Author: shun

Back from NYC

So I made it back to California in one piece on Saturday after having discovered there was an “alleged” terrorist plot to blow up JFK Airport on the airplane AFTER it took off…. Good thing JetBlue has free on-flight TV programming…. The weird thing was, the plane stayed on the runway for like 40 minutes after we saw some police cars and ambulances racing by at a distance. I am sure that probably had nothing to do with the “foiled terrorist plot” though…

I met up with all my ex-coworkers (except Kyung) in New York and had a lot of fun talking about our previous employer(s). There were a few things that struck me as “interesting” now that I’d seen New York with a fresh pair of Californian eyes:

1. New York is great for singles and couples with no kids.
2. New York is great for artists and those who are interested in current trends of anything (art, design, fashion, politics… etc).
3. New Yorkers are amazingly more well-informed than their counter-parts in California.
4. Spanish is now everywhere in New York (compared to 4 years ago).
5. There are a lot more scooters in Manhattan than 4 years ago.
6. Chinatown remains as dirty and stinky as ever before.
7. The night begins at 11pm in New York…. compared to everything ends at 11pm in California…
8. It is freaking hot and humid in NYC… Or maybe the good weather in California has made me soft…

I also walked a whole lot for my short stay there for the opportunity to take some pictures with fresh eyes. But I guess the driving culture in California also made my feet soft… I came back with a swelled foot, limping for the rest of the trip after the first day.

On a separate but related news, the college I applied for a doctoral degree to accepted me on the spot after a short interview (which was the purpose of my trip). They totally loved my background as an artist and felt excited what I could bring to the pool of research among the doctoral candidates they are considering accepting… That made me feel good about myself and all that “investment” I made with those 2 art degrees… 🙂

More about the trip will be posted soon (images and thoughts). Stay tuned.

Going to the Big Apple

I will be leaving for the Big Apple on Thursday — my first return to the city after having moved out West almost 4 years ago (WOW!)… Sometimes I just miss that place for the energy and creativity that it offers (which San Jose totally lacks! Or maybe just a different vibe I haven’t able to jived with)…. So I’ve been looking up on the subway maps and stuff to see if there are any changes to the routes and just to familiarize myself with the whole system again. And then I came across the New York City Subway Smell Map:

Gawker's New York City Subway Smell Map

WOW… Yes, many New York City subway stations stink… But this map is pretty damn accurate (according to my fellow NYC inhabitants)… I am so NOT looking forward to that part of the trip…

via [Gawker]

Developing with Flash, Finally

After having resisted learning Flash since the days of Flash 5.0, I finally had to budge and cave in to doing it again. But thanks to Lynda.com, the learning experience so far has been pretty positive, especially with the introduction of Adobe Flash CS3 and ActionScript 3.0. It seems like every other project referred to me these days wants something to do with Flash. So I guess having to learn it was only a matter of time. But really, Lynda.com makes it so much easier and effective.

The upside is, I am already pretty conversant with the back end and server side stuff. I am hoping by adding Flash to my arsenal of client side interactive design and scripting skills will make the overall combination of my skill set that much more demanding (since most people only know one thing or the other, client-side scripting or server-side, rarely BOTH). Unless, of course, you are Michael Murdza, who just knows too much about everything anyway…

Ideal Freelance Hourly Rates

I have no idea where these guys get their calculation methodologies, but the final hourly rate I came up with certainly isn’t realistic for the San Francisco Bay Area. But I can certainly see how one can live comfortably with that kind of rate elsewhere in less expensive metro areas like Atlanta or Austin or something.

Long Weekend

Last week was a long week; but the weekend seemed even longer… I got do play “wedding photographer” for the event. I even managed to play host without even freaking out…

Lessons I learned:

1. Wedding photography is a physically demanding job…
2. Sorting through and process 700+ RAW images requires a beefy computer — thank god for my MacBook Pro… It was relatively painless and fast…
3. Having to manually edit 400+ images makes you feel thankful of having a good camera with excellent auto white balancing and unbeatable skin tones — even the pro at the wedding said so!
4. Having the honor to document the wedding of a life time for someone who trusts you with the job — priceless (or whatever the total cost of the hotel stay was which the groom helped pay for)… 😉

Melt

It’s becoming a cliché to say this or that about one’s own child. But in all honesty, one look at Bryan makes everything else in the world seem so trivial. At the end of the day, no matter how we are judged or beat up by others, only what he thinks matters. Only he matters.

Of course I don’t expect others to understand this unique emotion a parent has towards his/her own child. But I am sure I am not alone in this.

Tired

Doors

Every month I wonder if I’d made the right choice by staying in the United States with my ongoing battles with immigration issues. As legal as we’ve been, it seems to get tougher to stay that way as time goes by. They say when opportunity comes knocking, you better be prepared. So I’ve been prepared for quite a while now, but where is that “Opportunity” guy? He and I need to have a little chat.

Doors