Browse Category: photos

Jump, Run, Slide

I babysat Cole this afternoon and we had a pretty good time. It was a sunny afternoon so we took a walk to the park and brought Koa with us. Cole played on the slide and got to run around on the grass. It’s been a while since he last came to this park and it’s great to see how much more he can do and say. He’s running, climbing, jumping, and doesn’t need the stroller anymore.

Once we got back to the house, he was super thirsty and had several crackers to go with his OJ. It sounded like Marie had a nice shopping trip to Mitsua and enjoyed some alone time browsing the store and looking through magazines. It looks like we all had a fun afternoon! Here are some photos from our afternoon at the park.

A Beautiful Evening on a Yacht

DSC_4147.jpgJason and Jia married aboard the Camelot last night in Newport Beach. The day started with lots of last-minute activity and lots of photo-taking. The boys got dressed at our house while the girls got ready at The Fairmont. The hotel was quite nice and made a good backdrop for their formal photos. Later at the Camelot, family started to arrive and more photos were taken. As guests arrived, there was a lot of excitement in the air in anticipation of a lovely evening on the water. Jia looked so pretty and Jason was pretty pumped up. As soon as we departed the dock, the wedding ceremony began. There were plenty of cheers and photo flashes as the wedding party walked down the aisle. Dad’s sermon was lengthy but very touching and gaves us a couple chuckles. In the end, the youngest Lao got married and we gained a new family member. Afterwards, there were more photos, hors d’oeuvres, and then dinner. The end of the night was a little rushed with such a short amount of time left for the cake cutting, toasts, and a little dancing but we all had a great time. Great job on the toast, Jes. And congratulations to Jason and Jia! Here are the photos.

Oh yeah, Happy Chinese New Year!

Home Again

DSC_3717a.jpgToday started before the sun woke up. The alarm went off at 6 am and it was snowing outside!! The driveway and car was covered in snow and we actually had to scrape the windows. Our flight was at 8:00 am but we had to drive 30 miles in the snow without crashing, fill-up the tank, return the rental, check-in our bags, and get through security. Luckily we made it and the crappy Cobalt got us there safely. The snow was so awesome. It made me so sad that we had to leave. The mountain today would have been even better than yesterday.

Once we boarded, the captain announced that there wasn’t enough visibility to take off. So, we actually had to sit on the plane (at the gate) for another 30 mins. For some reason, it wasn’t bad. We watched the beginning of Superman Returns on Jes’ laptop and when it was time to take off, we got to watch the plane get de-iced by a dude in a contraption with a big hose to spray the de-icing solution. I must say it was quite entertaining to watch the snow melt right off. Call me a simpleton but watching the snowplows on the runway was really cool too.

The flight from Vail to Denver was short (minus all the weather waiting) and we didn’t miss our connection. In fact, we had another hour and a half to kill so we had some steak sandwiches and I wandered around taking some photos. On our two-hour flight from Denver was uneventful and we were home by 1 pm.

I had a three and a half day weekend and the Colorado snow did not disappoint afterall.  Here are the photos.

I’m published!

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I was online this afternoon and did a random Google search on my name. It turns out that I was given photo credit for a photo that was found in istockphoto! My “Road to Mammoth” photo made it into a freakin’ Chemistry book! Awesome!

Here is the photo credit page. My name is on the bottom right corner under Chapter 13. My photo can be found in Chapter 13 on page 521. It’s used to illustrate one of the study questions:

Use the relationships between properties of gases to answer the following questions:
…(there’s an “a.” and “b.” and mine is question “c.”)
c. Why do your ears pop when you drive up a mountain?

And there’s my picture to the right of it!! I’m sure I only received 40 cents for the photo but now I can say that I’ve had a photo published. Too bad I didn’t get a free book like Johnny did.

Enough Snow and Lots of Photos

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We went to Mammoth today and it was so nice to be back on the mountain! I was a little worried about the conditions given the dry spell they’ve had these past couple weeks but we were not disappointed. The snow was still soft but fast and the coverage on the main runs was great. We spent most of the day on the snow and at the end of the day, we packed up our gear and took a scenic ride on the Panoramic Gondola up to the top with my camera bag. It was great being able to just stand there and take a bunch of photos. I took the fisheye and Holga with me and had some fun.

Afterwards, we had dinner at Base Camp Cafe, which looked like a hole-in-the-wall restaurant but had some really yummy food at non-Mammoth prices. I enjoyed my first taste of Italian Wedding Soup that’s made with chicken soup, mini meatballs, tiny round pasta, and herbs. Yum.

Back in Bishop, where we’re staying, we visited the Mountain Light Gallery. It features the works of Galen Rowell, a long-time award-winning photographer that has many famous photos published in National Geographic. Many of his photos included a short blurb about how he captured the photo or what he was doing when the photo was taken. He travelled the world and took photos in Antarctica and the Himalayas. However, he also took many photos in places that are so accessible. Some of the photos were captured right here in Bishop! It was simply inspirational.

By the way, the Holiday Inn Express in Bishop totally rocks. It’s cheap, clean, the room entrances are indoors, has modern amenities, has free breakfast in the morning, and is walking distance to restaurants. They even have pillowcases that have “firm” and “soft” embroidered on them so you have a choice of pillow firmness. And of course, it has free WiFi in your room for after-skiing surfing. What more do you need?

Here are photos from the weekend.

It’s fishie out there!!

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My fisheye adaptor arrived today!! I played around with it this afternoon and this is what I got. I still have some reading to do but so far it’s been pretty cool! Basically, it’s a glass lens that attaches to your existing lens to give it a wider angle. The wider your lens, the better the effect. Unfortunately, I’m using a DSLR, which has a crop factor of 1.5 (i.e. 50mm is more like a 75mm on a film camera) so I’m not quite getting a full circle. It also came with an adaptor ring for my Holga, which will allow for the full-circle effect on a 6×6 medium format photo. Let the fishie fun begin!!