Life Through the Lens

Farmer’s Market @ The Grove, L.A.

I finally ran across a photography meetup that lined up with my schedule and was interesting enough to get me to drive out to LA.  We met up at the Grove where there’s a Farmer’s Market.  What’s interesting was that the market doesn’t allow “Professional” looking DSLRs, so we had to bring point and shoots/cameraphones/anything that doesn’t look professional.  I figured this would be a good chance to try out the new lenses I bought for the M4/3 GX1. Met some cool new people and got to stretch the legs on my Panasonic GX1.  Here’s some photos from the outing.

New Computer Build–Core i5-3550 Ivy Bridge

I got new cpu at deep discount through my sister since my main desktop was getting long in the tooth.  The old Q9300 was starting to bog on all the Lightroom editing that I was doing.  And since that machine was almost 5 years old now, it was due for an update.  So I dropped in an i5-3550, ASrock Extreme 4 Z77 motherboard, 16GB of DDR3, 2 x 240GB Sandisk Extreme SSD drives in a RAID 0 for booting the operating system and I kept the 2 x 2TB Seagates in a RAID 1 for all my photos.

 

I had initially installed it in my old Antec P180 case, but was getting higher than expected CPU temps, so I ended up buying a new Corsair Carbide 400R case and Seasonic 620W semi-modular power supply.  The cable management in the Corsair (all black on right) was incredibly clean compared to the old Antec.

 

And the Corsair even has these cool LED front fans.  I have never been a fan of LED fans, but these white ones actually look pretty good.  There’s also a switch to turn off the LEDs when the mood strikes.

New Year’s 2013

I flew back to Orange County on New Year’s Eve and then proceeded to drive down to San Diego to celebrate with my friends.  You can tell we are getting old as the evening was spent just drinking booze eating cheese and meats.  But I stayed the night and we went out to the Linkery for brunch on New Year’s day.

NYE Photos Courtesy of Marc Mizuta.

Lia was being her usual adorable self for the New Year.

Christmas in Seattle 2012

This was an eventful Christmas in Seattle.  Surprisingly enjoyable and drama free.  My Mom was back in her backing mood and revived the Yule log baking tradition.  We had a fun Christmas dinner at my Mom’s Cousin’s house.  Took a short family vacation to Vancouver and enjoyed some Boxing day people watching and the Museum of Anthropology.  In general, we just ate a lot and enjoyed each other’s company.

 

Round one of Yule log cake making.

 

Some pre-Christmas shopping at Bellevue Square.

 

Round two of Yule log making with my younger cousins.

 

Some fun at the Casino

 

Christmas dinner at my Mom’s Cousin’s place.

 

Trip to Vancouver B.C.

 

BC Museum of Anthropology.

 

Dinner at the Sand Bar before heading back to Bellevue.

 

Giant sized Duty Free shopping.

 

More eating in Seattle.

 

Lunch with Auntie and Uncle #1.

 

Last dinner of Vietnamese food with my Parents before I fly out the next day.