Dining By Design

The party must go on! Despite the little mishap, I went to the annual DIIFFA - Dining by Design charity event which many of my peers were the designers for the tables. This years tables were extremely beautiful. And Suba got a Herman Miller Eames Rocker from the silent auction for a great deal. Will came back to Kansas City for this event, and we all had a great time. Here are some of my favorites. I particularly liked HNTB's table designed by my friend Wes. It was the minimal yet well designed. The table was a big light box and there were cutout circles for the wine glasses, plates and vases, so everything was under lit. There were also projectors hidden under the table that projected images onto the ceiling panels and there were two walls on each end of the table and both projected images onto the other side. And of cause, the table was sexier thanks to the beautiful Philippe Starck's Hudson Chairs. Bravo to all the designers. A bunch of us at at Kevin and Jonathan's bird theme table and the reported from the Kansas City Star loved it and took a few photos of us at the table for the People's section. First the SPACES magazine and now the Star. We're going to be over exposed!

Oops!

I had a little mishap today on my way to the pre-DIFFA party. It was a extremely beautiful spring day and I was all dressed up and ready for tonight's big event. I was singing Dreamgirls. Totally relax and not in a hurry. I stopped at a stop sign, let one car pass, and then started to cross the street, and there was a car right behind the other one that just passed which must be at an angle that was totally hidden from my POV. I didn't even realize it was there until it was in front of me and I didn't even have time to react to it. The passenger side headlight hit the other car's side door. We both stopped and came down to check our car, and luckily no one was injured, and the driver was very nice and polite. We exchanged insurance information and went to the nearest police station to make a report.

CABOOM 4 Home Tours

The home tours during the CABOOM show were fantastic. It is fascinating to take a closer look at the beautiful houses that you typically only get to see in magazines or books. Also, it is exciting to learn about the architects' creative ideas and choices of certain materials. I would certainly go back again next year.

Santa Monica, California

Suba and I just came back from a long weekend in Santa Monica. We went there for the CABOOM Show, and that I'll write about it in the near future because it was a fantastic experience. We stayed at the Viceroy and it was a fabulous hotel designed by Kelly Weartler. It's located on Ocean Avenue, and a few steps away is the beautiful sandy beach. Unlike the beaches that I'm familiar with growing up, the sun could be shining yet the breeze is a little chilly. Nevertheless, there were many brave souls swimming in it! Here are some of my favorite photos taken while we were taking a little walk by the beautiful beach of Santa Monica.

SPACES April/May Issue, Pages 152-163

I just came back from the Preview Party of Spaces spring issue at the new restaurant called Trezo Mare. The food there was fabulous but who cares about the food. We're on page 152! Typically the entertainment section is not a very big, but this issue, we got a whopping nine pages spread (not counting the ads.) The article is filled with 25 colorful pictures from Kevin's sushi party, double the amount of pictures on the featured home on this issue's cover. Since it is a Spring issue, the editor requested something fresh and colorful, and between Kevin's home decor and the sushi we made, the pages are bursting with a kaleidoscope of spring colors.

Light and Shadow

This interesting image caught my eye as I was sitting in my living room today. The direct sunlight and reflected lights from various surfaces casted very fascinating shadows on the wall.

Mural for The Shape of Things

Eric is directing a play called The Shape of Things which opens this weekend. His stage design calls for a large scale mural in an art gallery. Nicole and I agreed to paint it for him last weekend. We had a fun time putting it together. I first "Photoshoped" the pictures to get the graphic look I wanted, and then the images are projected onto the wall and traced. Then it was pretty much like paint by number filling in the paint. We spent a total of 5 hours on Saturday and just me alone another 4 hours on Sunday. I think it turned out rather stunning. I hope the director is as pleased as the artists.

Chinese New Year Greetings from afar

Today is Chinese New Year and even though I'm living on the other side of the globe from my family, we still get to spend time together, online, through iChat. So here it is, my big happy family - my mom and dad, my sister, my brother-in-law, their 3 boys and a girl, and my brother who's there on vacation, and me, up in the corner... it is ALMOST like we're all in the same room.

Sushi Party at Kevin's

Last Sunday, Kevin threw a Sushi Party and invited us over. The party will be featured in the April/May issue of Kansas City SPACES Magazine. There were a photographer, the editor of the magazine and a writer interviewing some of us. Here are my own pictures. I hope there will be some with me in it on the magazine. I think the party was a success. The food turned out beautiful and delicious! It was especially fun to roll the rolls with the colorful mamenori or soybean paper. They're fabulous for photography.

Armageddon

At around 2pm today, the lights at work flickered a few times. This usually happens during stormy day, but today wasn't one of those days. However, it did seem rather gloomy outside. As I walked closer to the window, I realized that the was a huge plume of black smoke Northeast to our building over downtown. At a glance it looked like a big tornado. However, what seemed to be black cloud turn out to be the smoke from huge fire ignited by several exposions at the Northeast Bottoms. Later we found out that it was a chemical warehouse that burst into flames and apparently the nearby 5 block area had to be evacuated. Many businesses let their employees go early right after the incident in fear that the air could be toxic. Later I also learned that pieces of debris had fallen from the cloud of smoke, and we were urged not to touch the debris. As I was leaving today, I saw a mysterious black spungy object in a zip lock bag sitting right next to the mouse of our log out computer. It didn't come across my mind that it could be the debris from the explosion until now. Not funny! This is a snap shot from my office of the sky over downtown. Okay, I tweaked the color a little bit for drama, but it was pretty scary.

Hello, Dolly!

Here's the another Olathe South poster that I designed - Hello, Dolly!. Since Dolly is such a key character in the play, I just have to include her face in the poster, so we arranged a photo session so I could photographed the student who plays Dolly; and then I treated the photo with a watercolor filter for the final effect. We had a lot of fun during the photo shoot. The costumes are very elaborate!

Angels In America: Part 2

Here's the poster I designed for the second part of Angels in America. I photographed the Angels of the Waters at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park when I was in NYC last year. It could not be more perfect for the poster. Eric plays Joe Pitt's character and I'm going to the play this Sunday. It'll be a marathon of Angels starting with Part One at 2PM, and then Part Two at 7:30PM, a total of over 6 hours of play!

Mid-January: The Reality

Just when I thought global warming is actually shortening the winter season, we got hit by 4 consecative days of sleet. I'd prefer a few more inches of dry fluffy snow than ice and sleet. Yuk! Anyway, needless to say, I try to avoid going out if possible, and lets hope that there's no power failure so at least I'm still connected to the outside world through the Internet. Of course, it doesn't help knowing that my parents are now vacationing on the sunny beaches of Bali. I guess it's just two weeks into the new year and living in the Midwest, the worst is yet to come.

Happy 2007!

I would like to wish all my dear friends and family a happy and prosperous New Year!

Merry Christmas

I would like to send my warm holiday greetings to all my family and friends who read my blog frequently. Thank you for your love, support and encouragement. It's a blessings that we get to easily share the wonderful moments of our lives with each other right here no matter how far apart we are. May your Christmas wishes all come true this year!

The Quicktime I posted here is a video and photo montage of the recent images I took during the holidays season, edit to the melodious carol of Maureen McGovern, The Christmas Tree.

I Heart NY

There are too many wonderful pictures of New York for me to post them here, so I uploaded them to Flickr.com. Check it out.

Millennium Park

November 28: This was the only nice weather day we had in Chicago, and I was glad that we get to visit the Millennium Park for the first time since it was completed. The "Cloud Gate" by British artist Anish Kapoor, was one of the most fascinating sculpture I've ever seen before. The ultra reflective polished stainless steel was like a mirror, distorting the reflection of the Chicago skyline, giving the visitors a whole new perspective of the cityscape. Also, what amazes me is the size of the sculpture. It was rare to see a simple form in such large scale (33-feet high/66-feet long).

Nearby was the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed by Frank Gehry. The proscenium was definitely Gehry's signature style - brushed stainless steel ribbons. It looked beautiful at night when it was lit up with colorful alternating lights. However, the most amazing part of the pavilion was the gigantic trellis shaped like a big bubble, made out of crisscrossing pipes, over the Great Lawn. The function of the trellis acted as grids for speakers and lights during concert events. The pavilion seats over 10,000 people.

Vacation Ends

We parted at Dean & DeLuca in SoHo, hugging and saying goodbye knowing that we will not see each other for at least another couple of years. When I left, I didn't turn back. I didn't want to make this goodbye a big deal, so as if we're going to see each other more often. I got onto the N train at Prince St Station right at the corner, heading towards Times Square. The ride was a little melancholy. Three weeks ago, my high school best friends Joshua and Derrick flew all the way from Southeast Asia to come celebrate Thanksgiving with me and Derrick's partner joined us later and we all traveled to Chicago and New York City. The whole trip was very memorable because of the change of sceneries, the change of pace and the change of weather. Time flies when we were having a great time. However, the trip was packed with all sorts of happenings. Three different hotels, one snow storm that caused us 6 hours of delay at Midway Airport, and three Broadway shows later, the vacation ended, and our memories were captured by three digital cameras and over a thousand shots. It was a privilege that we get to spend time with each other, and teased each other like when we were in high school again. It is amazing that after so many years, whenever we get together, it felt like we had just parted yesterday. True friendship can withstand the test of time. Ours has been 15 years since I left.