California in Early April

I type this post staring at the screen through a diphenhydramine hydrochloride-induced haze, so forgive me if it is not to coherent.

Down along the Great America Parkway I encountered NetGear, which has a room set up like a house to showcase all of their home networking gear. A block down and across the street is a building that houses one of ATI's research labs and the American headquarters of Namco (the creators of Pac-Man, Soul Caliber, and other famous games). Namco had a large screen demo of Soul Caliber II for XBox playing in the lobby, along with a kiosk for each of the current consoles playing Namco games. Walking back up the parkway I turned left and found the former Sun Microsystems building, McAfee Software, and the Intel campus. There is a museum at the RNB building showcasing Intel's corporate history, their innovations, and current products. A really great display is the larger-than-life simulation of a microprocessor. Each component talks about what it is doing (though the voices tend to grate after awhile, they're very cutesy). The thing that really impressed me is the amount of bicycle and walking paths in Santa Clara. Great America Parkway had tree-lined, shaded sidewalks down its entire length. It is definitely a pedestrian friendly area - not suprising since gas is upwards of $2.50/gallon. When we were in Santa Ana (Los Angeles) I took a short walk and found an odd flowering tree; no idea what it is.