The Asian Elephant.

This is Jungle Boy. I bumped into him while walking from my hut. We met at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand where I spent some time volunteering. I loved this place. It is an undeveloped 50 acre area in the Mae Taeng Valley, about 2 hours north of Chiang Mai. Lek, its founder, was recognized as Times' Asian Hero of the Year.

Asian elephants are smaller than their African relatives and are largely domesticated. Their numbers have dwindled from 100,000 a century ago to about 2,500 - 5,000 today. The elephants at the sanctuary were mostly rescued from abusive owners. (One elephant that sadly passed away a week after I left the sanctuary was run over by a speeding truck in Bangkok)

As a volunteer, I got to feed and bathe them in the river. Other chores included cutting stalks from corn fields, preparing meals, and - of course - shoveling elephant poop. To learn more, visit elephantnaturefoundation.org.

Local art that inspires.

His name is Luke Chueh and his artwork is deliciously morbid. I saw his stuff at Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles and almost fell in love...

My favorite painting is called Baby Light My Fire, but I couldn't find a copy of it on his website so I'm putting a picture of my second favorite painting. It's called Inspiration (Bright Ideas from the Hole in My Soul).

Seeing your name on print.

It's really cool to see your name in the local newspaper for the first time. I can honestly say that planning and coordinating the Taste of Santa Monica has been the most stressful and challenging experience of my professional career so far (I've never consumed so much caffeine in my life!), but seeing the end result has also been very satisfying. Overall, I'm proud of what we accomplished and thankful for all the help from staff and volunteers. Most touching moment: Our interns could only legally work for eight hours, but all three offered to stay and help as volunteers. We sent them home anyway, but yay for cool people and awesome colleagues!