THE Chablis - Bone Marrow Wine Funnel

It was a cloudy Canada Day to begin with.  Then as the day went by, it got sunny!

Ended up at RN74, where I was introduced to the "Chablis" - which translates roughly to Bone Marrow Wine Funnel!

How it works:
Step 1. Put end of chute (aka funnel) near mouth
Step 2. Slowly pour wine down chute
Step 3. Drink from the chute
Step 4. Finish pouring the wine into the chute
Step 5. Savor in the wine + fatty goodness :)

Delicious (and fun)!

Attending my First Education Conference (ISTE 2017)

Got an opportunity to attend my first ever education conference.

It was pretty eye opening to see all the education products that exist, and all the technology and different ways technology is helping kids learn.

There were alot of teachers, IT admins, etc.  Was pretty cool to talk to them first hand and see how the products are being used.

10 years later, 5 years late… diving in!

10 years... and 5 years

10 years celebration was uneventful… since there was no celebration.

We did make up for it by having a belated Shiro celebration.

Happy 10 years, and 5 years!

Cocochip... It's a Chip!

It’s a chip!

It was way more than I imagined.  Super decorated, a darts game was thrown to reveal the gender.  There was even a beer pong setup as well!

Thank you #1 cousin (for the next 4 weeks) and #2 cousin for organizing!

First Time in S.Town Zoo

Today marks the first time I went to the zoo in very many years, and also the first time to this one.

Have to say, it was pretty fun. And also it was pretty clean.  It didn't really smell at all, which was very different than what I remembered a zoo to be.

They also had all you can drink slurpees, so that was really good.

Oh, and caught probably 100 pokemons!

In Pain... Still

So it has been two days since my fitness assessment.  

Have to say, I am still pretty sore and in pain.  In fact, I am not able to do a push up currently.  Hahaha... How out of shape am I???

Back go the gym!

Decided to join a gym again.  Today did a fitness assessment.

a) No longer a high tuned athlete…

b) Getting fat… need to work out.  Hard to believe I used to have 12% body fat? (or was it 8%)...

c) Could only do 33 push ups, have a pretty poor heart rate, barely lasted through the wall sit test

Net: a pregnant lady was more fit than me... .. .

Lake Chelan - Manson's Point!

After a evening farewell dinner, we headed straight to my town :P.

Getting there at 1am, the party was still going on.

Few highlights for the weekend:
1. Despacito would become the song of the weekend
2. Delivered the news of the year to our friends.  Some were expecting this news for awhile already as it turns out.
2. Picking up a Jetski, and then driving it through the lake and docking it at our vacation home.  Awesome experience.

Where we stayed: Maggie's Beach House - definitely recommended

Bye Bye Lumia 950

After the latest updates, I am throwing in the towel for the the Lumia 950.

I originally got this phone for its camera.  And I would still say that if when it works, it performs better than any other camera phone (and point and shoot in my opinion).  But that is ONLY if it is working.  With the latest updates, the camera app would sometimes crash and worse yet, sometimes even restart the phone.  This was super frustrating as some shots once gone, you can't get back.

The recent trip to Portland clearly shows that it is time to move off of the phone...
a) Phone was draining battery.  Within 2 hours of waking up, the phone would be down to 70% battery.  Maybe the battery is dying after 1.5 years, but this is not the first time the battery drains.  Usually when there are updates approaching or outstanding the phone would go crazy and seemingly do things in the background without you knowing or wanting, causing the battery to drain at times when you need it most (like during the day).

b) The camera (the one thing I really loved about the phone) started crashing whenever I took a photo.  Case and point - 360 shot with the panorama feature would cause the phone to crash and restart for every photo taken.  Imagine going: "ok everyone, say cheese on 3...  1, 2, ah crap.. the app froze... sorry" - That is just sad.

c) GPS/navigation would freeze half the time it is used - not to mention the 'dot' that indicates where you are isn't always correct anymore. What good is an offline map (or online map) with GPS if it can't locate where you are???  Super not cool when trying to navigate and the app just gets 'stuck' while you are driving.

RIP Lumia 950... onto Samsung S8!

First Sous Vide Steak... Success?

Today, got home and decided we would try out the new sous vide that we bought.

Pro: All the things people say are true - the steak does come out really juicy. it is much easier to 'time'.  Very convenient.

Con: The downside though is that usually, it would take < 10 minutes to fry a steak, but with a sous vide, had to put the meat in the pot of water for a little bit over an hour before searing quickly.


Verdict: Taste was good.  In general, was pretty happy with it - but still need to experiment a bit more.  The next test is to see how it performs for meat that has been in the freezer, and also how to really use the 'turn on' from phone feature and not get sick (it is still very non intuitive for me to picture leaving raw meat in a pot of water the whole day, and right before I get home from work, to turn it on...)

Aside: Currently, Serious Eats is my go to for reading about sous vide recipes and science.  For example, their post on how to cook steak: Serious Eats - Sous Vide Steak is a really well written article - talking about what temperature to set to get the desire doneness and basically doing what amounts to a scientific study of how to cook steak with a sous vide.

Other links I found that will prove to be useful in the near future:
Serious Eats - Sous Vide Salmon
Serious Eats - Sous Vide Egg

To Be Continued...