Which brings me to my niece. She turned 2 [...]]]> Little kids make the world go ’round. It’s not adults, what with our complicated and wanton desires, but the wee ones who gently coax tribute from their parents and families and everyone else who thinks that no cuteness shall go unrewarded.

Which brings me to my niece. She turned 2 not all that long ago, and the occasion called for a party replete with Disney theme and costumes and about 50 mylar balloons that needed to be carried 4 long blocks by your author because there was no room in anyone’s car and because it seemed like a pretty gnarly adventure at least until they got tangled up in some equally gnarly tree branches. But I digress.

She’s smart and can speak clearly beyond the usual grunting and screaming. She eats like there’s no tomorrow, and upon trying to pick her up the first word to come to most people’s minds is “heavy.”

More importantly, though, this little girl finally made me realize that I don’t hate kids, after all.

In college I volunteered for two years at a Vietnamese community center on Geary, doing my best to tutor and teach despite the pushback and brattiness and budding ghetto-ness of the kids that spent their Friday afternoons there. But it didn’t work, and of all things it made me never want to go near kids ever again, though that’s putting it lightly.

All that changed when my niece was born. She was handed to me about a week out of the womb and was roughly the size of a Papalote triple-threat burrito*. And within a split second, I hadn’t even brought her close yet, she pooped.

Feeling that vibration and realizing what happened (and also being unfamiliar with remedial measures) initially horrified me, but at that moment I realized that these kinds of things happen, naturally. Babies poop and cry, because they’re not quite aware of the intricacies of how to run to the bathroom or wipe up or grab a bite to eat just yet.

Extrapolating it a bit, maybe the punkass kids talking back to me at the community center so many years before didn’t know any better, either. They weren’t aware that I was using my free time to help them and that I would’ve appreciated if they shut their yaps for just a few minutes so we can get through their homework, upon whose conclusion the screaming may begin again in earnest.

So that’s why kids do what they do, and, hopefully, cut the crap as they mature. Now I love kids, and have the patience to deal with them. While I won’t be running a daycare anytime soon, having kids in my presence is no longer something I dread.

And it all started with the poop. Maybe it wasn’t the most sanitary epiphany the world has ever seen, but I’ll take it.

So when I get a call from people I haven’t seen in a while, I go. College friends, people [...]]]> It’s hard to maintain friendships with those you barely see. There really aren’t very many people who you can lose touch with for long periods of time and then suddenly pick up right where you left off.

So when I get a call from people I haven’t seen in a while, I go. College friends, people I could’ve known in high school, people from the east bay, old paddlers, I try to keep everyone relevant.

[These were all kind of a while ago, I'll admit, but a lot happens in a month.]

Pretty much every time you see these kinds of people it goes like “how have you been, it’s been hella long!” So you dig deep to remember everyone’s names, the enormity of the epic adventures you all had previously and whatever you’d recently heard about them on facebook. You string all that into some type of narrative to get past those awkward few minutes of catching up, and then you play it by ear.

When the catching up is officially done, you’re in the present and officially free to act like you’d never parted in the first place. Then you repeat the process when you see them again, months or years later.

And as much as I’d like to see everyone again, it remains impossible, what with budgets and schedules and workloads and babies and stuff. We’ve all grown up and apart, and those of us with the cameras are the only ones observant enough to take notice.

But if you don’t want to lose these people forever, you have to try.

I’ve always been an outspoken advocate of seeing the night through. You hang out, you eat, maybe get a head start on the hangover, and you talk about it. The ideas are fresh. The stories may be blurry, but they’re more focused than they will be the next [...]]]> Why do I like being up late? Art.

I’ve always been an outspoken advocate of seeing the night through. You hang out, you eat, maybe get a head start on the hangover, and you talk about it. The ideas are fresh. The stories may be blurry, but they’re more focused than they will be the next day.You’re probably tired, but part of showing solidarity with your friends is getting through it, getting over yourself and contributing.

Besides, every good night needs a recap, or a reset, or at least some kind of analysis to ensure that subsequent nights are more successful, whatever that may entail. You get your cup of coffee, maybe some eggs and bacon, and you get to it.

We’re seen having that discussion in a window off of Geary or Mission or Market at an ungodly hour and that makes us “Nighthawks,” indeed, just like the Edward Hopper painting. Though idealized, I’d always envisioned, and experienced, that scene as a great way to end the night. No matter how the evening went prior to the scene, you’re with your friends having a meal or a brew and life is good and simple.

Maybe it started with my fascination with 1940s America (the painting was released in 1942), the very definition of simple. Axis & Allies, life in analog (the TV hadn’t caught on yet), cars with fins and people wearing hats & ties. A bygone era, to be superseded by the information & drama overload of the present day.

So on those nights spent out with friends, or when I’m just having a long night either working on a project or trying to get into a book, I’m trying to boil it down. Trying to relax and process what went on in the daylight hours. Trying to escape days and nights and weekends spent controlling crowds and managing expectations. Maybe trying to do so with some style.

And I really don’t care what time it is.

In the makeshift marketing career I have, it’s been defined by [...]]]> As individual as I like to think I am, my successes are always tied to big groups. This pack aspect tends to magnify an achievement due to the shared sense of effort. “Look what we did together, and this is what Chuck did to help.”

In the makeshift marketing career I have, it’s been defined by big clients and big agencies popularized by the show “Mad Men.”I always had a great team of creatives behind me, and a roster of clients everyone could recognize [if not despise]. “I work in advertising,” I thought, always had a nice ring to it.

Athletically, it’s been team sports, from 8th grade basketball to the drum corps in high school JROTC [hey, it was covered on a sports TV show once] to the dragonboat team. They all involved uniforms, running and a whole lot of yelling [though not always at a decibel level acceptable to the human ear, for which I apologize, but also warn will not stop].

[I'll group my performance (if it can even be called that) in the 2009 SF Marathon with the dragonboaters- most of the effort was fueled by a desire to look competent in front of other team members running the race. And speaking of which, Bay to Breakers does not count.]

Socially, it’s with the foot clan [don't ask], the dragonboaters, the accidental presidential crew [again, don't ask], the stanford nurses and the 2000 Facebook friends I barely talk to. They’re all good people, with families and (mostly) jobs and an at least somewhat developed capacity to keep on the straight and narrow.

I assimilate well and usually don’t have trouble fitting in. I can give and take directions. I have a role. Or I make one for myself. The camera usually helped.

It took me quite a while to get comfortable, socially, in high school. The cool kids hung out in their spots, and despite my best efforts I’d never gain “official” entry into the cliques. Only after years of this social study [if you will] did I learn to fit in, take what was given to me, and the numbers [as partly illustrated by my facebook friend count] began to speak for themselves.

But even then, you don’t fit in everywhere. Some people will inherently dislike you. Others won’t be able to stand [or keep up with] your verbal output. Others still will belie friendliness due to long-standing loyalties. Or they’re just not into the shit that you’re into. It happens.

While we’re all good-natured, we can’t help but see a group’s unwillingness to take us in as an affront. I don’t always take it well, and I’ve paid the price on occasion, but you can’t say it’s for lack of trying.

Then again, you shouldn’t really have to try. There are plenty of fish in the sea.

but these are all good people. i met them in school, through friends of friends,  at sporting events, and they all have their stories, equally legitimate, which makes them all worth acknowledging, and which [...]]]> i have a habit of making too many friends. so much so that it makes me occasionally seem like a fraud. really.

but these are all good people. i met them in school, through friends of friends,  at sporting events, and they all have their stories, equally legitimate, which makes them all worth acknowledging, and which keeps me on my feet.

for one, there’s rob- who i hadn’t seen from 1995-2004, yet we picked up right where we left off when he traveled back west following college. it’s always a kind of special duty to entertain the “accidental president” (don’t ask) because he had such a big role in introducing me to half the groups i’d hung out with up until the present day.

so, winning enough for 3am prime rib breakfasts, visiting the world famous Tu Lan, fried chicken during the Mayweather fight and confronting a very militant staff at zeitgeist were all a part of this particular tour of duty before he returned to med school.

family’s always given, but with all the attention still being lavished on the behemoth of a niece i have, an in-law’s 92nd birthday and even my own family’s mother’s day celebration never fail to have a common theme. i’m sure the process will repeat itself with the next kid, and so on.

and of course there are the dragonboaters. while my own personal struggles as a paddler and team member are well-chronicled on ripplesf.com, off the water this group has continued to be a bedrock of entertaining and mostly wholesome stories. there was keg party or ropes course or two (where rope burn was imminent).

and a dinner party. and a karaoke. and a trip to the academy of sciences. god, i see these people too much…

somewhere in the mix, still, are my regular visits to the Bitter End bar for trivia, which had Thin Tim hosting or Erin celebrating her birthday on 4/20, with the requisite singalongs and whiskey & beer, but, again, nothing all that out-of-the-ordinary for the average san francisco male.

[even if i do like to think i round out the bell curve]

jury duty is one of those events. i got called in during april fools’ day, which had [...]]]> sometimes you think you’re getting it all right. and then something happens to really put you in your place, or make you see it, and you have to take it from there. a new role. get used to it.

jury duty is one of those events. i got called in during april fools’ day, which had to have been some cruel joke, and had to endure two days of loaded questions over some drunk driver’s Uncle-Sam-given right to a fair trial. i have better things to do. but of course they don’t see it that way. i’m an american citizen, you know, doing my duty.

fortunately, when it came time to speak to the litigators I gave a very intelligent and honest answer. no, i won’t be fair. no, you won’t guilt me into saying that i will be. i don’t see the value in debating the pros and cons of a breathalyzer test.

i’m still an american citizen, and it’s my right not to participate in the process. so, off i went.

easter, and for that matter any holiday significant to children, is another experience that really lets you know your role. for the baby it went great, and it was actually a fun experience seeing it all unfold for this little girl, from the elaborate mass to the organized easter egg “hunt” to the meal and egg-painting.

but you realize that such holidays aren’t for you anymore. they’re for the wee ones. instead of enjoying the hunt for the golden egg, it’s now your job to to set it up, and to document the endeavor, which indeed it turned out to be at certain points, like when said toddler ran into the middle of the fray without exactly knowing what to do once there.

[fortunately my cousin came to break up the baby-focused monotony. and i decided to pick up a few crayons and decorate an egg on my own. i was so proud.]

the time trial on lake merced provided another sense of measure. in my three months of trying to perfect my form on the dragonboat (after two years of apparently just flailing about) and hold on to a tenuous spot on the competitive crew, i thought i was beginning to get it right.

let’s just say it wasn’t good enough this day, not even close, and my frustration built up to a magnificent, roaring crescendo of an expletive before we reached the dock.

i didn’t let the experience get to me, adjusting as i always do and enjoying the barbecue afterward, though i know that more discipline will be necessary to get past this. i may just turn down my volume until i get that validation.

fortunately, i did find a way to get past all the cloaked cynicism and self-loathing. I headed to Eve for Sharon’s birthday, 83 Proof for Geo’s birthday, and Chug Pub for Davin’s. i always tend to stretch myself thin when it comes to celebrating birthdays, but only because, really, you should be fortunate to have friends, and they’re all worth acknowledging.

i used to be a “party guy,” but i don’t really think that ‘nightlife’ is all it’s cracked up to be anymore. my self-consciousness about being on a dance floor has only barely moved towards anything resembling comfort since the first experience at a 7th-grade dance. at this point i think i’m good.

i’d rather be at home catching up on my shows (currently Human Target and The Pacific). it’s like i’m back in high school, staying in and watching TGIF instead of being out on a Friday night.

[or watching movies and making sushi, perhaps, like on Saturday.]

Sunday also remained very Japan-focused, with a quick trip to the  Cherry Blossom Festival and an officers’ meeting featuring mochi muffins. i’m sparing you the picture of the 350lb sailor moon, but i think we’re all aware that some people are built for cosplay. some people are not.

and otherwise, it’s back to reading in my own private corner of the 24hr filipino starbucks, ha. feel free to stop by and be contemplative. cheers.

it’s a lot of work, [...]]]> a lot of what i do is, technically, damage control, from making sure clients don’t freak out to keeping random birthday celebrants well-fed/drank to ensuring my family remembers exactly what happened on any given day that we’re together [even though all we really do is pay attention to the bigass baby].

it’s a lot of work, with the result looking like fun. the rest of the time i’ll spend in random coffee shops trying to further myself with works of western literature, occasionally lending a pen to a hobo so she can complete her crossword. but i digress.

so anyway, before it’s April first and no one takes anything seriously, here we go.

a lot happens in nine days, especially in my life. and even apart from dragonboat.

my tuesdays are usually pretty interesting, but with some University of California students up here on spring break, last week even more so.

whenever my brother brian is in town, we go to snobby coffee shops. maybe to try their bacon doughnuts. maybe their coffee. maybe just to see if the yelp reviews and food network mentions are really a load of crap. but we go.

last week we tried Philz Coffee, the original location in Potrero. let’s just say that it takes the dirty hipster coffee experience to an entirely new level, plaid-draped clientele and grimy craigslisted furniture and all.

i had the day off due to the recent and very untimely death [so to speak] of a client, so jess took me to see the king tut exhibit at the de young museum.

the title of the exhibit, “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” is misleading because the bastard himself isn’t actually there. it should be called something more like “King Tut’s Stuff.” still, there were a lot of interesting things in there, and you can plainly see where writers get their stereotypes about ancient Egypt. or Ahn’Qiraj. whatever.

the observation tower was also kind of cool. we finished off the day looking at considerably more modern things in japantown.

when thursday rolled around, it was time again to continue the bay area’s celebration of my brother, this time with his old coworkers, all architecture-heads.

i still think i do a good job pretending to be an architect, so i was able to keep up,  though i definitely started to fade when pete showed us the kickass view from his civic center pad.

the next morning we decided to try out Dynamo Coffee, apparently the original purveyor of the bacon doughnut, but we ate more of the spiced whatever and sticky rolls, which were $3 apiece all around and, honestly, a bit ridiculous.

the night that followed was a happy hour for the dragonboat team, and the unlimited sake definitely shoved some inhibitions aside. it didn’t get too messy, though. we had practice the next day, after all.

and following the next morning’s practice [which involved the usual struggle to try out for the A-Boat, chronicled here, though a boat flip did make things interesting for the newbies], we finally got to celebrate brian’s 29th birthday with the family.

even though every family event revolves around the baby now, none of us seemed to mind, though a few minutes to peacefully drink my coffee would’ve been greatly appreciated.

on this particular monday and tuesday i got to catch up with some people i haven’t seen in a while, making a last-minute trip to berkeley for coffee [where, thankfully, cafe milano wasn't blasting bhangra at maximum volume again] and to Samovar in the castro for tea, which turned into dinner, which thankfully didn’t turn into anything else because the conversation began to repeat itself, though the food was actually pretty good. Darjeeling ain’t no joke, either.

and so it goes. i run around. i take time to acknowledge people beyond their facebook walls. i give my creative and athletic efforts to a dragonboat team that gives me so much more in return.

everybody’s happy.

[do the math, [...]]]> so i finally stopped putting up facebook albums, aside from the occasional picture of food. the predictable comments began to get on my nerves after a while. and i was getting sick of the less social of my friends branding me as a “party guy,” when nothing can be further from the truth.

[do the math, read my twitter feed, parties are rare compared to the nights i spend reading at starbucks. duh!]

…and there’s the whole issue of uploading twice- i already put up pictures for this website, which by all accounts gives people a much better understanding of the world i inhabit. i don’t need to facebook it when i do it here, already.

so… busy month. here we go.

a good friend of mine in the Mainit family, of University of San Francisco fame, came back from Korea for a few days, so I took him to a Warriors game with my stanford crew, did some sightseeing, smoked some hookah, and did the whole tourist bit.

the warriors lost, by a lot, and i got lost on the way there, but the beer made it bearable. i don’t see any of these people all that often, so i figured why not go.

i continued my appearances at the bitter end bar on tuesdays for trivia night, with our team walking away in victory most of the time, though not after arguing the position of certain ‘things’ on certain posters in the bar. being considered a ‘regular’ is nice.

i also went to see the old prom date at the NoisePop “Pop & Shop” Craft fair, but it didn’t go as well or as reassuringly as I’d expected, for some reason. but at least the stuff being sold remained interesting.

[maybe not great, but definitely interesting. they even had a bar, and i found the combination of crafts and alcohol to be at least somewhat okay.]

following a day at the lake, i got sucked into walking with the Loong Mah lion dance troupe for the Chinese new year parade- which I hadn’t marched in in exactly 10 years, since the old JROTC days in high school.

it wasn’t as easy on my knees as i would’ve liked, but i figured why not. and there were a lot of interesting things to see, culminating with, of course, the miss chinatown float. ray made it a point to be aware of its proximity to us.

a dinner back on clement street followed, as did crepes at Genki and a box of Pocky. a big one.

that sunday we had brunch at cliffhouse for the first time in a while, and it ended up being being worth the drive to the far, far end of Geary. a lot of discoveries were made that day, from the epic combo of crab and avocado to the goings-on in suburban los angeles. and proper phone etiquette.

rebecca’s birthday came the next week, and we had a great time at zingari with her and the dragon warriors crew. though the conversations occasionally repeated themselves [i mean, i spend half the week with dragonboaters regardless] and the food was so-so, it never hurts to make new homies in different industries.

at the end, however, the birthday girl kind of walked away with the signed check. i walked them all to the club and returned the damned thing to the restaurant myself, which got me a lot of dirty looks from the staff, but they got what they wanted.

and after another night of epic pictures and great conversations with some interesting, albeit older people, so did i.

in between the ides of march and st patrick’s day, i saw Full On Flyhead and Late Nite Drive at Bottom of the Hill. i have a lot of friends in local rock bands, and seeing two of those bands performing together was incredible.

[my apologies to Angelo for not being able to make his performance with Delicate Pie across town]

and the last of it, following the usual practice, was the night at Swig with misters yee and the dragonboaters. it wasn’t bad, though the flogging of brendan was pretty much expected.

perry and i had a good post-mortem at my favorite 24hr diner afterward and we finally called it a night.

and other than all the ‘social’ stuff, it’s been work and dragonboat, and my trek to make in onto the A-boat for the first tie in three seasons. keeping the intensity up without destroying my vocal chords or collapsing was never much of an issue.

but it’s hard, and it’s a separate path, which i already document on the Ripple Effect website, though i’m legally bound to make it sound optimistic, even perky, the rest of the way.

you know how it goes.

more later. i’ll try to get to this thing weekly, eventually.

“good food and intellectual dialogue and a strenuous workout with minimal emotional distress.”

for [...]]]> it seemed convenient that the holiday no one wanted to talk about, least of all me, happened to occur on the same weekend of president’s day and lunar new year. i think it gave us all a certain degree of comfort, but still.

“good food and intellectual dialogue and a strenuous workout with minimal emotional distress.”

for the seventh year in a row, last friday was the collective birthday celebration of christian, stephanie and irene at Miyake in Palo Alto, best known for its sake bombing ritual and party-friendly atmosphere.

it’s remarkable to think that my college friends and i have been coming here for seven years straight, sometimes with a group big enough to fill the restaurant.

it’s now one of the few times during the year that i get to see all my college filipinos in one place. we’d been through a lot together in the Kasamahan filipino club back a the University of San Francisco, but our lives keep us apart more than ever before. engagements, babies, people moving away. we try.

i saw my brothers at the end of the night back at the Chili’s in san bruno. just like the other filipinos, i don’t see these ones together all that often, so the drive was worth it, even though the two previous dragon rolls didn’t leave any more room to eat.

the next day was week two of my third season of dragonboat at lake merced. more new faces, lots of optimism, a very familiar face and a relatively good practice ensued, though i did have my issues with the day’s particular coaching. ha, dragonboat drama…

that sunday was february 14. officially lunar new year and… that other thing. after a long morning on the books, i headed to the San Francisco Pillow Fight at justin herman plaza to take some pictures and likely run into some people.

i ended up finding diana and nikki and jay and anthony, and we watched the ensuing violence. let’s just say that some people have aggression issues, and it got scary at times, but the profusion of down feathers made the spectacle worth coming to.

afterward we headed into the mission for dinner and hookah, ending the night relatively early because i had to be up at 5am. still, i had the most intelligent february 14 i’ve ever had, technically i got to spend it with two women, and the whole day ended up being a lot more entertaining than i originally predicted it to be. win. win. win.

my president’s day involved driving brian to the airport at 5am, but McDonalds was offered (and accepted) as payment forthwith. i had a late afternoon run along embarcadero, followed by attempts at fine literature.

later on, Tarusan the older and I tried the locally vaunted carne asada and carnitas fries, respectively, though i still don’t find the endeavor particularly compelling.

good food and intellectual dialogue and a strenuous workout with minimal emotional distress, the last of which made the difference between this and last year.

a good weekend? sure.