Irrelevance Glorified

Back in May I visited Portland for what may be the last time in a long time. You see, when I’ve gone to Portland it’s been for the express written purpose of visiting Bruce and Tina (and Nile). Soon, Bruce will be moving to Walla Walla, so Portland probably isn’t much in my future.

This trip was great because Jesse and his wife Anne were able to come out on Memorial Day weekend as well. We did a bit of hiking, a bit of lying around doing nothing, and a bit of wine tasting. The pictures and videos below are what I took during the trip. Sadly, Tina is under-represented because her pregnancy made it hard to join in on the wine-tasting and hiking. But she was with us in spirit.

As always, hit the Flickr set for pictures and video, hit the slide show below if you’re lazy, or hit the jump to see everything at once.

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Since Bruce moved to Portland, I’ve visited there a decent number of times (4…I think?). However, I was in the mood for something…Norther. So I decided to visit Cameron, who is now up in Seattle. As a first time visitor to Seattle, Cameron took me around to some of the most pictured places, so that I could jump on that bandwagon. Gina actually arrived from Korea that weekend, but due to the jet lag she didn’t actually feel to participating in much. However, we did go see the new Star Trek flick (lens flares anyone?) I was pleased to find out that Cameron and Gina’s cat, Maki, still remembered me. Anyways, I took some pictures, although never as much as I intend to, and am posting them here. Either hit the Flickr set, watch the slideshow below, or hit the jump to get all the pictures in a row with descriptions.

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…And completely redeem yourself!

So, Woot had an anniversary recently. Unbelievably, they turned 5 on July 12th. Normally, they issue a Bag of Crap, which results in their server melting down. This year, they went in a bit of a different direction. They sold Woot-Off lights. USB powered ones.

Here was their deal. Continue Reading »

Once again, Brian Williams was a guest on Daily Show this week. I smiled when I saw the guest list on The Daily Show website, expecting Brian and John to do some verbal sparring and perhaps inadvertently getting some real news info as well. At least in my opinion, they did not disappoint.

If you need back story on what they’re talking about, you can watch this Daily Show clip or read on. Mark Sanford (Governor, SC) recently had a little bit of a scandal when he disappeared from the state for a few days. His office said that he does this from time to time, and he was ‘hiking the Appalachian Trail.’ Of course, it turns out that he wasn’t hiking, he was traveling to Argentina to see his mistress. Seriously. Although I’ll add the caveat that he went to South America to break it off. Anyways, before it broke that he had left the country, a number of media outlets e-mailed the Governor’s office offering easy interviews in exchange for exclusive interviews, and a number of them talked about how they would push back against the liberal media’s attempt at a fake scandal.

Back in February, my Mom visited me for a week, and we did a bit of traveling around. Now, February isn’t the best time to visit the Bay Area. In general, it’s pretty rainy, and this week didn’t disappoint — it rained most days. However, we soldiered through and still did things.

First, we went up and visited wine country. The two most obvious choices in the Bay Area are the Sonoma and Napa regions. Napa is the more well-known, more expensive, and more pretentious valley, while Sonoma is more up and coming. So Sonoma it was. However, the wine tasting would have to be more about ambiance rather than actual, you know, wine, because I would be driving and my Mom is a tiny person who rarely drinks. Because of this, I didn’t care about maximizing the number of places we visited, and cared more about doing things that seemed interesting. Hence the visit to Korbel, with pictures below. Also, since I’m an idiot, I forgot my camera, so all I did was take a few pictures with my cell phone.

The next weekend, we went down south to San Simeon to visit Hearst Castle, at my Mom’s request. Incidentally, this visit was the 2nd in a two-hundred-something part series entitled “Better Know a California State Park.” Part One occurred during Yusuke’s visit back in December, when we visited elephant seals at Año Nuevo.

So, hit the jump for more pictures (and explanations), hit the Flickr set for pictures at the source, or just hit the “play” button below if you’re lazy.

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In honor of Martin Luther King’s birthday, I spent the holiday with perhaps the whitest guy I know. And because I’m lazy, they haven’t been posted until now. But hey, better late than never.

I visited Portland back in January to see Bruce, Tina, and little Nile. This version of Nile was a little bit more interactive than the last time I visited, but not yet mobile enough to be a full-fledged monster. Normally, I’ve just done a picture dump of these things, replete with explanations, but after seeing Bruce introduce slide shows to his webpage, I thought it came off acceptable. Of course, my pictures are typically poorly composed, so explanations are usually necessary. So, hit the jump to see all the pictures, hit up the Flickr set (and increase my Flickr traffic), or just passively watch the slideshow below.

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