Willo O'Brien

FYI this post has been updated! Scroll down to read more details!

This year was awesome! Perfect weather, lots of friends, INCREDIBLE bands…. and the best part is that it was a total vacation for me! No email or work for 4 whole days! oh my!!! I needed that!

My rest & relaxation of course had LOTS of walking and standing in the heat, but it was truly worth it because we had a great time! Saturday I layed out in the sun & went swimming in the pool – and over the weekend I even managed to completely finished the book I’d started reading last week: The Kite Runner… sooo good! I was teary eyed more than once. It really is a moving story.. I recommend it! And not only did I finish my book, but I read my latest BUST that’s been neglected, and part of my HOW mag that has been sitting in the plastic wrap for about a month. Oh maaaan was it good to relax and just read and hang out – really, really excellent!

We got home tonite (Monday) around 7 or so & although I’d prepped myself for work, it made more sense to unpack, eat dinner, sort through my 90+ emails (oy!) and start sorting & uploading all my photos, because I knew if I didn’t tackle all that tonite it would sit undone in the flurry of my upcoming week. So, that’s done & the photos are uploading & now I am off to bed to get fully charged for a big day tomorrow!

Once the photos are uploaded I’ll come back to this post & recap some of my highlights of the trip… but I will tell you now – my absolute favorite set hands down was M.I.A. Holy SH*T! Ask anyone who was there (in the front 1/2 of the crowd anyway) it was incredible!!!!!! Ok, more tomorrow…. :)

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OK! Photos are posted!

Here’s how the weekend went down:

SATURDAY

• Woke up, got coffee, had breakfast, layed by the pool with a magazine, took a swim, got ready & hit the show. We had to wait in line for about 45 minutes to get in & it was hot!
• Finally in we hit Ambulance, Ltd. first (great as always), then…
• listened to Eisely while grabbing a bite to eat
• Went over to Snow Patrol
• While they all went to see the Kills, I stopped off to watch Moses’ show (Bicycle Rodeo/Cyclecide)
• Then we all met up & watched Keane and then
• Rilo Kiley! (who I love) and Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite was on stage! Vote for Pedro!
• I listened to Wilco a bit on the way to the beer garden and then…
• Weezer! so fun to see them live! finally!
• Bloc Party – was packed! But what I saw of it was excellent
• I tried to hit the beer garden while some peeps watched Coldplay, but they closed it at like 11 – what’s up with that!?
• Spoon closed the night! Fun to see him w/ a full band again… but I wished he’d played a few other songs I was hoping for :)

SUNDAY

• Woke up, got coffee, had breakfast, got ready & hit the show.
• Hubert & I went over to Dave’s RV/Tailgating party for a few beers. Dave’s a regular reader of my blog who I just met in person for the first time! Very nice sharing a few beers w/ you ddc!
• Hubert & I went in, line not too long the 2nd day, and first hit Gram Rabbit and they were great! Really fun to dance to, I’d see them again for sure.
• Then we headed over to Subtle, where we thought we might find Jem & Tania
• then to Autolux, where I finally met up with Chris, Ted & Misty! Jem even found us for a bit before taking off for another show
• At this point the line up was crazy – sooo many great shows packed into about 2 hours!
• After a bit of Autolux (who was incredible as always), Hubert & I hit the beer garden where we met up with Misty, Kate, Natalie & Craig and more…
• I hit Kasabian for about 2 songs (who sounded better than I thought they would and was pretty entertaining to watch the dorky lead singer), and then…
• Went over to M.I.A. by myself, got up close and danced my ass off!!! Oh my god it was AMAZING! Ran into Kat Hunter’s friend Christian right as we were all cheering like mad to have M.I.A. come out for an encore – which NEVER happens at Coachella! But we were all *so* fired up from an INCREDIBLE set… and so much the shagrin of the event coordinators (since they only have so long to prepare for the next set) the crowd wouldn’t leave until she did – and so she came out & gave us a 2 song encore!! wooohoooo!!!! It was an epic show and anyone that was up front was talking about it all day – I overheard a ton of ppl that felt just like I did – totally blown away and worth the price of admission right there! It was great! Not much can make me dance my ass of like that – sooooo fun!
• I headed over to the Bravery at this point, but I was famished!!! I thought I was going to pass out, so I only watched 1 or 2 songs (one of which was a U2 cover) & text messaged peeps to find someone to grab a bite with. Chris met me in the beer garden & I scarfed down a tasty polish dog :) Hit the spot! I was ready for more! Unfortunately during this time there was SO many great acts going on, I missed seeing my boys The Futureheads – who I love, but have seen a couple times. Still I woulda liked to catch them – but alas my hunger called!
• Chris & I walked over to see Gang of Four for a bit (who was great) & then…
• We headed over to Arcade Fire which was AWESOME. The crowd was HUGE and we got relatively close considering the MASS of people there. It was like a spiritual experience – EVERYONE was singing & clapping – it was cool!!
• Then I met up with Jem & Tania again to see Dresden Dolls who were really good live
• Then we ate again and chilled out before going to see Pinback (we were a tad wiped out, so we just chilled in back & listened). It was a light crowd there, because everyone was at Nine Inch Nails, which I totally spaced going to see! oh well…
• The Faint!! was excellent.. really fun visuals too – great to dance to
• Jem & I went to check out Black Star for a bit, but weren’t too into them. We both liked 1 song out of maybe 3 that we heard… and then I got accosted by some shirtless drunk frat boy wanting to “dance”. eewww. Jem saved me & we took off for Bright Eyes!
• Bright Eyes was great to see live and a great way to end a fabulous weekend!!!!

MONDAY:

Our drive home wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be… it was actually really nice. I finished my book and we seemed to get back pretty fast – before dark! It was a fun trip!!

OK, time for work! :)

Kazoo showing off his very handsome fuzzy sweater! :)

photos taken w/ Jeff’s Canon EOS-20D, that had a huge telephoto lens on it. UPDATE: because “huge” is so technical and I’m trying to get more geek points, it was actually a 70-200 F4.0L lens. (thanks jeff)

I uploaded a few photos:

• I’m stoked on my new iPod case! I bought it at the mac store when Haylie was here, and truly I’m STOKED on this thing! I had previously just been using the case that comes with the iPod (I know, how lame!?) but that one was extra annoying in the car because I wanted to still keep it in the case to protect it, but every time I wanted to see what was playing I had to pull it out of the case. Actually same with the gym…. but now I can see it!! And I keep the backlight on most all the time cuz that’s the way I LIKE IT! But I wish the iPod had a setting that let me set the backlight settings for when it’s charging and for when it’s not! I also uploaded a shot of my aux-in/charger combo set up in my car. Ya, I know, I’m a geek. Who takes photos of this stuff? :)
• Here’s Haylie’s beautiful painting of the roses! (see detail shot)
• Jeff & I had a late business lunch yesterday and then a mini photo field trip! We ate at Platanos, which was pretty yummy! We were the only ones in there at 2 in the afternoon, but I know it gets really busy for dinner and my friend Rebecca has raved about it. We started off with the guacamole and it came with plantane chips – crispy, sweet & salty – super yumm! The rest of the meal was yummy, too – but if you go, get the guac for sure! :)

  After lunch we stopped off at the Mission Dolores Church for a little photo field trip. I had never been there before and it was pretty cool. It really is amazing some of the beautiful places we have in this city. We travel all the way to Italy to see their amazing churches and really we have some incredible places like it right here in this city. (like the breathtaking painted ceilings in City Hall!).

  View all photos in this album

  So anyway – we went there specifically to take some comparison shots between the SD400 he was reviewing & my new SD500 (which he was reviewing, and then I bought it :). Here’s his comparison shots he posted from the trip. Looking at the large sizes you can definitely see the 7.1 Megapixel vs. the 5.0 – even though I know that for all my purposes of the web, I’ll hardly need that awesome detail – but ya never know! I still recall Maggie, after hearing my SD500 was 7.1 megapixels, saying “USE IT! Print huge posters!” :) I think that sounds fun actually! I should. But of what? My kitty? hahhaa. Umm, you laugh, but I just might!

  Just in case you are wondering what the differences are between the 2 cameras – it basically comes down to the SD500 has more megapixels, a longer flash range, a tad longer battery life, is just *slightly* bigger & heavier – but still fits in the backpocket! – and the controls are a bit different (switching from play to manual mode to movie, etc). Also, as you’ll see on the comparison photos Jeff took, the SD500 always looks more zoomed-in than the SD400. That’s because the SD500 uses a larger sensor (because there aren’t any tiny 7.1MP sensors yet), so the focal length changes (higher focal lengths are more telephoto). Thanks to Jeff for helping me state that in laymen’s terms! :)

Alright now listen – since I talk about these camera’s so damn much – if you’re going to buy one of these, use these links to give me a kick back! My friend Misty just bought one & I coulda made 5%! What? I woulda bought you a beer or something! :)

– Buy the Canon Powershot Elph SD500
– Buy the Canon Powershot Elph SD400

you should subscribe to hi-fructose magazine! it’s a new deal from attaboy! oh my!

check out my friend jen’s nooworks tees & stuff – she’s awesome! and she linked to me! oh my! I *SO* need to redesign – gah! but stoked on the linky none-the-less. she rules!

getting ready for coachella and am SO STOKED… our house we rented is only a few minutes miles away from the polo grounds so we can walk home if we want & avoid the horrible parking lot hell! And there’s a pool! and we’re going to be roaad trippin! Which I was thinking just might be one of my last road trips for awhile… I’m starting to get to the age that I will *so* spring for the flight & rental car. Speaking of – I’m planning a trip down to LA now, like in July or August! I have a ton of ppl I want to visit & need to make it happen! :)

Stoked also that this weekend the temps are high’s of mid 80’s (instead of the sweltering 104 we endured last year!), but the bummer of that is the evenings will drop to 60 – which I know we’ll be even bigger babies about since we’ll have been in the hot sun all day, even though we’re totally used to it being 60 degrees all the time up here. Either way it sorta sucks we have to bring long sleeve shirts. I have to carry a bag! Last year Rick was my human carry-all :) His pockets fit my camera, lipshit, etc… so this year I’m on my own! oh well. I’m starting to psych myself up – a bag will be a good thing. I might even bring a little journal & doodle some indie rocker kids while I’m there! :)

I worked out yesterday & today – yesterday we did some hard core legs.. lunges and stuff.. which means tomorrow whenever we stop at a rest stop, getting out of the car is going to be stiff and painful. hahaa. And then the worst of today’s arms workout will hit me Saturday and I’ll have a hard time lifting the water to my mouth. hahhaaa Probably not that bad, but I’m actually stoked to be sore. Makes me feel all tough & in shape (even though I’m *SO* not – but I’m getting back into it!!)

I’m sad I’m leaving my kitty this weekend – but he’s got my downstairs neighbor who he knows & loves… and I just took care of their kitties all week, so it’s a good trade. He’ll be fine – he’s home & gets to play in the garden all day and then sleep in this cozy house at night.

Work is still a tad crazy – but getting a little more manageable which is awesome. Today is my illustrating day – which means it’s dedicated to working on the 2 illustration projects I have! Not so bad to spend the day drawing. I love my life.

I’m not used to having a huge gap of 8 hours where I’m doing *nothing*, so I’m already feeling myself planning uber productivity for the car ride down. I can read! (currently reading The Kite Runner) I can draw! And if I were super motivated I might even go buy the transperancies and indian ink to start drawing up some things to silkscreen next weekend with Darren!! But part of that sounds messy & stuff… so I think instead I’ll just sketch out some solid ideas for what I want to silkscreen.

I’m also tempted to bring my laptop. This is when I need that solar power charger for sure! I could just set that in the back window & be charged the whole trip down there! Bummer is I’m not sure we’ll have internet down there – and taking it for it only to last 2 hours on the way down, and the way back seems somewhat silly – especially considering the cramped quarters I think we’ll have with 4 of us in Jem’s little car. BUT I could watch a movie on it on the way down, which would be cooL!

OK enough typing all these silly thoughts out… I must get back to work. :) Have a great weekend everyone!

Here’s the photo album from our weekend together. Haylie has more that I want to add to this [UPDATE: She has added a few & will add the rest soon!], since I’m missing lots that she ‘documented’ for us, but this will show you a few of the things we did! :)

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Also, I’ve posted photos from last weekend’s party at Jem & Tania’s!

We had a blast! (see the photos!)

Thursday night after we came back here to drop off our stuff, immediately I grabbed a pen & paper to make a list of all the things we wanted to do so I was sure we were maximizing every minute of our short weekend together! And boy, did we!

Haylie mentioned that she wanted to go to Sanrio & Chinatown – and looking at the rest of our weekend, I was like – OK, let’s go now!! So we headed downtown and hit the SF Center (Sanrio is now on the bottom floor there, instead of their huge flagship store), Sephora (one of Haylie’s favorite stores!), Urban Outfitters, Apple store, and then finally to Chinatown. We were going to go to an IMAX at the Metreon, but by the time we’d wandered around and done a little shopping, it was too late to try to fit in dinner & then the movie – so we mosied around some more & then went & had a late dinner at the yummy Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack. delish!! Hit the spot, cuz we were hungry!

Friday I worked, but Haylie was delighted to just hang in her PJ’s on the computer at my place.. and she had some sites to work on, too. The girl is a photoshoppin, html’in, ftp’in girl just like her older sis! :)

Around 6 we got ready & went to Blowfish Sushi! They play anime and loud music & I thought Haylie would dig seeing such a funky restaurant. She’s not an anime fan – and neither of us really liked the music – but the sushi was good! :)

We made it over to the Brain Wash cafe just in time to see our friends & chat w/ Jem & Jasmyn before they went on. Tanya, Misty, Ted & Darren were there – which was great for Haylie to meet all my friends! It was really cool to see my girl Jem sing & play! I had no idea she had so many skillz – she was playing the keyboards & singing, and then her acoustic guitar and singing. It was wonderful to see her & Jasmyn play all the songs they’ve been working on for the last month or so!

Jem has a really sweet, soft voice and I wanted to yell “More Vocals!” but I was afraid she’d say back to me (since I was just a few feet away) “Then it won’t be soft!” :) Overall I was so happy to be there watching and supporting my favorite Jemmy Jem. I even wore my 2 JEM pins in celebration. I’m the pres of her fan club!

So after that Haylie & I were like “What should we do?” Go rent Napolean Dynamite! Yesssss! And the video store even had ice cream there – saved us a trip! woohoo! So we came home, and like the geek that I am while we watched the movie I organized a bunch of CD’s that needed to be placed into the A-Z’s. Awesome, because I’d been meaning to do that for months!!

Saturday we got up & went to breakfast at my favorite: Boogaloos! Cam & Jenna came to meet us, but were a bit late due to some unforseen chaos Cam incurred… but we at least got to see them on the way out! Cam is a sweetie (and a spaz) and gave Haylie a big hug & swung her around and Haylie loved it :) I was glad she at least got to meet them! We would have stayed to chat, but we had to rush over to our 11am class!

Haylie & I planned on taking a Silkscreening class at the Mission Cultural Center – and it was awesome!!! It was a 4 hour ordeal and our teacher was so nice & the facility is great! We had SOOO much fun & I can’t wait to go back there & do more silkscreening!!

After we were done w/ that we were ready to come home for our scheduled “chill time”. But Haylie was on a creative roll! So after checking email & such, she was like “Did you say you had paints? Cuz I really want to paint these roses out your window.” And so I went & grabbed my paints & we set up Haylie a little painting station & she painted the beautiful pink roses that are blooming out my window. It came out great too!! She gave it to me (yay!) so I’ll have to take a pic or scan it – it really came out amazing. She’s so talented!!

While she was painting, I watched this documentary I’ve had on Netflix for awhile and was so happy to finally have time to watch it! It was on Robert Rauchenburg – who’s one of my favorite artists & I have been wanting to see this for a long time. It was really quite timely too – because he’s one of the foremost artists to use silkscreening in his work to the magnitude that he has. Truly amazing! I learned a lot about him and it was nice to relax a bit.

Saturday night we had dinner with Lyne at the Ethiopian restaurant on Valencia. I love Ethiopian myself and Haylie was a sport to try it! But unfortunately neither of the girls enjoyed it, which was a bummer. I guess Lyne didn’t like the eating with your hands part – and Haylie’s not a fan of anything with spice… and I think it was just too different for her to get into. Oh well! Now I can’t wait to go with someone who enjoys it as much as me. It’s like going to sushi w/ someone who doesn’t eat fish! jeeshk! :) But I was happy Lyne got to join us for a bit.

Haylie & I then headed over to the Youth Speaks’ Brave New Voices event at Nob Hill Masonic. We got there around 7:15 – but I think by the time we waited in the super long will call line it had to have been 8:15 by the time we were actually seated. But it was cool! Youth ages 13-19 were competing in 5 different teams. There were 4 rounds, and we heard scores at the end of each ‘performance’. It was really fun to hear which ones Haylie liked and overall to see the crowd of about 3000 people be so supportive and excited for these talented youth! I loved it!

We were going to go to Cafe du Nord to see Loquat afterwards, but we didn’t get out of there till about 11:30, so the responsible (and admittedly tired) big sister decided we should probably go home instead, so we did. We both had had a long day & I was glad we decided to come home and get the good rest we needed!

Sunday morning we got around & headed out to Matt’s for a DELICIOUS pancake breakfast! He even made us bacon & sausage too – and we had fresh strawberries & bananas cut up for our pancakes. It was sooo yummmy!!! Matt’s the best cook and it was so great to see him and his cutie kitty, Donovan.

So then, to squeeze every little last minute of fun out of our trip before she had to go, we headed to the beach for a few quick pics of the Pacific! And then cruised through the Haight all the way downtown for a quick 20 minute stop off at the Paul Frank store :) Seriously we could have not squeezed in one more thing! We left straight from there to the airport & shipped lil’ Haylie off, back to Steamboat.

Thanks for coming to visit, sis!! I love yoU!!! xoxoxooxox

I posted on Craigslist today: I need a PANTONE book. I’m doing so many print jobs lately that it’s about dang time I have my own one of these. I’m loving Speedway Printing here in town, too.

So, oddly enough at the bottom of my post, CL asked if I wanted to send my post to outer space. Neat! An alien just might have the PANTONE book I’m looking for! woohoo! Never hurts to try to make friends out there. I just hope they don’t send me spam!

this weekend marks the first in several that I won’t be working all weekend – which is good & bad.

the good: my little sister is coming to visit!! yay!! haylie (previously Haley – changing the spelling of your name just *happens* when you’re 12/13 – go figure) is *13* and this is her first trip out to see me all by herself! should be fun!

here’s some of the things we have planned:

– Tonite: go out & eat somewhere yummy! (boy I should have started planning this! but it’s not hard to think of amazing places to go, and I suppose I’ll just have to see what we’re hungry for… but overall I hardly go out to eat anymore, so I’m excited! Emmy’s maybe? Ethiopian? (what kid doesn’t like to eat with her hands!), Firecracker (chinese), Goat Hill (tasty pizza), Thai, Dim Sum, Mediterranean – our options are endless!

– Draw!! and Play on our computers!! :) We’re of the same blood, what can I say?

– Friday day: I must work! (so. much. to. do… so. little. time.)

– Friday night: Go see my friend Jem’s band, Jean-Marie play at the Brainwash Cafe!! Come out & see them with us!! 8pm! be there! I’m excited cuz Haylie will get to meet a lot of my friends there – and it’s just my luck it’s at the Brainwash Cafe cuz she can get in there – yay!

– Eat sushi (at some point)

– Saturday morning – maybe take a hike up Bernal & then go have breakfast on Cortland?

– Take photos!!! My very lucky little sister just got a SD400! So we’ll be finding lots of photo ops :)

– Saturday – Take a class! I’m hoping it’s the Silkscreening on Paper class on Saturday! :)

– Saturday night we’re hittin the Youth Speaks Brave New Voices Finals at the Masonic Auditorium!! A lot of the BAMboozled youth are going, and said it’s going to be amazing! I think Haylie will really dig it (and me too!)

– Dinner w/ my lovely friend Lyne Saturday before the show, somewhere yummy in the mission

– Sunday morning – we’re having breakfast w/ Mateo! Matt is my ex-boyfriend who I was with for 4.5 years and Haylie & him were very close (see photos on an old website I’d made for her when she was 9 or so). They have a secret handshake and everything! They haven’t seen eachother since our split (2 years ago now!) and she was THRILLED when she heard she got to see him. yay! We’re both really excited to see him, and I think he’s going to make us his specialty: PANCAKES! Yum!!!

– Somewhere in there fit in other touristy things… maybe the Pier, or go check out the bridge – or skip all that & just go to the ocean! Feel free to leave any other suggestions you might have.

the bad:
I have so much work to do that I really needed to keep my run of working through the weekend… but as soon as I put her back on the plane on Sunday I can dive right back into my lovely 12 hour a day schedule. It actually will be quite nice to not work for a day & 1/2 & play instead!

Oh & I *must* get to bed at 12 tonite. I have no problems staying up until 2am – it’s the sleeping in that’s not working lately! I wake up at 8:30 on the dot almost every single day – and how annoying is that?! It’s messing up my 8 hour goal! So tonite, it’s a lovely 8 hours no. matter. what. Plus, when you’ve got family in town – it’s best to not have any possibility of crankiness in your system. :)

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So I just got done putting something yummy in my tummy (before I forget in the flurry of cleaning up my house & going to get her at the airport). I just had a TASTY mozzarella and salami sandwich. yumm.

Have a great weekend everyone!

wow! check it out: Press Release

update: looks like the adobe site is getting hit hard this morning – here’s an alternate link.

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also on wired, this interesting article on “unplugging” one day a week. i should try that! ha!

I cannot WAIT for Coachella!!! wooohoooo!!!

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Oh my god, my calves are SO SORE. I worked em out hard on Monday – so of course by Wednesday they were really sore… and we went & worked out again today, and although I only did 20 minutes of cardio (involving my legs, but we did weights on our arms) – my calves are seriously so frickin sore still. It’s like I’ve permanently damaged them. hahaa (but I know I haven’t). I actually love being sore… and boy am I! And tomorrow and the next day I have my arms being sore to look forward to! yahoo! hahaa

OK, back to work!