tecgirl [dot] com - I only do this because I'm having fun.

Yes, this blog still exists.

2009-11-03T20:04:04Z

It has obviously been sidetracked by fresher, more gratifying ways to publish things, but all in all, it's this website that started it all for me. Lately I post mainly on Twitter, which forwards to Facebook, and covers pretty much everyone I correspond with. I also started an 'inspiration' photo (and sometimes other media) blog over at Tumblr. I never post on Vox anymore, which for some time was nice to have private posts at. I never look at my stats here so I have no idea if I even remotely garner the traffic that I used to. I also know that I barely look at my friend's sites, so why would they be looking at mine? This is the first time in the eight years I've had this blog that I've skipped a month. And not just a month, TWO months. Geez. Maybe I should rework it to just spurt all my webness out like Friendfeed, since in truth I am still very much participating on the web, just not here.

Rewind. Fast Forward.

2009-08-20T03:27:03Z

Ginevra, Mad Men Season 3 Premiere Party, Canon Elan 7ne

I've been out of class only two weeks and I have a couple of freelance gigs in pre-production and a job offer. My trip to Tokyo has been postponed until November due to my brother receiving new orders so September has just opened up. I've already planned not to attend Burning Man, and since I just found out about Tokyo, I don't think I could make it out if I wanted to. Well, maybe. I'd rather not drive the Disco out there since I've spent all year getting the playa off of it. Hell, I even dropped a grand today replacing the air suspension that had leaks that may or may not have been caused by the alkali building up in the folds of the springs. Then again, I really want to go. All I would really need to do is: buy a ticket, get the weekend covered, find someone to mind Haley, and go over my bike. Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

In other news, I was actually social and attended a season premiere party for Mad Men at our friend Derek's place. Everyone was simply dashing.

Almost

2009-07-28T08:32:38Z

Courtyard, SFAI, Apple iPhone 3Gs with Autostitch

Almost there, almost, almost, almost. Last day of class is August 6th. I'm losing my mind. In the good way, of course.

OMG, Sunshine!

2009-07-03T00:39:48Z

After over a year of being invited I finally made it out to the Delta with Solomon and Company. After a very bumpy ride (air suspension failed in the Disco, there's a leak--me driving it's ok, six people put it to the test. note to self: playa not good for airbags) we arrived around noon with some fresh sandwiches and sunscreen. I somewhat embarrassingly confused wakeboarding with wakesurfing--seeing how I hadn't been wakeboarding since around 1997. I'd never seen wakesurfing. It was fantastic! I went for a short bit and had a blast. Keep in mind I've never surfed so I wasn't familiar with the mechanics but I likened it to snowboarding. I'm not ready to let go of the rope yet but I'm determined to get it down next time. There's only so much Delta water that I can swallow. Ech.

Being out in a bikini reminded me how white I've become living in the City--this girl needs a TAN!

There's a couple more videos on YouTube and another on Flickr.

fête des pères

2009-06-22T07:20:40Z

My Father, Twin Peaks, Flip MinoHD still

On Saturday, my father rode out from Sacramento and accompanied me to Scooter Rage 23--on his Harley. It must have been hilarious seeing us side by side, me on my 100 Sport and he on a 1500 cruiser. It was awesome spending the day with him, I hardly get to see my parents, and they only live a little over an hour away. Afterward we filled up on Moshi Moshi sushi. We've totally turned him onto the ahi-tuna wasabi dish.

maker faire

2009-06-01T21:08:59Z

Ford doing what he does on a touchscreen HP desktop

For the first time in four years, I actually made it to Maker Faire. I brought Janice and met up with Ford and Chad's son Weston.

Awesomeness everywhere. Burning Man without the playa. Almost went broke in the Craft room, it was Etsy gone wild in there. So. Much. Cool. Stuff!!

Mods vs. Rockers

2009-05-31T22:16:26Z

Photo by Louis Lane

I made it to Mods vs. Rockers on Saturday, which is a scooter and motorcycle rally with the Secret Society Scooter Club and the San Francisco Motorcycle Club. The Mods met at Pier 23, the Rockers at Thirsty Bear. We both rode to the Stockton Tunnel and entered on opposing sides to do a run past each other then mixed up and did laps until the tunnel was filled with smoke. You could say we stopped traffic, for a few minutes. Then everyone took a ride together through the city to Baker Beach, up to Ocean Beach, through Golden Gate park, and ended up at the SFMC headquarters. I disappointed myself with the amount of footage I obtained, and hope to get my helmet-cam back up and running by the next big scooter rally on June 20th. I also would love to get my ass up early enough to make the adventure ride "over the bridge and through the woods - large displacement bikes or kitted smallframes with skinny riders only". I fall into the latter category.

Repeats at the Diego

2009-04-30T05:19:48Z

A mobile snapshot of my work in the Diego Gallery.

PSA

2009-04-07T01:44:44Z

OK, I've had it. I am soooo tired of reading misspelled SIMPLE words. If you are past the 1st grade, you should goddamn well know how to distinguish between the following:

your = possessive adjective
belonging to or associated with the person or people that the speaker is addressing : what is your name?

you're = contraction of you are
you're pretty. you're silly. you're the best.

DO NOT write YOUR when you are contracting YOU ARE.

there = adverb
in, at, or to that place or position. he was over there. the cereal is right there in front of you.

their = possesive adjective
belonging to or associated with the people or things previously mentioned or easily identified. I have no idea what their address is. someone dropped their iPhone on the street.

they're = contraction of they are
they're traveling today. they're graduating soon.

let's not forget about...

to = preposition
where are you off to? walking to the store. the letter was to me.

too = adverb
the glove was too small for him. is she coming too? you're too kind.

and finally...
its = possesive adjective (notice the lack of a possessive apostrophe)
turn the box on its side. I went to the restaurant for its awesome penne pasta.

it's = contraction of it is
it's all your fault. it's too late. it's raining today.

I am so tired of reading these errors coming from ADULTS. I don't care if you're texting, commenting on Facebook, or writing an email to your grandmother. if you still don't get it, you're a dunce. get your ass back to school. it's not too late.

*update - Let's no forget about...

seen = present tense of saw.
seen on TV.

seen is also a past participle.
that scooter has seen better days.

That does not mean you should use 'seen' instead of 'saw', Wrong: "I seen these oranges at the market yesterday and I picked some up for you". Correct: '"I saw oranges at the market yesterday...".

The Middle of the End

2009-03-05T04:44:44Z

I'm in my seventh week of classes and getting back into the groove. I'm adjusting to new schedule-the one that doesn't give me any days off. I realize that I never really write about a school, so this is my first attempt to do so. It is my last semester as an undergrad.

Here goes...

On Mondays I am taking Art History B (Modernity). Again. Yes, I am bitter about it. If you had to pay $4200 for a single class you'd be bitter, too. It's the only class I have ever failed. I had a B as of midterms and did my final paper/presentation to rave reviews. Then, a big fat F. I tried multiple times to get ahold of the instructor, no reply. He was an associate professor who all of a sudden went MIA, outta dodge. I spoke with administration who said he may have failed me for too many abscences. I did have 4-5, which according to his syllabus would constitute a C or D. I did tell him that I travel 2-3 times a semester for work, and he seemed understanding and sympathetic. The same conversation I have with all of my instructors, every semester for the past 3 years. They understand. He understood. Why an F? I will never know. Without his correspondence I did not have a case to appeal to the Dean. This was 2005. I put off retaking it until this semester. The instructor I am taking now is Vivian Bobka. She is much more pleasing to listen to, is a bona-fide art historian, and is a curator and writer. She is a frequent contributor to Flash Art, and was a 1993 Helena Rubenstein Critical Studies Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

On Tuesdays I have Senior Seminar. It's basically a class for those who wish to go big after graduation. So far we've covered grad school prep, portfolio prep, and watched a few installments of Art-21 to critique how artists talk about their work. The instructor is wonderful. John De Fazio graduated with an MFA from SFAI in '84 and moved to New York and was part of the pop art scene. He spent 20 years in New York before watching the twin-towers fall and worked his way back to the West Coast. He creates fantastic sculptures and paintings. He has also had his hand in commercial work; stop-motion animation for Pee-Wee's Playhouse and sculpture and paintings for MTV. If you have a chance to wander MTV NY, check out the video vaults and the conference room table.

On Wednesdays I have an all-day course on Green Design. We are covering all aspects; architecture, recycled materials, carbon emissions, foods, print design, object design, etc. It's the first of its kind at SFAI and I am happy to be a part of it during my last semester. My instructor is Paul Klein, whom I've had for a few other classes as well as a tutorial. He's bi-metro traveling between LA and SF weekly to teach both undergrad and grad courses at SFAI. His work has been included in exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; San Jose Museum of Art; the Alternative Museum, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art in Cartagena, Colombia. He was part of the five-venue traveling exhibition, New Realities: Hand-Colored Photographs 1839-Present. He was an artist-in-residence at the Djerassi Foundation in Woodside, California, and awarded an NEH Summer Institute residency for 2006. His most recent project has a website, Spectator Museum. I am working on upgrading our on-campus artist's apartment to current energy-consuming ideals and taking steps to prevent the apartment from getting too damp or too cold, which has been an issue for years. I'm also handling the exhibition book for all of our projects for this course as well as over-seeing the web site.

On Thursdays I have two classes. The first is Critical Thinking B with Jon Lang. He was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities at Princeton University, where he also earned his PhD. Our course is "Monsters and Modernity". So far we've been reading a lot of handouts and have covered one film so far-Chinatown. Next week we start on our classical monsters; Dracula, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, and Frankenstein. He had me at Monsters.

After that I have the notorious George Kuchar for a film directed study. George has made over 250 short films. He has been a major influence for many filmmakers from SFAI and beyond including John Waters, Todd Solondz, and our own alumni Christopher Coppola. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Worldwide Video Festival First-Prize Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Award, the Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video Artists from the American Film Institute, and others. He also contributed to the underground comic book, Arcade, for which he created a biography of H.P. Lovecraft. Kuchar's recent major work, Secrets of the Shadow World, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, is a 140-minute digital video saga. He started making films at age 12 (1954!) with his twin brother Michael. There's a documentary about him currently in production that includes Waters, Coppola, Wayne Wang, Atom Egoyan, and Buck Henry. He also acts quite a bit, the most amusing as a homeless man in the 1997 bomb Bongwater. I really dig George, and am really honored to be mentored by him. I am working on a Super-8 short about my life and points of view of San Francisco. No tourist footage here, folks. My personal portrait of the city I've come to love, and a memoir if we ever move away.

'09 is in the house

2009-01-17T05:09:09Z

This vacation has been pretty epic. I slept in whenever possible, spent a few days sick, hung out with my brother (for NYE and 3 days in Tahoe-w00t!), and finally wrapped my head around the reality that this is my last semester as an undergrad. I didn't get everything done that I wanted to over the break, but I'm nearing a new headspace that will allow me to multi-task even more. I've found new inspiration that will hopefully take me beyond my wildest dreams.

What's up next? Moving back into our house, SXSW, my second annual 29th birthday, our 8th anniversary, a show at the Diego Gallery, GRADUATION, Japan, and job searching. I'd also like to do a cross country road trip and start taking photographs again. I've been in such a funk that I've barely shot anything lately. Making new photographs and films is at the top of my resolution list this year. Won't you join me?

ass whoopin'

2008-12-18T02:04:49Z

What I received this semester was a royal ass whoopin'. I never really ever caught up from Burning Man, and put a week long shoot after that and I was two steps behind. I managed to keep up finally-my last week of the semester. I slept no more than twelve hours over the course of six days, two of those being all-nighters. I drank more black tea than anyone should ever be allowed. I couldn't have finished it all without the help of my lovely boyfriend, who puts up with me when I spaz out from sleep deprivation.

This break will be spent catching up, relaxing whenever possible, being social, taking pictures, and working on our house.

Home Stretch

2008-12-07T12:43:44Z

In five more days I'll be one semester closer to graduation. I'm estatic. I have five more days of class and an obscene amount of work to do. After that I have one more semester and a single class over the Summer. I walk in May. I haven't had a chance to think about grad school yet. I think more than anything I need a vacation. A real vacation. I deserve one.

I can has blog.

2008-11-25T06:48:58Z

I just need either a clone to actually write all the things I intend to blog about, and then habitually forget to, or 8 more hours every day. Then, I would really be productive. I've been active on my Twitter account, however. If you aren't already, follow me.

Rest Much?

2008-10-06T06:20:02Z

These past few weeks have been simultaneously a blast and rough as hell. Let's back up a little bit to summer school. This was the first summer I've taken classes. I did a two week intensive then an eight week intensive - back to back. I had a week off to prep for Burning Man then off I went. We stayed in Reno for three days and I finally got home at 2am the day I was to be at school at 9am, and work that night at 10pm. Mind you my car was still packed from the Burn. From then on I hit the ground running. School, work, work, work, school. The flip-flop of my schedule has been more intense, and Sunday has become a half-day, which makes me sad. I am up at 7am Monday-Thursday, and 10-Noon Fri-Sun. After a week of school, I headed down to LA to work on a three-day summit shoot (with two travel days). United Airlines set the tone by canceling my last-flight-out giving me three hours of sleep to start the summit the next day. Add four more days of 3-4hrs sleep and back to SF on Friday to work the weekend. Then back to school to catch up on the week I missed. I finally slept in this past Sunday but felt horribly guilty doing so. I have so much to do! That must be why today I came home from lunch and washing my car to pass out on the couch for two hours. My body is finally taking over. Now if I could just get my mind to finish all of my homework...