Chillin' in San Diego

So I'm sitting here typing this from my hotel room in lovely Carlsbad.

From Tuesday thru Friday, this week, I'm attending a training class on a Printed Circuit Board layout software package called Altium Designer. It actually is a whole lot more than PCB layout but that is what I'm learning. This is one of the latest and greatest packages out there and my new employer had myself and another engineer attend. They actually had an on-site class at AV a couple months ago. Everyone who was at that class would be jealous of this.

I'm not doing much else while I'm down here (no night life, no beach, no golf, etc) but I am managing to eat--A LOT. This office of Altium, has about 30 employees (and an additional 20 people attending the class this week). But they have a full time chef that provides everyone breakfast and lunch. And even though the kitchen/cafeteria is hardly that (think electric skillets and microwaves) this food is ridiculous. Never any shortage of food and more options and types than a lot of restaraunts. It is high quality stuff. The chef makes a Costco run every night and spends ~$500 every time. Amazingly everyone who works at Altium is still skinny. A good number of cute, very thin women walking around.

After stuffing ourselves all day (breakfast, break, lunch, break) we go eat dinner. And this ain't no Mickey-D's. We don't get a per diem but we get a general estimate of about $68/day for food. Well, we don't have to buy breakfast or lunch so dinner can be really good. I've had seafood every night now. Tuesday night I had fried fish and shrimp at the San Marcos Brewery. Last night I had Kamachi (spelling?--like yellowtail) that was flash seared at Fish House Vera Cruz. Tonight I had Scallops and Raviolis at a great winery/restaraunt near the outlets. Thanks, AV!

This morning, Laura, Hannah, and Nancy drove down. They spend the day at the Carlsbad Outlets. They are spending the night with me (hey, what else can you do when I've got 2 queen beds and I'm the only one in the room?) and will go home mid-day tomorrow.

It appears that I won't get out of hear until around 5pm. That will not be fun. Traveling out of San Diego, thru Orange County and West LA (and LAX) on a Friday, during rush hour. I guess we'll have to stop somewhere for dinner :)