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Wow, I’ve never been in California in the spring and it’s gorgeous.  Down in the Bay Area for a week of work.

Change of plans.  I got a call last night asking me to be in LA this morning.  We have a customer here who is down and needs an engineer asap.  Unfortunately the firestorms around San Diego are keeping the usual engineers from being able to get here.

Oh, I got to watch a big burly customer threaten to assault and tinny little flight attendant today, that was super.

I’m down in the Bay Area again for work.  The plan is for me to pack up two microscopes to be moved and then hang out in the area helping out with service calls.  I’ll be flying back to Oregon for the weekend.

One more week down here in the bay area, then I’m taking a holiday. It’s been about 3 years since I’ve been down to this area. Probably closer to 6 or 7 years since I’ve been over to visit some of my family at their homes. So it’s been a real interesting trip in terms of work and also getting to see some of my relatives again.

I’m working at Stanford University this week. Slow problem to fix that is causing some late nights, early mornings and lots of time waiting. This is the first time I’ve really understood how big the San Francisco Bay really is. It’s incredible. I can drive for hours and hours and still see water, and if I’m trying to cross, it can take me 10 or 15 minutes driving at highway speeds to get to the other side.

I’m working this week at the University of California Berkley. It was a last minute call on Friday to see if I could fly down on Monday. No problem. This is my kind of work and travel.

I’m down here in beautiful, warm, southern California. I’ll be spending the month installing a new microscope at Caltech.

They’ve got a great little campus here. It’s a pleasant place with a very decent cafe for the student’s meals. Good coffee is available at the local coffee shop and there are a lot of restaurants in close walking distance.

I splurged a bit on my rental car for the month. I spent a couple extra dollars and got one of the new mustang convertibles. It’s pretty comfortable and fun to drive, so I’m enjoying myself quite a bit.