Comments (1) On September 1st, Caleb and I took a little trip about 30 minutes south to the food court of a mall — the closest location of a Dairy Queen to our house! That was my grandmother’s birthday who passed away in 2007. She always enjoyed a good blizzard from Dairy Queen so we joined in with many other members of the Crow family by treating ourselves! Then we took our blizzards to the ocean to watch the sunset.
DQ Blizzards for Mama Ease!
sunset over the pacific
Comments Off on UW faculty interview and test drive I was up in Seattle for a faculty interview earlier this week. The video of my talk can be found on this website – http://norfolk.cs.washington.edu/htbin-post/unrestricted/colloq/details.cgi?id=931
The main reason is to put up a few pictures of the car I got to test-drive with my good friend Philip Su. His 1998 (1999?) Lamborghini Diablo SV (only 500 made; last model made by Lamborghini before it was purchased by Audi).
Comments Off on NYC for spring break With the end of February came the end of Jordan’s first medical school rotation, which happened to be the reputed hardest, surgery. To celebrate, we decided to have a real vacation. Since I’d never really visited New York City before, we decided to head up to “the city” for a few days. We visited a few old friends, saw a few sights, and ate some good food!
Comments Off on Merry Christmas / Happy New Year We’re only running a couple of months behind here. Here’s a picture from outside my parent’s house on Christmas Eve 2009. A blessed new year to all our readers!
Comments Off on Happy Thanksgiving Jordan and I are grateful for many things this fall. 18 months of marriage. The last 6 months of cohabitation have been especially awesome. Teaching sunday school this fall has been really neat. Many opportunities to do things we love.
We decided to do something slightly different this Thanksgiving: instead of flying east to see our family, or eating with friends or coworkers, we decided we’d have our own special Thanksgiving retreat / 18 month anniversary / time for a vacation long weekend away from the city. We’ve been wanting to visit Yosemite all fall, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. We stayed at the Yosemite Bug a hostel about 45 minutes outside the park. The Bug is pretty awesome (though the prices have been rising a bit) (and there are shared toilets/showers) – among other amenities, it has an EXCELLENT cafe/eating place and free wifi!
So, having just eaten our Thanksgiving feast (I had about a 3 inch slab of roasted leg of lamb with mashed potatoes, stuffing, and mushroom-green beans and Jordan had crusted salmon over quinoa with pomegranate seeds and fennel and the green beans) and dessert (chocolate cake and a warm berry crumble), here I am, posting some pictures from our hike up the mist trail to the top of Vernal falls.
It’s a pretty intense trail – probably equivalent to taking the stairs to the top of a 30 story building. But much more beautiful. Here’s Jordan looking good about 4 fifths of the way up.
Here’s us at the bottom and then at the top.
One of the neat things that we were able to do was to call our families from the top. While there wasn’t AT&T coverage at the Bug (which is outside the park), there was on the trail and at the top of Vernal falls. Here’s Jordan with her iPhone…
Comments Off on Birthday present For my birthday, I had a really enjoyable present – an intramural championship! We won the first game on a buzzer-beating layup (my assist), and the final in overtime when the other team missed a game tying shot… Go “Penguins!”
Penguins - IM Champions
Comments Off on Video birthday card The first volume of our video birthday greetings is now online.
Comments Off on Excerpt: “Living By Prayer” From: The Valley of Vision
Help me not only to desire small things, but with holy boldness to desire great things for thy people, for myself, that they and I might live to show thy glory. Teach me that it is wisdom for me to play for all I have, out of love, willing, not of necessity; that I may come to thee at any time, to lay open my needs acceptably to thee; that my great sin lies in my not keeping the savour of thy ways; that the remembrance of this truth is one way to the sense of thy presence; that there is no wrath like the wrath of being governed by my own lusts for my own ends.
Comments Off on George MacDonald and “Calling” From the last chapter of Os Guiness, The Call:
No one has captured this more profoundly than George MacDonald in his sermon “The New Name” from Unspoken Sermons. In his message in Revelation to the Church in Pergamum, Jesus promised “a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.” MacDonald pointed out in good biblical fashion that “the true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man’s own symbol — his soul’s picture, in a word — the sign which belongs to him and no one else. Who can give a man this, his own nature? God alone. For no one but God sees what a man is.”
But then, in a hauntingly suggestive passage, MacDonald went further and gave the lie to all who think that “discovering our giftedness and calling” and “fulfilling the real you” is a simple and straightforward matter.
It is only when the man has become his name that God gives him the stone with the name upon it, for then first can he understand what his name signifies. It is the blossom, the perfection, the completeness, that determines the name: and God foresees that from the first because He made it so: but the tree of the soul, before its blossom comes, cannot understand what blossom it is to bear and could not know what the word meant, which, in representing its own unarrived completeness, named itself.
Such a name cannot be given until the man is the name. God’s name for the man must be the expression of His own idea of the man, that being whom He had in his thought when he began to make the child, and whom He keeps in His thought through the long process of creation that went to realize the idea. To tell the name is to seal the success — to say “In thee also I am well pleased.”
Perhaps you are frustrated by the gap that still remains between your vision and your accomplishment. Or you may be depressed by the pages of your life that are blotched with compromises, failures, betrayals, and sin. You have had your saw. Other may have had their say. But make no judgements and draw no conclusions until the scaffolding of history is stripped away and you see what it means for God to have had his saw — and made you what you were called to be.
We are “called to be.” Who dares set against this sublime vision the crude insult of being “constrained to be,” the puny audacity of “the courage to be” or the pedestrian fatalism of being “constituted to be”? From its awesome beginning, when a voice was heard but no figure seen, to its soaring climax, when God will unveil his design for all his children at our Last Call, the character and purpose of calling beggar the imagination and thrill the heart and soul of all but the most deaf and unresponsive.
I hope that’s encouraging to all you readers as it is to me!
Comments Off on Histology I took some nice pictures on the microscope last night. These are fluorescence images of coronal sections of a rat brain (rat M, or Mephibosheth, for the aficionados). Blue is a DAPI stain which generally highlights the main part of cells (the soma). Yellow is EYFP expressed in cells which have been transfected with channelrhodopsin 2. Almost every bit of yellow you can see is somewhat hazy – these are the axons of cells from the dentate gyrus (the mossy fibers) which transmit information to other cells in the dentate and to area CA3. There are a few dentate cells where the outline of the cell membrane can be seen – these are the cells which have actually been infected. There are holes/dents which you can see in the sections – these are places where a tetrode or optical fiber was located during recording.
All of these pictures have been scaled down from their full resolution. Below, though, you can use the google maps interface to scroll through one at full resolution.
Comments Off on Siphon coffee We just got our wedding gift from the Martins! (Thanks Martins! Clint – the rest of your groomsman’s present will be on the way “very” soon.) They gave us some fancy El Salvadorean coffee, and a siphon coffee maker.
The siphon coffee pot works on the same sort of principle as fancy drip-coffee maker: combine proper temperature hot water with grounds, seep briefly, and drain through a filter. The awesome thing about the siphon system, though, is that steam pressure forces the coffee up through the grounds, then holds the coffee in them until the pot is removed from the heat source, at which point the coffee drains back down into the pot for drinking. Left, the water has just been forced by steam pressure up through the grounds. Right, after we remove it from the stove, you can see the coffee dropping back into the pot.
Supposedly, ceteris paribus, coffee made via siphon action is the absolute best. See the article in the NY Times, and the info at Sweet Marias, from whom the coffee and maker were purchased.
Just got the camera back from Best Buy servicing – I complained about slow/faulty focusing and a blur (presumably dust on the sensor/mirror. Both issues seem to be resolved, all free of cost – not bad for 3.9 years post-purchase. Though I had hoped for what my dad got in a similar situation, credit for a new camera. I think I needed to take it back more than once in order to get that though. Kudos to Best Buy for the performance service plans, and for being really reasonable about these things.
So – to the topic of the post. Jordan and I ate with our friend Clint at Google this past week (wowser – if everyone chose a place of employment for the food, Google would employ the whole world. sadly, they don’t want everybody, and we have other reasons for working than free food). Given that the last time she ate there with me we got engaged, we felt like we had to do something exciting with our afternoon. So on the way back up to SF, we stopped at the It’s It ice cream sandwich factory in Burlinghame. I can remember eating It’s Its (or at least some knock off version) at the Co-op at UMD back in the early 90’s or before, so ever since I first moved to California, I’ve dreamed about visiting their factory. Sadly, we found that they do not offer factory tours. However, if y ou buy a case while you’re there, they’ll give you free samples (we do NOT recommend the “Chips It” sandwiches – the chocolate chip cookie is quite unsatisfying compared to the oatmeal cookie in the original)! The gentleman in the picture wouldn’t let me peak inside the factory (which was open), claiming that there was an inspector there today. Quickly peeking, however, I could hear sounds of pneumatic machinery, and see people doing stuff that looked exciting.
Without further ado, the it’s it business office door and the inviting factory door:
Us with our “Chips Its”
The guy who refused me also brought our case of It’s Its (we went with original – the oatmeal cookies, vanialla ice cream, all dipped in chocolate – as opposed to coffee or mint-chip), and me with the cooler (dry ice packed for freshness) outside the factory.
Coming full circle, it’s interesting to note two things about Google’s awesomeness. First, among all their free food, they have freezers filled with It’s Its of all flavors. Second, their It’s Its, which have a special “Google” imprint, are made with sugar instead of corn syrup.
Comments Off on Carrot Banana Walnut Oat muffins Modified from the recipe found here.
Combine sugar, eggs, and oil in one bowl. Combine baking soda, cinnamon, and flour in another. Add flour mixture to wet mixture. Add bananas. Mix well. Add carrots. Mix well again. Add nuts. Mix well. Add oats, wheat germ, and maple syrup. Mix well again. Makes 7 (unfortunately the) large muffins (unfortunately there are only 6 in a muffin tin – these are the 3 inch diameter kind). Bake at 350 for 55-65 minutes or until done. (They’re baking now – we’ll come back later to say how they turned out!)
Post Baking Report
Bummer – I forgot about them (too much fun playing Agricola), and they got overcooked. The little bit that I tasted was good, but perhaps a bit more on the crunchy side than I had been hoping. Perhaps more fluid might be required too…
Comments Off on The Train, Basketball, and the Secretary of Education This guy was standing guard outside union station when we departed.
Yes, in case you were unsure, that’s Caleb and the US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, playing basketball, and then after the game.
Comments Off on The Move Is ON!!!! Tomorrow is the big day! Caleb and I are sitting in my room in Chapel Hill which was cleaned today for the first time in almost 2 years. We leave on a plane tomorrow morning to start our lives together in San Francisco. YAY!
Comments Off on Quote of the Day “La vie est dure.” Life is hard. It is hard to be a Christian, but it is too dull to be anything else. When Jesus comes into our lives with his scandalous Cross in the form of mental anguish, physical suffering, and wounds of the spirit that will not close, we pray for the strength to “stand fast a little” against the insidious realism of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus
Comments Off on More Pictures Life update – we just finished off Jordan’s spring break. It was really awesome to be together for a week. We’re really looking forward to May and permanent cohabitation!!!
Jordan left me in charge of a fraction of the thank you notes, and consequently a small portion of them have still not been sent out. Those lucky enough to be in this select group are going to get a couple of wallet pictures from us. Here are the pictures we’re considering sending. Which one would you like to have on your fridge to remind you to pray for us?
And while I’m at it, here are another couple HDR pictures from our honeymoon in Banff…
Comments Off on New theme, iPhones, and stuff You’ll have noticed that there’s a new theme for the blog. With our one year anniversary in a couple months it seemed like a nice idea to try to make a little more use of the blog and it was also time to take down the wedding stuff (though it’s still available here). In terms of new content, I’ve been helping with the “ALPHA”-like Considering Christianity course at church and have been thinking it would be useful to try to write down some of the thoughts I’ve had regarding our topics of discussion. Plus, our new iPhones make it easy to microblog like I’m doing right now.
Yup, Jordan and I have entered the next stage of the digital world by getting smartphones. And not just any smartphone – we held our breath and plunged into the world of Apple by getting iPhones! Ostensibly, Jordan will need one during her rotations in order to run some specialized software, and since we were going to have to get a family plan on AT&T anyway, we decided (or maybe Jordan decided as a gift) that I could get one too.
The verdict is, I think, still out on whether or nor it’s worth it to pay for data and the price of the phones, but I think we’re both finding them useful.
Take a look, by the way, if you also have an iPhone, at this blog – it should automatically mobile format for you!
Finally, here are two pictures taken within the phone (to show that off too!): Jordan imagining holding an iphone from when we got them when I was back in NC two weeks ago; and me playing basketball today (thanks to Hiram, the photographer, my parents for their shoe sponsorship, the Walker’s for the shooting sleeve, and my lovely wife Jordan for the basketball).
Comments Off on HDR Pictures Running experiments entails some time during which one has to be physically present but not mentally. Thus, I get a few moments to learn random facts and study things like the news. Anyway, so today I discovered “high dynamic range” pictures. Basically, the idea is to combine pictures taken at multiple exposures to create a final result with huge dynamic range. So I went through my pictures to see if I had taken any exposure-bracketed photos, and found one good candidate. So here is the result – an HDR (and then sylistically filtered) picture of Jordan and I compared to one of the originals.
Here’s the original
And the HDR/enhanced version (from 3 originals)
The idea with the HDR pictures is that the enhanced dynamic range can be selectively filtered to make the picture look “special” to your eyes. I’ll be on the look out for opportunities to take/make more of these!
Update:
Here are a couple more pictures that I’ve HDR’d.
Of the block where our little apartment lives:
and of USF from UCSF:
I think the second one is the most artistic. Anyway, I’ve figured out to set the camera up to take multiple exposures automatically, so I’ll look for opportunities to do HDR pictures as I go forward. Look for them!
Comments Off on “Fullness in Christ” Tiffany, one of Jordan’s classmates and bridesmaids, gave us a book of Puritan prayers (The Valley of Vision) as a wedding gift. I’ve enjoyed the few that I’ve read so far, and this is probably my favorite of them.
Fullness in Christ
O God,
Thou has taught me
that Christ has all fullness and
so all plenitude of the Sprit,
that all fullness I lack in myself is in him,
for his people, not for himself alone,
he having perfect knowledge, grace,
righteousness,
to make me see,
to make me righteous,
to give me fullness;
that it is my duty, out of a sense of emptiness,
to go to Christ, possess, enjoy his fullness
as mine,
as if I had it in myself, because it is
for me in him;
that when I do this I am full of the Spirit,
as a fish that has got from the shore to the sea
and has all fullness of waters to move in,
for when faith fills me then I am full,
that this is the way to be filled with the Spirit,
like Stephen, first faith, then fullness,
for this way makes me most empty,
and so most fit for the Spirit to fill.
Thou hast taught me that the finding of
this treasure of all grace in the field of Christ
begets strength, joy, glory,
and renders all graces alive.
Help me to delight more in what I receive
from Christ,
more in that fullness which is in him,
the fountain of all his glory.
Let me not think to receive the Spirit from him
as a 'thing'
apart from finding, drinking, being filled
with him.
To this end, O God,
do thou establish me in Christ,
settle me, give me a being there,
assure me with certainty that all this is mine,
for this only will fill my heart with joy
and peace.
The title says it all. In celebration of her week off between work and school starting, Jordan made a pizza, including making the dough from scratch, marinating the chicken for the top, and making the sauce. It was awesome – red bell peppers, broccolli, grilled chicken, fresh grated mozarella cheese, and a spicy garlic marinara sauce. Wowser. Here’s a picture
The only sad thing about it was that we ate all but one slice then and there.
Comments Off on Our first gathering We had our first group of guests over (not counting Steve, who watched a Eurocup game with us) on July 5th. Here are some pictures, including the awesome 3-layer carrot cake made for us by Yen Bui.
From left to right: me, Christine, Anna, Yen, Jordan, Jung Hee, Marcelle.
It was a great time!
Comments Off on San Francisco Half Marathon Jordan ran the 1st Half Marathon this morning. 6:05 AM start time, completed in 1 hr, 51 min, 40 sec (or a 8:32 mile pace). This placed her 779th out of 6679 participants, 180th out of 3696 women, and 71st out of 1342 women ages 20-29. YAY!
Time for a shower, breakfast, and still (almost) on time for church!
Comments Off on Banff Day 2 We begin our second day in Banff with a nice breakfast and quite time at a trendy cafe called “Wild Flower”. Here’s Jordan outside in the bright sun
After breakfast, we contemplated going for another bike ride, but the forecast called for afternoon rain, so we decided it would be more prudent to drive/walk. Near the town of Banff is a large lake, Lake Minnewanka. We decided to make it our first destination.
As a random fact, Lake Minnewanka is the site of the only hydroelectric power generation plant in a Canadian national park. As a result, we could drive out on to the dam at the edge of the lake. As we were driving out, we encountered a traffic jam because of some big horned sheep that were on the road! (The zoomed in picture is from a little later – he’s older as you can tell from the increased length / number of rings on his horns.)
Lake Minnewanka is in a beautiful setting with a backdrop of mountains near and far.
Here’s a picture of us…
After driving around the loop road that lead to Lake Minnewanka, we decided that since the weather was now beautiful again we should go for a hike. So we proceeded to Johnson Canyon, to see the waterfalls there. (check back for more!)
Comments Off on Banff Day 1 Our first day in Banff, we rented bikes and road around the town of Banff. Up here, though there’s still lots of snow, the weather and ground conditions in the lower elevations near town are beautiful, warm, and clear!
Not just the people are out enjoying the nice weather. After seeing so many, elk are less exciting, but it’s still pretty awesome to have them interrupt our bike ride.
Here we are at the Vermillion lakes.
Here’s a panorama of one of the Vermillion lakes.
Our final bike ride was up to a trail head which then lead to a nice canyon loop hike (Sunshine Canyon).
An excellent first day!
Comments Off on Handstands
As a theme, we’ve been doing hand stands in different places. Here are some of our results.
at Sunshine Canyon, our first tries
at the lower falls in Johnson Canyon.
and at the Lake Agnes teahouse near Lake Louise.
Check back for updates!
Comments Off on On the road… Our day started at the Oakland airport. Here’s our plane
And here we are, excited to get on the way!
Here are some pictures from our ride from Spokane up to Banff. First, crossing the border into Canadia.
And on the road finally in Canada…
We’ll post a few more pictures as we go along.
Comments Off on “Together Forever”: Day 1 Well, the wedding was a smashing success, and now Jordan and I have embarked upon our life together. Lots of excitement; lots to learn! The photographer has already given us a few pictures.
And here we are coming home…
Notice the gifts in the background waiting for us. Thank you all for your amazing generosity!!!
Comments Off on Wedding Program For those of you who’ve been checking back to see if the content has been being updated, here is a copy of our program, and the LaTeX source used to generate it…
Comments Off on Yosemite CG Trip Our biggest adventure as a couple (not counting the adventure of being in a long distance relationship or the adventure of preparing to get married) has so far probably been the trip that our community group took to Yosemite National Park last summer. This post deserves more text, but what with it being 2 weeks until I leave SF, there’s no time. Maybe post-wedding we’ll come back and edit it (or, if anyone would like to be an alert reader, they could email me for a guest account!).
Our goal was to climb to the top of Half Dome, one of the striking granite domes that Yosemite is known for.
But in the end, every body made it back alive. Including the bear that Anna saw.
Comments Off on 3 Weeks to go!!! Thursday night, May 2, 2008. 3 weeks and 2 days until Jordan and I get married. Wow! Still hard to believe.
But everything is coming together, little by little. That reminds me, thank you SO much for all the gifts that have been given to us already. We are grateful to God for our wonderful friends and family. Jordan was in California for her last (God willing) pre-married visit, and we spent several hours over the weekend unpacking gifts that had been given to us. Here’s a picture of the empty boxes in a pile in my garage.
This weekend we also started making significant progress on our order of service. If you want to sing along with the songs, here are links to three of them: “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”, and “In Christ Alone” (first verse with the author, whole song).
Update (May 5, 2008): I’ve been working on the order of service for the wedding. I just finished entering the music for the three songs above; click for PDFs: O Love That Will Not Let Me Go Music, Come Thou Fount Music, In Christ Alone Music.
Check back for more updates!
Comments Off on Around San Francisco: Muir Beach Jordan and I have both enjoyed the natural beauty that pervades northern California. Last October, we went with two other members of our CG (Marcelle and Jung Hee for the detail-oriented) for a day hike at Muir Beach, a nature preserve right north of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s amazing that a place so wild and empty is so close to a big city! I especially enjoyed the pair of ravens that were also enjoying the views while we were there. You can see them in the first picture below, along with Jordan and Jung Hee. Remarkably, on this trip Jordan was untroubled by the various high places and cliffs that we walked around, including the 20 ft boulder on the segment of beach that we scrambled down to.
These sorts of days remind me of the Psalm – “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!”
Comments Off on Our First “Date” The first day that Jordan and I spent together was more accident than planned romantic activity. One Saturday (January 13, 2007 to be exact) Jordan had organized for our CG to help out at City Team, which holds a walk-in clinic/lunch buffet/clothes closet/foot washing for folks downtown most Saturday afternoons. As it turned out, no one else from our group decided to come, and so the two of us met for breakfast ahead of time. We had a nice conversation over the food, including a random segment involving one of the cleaning people at the Westfield mall’s food court, and then a really nice time at City Team.
At that time, I was still living at 519 in Menlo Park, and so when we finished early in the evening, I wasn’t in any particular hurry to go home. Jordan had taken the bus downtown, so I offered to give her a ride home. While we were driving, I asked if she had ever been to the top of Twin Peaks. She hadn’t and so we found our way up to the top, and took some time hiking up to get a good view. I think this random outing was the moment when she decided that she was interested in getting to know me better!
Comments Off on How we met 
Jordan and I met in San Francisco, in a “community group” associated with City Church. Our’s is a really neat group of people who mostly live in the Inner Sunset neighborhood. Here are some of the CG people being silly. (click for full size pictures).
The “Sunset” starts at the hill UCSF sits on and extends towards the Ocean. It’s north boundary is Golden Gate Park, but its southern boundary is less well defined.
Looking north (you can see both the Golden Gate bridge and my truck in this picture).
The Sunset at sunset…
We always welcome new members in the community group. If you’re looking to be involved in Christian community in the Inner Sunset, shoot me an email!
Panorama Theme by 
Themocracy
