[Ed. Note: A few days ago, Kate Antoniades contacted me because she runs a blog, "From Alone to Home: Stories of Adopted Pets" (www.fromalonetohome.com), which collects pet adoption stories as her way to encourage other people to choose shelter/rescue adoption. She asked me to write up Baozi's adoption story & it turned into a nice little piece on why we decided to get a pup from my point of view! Here it is.]

[Ed. Note: Also check the previous post to listen to her awesome puppy yawns & see pix and video ]

Baozi Snoozes

Pet’s Name: Baozi (包子)

Adopted by: Amandeep & Kimberly

From: SPCA, San Francisco, Calif.

Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve wanted a dog¹. Growing up, my Mom never allowed us to get one because she feared she’d be left to take care of it. In hindsight, I can understand, as my brother and I were plenty of work as it was².

My entire childhood was thus spent longing for a dog & getting all the B-list pets I could get my Mom to sign off on. A menagerie of parakeets, fish, hermit crabs, snakes, lizards, toads and jumping spiders paraded through our home, but none filled the void. (Many of these hapless creatures were captured from the woods near my house.)

As soon as I moved out on my own, I thought about getting a dog, but with adulthood came a dawning realization of how much work that would entail. I knew I wasn’t quite ready. But still the idea persisted. Every friend’s dog that I baby-sat tested my resolve. Every girlfriend I had was measured up as a potential puppy-mamma. Every “sidewalk-adopt-a-pet” event I passed on the street was a crisis.

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Not all posts here at Deeptrouble.com involve issues of magnitude and commentary most insightful.

Some involve…. (drum roll)…

PUPPY YAWNS!

(click here to hear the goodness)

The last one is the best actually

I’ve always wanted a puppy & last weekend Kimberly and I adopted little Baozi* from the SPCA here in San Francisco. She is as adorable as you might imagine. These yawns are compiled from two of the early morning (2:45am and 5:15am to be exact!) “take her out to pee!” runs (iPhone Voice Memo app FTW!)

*It means “stuffed bun” in Mandarin & is pronounced “Bow-dzuh”! She’s a German shepard mix…

[Ed. Note for friends: I have decided to have a new custom trike built: Trikeasaurus Rex! To do so, I need to explain what Trikeasurus is, so I made this video & blog post as an RFP (Request For Proposal). It is a simple history & set of requirements - but by all means DO CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO I MADE BELOW:]

[Ed. Note for potential suppliers: I'm just using the term "RFP" because I have delusions of grandeur - don't worry, I don't necessarily need a formal "proposal". This is really just a framework for discussion.]

History

For almost 5 years now, I have been enjoying Trikeasaurus, my roving tricycle-sound-system.

Trikeasaurus was initially conceived as a simple way to transport my sound system to my FlashDance events. Flashdances are free, outdoor dance parties I put on in various locations in San Francisco every month or so during the spring & summer.¹

As it has turned out, Trikeasaurus has become a much more general purpose source of fun and I use it often, not just for FlashDances. Watch this video to get a sense:

Trikeasaurus in its Natural Habitat

The video shows Trikeasaurus mostly in its initial configuration, a cheap, Husky adult tricycle with a small, custom metal-work speaker mount system.

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GLAAAAAAM IIIIN SPAAAAAAAAACE!

Glamsters! Thank you all SO MUCH for making my GLAM Party such a huge success. So many of you! So many rocket-packs! So many aliens! SO. MUCH. GLAM.

A few quick thoughts:

• I LOVED SO MANY OF THE COSTUMES. SO GREAT! I think Liz won on overall Rocket Glammiest and Best Rocket Pack! (& bringing the hotness!)
  
• I get an honorable mention, coz I LOVED my costume, and it did not turn out looking like a GLAM SPACE CHICKEN as I feared. If I wear it everyday going forward, someone please intervene. My best Glam Costume to date!!!
  >
• I also was SUUUUPER happy with the playlist (see below) I hope you were too!
• So I’ll post a few random shots here, but for gods sake, at least check out the BEST 50 Photo Booth Shots here on Facebook
• Here is the full set of photo booth shots on Flickr – honestly there are closer to 85-90 GREAT shots in there!
• Sorry the photo booth was a bit balky (& the first chunk of shots were out of focus) – we just got it & it will be in better shape for the NEXT GLAM Birthday Big thanks to Adrian & Kimberly & all the volunteers who took pix!

Big thanks to Kimberly for all the hard work in making this happen (and putting up with the fact that we made it happen “my” way ) You rock babe! (And damn you’re hot!)  And you make the best ridiculous facial expressions in the photo booth shots.

ROCKET GLAM!

‘Deep

.ps For those of you who still don’t understand, here is why (as I said after my 40th Birthday GLAM of the Dead party):

Q: Why GLAM? A: GLAM – because I love bright shiny things. When i turned 31 I decided to reclaim my love of all things shiny, sparkly & bright. Guys (at least straight ones) aren’t supposed to love that stuff as much as I do. Yeah. Whatever. It’s been all GLAM ever since

You can find pix from all my GLAM parties here.

.pps

And here is the playlist. Like I said, twas one of my best!

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Ed. note: Numerous people have asked for “the story” of me proposing to K, so I thought I’d write it down. It feels a little odd to write a blog post about such a moment, but we here at deeptrouble.com are all about giving the people what they want. Also, this post allows me to explain why we have unexpected pictures of the proposal itself.

Updates 2/16/12:

• The pier is actually Pier 7
• For the story of how we met, go to www.kimandeep.com/prequel – also WEDDING INFO!

I’ve been thinking about asking Kimberly to marry me for a while now & I told myself that if I felt like asking her 5 times or so, I should just do it. In the end, it ended up happening half by intent and half by serendipity, like many of the best things in our relationship.

Unexpected Proposal-Cam! (courtesy of Hannah Tries)

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[Update 3/16/2012: "The Story of Trixie" has come full circle, as the blog where we got her inspiration has posted about her See the epilogue after you read this post.]

Trixie in her natural habitat, the ‘Deepistan National Parklet (& in front of our temporary construction mural by Adrian Cotter.)

When I started my front-of-home renovation project, my architect Jane Martin surprised me by asking if I was interested in doing a parklet. The irony was that though I spend plenty of time involved in issues related to urban spaces & livability (and thus I run in parklet-y circles), the thought never occurred to me! Luckily, it did to Jane & I immediately loved the idea.

Months later, as the parklet project was really making progress, Jane proposed doing a “succulent sculpture” for it. And since she was so dead-on about the parklet, I immediately said sure! I thought “Ummm – a what?” Jane excitedly explained that our parklet needed an artistic focus & that it should be plant based. At that point, seeing her vision completely, I said “sure!” I said “Ummm – hmm” & started trying to figure out how to say “no” to something she was so enthused about.

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[Ed. Note: This post is 4 months late. The trip was 8/15 to 9/10/11. Now that no one cares, I thought I'd post about it. I've been trying to write this for months, but really I was too focused on this project at work to make it happen...  If you want to just look at my PICTURES, here they are, but I think the pix are better if you read this post & vice versa...]

[Ed. Note II: I was in China for less than a month. I saw a tiny, tiny, fraction of the country in terms of square miles.  I met maybe 150 Chinese people.  I had more than a "Hi, can I buy that?" conversation with maybe 10 (being REALLY generous).  Nonetheless, I'm about to post something now that makes vast sweeping generalizations about an entire nation of over a billion people and thousands of years of history, with languages I can neither read nor write.  So please accept everything I say here as gospel from someone who knows everything.  I certainly do.

In all seriousness: I hope I don't offend anyone (esp. my Chinese friends) with my thoughts and impressions - I really am just trying to understand what I saw & felt while in a fascinating and very different place.]

Our hero in the Great Taklamakan Desert

A few months back, I was whisked off to China by my girlfriend to experience her step-mother country.  Kimberly, although pretty damn white, has studied Mandarin since she was very young & then majored in Chinese studies in college & lived there for a total of 8 years.  I knew she was missing China, so it should have come as no surprise when she hijacked our planned trip to India by taking us to China instead.

I recovered from this by planning to trade her for a panda. Perhaps two.

Unbeknownst to me, she subverted that plan by having us head to the far western deserts of China along the Silk Road.  Pandas are NOT in the desert. Sigh. (She’s tricksy!)

Luckily, I found a new fascination soon after arriving in China: looking for signs of happiness.

But, before we get into that, a brief map:

View China Trip 2011 in a larger map
We landed in Hong Kong, then flew to Beijing, spent a week or so there, and then started heading consistently west, more or less along the route of the Silk Road: We took an overnight train to the ancient capital Xi’an, spent a couple of days there, then took a 26 hr train ride to Dunhuang (sort of the gateway to the West). We then flew to Urumqi, the most remote city from any sea in the world according to Guinness, and the biggest city in Xinjiang, the western-most province. From Urumqi, we flew to Kashgar near the border with Pakistan, and spent a few days there exploring the edge of China, before flying east to Shanghai & then back to Hong Kong.

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This post is a brief collection of thoughts and impressions that didn’t fit into my in depth and more thoughtful (I hope) post on China (see above). I recommend that one if you’re only going to read one of my China posts. But if you prefer little tidbits sized chunks of randomness from my month in the PRC, here they are! (Also, if you want to just look at my PICTURES, click here.)

As I said in my other post: I hope I don’t offend anyone (esp. my Chinese friends) with my thoughts and impressions – I really am just trying to understand what I saw & felt while in a fascinating and very different place.]

• Unsurprisingly, knockoffs of Western brands were plentiful but this is my MOST FAVORITE ONE EVAR: I give you Clio Coddle.
  When I first saw it I simply chuckled, but something about the name really stuck with me and I had to think about it for a few minutes. Suddenly I realized the “Clio Codile” was probably an Asian L-R-switch attempt to pronounce “Crocodile” – it is simply a filtered onomatopoeia! This cracks me up no end.
  

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[Ed. Note.: Yeesh.  I haven't blogged in about a year!  I have so many things to tell you about (Parklet! Rickshaws! China!) & will be getting to it ASAP. But this broke the log jam & I plan to be writing more soon. Sorry  for the delay dear readers (assuming you are still out there!)]

[PLEASE NOTE: The opinions below are entirely my own & do not represent those of anyone else, much less Apple, Inc.]

Over the past 9 and a half years, I’ve often fantasized about sitting down at lunch with Steve Jobs. I frequently walked past him eating with Jony Ive at the Apple cafeteria and considered it.¹

The last time I saw them having lunch together was a few months back, but that time I didn’t experience the wild flash of “what if I just sat down and started talking!?”.  That time, I could tell something was very wrong: just seeing the sadness in their eyes and the silence between them made me hurt. I convinced myself that it was just that Steve wouldn’t be coming back to Apple. I think I was very wrong.

Since Steve died last week, I’ve been surprised at how much it has affected me, and in the aftermath I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why.  What was he to me? I’ve been having a hard time finding the right word.

The first word that comes to mind is “hero”, but Steve was no hero of mine.  He could be too mean too often for that.  I’m sure a lot of people will start calling him one, that seems inevitable, but I dislike the process of whitewashing his story.  It’s so disingenuous and ultimately devaluing.

So what then? “Pioneer” – too impersonal. “Eminence” – meh. “Mahatma” means “a person regarded with reverence or loving respect” but even besides the fact that Gandhi has that covered, it captures none of the “why” since it is just an honorific.  ”Visionary” is pretty good but fails to capture the real world drive he imparted to my life.

So what is the word for someone for inspires your best, focuses your creativity, and creates the standards by which you judge yourself and the world around you?

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[Ed Note:  What follows is just a lot of blather about how I decided to remake my classic Disco Ball costume - if you just wanna see it in action CLICK HERE for the 1 minute video for all you need to know , otherwise see ALL THE PIX HERE.]

So every year around Halloween three things happen:

1. I start wondering what costume I’ll do for Halloween since it’s my favorite holiday.
2. People from all over the interwebs find my Disco Ball costume online, and start emailing me for advice on how to make one for themselves*.
3. People start asking me if I’m going to do my Disco Ball again…

(Click for more pix)

In response to 1, I always have to do something that makes me happy.  That usually means it has to have high production values, it has to be ambitious, and it has to ”wow” people. Ideally, it is somehow interactive, and even more ideally it is something I can wear on my bike**….

Click HERE for more…