Here, courtesy of Rannie “Photojunkie” Turingan, is a sample of the shots he took at my wedding. The rest will be available soon.
Pictured below: Dad, in his barong, about an hour before the ceremony.
Photo by Rannie Turingan.
Sunset today marks the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. As you might know, my wife (Wife!
Gotta get used to saying that) is Jewish, and we’ll celebrate with the
traditional apples and honey as well as adding an Asian twist by having
noodles for dinner — the traditional Chinese New Year food symbolizing
long life.
Whether you say “happy new year” as “shana tovah!” or “manigong bagong taon!“, have a happy one, everybody!
This year’s Shabot 6000 comic on Rosh Hashanah is a Flash animation that plays off the tequila/tekiyah
pun. Alas, it’s nowhere nearly as good as last year’s comic, which
remains, in this humble gentile’s opinion, the best Rosh Hashanah comic
ever:
Click the comic to see it on its original page.
Actually, we’ve been back since Tuesday afternoon, but have been taking
it easy. Wendy and I arrived home to find a note from my sister
informing us that she left us some just-heat-it-and-eat-it stuff from
Ma Maison, a great French restaurant around the corner for her place. I
was expecting to order pizza that night, but instead we supped on some
very tasty salmon with shredded carrots and baby bok choy, salad and
apple tarts. Thanks, sis!
Wednesday was really “Wend’s Day”, as I took her about town on a
just-for-her kind of day. We first went to Rol San for dim sum (j,
we’ll have to take you here the next time you’re in town) and then to
Steve’s Music Store to pick out my wedding present to her: an acoustic
guitar. She picked out a lovely dark brown wild cherry solid-top Art
& Lutherie axe and has already learned a couple of chords. After
that, she got her hair cut at W on Queen Street West. She grew her hair
out for the wedding, but the long hair’s been driving her crazy. It’s
now a very cute bob. Finally, we grabbed a turkey/brie/avocado sandwich
at the Drake Hotel Cafe and headed home for guitar practice and to give
our new Playstation 2 game, We 
Katamari, a good workout.
I love this shot:
Photo by Ethan Zuckerman. Click it to see the source image.
As you’ve probably guessed, the blog’s been silent for the past week
because I’ve been getting ready for my wedding on Saturday. Things are
a little less crazy and I hope to write about what I’ve been up to in
my remaining hours as a free man.
I’ve been in Boston since Monday afternoon, staying with Wendy at her
parents’ place. Her folks are wonderful people and have made me feel
like one of the family (and yes, Mom, I’ve been helping clear the table
after dinner). Earlier this morning, I received a very sweet “on this
momentous occasion in your life” letter from
Mom and Dad.
The earliest of the early birds arrive tonight (Wednesday night); some
of my family from both Manila and Toronto should be in Camrbridge by
tomorrow night (Thursday). The wedding rehearsal will take place on
Friday, followed by a dinner for the wedding party and then a dessert
party to which all the out-of-town guests are invited. The big event, as the countdown
clock in the upper left-hand corner of this web page will show you, is
on Saturday.
I’ll try to squeeze in a quick post whenever I can, but there are no
guarantees. You know how it is with these life-changing ceremonies…
Marc Canter, in a roundabout way, has played an important role in my career. He was behind the multimedia authoring tool Director, the first development tool I ever used after graduating from school.
Although my computer science degree and strong marks in my database courses meant that I could’ve landed a job at a bank or insurance firm, I wanted slightly more offbeat work. I ended up working for an interactive multimedia company, Mackerel Interactive Multimedia, where I used Director. Thanks to Director and Mackerel, I’ve been doing “road less travelled” techie work ever since.
(Cory Doctorow wrote a piece about Mackerel for Wired titled Burying the Fish. Although commissioned, it was never published.)
Canter’s in Accordion City this week, and sent Boss Ross some email inviting him for lunch. The most notable line in the email, which was cc’d to me:
OK dude - so how 'bout lunch on the 8th?We’re staying at the Four Seasons – wanna do dim sum or something like that?
Bring Accordian Boy.
That’s Accordion MAN, dude!
Coming along with me and Boss Ross is Tucows’ new VP of Product Development, Alain Chesnais, who in former lives worked at ATI and Alias, partially because this is the sort of meetup that he should be attending and partially as a “welcome to the herd!” activity.
It should be a fun lunch — dim sum — and I’m sure photos and a blog entry will follow.
Meanwhile, back in Accordion City…
My nephew and sister’s youngest son, Ryan Joseph deVilla-Choi, turned
100 days old on Thursday. Ryan’s dad, my brother-in-law Richard, is
Korean, so we observed the Korean tradition of celebrating Baek-il, the
100 day anniversary of a baby’s birth.
The man of the hour!
The family gathered at my sister’s house, complete with Auntie Beth,
who’s visiting from the Phillippines, Mom and Dad, whom the boys refer
to as “Dodo” and “Yoya” (their pronunciations of “Lolo” and “Lola”,
Tagalog for “grandpa” and “grandma”) and Richard’s parents, who flew in
from Vancouver for the big event. The boys call them “Haroboji” and
“Halmonyi” (Korean for “grandma” and “grandma”).
From left to right: Nico, Ryan and Aidan.
We had a delicious Korean dinner of kimchi (spicy Korean cabbage),
galbi (barbecued beef), bin dae duk (vegetable pancakes), jap chae
(clear noodles) and Chateauneuf du Pape (okay, that’s not Korean — we deVillas and Chois believe
you can both pay homage to your own tradition and do the vive la difference thing). Richard’s folks certainly know how to cook up a tasty Korean meal.
If you’ve never had Korean food before, you’re missing out on a meat-a-licious treat.
100-day cake.
Dinner was followed by the traditional cake served on Baek-il: baeksolgi,
a very dense cake made of steamed rice. Something along the lines
of “Happy 100 Days!” is spelled out in Korean on top of the cake using
raisins.
I’m not all that keen on the baeksolgi — it’s pretty bland
and almost as dense as depleted uranium — but I gladly finished the large slice that Richard’s mom gave me to be polite. However, I will always show up at an event where Richard’s parents are making Korean barbecue.
Nico, Dad and Aidan watch the 100-day cake.
Baek-il is one of two Korean traditions celebrating the passage of a
baby from one age to another. In addition to celebrating a baby’s 100th
day of life, another very important birthday is the first birthday,
which the Koreans call Dol. Both traditions stem from “the bad old
days” when medicine and hygiene weren’t as advanced and the rate of
infant mortality was much higher. Making it past the first 100 days was
a sign that you’d live to see your first birthday, and making it past
your first birthday was a sign that you’d at least make it out of
infancy.
Frustrated with the lack of milk, Ryan takes matters into his own hands.
Congratulations, Ryan! Happy Baek-il!