1 Week, 1 Photo & 500 Words or Less (July 27, 2008)

Greetings from West Covina, California, USA!
Photos taken on Sunday, July 27, 2008.

* This was a missing journal entry. I took a hiatus – the break unplanned, the duration undefined. Eventually I restarted but skipped over 14 weeks. Approximately a year later the entry is now written.

The guest bedroom enlargement project at my parents’ house is done and I am not impressed. The contractor built a “guest house” annex for a relative. It looked fine at first glance but a closer examination revealed small mistakes that a more experienced builder would flag and correct. I asked to see the blueprints before construction began but that did not happen. Less than two months later the job was done. My pair of weekly photos shows opposite views of the room.

The room has one big flaw. The new foundation is uneven with the original. Even worse the mistake could have been caught and corrected. As a measure of safety during construction, my dad boarded up all the doors between the bedroom and the rest of the house. When they were reopened the foundation on one side of an entryway was not level with the other side by as much as a half-inch.

Another flaw is an external door that was elevated a few inches to prevent flooding. But no step was made to compensate for the added height. In each case, people can easily trip walking through the doorway. The rest of my small list of complaints are largely personal preferences. The saying goes, “No use crying over spilt milk.” My dad has done nothing to fix the mistakes and I suspect that it will stay that way for a long while.

I started a 7-day temp job at an ad agency. The project trafficker was going on a vacation and I would cover for her. I started on Thursday to train with her for two days then be on my own the following week. But she called in sick on Friday so I flew solo a day sooner. The creative studio was suppose to be a very busy place but the work load was lighter than usual. On a few occasions people went home early because it was so slow.

Overall I enjoyed the experience and my supervisor was happy with my work. If and when she needed the help again, she would give me a call. Considering how sparse the work assignments have been, I was happy to hear that news.

Angelo

1 Week, 1 Photo & 500 Words or Less (July 20, 2008) SPECIAL EDITION

Greetings from Costa Mesa, California, USA!
Photos taken on Sunday, July 20, 2008.

This edition is an appropriate starting point so I am adding a few people to my distribution list. Also in response to a comment, I am averse to call these “messages” a blog or diary. I prefer “journal entry”, as when I started this, I said that in another life I would have been a photojournalist.

In April 2007 I finally bought my first digital camera, despite its rapid popularity in the past decade, and a month later, started using it. To date I have nearly 1900 shots with just 64 pictures making their way into these entries. Coincidentally my first photo of my first digital camera was taken the same day that I bought my first new laptop computer (my previous one was secondhand).

Similar to the camera, the computer stayed boxed up for a week more. Most people, especially men, would power up the laptop and camera moments after arriving home. But at work I spent nearly all my time using a computer, then came home completely averse to touching another piece of technology. Not by coincidence, when my job ended, my photojournal began. In fact my journal’s first photo was taken on my last day of work after I left the office and went to the Orange County Fair. I had already planned to go there later that day and just went sooner, not allowing bad news to ruin my fun.

Still looking for a job a year later, I have had a few moments of search frustration but far more moments of “carpe diem”, Latin for seize the day. Others are enwrapped in a wi-fi world of Bluetooths and Blackberrys. I have a dusty alarm clock. In the past 365 days, I cruised Newport Bay in a tri-level luxury yacht and an electric-powered Duffy boat; attended three weddings and one funeral; played beach volleyball and watched the professionals do it 100-times better; seen a meteor shower, a lunar eclipse and countless seaside sunsets; and volunteered in many community projects and charity events.

Breaking tradition, I have not one but three photos that bring the past year full circle. Like my very first two journal pictures, this latest trio is from the Orange County Fair. Breaking tradition again, I appear in one shot – at least my backside does – with a passerby, looking up at my picture, a past weekly photo, which was accepted in the fair’s annual photo contest but did not win. The other two snapshots show the fair’s theme “Say Cheese” illustrated over the carnival area entrance and also given form in a sand sculpture of a mouse in a camera, a fitting follow-up to last year’s “Cowabunga” theme and surfing cows sand masterpiece. Next year will be a “Super Fair” and the theme “Think. Big.” My response, “Can’t. Wait.”

Angelo

1 Week, 1 Photo & 500 Words or Less (July 20, 2008)

Greetings from Irvine, California, USA!
Photo taken on Saturday, July 19, 2008.

I have mentioned the ChildSpree project twice in the past few months and now is the time for the full story. Mervyns, a department store with locations mostly in California, sponsors a community project called ChildSpree twice annually, the Back-to-School version in late July and the Holiday version in December. Each store provides $2500 in the form of $100 shopping sprees for 25 local children from low-income families to buy, at significantly discounted prices, clothes for the upcoming school year or presents for the gift-giving season.

Each Mervyns store partners with a local organization such as the South Coast Jaycees (SCJCs). Through that group, I have volunteered on this project for the past three years. The group has the primary responsibility to locate eligible children and provide chaperones for the shopping spree but the South Coast Jaycees take the project several steps further. We collected money and other donations to buy and fill backpacks with school supplies – pens, paper, scissors, etc. – for each child. We also asked restaurants to provide breakfast for the children, parents, chaperones, other volunteers and store staff.

Because of a mix-up by Mervyns’ Irvine store, two groups - the SCJCs and the Assistance League of Irvine (ALI) were both doing the project. Then the neighboring chapter of Newport Beach Jaycees (NBJCs) offered its help too. Since South Coast was short on manpower, the extra hands were welcomed and we split the workload. ALI gathered the children and most of the chaperones while I led the NBJCs and SCJCs in providing a few more chaperones, the backpacks with school supplies and the food.

On the day of the event I spent most of my time with the food and backpacks and did not take many pictures. Nonetheless I managed to shoot a few including this week’s photo. The shot is a mix of participants – the children, their parents, the South Coast Jaycees, the Newport Beach Jaycees, the Assistance League of Irvine and the Mervyns team. Overall it was an exhausting but rewarding experience. In fact since I was in charge of food, the leftovers came home with me. I’ll pig out… After I nap.

Angelo

PS: I am about two months behind on these emails and, when writing these, I try to limit myself to what I know as of the date in the title, in this case Sunday, July 20, 2008. But I recent got some news worth mentioning. In August Mervyns filed for bankruptcy protection. As a step to regaining financial stability, the company is closing some of its stores including the one in Irvine with which the South Coast Jaycees did ChildSpree. Additionally I have heard that the project itself will end as well.

1 Week, 1 Photo & 500 Words or Less (July 13, 2008)

Greetings from Long Beach, California, USA!
Photo taken on Sunday, July 13, 2008.

This email marks anniversary #1 of the weekly missives. My first photo was taken on Friday, July 13, 2007, and by coincidence this week’s photo was taken exactly a year later on Sunday, July 13, 2008. The picture’s location is called Temple Lofts, a building converted from a masonic temple to apartments, and I was there for a barbecue hosted by an acquaintance. The shot is of the lobby where the orange dog-shaped tabletop pieces stood out against the decorated ceilings, ornate light fixtures, stoic pillars and polished tiled floors.

The highlight of my week was another trip to the Great Park & Balloon but first a little lesson in recent & local history. As a cost-cutting measure in the 1990s the United States federal government decommissioned several military bases, which included two Orange County facilities, the Marine Corps Air Stations (MCAS) Tustin and El Toro, just miles away from one another.

The bases’ fates went in opposite directions. MCAS Tustin had the two enormous air hangers - a past weekly photo showed one of those buildings - with one to be preserved, the other to be demolished. The surrounding land has already been turned over to both commercial and residential development. Meanwhile MCAS El Toro is being “undeveloped” into the Great Park, the west coast equivalent to New York City’s well-known Central Park.

Until recently the balloon ride was the only completed element in the conversion from MCAS El Toro to Great Park, less than 1% of the total work to be done after many years of paperwork. Then less than a year after its launch, flights were suspended due to alleged violations of operating procedures. While authorities conducted an investigation, the balloon was grounded for several months and stayed down a few more months after the violations were cleared as park planners completed the next phase of the makeover.

On Saturday the balloon was airborne again at the first Festival of Flight and I attended it. The event introduced the Preview Park and the name says it all. The land next to the balloon flight pad was redeveloped. Grass and other plant life replaced tarmac and concrete, an air hanger was converted into a café and a stage was added for the musical performances scheduled for weekend evenings now until the end of September. The huge crowd limited balloon rides but my disappointment faded fast as I learned that night flights begin the following week. With that news, I’m coming back again.

Angelo

1 Week, 1 Photo & 500 Words or Less (July 6, 2008)

Greetings from Newport Beach, California, USA!
Photo taken on Friday, July 4, 2008.

In little over a month, I watched three movies. The first two were Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls and Wall-E. Now I have watched a movie based on a popular series of books by a British writer. If you are thinking Harry Potter, then you guessed wrong. I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The mistake is an understandable one. Both series are comprised of seven books and written by Britons. In fact both authors use their first and middle initials in their pen names: J. K. Rowlings wrote the Harry Potter books while C. S. Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia.

I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia series years ago and my memories of the stories vary from book to book. The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe is the first book and the one that I know best. Voyage of the Dawn Treader (book #3), The Magician’s Nephew (#6) and The Last Battle (#7) also stand out in my mind. Having read the books first, I had certain expectations when seeing the filmed versions. The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe neither disappointed nor amazed me but Prince Caspian fared better.

I highly recommend the Chronicles of Narnia books (the Harry Potter ones goes without saying) and read them in the order as originally written and published, which the movies are following faithfully. In recent years, the books have been rearranged so the stories are in chronological sequence. For example The Magician’s Nephew is book #6 initially but in the rearrangement is book #1. The series has a few surprises that are best enjoyed if read in the original order. Trust me on this.

This week was the United States’ Independence Day – the Fourth of July – when this country declared its separation from Great Britain in 1776. Naturally the day is a national holiday and it fell on a Friday this year, making a three-day weekend but I’m not working and every day is a holiday for me. One roommate, his friend and I fired up the grill that day. Our other roommate was out of town, visiting his family.

Later that evening we three walked to a nearby cliffside to watch fireworks. Despite the crowd we had a view of well over 180 degrees. My roommate claimed to have counted 10 separate firework shows but I could only pick out 6 in the cities of Irvine, Newport Beach, Dana Point, Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach and Long Beach. Regardless of the actual number, the combined shows were a blast (pun intended). I share just a mere moment of that experience in this week’s photo but note that the contrast could be sharper. Fellow spectators and palm trees silhouette the cliffside view of a night sky brightened by city lights, a crescent moon and firework bursts. HAPPY BIRTHDAY #232 to the USA.

Angelo