:: fly me to the moon ::

have you ever try to do something that meant to be done by ten times more resources? but you have to do it for either the sake of time? budget? and passion?

well this might be an example... shot with a single camera with multiple pass, this is my first video testing the my video edit technique for keying soundtrack to match multiple footage. Sorry, not an excellent piano player myself, and I can never sing while I play, or just singing in general... this is a part of a much longer home video I am editing, but for this 58 sec of footage, it took me by far the longest to edit!!! enjoy!

:: Cook [it] Out, one more time! ::

My days in the south are limited now, counting down rapidly, with only two weeks left for my to lounge above the southern soil against the sepia sun.

Within a short burst of time, I had agreed to collaborate on a project in Charlotte; therefore, yesterday, I drove down to Charlotte for a day of photo shoot.

On the way during the one-hour plus mindless cruse toward the Queen City, I kept deciding which diner should I visit for lunch; this would be one of the few chances left allowed me to reminisce the taste of Charlotte that I had been accustomed to in the past five years.

A few locales away from the university area were pretty high up on my list, Price’s Chicken Coop and Phat Burritos, but it would cut my schedule really close to the arranged meeting time.

And so, I kept on brain storming for diners closer to North-East Charlotte; Giacomo's, Wild Wing Café, Flying Saucer, Sushi 101, Cook out. The closer I had gotten to my destination, I realized the clock only permit me to hop in for a quick fast food stop; Cook Out immediately became the default.

“Can I have a strip tray, with slaw and cone dog,” I parked my white Coupe in front of the bright red table and ordered at the walk-up window, “and a diet coke for drink, please.” I should have gone for a fancy shake or float, but the conservative me of the day picked a plain soda.

As soon as sat underneath the red aluminum umbrella, grabbed my $4.60 box of goodies, I realized it wasn’t just the food and the unbeatable value that brought me to this legendary fast food joint, it was the memories infested at every corner among the vicinity of this development.

The mad late night stop on Thursday nights, frustrated time with unresolved studio project spinning inside my head with an empty stomach, a relaxing lunch stop with Emily and Brain, being dd for the red rock, playing with the mysterious power socket behind the order board in extreme intoxication, the people that I was with, the scenes I had observed.

A place that was so simple, and could even define as ghetto, doubtlessly had become a part of my journey in Charlotte.

It was the most emotional and calming strip tray I had ever had at this joint, sitting by myself- alone, reminiscing all those other that I had met and dine here.

It isn’t the food in Charlotte that I am going to miss in the frozen land of up state New York (certainly, it will be part of it), rather it will be the people who make this place vivid, exciting and fun. People whom I shared the sweet and the bitter.

I would like to say thank you to all of you who had supported me and defined me as who I am in this brief, but remarkable, five years.

As the day resume, busy set up and shooting schedule filled the afternoon. After the shot, the crew, and the person who I adored, shard a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in the sunset at Wine Vault. Thus for dinner, I spent another hour at Giacomo's for a Tortellini Alfredo and reminisced more (and this time, the few first dates I had at this favorite Italian restaurant of mine). In the end, the day wasn’t just about a fabulous photo shoot and tasting the flavors of Charlotte, but memories that would never diminish.

:: human are less than dolphin when it come to music ::

“When was the last time you just close your eyes and really listen to the music?” Jeremy Clarkson once wrote in his Sunday column. Now-a-day, it doesn’t matter if we are driving boring commute, or busy cranking at the office, we have can access to our music collection in many ways at anytime. Subconsciously, our favorite tunes have become background music for the task on hands.

In the past, music used to be luxury, you either know how to play it yourself, or you go to see someone play at a venue. As soon as the first recording machine created, music could than be reproduced; live music event become something for occasion.

In daily bases, music has becomes ambient noise; it is no longer pleasurable. Dolphin might be the only mammal that pleasure for sex; very soon, the only living organisms that will enjoy music are our household pets. Because while we are busy browsing the web, doing dishes, our pets just lay back and chill along the tunes we put on.

That was why I had decided to spend 2 hours on this lovely summer afternoon to take my time and enjoy some of my favorite tracks over all these years. It took an hour to compose a track list of eighteen, with most of the track being 320 kilobits per second, burnt them on a high-sensitive “red coated” CD-R at 4x write speed.

Afterward, I migrated to my living room where my Yamaha digital receiver, and Pioneer analogue amp, resides along with its 5.1 surround sound speakers. Dropped my freshly brewed demo disc onto a disc player tray that it was connected via optical cable to the amp unit.

The disc started playing and I spent the last few moment to switch the Yamaha to the SCH Stereo profile; beyond this point, all I did was to relax on a dark brown leather couch with eyes lightly shut, and let the rhythmic sound flood the dwelling. No iPhone,, no MacPro space heater, no exhilarating exhaust G35 node, just music and music only.

I did not even sing along like my usual self-driving within the isolated confine; every spectrum, every detail, of the audio track came to fruition. Like a well-engineered automobile, it communicated with you. It told you every bump on the road; it warned you as the tire begin to lose traction.

A song, at its purist listening pleasure, does exactly that. With eyes closed, you pick up notes once never aware; the variation of instruments separate, collide, and layer on top of each other; vocal unfolds like silk slipping from bare skin.

Of course, I cannot afford to just sit and listen to music all day, I have other mission I must accomplish; like this blog. But I can tell you, I never listening to music when I write, mainly because I find it distracting to listen to another voice while I am jogging my own down, more importantly, I am saving the pleasure of music for an occasion that is plain monotonous, calm and task-free, a moment when music deserve its audience.

:: league in transition ::

July is fading away quick, and so is my summer.

As I had mentioned in my previous blogs, I spent a little “vacation”, more like a social liberation, in Charlotte this past weekend. I was pleased to say the economic crisis was no longer the opening topic of all conversation at dinners; not that we were doing any better, there were just brighter topic to talk about.

“Are you excited about Cornell?” was my friends’ FAQ this weekend.

Am I excited? Sure, very much so; but I am scared simultaneously. You see, this is some competitive ground to step foot into.

Let me bring up an example from the international motor sports. Nelsinho Piquet Jr. was a frequent podium visitor back in his GP2 and Formula 3 days. He had been racing in those sectors for years under his father’s racing team; he was familiar with the machine, his technique was competitively challenged.

This, of course, opened the opportunity for him to enter the holy grail of international motor sports – Formula 1. Since Nelsinho joined Renault in 2007, he never performed outstandingly along his two-time world champion Fernando Alonso.

Return to the topic on my preparation to Cornell. Within the architectural academia, this is top notch stuff, one of the most prestigious architectural school a person can dreams of; just like Formula 1, this is the most competitive chamber of the entire field, the bloody red cherry on top of the cake.

I did well when I was in undergrad at the College of Architecture, or kids liked to call it School of Architecture no-a-day, at the University of North Carolina; and I would never fear to tell anybody that the faculties in this place had changed my life in this most stunting five year I had ever been through.

Now departing this familiar ground on a high note, joining the best from the world in an uncharted territory, I am scare sh*tless. I might very much end up like little Nelsinho failing miserably. My colleague from a different school might leave me in a cloud of tire smoke as I struggle to compete. Oh, yes, this is exactly what is happening to the Brazilian driver, because his GP2 colleague Lewis Hamilton turns out to be an overnight sensation in the first year with McLaren Mercedes.

Well, but these is another real fact, the second seat Renault driver, our boy Nelsinho, had to enable the driving instruction line on the most astonishing and technically advanced racing simulation - Gran Turismo 5 Prologue - behind his G25 racing wheel (shown on a recent twitter feed of his own); but I don’t have to do THAT, I pull decent track time with my MOMO with no instruction line and minimum traction control with professional physic, so maybe I can be survive, maybe I can be Lewis Hamilton instead.

* image was from Nelsinho Piquet twitter in this blog

:: learning about America[n] ... ::

The Queen City of Charlotte, a town of 2.3 million should find no difficulties to entertainment me for a four-day weekend “getaway”, a getaway from the social desert of Western North Carolina. With six-year of networking experience inside a nuclear shelter, my contact list isn’t as long as the Schindler’s, however, I do manage to make friends with a fair amount of share-mind designers.

The first two nights, and day, were great, good friends, mild intoxication, and waiting to see the dawn with social chitchat. However, on day three, things started to get difficult; after a fun and educated lunch with a great friend of mine, my evening plan still remained vacant. Usually, during academic season, there was always dinner buddies to be find within 15 steps of walking distance in studio; very easily and unintentionally, dinner outing would transform into night procrastination.

These entire social dynamic seemed so distance this summer as everybody from my graduating class are moving on adventures of their own. And most of everybody was venture out of this city for the weekend.

Therefore, I figured it would be a good idea to contact someone who was working in this town, knowing that must be a better guarantee for them to stick around during the non-schooling season.

Thus I contacted my first year architecture professor Andrew, since we had not hang out form quite sometime and he told me not to leave this town without catching up with him. A brief text was sent and a reply never surface.

By dinnertime, I had decided to go solo for some flavor of the Queen City that I missed for this past month. Deciding a diner was a monumental mission by itself, Penguins, Hickory Tavern, Cans, Big Daddy, Lang Van, and Giacomo’s where only a short list. After an hour, a strategic plan had been made, the fish sandwich at the Hickory Tavern won the vote.

It didn’t take me long, after arriving at the restaurant, to realize why Andrew never replied my text. The Red Sox was playing that night; since he was from Boston, this was pretty much his life. And as a good friend, who never kept track nor understood baseball, I felt like I had insulated the man.

Strangely, the grill tilapia and cold beer gave me motivation to observe the live broadcast on the 42” LCD screen over the bar counter for hours. Even scarier was my attention toward the screen adjacent to the baseball live feed – NASCAR. For the first time in my live, I actually felt compelled by the racing-for-dummy association; a sports once I claim to be unrestricted-interstate-driving was actually fairly intense. At the end of the night, I had managed to understand the sports baseball and somewhat, only somewhat, appreciate NASCAR, because I knew the most prestigious racing sport would have a go in Hungary this Sunday.

Headed back to my recently broken-in arcHouse, I found my new sub-leasing housemate, Livi, also suffered the same summer-Saturday-night syndrome. I hardly knew him, since I had only been in the house for approximately six hours accumulated in the past two months. Going to the bar this time was a much easier decision to make than my dinner selection.

Settled at the same table and same seat as my previous night at Wine Vault, I not only learned Livi was all over the map, and also a person with an open-minded appetite.

Despite the mixed population in the US of A, finding diverse dining experience is still hugely limited. No doubt, street food is one my favorite type of dining experience; they are mostly simple, modestly dangerous but hugely rewarding.
Time after time, going back to Hong Kong, I would relentlessly go to Central Kowloon for the ultimate “Street Sweep”, hitting up favorite kiosk in my childhood while discovering the new trend in the fast changing culture city.

Talking to Livi surely bring back traveling memories from the frozen lake of northeastern China to the southern England port of Bristol. We might not share the same interest and carrier goal, and we most likely will never be BFF, but the common we share are the desire to taste the exotic cuisine at the most exclusive restaurant and the flavor makes familiar to the vast majority of the working class.

Sadly, this wasn’t an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservation, pork intestine covered in deep frying grease sold at street kiosk were only dreams reside outside of this country.

But I guess it will be okay for most of you, because I am sure you will not find stinky tofu as an attractive delicacy in the first place.

:: vacation ::

For those who has been checking my blog lately, on my blog re-ramp, thank you for your support and interest! And you might have already suspecting my blogging momentum has stopped already. No... I have not... this is some serious stuff this time, and I need to work on it once my vacay is over, which will be soon, Monday soon. So, please keep checking back to fulfill your curiosity...
Meanwhile, I will it a night early, since the two glasses of wine and three pints of beer are calling me for bed time...
Anywho, I will be back sooner than you think!!!

:: let's play! ::

After two rounds of blog posting, I think it is about time to align my yakking toward thesis research. At this perfect moment, I browsed through a blog post, study model, from one of my architecture friend Josh, who is questioning a similar problem in architectural pedagogy – conceptual representation.

This would not be my initial attempt to explore such issue, but every time half way through the investigation, it had always detoured into an actual design project. Thus this time, I will reserve this as a sub theme for my thesis interest…

Back to the question regarding conceptual representation; the corner stone for all competition entry, project bidding and portfolio building. This skill is so essential that it becomes extremely hard to achieve. Even one has excellent artistic talents and/or design concept, communicating one’s idea flawlessly is as impossible as drawing straight lines during an off-road rally race.

Architectural academies their protégée to crank out overly elaborate design concepts; on the flip side of that coin, talking to the practical architects, who know nothing but how to edit their X-Ref in 1000 really uninteresting manners, will tell you the best design is a Lowe’s buffet.

Why can we not be innovative and playful? For Mies sake, we are part of the design community, is our goal is to seek for a better way to live? Do we all sacrifice sleepless night to dream of something that we hate? No. Aren’t we all do what we do because we love what we do?

If someone walk through the front door of a design firm does not give a damn about design should not only be not hire but should indeed thrown into exile. But for someone walk in an architecture office has no sense of humor should really stop breathing.

It is like my writing style, mostly idiotic and obscene for thesis document, is joyful to write. I must admit reading Jeremy Clarkson’s book and watching too much Top Gear has contribute a fair amount on this lunacy; however, writing in this manner is airy and fun. I dislike scholarly writings not only because they all sounds like a poorly writing instruction on how to defuse a nuclear bomb, I loathe them because you will never hear me talk in such a way even I am presenting a project in critique.

It is like cook, too, despite from all the facebook and twitter photo uploads, I always tell people I don’t cook - I just play. It is the playfulness that yields for happy accident in the end.

Earlier today, I had commented on Josh’s blog entry “in which you could call this a manifesto if you want, but it’s probably not”, saying writings could be as effective as sketch models, nevertheless, they were another medium for design. Since my writing craft was limited, I shall remain in the rhyme of obsessive model making.

Finally, a note to self; I probably should not write at late night because my brain does not know how to slow down, thus when I hit the bed sheet, floating like space debris it keeps thinking. But this habit of blogging is good, it allows me to jog down ridiculous thoughts down and onto the cyber space; more importantly, it gives me a chance to critically polish my not so critical writing skills.