Vienna Teng performed at Borders Books & Cafe in Downtown Palo Alto this afternoon to a packed house of family, friends, and fans. There must have been 150-200 people lining the second floor of the bookstore. Also on hand was a crew from CNN, who were filming Vienna throughout the weekend. Yesterday, they visited her San Francisco apartment and toured the Stanford University Center for Computer Research (CCRMA), where she recorded much of the music for Waking Hour.

Sitting on the ground in the front row were a number of young children, all of them with big bright eyes as they listened eagerly to during the two-hour long performance. Vienna might not know it, but she’s becoming a role model for young girls in the Bay Area and beyond. In an era of overmarketed, underwhelming pop stars like Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, Vienna is a breath of fresh air.

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In October, 2002, I was checking my mail at the Stanford Post Office when I spotted a young woman with a camera hanging from her shoulder. Never one to pass an opportunity to talk to a photographer go by, I struck up a conversation with Arin Lawrence, who told me that she was taking a class in the African-American Studies department documenting the community of East Palo Alto.

The time is now February, 2003, and their photography exhibition is now on display in the East Palo Alto City Hall, located at 2415 University Avenue. The class was taught by Mimi Chakarova, a visiting-prof from Berkeley, who mentioned that the students had no prior experience in documentary photography. It would have been fun to have charted their progress from knowing nothing about photography (besides perhaps point-and-shoot) to becoming experienced shutterbugs. Congratulations, Matthew Bow, Deborah Burke, Linda Chavez, Ying-Chih Chuang, Efundunke Hughes, Niny Khor, Caroline Kuntz, Arin Lawrence, Jane Lilly, Nicole Louie, Paloma Rosenbaum, Richard Simpson, and Clara Wilkins!

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Wednesday was a double dose of presentations. As is becoming customary, I went to the Digital Vision Fellowship Seminar series in the afternoon at Stanford’s Cordura Hall. The speaker this week was Iqbal Z. Quadir, fellow at the Harvard’s Center for Business and Government and at the Center for Business Innovation at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.

Quadir spent most of 1990s founding and building GrameenPhone Ltd., which has now become Bangladesh’s largest telephone company, with revenues of $150 million in 2002. His childhood exposure to the conditions in rural Bangladesh combined with his later venture capital experience in New York led Quadir to recognize that the ensuing digital revolution could facilitate the introduction of telephony to 100 million people living in rural Bangladesh. In 1994, he formally launched this effort by convincing angel investors to establish a New York-based company, Gonofone (meaning “People’s Phone”) to help him organize what subsequently became known as GrameenPhone.

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Saturday night, I went to see Cirque du Soleil for the first time. I had an opportunity to see the Quidam tour my senior year in college, but I didn’t go for some reason or another (even though I was the one who bought the tickets!). I’ve been missing out apparently, as the Varikai show was pretty amazing. I wonder what it’s like to live in the circus today. Is it a close-knit group or do performers come and go often?

Following the Cirque in San Jose, Rae and I dropped by Dardy and Alan’s new place in Mountain View. The party had been going on for quite some time, but there were still a number of people remaining when we strolled in the door around 11:00 pm. People of note included Eric, Mike, Paul, Carol, Van (whom I met for the first time), Peter, Jay and Margaret, Alan and Ting, Dishi, Mallory (whom I haven’t seen in ages!), Jack, Greg, and Jimmy.

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Following a great lunch at the Bombay Oven in Cupertino with Kathy Ly, a former Palm colleague, I headed down to Stanford to hear Dan’l Lewin, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, give a talk on the .NET to the Fellows in the Digital Vision Fellowship Program. I last saw Dan’l at the Turning Bits Into Memories: Digital Photography talk at the San Jose Tech Museum last year (prior to that, we shared a cab ride to the airport from Demo 2001 in Arizona).

The DVF web site describes the program as “a unique initiative that brings together the academic, corporate, and NGO sectors. It gives outstanding technologists the opportunity to come to the campus of Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley and apply their vision and talent to address challenges facing the developing world.”

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This evening, Keplers featured Po Bronson, who in his latest book, poses the oft-asked, rarely answered question, What Should I Do with My Life? Bronson interviewed hundreds of people across the country in selecting fifty-five to profile in WSIDWML (doesn’t that sound like a tech term!). It’s not so much a self-help book as it is a book on providing perspective. By presenting the lives and decisions of everyday people who faced this question and attempted to answer it, Bronson gives us a sense on how we can take our own leap at discovering our own calling.

I didn’t come to the talk looking for answers myself. About a month ago, I was reading Bronson’s article in Fast Company wondering what I should do in my life. A few days later, the epiphany came, and I haven’t looked back.

I was fortunate to speak with Bronson right before he left. I think that it would be great to sit down with him for an extended period of time to talk shop. I’d also love to introduce him to Vienna Teng, another gifted individual who is following her passion. The feeling is amazing when you’re there, but I realize that there’s no path or cookie cutter recipe to follow. Perhaps we all must go on our own solo backpacking trip to find the truth. If you didn’t get it, that’s a metaphor.

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The days, months, and years go by faster with age. It doesn’t seem that long ago when we were ringing in the Year of the Horse at Petrice’s house in Berkeley, and now the Year of the Sheep/Goat is here.

The New Year didn’t get started off very well, of course. I woke up around 6:14 am (according to my Alarm Clock) feeling very restless. I wasn’t able to pinpoint the exact reason, but an hour or so later, I think I know why. I was IM’ing with Cynthia when she informed me of the Columbia disaster. Not again, I said to myself as the memories of the Challenger explosion 17 years ago were reawakened once again. During this time of mourning, I do take solace in the thought that they died advancing and pushing the boundaries of the human race. Theirs was not a senseless death of the kind the domestic and international media constantly report on. My prayers go out to the family and friends of the seven astronauts who perished 30 miles above Earth yesterday morning.

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