What?! Another year in the history books? I say this every year, but time sure does fly. Especially when you’re having fun. This year seemed like one of the busiest yet! Let’s take a look back at my photographic year in review for 2011.

See previously, my photographic year in reviews for 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

Quick notes: I probably stuffed way too many events and photos in this post. Sorry! Secondly, it’s interesting to see how many square formatted photographs (courtesy of Instagram) that I have. It’s my primary way of sharing photos these days.

January 2011

I started off the year trying to take a photo per day. Here, I walked town Divisadero in our old neighborhood and shot some random photos of the store front one night. This experiment lasted about 2 days.

Street cars are one of the reasons I love San Francisco.

Speaking of rides in street cars, I kept taking pictures of them / inside them and shot this iPhone panorama.

In early January, Christmas trees are victims in San Francisco.

Kerry took me to the Tonga Room in San Francisco for my birthday. It’s a San Francisco classic. Pool in the middle of the restaurant with a boat and a band.

Our friend Christian celebrated his birthday by scheduling a Mexican party bus to take us around town! Drinks, music, and late night pinatas in the park!

Walking to and from work each day, I’m bound to stumble upon many of San Francisco’s eccentrics. And then document them with my phone’s camera (this is a trend I’ve noticed more and more — I’m using my serious cameras less and less!)

I also picked up this rad bearded beanie (because, you know, I can’t really grow a beard).

To end the month, the group of our friends took off on a chartered wine tour of Sonoma through Terrific Tours.

February 2011

The first weekend of February was Super Bowl weekend! So, we mounted up in our vehicles to head to Lake Tahoe for a winter weekend at a friend’s cabin.

This means there was also some serious Settlers of Catan games going on.

Also, the Starvin Marvin’s BBQ Team decided to help out and provide some tasty treats.

Thanks to a query from Burrito Justice, I went to the SF Library to dig up a research paper on prehistoric humans found while excavating BART in the 1960′s.

Mike Daisey came to town and gave an incredible performance on The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Here’s the setup of the stage prior to the show.

Winters in California aren’t too bad…

A friend of ours had an 80′s themed birthday. Dynamic Dave and Missouri Mike made an appearance.

Kinetic Kerry and Dynamic Dave, 80′s style.

Our cats continued to make me realize how easy they have it. Here, Tegan is thinking about all her worries.

And a tweet of mine randomly appeared on Twitter’s home page. Sweet!

March 2011

It’s been awhile since we’ve been wine tasting, so back to Sonoma we went!

Proving time and time again that we have the laziest animals in the universe.

March also means the South by Southwest festival is happening. Off to Austin, Texas!

Rachel and Kerry pose with the mascot from HootSuite.

And then pose while riding some cheesy rides…

Austin gets pretty crazy during SXSW.

The Texas State Capital Building is pretty neat at night.

The primary reason we were in Austin was for our annual gdgt live in Austin event.

While in Texas, Kerry and I apparently found one of Austin’s classic “love photo” spots.

We extended our stay a few days and had a chance to check out the world famous Salt Lick BBQ outside of Austin.

Don’t forget about all the awesome music! Here, Liam Finn sings some tunes.

After a week in Austin, we flew back home to our fair city.

With BBQ season approaching, I hung out with the Starvin Marvin’s BBQ Team while they practiced cooking some brisket.

I can’t stop taking pictures of the sky!

April 2011

Baseball season begins!

Our friends Scott and Marcie ended up getting engaged! So we hung out at a wine bar to surprise them (courtesy of Scott setting this up).

For our friend Jeff’s birthday, we went out to the East Bay and had a BBQ in the park.

Koa was there to keep us company.

In late April, I ventured out to Kennedy Space Center for one of the coolest experiences in my life — to checkout Space Shuttle Endeavour’s last flight for a NASA Tweetup! It was the experience of a lifetime.

Here is the new Orion module on display at the KSC Visitor’s Center.

An full scale mockup of the Shuttle on display at KSC:

Credentials!

The VAB! Words cannot describe how crazy huge it is. This is where they put together vehicles that take humans to SPACE. And at one point, the MOON!

I’m posing in front of the world famous count down clock.

We also got to go inside the VAB!

Sadly, due to a late thunderstorm and some technical issues that cropped up, the launch was scrubbed and I had to return home. This was the closest I ever got to seeing a Shuttle launch.

May 2011

May was a fairly inactive month for me. Went for a run down to the beach.

There was also a lot of standing around, as Off the Grid SF started up a weekly event at our office building for lunch!

June 2011

Masquerade party at our friend’s house.

Kerry and I moved to Oakland! One of the immediate and obvious differences between San Francisco and Oakland was the blue sky. That’s right! No fog in the summer, baby!

We immediately started checking out some of the neighborhood eateries. Our first stop? Homeroom! Specialty Mac n’ Cheese!

And here is some cute art on the wall at Homeroom:

I flew to New York City for a gdgt live event. I went a few days early to visit my sister, who had just moved back to New York City from Los Angeles.

Brooklyn summers:

Checking out the High Line.

It was pretty fun hanging out with my sister in NYC. I hadn’t seen her in awhile!

July 2011

In July, we went out to Yosemite National Park for a wedding for our friends, Meghan and Andy. It was a blast!

Of course, I had to go for the standard post card shot of the valley.

Our friend Marcie took an awesome photo of Kerry and I while there.

I also borrowed a new camera, the Fuji X100. I had to test it out, so I used my standard benchmarking tool: the nearest feline.

In mid-July, we went back to Austin, Texas for another wedding. This time for Jess and Adam.

We end the month with some more baseball — this time, the Oakland A’s: a minor league team pretending to be a major league team.

August 2011

August! This time, we venture to Seattle for a gdgt live event. Before all the festivities, we stopped by the Sci Fi museum to see the Battlestar Galactica exhibit!

Space Needle!

In mid-August, we ventured northward to the Russian River for a good old-fashioned canoe trip!

Seemingly millions of people flocked to the Mission to taste food from a few dozen food trucks. Street Food Fest was amazing. Amazingly crowded!

My parents and grandparents came up to visit and stayed in Napa. So we went on adventure and rode the Napa Valley Wine Train!

September 2011

We spend Labor Day weekend on the shores of Lake Tahoe.

The other reason we were in Tahoe? Rib Fest!

We managed to sneak in some hiking as well.

Off the Grid held an event in the East Bay at Golden Gate Fields. So, we went out and saw our first horse races. It was pretty fun!

Mid-September, I went off to Chicago for another gdgt live event. It’s such a pretty city!

More Oakland A’s games! (Admittedly, baseball is always fun to see, no matter who is playing.)

Random stuffed animals left around our neighborhood…

Our friends Katherine and Tony got married!

October 2011

Sadly, Steve Jobs passed away early in October. I swung by the local Apple Store to check out the memorial that fans and mourners were building.

Views from the office building: crazy people.

October means Fleet Week! Scott and I went out on a boat and watched the Blue Angels practice. We had pretty epic front row seats.

We ventured north to Sonoma for another wine tasting trip with friends.

For work, the team stopped by the SF MOMA to check out the Dieter Rams exhibit. It was pretty inspiring.

Besides Fleet Week, October also means pumpkin patches!

Dramatic mornings on public transit.

This is how we hack street signs in Oakland.

For our friend’s Halloween party, Kerry and I dressed up as friendly TSA agents.

November 2011

More wine!

And more Dave and Kerry pics after drinking wine!

December 2011

Santacon!

We took a train ride down to Southern California on the Coast Starlight. That was a blast!

The views were pretty epic, too!

Our friend, Amit Gupta, was diagnosed with Leukemia. He needs help in a major way.

I got a call from my doctor, who I’d gone to see the day before because I’d been feeling worn out and was losing weight, and wasn’t sure why. He was brief:
“Amit, you’ve got Acute Leukemia.

“You need to enter treatment right away.”

I was terrified. I packed a backpack full of clothes, went to the hospital as he’d instructed, and had transfusions through the night to allow me to take a flight home at 7am the next day. I Googled acute leukemia as I lay in my hospital bed, learning that if it hadn’t been caught, I’d have died within weeks.

I have a couple more months of chemo to go, then the next step is a bone marrow transplant. South Asians are severely under-represented in the bone marrow pool, and I need help.

There’s a few things you can do to help. Are you of South Asian descent? Swab! Or help organize a drive!

[more info Amit Gupta Needs You]

It’s especially fun when we start trash talking each other using past words of the day.

A photo of mine appeared in an article about Veronica Belmont and Ryan Block in Geeksugar, for their series of “Geeks We Love” articles!

Nikon D300, Nikkor 24mm f/2.8, and an SB-600 flash w/ LumiQuest 80-20 diffuser.

Of course, the perfect way to start (and end) the trip is by visiting In N’ Out.

Recently, I downloaded a game for the iPhone called “Words with Friends.” It’s very similar to Scrabble, with a different board and slightly different letter values (one would assume to avoid Scrabble’s IP lawyers).

Many of my family and friends are playing the game and we’re all having fun trying to best each other’s scores. I like to think I have a good vocabulary, but apparently I don’t know how to effectively play for points, as evidenced above by the 60-point bomb that Kerry dropped on me, two moves into the game!

No matter though. I’ll just have to brush up on the following video, “Fighting dirty in Scrabble.”

A new year, and a new decade are upon us! Here is my annual photographic review of the year. More travels, moving, a new job. So sit down and come along for the ride.

You can also see my past year in reviews for 2008 and 2007.

January 2009

January started out with a short, surprise trip down the coast to Half Moon Bay and Moss Beach. Kerry surprised me for my birthday, and we stayed at a phenomenal bed and breakfast for the weekend.

MacWorld came to town. It was my first time visiting the convention. Naturally, we geeked out on all the cool companies that were demoing products.

San Francisco residents wasted no time in finding something to protest over.

One of my favorite punk bands of all time, Tsunami Bomb, reunited for one final show in Petaluma.

February 2009

A number of friends embarked on the great Burrito Ingredients Scavenger Hunt: scouring the city’s taquerias for the best individual ingredients they have, and building our own, epic burrito.

My sister was in town for a brief visit.

This year, instead of checking out the annual pillow fight, a few of us decided to check out Toronado’s annual Barley Wine Festival.

We paid a visit to the Mission for the Grilled Cheese Sandwich battle.

March 2009

Donated some blood. (Gross!)

Awaited the results of the California Supreme Court’s ruling on Prop 8.

Had a good view from my apartment of a rally for Tibet, as they marched towards the Chinese Consulate.

I walked across the entire Golden Gate Bridge for the first time in my life.

Pi-Day celebrations! 3.14

Took a stroll through Golden Gate Park. Beautiful as always.

April 2009

We went on a backpacking trip to Big Basin State Park

May 2009

Another month, another backpacking trip! This time, to California’s Lost Coast.

And encountered wild life.

Attended the Maker Faire and saw some great art and inventions.

June 2009

A curious cat.

Robogames 2009!

July 2009

Enjoying some drinks on a lazy summer day.

Kerry and I took a whale watching trip out to the Farallon Islands.

August 2009

We had our gdgt SF party to celebrate the launch of our website!

Big road trip time! We embarked for Canada.

Sawtooth Range in Northern Idaho

More of Idaho

Hamilton, Montana

Kootenay National Park, Canada

Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, Canada

Banff, Canada

Vancouver, BC

Victoria, BC

Space Needle in Seattle

Mount Rainier

Mount St. Helens

Oregon Caves National Monument

We returned from our road trip to cheer our friends on in SF Food Wars.

September 2009

Got to shoot an Apple Keynote / Stevenote for gdgt!

Cal Academy

Walked around San Francisco and took some random photos.

Someone in the neighborhood must have been pretty angry with Muni.

Flew to New York City at the end of the month for gdgt’s NYC launch party. Hello Virgin America!

NYC!

October 2009

Visited New York City for the gdgt NYC event. While there, I visited the newly created High Line Park.

gdgt NYC at the Manhattan Center!

The Blue Angels came to town for Fleet Week 2009

Headed up to Tomales Bay for some friendly oyster shucking.

Wished my apartment of the past 3 years, so long!

Last sunset at the apartment. It was fantastic as always.

Adjusted to living with one of my new roommates.

The end of October meant that Halloween parties were neigh!

Walking through our neighborhood at night.

November 2009

Since I had recently purchased a Canon S90, I decided that the Cal Academy would be the perfect place to break it in.

Checked out the museum at SFO

Beautiful fall days in San Francisco

Beautiful fall nights in San Francisco

San Francisco sunset

December 2009

Kerry and I saw Cirque du Soleil’s OVO show when it came to town.

(And I got yelled at for taking photos…)

Attended the Laughing Squid Un-holiday Party at the Gallery With No Name. And saw their neon Jelly Fish.

Don’t forget, Santacon / Santarchy made an appearance in San Francisco!

Some of my companions during the day. (Because the only currency on the internet are cat photos).

One particular entry caught our eye.

“¡Una nit de curts còmic!”

It’s written in Catalan and basically translates to “a night of funny shorts!”

That was pretty amusing to us, especially because we all agreed that Sanjin had just bought some ridiculous and funny shorts right before we left on our trip.

So we made plans that evening to set out for the bar / lounge (called the Mauma Lounge) that was hosting “funny shorts night.” Sanjin decided to pack the shorts in his messenger bag and change into them when we got there, just in case the night ended up being a bust.

When we arrived, we noticed a distinct lack of activity in front of the bar. We paid a small cover and went inside, only to find the place fairly dead. A few people sitting on couches and either drinking beer or smoking.

We decided to make the best of our time there and plopped down on a couch and ordered a few beers. After a few minutes, they started playing some ridiculous and hilarious movie. It was over within a few minutes. Another one immediately started, and it was also over within a few minutes.

One of us turned to the rest and asked, “what’s with all these funny short movies…”

Their voice trailed off and instantly, we all knew what funny shorts actually meant! We shared quite a bit of laughter over our pretty obvious mixup. We sat down, content to enjoy the rest of the evening, watching funny shorts and having some tasty Spanish beers.

As an aside, one of the short films we saw that evening particularly stuck with me. It was an amazing stop-motion film focused on photography. Which is why I think it made such an impression on me. Ten Thousand Pictures of You.

“¡Una nit de curts còmic!”

Funny shorts night. It’s a phrase that will always bring a smile to my face.

Last night, we ventured out to the East Bay for a friend’s annual Halloween Party. Hilarious and creative costumes were the norm of course and good times were had by all!

Mostly.

Last night, towards the end of the party, I posted a message to Twitter, which received a number of responses this morning:

One of the guests last night brought their chihuahua to the party unannounced. It was dressed up in pirate gear and actually made one of the cutest little pirates around.

The hosts of the party have a larger dog who isn’t too keen on strange animals invading its home and the hosts weren’t aware that someone had brought another animal over. The chihuahua was kept in a small bucket, and set on a chair to keep it off the floor and away from the other dog.

Unfortunately, all it takes is one mistake for someone to move the dog from the bucket, not realizing the potential consequences of what could happen.

Anyway, a number of us were chatting in the kitchen later in the evening when we suddenly heard some pretty ferocious snarling at our feet and a blur of twisting and shaking fur.

It was over before any of us could comprehend what happened. The little
chihuahua was laying on its side on the kitchen floor, twitching while blood spread from a wound on its head. No one moved at first because we were all shocked and trying to understand what just happened.

The owner of the chihuahua is a vet, so she immediately began trying to stop the bleeding and was soon conducting CPR. The whole situation was dire, and we were all huddled around her on the kitchen floor, watching as she frantically tried to save her dog.

After a few minutes, she picked up her dog and left with a small group of friends to try and find an emergency veterinarian clinic.

We got word this morning that the chihuahua didn’t make it.