On the road to Bishop

We left Hueco on the day of the Rock Rodeo so we got to see what a production it actually is – with slide shows, art shows, T-shirts sales, climbing industry booths trade-show style, burrito trucks, a dyno comp and a bonfire. It just put things in perspective a bit coming from Canada, which doesn’t have anything remotely close to this event at the moment. Anyway, we said goodbye to all the people we’d met and hit the road again (and were reminded, yet again, of how much crap we have!). Most of the first driving day was in Arizona (what a beautiful state!).

The second day was supposed to take us to Southern California but we decided to take a detour to see the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam (Mig hadn’t seen either before), which took us through Vegas instead. We stayed at a hotel just outside the park so we could make a couple of trips, (1) to see the Canyon at night (see photo) and (2) to see the sunrise, which was amazing! Here are a few photos from the classic Mather viewpoint. This route also took us via the Hoover Dam, which was fun to visit (although it’s extremely touristy).

The third day was craziness. In New Mexico and Arizona, we had seen a few road signs that read “sandstorms may exist,” which we thought was kind of funny – as if their existence was questionable. But in case there was any doubt, Mig and I can now verify from experience that sandstorms do exist as we drove right through a serious one on the way from Vegas to Bishop (see video). At one point, Mig had to actually pull over because neither one of us could see the road at all, or anything for that matter (like oncoming traffic for example…)! You have to clear a mountain pass on this supposed 4-hour drive, which is normally quite pretty. But, because of the storm, we had the pleasure of driving through a squall of sand on the east side of the mountains, snow on top of the pass, and more sand on the west side! Not to mention the howling winds that got up to 90 km/h. Needless to say, it was far from a relaxing drive, but we finally made it. We were exhausted and our car was (and actually still is) literally covered with dust (the thule is filled with sand too we’ve discovered), but we were in Bishop, so we were psyched.

So we’ve now seen a total of 39 different U.S. state license plates (one of which was Alaska!), 5 different Canadian province plates, we clocked another 21 hours of driving (total of 56), covered 4 more states (11 in total), and survived 1 major sand-storm! Stay tuned for updates on life and climbing in Bishop, California!!

* click an image for larger size (cliqué sur une image pour la voir en grand format).

HDR in Saint Thomas

I have another great Photo Monday in store today. While away on vacation, we took a couple of afternoons off from sitting on the beach to walk around and take photos. Most of the HDR we did during this trip were shot at Charlotte Amalie, on a Sunday afternoon when everything was closed. At first, our friend felt really bad that things were closing so early on Sunday (around noon), but we were delighted. It gave us time to walk around and get shots that would normally be full of tourists. Hope you enjoy these HDRs shot around Charlotte Amalie.

Have a great Family Day (for those in Ontario!)!
Cheers,

Shot at Drake’s Seat – View On Black.

Empty alleyway of Charlotte Amalie! View On Black

Old door in Charlotte Amalie – View On Black

Another great shot taken while no tourists were around in Charlotte Amalie. View On Black

This shot was taken at house that was for sale. We sneaked in their courtyard to take this awesome view. I wish the infinity pool was “on” so that you’d get the real illusion. View On Black

Animals of Saint Thomas

We were lucky enough to enjoy some time off in the beautiful U.S. Virgin Islands for the past week or so. We mostly stayed on Saint Thomas, but also visited Saint John and neighbouring much smaller British island called Virgin Gorda. In order to get all of us through the end of the winter, I thought I would share some of our favourite shots of the trip for my photo Monday. This week’s topic is the fauna of Saint Thomas, the ones we were able to photograph that is! The islands are full of amazing creatures and, as you will see, the most predominant one is the Iguana. Enjoy!

As we sort through more and more of our photos, we will add them here on flickr.

Notes on Bangkok, Railay and Phi Phi

Thailand Beta

Caveat: Some prices and information in this post may have changed since April-May 2006, but there are certainly still many useful tips here – especially for people on a budget (as we were at the time). People with more money will have no problem finding ways to up-grade their experience 🙂

Bangkok —

When you get off the plane, you’ll have lots of people trying to sell you taxi rides to your hotel for ~800 baht; this is too much! Ignore them and go outside. There is a lineup for taxis and the price was fixed at 350 baht. If you can convince a taxi to put the meter on instead of the flat rate (this is always cheaper), then do that, but it’s hard to find that at the airport. Downtown though, taxis are almost always on meters and are a very cheap way to get around. The buses are even cheaper (between 7 and 10 baht per person) but if you are going somewhere with a lot of traffic the heat can kill you if you’re sitting on a bus so it’s up to you. We did the bus a couple times but often opted for the AC of a taxi, that is, when we were going somewhere the train/metro system doesn’t take you (like to Khoa San Road and the Imperial Palace), which is by far the best way to get around b/c there’s no traffic! The tuk tuks are a fun experience to do once or twice but they are always more expensive than the taxis so I wouldn’t suggest they be your main form of transportation. When you do try them out, do it at night when it’s cooler b/c again, sitting in traffic in a tuk tuk sucks and smells! Finally, don’t be fooled by an overly cheap tuk tuk lift or a tuk tuk “tour” – you will end up at 5 of his friends’ places/shops where they will try to sell you stuff.

We booked a hotel in advance at a very nice place called the Bangkok Boutique Hotel (241 Skhumvit 21 Rd., (Asoke), Klongtoeynue, Wattana, Bangkok, 10110) It was @ $50 CA per night but it was gorgeous!! and included breakfast. There are much cheaper places (the cheapest place we stayed at was around $11) especially at *the* tourist hot spot: Khao San Road. The last time we came through town, just before flying home, we stayed at a place called Royal Asia Lodge (#91 Soi 8 Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok, 10110) which wasn’t quite as nice as the Boutique (maybe $40/night) – still lovely though – but the location was slightly better. For example, at the corner of its street (Soi 8) and Sukhumvit is Tom’s Fashion House – where we both got suits made and were very pleased with the quality. Again, there are cheaper places but you should really be careful not to pay too little because, well, you’ll get what you pay for. Also, the Royal Asia Lodge is walking distance from the fabulous Thai restaurant “Cabbages and Condoms” (10 Sukhumvit Soi 12)

(Basically Sukhumvit is the major street and the “Soi” streets are the side streets off of it. so the hotel is on Soi 8 and the restaurant on Soi 12 – I believe the even addresses were on one side of the street and the odds on the other so they are only 2 streets apart – if you follow….)

“Cabbage & Condoms from the mezzanine”

Finally, from this location you can walk to the J.W. Marriott hotel which has a fabulous yet overpriced cafe/bakery. The mud cake there was unbelievable. We also really enjoyed having some scones/muffins/bagel-type things b/c they’re hard to find in Thailand in general.

So those are my notes on Bangkok. Yes, go see the temple, it’s worth it! And the reclining Buddha is also very cool. We didn’t do much else in terms of tourism, actually, except shop! The MDK is a huge shopping centre where you can buy lots of cheap stuff. It’s overwhelming and ridiculous but fascinating. Altogether we ended up with 5-6 days in Bangkok and it was enough. There’s more to see for sure but we opted to head south!

By the way, booking the fancier hotels on line is cheaper than calling them directly. In fact, you can check lots of different places (find one with a pool if you can!) at http://www.hotelthailand.com/. There is a live chat option that works very well if you have any questions. We booked both the Boutique and Asia Lodge through this site and it was secure and reliable. Khoa San Road hotels you just walk in.

To Railay and Phi Phi via Krabi—

We took a night train and bus to Krabi (via Surat Thani) and you can buy the ticket at the travel agents on Khoa San Road. We heard horror stories about people getting ripped off in various ways at travel agencies all over Bangkok but the ones on Khao San seemed just fine – at least the one we used turned out to be entirely credible (I can’t find the name of it, unfortunately). It should cost you around 800 baht per person, if i remember correctly (~$24). Night buses are available too (and cheaper still) but we heard that they were terribly uncomfortable.

From Krabi you can go to numerous places. All the popular island destinations are accessible from there. We went to Railay Beach via Ao Nang. We took a taxi to Ao Nang, and then a long-tail boat to Railey but at the end of the trip we took a long-tail boat directly from Railay to Krabi so you must be able to go directly from Krabi to Railey without taking the detour through Ao Nang.

At Railay, we stayed on the East side (West Railay is an older/richer crowd) at a great place called the Viewpoint. Kwon, at the front desk/travel agency, is wonderful! The prices are good, you can get a fan or A/C, there’s a pool, & they include satellite TV. Walk along Railay Beach and you will find 2-3 places where you can rent climbing gear and a guide to take you out for the day. You can also take a day-trip to snorkel at Phi Phi Ley. But if you have the time to take a boat and stay for a few days on Phi Phi Don, I’d recommend that. You can rent snorkel equipment for next to nothing and just snorkel along the coast of the beach (the beach on the side where the boat docks – I don’t think there’s much to see on the other side, where the main beach for swimming is) and see tonnes of great fish and coral!!

You can climb there too if you like so, in fact, if you’re pressed for time or even if you’re not, you may want to skip the climbing at Railay and go straight to Phi Phi. There’s a French woman who has a little climbing shop in the village there and she’s great and a bit more professional than the guys at Railay. Her equipment may be safer, come to think of it, and the rock there may be more fun to learn on because it’s higher and I’m pretty sure the routes are nicer than those they take you to at Railay. That said, during the high season Phi Phi may be too crowded and a little too much of a party scene for some. It depends what you’re looking for, I suppose. If you want some romantic and/or quiet time, you may want to choose a different island altogether and pay a little more for a private resort.

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. Try the fish (Marlin if you can find some) and try the fruit smoothies!! Buy soap for your clothes and wash them in the sink (again, if you’re on a budget) and don’t pack many clothes in the first place – you will buy lots of them! Also, don’t bring much for cooler weather b/c it doesn’t get cool – except for the night train. Bring a pair of crocs – they’re fabulous and light! OH – the coffee at “the real coffee” shop at Railay is amazing!! Last but not least: bargain bargain bargain!

Hope this was helpful, and happy travels!
Check out all of our photos on flickr.

Photo Monday on Tuesday

I know… It’s Tuesday! But seeing as yesterday was a statutory holiday in Canada, I took the liberty of taking a day off from Photo Monday. Ha ha! While traveling to Montreal, I took a bunch of pictures, but i haven’t had the time to sort through them and process the ones I want to share, so here is a little post to make you dream for your next holiday. The subject this week: Palmtrees. Enjoy and have a great new years party!!

Palmtree, Jamaica.

Sunset on Railey Beach, Thailand.

Tonsai beach, Thailand.

Check out all the photos from our Thailand trip. It’ll make you want to leave tomorrow!

Cheers,

Interviewing at Microsoft: My adventure to Redmond

Let me preface this by saying that my story is not really different than any of the other stories on the web about interviewing at Microsoft. Well… except that it happened to me! Ha ha. In a nutshell, I had just finished my masters in mathematics, I was very excited to heard that they were interested in me and was really hoping to work for the big guy. Well, that’s not entirely true… I actually mainly wanted a job. In fact, I own a Mac at home, I consider myself primarily a mathematician, and am not particularly fond of Microsoft. But nevertheless, the whole experience was very enlighting and exciting, and I am forever grateful to Microsoft for giving the opportunity to visit the legendary campus, and meet some of the most influential people in Computer Science’s history.

On Campus Interviews

Let start where it all started: McGill University, Montréal, September 2006. I had been looking for a job for a while now, and so I decided to visit the McGill career fair to see what’s out there. Trying to find out what is available for kids with a Master’s degree in Mathematics these days. Ones specializing in theory of evolution, of all things! Well, the first step was when I handed my resume to Josh, an international recruiter for Microsoft at the fair. We had a chat and it turned out that the girl he was with was working on IE7, which was a funny coincidence because that’s the product I was most interested in. Anyways, they must have been intrigued by my resume, because they called me the next day to arrange a campus interview. I got to interview with a French Canadian working for Microsoft, Gilles, and the interview was a lot of fun. First off, we discuss some of my projects through university, and the ways I managed to solve hard problems, etc. We also discussed the reasons why I wanted to work for Microsoft, and then we shifted gear and dove in the coding part of the interview. A rather simple graphic-based question. Nice. Then I got to ask questions about his project, a windows version of Adobe Flash, called Silverlight!! Two days later, I got the e-mail. Congratulations! We are flying you to Redmond! I couldn’t believe it, but it was real. Microsoft thought I did well enough in my interview to pay for me to fly to Redmond and see the campus for myself! Yikes!

It took a while to go through all the required things before the trip, but about a month and a half after my initial interview, I was on a plane to Redmond. The whole process is actually very well organized. I couldn’t believe it. I got to my hotel in Bellevue rather late, so no time to study or go out. I went pretty much directly to bed so that I could be in shape for the next day.

On Site Interviews

I got to building 19, and there was a couple of people also waiting for interviews. Most of them were there for Project Manager positions. I was there for an SDE position, which apparently is not the easiest to get… My first interview was with a recruiter, like everyone else, by the name of Akes. She was very nice and we had a good discussion about my skills and my personal achievements. We talked for about 45 minutes and then I was thrown on the recruiting shuttle to building 119, which to my surprise is home of the Windows Live group. The interview was for the Microsoft Digital Image Suite. The guy interviewing me, a lead developer, was really nice and fun to talk to. I unfortunately felt like I didn’t really do well on this interview. I came up with a solution very quickly (the question was simple enough How to find the MRCA, most recent common ancestor, of two nodes in a tree, but it wasn’t the most efficient. Kind of a bummer seeing as this was my field of expertise.

My next interview was a lunch interview. We went to a restaurant off campus called Pomegranate bistro. The food was delicious and we had a really good conversation. This interview was much more geared towards my resume and my achievements. We also discussed the product he works on, the same photo software as the guy before, and some of the improvements I would want to see. It was a fun interview. I really enjoyed it.

By then, I was off to another building. Interviewing with another group within to the live experience, Live Messenger (the new MSN messenger). This interview was also very good. The interviewer dug deep in my experiences as a Teaching Assistant and in some of my group projects at school. We discussed these a little and then switched to a programming question. This one I had a much better idea of how to solve it. I solved it really well and quickly! Then we discussed the design of a messenger’s program. I had a hard time explaining my thoughts to him.

Concluding Remarks

All in all, the experience was amazing. I would redo it anytime. The people were friendly, and efficient. The conversations were also very interesting. Personally, I don’t think I really fit into the whole Microsoft scene. I had just came back from a long trip, climbing in Thailand, and driving across Australia, and I really didn’t see myself working for Microsoft. From what I have heard, you end up working really long hour, and are constantly stuck to work around proprietary code that has been in Windows for ages. Another thing that struck me when visiting is how geeky and very communal the whole campus is. From there cars with advertisements for IE7 on them, to mailboxes just like the icons in their own OS… Finally, I don’t like the chasing-after-the-other-software-companies attitude Microsoft has these days (live search, live spaces, soapbox, etc). I just wish they could come up with their own thing. I know they can. They have the brains, I’ve met them!