Wow: Epic Orchestra Fail

4th Annual Prawn-a-Thon and the results are in...

This year's contestants again are Ding How (former 2-time champion), Jade Garden (last year's champ), Wok of Flame, Hunan, and House of Chang. Ding How in my opinion was robbed last year and I went in confident that they would reclaim the title. But...

...the Honey Walnut Prawns winner this year is:

Jade Garden.

The new category this year was Broccoli Beef and the winner is:

Jade Garden.

WAIT one second though. It turned out a few days later that there was a mix-up in the pre-sorting of the boxes. What we thought was the Jade Garden purchase actually was the Ding How bag. So the rightful winner (back in its rightful place) this year is

DING HOW!!! Back on top.

SYS-CMW Week I

SYS-CMW Week I came and went. As always, it was awesome! The prep kids I think were the best we've had since we started this program 5 years ago and we had yet another great group of mentors. For Westminster concert, we performed baroque concertos: Corelli Concerto in D Major for 2 violins (Claire Tatman and Ray Anthony Trujillo), Telemann Viola Concerto (Amber Dayton then Sarah Tatman), an arrangment of a Cello Sonata by Vivaldi (Youjin Ko then Matt Lineman)(, and the great Bach Concerto for 2 Violins (Ariana Fong and Nicole Hwang, Mutsuko Tatman and Claire Tatman, Ray Anthony and Me).

Below are some pics from the week (also, that Friday the Chinese kids from Jinan arrived at the BBQ, where we also made Ray Anthony promise to sing in front of the orchestra if he burned any of the burgers...which he did...but didn't follow through!)

Sad Day

I'm sorry to say that the poor little abandoned kitten that we ended up adopting and Jac took such great care of passed away yesterday afternoon. He was only barely six weeks old, and all of us are pretty sure that his mother abandoned him because she knew he was sickly. But, the kitten, whom we named Yoda because of his flat ears, made the most of his short life making everyone happy around him who took care of him or simply met him (even me, who only got to see him for 2 hours before I left town and on video chat several times with Jac)...he even made poor Nigel think he was a mommy.

RIP Yoda Kitty, you will be missed by everyone who loved you, which was everyone who knew you.

Home for the Summer

I'm back home in Davis for a chunk of the summer (shorter than usual) to visit family and to work at SYS-CMW 2010 (my 10th year!)

And some pics from Jac:

Whoa, haven't posted in a while...

Well, let's see: July 4th was awesome as usual. Mostly Paulo's friends this year, but Foe, James, Aliotsy and his wife Hanan (above), Nikki, Foe's new girlfriend and me and Jac were there. Had a great time playing volleyball and tossing the football around a bit. Fireworks at Holmes Jr. High again.