Uploaded to Flickr on 29th April, 2007.

Went to D.C. this weekend to attend Debbie and Neil's wedding. It was really fun, but a whirlwind weekend. Congratulations to Debbie and Neil!

The first batch of pictures (shots from the actual ceremony) are up here. They're all in black and white not because I was trying to be artistic, but because there were pink lights in the tent. Since I was asked not to use flash, everyone's skin was pink. I think they turned out pretty nicely for having to contend with a difficult lighting situation without flash.

I'll be putting up the rest of the shots from the weekend soon.

Uploaded to Flickr on 22nd April, 2007.

A real HDR - made from 3 JPGs.

Uploaded to Flickr on 22nd April, 2007.

A real HDR - made from 3 JPGs.

Uploaded to Flickr on 21st April, 2007.

Uploaded to Flickr on 22nd April, 2007.

An "HDR" image generated from a single JPG, hence all the noise on the underside of the car. See the original here.

Uploaded to Flickr on 21st April, 2007.

A quick experiment with an HDR generated from a single RAW file. Definitely an interesting look. The Photomatix watermark is especially classy.

Wikipedia article about High dynamic range imaging.

Uploaded to Flickr on 21st April, 2007.

You should too.

Uploaded to Flickr on 19th April, 2007.

The rest of the pics from Ian's birthday are here. I'll probably be posting a few more up, so check back later.

Uploaded to Flickr on 19th April, 2007.

Brian, my friend/coworker, is my new hero. Why? Because he fixed a couple bugs for me Saturday night, and kept me from having to come in on the weekend.

I had a jam-packed weekend planned. Saturday night I was going to a barbecue/Borat-watching party, then to a birthday party, both in San Francisco. Saturday evening at about 5pm, I was driving up to the city, when my cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID and saw that it was a dreaded 650-628-XXXX number, which meant it was coming from EA. I answered the phone, and it was my manager, telling me that a bug I had Claim Fixed on Friday evening came back Fix Failed. I talked with her a little, and told her I had made a change to one of Brian's scripts that really should have fixed the bug. I eventually had her add some notes to the bug description, and forward it back to Brian. Meanwhile, I was so engrossed in the conversation that I missed my exit off of the freeway. Good times.

When I got to the city, I gave Brian a call and talked the bug over with him a bit. He said he'd take a look at it, and I told him I'd give him a call later to see how things were going. I went to the barbecue (Borat was funny, but made me feel uncomfortable the whole way through), and while I was there, I got a couple of calls from my producer MJ, describing a bug that sounded very similar to the previous but my manager had called me about. I suggested a fix (that didn't work), and eventually asked her to talk to Brian about it, as at this point, I was somewhat confident that it wasn't my bug.

Later in the night, we headed over to the DNA Lounge for Bootie, their monthly mashup party. It was for Vignesh's birthday, which I discovered was in August. Yeah, I didn't really get it either. The club ended up being surprisingly fun; the crowd was not your typical club crowd, so the annoying people to normal people ratio was extremely low. I don't know if that was typical of the DNA Lounge, or if it's only like that for the Bootie party. While I was at the club, I realized I hadn't called Brian yet, so we texted back and forth a few times, and it sounded like he had cleared everything up, at least for the short term. I finally e-mailed MJ from my phone, and asked if I needed to come in on Sunday. I didn't hear anything back, so I figured everything was okay.

Sunday morning, Buddy put on a ropes course, where he taught us some skills that are useful for outdoor climbing, like using two Prusiks to ascend a rope, rappelling down a rope, and rappelling past a knot. After first getting kicked off of the Chabot College campus, we eventually ended up in a nearby park, and set up on the swing set. It was lots of fun, and edumacational, too! Buddy's pics. Note, especially, this picture where you can see my belly squishiness. Hot.

After the ropes course, Buddy and I headed over to Dave's house in Oakland for his son Ian's 2nd birthday party. Ian is really cute now, and I maintain he looks like a tiny Dave. Pics for that should be up soon. Shortly after arriving in Oakland, I received an e-mail on my phone from MJ, saying that things looked good, and I didn't need to come in to work. Woo! Go Brian! As a sign of my eternal thanks, I made cupcakes and brought them in for Brian on Monday. In a slightly related note, the oil in a Duncan Heinz yellow cake mix recipe can be substituted with water and apple sauce, for reals. It's really good.

Uploaded to Flickr on 25th September, 2006.

• When I watched Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, I used to get really stressed out when I thought he wouldn't finish tying his shoes before he finished singing the song. I don't know what I thought would happen if he didn't, but I'm sure it wasn't good.
• I missed 36 days of 2nd grade due to asthma.
• I never watched a single episode of Saved by the Bell, and still haven't to this day.
• I got a check-minus in "Respects other people's property" on one of my 1st grade report cards. I can't remember what I did to deserve this.
• In 4th grade, I placed 2nd in the Math Bee at school. What did I lose on? 6 times 5. I got a box of peanut brittle as a prize.
• When I was 2, we took a family vacation to Hawaii. When I saw the ocean, I said "Mommy! Look how big the swimming pool is!
• We had a record called Witches' Brew that I used to listen to all the time. It had a track called The Eagle that used to make me feel like crying. "Brave and a hunter's son/The land was his 'til he met a gun"? Tragic!
• I once pooped in the bathtub...while sister was in the tub with me.
• I tried wet cat food, dry cat food, and milk bones. Yum.
• My best friend Tara and I once called up the local radio station and requested "Hangin' Tough" in a Texan accent. I can't remember why we thought the accent was necessary.

For the past week or two, I've been having trouble with my asthma, so yesterday I finally broke down and went to the doctor. As expected, she prescribed me a steroid-based inhaler, which she wants me to use twice a day for a month. As long as I'm feeling fine after a month, I can taper down and eventually stop using it. I inherited a great deal of distrust of steroids from my mother, but at this point, I'm a little bit out of options. My usual preventative medicine just isn't doing it's job, and not being able to breathe was getting real old. I asked my doctor why she thought I was having symptoms, and she said that it's probably just sensitivity to pollen and other crap in the air since it's the start of allergy season.

It's been several (say, 10+) years since I've had these kinds of seasonal flare-ups, so this particular episode was met with a great deal of denial and disappointment. But hopefully this new medication will help control my asthma, and not give me moon facies; my neck can't handle my head being any bigger.

Uploaded to Flickr on 10th April, 2007.

Uploaded to Flickr on 10th April, 2007.

Uploaded to Flickr on 10th April, 2007.

Another "I want to be like Nate" shot

Uploaded to Flickr on 10th April, 2007.

Uploaded to Flickr on 10th April, 2007.

Some kind of tree flowers in Pioneer Park in Mountain View.

Uploaded to Flickr on 7th April, 2007.

A scrap yard fire in Redwood City. Even from the highway, I could detect the smell of burning plastic. Read more about it here.

Uploaded to Flickr on 7th April, 2007.

Uploaded to Flickr on 7th April, 2007.

The gallery setup in our building at work.

Uploaded to Flickr on 7th April, 2007.

Unfortunately, they didn't get everyone's information cards up in time for the opening. Mine were some of the ones that didn't make it.

Yesterday, Yar and I made it so that in Trillian when we use this emoticon: it plays this sound:

(If you don't see an audio player, click here to download the sound.)

I have never felt prouder.

Because of Enzo's kidney troubles, I've had to switch him to a low-protein dog food. I recently picked up a 20-pound bag of the new dog food, and decided that I should get rid of the remaining old dog food that I still had in an airtight container in my back yard. So I brought the bag of new food outside, and decided that the best course would be to scoop all the old food into a garbage bag, pour the new food in the container, then put his old food into the new food bag, and give it away.

I couldn't pick up the container of old food, so I transferred it one scoop at a time into the garbage bag. When it was empty, I poured his new food into the container. Then, I carefully picked up the bag of old food (it was straining the garbage bag), and started to put it inside the new food's bag. Slowly, slowly, I lowered it inside, twisting, squeezing, until...it exploded all over the patio.

If Enzo could have released a girlish squeal of delight, he would have. Instead, he started scarfing down as much food as he possibly could. I grabbed his collar and put him inside, and started to try to clean up the food.

But Enzo is a clever dog, and immediately ran around to my bedroom, towards the doggy door. I looked through the transparent flap of the doggy door, and saw 35 pounds of crazed hungry doggy barreling towards me, and held my hands against the flap in a futile attempt to contain the beast. Enzo would have none of that, and flew threw the doggy door with ease, heading straight for the pile of kibble.

By this time I came to my senses, and remembered that Enzo does recognize the ever-important command:"NO!" Once I told him to leave the food alone, he actually mostly behaved, but couldn't help himself around the stray kibble piece that dropped onto the floor.

Unfortunately, after scooping all of the food off of my patio, it was mixed with leaves, dirt, dog hair, bugs, and generally not suitable for consumption, so I had to throw it all away.

And it sounded like such a good idea in my head...

Uploaded to Flickr on 3rd April, 2007.

Enzo enjoying the chew toy he got from his dog walker, Bob.

...people you hate are always better than you at the things you love to do?

Discuss.

Uploaded to Flickr on 3rd April, 2007.

Yesterday, I tried, for the first time, posting one of my photos to a couple Flickr groups that require comments on photos in the pool.

And I feel dirty.

I've been struggling recently with figuring out how to get more exposure (har har) to my Flickr stream. I've been especially happy with a lot of the shots I've been posting up recently, and I'd like to have people see them. On the one hand, I do take photos for myself, not for other people, but on the other hand, it's nice to get feedback, and yes, sometimes a little validation doesn't hurt either.

So I tried a couple of these groups, and even though the photo in question received 9 comments in about 10 minutes, it didn't make me feel any better. It appears that many of the people posting comments barely took the time to look at the picture they were commenting on, much less my stream as a whole.

So what to do? I can just forget about it, tell myself that I'm not taking photos to please others, and frankly, just get over it. But there's always that little bit of, yes, ego, that really wants eyeballs on my photos. Am I just being whiny?

What are your thoughts?

Uploaded to Flickr on 1st April, 2007.

Dry ice in water at the Exploratorium.

Uploaded to Flickr on 1st April, 2007.

When Eli and I were in high school, we used to have debates about which city was better -- San Francisco, or New York. I was on the New York side, and she on the San Francisco side. As luck would have it, after college, she ended up in New York, and I ended up here. You've won this one, Universe. But last week I received an e-mail from her letting me know that she'd be in town for the weekend to look at a couple MFA programs she had been accepted to. So we had brunch on Saturday, and it sounds like if all goes well, she'll be headed out here next year. Woo!

In other news, I went to the Exploratorium on Friday, which was super fun. I hadn't been there in probably 15 years. A few pictures are up in my Flickr stream. A lot of the rest of the weekend was spent trying to get all of my photos printed and framed for the EA gallery. But after many trips all over the area, all five are printed, framed, attached with braided picture wire, and ready for display. The "opening" is on Friday, and then they'll be up in my building for about 3 months. Let's hope my hack hardware attachment lasts that long.