires burning. The news is showing a large fire in Canyon Country which is around Santa Clarita. I also heard from someone at church that two out of three border crossings with Mexico was closed due to fire; it took him 5 hours to get across. Finally, there is a fire north of Irvine that's burned 3,800 acres. This is actually quite close to home and the air is thick with smoke and ash. The wind is supposed to continue until Tuesday.

The weird thing with Santa Ana winds is that it will gust up to 60 miles/hour in a narrow corridor. We get some of it in Costa Mesa but it actually follows the 5 freeway in a northwest direction. I talked to Leon earlier tonight and there has been no wind in Torrance.

USC MBA Interviews

Out of the 15 resumes we received, the list was narrowed down to 8 and I ended interviewing all of them yesterday. Out of the 8, I decided to call 3 of them back for 2nd round interviews where they will talk with 6 more people. I've been doing this for about 3-4 years now and it still is hard to choose candidates. I've been asked to go back to USC for three more events. It's a long drive from Irvine but I get $40 in mileage reimbursement each time... :)

While I was in school, I used to hate my classmates that would have multiple offers already, yet still interview with the same companies that I signed up for, effectively blocking me (and others) out of job offers. Of course, I didn't interview that well; I probably did all the things I tell people not to do when they interview. We knew that during an interview, it's not what you know but how you interact with the recruiter. At the time, I thought that was lame. Give me a computer and I'll show you the Excel models I built! Boy, was I stupid.

I often joke with my interview buddy, another senior finance manager with a MBA from USC, that we probably would not get any jobs at Broadcom if we interviewed today.

Clinton Fundraising

First Norman Hsu, now this:

Los Angeles Times article

NEW YORK -- Something remarkable happened at 44 Henry St., a grimy Chinatown tenement with peeling walls. It also happened nearby at a dimly lighted apartment building with trash bins clustered by the front door.

And again not too far away, at 88 E. Broadway beneath the Manhattan bridge, where vendors chatter in Mandarin and Fujianese as they hawk rubber sandals and bargain-basement clothes.

All three locations, along with scores of others scattered throughout some of the poorest Chinese neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, have been swept by an extraordinary impulse to shower money on one particular presidential candidate -- Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton's campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown.

Poor Chinese immigrants don't give money to politicians. Something is fishy...

Money. Every two weeks I get mugged on my paycheck by politicians. This progressive tax rate stuff does not make any sense to me. Fine, I'll pay more taxes if I make more money but why should I pay a larger percentage as my salary increases? Why not a progressive sales tax? Pay 5% tax on your burger, 10% tax on a computer, and 20% tax on a car. How stupid would that be yet that's what we do on payroll taxes.

As I keep telling Leon, "Quick, send your kids to public school. I'm paying for somebody else's kids to go to school with my state taxes; may as well be your kids."

Long day tomorrow...

I'm interviewing 8 MBA students tomorrow at USC. My interview partner just called to cancel so I'll have to do all 8 by myself. I had originally planned to have him do the last three in the afternoon so I can call in to a meeting at work. I guess I won't be able to attend the exciting allocations meeting. :)

Each interview is 45 minutes so that's 6 hours total; maybe I can cut each one short and take short naps in between. I'll probably be so tired by the end that I won't even hear what the candidate says. Never interview last on the schedule!

Fantasy Football - Week 6

I'm in a strange situation where I'm rooting against one of my players, Plaxico Burress on the Giants. He is on my team in a league that I've already won for this week but on the opposing team in two other leagues. I'm leading by a very slim margin in those two leagues. If he doesn't play, then I'm 3-0 this week; if he does play, them I'll probably be 1-2.

Somewhere in China...

My parents are on a tour in China with a group from Canada. They sent me their itinerary a few weeks ago but they didn't call me or my sister before leaving. There was no answer when we both tried calling their house on Monday; later I figured out that the dates on the itinerary are local dates so they actually left on Sunday.

Anyhow, I called their hotel in Chengdu this morning and managed to get a room number. Of course, it was the wrong room but at least I reached someone in their tour group. Maybe I'll try again when they get to their next hotel; there are 13 hotel on the itinerary.

They should be heading to Jiuzhaigou (九寨溝) today. I hope they're flying there since it's a 10 hour bus ride.

More Church

Today was a crazy day at church. I was scheduled to play bass so I showed up at 7:30am. There's always a chance that the staff at Wilshire Theater won't show up Sunday morning and it happened today. In addition, there is a production of Julius Caesar that's ongoing so there is a huge set blocking half the stage and the sound board/inputs are all messed up. It took us until 9:15am to finish setting up; we didn't get a chance to run through any of the songs.

What's worse, someone stole one of the 18" drivers out of our left subwoofer. They didn't take the entire subwoofer; they removed the grill, unscrewed one of the speaker cones, and replaced the grill! Like we weren't going to notice a 18" hole in the subwoofer. Since low frequency sound waves are omnidirectional, I don't think any can tell the difference between 3 and 4 18" speakers. Anyway, now I need to go source a replacement.

Church

I went to church yesterday and did nothing. Usually I'm helping with the sound board or playing bass but I had a break this week. It's a different feeling to go and have no responsibilities.

Fantasy Football, Pre-week 4

Decisions, decisions...

I have 3 decent running backs but I can only start two of them: Marion Barber, Ronnie Brown, and Frank Gore. I've been playing Brown and Gore for the past three weeks. Even though Frank Gore was my 1st round pick, he's been playing kinda average while Ronnie Brown got me 49 points last week.

I think I'm going to go with Barber and Gore this week.

==========

Arrggg! Barber only got 9 points while Ronnie Brown had 35! :(

Meanwhile Frank Gore only has 6 points and it's half-way through the 3rd quarter. I should have gone with the "guru" points instead of trying to over-analyze.

==========

OK, I'm down 12 points but I have Tom Brady left to play vs. Laurence Maroney. Both are on the New England Patriots; more passing, less rushing!

I lost again in my no money league (don't care) but won this week in the third league even though my team sucked.

Clazziquai Project

I've been listening to a lot of Clazziquai recently. I found out about the group through a K-pop website but they're not your typical dance/hip-hop K-pop music group (like the Wonder Girls video I posted). Interestingly, even though all three members are Korean, the group started in Canada so a lot of their songs are in English (yay!).

Here is a video of a song from their 2nd album on YouTube. They've released 3 albums and 2 remix albums so far. You can listen to all their songs on their website.

USC Career Fair

I volunteered to help out today at Broadcom's booth at the USC Career Fair. Lis (recent USC undergrad) and I carpooled from Irvine and got to our table at 10am where we saw Wendy, our HR college relations person, setting up. What followed were hundreds of students coming up to our table and asking us about internships and full-time jobs. During the first hour, all three of us would be talking to different students and taking resumes at the same time and still have lots of people in line. It's a tough job... I was really tired at the end of the 4 1/2 hours.

We were supposed to be recruiting for accounting and finance today but 95% of the people we talked to were graduate EE or CS students. Is USC still giving these degrees away?* Also, about 2/3 of the engineering students we talked to were from India and all needed H1 visas. We quickly learned to tell the difference between graduate engineering students and pretty much everyone else. Of course, it was much easier for me having been one of them before.

Some of these students were very persistent. There was one guy who was a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in control systems. I told him I was pretty sure we did not have many opportunities that fit his background but he insisted I take his 5-page resume. Another person wanted me to set up interviews for him for a finance position despite having no finance experience or education.


Our "booth" from the back. We didn't set up our backdrop since the two companies on either side of us hogged all the space.


Hundreds of companies...


"Anybody looking for a finance job?"

I didn't get a picture but I talked to a guy wearing a Ming Hsieh T-shirt. Ming is Haley's cousin who donated $35M to USC and only got the EE department named after him; the engineer school is named after Andrew Viterbi. Henry Samuely Samueli got his name on the engineering schools at UCLA for $30M and UCI for $20.

* I got my MSEE degree at USC too: 9 classes, no thesis or dissertation, no final project :)

Paul Fromm

I got an email from Tim, someone I went to high school (Applewood Heights Secondary School) with in Canada. We haven't been in contact since I left the Great White North 22 years ago. He found my email address on our old high school alumni site.

The weird part of the story is that Tim found my email by accident. He was looking for info on Paul Fromm, who was in a segment on The Daily Show yesterday. Paul Fromm was an English teacher at Applewood and he was my teacher for grade 12 English (ENG451). I didn't know it at the time but he turned out to be a huge neo-Nazi activist. I don't remember any overt racist/fascist remarks from Mr. Fromm though... he was actually a pretty boring teacher.

Applewood was mostly white back in 1985 so I must have stuck out as one of the few Asians at the school. I ended up getting a 75% in the class and a "good effort" comment on my final report card. Not sure if his anti-immigration ideology had anything to do with my grade... and yes, I still have my old report cards, even ones from Taiwan.



I think Mr. Fromm confused The Daily Show with a real news program. I originally thought this was a hoax but the Wikipedia entry cites a 2005 Globe and Mail article that Paul Fromm founded the "Canada First Immigration Reform Committee" and the guy in the video looks like the guy in my 1985 yearbook--yearbook faculty advisor, no less!

Bonds' ball to be branded with asterisk

Associated Press

NEW YORK - The ball Barry Bonds hit for his record-breaking 756th home run will be branded with an asterisk and sent to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Fashion designer Marc Ecko, who bought the ball in an online auction, set up a Web site for fans to vote on the ball's fate, and Wednesday announced the decision to brand it won out over the other options — sending it to Cooperstown unblemished or launching it into space.

Ecko said he believed the vote to brand the ball showed people thought "this was shrouded in a chapter of baseball history that wasn't necessarily the clearest it could be."

I voted for the asterisk.

College Recruiting

I'm headed to USC this Thursday to attend their Undergrad Career Fair with a co-worker that just graduated last year from USC. It's kind of funny since I graduated from UCLA undergrad; I would have never guessed that I would recruit at USC but I've been on the recruiting for the past three years. I think during that time, we've hired two full-time MBA's, four MBA interns, and six undergrads. I've interviewed all of them and five of them ended up working for me (at different times).

Fantasy Football, Week 3

I don't have any updates on my two Yahoo! leagues but I won big on the $100 league on CBS Sports. I was down quite a bit in the pre-game match-up but ended up winning 180-105 with 49 points coming from Ronnie Brown. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to check the scores from the other two leagues.



==========

Arg, I lost in both my other leagues... by a lot. Larry Johnson sucked again. :(

Wonder Girls

Tell Me performance, 2007-09-09

The first two girls to sing are only 15 years old; the other three are 18 to 19.

Rain

It's raining like crazy outside. This is the first major storm of fall/winter so expect lots of flash floods and accidents. Leon called me from the airport (returning from China) and the Sepulveda tunnel is closed, probably due to flooding. I guess I won't be doing any laundry tonight.

Form 8-K

My former manager was recently promoted to VP of Finance and Chief Accounting Officer, and today we filed a form 8-K with the SEC.

Change in Directors or Principal Officers

Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.

(c) On September 14, 2007 the Board of Directors of Broadcom Corporation elected Bret W. Johnsen as Vice President and Corporate Controller, and designated him as Principal Accounting Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Johnsen succeeds Bruce E. Kiddoo, who resigned from those positions effective August 31, 2007.

Mr. Johnsen, 38, joined Broadcom as a Corporate Accounting Manager in October 1999. From June 2000 through December 2003 Mr. Johnsen served as Controller for various business groups within Broadcom. He was appointed Director of Finance, Worldwide Operations in April 2003, and became Senior Director of Finance & Operations - Worldwide Manufacturing in May 2005. Most recently he served as Senior Director of Finance - Wireless Connectivity Group. Prior to joining Broadcom, Mr. Johnsen served as the Corporate Controller of Classified Ventures, Inc., an Internet company specializing in classified advertising. Before joining Classified Ventures, Mr. Johnsen served in various financial management positions at Qualcomm Incorporated. He received a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Southern California and an M.S. in Finance from San Diego State University. Mr. Johnsen is a certified public accountant, licensed in California.

I worked for Bret from June 2000 through February 2007. Since he's the biggest USC fan at work, everyone assumed that he got his MBA from USC. Not many people realize that he actually went through the part-time program at SDSU. It's no big deal but Bret used to say that if people want to think he was an USC MBA alumni, there's no need to correct them. Now that fact is out there for the world to see, although I'm not sure who actually reads 8-K filings.

AAdvantage Gold

I don't travel that much for business and my personal travel is scattered across lots of different airlines since I usually look for the cheapest fares. However, with the recent trips to Chengdu on Cathay Pacific, I've accumulated enough miles to get gold status on AAdvantage. It's not much but it lets me use the business class check-in line and board early. Of course, I received the card in the mail today, after returning from Portland where I could have used it on Alaska Airlines.

After the planned November trip to Chengdu again, I may have enough miles to hit platinum which lets me into business class lounges on all oneworld airlines. Woohoo!

Fantasy Football - Week 2

I got the 2nd lowest score in my $100 league; good thing I'm up against the lowest scoring team this week. Actually, I may still lose this match-up since they have two players (WR and K) left to go tonight and I have none. Hopefully my 28 point lead will hold.

I also won my other money league by at least 3 points even though my opponent has Carson Palmer. I was saved by Jamal Lewis who had a huge game against Cincinnati though Larry Johnson, my 1st pick, continues to disappoint. Finally, I'm up by 4 points in the "no money on the line" league but they have a WR and a TE left to play.

Addison

New pictures of my niece in Portland:


Happy


Hmm, who am I sitting on?


Ready for hiking


First time eating "real" food

Fantasy Football - Week 1

I'm 3 for 3 this week! This means I'll probably lose all three leagues in the end. :)

Travel

Our family didn't travel all that much in the past. We moved from Taipei to Toronto then to Los Angeles but we did not go on many vacations. Recently however, with everyone living in different places, there are lots of trips to the airport. My parents are arriving at LAX in about 90 minutes so I'm leaving soon to pick them up, right after I clean up the apartment a bit.

I've been to Hong Kong/Chengdu twice this year already and I'm planning to go again in November. In addition, I'm also flying up to Portland to see my sister and probably to Toronto during Christmas to visit my parents. I used to think air travel was a big deal but after 5 trips to Asia in 2 years, it almost seems routine.

Driven Out

I'm reading a non-fiction book, Driven Out by Jean Pfaelzer, that documents the roundup and purging of Chinese immigrants in America from 1850-1906.

At nine o'clock on the morning of November 3, 1885, steam whistles blew at the foundries and mills across Tacoma, to announce the start of the purge of all the Chinese people from the town. Saloons closed and police stood by as five hundred men, brandishing clubs and pistols, went from house to house in the downtown Chinese quarter and through the CHinese tenements along the city's wharf. Sensing the storm ahead, earlier in the week, about fine hundred Chinese people had fled from Tacoma. Now the rest were given four hours to be ready to leave.

- Introduction to Driven Out

I took a lot of Chinese history classes at UCLA while I was an undergrad but I've never heard much about the history of Chinese people in the Pacific Northwest and California. I knew about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the only immigration law passed to exclude a specific ethnic group, but not much else was discussed, even in my modern Chinese history class. This book looks interesting since it has a lot of archival material collected from all over California, Oregon, and Washington, and also first hand accounts from the persecuted Chinese victims.



I'm only half-way through chapter 1 and it already looks like it will be a depressing book, like all Chinese history books I've read, especially those dealing with the Cultural Revolution. :(

Goats sacrificed to fix Nepal jet

BBC Article

Nepal's state-run airline has confirmed that it sacrificed two goats to appease a Hindu god, following technical problems with one of its aircraft.

Nepal Airlines said the animals were slaughtered in front of the plane - a Boeing 757 - at Kathmandu airport.

The offering was made to Akash Bhairab, the Hindu god of sky protection, whose symbol is seen on the company's planes.

The airline said that after Sunday's ceremony the plane successfully completed a flight to Hong Kong.

"The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights," senior airline official Raju KC was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Nepal Airlines has two Boeing aircraft in its fleet.

The persistent faults with one of the planes had led to the postponement of a number of flights in recent weeks.

The company has not said what the problem was, but reports in local media have blamed an electrical fault.

Wait... if the plane crashes, are Boeing and Nepal Airlines off the hook since it's an act of god? I think they should have hired a mechanic and paid him with the goats.

$300k+ Car

I saw a Maybach on the 405 freeway this afternoon. It didn't look stretched so it was probably a 57 instead of a 62. From far away, it looks like a Mercedes-Benz S-class with different tail-lights. I guess it's no big deal compared to a Bugatti Veyron or a Rolls Royce Phantom but you don't see too many of these on the road.


I tried to take a picture but didn't want to get too close at 75mph

More SeeYa MV

I can't seem to upload my copy of the video file on Blogger so here it is on YouTube. Once again, they don't appear in their own video and the ending is sad; however, this is only part 1 so maybe it gets better in part 2... or worse.


사랑의 인사 by 씨야 (SeeYa)

==========

Here is another MV from their 2nd album and it's different from all their previous videos. It appears to be a happy song (Let's Get Married), they're actually in the video, and no one dies, at least not on-screen. The ending is a bit unbelievable though, as if Nam Gyuri is going to fall for a older balding guy.


결혼할까요 by 씨야 (SeeYa)

Hot

It's super crazy hot outside. The Weather Channel says the high was 96˚F but I was just outside and it feels much hotter. Good thing humidity is only 40%, not like 90% in Chengdu.

Definitely no bike riding today... and no buying meat from the back of someone's bicycle or truck.

Korean Music Video

사랑한다는 말 by 김종국 (Kim Jong Kook)

Short Travel Vids

A couple of short videos I took with my Sony camera in Taiwan last year.


Waterfall in Toroko Gorge


Waves off the western coast of Taiwan near Kaoshiung. There was a typhoon offshore causing the large waves. Parts of the rest stop where I took the video was destroyed by waves the night before.

SRT Bike Ride

SRT is the Santa Ana River Trail and it starts somewhere in the San Bernardino Mountains, goes through Riverside County and ends up in Huntington/Newport Beach. We were supposed to meet at 9:00am in Yorba Linda but I missed my alarm so we didn't get going until around 10:00am. Next time, we're going to get started much earlier since the temperature was already crazy hot by the time we started. I think the hot weather is following me from China; it was probably close to 90˚F but not too humid.

We rode the trail, which roughly followed the 91 freeway then the 57 freeway, for about an hour and then turned around; I traced the path in Google Earth and it was about 15 miles round-trip. Most of the way was pretty flat except for the dips when we crossed under major roads. There wasn't really too much to see since we were pretty much riding in a large concrete canal. 15 miles doesn't seem very far but the hot weather made it worse and I ran out of water in my Camelback pack with about 2 miles to go.

To reward ourselves after the ride, we had In-N-Out for lunch. :)


Randy's new road bike. I rode my old Giant hybrid, which while not ideal on pavement, was probably much better then trying to ride my dual-suspension mountain bike.


When you get to Orange County, the Santa Ana River is essentially a concrete lined canal. However, there is still a lot of vegetation growth and wildlife (mostly ducks and crane/stork-like birds).


We rode right next to the Honda Center (formerly the Arrowhead Pond)


... and Anaheim Stadium.

More Music Videos

The Look of Love by Diana Krall

This was a 9MB ASF file; I can't remember where I downloaded it from. It was quicker to upload and process but the quality is not as good as the A-mei video.