Phil’s blog

It’s been 3 months since I’ve posted and much has changed. I’ll write about the changes soon, but first some highlights since my last post:

• Went to the 25th annual Santa Cruz clam chowder cook off
• Went on a seven mile hike at Crystal Springs reservoir. I know it isn’t far enough to be notable by hiking standards, but for a non-hiker like me it’s plenty.
• Went to the CMAT wushu competition at Berkeley. Justine competed in nanquan (southern fist) and rocked it per usual. This was the first time I didn’t compete, my excuse being that I’m too busy to train. It was nice to see my former teammates from UVA and Justine’s friends from her wushu school back in VA. The event went way overtime as expected, and we all went out for food and bubble tea afterwards as is tradition. The after party was ok, the highlight being when Syl taught me some dance moves which I probably looked ridiculous executing but had fun nonetheless.
  
  
• Had a picnic on the hills between Google and Shoreline. We feasted on banh mi, Thai iced tea, and beautiful views while struggling for warmth in a small blanket because it was a bit breezier than we had anticipated.
  
  
• Practiced wushu at O-Mei. We went about twice a week and were starting to get back into the groove, but didn’t renew our membership this month because of my change in plans which I’ll write about in the next post. We once trained at Eagle Park (near downtown Mountain View) which was actually really nice until the sprinklers got us.
• Finally installed flush-mount turn signals on my motorcycle. I was all proud of myself but then all of them (even the rear ones which I didn’t replace) stopped working at some point during my first ride. Need to take care of that soon.
• Set up an easter egg hunt for Justine. I only had 12 easter eggs but I also hid tons of stray candy all over the apartment. Amazingly, Justine found every piece (that I’m aware of) except one which was pretty far under the bed.
• Golden Gate Park, specifically, the Japanese Tea Garden, the AIDS Memorial Grove, and the Conservatory of Flowers.
  
  
  
  
• Went to the Gel Conference in NYC. Not your typical industry conference, but rather a series of workshops and speakers covering various topics, the unifying theme being the creation of good experiences (Gel stands for Good Experience Live). I attended two workshops, one about juggling and the other about building MIDI instruments out of junk. Both were pretty interesting and I can now juggle 3 beanbags for a about 5 seconds before losing control. The speakers were also pretty good, and among the more interesting were Danny Meyer, owner of several popular NY restaurants, and Andrew, creator of songstowearpantsto.com. Also got to hang out with some old buddies from middle school, high school, and college - bonus!
  
  
• Spent a weekend in the Seattle area to work out business plans - more on this in the next post.
• Hanging out with my dad in San Francisco.
  
  
• Watched the entire Man vs. Wild and Planet Earth series.
• Watched Spiderman 3, Stranger Than Fiction (surprisingly good!), The Terminal, As Good as It Gets, Cave of the Yellow Dog, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alien, and Inside Man.
• Cooked a lot and tried some new dishes including mango chicken salad (kind of made this one up), red bean soup (a simple dessert), congee (incredibly delicious yet so simple), and a soup with sausage and veggies that I added way too much cayenne pepper to but was still good.
• Got Justine to play video games with me! Actually got her hooked on Lego Star Wars 2 (which we played through in co-op mode) and The Sims 2 (which occupied many of our evenings). We also played Lego Star Wars 1 and X-Men Alliance, but these weren’t as fun.
• Went to a bunch of restaurants:
  • Palace Bar-B-Que Buffet - Korean BBQ place in Sunnyvale, good but we couldn’t eat enough to make it worth the money
  • Gochi - Japanese fusion tapas, crispy rice pot was incredible
  • Long Life Noodle Company - noodle place in Palo Alto, not that good
  • So Dong Gong Tofu House - Korean place in Santa Clara and Palo Alto (we went to both), outstanding bibimbop but I actually prefer Totoro’s tofu stew
  • Cafe Yulong - Chinese place off Castro, great calamari
  • Queen’s House - Chinese place on Castro, not bad but not super memorable
  • Katz Deli - deli in NYC specializing in giant meat sandwiches. The meat to bread ratio was ridiculous and I wasn’t able to finish. Very tasty though, and the pickles were great.
  • Shake Shack - burger joint at Madison Square Park in NYC, best I’ve ever had
  • Vung Tau - solid Vietnamese place in San Jose
  • Miette Patisserie - French bakery in SF serving up heart-stopping treats
  • Katana-Ya - ramen place in SF, pretty good but not better than Maru Ichi
  • 99 Chicken - Korean fried chicken? Delicious! And the owners are so friendly and cute.
  • I Love Sushi - sushi place in Bellevue, very tasty and nicely presented
  • El Calderon - El Salvadoran place in Mountain View, delicious and seems authentic
  • Afghani House - in Sunnyvale, the lamb was outstanding
  • Gooyi Gooyi - Korean BBQ place in Santa Clara. Was quite good, and at one point a girl and a person dressed as a giant soju bottle came in and started advertising the product to the Korean patrons. The soju bottle was dancing around the whole time - it was pretty awesome.
  • Breaktime Desserts - Asian dessert place in Cupertino, very large and interesting selection, and very tasty
  • Okane Sushi - in San Bruno, nothing to write home about

It’s time for another massive update; I haven’t posted for the past month because I was having too much fun with Justine :] She flew back to VA on Friday so I’ve had time to upload all the photos and recount the notable things:

• Took multiple trips to Maru Ichi. I think udon is edging out ramen as my favorite noodle again. We also tried Ramen House Ryowa but didn’t like it as much.
• Went to a public safety job fair and talked to reps from the FBI, Palo Alto police, private investigators, and a security guard contractor. From talking to the PIs, it seems their #1 type of case is worker’s comp fraud, possibly followed by cheating spouses. Justine wasn’t too excited about that, nor was she thrilled with the rent-a-guard company. The FBI dude told us pretty much what we already knew, but the Palo Alto PD rep was interesting. It sounds like a sweet job; $70k starting salary, mad benefits, and very little danger given the crime rate in Palo Alto. It sounded like a reasonable first step for Justine but the next academy semester doesn’t start until summer.
• Made the best homemade sushi ever. We used tuna, salmon, shiitake mushrooms, cucumber, avocado, and flying fish roe.
  
  
• Watched every episode of The Office. Justine had shown me one before and I wasn’t super impressed but we watched a few more from her season 2 DVDs and I was hooked. Downloaded and watched seasons 1 and 3 up to the current episode. Thank you Bittorrent.
• Received a visit from Miss Kitty, the neighborhood cat.
  
  
• Made multiple trips to Totoro. Two favorite dishes: soon dubu (tofu stew) and bi bim bop (grilled beef and veggies over rice).
• Had dinner at Xanh in downtown Mountain View with my friend Kathy and her husband Peter. Delicious, great decor and food presentation, but expensive. We shared an Asian pear salad, crab and quail egg soup, garlic noodles, cubed beef tenderloin, and shrimp puffs.
• Laid my motorcycle down going too fast into an easy turn, leaning and braking and causing it to slide out. Luckily damage was minimal both to the bike and myself. The left turn signal broke, the handle bar end got scraped, and I got a little scrape on my knee. Pretty amazing because the bike left a couple of long gashes in the asphalt. I was able to pick it back up pretty easily and rode it home. Haven’t not taken it out since; need to get it checked out at the local shop. I’m actually kind of relieved to have gone through my first bike accident. I guess it’s like getting hit for the first time; you think it’ll be awful but it ends up not being so bad. Actually I’ve never been in a real fight outside of sparring. Hope that day never comes.
• Went to Tahoe! More about this in my next post.
• Had a nice dinner with Justine’s aunt Amy, cousin Douglas, and his wife Mimi at Lotus Garden in Milbrae. Doug was excited about the prospect of Justine moving to the Bay Area. On the way to Doug and Mimi’s place we almost had an accident; one car stopped suddenly and completely in the middle of the 101 and the car behind it swerved first left to avoid it, then back right, presumably to avoid more cars. It ended up passing right in front of us, perpendicular to the lane, and off the road. I had started braking immediately upon hearing tires squeal and seeing the stopped car, and luckily we just missed the tail end of the swerving car as we passed. Scary.
• Played laser tag for the first time at Laser Quest in Mountain View. Justine had played before and gave me some tips, but I still got destroyed by a bunch of high school kids. It was kind of embarrassing but I had a good time. Justine is really good and got 4th place out of about 15 people both times we played. I think my problem is that my accuracy is horrible, so in a shootout on equal terms with no cover, the other person will usually win. Guess I need to practice..
• Made a chocolate cake and only succeeded in eating half of it while Justine was here. It was delicious though and we had fun baking and making a huge mess.
  
  
• Got Lego Star Wars II for the 360. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan but this game is cute, clever, and funny, and best of all, Justine loves it and is always up for playing. She even played it while I was at work!
• Made our own soon dubu and bi bim bop. They turned out pretty well, especially the tofu!
  
  
• Was surprised by Justine on Valentine’s Day More about this in a later post.