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Tonight was a really great Shabbos dinner on Treasure Island, with a nice campfire and lots of guitar jammin' afterwards too. It was awesome.
Time to get some dinner
Jockeying for dessert
Glorious view of the bay bridge
The cityscape
SF from a moving car
A sad cable with no radio to plug into
Then, Cheez-Its and Wine at David's house
Today my brand new Canon 50mm 1.8 II lens showed up!! It is AMAZING!!!!!! I've figured out the manual setting now so I can change both the aperture and the speed. This is great!!
Matt outside at work
Fire Hydrant
Sunflowers
Matt walking
Palace of Fine Arts
Matt looking pensive
Matt #2
Matt #3
Matt #4
Matt #5
A bird taking off
Rachel
Kerry
Kerry's glasses
Self-portrait
Cars at my desk
Today was GLORIOUS. It was 24 degrees, really sunny, nice warm breeze and just a fantastic day to go to the beach. My buddy Alex drove up from Cupertino and we hit up the beach for several hours, just wandering and chillin', it was great. At one point we walked all the way to the opposite side of Golden Gate Park and went to Java Beach to go get an Italian Soda. Good stuff!
After this adventure we went to IKEA and I got everything I needed to get, except for the new rugs. It was great. I got my TV stand (awesome) and my bookshelf (awesome) and my new bedside table (awesome)!!!! So lots of necessary stuff and this will really get my apartment a LOT closer to being finally fully sorted out and "moved in" :)
Alex at the beach
Alex posing
Java Beach coffee shop
Lots of people chillin', someone playing guitar
Tons of people driving to the beach
It was really busy today
Great day today downtown, took lots of SLR photos and the weather was glorious. Met up with Megan, Will, Kari and Sean for some bowling at Yerba Buena Gardens. I had no idea how awesome that place is, it's super chill, nice quiet area for tea and stuff there, great gardens, nice waterfall and stuff... it's awesome over there! Took the opportunity to take lots of SLR photos and get more practice.
Very orange street car
A girl looking at arts & crafts for sale
Jewish Contemporary Museum #1
Jewish Contemporary Museum #2
Amazing quote on the wall of a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial fountain
Fountain Picture #1
Fountain Picture #2
Fountain Picture #3
Fountain Picture #4
Nice looking place for tea
Haha, a lone tractor driving down Mission St?
The "Zeum" children's science museum store looked awesome
Megan and Will
Hahaha nice one
Sean after totally annihilating the bowling pins
The easter bunny keeping an eye on our bowling scores
Kari happy with her roll
Megan going for it
Apparantely I have some sweet signature bowling style?!
And then we went to a playground and tok turns going down the slide. It was awesome.
Norm and I went to the Ferry Building again this week and saw lots of crazy stuff.
Protesters in downtown San Francisco
Some stopping to watch the protesters in downtown San Francisco
This was an interesting moment for a photo. We were eating some chicken and finished most of it, and put it into the garbage can. Minutes later, a homeless man dug around in the same garbage can, and pulled out the chicken to eat whatever we didn't eat. He hungrily ate the leftovers while resting against the garbage can. A few minutes after that, seagulls were interested in what he didn't eat. You can see the seagulls grabbing the chicken, and the homeless man off in the distance. Strange moment, and the kind you can only catch if you've got a camera ready...
Ferry Building
Seagull 1
Seagull 2
Seagull and the Bay Bridge
Seagull 4
Seagull 5 - not sure how I lit this photo?!?! Looks cool. Would be cool to make the bird even brighter, though... and leave the rest of the photo dark.
Seagull 6
New Blue Bottle store
Some guys doing Parkour
An inquisitive dog
Cuuuute cat at the SPCA booth
Ohhhhhhh
This guy was so funny!!
After a great day at the wineries, we drove back to San Francisco via Muir Woods. This gave me a good chance to try out the SLR some more.
Muir Woods gate
Green
Leaves
Stream
Ferns
A couple off in the distance
A deer!!
Another pic of the deer
People hiking to watch the sunset on Mt. Tam
View of the city from Mt. Tam
Glorious clouds
Sweeeeeeeeeet
Playing with different camera settings
Amazing
Sunset over Stinson Beach. After this we drove to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner!!
Day 2 at the Wineries was SO COOOOOOOOL. We got up and had a really excellent breakfast at our Hotel, and then took off up the main highway in Napa. We stopped at a bunch of wineries to take photos, and then go to V. Sattui winery where we got a free tasting. We then made our way to Francis Ford Coppolla's winery (formerly Niebaum-Coppola), now called Rubicon Estate. It was a really beautiful area and we loved the winery tour. The tasting was amazing, and we got to try a $72 Cabernet and a $145 Rubicon Estate flagship wine!! Insane!! They were both pretty darn good, but my favourite was the cheaper Captain's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from 2005. I bought one of those (for a VERY special occassion)!! It was just glorious, and definitely the best red wine I've ever had.
At breakfast
This was SO GOOD!!
We also shared a french toast with strawberries
At the Robert Mondavi winery
Recognizable building at the Robert Mondavi winery
Another great winery
Lots of flowers
We had great weather all weekend!!
Testing out the SLR to try to "freeze" the water
Great pic of Norm at the V. Sattui winery
About to sample wines at the V. Sattui winery
Cool barrel
Loved these little lights
Picnic area at V. Sattui
Arriving at Rubicon Estate
Yes, there was a red carpet :)
Front entrance
Fountains and hills in the background
Inside the winery
Good times
Zoetrope exhibit
The musuem part of the tour was AWESOME, lots of old filmmaking tools
The Oscar for The Godfather 2!!!!!!
Photo of Francis Ford Coppolla
Stained glass at the top of the stairs
Cool "magic lantern" exhibit
Italian art
Amazing setting
Orange/Lemon tree
Tons of vines
Car in the exhibit area
Now, time for tasting!
These are 3 of the 5 wines we tasted: the Captain's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, the Cask Cabernet 2005, and the Rubicon 2005.
Awesome times!!
I ended up buying a bottle of the Captain's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2005. Here's a description from Rubicon's website:
Captain’s Reserve wines are produced in extremely limited quantities each year, exclusively for wine club members and guests of the Estate. They are named in honor of Captain Gustave Niebaum, the visionary who, in the 1880s, founded Inglenook and brought Napa Valley worldwide recognition. Made from grapes grown in the finest Napa Valley vineyards—including Rubicon Estate—these wines are created to illustrate the intensity and depth of flavors that have made this region famous. Because most of our Estate wines are designed to mature and develop complexity with cellaring, it was our goal to craft a wine that would not need aging and be immediately accessible upon release. To that end, the Captain’s Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon undergoes different winemaking techniques so that it has round, supple tannins and expressive flavors up front, making it easy to drink when young and compatible with most foods.
The 2005 vintage gave way to a late harvest as a result of cool summer temperatures and high crop yields, which required more maturation time to achieve optimal ripeness. Because of the large crop, many of the vineyards were thinned several times throughout the season to reduce the amount of fruit. This practice ultimately created more concentrated flavors in the remaining clusters. Our autumn weather was ideal, with October experiencing beautiful warm and sunny conditions. Together these factors resulted in perfectly ripened grapes, which immediately displayed the physiological integrity needed to create a wellbalanced, intensely flavorful wine with a rich, enduring finish. Prior to fermentation, the grapes underwent a 48-hour cold soak to maximizecolor extraction and enhance the aromatic compounds of the must. Utilizing French oak casks and stainless steel, the different blocks of Cabernet were
fermented separately before being placed in barrels and selected for the final blend.
Our 2005 Captain’s Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon has a dark magenta hue and intense aromas of crushed berries and exotic spices. Bright flavors of juicy plums and sweet cherries are layered with notes of currants, licorice and vanilla. Fragrant oak and moderate tannins lend a rich, spicy finish to this elegantly styled wine.
After arriving in Napa, we dropped off our stuff and headed right out to go see some Wineries. It was amazing!!
Me at the Pine Ridge Winery
Vines
Pine Ridge
Nice picnic area
Good pic of Norm
Me at another winery
After taking lots of photos, we stopped for a tasting of sparkling wines at Mumm Napa. The view was glorious!!
Amazing view
Our server brought us an extra sample to taste, and it turns out that one was the best! I got a bottle of it for a special occasion. She said "Do you like Indian Food? It goes very well with spicy foods!" I told Matt and he said that must be a good sign.
Norm and I headed up to Napa last weekend and it was fantastic.
At the Ocean
Jelly Belly Factory!!!!!
This place rocks
Lunchtime
Too many Jelly Bellys
Norm at our "Eco Lodge"
The place we stayed was pretty cool
Created by MyFitnessPal - Online Calorie Counter
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This afternoon Norm and I went to Rachel and Justin's place for some mid-afternoon wine, cheese, and desserts. It was freakin' awesome.
Erika
Rachel opening the wine!
Justin ready to party
Mmm
Pre-guest-arrival preparations
Checking out the wine
Haha this photo is weird. Totally dark background but much brighter items on the table!! I have no idea how I took this photo, so I'm gonna have to look at the settings.
Another one of Justin
Word
Sweet wine glass reflections
Matt and An
Jacob and Kat
This morning Norm and I went out to the Ferry Building Farmer's Market and it was absolutely glorious (par usuale)!! The weather was gorgeous, about 18 degrees and really sunny.
I took the Canon 5D and took about 100 photos, some of them were pretty bad, but I am (very slowly) learning what aperture and shutter speed mean and how they affect the photo. Also turns out my ISO setting was wrong for 1/2 the morning. ;)
Still learning, so please bear with my shots. Any comments or advice etc would be greatly appreciated - I've got a lot to learn, but man this is gonna be fun!!
Random dog, random dog, RANDOM DOG!!
Good one of Norm and the city behind her
I sense a new Facebook/Resume photo is coming, eh Norm?!!!! ;)
Citrus stand
A guy carefully lining up bottles of olive oil (this one is underexposed... I took it too fast!!)
Sweet flowers
Apple Cider
Tomato farmers
Palm trees on the Embarcardero
Hipster chick at the Blue Bottle stand
My favourite coffee place!
Oh Blue Bottle Coffee, I love you
People ordering food
Different kinds of olive oil
Statue of Ghandhi (today was the first day I've ever seen this - although I walk by it all the time... they say you notice more details when you're taking photos all the time)
Walking downtown
Shelly at work very kindly let me borrow her Canon 5D until my new Canon Rebel T1i comes out and I can buy it. This is amazing as there is an upcoming photo class where I will be shooting lots of photos and learning a lot, and now I am all set!
I started taking some practice shots tonight with my lens - which I *thought* was a Canon UltraSonic EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM Lens cause that's what the box says... turns out it's actually a 35-135mm f/4-5.6 Lens?!?!!!! That is actually much closer to what I needed!! Haha, wow I totally forgot that it was in a different storage box!! This is actually pretty sweeeeeet as 35mm in an APS-C camera will give me results like a 50mm in a full-frame camera. Since the T1i will be an APS-C and the 5D is a full-frame camera, when I attach my new 50mm 1.8 lens to it, I'll get the same kinda style with that on the 5D as I will with 35mm on the T1i (because of the focal multiplier) - so that's kinda cool for practice until I actually buy my camera!
Just learning some of the features now, it's sweet.
Finally getting a chance to post some photos from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) last week. It was super cool!! Learned some interesting stuff, met some new friends, and ran into a bunch of old Alias buddies. We went for dinner at a Burmese place, which was sweeeeet.
Activision booth
Blizzard booth
Cabernet and I at the A-desk booth
haha, classic
Me, Cory, Dan
Dinner time
The whole group out for dinner
Great pic that Martin took on their trip back to where they were staying
Cory and Mike "The Bad Pixels" reunion dinner tour: Photo 1
Cory and Mike "The Bad Pixels" reunion dinner tour: Photo 2
Naiqi and Sivanny
Joyce and Kristine
Cory and Mike "The Bad Pixels" reunion dinner tour: Photo 3
Cory and Mike "The Bad Pixels" reunion dinner tour: Photo 4 (and Ryan)
Cory and Mike "The Bad Pixels" reunion dinner tour: Photo 5
Cory and Mike "The Bad Pixels" reunion dinner tour: Photo 6
Naiqi, Stephen and Kristine
I've finally got my Picasa back up and running on the new computer at the new apartment.
Here are some pics from a few weeks back at WonderCon 2009.
R2D2 and some dressed-up people
HUGE crowds!
Crazy!!
Uhhh???
A Cars toys booth? This was a problem for me.
Sweeeeeet Cars
This was super cool, a kid playing a real-time 3D video game
Sick video cards that the 3D game was playing on
Haha PacMan hat?!
Yes, a collection of swords
Hmm... lots of active imaginations at WonderCon this year :)
Ray Park, who played Darth Maul in Star Wars!!
Awessssome!!
Hey, it's Adam West!!!!!!!
Adam West being interviewed
Haha more crazy people dressed up
Pete Docter talking about "Up"
Sweet
Common
McG, director of Terminator Salvation
Jocelyne and Phil were in town and came to visit!!
