Howard's Wedding in St. Louis

Last weekend, our good friend Howard got married out in St. Louis. Congrats Howard and Emily!
He, John, and Chris had a fun mini high school reunion, which is apt, since this is the year of our 10th high school reunion.

Now, we've been to a bunch of weddings at this point, but Howard and Emily threw a really spectacular one that had waaaay delicious food. Lobster bisque, caprese salad, the tenderest tenderloin...and LOOK at this dessert buffet!

In addition to the terrific food, Howard and Emily's wedding won the award for Best Special Effects, haha.

Fireworks show! So awesome!

What else did we do in St. Louis? Chris, John and I made the obligatory visit to the Gateway Arch, which was very Halo-esque. It was also very fun to take pictures of, but I'll only subject you to my favorite one.

After waiting in a looooooong line, we went up to the top of the arch in one of these little claustrophobic pods (the so-called "tram").

By the time we finally got to the top, we were running late for the wedding, so we stayed for only about 30 seconds. (I mean this quite literally.) But it wasn't really a huge loss...we all now agree with Howard that the arch is indeed a "tourist trap" and "overrated". The view from the bottom was much cooler than the view from the top, I thought. Still, I'm glad we did it at least once.

The next day, we braved the crowds once more to visit Forest Park and the (free admission!) St. Louis Zoo. Favorite animal of the day? Take a wild guess.

Yeah, missed my girls. :-)

I also enjoyed seeing a real okapi, after looking at the model on Daniel's desk every morning.

There wasn't any time to make the reunion complete and have a nice D&D session...but we'll save that for next time, heehee.

Lots more pictures of the weekend here, if you want to see them!

USTA Playoffs and Districts

This season, I joined three USTA teams, and as luck (or skill, haha) would have it, two of the teams made it to playoffs, and one of them made it all the way to districts! Here's a cool picture of me playing with my 3.0 team, University Club of Palo Alto. (Thanks Chris!)

But wait...isn't that... Jenn in a SKIRT?! Let it be known, that's the team uniform (white top, red bottom). And I couldn't find red tennis shorts. Rick told me "wow, that's the best tennis outfit I've seen all day" the first time he saw me wearing it. And then he secretly told Chris "well, it doesn't look like her personality at all, but I was trying to be encouraging." Gee, thanks coach. But yeah, usually I wear the colors of intimidation: black tank + black shorts, GRRRRR! :-)

In the spirit of honesty, I should probably note that most pictures of me playing tennis do not look awesome. Here's a particularly horrible one of me doing everything wrong on a serve. BAD BAD BAD. Open racquet, open shoulders, AND a foot fault. So embarrassing. :-( But actually having this picture was the main thing that motivated me to work on my serve this summer!

Anyways, my 3.0 team ended up losing in the playoffs. I lost my match, excruciatingly, in the third set, when I had to retire with a calf cramp. I've never had a calf cramp before, but this one was bad. It took almost twenty minutes to even get my toes to uncurl. Lesson learned, drink more water on hot days!

My 3.5 team made it to the district championships, which were held in Folsom. The luckiest thing ever happened with our assignment of venues; Chris's team ALSO made it to districts and got assigned to Folsom! This was pretty seriously improbable, given that districts were being played all over NorCal that weekend, but it meant we got to hang out and watch each other's matches, which was fun.

Here's a shot of a slightly improved serve at districts.

Wearing the so-called "colors of intimidation" in 95 degree heat was possibly retarded, but oh well, haha. Both of our teams ended up losing, but I managed to win one doubles match with my partner Cindy, and we had a good time. Better luck next year!

Flying Fortress in Denver

Shockingly, it's September already. Where did the summer go?! Oh yeah, I guess that's what I'm supposed to be writing about. :-)

In June, about a week after we got back from Yellowstone, we flew out to Denver to visit Andrew and Lindsay, who both got internships at Lockheed Martin. We happened to be in town at the same time as the "Flying Fortress," which is a B-17 bomber from WWII. It was refurbished so that people could actually sign up to fly in it, for a few hundred dollars. We actually thought about it, but ended up just taking a ground tour.

The ground tour reminded us that planes have come a LONG way since WWII. A bunch of space on the plane was taken up by racks of big bulky radios, one for each frequency they wanted to hear. At one point, I saw a bunch of cylindrical tanks in a corner, and asked the tour guide what they were for. That's when I was reminded that the cabin wasn't pressurized and that people needed the tanks for air.

Unless thing was going to stay under 10,000 feet (and given that Denver is already at 6,000 feet, so it was probably unlikely), I was glad we decided not to fly!

We also had fun doing short hikes. At the lake near the Lockheed offices, we saw monster dandelion fluffs (my hand included for scale).