What time is it?

I've set aside this evening for packing my suitcase for Hong Kong. At the moment however, the said suitcase is still sitting, empty, in my closet. My clothes, also resting in the closet, look rather satisfied, with no sign of any inclination to move themselves into the suitcase. The suitcase itself doesn't look like it wants to come out and open itself either, so it might be a moot point to ask anything of the clothes. Apparently, gentle coaxing and peaceful negotiations don't work well with suitcases. Should this one continue to remain closed against the requests of the closet inspectors, I will have to resort to using force and dragging it from its rightful place at the closet floor.

Moving to more nutritious matters, it looks like the food girl has gotten tired of waiting for restaurant and movie reviews and she's contributing some of her own. To make up for the lapse, let me recommend the Top o'the Senator in Toronto, which is really a jazz club instead of a restaurant. One website told me that it's located on top of the Senator steakhouse, hence the name and the facility for a dinner and show. From what I could observe, the Senator is dead and now replaced by the Torch Bistro, which provides the dinner before the show. A dinner reservation gets you a reserved seat upstairs for after dinner, but the price of the meal does not include the $14/person cover to get upstairs later.

The restaurant ambience is rather dry, the aged hardwood floors need refinishing to give this establishment the sense of elegance it needs. Curtained booths add a sense of privacy and cut down the noise for decent conversation, but the 7 foot waiter towering above the table was a bit disconcerting regardless of service. Appetizers ($7-10) were mediocre, and the chocolate cake ($?) was dense, but not impressive. Both the lamb sirloin ($28) and the duck leg confit ($26) however, came across nicely. As I found out with a little research afterwards, a confit is a meat preserved by slow cooking in its own fat. Kinda like deep frying at lower temperatures. Doesn't sound particularly healthy, but it certainly ends up very tender and extremely tasty. Given the decor though, the food seemed overpriced - perhaps if they waived the cover it'd be a good deal (2.5/5).

The club upstairs was long and thin, with the band on the near end, table seating at the far end, and benches and bar tables in between, running the length of the room. It's reminiscent of the Village Vanguard down in NYC, with considerably more atmosphere (read dimmer lights and denser crowd) than the restaurant below. Music from the Eliana Cuevas sextet the night I went was very latin, but varied from ballads to quite lively (4/5).

The past week has been a continuous rainstorm here, with periods of drizzle interspersed to alleviate the monotony. I normally don't notice much except on the drive to and from work, but I guess this is how the weather makes up for the last six months of cloudless skies. I'm just disappointed that I didn't choose to go up to Tahoe either this past weekend, or the coming weekend, considering they've gotten about 10' of fresh white stuff in the last week or so. Who am I kidding. I'm not going to complain about missing out on a white Christmas for fears of bitterly cold Torontonians. I'll leave you guys with a happy Canadian-wannabe, since I'm gonna have to go drag that suitcase out for a bit of stuffing.

Still no pics
Today's blog was almost predestined to let loose the floodgates of expletives to wash the few weary readers asunder. Instead I feel like a veritable god or lesser deity. Maybe just a guru, since I know that I've barely just stemmed that flow of foul-mouthed horror. How is this so? What can impassion one so deeply, and fling one's soul from the depths of despair to the dizzying summits of bliss?

None other than our dear friend, the x86 instruction set. Debugging this code is some sort of medieval torture, if they had computers in medieval days, or maybe it's just modern day tech-torture. Of course being able to fix something in it is quite the opposite. Like landing a spacecraft on the moon. Well, maybe not, but I'm sure those that had to land a spacecraft on the moon had plenty of their own assembly to deal with, even if it wasn't x86.

Now only if the female psyche was so easy to decipher...

...
I remember seeing what I thought was the peak of Mt. Whitney a few hours into our hike a few months back, thinking "That summit looks like it's 2 weeks away". But hiking's the process of putting one foot in front of the other until you reach that peak. I try not to talk about work into this blog, but to be honest, it takes up a good 12+ hours a day lately. And with a deadline coming up in two weeks, that looks like it'll take a month to reach, it's a matter of taking it a step at a time.
I snapped a bunch of random pics at the Halloween Party on Castro last night. If any of them come out decent I'll post something up.
Lyd's blog reminds me of having window seat dim sum at Dynasty on Bloor last year, watching snow swirling around the shoppers hurrying along the street.
Alright, back to work.

Chat
Looks like Blogger got hacked, but it seems that this would only affect those who are using FTP to publish (instead of blogspot). It's been a busy week, er, month. I'm thinking it's Monday night, but it's Friday already. The last 120 hours sure went by fast.

I went surfing last Sunday on some pretty great waves. More work than snowboarding, but it's a lot cheaper. In response to a few other bloggers, should they happen to surf by here:

Wongoz, they probably didn't wave the pricetags around at photokina (why can't they have those shows over here?) SD9 $1800, EOS-1Ds $8000, and considering each pixel on the SD9 is equivalent to almost 3 pixels ont the EOS-1DS. Of course, the EOS-1Ds has tonnes more features. Oh, and I wouldn't mind linking to your home page if there was a direct link to your current blog from there.

Yuling: brought up a few interesting questions, but the failure of philosophy is reducing arguments to technicalities that don't translate into anything meaningful in reality. Both the oak tree and the omnipotence issue are a matter of language and definition. Using the given definition of an oak tree, there are no such things as oak trees. Hence God cannot create one. Shucks. Similarly, the implied definition of omnipotence is being able to do the impossible. It depends if you believe God exists in an alternat plane free of any logical or mathematical laws. For example, can God make 1=0?
I was at a Pascal Lecture in Waterloo given by Donald Knuth titled "God and Computer Science", where he outlines the idea that if God's ability was incomprehensibly large, but finite, it would make no practical difference to us than if he were omnipotent.

Jon: I'm sure you and Justin must have had a fabulous time shoe shopping. Did you get matching bags? I'm sure you did.

Tam: Update! Even if it isn't in blog form :)

Alright, now for a nice relaxing weekend...

Clarification
I don't dig blondes. However, as suggested by Wongz, I do dig the Sigma SD9 which was the camera used to capture that picture linked in the last post. It's a 3.3 Megapixel camera like my current G1, but the Foveon sensor's actual resolution is much higher. Unfortunately, so is the price tag. I seriously need an inside source.
Death by VHS
It seems like months since I went to see a movie in the theaters; six months ago i must have been going once a week. I caught the ring last night with low expectations, following unimpressive reviews on the Star and New York Times. Perhaps it was the preparation for disappointment, but the horror film actually came off as not bad. It's a far cry from the teeny scream flicks that were poured out on the general public a few years back. The film is much more of an unfolding mystery or detective story, but with an ominous creepiness weighing down the entire film. It was reminiscent of What Lies Beneath, but with more asian inspired style, and less Hitchcockian suspense. The film had it's share of faults. There were a lot of themes thrown in that made little sense, but successfully added to the creepiness. The plot was mostly predictable but had just barely enough minor twists thrown in to keep make it slightly interesting. The suspense was lacking in a few scenes that were cut a little too long. But overall, it was entertaining, and the concepts successfully more freaky than comedic. Luckily for me, I only watch DVDs. (3.5 / 5)

Drool...
Boy oh boy do I ever want one of these (warning, slow download).

Damn Yankees
Scenario: Madman sniper in Maryland takes a pleasure drive up to D.C. where he does the peaceful peoples of the world a favour by taking out the biggest threat to world peace.
Crazy talk you say? Maybe we should go with the president's philosophy. Confronting grave dangers is the surest path to peace and security. Aristotle spoke of politics as the practical branch of philosophy with which to govern people for their benefit. It's becoming clear, however, that American foreign policy is based on the philosophies of "the best defense is a good offense" as much as "might makes right".
Even if one believes that Dubya, son of oil speculator George Sr., is acting out of national defense rather than middle eastern oil-field speculation, the philosophy of using weapons of mass destruction in order to prevent another country from creating them, simply confounds me.
Yeah, I haven't blogged in a while. Most writers have their muse, whether it be ecstasy or despair, which I assume is why the less artistically inclined tend to fade into the daily grind. I think I'm missing that joie de vivre, the extra bam! I've had little to think about and less to tell the world. Perhaps I can claim that I've figured out there really isn't much to figure out. But thank you George, your October 16th Iraq Resolution has brought forth waves of revulsion in my soul like nothing else in the past year. It's no wonder the world hates America.

So damn cute

Blah blah blah
What a rut. I need to find something to do. We might go surfing this weekend.
Anyways, there was an earthquake, way back on May 13. I was on the phone at the time, and at first I heard a loud rumbling - I thought it was just someone moving a heavy load outside, but it was awfully loud. After a few seconds, I could feel the wall I was leaning against shake heavily for a few seconds. It didn't seem like any of the crazy earthquake videos I've seen, and although I could see things shake, it died down before I got anxious. The more amusing story was related by my co-worker - he thought there was something wrong with his head when he couldn't maintain his aim on the toilet...

Dark clouds over July
It's been a while since I last looked at other people's blogs. The month has been pretty dry - but who am I to talk; it's been three weeks since I've last touched this though it hasn't seemed half that long. A lot of things have passed since then, and I can't remember everything that I've meant to pen here.

June 30^th was the closest thing we've had to a perfect day trip. Our group met for lunch on the patio of the Parkside Cafe (3/5), a stone's throw away from Stinson Beach, a relaxed beachside community isolated about an hour north of San Francisco by a twisty stretch of Pacific hugging highway. After an extended lunch under the lazy weekend sun, some of us toured the beach while the rest drove two cars to the top of Mt. Tamalpais. After returning to the beach in a third car, we hiked up one of the many trails from the beach to the top of the mountain.

The seven and a half mile hike took us about three and a half hours at a relaxed pace, though sections of the trail were steep enough to feel sweat dripping down our foreheads and our hearts pounding with the ascent. We got to the top about an hour early for our goal. On the peak was a fire watchtower, where firemen were posted two weeks at a time, scanning the horizon for signs of forest fires in the dry season. While they had their supper within the confines of their cramped tower, we sat on the rocks, watching the thick fog blow in from the Pacific, over San Francisco and the Golden Gate to the southeast.

As the shadow of the mountain stretched slowly, mile by mile, over the city of Sausalito below, the mercury dropped and the rushing of the winds picked up. Most of the tourists - photographers drawn by the perfect light, couples searching for a romantic spot behind clump of rocks, or families of hiking kids - had already left the peak, but a handful, including our group, stayed to watch the last fleeting rays as the sun dropped below the mountains to the west.

On the drive back, we stopped at Cristophe for dinner. A four course French cuisine that was hearty enough to leave each of us stuffed to the seams after the long day on the trail came to $22 (4/5).

The next evening, after a church and a quiet afternoon, I was completely shocked to hear Amy's anguished cries over the phone, telling me that her father had passed. For a moment I was firmly entrenched in reality, yet the moment passing seemed surreal as the cell phone disconnected, and I felt only a total sense of helplessness. Later, when I was in Economy check-in line for United Airlines, I had the same disoriented sense watching people milling about the airport. Businessmen looked busy on cell phones. Some mothers tended their children on the benches while fathers waited in line with the luggage. Other families looked well prepared for a South Pacific vacation. One girl, who looked no more than seventeen, was carrying a baby in the ticketing line for almost the entire hour that I was in the check-in line, yet she still had a contented look on her face as she played with the child.

There's a dissonance in the perception of men. Standing there in the airport, I could see the happiness in the family gladly looking towards their vacation, the anticipation on the face of the old woman who was going home, the determination of the business flyers, yet inside I felt the incurable trauma that another family was living. As immense that it was, a complete breach in the fabric of their reality, I also knew that life went on as usual for most of the other six billion faces on the planet. Indeed, no one else at the airport would likely guess as to why I was travelling that day. Never before that day, have I ever looked at person waiting at the airport, thinking 'oh, they must be travelling to visit a dying relative'.

Already in the small circle of blogs, are there mentions of at least two other passings in the last two months. Our response - the feelings of sympathy, the words of consolation, are so drastically different than those in the lives directly touched. I sit here at my desk wondering and completely oblvious to what's going on at the current moment: children in Africa who maybe saying goodbye to their parents, parents in Cambodia who could be putting their children to rest.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

An exceeding high mountain

Two weeks ago, a group of Waterloo grads made it to Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states. That's actually a bit of hyperbole, since it only ranks 28 in the list of tallest mountains in North America.
We started on a Friday evening, with two minivans driving seven hours to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. After camping out for a few hours in tents and the vans, most of us were up by 4am. By 5am we were on our way to the Whitney Portal Trailhead. While we started out as a group, we had pretty much split up into a number of smaller groups after the first 4 miles.
A 15 hour hike generally gives you plenty of time to think. When you're not thinking 'how much further to the peak?', you may ponder some of life's more interesting questions. Like 'why the !@#$ am I doing this?'. I don't know what the driving force is for climbing up a mountain. In essence we hiked 22 miles that day, and ended up at the same campsite we started at. By 3pm, we made it to the summit, which at 14,493 feet, is about half the height of Everest. It's not like you're actually reaching an especially high altitude - anyone who's been on a 747 has probably been three times as high.
Halfway to the peak, you're already thinking about going to sleep by the side of the trail. The air is thin enough to give you vertigo after hiking a hundred feet, and it was cool enough for snow and ice to wander across the trail in patches. Climbing up the switchbacks become a matter of just putting one foot ahead of another until you reach the summit. By the time you reach 4,000 ft., the air is thin enough to make your head hurt. Winds are howling around you, and the trail gets rough. You have to pull out the fleece and the winter gloves. You look up to the summit, your head pounding and feet aching, the final two miles seem to stretch incredibly further than the first nine.
Somewhere along the way you realize just how rugged nature is - piles of rocks that have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Snow that never melts. Trees and shrubs and even grass have stopped growing a few thousand feet below you. The glare of the high altitude sun blazes around you throught the cloudless sky, burning as it ripples off the icy surfaces of the lakes pooled below you.
When you look down from the summit, you realize the incredible beauty behind the piles of bleak rock, veins of ice crawling down the mountains, and half-frozen aqua lakes whose surfaces are in wrinkled with floating ice. In every direction around you, the Sierra Nevadas break the horizon while the wind bites into your skin. "What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?" What is changed by climbing up a mountain? Compared to the age of rocks and ice, what lasting value do any of man's accomplishments have?
"Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart, and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgement." Forget the pain, hunger, and cold on the way up, it all disappeared with the thrill of being at the top.

Days gone by
There are times when life simply flies by in a blur, like the cornstalks whizzing past as you hurtle down the pavement cutting through the midst of them. Maybe you're preoccupied with the traffic, maybe you're driving too fast, or maybe you've just been mesmerized by the little yellow lines flipping by regularly one after another, like days in a neverending calendar.

It was the Memorial Day long weekend May 24-27. Since Lancer and Corgan went down to E3 the week before, the rest of us up in the Bay packed ourselves up and prepared ourselves for the grueling long weekend traffic down to L.A., our rental Windstar merely an ant in the trail of crawling metal stretching 300 miles down to LA. We left San Jose, Friday night at 5pm, which was probably about the worst time we could have left. We arrived at the L.A. Westin Airport hotel seven hours later. Our two Priceline rooms, at $70 each a night, had plush pillows, clean comforters, and fancy double-headed showers. The hotel also happened to be hosting a Gaming Conference, with all the included characters.


Our first destination on Saturday was the Getty Museum. We met up with the Ottawa crew by the tram from the parking to the museum, about an hour after they were supposed to arrive. We spent the first half of the day wandering the galleries in the off white pavilions, wandering through the manicured gardens and topiary. After a lunch of grilled chicken and fig sandwiches and mozzarella, tomato and basil calabrese at the Garden Terrace cafe, we finished up at the museum and drove along Mulholland Drive, through the Beverly Hills, and up to the Hollywood sign. The sign itself is supposed to be off limits, although there's a relatively rough off-road trail that makes it accessible to those willing to make the hike. When you get to the 45 foot tall steel letters, you realize there really isn't much there, just a bit of garbage here and there, evidence of people having had their fun.


After getting up to the lonely landmark of the oppulent and taking a few photos - trophies of our conquest - we hiked back to the cars where some of the less adventurous were napping. We drove back down to Rodeo Drive; it was almost 6pm and the designer boutiques were closing up. After swinging past the far-too-expensive storefronts, browsing through the assortment of fancy automobiles parked on the street, and stopping for a few photos, we took a walk to the Ottawa guys' hotel, allegedly three blocks away. Make that extremely large values of three. Arislan eventually swung around to pick us up (since those guys were too lazy to walk and had fittingly decided to drive).


We had an evening snack at Factor's Famous Deli. It was 8pm, but it was ang evening snack regardless, since our actual dinner reservation wasn't until 10pm. Factor's served the typical deli fare; a few people had sandwiches or salads, the rest of us sat around and munched on the assortment of complimentary pickles. The sandwiches were mouthwatering, but the muffins they served were probably bought elsewhere.

It was just one of those days where you seemed to be constantly eating. Sticking food in your mouth and chewing and swallowing all so you can just do it again. The real dinner came later at Lucques on Melrose Ave for Asmodean's birthday. Reservations were made a day in advance, and that got our group of 12 a 10pm seating, which required a $20/person deposit. The decor was a subdued hip - white linens and modern furniture surrounding an exposed brick fireplace and chimney. At 10pm, the restaurant was in full swing, the tables were packed and we had to edge between seated diners to get to our table. The menu was simple, appetizers, entrees and a selection of sides. None of the mad five course menus you find at other posh places. A few people ordered appetizers but most of us just went for an entree.

The spring lamb itself was done well, it was cooked to medium for a tender yet still bouncy consistency. The peas and fava beans that garnished it seemed out of place, not adding much in flavour nor presentation. The soft-shell crab was deep fried, very similar to Japanese restaurants, with little to distinguish it. The crab's always good, but it would have been better served had it been drained - they're fatty enough on their own. Service however, was subpar in a few respects.

We returned to the Ottawa crew's hotel room to serve up the gag cake imported from San Francisco. The cake didn't quite make the trip intact. I thought it was from my poor driving in the long weekend traffic. In reality, when the trunk of the minivan was opened on our arrival to L.A., the cake had made a somersault from the top of the pile of luggage, off the rear bumper and onto the floor. It was in surprisingly good condition after the exercise.

The orignal plan for Sunday was to visit San Diego (maybe to visit the Zoo or the beach or Legoland. The weather report was rather cool for the beach, and neither of the other attractions seemed to make the 3hr drive worthwhile. It occured to me that we could go to Evergreen Baptist Church in the morning, but we were unprepared and didn't have directions. We ended up looking in the yellow pages, and ended up at Our Saviour Lutheran Church in Westchester, being the first place I could find the directions to. Three of us made our way to the ordinary little community church. Five minutes before the service, we got into the church despite the fact that it was almost empty. No celebrity pastors here, but it was certainly wasn't the usual. The congregation had about 20 very friendly seniors, the service was very orthodox, and on that particular Sunday, included a recitation of the Athanasian Creed. We stayed for donuts and recommendations to visit the Hollywood bowl before we left.

We joined the rest of the crew for a relaxed Sunday brunch basking on the patio of the Rose Cafe in Santa Monica, and spent the rest of the afternoon playing volleyball on Venice beach. A friend of my Dad's took me out for dinner in the Chinese neighborhood, Monterey Park, later that evening. First time I've had anything remotely Shanghainese since coming down to California. Dinner was followed with taro ice and red bean ice. We met up with the other guys again after dinner, and drove down Sunset Blvd. in search of nightlife. After passing by a couple of hiphop clubs with lines extending for hours and exorbitant covers. Somehow we ended up at some club near Sunset and Cahuenga (no one seems to have caught the name before entering), best described as goth, retro and new wave. Both the costumes and characters were colourful, to say the least.

Since we didn't have anything planned for Monday (other than the drive home), we lazed the morning away in Santa Monica, where buskers entertained in the avenue full of shops and restaurants, people crowded the midway on the pier, and the beach stretched forever in both directions. We had Thai for lunch, and simply strolled through Santa Monica taking in the sights and sounds of the beachfront. It was our last stop in L.A. as we picked up our cars from the parking complex and headed back onto the 405 to make our way home.

A week later I was skipping out on work early on Friday yet again. Instead of heading to the city, I was headed out to Yosemite National Park. After years of National Geographic articles and photos, I was finally going to see the park for myself. Somehow, that magazine made every locale exotic, whether it was a rainforest, a bustling city, or a farm in the Midwest. Road trips in California tend to be scenic, passing the sea, or rolling hills, mountains, desert, or even fields packed with cows.

This trip only had the four of us, so I drove my own car. The traffic was relatively light for a friday evening, probably because it was a long weekend just before. After stopping at In-n-Out for dinner in Merced, the sky was getting dark. The passengers busted out the notebook and popped in Ocean's 11. While they watched the flickering screen, I watched the flickering mountain top ahead of me, as blades of lightning lit up the night sky around the silhouette of the Sierra Nevada range.

It was 23:00 by the time we arrived at Curry Village in Yosemite. The tent cabins we reserved were made of heavy canvas draped around a wood frame. Although pretty secure against the elements, the tarp didn't do much to block out external noise. It's like sleeping with a hundred unseen campers. A cough here, a sneeze there, a creak of the bed. The dirt path crunches softly as someone walks past. Sounds of people getting up and about starting ringing through the camp by 5am.

By 9am everyone's ready to go. The sky was cloudy and the wind was cool. We head to the trailhead on our way up to Half Dome. The hike is 16.4 miles (roundtrip), ascending 4,796 vertical feet. We're already an hour behind our intended start time as we make a breakfast of Doritos, Nutri-grain bars and Gatorade. We started the trail, guessing at which peak the trail lead to. In late May, the rivers running through Yosemite are mostly in full swing, carrying down the winter melt. We passed Vernal Falls, and the higher up Nevada Falls, both roaring with icy white water.

Eventually the rocky trail smoothed out into a softer forest trail, and we covered most of the distance shaded by trees. We spotted a wolf, a deer, and numerous rodents and birds. Dark blue Steller's jays would occasionally appear and fly ahead of us. Toward the top, the trees thinned out as we approached the bald rock that was the summit. Two heavy cables were strung to assist hikers up the 45° incline up the final few hundred feet to the top.

By 16:00 we had all made it to the top, although it seemed as if everyone else had already left. The sun was peeking through some of the clouds as we spent a few minutes savouring the victory and the view at the total elevation of 8,836 ft. When we started heading down, it was clear the steep steps up to the summit had taken their toll. Our pace was slow despite the downward incline. Two of us had gone somewhat faster, and we stopped by Nevada falls and rested, watching the sun drift slowly towards the mountains, casting the rocks rising above the valley in an orange glow.


We hurried along after that, since no one had expected the hike to take so long - none of us carried a flashlight and the light was dimming fast. By 21:00 we were mostly traveling by the starlight that trickled in through the trees, and had split up into two pairs since we were going down at different paces. Behind us came a few lights swinging through the darkness, we waited as a large group of Hispanic hikers met up with us. They had spotted two people headed down the stock trail (as in, a trail for horses). I had hoped it wasn't the other two members of our group - they must have been further behind since the flashlights were actually pretty close behind us. We took a shot down the horse trail for a few minutes, but didn't find anyone. If anyone had actually headed down there they were going at a fast pace in the dark.

We returned to the fork, where two guys from the other hiking group volunteered to search the stock trail while the rest of us headed on to the bridge at Vernal falls. We waited in the dark, staring up into a deep blue sky specked with stars. Someone in the other group said a prayer in Spanish for our missing friends. The two guys returned in half an hour, they hadn't seen anyone on the trail. We continued slowly down the trail. By the time we got to the bottom and got a ride back to Curry Village, it was already 22:30.

If the lesson learned wasn't 'don't overestimate your group's pace', then it's 'park rangers will not come help you'. Throughout the evening I called the park ranger dispatch a number of times. It seemed her job was to pacify callers. We spent the next few hours trying to hike up the trails with a dying flashlight in hopes of finding them. We tried calling out, but any voices were simply drowned out by the river. Finally, the dispatch agreed to lend me a few fully charged flashlight, but the park rangers didn't come to deliver them till 01:30, by which time I was already exhausted. After assurances that they wouldn't suffer hypothermia in the wind, we resigned to parking by the trailhead and sleeping until morning broke.

We went back to Curry Village to call the park ranger at 5am before heading back up the trails. After searching the two mile loop from the trailhead to the end of the stock trail, we managed to find the two of them sitting satisfied in the Food Pavilion, after having survived the night in the wilderness, making it down sometime during the morning, and polishing off a buffet breakfast. After grabbing a Red Bull for the road, we made our way home.

The weekend after that I hiked Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states and Hawaii, but I'll leave that story for another day.

More of the same
There's a lot of times I sit down and wonder, where have the past two weeks of my life gone? Sure most of it was at work, and much of it seemed pretty unproductive. Like the times you take a week to solve a problem, since you need the first four and a half days to get up to speed with things. I think that's why I'm in engineering, not theoretical physics - it's really nice to have something tangible done at the end of the day (even though software is often considered an intangible).

What else have I managed to do lately? The usual of dinners, movies, and going hiking with friends. It's amazing when I think about it, a year ago I was leaving Toronto for Delhi: I can never quite grasp the immense range of conditions that humans live in. I think given another year, that third world itch will really start itching. I've started reading through my Morocco Lonely Planet guide. I'm also looking to read Wolfram's A New Kind of Science. Also tried helping out with Santee Bible Club, a monthly day camp for lower class kids in South San Jose. Interesting as it was, I don't think I'm particularly adept at dealing with kids.

Off the beaten path

This past week my manager, an ex-gambling junkie, passed me a book, Poker Nation, by Andy Bellin. As the title suggests, it's a book about poker - the game, the culture, the lifestyle. It goes over the play - nicknames for hands (like the 'San Francisco busboy' - a Queen and 3 (a queen with a trey, get it?)), the strategies, the math and the psychology. But it also goes through the subculture. The life of professional gamblers, mathematical idiot savants, are romanticised as much as they are revealed - gambling addicts unable to maintain real lives (or relationships). The excitement of the game is actually reduced to mechanical boredom when the game becomes a profession. For anyone who's ever loved Rounders or even God of Gamblers, this book is a great read.

It's also the first book that I've read just for fun since I've gotten here. Maybe that suggests I'm pretty much all settled in. I've gotten to exploring the local community. About fifteen minutes drive away from where I live is Alviso, called a town but really just a languishing neighborhood drifting into oblivion. Alviso was once home to a lively marina and cannery. As the south bay filled up with silt over the past half century, both have closed down, leaving an abandonned marina, with empty piers reaching out into the rushes, and large saltwater marshes. Levees containing the salt ponds are still useable as biking (or in my case, hiking) trails. The area is now a protected habitat, the cannery has now become the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory. Starting in the marina, I hiked about thre miles north. There, in the bay, was the town of Drawbridge.

Built at the start of the twentieth century, it's fallen into disuse, and now is closed to access. However, I made my way there along the Amtrak railway. Okay, so maybe I'm reliving the Stand By Me days I never had. And maybe a ghost town isn't half as exciting as a dead body, but the dive bombing seagulls and sandpipers sure were.


Ah, I can still hear their shrill cries as they swooped in from behind... (play Ride of the Valkyries) seeing their shadows flit across the ground as they dropped their payloads... watching with one close call after another, their ordinance crashing into the waves not five feet away with the signature ploink.
The horror... the horror...

It's Saturday again?
My housemate's been back for a week after an almost three month hiatus in New Zealand and Toronto. I had come to enjoy having an apartment to myself, but the sheer freedom from any form of social obligation meant my schedule's been slipping back towards that university lifestyle. You know the one, where all life's necessary functions except for sleep transpired under the light of the moon or flourescent tubes; daylight hours existed for the purpose of exams and handing in papers. In this past week I think I've seen my housemate twice. Typically, he's off to work before I awake, and I get home after his lights go out. I've spent too many hours at work this week. And in the midst of it all there just wasn't the time to blog about the past weekend, and I already find it's Satuday again. And since I haven't had time to mention it, here's the sad news of the week. Not only do we get bombed by Americans, but we pick up their eating habits as well.

Last Saturday was actually quite interesting. Billy and I caught a full-house screening of Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) (2001) at the San Francisco Film Festival. This is the lastest film by Hayao Miyazaki, released last summer in Japan, December in Hong Kong, and supposedly September 20th, 2002 in North America. Like many other Miyazaki features, this one was made "For the people who used to be 10 years old, and the people who are going to be 10 years old". I've realized I'm slowly losing the ability to see things as a kid. I think kids would love this movie, but I wonder whether they really would, or whether they'd find parts of it slow moving (much like Totoro). As an adult I'd say it's the best Miyazaki film so far. It's got the typical themes that recur in his films - uncertain child heroines, fantastic creatures, tradition, magic, humour, victory and love. The fairy-tale plot follows Chihiro as her family curiously wanders into an abandoned Japanese theme park, where they are sucked into a magical world in medieval Japan. Chihiro struggles to find her own identity and free the friends she meets and her own parents from the witch Yu-baba which runs the alternate reality. Like most films for kids, this movie comes off as heartwarming and uplifting. Like most other Miyazaki films, it manages to do it honestly, without resorting to cheezy cliches. This one should be coming into wide release from Disney by the fall. Watch it. 4.5/5

We spent Saturday night wandering North Beach for something interesting to do. Having passed by all the 'hip' looking spots, at the point of calling it a night, we go back to the live music blaring from a small bar, simply named 'Saloon'. We weren't quite sure whether the '1232' of the address was part of the name or not, but it was an interesting spot in itself. The bar itself was old and run down. It could have been out of a western if it weren't for the fact that we're too far west for cowboys. The clientele were in their early thirties through to what must have been their 70s. All caucasian, and mostly obese. A slice of the American crowd you'd least to expect a couple of Chinese kids to hang in. Up on stage, a guy I've never heard of named Daniel Castro was wailing out some sad song about walking down some road, but he was mighty lively about it. The whole of the crowded little bar was on their feet grooving to the beat of the blues guitar. This kinda thing doesn't quite have the right sound on CD, it's not stuff I'd normally go buy, but one of these days I gotta get myself back in a blues bar.

How does Yu-ling manage to post just about every day? Kids and co-op these days. Oh, wait, I remember, back in the day when my mailbox handled 400 emails a day while I my catatonic brain fermented in the basement of some unnamed bank tower. Speaking of Yuling, his posts on sex and the arts are quite interesting. Just last week the Supreme Court made a relevent ruling.

On the topic of sex and film, the theme this week is love stories, although there are quite a few variations on that theme.

Boys Don't Cry (1999)
After making quite a buzz in many gay & lesbian film fests, this one netted a Best Actress Oscar for Hilary Swank. As an independent film, you get the gritty low cost cinematography often seen in indies. Based on a true story, the story follows an underacheiving teen girl (who wants to be a boy) wandering stupidly through white trash America looking for love. Although the plot only gets about as complicated as it could when you throw tomboys, pretty girls, and drunk jealous boyfriends together, the ending's a real doozy.
3.5/5

The Crying Game (1992)
I'm a decade late in watching this one, the buzz has long died and everyone knows the 'twist' in this one already. It certainly would have been more of a bomb if you weren't expecting it coming, but even then it's still a great movie. Unlike the previous movie, the visuals are lush, vivid and intentional. The plot (which I actually knew nothing about) actually follows a group of the IRA as they kidnap a British soldier from a local fair and hold him. One of the IRA volunteers, Fergus, builds up a friendship with the soldier, Jody while guarding him, yet In the end, their demands are not met and Fergus leads Jody off to his execution. That's actually just the introduction as Fergus then tries to put his IRA past behind him and somehow find redemption in searching out Jody's girlfriend in London. It does a great job of portraying love and sexuality - how they're both intertwined and yet two vastly different things. Worth watching but not everyone will like it.
4/5

Like Water for Chocolate (1992)
Despite having raked in tonnes of awards in its home country of Mexico, this film was highly dissappointing, especially if you're expecting some sort of drama. Writer Lauren Esquivel (who also wrote the novel, which I haven't read, and don't plan to read) does herself a great disservice, falling into the stereotype of an overly romantic feminist woman writer). Tita is born, the youngest daughter in a 19th century Mexican family, must live by her family's tradition and not marry, but fulfill her role and care for her mother until she passes. All is well, with Tita growing up in the kitchen, until a charming but stupid boy comes along, and the desire for love and freedom draws out the rest of the story. The only non-standard fare are the fantastic elements here and there - the magical effects of Tita's cooking and her visions. Although the characters do show a hint of humanity - living torn between the desire for freedom and the bounds of propriety and tradition, making mistakes, growing up - they're still mostly cliche. The cooking scenes don't come across as particularly sensual (I don't think Mexican food ever truly attains that). And the passionately romantic love scenes end up coming across as comedic and gauche. Maybe you'll like it if you're looking for a romantic chick flick, but I think this is even too much for that.
1.5/5

Angels and Insects (1995)
I had heard of this one before, something to do with Victorian era prurient interests. But Sinyee rented it and she had no idea what it was about. A shipwrecked naturalist returns penniless to his aristocratic benefactor, a reverend struggling between God and science at the time when Darwin was novel. Despite the biologist's meagre upbringing, his benefactor accepts him into the family, as he marries the much desired, beautiful older daughter and assists the father in his entomological research - much to the dismay of the antagonistic brother. The plot twists from there, leaving the viewer is trying to decipher whether something is indeed going on beneath the surface of the house. It actually reminds me of the recent bruhaha with the RC church. This film starts off painfully slow, the well enunciated Victorian speech and formality drags the entire first half; only in the end do you realize how masterfully intentional the whole pace has been set.
4/5

And speaking of watching what you watch, you may or may not be interested in these, since they all have scenes with full nudity (uh oh!).

"Christian" music?
There's a Christian radio station in San Francisco. I can barely get reception when driving around in SJ, but everyone can get it over the miracle of streaming audio. However, listening to it for a few hours hasn't changed my opinion that commercial Christian music generally sucks. Most of it sounds like a rehash of common pop music styles.

Of course my current favourite bands still happen to be Christian, check U2 and TVB. After all, isn't music an expression of being human? And isn't part of being human searching for that Relationship?

Oh, and Yuling, you've watched Moulin Rouge far too many times.

Touch the sky
Imagine yourself sitting on a hill; it's a large hill but not quite a mountain. You look in one direction as the hill drops off, far below you lies the city from where you came. You can't see anyone from this height, but you know there are hundreds of thousands of people below you going on about their daily business - working, shopping, having fun.

In the opposite direction are the mountains. You may be on a hill, but you are only on the foothills of a much larger range. There land in that direction is rugged. Buildings and roads are very sparse. In nature's reign there's a different sort of business, as hundreds of thousands of animals going on about their daily business - hunting, being hunted, or just basking in the sun.

On Saturday I hiked up Monument Peak. I was expecting to be able to drive up the hill, but it turned out to be a 3.5 mile, 2300 vertical foot hike. The top of the hill had a number of microwave and radio antennae and satellite dishes, but was otherwise deserted. Atop the peak, staring eastward into the Californian coastal mountain range, it's a different world from the suburban sprawl to the west. I'm reminded of Paul Tokunaga's comment about retreats of solitude, and the top of a hill is as good a place as any to spend some time alone.

Here's a 360° view from the peak. The axis of rotation wasn't quite vertical, hence the resulting image looks kinda wavy (imagine it wrapped around, you'll see how it looks like a ring at an angle). If anyone knows of a good piece of software for stitching panorama shots together, let me know!

I find Matt and lyds have had highly amusing blogs lately. Especially the 'discussion' (girl vs boy). Guys, denial's just the first stage.

As for wongz, I think the last line is "but this is for the extras... what? no tip?"

Awww...
Conball's outdone herself. Cute kid, but she's got the expression of a sack of rice. I guess that's before she met Ronald.

Problem with California, is that I've never, ever had allergies this early in the year in Toronto. The itchy eyes and nose aren't too bad, but the constant fatigue is really getting to me. It doesn't help that I'm reading Inside COM. Though well written, it still isn't the most exciting read. Best line so far: "At Microsoft, we always feel we can improve on a standard". If this drowsiness keeps up, I'm gonna start saying "Yes to Drugs".

Boring
I had two opportunities to go hiking this weekend but neither panned out. Bummer. So instead I did some reading after attending a different church. I find that I have an automatic cynicism towards great big "white" churches, with a band on stage, centered on a grand piano, from where the charismatic pianist leads the congregation in soulful bouts of Maranatha music. Perhaps it's from too much exposure to church services on TV. Perhaps it's some ingrained childhood revulsion against PCS. Somehow I just find it incredibly challenging to put aside the cynicism and worship when I walk in and see the ever-so-slick production. But I'm glad I went out of my way today, since it lead to my reading this:

But in order that the characteristics of the divine may shine more brightly by the development of the truth, I will give you light to apprehend it, the obscurity caused by sin being wiped away. I will draw away the veil from the darkness of this hidden world. For a brief space conceive yourself to be transported to one of the loftiest peaks of some inaccessible mountain, thence gaze on the appearances of things lying below you, and with eyes turned in various directions look upon the eddies of the billowy world, while you yourself are removed from earthly contacts,-you will at once begin to feel compassion for the world, and with self-recollection and increasing gratitude to God, you will rejoice with all the greater joy that you have escaped it. Consider the roads blocked up by robbers, the seas beset with pirates, wars scattered all over the earth with the bloody horror of camps. The whole world is wet with mutual blood; and murder, which in the case of an individual is admitted to be a crime, is called a virtue when it is committed wholesale. Impunity is claimed for the wicked deeds, not on the plea that they are guiltless, but because the cruelty is perpetrated on a grand scale.
   - Epistle from Cyprian to Donatus

I think we're often missing that compassion for the world.

Food...
I've been trying to get back to some regular fare after that gourmet binge back in February. It doesn't help that our company's replaced the free bad catered food with a cafeteria that's actually pretty damn good. Since the mass production style has been replaced with 'quality and freshness', it's actually faster to go for Jack in the Box (and cheaper with the $0.99 Jumbo Jack). I'm really hoping they'll improve the efficiency.

It was however, Xun's birthday, and for dinner we headed out to Le Papillon. Perhaps it was because I was tired, but it was less than memorable. I had to try to remember what I ordered - a bland lobster appetizer atop flat puff pastry and a tasteless duck entree. The dessert, a pear charlotte with caramel ice cream, was good but not outstanding (the ice cream was a nice touch). For $55 a person it was a lot less than other French restaurants around here, but then, I left those places impressed.
2/5

... and Flicks
Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
I remember having seen bits of this way back when, but I don't recall having watched the whole thing. After watching Yi Yi, I hope Taiwanese directors are adding a lot of hyperbole to their everyday life, or else it seems like those Taiwanese are pretty screwed up. If episodes of Iron Chef were as succulent as this film, I'd probably be watching more TV. Coyly humorous, this film following the life of three sisters and their elderly father chef, illustrates a lot of the quirks Chinese culture that a lot of us westernized kids recognize and love/hate. Enjoyed this far more than anything else I've seen recently. Definitely watch this one.
5/5

Billy Elliot (2000)
I shirk away from most feel good, 'power of the human spirit', movies; I appreciate cheese on my toast, but I just don't have the taste for it on the screen. However, somehow I watched this one to the end without that gut-wrenching feeling. Looks very British (is it the film stock or the lighting that gives all these Brit films the same feel?), but it's got enough in it to be enchanting. Not raving mind you, but good to rent.
3/5

Run Lola Run (1998)
I've been meaning to watch this one for a while. You watch the same story - in which Lola attempts to raise enough money to save her bumbling boyfriend in twenty minutes - three times; in each run, minor differences in certain events lead to drastically different endings. Not too much in terms of characters, dialogue or even action, but the constant techno beat in the background makes watching the same movie thrice captivating enough.
3.5/5

The Hurricane (1999)
Denzel won an Oscar for this one, but I found it rather dull. One of those 'power of the human spirit biographies', that's supposed to make you feel good at the end without really learning anything.
2.5/5

A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Yet another one of those 'power of the human spirit biographies', yet this one was actually interesting... but perhaps I just have a personal predilection towards crazy mathematicians. I actually left with more of an idea of what life is for someone who is really crazy. Unfortunately, the movie does have it's major chunk of cheese (seriously, Jennifer Connelly's wife character was too perfect). With all the Oscar hype I guess my expectations were way too high, but I still left the theater happy for spending my $6.75.
3.5/5

Blade 2 (2002)
Yes, I usually avoid these ones, but I found myself watching it in a fit of boredome... and actually found myself entertained. There's more problems with plausibility in this one than your average Hollywood action movie, but the effects were good and the music thumped nicely. I have to say it was pretty good for a crappy action movie.
2.5/5

Passover
  What troubles you now,
    that you have all gone up on the
      roofs,
  O town full of commotion,
    O city of tumult and revelry?
  Your slain were not killed by the
      sword,
  nor did they die in battle.

Recent events in Israel have really made me think. There's so many things we take for granted here, like being able to go out at night and being able to expect to come home alive.

Letters to the editor
Well, emails and ICQ, not exactly letters, but many of them say:
"What's with the name of your webpage?"

According to Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: con·cep·tion
2 a : the capacity, function, or process of forming or understanding ideas or abstractions or their symbols b : a general idea : CONCEPT c : a complex product of abstract or reflective thinking d : the sum of a person's ideas and beliefs concerning something
3 : the originating of something in the mind

Now it seems like some people got preconceptions, since the first definition is the unintended one:
1 a (1) : the process of becoming pregnant involving fertilization or implantation or both
Hope that clears up the misconception.

Oh Milla
Resident Evil (2002)
While significantly better than other video game inspired films such as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, this flick doesn't do much to improve the average viewer's impression of the genre. While I was tense during quite a few moments of the film, it was still riddled with cliches, flashy but sloppy effects, incredibly poor acting, and shallow characters. Following the cue from Tomb Raider, the producers obviously realised that hot chicks sell. Viewers are given a heaping serving of Milla, and we're thoroughly reminded that she's indeed a babe. Entertaining enough for a video game flick.
2.5/5

What happened while the grandmother was asleep...
Yi Yi (2000)
Edward Yang's 173 minute film is a test of viewers' endurance and patience. While excellent in many aspects, every aspect of the film strives to be slow and pensive. Charactes, while very well acted, were tepid and sterile, despite the understated suggestiveness of many of the plot elements. The plot, while sufficiently complex for an hour-and-a-half movie, dragged over the almost three hour length of the film. The artistic style reminded me of dramatic anime, like Only Yesterday. While the cinematography was beautifully framed, the long, slow, drawn out shots with almost no action or camera movement not only emphasized the reflective nature of many of the shots, but also dragged the pacing to a painful crawl. Characters openly waxed philosophical in monologues that were overly dramatic for a film whose pacing reflects the repetitive nature of real life. During the screen time, the viewer joins the life of a family dealing with life's share of ups and downs. There's a wedding, a birth, an accident, a funeral, a murder, and a number of romantic trysts, yet the film reflects the mother, Min-min's, problem with her own life: nothing really happens. The saving grace came in the form of Yang-yang, the innocent yet precocious boy character, representing the screen device for presenting classic ageless wisdom that only comes from the cuteness of children. A great film, but probably more enjoyable if you had something (or someone) else there to occupy your time during those long droughts between interesting patches.
3/5

Online community
In response to Wongoz' 3.11.2002 post, I wasn't sure if AbraHAM's nickname was kosher, but Sheepie has had it posted in her long running weblog for quite a while. Speaking of Abe, here's what men really want to know about sensitivity. Need more information? Ask a girl.

Movies...
Jules et Jim (1961)
This Truffaut classic explores the classic conflict of love and friendship. The film follows the story of two friends, a German and a Frenchman, and Catherine, a tempermental libertine they both fall in love with. Jules marries Katherine, but after the first World War, Jules allows his friend to replace him in hopes of quelling Catherine's other infidelities. Connoisseurs of fine Hollywood fare would probably find this a dud: the plot is cliche, the pacing slow, the characters flat, and the subtelties of New Wave editing shine dimly against the sophistication and technology modern camera work. And above that you need to read subtitles.

On the other hand, if you stop to think, the content - the state of relationships between men and women - which earned the film an X rating when it was released (there's no depiction of sex or nudity), doesn't lose any relevance. The utopian alternative lifestyle of the threesome proves unfeasible. The image of a triumphantly unrestrained Catherine, perhaps as a feminist heroine, is likewise shattered. What seems to be a film about liberal ideals seems to return to traditional structure as the only viable recourse.
3/5

Il Postino (1994)
Nominated for five Academy Awards, this Italian release has an ambience typical of European films, where the plot is not particularly intriguing as it is simply entertaining. A simple slacker in an Italian village finds a job as a postman when the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda moves there in exile. The senior poet mentors the young man in art and literature, which the disciple uses to woo the buxom village beauty Beatrice.

While it contains little to rave about, the wonderful score enhancies the rustic tale, and when you're done watching you turn of the DVD player with a great sense of calm satisfaction.
4/5

Payback (1999)
I had no idea what was in this movie. I had guessed a crime drama, but that seems a lacking description. I can say it's typical Hollywood. Betrayal, money, revenge, and a dash of romance thrown in. An 'uncoventional' hero, fighting for honor, kicking ass, and getting the girl. Highly entertaining.
4/5

We Were Soldiers (2002)
I expected American propaganda, but after watching Black Hawk Down (which was great), I was suckered in by the Toronto Star review. Bad mistake. While not horrible, as a movie it was certainly nothing like Saving Private Ryan or BHD. It wasn't even much like Thin Red Line. Sure it seemed like it wanted to make you understand what it was like to be a soldier fighting for some ideal on the grimness of battlefield. It even seemed to try convince you that the Vietnamese were people too. But what it really tried to do was convince you how great Yankee soldiers were, convince you that it was real sad to be a widow, and convince you that Mel Gibson's a manly man, just like John Wayne.
2.5/5

... and a dinner
We finally found a decently priced place to eat at Sushi Maru. You can get dinner for $10, with miso, salad, tonkatsu, salmon and tuna sashimi, california rolls and rice (actually, instead of the tonkatsu and sashimi, there's quite a wide variety of items to choose from). All the food's pretty decent, and for $1.75 more you can add an order of unagi (yum!). For a city where it costs $7 to get BBQ-pork-on-rice, it's a great value. And it's run by Japanese people too.
4/5

Wisdom
My son, do not forget my teaching,
but keep my commands in your heart,
for they will prolong your life many years
and bring you prosperity.
Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then you will win favour and a good name
in the sight of God and man.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and shun evil.
This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.
Honour the LORD with your wealth,
with the firstfruits of all your crops;
then your barns will be fille to overflowing,
and your vats will brim over with new wine.
My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline
and do not resent his rebuke,
because the LORD disciplines those he loves,
as a father the son he delights in.
Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,
the man who gains understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver
and yields better returns than gold.
She is more precious than rubies;
nothing you desire can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honour.
Her ways are pleasant ways,
and all her paths are peace.
She is the tree of life to those who embrace her;
those who lay hold of her will be blessed.
By wisdom the LORD laid the earth's foundations,
by understanding he set the heavens in place;
by his knowledge the deeps were divided,
and the clouds let drop the dew.
My son, preserve sound judgement and discernment,
do not let them out of your sight;
they will be life for you,
an ornament to grace your neck.
Then you will go on your way in safety,
and your foot will not stumble;
when you lie down, you will not be afraid;
when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.
Have no fear of sudden disaster
or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked,
for the LORD will be your confidence
and will keep your foot from being snared.
Do not withhold good from those who deserve it,
when it is in your power to act.
Do not say to your neighbour,
"Come back later; I'll give it tomorrow"—
when you now have it with you.
do not plot harm against your neighbor,
who lives trustfully near you.
Do not accuse a man for no reason—
when he has done you no harm.
Do not envy a violent man
or choose any of his ways,
for the LORD detests a perverse man
but takes the upright into his confidence.
The LORD's curse is on the house of the wicked,
but he blesses the home of the righteous.
He mocks proud mockers
but gives grace to the humble.
The wise inherit honour,
but fools he holds up to shame.

Time machine
I've been reading a Photoshop book, in hopes that I can make up for my lack of camera skills. Most of my Saturday disappeared playing with adjustment layers and layer masks. Not much actual photo manipulation so far, just adjusting tonality and colours for more pleasant images, or to make up for bad exposure.

For those of you who like pictures, I've updated the Big Sur post with pictures from last weekend. I love lazy Saturdays.

This circle has 22 degrees
It looks like the lunar halo I saw two nights ago isn't all that rare, and my 15° estimate was off by 32%. This whole ring around the moon bit makes me wonder what other kinds of phenomena go on out there that I haven't noticed because I've been too busy sitting in a classroom or in front of a CRT...

For further educational purposes, I didn't in fact see moon dogs as my Walt Whitman wannabe friend suggested (although the halo and paraselenae are related). It's a balmy 15°C outside right now, and that's because it's 19:00.

Big Sur
We woke up Saturday morning at 08:40, since the Crackhouse (yeah, that's their new name) was supposed to come over at 09:30. Peachy showed up on MSN around 09:15 warning us that they'd be late. I expected 10:00 late, but it ended up being more like 11:00. I should have made breakfast while we were waiting, but I think I ended up being too impatient for that to occur to me.

We took the 101 down to Gilroy, a town famous for its garlic. Even as we pulled up to Burger King for the other guys to grab breakfast, we could catch a hint of the smell in the air. We proceeded down Hwy 152, which proved to be an incredibly curvy drive through mountain forests, with beams of sunlight breaking through the branches as drove through the groves of trees that caressed the sky on both sides of the single-laned road. It's the stereotypical car commercial scenery, the only thing we were missing was the Porsche, but the Camry was good enough since we could fit Billy in the backseat.

As we drove over the mountains, the 152 merged onto the famous seaside Highway 1, and the ominous clouds on the east broke into a clear sky west of the mountains. After about an hour and a half of driving, I caught the 'Garrapta State Park' sign. According to my research this was supposed to be a bunch of turnouts from the highway. But rather than a turnout into a park, it was simply spots on the side of the road. Our first stop was hence rather fruitless, a two minute trail took us to a viewpoint of the sea, but little else.



What started rather disappointingly ended up on a brighter note, as a few miles down the river we found a much larger turnout with trails down to a large and empty sandy beach, with five-foot waves crashing against the shore. Not quite the ideal family beach, since the waves made the water much too rough for swimming, but the huge ten foot tall rocks that jutted out from the ocean made it a beautiful sight regardless.







We had lunch there at around 13:00, and though I would have liked to spend more time playing in the sand (and I think Billy too), the other guys seemed rather impatient, and we took off to find some wilder hiking trails.





A half hour drive later brought us to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park (PDF link). It was full of redwoods, with a good number that were fallen in the form of unofficial bridges, and the forest floor was rather dark compared to the brightness of the beach. We decided to hike to the waterfall, along the soft forest path, padded with old leaves.







The 'hike' proved extremely unsatisfying, since the 10 minute hike brought us to a waterfall that was unimpressive to say the least. I didn't even remember to take a picture. As a respite, we took the 'Valley View' trail, which was a little bit longer, and ended atop a hill in between two higher mountains, with a view of the Big Sur valley, where the the sea and Hwy 1 were visible in the distance.



At that point Billy was feeling unwell from stuffing himself with regular Lay's, and instead of hiking further, we headed back to the cars. Being 16:30, it was far too early for our 18:00 reservation, but we didn't have anything left on the itinerary. We decided to drive on down Hwy 1, past the Post Ranch Inn where we had dinner reservations, and past the Nepenthe restaurant as well.



We spotted two people headed down a gate off the side of the road, and pulled over to explore, while Xun slept in the car. There we found another trail that went down a few hundred vertical feet to the ocean, again the rocky shore with waves crashing in. It was a nice quiet spot, though the trail was well kept. I have no idea what 'state park' it was, or how you're normally supposed to find it, but it was a nice spot. If we ever make the trip again, I think I'd like to spend more time exploring these nooks. We spent a while there enjoying the view before climbing back up to the cars to head for dinner.





We got to the Post Ranch Inn around 17:30. It resembled a high class summer camp. The area was left wild and undeveloped, but luxuries, like the lights along the road and the art noveau sculptures along the side of the ponds, were quite apparent. After finding parking in their crowded little lot, and changing into something a little more decent in the car (while the girls went inside to change), we ended up at the restaurant on time for our reservation.



Sierra Mar
Unfortunately, we were a tad late for the sunset, as the pink hue on the horizon showed. The dining room had glass walls facing the ocean, and the view of the sea from the cliff a few hundred feet above the surf was incredibly serene. The four course prix fixe was $73, somewhat higher than expected.

I found this place on the Zagat restaurant guide. It was listed as a 'sleeper', rated higher than both La Folie and French Laundry, so expectations were high. Billy ordered the least expensive bottle from the menu, a 1997 red Languedoc from Chateau de Negly, but I haven't tasted enough wines to critique with any order of accuracy.

The meal started with a salmon amuse-bouche, served with caviar atop a potato blini. The appetizers came together pretty well. The ahi tuna tartare was well dressed, served with fancy potato chips on the side. I took in half the order before I traded it with Billy's pistachio crusted foie gras, since the Lay's sickness he lost in the crisp sea air seemed to be coming back with the melt-in-your-mouth fat. The duck liver was well prepared, lightly seared and buttery. I was surprised that Billy had ordered it, since he was just saying how he disliked it, but I think he would have enjoyed it if he wasn't feeling sick. The fresh Malpeque oysters were served with a well balanced ginger sauce.

Second courses were less appealing, green globules of oil floated atop the crab bisque served in asymmetric bowls. The Waldorff salad was clean but not spectacular. The entrees were also mixed, the roast duck breast with grilled apple steak and green papaya in ginger jus was fantastic, far more appealing than the ordinary New York steak banally served atop a sloppy joe.

Choices for dessert included a chocolate mouse cake that Johnny ordered, served with three candles to commemorate his upcoming birthday, while most of us went with the aromatic oak tree ice cream with ginger cake in apple sauce. Amy ordered a remarkable marshmallow-like poached meringue with kumquat sorbet. The sweetmeats that finished off the meal included dark chocolate truffles, soft chocolate cookies, and small cuplets of custard.

Service was clean, but the included gratuity at 19% seemed steep. However, a step outside the glass doors to the patio at the back of the restaurant, with its telescope, astronomer, and clear night sky made up for it. Stars were clearly visible, and we were shown Jupiter and Saturn, with rings and moons visible, through the telescope. Food and service were not spectacular for the price, but the view, of the ocean and night sky, made the dining experience enjoyable. 4/5

Epilogue
The night air was chill, and we hurried back to our cars after stopping to say goodbye to the grey furball of a cat in the reception area. It was 20:50 as we left the restaurant, but the drive back to San Jose only took an hour and a half. It was the end my best week in recent memory, one of my best weeks ever. It's unfortunate that fleeting moments like these last forever only in your mind. Maybe I should be feeling a longing for more, but my only sense now is that, over the last twenty-some years, I've already had more happiness than any single person should deserve, probably more than most people could imagine. This might sound like it's coming out of nowhere, but if you stripped it all away, the food, the mountains, the sea, the empty beaches, the luxury, the beauty, the pleasure, I realize that this kind of happiness still isn't that which makes life worth living.

Halo
I looked up into the sky earlier tonight, in the clear night sky I saw the blazing full moon, and around it was a great big hazy halo. I don't remember ever seeing anything like it before, but it was pretty funky. Assuming my line of sight to the moon was 0°, the ring was a good 15° away.

She's gone

my heart has flown away

Stuffed Silly
The last few days have been a return to relatively relaxed dining, as opposed to the previous week of mad stuffing. The previous Monday, February 11th, Chinese New Year's Eve, was spent scarfing down home-cooked Chinese food at my aunt's house. Fish, shrimp, chicken, and a big Chinese hot-pot of boiling fish-balls, vegetables and assorted goodies.

See Chinese food...
Tuesday night was spent with the UW Crew at The Mayflower Chinese seafood restaurant, with lobster, Peking duck, and steamed fish highlighted a classic chinese dinner. At $25 a head it was more than our usual fare but worth the food, though perhaps not the service. We even had a very New Year's style soup with 'hair fungus' and dried oysters. 3/5

... More Chinese seafood ...
My aunt from Chicago visited on Friday the 15th, so I was invited to dinner at the uncreatively named ABC Chinese seafood restaurant. The restaurant fit the typical Chinese seafood restaurant profile, although the menu offered eclectic delicacies not common elsewhere. Highlights were a slightly fishy, but sweet and crisp geoduck sashimi, and an extravagant 9 lb. Australian 'Emperor' crab. The crab was excellent, as meaty as a lobster tail and even more succulent. Even the red bean dessert was good. 4/5

... and yet more Chinese seafood
It's great when relatives treat you to excellent dinners, and even better when it repeats. Saturday's restaurant, was more typically designated in the same Chinese seafood style as Dynasty Chinese seafood restaurant. The place had more of a Toronto or Hong Kong feel to it as we had a large table in a private room. I lost count of the the courses, though it started off with a mixed platter (jellyfish, duck, suckling pig and other goodies), and proceeded to various dishes including a dish with 'hair fungus', braised dried scallops and dried oysters, shark fin soup, steamed fish, lobster, and sticky rice. The papaya dessert ended off the meal very nicely. 3.5/5

Vietnamese in America
February 18th finally arrived on Sunday, and it brought Amy with it that afternoon. I picked her up after church and we lunched in the city, at the popular and chic Slanted Door vietnamese restaurant. Not your typical Pho place, dinners tend to require reservations, although the two of us were seated immediately at the bar for lunch. The service from the bartender was the best kind: quick, clean, and courteous. The vietnamese shrimp rolls and the crispy crepe appetizers were both excellent. I don't recall ever having bean sprouts as good as the ones in the crepe. The fried noodle with sea bass included bits of fish and seafood in a sauce that was a bit heavy on the salt. All were nicely presented in very westernised fusion display. A relatively light lunch for two came to $12 each. 3.5/5

Classically French
Monday was spent touring the city, and the evening was spent at one of San Francisco's fancier French restaurants, La Folie. The small, jester themed dining room was rather closely packed and more business than romantic, although curiously the tablecloths were carefully draped all the way to the floor. The menu was very traditionally French with very few signs of Californian fusion influences, with caviar, truffles, and foie gras starring in multiple appearances. The serving staff was polite, yet as mechanical as the marionettes that decorated the walls, delivering a well-practiced but graceless proposition to add truffles and caviar to our meal, which we passed on. The food however, spoke for itself.

A complimentery oyster appetizer was a happy surprised, perfectly served on seaweed, topped with some sort of cucumber sorbet and fish roe, without a hint of any seafood fishiness. The duck and oxtail consomme with a foie gras flan was served beautifully, as was butternut squash soup with (a single) duck ravioli. In the playful theme of the restaurant, both soups are served in covered bowls, as the lid comes off, the later appears as a single ravioli in the center of an empty bowl, the iconic French dining experience until the soup is poured in. The goat cheese tatin was a very tasty salad., but the albacore and lobster duo which was tuna tartare with a shelled lobster salad on the side was extravagant.

The 'loup de Mer', a seared Mediterreanean sea bass was a smaller fish than I expected, not the usual flaky and buttery type, but still a fat fish that was cleanly prepared in its crispily seared skin. Not particularly notable but a reasonable addition for the five course dinner. The salmon was better, though still simply prepared. However, the evening special was an epitomy of epicurean cuisine, a perfect medium rare filet mignon topped with foie gras in a truffle Madeira wine sauce.

Desserts were well prepared though not spectacular. An assortment of fruit sorbets, and a sugared puff pastry with dark chocolate in Grand Marnier sauce presented a clean finish to a fine dinner. As usual quality comes with a price. The four course prix fixe rang in at $75, and an additional entree makes a five course meal for $85. Even after the bill, I found myself well satisfied as the chef and owner, Roland Passot, greeted us on the way out. 4.5/5

War Movies
If you like grim war movies, go see Black Hawk Down. Not particularly plot intensive, but keeps you on the edge of your seat for two hours. 4.5/5

What have I been wasting my time with recently? Classic Calvin & Hobbes. It's funny, I used to identify with Calvin, but now I find the parents amusing too. Way scary thought.

Time well wasted?
Do any other developers out there find themselves with nothing to do for ten minutes while doing a large recompile? Is there a better use of this time other than blogging?

It's been warm here this past week, at least warm enough to go swimming in an outdoor pool (not that I swim). A far cry from that week earlier in January where it was colder here than in Toronto. I'm really getting used to the weather here, if not everything else. The only recent peeve is the damn ant infestation in my washroom, but the exterminators are coming tomorrow.

Here's some reading material I've collected in the past while for comic fans and for asian lifestyle afficianados.

Money Money Money
When I was younger I used to believe in Capitalism. Like you work hard, earn a good life for yourself. You reap what you sow. It seemed fair and reasonable, the way the world should run. But live a little longer, and see a little more, and you begin to realize that capitalism is merely a utopian dream: the world simply doesn't work this way. The winner of the race isn't necessarily the one who trained the hardest, sometimes it's the one born with an unfair advantage, other times it's the schemer, and sometimes it's just the one who lucked out. Some people are born inches away from the finish line of a comfortable, successful life, while others have a marathon before them, and yet to others that finish line is but a dream.

So perhaps socialism is the way to go. Let the government act as a social equalizer, a monolithic Robin Hood, taking money from the rich folk and sharing it with the poor. But again, there's a sense of injustice, for as much as Robin Hood was a hero he was also a theif. And few people in society feel that the government is justified in taking their money and supporting lazy ass slackers with it. What's the point of working hard anymore, if the government will support you regardless?

I think it's rare to find anyone who thinks that the government has properly earned their taxes. Whereas most people will think that many large corporations earn their revenue (though not necessarily fairly). With their deep pockets, large corporations have more financial clout than small countries, and yet unlike a government, most corporations see little responsibility to their own communities, let alone the global community. It seems depressing sometimes that the plight of the unfortunate needs celebrity endorsement before anyone will notice.

Aristotle suggested that the purpose of government is to promote good lives. I suspect that a political science education may imbue a sense of ethical responsibility, a business education focuses primarily on corporate and personal gain. Even when businesses can rival governments in the ability to balance unfortune in a society. Afterall, most people are happy to give their money to competitive companies.

I was pondering these useless ponderings (especially useless when one is an engineer) when I chanced across two articles that seemed to show humanity in a slightly warmer light. There are people who seem to believe that social responsibility is more than simply paying your taxes. And it's somewhat heartening to see that Bill Gates thinks so too.

But sometimes I really wonder, since supporting the poor, giving them education and health, only serves to create a new demographic of consumers.

Time Flies
Two weeks fly by quick. Seems like a lot has changed since my last post, although it's probably more my perception than anything else. Last time I went to see a movie in the theater my housemate was still around. Now I'm in an apartment on my own, entertained by my recent netflix subscription. Speaking of Netflix, I think I've gone through seven movies in the last week and a half.

Bone Collector 3.5/5
Proof of Life 3.5/5
The Score 3/5
American Pie 2 3/5
Tomb Raider 2.5/5
American Pie 2/5
The Fast and the Furious 1.5/5

Also tried out Straits Cafe before my housemate took off for Toronto. Fancy Indonesian food, that didn't live up to expectations, although Sandy claims it's because we didn't order the crab.
2.5/5

I'm gonna try to get good at two things... playing the violin and snowboarding (you need Quicktime to view the movie clips).

Le Pact des Loups
I should have been suspicious, when they mixed the 'French film' and 'action flick' genres, but Brotherhood of the Wolf just seemed like it had so much potential. The truth is, the film had a lot of potential: cool fighting scenes, mysterious plot, strange characters, tragedy, drama, symbolism, commentary, gratuitous sex, and artsy cinematic shots. Unfortunately, none of the great elements came together, forming only a lackluster film.

Characters, although mysterious, never blossomed. Relationships never sparked. The plot never drew out the suspense, nor excited the audience. Fighting scenes were decent, but sparse compared to the long drawn out artsy shots, which were either overly cliche, like the mountain fade, or overdone, like the slow motion effects. Overall, the sum of the parts was incredibly bland.

2/5

California Roll
Alright, it's almost been a week to our visit to Tokyo Go Go, an Americanized sushi haven with a "Best Sushi in San Francisco" plaque on the front from Citysearch.com, but I haven't had any decent food since. I got into the restaurant first while the other guys looked for parking. The hostess said there weren't any tables available (although I spotted two tables clearing out in the back), and offered that I wait at the bar.

The two bartenders were dressed in black, like the rest of the staff except for the chefs behind the sushi counter. They were friendly enough even though I passed on a drink and took only water. I was already dehydrated from snowboarding that day. Eventually the other guys got there, and we were seated in a circular booth by the entrance, which barely fit five of us, and left Shao on a stool. The understated art deco design may once have been urban chic, but there's far too many places that are similar enough, with empty loft ceilings, and small tables and stools, to make the ambience forgettable.

The menu featured a good assortment of small, items. Appetizers, sushi rolls, nigiri, and skewered meat. However, it didn't have much traditional, substantial fare; no teriyaki or tempura, no dinners. The six of us ordered maybe three dishes each, sampling much of the menu. The food came as a series of plates, the waitress brought one as we finished the previous one, since the table was rather small.

Tokyo Go Go takes the California roll and stretches is where traditional Japanese food doesn't dare tread, much like many other neo-Japanese establishments in the Bay Area. Unlike traditional sushi, served very plainly and with clean presentation, the fusion element added creativity, but sometimes with too much noise to signal. The initial tuna carpaccio was somewhat confounding... large slices of raw tuna, but not particularly thin. An abuse of the term carpaccio, but still very tasty. Many of the other dishes were good, but split six ways were barely more than a taste. The Duck Duck, a duck sushi, stood out as being both excellent and creative (the duck was cooked perfectly). The nigiri sushi came with extremely large portions of fish (a bit too big to stuff in your mouth, but who's complaining). The soft shelled crab was well done and nicely stuffed, although none of us could identify what the stuffing was.

Sushi rolls were good but not spectacular. No great burst of flavours, most were relatively similar, whether it was tuna or scallop or salmon. The Dragon Roll, had a lot of great stuff, perhaps too much. The individual flavours of the various filling items, tuna, eel, avocado, crab, were all pretty much lost in one conglomeration of average sushi roll taste. The California Roll came out not being much better than the good supermarket variety. However at the end of it all, I was barely full, but the small tastes of each item didn't really satisfy.

We finished off with three desserts (since the Chocolate Creme Brulee was unavailable). The green tea ice cream met expectations, although the green tea cheesecake was a bit of a flop. The tempura fried banana was well on par with other fried bananas, but the rich chocolate ice cream and presentation were an added bonus.

Service was friendly, though again, not spectacular. I couldn't figure out why they didn't give us the two tables at the back, since I didn't notice any other large parties coming in with reservations. Overall an average price for San Francisco dining at around $25. It seemed like we ordered a tonne of stuff (the list was long), but it certainly wasn't too much. Good to visit once in a while.

3.5/5