Lucky Tea Shop

During a photo walk a few weeks ago, a friend and I spontaneously ducked into a tea shop in Chinatown for a free tea tasting. As luck would have it, my friend was from the same small town in China as the proprietor's wife.

So I'm Just This Guy, Y'Know?

Hi, I'm Omari. My friend Mike Spinak put a tiny seed in my head when he posted a self-portrait for the #UnalteredBeauty hashtag on G+ earlier "today" (Saturday). The seed finally took root as I was walking from my car ~9 hours later, having just gotten home around 3:15 am, and carrying a toolbox and cotton film gloves in one hand, and a new print in the other: "you know, it'd be nice to get a picture of this moment."

Since there was only one photographer in attendance, I decided to make an environmental (self) portrait. After an hour of futzing and tweaking, I came up with the shot that you see. I think it turned out well, and beyond all else, it's accurate.
Let me tell you about my day:

I woke up at 8:30 Saturday morning to have time to pick up my friend Joyce in time to help my friend Mo move. After schedules shuffled, I worked on my ALMS post for a bit (coming any day now, y'all), and then took off. I brought all of my tools and rope, just in case we needed to hoist Mo's new couch in through the balcony.

Got there and started helping carry boxes inside. Turns out that that's tiring when it's 32°C/90°F out. We went to Ikea, had lunch, and then went shopping. POÄNG is super comfy :o) After a stop at Cost Plus World Market to pick up some dishware and the couch, we went back and unloaded stuff again.

Joyce had a few prints of mine that she wanted to get framed (including my favorite cello photo ever, so I got myself one also) so we left for Bay Frames pretty soon thereafter. We spent about an hour-and-a-half poring through the various mouldings, and puzzling over which mats worked, and if something slightly darker / maybe a bit cooler / actually, a little brighter / hmm; warmer? / more green / no, actually, more gray / etc. would work best.

After making final selections and leaving the framers', I dropped Joyce off for an engagement and went back to help Mo et al. assemble the Ikea furniture. I feel like I got a workout just from driving so many screws and bolts, but thus is the nature of Ikea assembly. After building stuff, chatting for a bit, leavi^Wchatting a bit more, and finally leaving, I made it home around 3:15 am, at which point the aforementioned thought struck.

So I spent 45 minutes figuring out where to put my camera (at the other end of my apartment; 5m throw at 105mm) and my really bright CFL (mounted to a ceiling moulding). 15 minutes to get myself in focus, decently-framed, and exposed how I wanted. And now, I've been writing for another hour. Oops. Bed soon, because I've got to swap bike tires and catch Caltrain when I wake up…

So, anyway, I'm just this guy, y'know? Kinda quirky, with a bunch of hobbies, but I love being me.

Dinner Time

I mentioned recently that some friends graciously let me stay for their dinner party. This is P, the daughter of one of the actual guests. She was inquisitive and energetic, like most kids, and she seemed to love going for walks and climbing on things.

Lazy Post

It's a lazy weekend (for some definitions of lazy), so here are some things I like.

I like cooking, and I especially like prep work that involves cutting things :o) I accidentally ended up at a friend's dinner party, so when an opportunity came to quarter some peaches, I jumped on it. L is the mischief in me, so I tried to arrange them somewhat. They were delicious. So sweet, and so cold.

I also like cars. Old, new, fancy, cheap, whatever; it doesn't matter too much. When I was in Half Moon Bay recently (the same evening that I shot "Classic" and "Overwhelmed"), I spotted this old Mercedes 300, clearly a distant ancestor of their built-like-a-tank 300D diesel cars (W123). As best I can tell, it appears that this is a 300c (W186 IV) — one of Mercedes' earliest-gen 300-series cars — and was built between 1955 and 1957. Nifty.