Saved some money

I bathed the doggies today. Yay!

Daily Ritual

Do you have any daily ritual? Back in school, I had this smart and handsome Japanese young man as a Computer Science classmate, Mr. T. He would read all his textbooks before the semester started - yes, he was the type of classmates you hate to have, because they usually skewed the bell curves. Only you couldn't really hate Mr. T., because he had this innocent smile that made him seem so friendly and harmless.

Anyway, Mr. T. had a daily ritual. Every morning he had to go to the school computer lab to check his horoscope on Yahoo! before starting his day. My other good friend Ms. S. would complained to me that Mr. T. often fought with her to use the computer, "because he had to do his daily ritual." Oh, by the way, I was the one who introduced Mr. T. to the Yahoo! Horoscope website. So of course, Ms. S. had me to blame too. But I didn't envision to bring such a loyal customer to Yahoo! I hope Mr. T.'s daily ritual brought him good luck.

Back in the days, we enjoyed the simplicity of the internet; we enjoyed the prestige of using the cursors based "talk" program to chat on the UNIX servers; we happily passed on email chain letters, aka spams; we dreamed to ride the dot com waves and became internet millionaires. The past was far away, confusing and simplified.

Confusius said: I examine my behavior three times everyday. What is your daily ritual?

Artichoke Season

Yesterday we went down to Monterey for a day trip to visit the Monterey Aquarium. It was a gorgeous day. We left home around 8 AM and drove down Highway 1 along the coast. We passed numerous beach parks, hills, mountains, farms and ranches. It was an absolutely pleasant drive.

This is the artichoke season, and I was excited to see artichokes growing on their plants. They look so green and healthy, just like the ones I planted in Farmville - the Facebook game which I abandoned months ago - when they are ready to be harvested. There was a roadside farmer's market advertising $1 for 7 artichokes. I took a mental note to stop by there on the way back to check out the fresh produce. It's not the strawberry season yet, but I already saw red and green strawberries on the field.

On the way home, we passed another farmer's market, which advertised to sell artichokes $1 per dozen (O.K. these are the small ones, which we didn't know how to cook). We managed to miss all the farmer's stands yesterday. So we ended up getting jumble artichokes back home at Pardini's market - 3 for $5.

You know what we'll have for dinner tomorrow.

IPad

Ying: I hate their advertisement!
Jack: Why?
Ying: It looks too cool.

Crossing your legs

Do you know it's really bad to be crossing your legs while sitting? It's so bad for your hip and may cause you to need hip replacement operations when you get older! As I am sitting at work, whenever I catch myself crossing my legs, I have to intentionally get myself out of the bad posture.

I learned that from my Restorative Yoga class with Junita. She also teaches kid yoga, and she is quite a character. She likes to correct everyone's posture while we are standing. She also show us pictures of people having "computer posture" - slouching. Yeah, very nice. I kept going to her class, cause I need her help!

Work

Last week I heard an NPR report in the morning about fathers who were out of work taking on the new job taking care of their babies. One of the interviewees said, the bad part of the work was changing diapers, cleaning dishes and house cleaning. Then he said, but that's part of the work, there are good and bad, otherwise, it wouldn't be called work.

Wouldn't it be nice to do the work that is all good but no bad? Like an actor or sports star, maybe? Or astronauts? I don't know.

Nowhere to go, no place to be

Last Friday we ditched the dogs and work to take our Seadoo Speedster 150 out for a ride.

We are newbies to boating. Since Jack bought the Speedster the second half of last year, we only went out on it for 3 hours. This was our first time out with the boat this year. We made sure all the plugs and hooks were secured and all the lights were working properly -- OK, Jack did all the work and I "helped".

We got to Coyote Point Marina in the afternoon. We were lucky, because nobody else was using the boat launch, so we took our sweet time. Mainly because we forgot about what needed to be done.

We couldn't have picked a better day for boating, because it was a warm day with high tide in the afternoon, and there was no wind. When we slowed down, it was even too warm. We rode around the bay, enjoyed the wonderful weather and enjoy being there.

Green

How amazing they are,

the different shades of green!

In the mountains and in the fields.

Spring is nature's gift to us,

for putting up with the depressing,

rainy and cloudy months.

Sunshine triumphed over the fog

to wake up the creatures on the earth.

Did someone mention kiteboarding?

Last Sunday was nice and sunny. The temperature even went up to 63 degrees. It was above Jack's threshold, 62, so he hoped to go kiting when the wind came up.

On the way to 3rd, I quizzed him to see if he brought all of his kiting gears.

A handful of the usual suspects was hanging out at 3rd, because most of the locals were still enjoying the snow in the mountains. We got to 3rd a little after noon, and there was no trace of wind. The water was especially glassy.

We let the dogs play and swim, while we waited. We enjoyed the nice spring weather so much, even though the airport weather reports kept reminding us it was calm - that was when they didn't bother telling how many miles per hour the wind speed was.

Around 3 PM, Jack and Ray pumped up their beautiful brand new North Fuse 14 meters when they saw the textures appeared on the water. But for a while, all they could do were taking a lot of pictures of the kites, and chatting about the new features of this model.

Ray called the airport every 5 minutes to check for the condition there, and sometimes he complained that people were calling too often, because he couldn't get through. Yeah, we could see why.

People came by and took off, because it was too calm here. Around 4, Ray said: "Oh, now I don't know what to do, should I pack it?" I was very encouraging, "no, it's getting a little more windy, I think you should wait until 4:30." I must have said what he wanted to hear, because he stayed.

Around 4:30, the wind did come up! Jack and Ray raced to get changed. Jeff, our coastguard and friend, stopped by to say hi. We were so happy to see him, because he was our lifesaver when we were out kiting.

Before leaving the car, Jack and I checked to make sure he brought all the gears: helmet, gloves, harness, booties, board, bar, kite and sunglasses. There is something about first time out in the season, because you tend to leave something out. I bundled up and walked up to the north end with the guys.

The kiting was uneventful, except Jack had to come in once to adjust his board straps as they were too tight. I was taking a lot of pictures and videos with my cute Sony camera when I slipped in the mud. My camera fell in the mud, oh crap. While telling myself how stupid it was not to watch my steps, I tried to wipe the camera with the little napkins I had. It still worked, but just needed to be cleaned some more.

It wasn't like me not to have mishaps in a nearly perfect day. Luckily, Jack was super mellow after a good kiting day - first day of the season - and he patiently cleaned my camera with wet toilet paper.

Hunan food

Hunan is a Provence in China where the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Chairman Mao was from. Hunan food is well-known for its spiciness. It's a different kind of spiciness from Sichuan food. I heard from a friend that with Sichuan food, it's spice in the mouth, but with Hunan food, you feel the spice around the throat.

Last night, we went to a Hunan restaurant called, "The Noodle Shop". It's around El Camino Real, a few blocks north of Hillsdale Shopping Center. It advertised Mao's Family Dishes. It's not a big place, so it's very crowded.

I went there with my co-workers before, and I was impressed. So I decided to let Jack try it too. As always, he was quite ambivalent. Jack is a very loyal customer, he only goes to certain restaurants he likes, so we have our designated restaurants for different cuisines - Sichuan, Dim Sum, Thai, Sushi, Indian and American. It is hard for you to take him to other places, unless he feels adventurous. It makes sense because he didn't want to try different places and be disappointed at the end.

Usually, if you see it on the menu that the dish has a chili pepper icon next to it, you would think that it's a spicy dish, right? Granted, we didn't order the most authentic Hunan food with pork bellies, beef tribes, or pork blood, we did order some Hunan Specialties with a chili pepper, but the food was JUST NOT SPICY ENOUGH. It was very tasty, but not spicy.

At the end of the meal, I felt disappointed about what we ordered, and left wondering if we would come back for a second try.

Blogging on the Go?

Ying: O.K. I'm going to bad mouth Blogger.com.

Jack: Have fun.

Before you start watching the video on the blogspot Help to learn how to do mobile blogging, you should be told that it's a waste of time.

Do you remember life before cell phones? You have to find a land-line to make a telephone call. If you are on the street, you have to find a phone booth, insert some coins, then dial the number to make your call. Blogger mobile is at this point is like that, but worse.

In fact, I watched the video and couldn't understand why blogger didn't just state this disclaimer at the very beginning of the video: We are on the process of writing a mobile application for Blogger Mobile, in the meantime, if you are desperate to do mobile blog, you can follow these steps. It will work eventually, but the tedious steps can be annoying.

If you are serious about blogging, jot down your ideas and blog when you have access to a computer.

Ready for the weekend?

Going to bed after 11 PM and getting up every morning at 7 should qualify us to have a 4 day workweek. Today when I woke up, I felt that the weekend should be started.

Wouldn't it be nice?

Over the Hedge

Have you seen the animation Over the Hedge? Animals getting into people's garbage at night to find food. Like the houses in the movie, we also put our garbage bin outdoors. We had many incidents where animals knocking over our garbage bins, chewing through the garbage and making a mess. We tried to weigh down the garbage bins with bricks. But raccoons were very smart, they could knock over anything, especially when they were hungry.

When there is a will, there is a way. We have the perfect solution to this problem -- our dogs -- we found this "solution" unintentionally.

So we have these two big golden retrievers, and they produce a lot of poops. When we cleaned up the patio and picked up the dog poops, we put them in the dog food bag - it must weight at least 15 pounds. It's not our favorite pass time, but it has to be done.

Lacking a more environmentally friendly way to process them, we put the dog poops in the garbage bins. Many times last year, the animals knocked over the garbage bins, chewing through the dog food bag to find dog poops inside.

While cleaning up their mess, we felt sorry for these animals. Luckily, they stop coming all together.

Foolproof Indian Curry - tricks and tips that Rachel Ray can't teach you

I love cooking and I love to eat (OK, who doesn't, right?) I found it most satisfying if I could make my favorite dishes by myself. Indian and Thai curry are great examples.

Believe me, I had many heart-breaking failures over the years trying to make Indian curry. I read cookbooks, went to grocery shopping with my Indian co-workers and asked them many questions. Unfortunately, mainstream cooking shows don't teach you about ethnic foods like Indian or Thai. Finally, I found watching on-line videos were the most helpful, and fortunately, there were tons of them if you search.

Not that my co-workers were not trying to be helpful; cooking your native food is so much easier: a pinch of this and that, stir in the veggies and simmer for a while, done.

In this blog, I will unveil the secrets of making Indian curry from scratch.

To make a mean curry, make sure you have the following spices and ingredients available. I highly recommend that you shop at Indian grocery stores. There are small neighborhood stores called Cash and Carry around the Bay Area - don't forget to bring cash, because you may walk out with less than $10 of goods, and they only accept cash for under $10. A bigger store is called Nameste. You can buy all the spices and fresh vegetables you need with really good price.

The second choice after Indian stores is Chinese Grocery stores like Ranch 99 or Pacific Market. Your final defense is Safeway or any other American supermarkets.

Spices in your pantry:

• ground cumin
• ground turmeric - this is one of the super cancer fighting foods
• ground coriander
• cayenne pepper/chili pepper powder - cancer fighting food
• garam masala - you can make it yourself, or buy from the stores
• dried chili pepper or fresh green chili pepper

* coconut milk - I like the CHAOKOH brand from Thailand. I tried another one that I got on discount, but it ruined my food. Though this is a personal preference, so you should find out what you like. This is the only unhealthy ingredient in our curry, so use sparsely. You can experiment to dilute it with 1:1 water later.

Another note here, if the spices you bought were in bags or boxes, make sure to store them in cans, so that bugs won't get to them.

Fresh vegetables:

• tomatoes
• onions
• cilantro - most books call them coriander just to confuse you
• potatoes
• fresh ginger
• garlic
  

Prepare vegetables for a simple curry:
1-2 tomatoes, depending on the size, rinsed and chopped.
1 onion, finely chopped.
1/2 cup cilantro, quantity varied depending on your taste, rinsed well and chopped.
1 teaspoon of ginger, grated.
3 cloves of garlic, crushed.

Mix these spices together:
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

I learned that mixing the spices ahead of time then put the mixture into the food during cooking was much more effective than putting them in one at a time, especially for someone like me who couldn't tell the differences between these spices without reading the labels ... OK, I know ground turmeric is the bright yellow powder, but that's about it.

Now, some tips about pan fried or stir-fried coming straight from my mom's Chinese kitchen.

• Always start with a clean and dry wok/pan.
• Put the oil in before the wok gets hot.
• Wait for the oil to heat up (1-2 minute?) before putting any other ingredients in. When it's ready, oil will have some mild texture.
• Always start the wok with ginger, garlic, or peppers, these ingredients will help flavoring the oil, which will coat the rest of the ingredients.
• Put the vegetable that takes the longest to cook into the wok first, and easiest to cook last. OK, this takes experience and depends on your preference. If you want veggies more crunchy, then don't cook it for too long. Green onion, cilantro and fresh basil are perfect for garnish, and you should put it in last.
• Try to cut up veggies and meat into the same size (you learn this from cooking school), so that they will have the same texture when cooked together.

For my prawn curry, I added 2 handfuls (1 lb) of shelled prawns.

Cooking steps:

1. Start the wok over medium heat, add oil (this may be taboo for some people, but I use olive oil).
2. Once the oil is ready, add garlic, ginger and onion. Stir until onion is soft and turn light yellow.
3. Add the spice mixture. Cook for 1 minute, until it's fragrant.
4. Add the prawns and tomatoes to the wok and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the prawns are cooked and liquid has reduced. Both tomatoes and Prawns take the same time to cook.
5. Stir in 1/3 cup of coconut milk.
6. Add the chili in a little at a time.
7. Season with salt to taste, and garnish with cilantro.
Later, you can try a different mixture of spices. If you want it more spicy, add more cayenne pepper or chili pepper. Use different kinds of veggies and meat/seafood based on your preference. Eat what you like and take the nutrition value into account.

Curry tastes better the next day, that is, if you have any leftover. :)

Cooking is an art, you have to be patient. Don't keep stirring the food too much, it won't help, just let the heat does its magic, let the food cook.

Let me know if it helps and if you like the curry.

Yum Yum Curry

I made curry lentil and shrimp curry for dinner last night. I followed the recipe from my Chili & Curry cookbook (got it from Borders for $2.99), and they both came out perfectly. It was a tasty and healthy dinner.

I called Jack 3 times over 1 hour, because I was missing some needed ingredients. The first time was for onion, the second time was for ground coriander, and the third time was plain yogurt. Luckily, Jack was stuck in traffic around Palo Alto on 101 northbound, so it was OK.

In the end, it was all worth it for Jack because the food was so delicious.

The Academy Award and Avatar

"Avatar," nominated in nine categories overall, won three Oscars: for visual effects, art direction and cinematography.

It took a while to find that out, but these categories certainly make sense. I do believe that Avatar should have gotten best picture, not because of how much money it made (I was mistaken, it cost around 260 million to make) but because of how special it was/is. It made me feel the same way I felt when I walked out of the first Star Wars movie, or The Matrix; like the world had somehow changed.

--
Jack

Traffic School

As sad and unfortunate as it was to get a traffic ticket, I would say this time's traffic school wasn't bad compare to the last one.

Two years ago I went to traffic school in Half Moon Bay. Our instructor was a retired police officer, and he was quite tough. We had to watch gruesome pictures of people being killed in drunk driving accidents. The class made me feel like a criminal. :(

This time, I signed up for a pizza4U - Comedian traffic school, hoping I would have better luck. It happened on last Sunday at 8 AM, and it was a full day class.

The class was held in a mangy La Quinta on El Camino Real in Millbrae. I arrived 5 minutes late, because I missed a highway exit. When I walked into the crowded room, the teacher just received a phone call.

"Hello, this is he ... Yes, I'm here."

He hung up and turned to us, "did someone call the traffic school and said there was no instructor?" Someone in the audience raised her hand. "I just got here. Geez, I am 1 minute late, and you call the traffic school on me?" We all chuckled. I felt lucky that he was late too.

I managed to find a seat next to a big black guy. His name was Alfred, but the instructor kept calling him Albert despite his protest.

Our instructor's name was Mr. Elizarde, it was like Lizard adding an "e" in front and at the end. He used to teach high school driver's ed for 30 some years, when it was required. He was an easy going person. He made it clear that he was not the comedian and he was just the instructor, but he was actually quite funny. Maybe because of he was a teacher, he had this ritual of trying to learn everyone's name, even though it was just a one-day class. He even made a little seating chart during the break.

He started by saying something like this: "I can see that we have a quite diverse class, people of different ages and nationalities. You would think that the more you drive, you have more experience, you would be better and wouldn't get into trouble and getting tickets. Unfortunately it isn't the case. It just catch up with you sometime.

A lot of people feel upset when they got traffic tickets. They said, there are so many people driving ruthlessly, speeding and cutting people off, they never got caught. Now, I made a little mistake, and I got a ticket for it? That's unfair." Yes, I feel this way all the time. "And I would ask them," Mr. Elizarde continued, "can you catch all the fish? The police catch someone that made mistakes then move on to the next fish. That's just how it works."

We broke into groups to do group discussion. For our group, we were supposed to talk about how different conditions such as: sadness/stress, fatigue, angry, etc. impact driving. However, we spent a lot of time socializing.

We found out how everyone got the ticket. This one young woman, who didn't know what fatigue meant, she didn't stop at a stop sigh around her school. She said the police who caught her was very nice, just asked her where she went to school and stuff, and gave her a warning. Then a few days later, she got caught by the same police officer for the same reason, so he gave her a ticket.

The high school boy sitting next to me turned left onto a one way street against the traffic.

I got my picture taken when I turned right on a red light without stopping. I was most disappointed to see my own profile picture on the ticket, because I looked so big from the side. Of course I didn't share that with people.

A retired lady with silver hair, who lived in San Francisco, got her first ticket on the freeway for speeding. She said the officer was very nice, she gave her a ticket then told her: "next time don't stop at the left of the freeway. You are supposed to move all the way to the right, then stop."

Alfred got a ticket for not stopping at the stop sign. He said the police officer gave everyone in the neighborhood a ticket and this one day, he got one too.

I actually learned something from the class:

• You should always go to court for your traffic ticket, because close to 100% of the time the judge would reduce the fine for at least $100.
• There were incidents you could do community services wave the fine.
• Traffic sign colors: red, black, white - they are enforced signs; yellow - warning; blue - constructions ahead; green - freeway signs; brown - scenic signs.
• Everyone should get an updated copy of California Traffic Laws from the DMV, they are free.
• When you couldn't see the other driver's face in his driver side back mirror, you are on his blind spot. You should always stay away from someone's blind spot.
• I reviewed the 3 second rule to find out if you were too close to the car in front of you.

We had Domino's Pizza and it was delicious. Even though it didn't include drinks.

At the end of the day, I got 100% on my test and got a couple of tickets to a comedy show in San Francisco when I received my certificate. I felt like human as I walked out of the class.

Spinning and the aftermath

Last Monday I went to the gym for the evening spinning class. Spinning is just another way to call cycling on a stationary bike.

I only go to spinning class on and off, and I normally can't balance on a real bike, so you get the idea.

I went in the class just 2 minutes late, so the class was in warm up. The instructor - Karen? I should know her name, because she is a pleasant athletic young woman, and I like her class - was telling students to let her know if we needed her help to adjust the bike. I took up the offer, and she was so nice to come and help me adjust it correctly. I don't mind looking dumb.

The studio was dark, as there was a lighting problem. Karen could only either turn on all the lights, or turn them all off to complete darkness. She chose the latter, but for the rest of the class, she would sometimes run around the room with a flashlight.

To my left were a couple of young women. They were skinny but strong. I was like: darn, I used to be like that. I hate feeling this way, as my friend Ying Chen told me: it makes you sound old.

During the class I was thinking about my plans to take mom for a trip for her birthday, so the 45 minute class was tolerable, and I was not bored out of my minds. I had a good sweat, got plenty of oxygen into my heart and lungs, and was satisfied. I told myself, not too bad, I should do it more frequently.

Starting the next day, something didn't feel right. My back and my abdominal ache. The smallest movement around the mid section would bring pain that was coming from the inside. Oh no, not that again...

The last time I had this feeling - it was caused by something totally different and it was only 4 months ago - I went to see my doctor to ask him if I had kidney stones or spinal problems. He said I strained my muscles, and sent me to a physical therapy class. The physical therapist taught us back care theories and some exercises. He also gave us handouts to take home, as we should do the exercises everyday for the rest of our lives. Nope, that didn't happen to me.

Now I have to find the handout and try to stick with the back care plan.

March is Women's Month

Yesterday was Saturday, and it was actually sunny and warm. I seriously don't remember the last time we had a sunny Saturday. That's not saying much, because my memory is slowly fading, so as my nice skin and nimble body and good reflections. But I know no matter how bad I feel about myself now, it will only get worse as I get older. OK, I don't really know, but I will know when I get there.

I feel lucky to have my mom and other wise women around me, who I have the highest respect, to give me good advises. Last Thursday I went to mom's to work. Because she had a leaking window in her bedroom, and the contractor was supposed to go fix it that day, but he never showed up. Nonetheless We had a good time talking after my workday was over.

Somehow we started talking about menopause. I heard really terrible stories about menopause, and since the lady in the Chinese New Year street fair mentioned it, maybe I should look for ways to lessen its impact. Would taking multivitamins, other supplements, or drinking milk could help, maybe?

My mom confirmed that menopause was really bad. She experienced it herself, and it wasn't easy for anyone else around her. Sometimes you would just sit there and start crying for no reason, and it happened many times a day. You would also have hot flashes, I guess it was when you felt hot suddenly, your heart rate would increase. It could last for 10 years (Yikes).

Mom said some men couldn't understand this change in women during this age, and they would divorce them. It was so sad for the women, because this was something they couldn't control. Some people take hormone replacement therapy, but it could cause cancer.

Mom said I should continue to exercise so I would be physically strong when my time comes. I forgot to ask her when it would start. Anyway, she's not a medical professional, what she said was based on her experience.

I told this to Jack, and he said: "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you are not in menopause yet." Yeah but if I live long enough, I guess I would also experience this, so better to be informed and prepare for it early.

About Menopause on Dr. Weil's page.

Farewell Olympics

Is there such thing as too much Olympics?

The first week of the Olympics, we watched the games every night with enthusiasm from 8pm to midnight, tolerating the excess commercials and commentators lecturing us what to watch for and what to think. Starting the second week, we definitely had too much of those, and missing our sleep, our movie nights and our sanity.

Last night though, I caught the recording of the Canada v.s. U.S. man's hockey game, and it was so exciting! The Americans weren't as good as the Canadians throughout the game, but the final score was very dignifying 2:3, and it went overtime.

During the medal ceremony, the Americans were visibly depressed, it looked as if they just wanted to go to their locker room and cry. If you want to see how boys look like when they lost a good fight, this is the perfect picture. If you really want to see it, I have it recorded in my DVR.

I have to say the Americans Hockey players did well, and they should be proud of themselves. Miller is amazing!!!