Kenya

Project of the Year

I bought a house! Three months have passed since closing and what a whirlwind it's been. New roof (75yr old blue gum eucalyptus branch fell through master bedroom roof, leaving a gaping hole during 4 months of foreclosure and the rainy season (gasp!)), $10K in tree removal (pictured here), freezing nights b/c of single pained windows that bring oh so much light but oh so little insulation, and lots and lots of planning w/ my builder and hired hands. Have learned lots about basic home maintenance, construction and design. And really it's the little details that I want to start documenting in this post. From the difference between oil-based and water-based paints, to cutting tounge-and-groove ceiling, to daring diamond blades and concrete floors, to differentiating drywood vs dampwood vs subteranean termites, to choosing flights of paint colors... the list goes on. I invite you to join for the ride...

Tuva or Bust

via videosift.com

Work Life Balance

Work Life Balance - Fall 2008 from Jimmy Tran on Vimeo.

Summer BBQ Series - 2008

Summer BBQ Series 2008 from Jimmy Tran on Vimeo. 12 Weeks, 12 BBQs. It started with Paul, Freeden and me trying to schedule biweekly dinners over the summer in an effort to resurrect our over the top dinner feasts from summer of 2005. Thursday BBQ expanded and became my reprieve from a summer of QE studying and fieldwork planning. It's memories like these that I'll probably hold dearest while researching in China this next year, perhaps singing "Yes Berkeley" when I start feeling nostalgic for warm summer nights and the comfort of familiar smiles. It's certainly what happened to my childhood best friend Mike Struwin after he and his girlfriend Jen left the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan for life anew in far away Portland, OR. "Yes Michigan" is a cut from his 6th and latest album (http://www.solserenade.com/band.html), a tribute to Jen and to the amazing life they left behind back in small town Michigan. Paul Albertus begins the video w/ a July 4th recitation of an excerpt out of Walt Whitman's "Inscription to a later edition of leaves of grass," evoking images of friends and memories accrued over one's lifetime, a fitting introduction to the memories created this summer on Thursday nights at 5645 Miles Ave. And of course I had to squeeze in Ryan Adams "Pearls on a String," acoustically resonant with Mike's piece and one of my favorite finds from this past year.

Thanks to everyone for making the Summer BBQ Series 2008 such a success...

Amazing Friends, Inspiration, and Perspective

http://www.npr.org/blogs/mycancer/2008/06/my_cancer_1.html

Check out slide #11 in the photos, my dear friend Liz D. is highlighted amongst the many others in this world dealing w/ cancer . You are AmAZing Liz.

Baseball and Expat Life

For those that know me it should come as no surprise that I've got a travel bug and plan to expatriate one day. It's like I know this secret that no one else does, or at least very few of us do, and that there are even fewer of us who actually act on it. What is it that keeps everyone stable and uni-country bound?


My Cornell buddy Ivan S. flew into town yesterday for a 2 month PhD research stint here in the Bay Area, having just finished 16months fieldwork in Vietnam on remittances and transnational capital flows. What better way to reintroduce him to the area than w/ a good ole' American baseball game, Philles vs. Oakland. Good times, even though we didn't make it there until the 6th inning! One of the great things about baseball games is that you've got a whole lot of time to just shoot the shi% and talk about anything and everything under the sun; this is especially true after boozin on 2buck chuck all evening.

I asked Ivan if he was sad to leave Viet when he did, implying that 'life is good' in a land where the Dollar stretches and food, entertainment, culture, etc. are abundant. I respect his opinion b/c he has lived abroad both in childhood and adulthood, as his father is a prof of international development and he a grad student in transnational related topics. In short, Ivan is glad as hell to be back and is sort of done w/ the international fieldwork. He likes clean air, English, and all the amenities that come w/ living in the developed world. I'm always sort of surprised to hear this kind of response, and wonder if and when it'll happen to me. I'll let you know when it does.