You don't have to worry about the football Bears, but on occasion you have to watch out for bears walking the streets of NYC. Or drinking beer in NYC.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 6:07 PM

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I've never met Dante and the last time I saw Mike and Rion was a year ago, but over the weekend, they brought Dante to Brooklyn to meet everyone. Even though Dante's everywhere on the Internet, meeting a baby in person is still totally different. I mean, I've never seen him fall, hit his head on the floor and cry in pictures, but in person I was able to see it three times! And he managed to stop crying soon after each time.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 6:12 PM

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I love Thanksgiving! Too bad those football games sucked. This year, Shannan and I made garlic mashed potatoes as well as a pumpkin pie. It was the first time I made pumpkin pie and it turned out really, really good and I discovered it's absurdly easy to make.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Photos at 2:54 PM

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I took this picture Saturday outside Dia:Beacon. It was my time there and I must say that it was very cool.

Posted by tien mao in Culture, Friends/Family, Photos at 3:59 PM

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Neil does!

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 5:30 PM

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As usual, there were several great Halloween costumes, but I think this is the best one I personally saw. Dan is dressed up as the Gorton's Fisherman. Well done, Dan!

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 5:54 PM

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Last night at Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard Jori and Matty got married! The wedding reception had the most dancing at a wedding that I've seen in a long time. I think there was maybe one song the band played that wasn't danced to. It was crazy.

And the table I was at had an insanely large centerpiece (it didn't even fit in the picture). The most popular food related item last night had to be the chocolate fountains. Right after I took this picture, people swarmed the fountain - like bees to chocolate, if you will.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 3:53 PM

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One moment she loves the camera, the next she's tired of it, and eventually she just wants to play with her feet.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 6:19 PM

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Sunday in Prospect Park, my first BBQ in that park. There was tons of food. Seriously. More than one could possibly eat.

*By Mr. T, I mean Terrance.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 6:35 PM

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Whenever I go to an outdoor wedding, I always worry what the weather will be like. What happens if the couple experiences bad weather?? All those plans down the tubes. That wasn't the case Saturday evening for Kim and Mike's wedding at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The weather was beautiful and it was one of the best venues I've attended a wedding at.

There was also lots of vodka at the reception (thankfully, I didn't have much) - we're talking like 10 vodka options.

Anyway, congratulations to Kim and Mike, both of whom I've known since sometime during high school.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 2:37 PM

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Sunday afternoon, I attended my first Baptism ever! It was for Willa Margaret and I guess it went as planned. There was crying when the priest put holy water on Willa's head, but in all fairness, the older boy also getting Baptized cried as well.

Considering all the other religious people I know with children (like 2), this could very well have been my first and last appearance at a Baptism.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 6:32 PM

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After Jonas finished (what could have been his first cotton candy ever), he was a sticky mess. Just brushing against me left a sugar stain! Longtime readers will know that I too love cotton candy at baseball games!

And it should be pointed out that I was using a wide angle lens. Really, really wide angle.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, NYC, Photos, Sports at 6:34 PM

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There's nothing like cramming copious amounts of food down your throat on a hot and humid day. The challenge: first to 6 hot dogs (max of 10 minutes) and no reversal of fortune. That's what went down Saturday afternoon on Adam's roof, except the Marlon didn't need 10 minutes to down 6 HDB, just a little over 5:30. It wasn't really much of a contest for Marlon.

I think with training, Marlon could be a contender on the professional eating circuit.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 10:49 AM

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This weekend, Shannan and I went down to Virgina for Jason and Elena's wedding. Not only was it a perfect day for the wedding (not too hot, not too humid), but it was a super fast and casual wedding. No long ceremony and I got to wear shorts. That's the perfect wedding in my book.

Not so perfect was the occasional flyover by F-15s (even though I thought it was awesome).

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos, Travel at 12:45 PM

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By the end of the weekend, Jonas was getting tired of having his photo taken, so he covered his face with the sparkler in the photo. Okay, not really. That kid loves to have his photo taken.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 6:03 PM

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I believe Jonas was scared of showing us the bug in the 2nd picture. Even though he was showing the bug just seconds before and after.

No bugs were harmed in the taking of these photos.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 6:48 PM

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It's done by saying cheese a lot (when having your photo taken) and showing the contents of your mouth (also when having your photo taken).

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Photos at 6:03 PM

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More photos of Shannan in the yellow/black and white hallway of the Olafur Eliasson exhibit at MoMA.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 5:59 PM

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If you go to Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn, this is what your eating experience will look like. That is assuming you've ordered a steak for three with creamed spinach and German friend potatoes and a "Holy Cow" sundae for dessert.

That thing to the right in the 1st picture is the fish of the day. Sole, I believe it was.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, NYC at 12:38 PM

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A plain old hamburger (with lots of ketchup) and a vanilla shake.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 12:00 PM

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A lesson from his Aunt Shannan.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Illinois, Photos, Travel at 6:09 PM

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I've got a lot more images from their wedding, but I have to sift through them all. I especially like this image that I took. And because Shannan loves her brother so much, we're going to tag along on Jessica and Chanse's honeymoon.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Illinois, Photos, Travel at 2:48 PM

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Pantless, yes. But with the rest of your Easter outfit on.

Posted by tien mao in Film, Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Photos at 8:34 AM

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Taken with a Holga on Easter Sunday using Illford Delta 3200 film.

Posted by tien mao in Film, Friends/Family, Photos at 5:15 PM

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The top photo is of Shannan and Colton using the blue flash. The bottom photo is of Margaret and Willa using the yellow flash.

Posted by tien mao in Film, Friends/Family, Photos at 11:37 AM

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Sunday night, Shannan and I went over to my parents' apartment to participate in a traditional Chinese expeience...dumpling making. I'm not sure I've actually ever done this, but apparently people all over China do this on New Year's Eve when members of the family return home for New Year's celebrations.

There are a few stations involved in the process: the dough maker/chopper, the dough flattener, the skin former, the filling stuffer, and the dumpling pincher. I'm sure there's some official terminology for the actual people in those positions and that some of these roles can be combined, but for the five of us (Aunt Bonnie was there too), that's how the roles were split and that's what I'm calling the process. The easiest job fell to me most of the night - filling the dumplings (if you know how to use chopsticks, you can do this job).

It took us a little while, but we made something like 200 dumplings - pork and shrimp with Chinese leek and pork and shrimp with Chinese cabbage. The best part about the labor intensive process of making dumplings has to be the family bonding and of course the dumpling eating afterwards.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Photos at 5:13 PM

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Some of the meat items at Hill Country are rather large. For some reason, Jonas wasn't keen on trying much of the food (perhaps it was the ice cream that he was eating), but he did seem to enjoy the spare rib once he got his hands on it. It's unfortunate that actually eating the rib wasn't an easy task. Jonas also enjoyed dancing around on the stage with some random kids, but I don't have any pictures of that.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 10:35 AM

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It's a Chinese New Year feast fit for a emperor! A king! A prince!

Last night, my mom did her yearly Chinese New Year cooking and as usual it was extremely delicious and filling. From top to bottom are: peanuts, jellyfish, chicken and something to wrap in lettuce, lion's head meatballs, eight vegetable dish, a shrimp dish, vegetables with dried scallops, a whole fish, and glutinous red bean rice cake.

Welcome, Year of the Rat!

Posted by tien mao in Culture, Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Photos at 4:53 PM

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Jonas is growing up so fast! So fast that he's got a mustache. Who cares if it's from chocolate cake!

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 2:42 PM

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To commemorate her 30th birthday, Shannan decided to have a bunch of friends meet up to go bowling at The Gutter. She was treating 30 as a big deal, so she was happy that so many friends came out. I'm not sure how I'll be treating my 30th birthday when it rolls around in two months. Probably as just another year.

Note: There were more people than just the few pictured. There were actually LOTS of people.

Posted by tien mao in Birthdays, Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 10:55 AM

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There's nothing quite as tasty as a fleece glove to young Colton.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Illinois, Photos, Travel at 9:19 AM

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Note the cute reindeer slippers!

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Illinois, Photos, Travel at 5:28 PM

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For the past few days, Shannan and I went to Lacon, Illinois (that's Lacon, like bacon) for Christmas with her family. In addition to gift giving/receiving, it was also the first time that we got to see Shannan's new nephew Colton.

Santa was good to me, because I got some mighty good gifts: a Holga camera, Guitar Hero III for the Wii, a Wiimote charging station, Top Gun (collectors edition DVD), V-MODA vibe earbuds, a copy of The Simpsons Movie, Taboo, a copy of Sneaker Freaker magazine, a nice shirt, another thin wallet (mine is falling apart), and a gift card to Pizza Hut (mmm!). Shannan and I also got a chair, some towels, and a wine refrigerator. Thanks to Santa (and those that act on his behalf) for all the great gifts!!

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Illinois, Photos, Travel at 10:39 AM

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Tuesday night, Adam celebrated his birthday at Joe’s Bar. Ever fond of his bear suit, that's what he was wearing. You may remember the bear from such posts as: Wiimbledon at Barcade.

Happy birthday, bear. You furry, furry man.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 5:32 PM

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Looking at this photo, you can kind of see what it was like at Thanksgiving for me. Sadly, you can't really taste what it was like or smell what it was like.

Pictured clockwise from the turkey are: two types of cranberry sauce (one with walnuts), garlic mashed potatoes, yams, corn with pine nuts, some strange avocado/shrimp, and green beans.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Photos at 9:35 AM

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I think I've figured out one reason Jonas and I get along so well. Our mutual love for pizza (and his snacks). Though I think if he suddenly decided one day that he didn't like pizza anymore, we would probably still get along.

And if you're wondering why he looks so disheveled, it's because he was eating after he got up from his long nap.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Photos at 11:43 AM

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When my parents are on vacation, we're usually stuck with Bobo to look after. It takes her a while to come around, but eventually she's very affectionate. When she first arrives, she won't even eat her food and doesn't let anyone pet her, but by the time she's ready to leave, she's super hungry and following me around.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family at 3:53 PM

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When asked where his baby is, Jonas will point to his belly. And with the ball, which he seems to enjoy eating, stuffed under his shirt, he really does look pregnant. Too bad he's just not built to handle pregnancy.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 3:19 PM

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Jack's almost 2 now, and if this play action fake is any indication, we could have a future quarterback on our hands.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 12:58 PM

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Which makes it my...? I was never good at the whole 2nd cousin, 1st cousin once removed stuff. So confusing! That or I'm too lazy to remember how it works.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos, Taiwan, Travel at 11:47 AM

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Jonas threw himself a big bash on Friday to celebrate his 2nd birthday. He gathered his friends at Two Boots Pizza in Brooklyn. He got a bunch of great gifts (I got him a T-shirt and some MTA toy trains (works with Thomas and whatnot), including a nice big tricycle that made another kid in the neighborhood a little jealous.

Posted by tien mao in Birthdays, Friends/Family, Photos at 8:30 AM

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Friday night, we celebrated K's birthday at Beast in Prospect Heights. Not only were some of the items finger licking good, but the mussels were so good that Kate had to help herself to some of the sauce when the mussels were finished. And I don't know what it is with all the bike helmets at birthdays recently, but things devolved as the night went on.

Posted by tien mao in Birthdays, Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 8:26 AM

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Calvin's birthday isn't until tomorrow, but he wanted to celebrate on a weeknight, so we went out last night for dinner and drinks. After dinner at 'inoteca (see how much Calvin enjoyed the singing of Happy Birthday?), we went out to The Back Room where a few people tried on Lauren's Stormtrooper scooter helmet.

Posted by tien mao in Birthdays, Friends/Family, Photos at 9:25 AM

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Saturday morning, we went up to Fairfield, CT to hang out with Kim, Cyrus, and James. After hitting up the beach, we hung out on their porch, eating and rehydrating. I had to come back Saturday night, but I hear Sunday was fun too. It was a fun little trip that we'll have to do again sometime.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Photos at 9:24 AM

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One of our stops in Hong Kong was to the vegetable stand that Calvin's grandmother used to own (Calvin's great aunt currently runs it). While his grandmother is now in New York, the stand is still there. I thought it was a pretty cool, non-touristy stop for us.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Hong Kong, Travel at 8:22 AM

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With Necia and Mike moving to San Francisco this week, last night was my last chance to play with Jack. It's too bad I won't be able to play with him as he grows up. When I see him in San Francisco, he'll be bigger, talking more, and all laid back-like.

I'll always remember him as a raging party dude though.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 9:32 AM

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[Note: To help slog through my backlog of photos (I still have some Japan photos to go through in addition to Hong Kong and Taiwan), I'm going to attempt and do two posts a day from Monday-Saturday to help work through the glut.]

No trip to the Abbeville, Louisiana would be complete without a night out on the town, right? Right? Our first night there, I was way too tired to head out after the rehearsal dinner/roast. The night following the wedding though, we went out for Tram's (pronounced Chum) birthday. I barely have a photo of her (back to camera in the 3rd picture), but our first stop was The Oaks in Abbeville. To say that the place was dingy would be an understatement. I was told that the place was the size of a trailer. It was probably closer to a double-wide. The best part wasn't the thimble-sized $1 shots, but the light they would flip on when playing rap music. If that doesn't scream classy, I don't know what does.

After a brief stop there, we went out in Lafayette. When in Lafayette, it was super crowded out as it happened to be graduation day at University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Louisiana, Photos, Travel at 2:45 PM

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After the night got bad because of Jägermeister shots, there was some hitting/punching/maybe kicking of testicals. Luckily, I escaped that.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Louisiana, Photos, Travel at 11:42 AM

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Thuy and John's rehearsal dinner was followed by John's roast - a first for a wedding that I went to. There were lots of off colored jokes, all of which were funny. Except the one about me.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Louisiana, Photos, Travel at 9:16 AM

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Because photos from the ceremony weren't enough, here are some from after and the reception at the VN Hall.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Louisiana, Photos, Travel at 10:16 AM

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This weekend was Thuy and John's wedding extravaganza in Abbeville. The wedding at St. Mary Magdalen was just a small component of the whole weekend.

A lot more photos to come.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Louisiana, Photos, Travel at 10:17 AM

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Wedding season has begun! Over the weekend, Shannan and I went to Illinois for her friends Heather and Ryan's wedding. The ceremony was at the Luthy Botanical Garden in Peoria with the reception at the Hotel Père Marquette, also in Peoria. Shannan got to catch up with all her old high school friends and, though I was feeling ill, it was a good time.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Illinois, Travel at 11:50 AM

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Matty claims to be itching his beard, but I'm not so sure.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, NYC, Photos at 8:00 AM

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Oops. These photos are from almost two weeks ago. I'm a little slow.

Eleanor and Dan had a wedding-type reception deal two weeks ago to celebrate their nuptials almost a year ago. So it was kind of a wedding reception/anniversary party at Rialto. Towards the end of the night, we decided to have a little fun (maybe too many glasses of sangria?). Masako and Shannan practiced hearts, crowns, and other things. I don't think the results were too bad.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 9:18 AM

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In my first night out in Japan, I wasn't able to stay awake. It was bad. I would have a beer in hand and be falling asleep. The second night out I was a little better. We spent most of the night at Propoganda in Roppongi (a popular district for Gaijin). After teaching the bartender how to make an Irish car bomb, the three of us had quite a few.

The best part of being the person with the camera? You can edit the pictures of you out!

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family, Japan, Photos, Travel at 8:56 AM

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I don't think I've ever seen a Lamb of God before, so I've certainly never seen one beheaded. Well, that all changed yesterday. It's a good thing Jonas was occupied while Margaret lopped the lamb's head off. She also made a stuffed toast (2nd image) that had cheese and bacon on top. Inside was a whole egg! It was tasty, but probably would have been even better if warm. Best food item of the day - Margaret's brandied pear dessert topping.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family at 9:11 AM

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Hello, food photos! When was the last time so many of you appeared on this site? Saturday night, we went over to Brooklyn Heights to have dinner with my parents. Also there were my cousin Julia and her husband and my other cousin Stephanie. What we encountered was a 13 dish meal (plus dessert) to help ring in the Chinese New Year. Based on the Lunar calendar, it's 4705 (2007 is so far behind) and the Year of the Pig. As we do every year, my mom made an amazing assortment of dishes. My favorite was the lion's head meatballs and the rice cakes. I could eat those every day!

See also the Year of the Dog, the Year of the Rooster, and the Year of the Monkey.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family at 8:31 AM

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It seems like Shannan, Jess, and Mickala were digging through some old boxes and found some old Halloween costumes.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family at 8:59 AM

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Resolutions for 2007? Go through my vacation photos quicker? I still have photos from our Oregon trip to go through.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 1:35 PM

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If there's one thing that's more amusing than actually playing the Nintendo Wii, it's watching people play the Nintendo Wii. It's like any other video game (facial expressions, sounds of joy/frustration) except amplified and exaggerated due to the nature of the motion sensitive controller design. In the Wii Sports title, boxing is pretty amusing to watch. Shannan defeated most challengers in the ring, except for one match where she lost to her brother. She even managed to K.O. someone on their first knockdown. The key to Shannan's success seemed to be punching as frantically as humanly possible without breathing until knocking someone down, being knocked down, or the end of a round.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Sports, Tech at 7:53 AM

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It's the holiday party season! Last night, I went over to Olive Media's holiday party, which was held at their offices. There might have been some photocopying of butts, but that's the best part of a holiday party held at the actual office, no? I did learn that Olive puts people to work at a young age (they need to check his papers), those employees then go on benders and return to work drunk!

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family, Photos at 8:04 AM

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Monday night, I went to The Wonderfactory's holiday party at Bottino. Santa even made an early appearance, but the funny thing was that he's skinny! You would think that he'd be hard at work in the North Pole or fat, but no.

- A couple more photos on flickr

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family at 8:06 AM

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I showed this picture to Shannan and she said, "Where are the mashed potatoes? Where's the pumpkin pie?" Well, at least we had a turkey. Clockwise from the turkey is the cranberry sauce (homemade, though I prefer canned), Asian sweet potatoes, green beans, sweet corn with pine nuts, yams. We didn't have stuffing either - which is fine by me as I'm no fan of stuffing. I thought everything we ate was great and the turkey was very juicy.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family at 7:47 AM

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I recognized less than 50% of the people at the Woolworth Tower Kitchen Saturday night at my 10 year high school reunion. It seemed like there were about 200 people crammed into the space mingling and asking the question, "what are you up to these days?" My standard answer, "you know, not much." Perfect when you haven't seen most of the people in 5 years.

I didn't take out my camera until Sue (pictured in the center and with a fun name) demanded I take her picture.

Posted by tien mao in Education, Friends/Family at 8:24 AM

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From the trip to Michigan. John (or Jack as he's called) has a lot of facial expressions. I think the first came after I stared eating his cereal-like treats. But once I started feeding them to him, it was all good.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family at 7:42 AM

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Okay, so "Joe's Bagels" isn't an actual store, but it could be. On Saturday Joe invited a few people to make and eat bagels at his apartment in Harlem. He had the dough made before everyone got there and it had extra gluten in it. Everyone rolled their dough, formed bagels, applied toppings, and waited for the end result. How did they taste? Pretty damn delicious. Whether or not they were better than the best bagels in New York is hard to say as they were fresh out of the oven.

Because the bagels weren't enough deliciousness, Joe also made apple pie and pumpkin ice cream with ginger chunks.

Joe was so prepared for the event (maybe overly) that he'll be eating creamcheese all week! For a more detailed analysis on the whole process we went through, check out Bagel in Harlem.

A few more photos in my flickr set.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family at 7:50 AM

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Another excellent Soktoberfest! Last year, Calvin wore a pair of toe socks and this year there were lots of toe socks. I find them kind of creepy - they're like hands!! The best socks were Christina's shark socks. We even had a rhino on the loose early on during the party.

Posted by tien mao in Friends/Family at 7:52 AM

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Friday night at the hotel and Saturday before the game, there were some hilarious games of chubby bunny. What's chubby bunny, you ask? Well, you stuff a food item in your mouth and say 'chubby bunny' afterwards. Kristin and Schreiber played first with Schreiber easily winning that competition. Later, I played against Shannan and Mickala, which I won despite shoving one less mini powdered doughnut in my mouth. They both shoved six in their mouth and I put five in my mouth (I could have had one more, but Shannan had one doughnut, gave up and started over). They lost because they didn't swallow after putting six doughnuts in their mouth. I had no problems with that.

Posted by tien mao in Food/Drink, Friends/Family at 8:05 AM