DannieG

Lesson learned, DO NOT blog about something or someone during the month of Dec. if I do not want a double copy of such item, I guess when I was opening my 3rd copy of ‘Blades of Glory’, I’ve realized that the blog post I wrote early Dec. about Jon Heder totally paid off — in a three copies of ‘Blades of Glory’ kind of way … I guess tonight it’s a good time to have some good laughs with this — napoleon dynamite, snl and arrested development mix together — aka blades of glory … it is pretty funny tho. :o)

A few days ago I uploaded this photo of Columbus Circle, NYC took this Nov. onto flickr, didn’t think too much of it, other than just to show off my photography and editing skillz. Then a little before Christmas I received an email, to inquire an 3inch wide size highres copy of the photo, the person is a musician in NYC, he and his wife wants to purchase the digital print so it would look perfect hang on their blue wall :o) . This is a pretty sweet deal, I hope more people will like my photos … maybe one day I’ll complete my dream of, opening my own travel photography exhibit. Till then I will just continue capture the wonders of life. New Year resolution: fuss less about little things in life, travel more and take more pictures.

Smile, Life is wonderful!

Love

Dannie

Had nothing to do this morning, finally checked DannieG.com’s Google Analytics report for the past month’s site traffic, not that I like to check those things, they are way too confusing, I don’t do anything beyond looking at all the pretty orange dots on the screen. And on today, one of the dot displayed Santa Claus on the map * Not photoshoped* … now that, I have no idea somewhere in America there is a city called Santa Claus, since i’m so bad with spelling, had to double check if it’s spell the same way … yes it is … then, that’s gotta be the most awesome town to live in … however, somehow I do suspect it’s one of those Google tricks.

Merry Christmas, and happy New Year!

Went out to dig the car all day yesterday, so I might be coming down with a light fever today, oh well nothing a little rest and hot soup can’t cure. I’m pretty excited about our holiday meal, inviting some people over and I’m getting in the kitchen to serve up a warm meal.

Also, After the New Years, Jan 6 - 7 I’ll be flying out to Houston,TX which I’m really looking forwards to - a two day break away from the cold weather sounds pretty good. That been said I’ll prob. be more Missing in action from now till I come back from Houston, will update all the stuff then.

Alright then, I’ll keep this post short, have a wonderful holiday!

Love

Dannie Gao

Getting snowed in before Christmas sounds like a wonderful deal, however the city of Boston made this joyful day into a total headache, I think after this winter maybe it’s time to move out of this city.

First of all the city declared snow emergencies and asked everyone to stay home, so we did, we didn’t go anywhere until late noon, we went out for a walk in the snow, only to find the whole street has been cleaned out of cars, no one knows anything about this nor where their car went, even the local police department were scratching their heads trying to figure out this one, after an hour of waiting, we finally found out the city had towed all of our car to South Boston … which is 2 hours away from us … plus they are charging us for the towing and each day the car is not picked up, as of now we can’t get there, it’s getting dark and snow is heavy, if we did manage to get the car back where are we going to park? it’s going to get towed back anyways. I’m just really mad about the fact they are actually charging us for the towing, what did we do, we didn’t do anything illegal, we have the resident sticker, there were NO notice pasted anywhere on the street to ask us to move our car, what’s their excuse to tow our car and then bill us, I know MA is not doing well, but still, it’s pretty low to find ways like this to charge residents money, maybe it’s a sign, it’s time to leave this headache state.

Oh well, as for now our car is spending the night in the cold South Boston pond, and we are trying to figure out how are we going to pay for everything this winter.

I might be an inadequate real life farmer, but in the virtual land, yes the land of pixels and clickers I’m one mighty wicked farm girl. A while back I downloaded Alice Greenfingers 2 from Big Fish Games to play with for fun, since then my little virtual farm has developed into a beauty piece of land, see, complete with sheeps + a duck pond and all :o) AH! sweet sweet digital farming.

I like video games, it stimulates the brain … really … I used to play alot of extreme sports games on PS then once I figured out the trick to beat the system it’s not much fun anymore. After all these years, going though different game phase — did I ever mention my DDR madness period? consider it burned after reading — I don’t know what’s about those farming sims that gets me so hooked on (cough *Harvest Moon* cough) maybe it’s the thought of owning something of my own to do whatever as I please.

From The Great Gatsby ‘The new rich and The old rich’ indeed, I’m referring to these, equal in some way and yet a world apart.

What is The New Rich, when you enter a room the host introduces you to others by saying, this is Dannie and she is a designer. There, that’s the New Rich, you make something from nothing and owning it. no one cares about your family background, it’s all about what made you the way you are.

The Old Rich on the other hand, enters a room, people would softly whisper to each other ’see her last name, is she that so and so’s daughter.’ or ‘isn’t her father the son of … fill in my grandfather’s name … one of the past mayor.’ Yes my family is linked with the old rich. From as I can remember I’m never introduced by what I have achieved, always by what my grandfather had succeed.

I remember when I was 11 I went to a party with my aunt, there I won the raffle price, which was a pair of Nike men’s sneakers … like I had any intention of entering that one … when I went up to receive the award, I over heard one of the host whisper to the other one ‘what! a little girl?’ the other one replied ’she’s from the Gao family’ those are not the first, when I enrolled school, the principle came personally down to my classroom, stood next to my desk and ask how I feel the first day, I know my grandfather was a good person that everyone looked up to, but … that’s then … that was the acts of the old rich, feed through the family name, nowadays, who the heck knows my grandfather, not to say, just mention the last name, you can mention the whole name layout the family tree and people would still have no clue, old riches are has beens, it’s time to forget and move on.

Someone once asked me “if your family has so much connections why are you still here…” well it’d be too long to explain, but you see, the world is moving, gone the days of feeding off your family’s wealth, flash a family name won’t do much anymore. A person needs to leave their comfort zone inorder to learn how to become The New Rich.

I once asked my mom why would my dad took away all of our money (more like my mom’s hard earned money, and I mean all of it, with nothing left, that we had to live on credit cards) and went back to China, does he not love us? she simply said: he loves his lifestyle more, he has no skills there is no job he can do nor wants to work hard for anything, he lives in the past were he is accustomed to relying on other people and family connections to open doors for him, here in the States it’s all too hard … At the time, I didn’t know what that all meant, now it’s pretty clear, he took the money so he can continue his Old rich Life style. Because he refused to step out of the comfort zone — learning a new skill and working hard to become a new rich, he’s forever living in the shadows of the old rich. Well, that’s all in the past, and truly from the bottom of my heart, I do wish him happiness.

However, from him, I learned not to be like him, I learned not to think nor relate to the past but to see what’s now and what is to come, working hard and believe in myself and everything I do. I do believe, very strongly believe, that by working hard, that one day I will become one of The new rich.

.. it’s funny when I think about it … Sometimes I like to think it’s God’s way of balance out everything.

So here comes the season for gift wraps, this time around I’m looking into more Eco Friendly ways to wrap, not that I haven’t thought about it before, however the wraps were all too ‘home made’ -ish looking (not so festive), not there is anything wrong with that, when it comes to gift wraps, sure simple is good, some might even prefer earthy ones, however I just love bold colorful ones more, the ones that just bursts with happiness. So this year I decided to find some fabulous … as well as .. eco friendly gift wraps.
1> Modern Wonderland by Whimsy Certified by the FSC and printed on 100% recycled paper with soy-based inks.
2> Chilly Dogs by Fish Lips 100% recycled paper with soy-based inks
3> Tori Gift Wrap Sheet by Erin Ruth Gift wrap is printed with soy-based inks on 50% recycled paper.
4> Happy Birds by Furoshiki Wonderful fabric gift wrap … however a bit expensive and kind of awkward to get the wrapper back … not sure what’s the deal about that, do I wait around for the wrapper or the gift receiver keeps it.
5> Last but not least, if you are really into nature stuff, then go here, to check out assorted of ropes and wrappers for a very eco holiday.

Ps: I’m crazy about the Gray + Purple gift wrapper by Erin Ruth and can’t resist to get some Chilly Dogs as well.

O’right Happy wrapping

It’s now officially Dannie Gao, yes tell that to my uncle who calls me takai takai repeatedly just to annoy me. Okay once for all it’s not Ai or Dan or anything else my name is just Dannie now, I guess Dan-Na was the name I said goodbye a long time ago, how did it all started?

Well let’s see, my original full name was pretty long, Gao Dan-Na or Gao Ai-Ao-Mei the later was for backup … In case when I get older I don’t like Dan-Na (because my neighbor at the time her daughter’s name is Li-Na, so even tho my official name is Danna everyone calls me Ai ). Tho Ai-Ao-Mi or Aiomi never catch up with me — too girly — basically the whole name means love and beauty … roll my eyes - besides it’s super long to write it all in Chinese and I get annoyed when people call me Ai Ai Ai Ai all the time …. Dan-Na or Danna sounds more modern, tho it’s still very girly by Chinese’s standards … Dan as in Mu-Dan or ‘Peony‘ (wiki has it) … maybe that’s why I like flowers so much, anyways, besides the neighbor moved away, so after a while people just started to use Dan-Na.

Then came the day I lost the Na … how? well if you put NA as your middle name 9 out of 10 Americans will think that means you don’t have one, so the day I came to the states is the day I lost my middle name. It will be some long long years for me to get it back. Meanwhile I was getting pretty comfortable with just Dan, I remember someone once told me ” you are so cute, you totally rocked the name Dan, if it were other girls… won’t have worked ” lol what a silly silly person.

Anyhow, where did Dannie came in? some how between explaining my name isn’t really Dan and correcting that Dan-Na isn’t spelled Dana I just decided to change it to something simpler, where I don’t have to explain myself all the time, I believe life is all about simple changes to make it run smoother, tho I don’t really like Dana … just don’t like it. When I was studying fashion in FIT I didn’t know who started it, everyone just calls me Dannie, and then I thought, it actually goes with my last name … so there you go, after a long journey, my name is finally complete.

Long gone the years people called me by all sorts of names, I feel like my life has roots now.

Two things that annoys me a big time, one is to compete and another is to compare, I don’t like to do it to myself and I hate others to use them upon me. I like to do things my way at my pace. Never once in my life I liked the taste of compete/compare. After all, I know for sure those are elements that’s going to throwing me off track.

However, when freelancing, I have to put up with the constant competing and comparing set up by the ‘clients’. I’m talking about those clients, carelessly uses sentence like, ‘well I can just as easily find someone to do it on the internet for this amount’ or ‘I was talking with another designer the other day and he’s also rather interested in this project’ … what do you want, me to go down on my knees and beg?! I mean I really do not get it, I charge a very reasonable rate, because I know most of the people come to me doesn’t have much to offer, however don’t take my act of kindness for granted and try to squeeze more out of the impossible, why when it comes to hiring a designer people think we don’t deserve what we earn?!

oh really! you think it’s something so simple ‘just a 20mins work’ … well if it’s so easy why don’t you just design it, oh by the way while you are at it, why don’t you sew your own cloth and fix your own god damn teeth, I mean after all all these things only takes 20mins right! — oh wait, you left out the ‘by professional’ part

Design is the key to everything in life even minimalist is a form of choice, look at the history and the present, only those who values design are more successful and more advanced. Think about it. After all what is design to do, it’s fluff, it’s not a real skill, it’s something fancy and extra which the world can live without? Everyone want to know the Target’s secret? It’s easy, it filled in the hole between high end and cheap by repackage the cheapo stuff Walmart sells. So is Ikea, without design, Ikea might as well be a giant ‘Family Dollar’. Out of all of the many countries in Asia, why is Japan so advanced? because they not only value technology, they also have a strong practice in design … after all it’s not a common thing to study 4 years in color theory anywhere else in the world.

We all know this, design is important, because, when you have a project the first thing you think about is how to make it look good. If you can’t do it, like everything else in life - you hire someone that can. Then why oh why do you try to strip out the designers? what, we do not eat? we don’t rent apartments? we don’t sleep in beds? I really don’t want to hear any more of the ’someone else could’ve done it cheaper … ‘ anymore, because if that’s the case then go for it what’s stopping you, did that someone else have the same experience? oh you left that one out right. sigh, look I like to be honest with people, because I sleep really good at night, so when I tell you my rates, don’t try the compete/compare trick, I might not know alot about many things in life, but this is what I do and I’m damn good at it, so next time when you want to say something think about it, why the heck would you say something like that to someone you are going to hire, that only creates anger and distrust, and for what? a couple of dollars knocked off? wake up you are paying the bigger amount, don’t let a couple of dollars make the project come out looking average. If someone had done it to you would you smile and do your best of work? I think not.

PS: I don’t think any of my past clients are reading this, however, if you are then you don’t have to worry, not talking about you guys, I’m simply venting about those people I refused to take on their project.