When Conversation Works.

In conversation with Catherine at Starbucks on life in general. Today's session was full of realizations.

Also, thanks for the copy of C magazine Catherinee! [She happens to be one of the interns there and her name is published in the credits. Nice.] as well as the souvenir postcards!

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My friend Catherine was also the editor and writer for the introduction of my project Nonage published last year.

SF Japantown: Cherry Blossom Festival (St. Mary's Volunteer)

Today was the start of SF's Cherry Blossom Festival at Japantown. I signed up weeks ago to be a Blood Pressure screener which will count for my clinical hours.

The first "shift": Me, Michelle, and Jill.
Ruth, an RN from St. Mary's Hospital, volunteers annually.
My set up: bad photo because that actual blood pressure reading is skyrocketing high haha
Free t-shirt and nifty ID holder [can stuff money, ID/Bus pass and pen loops in back.
Free lunch! Bento box had salmon terayaki, seaweed salad, egg, fried potato hash brown-like thing, and some random veggies that I didn't know what they're called. I just ate it all.
After my shift*, I walked around a bit and had plenty of goodies around. Unfortunately [or fortunately], I didn't have enough cash to buy anything.
Can't be at a cherry blossom festival without seeing some.

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* Thanks to my friend Ghia who spotted my typo. It originally read "After my shit, I walked around a bit..." hahah! Nice find.

Back it up.

In general, BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE NOW.

Everyone's in the digital age--documents, pictures, videos. Go and get an external hard drive [500GB fits most of people's needs], hook it up to your comp and drag and drop and copy all your precious files.

Or, get a mac and with that external hard drive, use Time Machine. tee hee

Another thing to back up, your BOOKMARKS NOW.

If you're like me, you bookmark many websites online and if you're also like me, you organize them in folders. If you do any of the above, I'm sure losing them would be like loosing receipts--you can live without em but it's good to have record of what you bought/spent/went. So this now.

Taken from wikihow.com:


BACKING UP YOUR BOOKMARKS [mozilla firefox]
Open up your bookmarks and go to "Organize Bookmarks"
Select all your bookmarks.
Select "export" in the file menu.
Select your save location and file name

INSTALLING BOOKMARKS
Go to the Bookmarks tab, then "Organize Bookmarks"
Go to the File tab, then "Import"
Select the Bookmarks file.
Select "Open"

LAST PART THAT I DO ONCE YOU BACKED UP YOUR BOOKMARKS: email it to yourself. [you can even now open your bookmarks in any computer just by installing em.]

Abbot and East Moltke: "Coffee Pair"

A pair of coffee tables up for grabs.

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Abbot and East Moltke is an on-going project documenting the various items left by households at the corner of where I live. Different items have been left already and some of which I've already unfortunately missed. This photo series will continue for an unknown period of time and is planned to be [self] published once body of work is completed.

Attraction

Picture taken at Marin City today [clinical]

For some reason, I'm attracted to the old Beetles and figured out that if I have money one day and time and patience to learn, I'd buy one to fix up. I just like the classic look and I can definitely see myself driving one.

This is a far cry of my xB's usefulness/practicality, but like I said--one day with money + time + patience.

Warriors vs. Timberwolves

On the way to Oakland Coliseum taking BART from Daly City. I wonder what that girl read because her mouth is agape and I'm now interested.
I'd say it's my 4th time here? Warrior fan but haven't been to too many games.
Our view that's worth $15/person.
My 'stache.
She [girlfriend] tries to cheer me up on the way home as I'm saddened and shocked and frozen by our 105-97 loss. =(

Golden Gate Bridge

taken today going back home from marin [for clinical]

I stepped out of my car real quick and held traffic.

Ok I didn't.

Gas Pump

click image for full resolution

Every day now I've been carrying around my digital camera in my pocket just in case if there happens to be a photo opportunity. While this isn't the most picturesque moment, I decided to grab a shot and what I can do in post process.

Lately, I've been honing a post processed look and while this type of editing may not really suit people, I think it does a fair good job in photos especially with high constrast. While this was taken nearly at 9:25pm, the photo in my opinion turned out ok.

Click image for the the full resolution [or scale it down] but you'll see the fine detail that is accentuated with this process.

Enjoy and hope to see more posts like this!

Papaya Sisters

The Sisters: My Aunty Lucy and Mom Jo (April 5, 2009 [Daly City])

After watching the Filipino Channel artists dance the "Papaya Dance," I requested them to do it and here's the rendition:




My favorite part is not even the dance itself but the beginning: I only told them to introduce themselves and suddenly they both go "WHATS UUP!' Especially when my aunty says it after taking my mom's cue. hahah

Happy Psalm Sunday!

click here for slightly large version.

Shot taken on Sunday April 5th during the blessing of the psalms with holy water in San Francisco. Next week is Easter Sunday and that means all the kids receive candy/goody baskets from my mom and aunty. I'll be lucky if there's leftovers.

Review: Magcloud: Publish Your Own Magazines!

A new service of Hewlett-Packard, Magcloud allows anyone [that can create a printer-ready PDF file] to publish their own 8.5 x 11 magazine. I first learned this through a blog entry of American Photo's [with an extended article from New York Times] and got curious enough to order an issue of my "magazine" Bureaucreative. Ok, I'm done with the large bold links.

So I ordered my issue on March 30th and received my 12-paged magazine in a plastic sleeve today April 4th. Before I go into the actual review of the product, here's brief info on this service:

• All magazines submitted for print must be a 300 dpi .PDF file
  
• Total number of pages of magazines must be divisible by 4
• Cost per page [regardless of color or black and white]: $0.20
• Cost of shipping for 1 magazine: $1.40 [cheapest] and ranges to faster, but more expensive shipping
• No discount on bulk order since it's on-demand printing [you buy, they print]
• All magazines are printed by HP's Indigo press unit [a printer press that costs $300-600,000. Damn.]
  

The cost of this issue was $3.80 and I definitely see the price getting higher if its contents were more than 12 pages. Otherwise, I am satisfied with the product.

Bureacreative first ever printed edition.
Paper quality is quite good.. I'm not sure the exact weight of the paper but it is very comparable to those in commercial magazines [if anything, it's thicker] minus the glossy cover jacket.
Two staples bind the entire magazine.
A good quote from Charlie "Tremdendous" Jones from Success magazine.
I was more curious to see how a high-res photo will look like printed here and I'm happy that the quality is well preserved--you can see the fine hairs and pores of my uncle pictured here clearly. He is the first photographed for this project and it will begin Summer 2009 so please contact me if you're interested in having your family photographed for the project.

Detail. That's pretty damn good resolution/quality reprint.
The back of the magazine is where you have to reserve the lower third of the space for the mailing information. You can see that the graphic is cut off but there is an option for a smaller sticker label [similar to the commercial ones] if you order in bulk.

More details on the their website.

Overall, I am very impressed with this service and I can see the potential of using this service beyond magazines: photography portfolio, resume, magazine edition [of Nonage], gifts to clients after their photography event.

This is going to definitely be part of my creative outlet solution.

My Brand Affinity: Moleskine

Pictured above: [Left] Moleskine 2009 Daily Planner, [Right] Moleskine Pocket Squared Notebook, and [Bottom Right] Large Plain Moleskine Notebook.

If you know me you should know about Moleskine Notebooks. I've used them since early 2007 [I forgot how I learned about them...] and since then I've only purchased these brand of notebooks for different purposes. Here I give reasons why I use them but I will not provide arguments against it. I'm sure you can make your own but feel free to leave those arguments by commenting. =)

To sum up why I like Moleskine notebooks, I'll pretend this is what my 1st notebook said to me:

"Hi. I'm Moleskine and I'm a high quality notebook. I'm sorry that you have to pay anywhere between $7-18 but surely you won't be sorry when you use me. I'm redundant I know because I always include the "history" of me in the form of a piece of paper but this is just to remind you who used me before--Hemmingway, Leonardi Di Vinci...--and now you! Look, you know that whole Mac vs PC argument and which is better? I know, computers are computers... as long as you can connect to the internet, make a word document, hook up your iPod, burn CDs.. blah blah they're the same right? Well I'm sure you'd be comfortable using a PC because simply it works. But you'd tried a Mac right? Tell me if you'd go back to PC. Yea, I thought so.

Same applies here buddy.

I just look better and it makes you feel better when writing down anything. Stopped writing? It's ok, use my cloth bookmark to keep your place next time you open up. Have business cards, emergency money/check, pieces of loose paper? Put them in my pocket in the back. And when you're finally done, use the elastic band to secure me so the book doesn't open up, let loose if anything, and get messed up.

It's really up to you to buy me. I can see why people don't get me: I'm expensive, 'it's just a notebook,' blah blah..

Look, if you simply are open-minded, have a habit of jotting ideas, quotes, like to draw, and all that good stuff worth remembering, I'd give me a try.

And oh, you know how people can easily distinguish a Mac out of the crowd? I too am recognizable but only to those who understand the concept of having a fine notebook that will last."

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I started my planner early March of this year to get away from using my Palm Centro's calendar. Low tech is still good tech. Reason why I opted to use a pen-paper planner is 1) it is a good way to reflect on the day [aka used as a journal] and 2) simply cool to "flip" through your life and see what you've done and what you're going to do.

I've consistently used the pocket squared notebook since the day I started using these notebooks and here I use its graph paper to jot down ideas, book titles I'd like to buy/read, plans, diagrams, and even used for notes in class if I didn't bring in paper. This is also my work of labor project Nonage was born--premise, cover concept, list of the photographed, and even the total number of books ordered and final costs. My reason for keeping this kind is that not only it helps keep record of me but also I will soon have a collection on my book shelf.

The following images are excerpts from my "Visual Book" created with a large plain notebook. I subscribe to more magazines that I can keep count of and this is where the most important articles/images from those magazines become archived here as a scrapbook. I've clipped meaningful quotes, articles on how-to in photography and business, and inspiring images. All are cited by noting the author/artist and magazine [including month/issue] it was published in.

Knowledge is power and definitely this book is that.

Abbot & East Moltke: "Cabinet"

This is getting ridiculous. Someone should just open a shop there and call it Abbot & East Moltke already.

--
Abbot and East Moltke is an on-going project documenting the various items left by households at the corner of where I live. Different items have been left already and some of which I've already unfortunately missed. This photo series will continue for an unknown period of time and is planned to be [self] published once body of work is completed.

Look Ma! No Hands!

Just placed my magician's only exclusive shelf.
"Daang. What the--? How? No wayyy!"

That's what I'm hearing [or at least expecting to hear. Ok hoping to hear] from your reaction.
Because this stack is near my bed and bed lamp, I'm devoting this stack of books to that I've yet to read. Not pictured but Three Cups of Tea belongs there too.

Fun fact: three of the books I need to read are signed by its authors: West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamim Ansary, Hulk: Planet Hulk by artist Greg Pak [courtesy of my cousin] and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.

de Young Spells J But Really Stands for Trompe l'Oeil

Went to de Young Museum after school since a meeting I was suppose to have was canceled in the afternoon. My girlfriend and I have been here several times thanks to our Student Passes so I try to take advantage of it when I can.

While walking to the entrance I noticed how the buildings converge at a point and well what do you know. de Young spells out "J" for me. Ok it doesn't "spells" my name but I don't know how else to say it since J isn't really a word. Ok whatever.
I believe this is a permanent exhibition in the museum but I was really amazed when I passed this collection. Sorry if you have to squint to read and even if you click the above photo there's no bigger size.

These photos do not do justice and you just have to look at them in person [or check your local musuem if they have any Trmpe l'Oeil.

It basically means "Fool of the Eye" and gosh darnit it fooled me. Seriously though, these paintings popped out of their frames and you'd think it's 3D but low and behold they just pulled an April Fool's on me because they're just 1 dimensional paintings. Niice.

This is an 'ok' capture to illustrate how realistic these photos I mean paintings are. See. I'm still amazed. Look at it for a bit and it seems like the tails of the fish are coming off the canvas a bit.

Detailed shot.
It's as if I Smelt it alright. Heh. Heh.

Ok bye.