Food = Yum.

Regardless of where my parents live, every time I got and visit them, the one thing that I always wind up doing is eating. While driving around the neighborhood, a familiar sign caught my eye.

I had to do a double take.

And my eyes did not deceive me. I saw Chick-Fil-A. Having freaked out about getting sweet tea, we decided to stop by, and my brother, getting carried away, decided to get two gallons. I guess the southern lifestyle has rubbed off on him as well!

Later tonight, we went to a sushi buffet. Yeah, you can't go wrong with that either!

Practice Shots.

A coworker let me borrow his 50mm f/1.4 lens so on the way to the airport, I decided to mess
around and take a couple of shots. I love this lens and am probably going to get the f/1.6 soon. I'm excited.

Thanks to Jane for pulling through and giving me a ride to the Oakland Airport. That was crucial.

Self-Portrait.

Ran out of time and energy to look for a picture today, so I decided to take a self-portrait. I know, I got lazy.

It won't happen again, I promise!

Scrub-A-Dub.

After a long overdue wait, I finally was able to get my car washed today. Now it's sparkly clean. I just hope it doesn't rain anytime soon!

The Hukilau.

Our team had an offsite at a Hawaiian restaurant today in Palo Alto. It felt great to simply get out of the office for a few hours and hang out with my coworkers. Above is a picture of Matt, one of the OGs of our team, and Thu.

A Night at The Public.

We had our weekly Creative Arts Ministry (CAM) meeting at Ben's restaurant The Public in SOMA. I love coming here, because the atmosphere is chill and the food that Ben prepares for us is great.

A Trip to Pixar Animation Studios.

This morning, Alex invited us to watch a screening of Disney's Meet the Robinsons at Pixar. The movie was okay, but the storyline was a little weak- Alex explained how Pixar got involved in this project after it was more than half completed, so they couldn't tweak the story to make it work better. Oh well. It was a free movie, so that made it pretty decent!

This was my second visit to Pixar and both times have been very enjoyable. It's so amazing to see the artwork that was used to storyboard and create Cars. While touring the place, I almost forgot my own workplace and the amenities there, and was thinking "Wow! This must be such a cool place to work!" I guess there's alot to say about this area, since there's so many good companies out here to work for.

A Night On the Town.

Tonight, we headed to SOMA (South of Market) to celebrate Grace and Timmy's birthdays. I snapped the first shot from the car as we were looking for parking, and although it came out a bit pixelated, I like the b/w-effect.

This is Timmy. He knows Jen Lin from back in NC...Small world. Happy birthday, bro!

We Run This!

Meet my friend Christina. She's a graphic designer at work and we both share something in common: our ties and love for the state of North Carolina. Since it's game day (we're playing USC), I told her yesterday that I'd be very disappointed if she didn't rep any Carolina Blue.
I guess I was convincing enough.

Go Heels!

Last Day in the Cube.

Today was the last day that the four of us shared our first cube in the new building at work. It's been one of the most memorable experiences so far sitting with these guys- from playing "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" to bringing up bags of honey dipped pretzels and Haribo gummy bears, it's been fun. And it's not like we're splitting up forever either, because we'll still be working together! I'm definitely going to miss the gang tho. Ah such is life....

[l-r] Zach, me, Annie, Lexi

Lunch at Fuki Sushi.

A few co-workers from my team decided to have lunch at Fuki Sushi in Palo Alto. Good food, good company, good times.

Urban Art.

While walking home from work today, I was walking through one of the side streets that led to my apartment, and I noticed for the first time how the side of this building was tagged up. While graffiti is considered vandalism, I appreciate "good" graffiti art because it's just one of those elements of a city that give it more character. The only problem is that there's too many bad tag artists out there.

This wall wasn't that great, but at the same time, the bright colors caught my attention.

A Hospital Visit.

Toadie had her appendix removed today, so we paid her a visit at the hospital this evening. We were all relieved to know that that surgery was a success and that she would be discharged tomorrow morning. We knew that she was fine because even in her drugged up state, her dry humor kept us all laughing. Get well soon, Toadie!

Church Wildlife.

Someone at church dressed up in this panda suit for Fall Launch. I don't think anyone understood the reason why he decided to do this, but at the same time, with the scratching heads and questioning faces at the mall, I found it to be hilariously random.

"Alpha- Find Me Five Teenagers With Attitude!"

While driving down the US-101 today, Jeff and I noticed the communications tower found near Twin Peaks peeking through a thick layer of clouds surrounding the city. With the clouds masking the surrounding area, the tower reminded me of the big zords in the Power Rangers, or something random like that.

Promoted to Construction Work.

At one of our team building activities, we received construction helmets (to coincide with the theme of the conference). I gathered three of my coworkers (Steven, Helen, and Taj) for this shot. So random.

Tempting.

So today was the first day of our department's conference in San Francisco. Dinner, as in most work events, was phenomenal, but the thing that really caught my attention was the dessert fondue station, complete with a chocolate fountain. Ugh, too bad I gave up soda and desserts for Lent. Sad.

And for your information, I did not eat this lollipop. I just thought it was fascinatingly huge!

Pirates of Polk Street?

As I was wandering around my neighborhood to look for a good shot today, I looked up to notice that there was a Jolly Roger hanging off of someone's balcony about seven floors up. As I brought the camera up to my face to take the shot, I noticed something else on the top right corner of the frame. It was a doll of Stewie in pirate garb!

Wow.

Work at Dusk.

I had dinner with Nara and Liz today on main campus. While waiting for them, I decided to take a shot of one of our main buildings. It was close to dusk, so the sky was a beautiful shade of bluish-violet. This picture does not do it justice.

Meet Julie the Rockstar.

We had our weekly CAM (Creative Arts Ministry) meeting at Dave's place today. Afterwards, Julie couldn't keep away from playing Guitar Hero. I don't know what the huge hype about this game is, but at the same time, I don't want to try it out either, in case I find it to be addicting! hehe.

24/7 = Full House (part 2)

Today, we got the rest of the gang to meet up to do the group shots for the Full House shoot. Again, the weather was incredible and we had a picnic after shooting, so it was just a great day to relax.

[...]

In other news, meet Manimole. I will not divulge this person's true identity, but take a guess anyway!

24/7 = Full House (part 1)

With Fall Launch approaching soon at church, we 24/7-ers wanted to do something unique. After discussing with Jason an idea that I had, we decided to schedule a video shoot by the Painted Ladies today to basically make a parody of the Full House tv show. The weather was absolutely great and although we met up at the crack of dawn, it was a great day to be outside.

A 24/7 Roleplay.

So for our icebreaker today, we broke up into teams and we had to re-enact a TV sitcom for a panel of "judges" to guess. This team was assigned to reenact The Simpsons. And yes, Yasuda was Homer.

99 Luftballons.

After moving to our new building, they had these balloons decorating our offices. For some reason, my first impression of these balloons reminded me of that crazy German song.

Meet Zach.

Zach is one of my cubemates and a fellow optimizer at work. He's one of the funniest guys I work with and for some reason, he started to fake roundhouse kick me while I was trying to get some work done. I think he just needed a mental break from an assignment he was working on, but quite randomly, he proceeded to show me what moves he could do to wreak havoc in our office. Finally, he completed his mock rampage with a fake shirt tear, a la the Incredible Hulk.

Zach's one of the few guys in my department who's taller than me (he's like 6'7). I should be scared, but he's too goofy to be feared. Maybe I should look at this picture more...

Okay, now I'm scared.

Dashboard.

I got a ride home today from a co-worker. Since her car's dashboard was placed in the middle of the car's front panel, I had a great angle to capture this shot. I was trying desperately to get a clean and clear shot, but with the low-lighting, I had to wait until we hit a red light for the opportunity.

I can't really explain what it is about the shot that I like, I just do...

The Walk Home pt 2.

As I was walking home today, I noticed how beautiful the sky was at that moment. Although this wasn't one of my best pictures of Project 365 so far, I like the color contrasts.

Meet Pastor Dave.

Pastor Dave Chae, the head pastor of Great Exchange Covenant Church, joined us for dinner after church today. Since our group was so large, he had to change seats in the middle of dinner to give everyone in the group an opportunity to speak with him. For some reason, all of the younger, single/not-ready-to-get-married-yet individuals were sitting on one side of the table, where the questions were mainly about establishing and maintaining relationships. Conversely, the other side of the table, consisting of mainly serious relationship types and soon-to-be-engaged people were taking the questions to a higher level. Rather than asking about relationships, when Pastor Dave got to that side of the room, the topic changed to family and raising children.

Tonight made me realize that I really got a long way to go...

Biking to Sausalito.

Today, a whole group of us rented some bikes and biked to Sausalito, a small town past the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to enjoy the weather and scenery. Anyways, I'll let the pictures do most of the talking today.

Simply breathtaking.

hoon. jason. ben. stephanie. lisa. caroline. navin.


giants say "yum."

man vs. city

[...]

This little girl's name is Emily. She caught my attention as we were getting up to leave the park after lunch. I noticed how she was so focused on eating the ice cream cone her dad was holding, and amidst all the determination this three year old could muster, she wound up getting more ice cream on her face than in her mouth.

So cute...

Emily with her ice cream beard.

Small Group Randomness.

I really like the framing of this picture. With everyone seeming to do different things, it kind of reminds me of a Norman Rockwell picture.

[...]

So Rona and Jesse both decided to rock zip-up hoodies to small group today. While Rona has a tendency of looking cute in her threads, Jesse looked like he wanted to either mug me or shank me. I thought it was an interesting juxtaposition.

The Walk Home.

This is the famous historic Regency Center. I pass by this huge structure every night on my walk home from my shuttle stop. Apparently there's a big ballroom inside and it's one of the few venues in SF that can hold massively huge events. Meh, it doesn't really look THAT big from the outside though...

Well...maybe.