TP on a tray

Yesterday night, we were at Partyworld again, and we ran out of toilet paper. (In Asia, pretty much every KTV room has it's own private bathroom.) We rang the service phone, and two minutes later, a server arrived, carrying a roll of TP on a tray, waitress-style. We were quite amused. Then again, we'd been drinking Suntory.

must stop drinking (and eating)

Apparently, "let's meet up in Taipei" is code for "let's get together every night, stay out late, and eat and drink like crazy people".

This year, somehow everyone decided to fly to Taipei for the holidays. Several of us arrived around 8pm on the night of the 23rd, and after dropping off our bags and taking a quick shower, we promptly headed for BarCode, a bar/lounge near Taipei 101. Originally the plan was to check out Room 18 as well, but then we heard several reports that it was full of teenyboppers and we didn't want to be the sketchy old people in the 18+ club. The cocktails were really quite good, and not terribly expensive, I had a "Honey Berry Royale" which had berry juice, vodka, and champagne in it, which only cost about $10, and several people had a "Healthy Happy Sexy" drink (or some similarly badly named), which was excellent. Around midnight we thought about heading to a club before deciding we were starving and headed to a cheapo restaurant nearby. Good decision; the cover for the club would have been 800 NT (about $25) per person, and instead we ended up spending a total of $50 for ten people to have second dinner. The restaurant (one of many on that street) served porridge with tons of side dishes; my favorites were the Japanese tofu, the fatty pork, the marinated clams, and the pickled bean sprouts. I had no jetlag problems at all and felt into bed exhausted around 3am.

The next day, after a five-course Christmas dinner with my family at one of my favorite Western-style Taipei restaurants (亞里士), we headed to the Partyworld KTV in Shi Men Ding. Since there were ten or twelve of us again, and we had a F&B minimum of 100 NT ($3) per head, we ended up staying four hours and going through five pitchers of Taiwan Beer and a bunch of Smirnoff Ice. Several people headed off to Mint (club, basement of 101) afterwards, but I decided 2am was late enough, since I had to be up at 8am.

Today I woke up feeling full already, but we nevertheless stuffed ourselves silly in the basement of the Breeze Center, eating beef noodle soup, shredded beef wrapped in soft pancakes, ramen, Japanese fried vegetables, and of course, dao whei (soft tofu in ginger syrup), which I ordered with peanuts. Only five hours later, we had Peking duck and dim sum at Long Du (famous for their duck), before heading over to the Shi Lin Night Market. There, I ate a bag of egg puffs, pork jerky, and part of a fried pork dumpling, before conceding to the physical limitations of my stomach. We ended the evening playing silly carnival games for cheap prizes. I finally headed home around midnight, feeling old and tired, and walked in through my front door twenty minutes ago. I should probably go to sleep now.

Christmas cookies

After two years of thinking about it but not doing it, I actually managed to bake and distribute Christmas cookies this year.

I baked three types of cookies: Chocolate Chocolate-Chip with Mocha Cream, Ginger Lemon, and Almond Tuiles. They turned out pretty well, except the Mocha Cream, which was gooey and messy except when refrigerated. Without modifying the recipes, I ended up with enough cookies to fill 12 cellophane bags, with each bag containing two chocolate, two ginger lemon, and one almond cookie. That doesn't include the 10+ cookies that I broke during the baking process; I realized after I had already started that I was out of parchment paper, and with only one Silpat and multiple baking sheets, several cookies had unfortunate accidents. I chalked it up as a learning experience and ate the mishaps over the next two days.

fun birthday

My birthday party this year was a tripleheader, starting at 3pm and ending at 2am.

We started at the Scharffen Berger factory, where we had an hour-long private tour, during which we tasted three kinds of chocolate: the 70% bittersweet, the 62% semisweet, and the 41% milk chocolate. After we ended the tour (in the gift shop, naturally), we tasted two others: the 82% extra dark and the milk chocolate nibby. Apparently a "nib" is a cacao bean which has been roasted and peeled but not yet crushed. I found them yummy, but some people didn't like that they weren't sweet at all. I also managed to try smaller samples of the milk almond (41% with sea salted almonds), the 99% unsweetened chocolate, the limited edition (75% Antilles), and the 62% mocha, as well as the zante currents (chocolate-covered champagne grapes). In the end, my favorites were the limited edition and the nibby bar.

After selecting a few bars to take home for later, we headed next door to Cafe Cacao for more chocolate. I had a slice of the famous tribute cake, as well as a bite of the raspberry truffle cake, and some espresso, to wash it all down. I much preferred the tribute cake, which was barely sweet at all; it was pure chocolate-y goodness.

Immediately after chocolate came sushi, at East Bay favorite Sushi House. Somewhere between Berkeley and Alameda, I started to feel a bit lightheaded, probably from the huge overdose of chocolate and sugar. Luckily, once I got some sushi in my stomach, I was fine, except that I wasn't able to have my usual tempura ice cream for dessert.

Finally, a bunch of us finished up the evening at Music Tunnel, where the hard-core among us ended up staying until 2am again, before making our way home. It was a very fun day.

chicken marsala

I've modified this a bunch from the original recipe over the past year. Here's my version:

Chicken Marsala

1. Boil 1 small can of chicken broth for ~20 minutes until reduced by about 2/3.

2. Chop up one whole large shallot and saute in butter until it starts to brown. Add a small container of mushrooms, a spoonful of sage, salt, and pepper, and cook until the mushrooms are soft and brown.

3. Take a pound of chicken breasts and split them in half (so they're thin). Tenderize, season with salt and pepper, dredge in flour, and then saute each side in olive oil until the chicken is cooked. Set aside.

4. Add 1 cup marsala wine to mushrooms and bring to boil. Add reduced broth, 1/4 cup cream, and one lemon's worth of lemon juice.

5. Arrange the chicken on the serving plate and pour the mushrooms mixture on top.

Sometimes I add a little more Marsala wine at the end.

and now, for the depressing post of the week...

I read two things this week that made me sad.

The first one was a reminder on a women engineers' mailing list, that December 6th was the anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre. What massacre, you ask? I'd never heard of it, so I checked on Wikipedia:

The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, occurred on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five year-old Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained semi-automatic rifle and a hunting knife, shot twenty-eight people, killing fourteen (all of them women) and injuring the other fourteen before killing himself. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targetting women to shoot. He killed fourteen women and injured four men and ten women in just under twenty minutes before turning the gun on himself.

I had to look twice at that date. 1989 is the same year as the Loma Prieta quake, so I would have been in sixth grade, and I definitely would have been reading the news by then. How did I not hear about this before? Maybe the US news media doesn't care about Canada? And, how, in North America in the late 20th century, does someone grow up hating women? Ugh.

The second item was an article in the NYTimes, sent to me by a friend who is a lawyer in New York City. It seems that for about a year now, the elevators at the Bronx Family Court have been so bad that people wait for hours outside the courthouse, in lines that go all the way down the block:

In some cases, warrants have even been issued for people who are downstairs waiting for an elevator; judges know only that they are not in the courtroom, said Bill Nicholas, the assistant attorney in charge of the Legal Aid Society’s office at the court.

The judges have less trouble getting upstairs because they use a bank of elevators reserved for court personnel. The public is not allowed on those, and may not use the stairs because of security concerns. Among them, there are no cameras in the stairwells, and the narrow stairwells are impractical for small children or people pushing strollers. So they must wait.

I usually hate personal stories from random people in news articles (abuse of ad hominem!), but this one kind of broke my heart:

Bernard Wilkerson, a construction flagger for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said his custody and child support case against his wife had been dismissed three times because each time he was delayed in line and missed a hearing. Each time he had to petition again to restart the case.

Now he carries the court clerk’s number with him, so he can phone in when he is downstairs. Even with the steady rain beating down on his coat, he said this morning wasn’t that bad.

He was standing only 20 yards from the entrance of the building. Even with the long line inside, he would probably be upstairs in about an hour, certainly less than two. The thought cheered him.

“Sometimes I arrive here and I am standing outside Law and Government High School,” he said, referring to the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice several hundred yards away.

RIP 6.170

6.170 is (was) the Software Engineering Lab class at MIT. Apparently it's just been scrapped. Its content will be replaced by the new 6.005 (Principles of Software Development) in conjunction with a "series of new software laboratory classes, numbered 6.17*".

I'm sure this plan is all carefully thought out and everything but I'm kind of depressed about it anyway. I really liked 6.170, especially the month-long team project at the end, which is apparently not going to be included in the 6.005 class.

salads

Here are some salads that I've made recently and liked:

Apple Salad

1. Cut up 3-4 apples into slices and add to a bowl of mixed greens.

2. Add dried cranberries, sliced almonds, and feta cheese. (Pinenuts, chopped walnuts and dried apricots are also good.)

3. Toss with a cheesy dressing, like Marie's Blue Cheese Vinaigrette or Annie's Artichoke Parmesan dressing.

Greek Salad

1. Cut up a cucumber and a few tomatoes, and add sliced red onions and sliced green peppers.

2. Add canned black olives, capers, and feta cheese.

3. Toss with salt, freshly ground black pepper, oregano, and a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil.

It appears that I'm quite fond of feta cheese.

clothing challenge

Yesterday morning, I spent at least ten minutes thinking about what to wear. For me, this is not a common occurrence at all.

The problem statement:
I was going to a birthday party at the Exploratorium which included a visit to the Tactile Dome. I hadn't been to the Tactile Dome since I was about ten (school field trip) and definitely didn't want to miss out. So, I needed to wear something that would allow me to crawl around on my hands and knees in the dark. I also wanted to look somewhat reasonably well dressed at Davies Symphony Hall, two hours later.

The solution:
I ended up wearing a purple knit dress with black jeans underneath, and I took off the jeans before heading to the symphony. I also changed my shoes from sneakers to pumps.

I think if I were a guy I could have just worn khakis and a button-down shirt to both. Not quite fair, is it?

Incidentally, we didn't make it to the late birthday party after the symphony yesterday. I'd made post-performance reservations at Jardiniere, and we ended up meeting there with some friends who had just come from the opera. After several hours of sitting around chatting while enjoying our espresso, dessert wine, port, and generous helpings of dessert, we decided that it wasn't worth heading over to Suede since we'd only be there for an hour before closing. Next time!

holiday party

This post will not include a recipe, I promise.

Yesterday night I went to the annual holiday party. I was actually debating whether or not to go; last year's was super crowded, noisy, and there was an hour-long wait for parking. This year the party was moved from the city to Mountain View, so I figured I might as well give it another shot. That turned out to be a great decision; the theme was much better (outer space, very well executed, versus last year's very random Greek god theme), it was less crowded due to having split the party across two nights, the venue was divided into only three large rooms rather than five or six smaller rooms, and the food was significantly better, probably due to lots of people complaining after last time.

When the party started to wind down around midnight, we headed to an after-party nearby, which was awesome; it was a much smaller crowd, there was great music (lots of 80's), delicious hors d'oeuvres (tiny hamburgers, chocolate cupcakes, and various canapes), and real drinks, as opposed to just wine and beer. I walked in and was promptly handed a glass of Rockstar and SoCo, which was surprisingly good but really strong. We stayed there until about two and then decided we better go home if we were going to make it through today; the plan is to go to three birthday parties (12pm, 3pm, 11pm) and see the SF symphony (8pm). I should probably go and take a nap.

A few photos (main party):

chicken karaage & spinach salad

I tried this recipe for the first time yesterday night, and ended up eating a lot of fried chicken. I probably shouldn't make it very often.

Chicken Karaage

1. Cut up 1 lb of chicken thighs (about 4 pieces per thigh).

2. Marinate the chicken for 30-45 minutes in: 3 parts soy sauce and 1 part sake, with one piece of ginger and several cloves of garlic, minced.

3. Dredge the chicken in cornstarch and then fry in oil until the crispy exterior starts to look golden.

I thought I should eat some vegetables too, so I made a cooked spinach salad.

Japanese Spinach Salad

1. Boil a bag of baby spinach for a couple of minutes. Drain and then dry with paper towels.

2. Add white sesame seeds and equal parts sugar, soy sauce, and sake.

pineapple roasted ham

When I was a kid, my mother always baked ham for Thanksgiving, because my great-aunt always made the turkey. Consequently, I know way more about baking a ham than roasting a turkey.

This is what I did with the ham for this year's pre-Thanksgiving party.

Pineapple Roasted Ham

1. Buy half of a spiral cut honey ham. It'll probably be around 8 pounds.

2. Use a knife to score the surface of the ham in a criss-cross pattern. Each line should be about an inch away from the next line. Then, take a jar of cloves and stick one clove in the center of each cross, over the entire surface of the ham.

3. Open two cans of sliced pineapples. Pour the juice from the two cans into a saucepan, add maple syrup (~1/4 cup) and brown sugar (~1/4 cup), and simmer. Using the pineapple slices, cover the surface of the ham, using a toothpick to secure each one.

4. Sprinkle a good amount of brown sugar over the ham (probably 1-2 cups), and use a spoon to press the sugar into the crevices between the pineapple slices. Then, pour half of the pineapple-sugar mixture over the ham.

5. Bake the ham at 350 degrees for about 2 hours. Every 30 minutes, take the ham out, baste with the juice in the pan, and add a little more pineapple-sugar sauce.

To serve, remove all of the pineapple slices and all the cloves, then cut the ham and arrange on a plate with the pineapple slices.

chocolate bread pudding

I had leftover egg bread after having made a pumpkin bread pudding for a Halloween party, so the next day, I decided to improvise a chocolate bread pudding recipe. It turned out pretty well, probably because I put a lot of brandy in it.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

1. Cut up a roll of egg bread into 1-inch pieces.

2. Melt half a bar of bittersweet baking chocolate, then add 1 cup cream, 1/4 cup brandy, and maybe 1/4 cup sugar, and stir until well mixed.

3. Fold the bread cubes into the chocolate mixture, put into a loaf pan, and let stand for 15 min.

4. Bake for about 20-25 min at 350 degrees, or until the center passes the toothpick test.

(All of the amounts are estimates; I was using leftover ingredients so I just finished off what I had.)

apple crisp

This year, I've been using a lot of "recipes" that are either significantly modified, very vague, or made up entirely. I'm a bit afraid I'm going to forget some of them, so I've decided I'm going to start writing them down.

Here's one that I invented out of necessity, because the apple tree in my backyard is hyperactive.

Apple Crisp

1. Peel and slice enough apples to fill up a 8 or 9-inch round pan. Soak them in salt water while peeling and slicing, so they don't brown.

2. Toss with a generous amount of brown sugar and cinnamon, plus some nutmeg and half a lemon worth of lemon juice, and set aside.

3. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter (3/4 of a stick) and add flour and brown sugar until the whole mixture is crumbly. I usually use a bit more flour than sugar.

4. Fill a small plastic bag about 1/4 full of pecans, and use a meat tenderizer to crush them. Mix the pecans into the crumbly dough.

5. Top the apples with the dough and bake for about an hour.

mmm, cupcakes

Over the weekend, I went to a baby shower where they served mini cupcakes from Sibby's Cupcakery. They were super cute, and yummy too.



There were four flavors:
- vanilla w/ chocolate frosting, decorated with pink ribbon icing
- chocolate w/ coconut flakes (very generous w/ the coconut topping)
- chocolate w/ pink frosting, decorated with sprinkles and a candy flower
- red velvet w/ vanilla frosting, decorated with a pink pig, since it's the year of the pig

I managed to try at least half a cupcake of each flavor (red velvet was the best), and ended up eating a total of three cupcakes, which was definitely more than my fair share.

It's too bad that Sibby's has a minimum order of 1 dozen cupcakes (2 dozen, for mini cupcakes); they don't have an actual store, only a warehouse of sorts, where you go to pick up the cupcakes when they're ready.

California insurance survey

Wow, this survey that the State of California did on insurance premiums is actually really useful. Although, I'm not sure why it's the government's job to keep track of these things.

the next great Kettle Chip

A co-worker brought in a big box of Kettle Chips yesterday. At first, we weren't sure why she would do such a thing, when we have tons of perfectly good free Kettle Chips here, but then she explained that the box contained five new flavors of chips, and that one would be selected "by the people" to be the next permanent Kettle Chip flavor.

Of course, everyone within earshot felt compelled to contribute to the democratic process by sampling all of the new flavors. This year's theme being "Fire & Spice", all five flavors had a pretty good kick: Mango Chili, Orange Ginger Wasabi, Death Valley Chipotle, Wicked Hot Sauce, and Jalapeno Salsa Fresca. My personal favorite was the Chipotle, with the Mango a close second. I was not fond of the Wasabi flavor, which was disappointing, since the name made it sound really yummy.

Both of my picks are currently doing very well in the standings, so I'm looking forward to potentially seeing one of them in the mini-kitchens next year.

Thanksgiving + Texas = food overload

This year, I spent Thanksgiving in the Houston area. Thanksgiving being the eating holiday, and Texas being known for its steak and BBQ, of course I spent most of the weekend eating.

For dinner on Thursday, in addition to the regular Thanksgiving food (including two turkeys; one deep-fried and one baked in soy sauce), we had battered fried fresh shrimp, bacon-wrapped sea scallops (also very fresh and very delicious), broccoli salad with olives, ham, and cheese (I'll be trying to duplicate this sometime soon), you2 fan4 (literally "oily rice"), wakame salad, edamame, homemade pot stickers, and homemade pork meatballs. For dessert, there was homemade pumpkin pie topped with chopped pecans (awesome idea, which I am looking forward to stealing), homemade Mexican tea cakes, and coffee-chocolate ice cream cake. Luckily, I had gone directly to dinner from a 4-hour plane ride and 4 hours in waiting and ground transit time (don't ask), having eaten nothing all day but two fan4 tuan2 (rice rolls), so I was able to try practically every dish over the course of the evening.

The next day, we had a late lunch at Ichibon, a Benihana-style sushi/teppanyaki restaurant owned by a friend. The sushi was fine, but was overshadowed by the fried ice cream and fried bananas that we had for dessert. The bananas in particular were decadent and amazing; they were the perfect texture; soft but not gooey, with a crispy but not oily crust, with a scoop of red bean ice cream (one of my favorites, and surprisingly hard to find). It was nearly 4pm when we finished lunch, so dinner was light; clam chowder with leftover scallop and shrimp, served with pumpernickel bread.

Saturday was dedicated to Texas cuisine; fajitas at Pappasito's for lunch, and pork ribs and beef brisket at Pappas BBQ for dinner. (Yes, they are owned by the same company, hence the similar names.) After watching the Rockets demolish the Nuggets at the Toyota Center, we had a midnight snack at Sinh Sinh on Bellaire; some people had congee and/or noodle soup, but I decided to order two desserts, which turned out excellently. The first was an "Almond Crust Pastry" which turned out to be a cup of hot sweetened almond soup with some kind of bean in it, topped with a freshly baked puff pastry. The second was a "3-color icy", which was less creative but still yummy; the crushed ice came with red and green bean pastes, coconut milk, and Chinese green jelly.

For lunch on Sunday, a friend asked me to pick a restaurant in Galveston, where we had decided to meet up. Not knowing anything about the area, I turned to Yelp for help, and we ended up at the strangely named but very good Mosquito Cafe. I liked my appetizer best; listed as a "Walnut Crusted Baked Brie with Jalapeno Chutney and Toast Points", it was well executed, with just the right proportions of cheese and walnuts, and a generous serving of fresh grapes on the side, to balance the softness of the baked cheese. Yum.

rock orchestra?

Last week a friend sent out an invitation for a performance by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I'd never heard of them before, but her description of a "rock orchestra" with a "laser light show" was intriguing enough that in the end I decided to go, even though the concert was the night before Thanksgiving, and I had a 9am flight to catch the next morning.

As it turns out, I did enjoy the show, and I'm glad I went, but I think I'm picky when it comes to music. The first half of the performance was Christmas-themed, and I liked most of the songs (especially the Nutcracker bits), but I didn't like the way they were strung together tenuously with a fairly boring narrative. I winced a couple of times when I felt that a particular vocalist was straining his voice, and I literally put on sunglasses at one point because the flashing lights were starting to hurt my eyes.

I enjoyed the second half more; there was an interesting piece based on Canon in D, and I liked their rendition of Mozart's Requiem. However, another of my complaints was that the woman singing Papagena's role in a Magic Flute-inspired piece was occasionally off-key. Although, she was also running up and down the aisles in high heels while singing, so I guess I should cut her a little slack. Also, one of the pianists was quite good, but the other was noticeably less proficient.

Incidentally, I'm going to the see the San Francisco Symphony perform Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique in a week and a half, which should make for a interesting comparison.

FSA debit cards

Last year I signed up for an FSA, into which I put $100. Because I'm lazy about receipts, I also chose the new debit card option.

So far, I've managed to use over $95, so from a pure cash perspective, it was worthwhile, even with the $5 activation fee. However, I ended up having to fax in receipts for most of my expenses anyway; the only time that I didn't have to submit a receipt was when I bought contact lens cleaner at drugstore.com. Nevertheless, I signed up again for next year. I guess I decided the savings outweighed the hassle.

Incidentally, while reading up on FSAs recently, I discovered some interesting details. It appears that any unspent FSA funds are kept by the employer at the end of the year. Similarly, if an employee elects to put the full $3000 into an FSA for a calendar year, manages to use all of the money in the first week, and then quits the company, he/she is not responsible for any reimbursement. I wonder if it evens out?

family photos

In my grandparents' house in Taipei, there are several shelves full of old black-and-white photo albums. The photos are slowly deteriorating, and every so often we talk about what to do about them, but we've never gotten around to taking them to a photo restoration professional yet.

However, a few years back, I took a digital camera to one of the oldest albums, and managed to extract a few decent images.

Here's one of my great-aunt, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and my great-grandmother. They're standing in front of the same house in which my grandparents still live; the one with the photo albums:


My great-grandfather is also in this one. It's a more interesting scene, but unfortunately it's in worse shape. I didn't do as good of a job of capturing the image with my camera, either; the original isn't blurred at all:


I wonder who all the other people are? My dad could only identify a few of them.

still sleepy

It's Monday morning, and I'm still a bit sleepy from having stayed at Music Tunnel until 3am on Saturday night. Yes, that was two nights ago. Sigh.

On the bright side, I finally got to try the Peking duck at Great China, and it was as yummy as advertised.

no photos this time

A horrible thing happened last weekend. I finally made it out to Manresa, and I even remembered my camera, but I forgot my memory card. Argh!

Here's a description of the meal as well as I can remember it:

We ordered a 2004 Rhone Valley red, which the waitress said had some Syrah and some other grapes. I enjoyed it very much; it wasn't too dry or too peppery.

There were three amuse bouches. The first was a mango lassi with a tiny black olive madeleine. The lassi was fine but unremarkable. I liked the salty-sweet flavor of the madeleine, but it was quite small. The second was a couple of German-style veggie "ravioli" which were really bead-sized spheres of veggies encrusted in an almost pastry-like crust. They were served perfectly hot, and were really yummy. The last one I didn't enjoy as much, because it involved a partially cooked egg served in its shell with some kind of foam on top. I'm not a big fan of eggs, and especially not of gooey eggs.

The amuses were followed by a green olive bread and a sourdough bread, and then our appetizers. I had ordered amberjack, sashimi-style, with olive oil and chives. It was quite good although perhaps a little bit oily for my taste, since I'm used to my raw fish plain. Very fresh, though.

Next was a round of wheat bread followed by entrees. My suckling pig dish was really well presented, with broken potatoes, cubes of caramelized apple, tiny leafy greens, and the pork itself fanned out over the sauce. It almost looked like my food had exploded over the plate, but in an artistic way. The apples, potatoes, and pork were all delicious.

I followed the entree with a cheese plate before dessert. The cheese guy came with a cart and described all eight cheeses to me, and asked which ones I would like. Of course, I asked if I could have all of them, and he graciously served me generous portions of each. My favorite was a thrice-creamed sheep's milk cheese whose name escapes me, but they were all good except one which was a very mild cheese crusted with herbs. I felt that the herbs overpowered the cheese. The accompaniments were figs, sweetened prunes, nuts, honeycomb, apple, and toasted cranberry nut bread.

For dessert, I had a gateau basque with caramelized pears, black licorice ice cream and sassafras sauce. I was skeptical at first but the waitress highly recommended it, and she was right; the combination of flavors was amazing, and I ate it all even though I was already stuffed.

Finally, we had the petit fours, which consisted of a chocolate mousse tart (ok), a strawberry gelee (ok), a square of something caramel-y with nuts (yummy) and a dab of lemon curd wrapped in caramelized sugar (super yummy!).

Overall, I would say the two dishes that I enjoyed the most were the suckling pig and the gateau basque, although I quite liked the "ravioli" as well.

Afterwards, I was thinking about whether I would go back anytime soon, with a memory card next time. I decided that although the food was delicious and the service was superb, there are lots of other interesting restaurants in the Bay Area that I haven't had a chance to try yet, and I'd rather visit those instead of returning to Manresa in the near future. It was definitely worth the drive, though!

culinary internship

I got to cook in one of our cafes this morning!

I had to get up early (7am) and was in the cafe kitchen by 8:30am, dicing chuck for Beef Rendang. I also peeled ginger (for Stir-Fry Cabbage & Eggs) and shallots (for Chicken Marsala), rolled maki sushi, skewered shrimp (for Shrimp Satay), cut up whole chickens, and did various small things like opening cans of coconut milk (also for the Beef Rendang) and setting up the salad bar.

The cafe opened promptly at 11:30am, after which I helped staff the line, dishing out new portions as people finished the old ones, and generally trying to keep things moving smoothly. It was really fun, but I hope I wasn't in the way of the regular kitchen staff as they were doing their thing.

At 12:30pm, I was done with my shift, but before I left, I grabbed a to-go box full of the food that we'd just cooked. I think it tasted better because I'd been smelling it all morning. Yum.

pumpkin carving

Over the weekend, I had a pumpkin carving party at my house. The pumpkins turned out quite well, and were more creative than I had expected.

Here's my pumpkin (I'm thinking of wearing a Hawaiian outfit for Halloween, so it goes with the theme):


Here are the rest of the pumpkins:


From left to right, you can see Bowser, a haunted castle, a pirate ship, a scared face, my tropical island, another scared face, and a Pikachu.

For dinner, in honor of Halloween and our overachieving apple tree, we had pumpkin cake, apple & almond salad, apple pork chops, pumpkin bread pudding, and hot apple cider. Mmm, I love holiday food.

reading list

Last week while I was travelling, I finally managed to read Life of Pi, which I had bought several months ago. Although it was well reviewed, I was initially skeptical of the story; it's about an Indian boy who gets shipwrecked in the Pacific with a bunch of zoo animals. I thought it would be something like Cast Away, about the triumph of the human spirit, blah blah blah...

I was totally wrong. Life of Pi is great read. The protagonist is engaging, the other characters are well drawn, the fantastic elements of the story are believable, and the conclusion is thought-provoking. I'm not going to write a whole review (because I'm lazy and I mostly suck at writing reviews anyway), but in short, it's a good book, and I recommend it.

sugar high

I think I need to take a break from dessert.

Last week I was at the Grace Hopper Conference in Orlando. I staffed a recruiting booth, went to several interesting technical sessions, and met lots of other women in technology. I also ate lots and lots of dessert. From the awards banquet (chocolate mousse) to the conference lunches and dinners (chocolate ganache cake, apple pie, orange cake, cherry pie, and strawberry shortcake) to the sponsor night party (raspberry mousse, fruit tarts, red velvet cake), every conference event provided an abundance of sweets. I almost wondered if someone was catering to stereotypes about women and dessert.

Then, after I got back on Saturday, I went to a friend's birthday party where the theme was...you guessed it...dessert. Faced with a table of gorgeous homemade and store-bought desserts, I must have tried at least ten or twelve of them.

Not pictured: the homemade apple pie and flambeed strawberries and cream, which were still under construction.

Niners nostalgia

The Niners' offense has pretty much sucked beyond belief all season, which has made watching their games tedious as well as agonizing, even though the defense is indisputably much improved.

Last weekend the Niners were on their bye, so I actually did not spend most of Sunday sitting on a couch watching football. Interestingly, I felt strangely guilty while enjoying my non-watching of yet another dropped pass and/or unblocked sack.

I guess my point is that it's not exactly fun to be a Niners' fan right about now, which is why I enjoyed this Sports Guy tidbit (buried in a column about the greatness of this year's Pats) all the more:

During my sophomore year in college, I remember watching the '89 Niners and thinking, "There's no way in hell they can be beaten. You'd need about 35 things to happen." As it turned out, they outscored their opponents by a 442-253 margin in the regular season, lost two games by a total of five points and rolled through their three playoff opponents by the unfathomable score of 126-26. Yeah, the '92 Cowboys were great; so were the '94 Niners and the '98 Broncos. But the '89 Niners were on a different level, and we haven't seen anything like it since.

online shopping resources

Recently I've been considering some major online purchases.

Several of these sites have been helpful for checking up on online stores:
- resellerratings.com
- bizrate.com
- dealtime.com
- pricegrabber.com
- shopzilla.com
- nextag.com

Google Products aggregates reviews from some of these sites.

government power

Just now I heard about yet another Taiwanese flag controversy. Nothing new, really; the Chinese government issued threats, the Chinese participants hurled insults at the Taiwanese winner, and in the end, the organizing body will probably apologize profusely, groveling in fear of China's economic might. In short, a Taiwanese person was again ridiculed and/or punished for having a small scrap of national pride.

What caught my eye was this astute reader comment, submitted by an American living in Taiwan:
The rabid and irrational reaction of young people in the PRC to the concept of “Taiwan” is getting dangerous... for all of us. The manner in which the PRC govt. indoctrinates youth with anti-Taiwan venom reminds me of a pit bull owner who is training it to fight; the dog itself is not inherently bad, but the owner, for its own goals, encourages rabid aggression. No better way to encourage rabid aggression by telling some die hard gamers that if they allow the R.O.C. flag to be seen they will not be allowed to participate in future competitions. Come on, that’s just twisted and manipulative! The 23 million people that live here in Taiwan, living an independent life from the PRC for over 50 years developing democratic institutions and a free press, are living with the threat that one of these days, those kids in the PRC are going to be unleashed on them.

Indoctrination, brainwashing, propaganda; whatever you want to call it, it's scary stuff. I worry about the Chinese government brainwashing its citizens about Taiwan, of course, but I also worry that the US government is trying to tell Americans what to think. Who is it that's been pushing the idea that anyone who opposes the war in Iraq is supporting the terrorists?

body language

Yesterday, I somehow came across this article, which discusses several studies investigating possible connections between body language and likelihood of assault. It concludes that people with assertive body language are less likely to be chosen as targets for assault. One study in particular found that "men tend to select submissive women for exploitation". I found this conclusion especially interesting, since it directly contradicts the theory that women "ask for" sexual assault with provocative dress and/or behavior.

Renaissance Faire

My parents used to take us to the Renaissance Faire when we were kids, back when it was located in Novato. Since it's been relocated to Hollister, I've only been twice; once four years ago, and then again last weekend. I don't remember it being so expensive the last time ($25!) but I guess it's not so bad for a day's worth of entertainment.

As usual, I most enjoyed the food: we had turkey leg, meat pie, and chocolate-covered frozen cheesecake on a stick. Yum! The jousting and various shows were fun to watch, too. I think we mostly spent our time walking around looking at stuff, and playing with primitive weapons (archery, knife/axe throwing).



Of course, Hollister being so close to Gilroy, we had to spend the last 3 hours of the day at the Gilroy outlet stores. I now have a new pair of cross-trainers and a new pair of basketball shoes.

me == geek

I was at a friend's house the other day playing board games, and we ran into a corner case where the rules were unclear, so three of us went to look for an answer online. As my friend read through discussion board posts, I started to get impatient, so I told him, "you can just grep for keywords; it's faster." The other person in the room (who I had just met) turned to me and said, with a look of surprise, "you must be CS." Yes, I'm a geek even when I'm not trying.

extremely disturbed

I walked into the women's restroom just now (at work), and heard someone talking. She switched from English to another language shortly after I got there, but continued her conversation. After I left my stall, I checked to see if there was anyone else in the restroom (other that woman and myself), but there wasn't. I concluded there was only one explanation; the woman was carrying on a cell phone conversation while on the toilet.

After I got back to my desk, I mentioned the episode to my officemate, and she informed me that the situation was even stranger than I had realized; apparently that woman had *placed* the call while in the restroom. In other words, she hadn't just received a call, she had actually decided to dial someone up and initiate an extended conversation, while sitting on the toilet. I wonder what the recipient of her call thought when s/he heard the toilets flushing in the background.

Is anyone else disturbed by this or is it just me? Maybe it's a cultural thing?

too many restaurants, not enough meals

I recently was invited to a birthday dinner at Fresca. Since I've been on a Peruvian food kick ever since going to Limon, I was kinda bummed that I couldn't go, due to a prior commitment (another wedding, of course). I wasn't too bummed, though, since the wedding reception is going to be at Yank Sing.

Then, the birthday dinner got moved to Ozumo, which is even more tempting than Fresca. Maybe I can leave the reception early and have a second dinner. Or not.

summertime at lake tahoe

I'm usually too busy skiing to pay attention to the scenery when I'm at Lake Tahoe, but over Labor Day, I was in the Tahoe/Reno area, and it was gorgeous.

view of Lake Tahoe from around King's Beach:


by Spooner Lake:


Emerald Bay:


at Squaw Valley:

English grammar

It drives me nuts when people make common spelling and grammar mistakes in emails and code comments.

My pet peeves:
- affect vs effect
- calendar vs calender
- their vs they're (vs there)
- separate, not seperate
- peak usage, not peek usage

This one is a bit pickier: Yesterday a co-worker blogged internally about "if I were them" vs "if I were they". I was tempted to comment and say that they were both wrong, due to numerical agreement issues, but someone beat me to it. For the record, "if I were they" is more correct than "if I were them", since the verb "to be" links two nouns of the same case (in this case, nominative). It's the same reason you say "this is she" when answering the phone. But, "if I were s/he" is most correct; since "I" is singular, the other pronoun must also be singular.

I do realize that I'm a complete freak.

one in a million

Today, someone said to me, "you're one in a million!". No, it wasn't a co-worker praising my brilliant coding skills, or a friend admiring my wit and charm. It was my dentist, commenting on my fused tooth.

My dad's side of the family has a tendency towards weird teeth. My cousin and I were both missing two baby teeth, and her brother was missing one, but had a fused baby tooth. I think they both have normal adult teeth, but I continue to be missing two teeth, and one of the adjoining teeth came out as a fused tooth. It looks like two teeth somehow got smashed together, but there is only one root. On the bright side, because of the resulting extra space in my mouth, I've been allowed to keep all four of my wisdom teeth.

Anyway, apparently my new dentist also has a fused tooth, so she was excited to see mine. Maybe we're related.

sadness

How did I not hear about this earlier? Madeleine L'Engle, one of my favorite authors, passed away last week.

Selfish person that I am, my first thought was to be horrified that The Eye Begins to See, her book about the adult Meg Murry, will now remain incomplete forever.

That aside, I really am quite sad about this. I've read every one of her non-religious books with the exception of Ilsa, which is just too expensive to buy. I always thought that she wrote beautifully and evocatively, and she also somehow managed to incorporate her spirituality into her work without annoying the agnostic/atheist in me. No small feat, that.

MNF...live from Candlestick!

Yesterday, I went to my first live Monday Night Football game. It happened to be the 49ers home opener, and they were playing against the Arizona Cardinals; division rivals to whom they had lost four consecutive games, so it was certainly an exciting setup.

We left Mountain View at 4:45pm for a 7:15pm kickoff, and still got into the stadium late, due to horrendous traffic on 101, parking issues, and extra-tight security inspections. Luckily, the women's security line was short, so I was able to get to my seat just before Harris' interception and Gore's touchdown.

The rest of the evening was a mixed bag. The improved Niner defense looked really good; the Nate Clements-led secondary pretty much shut down Fitzgerald and Boldin, and rookie linebacker Patrick Willis was all over the field.

The offense looked horrible, for the first 57 minutes of the game. I lost track of the number of three-and-outs, pass protection wasn't great, play-calling was uninspired, Alex Smith wasn't all that accurate, and his receivers weren't giving him any help, either. Frank Gore looked decent early on, but as soon as the Cardinals defense figured out the Niners couldn't pass, they just focused on the run, which made it hard for Gore to get his yards.

The last three minutes were pretty thrilling, and it's great to start the season with a win, but I'm more than a little bit worried. It's going to be a lot harder next week in St. Louis; the Rams will be looking to prove themselves after getting thrashed by the Panthers.

trampoline dodgeball

Last week, I went to a birthday party at Sky High Sports, in Santa Clara. Located at the site of the old SpeedRing indoor go-karting arena, Sky High fills that space with three huge trampoline arenas; one for "free play", one for dodgeball, and one with a foam pit.

To paraphrase Joey: trampolines == good, dodgeball == good; trampoline dodgeball == good!

It was a total blast; we stayed out there for an hour, and I must have played at least five or six games. It turns out I'm no good at throwing, but I seem to dodge pretty well, since I didn't spend much time on the sidelines. As a result, I was pretty exhausted (and dehydrated!) afterwards, so it was a good workout, too. Definitely worth multiple repeat visits, especially for $10/hour.

end of summer

Summer must be ending, because all of a sudden everyone wants to BBQ. This past weekend, I went to a coworker's BBQ in Atherton on Friday night, hosted a party of my own on Saturday, went to another coworker's BBQ in San Mateo Sunday at noon, and then a birthday party in Golden Gate Park on Sunday afternoon. I've already turned down two more BBQ/party invites for next weekend, since I'm going to be out of town.

new games = sleep deprivation

We ordered some new board games a few weeks ago, to go with the original set that we bought almost two years previously.

Up until last year, our favorites were Settlers (+ both expansions), Puerto Rico (+ expansion), Carcassonne (+ expansions & variations), and Ticket to Ride (usually Europe).

Recently, we've been playing a lot of Goa and Power Grid, so we ordered those two, plus Caylus, Thebes (brand-new in 2007) and A Game of Thrones (being the George R. R. Martin fan that I am, I couldn't pass it up).

Yesterday, we opened the new games for the first time, and inaugurated them by playing a 4.5 hour game of Caylus. Granted, three of the players had never played before, and the other two had only played a few times before, but it was still a long game. Amazingly, it didn't start to feel long until sometime well after midnight, when I realized I was losing and I would have to drive twenty minutes to get home afterwards. I ended up getting home at 2am, which meant about 5.5 hours of sleep, but I think it was worth it. It's a good thing today is Friday, though.

good cheese today

Today at lunch I had three cheeses, and I liked all of them, probably because they were all soft cheeses. I'm going to write them down for future reference, because I always forget names.

The first was a Saint Andre. The consistency was something like Camembert or Brie, but the flavor was stronger. That was followed by a super creamy Brillat Savarin, which was just sour enough to be interesting, and then my favorite of the three, a delicious La Tur, which was slightly harder and had a very nice rind.

Other cheeses I'm afraid I'll forget: Last week I had a Fontal which I liked quite a bit (apparently it's a French Fontina), and some months ago I went and ate three servings of an Époisses de Bourgogne, each served in an Asian soup spoon with a dab of honey. Yum.

highly recommended

Going from expensive yummy food to cheap yummy food...

Once in awhile there's a restaurant that I start to hear about from lots of disjoint sources. For example, Sushi House was recommended to me by three separate people who I'm pretty sure have never met. The first is a friend who I've known for almost 10 years now, who lives in Milpitas, but will drive to Alameda with her husband specifically to eat there. The second is a classmate from MIT, who discovered Sushi House while doing graduate research at Berkeley. The last is a friend that I met recently, who I play board games with; he did his undergrad at Berkeley, and used to eat there while in school. I think I've previously written about it, but as it turned out, I did enjoy Sushi House very much, and have been back a couple of times.

More recently, I started to hear a lot about Layang Layang, in San Jose. The same MIT friend who recommended Sushi House said it was his new favorite Malaysian restaurant, and another person mentioned it in passing, but the clincher was when a friend who grew up in Malaysia claimed it was the best Malaysian food he'd had in the area. Yesterday, we finally made our way down there to try it out, and it was very good indeed.

My favorite dishes were the Sarang Burung, which is a seafood dish that comes served in a fried taro nest, and the Princess Tofu (I do have a weakness for good tofu). I also quite enjoyed the "ABC" dessert, which is a shaved ice dish with a lot of goodies inside: red bean, sweet corn, grass jelly, and some other kind of green jelly. Plus, we ate until we were stuffed, and paid about $15 per person. Bonus!

steak & sushi

We just got back from Alexander's Steakhouse, and I have to say, outside of French Laundry, it was the best food experience that I've had so far this year. Japanese-inspired appetizers, excellent steak, creative and delicious desserts, what more can a diner ask for?

Since we were celebrating a birthday, the waiter started out by bringing out complimentary Spanish sparkling wine, which was sweet and fizzy, just the way I like it. Next was a lobster, corn, and daikon amuse, followed by the three appetizers that we had ordered. The tuna tataki was fine, but not especially worth mentioning. The other two small plates were amazing; there was a king crab with some kind of chili mustard sauce, and a shrimp "kuruma". My favorite was the shrimp dish, and although the shrimp got top billing, what I really liked was the yuzu, tomato, and cilantro salsa accompaniment.

tuna:


crab:


shrimp:


For my entree, I had a dry-aged New York steak. I normally order filet mignon rather than New York steak, since I like my beef tender, but the waiter convinced me that the dry aging process would make the steak tender regardless. He was right. The meat was done perfectly; real medium rare, with just the right amount of fat, and not hard at all, except maybe a tiny bit around the edges.

steak:


For dessert, the four of us shared a chocolate souffle, as well as a trio of dessert tapas: the "Pink Flamingo" (strawberry mousse, raspberry(?) sauce, and lemon chiffon), Kaffir lime brulee, and homemade "S'mores". At first, the waiter made a mistake and accidentally brought us a "Yin-Yang" instead of the S'mores (white and dark chocolate cheesecake with raspberry coulis) so he gave us that one on the house. Ironically, I liked the cheesecake best of all the desserts, except maybe the souffle. We were also treated to green apple cotton candy for everyone, and a small chocolate cake for the birthday boy, on the house.

souffle:


trio of desserts:


S'mores & cotton candy:


It was a very satisfying meal; the service was friendly and unobtrusive, the appetizers and desserts were creative and generally well-executed, and the steak was the best I've had in a long time. Although I usually prefer to try new restaurants rather than going to the same ones again, I will definitely returning to Alexander's. Maybe I'll bring my parents; I have a feeling they'd love it.

steak display cases:

reading

I was talking someone recently about reading. He was saying how he never used to read much before, but then in college he had to read a lot, and so now he feels comfortable reading, and even does so in his spare time.

This was a totally foreign concept to me. I've been reading for almost my entire life, so I don't remember ever not being comfortable reading (unless it's in Chinese). My parents taught me and each of my siblings to read when we were about five, but for some reason, while my brother never read for fun, my sister and I were soon devouring every printed material in sight. As a kid, I would read under the covers by flashlight after I was supposed to be asleep, and I would walk up and down stairs while holding a book. At the breakfast table, I would read the nutrition information on the cereal box because I didn't have a book with me.

These days, I'll read Popular Mechanic because I'm stuck in a car rental waiting room, or Sassy because I'm at the hair salon, because it's better to be reading something than nothing. When I get off of airplanes, I snag the discarded magazines that other passengers have left behind. Strange, I know.

milestone

Today, I checked in a pretty big changelist. It felt like I had been working on it forever, so I looked at a calendar, and it has indeed been a month and three days since I first started to work on this change.

A rough breakdown:
- 1-2 days figuring out initial approach
- 3-4 days iterating on approach
- over a week coding up a mostly working but slow version
- 1-2 days reverting some changes to make it slightly faster
- 3-4 days writing a separate changelist which would help my original changelist's performance
- another week or so of further performance improvements
- 3-4 days of addressing code review comments
- 1 day of wrestling with the build, getting all the unit tests working, and manual testing

That brings me up to today, when I checked in my changelist, just a few hours ago. It's possible my changelist will cause lots of bugs and wreak havoc on our build, but it's still a relief to have it checked in.

Wyclef visit

I was excited when I heard last week that Wyclef would be visiting at work and was going to talk, introduce his new CD, and even perform a bit. I'd been a fan of the Fugees (a long time ago), and even went to a Lauryn Hill concert one summer at Jones Beach.

Anyway, I put the visit on my calendar, but as usual, when the time came around, I was swamped and felt like I couldn't leave my desk. I finally dragged myself over to the cafe about 20 minutes late, and I'm really glad I did.

Wyclef was funny; kidding around with the sound guy and challenging a random employee to a push-up contest (the other guy started doing clap pushups so Wyclef did one-armed pushups). He was interesting; he talked about collaborating with other artists and played some clips from his new CD. Most of all, he was entertaining; he played several acoustical pieces, and followed that up by freestyling for a good 10 minutes or so.

I don't buy a lot of CDs these days, but now I'm tempted to buy one.

living in luxury (boxes)

Last week, some friends invited me to join them in their ultra-discounted luxury box at the A's vs Angels game.

I'm not a particularly huge baseball fan; I usually go to games at most 3-4 times a year. But, the luxury box experience isn't exactly the same as sitting in a normal seat, where you run the risk of getting beer spilled on you or getting sunburned. In fact, I didn't hesitate for a second; I'd sat in a luxury box once before (at a Raiders game, also at the Oakland Coliseum) and remembered the bank of TVs, with access to all other concurrent games, the large sitting room area, and the stats printouts that the concierge brought after every quarter.

We didn't get the printouts (maybe they were just for football?) but the space was even nicer than I remembered; I'd forgotten about the in-suite bathroom and full kitchen, which turned out to be useful for pouring margaritas and sharing junk food. The game was pretty good too; close up until the eighth, when the A's broke things wide open with a five-run rally. Vlad hit two home runs, which made several fantasy baseball players in our box very happy, and we got to see Huston Street coming back from his injury (he pitched the seventh).

Here's the view from our box into the next box:


Here's someone in our group mistaking the TV for a touchscreen:


Here's a shot of us hanging out in the sitting area:

RIP, Bill Walsh

Bill Walsh died today. I know he was an old man and a sick man (leukemia), but nevertheless, hearing the news made me sad. Maybe the Niners will kick ass this season, in honor of his legacy.

bouncy castle!

Today was bouncy castle day!

A coworker had a belated birthday BBQ at his house, and in the backyard, next to the grill, was a 15ft-by-15ft bouncy castle. Apparently, it isn't too common for adults to rent bouncy castles for their own use; most of the clients are people wanting to rent them for their kids' birthday parties. The one we were using was the one normally "recommended for teens", not that there's much difference between a bunch of teenagers and a bunch of twenty-somethings of questionable maturity.

Anyway, it was loads of fun! We spent several hours cycling between eating, drinking, chatting & digesting, jumping, and getting tired and going back for more food. Several people were able to do backflips (not me), no one got hurt and/or sick, and we managed to keep the dogs from doing any harm to the rented equipment. Awesome idea, demonstrating once again that my coworkers are brilliant.

5 hours

...plus or minus a few minutes.

After karaoke-ing until 2am on Friday, I didn't get to Costco until around 10:30am on Saturday morning. With the typical weekend lines, and me stopping for a Very Berry Sundae, I didn't get home with my copy of Deathly Hallows until 11:15am. I read until 1:45pm, which was actually fifteen minutes later than I had planned; I had to run some errands in the city before heading over to Oakland to watch the A's play the Orioles. The game ended at 9pm, I got home at 9:45pm, showered and changed into pj's, and started in again at around 10:15pm. I finally finished around 12:45am, so I was able to sleep in peace.

I won't spoil the book here, but I will say I liked it much better than I liked the fifth Harry Potter movie last weekend.

1800flowers sucks

A month ago, I ordered a cute bouquet of flowers in a blue piggy bank, for a friend who had just had a baby. The flowers were delivered on the same day, but the piggy bank never appeared. I called 1800flowers and was told that the florist was out of piggy banks, but it would be delivered later that week.

The next week, my friend still hadn't received the piggy bank, so I called again, and was told that the florist still hadn't received the piggy banks, but he was expecting them to arrive the following week. The customer service rep issued me a $10 gift certificate applicable towards a future purchase, for the inconvenience.

The following week I was vacationing in Canada, so I didn't bother to check, but after I got back, I discovered the piggy bank still hadn't arrived. I called yet again, and was told that the florist was expecting the piggy banks to arrive any day. The customer service rep offered to issue me a refund, but at this point I figured I might as well wait it out.

This morning, after a month of waiting, I called 1800flowers again and was told that the florist still hadn't received the piggy banks, and in fact he was waiting for them to arrive from 1800flowers. So, I asked the rep, since she worked for 1800flowers, when the expected arrival date might be. She said she had no idea. I asked if it would be another year, and she said no. I asked if it would be another month, and she said she had no idea. I asked who I could talk to that would be able to give me more information, and she gave me a number for "corporate headquarters" which I could call if I wanted.

I called that number and discovered it was a wrong number, so I called back and talked to a different rep. This one was actually sympathetic and took the time to call several florists and locate one who actually did have the piggy bank in stock. (Why this couldn't have been done a month ago, I don't know.) He said he would cancel with the original florist and order with the new florist. I hung up the phone somewhat satisfied.

Twenty minutes later, he called me and asked me to contact the florist directly, to give her my credit card number. I was confused; hadn't I been charged already? He said that 1800flowers would issue me a refund and that I would be charged again by the new florist. Fine.

I called the florist and gave her my credit card number, and she said she was going to charge me for the entire order, flowers and piggy bank together. I was a bit worried about this, since I wasn't sure 1800flowers was going to refund me the entire amount, so I asked her to ship just the piggy bank. She said that was fine, but the delivery charge was as much as the cost of the piggy bank itself. I told her to hold that order.

I called 1800flowers back and talked to yet another rep, who said the refund was for the cost of the piggy bank. After several minutes of me complaining, she agreed to refund me the delivery charge as well.

Just now, I called the florist and told her she could process the order, delivery fee and all. We'll see if all these charges and refunds actually come out right on my credit card bill.

Regardless, I'm never ordering from 1800flowers again.

four weekends at home

I'm going to be in town for four consecutive weekends, counting from this past weekend. Amazingly, that hasn't happened since March. It gets better: I may not get on a plane again until Thanksgiving. We shall see.

It was nice being home. I got to do things like run errands and try to organize away all the piles of stuff in my house. I even did several fun things: I went shopping with my sister, ate at a new restaurant (Ame, highly recommended), saw the new Harry Potter movie (so-so, wait for DVD), went to (nearly 3 hours of) basketball practice, and wound up the weekend by having a whole bunch of people over for a Starcraft LAN party.

pink donuts

Today, one of my coworkers brought in a box of the Pink Donuts from one of the 7-Elevens renovated as Kwik-E-Marts (to celebrate the release of the Simpsons Movie). The donuts were impressively pink; noticeably pinker than the pink box in which they had come. Plus, I had a fourth of a donut, and now I don't think I can eat anything for the next five hours.

camping in the Canadian Rockies

Two weeks ago, I went with a couple of college friends on a camping trip in the Canadian Rockies. (Incidentally, it's kind of scary that I've now known them for over ten years.) Anyway, one friend had just graduated with his PhD in physics, and another was between jobs (he had just moved across the country with his wife so she could start her ER residency), so the two of them decided to go on vacation while they were unemployed. Although I had no such excuse, I did have a bunch of vacation accrued, so I invited myself to go with them. The plan was to fly into Calgary, drive up to Mount Robson Provincial Park, hike the Berg Lake trail for a few days, take another day to drive back slowly along Jasper and Banff National Parks, and then wind up the trip with a day in Calgary.

I've actually never been on a multi-night camping trip before; one involving several days of backpacking, pitching tents, and no real bathrooms (although I was very happy there were pit toilets, which turned out to be no worse than port-o-potties). I did quickly discover that hiking with 30+ lbs on your back is very different from hiking with only a daypack, but we had planned cautiously (~45 km over three days), so everything turned out quite well. We only encountered bears while we were still in the car, no one got hurt (unless you count 20-30 mosquito bites), we didn't lose anything significant (one pocketknife), and my 15-degree sleeping bag proved warm enough for the freezing temperatures at night. And, of course, everywhere the scenery was varied and spectacular.

Here are some photos from the trip:

bighorn sheep	a black bear!	first day's ascent
lunchtime lake view	second day, rocky footing	one of many waterfalls
one of several glaciers near second campsite	Peyto Lake	Athabasca Falls

I much enjoyed the time that we spent in Mount Robson, Jasper, and Banff National Parks, Lake Louise was almost as pretty as advertised, and the towns of Jasper and Banff weren't bad either, but I was kind of disappointed by Calgary. Although it's Canada's third most populous city (after Toronto and Montreal; bigger than Vancouver!), it felt like a gigantic suburb to me. Honestly, the highlight of the last day was our stop at the Bernard Callebaut flagship store. Good chocolate, though.

location, location, location

I love the Bay Area climate. I love the chilly San Francisco summers, the thick blankets of fog, the crazy block-level micro-climates, and the fact that it doesn't rain from April until November.

But, last weekend in Seattle, I found myself marveling at the way the lakes and bays integrate into the rolling hills, and the lush greenness of everything. If only it weren't so completely dreary in the winter...

Maybe I can live in the Pacific Northwest from June to September, come back to the Bay Area for the fall, head to Taipei from December through March, and then find some kind of non-allergy-inducing climate for the spring. That might be just a teeny bit expensive, though.

puzzling

Yesterday I looked up and realized the year was half over. I can't quite decide if I'm depressed because time is passing so quickly, or whether it's a good thing that I've made it through half the craziness of this year without having collapsed of exhaustion.

Two weekends ago I joined a puzzle hunt with a bunch of my coworkers. It was the first annual company puzzle hunt, and it ended up being really fun; more fun that I had remembered from YABA treasure hunts in the city, probably because it involved more puzzling and less walking.

We started Saturday morning at 9am, and officially the hunt ended Sunday evening at 6pm, but unfortunately I had to leave around midnight on Saturday, so I could go to a morning wedding on Sunday without looking like I had just stayed up all night.

One of the first puzzles involved eighteen short written chapters, and the following description: "I hear there's a lot of overlap between authors and the characters they write, no matter how different they may seem." It turned out that we had to read through each passage and analyze the content and the style. The content described a particular character, and the style suggested a similarly named author. For example, one text was written in the style of Homer's Odyssey, and described Homer Simpson. Another chapter described Eliot Ness and was strongly reminiscent of T.S. Eliot's poetry. Once we had puzzled out all of the authors and characters, it wasn't too hard to find the final solution word.

Other puzzle, entitled "Geologist", was hidden inside a fake rock, buried in a sand volleyball court. Inside the rock were 15 words printed on small scraps of paper, and a fake gem attached to a date: 1/29/1773. We determined the date was the birthdate of Friedrich Mohs, inventor of the Mohs hardness scale for gems. From there, we were able to piece together the 15 words into 5 phrases, each of which described a phrase that included a gem name. For instance, "Falkinburg's ring name" was "Diamond Dallas Page". After some frustration, we were able to find an anagram of the answer word using the Mohs hardness of each gem as an index into the gemstone phrase.

I was pretty actively involved in solving the above two puzzles, as well as another involving RNA sequences, amino acids, and codon tables, and one which required folding twenty pieces of paper in a certain configuration to create a polyhedron, but I was completely clueless on several others. In particular, one puzzle required that we listen to 9 tracks of music and determine the meter of each, in order to find a number sequence. Luckily, one of our team members had a background in music and was quickly able to solve that part of the puzzle for us.

In the end, we finished 5th or 6th out of 21 teams, which wasn't bad considering most of our team members weren't experienced puzzle hunters. It's very likely that I'll be reserving the whole weekend next time, for the second annual puzzle hunt.

sad geek

This morning I stopped by the Recyclery and dropped off some old computers. I felt like I had a computer museum in my trunk.

There was a working 386 (DOS, I believe) and a 486 (running Windows 3.1), both of which I had appropriated from my parents at some point. I was most nostalgic about my Pentium Pro 200 (dual boot RedHat Linux 6.2 and Windows NT 4.0) which I had bought freshman year in college, and had up and running until a year and a half ago (8.5 years!). Finally, I also had a Pentium II 500 which I had scavenged from someone, which had been running Gentoo Linux until the ethernet card died and I was unable to find a new one that fit the motherboard.

I will now refrain from posting the photo I took of the poor computers sitting in the recycling bin.

shining moment

Tonight I played basketball for the first time in a month and a half. As expected, it wasn't pretty. My best play involved getting knocked on my ass (hard!) and having the other player get called for a charge.

movers are your friends

Yesterday I officially moved for the first time in four years and four months. Although I had been moving gradually over the past few weeks, I still had all of my furniture left to move. Luckily, I had called a month and a half earlier and booked the Delancey Street Movers, on the separate recommendations of at least three different people.

The moving truck showed up promptly at 9am, and four movers started painstakingly disassembling, shrink-wrapping, and moving two bedrooms, a study, a dining room, and a living room full of furniture, a process that ended up involving hoisting pieces of my bed over a balcony. When they finished, we drove twenty miles north, the movers took a short break (off the clock, of course), and then began the move-in process, which included reassembly of a five-piece desk set, as well as moving the entire living room set through the backyard/patio sliding door. Amazingly soon afterwards, they were done.

Time spent moving: 2 hours and 45 minutes packing, 30 minutes driving, 15 minutes for a break, and 1 hour and 45 minutes unpacking, for a grand total of 5 hours and 15 minutes. I've never moved so fast in my life, and I've never had this much furniture, either. More importantly, since I didn't ask anyone to help me move my massive dressers and bookshelves, my friends are still my friends.