A bad patch

On 92 East Bound exiting to Foster City, there is a pothole which was recently patched. I know because every time I drove on it, I hit a bump, and it was worse than before it was fixed. I noticed many people, including myself, tried to avoid droving on it if we could help it, which in high traffic hours could have been dangerous.

I wonder if it and how it could be fixed up again.

Sometimes, a bad patch is worse than not patching at all.

Vintage

As we were in our rental Nissan Altima driving around the Kauai Island, I took a look at the three-button car key laying in the cup holder, and thought that key-less cars were becoming the norm nowadays.

"Pretty soon my car would become vintage." I marveled. I drive a 2004 Honda Accord, which still use the traditional car key.

Jack said: "Vintage would be over 25  years."

He thought about it and continued, "I remember when people used to drive those cars such as Chevelle, Impala, Corvear, and they were pos (piece of sh**). Now people drive them as if they were vintage. They are vintage pos."

Photos of the past and present

Found these photos from the computer.

Lake Tahoe

Fetch

Me and my toy fox

Looking this way

Ocean blue

Spring poppy

Kauai coast

Have you ever

Been so fatigue that you don't want to read anything, write anything or do anything productive? You Just want to veg. That was how I felt last night after a week of hard work. I felt, somehow that, I earned the privilege of doing nothing.

I was fortunate to have worked with many very smart and good people along my career. Some of them I call my mentors, and we became friends.

One afternoon long time back when I was still a new college grad, I was chatting with our architect, Mr. E.,  who was one of my mentors. Mind you, most new college grads are super chatty because they have so much to learn about everything.

I said I couldn't stand my cousin, because he was so lazy.

He asked, "How was he lazy?"

I said, "on weekends, he would sleep until noon. It's such a waste of time, because when he got up half of the day is gone."

Mr. E. said something like this (which I couldn't remember exactly): Why was it a waste? He needs to sleep, then he should sleep. Life is a dance. Take it slow and enjoy as you go.

At that time it was an eye opener to me, because all my life, people were telling me to work hard and don't waste time. I guess it was just a different perspective.

Napoleon's army and the Italian flag?

Jack found "War and Peace" the 3.5-hour movie on Amazon, and one weekend evening we watched it on our bedroom TV. Jack was half way through the book and he said the reason why the book was so long was Tolstoy described every little thing in gory details, like how a general gets on a horse. I'm still hovering around the 12% mark of the book, and it'll probably take me 5 years to finish if ever.

How one could pack a 1300-page book into a 3.5 hour movie, I don't know. The screenwriter and director must have done a great job, because all along the movie, Jack said it was very close to the book.

When Pierre went to the battle field with the army he funded and witness the battle. We saw that the French infantry was charging toward the Russians, and I saw something strange. Why were the French Army carrying red, white and green flags?

I was pondering that I was pretty sure the French flag was red, white and blue, and Jack said: "Why are the French Army carrying the Italian flags?" 

I said: "Yes, I was just wondering about that."

Jack said: "Oh, it's the TV light bulb messing up the color. It turns blue to green!" Since the new blub was installed, we tried spending hours adjusting the color of the TV in vain.

I was inspired to read the book after watching the movie and read a couple of pages the next day.

Our Valentine's Day experience at Flavor

Why blog about Valentine's Day dinner a couple of weeks later? It does feel like it was so long ago. Turns out programming is very exhausting, and hence I haven't had time nor energy to blog since I changed my job. Such is life.

This past Valentine's day, we decided to have dinner at Flavor, our new found/rediscovered local favorite. I reserved a table two weeks before that. It was super simple, I just had to go online and reserved on OpenTable. Confirmation emails were sent right away and a few days before the reservation.

Since it was a nice and sunny Saturday, all or most of the Bay Area population decided to go to Half Moon Bay to spend the special day. It took us over an hour to get home from the Peninsula. 

We got to the restaurant a few minutes before my reservation, and we got to our table just in time. It wasn't overly crowded. They might have turned people away if they didn't make reservation though. 

I ordered the seafood pot pie, which I remember being very delicious with melt in the mouth pastry and lots of seafood. Jack ordered his favorite, all-in seafood chowder. We also share an order of sauté Brussels sprouts. 

We came here a couple of weeks before and had a great experience. I was impressed that it was so casual, and the waiting staff were very friendly.  

The food was not what we remembered. Well, Jack's seafood chowder was still super delicious. However, the Brussels sprouts was like half of what we had two weeks before. The seafood pot pie had too much potatoes and not enough seafood. I vaguely remember being very impressed how much seafood they put in the first time I went to Flavor a week after they were opened, when they were still in the old location. The pastry on the pot pie was still very delicious, but it seemed like it was put on after it was baked, as I could take it right off the top. Also, they didn't have bread as they normally do.

I did get a red rose when we got our bill, which was nice.

It was a small disappointment about the food, but we think we would give it another chance before I consider taking them off my local charm list. Since it was Valentine's day, and they might be too busy. I may not want to try the seafood pot pie though. 

Forgive me since I sound like a Yelper.      

Divas

Seven years later, I discovered Adele! She is so amazing, and yes, she is truly a diva like Whitney Houston and Celine Dion before her.

It all started with Katy Perry's 2015 Superbowl mid-game show, which was a wow, and so was the second half of the Superbowl.

I really enjoyed the lavish performance, especially the song "Roar," where she was riding a golden lion puppet. American's really know how to entertain!

So I went online to buy a couple of Katy Perry's album, and I also bought Adele and Taylor Swift. It's a spur of the moment thing. I've been enjoying all of them.