Last Friday Part I

So there I was, scratching my head off trying to think of a t-shirt design for a pizza company, yeah, it hurts your head more than when you are studying economics. Take a moment and draw a sketch of a t-shirt design for Pizza Hut that has to be fun, hype, fresh, young; convey the tastiness of a pizza. It's hard eh? For a non-shopper like me who rarely goes shopping for anything and not to mention window shopping, it was tough. But working in Tailford Mitchell helps open up your mind and makes you pay more attention to your surroundings. In a way, it feels like living through the best trip in my life to Echigo Tsumari in Japan last summer again. So I decided to pay a visit to the museum after work.

But before we go to the Toledo Museum of Art, here's what me and B.O.B saw before lunch last Friday.
We saw an excavator (yes, they are called excavators) tearing down the building with an artificial arm before lunch. We stayed at the site for 45 minutes hoping they would tear down the façade in front of us.

But I took my chances at Tony Packo's and tried the M.O.A.D. (pronounced Mo-Add), Give it a guess and I will give you the answers to what exactly is M.O.A.D. at the end of this entry.
Here's a clue, it was huge and hard to digest, but not all mothers are huge.

After lunch, it was torn down so all I have is a before and after picture of the site. It is rare for Hong Kongers to see the process of a building being torn down like that, what happens is it will be surrounded by bamboo scaffoldings. Yes, bamboo scaffolding, and yes they are so sturdy that nothing happens when typhoon number 8 at the speed of 63-177km/h hits Hong Kong. Anyways, a green net is wrapped around the scaffoldings so you can't make out what's happening inside the construction. This also keeps the dust within the confines of the building.
Farewell, Theo's Taverna.


Then at 4pm, U.S. Brig Niagara passed through the Martin Luther King, Jr., Bridge. I won't give you a history lecture, but here are some interesting facts.
- It was sunk deliberately in 1820 so that she would be preserved.
- In 1913, it was raised for restoration
- Won the Battle of Lake Erie in 1812
- flew a flag that reads "Don't give up the ship"

Entertainments : )

7/18
Travis Concert at Clutch Cargo, Pontiac, Michigan.




First thing I heard at the entrance was "... but the grass is always greener on the other side, neighbors got a new car that you wanna drive..." and I was naturally high, or maybe it was that booze driving on the way. (Is my blog being monitored by state troopers? Me no speak English, me type only, me love Bushy.)

7/19
Concert at Nick & Jimmy's.


Friend/Colleague/one of the bosses of mine took me there to listen to his friend play. "He shoot the sheriff" was the only song I've heard of, but it was a great night because 1) it was live music, 2) they had great pizza, 3) there were drunken college girls at the bar and I had my stealth camera. [Photos in private collection album]

7/20
VIP tickets to Gin Blossoms Concert by the Promenade Park, followed by Voodoo Libido's performing at Tony Packo's Cafe.


Those two were only imaginary concerts because someone dropped the ball at the last minute and we were too late to make it on time. How can you miss out on your dad's concert, senor JR? So instead of trying the M.O.A.D. (Mother of All Dogs) at Packo's cafe, we headed to Mickey Finns Pub and listened to some Indie rock by The Hat Company and Homeville Circle. Apparently, Tony Packo is a son of a Hungarian immigrant and he came up with the idea of a Hungarian hot dog. There was no such thing as a Hungarian hot dog back in Hungary, but it drove the Americans crazy with the chili sauce which I have yet to try. I wonder when Chinese will come up with a cheap, convenient food product that could have a name of its own and be loved by everyone in the city (No, not Magic Wok. No, not fortune cookies, they both don't exist in China.)

7/21 1.30am
Steak 'n Shake


Had a disappointing Triple Steakburger Sandwich at Steak n' Shake, even a junior bacon cheeseburger at Wendy's is a lot bigger. Excluding my mum and "chicago", I saw the first Chinese lady. She was having some action under the table with the white American dressed like those wanna-be Hog (Harley Davidson Owners Group) sitting opposite her. Not a good sight, I hid my camera in case JR wanted to take a picture of them.

7/21
I want my sushi back!

One of those typical Saturday mornings. Slept late, wake up in the morning in another person's house, head back home, sleep again. Then spent the day fishing with B.o.B's family. Didn't catch any, but hey, I wasn't really into catching a fish and not cooking it or eating it raw. Had dinner at the St. George's Festival, where they have a poor camel who clearly preferred the desert more than kids jumping on and off of him for 3 consecutive days.


7/22: Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio.

I'll hit you with a list of what we did.
Wicked Twister - Mo lost his voice after the first ride.
Power Tower - 2 chickened out, you know who you are.
Gemini - One of those very few times that it is normal for 2 guys to hold their hands.
Mean Streek - Imagine a vibrator, but it's in a shape of a cart and you sit inside it. My neck still hurts.
Thunder Canyon - I tried my best to not get soaked...
Snake River Falls - ...and gave up.
Magnum XL-200 - Wow
Maverick - WOOW
Millennium Force - WOOOOOOOOOW
Dragster - !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (...lost my voice and the ride only lasted for 17 seconds)
Oh, I also tried what JR claimed to be one of the best fries in America. I agree......... NOT.

Thanks CH, B.o.B, Rennie and her family, JR, Mo, Chad, Ron for an amazing week!

Did I mention I just went to watch a baseball game last night? And there's going to be the Great Lake's Crew Concert tomorrow? Oh, there's also a basketball rim in the office where I work, and of course the crazy people at work are...well, crazy.

You are not alone

I found myself aimless wandering around the cemetery this afternoon trying to look for a tombstone. It didn't take long before I settled down on one that read 1983 - 2006. It is funny how little information Americans put on their tombstones. The tombstone had their first and last name, their date of birth, the day they died and something along the lines of "loving husband" or "The Hittler Family" (yes I did see the Hittler family with double "t"s). There was no picture of the deceased, no name for the person who buried their loved ones and no origin as to which state or city they were from. It seems almost opposite to their everyday life when they seem to want to talk about anything and reveal everything. But the less detailed the better I could relate to them.

I remember writing these words down once "I would like to think that in his world, time runs in a different manner, we would be joining him in his time 5 minutes later." I was afraid that he would be lonely but this time I was the lonely one. I felt the emptiness hit me on my way back from the cemetery. And then I imagined him standing beside me, he big hands stretched out holding my tiny one. He used to play tricks on me by telling me to close my eyes when I felt tired and he would hold my hand. All I had to do was to walk forwards with his pace. With my eyes closed and my heart trusting him, he would slam me against a light post. Today, I trusted him again. I gave him my little hand once again, closed my eyes and said to myself "you are not alone" and we walked down the road together.

I miss you Alan.

Accidents happen for a reason

I feel my brother's pain he went through in Peru now, because I accidentally deleted all the pictures I took from Chicago.
Allow me to use this space to release my anger.
(Please note that the following "you" actually really refers to me.)
You stupid son of a-beep, you idiot beep-beep, what a dumb-beep you are, what the beep were you thinking? @!*(#%@#&%*!#%^&a#@$[];*(@!^&#*(!@$^&*(!@$^&@!!@@

I've always heard of people accidentally deleting something they treasure and felt sorry for them while at the same feel that they are absolute idiots. How can you delete something that is important do you?
It was very simple in my case, it might seem a bit complicated to non-camera users but it really is very straight forward. My girlie takes and saves pictures in two formats simultaneously: basic .jpg and raw .NEF. To simplify matters, .jpg files have 8 bits of intensity information while that of raw files has 12 to 14 bits of intensity information, thus making each part of the picture contain more information, thus higher quality and better color. But it really sucks up space, so I decided to clean up my album a bit by deleting all the .NEF files (around 5 mb each) which are larger in size than normal .jpg (around 750 kb each) and so what I did was do a "sort files according to type" command and deleted all the .NEF files and emptied my bin without thinking. Then I opened my Picasa2 and wah la, the .NEF files were magically gone and the .jpg files were gone as well! I had accidentally deleted both of them through the process!

So now I'm sitting in the corner of my room crying my head off thinking what good I can come out with such an unfortunate event.

1.) I went to Wikipedia to find out which crackhead came up with .NEF and .jpg files and learned a bit about the difference and luckily for the inventor, I found no name, otherwise I'd fly over and switch all his .NEF and .jpg files around.
2.) I also found out that the Tuneup undelete button in the recycle bin is only a myth.
3.) I should clean my album everyday to avoid a mass delete button.
4.) I'm only left with 8 pictures from the Chicago album and I don't have to pile through them, I'll just give you the lucky 8 that's left. By the way, 8 is actually the lucky number for Chinese. While 7 means "you did something stupid you dumb f " in Cantonese slang.

Me and my mum spent the last afternoon in Chicago walking and cycling around Navy's Pier (in which I lost control of our tricycle and drove onto one of the cars only bridge along North Lakes Shore Drive). This picture was taken while a storm was building up in Lake Michigan, just reminds me of the tingling feeling in the air before a storm takes over the city.

And the lightning strikes, it was extremely rainy outside and I was shooting behind a glass door, plus I was shooting lightning without a tripod, thus no bulb function!! So it took a lot of shots before I could capture this lightning shot.

The aftermath of the storm, this is by far my favorite picture since I started shooting with a DSLR. It's just a feeling, maybe it's the softness of the water and the fluffy clouds contrasting the hard, cold concrete. Maybe it's the curve of the railings interacting with the rectangular asphalt. Maybe it's the dreamy bicycle on the corner. Maybe it's just me?

If you can immediately tell what this poster is all about, you are probably having a cravings panic attack. Hmmmm..... I could taste the Chocolate Fudge Brownie. I've got to try the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough or Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream or all of the above before I leave the states.

Taken inside a mall where the neon lights of an advertisement was reflected on the window. I took out all the back ground light by blowing up the shadows and highlights in Picassa2 to get this sharp contrast.

That's my mum walking in the park and I captured the moment when she was just about to cross over from the toddler chair to the child chair and I'm between those two observing her.

No clue what this building is, but it is right outside my brother's apartment at 233 East Wacker Drive. This is a picture of a reflection of a building off of a window with the blinds down from the inside. Hence the linear lines running along the picture.

This is lucky number 8, with the NBC tower in the back, a controls office for the bridges on the bridge along North Columbus Drive up front and some blue advertising lights for a jazz show glowing under the bridge.

Phew that was a long post, and I hunger for food. Speaking of which I tried Connie island hot dog today!! Hmmmm... thanks for the treat Adam. And thx for posing, Adam's hand.

Oh... this spontaneous thought about food made the total count 9. Well, I guess accidents happen for a reason.

Cycling in Toledo

My boss at work, actual the boss of my immediate boss and since I have multiple bosses, this makes him boss of all bosses. So anyways, this boss of all bosses (let's call him b.o.b.) gave me a Litespeed mountain bike to keep me entertained while I was in Toledo. Being a total fool on the mechanical workings of a bike, let alone a mountain bike, I tried it out in the weekend nonetheless.

The whole bike trail was 6.3 miles one way and apparently it closes at dark and trail police have been known to ticket (~$70.00) people for being on the trail after hours!! Wow, luckily I didn't bump into any policeman that day. Hey, it might be my first time pleading guilt in court.








There is a Chinese saying that goes like this: 桃李無言,下自成蹊。
In English it will be something like this: The peaches and pears do not utter words, but a path will be formed under them.
Well, I learned this expression the hard way. And you probably will too after reading my photo blog.
So next time, be careful of what you are stepping on while taking pictures.
RIP Flip Flops
Your loving partner Juanjaime

I am going to do one (or two at the rate I'm going) "Toledo People" blog before I leave, so I'm saving photos of people for later. Apologize for all those amazing people out there, I'll keep you posted.

What would a Hong Kongers blog be without food? Unfortunately, I had 2 loaves of bread and half a scone whole days yesterday, I blame it on the hangovers.
I did make something good for myself the other day though, check it out.

Yeah, you don't want to mess around with food when it comes to Chinese. Who you looking at? Check this site out if you're still hungry after looking at the dog poo photo.

The End of Firsts

Ending my first week in Toledo by starting with my firsts.

Sunset at Devil's Lake
First tubing experience with my cousin who is actually old enough to be my aunt.
Probably the end of tubing for my cousin whose age shall not be discussed further.


Bachelor apartment
First time to move into a flat that has no cleaner or maid.
The end of a you-know-what-type-of-hair free apartment.


Red eyed Indian
First time I've taken pictures of fireworks, no, digital cameras do not take pictures of fireworks, they only pretend to do so.
The end of my only working holiday in USA.


Lining up
First time seeing black and white Toledoans mix.
The end of my prejudice.


We need girls
First time meeting Mary Jane.
Last time meeting Mary Jane.


Pre lemon-pesto chicken spaghetti
First time to cook dinner.
Last time to end up not eating the dinner I cooked.








...just kidding : )
Lemon-pesto chicken Spaghetti
First time I've blogged in this format.
Last time I'm going to sit in front of the computer for 2 hours figuring out things to fit this format... correction, 5 hours.