Pride in the Castro

I love living in the Castro. Especially during Pride. Especially when
the weather is as gorgeous as it is today.

We're kicking off the festivities at Toad Hall with Pete & Richard.

Happy Pride, everyone!

Birdie!!

I just played my third round of golf within the last month or so - I've just started playing again after my bout with tendinitis in both arms. My arms seem to have recovered pretty well. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to continue to play as long as I'm careful.

Today, I played two rounds of 9-hole golf at Flemming, in Harding Park. Yes, two rounds - we were having such a great time - it's beautiful out today, and my arms were fine, so I'm hoping it wasn't too stupid.

Anyhow, I had two of my best rounds ever at Flemming! Getting more consistent, and (particularly exciting) I've finally learned how to hit my driver!

Well, actually, I took a 1-hour lesson on Thursday - the first of 3. It went really well, I mostly wanted to improve my stroke in general, but also wanted to learn how to hit my driver correctly. I'd guess we spent about 2/3 of the time on my driver, which, so far anyway, paid off today! I hit it well, straight, and reasonably far, which is really the best I can ask for at this point. It was pretty exciting. I'm hoping I can benefit as much from my next two lessons.

The other highlight of the day was when I shot a birdie on hole 4, during our second round. I think my putt was about 6-8 feet. Very exciting.

It was a gorgeous day - sunny, clear, and probably in the mid-70s. It doesn't get much better than that!

Oh, I should mention the other funny part of the day - I tried to teach Dick and Andy how to spin a golf club. :)

Table 'o Geeks

Today was Omar's last day at the SCV campus. I joined a bunch of the guys at a local sports bar to send him off with several pitchers of
beer. Farewell, Omar & Lora! See you in Seattle!

Irises in Bloom

The iris plants in our backyard have just begun to bloom! I'm pretty
excited about it. My neighbor had warned me that they may not bloom
during their first year (apparantly, her's didn't).

They are really beautiful and quite large. Very pretty!

Pilates at Home

Or, "How you, too, can bring Blane home with you!"

My friend, Blane, is a pilates instructor, and has his own pilates studio in San Francisco: Parkside Pilates. I've been taking lessons from him for over 7 yeas now (wow).

I usually take individual lessons from him on the reformer, but have participated in a few of his Springboard classes as well.

A few months ago, Blane told me that he was filming a training DVD for a new piece of equipment that was meant to be used at home. The product is called "Tower on the Go™", and is a modified version of the Springboard which can be easily used at home. It seems as if it was just recently made available!

There's a sample clip of the instructional DVD where you can watch Blane give directions on how to use the equipment for a 60-minute workout. Very Cool!

This piece of equipment is meant to wrap around any standard sized door in your home. I was trying to figure out if I have any doors in my house where I could attach the equipment, have enough floor space for the workout, and also have a TV/monitor nearby to play the DVD on. Believe it or not, only 1 door in the entire house fits the bill! I'm glad I was able to figure out at least one!

I'm going to order the equipment over the next few days. It'll be very cool to work this into my at-home workout. (I only see Blane at the studio once a week.)

Congratulations to Blane! This is very exciting!

Happy Father's Day!

We spent the day in Stockton today to celebrate Father's Day with (most of) the Chow Family.

Here are my two favorite "Dads" - My Dad, and my Grandpa.


...and here's an old favorite - Me and my Dad, 1970.


Happy Father's Day to all of the wonderful Dads out there!!

Sprechen Sie Deutsches?

it's always something...

The new iPhone 3.0 Software Update was available this morning. I usually like to wait a day or so after the initial launch, just to see if the launch goes smoothly or not. My friend, Mike upgraded successfully without any problems, so, against my better judgment, I decided to bite the bullet and update my iPhone.

After the initial download, an error message popped up without explanation. I went to the Apple web site, which suggested restarting my Mac. Simple enough.

So, I restarted, and the update started to install on my iPhone without incident. It took a few minutes, but everything seemed to go smoothly.

Up until I saw that my phone was back up and running...

...and everything was in German.

whoops.

no biggie, since everything else seems to be working.
Kind of funny, actually (she says, as long as she knows she'll be able to figure it out relatively soon...)

I found this thread on the apple discussion boards. No replies, so not terribly helpful, but, at least I know I'm not the only one.

After much searching on the internet, I eventually found this youtube video which demonstrates how to change the language on an iPod Touch. I figured it would be similar enough to an iPhone. Luckily, it was close enough for me to use as a guide, and I was able to switch back to English. :)

For the record:
to switch the language settings, go to... Read More "Settings", then to "General", then to "International" (second from the bottom). (these were all in German on my phone, but luckily, it wasn't hard to figure out what was what). The top option under "International" is "Language" from here, select "English".

Regarding the actual upgrade to 3.0, Mike just sent me this handy article:
How To Use The Best 40 Features of iPhone 3.0.

Brown is the new Black?

I was just folding the laundry, and noticed that my pile had an usually large percentage of brown clothes in it.

when did that happen?

When did I start buying so many brown clothes?
Did someone tell me that Brown was the new Black, and I took them literally?

It's funny, because I used to wear mostly black clothing. I think somewhere along the line, I thought I should introduce some color into my life.

Apparently, I didn't go very far down the color spectrum!

Truly, I do own clothing with color in it, but apparently, I didn't wear much of it in the last week or so. In my defense, I started the laundry by doing a load of "darks" first, and this was the only load that I've folded so far.

Foxboro Hot Tubs

Okay, so I'm a little late to the game. That's not unusual for me, especially where music is concerned...

It's no secret that I'm a Green Day fan.

Green Day's latest album, "21st Century Breakdown" was released in mid-May. My sister bought me a copy of the album for my birthday, along with "Stop Drop and Roll" by the Foxboro Hot Tubs.

She asked me if I knew anything about the Foxboro Hot Tubs.

I didn't. I am that lame.

(from wikipedia)
The group made its debut in December 2007 with three songs on their website. Soon after, the Foxboro Hot Tubs were discovered and subsequently made headlines, being heralded as the next secret side project of Green Day, which was later confirmed by the band themselves. Billie Joe Armstrong told NME magazine: "The only similarity between Green Day and Foxboro Hot Tubs is that we are the same band". His reasons for starting the band, also told to NME magazine, were that they "love to play music and be spontaneous, and after a few late-night jams and a few too many bottles of wine, we were inspired to record some rockin' eight-track recordings".

So, let me get this straight: this band has had their music out since December, 2007, and Green Day made the announcement in April, 2008 that the guys behind Green Day are the same guys behind Foxboro Hot Tubs, and I'm only now discovering them?

I'm such a lame fan.

I love the music, though!

In case you're wondering, The Foxboro Hot Tubs's music is like a mix between Green Day and say, The Monkeys. :) They call the style "1960s Garage Rock".

I dig it.

Check it out.

The view from The View Lounge

Dick and I are having a drink with his Uncle Edward at The View Lounge
at the top of the Marriott.

Lunch with Todd

Today, I had an fairly-spontaneous lunch with my buddy, Todd! I found
out last night that Todd had a 5 hour layover in SFO on his way back
from Minneapolis.

We had a really nice visit, before having to get him back to catch his
flight. We went to Max's in Burlingame.

Todd was my "Art School Buddy" when we were both at DeAnza, and then
at the San Francisco Art Institute. We formed a great friendship
during those years. We had a lot of classes together, and even worked
with each other at the school's computer lab.

Todd and his family live in Monterey now, so we don't see each other
as often as we used to, but when we do, we always have such a great
time catching up.

Toy Story 3 Trailer

Can't wait!

Sunrise

Wow. Graham and I are *just* leaving the casino now! Who knew that the
sun rises before 5:15am?! Just a couple hours to sleep, then it's time
to go home (and sleep!).

Wizard of Oz Penny Slots

Best. Slot. Machine. Ever.

For the record:
It's a Penny Slot Machine.
I put in $10.00.
At one point, I was literally down to my last spin of 25 cents, and I think I got 50 cents back.
The next spin, I hit the bonus, which, after several exciting minutes, took me just over $50.00. I played it down to make my payback an even $50.00

Dick's Pai Gow Poker Hand

(note the Fortune Bonus)

Frozen Custard!!

My sister recently discovered frozen custard in Vegas! We'd only seen
frozen custard before in the Mid-West, so it was an exciting surprise.
Tonight, we tried Sheridan's Frozen Custard. Mmmmm... It did not
disappoint! :)

Tiffini at Work

It's "Take your Sister to Work Day"! ;)

I'm hanging out with my sister while she works tonight. She's working
on a show at one of the theaters in the Planet Hollywood Resort in
Vegas.

Sonic

I've seen the commercials, but I've never been to a "Sonic" before... Until today. My sister and Graham checked it out for the first time last week. It's interesting - they have the old-time drive-up service where they come to your car (on rollerskates!) to take your order. Or, you can park your car and place your order outside from one of these menus which work like a drive-through (they take your order from the speaker and you swipe your credit card.)

Chocolate soufflé

Gorgeous presentation! Let's see how it is!

Pinball Hall of Fame!!

I'm in Vegas this weekend, visiting my sister!! We just spent the last two hours playing pinball at the Pinball Hall of Fame!! It was Awesome! They had our two old favorites: Star Wars and Addams Family!! We used to play both of those a lot, about twenty tears ago. The best part of playing today: we had more money than we did twenty years ago, so we weren't having to worry about pacing our quarters!! (my sister walked in, and got $20 in quarters, so we went to town!! (we still had some left.)

That was SO much fun!!

Here's a little information on the Pinball Hall of Fame from their website:
The Pinball Hall of Fame is an attempt by the members of the Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club to house and display the world's largest pinball collection, open to the public. A not-for-profit corporation was established to further this cause. The games belong to one club member (Tim Arnold), and range from 1950s up to 1990s pinball machines. Since it is a non-profit museum, older games from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are the prevelant, as this was the 'heyday' of pinball. There are no 'ticket spitters' here (aka kiddie casinos or redemption). It's all pure pinball (and a few arcade novelty games) from the past. And since it's a non-profit, excess revenues go to non-denominational charities.

What a great place!

Friday Morning at Tartine Bakery

"Disco Dolly"

Oh. My. Golly.

How is it I've never seen this clip before? (start around 1:00)



I have no idea what this children's show was, but they took a scene out of the movie, "Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure" and turned it into a disco tune! It looks like it was done around the same time that the movie was released (1977).

For the 99% of you who don't know what I'm referring to, here's the clip from the actual movie:

LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4

...i am such a geek...

So, yes, I play Xbox 360, I like first person shoot-em-up games like Ghost Recon, Halo and Gears of War.

But I have to admit, that I think my favorite game over the past 8 or so years of playing Xbox, may have to be LEGO: Star Wars.

I know... it's a kid's game, but it amuses me so. It's clever, funny, and a pretty fun game to play.

So, I'm pretty exited to see that the folks at Lego are releasing a Lego Harry Potter game next year! It's going to cover years 1-4.

I like this idea a lot. I'm playing the Lego Batman game right now, and although I haven't gotten too far yet, it's just okay. There's no specific story line, like in Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or now, Harry Potter, so I don't think it's quite as intriguing.

My Cabana: the Recording Studio

My Cousin, Reverend Bruce Reyes-Chow, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), sent me an email last night asking if he could come over early this morning. He had a meeting at his girls' school (close to my house) early this morning, and needed a quiet place nearby where he could connect to the internet to do his weekly blog/radio podcast.

I figured the best place to put him would be my cabana/studio/shed out in the backyard. It's quiet, separate from the house, and has WiFi.

He came over at 8:30 this morning, and we got him all set up in the cabana for his show.
It starts at 9:00am.

You can listen to it here.

...streaming to you live, from the cabana...