Fiona... Mobilize!

I am loving FxCamera, the app I downloaded for my Android recently. Fi was my involuntary subject. Oh, and check out this bit of Christmas cuteness:

"I just recently became truly aware of how tenuous my life is, so I really don't have time to waste on fear."

My generally random ramblings about nothing specifically particular. Yep. It's that kind of day.

If you've ever thought about keeping some sort of daily journal, I would recommend OhLife. Silly name, yes, but they send you an email daily and all you have to do is respond to the email with what you did for the day and bam! it's saved in a nice, clean format. You can also include a little photo. Oh, and it is private. If you want to share your daily life publicly, maybe you'd like to start a blog like this? (:

My chess skills are getting better. While I still am not beating Dima (yet), I'm kicking a lot of butt otherwise. Other games I currently love: Scrabble (on facebook), Rummikub (also on facebook), Bananagrams (yep, facebook), and Qwirkle (a board game, not on facebook... yet). Yep, I love quick strategy games. All the better to keep my mind sharp, I suppose. I do hope one day to be one of those people sitting at the tables in the park with a chess timer. I'm sure I can do that now, but getting check-mated in five moves will be detrimental to my already-waning chess-self-esteem. Maybe when it gets warmer.

My Netflix recommendations for the week:

This American Life : Season 1, Season 2

Dear Zachary (Note: this is heartbreaking and sad. Ridiculously sad. But definitely worth watching.)

30 Days

I found this Slate article to be quite hilarious. A synopsis: this guy loses his job, his girlfriend calls it quits, and decides that seeing 30 different airports within 30 days would be a worthwhile project. Read his story and look at the fun infographics here.

He did this with the All You Can Jet pass offered by JetBlue. I thought about doing that again this year, but opted not to. I did it last year and it was a lot of fun, but I felt like I did it to continue running. Running from what or to where, I don't know. It was pointless running for the sake of running. I guess in that regard, I felt for Chadwick and his quest. I especially loved his closing lines: "There isn't that much more to life somewhere else. Especially when you're running to nowhere in particular."

Anyway, enjoy this photo I took at the Art Institute of Chicago:

P.S.

While I absolutely love to fly, airport security has always been the bane of my existence. I know it sounds like a White Whine to complain about an extraneous activity that many in the world can't experience due to financial disparity, but I strongly believe that the more leeway you give to TSA, the more it'll come to bite us in the butt later on. I'm not that bright, so I'll refer to someone much smarter than myself to sum this up: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." (Ben Franklin)

Sneak Preview!

Year 29 Goals, Hopes, & Dreams

I had a 30-before-30 list but I kept going back and revising it (after checking things off the "original" list) so I'm not really sure where I'm at right now. I do, however, find lists to be generally helpful in guiding me toward the direction I want to head, so I made a list of things that I want to accomplish this year. Thankfully, it is short and perhaps, doable. I present to you, in order of probably easiest to hardest:

• Go somewhere for two weeks - I can do this in my sleep. But where to? Hmm....
• Lean to play 5 songs on the guitar - I really need practice. And calluses. But armed with Guitar for Dummies, I should be able to play Kumbaya like a champ in no time!
• Organize and share all photos - Holy cow this is a tough one! With the plethora of photo hosting sites out there, sometimes I use that as a crutch for not getting on this project. But I've decided to stick with Google Picasa so hopefully having that settled will speed this along.
• Read 5 classics - With my Kindle app for the Android, I can read classics for free on my phone. It is incredible to be able to catch up on reading whilst in line for something, or just waiting. Or just hanging out. I'm almost done with Little Women.
• Write my wills - This is long overdue, and is an actual item from the 30-before-30 list. Gotta bite the metaphorical bullet and be done with it.
• Participate in - AND COMPLETE - my nanowrimo project - This is going on right now and I have until November 30th to finish. It's such a great project for me because, well, I keep putting it off and I'll continue to forever and ever amen. I'm biting the metaphorical bullet again. A lot of biting going on in here.
• Book a destination wedding - I love to travel; I love weddings. I think this is a natural progression of things. But the big question is, where to start? Well, I'll definitely focus more on this in the upcoming year. I think it's the toughest item on my list because it is mostly out of my control so if you're looking for a wedding photographer for your destination wedding, get in touch! (SEO it up! Honolulu, Hawaii, Maui, Tahiti, Australia, Mexico, Cancun, Belize, Bahamas, St. Lucia, St. Barts, San Martin, Charlotte - yeah, Charlotte is a destination for me, since I live in San Francisco.)

Let's do this!

Experiential Gifts from Chung Nguyen | Photographer (Holiday 2010)

This holiday season, give the gift of a fun portrait experience. (For the same price, you can buy a bar stool, a 5'x7' shag rug, or a leather backpack from Overstock.com. I'm biased, yes, but I must say a portrait session is an excellent gift!) Best of all, your friends and family will be able to enjoy the gift for years to come! Here are the two packages I'm offering:

• Mini-Session - $150
  - Enjoy a 30-minute on-location portrait session in the Bay Area
  - Online gallery with approximately 20 images to choose from
  - PLUS pick a digital file or 8x10 print to keep!
• Full-Session - $300
  - Enjoy a full one-hour on-location portrait session in the Bay Area
  - Online gallery with approximately 30 images to choose from
  - PLUS a custom-designed session album (5x7, 20 pages)

You can also send a ecologically-minded and adorably-designed e-card to announce your gift. You can view a sample of the e-card here.

A list of folks this gift would be extremely perfect for:

1. New parents. While they're inundated with cute clothes and toys made in China, a custom portrait session is something that most people don't necessarily think about. Holy cow - you're gonna be a hero! There is no time too soon to start documenting this happy time!
2. Not-so-new parents. No matter how old their kids are, parents will always want photos of and/or with them. This is a universal truth. Like gravity.
3. Crazy dog/cat-people. I am a crazy dog-and-cat woman so I know how much photos of my four-legged babies are worth, OK? It's true. So if they've got a house full of dog toys already, why not give them a gift of something a little more timeless and a little less drooled on? :-D
4. People in love. One should always have photos with those they love best. Especially well-done photos.

Select the package you want to buy and click on the "Buy Now" button below! If you have any questions, please direct them to me by email at chung.nguyen(at)gmail.com. Thanks!

Package

Full-Session $300.00 Mini-Session $150.00

All's Fair in Love, War, and Chess

What do I want to write about? Chess. Yes, the old-as-dirt game of chess.

One thing you should know about me off the bat? I love to play games. All sorts of games, really. Any chance where there's a winner and a loser based on some random challenges with an equally random set of rules? I'm in. I've made up games on the spot just to have a little fun because that's just how I am. Do I have to win every time? No, definitely not. There's no fun in that. In fact, I prefer to be the underdog, have some time to study, and then come back with a bang.

It's the classic American hero story.

But I digress.

So, chess. I've played it before and know the gist of the game. The only real reason why I started to play it on a semi-regular basis was because of Dima (the boyfriend). He loves to play chess and I love to beat him at stuff, so I started playing. The score is currently something like 0-11, so I have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain by getting better at it.

The thing is, playing chess brings up a lot of Tzuian / Machiavellian instincts I otherwise don't need in everyday life. First of all, in order to win, I need to all of a sudden really pay attention. A lot of attention. Before making a move, I learned early on, I need to consider every possible move of every existing piece on the board (mine and the opponent's). Losing a few queens and rooks due to carelessness will teach you that quickly. While being more attentive and alert aren't necessarily bad qualities, the strategy in chess makes me feel kind of dirty. Maybe it's just me, but I don't necessarily enjoy forcing people to do things. In chess, it appears that I need to make moves that force the opponent between a rock and a hard place. It's all part of the game and I shouldn't take it too seriously, but really, a lot of other games I play simply don't exercise these brain muscles and it's been fascinating trying to get into the chess mindset.

I'll let you know if (1) I actually get any better at chess and (2) I beat Dima. Wish me luck!

"I don't know how to apologize / I'm not that bright"

In an effort to keep my ability to compose full sentences alive, I told myself a couple of weeks ago that I would make a bit of a concerted effort to regularly post on this blog, at least once a week. And not just with a photo-dump-and-run (the photographer-blogger equivalent of a drive-by egging, I believe).

Are we amused yet?

So, I'm a bit of a night owl. It's 3:27 AM and I'm listening to Chinese pop songs via youtube because it seems like a sensible activity to do at this hour. If I don't keep my schedule in check, it's easy for me to resort to staying up until the sun comes up and then sleeping until the sun goes back down.

Psst - I'm actually a vampire! But without the kick-ass glitter, alas. And, sadly, major garlic breath.

And in this episode of This-or-That:

Mad drawing skills vs. Guitar picking talent : I'd rather be able to draw well than to be able to play guitar well. And I don't know why, actually. I think both skills are awesome, though.

Fluent in French vs. Chinese : On the one hand, I love Chinese pop (especially via youtube at 3:27 AM); on the other more beautifully-sounding hand, French is loverly. Verdict: French. Billions of people be damned.

Johnnie Walker Red Label vs. Blue Label : OK, we're really playing the numbers game here. The price difference between these two bottles is approximately $1,000,052 (actual: approximately $160). I did an incredibly informal taste test recently and I couldn't tell the difference between the two (gasp!). I'll do the taste test again with better parameters in place (like, I don't know, clean glasses of the same size?) but, in the meantime, the verdict is in for red.

Egg vs. Chicken : Egg. No question about it.