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Just got back from an awesome fun weekend in Sarasota, Florida.. Lynn and Hao got married, and it was a magnificent time.. Flew out on Friday — sheesh, Florida is kind of further than I thought, it takes like the whole day to traverse the whole SFO-ATL-SRQ trip.. I left the house at like 6:30am and didn’t get to my hotel until around 9pm… 12 hours, door to door. Someone should really get working on that transporter-type machinery quickly.

I’ve never been to Sarasota before, and I can now see why the snowbirds all retire there. It’s gorgeous. Saturday was spent on Siesta beach. The sand at Siesta Key is.. awesome. Hong has a great pic of it.. Supposedly, it’s made up mainly of quartz (99% according to a Harvard Geologic study), so it’s super fine, and incredibly white — which means that it reflects most of the sun, making it cool to walk on. It’s pretty awesome, and with the consistency of flour, it feels like you’re walking around on a comfy mushy surface. If I were designing a beach, I’d seriously just load up on that stuff, it’s awesome.

Sunday, incidentally, was my birthday.. so it was actually kind of cool to be able to spend it with a bunch of my friends in a sunny locale. My friend Dusty owns a golf course in Sarasota, so AJ and I played 9 holes in the morning. The last round of golf I played was last February in Vegas, so yah.. I was a little rusty (not that I’m actually any good when not rusty), but it was still fun. I think I came pretty close to hitting a baby alligator on the 7th hole. He was sunbathing just to the left of the tee box, and since Dusty pointed it out right before I hit, I guess I was thinking about it, and… the ball decided to shank off the heel of the driver and into the pond… Good thing momma alligator didn’t see that. The rest of the day was spent basking in the hot Sarasota sun by the hotel pool with Audris, frolicking in the ocean, and throwing the ol’ pigskin around with Korby and Mcc.

The wedding itself was in the backyard of the Crowley mansion, which is situated right on the water. Halfway through the ceremony, I felt the temperature drop, so I was looking around for the rain to come, but it never did, so the weather cooperated fully. Lynn and Hao have spent the past few years in various places all around the world, so this wedding was one of the most global crowds that I’ve seen… I really wonder how many cumulative miles were traversed for the event, but people hailed from San Francisco, New York, Zurich, Holland, London, China, and Chicago, amongst others… Pretty cool. Though I had aspirations of taking a ton of awesome pictures throughout the whole event, the frequency of my picture taking seemed to vary inversely with the amount of alcohol I consumed, so, I don’t have many pics of the dancey-general-goodtimery that I had near the end of the wedding.

Lynn’s mom was in charge of the music, and she found this live band that was really, really good. I actually haven’t been to many weddings with a live band before, and I was impressed that they were able to play music that appealed to a wide cross section of ages. Lynn’s grandma had a ton of friends there that were super good at dancing, so it was awesome to see them cut the rug to the many swing songs that the band played. I mean, the band didn’t play any live d’nb or anything approaching that, but I do think they did a good job of keeping the energy up and fun. Good work, wedding band.

Anyway.. my pics are here, mcc’s pics are here (he took some great ones), hong’s are here and korby’s pics are available good as well, but he doesn’t like me linking to them cuz then his veil of google secrecy is blown. That said, his picture set is the foil to mine, since his picture taking frequency actually increases with the amount of alcohol consumed.

Good times.

wee!

dan and robin got married! so fun! so happy! congrats you two. you guys are the best.

mer posted some awesome videos. here they are:

Dan + Robin’s wedding NOV 2 2007 from merpeck on Vimeo.

“born to be my baby” from merpeck on Vimeo.

I’ll post some more pics when I get them, but honestly, it just went by sooo quickly…

Sunnia and Mike got married last weekend up in Tahoe, and it was awesome. They got married on 07/07/07, which hopefully will be easy to remember… It’s apparently the most popular day of the year to get married this year. I wonder if next year’s 08/08/08 will be as popular. I’m guess not, since it’s a Friday. 09/09/09 is a Wednesday, but I think that’ll be super popular for Chinese peeps, cuz “9″ rhymes with “a long time” in Chinese. And wouldn’t it be neat to be married on a day that rhymes with “long time/long time/long time”? Hmm. Maybe I’ll just book a venue now, all I need is.. hmm.. someone to marry. Well, I guess I’d have a few years.

Anyway.. I was the best man at Masnick’s wedding, which was my first wedding party. So, that was pretty neat. I was tasked with a bunch of tasks, including setting up the chupah, carrying the rings, etc. etc.. The wind atop of Heavenly was not cooperating with my chupah construction, and it was doing its best to blow that thing off the mountain. But, armed with ropes and a few sandbags, we managed to get that thing secured.. somewhat. Apparently, it almost fell over when we all went back to prepare for our entrance, and thanks to Andy, it was saved. (Thanks Andy)

Even though it was hectic at times, the wedding went off perfectly. Sure there were fiascos: a huge fire threatened Tahoe, the hotel “lost” all of the reservations that were made for the wedding, some placecards decided to go missing for awhile, the chupah almost blew off the mountain, but all in all, it went off pretty well.

We rented a house up in Tahoe for a bunch of our friends, and we supposedly broke some stuff. Grrr. What the F? I didn’t notice anything broken at all, so I’m curious to see what we “broke” on the bill that they are apparently sending. Grr.

Anyway.. congrats to Mike and Sunnia!!

More pics from Paul, Korby, and Meredith.

Congrats to Angie and Matt, who got married this weekend.. It was a gorgeous weekend for a wedding, and the ceremony and reception were perfect. So this is the first of this San Francisco crew to get married off — I feel like SF people definitely get married a little later than the rest of the country (albeit Angie and Matt are a little younger than me)…

Also observed,

Sign #47 that you and your friends are getting older:
At a party with an open bar, you order a soda.

Woohoo. It was an awesome party for a terrific couple. All pics here.

I turned 31 this weekend. Woohoo. Ashley’s birthday was the day before mine, so we decided to have a joint celebratory party on Saturday.. After dinner at Lulu, we headed down to Shine for the main festivities.

It was an evening filled with fabulous drunkgiggery (yes, I just made up that word).. My friends are the bestest evar. It was SUPER crowded due to the Angels of Bass party, but Trip hooked us up with our very own VIP booth, complete with a fully stocked mini-fridge. Red Bull, Vodka, and Fernet. Woo. Check out the whole set of pictures here — hmm.. I need to get a diffuser or something for that flash.

On Sunday, I celebrated with my family down in the boro. Everyone chipped in to cook up a delicious dinner with all of my favorites.. my grandma’s potato salad, kalbi, clams and oysters, meatloaf muffins, brussels sprouts, and some new dishes that my dad made up that were super tasty as well.

Yah, there was way too much food.. but so tasty. Food coma for sure.

I can’t believe another year has passed already… yikes.

A bunch of us went up to hog island yesterday to stuff ourselves full of the delicious oysters and bbq.. Man, I love that place. The cold snap has finally broken, so it was a beautiful day up there (even though most of us were still bundled up. We were up there to celebrate the engagement of Matt & Melody and Clint & Renais. Congrats guys!

Clint really, really wanted me to take a picture of these horses on the horizon.. so good thing I had my 70-300 on me, cuz they were far, far away. So, here you go Clint.

It’s my favorite time of the year.. hooray for the holidays. “Dennis’ Xmas Mix 2006″ is done and ready to distribute (ask me if you want one), and I’m even almost all done with my holiday shopping..

This Saturday was Santarchy aka Santacon here in San Francisco.. Approximately 500 Santas descended upon Fisherman’s Wharf around noon, and then proceeded to wreak good cheer and mayhem upon the unsuspecting tourists and residents of San Francisco..

After starting off at Hooters, the group wandered up Hyde, and then to the top of Lombard, blocking traffic, of course, as we all meandered down the crooked street. After Lombard, we headed for Washington Square Park, where free beer and hot dogs were distributed (Santas are hungry and thirsty) and a wicked game of Twister was played.. But then.. when a wedding come out of the church on the park, we all mobbed like some sort of wicked swarm of red bees..

After leaving the wedding, we continued to North Beach, where we frequented several NoBe bars, ultimately ending up at good ol’ Larry Flynt’s place… Oh.. good times, good times. It was quite a scene.

Most of my pics are here. (Yah, ahem.. some aren’t posted.)

Saturday was Eileen’s birthday, which she celebrated at El Rio… A karaoke band, the Amazing Embarrassonics, were there… so, people got to get up on stage and sing karaoke… They were pretty good musicians, and were able to cope with the varying degrees of karaoke skill..

Andy did a great job conjuring up Johnny Cash with his rendition of “Ring of Fire”..

I was on the schedule to sing some Neil Diamond.. but, right as I was about to go up.. they announced… “Oh.. We’re done for the night.. See you in February!” Hmm. That’s not cool.

Woo.. Halloween in San Francisco is the best… I love how the whole city really gets into the spirit and everyone makes a conscientious effort to dress up in some sort of costume. We didn’t throw our usual Halloween party this year, Anna has moved to New York, and with Alan being out of town in London and Kane with a broken foot, there didn’t seem to be enough party throwing momentum to make it happen… Oh well.. maybe next year… So, instead, we headed over to the North Star, where one of Stephanie’s friends was throwing a party…

James and I dressed up as a Communist Party this year.. James was Kim Jong Il, and I was Mao-ish, and we donned party hats and passed out noisemakers.. Get it? It’s a Communist Party. (rimshot)

Meredith was a crafty genius, and made Stephanie a fantastic replica of Björk’s swan dress.. And for herself, when the jumpsuit she bought was too small, she fashioned it into a racing mini dress. Crafty, indeed. Andy wore my kart suit and some Nascar gear, and together, they were a racy couple.

Jablow and Ashley dressed up as Britney and K-Fed, respectively.. Paul refused to join the Communist Party, claiming that girls wouldn’t be attracted to a dude dressed as Stalin. So, instead, as the hunky football player, he had girls flocking to him within five minutes of us entering the bar. Well done, sir. Oh.. and as for other random costumes…

Anyway, the pics from the whole night are on flickr.. Tonight, I’m going to head down to the Castro and hopefully get some more pics of wonderful costumes… and then Thursday is Day of the Dead in the Mission, so that should afford some good photo ops as well…

Happy Halloween!

Today, Genentech (where both of my parents work) had a huge party to celebrate their 30th anniversary.. My dad invited me along since he thought it would be a great opportunity to meet some of the Genentech folks (and maybe drum up a little Techdirt business). A few years ago, they had a big party to celebrate something else, and they threw a huge bash with Elton John, Mary J. Blige and Matchbox 20 — so the bar had already been set fairly high..

It was a gorgeous day in South San Francisco, bright and sunny, temperatures in the 80s, and a nice, steady breeze so that it didn’t get too hot. I did get a nice tan though. So there was quite a lot of speculation about what bands were going to play the party — the management supposedly sent out a bunch of clues, encoded in various stages of encryption like ROT13, so people were furiously working on the clues trying to figure out who would be there. However, the biggest clue was given by Huey Lewis in an interview published in the Missoulian a few months ago. Although he calls the company “Genetex”, he sure did let the cat out of the bag.

So yah.. the bands that played the party today were The Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan, Black Eyed Peas and The Eagles.. Pretty damn cool for a company party, I’d say.

We weren’t allowed to bring cameras into the show, so I left my camera at home… That said, there’s already a few pics showing up on flickr from the event… (look, it’s the eagles)

So yah.. it was a really cool event. Probably like 10,000 people or so.. And, I got to meet the Foo Fighters and the Black Eyed Peas.. Both groups were actually very nice for like the few minutes that I got to chat with them. Fergie is super cute in real life.. I didn’t get to meet Bob Dylan or the Eagles though… oh well.

Anyway… actually, the highlight of my day was probably when I met Dr. James Watson, Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of DNA. I’m kicking myself for not getting a picture with him with the ol’ cameraphone, but oh well.. I met him, and actually got to chat with him for a little bit. Nice ol’ guy. I mean.. meeting famous pop stars is cool and all, but famous scientists? Awesome. Wow, I’m a nerd for sure.

Happy 30th Genentech.. we’re the same age.

Update: As my dad points out.. “A minor correction, Watson was the co-discoverer of the DNA structure. It was the structure, not the DNA.”

It’s been one year since supperclub opened here in San Francisco, so last night was our big anniversary party… It was fabulous.. New Chef Jon Stevens whipped up some awesome tasty treats.. anchovy stuffed olives, some crab things, and fois gras.. mmmmm.

As for entertainment.. there were these awesome contortionists, the mystic pixies and one of those suspended ribbon dancer people (I’m not sure what to call it).

Andy took some nice pics of the event…

Happy anniversary supperclub!! If you haven’t been there yet, come by! Food is super good and it’s a great time..

So.. the fantastic folks over at Shine have this neat-o photobooth in the back that takes your pic and automagically posts it onto flickr.. Yah, it’s kind of geeky.. but what would you expect from a place that is at 1337 Mission… (and if you get THAT reference, then you are truly geeky).

Anyway.. Brian made a kickass timelapse video of the photobooth.

I’m in there somewhere.

Woo.. what a weekend… I opened the weekend with the Superstars first victory of the season. (ok, it was a forfeit, cuz the other team didn’t have enough guys, but a win’s a win.) But, we still scrimmaged, and I got my first hit of the season, an RBI single. Woo. I was 0/5 before the broken ankle, and now I’m 1/5 after the broken ankle, so statiscally speaking, the broken ankle improved my batting average.. not that I recommend it.

Anyway, Jablow, Kai and Pius share the same birthday (the 13th) and Michelle’s is this week too, so they (minus Pius, cuz his moochie-ass is back in Jersey) had a fabulous birthday celebration at Hog Island Oyster Company, which is like 50 miles north of San Francisco in Marshall, CA… Up there, you can buy sacks of oysters for like $36 bucks or something, and sit there, shuck them, drink beer, bbq and in general have a frolicking, oystery good time. Good stuff. Happy birthday Jablow, Kai, and Michelle (oh, and Pius too).

Dana organized a fabulous trip to Pigeon Point this weekend, which is about 50 miles south of San Francisco right on the California.. The Pigeon Point lighthouse has a hostel there, that we all stayed at (for which Dana has been trying for years to get reservations) — it’s $30 a night, and arguably one of the best locations for a hostel in the world… Perched right on the cliffs of the California coast, right underneath a gorgeous working lighthouse.

It was a fantastically warm, clear, fog-free night… and we even spent a few hours in the hot tub, which was perched right on the cliff’s edge. Sooo nice… True to hostelling style, we cooked a tasty dinner in the communal kitchen (although since we had a big group, we basically filled one of the houses).

Most of the folks had biked down the 1 that morning from San Francisco (about a 50 mile ride), and I decided to ride with them back up to the city on Sunday.. We took a different route back than they had taken on Saturday, so we ended up going past the San Gregorio General Store (super cool market with a bar and bluegrass music).. then up La Honda (um.. it was like a 15 miles of UPHILL riding.. ouch) to Alice’s Restaurant for lunch… Then, up Skyline to Crystal Springs (with some awesome downhill.. I hit a max speed of 39.7 mph.. woohoo).. When we reached Crystal Springs, my legs were dead tired, so instead of continuing the 25 miles back up to SF, I chickened out and dropped off the ride at my parents’ house, who convienently live like a few miles from Crystal Springs. Considering that I only just got back on my feet from my broken ankle a few weeks ago, I was happy with the 47 miles that I did.. That said, congrats to Dana, Davin, Dan, Chris, John and Mike who all did 125 miles this weekend.. that’s awesome…

I made a little wayfaring map of the part of the bike ride that I did this weekend.. granted, it doesn’t show elevation change, but I promise that there’s a HUGE hill in between the coast and the inland bits, so that’s why I’m so tired today…

Woo! It’s good to be in California.

Update: Dana posted her pics from the weekend here.

My good friend Shooey has invited me to spin at her regular party at Anu tonight.. So, I’m dusting off my records and I’m gonna go spin tonight! It’s been awhile since I’ve played out, so I’m super excited to be playing.. It’s been on my list to get out there and start promoting myself to get more gigs and such, so maybe tonight will give me the necessary kick in arse to get that whole ball rolling…

I’m on at 10pm, so swing by and say hi, I’ll buy you a drink.

Here are the details:

7/27 Thursday
Cheeky @ Anu
43 Sixth Street b/t Mission & Market St
10:00pm-2:00am
NO cover!

Cheeky Productions newest residents DJs Scottino and shOOey (aka ScottOOey) are back to bring you an evening of booty shakin’ beats. We’re excited to once again share the spotlight with one of our favorite DJ’s you’ve never heard of! This week, Sinned will start our evening off with his ice breaking breaks sound that will surely heat up the dance floor! Come drink a drink and dance a dance with us!

:: Lineup ::
1000 - Sinned (MSG)
1115 - shOOey (In Deep / Cheeky)
1230 - Scottino (FiX / Cheeky)

This weekend was chock full o’weddings… First, I flew down to Burbank for Nancy & Mike’s wedding.. and then back up here to SF to drive up to Sonoma for Dan & Anne’s wedding.. fun fun fun..

Nancy & Mike’s wedding was at the Universal City Hilton — they served a traditional Chinese 10 course wedding meal.. so much tasty food!!! Nancy and I started at Anderson Consulting in the same start group waaaay back in 1997.. There were 20 of us in that start group, and none of us still work at AC (now Accenture). But, many of us still remain in touch, so it was great to see many of them at the wedding.. For one part of the wedding, Nancy and Mike asked their wedding party to perform skits about how Nancy & Mike were before they met, how they met, and how they are now… The wedding party worked really hard on their skits, and did a fantastic job…

Dan & Anne’s wedding was at the St. Francis winery up in Sonoma… Set at the base of a huge mountain and surrounded by a huge vineyard, it was a gorgeous setting for a wedding. Dan’s rabbi from Ohio came in for the wedding and gave a fantastic service, which was followed by a super tasty dinner and then dancing. Woo dancing! I was informed that I won the award for ‘best dancer’ despite my broken ankle. Woo! Who likes dancing? Me!

I had my new camera for both of the weddings, and had an awesome time documenting everything… So, make sure to check out the pictures here and here.

Congrats and best wishes to Nancy, Mike, Dan and Anne!

Well, I’m back in SF now from my brief East coast tour… I was out there for AJ’s 30th birthday party in Philly, so Happy Birthday AJ!! 1976 rocks!

A bunch of us descended upon Philadelphia for the AJ-fest, and we went out in Philly’s old city to celebrate the 30 years of AJ that have transpired so far.. Well, we didn’t really make it that far in old city cuz we really just stayed in at AJ’s friend Dave’s house and drank there… I’ve never really been out in Philadelphia before, it’s pretty nice… kinda feels small towny hiphoppy, but the whole Old City part seems really rejuvenated… Then, Sunday AJ’s parents had a lovely BBQ at their house in New Jersey… The whole weekend was documented very, very, very, very well…

What was also exciting about this trip was that this was the first time I got to travel with the whole new broken (now mended) ankle.. I still have this huge walking boot on there, which has a ton of metal in it, so when I walk through the metal detector, the thing goes crazy. On my way out east, the SFO folks were very thorough in asking me to sit down, remove the boot (which they then sent through the x-ray machine, along with my fancy new cane)… And then they ran the metal detector wand thing over my leg, and when it got to my ankle.. yup.. BEEEP. Oh boy. Everyone always jokes about the whole screws in the ankle setting off metal detectors and all — I guess it’s true. I just wonder if I’m gonna set off the metal detector every time now (after I get the boot off)…

Now, contrast my SFO experience with the friendly folks at JFK… I walk through the metal detector, which beeps like crazy — I now know to walk over to the “wait here cuz the thing beeped” line.. I wait there patiently for a little bit, and then am motioned to sit in the “sit here cuz the thing beeped” chair. I sit patiently for about 5 minutes, and then one of the security people is like.. “What are you doing there? You can go now.” Oh. Um, I don’t argue or anything, but… yah, I suppose there’s a few holes here and there in the whole security process, which is slightly disconcerting. Yah. Hmm.

So, I’m off to the airport again tomorrow.. flying down to LA for Nancy & Mike’s wedding on Saturday.. Then, back here Sunday morning so that I can head up to Sonoma for Dan & Anne’s wedding. Yup, it’s a crazy wedding weekend… woo.

So my friend Kane recently bought the Fulton Street Social Club, and has been remodelling it into a new place called Poleng Lounge… Social Club was a great venue with a booming sound system, and we threw our bad ass Holla’ Ween party there last year, so I’m looking forward to seeing what Kane and his crew have done to the place..

For their opening party on Thursday, May 18th, Kane has booked Chromeo!!

Chromeo ROCKS! I first heard of them when I saw their video for Needy Girl at RESFEST, which was one of their “10 Great Music Videos from 2004“…

So yah.. be there.. May 18th.. I’ll still be in my ankle cast, but I’ll be rockin..

UPDATE:

The show isn’t at Poleng yet (I guess there were some delays to get it open, no surprise from my supperclub experiences)… So, it’s at Mighty Now…

Dan’s getting married in June, so Masnick and I took him out for a little bachelor party.. We went to Chick-fil-A in the Fairfield Mall for lunch, where Dan picked up THREE Chicks-fil-A (get it? haha.. man, I’m hilarious). And then the craaaaaaazy fun continued when we stopped off at the Jelly Belly factory.

Woo. We’re wild and crazy. I forgot that you’re not supposed to speak about the crazy shite goes down during bachelor parties, but.. I’m just that reckless. But man.. I didn’t get back home till like.. 4 o’clock!! (PM, that is.)

Ok… this was kind of in the first of the three posts I made about my 30th birthday weekend, but I’m moving it into its own post.. hope this doesn’t mess with any of you out there in RSS-land…

In summary…

In the first 72 hours of my 30s:
Number of Bars Visited: 2
Number of Drinks Consumed: 16
Number of Budweisers Consumed: 15
Number of Hours Slept: 17
Number of Cars Wrecked: 2
Number of things Jason set on fire: 2 (1 car, 1 bbq)
Number of Calls To AAA: 6 (it was a fiasco getting them to come and get me, they thought I was *on* the bridge)
Number of Miles Driven In Car: 5
Number of Miles Ridden On Bike: 43
Number of CostCo Chickens Eaten: 1
Pairs of Pants Worn Forwards: 2
Pairs of Pants Worn Backwards: 1
Kris Kross Will Make You: Jump! Jump!
Number of Dudes Tackled At The Hip Hop Party: 3
Number of times “Big” was heard screaming in the background: 7
Number of people crammed into my house for the bbq: 68
Number of Candles Blown Out: 33 (3 on the first cake, 30 on the second)
Number of Birthday Wishes Made: 1 (ok, 2, but they were both for the same thing)

So yah.. thanks everyone for everything! You guys are the best!

Ok.. on the final stretch.. on the third day of my 30th birthday weekend, I decided to have a little bbq at my house… Since there were like 70 people who said they were coming on the evite, I had to do some furniture re-arrangement… I figured since it was a bbq, people could hang out in the main room and outside on the patio and it’d be all fine. Except for one thing.. weather.

We’ve had like two weeks of unseasonably gorgeous weather here in San Francisco, and when does it all break? Of course.. on the day of my birthday bbq… but, not to let the weather thwart my plans, I go right ahead and still plan on bbq’ing. Jason saves the day and brings a Kingsford sponsored tent for the patio (along with two packs of their most advanced mesquite charcoal, available at your neighborhood grocery store). So we’re all set. Awesome.

The bbq went off without a hitch.. everyone showed up, ate a ton of food, drank lots, and had a great time, and I’m so happy to have so many awesome friends who braved the yucky weather to celebrate my birthday.. You guys are the best! Although, I do realize that Bailey did steal most of the attention once people got here though, which is fine with me…

So yah.. that’s my birthday weekend… spent exactly the way that I wanted it to be, with marvelous friends and family.