Staycation

Yesterday, Jeremy and I took a staycation (not a "steak-acation", as he had hoped)...I had heard about people doing staycations, where you basically act like you're on vacation in your own city and do things that a tourist might do. Well, believe it or not, even after 10 years of living in the Bay Area, I had never been to Angel Island! So, with the weather gods smiling upon us, we hopped on our bikes and headed down towards the ferry at pier 41.

We stopped first at the Ferry Building and bought some yummy Vietnamese meatball sandwiches, which we ate in the grass:







We were quite early for the ferry, so we rode down aquatic park, and then the Marina green...there were lots of people out and about enjoying the beautiful weather! Eventually we ended up back at Pier 41 to board our ferry. Like our walks, it felt like we were in a different city! The people are just so different in this part of town than in the Mission...makes for some really fun people watching!

We finally made it over to Angel Island and rode the perimeter of the island. First of all, WOW! I can't believe I had never been there...the 360 degree views of the bay are just stunning.







What a beautiful way to spend the day! We love San Francisco! We're totally visiting again!



P.S. I think I'm getting closer to fine-tuning the camera settings...I like these photos much more than the ones I took earlier in the week...
P.P.S. In case you're wondering how the heck I kept up with Jeremy on a bike, he rode his single speed...and he was still faster than me. But it did level the playing field quite a bit. :)

Walk with Me

I've think I've mentioned before that I really love my job, but lately I have been struggling a bit with the lifestyle of a designer. Namely, that I spend all day sitting in a chair, staring at a computer. I notice often that when riding my bike home, it can be difficult for me to focus on distances further away than 2-5 feet. Additionally, the human body (at least not this human's body) isn't built to sit in a single seat for 9-10 hours a day. Another bummer is that I work quite late, not getting home until 7 or 7:30PM most days (oh how I envy people who leave the office at 5PM!!!).

In an effort to counteract all of these effects, Jeremy and I have begun taking walks after work, which is nice since the sun is setting so late these days. Not only is the light beautiful at this time of day, but it means that we get to explore nearby neighborhoods. Yesterday, I took my new camera out with me (Jeremy just bought me a Leica D-Lux 3!). The walk helps make my body feel better after a long day in a chair, but shooting photos helps counteract the computer-stare I've developed after looking at the screen all day. Plus, it really gets me ready for our trip...looking hard, noticing things I may not notice during our daily routine.

Last night we took a long stroll up and down the streets of Potrero Hill, and it was like discovering a different city! There were a lot of houses and other details that I may not have noticed if passing by in a car, and we wandered down streets we never knew of. Here are some photos I shot last night with our new camera:

I loved how the crack in the sidewalk extended all the way up to the doors:

This one I shot for Kara, who misses beauganvillia:

This was a crazy mosaic on a bench we found:

I love the soft colors and focus of this one:

The light was just gorgeous at this time:

All in all, loving the new camera, though I still need to fine tune the settings. The colors are not coming out as saturated as I would like. You might be thinking, "Uh, are you crazy? Look at photo 1 and 2, Hope!" OK, and I'll let you in on a little secret...I just found out about this tool called Picnik, which is kind of like an online, dummy-proof Photoshop. I don't love the editing capabilities, but their built-in filters are awesome!!! You can add vignetting or make the photo look as if it was shot with a Lomo or Holga. For example, in the beauganvillia image above, I added the "Lomo-ish" filter. Here it is as it came out of the camera:

Same with the image of the doors. I did a bunch of processing on that one...boosted the contrast, saturation, and exposure, then added the vignetting filter. Here's the original:

I'm not too sure if I will use Picnik often with both Photoshop and Aperture at my disposal, but it is a fun and easy way to add effects.

it's burning like a...

HEAT WAVE!!!

That's right, it's one of those glorious few days in SF where the temperatures actually reach above 70 degrees (actually, a high of 81 degrees yesterday and 88 degrees forecasted for today!!!). Not sure what's going on, but last night produced one of the most beautiful sunsets I remember seeing in SF. Observe:



Click on the photo to view it big...it's worth it. :)

finally, sewing

Wanna know what I did this weekend? Read it here.

When in Greece...

This past weekend K and I met up in New Orleans for a girl trip. In the past year we've only had a chance to see each other at events (ahem, our weddings) so we thought it was time to get away and spend some real QT with each other. Why Nola? Well, the 10th anniversary of V-day was being held there...at the Superdome, no less.

We flew in on Friday and after a quick stop-off at our hotel/condo, we headed out to Port of Call for some burgers and fruity beverages. Here's K in the lobby of our building:



After we were sated, we headed off for a walk around town. We ended up at Jackson Square, where we saw this guy perform:



Scary, huh? Actually Mr. Headstand was just one of four guys, each of whom did flips and spun on their heads on the concrete like it was no big whoop.

That evening we ate at Nola, one of Emeril's restaurants in New Orleans. Normally I wouldn't have been interested, but Eddo said it was good so I gave it a shot. Our take: we liked it but felt it was a little mass produced. Great service, though!

The following morning we got up and had beignets and cafe au laits at Cafe du Monde. YUM!



This was followed by some wickedly good shopping on Chartres Street in the French Quarter and Magazine Street. We got some great deals! And it was really fun to shop with K, as shopping is pretty much a solitary activity for me these days. So it was fun to look at things that I might normally not look at and shop at a different pace than I might on my own...

That evening was the main event, V-day at the Superdome. It was really incredible to be in that enormous space around all those women! Here is a view from our seats before the show started:



We heard readings by Kerry Washington, Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Beals, and a particularly heartbreaking piece by Rosario Dawson. I have to say, for a show featuring between one and four women on stage reading, the lighting and effects were incredible! The photos don't do it justice, but here's an idea:

Kerry Washington:



Liz Mikel, she was hilarious:



Jennifer Hudson:



Jane Fonda, she's amazing:



At the end of the show, Eve Ensler has a tradition of asking all women who have been a victim of rape, abuse, or molestation to stand up and break the silence. Kara and I watched as women stood up all around us and a good 85% of the women on the floor (African American women from New Orleans) stand up. It was a really powerful moment and we were both moved to tears.

The next day started with a lazy jazz brunch at the Court of Two Sisters. Here I am eating some crawfish:



We tried to go shopping after that but ended up getting frozen margaritas instead. When in Greece, as they say...



See the rest of our photos from the weekend here

It was a weekend spent eating, shopping, drinking, v-daying, and talking. And talking...in the company of my best gal. What more could I ask for. The weekend went by way too quickly. Ah, K, thanks for the wonderful time spent, I love you and really cherish the memories we made this weekend. Where are we going next year? ;)

i be edumacated

I just got this in the mail:



This is the most expensive piece of paper I have ever owned.

happy 36th birthday, eddo!

Ha ha, just kidding, he only turned 26. :) But yeah, my little bro is 26 now! Crazy. It's funny, I expect him to be older, like 28 or so...but when I think back I can still imagine when he wore big glasses and orange shorts and played chess at Halecrest. My how times have changed...

Basically Eddo's 26th bday consisted of several days of activities, kind of like the Olympics only with less torches and more drinking, but just as many Chinese people. We started off with a dinner on Friday night with 30 of his closest friends at PPQ Dungeness Island. Here we are as I try to pry his nose off with a nutcracker and he tries to stab me in the eye with a crab fork. Awww, so sweet:



Note the bibs. Oh please note the bibs.

The crab fiesta was followed up by scorpion bowls at Trad'r Sams. For the first time that I can remember, I didn't scream at his friends to make sure he got home OK. Either he is becoming more responsible (he's not) or I am learning to trust him more (ok, maybe he is becoming more responsible).

Tuesday was Eddo's actual birthday and we headed to The Mint for some karaoke fun. Here's a photo of Mimi, Sarah, and Eddo singing "Zombie" by the Cranberries. They sang this with a full on Irish accent. "...with their tanks and their BOMs and their BOMS and their GONS! Za-am-beh-eh-eh-eh!"



We left before Eddo and I could pay homage to our dad with a duet to Neil Diamond's "Cracklin' Rosie", but not before we saw Maria and Eddo perform "I wanna F* you" by Akon and Snoop. Sorry, but I am having problems posting this video to YouTube. Will update the blog with video as soon as I can! For now here is photographic evidence:



Happy birthday, Eddo! I love you and I am proud of the man you are becoming.

WIWOT*

Often when I get together with other designers, we'll ask each other what projects we're working on. Right now I'm working on a project that I think even the non-designers will be interested in...I am designing the coffee table book for the new California Academy of Sciences building in Golden Gate Park, designed by Renzo Piano (who designed the Pompidou in Paris). The building opens in September of this year and will be directly across from the new de Young museum. It is a dream project and I am so, so, SO excited to be working on it. Since I think the studio signed an NDA or something with the Academy, I can't realy give away any details, but I can repost what has already been revealed on the web. First of all, a model of the building, from bird's-eye view:



And that's pretty much what it looks like from the top. BTW, that's a living roof, made up of over 20 million plants. There was the problem of figuring out how to plant stuff on a sloping surface, so they came up with these trays made of coconut husks and tree sap. Once the plants started to root, the trays were locked together and they will eventually biodegrade. Here's a current view of the roof:



And here is what it looks like from inside the building:





The building is entirely green and energy efficient. Most of the focus right now is on the roof, but the details within the building are quite impressive as well. There are tons more details that I omitting here cuz I don't want to get in trouble. It will definitely be worth visiting when the museum finally opens!

* WIWOT = What I'm Working On Today. I send an email to Cinthia everyday with this subject line, just so we can keep in the loop. She thinks the acronym is hilarious for some reason...

Date Night

One of J and I's Chinese New Year's resolutions (We were a little late getting started on the resolutions and just decided we would make them CHINESE new year's resolutions so we wouldn't feel so bad being slackers. See, it pays to be Chinese!!!) was to reinstate date night. And we've been pretty good at keeping this resolution! However, after an inspiring conversation with K, we decided that we needed to come up with some dates that didn't revolve entirely around eating and drinking.

A couple of weeks ago, we caught the Olafur Eliasson show at the SFMOMA. WOW! I was very impressed...his work seemed to me all about making us more aware of our environment; in specific, those elements that you don't really pay that much attention to, like the nature of light in a room, or the way the air moves around a space. Our favorite was this piece:



The room was a seamless circle that seemed to glow from the walls, and the color would transition ever so slightly every few minutes. When we walked in, the room was bright white and everyone was chattering away. About two minutes late, the light completely dimmed and all of a sudden everyone became completely quiet. Now that's a successful piece! I love how interactive the show was and I was happy to see the MOMA move towards the contemporary.

A week later, we went and saw the Magnetic Fields (as I mentioned in a previous post), which was a super fun show.

Date night this week involved the opening night the SF International Asian American Film Festival. This was extra fun for me because the Center for Asian American Media is one of Noon's clients and we did all the design for the event, from the trailer to the catalog to the t-shirts to the website. I really like the festival campaign this year, it is very different from Noon's typical super-clean, super-refined look and everyone worked together to make it gel. The concept was "conversations," and Leah did all original illustrations for the campaign. One of the characters is based on me (with long hair)! Here I am holding up the 108-page catalog I designed, the character based on me is the gal with the striped tunic on in the upper right hand corner of the catalog cover:



I also designed the t-shirts and badges, shown on some volunteers here:



The film was "A Thousand years of Good Prayers" by Wayne Wang (director of The Joy Luck Club), and it was a sweet little film about an estranged father and daughter. Wayne was at the opening night gala:



As was henry O, who acted in the film. Here is Do Young getting his autograph. So cute!



Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu was also there, though I don't know who he is. Tomo was quite excited to see him in person, though!



Next week date night just involves dinner plans, but we deserve it! :)

Queen SHRED!

We spent this weekend in Sun Valley, Idaho, visiting with Jeremy's parents, Laurie and Randy, and their two adorable pups, Aki and Mia. As is typical in the Hermann household, "visiting" means spending all daylight hours outdoors doing some sort of physical activity, and evenings at home lounging with the puppies, eating yummy dinners, and watching movies or reading.

We flew in on Friday and immediately got down to the business of getting our gear (this is another Hermann activity...the acquiring of gear) and headed out for some cross-country skiing:



The next day we went up to Mount Baldy for some downhill skiing. The Hermanns were very sweet and got me a private lesson with an instructor, who worked some serious miracles. Some may know that I have been scarred in the past with bad, bad skiing experiences so he had some physical as well as psychological issues to contend with. At the end of my lesson, though, I felt (for the first time ever on skis) fairly competent. Here's the view from on the ride up. Pretty stunning:



Randy bought me this stylin' jacket as a bday present...maybe he figured that if he can help me make a proper outfit, this skiing thing might just stick in my repertoire. Does he know me or does he know me, people?



Saturday was our "rest" day, meaning we we were ONLY going to go snowshoeing. It was a beautiful day and we actually got quite a workout while we were "resting."







The next day we were back up on Mount Baldy, and I am please to say that I was SHREDDING it! OK, maybe not by most peoples' standards, but definitely by mine! I declared to Randy and Jeremy, "Skiing is fun now!" I think they were pretty happy to hear that. :)

We ended the trip with me taking a walk to shoot some photos while Jeremy, Randy, Aki and Mia went for another cross-country ski. What a beautiful place with beautiful people (and dogs). We love you, Randy, Laurie, Aki, and Mia! Thank you for sharing this time with us!





See the entire Flickr set here