Thanksgiving Road Trip

Day 1: LA->SF
Day 2: SF->POR [Yreka, CA Purple Plum. Portland, OR Apizza Scholls, Vintage Hotel. VooDoo Doughnuts. Powell's City of Books. Knit Purl.]
Day 3: POR->SEA [Seattle. SALUMI. Edgewater Hotel. Cafe Flora.]
Day 4: Thanksgiving Day [Olympic Sculpture Park. O'Asian Dim Sum. Seattle Aquarium.]
Day 5: Black Friday [REI Flagship store. EMP/SCIFI Museum. Pike Place. Market Grill @ Pike Place. Ivar's Acres of Clams.]
Day 6: SEA->POR [Pike Brewery. Tacoma Museum of Glass. Paramount Hotel.]
Day 7: POR->SF

First Suburban Sighting

Strolling through a local Tar-jay yesterday to do a little impulse purchasing and someone familiar looking turned the corner...
I took another look and realized that it was Raymond Cruz, who plays Detective Sanchez on The Closer on TNT.
This was a lot of fun for me since I am a fan of the show and was my first real suburban sighting (not counting Pasadena or Jet Li). :)

The Route(r) Not Taken

I have determined that I will never be in IS or IT. The recent saga of the router installation is the stuff that quests are made of (so long as it's never me again). I had the bright idea to increase the "reach power" of our wireless internet by purchasing a new router.

• The next day, I detached our old router, and reconnected the modem to the new router... successfully too.
• Tried all the remaining laptops in the house.
• 15 minutes later, amidst my triumph dance my mother noticed that she could no load any browser pages.
• Thus my struggle with technology began...
• I called the router number only to realize 20 minutes later I had to contact my ISP.
• In order to contact my ISP, my parents had to track down a username and password they hadn't even spied in years.
• After unhooking the new router and linking the desktop to the modem directly, I couldn't even get online anymore.
• After spending over 30 minutes on the phone with our ISP, I had created a new collection but to my dismay the connection would no longer load on start up.
• I spent another two hours searching the internet to find a solution that would create an automatic to the Internet. During with I started running various config commands.
• I hooked up our router again, and success...until 5 minutes later.
• I detached the router and hard linked the modem again....
• I hooked up our router again, working, working, working, not working...
• Called the router company help line again (on a side note, it's not that the service wasn't trying to be helpful, it's just that the gentleman on the phone didn't understand the difference between the phrase "and then you should" and the phrase "by the way."
• Real and internal conversation as I remember it...
  

• CS: Please go to (URL)
• Me: Ok, I'm there.
• CS: By the way, you should click on manual wizard.
• Me: Ok, clicked the wizard button
• CS: By the way, can you read to me what you see on the page now?
• Me: (pause) ok, blah, blah, blah
• CS: By the way, can you change this to...
• Me: (15 minutes later internally): ARGHHHH!!!!! Stop saying 'by the way'!!!!!
• CS: By the way, so I am afraid you'll have to call your ISP and tell them to change to from a half bridge (?) to a full bridge
• Me: (internally): When did I start playing cards?
• CS: By the way, I hope you found this call helpful, here is your case#(unitelligle mumbling).
• Me: Great, [by the way, thanks for nothing!] (please note I didn't say the part in brackets).

• I refused to call my ISP again
• I tried various thing for another 2 hours before shrieking out loud and running out the room I'd spent almost 8 hours straight in
• My mother called the asian "geek squad"
• Two days later, at the appointed time, NO ONE SHOWED UP.
• Called the company... no record of our appt
• After dealing with my mother (go mom!) they showed up in 10 minutes.
• 30 minutes later I learned, when you have an old modem and a new router, you need to download some firmware that allows the "new" to still work with "old" stuff.
  
• 4 hours later.... so far... so good.

New Bites

This week was a week of eating out.  I went to two new places. 

Had lunch at Coco's in SOMA--Top Chef's Jennifer Biesty, Season 4, 9th place.  We split a flatbread pizza (artichoke and goat cheese) and romaine salad (it was good, but I feel like I could have made it at home).

Later in the week, took Chris out to dinner at Paragon.  Super cute, super good comfort food.  Great ambiance and super-nice waitress.  Couldn't believe there was such a nice, low-key, non-sports bar place near the ballpark.  

First County Fair

I had been to rodeos as a little kid in Texas and carnivals, but I don't think I've ever been to a county or state fair--though I had seen one on TV. :) 

So it was with trepidation and a good sense of well intentioned mockery that I headed with friends to the 2009 Alameda County Fair.

Boy, was I wrong, there was scores of people and a well organized team of people running the place.  

We were there for the food, funnel cake (yum!), my first Turkey leg (um, too much and too dry) and I am proud to say, Cotton Candy (score!).  

We were also there to see the group En Vogue.  To be honest, I know their popular songs and there were to me the Destiny's Child of my childhood, but I thought it was going to be one long screeching contest of patience and a small group.  Instead, they filled an entire area of more than 1,500 people @ 6pm and again at 8pm.  Though they were off-key initially and the choreography, wasn't anything like their old music videos, the singing and dancing got better and better and better and the crowd got more and more and more into it.  

Remembering MJ

It's become a real spectacle; it's all over the news in LA, and it's going to be covered "live" online today everywhere. So in tribute, my MJ memory...

One of my earliest MJ memories is the tape I played over and over when growing up in Houston and ridin' around in a Nissan King Cab. Black tape case, with a blue and white sticker... Beat it, Billie Jean, etc. I think I still have that tape, somewhere. I know, I never threw it away.

And one of my last MJ interactions was in NYC a few years back, at the Jackson Honors concert. Britney Spears, Jackson 5, Liz Taylor... and MJ. And when he sang, the entire Madison Square Garden rumbled and vibrated with the beat and with an energy I've never felt before. I don't claim to have good taste in music, but with that experience I really believe that music transcends just sound and can inspire a generation.

I remember, running, RUNNING, down the street from Madison Square Garden through Rockefeller Center with my friends. Cheering and feeling so lucky to be alive and that no moment would top that natural high. (A few days later, the world came crashing down and changed the skyline of NYC forever.) But I swear, that night, I felt invincible and happy to be young and alive.

R.I.P Michael.

Happy Birthday America

In honor of our nation's founding, I took the weekend to celebrate traditional American craft, celebrate the immigrant and melting pot of our nation (hello menudo!) and buy into today's celebrity culture and enjoy our cousin's on the other side of the pond. See below for clarification.

Finished reading:

Unaccustomed Earth: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri

I started a bit backwards with Lahiri. I read The Namesake first before going back to read Interpreter of Maladies. I have never been a fan of the short story. Most of the time, it's not satisfying enough of a read. Just as a get into the story and invest in the characters, it's over. I like to immerse myself to the point where I forget to breathe; and delve into my suspension of disbelief, until I am a part of the novel world, for better or worse. So Interpreter of Maladies was a hard read for me. Yet, when I saw Unaccustomed Earth in bookstores, I couldn't help myself and picked it up. While I am not an immigrant Asian-Indian, and I cannot relate to some of the difficulties of the older generation or the first generation Indian, there is a hope that Lahiri creates in her collection of tales. She uses simple words and simple phrases and I've read her words over and over now, looking for what it is that strikes me so when she writes but I don't know what it is. While she writes tales of sadness and hardship--it's not an "I can do it," but perhaps the simple message of no matter what, life goes on. That we endure; despite and in spite of.... And maybe that is the most optimistic message of all.

The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer

Gotta say, good airplane reading. This book managed to take Bible lore and tie it well to Superman lore and create a believable chase story. While I am not sure why certain characters were featured so prominently, and I thought some disturbed the flow of the storyline, overall it was an attention grabbing read for a short haul flight.

WATCHED:

Bottle Shock (DVD):

So I thought I had rented Shopaholic but when I opened the Netflix package I realized that I hadn't changed my selection in time before shipment. Anyway, I am by no means a vino-phile, but I think that it was time to support a Northern CA staple. Plus, who doesn't love Alan Rickman. As a bonus, Chris Pine (aka Captain Kirk) was also in the movie with long, stringy hair. I thought he did well, but I noticed an alarming trend. He gets beat up a lot in movies that he's in. Wonder if that's deliberate or a giant coincidence?

Public Enemies (Movie):

Michael Mann, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. These three names should be enough to guarantee a good movie. Then you top it with some of the best character actors around and I thought I was in for a rollicking good time.

I heard Jon Favreau say that when you do a movie you look at the script, the director and the cast. And you can take a chance on one of the elements but not two. Well, in this case, the chance turned out to be too big of a leap of faith.

The movie was tight and entertaining up front, but towards the middle, I was wondering and wishing for Johnny's character's demise. I wonder if the movie was edited by two teams. It just seemed slow and boring and I wasn't rooting for Johnny's character to get away (even though I already knew the outcome from history).

PROJECTS:

Finished 1st baby blanket:

Finally finished my first baby blanket present for my friends in Philly. And not a moment too soon either. Getting started on another present. And at the rate my friends seem to be getting engaged one after the other, I am going to become an expert soon. :)

TASTES:

Farmer's Market:

Went to the Farmer's Market in South Pasadena for a stroll. Ended up picking up some super fresh product and in the course of the weekend, I shelled 4 pounds of peas and 2 pounds of green beans and along with my family ate it all. There is just something about fresh food, and simple ingredients that I just love. Oh yeah, did I mention we consumed 6 quarts of the most awesome strawberries in the world. I think I ate about 4 quarts of it by myself.

Ramen:

Foo Foo Tei's is the amazing Ramen place in Hacienda Heights (don't be fooled by the one in Monterey Park, not the same, in fact, there is a pending lawsuit over copyright). We ordered the fried tofu, chilean sea bass, liver and onions, friend chicken, fresh squid and one menudo and two ramen. I think we only had a few pieces of chicken and fish left in the end. 31 different types of ramen and an even longer list of side dishes.