dennis yang dot com

It was quite the busy busy labor day weekend.. This was my first labor day weekend in five years that I actually spent here in san francisco, since I usually am at burningman… This year, I held on to my ticket until the very last minute to keep alive the possibility that I might actually make it up there again, but it never happened. This year was the 20th anniversary of the event, and it sure did look like fun. Oh well.. Less than a year till the next burningman, I suppose..

The weekend was kicked off with a bang, with the wedding of my friends, Amy and Joe.. Their wedding was in Sausalito, and went off without a hitch. The ceremony was in this awesome little church atop a hill, followed by the wedding reception just across the street.. It’s been quite the wedding season this year already, this being my third, after Steve & Monnia’s and Jason & Bonnie’s… The reception was at the Alta Mira, which usually has a spectacular view of San Francisco (which was smothered in fog the whole day). Congrats Amy & Joe! (Oh yah, congrats to Steve & Monnia and Jason & Bonnie too.. albeit belated on the blog.. oops).

Sunday was marked by Paul M’s first evite’d event (welcome to the internets, Paul) — a bbq at the famed 629 Elizabeth house. We were graced by Korby’s return to SF for the weekend (it really seems like he didn’t move to NYC).. True to a San Francisco September day, the weather was actually quite warm, though a cold, foggy breeze rolled in midway through to remind us to not leave our jackets out of arm’s reach. As would be expected with any gathering of the jerks, there was an excessive amount of sausage present (both literally and figuratively), an ton of yelling, and copius quantities of beer consumed. Approximately 169 cans and bottles, to be exact. Paul had initially forecast beer consumption at around 80 beers, and clearly he underestimated the amount of beer consumed during several rounds of raucous asshole.

We groggily awoke Monday and headed for Tomales Bay, for oysters straight from the farm.. Ahh.. more bbq’ing and beer. We were quite weary from the previous night’s outing, so the beer drinking was actually kept to a minimum. The oyster eating was quite sweeeeet.. I highly recommend it — I mean, for like 8 bucks, you get a dozen oysters in a mesh bag that have just been freshly plucked right out of the bay in front of you.. delicious tasty goodness.

Yes, living in San Francisco is good.

Much like the memory maps that I annotated to illustrate what I remember from my childhood, the flickr desknote meme is composed of a bunch of people taking pictures of their desks and annotating the hell out of the resulting picture on flickr (so click over to look at what all these things are on my desk)…

I actually didn’t take this picture with the intent of adding to the desknotes group — I was chatting with Jason, a wedding photographer, and he mentioned that he’s started taking everything in RAW format as opposed to JPG… So, I tried it out.. RAW is impressively flexible and all, but for most pics I think I’ll still use JPG since it takes a lot more work to get the pictures viewable — and it takes a ton more space (about 2.5mb per picture as compared to 500kb).. and it’s slower.. but, you sure can make some neat pictures with it…

wow. that’s what happens when you dump 100,000 bouncy balls down filbert street with an air cannon. i guess it was for some commercial, and they supposedly picked them all back up.

Andy made me a brand new logo for dennisyang.com… Thanks Andy!

When I was a kid I had a little logo for myself that I used all over the place.. it was my initials, “DTY” but the “T” kind of extended up and over the D and the Y like a little umbrella or something.. I must have put that logo on like everything I owned, and lots of stuff I didn’t own. Man, I loved that logo, I’m not sure why I stopped using it.. Handwriting analysts would probably say that the mark didn’t really embody me since it put undue emphasis on my middle initial, which I hardly identify with.. I mean.. this is dennisyang.com not.. dennistyang.com nor dennistedyang.com

Yes, my middle name is Ted. Not Theodore. Just Ted. I used to tell people that my middle name was Tucker, after Preston Tucker, but I suppose I grew out of that too.

So, back a few months ago, I took this picture of a barn in Oklahoma.. I drove through the panhandle bit since I wanted to see what was up there to warrant such an odd drawing of state lines.. Nobody I talked to seemed to know why they decided to keep the panhandle bit, but I did find this barn…

My friend Ben had one of his photos picked as the KQED photo of the day, so I figured I’d submit my barn photo.. and voila.. I was chosen as the photo of the day for May 30th.. Yah, the KQED gallery is supposed to be “local focus”.. but they post pics from all over.. my plan is to submit some more photos from the bay area, but this is a good start..

w00t!

Last night was the Techdirt 25k party at the cigar bar.. in celebration of Techdirt’s 25,000th post.. Me and the many Mikes of Techdirt headed down and enjoyed a drink and a cigar down in downtown SF. Despite the nasty San Francisco drizzle/rain, and despite the premiere of episode III, we had a good turnout, and a good time seemed to be had by all..

Back in the heyday, there was some sort of happy hour or party like every night… since 2005 is the new 1999 and all, who’s gonna bring back the happy hours?

I’ve posted photos at flickr, tagged “techdirt25k“…

This weekend was Bay to Breakers… and what a glorious weekend it was.. Unlike past years, I chose not to start at the start. Since I live only a few blocks from the course, instead of waking up ass early at 7am and heading downtown, I chose to sleep in a bit and join up with the race at Hayes and Gough. So.. all in all, it took me about 6 hours to complete about 1/2 of the course.. that’s about.. um.. 3 miles in 6 hours.. not bad, yah?

Well.. I woke up before 8am anyway, and since I was up already, I decided that I’d try and get down to the course to see the “elite” runners run by.. I got to the course at about 8:10am, and by then, they were already long gone, having completed the entire 7.5 mile run in like 34 minutes or something. Oh well. I did get to see quite a few people run by… I never realized just how many people 70,000 are, but I guess in years past since you’re moving with the crowd, you don’t realize how many people that is..

As we passed one of the icky green ponds in the park, Jablow and Rob were convinced that they were going to take a little swim. Connie tackled Jablow while he was untying his shoe, which made him land headfirst into the pavement. Ow. His head made a nice thud, and Connie’s goal of getting Jablow to NOT swim was a success. Rob, on the other hand, snuck over to the other side of the lake, and dove right in, headfirst. Unfortunately, the pond was like 1 foot deep. OUCH.

So.. yah.. it was a good day despite the 2 head wounds (they’re ok).

It’s been an ongoing tradition to plan a trip whenever one of my friend’s turns 30, so this weekend was Korby’s birthday party in Vancouver… We all flew up to Seattle (since it was cheaper) and then drove up to Canada in a rented van. Kim made us all wear matching shirts.

Man, Vancouver is lovely. Clean city, cute girls, and cheap living — what more could you want? We saw a few places for sale in downtown Vancouver for like $250,000 CDN.. I think you can maybe buy a shoebox here in San Francisco for that. Crazy.

At the US-Canada border, Tom Kim chats with the border patrol:

“Hello.”
“Hello.”

“What was your purpose of your visit to Canada?”
“Uhhh… ummm.. Just looking around.”

“Hmm. So, what was your purpose?”
“Ummmm.. yah.. just looking around, you know.”

“Did you purchase anything in Canada?”
“Ummmm.. not really.”

“How do you know all of these people?”
“Ummm.. I don’t know.. I guess.. Ummm.. I used to work with him, I think.. and uhhh… I think they all went to college together”

“Please turn off your engine and open the door.”

Geez.. I mean, honestly… Tom Kim is the most suspicious innocent person I’ve ever met… “Not REALLY“?!?! Just looking around“?!?!? Haha.. man, maybe you “had to be there” but it was damn funny. Well, it was damn funny because we didn’t get cavity searched. That wouldn’t have been funny. Ok, maybe a little.

Anyway.. happy birthday Korby!

weezer rocked!

As many of you may or may not know, my friend Pius (aka, the jerk) has been travelling for the past few years all around the world… he’s molested pandas, entertained various “masseuses, hung out with yangs, and bathed in rivers..

Hersh, Jablow and Joe (aka, the jerks) just got back from visiting Pius in Thailand… Here are their their pictures. I think I could get used to this.. I wonder if I could work from there.. lack of electricity might be a problem…

… and i thought i had just one brother…

so we’re back from our three week trip to asia, and more pics posted.. exhausted and jetlagged, but it was good to be home. we returned to san francisco, where it has been raining nonstop for the past few weeks (which means there’s more snow in tahoe than they’ve seein in 100 years)..

hong kong pics
china pics

some highlights:

hong kong skyline, at night:

sunrise over beijing:

shanghai, at the magic hour:

sunset over hangzhou:

and… there’s a movie in the making.. i just ordered this really cool software called muvee — they’re “authorizing my order” right now, whatever that means, but it’s really frikkin’ cool..

in the meantime, check out the movie of the greatwall andy made..

so we’re in hong kong now, headed for beijing tomorrow morning… we’ve met up with pius here in hong kong and he’s been staying with us for the past few days..

hong kong is just one huge shopping mall, and i think i’d be buying a lot more if we weren’t headed to beijing and shanghai in the next few days.. but we’ll be back here for a day before we head home so i can get my shopping spree in then.

anyway, i’ve posted my pics from taiwan.. enjoy.

some notable pics:

taipei 101 — the world’s tallest building, for now.

andy jumping — alluding to a similar pic we took in new zealand

rock slide. andy’s ok. no worries.

sketchy bridge that we had to cross to get to these super cool hot springs at the bottom of a canyon in the dark.

the hot springs at the bottom of the canyon.

betelnut girl. these girls staff the betelnut stands all over taiwan. we tried some betelnut. it makes your mouth all numb and makes you salivate like mad. it turns your spit red, and is supposedly (according to the “internet”) the most widely used stimulant in the world.

grandma and all of my cousins.

taiwanese fisherman.

engrish.

so… i’m travelling in taiwan with my family.. more pics to come, but here’s one.

so this weekend brad, clint and i headed up to oregon to play a little golf at bandon dunes.. bandon dunes is way up in the southwest corner of oregon, so we decided to drive (since i love road trips).

according to Y! maps, the trip should take 7 hours, 8 minutes — not bad — but, according to mapquest, the trip should take 8 hours, 53 minutes. Odd. The difference is that Y! has us taking the 101 the whole way (463 miles), while mapquest takes us on the 5 (533.21 miles)… here’s the weird part.. Y! wants us to drive an average of 66 mph — whereas mapquest has us travelling 533.21 iles at an average speed of around 59 mph.. an *average* of 66 mph? the whole way on the 101?? sure, sounds reasonable enough, until you factor in a) traffic (ok.. that’s not fair) b) we’re driving in the dark (ok.. that’s not fair either) c) crazy winding roads on the side of the ocean (ok.. that’s fair). in any case.. the drive up there took about 11 hours (ack).. and then on the way back instead of driving the 5 back, we opted for the 101 again since we wanted to see the pretty ocean (which, incidentally is much prettier during the daytime than in the dead of a moonless night).

Enough driving talk… on to the golf. we played 2 and 7/18ths courses this weekend. Saturday morning, we played Bandon Dunes — magnificent course, incredibly difficult, especially the greens, which were SUPER fast. I putted right off the green many, many frustrating times (in one case, the ball rolled off the green into a bunker).

just as we finished and walked into the pro shop, someone called and cancelled their tee time at bandon trails.. bandon trails is the new course they’re building up there and isn’t even done yet. they had 7 holes open for preview play… so we jumped on the opportunity. AND we even got a free hat!!! w00t! bandon trails was pretty awesome too — most of the holes seemed unreal — they’re really trying to not change the landscape too much — it felt like we were just hiking in the woods.

sunday we played pacific dunes, which was my favorite of the three… pacific runs along the ocean for many of the holes, and was much more scenic than the other two, though tough as well…

so.. this weekend was my first time playing with a caddie.. i must say, it’s pretty cool to have a bunch of people walking around with you as you play golf. granted, you pay for it and stuff, but it’s just neat having the entourage with you on the course. very very very cool, actually. i could get used to it.

ok.. well, take a look at the pics and see for yourself why i <heart> oregon.

taken with the cameraphone, with the binoculars for zoom…

so i got my snapfish order… the lomo pics are posted, as promised.. golfing on the playa was fun.

zuad and mike are off travelling the world.. yay. fun. they yim’d me from some internet cafe in valencia… oh, and as long as i’m on the subject of my friends travelling the world, pius is now documenting his crazy adventures semi-regularly on thejerk.org… go check it out… i think he’s somewhere in china right now.

so my burningman pictures taken with my lomo have now been developed by snapfish — the cd with hi-res pics is on its way, but i just couldn’t wait to post the whole gallery.. so here’s just a taste of what’s to come…. man, the lomo takes SUCH good pictures out on the playa…

well.. my burningman pictures are posted.. i intend to write some stories about the whole experience, but too.. tired.. and.. lazy.. for now.. so, in the meantime, look at some pics and stuff…

some of my favorites:

the limo, entering bman

that girl jerri, from survivor, and the limo

under the man

viking boat car

MIT light wall

kickass other lincoln towncar

dj’ing at our party

the temple, from the air (yay, i got to go in a plane)

burning.. man..

nat and michelle, cold.

sunrise over brc