Update from Albert's Family

Updated on 9/9/08

Dear Friends,

 

The Wang family invites you to help celebrate and memorialize the life of Albert Wang on Saturday Sept. 20 at Jack London Square in Oakland, California, in the pavilion operated by Scott's Seafood: 

http://www.scottseastbay.com/oak_pavilion.cfm. 

Doors will open at 10 am, with a formal program starting at about 11:30 am. Food and beverage will be served. 

 

Following the pavilion event, a memorial paddle will depart from nearby California Canoe and Kayak, sometime between 2 and 3pm, and will be coordinated by CCK's proprietor and long time supporter of the kayaking community, Keith Miller.   

 

A follow up communication will provide directions and recommendations for local overnight accommodations. 

 

In the meantime, the organizers of this event ask for help on a few fronts:

 

1)  Recommendations on local hotels or other accommodations for out of town guests.

2)  Hardcopy photos.  We would like to display photos of Albert on several tables. If you have photos that you are comfortable leaving on display during the memorial, please bring them. In organizing the photos, flamboyant captions providing context are most welcome. Please also label the collection, and even the individual photos with return information, to help prevent their misplacement. We are also looking to make arrangements to scan and return hardcopy photos, so please think whether you might be comfortable lending your collection so that it can be scanned.

 

3)  Softcopy photos.  We will look into setting up a few laptops to display slideshows or videos. Again, captions and context are welcome. The family would be grateful if it could receive copies of photos/videos on disc.  Also, we've created a website, which is probably best if you only have a handful of photos or so.  That site is

http://gallery.me.com/tsesung#100016&bgcolor=ltgrey&view=grid

You can follow the directions posted there for uploading via a web browser or by simply emailing them (in which case the subject line of the email becomes the photo's caption).  You can send more than one photo per email.

 

4)  Memorabilia. Please contact us if you or a group have ideas for other memorabilia.

 

5)  Speakers.  Please email us at this address if you would like to speak. There will be ample opportunity to speak spontaneously, but an initial schedule will aid in planning. Please indicate if your remarks might be shorter (2 minutes or less) or longer, and provide a little context on how you know Albert.  If you are unable to attend but would like to send some remarks for display or for reading, please also feel free to send those to us.

 

6)  Follow Up Memorials. The Wang family will make available a portion of Albert's ashes, to be scattered in the many settings where he enjoyed life. Albert's life was many faceted, so we know that we need help in honoring him in this way. What we are envisioning is that groups that knew Albert will organize and appoint a contact. The contact will receive a portion of Albert's ashes at the pavilion event. Later, the groups can organize and hopefully videotape the scattering of the ashes, add personal interviews and introductions, and talk about how Albert enjoyed that particular activity. Ideally the family would receive softcopies of any photos or videos, and they would also be loaded to the web. 

 

Thank you all for loving Albert,

 

Albert's Little Brother,

Tom

From 8/24/08:

Thank you for all your messages and well-wishes.

Albert is scheduled to be cremated on Friday morning at 10 am in a private proceeding attended by the immediate family. The family is hoping to schedule the memorial for Albert two or three weekends from now. The family has agreed to make a portion of Albert's ashes available for different groups to scatter in the settings that Albert loved. We will have more details regarding this soon.

Cards may be sent to this address:

The Wangs

3942 N Chesterbrook Rd

Arlington VA 22207

In lieu of gifts, the family would like it if donations could be made in Albert's name to one of his favorite charities. Once, the logistics are arranged we will let you know.