Author Archives: kreptonic

me, my dad, and the movies

It is a bit crazy to believe it’s been a year. My family and I visited Dad today and while there we began recounting stories of my dad. It got me thinking about my favorite memories.

My father and I shared a special bond through movies. Through the years, some of my favorite memories were watching movies alongside my dad. We watched a lot of movies together…a lot. We often shared the same tastes or perhaps he secretly passed his tastes to me. Here are some of my most memorable times with my dad & the movies.

Jurassic Park

My most vivid theater experience to this day. It was 1993, I had finished 3rd grade and on the last day of school my dad picked me up from school and took me to see Jurassic Park on opening day. I loved the idea because what kid doesn’t like dinosaurs and this was my first PG-13 movie!

We were a bit late and wandered in the theater after the lights had gone out so we couldn’t find seats. Somehow we sat down on some stairs (Century 22 in San Jose) and just stayed there the rest of the movie. The movie…freaked me out! I was thoroughly spooked 30 minutes in the movie.  I hated it! I thought I could brave through it but I think my dad got the gist through my constant clutching, grabbing, and seizing throughout the movie. This was not how I expected this movie to go.

Finally there was the scene where the kids got trapped in the kitchen with the raptors outside and the kitchen door handle slowly turned just proved too much. I grabbed my dad and said, “We gotta go.” My dad looked at me and we both left right then. I still haven’t really finished that movie to this day and my dad never brought it up again.

I have a date with spring (我和春天有個約會)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In6FCl8Ojpk&t=12s

My dad’s favorite movie of all time. As a family, we’ve watched this dozens of times and each year for the past decade, it became a ritual of sorts to watch this. A story of 4 girls who share a bond of friendship within the context of HK’s glory days in music nightclubs. This movie gave us a glimpse of the era my parents grew up in. They were tougher times but the story resonates today. We’d all get teary eyed every time we watch it. Every single time, still do. Over the years this move has become a favorite of my sister and mine as well.

Big Fish & Frequency

These two weren’t our favorites, but I loved to watch father/son movies with dad. It became our way of communicating to one another. We weren’t really the expressive types but these movies were a conduit for my dad and I to communicate. It was an unspoken confirmation at the end of the movie that the indestructible bond of the father/son combo had was what we had as well. We watched a lot of movies together, but these two I distinctly remember. I think he knew what I was trying to say.

He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father (新難兄難弟)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RApEEk6Gk2s

Along the lines of father/son movies, this was a movie my dad specifically asked me to watch with him. I was surprised because he wasn’t typically the one to suggest movies. On the cover, it’s a movie starring both of HK’s Tony Leung’s and both are comedic geniuses and favorite actors of my dad and I. The movie’s filled with slapstick and off-tilt humor that my dad loved.

This movie was special. It focused on a misunderstood relationship between father and son, a son who cannot understand his father’s ways and a father who struggled to explain to his son. A bizarre event (suspended reality here) causes the son to travel back in time to meet his younger father. Through various ordeals the son begins to see what shapes his father and why his dad is the way he is. It’s a touching story and there’s a saying from the movie that my dad repeated quite a bit after we watched this together.

“我為人人，人人為我!”

Loosely translated it’s, “I have everyone’s best interest in mind, everyone has mine”. It’s a selfless saying that embodies the idea of community. In life, my dad loved his community of friends and they in turn have loved us through these tough last few years.

It seems like most father/son relationships have a phase where the son can’t quite see things the way the dad does. During a particular rough patch in my relationship with my dad early in high school, my dad once quoted Mark Twain,

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

It’s funny how true this became. Thankfully our relationship improved over the years as we’d come to understand and appreciate each other’s quirks and ways. This movie helped shed light on my youthful arrogance, and like Tony Leung in the movie, see things a bit through my dad’s perspective. How I wish he were still here today for so many of the questions that I have.

If you’ve made it this far and it’s within your power…please, go enjoy a movie with your dad and cherish it.

I took the road more traveled…and i got out

Temecula Big Horse Corn Maze

I like mazes; like building them, like going through them. For ~5 years I had the opportunity to help construct a crawl maze each year at our church’s harvest festival, so mazes just appeal to me a lot. A few weeks ago, I saw a link to an articled titled “Family lost in corn maze calls 911” had me pretty intrigued. A group of us were able to check out a corn maze up in Temecula on Saturday and it was a pretty cool experience. As with most things in life, it’s the people you go with that make the experience so big thanks to everyone who came out and made it enjoyable!

“Contemplative in a corn field” (photo by J.Yee)

The maze is open in the afternoon on weekdays and 10am – 4pm on weekends. Since it appears to be a mom and pop operation it make senses that it doesn’t open too late. The clientele that would enjoy late night mazes are probably not the ideal customers they’re targeting. The prospect of doing this maze at night would be a lot of fun though.

The corn height for most of the maze is ~7 ft tall. The 2nd picture isn’t reprepresentative of the entire maze, just a small corner. If need be you can always squirm through the stalks, unless you’re on the much larger side. Corn can’t be grown that densely together.

The whole operation is geared towards kids and so thats a huge caveat right there. This isn’t a really difficult maze. The map on the left shows this year’s layout but you’ll see that though there seems to be a lot of different ways around, there aren’t too many dead ends or tricks.

There are various check points throughout the maze so that makes it easier to know you are progressing correctly through the maze (the #’s to the left aren’t exact but generalized from memory).

Our group was ~15 people (all adults) so that helped us figure out a lot of the layout quite rapidly. At various forks in the road we’d split off into two groups and find ourselves at the same point later in line. I could imagine that if we’d gone in pairs we’d have a harder time.

That being said, I had quite a difficult time around #3. We ran into the same checkpoint a good 4-5 times and for a second there I was pretty happy this maze did pose a bit of challenge. Some in our group finished in 15-20 minutes and others finished in ~30+ minutes.

The layout changes each year so there’s reason to come back next year.

Recommendations for maximum enjoyment:

  1. Go in the morning: We got there around 10:30am and there was no wait but by the time we left around noon there was quite a line waiting to get in. The temperature rises pretty quickly from morning to afternoon too so we had a much more enjoyable time.
  2. small group size: separate your group and send people in pairs at a time or 3-4 at a time in 5-10 min intervals. It’s much more difficult than having one large group and having everyone spread out at distinct forks.
  3. There is an option to go through the maze with a map. A lot of parents with young children or strollers do this option. Don’t follow them and try to either pass them early or let them go ahead of you a good few minutes. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of the game when you follow someone with the answers.
  4. It might be fun to try a portion of the maze blind folded. Start off as a pair and have one person blindfolded until they hit the checkpoint at which time the other person would be blindfolded. The other person could help out when there are other people to avoid. There’s a lot of external queues to which part of the maze you should be heading because you can hear traffic on one side and see a pumpkin patch on another edge.

www.bighorsecornmaze.com

**Updated**

A.Jang sent me a link to a Norcal corn maze that’s apparently a world record breaker at 45 acres (Temecula’s was only 12)! Check it out if you’re around Dixon/Davis area. Thanks AJ!  [link]

A study in film: Lover’s Discourse

Last week I stumbled on this gem in the midst of a HK film binge. I’m unfamiliar with the director but it seems like this is his debut feature film, and it is exciting to see this kind of quality come from HK. I immediately gravitated towards the camera work and presentation and there were a few scenes that really stood out to me and I’m going to use this space to keep a mental note for myself and for you. Don’t be surprised if you see these elements pop up in future video projects.

I won’t go too into detail of the synopsis, which you can read here. The film’s central focus is a look at love in all manners and particularly how imperfect it is. Viewers expecting action and Donnie Yen will be severely disappointed.

Chapter 1: Eason Chan and Karena Lam

The first thing that stuck out to me about this film was its soft opening. So many HK films today open with a bang, a highly charged scene with crisp colors, booming music, fast action, and a desperate grab for the viewer’s attention. Perhaps thats because most HK films I watch these days are action style films. This film starts much more subtly and the first story focuses squarely on a dynamic acting pair.

In this scene, Eason and Karena’s characters are conversing at the corner of a pub. Up to this point it’s been a fairly normal date, they meet up and walk around aimlessly before settling on a place to hang out. It starts out pretty lighthearted. Then in these following minutes starting at 8:31, the scene switches between two perspectives exclusively. Back and forth, back and forth the frames switch until 10:45 when the conversation is broken up by a phone call.

For more than two minutes only 2 perspectives are used and in it reveals not one unified storyline but two bifurcated relationships. The body language and camera are telling the viewer two very different tales. They shouldn’t be on this date, they each belong to someone else. Rule of thirds dominate this scene.

discourse_story 1link to scene

Chapter 2: Kay Tse

This chapter of the movie evoked strong memories of Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express. This part of the film gets more artsy. Funnily enough, with all the transitions, filters, and lighting effects, it was this following scene that had me replaying it over and over again.

In this following sequence Kay Tse (who btw…is gorgeous) is walking across town to purchase something with the coins she’s picked up from the laundry mat. In a few seconds and 5 quick shots, the viewer sees her traverse HK’s varied urban landscape. It’s lovely, incredibly eye catching, and telling, all in such a short sequence. No video transitions & no fades.

discourse_story 2link to scene

Chapter 3: Jacky Cho & Mavis Fan

this scene totally caught my by surprise. In part because I never expected a movie could get away with it, but also because of how captured I still was. It sounds dumb, but in the context of this movie it was incredible.

a guy and a girl converse online (by the sounds it might be AIM) about their partners. Initially it’s paired with suspenseful and haunting music but after a while the scene consists soley of a shot of the girl/guy, text, typing sound effects, and the ding that comes from a sent/received message. That’s all. It is so ridiculously simple but somehow the director made it work…at least for me. I could see it boring the brains out of someone else.

The camera movement in this chapter is significantly jerkier than the previous two chapters and it contributes to the uneasiness in these scenes. I’ll have to rewatch again to validate this.

discourse_story 3link to scene

This movie uses many techinques such as light flares, light transitions, rule of thirds, bokeh effects. In fact, I’m guessing this film was filmed with some type of DSLR. You’ll notice in each chapter a different color grading scheme was used and it helped convey the mood of the chapter. In chapter 1 it was warm, orange tones, as two lovers converse. In chapter 2 it’s vibrant colors with a blur that indicate hope and love in a youthful manner. Chapter 3 had dark, cool tones, heavily blue/green oriented that conveyed coldness and conflict.

Perhaps the reason this movie captured my interest so intensely was due to the fact that so much of the presentation of this video is achievable. No fancy graphics, no blatant high rise rigs, camera cranes, no large light fixtures…it’s doable! There’s much to admire in this film for an amateur videographer.

I also appreciate that this film showed me that even though I could replicate this film scene for scene, the end product would be so drastically different. The quality of actors and their performances, the extreme ease of dialogue, and the soundtrack all come together to make this an awesome collaboration. If this is the beginning of a turning point in HK cinema, I’m excited for what the future holds!

—–

*The links at the bottom of each scene direct to a youtube of the video in cantonese with chinese subtitles. If you understand either, feel free to enjoy the movie!

House of Blues: David Crowder Band & more

Gungor

The original plan was to go to a Clara C concert over at Lestat’s cafe but that changed around 3:30pm. Got a message from a friend asking if I’d like to go check out David Crowder Band (DCB), Gungor, and John Mark Macmillan.

I’ve long been a member of the “why go to a concert when the CD is better?”camp. Not sure why I still decided to check DCB out live but in retrospect I’m really glad I did. This was the last tour for the band before they’ll release their 7th and final album. Many of their songs are sung in congregations across the nation, including hits like “How He Loves“, “O Praise Him“, “No One Like You”. The amazing part is that the whole feel of the concert did feel like a gathering of old friends.

Crowder has such an accomplished stage presence and the band’s banter was so effortless and cohesive. I expected them to share a little more about themselves but I guess they figured everyone in the audience already knew their back story and so they cut out the small talk and blasted through a flurry of songs. It wasn’t until the encore that they began sharing a little bit of their history.

A few students out of Waco, Texas attending Baylor were leading worship around the area. It was a small conversation with a fresh seminary student by the name of Louie Giglio that encouraged them to form a band and record a CD. That EP would find its way towards a youth ministry worker in San Diego and the ministry worker later invited them out to SD to play. It was their first gig outside of Texas and the beginning of a journey that would last over one and half a decades. Amazing stuff.

David Crowder Band with Gungor and John Mark Macmillan

Meeting Gungor’s Kevin Olusola. Also on Pentatonix from the Sing Off! (photo stolen from A. Kong)

Air Alert: Week 6 Update

standing reach = ~ 90.25 inches.
jumping reach = 119 inches.
vertical = ~29 inches.

3 more weeks and only 0.5 inches in improvement?! Time to step it up! No more horse play.

I figure if I want to dunk cleanly I’ll need to hit 10’10” (130inches). only 11 inches to go. On the other hand, observing a noticeable spring in my first step again so that’s been helpful while playing basketball.

C.Yih recommended the following videos for stretching and I like them, as I think they’ll offset some of the muscle, skeletal, and lumbar stress I’m experiencing. Thanks C!

www.mobilitywod.com

Air Alert: Week 3 Update

Air Alert: Week 3 Update

Taking on all challengers. I’ve been fairly lackadaisical in my training and thought maybe a challenger will help me get going. Today my standing reach is ~90.25 inches and my vertical at week 3 of my air alert training is 118.5 inches…giving me a rough vertical of 28.5 inches. Yup not much. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a reading at t=0 so I don’t have a true baseline. Oh well.

I took a step before my jump, you can have a running start if you’d like just keep your approach consistent while tracking from week to week. If you wore shoes in week 1, use shoes ever week to test…and so on. You can use whatever training program you’d like; strength training, air alert, jump soles, polymetrics, whatever. Just be safe, do not over train, and in 10 weeks let’s see where we can get!

Leave me your standing and vertical jump and give me an update from time to time. Let’s see what you got!

**edit**

first responders!

C.Yih:

  • standing reach = 8’0″ or 96 inches.
  • jumping reach = 118 inches.
  • vertical = 22 inches.
  • methodology of training: crossfit

J.Wu:

  • standing reach =7’6.25″ or 90.25 inches
  • jumping reach = 116 inches
  • vertical = 25.75 inches
all measurements +/- 1 inch

Move over Biogen Idec, here comes Illumina!

IMG_7535

We’re moving! New buildings, new desks, new cafe, smaller gym (to be remedied) by the end of the year. Fun times.

Softball ILMN season ended a little quietly, a few weeks ago. Our team did pretty well and definitely peaked at the right time, winning our first preseason game against Sekisui Diagnostics.
Last year I learned how to play right field, and this year they had me playing left field, center field, and short stop at different times. Lowlight of the season was hitting my own pitcher twice in one game. He promptly quit pitching and my punishment was pitching for the rest of the season. I tell ya, pitching to people who hit right up the middle is a pretty frightening thing!

Unfortunately we ran into a superior fellow illumina team the next week. They ended up winning it all, beating fellow rivals Trilink and Quidel. Working with young and extremely athletic coworkers is a nice hidden bonus. Keeps the pounds off I guess.

Been starting air alert again. one of my coworkers has been doing Spartacus workouts for the past few months and gained enough inches to dunk quite comfortably now. Granted he’s ~6’4″-6’6″ but still, got me itching to get back into it. Will post updates on how that progresses.

Move over Biogen Idec, here comes Illumina! Move over Biogen Idec, here comes Illumina!