A few old announcements sit on a dusty shelf.
I've accepted a position with Microsoft. I'll be working in the Xbox Live team in Redmond, Washington. Now I just have to finish up my research work, so I can have some time off this summer.
A small bundle of updates have migrated at once, unfortunately not including any new images. I haven't had a lot of time for taking pictures, and I haven't spent the time to process the ones I have taken. I've mostly been sealed up in my apartment, working to meet tight personal deadlines I've set with Mark's help, in order to graduate in the early summer. I've recently been keeping ahead of my programming milestones, but I'm experiencing periods of isolation similar to those I had while preparing for my thesis proposal. I am doing my best to maintain some social contact, but people (including myself) have been doing a lot of traveling recently.
I just got back from last-minute trip to Massachusetts for a Microsoft interview with Groove Networks. Groove is a startup in Beverly, Massachusetts, acquired about two years ago by Microsoft and rushed into Office 2007. It enables secure distributed workspaces, allowing people to collaborate on documents, discuss changes, and keep track of each other's progress. They use a very peer-to-peer-focused approach, but they have introduced some server components, like store-and-forward servers for offline updates or firewall hopping. We had some very interesting discussions about hybrid architectures, network security, and distributed system design, in addition to programming problems and questions about C++ language features. It was a very hectic trip (my first time driving an SUV, and I had to do it in the crazy, construction-filled and poorly labeled streets of downtown Boston), but I enjoyed meeting the Groove group and learning more about their work.
My Microsoft recruiter has been extremely helpful and supportive, and he's recently informed me that my performance at the Groove interviews has opened up a lot of exclusive opportunities for me, despite bureaucratic hurdles related to Microsoft's financial year and hiring timeline. I'm happy with the stuff planned for Groove, and I'd be excited to live in or near Boston, but I'll also get the chance to learn about some great groups at the main campus in Redmond, Washington. I'm not sure where I'll end up, but I'm really honored by this turn of events, because there are a lot of exciting options.
Despite my last-minute travel switch from Washington to Massachusetts, the Microsoft recruiting process has seemed much better organized and helpful than my experience with Google. Google's process involved tons of redundant forms (very ironic for an information retrieval company), confusing and conflicting messages from many different people, and outright lack of communication. This all came about after an excited rush to recruit me after a random open house visit to their Santa Monica office, which precipitated my sudden job search in the middle of my heaviest dissertation work. On the other hand, my Microsoft recruiter has spoken with me many times, answering questions, learning about my interests, and explaining different options he's pursuing for me. He's been very friendly and accommodating, even working remotely at the last minute to push back my interview schedule to help account for jet lag. I guess Microsoft has more experienced recruiters given its longer history, but it really makes a difference in how I perceive the entire recruitment process.
I've left another long gap between announcements. 2006 involved a lot of international travel (Hong Kong, various parts of Europe, Singapore) for visits, a wedding, and a conference. I've even started 2007 off with a trip to Toronto to visit Mark's family.
I'm publicly posting some resolutions I've put together for myself. People can check up on my progress for each one.
As you can see, I have a lot of work ahead of me. Feel free to send me an email of encouragement to help me stay on track. I've already gotten back to a new round of programming, in addition to a parallel track of planning. I'm also a TA for CS 32 in winter quarter and CS 101 for spring. Of course, Mark's holiday visit also brought me more distractions, particularly in the forms of an Xbox 360 and a restart of Oblivion. Fortunately, I think I only have limited interest for playing and definitely not for long stretches. Wish me luck!
I haven't updated the front page announcement in almost half a year! I have indeed continued making updates to various areas, and I'm hoping to implement long-overdue thumbnail navigation for my image galleries this summer. I've always had grand ideas for such a system, but I may end up using something more mundane rather than waiting indefinitely for the free time and motivation to implement a more complicated solution. In the meantime, continue enjoying the directory view of new images, as well as additional entries on various pages.
In case you're looking for Mark's personal Web page, it has now moved to its own home. After four months of waiting, I'll be able to see him this July in Europe, where we'll be attending my cousin Vincent's wedding to his longtime boyfriend Francesc. The wedding takes place in Barcelona, Spain, but we're also planning to visit a number of other places during the trip, like Frankfurt, Cologne, Brussels, Girona, Madrid, and Toledo. We've also scheduled a market tour and cooking class in Barcelona, which should be a fun experience.
Until then, I'm working on further research. I'm hoping to submit something interesting to NetGames 2006. The results of this endeavor may have a large impact on my continuing graduate career.
The start of the 2005 holiday season means that it's time for a new wish list!
I've been burying myself in research work in preparation for my thesis proposal on Friday, December 9th, at 11 A.M. I don't get to surface until December 11th, since I'm proctoring and grading final exams for CS 31 on December 10th. Fortunately, Mark flies back into Los Angeles on December 14th, and we can celebrate (and hopefully not mourn) together. I'll be so happy when he's back in my arms.
I've processed and posted a lot of new images for your perusal, and I'm working on a number of dining entries as well. This has been a busy period, full of all sorts of transitions and upheaval. Hopefully, I'll find the time to keep updating and organizing these pages in the coming months.
I've finally put up some new images in the gallery. This has been a hectic summer, full of various tasks that all demand a lot of attention. Hopefully, things will settle down in August, once we've moved to a new apartment.
It's been a while since I updated the announcement, but I've been adding bits of content over the past few months, mostly in the form of new images. I've now uploaded a massive batch of images, many from Vivian's recent wedding but also quite a few from scattered dates throughout the past year.
Our trip to Houston to produce and attend Vivian and Bob's wedding was quite fun but also exhausting. It was a largely do-it-yourself wedding at a nursery near their house in Houston. Valerie and Hussein made the wedding cake, we strung up decorations, Vincent played the wedding march on a keyboard, Nancy led the flower preparations, and my uncle even ended up working a deep fryer during the reception. We did get to attend a rodeo/country music concert/carnival, and we also had a whirlwind food tour before our plane flights home on Sunday (including Texas-style barbecue, Cajun gumbo and crawfish, and custom mixed ice cream better than Coldstone's), but otherwise it was mostly a working trip mixed in with bonding time. I'm glad that the wedding and reception were such a success, and I was very happy to spend time with friends and family.
Are you looking for the online wish list?
Things have been extremely busy these past few weeks, leaving me rather exhausted. Partly because of this exhaustion, Mark and I have decided not to drive to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving this year. Instead, we'll be spending Thanksgiving with Debbie and Amanda's family in Huntington Beach. We just didn't have the energy to spend twelve or more hours driving for two days of visit time, especially since we'll be making a longer visit a few weeks later. I will miss seeing friends and family though.
A few weeks ago, we saw Caroline, Or Change at the Ahmanson Theater. Mark had made reservations for Patina, which is now located in the same entertainment complex, and purchased the tickets as an anniversary treat. This made for a very nice weekend break in the midst of a heavy work schedule.
Dinner at Patina was very nice, though I think the fall flavors didn't excite me quite as much as the summer themes we encountered in our previous visit, back at its old location. I'll add some details to its dining room entry to describe this new visit. Regardless, it far outclassed La Cachette for about the same price.
Caroline, Or Change was an amazing experience. Written by Tony Kushner, it follows the life of Caroline, a black maid for a Jewish household in Louisiana. The events begin on the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination, though that only provides a vague backdrop to the story. The musical is sung through (no long spoken dialogue), and it deals with weighty themes of family and race relations. A large portion of the Broadway cast performed in this production, and we were at premiere night. This included some amazing Tony award-nominated talent. I was impressed by Sy Adamowsky, who plays the only child of the Jewish family, who was able to hold his own alongside amazing performers, despite being just ten years old. While Tonya Pinkins was a formidable "Caroline," Tony award winner Anika Noni Rose completely amazed me as her daughter, "Emmie." Rose had some of the most moving lines in the musical, mostly dealing with Emmie's growing activism, and she was able to lift those lyrics into the heavens with her voice. She brought me to tears twice in the show, though I admit that the content of the lyrics had something to do with it. The production moves to San Francisco at the end of the year, and I strongly urge my Bay Area friends and family to see it.
I think I'm weaning myself off of MMORPGs for a while, though I did get a chance to try out World of Warcraft during its open beta. It was a very rich environment, steeped in atmosphere, competitive with single-player computer RPGs for depth of environment. In fact, it felt almost like a more strongly-themed Morrowind, minus the prophecy featuring you as the chosen savior and some of the fiddly details while adding a great deal of challenge. It was nice to see the Warcraft world come alive, featuring voice acting from Warcraft III and various characters from the storyline. Orc barracks look pretty impressive when you're a mere grunt walking around outside. Unfortunately, I think I need more time for my personal and professional life right now. The burden of leadership weighed heavily on me with PRISM in City of Heroes, even if things usually ran smoothly. There was just a heavy investment of time and emotion for a game that didn't fit too well into my schedule. Even if City of Heroes has lost some of its shine for me, I'll certainly miss the online friendships that developed there. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep at least those that manifested in the offline world as well.
I've made minor updates throughout the past two months. Particularly, there are additional images or comments in the Gallery, Kitchen, Parlor, and Dining Room.
I'm currently teaching an introductory computer science course, which occupies a good portion of my time. I really enjoy teaching the students in my discussion section, since they're mostly freshmen, not yet too jaded to attend and participate. The material isn't inherently difficult, since the main focus is simply learning the C++ language, but many students have had little to no previous programming experience. It certainly is a challenging experience.
I got to meet Anthony Rapp after his excellent performance in the lead role of Little Shop of Horrors. When he sang certain numbers in the show, I would think to myself, "That's Mark from Rent!" From what I got to see of him, he's a very nice guy. I felt a little weird to be sitting across from him as he wolfed down a quick dinner between performances. I guess I was somewhat starstruck. Eventually, we ended up discussing recent films and novels before the event ended, giving him time to get back to prepare for his evening show.
I also had the chance to visit Dave and Christopher's place again for a game night. I finally managed to meet Phil and Dave's cute little puppy, Connor. We played Coloretto, El Grande, and Illuminati, and I managed to get a photo of the PRISM folks.
For those of you concerned with my financial status, it looks like I'll be a teaching assistant for the introductory computer science series over the coming school year. I'm glad to have another source of funding, now that my current research grant is expiring, especially after the major increases in student tuition and fees.
This has been a busy month for making new friends and maintaining old friendships. So far, my PRISM friends do appear to be keeping up with each other, as we recently had a joint birthday celebration for Dave and Eryc. I've also met a number of board game players, whom I'd like to get together for an actual gaming party at some point. Finally, we've had quite a few events with longtime friends, including random dinners, our summer/grilling-themed supper club, and social gatherings.
Somehow, I've also found time to get work done as well. I've made decent progress on my research simulations, so I can get some useful data for my thesis proposal. I've also processed a decent number of new images, dating from May to August, as well as some pictures that Vincent took last October. Hopefully, I'll be able to be even more productive in the month to come. Wish me luck!
Happy birthday, Mark! I love you!
Time has flown by once again. The past two months have included two trips to the Bay Area, three weddings, two fancy dinners, a few birthdays, two concerts, and a supergroup visit. I've met a few more of my cousins' significant others, and I've had a lot of great times with my friends. I've even managed to make some decent progress with my research simulations. All these events have generated a large backlog of digital photos that I need to process and upload. Expect a fitful stream of gallery updates over the next month.
After a very successful and entertaining get-together with PRISM, my City of Heroes supergroup, I've been left in an odd funk. It was very exciting and a little strange to finally meet people that I had only known through an online game. We had a lot of fun, and I feel as though I became very close with some of the other players. Unfortunately, the weekend had to come to an end, and now the regular world continues. While I've already seen some substantive changes to the behavior of those who attended, I'm wondering what the long-term effects will be. I know that I won't be playing City of Heroes indefinitely, so will we remain friends afterward? Are we going to try to maintain the friendships we cultivated over the weekend? Is a computer game enough of a starting point on which to build a lifelong friendship? Right now, real life seems to hold the most sway, but I'd be very sad if we just let this opportunity slip away.
I guess I've fallen behind on Web updates again. I've uploaded a slew of photos to my new images directory, including photos from lab, Enigma gatherings, Marvin's multiple birthday celebrations, and a trip to Campanile, a well-known restaurant in Los Angeles.
It's been an eventful month, full of visits from friends, trips to special events, and a good amount of gaming, including a Halo marathon. June and July are brimming with Bay Area trips, dinners, concerts, and weddings. Hopefully, I'll start taking photos again.
I've uploaded various screenshots from the City of Heroes beta. Even with my old graphics card, it's a pretty game.
I hope everyone got their taxes done on time. I know a few friends were pushing the deadline. Fortunately, Mark and I got ours done about ten days in advance (a whole day earlier than last year).
I've posted a few pictures courtesy of my new digital camera. We had a good number of visitors, including Chie, who left us for the green pastures of Humboldt County, and my cousin Valerie, who brought along her boyfriend Hussein for a whirlwind tour of California, as well as a Clay Aiken concert. You can see a few images from these and other events by clicking here. Obviously, I still haven't gotten into the habit of taking pictures, as I've only managed to post a few new ones.
Weddings appear to be in the air for a lot of my friends. We have three or four to attend this summer alone. There have also been a few pregnancies among friends and family. I guess these are the lifetime milestones that we're taught to expect (besides the buying of houses, of which there has been some as well). Good luck to all of you friends, far and near, whatever your current endeavors.
Thanks to some advice from Brian Lee and Amazon.com, I've now acquired a Canon PowerShot S400 digital camera, so the trickle of new images should resume soon. I still need to read about some of the features and controls, but I'm quite happy with my purchase so far. I've also installed a new graphics package, so maybe I'll finally get around to organizing more of my gallery images.
Our Mexican cooking class was postponed to the end of April, which happens to coincide with the official release of City of Heroes. Fortunately, I feel as though I'm going to be able to fit the game around my life rather than the other way around. My character got a level bump to help the developers gather data on his combination of abilities, but this has also tended to isolate me from my normal group of friends. In fact, due to other concurrent level bumps, I actually find few characters in the same level range, so team options have been limited lately. While I'll be sad to have to start over for release, I'll also be glad to play with lots of friends again.
I've updated this site more than a few times in the past month or so. That certainly must be some sort of record for me. Surely, there can't be that many interesting things happening in my life, and yet I'm still publishing its details to my nearly nonexistent audience.
On a whim, I decided to browse Berkeley's Tau Beta Pi Web page, which has certainly become much more sophisticated since my days as an officer. While I have many fond memories of those days, and many of my longterm college friends are fellow initiates (along with members of HKN), I haven't really done anything with TBP since I graduated and moved to UCLA.
In a very old archive, I found photos that helped me recall some great times and a lot of old friends. I remember spending a night huddled together telling ghost stories at a snowy cabin in Tahoe during a blackout. We once hiked up to Yosemite's Half Dome and had one of our friends flown down in a medical helicopter, before a night of "Truth," our more sleepy and soul-searching version of "Truth or Dare." I played games, sang songs, solved riddles, performed community service, polished bronze emblems, and even went into hypothermic shock with these friends. It's so strange to know that I haven't talked to many of them in five years.
Inspired by some of the images, I decided to look up Chris Olston on Google. The last time I had checked, he was publishing papers like crazy at Stanford, but now he's already an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon! It felt quite jarring to find that out after browsing photos of us untangling a human knot moments earlier.
While I don't usually wax very philosophical on the Web, this did prompt me to wonder, "Why is it that my next cooking class occupies my mind more than my pending paper deadline?"
Mark and I had an amazing time at a Whole Foods Market cooking class, learning to prepare sushi and various "Asian dishes." We easily ate and brought home much more than the $20 registration fee in ingredients alone. It was a very hands-on experience, totally unlike the standard class I had taken at HomeChef. Apparently, Whole Foods takes a loss on the class to encourage people to cook more and thus shop more (hopefully at Whole Foods). There just happen to be some employees at our branch who enjoy running a class about once a month.
There were six students in this class. For the first half of the class, we had a professional sushi chef explaining how things worked and how we put together various types of rolls. He'd make an example, and we'd use our new bamboo rollers to try it out, while he provided tips. After an hour-and-a-half, we boxed up anything we didn't eat, along with various condiments, cleaning up for the "Asian cooking" portion.
By that time, I would have considered it well worth $20, but we went on to prepare items including chicken yakitori (marinated and grilled), seared rice patties, lettuce wraps, various sauces, and spiced cake with cardamom whipped cream. While we still did most of this ourselves, some of the sauces and the cake had to be prepared ahead of time.
It was a great experience. Our teachers were very friendly, as were the various staff who dropped by throughout the evening. The employee who runs these classes is training to be a chef, and she thought classes would be fun to run. It was exciting just to work in their professional kitchen downstairs. We're definitely looking forward to their next class on authentic Mexican dishes, including handmade tamales.
Unfortunately, without a working digital camera, I probably won't have any pictures of our handiwork available for quite some time.
It's been a busy month since my last update. Unfortunately, my digital camera has broken, so this batch of images will be the last for a while.
In February, we celebrated my birthday, Nick's birthday, and Remi's birthday, along with Valentine's Day/Anti-Valentine's Day. I received a hefty Le Creuset French oven for my birthday, along with several other nice gifts. Some of the nicest gifts were the messages in my birthday cards. The next day, Mark surprised me with reservations at Matsuhisa, and we enjoyed a delicious dinner from the evening's omakase selection.
On the 14th, we had an Anti-Valentine's Day of games and birthday fun for Nick, which actually included a surprising number of coupled people. On the 15th, Mark, Binh, Darin, and I took off for Solvang, but I ended up feverish in bed, possibly from some bad phó. Fortunately, we managed to bring some tasty fudge home with us that I was able to enjoy after recovering.
Since then, I've been busy with research, as usual, including work preparing a grant proposal to keep me funded after the summer. I used the aforementioned French oven to make a beef stew, and I'm still doing my best to continue cooking regularly. Mark and I have signed up for a cooking class at our neighborhood Whole Foods, though I never knew that they offered classes there. The class theme is Asian-style cooking, including some sushi preparation. I'm looking forward to the class, as it's much cheaper than most similar cooking courses. If all goes well, I may look into more classes in the future.
Happy Lunar New Year!
Marvin and Nick helped us prepare some Asian-themed dishes to celebrate, including a simple mashed tofu dish, Szechuan shrimp, and stir-fried chicken with spinach and peanut sauce. We'll probably continue the cooking tomorrow when Amanda drops by for a visit, depending on what we can find at the farmers' market.
I'm also quite busy revising a paper for a submission deadline. There may be too much work to do in the time that I have left, but I'm focusing all of my efforts on it for now. After that, it's back to my thesis proposal and what may be an unexpectedly early journey out into the real world within a year or so. Let's hope for the best.
I've set up a general wish list script for use by friends and family. Feel free to put up a wish list and log gifts there. Basically, it gives a centralized location where people can put up gift ideas and record gifts that they've gotten for others. This should help people avoid duplicate gifts. Just be sure not to peek at your own entry!
There are some pictures from our five-year anniversary party in the new images section of the gallery, but Vincent hasn't finished developing his photos, which cover the bulk of the event. I've also added a few other random pictures.
I'm also updating the secret gift exchange form for use this year. I'd like to make the wish lists more easily manageable, so we can get things moving quickly this year. If only people would reply to my email, we'd be all set to go. In the meantime, I suggest creating and/or updating an Amazon.com Wish List to help out would-be gift-givers.
I've been on quite the gaming binge lately. Vincent helped rekindle my love of games during our anniversary party weekend, and I've spent a lot of time and money acquiring numerous games over the past month or so. I highly recommend BoardGameGeek.com to people looking for great new games to play. As for game sources, I've made some excellently discounted purchases at Fair Play Games, which often has a number of hard-to-find games available. Here are some of my new favorites, though all of my purchases have been winners so far:
What will be the results of California's recall election? I must say that the future of the political scene looks rather grim at the moment, both in California and in the United States as a whole. Can we really just trust in the steady march of social progress?"...the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., October 26, 1967
I've uploaded a number of pictures to the new images section of the gallery. They include pictures from our French-themed picnic with Debbie and Ori in Irvine, Freddie's paintball birthday party, and this year's CS department picnic. Things have been extremely hectic for me as I've been writing a chapter for a book on "smart environments" and trying to run the CS Mentor Program. One good thing to come from the lack of sleep is the all-the-way-around shift to a more "normal" sleeping schedule. Let's hope that I can make it last.
A moment...
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Enjoy some moon cakes by the light of the full moon tonight. Just don't point at it, as Jennifer claims that little spirits will nick your ear with their swords if you do. (Don't blame me. It's her superstition.)
I finally got a whole slew of pictures processed and moved into the new images section of the gallery. As soon as I can get around to it, I'll group the photos from the weekend of Lenny and Anne's wedding into a page for the family room.
Happy birthday, Mark!
I've started adding a random assortment of games, including computer games, console games, and live games, to my collection in the parlor. Most are old favorites, while a few are just memorable experiences, for better or for worse. Maybe you'll find something interesting there. Look for new images in the next few days, too.
I have been shamed by Brian's web page into trying to update my pages a bit. I made updates to just about every room about two months ago, but I've since let things slide a bit. I've posted a few new images in the gallery and a picture of some tasty roast chicken in the kitchen. Other than that, I'm not sure what content I can add and reasonably expect myself to maintain. Does anyone have suggestions that aren't in the blogging domain?
Foyer - Gallery - Kitchen - Dining Room - Family Room - Office - Parlor
