Random Brain Dump

Somebody cleverly recreated the new movie trailer for The Shining, as a romantic comedy! Funny…

This National Geographic photo is called Larger Than Life. It took me awhile to make heads & tails of the photograph. It’s disorienting isn’t it?

I won’t spoil it, so I’ll leave it to you to figure why it’s unique…

Update: here’s the link to a bigger version of the shot.

Suzanne had an outing with her girl-friends the other day. Sounded like their day was a day of pampering: afternoon tea, massages, spas etc… Sheessh, women. 😉 Determined not to unfairly miss out on any fun, I decided to go out as well. So, I arranged for a double-date for myself! Read it and weep, Suzanne!

The plan was to take the ladies out for a nice dinner. Since these two particular ladies do have a reputation of, shall we say: mis-behaving, wild and difficult, I had to choose one of the rowdier restaurants. Since one of them expressed craving for ribs, I loaded up the ladies and the three of us headed to the local Outback.

Been quite awhile since I dined at Outback. Not exactly best known for ribs, but the ladies were hungry and I didn’t want to venture out of Cupertino. As I walked in the place hand in hand with the two ladies, I happened to notice that the ladies were attracting quite a bit of attention. The strange thing was that the attention was coming not from the guys, but from other ladies, especially mothers. Hmmm, curious…

The waitress greeted us and asked me: “night out with the ladies?” I proudly answered “that’s right!” with a big grin. After we ordered our drinks, the bread came and was as fresh and hearty as I remember. The ladies obviously enjoyed the bread lathered with butter, as their mouths were soon smeared all over with the butter. My dates were rather messy.

After the yummy bread we all began to chow down on the baby back ribs. The ladies took a few bites then quickly gave up on the ribs. Spicy sauce wasn’t their thing, I guess. Didn’t want to be a bad date, I ordered them an additional side dish of rice which was more to their liking. I tried striking up conversation, but one lady, the younger of the two, wasn’t a great one to hold a conversation with. Half of the time, she’d simply reply “What?” She seemed to carry some kind of an ascent as well…

Around this time, the ladies began to get a bit wild. Heck I don’t remember ordering them any alcohol; perhaps somebody spiked their lemonade. One of them started climbing onto the table and start dancing. The other busy causing a commotion of her own, kept peeping at the next booth. It helped that the place was as noisy as can be, so we didn’t draw any ire from fellow patrons. I can attest to my dates’ reputation, these ladies can be a handful! Whew…

Next came a dessert of vanilla ice cream with OREOs. The ladies went straight for the ice cream, no OREOs for these ladies since they don’t take a liking to anything chocolaty. By the time we were done with the dessert, the ladies seemed tired out and were ready to head home. These ladies do turn in rather early. Hmm… guess they aren’t the party animals I heard them to be.

All in all, it was a great time out. My two dates seemed to have a good time with me too! I’m already looking forward to another double date the next time Suzanne abadons me to go out with her friends! 🙂

We celebrate this past Mother’s Day with an afternoon family picnic on the beach in Carmel. It was perfect weather: sunny, warm, bright, yet not too hot nor windy. The water was as turquoise as I’ve seen in Hawaii. The kids had loads of fun playing with the sand and surf. Their mother enjoyed her special day relaxing and playing with the kids!

Here are some of the shots from the beach…

Last month, we took the kids down to LA for a spring break visit.

While Suzanne was paying a visit to her friend Ly and her newly born baby, I spent some time with the kids and their cousins. We had a little easter egg hunt in my sister’s backyard. The kids had fun looking for the left-over eggs that Suzanne had prepared for her class. The older kids were too fast for Allison as they were darting back and forth grabbing the hidden eggs. Not wanting her to miss out on the fun, I resorted to lead Allison to one of the hidden eggs. She happily grabbed one and put it in her ducky basket. Didn’t take long for her to realize that the other kids got more eggs than her, so she complained to me: “I have only 1 egg Daddy, I don’t even have two eggs!” I bursted out laughing and explained to her that there weren’t any eggs left.

On another day, we took the kids to Getty Center. My friend Allen recently showed us some pictures of his visit to the place. The museum recently opened after years of renovation; it sits on top of the hill next to UCLA campus and provides an expansive and awesome view of LA and the pacific ocean. Just the view itself was worth the trip. We didn’t get much of a chance to check out the art collections, as the kids quickly got rowdy. When Katelyn fell into the water fountain, we packed up and headed straight home. What a nightmare! 🙁

The highlight of the trip was a day visit to Disneyland which has become sort of an annual spring break mecca for us last few years. Suzanne got all the kids each a hat; Katelyn picked her own hat and wouldn’t take it off the entire day! As usual, everyone liked “It’s A Small World” and of course the Dumbo ride. The highlight for Katelyn was posing with Minnie Mouse who was her favorite Disney character. After catching the Disney parade in the afternoon, the adults and the small kids were exhausted and ready to call it quit. I decided to stay with Katelyn and my nephew Andre.

With only three of us left, we were whizzing from ride to ride the rest of the day. Andre was a great sport— the oldest kid and had to stick with the girly and kiddie rides all day.  So to make it up to him, I took him & Katelyn to a Buzz Lightyear ride, after which Andre proclaimed “that was an awesome ride! It’s all worth it!” The two cousins even braved the “Haunted Mansion”! After a late dinner of hot dogs and pretzels, we caught the fireworks. Katelyn loved it when Tinkerbell flew back and forth high above the castle. We didn’t leave the park until 10PM. Katelyn was a trooper as she walked all day long on her own two feet. I was totally exhausted when all was said & done!

Here’s some of the pictures from the trip.

We basically had very atypical California weather the last 2 months here in the bay area. But this past weekend was just simply gorgeous and so we took off to beach with the kids. After a lunch at the Santa Cruz Marina, we hit the sands & the surf. The girls spent hours playing on the beach. A great day for the family.

I lugged my camera bag out to the beach and quickly learned that was a mistake. Sands and lenses don’t play well together. I didn’t dare to change the lenses twice with the sand blowing everywhere. Here’re some of the shots…

Last Thursday, Suzanne had to hold teacher conferences at her school. So I quit work early and came home to take care the kids. It was a gorgeous evening, so we grabbed some food and headed to the park. We sat down on a field of grass and happily chowed down Baja Fresh burritos. Afterward the girls & I ran barefoot on the grass in the park, chasing ducks and each other… The girls had so much fun that they didn’t even nag me about taking them to the playground, like they usually do.

I brought along my big zoom lens and snapped a bunch of close-up shots. Of all that I took that evening, the one pictured here on the right stood out to me. A little sepia treatment and it’s become one of my personal favorite shot of the girls! I simply can’t help but smile when everytime I look at it.