the in-laws are ok.

Thank you for all your concerns. Our extended family is safe and accounted for. They live in the mountains of Java, East of Sumatra.

Some other of our friends have family vacationing or living in Thailand and Sumatra. Please continue to pray for them. Thank you.

whew!

Finally!!!

Your December 04, 2004 LSAT score is 172. This is perhaps the best christmas present ever. I don't have to worry about it anymore!

the 52-hertz whale

LONDON (Reuters) - A lone whale, with a voice unlike any other, has been wandering the Pacific for the past 12 years, American marine biologists said Wednesday.

Using signals recorded by the US navy to track submarines, they traced the movement of whales in the Northern Pacific and found that a lone whale singing at a frequency of around 52 hertz has cruised the ocean since 1992.

Its calls, despite being clearly those of a baleen, do not match those of any known species of whale, which usually call at frequencies of between 15 and 20 hertz.

The mammal does not follow the migration patterns of any other species either, according to team leader Mary Anne Daher.

The calls of the whale, which roams the ocean every autumn and winter, have deepened slightly as a result of aging, but are still recognizable.

The study by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, appears in the New Scientist magazine.

This is perhaps the saddest thing I've ever read.

I'll have nun of that...

waiting

I wake up every morning and run downstairs to see if my test scores have been posted. every morning... even saturdays. I hate waiting.

One of those days...

Saturday was one of those days where you just kick butt. I woke up at 6:30 and took my LSAT at 8:30. I felt good taking it. I didn't have any logic questions that I didn't feel comfortable answering. I was able to complete all the questions in the time alloted. Praise God! I really haven't been that stressed about something in years (excluding getting married, but that's a different type of stress), this was more of a failure anxiety. Anyways finished that around 1:15
After the test my wonderful wife let me buy a transformer for a reward. Then we drove two and a half hours up to Seattle. Where I had just enough time to finish my lesson for my Jr Highers by 6pm. I think it went pretty well. At least they were quiet and seemed attentive. The topic was why there is evil and suffering in this world. It was one of those topics that you're happy to do because you have a certain passion or just have something you want to share with them. I'm glad I was able to give that particular lesson even if this past week was stressful and crazy.
Yea!

Jitters

For whatever reason, I've signed up to take the LSATs. It's one of the major steps toward entering Law School. Since graduation I've lived a pretty stable lifestyle. I've kept the same job. I've bought a little real estate. I married the Wife. That all might change after this weekend.

On Friday we're driving down to Oregon so I can take the test. All the spaces in Washington were taken by the time I decided to take the test. Originally I planned to just apply to the University of Washington and if I didn't get in I'd continue in my current 9 to 5. As I researched I decided that I'd also apply to some of the top schools in California as well.

Here's my dilemma. I really want to do well in this test, but at the same time I'm tempted to just go in and make random patterns in the bubble sheet. If I do well on this test it raises so many more questions. What school should I go to? Does the name of the school on my diploma offset the more expensive tuition? What do we do about the house? Where would we live? loans? kids? where do I put my Transformers?
Doing poorly on this test would make all these tough questions a moot point. Hmmm.. a life lived in fear is a life half-lived and all that jazz, right?

Mannheim Craproller

Thanksgiving turns me into a singing fool. Once I'm in the car and I hear those Christmas songs I can't help but singing... well, my wife will tell you that I'm not really singing, I'm just imitating whatever song might be playing. I could be making drum sounds or singing falsetto. I'm just as likely to be adding filler between phrases as I am to be near the melody. This happens unconsiously. I'll be driving in the car wondering what the awful screeching is, thinking that I may have to take my car into the mechanic when I realize that awful screeching is me.
However there is one phenomenon that produces sounds more awful than my voice. I call it the Trans-Siberian Crap-Roller. It may not be a song from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra or a piece by Mannheim Steamroller, but you know what type of music I'm talking about. It starts with a casio-drum beat. Then an un-holy mix of trumpets, violins, electric guitar and synthesizer starts. I half expect the Disneyland Parade of Lights to start. I wouldn't be suprised to look in my rearview mirror and seeing a giant lightbulbed turtle or a cinderella's 30,000 watt dress chasing me. Then come the orchestra hits, pounding out of my stereo like the conductor has Tourettes. Whenever this genre of 'music' comes on I switch my radio faster than if it was playing 'I Can Only Imagine' for the fourth time in an row. I dislike their sound, but they somehow have found their niche in life. Even 20 years after their album came out they still tour every December. They're the Orchestral version of Martin Lawrence. Daa-mn Gina!

foosball and fighting

We played football today against some scac guys. On the whole, they were a pretty fun group. However, one guy did get on my nerves. On one touchdown pass, he's playing safety and calls our QB is past the line of scrimmage. I was on the sidelines keeping track of downs along with someone else and we tell him that the pass was legal. He kept arguing that it our QB was past the line even though he was in the endzone, saying that our boundry cones were crooked.
Him: The lines are crooked. If they were straight, he'd have been past.
Me: We were right on the line of scrimmage looking across the field and he wasn't past. (We were 10 feet away from the QB when he threw it.)
Him: He was past! (obviously he has super vision from 30 yards away with the wrong angle)
Me: Do you want to re-do the down?
His team: No it's ok.
Me: Do you want to move the cones so the lines are straight?
Him: No... (sullenly)
Me: Then quit complaining.

The next set of downs his team throws an interception on my side of the field and luckily I had the chance to start blocking for the cornerback and the complainer and I are running right at each other. My eyes get all big because I want to block him as hard as I can, but legally. I fold my arms across my chest and we hit arm to arms. I shove him backwards with my upperarms and go past him. He gets up and yells, 'Next time you guys block like that I'm going to start throwing punches!'

What... the... H-E-double-hockey-sticks? He's taking about throwning punches? This guy wants the throw down because he got blocked playing football? I ignore him.

Later that game he's rushing and one of our players smacks him in the face and he's starts screaming bloody murder. I didn't see the play but you're not supposed to have the hands above the shoulders if you're blocking. Supposedly he tried to duck a blocker and got clocked. We had to stop the game and re-do the rules for this one guy. GRRRRRRRR. Anyone else would have not mentioned it or just told the blocker to watch his hands, but this little, hot-headed kid ruined the game for the other 16 people there. Nice work guy.

Best Buy @ 5:30 am

Sorry Jeff. Sorry Dave.
We did it... We gave in... We woke up at 4:45 to go to best buy. We were in the middle of a line that stretched about 200 yards by 6:00 am. It was quite the production. There were people giving out krispie kremes for donations. There were best buy employees with clipboards letting people sign up for computers and laptops so fewer people would get trampled. What stuck out to me the most was who was in the line. Since it made a big U around the loading dock I had a great view of the people and I would estimate that over half were Asian. The non-asians were mainly 18-45 year olds, but I saw asian mom's carrying their half-asleep kids, there were a lot of older asians as well. When the doors opened up, suprisingly most people were polite and didn't shove. What I really wanted was a 160 gb hard drive. I made a beeline for that area but found a blank shelf. What I did find was a guy with a shopping cart with at least 7 hard drives in there. The discount was only 1 per household so I wondered why this guy would shove 7 into his shopping cart. So I was stealing a glance at his cart when another guy with three hard drives in his arms leaned over to me and asked if I wanted one. Of course I said yes, then he said that he was short $10 of buying something else... basically he was scalping hard drives in the middle of Best Buy. As I gave the guy a shocked looked I was almost tackled from behind. After completing a full 360 as the person shoved her way through the crowd I was suprised to see it was an old lady about 5 feet tall. All three of these lovely people were asian. The day after Thanksgiving should be renamed 'Pretend you're in a communist bread line day'. The day after the day after Thanksgiving should be renamed, 'fill out your rebate forms day'.
I'm thankful that my Grandparents decided to immigrate to this country.

The American Dream

Our country has long held dear the mythos of the American dream. People who rise from rags to riches by hard work and luck. The American dream.
I believe that Arnold his perhaps the most famous person living the American dream. A body builder who barely spoke English moves to the United States and not only becomes an a-list actor who commands millions per movie, but becomes American royalty by marrying a Kennedy. Oh yeah... now he's Governor of California.

However, I wanted to point out another person who is living the American dream. Wilmer Valderrama. Wilmer (AKA Fes) was born in Miami but grew up in Venezuela. When he moved back to the states in 1994 he learned English by watching Sesame Street. His acting career hasn't taken off as fast as Arnold or some of his castmates. So far his only notable movie has been 'Summer Catch', but to truly understand the magnitude of Wilmer's body of work we need to examine People magazine rather than IMDB.com. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Alba, Mandy Moore and Lindsey Lohan; American dream indeed.

Update on the Soap Opera

Official English Title: Amor de Tarapacá
Chinese Title: 紫藤戀 (purple vine romance)

airplane movies

Just a list of what i watched yesterday

King Arthur
I, Robot
Collateral
The Bourne Supremacy
Alien vs Predator
Anchorman
A Cinderella Story

Then I slept for 13 hours.

Coming home

We leave in about 8 hours to go back to the states.

From Bandung to Jakarta
Jakarta to Hong Kong
Hong Kong to Taipei
Taipei to Seattle

ETA Noon on Tuesday. I think Tuesday will be 38 hours long for us. Nifty.

Passing the time

To combat boredom, I've finished Final Fantasy 2 and 9. I've read a star trek book, a dragonlance book and various short books lying around the house. I've read Isaiah. I've watched horrible hong kong movies. I'm semi-addicted to a Mandarin Soap Opera. It's not translated, but I can understand, 'I don't know' and 'I'm sorry'. Thankfully most of the dialogue uses those two phrases.

These are the facts I've gathered.

This handsome man owns a wine shop which eventually closes down. He is in love with a girl who is dating another man. He perms his hair. His mom looks unbelievably young. He has a lot of close-ups. His father is dead.

This is his step-sister.

She is in love with him. She killed her step-father. She causes trouble. She lies a lot. She got a man who liked her killed because she was acting sucidal. Avoid her at all costs.


She may or may not be engaged to a man who tries to look a lot like David Beckham. This man fell off a building and was in a coma for a year. She likes the handsome guy from above but can't admit it because of her ambigous relationship to mr beckham. When she smiles she looks like my sister-in-laws matron of honor.

That's about it folks. I think the title of the soap opera is "love's purple bamboo"

As to the elections. My personal opinions don't matter much so I won't write anything. However, looking at the news from the satellite dishes, the world seems to have given a collective shrug. For some reason I was expecting anarchy and rioting in the streets. I expected to turn to Jordanian Television and seeing people predicting the end of the world. Nothing... none of that. Interestly, the opinion pieces on the news channels from Singapore supported Bush. However the reasons were economic.

If you're really fed up with the US, move to Canada. Everyone loves Canada.



Traffic suprises me here. Not only are one way streets and lanes optional, but you can fit a family of four on a scooter. Sorry for the bad photography, but this scooter was going 20-30 mph and only about 2 feet away from our car.


I don't know what this is either. My job is to eat it and pray it doesn't give me runny poop.


Finally,
The family.

ayam vs chicken

We had chicken last night for dinner. The chicken here is different. It's tastes better but is a lot smaller. There is probably more meat on one leg of American chicken than on a leg and thigh of the Indonesian chickens.

The closest analogy I can think of is that the Indonesian chickens are like a long-distance runner while our American chickens are Anna Nicole Smith, pre-trimspa.

There's a white guy in the village!

I stumbled across a local tv show the other day. You guys are going to love this, it's title is translated 'There is a caucasian in the village!'.
The plot is about a young white male who is visiting a rural village. The parto f the episode I saw envolved this young man and he befriends a young local boy and his mother only to find out they're the family of the local hottie. All the local guys watch on in disbelief and jealousy at this man moving in on their territory. Not only does this wayward soul have the ability to translate bahasa on the fly using his dictionary, but he has an uncanny resemblance to Lance Bass. I'll update you guys if he breaks out in dancing or trys to become and astronaut.

The Facilities

The Musholla.
When I first came to Indonesia, I thought the bahasa word for the bathroom was ‘musholla’ because every place had signs that pointed to the musholla. In actuality the correct word is ‘toilet’; Musholla means the Muslim prayer room. Luckily I didn’t leave a Mr. Hanky in the musholla, I wouldn’t have been very popular.

Bob the Bathroom Lizard.
I noticed two days ago that there was a small lizard on the wall of the bathroom. While I have nothing against lizards, I don’t particularly like this lizard. I named him Bob. Bob likes to hang out in bathrooms, this fact creeps me out. When ever I go into the bathroom, the first thing I do is try to find Bob. I want to make sure Bob is far away from where I am sitting. This is Bob.


The Hardware.
The local standard latrine is a porcelain bowl roughly the size of a toilet. However, unlike the western porcelain god, this bowl is sunken into the ground and on the outside rim of the bowl there are grooved areas to put your feet. These lovely bowls don’t flush either. There is usually a large bucket of water with a smaller bucket inside. The idea is to pour water into the bowl until everything goes down the drain. It works surprisingly well. There is the problem of the bucket of water running low so most public restrooms have a tap continuously flowing into the bucket. When the bucket overflows the water pours out onto the floor and eventually makes it into a drain in the floor. As you might imagine the floors are always tile and are always wet. Before going into the bathroom it’s a good idea to roll up your pants.

Showering.
Some houses have showers, but the local method involves a bathroom that is completely tiled, a floor drain and another small bucket. Rather than fill the bathtub completely and jump in, you fill the bathtub about a third of the way full and then scoop up water and pour it over your head as you stand in the middle of the bathroom. I have great difficulty bathing. First, I am impatient and rarely let the bathtub fill enough. Usually I’ve got soap in my eyes, holding the bucket under the tap wishing it would fill faster. Secondly, there is the problem of rinsing. As you might imagine, water from a small bucket doesn’t get the same coverage as a nice shower and water obeys the laws of gravity. I have great trouble rinsing my areas of perpetual shade.

Food pictures...

Hot Pot


Indonesian food, Nasi Sambal (Rice in Banana Leaves), fermented soybean and Ayam(Chicken)


The Coconut Royale at Cafe Rasa.
In the United States they call this the Coconut Quarter Pounder.


The Big Chinese Dinner. Grandma can't go to a restaurant so we bring the restaurant to her. This table is in the middle of the living room.


Frog legs, Eel and Ong Choy at Amen Restaurant.


Congee on China Air. Yum.

Behold!

Behold my mosquito racket.
The smiter of winged insects.
The scourge of the scourge.
The vaquisher of vampiric vermin.
The punisher of the parasitic.


My regular schedule here is odd. I wake up at 6:30 or so and lounge around. I love the mornings here. The sun is out but it's not hot. The mosquitos are mostly dormant. The birds are out and nobody is burning their trash yet.
After breakfast we do morning stretches with Grandma and I play my playstation and maybe work-out until noon when I have lunch. After lunch it gets hot, humid. Around 4pm the mosquitos come out and the long pants go back on. It gets dark around 5:30 and we usually eat dinner out around 6pm when all the muslims are breaking their Ramadan fast.
After dinner we watch TV with Grandma (historical kung-fu drama) and slap at mosquitos in the house.

I should describe the house. It's an older house from the Dutch occupation. It's one story and shaped like a large 'C' The top of the 'C' is a living room that just has big couches a tv and a weight bench. My playstation is there. Continuing around the top of the 'C' is a small kitchenette, then a bathroom and then the bedroom the Wife and I are staying in.
Heading down the long side of the 'C' is another guest bedroom, then the family room which has more couches, a TV, a large dining room, the computer and a piano. Going further down the 'C' is three bedrooms another bathroom and storage room. Finally at the bottom of the 'C' is a sitting room, the kitchen and laundry and some storage rooms.

The house staff live in a building opposite the 'C'. It looks like 'C i'.

Tommorrow, or perhaps later today I shall cover the bathroom.

a few random thoughts

Stop reading this entry and go read isaiah 1.

I really have no idea what day of the week it is.

A satellite dish can give you 300 channels, but if you can only understand 2 channels it puts quite a damper on the party.

The maid ironed my underwear.

Watching really bad historical Chinese kung-fu soap operas is entertaining if you're bored enough.

Am I Judah or am I Jerusalem?

It seems like God called Isaiah to do a task which God told him he would fail at, interesting.

I am a mosquito buffet.

Steak at the Ramadan Inn

This month is the holy month of Ramadan and part of that entails a month long fast. This basically means no eating (for muslims) between 4am and 6pm. A lot of stores are closed during this time and I'm told that the amount people actually consume is greater in this month than in the non-fasting months because people stuff themselves silly every evening.

I also get a nice wake up call at 3:30am from the mosque down the street every morning.

Last night the in-laws took us out for dinner at a western-style restaurant and I had a steak. I had a sirloin. It was pretty good, about 8 oz. It cost 34,000 rp. To put that in perspective, $1 about 10,000 rp. $3.40 baby... The gas over here is about 70 cents a gallon (govt subsidized). Parking is 10 cents. Pinapples are 30 cents each. McDonalds is about $4 a meal and their most popular value meal is the fried chicken and rice special.

Plane Food

We've arrived.

1st Leg: Seattle at 2am PST and arrived in Taipei 14 hours later.
2 hour lay over in TaiPei.
2nd Leg: Taipei to Jakarta 5 hours.
1/2 hour for customs... not bad, i didn't have to bribe anyone.
3rd Leg: Jakarata to Bandung 5 1/2 hours.
Arrival Time 8pm Local Time, 6am PST

Pork Congee
Chicken Pasta
Curry Beef
Juice
Coke
Sprite
Water
Tea
Deep fried Eel
Ong Choy
Deep fried frog legs

Used the facilities 5 times.
Slept a few hours
Watched movies:
The Terminal
The Manchurian Candidate
Two Brothers
Around the World in 80 days
Read most of 'The Runaway Jury'

1 day done, 27 more to go.
I get to meet the extended family tomorrow, I should sleep.

Just for fun.

Today, while eating my spicy phad thai, i was browsing for jobs at various job sites. Here are the ones I've been frequenting:
www.starbucks.com
www.gettyimages.com
www.metrokc.gov
www.washington.edu

And I found an application support analyst job for the UW right on sand point way, about 4 blocks from our new house. Just for fun I applied. I would love to have a job without a commute. It takes us about 40 minutes to get from Seattle to Redmond. Over the course of 5 years, I think I've spent approximately 75 days on that accursed sr-520. Chances are things won't work out, but it was fun imagining a 5 minute commute.

Bam! take it up a notch.

Let's spice up the election process.
- Let's have Jay Leno, Dave Letterman and Jon Stewart be the only media outlets allowed to report on the presidential race.
- Voting is like the amazing race and voters have to stop hockey pucks and fly to Wisconsin before they can cast their vote.
- Candidates have to drink a shot everytime they make up a word in a debate.
- It needs more cowbell
- Terry Tate, presidential linebacker

I'm pretty bummed that I'll be in Indonesia during the election, but I'm curious to see how other parts of the world follow American politics.

and the answer is

$234.50

234.50/33 = 7.11 dollars per lb
33/8= 4.125 lbs per year
that's $29.31 of change every year on average

8 years of left overs

So what happens when you decide to finally collect all your change since the start of college?

1 10-gallon tupperware containers, 2 Safeway coinstars, and 33 lbs of change later...



guess what the dollar amount was.

A Great Business Model: Awesome Sushi

Awesome Sushi - 2122 NE 65th Street, Seattle, WA, 98115

The wife and her friend went to a sushi place they'd never been to before this past weekend. The place looked like one of those cheap sushi places. It was Mom and Pop run place with pretty bad service and 3 tables. But it's all part of their scheme to lure people in. You see, Awesome Sushi's business model is much like that of the Angler Fish (the monster in Finding Nemo). Passerbys are lured into the restaurant that looks like it would serve affordable sushi. After then venture cautiously in and are seated, warm tea is served. The purpose of the tea is not only to lower their guard, but to also make them feel obligated to stay and eat after the menu is unveiled. Only then is the true power of Awesome Sushi revealed. Patrons are lured in only to be trapped with $34 bento boxes. No restaurant called 'Awesome Sushi' should be allowed to serve such pricey bento boxes. However, this incident has inspired me.

A rough definition of bento box in this document will contain the following: salad, miso, sashimi and some sort of terayaki combination.

the base price for a bento box will be $10

The restaurant also serves kimchee or hamburgers - $2
The restaurant cooks are Japanese + $4
The bento box is served on a plate - $1
The bento box is served in a bento box + $3
Shoyu is available only from individual packets - $2
The sashimi is sashimi grade + $2
The miso soup is upgraded to udon + $2
The resaurant is over 20 years old + $1
There is a bud light neon sign in the window - $3
Most of the restaurant has
been converted into a karaoke/sports bar - $3
The name of the restaurant contains Japanese + $2
The tea is oolong - $1
There are tatami mats and tengu masks + $2
Calendars of the 91 husky football team - $1
The name is 'Awesome Sushi' - $10

I would think of more, but something came up.

Painting Plums

::Stomach Roll Call::


The Wife and I are in process of moving to another house. We've been spending a lot of time and mooolah at Home Depot as we've been getting the new house into 'real-simple-magazine-shape'. We're also trying to get our condo into 'rentable' condition.

I would like to say that 'Real Simple' does not make things really simple. If I were to make a magazine entitled 'Real Simple', it would advise people to go into a house with a industrial paint sprayer and paint everything off-white. Why off-white? Because white is debatable, everything else is technically off-white. Black is off-white. So let us be real simple and spray paint everything the 'off-white' of your choosing. Then for furniture, use your old college sofa with the springs poking through and the cinder block supporting the center. Just throw your favorite old bed sheet over it and you've got yourself a winner. The decorations? Spend a couple bucks at goodwill. No need to coordinate, just find the gaudiest throw rug you can find and throw it on the floor. It'll bring the room together. For food, peanut butter sandwiches; jelly if available, nutella if company is expected.

oh yeah, we're painting the basement walls a plum color. It's like purple, but fruitier.

Dim Sum Me

we had dim sum for lunch.. top gun. I was struck with idea for a new documentary.

SIM SUM ME
A man rents an apartment about Uwajimaya's in the international district and decides to live off of nothing but Dim Sum for three months. Watch as his health fades and his demeanor changes as a result of his new diet.
*He gains 40 lbs from the excessive amounts of pork and shrimp.
*His wrists become badly deformed from grueling chopstick usage.
*His hair begins to fall out in clumps from the MSG intake.
*His voice level is constantly shouting, sometimes in Cantonese.
*He develops a phobia of eating the last piece of food on a plate.
*He begins to find only the feet of the chicken appetizing.

let me know if you have more suggestions...

found it

On Friday, we got an e-mail from my brother-in-law saying that there may have been a house key in the car. I spent Friday afternoon replacing all the locks in the house.

For the thousands who have been following the stolen car, it showed up around Oaktree cinemas in one piece minus a face plate the garage door opener and perhaps an out-dated house key.

*poof* like a fart in the wind...

I had some canned eel and spinach over rice for lunch.
Anyways, I had to get my tabs renewed after work.
When I came home I noticed that my brother-in-laws car wasn't there anymore (it was in front of our place while he's out of town).
gone...
taken...
vanished...
repo'd...
gone the way of the dodo...
the last melon...
loaned to jimmy hoffa...
They were nice enough to leave the umbrella.

Our first dance...

The Wife and I went to a wedding this weekend. We had the pleasure to take part in our first 'married couples' dance. This is the tradition where all married couples dance together and the MC calls out a time period. If you've been married for less than the time period called then you have to sit down. For all you sql*plus people out there:

cursor c_dance is
select * from married_couples;
v_time in date;

begin

v_time := p_time

Select * from married_couples
into dance_floor;

For mc in c_dance loop

if v_time_called > (sysdate - mc.wedding_date)
then
delete from dance_floor where married_couple.id = mc.id;
else do nothing;
endif;

end loop;

end;
--note-- this procedure was not named, nor are the parameters defined. This has not been tested and may not be Y2K compliant.

We lasted for 1 minute on the dance floor. Congatulations Josh and Jessica!

a burning ring of fire...

Love is a burning thing
and it makes a firery ring
bound by wild desire
I fell in to a ring of fire...

I fell in to a burning ring of fire
I went down,down,down
and the flames went higher.
And it burns,burns,burns
the ring of fire
the ring of fire.


We took my mother-in-law out to eat for a going away dinner at Hosoonyi Restaurant in edmonds.



We had #12, #13, #14 and #45. Bulgogi, pork bulgogi, spicy fish and the seafood pancake. Hosoonyi is a great restaurant and I recommend it. However, it can be on the spicy side. When coupled with our previous dinner of panang curry at thai-ger room, i had my own little burning ring of fire. woohoo!

*johnny cash is rolling over in his grave. i apologize*

Thank You!

most of the awesome staff from this year's camp.

Todai'ed

Todaied (tO-DI-d)
v.
to attempt to make something better by adding a large amount of mediocrity.

n.
the act of making someting better by adding a large amount of mediocrity.

usage
That Romanian gymnast really todaied her floor excercise by adding in the spirit fingers.
My date got todaied when she brought out the pabst blue ribbon.
Hey, this digital cable package mostly todaied except for these cooking shows.

inspired from monday's lunch.

I am the center of the universe.

I was sitting, pondering my Big Mac when I realized that I am the center of the universe.

Prize steer were bred and raised in Nebraska under the watchful eyes of farmers. Their sickness medicated, their wounds healed, so that they could be processed and turned into a pair of beef patties. Frozen, they were shipped halfway across this country and cooked.

Lettuce was grown, harvested and hopefully washed in south america before being put in a bag and shipped to my McDonalds. The cardboard box was made in china and put on a boat, ensuring that it would reach the states in time to hold my burger. Thousand Island sauce, chopped onions... they were all created to feed me in my one moment of shining glory.

People working from across the globe came together in order to put one big mac sandwich on my plastic tray. It's astounding.

GWB

During lunch, the Wife and I noticed a large number of Po-Po around the Redmond Marriot. Streets were being blocked off, police were finding elevated positions, people were gawking.

I asked someone what was going on and the person said, 'GWB is coming into town and is going to stay at the Marriot'.

Quite honestly, I'm suprised that Great White, the Band is still around. I thought they had disbanded after the night club fire. I guess I'm mistaken because it looks like the police expect quite a turn-out. There must still be a lot of hair-band fanatics out here on the eastside. scary.

the rust-colored Mississippi sky.

I killed my computer. Not really, but I killed the monitor. I left it on while watching tv during a particularly hot day and when I went back to the computer there was the smell of burnt rubber in the air. It's not the smell of brakes screeching or tires churning gravel, but the smell of insulation melting and wires fusing, cleaving together in one last electron-swapping orgy like may flies celebrating their short lives under the rust-colored Mississippi sky. It was the smell of electronic death and it hung thick in the air. The stench was cold syrup, straight from the refrigerator, being poured over my room of pancakes; Pancakes being cooked over a griddle under the rust-colored Mississippi sky. I laid my hand on the monitors brow, expecting to feel the cold-touch of death, instead the plastic was on fire. The hot embers of death were still smoldering inside its broken shell, making the monitor's enternal slumber a feverish dream. It was hot, hot like a griddle cooking pancakes under the rust-colored Mississippi sky.

The End.

Yum!

i love photoshop. *edit* there is a shark in the picture... sorry i didn't make that more clear. AS much as I admire Steph and Stone, the caption 'Yum' isn't meant for them.

little ups and downs.

First off, sorry for not writing anything sooner. I've been meaning to write something a little more positive and upbeat because that 'mood' I was in earlier lasted all of 12 hours.

That next morning I was up and at church again helping with Sunday school since all the regular teachers were in a meeting. That was interesting... there were some things said that startled me. While I agree that God punishes people, I wouldn't necessarily tell a 6 year old that God will judge him if he doesn't stop fooling around. Beyond that, I was refreshed by the kids. Even though they were squirming and picking their noses, when a question was asked, their little snot-covered, squirmy hands shot up to answer the question.

What I was really touched by was the worship set. It seems like every few months or so a song comes around that just seems to touch people. I call it the 'Liftyournameonhigh-ism' effect. It also has a more modern name of 'giveyoumorethanasongitis'. The most recent song is 'blessed be your name'. Excuse me, my sarcasm above is only to hide the fact that I was really moved when we sang through the verse about being found in the desert place. Also, reading other peoples' comments and blogs helped me realize that God was moving even if I couldn't see it.

This past week I've had a lot of conversations about church. I think I had the 'why do I stay at CBC?' conversayion at least three times. My answer... in case any one is interested... is that what attracts me to my church, what I find at my church that keeps me there is the people. While we don't have the most dynamic speaking, the coolest programs or the most moving worship sets, we have people that our church that are amazing. If I could change anything about our 3rd service, it would be that we made an effort to know each other more.

Ironically, the only time people usually share about how God is working in their lives is right before we send them off. But every person in our congregation has something that would be an encouragement for our body to hear, whether it's their vision for a certain ministry or difficulties they're having adjusting to post-college life. When 3rd service started out, we had a sharing time before the message where a person would share a little bit about what the message topic means to them. I'd love to see that again. I think everyone would agree that our church is full of unique, interesting and God-loving people.

Our church is like a rag-tag, fugitive fleet, on a quest for a shining planet known as Earth.


Oh yeah.. food.... um.. I ate a quarter-pounder and now I think I have gas.


yeah... i do.

Double Dipping

I feel disgruntled.  I feel discouraged.

We spent the last 12 hours at church.  12 hours from noon to midnight.  Last night I spent 4 hours at church.  This past week we spent 2 evenings and afternoons preparing for tonight.    I'm physically exhausted and feeling spiritually spent as well.

It feels like our community has a problem of double dipping.  We ask a smaller percentage of our body to do more than their share and it burns them out.  Today for instance.  We sent individual e-mails to people to help set up and you know what?  They didn't even have the courtesy to respond.  We had people that said they would show up that didn't.  Our three helpers today rocked, one did it all with a child strapped to her.  Another helped set up even though she couldn't make it for the actual program.  Then while we were finished setting up, we were asked to help out the program for the evening because there wasn't any greeters.   Later, I was asked to come to the second hour and help with sunday school.

I would've flat out said no to anyone else, but the person who asked me gives more of his time than I do.  Say what you will about his methods, but he loves and serves the Lord whole-heartedly.  I admire that he sets an example by doing.  Nothing irks me more than a leader who divvies out responsibility and directions like it's kool-aid but keeps their hands clean from the work.

I really don't know how much other people serve.  I don't know how many other ministries people are involved in, but right now it feels like too many people are content just coming to church and tithing their "ten percent" of money and expect the church and it's programs to work.  Sometimes people will bother to support their own ministry.  A few might actually help out with their kids ministry or a ministry that affects people in their own peer-group.  But it seems like it always comes down to the same people.

*sigh*

I'm directing a youth camp this summer and I've lost count of how many e-mails have gone unresponded.  Luckily, there are one or two people that are really excited and that keeps me going.

Today was discouraging.  It was ironic that our topic was about living vs surviving because right now I feel like I'm just surviving.  I'm doing what I can to prepare for whatever hoop I have to jump through next.

Maybe we need less programs.  Maybe we need more people to volunteer.  Maybe I need a break.  My wife could use one too.

Yay!

uh.. just because this picture cracks me up.  Good timing, Siska.

I come from a land down under

Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich.
              --Men at Work
 
I'm neither 6'4" nor from Brussels... however, I am full of mussels.  The family and I went to Whidbey Island for the weekend.  Whidbey Island is famous for their Penn Cove mussels, so I decided to sample a few for lunch, then a few more for dinner. 

Notice the beautiful arrangement inside the scallop platter.  I ate at least 25 mussels yesterday.

ok... now it's an upset stomach

We just ate lunch at an Indian buffet in Redmond known as Sahib. Needless to say I got my money's worth of food. I can barely focus my eyes right now I'm so stuffed. In fact, I barely made it back to the office and when I got back, I didn't even had to push, I just had to stop clenching. I am full.

It's not an upset stomach...

Something has been bothering me lately. It feels like there is a battle brewing unseen around me and I can feel it starting to bubble over. I felt the same thing a few years ago at a big church camp and I can feel it again now. The battle lines are different, but the reason is stil the same. Years ago I chose a side... Now I just don't want to see it again.

People are funny about their spirituality. Funny because we hide them. Funny because we neglect them religiously. Funny because we defend them jealously and irrationally.

Years ago I felt my 'spirituality' questioned by others. Years ago I felt that their ability to express themselves made me feel inadequate and I resented it. I hope that I've changed since years ago and will be able to talk about my spirituality in a loving rather than a combative manner.

into thin air...

On the way home from work last night, the Wife and I wound up in the U-District looking for something to gnaw on. We ended up finding quite the treasure. I don't even know the name of the place, but it serves 'Himalayan/Tibetian' cuisine.

As we were waiting for the menus, I wondered what exactly Himalayan food was because most of what I know about the Himalayas involves a movie about mountain climbing. My morbid imagination kicked in when I recalled the movie 'Alive' and wondered if freeze-dried sherpa was on the menu. Suprisingly, Himalayan food is a mix between Indian, Chinese and SE Asian cuisines. I guess it's not that surprising considering where Nepal is located.

I had the 'Nepali Thali', a sample of Himalayan food including a goat curry, spiced vegetables and a lentil soup. It was served with rice and nan bread. The wife had a similar plate with chicken curry, some pot-stickers and a roll of sweet bread. The bread was the same type that you'd find in a hom-bow or when you order peking duck. We also had chaiya, hot milk tea to drink. The food was very good overall, but the real treat was the presentation. The meals were served on metal chargers with five-six separate decorated metal bowls balanced on them filled with steaming curries and soups.

Sorry.. no camera at the time, but we plan to visit again.

royale with cheese and shoes

For dinner the Wife and I ate in the car on the way to the Sheraton Hotel. I had a quarter-pounder. She had a big & tasty. Junk food is my weakness. At the Sheraton, we helped Debbie put a few hundred auction items in order for this weekend's fund-raiser. Afterwards we went shopping downtown.

We ended up at Banana Republic where I picked up 2 shirts. The Wife found a couple tank tops and a little purse. I spent some time observing the way that people tried on shoes. It's funny how some ladies really don't care what size they really wear as long as the shoes are on sale and look cute. I overheard one lady ask the sales lady to bring out the last 2 pairs of a certain style of shoe, size 6.5 and size 9. I'm guessing her real foot size was somewhere inbetween.

Another behavior I found intriguing was what I call the 'pretend-to-forget' move. I saw a handful of ladies doing this. One girl's animated nature stood out in particular. She'd put on the shoes and stand in front of a mirror. Taking her time, she looked at her feet from different angles. She'd turn away and pause for a second. Then she'd whirl around and look genuinely suprised at her reflection, as if she was the guy from Momento who would have to carry polaroids of her outfit around with her. I guess she was trying to get a 'first-reaction' on the shoes. Sometimes she'd want a second opinion, so she'd do it again.

odd creatures.

another one of life's disappointments

The Wife and I had lunch at a hot dog cart at Redmond Town Center today. This is the first time I've ever had a wiener from a cart and I must say that it was a bit of a let down. I've always thought that the bulk of the cart would be the weeny sauna, that pot of almost-boiling water where the weenies marinate. I think I was misled by a Seinfeld episode. The actual weeny-pit was pretty small, no more than a gallon or two with maybe a 2 dozen frankfurters (typing out weeny is no-longer fun). I had always imagined that you'd open the metal top and look inside and it'd be like Raiders of the Lost Ark with a cavernous pit filled with writhing weenies (it's fun again!) and the vendor would risk his life every time he had to snatch a weeny, as if he were Steve Irwin finding a rattlesnake nest. But instead, the skinless sausages were just bobbing up and down like the quaker-oats guy in Cocoon.

Oh but this non-Irwinian vendor was making a killing today when everyone wanted to be outside. He was charging $3.50 a pop for the hot dogs, plus extra if you wanted grilled onions or cream cheese and there was a constant line of people. I'm not too big on cream cheese hog dogs, but he had a pretty good selection of weeny condiments: Hot mustard, deli mustard, yellow mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, onions, tabasco, siracha, horseradish, sauerkraut, pepper and salt.

no time to chew...

Have you ever pulled on a thread and your whole sweater fell apart? or tried to pull out a splinter in your finger only to find that the splinter somehow is lodged to your major finger artery, the fingorta?

Well that's what happened today to us. We had a leaky sink that had rusted through that we were going to replace... only when we pulled the sink out, half the tiles decided they wanted to come too. So now we're replacing 2 sinks, 2 faucets, the entire counter-top and adding some moulding to the counter. Methinks we're up a creek without a paddle. Just like what'll happen when we go white-water rafting in a month. soooooo screwed.

*edit* from comments i got from various people this weekend, it seems that this blog actually has readership. I apologize.

mystery meat

:: stomach roll call ::


I had a costco frankfurter for dinner last night. It was of the polish variety. I've never really thought about hot dogs too deeply, but obviously someone has. Click here to see what the definition of a hot dog is from the Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Some highlights:
"Frankfurters (a.k.a., hot dogs, wieners, or bologna) are cooked and/or smoked sausages according to the Federal standards of identity."

"They are link-shaped and come in all sizes -- short, long, thin, and chubby."

"The finished products may not contain more than 30% fat or no more than 10% water, or a combination of 40% fat and added water."

"The definition of "meat" was amended in December 1994 to include any "meat" product that is produced by advanced meat/bone separation machinery."

"Mechanically Separated Meat (MSM) is a paste-like and batter-like meat product produced by forcing beef or pork bones, with attached edible meat, under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue"

I'm having hot dogs tonight too.

Gah Lei Gai

:: Stomache Roll Call ::


I made curry chicken last night (gah lei gai is the cantonese pronunciation, it's also my aim name). Last night after volleyball I came home and the Wife was working on the computer. So I took it upon myself to cook us lunch for the today. Our fridge had some old carrots, half an onion, leftover yogurt and heavy cream from some smoothies, a few potatoes and some chicken thighs. Have you ever just thrown stuff in a pot and called it curry? It was like I was in college all over again

The Wife also made some mango pudding last night. It was delicious. We've been on a mango binge: mango Pudding, mango white rabbits, dried mango, mango lassie. Suprisingly, Mango Lassie isn't a cross between Chris Kattan and an intellegent border collie that saves little Timmy from the well. Mango Lassie is a smoothie type drink.

Ingredients: 1.0 cup cubes Ice
1.0 cup chilled Pineapple
2.0 cups plain Yogurt
1.0 chilled Mango

Directions: 1 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom peel & chop mango chop pineapple Place mango, pineapple, 1 tsp cardamom, yogurt and ice cubes in a blender and blend until smooth Dust each serving with remaining cardamom Yield: 3, 12 oz. glasses

Serving directions. Drink from the belly button of a super model. just kidding.

You'll go down in history... like Columbus

:: stomach roll call ::


We went to the Union Bay Cafe yesterday. I was particularly exciting about adding to my 'meats-I-have-eaten' repertoire because the menu I had looked at in the Entertainment book had two rabbit dishes. Unfortunately, the menu at the restaurant had changed. Luckily for me, they offered some venison medallions.

I am a man conflicted. I've never felt the urge to be a vegetarian and I enjoy the taste of meat. However, I felt a mixture of guilt and delight when I thought I'd be eating bunny. Is that wrong? I know eating Bambi isn't much better than eating Thumper, but let me tell you that venison tastes g-r-r-r-reat. I'm not sure exactly how to describe the taste other than it has a darker, smoky taste compared to beef. The texture seemed just a little more firm than beef but isn't chewy or tough. I recommend it. Supposedly venison is also healthier for you than beef because it has less fat. Obviously those reindeer games pay off.

*update* Siska had duck breast. For dessert we had strawberry shortcake and a pistachio and chocolate layer cake.

What's in a dong? and why am I thirsty?

Two unrelated topics:
What's in a dong?
Well, from what my grandfather told me, the dong was created as part of the same festival that the dragon boat races came from. The story I learned is that a Chinese scholar, beloved by the masses, was so distraught by the happenings in China that he threw himself into a lake to protest. The people raced out to save him in their boats (memorialized by the dragon boat races), but no one could get to him in time. The people didn't want the fishes to eat his drowned carcass, so they threw rice wrapped in banana or te leaves into the lake to give the fishes something else to gnaw on.

What is actually inside the leaves varies by person, but in my particular dong there was rice, small shrimp, peanuts, ham, lop-cheung (chinese sausage), and an egg yolk.

why am I thirsty?
It is recommended that you should drink 6-8 glasses of water each day. I drink about one and a half nalgene bottles each day. I'm not sure if I drink the recommended amount, but the last week I've been very aware of how much I drink and if I feel dehydrated. The main reason is that I've been reading a book entitled 'Skeletons of the Zahara'. It's written on the true account of James Riley and his crew. They were an American ship that wrecked off the African coast in 1815 or so. They spent 2 months in captivity in the Sahara desert. Just reading about how hot it was and the lengths they went to find water makes my mouth dry. They would follow their masters camels around to try and catch the urine in their hands to drink. They would spend the nights catching snails to squeeze out just a little bit of water from them. They lost over half their body weight in 2 months to dehydration, starvation and sickness. So, drink your 6-8 glasses of water daily, it's good for you and you don't have to follow a camel around to get it.

My Six-Inch Dong

I took a picture to document my six-inch dong. There is a tape measure in the picture so you can get an idea of the scale. Six inches is actually quite large for a dong. Unfortunately, I didn't have any other dongs around to include in the picture to show that it's larger than average, but my grandmother said that my dong was the biggest she had seen... ever.

:: See it here ::

Bar-B-Que

Short and sweet... We bought my dad a grill for his birthday. On Memorial Day we went over to the house for dinner.
::Stomach Roll Call::


*update*
Had some dental work done. It looks like I'll be eating softer food for the next few days.

En Francais S'il Vous Plait

We went and saw Troy after a short day at work. After 3-hours of that mantastic movie, we decided to eat out. We ended up in Magnolia, tryng to use our entertainment card at Chinois cafe but were lured instead to Voila, a french restaurant right next to it. The food was good, and suprisingly cheap. The skate that Siska had was the special of the night and very, very tasty. The skate is a softer flesh fish, but they added a nice crust of seasoning that made the texture firmer.

Anyways, speaking of firm, Troy was kinda good. I enjoyed the fight scenes and brad pitt's little leaping stab he does 3-4 times during the movie. I'm glad they didn't slow it down for a matrix-freeze-in-mid-air shot. Some things really, really bothered me though. For instance, the movie uses the same background wailing lady as in 'The Passion'. Everytime she started up, I expected to see Jesus walk out from the crowd and start healing people. The other thing that bothered me was I couldn't separate the actors from their other movies.

*Spoilers*
For instance, Legolas stole the wife of Hamish(Mel's right hand man in Braveheart), whose brother happens to be Col Stryker (X-men 2), the king of the greeks. So Stryker gathers all his warriors and kings together, including Brad Pitt and Boromir. They sail across the water to fight the trojans, who are ruled by Lawrence of Arabia whose advisor just happens to be Hamish's Father. Anyways, the Hulk kills Hamish. The Hulk also kills Sabretooth.. See what my problem is? Oh yeah, don't forget the Jesus wailing lady.

Hamish says: Give me back my wife you damn Elf.

*practical addition from "The Wife"
The skate was surprisingly good, so had to note the ingridients - maybe we can imitate it next time. It has very nice crispy crust, and the topping was shallots, capers, and basil. The key here was FRESH basil. I thought it is always a pain to buy fresh herb to cook...I disregarded my food encyclopedia's warning of "one should always try to use fresh basil, dill, and parsley, because the dried version of them are dull by comparison". However, after eating that fish, I totally agreed with using fresh basil stuff. The fish was bathed in a pool of olive oil, with 3 cherry tomatoes on the side and a yam looking thing.

All-Clad Stainless ii

I had an weird eating schedule yesterday, lunch at 1pm, sandwich at 4pm, dinner at 8:30pm.

Yesterday I tried to meet a friend for lunch during a layover at Sea-Tac Airport. 'Tried' being the key word in that sentence. Their cellphone wasn't picking up so I just walked around Sea-Tac for a half-hour. On the bright side, I went to toys-r-us (didn't buy anything) and ate at mcdonalds because all that walking made me famished.

When I got home, the Wife hadn't eaten yet so I made her some hamburger helper (Stroganoff style), which asked for 2 cups water and 2 cups milk. I had no milk, but I had heavy cream. Anyways, it came out ok. I was also too lazy to defrost the ground beef so I just threw the frozen meat cube in the pan and scraped off meat as it browned/defrosted. *FYI-hamburger helper for lunch today*

Dinner was leftovers at Siska's mom's place. We ate after a trip to costco. We bought so much frozen chicken and shrimp that we had to take our wedding cake top out of the freezer. I think we're eating it on Sunday. I'll take pictures. I should make a toy blog, it'd be more interesting.

All-Clad Stainless

Part of our wedding gift was a set of All-Clad Stainless pans. I've never really bought pans before, most I have were hand me downs from family. They were usually the target specials; Teflon wok/frypans with plastic handles and some nice brandname like Calaphon or something. I never had any complaints about them. They got hot. They were easy to clean. They didn't fall apart. So when we started looking for some nicer pans to cook with, I didn't really think there was a big difference between a $19.99 saute pan and a $179.99 saute pan. For me, as long as the handle wasn't covered in rusty spikes and the cooking surface got warm enough to kill of salmonella I was satisfied.

However, now that I have cooked with these All-Clad Stainless pans, I have touched the face of the culinary gods. These pans are worth every copper-cored cent. Not only do the spread the heat evenly and warm up amazingly fast, they make food taste better. How, you ask? I believe that when hand-forged in Italy by skilled artisans, these pans were infused with spices that the modern world had forgotten. These pans actually clean themselves overnight and when rubbed counterclockwise with a polishing cloth, a genie appears and grants your every desire. Also included was a life-time warranty that promises that they won't discolor or rust and will eventually end world hunger if mailed to a third-world country along with $1.15 a day. Did I mention that we got a steamer as well?

I exaggerated slightly, but they do cook food evenly and warm up quickly. Unfortunately they scratch easily and are a pain to clean.

all that, and ...

a bag of cheetos.
2 1/8 OZ bag of cheese-flavored snacks

Slow cooked to (im)perfection

Lunch: last night we cooked a bacon/mushroom/wine/chicken dish in our rival crock pot. I've never cooked in a crock pot before so I followed a recipe from Real Simple. The chicken is a bit too salty and is so well cooked it just falls off the bone. I'm not sure I like the texture, but now I want to see if I can cook kalua pork in the crock pot. We also had some indian-style yellow rice. Good Stuff

Dinner: TBA

*UPDATE*
Dinner was at Dave and Quan's. After a snack of honey dijon kettle chips on the commute over, we had a dinner with salad, garlic bread and a seafood-tomato bisque. The salad had a wasabi dressing that felt suprisingly good on our stuffed up sinuses. The seafood-tomato bisque had salmon, clams, squid, onions and celery. Since today was cold and rainy it was nice to have a hot soup, especially since dave and I had to spend some time in the rain with his car at the park-and-ride. It had to be towed away.