This afternoon Caroline, Mai, and I met up with some friends at Kelley Park in San Jose. Kelley Park is one of the nicest parks in the area, with a Japanese-style garden, a Historical San Jose section, and even a zoo (which is currently closed, unfortunately).

After we arrived (a bit late because I overestimated my navigation abilities, made a wrong turn, and forgot how far away it was), we first walked around the Japanese Friendship Gardens. Our friends’ daughter especially loved the ducks and fish in the various ponds. We then walked next door to the San Jose History Park, where she had lots of fun looking at and playing with the various trains and riding the trolley.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the park:

You can see all the photos from today’s visit to the park at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/7241145_HyD7a.

A selection of advice from generations of Teaching Fellows at Harvard University, edited by Gordon Silverstein.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you write an essay:

1. Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
2. Never use no double negatives.
3. Use the semicolon properly, always where it is appropriate; and never where it is not.
4. Reserve the apostrophe for it’s proper use and omit it where it is not needed.
5. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
6. No sentence fragments.
7. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
8. Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
9. When you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
10. A writer must not shift your point of view.
11. Do not overuse exclamation marks!!! (In fact, avoid them whenever possible!!!)
12. And do not start a sentence with a conjunction.
13. Place pronouns as closely as possible, especially in long sentences, as of ten or more words, to their antecedents.
14. Hyphenate only between syllables and avoid un-necessary hyphens.
15. Write all adverbial forms correct.
16. Don’t use contractions.
17. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
18. It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.
19. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
20. Steer clear of incorrect verb forms that have snuck into the language.
21. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.
22. Avoid modernisms that sound flaky.
23. Avoid barbarisms: they impact too forcefully.
24. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
25. Everyone should be careful to use singular pronouns with singular nouns in their writing.
26. If we’ve told you once, we’ve told you a thousand times: avoid hyperbole.
27. Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.
28. Do not string a large number of prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
29. Always pick on the the correct idiom.
30. “Avoid overuse of ‘quotation’ ‘marks.’”
31. Never use more words than are necessary to get your point across: be concise.
32. Awayz check you’re spelling. (Your spellchecker would only pick up one of the two errors here.)
33. Always be avoided by the passive voice.
34. Every sentence a verb.
35. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague: seek viable alternatives.

After the fun time I had at the last SacAnime (where I attended only on Saturday), I wanted to come for all three days. Real Life made it impossible for me to come on Friday, but coming for the weekend was doable.  I was a little concerned about how many cosplayers would come on Sunday, though. At some large conventions like Dragon*Con, the last day is pretty dead, with few if any people in costume. As it turned out, though, after a fairly slow morning, there were a good number of cosplayers by lunchtime. The cosplay fashion show, while not as well organized as the masquerade, was fun to watch and photograph. I got a chance to meet Tom Kane and listen to him do a number of very different voices in rapid succession. I also had fun talking to some of the cosplayers. All in all I was very happy I stayed for day 3, even though I was dead-tired by the end (and had to drive an hour out of my way coming home to pick up our new cat).

Here are some of my favorite photos from part three, the final batch of SacAnime photos:

You can see the rest of the January 2009 part 3 photos at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/7131623_U2jXU.

Many thanks to Caroline, my long-suffering wife, who stayed home alone with our 15-month-old daughter while I was having fun at the convention, picked out the photos worth posting when I got home, and provided lots of useful feedback during the entire editing process!

Final photo stats for SacAnime: 1621 photos taken; 42 deleted immediately, for a total of 1579 photos (17.1GB) sorted through on the computer. Of those, 773 (49%) were posted. Total size of files archived: 40GB. It’s a good thing 1TB drives have come down in price…

Because taking photos during the masquerade itself is challenging, most conventions have a pre- or post-masquerade photo shoot. This allows photographers to get “clean” shots of all masquerade participants in a controlled environment. Because most shoots are restricted to press and official photographers only, I’ve never been able to take pictures at any of these photo shoots. (Well, I did take pictures at the post-masquerade photo shoot at the Anaheim WorldCon, but it was more or less open to all photographers.)

This year, I decided that since I had a blog and a long history of shooting conventions, I would request access to SacAnime’s pre-masquerade shoot. To my surprise, my request was granted, and I was able to join two other photographers backstage to take every group’s photos. Afterwards, during the masquerade itself, I was also given front-row seats from which to take photos. Despite having to deal with a loose flash bracket and a lens with focus issues, I think I did pretty well for my first time shooting a masquerade as an “official” photographer.

Because of the number of photos from SacAnime, I’m splitting them into three galleries. Here are my favorites from part two:

You can see the rest of the January 2009 part 2 photos at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/7100851_uRGaF. Barring any unexpected issues, part 3 will be posted this weekend.

This past weekend I attended SacAnime, an anime convention in Sacramento, CA. Caroline wanted to come, but Mai is not at a good age for conventions. She’s no longer so young that she’ll sleep through most of it, but she still needs Mom or Dad to keep her occupied. We’re hoping we’ll be able to take her to Dragon*Con in the fall; if not, I may end up going there with friends instead.

Because of the number of photos from SacAnime, I’m splitting them into three galleries. Here are a few of my favorites from part one:

You can see the rest of the January 2009 part 1 photos at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/7091780_Db5xg. Barring any unexpected issues, part 2 will be posted in the next few days.

Caroline, Mai, and I had a fun time at Ian and Peggie’s New Year’s Eve party last week.  Caroline had to take Mai home early, but I ended up staying pretty late.

Not surprisingly, Ian and I took lots of pictures. Ian had just gotten a new flash, so he set up his old flash as a slave and we had fun experimenting with it.

Here are my photos:

You can see the rest of my photos at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/6985355_i4C82.

Here are some of Ian’s photos:

You can see the rest of Ian’s photos at http://photos.codrus.com/gallery/6980054_iSj6V.

This year we spent most of Chanukah at Indio relaxing and enjoying the nice weather. We didn’t exchange presents (this is really more of a Christmas ritual) but we lit candles and listened to a lot of Chanukah music.

You can see the rest, including one of Mai in her construction equipment pajamas, at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/6994600_pjuhp.

Caroline, Mai, and I spent the last week in December in Indio, California. Located near Palm Springs, Indio is a great vacation spot in the desert, and is the perfect place to go in the middle of winter.

We stayed at the WorldMark resort. It was our first time there, and we definitely want to go back. In addition to the usual pools, hot tubs, lazy river, etc, there were several man-made lakes and rivers throughout the complex, including one about 10 feet behind our unit’s patio. The lakes were home to a large number of very friendly ducks. After being fed by resort guests for so long, they were not at all shy about coming up to you if they thought you might have food for them.

Since we were in the desert, the sunsets were especially beautiful.

You can see all the photos from Indio at http://photo.oscarc.net/gallery/6981339_uewVm.