Random Brain Dump

A video of Ernest Cline’s “Dance, Monkeys, Dance,” amuzing yet with poignant.

We went to the Getty Museum when we were visiting LA 2 weeks ago; it was an utter disaster. Museums are generally inappropriate for young kids. But undeterred, we decided at another go at visiting a museum, this time without the kids. We drop Katelyn & Allison at my aunt’s place and spent last saturday in San Francisco.

The sun had burned through the morning overcast, revealing a beautiful day ahead of us. Our first destination: The Embarcadero. Mr. Sunshine added the bounce in our steps as we eagerly walked through the market place. Like us, there were many few people out lugging nice cameras & taking advantage of the nice weather.

We called ahead and made a reservation for a late lunch at Slanted Door, one of those restaurants serving Vietnamese fusion cuisine. We had a great lunch of perfectly grilled halibut, manila clams with bacon bits, celophane noodles, and delicious egglant in coconut sauce. I had a refreshing cocktail called Summer in Danube too. All very yummy! It was of those enjoyable fine dining we no longer get to experience all too often these days. 🙁

We then hit the Legion of Honor; well, we tried anyway since unfortunately the place closed for the day by the time we got there. Yet another failed attempt at visiting a museum! 🙁 Suzanne basically blamed me for spending too much time taking pictures. But, we at least did spent some time hanging outside of the Palace and Lincoln park. I was taking more pictures of course…

We then drove across the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito, our first time back since we attended our friend Katie’s wedding there a few years back. We grabbed a cup of coffee and an ice-cream cone and strolled through the quaint downtown, window shopping (well it was really Suzanne since I don’t window shop). We saw this street performer making seemingly impossible stacks of big rocks by the water. Pretty novel way to make a buck!

I missed snapping sunset pictures as I originally planned, but we drove up to one of the hills anyway and staked out a place to take some pictures of the Golden Gate bridge. This time I blamed Suzanne for taking too much time checking out the boutiques. 🙂 We waited and it got windy and really cold. Finally, dusk came and the skyline was dark enough for long exposure shots. I knew the wind and my cheapo $15 flimsy tripod in particular wasn’t going to get me sharp photos. I got a few okay shots, I will have to go back one of these less-windy days and try my luck again with a better tripod. It was pretty exciting for me as it was my first time trying my hands at long exposures.

We originally planned to dine at Ti Couz, but it was yet another plan foiled thanks to my spending too much time photographing… So, we headed straight to the Punch Line for a 10pm show. Greg Proops headlined and he basically “killed.” We found him to be hilarious on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and he didn’t disappoint. The odd thing was there was a party that left the show because I guess they were offended by Greg’s materials. I don’t know why people easily-offended go to these comedy shows. Greg kept referring to them as the Donner party the rest of the show after they left. Pretty funny…

We didn’t get home until 1am. I can’t remember the last time we were out that late together. All in all, it was an enjoyable day playing local tourists– good change of pace doing adult stuffs without the kids. Plus, I was happy to shoot some photos. I got my chance to really try out my new Canon 30D. Suzanne was again my reluctant model for the day and was patiently accomodating to the shutter bug in me. Thanks babe!

All in all, it was a great day out in the city.

Here are a few of the shots posted.

Here’s Paul Graham’s thought-provoking essay discussing software patents.

The weather gods finally smiled on us, yesterday was beautiful. Taking advantage of the first dry & warm day in weeks, I took the girls out to the local park after work. The girls were happily enjoying their outdoor dinner with their Daddy, feeding & chasing the ducks, and had a blast at the playground. Obviously, they were couped up for too long. It was an absolute joy to see my girls having so much fun.

I barely managed to gulf down a burrito since the girls were all over the place; but I had a great time myself. 🙂 In addition to running around & playing with the girls, I managed snapped some quick shots of the kids with my 200mm zoom lens…

Something to try next time you plant yourself in Starbucks: latte art.

Katelyn: “When I grow up, I want to be a vet.”
Daddy: “You do? You’ll have to study hard but you can be a vet or anything else.”
Daddy: “What about you Allison? What do want to be when you grow up?”
Allison: “I want to be a tiger!”

Allison has a small stuffed tiger that is one of her favorite stuffed animals. She sleeps with it practically every night. I wonder if her stuffed tiger has anything to do with this…

I spend this past Final Four weekend with a few buddies in Vegas. Planned this months ago without knowing UCLA would do well in the tournament. So the fact that they made to Final Four was just sweet, especially some of my buddies were my room-mates back in the UCLA days.

I expected that most people would root for UCLA since LA is only 4 hours away from Vegas. But it turned out there were more LSU fans; I guess folks were going for the favorites. I spent Saturday afternoon watching the 2 semi-final games with Jake & Vince. Most of us bet on UCLA and won!

I lugged my camera equipment around Saturday and managed some decent shots along the strip. The highlight was the night shots. I don’t normally get to shoot outdoor after dark. Plus, I got to try out my new monopod with the night shots. It’s definitely less of a pain than lugging a tripod. The combination of monopod & an image stabilization lens, I was able to shoot to 1/15 exposures using natural light. Cool…

I also managed to snap shots of a guy proposing to his girl in front of the fountains @ Belagio. I thought about offering to email them the pics. But decided not to, figuring that they would either be very grateful for capturing the moment or chew me off for “invading” their private moment. Sometimes, it’s just better to capture a moment with a memory, and not have proofs… 🙂