I went to the December Nights Festival in San Diego. Each night, around 120 thousand people will crowd into Balboa Park and all of the main stages will have different Christmas displays and shows.

KPBS, the local PBS and NPR affiliate, used this picture I took in their weekend wrap-up on the KPBS Culture Lust blog.

Beheld the technological power of the Japanese (in Japan):

Went to a gallery showing:

Got stuck in Los Angeles rush hour traffic:

Went to San Diego multiple times:

Saw a car show in Mexico:

Watched turkey racing:

Took a picture of smoke from California when it was on fire:

Went to a (not really at all) secret server room somewhere:

Went to Lake Tahoe:

Saw fireworks:

I’m in Vietnam this week for work. Here’s some almost-appropriate music to listen to while you read this post:

So far, Vietnam seems like what I imagine China felt like 15 to 20 years ago before it was completely overtaken by investment and development. In Hanoi, you will find the same crazy moto-dominated traffic, lines of make-shift stores that sell pirate iPhones next to plumbing supplies, and questionable street food vendors that you would find in China. But Hanoi doesn’t seem to be nearly as modern (or should I say western?) as Shanghai or Beijing. There is no public transit, the taxis don’t seem to be regulated in any meaningful way, and there aren’t any of the modern super malls like you would see in Xujiahui in Shanghai.

But I don’t think things will stay like this for very much longer. China developed so quickly that visitors who returned after two or three years away would barely be able to recognize areas they had visited before. I don’t know if investment will strike Vietnam that quickly, but I’m sure this place is going to look completely different ten years from now.

Here is the run I did on Saturday.  You can zoom in and click on the blue line to see where the running path is on the canal.