{"id":6998,"date":"2026-03-15T18:58:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T01:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/?p=6998"},"modified":"2026-03-22T21:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T04:23:15","slug":"paradise-pie-and-peloton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2026\/03\/15\/paradise-pie-and-peloton\/","title":{"rendered":"Paradise & Pie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>This year’s Macula Society<\/a> gave me a chance to reconnect with friends and colleagues over a one-night stay in sunny Coronado<\/a>. I arrived early Thursday to catch the morning sessions, then grab lunch<\/a> with a clinical trial sponsor before taking a ferry<\/a> ride with friends across San Diego Bay, and reembarking on the same boat back to catch dinner<\/a> with my UCD and Duke friends. My talk on day two was well received, and I opted for solo dining<\/a> instead of the gala to make an earlier flight home. I was not immune to Melody’s cold, unfortunately, and my symptoms came down hard that weekend, forcing me to miss the Paul Hom Health Fair<\/a> and binge my way through an exciting first season of the sci-fi show Paradise<\/a>. By Monday I was back on my feet, which allowed me to power through an action-packed week recording a meeting debrief in a studio<\/a>, petting pythons with Westley at his school’s STEM night<\/a>, celebrating my student’s first-place win at UCD Poster Day<\/a>, and cheering on our resident Christine at the ARC Orchestra concert<\/a>. Last weekend, we drove down to Oakland to revisit the Mammoth Bonsai Auction<\/a> at Lake Merritt<\/a>, where we splurged on a striking corokia cotonester draped over a rock, and massive crape myrtle that barely fit in the backseat. We stayed on theme with dinner at Soba Ichi<\/a> before returning home for tax season and spring gardening, which included planting a new “golden nugget” mandarin tree in our backyard. We celebrated Pi Day with three pies from Ikeda<\/a> and dinner with my friend Parisa’s family over Indian curries. With cake and tarts they brought from Ettore’s<\/a> and mochi donuts from Tomo<\/a> using our new food-saving app<\/a>, our spring is kicking off with plenty of calories that will hopefully burn off with our new Peloton<\/a> subscription.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year’s Macula Society gave me a chance to reconnect with friends and colleagues over a one-night stay in sunny Coronado. I arrived early Thursday to catch the morning sessions, then grab lunch with a clinical trial sponsor before taking … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6998"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7032,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6998\/revisions\/7032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}