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.