As evidenced by the many pictures of mahjong over the last several months, you can tell it has become a big part of the weekly routine amongst our group. Above, you can see an example of one big hand I managed to put together consisting of the 4-5-6 pattern repeated in all the suits. Woo hop!
The World Cup (of soccer) started up and the Abbott R&D group became slightly less productive for about a month. In the pic above, we hid in a conference room to watch the opening game (Brazil v. Croatia).
Sadly, our dear friend James (at the center of the above pic) moved away from the Bay Area to start a new job (and new life) up in Washington State. The goodbye celebration began on a Thursday night with burgers/baos/beers at Buffalo, then migrated onto Honeycreek where we ate the pictured "honey toast" dessert (giant piece of toast with ice cream, oreos, fruit and chocolate sauce). Susanna, Justin, Steph and I round out the rest of the crew in the "dessert selfie".
After the significant number of steps I took during the trip to Yosemite the previous week, I regained the coveted 1st Place trophy for the week. So proud I made it back to the top of the mountain as my coworkers have been setting the bar so high that I've otherwise struggled to stay in touch of their lofty step totals.
The weekend marked an important milestone for a number of friends: Stanford graduation! First up, Susanna got her degrees (MS and PhD). Lisa, Scott, Me, Jason, Imran & Chandana dropped by to watch the ceremony and show our support (by screaming & applauding when she walked across the stage).
After the midday ceremony, I hustled on home to host some friends for a big World Cup clash between England & Italy. While not terribly high scoring, it featured quite a bit of back and forth action. Deryck even joined us via FaceTime to watch the game since he couldn't find a good way to watch the game in HK.
After that exciting game, the party moved to James' place for a final farewell dinner shindig. We'll miss you dearly James! Hope to visit you up in WA sometime!
Then the next day, the commencement action continued and this time we celebrated Scott being conferred his PhD!
My 10 yr old French Football jersey looked a bit dated so I decided to grab the latest one to show my support for the team at this year's World Cup. Though Adidas doesn't make them anymore, Nike did a nice job making a simple, yet very sharp design. Allez Les Bleus!
A monthly occurrence in the summer, the San Jose Bike Party draws large crowds of cyclists together for a nighttime ride in SJ (with frequent stops for food and fellowship). Some crazy folks in the picture above lit fireworks which drew some unwanted attention from the local authorities. So much excitement!
The Menlo Park Pace Gallery's second show featured works by Tara Donovan who creates large scale sculptures made out of everyday objects. Check out what they had on display!
Colony, 2004. The full work to the left (Susanna shown for scale) and an inset close-up of the pencils used to create the sculpture.
Bluffs, 2013. The full view on the left and a close-up on the right showing the glued together buttons which form this work.
Haze, 2003. Probably my favorite work on display, this cloud like sculpture (top) gets its form from a large number of plastic drinking straws stacked together (bottom). So simple, yet so beautiful. I might be inspired to do a bit of arts and crafts at home one of these days. I'll post a pic of my efforts...
Dueling close-ups of Haze (Susanna vs. Me).
They had a small room with some other works, including the carryover Calder sculpture from the previous exhibition. Jason and I admire the works as I skim through the catalog showing most of the Tara Donovan works that we saw (including the ones I've shown in this blog entry) have been valued > US$100,000. Amazing.
While respectfully admiring the artwork (no touching), we decided to have a bit of fun with the Untitled, 2000 cubes (from top to bottom: straight pins, tempered glass and toothpicks). Amazingly, these 3 foot cubes don't rely on any adhesive to stick together other. Just friction and gravity.
Last but not least, a picture of Me taking a selfie with Untitled (Mylar), 2010.
The Tara Donovan show got extended and, despite originally being scheduled to end in June, now will be at the Pace Gallery till August. Go see it if you haven't yet! Hope you enjoyed the pics. Stay tuned for the next post in which I vacation in a country I haven't previously ever visited!
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