Hey Ho, Let's Go

Epilog:
Hey ho, let's go! The spider webs here are seemingly beyond cleaning. But one can always try.


Main entry:
What was that on the last post? The birth story? Time flies fast and what was a very hungry little baby is almost a year old boddler and his mom is planning a partee! So, even if you are not a caterpillar, you're still invited, if you can make it!

I am channeling my inner EO with this party. When was I had this much fun? Oh yeah, for the wedding in 2010. It is only about time. This past year has been full of ups and downs (sometimes, it feels there are more downs than the ups) and what's better to celebrate than a little colorful party in the eve of Lunar New Year. It is for the baby and for us, his parents.

Theme for party is based on K's natural predisposition to a certain giant board book:

Apparently, parents can go crazy throwing a party with this theme. Google it yourself but be careful. To this mommy, it is like opening a can of worms. I am excited. I am overwhelmed and have to revert to breathing techniques from time to time. I am not half as crazy.

Let's see how the actual b-day party unfolding.

Update:
Spread Sh*t of the preparation. Bonus item: Daddy's Superbow(e)l menu. Go 49-ers!

Halloween Pooper

Wife: Bibi, are we going to carve pumpkin this year?

Bibi: Hmm, I don't know, it's too much work. We'll see how we feel about it.

Wife: Yeah, it might be Baby's First Halloween when we will get around to it.

Bibi: *Pause walking* What do you mean?

Wife: LoL. Nothing.

We didn't dress up for Halloween and didn't go anywhere either despite of a (kids friendly) party invitation. But instead we had three Alfred Hitchcock DVDs(Rebbecca, Rear Window, and Vertigo) courtesy of Santa Clara Public Library and a bag of Kit-Kat and left over SF taffy on a silverish dollar store platter. We put last minute "Treats" sign on the door so little witches, Harry Potters, ballerinas and what have you, won't just pass by our apartment. By 7:45 PM there was a grand total of two knocks which left me with 1/3 of the candy bag all for myself. Yuh yuh. Not so yuh yuh, Rangers was producing nil on 7th inning.

Maybe next year I will make a conscious effort to be a blond Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson donning a dress, big hat, heels, a jacket, a gun, a big purse to dump all my crap investigative materials in, and a glass of mint julep on my hand, "thank you."

Inception

I told Husband that I love him, but I am going to watch Inception by myself. Two weeks from now seems like a long time to wait for such a blockbuster. Armed with high expectation from the reviews of internet reviews and real life people, I pushed myself to be out of bed at 9 AM last Sunday morning. I freshened up, drove and bought my ticket at the counter. Matinee show was at 10:20 AM.

The studio was small and at 10:15 AM it was almost packed. It was no problem for me. I was just by myself, I didn't have to ask people to scoot over to make room for my party. I seated myself on the middle row by the aisle, giving an extra seat in between me and a couple.

To tell you the truth, movie goers at 10 AM Sunday morning were interesting. I spent more time people watching than paying attention to whatever it was they were playing before the lights were out. This one woman in moccasins and a matching jacket particularly caught my attention. She was sporting the look of just got out bed and was thoroughly confused looking for her husband who was already perching up there on the second from top row close to the projector. They ended up going to the bottom quarter of the seats, a decision I still didn't understand. I call those rows Looser Rows, that's what you end up with when you are late to a movie.

Going to a movie for me requires ultimate effort to be on time for a good seat. At church, there's always a seat somewhere, provided that you just have to face the eyes of the congregation on lookers. At work, well, everybody is always late for work, plus you are already designated a place, so who cares.

Then, there were a group of four teenagers headed by a queen bee. They got there pretty late when the lights were about to be dimmed. As time progressed, the group went on to become band of teenagers. Queen Bee decided that the front rows were just not good enough for them. She directed everyone and their popcorn and drinks to sit on the stair aisle effecting themselves as fire hazard.

One of them who sat on my side of the aisle had a little problem breathing. It seemed that he had a little stuffy nose going on, even so, he still tried to breath from the one that was free. Added that breathing problem to his soda slurping and popcorn munching and I could not really concentrate on what was going on with the movie. One minute the Inception team was in Paris, in another in Africa. One minute they were working on one dream, next minute they were two stages into.

Not long after, a security person evaded them from the stair premises. The band was left with either taking the front rows or demanding their money back. If I were one of these infantile baboons, I would take up that offer and come back for a midnight show next weekend. They, however, took the front row seats but not before leaving trails of popcorn and candy wrappers behind. But, hey, at last, I can concentrate.

As for the movie, I don't mind watching it again with Husband. It has all the necessary ingredients: cool special effects, a simple story for a mind boggling concept, good actors, and, ultimately, a very low cost per minute (at 248 minutes, it sure worth all of my $6). At first, I thought what more do I want. And it dawn on me. It could have been better. A better movie would not let me winch my eyes from it even for a split second, not band of teenagers, not people went back and forth, not my hungry and thirsty self. It will afford me to concentrate on more thought provoking aspects of the movie, how Leo became this good, the gidget character, the psychology, technology and fantasy behind, and, finally, how I would like to go working for this team.

Coffee Talk

Getting high off strong a cup of Vietnamese coffee turning me into a deeper movie thinker than my usual self. It was Star Wars marathon playing since before midnight two nights ago. In the middle of trying to put myself to sleep, which I know was kinda futile from the amount of caffeine consumed, I turned the Star Wars watching experience into something more philosophical.

• Starwars vs. Startrek, both are placing humanity as center of the stories. The history of humanity was applied heavily on their plots. However, Starwars universe feels real compared to Startrek's hygienic.
• The fuse of military ranks in Starwars such as the use of admiral and general, captain and commander, applied to the same body of armed force, which thoroughly confuses me.
• First time movie goer can figure out that the way to defeat the giant four legged robots during the scene of rebellion generator being bombarded is through its legs. The Imperial Troops should come up with something more suitable. It is heavy and it does not exactly have precise weaponry.
• Princess Leia is the epitome of a woman I want to be. Smart, sexy, and ambitious.
• The character of the highest Jedi master is played by a muppet instead of by a real person. What does it mean? God and the universe. I am so used to think of just life here on earth.
• The anthropomorphizing of things such as R2D2 and C3PO as companions as opposed to just machines makes it romantic.
• That the illogical side of man, the gungho attitude, is what separate us from being too calculated. But then there is a very thin line of that and simply being a fool.
• I can see how Scifi jumped up technology. I always want to be in the forefront of this.

Late caveat, the above points are no means deep to most of you, just my coffee talking.

Love My New Mane

I woke up today and felt a sudden urge to change my hair style, as in urgent, I need some sugar, my blood sugar is low. I am not planning to drastically making it to a short style as Bibi will have quite a fit on it, but I need to have some layers cut in order to give more volume to my rapidly balding hair.

I did look up the interweb two nights ago for possible styles for a wavy hair like mine. This was my inspiration.


Here is after a quick trip to a nearby chain hair salon. This is my best hair cut to date. I love the bangs, I love the layers, and that the hairdresser managed to only take an inch off. I wouldn't be able to achieve this look sans flat iron though. It's okay, I have found new frizz control shampoo and conditioner that work wonder. They are "over the counter" (as opposed to expensive salon) products.



What can I say, I love it and Bibi does too as evidenced on his text reply to my mms "Hi you look cute! and clever..."

Is he on a hang over on Thanksgiving food? I mean I do look cute(r), but I dont think the new mane radiates enough cleverity. LoL.

Happy Thanksgiving

I said before and I said again. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Partly, because it is celebrating life, friends, and family and also because everybody celebrates it. The celebration transpires beyond age, religion, gender, race, ethnicity, and [insert other other socio-economic, socio-politics attributes we use to classify ourselves].

This Thanksgiving I am celebrating it away from family, and sadly, Fiance. But I got a nice wake up phone call from the dude. It is like cuddling but on the phone--sorry, can't help to give out a TMI. Anyway, he woke me up to assist me on making a cornbread oyster dressing.

Bibi made this dressing for his church group dinner last Sunday. I just had an idea to bring it over to a potluck dinner tonight. Baking and cooking are perfect channeling of inner domestic goddess in me and of course I have a hidden agenda to show him off thru his recipe to the folks at dinner.

"Oyster? On cornbread as dressing?"

"It is a southern thing. Paula Deen makes it," he said on the phone.

I just couldn't believe myself for not knowing the existence of such dressing despite of electing my as an honorary Southerner. Also why are we calling it dressing instead of stuffing again? A little bit of education here. Compendium of people in the internet say that what the northern people call dressing, the southerner stuffing. However, the correct answer is that stuffing is when the bread mixture is stuffed inside the turkey, while dressing is when it is baked separately like casserole .

Two batches of dressing are done now and ready for the dinner tonight. Suffice it to say that it is rank up there on the list of meals I can eat everyday. I also made a pecan pie (with store bought pie shell) and green beans casserole (this one is totally from scratch) for the dinner. Both are using recipes from Cook's Illustrated that are spread illegally over the internet. I am thinking to subscribe for the magazine. Their recipes never fail to amaze me and it is such a joy to read it with all the illustrations.

I am going to have a mini work out in preparation of all the food before me tonight. And then I am going my way to drop off all the food at the host's before fleeting away to San Francisco for a 1 hour A&M-T-sip football game watching with fellow Aggies. It is gonna be a busy Thanksgiving but I am hoping I am experiencing a memorable one, my first one in California.

I am thankful for this year that are just filled with abundant blessings. For Fiance, family, friends, job, state of mind, health, adventure and chance to develop into a better human being.

Happy Thanksgiving.

A Saturday in November

To have myself content with life is always simple.

A fall cleaning on Saturday with classical music playing in the background resulted in a better organized closet and mopped kitchen and bathroom floors. It gave me a chance to enhance some musical sense as I've never listened to Vivaldi's Four Seasons as a whole before. I feel completed to experience the progress and movement from one season to another and found them therapeutic.

Back at the closet, tops in hangers are now organized by colors. Folded tops, exercise clothes, house clothes, jeans and shorts are consolidated in one closet and refolded. Pants are hanging in one end of the second closet, skirts next to them, and dresses on the other end. What small amounts of towels and linens I have are placed on the farther side. This way, NY and Mama will have space for their clothes once they get here in January.

With the re-org (ha, eat that, company!) I get to see that I have too many clothes, yet I wonder why I never get satisfied. This was after gathering two full bags of throw away as they are just not passing for donation.

Mopped kitchen and bathroom floors attribute to a renewal feeling of the space. I always leave the blind open to display the beautiful autumn view from trees and falling leaves outside and also of the pots of Rosemary, Snapdragon and Marigold on the patio that somehow survive my so called green thumb. The soft lights from the lamp on the corner of the dining area enhances this comfortable ambiance. I am a homebody at heart.

As I was enjoying this serenity while munching on procured tacos from a nearby joint, I found out that gametime for one of the almamater's most anticipated games was an hour earlier than what I had thought it would be. I had to race myself to a sportsbar 15 miles away to watch it with fellow Aggies--an always amazing lot of over-educated people. It is not too over the top when Fiance pronounced this place Nerd Heaven.

After the game, which was unfortunately a sad one, I managed to gather the ingredients for a yummy toffee-almond-crackers concoction, recipe courtesy of a certain lady with unquestionable fascination towards pre-historic creatures. It had caused a bad case of toffeenza since.



This afternoon, I decided to plastic bag about 10 of them and put a silver ribbon as embellishment on each bag. Some lucky group of people will have them distributed to tomorrow night. As for myself, I cannot be left with these sweet concoction alone. This was what was left from my personal size pan within three hours of making.



I rest my case.

Want

I want these books so bad, I should splurge.


Craig Ferguson's autobiography


Ina Garten's Back to Basic Cookbook

In Love

Since when this becomes a fashion blog?

Eh, eh, eh...my personal stylist, Dian Zoe, tried to hook me up with various budget friendly pretty shoes online. I was in the market for pretty, pointy, flat shoes. DSW, Ross, and Macy's showed me no love. And then I hit Marshall's two nights before I flew to Texas.

I scored the flat version of these for 20 bucks. They are not pointy, but still pretty, and were parts of limited edition collection of the now defunct Te Casan shoe lines.

I wore them the whole trip (Thursday-Monday morning) except Friday afternoon when NY and I running about CS hitting the mall, cafe, and ULTA.

A Portrait of the Gander as a Young Goose

I finally had the first painting of me commissioned. The artist was a borderline genius in style but had not enough self-esteem on his capability as a painter. "Koko masih kecil," he said when I asked him. Can you see the resemblance between the painting and the model? LoL...

Some Updates

Too many backlogs. I don't think I can provide good accounts on them. I am not really keen with writing when I have no decent pictures to accompany the post. Hey, I really need to get a camera!

Here is a brief summary for you, that is if you can handle the annoyance of too many parenthesized words and exclamation.

Sunday, June 28th
I went to SF for Gay Pride Parade and hunting French macaron. I also went to some little boutiques along the way. I went with BART in order to be able to stroll downtown SF without having to find where to park and to avoid driving on those scary hills.

The three French macaron places in the Hayes Valley were practically next to each other, they are Paullete, La Boulange, and Miette. I decided I am not a fan of macarons aside from the pricey nature. I cannot tell the difference of the macarons among the three places. Here is probably a better review.

As for the parade, I was expecting something really vulgar coming my way. Instead, it was pretty decent, just a bunch of happy people. So, no useful review from my part again.

July 2nd-5th
The good people of WKICU asked me to come along on their 4th of July long weekend camping trip. We, the five adults and the 2 under 5-year-olds, stayed at a two-bedroom timeshare in Angels Camp on the first night before proceeding with some camping at New Melones Lake.

We spent our days visiting the the little towns and state parks around the areas. The weather in this central valley region was more than 10 degrees higher than the Bay Area weather we are accustomed to, not to mention that our camping ground could've used more shady trees. Nights were spent playing cards, eating corns, gossiping, etc.

We visited in no chronological order:

• San Andreas (Calaveras County Museum, was a jail and still a function courthouse, took some crazy pictures here too! Oh, and guest what, one episode of Little House on the Praire was shoot in here. That's quite a long ride from their Simi Valley location.)
• Columbia State Park (for some Gold Rush experience!)
• Railtown State Park in Jamestown (for satisfying the inner Thomas and we managed to slip in some wine tasting too!)
• Big Trees State Park (for some giant redwoods, I mean giant!)
• California Cavern (to cross one item from the list of things I've never been to, a cave is one of them!)

Overall, it was a long weekend time well spent (and cheap too!)

First Published Non-Semiconductor Related Work, LOL!

A little summary on Indonesian Catholic community around Bay Area I wrote for St. Justin's, Santa Clara. The church is where we celebrate second Sunday Masses in Bahasa Indonesia.

http://www.st-justin.org/weekly_bulletins/2009Archives/488800stjustin071909.pdf

Enjoy.
:D

Back Log: June 18-24

Let's see, too many things to recount. Caveat for the readers, the following rambles are mainly for self-notes. I should have been more persistent on picture taking. It just escaped me.

Texas Trip
What follows is my account on what happened on this trip after the hilarity that was on the last post. But before we began, I wanted to state that I forgot how 100 degrees weather feels like. Tank tops, shorts, skirts, and summer dresses, SPF 50, minimal to no make-up are fashion staples I anticipated for this trip. I am glad NY has a lot of cute things to borrow to maximize my inner fashionista wannabe. As for the trip, I did what I came for: Bibi's prelim, a friend's wedding, and visiting the siblings.

Bibi practiced the slides for his presentation a couple of times that Thursday night and then once in the morning. "There's a lot of shit going on in this slide," we were hoping he can preface the last of his four topics.

The day of the prelim, Bibi refused to dress up in a suit/jacket, and instead don on his nice dress pants and shirt. He still looked smart nevertheless, LOL. We walked to school around noon. I played a good caterer and media tech while Bibi preparing his paperwork and whatnot.

When he was fighting at the frontline, I spent some time to exchange news and weather with my friends in the department. I excused myself two hours later to think that he must be finished by then. The waiting can be described as parallel to husbands waiting outside for wives delivering their first baby. Bibi finally came out of the room looking a bit worried and relieved at the same time. A minute later, his advisor when out to call him in. He passed!

I am so proud of him having to deal with such a tough and respectable research subject. Biology used to be my forte, I am glad I have somebody who possesses a better understanding on living objects--and most importantly, has good ideas on how to manipulate them.

We celebrated the prelim at O'Bannon's and a dinner at nearby Mexican place. Speaking of viva la comida, I also made panada and pastel from scratch for everybody's snacks on two different days. They got NY's seal of approval. I didn't realize that using rolling pin to make something is a good abs exercise.

The following Saturday, we had a wedding to attend. We arrived at the ceremony thirty minute late due to a planning mishap, i.e., no map. Who doesn't know the way to Waco? Only Bibi and yours truly apparently. Good thing my friend wasn't pronounced a Mrs yet. I am sure Bibi realize the ulterior motive of dragging him to the wedding, that is an exposure to Catholic wedding mass. The reception following the ceremony was in the mixed style of Mexican fiesta (the Mariachi and the food, groom was of Mexican decent) and the usual wedding party activity (the open floor with DJ, the bouquet throwing). Everybody had fun.



On Sunday, Bibi, the siblings and I went to Texas Road House to satisfy everyone's crave for a good steak and for a little bonding time. Then I went to St. Mary's 7 PM mass. Later that night, Bibi and I went to Northgate for his Sunday night poker league.

All in all, it was a good and compact visiting week. I did manage, though, to throw a breakdown tantrum on Bibi two days before leaving CS. That morning, Bibi and I went to the Rec Center together. I went to St. Mary's afterward with mi amiga G to get some ideas of things I need to prepare for a Catholic nuptial. It was an overwhelming experience to realize that my timeline (for a December wedding *gasps* Bibi needs to propose first, no?) is ambitious and has already passed its expiration. I am putting my--I mean, our--plan all on God's hand. Maybe sometime next year is best for everyone. I can spend some time with Mom, we all can have a better planning, and not to mention, it will be more feasible on the financial side. I am hoping NY get a job here, I can't do this without my dearest sister.

I flew back to SCLA on Wednesday ready for the last three days of working that week. The next week was another shutdown week.

--to be continued

Texas Here I Come (Again)

Travel Notes, Day 1

I can never get a good night sleep before a trip to see Bibi (LOL, Bibi!). I watched TV and filled in New York magazine crosswords last night after a final packing and general grooming. Past midnight, I watched TLC including the new season of The Gosselins saga and one from the old seasons. TLC successfully markets their contrast. Total sleeping hours: about three. Total TV hours: hmm, about five hours.

I packed two bags: a backpack and a laptop/mothership bag. Good weight exercise as I had to walk about a mile to catch VTA and another mile traveling airport in-site. Food to clothes ratio roughly equals 1:3. I scavenged Trader Joe's for a little something for people back home.

I didn't remember any of the US airports I'd been before to offer a free wifi and was glad to find that DEN offers one. Airport past time triumphantly spent on Facebook, Bloglines, Flickrs and blogs. Plane rides, on the other hand, spent on manual sudoku, crosswords and the good old sleep! As we were flying west, I had to put down the window as I realize the higher altitude makes the UV damage more vicious. What do you call a plane equivalent of a driver's tan. LOL!

Interesting views as we landed in DEN. I doubt that it was The Broncos home stadium that I saw (no branding whatsoever). Also patches of green acres (not of trees) around the city that seems to serve no purpose. Better research more on this.

NY and I are going to find our way to County Line BBQ. I seem to can never eat enough meat in CA. So meat is the first thing I am looking for when I am in TX. It was Saltlick with Bibi and brother last trip.

I am boarding Austin flight in fifty minutes.

Updates from AUS:
Landed safely at 4:52 PM local time. Unfortunately my chaffeur/sister was kinda lost.

After much consulting with Bibi and Information guys and of course, NY, we all finally figured out where she was and the new route she could use to arrive at AUS to pick me up. Here's a diagram of the situation.



Poor girl. We need drinks, correction, she needs it more than me.

Anyway, there is a free wifi here at AUS. Although, it wasn't supposed to be free, I suppose. I am posting with it. KYH might be arriving in half hour or so.

Back Log: May 30th

As part of Memorial Day long weekend, I enjoyed the company of this adorable couple for a light hiking trip around the South Bay area.



A detour for a to-go of tummy filling Vietnamese rice platters and yummy durian creme puff treats to South San Jose's Vietnamtown (thank God for GPS) could almost christened this trip a Culinary Adventure instead.

We were supposed to see chain of seven waterfalls on Uvas Canyon Park in Morgan Hill. But we were keeping our hopes low since foliages and waterholes at ground elevation were dry. Up a 1000 ft later (we drove ourselves up), a lush of evergreen suddenly greeted us.



If you are thinking of a great wonder of a waterfall that is Niagara, this Upper Falls is of course a no match. As you can see, the fall's height only reaches 25 ft and the width was about 15 ft. Still, the serenity of the walking and the giggles of babies playing in the water flush away the hectic world not much far from this heaven.




These last two pictures only satisfied the narcissus in me. Also in succesfully keeping the envy of a DSLR alive.




Photo credit

Fine Saturday

Life sans laptop is just unbearable, specially when there is need to catch up on gossip time with a certain someone, winks. As a temporal solution, I needed to fire up that old desktop unit. Little did I realize that it lived on the dark age technology that are eight years behind and had no recent anti-virus updates.

On Saturday morning, I opened the tower only to find a total of 256 Mb at 266Mhz RAM, at least they are already the 168 pin type. No wonder it was slow. Lo and behold, there were two RAM sticks magically lying around. The use of these two sticks would effectively double the memory storage and almost double the speed. First attempt on installation failed. Soft pounding here and there solved the problem.

Next was the anti-virus installation. Luckily, my fantastic cable/internet provider provides anti-virus software at no extra charge. I adventurously chose customized setting. It would've been easy if I optioned in on all but the parental lock option. In the end, I had to download the .exe for a total of three time to have both firewall and the anti-virus properly set up.

The blazing weather outside reached the mid 90s as I spent the productive afternoon hours working on fixing up the old computer. Going swimming seemed to be a good idea. Plus, I have always wanted to devirginize that apartment swimming pool, so to speak. I mixed a little concoction for a little after swimming treat--notice the word after, I am a safety oriented person. It consisted of mainly grapefruit juice, some rum, and sugar. BF would have been proud. I swam a total of 16 x 25 m laps (free-style and breaststroke). Those were some challenging manuevers I performed to survive, among others, babies learning to swim and 15 year olds having fun in the pool. I dipped myself on the bubbly hot tub for a while after and parked myself on a poolchair with my drink. A good book would have made the day even better.

What A Life

There are clothes to press, an apartment to clean, food to cook,people to socialize with, instead I am currently sipping wines (cabernet and dessert), eating a mini chocolate bundt cake, browsing the 'net from A-to-Z, with TV on in the background, while lying down. What a life!

April Shutdown

Donna, the Atlanta BFF, came to visit for a Leonard Cohen concert last week. We had a lot of fun driving around to places (SF, Sausalito, Monterey, Oakland). I had been driving to all three bridges on the open bay (Richmond, Golden Gate, Bay). Unlike March shutdown time (Inok's visit), pictures from disposable cameras commemorated the days.

DSLR does make a difference

My profile pictures taken at the recent visit of a certain Ms. Inok of LA. She has a kickass "entry-level" professional DSLR camera. From now on, I'll just make it a requirement for every visitor to bring his/her DSLR camera along in order to be eligible to stay at my place. LOL.

On and about UC Berkeley...








At about 1000 ft elevation at Mt. Diablo State Park...


At about 2000 ft elevation at Mt. Diablo State Park...







At the summit of Mt. Diablo...




On a Bay Cruise off Pier 39...




On an about The Golden Gate Bridge...



On and about Santa Cruz's Natural Bridge State Park

Write That

I've been recruited to be in charge of a tri-monthly newsletter for a certain organization. I gave them an on-the-spot enthusiastic positive respond. Reasons behind such respond were that 1) I enjoy being involved in the organization, 2) I believe in the cause, and 3) the most important of them all that I just think it is about time for a bit of serious writing than the usual chronicle (of the banality) of my life type, don't you agree?

Another writing aspiration is something on my field of work, preferably on the professional but casual, for-the-masses, non peer-reviewed one. I really need to find a way to channel that. Maybe by starting on building enough credential, learning more about the industry, getting educated deeper on wider subjects? Oh, the possibility.

On another note, being a true hypochondriac, I am going down with an early form of dementia. Case in point: I forgot the names of several co-workers today. I tried real hard and was only able to recall them after a long while. Another case in point was the increasing severity of that self-diagnosed attention deficit disorder. So help me God.