There have been some stunning sunsets in the past couple weeks.. I just wanted to share. I should really be asleep right now, because tomorrow I'm riding up with my co-clerk, Sameer, to the Bay Area to spend the weekend..

The seasonal Santa Ana winds are blowing right now, making for a nice airy evening up here in the hills. It's another Red Flag Day, too, so we have to park all our cars on the other side of the street in case fire trucks want to come up. A lot of smoke and fire on the horizon..fires in Malibu and the Valley, I hear. But all we got here was a beautiful sunset.

I realize I haven't posted much about my life lately, or anything else besides football really The problem is that I haven't felt the need to. Work is going great, the hours are reasonable, my weekends are entirely free.. And my life is sort of boring. I've gone out twice in the last five weeks, and both times were law student mixers (lame, I know). I also joined a choir at my church, St. Bridget's in Chinatown. That's about it.

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.

I got a new phone about two weeks ago to replace my ailing LG 4500: the LG vx8600 "Chocolate" flip phone. So far, I have nothing but good things to say about this little gem.

The vx8600 is slimmer, lighter, and far more stylish than my old phone. I feel the need to polish it every few hours to remove the fingerprints that accumulate on its lustrous black finish. That aside, however, the phone is extremely well-designed, and its interface is intuitive enough that I didn't have to constantly consult the manual. Great battery life, great reception and call quality, including good "feedback" to your earpiece when you're talking, so you don't yell too loud at the person on the other side of the line. It does everything my old phone does, as well or better.

The most fun features of the phone are (a) the 1-megapixel digital camera and (b) Bluetooth:

(a) I have always thought having a phone on a camera was a dumb idea, but it actually has its place. I'm not going to bring my Canon PowerShot A610 (a trusty companion which I affectionally call "The Brick") everywhere I go, but I will almost always have my phone on me. The vx8600's pictures are crisp and well-exposed. It certainly outperforms the 1-megapixel Olympus brio D-150 I had back in 2002 (a good camera in its day, and the first digicam I ever owned!)

(b) Verizon's finally got it right with the Bluetooth connectivity on this phone. (For years, they crippled Bluetooth functionality in their phones, blaming it on their contractual obligations with pathetic content provider Get It Now -- even on their RAZR models.) I can painlessly transfer pictures I've taken with the vx8600 to my Mac. I can also push address cards back and forth. No proprietary $30 USB cable needed!

I've even started a Flickr picture set dedicated to my spur-of-the-moment cameraphone pictures.

Finally, I couldn't beat the price -- $30 along with a two-year contract renewal. Yes, I know it's a Faustian bargain. No, I don't care.

I've been pretty busy as of late -- so like I always do when I'm busy, I post pictures rather than write about something substantive or meaningful. This was a trip that O'Melveny took me on back in June -- to the beautiful, renovated Getty Villa. I was fascinated not so much by the antiquities collection as by the architecture, the gardens, and the statues with their lifelike eyes painted on dark metal..

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! )

Well, my new camera arrived in record time. It's a hefty brick, bigger than any digital camera I've ever owned. But it's incredibly versatile, with a prosumer-quality lens, a 4x (yes, 4x) optical zoom and a great manual mode. It's also got this great flip-out LCD screen that lets you see exactly where you're pointing the camera from a variety of angles:


(bet you can't take a self-portrait like this with your regular old digicam!)
I know that last year I called my Canon SD 300 "the ideal mini-digital camera." And I have been pretty happy with it. Took over 3,000 shots with it in about ten months. However, this definitely feels like an upgrade (same Canon technology, etc.) even though it is significantly cheaper than the SD 300 model. I do miss the tiny size, though.

This is a picture that my friend Philip Guo took. He is a cool guy I met on my trip to China. He's also an awesome photographer who's been at it way longer than I have.



In any case, I think this picture really captures me in the moment of framing my shot. I don't think anyone's bothered to take a picture of me taking a picture before. Compare that with the picture I ended up posting on Flickr.

Yes, I have finally posted pictures from the first three cities on my China trip -- Guangzhou, Guilin, and Kunming. Enjoy..

Guilin:

(click me!)

Kunming:

(click me!)

And yes, it was beautiful like that every day and everywhere I went. Check out my pictures, already.

Hong Kong pictures will be up soon. Like, tomorrow.

This is my current digital camera, and it rocks. Since I got it two months ago, I have snapped the shutter over a thousand times. (okay, the count's up to 1,300 now.) Though I don't actually keep every picture or movie that I take, the fact that I've captured so many shots in such a short time is testament to the SD 300's awesome capabilities.

In comparison, my past three digital cameras were all Olympus models which were quite serviceable and took great exposures, but all had problems with performance, namely startup time, shutter lag, and shutter speed -- all irritating little niggles for me. I have no complaints whatsoever, however, about the SD 300. It's ready to shoot as soon as the lens extends, and its 2nd-generation DIGIC II processor is amazing at setting extremely accurate exposure & focus and on the fly. In scenes with harsh contrast, it can hold onto highlights I wouldn't expect from other digicams. My favorite feature is the burst mode -- it really can take over two shots a second until the memory card fills up!

Notably, the SD 300 performs well in basically all areas that are important to me. The biggest complaint I had about the Olympus Stylus 410 was that its indoor, flash-off performance was atrocious, yet with the flash on, pictures came out terribly grainy and underexposed. This camera has neither of those problems. And instead of having to deal with a indoor shutter speed of 1/2 second, making it virtually useless for capturing people, I can regularly get shutter speeds of 1/8, 1/15, or higher without compromising image quality -- great for family gatherings. (I think the problem with the Olympus was its reluctance to boost the ISO setting. Grr...)

Oh and my last piece of praise is that the SD 300 is that it is so incredibly SMALL. Literally, it is the size and weight of a deck of cards. I thought the Olympus Stylus was small, but this one is so light, it doesn't slow me down when I'm out jogging, as I can barely feel its weight.

Basically, Canon has managed to engineer a digicam at a great price point, with a great feature set and great portability. I would even venture to say that they have created something that approaches (gasp) the ideal mini-digital camera. Sorry if I am boring anyone with this post, but those who know me understand how important taking good pictures is to me..!

I had my Con Law final today. Studied all day yesterday, and for some reason I was so nervous that I couldn't sleep. But I had nothing to worry about -- the test was simple, straightforward, almost boring. I tried my best, and so I'll land on the curve wherever I land.

There's this guy I know who has this theory that your law school grades are determined before you ever come to law school. He believes that personal differences in analytical and writing style are what really create the grade distribution on exams, and since those qualities are not ones that you can change, there's not much you can do. Of course, this theory seems to sap free will, which is not surprising given that his goal is to go through law school with as least effort as possible.

I feel liberated -- but I shouldn't, because Evidence is on Saturday morning. Nevertheless, I spent about three hours today wandering the far corners of campus, once on a jog before dinner and again on a stroll afterwards, to catch a beautiful the sunset. There are just so many sights to see around campus, and every time it seems I am discovering something new.




( Some more pictures I took today )

The rest are on my flickr site, just click "Eric's Page" on my journal's title bar.

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.

This is my room. After they moved out the extra bed and desk, I moved in some furniture of my own, courtesy of the basement lounge.


This is Scary the Cat. He sometimes hangs out in the library downstairs in Crothers. He is a generally mean and unpleasant cat; click here for a closeup.

I'm back from break and had my first day of classes today. So far, besides the mandatory Constitutional Law, Property, and LRW classes I think I will be taking Greely's Law and the Biosciences seminar and Fisher's Evidence class, if I can get into the latter tomorrow. The class "shopping" period here seems pretty low key, compared to what I've heard about the process at other places, notably Harvard. (And my "shopping" at UCLA was pretty minimal.)

In other news, I got the externship with Judge Otero.. I am relieved and happy. The judge called me the day after the interview to tell me he had decided whom to hire. I'm looking forward to maybe 12 weeks of work, and maybe three weeks off...

Here is a picture of where I'll be working, the Federal Courthouse on Spring and Temple in downtown. The chambers and the courtroom are fancy, new, and technologically advanced. It will be a fun place to work..


And just because I like random pictures of gritty and meaningless urban landscapes:


In other news, Crothers smells horrible tonight. Apparently a skunk got into the central heating system or something (the building's biggest weakness) and the odor spread far and wide on every level. Imagine the worst skunk odor ever. Now imagine it in an enclosed space that just happens to be warmed to 90 degrees by an enormous heating system. Now you know how it's like to live in Crothers. Even when there's no skunk, the bathrooms smell just as bad because the normal stench of crap is amplified by the heaters that happen to just be conveniently placed in there. But I'm done bitchin'...

I feel so guilty about not studying hard for this Contracts test. But it's like, my duty to my classmates to pad the bottom of the curve, since it doesn't matter what grade I get as long as I pass. It's like, an unspoken rule among the first year class, that if you are taking a class pass/no pass, to help everyone else out in this manner. Besides, if you get a 4.0 in that class, it doesn't count and you'll be kicking yourself in the butt.

So instead of cramming, I spent the day doing other, fun things. I met up with my college room mate Sendhil for the first time in a long time and we had Indian food in Sunnyvale.. quaint little downtown. I read the second scripture reading at the Catholic service at Memorial Church. I also developed my last two rolls of film.

This time, I tried out Ilford Delta 100 film, instead of my usual Kodak 100 TMax. I think I might keep using this film -- the grain is incredible, plus after I developed it today, and tried scanning a few frames, I realized that my stupid USB film scanner is actually calibrated for the Ilford type of film, so the details come out like they should, much clearer than the details when I try to scan the Kodak film.

Anyhow, these are the first rolls I've developed after getting my 35-105mm Tokina telephoto lens. It doesn't have a lot of f-stops, but it's pretty versatile.

This is a close-up picture of my dad. I was able to focus only on his face, leaving Downtown blurry in the background. I really like this shot.


This is the roof of one of the unfinished houses next door. This zoom lens really lets me get in close (although I'll admit, yes, I had to go inside the structure and climb a bunch of stairs, too.)

Yesterday morning I went to Samy's Camera to get a cheap memory card for my uncle. I like that place.. it's huge and if it has something to do with cameras, they can probably handle it. Since I was there, I stopped by the repair counter and asked a guy about the viewfinder on my film SLR, which had funny black marks on it that wouldn't come off. Instead of quoting me a repair price of $100+ like the other camera store I visited, the guy calmly removed the lens, pulled out a q-tip and some cleaning fluid and got the gunk all off of the viewfinder glass. He told me the foam padding was so old it was disintegrating (that was the black gunk), and replaced that for me, too. And didn't charge me anything.. how nice.

Last night I went out for my first New Year's party ever (well, first ever that wasn't spent with family.) It was "Mystique" at the Henry Fonda, and it was the most fun on a night out that I've had in years (which admittedly isn't a terribly high bar to pass). I went with one of my friends, my sister and her friends... heck, it was fun even to drive around while looking for parking and looking at the other parties happening on Hollywood Blvd. There was a good vibe... I think it's actually quite fun to be buzzed right when midnight rolls around. Also, it was interesting that the average age was more around 25-30 rather than the usual college age crowd one sees at parties.

The DJ last night was Jimmy Kim. I used to listen to him every Saturday night spinning for KIIS FM when I was in high school, and I thought he was awesome. This night, the music was okay, but I noticed he is still playing the same sort of tracks and sequences - nothing exciting or adventurous, nothing has changed. I'm a bit disappointed in that. Anyway, I just think it's hard to find decent music at a club in LA (given that 95% of DJ's are going to play the same old hip hop club standards), let alone some of the good stuff like trance or electronica.

I have finals in slightly over 48 hours... gosh i'm just not prepared.. and I have a flight in ten.