Life in General

Ciudad de México

April 4, 2017

Running a company can get overwhelming at times but running a company with your spouse could arguably make it a little bit more complex. Every now and then, Anthony and I feel the itch to take a quick break and after four years, we realized that this happens about once a quarter. It’s not that we’re trying to get away from something, but just like any other person, it’s really important for us to take time to rebalance ourselves. It refreshes our perspectives, especially regarding things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis. It never hurts to take a step back, take a deep breath, and clear your head.

Q1 for us ended with a bang. There are lots of exciting things happening, we’re constantly evolving, and there are tons of decisions that need to be made for the rest of the year. I could feel the tension rising so I thought it would be nice to plan a trip for us. The catch this time is that Anthony had no idea where we were going. I told him two nights before our departure date and tried to reduce his projected level of nervousness by giving him a packing list. It helped.

Mexico City has been on our bucket list for quite awhile. We’ve been following how it’s evolved and transformed over the years and we were so curious to see what the culture was like there. Suffice to say, it was everything we imagined and more.

The Itinerary

None.

We spent our days wandering and ogling with curiosity. I found myself enjoying being caught up in the moments and environment. I learned each word as I found the need to say it (for example, “mariscos”, because I’m deathly allergy to shellfish). Everything was affordable so budget wasn’t a huge concern—from the flight, lodging, and ground transportation to the food and entertainment. We woke up each morning, checked the weather, planned the day, skirted the rain, walked our butts off, and enjoyed delicious margaritas y comida in between all of that.

Everyone was friendly and helpful; they tried their best to understand our limited Spanish and they all smiled coyly at us while they listened to us butcher their language but needless to say, the entire trip was really, really awesome. I’d go again in a heart beat.

At the end of the trip, we realized 3 nights wasn’t nearly enough. It’s such a vast, dense city that you could probably immerse yourself there for a month and still yearn for more time.

A List of the Things I Learned

As much as I hated to use it, Uber got us safely and quickly (“quick” is used pretty subjectively and contextually here as traffic was everywhere…all the time) around the city. The most expensive fare was to and from the airport, about a 1-hour car ride during traffic (normally 20 minutes), for a mere $7 USD. Our cheapest fare? $1.50.
However, being in a car is not for the faint of heart. Keep in mind that this is one of the most populated cities in the world so don’t expect people to follow traffic rules. There were moments where I had to close my eyes and grip on to Anthony.
Most of the neighborhoods were spread out across the central area. Each neighborhood itself was walkable but to get to the next one, we hopped in an Uber. We weren’t too keen or comfortable crossing really large, busy intersections either, which seemed to be the roads that separated neighborhoods, because of the intense traffic.
We stayed in La Condesa, which I read was like the Greenwich Village or SoHo, NYC of Mexico City. It was beautiful, quiet, tree-lined, and full of art deco architecture. The other neighborhood we really enjoyed (and will probably stay in next) is Roma Norte. Most of the stores, restaurants, and bars we wanted to visit were in Roma Norte and there was a beautiful promenade straight down the middle of the main street.
Most people did not speak English there. Thank goodness for photos and Google Translate.
We have T-Mobile so roaming, data, and calls worked perfectly fine (and it was free).
Yes, it is safe. There were literally polícia everywhere.
On Sundays, they close the roads around the busy areas (and even part of the highway) to cars, allowing the locals to bike and walk down the streets.
The locals (especially the men) don’t normally wear shorts there, regardless of temperature. Shorts were also not allowed to be warn inside of sacred places. Read: wear shorts at your own risk.
An ingredient in “Mexican caviar” is ant larvae. Consider yourself warned.

¡Que tengas un buen día!

A Trip to the PNW

November 9, 2016

Anthony and I recently took some time to go visit Andre in Bend, Oregon. Since we were already up that way, we decided to make a trip out of it. We used to spend a few days in Portland and Seattle here and there, but we’ve never been able to take in the scenery. The entire northwest is amazing. I just couldn’t believe how vibrant Mother Nature could be. I’m glad we were able to witness autumn in all of it’s peaceful serenity

Here are some photo highlights from our trip.

Bend, Oregon

Bend was absolutely breathtaking. I could see why Andre and Rae decided to move there. You’re surrounded by mountains on all sides and it only took 30 minutes to get to the trails, waterfalls, and even snow. And trees. There were so many trees.

Anthony attended the Bend Venture Conference, while I spent working from the hotel room on most days. We were able to spend some extra time on the weekend there, checking out the city and visiting Andre and Rae’s tiny home in Sisters, a nearby town about 20-minutes outside of Bend.

From there, we took off to Portland.

Cannon Beach, Oregon

After we made a 24-hour stop in Portland where we stayed a night in a quaint, quiet AirBnB on the Southeast side, we drove to Cannon Beach because it was a place I’ve always wanted to visit.

Goonies never say die!

We stopped by a coffee shop to get try to take some meetings, and the owner of the coffee shop said “we’re old school hun, we don’t believe in wireless”.

So, we meandered around the small beach town streets and spontaneously decided to stay the night rather than drive into Seattle. Anthony and I booked a hotel room and took a narrow entrance onto the beach.

We ended up at the mouth of a river and watched it run into the ocean. The birds would ride it from the top to the bottom where the water collided, then fly back up to the top just to ride it back down again. We watched them for what felt like an hour. The sun set right in front of us and the brisk wind made the experience all the better.

I wish we allowed ourselves more time to explore the coast, but we had to skedaddle up to Seattle.

Seattle, Washington

We spent only one night in Seattle and made the best of it. We did the usual: walk through Public Market, saw the gum wall, and then decided to do something we’ve never done before: the Seattle Underground Tour. Afterwards, we visited some places we were familiar with, like The Pine Box, and met a friend for dinner and drinks.

The next morning, we turned in our rental car and hopped on an Amtrak to Vancouver, BC.

Vancouver, Canada

We spent the majority of our time during the trip in Vancouver, exploring all of the places on the list that we had put together. Man, it’s a fashionable place (read: everyone wore black). It felt like an amalgamation of San Francisco and Brooklyn.

The Canadian Dollar is currently on the fritz, so for us, it was like every price tag was 25% off. Suffice to say, we did some shopping.

The rest of the time, we briefly walked around Stanley Park, went to the aquarium, ate all of the Asian food, drank some good craft beer, and hung out with our friends on most nights. There were some things that we didn’t get to do, just because we were a little exhausted. For instance, we really wanted to venture outside of the city and drive the Sea to Sky Highway and also visit some suspension bridges. It didn’t work out, but it’s definitely an excuse to go back. Also, for what it’s worth, they didn’t have ridesharing services there but Car2Go saved our butts.

That’s pretty much our PNW trip in a nutshell. I’m also too lazy to write more than this.

Our Home on Domino.com

October 6, 2016

A few months ago, Domino Magazine reposted an image of my letter board on Instagram. I received a message from Alyssa, a Digital Editor at Domino.com, about discovering our #antandnatsplace hashtag. She asked if we had been featured before in a publication, but besides the previous owners being featured in Dwell, we had not. I was freakin’ ecstatic about the opportunity. I’ve been reading Domino magazine for a long time and have always found inspiration in their articles.

She asked if I knew any photographers in Austin that would be willing to take photos of our home. I soon found out that there would be no compensation for photography but there would be credit given to the photographer in the article. I was hesitant to ask someone to do something for free, and I didn’t really want to shell out our own money for it, so I decided to invest in a lens and see what I could do on my own. That’s when I practiced taking interior photos of a friend’s home, which you can see here.

After a few weeks playing with my new Sony A6300 and a wide-angle Rokinon lens, I spent the weekend cleaning our house and taking photos while Anthony was out of town, finding comfort in the fact that if it didn’t come out correctly, I could try it again because I was the one behind the camera. I’m not a control freak, nor am I perfect at anything, but I am still somewhat very particular about the end result of anything creativity-led. There was something nice about actually doing it myself and having that control.

Once I was done with editing them in Adobe Lightroom, I sent them off to Alyssa with my fingers crossed that they were Domino-worthy shots. I received a response with a thumbs up and some questions to answer about our home. Afterwards, she sent me a publishing date.

Fast forward to October 5th. I woke up and saw an email with a link to the article in my inbox. Suffice to say, I had a great morning.

I very rarely have self-pride when it comes to the things that I do, but having photos that I took in an article about our home in Domino Magazine feels gratifying and inspires me to want to continue this hobby. By no means am I a skilled photographer (I still struggle with the options on the dial) but I guess what matters is that I’m trying.

Check out the article.

San Diego

September 3, 2016

We spent time in San Diego for Anthony’s birthday this year. It was the first time either of us went and we weren’t sure what to expect. The weather was absolutely beautiful.

We did what you’re expected to do when you visit San Diego: spend a full day at the San Diego Zoo.

The Ebbs & Flows

July 20, 2016

I recently looked back at the timeline of my life and I realized that I’ve spent the last 20 years playing around with the internet. That’s 65% of my life. I can’t even imagine the kids who were born in 1995 and can’t remember life without the internet.

It’s a funny memory: I started my design career because of my blog on AsianAvenue.com. I say started because that was the first time I was paid to design something for someone else. When it came to my own blog, I would constantly reinvent my personal profile page with what little tools we had back then.

I’ve had a tumultuous relationship with having my own blog. We’ve been off-and-on again more than Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber. I understand that no one really reads them anymore but I don’t think readership was ever the reason why I had a blog. I just love having an outlet for the randomness that sprouts out of my brain. This hasn’t changed in 19 years. It may come and go with the passing of time but I always come back to it.

With that said, I’ve imported my very old Tumblr into a new WordPress website and will continue, as short lived as this might be, to have a home for my thoughts. There are so many things I want to do, say, and share, even if it’s only with my future self.

Follow along if you like, but I’m not sure how long this stint will last. No promises, no guarantees.

Live What You Love

February 11, 2013

I remember hearing the sharp sounds of static billowing from the second floor of our 2-story house. I listened carefully, dancing up the stairs towards an unfamiliar sound, where I found my brother, his back turned, staring directly into a computer monitor. Then there was silence.

“Welcome to America Online”.

That’s when my life changed forever.

We adopted AOL 1.5 into our lives sometime between 1994 and 1995.

My brother had accrued $200 on Prodigy (remember Prodigy?) and decided to sign up for AOL. From there, I got addicted and it happened fast. I signed up for names that I can no longer remember but I’m certain it had either a Sanrio or Winnie the Pooh character in it. For now let’s just say it was “Pochacco817”.

When I think back on my career, that was my turning point. I’ve had numerous thoughts about changing career paths earlier in my life but then again, I’ve had trouble committing to a bottle of shampoo.

From the age of 10 onwards, my timeline goes a little something like this:

1995
The addiction to the internet begins. Thank you AOL 1.5.

1996
After witnessing my brother play with shapes, I too started playing with shapes thanks to Photoshop 3.0.

1997
I joined AsianAvenue and started blogging, while simultaneously signing up for Geocities so I could have a creative outlet for my newly found Photoshop skills (or lack thereof). I eventually, like most teenagers, ended up doing weird highly-saturated black and white self portraits like this:

1998
My love for blogging and design led me to Xanga, where I had the flexibility of designing my own blog. Because of this, I learned HTML and CSS.

2003
With 5 years of blogging, designing, and reckless coding under my belt, I was hired professionally to design and develop a website. It looked something like this:

2005
After questioning my career path as a creative, I looked in to becoming an anesthesiologist, an architect, or a pharmacist. I was grasping for any idea that would gain acceptance from my critical asian parents.

2006
With brand new clarity and a tiny rebellious streak, I decided to feed my existing love and knowledge of design and became an intern at a local Dallas design agency. After a few months and a lot of deliberation, I left college high and dry to gain real world experience.

At the end of the year, with a lot of reasons as my ammunition, I ventured off to New York City.

2008
I gained enough experience and was able to land a job at R/GA, where I had a boss that trusted me so much he gave me work in a space I’ve never touched before: mobile design. That’s where I started doing things on Blackberry and Android before ever touching iOS.

2013
After 5 years of designing for mobile, I can confidently say that this is what I want to be doing for the remainder of my life. I’ve talked a little about that here:
Mobile Design? Sure, Why Not
I want to wrap this up with one little nugget of advice for those who are young and seeking out career paths:

You might not get it right the first time but the key is to follow your passion and never give up.

Hello 2013!

January 3, 2013

I’m always on the fence when it comes to creating resolutions for the beginning of the new year. They’re always promising in theory, but in actuality, it’s a conduit for disappointment and they eventually turn into these unrealistic goals that we create for ourselves. Afterall, 3 out of 5 people drop their resolutions by June.

Rather than dictating what needs to be done, I’m going to highlight things I’d like to do this year.

Bake more (take baking classes, make cakes, learn how to make gumpaste flowers). Consistently update my blogs. Spend time with friends & family. Finish my side project. Go to the movies more often. Organize. Eat moderately. Throw a party. Go to Disneyworld. Watch movies at the drive-in. Grow an herb garden. Decorate the house. Send handwritten letters.

And with double the amount of enthusiasm, hello 2013.

Photo from Google Images