America: Southland

I've been back for a few weeks from the major cross country trip that I took with my good friend (Mie.) We managed to hear some fierce ghost stories, see some great friends, and unbelievable scenery. We were very lucky to be able to take this voyage. Here's my attempts at capturing a slice of it through Instagram.

6:30 AM Driveway, Virginia: Cleaned the snakes, mice, spiders and mildew out of the car. Only about 3000 miles until our destination.

10 AM Asheville, North Carolina: I've been in the melting pot of Los Angeles for a while now; diversity of people is an afterthought. Maybe that's what struck me most about Asheville. I've always heard about how wonderfully progressive and forward thinking the city is, and maybe it is, but man it was homogeneous.

3:12 PM Ocoee River, NC/Tennessee border: Some Olympic signs pointed us to the river, so we checked it out. Feeling like a spider on a shower curtain. There was a bridge right over a stretch of churning rapids. We could see white water rafting crews setting off way up river, so we got a closeup as they navigated the rapids. I was mesmerized by the looks on their faces, some terror, some pure elation. I was snapping away, which led to capturing this crew and their major wipe out.

4:34 PM Bellefonte Nuclear Generating Station, Alabama: I cannot get behind nuclear power. Even after hours of discussion and attempted persuasion. I get it, you get a lot of bang for your buck. But the bang is practically infinite when there's a fallout. I have a hard time believing, with all of the inspired minds in the world, that clean energy on a massive scale is impossible. More than innovation, I have a feeling big money is the road block.

A little i102fly on the side of the road. I want to build a crazy flying machine.

7:05 PM Huntsville, Alabama: Cicadas everywhere. They were so loud when we pulled into a residential street that it drowned out our stereo CD Cicada Sounds Vol. 1.

11:12 AM Crystal Caves: Alabama: Had no idea that Alabama had caves, much less these magical sets. The tour was nice and relaxed too. They turned the lights out and for a minute we were praying this was not Deliverance Pt 2. We were able to walk back at our own leisure, enjoying the caves in solitude, definitely the way to go.

The entrance they say is the largest natural cave opening in the US, so batman has these gates to keep vandals out at night.

The Bayou, Mississippi: This is where the alligator comes out of the water and takes your camera. The sun sets on the swamps. I've listened to too much CCR, I love the bayou and the Creole slice of life.We passed through Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Biloxi, Miss: We drove through the gulf cities and saw many concrete slabs where houses used to be. I think this line on the building is where the water was.

8:54 PM Lake Pontchartrain, LA: This isolated mammoth storm descended on us as we were crossing the long bridge into New Orleans. Only blurry red lights all around us. I just kept having irrational visions of the water rising from either side, so I stayed in the middle lane, like that would help.

10:21 AM New Orleans, Louisiana: Garden District. The prettiest city in the US.

11:38 AM Lafayette Cemetery, New Orleans: Old but not that old ~ some graves from 1960s & 70s

1:21 PM / St Louis Cemetery No1, New Orleans: The statute where acidic Peter Fonda confesses all of his mother issues in Easy Rider. They had to film illegally, because the Catholic church forbids (or forbid, don't know if they still do) filming in their cemeteries. Movies with New Orleans cemeteries always used Protestant ones like Lafayette. This one was especially creepy because it is much older and holds the supposed tomb of a voodoo witch that is all marked up with ritualistic xes. I'm superstitious so I didn't take any photos.

6: 52 PM French Quarter, New Orleans: This is supposed to be the most haunted house in the US. A sadistic society lady brutally tortured her servants until one found a way of burning down the house. Looks like real estate office now. Spook factor is low, but I don't think I'd go inside. Fun .. or weird fact: Nicholas Cage owned it and just recently sold it. What do you want with this place, Cage?

8:05 PM Garden District, Louisiana: A haunted guest house, formerly an orphanage in the 1860s when orphanages were called Asylums.

8:15 PM Garden District, Louisiana: I was taking some slow exposures of the hallway when one of the managers walked by. He asked what I was doing, so I explained that I was a paranormal investigator. See any orbs? Anyway he told everyone in the hotel and later that night I had a line of people giving me testimonies. One woman said she had a demon chasing her, but she locked it in her old trailer. I didn't sleep at all that night.

6:23 PM Shreveport, Louisiana: I was disappointed by the food in New Orleans. I think I was trying too hard to find the best Cajun possible and kept striking out. Anyway, we were redeemed in the last Louisiana town before Texas. Two huge plates of oyster (for Mie), frog legs, blackened catfish, and étouffée. My last meal might be here.

Hank

Just wishing I had a dog

In the country, dogs run free. This one started hanging out at my parents house so much that they kind of adopted him (give him a bowl of food.) 

Immediately I was trying to figure out how to smuggle him back to California. Look at him. Is he not the coolest dog? His name is Hank. He can run up to 35 mph. He likes to run beside the car when he's in the mood. All of our other dogs have sadly been hit by cars. He's smart enough to run beside cars and not try to wrangle them. It's actually an incredible sight, sitting in the car seat and watching him run beside you at full pace, howling like crazy. 

Succulent Wrap Shoot

Photography: i102fly 
Flower Architecture: i102fly
Model: Mie Moon

I've been shooting a lot of my art pieces for my new website.

This piece is a wrap around vest using a lot of real succulents. I'm a big fan of the succulent, not only does it look alien and exist in so many varieties of other-worldly-craziness, but I can't kill it. So for its fortitude, I have respect. 

More photos coming on the new website.

The Beautiful State of California

I've neglected my blog here. Mostly because I've been on the road nonstop for about two months. On the first leg, I took off north to meet my brother in San Francisco, from which point, we embarked an epic journey around California. We put about a thousand miles on my trusty old car, met some wild and fascinating people, slept a couple hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean on a cliff, squeezed into the awe-inspiring Yosemite Valley before fires and the government threatened to take it away. It was good times hanging with my little brother. It has been millennia, life-times, since we have done anything other than Xmas shop together. So I can verify now that he's still the best hermanito around.

 Pigeon Point, just above Santa Cruz

 Making way through the ice plants

 HWY 1, the most beautiful drive in the country? 

 Talking with Luci about activism, Berkeley, her life in Ethiopia and African dictators at 1am

 Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park whereby a waterfall spouts out of nowhere and lands on the sand

Cyprus Trees around the Pebble Beach peninsula. Cropping out D.Trump's annoying Lamborghini 

 hwy 395, my car made it through the mountain pass

Bouldering with a verngence, look at all of those holds

 

 Mono Lake mineral sculptures 

The patron of climbing, Jimbo. 

It really looks like this

this also really happened

someday I will climb one of these big walls

ReDiscover Tinkering School

ReDiscover is a non-profit that collects discarded items from business and the community and use it to make art! So all of the oddball trash like old CD cases and plastic tubing that would be wasting away in a landfill is "rediscovered" at their studio space and in classrooms all over Los Angeles. Teachers can come collect items to use in their lessons and ReDiscover hosts all kinds of workshops and camps for kids.

This summer I was an instructor for their Tinkering School. TS is based on the work of Gever Tulley. Since speaking (several times) at TED, Tinkering Schools have been popping up all over the country. Tulley's philosophy of playing and experimenting in order to learn is already part of the ReDiscover ethos, we just had to have faith (and consent from parents) to let them "play" with the power tools.

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Smiling faces! One little girl was totally engulfed in a project and needed some help. She was dancing around really erratically as I helped her. I thought wow this girl has a lot of energy. But then as I saw that dance again and again during the week, I came to identify it as "I really have to go to the bathroom, but I'm having so much fun, I don't want to stop what I'm doing!"

The big chop saw

The younger kids built this playground with monkey bars, ladder, rope bridge, and a tower. By the end they knew how to use the power drills like they were pencils.

ReDiscover gets a lot of old office hardware donated. One of our favorite activities is to take it all apart and figure out how it all fits together and which pieces do what. While we were unscrewing a desktop computer tower, one of the kids randomly yelled, "This is the best camp ever!" So funny. I understand, I get great pleasure out of dismantling tech equipment, although sometimes it can be so emotional you have to bypass the screwdrivers like this.

She was really intent on identifying everything in the old VCR. Smart kids!

As a design challenge the kids made their own harmonographs! Figuring out how and where the pendulums of the paper and pen would meet, the projects all had inventive arms and levers. As a finale, we watched as the machines made mathematical art.

Making designs for their own big build playground. The boys eventually convinced everyone that it should not be a playground, but a dangerous gauntlet style obstacle course (which was explained as essentially a playground in a straight line, haha)

Learning how to measure

These kids made a climbing wall + ladder that was secured with gigantic drill holes and bolts.

The obstacle course coming together

Our volunteer Brian brought out his engineering muscles to help the kids devise their own brand of merry-go-round. Also stripped of its play status, it was dubbed the "Spiny Thing of Doom."

They used a donated carpet tube filled with 2x4s anchored to the ceiling and floor, wheels from a couple of furniture dollies, and plywood.

Until next summer!

life on the rocks lately

Well guys, I've been rock climbing now for about 8 months. It's something I've wanted to do since I was small, but watching people at Yosemite, I just didn't have the foggy to know where to start. The masses of ropes and clips and hardware were like looking at computer wiring, and I was the only clueless person around who wanted to unravel it. Fortunately in the last year some friends have joined me on this venture, now we actually have something of a climbing crew. Once I started going to the rock gym, I realized there are plenty of people looking for other climbers to pair up with, I should've been at this a long time ago.

I remember hiking here years ago and being so envious of the climbers on the wall. People always ask, why do you climb, what's so great about it, it seems so unnatural. Well, I'm not trying to convince anyone, because it is certainly not for everyone; just like water sports are great, but certainly not for me. I will say for myself that climbing is like a gigantic physical puzzle, and I've always loved puzzles.

I could go on, maybe I will some time on this blog. I've noticed so many benefits like a whole new appreciation for my hands.

I admit I really like knowing what all of the carabiners, slings, and whatnots do, it is like knowing another language, albeit an expensive one, and one you bet your life on. Like the language used in a hostage situation, deliberate, methodical, extremely thought out.

Repelling is still fun because I haven't had any bad falls yet, knock on rock.

Our patrons of the rope. Trash talking required.

The sunsets and the supermoon emerges.

What to Bring to Kilimanjaro / check list

When I was leaving for the trek, I didn't know what to bring and I looked all over for some advice and only found snippets here and there. So I thought I'd post what I took for anyone considering doing this fantastic voyage. Everything I've noted (aside from the fuzzy scarf) were things that I used. I would bring this exact list if I went again.

Kilimanjaro Trek from polyvore

1 - Camping gear -  Expedition Sleeping Bag (We had old down ones that actually worked fine. Though it gets below freezing at night, so make sure they are at least down.) /  Large Duffel (On typical KMJ expeditions, you separate your stuff into day pack and camp. Your sleeping bag, thermal stuff and high-altitude gear goes into the duffel and the porters carry it from camp to camp. It's kind of lame as far as self-sufficiency goes, but it's part of the structure of the mountain's business.) / wipes (No bath for a week, yes. But you can swab off every night with wipes and it is not a problem.) / toilet paper (Have to bring your own TP, take the cardboard holder out and smash them down to save space.) / plastic bags 1 gallon and sandwich (very handy for wet gear, dirty, gear, trash, etc.)

2 - Day Pack -  Traverse 30 Pack  (Make sure your backpack has a waist strap, save your shoulders, and enough room for your day supplies including rain jacket and pants) / camelbak (My friends opted not to bring theirs because water in the tube freezes when you get up on the mountain. For me though, it was one of my best pieces of equipment. I stayed really hydrated the entire time so almost no headaches. It was easy to drink every few steps, rather than having to stop, get out the bottle, unscrew bottle, drink, put it back in pack. You can just walk and drink, I attribute this to my excellent health. Blowing the freezing water back into the warmed tank on your back is not too difficult either. Some people insulated their water tubes.) / Nalgene Water Bottle  (for extra 1.5 - 2 liters per day and boiled water at higher camps. W made insulation cases for the bottles, luckily it wasn't quite that cold.) /  Clif Shot (a couple energy bars) / SPF 50+ Mineral Sunscreen Lotion  (especially on the summit ) / SPF  lip balm  / camera (I highly recommend carrying a point and shoot and not an SLR. I missed a lot of photo opts because I couldn't break out the heavy camera. Luckily we had some P&S and some SLRs in our group, so we got a lot of different pictures and video.)  /  notebook & pen  (The ideas, insights, memories you have once you get down cannot compare at all with your impressions during the climb.) /  Headlamp (For safety, and for the summit morning) / Rain Gear (the weather is so unpredictable, it could rain at any time so need to keep the rain jacket and pants in the daypack) rain jacket (make sure to have a waterproof jacket with a hood.) / rain pants (It's best to have the pants that zip on from the side so you don't have to take off your shoes to put them on, might have to gear up mid-trail.) Kilimanjaro Map (to follow along is fun.) / Hiking poles (the screw to lengthen kind so they pack away easily, they are great for the downhill, but not 100% necessary) / ipod (On the final summit trek, it's really nice to zone out to music while you climb) / deodorant

3 - Day wear - tshirt or tank top (for the hot days, some people had wool light-weight hiking shirts that don't smell as much.) / long sleeve shirt (any light-weight button up) / Mountain Hardwear hiking pants (I seriously lucked out. I got these at a thrift store a week before I left as an alternative to jeans. These pants are magical.They were cool during the early sweltering days of the climb and somehow also warm when we got up to the cold and rainy rocks) / Merrell Waterproof Hiking Boots (be sure to spray waterproof your shoes before you go. There is always a high chance of rain. And break in your shoes so you don't get blisters.) / sunglasses / hat (Really necessary!) / REI wool socks (I asked for wool socks for xmas, so I got a lot of different pairs REI, LLBean, Smartwool, while they all did their job, interestingly the REI brand were the warmest.) / heavy duty scarf  (for dust, sweat, snot, rag, sun-shade, etc) / First aid kit (the guides have one, but it's useful.) / diamox  (note at bottom)

4 - Thermal layer -  Down jacket or vest (I borrowed a friend's vest and it was perfect for keeping warm, but not too hot) /  Patagonia expedition weight pants / Patagonia Women's Merino Midweight shirt / fleece or some kind or hoodie  / scarf  (*This is definitely not necessary, but it's so soft.)

5 - Summit attempt - Patagonia Merino Balaclava / neck warmer / Liner gloves /  The North Face Gloves /  HotHands Hand Warmers Bulk Pack  (I'm always cold; these saved the day. I put them all in my sleeping bag. I put them in my pants and in my jacket. They need oxygen to warm, so they didn't work great in the shoes/ But I was able to put them in my gloves and take them out to change my whole body temperature.

6 - Enjoy Tanzania - Stoney Tangawizi (They have the best ginger ale, wish we had that stuff in the US.)


* Diamox - You will definitely experience some effects from the altitude, most frequently headache. If things get really serious, decreased brain function, disorientation, and edema, be very aware of yourself and your friends. Your best defense is tons of water, eating lots, and listening to your body. Many people take diamox prescribed by a doctor to help prevent altitude sickness. I would say it is very good to have on hand. But contrary to what everyone is saying, you may not need it. I was led to believe that you just can't make it up the mountain without it, but people do it in the Himalaya every day. Don't feel pressured to over medicate. You don't really need to start taking it far in advance. The side effects can be pretty frustrating: knife jabbing sensations in your limbs, numbness, decreased alertness, and frequent bathroom runs. Use it only when symptoms become a major distraction.)