Wednesday, February 28, 2007

team demographics

I had a funny conversation today at work:

coworker:Someone was saying to me yesterday that everyone in our group looks the same.
me:(amazed silence, since my coworker is male and white, not to mention British, while I am female and Asian-American)
coworker:Well, we're all young and single, and we all go to the gym.

I guess that's mostly true. There are fifteen engineers on our team, three of whom are over 30. Of the three, two are married, and of those two, one has children. Everyone else is "young and single", although I feel pretty old surrounded by all of the recent grads. And, over half the team goes to the gym at least every other day. I don't think any of that makes us look alike, though, except that (being somewhat in shape and not having spent money on kids and such) we mostly all wear nice jeans.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

new drinks

I find that I like cocktails better than both wine and beer. Unfortunately, that makes drinking expensive, and which makes it hard to find new drinks, because it sucks to pay $5-10 for a cocktail that you end up not liking.

However, I've been going to a lot of weddings, and weddings tend to have open bars, so I have discovered some new favorites. Chambord and soda with lime is light and yummy, and so is tequila sunrise. Most recently, at the wedding two weeks ago, I discovered the amaretto stone sour, which is way, way better than a plain amaretto sour. I've been told that toasted almond (amaretto, Kahlua, & cream) is also good. I'll have to keep that in mind for next time.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

good day

It was rather an unproductive week for me at work, mostly due to me switching onto a new subproject and having to spend a lot of time ramping up. And, being unproductive always makes me feel a little icky, like I'm losing whatever programming skills I ever had, and/or wasting the company's time (and money).

Consequently, it was especially nice to have a really good day today, during which I thought about work not at all.

I slept in pretty late, got up in time to eat a quick brunch, and then spent a couple hours on the EA basketball courts working on my shot, which has been off pretty much since I got back from Hawaii. I now have a really sore right arm, but I think I have some of my form back.

After that, I spent most of the afternoon working on various things that I'd been putting off, including the menu for a birthday party I'm planning, and a detailed task list for a baby shower that I'm also planning.

Dinner was at Delfina, in the Mission, right next to Tartine. I was actually able to find parking only three blocks away, which is always a great way to start off a night in the city. The restaurant was pretty crowded even when we got there at 6pm, and was totally packed when we left after 8pm, with good reason. We ate family style, and there were several dishes that I enjoyed very much, including the Ribollita (kind of a pan-fried stuffing with veggies), the Papperdelle and duck sugo, and the Berkshire pork spareribs.

We were supposed to go to a party at Bubble Lounge around 9pm, so the timing worked out pretty well, what with the drive from the Mission to the Financial District, and then another round of parking bingo. This time we were even luckier, finding a parking spot only a block and a half away. We closed out the evening snacking on Hamachi tartare, grilled mushroom and fontina panini, and strawberry and chocolate fondue, while drinking champagne (of course), scotch, and assorted cocktails generously mixed with Belvedere vodka.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

happy new year!

Happy year of the pig! I spent the weekend eating lots of New Year's foods, at my parents' house and at a family friend's house. Then, I actually managed to deep fry some sweet nein gau of my own at a friend's house yesterday night. That is, I took pre-made nein gau and fried it; I didn't make it from scratch. Small steps.

Friday, February 16, 2007

massive cultural gap

I was talking to a friend the other day about why I get along better with my grandfather than my grandmother.

The average conversation between me and my grandfather goes something like this (in Taiwanese, of course):

me:Hi Grandpa, I'm glad to hear that your hip is better.
gf:Yes, but my eyes are still not very good. How about you, how's work? Are you very busy this month?
me:No, it's not bad right now, I just had a deadline last week.
gf:What are you doing for exercise these days?
me:I've been playing in a basketball league once a week, and my team practices once a week, also.
gf:Do you have any fun upcoming plans?
me:Yes, I'm going to Hawaii with my friends, and we are going to hike and kayak and maybe go windsurfing.
gf:Maybe it's best if you don't go windsurfing; it's dangerous.

The average conversation between me and my grandmother goes something like this (again, in Taiwanese):

me:Hi Grandma, how is everything?
gm:Good. Are you getting married soon?

Okay, I exaggerate. But it's not far off, I swear.

My friend was saying that she has a similar problem with her older female relatives as well; they tend to be concerned primarily with whether we have boyfriends, when we're going to be married, and whether we're planning to have children soon. In contrast, our older male relatives are interested in our careers, our hobbies, and our daily lives.

We concluded that the cultural gap between American 21st century women and Taiwanese early 20th century women is much, much larger than the typical gap between grandparents and their grandchildren. Having that realization made me a little sad, but it doesn't stop me from feeling irritated when talking to my grandmother.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

wedding overload

I was counting the other day and realized that I'm scheduled to attend nine weddings so far this year:
- Charity & Mark: February 17th, in Stanford/San Francisco, CA
- Jane & Bert: April 8th, in Beverly Hills/Pasadena, CA
- Justin & Jennifer: April 14th, in Dallas, TX
- Ann & Duong: April 21th, in San Ramon, CA
- William & Kimara: May 12th, in Lanesboro, MN
- Ingrid & Christopher: May 27th, in Verona, WI
- Kathie & Steve: June 2nd, most likely in Palo Alto, CA
- Angela & Perkin: June 9th, in Menlo Park/Redwood City, CA
- Wen & Mehmet: June 24th, in Los Gatos, CA

Last year, I attended six weddings:
- Spencer & Stephanie: May 28th, in Novato, CA
- Stephanie & Edwin: June 17th, in Seattle, WA
- Steve & Jocelyn: August 12th, in Sonoma, CA
- Debbie & Hsien: October 7th, in Long Beach, CA
- Sherry & Brian: November 11th, in Woodside/Milpitas, CA
- Spencer & Erica: December 30th, in Honolulu, HI

I was unable to attend a seventh wedding because it was also on May 28th (Emily & Bob, in Monterey, CA), and an eighth (July 2th in Boston, MA) was cancelled. I chose not to attend a ninth (Linda & Leon, October 14th in Richardson, TX) because it was one week after Long Beach.

That's (at least) fifteen weddings in two years. I was curious as to whether I'd been to that many before 2006 in my entire life, so I started cataloguing them:
- Tina & Minh: October 29th, 2005, in Milpitas/Campbell, CA
- Lisa & Matt: October 8th 2005, in Sugarland, TX
- George & Diana: May 7th 2005, in San Jose, CA
- Alwin & Connie: July 24th 2004, in Sunnyvale/Cupertino, CA
- Elaine & Alex: May 8th 2004, in Laguna Beach, CA
- Sergio & Nicole: August 9th 2003, in Boston, MA
- Katelyn & Laurent: June 14th 2003, in Redwood City, CA
- Alice & James: October 12th 2002, in Shanghai, China
- Cindy & Andrew: September 7th 2002, in Boston, MA
- Ken & Bo: May 31th 2002, in Tiffin, OH
- David & Elsa: May 11th 2002, in New York, NY
- Mabi & Michael: February 2002, in Burlingame, CA
- four of my parents' siblings' weddings (1983, 1984, 1993, January 2002)

Turns out there were sixteen pre-2006 weddings, and there have been fifteen post-2005 weddings so far. Does that make 2005/2006 some kind of inflexion point?

In general, I'm happy to celebrate weddings with my friends and family, but my wallet has been complaining a bit lately, especially for the out-of-town ones. Well, it's hard to complain about an excuse to go to Hawaii, but Minnesota? Wisconsin?? On the bright side, given a finite number of friends and relatives, there should be a finite number of weddings to attend, I should hope.

I am looking forward to this weekend's wedding; the ceremony is at the Stanford Memorial Church, and I haven't been there since I was a flower girl in my uncle's wedding (1984, see above). I don't remember it, but I have the pictures, and they're beautiful. Plus, the reception is at the Asian Art Museum, which I do remember from school field trips, and that should be gorgeous as well.

Update: I've been told that the Asian Art Museum has moved. I guess I should have realized that after visiting the new De Young last month. Oh well, it'll be fun to check out the new location, anyway.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Swiss chocolate

A coworker arrived from Switzerland a few days ago, and brought with him a large amount of Swiss chocolate. By large, I mean that our team has been eating it for several days now, and we've consumed maybe a fourth of it, tops. I'm so spoiled now, I can't even eat Godiva anymore. I certainly can't eat Hershey's.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Vegas highlights

I got back yesterday from yet another sleep-deprived, smoke-filled Vegas trip.

This time, I did head back to the Fashion Outlets in Primm this time, and had a productive shopping day.

On the food side of things, I finally got to try Bouchon Las Vegas, where I had a yummy bucket of mussels, accompanied by French fries. I topped that off with a plate of cheese; I've forgotten the other two (one was sheep's milk, one was cow's milk) but my favorite was the Garotin, which is a fairly mild, soft cheese made of goat's milk.

The next night, we ate at Rosemary's Restaurant, which is a good 15 minutes off the Strip, but is well worth the drive. I had a $49 prix fixe, with a parmesan souffle and wild mushroom ragout appetizer, roasted rack of lamb entree (+$10 surcharge), and a chocolate bread pudding, espresso ice cream, and vanilla creme anglaise dessert. All three of the dishes were extremely good; I felt the souffle was the most creative, and the lamb had no aftertaste at all (like New Zealand lamb), but I enjoyed the dessert the most. We were also treated to a savory bread pudding amuse, and homemade sweets after dessert.

I was finally able to eat again the next day at around 1:30pm, and at that time we headed to the Paris Sunday brunch. It was $25 per person, and well worth it. My favorite dishes were the puff pastry with the chicken stew inside, the king crab (of course), and the chocolate tart dessert.

The non-food activities mostly involved drinking and gambling. On the first night, we went to Caramel, a lounge inside of the Bellagio, and had lots of expensive drinks. I think I spent over $100 buying a round of Lemondrops for six people. Afterwards, we were fairly tipsy, and managed to entertain ourselves playing nickel slots for a couple of hours before heading off to bed.

The next night, I actually meant to get a decent amount of sleep, but three of my friends entered a poker tournament starting at 11pm, and after three hours, two were still in it, so of course I had to stay and watch. On the bright side, one of them finished third in the tournament, making a couple hundred dollars. On the other hand, the tournament finished at a quarter past 4am, so I didn't get to sleep until sometime after 5am.

Right before we left for the airport, one person (who had lost a lot of money over the last few days) decided on a whim to put some money on roulette. He walked up to the nearest table, and put $20 on 24, and $20 on 28. He wasn't watching the wheel, but several of us were, and we were completely stunned when the ball hopped in and out of 0 and landed on 28, netting him $720. It was a great way to leave.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

gone skiing

So after two days of staying up until 3am, I actually managed to wake up at 4am on the third day, to get on a bus to Tahoe. We hit the slopes at Squaw Valley at around 10am, took an hour long break for lunch, and then skied right up until the lifts closed at 4:30pm, for over five hours of solid skiing.

Until this week, I hadn't been up yet, since I'd been hearing such horrible things about the snow this year. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised. There were definitely some very bare and/or rough spots (the top of Emigrant, except a narrow stripe in the middle, and most of Solitude was horrible) but there was good skiing to be had on Shirley Lake, Red Dog, and a few other places.

Every year, I always think that I forget how to ski, but then when I get out there, I realize that not only do I remember how to do it, in fact I quite enjoy it.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Chou time

It's been a very Jay Chou-centric weekend.

The original plan for Friday was to see Curse of the Golden Flower at the AMC Mercado, but when the movie showtimes came out for this week, we discovered that Golden Flower had been yanked already. The next closest showing (in both time and place) was the 10:45pm showing the the Metreon.

So, Friday after work, a bunch of us headed up to the city, got some tapas at Thirsty Bear, tried to get dessert at Beard Papa's only to discover that they'd closed at 8pm, and snuck some Just Desserts into the theatre instead.

I had pretty low expectations going in, since Golden Flower had gotten some bad reviews and was being yanked so quickly, so I actually enjoyed the movie quite a bit. The visuals were stunning, and the acting wasn't bad (it's nice seeing Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat speaking Chinese instead of English). Of course, my roommate most enjoyed watching Jay Chou in his role as Prince Jai.

For dinner on Saturday, we'd planned a group outing to Sushi House in Alameda. I'd never heard so many recommendations for the same restaurant from so many different people before, so we had to try it. The rolls were yummy and the portion sizes were super generous, but it was the tempura ice cream that I liked the best; it was huge, well made, with a cake-y batter, and had raspberry sauce on the side (which sounds strange, but was delicious).

Since we were already in the East Bay, we then headed over to Music Tunnel in Richmond, which is likely, after all these years, still the best KTV in the Bay Area. Usually when I go to karaoke, we sing mostly English songs, because most people don't read other languages very well, but this time, I had invited my cousin to join us, and she's fluent in English, Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese. As a result, we not only sang more Chinese songs than ever before (including at least ten Jay Chou songs), but we actually had some Japanese songs on the program as well.

 

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