The Archives - 2024

2024 (17 posts)

  • A Whale of a Time

    Nikon D810, 200-500mm lens, somewhere near the Farallon Islands Once or twice a year I try to get on a boat out to the Farallon Islands with birders in the Bay Area. Pelagic birding is my absolute favorite type of birding: being able to get out in the ocean and see a huge amount of sea life of all......

  • Mission Street Photowalk

    I love the Mission. Specifically, I love the less gentrified parts of it. There's still so much life and culture; DJs spinning records on the street, bands playing live Latin jazz, record stores where you can explore cumbria, and Indigenous dance groups that perform at the many plazas. Despite its......

  • Cookie the Cavalier

    A few things happened. The main one being, my soulmate, my soul, the love of my life, Cookie pie, passed away. I am bereft, but not afloat. It feels like a brand new chapter in my life. Cookie the Cavalier sitting under an airplane seat Cookie, born 1 October 2009 in Petaling Jaya, died 20 June 2024......

  • The One About Scallion Pancakes

    I have a weird story about scallion pancakes. It goes like this. Around this time last year, I was walking down my street in San Francisco when a woman waved something at me. I thought she needed help with something, so I went closer. Instead, she clicked something (she was waving a torch, the kind......

  • Launch of Public Sector AI

    I've been busy. Over the weekend, I launched: Public Sector AI and its accompanying newsletter The motivation for doing so is, I am noticing an increasing amount of YOLO and FOMO with regards to artificial intelligence. Government is at once trying to regulate, as well as to determine how to engage.......

  • The Internet Walgreens Test

    I lived the bulk of my life outside the United States, where I have been for only 6 out of nearly four decades. There are many things I appreciate about the U.S.; San Francisco in particular, which gave my wife and I a wonderful place to build our home and welcomed us at every step. One thing that I......

  • Bawling at Birdsong

    From a late night Mastodon thread about homesickness. Two years before I moved to the United States, I wrote something called ‘things I will miss when I have to leave Southeast Asia (because I am queer)’. I predicted that I would be deeply homesick, not for Singapore specifically, but for the entire......

  • City Hall, Doubled

    Minolta Hi-Matic 7S II, Kodak T-Max 400, Xtol stock @ 12:45, scanned on Noritsu LS-600) An accidental double exposure of City Hall, San Francisco....

  • Octupus vs Bike

    Olympus XA2, Kodak T-Max 400, Xtol 1:1, scanned on Plustek 8200i Seen at Crane Cove Park, San Francisco....

  • Seven birthdays with my wife

    When my wife Sabrena and I first got together in early 2017, she said I was her early birthday gift. Not actually knowing her birthday, I asked her when it was: exactly two months from when we got together. You must understand, at that time I was a bit of a fuckboi and two months was a very long......

  • The incredible story of my stolen Rivendell Road Standard

    This is a story about hopes and dreams. In 2022, I had the opportunity to buy a 1995 Rivendell Road Standard frame—that fit me!— and build it up. I decided to go all out. With the insurance money I got from having my previous gravel bike stolen, I put a plan together with Jay from Scenic Routes.......

  • Chobanicore

    Chobanicore: the style of natural, soft colors and airy composition in branding popularized by Chobani's 2017 rebrand is also known as 'paperback chic' and 'Chobanicore'....

  • Bikecamping in the Bay Area

    One of the things I love most about living in the Bay Area is the easy bikecamping we get 'round here. Here are some of my usual rides and camps: Samuel P. Taylor State Park # The very first place I went bikecamping. While you can and should make reservations, state park rangers are likely to find......

  • Waiting for dimsum

    Whenever I can, I make the 45 minute walk to Chinatown in San Francisco to Dim Sum Bistro, my favorite 'cheap dimsum' spot. Sometimes, I take photos too. I say this every chance I get: dimsum isn't always 'cheap' food. Dimsum can be fancy, and should be fancy, because to make large amounts of high......

  • Spycraft and statecraft

    Spycraft and Statecraft: A new article in Foreign Affairs by William Burns, Director of the US CIA says "China remains the only U.S. rival with both the intent to reshape the international order and the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so. The country’s economic......

  • Fish eyes

    Lucas Sin shares how Cantonese chefs gauge water temp: shrimp eyes (80C), crab eyes (90C), fish eyes (99C about to go into a rolling boil). The video is also a good instructional resource on how to prepare and cook shrimp, especially Hangzhou style tea shrimp. Good recipe to come back to and try.......

  • A Year of Creative Endeavors

    In 2023, I got to explore a whole year of creativity, namely in film photography, photographic darkroom printing, piano and saxophone-playing, and drawing Film photography felt like an old friend I was coming back to: I was already shooting film 20 years ago, but dropped off for the digital world In......