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During my Russian River Adventure in July, I met a number of interesting people, among them two artists, Mina Reimer and Patrick Roddie. Mina actually is the cousin of Nancy, a former co-worker at Palm. Following the trip to the Russian River, I kept in touch with both Mina and Patrick and followed their artistic exploits on their respective web sites.

Last week, I got an invitation to a reception that Mina was holding this Thursday in San Francisco at the NewOrangeland Atelier, located at 1242 Mason Street (between Washington and Jackson street). I braved the Silicon Valley traffic, arriving shortly before 6:00 pm. Over the next few hours, this small and quaint studio welcomed many of Mina’s friends and colleagues. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the company of so many artists (lately it’s been musicians). For instance, I had a good time meeting and speaking with Loren, the owner of a web design company and Trudy, a painter. Patrick also showed up, and we had a jolly time talking about our recent or upcoming wedding shoots. The photo project he did at Burning Man this year have to be seen to be believed. Never thought hips could be photographed to such dramatic effect!

The interesting people didn’t stop with artist folk. I had a pleasure speaking with Lise and Vincent, two recent high-tech refugees, who are beginning to set up their own vineyard north of San Francisco! Now, that’s the kind of slow-paced lifestyle which sounds really exciting (assuming I still have my broadband connection!). David works at Loren’s company and is originally from France, hailing from the Boulogne region outside of Paris. When I met David, I noticed two things, his European clothing style and his accent. I took a gamble and asked him, “Tu es français?” Luckily, I was right and we had a nice conversation in French. Bonnie lived a couple of blocks down the street from the studio and met Mina through Chris, a dentist in San Francisco, just a few nights ago.

Of course, Nancy was at the reception too. We had a good time catching up on what both of us have been doing, since we haven’t seen each other since our days together at Palm. She’s been keeping busy learning the winemaking trade; she taught me that mints and wine are a combination to avoid at all costs!

Seeing Mina’s art reception has got me thinking about printing and framing some of my work. I’ve got tons of artwork that are just lying around in my portfolio (yeah, like my AP Art Portfolio from high school!), along with all of my photos. It might add some color and variety to my already colorful blue, red, and yellow walls at my place, no?

Friday Events

I took the day off again on Friday and hung out with Rae in Oakland. We had lunch at this Indian restaurant that we ate at a few months ago. Originally, we had wanted to go to the Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant, but it no longer served lunch. The next place that we wanted to go, a vegan sushi restaurant, was also closed today! With each passing moment, we were getting more and more ravenous, so we decided to gorge ourselves at the buffet line at the Indian restaurant. We stuffed ourselves with nan and chicken tandoori while counting 0-1’s and 1-0’s and listening to the nonsense babbling of the Asian frat boys sitting next to us. “Yo fool! Get me some bread!” Sigh… was I ever like that?

We rented a couple of movies to watch during the afternoon, Michael Crichton’s Westworld and Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood For Love. Both movies are highly recommended! Westworld was a very interesting movie. Filmed in 1973, the movie had many similarities with many classics from the 80’s and 90’s, including The Terminator, Jurassic Park, and Total Recall. Seeing Yul Brynner’s robotic gunslinger chasing Richard Benjamin’s character reminded me of the Terminator’s pursuit of Sarah Connor. Eerie to think that Westworld was made in 1973! For some reason, I had never heard of the movie until Rae told me about it. Apparently, they made a sequel, FutureWorld, which wasn’t that good, along with a TV-series. I also noticed that Majel Barrett, Mrs. Gene Roddenberry of Star Trek fame (and Nurse Chapel and the voice of the computer in TNG, DS9, and VOY) had a small part in the movie!

Saturday should be an interesting day. The Apple Store in Palo Alto is opening at 10:00 am. The Palo Alto store is rumored to be the showcase store of all the Apple Stores. Perhaps Steve Jobs himself will grace us with his presence. It’s 23:34 right now on Friday. I’m thinking I’ll crash at Randy’s for the night so I can get an early start on interviewing and photographing the die hard Apple supporters who are no doubt sleeping out right now.