Snowy Saturday afternoon with this.

I can't remember the last time a guy ever cooked for me, if ever at all. It's so great to just sit and watch him do his business for once. I think I like this one, I just might keep him. Hahaha!

Jokes aside, I'm sitting with a bag of BBQ chips and a glass of bourbon waiting for my mussel dinner. I am not lifting a finger for this meal and after an 11-hour work day, I can't help but feel blessed.

This is going to be a fun, fun weekend. Enjoy Halloween!

Sunday morning was met by a sudden craving for Pho and Vietnamese Iced Coffee. Vien was particularly craving them from one particular restaurant in Queens so we hauled our asses all the way from Brooklyn and braved through the mad subway service changes and track work being done over the weekend. About an hour and a half and 4 subway rides later, we were snarfing down hot bowls of pho and spring rolls with iced coffee. Very few words were exchanged while we nurse our hangovers with steaming, delicious broth.

After lunch, we hopped on a cab to go see Omar, who was expecting us for the day. As soon as we walked in the apartment, we were greeted by a tray of multicolored cupcakes with a special note attached...

Now Vien knows why Omar will always be my #1. 

We took him to go see Real Steel (which was blah and doesn't deserve more space in this post). The movie was followed by a quick dinner with Tita Chon at Jackson Hole Diner because Vien was craving for their huge 7oz burgers. 

Benny is back from his 3-week european tour so we met up with him and other friends for a drink before we called it a night.

Vien hung out with Santi and I the next day...

V looks extra chinky here because I pretty much forced him
to get out of bed to hang with us.

We missed the $1 oyster happy hour at Cornelius after work but that didn't stop us from ordering a dozen of them to share and enjoyed with a bowl of fries and beer. I must remember to go back there on a weekend so we can make it to happy hour and chug down a lot more of those. Yum!

The whole purpose of going on a Facebook vacation is to do more blogging, among other things. But I haven't been writing as much and I'm feeling a bit sheepish because I've been kind of busy.

This is why...

...and I shall leave it with that for now.

In an effort to lessen Santi's TV time, we've started on afternoon dance parties after his afternoon nap. Like today, I played these songs and we both just started moving in the living room while passing around his mom's body ball. Play them and see if you don't start moving.

I'm referring to this blog post from 2009. I stumbled upon it while browsing through my tags and it caught my eye because it was labeled "life is good/and sarap mabuhay." I can't help but be jealous of myself then. I wish I could go back to however I was feeling. Re-reading that post got me feeling hopeful and motivated to feel that way again. I've been a bad buddhist since. Not chanting as much as I did...or even at all. Maybe I will tonight. I should get back on it again to see if I can relive that same feeling I used to get when I first got into it. 

My life so far has been good to me lately. I have had nothing to complain about, been in good spirits, good company, overall everything's been peachy. But I can't shake the feeling of a slight emptiness somewhere in the back of my head. I suppose, deep down somehow, we all feel the need to be spiritual. The need for something else out there that gives depth to our lives and not simply be satisfied with the material, emotional and mental "good" that our day to day lives bring. I'm not getting all religious here, that is the last thing I want to be. I think I will always have an aversion to organized religion but I can never let go of faith. A belief that there's a point to all of this somehow. The motivation to WIN EACH DAY. 

Lately I've been feeling the need to be thankful. As I've mentioned earlier, life has currently been on the upside and I've felt the need to thank something or someone somehow. Because nothing good or bad lasts forever and it's moments like these that keep you moving forward, regardless of how it pans out in the end. We look forward to the next big thing the universe hands us and as the cliche goes, we make lemonade.

Another weekend came and went and as per my last post, Vien did win and Mica and I agreed to come out and join him. It was a great thing that we did, too, because Mica's cousin, who was the reason we all came out, got caught up partying with her other friends in the upper east side that we ended up getting drinks and doing a little dancing of our own before calling it a night. I say little dancing because the place we went to had a god-awful DJ that must've been suffering from a weird case of ADD. It was supposedly hiphop night so I was looking forward to bouncing or something along that line. So this DJ would play a song no longer than a minute, sometimes less, and just as you are starting to feel the beat and move, he would change the song to something with a different beat thus throwing you off your groove. It was terrible. Mica and I gave up after 15 mins and we hightailed out of there. The night ended early but we all went to bed nicely inebriated.

Lazy day Sunday followed the day after. I had brunch with Vien, we walked around the east village, then to his place to watch episodes of The Walking Dead, napped, shared a pizza slice, shared a bahn mi sandwich and shared a bowl of ramen. Yes, we went to three different places for dinner. He was trying to convince me to get ice cream but I simply had no room for anything else.

I forgot to photograph the bahn mi sammie because we devoured it too fast.

So he got me into watching this show The Walking Dead. It's a zombie movie much like Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later. I'm not particularly a big zombie movie fan but I am rather enjoying the show a lot. Of course, I am completely unable to watch it by myself because there are scenes that get really uncomfortable to watch that prevent me from continuing. Go see it with someone! It's pretty good.

Currently back at the restaurant for a half day hosting stint. Been staring outside the window watching cars run down 7th avenue. I forgot how weekend lunch shifts are dead like this. On the flipside, it's nice to see that the family I left here remains the same. I got to work greeted with coffee by the guy working the lunch shift. I'm trying to brush up on my kitchen Cantonese so I can converse with my favorite old timer in the kitchen, this short, old chinese line cook who can't say a single sentence in english but tries so hard to talk to me. We normally just cuss each other out but if you can't speak cantonese, you'd think we're having a really good conversation. I've been trying to look for my old server apron because I left a little cheat sheet of phrases but having not worked here since April, I suppose my stuff is gone.

Vien is picking me up when my afternoon shift ends. We're going to pick up Bahn mi sammies then watch a rented video before I hand him off to Mica's cousin who's visiting from California. I've volunteered him (much to his surprise) to show her around the city for an evening of dancing and all night partying. I will not be joining because I can no longer keep up with the crazies and would much rather spend my evening watching a movie at home or having a drink with friends. But Vien is adamant about me going (since I got him in this situation, haha) so who knows where the night will take me?

I shall explain why at another time.

But here I am, barely awake and about to dive into another weekend. Although, it's hardly going to be an all out party. After months of not working at the restaurant, I am helping them out tomorrow by standing in as a host for half the day. The manager needs to run some errands and has asked me to stand in for her until 5pm. I have a little over a month before I hit the pivotal 3-0. Hurray for turning 30! Also known as, let's-cram-in-as-much-party-time-while-I'm-still-technically-29-even-if-my-mind-and-body-can-no-longer-keep-up-with-the-younger-ones. Mica's 24 year old cousin from California is staying with us for the weekend and we've presented Vien to be her weekend party buddy since she wants to have a fun, dancing night out in the city. Mica and I are in no condition to "party-it-up" and I know Vien is always looking for a reason to go dancing. This saves me from being dragged out to dance when all I want to do is pull the covers over my head and snooze. 

*yaaaawwwnnnnn*

Birds have begun to fly south

Friday night.

Vien takes me to a ramen joint deep down in the recesses of Alphabet City.

It was sooo good but it oddly reminded of La Paz Batchoy,

which is NOT a bad thing at all.

9:00 am Saturday Morning at Carl Shurz Park

Waaaay up at the Upper East Side for the early morning shoot for Koyuki.

Midday coffee break with Mica

Monday morning madness with Santi.

Dressing him up is like playing with dolls.

He's such a hottie in this denim shirt.

Taco gets silly and rolls around on the sidewalk.

I need a haircut.

Very badly.

Even Santi is laughing at me.

It's annoying that my go-to salon is only open until 7pm, which is about the time I get off work. Booking an appointment for the weekend is crazy because my hairstylist is always booked solid.

Ugh.

Contemplating if a haircut elsewhere is worth the risk of a possible bad cut. Although when it comes to my haircuts, I was never one to take risks as soon as I saw the difference between a Php120 (about $3USD) cut from David's Salon and a Php750 (about $19USD). These were Philippine prices of course and I won't even tell you how much I pay for my haircuts here. But I would rather pay and leave happy than anything else. My roommate Mica gets free haircuts from the Bumble and Bumble stylists and every time she comes home after a cut, she tells me how they screwed her hair up this time. Quality does not come cheap.

The announcement has just been made. Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, has just passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He will always be remembered for changing the face of technology during his reign as Apple's main man.

Below is the text to his Stanford University Commencement speech in 2005. May he be an inspiration to all.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Steve Jobs

CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005

I got this a few weeks ago and it is probably one of the few cookbooks I actually use and not just drool over. The recipes are simple, flexible and unpretentious. Go get one! 

Also, I didn't even notice the name of the book author until someone pointed it out. I doubt that's THE Pam Anderson though.

Tonight, I made one of the dishes from it for dinner. I substituted a few items I did not have and it still turned out pretty good. 

Spicy coconut shrimp stew over sticky rice

...and it seems I'm not the only one.

While with Santi today, I got a message from my friend Mike, who informed me that his planned trip across country on his newly acquired bike was to begin tomorrow at 8am. He wanted to see me one last time before he embarked on yet another one of his cross country trips. We had dinner at Whole Foods and after eating, he offered to give me a ride on his bike, an offer I was more than happy accept. I strapped on my little helmet and we roamed the Lower East Side then over the Williamsburg Bridge and back. The view of midtown was absolutely beautiful from the bridge. Surely, you haven't seen Manhattan until you've seen it from a bridge on a bike with either the wind in your hair or the sun overhead. I've also had plenty of opportunity riding through the city with my other friend Benny and his scooter. I shall save stories of my rides with Benny for another time.

Mikey and his bikey.
It was so loud and he said it had speakers that could blast music loud enough to set off car alarms. I did not let him prove that to me.

Showing me his "storm trooper" bike helmet that had drop down shades.

And since I was already in his area, I met up with another friend, Vien and we grabbed a drink at a nearby dive bar followed by scarfing down one of the most humongous servings of fries I've ever seen.

On the train ride home. I had an upbeat song on my iPhone playing on repeat. I had to resist all urges to get up and start jumping with my hands in the air.

Ironically, the song title happens to be called Repeat.

I honestly think Cheryl's Global Soul serves one of the best pancakes in existence. I was surprised last Sunday, while having brunch at the bar, to find their pancake recipe displayed for all to see.

Must try this at home.

So not even a day into my Creative Experiment (a.k.a. no more Facebook until I do something semi-magical), Ifang messages me to schedule Koyuki's photo shoot this weekend. I haven't been commissioned for a shoot since Kyle asked me to take a new set of headshots, photos of which I haven't uploaded to my photo blog or website. Add that to the list of things I didn't do because of a certain social network.

Quick refresher, Ifang was the pregnant woman I shot a year and a half ago. Koyuki is her now 20-month old daughter, whose adorable elbow dimples can be seen here when she was only 3 months old. She needs photos of Koyuki to submit to an agency. Hopefully I capture photos good enough to get her noticed. I've been searching for children's portraits online to get ideas. The weather this coming Saturday should be ideal for portraits unless mother nature decides to go schizo on NYC again.

Off to more photo researching...

I will admit that when I saw the trailer for Drive, I was less than enthusiastic about it. The plot seemed (and was) like the typical run-of-the-mill B-rated heist film that just happened to score Gosling and Mulligan as its stars. It was only after reading it's review on Time Out NY that I considered watching it. It was granted a rare full 5-stars, something I've seen TONY grant to a select few art/indie films. Luckily, it was available last weekend at BAM Rose Cinemas ($8 Matinees before 3pm!).

It was good. No, it was really good. Although I will say that it's not a film for everyone. If you're one of those big-budget-blockbuster-popcorn-popper-mainstream-frequenter film folk, then I doubt you will appreciate the slow yet concentrated feel of Drive. I say concentrated only because it said so much within its short run time of 1 hour and 40 minutes. Gosling barely spoke throughout the movie, and he didn't have to, spending most of the movie semi-smiling with one hand shoved in the pocket of his quilted jacket. One of the things you will notice too is that overall 80's style presentation from the opening credit's font to the music and film quality. Christina Hendricks was also in the film although I felt like they could have given her role to any other unknown and it wouldn't have mattered.

Would I watch it again? Yes. I would even go as far as marking it a "classic," alongside films such as Fight Club and Memento.

Rented this on Netflix and was surprised how beautiful it was.

What?!

I deactivated my Facebook account?

Yes I did.

Really.

Why?

Well, ever since I've been addicted (read: obsessed) with FB, I've gone and ignored my writing (among other things). To those of you who used to read my posts a lot and were dismayed to see the slow demise of this blog, this is my attempt to bring back my desire to write again.

Apart from the writing, I've also felt my creativity dying. I've not posted or taken proper photos from the new (expensive) camera I spent months paying off for the purpose of taking better photos. Ironically, I've hardly used it much apart from the wedding I shot last spring. I want to get back to my photography. I've felt my soul die with every hour I spent refreshing my Facebook feed repeatedly over the course of a day. My now obsolete Flip Camera currently sits dead, unused and ignored somewhere in my room collecting dust.

I do not know if this will help but I am trying it anyway. Hopefully something good comes out of this un-social experiment. My life has been requiring a jumpstart like this. Wish me luck.