Seven Twenty-one Oh-eight

Hi Everyone!

How's it going? I hope everyone is doing well. I am now in the beginning of the end.. of the last year of residency!!! Woo hoo! :) As you can tell, I can hardly wait to be done (though there is certainly a part of me that feels like I should stay within the protective womb of residency training as long as possible).. I've started some minor moonlighting (working on the side) which is nice for getting experience and being on your own and also nice for getting paid for working instead of the indentured servitude of the medical training system. Overall, things are going great and the plan is to move back up to Northern California after I finish in June of 2009. Things are going excellent with Amy (in case you were wondering :) but don't hold your breath people.. things are happenning at a measured pace :p Harsha and Jeff continue to do well and we all have one more year in Los Angeles. Harsha is the big time Chief/Faculty for all the optho residents at USC this year and he's working hard but enjoying it - and then preparing to go to Seattle for two years for fellowship. Jeff is disciplined as always in his Peds ICU studying but also planning much ahead of time for his impending wedding in April of '09. But we still have one more year together at the old 1062 in LA and we've made it a priority to enjoy life a little more in LA this year so we don't look back later and say "hey, why didn't we go THERE when we were living in LA?!?" Hope everyone is well, drop me a line when you can and let me know how you are... All right, on to the pictures..

I'm starting off with a few pictures from Amy's visit to LA in April..

Anne (far left) was kind enough to get us tickets to the Magic Castle - the magician's society headquarters invite-only club in Hollywood. It was fun and we (along with Erika) had dinner there and saw a few stage performances. Very cool..

We also went to the Festival of Books at UCLA. It was really hot and we found this costume lying on the steps - I think whoever was supposed to be wearing it around abandoned him because of the heat. So, Amy and I took a picture :)

We also took a picture with Strand.. a character from this book. I haven't read the book but it was kind of just funny to take pictures with the costumes and the green screen behind..

We also went out to Guelaguetza, a local mexican place with Amy's friend Vanessa. They have good horchata with the pink cactus fruit on top.

Harsha also joined us for the meal. We made it our goal to learn to make this stuff and Harsha made some good horchata a couple weeks ago. A refreshing drink for the hot summer.

We also went to my friend Alice's bacholerette party (yes, I was the only guy..) in the Huntington Gardens. We got prizes for answering Alice trivia.. heck, we just got prizes period for being there (thanks, Bonnie! [that's Alice's friend who organized all this.])

Two days later we got a bit dressed up (it was a Hawaiian theme wedding) and went to have brunch with Emily at the Blue Jam Cafe on Melrose. Really excellent place actually and now my new favorite brunch place in LA :)

Alice and Terry's ceremony was super short - literally 5 minutes long and then we were off to Saladang Song for Thai food. Typical of Alice to have the focus be on the food in her wedding. Congrats, Alice!
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Then for Harsha's Birthday in May, we drove up to Sequoia National Park and met up with the Castellanos Brothers for a little back to nature. It was quite a lot of fun and good to see old friends again. I don't think we killed any rodents this time around and a strict rule forbade us from lighting fires within the park (sorry, boys..) but we managed to find some mischief anyway..

Group shot at a waterfall near Crystal Cave. My family used to road trip up here when we were younger because we didn't have too much money for big vacations. It was mildly nostalgic..

Harsha and Luis pretending to be old school Native Americans grinding cornmeal in the rocks...

Lightning danger at Moro Rock..

Inside Crystal Cave.. there are some very beautiful rock formations and all the stalactite and stalacmites you can ever want..

A black and white sensitive artist shot by Dr. Reddy..

We had lunch on Moro Rock.. felt like we were on top of the world..

Foolin' around in the hollow of a fallen sequoia trunk.. these things are massive!

On our way out of the park, we drove by some orchards and got a hankerin' for some oranges. George was getting back to his roots as a migrant farm worker :) Harsha and I joined in..

Enjoying the sweet fruits of our labor in the car.
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In May, I also went up to San Jose for Lin and William's wedding. It was very nice and a few of us also had a good time in a sleep over at Barb's/Amiel house (who also got married in April of this year.) Yes, if it seems like I've been going to a lot of weddings, it's true.. this year Amy and I are going to literally a dozen weddings (mostly my friends), I guess it's the end of residency or something..

The beautiful couple.. I like Will's style of tux. Maybe I'll get the same but with the mandarin collar.. maybe..

Mei Li, Lin and Barbara.. the bride and her maids..

This is our table toasting the bride/groom/family at the reception. My hand is the one in the middle bottom of the picture clad in blue :)

A little dancing with the new bride.. that's Amiel bringing up the back.. :)

The next day we had a few hours to go on a hike near Fremont. We found this bathroom that's closed M-F.. what the heck kind of bathroom is closed on different days of the week?!? The park was open everyday of the week.. odd..
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Amy then came down to visit again (woo hoo!)

On one of our forays to little Japantown on Sawtelle and Olympic, I found a magnifying glass. I've always wanted one ever since I watched Survivor Man and was thinking what device would be most useful in the wild to start a fire.. I gotta say it was well worth the $2.. see below at our Yosemite trip for results...

We went to our neighborhood block party and stole some cake from the bake-off.. we also got free samples of earthy organic non-polluting dishwashing liquid..

Amy likes the moon bounce.. those things always really exhaust me and if I stay too long, I get all nauseated :)

We also went down to Irvine to see my friend Jennifer and have lunch with her.. Looks like we're in the islands but really we're just at Islands, the burger chain.

Amy found a cute stuffed penguin at the store next door to our lunch..
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Our (to be) Annual camping trip with the Valley Crew. We decided to go to Yosemite and hopefully this will become a lasting tradition, along with our winter Annual Winter Snow trip. Which was really beautiful. Wei and Minh have a massive amount of camping gear (including his own set up metal grill, 8 man tent, propane stoves, etc.) so we made good use of it and had an awesome time..

The group, minus Lin SC, Ray and Jane at Vernal Falls.. They're up ahead on the trail somewhere..

Amazing waterfalls.. there was a fair amount of rain in the winter and the summer was already super hot so I think this is all the snow melt coming down.

Ha, ha! I have made FIRE!! Using the magnifying glass it took only 20 seconds to light a fire. I think the key is dry kindling to start it off.. it was awesome though and everyone took a turn. Seriously, if you've never done it, it's worth doing.. creating fire gives you this cool sense of power and emergence from the stone age.. just make sure you don't set anything but your intended fuel on fire..

A beautiful sunset in Sequoia National Park

That night we cooked long into the night - seriously, we had 12 people but we probably brought enough food for 25 people. This is us makin' smores... hmm, smores..

The next morning we continued to grill more food.. and more food.. and eventually started being creative.. the banana split, chocolate, marshmallow combination in the top left was Viet's idea (did you know he was an eagle scout?) and was delicious..

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Most recently, Amy and I took a trip to Seattle and then Vancouver. In Seattle, we saw Rebekka and Hugo who are doing excellent. Hugo is training for the FBI and Rebekka is growing her hair out for their wedding in October. We also saw Steph and Franklin and their cat, Opie (short for Opus.) Steph's working her butt off in her ENT residency and Franklin's in his last year of radiology already. It was great seeing both of them. Then we went to Vancouver to meet Amy's relative and for her grandma's 94th birthday..

A view of Seattle from Pike's Place market (home of the original Starbucks).. it was beautiful up there and we had to keep reminding ourselves that we were there in the summer and winter was probably a bit colder/cloudier/rainier (are these words?)

We went by the boat locks (you know the things that raises and lowers ships while they are going up/down river) and also saw the fish ladder. The fish ladder was very cool.. and we saw a few salmon jumping.. this is a view from the observation glass.. man, those sockeye salmon are huge! Like 5 feet long at least..

We also drove out to these waterfalls outside of the city.. 300 footer, very pretty..

Here we are the border to Canadia..

Amy loves the Yogen Fruz.. she says it blows the pinkberry away.. but is only available in Canada (for now...)

Amy's grandmother.. she's pretty with it for being 94 years old..

We also went to see WallE.. man, that's a pretty cute robot.. Amy says you can't beat the combination of the Sci Fi (me) and cute (her)..

We did manage to make it for one night out on the town.. this is a picture of Amy and her brothers, Matthew and David..

Nik SMASH!!! Hulking out..

Attacked by a giant fuzzy tarantula on Granville Island..

I'll close it a picture of the embers from the fire we had in Yosemite.. it looks rather surreal and unearthly. This was taken by Viet, I think. We stayed up long into the night talking.. that's what I always like about the camping.. Oh, and Wei got angry again (don't worry, it's a common occurrance)..

Thanks for reading and allowing me to share pictures with you all. Drop me a note and let me know how you are when you get a chance! And come visit in LA.. you've only got one more year while we're here.. then you'll have to visit us somewhere else! :) Take care, everyone!