It’s like I’m two different people. Or three, sometimes, if you include the music thing. (read more »)

leaning backwards can suck sometimes

Megan and Erin arrived last night, and during our day of diving, we were properly introduced to the sheer walls of Bloody Bay Wall (a drop from 18′ or so to around 6000′ in depth). The sun hits the wall in the afternoon, lighting it up in all of its vertical glory; it’s a shame, since it is most often dived in the morning.

Little Cayman celebrated Mardi Gras today by having a cute little parade and jambalaya feast. A dozen or so floats paraded by (constituting probably half of the local population), including one float dedicated to celebrating the state of Texas, complete with huge-breasted women (they used balloons) and repeated calls of, “Hi, y’all!” As each float passed the church, they were judged (by judges, I mean).

I am too tired to write any more. Good night!

fat iguanas have the right of way

Half of Little Cayman showed up to sing Karaoke tonight. My ears hurt! (but it was nice to relax for a bit and to see people having fun. :)

living dangerously, little-cayman-style

I’m in a sleep-deprived daze here in Little Cayman, where during the 3-minute drive to the resort from the airpot, we were shown “the bank,” “the grocery store,” and “the museum.” “The bank” is open two days a week, with limited hours on both days.

I’m here with internationally-renowned glass artist / management consultant / night-time tooter David Patchen. We spent part of today exploring “the road” by bike, but turned around after awhile because Tarpon Lake was too far away. Megan and her sister arrive in two days…

Hmm. Dave is having computer problems. “Dude! I’m a marketing guy!” he exclaims, as if it were a valid excuse. Serves him right for using Exploder.

@ the standard

I spent the weekend of February 11-12 in Los Angeles with Vienna Teng, my sister, and Aaron and Natalie Logan (Chang). I had hoped to be more involved (somehow) in the recording of Vienna’s third album, but I have literally been out of town the entire time she has been recording; instead, I spent two days following her around as part of her entourage, documenting a weekend photo shoot.

On Saturday, Vienna, Jeremy (her stylist) and I spend the day roaming around West Hollywood at stores like Mac and Express, and at various litle boutiques on Melrose Ave. (read more »)

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I just Skyped Jeremy using the data connection on my Blackberry, while sitting in my room here in Little Cayman. Sometimes, technology is cool.

After spending the late morning photographing its rehearsal, I finally had the opportunity to see a performance of Osvaldo Golijov’s La Pasion Segun San Marcos. I toured the show during its West Coast premiere a few years ago (as a cellist), and I have been dying to see it from the audience ever since. (read more »)

While bringing a box downstairs, I told the doorman that I was leaving for good on Tuesday.

“Where you going? Back home?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s that? China?”

“Uh… no.”

What I mean to say was, “Yeah. I’m going back to China, where everyone speaks English perfectly and looks Asian-American.” And then, I would have followed it up with witty pontification about him maybe living in a mythical place called, “Honkytown,” where all the Asian folk who live there are really “from China.”

Or something like that.

slsq @ alice tully

On February 8, the St. Lawrence String Quartet came into town to perform at Alice Tully Hall as part of Lincoln Center’s Osvaldo Golijov Festival. Pieces on the program included Golijov’s Yiddishbbuk and The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind (with Todd Palmer), and Schubert’s Cello Quintet (with David Finckel). As the SLSQ’s biggest fan, I naturally showed up at rehearsal to take a few pictures. Also, this show was probably Barry’s last performance with the SLSQ in New York, so I felt that it would be nice for them to have some nice photos on stage. sniff (read more »)

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Geoff Nuttall rules. He’s in town again to play at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, this time with Nicolas Hodges (piano) and Derek Bermel (clarinet), performing works by Biber, Harman, Stravinsky, Bermel, Birtwistle, Beethoven, and Bartok. The last time he performed at Zankel, he rocked the house with Dawn Upshaw (whom we bumped into on the way into the hall) in a Peter Sellars production of Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments.

Good friendship aside, Geoff is one of my favorite musicians to watch in action. He’s fanatical about living up to a pure sense of what music is to him, and he’s extremely effective at allowing the music to communicate itself to the audience.

I particularly enjoyed Biber’s Passacaglia in g minor for Solo Violin (Geoff) and Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet (Bermel). I was not a fan of the Birtwistle pieces. Blech. (read more »)

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There aren’t very many articles about software development that have made me laugh, but here’s one of them: Software Development’s Evolution towards Product Design, by a guy called Danc. (read more »)

Last night, I went to the preview screening of Howard and Michele Hall’s new 3D IMAX movie, Deep Sea 3D, at the Loews IMAX here in New York City. It was really, really amazing. Especially cool was the fact that a lot of it was filmed in locations that many of us know well (along with individual critters we’ve photographed!). Specific locations include parts of the Bahamas (my good friend, Jim Abernethy, was one of their guides for tiger sharks, reef sharks, groupers, and Bahamian reefs), Turtle Pinnacle and the night manta ray dive off of Kona, British Columbia, and more.

Highly recommended! You should definitely see it when it comes to your local IMAX theater, especially if you’re a friend of mine and are wondering what it’s like to be underwater with wildlife. :) The 3D footage really makes you feel like you’re there…

Overhead at work, today: “I used to be a Mathematica badass.”

The other day, Peter was trying to figure out the best oxymoron out there. I think we’ve found it.

My sister forwarded me an interesting paper by Linda Arrigo called Taiwanese American Interactions [pdf] (from The Journal of Asian/Diasporic and Aboriginal Literature, V1 N2, Autumn 2005), which was particularly interesting for me because it is basically about my parents and the families of every similarly-aged Taiwanese American I’ve met here in the States. Every time I meet another Taiwanese-American person close to my age, I pretty much assume that our parents know each other.

I’ve never been directly involved, but the article brings back memories of childhood and growing up hearing about political issues involving some of the folks and institutions mentioned in the article…

It’s every guy’s favorite day! Oh, how I wish I could spend the $128 the average male shells out each V-Day in attempts to satisfy expectation. It often sucks to be single, but I revel in my status each year as Valentine’s Day approaches. Errr, each year I have been single, that is…

Hmmm. Yeah. I guess the grass is dead on both sides (today).

(UPDATE) Well, despite my dislike of V-Day, Jen showed up at my place at 10:30pm with a long-stemmed rose, and we went out for a nice, platonic, chocolate cake + hot fudge sundae. ’twas nice to get out of the house! :)

I can’t believe that during last night’s 5-hour red-eye flight I went from 80-degree blue skies to a 1-mile walk to work that involved climbing over 30 or so pedestrian “speed bumps” made of snow. Everyone keeps talking about how mild this winter has been, and while I certainly do agree, I still think that it sucks.

And I’ll bet that the 50 people on the standby list who didn’t get a spot on the plane agree with me.

best omakase ever

A few weeks ago, Pat and I went to Sushi Yasuda for an impromptu dinner (most meals here are planned, I’m finding), and half way through the meal, I came to terms with the fact that I was eating the best sushi I had ever had.

I’m skeptical by nature and don’t usually like to make absolute comments, so it was a big deal to find something that was clearly better than all of my other sushi experiences. I raved about it to a bunch of my friends, and as expected, I received nothing short of outward skepticism in return. (read more »)

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@ moma

Went to the MOMA and The Modern a week ago. The food was pretty good, but not so memorable. It’s strange that The Modern is attached to the MOMA; entering the restaurant after hanging out in the MOMA is a jarring experience. There are no aesthetic elements that tie the two together.
 

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Music has been a welcome break from the work I’ve been doing for various projects in New York that are keeping me awake late into every evening. (read more »)