Wine

On Friday we went to four wineries and ended up bringing home fourteen bottles of wine. First stop - Ferrari-Carno, where we had a tour of the estate and ended in their gorgeous downstairs cellars for tastings. (thanks in advance for the photos, Wilmot – his pictures from this weekend are gorgeous!) This winery was more upscale and their production much smaller than the other places we visited. Excellent cabernet-sauvignons.

Source: Wilmot Yeh, Healsburg | 4421

We went up the road to have lunch at Sbragia and then over to Francis Ford Coppola and Clos du Bois. For future reference – if you have a VISA Signature card, many wineries have discounted or free tastings. With the exception of Ferrari-Carano (which was refunded when we bought a lot of wine), the other three wineries are free tastings and discounts on bottles. Awesome!

On Saturday Kolina and I snuck over to Seghesio and bought three more bottles. I’m excited to bring some home to my Dad, other’s to cook with delicious dinners, and yet more to let sit and age for a few years.

Source: Wilmot Yeh, Healsburg | 4507

Food

We also ate a lot of food. Pinot noir marinated steaks:

From Sonoma – Fourth of July Weekend

Chicken and pasta:

From Sonoma – Fourth of July Weekend

Biking

We also went biking! 33 miles around Healsburg. The trails were relatively flat and empty (didn’t see many cars except for on a main stretch later in the day). The only bad idea was trying to climb a hill up to Lake Sonoma. Wilmot and I made it up and got to cruise down at 35mph. In the morning, this little dog wanted to join us for the ride!

From Sonoma – Fourth of July Weekend

It was Kolina’s first time riding a road bike. She did a great job!

From Sonoma – Fourth of July Weekend

Games

We also played a lot of games in the evening. Not gonna lie – I’m pretty awesome at Bananagrams. Courtney brought a fun game called Bonanza which put my negotiation skills to the test (it’s a game where you try and accumulate the most money from growing different kinds of beans – it’s really fun, trust me).

Well, you can’t get much more American than wine, food, biking, and games, can you? We also saw fireworks from the hot tub in the back. Hope you all had a Happy Fourth of July!

More pictures: Me | Wilmot | Kolina

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The trip was for 10 people, so Kolina and I were up late the night before shopping and cooking food. The menu included salami/turkey wraps with avocado, tomato, onions for lunch, sausages for dinner, bagels with honey/jelly/peanut butter for breakfast, and a final lunch of tuna. What we thought was too little food turned out to be a whole bunch. Better safe than sorry, right?

From Yosemite Young Lakes

Delicious, right?

From Yosemite Young Lakes

We headed out at 6AM in a rented Kia and PT Cruiser:

From Yosemite Young Lakes

After stopping at Burger King for breakfast, we made it to Yosemite around 11ish. Lunch was consumed:

From Yosemite Young Lakes

And after a group shot (thanks, Nelson)!, we were on our way:

The trail was filled with a decent amount of uphill climbing and streams to cross. Intense!

From Yosemite Young Lakes

Wild animals were spotted!

From Yosemite Young Lakes

Since it was late June, there was actually still a lot of snow on the ground, which was weird to walk through in shorts and a t-shirt:

From Yosemite Young Lakes

After about 6.5 miles of hiking, we finally made it to the lake. My head was pounding from the altitude of about 10,000 feet and some of my friends weren’t doing too well, but the view was so worth it:

From Yosemite Young Lakes

From Yosemite Young Lakes

From Yosemite Young Lakes

I wasn’t feeling too good that night, so I quickly ate and retired to my tent to get some sleep. Throughout the night it was pretty cold – maybe in the low 30s, which wasn’t something we didn’t entirely prepare for. The tent kept me warm enough, but I missed having a pillow throughout the night, so I awoke with a sore neck. The sun provided some warmth and excellent lighting on the lake. We took our time eating breakfast, packing up our things, filling up on water, before finally heading back to our cars.

Bye bye Young Lakes:

From Yosemite Young Lakes

An area of the hike I didn’t capture on the way out was the large grassy meadow which offered some views of the mountains around Yosemite:

From Yosemite Young Lakes

From Yosemite Young Lakes

From Yosemite Young Lakes

And finally, pictures of Half Dome and Tenaya Lake from Olmsted Point:

From Yosemite Young Lakes

From Yosemite Young Lakes

Overall, an excellent trail, although maybe I would go a few weeks later in the summer to avoid the cold weather. Nonetheless, I had a great time and I hoped everyone who came would agree. My next three weeks are already planned – Boston, Sonoma, St. Louis, but after that…more camping? Point Reyes? Who is in?

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And I raised $1056!! Thanks again to everyone who sponsored me. You know who you are :)

Some pictures:

From Palo Alto – Tour de Cure 2009

From Palo Alto – Tour de Cure 2009

From Palo Alto – Tour de Cure 2009

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From Half Moon Bay – Googleserve 09

From Half Moon Bay – Googleserve 09

From Half Moon Bay – Googleserve 09

From Half Moon Bay – Googleserve 09

After all the work, I think I deserved a break from the gym :)

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Day 48:

From Samurai 710’s

Day 87:

From Samurai 710’s

Day 48:

From Samurai 710’s

Day 87:

From Samurai 710’s

Day 48:

From Samurai 710’s

Day 87:

From Samurai 710’s

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I don’t have much to say besides that. Trying to get settled back at work in Mountain View and doing all the things I said I would do when I was abroad. Maybe it’s my tendancy or just how things go in a new role, but I definitely told a lot of people that I would jump-in and try to help out in any way I could. Now it’s really a matter of keeping true to my word. And when I thought today about what all the work would entail, it was pretty daunting. But, after breaking it up into management chunks and pieces, it doesn’t look so bad anymore. A major issue became a series of smaller steps. Ta-da!

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Highs:

• Seeing old teammates in Dublin and Hyderabad
• Meeting new teammates in Dublin, Hyderabad, and Gurgaon
• Wrapping things up with an old project
• Getting excited about a new project
• Traveling to Goa, Howth, Bray & Greystones
• Experiencing spectacular weather in Dublin.
• Rock-climbing in Gurgaon with the team
• Walking to work in Hyderabad and Dublin.
• Getting driven to work in Gurgaon.

Lows:

• Multiple video conferences that kept me in the office until 10pm-midnight
• More meetings than I’ve ever had, with little downtime to process
• Losing my cell phone
• My Macbook Pro breaking
• Not being able to train for my Tour de Cure ride
• Missing home

Thankfully, there are more highs than lows. If you asked me a month ago what I’d be doing in May, I imagined work as usual and weekend bike rides. To then be sent away within a week’s notice would have sounded crazy. But, I like that I’m still relatively young with no idea what I want to be doing in 5 years. I know that discomforts a lot of people, including my parents, but I like having the flexibility to take advantage of opportunities. I’d rather be somewhere unfamiliar than familiar. I’d rather make a mistake than be too cautious to take risks. It’s okay for me to pick up and work out of another country. It’s okay for me to work long hours. I’m not married nor do I have children. I’m young.

One thing about a temporary trip versus working abroad. When working abroad, immersing yourself with the team is important, but I still found myself having to take on almost two roles – working with the folks in the office but also keeping the status quo with everyone in my home office. This meant an increased amount of email and meetings.

The past 3.5 weeks have been a great opportunity to learn more about myself because I’ve been put in a new environment. I like to think I know a lot about myself, but the characteristics I’ve found myself at odds with is balancing motivation and drive with scope and clarity. When I was an RA at Stanford, I went through training and we took a “what kind of leader are you?” survey. I came back as a ‘driver.’ And that’s pretty true for me – I have no qualms prodding people to do their work, doing the gruntwork to move something along, and spending extra hours to get something where I want it to be. But, and this has been feedback for me on a few occasions, I’ve found that I need to think of the long-term effects and impacts of what I’m doing. I need to step-back and look at something from a high-level perspective. I didn’t do that nearly enough with my old project and am making that a focus point with my new role.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have much in the world of formal training when it comes to project management, but I can offer these tips that I’ve picked up the past few weeks:

• Always have a regularly updated design document ready to go. This can be utilized at any moment to outline your vision of the project to any new stakeholder or interested party.
• Perform cost/benefit analysis for each change. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but people will always be skeptical unless you show a tangible or estimated gain.
• Have an agenda for your meetings. I’ve written about this before.
• Don’t underestimate the important of networking. I can’t tell you how many times going home and resting would have been nice. But, spending time with your team when you have the opportunity is a great way to build relationships that make working with them much easier. In fact, a new teammate was a roommate of mine when I was in Hyderabad last November. Looking back, I wished I established that relationship even more when I was there.
• Don’t silo communication. People you least expect may want to know what you’re up to. Put that in a place where everyone knows where they can access it.
• Think broadly. Don’t get caught in the day-to-day everyday. Having a vision clearly articulated (see first tip) convinces more people that you’ve got your stuff together and that the day-to-day will eventually lead to place everyone agrees upon.

You know, these are all things that I’ve probably heard before and they’re pretty obvious. So maybe the final tip is to remind yourself to think about these points when you go about your work. I know I could use a refresher every now and then.

But, enough about work. I’m really looking forward to the next few months. A Tour de Cure bike ride, Yosemite Young Lakes, Boston for my sister’s wedding, Sonoma for the 4th of July, and St. Louis for the Baseball All-Star Game!

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The funny thing was that the trail was apparently closed:

From Bray & Greystones

If you look closely, on the left side someone wrote “Liar”. We pondered the sign for a few seconds until we realized locals were powering by us and parents with small children were rounding the corner from the opposite end of the trial. How deceptive!

The cliff walk is about 2.5 hours (if you walk slowly) and takes you along the coast, much like the train does below:

From Bray & Greystones

From Bray & Greystones

From Bray & Greystones

From Bray & Greystones

I highly recommend walking this trail if you visit Ireland. There’s some great views, an easy hike, and it’s easily accessible by DART. The only downside at the moment is that Greystones is performing a major restoration of their beach, so the end of the hike had a detour through some construction sites.

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So again, to recap the weekend (at least the time I was in Dublin). Here are all the pictures.

Walked to the Guinness Factory. There could not have been better weather:

From Dublin

Hurray!

From Dublin

A pint at the Gravity Bar:

From Dublin

There’s a nice view of the city from the top:

From Dublin

Next stop was Kilmainham Gaol:

From Dublin

Walked back to the City Centre through the Museum of Modern Art:

From Dublin

This is from Sunday but again, amazing weather:

From Dublin

On Monday I made the trek out to Leo Burdock for fish and chips:

From Dublin

Ate it at St. Steven’s Green:

From Dublin

Delicious:

From Dublin

I’m so glad I did a ton of walking while I was here. It really helped negate the tons and tons of food I ate while I was here.

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This weekend the weather continued to be gorgeous!! On Saturday I walked around Dublin and went to the Guinness Factory and Kilmainham Gaol. Although the former had great tasting beer, the latter was an amazing walkthrough of Ireland’s turbulant and violent political history. I highly recommend going there if you visit Dublin. The history geek in me was hanging on every word from our tour guide.

On Sunday I took the DART south for the cliff walk from Bray to Greystones. Some spectacular views. I’ll post pictures later this week.

Just 3 more days until I’m back in the United States!

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