great success

Friday evening Ngoc and I kicked things off with some great dinner conversation and and fondue with Nina and the two John's. Highlights include John B breaking out his homemade alcohol still to show off his welding skills, as well as Nina's shortbread cookies with homemade ice cream.

As if one night of culinary antics weren't enough, we made the trek to Sacramento to visit mom and put together our award winning paella. She has leftovers to last her the whole week, we cooked so much. It was also our first trip to visit any of my family as a married couple.

Sunday was one stellar moment after another. After homemade breakfast with mom, we jammed over to my cousin's house for a quick visit and then sped off to Vacaville for some bouldering behind the nut tree. Great hillside basalt scattered around above housing developments...the climbing is really gymnastic and overhung, but holds are positive, sticky, and for the most part pretty big. We also had great company along to show us around. Danica and Jesse were on their way to Folsom to spend some time with their fam, so we interesected half way in Vacaville for a few hours of climbing.



On the way back to town, we stopped by Ngoc's mom's place for some spring rolls and had a great time running around with Ngoc's nephew, Keith Jr.


What a stinking cutie he is.

All in all, one of the most stellar weekends in quite a while.

weekend #1,398

the climbing slump i've been in since before vietnam is now, officially, no more. yesterday's trip to indian rock with ngoc and jfire is partially to blame. the overhanging v4 above the pole, a problem that had previously totally stumped me, went down quickly (Mike, if you're reading this, that v4 would be a quick send for you with the right beta. we should head out there soon), as did the last section of the full traverse that I hadn't linked through yet. now i'll just wait for a cold, sticky winter morning to go back out and put the whole traverse together.

in other news, albatross pub trivia night sunday. uh huh. yeah. well, i can say that we DIDN'T finish in last place, and more than that, we finished AHEAD of our rival team, which had two harvard grads, an attorney, and a Cal student among its members. even though Ngoc, myself and John aren't encyclopedias of random trivia, we still held our own.

no photos this weekend. boo.

Tomales Bay

This past Sunday a small crew of our close friends joined us at Tomales Bay State Park for an oyster-themed belated birthday picnic for Ngoc (sweet 16?). This format is actually sort of an annual outing of ours, and consists of first driving up to Hog Island in Marshall and purchasing a truckload of raw oysters, backtracking through Point Reyes Station with a cheese/wine/salumi stop at Cowgirl, and then finally enjoying it all at TMSP.

This year the weather was better than ever, and the setting is ridiculously good picture fodder. Hope you enjoy:

published

There were no parades, no Soho loft opening parties, no checks in the mail, nothing much to celebrate one of my pictures being "published". I put quotes around that since I use the term quite loosely...

A little less than a month ago I was approached by a content editor for Schmap online city guides. She requested the use of one of my Tilden Park photos in the latest Schmap Berkeley guide. It was very officious: I read and signed their limited use agreement which, unfortunately, plainly stated that monetary compensation was not being offered. But who cares! Someone likes my photos!

You can see my pictures on the Berkeley Schmap guide here. I'm credited as "Planet Groove" in the upper right hand corner!