Napa Trip Photo Dump

May 3rd, 2011 by Demian

Wife’s making me upload pictures. Minimal effort shall go into getting this uploaded, thusly pictures may not make sense. Enjoy!

San Diego Comic Con 2010 – A Recap

July 28th, 2010 by Demian

SDCC - Tron Banners

Whew! What a tiring weekend. We just got back from my first trip to the mecca of Comic Conventions (San Diego Comic Con) and Jaci’s first trip to San Diego evar. I have to say, the trip was fun, exciting, hectic, crazy, and I’d do it all over again (although I can’t say the same thing for Jaci).

We were greeted in San Diego where every street sign was lined with a Tron poster and buildings had epic banners of epicness.

There were celebrity sitings galore as the 1st night we were there we saw Charisma Carpenter outside our hotel, followed by eating at the same restauraunt as LL Cool J, Lou Feringo, and Danny Devito. We then walked by the entire cast of V, saw the King of Vampires(Mississippi?) from True Blood, Peter Jackson, among others.

The trip was long an tiring but without further delay here are some of our pictures!

We got up bright and early on Friday to get in line for the convention and on the way Jaci stubbed her toe (not a good start to the day) and remained grouchy for the majority of that morning. Then again, who wouldn’t be grouchy when you had to wait in the line pictures below.

In line at SDCC

Little did we know(since this was our first time) was that Friday is actually a relatively mellow day and it would only continue to get crazier and crazier.

In the convention:

Lifesize Aspen Statue by CS Moore

Iron Man - Hall of Armor

Random celebrity sitings:

Charisma Carpenter at Hard Rock

Me and Seth Green

Chris Evans Signing

New cool art:

Jaci and I refer to this one as the “Taylor Swift as Supergirl” piece. This is probably one of the favorite pieces in my collection now. Also Scott drew this on a giant board, I didn’t full measure it but I think its 18×22 or something.

Scott Clark - Supergirl

Omar hasn’t done a Supegirl before and he was concerned with how it turned out, but I was blown away. This was such an incredibly cute and awesome Supergirl!

Omar Dogan - Supergirl

I have another Supergirl from Philip but once I saw him working with ink wash I knew I needed to have another one! Well here it is:

Philip Tan - Supergirl

I’ve been a huge fan of Stephane’s for a long time but he’s never come up to the Nor Cal shows. Once I found out he was going to be at SDCC I knew I had to grab a piece and I lucked out!

Stephane Roux - Supergirl

The Udon team continues to blow me away with their art style. This is another take on Supergirl by Eric Vedder!

Eric Vedder - Supergirl

I have quite a few more pieces that I haven’t shown here, you can check them all out in my personal collection at http://demianlee.com/photos

Videos!

June 6th, 2010 by Jacqueline

I finally got around to uploading to YouTube some of our Flip videos from the trip – enjoy!

Psarou Beach, Mykonos: Clips from our visit to the beach in Mykonos

Psarou Beach – Mykonos (Part 1)

Psarou Beach – Mykonos (Part 2)

Psarou Beach – Mykonos (Part 3)

Selene Cooking Class, Santorini: Clips from our cooking class in Santorini

Cheese Ice Cream – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Pureed Fava with Mastic Sap – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Roasted Pureed Eggplant – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Roasted Lamb Shank – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Melitinia – Selene Restaurant Cooking Class – Santorini, Greece

Maia Luxury Resort, Mahe, Seychelles: Clips showing our villa in Seychelles

Maia Villa Video Tour – Outdoors – Mahe, Seychelles

Maia Villa Video Tour – Indoors – Mahe, Seychelles

Post-Vacation Shout Outs

June 5th, 2010 by Jacqueline

Now that we’re back safe and sound from our trip abroad, I thought I’d give a few shout-outs to the products and services that made our vacation all the more enjoyable:

  • EMU Australia Women’s Sheeve Flip Flops: I was looking for a pair of comfortable, yet hardy sandals to wear in Greece and bought these babies a few days before our trip (thank God for overnight shipping).  They were exactly what I was looking for–very soft, suede-like material, no need for breaking in, and provided excellent support walking all day long in the blistering heat on gravel, cobblestone, and pavement.
  • Fantasy Travel: We were really happy with our travel agency, which helped us book hotels, ferries, and transfers in Greece, and even went above and beyond to help us research flights to the Seychelles.  Dina, who was our travel agent, was always very responsive and very sweet.  Highly recommended.
  • Kindle App for the iPad: During our trip, I read 8 books, 6 of which I had downloaded to my iPad with the Kindle app.  Some were pretty terrible books, but some, like the following, were really terrific: Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster (really interesting book about the history of the luxury industry, recommended by our friend Howard), You’re Either In, Our You’re In the Way (inspiring story written by Bay Area twin brothers about their experience making their first movie . . . and how they got Ed Harris to star in it), and If You Follow Me (another Bay Area author’s book, fiction, about a couple’s year teaching English in Japan).

Thanks for following our blog on this trip!  Hopefully, we’ll keep it up during the year, but if not, there’s always next year’s trip to Japan!  And (sigh) our trip to San Diego Comic-Con this year.

Seychelles: May 30 to June 3

June 3rd, 2010 by Jacqueline

Thanks to the generosity of Demian’s Auntie Vivi and Uncle C.K., we ended up extending our vacation to include three nights at the Maia Luxury Resort in the Republic of Seychelles.  We had an entire villa to ourselves, just steps away from an impeccable white sand beach, free room and board (including free laundry service and a mani/pedi at the spa), and—get this—our own personal butler (!!!), Peggita, to attend to our every whim!  Our room was gorgeous, with a big, comfy bed, huge bathroom, outdoor bath, personal bar, dining, and lounge areas, and private backyard and pool.  A typical day for us looked like this:

9:30 a.m.            Wake up, go to the gym

11:00 a.m.          Breakfast in our villa

12:00 p.m.          Play on the beach (perfectly clear, 80 degree water, fish swimming around our ankles

2:00 p.m.            Lunch (one day, we felt like fries and strawberry shakes, and that’s exactly what we got)

3:00 p.m.            Massages or mani/pedi (the latter just for me)

4:30 p.m.            Read on the beach, surf the web, or watch episodes of Dexter on Demian’s laptop

7:00 p.m.            Dinner (one night, we opted to have one of the chefs barbecue in our villa—mounds of terrific grilled seafood and chicken with scrumptious sauces, followed by a light lemon tart dessert . . . so awesome).

Basically, we just slept, ate, and relaxed for the entire three days in Mahe—I think I spent most of each day in a swimsuit or a robe.  So luxurious!  Peggita was so good to us, on our last night even drawing us a romantic bubble bath, scattered with tropical flowers.  We were definitely sad to leave this morning, but glad to have gotten the opportunity to stay at Maia.  It was truly a once in a lifetime experience.  The pictures below will probably give you a better idea of the beauty of the island better than me blathering on ever could.  See you all soon!