On the heels of her half-page article in the San Jose Mercury News, Vienna Teng played to a sold out crowd at the Espresso Garden & Café in San Jose. Vienna performed on one leg of the Asian-American Showcase Tour with Emm Gryner, Annie Lin and Jenny Choi. Apparently, tickets have been selling for quite some time, but I guess all of her friends and groupies figured we could arrive 30 minutes before the show without any problems. Well, I guess those days are long gone; Vienna’s gone prime time!

The manager of Espresso Garden did say we could hang out in the back, where the music apparently could reach. I’m not sure We left before we could find out, however. Bill, Steven, Jess, Carolyn, or Jeremy: could you hear the music?

In other news, Eric’s dive equipment from the Bahamas arrived at my door yesterday afternoon. If you haven’t checked out his amazing underwater photos from the trip, do so now!!! He is growing strong in the ways of underwater photography. Rae and I couldn’t help but try on his mask and cap and pretend we were little fishies swimming in the ocean!

Oops, the nose goes into the mask, not outside!

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Katherine held a surprise birthday party for Jeremy on Saturday evening at Sunflower Restaurant on 16th and Valencia in San Francisco. I’m not sure if Jeremy is tired of Vietnamese food following his month-long biking trip through Vietnam, but everyone else there sure enjoyed the tasty dishes. Given that I had a late lunch with Randy in Cupertino, I wasn’t that hungry, but it sure looked “gorgelicious”! Rae, Susan, Petrice, and I actually ate at Sunflower the weekend before when we went to see Xeno perform at the Xenodrome. If you’re into performance artists like Cirque du Soleil, Xeno is definitely worth checking out.

Jeremy mentioned that he usually can smell a party coming from a mile away, but this time he was genuinely surprised Katherine’s clever birthday trap. Among the people that came were Toli, Ellen, Lana, April, Katherine, Erik, Eric, Sonya, Scott, Jade, Betsy, Marnie, and three more whose names escape me at the moment. I had seen a number of them at Jeremy’s Road Trip Party back in March. It’s already been 4.5 months since that party! Time sure is flying these days!

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The last time I went to a Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant was way back in elementary school for Travis Powell’s birthday party. My most vivid memory from that day was going to Travis’ parents over and over to get more tokens. You see, the number of tokens I used was inversely proportional to my arcade gaming skills!

Thursday night, Flo and I relived those wonderful childhood memories at the Redwood City Chuck E. Cheese’s. The pizza didn’t quite taste like cardboard, but it wasn’t far from it. In many ways, Chuck E. Cheese’s has grown up with the times. In place of a man in a giant mouse suit, there’s an animatronic Chuck E. Cheese that sings and talks! On the flip side, the arcade section was filled with old relics like Star Wars and Hungry Hippo. What few children there were seemed more intent on dancing in front of the bluescreen and watching themselves on the television monitors than playing the video games.

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In our quest to find a grand piano for our photo shoot, Vienna, Rae and I found ourselves at the Stanford Alumni Center on Saturday morning. We first met at Braun Music Center, but we were repelled by locked doors and an overprotective employee. Fortunately, Laurel and Pamela at the Alumni Center were much more accomodating, allowing us to set up and do pretty much whatever we wanted there. It’s a good thing that the center is now open on Saturdays; I’m not sure where in the South Bay we could have found a grand piano on such short notice. Though most of the dorms on campus have grand pianos, we might have met up with some more resistance from all of the middle and high school students who are attending the various camps Stanford holds during the summer!

We spent the next several hours setting up and taking down the umbrellas, backdrops, gels, and lights as we transitioned from scene to scene. The good thing about studio photography is that you have complete control over everything that goes into final image. The bad thing about studio photography is that you have complete control over everything that goes into the final image!

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Rae and I went to Great America in Santa Clara today for a short afternoon of fun in the sun. The amusement and theme park has gone through a number of owners since its inception. From 1979 to 1985, it was called Marriott’s Great America. From 1992 to the present day, it’s been under the ownership of Paramount Pictures. I don’t remember the last time that I went here, but I do recall that it was with my two cousins from San Francisco. We came back to the van very, very wet, courtesy of Loggers Run!

Great America felt a lot smaller than I thought it was. There are 10 roller coasters, the most in Northern California. We didn’t do any of the crazy stuff like the 224-foot Drop Zone Stunt Tower or the Stealth, but we had fun walking along the treacherous Scooby Doo Haunted River and soaring in the Flying Eagles and funiculars.

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Now that was much better.

The fifth meeting of COBA was held at the Stanford Linear Accelerator on July 17, 2002. There were three main items on the agenda this evening:

1. Tips and tricks with the EOS-D30/D60 and EOS-1D
2. General photography tips
3. Photo showcase

By concentrating on subjects that have universal appeal, the group was more focused and involved throughout the meeting. We learned from the last one that keeping people involved is key to ensuring their return the following month. We had a few new people show up, including Brian, Jeff, Barbie, Scott, Peter, Edgar, Richard, Serge, Lance, Preet, and James, along with the regular old crowd of COBA Members. Most of the new people found out about the site through DPReview’s Canon SLR Forum or through Rob Galbraith’s web site.

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While in San Diego this past week, I rediscovered how beautiful the ocean is. I don’t understand why I never enjoyed going to the beach growing up just 4 miles away from the Pacific. I always used the excuse of my “failure in the seaweed cave” during our seventh grade Catalina excursion to explain my distaste for the ocean. Ah, the things we do to deprive us of great experiences! Had I the mindset of today back as a youth, things might have been different. Isn’t that always the case with 20-20 hindsight?

It sounds trite and hackneyed, but there’s something to be said about seizing opportunities and venturing away from the familiar and off into the unknown. We all know we should do it, but something always seems to hold us back. If we don’t have the necessary resources or financial wherewithal, it might be understandable, but why is it when we’ve reached the level of being highly risk tolerant that we’ve also become so risk adverse?

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The past, present, and future of Palm, Inc. gathered at the Westin Hotel in Santa Clara this afternoon to bid farewell to Frank Canova, who’s leaving the handheld manufacturer. It was nice to talk with people from the company whom I haven’t seen in awhile, including Monty, Cherie, Phil M., and Chris D. The winds of change are a blowing in the handheld marketplace. I suspect within the next two years, we’re going to see a drastically different landscape than what we’ve been accustomed to in recent times. PDA’s are turning into phones and phones are gaining PDA-like features.

Phil M. was at the gathering, sporting a wedding ring. Turns out he got married last month to Katie. Congratulations, Phil! I wonder how many others from Disco Donner have tied the knot already. As I wrote yesterday, I guess we’ll find out at Reunion in October!

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On Monday, Felix and his climbing friend, Tori, celebrated their respective birthdays at Felix’s place in Fremont. They were also celebrating their friend Carlos’ birthday, who’s in Australia at the moment. Felix and Tori were joined by a contingent of their climbing buddies, Stanford friends, and two Cal representatives (Go Cardinal!). I knew a bunch of them, such as Evelyn (repeat after me, Branner, Branner, Branner), Adrian, Loren, Suzie, Sophia, Christy, and Dave, but there were a number whom I was meeting for the first time, including Sarah (who’s slowly transforming into a Californian after years on the East Coast), Karen, Michele, Chris, Esther, Mike, Sharon and Ralf, Vinita, Cherie, and Alex.

The circle of Felix’s network is expanding before my very eyes! Meeting friends of your friends is a little bit like double-clicking on a folder and seeing dozens upon dozens of files appear in the enclosing directory!

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