Bryant and Ching

It was great to see friends and family over Thanksgiving weekend.

Bryant is one of the strangest and most amusing monkeys I've ever met. He makes a good pet until he makes a mess, whereupon he points it out, screeches loudly, pounds his chest, demands food, and runs off. On a more serious note, I've come to know the Jamba-guzzling, ESPN-watching, spider-fearing, Kobe-loving, computer-gaming, internet-browsing, animal-petting, eternal-snacking, banana-smacking Bryant over the years. He never ceases to both amaze and amuse me with his thoughtful acts and monkey antics. I'm not sure what kind of monkey he is, I saw him attempt to swing from a rope and he dropped like a dead weight into the water below. He tried twice, while his monkey buddies laughed at him on the sidelines. I believe he loves me because of my good preening capabilities, but if I find mites in his hair, I'm not eating them.

Dinner at sunset on the aft deck of our ship:

Photo, holding the garbage bag handed to me by the steward:

Proposal:

Just after:

A bit dazed:

Back in our cabin:

Speed-boating in Miami, September 2007.

We rented a boat and sailed out into the ocean.






Scuba diving in the Bahamas, September 2007.


We brought some food into the water, and these yellow tail snappers are trying to eat it. Tit-for-tat, we later ate one of them.



At our ryokan in Miyajima, Japan, November 2007.

Famous for their Shinto torii that is partially submersed in water as well as their macaca monkeys, the only monkey we were able to find is standing behind us.

Bryant and Ching met at Monta Vista High School, when Ching made the first move and asked Bryant to be her Chemistry lab partner. Two years later, math and science brought us together again as we swapped Calculus books, resulting in an agreement to become partners in our Biology class. Soon after, we started spending a lot of time together inside and outside the classroom. This was to our lab partners' dismay as they were abused as third and fourth wheels.

We stayed together through college even though we went to separate schools -- UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. Warcraft, Starcraft, Tetrinet, Counter-Strike, and ICQ chats were the staple of our online dates. Long distance phone cards preceeded cell phones, and so our college roomies were subjected to our late night conversations. See "lab partners", above.

After graduating from college, we again ended up working in separate cities -- Microsoft in Seattle and EMC in San Jose. As the saying goes, "absence makes the heart grow fonder," and Ching moved up to the Evergreen state where we now live in Kirkland. Happy that our time together has come to fruition, our friends all too jubilantly remind us of what they've been through.