A guitar that does what?

A guitar that tunes itself! Here's an article on it, click here. For $2500, you will never have to tune again. Oh oh and a robot that can play the violin. Amazing! Check it out here!

A. Dvorak - Humoresque No.7

One of my favorite songs! I love their expressions, particularly Yo Yo Ma's expression...hehe. :)

American Children living in poverty....

It is a reality. Often time, when we think about children living in poverty, we often think of children living in undeveloped countries. Do you know that nearly 13 million American children live in family with income below the federal poverty level? For these children, their time are not spent on worrying about doing their homework or what toys they want to get, but on whether they'll be hungry when bedtime comes or if they'll be cold because winter is here and they lack proper clothings or enough blankets. What are we to do? And most of us probably think, well, we can get them a Christmas gift or donate some food during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New year. So we feed our poor neighbor and provide them, perhaps a nice Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year, but that is only 3 days a year. What happens after thanksgiving or Christmas or new year? We go back to doing our regular stuff and the stuff about poverty? We kinda forget about it. (I'm saying this because I'm guilty of this.) We can make a difference. We can do our jobs as citizens to ensure that we have effective public policy to make a difference in our neighbor's life. The first step to doing that is to be informed of the different policies out there and vote because effective policy can make a difference. For more info (such as stats) on children living in poverty, click here.

And if you have time, volunteer to be a big brother or a big sister. Click here to get to the big brother/big sister volunteer program.

for your entertainment..

if you're bored and got nothing better to do.....click play... if you think i looked pretty pissed...well i was!!!...as it took me forever because I kept screwing up...don't think that I didn't screw up on this one..just that I got tired....goodnight! and oh..you might wanna turn down your speaker...

napa

Below are some of my favorite pictures from our trip to Napa.

a beautiful night

I believe I have what you call blogger's block because after like 20 minutes, I could only come up, "I had a great time at the piano & clarinet concert yesterday at Villa Montalvo and Jon Nakamatsu and Jon Manasse were great".





See? I have a happy face to prove that I really enjoyed it!

Did u know

that fify years ago, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik..here's more info, click here for the article. wow...another mind boggling thing for me.

Happy Happy Happy

Birthday to me and Regina!

hm......what happens if you can't read chinese?!!!

well.....you lose out on this super deal (3 dishes plus rice for $17.99) at this little chinese restaurant next to the music studio I go to for violin lessons. They have this chinese banner out saying, "3 dishes plus rice for $17.99" and nope there is no English translation on there. Good thing I can read the number 3 and $17.99. Well, so I asked the waitress in my horrible mandarin about this $17.99 deal and she handed me the special menu and guess what?!!!! It was all in chinese. I asked if there was an English menu and there was, except it was the regular menu, not the special 3 items for $17.99 special menu. So in short, the deal was only for people who can read chinese. How...rude...how discriminatory.....so i randomly pointed to 3 items on the menu becaues the waitress didn't want to read the dishes one by one for me.....(can't blame her, I wouldn't want to either) and I don't want to pay $10 for a dish that I could get for $6 on the special menu....

Mind Boggling....

OK, so whenever there's a holiday do environment engineers really get a day off? For example, for us, trash day is Monday and it was labor's day so of course, no waste management service that day. But then the next day we put our trashcans out. So doesn't this mean that they have to work twice as hard to get all the trash that was suppose to go out on Monday done on Tuesday?

Testing out my new lens at Hakone Garden

One of the best things about being a photographer assistant is being able to get your hands on all sorts of photography equipments, body, lens, flash, tripod - you name it. But nothing beats getting first dibs on on them when they being replaced by newer equipments on the market. So, that is how I came to own the Cannon EF 75-200 2.8 USM telephoto lens, an absolutely amazing lens, even if there isn't IS on it.

The Mystery of the Stradivarius

The most expensive violin

The highest price anyone paid for a Stradivarius violin is 3.5 million dollars! Wow! O.o Imagine playing an instrument that is oh so so expensive. Actually, I would be afraid to play it.

I have been reading a non fiction book on this famous luthier, Antonio Stradivari, maker of this insanely priced violin.

I know nonfiction...just a few years ago history puts me to sleep. I've been really interested in history lately (in the past few years that is). Did i mention that that my favorite channel is the history channel? Well anyways, I was in a for a pleasant surprise by the book,"Stradivari's Genius" written by Toby Faber. It is packed with drama. First, Antonio Stradivari married a wealthy widow, Francesca Feraboschi, whose brother murdered her husband. She then sued her dead husband's father for her dowry back!!! Four months after she was remarried to Antonio, they had their first kid! Who would have thought that people do that in the 17th century? Talking about drama! No need for prime time TV show or day time soap. Then after Francesca died, Antonio remarried a woman who was 20 years younger than him. He was 55 at the time. When they had their first kid, a daughter, Antonio named her Francesca after his first wife. See, not your typical non-fiction book. O.o....

What a long Saturday!

I woke up 26 hours ago and it was Saturday August 4, 2007 4:30 am. 26 hours later, it is still Saturday with 2 more hours to go. My plane landed at 12:48 PM. I slept on the plane for about 7 hours. I fell asleep before it took off, woke up for food, went back to sleep and woke up 3 hours before it landed. At around 3 PM, I was falling asleep and finally succumbed to it at around 7 and woke up just now, feel all refreshed and ready for Sunday! Great!

I had the worst experience ever returning to the States. At the gate to the plane, I was randomly selected for further screening. If that wasn't bad enough, at SFO, I had problems with my passport. Apparently, the officer had what you call a "user error". I was standing there at the booth for about 5 minutes with the officer looking at me and making phone calls...hmm..something was up. Then another officer showed up to escort me to what the airport calls a "secondary screening" area. I was being questioned about the authenticity of my passport. Where I got it and questions like if I bought my passport. Um..no? He was looking at my passport very closely, probably trying to figure out if it was authentic. Yes it is, the US government issued it to me! I told him that I didn't have a problem when I came back from Tahiti. After further questionings, he asked me if my passport were ever stolen because when the officer at the gate scanned my passport another person's info came up on the screen. So he decided to give it a try and scanned it again. Luckily it came up with my information. He tried scanning it a couple more times. He then told me that I could proceed to the baggage area to pick up my luggage and said that the glitch was probably a user error. A user error?!!!!

Moving on, while I was waiting for my luggage this cute little beagle kept smelling me. At first I thought oh how cute..what a cute little dog...and then after a little bit I felt a desire to push the dog away because it's a not a good thing if the dog smells you for more than a few seconds. The officer asked me to put my backpack on the floor so that the beagle can smell it more closely. The officer asked me what I had in my bag. I had a dell notebook, a toiletry bag, some chocolates and some books. He asked me to open it and show him. After seeing that it contained what I told him, he asked me what I had it my bags prior to today. I said, well, I used it to carry some fruits (Oranges, apples, and bananas) and sometimes sandwiches during my stay in the UK. The cute little beagle could smell the residuals of the fruits and sandwiches that was in my bag. After that, the officer told the beagle to move on. Dang!!! That beagle had a good nose.

Uggghhh..worst experience ever!!! Glad it's over.

Look right before crossing?!!!!

Yup, look right before crossing the streets or you will very bloody well get run over, mind you!I have no idea how much of a look left before crossing the street habit I have until now..hahaha...oh right, in case you don't know, I'm in London. London!!!! For work only and not for pleasure. Other than going to the office and coming back to the hotel, I haven't done anything.


This is the first hotel (Express Holiday Inn) I stayed at before moving to Hilton because it was in the bad part of London.


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The Hilton hotel is in a better part of the neighborhood. I forgot to take a picture of it. The only thing is, it's much farther from the office than when I was at the Holiday Inn hotel. Now, I have to take the tube to work.

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Below are areas around the TFL office. Looks pretty ghetto don't you think?








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Taking the tube to the office..... I have to switch lines 3 times and then it's a 20 min walk from the station to the hotel but it's worth it because it's got internet and a gym. Although I've been so busy I have no time for the gym. Mind the doors...mind the gap...mind what? Come again?



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Around Hilton:

Oh look, there's Starbucks!






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Oh oh, the best wonton noodle soup ever (either that or i was just craving some wonton noodle soup.)



Isn't this a cozy little chinese restaurant?



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Oh look, it's me!!! All happy because my wonton noodle soup was on its way.

Today is a sad sad day :(

I rear ended someone on the 237. I think it's totaled if not, close to it. My poor car. I love my little corolla.... The first car that I bought and I just paid it off too! It is a sad sad day.

The best part about a wedding is.....

the wedding cake!!!! well, at least that's the case when you're an assistant photographer. Usually, I get to eat a piece but today....they were serving the cake during bouquet and garter toss and I couldn't get to a piece of cake because I had to lug the secondary flash around. All I could do was stare at them and hope that there would be leftovers...but no such luck. :(

It looked so yummy too....I need a chocolate cake!!! I need it now!!!!

I haven't been blogging because....

I'm addicted to being an elf on Vana'diel (a massive multiple player RPG online game - in case you don't know where Vana'diel is, it's a world threatened by monsters and beast in final fantasy xi). I fight monsters and beast to save the helpless!



That's a picture of me, oh I mean of me in Vana'diel! Aren't I the cutest elf you've ever seen?

My plants are happy!

My plants are happy, I am happy! Here are some before and after shots of my garden.

Back in April:

Now:

Back in April:

Now:

Back in April:

Now:

Back in April:

Now:

Griffith Park Observatory!

After 5 years of renovation...introducing the new and better Griffith Park Observatory!!!






Click here for more pictures from last Sunday.

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Look at that, I weigh 2 lbs oh i mean 10 lbs on pluto!!



Oh, man, who broke the scale?!!! Someone must have been unhappy with what the scale told him/her.