高價收購

-- wanted --

A used aquarium tank (less than 55G), preferrably with a stand.
MSN: euqus at hotmail dot com

(heee... I already have a lot of spams with this email account so don't send emails to it... MSN is preferred)

Thanks!!!

(talking about things I want.... there is one more thing tim... but you guys can't help gar lar)

Thanks for the "fishy" links!!

goldfish 1
goldfish 2

Stormtropper in Tokyo + 年初二之開年飯...

Next time when you visit Tokyo and you see a stormtropper walking down the street, it can possibly be my previous boss.... danny choo (the son of Jimmy Choo who designed shoes for people like the late Princess Diana).



Went to Florence's place to have 開年飯. Again, I didn't know that this is a ritual for the Chinese to please the gods. To me, it's just another reason for a family to gather for good food.

My sister's cooking is super good. 小弟甘拜下風!

Eric is really cute. At the age of five he knows all kinds of car already. We were talking about cars and when he knew that I'm driving a Nissan Sentra he suddenly changed the topic....

*sigh*



Asked about his dream car?

Lambo!

When it goes down to dream, I guess that's the ultimate one.

localizing business moral

ambivalence cited this article from the search engine watch that compares a google image search on "tiananmen" from google.com and google.cn.



What a sad reality created by yet another corporate america...

You can make money without doing evil.

Yeah, sure, if you're doing no evil to the government.

When you're working on localization... do you really need to localize your business moral as well??

Oh well, may be that didn't contradict to what Larry Page set forth for his company:

"The perfect search engine," says Google co-founder Larry Page, "would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want."

No one in China wants to know what did happen on June 4, 1989.

And google figured that out -- using their own version of "artificial artificial intelligence".

芬蘭浴...

While planning the trip, I found out that I may be able to visit Finnland and try out their sauna if I skip the ice hotel. I guess I'll probably do that, since the ice hotel ... is not that attractive afterall if I go by myself.

So I'll probably travel in a tirangle over the Baltic Sea: Sweden->Estonia->Finnland->Sweden

Thanks for the books! I found them somewhat better than the Rick Steve's series!

my memory is gone.... all gone!

My lovely niece Anna formatted the SD card by accident, and all the pictures I took starting from several months ago were all gone!



She doesn't know much Chinese, and so happened I changed the language of my camera to Chinese... and bingo!

I guess we all learn something in a hard way from time to time...

The guitar meeting is coming up soon. I need to dig up the names and confirming the head counts.

Oh, and I'm thinking seriously to get some goldfish.

Any useful links you'd like to suggest?

kokosgoldfish.com

mixed feeling with 屋企人

返屋企 is not always as enjoyable as I thought... it can be depressing sometimes--tension, miscommunications, pressure... on the other hand, when I don't see them I always miss them.

Sigh, I guess that's what 屋企人 is always like? Or, is it just my family?

Since I can't choose, what I can do is to make it better...

So I always make good things when I'm with parents, so that I can make use of my time and divert thier attention...

This time I made 鴨汁海參



I'm thinking of sassy, hopefully she's doing fine and being treated well! Ho gor's blog is worrying me :)

Didn't know why we have 人 日 until now:

根 據 《 占 書 》 記 載 ， 指 出 由 初 一 開 始 ， 上 天 創 造 萬 物 的 次 序 是 「 一 雞 二 狗 、 三 豬 四 羊 、 五 牛 六 馬 、 七 人 八 穀 」 。 所 以 初 七 便 是 人 日

May be we should celebrate 人 日 every Saturday instead, since God created us on the 6th day....

團年飯... + Ben's

This can be the very first 團年飯 I've ever had in Seattle in almost six years!

David looked very funny :)



The dinner didn't get started until an hour after the planned time. Oh well, that's kind of expected heee...

I went to Larry's market before the dinner to get some gifts for my family. There wansn't anyone in the chesse counter so I asked a staff in the deli department. Surprisingly she was really knowledgeable about cheese! She even chose a blue cheese for me that I not only didn't refuse to try, but eventually bought a big piece!



It's the final day I'm with CMT... I learned a lot here, and it's the best time for me to move on to do something else, and with other people. The new boss wasn't that bad afterall, although I didn't had a good impression about him, especially after hearing what my previous boss had said....

I went to Ben's to have my hair cut. The result is OK lar. Ben came from HK more than 10 years ago... so I'm having the same hair style as I was in F4....

PS1: Thanks for the rides, buddies!

more blog discoveries

I was researching on the menu for our 人日大食會 (I was hoping to get a picture of braised duck with sea cucumber) and looks like a lot of food lovers out there are blogging their dining experience (thanks to the google blog search).

This deep end dining is pretty interesting. It has a lot of links to other blogs in its "Eat Sites" column that are worth a visit--

when you have nothing to do like me...

(oh well, I've wrapped up the things I need to before I take off, and am waiting for a 4pm presentation then I'm officially off the current team... where am I going? I'll be in a team and will become the minority of minorities--all the team members are from India. May be I too look like one of them??)

年廿六, 要剪髮喇!!

Tomorrow is 年廿六! So excited... I wanted to get a hair cut before going back to home (and my parents do not know about this :) it's meant to be a surprise!

The Studio One isn't really good at all. Hum... any suggestions where I can get a good hair cut in the Seattle/Bellevue area??

Looks like Ho Gor is making a plan for 情人節 haha.. I asked what day is it and he immediately said it's Wednesday. Too bad, he got it wrong, it should be Tuesday ar :)

堀江貴文, the head of livedoor.com has been arrested!

(courtesy of The Economist)

I haven't heard about him until recently when his news is everywhere.

And when I searched for his information, I found this site that was pretty useful:

The Asia Pacific Headhunter It has a lot of tips on how to get a good job in Asia.

Check out the "Recruiting Blogs" column on the left bottom.

PS1: The chicken costs $2/person. But if you give me a ride...
PS2: 忘 記 背 後 ， 努 力 面 前...
PS3: Thanks for the ramen!
PS4: Ho gor 個 blog 好攪笑, 詩人獨憔悴, 樣子殘又殘 haha!
PS5: I'm not that 邪惡 wor
Ps6: Looking forward to receiving a 茶bow in 情人節
PS7: So many PS's :) 死未!

Good use of the rain!

Today is the gloomiest day of 2006.

Feeling a bad day today? No worries, we can always think positively! Like making use of the rain....

藉著雨點說愛你...



Just finished watching it... I'm actually disappointed. Why? Because I didn't even want to cry! I was told that this is a touching story that can easily make one cries... may be I have too much expectation?

Next time I go out, I'll make sure my jacket has a side pocket.

But what if it's summer time?? Well, may be I'll wrap a bunch of ice packs around myself :)

I like the theme of the story though:

既然遇見了你們，
我就無法帶著這份回憶去過另一種人生。
我要讓我和你的孩子降臨在這個世界，
然後帶著這些幸福時光的回憶，笑著離開。
所以現在，我下定了決心，
笑著，去見你……
(quoted from hkbookcity)

I was asking myself... will I ever get this courage to go back and see the one I love--given that I know ahead of time that I will die pretty soon, but if I choose another path I can probably avoid this and start 另一種人生??

Well, God chose to come to earth, even though He knew all things that were going to happen to Him... being betrayed, crucified, and burried.

But His love was so powerful that He 下定了決心，笑著，去見我們.

珍惜, 因為一切不是必然...

PS1 Mr-Andrew-Ng's Estouffad of beef was awesome!!! Too bad 8 of us were sharing two little portion while someone got to take the entire bowl alone :) The beef was really 醒胃! Thanks for delivering it!

PS2 Thanks for the bedside surprise!

Kite flying ?

Ha, guess what these husbands (or hunsband-to-be) were doing??



Flying kites!



Funny rock climbing :-)

It wasn't easy though... It involes a lot of coordination and trust! Of course, you need to be physically fit for the game.

The belayer needs to pay attention to the climber and listen to the commands, and react accordingly.

Don't overlook the amount of exercises as a belayer, it's actually pretty strenuous.

Climbing wasn't easy, obviously. Apart from securing yourself on the cliff, you also need to find the best path. It's testing you both physically and mentally.


(courtesy of vertical world)

Of course, you need to put your trust in your belayer, and on the system. When you say "take!" you need to release yourself and just lay back -- you can't be taken down if you keep your hands and feets on the rock!

Perseverance is also very important! Without it, one can never get to the top.

But that requires you to suffer...

suffering produces perseverance...

May be it's not that bad that we need to suffer in the work place :)

Talking about perseverance, the speaker Kwai Lin used an example of fishing to demonstrate that perseverance is very important in doing God's work (especially when spreading the gospel).

She said that Bill loves fishing that he is willing to wake up at 4am and go fishing until 11am... and often comes back without a fish! She said that there was a guy who went to fishing for 7 years and caught not a single fish.... but he still had that passion in fishing.

The Message's translation of the above verse is pretty good:

There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us...

PS1. The The Films of Charles & Ray Eames - The Powers of 10 was really good! I especially like the "901: After 45 Years of Working". The background music was from a "musical tower" Eames designed. They were truely one of the most talented designers in the century.

PS2. I'm not a big fan of football, but I'm excited to hear the news!!! GO HAWKS!

I see God in you

Kwai Lin's sharing was very touching.

A few testimonies that touched me:

attack over calling
Bill and Kwai Lin's 10-month old daughter had a form of heart attack that her heart stops beating once in a while. There was no cure and she needed to weat devices to monitor her heartbeat. Since in Mongolia there wasn't electricity at all (it was 10 years or so ago), so the devices were at no use.

What they can do was to pray. They touched their daughter while praying and asked for God's healing. They asked if the monitor device didn't beep that night, that was a sign of healing.

The beeper didn't go off.

They didn't believe it so they did the same thing the second night.

The beeper also didn't go off.

departing from families

During the first few years satan started to attack them through taking family members away from them.

Bill's mother passed away, but he didn't go back for the funeral.

Kwai Lin's mother passed away, but she couldn't go back for the funeral.

God taken away one of their daugthers....

No water...

Bill got a strange illness that he would have short term paralysis, and it was difficult to breath too. Since there wasn't any medical help, all they could do was to pray--pray that Bill can go to Beijing for treatments.

After a while Bill was in Beijing and then trasferred to Singapore.

Kwai Lin was left alone--taking care of the Bible college, and local church, and her daugthers (she was home scooling at that time).

God is good!

It was definitely not an esay life in Mongolia. However, through their work, many people were reborn in Christ!

A local Chinese church was set up the first time in history (or at least in the near history).

The first Bible school was set up and they now have over 120 students. Some of the students went the the suburbs of Mongolia to preach and set up churchs -- they do it all without being paid.

Some of them went to other countries like North Korea, China, etc.

Some of them even went to the states and reach the local Mongolian.

PS1: Within three hours I drove back and forth from SEATAC to Mercer Island for three times +)
PS2: Very tiring today, even worse than any work day last week! I have to fix the waste water pipe of the bath... it's almost fixed. little amount of water is still coming out from the pipe. I went to Home Depot for at least three times too to get the correct parts... *sigh*



PS3: I think Home Depot is too big that they don't really care about customers. I was trying to get a bath fan, and found out that they had a lot of sample fans dsiplaying in a fancy way so that you can try on that. However after half an hour playing around with the fans and deciding on the model, they were out of stock! In fact, they only have 25% of the selection in stock....
PS4: I alwasy spill out coffee when I drink in a relaxed way:

疲乏....

The ripple effect of the chaotic work week hasn't gone yet. I was working until 2ish last night... and then got up at 8 to attend that way too early 9.30 half-scrum meeting.

I'm feeling drunk...


Oh, Minolta is going out of the camera business.

But frankly, I doubt Sony is going to make it better than them.

The film SLR business is claimed to decline at a rate of 30% yearly. Everyone is going digital now.

Who... is going to replace me =)

疲 乏 的 ， 他 賜 能 力 ； 軟 弱 的 ， 他 加 力 量 。....

He is operating this world in a completely different way!

PS1 人日大食會... 有龍蝦,鮑魚,魚翅,(可能有花膠),巴西酒,仲要d咩o野?

First time throwing on the wheel

It was difficult but fun!

Our first project was to play around with the clay. Guess which one was made by me?



Now the (more) difficult part -- throwing on the wheel. It seems to be really easy when the instructor demonstrated it. Indeed, he did everything like magic. The clay was like part of him and under his command. He can shape it in various forms.

However when it was our turn, I can't even center it correctly. My first trial collapsed from a "bowl" to a "plate" and then to garbage :)

With the help of the instructor, the second try was much better, and I made a decent looking pot/bowl... heee...

Talking about that news from the Next magazine about my secondary schoolmate 曹 偉 超 .... my friend reminded me what is important--it's better to live happily, take the time to learn things, and just enjoy the life as it is...

滿 了 一 把 ， 得 享 安 靜 ， 強 如 滿 了 兩 把 ， 勞 碌 捕 風 。

選擇錯誤... 嘆氣!

Life is a series of choices... if you don't choose it correctly, you'll be doomed.

I chose to not going to the tech conference today to fix a bug, but then our software was timing out and it's been brought to the attention of my director (since my upper two level of managers were out of the office). So he came to my team area, found out that only me is in the office, so he 大石壓死蟹 asked me to fix the problem.

Aiya... and then I was moved to another team's area, setting up a temporary cubicle, and was being watched by five engineers of another team over my shoulder fixing the problem.

It's definitely a 錯誤選擇... I should have gone to the conference....

Fortunately I paged the other teammates and bring them back to the office to help out.

Talking about the solution... it's another thing that 令人嘆氣!

I proposed one of the solutions is A. Then that coworker said we definitely can not do that. Oh well, then I sort of shut up and then work on my own things.

Then my boss called from India and talked with that coworker for about 30 minutes... and the outcome?

Going back to do A.

May be I should stand firm on what I think is correct... but then, that coworder got a masters from mit and a phd from standford.... (and he's at his 20's)

Looks like I have a bad habit "Never feeling good enough" as described in this boook:



Remedy? Act like I am a mit/standford graduate =)

In the evening we had a dinner with Bill Stephens and Kwai Lin who came back from their field in Mongolia. They haven't changed much, although Kwai Lin has more white hair now. They both look older than what they should be at their age. I guess that's because of the living environment in Mongolia? I heard that people over their generally dies at the age of 60's.

Their two girls are studying at an International school in India.

It was a very good trip in 2002. They asked if I will go back.... when we shake hands while I'm about to leave, Kwai Lin said that my hands are very warm... which is suitable to live in Mongolia??


(Mongolia, 2002. taken by mei yu)

Well, may be I can spare some of my 'healthiness' and use it for missionaries?

醉翁樓交學費. . . + 後現代 (I)

sigh, tonight we went for a dinner at 醉翁樓. Under the pressure of the waitress we ordered the recommended 盤菜:



Don't order it--is a mixture of all leftovers that will cost you $38.... sigh!!!

Going back to last night's seminar 「後現代與靈性生活」 by 余達心牧師.

It was a pretty good one. 牧師 reminded me that I'm seeing mySELF too big--even bigger than God himself. It's like sitting on God's throne, replacing He himself.

At the end of the seminar he used three books as a conclusion:
1. Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life by Calvin.

There are two main points Calvin wanted to bring out: 1. "Self-centered" is a serious sin--and we need to learn hwo to surrender ourselves to God, and this is going to be a life-long practise. 2. "self-sacrifice"

2. Life together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This book reminds us the true meaning of fellowship -- practise 為他人活, and this needs to be started from worship.

At the end, 牧師 talked about a sad true story:

A friend of him had a baby and the entire family was filled with joy because of that. The baby was named "Thomas" because the father wanted the baby to become a great theologist like Thmoas Torrance. After 40 days of the birth of the child, however, he died.

Soon after the child passed away, 牧師 received a letter from the father. The letter says the child doesn't need to be a theologist now, since he has achieved what all theologist want to achieve:

"Visio Dei--vision of God".

The story ends here.

And truely, all we who believed in Him want to see him face to face one day, and be able to stand before him.

Taking a look back to myself.... it seems like I'm still seeking what I should be doing for my life.

But what if my starting point is my ending point? Do I still need to seek anymore? I mean, if I started to "see him face to face" by committing myself to him through whatever situation he puts me in, wouldn't that solve all my questions of "where's God's calling" etc?

It's not easy to do what I say... ai ya!


As a "preface", Dr. Yu quoted a poem written by Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach. He recited the last paragraph of the poem:

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Quoted from wikipedia.com, the above poem "depicted a nightmarish world from which the old religious verities have retroceded, is sometimes held up as an early, if not the first, example of the modern sensibility.".

(to be continued...)

被鬼壓!

I had 睡眠性癱瘓 (aka 被鬼壓) a couple days ago... I had this _many_years ago when I was in Form 5 preparing for HKCEE. Looks like I'm pretty tired these days and didn't get a good sleep for a long time.

I guess it's not practical to wake up at 5am in the morning, do some devotion and go work out... although I've been planning for a few weeks. Every time when I want to sleep something will happen. For example I should have slept by now but my boss who is in India now need to talk to me... and I need to wait until he's done with his conference call.... sigh.

Haven't been to the gym for a week, and my body fat has raised from 13.5% to 14% already. In a week! I need to get myself shape up again. But then... 操 練 身 體 ， 益 處 還 少 ； 惟 獨 敬 虔 ， 凡 事 都 有 益 處 ， 因 有 今 生 和 來 生 的 應 許 。

Need to remeber that.

It was a very good seminar tonight. The con call with my boss is just over now... need to get some sleep.

樱桃 + 野草莓

My first order from the PRC!



I got 樱桃 and 野草莓, and the price was nothing -- only USD $2.7 shipping included, comparing to USD $70, tax and shipping excluded, if you buy it here in the states (well, you do get a better case, whereas from China, you'll only get a paper sleeve. But hey, it's 100% legitimate!).

What an incredible difference in price.. no wonder China is accumulating wealth.

Shall I stay or go back . . . ?

Ip's Mercer Inn

We had a special dinner at this inn tonight. The three-course, 15 items menu is pretty confusing:

1. Gang of Four in Unity
2. Glorious Freedom - New Year Breakthrough
3. Chinaman's Stable
4. Tender Bird Augus
5. Organic 20/20
6. Ivory Episode: Cowboy Dance
7. Bloddy buddy
8. eidnaC maY
9. Fresh from Mount Rainier
10. Surgeon's Trade
11. SauteFootballs in Flowerbeds
12. Gold Crowns
13. Concavity
14. Chilled Crispy Stalks
15. Chinese dessert

You need to follow a few rules when ordering:
1. You can't ask the server to explain the meaning of dish.
2. You need to pick five items for each course.
3. The utensils are included in the 15 items. So you need to choose wisely or else you'll need to use creativity, like this:



It turned out to be a super funny dinner!!!

Highly recommended. Reservation cannot be made.

Wait for your turn to be called upon :)

我是一條柴...

但要薪火相傳!

Nice discussion tonight! It's true that we're all 一條柴, and we'll "burn out" soemtimes, but I like the picture that was drawn at the end of the meeting:

不 從 惡 人 的 計 謀 ， 不 站 罪 人 的 道 路 ， 不 坐 褻 慢 人 的 座 位 ，
惟 喜 愛 耶 和 華 的 律 法 ， 晝 夜 思 想 ， 這 人 便 為 有 福 ！
他 要 像 一 棵 樹 栽 在 溪 水 旁 ， 按 時 候 結 果 子 ， 葉 子 也 不 枯 乾 。 凡 他 所 做 的 盡 都 順 利 。
惡 人 並 不 是 這 樣 ， 乃 像 糠 秕 被 風 吹 散 。
因 此 ， 當 審 判 的 時 候 惡 人 必 站 立 不 住 ； 罪 人 在 義 人 的 會 中 也 是 如 此 。
因 為 耶 和 華 知 道 義 人 的 道 路 ； 惡 人 的 道 路 卻 必 滅 亡 。

詩 篇 1

Whenever I feel burning out, it's a good time to ask myself: did I walk away from Him for a long time? Did I always think of His words day and night?

Am I just 一條柴 or... 一 棵 樹 栽 在 溪 水 旁?

PS1 Oh, Grace's a very good cook!
PS2 Didn't know that Andy was a professional cook before. He said that he didn't like the job. Another professional cook said something like this to me....
PS3 凡 事 相 信 ， 凡 事 盼 望 ， 凡 事 忍 耐 !
PS4 Don't SIN!


("bathroom wisdom" -- enlightment from andy)

Don't ask....

知道完全和你合眼緣
無悔火燄太短　不可照甚遠
明知都不敢愛　不如沒說穿

Culinary and calligraphy arts

So excited!

Just received Susur -- A culinary Life and didn't wait to open it up.

Susur's calligraphy is pretty good too:


Which susur translates it to, "True art and creativity in cooking only happens when one is truly happy".

I guess that applies to all work we do -- we can't perform well if we are not feeling happy about the job.

Conincidently, a friend of mine was talking exactly the same thing when we were on the way to fellowship.

Well, that was a known truth. The question was -- are you dare to touch your true feeling, or are you just covering it up, pretending things will go well some day? Even though we know that we're not happy about the situation, are we courageous enough to make a change?

Book 1 described the path susur took in his culinary life. I'll start reading and try to figure out what was the driving force behind the scene.

Oh, by the way, tonight's sharing was pretty good. We shared a few questios:

1. What blessings did you receive in 2005?
2. What blessings did you receive from Joshua fellowship in 2005?
3. What will you look forward to from Joshua in 2006?

Our sharing was deep... someone even cried when that person looked back to what God had done in the past.

give thanks in all circumstances... 凡 事 謝 恩!

Old Homes

Interesting analysis from The Times:

Sales show older homes are gaining value faster

Looks like this trend is going to stay for a while, as long as Seattle is attracting new grads working for all sorts of companies.

Stay away

Nikon is telling us to stay away from film SLR, unless you're a professional and wealthy enough to afford their flagship F6 that costs almost $2000 for the body.

One more reason for me to get a digital.... but my skills might not be justify enough to spend too much money on this ;)

3 hours in Munich

If I can have one reflection after watching this movie, I would have asked... wouldn't it be better if Avner just stayed home and didn't track down the terrorists?

Granted, he was in a difficult position -- choosing whether he should be a hero for his country, or whether he should be a responsible father and husband taking care of his own family. But we can never ever fully understand the complexity of politician. And in fact, when Avener went back to Israel and the general packed his shoulder and said some praise words, and only those words, he was confused, disappointed... you know, he stood there for a long moment looking at the general -- a man who was supposed to be in the position to fight for his country and protect the civilians from terrorists, but this task ended up falling on his shoulder....

Moral can itself be very complex, isn't it? Especially when we all have our own values.

Quote: Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values. (Courtesy of imdb.com)

How true.

There is a time for....

There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven....

Too bad it's the raining season in Seattle, and it has been raining for 24 consecutive days already.

But thankfully, the sun appeared for a short period of time during the day!



It was a great dinner with a friend tonight. His sharing reminded me this song...

搖過蕩過不失個好夢
前程不管可否錦繡 都有用
目標落空 才可有空 放輕鬆

Glad that we both have the time to do what we want to do!

There is a time for everything :)

Wow, can't believe it... ho gor eventually opened his blog to me lar! You're a grown up now :p

Film or Digital?

I'm debating on whether I should go film or digital... The Nikon F100 is well priced ($400 used body only), and after the $100 cash rebate from my new Sony card =) it's really a good deal. The reviews is not bad too, and apparently with enough practice (and investment on films and development) the pictures can be really good:


(courtesy of www.nikon-image.com)

But the problem is the long term expenditure on the films and development... and you can't view the pictures instantly.

Hum... seeing results instantly... isn't that what we want in all parts of our lives?

Friends are telling me to be patient... I AM patient wor...

susur!

Wow!! My favorite Toronto's celebrity chef -- susur lee!! Didn't know that he had a new cook book released a few months ago.



His restaurant is really nice. Went there once, but without reservation I didn't get a chance to taste his food.

Well... food is not that important. All a celebrity chef needs is an image that can sell.

And a good cook book =)

Imagine..... one day I'll have my own restaurant.. Hum... what should I name it?

An open invitation...

My friend told me that last time she went to this restaurant she needed to pay $300. The food is really good, and now at a very reasonable price!

Anyone interested? The special is going out to public tomorrow on the PI, so reservation needs to be made now.

If you're interested, just leave me a comment =)

KICK OFF 2006 WITH A FRIEND AT ROVER’S –Recipes from Seattle’s Chef in the Hat become a special five-course menu for two

SEATTLE – December 21, 2005 – The holidays will pass and resolutions will come to an end so join Rover’s as chef and owner Thierry Rautureau brings recipes from his cookbook, Rover’s: Recipes from Seattle’s Chef in the Hat to life as a special five-course menu made for two. For $90 two people will each enjoy the five-course Rover’s Cookbook Tasting Menu, excluding tax and gratuity.

The Rover’s Cookbook Tasting Menu, created for omnivores and herbivores alike, will be offered Tuesday through Friday each week from Jan. 6 through Feb. 3, 2006. Diners can also purchase signed copies of Rover’s: Recipes from Seattle’s Chef in the Hat for $40 plus tax when they visit the restaurant for the tasting menu.

Rover's Restaurant, located at 2808 E. Madison in Seattle’s casually hip Madison Valley, is internationally recognized as one of the premier dining destinations in the Pacific Northwest. For almost 20 years, Rover's has offered a relaxed dining experience of award winning Northwest cuisine with a French accent. Diners can expect attentive service and an extensive, carefully selected wine list.


Rover’s is open for dinner Tuesday through Thursday at 6:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 5:30 p.m. and open for lunch on Fridays 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. Reservations can be made by calling (206) 325-7442 or by going online at www.rovers-seattle.com. Rover’s is owned and operated by Chef Thierry Rautureau.

Sold!

Can't believe it... my LC1 is sold for a pretty good price!



This is a good and powerful camera, and it's sad to part with it.... BUT, I'm eyeing on another set now :)

alcohol effect and calling...

I've started to take less alcohol these days, but because of this friend who came back from HK for a visit, a total of five of us consumed one wine and 8 bottles of beers...

Under the alcohol effect, we all had a swell time (well, of course, it's more than that -- the food was great and the treasured friendship). In our sharings, interestingly enough, we all mentioned about going back to HK to develop our career. Someone said he wanted to be a teacher, but he hesitated since he thought there would be a huge pay cut. Another said that he wanted to be a chef but it'd be better to be more realistic so he decided to stay in his current field. The third person was pretty passionalte about game programming when I knew him and he now wanted to be a trader. The last person said being a counsellor was his dream but he's still thinking of it.



What about me ? ? ?

Well... I'm the worst of all. In the past I wanted to run a restaurant business. But that was the past...

傳 道 書 2 has very good reminders

人 莫 強 如 吃 喝 ， 且 在 勞 碌 中 享 福 ， 我 看 這 也 是 出 於 　 神 的 手 。

Calling from God, can it be as simple as living out my life joyfully?

It's all smoke !

Within the first few days of 2006 I have already completed a few mini projects... here's the list, in decending order of smoke-ness :-)

1. Can you tell the differences between these pics:

Picture A:


Picture B:


In order to "transform" the staircase from A to B, it took me an entire day to sand it, polish it, and paint the first coat--plus three hours of clean up because of the heavy dust. I then needed to spend three nights applying extra layers of paint.

It also cost me $100....

After all these efforts, the staircase actually looked exactly the same! I now experienced what King Solomon said ... 人 一 切 的 勞 碌 ， 就 是 他 在 日 光 之 下 的 勞 碌 ， 有 甚 麼 益 處 呢 ？

2. Tiramisu.... This was relatively more meaningful, since i had a lot of my first-times:
a. The first time I made a tiramisu, of course;
b. The first time I made a cake for myself to celebrate whatever I need to celebrate;
c. The first time my housemates and I took a picture together...



How's the cake? I think I put too much coffee on the bottom layer of the lady fingers so some liquid started coming out after the first day. Also I need to use real espresso next time since the regular coffee, however how strong it is, was not enough.

3. Framed a few pictures! The process was fun and enjoyable, and it's not complicated at all. All I needed to do was to put the sticks together and keep them intact:



4. stretched a canvas.... Wow this was a very complicated process, and could easily damage the art too. The complicated thing was that it's easy to break the stretcher strips when installing the cross bars. The steps I followed were similar to this.

$41/person snack.... anyone?

Went to have tapas food tonight at the Ibiza. The place is pretty nice, very stylish. But the dishes are really small, and considering Tapas are essentially snacks they are kind of overpriced...

Their dessert sampler:



Talking about tapas, I think the food at The Harvest Vine is much better. That restaurant is not as "high class" as Ibiza -- you won't see many people with VerXace or Hugo BoXX, but the food is much better, and most importantly larger in portion.

The price? Check out their menu

Well... that said, I'm more attached to HK's snacks... we've decided the next theme of our cooking event -- HongKongPas ;-) This won't tap your money for sure.

Dead or alive?

Got these tulips from Costco for myself about a week ago, but starting from day 2 they decided to give way to gravity... So looks like I should go to other places for fresh cut flowers next time. Hum... may be I should try the Pike Place.



Tomorrow will be the first meeting of our taoming group. I'm still preparing the bible study.

James 4:14
「其實明天怎樣，你們並不知道。你們的生命是甚麼呢？你們本來是過眼雲煙，轉瞬之間就消逝了。」

Hopefully our gathering won't be just 過眼雲煙 . . . This year, we need to go deep.

Discouraging... but better now than later

Was chating with the same experienced (or addicted) friend on my short trip to Scandinavia and his responses were quite discouraging but funny. See what he said:

1. learn swedish??? hahahahahaha swedish people speak much better english than you, don't worry

2. i have heard that there is one (the ice hotel) in quebec, so it's not really that UNIQUE, but $300, it's all worth
[response]: Yeah, and the ice hotel in Quebec doesn't looks better than the Swedish one. And they're selling in a package with dinner and everthing--more expensive and less flexible.

3. they can't be that generous... to build an ice church and let you go without you pay anything

4. the 1000 places book is overrated... i went to some of the places, not that really good... so you can die well before you visit all of them

Black forest and toilet

What is their relationship?

For some reasons the toilet was blocked =) and someone said he's been putting hair inside it for a few months... sigh

For pretty much the same reason, a different person dropped the entire 2 pounds black froest cake onto the carpet...

What happended to you guys today ar.....

一切重新開始. . .

Watched this movie in the 1st evening of 2006 with couples of my friend.



The title in English is "Wait till you're older" ... what a coincident.

The movie was pretty boring in the first disk, but it became more interesting starting from disk 2.

I'm now 30 years old lar... if my life span has 60 years, and if the 1st 30 years of my life is the disk 1 of my movie, today is the 3rd day of my 2nd disk. Is it going to be an interesting and meaningful one?

The midnight count down at the St. James cathedral was an interesting one. The last 3 minutes of 2005 was almost absolute silence. Everyone was waiting to peel off the first moment of the new year.

Looking back, it was like God's loading the 2nd disk of my life during that 3 minutes of silence =)

Wait till I get older? Yeah, for something I do need to wait until He speaks to me, but for a lot of other things, I need to race against time...