Made it through summer wedding season unscathed. Thankfully there were only two this time around, but they were in back-to-back weekends which has kinda taken me a decent time to recover.

First wedding was for my "sister" Christie. I have known Christie since.....9th grade? Although since we were the only two Trans in junior high, we kinda knew of each other without formally meeting. My first recollection was when I switched around my schedule and ended up in her geometry class.

After each test, the teacher would write down everybody's name/grade on the chalkboard if they got an A. So everybody walks in after the first test that semester and there's a big old "TRAN 100" leading the way. Before class started, Christie, knowing I had joined the class, quietly asked the teacher if the test score was her's. The teacher shook her head no. I may have smirked and thought "That's right."

Christie would get the last laugh as she was our valedictorian thereby making me the dumb Tran by default. My memory is a bit obscured, but I feel like we were decent friends in high school but actually got to know each other better during college even though she went to Columbia.



In high school, we were friends but didn't really talk much outside of school. She was very homesick for the first two years and I was a hermit constantly on AIM, so we actually got to know each other more from that point.

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On a related note, in order to graduate from Columbia, you have to be able to swim three pool lengths. I remember Christie stressed about this, but it's not timed.

Also, another Columbia tidbit came up during a trivia game: What year did they start admitting women? Most of us were guessing 1920s, 1930s.

Nope, 1983.

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Fast forward a bit and she ended up at UCSD for grad school. It was a fortuitous coincident, but Christie asked if I knew anybody who needed a roommate and--seemingly less than a day after--my undergrad pal Lily asked if I knew anybody who needed a room. Lily would end up being one of the bride's maids. Oddly proud moment to see that happen.

Wedding itself was pretty solid. After being gloomy the day before, it was a typical sunny 75 degree San Diego afternoon when the ceremony was performed. With all of her siblings in the wedding party, nobody was left to walk her Mom down the aisle. So naturally I, being the unofficial family member, got that honor.



Afterwards, the bride and groom made the executive decision to drive down to Chula Vista for tacos at 2am......while still wearing their wedding garb. They had been pimping this place for months, but I was left rather unimpressed. Then again, I didn't try the cow tongue tacos.

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Took me a few days to get my bearings back, just in time to fly up north for another wedding. While the wedding was in San Francisco, I ended up staying in a hotel in San Jose since it was more central to the other folks I'd be visiting.

I got up there on Thursday night and the parking lot was curiously packed--I had stayed at the same hotel for the Weezer concert last year. I had reserved a room with a king bed, but instead they gave me the handicap room with a twin bed. Inauspicious start to say the least.

Since I'm highly xenophobic, I was a bit worried about driving into SF out of fear of getting ridiculously lost. But the bride called me the morning of and arranged for me to carpool with one of her high school friends.

I figured it'd be an awkward hour long ride, but lo and behold, homeboy has two hockey sticks in his backseat--Ultra-Lite and Cyclone for those keeping track at home--so that ended up being an easy icebreaker. Plus I have an easy "thanks for driving me" gift whenever I get my hands on another cheap stick.



This wedding was for my UCSD pal Ching. I really don't recall the first time I met her......possibly CSE105 before I dropped it (I thought it might be fun to try 20 units that quarter). But ended up being chummy for the last two years.

My one distinct memory--which actually popped up as I was writing their wedding card--was being in lab and being completely sick of listening to the CDs I had. So I borrowed one of Ching's which was entitled something like "For the Rocker chick in you."

She explained that her boyfriend had burned the CD right before he left for Cal and she left for UCSD. Since I had a failed long distance relationship under similar circumstances, I quietly rooted theirs on.

I don't remember what was on the CD, except for Eve6....and they suck. They suck so hard, I can still remember it almost ten years later.

....anyways, I was seated with a bunch of other CSE folks. Unfortunately I didn't care to remember their names, perhaps because they didn't suck as bad as Eve6. Always awkward to have the "Hey Don, good to see you again/Hey, I forgot your name" interaction.



Ceremony was quick and painless. Reception had a couple quirks to reflect the bride and groom. They had Street Fighter IV set up to play. Now I'm generally antisocial at these sort of things, but even I thought that was over the top. I also learned that the groom's brother is actually a famous gamer who has done quite well for himself.

They also had the most creative first dance that I've seen. I suppose YouTube has upped the ante with these type of things. Most of us were expecting the standard elegent ballroom dance music, but the bass line for "Boom Boom Pow" starts blaring on the speakers and they pulled off their rehearsed number.



Since I have an overactive imagination, I've had things in mind for my eventual wedding despite that nagging detail about finding a wife. I had one overelaborate thought recently that has a sliver of feasibility.

About a month ago, there was the longest total eclipse of this century but it was only visible in portion of Asia. So I started looking into upcoming eclipses and saw one that's coming on May 20, 2012 that can be seen in parts of the Western US.

So I started thinking.....outdoor Vegas wedding. That date is on a Sunday too. Then we could time the ceremony to coincide with the eclipse and in particular, the "diamond ring" effect which occurs when the sun and moon come slightly out of alignment.

Began to put way too much thought into it, to the point where I started wondering about lighting conditions for photos before I snapped out of the daydream.

Further thoughts served to be buzzkills as the 2012 eclipse is only an annular eclipse (the moon doesn't completely block out the sun) and the diamond ring effect wouldn't happen. And then according to this map, the eclipse is visible in all of Nevada except pretty much Vegas.

Plus I'm pretty sure I want to do some semblence of a traditional ceremony for my Dad's sake. Doing that would be pretty tough with a destination wedding.

....and I could see how the eclipse thing could be pretty cheesy. Almost sounds like a premise for a bad Heroes story arc where one of the wedding guests has some super power activated and accidentally kills my bride and I spend the next twenty episodes hunting him down.



Niece highly appreciated her birthday gift.

Her birthday party had a pixies and pirates theme. It was highly amusing when a boy tried to put on a set of pink wings and my niece came sprinting over to tell him he wasn't allowed to do so. Gender lines are enforced at an early age.

(After my niece left, he put them on anyways.)



On a similar note, I think I pinpointed the moment when I realized I was Asian.

Ron Howard's 1986 film "Gung Ho" which starred Michael Keaton and Gedde Watanabe. The plot revolves around a Japanese automaker reviving a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania. Watanabe plays a disgraced executive in charge of overseeing the operation and Keaton is the liason to the workers.

Hilarity ensues with the culture clash between the Americans and their Japanese overlords. One scene in particular involves a softball game between the workers and the executives. The Japanese frustrate the Americans by playing smallball. But the workers stage a comeback to the tie the game with George Wendt's character as the winning run on second/third.

Keaton gets a base hit and there's a play at the plate. Wendt proceeds to barrel over the prone catcher and I begin a lifetime of subconscious disdain for fat white guys.



Dropped by the World Series of Poker (Day 4) on Saturday. Walked through the labryinth that is the Rio Convention Center. Within ten seconds of getting in the general vicinity, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (Poker Pro with the highest level of ballroom dance ability) is suddenly walking right in front of me. Unfortunately I had checked out the event solo, so I only got a picture of him instead of with him. He looked kinda grumpy; I'd learn later that he dropped like 95% of his stack right about 15 minutes before I got there.

Watching poker is fairly boring to begin with, plus all but two tables were obstensibly cordoned away from the viewing public. ESPN had two featured tables: One with popular pro Phil Ivey and another with two former champions in Joe Hachem and Peter Eastgate.

While I understand why'd they do this, watching the execution was just awful.......after your table finished a hand, you couldn't move onto the next hand until every other table had finished their hand. Since they were "three from the bubble" (the next three players eliminated would receive no prize money), some of the hands were taking forever as certain people were deliberating going all-in. There was enough time for Eastgate to walk around and take photos/give autographs while waiting for his table to deal the next hand.

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Some of the guys had a 6am tee time earlier in the morning, so they were falling asleep at the dinner table. There was some urgency to go clubbing, gambling, etc, but you could tell everybody was about to crash. Got back to the hotel at around 1am and predictably everybody was pretty much out.

One guy, Mark, was asking me about going to go play poker. He was a bit nervous about it since he'd never played in a casino before and only wanted to buy in for like $40. Figured the $2-$4 limit game at TI would be right up his alley.

We walk in and I immediately hear "DON?" Just happens to be Bill, a poker buddy who now lives in LA. Since I'm a jerk, instead of saying "Hey Bill, what are you doing here?", I instead immediately remind him "Dude, you owe me money."

Eventually we all end up at the same table. Mark is having fun after winning a handful of pots. Eventually this drunk, angry guy sits down across from us. He's on the phone, slurring "I'm playing poker, I'll call you later" multiple times. I find A-Q in late position and he calls with A-5. Flop comes A-Q-Q. Ding ding ding. I take him for a fairly sizeable pot for that game.

He later muses "fucking faggots at my table" several times. The dealer and room manager ask him not to curse at the table. He responds with "What the fuck? I'm not fucking cursing......stop listening to me." This continues for the next few hands as we're waiting for security to show up.

Mark beats Bill in a small pot, and Bill jokingly says "asshole" to Mark. The angry drunk guy thinks Bill is talking to him and goes into a tirade. "Asshole, fuck you, you're the asshole. That guy just called me an asshole. I'll fuck you up. Let's go outside and finish this." Bill being Bill, starts to egg on the guy.

The drunk guy later folds a hand face up with multiple people still in the pot. The dealer asks him to not do that. He curses at the dealer saying he's allowed to do so. Dealer looks at the manager and shoot the "Please, get this guy off the table" glare.

One of the next hand ends up being fairly big as Mark and an Indian guy are firing out reraises at each other on a board of like J-9-9-K-3. Most of our attention is on the drunk guy as the manager is finally forcibly urging him to leave. Meanwhile I'm debating "if he really did take a swing at Bill, would I have to back him up?"

(Answer: Yes, plus it'd be loads of awesome to be banned from a Vegas casino)

Being that this was his first time really playing live, Mark didn't know some of poker etiquette (ie, folding in turn). So on this hand, the Indian guy eventually shows A-9. Mark declares "You got me, I got nothing" as he flips over his cards into the middle of the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I see pocket Kings which would have given him a winning full house. But being that it was 3am and I was preoccupied with which submission move I would potentially slap on the drunk guy, I thought it must have been K-Q.

The dealer, also preoccupied, assumes the Indian guy won and starts pushing the chips the wrong way. Mark is sitting there confused and then Bill asks "Wait, you had Kings right?" Then they start a commotion about the hand as the dealer had already begun to shuffle the cards.

So they have to figure out what to do. Bill implores that they go to the tapes to no avail. The Indian guy had already began to stack some of the pot and offered to ship back everything that he hadn't stacked. At this point the dealer/manager are both flustered after finally getting rid of the drunk guy.

Eventually Mark agrees, probably cost himself $20 in the process.....which I actually thought was a fair penalty/lesson on what not to do, even if that's how they do every climatic poker scene on TV.

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Some bad information from coworkers regarding our company's vacation policy along with JetBlue's "All You Can Fly" for $599 promotion prompted me to hastily map out a 2-3 week trip.

Unfortunately I'd soon learn that JetBlue isn't that great coming out of San Diego. There are no flights to Seattle and going to San Jose or Vegas would require a layover in Long Beach. So booking a hybrid of Southwest, JetBlue, etc would be slightly more than $599 but the extra bucks would be worth the direct flights.

As much as I like to think my life doesn't revolve around hockey, I would be potentially watching a ton of hockey on this trip. As I have things planned right now.....

First stop would be flying up to Seattle on September 18th. My roommate Aaron is moving up there after Labor Day to begin his PhD at the University of Washington. So I could crash with him or Ching.

On the 19th, I'd be aiming to catch a WHL game between the Seattle Thunderbirds and Portland Winterhawks. The WHL is a junior hockey league (ages 16-21) that is one of the top producers of eventual NHL players in the world. Most notable Thunderbird alumnus is Patrick Marleau. Unfortunately, both Seattle and Portland are on the bottom rung of the league, so there may only be 2 or 3 future NHLers in the bunch.

The Mariners also host the Yankees on that Sunday, so I could possibly check out Safeco Field as well.

I spotted that the Sharks were playing a preseason game in Vancouver on the 23rd. So I half-heartedly suggested to Aaron that we could do the 2+ hour drive to Vancouver and catch the game. But since the game was on a weekday, I figured he'd be busy with school. But nope, classes begin on the 30th. Vancouver sounds like a fun tourist spot normally, but I imagine it's been spruced up a bit with the Olympics six months away.

On the 25th, I'd fly down to San Jose and cram a couple nights there with friends. The Ducks also play the Sharks as I already have some folks interested in doing that game.....The next day I'd fly to Vegas for Frozen Fury XII between the Kings and Avalanche.

Then the trip kinda gets convoluted after that. Had it in my head to check out New York City and then catch the Devils' season opener against the Flyers in Newark on 10/3. And then after that possibly end up in Boston for a few days. But my cousin in New York might not be around and my accountants are budget conscious about a week+ of hotels in NYC/Bos.

What would Dusty do....