I attended the first Bay Area memorial celebration for Czeslaw Milosz,
held today at the San Francisco Main Public Library. I took pictures (Milosz Memorial Celebration - a photoset on Flickr) and plenty of notes on the poems that were read. Between listening to the Michael Krasny's program on Czeslaw Milosz
last week, revisiting some of my own favorite Milosz poems, learning
about many other poems to savor (out of a massive lifetime of work),
I'm thoroughly and happily re-immersed in the poetry of Milosz.

countdown -- the book

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

Count Down : Six Kids Vie for Glory at the World's Toughest Math Competition.

I'm attracted to books such as this since I did ok but not super at math competitions such as the Mathematical Olympiad.

Bach and Ozu: the books

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

Writing Silences on Sunday prompted me to look more deeply again at Bach and Ozu. From my bookshelf, I took down My Only Comfort: Death, Deliverance, and Discipleship in the Music of Bach, Bach , and Ozu.

shrink wrap car

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

It was only a matter of time that we would get shrink wrap cars.

dramatic blue in the night sky

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

The other night, I tried to capture the drama of the night sky. This fuzzy picture might give you some tiny sense of the awe I felt. I didn't have a tripod on which to steady my camera....oh well.

California Hornblower

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

Because of Shifra's generous present, Laura and I were out on a Bay cruise on Sunday evening. Though it was cold out, the view was spectacular. Laura and I had a wonderful time!

"Do something great for your country. Leave."

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

Well, I did exactly that -- I moved from Canada to the USA. Is that what the poster meant?

I'm having a hard time accepting that I need long stretches of quiet
contemplation to become truly centered and grounded. I just wish it
weren't true. I wish I could instantly jump from one situation to
another with effortless "context switching" and be fully immersed in
each task from the start. Isn't that the dream of a society hooked on
"continuous partial attention"? I've been attracted to the "Getting
Things Done" system for that reason. As the Wikipedia explains:

GTD rests on the principle that you have to get
things out of your head and recorded into a system you can trust. That
way, your mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that you
need to do, and can concentrate fully on actually doing those things.

GTD has certainly helped me get better organized, but it hasn't been a
panacea. I don't blame GTD for my problem since it never promised to
let me squeeze five elephants into a clay jar. Instead of aspiring to
grow large enough to envelope elephants, I need to accept that I am
just an ordinary clay jar.

shadows in Albany

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

Even though I was sick with a cold, I was so happy to get out in the sun and see shadows such as these yesterday afternoon.

What mountain is this?

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.

I took this picture on the flight from Oakland to Portland. Is this Mount Hood or Mount Shasta or something else altogether?