For years I’ve been obsessed with figuring out how to get “that look”. It’s like animators’ obsessions with crossing the uncanny valley. And, ironically, my diving into the world of freelance photography has stunted my growth as a photographer. Sure, you learn another aspect of photography, but in terms of improving the quality of your work, you’re stymied by being mired in mounds of other people’s photographs. Rather than saying, “Hey, let’s experiment with this style of shooting,” you’re thinking, “Ok, gotta plow through 100+ photos, edit each one, and get it out for them right quick before the next photo gig comes up.”

So for the new year, Joanna and Danny asked if I could shoot their engagement photos for their upcoming wedding. I figured before I start the editing process, I’d sit down, research, and figure out how to make it better. We also shot at a few new locations (no more herman park, thank goodness). In the end, I was happy with getting somewhat of “that look”. It’ll take a bit more refining, but now I know that I can do it. And that’s finally a step in the right direction.

You’re never too old to learn something new. And that’s going with everything else in life, too.

Oh yeah, I made a new self portrait for the new year. It’s time for a fresh start.

Sometimes I suppose I daydream a bit too much. A lot of people dream about getting rich through say, winning the lottery. I dream about what if I saved the world. Because even if you have a ton of money, you couldn’t get away with everything. But man, if you saved the world, you could probably do a ton of things because you could always pull the “Well, you wouldn’t be alive right now if it weren’t for me.”

Like, say, closing down the 610 loop one early morning and borrowing a sports car and just flooring it around Houston with no cars anywhere.

Or, my most recent personal favorite, get one of those old fashioned railroad handcars and find one of those outfits with the top hats and coattails and a monocle. Set it up at a busy street intersection so the crossing guards come down and then pump your way to the intersection where all the cars can see you. Then you stop, look around, have your monocle pop out, and then furiously pump off into the distance. The visualization of the absurdity of it all makes me laugh.

So yeah, I think if I saved the world, I’d run around the rest of my life doing things just for my own personal amusement. But really, if you saved the world, I think no one would give you money anyway and you’d still have to spend the rest of your life working and hoping someone doesn’t try to kill you to be famous.

The thing I love about my family is that apparently, being weird runs in it. And it’s that good-natured kinda weird. Heck, even my cousin Tinou’s husband Vincent fits right into the “quirky males” that seems to run rampant in the family. Well, this Christmas was no different. We celebrated at my parents’ house this year, so here’s a brief highlight clip:

Vincent brought over a 5 lb gummy bear he bought off of amazon.

The main entree this year was a stuffed pork loin among the numerous other dishes.

There was more food than this, but I just wanted to take a picture of my plate when it looked all @_@

Here’s the gummy bear next to a beer bottle for size comparison. The nutritional label says it is 51 servings.

Trying to serve a gummy bear is a bit tough- just slicing it with a knife seems kind of barbaric.

In the end, only the ear was cut off, Reservoir Dogs-style. Except I didn’t douse it with gasoline afterward.

Tina got Sofia a digital camera for the week-long trip to Disneyworld the following day. The awesome thing about this camera is the viewfinder! Lookit that- no more squinting. I don’t know why they don’t do this with all cameras.

Here’s the LilBro wearing the cowboy hats my cousin Tino got for his parents for their road trip the following day. He’s got that Dali look going for him.

We always have our cousins secret santa gift exchange every year. This year Tino requested a pair of nunchuks and a horse head among other items.

Tinou modeling the pregnant mare look.

Sofia trying to show her mommy her new Disney Princess shoes.

Every night during the Christmas holidays, my parents would tell me and my brothers to go upstairs and sleep in the beds. Every night, we stayed up late in the living room and would fall asleep under the piles of blankets there.

For Christmas, we all chipped in and got my parents a fancy leather photo album. I rushed through making the album- which normally takes a few days- and got it designed and completed in 24 hours.

It’s got nice thick card stock and great print quality.

And the best part of it is that it’s an gutterless album, meaning you can print photos through the spine without interrupting the photo. My parents never really want anything, but they were thrilled with the album. My mom hadn’t gotten around to making any family photo albums since we were young, and I figured the family trip to Japan was as good as any place to start. They looked through it multiple times throughout the Christmas break. Sometimes, this photography thing pays off.

Tina also got me this weird soda- I think it’s from ikea. It tastes like weird beer though.

And if I happen to die this year, it’s because Tu and Tramanh bought me this deep fryer. I think they just want to slowly kill me, because you can’t arrest cholesterol. Maybe they wanted to rent out my room

Tu and Tramanh got married in November.

They were both my friends independently first- Tu from college days, Tramanh from after college- and then they started dating. Which is nice when your friends consolidate- an added bonus is that you now have fewer times occurring when one friend is having one thing and another friend has another thing going on that same night and you have to choose.

Just this past New Year’s, I was talking to a friend at the NYE party, and we were talking about how hard it is to meet good people. And they’re good people. From the start, Tu and Tramanh invited me to their family events, didn’t judge me when I screwed up, and were there to quietly support me when I was down. Even when I feel like I’ve embarrassed myself to death (which apparently happens probably way too often), they play everything down like it’s no big deal. So I was more than happy to attend in the wedding celebrations. Here are a few photos from that day:

The church.

Married.

The dress.

The reception at Petroleum Club.

The cake.

Bride & Groom’s table.

The cake topper.

Maid of Honor speech.

Cake cutting.

Father-daughter dance.

The First Dance.

Some weird dance later that night haha

The after dinner candy station.

The parents.

I like this picture of Melissa and Thomas. Kinda reminds me of some ad in a magazine. Maybe for Virginia Slims or something.

Anyway, it was a nice wedding with great weather, and when the floor opened up that night for dancing, everyone jumped on and danced the night away.

Congrats, you guys.

Creativity is one of those BS traits that sounds better than it actually is. Being tall or athletic is what will help you more in life- these traits are social traits. People will talk to you more, treat you better if you’re good looking. If you’re athletic, you’re playing group games, being highly interactive and socially networking. But being creative is such an independent process. The hours spent practicing music or creating a painting or anything is such a solitary experience. The result of which is enjoyed by others in only a few minutes. And let’s face it, photography is not out there saving lives. It’s just recording a fraction of a second in someone’s life.

Anyway, when I was younger, I always had in mind an idea for making a music video. Obviously, I don’t have the graphic design skills nor know much of anything about video editing, but I had an idea. So when my good friends Tu and Tramanh were preparing for their wedding, I knew the story of how they met well enough to finally spawn an idea for a video to play right before their wedding entrance at the reception and asked them if they’d be interested. With their okay, I sat down and storyboarded it and we shot most of it in a day.

Let me tell you, the editing process is a painstaking ordeal. Thousands of photos pieced together to make (what I had in mind) a sort of 80′s-ish video. Video programs crashing from the volume of photos-to-video format conversion. I was editing portions literally frame by frame. So essentially, everything in the video is done with a purpose, even when synched to the music. There’s a lot of symbolism that most people don’t catch either. But in the end, when they played the video, it was a hit at the reception.

And it’s times like these, when people absolutely love something you’ve put so much time and effort into, and when they feel something from the work, that make all those hours and days working in such a solitary environment absolutely worth it.

Monday began with a trip to Daikokuya, well known for its ramen and long waits.

Fortunately, we got there at a weird time so the wait was only a few minutes.

The ramen was pretty good, though not as good as Kintaro Ramen in Vancouver, nor (obviously) as when I had it in Japan, but it was a satisfying meal nonetheless.

We toured Japan town after, which I was absolutely in love with. The items and foods sold in the shops brought me back to my trips to Tokyo. One of the items on my LA trip list was a pen/bookstore located in the heart of Japan town and it was filled with neat things.

As the sun began to set, we headed off for Runyon Canyon. The place is pretty nice- it’s almost like a dog safari- with no leashes, there were cute dogs of every type running around the place. You get a nice view of LA and fortunately it wasn’t too smoggy that day and the hike up was pretty nice and cool.

At the top, there’s a big bench you can sit on to see the city.

Sometimes I feel like my life is a scavenger hunt- hunting out the weird things in life. Not necessarily because I want to buy anything, but just to be able to see it and know what’s out there. I had heard of The Secret Headquarters, which was supposed to be a nicer version of a comic book store out there, a bit different than the comic book stores filled with toys and trading cards. Appropriately, when I texted google for the place’s address, nothing came up.

Oh yeah, and I suppose now would be a time to talk about the traffic. I’ve been to LA tons of times, and Orange County as well, and I suppose all those times I was pretty fortunate because I’d never had a problem with traffic really. It wasn’t until this trip that I experienced how bad traffic was. Runyon canyon was a few miles away from Secret Headquarters, but it took us maybe 45 minutes to travel only a handful of miles.

And LA is a city where red light means “Go”. There aren’t really any protected left turns, so when the light turns red, maybe three cars waiting to turn left go, trying to go fast enough to not get t-boned by the perpendicular traffic.

Sadly, another one of my destinations, Echo Park Time Travel Mart ended up being passed over. It was only a mile or so from the comic book store, but I didn’t think we’d be able to make it there by car in the 15 minutes before they closed. Seriously, what is up with this city?

Well, at least we made it here. None of the people I was with was interested in checking out comic books, so I strolled in solo. It’s a pretty nice comic book store with your standard selection of super hero-y comics on one wall, but also filled with graphic novels and independently-produced comic books in the rest of the store. It’s pretty small, but I liked it.

We had another displaced Longhorns dinner at A-Frame, which was pretty good food.

Later that night, we made a few light photos back at Jeannie and Neal’s place.

Tuesday, our last day in our quickie LA trip. Melissa with her McDonald’s Happy Meal Chococat watch.

We went to visit Santa Monica. The picture on the garbage can looks more like a dizzy whale than a beach to me.

There was an outdoor shopping area with one toy shop filled with a buncha neat toys.

Looking out at the beach.

On the flight back, I got upgraded to first class! I didn’t realize I still had elite status (I hadn’t flown at all this year on Continental, sadly enough). I suppose my elite status expires February 2011, so this may very well be the last time I ever fly first class. And it wasn’t bad for a last meal. We watched Step Up 3, which was horribly terrible, but in a good way.

The trip was a pretty good experience and I got to try new things (like, well, a fairly tame night booking with friends). I had always been to LA for either work or family, so I never really got to experience LA with friends. This trip definitely changed my mind about LA- it ain’t all that bad. Well, except for that traffic. I could never live in LA because of the traffic.

Plans didn’t work out last minute so I had to end up canceling a trip along with future plans. I was pretty bummed about it all not working out, and so Seo and Melissa decided I needed a change of scenery to get my mind off of things. Continental.com was having cheap last-minute ticket specials and we looked into adventuring into small towns we’d never normally visit, but Melissa enjoys the safety of familiar things and in the end, we decided to visit Jeannie out in LA. In planning for the trip, the three of us each set up our own agendas. Melissa wanted to do fashion-related things, Seo wanted to look for food-related things, and I wanted, well, to just find weird things.

We arrived in LA Saturday evening and, because the shuttle bus to the rental car agency was taking forever to come, I played the lying down game really quick.

Oh yeah, and it’s Melissa’s first time being in LA since she was little, so she was pretty excited.

We were starving after getting off the plane, so we stopped at the In-n-Out just a mile away from the airport. I’d have to say In-n-Out is alright, but if I lived in a city with In-n-Out, I probably wouldn’t really eat it all that much. It’s the exclusivity that makes it delicious. Well, it’s pretty good too.

At the end of the first night, we hung out at a fellow displaced Longhorn’s apartment where his cute dog Otis eagerly made love to Jeannie’s boyfriend Neal’s leg.

And we drank whisky out of glass bowls. Bachelorhood at its finest.

The next day, Melissa had a fashion blogger meetup at some outdoor shopping space. The bloggers were nice, but I was actually more interested in tasting Umami burger.

The burgers here were pretty good, but I think everyone had hyped it up. When I recommend places, I’m always going to say they’re just okay, you might like it, maybe not. It’s all about lowered expectations, people.

Roommates in college. Jeannie ended up moving off and doing her own thing and Melissa ended up settling down and getting married after college. They’re like yin to the other’s yang.

Displaced Longhorns dinner at Honey Pig Sunday night for some delicious pork belly korean bbq.

In the men’s restroom at karaoke after.

At 2 AM, at the light post sculpture near the LACMA. It had been raining earlier that night, which makes any photo with lights in it better.

To get this shot, I had to lay down on the freezing, rain-soaked concrete and get my shirt completely soaked in the process. It was worth it.

End Part 1.

This year, I turned 30 and I was plannin’ on continuing my birthday ban tradition, as for the past two years I stopped celebrating/acknowledging my birthday. Of course, my good friends would hear none of it and we decided to combine multiple events (Patrick’s going away, Seo’s birthday, and mine) into one enormous celebration. I tend to be bah humbug about my birthday because it’s just a sign that there’s still so much I want to do and now less time to get things done. I have a running bucketlist miles long and each year that ticks off reminds me that I might be falling a bit behind schedule and making only baby steps in progress.

Patrick and Seo actually put most of the footwork into setting up the party, and the credit goes mainly to them (and Tu & Tramanh). I went shopping for party supplies, but my main contribution was setting up a ghetto-rigged photo booth that everyone could use the whole night.

Tramanh rasterbated the “flier” Melissa made into poster size and we placed it inside the rental property.

The interior dance floor area.

The large back patio.

The back patio with the lights off.

The property owners were even nice enough to include our names on the billboard. The two groundskeepers that night who helped direct parking and other things were a bit eccentric, but nice.

Here’s Melissa, who designed quite a few togas for the party. I was duly impressed with her sewing skills when she pulled out everyone’s togas and draped them. Party definitely would not have been the same caliber without her making us the fancy themed attire- quality fabric instead of ghetto bed sheets!

Calder House mean muggin’.

I’ve known this guy for over a decade now. From pledge bros to roomies. Good luck in Geneva, Patrick.

Me and Patrick being hardcore. Tu being “hAaaAaY!”

Melissa is all “AH KEEL YOU” and Tramanh is all “haaAaaAaYy!”

I had a bunch of mustaches, so they were glued to some wooden skewers for the photobooth. Then I introduced mustache eyebrows.

Guests of Honor.

College friends.
 

Old roomies. Apartment One-Three-Oh.

Anyway, for turning 30, the party felt like we were back in college. Kegs, trash can punch, random people suddenly showing up. There were a ton of people coming throughout the night- maybe a hundred people? I dunno, but it sure felt like it and more. And I suppose if you’re going to turn thirty, being surrounded with all your friends ain’t a bad way to start a new decade. Thanks, guys, for making it a memorable night.

The name Calder House (where I live with my friends/landlords) didn’t come around until I moved in. Back in the days prior to moving in, I would be chatting with a friend or two and we’d be all, “Ok, meet at the TP’s”, “TP” coincidentally being the initials of both Tu and Tramanh. When I moved in, I started taking photos in the house (of the dogs, etc) and when facebook asked “Location” for each of the albums, I started posting “Calder House” in the text field. And then, since I have a habit of taking sides, one day while we were sitting around, I dubbed all the residents of the house collectively as “Calder House”. It’d be like, “Okay, Calder House photo” or somesuch. And then the name stuck.

Well, longtime friend Patrick was moving to Geneva last November and he had lived there with us for exactly one year before he had to move out. We made a pretty good group that introduced many nights debating roundtable (well, kitchen island) topics over bottles of wine, each bringing in a wide variety of subjects and interests. Before he left, we decided we should have the first Calder House commissioned photo. And by commissioned, I mean I just set up my camera equipment and ghetto-rigged it like so:

The inspiration for the shoot was to come up with something mimicking the parody photoshoot from Rob & Big from so long ago:

Of course, we had to include Uno and Pepper. Except Uno kept making a weird expression every time the flash went off.

Uno, so dignified.

Dogs, what are you doing?!

After a few takes, we ended up with this one as the final photo to get blown up into a huge poster-sized print for framing in the house.

We sometimes joke that Uno looks like a cockroach. In this picture, he die.

At a Crystal Castles concert, after a few drinks, I thought it’d be funny to call it “Clader House” and sounding like “Clodder House”, but when I said it, it came out as “Clawder House.” Hence, this picture.

Our version of the Rob & Big photo. Pepper posed perfectly. This ended up being my facebook profile picture for a while.

Tu & Tramanh being not as gangster nor hardcore.

And then here is my doing one o’ dem internet memes.

And then that picture of Tu up above reminded me of that Keanu Reeves meme running around.

Patrick ended up moving out at the beginning of November, so Tramanh’s friend from high school Karine moved in shortly after the landlords’ wedding.