bonnie & jason

Mountain Biking at Skegg’s Point

It’s been about a year since I’ve done any mountain biking but I had the opportunity to visit Skegg’s Point again this morning with Woozy and a couple of his friends. I’ve forgotten how much fun mountain biking is. Sure, I like just stepping out the door and road biking. But the single track trails of El Corte de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve make for some entertaining riding that justify the drive down there. The road biking I’ve done recently has definitely helped the legs and the lungs, but I’m definitely a bit out of practice with the more technical stuff steering around rocks/trees/holes/etc. Oh well… at least I didn’t take a major fall this time around. Woozy wasn’t so lucky as you can see from the state of his shirt. (By the way, this picture was taken with the same camera that I broke in said “major fall”.)

Reached my weight goal today!

You probably haven’t been paying attention to the additional tab at the top of the blog, but I’ve made my goal of reaching 160 lbs a month ahead of schedule. I’ve rewarded myself with (finally) getting a PS3. Should be here today. Woot! Now I’m thinking I might try to get to 155… which was my marathon training weight from years ago. These last 5 lbs might be quite a bit harder to lose than the first 10 lbs though. We’ll see!

Alissa’s 18 month checkup

Alissa had her 18 month exam last week and received a clean bill of health along with a few shots. She’s now 20 lbs 6 oz and 30.5″ tall. Still small for her age but nothing to be concerned about according to Dr. Langston. Developmentally, she seems to be doing fine, picking up more and more words every day imitating things she sees us do. One of the funnier things she started doing is feeding Elmo. Not only does she like to give him water, but we’ve also found him lying prone on the floor with what looks like a pound of Cheerios around his mouth. It’s like she suffocated him with the stuff.

Wii fit is hiilarious

I was one of the lucky ones who pre-ordered the Wii Fit on Amazon before it officially launched so we’ve been playing with ours here and there for the last week or so. Overall, it’s pretty fun. I wouldn’t say it’s life changing or anything but I guess it’s better than sitting on your butt eating bon-bons all night. I’m actually looking forward to what other games come out that make use of the board. Although the actual Wii Fit games are fun, they’re pretty basic following the formula of Wii Play and Wii Sports. I hear there is a Raving Rabids game coming out that will use it so that might be interesting.

Anyway, on to the main reason for this post… embarrassing family. Here are four videos starring Benita (I’m in one of them). She’ll probably kill me for posting these, but oh well. She can write her own blog and return the favor some day.

This next one is funniest at the end since it looks like we’re going into convulsions as we race for the finish line.

This one is the funniest one to me. Benita looks like she’s doing the Elaine dance!

2008 06 01 Wii Fit Benita from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Alissa’s 15 month checkup

Alissa made some good progress in height! She’s now 29″ tall which is at the 15th percentile… finally out of the single digits percentile-wise. She’s only 18 lbs 13 oz (3rd percentile) though, so she’s still on the small side overall. Good thing is (I think) that her head is 17.75″ at the 40th percentile.

Otherwise, not much going on. Here are a few snaps to celebrate the Easter weekend.

We’ve been sick

Alissa has been fighting a cold for the last week or so. Unfortunately, I caught the same cold late last week but both of us are on the tail end of it I think.

I’m not sure if it’s related to her cold, but Alissa has refused to take milk the last couple days. One of our theories is that she may have developed an ear infection which made sucking milk out of a bottle painful. We’ve been trying to get her to change her habits with regard to milk for a while now so this may be a blessing in disguise. Perhaps, instead of requiring warm milk, in a bottle, held by us, she’ll start accepting cold milk in a sippy cup held by herself. One can dream, no?

So instead of milk, we’ve been trying to feed her liquids in other ways. Mushier oatmeal, thin mashed potatoes, jello, and her favorite, yogurt/milk/peach smoothie. Funny thing is, she takes the smoothie through a straw in a cup we got from T.G.I.Fridays. And she wants you to take a sip after she takes a sip. She’s so high maintenance. Oh well, as long as she doesn’t get dehydrated I guess.

In other news, Alissa is done with swim classes now and seems to be more comfortable with water. She still doesn’t like it in her face, but it’s not as big a deal as it used to be.

Also, today, she refused to go down for her second nap and so instead, decided to take one half way through dinner.


2007 02 24 Alissa falling asleep while eating from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

And finally, here’s Alissa laughing at how silly daddy looks when trying to imitate her:

Alissa’s nine month checkup (and some random pics)

Alissa was 16 lbs, 6 oz (10th percentile), 25.75″ long (4th percentile) at her nine month appointment yesterday. This is down from the 25th and 10th percentile numbers from her six month appointment. Not to worry though, Dr. Langston said she’s doing fine and that he won’t really be concerned at all until she’s two years old. Interestingly, her head was 17″ in circumference which is at the 25th percentile. So I guess she’s short, chubby, with a huge head!

Despite her top-heavy weight distribution, she’s been crawling and climbing and pulling herself up with abandon. So far, no major falls or anything, but she’s getting harder to keep track of. I have a feeling she’ll be walking before her 1st birthday so we’ll enjoy this time before she starts running around the house.

Anyway, here are some random pictures that I had on my phone and on other miscellaneous memory cards that I thought were worth sharing.

Alissa with Aunt Viv at Okazu Ya:

Alissa and grandma at her office before she retired (Alissa 6 months old):

Alissa and me on her first plane ride:

Aidan with his eyes open and brow furrowed:

I got a new (used) bike!

I’ve been riding my bike to BART to go to work lately in order to get some exercise, save some money on parking, and do my part to save the world. (These bike lockers work great by the way.) But my mountain bike is kind of a pain. It’s heavy so it’s hard to carry up and down the stairs. Plus, since I’m going to work and don’t want to be stinky and sweaty, it’s inherent inefficiency means I have to pedal pretty slowly (has nothing to do with how out of shape I am). Finally, it’s always been kinda dirty (it is a “mountain” bike after all) so I always end up messing up either my pants or my hands or something.

So, what to do? Well, as it turns out, this problem like so many problems is easily solved by spending money. So I spent $650 on this used bike I found on Craigslist.

It’s an older Lemond Zurich, a traditional steel frame bike, with some nice Shimano Dura Ace components. It has some other nominal upgrades as well. I think the frame is from 1999 (EDIT: It’s from 1997) and the components are probably from the same era although I’ve had a hard time confirming this via web search. I took it on it’s inaugural ride with Dennis this morning. So far so good although I’ll probably bring it to the bike shop for a tune up.

(And yes, the studio backdrop and lights are still up.)

Woohoo! New sneaks!

My dad was nice enough to offer to buy me some new sneakers for the marathon since my old ones are a bit beat up.  I’ve had them since the last marathon in Chicago a few years ago so they’ve had a good run (pun intended).  I decided to stick with Asics since they got me through the first two races ok.  After doing a little research, I decided on a few to try out and ended up with the cheapest of the bunch, the 1120.  They just seemed to be more comfy than the more expensive ones.  Also, they were on sale at Dick’s so they were a good deal even compared to online prices.  Finally, PA has no sales tax on clothes so that helped too.  Anyway, no excuse to not run now.  Next on the list to buy… the Garmin Forerunner 305!

Alissa’s 4 month checkup

Alissa had her four month dr. appt yesterday and was given a clean bill of health. She’s now 12 lbs, 6 ozs (25th percentile), 23 inches long (10th percentile) with a head circumference of 15 inches (25th percentile). Still a little on the small side but moving towards the average.