Sachin Agarwal: July 2005

Today I'm starting a two week roadtrip through the Pacific Northwest. It's the first trip I've ever taken on my own. I have my Miata, my camera, and a bunch of maps.

Although I do have a general plan and list of things to see, I have no hotel reservations or advanced bookings anywhere. Hopefully this will let me be flexible as things come up on the trip.

Many thanks to the folks at Roadtrip Nation who have helped me a lot with planning the trip. I highly recommend their books and documentary. (And thanks to Nikhil for pointing me to them)

I'm not sure if I'll be updating this site during my trip, but definitely come back in two weeks for hundreds (thousands?) of pictures!

Newcastle Doctors and Nurses party

Sweeney Ridge An awesome hike in San Bruno.

Aki's dinner at Asquew, and then drinks at Fireside Bar.

Another Cringley article about Intel's relationship with Microsoft, and why their partnership with Apple might be to create a home media system.

One funny thing he mentioned was the $400 rebate Microsoft gave new PC buyers for joining MSN. In 1999 (.com boom), someone found a loophole that you could sign up for MSN to get the $400, cancel it, and keep the money. In fact, it wasn't even a rebate. You could go into certain stores and walk out with $400 in stuff.

This was my sophomore year at Stanford, and with the .com bubble fully expanded, we were always on watch for good deals, interesting companies, and other loopholes.

When we (myself, Nkhil, Jason Ahmad, David Salinas, others?) found out about this, we woke up ass early the next morning to get our hands on free stuff. First we headed to Office Depot where I picked up a sweet HP printer (the high end one, since I had $400 to blow). My parents still use it today.

Then we headed to Best Buy. The place looked like it had been looted. Basically every single item in the $300-$500 range was gone. Shelves were empty. The lines were ridiculously long with people buying anything they could find. There wasn't much interesting stuff left, so I filled a shopping cart with tons of CDs, DVDs, and other computer accessories.

It was totally crazy. I think I have a newspaper clipping from the event somewhere in my box of college memories. Of course, Microsoft figured out what was going on and stopped the deal, but it still gave people a couple of days to clean out Best Buy and other stores offering the deal.

I miss the .com bubble days :)

My first camping trip in Big Basin.

Weekly dinner hosted by Julie, in Milbrae.

Nikhil's 24th birthday Dinner at Osaka Sushi, and then a surprise party!

Dinner at Emily's Our weekly dinner, at Emily's house in Orinda

Pride 2005 Pride celebration in SF. It was more like a street fair on Saturday. I bet Sunday was more lively.

Thunderhill track Another track event with Nasa.

July 4, 2005 July 4th weekend including going to SLO to see family, mini golf, rock climbing, and BBQ. Then back to SF for more BBQ and fireworks from my roof.