On Friday night, I went to the ODC Theater in San Francisco, where performances were held by Facing East Dance & Music, Red Jade Collective (with Jen), and Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble. The event was presented by ODC Theater and Asian Improv aRts (AIR) and was celebrating AIR’s 15th anniversary.

Various factors and incidents contributed to my arrival at the ODC Theater one hour late. A 7+ car accident along 101 South delayed me for 30 minutes (I was taking someone to the San Jose Airport). Next, I mistakenly went to the wrong place in the City for the performance! I originally thought it was being held at Cowell Theater at the Fort Mason Conference Center. Indeed, Facing East is going to be there, but that’s in July, not June! It didn’t help matters that Fort Mason and the ODC Theater were on opposite sides of the City. I was able to get a good photo of the sun setting beyond the Golden Gate Bridge, however, so things weren’t a total loss.

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Randy’s birthday was on Monday, and Ann, Joon-Mo, Tarun, and I took him out to Todai Restaurant in the Vallco Shopping Mall in Cupertino. Todai is a franchise operation that serves an extensive all-you-can-eat Japanese seafood buffet. Food critic, Elmer Dills, called Todai the “Mother of all Seafood Buffets” and after having eaten there, I agree with him! With sushi, sometimes you’re in the mood for quality and sometimes you’re in the mood for quantity. The latter was definitely the case last night. The food quality was decent, with more selection and variety than at Minokichi’s in Palo Alto.

Being the birthday boy, Randy didn’t have to pay at Todai, but it wasn’t because his friends chipped in to cover his bill. At Todai, if it’s your birthday, your meal is free! Plus, the waiters and waitresses come to your table after you’ve been stuffed with sushi to sing you happy birthday.

And boy, did we get stuffed with food! I had two heaping plates of sushi to go along with some miso soup, fruit, and delectable fried shrimps.

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Placerville. It’s a name that conjures up images of the prototypical American small town like Smallville or Pleasantville. Formerly known as Hangtown, Placerville is located in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California’s El Dorado County, sandwiched between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe.

This past weekend, I travelled with my family up to Placerville to attend my parent’s high school reunion. On Friday morning, my sister and I drove up from Berkeley to pick up our parents up from the Sacramento Airport. Edna spotted a lonely airport luggage cart in the parking lot which we commandeered. At the baggage claim there was a neat art installation of luggage stacked all the way to the airport’s high ceilings.

On both Friday and Saturday, we wandered around Placerville and surrounding El Dorado County. I passed by the town earlier on my trip to Desolation Wilderness in the end of 2000, but I just stopped to pick up some gas. We found a lot of interesting places to visit and things to do.

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Can you believe that the year is already halfway through? What to do with the rest of 2002?!? If you’re the planning type, then get your printer and pencil handy with these commemorative, special edition rest of 2002 Cambrian Bowl Team Members Calendar!

Meet team members such as Randy, Nelson, Mike, Ben, Rita, Dardy, and Adam as they bowl the night away at the Cambrian Bowl in San Jose! Each month features your favorite bowler in an action pose that’s bound to get your blood pumping for some fast pin action!

Don’t delay, get your 2002 Cambrian Bowl Team Members Calendar today!

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On Saturday, I went to Boss’ 5th birthday party at Serra Park. The great weather brought out a number of people to this Sunnyvale park. I ran into some Palm people, including Trevor, his wife Julie and son Curtis, and Yannick and his family. Natasha, of course, was there to coordinate and celebrate her son’s birthday. The children had fun playing by a little stream near the picnic area, with their lollipop mouth pacifier candies, and with those crazy string dispensers.

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Workflow was the topic of discussion at this month’s Canon Owners of the Bay Area user group meeting, held for the first time at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center behind Stanford University. Thanks to Stuart Metcalfe for arranging the meeting location, which we’ll likely use for future COBA meetings.

Before the meeting, I sent out a workflow questionnaire out to the COBA mailing list (and on the various photography web forums). Unfortunately, we didn’t get around to hearing from everyone, since the bulk of the meeting time was taken up by laptop/projector presentations by myself, Fazal, and Richard. I spoke about workflow using a Macintosh, while Richard presented from a Windows point-of-view using only free software. Fazal focused his presentation on asset management, an important issue when your image gallery reaches thousands upon thousands of images.

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About 70% of the sun was covered by the moon in the early evening of June 10, 2002 in much of North America. Maximum coverage occurred at around 6:20 pm PST, which was still an hour and a half away from sunset this time of year. It would have been great to have been able to see the eclipse with our naked eyes. As it was, the sun was too bright and dangerous to see anything. Many people took out a couple of sheets of paper to make a small pinhole camera to view the eclipse. You can see the results in the image to the right.

This evening, I hung out with Sophia across the Dumbarton Bridge in Fremont. After months of waiting and missed opportunities, I was finally able to see my birthday gift from Sophia: Kenneth Cole Cufflinks! I can’t wait to try them on with my dress shirts. Thanks, Sophia!

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On Sunday, June 9, 2002, it was Christy’s turn to become 27. To celebrate her birthday, Christy and her friends — Dave, Tim, Pam, Debbie, Benedict, NaSun, Brad, Winston, Ed, Sherry, Travis, Melissa, Tina, Winnie, Victor, Ryan, and Howard — convened in Cupertino for an Italian potluck dinner and dessert party. We gorged on the yummy creations while watching the Lakers-Nets basketball game. The game was a little more exciting than the one on Friday night, but the end result remained the same: another Lakers’ win.

There were a number of ‘97 graduates at the party. Our 5th Year Reunion is quickly approaching, and it’s got us thinking again that the undergraduate experience would be awesome if we were back in school as undergraduates. There’s no turning back the clock, unfortunately, so we’ll just have to be satisfied with our reunions and frequent visits back to the Farm.

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At Jon and Josh’s going away party on May 31, 2002, I was speaking with Natasha about changing my hairstyle, and she suggested getting some cornrows. I thought that was a great suggestion, and the two of us arranged my hair styling appointment for last night. Prior to her arrival, I did some research on cornrows on the Internet. I was surprised to find there were no pages about Asians with cornrows! What’s up with that? Give Google a few weeks to crawl through my web site, and I assure you that’s going to change!

Natasha and I watched the Lakers-Nets “basketbore” game while she transformed me from a long-haired Asian into an Asian Undercover Brother with cornrows. My hair has a slight wave to it, unlike most straight-haired Asian people, so it was easier for Natasha to braid the cornrows. We had fun along with Rae taking pictures and videotaping the event.

My hair has gone through several radical transformations over the past several years. It’s seen short hair, no hair, long hair, and finally cornrows! Next will be the Jedi Padawan look! Which do you like best?

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Click on the picture to the left to see a collage of the assignments that I handled during my month-long stint at a local Bay Area newspaper. In May, I photographed ex-Presidents, restaurants, numerous local K-12 schools, and real-estate properties. As I mentioned earlier, my experience at the paper was overall a good one.

The past few days, I’ve been hanging out with friends and enjoying the great weather here in the Bay Area. Last Thursday, Rae, Susan, Steven, and I went to the UC Theatre in Berkeley to see Medea performed by the Shotgun Players. It was enjoyable, but I think that their previous play, Iphigenia in Aulis was better acted and had better ambiance (being held in an outdoor amphitheatre).

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