No Conspiracy

Lots of color printers leave behind a series of yellow dots, indicating the time, date, and serial number -- making documents traceable. Interesting.

Air Addiction

I am addicted to flight. Lucky me scored a free trip to Hawaii using frequent flyer miles to go with Mike and Lori and family. Well, you know, two weeks in Hawaii grew to two weeks in Hawaii AND two weeks in Santa Monica since frequent flyer miles let you do a free stopover. Why not add a vacation to my vacation, I thought?

After a dozen flights and 18 months of vacation, I finally got a job at the end of August. Sure, I didn't work more than ten days before I took off to New York. A week later I flew to Columbus. Just back from that, I masterminded my December plans to spend two lovely sunny winter weeks in Santa Monica before going to Hawaii for the holidays, to return January 2nd to the east coast. The idea is that I'll return to Washington, grab my things, and get up to NYC to set down my roots someplace and pick up some work.

The problem with planning a one month vacation is that I can't plan more vacations. Or so I thought. I just booked a six day trip in the middle of my vacation to go to the lovely resort town of Park City, Utah to visit old friends Lori and Ori (who refer to themselves as L'Ori). A vacation within a vacation within a vacation. Now, where to next?

You would think

...that I worked for Google.

I just love this.

Kindness.

After about ten minutes of waiting at the bus stop this morning, I thought I might like to get my SmarTrip card out to be ready for the tardy bus. Then I realized like a numbnut that I left my wallet and keys at home. The guy that waits at the stop with me most mornings handed me the buck and a quarter it costs to get on the bus. Within seconds, the bus came.

"How'll you get through the day?" he asked. "Here, take this $20."
"Oh, I'll be fine," I say.
But he shoved it my way and I accepted, offering to pay him back the next morning.
That was nice, don't you think?

Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites

Well, it's not Mars, but it IS outer space.

Zoom in for close up shots of the moon's surface just as you do on Google Earth... While you might not find a nice cafe, you certainly will find plenty of cheese.

Tis the season for film

"The DC Shorts Film Festival presents our second annual showcase of short films from around the world, highlighting those from the burgeoning DC film community, followed by discussions with the filmmakers."

I'm going to see a screening at the Landmark E Street Theater where my friend Dan's short is playing during Screening 3. Check it out.

RESFEST 2005

RESFEST 2005 is on beginning Thursday in New York City.

GO if you want to see some innovative shorts, feature films, music videos, and amazing creative work.



Touring in:

NORTH AMERICA: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal

EUROPE: London,Glasgow, Dublin, Bristol, Belfast, Sheffield, Nottingham, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Turin, Rome, Zurich, Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Las Palmas, Vigo, Vitoria, Valladolid, Vienna, Istanbul

SOUTH AMERICA: Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires

ASIA: Seoul, Tokyo, Kobe, Kyoto, Singapore

AUSTRALIA: Melbourne, Sydney

Craiglist will help you find your loved ones

Craigslist has set up pages for Austin, Baton Rouge, Houston, Jackson, Mobile, Montgomery, New Orleans, Pensacola, and Shreveport.

They have the following categories to help those affected by the Katrina disaster.

relief resources
missing people
temporary housing
temporary employment
missing pets
transportation/rideshare
volunteer
katrina discussion

Flying Spaghetti Monsterism

I was invited to a Noodly Appendage Party.


While I'm a faithful agnostic, I'll attend and support a few believers of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism

boating

Nothing like a day out on a boat. Even better, dinner on a boat, on the river.

of food and secret gardens

After a very bad six hour bus ride, I connected with Adam, Jon, Amanda, Jason and Neil (friends & New Orleans refugees) for a big dinner at Nha Trang on Centre Street. I was ordered to order, in the native tongue.

Saturday morning I met Kaly and David at Le Pain Quotidienne where the brioche is delish... OK, so it makes me think of those square cafeteria buns we got in our cold lunches in elementary school, but David agreed that there is something simply ephemeral about those buns. It's true.

Saturday, Nick was a great sport and wandered all over downtown Manhattan with me. Very cool walk, very good company, and very yummy snacks. Iced coffee on Houston. In search of secret gardens and park benches. Keith Haring swimming pool mural and fun rec center. New buildings. Tea and cupcakes at Podunk. Street art. Souvenir chalk (from Delavega).

After three failed restaurant choices for dinner, Peter, Kerstin, Kaly and I ended up at Blue Ribbon Bakery, one of my favorite restaurants in NYC. Since people were being nice to me all weekend, Eric treated our table to dessert. And I hadn't stepped into that place since I moved 18 months ago!

The next morning, Kurt slept in. This seemingly insignificant event threw me off course for the entire day, but in a good way. After a quick good morning to Les, Kurt, Michael and David, goodbye kisses around, I popped into Fairway Cafe for a croissant and coffee. I trekked over to meet Nick in Central Park and met a string of other nice people, James, Molly, Amy, Jane, Steve, Simon, Regina, Eloise and Cary. Sitting out on the blankets in the park is such a treat, and I gave up my intentions to visit the Cooper-Hewitt.

Off running again to meet Les, Kurt, Michael and David to do some shopping for the boys in Chelsea, then off running some more to meet Oren for dinner. A block after leaving them, I ran into Bruce, a buddy from the AIDS Rides, out walking his dog Aggie. They walked me to Union Square to meet Oren who walked me to meet Adam, Amanda, Dan and Rachel in the LES at a Japanese restaurant. I know. It doesn't really make sense. Oren and I left to go to the Dumpling Man for um...dumplings, then back to the west village (where he had a pretty large ice cream cone at Mary's Dairy on 4th).

Monday, Robert conned me into going to Brooklyn Heights. I wanted coffee. He obliged. I wanted pizza. I didn't get it. The nice streak was over. I was on a bus back to D.C.

East Meets West

...at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. Woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige in a complete series of 53 prints depicting the Tokaido travelway. I went with Jim and Dave after a morning at the farmer's market. Note: a very large exhibit; not for the ADD.

PATRYK REBISZ

Cool work by Patryk Rebisz. I just watched "Between You and Me", rapid-fire shot on a Canon still camera.

Penn Platinums

Picasso by Penn.

Went to see the Irving Penn Platinum Prints today at the National Gallery of Art. I first saw Penn about... oh... 16 years ago at the NGA when I went to an exhibit for my high school photography class. These are platinum prints made in the '80s from images captured in the past, many in the '50s.

Also stopped in at the Dutch paintings, primarily to see the small exhibit of Jan de Bray, and enjoyed the Vermeers on permanent display. Mike and I browsed through the sculpture wing but I was more taken by the stunning new wood floors in the museum. They're stained white oak; I asked.

To view an interesting online album of Penn's work, go here and here.

to Cuong

The image below made me think of Cuong. My cousin died last night, of cancer. Nam mo a di da phat.

Beautiful Amalgamations

50 people see the sunset
Set by brevity.

If you don't know what flickr is, get out from under that rock! Neil Kandalgaonkar wrote a program that selects 50 arbitrarily chosen Flickr images that share the same tags and melds them together. The results are beautiful. We see the world the same, if we'd just soften our lines a bit.

The Soul of a Chef

If you've just finished the recommended Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, reach for The Soul of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. I just finished it, and it makes me want to visit Per Se, Keller's new kitchen in New York City.

Hear them speak.

On August 20, James and David will be speaking at the Eva Zeisel Retrospective at the Hillwood Museum. There's a meet & greet later at 4:30 if you want to meet these talented artists.

Fresh Philanthropy

Image from FRESHFARM Markets

Mike, Eileen and I headed to the Dupont Circle Farmer's Market this morning. The market has been around since 1997 and they have a wonderful program where, at the end of the day, the farmers donate fresh food to local nonprofits and food kitchens.

Go support your local producer!

Life is unpredictable

My 93 year-old step-grandmother/great-aunt died on Thursday. She was my paternal grandmother's sister who then married my paternal grandfather after my paternal grandmother died in 1934 at the age of 26. Got it? Yes, complicated.

She was somewhere around four feet tall and I hadn't seen her since Souris and Silvio's wedding in 1998. Three weeks ago, I was compelled to travel to Santa Monica for a ten-day-visiting-family trip. Given pressure about coming out there, I disregarded it and went anyway. Souris, Silvio and I made it to Orange County to meet with an aunt from Canada whom we'd never met, and a couple of our first cousins, too (we have over sixty first cousins, we don't know how many exactly, and they range in age from five to seventy on my father's side - again, complicated). She was healthy and lucid and joked around with us. A few days later, she fell, and on Thursday she died. Just like that. I'm incredibly grateful to have been able to see her. Her son (dad's brother) was even luckier. He hadn't seen his mother in 30 years, came to America to visit her and his siblings, and after spending three weeks with her, was scheduled to leave the States three days after her death. He has been able to extend his trip now to attend her funeral. My lesson learned is, when intuition tells you to go see someone... GO.

Wishing for my own bed.

Places I've slept since April 29, 2004.
My apartment in the Village (New York)
Adam and Amanda's apartment (New York)
Kaly's apartment (New York)
Souris & Silvio's apartment (Santa Monica)
Mike & Lori's (Nigel Suite)
Edward & Sharon's (Edward's office)
Hung & Heather's house (Foster City, CA)
Nikko Hotel (San Francisco, CA)
Uncle Ho's (Boston, MA)
Mike & Eileen's (Craig's Room, Arlington, VA)
Mike & Eileen's (Nick's Room, Arlington, VA)
our old house (Arlington, VA)
Seahorse Resort (3 different rooms, Phan Thiet, VN)
Di 10's house (Saigon, District 7)
Linh's house (Saigon, District 5)
Caravelle Hotel (Saigon, District 1)
Victoria Can Tho (Can Tho/Mekong, VN)
Bassac (Mekong River, Vietnam)
International Hotel (New Orleans, LA)
Mom and dad's new house (guest room, Orlando)
Mom and dad's new house (mom's room, Orlando)
Mom and dad's new house (dad's room, Orlando)
Motel (Las Vegas, NV)
Maswick Lodge (Grand Canyon, AZ)
Kiki & Emil's House (Columbus, GA)

F.A.Q.

Where are you visiting from?
It depends on when you ask/ed me.
April 2004: New York, NY
May 2004: Arlington, VA - Santa Monica, CA
June 2004: Santa Monica, CA - Arlington, VA
July 2004: Boston, MA - New York, NY - Arlington, VA
August 2004: Arlington, VA - Santa Monica, CA
September 2004: San Francisco, CA - Santa Monica, CA - Saigon, VN
October - December 2004: Phan Thiet, Vietnam - Saigon, Vietnam
January 2005: Saigon, VN - Santa Monica, CA - New Orleans, LA
March 2005: Santa Monica, CA - Las Vegas, NV - Grand Canyon, AZ - Arlington, VA
April 2005: Arlington, VA
May 2005: Arlington, VA - Columbus, GA - Orlando, FL
June 2005: Orlando, FL
July 2005: Orlando, FL - Arlington, VA - Santa Monica, CA

Where are you?
Today, Santa Monica, California. As of July 20, 2005, I will be in Arlington, VA.

How long will you be there?
Indefinitely.

Where are you staying?
The Doheny B&B. Thanks Mike & Eileen.

What are you going to do?
Temp for about two months so I can be non-committal with a job till I figure out what next.

Then what?
Then I'll either move back to New York or head west to Santa Monica.

What are you going to do in NY or SM?
I have no idea. But something I enjoy.

What about Vietnam?
I'm in a debate about this. If I move forward with the business I'll run some tours this winter (travel season). If not, I'm going to move to NY or SM. I was in Vietnam with some clients last winter and still have an interest in continuing. Temping in Arlington allows me the flexibility to move or to head back to 'nam.

Hope this straightens it out. Sort of.

in arlington

I arrived in Arlington yesterday. I fly out to L.A. in six hours.

Going straight from the airport to a luau on the beach in Santa Monica.

Afterwards, going to Orange County to meet my dad's sister from Canada whom I've never met before.

Space Adventures

I know I've been on this Mars rant for a while, but look... for only $102,000 you can go suborbital with Space Adventures. For a week of lodging at the International Space Station and roundtrip transportation, cough up $20,000,000.

Almost 2 out of 3 ain't good enough

Our natural wonders are dying from the heat as NY Times writes about it. I wrote about the problem in the Great Barrier Reef last July. Glad I got that one checked off... snorkeled it, even. During the Alaska AIDS Vaccine Ride in 2000 I trekked the land but missed Glacier National Park.

The one I've gotta get to is Mt. Kilimanjaro. A friend of mine climbed it, and I'd love to, but I don't know when. Any takers?

photo from the Tanzania Tourism Website.

homestarrunner on parsnips

Even Homestarrunner has a toons episode devoted to parsnips. I still love those Strong Bad e-mails the best.

If you love food...

...read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Friends and family have been telling me for years, and I just finished it. The fun part about being a New Yorker raised in the home of a culinary artist is that you GET so much of it.

Jim, Dave, and Eva

©Photo by Matthu Placek

Two of my favorite people, James Klein and David Reid of KleinReid just might be on air with the esteemed Eva Zeisel tentatively scheduled for Sunday, June 26th, on the CBS News Sunday Morning Show Highlighting her career and her current museum retrospective in which some of Jim & Dave's collaborative works with Eva are displayed.

Now Playing

For months before I left my beloved little apartment on Cornelia Street, I watched them renovate and restore the old Waverly Theatre, now reborn as the IFC Center. It faced directly across my apartment building. At the time, I was sans camera and unfortunately only have impressed in my mind an unusal image of the entire theater gutted out. Facing the rear of the theater structure from my front stoop, I was looking straight through the building to the Sixth Avenue facade. Just totalled and empty, the innards of an old brick wall, much like the back of a dollhouse.

In Ev's Shadow

Where Ev goes, I follow... a little later (but hey, before the masses). Not in a creepy stalker way, of course. He just casts a long shadow.

In 2000 I signed up on Blogger where I eventually even paid for a pro account to help support them (and I'd do it again). It was the perfect medium for peeps at home in the U.S. to track where I was in Asia and Australia at the time without having to blast everyone with mass mails. I was grateful for the tool. Blogger hooked me up with flickr a year and a half ago and Hello and other cool stuff.

Then Blogger and Ev moved to Google. Thanks to my active blogger account, I got a coveted invite to Gmail in April 2004 and actually gave my first two invitations away to the HUSTLER OF CULTURE and Matt, who I knew would put their accounts to good use, despite the fact that the invites were selling on eBay for up to $40 at the time.

Now, Ev and Noah Glass have created and yesssss.... I got an invite! Odeo is podcasting made easy. Get in on it now. These guys know what they're doing.

Oh, and we're one degree of separation according to friendster, too.