LOST

This Sunday's message, Law C-mo spoke of "The Three Losts." Actually, I think she spun off into many more different types of LOST - but they more or less centered around the three major ones:

1. The Lost Sheep
2. The Lost Coin
3. The Prodigal Son

Ironically, that was the subject of my weekend - LOST. To be more specific LOST - Season 2.

Starting Thursday night and ending Sunday afternoon, Joyce and I polished all 22 episodes of Season 2 of the ABC TV Show - LOST. I would almost equate it to people watching Korean Soap Operas...a masochistic pleasurable pain. But this was the first weekend in a long time where we decided to completely put off homework, studying, yardwork, etc....

Unfortunately, Season 3 is on-going on ABC right now... so we won't be getting Season 3 on DVD until, earliest, summer of 2007. Oh well... back to yardwork I guess...

Fogo de Chao's

In Portugese, Fogo de Chao's means "Fire from the Ground." And what's the fire for???

FOR COOKING MEAT!!!!!

On Tuesday night, a bunch of co-workers and I went to Fogo de Chao's in Beverly Hills for some fine dining. And ohhhh was the food eXquisite!!! You start out with a buffet style gourmet salad bar that makes Sweet Tomato look like David to Goliath. Then you have the all-you-can-eat side dishes of mashed garlic potatoes, fried polenta, fried banana, and their world renowned Parmesan Cheese Bread. It's like eating a Lotus Bun from a Tea House, except it's cheese that oozes out. Then the main course.....the MEAT.

OHHHHH THE MEAT!!!! 15 different kinds of meat, cooked by an open flame on a 2 foot skewer. Then brought to you fresh off the blaze, sizzling and oozing with juice. The gaucho (waiter) sees that you've flipped your coaster to green - meaning you want more meat! And he runs to you cutting up as small or AS BIG a portion of meat as you want. You think you're full?? Flip the coaster to red. Think you're back in the game, flip it back to green!! Panacha, filet mignon, top sirlon, bottom sirlonn, lamb chops, linguicia, pork tenderloin, chicken wrapped with bacon, the list goes on and on.....

Normally, at buffets, the steak is cooked medium to accomodate for the general public. Not this place!! This place knows how to cook their steak --- to a medium rare (more rare than medium). I landed a chunk of filet that oozed either juice or blood. I wasn't sure. At times like these, I wonder why I wasn't born with a bigger stomach......?

The bill came out to be $500 for 6 people. But hey... it's allllllllllllllllllll goooooooooooooooooooood.

CONGRATS!!!

CONGRATULATIONS to Greg and Holly!!! May God bless your new life together!!

Alt-Enter

WOW!!! After all these years...I finally found out that "Alt-Enter" gives you a newline inside an individual Excel cell. Today, is officially a good day.

Harvest Crusade 2006

HP Pavilion - San Jose, CA (Oct 14, 2006)

Performers: Seventh Day Slumber, Kutless, Jeremy Camp

Speaker: Greg Laurie

Guest of Honor: Jesus

Life is fun...it really is....

On Saturday, I went computer shopping with a buddy who just came from Hong Kong. He's not too knowledgable about PC's. So I had to give him a 10 minute crash course on some basic concepts.

1. CPU: Athlon vs Pentium? Why dual core? 32-bit or 64-bit?
2. RAM What is DDR? What is 4200? 3200? What is a MHz? What is a Hertz??
3. PCI and PCIe What is an expansion card/slot?
4. Video: ATI vs NVidia What is AGP?
5. LAN: 802.11a,b,G
6. Mobos: All of the above =)
7. Monitors: LCD, Plasma, Refresh Rate, Compression Ratio

Pretty trivial...right? SURE!! Now try explaining all that IN CHINESE!!! I haven't worked so hard to speak Chinese since the time I had to make a shot-gun speech in Mandarin during a Parent Teacher Conference. Hahahaha... and I don't even know Mandarin!!

Oh...so fun....

Warm and fuzzy...

I went back to the building I use to work in for a meeting, and of course, I stop by to visit my old group. A surge of nostalgia hits me as I pace through the aisles and walk by the cubicles. Waves, handshakes, smiles, nods and the obligatory, "Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank!!!"

This was where I started. This is home base. This is where it all began.

Only after you leave, do you get a chance to realize the legacy you've left behind. Sometimes, we put our noses to the grindstone and tunnel ourselves into working so hard, we seize to realize there are third parties who see what you're doing. But the words and comments I heard today were very flattering and I accepted them humbly because God gave me the abilities to perform my duties well.

Similarly, during a telecon yesterday, there was an action item assigned to "Henry." It was the first time I saw this action... so I said, "I'll look into it and get back to you guys..." Upper management came back and said, "Not you Henry, another Henry. If it was you, I wouldn't be worried."

My manager always come by and say "Good job, Hank!" But I take that with a grain of salt...cuz managers are trained to encourage their employees. I almost think these words of encouragement are patronizing... But to hear these words from a senior manager in a public forum is a good sign for me that I'm doing something right and I'm contributing my part.

I'm not big on compliments...mainly cuz I question how genuine it is. But when it's words from a third party who has no interest in the effects of these compliments, then they're well taken. It just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside....

Back to normal...

Ah... alas the jet lag has departed. Back to the normal routine of working till 1AM and waking up at 6AM. It's gonna be one tough winter...

Sayonara

"Out with the old... In with the new."
That's been a steady theme for me this year. But y'know... sometimes the cup is half empty. Just like Saturday night, Joyce and I had a craving for Japanese food. Time was running short and we didn't want to be late for the Mission Conference. So we sped over to MIYAKE's on De Anza. It's a place we've gone to for over 6 years off and on. The prices are reasonable. The service is above average. The food is as expected, no surprise. It's owned and ran by Japanese.. even the Sushi chef's. Nowadays...a lot of Sushi places have Mexicans making the sushi's.

We step into MIYAKE's and right away, things felt different. There was no line. Hrm... maybe cuz we were early. Then we got seated, but we weren't greeted with the usual screaming of the Japanese men. (I never knew what they said...) The menus looked the same, the decorations on the wall didn't. Then we started hearing people speak Cantonese!!! And it wasn't the customers. It was the waiters!!! Holy smokes... I look all around and everyone in there are Cantonese speaking. We get our sushi and from just the looks of it... we know they chefs have changed. We taste it.... ugh!! Below average. The longer we sit, the more uncomfortable we got.

This place is no longer the place we knew and loved. It's a wicked doppleganger who snatched my old restaurant and replaced it with a bad imitation. I vow to never go back there again. Sayonara Miyake's. Perhaps you're still pure in Palo Alto....