California 2025 Trip--Day Two

Here's some other stuff besides Mission San Jose that we saw on our second day in California...

While I was geocaching, the kids enjoyed a playground nearby.

Fun at a playground

We visited Pineapple King Bakery in Fremont near the Mission San Jose, though the cakes there were more pineapple-shaped than actual pineapple-flavored. I order the pineapple cream cake which had a cream filling with pineapple chunks (so definitely pineapple-flavored). Delicious!

A variety of cakes

We tried out omescape's Sorcerer's Sanctorum, an escape room that initially divided our group in two (we went with my brother-in-law and his family). As we proceeded through the Sanctorum's chambers, we were reunited. The puzzles had a good variety and we solved them in enough time to escape (53 minutes out of 60!). We were so happy, we went out for treats afterward (though we didn't get pictures of the yumminess).

Decorations at omescape

Our victory pose!

Posing by the poster

Game Reviews: Wild West at Breakout Games and The Inflation Monster Card Game

My family took me to a local escape room for Father's Day. The room is called Wild West at Breakout Games in Columbia, Maryland. The theme is fun: We were gold miners who had been robbed by some local bandits. Half of our crew was handcuffed inside a local saloon while the rest of us were just outside. So there were three tasks: free our friends, find our gold (hidden in a vault), and get the heck out of there. 

The game had a lot of old west flavor and we had a big enough group to solve all the puzzles in a very quick time. The puzzles had a good variety of mechanical and verbal solutions. The finale was satisfying. We had a lot of fun working together.

Very good considering we had 60 minutes to finish

At home, my daughter got an early birthday present, a card game called The Inflation Monster. It is based of an episode of the Tuttle Twins on Angel Studios, flagging up how damaging inflation is. Players start with a little money that they can invest in real estate, gold, stocks, bitcoin, or a new business. The various ventures bring in money in a couple of different ways. But after each player has a chance to invest, a die is rolled and the inflation number moves up (or possible down, though only one side of the die is a -1). Then everyone has to pay the amount on the inflation counter. Pretty soon, only one person is left with any money and is declared the winner.

It was interesting to play and brought up some discussion about what are really good investments and how you can mitigate inflation in various ways (including actions not in the game). We had fun playing though getting wiped out by inflation in the game is not so much fun. 

Playing the game

Posing for a picture

Game Reviews: Unlock Shorts

The Unlock! series usually has hour-long games but they have recently published several shorter games intended to play in less than an hour. For those who haven't played these games before, they are a variant on the "escape room in a box." Instead of a book and components, these games use a deck of custom cards and an app (available on Apple or Android devices) to make it through all the puzzles to the solution. Here are three that we tried...

Unlock! Short Adventures: The Flight of the Angel design by Cyril Demaegd, scenario by Fosco Garibaldi, and artwork by Cyrille Bertin

Players have a secret mission at Carnival in Venice. The first step is to find a mask to move about unobserved. Then, sneak into the Palace and steal the Doge's secret documents. Sneakiness and cleverness are required for success!

The game follows a nice, logical path. Some of the puzzles require a bit of dexterity (especially with the mask) that worked well. We managed to finish in time with only one hint, a satisfying run. Very fun!

 

Unlock! Short Adventures: The Awakening of the Mummy design by Cyril Demaegd, scenario by Matthieu Casnin, and artwork by Neriac

A lot of legends and folklore are told about a mummy that wanders the Red Pyramid. Interested in debunking the supernatural, the player joins famed Egyptologist Professor Sarah Jones to explore the tomb and prove there's no such thing as spooks. Sarah quickly gets separated into a different part of the pyramid, leaving the player to make their way through the creepy halls and menacing traps. Can you find the Professor and the way out in time?

This adventure has a lot of character. Clearly borrowing from classic Indiana Jones storytelling, the trip through the pyramid has some interesting puzzles and traps to avoid. The game has one jump scare which is hinted at the beginning. The art leans into the old black and white mummy movies from the 1930s and 1940s, giving it a very nice visual style. We enjoyed this two-lock difficulty adventure quite a lot (except for our ten-year old who was caught off guard by the jump scare).

Unlock! Short Adventures: Secret Recipe of Yore design by Cyril Demaegd, scenario by Matthieu Casnin, and artwork by Pandaluna

The player joins a cooking competition using a dead grandmother's French Toast recipe. All you have to do is make and plate granny's recipe and you are bound to win, right? The judge is a bit of a stickler, so you have to memorize the recipe off the first card and then put everything together in order, including cooking it just the right amount of time. 

A twist or two prolongs the effort in an enjoyable way. We had a lot of fun until the very last puzzle which was not clear as it could have been. After trying several different variations, we took hints to get things right. Even though this was only a one-lock difficulty, we got the lowest score of the three. We loved it up to the very end--it was whimsical and amusing with charming art. If only the ending had worked better...

These games are a lot of fun and are reasonably priced (around $10 each). I discovered on the website that walkthroughs are available if you get stuck, though that is not as much fun as figuring things out yourself.

Recommended--the mummy one was my favorite, but they are all a fun, quick set of puzzles to solve as a group or solo.

Sunnyvale, California, 2024

Some random pics from Sunnyvale, California...

We visited one of the Google offices, got some snacks and saw some sights on the campus. They have bikes in case you need to get from building to building quickly.

Google bikes

A lot of the buildings have secret rooms that are not on the floor layout maps. We discovered two rooms, though one was occupied by someone else so we didn't go inside.

Secret room that felt a bit Mediterranean

Door to nautical-themed room (also occupied room)

The office buildings have recreational rooms. This one had a ping pong table!

Game room decor

Team #1

Team #2

Serving

One of the rooms is a blinged-out private movie theater with a jungle theme.

Jungle theater

A lot of other cosy spaces provide a break from the usual office decor.

Is it an alcove or a couch?

An odd vase

Mass transit just outside the buildings

Hammocks!

My daughter relaxing

Two boys snoozing

We went to Sunnyvale's downtown hoping to get some mochi donuts but the shop was sold out of donuts at 7 p.m. The place was way too pink anyway.

The picture doesn't do it justice

We walked over to Murphy Street for other options and wound up at a gelato place.

Restaurants on Murphy

View in the other direction

Ice cream shop

The Shrine of Our Lady of Peace is also in town. A three-story tall statue of Our Lady was commissioned by Msgr. John Sweeny in 1980. Delaware artist Charles Parks worked on it at his workshop, building it outdoors. The work drew crowds in Delaware, so when the statue was completed and moved to California in 1982, it again drew crowds and became a pilgrimage site. 

Immaculate Heart of Mary statue

Regular, life-sized statue of St. John Paul II

We went to Laughing Monk Brewing for dinner one night. I had a personal flight (the official flight is ten samples!) of four beers. In left to right order below: Hefeweizen (wheat ale, 5.3% ABV) was a very good hefe; Irreverent Wit (Belgian-style white ale, 5.3% ABV) was not as good as the hefe; Holy Ghost (Pilsner, 5.2%) was a charming name but just a regular pilsner to me (I am not a pilsner fan, but at least I give it a try now and then unlike IPA); Midnight Velvet (Stout, 5.8% ABV) was a smooth drinking stout that I enjoyed best of all the beers.

Beers!

We also got the Bavarian pretzel which was very nice.

Pretzel on a hangar

The logo

Omescape is a local escape room with one room that has a cooking challenge. The room is called Undercooked. We had a very large group, nine people, so we ran the room twice. In it, players need to make menu items by finding ingredients and recipes hidden throughout the room, which included the main kitchen, a pantry, and a garden area. Group #1 finished with $180, 15 completed dishes, sous chef status, and five stars. Group #2 finished with $130 at 17 completed dish and five stars, though the computer that tracked recipes reset during their time so the employee had to input some data manually. So the results are not conclusive. But my team won.

Group #1

Group #2

We had dinner at Metro City Restaurant and Bar where I had a delightful peanut butter porter. That's the only picture I took there!

So nice, I drank it twice!

We had another visit to Google, this time by the Visitor Experience, located near the main Googleplex. Gradient Canopy is the newest showcase building created by Google. It blends aesthetics with practicality and efficient use of environmental resources. The roof is covered with solar panels but they are arranged to create a tile effect that gently slopes to the edge. This helps to use solar energy while allowing natural light into the building for the workers. It also gathers rainwater for use in the building and surrounding gardens.

Gradient Canopy building

Unimpressed tourists

In addition to work space for employees, the building has a Google merch store, a cafe, and the "huddle" space for special events. The events space includes a small theater that runs a promotional video for the building when other things aren't going on. 

The Huddle logo

In the walkways and gardens around the building are several works of art. The first we saw is Quantum Meditation II by Julian Voss-Andreae, made in 2022. The creator's background in quantum physics inspired this statue that "disappears" in a direct view.

Quantum Meditation II

The vanishing bit

Back to a solid

Further on is Curious by Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson Art from 2022. The bear's fur is made of more than 160,000 pennies. 

Curious

Doesn't disappear with a front view (though my child is almost invisible)

Go by Hou de Sousa (also from 2022) is inspired by the ancient Chinese game. Each of the pieces (600 in this work) has a question asked by Google users, though that is a small portion of the 3.5 billion queries they get each year.

Go

The Orb by Marc Fornes is a self-supporting aluminum sculpture hand assembled.

The Orb

Zachary Coffin's Rockspinner is a multi-ton boulder that can be rotated by just about anyone thanks to ball bearings and engineering ingenuity. 

My kids spin the rock

On the way to the Googleplex we saw Halo designed by SOFTlab in 2022. The thin films inside reflect different waves of light causing a multicolored show that was rather amazing.

Halo

Inside Halo

We finally made it to the Googleplex, the main headquarters buildings of the company. The area has several statues of the Android operating system mascot, one of which is seen below.

Googleplex and Android

The complex has a dinosaur skeleton. Rumor has it that the T-Rex (named Stan) was attacked by a flock of pink flamingos. Apparently he ate his assailants, if his scat is anything to judge by.

Stan got no nutritional value from the birds

Dino poop (why doesn't Google clean this up?)

The central area also has a volleyball court though no one was using it while we were there (and we did not bring a ball, alas). 

Exercise room and sun room in one?

I was amazed to see this tree growing out of the underground garage. I'm sure in a hundred years it will cause trouble.

Has it been imprisoned for some crime?