Mashiko for Birthday!

So last week Aman tells me he has booked a table for my b'day at the favorite Japanese restaurant in all of Seattle - candlelight style.  I kept trying to change the date since I was suppose to be at soccer… but he wouldn't budge.  With a hint from lil friend, I declined the soccer, and went with him, as it turns out there was a surprise gathering unfolding :). 

So I arrive, and found that everyone was there! 

The food was great.   Free flowing sake, yummy dishes.  I hear 'we' were a bit rowdy, but it was allll good.  Oh, and we had a black forest cake too - that was delicious.

1. Geoduck sashimi with pear

2. Kusshi oyster

3. Rainbow trout with carrot and daikon

4. Baby shrimp w spinach

5. Tako suomono with hot mustard

6. King salmon

7. Hawaiian albacore poke salad

8. Sardine with ponzu sauce n pickled

9. Poached abalone

10. Tuna, albacore, tuna Toro, scallop, black cod

11. Pressed sumna

12. Sea snail

13. Trout w eggs

14. Chawanmushi

15. Green tea and Strawberry Ice Cream Mochi

Super fun times!  Thanks all!

Side note: I hear that it is getting more and more pricey - I still remember when the food portion (10+ dishes) didn't break $80 a person.

First meal!

Mmmmm... Woke up and made the brunch of champions!

Bye Bye and Pre Housewarming

Nostalgic as piece by piece, the furniture is hauled away into the truck. 

Since we were eating around the area, invited folks over for a pre housewarming...

Used my new sliding booze cabinet.. Served some Glenlivet.. Yumm

Engineering Feat of Defrosting Fridge!

Moving time at work and we need to move our fridges ourselves. However the problem was that my mini fridge had about 7 years of ice built up in the tray.

Come my engineering skills - building a dam and a water collector to defrost the fridge.

Result: Bag of water collected, minimal leakage. Success!

Dryer and Washer!

It arrives… but damaged my bullnose :(

They are bigger than I thought.  I can do soooo much laundry with one wash.

First Sale on Craigslist!

I get an email today that someone wanted the crutches that I had posted :).  So some quick coordination and hours later, first sale complete!

Almost was able to sell one other thing but it fell through last minute.  Otherwise my sell count would have been at 2!  But I will take 1 for now.  Hopefully this is the start of many more to come.

*Fingers Crossed*

Breaking into my own place...

Today was work on the house day.  After 2 lunch of champion hard boiled eggs, I went about my work.

1. Started by installing the showerhead that I got - which turned out to be child's play.
2. Tried fixing the smelly washer - to no avail still.  I just can't help but to wonder what the heck the previous folks who lived here used it for.  At this point, I am very tempted to just replace the washer so that I am sure the clothes wash clean.
3. Worked on replacing the hinges for the outdoor gate.  The goal was to replace the hinge so that the door would not get stuck when opening half way because of the slanted ground.  This took hours since I was doing it by myself and I had to keep changing the design throughout.

It should have been a simple replace.- cinder block how I want the gate to be, prop it up a few inches then currently, replace hinges and voilà - job well done.

However, as I started to work on it, I realized that the gate hinges weren't really installed properly and to do it, so I couldn't use the old hinges as a reference.  The side I was using to set the hinges on had no space to properly install it.  So then I had a genius idea of using the other side :) - which was a great idea and off I went.  Then as I was tightening the hinges, it turns out that the door pushed out and so now there was no space for the door to move!  So I had to move it a couple inches further away.  After that, Pythagoras came in and whooped my butt… so then I sawed the door a little bit to try to get those few mm so that the door would actually close - but that didn't really make a big difference… I had the right idea, but I needed some tools.

So I figure I would just call it a day at that.  As I walk towards my place and tried to open the door, I heard a clucking then, the lever no longer worked!!!  I was locked out of my own place :*(.  Luckily I had my phone with me and was able to call a locksmith out (I say lucky because for the most part of the day I had left it inside the house, and it was only because I brought it out to take a few photos of my handyman skillz that I had it with me.  When the locksmith arrived, he tried few things and then was went… errr.. Hmmm.. Is there another door to get in from - to which I replied no.  And then we thought about whether we can climb into any windows - and I thought .. Maybeeee.

So we ended up climbing onto the top of the locksmith's truck, prying the screen open, and then pushing open the window.  I guess I was lucky that I had opened most of the windows to air out the place today.  Otherwise it sounded like we would have to drill down the door.  Phewf!  On inspecting the door lock, we realized what was going and fixed it, so that it shouldn't happen again.

Lessons learnt:

A) A LOT about installing hinges on gates

B) I am an excellent climber.

C) Going to be buying some wooden dowels pronto!  And from now on, going to keep that window closed and locked.  Originally I had left it open for circulation because it was pretty hard for water/rain to get to it because there's covering above it that extends a couple feet.  But now I guess I need to be careful about that window.

The nice thing though about the locksmith coming was as I was talking to him about my afternoon, and then he helped by bringing a chisel from his van so that I didn't have to sand down the gate massively.  So now the door has passed the Pythagoras problem and I just need to sand to make smooth.

Handyman in Training out.