Gentleman's Boot Camp

i've been really busy the past week and a half with some community service. been meeting a bunch of new people and did a bunch of new things. i'll have to detail it later.

typography at method

yesterday started my new typography class. it's a 7 week workshop. boy, i had a fat run around trying to find it again. turns out the correct address was wrong, so only by looking up the place in the phone book, was i able to find the right place. sigh.... well, it looks like it will be a good class! homework next week is to cut and paste some given text into different column formats.

Chinese New Year Central

spent chinese new year in chinatown. new thing. firecrackers went off all the time thruout the day. i attended a banquet lunch at new asia, which a lot of people went to. the mayor, leland yee, rose pak, the new jewish district 3 supevisor. even the miss chinatown contestants with escorts helping them out and serving them. there was also a lion dance by the white crane group. pretty cool stuff. lots of tradition.

Lunch at Far East

ate lunch at the newly remodeled far east cafe. i remember going there before the new ownership. it has booths. a chronicle reporter was with us.

A Clown Education

i've been researching clowns. been scoping out the intenational clown hall of fame website. i even talked to someone from that museum in wisconsin. this is all because of my first assignment for my graphic design class. the project is to come up with a logo for any museum of my choice. i picked this museum, b/c i think that a logo might be fitting to my cartoon style. also it would be a fun one to do.

i've been racking my brains trying to draw clowns. how to portray a clown museum in a simple, bold black and white logo. sound easy? or hard? also need to come up with 30 different thumbnail sketches! i'm still up hammering away at it. i think i must have only 5. nothing too fabulous. it's all due in 16 hours! and 6 of those hours will probably be spent sleeping! aye carumba!

The Run Around at SFO

i arrived back at sfo around 12:15pm. i had arranged to get picked up with some out of town acquaintances at the same time. i tried to meet up with one girl who was coming in from ny at 1...but she didn't get in until 4pm! it seems that ny was pretty icy. then to top that off...her one piece of luggage (which she checked in) was gone! (all she had with her was her purse!) i stayed with her another hour to get file a report (along with 10 other people from her flight). i guess this is what you get when you fly the cheap airlines which have a stop over mid-way. i finally left the airport about 5 hours after i arrived there! that's enough for me! I must have gone thru one security check-point 5 or 6 times! i always had to empty out my pockets with my camera, my palm, my phone, my keys, and my change.

The Wedding

attended kim and reid's wedding. it was nice. smallest wedding i ever went to...about 150 people. the pastor gave a pretty strong sermon in the middle of it, looking to christ as the model of how to treat the bride. really proclaiming the crux of the christian faith. afterwards the reception was at Tom Ham's Lighthouse on Harbor Island. great food. the reception was interesting in that there wasn't anything traditionally chinese in it. i met some people from sd aacf that i knew before.

afterwards i went for a drive (in my ghetto geo metro rental). i drove over to coronado. a neighboring city/island. very beautiful. went to check out the hotel del coronado (or something like that). supposed to have the tallest wooden-built builidng in ca. nice upscale shopping neighborhood. after a little bit, i realized that i had been there a few years ago!

at nite i had dinner with a. we went to soup plantations. it's like a so-cal fresh choice. boy, was i stuffed! buffet lunch and dinner!

Solo trip to SD

i made it down to sd by myself. i flew down here to attend a wedding tomorrow. a friend from my days in the high school church fellowship is getting married. curious about the couple? check out kim and reid. i went to her jr prom (after she asked my shy bud m, and he told her "no. why don't you ask greg?"). but that was a while ago. this is my first travel wedding. unfortunately, it's a wedding which i don't really know anyone going (except her and the family. this should be interesting. it's gonna force me to talk to new people.

on the plane ride down by myself, i saw this dude who looked familiar. he was traveling with some other chinese relatives. i went up to talk to him, and i was right...i did meet him before and he was going to the wedding. turns out he's kim's cousin, eric. i remembered him from cbm in 98, a week long church camp. anyways...after introducing myself in line, i ended up sitting next to him for the flight down. it was cool chatting with him and finding some stuff in common. at least now, i'll know at least one other person at the wedding...altho he'll probably be busy with family stuff. maybe i'll run into other random people i met from long ago. maybe from sd aacf. i doubt anyone will remember me tho. maybe i'll meet someone special. hah. we'll see. but it's worth hoping.

i would have brought a date to the wedding...but i dunno who i would ask. also who would wanna take a trip to sd with me. most of my friends are on a big ski trip right now with the rest of my fellowship group. my 'rents thought that i shouldn't have come down, esp since i'll be missing out on my grandma's 80th bday celebration tomorrow nite (which they HAD to schedule when i was gone, even tho her bday is on monday...but that's ok, i guess.) was beginning to doubt whether it was worth all the hassle to come down here for the wedding, since i don't know anyone really (but i do have a friend's place to crash at). don't have anything much to do in sd for the weekend, returning on sunday. i had to rent a car (that was a first...slightly tricky since i'm just shy of 25 and wanna avoid a surcharge...but i found a small ental shop. i'm now tooling around sd in a geo metro. also, if i don't wanna be an introverted loner, i will have to meet new people at the wedding and reception lunch (which i originally thought was a banquet dinner)...but that's ok. these days, i'm all for new experiences and meeting new people. (i'll definitely be doing a lot of that the next week.) it's good to get out of the bay area too.

side thought...it's kinda interesting being down here after seeing traffic. i'd be interested in going to tj across the border now. i would be a little nervous doing that all by myself tho. hmmmm...maybe i should consider it then. =) (however...my ghetto car rental won't let me take the car to mexico.)

something new i learned today was that sd is the meth capital of california. a, who is a 3rd year med student told me.

gotta lotta catching up to do here, but i've been keeping up with my daily new thing! tomorrow (or actually today now, i'll be heading off to sd.)

Ali San Oolong

thur had one of the "rare teas" at peet's. ali san oolong. it took em a while to brew it. tasted ok...but couldn't tell much of a difference. i guess i'm not much of a tea connousiour (sp?). i used one of the free coupons from t that i've been carrying around in my wallet for like 6 mo.

Greek Pizza?

greek pizza on clement. greco romana. i came here with cc. the pizza wasn't too bad. i wanted to come here cuz i saw on citysearch that it was nominated for best pizza in the city! i gotta try em all.

J's Pots of Soul

met up with my boy o for a late breakfast. one of our regular weekly meetings, but we hadn't met up for a whole month, so we had a lot of catchin up to do. went to a breakfast spot that was on my to try list - j's pots of soul. the pancakes here were great. served with banannas. this place is only open for breafast and lunch. i think it's worth the trek out to hayes valley.

Traffic

as soon as i got back from the youth retreat, i headed with ds to amc 1000 to meet up with 12 other lumps folk for a movie. finally saw traffic! was dying to see it for a couple of months, b/c i heard all the buzz and the many noms for best picture. it defintely does a great job covering all the aspects of the topic of drug trafficing - mexico producers, us users, us pushers, the dea, the court system, mexican law enforcement. intricate storyline with 4 separate vignettes which tie together at the end. i think i picked up on one subtle plot point that all of my friends (except for j) didn't get. the end for javiar and mondolo. and what really happened to mondolo. i gotta see the dvd again to confirm my theory. maybe there's some commentary or message board out there that can confirm my plot assumption. it makes sense to me and makes javiar an interesting character.

now i just gotta see snatch!

80 feet high in the air

at the retreat on sunday we got to use the famous ropes courses at the camp. totally fun stuff. they strap you in rock-climbing harnesses and they have a bunch of courses that you can do. there's a zip line and a bunch of tall things that you can climb and balance on. sorta like training to be spider-man or batman imo. there's even a leap of faith where you jump from a stand to reach a trapeeze 80 feet high in the air. (reminds me of indiana jones and the last crusade.) you're trusting the belayers and your harness to prevent you from plunging to your death below.

the toughest course was an obstacle course that goes 80 feet high. you do it with a partner to help you out. first you somehow get on a horizontal rope wire 7 or 8 feet off the ground, then you tackle a tire ladder, a stable ladder, climb on top of a plank bridge above, on to a hanging log ladder, an indiana jones type rope swing (which you have to lasso over in order to use it, and another hanging plank and rope before finally reaching the top - a tire. you gotta see the pix. i tackled it with d. we had great teamwork in the beginning, and did pretty well...faster than any other people (even a pair who were in better shape than us). unfortunatley d got tired and couldn't get on top of the bridge. i somehow managed to continue on my own and found myself at the very top! first one from our camp to make it! :) the secret in doing that stuff is to use your legs as much as possible (the biggest muscles in your body.) if you use your upper body too much, you'll get tired. pretty proud of myself.

that was definitely something that would have scared me in the past! never climbed that high before. but my resolution to try new things and stuff that scares me helped push me to do it!

Wolf Mountain

on saturday i traveled with two buses of 80 youth and counselors from my church for the annual youth retreat. "with every breath worship." it was held at wolf mountain in grass valley. never went to that retreat site before. along the way we watched the first half of the rocketeer. ok movie... i had heard that the food at wolf mountain rocks. the hawaiian teriyaki chicken (with swiss cheese?) wasn't too bad.

Bangkok Bay

went to bangkok bay in redwood city to meet some friends for lunch. had to discuss some upcoming community service stuff. not too bad. had a lunch special combo - pick your own two dishes. for $7 i picked pad thai and some green curry chicken with eggplant. not too bad...for the states. in thailand you can get pad thai from a street vendor cart for like $.25! and it's good! and it has prawns too. (mine today was vegetarian.) on second thought...the food today was just so-so. can't beat authentic thai food. esp after going there for two summers.

hmm...this is becoming too much like a restaurant review or a movie review...i need to try more new stuff. some stuff that scares me or really out of the norm. anyone have ideas? e-mail me. i don't think anyone really reads this blog.

Indian Buffet

met up to hang out at borders with r and j on thursday, then went to grab lunch. i knew of this place on geary that has a $4 all-you-can eat indian food buffet, but it was closed. so we ended up going to another indian buffet place several blocks down. great india restaurant.. they said that they have 20 different dishes, which i guess they did...not all main dishes tho. it was pretty good. it cost about $6. still wanna try the other place tho. maybe one sunday after church...but it always seems that there's one person in the group who doesn't like indian.

Casted Away from Snatch

i had finally scored my preview tix to see snatch at metreon last nite after some running around. after finally meeting up with a, finding parking, grabbing some food...we got up to the movie theaters and found a fatty line. we waited for a while and pretty much got 20 people away from making it in. so we were denied. (the other time this happened to me was in berkeley for a preview screening for mars attacks.) we got a pass to see another screening next tue at kabuki. too bad i made plans. hoping to still go tho. anyways...instead of snatch for free, we paid to watch cast away instead. tom hanks was great in there carrying the movie really well...but as for the story...i think it was mostly given away in the preview trailer. in terms of the story resolution, i didn't think that the ending added a lot more very well. maybe it's just a topical view of the plot, i dunno. his character did grow i suppose. i think it was inconsistent to me, what really kept him alive and driving in the movie. i didn't appear to be the package, which he says saved his life.

MacWorld

my friend d called me up with an extra pass to go to macworld at moscone. it seemed a lot like seybold. the new titanium powerbooks are way cool. made me think...i could do so much with my computer, if it would only work right! saw the demo for itunes and saw a macromedia demo for fireworks. i need to pick that up again. all this stuff i need to do. sigh...

Prego

ate dinner with my grandma. we went to prego on union street. very nice place. i think i've been there before, but i can't remember. we shared agnolotti d' aragosta (a half dome shell lobster filled pasta) and quattro stagioni pizza. good stuff. pizza wasn't as big or filling as the pizza i had on sunday at pirro's tho.

Jazz

i tried to watch the new pbs Jazz documentary, a film by ken burns. i think i'd like to appreciate jazz music more. it's cool to hang out in jazz clubs, but i don't really know too much about the genre. it would of been helpful to know when i was working in advertising, as a conversation piece with the other older people...clients, boss, etc. it's a 10 part documentary tho. dunno if it would hold my interest for too long. a lot of the history is tied to the development of african-american history - their portrayals in minstrel shows and black face productions. jazz is supposed to be the true american artform. originated here. no roots anywhere else. also learned about the life of louis armstrong. he grew up to really revolutionize the music. can't really remember what his sound is like tho.

Lingonberry

bummed around ikea on sunday nite. was thirsty and stopped by their cafe. they had this strange drink called lingonberry. "from swedish wild berries.
a tantalizing blend of sweetness and tartness." i wouldn't exactly call it tantalizing, but it wasn't too bad. sorta like a berry punch. i couldn't finish my drink tho, b/c the cup was so huge! couldn't get half-way done. it only cost $1 too.

the UCSF Milberry Room

went to this meeting room at ucsf on sat nite. i've never stepped foot onto ucsf before, let alone this room. we had a fellowship year-end banquet, which was pretty cool. i did a slide show, which i was hoping to do vh-1 pop-up video style, but i unfortunately ran out of time. without music, it was a huge power point deck. 160+ slides! over 250 mb file! pretty darn big, which caused a few problems. yeah...still having trouble with my pc.

Bay Motor Wreckers

friday I went to a car wreck shop. interesting place. a place in berkeley that specializes in bmw's. my friend was looking for a part for his car. all these old cars were out in front and torn up for parts. definitely the place to go if you want something cheap for a bmw.

Fusion food at Cafe Kati

had a pretty good dinner at Cafe Kati on Sutter and Fillmore last nite. it was with my family to celebrate the new year. i had
porcini & shitake & cremini mushroom soup w/ roasted garlic flan, dungeness crab avocado napoleon, and duck confit risotto. all the food was beautifully presented, in a sort of architectual presentation.

Another movie
woke up early to watch the skulls before having to return it at noon. i thought it was ok. i had to fast forward thru the action scenes, since i wanted to try to watch most of the part with dialogue at nomal speed for the story. i think that this was my last dvd rental for a while.

Auld Lang Syne

yesterday went downtown with some friends to try to see fireworks. since we were driving, we got as far as the fog city diner. this was the first new year's that i didn't really spend in doors. it was pretty cool. i'd definitely try to do it again. i don't mind crowds too much.

Good-bye to the deYoung

sat nite went to the deYoung museum for the closing. it was open all nite for a museum marathon in the final closing. i caught a midnight tour and danced in part of a west african ifa ceremeony - "rites of passage."