This past Saturday, award-winning violinist Bin Huang performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61 with the Palo Alto Philharmonic. Yesterday, she accompanied Eric to Stanford University to make photographs for her upcoming CD. I went along for the ride, documenting the portrait session on a very chilly Monday afternoon and evening.

Other people assisting Eric included Ben, Lynn, and Rae (Kendrick and a friend of Bin’s were also there at times). We began at the courtyard in the back of the Cantor Art Museum and ended up in the (warm) confines of the History Corner basement. There are some lovely staircases and sculptures at Cantor. I’m going to have to go back there to take some nighttime shots.

At Cantor, no one was around to watch us, but at History Corner, students were pouring in and out of classes throughout the night. Though we all looked young enough to be students, we knew better. It was funny watching these Stanford people look at us like, “What the hell is going on here?!?”

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Last summer there was an invasion of wasps when a queen decided to set up her nest in the eaves at my place. I rarely ventured out to the balcony until they left when Old Man Winter arrived in the Bay Area. A few weeks ago, I noticed the appearance of a few more hives along the eaves. How fitting that the next Star Wars movie is called Attack of the Clones. I was experiencing an Attack of the Wasps!

Today, Alex from the pest company came by to deal with the wasps. Armed with a two meter long force pike… err… metal pole and a can of Wasp Freeze, he dealt with the offending nests and queens. In one of the nests, we saw wasp pupae. I felt a tinge of sadness as we were destroying it, but it was fascinating to see the metamorphosis between a larvae and an adult wasp. We also saw some developing larvae still encased within the hive combs.

Alex told me that the wasps were Paper Wasps, not yellowjackets. The latter have shorter legs and are much more aggressive than the former. Paper wasps are a relatively non-aggressive species of wasps that make their nests out of chewed up wood. Recycling occuring in nature — how cool is that?

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Rae, May, Salim, and Cathy went to The King’s Head Pub and Restaurant in Campbell for dinner tonight. On Tuesday and Sunday evenings, the restaurant holds the Pub Quiz for the dinner guests. There are three rounds to the game. The game master poses about 20 questions in each round. The questions range from a variety of topics, including U.S. history, current news, sports, and entertainment. Each round’s winner gets a free set of drinks, and the evening’s overall winner (aggregate point total) receives a $25 credit at the restaurant.

Our group put up a brave challenge, garnering third place in the first round, but sunk lower and lower in the next two rounds. Those dang Bengals, Bills, and Browns prevented us from getting a third place in the final round! The question was to name in alphabetical order the first 10 NFL teams. I got all of them except for those blasted ‘B’ teams! Argh!

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On Thursday evening, the men and women of Homestead hosted their fourth annual talent show at the Cubberley Community Theater in Palo Alto. I covered the third annual talent show last year and did so again in 2002. There weren’t as many skits this year, and the crowd was thin. Where was the rest of Homestead?!? Next time, come out and support the home team, will ya?

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Thousands of people showed up today for an anti-war protest march in San Francisco. The rally organized and sponsored by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), began at Dolores Park shortly before noontime. The demonstrators weaved their way through the streets of San Francisco, ultimately ending at the Civic Center Plaza in front of City Hall. The march was peaceful and no violence nor arrests were reported by the police.

This protest absolutely dwarfed that of the Abercrombie & Fitch on Thursday. It really did make the little brouhaha about a t-shirt design seem so trivial and petty, I felt.

The protesters had a definite pro-Palestinian edge to it, with thousands of people wielding anti-Bush administration and anti-Israeli pickets. Here is a sampling of slogans adorning some of the signs:

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This afternoon, Rae and I stopped by the offices of Beau Bonneau Casting in San Francisco. The agency had an open casting call for extras in the upcoming The Hulk movie by Ang Lee. “Don’t get me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry!”

Speaking of Marvel characters, there’s this giant blowup Spider-Man outside of the Sony Metreon. It’s pretty cool having Spider-Man crawling down the side of the building, no? The month of May is going to be a busy movie month for me. Spider-Man’s coming out on the 3rd, and Attack of the Clones will be opening on May 16! I dusted off my Boba Fett and Royal Imperial Guard cardboard cutouts from the closet this evening. Let the countdown to Episode II begin!

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If you’ve been reading the news in the Bay Area, there was a protest Thursday afternoon at the Abercrombie & Fitch store in San Francisco. The protest was in reaction to a new line of t-shirts that A&F recently released depicting stereotypical Asian caricatures.

“Two Wongs Can Make It White,” “Pizza Dojo,” and “Wok-N-Bowl” are just some of the slogans adorning these t-shirts. According to A&F spokespeople, the t-shirts were meant to be funny and non-offensive. After all, they polled some Asians in the office who thought they were funny, according to Abercrombie spokesman Hampton Carney said in an AP article. “It is not and never has been our intention to offend anyone.”

Well, the t-shirts certainly offended the hundreds of Asian-Americans who convened at the A&F store on the corner of Market and Powell to protest these shirts. Here’s a sampling of some of the pickets that were on prominent display:

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The third meeting of the Canon Owners of the Bay Area moved from the lush interior of the Mountain View City Hall to the campus of Stanford University. In the Bechtel International Center’s Assembly Room, about 30-40 people were present to listen to feature presentations by Eric Cheng and Mike Doran & Jim W.

Eric spoke to the group about underwater and marine photography. He recently returned from Kona, Hawaii, where he used an underwater housing from UK Germany with the new EOS-D60. Mark Liebman of Pictopia brought in some stunning 20×30 sample prints of Eric’s photos using his company’s LightJet. The resolution and level of detail caught by the D60 make it a stellar performer underwater. Many of Eric’s photographer colleagues on that trip were ready to throw away their film cameras in favor of the D60! Yes, it’s that good!

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On Sunday night, I drove up to San Francisco to hear Michael’s band, the Walk-Ups, perform at the Tongue and Groove bar in Pacific Heights. The music for the evening started at 6:30, and there were three other bands playing before the Walk-Ups.

Michael, Teri, Ben, and Dave got started shortly after 10:00 pm and played a few numbers before the sound guy told them that they should finish up! Perhaps there was some noise ordinance in Pacific Heights, but the Walk-Ups had to walk down from the stage after a shortened set. Fortunately, they will be playing again at the Tongue and Groove the end of the month.

I met up with Deb, Rae, Susan, and more of Teri and Michael’s friends at the bar. I had a nice conversation with Diana and Carla about the world of photography, and I spoke with the booker, Barbara, about some potential upcoming band photography gigs.

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The annual UC Berkeley Chinese Martial Arts Tournament was held on April 13, 2002 at the Haas Pavilion at the Cal campus.

I went to Cal in 1995 to see the Beijing Wushu Team perform (in Zellerbach Auditorium, I believe). One of the members from that performance, Li Jing, is now a coach down in the LA area. She coached at Cal before going down South. I hear that a lot of former competitors go on to teaching after their competitive careers are over. Whatever happened to Zhuang Hui, Di Guangwen, Kong Xiangdong, Tan Hua, or Chen Chen? For that matter, what the heck happened to Russell Wong? He looked so fat and plump in Romeo Must Die! Success and money must have got him complacent.

The Masters Demo was fun to watch and photograph. The crowd seemed to get more into the fast action rather than the slow, deliberate and graceful movements of Tai-Chi. People like the long ball in baseball, and I guess they also like the fast wushu action with lots of butterflies and weapons demonstrations.

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