After 4 years with BlueHost, I’ve migrated Xephalon.net to Hostinger. The website was in need of updates, so I also took the opportunity to simplify the layout for version 4.0. My BMW i4 also finally arrived at the dealer last week. This was my first time purchasing a new vehicle, and while I managed to turn down all the extended services and warranties, missed the theft deterrent device included on the bill which set me back an extra $1K. The blue color felt like it was manifested from the RC car that Jeff and Melody gifted me 20 years ago, and I was quickly enamored by the smooth yet powerful ride. Too bad it didn’t arrive in time for me to try it on my drive to SF for the Pacific Retina Club last weekend. The Mission Bay Conference Center was a nice venue to enjoy interesting clinical cases and interactive talks, but I ultimately ducked out early and headed home to teach Westley how to play Monopoly and celebrate the end of the school year. This past weekend, I flew to Utah for the Clinical Trials at the Summit conference. The industry-focused meeting was hardly worth the fancy hotel or drive from Salt Lake City, but I at least got to catch up with my friend Christina over dinner. I had the ambitious goal of waking at 4am to photograph the Bonneville Salt Flats at sunrise next morning, but ultimately made the saner choice of sleeping in and catching an earlier flight home. With my being away from home every weekend this month, I want to squeeze in what little time I have with family.

We spent our anniversary and Mother’s Day relaxing at home exploring the Altus Plateau.  Melody was not keen on revisiting Napa. So after dinner with my friend Yao and a visit to Communicare to discuss collaborations, I drove solo to our department symposium at our usual hotel in wine country. Our new case discussion panel was well received, which we celebrated over lunch with fellows at Hog Island Oyster. Unfortunately, my afternoon plan with Kareem to visit the Petrified Forest was foiled by a private event, but gave me us chance to catch up about life and career over ping pong and darts before dinner with the invited speaker at Tarla. Last week, we celebrated my Public Service Award at the Academic Senate presentation, as well as my student Sophie getting into an MD-PhD program. I also took advantage of my early finish in the OR on Thursday to watch John Wick Chapter 4 in the theater. The stunts and choreography were incredible as expected, and motivated me to promptly rewatch it again with Melody back home. Our Memorial Day weekend was fire – literally – when our barbeque brunch with the Dea’s was interrupted by a grease fire that necessitated our second fire extinguisher discharge. We shared the sizzling story with our in-laws on Sunday and my work friends over dim sum on Monday, as I prepared to do some serious cleaning of our poor grill.

Between pruning, weeding, and replacing plants, springtime spells the return of allergy season, but at least provided warm weather to enjoy our neighborhood. Earlier this month, Westley joined his first Easter egg hunts at the local park and church in between batting pinatas at his friends’ birthday parties at Pioneer park. We also did some spring cleaning with our windows washed, car detailed, and outdoor counter sealed. By the time I was boarding my flight to New Orleans for ARVO, I was too tired to be productive, and instead binge-watched all of Netflix’s Beef. I was impressed not only by Allie Wong’s acting and Steven Yeun’s singing, but also the traumedy’s delicate blend of emotions and dark humor. My conference trip was short, sweet, and efficient. With the exception of my first night’s mediocre Cajun dinner with my lab and ex-post-doc, my subsequent meals were hits – including fresh gulf oysters at Peche, fried oysters at Herbsaint, and oyster po’boy at Felix’s. I also made a solo run for Cafe du Monde beignets on the way to cheer on my two students at their talks before my flight home. Sadly, my whole family fell sick shortly after my return, and despite initially testing negative for COVID, turned out to be the real thing. We quarantined at home for the remainder of the week over seaweed soup, bun rieu, hot pot, and ramen kits from Tokyo. I even made a solo grocery run to 99 Ranch to stock up for our continuing journey through the Lands Between, as we await with excitement our next video game adventure.

Spring break in Tokyo was Westley’s first trip to Asia, but beyond the language and culture, we learned about patience. After the 4-hour SFO layover, 12-hour flight, and 2-hour immigration line, we were glad to have an extra night of our Shinjuku Airbnb to settle into before breakfast. We celebrated our Ghibli tickets from Lawson, introvertedly slurped Ichiran ramen, shopped at Don Quixote, then made our way through Keio’s food hall and Shawn the Sheep exhibit to Zauo Fishing where we shared self-caught sea bream and abalone for lunch. We battled hipster crowds in Harajuku to snuggle with minipigs at MiPig and hedghogs at Chiku Chiku Café, passing Miyashita Park along the way, to shop rather than dine at Shibuya Crossing. On Tuesday, we lined up for onigiri, tamagoyaki, organ stew, tuna skewers, and unagi don at the Tsukiji Outer Market, admired exotic goldfish displays at Art Aquarium, shopped containers at the Muji flagship, then ate Kagoshima pork shabu shabu at Ichi-nii-san, before going barefoot at teamLab Planets’ dazzling exhibits. We went to Tokyo Character Street for Ghibli merchandise, Tokyo Banana treats, and an Almond Days drink, then returned for oversized udon at Tokyo Mentsudan to put us to bed. We arrived in Yokohama early next morning with time for a geocache on the way to the CupNoodles Museum, where our Momofuku Ando lesson ended with a small bowl of his original Chikin Ramen. At the Shin Yokohama Ramen Museum, we remembered to order mini bowls, but not to avoid lunchtime crowds. Our 2 hours of queuing got us ramen from Ganso Najima-tei, Nogata Hope, and Rairaiken, which recreated the first Japanese ramen founded in 1910 with historical accuracy. We next visited bustling Nakameguro, where popular snacks were mostly sold-out except for a pineapple sando and strawberry taiyaki. Luckily, we snagged seats at Kushiwakamaru for yakitori with locals before enjoying the lantern-lit sakura by the river. Our delayed start at DisneySea Thursday was saved by Westley barely missing the 117cm height requirement for some rides, leaving us enough time for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Big Band Beat, Toy Story Mania, Nemo’s Searider, Aquatopia, Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage, Venetian gondola, and an impressive Believe! Sea of Dreams finale. The poor phone app and reception made us miss some rides, but at least left time for lunch, dinner, and many popcorn flavors including matcha white chocolate, soy sauce butter, and curry. Not having learned our lesson on timing, we missed Misojyu’s opening next morning, which cost us another line-wait for soup and rice-balls for breakfast. After mastering shurikens and katanas at Ninja Café, we snacked our way around Senso-ji with 7-levels of matcha gelato, melon pan, age manju, curry bread, warabi mochi, dorayaki, candied strawberry, and silk pudding before sharing hot and cold soba at Namiki Yabusoba. We tired our legs shopping for ramen bowls and a Kamata knife on Kappabashi Dougu street, and opted for Menya Musashi’s tsukemen over more sightseeing that evening. Our long journey to Nikko’s Edo Wonderland on Saturday was rewarded as we donned samurai, swordswoman, and ninja garb, watched geisha and ninja shows, destroyed things at samurai and shinobi training, completed archery and shuriken challenges, and escaped claustrophobic trap rooms and an outdoor puzzle maze in the Edo-themed village. We returned by shinkansen for Tokyo Station Ramen on the way home. A breakfast of ochazuke fueled our visit to Ghibli Museum on Sunday, where we watched an animated short of human-made sounds and Westley climbed the stuffed Cat Bus. We returned to Kichijoji for quality Inishie steaks at Satou but missed the last Shiro Hige cream puff en route to MEGA Donki for tax-free shopping and more queueing and wagyu at Gyukatsu Motomora. On Monday, we visited Odaiba for Sapporo ramen, Takoyaki Museum, and Gundam Base shopping, but found the life-size Gundam transformation underwhelming. Both the cherry blossoms and Doraemon pancake balls at Ueno Park were unimpressive, although we were lucky to find an opening at Sushi Kintaro Honten for dinner. We returned to Tsukiji our last morning for custard taiyaki, corn-fishcake fritters, tamago sandwich and nog, grilled squid and eel skewers, toro sashimi, and strawberry daifuku mochis. Our street food tour set us back 30 spots in line for Happy Pancake, so we went for Original Pancake House’s fuwafuwa pancakes instead, which along with KAL lounge snacks, kept us full for the flight home. Despite the long lines and sold-out signs, Tokyo showed us many wonders – a chirping child Suica card, a female-only subway car, sidewalk guide tiles for the blind, corn potage vending machines, and public restrooms with bidets and no hand soap – but most of all, Japanese hospitality, attention to details, and deep respect for rules, nature, and … patience.

We had little time to unpack before Melody had to leave for her redeye that same evening, leaving Westley and me to fend for ourselves for several days. Fortunately, I was able to make the Pioneer School assembly to watch him get the Perry’s Pride award for reading the most books in 1st grade during their recent Read-a-thon. Still overcoming jetlag, I spent the past few weeks editing the plethora of photos and videos from Australia, while also preparing for our upcoming trip to Japan. We went to Davis High School’s Japan Day event and practiced origami and hiragana to get us hyped up for the trip. Unfortunately, we could not book some attractions in time, like the Ghibli Museum, despite our efforts using a Tokyo VPN and recruiting a local friend to get tickets. At work, I was excited to learn that we got both the FFB Translational Research Acceleration Program and USDA NIFA grants on our second attempt. Between preparing manuscripts, talks, and posters, I met with many eager students looking for summer research opportunities while juggling busy call nights and clinical trial shenanigans. I found some respite on weekends disappearing into Liurnia of the Lakes while Westley worked on Legos and his Mega Cyborg Hand. I also started season 2 of the White Lotus, which with a mostly new cast, felt refreshing like a new vacation. At home, we finally completed our new SunPower project and Wallbox installation, just in time for my i4 that was assigned a production number today. After waiting nearly 6 months, I’m looking forward to finally getting the new car.

Our Queensland visit began inauspiciously with notices of a hotel change and rainforest tour cancellation due to weather, requiring us to rearrange our plans and drive instead of shuttle through treacherous rains from Cairns to Port Douglas, where we shared seafood pasta at Wrasse & Roe before retiring to our substitute apartment. Our new itinerary took us aboard the Sunlovers instead of Quiksilver cruise to the Great Barrier Reef, where our Dramamine staved off seasickness to let us enjoy the glass-bottom boat, semi-submersible, and guided snorkel tours of colorful corals, giant clams, friendly wrasses, a turtle, and moon jelly kisses for me and Westley. The buffet aboard was better than expected, although the Ganbaranba ramen at dinner was not. Sadly, our rescheduled rainforest tour of Mossman Gorge and Daintree river cruise was cut short by flooding, so we ate Dave’s fish & chips and returned to the apartment where I prepared my talk, Melody napped, and Westley built a crocodile. We trudged through rain for a peek at Four Mile Beach on the way to seafood and gelati for dinner. Our next stop at the Gold Coast began with more fish & chips at Burleigh Heads Fishmonger prior to checking into our beach-view AirBnb. After registering and uploading my talk at ISER, we hiked from Miami to Burleigh across squeaking sand and under rainbows to reach Goukai ramen for dinner. Next morning, I met my friend Sara for breakfast before my talk, then regrouped with family for pho on the way to Springbrook National Park for panoramic views at the Best of All Lookout, Twin Falls, and Purling Brook Falls. We camped in our car to NPR until nightfall, when we could gape at glow worms at Natural Bridge, then went for take-out before bedtime. On Wednesday, we shared pastries on the beach and stocked on banh mi for our visit to Lone Pine Sanctuary. Despite a near miss on tickets, we secured a koala hold and platypus encounter before entering the massive enclosure for kangaroo feeding, then headed to Brisbane for pasta from Enoteca 1889 and ice cream from Cowch. Our last stop to Melbourne was delayed by Uber’s multiple Collins St. listings, where our CBD condo was located. We enjoyed delicate fish dumplings from Shandong Mama then explored vibrant street art along Croft Alley, Coromandel Place, Meyers Place, Strachan Lane, AC/DC Lane, Duckboard Place, and Hosier Lane on the way to Federation Square. We found respite with AC at a Children’s pop-up library and lychee juice from Flinders Street Station before crossing Yarra River past the Arts Centre and NGV to the Children’s Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens. Our proximity to Chinatown meant easy access to Supper Inn noodles and Instea boba for dinner. Tired of driving, we opted for a bus tour to the Great Ocean Road on Friday, with stops for morning tea in Torquay, scallop pies in Apollo Bay, and myrtle beech trees at Maits Rest on the way to iconic Twelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge. We awoke early Saturday for more street art at Union Lane and Presgrave Place, grabbed a “magic” coffee on Guildford Lane, then passed more graffiti on 436 Queen St to Queen Victoria Market, where we sampled cheese toasties, boreks, croissant, and hot chocolate before passing the picturesque Royal Arcade on our back for another Go West tour. Our bus to Philips Island stopped for colorful bathing boxes at Brighton Beach, a wildlife show at Moonlit Sanctuary, and seal and penguin viewing at the Point Grant Nobbies boardwalk, before we took our rainy front row seats to the penguin parade. I made a late-night run for hearty Master Lanzhou noodles afterwards, and returned to Chinatown again in the morning for Tim Ho Wan yum cha and Breadtop pastries for our flight home. Despite covering so much in 2 weeks, we felt that Australia had still more to offer and look forward to returning to this lush, beautiful continent.

Having canceled their last biennial meeting in Buenos Aires, ISER headed to Australia this year and gave us an opportunity for a family trip Down Under. Due to time zone changes, Westley spent his entire 7th birthday aboard our 15-hour direct flight from SFO, complete with party hats, cupcake, music video, and a loaded Kindle Kids. Our arrival in Sydney was traumatizing when the customs dog sniffed out apples and cheese that Melody had failed to declare. Fortunately, we adapted quickly to driving on the left side, despite struggling with the tight hotel garage. After unpacking, we marched to Happy Chef for seafood and laksa noodles, past Hyde Park to Flour & Stone for fig tart and panna cotta lamington, then through the Royal Botanic Gardens to Circular Quay. We cooled off with gelato on the ferry to Taronga Zoo over views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The heat kept the zoo animals sluggish, so we hurried back for XLBs and called in early ourselves. We awoke early Saturday for oysters, sashimi, aburi scallops, and lobster noodles at the Sydney Fish Market, which fueled our visit with dugongs and shovelnose sharks at Sea Life, followed by souvenir shopping and lunch of egg tarts and seafood paella at the Rocks Market. Next, we drove south to hike Fitzroy Falls, then visited Kangaroo Valley for solid pub food and the wild wombats of Bandeela. On Sunday, we headed to the Blue Mountains for the Three Sisters and Katoomba Falls walks, followed by the railway, walkway, cableway, and skyway at Scenic World. For lunch, we ate 3 things at 8Things, with pork rolls, taro boba, and a shot of Josophan’s famous hot chocolate to put us in near-coma on our drive to Featherdale Wildlife Park. We perked up to koala petting and wallaby feeding before dining on the sushi train at Makoto. Still jet-lagged, we awoke early to stroll the Queen Victoria Building, then scurried to return our rental car. Our flight to Alice Springs was delayed, leaving bad lunch options and necessitating a grocery run prior to check-in. We cooled down at the pool, then sampled emu tartare, kangaroo rolls, and barramundi ceviche at Saltbush before a nocturnal tour at the Alice Springs Desert Park, where we spied golden bandicoots, malas, bilbies, bettongs, curlews, and swarming echidnas with our red headlamps. We returned to the park next morning for howling dingos, feeding birds, and more nocturnal animals. Westley could not stand the heat, so we left early for brunch at Page 27 and an iced latte to fuel our 5-hour drive on Red Centre Way. We stopped at Standley Chasm, Ellery Creek Big Hole, and Ochre Pits, then drove the unsealed Mereenie Loop, complete with wild horses, lizards, and piles of poop. We collapsed into our glamping tent at Kings Canyon Resort, briefly suffering a power outage and fly swarms before enjoying bar food and jukebox BTS at dinner. We began the South Wall walk at Kings Canyon before dawn on Wednesday, and was thankful to have forgone the full Rim Walk as temperatures climbed and Westley complained. We returned to raid the breakfast buffet, then drove to Yulara to share kangaroo skewers before settling into our hotel for Legos and AC. Our Field of Lights evening tour was otherworldly with a beautiful view of the Milky Way. We continued our pre-dawn routine with Kata Tjuja’s Valley of the Winds and Walpa Gorge walks, followed by a sexist didgeridoo workshop, and meat pies at the Kulata Academy Café. Our sunset camel tour was interrupted by rain, but showed us how lighting starts wildfires. Dinner at Arnguli was a unique but heavy sampling of kangaroo steak, emu kofta, and wallaby shanks. We could still see fires burning when we returned to Uluru before dawn, and chose the Mala Walk and Kuniya Walk in lieu of the entire base walk to make time for a visit to the Cultural Centre, a wooden animal painting workshop, and lunch. The first part of our Australia trip was action-packed, but definitely eye-opening for us all.

Powerful rainstorms led to a string of power outages last month, the longest of which lasted nearly 24 hours. Melody was away for an APGO conference at the time, so Westley and I spent that weekend mostly without electricity, playing board games, painting by numbers Seurat-style, and embarking on a Puyo Puyo Tetris adventure on the Switch, all while learning to cook with headlamps and shower with a flashlight. The experience prompted us to invest in more headlamps and a power station. With heavy rains flooding most of California, we spent most of our January weekends indoor, which gave me time to discover the mystery of the Prometheus in 1899, wrap up House of the Dragon and Umbrella Academy, and finally storm past Stormveil Castle in Elden Ring. For food, we smoked ribs and char siu, and made lots of congee, soups, and stews. Westley enjoyed partaking in song and dance at the DHS Jazz Choir workshop over MLK weekend, but felt sick after a Chinese New Year party at a CRNA Melanie’s home. For my birthday weekend, we drove to Stockton for a crab feast with my in-laws, and unexpectedly scored dinner reservations at SingleThread. Chef Kyle Connaughton’s Cal-Japanese-inspired menu drew on seasonal ingredients including Dungeoness crabs, duck, and lemons, with some dishes appearing more like works of art. Some 3-Michelin-star-level attention to details like clear cocktail ice cubes and butt-warming bidet seats were unfortunately offset by inconsistent timing between courses and accidentally pouring sparkling water into our cups of still water. Overall, we appreciated the lavish meal, but probably not worth the 2-hour drive to Headsburg and returning home at 1 am. We spent this weekend packing for our trip, fertilizing and herbiciding our back lawn, and cutting our hair. Westley also did his part to successfully reach level 5 at SwimAmerica, just in time for snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef. With just days before our trip, it’s a race to tuck away as much work as we can.

In preparation for Australia, we decided to enjoy a short holiday in Hawaii over New Years break to relax, test-drive my new camera, and prepare Westley for the ocean. We were lucky to catch our Southwest flight to Honolulu and avoid the thousands of cancellations due to weather, but instead suffered a 3-hour wait at Hertz to get our rental car. The delay made us miss our boat tour at Pearl Harbor, but we were glad to make the last standby group to visit the U.S.S. Arizona memorial. Exhausted, we settled into our AirBnb in Waikiki after slurping hearty udon from Tsuro Ton Tan along with some mango sticky rice and sugar cane juice from street stands. On Friday, we drove early to queue in line for our 7am timed entry to Hanauma Bay, where both Melody and Westley overcame panic to snorkel among the colorful reefs. We celebrated with hot malasadas from Leonard’s bakery truck, followed by porchetta and hapa fried rice from Mud Hen Water, then returned to Pearl Harbor to watch a documentary, visit the exhibits, and buy the B29 Superfortress that Westley was eyeing. After relaxing at the condo and assembling the toy bomber, we returned to Tamafuji for a crispy tonkatsu dinner. On NYE, we awoke even earlier to revisit Hanauma Bay, where we found fewer fish and more ankle scratches on the right side of the bay. We recovered with another round of malasadas before spending the afternoon with Jeff’s family at Kapa Hale at the Kahala mall followed by ShareTea boba. The dinner line at Marugame was surprisingly short, so we filled on udon on the way to the Honolulu City Lights display before bedtime. Our alarm woke us just before midnight to enjoy a perfect view of the Waikiki beach fireworks from our balcony. We managed to find a whale watch cruise on New Year’s Day, which gave us only brief glimpses of a mother whale and her pup while Westley kept busy with coloring. Afterwards, we went to Ala Moana for tan tan ramen from Goma Tei and mochi hot dogs from Mr. Cow, then brought poke bowls back for dinner. We checked out on Monday to embark on the Manoa Falls trail, where we trudged through rain to survey ferns, bees, and snails, which left us hungry for kalua pig, squid luau, and chicken long rice from the Waiahole Poi Factory. We were glad to order ahead, which saved us time to enjoy a Sweet Lady (haupia ice cream & kulolo taro dessert) on the way to the airport, where the IASS lounge gave us a chance to refill and recharge for the flight home. It was tough landing at midnight and returning to work next morning, but our trip was short and sweet, as we prepare for our trip to Australia.

We scheduled a new paint job for my lab this month, which gave us an excuse to have our holiday outing at Dumpling House followed by bowling and billiards at Memorial Union. We also had our department’s first in-person holiday party since 2019, which got my lab members cutting up the dance floor. At home, we spent most of our weekends hibernating from the cold with big pots of beef stew, bun rieu, and spam soup. We did a little shopping in Natomas for craft supplies from Michaels and sweets from Cost Plus, filling on pork adobo and lumpia from Roline’s along with massive halo-halos. Last Friday, we joined Liam’s family at the Theatre of Lights show downtown. I arrived late from clinic to inhale a few dumplings before taking in the exciting showdown between Santa and Jack Frost, followed by hot chocolate and a rowdy mini train ride for the kids. Since Melody and I were both on call, we spent our Christmas holiday weekend mostly at home also, except brief outings for hot pot, dim sum, and pastries. Westley was content diving into his new Lego Boost robot and Speed Champions racer sets, while I immersed myself in HBO’s House of the Dragon and FromSoftware’s acclaimed Elden Ring game. Between collecting runes, discovering sites of grace, and painfully dying again and again, I was both humbled by the combat challenges yet addicted to the wonder and discovery in the beautiful open-world setting. We left my poor wife wrapping dumplings and baking sticky buns all by herself. But between Westley’s Lego-building, Melody’s cooking, and my gaming, we felt like we each got a chance to enjoy our Christmas break in our own favorite ways.