Farmer Mson Saga: Initial Planting

Finally gotten around to starting to take advantage of our yard.  Today we finally put in our plants.

What is being planted:
- Strawberries, watermelon, 2 kinds of tomatoes, edamame, cilantro, mint

Hopefully they turn out!

Proposed Layout:

UW Engineering Day - Breaking Down Kidney Stones Demo

Today I was volunteered to help run a booth for the UW Engineering day. It was a booth that demonstrated how ultrasound can be used to break down kidney stones (at least that's what I got out of it).

The idea is pretty cool, and it was cool that it can be visualized (the setup was that a plate was submerged into water, and by tuning it so that it was at resonant frequency, the water would ripple and the water would 'jump' out. Obviously, once I took over the demo, I made it really jump :P.

The second part of the demo was to relate this 'jumping' effect to that of being able to break down stones with the vibrations.  For that there were test tubes of rocks, and by putting it near where the jumping of the water occurred, one would see the rocks move, thus completely the demo.

Reminded me of Project Batcape.  It was pretty fun I thought.  At one point, I remember a lady coming over and asking about the 'kidney stone' demo.  Hahaha - guess word got around about the demo.

Sushi Kashiba

So after both of us having been basically taken turns not being in S. town, today we finally meet up with the doctor friend I met on the plane 4 months ago.  And what better place to go than Sushi Kashiba - a place we've been wanting to go to but haven't.

Before diving in, a little background - Sushi Kashiba was opened by Shiro and a few others chefs in Seattle.  Yup - the same Shiro that used to be at Shiro!

Shiro is said to the be the Godfather of Seattle Sushi... And we were lucky enough to sneak in for a quick picture with him right when we sat down as the bar was clearing (even though we didn't sit at the bar.  Wuhahahaha!

We had their omakase and it was pretty good.  The fish was pretty fresh.  The Uni and Toro were really good (so I ordered seconds!).

Also got a bunch of Hawaii food recommendations, since Ms. Doc lived in Hawaii for a little bit in the past.

Fun times - need to do this again!

The menu for the night:
- Madai fishcake
- Otoro handroll
- Sushi Part I: Albacore tuna, Tuna, Madai, Hirame (Flounder)
- Sushi Part II: King salmon, Sockeye, Ebi, King Mackerel (over hay), Toro (aburi style), Hokkaido Scallop
- Sushi Part III: Geoduck, Ikura, Uni, Eel
- King crab roll
- Toro and Uni handroll (not part of the omakase - I ordered this separately :) )
- Tamago and Miso

BJ's Bapa

Finally got a chance to shoot a machine gun!  Di-di-di-di-da!!!

...Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!

Lil Cousin in town!

My Lil cousin was in town for a couple days.  So good big cousin me took her to the Space Needle!

It was a decent day too - so the view out was pretty good.

No tomahawk today though :(.  Was sooo hoping for that.

TO Trip - Neko's Wedding 3/16 to 3/22

Haven't been back for awhile - ever since September actually.  So figure this time I will come back and spend some time in TO.

Part I: Lost Luggage Saga

On the way there, I decided that I would do the whole luggage check-in thing.  Just because I thought I wasn’t in too much of a rush, and wouldn't mind not having to lift luggage up and down (having only done that quite a bit the last couple months).  But lo and behold, Air Canada FAILS!!!  When I landed in Toronto, I waited for an hour and half and my luggage was no where to be seen.  Turns out they never put my luggage on the plane...

Pretty incompetent if you think about it.  This was a baggage check in at the gate, and they can't even put the luggage into the plane that was right next to it.  FAIL Air Canada... Fail.  To make it worse, it turns out that it wasn’t just my luggage that was not put on the plane, but most of the gate checkin baggages didn't make it.  So ended up having to call their dumb hotline where basically they had no updates.  The worst part was that my suit was in there, which I needed for attending the wedding.

So next day they delivered me my luggage in the afternoon - or so they say.  The guy dropped it and asked me to sign for it... and I went no.  Why? ...Because it wasn't mine.  The guy kept saying that this was my luggage for a couple minutes... then I turned into beast mode and started telling him to show me the receipt, and asked him what part of my name was 'ANDRES' - which was the name of the poor soul's luggage they gave me (there was a sticker blatantly there with a phone number).  Not only was the color off .. grey vs. beige, but even the destination was different.  Finally after the guy actually read the label, he apologized and took it back.  At this point, I knew I was pretty much screwed.

So back to more calling the lost luggage hotline (who had the balls to close my file before my luggage even arrived in my hands).  I sometimes feel bad for these customer service folks - getting yelled at when it's not their fault.

Anyhow, so turns out a couple days later, they finally tracked my luggage.  Apparently, it had wanted to go to Cancun, Mexico.  So thanks to Air Canada, my luggage arrived AFTER the wedding ceremony.  Took them 3 days to get my luggage to me.  What a fail.

Part II: Neko's Wedding

 So since I didn't have the suite that I brought, I ended up picking up a random dress shirt to wear, and wore my high school suit, with pants stretched out on the fly due to my added waistline.  Wasn't the prettiest, but still better than wearing jeans I guess...

The wedding itself was pretty nice.  Had a photo booth running, ran into a few people that I haven't seen in awhile.  They even had a harp!

Didn't really get any good pictures though :(. 

 Congrats Neko!!!

Part III: At Home

So the remainder of the week, I was mostly working remotely, and with lil dragon boy (no longer baby) staying over every so often, I was able to play with him :).  He loved the kangaroo stuffed animal I had and he liked to ride his bike at the park quite a bit.

Also got to catch up with a few friends, and spend some time with family! 

Ice cream/sorbet day

Recently we bought an ice cream maker, and today was the day we try it out!

First time making ice cream - yummmm.  Blueberry sorbet is sooo yummy!!!

First Valentines Day as a Couple

After a soccer game, it was time to spend some time on our first Valentin's Day.

My contribution.  A watermleon cake shaped like a rose.  I was pretty impressed with my artistic talent - I made the entire piece in 10 minutes.

Also a 'heart shaped' steak dinner (showing the before cooking look as the after one, the 'U' didn't really turn out)

First Red Pocket Given!

We bought a bunch of red pockets from Hong Kong, with the intention of giving them out on Chinese New Year.

Today we gave our first one!

First indoor soccer win of the year!

... It's been awhile