lunchin on fillmore

had a great lunch at balboa cafe on fillmore. one of the best places for burgers in the city. it's really nice inside, the outside is deceiving. not too expensive either.

costume huntin

went back to the haight. we found one of those life-preserver type jackets. i'm thrilled. all i need is the right shirt underneath and i am set. i think i can find a few accessories at home to go well. it'll be great to see people getting into the vintage clothes thing. i was gonna do teenage 50s until we found the vest. lucky duck. good deal for just $15. go to the haight and browse old clothes!

BTTF parts one and two

saw the first two movies tonite to look for decoration ideas. i hope to replicate the "enchanted under the sea" dance decorations a little. the movies were a lot of fun to watch again. glad i got to enjoy them tonite. also saw the making of the first movie which was good. i really enjoyed seeing the special extended "darth vadar" dream sequence from the first movie. there's a bunch of deleted scenes and outtakes. worth checkin out.

my favorite of the three movies was the second one, followed by the first, and then the third.

the return-to-sf-life weekly

my...i've been busy this week. 222 pix from the past 8 days. there might be a tad too many pix of fam stuff, but oh well. i have to borrow fast bandwidth from the daves, so i just do it all in a single batch upload. (i'm at their place now.)

the holy hole in the sky

i saw this incredible sight above on my way down to san jose yesterday morning. i think that's one of the most beautiful times to look at the sky...when the sun is breaking thru heavy storm clouds. this particular sight was pretty breathtaking and unusual in my opinion. made me think of god breaking thru the darkness or possibly seeing a glimpse of his majesty above while down here on earth. maybe i'll make a poster of this or something. i took this and other pix while i was driving. one handed driving and other hand snapping.

the saturday buzz

* drove down to the original pancake house (a chain) in san jose for some of the best pancakes i've ever had. met up with my sis, dave w and his fiance. chatting with dave me think about just how fast life is moving for some of my college buds. it seems that now most of the ones that i really hung out with are now married or engaged. everyone except those buds from sf. how funny/sad.

* met up with sandra and her indonesian pals after brunch at some random little asian market place, then got hot boba (first time ever) at fantasia in cupertino village.

* drove back up to the city in pouring rain to meet up with pals for dinner. Q was closed (one of my top favorite sf places to eat), so i took em to street (another of my top top places to eat.

* saw chicago at the metreon.

this brand new movie was good. i was a little tired in the beginning and struggled with it...but it got better. i think it took me a little while to get used to the split style storytelling.

NYE Marty McFly style

great scott! we're going back...back to the future!

new blog skin for the new year

i'm staying up into the wee hours trying to play around with a new blog design. what to do. should i integrate photography in the background? should i illustrate something? it will definitely incorporate my designed logo. ideally it would be fitting with a portfolio subsection. should i cheat and just modify another blog? tempting...

maybe you want to put a new dressing onto your blog and don't like the blogger templates. then check out blogskins.

it's back after being gone for a while...

a new year's themed friday five.

1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year?

hmm this is a toughie. i wouldn't say that it was getting into AC. maybe rather is the act of making the decision to take the plunge to follow my creative career dreams. it entailed a lot of change, stepping away from what's comfortable, taking on a lot of financial burden, and moving to another city.

2. What was your biggest disappointment?

yeah, not doing so well on that scholarship review! crud. well...maybe also when my camera was accidentally broken and put out of commision for a few weeks.

3. Will you be making any New Year's resolutions?

oh for sure...i'm all about, change, progress, growth, and improving myself. somethings are starting to tinker in my head about how i relate to people and improving my work discipline...but we'll see. check back here in a few days.

4. Where will you be at midnight? Do you wish you could be somewhere else?

probably at just a friends place. still tbd. if we're just playing board games (that are boring), yeah my mind will probably start to wander.

5. Aside from (possibly) staying up late, do you have any other New Year's traditions?

i usually take some time by myself on new year's day to reflect a bit. i think i might have to have some family gathering on one or both sides of the family.

today was a different tempo than the past few days. maybe it has something to do with the rainy weather.

a slower paced friday

* i got about 11 hours of sleep last nite. something i haven't done in a very long time.

* drove to san mateo to have a late lunch with po po. ate at cafe scala which was just ok. afterwards hung out at her place amazing her with the wonders of digital photography.

* saw gangs of new york with jabrone and gary. two of us really liked the movie. one of us couldn't stand the sight of blood and kept closing his eyes. i think it is one of the best movies this year. i guess there's a lot of blood, but not as gory as black hawk down. afterwards we stopped by another friend's dessert gathering. it's always really nice to friends i haven't seen in a while.

* afterwards we ate a really late dinner at lee hou. we decided that we won't eat there again. i didn't really want to in the first place b/c i heard about the rats there a while back.

social scheduling

just like another away-from-the-bay-area friend i've been trying to book up my three week stay here as much as possible. trying to schedule meet ups with friends i haven't seen in a while for breakfast, lunch, coffee/boba, dinner and all the other in-between times. probably a big goal of my stay here is to maintain and build up the friendships and relationships. it feels like i've been gone a while and i wanna catch up with as many people as much as i can.

one guy told me that i sound like i've been far away...like china! if it wasn't for the occasional visitors i've had in LA (and the ability to come back for a quickstyle turkey break), it did feel that way. i'm predicting that i won't ever have such an extended stay here at home until i finish school, since it's year round and i'd probably be able to pick up freelance work in LA more likely than i can here. so i definitely want to make the most of my time here with people. i figure that for the people i don't see these few weeks back...there's a low likely-hood that i'll be hanging out or keeping in close contact with them (unless they visit in LA) with very little contact over the next two years. (but then again, i woulda said that about a few people that i'm seeing around now in LA.)

here's a thought provoking snippit from one friend...

" Don't feel like hanging out with old friends anymore. I just realized how people changed so
much, esp. if you're not around for a very long time, far away, you know what I mean. I haven't gone home
since 2 yrs ago, and the last time I was here, it was just for a really short period."

i wonder what my landscape of friends and acquaintances will look like in a couple of years. i know that it changed more than i realized the 2 years out of college. i've also noticed how the base of my recent friendships/relationships to start being more centered around individual interactions/relationships more than a common group dynamic. we shall see how it all turns out.

i can't believe it. ii'm feeling tired before midnight and i stayed in on a thursday nite.

crazy busy

* went downtownn at 8am this morning to try to score some post-christmas had. all that we ended up with was some shiny, flashy round ornaments.

* right afterwards i hurreid over to serra bowl to hang out with some old childhood friends. (also a few familar faces.)

* hopped over to get my cousins and eat at macaroni grill in pasadena. i thought this place served american foods...like mac and cheese or something...but instead it's all american. how funny.

* hurried back to downtown for a fill-in apt for an optometrist appointment. it appears i have up to 20/15 or 20/10 vision. crazy eh?

a traditional christmas day

was woken up early. ate breakfast with the family. opened presents under the tree. no stockings from santa this year. i'm pretty sure that we've had stockings just about every year. i didn't specifically see any presents from santa either this year. i guess i wasn't good enough or he missed our house.

strategic super shopper success

cousin mike called me last nite with the info on what to give uncle k. since tower was closed, i figured that a vcd store on irving would be open and indeedy it was. i picked up the new michelle yeoh movie for him...the quest. the cover looked neat and they had a poster up. hope it's good. he seemed pretty happy when he opened it later on.

antler heads

while picking up the vcd, we popped into walgreen's and my sis found this crazy cool antler headbands. we got different ones for the four of us in the family. they're so cool. they go on sale 50% off tomorrow...but it was worth getting it today in order to wear em. you'll have to see the funny pix next monday am (when you can expect the weekly uploads of pix posted.)

christmas turkey lunch

the big meal today with my mom's side was a lunch at my grandma's. it was sooooo nice to eat in. my cousins and my aunts and i were talking how much we missed it. it's been a while. we used to always have a fat homemade christmas dinner at po po's and then things changed.

we had turkey (about one month late) sandwiches, chow mein, yams, macaroni, and some other stuff. ate a lot. too full for dinner.

merry christmas to everyone

i hope you have a blessed time with family where ever you are. even tho today isn't Jesus's exact birthday, it doesn't matter at all...it's still a time to remember and celebrate the gift of his birth.

christmas eve

did some casual last minute shopping today. wanted to avoid the probable craziness in stonestown, so i stuck to neighborhood shopping. drove over to union street...but wasn't too excited by anything there. i liked the stores in pac heights on fillmore a little better.

strategic super shopping

was trying to get something for uncle k. very hard to shop for, but i wanted to try to get him something particularly since i'm now living down near him now. it would be really hard to come up with something that he would not want. he'd probably just give it away. so here's my plan...i had my cousins who saw him tonite to try to pick his brain about what he wants (probably dvd-wise). i was then gonna hurry over to tower records since i know that it's open late. they told me that he wanted to see a chinese movie with martial arts. hmm...what could i get him that's good and recent?

so i went over to tower at 11pm but it was closed. darn the heck. can tower records ppl actually have lives? but i hopped out of my car and took a look at the hours. it opens up
early on tomorrow. so i'll probably go back tomorrow and pick out an hk dvd.

i'm also thinking that the stores on irving might be open. fobby chinese people don't really celebratate christmas, right? maybe i can get a couple of good vcds. i just bought my cousins "shaolin soccer." i think it would probably be weird if i were to give him also with my cousins watching. it is a great movie tho and will be dubbed over here.

sure it's a lot of effort...but i really do enjoy trying to find a gift that someone can possibly really enjoy. i probably put too much attention into gifts someetimes, and waste time running around...but i enjoy trying to put a lot of thought into gifts if possible.

breakfast explorers

i love eating breakfast foods. i spent about 30 min last nite (over my stinkin 56 k sf line) researching where to have breakfast with drew.

we tried to get lunch at liberty cafe on cortland street in bernal heights but it was closed for christmas. phooey. we ended up going to one of our other two opions at "all you kneaded" on haight across from the pork store. the potato buzz was good. the other food was pretty standard fare. i do like the local personality/feel of the place tho. (but i think i like millie's better.)

it was nice to chat and catch up on each other, future plans, people stuff and how things are. looking forward to doing that with more people. i think i need to try to book up the end of this week as much as possible.

just another manic monday

* woke up at 8:30 this morning to have a coffee bean english breakfast tea latte with alf and len.

* went shopping downtown with dan. scored free street parking for about 3 hours. heh heh. you just gotta know where to park!

* found the little chrome clips that i've been hunting high and low for at the container store. got 3 dozen of them. really happy about that. now have to return the larger ones i picked up from organized living. i'm excited to go back and set-up my room now. woo hoo!

* wandered around to the metreon, sf center, gap, kenneth cole (but of course), niketown and BR.

* knocked over a couple of salvation army collections b/c he we knew the bell ringers. heh heh ;)

* ben and ed were around, heard that we were around...saw the kenneth cole store...figured that i'm probably in there...and there i was! am i that predictable?

* we had a lot of goofy photo fun with props. interesting stuff to look at next sunday nite in the next upload.

shop til you drop

* stopped off again at the coffee bean to get some cool gift stuff.

* after dinner at home, i went out to target to pick up a ps2 game and browse. i got some neat spidey figures (the web crawling and catapult jumping ones). popped by borders to look.

just one more small thing tomorrow and then i'm done with my christmas shopping tomorrow. this will be early for me!

packin it in

i'm lookin at my 2 1/2 week sf calendar...and i'm slowly getting filled up! i wanna be a busy boy seeing people like alf is. heh heh

the last-week-in-LA life weekly

time sure flies. here's 89 pix of my last week of work and play in LA. plus some recent hangin in SF. sorry, no pix on the way up. i was focusing on driving well and quickly.

i got about 7 hours of sleep! amazing. it's nice to be able to start the day late.

sunny sf sunday

went back to scbc for 11:30 service. my first time back at my home church since late august! i've missed it. it's interesting coming back for christmas sunday. i tried to prepare by having a quiet time with god preparing for church and focusing on worship and what christmas is all about. i really want to get on top of my regular walk with god during my time back here in sf...leaving whatever the little messes in my life behind in la and recharging, refocusing while in sf.

it was nice to be back at church. of course i noticed some little things, like really garish design in the sanctuary, poor type alignment on the bulletin cover, some really bad red and black outfitting in the choir (really bad)...but i think i got past it to enjoy the spirit of the service and worship god. pastor jeff gave an interesting historical figure monologue from the perspective of a shepherd, with sweeping big picture overviews of the eternal significance of jesus coming down.

i enjoyed seeing some people i have seen in months at church. the common response was...hey welcome back, how was la? how is school going? it was like coming back for the holidays during college...except this time i'm really far away.

i said hey to pastor jeff. he gave me warm hug and we chatted for a bit. that was nice.

i ordered all of his sermons from 9.1 thru last week on tape. oh shucks...i won't be able to listen to it on the way back down to la since i don't have a tape player!

kicked it with johnny at kragen's then said wassup to donny at pirro's. i should have taken pictures with them.

city shopping

cruised around to the local neighborhoods for some shopping. i didn't wanna brave the busy hot spots on the weekend. stopped by irving street and picked up a movie for a gift. got one of those $2.30 vietnamese sandwiches. great stuff. i don't know anywhere in LA (yet) that gives a great deal on that stuff.

it was really nice walking around the SF streets in my new shades. i think i do look LA now. heh heh. i think i'll go shopping and walking downtown tomorrow in them.

ran into johnyang lookin to get a haircut. nice to chat with him for a bit. hopefully we can meet up again or something.

drive over to the haight. they have some cool funky shops there. lots of shoe shops. i saw the steve maddens that i was eyeing before. i knew it was at the end of its product life. one store didn't have my size. another store had it cheap and then another 25% off. fabulous deal.

brothers bbq #2

it was really great to see a lot of friends after the nite 5:30 service. particularly those leaving for LA tomorrow. looking forward to seeing them when they get back.

lots and lots of meat. this geary korean resaurant took care of us there.

table topics: the types of people i meet in LA. how i meet them. who i'm hanging out with. the need for me to be sure to have some guy friends down there. the new york life. how not much has changed with people here.

i have returned...

5 on the 5

i was a little nervous making the trek up from la to the bay area. i've never driven it before by myself or even a distance that long. i kinda tried to find people to caravan with or be my shotgun, but to no avail. i was also kinda worried about the rain. thursday nite it was raining hecka hard. i said to myself...if i see an accident (anytime soon), i'll take it as a sign and won't drive back to sf if it's rainging. and then of course...there was an accident near the off ramp in hollywood. it seems that most times it starts to rain hard in la, i usually come across an accident. i guess la people aren't used to it.

so i got about 7-8 hours of sleep last nite. i was too tired to cut my hair or to pack, so i just zonked out. that felt really great. i had to charge up my internal sleep battery so that i wouldn't be tired on the road. the weather was clear, so that was great. it took me a while longer to pack than i thought (of course). i really should have made that packing list.

i finally took off at 1:45. said a prayer and then hit the freeway. i was about 20 minutes away when i looked in the mirror and noticed how long my hair was...and that i still needed a haircut. crud. i could either continue to sf and then pay to get a haircut (tho i don't know any barbers that i trust), or i could turn back and get my clippers. so i went back. my timing would then be hecka tight, but at least i'd save the money on a not so great haircut.

on the way back there was an accident / possible fatality on orange grove. there was a kid sprawled out in the street. face down. motionless. cops were around. ambulance and fire trucks on the way. people watching. it looked like some people were taking his pulse or checking the body but no response. he was probably dead. if he were still hanging on...i know people would have interacted with him differently. instead most of the bystanders were standing off from a distance. i think you usually want to distance yourself from the dead when its a stranger. it was an extremely sobering and saddening sight.

after the return to my apartment, i finally took off again at 2:30. after going aways it started to rain lightly, and then somewhat heavy. i was thinking about turning around, missing the family dinner, and then just sitting out the rain...but i was praying and perservering still. i figured that if my mph dropped below 50 b/c of visibility or safety, then i would have gone back. thankfully it lightened up somewhat when i hit the grapevine. in the middle of the grapevine there was snow off to the side. pretty crazy. i hope that i won't need chains for my return to LA!

i made pretty good time. during the long commute i pretty much kept up with the faster cars around me. i tried not to set the speed or stand out from everyone else too much. i was also conscious to try not to really go over 90, b/c i think if you get caught....that's considered wreckless or something.

i wasn't really drowsy at all, which i'm happy about. had to resort to singing to the cd to keep aler. it's always nice to find a couple of people to talk on the phone with when you're on a long striaght continuous road.

at one point i was crusing along then i saw some red and white flashing lights turn on behind me. crud. i think my heart probably skipped a beat. but after a second after changing lanes, i could tell that he wasn't after me. (but i do wonder if he was behind me and monitoring my cruise speed for a while.)

only stopped once at some place that starts with the letter p and is past kettleman. got gas and used the boys room. man, gas was 30 cents more than it was in LA! i made it to the oakland area in just over 5 hours by taking the 580. if i had gone on to sf, it would have been about 5 1/2 hours or so (the average quick speed).

the fam dinner at yoshi's

made it in time for 8pm dinner. (altho i did get a little misdirected and lost at some emeryville new shopping complex.) two month late belated birthday dinner for cousin mike.

a few memorable moments...

* auntie peggy telling us about her "love boat" days (the taiwanese summer study tour trip) and then telling [her son] mike that he should go on it. she said it's a lot of fun. (what a cool mom, huh?)...funny side note...i remember thinking how love boat was kinda bad or sketch in college...yet now i can see how it is good and i would probably want to go if i were the right age. i don't think i woulda encouraged ppl to go on it then...yet it's the opposite now (particularly since i value travel experiences so much now.) interesting how i've gotten more open to different things since then.

* the manager seeing my po po and saying "omg, they're your grandsons, omg." he came over and told the waitress. she was also very shocked/suprised too. i guess they didn't think she was that old. she's a regular at yoshi's. funny thing is that they were reacting to seeing my younger cousins, not me.

* taking a goofy family clan photo pic with the drink umbrellas. another classic photo memory.

* cousin mike noticing how my mom had underlined the grammatical punchline in his birthday card, b/c she didn't think that he would pick up on the joke. ha ha.

man...i'm feeling heavy after that big meal tonite. time to get lean again from the vegetarian/low-meat and low-fat-content food around the house now. oh well. i wonder how much weight i can/will lose in two weeks here.

quickie reflections

* man, SF drivers do drive a lot slower.

* i get a little competitive/aggressive on the long trip up here with the other drivers. it's also something to keep me awake and alert.

* driving on a bridge feels a little foreign after being in LA.

* SF definitely has a really beautiful skyline.

* the mix cds from jon (dj supaho) are really great for long road trips.

* argh...i think i forgot to turn off the automatic heater/thermostat. and i just paid the last electricity bill today...over $200 for two months! (it's like burning money for heat and light!)

* i think we should get rid of my halogen lamps.

* crud...i forgot to bring my first semester's work home with me.

today has felt like one of the longest days of my life.

keyless, carless, homeless

so a quickie recap on my last post (which was published wrong). 2:30 am. hollywood arclight theater. missing keys. that means, no car. no apartment. good gosh. thank god pat was with me and took a separate car...and was cool enough to stick around, try to help look, and take me back to his place to crash.

after using the manager's extra keys to get back into the pad, i got my extra car keys and we drove back to the arclight garage. got to my car. opened it up. looked around. and yep, there was my first set of keys on the passenger side floor. couldn't see it. ugh.

crusin the west side

wanted to explore the west side a bit. drove to beverly hills and got a vanilla coffee. walked around to some of the stores like prada and emporio armani...places where i definitely cannot afford the clothes.

my uncle the photographer

stopped by my uncle's office in west hollywood. interesting set-up in a house south of melrose. most of his furniture was from ikea. i thought that was kinda odd. when i walked in he was talking to his office people about selling on ebay some of the books and prints he had. they're going for several hundered dollars. wowza. spent a good deal of time showing him how to do the screen saver slide show on os x and introduced him to the cool curator program (for macs).

it was interesting to gain insights into his work and business. he was imparting some of the wisdom he's learned and also observations on technology today. film is definitely on the way out. he shoots nothing but digital now. 6 megapixel...which somehow get translated into 18 megapixel images. he retouches on the fly in his powerbook using photoshop. i wonder if the AC photo kids use digital...i bet that they're mostly film. they might just be behind the times when they get out of school.

one little nugget he imparted to me was about being open to new things and approaches to problems. (well it was more impactful than that, i think i just dumbed it down right here.) i soon learned that i'm not quite as open as i thought i was...

dude, where's my car?

after visiting uncle kal, i went cruising for a little bit looking for food and wanting to shop. wandered to melrose. ended up on 3rd st (some cool boutique stores like plastica, wasn't impressed by the paul frank store offerings tho). meandered around the beverly center. didn't buy anything. got to finally meet up with elaine, and we were trying to carpool and switch cars so that i would drive...when car crisis drama #2 happened...

i couldn't find it!

she was driving and i was looking. up and down the side streets where i thought i parked. no fuzzy dice. after about 15 or 20 min she got tired of driving so i drove her car looking for it. i was certain that it was on a few particular streets so i must have cruised up and down some short residential streets about 4 times trying to find my car.

after trying and trying and finding nothing...i tried to explore more streets than i thought i might have visited but didn't think that i might have parked. soon i was just searching wherever.

i've lost my car before. it sometimes tends to be right after i've spent a lot of time searching for parking. happens a lot in sf where you have to park on the street a lot. down here it happens in parking lots more often.

elaine was pretty patient. (she couldn't really do anything else.) i was worried that it was going to get dark in about 45 min. it would have been all over if the sun had set.

i started to wonder if my car was stolen. could that have possibly happened during the two hours i was away? i didn't think that it was a bad neighborhood. granted, i do drive a pretty popular car that many people have. no, i didn't disable the engine or put the club on like i could have. could i have such terrible luck that i had just gotten my car jacked the same day that i got locked out of it? i wasn't stressing too much (but was getting pretty frustrated, tho not yet flustered). soon i was running out of options and possibilities. i just wanted to get back to my car!

we tried to mentally talk about where i had gone since i had parked. that was a slow process...but finally it helped me to remember that i had gone to this plastica store which i had not yet seen in the past hour of circling the neighborhood over and over again (with some heavy commute street traffic too.)

finally i saw the plastica store and then turned onto the street one beyond the area of circling coverage from the past two dozen or so attempts. and there half way down the street was my car, where i had left it about 2 hours ago. it slowly all came back to me! hallelujah!

i think in my slightly head-hazy condition from lack of sleep (just about 3 1/2 hours last nite on a bean bag) had clouded my mind and i didn't realize how far i had walked...or in what order. my recall probably wasn't that great at the moment.

i seriously ought to look into lo-jack or some sort of reverse gps system. usually i leave myself a voice memo on my cell phone to remind myself where i parked, but i forgot to this time. (i think i'm often like that dude in memento...particularly when i don't get that much sleep.).

cuban cuisine celebration

we then went to get cuban food at versailles on la cienega close by. i had no idea that there were multiple locations. had only known of the one in santa monica or so. it's great stuff supposedly. food was good. pork with onion was supurb. chicken was little dry. lamb was also slightly dry but not too bad.

afterwards we went to pearl to get some artsy gift stuff. before hittin home i stopped by au 79 to see my buddy ting. lots of bouncing around the west side. it's good to be done with that.

i think i'm ready to go back to sf. i've had enough excitement and exploring for today.

my life is getting a little too exciting right now...

lotr: two towers

went to hollywood last nite to watch the lord of the rings: two towers. we saw it at the arclight cinemas, probably the finest screen down here in hollywood. if you get anywhere close to LA you've got to see it at this theater.

hey if your friend was falling asleep during a movie...particularly one as exciting and as anticipated at lotr, would you wake him? andy let me sleep for 5 minutes during the movie and didn't say anything! i guess it was a slow part.i couldn't believe that he didn't wake me! i found out after the movie. but there was other stuff to make me quickly forget that and how good the movie was.

keyless

i somehow lost my keys during the movie. i suspect that they fell out of my pocket at the beginning of the movie. checked around and couldn't find it. retraced my steps and nothing at all. i had to crash at pat's place (where i am now). decided against waking up my manager at 3am. so going now to go into my pad, get my extra keys, get a ride back to hollywood, get my car left in the garage (where i hope it still is). i pray everything's ok. we'll see.

mac addict tracking down ebay scam artist

a really interesting true-life tale of cyber-community detective work to track down a thief. this could easily be a movie...or at least a made-for-tv movie that i'd like to watch. this story just also broke on the ny times today. i think i'm definitely becoming more proud about being a mac user.

tired

very long day. i must sleep. feels like i'm back in my all too familar AC work mode. stayed up most of the nite working on freelance stuff while watching the extended version of LOTR. i saw the 4 hour extended movie and about 75% of the extra two dvd apendices and extras.

went to work for a few hours today. came home and napped. then went down to westchester to visit michelle. i experienced the worst traffic i've ever seen in la on the 405. i will now avoid the freeways by downtown la at all costs. it took me over 90 minutes to travel what should have only taken about 40 min. ugh.

i now will no longer ever mind driving across the bay area to see people. after being down here, i will not mind driving to fremont or santa clara to see people.

it was great catching up with michelle. over indonesian food and a tea latte from the coffee bean talked about the industry, creativity, and the orientation of one of my old roommates. she's definitely always refreshing and different to talk too. i need to find more people like that.

i think one of my new year's resolutions will be to pace myself better and to get more sleep.

disappointed to be dollarless

just opened my mail. no scholarship money for me. sigh. could have done better in my design development, typography, and overall presentation scores. did pretty good (not super great) on conceptual development and image-making, drawing & craft. (hey, i wanna compare scores with your portfolio...you know who you are.)

the bar of excellence certainly is high here. i must surpass it. i must.

looks like i'm gonna have to really hustle for some freelance work. no scholarship cushions to help out yet.

10 minutes to blog while my my frozen trader joe's shepherd's pie dinner is being nuked...

today started off not so great. undoing a paper jam in my printer caused it to get busted. but i think i'm under warrenty. otherwise i might just have to get a bigger, better printer sooner than i thought. i know i'll have to probably get a good bigger, better and os x compatible scanner very soon.

forgettable phillip's BBQ

plans to hang out with shelia fell thru, so it just ended up being pat and me today. we tried some supposedly great (but really not) bbq place near crenshaw called phillip's. for $11 i'd rather get bbq from robin's right by my place. this was pretty much a to go shack.

there was a funny handwritten sign by the window:

For quality service, we repeat the orders at outside window. Once the order has been taken away, we are not responsible for any miscommunication.

Thank you, Phillips Bar-B-Que

retrofuturism: the car design of J mays

absolutely incredible exhibit at the moca. J mays, alum of AC, designed the concepts for the VW beatle, the audi concept car avus, the redesigned ford thunderbird...and other stuff. i'm not that into cars, but it's really incredible stuff.

a lot of his work is considered retrofuturism - "the melding of an iconic past with a vision of the future." really incredible.

btw, i picked up discount tix to the la auto show from chevron today. looks like i might just have to come back down one day earlier to go. i just learned that i have school orientation stuff anyways. anyone wanna come down and check it out? it blows away that piddly show at moscone in sf.

whoops...there goes the microwave...time to eat...

beautiful neighborhood

i finally drove around the hood i live in (famous for christmas lights.) it's so beautiful. i was driving around with the windows down, one hand on the steering wheel, one hand on my digital camera...driving, stoping, snapping, driving. they really go all out here. it's all planned. each of the streets have a different type of signage/decoration for the street posts/sidewalks. see the pix on sunday.

killing time alone

it's kinda strange for me to spend two consecutive nites all alone. dinner by myself. roommate gone. had called up an old friend for dinner but she's going out of the country tomorrow so didn't have time. she happily told me "hey, i have something to tell you!" i immediately knew what it was, even though we haven't talked about it before. it could only really be one thing...can you guess?

yep, she told me that she's dating a guy now. just had the dtr last week. i totally knew it. i'm happy for her. (no, she was just a friend, never interested.)

ya know, being alone down here makes me realize that i really need to be proactive and move fast if i want to find company for meals. when you live with someone (family or roommate), you take it for granted the meal company.

i think i know sorta have plans for the rest of my dinners down here tho. i went to trader joe's to get some food and still have enough to carry me out through the week just in case.

i shouldn't be going out tonite anyways...i have to watch the 4 hour extended version of LOTR while i'm finishing up some freelance work.

a chillin monday

today was chill. went to work. left for three hours to go to kick it with sunny, a bunch of upper term AC peeps (mostly graphics), and a lot of korean bbq. mmm...good. i brought some spinich salad with some cans of mandarin oranges. i don't think too many ppl ate the salad.

afterwards was also chill. no one to see. not much to do. went to borders to return a book. read some mac magazines. tried to sporadically find buddies to watch LOTR later on the week. later on i wandered to the westfield arcadia mall. (there are so many malls down here it's nuts.)

finally booked tix to see LOTR at 11pm thur nite at the supposedly incredible arclight theater dome in hollywood. it's $11 a ticket ($14 on weekends) but it's supposed to be a movielover's dream. reserved seats like a concert (so i don't have to worry about getting a good seat like i normally do). free parking. all cinema chairs have 3 inches wider room than megaplex standards. 6 inches more legroom. double wide armrests. this sounds like this could be my kind of theater. we've got dead center seats at the end of the front section. i'm excited.

is anyone seeing this midnight the nite before?

the end of term LA life weekly

after work hard start to play hard. click to see 81 pix from this past week.

weekend whirlwind...

slim pickins at santa monica

after a late morning start...we drove over to the promenade to shop and check out the kenneth cole store out there. i was mighty disappointed by the store. pales to the flagship in sf. they don't have any guys clothes and i didn't find a pair of casual shoes that i was really in love with. i was kinda disappointed that i wouldn't be able to take advantage of the 40% off e-mail thing this weekend. ah well.

i want a new casual, stylin pair of kicks...something that i could be comfortable in around the rigors of school. maybe even something i could wear to a club (on those super rare occasions that i go)...so probably not a tennis shoe bottom...unless i just wear my old (kinda beat) shoes. went into the steve madden store and wasn't impressed by what i saw there. in fact i wasn't too impressed this time around by the shopping selection in santa monica at all. it doesn't compare at all to downtown sf. that's where it's all at. all the boutique stores are so much better there! (it's only missing a/x.)

catching up

we then went to volcano tea to meet up with annie. the mango snow bubble wasn't too bad. she was the one who originally introduced my sis to boba back in berkeley, introduced me to the sawtelle boba shops way back in jan.

later on we hooked up with andy around melrose. my sis and i wanted to see some fancy schmancy christmas shop windows, but didn't find anything too spectacular there. i think i was expecting to see something like a combination of union street and haight street...but it was just like telegraph and the haight. mostly grungy, alternative (some cool) shops. i did go into golden apple there, the famous comics shop, which was pretty cool.

mulling around the grove

so we decided to catch a movie and dinner at the grove...not too far away. i was overjoyed to find the newly opened organized living store. i was lookin for it there a few months back but it hadn't opened up yet. i think this is only the third one in CA. the first ones were in san mateo and santa clara. it's like hold everything meets ikea. i picked up a bunch of cool things to organize photos in my room...horizontal photo collage frames and silver metal clips i've been lookin forever for. i even got some super tiny metal magnets to impressively display my comps in the classroom along the metalic walls. (i hope my work is worthy of such cool magnets.)...there's an organized living store opening in pasadena in 2003 spring. can't wait. til then i just might have to keep on going back to the grove store. (there's a grand opening sale going on for you la peeps.)

we ended up eating at the corner cafe next to maggiano's since it was too full. i wonder...are they owned by the same people?

adaptation

we caught this movie which is in limited release here before doing nationwide. it was a good movie. incredibly interesting plot (which i knew very little about) and storytelling. nicholas cage plays charlie kaufman the real life screenwriter of being john malkovich. he also plays his (fictional) twin brother donald. don't find out too much of the movie beforehand. nice plot. i think it got nominated or won some award from the national board of film review for best screenplay. something like that. this movie's definitely a head trip.

church character and competancy

sunday morning took my sis to ebcla. interesting point made during pastor ken's sermon...about how so many of us seek out and evaluate competancy, particularly in churches...but what really matters is character. it's tough for me to really feel out and settle on one church to go to down here. i'm so highly critical of competancy in so many areas...speaking, worship, programs, fellowship...a lot b/c of my background and what i've been involved in organizing. it's hard to be happy in that respect at one church when down here in la, there's a more competant church just 10 minutes away.

i know coming down here i've even had a bigger priority shift looking towards competancy (i.e. skillset) with this particular career phase growth at art center. i'm defiitely trying to be among the best...while i do know that being the best doesn't ultimately matter...it's all about character.

C doesn't just stand for chinese at J.J's

went to this hk cafe on garvey close to atlantic. i had the curry lamb over noodles (yeah i shoulda gotten rice, i know) and my sis had the baked eel over rice with teriyaki sauce. we've both had better. we also noticed the nice letter grade that this place scored. it was hidden right above their sinde wall behind the register. i thought that all the letter grades were supposed to be posted on the outside.

green tea boba balls

afterwards went to a boba place on atlantic, smiling face to get some boba drinks but with green tea balls instead of tapicoa. very good stuff. i got a mango smoothie. i'll definitely have to get back. i liked these green tea balls. they're different. might just be the next big thing. i doubt you can get them in sf...nice and soft. supposedly less fattening too since it's not starch.

luckin out at ken cole

then took my sis crusin around sunset (in the area by the no crusing club zone). we then drove by some of the shops when i spotted the kenneth cole store on sunset...and i wanted to drop in. i like kenneth cole a lot...and still wanted to go in even tho i thought that the 40% coupon was over. went in and there were some crazy fat lines. the promotion was still on. and my sis had our coupons still in her purse! woo hoo!

this store was much better than santa monica. this is the flagship store down here...the only store with men's clothes. but the sf store on grant is still much better...ah...sf.) i checked out the sunglasses...and i couldn't believe it...i found a pair that i liked that actually fit me! (i'm a tough fit.) and i got the last pair of this style too! woo hoo again.

the only thing was that i had to wait in the fatty long line for the register. it was sooo long. it took me over one hour to get to the front of the line! i've never ever had to wait that long for a retail purchase inside of a store. craaazeee. but something good came out of it.

i was chatty with the older guy behind me waiting in line. both complaining about the wait. talked about the store and the limited stock at santa monica (don't go there if you're a guy!). also continued to schmooze with the conversation, talking about the really nice sf grant store and other random things. finally i asked the guy what he does for work. (it did cross my mind earlier to ask...but i didn't...til about 45 minutes into the line.) he said that he works as an art director for an agency! (wowzers...i worked in advertsing too...and am interested in the industry still.) i drop my background and my situtation...here at AC and trying to pick up freelance work. he tells me about this storyboard company which they use which bills out several hundred dollers a day for a freelancer's work. wow. i'd heard of them before but never contacted them. he tells me about them and it could possibly work out pretty well for me. he says that they might. he doesn't know their contat info offhand.

suddenly the lady in front of us turns around and joins the conversation. it turns out that she worked in a related industry and have used the same company before. (wowza again.) she offers to find the contact info for me when she gets back to the office. i trade contact info with both of them. i'm definitely elated to happen upon the potential for what could be a really great opportunity lead for me. definitely a huge blessing that i'm thankful for.

if this could work out...it would be so huge. the work life could maybe be compatible with my work schedule...weeks off at a time between semesters, one day available each week. conceptual fast communication sketches are my strength. who knows...maybe i could possibly be out of AC debt before i'm 50! i can only dream.

careerwise i definitely don't want to be a wrist. i'd rather be a brain that creates ideas and concepts...not just a cog in the production cycle. but in the meantime as a i grow that creative brain, it would be so great if i could get wrist work that pays well. please, oh please oh please...

schmoozing lessons i've learned/been reminded of

1) talk to the people in line next to you. especially when you're not going anywhere anytime soon.

2) be generous and warm as much as you can.

3) be curious about what they do for a living and ask.

4) talk loud enough so that the people around you can overhear your conversation (and possibly join you.)

could this be the start of something good? i certainly hope so.

intimidation on the dancefloor

stopped by steve's steakhouse in city of commerce for elaine's birthday. this place is the the place in la for salsa. all the latino dancers know about it. everyone is soooooo good. i'd be embarassed to test out my rudimentary, oft-forgotten steps on the floor with them. aye carumba.

maybe i will have to go back to dancing on sundays with my parents and their social dance club. i thought those days were over too.

it was interesting that today pastor ken spoke about dancing (b/c he's a very competant one). most guys who don't dance are too intimidated too. i can totally hang with a bunch of beginners or in a classroom setting (i won't be the worst one), but i know i need to one day be good enough to comfortably lead.

lots to catch up on and record...

the senior show

with the end of each term at AC comes the senior show, a collection of the work of the gradutating seniors. it's always on the friday of the last week of the term. it's really great stuff and blows away the usual impressive gallery. if you ever plan on visiting me...try to come that weekend and see what the hoopla at AC is all about. you'll be impressed.

this time i went with my sis (visiting for the weekend) and my bud tony who finished AC several years ago. he didn't know about it, so i guess this show is a thing added in recent years. first we grabbed some malaysian grub at kuala lumpur on green street. pretty good stuff...wasn't too expensive. a nice variety.

we then went over to the AC senior show. some pretty good stuff. i like seeing the conceptual product stuff a lot. graphics was good. it seems that they put the most money and effort into their displays, at least the better ones. lighting and materials are soooo important. seeing all the work made me feel the internal burn of motivation once more. i've got such a long way to go if i really wanna be "good." it made me feel that i need to do a lot of individual work during the break. probably the potentially most initmidating situation for next term is drawing for concept, where all the illustration people have more fomal training than me. (hmmm....i think i'm going to e-mail my drawing for concept teacher to ask him what the texts are for the class to get a head start. maybe i'll even do it for omy other teachers. i dunno.

a few of my classmates made it into the gallery too. one girl (who i knew from before) made it in even twice . i gotta get in there sometime. i don't think i can left myself leave school before that happens.

one positive thing was that i made it into ab's letterform showcase. yay. all three of my final pieces (logo, phrase design, and martian letterforms) were featured. my "gw" is nice and bold. that was nice. i thought i had a good chance. it also seemed like a third of my class got their logos and letterforms in there.

my LA photographer uncle came out too. it was really great seeing him. he brought a bud that was about my age which struck me as interesting. maybe he does have time to meet up afterall and hang out. i really do wanna connect with him more now that i'm down here, but i got the feeling from relatives before thet he was a little inaccessible. i hope to see him this nxet week.

went to mel's place for the 1st term graphis after party. a few boys were a little wasted. lots or reminiscing and sharing observations. mel said that the first half of the term i was just cruisin...then the final weeks came so i cut out the social apects of my life and did mostly wook.

thoughts on the westside connection later tomorrow.

back to normal, whatever that is

i'm finally done. whew!

i passed out on my bed and slept for about 4-5 hours. more sleep than i had in the past two days. that felt really great.

making the grade

went to form & letterform class today...the final class...and it went mostly ok. well, i got my letterfrom test back and i got a 62. good grief. i think that's a D-! ab commented that tests aren't my thing when i talked to her afterwards to get a few extra points bringing it up from a 59...hey, every point counts right? she also said that it's funny b/c how you do on the test usually corresponds well to how you're doing in the class. (i'm probably at the top of the class.) but academics and tests really don't matter at all in the scheme of things here (unless you're on scholarship or probation). it's all about the work and your portfolio. i'd rather get recognition on a good piece than to be able to claim that i got an A in a class. big whoop.

it's funny how things are different than at cal, when i'd really try to get good grades. i had an ok, not suma cum laude or dean's list or anything. (it's kinda funny...actually they just started a dean's list thing here at AC last term.)

was talking to tishia today, and i think the tendency for most people starting out at AC is to really stress out about grades, and then not really care about it later on. you start AC gearing up "to change the world" and when you're close to finishing you just wanna end school. i think i have a mix of perspectives having finished school before and working before in the real world. school can definitely be an insular place to be. it can be good or bad.

i just hope that i don't fail one of my other academic classes, history of letterform, or have to repeat it. that would be horrible and a waste of time.

i squeaked by with a solid A in design I. that's the class with bc who admits that he's notoriously hard and a hard@$$. yeah it's true. i think i learned a lot in the class. craftsmanship of my stuff has definitely improved. lots and lots of guache painting and geometric shape compostions. also that form & letterform also pushed me in that direction too.

work attitudes and people

it's really interesting seeing my classmates' different attitudes about their school work and assignments. there are some people who kinda slack, but the people that i talk to tend to be pretty hard core about their work. some are super meticulous and work harder than me. it's definitely good to be around people better than you. some people would spend their weekend worrying about comm design while i wouldn't really stress out too much about it til the nite before.

one guy manages to sleep 7-8 hours a nite b/c he does his work the instant he gets home. it would be nice if i could do that. i think i've been about average in my time management here. there are some who put things off even later than me. some who start earlier. i think like a lot of people i really turn it on under the deadline pressure. (tho it gets bad at times.)

there are a lot of good people here. maybe a few people have really impressed me with their abilities. (i can see how we all have a ways to go being first term peeps.) it's gonna be an interesting journey.

altho i'm not totally hanging out with school people here (who really has time to hang out anyways?), it's nice to start to have some school buds and pals that you can learn from or draw upon as a resource. i think a lot of times in classes in the past i've found myself just doing my own thing...but i know that's not the way to do things here. i think also here you can find people with a greater affinity towards work and life, just b/c AC attracts those type of people. i really can't imagine being at any of those other schools back in sf.

it's interesting going thru the whole new fish in a new pond thing again. sometimes you strike up a rapport with people based on a chance conversation you once had. some people are super social/friendly and talk to everyone (which i ought to really become). some kinda just do their own thing. some asians seem to just hang out or talk to the other asians mostly. i haven't fallen into that yet, which is good. so many people to learn from here.

one common thing that people talk about is what little sleep they're getting. how you're doing on your most recent all niter and why. it's so common here it's crazy. it really is the weekly norm for most average students here. (altho if you're trans or product, it would be like every other day.)

besides j, i only really know graphics, illustration, and ad students. we have our classes mixed up together. i'll be taking one class heavy with upper term illustration people, so it'll be really interesting how i fare in that class. i was checking out the work from this term's class today. (i wish i had tried to check out the final work for all of my next term's classes.)

tomorrow nite is the senior show. afterwards people are planning on getting sloushed. party's being thrown by one of my good friends down here. i think by knowing her i've gotten to know some other people better. who you know definitely is like a huge part of doing well here.

ok...nice bbq rib dinner at robin's now that j woke up recovering from his all-niter. (i think it's the first time that he got a lot less sleep than me in one nite!) after that, clean-up the pad time and plunge into some freelance work.

no sleep makes me light in the head

well it looks like i just about survived the final 14th week of school. i haven't really slept in my bed for three days. i've only sorta taken quickie cat naps...averaging an hour a day for the past two days. this might be some sort of sick record for me. i can't remember the worst i've done while at cal. i do remember feeling worse before. i think AC has conditioned my system. or maybe it's just that i enjoy the work that i'm doing a little. i do find some satisfaction perfecting a poster layout design at 2am. i can probably perfect things forever...it's just the deadlines that make me call it quits.

what took up the most of my time last nite and all day was working on the mango mouse flash movie. i'll try and post it up later. i was cramming it in every free moment today up until 5 minutes into class. i was lucky to be able to get it all done. my flash file must have had a 100 layers or so...and sometimes you lose track of where some assets are. it was definitely a learning experience. i'll post up the file later, or else ask me to IM transfer it to you. it's the reason why i got so little sleep.

there's no place within walking distance after 11pm of my apartment that has open public restrooms with automatic hand dryers. i know, i looked. i need to do another shrink wrapping. right now i'm hoping that two lamps will generate enough heat to melt it.. otherwise i need to make a morning run to mc donald's

it's just about over. will share more thoughts tomorrow when i'm thinking a little better.

another one hour niter

i took a quickie nap at 8pm and right now i feel like i can go til sunrise. i'm probably gonna have to in order to do everything i need to do for my flash work. i'm right now braving the kinko's beast to print out my stuff to get ready for tomorrow. so far so good. it's ok going to kinko's when you're just printing from your own computer. everything's in your control and you don't get nickeled and dimed for every minute. everyone should get laptops. blogging now to pass the time here...whoop. looks like i'm about done! yay.

sleepless and somewhat sane

i slept for 40 minutes last nite. i was up til the wee hours working on all of my stuff...mostly my gw logo and my flash movie. got to school at 9:30 to start studying for my test today. what a long day.

i got my design I book back, and i got an A. i guess it's one of the better ones and bc wants to hang on to it to show his classes next year. i don't think it's that rare of an honor. he told at least three other people that in my class. i'm now on the borderline of A/A-...but if i bring in some of my old work (graded wrong)...i think i might be able to squeak by with an A. yay.

studied like crazy for the history of letterform test. i slept thru 1/2 of the classes in recent weeks...but what else is new. i wasn't the only one. i think i did ok on the multiple choice test. i'm just glad it's over. everyone hated this class b/c in recent weeks it was really chaotic...4 different teachers in 5 weeks or so. just terrible.

i drove to huntington park after school to pick up my "gw" self-inking rubber stamp. i went to huntington park rubber stamp company it's nice and only cost me $20...and i got it made same day. it woulda cost $10 more if i had gone to kinko's. i think i probably spent too much time on it considering the rest of my work load...but i figure i'll probably get a lot of use out of it the next two years, branding all of my work. i must have spent 90 min or more in the car to get that stamp made. more than i slept last nite.

gonna be another long nite and day tomorrow...

my monday ticking away...

* slept at 5:30 am. was working on my mango mouse flash movie.
* woke at 11:00 am.
* regretted getting too much sleep, but felt good.
* called vendors to get my logo rubber stamp done.
* picked up a textbook at borders to study for my test tomorrow.
* checked out closeby places for lunch.
* picked up lunch at a dollar chinese place on orange grove and fair oaks.
* stopped by school to get some AC special paper
* went to target looking for colored tees
* stopped by t-shirt factory outlet on rosemead and got a blue tee.
* came home to some work.
* went to ab's studio at 6pm to show my logo design and to get fonts.
* spent about two hours redoing my diversity of line assignment for tomorrow.
* ate lunch leftovers for dinner while watching the tribute jam performance to run dmc on tv.
* worked on executing my logo with the new fonts.
* hoping now to be almost done.
* anticipating now a couple of hours fixing/finalizing my france poster and spiker ad.
* mostly likely underestimating now the time that i want/need to put into my animation piece tonite.
* getting ready now for a nite of 3 hours of sleep.
* putting off now my study time for my stoopid history of letterform test (tomorrow) until tomorrow morning.
* signing of now to do a lot more work.

cleaning out the dead weight

i'm gonna regularly be purging my links section of sites which haven't been updated in the past 6 weeks. once they have new content, you'll see em back (but on the bottom of my list) by the next day.

so for those of you who don't have the cyber-geeky subscription monitoring feature(pretty much all of you who don't have mac IE...ha ha), hopefully this can help save you time from some random checking.

the la life weekly

98 pix from this past week to share with my voyeuristic pals. see the below posts for descriptions.

(update: the album link now works. it didn't before.)

crazy busy sunday

stayed up til 4:30 am working on stuff. planned to go to church at nite, so i tried to be productive during the day. i was researching a good cafe to go to do some work and came across sweet daddy's coffee lounge in glendora...so i took the 20 minute trek east to check it out. from the website it looked promising...but was a little disappointed since it was pretty small, no real food (wanted to eat lunch), and the espresso milkshakes we ordered were kind of a rip for $3.60.

the excellent equator environment

after that i headed over to a real cafe in pasadena...equator. i had popped in a couple of times before...but this was the first time i was really able to chill in there...eat, drink, and do some work. what an awesome place. i need to try to go to this place a couple of times a week from now on. really cool, yet cozy environment. nice inexpensive menu. i ordered a greek chicken wrap for under $4. just right for a light lunch that won't give me food coma. you have to go in the daytime if you wanna get any work done, cuz the place would be too buzzing at nite and it would be too loud with bands, too.

there are also frequent visitor cards for drinks and the deli. i can easily use it up.

this place was featured in clueless, beverly hills 90210, and a very brady sequal. really cool place to be creative or just chill with friends in old town. too bad you're usually limited to just 90 min of free parking in the area lots (but i scored a free meterless spot today. woo hoo.

there's a second location around san gabriel and huntington. i'm gonna definitely have to check that one out. i think it would be easier to park there for hours for free and do my usual cafe thing there.

la rue at harvest christian fellowship in riverside

my favorite christian group, la rue performed at the day 7 service @ harvest. erica and i didn't really know what to expect...but we were blown away by the church. man...this was definitely the most modern church i've ever been too. it's almost too nice...but at it's center it's a really solid church. wish it was closer.

they have a live streaming simulcast. you can ask pastor greg questions. feels a little like a talk show format. there's a q&a time and one question came in over the net from korea! there were 9 flat video screens up on stage. each week they host the lasest christian bands to lead worship or play special music sets. this week worship was led by the kry with a 5 or 6 song set by la rue. the experience was incredible. the preaching was really strong and biblically solid too. there's a lot of good substance to the place.

we were really blessed and got fantastic seats even tho we came in 10 minutes late. (it took a while b/c of the 50 minute drive, plus we had to cross the huge parking lot.) the usher asked us if we minded sitting up close...then he escorted us down to the front row...best seats in the house to check out la rue. we were so amazed.

la rue was great. wish they played more...particularly of their recent album. they sounded as good live acousticly as they do on the cd. this brother and sister group are amazingly gifted and talented.

the message was pretty good. it was about if the end of the world is near. looked into luke 21 and prophecy for the end times. this church was also pretty relevant and relatable too...so if you're not churched before, you won't feel left out or in the dark.

we sat in the front center left. erica was on the aisle and i'm next to her on the left. if you're the slightest bit intrigued, you can check out the archived broadcast. (you can see it in both real AND wmp AND at different bandwidth rates too. i've never seen anything like this before for a church.) it's a long service tho...close to 2 hours. but well worth it. i think i'll probably be back in the future at some point and also check out their broadcasts.

afterwards we checked out the facilities. also unbelievable. the bookstore was like a mini barnes & nobles. there was a cafe restaurant that looked like starbucks and pluto's combined together. the custom-made sandwiches were great. (this blew away the school cafeteria for sure.) instead of numbers they give you books of the bible tags to claim your order. i was "I thessalonians." how funny. check out my pix to see everything for yourself.

i felt really blessed to come out tonite. altho it took up a big chunk of time...it was a great refresher and perspective lifter with all the school stuff that i'm bogged down with. again helps me to see my priorities in life and living today.

losing momentum

i barely did any work thursday nite or friday. ugh. but i did catch up on plenty of sleep. a little too much.

friday after work we got some late night grub at b-man's teriyaki and burgers. another japanese fast food place. it's funny...that the only reason we went there was b/c it had a really interesting sign. we'd often notice it on the way back up san gabriel coming from church. it has a funny bee and the font looks like it's a racing store. the power of public signage. interesting. anyhoo...the food there is pretty good. lots of variety. we'd go back. i had a chicken curry/gyoza dinner combo.

we ate back at the pad and watch death to smoochy. it was a pretty funny movie. i can appreciate dark, offbeat humor. and i like robin williams and ed norton. i still need to watch one hour photo.

saturday we both slept in close to noon. i should have been up at 8am doing some work...but oh wells. we got lunch at thai original bbq in glendale, which was really good stuff. another recommendation on the list from my neighbor. the thai bbq chicken and beef satay were so good. the place was a letter B tho (for cleanliness.) it looks sorta like a mom and pop diner restaurant sorta. when we walked in we heard "feliz navidad" playing which seemed a little odd for a thai place. oh well.

j had to get materials for his materials class. what i'll be taking next semester. we made a futile run to south bay plastics in burbank, since it closed at 1 and it was 2. since he was driving we went to school to get some materials from the shop. i shadowed him and took a bunch of pix around the shop at school. (see em in the sunday nite upload.)

came back home and managed to do some work...but not a whole lot. i think i took another nap.

tadao ando speaks

we went back to school at 7 to hear tadao ando, a world-famous architecht from japan speak. he used to be a boxer. sorta interesting. there were hundreds of ppl here. i'm glad that i brought some work to do. i was tracing about 50 versions of "gw" for my personal logo out of the darn huge type specimans book. i don't think i'm ever gonna go anywhere again without some work that i can do.

tadao said one thing (in translated japanese) which was interesting..."youth is in your mind...age is something you make to yourself. i very much believe that. youth and fresh creativity comes from your inner strength, passion and energy. i'm pretty sure that i'll be "young" for a very long time. it's interesting that my teacher ry who is 65 seems younger and more full of energy than some peeps my age at home. of course young people always think that they're gonna live forever and are invincible...but it's more than just a short-sighted perspective which i think defines my youth. i think it's all about a continual openness and inquisitivity to the world. i think i embraced that pretty strongly the two years when i actively set out on my creative path (before coming to AC...right about the start of this blog actually), but i can definitely see it being fine-tuned and sharpened a bit more here.

school thoughts

a couple of times now, my comm design teacher, ry, asked us if we knew that we could get out of here in 2 terms. (it's an 8 term school.) but to do that we have to do twice as much work. if we're supposed to do 10 assignments...we do 20. if we're to bring in 50 executions we bring in 100. he says that we can push ourselves to be as good or better than the graduating students in just 2 terms...8 months. i believe that and know that it's possible. hearing that from him again encouraged me to not just accept a path laid out for me but to seek to define my own path. i think this attitude and life perspective differentiates me from the other younger talented kids in my class who are fresh from high school or a j.c. without knowing what they want...or never worked before.

i do sorta feel at a different pace than some others. managed to get out of 2 classes that some other 1st term ppl have to take. some others have to also deal with academics and english too. and if you're esl here, you have even more to deal with. since i have a slight jump on my schedule...i could probably be done with most required stuff in one term less.

i know that to get outta here on my own terms, my own pace...i'll have to push myself to the extreme of what i'm capable of. i don't think i can healthily handle 200% output tho. not if i wanna be sane. or go to church. or occasionally see friends and seek out new experiences. i think i can probably muster 125-150% tho. hopefully i'll be at a good place in 6 terms to have a lot of options open to me. we'll see.

i'm still anxiously waiting to hear back the results of the scholarship review. not only to know if i won anything...but to try to have a vague idea of where i stand amongst others. but i totally know that i'm not all that and that i have a way to go. on wednesday, ry told me that he can't trust my [design] judgement yet...sigh...

next term planning

i'm really happy with my schedule for the spring and consider it a total blessing for everything that looks to be coming my way. of my four studio classes...i have the best teachers possible...

* sj for type 1. (luck of the draw)
* rm for comm design 2. (a lot of finagaling of my schedule...and after hearing the advice of a lot of upper term peeps on who to take.)
* dl for drawing for concept. (sunny told me a lot about him and encouraged me to take his class.)

i'm also taking materials for art and design. teacher's ok i guess. j has cm right now, so i should have an inside track for next term. it should be a lot of work tho.

i was thinking about picking up a 5th studio class, but ppl tell me that i'd be nuts and be setting myself up for burn out...so i probably won't. since j is taking 18 units next term, i figure that i should probably take something else. after looking for a while...i'm gonna probably enroll into two wednesday academic classes. one is narrative structures, since i'm very much into experience storytelling (tho i think it's mostly upper term and grad students...but heck, i went to college before). otherwise i'll try and take history of advertising and propaganda. both classes are taught by the same guy,jb who's supposed to be amazing.

some of my buds are taking a 60's class during that time slot...but i don't really care much about that. hopefully i can make some new friends, particularly upper terms (who'd probably still be younger than me), in those classes.

i'm also planning on still working on fridays next term. maybe i'll ask for more money tho. i dunno. it's not too challenging or stretching me, but it's an enjoyable environment. i don't know a single other person really working here...like one day like me. i wonder if i'd be getting more sleep if i wasn't working. not sure about that. i can possibly handle a 5th hard core class if i drop work, but i'd probably set myself up for burn out still...and i wouldn't have the flexibility that work offers.

decisions...decisons...but i'm thankful that i have a pretty good idea of the spring now. i remember earlier this summer...i didn't know where i might be beyond a few weeks ahead of time, b/c there were too many question marks surrounding me.

okeedoke...must work now. i'm gearing myself up to push til 3 or 4 am now. will probably need to take a starbucks hit pretty soon. i need to dive in the deep end now and swim hard for the next few days. almost done. full speed ahead!

lords of the rhymes

hobbiton is on. listen to this rap from middle earth. (from wahine)

seeking some santa spirit

i'm usually way into the christmas celebration thing. usually try to go to tree lighting cermemonies. see the touristy holiday spirited cool (sorta touristy stuff in sf) but no time here...not for another week. i'm starting to miss having christmas lights and a tree up. i shoulda brought some decorations and santa caps down from home. one apartment in our little complex has some nice white lights. i'm definitely gonna have to do some santa and spirit seeking in a week from now.

christmas music all day every day

on my way to work school today (to check in on my next semester's schedule...all settled now finally)... i saw a billboard for KQST (103.5) playing christmas music all month long. i like hearing christmas music around the season. however, i kinda get tired of the really slow (and kinda sappy) songs.

a lot of the christmas songs that i'm into at the moment are the jazzy swingin ones...from the 50s and 60s...

* Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! by Joe Williams
* Here Comes Santa Claus by The Andrews Sisters
* Santa Claus Is Coming to Town by Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra
* Dixieland Band from Santa Claus Land by His Original Dorseyland Orchestra
* Boogie Woogie Santa Claus by Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra
* I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm by Billie Holiday
(all from the Yule B' Swingin Too album)

these songs are pretty funny...from the bob rivers comedy corp's twisted christmas album...
* Foreigners
* The Restroom Door Said 'Gentlemen'
* The Chimney Song

i also own a few christmas albums...
* the chipmunks christmas album
* avalon's joy

when i was a kid, we always listened to the sesame street christmas album LP. lots of memories of that burned into my head.

i think my favorite classic christmas song is "O Holy Night." we had to sing that in 4th grade i think. oh wait...i don't think we sang it...our class played them on these plastic reed-like flutes.

anyone have any fav christmas tunes or albums?

the so-cal social scene

LA dating strategies and dillemas according to the la times today...

* dating games people play [first date decisions and strategies]
(interesting to note that in LA...huge geographic distances separate people...not like in the bay area.)

* first time's a charm? check the stats.
(AC's been making me turn down practically every single social thing in the past few weeks...but i'd probably still be below average.)

waiting to search for treasure

one of the movies on my hit list once i'm free is treasure planet. i will only see it at the el capitan tho...it's disney's theater in hollywood. one of my co-workers designed some multimedia interactive photo booth for disney for the el capitan. the story looks interesting to me, altho it seems like the flick is a flop with audiences.

pooped out

i took a nap for a few hours and was out on the couch...but i'm still tired. elaine cooked us a very nice meal, which prompted us to clean up the pad before she came. now i'm doing 2 loads of laundry and cleaning the room. hopefully i can stay awake enough to do some work while waiting for clean clothes.

eyelids heavy. should sleep soon. going back to work work tomorrow after a few weeks. iif i manage my time well...i could get a good amount of sleep. i hope

almost done schedule

i got 3 of my 4 classes set up. i dumped the saturday class i was in and got the better teacher for design I. so now i have a tues-thur schedule. hope i can continue to keep working on fridays. it also look like i might even steal away to sf for a 4 day weekend now and then.

whoops...almost keeled over from sleepiness while typing. maybe i'll take a nap.

just one week left

i survived week 13. i think i only got 15 hours of sleep since i got back to pasadena on sat. i'm going to try to get at least half that amount today. feeling a little light headed...but not too goofy yet.

my midnight adventure melting shrinkwrap in the ladies room

i had to shrink wrap another version of my "great oogly moogly" for my letterform class tomorrow. i spent 2 hours at the school lab tonite finishing it up. (i still gotta study for the test tomorrow and illustrate my personal logos. oh boy.)

to melt shrink wrap (sold in the student store) you need to apply heat from a blow dryer. unfortunately j and i both don't have hair dryers. i was gonna use jen's tonite or my neighbor's...but by the time i left school it was 11pm and too late. mel reminded me about public restrooms...so that turned out to save the day and me from making my 4th trip to mel's in just two days.

since i had to eat something for dinner too...i drove about 2 miles south to "the hat" in temple city (world famous pastrami). i got a yummy pastrami sandwich and an orange ban. i also brought in my foam core mounted phrase with me...but the men's room was locked...the women's wasn't...so there i went. fairly clean bathrrom. the automatic hand dryer did get the job done. *whew.* it took about 6 times of hitting the button on the dryer to finish it.

boy, the hat (pastrami) was good. worth driving 2 i think i might need to take a small nap before continuing on with my work.

hungry at home

i'm hungry but have no time to eat now. no food left here. will have to pick something up on my way to school. still working on drawing a mouse in flash and illustrator. this is going to be a very long day (and night).

all this school stuff has been throwing my schedules out of whack...

the sf turkey(-less) life weekly

here's the weekly picture perusal a few days late of
my 47 hour return to sf turkey weekend. it was fantastic seeing everyone. wish i coulda stayed longer (but definitely not to play any more games). if i didn't get to see you...don't feel left out. everything was last minute. hoping to hang out with you in a few weeks when i return for longer.

all to get 16 pags printed and bound

i turned in my design I notebook today. it contained designed pages of all the stuff we've been learning in the class as well as samples of our gouache chip gray scales, color wheel, and star chart. i turned the book around pretty quickly. started to lay out the first page on wednesday. did most of it saturday thru monday.

was finally ready to print at 3 so i went to penpoint (where i blogged from before). i ended up being there 5 hours! it took over 2 hours to get my first page printed b/c they had to reinstall some fiery driver system-wide and then the guy had to deal with some other issues for other projects. finally i got it all printed. i hopped on the computer in the back-room once things were running. one good thing is that this place doesn't charge file rip fees (to send the file to the fiery printer...kinko's charges like $5-$7 per file...what a jip.) finally i got all my stuff printed...but the other workers had gone home already when it came time to crop my pages. luckily i know how to do it...so i did it in the back-room myself using their tools. pretty much i took a blade with a straight edge to each of 16 sheets 4 times (since i had to trim down from 11x17). i also trimmed out the mylar and mat board mylar then gave the guy instructions on how to bind it.

was pretty relieved once all that was done. all of that cost me $41. i thought that he might have given me a sweeter deal since i had to wait for 2 friggin hours...but oh well. he only charged $5 for the binding (and covers).

went with j to get some korean food in san gabriel. i hadn't eaten all day. that was a nice change of pace. went to some tofu house. after that we went to this new joint called bobalicious which had buy 1 get 1 free boba. pretty good. they also have a nice set-up with games in the place. (tony, i think you'll like the place.)

i hate gouache

after that i went to mel's to do the final step of my design notebook project...cut and insert the gouache chips. i thought it might only take an hour or two. boy was i wrong. first i got over there...then realized that i left my grayscale chart chips at home. so i hopped in my car, went home, and got back. that took about 25 minutes round trip. i was starting to get a little tired. i only slept 2 hours the nite before. after starting to settle in to do some work... i realized that my color gouache chips were also at home. crap. all i had with me were the extras that didn't make the cut into my color wheel. the ones that i had worked weeks on to get just right were at home in my tool box. so i hopped in my car again. to go home again. to get more gouache chips again. this took me another 25 or so minutes round trip. i think my brain was already on low power...that's how i forgot them the first time.

when i finally got back i was starting to really feel drained...but finishing another starbucks bottled frappachino helped a bunch. it took a while to cut and trim my gouache paint chips neatly...much much longer than i thought. it was nice doing it when mel was doing it too. nice to have company when you're doing rote work. finally got my grayscale chips cleanly cut...then later realized that i cut them a tad too small for my layout. crud again. this happened about 2 other times later on during the nite. crud-o-la. i also got a little sloppy using the glue, so i had to peel them off, cut some new swatch chips and do it again. this also happened a few times. this nite kept dragging on and on and on.

since my car was gonna be on the street past 2am, mel had to call to report my car to get temporary permit registration for me. (you can call up to 1am). in pasadena you can't have unregistered cars without a permit on the street between 2-6 am, otherwise you risk getting a $25 ticket. that would have really just made my night.

so finally i finished the square x-acto knife cutting, circle hole-punching (which saved me hours right there, thanks to mel) at around 5 am. i coulda tipped in some acetate sheets to protect the paint chips...but at 5:30 am, i really didn't care at all. doing more work or cleaning up my crappy craftsmanship to get maybe half a grade or even a whole grade more wasn't worth staying up another 30 minutes at that point.

so it's over. i'll get my grade next week. i think my book was A quality before but after last nite maybe it's just a B. i don't care. it's worth 50% of my class grade but i don't care too much about grades (unless i were to get a scholarship or something).

sleep deprived

i just need to get some sleep to raise my productivity back up a few notches. i was snoozin and bobbin like crazy (supposedly) in history of letterform class. it was an even more boring class than it normally is. we had a substitute lecturer today, who was just some designer working in the normal teacher's studio. this now makes the 4th different teacher/speaker we've had.

he didn't really know his stuff...so he was reading off of his notes the whole time. word for word. they should just e-mail the notes out and let us read them next time.

i know i was bobbing my head really badly, when a few people tell me about it. especially when those people who told me about it were sitting in front of me.

it wasn't just me. other people who had the design notebook due today was passed out. some spent all niters or just got 3 hours of sleep (my usual).

so my second biggest hurdle for this semester is now over. a bunch of smaller ones still ahead. now to pour myself into my mango tree mouse movie(flash animation), france corset roses poster (photoshop work and hand lettering), and personal logo (illustrator work). a few other smaller projects too. it's all over in 10 more days.

maybe i don't need to sleep too much. i have a month to make-up for it later.

a rough day and night

i just got home right now from finishing my design I notebook due in 3 hours and 15 minutes. i will unload about everything tomorrow. i will get my 2 hours of sleep now...just like yesterday. however this time, it will be in bed and not slumped over the sofa armrest.

the last time i had it this rough was just one week ago.

good gravy

i've been sitting here at penpoint, a small print shop in pasadena for over the past 90 minutes. i still haven't had a single thing printed yet! arrggh. i thought it was going to take me just 30 min. all i have to do is get 16 sheets printed and get the darn thing cut and bound. is this going to top my past frustration with kinko's? i don't know.

they better be giving me a deal or something. otherwise i won't be coming here again.

it's a good deal for color 11x17 outputs...$2. but they also wanna charge me $2 for the black and white prints. i can do that at school for free if i have the right paper. i was gonna try to print it at school with their paper and bring it back...but i dunno...this place closes in 90 min and i don't know where else i'd have my book bound for 9am class tomorrow.

another long sunday

* i was up til 7am working on stuff until i physically couldn't go on any more.
* luckily didn't oversleep my alarm too much to be able to make to fec-glendale for church at 11:15.
* met up with mikey lai there and had some hawaiian korean lunch with two of his friends.
* back at home now. i hope i don't fall asleep from food coma. i think i'm about 45-50% done designing the pages now.

still cramming on the design I notebook project

man...it's going much slooooooooooower than i thought. maybe i'm being too detailed. i still have a few hours left of work potential in the nite. not planning on going to church til 11:15 tomorrow.

christmas jing-a-ling

i loaded up on the christmas music during my trip home. i helped my sis get a bunch of christmas cds last year...and now it's in my powerbook. i'm listening to seasonal songs by some seasonal swingsters like louis armstrong, ella fitzgerald, kay starr and many others. a lot of it is like the music you'd hear in a christmas gap commercial. i like the upbeatness. i've got 4.3 hours of this stuff...along with some twisted christmas songs...pretty funny stuff. usually i don't get sick of christmas music...tho i think this stuff might already be starting to wear on me...having it repeating for the past 6 hours designing my stuff.

i think i need to find some christmas electronic dance music.

i brought home a 6 inch mini tree. i kinda want a bigger one....maybe 3 feet or so.

maybe i should throw a christmas party after the term is over. will finally have time the week after the term is over. i have the music for it.

or maybe just invite and host people who wanna check out the fancy decked out neighborhood lights and trimmings. supposedly my hood is the christmas lights neighborhood in la. (if our apartment faced the street...we'd definitely do something.) i think it might even become a destination trip thing. i hope street parking doesn't become bad. that would suck indeed...but it would be really nice to be surrounded by pretty lights. maybe i'll take up walking for a while.

once my schedule lets up (not until the 13th...sigh...) i really need to go seek out cool holiday stuff to check out down here. i don't think there are as many tree lighting cool places as in sf...but who knows.

my sis is comin down for a weekend (right when my schedule lets up). if anyone wants to come and see the pretty lights or check out la lemme know. southwest fares are cheap now. i still also wouldn't mind someone to drive up to sf with.