Ginger and Javier tied the knot this weekend in Malibu. Randy, Jen, Joey, and I drove to SoCal on Friday morning, following Mark, Joon-Mo, and Daniel down along Highway 5. We stretched our legs and settled down at the Good Nite Inn in scenic Calabasas before heading over to Mr. Chuy’s for dinner. Walking into the restaurant, I immediately recognized some differences between Southern California and Northern California: laid-back, blonde, and artificial. After 10 years in the Bay Area, I’m definitely more NoCal than SoCal!

The wedding was held at the Our Lady of Malibu Church, which is located near Pepperdine University. My lasting memory of Pepperdine comes from the West Coast College Tour when I was a high school senior. The tour guide spoke of curfews and certain PDA (and I’m not talking about handheld computers) restrictions in place at the school. I recall thinking to myself, “Heh, guess I’m not going here!”

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I won $40 last night at a Bay Area card room, playing at the 2-4 Texas Hold’em tables. I was actually up nearly $120 at the beginning, after winning with some monster hands (J8JJ8 and QQQ). Then, I went back and forth between $180 and $200, before my skill and luck started to leave me. I shouldn’t have started playing a little loose when I had the chips. Next time, I’ll win and continue to play my tight aggressive game style which worked so well in the beginning. I got a little greedy on some of those pots when I flopped a two-pair, not knowing that another person had flopped trips. But hey, that’s poker for you! Still, I am happy with the $40 that I left Garden City with.

Everyone has a poker face or tells, little quirks — like shaking hands — that can often tell you if the player has a big hand or not. I’ll be going into the card rooms with my hair down over my face. It’s intimidating to see it across the table, I think, though it’s not that flattering. Hey, I need every advantage I can muster!

The overall experience was a good one. I think that I’ll do it some more in the future, but I won’t get addicted to it. I have my win/loss limits, and I’ll be diligent to stick to them.

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Our 20-year old washing machine at the house has been leaking this brown sludge for who knows how long. We finally got it replaced this week with a new Frigidaire 3.1 Cu. Ft. 6-Cycle Super Plus Capacity Washer. The new washer reminds me of the Miele machines at Stanford. Front-loading, it uses less water and appears to be more gentle on your clothes than top-loading washers.

Notes for the future: Washing machines are really heavy! Use at least two people to carry one to your curb when disposing. The delivery men strapped bands around their shoulders and underneath the new washer. It made lifting the machine much easier than by using brute force.

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Kristina is headed for China for three months of intensive Chinese language learning. By the time she comes back, she’ll know more Chinese than Chung! Her friends hosted a farewell party last night at the Bambuddha Lounge in San Francisco. Rae and I arrived around 10:30 after spending the first part of the evening at Jeff and Vanita’s housewarming party in Albany. The moment we walked into Bambuddha, we saw the IQ level drop and the testosterone level rise. There was music but no dancing (no space to dance), but there was some certainly lots of guys hanging by the walls, hands on their… (yep). Seriously, I never could figure out how people picked people up at bars.

We must have arrived a little earlier than everyone else, for we spent the first 15 minutes walking around looking for Chung or Kristina. When I moved to the lounge area, a familiar face caught my eye. “Wait a second,” I thought to myself, “that’s Clara!” I knew that Clara and Michael had moved back to the Bay Area from Boston earlier last year, but I didn’t expect to see her at the lounge!

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The Orange Room at SLAC was packed this past Wednesday to hear from the Canon and Olympus reps demonstrate their latest products. Thanks go out to Jim Rose from Canon and Joe Guzman and Dave from Olympus for coming in to talk to COBA.

Jim kicked the meeting off with a condensed presentation of new new products announced at PMA last month. He showed off the PowerShot Pro1 and the PowerShot S1 IS. I’m intrigued by the S1 IS, since it’s one of the first cameras from Canon that can record video at 640×480 and 30 frames per second with the length determined by the size of one’s memory card. Sony cameras have had this feature for quite some time, but this seems to be a first for Canon. Another feature that makes its debut on a Canon PowerShot is the ability to zoom the lens while recording video (can you do this with other digicams?).

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An oft-repeated quote in the house these days comes from Rounders (and here). Near the end of his final showdown with Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) with just a few chips left, Teddy KGB (John Malkovich) tells his henchman that he’s, “Hanging around. Hanging around.”

I’ve been feeling like that for some time now. At the cusp of 30, I look back on the years since I graduated from high school or college and I’m stunned at how quickly it went by. You would think 4 years at University would be a long time (and it is), but it seems like a blur. Winter Quarter at Stanford is coming to an end… which means the end of the year is only 3 months away!

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Ben and Christine held a pre-wedding brunch at Christine’s aunt’s house in San Francisco. It was an opportunity for me to meet some of her friends from their engagement party in Berkeley a few months ago.

From my cousin’s wedding last year in Maryland, I have learned that Filipinos like to eat. Christine’s aunt prepared a veritable feast for the guests today! Cheese, bagels, cream cheese spreads, fruit salad, lasagna (both meat and vegetarian), wine, muffins, sliced salami, and more! Even the dog got to eat some of the food… he looked so cute begging me for another bite. How could I resist?

In the next month, there will be two weddings happening in Malibu. Ben and Christine in the middle of April and Javier and Ginger at the end of March! Congrats to both of them!

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Heather held a party at her Oak Creek apartment near Stanford on Friday night. I met up with folks from the Fellowship and her friends from Stanford and Benetech. She prepared some delectable South African dishes to dine on, including this sweet pudding that sounded like Mordor Pudding! Amy had brought her ice cream maker and the ice cream she made was really good!

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Yesterday afternoon, I went to Meyer Library to scan the film I had developed the previous day. Meyer is more of a study-hall these days as opposed to a library. They moved most of the books a few years back to Green Library. The scanning computers were QuickSilver PowerMacs running Jaguar, with network login ability. The scanners were Epson Perfection 3200’s, not the best scanners, but hey, I’m easy to please. The photos were shot using T-MAX 3200 black and white film. The pattern of the grain in high-speed film is random compared to the digital noise in high ISO photos. To me, the grain gives the images a look of reality that just can’t be matched (see the comments below for a debate on this opinion).

Afterwards, I rode the bike over to Stanford Stadium, where Po’k and Randy were doing a shoot the LGBT’s 30th anniversary documentary film. It’s good to see my video camera equipment getting some use these days; it’d be a shame for it to gather dust in the closet!

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I drove up to San Francisco this morning to help photograph Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble during a rehearsal for an upcoming show. Afterwards, I met up with Njideka and Raphael at the WideRay headquarters, where they were meeting with Bill and Andrew (last seen at Stanford Stadium a few years back). We’re excited to get a development kit from WideRay. It looks like it could be a good solution for a couple of the fellows’ projects this year.

Following our meeting, Raphael and I walked over to the new Apple Store on Market Street and Stockton. They were giving away grab bags for the big opening this past Saturday. For $250, you got this large bag filled with assorted Apple goodies. Apparently, some people received iPod mini’s, Airport Extreme Base Stations, wireless keyboards and mice, software, and more! They only had 200 grab bags available for the first people in line. Sounded like people got a good deal out of their $250, eh? The store is absolutely beautiful. When we heard about the glass staircase, some of us immediately thought of what would happen in the event of an earthquake. Let me tell you, that glass staircase looks very, very solid and stable!

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