The famous Kogi Korean BBQ Taco Truck (www.kogibbq.com) made an appearance at the Santiago Art District in Santa Ana last night (May 16, 2009). I waited in line a mere 1-1/2 hours for my 6 Korean BBQ short rib tacos, Korean BBQ short rib burrito, and Kimchi Quesadilla. (I hear that others waited as long as 3 hours for theirs.)

Truth be told … it was good, but not amazing. I enjoyed the different experience of the Kimchi Quesadilla, but I’m not a huge Kimchi fan, and so probably wouldn’t order it again. The tacos were good — quite good — but not sure that they were worth 1.5 hours in line. We also had a desert — for the life of me I couldn’t understand what they called it, but it sounded like a “Roofie Sandwich”. It was more like an Orea outside with a buttery, sweet cream filling on the inside, like a big cookie. I loved it — but my friends Missy and Stacia seemed to think it was just okay. I ordered the burrito to save for tonight, so we’ll see how that is later.

I did enjoy the crowd, and the Kogi staff on the truck was great. It’s definitely worth a try, and even worth waiting … if only for the spectacle of it all. Hopefully they’ll come down again, I’d even wait one more time to try the other dishes on the menu…

A week or so ago the full moon was the closest to our planet that it’s been in many years — meaning that it looked about 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than normal. Sure enough, I walked outside, and — rather than seeing the moon itself, I saw an amazingly bright reflection of it in my neighbors window. It was stunning, and also a different angle on the moon than normal, so I quickly grabbed my tripod to take a few shots. (Probably looked like I was trying to peer in the neighbor’s window.) The windows are double-paned and tinted, so the moon reflected in multitude of different ways, and even moving an inch or two changed the whole look. Here’s how it looked from Orange County, California…

I know, I know … I haven’t been posting much lately. The blog was mostly for travel- and photography-related posts, neither of which I’ve been doing lately.

But every once in a while I do edit some photos I took months ago. Here’s a new one of Kym looking out my window …

As if we really had a downtown … and as if it were here …

Here are just a few new shots of the Santa Ana Water Tower (sounds exciting, huh!?!?) as well as the Santiago Street Lofts (in Orange County, California).

I thought I’d take a late night walk and play with the camera for a few minutes. I got lucky and a train was going by (well, I had to run and barely caught the tail end of it) and got this 30 second exposure of Santa Ana Blvd. I’ll have to go again and get a close-up of the gates going up next time:

I turned around for another 25 or 30 second exposure for this dramatic street-corner view of the Santiago Street Lofts.

I think this is the better shot of the two, clearly.

I was trying to see what could be doing using Photoshop’s HDR (high dynamic range) module … you take a photo at 3 different exposures (okay, too dark, and too light) and you’re then supposed to be able to use Photoshop to recombine those images and pull out the best details of each into a new and spectacular image. Unfortunately, it didn’t work well at all with what I was trying to do. I’ll have to try HDR again some other time … since it’s all the rage right now. (It’s actually overly trendy and overly done, but I’ve seen some amazing black & white photos where all the additional detail gives the feeling of an old-school silver print … and that’s what I’d like to create.)

Friday Night at the Santiago Street Lofts: A Gallery preview draws a fair crowd to Omi Gallery. The crowd consumes all of Omi Gallery’s wine. Eventually we head upstairs, find more wine, and continue the varied and stimulating conversation through the late evening. At some point we must take the Golden Retriever and the Chihuahua for a walk — Naomi looking spectacular (and spectacularly out of place) in all black and her high boots, the dogs looking ridiculous in their pink leashes. Afterwards, a few of us go to a local club. I meet someone.

Saturday at the Lofts: It’s “Big Art Walk Night” (as opposed to the monthly “regular-sized” Art Walk), and the crowds come out in droves. First a small gathering at my place — including the makeshift “bar” made out of unpacked boxes — with great food and … you guessed it … more wine. Neighbor Naomi brings homemade cupcakes, and other friends make the trek out of their nice, safe neighborhoods to … the ‘hood. The wine somehow follows us as we stroll out into the 16 galleries below. We walk from gallery to gallery, including 2 with James’ work. One has a crazy Mercedes all painted up and a circus performer spinning a large wheel (for $1) out on the sidewalk to determine winners of either a small pin or — with long odds — a larger piece of art. I win the art. A DJ spins at one gallery, another offers “magic punch” (yumm), and another has furniture. I buy 2 tables (which figure in the story later) but don’t take them home yet. It’s another late night out with friends and neighbors.

Sunday at the Lofts: Sushi lunch with neighbors Claudia and Mike. Build a bookshelf all day, including removing and drilling a light to get it all to fit. Hear lots of sirens, grab the camera, see an accident where a car nearly — but doesn’t — runs straight through the front window into a neighbor’s loft workspace. Head back the other direction and see more police on the other sides of my Loft with a suspect (apparently fleeing the scene) face down on the ground in handcuffs. Get a call from the neighbors who just made soup, and offer some. Go get soup (yum!), then get a call to pickup my tables. Walk over to my other neighbor’s to get the tables and stumble upon a neighborhood barbecue in progress.

Barbecue features: Mexican food, Korean BBQ, beer, more wine, and hot dogs; a projector showing The Transformers movie inside Dentist Jason’s garage with a dozen neighbors sitting around watching in lawnchairs; a neighbor (who shall remain anonymous out of kindness) playing with his lightsaber; and a local officer of the law (not related to the accident) mingling and enjoying the evening. I eat some more, and then walk home with tables on my head.

This is so much better than Irvine.

(A few low-quality (mostly iPhone) photos are below.) Read the rest of this entry »

Today was the 3rd (for me, at least) barbecue of the season.

If you’re ever looking for a great steak marinade try soy sauce, vegetable oil, cooking sherry (2:1:1 ratio) and mix in some dark brown sugar, minced garlic, fresh ginger, and — what makes it great, I think — grated orange peel. Marinate an excellent steak for 4 hours or so and grill. Very nice.

Here’s a new edit of Natela from a few weeks back …

Read the rest of this entry »

Yet another reason to love my neighbors this week is the freshly brewed, hand-delivered Turkish coffee of one of our “artists in residence” James. (Unfortunately, I don’t know James’ last name nor his website, but his art is fantastic. When I figure it out I’ll post a link). Anyway, who know that there was Rose Water (among other things) in Turkish coffee?

On the downside, you’re only supposed to drink a little 2oz cup of the stuff. But I only had a regular cup (not the one shown above), which James warned before filling: “Don’t drink the whole thing unless you’re really looking for a caffeine high.” I wasn’t, but I did. Now, either the world is really slow or I’m going really fast. Probably the latter.

Maybe that explains the 3 blog posts in one week.

This surreal view out my window today sums up how I feel about the new place — Santa Ana’s Santiago Street Lofts. Living here so far has been great. Yes, there’s a bit of “urban blight” surrounding it; it’s not perfect. But nevertheless it’s wonderful, and I’m loving it here. (By the way, do you know how you know you’re getting old? When you get excited about the new high-tech dimmer that you installed!)

Here are a few more shots of the incredibly bright double-rainbow that spanned the sky today. It was so wide, my wide-angle (17mm) lens wouldn’t capture it all. (And maybe one day I’ll get around to stitching together the panorama shots I took. These of course could be much better with a bit of retouching, but I haven’t been posting lately, and I thought better to get them up then to wait some more time…)