I'll Be Back Sooner than You Think

Final days of my 3 month NYC stint.  I was unsure if i would move straight to paris after my 2 month Asia tour or come back to NYC for a while.

my "Carte Competences et Talents" visa application.  it's a fairly new visa for people with special skills or talents.  its for 3 years, renewable once.  this is for artists amongst other people.  i spent soooo much time on this.  most of it was in obtaining all the documents i need for the application.  the tip of the iceberg of document obtaining:  I had to get police records from the FBI, state of NY, China, and Japan.  this meant first getting fingerprinted 4 times and getting the right fingerprinting card for each country.  getting the police record from beijing proved to be the hardest.  i had to have a friend take my stuff to a company that then handles things with the police bureau.  There is a 1 hour window everyday in which to submit stuff to the french consulate.  you must submit in person in your home country, so that means i had to come back to America and NYC to submit this.  My project proposal was to basically keep doing illustrations inspired by where i live, in this case it would be paris and france.  i also said i want to illustrate parisians and their dogs too.  and I got it!!!  they found my project of interest to them and I'll be moving to paris in August!  It helps that I have an aunt who has been living in Paris for 10 years and has a carte de sojour and stuff.  Thanks Katy in Beijing, and to my aunt in paris.

My sentiments exactly ladies.  bor-f'ing-ing.  waiting in line OUTSIDE the consulate building sucks fish balls.  more consulate action.  this time at the chinese consulate over on 12th ave to get a visa to go to china.  

across the street from the chinese consulate.

the fog rolls into prospect park early one spring evening.

somewhere kind of near prospect park on the east side

bought this at B and H.  they guy said Oben is a new company from china and their stuff has been getting some hype lately so i gave it a try since it was either this with twist locking action which is better or the manfroto 4-sections that have tab locks.  everything seemed great until the top part that receives the screw threads got stripped out somehow, rendering my tripod useless because the head just falls off and i'm not putting $5,000 of equipment on there.  i found a temp fix that's kind of dangerous by taking out that metal plate under the head so i screw the head down further into fresh thread hole area.  I will wait to pass judgement on this situation until i talk to them when i get back to the states and see how they handle this.  4-section carbon fiber legs, and manfroto head.

hook to hang a bag or something to add weight to the bottom so it doesnt blow over 

had to buy a new kind of black rapid strap screw in thing.  this one folds down flush so i can use it with the tripod quick release plate and the strap at the same time.

somewhere near marcy in brooklyn.

i think my pal allen ying posted a photo of this years ago and his caption was "cool tech fan".  this was at some brazilian bar in the west village.

my hair was kind of rediculous back then huh?

chess on the train.  i would like to believe that in his hand is a letter from this guy he befriended once in turkey who sent him his next move and his kindest regards.

somewhere near union square with the handsome illustrators club.

amanda's deer hooves.

at 169 bar on east broadway in chinatown for my going away party.

mel's signature photo pose.  i'm still working on it.

right after this photo was snapped, in a scummy pick up move, brown goes, "hey laylaaaaaaaaa", only this isn't layla, it's zhu ru.  everyone heard it and laughed at him for thinking all asians look the same.  he was too drunk to care.  that's our brown.

oh ellen

central park

flat iron building.  

Debbie's last day working in the flatiron building.  it's all st. martin's press and Tor and other publishers in there.  She took us to the CEO's office, which is the uppermost corner office right up there at the very top!  sweetness.  how many people get to go to the very top corner office in the flatiron building?  the answer in case you didn't know is not that many at all dude!

when you see it actually is a triangle inside you're like, oh yea, what did i think it was gonna be?

views from the corner office balcony.

the balcony in "mr. popper's penguins" where jim carrey bursts out onto all happy and sheit.  they filmed some of the movie in the flatiron and debbie got to see jim carrey and ish!  she says it gets scouted as a location a lot.  this is a pretty sweet office, in like the coolest NY landmark building.  

is this face saying, "i'll be back sooner than you think"?  See ya'll in Asia real soon.