Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Last week, my teammates and I woke up at the crack of dawn to go kayaking in Tomales Bay. Having only ventured north of the Golden Gate Bridge once (to visit the Chandon Winery), I was definitely eager to see the much-acclaimed Point Reyes. Apparently the hiking is spectacular beyond words, plus there are even rumors of baby seals to be cuddled!

Knowing that it would probably be a beautiful day (weather forecast was predicting 85 degrees and sunny with a breeze), and also knowing that I would, in all likelihood, drop my cute Canon Powershot to the bottom of the ocean if I brought it along, I opted to get one of those waterproof disposable cameras. It even floats! But the annoying thing is that you have to *develop* the film. I think I mentioned to someone that I don't think I've *developed* film since 1999, and I was totally surprised to find that there are still so many places still in business that develop film for you. I mean, who uses film cameras anymore (except fancy-pants photographers who probably develop their own photos)?

Anyways, it was surprisingly easy to do. I went to a store called Foto Shop in Sunnyvale, and not only did they finish it in an hour, but they didn't even charge *money*! At least not for the digital copies. The prints ended up costing something like $3.40 total. I had no idea it was so easy. They're not as sharp as pictures from my normal digital camera, but that could also be attributed to human factors:

• Us chucking it around in the water to test its buoyancy.
• Having the lens encrusted with salt and other sea minerals.
• Me accidentally kicking it, when I temporarily forgot that kicking doesn't make you go faster in a kayak (unlike in a scull).
• And finally, letting it roast in the car. (Apparently film is heat-sensitive? I'd forgotten that.)

But they still came out quite nice, if you want to see them:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jenn.c.taylor/TomalesBayKayaking

I was going to do some snazziness with the Maps API to plot out our various stops on a satellite map, but then I noticed that Picasa has a feature to do exactly that. Note that for the pictures on the water, "placement on the map is approximate"...but alas, there are no floatyball icons to be had! Also, I'm not positive where that nifty cove full of mussels was, but I'm pretty sure I got the other parts right. Can anyone see the teepees? ;-) (According to www.parks.ca.gov, they are "reconstructed Miwok bark houses".)

In the end, we didn't cuddle any baby seals, but we did see a bunch of jellyfish floating around!

Let's Go Funballing!

Two weeks ago, twelve of us (known as Team Hummucks) us participated in the first annual Google Puzzle Hunt. Both Microsoft and MIT host events like this, but if you're not familiar with those, it's two days full of solving logic puzzles. Each puzzle/task leads to more puzzles/tasks, and the goal is to find out where some ultimate prize is hidden and find it before all the other teams. Here's one of the puzzles I worked on. (Sadly, it's the only picture I took!) We had to twist up a Rubick's Snake according to some instructions, and eventually the various snake configurations spelled a word:


My personal favorite was the "Mathematician" puzzle. Hopefully the organizers publish the puzzles at some point so I can show you! The instructions for the puzzle simply said "Math is hard! Ego is imaginary! Let's go funballing!" I, of course, had been hoping since I joined Google that I would have some excuse to jump into our ball pit (you know, like the ball pits they have at McDonald's?), and I didn't need any further prompting than "Let's go funballing!". Best of all, there turned out to be crucial clues in the ball pit!

Unfortunately, once we made all the tough logical leaps, I screwed up the math. (Where by "screw up" I mean that not only could I not remember how to find ln -i, but I didn't even think to just enter it into the Google Calculator, which knows the answer.) Ah well, we got there eventually, and finished a respectable 11th out of 21 teams. That's exactly average -- which is not bad considering how many (practically) professional teams of puzzlers were competing. So, I didn't come out feeling like a total retard, which is always great after a weekend of thinking really really hard, and I hope there's another one next year!

Ivy and Jeremiah's Wedding

Yet another really beautiful and fun wedding, this time in Manhattan Beach, CA. My brother was an usher, and we saw plenty of people that we haven't seen since...well, high school! Both the famous Matt Gould and my 10th grade English teacher, Mr. Hertzog, performed during the ceremony, and we got delicious little mouse-truffles from Burdick's!

Congrats again to you both, and here are some pics!

Pictures of Ivy and Jeremiah's Wedding

Phyllis and Blake's Wedding

Words can't even describe how amazing and beautiful and fun the wedding weekend was, so instead, I will share some of my favorite pictures! (Colette has some really nice ones too, especially where mine came out a little blurry or red-eyed.)

Pictures of Phyllis and Blake's Wedding

There were four days whole days of festivities, and I think each one of them was *individually* bigger than our entire wedding last year, so I definitely tip my hat to the planners -- we are definitely honored to have been a part of so many special events! I mean, Phyllis and Blake were married by Cardinal Cheli, who flew out from Rome, and who brought a personal message from the pope!

Anyways, congrats again guys. (Now...who should get married next so we can have more parties to celebrate?)

"Working" in New York

For the last week of May, Chris and I worked out of the New York office. The office itself is really nice, with fresh free sushi everyday, and Legos everywhere! The weather was gorgeous, and I got to explore a lot more of the city than on any of my previous trips. Usually New York City intimidates the hell out of me, but having so many familiar people (and familiar California-esque weather) around made it seem much more friendly and fun.

Chris and I managed to time our trip so that it would coincide with the Red Sox's visit to Yankee Stadium. It was our first trip to the Bronx, and we had a really good time. Here's the view from our seats the first day:


And here were our seats from the second day:

Sadly, I think this particular point in history was the start of a depressing losing streak for the Red Sox, but we did get to see them win one game at least!

Other highlights of the trip:

• Tons of shopping with Colette and Jinger! Now usually I am not a big shopaholic (and Chris even less so), but Jinger took us to some really cute shops in SoHo, like Mango and Helen Wang. I also discovered how *truly* huge the Macy's is. Wanting to spend a little more time looking at earrings, I told Jinger and Colette that I would meet them "in the dress section" when I was done -- not knowing that there were like three FLOORS of dresses and probably DOZENS of sections!
• Caught up with John, Alex and Jing over some delicious meals.

Anti-highlights of the trip:

• I got a fishbone stuck in my throat! Lots of you have already heard this story so I won't belabor it, but I ended up walking over to the NYU ER to have it checked out (just to be safe), and that hospital was *gross*. There were only like TWO magazines in the whole waiting room and they were both totally crumpled and water-damaged, splattered with occasional mysterious brown stains. And the bathroom sink was all clogged with dirty used bandaids. And here's the new development to the story: yesterday I got a letter from them saying they'd taken my insurance information incorrectly so they couldn't bill it properly!
• I also watched Shrek the Third, which was kind of disappointing. But maybe I would have enjoyed it more without a fishbone in my throat, and also if I hadn't tried to wash down the fishbone before the movie by glugging down a Long Island ice tea. (Yeah, that was probably really dumb.)