Some Good News
Is it December already? This year has zoomed by fast. Well, some good news: Last month, my story on the federal government’s effort to improve cybersecurity won a FOLIO Gold Eddie Award. It won for best single article in the business-to-business/government/public sector/education category. Here’s the link to the story.
The story is memorable to me for two reasons: I always enjoy learning about innovations or new concepts in technology and the U.S. Army, State Department, Homeland Security and the National Institute of Standards and Technology gave great interviews to help me understand what they are doing.
And the second reason is that I finished the article immediately after a 12-hour flight to Europe. My daughter was studying abroad in Israel at the time. And she and I had decided to meet up in London during a break midway through her semester. I remember arriving in town a few hours before her. And that gave me enough time to check into the hotel and finish the story before heading back to Heathrow to pick her up. It was nice to wrap up all my deadlines in time to enjoy the trip.
Anyway, it’s always nice to get recognized for doing good work. 
Mini Giants
I quickly snapped this photo at the Giants’ spring training opener last week as I was leaving in the 9th inning. I didn’t realize until I looked at the picture later that the little Brian Wilson fan has the mohawk and The Beard going and the tiny Tim Lincecum fan has Timmy’s flowing, long locks going. Too cute.
Shooting a rock concert
It’s usually a bad sign when your wife walks into your home office, asks if you are busy, and when you say no, she happily exclaims, “Oh good! That means you can do something for me.”
It was a lazy Saturday afternoon, this past Saturday, in fact, and I was sipping coffee and trolling the Web for the latest baseball news. To be honest, I really don’t care if Albert Pujols re-signs with the St. Louis Cardinals or if some aging retread signs a $750,000 minor league contract with the Toronto Blue Jays. But it’s been three-and-a-half months since the World Series ended and I was seriously jonesin’ for baseball and consumed any crumb of news I could find. So I looked away from my screen and turned toward Miiko, who was smiling at me. Did I need to proof some dreadfully dull PowerPoint? Or do some equally dreadful household chore? I had already cleaned the swimming pool in the morning, dammit.
Dread crept in.
“I need you to research good digital cameras,” she said. “I have to shoot The Black Keys concert on Monday night and we have to buy a good one.”
Oh cool. Buy technology. That’s not a chore. That’s fun. We’ve never owned a decent camera. Miiko takes all her photos on her iPhone. I’ve got a five-year-old point-and-shoot digital camera and a crappy 2-megapixel camera on my BlackBerry that never takes any good photos because of the ever-present pocket lint from my pants that coats the lens.
I needed camera-buying tips, but whom should I call? My dad was a photographer in his early 20s, but he’s been out of the business for a long time, so not him. I went to journalism school with a bunch of photographers, but messaging them through Facebook was not immediate enough. There was only one person I could call: Gordon. He’s a long-time friend and one of my go-to guys in time of personal or technology crisis. So I called, and as usual, he dispensed solid advice and followed up with a detailed email with even more advice. Our choices were the mid-range Canon EOS Rebel T2i (about $800) to the high-end Canon EOS 7D and 5D Mark II (which ran in the $1,500 to $2,500 range and shot high-quality video to boot). It really depended on whether my wife, an experienced videographer, wanted to use the camera to shoot videos in the future.
I was open. But Miiko already has video equipment and has no plans to use an SLR for video, so the T2i it was. We checked out Sam’s Club, which is two blocks from us, and Best Buy at the mall. And Sam’s Club won out with an $828 price tag.
The first part of the problem was solved. We bought a decent camera. Now it was time to tackle the second part of the problem. Neither of us had any photography training whatsoever. Well, when I was 19 or 20 and I was interning at my local weekly San Francisco newspaper, the photo editor took me under his wing for a few weeks before giving up. I had to do a “Question Man” column, where you ask five people the same question like, “If you could change one thing about San Francisco, what would it be?” and then take their mug shots and it would run in the paper. I still remember one day, when I thought I had taken some stellar photos, the exasperated photo editor yelled at me to join him in the dark room. When I walked in, he showed me the negatives, pointed to a photo of a man and asked, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
Umm. (Silence.)
“What’s wrong is you have him staring at the sun. The poor guy is squinting.”
Oh.
And that was the extent of my photography career. Clearly, my dad’s photographic talents were not handed down to me. I really can’t take a photograph to save my life.
Late Sunday night, after packing for her trip, she finally got around to taking the camera out of the box and looked at the instructions. We spent the next hour in the first floor of our house, figuring out the camera settings and trying to emulate a concert setting. No, we didn’t whip out a karaoke machine. We turned off the light in the kitchen, kept the lamp on in the living room, and from the far end of our dark kitchen, we tried taking photos of the sofa in the living room. And to our surprise, the photos came out and they were quite good. (Well, as good as boring photos of a sofa could be).
On Monday afternoon, Miiko flew to Vegas and that night, I tried to send positive vibes her way, knowing she was photographing the concert. At around 9:30 p.m., I couldn’t wait anymore and texted her, asking how the camera was. She replied, “Great! Thank God for auto features!”
Haha!
Here’s the link to all the photos, and below are some examples of her work. I think they turned out pretty good for a novice photographer. I’m really proud of her.
And then on Tuesday night, she shot a second concert and Tweeted this photo of the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Anyway, Miiko, who normally telecommutes from Arizona, has spent the whole week at her workplace in Vegas. On Wednesday afternoon, she shot even more photos, this time the Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar models. They weren’t in their bikinis, though. It was just an autograph session, she told me.
What a tough life she has. Sheesh.
When she comes home, I can’t wait to play with the camera and try to take pictures with it.
I, the taxi driver
A while back, a buddy – frustrated and tired – texted me late at night, telling me he chauffeured his teenage son and his friends to skating parties and teen clubs, morning through night.
“I was dad the driver today,” he wrote. “Sheesh. Drove my son and his friends all around. Got home at 1:20 a.m. I’m now tired and pissed!”
I laughed. Ah, the taxi-driving days. All those memories come rushing back to me.
I pick up the kid in front of the high school and she jumps in says, “my friends are coming over to the house.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement. And before I say anything her three friends pile into the backseat, and she’s switched the radio station from a gentle Sarah McLachlan to the angry rap of 50 Cent on 106 KMEL, and cranks the volume level up about a hundred decibels.
I pull into the street and she shouts, “Can we go to Taco Bell?” So I go through the drive-thru, and it’s the biggest frickin’ order of my life and I have to wait forever for a) them to figure out what they want, and b) for the food to be made. And of course, the other kids don’t have money. I hear the jingle of coins in the backseat as they count their change. But their orders are only a few dollars each – they are dainty girls after all – so I front the money.
“Thanks, Mr. Wong!”
The food arrives, and as I drive home, it’s chaos in the car as food exchanges hands. “Pass the chalupa!” one witty girl says in back.
I share this story with my friend the next day. And my friend stays quiet as I reminisce, and when I’m done, he says: “Right. I have done it.”
He’s taken his son and his classmates to get food at Mickey D’s, he says. One ordered $10 worth of food and had no money, so my friend had to pay for it. The kid didn’t say thank you, and in the ensuing weeks, neither did his parents.
“That sucks,” I tell him. “That’s when you tell your son, ‘I don’t want that kid in my car again.’”
“Right,” my friend says. “He wasn’t even a friend. Just a kid who needed a ride.”
“Take heart,” I tell him. “You’re just a taxi driver for a few more years. But then again, you have to buy him a car.”
Goodbye, Snow Girl
Snowy, our 16- or 17-year-old cat, passed away today. She had begun fading about two months ago, so we knew this day was coming. Doesn’t make it easier. I’ll miss the days when I’d walk into the kitchen around noon, and yell “Scooby Snack.” The dogs would come running for their lunch. Snowy, usually hanging out at Miiko’s office at the other end of the house, would trail behind. She knew Scooby Snack meant it was lunch time, too. So she’d hop up a step ladder and onto the small kitchen counter space between our refrigerator and cupboard, her private eating place, and wait patiently to be fed.
I’ll miss the days late at night, when I’d go to bed, and she’d jump on the bed, too, and climb on my chest, and demand to be petted. So I’d pet her for a bit and when I drifted off to sleep, she’d climb off and curl up close by.
One thing about Snowy. She knew how to tell you she was pissed off. I think we had been traveling a lot at one point. And she didn’t like it, so when we returned, she peed on my trusty Eagle Creek travel backpack that had been with me forever — multiple trips through Asia. Parts of Europe. Lots of camping and rock climbing trips in the U.S. I loved that bag. I washed it three times in the washer, but her pee was so potent, I had to toss it. It took me a few years, but I think I finally got over it. (more…)
Broiling vs. grilling
Apparently, the three of us prefer to broil our food. What a way to start a Scrabble game!
Hooray… for me!
I received a nice surprise from an editor in my morning email today. My story on the Dallas Cowboys’ new football stadium won a gold “Tabbie Award” for best profile. The award is from a trade magazine organization called the Trade Association Business Publications International.
Yay!
Here’s the story.
Wylie Wong writes for a living. This is where he posts his personal musings. 
