stayed up too late

... watching a random old TVB drama. I think that the TVB channel broadcasts old drama episodes in the late hours of the night like four, six episodes at a time. Last night (or rather, this morning) I ended up watching like three episodes of this drama where Aaron Kwok was a young doctor who's a great doctor but very idealistic. I've never really looked at him before. In this drama he was very cute in a pretty boy kind of way. A little slow by today's pace standards. Stayed up past 2:00 A.M. Should not repeat this. (after googling around, I found that the drama is called "Heartstrings").

meeting kiki and pablo

Yesterday Andrew and I went to Yian and Lawrence's house to meet their new pets: just-fully-grown cats Pablo (male) and Kiki (female). The cats were funny because they are as different as night and day. Pablo is friendly but physically slow, and cannot really track. Kiki is unfriendly but very athletic. Bay and Guy were there too; there was a lot of cat talk. The other four guests were a bit baffled by the cat parents. I wonder if we'll get like that with kids. I must make a conscious effort to NOT talk about kids non-stop. Must must must.

The cats were fun, food was good, and we also played the Wii a bit. I managed to cut Pablo's claws but Kiki was too feisty. Yian has also made me start thinking about whether we should switch cat litter on Plum. Hmm... Feline Pine? Crystal?

long run update 10 miles

Ran 10 miles this morning. It was hotter than last weekend, and there was no motivation of accomplishing a distance that I've never run before (last week's 13.2 miles was 0.1 mile longer than the previous longest distance of a half-marathon), so I was slacking off and zoning out. Made a 10:50 pace overall, a good 15 seconds slower than last weekend's pace, though the run was three miles shorter. Getting a little sick and tired of Rancho. Should I go scout out a different trail? Six weeks until taper.

a new dessert cafe

Tonight I went to a new dessert cafe called Cafe Zen with Victor, Brian, and Amy. Cafe Zen is located in Fremont's Pacific Commons, on Boscell Road. Of course, it was Victor who discovered it. When I was driving there, I realized how large Pacific Commons has become--it is now no less than three whole blocks, and it took me a while just to find the place. The cafe was smallish, but very new and clean. There were only about three or four other people there, so it made for a quiet, relaxing atmosphere. The four of us were the biggest and loudest party of people there. Almost everyone else was either surfing on the Web (Cafe Zen has free wireless internet access) or conversing quietly. It is not a bad place for me to head back to myself with a laptop and a book.

Food consists of drinks and desserts, mostly, though there were also several entrees that were more substantial. I had the "dulce de leche grand teton". It was very caramel-y and sweet. The matcha smoothie I got was also underwhelming. My conclusion is that Cafe Zen has okay fare but a good atmosphere.

We ended up spending a whole two-and-a-half hours going over photos from Jason and Maggie's pre-wedding party last weekend to pick out the ones for the photo album we're giving them. It took a long time, but it was satisfying too. Victor showed me his Canon lenses (a wide-angle prime lens and a telephoto zoom lens). I liked the wide-angle lens, but a zoom lens is really needed for shooting a wedding. The telephoto zoom lens made me feel like I was ready to shoot wildlife in Botswana. Very nice.

I also borrowed a couple of oooold Hong Kong movies from Brian. I wonder what they are like...

my left calf hurts

My left calf hurts from all the running. I don't really know why. Is it a muscle pull, a muscle strain? I can't even tell the difference. All I know is that it hurts with a dull pain, and kind of randomly. Some days it's better, some days it's worse. I generally shake it off after the first 1.5 miles or so, but still it'd be nice to have two healthy calves. I wonder if it's because I am not stretching enough. I vow to do yoga everyday from now on.

newly inspired to photograph

A few weeks ago I volunteered to help take photos for Jason and Maggie's wedding. It sounds like I am trying to help, but I am actually quite a bad photographer so probably it's not such a great "gift". That got me started thinking about why I am so bad, and of course, instead of blaming myself for lack of practice and patience, I decided that it's the camera's fault and went and bought myself a new Canon 30D.

I still feel guilty about splurging on another piece of expensive equipment, but the purchase has indeed reignited my enthusiasm to get better at this craft. The most important change from my old Konica Minolta Maxuum 5d is the ready availability of lenses for a brand that is the market leader. This time I refused to get the mediocre kit lens and bought a fixed focal length prime lens to practice. Pictured above is the 30D fitted with my lens. The f-stop on this lens goes all the way down to 1.4! Back on the Konica Minolta I couldn't get below 5.6. The huge aperture makes a big difference since it lets in like 16 times as much light. I can now shoot handheld in much lower light conditions. And I love the shallow depth of field it gets you--I have a couple shots of Plum where her head is in focus but her butt is entirely blurry! The camera defaults to a low f-number, so I actually need to pay attention to increase it to make sure that everything I want to be in focus is actually in focus. Basically, I am very very happy about the new camera.

It's nice to be part of the Canon family. I already got to borrow a lens and a flash from Pan, and Victor also has a wide-angle lens that I can borrow for the wedding (and Victor is also looking to buy a DSLR; I must convince him to go Canon!) Commercially, it's also easy to rent Canon (and Nikon) lenses. I found a couple of sites (lensprotogo.com and ziplens.com) that mail lenses to you. I am already thinking about renting the 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens for our trip to Maine this fall. This would be the next lens I get, but at $1000, it'll be a while yet. In the meanwhile, paying $70 for a week to shoot fall foliage at Acadia National Park really isn't bad at all.

And finally, I've discovered RAW. Ahh, although I have avoided it out of laziness in the past, it is really quite an astonishing tool. The ability to adjust exposure and white balance after the fact is wonderful; I already played with a few pictures where it made the whole world of difference, changing a pic from "toss" status to "good" status. I can't go back to shooting in JPEG now. With RAW I feel like I can really sink a good bite into this photography thing.