doing the baby shower thing

A friend and I hosted a baby shower for a co-worker at my place last weekend. Neither of us had ever thrown a baby shower before. In fact, I'd never even thrown a bridal shower before. I felt sure that hilarity would ensue.

In retrospect, things didn't turn out too badly. The games we picked were simple but fun (I think the guests enjoyed the baby food taste test the most) and the decorations, prizes and favors were a hit, especially with the two under-5 guests. I also got a chance to make my favorite dessert, the Double Chocolate Mousse Torte (see Epicurious for details) and eat finger jello. Mmm...red jello.

Afterwards, I managed to clean up, eat, shower, and get myself to the city for a 8pm housewarming party (well, I was an hour or two late). I got there just in time for vodka shots and a fresh batch of lemon cookies.

home sweet home

We didn't get off to a great start, with 1 lost passport, 1 missed standby flight, and 2 pieces of missing luggage in the first two days. Luckily, things worked out in the end and we only lost a day of travel time.

Scandinavia was lovely, especially Norway (although we only got to see Oslo). Denmark was nice but not spectacular, probably because I'm not a big fan of old buildings. Legoland was the best thing there. Sweden was my favorite of all three; the people were helpful, friendly, and high-energy, the food was good, and the cities were a great combination of old and new.

That having been said, there's nothing like a week away to make you appreciate home. Not that I didn't have a good time, but travelling always has its disadvantages. Top 5 things I missed:

- always available high speed internet!
- Asian food, healthy food, and especially work food
- nice sheets and nice towels
- having a selection of clothes and shoes to choose from in the morning
- down time, especially Tivo time

I haven't had a chance to organize my pictures yet; if there are any especially interesting ones I'll post them.

hello from Stockholm

I'm currently sitting at a free internet terminal at City Backpackers in Stockholm. I'm visiting Scandinavia for the week, and it's been really fun and really enlightening. Every day I marvel at how I can just open my mouth, speak English, and any random person will understand me. We are obviously doing something wrong with secondary language education, in the US. I'll write more when I get back.

Vienna Teng at the Montgomery Theater

Last night I went with some friends to see Vienna Teng at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose. We had a horrible time trying to get there; the Julian Street exit off of 87 was clogged about a mile back, and was barely moving at all. Finally we called a friend who told us how to get there using the next exit (duh). It was a perfect illustration of why it's necessary to know where you're going, instead of just blindly following Mapquest directions.

Anyway, the show was really good! A couple of the pieces gave me that almost painful feeling that you get when you see or hear something really lovely (music or otherwise) and you're a little bit sad because you're not sure you're going to be able to get that loveliness back, ever.

I'd never heard Vienna in concert before, even though she's actually a friend of a friend of a friend, or something like that. I enjoyed the geek references (Vienna used to be a software engineer at Cisco) and comments about Taiwanese parents. It was also kinda cool to see Eric, who I've met once or twice, playing cello along with her regular violinist and two other band members.