The Mitchells in America - Andrew and Margaret

Sunset over the Pacific and 2007

2007-12-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

The sun is setting on 2007... and we head into 2008. These photos were taken about half an hour from our place, at sunset a couple of weeks ago. Given that the Pacific flows South (away from the Arctic) there is often a fair bit of mist around ... we got lucky this day.

Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo

2007-11-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

Our hotel in the valley below Machu Picchu was nothing short of spectacular. Our room included a private outdoor daybed and spa (pictured). It also has a large variety of hummingbirds, heliconias, bromeliads and birds such as the Cock-of-the-rock (pictured).

The following is a slideshow of a few of our Peru photos... click through for the album...

Peru - Machu Picchu

2007-11-12T18:58:00.000-08:00

After Cusco we spent 3 days in Machu Picchu itself, going all over the ruins and taking about 2000 photos just in Machu Picchu. Naturally there are plenty more nice photos than just these four... see our picasa galleries for more!http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewmitchell1975

Peru - Cusco

2007-11-10T18:42:00.000-08:00

At the end of October we went on a short South American adventure to Peru, primarily to visit Machu Picchu. On the way we spent 2 night in Cusco, a city situated deep in a valley at 11,000 feet above sea level! We stayed at the Hotel Monasterio, a converted monastery. These buildings were, without doubt, the oldest I had ever stayed overnight in. Creature comforts in the hotel included Oxygen piped into the rooms so that the lungs received as much Oyxgen as they normally would at 8000 feet.

Andrew's father visits California

2007-10-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

My father came over to the US on a work visit and dropped by us on the way back for a week. He is pleased to have received my old canon 300d with a new 28-135mm IS lens and took plenty of photos (though not as many as I did of course). During that time we visited Monterey where these photos were taken.

Trip to Monterey with Canon 40d

2007-09-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

I have posted photographs in the past from Monterey aquarium. These are photos from a recent visit. The photos are much nicer now that I have the newly released canon 40d. This is much better than my old camera, particularly at high iso photographs. These photographs feature jellyfish, a sunfish, and a shark in high detai.

Bay area wildlife

2007-09-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

These four photos show the variety of wildlife that can been seen in the bay area on a weekend. All 4 shots were taken over a two day span in September 2007... migrating Egrets, deer, phesants and hawks...

Margaret tries braids

2007-07-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

Margaret wanted to try African-American braids, however doing her whole head would have taken 18 hours. So she opted for a dozen small braids. The red and purple you can see is fake hair. She doesn't think she will ever do it again as even this took 2 hours.

2007 Visit to Sydney

2007-05-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

In May 2007 we visited Sydney to spend a few ays with family and renew visas. If anything I was surprised by how little has changed in Sydney.

Skiing in the USA, 2007

2007-02-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

This year Margaret and I went on a ski trip to Sqaw valley (in addition to my company's traditional ski trip). We had a great couple of days' skiing. This was Margaret's first experience of skiing in the US.
A large amount of snow fell while we were there, which made for nice powder skiing... as well as several hours driving in chains through a winter wonderland.
We were lucky that we came home when we did... some friends who left the same resort 30 minutes after us didn't get home until 14 hours after us due to heavy traffic and road closures!

Family visit Autumn 2006

2006-12-02T12:30:00.000-08:00

Just as we were heading into winter, my father paid his first visit to us in Silicon Valley. We spent a weekend at Lake Tahoe where it wasn't quite winter enough to snow, but at least it wasn't winter enough to make driving difficult!

We also spend some time showing my father the sights of San Francisco.

Yosemite in Autumn (Fall)

2006-11-08T08:20:00.000-08:00

Yosemite doesn't have a massive amount of colour in Autumn, but that is still a fair bit by Australian standards. We took a trip up to and around Yosemite with a couple of friends last week and had a good time.

In Autumn the waterfalls aren't running (well, some are trickling, but most aren't running) which doesn't make for great waterfall shots, but still-water shots turn out quite nice.
Sunset is allways a good time for photography. In this case we are shooting from Glacier Point toward Half Dome, a massive rock which is a full day climb from the valley floor.
On the sunday we ventured towards mono lake and saw the "other side" of Yosemite Valley.

You can see our photos from the weekend at http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewmitchell1975/FallAutumnInYosemite
We hope you enjoy the photos!

Many moons and no blogging

2006-11-08T08:13:00.000-08:00

It has been a few months now since we last blogged. Margaret has found herself a job at advertising .com which has kept us both very busy... as it meant that we could no longer do our weekly tasks during the week.

Work is going well for both of us... definitely keeping us busy. Until last weekend (Our Autumn trip to Yosemite - photos to follow) we really haven't been getting out much over summer.

The shot to the left is a recent full-moon shot I took handheld with my 300mm lens and cropped the result.

June in Pittsburgh

2006-11-08T08:04:00.000-08:00

In late June I (Andrew) headed to Pittsburgh for a Machine Learning conference (the same conference I presented a paper at a few years back). I had a good time, although it was my first experience of rain for 3 months.

The photograph here is quite a typical Pittsburgh shot... where the two rivers meet to form one river.

Monterey Aquarium

2006-06-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

While in Monterey, a visit to the Monterey aquarium is a must. We spent most of a day there and took many nice photos. The first shot shows a simple but very clear shot of a colourful jellyfish... This is really where the quality of our new Canon 17-55 IS 2.8 EFS lens really stands out in the dark of this aquarium exibit.

If you like these, don't forget to check our Best of Monterey gallery online for more.

The second photograph shows Margaret in front of the "Outer Bay" exibit, which features a huge aquarium with fish as big as a human.

Santa Cruz with Andrew's mother

2006-06-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

Given that Andrew's mother was over in the US, we took the opportunity to take a couple of days off and head down to Santa Cruz and Monterey. These shots were taken at Santa Cruz, about 40 minutes south-west from home, where we stopped for lunch. Santa Cruz is at the northern end of a large maritime park, hence all the wildlife in these photos.

June trip to Yosemite with Andrew's mum - day 2

2006-06-04T18:42:00.000-07:00

Here are some more Yosemite photos... this time from day 2 of our June trip. As always, you can find more photos in our photo album.

This first photo is a classic view of Half-Dome from a bridge over the Merced River in the heart of Yosemite Valley. This is yet another long exposure.

This second photo is a nice close-up look at Half-Dome, which dominates Yosemite Valley.

The location is Tunnel View for our third and fourth shots... thi is the most famous view of Yosemite Valley, popularized by Ansel Adams in a photograph taken after a Winter Storm in the 1940s. This shot shows Margaret and Andrew.

Another shot, similar to the last, but this time featuring Andrew's mother at Tunnel View.

June trip to Yosemite with Andrew's mum - day 1

2006-06-04T18:20:00.000-07:00

We had such a good time on our first trip to Yosemite... We decided to take another trip a month later while the rivers and waterfalls are still roaring.

Andrew's mother was over visiting at the time and this was a great opportunity to do some sightseeing while she was here. She seemed to have a good time, despite (or perhaps due to) the fact that we did not see any bears this trip.

This first shot is of some of the local wildlife we saw on the way to Vernal Falls. The hike up to Vernal Falls is significant, but well worthwhile. Perhaps next time we will continue on to Nevada Falls.

The second photo is of the river roaring along downstream of Vernal Falls

Thirdly we have a nice long exposure shot of Vernal Falls and the mist trail. This combines the flowing effect of the long exposure with a mist effect from the spray... You can see how the mist trail got its name.

Finally a shot of Yosemite Falls from the valley floor. These falls come in 5th in the list of the world's tallest waterfalls.

Overall that weekend we took well over 600 photographs. You can find another 70 of the best in our photo album

Touring San Francisco (and a new lens)

2006-05-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

Having taken delivery of a wide angle lens and a telephoto lens a month ago, I have just completed my lens collection with the new canon 17-55 2.8 IS EFS lens.

This photo is an early shot with the new lens, taken from the far side of the Golden Gate bridge.

Our first trip to Yosemite - day 2

2006-05-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

More photos from our Yosemite trip, this time from our second day (of 2). The first photo is from our hotel room at Yosemite View Lodge, which is right on the Merced River (which flows down from Yosemite valley). As you can probably tell from the photograph, the river roars right past the bedroom window! Thankfully the walls are very soundproof.

The second photo is a shot of the Merced River downstream of Yosemite Valley. This demonstrates the enormous power this river has at this time of year.

Finally a signature shot of Yosemite... Half-Dome from Yosemite Valley. I don't think that photographs really do this landmark justice... It just towers over the valley.

More photos in our photo gallery.

Our first trip to Yosemite - day 1

2006-05-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

Now that we have our fuel-efficient Prius, we decided to start going on a couple of trips. May-June is the best time to visit Yosemite as the waterfalls and rivers are flowing at their greatest from the snow-melt in the mountains.

We've both been fans of waterfalls and flowing water for quite some time, so we took plenty of pictures (well over 600 in the weekend). These 4 pictures represent just a few moments from our first day.

I used this opportunity to expand my lens collection with the Canon 75-300 IS and Canon 10-22 EFS lenses... all the photos here were taken with those lenses.

The first photograph is a long exposure shot taken with the 75-300 from Cascade Creek on the way in to Yosemite Valley.

The second shot was another long exposure shot taken from Valley view in Yosemite Valley itself. You can see Bridal Veil Falls across the river.

The third shot is a short exposure close up of Bridal Veil Falls. As you approach the falls at this time of year, the mist beneath the falls turns into a heavy downpour, covering the path with a river of water.

Finally a close-up shot of Half-Dome from near Mirror Lake, with the moon slowly rising above the cliff face.

More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/andrewmitchell1975/YosemiteMay2006

Spring is here

2006-05-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

Well, Spring has finally arrived in the Bay area after a wet winter (apparently they all are rather wet around here). It was actually good to get some time with rain with the last couple of years in Australia being so dry. I'm not sure I'm quite ready for 8 months of virtually no rainfall, but I believe this is what we are to expect.

We are definitely looking forward to warmer weather after 2 successive winters (we moved to USA in the middle of the Australian Spring).

The photographs shown here were taken at the end of April as we toured the hills to the west of Silicon Valley toward the Pacific. It was a cool, misty-foggy day and felt like it had been raining nonstop for months... Which I guess in the hills to some extent is true. Down in Silicon Valley itself at the same time it was a hot day with blazing sunshine... An amazing contrast for just a few km away.

Another new car!

2006-04-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

We've finally reached the end of the queue for our long awaited Toyota Prius. Back at the start of November they told us 3 months wait. In March they said 2 more months. On Friday afternoon they called to tell us it would be ready sometime between the 16th and the 21st of April... and 2 hours after that they called to say it had arrived! We picked it up on Saturday morning. I think we have spent more time reading the instruction manual than driving it so far!
Did you know that there are 5 different methods to unlock the driver's door (and none of them involve a crowbar)! So far we have achieved 53 mpg on the car which is pretty good considering it generally improves with age. I expect to achieve much less efficiency on the commute to work as it is so short.

We've sold our house in Voyager Point

2006-04-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

When we left Australia we were intending to rent out our house in Voyager Point (Sydney) rather than selling it as it is rather costly to buy and sell housing in Australia and we liked our house that we had put so much time and effort into. A couple of weeks into our time in America we received a phone call (after midnight, the agent didn't know we had left the country!) from an agent in Australia with a potential buyer (even though we had told the agent that we had decided to not sell). We would have said no, but the offer was high enough (above the previously estimated selling price) that it covered the costs of buying and selling. Add to this the fact that rental returns were not fantastic (relative to the property value) ... so in the end we decided to sell! We wish the new owners a happy time with their new home and garden. If you want to contact us via snail-mail to an Australian address, please use our parents' addresses (they are still at the same place they have been for over 20 years).

Another Squirrel

2006-03-05T14:12:00.000-08:00

We found a squirrel that was a little more tame than most. Usually they are very difficult to photograph, but this one let us get a little closer. These little creatures are all over the place. Mostly they are considered a bit of a pest, but we don't mind them so much (I guess as we aren't used to them).

2006-03-05T14:08:00.000-08:00

This is the church we have been attending since we arrived in America, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (MPPC).

Skiing at Squaw

2006-02-12T13:39:00.000-08:00

I've just had my first experience of skiing in America. The photograph was taken after a long day's skiing at Squaw. My employer sends the whole company for a day's skiing, party and overnight accommodation (+ lift ticket and transport) which was great. The day itself (as you can see) was a beautiful sunny day, although rain the previous day had meant that some of the slopes were a rather icy (worse than I had ever seen in Australia in that respect). The grommed slopes were very nice.
When I was trying to figure out which runs to start on, I asked a couple of locals (ski hire and on the lift). I told them that I skied blue and black runs in Australia. They all told me that the slopes in America are much more difficult and that I should stick to the easier blues. On going up the mountain I could see that these runs (the easier blues) were more like some australian green runs (eg duplex at smiggins) and so I went straight for the harder blues and the blacks. The judgement of what is blue and what is black is very similar to Australia... if anything the Australian black runs are on average more difficult than the blacks I have seen over here... the real difference over here is that much more of the resort is blue and black runs, compared to Australia where they are mostly green.
Anyway, had a great day's skiing, and look forward to more soon.

Squirrels

2006-01-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

Margaret has taken a liking to the local squirrels. They are, however, difficult to photograph. This is one we managed to catch climbing up the wall of our apartment building the other day.

Our apartment block

2006-01-02T20:19:00.000-08:00

This is our apartment block, http://www.tamarindsquare.com. It is a newish set of apartments, being only a year old. s

Settling in over Christmas

2006-01-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

This is what our new place looks like at Christmas. We have been busy at ikea furnishing the apartment. Our sea shipment still hasn't arrived, being caught in customs somewhere, so we are still sleeping in a temporary bed.

Christmas eve was a nice warm winter's day and we had my cousin Pete (and family) over for lunch.

Other than that the weather has been quite cool and miserably wet. Still, that makes it a little different from what we have been used to in Sydney lately.

Our new home

2005-12-24T11:25:00.000-08:00

This is our new home under construction..

Visiting San Francisco

2005-11-26T17:45:00.000-08:00

We had our virst visitor from Australia last weekend (Amanda) so we went up and toured San Francisco.

We've bought a car

2005-11-26T17:21:00.000-08:00

As we need to return our company paid hire car in the next few days, we have bought ourselves a car. It is the Pontiac Vibe pictured here. This is a rebadged toyota matrix. It is an ex-rental, just over a year old. It is a small car with good visability.

New contact details

2005-11-06T20:52:00.000-08:00

Our email addresses should remain as they have been. We have new 'cell' phone numbers, however.
Margaret: +1 650 215 0015
Andrew: +1 650 215 0016

Our first week in America

2005-11-06T20:37:00.000-08:00

Well, we've just finished our first week in America. We have settled into our temporary accommodation (see photograph). We have also found a one bedroom apartment to move into at the end of the month.

Only a week to go!

2005-10-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

We now have a confirmed departure date of 28 October. Sorting and packing is going quite well. We have our visas. There is still a mountain of paperwork to get through... itemizing everything we are taking to the States, and much more.

We are also having a few farewell dinners along the way. A few days ago we had our homegroup farewell at a restaurant in Circular Quay. We took a few photos of the Harbour Bridge... the photo to the above is one of these (a 30 second exposure with the camera sitting on a table).

Fish tank has moved!

2005-10-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

As most of you will know, we have a big fish tank. Yesterday we had it (and most of our furniture) moved out. Our furniture has generally been spread all around Sydney while we are away... with most going to my parents place in Turramurra.

It made a big difference to get 4 removalists in instead of the 2 we had last time!

Margaret graduated

2005-09-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

Margaret is now officially another Dr. Mitchell after graduating with her Ph.D. in Computer Science. Photos: here.

She really liked the colour of the gown - her favourite colour.

light fittings

2005-09-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

We finally got our light fittings installed! After how many years? We are very pleased with the results, particularly the outdoor lighting. For most of our lights we went for the ikea Leding tracklight with 3 spots... very good value at under $20. From what I can tell it is about the one item in Ikea that is actually more expensive in the U.S.

The chandelier (see photo) was a bit of an effort to install, as I'm sure you can imagine if you have been to our place! It is positioned directly above the stairs in an area that is open to the lower level of our house... you simply can't get a ladder near the ceiling at that place. From above you can't get within a metre of that point as the main airconditioning box for the ducted a/c is sitting on top of it! In the end a hand drill, a long handled pruner and some duct tape did the trick... and the chandelier looks good.

Renting out our house

2005-09-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

We have finally made our final final decision to rent out our house in Voyager Point. While I'm finalizing an agent, I've put up a page on the web to describe it in case anyone out there is interested. See our home in Voyager Point for rent. In general we are aiming for the relocation market for this home as people living in Sydney don't know of the existence of this nice suburb in the South West... and wouldn't look here for a place to live.

This means a lot of work needs to be done on our house... the garden needs to be finished so that everything looks nice when we return, we need light fittings etcetera. We've got a busy few weeks ahead of us.

Postcode rant

2005-08-24T16:39:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago Australia Post decided to change the postcode for my suburb, Voyager Point, from 2171 to 2172. (2171 was split into 2171 and 2172)

At the time I thought this was great news. The old postcode, 2171, was sorted and centered at Narrellen, about 40 minutes drive South West of here. As a result, whenever we entered our postcode on a website we got very strange results... sometimes we were told we were out of the delivery area for an internet site because we are "outside metropolitan Sydney". Sometimes we were told "we don't deliver that far away" by a company 2 minutes drive down the road that delivered Sydney-wide. Also, when entering our postcode to find "your nearest store" for just about anything we were given a store an hour's drive away! It seems many computer systems treat postcode like American zipcodes which cover a much smaller area.

However, the change of postcodes has been a disaster, and not Australia Post's problem. Australia Post publishes updated data monthly on their website in a nice, easy to use, consistent, database format. Does anyone ever download it for updates... NO! Now when we look up our "nearest store" we are informed that we entered an invalid postcode... and I should "check your postcode and try again". I had half a mind to set up a shell script that alternately looked up (on Aus Post website) the postcode for Voyager Point, and submitted it to the "nearest store" lookup... and repeat this every minute forever until they changed their tune! It would only be following their instructions after all!!! When I tried to renew my driver's license, by law I must make sure that my address is correct. They wouldn't accept my correct address due to the postcode "not existing". Technically they couldn't renew my license or the licenses for the other 1000 people affected by this change ... but at least a human let me use my old, incorrect postcode and renew my license. I even contacted one internet site about this only to be told (apologetically) that they couldn't make the change without a total rewrite of their software (for database integrity).

The worst was today. Now 2 years after the change. Someone in the US needed to send me a parcel via a very popular international courier service. It was rejected as "Voyager Point, 2172" does not exist! This took 6 hours and a few phone calls to sort out.

I just wish these software vendors didn't hardcode the postcodes in. How hard is it to automatically download the new data from AusPost... or at least after manual checking of detected changes? How hard is it for the software to not just blindly say "you are wrong, fix it" but instead offer the possibility that it is out of date.

Our last skiing trip in Oz for a while

2005-08-22T22:56:00.000-07:00

We've just come back from our last skiing trip in AUS for a while. Unfortunately I missed the last couple of days of skiing due to haveing the flu! The snow was ok, nowhere near as good as last year. As always the group that we were down at the lodge with was great.

We had a really nice sunset one night just over the duplex at Smiggins.

I also decided this year to take the risk of bringing out the SLR camera on a (short) downhilling trip. Took a few reasonable shots with it... I could do with some more practics, though.

Of course there are plenty more photos on our recent photos website.

Welcome to our new blog

2005-08-22T00:03:00.000-07:00

Hi, we're Margaret and Andrew Mitchell, and we are soon going to America for work. Currently we live in Sydney, Australia... and have a job offer in Silicon Valley, USA.

The purpose of this blog is to keep our friends and family up to date with what we are up to while we are away.