Much to be thankful for!

Whoa, I only made one post this month so far, so I gotta squeeze in a second. I've gotten really lethargic when posting, usually only posting after Ruth and about the exact same thing =(

Thanksgiving was *such* a nice break from work.. Ruth came into town and my brother drove up from San Diego. Turkey Day was pretty fun, as we spent it with a couple of uncles in the area and brought some pumpkin cheesecake and these chocolate butterscotch chip cookies (a recipe I stole from some HS friends). Those are like the only two things I know how to bake... except some other raspberry chocolate cheesecake I made once. But I essentially have very limited talent. Below are some pics of the gathering:

All the big kids and the bigger of the little cousins:


Just the little kids making origami and apparently throwing it, too:


The rest of the gathering:


We spent the morning of Black Friday shopping at the mall and it was ridiculous. We got there at about 9am and had to park in a random place (my self-made parking spot) and wandered through the crowds for a few hours. Thankfully, Ruth ended up getting some items before we left... otherwise, it would have totally felt like a waste of time. Making purchases somehow validated the effort and time spent.

The other main activity of the weekend was tennis! I'm pretty mediocre at tennis as well, but it was fun to play and gave us a chance to run around a bit. It's pretty sad that tennis is like golf to me... every now and then I hit a good shot and have no idea how to do it again. I guess the only consolation is that there's some glimmer of talent buried in the depths of that mediocrity.

The other big news is that I had started looking for a place to buy in the last couple weeks and found a nice townhouse out in Sunnyvale and had an offer accepted last week! It's all been progressing really quickly, so I'm a little taken aback at how crazy things have been. I feel so much more grown up now that I'll have a mortgage and will somehow be responsible for property. I'm also faced with the realization that I'll have to move soon (ugh!) even though I really like my current living arrangement. I guess I'll just have to drop by periodically to play video games, hearts, and bum around at Lukoki. I took some pics of the place a while back and and posted it here, although I might just take down those pics at some point. In the meantime, Ruth found some nice pics of the place that are listed below that are nicer with wider angle shots... I'll be lucky if I can somehow pick up some furniture that makes the place look as nice as the staged furniture:







That's pretty much the update! Too bad Roothie had to go back to med school.. it was a fun week but went by way too quickly!!

Lights, cameras, action!

EDIT: Added more closeup pics below (new fish and old corals and new coral!)...

I finally got some new lights for my aquarium today... I wanted to give it some time to make sure algae wasn't growing before blasting it with the full force of metal halide lights! In case that doesn't mean anything to you, these are the best (and most expensive) lights to have for an aquarium... they're really bright and encourage coral growth. They have the additional effect of a light shimmer through the water, which is really neat. It's a little hard to describe and capture in a picture, but it's totally a huge upgrade... almost like a brand new aquarium.

As hard as it is to capture in a photo, here's what it used to look like.. the photo is extremely hard to take because it requires flash, which basically bleaches out the aquarium light:


With the new and improved lights, I don't even need to use flash!! It's like the freakin' sun in my own little fish tank:


The coral are all a little scrunched now as the light's so much brighter than before, but hopefully they'll adjust in the next few days and there will be closeups to add...

EDIT: Argh, it's a lot harder to take aquarium pics than I ever thought.. here's the best pic I could get of my new six line wrasse, courtesy of a gift certificate from Rooothie! He's a pretty fish and swims through the rocks a lot. I guess he's just admiring himself in the reflection in this pic :)



Now a pic of some of the corals... the hammer coral that spreads out and where the clowns used to hang out:



The orange monti cap and frogspawn that were doing well and are starting to be happy again:



The green brain which I temporarily moved up to see how it'd look... it looked cool, but I was afraid it'd fall and then started getting squished by the rocks, so it's back on the sand bed:



And finally.... the newest addition to the tank, courtesy of an early morning pickup by Gerald, a monstrous red brain that's now the centerpiece coral:



My tank is so smart that it has two brains!!!


EDIT 2: More of a new coral type called ricordia in all sorts of colors: