i love basketball so much

Really, it's been almost a year since I last posted on this thing.

2007-09-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

I guess I'll do another one of those "Re-cap of the year in pictures"!!!

Here we go...

Oh wow, let's start it off with NYE! What was the quote of the trip?
"if you had told me 5 months ago that I'd be partying on NYE with Catherine Ganapathy, I'd tell you to F*** off" - Jena Fair

Who would've thunk we'd become such great friends and not only did we party on NYE but there was also crazy Spokane and we're planning our October Babies birthday together!!! Jena, Tiff, Manpreet - you ladies rock, so glad we get to ball together and have fun, wild times while we're out and about. Go Sasha!

Then there was the infamous Vegas - 2007 trip. It all started off innocently with a crew of Shirley, Sandy and Cat heading spontaneously to Las Vegas to meet up with Jon Mabanta & friends. Within 24 hours, that crew expanded with JayB and Elton showing up a day later, spontaneously as well!

Within the next 24 hours we consumed a ton of alcohol, a ton of food, and met a ton of great people from Vegas and Newport! It was so much fun, that Elton felt the need to minimize the fun a little bit and get some rest in the Las Vegas hospital. He got about 36 hours of rest, and then we headed back to good ol' Vancouver.

It was the most fun & most scary trip I have ever been on...in the end everybody was healthy, safe and all smiles!

Moving right along...Jayno and I started our dance offs in 2007...

This is why I love basketball...

2006-09-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

Click here for video: Greatest Internet Video of All Time

Following the release of that video, Lang posts again:

"Yesterday I posted The Greatest Internet Video of All Time, which features the 1986 Hawks getting their groove on. One of the more vibrant participants in the video is Doc Rivers, then the Hawks point guard. Doc and John Battle engage in some sort of hand jive choreography and then Doc slips on some shades and mimics either Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles, or perhaps it’s a brilliant imitation of both of them mixed into one.
Anyway, after the video started burning up the internet yesterday, Doc sent me this email earlier today…

FROM: Doc Rivers
SUBJECT: Forever Uncool
Just when I had my kids convinced that their Dad was cool, they discover that video. They loved it. They’re showing all their friends. They have also informed me not to bring up the words hip or cool ever again.Doc

Hey you Rivers kids, for nothing if because your Dad emailed me to respond to the video, Doc will always is mad cool. Give him a break and go mow the lawn or do some chores! (And maybe put on some sunglasses and wave your head back and forth.)"

*sigh* i heart you basketball

Wimbledon Invitational 2006: Vancouver vs. Richmond

2006-09-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

A few elite individuals were lucky enough to receive an invite to the Wimbledon Invitational 2006: Vancouver vs. Richmond.

Round 1 Elites:

Team Richmond - Steve Sweats A Lot Agassi Lau & Rina Rock It Don't Stop It Graf Arienda

Team Vancouver - Lord Jaynour Federer Nolasco the 17th & Lady Catherine Sampras Ganapathy the 3rd

After a hard fought battle on the green court, Team Vancouver came back from behind and was victorious with the score being: 4-6, 7-6, 6-4.

Hats off to both teams for a well played and intense match.

The reason for our existance...the glorious plate!

Click here for the Wimbledon Album Pictures

Hay-Wong Wedding

2006-09-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

I volunteered to help out my cousin, Colin Wong, with his wedding. He assigned me the duty of "Guest Book Organizer/Seating Director" (fancy name I made up). Basically I am the first face that people see when they get to the reception. I help them sign in to the guest book and let them know which table they are seated at. Pretty easy job right? I can't screw it up...

WRONG!

Of course, the day of the wedding is the day that I completely lose my voice! I am reduced down to a whisper. Thanks to my big bro for helping me out and being my vocals for the day. I just smiled/nodded/pointed a lot.

The ceremony was held at Queen Elizabeth Park in the Rose Garden. I didn't bring my camera there, so no pics from that. The reception was up at Grouse Mountain. Here are a few snaps from the reception.

Must give a big pat on the back to Trish, for the beautiful cupcake wedding cake that she masterfully created. I had no idea cupcakes could be so fancy!

The bride, Christine Hay, made these centerpieces.

Mr. & Mrs. WONG!

My mom and bro

Grandma & me

My favorite pic of the night. They look like they're waiting to be executed. In actuality they're just playing one of those wedding games where you blindfold people, and the bride & groom (blindfolded too) have to try to identify each other by groping a bunch of hands.

I heart my cousins.
Picture is bleh, the outdoors + nighttime = my camera not working well.

FYI - it's not that fun going to a wedding when you can't talk to anybody, but nonetheless it was a beautiful wedding/reception and most importantly the bride/groom had the best day of their lives!

Vegas 2006 - Jeff Torres Celebration of LIFE!

2006-09-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

City: Las Vegas
Hotel: Caesars Palace
Date: Labour Day Weekend
People: Great Friends

Activities: Poolside lounging, Gun Shooting, Tryst/Pure Bottle Service Club nights, Forever 21 shopping, Seamless for the fellas & Thunder From Down Under for the ladies

Birthday Boy Jeff Torres and his suspenders

First night, clubbing at Tryst

Washroom shot with randoms...check!

Thanks for the strawberries & chocolates LL!

And then we shop...

Addicted to the pool & sun!

At Pure, the fellas

and the ladies

Gun shooting time.

Until the next trip...2007...destination unknown, for now.

it's official. we have too much fun together!

2006-03-31T19:44:00.000-08:00

a random night out at plaza, and we found out that good people = INCREDIBLY fun times!

there were some americans visiting...hopefully they had a great weekend partying with us all. and does that mean they'll be our hosts for the good friday long weekend trip to seattle? hope so!

i love these mini trips throughout the year, it's awesome to have something to look forward to. but the trip of the year is definitely going to be OC/Vegas for Jeff's birthday, wahooooooooo, i get giddy just thinking about it!

on to pictures from plaza...

plaza imagestation suckers!

Whistler was dope - Happy Birthday Steph!

2006-03-23T20:12:00.000-08:00

I'm just going to post some pics. It's late, I'm still at work, and I have no energy to be witty.

I heart random friend making.

we arrive at our place...

we go pick up some domino's

we walk to the club!

we got steph already faded from the pre-drinking...

we are the ladies of the trip.

we are hard.

we are pulp fiction.

we walk to the next club

we got steph hurting from the pre-drinking still

we got dennis up to whistler and totally SMASHED!

we got poutine canadian *drooooool*

we are still hard...the next day.

we had awesome times snowboarding

ok fine, we're not so hard

** click here for whistler pics! **

** click here for dennis' camera! **

Pictures from Mark's camera, yay!

2006-03-23T19:54:00.000-08:00

OC = best trip ever

2006-03-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

Yes, it was the best trip ever. Surfing, swimming, shopping, eating, partying and lots of naps in between. All the things I love rolled into one trip. The only thing missing was a game of one-on-one ball with Jon.

We had great hosts. Jon's parents welcomed us with a tour around LA and martinis at the house. How awesome is that...

First night of partying started at Scorpion. Everybody came out! Here's Adam Joe and Shirley...

As the night went on, we got more drunk...as you can tell by this pic of Aaron Shirley Jon & Razae:

Our three favorite people on this trip. Mark, Jon and Razae...they took good care of us and showed us an AWESOME time.

Day 2 was supposed to be productive, but due to hangovers we ended up lounging and eating along Huntington Beach.

I was my usual narcoleptic self after dinner and took a 4 hour nap. But I woke up in time to party!!! We went to a bar called Killarneys in Huntington Beach...good times indeed.

This night gave birth to the "OC Pose of the trip"...aka stone face with glass in front of one eye. Shirley loves it...let's see how many times the pose happened:

BOOOO to Shirley, she didn't keep her stone face intact on that last one. You're kicked off the team. Whatever team that is.

Anyway, back to the evening of Day2 at Killarneys. The night went on and we got more drunk...again, you can tell by the pics:

Day 3 was surfing! YES! I heart surfing...except there aren't any pics of us in action...oh wells.

For dinner we laughed it up at Joe's CrabShack. They know how to entertain at that restaurant. From dressing people up to saran wrapping a girl to a chair to cakes in the face. Good times.

Day 4 consisted of lots of driving to shop in Santa Monica. I got to visit Undefeated and make a couple of purchases. SCORE! The night ended at Sutra where we saw Ben Roethlisberger and some UFC fighter that I don't know cuz I don't watch the UFC.

Day 5: BYE NEWPORT!!! BOOOHOOOOO!

New Years 2006

2006-01-08T15:36:00.000-08:00

New Years at the Aquarium was good people, good times, crappy makeshift bars! We partied hard with the beluga and fishies...everybody came dressed to impressed, even WALLY! YES!

Fritz Fries was open on this new year night and we were faithful...yummmm fritz fries.

On to some pictures:

i don't know what shirley's doing here but it makes me laugh...drunken shirley is awesome!

this drunken shirley is awesome too, she got a killer hold on to kev's leg...here's kev looking for some help:

and of course SUPER "helpful" Elton comes along:

before the drunk times, here's shirley, marie and moi:

now on to the imagestation, enjoy!
new years album

forgot a fave pic of the year

2006-01-03T11:25:00.000-08:00

Since Ben complained that he was in none of my FAVORITE PICS OF THE YEAR....this one is just for the Mcconnell boy....old school is in his soul:

New Year pictures are on their way. Check back soon.

i really need to make up for lost time

2005-12-30T01:42:00.000-08:00

so i think that last post i made was the last time i had FREE TIME. Now it's almost a year later, and i'm revelling in my office closing down for the holidays!!! This week off is awesome...and it feels so gooooooood!

i thought i would take this opportunity to post some pictures and links to imagestation albums for everybody to view.

Here are some miscellaneous favorite pics of the year:

paul in all his BLANG BLANG greatness

i don't know why my fav pics are starting off with paul, but here's another:

so we're shopping downtown and i take paul up to my office so that he can take a pee, and i let him roam around...when i go to search for poor lost paulo canlas, i find him in the staff fridge going to town on the chocolate fudge ice cream...BUSTED!:

me and joe's first weekend cruise getaway...all we did was stay in our room and watch sunday football, i loved it! oh yes, sidenote: ABC MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL RIP...you will be SO missed:

the scariest ride i went on all year (scarier than the hellevator rina!)...bella and i went on this makeshift ride at the community fair, check it out:

can't forget about my most favoritest niece in the whole wide world, baby ANNA:

my basketball homeboys and all their magic mic glory:

it was a summer of good drunken times, from plaza: RINA the human walking puking machine, to stone temple: CAT i can drink with the best of them, to jeff's bday:

to shirley's bday:

to MY bday:

to halloween:

to BURT's bday:

and it was always good times when RINA came back home:

let's backtrack to good ol' jolly england...plus paris...plus cat and shirley...plus my mom...plus my uncle and aunt....it was an awesome trip:

then there was good times at ANN & JAS' plush bday:

my camera ran out of batteries on ESTHER & JOE & TRACY's bday...dang:

then there was the event that had me drooling for hours...SNEAKERPIMPS...how i love my shoes, and the people that share the love:

ridiculously good times at fright nights:

that brings us up to speed....the HOLIDAYS...a few fave pictures before i post up the imagestation links...
a VERY MERRY EARL's CHRISTMAS...love the gag gifts elto and kev, my fave were the GRANNY PANTIES:

Christmas with the Cortes family is always good food, ruckus times, and awesome presents (OC tshirts! WHAT! Harry Potter scarf! WHAT!):

maybe i should do this blog stuff just once a year, RECAP style. hmmmmm....
here are the imagestation links. GO NUTS!

joe and i at the aquarium

shirley and i in london/paris

jeff's birthday

ann & jas' birthday

bry's housewarming

biggy's birthday

rina is home

fright nights

halloween

alanna's birthday

sneakerpimps

Burt's Birthday & Timebomb Christmas

KANYE!!!!!! *sigh*

a very merry EARL's christmas

Christmas with the Cortes Family

phewf! that took a while to post...until the new year, be safe!

ps. this blog posting is dedicated to the Camera Man of the Year 2005:

D to the Chan.

Baby Anna

2005-01-19T07:49:00.000-08:00

My cousin Trish and her husband Trevor's cuuuuuuuuuute baby! She's the bestest. I'm gonna get her addicted to Pooh bear and be that Aunt that will "always have gum".

click for anna!

Halloween 2004

2004-11-04T15:08:00.000-08:00

So i read daniel's new blog entry....he was nice enough to note that his updates were in fact a reaction to my updates and an attempt to seal his runner up spot in the competition we are having. Well, I just want to note that I've updated my blog, AGAIN! muahahahahahah!!!

Here are the pictures from another Friday night at Atlantis. This time for Halloween. It features:

1) Cat as Spongebob Squarepants
2) Ann as a 70's hippy!
3) Jas as a slutty cop...why do your costumes always involve the word slut!?!?!?!?!

There wasn't a very good turnout for costumes, boourns to the rest of you!

boo!

Cat & Mish's Bday October 2004

2004-11-02T15:30:00.000-08:00

Every year mish and i celebrate our bdays together. It's always a chore to plan our birthdays b/c both of us are always swamped with midterms+work+essays+stress+stress+stress!

Mish was on her own this year with the school stress. So I decided to plan things for the both of us. Unfortunately mish was bogged down with 2 essays that were due the Monday after our birthdays, pooh!
She wasn't able to make it out Friday night for the BC Lions game (we won!...questionably, but we won!), then DIX BBQ and Brewery, and then Atlantis. Les was able to conquer my alcohol tolerance and finished me off with tequila which resulted in my head down the toilet, fun!

Saturday night we had dinner at Tropika.

Both nights were good times, good people, good food.

Lots of pictures, clack below! (i like putting inside jokes on my blogs and seeing who gets it, that's right CLACKITY CLACK below! hahahaha)

clackity clack!

McConnell's Thanksgiving 2004

2004-11-02T15:24:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to be invited over to the McConnell residence for Thanksgiving this year. They know how to get down on Thanksgiving. From TWO bbq'd turkeys to pumpkin pie to candied yams and even down to the festive dining table arrangements with the candy treats spread out for everyone.

I loved it!

Of course, I won't fail to mention the scalloped potatoes that I created (thanks to Jas for testing out the recipe at Les' house the night before!). I had it down to perfection and everybody loved it (better than Joe's mashed potatoes)! haha.

Here are the pictures, not too many for this one.

thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2004 @ Les' House

2004-11-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

My neighbour, Mister Leslie Tsang hosted a Thanksgiving dinner at his house. Lots of people helped out with the food. Of course, the girls and Les did most of the prepping/cooking. Tom came in with his expertise to finish off the cooking of the turkey, stuffing and vegetables. And Elton had the best showing, with his baked pumpkin stuffed with risotto and delicious roast beef. Gangsta!
I was stuffed, and ate about 2 rounds of food. I ate so much, my utensils started failing on me!

Check out the pictures!

click here biatch!

Girls Night Out - Sep 25, 2004

2004-09-27T15:41:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since all 8 of us girls have been in the same building! On Saturday September 25, 2004 we actually did it at Moxies. There were bellinis, pinacoladas (sp?), and lots of appetizers....good drinks...good food!

After chatting it up for 2 1/2 hours...we headed over to Starbucks then to False Creek!

Jas brought the weed and Tojo, her new dog....and I brought my camera...check out the pics...

jas and cat

shirley and april

the girls @ false creek "500!"

funny faced girls

Late Night Drinking - Venue: Les' House

2004-09-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

Good times...check out the pictures...

pictures!

Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman

2004-09-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

Joe and I are officially pimpin' his cousins shoes. It started off Saturday at Vaelen's 6th birthday party. Check out his shoes in the picture. Nike Dunks - Spiderman edition...damn, i wish they were mine! lucky kid...

vaelen

spidey dunks

B.Diddy

2004-09-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

"Throw up your west coast sign girl!!!"...

...that's what Baron Davis (of the New Orleans Hornets) said to me before we took this picture!

*sigh*...good times at FootLocker...

gangsta!

Elton's 23rd Birthday! Hoorah!

2004-09-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

Hi people! Here are the pics from Elton's birthday. We started off with a delicious feast at La Bodega (which was my suggestion by the way, thunk you! thunk you!). Then we ended the night at Atlantis, drank it up, partied it up...nobody puked! amazing!

elton

Sole Searching - Vancouver - August 19, 2004

2004-08-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

If you love shoes, you would have been at this event....or you would have had someone take massive amounts of pictures for you, if you had to miss it...

This is an annual event, but just the 2nd time it's come to Vancouver. It's a "shoe show" (think car show...but shoes), and the organizers gather the finest collections across Canada&Seattle and bring them to one venue, Atlantis. As a sneakerhead, you get to walk away with free magazines, bags and other goodies (like the Nike Speed flip book! it's so cool!). Not only do you get to admire these rare and mint condition kicks, but you walk away a bit more educated about shoes. There were many sponsors as well, PF Flyer, Adidas, Fila, Nike and more. My favorite display of the night had to be the baby Jordan one. This dood had pretty much every Jordan baby shoe, it was pimp.
They were also selling Sole Searching tshirts...last year's tshirt had a Converse All Star - Chuck Taylor, on it. This year? They did a lot better with a picture of Mr. Marvin Gaye (or a dood that looks a lot like him) wearing a pair of Jordan IV's. What made it more pimp, was that the only colour on it was the RED from the Jordan shoe...it's absolutely beautiful.

I only took three pictures that night b/c my memory card was low on space...

here's a pic of the shoes joe&i wore that night. He sported Nike Wildwoods (from EBay). Me? I rocked my white/carolina blue, patent leather Nike Dunks from New York...

pic 1

close up...

pic 2

here's me and my sole searching tshirt box, and joe holding some free goodies from the event...

pic 3

Whistler 2004

2004-08-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

"Summer time in the WBC" (that should be sung to a certain melody...joe, i know you get it! and jas personally called me and sang it on point to the correct melody...she's down!)

Whistler, BC...it was super hot, the lake was super cold...the kayaking made my forearms super sore!

I didn't take too many pictures...

WBC 2004

and just to refresh your memory, here are pictures from Whistler 2003...snowy mountain tops, and drunken times...yay!

WBC 2003

Kev Lee's House BBQ Party

2004-08-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

Kev's parents went away...and what did he do? Of course he had a house party!!! We celebrated Ann's birthday there too...had some cake...took too many pictures of just the girls...nothing exciting, but take a look if you want...

kev's bbq

howie is in calgary

2004-08-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

ok, here's the first imagestation link...
mish, esther and myself drove to Howie's house, not too long before he left for Calgary. He's probably chillin' in CowTown as I am typing this. Anyway, he has one of the cutest babies in the world, Ethan. Check it out...

howie link

my first entry...

2004-08-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

hi everybody, this is my first time doing this blog stuff...honestly i started it b/c i'm jealous of daniel/raph's page. They have a way to post up their pictures, and link everybody to their imagestations...and i don't! how am i supposed to compete for Camera Person of the Year 2004, if i don't have the same technological resources that they do???

so once i get my new monitor at home, i'll have all my pictures transferred from my bro's computer to mine....and then i can start my imagestations again. yay!

so basically, this is a way for everybody in our little circle of friends to have access to the pictures i take...i know that i don't have everybody's email addresses, or i forget to send it to someone's hotmail...and they miss out on seeing the pictures (eg. kylegee didn't get an imagestation invite to his own birthday pictures, sorry kyle!).

ok, so there...that's entry #1 to this blogger site...

thanks for coming...and don't forget! i love basketball...and you should too...