AVP San Francisco 2009
Judy and I met up with a bunch of friends at this year’s AVP in San Francisco where Judy was able to get a bunch of photos with some AVP stars.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrel Dog
I spotted Latte romping around outside with a big leaf stuck to her head. It was quite comical so I decided to snap some photos. In addition to the leaf, I found that she had stuff hanging from her lip as well as a bug crawling on her forehead. Latte is truly a dirty rotten scoundrel dog.
The RohJuh Dance Has Gone Global!
As many who read this site know, Judy and I showed off our, uh, “dance skills” during our wedding reception. Well, it looks like our little routine has gone global. Yesterday, I received an email from a soon-to-be-married couple from Iceland (yeah, Iceland!) who wants to do their own “surprise first dance”. They stumbled upon the video of our first dance, liked what they saw (or at least the music 
) and asked for a copy of the dance mix I created. How cool is that?
Anyhow, the mix is too big for email (28 MB .aif file) so I’m posting it here so they (or anyone else for that matter) can download.
Here it is: Roger and Judy’s Reception Dance Mix
Glorious Day for TiVo
Yesterday, Judge Folsom finally made his ruling in our long-standing patent litigation case against Echostar. When I joined TiVo nearly 4-1/2 years ago, this case had already begun, and it was one of the main reasons I was so optimistic about TiVo’s future. Well, the wheels of justice turn a lot slower than I had expected, but they do turn, and fortunately the outcome is as I had hoped.
Who knows what shenanigans Charlie Ergen (Echostar’s CEO) has planned next, but this ruling is very significant and most analysts seem to agree that ol’ Charlie has just about run out of options. The market seems to agree with TiVo stock up nearly 50%.
Injuries and Muscle-Ups
From an injury standpoint, the last 6 months haven’t been very good for me. I developed a pretty bad case of climber’s elbow (basically the same thing as the more commonly known “tennis elbow”) last November. Prior to the injury, I had already committed to going on a climbing trip to Joshua Tree, and although I tried to take it easy on that trip, I’m pretty sure I ended up aggravating my condition.
You know things aren’t good when you can’t even lift an empty glass mug without feeling a shooting pain. With climbing injuries, I’ve learned the hard way that the best course of action is to entirely cease all climbing and to just let things heal. So I did the right thing and put my climbing gym membership on hold which meant no climbing for at least a month. Much to my dismay, the nature of the injury also meant no volleyball either since the act of passing or bumping the ball would hurt my arm (although strangely enough, it didn’t really hurt when hitting).
Despite depriving myself of climbing and volleyball, the healing process was aggravatingly slow. I ended up having to extend the hold on my climbing membership to two months. By mid-January, however, my arm was finally feeling better and I was optimistic that I would be back in action soon.
January marks the beginning of snowboarding season and I was happy that my climber’s elbow wouldn’t affect my ability to snowboard. Well, as (bad) luck would have it, I ended up spraining the MCL on my left knee during my very first snowboarding trip of the year. So just as my arm was almost healed, I screw up another part of my body. 
More…
Kirkwood & Heavenly
Here’s some pics from our weekend snowboarding trip to Tahoe. We went to Kirkwood on Saturday and then hit Heavenly for the first time on Sunday. The weather was absolutely beautiful as you can see from the photo above.
My dilapidated knee held up much better than I thought it would. In fact, it actually felt stronger after the trip than before. Hopefully that means it’s well on its way to a full recovery.
Sierra at Tahoe & Northstar
I decided to join Mike for a weekend snowboarding trip to Tahoe. Judy wasn’t quite in the mood to go on such a last-minute trip (the notion of going didn’t cross my mind until late Friday afternoon), and since several of Mike’s buddies flaked, it ended up just being Mike and myself.
We stayed at Mike’s timeshare in the Tahoe area and hit Sierra at Tahoe the first day. It was my first time there and I wasn’t too impressed as the resort is quite small with not a lot of varied terrain. My favorite part of the resort was one of the parks which had perfectly sized (for me) jumps and boxes, but I only got two runs through it before they closed it off for some kind of class. 
The next day, we hit Northstar which I liked much better than Sierra. Conditions were much improved as well and we were able to find quite a few stashes of good powder in the trees. We were having loads of fun until about mid afternoon when I took a jump slightly off balance and somehow hyper-extended my leg/knee on the landing. I tried doing another run, but quickly realized that the injury was serious enough that I couldn’t finish out the day. I headed back down early while Mike did a few more runs.
At first, my knee didn’t feel too bad (not good for sure, but not that bad), but I did have a noticeable limp. As time passed and my body cooled down during the drive back, things really stiffened up and by the time we got home, I had a seriously pronounced limp. Hopefully I can get over this soon. Oh well, I guess that’s what I get for going snowboarding without Judy.
I only took a small handful of pics.
Steamboat Springs
Some photos and vids from our first trip to Steamboat Springs.
Mike’s Graduation
Mike recently graduated from SJSU with an Industrial Design degree so the group threw him a little celebration party. Photos courtesy of Charles.
Joshua Tree
Some pics and vids from the climbing trip Ben and I took to Joshua Tree.
The Reception Dance
For our wedding reception “first dance”, Judy and I decided to do something a bit different. Rather than the typical ballroom dance set to a mushy love song, we decided to inject some fun and liveliness into our first dance.
We decided to come up with our own routine set to an original music mix (GarageBand totally rocks!). Not being anything close to professional dancers, we scoured the internet for fun (and funny!) dance moves that weren’t too hard to do.
Judy is a huge Friends fan (she TiVos multiple episodes everyday) and we both thought Ross and Monica’s dance in “The Routine” episode was absolutely hilarious. If you haven’t seen it before, you really should. Here’s a clip on YouTube. We definitely wanted to incorporate elements from their dance into our routine.
YouTube turned out to be a great resource. We found great inspiration from Judson Laipply’s ‘Evolution of Dance‘ as well as this couple’s non-traditional wedding dance. We also pulled a few moves from the movie Hitch, particularly the scene where Albert (Kevin James) shows Hitch (Will Smith) his “dance moves”. Since we both grew up in the 80’s, we simply had to have some moves from Michael Jackson and M.C. Hammer. Thanks once again to YouTube, we had ready access to videos from both these artists.
Coming up with a routine, especially if you’re not a dancer, can be pretty hard, but what’s even harder is coming up with the music to match the routine. You’ve got to find the right music with the right beat, properly adjust fades and transitions, snip and clip songs to the right durations, and at times, add your own sounds and sound effects. Let me tell you, it can be quite time-consuming! Good thing I can be a bit OCD when it comes to creative pursuits.
So without further adieu, here are the video clips of the dance. Big thanks go out to Derek who captured the dance on video. Several others took video as well, but I think this is the best one since it is from straight on. I’m trying to acquire the other video clips and will post them when I get them.
Roger & Judy’s 1st Dance (medium quality, 39 MB)
Due to its reasonable file size, this one’s recommended for most people.
Roger & Judy’s 1st Dance (higher quality, 153 MB)
This file’s huge so it’s only recommended for those with super-fast internet connections.
UPDATE: I’ve added details of the music used in our dance as well as the accompanying dance moves. More…
Reception Slideshow
Here’s the slideshow we put together for the wedding. It shows pics from Judy’s childhood, my childhood, us with various family and friends, and finally pics of just the two of us. It ends with a pretty cool effect in which a snapshot is taken from a short video clip.
Unfortunately, these slideshows are huge files. I made extensive use of the Ken Burns Effect which essentially makes the slideshow one big video file instead of just a collection of photos.
Reception Slideshow (medium quality, 113 MB)
This one’s recommended for most people. It’s still a pretty big file so if you don’t have a fast connection, you may have to wait a while for it to load.
Reception Slideshow (higher quality, 399 MB)
This file’s really huge so it’s only recommended for those with super-fast internet connections.
Reception Pics
We definitely used up a bunch of 1s and 0s during our reception – there’s quite a few photos, so many that I didn’t bother to go through and filter them.
You can click on the pic above (or here) to get to the general reception photo album or use one of the more direct links below.
Pics from Judy’s life, some of which were used in the slideshow.
Pics from my life, some of which were used in the slideshow.
Pics of Judy pre-reception taken by Judy’s Uncle Lyon.
Pics of the reception by Accolade Photography, the professional photographers we hired for the job.
Latte’s Wedding Gown
For reasons unknown, Judy’s mom was super excited to have a wedding dress made for Latte. At times, it seemed that she was more excited about Latte’s dress than our actual wedding.
Here’s some pics of Latte in her custom made dress. I don’t think Latte cared too much for the outfit.
New Baby Grand!
We got a knock on our front door this afternoon and when Judy answered, the guy at the door informed us that he was here to deliver a piano. Huh? You must have the wrong address because we didn’t buy a piano. Well, we (Judy and I) didn’t buy a piano, but it turns out that Judy’s parents did. As part of a wedding gift, Judy’s mom and dad got us a beautiful Kawai baby grand piano. Wow!
About two years ago, Judy decided to sell our baby grand, primarily because the place we were living in at the time was too small. Now that we’re living in a much larger place, we easily have enough room to fit it. The new piano is nearly identical to our old one, and it plays and sounds just as good.
Here’s some pics of our new piano. Thanks mom and dad!
