No more slideshows

I've been playing around with the Flickr site and various other slideshow add-ins and I haven't found anything that I like. I've decided to abandon slideshows entirely for now because they are either too gimmicky or too inflexible. I'm looking for something that is clean, simple, and streamlined.

Instead of slideshows, I will simply post new sets to my Flickr site. As they are posted, the six most recent images (yes, in backwards order) will appear in the strip of photos at the top of my blog. You can either click on the individual pictures or click on the link below them to go to the Flickr site.

I'd advise clicking on the link (rather than an individual picture), as it will take you to the photo sets page and you can chose how to view each set from there.

Bye-bye slideshows!

More pictures, not Flickr-happy

I still have a few photos from March that I haven't posted yet, so I'm posting them all together.

I am annoyed that Flickr automatically shows the most recent pictures first (in other words, backwards from the order in which they are taken). When I'm putting together a slideshow, I am generally trying to tell a story of sorts...in which the ORDER is quite significant. The Flickr slideshow equivalent in literature would be like printing a book with the last chapter first, and ordering it backwards from there.

There doesn't seem to be anything I can do about this other than putting all the pictures together in one set. This diminishes the value of sets, since I can't organize the pictures by event if I want them to show correctly on the slideshow in my blog (I have to lump them together by blog entry rather than by event). I tried using collections to fix the problem, but to no avail. Once I added my three correctly-ordered sets to a collection, they displayed backwards in the slideshow.

Any Flickr experts out there have another solution? For a relatively slick photo service, Flickr's slideshows leave a LOT to be desired (backwards ordering that can't be controlled easily, no display of image titles or description, etc.). I like Flickr in general, but since my primary goal is to make slideshows for my blog, I'm going to keep looking around for better alternatives. Any suggestions?

Anyway, back to the pictures. The following slide show contains pictures from the annual Corndog Day celebration at Tristan & Laura's, the Point B Gala at the Ibiza Dinner Club (with DMQ performing!), and Chris birthday dinner and celebration.

***Update: I have removed the slideshow from this post. Please use the photo strip at the top of my blog to access the pictures on the flickr site***

Sosa smart

Last night at Chris' birthday dinner, we were seated near one of the private banquet rooms. We kept seeing clean-cut athletic-looking guys wander in and out of the room. When one of them passed our table, Chris said, "That's Sammy Sosa!"

At first, I was impressed that Chris can recognize pretty much every professional athlete out there, regardless of whether he watches that particular sport or not. But then I realized that it's probably similar to my ability to recognize most Hollywood starlets, even though I haven't seen any of their "work".

It turns out the Texas Rangers were in the banquet room, enjoying a steak and lobster feast before they play the Mariners tonight. We enjoyed our front row seats as we watched them walk around and chat. In general, they are much more athletic and compact-looking than I thought baseball players would be.

As they were leaving, Sammy Sosa walked past our table again. He turned and gave me a little wave good-bye and I smiled back. Chris sat there in shock, and then announced to the maitre d' in a loud voice, "Sammy Sosa just hit on my wife!" The maitre d' laughed as Chris said, "I was going to do something about it, but then I realized that whatever I started would end very quickly and badly for me."

Maybe he IS a year wiser!

One year older...one year wiser?

Happy Birthday Chris!

He's getting older, but he's still not as old as I am. I think I will just wait for him to catch up.

Tonight we will go out for dinner to celebrate Chris' birthday, and this weekend we will do the annual comedy club/pub crawl that we've been doing the past several years to celebrate. We'll be seeing Joey Medina at the Comedy Underground, followed by adult beverages at Marcus' and/or Fado.

For some reason, it seems like this year everyone made plans to be out of town this weekend. So the crowd will be smaller than usual -- but I'm sure it will still be a great time!

We were talking last night about birthday dinners, and I realized (again) that I ask for things such as all-you-can-eat sushi (which is free for me since it's my birthday) or wurst and pommes frites at a local German pub. Chris wants steak. Hmmm. I think I need to raise my game. Next year: LOBSTER!

Emily and Brett get hitched

On March 3rd, we headed out to the OP (Olympic Peninsula) for Emily and Brett's wedding. Although they were legally married in December, they waited until March for the full ceremony and celebration so that Brett's family could travel from Australia to attend.

The wedding was held at C'est Si Bon in Port Angeles. It was a beautiful venue and the wedding was lovely. You know how you look at those wedding magazines and you see the glowing bride on the cover and wonder, "Does anyone really look that great?" Well, Emily did.

With Brett's Aussie influence, we expected an evening of wit and laughter -- and we weren't disappointed. Unfortunately we had to leave at 11:30 PM to catch the last ferry back to Seattle, but we had a great time and are so happy for them!

The pictures below start out with a few from Emily's "Hen's Night" (bachelorette party). Em's sister Allison arranged a fun get-together at her house, followed by dinner at Mona's Bistro and then two-steppin' with cowboys (and old men) at the Little Red Hen. Emily was decked to the nines in a cowgirl outfit (courtesy of Allison) and we all had a rip-roarin' good time!

I have no excuse other than laziness

I've been really really bad at keeping up with my blog lately. Or did you ever consider that perhaps nothing at all has happened in our lives since mid-February? Well, that's not necessarily the case, so I will plan to update my blog this weekend. And I will do my best to update more regularly than once a month!

One little tidbit of news -- Cowboy snarled last night! We were so proud of him. It's almost like he's a real dog! Don't worry, he didn't snarl at a person and he didn't really "mean" it (at least we don't think he did). He was playing with Baxter at Ben & Carrie's and I guess he got tired. When Baxter jumped on him to play some more, he lifted his lip and snarled just like an alpha dog! Of course, Baxter ignored him completely and jumped on his head anyway, so maybe Cowboy needs to work on his snarling technique a bit. But it's a good start.

This little piggy

Yesterday was Chinese New Year. Happy Year of the Pig! To celebrate, I made jiao-tse (dumplings). I remember making these with my mom and a-mah (grandmother) at our kitchen table in Ulm, and I enjoy making them on my own. I've always aspired to being as quick and skilled as they were at folding them, but I'm just not. Ah well...at least they still taste good!

The first time I invited Chris to do something was for Chinese New Year. I was staffed at Microsoft and I was staying at the Oakwood corporate apartments in Bellevue during the week (this is when I still lived in SF). I usually make jiao-tse with a group of friends for Chinese New Year, so I decided to do it at the Oakwood. I invited a few friends over and we made (and ate) a ton of dumplings.

That was when I still thought Chris was a "cool kid" who'd never want to hang out with someone like me. I used Chinese New Year as an excuse to ask him to do something, and I was surprised when he accepted. But that night he brought over a CD he'd just bought and was so excited to hear. It was "The Best of Huey Lewis and the News". That's when his illusion of coolness was forever shattered...and the rest, they say, is history.

I've added a few pictures of this year's jiao-tse and of the Oakwood jiao-tse night to Flickr. You can see four thumbnails under "Recent Pics" and you can view the rest by clicking on one of the thumbnails. You'll be taken to my photostream on the Flickr site, where you can see all of the pictures that I've posted recently.

My favorite Valentine

Valentine's Day was really nice this year. In addition to the beautiful jasmine that Chris brought to my office (yes, he actually brought them himself...but dropped them off at the receptionist instead of calling me to tell me he was there), he also cooked me a wonderful dinner. He asked his colleague Loren for a recipe (Loren is an amazing chef) and picked up all of the ingredients at Pike Place Market. He made a delicious dinner of butternut squash and spicy prawns over whole grain pasta. Yum!

I learned one interesting thing while watching Chris prepare dinner. I often complain that he doesn't listen to me, and not just the standard "I'm talking and he's not paying attention" scenario. He'll ask me a specific question and then stop listening before I've finished answering. And then he'll ask again. And again. But while watching him follow the recipe, I discovered something.

He was reading the recipe out loud and repeating it to himself while he followed it. I watched him read, very clearly, "Now add the shallots to the saucepan...add the shallots to the sauce pan...shallots, saucepan..." He then picked up the prawns and, very purposefully, added them to the saucepan. "Shallots...saucepan..."

...

"OH CRAP!"

And that's when I realized that it's not just me he doesn't listen to. He doesn't even listen to himself. I laughed for a long time over that.

He's my (ADHD) sweetheart.

He's legal

Whoops, Cowboy is actually 21 in dog years. Apparently, the story that 1 year = 7 dog years is wrong since dogs mature quickly in their first two years. 1 year = 10.5 dog years for the first two years, and then it's 1:4 after that. No wonder Cowboy went on a pub crawl last night to celebrate. I thought that was a bit much for a teenager but it makes more sense now.

I think it's about time for him to get a job.

14 in dog years

h a p p y b i r t h d a y
c o w b o y