the stress starts now

oh man...the impending move is starting to hit me. to and from college...to and from my apartment...packing up and moving has been some of the most stressful times in my life. after only a few hours of sleep...i was woken up by my parents to talk about some last minute stuff before i head down to la today. i had to just put together a quick packing list. i think i can get by without too much. how will it all go down? will i be driving down with my parents? i'm packing up my box of design and stock photo books to take down with me. will i take a tv with me? leave the tochere lamp behind? when am i going to get a car? can i get one within 10 days? do i leave my photo albums behind? buy new pots and pans? take my computer chair down? 30 days of planning...dumping...boxing...loading...unloading. ugh.

i'm not too stressed out about finding a place. it's just going to be work. driving around the neighborhoods. scouting out locations. will i want to be here for a whole year? i hope we don't get too lost. i hope jy can have some fun with me in our trip down. so lucky he's willing to take a road trip. i found a place in cal on my own. hope to do it again. i'm sure that god will provide. i put prayer requests for this in our church bulletin and our lumps list update. i'll be blogging updates from the road. i need to look up the local dial-up numbers.

who's planning on driving down to la in september? maybe you can bring something down for me. i wonder if i can get set-up in time to have a party the first weekend i'm down. it would be a really opportune time to meet and hang out with my new neighbors, friend's cousin's best friend, and classmates. come! southwest roundtrip from here is just $60 now. i was trying to find a good weekend to fly back later this year...but can't figure out a good time to come back.

i better go back to sleep. today will be a long day.

google got me!

darn. i just googled my name and i came up as the number one search result. for the longest time i was the 20th + result...b/c there are so many gw's out there. i guess it finally figured out the gregwong.com thing...and the links pointing to it. i'm not in the realm of obscurity anymore.

my first online iMovie - lu-la-paooza life!

a good deal of my weekend was formatting the lu-la-palooza pix into a quicktime movie slide show. accomplished thru the mac magic of iPhoto. two ways of viewing...

1) play it on the lumps life view-o-matic page.
- it's a nifty formatted mac imovie page, using a browser quicktime plug-in, i think. the formatted window is dinky and thus the video looks small. neato retro looking viewer.

2) directly download the lulapalooza quicktime movie file. (recommended)
- this has bigger real estate and you can resize the window to your convenience. should be the same file size (4.1 megs) as the other one...but the other page just offers smaller viewing real estate. i wanted to make this even bigger (800x600) but then the file size was over 7 megs!

you blog readers will have a sneak preview before i e-mail this out to lu-la-palooza attendees. hope you enjoy this. i spent most of my free time this weekend putting it together...and figuring out the mac technical stuff. the pix are on oPhoto...but i can't share the album just yet. blinking girl is forcing me to photoshop her eyes in the good group pic (the second one). i'll see what i can do for her facial reconstruction!

the making of lu-la-palooza

the past week i was pretty involved with this lumps event called lu-la-palooza. it's sort of lumps slang for "lumps ladies' appreciation." much like the sisters' appreciation events you'd normally find in christian college culture, but better and cooler. ;) it was a whole nite that the lumps men put on to show honor and love to the lumps ladies. however few or many would show up. for some people who were unfamiliar with the appreciation event type of deal...it could seem kinda weird...but these types of events are fantastic ways for people to get rooted into a community body and to adopt an purposeful and outwardly attitude of service and love.

it's an event that i wanted to get on the calendar for the past few years...but it finally happened now. perfect timing. it was a really great event to bolster the fellowship, to build up the body, and to tie a lot of lumps together. we had sort of tried to have an appreciation twice last year, but it didn't quite work out due to busy schedules and last minute planning of the guys who were gonna lead it. i had tried again to try to get it on the calendar for feb this year...but was denied. it turned out it was b/c the ladies in lumps were getting something together during that month to appreciate the men. they did lots of nice little things, pretty impressive and surprising stuff.

o kept bringing it to my attention that the guys need to do something still. especially before some of the fellers will be leaving. we worked it out with the calendar keepers to reserve the last thursday in july. that took a bit of working out. but it was worth it. finally we had a date! this time around i was pretty committed to make it happen (whereas before...i was hoping for other men to step up and take the lead). when you see change and the end coming for you, there's a certain sense of priority and urgency to do all the little projects that you wanted to do but never completed.

as the ball got rolling, it was a joy to find that the other guys who were readily committed to put energy into the event. it wasn't really that hard to get guys to be involved. even tho some of the guys weren't really all that tight together, many saw that it was a fun and worthwhile investment into our fellowship community. it felt different than the appreciation events i helped to get together in college...when often times some guys would do things begrudgingly.

after kicking the group discussion off about ago at a guys meeting (which i couldn't attend), we had all guy super sneaky sister action meetings three times over the past few weeks every wednesday or so. we got looped in talking to each other on e-mail too.

there was a lot of planning and preparing to make things happen...but it was all worth it. here was the schedule for the nite...

Final Lu-La-Palooza schedule
5:00 Set-up - Alfred, Jimmy, Mat, Milbrae, Len, DShih
* (Kitchen, tables, butcher paper table clothes, sanctuary set-up, flowers)
* set-up tables and gifts across the street in the apartment office rooms
* (we're not really allowed in church before 6)
6:00 Set-Up
* moves out chairs and set-up for after program pattern (see 10:00)
6:30 Set-Up - Enoch, Eli
* arranges chairs and tables, table clothes, candle
* Tech - thai guys video, vcr. background music - Jon Ho / Winchell
* set up valet - signs, block off the frontpen
* hog up spaces

7:00 Set-up
* Valet set-up - Owen
* Manservant training for guys - Greg and all available guys
* costco hor'dourves - Jimmy, Dylan
7:30 - Valet Ready - Owen, Mike L, Dchi
* print out a map big enough to tape keys and write pen/pencil
7:45 Start serving drinks and h'ordourves - Manservants
8:00__intro - top 10? interactive? interview of guys? tonite show intro - 5-10 min
8:00 desserts prepped
8:00 hook up Greg's camcorder to show thai guys video
8:05__thai guys video - 1 min
* one games overhead on DChi's computer - powerpoint
8:15__games - Mike L- 10-15 min
* to create an interactive game for the sisters to match up the person with the story
8:30__ desserts served - 10-15 min
* waiters to bring platters of desserts
* manservants to get desserts from platters
* raspberry gelato with sauce and fresh berries
* 8:45__door prize raffle - 10 min
* 13+ prizes
* presentation of prize certificates
* manservants come up and get prizes for their ladies
8:45 "jiggy brothers" (formerly known as LEMonADE) change into stage costumes
8:45 Set-up: camcorder to play elimidate video (s-video input?)
8:55__elimidate video - 15 min
* what lumps is not - (jana, stan, darren, drew, dshih)
* what lumps is - slideshow (part of video)
9:10__"just the few of you" rap - 10 min - jiggy brothers
* skit intro - 5 min
* len, mat, enoch, alf, mike lai, drew, eli
* 5 sec video set-up
* cd audio
* two mics
* prepare dchi's computer for powerpoint songs
9:25__worship - 10 min
* dchi, jonfong, walter, jonho
9:35__message - 10 min
* johnwoo - talking about how women are critical to the kingdom
* prepare dchi's computer for closing lyrics
9:45__closingworship/prayer - 10 min
9:55 - regular lumps announcements - mike lai
* light candles in side room
10:00 - presentation of glass candles - gw/manservants (single file)
* usher ladies into gym area with seating
* once seated manservants come in single file line with the freshly lit candles
* dchi playing smooth background music on guitar
10:15 - cleanup
* ladies sit while guys break down in sanctuary
10:15 - valet guys are ready to go return cars
10:30 - kick ppl out to hang out somewhere else

so that was the plan...it was about 95% stuck to for the nite. we were on time. everything went pretty smoothly. i think a couple of the emcee interviews were a little odd tho...but it was ad libed and cool.

more on lu-la-palooza later. pix and quicktime slide show video to come. maybe even the video for the nite online too. we shall see. brain is like jello. must sleep.

the la girls network

i've spent the last 4 hours e-mailing friends and friends of friends in my efforts to procure leads on housing around pasadena. it's sorta funny...but just about every single one of the really helpful people that i'm e-mailing are girls. where are the guys? i'm leaving in a few days to go down for a whole week and find a place. i should have a bunch of new people to meet when i go down. new folks to talk to about school. some who've been down the path or are still on that path now...further ahead.

do you have friends or leads on people or networks who can help me out? i absolutely have to have picked a place by the 7th. should be a fun road trip with my college bud jy. i wonder if i can get a new camera battery before i go. i know that i'll need to pick one up before paris for sure.

my gosh i'm tired. this is the most personal e-mail writing that i've done in a very long time. i'm going to pass out soon.

real french fries here i come

i'll be going to paris with the fam in a few weeks! my mom just bought tix. one last family vacation before i'm off to so-cal. first time for me to europe.

was pretty busy with lu-la-palooza busyness, at the detriment of my blogging. will be catching up in the next few days...with a lot of blogging about behind-the-scenes prepping and planning for lu-la-palooza.

the friday five

1. How long have you had a weblog?
since october 2001. i was thinking about doing it for a while...then blogger made it happen. go read my first post!
2. What was your first post about?
about how techno savvy i'm becoming (or how i'm trying to pose like that)
3. How many changes (name, location, etc.) of your weblog have there been, if more than one?
none...but one coming up. before i move south!
4. What CMS (content management system) do you use? Do you like it or do you want to try something else?
blogger rocks
5. Do you read people who have both a journal and a weblog? Or do you prefer to read people who have all of their writing in one central place?
one stop blog reading is much better. i like it if the photos are integrated into the blog posts (or with easy links). separate galleries aren't very user friendly (esp if they're updated regularly).

the ups man just woke me up. i think my leg was still asleep during my scamble to open the door. these things were supposed to arrive yesterday!

six degrees of gw

around 3am this morning i sent out a housing annoucement request to the friends in my address book on my mac. if you didn't get an e-mail from me...you're one of the several holes in my address book. please e-mail me your contact info!

here's the e-mail announcement...

You may have heard that I was heading down to LA. Well yep, it痴 finally true. It took me long enough to decide. I知 gonna be moving down to start Art Center (to study graphic design) at the beginning of September. At least I値l be trying to move...

I don稚 have any housing. And I know very few people in LA. Maybe you can help me out with some leads and contacts.

___________________________________________

What I知 looking for ...
* a two bedroom apartment w/ living room less than 20 minutes away (driving) from Art Center (in Pasadena or neighboring it)
(I think I have a roommate...tbd by next week.)
* something affordable (I知 guessing probably less than $1100 or so)

Who you might know (or someone you know who might know) ...
* friends/family living in LA (particularly in the Pasadena/Glendale area)...particularly if they池e renting!
* current students or graduates of Art Center.
* someone who goes to a neighboring school (Fuller, Cal Tech, Pasadena City College, etc.)
* someone with some land owner/realtor/rental service connections.
* some network of people which might be able to help me out.

___________________________________________

I知 hoping to get a lot of leads asap through my helpful friends. I値l be down for a week housing scouting starting on 8/1.

Much thanks! Feel free to forward this on. I値l let you know where I ultimately end up.

so far i got about 20 responses. thanks to all of you who are forwarding it on to your la contacts! so far i have one lead...my bud by out in dc has a cousin ml in pasadena who is moving out of his apartment to go be a missionary in china...his best bud gl is taking over his apartment...which leaves gl's place open starting 9/1. just within the price and distance range i requested too. wowzers. jing ding, huh? god's good and i know he'll provide. if not this way...another way. i'll be checking out gl's place when i head down.

the deal on art center

it's sorta interesting hearing people's responses to me going to art center...

* "So you've finally decided to come south. Congratulations!!!! I met some art students at Otis coupla weeks ago and mentioned your acceptance by the Art Center. They were soooo impressed!!! A real accomplishment!"

* congratulations! i know you will become a great graphic designer (and soon comic artist?). i have heard great things about art center (automotive and industrial design), and southern california's weather
is very good.

*CONGRATS*! i'm sure you were quite exhilarated when you received the cool acceptance letter from artcenter. it's not gonna be a bed of roses though, but you'll have a great time.

* hope you're living it up before you enter art bootcamp :)

p.o.c. microwave

i'm housesitting for pob and i can't figure out how to use the stinkin microwave! i better put my chesse and beef lean pocket back in the freezer. i tried to do a google search for "toshiba microwave instructions" to no avail. fooey. anyone wanna come by and figure it out?

olympic stars on ice

we had the hook-up on tix to the olympic stars on ice show sat at the san jose compaq center. most of the olympic stars did stuff. kinda cool. i was pretty sleepy before intermission and my head nodded a bit. my po po thought it was better to let me sleep b/c i was driving. (i wish people would wake me up.) after a brisk iced-tea during intermission...i was into the rest of the show. the two guys pretending to be ballerinas were pretty funny. i didn't really care for the guy who had a dog puppet on his hand and skated to "who let the dogs out?"

michelle kwan was pretty good and was popular with the crowd of course. wish i coulda gotten a better pic. this pic is for jt.

big finale at the end. patriotic stuff. all the skaters (including the ones from other countries) dressed up in red white and blue and skated to different music. i kinda wanted to go ice skating after watching the show. it was cool seeing them zoom around and dance on the ice.

i was also thinking that their outfits looked a lot like superhero costumes. some tight. some with flashy shiny decorations. i can't think of any other real life outfits that would be translated into superhero costumes well. i think it could be a little gay tho to have an ice skater super hero.

walking around san jose

we hung out around san jose after the show. po po and i got a little lost driving around...but we eventually got there. we ate at e&o trading company (good stuff) then kicked it in the area. walked to the fairmont. po po and i walked thru the outdoor water fountain exhibit near by. (everyone else was afraid of getting wet.)

monopoly in the park

we made our way to discovery meadow where they currently have the world's biggest monopoly game board on display. supposedly they have houses and other game pieces, but it wasn't there when we got there.

we had fun taking cheesy pix around the board at certain locations. particularly oriental ave.(uncle j's idea). the fam clan is is cool like that.

jewish grubbin

on wed i went to lunch with cc. it's been a while since we caught up. we went adventuring to a new place i wanted to try. east coast west deli. i had a hankerin for something hearty...and chicken matzo ball soup, corned beef and pastrami sounded about right. we both ordered the soup, split a brisket sandwhich, and tried the corned beef and pastrami layered over potato pancakes with applesauce. food was ok (and different)...but i think i had better jewish deli food at saul's in berkeley. brisket was a little dry. first time i had a matzo ball. i had a vanilla egg cream for the first time. (it doesn't have egg in it...it's like a cream soda.)

they had some really neat local photography collages up on the wall. pretty much the artist took like a dozen photos and composited into one collage like larger image. i can do that.

it was exciting to hear his wedding plans for next year. it'll probably be the first wedding of the summer for me. i hope that i can break away from art center life to come up here for all the weddings. i'd probably be coming up every few weeks or so. wonder how many invites i'll get. probably more than this year (3) but fewer than last year (6)...we talked about life and stuff. change is exciting.

1. Where were you born?
born and raised here in the city. children's hospital. grew up in the same house in the sunset that i'm living in now (but not for much longer).
2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don't live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not?
if you've been reading for a while...you'd know that i'm moving around the end of next month. for a while i thought i was going to be in singapore for a few months...but that got changed around last minute. so it looks like i'll be moving to pasadena for the fall. i'm 95% sure of it now. (it's sorta funny seeing how my probability ranking changed over the weeks.)...personally, i'd rather live in singapore, since it's a big change of pace for me here. it'd be a cultural changeover for me, yet it's a place where english is the primary language. probably the only place in asia where i can travel around without a chaperone.
3. Where in the world do you feel the safest?
ushimado. it's a sleepy small seaside village in japan. it was a lot of fun stopping by there with vl during our trip back in 99.
4. Do you feeel you are well-traveled?
i'm somewhat travled, but all of my trips have been to asia. i havn't really travled much domestically to the east coast or to the south. i'm really missing out since i havn't been to europe ever. hopefully in the next year. i wanted to go before i turn 26, but seeing as it's next month...i dunno the chances of that. mum still wants us to go on a family vacation. i really wanna go somehwer where i have to use my passport.
5. Where is the most interesting place you've been?
probably japan.

my brain feels like jello

i'm now house sittin at pob's place. i think we spent about the past 4-5 hours scouring the web to find a vendor to create the gifts for the lu-la-palooza nite next thur. i hope to get a bunch of calls from vendors tomorrow who might be able to do the job for us. i think i better sleep now...ugh...

girl shy

i went to the sf silent film festival in the castro on saturday. i was worrying that i wouldn't find anyone who would wanna go with me, but then on the way to see the thailand team off, lk told me that she was up for it. getting the real silent film experience has been on my list to do for a few years...ever since i went to the disneyland main street and noticed that they showed some of those old movies there. i'm really interested in different ways of engaging audiences and communicating stories. (that's my mass com education for you.)

i read about this film fest in the paper and it looked pretty cool. read about it online on sfbg. rv also sent me the link and suggested that it could be a good new experience for me. it was.

it turned out to be the most fun that i can remember having in a long time in a movie theater. there was a live organist beautifully playing. the packed crowd hissed regularly for the villain. we clapped for the hero and cheered at the end. so much fun. the movie was a little long - two hours, but they were enjoyable hours.

there was a little bit of a program before the movie started. leonard malton was there as a special guest and he interviewed the heads of the harold lloyd foundation. lloyd was one of the classic silent film comedians, up there with chaplin. (i don't think i've ever seen a movie by him.) they showed a home movie of lloyd's and explained a lot about his background to help you appreciate him and the movie. that was pretty interesting.

the movie's about a tailor apprentice (lloyd) who plays a guy who's terribly afraid of women and writes a book about how to make love (date) women. there's a crazy chase sequence at the end. it really makes you really wonder how they pulled it off. malton said that you usually lose that sense of film awe and wonder with today's special effects movies. so true.

here's the synopsis"

Girl Shy (1928)

Harold Lloyd is ranked with Chaplin and Keaton as one of the great silent comedians, but his films have been unavailable for years - until now! We're proud to present a new print of Girl Shy, in which Harold plays a man petrified of women who is secretly writing a how-to sex book. The race-against time finale is one of the wildest in movie history. Introducing the program will be Lloyd's granddaughter, Suzanne and Jeffrey Vance, co-author of Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian newly published by Harry N. Abrams.

if i had known that this movie experience would be so good...i would have eagerly gone by myself to check it out. i actually was thinking about doing that sunday morning and seeing the second screening of it, but i'm glad that i didn't have to. it's a shame, but most guys that i know would be a little too weirded out to go to the castro (alone, with a girl, or especially with another guy) and would deprive themselves of a great movie experience like this. it's sort of a reminder to me that i can't let other people hold me back from trying new experiences...otherwise i'll really miss out.

thai team reflections

i fell asleep in the study. i was up late trying to update my address book in my TiBook for my upcoming move announcements. if i don't send you a piece of e-mail in the next week...that's b/c you're not in my address book and you need to e-mail me!

i woke up around 7am or so. got online and started chatting with ky, then jk and jw. they along with 5 others from lumps are in thailand now on a short term missions trip. i also got e-mails from half of the team people (i wonder if the others forgot to add me to their lists) sharing about their initial impressions. the whole team was at an internet cafe and checking e-mail and sending out updates. their sharing brings back memories from my thailand missions trip back in 1999 (the pioneer year for our church) and 2000.

sort of like the jabrone logs retro-reflections on china and piece of blog's current thailand sharings...i think i'll post a few of my thailand updates from a few years ago (my pre-blog writings). easy canned content for me to post and i think it would offer some insights for some of the supporters for the current thailand team.

(man...i can't find any of my e-mail updates from my first year. bummer. so here's the first e-mail update from the second year when i led the team. that's more interesting for some to read since it had more lumps ppl on the team. fyi - rex was my roommate and co-leader.)

From: Greg Wong
Date: Tue Jul 4, 2000 3:07 am

Sawadee-krup!

(Hello, in Thai)

We just finished our first full day of teaching in Thailand in 90+ degree heat. Although it was exhausting, we were thrilled and excited to get to know the students and encouraged by the friendliness of everyone. Some people felt unprepared for the first day, but God really pulled us through. Many students and even some teachers were very interested in the upcoming gospel camp (July14-16).

We praise God for his provisioins and carrying us through so far...save transportation over from the states (despite a flight delay), the train ride from Bangkok to Lop buri (with a lot of heavy luggage and team materials to transport), overall good health of everyone all around, cohesiveness of our entire team (pulling together for different events), the positive experience by the first timers in Thailand, and help and hospitality from the local OMF missionaries.

Our formal teaching schedule is much lighter than we anticipated, providing more informal opportunities to get to know individual students outside of the classroom. (We only have to teach the double period classes, not the single period class times.) This is a relief to all of us. We still we be seeing 7-9 different groups of 35-40 students during the two weeks...a lot of faces and a lot of names...but our relieved formal teaching schedule allows us to focus more on the students that we do see each day. Today, in between classes and after class, we were able to hang out and talk with different students.

At lunchtime we had a July 4th extravaganza at the school, where we talked a little about the American holiday and had 3 different activities that the students could join in: arts and crafts, making a patriotic smiley face button (you'll have to see it), a pinata game (a huge draw for tons of observers), and an American styrofoam plane glider toss. It was tough to get students to join in at first, but tons of people joined eventually.

Prayer requests:

* Continued health and energy (some are exhausted, from today's long day) - We have to be ready for a team breakfast meeting at 7am every day, and be at the school at 8am.

* A strong turn out of our students to come to the Gospel camp

* Focus for our team (definitely important, without having a real rigid schedule)

* Team cohesiveness to continue to grow and strengthen

* Open communication within our team, that we can encourage/support/be understanding of each other in every way possible.

* Being a positive witness through all of our interactions with our students and each other. With the cultural differences, it is very easy for our actions or intent to be misunderstood.

That's all for now...more in a couple of days hopefully. We are all grateful for your support and continued prayers.

Happy 4th of July!

Greg and Rex

yay! the server is back up! i'm back in business.

it's been down a whole week. the bigger stuff to share about...
* def poetry jam (go for student rush tix one hour before)
* museum hopping (cartoon art museum, sf moma, yerba buena gardens)
* silent film fest - girl shy (the most fun movie experience i've had in a long long time.)

the server is down so my blog is in hibernation. :(

wedding thoughts

today i played usher with mc at my college buds' wedding. that was fun. you get to wear a flower on your suit denoting you're a helper. you walk the girls by the arm down the aisle to their seats. if they have dates, they quietly follow behind. you see your name in the bulletin and get some acknowledgement. you also have some bond or conversation starter with all of the other people who are helping out. it's also not as much work or stress as some other positions.

it was a really great wedding. when you get a few years out of college, you start to go to a lot of weddings for your peers. last year i had 6. this year i only have 2. i'm sure that i'll be invited to 3 or 4 next year. today ay and pm got married. both were cal aacf buds, and ay was a bud in the same fellowship class year as me. slowly more of my closer friends are getting married and i get to play minor parts in the ceremonies. last year i was an usher/scripture reader. this year an usher once. maybe i'll have more wedding usher gigs in the near future. we'll see. i dunno when or for whom i'd get a chance to be a groomsmen. still seems to be a long ways off for my closest friends. but ya never know. it could be just a year or two away.

the ceremony was nice. about 450 people. the speeches and addresses to the parents were pretty good. the message was a little long and dry. it felt like the pastor was mostly reading and not too engaging. i think instead of the traditional ring bearer/flower girl, they had a cute boy and girl come down with teddy bears. i got a pre-walk shot as an usher. everyone went..."awwwwww" when they saw them. the groom ay was tearing during the ceremony.

the reception banquet was at peony pavillion in oakland chinatown. beforehand a bunch of us got boba. i got tapioca jade green tea. do not get tapioca jade green tea. it was green and looked kinda minty.

was introduced to one girl and we said that each other looked familiar. it turns out that she went to high school with one of my friends and passed thru lumps about three years ago once. maybe i met her again another time. not really sure. maybe an impression was made from that one contact. i wonder. maybe it was from a second time. i dunno.

pretty traditional food, but this reception probably had the most interesting speeches and the most entertaining wedding games that i've seen. there were creative, some of the traditional games that i've seen, but with a twist.

the first game entailed of the bride and groom sitting back to back. they both swapped a shoe, and when a question was read (e.g. "who is the better dresser?") they have to raise the shoe of who they each think the answer is. if they disagree...then the penalty for them is to sing a song (with accompanying music). first song was n*sync's "this i promise you." i think the singing was a nice touch and pretty fun.

second game was the mystery potion game. havn't seen this before. groom is blindfolded. brides drinks from a selection of drinks. groom kisses bride. groom guesses mystery drink. ay got most of em right. so, the final drink was a "table 16 special" drink. random stuff combined mad scientist style. gross. but funny.

different random thoughts spurred on today

* news sure traveled fast that i'm heading down to la! some people say congrats. some people just talk about it as "oh i heard this." some say "you're going to come back, right?" that was nice to hear. a lot of times at these reunion weddings you get keen evaluations on your friendships with different people. blase conversations or interesting stuff to share about. degree to which people take an interest in your life.

* i wonder if this is the last time in my life i'll see some of these people. i don't anticipate many more huge college fellowship reunion weddings ahead for me.

* wow, she really did lose a lot of weight.

* although not super close, this guy takes an interest in what's new with me.

* who's the next wedding? and after that?

* everytime you become part of a new community, the importance of your past communities decreases somewhat in your life landscape.

* moving away will really help me evaluate friendships. who makes an effort or cares to keep in touch. it's especially noteworthy if friends keep in touch when you don't have much of a common group of friends in common...and it's just an individual relationship. i have a few random friendships like that. not too many.

* i think that i would invite these people to my wedding. maybe those others won't make the cut.

* i wonder who my groomsmen would be if i got married now. i wonder how much that decision might change if i went to la and got married in two years.

* this slide show is just ok. too many solo shots of each other as kids. nice choice of music with "brown-eyed girl." some of these powerpoint animations are getting pretty repetitive. i bet a bunch of people in the near future are gonna ask me for pictures or to design their slide show. i hope it's not too time consuming.

* boy, am i pooped.

1. Where are you right now?
sitting at the computer in the study. all dressed to work out but ending up here...missing the hip hop class again...sigh.

2. What have you lost recently?
i can't find my palm. it's somewhere in my house. i know...i just gotta look for it.

3. What was the first CD you ever purchased? Does that embarrass you now?

after 7 - reflections. 1995. i kept playing the entire cd over and over again, particularly track 1: "til you do me right." i had just moved into my apath dorm room my sophomore year with mc. that was the only cd i had. i really liked it. i still like that song. mc hates that song now.

hmm...i think i'll go dig it up now.

4. What is your favorite kind of writing pen?

i love those roller ball type pens, thick width. good to draw with. great for taking notes quickly. it's the kind with the see-thru window to see the ink level. i don't really care too much for that gimmick feature, but i like how it lays down ink.

5. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?

i think i'm partial now to rice. you can get it at sweet inspirations on fillmore. yeah yeah...bring on the rice jokes. i don't eat a lot of it. the ice cream is better than the real thing to me.

daily photo ring

i'm thinking about joining this daily photo blog ring. i think i can keep it up. i'm mostly taking photos every day still. i have so much to try to post this weekend. come back and see.

trying to catch up on a couple of projects...but shared newness coming soon. lots of creative and cultural stimulation from museum hopping.

in the mail

i finally sent the last couple of forms that i needed to get in to be able to register for classes at AC in the fall. all there is left now is to put my first tuition payment in on the first day in early sept. my now personal probability of me being there down south as a student: 90%. there's still a shrinking window of consideration for other opportunities that would keep me here or send me elsewhere. i think the time for me to make a very firm decision, when the time for hedging to end, is in mid-august. that's when i'd really start to worry about finding a place. i think i may also be competing against other students: fuller seminary and cal-tech. i'm not really worrying about it much...having confidence and faith in god's provision and plan for me.

11 hour work day

i've been helping out rv with some concepting and storyboard work. man...11 hour work day today. most of it was really productive. wasn't wasting time on im or personal e-mail. i was grabbing images off the net, photoshopping them together, trying to figure out how to effectively and efficiently tell the story. it was cool working with a partner...motivating, encouraging, and getting good feedback. i don't think that i would do nearly as well working by myself as a solo freelancer. we did take a nice late lunch break around 2:45 at some nearby cafe...nob hill cafe? ok caesar salad and good pesto tortillini...we finally finished up around 10pm. wasn't thinking too clearly at that point. productivity had slowed down considerably. this is should be what my next 2 or so years will be like. hooray. at least i can find some satisfaction in the end product and the long hours of process.

i made a couple of prints for two gifts on sunday. that's probably gonna be my trademark gift for the future. economically feasible for me and also more personalized and creative. well...the opportunity cost might be really great...since i think i spent 2-3 hours on each print that i made. hope it's just a learning curve for now. both times i underestimated how long it would be to complete them. i really need to plan a buffer time of 3 hours in my estimation of finishing any piece that i'm going to put a lot of effort into.

last nite was my first really good nite of sleep in the past week, averaging around 5 hours each nite. i think a schedule like that may also be in store for me for the months to come...except that i'll be doing it being very productive in my waking hours. i think i may have to cut back on the long photo blog posts if i'm facing any sort of deadline.

denny's cafe

tonite on my way home after my long day, i was roaming the city trying to find a place to eat at around 10:30 or so. i didn't want to go to any place in the sunset for sure. the cheesesteak place was discovered to be closed after my third pass along divisadero. i finally ended up at denny's cafe on geary and 20th. it's open til midnight. i had "sauteed udon and chicken in x-o sauce." odd, eh? the funky sauce intrigued me. it was just ok. i really wanted to just get take out to eat at home, but i was compelled to eat there b/c i didn't want to pass up the complimentary bread and soup. i guess cheap chinese cafe restaurants chintz it when it's to go. so i sat there with my $5 meal, quickly wolfed it down. the x-o chicken was just ok.

afterwards i dropped by jho's to get some music and to chat about life. (i needed to find some good trance/freestdidn't get all the music that i was looking for, so i ended up at jc's (my potential future roommate if he finishes his application and gets into the school) to get some more. (that's where i am now...jacking into his fast connection, while he's burning me a cd library). thanks for the hook-up, guys. now i'll need a nifty pair of headphones to listen off of my laptop.

more work to be done at 10 am tomorrow. gonna be busy.

mac geeky blogging

didja know that there are a bunch of blogging app tools that make it even easier to blog without logging into blogger? i'm striving to be a real blogger geek now. there are a bunch for the pc, but only a few for the mac...like iBlog. i need to find some other blogging geek friends who can show me how to do this stuff.