sjamesho.v3

on November 2 i made my way to the Napa Valley to visit my cousin Carissa who is a first year student at Pacific Union College (PUC). PUC is also my alma mater and it has been three years since i’ve visited the area so it was nice to get back to the valley. Fall Fest was happening that day as well so i was looking forward to the festivities.

i picked up my cousin at her dorm and took her out for lunch at Guigni’s in St. Helena where i had frequented many times in my college duration.

but unlike those times, i did not carry a camera with me as often as i do now. so now you have the benefit of my amateur skills. and my skills loves to take pictures of food. here is my Guigni vegetarian sandwich.

after lunch we headed to Calistoga where i showed here where Boskos Trattoria was if she had a hankerin’ for some good Italian food. i stopped at the ATM to draw out some cash and then we went back to PUC to hang out at the gym where the Fall Fest was to take place. here are the tapioca pearls that were being prepped at the Asian Student Association booth.

i went up to Rasmussen Art Gallery to check out the latest exhibition and then headed up to Grainger Hall where my fellow graphic design classmate, Jonny Halverson, is now the Associate Dean of Men. i was informed that he was at the gym helping to set the Grainger Booth so i headed back there.

i was able to find Jonny and had a short but great time catching up as he was busy assisting with the booth. here he is after receiving a pie in the face. at their booth, they had various faculty and/or staff being the target and a fee was taken from those who would wanted a chance to throw pie. when it was Jonny’s turn, those that manned the booth offered the privilege to walk up to him and apply said pie to his face for an extra buck. brilliant entrepreneurship thinking!

this little remote control truck advertised for the World Missions program, which is always a good cause.

ah… the front of the Asian Student Association booth where they sell asian food and Tapioca Express pearl tea or slushy. i believe the proper term is “pearl” not “boba” which is the Taiwanese/Chinese slang for nipple. and that is just crude.

i also wanted to support my friend’s booth which offered corn dogs and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. is that American or what?

i don’t know. but whatever it is, it certainly was popular. i think i may have waited 30 minutes in line for my corn dog. i thought about getting two just for the principle of the it all but i was allocating the rest of my money for other treats.

and doughnuts was not one of them. here is my friend Jaylene who tried to sell me one… or the box. but i had to decline since i didn’t want my hips to get any wider than it already is. haha!

soon thereafter i said goodbye to my cousin and headed home for there was work to be had the next day.

two Saturday’s ago (November 1) on a rainy night, my friends and i went to Fragrance Land vegetarian restaurant only to learn that they were closed for a private party so we went to Merit Vegetarian Restaurant instead. after that we went to Frozo’s Frozen Yogurt in Santa Clara for dessert.

i like to keep my frozen yogurt simple but this time i took a different approach by layering the yogurt and ingredients. i started with blueberry and added nuts, granola, raspberries, strawberries, mangoes half way. then served up a layer of chocolate with the same toppings. that way i have a relatively even distribution of yogurt and toppings from the top to the bottom.

here is Charity with a sampler cup in her hand. if i remember correctly, i think she got some of uncle Dave’s frozen yogurt too! by the look on her face… i think she’s liking it.

then Ruben came and put my frozen yogurt creation to shame. i mean look at this visual wonder! what with the gummy bears, chocolate chips and animal crackers going on.

how creative! using the animal cracker to scoop up the yogurt. observe Virgil’s concentration as he excavates it away.

there is no doubt that this boy is satisfied with the chilly treat. of course sugar had nothing to do with it… riiight.

Charity looked like she was having a good time… maybe it was too good, eh Charity?

at this point in the evening Virgil was giving me all sorts of funny faces which made it very easy for me to shoot off several frames.

not to be out done by her brother, Charity hams it up for me as well. hahaha… priceless!

obviously there were other and “older” people at the table besides Virgil and Charity. so i continued to practice with my new 50mm f/1.4 lens.

i like how these shots turned out… technically as well as the subject matters. of course, there will always be plenty of room for improvement in the technical part.

Andrea, who conveniently escaped my lens, took my camera and gave it a go. i like this sequence of Charity finishing up the frozen yogurt cup.

wow! look how she keeps her eyes on the lens as she spoons the yogurt into her mouth!

Charity is definitely not camera shy. she loves the camera, and the camera loves her.

here’s Coralyn on the opposite side and opposite end of the table from me. go Andrea!

Andrea handed my camera back but Coralyn was still making funny faces.

awww… the poor empty Frozo’s cup! it was soon thereafter that we left the establishment. some of us went to see the crazy 11:15p showing of Eagle Eye and the rest went home. i don’t know where Andrea went but i know she’s always has a plan. that basically ends the evening as well as this post.

click the play button to hear Andrea asking Charity to say “Frozo’s”.

when we had finished to group shot, we headed to a bowling alley around the corner of Thai Delight to see if we could get in a game or two. the night wasn’t too old yet and we figured we could continue the festivities before calling it a night. when we got there we learned that it was about an hours wait before a lane would be available, so we ditched that idea and decided to go back to the “Best Westerns”. Phil and i stopped off at Safeway to pick up some chips and soda.

when we got there Nitro decided to make me the object of attention… or rather, the object of ATTACK! so he got muzzled. it was very amusing to watch him lunge at me because it looked like he was poking me with his nose. so to temper him down i would catch his head like a football and hold him still while giving him the evil eye. we did this several times much to his frustration. when things seemed to “quiet” down we started figuring out what to do with ourselves. at first it didn’t seem to go anywhere but eventually Chrissie brought out some of their many board games.

we decided to play Sequence. i think it was my second time playing it. it is a pretty easy game to learn and was quite easy to remember.

you play teams alternated around the circle. i was teamed up with Mike and Mae and we won two out of two games. go team green!

Nitro is looking rather depressed because of his naughty behavior. he is probably thinking “once i get this off, i’m going to bite of a chunk out of you!”

before i left i hooked the Westerns up with the latest episodes of Bleach and watched a little of that week’s episode. and that my friends was how i ended my evening… well Nitro did make a lunge at me as i was walking out.

after battling my way through the Friday commute, i eventually arrived at Thai Delight in Cupertino where i joined up with Mae, Mike, Mike, and Louie in waiting for Ted to surprise him on his birthday. i learned that Louie also had a dSLR though she didn’t bring hers. she had some questions about different kinds of shots so i was more than happy to explain what i know.

here’s another picture using my 50mm f/1.4 lens. these centerpieces are used throughout the restaurant. i was hoping to use this lens more than i did that evening. however i did get the opportunity the following night.

Chrissie and Phil showed up at the table first while Ted got distracted with the Friday Fry’s ad at the entrance. the “surprise” was a bit lacklustered since there was no surprise vantage point where we could… uh… surprise him. however when friends can get together for a meal and conversation is good times in my book any day.

i love taking pictures of people as someone else is taking pictures of them. so as Chrissie was taking a picture of Erick and Ted, i couldn’t resist to getting a shot in before she finished counting to three.

now this is the stuff! no wonder Ted doesn’t share. it is THAT tasty. Ted and i were the only vegetarians so i ordered and devoured one myself.

for dessert Ted and i ordered coconut ice cream. however, they ran out of coconut ice cream and brought three different dishes: 2 scoops of mango, 2 scoops of coconut, and one of each on one dish. so Ted and i swapped his scoop of coconut with my scoop of mango so we all got some coconut action.

the obligatory group shot. i was thinking about bringing a tripod, but that would push me over from photo geek to photo nerd. so we had the manager take this for us. not trusting his zooming/framing skills with my all-purpose 28-135mm lens, i threw on my wide angle (10-22mm), composed the shot for him and joined the group. i then noticed that he held my camera at a distance looking very puzzled. “i don’t see the picture”, he remarked. oh, duh… i have to remember to mention people that my dSLR doesn’t have “Live View”. some new ones released this year finally do but that’s besides the point and potential future upgrade. so after telling him that he needs to look through the view finder, he managed to inadvertently take two shots which was cool. this second shot was the better of the two!

part two of the evening will be in my next post.

i spent most of Monday relaxing and getting better which was good because today i went with my friends Ted and Chrissie to visit the San Francisco Zoo.

the day was quite fun and enjoyable. the weather was unusually perfect for San Francisco – sunny with occasional clouds. i was glad to have had the opportunity to take a lot of pictures and to simply get and walk about. i have about 360 pictures that i have to sort through so that will be yet another task. but in the meantime, i’ll post select pictures for your viewing pleasure.

it is a wonder that as local Bay Area residents some of us have never taken the opportunity to visit local venues, parks, events, etc. this is something that my friends and i would like to remedy. so we did a little brainstorming on the way back from the zoo finding alternatives to get out of our own respective “cages”.