tasty tater talks

the best time zone

2012-01-21T10:58:00.000-08:00

so there's this thing called pacific standard time going on. it's pretty dang amazing how the getty and arts institutions all over southern california have planned all these exhibits in conjunction to create basically a concurrent series of exhibits focusing on california art and design. the exhibits are all over and at different times. there are special weekends that focus on exhibits in a certain area, and they will even shuttle you between places within that area. i haven't been to as many as i want, but i really should step up my museum game while i have the time and a semi-legit student ID.

i really wanted to see two exhibits in particular that focus on the eameses. if you don't know anything about charles and ray eames, you should. an awesome, designing duo that worked across disciplines.

so i called up my museum buddies. thank God for museum buddies. i can go with school friends always, which is always a good time. but my museum buddies are always down to drink and eat good food during a museum trip, too, and have fresh, non-architecty insights. winnie provides photos to document the fun. elena reps the east coast well (even if she's orginally from the west). insom provides witty, intellectual, and unexpected commentary. weemo was out of town for this one. we missed her.

we parked at/near lacma.

while waiting, i had a lovely drink at stark bar.
with my friend, the empty jacobsen egg chair.
such good people watching from my perch.

then we walked over the a+d museum, which is just across the street (and has exhibited my work before...w00t!), for eames designs: the guest-host relationship.

looked at some tumbleweed.

test drove some eames chairs.

left our mark.

'twas an intimate exhibit with insight into the eameses' attitude toward design in an intimate space.

then we walked back across the street to lacma for california design 1930-1965: living in a modern way. if you didn't know already, california was a major hotbed for modern design. lots of avant garde european designers and architects fled europe during world war II, and ended up here. oh, and this exhibit was designed by one of my old studio prof's offices. yay!

um, i suck. i didn't take any photos. but the best part is how they've recreated the entire eames house living room, at full scale, within the exhibit. there were also design artifacts from barbies to a studebaker car to movie title sequences to furniture to fashion to textiles to graphics to...pretty much any object that can be designed.

we concluded the evening with some delicious flatbread and charcuterie at stark bar.
winter.
outside.
heat lamps.
swanky furniture.

my descriptions suck, and i barely took any photos, so go yourself to these exhibits and then some! learn about how rich california's art and design history is! i'll even be your museum buddy and personal docent for these two exhibits i've actually seen.

even ice cube approves. you can do it put your back into it!

oh, how do you get there, you ask?

"each freeway has its own personality. the 405: bougie traffic. the 110: that's gangsta traffic right there. there's a difference. you gotta know where you at."

omg! almost forgot this gem that insom introduced me to that day:

raining babies

2012-01-20T11:46:00.000-08:00

it's literally raining babies for a lot of my friends.

so i am helping plan not one, but two baby showers over the next couple of months. this partyzilla rejoices! even if the occasion for celebration is...children.

luckily, all of my friends' children are turning out to be cute, smart, little human beings. don't worry, the bear and i still aren't tempted to produce any cubs or tater tots any time soon. although i am a bit curious to see what happens when a potato and a bear mate. it'll probably be chubby or at least round.

anyway, weemo is very graciously hosting this first shower of 2012 at her country club, so there isn't much for the partyzillas to do. venue's covered. delicious food is covered. and duh, awesome company is definitely covered.

so i put the partyzilla to graphic design use. see?

this family has an awesome name that lent itself well to the literal shower theme.

i matched the colors to what appear to be the nursery colors from the mom-to-be's registry. limey green (but i went more chartreuse), blue, grey.

i drew all the artwork in adobe illustrator. i drew some really phallic and scatological stuff on accident in the process. those drawings did not make it onto the invite.

paper source of course came through so that i didn't have to cut a bajillion (ok, fine, 12) address labels into cloud shapes by hand. also, i can't stand martha stewart, but her new avery products at staples are pretty dang cute. this organizilla fell hard. plus, hello! these file labels are perfectly raindrop shaped.

i then ordered some stamps that match the theme. wind! whoo! the colors even kinda coordinate!

too bad the USPS is a lying liar who lies.

the stamps did not arrive in 2-5 days as promised. they arrived in 7 days.
so i had to send out the invites with some ugly butterfly stamps instead.
and now i have a bunch of stamps that say "kansas forever." boo.

and yes, i care about stupid stamps way too much.

i really need a full-time job.

well, whatever. the invites got to ride next to my new pretty, so they were pretty happy.

butterfly in the skyyyyyy

i can go twice as hiiiiiigh

take a look

it's in a book

reading rainbow

oahu day 7: breakfast, amazing view, hike, beer garden

2011-11-04T14:33:00.000-07:00

//day 7
//sunday
//kailua, nu'uanu pali, diamond head, ala moana, waikiki.

BREAKFAST_boots & kimo's (kailua).
may be overrated, but still pretty dang good.

bear: corned beef hash omelette. has some other hawaiian name, but can't remember.
REALLY GOOD.
portion looks small, but it was hefty.

me: the famous pancakes with mac nut sauce. i opted for the banana pancakes.
neither of us like pancakes that much.
THESE WERE ******DELICIOUS*****!!!!1!!!1!!!
fluffy with chunks of moist banana. mmm.
the sauce is really that good. like melted, sweetened whipped cream.

SCENIC DRIVE_nu'uanu pali lookout (off pali highway, on the way back to honolulu from kailua).

seriously the best views. very windy, though.

you have to pay a few bucks to park in the lot. because we weren't planning on staying long, we just took turns going to look while the other stayed in the car.

yeah, we're *those* cheapass asians.

prehistoric craggy-ness.

HIKE_diamond head state monument (diamond head).

so winnie warned me ahead of time that this hike isn't nearly as easy as people make it out to be.

there is some warning, though.

good thing, as i was all super scurred of the hike,
so it ended up being way less scary than i feared.

note:
i am out of shape.
i have short legs.
thus i am slow.
my balance sucks.
i hate going down steep trails and get all scared.
i am afraid of heights.
Y U NO ATHLETIC, POTATO?!

however, i need not have feared so much. the entire trail is rather rocky rather than dirt-y, so it's not as slippery as the dirt trails i'm used to in california. you just need to watch your step/ankles as the path is nice, hard rock but is pitted.

also, my biggest fear when hiking is falling over the edge of the trail in steep areas.

but they have RAILS all along the path! yay! made me so much more confident and less afraid.

see?

switchbacks!

ok, so the part of the hike that really IS that bad are the stairs. OMG.
first, there are a set of like 40-something stairs. not *too* bad, despite no landings.

but then you get here:

99 stairs,
and a landing ain't one.

almost.
there.
legs.
burning.
bear at the top laughing and taking pictures of me.
ugh.

after the 3 sets of stairs (the aforementioned two, then a super skinny spiral stair), you end up in concrete bunker thingy.
and you get this gorgeous sliver of a view.
then you have to climb some more stairs and squeeze through that sliver.

at the top!

(plus some chick's sweaty back & bra straps.)

then back down again.

it took us about 20 minutes to get to the top.
despite crowded trail.
we walked at a nice clip,
but remember i am slow w/my short legs.

LUNCH_fort ruger market (diamond head, near kapi'olani community college).
share: poke. again! was pretty good, but she over-salted it. meh. this one had sesame oil. mmm.
beef stew plate. like the beef stew my mom used to make growing up. think dinty moore, but from scratch and with big, super mushy chunks of beef, potatoes, and carrots. served on two scoop rice and with mac salad. overall very satisifying and warm.

bear's side: portuguese sausage & egg musubi. SO. GOOD. instead of white rice, the sausage & egg were on fried rice!!!

my side: mochiko chicken musubi. aiite. the fried rice saved it.

SHOP_ala moana center (ala moana).
because we're mallrats when on vacation, apparently.

HAPPY HOUR/DINNER_beer garden at shirokiya (ala moana center).
while walking around the mall, we saw a sign advertising $1-3 pints of japanese beer for happy hour at shirokiya's "beer garden." yay!

another version of the sign, once it started.

our pitcher of as-ahhhhh-hi. mmm.

i had a delicious bowl of udon with my beer.
i really, really love fat noodles.

the bear had a dimsum bento. he enjoyed everything in the bento very much.
and he usually finds 1 or 2 things he doesn't like in most bentos.
not this one.

got mistaken for locals again.
are we *that* tan? hmph. i guess better than being mistaken for being from the midwest =X.
cutest old couple next to us.
the old lady asked the bear if he caught "the game."
we happened to have caught part of the university of hawaii game the day before.
bear & lady had cute conversation about football.

love the food stalls here.

NIGHTCAP_attempted duke's. ended up at the beach bar at the westin moana surfrider again (waikiki).

um, so duke's was too much of a scene. of mostly over-dressed american tourists in the 30-50something range. too crowded. too loud. so we moved on.

the bear tried a blue hawaii as he needed to try a blue drink. after that, he went back to his standby of vodka tonics. dudes, the drinks here are poured STRONG. like the vodka tonic was vodka with a splash of tonic. prices are high, but very worth it.

plus this bar is chill, quiet, and on the beach. so nice (cue bebel gilberto).

i had a giant glass of wine. like he filled the wine glass to the rim.
i had to lap/sip it w/no hands to get it to a handle-able fill.
i still spilled some.
wah.

got lots of good recs from our homie marnie (one of the bartenders who is like your favorite filipino uncle) for our last breakfast on the island.

well, first he recommended IHOP and original pancake house.
us: "what? we have those on the mainland!"plus i'm not insomniac. i don't love IHOP like she does.

the following recs were better:
"boots & kimo's overrated. cinnamon's in kailua much better."
"side street inn." (we checked, and it doesn't open 'til 2 pm. LOL.)
"zippy's. get a plate lunch PLUS a 'pac.'" (whatever that is. might have to try since it's the mcd's of hawaii.)
"rainbow drive-in." (been there, done that. know it's good.)
"nico's on pier 38. nice but kind of expensive. i take my girlfriend there." (eh, out of our way.)
"buffet at the moana surfrider. expensive but very good." (this rec was from another bartender who was our strong-drink-pouring homie.)

BREAKFAST THE NEXT DAY_zippy's.
bear: some special, limited time only plate lunch to benefit some major league baseball player's foundation. was really good. had like 3 meats, eggs, rice, mac salad.

me: small chili rice. REALLY good chili. sooo good on rice.
saimin. really good and perfect for our mini hangovers.

to go for the plane: teri beef plate lunch. was A LOT of meat. the meat was just OK, though. plus we ate it cold on the plane.

get the chili rice.

until next time, mahalo, hawaii, for showing us a great, delicious time!

omg, props to everyone who read all of these long-winded recaps. yeesh to me.

oahu day 6: FULL day

2011-11-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

//day 6
//saturday
//chinatown, downtown honolulu, pearl harbor, waipahu, waikele, waikiki, university of hawaii manoa adjacent.

lots of pictures again! yay! we squeezed a lot into this day.

BREAKFAST_more manapuaaaaa!!! at royal kitchen (chinatown).

handy dandy guide to the red food coloring dots on the buns to identify each.
i also really liked the chopstick wrappers.

we just got a few.
this was a bit much for the two of us.
2 curry chicken manapua (so good!)
2 portuguese sausage manapua (such good sausage!)
2 char siu manapua (really good char siu!)
1 mai tai su (meh. the flaky/dense dough was too much. and too many water chestnuts in the filling. there is also pork, shiitake mushrooms, turnip, tiny dried shrimp, and i'm not sure what else in there.)
2 half moons (translucent ricey skin used for har gow, filled with same stuff as mai tai su)
2 pork hash. better known to us mainlanders as siu mai.

but...we were gearing up for a 2-hour walk, after all.

WALKING TOUR_aia honolulu architectural walking tour (downtown honolulu).
so the bear read about this tour by the honolulu chapter of the aia (american institute of architects) in our westways magazine. yeah, the free one you get for being a member of AAA southern california. it's only $10 a person, we figured we'd get some history, and i was excited to maybe learn about the vernacular or evolution of architecture in hawaii since it was colonized by so many different groups. yay!

we met at the aia honolulu's offices. while waiting for everyone in the group to arrive, one of the chatty tour group participants took it upon himself to be mr. icebreaker. well, he just asked everyone where they were visiting from. it turns out all three other couples were from orange county. they all had some ties (grew up in, used to live in, etc.) the city we currently we live in (not in orange county). pure coincidence? nope. they all read about the tour in westways.

in fact, one guy works for AAA corporate. they all took pictures in front of the AIA's sign holding their copy of the article.

we kept our mouths shut but were poking each other. LOL.

oh, and all of the other couples were in their late 40s to their 60s. and half of the men had fanny packs on. no, we did not quite fit in.

so the tour. honestly, i got boooooored about halfway through. the bear loved it, though. let's just say the 70-year old architect who led the tour and i have very different approaches to and thoughts on architecture. if he knew which school i just finished, i bet he would have come after me with a pitchfork. boo! it's actually a very good tour for the layperson, and we did get a lot of good info about the history of hawaii.

and it was a good way to walk off 100 pounds of manapua.

the captions are what i heard and what i thought during the tour.

historic, blah blah blah. terra cotta blah blah blah.

ooh! a pretty drain. gorgeous metal.

street art! mr. humuhumunukunukuapuaa. how cute.

king kamehameha blah blah blah.
gold blah blah blah.
original statue lost at sea blah blah blah.
this king's dad's palace that this king didn't like.
so state blah offices housed here.
blah blah blah.

cemetery at the church for haoles = foreigners/outsiders.
you mean the white devils?

since kamehameha didn't like that first palace, he built another across the street.
heavy rustication there.
frilly victorian here.

holes in the stairs. so you can shoot your muskets through them while being protected.
yeah, not enough holes. *sniggle*
kamehameha's forces lost.
the haoles took over.

ooh, look at the drippy banyan tree.
too bad it's not a bridge like the banyans in india.

mmm. concrete.
state blah (legislature? courts?) housed here.
government very open blah blah to the people blah.

mmm. heavy. textured. concrete & stone.

mmm. concrete. love the thinness of the wood slats that made up the formwork.

ooh. retro & fun facade.

yup, by the end, i was pretty much absorbed in my own thoughts and not really listening.
bad walking tour tater. LOLOLOLOL.

MORE TOUR_world war II valor in the pacific memorial (pearl harbor).
now this was worth it. entry to the memorial park and to the USS arizona memorial is free. there are other memorials in the memorial that cost extra (submarine, and i forget what else).

we also paid $7.50 for the audio tour, which was actually quite good. jamie lee curtis' voice is perfect to narrate the somber experience.

tip: so the timed ferries to the uss arizona begin at 8 am. the memorial park opens at 7 am, when you can buy your tickets. first come, first time slots. apparently people line up before 7 am to get in. some of these people stand in line for an hour and get time slots for an hour or more later than that.

instead, be late like us. we got there midday. there was no line to get uss arizona tickets. our time slot was for maybe 30-45 minutes after we arrived--enough time to get through the first three or so stations on the audio tour.

anyway, it's a great memorial, we learned a lot, and it was a good way to remember our servicepeople.

tree of life sculpture (also repeated next to the USS arizona wall o' names.)

the ferry over to the uss arizona.

LUNCH_tanioka's seafoods & catering (waipahu).
got there too late. all the good stuff was gone. what we had was good but mostly cold/lukewarm.
shared: lumpia, fried rice, fried chicken, poke.

ate sitting in the car in the parking lot. that's just how we roll.

SHOP_waikele "premium" outlets (waipahu).
LAME. don't waste your time.

WALK_waikiki.
again.

DINNER_choi's kitchen (international market, waikiki).
overpriced, but hit the spot as i was craving asian food. it's pretty much hawaiianized korean.
bear: kimchee fried rice with spicy pork bulgogi. side of mandoo (gyoza/potstickers/dumplings).
me: fried noodles with shrimp.

DESSERT_bubbie's (near university of hawaii manoa).
needed their mochi ice cream again. needed.

tried:
lychee - good.
guava - really good.
lilikoi (passion fruit) - BEST!
pumpkin - really good, but hard to get in the mood when it's 80 and humid at night.
strawberry dark chocolate chip - good. loved the chocolate mochi skin.

yay for super-full days!

oahu day 5

2011-10-31T21:24:00.000-07:00

//day 5
//friday
//hanauma bay, waikiki/kapahulu, ala moana.

SNORKEL_rentals from snorkel bob's (kapahulu). snorkeling at hanauma bay nature preserve (hanauma).
snorkel bob's is good. better gear than you'll get elsewhere, and not too expensive.
daily rentals are $3-$9 depending on what grade of equipment you get.
weekly rental are $9-$30something. again, depends on the grade of equipment.
if we hadn't been in line behind the slowest people in the world, we would have been in and out in no time.

so the bay is THE place to snorkel, supposedly.
pay for snorkel gear.
pay for parking.
pay for admission.
(not much total, but many lines and lots of cash to have on hand.)
crowded.
we got there right before they closed the parking lot to any more cars.
then waited to watch the short film everyone needs to watch beforehand.
respect the reef, yo.
it repeats NOT to touch, step on, or otherwise do anything to the reef besides look at it.
then a line for lockers.
then getting on the beach.
at low tide, it's super shallow in the inner bay.
so hard not to touch/step on the reef at certain points.
but we were good.
others, not so much. ERRYONE and their moms were standing up ON it.
grr.
anyway, an hour or so in the water was enough for us.
we saw plenty of the endemic species (only exist in that area).
saw plenty of humuhumunukunukuāpuaa (the state fish).
snorkeling in the caribbean's still way better.

oh, and when we left around midday, they had opened up the lot again.
morning people were leaving, and there was room again.
maybe instead of getting there first thing and waiting w/everyone else,
you should just go around lunch time.

LUNCH_rainbow drive-in (kapahulu). yep, again. needed to try plate lunches, not breakfast.
me: loco moco plate. i really like their gravy, so this was solid.
bear: mix plate. they are known for this. it's a great deal as you get beef, chicken, ahi katsu, 2 scoop rice, mac salad.

SHOP_waikiki. we got iphone 4Ses! on the release date! just waltzed in! no lines! paid way less sales tax than at home!

our phone family. from left to right:
my iphone 3g
bear's iphone 3g
bear's work droid
bear's new iphone 4s
my new iphone 4s

DINNER_combo ahi bowls from ono seafood (kapahulu). yes, again. our favorite ahi poke.

they close early--around 6. so pick yours up early then eat it later, as we did.

seaweed salad to share.

me: hawaiian on the left, shoyu on the right.
i know they look the same.
they taste the same, too, although the hawaiian is a bit drier.

bear: "the usual" for him. spicy on the left. shoyu on the right.

"GO OUT"_dave & buster's at ward entertainment center. meh. (ala moana)

don't go as early as we did on a friday night.
lots of strollers.
nothing too different from dave&buster's at home.
although we noticed a LOT of people eating dinner there.
blech.

WALK_waikiki.
the usual.

NIGHTCAP_five-o bar & lounge (waikiki).
mistaken for locals again when some guy asked us if this was the place to be on friday nights. no clue. i mean, it's technically in a mall on waikiki. but good live music, a nice outdoor area, and good drinks at decent prices for waikiki.

oahu day 4

2011-10-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

//day 4
//thursday
//chinatown (honolulu), haleiwa/north shore.

finally! photos!

BREAKFAST_royal kitchen for manapua and dim sum (chinatown).
because char hung sut was on vacation. :(
we really wanted to try both, but we ended up at royal kitchen twice. more on this in another post.

SURF/LAY OUT_haleiwa ali'i beach park. different from tuesday's haleiwa (north shore).nice waves that day.
pretty sand.
some palm trees for shade for lazy me.
surfers that are pretty good and fun to watch.

the bear before surfing.

the bear after surfing.
look how wide that wave is!

LUNCH_macky's kahuku sweet shrimp truck (haleiwa, north shore).

truck in a dirt lot.
next door to a 7-11.
off a traffic circle/rotary/whatever those things are called.

wild chickens that live in that brush behind the dirt lot.

bear: spicy shrimp plate
really good. the sauce mixed with the rice is SO good.

me: garlic butter shrimp plate
so delicious. perfectly cooked, fresh, sweet shrimp.
toasted garlic in its sauce on rice.
mmMMM.

i attempted these last week at home.
it was a huge fail.

oh yeah, pineapple slice was good.
could have done without the salad.
but i ate some of mine since we hadn't been eating many veggies that week.
sigh. being a responsible adult is no fun.

DESSERT_matsumoto shave[d] ice (haleiwa, north shore).

long, stinky line.
i guess everyone spills their melty scoops of ice cream on the sidewalk nearby.
smells like poop, unfortunately.

shaving the ice.

we shared a large rainbow (pineapple, lemon, strawberry)
with ice cream at the bottom and a snow cap (condensed milk on top).
the condensed milk is essential.
the ice cream at the bottom is awesome, too.

neither of us are big hawaiian-style shave ice fans.
we prefer chinese- or korean-style shaved ice.
but as you can tell, i enjoyed this a lot.
as did the bear.
perfect in that climate.

WALK/SHOP_waikiki.

visited the duke.

DINNER_teddy's bigger burgers. because the bear's other name is "teddy." (waikiki).
potatobro and sis-in-law raved about this place.

their peanut butter chocolate shake is supposed to be good.
bear vetoed.

we got strawberry instead.
thick. sweet. creamy.
good shake.

me: jalaween burger
substituted tots for fries.

bear: bacaburger
substituted cajun fries.

giant burgers even though we ordered the smallest patty size.
pretty good.
i'm still partial to in 'n' out, myself.

NIGHTCAP_mai tais at the beach bar at the westin moana surfrider (waikiki).

hm. potato face does not tan evenly.
notice the bear's umbrella drink.
he's very embarrassed that he is pictured with one here, and i am not.
mine is just out of the frame, stage right.
and in his defense these mai tai's were freakin' strong.
i decided i don't like mai tai's that night.
well, at least, the taste of 'em. ;)

oahu day 3: beach & beer

2011-10-26T23:35:00.000-07:00

//day 3
//wednesday
//kapahulu/waikiki, hawaii kai.

omg. so boring. like, no photos (ok, one). promise LOTS of photos in the next post.

BRUNCH_ono seafood (kapahulu).
not the same as ono hawaiian foods, but just down the street, a few blocks away.

specializes in ahi (tuna) and toro (octopus) poke. they mix up each batch fresh after you order it.
we got there early, near when they opened for best and freshest selection.

me: wasabi ahi poke bowl - delicious & sinus-clearing, but not too spicy.
keep in mind my spicy tolerance is pretty high, although nowhere near the thai bear's.

bear: combo shoyu ahi poke/spicy tuna ahi poke bowl

doesn't look like much food, but it's a lot. and filling. and fresh. and delicious.
so freakin' heavy, too. they stuff that little container full.
anyway, BOTH of these "flavors" were delicious.
shoyu was our favorite of the 3 (shoyu/soy sauce, limu/algae, red chili flakes, sea salt, and maybe limu nut).

winner, winner, chicken dinner!
our favorite poke spot. nice variety, fresh fish, perfect rice, reasonable prices.

ate at the one picnic table outside/in the parking lot.

SWIM/SURF_i swam inside the breakwater/jetties. the bear surfed (waikiki).
there is calm water that gets as deep as chin high on me (so 4-1/2 feet or so) in which you can swim. it's a little east of the BIG hotels (moana surfrider, outrigger, etc.) between two crescents of black rock.
the beach is crowded. with tourists.
but the water is warm, clean, and lovely to swim in.

the bear said the waves were mushy, and it was too crowded to be able to catch much.
i much prefer mushy potatoes to mushy waves.

PIT STOP_gifts/souvenirs and beer from the food pantry
(cheap spam & jalapeno macadamia nuts!!)
grocery store that was very close to our condo.
scored some snacks and souvenirs to bring back.

DINNER_koko marina pub/kona brewing company (hawaii kai).
we only went out to this suburb so we could do a beer tasting at kona brewing company's koko marina pub. we love their kona longboard ale, available (and ironically cheaper) at home, but we always wanted to try some of their other beers that come in big packs at our local store before investing in a whole case.

the food was not so great. it was like a wanna-be bj's. but with worse food. they didn't even have a deep fryer! no fries to go with your burger! chips only! overpriced! meh.

good thing the beer was good. we tried:
firerock pale ale - bear's favorite, and the one that is sold here in our grocery stores as part of a variety pak).

red ale - another good ale. not as hoppy as the pale ale. probably my favorite of the night.

koko brown - VERY coconutty.

black sand porter - rich. yummy. great when mixed with the koko brown.

DESSERT_bubbie's mochi ice cream (hawaii kai).
stopped here on a whim since dinner left me a little wanting.
ordered some mochi ice cream.
best. mochi. ice cream. ever.
the mochi itself is flavored/colored to match.
passion fruit/lilikoi.
strawberry.
lilikoi is the way to go.
fun to say.
fun-tasting on your tongue.
bear doesn't like passion fruit normally.
he LOVED this mochi ice cream.
sweet, tart, tropical.

NIGHTCAP/WALK_beer in room. then walked waikiki. again.

oahu day 2: in which we eat our favorites

2011-10-25T23:55:00.000-07:00

//day 2
//tuesday
//waikiki, mccully-moiliili, haleiwa/north shore, ala moana

BREAKFAST_at rainbow drive-in.
me: breakfast special - portuguese sausage, 2 scoops rice, 2 eggs
bear: breakfast special - ahi katsu, fries (instead of rice), 2 eggs
delicious. filling. comforting. the portuguese sausage was so delicious.
when is linguica not?

BREAKFAST-CAP(?)_beers at rock island cafe (tourist trap, waikiki).
because we had time to kill before the surfboard rental place opened.
they had kona longboards in the bottle.

SURF_rented boards from koa board sports. surfed waikiki.
koa was great.
wide-ish selection of epoxy boards, including short and long boards. some foam tops, too.
if you pay for a multi-day rental, you can swap boards as you want for different conditions.
(the bear did this.)
if you rent a longboard for multiple days, they have a storage space at their shop where you can lock it up after hours (their hours are only 10-6 every day).
also took care of our stuff while we were surfing, since there are no lockers on the beach & people get stuff like their flip flops stolen.
friendly, nice people.

waikiki was crowded. with mostly kooks. because the waves are small here.
LOTS of people taking "lessons" where instructors push them into waves.
without looking. resulting in knocking someone (the bear) in the neck with the student's board.
ugh.

oh, i learned how to paddle!
i attempted catching waves. and was unsuccessful.
the one time i sort of popped up, i have no idea what happened, but i ended up in the water.
good workout, though.
props to the bear for trying to teach me.
sporty spud i am not.

LUNCH_at da kitchen (mccully-moiliili).
pupu: fried spam musubi. yes, fried. as in the whole thing is dipped in batter and then deep fried.
shared entree: katsu cutlet plate lunch - chicken katsu smothered in an onion & mushroom gravy.
GRAVY WAS SO GOOD. onions and mushrooms added flavor. elevated the otherwise already good katsu. chicken was moist and seasoned well inside the breading.
plate included two scoop rice and potato mac salad. both were solid.
side: fries. a lot of them. this may have been unnecessary, but the bear needs his fries.
probably bear's favorite meal of the trip.
probably my favorite out of all the plate lunches we had.

DRIVE_
traffic, just like at home. took the central route through the island to the north shore.

SURF/LAY OUT_haleiwa regional beach park (north shore).
this beach's sand is not as soft.
and there is pine tree crap everywhere that will stick to your towel.

see? both pine trees and palms overhead.

the beach was rather rocky, too. chunks of black lava rock here and there. coarse sand. eh.

the surfing wasn't so great, either, with these rocks jutting out and making it scary.
i laid around until the bear came back in.

DRIVE_scenic route along eastern coast back from north shore.
mostly after dark. boo.

look where the waves break.
yeah, it's dangerous
[waimea bay beach park]

[waimea bay beach park]

sunset at THE pipeline.
[banzai beach/the pipeline]

warning at the pipeline.

PIT STOP_water, snacks, and wine from foodland (ala moana) on the way back to the room.

DINNER_marukame udon (waikiki).
probably my favorite meal, because I LOVE NOODLES.
like way more than rice.
it's a cafeteria style udon place. you pick the style (toppings), udon or soba noodles, hot or cold, size (small or large).
FRESH noodles made before your eyes.
me: ontama bukkake udon (soft poached egg and tororo (japanese grated raw mountain yam that is mucilaginous) on top)
bear: curry udon
mine was better. bear's was more flavorful, but i appreciate the subtle, delicate flavors of dashi broth way more than he does.
there is a buffet of omusubi/onigiri from which you can choose.
we ended up taking ours (salmon & bonito) back to the room and eating them the next day. delicious, fresh, generous chunks o' fish.
there is also a buffet of tempura/deep fried goodness you can throw in your udon or just eat.
mushrooms were juicy but meh in flavor. fried chicken was good.

line is sometimes intimidatingly long. do not fear. it moves fairly quickly.

oh, and it's cheap! bowls of udon are like $5-7ish. sides are a buck to a couple each.
mmm. noodles.

NIGHTCAP_wine. in our room.
fully stocked kitchenette had a corkscrew.

and wine glasses.

mmm. wine.

oahu day 1

2011-10-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

ok, now in detail.

//day 1
//monday
//waikiki/kapahulu, ala moana

no photos yet, because we didn't want to look like tourists. although we were probably pretty obvious despite not whipping out the camera.

LUNCH_at ono hawaiian foods (just outside of waikiki in kapahulu).
known for its traditional hawaiian special plates. we got the chicken long rice plate. chicken long rice has glass noodles in a salty, slightly gingery broth. very soothing, asian-y comfort food. especially if you mix the rice into the soup. the plate included a bunch of mini dishes--pipikula (like beef jerky, but fresher & more moist), lomi salmon (diced raw salmon + tomato/onion stuff), rice, poi, onions to sprinkle with sea salt then dip in the poi, and haupia (jello-like coconut dessert). we also ordered a side of ahi poke that was simply seasoned with sea salt and limu. good & fresh enough, but not wow. not really sure *how* authentic this all was, but it was delicious and fun.

WALK/SHOP_walked around ala moana center.
a cross between fashion island and south coast plaza. smaller/more compact than both.

scored t&c t-shirts on sale (buy one get 2nd 50% off) for the bear's buddies. so retro (at least in california, since it seems they haven't sold t&c since the mid 90s here) of us.

snack at shirokiya (japanese dept. store & food court in the mall). we had char siu baked manapua (manapua = bao = bready/bun things with meaty centers you get at dimsum) and ahi poke. poke was not so good but was cheap.

while at the mall, we picked up dinner at foodland's deli/poke counter on our way out. foodland is a grocery store that is known for a deli counter of many different types of poke. that night, we tried the spicy poke (favorite!), chili pepper poke (we think same as spicy poke without shoyu), and wakame (seaweed) salad.

HOTEL_checked into condo (fairway villas, waikiki) & ate dinner.
this place was clean (timeshare unit through vacation internationale, you'll see why i mention this later), conveniently-located, and included a parking spot. however, i wouldn't recommend it to most as it's kind of weird in that it's actually a condo building in which people have primary residences. some units are rented out. some are people's vacation homes which they rent out to visitors (and you can rent for pretty cheap through sites like vrbo.com).

the only unit available when my mom booked was a studio, and we ended up on a murphy bed. it was that or the couch bed. oh, and the parking garage is very tight (although our spot was relatively easy to get into), has scary, single-lane ramps to go up/down, and has residents that drive super duper fast up and down despite the single lane ramps. it was harrowing to get in and out, even with the satisfaction of knowing we had free parking in waikiki.

if you have a timeshare to trade through VI or its partner companies or are on a budget and anticipate cooking in order to save $ on your vacation, then this would be a great choice. otherwise, pass. also, it seems another timeshare company has units in this building, too, and no idea what condition those are in.

WALK_walked the waikiki strip.
we did this pretty much every night since we were just off of it, the weather was warm, and we had to walk off all the food we ate. plus there's some good people watching.

shrine outside the apple store.

surfing bear! i'm the girl bear standing directly beneath him and crying because i can't figure out how to surf. this is a store in waikiki that has a teddy bear museum upstairs. it's purportedly like "it's a small world," but with teddy bears in different places and times. if we had kids with us, i would totally have used them as an excuse to pay admission to go upstairs.

next: day 2. in which we discover many favorite eats in one day.

ohana means family...

2011-10-22T00:34:00.000-07:00

...and family means no one gets left behind. our mini potato+bear family went to oahu last week. whee!

[hawaii theater, downtown honolulu. love the typeface on the marquee.]

prepare to scroll. for days.

first, a summary itinerary. thought this would be helpful because we wished we had something like this before going so we'd know how to group things better geographically. detailed description and photos (yay!) to follow in future blog entries. we kept our plans flexible, didn't book anything ahead, and just made must eat/must do lists to choose from while there. because that's just how we roll.

i do also need to thank lilcee for giving me her lists of food, winnie for warning me about diamond head, and the bear's friend who grew up in honolulu and gave us good food and sightseeing tips.

for reference, we stayed in waikiki in a condo just off the main strip (a graduation gift from my mom--she traded some timeshare time for us), rented a car as the condo we rented came with a dedicated spot for no extra charge, and stayed on oahu for the full week.

//monday - waikiki/kapahulu (which is just off of the main strip of waikiki), ala moana.
ALOHA, BITCHES!_arrived at HNL midday & picked up rental car.
LUNCH_ono hawaiian foods (just outside of waikiki in kapahulu).
WALK/SHOP_ala moana center (ala moana, near waikiki).
DINNER_takeout from foodland's deli/poke counter on our way out (the one inside the mall).
HOTEL_checked into condo (fairway villas, waikiki) & ate dinner in our kitchen.
WALK_walked the waikiki strip, window shopped, avoided parrot picture people, laughed at tourists.
NIGHTCAP_primo's beer from our foodland run back in our room.

//tuesday - waikiki, mccully-moiliili, haleiwa/north shore, ala moana.
BREAKFAST_at rainbow drive-in (just off waikiki in kapahulu).
BREAKFAST-CAP(?)_kona longboards at rock island cafe (tourist trap, waikiki).
SURF_rented boards from koa board sports. surfed waikiki. well, i pretty much just paddled.
LUNCH_da kitchen (mccully-moiliili, honolulu).
DRIVE_traffic, just like at home. took the central route through the island to the north shore.
SURF/LAY OUT_haleiwa regional beach park (north shore).
DRIVE_scenic route along eastern coast back from north shore. after dark. boo.
PIT STOP_water, snack, and wine from foodland (ala moana).
DINNER_marukame udon (waikiki).
NIGHTCAP_wine. in our room. fully stocked kitchen had a corkscrew.

//wednesday - kapahulu/waikiki, hawaii kai.
BRUNCH_ono seafood (kapahulu). not the same as ono hawaiian foods, but just down the street, a few blocks away.
SWIM/SURF_i swam inside the breakwater/jetties. the bear surfed (waikiki).
PIT STOP_gifts/souvenirs and beer from the food pantry (cheap spam & jalapeno macadamia nuts!!)
DINNER_koko marina pub/kona brewing company (hawaii kai).
DESSERT_bubbie's mochi ice cream (hawaii kai).
NIGHTCAP/WALK_beer in room. then walked waikiki.

//thursday - chinatown, haleiwa/north shore.
BREAKFAST_royal kitchen for manapua and dim sum (chinatown). because char hung sut was on vacation. :(
SURF/LAY OUT_haleiwa ali'i beach park. different from tuesday's haleiwa (north shore).
LUNCH_macky's kahuku sweet shrimp truck (haleiwa, north shore).
DESSERT_matsumoto shave[d] ice (haleiwa, north shore).
WALK/SHOP_waikiki.
DINNER_teddy's bigger burgers. because the bear's other name is "teddy." (waikiki).
NIGHTCAP_mai tais at the beach bar at the westin moana surfrider (waikiki).

//friday - hanauma bay, waikiki/kapahulu, ala moana.
SNORKEL_rentals from snorkel bob's (kapahulu). snorkeling at hanauma bay nature preserve (hanauma).
LUNCH_rainbow drive-in (kapahulu). yep, again. needed to try plate lunches, not breakfast.
SHOP_waikiki. we got iphone 4Ses! on the release date! just waltzed in! no lines! paid way less sales tax!
DINNER_combo ahi bowls from ono seafood (kapahulu). yes, again. our favorite ahi poke.

"GO OUT"_dave & buster's at ward entertainment center. meh. (ala moana)

WALK_waikiki.
NIGHTCAP_five-o bar & lounge (waikiki).

//saturday - chinatown, downtown honolulu, pearl harbor, waipahu, waikele, waikiki, university of hawaii manoa adjacent.
BREAKFAST_more manapuaaaaa!!! at royal kitchen (chinatown).
WALKING TOUR_aia honolulu architectural walking tour (downtown honolulu).
MORE TOUR_world war II valor in the pacific memorial (pearl harbor).
LUNCH_tanioka's seafoods & catering (waipahu).
SHOP_waikele "premium" outlets (waipahu).
WALK_waikiki.
DINNER_choi's kitchen (international market, waikiki).
DESSERT_bubbie's (near university of hawaii manoa).

//sunday - kailua, nu'uanu pali, diamond head, ala moana, waikiki.
BREAKFAST_boots & kimo's (kailua).
SCENIC DRIVE_nu'uanu pali lookout (off pali highway, on the way back to honolulu from kailua).
HIKE_diamond head state monument (diamond head).
LUNCH_fort ruger market (diamond head, near kapi'olani community college).
SHOP_ala moana center (ala moana).
HAPPY HOUR/DINNER_beer garden at shirokiya (ala moana center).
NIGHTCAP_attempted duke's. ended up at the beach bar at the westin moana surfrider again (waikiki).

//monday - waikiki/kapahulu, airport.
BREAKFAST_zippy's (kapahulu, near waikiki).
LUNCH/DINNER_extra zippy's plate lunch that we took on the plane.
bye bye! :( :( :( HNL > LAX

//whew
the above seems packed, but we still had plenty of time for naps, bad tv (storage wars and extreme couponers, mostly), and traveling on island time. we *did* get up early most days since we were still on LA time, but we did do a lot of relaxing and took our time.

//getting around
if you're used to socal traffic, traffic really is not that bad at all on oahu. especially if you're heading to the beach, toward ono eats, or anywhere that's NOT WORK. well, not that i'm really working right now anyway. details, details. "TheBus" seems reasonably priced and like it goes everywhere you need, but i can't speak from firsthand experience.

//i'm gettin' paper!
yeah, things are expensive, but not that much more than southern california. plus sales tax is cheaper. we didn't spend much more there than we would in a normal week at home. if you eat mostly local food and go on a poke quest like we did, you'll get large portions of filling food at moderate prices. we didn't do any fine dining since hey, we've got roy's and better fine dining at home, didn't want to wear jackets to the restaurant at halekulani, and we could get FRESH ahi for like $12/pound at hole-in-the-wall places. if you do helicopter rides, boat/sailing/snorkeling/fishing trips (which i've found are pretty much the same in any tropical/beachy locale whether in the atlantic or pacific), or book tours to do stuff, yeah, you'll spend more than us. but honestly, it was super easy to do stuff on our own/not be bussed out with a bunchy of fobby tourists to sites-- we paid less, spent the amount of time we wanted in each place, and got to keep our schedule flexible.

[haleiwa regional beach park, north shore]

detailed food & sightseeing reviews to come.

ugh

2011-07-27T12:32:00.001-07:00

apologies to those of you that saw my whine-fest from yesterday in your blog reader. i hit "publish" instead of "save as draft." it was never meant for public consumption. boo to me.

letter writing campaign

2011-06-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

dear exchange students,

i am so amazed by your english skillz. especially you europeans. i'd never be able to hang in a grad school abroad, especially not with the ridiculous jargon. but you do it and do it well. this program is pretty damn hard already even when going through it in my first language. props.

xoxo,
studiomate

p.s. but please try to skype somewhere that is not your desk. i sit pretty far away from you, and i can still hear you. i take my phone out to the hall when taking calls. i know a laptop is a little more cumbersome, but please.

/////

dear neighbors,

shut. up. we have asked you multiple times in person. we have called the cops on you many times. we understand you're young, inconsiderate, and entitled. we understand you don't understand that many people need to get up early to get to jobs because their parents do not pay their rent or mortgage. i also understand your strange practice hours as i am working on my second creative-ish degree. during the process of getting each, i have kept very strange hours. however, i make use of the studio space the schools provided me so as not to disturb my neighbors with any noise, light, or other disturbance i might cause late at night. i advise you find a freaking soundproof practice room at your school...or somewhere not in a quiet, residential subdivision with otherwise quiet neighbors who all seem to go to work early.

and if you just said to yourself, "i can't believe the neighbors are so crotchety," i laugh. don't worry, you'll be just as crotchety in 10 years. i never thought i would be like this, either.

xoxo,
your tired neighbor & her even tired-er husband

/////

dear professional degree candidates,

it's probably not wise
to borrow over 100k
to go to school
to enter a profession
in which you may never make six figures.

you will probably have major anxiety
during your exit interview
that happens to occur during thesis
during which you're already suffering
from major anxiety.

xoxo,
mm

p.s. i speak not from direct but adjacent experience.

/////

dear los angeles,

i love you. a lot. there are few others places in this country i would rather live. but why do you plot against so many married couples i know (including us) by giving them jobs at opposite ends of southern california? finding affordable housing without having to figure out who should commute how much is already difficult for a couple here. and we'll be even more miz in july when your 405 will be shut down for days. godspeed to us all that week.

xoxo,
angeleno

/////

dear tea,

you're my favorite. that is all.

love,
tea-soaked tater

alternate careers 2

2011-04-13T23:20:00.001-07:00

in honor of my sd card that split in half and spit out its write protection tab last night:
photographer

in honor of what i'm reading right now not for school:
food critic

in honor of my really next post:
lithographer/print maker

alternate careers

2011-04-12T11:39:00.001-07:00

once upon a time, i said i couldn't imagine doing anything else. apparently, i've become more imaginative. or jaded. or a combination of the two.

so, some alternative careers, regardless of whether i have the ability (or any ability at all) or credentials needed for them:
librarian
book binder
graphic designer
sculptor
illustrator
writer
pianist
cartographer

a famed architectural critic recently told me my taste in art is rather archaic. it appears my taste in vocations is as well.

[a more interesting post to come on getting some of my work lithographed at an awesome little press smack in the middle of downtown.]

heavenly villian's lair

2011-03-19T17:43:00.000-07:00

i seriously went on the most amazing [local] field trip ever yesterday. i'm actually not even in the class that scheduled the trip, but my fab friends that are invited me along. we took a tour of the sheats goldstein residence shortly before dusk and then spent sunset/dusk inside the james turrell skyspace called "above horizon." yeah, it's art, but yeah, it's also a space. the house was designed by john lautner, and you might recognize it from the big lebowski, charlie's angels: full throttle, fashion photography shoots, or various works of porn. the instructor of the class worked on this documentary, so he knows the current architect handling "renovations" (if a 10,000 square foot addition and never-ending improvements to the property can be described by that simple word) with whom he arranged our tour.

angelenos, this is a must see. i hear that if you contact the architect, he'll let you know if/when the next tours are scheduled, and you can go, too. there were two random women who joined our tour, and they definitely were not architecture students. they're free, but they just have to be scheduled around james goldstein's travel schedule.

[photo credit]

yes, that's right. that guy you see at every lakers game and nba playoff game lives here. who is he? a fan of fashion, architecture, and basketball, apparently, and also very wealthy. so wealthy he spends most of his time flying to all the fashion shows and nba games he possibly can. so wealthy he has season tickets on the floor for the lakers AND the clippers. so wealthy he buys couture and entire seasons' collections. so wealthy he's bought up all the property from his house at the top of a hill down to the street at the base of it below. so wealthy he planted it all tropical so that the property has a brazilian microclimate. so wealthy he's been continually remodeling this place since he bought it forever ago. so wealthy he's building a 10,000 square foot building with a tennis court on top and guest house, his office, and a full-service nightclub below. i know.

yeah, the whole experience is pretty hollywood, surreal, and almost...disney...on the one hand. on the other hand, i definitely would not mind living there. or vacationing there. or something. the architecture definitely embodies the tenets of organic architecture--create space that is reflective of and complementary to its surroundings and the individual [that occupies it]. the whole experience, especially with the skyspace included, is almost meditative. and just being up there with amazing views, a house that opens up to the outside, lush foliage, and numerous chillax spots all over the house and property makes just being there a vacation.

enough jibba jabba. photos!

lautner was a disciple of frank lloyd wright.
hence the super-compression at the entry.
(which flw, in turn, took from traditional japanese architecture.)

what you see right before you enter.
so serene.

the new building.
tennis courts on top.
guest quarters,
office,
nightclub
below.

model of the estate.
the little pod at the bottom right
is the james turrell piece.

me: "is that matt damon?"
attack: "ummm...i think that's snoop dogg."
me: "not that photo!"
[both die of laughter]
(see dorky, youngish matt damon in back right.)

amazing reflection that only really happens at this time of day.

the real view of the reflection.

these mini skylights are drinking glases.
really.

LOVE the reveal in the ceiling.
one of my fave architectural details here.

yes, those are windows IN the pool.
this house was originally built for a family with five children (the sheatses).
mrs. sheats worked in the space below and liked to watch her children
while they were in the pool.
kind of a sexy detail for a family with FIVE kids.

see? drinking glasses.

the view from the bed in the master bedroom.
swanky chaise/sexy time chair for two.
and the glass at that corner opens.

the view into the pool.
and lots of hats.

love this sink's drainage system.

i guess it just waters some of the jungle.

now it's a wood deck.

now it's a hot tub!

see? total voyeur/sexual detail.
perfect for mr. goldstein's bachelor lifestyle.
not so much for the family with 5 kids.

oh yeah, and there are no rails anywhere.
and lots of sharp, concrete corners.
very kid-unfriendly.
love how the stairs taper.
this is on the way to the skyspace.

the skyspace.

enter. time for captain eo.
i mean, skyspace.
notice how thick the walls are.

everyone loungin' on the grey leather-covered bed that's installed flush with the floor.
the hidden LEDs cycle through a bunch of colors, and a really random mix of music plays.
everything from sting to mozart.

and then...
the hatches open.

notice how thin those edges are.
yeah, it's all carbon fiber and fiberglass.
built with the help of some aerospace engineers.

so the whole point is that at sunrise and sunset,
the color of the sky changes as the color of the lights/walls change.
it totally messes with your perceptions.
first how FLAT the holes/portals appear.
then the color of the sky being SO different against
different-colored backgrounds.

except...the camera doesn't get tricked. the sky always looks the same
in all my photos below.
but really, in person, it's different.
tricky, tricky eyes.

and then, you stand up once the sun has set, and see this amazingness.

red on the left.
attack in the middle.
and the professional [photographer] on the right.

back in the master bedroom, they opened the corner window for us.

sexy.

sexy.
kind of.

GROSS GIANT SPIDER!
this guy was SUPER fat and white.
have never seen a spider like it.
thanks, brazilian microclimate.

bye bye, fishies.

find the rest of my photos here.

the professional's set of photos from our evenings are here. her photos better capture the changing color of the sky in relation to the color of the skyspace.

i kind of want a white russian, all of a sudden. gah-ross.

2011: guts

2011-01-03T01:14:00.000-08:00

i overthink everything. if it's simple, i'll find a way to complicate it. i'm very familiar with mr. analysis paralysis. he visits me all. the. time. especially in our world of 102938748347 choices. i love you internets, but i don't when you give me too many choices.

architecture school, especially the type i go to, aggravates this problem for people like me. what am i like? well, an instructor put it nicely when he said that i'm probably the most conscientious person at my school. meaning i'm super anal, detail-oriented, punctual, and worried about getting things right (even in a place where there often is no right, everyone definition of right differs, and wrong is often actually right...so depraved, i know ;) ).

do i make better decisions because of this? maybe in the everyday. i'm usually very happy with purchases i make, for example. but in everything else? probably not. i just stress more, stew more, and waste more time than the average person. so not worth it.

in the end, you never know how something will turn out until you decide, commit, do it. life never ends up the way i expect anyway, so it's all about just dealing with any and all consequences, expected or not, as they come.

so in 2011, guts.

_trust my guts. instinct. judgment. whatever you like to call it. and act on what they tell me.

_listen to my conscience. and obey. so help me God.

_listen to what moves me. even if it's trite or silly or outrageous. and make note of it. not necessarily analyze right away, but tuck it away for later reflection, and allow for it to simply be in my mind.

_have the guts to put it out there. this is so hard in any creative endeavor, because no matter how good a job you do at removing yourself from the work, you always feel like you're putting part of yourself out there for the world to pick apart. and you feel so vulnerable and naked. you'd think by now i have a really thick skin after an undergrad design degree and almost three years of arch school, but i seem to be regressing. i wasn't afraid of just putting anything out there/up on the wall for critique when i started grad school, but i've gotten more and more scared. which doesn't help me learn or grow at all.

_be decisive! be be decisive! most decisions will have both good and bad consequences anyway, so i'll trust my God-given judgment and life experience to guide me rather than hours and hours of analysis in my head, on paper, in conversation with anyone who'll listen, etc.

_man up and own the consequences. really own all of it.

_when the choice isn't so hot, be kind to myself. yeah, i feel old, but i'm really not that old and don't have *that* much life experience. i'll learn eventually, and this will teach me. when i make what turns out to be an awesome choice, give the guts some credit.

i hope my gutsiness is quite so...pink.

[image from last fall's thesis presentations]

this guy got REALLY close to me somewhere up the coast.

guts.

but his guts (and experience) probably told him i'd feed him.

wrong.

but at least i had no intention of hurting him, either.

right, there.

dressed up lobster guts!

(well, flesh, i guess. whatever, i dug it out from the shell.)

i know it'll be scary. hopefully it'll be just as rewarding as it is scary.

bye bye 2010 / san francisco, again

2010-12-31T20:51:00.000-08:00

i started new year's eve quite grumpily. i finally woke up feeling human again after two days of being sick to my stomach with i-still-don't-know-what. we had a nice couple of days in vegas with some friends who were visiting from seattle, but we all got sick while there in one form or another. because of the two days of laying around and groaning in pain, i'm way behind schedule on this portfolio that's due monday (it's already going to be late, but i had a doable plan b. it's now potentially onto plan c). i still have no idea what i'm going to write for my first-pass thesis that's due next week, and who knows if i'll even have time to do it if this portfolio-making stretches on. and i woke up this morning because my phone notified me of an email. from my part-time job. saying they need something done by monday. which will put me even further behind on this portfolio-making. and then...you get the idea.

and while 2010 was a whole lot better than 2009, it's still been a tough year. and i was just feeling a bit sad overall. to the point where i started tearing up while laughing really hard while watching an episode of modern family with the bear. emo, much?

and then i started getting down on myself because i am just not one of those people that is always happy, optimistic, and generally in a good mood even when life sucks. and wondered why i can't be one of those people naturally. i know i can eventually with a lot of work, but it's not my nature.

but then i read something that both shamed and encouraged me at the same time about just that.

and then the bear and i fought. probably mostly because i was so grumpy. and made up. and he was so sweet about it and trying to make me happy afterward.

and then my twirlies (online and IRL friends that keep up daily via twitter) started listing their 2010 highlights.

and then i gave myself a break from the portfolio to reflect a little and blog.

and that was that.

2010 wasn't great, but it was good. it was tough. really tough. but in the end, what's tough is what's memorable and worth fighting for, right? and despite the hard stuff, i have so much to be thankful for.

like this mini vacation the bear and i took, um 6 months ago!

the ferry building.

where we feasted mostly with the eyes.

because our bellies were full.

and about to be filled with restaurant-week, michelin-starred food.

(not that good.

i can't even remember the name of place we ate.)

so sweet.

so tart.

so red.

the bear said i should wear the brown shirt.

ha.

ugh. heath ceramics.

in three of my favorite colors.

so cute.

what's in the cute cooler, you ask?

tasty. salted. pig. parts.

yum.

no, i didn't try the salumi cone.

so stinky in here.

stinks so good.

the bear had to get out.

so bustling.

on farmer's market day.

we indulged in a lot of deliclous [sic] dim sum while here.

although not here. i just took a picture here.

yes, we know LA's dim sum is better and cheaper.

but we did the $1/steamer, super hole-in-the wall,

to-go-by-default (1 table in the tiny place),

eaten-in-the-hotel-room (while pretending it was room service)

version.

yes, i know there are places like this in LA chinatown

not too far from my school. and the sgv.

but doing it in SF, in our hotel room

made it way more fun.

speaking of our hotel...

yes, it was a chain.

yes, it's an older hotel.

no, it wasn't in/near union square.

but we thought it was fab for the price.

and its location was fine for us.

many are put off by its exterior, brutalist stylings.

but not us. i heart brutalism.

(but probably not the brutalism you're thinking of).

and look at the interior!

you fancy, huh elevators contrast with the concrete.

light streams in from above throughout the atrium.

and the atrium is definitely grand.

as all good atria should be.

i promise i didn't drink much while there.

maybe i was trying to be sugimoto?

why are sea lions so fun to watch?

the bear and i tried to rush past the crowds.

despite the clear, blue skies.

it was freezing.

and windy.

typical bay area trick on the socal-ers.

but.

we got sucked in.

and even climbed up on something for a better view.

and watched their antics for a long time.

happy 20th anniversary at the pier, whiskered ones!

see those korean tourists on that stoop?

yeah, tourists.

no, that's not their stoop.

yeah, they're sitting there

waiting

so they can take photos of the trolley

as it's being turned.

this could have been a cute photo.

sans cars.

charcoal grey shingles!

crisp white trim!

bright, red-orange doors!

meant to go see nervi's st. mary's cathedral.

ended up at grace cathedral instead.

still beautiful.

just in a very different way.

inside,
they were taking photos of couples

that had been married over 30 years.

maybe one day,

that'll be the bear and me.

that'd be awesome.

and of course did some window shopping

in union square.

no photo, but my favorite memory.

is the bear taking me out for ramen

somewhere near union square.

late, late at night.

because i was complaining that

we were an old, boring, married couple.

despite the aggressive bum we encountered on our way.

who complained about how little the handful of change

we gave him

added up to.

really?!?

oh, and the poo the bear stepped in somewhere in chinatown.

while dropping me off in line

to get my beloved dan tat.

yes, i said poo.

no, we couldn't get it out

from between the treads on his shoes.

yes, we had to replace the shoes.

but the dan tats were as delicious as ever.

bye bye, san francisco.

hello, 2011

buried under piles

2010-12-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

first, piles of water. yes, it's stormwatch 2010 here in socal, but this time it's actually justified. it's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring, and all of that. no photo needed as you're either in it or have seen photos of it online.

second, virtual piles. i finally just marked everything as read in my google reader after half a day of trying to catch up. i've cleaned up my email and only have a few outstanding things to respond to. my inbox is back to manageable levels. whew.

next, portfolio pile (with a fun gift from my secret santa on top! :). and uh, my phone got thrown in that pile somehow, too). yes, it's winter break, no i do not get a real break. we have a gateway portfolio due on 1/3 (need to submit in order to continue on in the program). we start classes 1/10. we have another portfolio and a first pass at our thesis statements due 1/14. oh, and sometime before then we have to submit our real first pass at our thesis statements due online w/preferences for thesis prep advisors. as if thesis is not stressful enough, they've decided to start the stress early over the break before thesis prep even officially begins. yay! oh, and the email informing us of the thesis-related deadlines was sent right in the middle of finals. they really love us.

next, a pile of i don't even know what. in this, i found paper samples from french paper co. for the portfolio; a requisition for blood work (routine, no worries) from my primary care physician from oh, over 6 months ago; a few bills; and my notebook from my still-unfinished internship from over the the summer.

yikes. a pile of books i brought back from studio. no, they won't all fit on our shelves, although i tried. in the bevmo bag is a pile (external hard drive) 1 terabyte big that is almost full and needs to be sorted. in the foreground is a pile of drawings that i spent all day scanning yesterday and threw in the recycling bin this morning. whee!

pile in disguise. the one to the left just needs homes for the stuff in it. the orange box is seriously totally full of things "to be filed." but the cute photo of the bear and me on top, plus the happy orange with labels i have yet to write on hide this pile quite well. ;)

tower of magazines pile. this rainy weather is perfect for curling up on the couch with my slanket, some tea, and these magazines. too bad the other piles have priority. what does tater read, or eventually read years later, you ask? fast company, the atlantic, vogue, elle, interview, wired, and i forget what else. thank you, expiring airline miles, for this eclectic pile.

despite my pile of whining above, things are ok. another semester is finished, which means i am one semester closer to graduating. we have the means so that i can choose to study something i love, even if the process/journey is pretty damn difficult. the bear is awesome. our families are doing ok. i'm happier and less crazed than i was this time last year. and it's the holiday season!

ok, back to piledriving. unfortunately, it's not quite as fun as zangief makes it out to be.

domestic bliss...not

2010-09-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

while there is no doubt that i am thoroughly enjoying my mini break, my neighborhood is conspiring to annoy the heck out of me.

exhibit a:
a house nearby is undergoing major construction. they start at like 6 AM. they're even there on weekends, sometimes.

i guess i should just be grateful that for now, i have a reprieve from meeting contractors on site at like 7 AM or before 2 PM because they/their guys will be gone by then.

exhibit b:
it seems like they street clean every other day or so. or the trash truck comes.
funny, because the street isn't that clean, and we only have trash cans out once a week.
probably just a huge truck taking our mini, old street that can barely let 2 normal-sized cars squeeze through at the same time. no idea why they don't use the major, wider streets.

exhibit c:

yep, i'm a total voyeur.

this man across the street has been sanding the trim on his house for days. maybe weeks.
the problem is, i think he's sanding with the smallest sander ever.
like a dremel with the smallest attachment possible.
(basically the size of the thing the dentist uses to polish your teeth).
so he is sanding with the world's smallest sander for around 8 -10 hours a day straight.
i'm surprised the sander's motor hasn't given out.
or that he hasn't blacked out the whole neighborhood from excessive electricity usage.
and when i open my windows to get a lovely breeze in, it gets 100 times louder.

in better news, we got grass!

so fresh and so clean.
i'm a freak that feels guilty about how much water lawns use whenever i look at one.
but even i must admit this makes our yard look so much better and more...
...verdant.
and peaceful.
(like that foundation that supports NPR.
wait, maybe they want a more just and verdant world.)

mini break!

2010-08-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

my internship/full-time contract job is up for now (finishing up the work during the fall), so now i can blog again! since it's so hot here right now, i'm going to blog about my trip to toronto on the coldest weekend in january in hopes of cooling down our no a/c, no insulation, sauna of a house. never mind that this trip was 7 months ago.

oh, and remember this was a school field trip, so i don't have many photos of people, but i do have lots of photos of buildings and things. yay non-humans!

the seats on my shuttle bus from the airport had outlets for your charging use.
nice.
but weird.

a spot of tea to start our first morning.
i love drinking tea out of clear glasses.

we ate a lot of crepes.
there was a good crepe shop near our hotel.
it was open late.
and it served alcohol.
because the trip was so last-minute and jam-packed, i didn't get to plan my eating as i usually do.
so i ate a lot of crepes.

the approach.

"look! it's an insect f*cking a building!"
-jeff kipnis
actually, it's will alsop's addition to the ontario college of art & design.

a view across a park from OCAD to gehry's AGO (art gallery of ontario).

gridded.

entrance to gehry-designed AGO.

squiggly ramps.

we got there just as the museum was closing.
no art or king tut for us. boo.

i need another wedding (to the bear again, of course)
so i can register for nicer tableware.

libeskind's michael lee-chin crystal
(addition to the ROM/royal ontario museum).

the house of spirits or some other silly nonesuch.
the floor is made up of grates.
greenish light shines up through the grates.
and some weird noises also come up through the grates.
oh, and those metal shards are libeskind-designed chairs.

dirty sanchez and me fooling around in the chamber.

where new addition meets old, existing building.

stairs.

dizzy.

i found a bear since mine couldn't join me for this trip.
excuse my pancake face's mac tonight profile.

an older part of the museum,
in contrast.

looking at where old meets new, again.
through a piece of art.

slanty columns.
one reason why engineers hate architects.

almost looks like an occlusion render.
but it's a photo of dirty sanchez, JC, and sparkles.

"this is where cats go to die."
-andrew zago.
but that's not a cat. that's JC.
one of the problems that occurs when you design non-orthogonal spaces.

bugs!!!

michelin man!
j/k. it's some sort of rock.

hi! i'm cute!

hi. i'm not as cute.

barf.

this guy looks quite sad.

a morphosis dorm building. and yes, it says "toronto" all big.
you might know morphosis from diamond ranch high school and the caltrans building downtown.

i believe this blue blob is sir norman foster's.
but i might be wrong.

more crepe. this one's a late night one.
nutella and banana!

steamed milk.
tomato soup.
yet another crepe.

kydrich, TT, and i did venture to chinatown for a (cheap!) dinner.
food was good, but nothing we can't get here.
like our parents, we suddenly craved asian food after
eating only "western" food for days.

calatrava.

more calatrava.

a fabulous market adjoining the site for our project that semester.

some sort of canadian bacon rolled in peameal.
i had a breakfast sandwich with some.
delicious.

like the US.
only with lots of maple leaves to remind you it's not.

don't even get me started on toronto's hockey team's name.
the maple leafs [sic].
yeah.

sriracha! just like home!
and another maple leaf. maybe not just like home.

if for any reason you need a faberge egg
of an event space
in toronto,
check out st. lawrence hall (north of the market buildings).

random sculpture.
i prefer my bears non-radioactive, tyvm.
we took a class photo with the bears
as it was one part of the trip where we were all in one spot
at the same time.
i don't have a copy, unfortunately.

pork. yum.

the market hall.

more market.

above the main floor, there is a mezzanine--
a miele demo kitchen.
(perhaps one day i'll have a miele dishwasher
and
built-in espresso pod machine
and
double convection ovens
and
vacuum cleaner).
for now, i settled for free coffee samples.

there is a beverly hills miele store on robertson
that offers cooking demos using their kitchen appliances
and demos of their other stuff.
i no longer receive invites.
maybe because i haven't specified their stuff in awhile.
sigh.
maybe you can act like you're rich and going to buy their stuff,
get an invite,
and bring me along.

what to do when you don't have a tripod.
use a friend's head.
that's hansley rutherford (formerly fuzzface) as the photographer.
and kydrich as the tripod.

miele stuff.

so hansley rutherford and i may have
picked up some spiriteux here.
then some coffee at the starbucks a few doors down.
and mixed them.
and sipped as we froze our hands off
while measuring and photographing like 5 blocks of buildings.

schoolyard beaver.
seriously, this is in an urban schoolyard. ha.

another shot of the outside of st. lawrence market south hall.

notice the sign behind the fence.
just like home.

kydrich and i introduced TT to one of our favorite meals
that we assembled from various vendors at the market.
TT is straight from china and not very familiar with cheese.
peppercorn encrusted duck pate.
a freshly baked baguette, which we had sliced for us.
and cheese.
oh, this was a glorious cheese.
and yes, it was too much for the 3 of us and our wimpy
plastic knives.
we left it with a friend who lives in toronto.
so.
sad.
oh, it was a fontina washed/soaked in raspberry.
the sweet-tart aroma and subtle flavor of raspbery in the rind
balanced the richness of the fontina.
so.
good.
like seriously.

it's a lake, not an ocean.

west 8's simcoe wave deck.
part of the waterfront revitalization stuff.

taking a warming break inside a mies building.
on mies chairs.
that's TT all bundled up.

toronto has this network of underground tunnels that connect buildings.
it's lined with shops. so it feels like a mall.
again, weird. but good when it's below 0 FAHRENHEIT outside.
we walked that to get here.

mies from the outside.

more mies.

behnisch architekten.
really nice atrium inside.
some science building at the university of toronto.

the end.

oh wait, no! there were some food trucks (like real roach coaches, not these gentrified things all over LA these days) that parked across the street from our hotel at night.
so kydrich and might have snarfed some poutine.
and ate it too quickly before either of us had a chance to take a photo.
oink.

there was also something called winterfest happening across the street from our hotel.
oh yeah, the hotel we stayed at was sheraton city center or something.
a pretty standard sheraton, but you can't beat the location and its easy access
to public transportation (like you take an escalator from the lobby down underground,
and you're there in the tunnels and near a subway station).
or the discount that our toronto-native studiomate's travel agent mom got us.
oh, and toronto is VERY walkable with good public transport.
i love cities like that.
anyway, winterfest.
live music.
shows.
an outdoor ice rink.
fireworks.
a surprising number of people out and about despite the freezing temperatures.

we got there too late to ice skate.
but got a cute photo at least.
that's big T (california girl).
kydrich (california girl).
me (california girl).
and freckles (grew up in boston, but california girl for the past 5 years).
yes, we were cold.
but still smiling.

fin.

busy busy

2010-08-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

lots to blog, no time to blog it.

i was gonna do a quickie "happy anniversary to the bear!" post, but i got home late that night, and the computer i was surfing on didn't have any pictures of us on it (or any personal pictures, for that matter). so happy belated anniversary, bear! i can't believe it's been three years! thanks for your love, patience, and hard work. i love you with all my heart.

work is keeping me pretty busy. winnie even made me a spreadsheet to help me keep track of my responsibilities. note that this only keeps track of currently active jobs. i do have a freelance job or two that is not listed because they're on hold for now.

[redaction brought to you by today's color: chartreuse!]

oh, and here's my current happy song.

so summery, so carefree, so chartreuse, so...happy. :)

ok, my new goal is one "real" blog post before school starts up again in less than a month (!).

it's been awhile

2010-07-30T21:38:00.001-07:00

it' so hard to blog when you fall out of the habit of doing it regularly. then you finally start, and blogger crashes. without saving your entry. ugh.

but i'm here! so let's do this. a lot has happened in the last couple of months, so i don't know where to begin. i'd love to post photos, but i haven't been such a good asian lately. i'm out of practice with the camera, too, and find myself hesitant to even take it out much less use it. i do have some, but they're all either on the other compuer, on my external hard drive, or still in the camera. yeah, i've been lazy about transferring and uploading, too.

so i guess we'll have to settle for a photo-less yay/boo for now since i haven't done one of these in forever, either. or maybe a boo/yay since it's more fun to end on a happy note.

boo sickness!
our family doggie passed.
my stepdad was diagnosed with cancer. stage IV.
my grandmother isn't doing so well and has been moved into a home for 24/7 care (in korea).
yay!
doggie provided a lot of love and companionship for our family for 14 years.
stepdad is miraculously doing well. he's responding well to the initial surgery and rounds of chemo, and his spirits are and strength is high.

boo.
i got a [computer] virus, one of my main hard drives died (most of my data was on another drive in the same computer, thank God), and one of my email accounts got hacked.
yay!
i got a new laptop that is supposedly more secure.
boo.
it's a mac. yes, i've crossed over to the dark side. please have mercy on my soul.
and dang os x 10.6.whatever i'm on cannot print to PDF, only save to PDF. this is a major problem for me, especially when school starts again.
yay!
bear replaced the dead hard drive so my desktop still runs windows (but the more secure windows 7). i can use the PC to print to PDF.
and yay!
the mac is pretty and runs well so far. ugh, i feel so dirty.

boo.
i haven't socialized much this summer, despite being on break.
yay!
for the past month or so at least, it's because i am employed. finally. i found an internship for the last bit of the summer and a part-time, work-at-home gig. whee!
boo.
i work a lot.
yay!
i have jobs! that i enjoy (but still stress me out)! i have mini income!

boo.
i can't afford any of the lovely trips on jetsetter. or even travelzoo top 20.
yay!
the bear and i did take a long weekend up to SF and a road trip up the coast to monterey with his crazy uncle and cousins. i'll have to post the few photos i took from those trips soon.

boo.
i had another birthday that brings me very close to 30.
yay!
i hear your 30s are better than your 20s, or something like that.

boo.
i am at my heaviest. i can't fit in any of my pants. like i REALLY can't because i can't just go around without them unbuttoned all day. no, they won't even button when i suck in. not only that, this time, i'm way flabbier, vein-ier, wrinklier, and just plain old-seeming than the other times i've gotten to this weight.
yay!
i've discovered the comfort that is dresses with leggings and cute flats. it's almost as comfy as wearing PJs all day.

boo.
still plagued by self-doubt thanks to this fun thing called grad school and a bleak job market.
yay!
my overall mental health, emotional health, and spirits have improved somewhat over this summer. i've been blessed with both some relaxing time and work, which have helped a lot.

boo.
the bear and i feel old.
yay!
we're enjoying growing old together thus far. our anniversary is coming up next week. it's the leather anniversary. heh. heh.
boo.
the other day, the bear said, "you're the perfect person for me, except for the fact that you use twitter."
yay!
the other day, the bear said, "you're the perfect person for me..." selective hearing rocks.

boo
too many parentheses and brackets!
yay!
it's my blog.

i promise i'll have pictures next time, and that next time will be sooner than in a couple of months.

last night...

2010-06-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

...i found out i'm not as scared of toddlers anymore. i actually had fun playing with a tow-headed, energetic, car- and book-loving one last night. it also helped that we only had an hour to play before his bedtime.

...lakers won!

...i found out i don't mind cats as much if i've taken a [generic] zyrtec ahead of time. i even let one claw then sit in my lap for a bit. in a knit dress, no less.

...stupid LA people lit stuff on fire, etc. as usual.

...i made chocolate guinness cupcakes with cream cheese glaze. yum. really light and moist cake with a lighter-feeling take on cream cheese frosting.

...i made a delicious salad but didn't take pictures and winged the recipe. mixed baby greens, steamed asparagus, tomatoes, grilled yellow nectarines, red onions, feta, ginger + thyme vinaigrette (with fresh thyme from my new plant!). except i forgot the feta at home. oops. maybe i'll try again/test it and write a recipe.

and now i have keyshia cole/p. diddy stuck in my head.

yep, just for you. so you can "enjoy" the music in my head, too.

go shorty, it's your birthday

2010-06-02T17:56:00.000-07:00

yup, we were up in da club for baby cee's first birthday. ok fine, so it was at a lounge. close enough. and yeah, wan already blogged this in a much more timely manner.

as we stepped in, the first thing we noticed was the cute decor that had just enough whimsy so it was still very tasteful.

(i might have contributed the chesire cat cut-out.)

(mad hatter's hair was...challenging...to cut out of foam core)

a very late rabbit in front of a cute display of lots of baby cee photos.

i was disappointed how small i had to make the cut-outs in the end, but at least they were about the the right height for the young 'uns there.

and finally, a wall of patron.

the bear and i were a little early, so we watched/helped winnie set up the photobooth.

this was the original setup, in some nice open shade.
too bad it was SO windy that day--windy enough to pick up and rip the backdrop.

so we moved it in here.
i promise the photos actually taken in the photobooth are probably much better.

it was a nice party. a good mix of adults and kids, chinese food for lunch, cupcakes and madeleines for dessert, laid back, and with good company.

kids lounged and played.

some drank.

i ate pocky.

people posed.

birthday girl had her cake and ate it too.

some (wan's bean) lolled about on the ground while using an iphone.

some (the bear) sat about while using an iphone.

happy birthday, baby cee!
and congrats to lilcee and mr. cee for making it through the first year. ;)

iphone dump

2010-05-30T21:40:00.001-07:00

yep, it's that time again! but this time, it's been over a year since my last iphone dump. here's the past year according to my iphone.

about half the adhesives i have at school.

oxymoron.
(sorry, vegetarians! while i'm not a huge meat-eater and love me a garden or black bean burger once in awhile, i'm not a fan of meat substitutes when there really is no subsitute.)

you might want to return that ill-fitting hat.

yep, that he does.
(spotted while shopping for a 1 year old's birthday. i'm a nerd that always gives books.)

when it was our studio's turn to throw the weekly happy hour.
yes, you see PBR, tecate, mgd, miller lite, and even steel reserve.
we're klassy, obvs.

JC trapped by the adorable puppy.

jason mraz at the hollywood bowl.
the bear and i enjoyed the garden box very much.
probably mostly because of the chairs and food we brought.

ziggy the best labradoodle.

love the shadow on the juror's shirt.

my mexican wrestler banana.

an oh-nay-zee (onesie for the rest of you) that the bear and i "designed" for our angels fans parents-to-be friends.
please ignore the off-centeredness.

even dear old blue the long-haired dachsund found structures class to be boring.

thanksgiving pie shuffle at school.
school bought 500+ pies for every student, faculty, and staff member.
you could keep your pie or donate it to charity.

more pie shuffle pie.

building a bridge out of spaghetti.
yes, there are some limp noodles on the ground as well.
since we're mature grad students, we flung said wet noodles at each other while building the bridge.

part of my scaled figure army.

the night the bear and i found out that china is the world's largest beer producer. because budweiser has breweries there. don't worry. we didn't drink budweiser at father's office.
i wanted to try the "unibroue terrible" just for its name, but they were out.

two snuffly bulldogs at a friend's birthday bbq.

just chillin' in a hallway at school.
this is pair of random panties in a public place #2 i have encountered.
ick.

saw some of neutra's amazing drawings and forward-thinking work at the central library.

drank quite a few of urth caffe's green tea lattes.
although most were out of paper cups back at my desk.

this asian "tour group" was taking pictures of us WHILE we were in a crit. HUH?
we were puzzled. and felt like zoo animals.

so i took a picture of a guy taking a picture of us.

a city of the future, powered by potatoes.

library carrels transformed for the exhibit that the above potato stuff was in.
yep, life-size cut-outs of each of the architects' whose work was featured.

beautiful arrangement of california poppies my stepdad's boss brought him.
who woulda thunk those bendy, scraggly things often seen from the freeway could be so pretty?

one of the bear's work vendors gave him a $20 visa gift card.
so of course we went on a shopping spree at harbor freight.
no, we didnt' buy the huge wrench although i was tempted to buy it as wall decor.
we did, however, score two bagfuls of stuff with just $20.
the loot included 500 pairs of earplugs, a level, calipers, a telescoping magnet, and i can't even remember what else.

a lovely spot of tea (and ranunculus. and water. and maybe a warm goat cheese salad. oh and maybe a bacon and maple biscuit.) at huckleberry.

bye bye bad tree

2010-05-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

when we moved in, there were three large trees in our backyard. one of our neighbors behind us turned out to be a landscaper, and he said they were huge ficus. they were really nice in the shade they provided, and how many people in southern california can say they have hundred year old trees in their yard? my bear may not have a hundred acre wood like his cousin winnie, but he had hundred year wood in his yard. plus they definitely mitigated heat island effect and heat-in-our-house effect. plus i had dreams of hosting fabulous dinner parties in the dirt patch beneath them on a warm, summer's evening with twinkle lights thread through their branches, perhaps on my 30th birthday.

too bad they were some bad, bad trees.

first, they dropped fruit ALL summer long. the fruit looked like berries, crushed into sneezy, yellow powder when you stepped on it, and worst of all attracted birds that like to eat it. then it was determined they were invasive. there were whole chunks of concrete in the driveway that were not only cracked but were lifted so high that they formed new steps. there were plumbing issues, and it was determined the roots of the trees were endangering the pipes. lastly, i'm sure there were many rabid squirrels up in its expansive branches. ew.

why past tense? because the trees are no more. as of today, they are all gone. one was removed a few months ago, and the remaining two were noisily killed, ground up, and taken away today.

before:

for reference, the fence below the trees is about six feet tall.

see? lots of branches for birds, squirrels, and other vermin. i think some of our neighbors' cats used to lurk up there, too.

so...bare. and so exposed to our annoying, loud, "musical" (they try, but it sounds really, really bad) neighbors.

i hope they were at least disposed of in the least wasteful way possible--perhaps they're off to a paper factory? yeah, i'm a little sad. over trees. oh, brother.

but yay! no more vermin!

while i was outside taking the before photos, i noticed some other things. like, "oh, we have roses."

and, "oh, our thai pepper plants are actually growing!" (all thanks to the bear, none to me).

and, "oh, the bougainvillea is blooming again."

i don't usually notice these types of things from my usual spot at my desk.

today, while i was taking the after photos, i went to check our mail. as i did, a notice fluttered down to the ground from our doorknob. it was something from the department of public works saying something about impending tree removal. what? our tree was privately removed by a private company hired by our private landlords. and it's finished already. then i noticed a corresponding notice ON a tree that is planted in the sidewalk in front of our house while simultaneously noticing the horribly cracked and patched sidewalk near it.

i guess it's bye bye to another bad tree.

spring 2010 tunes

2010-05-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

i love grooveshark. although its suggestions/radio aren't quite as good as pandora, it's completely free with no monthly listening limits, and you can listen to anything on demand when YOU want to listen to it. it totally got me through this past semester.

so here's a little widget with a good portion of my playlist from this past semester. it's quite...eclectic. a few instrumental things (mostly film music) because when i really need to think, i can't deal with lyrics/singing. a tiny bit of hip hop (i listened to a lot more from my own mp3 library). a little bit of [non-elevator] jazz. some female singer/songwriter tunes. some trip hop so i can pretend i'm an oh-so-hip designer that's made it with a studio that streams oh-so-hip easy listening. and some cheery vampire weekend (despite the lyrics). shouts to skims, fuzzface, and kcrw for helping me making some of these [new to me] music discoveries over the past few months.

memorizing poetry

2010-05-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

in tenth grade, our composition teacher made us memorize poetry. it's one of the few things he still remembers from high school to this day, he told us. then he proceeded to recite one of them. word for word.

i don't remember any of the poems we memorized. just the subject matter, vaguely. a walt whitman about the wall neighbors rebuild every spring between them, one about the assassination of president lincoln ("oh captain, my captain," i think it was), another about king ozymandius, the wiliam carlos williams one about the red wheelbarrow. see? famous poetry. i can't even remember the poets or the titles for most. i could google, but i don't.

at emo times in my life, i remember memorizing the poems (although not the poetry itself) and wish i still read poetry. concise, simple, powerful, evocative. the way i want the things i create to be.

too bad i am wordy and complicated.

when it's over

2010-05-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

it's not really over. still must finish [way] overdue assignment. then portfolio. then job search. then purge all this crap i brought home from studio and all this crap i've been accumulating and my overzealous files filled with crap i don't need to keep (especially since i have PDFs of a lot of it, too). can summer start already?

but i can sit at home and in my PJs all day while doing all of the above. for now. which is awesome.

random, current thoughts:

i am exhuasted. still. i've been sleeping pretty well and a lot for the past week. dr. maas was right in psych 101. you can never make up for sleep debt.
bear loves me. i love the bear.
tonight, i had yogurtland. and newcastle. happy potato.
i really want a puppy. but i really don't. because we'd be violating the lease of this cute (if musty) bungalow. because i'd be a horrible dog mom. because, quite frankly, i don't want the responsibility of caring for another living thing right now. i can barely care for myself. luckily, the bear is a self-sufficient adult.
we have two weddings this summer! yay! it's been a local wedding drought up in the potatobear household for awhile. i love weddings. still.
i still feel shitty about myself and don't love me that much. this past school year has taken a big toll on my self-image and confidence. just when i was finally starting to "peer inside yourself/you take the things you like/and try to love the things you don't" (thanks, regina) starting from my mid-twenties.
by the way...how did late twenties and thirty-really-soon creep up on me so fast? probably while i was so obsessed with schoolwork i wasn't looking.
but the bear loves me. my friends love me. even if i'm not on super fantabulous terms with my family right now, they love me. and i love them all. and will be able to love them all better soon...once i can love me again.
i miss blogging.
i miss really cooking/baking.
i need to exercise this summer. like really this time, not just the last 2-3 weeks of it.
i was gonna blog my toronto field trip. but i only have photos of buildings. and food. not many of people. oops.
i want to travel to far away places. badly. but can't.
forgot how nice low-key days just sitting at home with the bear can be. even if it makes us old farts.
tired. bedtime.

beyond banal

2010-04-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

billboards ask me some very important questions on my way into school every morning.

last year's question:
"do you leak when you sneeze?"

this year's question:
"pain medication causing constipation?"

so you know

2010-04-06T21:44:00.001-07:00

how women in new york sometimes carry tennis shoes to change into from their heels for the commute?

well i carry sweatpants to change into to make the long nights much more bearable and comfortable.

that is all.

photo fun

2010-03-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

up to this point, i've deliberately not posted school stuff here, but freckles and i had too much fun using gramps' macro lens on my d60 body today while taking photos for a stop-motion animation we're doing using this funky model we fabricated during the first half of the semester. and some of the images are rather pretty (thanks to the lens, not the photographer) and a good reflection of the gorgeous day it was today. so i thought i'd share.

what does the whole thing look like without the magic of the macro lens?

yeah, not quite as exciting. this is making me hungry for lenses now. not good.

oh, and don't ask me what this has to do with architecture. you really don't wanna hear a diatribe from me mostly in jargon.

so how am i doing after my deleting of a total debbie downer post that had already disseminated via RSS feeders? better.

see?

sleepy, but naps are my friend and keep me going.

dazed & confused, especially when my studio instructor is talking to me, but happy faces to make me smile can be found in the most unexpected, unnoticed places.

[special thanks to kydrich and her quickness on the iphone camera for capturing me from across the way at the most opportune moments.]

i love LA

2010-02-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

so much so that i went on a walking tour of downtown for my urban planning class this rainy morning. well, plus attendance was mandatory. it was nice to walk around downtown, rather than driving, feel it at that scale, and directly see the consequences of certain urban planning movements while talking about it. our instructor knows his stuff, regarding both urbanism and los angeles, so it was a good walk/talk.

i took the dusty dSLR along for a few shots.

did you know this is downtown? me neither. once upon a time, the lights glowed, the ladybug pod things played music, and a laser shot out of the top of it. the lights/sound broke shortly after its installation in the 70s, and the FAA nixed the laser right away.

the seam.
i know the reason for the gap, but it still bugs.

the original grove. el pueblo/olvera street ain't that authentic. buildings were relocated to create a dense, central area to attract people to the area during the great depression. yet another constructed/fabricated/contrived los angeles attraction.

our itinerary:
union station
el pueblo de los angeles/olvera street/avila adobe
metro mall
city hall
angel's flight
the music center
disney concert hall
cal plaza
grand central market
the bradbury building

yay for doing something i've always wanted to do but never have. yay for schooling that lets me/makes me do these things i want to do.

back to the drawing board (er computer, er mouse/keyboard?)

anybody out there?

2010-02-06T17:49:00.001-08:00

i won't blame you if you haven't stuck around. it's been forever since i've written anything interesting or at all on here. yep, school's in full swing again. so far, this semester is a lot more sane and to my taste, even if i'm still super behind and don't feel like i've produced much yet this semester.

so yeah. school. went to toronto for a few days for a field trip, on the coldest days of january. i'll do a photo-filled entry on that eventually. so yeah. nothing to really write since life is pretty much all school all the time.

oh yeah, i have been shortblogging (like shorthand?) on tumblr. i have a mess of bookmarks of things that i don't want to blog here as then this will become a messy scrapbook (not that it's much better than that anyway), and i don't want to broadcast every.single.thing i find via fb statuses. plus most of you and my facebook friends just don't care about most of my nerdy links. if you're still interested, check it out. i have some things besides architecture-related and food politics-related stuff on there. i promise.

take it easy 2010

2010-01-09T00:25:00.000-08:00

my friend, the developer, was at a bar in koreatown a few months ago. she was with another friend. the developer set her purse on the ground as there was nowhere else to put it. her friend was smartly wearing a crossbody bag, so she could keep it on throughout their night out. a few minutes later, an older, asian woman (owner?) walks by, grabs her purse, hands it to her, and exclaims, "take it easy!!!"

the developer is surprised, takes her bag back, and starts to set it down on the floor again. when the bag was halfway down to the ground, the lady grabs her purse and exclaims once again, "take it easy!" the developer and her friend are quite baffled, feel like they may have committed some sort of faux pas against this woman's mother culture despite being the opposite of disruptive since their arrival, and return to their drinks.

not long after, the friend's boyfriend shows up. he sits down with the girls, casually draping his jacket over his chair. after some time has passed, the asian woman comes rushing at them again, grabbing his jacket, which has since somehow slipped to the floor, practically shouting, "take it easy!!!" it was then that my friends realized that they had a very different definition of "take it easy" than their hostess.

and why am i telling you this random, secondhand story? because that is my motto for 2010. take it easy. my friends' understanding of the phrase, that is, not the crazy asian lady's. it's not a resolution or a goal, because everything in my personality goes against this simple concept, so i am most definitely incapable of doing it on my own or achieving it to any sort of successful degree. plus it's not exactly quantifiable anyway.

the first half of 2009 was fine for me. i was doing well in school, enjoying my friends and family when i could manage to see them between all the schoolwork, and received some palpable recognition for my hard work. the second half was not so fine, and not just because of the added stresses or external circumstances that came along in that second half. it was mostly because i can't take it easy. i got in my own way even more than usual, which in turn hurt my grades, hurt my creative process, hurt my enjoyment of this amazing opportunity to attend grad school, hurt my productivity, and hurt some of my relationships. and so the majority of 2009 was so, so difficult and unhappy for me. hence my avoidance of any sort of reflection, even via blogging, throughout the year's end and even more than a week into the new year.

the other night, i finally had a good time of reflection while looking through old journal entries, especially those from during other stressful times in my life. i had a lot of good quotes, devotions, verses, prayers, and thoughts jotted down. i daresay me a few years ago is wiser than present me. while reading and praying, something that i could not understand in the midst of the stress, sleep-deprivation, and struggle, even if my brain knew it and kept telling me, became clear. i have been depending too much on me and consequently expecting way too much from myself. everything that's been driving me nuts stems from just that.

so i can't do it all on my own. and that's ok. in fact, it's normal. we're social creatures designed to need others.

and learning to take it easy. i've tried and tried before as my journal reminded me. it's obvious i can't do it on my own. i need the help of the bear (who has been so patient and supportive despite frequent meltdowns, emo episodes, etc.). help from my family, with whom i'm not so close with right now because of happenings in late 2009. my friends' help. my studiomates' help. perhaps professional help. and most of all, His help. because it's just not in my nature or nurture. but how many times is that which is not within my nature just what i need? many.

so.

take it easy.

after all, it's not all up to me anyway.

running

2010-01-06T12:31:00.001-08:00

blah. but i'm squishy. and at my max. weight again. and my pants don't fit. wah wah wah.

meet my nike+ avatar. she's cute.

she also has no eyes. like me!

so today i ran. well actually, i mostly walked. you know how some people complain about how they're REALLY slow, not runners, etc? then they go and run 1.5 miles at an average 11-minute mile the FIRST day they try. or they run like 4 or 5 miles the first day. well, i'm really not a runner. like REALLY.

even she says so.

"i've turned into a couch potato! i need to run!"

i ran/walked a 15-minute mile for 2.31 miles in something pathetic like 32 minutes today. see? i'm really not a runner. after a 2-minute brisk walking warmup, i could only run for about 5 minutes before my chest felt like it was on fire and going to burst. out. of. shape.

i really want to use the nike+ coach programs to keep me motivated, but once school starts (in less than a week!!!), all bets are off.

new year, looking back

2010-01-05T20:33:00.000-08:00

i don't have a great new year's post with reflections on 2009 or bright eyes and a bushy tail for 2010 (yet), so you'll have to settle for these in the meantime.

remember these?

1st grade

so serious in osh kosh b'gosh and pigtails.

2nd grade

uneven eyes, uneven bangs.

3rd grade

uneven teeth.

4th grade

snobby potato.

5th grade

finally put my foot down regarding perms.
too bad it turns out my natural hair has texture.

6th grade

awk.ward.

7th grade

drunk? sleepy?
still awkward.

8th grade is lost somewhere. probably in the keroppi picture wallet i threw out last time we moved. kindergarten is probably in one of my mom's old wallets.

oh, and so weird, but i just noticed that until 3rd grade, the photos are mirror images--the way i see myself in the mirror. 4th grade and on are how you all see me IRL. i can tell because my smaller eye moves from one side to the other.

no, i'm not that much of a narcissist. i just happened to clean out the last few boxes of stuff i have at my mom's house over the break and came across these. the bear enjoyed looking at them, so i figured you would, too. plus i don't know what's wrong with me, but i don't have much to say these days.

christmas photos

2009-12-30T17:41:00.001-08:00

i know, this blog is sorely lacking photos. so here you go!

koreans love their calendars. i've already received two as "gifts."

for lunch, my mom made us a korean feast.

kimchi

kalbi

purple rice, yook gye jang (flank steak/bean sprout/root soup/stew), full moon seasonal ale

and bosintang for virility!

just kidding. but there was a crazy, living dog present.

oh, and as promised, the blair waldorf outfit. potatobro is apparently too busy entertaining his girlfriend, who is in town, to upload photos. i have not been able to get any better photos from him and his new D3000. both of us need faster lenses anyway. santa didn't listen this year. or we weren't well-behaved enough. oh well.

see bear and me all dressed up? if you think i look squishy and old in this photo, you should see the one that's taken with flash and clearer. outfit was cute. me in this pic...not so much.

that's it for now. maybe more photos to come soon as we plan on doing some cooking, baking, and entertaining this coming week...whee!

i'd rather be...

2009-12-29T11:37:00.000-08:00

...swimming in le havre, france.

[all images from jean nouvel's website.]

on a completely unrelated note, the holidays went by fine--i survived the ones involving my own family, and the ones involving the bear's family and friends were a lot of fun. we ate a ton of good food, i had a mild case of food poisoning that went away in less than a day, and the bear prevented me from embarrassing myself in public by ordering my current favorite diet coke/red wine combo.

just one more family thing to survive on new year's day, and then i can hide out in our house until winter break is over.

oh, and i totally channeled blair waldorf for a fancier function we had to attend (conservative, well-fitted black dress, berry-colored opaque tights, a bejeweled headband, red lips), but i don't look so cute in the photos on my camera--kinda squishy or something. if my brother got any good ones, i'll have to post.

hope everyone had happy holidays.

and happy new year!

[kind of] current inspiration

2009-12-22T21:47:00.001-08:00

stuff that inspired me over the past few months.

_M&A gallery's work.
_not a cornfield.
_bompas & parr's whimsical, interdisciplinary, very english approach to design. alcoholic architecture, anyone?
_the feltron report. this guy transforms stats of his life for the past year into a cool infographical annual report.
_jean-pierre hebert's scripted drawings. while i'm not a huge fan of scripting to produce architecture or art, these works are beautiful, delicate, and have exquisite linework (even if computer-produced).

[image from: TRYHARDER]

sorry, too lazy to post more images.

a couple holidays behind

2009-12-21T16:54:00.000-08:00

remember the welcome pauses i mentioned way back when? as promised, here's the pumpkin-carving party i went to.

red + soxfan first sketched.

others [gramps] just dug right in.

heads down, carve away.

kydrich and me working on ours--we named it "fatty batty."
although he didn't turn out quite as cutely plump as we hoped.

fatty batty again.

red and her single, snaggle-toothed creation.

cannibalistic pumpkin.

gramps and his really ugly pumpkin.

we were on the eastside,
so some killer pumpkins got their appropriate teardrop tats.

thug life.

even scarier when lit.

nightmare before christmas-like.

half of us.

the other half of us.

pumpkin heads!

the end.

good riddance

2009-12-11T23:11:00.000-08:00

good riddance, crappy semester. that's all i have to say about that. however, i'm still recovering and probably will be for a very, very long time. let's just say that my mental and emotional health was on the decline starting even before this semester, and this semester rapidly accelerated the decline. no worries, i'm not *too* much crazier than usual since normal for me isn't all that normal anyway, but it's been a tough time. and no worries, this isn't nearly as dramatic as it sounds--just a typical down-feeling cycle in the course of a tater life, i guess. luckily, i do have a good support system, most of all the bear, and i sincerely believe in the end all will be well.

the perfect way to re-debut into the blogging world, right? ;). if you aren't already gone from my lack of updates, i'm sure this will drive you away. heh.

so obviously, i haven't been able to christmas shop or get in the holiday spirit at all, considering my studio final was on thursday. since, i've caught up completely on gossip girl, slept a lot, ate a lot of frozen food because i couldn't bear to leave the house, and thought about cleaning up before the bear returns from his week in mammoth.

so instead, here's my completely selfish wish list--you won't find "world peace" on this list, although some of the current wars ending would be nice, too. i usually hate doing wish lists as i feel so greedy. however, since i most likely won't get any of this this year, i'm just putting it out there and getting it off my chest. mostly so i can look back years later and laugh at myself and the silly things i so wanted at the time.

_hoodies. lots of them. a variety of them. it's freakin' freezing at school no matter the season. karmaloop.com has an awesome triple 5 soul peacoat hoodie and some cute (which i don't know if i can pull off since i'm not 12 anymore) paul frank and tokidoki ones.
_another monitor for school. you'd be surprised how much time they save from not having to zoom and pan so much. plus the dual monitor setup rocks for working with lots of toolbars open in adobe CS4, rhino, and maya.
_printer with invisibility cloak. the printers at school are broken, out of toner, or out of paper half the time. plus i have to walk down the hall, upstairs, by the depressing computer labs to get my prints. the invisibility cloak is needed so no one else knows i have a printer and asks to use it.
_keyboard tray. one for home, one for school. my hands have been getting super numb from so much computer usage. not to mention the tennis elbow and shoulder aches after 12+ hours at the machine. tops of tables/desks are high for my short, velociraptor arms, people.
_a dual quad core desktop with a kickass, fast graphics card. i'll be animating this coming semester, and i have a feeling i'll have to run the renders on one of the computer lab machines as none of my machines will do it fast enough.
_a dual quad core laptop. ditto above. plus then i can escape to the library, home, or anywhere somewhere quieter and less distracting than our studio space for this year. let's just say we have no walls and are adjacent to a major "hallway" plus have 28' high ceilings in an all concrete and glass space. that's one major reason why i've been so much less productive in studio this semester.
_wedgewood vera wang blanc sur blanc china. not that i ever entertain or have anywhere to store it, but it's the one i coveted while making our wedding registry and is now discontinued. so of course silly me wants it.
_riding boots. every chick wants these. i want some with a slight wedge heel.
_ skinny jeans that don't give me camel toe, aren't uncomfy due to their skinniness, and don't bunch up around my currently super-saggy secretary's butt. just so i can wear them with above riding boots. i just want to show off the boots is all.
_ankle-high flat boots. when the knee-high riding boots are too much to pull on/off.
_jewelry. there's this bib-ish necklance on jools.us right now that is gold and deep red. so festive and wintry. so much fun statement jewelry out there, too, which might make me feel less dowdy and ugly in my current, threadbare, too casual grad student's wardrobe. classic, fine jewelry pieces would not be refused, either.
_warm, fuzzy slippers. my current paul frank ones are falling apart. like REALLY falling apart.
_books, books, more books. some of which are out-of-print and impossible to find. dang expensive, limited-run architecture books.
_grey leather bag. kind of slouchy, very buttery.
_black leather bag. structured, classic, professional, but not boring. for whenever and if ever i return to the working world.
_a yoga class convenient to school or home and my schedule and my preferences and that doesn't cost too much. i really miss the donation-based class with the hilarious instructor i used to attend on the westside. the exercise and meditation are sorely needed especially during the school year.
_really good, BIG headphones. like the wireless sennheisers two of my canadian studiomates have. or the beats by dr. dre. ones my other baller studiomates have. too bad both take batteries. see above somewhere regarding my distracting, loud current studio space.
_chef's tasting menu dinner at providence or the dining room. or wherever yummy.
_a wardrobe overhaul. i feel so unbelievably ugly and dowdy these days. it might have something to do with the fact that i alternated between one pair of overstretched jeans and one pair of black yoga pants every day all semester. but really, those are the only "winter" clothes i have that fit me comfortably.
_a makeup overhaul. i've been wearing the same colors since high school. i just don't use up my stuff fast enough. even when i was working and wearing makeup almost every day, it'd take me years to go through a blush or pot of eyeshadow.
_a lifetime supply of nars' velvet matte lip pencil in cruella. for my own use and also so i can pass it along since it looks awesome on many people.

san francisco quickie

2009-11-08T02:13:00.000-08:00

monday | 10.05
_we're told at the very end of a very long review that an impromptu field trip has been planned to san francisco so we can visit the california academy of sciences and other museums, since we're designing an energy museum this semester.
_it just so happens that outside of studio, for another class, freckles, kydrich, gramps, and i are also doing a case study of the california academy of sciences building. we archinerds squeal.
_freckles' parents apparently have a wonderful flat up in SF, too, which we can stay in gratis.
_EEEEEE!

tuesday-wednesday | 10.06-07
_begging of instructors of other classes to postpone deadlines and due dates.
_frantic trip-planning while trying to get the rest of our work done.
_much waffling back and forth on driving vs. flying.

thursday | 10.08
_slept 3 hours in the morning.
_franctically packed for the weekend in 20 minutes.
_went to classes, presented our work (last, which meant we were in class until past 10 PM).
_hopped in gramps' '89 volvo wagon with freckles, gramps, gramps' wife, and dirigible boy.
drove all night. well, gramps did.
_road trip bonding conversation topics:
__what kinds of things we would teach at our future schools of badassery.
__[i pointed out all the boys' suggestions were redneck activities. they then began to add in ninja skills.]
__architecture's social responsibility versus its autonomy as an academic discipline that has definite interiority and an ivory tower.
__police brutality and gang/drug wars in gramps'+wife's 'hood.
___yeah, very light topics, i know.

friday | 10.09
_arrived very early morning.
_dropped dirigible boy off at his parents' cute flat near golden gate park (forget the neighborhood name).
_picked kydrich up from JC's hotel room (she caught a ride up with him...nope, not Jesus and not jc chasez, either).
_got to freckle's parents' ~~flat~~ penthouse in nob hill. collapsed into bed right after a shower.

_3 hours later, red+boyfriend show up asking me to let them in to drop off their stuff (they flew up and BARTed in).
__i crawl into bed again, then realize we need to get up in an hour anyway.
_kydrich and i head out and walk the couple blocks to get the best dan tats (chinese egg custard pastries) ever.
__we come back and share with our housemates-for-the-weekend, accompanied by espresso courtesy of freckle-rents' machine.

__our view during breakfast:

_MUNI it to golden gate park.

_get discounts to get into the california academy of sciences. it's $25 normally. good cause, but still. i'm a poor grad student.
__discount #1 student/school group discount.
__discount #2 for taking public transportation.

__docent gives us a mini talk about the architecture, LEED platinum rating, yadda yadda. team bushy nips (see the building's green roof for why we named our case study group that) already knew it all from our research but did pick up one new, fascinating tidbit about the performance of the photovoltaics.
__see lots of fun stuff. seriously, go there next time you're up in SF. SO worth it!

one of the visiting researchers cataloging birds. ew

outside of boob, i mean sphere #1.

freckles + toad face off.
(LOVE her paul smith specs. they make me look like a bad nerd, not a cool nerd, unforch.)

SQUAAAAWK!

looking down at the people in aquarium below the rainforest.

lots of these in the rainforest sphere.

ribbit

under the sea (under the SEA!)

giant catfish

classmates + strangers

cutie vine snakes

coolest.job.ever.

JC in one of many dorky tourist pics of him we took that day.

while kydrich was touching things in this tide pool, i VERY loudly proclaimed the deliciousness sea urchin while one of the employees was telling another group about sensitive species in tide pools. kydrich kept nudging me. clueless me kept on. oops. said employee then winked at me and offered to sell me some of the uni. ha.

albino alligator!

giant taxidermy. ew.

giant cockroaches eat veggies. who knew?

spastic penguin + spastic kids. eek.

yo.

kydrich + JC rejoice over the kill.

look what we found to hold our free water!

herzog + de meuron's de young museum from the roof.

see the guy smiling in the background?

computer sensor-controlled, operable skylights to allow for passive ventilation.

skylight + shade system over the interior "piazza."

_kydrich, JC, and curvy took a break from museum hopping to EAT!

we were so ravenous we didn't notice the misspelling until i uploaded this photo.

complimentary chai.

nice paint.

garlic naan.

the remains.
even after we had stuffed ourselves for about $8 each.
SO delicious, too.
daal, aloo gobi, chicken tikka masala, and chicken curry.
oh, and regular, garlic, AND onion naan. you can never have enough naan.

_back to the park to check out the de young museum.

cool shadows at the de young museum.

from the observation tower.

view of the california academy of sciences from the de young.

fun fluorescents' reflection.

JC and super skinny chillaxin' on an andy goldsworthy piece.

JC + curvy
(we missed the tut exhibit).

JC

"ow ow ow," says the grass behind the california academy of sciences.

_on the way home...

...kydrich and i stop by her old, rather scary 'hood to check out the federal building by morphosis.

_back to the flat to watch the sox vs. the dodgers.
__well, for the boys. the girls gabbed and drank wine.

ugh. the view.
so much more interesting than baseball on TV.

panoramic shots i haven't stitched together yet from the 2nd floor balcony:

amazing produce.

FIGS! FIGS! FIGS!

ugh. i want. such a well-outfitted, organized, kitchen.

_antics

red's boyfriend, soxfan.

red.

_THE digs!

entry hall.
yep, that's backpainted glass in taupe with a floating console at the end of it.

kydrich's bunk.

my bunk.

my cozy nook, again.

DEEP soaking tub with phillipe starck hansgrohe axor fixtures. yum.

_ended the night with a pre-party at our fabulous digs for our other classmates.
__didn't make the party party as i'm lame. well, because i had a super early flight the next day.

_the end.
__LOVED walking around the city in the perfect weather (warmer than it usually is, but still so pleasant!)
__LOVED all the convenient public transportation. forgot how much i appreciate it as much as i'm an angeleno that loves to drive.
__LOVED the amazing flat we got to stay in.
__LOVED studiomate bonding time.
__LOVED the museums.
___[wish the bear could have come, too. instead, he passed a test for something he needs for work that weekend. woohoo!]

welcome pauses

2009-10-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

san francisco
jason mraz concert
l.a. eyewear sale and lunch at m cafe with school buddies
"working" at home on a day when i don't have class until 7 pm
last night--pumpkin carving, treat gorging, wine and cider drinking party at gramps' warm, cozy bungalow. i seriously felt like i was at grandma's house, welcoming in fall somewhere that has four seasons, in an all-american tv show circa 1950something. vinyl on the turntable, hot spiced apple cider in the most amazing 1950s villeroy & boch china teacups, rich red wine in austrian crystal goblets, trader joe's hors d'oeuvres galore, homemade potato leek soup and baked goodies, and absolutely no pretension. the hilarious company also helped. as did the girl with the infectious laughter.

hopefully i'll blog the above with pictures eventually. eventually.

mutually heightened experiences

2009-10-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

nerd alert.

i am reading for class. i was hungry. i got some yummy munchies to accompany my reading. i now deeply understand how a good wine can not only complement but actually enhance a reading experience.

seriously delicious reading for a class (i sounded the nerd alert already) helped me taste the fruity notes of the wine deep down in my fatty salami. the peppery bite of the salami's crust made me feel even more euphoric than i already was from the heady reading. the contrasting groundedness of the reading's subject matter made the flaxseed crackers taste nuttier, earthier, heartier.

and yeah, i don't feel like posting on facebook tonight as i should with all these random, mini posts. what?

reading: chapter 2 of strange details by michael cadwell.
eating: columbus brand peppered salami on trader joe's brand flaxseed water crackers. no wine. well, maybe minus the traces left from curing the salami.

caught up

2009-10-26T22:57:00.001-07:00

on top chef, that is. not the rest of life.

the sad thing is it reminds me a lot of school now and stresses me out a bit to watch it. school would make a great reality show, except no one would understand anything we talk about.

oh, and i'm so jennifer, by the way. in so many ways. however, she's probably a lot better at her craft than i am at mine, considering she's an executive chef for eric ripert, and i can't even get an internship.

i'm working on the not freaking out, not doubting myself, and knowing i'll somehow deliver at the real end even if i lose a couple quickfire challenges here and there (due mostly to said self-doubt and freaking out) this semester. really.

i feel somewhat human again

2009-10-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

review for first studio project done. it went fine, considering that most of the review time was spent by our critics engaging in some rather aggro '"discourse" (AKA heated arguing) over what should and shouldn't be taught and how it should be taught to us "newbies." and yes, they referred to us as "they" while we were sitting there with them and presenting to them. it was quite edutaining, however, and gramps and i got a tiny bit of real feedback from the argentinian who pronounces "newbie" as "woogie."

some other select quotes from the review:
"if you're going to use a dumbass wireframe, and that's a technical term..."
"if you realize the night before a review that all of a sudden you have mussoloni's mausoleum, you just need to scrap it and start all over again."
"the real question is, 'how dirty can you get?'"

then we got the amazing news that we pretty much have no studio work for a week!!! a week! this is big. well, we do have to go visit the site for our next project, but we don't have any outside of class time work for the rest of the week. OH! and we are taking a field trip up to san francisco on friday. whee!!!

afteward, some studiomates and i had a giddy dinner of sausages, beer, excited planning for the weekend, and hilarious conversation.

i didn't do my homework for today, but for once, i am not beating myself up over flaking. "they used to call me anal girl in school," (i'd give a prize to the first person to guess where the quote's from, but i don't have any prizes) because i always get my shit done, no matter what. however, they give an amount of work they know is impossible to get done, and something's gotta give somewhere sometimes. most others know the art of working smart and have mastered halfassery when required. i unfortunately am just a workaholic. not today though, not today.

food break

2009-10-03T09:31:00.001-07:00

having to eat is a blessing in disguise. it makes me take a break and listen to my body for a second or a few a day. i've never outlined my school schedule here as i'm sure no one wants to hear me whine about it, but i'm typically at school from 10 AM until 3 AM every weekday, with 5-10 of those hours in class. weekends are usually better--i go in from noon until midnight, and i'll sometimes take half a day off or do some work at home. even without taking breaks to eat, it's impossible to get all the work done. but being the overachiever i am, i have to try. i've been buying a lot of groceries that can be eaten fresh/straight or nuked (yay for kydrich's microwave and fridge, gramps' toaster oven, my hot pot, the korean market, and trader joe's!), but i do miss the breaks i'd get to go get food last year. they make me get up from my desk, get some air, take a break, refocus.

a lot of times, after getting food, i'll eat at my desk while working. i used to do this when i was working, too. i am, after all, an american. however, i did grow up in a house where we sat down at the table and ate dinner every night. sometimes my mom wouldn't be home from work yet, but potatobro and i would eat at the table, TV off, with our housekeeper/nanny. when either of my grandmothers were staying with us, usually during our summer or winter breaks, the whole day would then revolve around them making food. i'd watch and try to help them make shik hae (sweet rice soup/drink dessert), fresh, hand-cut kalgooksoo (flour noodles), mandoo (potstickers), real from-scratch kimchee, and a bunch of other things whose prep would sometimes take days before or at least all the time between meals. after cleaning up from lunch, they'd start in on dinner prep right away. we didn't necessarily linger over meals like europeans do, but we did all enjoy it fully and deeply and also talked a lot. it was our breaks in the day--to enjoy each others' company, share a meal, be nourished, relax.

even though i can't participate fully and do all the work for the "cooking" class i'm taking, i'm enjoying it immensely. a couple of weeks ago, an artist who did food demos/installations during his residence at the MAK center this summer came to speak to our class and cook for us. i am so sad i didn't know about his events this summer, as i would have totally loved to go. rainer prohaska's art is a crazy, cool mix of installation, performance, architectural-scale things, modularity, temporality, and social experimentation. his current work is all about food and ritual. it's hard to explain, but his photos and lecture did it really well. for the rest of you that weren't in my class, there's this LA weekly review. he may be back in a few months as he said he does want to do more of his work in los angeles (he's viennese).

he made pancakes for us using a light, austrian batter whose consistency was somewhere between that of an american pancake and french crepe, he made them in a few different cultures' methods on his "mobile kitchen" (a burner, propane tank, box full o' utensils, and handle-less frying pan that he used pliers to handle once heated up). we had them plain. then with a swiss gruyere. then with this plum jam that's almost savory you can only buy in austria--SO amazing. we ran out of time for his asian, central american, and south american versions, though. and the version with ground poppyseeds--i forget which european culture that one's from. we ate them all using chopsticks rainer brought. the food definitely broke the ice in the class, as it tends to do. most of us are in different years, and it's a mix of undergrad and grad students.

if you get a chance and if rainer comes back, try to go see him. his work is awesome, rigorous/academic and so experiential at the same time, and he's such a nice, fun guy, too. in the meantime, you can read michael pollan's well-written take on the state of food and ritual in america here. if you're interested in food justice at all here in LA, project food/LA is a good organization to get involved with (i am definitely going to try to get more involved at some point). even if you can't really get involved, they do have panel discussions with important players in the game with the first one being this past week (i know, i'm late again on letting you know about an event...sorry again!).

thank goodness for this class. even though it takes up even more of my time, it's helping me enjoy what has been an otherwise difficult, not-so-enjoyable semester thus far. food saves the day again.

drive-by blogging

2009-09-20T23:32:00.000-07:00

this year is very different from last year, school-wise, which is both bad and good. it's way less stressful since it's more familiar, i have friends already made, and our instructors see us and treat us way differently than they did when we were fresh meat. which means, i'm...

...still fat (for me). and will probably continue to get fat thanks to sitting on my butt 12-18 hours a day at school, then driving home on my butt to sleep on my butt for a few hours just to rinse, wash, repeat all over again. i need to start utilizing my split food in half before eating and save for the next meal tactic. but then i get all lightheaded from hunger and my brain can't do school work.

gramps, a friend, is my studio partner for the semester. his amazing wife brought us an amazing, gourmet, home-cooked meal last night. and she rode the train in, no less. salad, rosemary-roasted lamb/potatoes/zucchini, and tricolore cheese tortellini in marinara. she even brought real plates and silverware. the lamb was perfectly medium-rare, and everything was so, so delicious. especially since the norm at school is vending machine food or overpriced meh coffeehouse food eaten at our desks from their wrappers, often without the necessary utensils. it was so, so nice. i need to find a way to really thank her.

our studio loves trader joe's gorgonzola crackers. ziggy, my favorite studio dog, does not. he munched one in half and then spit it back into the hand i used to offer it to him. dog slobbery cracker. gross.

i'm auditing a class that involves a poverty-entrenched part of LA, social justice via food, food education as a means to enrich and better (and even save, in some cases) people's lives, research, and architecture. woohoo!

i think i'll start finally feeling the crunch this coming week, so we'll see if i have time for drive-by blogging breaks. i miss you all.

here we go again

2009-09-09T23:23:00.000-07:00

school's back in session. i haven't been writing much because i was majorly mopey and having anxiety for the week or two leading up to this one. now that the majority of uncertain things has been determined (which studio critic i have, who my semester-long project partner will be, what my schedule will be like, where i will be sitting in studio, and other tons of details), i am finally excited for school to begin. this nerd is totally excited for the readings in our cultural studies class, excited to learn new software/tools, and our studio project sounds pretty fun, too.

this semester's going to be tough, but i think it will definitely stretch and grow all of us a lot. i have five required, for-credit classes totaling 18 units. then on top of that, there is another mandatory "seminar" (a three-hour lecture once a week) that i must attend...for no credit. there is one elective that i very much wanted to take and has to do with the possible direction of my thesis project, but i absolutely cannot fit it into my schedule (and don't want to pay the extra for being over the unit limit). it will not be offered again as it involves the city and grant money. ah well, i have some ideas to see if i can still get involved somehow or do something related later.

so. goals for this semester:
1. have fun. remember that despite all the hard work, long nights, and painful critiques, that i do really enjoy this deep down. and as someone once told skims, "love your projects, and they will love you back." work on that which really interests me, immerse myself in it, and have fun doing it. too often i get stressed about the work itself, so it's not rewarding until after the fact, and even then, only sometimes.
2. be more assertive. like the studio critics said to us today, this is the semester/year to define our voices and start contributing them to the discipline and community. not only do i want to develop this, i realize i need to be bolder about getting heard, seeking out opportunities that will help me grow and to which i can contribute toward, and going after what i want. i want to be less shy about approaching guest lecturers, faculty, instructors, other students and stand out in a good way. also, while it's true that most graduate programs only give you what you put in and proactively extract from them, it's especially true at our school. if i want it, i have to go after it and appear to be doing so.
3. balance. heh, this one is pretty impossible, but what the heck. i know myself better from last year and what kind of routine i need, so hopefully that will help me work smarter, be efficient, and keep things in perspective.

i've got another few days of relative calm while the school is in thesis-frenzy, so i'll sit back, help thesis students/watch their reviews, and get mentally ready to dive in full-speed ahead.

oh yeah, and my final weekend of freedom was fun and food-filled--the orange county international street fair for sausages (swiss and german), souvlaki, and really good teriyaki (gratis, no less), food/drink/guitar hero at a friend's island in orange county (no, they just live on it, they don't own it), and a one-year old's birthday party.

see you in december.

easy + time-consuming

2009-09-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

easy does not necessarily equal quick. this risotto taught me that. really, there's nothing that difficult about making risotto at home--it's just takes a lot of time and patience. the former i have plenty of for another week, the latter, not so much.

this recipe produces a.ma.zing. smells all along the way.

first, there was the stock. the recipe called for fish stock. i don't have fish stock in the pantry. neither did any of the usual stores i shop at. then i remembered the lobster tail carcasses left over from this guy, that i had saved for some reason in the freezer. lobster stock! genius! seriously, stock is easy. throw stuff in a pot. simmer forever. strain. and this one's easier than the recipes i've read for other types of stock. it smells so freakin' good while simmering along, too.

then you've gotta slow-roast some tomatoes. when they first start smelling, they smell so sweet. like so sweet i was looking around to see where i had dropped some strawberries or a popsicle wrapper. thing is, the kitchen trash was empty, and i hadn't had either of the above stocked for awhile.

i could have roasted these a little longer.
impatient.

then you melt butter in a pan, to which you add shallots. such a rich smell.

after toasting the rice in the above, you throw in some white wine, which further deepens the already-rich aroma.

then you start scooping the stock, which is simmering again by this point smelling all amazing, in little by little. at this point, i was seriously about to die from olfactory overload.

something i'm learning from all this super-from-scratch cooking is that all your senses feast during the whole process. it's so amazing watching, smelling, tasting, feeling, and hearing stuff transform with the application of a little chop here, a little heat there, a little combination here. sitting there stirring this stuff forever was torture.

it's weird. when i bake, i sometimes can't eat the goods after. i taste too much of the raw ingredients in them. like i'll totally taste the flour, or the egg yolks, or the brown sugar. blech. it's probably from smelling it all in the dough while making it. cooking, i've learned, is a completely different story.

well, my patience was rewarded. finally.

i threw some asparagus in because i had some about to go bad.

the best thing about this recipe is that there is no parmigiano reggiano mixed in at the end to make it all rich and gooey like the other risotto recipes i've tried. it's still so rich despite that, even if you don't finish it with the last tablespoon of butter. the only bad thing in it is the rice itself, i guess, which isn't bad in moderation. mmm...carbs.

oh, and another lesson learned--these photos taught me that i need a faster lens and/or a tripod. dang expensive hobby.

seriously, try this. spread it out over a few days and savor the smells. it's not hard. really. and all the waiting is worth it.

summer goals

2009-09-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

i have exactly one week left until school starts. my schedule this upcoming semester sucks. *whine whine whine* i'll just have to enjoy this last week the best i can.

so about those summer goals i had...

FAIL:

find an internship.
i sent out close to 20 resumes. i got one interview. for an unpaid internship. it did not pan out.
teach myself some software so i won't be as frantic trying to learn as i go this coming semester.
i maybe watched one tutorial. i did not follow along as i watched.
use the laser cutter and leftover school materials to make some personal stationery and cards.
i thought about it a lot, but i didn't even sketch it.
plant some herbs in pots for the porch/yard.
mother bear gave us some potted thai chili plants this weekend. the bear is taking care of them.
draw and paint for fun.
nope.
clean regularly.
ha. i did clean, but not regularly. and we even hired someone to clean the new place when we moved in. heh.
exercise.
i didn't get my butt in gear until a couple of weeks ago. and i'm now only averaging about 2-3 times a week.
read some school-related stuff including headache-inducing but brain-stimulating theory.
besides skimming blogs, nope.

in-progress/might be accomplished within the next week:

organize music library (rip all CDs, edit all ID3 tags and obtain album art, figure out what to load on the ipod nano vs. the iphone).
tedium ad nauseum. if i had a personal assistant as anal as i am, i would definitely add this to his/her list.
organize computer files (between all three), back stuff up onto multiple external hard drives, give the bear a list of folders for auto backup so he can setup my auto backups.
another task for my imaginary assistant.
make progress on never ending freelance project.
i did make decent progress but not as much as i wanted to.

done:

take a photo class.
fun!
streamline email accounts and clean up saved email.
we'll see if i can maintain it during the school year, though.
get a haircut.
read for fun.
on top of the ones i wrote about earlier this summer, i have since also finished michael pollan's in defense of food and am now reading the omnivore's dilemma.
bake a cake.
baked a few, tyvm.
cook most weeknights and eat with the bear.
hang out with the bear.
so much that i think he might be sick of me being home all the time. we both like having alone time and space. but he'll miss me soon enough.
sleep.
this one i did a lot of.

done + in-progress > FAIL. at least if you just count the bullets. yay! i win!

beautiful smells

2009-08-31T16:43:00.000-07:00

lobster stock simmering on the stove. despite the heat wave and no A/C in our house.
neighbors BBQing as i run by in the evening.
neighbors frying up fish as i run by in the evening. yes, it's beautiful when you're hungry and just wanna be done running and eat already.
tomatoes slow-roasting in the oven. despite the heat wave and no A/C in our house.
heirloom tomato and burrata salad from urth caffe. i think the balsamic vinegar and tomatoes made it super fragrant.

of course all food-related. did you expect any better from me?

stock + cake

2009-08-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

remember the lobster rolls and the cartoon version? well, i had saved the shells to someday make a lobster stock. the someday actually came quicker than i thought. there's a risotto recipe i want to try soon, and it called for fish stock. since i couldn't find any at the store, i figured i'd use my lobster shells and make some. i used this recipe. kind of. sort of. i forgot a few things and didn't follow the quantities exactly, but i ended up with some delicious stock anyway.

boiling forever.
in the hot, hot heat.

i don't have cheesecloth or a chinois for proper straining.
oh well.

it was father bear's birthday last wednesday, and the bear and i had planned to go have dinner with the bearents yesterday. so i decided it would be a great time to try out smitten kitchen's best birthday cake. problem is, the bearents don't really like sweets. fruit = dessert to them. so i decided to make mini cakes. 4" round ones, to be exact. plus mini = CUUUUUUUUTE!!! eee!

butter paper.
the best way ever to grease pans evenly.

i overfilled my pans for the first batch.
no worries, as the bear enjoyed the dome that i scrapped
to get a nice, flat cake.
like a muffin top.

i made two kinds of frosting. why? well, i wanted to try the bear's favorite yellow cake + chocolate buttercream combo, and the monkey is allergic to chocolate (one was for her as a thank you for hosting us for dinner). both started with butter.

i love butter.

lemon buttercream.

frosting dropcloths.
AKA wax paper.

crooked cake layer.

see? dropcloths are totally necessary.

frosted and confetti-ed.

monkey + mr. monkey seemed to have enjoyed it.
[photo by weezermonkey]

dry poo.
i mean, cocoa powder + butter.

even goopier poo.

chocolate frosting crumb coat.
the chocolate was a little stiffer and easier to work with.

final coat of chocolate + confetti.

plop.
in the box.

then each got a tulle bow.
tulle is very forgiving for those (like me) that can't tie pretty bows.
[photo by weezermonkey]

what did i think of the recipe? too dense and eggy. but amazingly moist, especially when stored overnight in tupperware. however, i like those spongy, light asian bakery cakes with barely sweetened whipped cream as frosting. the bear loved it, and he's my litmus test for yellow cake as he loves the duncan hines and betty crocker kind. yay! oh, and the recipe for batter makes A LOT of batter. a lot. i made four 4"x3" tall minis that i split in half to make into the mini layer cakes and then another, thin 9" round layer that got frozen for the bear's birthday coming up. oh, and i didn't use her frosting recipe. i used some out of this book that skims gave me awhile back.

i have one week and one day until school starts. crying big, crocodile tears.

grainy

2009-08-25T22:40:00.000-07:00

in the potatobear lair, we have quite the stockpile of white rice. we have both the short grain variety and jasmine, long grain variety. i know it's not the best for you, but it is our staple grain of choice. to switch it up, i got some quinoa with the intention of making a texas caviar-like quinoa salad. luckily, someone else had already come up with a recipe.

summery, delicious, fluffy, proteiny.

oh, and i served it with japa-cana tuna. too bad the tuna was just alright in quality and frozen. the recipe, however, is great. the sweet maple syrup and bite of the wasabi balanced each other well.

i also tried smitten kitchen's almond-vanilla rice pudding, which is made with arborio rice instead of the usual rice. wan, again, inspired me.

honestly, i just really wanted to use up some of this expensive madagascar bourbon pure vanilla bean paste (whew) i bought back when i had real income. plus i had exactly a 1/2 cup of arborio rice left in an old package in the pantry.

unfortunately, i'm not a huge fan of almond extract. i'll use a third of what the recipe calls for next time.

otherwise, it was delicious, rich, and creamy. i'll have to try again soon.

hey big tuna! where's preppy waldo?!?

2009-08-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

remember how the bear and i went out to new england last summer for potatobro's college graduation? well, while there, we noticed an unspoken men's uniform often worn by andy bernard of the office fame.

see? our first spotting:

hmm, this guy's pants may not be the correct color.
oh well, close enough.

the basics:
khaki pants. or should we call them chinos?
+
light blue button-down shirt.

the next step up:
navy blazer. or perhaps sportcoat.

PLUS:
brass buttons.

bonuses:
well-worn baseball cap.
brown dock shoes. brown dress shoes are also acceptable.

now that you know the rules, you can join in the fun! go to my album here, where i have meticulously separated photos containing abovely-attired men from the rest of that trip's photos. all have at least one instance of preppy waldo. some may have more. some are a little tricky due to shade, lighting, and blurriness. good luck.

if you need help, i also have a cheats album here. don't ask how long it took to make that. i don't want to think about it.

this is what happens when you make people sit through all-day graduations. at least the bear and i entertained ourselves all day.

almost all of the photos are courtesy of the bear and his clandestine photo-taking skills.

personas

2009-08-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

"...sees how the internet sees you."

there's this stereotype that many architects "wanna-be" graphic designers and especially book designers. i totally fit this stereotype. however, it's for good reason that we're wanna-bes. we all have to graphically design our own work--from boards and presentation books to construction documents and resumes/portfolios. we do learn basic principles, formally, to some extent in school. it's also probably because a lot of what we do is taking massive amounts of information, data, and requirements and producing a tangible building, space, or thing from the analysis of all of that. a lot of the design process is problem-solving and/or problem-defining anyway. i've always had an interest in information design and graphics and considered it as a career path before taking the ones i have, so i still look out for good examples to bookmark. this one was all over some graphic design blogs last week, so i'm late, but i know most of you that read this aren't designerds and thought you might have fun playing with this clean, colorful experiment.

go to the personas [online] installation (it is also on display IRL at MIT). type in your name. see how the internet sees "you." or the many yous, since there may be many others out there named similarly. be sure to watch the screen as data is mined and graphicized. it's fun watching the colors change, the overall graph being built, and say, "beep beep boop boop" out loud while it's doing it. OK, maybe not the last one if you're not as strange as i am.

the final portrait of dapotato [click to enlarge any of these screenshots].
obviously incorrect as i rarely watch movies these days,
and if i do, i'm not really associated with them on the internet.

"characterizing da_potato..."

final da_potato
at least da_potato is more diversely represented on the internet that dapotato?

"characterizing [insert my maiden name here]"
it turns out my maiden name is a commonly used phrase in dutch.
that's what most google searches bring up, anyway.

still beep beep boop boop beep-ing my maiden name.

final for [my maiden name]

final for [my married name].
i guess the married me is way more social.
or other same-nameds are more social than me as there isn't a ton out there on the real me by my married name yet.

yep, the internets [sic] is definitely fallible. but so much fun! especially when in color.

[via swissmiss]

lobster wobster roll

2009-08-20T23:04:00.000-07:00

don't mind my crazy baby talk. whenever i look at that final lobster roll photo from yesterday's blog post, this is what i actually see:

he says, "HARRO!!!"
and yes, he's a he. look at his bushy brows.

'night! =D

foodish miscellany

2009-08-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

lilcee bestowed upon me some lovely gifts from paulette. beautiful. and delicious. these macarons are not delicate in terms of flavor (or color saturation...LOVE the bold colors). i had fun trying to guess the flavors while eating and before looking them up on the website.

beige on beige on beige

i baked some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies [via tastespotting]. they were delicious but rather crumbly and crumb-y. lucky for me and my food baby that needs to disappear, the bear's friend ate about half of the batch while over one night.

the fork imprints + added chocolate = yum, visually and taste-wise

bah. point and shoot.

brunched here for lilcee's birthday. pricey, but very delicious brunch buffet with sushi, amazing dessert bar, lamb, prime rib, chawan mushi, deviled eggs, cheese, potatoes, sausage, soba...and the list goes on. all served in a rather genteel, quiet, yet unpretentious atmosphere.

lunched at julienne's for vasey's birthday.

there was a wait, but it was definitely worth it. nicely sized portions (not too big, not too small). food that we didn't expect much from due to its looks (a pale green broccoli mustard soup, the below lemon meringue tart) surprised by being extra delicious.

deceptively blah.
very good lemon meringue.
not too tart, not too sweet.
cool, fluffy.
especially perfect pastry.

the most expensive homemade meal

inspired by wan
lobster rolls on light brioche buns [both via smitten kitchen]

the bear wanted to buy the jetblue all-you-can-jet pass. maine was on his list of destinations as he's got a cousin there. i've also got a good college friend, gel, there, who i'd love to visit. alas, we decided to be responsible employees/students and not jet-set around the country. so instead, i settled for the much cheaper option (but expensive for dinner at home) of making lobster rolls at home. i've never had one in maine. the bear has. these were pretty dang delicious.

first, the brioche. yeast and i are not friends. let's just say i took a cooking class in college in the nutritional sciences department (the fancy schmancy hotel school one that taught knife skills, how to cut up a whole chicken, etc. never fit in my schedule). one day, we worked with yeast. class time was limited. i killed the yeast the first time with water that was too hot. then i ruined another batch by using water that was too cold. and then class was over. and i had no bread. anyway, i decided to get a proper candy/deep frying thermometer to exact the science and face my nemesis head-on and well-armed. enough jibba jabba (the bear's tom tom gives him directions in mr. T's voice. mmm yeaaaah.)

mise en place
pretty simple, non?
hee hee hee honh honh honh!
[baking bread brings out the little mermaid french chef in me, i guess.]

the yeast starting to work.
beaten egg.
flours and salt.
eventually all stirred together.

dough that probably could have been kneaded longer.
kneading is fun, yo. and a good workout.
you can also see my "dough cutter" to the right.

mini dough.
should have been smoother and elastic-ier. ah well

to show how much of the bowl it took up to begin with.

meanwhile, back at the lobster ranch...

steamed!
mmm yeah. fancy, expensive cameras can't help user error blur.
anyway, the lobster and its drippings in the steam water smelled so salty, briny, ocean-y, meaty.

chop, chop, chop over $20 worth of lobster meat.
a measly pound.
(yeah, i halved the lobster roll filling recipe. :(. major sadness.)
no more lobster at home until i find it on sale somewhere.

mix, mix, mix.
i added more celery and lemon than the recipe called for.
we like crunchy and tangy.

an hour and a half or so later, the dough monster grew. a lot.

the dough has gas. see the bubble holes? tee hee.
oh, and it stuck to my non-greased saran wrap. oops.

and...from it's no-longer-as-svelte side.

after de-gassing [sniggle] and dividing up the dough.
my "dough cutter" (rubber spatula) didn't work as well as my hands.

oops. too close together.
butt buddies.
yeah yeah, they're not perfectly round, either.
save the critcism for my craft for when i go back to school.
i'll get plenty of it then anyway.

golden!
don't mind the blob of four buns to the right.
nothing a little siamese quadruplet surgery couldn't fix.

someone got a bit anxious.
you would have, too, if you smelled our house.

the [delicious] end.

trace

2009-08-17T22:00:00.001-07:00

i love trace. AKA flimsy (in the midwest/south). AKA tracing paper in rolls. for most of my design work, i work out ideas on trace. my thoughts just come out more quickly and fluidly on trace. probably because the sheet is never ending, the medium is relatively cheap and un-precious, and because i was trained to sketch on it in college and during my former job.

i also appreciate nice wood. get your mind out of the gutter.

so i want this:

from here, which has lots of cute things. minus the freaky hand soaps.

[via notcot. image also from notcot.]

blah

2009-08-13T23:51:00.000-07:00

so i just met a crazy deadline (that i set for myself, even the client didn't care if i kept it, really) for a freelance job. now that i am back to my lazy, pseudo-unemployed ways, here is a list of what's new.

i love having old, big, shady trees covering a lot of the house and our mini backyard. i do not, however, love the berries and leaves they shed all.the.time. the bear also recently spotted a rabid squirrel up there. no, it wasn't foaming at the mouth, but i'm pretty sure most squirrels have rabies. thus, our tree's squirrel has rabies. i'm sure there are many other unsavory critters up in thurr. it's a really really big tree. and there are TWO of them. like really really big the likes of which you never really see around socal because we're always ripping shit up for new stuff, the stuff we still do have around isn't that old, and/or because this is really a desert.
i'm thinking about making bread from scratch before school starts thanks to wan's bread-baking madness lately. i do have that lovely stainless steel worktop that would be lovely to knead on...
i started reading the time traveler's wife. i'm liking it so far. i don't like that the huge hardcover doesn't fit in my huge purse.
at my pseudo-, very part-time job we are doing inventory. counting BIG sheets of paper that i'm not supposed to bend or put fingerprints on after i've just counted super dusty items is not fun. at all. but it's still a pretty dang easy job. and it makes me money.
sorry to shock everyone with my fb status update yesterday. i am NOT pregnant. i have, however, gained 10 pounds in four months. never mind i lost almost 10 in four months last fall. i'm still fatter than i was then as i gained some weight moderately between the great loss and the great gain. and i don't know why i typed out "four" and wrote the numbers for "10." it's really bugging me now, but i'm too lazy to go back to change "10" to "ten." but not too lazy to ramble on about it, apparently. so anyway, i have a visible food baby. not a human baby.
after a few nights of sleeping less than eight hours, i am dying. i don't know how i'm going to deal when school starts again. i really don't. i'm getting old. i need my sleep.
i "bought" a book for the bear today at borders for $0. good thing, as i'm not sure it'll ever get read.
the bear has taken up surfing. this fatty potato has taken up watching more tv than she has watched in the past 10 years of her life in one summer.
i also bought in defense of food for myself for 40% off. my library doesn't have it. i know, i know. wth? anyway, i love the smell of new books.
i'm in trouble because once i start reading, i can't stop. and i was going to try to get back to my suzy homemaker ways now that my crazy deadline is over (i was cooking almost every weeknight, doing laundry once a week, changing out ALL linens AND washing them once a week, keeping the house relatively clean, and even baking on the side...who AM i?). plus i do have follow-up work and more work left to do on the freelance project, albeit at a slower pace.
this is the most boring list. ever. i just made myself super sleepy. i'm going to bed.

sorry for this post, all.

book fetish

2009-08-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

i want to live here. here being livraria da vila in sao paolo, brazil. that is all.

i do fear for the books on the facade.

looking downstairs.

looking upstairs.

love the integrated shelving and display.

books on every. possible. surface.

i'll just sleep on the sofa. thanks.

via archdaily.

all photos copyright leonardo finotti.

too good not to share

2009-08-08T18:15:00.001-07:00

skims found this awesome article via archinect comparing lady gaga's outfits to works of architecture. genius.

my favorite:

strangeness all around.

etienne boullée's 1784 cenotaph for sir isaac newton

(never built, so visionary for the time).

the last one in the article is pretty awesome, too. scroll all the way down.

neighbors...why?

2009-08-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

to the left: they're alright. they have a lot of yappy dogs that they like to scream at when they bark. the human screaming is worse than the dogs barking, but it usually doesn't last long. their cats also like to hang out in our driveway and probably poop on our lawn (landlord freaked out once about finding cat poop on the lawn), but the lawn isn't our responsibility and we're never on it, so whatever. when a car drove by and knocked the across-the-street neighbor's side mirror off, they chased after the car trying to stop it and/or get the license plate number. they say hello and wave back when we say hi.

behind: i don't get it. an older lady and man that seem to be a couple, a young guy in his 20s, and a young girl in her 20s in a three bedroom. we thought the older lady might be the younger two's mom, but i just saw the girl talking to a lady the other night in a random car in the driveway who she called "mom." i thought the girl and the guy might be a couple as they share a car, but then i saw her holding hands with some other guy near our shared trash cans the other day. they say hello and wave back when we say hi.

to the right: the house was vacant when we moved in, and soon after, a for sale sign went up. starting from last week, there started to be construction sounds coming from inside the house. at 1 AM. f. the next day, they took the sale sign down. at some point, the bear saw a bunch of youngish kids (high school age, maaaaybe early college) and an old man moving stuff in. i saw some high school age kids moving a piano in a few days ago.

two nights ago, they started playing piano, clarinet, sax, and singing at 11:30 PM. all the racket lasted until about 1:30 AM. oh, and it all sounded pretty bad. since it's so hot, our windows were open, theirs were open, and we could hear everything loud and clear. yesterday, there was some bad piano playing and singing during the day, but it only lasted about 30 minutes. last night, they started up again at midnight. at 12:30, the bear went to go ask them to keep it down. they stopped. at around 1, they closed all their windows and started up again, but our windows were closed by that time, too, so it was bearable.

oh, and when the bear went over to ask for quiet, there were like 8-10 high school kids in the house. no adults that he could see. ok, so he admitted that maaaaaaaaybe they're first years in college. but the house was for SALE, not lease. even in this market, it was a decent chunk of change for a bunch of kids who probably have no credit history. or the owner could have taken it off the market and decided to lease it instead, but who would rent a 3 bedroom to 8-10 kids? what's the old man's role in all this? and why don't they understand you should keep it quiet after 10 PM in an otherwise very quiet, residential neighborhood?

we went out to dinner about three hours ago. they were hammering something when we left. they are still hammering right now.

yes, i'm nosy. yes, i could probably find the answers to these questions if i went and tried to be friendlier with my neighbors, but c'mon, this is [near] LA. despite the quiet, residential air of our new neighborhood, we're still in an urban area. at least i say hello.

two years strong

2009-08-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

those are the words the bear greeted me with this morning as we woke up.

tonight, we'll celebrate with korean chinese food. the bear's original plan was to get me a beach towel (traditional gift: cotton), take me to the beach, and then i added, "and then go out for chinese (modern gift: china) food?" we're skipping the beach part and going straight for the food.

happy anniversary, my love. thanks for making this marriage thing fun, even when not-so-fun things come our way. i am excited for the many more anniversaries to come.

reading, eating

2009-08-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

hey, my approximate rhyme is a lot better than most rappers' these days.

i can't believe i only have one more month of relative freedom left. i should blog it up while i can and before you all (five of you) stop visiting because of the lack of posts during the school year.

reading:
i finally started reading again. i was hoping it'd be school-related stuff so my mushy brain could start to firm up again, but i just can't yet. one day, the bear brought home his free copy of this:

as far as business-y self-help-y books go (yes, that's a genre in my library), this one was pretty dang good. the style is very anecdotal, and his narrative style within each chapter is very straightforward, smart, and written the way your uncle who tells concise but great stories talks. the interweaving of his own, personal life stories with that of the growth of his business made it way more interesting to this not-so-technical and not-so-business-savvy reader.

oh, and the title? it comes from something he learned when at deep springs college out in the desert of california, where a small, all-male student population runs a very highly-regarded liberal arts school on a ranch. no, i'm not mentioning this just because i'm that random.

then i borrowed this whole series at once from the library as i'd heard some buzz. young adult fiction. yay! perfect for summer reading. by the way, how much do i love the public library system in this city that allows me to request all the books i want be sent to the branch near me, that emails me when they're ready for pickup, and sends them to the branch that is within walking distance of our new place? um, a lot. too bad i can't take advantage of it 8 months of the year.

at first, i was skeptical. honestly, the first book was tiresome for me. her name--jessica darling. ugh. she was so whiny and angsty (and very similar to me at that age) and just...an annoying teenager whining about stuff that really isn't that bad. however, she totally grew on me sometime in the second book. then her and marcus' love story turned out to be very similar to the bear's and mine--long distance relationship, breakup, reunion, random details, and all. since the five books span jessica's life from ages 16 (angsty teen years) to 25 (quarter-life crisising, finally really getting comfy in her own skin), there are definitely things that most girls/women can relate to going through during those years. bonus points to megan mccafferty for using vocabulary that i only learned in my mid-20s when i was studying for the GRE and really thought i would never use, read, or see again.

and guess what? [kind of spoiler alert] the boy in the story attends a fictional college named pure springs, which is described exactly as the real-life deep springs is described in david hitz's book. full circle rambling, yo.

eating:
sorry, no photos. just a log for my own reference, really.

labor- and bowl-washing-intensive yet delicious home-cooked salmon cakes and corn, avocado, tomato salad.
brunch at taste. not too badly priced, perfect-sized portions, the semi-alfresco table was perfect (inside, but next to the windows open to the patio). the patio ON melrose with cars whizzing by...meh. nice time catching up with baby platypus and gawking at the ladies holding a baby shower there. whose guests were all wearing hotel conference-style name tags. hm.
dessert at milk. grasshopper macaron ice cream sandwich (MINTY, cool, delicious). mini key lime meringue pie. yum. watching the dude shave ice from a BIG, drippy block of it on the sidewalk from our window table was fun, too.
a snack at yogen fruz (umlaut as happy face!) when i dropped baby platypus off. her nephews were HUGE, so outgoing and friendly toward me (most kids RUN from me...or are totally silent and unsmiling when around me...really), and um, cute. anyway, they put the fruit and yogurt through a mashing, smoothing machine that makes the fruit a part of the yogurt, like humphrey yogart at beverly connection used to do back in the day. hm, there's still one in sherman oaks. too bad the valley's outside of my bubble.
a decadent brunch/lunch with the FGDs and 10yearstogether at break of dawn in laguna hills, replete with amazing cinnamon roll hot and bubbly in a square, cast iron, mini skillet, blood orange mojito, and pork belly. yes, that's stretching my bubble a bit far in the southward direction, but it didn't pop. yay. and i had fun. and i must admit, it's pretty nice down there. to visit.
TONS of korean bbq with mom, her SO, aunt, and uncle tonight. good family time, good laughs thanks to my uncle, and good food.

i really should work out for this last month while i can. my gym 2-3 times a week resolution for this summer break? heh. i've been once.

giving in to fusion

2009-07-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

when it comes to asian food, i'm usually anti-fusion. lucky me grew up eating all kinds of authentic asian food. i love LA.

my mom is pretty good at cooking korean food. so yes, i'm a total korean snob. kogi truck? bleh. you won't catch me there until there's a 5 minute or less line. momofuku ssam? i'm skeptical.

i'm also now a thai snob thanks to the bear and bear-ents. i did, however, live on the westside for more than a few years and ate my faux thai in secret when i had cravings for semi-decent asian food for lunch. shh. don't tell the bear. well, he already knows. there isn't much he doesn't know about me.

chinese? i went to high school in the san gabriel valley. most of my friends were chinese-american. they took me to the best dimsum, cantonese seafood palaces, shanghainese places to eat those flat, pan-fried rice cakes, hong kong-style cafes, and taiwanese cafes.

japanese? my grandparents were young'uns during the japanese occupation of korea. they had to adopt new names and forget their old (but luckily got them back soon enough). they still count in japanese when counting out loud. they also had to eat the food and learned how to make it pretty well. maternal grandma makes THE best cold soba noodle dipping base from scratch and hand cuts all the veggies etc. that you throw in the broth into perfectly uniform matchsticks. paternal grandma makes THE best red bean mochi, which she used to freeze as soon as she made them and then hide in her suitcase. 12 hours later, after she landed in LA, they'd be perfectly thawed. plus this is LA, land of sushi and inventor of rolls (albeit those aren't really authentic). i also ate dinner quite often at an old friend's place. her first generation mom would make us all kinds of yummy, authentic j-food, too. and i lived on sawtelle for a few years with e11even, who pretty much qualifies as a fob. she'd even pack me cutesy bento or homemade onigiri to take to work once in awhile.

vietnamese? DT, a high school friend, would regularly bring banh mi from her mom's super secret favorite shop for lunch and share with us. yep, we'd devour the pate, cured pork, and whatever else was in those super secret sandwiches. she also took us to her super secret favorite pho place where they'd put the rare meat on the side, give us an extra bowl of broth just for cooking the meat to our liking and then put it in the unadulterated bowl of noodles and broth. it was like $3 a bowl back in high school. so cheap. so satisfying.

hawaiian fusion? alright, they get a pass since those asians have been there for generations and because they love and use spam. they mostly get a pass because of the spam.

i hate paying high-ish prices for asian cooking when i could find a yummy, down home, hole-in-the-wall that does it better for less.

i'm a purist. what can i say?

it's been hot.
yay. we're finally all settled into our homey 1920s bungalow. not really my style, but very cozy and cute.
boo. but it was built in the 1920s--which means no A/C. no A/C units in any of the rooms, either.
yay. luckily, we have super old trees that shade the back half of the house. and ceiling fans in the bedrooms. and many fans left over from our last ~~oven~~ place.

so.
i wanted to eat something cool.
now that i'm actually slaving over the stove again almost every weekday,
it's no fun heating the oven
(and making the whole kitchen an oven in the process)
or having more than one burner on on the stove.
yay. we have a brand new gas range with kickass burners in three different sizes/strengths.
yay. we have this kickass new, stainless steel, commercial work table since there is almost no counter space in the old (but spacious) kitchen. it's the star of the photos below. well, supporting actor, after the food.

plus.
my maternal grandma told me to eat spicy things when it's hot to cool off. yeah, i don't get it, either. my mom hypothesized that when you eat spicy, you sweat a lot and the boogers flow, carrying hot fluids away from your body and evaporating on your skin, thus cooling you. yeah, i can't believe she used to be a chemist, either.

finally, the recipe.

mango jalapeño cold soba noodles
4 servings
loosely adapted from these two recipes:
nigella's cold soba noodles [via wan]
cooking light's soba noodle salad with citrus vinaigrette

in the pot:
8.8 ounces soba noodles (about three bundles)

in [medium] bowl #1:
5 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 lime's juice

in [large] bowl #2:
3 green onions
2 teaspoons finely chopped cilantro
(i used the frozen, dorot brand from trader joe's, which
flecked the noodles evenly and beautifully...kind of like those seaweed-flecked japanese rice crackers)
1 carrot, matchstick-cut
1 large, ripe mango, cubed
1 large jalapeño, finely chopped (i left the seeds and membranes in. remove that hot stuff or use less of the jalapeno if you're sensitive to heat...from either end ;) )

oh, and 1 tablespoon of freshly grated ginger might have been nice. but as typical of me, i forgot to buy ginger. even with my carefully written out grocery list in hand.

do the pot:
boil some water. throw some salt in if you want, but i find soba noodles don't really need it. throw the noodles in. don't spill half a bundle on the counter like i did.

rinse the noodles under cold water, lifting up chunks o' noodles as you go so all the noodles cool down.

do [medium] bowl #1:
throw it all in. whisk it together.

throw the boiled, cooled noodles in. toss to coat evenly.

do [large] bowl #2:
throw it all in. toss it together.

throw the boiled, cooled, saucy noodles in. toss to distribute chunkies evenly.

cover and throw the bowl in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. i had to serve almost immediately, and it was still good. however, it was better the next day.

accompaniments:
i served this alongside pioneer woman's firecracker shrimp with the following adjustments.
- increased the sriracha to 3 tablespoons. we love spicy.
- pan-fried the shrimp (no additional oil, a couple minutes on each side) rather than grilling them. my indoor grill/panini press also heats up the kitchen too much, which results in sweaty potato dripping into the food she's cooking. gross.

a side of big bang theory. HI-larious. i usually hate science-y dorks because i am a dork but not of that kind, but i LOVE these geeks. a lot.

10 years ago

2009-07-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

10 years ago, i was somewhat legal (cigarettes and voting, no alcohol or gambling).
10 years ago, i had just finished high school and was enjoying my summer immensely. swimming and tennis almost daily at vasey's parents' pad, beach time and bonfires at huntington beach with friends, relative freedom in my still-new civic.
10 years ago, i was getting ready to move to the opposite coast for college.
10 years ago, i was spiritually in a good place, because i was broken and uncertain about the future.
10 years ago, in some ways, i was more mature than i am today.
10 years ago, i was about to begin an amazing growth spurt. not physically, obviously.
10 years ago, i was getting used to the fact that my mom had married a grade A a-hole.
10 years ago, i was learning that being an adult means that you sometimes need to consider the impact of your actions/inaction and that you sometimes need to put the comfort and needs of those you love above your own. even if you were right. the right fact and making it known doesn't necessarily equal the right thing to do.
10 years ago, i was a socially awkward dork just starting to come out of my shell and learning how to love myself and be confident in myself.
10 years ago, i fell in love with a boy for the first time.

10 years ago today, the bear first initiated conversation with me.

10 years and one day ago, i saw him walk into the meeting late--the cutest guy at the conference for sure. he had the requisite spiky hair, baggy shorts, cool t-shirt, sk8er shoes, and eddie bauer backpack that all cool AZN boys back then rocked. 10 years and one day ago, he saw my name and address on the conference registration list before walking into the room in which he was the cutest. he thought, "cool! someone from my 'hood."

we didn't talk that night as he was busy as part of the young adult planning committee for this convocation for the "racial ethnic" people of our church denomination nationwide (sadly, like 5% of the denomination's membership). since it was the first day of the conference, there was a quick meeting and then rest/unpacking time for the rest of the night. i was with my friend A (of the A+K sisterly duo), and we were busy getting to know the other people around our age and exploring together.

so back to that first conversation. between scheduled meetings and activities, a few of us gathered in the game room of our hotel to just hang out. he approached me, saying he noticed i was from southern california, too. we played six degrees of asians-in-southern-california separation and found out we had a mutual acquaintance. he found out who my mom was and made the connection that she had worked with his parents on some regional, denominational things in the past. he had even spoken with her on the phone briefly--to ask who it was and then hand the phone over to his dad. then someone wanted to take a group picture. i gave the photographer my camera, too.

bear is center in the grey shirt.
i'm in front of him in the white tank.

after that conversation, we hung out together with the group as a whole. the group bonded pretty well over the course of that week, and i have some great memories of that sweaty time in orlando. the bear was quite the popular one and kept us all laughing. during that week, i noticed his sense of humor, his quick temper, his utter dedication to things that mattered to him that in turn revealed that temper, and how physically attractive he was to me. unfortunately, he seemed to be interested in another girl that week. she was more outgoing than i, so they talked more than the bear and i did. i would be lying if i said i wasn't a little bit jealous. i figured that the attraction was one-sided and to forget it in favor of friendship. after all, i was off to college, the pseudo-real world, and big things that were more important than boys.

on the last day of the conference, we compiled everyone's contact information. a few of us had AOL and added our screennames because we were just so young, tech-savvy, and hip (read: nerds) like that.

as soon as i got home, i logged onto AOL. yes, even then, i was already addicted to the internet. i hadn't checked my e-mail in over a week! OMG! my inbox was going to be flooded with hilarious and interesting forwards, memes, and even actual e-mail from my online and ~~cool~~ dorky real-life friends that had internet. i added my new friends' e-mail addresses to my address book and their screennames to my buddy list. as soon as i did, i saw the bear sign on.

we talked for hours that night. yes, on AOL. i literally LOLed more than i ever had in my history of chatting online to that point. at around 3 AM, we considered going to carrows to eat as both of us were starving. hey, it was the only thing open at that hour in our area. i vetoed the idea as my mom was pretty strict about me going out late at night, and i was a ~~good~~ sheltered kid. we instead made plans to have coffee sometime that coming week.

that was three weeks before i was heading cross-country for college. we saw each other about two to three times per week for those three weeks and quickly became very good friends. our first time "hanging out" (date) was at green burrito for dinner, then coffee and amazing conversation at starbucks. the conversation ranged from the hilarious to the serious. i even told him about my dad's death on that first date. we played tennis together. one day on my way home from a friend's, i randomly had the guts to drop by his place, so he, his friend, and i went to dinner together. we chatted online and on the phone almost every night for hours. for those three weeks and even longer, we lied to ourselves about being just good friends.

the night before i left for new york, he took me to santa monica. i had told him multiple times how much i was going to miss the beach and the warmth, so he made sure he took me before i left. when he dropped me off at home, he told me to wait--he had a gift for me. he knew that winnie the pooh was my favorite disney character from before i could say his name properly, and that i liked the classic pooh stuff better than the new. he got me a classic pooh address book and stationery set--so i could stay in touch with my friends at home better. so i could stay in touch with him better.

we told each other we'd miss each other. i promised i'd keep in touch, and besides, i'd have ethernet (high-speed internet! OMG! OMG!) in the dorms. i smiled. we hugged briefly but hard. then he vroomed off. no, he didn't drive off, he vroomed off. he had the loudest exhaust on his lowered civic, of course. i was going to miss feeling hotter than all import models in the world combined riding next to him in his fixed-up car, especially since he had taken the A/C out to make the car go faster. i slowly walked to the front door. the summer night was cool and crisp as desert nights tend to be, but my face wouldn't cool down and neither would the burning in my eyes.

my mom, potato bro, and i flew off to new york the next morning. we spent a week in an almost-abandoned ski resort on the shores of lake placid to have some family time before i was really off to school (yes it was totally creepy, but we survived without being murdered or haunted). i missed all of my friends at home dearly that week i was away from the internet and the phone, but i missed the one i had known the shortest time the most.

as soon as i got to school and had my phone and computer hooked up, the bear and i picked up our conversations where we had left off. except for that one, yet unspoken one neither of us had dared to broach--that despite how young we were and how brief our acquaintance was, we had both fallen in love.

9 years ago today, the bear came to my front door with a single red rose and asked me to be his girlfriend.* he told me he wanted to ask me on a special day. i had no idea what that special day was. he reminded me it was exactly one year since the first day we talked. he even wore the same shirt he had worn on that day. never mind we already had each others' hearts for a year already.

*we were still teens, k?!? give us a break!

summertime in the LBC

2009-07-15T22:56:00.000-07:00

winnie's already posted her photos from our shooting excursion yesterday.

here are some of mine.

winnie in action.

poh-tay-toh, poh-tah-toh.
i can never get away from this color combo.

this huge used bookstore recently closed forever.
sad. some may not get to travel around the world.

we're definitely in the LBC.

les poissons, les poissons
how i love les poissons...

churrigueresque ornament tacked onto an otherwise plain box of a building.
NOT chigger-esque, as an instructor at school likes to call it.

we did take some portraits of each other as well.

hmm. i forgot i can move around the subject.
ah well.

summertime and its flexibility (in my case) are wonderful.