Cali | Jeff Wong

My Commute to Work

September 14, 2016 / Cali, Me, Photo

My commute to work is roughly 30-40 minutes, and I just wanted to share some of the things I typically see.

The day starts with me walking to the bus stop. On my way there, I see the highway backed up with traffic.

And of course, an artsy photo of the fence for no reason at all. Look at that bokeh. ^_^

There’s an insane hill that I walk down to get to the bus stop.

Seriously insane.

This part of the neighborhood is kind of grimy, but there’s a softer side.

Lots of homeless folks live under this bridge. You’ll usually see them set up camp with a full set up.

Another artsy photo. Check out that sharpness. ^_^

Here’s my bus stop. It’s kind of nasty… I really don’t like to think about what all the black stuff is on the ground, surrounding the area.

I typically take the 9 or 9R into the city.

Typically I don’t get a seat for the first half of the ride, and then somewhere along the way some spots open up. Unfortunately, there are usually crazy people on the bus in the morning. *sigh*

Here’s the path I take to get to work.

And this is what my stop looks like. There you have itâ€”my daily commute. Some days I’ll take in an Uber if I’m running little behind… and hopefully in the future I can ride in on my boosted board. ^_^

Hiking at Mussel Rock

September 7, 2016 / Cali, Me, Photo

The California coastline is indescribable during a sunset. All the colors are surreal, almost a starting point for a painting by Dali.

Part of the experience isn’t just the colors, but the sounds of the birds, the warmth of the sun, and the breeze from the ocean.

Days like these make me regret selling my car. Most of the time I need to take an uber or public transportation to get to these kinds of views.

Perhaps in the future, there will be room for some sort of vehicle.

The amazing thing is that most of these views are within 20-30 minutes away from my current home.

There are days where I’m so focused on work and being productive, it’s easy to forget why we’re here. It’s nice to take a moment, take a breath of fresh air, and simply enjoy the moment.

There are all these techniques to reduce stress like meditation, listening to music, etc… but nothing brings me back to balance like watching our sun set into the horizon.

Hiking at Mori Point

September 2, 2016 / Cali, Me, Photo

I went hiking at Mori Point a few months ago. It’s a stunning park a couple miles south of Fort Funston (one of my favorite places near SF).

When you first arrive, you’ll notice a wall of boulders lined up against the shoreline.

There are views in every direction, including a nice bike path that takes you through a small marsh.

However, there’s a less travelled path that takes you up the hill for an exquisite view.

Some of the paths are gnarly… and in some cases, a misstep could cause you to tumble down to a very painful death. You can’t really see it in this photo, but there’s about a 100″ drop-off to the left of this path.

And did I mention that the wild flowers were absolutely stunning.

Here’s what the park looks like from the other end.

That hill doesn’t look like much, but it’s pretty steep. I wanted to get a better view, so I went for a climb.

At the top, there’s a spiral made of rocks. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it’s pretty cool.

From this view, you could also see about a dozen whales. It’s quite a spectacle.

These steps definitely made it easier to get back down.

So this beat may look nice, but I heard that there used to be a sewage line that connected nearby. Pretty amazing hike. Highly recommended.

My New Apartment

August 1, 2016 / Cali, Me

I finally snapped a picture of my room this morning. As you can see, it’s pretty minimal.

It’s interesting how much I’ve downsized since I’ve moved here. Anyway, here are some photos to show you what I’m working with these days.

Interview with Scott Belsky, via Expa

May 11, 2016 / Cali, Design, Me, Product

Last night I attended an Expa event with Scott Belsky. He shared his story and a ton of startup lessons. Scott co-founded Behance and is now a general partner at Benchmark. He also served as a VP of products at adobe when they got acquired. Here are some memorable quotes from the evening.

“Products are like a bonsaiâ€”Sometimes you have to cut some of the most beautiful branches to make sure the trunk is healthy.”

“Process is the escriment of misalignment.”

“The easiest decision is not to make a decision.”

“As a leader you have to short circuit your reward system.”

“Acquisitions are like feeding a domesticated lion. You have to aggravate the lion by shaking the meat in front of it, until it finally gets fed up and eats it.”

“Focus on verbs and actions, versus documenting everything.”

And his favorite question to ask people who are raising money, “How do you hire people?”.

This was definitely illuminating, and the timing is so relevant. As I work on Flare, I really have to think about all these things.

Hiking at Alamere Falls with Patrick

May 3, 2016 / Cali, Me, Photo

I went hiking with Patrick this past weekend at Alamere Falls. The hiking was challenging, and we have the blisters, sun burn, mosquito bites and photographs to prove it.

Nonetheless, it was rewarding, and enabled us to play with our photography gear. Heh.

Walking along the coastline was breath taking. It just never gets old. I didn’t carry much gear with meâ€”I just brought the 35mm f1.4 and my 55mm f3.5 macro.

It was nice to reconnect with nature. While San Francisco is cool, it’s hard to get out of the city sometimes. There’s just something about being around nature that feels right.

These are tiny little flowers growing from green clovers at the base of the tree.

We accidentally passed the falls as we were hiking… but we managed to make the best of it.

We passed by a couple of lakes, and the scenery never ceased to amaze us.

Patrick just got a new cameraâ€”it’s one of the new Fuji mirrorless cameras. I had a chance to play with it a little, and it’s impressive. There’s so much technology compressed in a compact lightweight package. I’m actually kind of envious.

This is a brenizer method photo. We were in a field, and we snapped some pictures of each other taking photos of the wildlife around us.

Patrick made me a little nervous taking photos near the edge. He’s literally one step away from falling down to a very painful death.

Here’s a photo of Patrick taking a picture of these little flowers on the side of the trail. I love the way this photo came out. There’s something about how this lens renders these kinds of plants. I got a similar affect with the wisteria flowers in my last blog post.

I’m not sure what this flower was, but the bokeh looks awesome. This was shot with the 35mm.

And this one was show with the 55mm 3.5 macro. They’re just gorgeous.

And there were these little orange wide flowers scattered throughout the hike.

And yeh, there was this little red one as well.

We decided to turn around, and we finally found the trail to Alamere Falls. At this point, we were pretty exhausted, but we trekked on.

When we finally got there, we realized that we would have to rock climb and descend down to see the falls. This was no small task. And of course, once again, Patrick was on the edge taking photos. I’m serious, the drop off that edge is no joke.

When we got down, it was incredible. We were surrounded by waterfalls, mountains, precipices and ocean. I can’t describe how beautiful it was…

I think Patrick was pretty tired at this point, but I believe he enjoyed the reward of getting some photos of this gorgeous waterfall.

This photo was created from several photos stacked on top of each other, with a median filter. Days like this, I wish I had a nice ND filter so I could really make that waterfall look like glass.

There was something magical about the cool breeze, combined with the waterfall and sunshine.

Check out the cascading waterfalls.

Anyway, it was a great hike. I hope that Patrick will be up for another one in the future. Perhaps next time we can do some astrophotography.