Goin' to the chapel...

We're heading to Ithaca today! And on Saturday, Jim and I will (finally!) be married :-)

I'm so happy I'm giddy.

Snorkeling in Japan, part 2

Snorkeling in Japan, Part 1

These beautiful shots were taken from a beach on Akajima Island - with my amazing Olympus camera (unfortunately it leaked halfway through the day, letting me use my Best Buy warrantee... again...) but it did take some sweet shots before then!

practice cake!

We're having pies instead of cake for our wedding, but I am making a small cake to cut (since cutting and feeding pie to one another is a recipe for spills). Here's my attempt #2!

Cat picture

Just 'cause the dog seems to get all the play anymore...


I think she looks like a sleepy yoda...

Bachelor Camping Trip!

Last weekend Scott, my best man, organized a weekend camping trip to the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania as a last hurrah for my bachelor-dom. It was a lot of fun (despite some torrential downpours), and I'm really grateful to Scott for putting it together!


This is the Grand Canyon itself...try to imagine it without trees (like it was when it was named) and it might look more canyony.


This is Scott during one of the weekend's downpours looking out over the gorge. There's two parks, on opposite sides. One had lots of guiderails and railings...the other left you more to your own devices.



The rain had some advantages, though, especially after it cleared up...



There were some good wildlife sightings. There's a large porcupine perched in the top of the hemlock tree in this picture (take my word for it).



Guess which one's a plant and which one's a fungus! I love hiking with entomologist/biologists.



And the required bug pick...this one died of fungus!



And the aftermath...after a weekend of mountain pies, honey roasted peanuts, cookies, and dutch-oven cobbler, this is what I ate for the next two days :)

coming up next...

dancing, karaoke, more ocean pictures, snorkeling and japanese toilets, as well as other random pictures from the Japan trip...

Food in Japan

The reception and symposium dinner were both amazing - the first catered and held in the Ocean Hall at the conference center and the second held at a restaurant with traditional dancing and music. Here are some pictures from the first reception:

More Japan pictures...

Some pictures from Nago City, where our hotel was. The views are from our hotel balcony. We stayed at the Yugaf Inn, which was really nice, had great views, fantastic food for breakfast and very interesting bathrooms...
The bar pictured is the one we took over a few times for karaoke. The bartenders were so nice to a bunch of foreigners...

Japan!

Some pictures from my recent trip to Japan for the 4th CBE (chemosynthesis based ecosystems) symposium in Okinawa!


This is the beach outside one of the hotels (the Kise Beach Palace) where we crashed the first night. The net is to keep out box jellyfish, which are really poisonous, so although the water's gorgeous they don't recommend swimming in it near human settlements (where the jellyfish are worst) outside of a net.





The previous five images are from the conference center itself. It was actually held where the G8 summit was held in 2000. So beautiful!

Fun with a digital SLR!

So I borrowed a Nikon D80 for a few days last week to take pictures for a class. I spent most of the time taking pictures of dead animals (Yay! Forensics!), but I also got some less disgusting pictures:



And just 'cause I can't resist, some dead animal pics :)

Shasta helps with dinner!

Pastry Chef Shasta's a messy baker! (or rather when she stands underneath me at the counter she gets rained on :)