So my trip to Victoria was awesome! I got to see so many fantastic folk: friends, family, coworkers.
I didn’t end up getting to see some of the people I wanted to. If you’re one of these persons, I’ve come up with a simple solution — come visit me! You can stay on my couch for nothing! 😀 Notably absent from these photos are Chrissie, Ben M, Katheryn, Alex, Heather, Cam, Sue (1&2), Todd, Jayne, Ben N and Karen. When ya guys coming down?
Without further ado, then, here are some of the really cool people I got to see during my vacation. Click on a picture to get the (often much) bigger, unretouched original; it will open in its own window.
12/21. Debbie and me. I met Deb during my internship at Microsoft. This picture was taken after I’d pulled an all-nighter at SeaTac. I ran into her totally by chance — 5:30 in the morning!
12/23. Marc and Taeko. Marc was my supervisor at the Clearihue Computing Facility, a.k.a “the Maclab” from 1996-2001. I was his best man during his wedding this past summer. Pictured here at the Japanese Village restaurant.
12/23. The rest of the gang from my workplace at UVic. From left to right, that’s Perry, Eugene and Ricardo.
12/23. L to R: Daniel, Tex, Sean, Aaron. All very cool people. We’re at Daniel’s place here. I met Dan working at the Clearihue lab back when I started, Tex from high-school (I was his best man two Octobers ago), Sean from mutual friends at the beginning of university life, and Aaron through Tex. Here we’re looking at a video that Aaron produced for the astronomy department at UVic.
Tex.
Aaron.
Daniel tells Sean about his film.
Sean listens intently.
I… well, I can’t stop laughing.
Catching Tex mid-reach for his gin and tonic.
12/27. Michael. I met Michael only very recently because of my job at the CALL Facility at UVic. He’s a very cool guy. This past summer, on a whim he and I took a two hour drive up to the middle of nowhere and went to a rave being held in the forest.
12/27. Ryan. Different ‘bucks. I’ve known Ryan for a long time. 14 years now I think. We go waay back. Now he lives in Vancouver and sometimes New York. Ryan’s 1988 Supra gets broken into approximately once every 4 months. As a precaution, he now leaves the glove box open when he parks.
Ryan and me.
12/27. Sarah and me at South Bay Restaurant. I’ve known Sarah for a few years now; she’s a talented artist and brilliant graduate student at UVic. She’s also a good friend of mine, and lured me into going to ballroom dance again after a long hiatus.
Still at South Bay, this is my friend Aran. Or maybe it’s the devil? Hard to tell.
Got any questions about gambling? Ask Brett.
Sundeep. First met Sundeep waaaay back in the algorithms class that’s part of second-year comp. sci. undergraduate program at UVic. She used to work at the UVic Computer Helpdesk, which is located just below the Clearihue Computing Facility. I’d send her all the confused profs who would walk into the lab and demand that we help them with their printer.
12/29. Maryanne and Elvis. This shot was taken at Mar’s place. Maryanne and I have been friends for about 8 years now. When I came to see her on this particular day, we hadn’t seen each other — apart from a few minutes at Karen’s wedding — for close to 3 years. Interesting fact: it was Maryanne who pointed out the Clearihue Computing Facility job posting to me way back in August ’96.
12/31. Vasuhi and I. I’ve known Suey just about as long as I’ve known Maryanne. Actually, Mar and Suey are good friends, go figure. 🙂
12/31. Kathy and me. Kathy’s a warm-fuzzy type of person. She also teaches kids highland dancing. She’s currently very taken with her boyfriend Mark, so I’m lucky I caught her! Kathy is good friends with Daniel — which is, in fact, how I met her.
12/31. Paul and me in the Hillside ‘bucks. Paul and me go waaay back, too, back to the days of the STS. His handle was “Roger Wilco”.
12/31. Sudie. An old friend — met him while working at the Clearihue lab, now works for a major Victoria software firm. He’s also friends with my parents, who attend the same temple as he does. He had me and my parents over for dinner on New Year’s eve.
12/31. 11:30pm. L to R: Hilary, Michael, Maria and James. Raving into the new year! Accidentally saved over the big version of this one.
12/31. 11:51pm. Justin, aka Juice Stain getting his groove on!
1/1. 1:11am. Caroline and me. I have no idea when I met Caroline for the first time, but I think it was at Chlorine back when it was held at the Neptune nightclub. Raev RavE raeV!!!
1/1. 2:16am. Hilary and me! Hils is a great ultimate player, and damn cute, don’t you think?
1/1. 2:19am. Jim and me. A little stunned by the Powershot G3’s flash. Jim’s making a Davin face. 😀
1/1. 2:20am. Davin and Julie, both good friends of mine. (I’ve known Davin a little longer 🙂
1/1. 4:28am. Kevin and Stacy aka long purple-eyelash auto-detailer girl. Kevin’s a completely awesome guy — super friendly, he’s there for the music, he keeps going. He’ll teach you to get down!
1/2. Carla, Mark, their daughter Elena. Mark’s an old co-worker of my from the Clearihue Computing Facility. Before I took this shot, I told Mark to close his eyes as hard as he could. We’re in “Cafe Mexico” here with Marc, Taeko and Mavis.
Mavis, another coworker from the Clearihue Computing Facility. She’s a really cool person, and has extensive experience in the modeling industry. Too bad she wouldn’t let me get another picture of her!
1/3: L to R: Calvin, Amy, Hilary, and me. All three of these fine people played on my Ultimate frisbee team, Tron. Here we’ve just finished eating at “The Ridge”, a little cafe on the edge of a golf course in Victoria.
Make a wish!
Calvin and Amy.
So that’s a few of the people I got to visit with over the break! I feel so lucky to know them.