黄 嘉 維

As I sit at my computer on this Labor Day weekend, on this unofficial end of summer, I’m going to break from routine and actually write a post that’s heavy on words and light on photos. Not since my college days has a summer gone by so fast – and those summers went fast. I’ve never been so busy, out so often, and over-extended so much but, in the end, it was all worth it. This summer may have just flown by but it only feels that way because I’ve never had so much fun in three-plus months period of time.

Two things became major time-sucks for me – one has been a calendar-filler since my teenage years but the other became a strong presence in my life this summer.

The new passion that managed to fill up a lot of my time is live music. I’d always enjoyed going to concerts but this summer saw that ratcheted up to a new level. From Memorial Day weekend to this weekend, I’ve been to 32 shows – before this year, I’d never accumlated such a total in the entirety of my life. As a corollary to the live music love, I purchased a DSLR camera, which I’ve since taken to every show I’ve been to. The new camera only bolstered the frequency of shows I was attending and it’s also gotten me press access to quite a few shows/series’ this summer – JellyNYC’s Pool Parties and the Seaport Music Festival, just to name a few. With the end of summer, the number of shows I go to will taper but next summer is less than nine months away.

The other time-waster is, of course, the New York Mets. Though the summer may be over, my attendance at Shea Stadium won’t be ending anytime soon as the Amazin’s have just run away with their division and are poised to make a run deep into October. I hope I’ll be writing my end of fall post during Thanksgiving weekend and remarking on what a truly amazin’ run the ‘06 Mets made to the world championship.

Back to the DSLR – purchasing a new camera has gotten me off my ass to put up some new blogs, this time utilizing the photos I take with the camera to tell the story. One of those blogs is this one obviously; the others are a photoblog and a musicblog.

A summer recap in list form:

• I had a good time attending a lot of concerts but that gets discussed on my musicblog, The Wong Way.
• I sat on my ass through five movies in Red Bank, NJ but it was worth it because the fifth movie was Clerks II.
• I gorged myself on some of the finest BBQ this country has to offer for two consecutive days.
• I saw one of my best friends get married and I had the privilege of taking photos at her wedding reception two months later.
• Thanks to the aforementioned wedding, I stayed in South Carolina for the first time in my life and discovered that sticking out like a sore thumb – being the only Asian at a local food festival – means different things in a small town.
• I saw “Superman Returns” before it opened and got some nice Superman-related swag courtesy of AOL (thanks to Won for the hook-up). I liked it the first time and then promptly disliked the film when I saw it a second time.
• I saw several co-workers leave for greener pastures – NYU for one and Hawaii for another – while another moved onto better things at my current workplace.
• I realized that my emerging passion for indie music became a full-blown love affair.
• I visited Boston but, this time, it was without my college buddies and I still managed to have a good time. A bonus – I got to see Jens Lekman live!
• I attended many BBQs [1 2] this summer.
• I was there when Mike Piazza returned to Shea.
• I celebrated my 26th birthday.
• I only ate at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que twice this summer – a shock, I know.
• I spent way too much time at McCarren Park Pool this summer. The same goes for South Street Seaport.

Au revoir, summer of 2006! I’ll miss you terribly as I muddle my way through the dropping temperatures.