Recently in current events Category

This past weekend we took a trip to two our America's prettiest National parks, Yosemite, and Sequoia. Sequoia was a bit out-of-the-way from SF, but after hearing that it has some of world's largest trees, it got me really interested, especially after Yosemite became some what of a let down as it requires you to park in a super crowded parkinglot and get on the shuttle to see the El capitan up close.

Sequoia sure paid off, as we walked down the trail to see the famed General Sherman, a teenage bear walked by us, a brief acknowledgment, and it walked away.

A month of absence is unlike me of me, but yeah, sometimes, when stars align, things happen. Between June and July I've got so many things on my plate I didn't even have time to write my annual birthday entry, it's a good thing though, as my time was taken up by some projects I'm really passionate for and also I find my birthday entries rather boring to read. What else am I going to say aside from Thanks Mother, friends and had a lovely time? Anyways, first thing first, Polaroids.

I made a short trip to LA on mother's day weekend, after spending two days at my parents, me and Roger decided to find our ways to a LA "must-see" that we never bothered to visit until now - The Bradbury Building. I don't want to go into details about the building, if you're unfamiliar with the place, you can read it here.

Growing up in America as a minority has certain challenges, growing up as an Asian guy, let me tell you, a lot of times, it's just plain unfair. Just ask any non-Asian American girls how much action we Asian guys get with them, the answer almost always come back as none. Now I'm not saying its absolutely impossible, but, I'm DEFINITELY saying the odds are against us.

This leads me to the broader topic of representation, I don't like the fact that we're under represented in the media in this country, we love America just as much and we contribute just as much, but we often gets castrated in the media, we're sexless, all you see in films of of us is 1. Kungfu guy, 2. Waiter / cook / laundromat owner, 3. Triad / mobster. Compare to other minorities, we never get casted as romantic leads, or even in an inter-racial couple setting, Asian women does it far better, but that's a whole other conversation.

Romantic leads, representation, what made me suddenly rant like this? It was today's Apple Iphone 4 announcement. If you go to their website now, you'll see some pictures of a highly touted feature - FaceTime. I mean, I get it, I'm also an advertising professional, it needs to be an obvious mix of races to make the whole thing look - A. International, B. Politically correct, but I was frustrated with not seeing an Asian dude once again! Especially on an apple ad out of all places. In case you lived in a cave for the past 6 years, we Asian guys not only make up a big percentage of Apple's company, the silicon valley, the general SF Bay area, we aslo buy a lot of Apple products, in fact, most of my Asian buddies had every version of the iphone ever since it had launched, I personally have bought three, but no, layout must be "White guy talking to Asian woman."

I don't have problem with seeing Caucasian dudes with Asian girls, not at all, but, I HATE not being represented, somehow, I just feel wrong, wrong in a fundamental sense and in Apple's case a sense that someone is telling us we're bad at math, or doesn't like to own a Honda kindda wrong too.

Racism in America, yes I believe it still exists.

I watched the first episode of LOST when I was working in Beijing, in my tiny apartment in front of a computer screen. I was captivated by the production value, after all, it was a 2hr season premiere. Then, I got drawn to all the characters, as they were portrayed in a way that only happens in a character study. It's definitely something I haven't seen before in an American TV program. I guess this series was so wildly successful because we can all relate to those characters, we're all lost but had to make necessary decisions to carry on, we're all flawed yet we strive to be better. Most importantly we find strength in each other, especially in ones that believe in you and love you.

LOST, you've been a good story, I enjoyed it very much. So long...

Pier 23 is a bar on Embarcadero we often go to. These were taken one of our colleagues' farewell party.

I think there are a lot of people my age who admired apple every since the original mac. I also think the recent "take down" of the gizmodo editor is way out of what apple's values. This week, thanks to John Steward, the sentiment of many apple lovers were expressed. I also have to agree, yes, I will be getting the next iphone when it comes out.

So on this business trip to Europe, a member of the production crew Ron had an dental emergency. As soon as the plane took off from LAX, his gum started to swell up, and midway above atlantic he was in so much pain that the flight attendant had to broadcast out "is there a doctor on the plane" message. Right after we landed, Carlos (our photographer) decided to take him on an emergency visit to the dentist.

Now we're talking about downtown Paris, one of the most expensive cities in the world. The French dentist treated him while realizing that he's a foreigner, and does not possess dental insurance in France, or EU for that matter. He gave Ron an emergency root canal, patched up, and told him its only temporary and he needs to get a crown later on, not because he wouldn't do it, its just due to our production schedule we can't be in Paris long enough to wait for the it being made.

In the end, the bill came out to be 50 Euros, that's it, 50 euros.

So to everyone that have stumbled to this entry of mine, my question to you is, if you don't have dental insurance in America, how much would you have to pay to get an root canal? More than 50 euros I'm sure.

While Ron's happy with his dental bill, all the Americans in our production team stood there, wide-eyed with our jaws dropped, surprised, and ashamed.

I want public option and I want it now!

Jenny is the youngest of 4 cousins that grew up with me. Her graduation is in a school called University of Valparaiso. This trip was one of those typical "don't judge a book by it's cover" strips. The midwest was just swept with a blizzard, Valparaiso was one of those places people don't really know, in a state that I have little interest in - Indiana.

Coming into O'hare, overlooking the massive flat midwest covered in snow was pretty magical, almost like a scene from Starwars.

Marianne is one of Jenny's buddies who was there when none of her relatives are around.

Sally

U-Valpo is actually a pretty charming campus, complete with a post modern Library and Chapel, complete with a bell tower.

In their graduation speech, and this is something I haven't yet heard from all the graduation speeches I've heard before, was that they stressed on the balance of religion and knowledge, faith and reason. I thought that was really interesting.

Puerto Rico pictures up, click here to view, comments are welcome.

Believe it or not, I've never spent my life in June and July under constant thunderstorms and 65 degree weather days until now. Just when everyone dreaded the possibility of fireworks being canceled this year, things started to look better.

This is Castle island near Logan Airport, one of the patriotic sites in Boston, It protected Boston during both the Revolutionary war and the war of 1812.

It's key cannons could fire all the way into the city, two miles out.

Also, the fort shared the same architect with fort McHenry's in Baltimore.

Weather really cleared up on the 4th, it was perfect for fireworks.

Now I have to admit, it wasn't as crazy as Beijing during Chinese New Year, but we still all oohed and awed for an hour, fireworks going along with Fanfare to the common man and all the other patriotic classics are really something you need to be there to appreciate.

Oooh Hoo!

It's strange how a little good news can do to you these days. Lately I've been surrounded by nothing but bad news, this came in today as a pleasant surprise. It doesn't mean anything and hardly anyone will be impressed by it, I know that, but I hanging on to it, hehe

So Bestadsontv is one of my favorite industry sites, I follow them regularly eachweek, as they have guest judges from various agencies around the globe to judge works submitted.

Despite it being in the wrong category "supposed to be print" It won the "best of the week" badge, last time I had that was my MOTO cut through spot.

Hooray for getting that 14x20 pixel badge! Yay!

So if you're in China right now, you might have noticed some iffy things going on on the internet. Youtube's blocked, along with twitter and many other sites. This mainly is because 2009 is a particularly sensitive year for China. One being the most prominent is obviously the 60th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic. The second would be 20th anniversary of the Tian An Men incident. Young people in China generally could careless about the event, but I do remember adults glued to the TV every day during that time trying get all the information they can get.

To me, Tian an men crack down is a turning point in my life, it was because of which the American government granted rights to apply for green cards for all Chinese university students in the States. The policy helped my mother who's attending graduate school in U Mich become a resident alien and my eventual immigration.

In hindsight, the mass demonstration probably is a poorly planned one, and government is probably right to crack down on it. (Just look at the first decade of those communist countries that didn't crack down on it and switched over.) However I do see a lot of things in China today which those protester back in 1989 detested. Lack in checks and balance of power have resulted in lack of creativity in policy making. Freedom of press is somewhat relaxed since 20 years ago, but still by far very very "1960s", so yeah, thats why youtube's still blocked.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that I hope this sensitive date will remind the Chinese government to re-examine this event with a 21st century perspective so it won't repeat the mistakes it made in the 20th century.

Thanks to Kerry, I got to go to the Fenway to watch a Sox game finally. Saw this cute guy sitting in the back of me, he seemed oblivious to the game but liked the music and peanuts tossed around the bleachers.

Charlestown apt, this is the first thing I see entering the building from the garage. AC box

This past weekend saw Boston's first ever 80-degree-weekends of the year. I decided to do kayaking on the Charles river again. Its been nearly a year since I did this, and frankly its one of the things about Boston I think its hard to top in the world. Its absolutely gorgeous going down the river.

Shopping at whole foods for the first time, two things that caught my attention - Zico natural coconut water, and sheep yogurt. The coconut water was beautiful, refreshing water with a hint of coconut in it, I loved it. Have yet to try the sheep yogurt, I liked the packaging, where it had a stamp of the animal on it.

I've recently heard of this film and it's "inconvenient truth" for Americans to understand the current budget deficit. As the new president takes office in two days, this is my number one concern I wish Obama will address.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

I'm sad to see yet another report concerning Steve Jobs' health, hope he recovers soon. Mean while, this is pretty well done and entertaining. Hehe, I love the subtlety.

After a brutal day with various airlines, namely US Airways and Continental, I'm finally back in Boston. Lets just say the experience wasn't pleasant. A note to America, how come everyone's beating us to this alternative energy game? Even Kiwi's are beating us! I really hope America is not yet too fat and dumb to change the game.

Boston's first massive snow storm falls today. We got half day off from work. The day actually reminded me my days as a toddler. I can only re-call about three, four, really happy snow days in my life, as China got more and more polluted, there's less and less snow, and when it snowed, it got really really dirty really really fast. I was all jolly and happy today over the snow, as if I met a long lost friend from childhood.