Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Got Frenchie, anyone? Surprise Appearance of the Polaris Slingshot

Does anyone recalling seeing one of the Polaris Slingshot on Memorial Day weekend? Visitors who went to the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose during FanimeCon may have recognized the vehicle as shown in the picture. There is only one thing that caught my mind - the particular hashtag that is known as #GotFrenchie, which sound somewhat familiar due to the fact that I saw commercials that involved milk drinking known as the "Got Milk?" campaign. So in my short blog, I decided to figure out on my own on what the hashtag in the Polaris Slingshot would mean in my own words. 

My findings reveal that the "#GotFrenchie" campaign relates to the specific bulldog that the owner of the Polaris Slingshot has done. French bulldogs are not anyone's ordinary bulldogs to him - the symbol on the Slingshot possibly has a meaning to his love of the Frenchie. The Polaris Slingshot that he owns is a four-cylinder manual transmission motorcycle, but it's not the typical motorcycle that anyone would see on the streets of Santa Clara County. Polaris Slingshot is classified as a motorcycle according to their definition, but functions as a 2-seater vehicle.

Among all the spectators that came out to take a few photos of the Polaris Slingshot with the #GotFrenchie mark, I was the only person with my GoPro that took several wide shots of the vehicle without actually touching the vehicle. The sad part about this blog is that the owner of the Slingshot did not have time to talk, which limited my blog to only a mere description of what I could remember, leaving me to figuring out more about the Slingshot and the #GotFrenchie word mark that he put on the Slingshot. For instance, I wish I could ask him more about how he decided to create a unique piece of artwork relating to the French bulldog and what it would mean to him.

The only other thing I could remember about him is his nice voice and laughing personality, not just about the French bulldog and the popular hashtag. I'll be surprised if he managed to read this blog and later sneak at all my social media profiles after reading this blog (he'll just have to figure it out). But I won't ever know if I'll see the Slingshot with the #GotFrenchie word mark again.

EDITOR'S NOTES: My Instagram and Twitter pages have the same user name for alignment reasons. Just a reminder that all users that wish to send me private messages (non-email) MUST follow me on Facebook (friend request only), Twitter, or Instagram to do so; all others must e-mail me - NO EXCEPTIONS. This is for my personal safety and security. Offensive languages on social media, my e-mail, or this blog's comments will NOT be tolerated.

Original Work: Kyle Chak
E-mail: chak595301@gmail.com
Twitter/Instagram: @KyleSChak
#OnlyOnKyle

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Soulful Obsession: The Eyes Through The Lense of a HERO 4 Camera

The beginning of the GoPro camera for me is just getting started, and no one was expecting something from a camera that was never seen by any Soulful Obsession band member. My first GoPro purchase during the holiday season was the beginning of a new age in taking digital photos and posting them in a angle that was unmatched and unprecedented. There are two people who I wish I would meet some day and thank them for inviting the public (including me) to use a GoPro camera and shooting the most amazing images - Nick Woodman and Abe Kiselvitz.

There were two motivations that eventually got me to obtain a GoPro camera. The first one was Nick Woodman's motivation as not only the image quality is high - but he also believes that taking selfies would never require the use of another person taking pictures of themselves. The second motivation came directly from GoPro's senior production artist, Abe Kiselvitz, as his many videos teaches the tutorials about how to successfully use a GoPro.

I, however, managed to figure out for myself and set the camera to different modes as suggested by Kiselvitz in the video and eventually decided to take pictures and video of my great adventures. After several trials and a couple of image posts on GoPro's website, I was ready to hit the roads and tell my stories of my adventures. In this short blog on my first-ever post relating to my GoPro, I describe what my experience was like inside a local San Jose art boutique seeing through the eye of my GoPro HERO 4 camera.

THE ART BOUTIQUE

Soulful Obsession's crew members have known to perform at various venues, including San Jose State University. But adding Amy Obenski to the list of performers at a local San Jose art shop and combined with bringing my GoPro along for the show resulted in a clearer picture of Soulful Obsession's performance. That location was at San Jose's SLG Art Boutiki and Gallery, which I heard that Soulful Obsession was among the performers that night. This area near the gallery was very familiar to me, as I also went to shops and eateries in several of my visits to the area.

Almost all of the Soulful Obsession crew members were unaware that my GoPro was going to be part of my adventure, despite that the lead singer, Lily Tran, was absent. In Tran's place was fill-in singer Maya Victoria. Tran was out of town at the time I was there, but she never knew about my GoPro being on the scene to capture the life's most wonderful camera shots. The rest of the crew - Veno Bender, Kosuke Okamura, and Bennett Roth-Newell - were present as Obenski performed using her guitar.

Soulful Obsession eventually went on stage as soon as Obenski came off the stage, who is proud of her achievements, but her voice was very tired. Several of the familiar favorites songs like "Open Invitation" and "Soulful Obsession" contains one of my favorite rapper's voice - that is Bennett's high-energy sound. The audience in some of the songs were engaged, though I was kept quiet for the most part as the GoPro camera was rolling.

After the show was over, Lily never knew that my newly-purchased GoPro came along even though she has met Woodman. She probably may have noticed that not all of my photos were on my iPhone while I was taking some selfies and clear shots of the scene inside the gallery. The one thing that perhaps she may ask me about what she did miss inside the boutique.

Original Work: Kyle Chak
E-mail: chak595301@gmail.com
Twitter: @KyleSChak

BONUS PHOTOS: The following photos are some of the highlights from performances from both Amy Obenski and Soulful Obsession. All of the photos in this blog are shot via my GoPro. In case the video below cannot be played in this blog, click here to view the video.