I've always wanted to take great pictures of the moon - in its many ghostly, eerie, haunting manifestations. Yet whenever I've tried, it's always turned out as an atrocious little blob of white on my digital cameras. Tonight, I finally figured how to do it with a tripod and my new Nikon 70-300mm G lens (short answer: stop down to f/11 or f/16, add negative exposure compensation, and take dozens of shots until you get one that's perfectly clear). Anyway, I just wanted to share this picture of tonight's average, boring moon, and hopefully will wow you with more exciting ones in the future :)

I've had some stuff to look forward to, lately. I'll be moving out of home in roughly 2 months, but so much needs to be done before then -- carpeting, painting the walls, perhaps refinishing some hardwood floors. I am also planning a trip to Costa Rica in late May with my friend and former neighbor, Julia. Lastly, I'm also trying to get connected again to my law firm, so that when I rejoin them this November, it will not be a total shock.

Fun times ahead.. hopefully.

The weather in LA has been pretty volatile for the past month. Hot, cold, cloudy, sunny, windy, muggy, you name it. But occasionally there is a day like this.. there's nothing like palm trees silhouetted against a snowy mountain.

I got this shot on Broadway Ave. in Chinatown, after church last weekend. Doesn't look much like LA, does it? Here's a closer shot.

There was a spectacular sunset this evening. The usual firey reds and oranges were there, to be sure. But today there was also a more subtle array of greens and blues. The ocean and Century City make a nice backdrop, don't they?

I also had a nice chat with a guy who was also enjoying this sunset from the abandoned house on our street (the spot where I take all my sunset photos). He's a young guy who's moving with his wife from Atlanta, and is staying with my neighbor. It's always fun to make friends with random people..

With the day off for MLK, I hauled my road bike out of storage and decided to check out the Griffith Park bike path alongside the Los Angeles River. I had been meaning to check it out for a while, so this was as good of a chance as any. Unfortunately, since it was such a chilly afternoon, I didn't go far.. (that, and I realized I forgot to close the valve on my rear bike tire)! But I am definitely going back. It is immaculately paved, and remains open and lighted until 10 pm every night. What more could you ask for?

All in all, I'm pretty excited. To tell the truth, I've become quite dispirited since moving back to Los Angeles, because it really is not a bike-friendly city (unlike Palo Alto, or Frankfurt or Munich when I visited last summer.) I came to realize fairly early on that you don't bike through the streets of LA unless you are willing to go toe to toe with car traffic, a hazardous option in any case and even worse given my relative lack of bike-handling skills. Something to look forward to, for sure.

I might also get around to visiting Hollywood Pro Bicycles, which sounds like a pretty awesome bike shop that is right in my back yard.

Below are two amazing pictures of wildlife that I've shot in the past three days. I went to Point Reyes National Seashore on Monday and saw tule elk, and today I went whale watching and spotted a mother-calf pair of humpback whales! On today's trip, however, I got seasick. The motion of the waves has been going through my mind for the rest of the day. But otherwise -- it was beautiful!

Two things have become clear in the nearly two weeks now since the bar. First, I can't go on an amazing trip every day, because I need some time to recover and attend to the regular errands of life. Second, given the first realization, I won't get to do everything I originally put on my list before I have to pack up and move everything down to LA next Thursday. Right now, I'm aiming for two more trips, to Mount Diablo and Big Sur, and maybe another hiking expedition. But that's about all I have time for!

There's also a third realization. This stuff is exhilarating, but it's also tiring. My stress level is much lower than it was in law school or during bar review, but I don't feel entirely relaxed. I am afraid that by expending so much effort to get out into the world right now, it will in fact turn into a grind by the time I get around to my trip to Europe..

But maybe I shouldn't speak of these things, and be thankful for what I have -- trips to amazing places in beautiful weather.



Uh, well I guess I wasn't too tired to post. Yeah.

Another beautiful day out in the hills south of Stanford. Los Trancos and Monte Bello are on opposite sides of Old Page Mill Road, a little closer to campus than Russian Ridge. Both feature a stunning array of ecosystem and species diversity. I had a field day -- literally.

If you're wondering how the California bar went, it was okay. I'm really happy to be done, and have been relaxing ever since it finished. My goal is to do all the cool things in the Bay Area that I've never gotten the chance to do..

I'll post a retrospective on the Bar in a little bit. I'm still waiting for the pain to subside.





Full Flickr set here.

The weather continues to be beautiful. I went on a three-hour hike/photo expedition of the Russian Ridge open space preserve today. It was hot, but incredibly scenic. I guess I could have used the additional time to study but.. I'm doing enough of that already.

The variety of scenery and wildlife in the foothills is simply amazing. I can't believe all of this is half an hour away from me, and that I've visited so few times during my three years here.. My new goal, after the Bar Exam, is to visit every major open space preserve in the Bay Area.

My favorite part of Russian Ridge is the Ancient Oaks trail -- it's always cool, shady and moist under the trees there, even if it's hot and dusty on the trail.
Update: full Flickr set here.

We're finally done with the rain up here, and the last of the rainclouds left this morning. What remained was some truly beautiful weather. I went for a run around 5:30, during the "Golden Hour" - the ninety or so minutes before sunset in which the sun casts beautiful shadows on everything. It makes for great pictures.

( LJ Cut: Lake Lagunita )

An early, unnaturally warm "spring" has settled over campus (although it has started to get colder again.) Some flowers have already started to bloom -- especially the cherry blossoms.

I love cherry blossoms. When I first encountered them, I was intimidated by how difficult they are to photograph. There's just too much going on. But the trick is to get up close:

This is possibly my favorite cherry blossom shot ever. I took it in yesterday's late afternoon sun:


( show me more pretty blossoms! )

Instead of spending the day studying, I went with the Environmental Law Society to see tidepools at Fitzgerald Marine Preserve/Moss Beach just north of Half Moon Bay. I saw snails, anemones, chitons, a nudibranch, sea stars, starfishes, and urchins -- felt like I was in Life Science 1 class all over again. Absolutely beautiful.












I've uploaded the whole set to Flickr.

I went on a 2 hour hike-run today, in the sunny June gloom. My destination was the Hollywood Reservoir, which I haven't visited in like, a year. (Sorry-- my pictures are AWOL; I'll put them back up soon.)

So it turns out that the reservoir has been CLOSED for something like 4-5 months, ever since the rains caused flooding and made the reservoir unsafe in some way. I did not know this; and they have security at the approaches to the Reservoir on at least one side. However, I approached it via a roundabout way, cutting through the Hollywood Hills to a somewhat abandoned trail that overlooks the lake. I bet they didn't anticipate that someone would cut down through brambles and brush from a weed-overgrown trail 40 feet above, but that's what I did.

In any case, No Trespassing signs have never stopped me before when I'm running or hiking. I just tread lightly and leave no signs of my presence. I feel this world is too beautiful to be locked off and put off limits.. But anyway, there was no way I could have known it was closed. Thus, I didn't feel bad feigning ignorance when I talked to the security guard to let me out of the gate on the way back down.

This is part of the path leading down from Durand Dr. in the Hollywood Hills.


Because they are doing work on some of the dirt surrounding the reservoir, the fence was open and I was able to walk down to the shore of the lake.


A deer has wandered inside the lakeside enclosure as well. It was a pretty dumb deer, and kept looking the other way when I made noise.

Stanford is so pretty now. It's like Spring is here. Here are pictures of the Lake Lagunita area on campus.. when I first arrived, it was a bone dry pit. (Okay, it was a muddy pit.)



As you can see, the lake's not very deep. This guy is already in the middle of it and it's only up to his waist..


There were like five golden retrievers that various people brought along. I had no idea that they like water..

While the East Coast is enjoying freezing ten-degree weather, the days here at Stanford are beautiful, sunny, warm, and the wildflowers are blooming already. Strangely, it rains at night, but it's all gone by daytime. These are all pictures that I've taken in the past two days:


White cherry blossoms outside of Crothers:


Random tulip:


Big pink roses outside of Rains Houses:


More cherry blossoms. I find them the most difficult to photograph because there are simply so many individual blossoms:


And finally, some kind of wildflower. If you know what it is, please tell me.


Contrary to what some people think, I do not only use my camera for voyeuristic purposes.

I went hiking in the Hollywood Hills today.. the day after a rain, such as today, is always the best day to go because LA's hazy skies temporarily clear up. The weather was still a bit miserable, but it's the skies that count.

From the higher trails, you get a clear view of the Griffith Observatory and Downtown. As you climb higher and higher, successively more of the horizon gets revealed..


These rays of light looked even more dramatic in person, but for some reason, they doesn't turn out well on cameras..


This is typical of the scenery near the bottom of the hiking trail.


I go back to Palo Alto in two days..! I'm not ready for finals!