Halftime

That's "Dr. Meyers" to you

Sonya graduated from UIC, an event which marks the halfway point of her journey toward being an Anesthesiologist. Four years of residency at nearby Loyola begin for her later this summer.

DPC: Free Study (November)

Patriarch

My grandpa, on Thanksgiving. This shot didn't score well in the "Free Study" challenge, but I thought I got the effect I was aiming for. Click on the image to see my notes on how I set up the lighting for this one.

Traditional Anniversary Gifts

New 7th Anniversary Gift: Matching iPhones!

Yep, I stood in line for four and a half hours at the Apple store on North Michigan Ave in Chicago, but unlike many people (particularly those at AT&T stores) I did not come home empty handed. I was surprised there were no hot dog or other food peddlers feeding people in the line; they would have made almost as much money as Apple did that day.

Birthdays and Board Games

This last weekend we celebrated Sonya's birthday. I know better than to post her age (suffice to say "old enough to know better, young enough to still have fun"). We had some of her friends over for Wii games and (amazingly!) board games! The board game fest started off with Fearsome Floors, then we worked into Uptown and had a truly cut-throat game of Blokus.

Jason and I saw Wall-E yesterday, and we both enjoyed it. As I expected, it didn't take long for right wing whackjobs to criticize the movie for not glamorizing consumerism.

We also picked up Rock Band and Aerosmith Guitar Hero for the Wii yesterday. The timing of the guitar controllers is slightly different between the two games, but not so much that I'm unable to do well with both. The drums are going to take some getting used to.

I'm hoping to get some good fireworks pictures next weekend.

Happy Father's Day

Just Grandpa and Me

With my wife's help, my son got me a stack of Buckethead CDs (Pepper's Ghost is amazing!) for my Father's day. We picked out a Chicago Bears bean bag toss for my dad, and Jason got his first bike. Yeah, he's not a father yet, but he was ready for a bike and I was in a generous mood (especially after listening to all that Buckethead).


First Bike

Dropped 50!

The "Ugly Fountain" at Embarcadero in San Francisco.

It dropped about 50 degrees yesterday afternoon, from around 46 to -4, and the wind chill made it worse. While I was visiting the Bay Area last week, my aunt apologized for it raining every day (as if she controlled the weather). At the time, I thought rain was great, it meant it was warm enough to rain! I'd look up Chicago weather, and see numbers like "1" or "5", and think about how happy I was to not be in the middle of it. Winter decided to start without me, but there was plenty left for me to enjoy when I got back home.

During my vacation, I got in some quality Wii game time with my friend George. Resident Evil was fantastic as a two player game, and the Lynx Crossbow game that comes with the Wii Zapper was fun to power through. Mario Galaxy didn't excite me, but then the only Mario title that did was MarioKart64. We tried out Geometry Wars and Alien Syndrome; those played alright for filler games, but when we were done taking a break it was back to Resident Evil.

I'm finally able to get my car repaired from when I got rear-ended in November. Unfortunately, I have to drive this rental in the meantime that doesn't even measure up to the lofty standards of the 1979 Toyota Corolla I drove in high school. I didn't know modern cars were built without power locks! It handles exceptionally poorly on snow dusted roads, and doesn't even get decent gas milage.

In other news, I will be at FAnime this year.

Jason 4.0

Happy Birthday Jason!

Tonight we're flying to California to spend some time with my mom, have a birthday party for Jason, and try to get caught up with our friends in the Bay Area. It doesn't hurt that Castro Valley will be at least 50 degrees warmer than Chicago on Saturday. All we need is a break in the storm tonight so we can escape.

And Happy Birthday to Me

Today was my birthday (and, technically, Dhane's). We didn't do much out here; the realities of work and the cold unfeeling scheduling of medical school deferring any celebration for another night. Today at work was one of those days where everything went wrong (but most of it wasn't my fault), and unexpected construction added too much time to my commute home. Once I picked up Jason and got home, my day did improve. I made one of my favorite family recipes, which isn't tamales, for us, played some Madden on the Wii, and relaxed in the evening.

Before Jason was born I didn't do much of anything on my birthday. One year Sonya and I had several people over for a board game night--several people who should have known it was my birthday. Weren't they all surprised when Sonya came out with cake!

Since Jason's birthday is also in January, I celebrate with him. Sonya's birthday is easier to celebrate separately; hers is in June, and people are more eager to come to birthday parties when the temperature is above 20F.

Happy Birthday Dhane!

Saturday we trekked out to Rockford for my nephew Dhane's second birthday at an indoor water park. The lines were short, the slides fast, and who would have thought I'd be on a waterslide in Illinois in January? Jason had fun in the wading area, and braved a couple of the kid-sized slides.

My Sister's Graduation

My sister graduated with a Masters degree last weekend, making me the least educated of my siblings. Given that I have a BA, this is not as bad as it might sound.

The picture is a little dark and grainy, a side effect of what I had to do to get a quick enough shutter speed to not have so much blur. I shot at 1600 ISO, under exposed by 2 stops, and had my aperture open to 2.8.