For our last day in New Orleans, we went on a tour of Laura Plantation. Mrs. Jang was right when they said they had a lot of very interesting stories on the tour. We also visited neighboring Oak Alley Plantation, which was more picturesque and great for photos. That evening, Leon, their son, who my brother and I have been friends with for a long time also, drove all the way out from Baton Rouge to join us for dinner. He invited us to visit the LSU campus on our way home, and we thought, why not?

We missed you, Howard! [ see all photos ]

Leon was kind enough to be our personal tour guide around LSU. We'd been there a looooooooong time ago for a table tennis tournament, but definitely did not tour the campus in detail like we did that day. Leon also told me that visitors to LSU were supposed to engage in a ritualistic activity before leaving LSU ... so of course I went ahead and did it (I asked my dad to join me, but he declined):

Yeah ... I pretty much regretted doing that. My body really ain't what it used to be. I was nauseous pretty much for the rest of the day. Ugh!

Thanks to the Jang family for hosting us in Louisiana. Come visit us soon! :D

My parents had been wanting to visit some family friends who live near New Orleans for a while now, and the opportunity arose pretty recently. They asked me to join them (my mom claims that I make it more fun for them, haha), so off we went.

Me 'n Mom being silly in front of the Mississippi

Day 1 was just driving (~6 hrs / 370mi). That evening, Mr. and Mrs. Jang explained in detail the tours we could go on the next day. My parents entrusted me with planning our itinerary, and so they were basically forced to do what I wanted to do. :) It consisted of a walking tour of the French Quarter (my first choice was actually a bike tour, but ... I think I'll have to do that with other like-minded people, heh), and then a swamp tour. THAT was awesome. :)

Gator Vid 2 / Gator Vid 3 / Gator Vid 4

While headed to Jackson Square for the walking tour, a lady who saw we were blatant tourists told us she was headed that way and kindly walked with us in that direction. She told me a little about herself and how she'd moved from Arizona to New Orleans, and that if we had a chance we should go check out the Garden District. If we wanted to take a horse carriage out there, she highly recommended a man by the name of Marlin Malloy. "That's my ex-husband," she said. "Now I don't recommend him as a husband or a father, but he's a damn good tour guide, and you know he must be good if I'm recommending my ex-husband to you!" We shared a laugh, and parted ways. Never got to see if I could find Mr. Malloy amongst the horse carriage drivers and tell him that his ex-wife had recommended me. :)

I have never been interested / good at history, but I actually learned a lot about Louisiana history on all the tours we took. So excuse me if my captions are a little long-winded, I'm excited that I learned a thing or two on this trip. :) See the whole story in ze pictures!

I know what you're thinking. I've probably just jumped the gun, jumped to conclusions, didn't really give them a chance. Well, this is my story of what happened on the evening of Saturday, August 8th, and you can derive your own conclusions.

After having a major blast at Alice's wedding, a bunch of us still were not sated and headed out for post-wedding clubbing. Friends brought friends, and we ended up with a group of 12 people, 11 Asian (9 dudettes, 2 dudes), and 1 Caucasian (yay for Tree Frog for being the token white guy!). An initial group of 4 ladies had gotten there first, and were turned away from the door after a brief dialogue:

Bouncer: Are you with the private party?
4 Ladies: No ...
Bouncer: Sorry, if you're not with the private party, we can't let you in, there are too many people.

While waiting for us, they observed that non-Asian people were being let in just by showing their IDs and without the same questioning.

We arrived, and we were turned away with the same dialogue. Still in disbelief, we decided to test the system. We asked token white guy Tree Frog to try getting in. And sure enough, they let him in without even asking him if he was with the "private party".

So, we butted heads with them some. While doing so, people came and went, and after some time, Tree Frog asked, "Look, if it really is a numbers issue, I've seen about 10 people leave, and we have about 10 people in our party. What's up with that?" No answer. Management was talked to, and they kept mute as we spoke of their unfairness. Another group of partygoers, a mix of whites, Hispanics, and Asians, was also turned away while we were giving the manager of piece of our minds. One of the ladies in the initial group was surprised because she'd just been to Blue Label the night before at an all-Asian party. After a while though, we just weren't that direly in need of giving them our money anyway, so off we went.

And while my remaining clubbing days are numbered, I won't be tapping Blue Label Lounge for business if I have a choice.

Aside from that, I was glad we were able to have a post-wedding hurrah for Alice and Chun. I was definitely buzzing very well. :) [ to the pictures! ]

* I suppose one remaining possibility is that if there actually WAS a private party going on there, that it was hosted by someone who had a thing against Asians.

Googling "free simple html editor" today brought up Arachnophilia in the results. It sounded familiar ... turns out it was the same software that I had used many years ago (probably circa 2000). Even with major updates to the software, the site hadn't changed much; the words "Arachnophilia is CareWare" still remained at the top of the page. I'd forgotten what that meant, guessing it was some variation upon shareware, like postcardware or something. Reading further for clarification, I came across a paragraph that I'd always kept with me, but as usual had forgotten the source:

So here is my deal: stop whining for an hour, a day, a week, your choice, and you will have earned your copy of Arachnophilia. Say encouraging words to young people, make them feel welcome on the planet Earth (many do not). Show by example that we don't need all we have in order to be happy and productive.

The selective bolding is by me, showing the words that resonated with me so long ago and helped shape who I am by just a little bit. Common sense, for sure, but to actually put it into practice? Not so easy. At the time when I read this, it made me question if I'd ever been made to feel welcome on this planet. A very touchy subject for me, since people have made fun of me since the beginning of time, and then on top of that my whole sense of identity was hurled into a black hole of confusion while living in China. (I've come out of that hole since, yay!) But even so, with careful thinking, the answer was ... yes. To the teachers, mentors, and peers who consciously made and make the effort to make me feel comfortable in a sea of derision, jealousy, insecurity, and negativity, thank you. And I guess that's why it stuck. And then the thought that followed was: well, if people were kind enough to do it for me, then I hope I can be that person to someone else. Yeah, I think I saw that movie Pay it Forward around that time too.

So this seems like a lot of strange mush to have written regarding some html editor, but it's really not about the html editor at all. I thank Paul Lutus for his hard work on it of course, but more so for positively influencing my thoughts and actions for the last 10 years ever since I read his words.

Oh, and I did download and use Arachnophilia. Perfect fit for my needs today. :)

Highlight of my weekend: we made ice cream from scratch (save milking cows and harvesting eggs from chickens)! But first, my favorite shot of the weekend:

Yes, Sammy the pomeranian got a "lion cut" for the first time. This dog is incredibly cute, and is still incredibly cute, but his new haircut made me laugh out loud. And then for some reason watching him poo just made me crack up uncontrollably. Sorry Sammy! :)

After a lot of hard work in the blazing heat (mostly thanks to Uncle Charlie and Jason!), we finally got our ice cream. It was SOOOOO good!!!!

[ see the rest of the pictures! ]

Oh, and let's not forget the video clips. This is the first of the short series of videos that we took, from the Round Top parade, from ice cream making, and from playing with sparklers at night. By putting your mouse over the video you can click on the thumbnail on the right to go to the next video.

Congratulations, Violeta and Karthik!

So, instead of the regular ol' rehearsal dinner, we were instead asked to come out for a dance rehearsal. For what? A surprise short dance routine that interrupted their first dance:

(link)

My date to the wedding was pretty cool. He accompanied me the whole day (I'm talkin' 15 hrs here) and he even slow danced with me in the middle of the room while there was a mass exodus going on behind us.

Wedding by Violeta + Karthik
Makeup by Jen Ma
Hair by Andrea Schutter
Dress by David's Bridal
Pleasant Companionship by Tree Frog
Attitude by me. :)

I've gotten back into table tennis recently, and on top of that I've just met someone who went to college with Whitney Ping, and so I thought I'd bring back this poll from 2001 since I was reminded how I was once mistaken for her. If you do a quick search for her online, you'll learn she's an Olympic table tennis player (I enjoyed this article). For anyone who ever thought I was decently good, let me put this in perspective: I know without a doubt she could whump my rump left-handed and possibly blindfolded. She says she practiced 5 hours a day while training full-time in Sweden; I can barely get through 2 hours playing recreationally without feeling like I'm 70 and have knocked my back out.

[ vote ] [ see results ]

Personally, I don't think I look like her, even after scanning through more recent pictures.

(Today's blog post title was brought to you by AllLookSame.com. I was forwarded this site a long time ago and never took the test, but the name of the site just stuck in my head.)

... a total stranger takes a picture of you without your knowledge almost 10 years ago and then posts it on a website with other weird photos that are made fun of.

I'd never heard of AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com until Henry pointed it out to me (um, thanks?!). HAHahhahah oh man. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this on the website. Not exactly work safe (depends on your industry, I guess), so beware when you click through the photo to the site.

So I guess I should explain what is going on here. :) Old Calgary buds Reema and Winnie were showing me around San Francisco - had to be between 1999 and 2002, while I was an acupuncture student in Cali - and took me to the Palace of Fine Arts. So we were walking around taking pictures and there, on the green, was this dude posing for a professional photographer. Before my friends could stop me, I ran over and asked if I could have a pic with this guy, thinking that this was too hilarious! I still have the original pic where me and this dude are facing the camera; it's a bit strange to know that someone secretly took a pic of us from the side, and has hoarded it until now!

I remember asking him why he was taking pics there; I can't for the life of me remember his answer. I believe he said his name was "Blaire"; I never remembered to look for him on the internet after that.

Not that this REALLY explains anything except for my penchant for wanting to take pictures of everything I encounter. Be sure to read the caption and the comments underneath; so funny! Man. Yep. The Internet "big-time". Thanks(?!?!) AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com!

Tree Frog updated our California album with a couple of videos, and I just had to share the one of my nephew (or technically my 1st cousin once removed, but that sounds so ... distant and drawn out). Apologies for my shrill and explosive goat-like laughter, so please watch your volume dials. :)

[ Link to the video - I couldn't figure out how to turn off autoplay :( ]
(Translation: "Is this Connor? Is this Connor? Yes, this is Connor! This is Connor!")

Man, I love that goofy grin of his. :D