incite a riot

ATTN: Moving!

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:57:00 +0000

~~This blog is moving to http://inciteariot.blogspot.com. I'll put notes there about where the food blog is going to end up.~~

I lied. It's moving to http://eingy.blogspot.com.

This blog is moving!!!

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:17:00 +0000

We are relinquishing the helava.com domain for Seppo's dad's business, so we'll be moving all our __.helava.com domains, including this one, the food one, and the rarely active inciteanovel one. This one may end up on papercupgames.com or on blogspot. I am not sure yet. I will need to decide by tonight though!

I will post a note here before I actually move the domains.

No, I have not started my own business...

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:11:00 +0000

... selling dvds, cameras, and printers.

My yahoo account's contact list has been compromised. :( I am sorry if someone or spambot sent you email pretending to be me. It's not me. You know I don't use that email account anyway. Still, so sorry.

Gardener love

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:58:00 +0000

I am working from home today because I had to see the doc about some weird cyst in my hand that appeared then ruptured, but it is apparently one hundred percent benign, so please don't worry. I am cyst-prone anyway and have developed a bunch in the past.

Er... anyway. So I am working from home. And the yard crew has done -- and are currently doing -- amazing things. All the trees are pruned and all the brush has been cleared away. We definitely have to figure out what kind of ground cover we want before the next rainy season, as the ground is bare and expected to be for as long as they are coming back to maintain.

There is just so much land back there that it's insane. Everyone should drop by to see. It makes no sense how clear it is. How can human beings have done so much in such a short amount of time, and in this sweltering heat?

Speaking of sweltering heat, I felt so bad for the guys that I bought a bag of ice and a pack of gatorade and set them up outside next to a giant pitcher of ice water. I don't think the ice will last long in the heat, but at least I tried. I also invited them inside to take a break, but I don't think they felt comfortable doing so. :(

ZOMGBACKYARD!!!!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:58:00 +0000

I'm sorry; the world does not have enough exclamation points to cover how many I need to express my amazement and sheer, overwhelmed awe at how much work the gardner did today.

I MEAN, OMG.

I swear there will be pictures at some point. We hired this guy because he quoted a flat fee to do all the clearing of the backyard as well as the front yard. I came home to our entire left fence wall completely exposed and bare, with nothing between it and the stone walkway that Seppo built, with the exception of the apple tree, which had been rescued from a thick, overgrown thatch of blackberry bushes. The tree itself had been pruned into an actual tree shape, which, tee hee.

The loquat tree had been similarly pruned, the bamboo brought under control, and the entire area around it cleared. I can't begin to describe how different the yard looks, even with piles of yardwaste that they couldn't haul away today. Tomorrow, he's coming back to finish the right side and presumably, the front. Or if he doesn't finish, he'll simply keep coming until everything is clear. OMG! Seppo just said, "In this way, he's very much like the T-1000." :|

WOW. I mean, he didn't just clear out the brush and bushes and prune trees; he brought everything that is not a tree down to the ground. I AM SO EXCITED. The sheer potential of our backyard has been re-exposed. Actually, I am not sure that we've ever seen things this clear, even when we first saw the house. We are definitely going to have this guy continue to come for maintenance.

This means that instead of working on trying to tame a tiny corner of the yard or feeling stress & guilt that we are not outside trying to do the same, we can actually just start using the backyard and doing crazy things like buying more sand/gravel/stones to build a FIRE PIT OF DOOM (with all the necessary safety precautions x 10000, since we do not want to have our house and/or Oakland go up in flames) or a stone patio. And we can do it slowly over time because we won't have to worry about the growth coming back to hamper us, because we'll just have a guy who magically makes that headache go away.

Seppo and I are both in agreement that while we wish we could have done this years ago, that it's only in the last couple of years that we could have paid for this kind of thing, even though this guy works at a GREAT price, so we are both happy and have no regrets.

This, combined with the stairs means that this house is really starting to feel like a real home inhabited by real people. The stairs, in particular, are no longer a death trap! Since we no longer have any secret place in the backyard to hide bodies, it's a good thing the stairs are fixed.

WOO HOO!

My, what a delicious couch you've got!

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:19:00 +0000

A.k.a. the blog entry where I go test crazy.

Created by OnePlusYou

Disturbingly:

Created by OnePlusYou

Dammit! I got one wrong. :( I think it was the last one:

Created by OnePlusYou

And why shouldn't this score correspond to the last one? No reason.

87% Geek

Created by OnePlusYou

Privilege test

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:16:00 +0000

This meme would be interesting to do with a group of friends all gathered in one place, in person as originally intended by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka of Indiana University, but I'll just do as the rest of the blogosphere has done and bold the items that apply to me. I think it has a bigger impact in real life because you'll see your peers standing many steps apart from each other.

Step forward one step if:

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. But the one is younger than me, so does this count, since he was not a part of the environment that raised me?
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 For a month.
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Had or will have less than $5000 in student loans when you graduate
Had or will have no student loans when you graduate
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs*
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs*
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp It was an academic camp for one summer that I applied through school then earned a scholarship to go to... so, again, does this count?
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child For two years before I went off to college, because my sister had by then gone off to college. Until then, we always shared
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 Ok, I feel like this one really doesn't count. The one time I flew before 16 was to immigrate to the US from Korea.
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

Note from the website I got this from:

*These two are edited because Christine pointed out that the previous wording didn't clearly delineate between people who had their tuition paid for them and people who worked for their college expenses.

Other key notes from the original site:

Note that the people on one end of the room had to work harder to be here today than the people at the other end of the room. Some of you had lives of more privilege than others. There is no one to blame, it is just the way it is. Some have privilege and some don’t.

...

Having privilege does not mean that you worked less hard. All it means is that you had a head start, so maybe it does mean you didn’t have to work as hard...

That last one is a bit vaguely phrased, but if you just drop that last clause and end with "... you had a head start," then I think it makes perfect sense.

Some of the things that they suggest discussing are:

What were the feelings that you had during this experience? Who was angry? (Anger will be a primary emotion at this point.)
What, specifically, makes you angry?
Who are you angry at?
Who was happy?
Which item do you want to argue about most? Why? Do you want more or fewer steps?

My future kids will have almost everything checked off. It's kind of crazy.

Stairway to...

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:50:00 +0000

... ~~heaven~~ the upstairs.

The contractor and his crew dismantled our downstairs-upstairs inside stairway today. THe $$ hurts but it'll be up to code, then we can close out our kitchen permits and think about drywalling all the of the upstairs. A couple of bigger area rugs after that, and we can call it a day for a loooooooooooong while.

After this long while, we'll probably eventually have to tackle the upstairs bathroom and the floors, but we can absolutely live with them as-is for years.

Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well.

Most Wonderful Time of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Sun, 25 May 2008 06:11:00 +0000

Can you smell it in the air? The warm breezes carry a hint of that inexplicable something... It's So You Think You Can Dance season! :D Woo! My favorite show is back.

The undeniable gem of the first episode of the season was Robert Muraine:

HOLY MOLY. It was even more impressive in HD. Does he have any bones in his body? I was impressed with his showmanship and musicianship as well as his technical abilities. I could watch him all day and night. That was amazing.

Breathing, sleeping

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:27:00 +0000

Over two years ago, I had an insight into my sleeping issues.

Sometime in the latter half of last year, I went to visit an allergist who gave me one of those skin tests where they prick your back with samples of a bunch of allergens and see how badly you react to them. Ah, torture for pay! Anyway, it turns out that I have a very, very, very severe dust mite allergy. Dust mites live all over the house, especially in environments like the bed, what with its warmth, darkness, skin flakes, and moisture (from human sweat -- sorry to be gross). Also, washing your sheets in cold (without several extra rinses) or warm water will not kill most of the dust mites, and we only ever do laundry with cold water if we can help it, since it is better for the environment. I have to make a note to wash in super-hot water when we do sheets...

In retrospect, my sleep problems all make a great deal of sense. I get into bed, become exposed to dust mites, trigger my allergies, which causes my sinuses to get inflamed and clogged up, have trouble breathing, then wake myself up out of sleep.

I've been using my prescription nasal spray and taking generic Claritin every night now for the past several months. And I have been sleeping better than ever before in my life. I can take deep breaths, my nose is not always stuffed, and I can sleep most of the way through the night (except when I foolishly down too much coffee :D). It really feels like a miracle.

Now, if only I could keep Mobi from whimpering by the side of the bed and waking me up...

My Korean Parents

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:06:00 +0000

I saw this hilarious list on a blog. I'm sure it's made the rounds before, but I was chortling through the list. Not everything applies, but for the most part, this list makes me feel that I shouldn't have wasted so much time telling stories about my family life on this blog and just posted this list instead.

How you know you have really Korean parents...

Your mom keeps her rubber bands around the kitchen sink faucet handles. I have a tendency to do this too, which I have been successfully fighting for the last several years.

Your mom uses water and an old rag to clean everything.

Your mom has a bag of frozen anchovies (meh-ruh-chee) in the freezer.

Your parents have a free calendar hung on their wall from church or the local Korean market.

Your mom randomly tells you what their friends' kids have done, especially if they did something good for their parents. You feel like they are comparing you to them…which they are.

A date night for your parents, is lying in the electronic heated blanket with thick puffy faux fur Korean blankets in the living room watching Korean videos. I don't believe a child of Korean parents actually listed something called "date night" even if just to make fun of it. Also, this situation was really every night.

When going to the beach with your mom, she's covered from head to toe with her 10-inch sun visor, her Robotech sunglasses, lightweight jackets and such. In fact, they will most likely drive to the beach, look at the water, say 'Choop-TAH!!!' and then drive back home after one hour. This is the only one that is really blatantly wrong.

If your parents call you 'Kah-She-Nah' or 'Jah-Sheek' if you haven't called them in over a week and then feel guilty about it.

When you were in 1st grade, your parents used rice instead of buying Elmer's glue. This really went on well into high school. And anytime I run out of glue, I still do this. What?!

Your mom has a collection of empty kimchi jars for future use, big rubber basins in the backyard for making kimchi, a gallon of koh-choo-jang and a 20lb bag of rice. I also often have a 20lbs bag of rice. Not right now though.

Your dad will even comment on the koh-choo-jang or gihm being really good b/c it's from Korea but you can't tell the difference. Only if his mom had sent it. :D

Your mom washes dishes by hand (only using the dishwasher on special occasions)

Your parents rarely show teeth or have big smiles in pictures. Nah, my mom is a big smiler. :)

You get straight A's on your report card with one A- or B+, and they have a huge fit about it -OR-Your parents are worried about the A- or B+, and say do better next time and pray about it but then tell you no TV or going outside to play until next report card time. Let's not tiptoe around the issue: most of us got our butts/legs/hands/back/whatever whupped pretty damn badly whenever this happened. Not going out to play as punishment? Yeah, right.

A son or daughter of someone they know gets into an Ivy League school and their parents are touted as being the greatest parents ever!

When your mom cooks, she never measures anything. And when you ask her how much you should put it in...she says 'ah...you know… a little bit here…a little there. Just taste.' This makes me insane. :)

If someone walks into a room/house with shoes on, it makes you highly uncomfortable and nervous. I've finally gotten used to it after living at our fixer-upper. But after we get the floors redone, it's off with shoes and on with slippers with the lot of you! :)

Your parents are looking for a toothpick after they've eaten at a restaurant. When they find one, they cover their mouths with one hand while picking their teeth with the other.

Your parents have lived in the U.S. for over 20+ years, and they still don't vote. By God, my mom will vote this year.

Your church parking lot has more Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes cars than the local dealership.

Your dad or mom planted something in your front yard, backyard, wherever there's dirt - they'll plant and grow. Betchoo? Genyip? Something...

When you're around your parents, your tone changes and you speak like a baby or little kid 'Uhhhhh-MMMMMaaaaahhhhHHHHH! Nah beh goo pahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!'

If you are a girl, you spend $150-$250 getting a straight pah-mah to make your hair look 'naturally' straight. Don't judge me.

When you go to the beach for a BBQ, camping or an amusement park, your parents bring the 3 golden Ks - kimchi, kalbi, kimbab. I could eat these three things everyday, for every meal.

Your parents have embarrassed you in public before by their mannerisms (dad yelling too loud 'Eun Jung AHHHH!!! YUH-GEE-WAH!!!', parents swearing in broken English at another driver).

Your parents are part of some sort of social group. It usually involves secret group money collecting/exchange (pyramid or "gehh").

Getting toilet paper, toothpaste, or any highly practical item is an appropriate and wise prize during team games at Church Picnics or Christmas Parties.

When eating a grilled fish, your mom or dad eats the fishhead and eyeballs like it's filet mignon.

Your mom always dresses up when going out of the house. At home, she dresses like a homeless woman wearing your old clothes/sweats and mismatching.

Your mom works more than full-time, cleans, cooks homemade meals, sews, serves, is always go, go, go and worries so much that she nags you about what you're going to do with your life.

Your dad has never cooked or washed dishes in the kitchen but man, when it's time to grill that kalbi....he's all over that! Not even grilling gets him out of the couch.

You communicate through your mom what you need to tell your dad and vice-versa

Your dad is always on the couch after work, quietly reading the Korean newspaper or watching the Korean news/videos.

The Korean newspaper is the 2nd bible to your parents.

Your mom knows a friend, who had a friend, who had a friend....that something bad happened to therefore, you need to listen to your parents and do as they tell you although there is no logical connection whatsoever to the story they just told you (usually that 'friend' is just a news article they read from the Korean newspaper)

Your dad would explode and yell with a passion about once every few months or year. The rest of the time, he's quietly reading the newspaper. *cough*every two or three days*cough*

Your parents never paid for napkins...they just took a whole stack from McDonald's, restaurants...etc. And we also had "salads" from the Roy Rogers hamburger fixings bar. The horror.

When you were younger and at a restaurant with another Korean family, your parents would fight over the bill...usually the dads...they start grabbing it out of the hand and/or try to pay and the other one pulls him down going ...'ah yai..yai..yai"…sometimes this back and forth process will take 15 min. - everyone else waiting until the parents duke it out and pay. My friends (esp U, who is not Korean, but clearly we have been brainwashed by the same kind of mindset) and my cousins do this too.

Your parents always eat some sort of fruit for dessert...apples, Asian pear, oranges...and your mom peels the apple skin, the core and slices it into 'crescent' shape pieces.

You just love, love, love them Korean faux fur blankets and/or heating floor pads. (Nowadays it's Ceragem!)

There is some piece of Korean furniture in the house somewhere like a folding Korean table or a black ebony chest with cranes all over it. Mine is in the closet. :D

Your mom has bulk packs of Korean nylon knee high stockings - and wears them with sandals.

You've been called an 'Ee-nuhm-ja-sheek' or 'Kah-she-nah' by your parents many times in your life

You eat seaweed soup on your birthday prepared by your mom! Hopefully, by Seppo this year!

When you or guests are leaving your parents' house, they wait for you to get into the car and leave before they go back in the house. Won't close the door, until you're gone. Doesn't matter if it's freezing cold outside...they'll linger and wait until you're gone first before they go back in the house.

Your mom has short-permed her hair several times since you left the house for college, each time you come home it is a different short perm style. She probably has a short perm right now.

You have an aunt (emo) that always slips you a $100 bill when they see you. They try to do it discreetly too which makes it all super secretive but then your mom sees and says 'aii...uhnee' and your aunt goes 'ah..dehsuh..dehsuh..'

Your parents have told you that you will die in the middle of the night if you leave the fan on running.... I still half-believe it, even though my rational mind knows it's 100% wrong.

Your parents ALWAYS want you to stay home and not go out - read a book instead, etc. They never had to tell me to read a book. :D But yes, home by default, permission to leave by Special Grant Only, which only happened like once a year, except for church activities and after-school clubs. I was in so many clubs...

When you ask your parents if they need help, and they say no, but they really mean 'yes' so don't ask, just do it! Corollary: They also will believe that if you really want to help, you will just do it, and not ask, so if you ask and take their word for it, you really didn't want to help. :(

Your parents eat kimchi with their spaghetti. They don't eat spaghetti, but kimchi goes with everything, yo.

Shorts

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:47:00 +0000

The weather has been swinging among hot/mild/warm/perfect/chilly this past week. It's confusing. Yesterday was utterly perfect. We spent part of the day at Temescal Park with Mobi.

Our friend C is starting his new job at my (now our!) company in the first half of June! I am very excited. W00t! U&C's baby (little D as I think of him in my head) has already hit his 1 month mark. Whoa. I'm sure it feels like forever for U&C but I can't believe it's been that long already. Wow. U&C report that he is quite fussy -- poor D and U&C, but he's definitely a little cutie pie. Seppo gave him raspberries on his baby gutulence (sorry, I've been reading a lot of CuteOverload), which made me laugh. He has enormous eyes and is totally into staring. He's really very cute, which is easy for Seppo and me to say, since we get to drop in and see his royal cutiness for a short time then run away, while U&C don't have that luxury. ;)

This past week, I cooked up little what amount to little hot cakes with a cinnamon, brown sugar, and crushed toasted walnut filling. They are called "ho dduk" (long o, short u) and are a great winter street snack in Korea. They sell them frozen and in mix form at the Korean store, but I wanted to try it on my own. I had to substitute in whole wheat for wheat flour because I ran out, which made the dough much less tender than it should have been. It was a light yeast dough, which reminded Seppo of English muffins. Anyway, the dough is formed into flat discs, filled with the filling, then pinched closed, forming a little ball, which is then flattened onto the cooking surface. I made like 30 of them. They are great reheated in the toaster over straight from the freezer, with the caramelized filling oozing over everything.

The other Korean dish I made this week was spicy chicken & potatoes stew, which had three different sources of spiciness. Ooh, the burn. It was ok. I brought in some for a packed lunch. The next thing I'll be making is homemade dumplings (with store-bought skins), filled with mostly tofu and chives. I might also figure out finally how to make my own galbi and bulgogi marinades. Everyone has a different recipe, so the trouble has been in finding and adapting one to be similar to my mom's versions.

Seppo and I have been taking Mobi for longer together in the mornings. It's nice to spend that little bit of extra time in the mornings together. :)

I hadn't played drums on RockBand for like... weeks, possibly months, but suddenly, I can play on medium mode on some of the much easier songs. Whaa--? The visual mumbo-jumbo suddenly makes sense, and I can translate the stuff I am seeing into stuff I am supposed to do. I played 16 songs on medium drums and about 8? songs on hard singing for my solo tours yesterday, after about 3 solid hours of playing as a team with Seppo, K, and N. Heh.

Sleepy. I have concluded that my weekly Sunday brunch ~2.5 cups of coffee must be interfering with my ability to fall asleep on Sunday nights. I am a genius. :|

Must buy tickets for little bro to visit this summer.

CA joins 21st century; sadly still leading many other states who are in the 18th

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:24:00 +0000

W00t!!!!!! The title of that article is "State Supreme Court says same-sex couples have right to marry"! Wait... didn't we do this before?

In a 4-3 decision, the justices said the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the "fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship." The ruling is likely to flood county courthouses with applications from couples newly eligible to marry when the decision takes effect in 30 days.

"The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in the majority opinion.

Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry "will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage," George said.

In addition, he said, the current state law discriminates against same-sex couples on the basis of their sexual orientation - discrimination that the court, for the first time, put in the same legal category as racial or gender bias.

The ruling set off a celebration at San Francisco City Hall, where nearly 4,000 same-sex weddings were performed in 2004 before the state high court put a halt to the marriages while challenges to the California law worked their way through the courts. Today's ruling has no effect on those annulments.

I am extremely hopeful that this time, it'll stick.

Inside jokes

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:39:00 +0000

Before I get to the whole "inside jokes" business, I need to wish three awesome friends happy birthday! HA was yesterday, CT is today, and HK is tomorrow! Crazy business, this getting old thing. I called my friend CT today and she told me that I needed to update my blog more often because she (and this is why she's a total geek) reads my blog via her Treo while doing night feedings for her baby girl. LOL.

She'll be going back to work on Monday, so I wish her luck and fortitude! :D

---

Seppo and I, like many couples and friends who have been together for a long time, have some inside jokes. One that we refer to often started when we researched Paris before our honeymoon. According to several sources, it is a faux pas to order a cappuccino past breakfast hours. A cafe au lait is ok for before lunch, but a cappuccino is a strict no-no after early hours. Apparently, only babies drink such watered down, foamy stuff after breakfast. I don't even know where I read this, or if it's even true, or if I am remembering what I read correctly. Regardless, anytime Seppo or I want to accuse the other person of being a big baby, we say, "Oh, do you need a cappuccino?" followed by mocking baby-crying sounds.

Hmm. I thought I'd have more. I must. Until I remember, I beg you to amuse my friend-who-is-feeding-her-infant-at-night with your own inside jokes.

Buddying up

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:56:00 +0000

Seppo and I have buddied up to get motivated. I am Seppo's buddy to encourage him/kick his ass/help him for his independent project, and Seppo is my buddy for learning to cook more Korean dishes.

There has already been progress! On the project front, Seppo has given me a list of engineering requirements as I had demanded, and I have started to set up my dev environment. I've given him a list of things I need from him in order to proceed further.

On the food front, Seppo and I cooked dinner for S & H tonight. Seppo made a zucchini & shrimp dish and grilled up the pork belly for lettuce wraps. He also mixed up two different accompanying sauces: a bean paste-based one and a salt, pepper, and sesame oil slurry. Meanwhile, I made brown & white rice, fake crab & cucumber salad (dressed in a soy & wasabi dressing), a spinach side, a bean sprout side, and a cold cucumber w/ rice wine vinegar dish. We served these with red leaf lettuce, cabbage kimchee, pickled julienned turnip & carrots, and three kinds of sliced pickled turnips (one was wasabi-infused, one was plain, and the third was mustard-infused, I think), all of which was store-bought. This was accompanied by some awesomely tart limeade supplied by S&H.

Dinner was followed by little shots of a ginger & cinnamon drink that Seppo made. This drink was extremely tasty but BURNED inside the mouth, so we ended up watering it down a bit. It was potent and delicious. After a short break, we shoveled some home-made Philly-style (no eggs) vanilla ice cream into our gaping maws.

As if this weren't enough, at around 10pm, I decided I wanted to make this one Korean dessert that I had looked up in my new Korean cookbook. It's a ginger-y fried "cookie" that is dipped in a cinnamon-honey-sugar syrup, sprinkled with ground pine nuts. The recipe is really quite unusual, calling for the following ingredients in the dough:

- flour (so far, so good)
- sesame oil (I knew this would be in there, so no surprises yet)
- ginger (yup)
- sake (really??? sake? in a doughy cookie??? ok...)
- maple syrup (whaaaaa-? ok, so clearly a Westernized recipe... it did give light corn syrup and golden syrup as alternatives)
- white pepper (OMGWTF?!)

The dough is an elastic dough and really reminded me of biscuit dough or even beignet dough. It certainly fried up like little beignets. I realized after I dipped the little guys in syrup that this was like the Korean version of gulab jamun, my favorite Indian dessert.

I am looking forward to more cooking adventures! Who wants to come over?! As we get photos off the camera, I'll post them to flickr and to the woefully neglected food blog as well.

I come out of hiding...

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:37:00 +0000

... to take a breath of air and go back.

Lots of stuff has happened, mostly baby-related.

In January, my college friend (and coworker at my last job) S and his wife (also a friend) V had their first baby! She is a beautiful little girl with some amazing eyes.

In February, my friend C who I've known since the 3rd grade gave birth to her first baby! She had some incredibly red lips as a newborn. My friend had prepped me, but even then, I was like WHOA! :D She really looks like a T-family baby, so I know she's gonna be an ass-kicker. No need to buy a shotgun for when she hits her teens -- she'll be taking care of business herself. :) Apparently, she's been sleeping up to 7 hours at night, so congrats! It's so amazing to think of C as a mom -- I've known her since she was a little kid herself, so it really hits home that a large chunk of time has passed. I hope I get to meet little C sometime this year.

Yet another friend I've known since 9th grade (she is in MA now) gave birth to her third kid in February! It took most of the high school friends by susprise. I think she had hinted when I had seen her back in the summer, but I wasn't 100% sure. Congrats! I'm so glad to hear that she's an easy baby! I have no idea when I'll see her again way up in MA, but I hope she comes out again for the doc convention like last time. :)

*Another* friend (a Bay Area one that I met through a dear friend R) expanded their 2-people family w/ their first child, just barely edging out a common internet friend's baby's birth by a few days. Both of them were girls, whose videos I've watched on Flickr's new video feature. :D Ah, the internet.

There was a break in the baby news at the beginning of April for a wedding! :) S & H got married! I am so happy for them. I could not be using more exclamation marks (without looking like a Myspacer...) to express how happy I am for them!!!! Woo hoo! I love how they are with each other and for each other. They are also both so supportive and involved in each other's families. W00t!!!!!!!!!!!

Now back to the baby news... My dear friends U&C's little family have been joined by a beautiful baby boy, breaking the incredible streak of girls! I held him within 1.5 hours of his birth after rushing to the hospital after getting a call from the friend C. From the East Coast! :D U&C are being visited and attended to by U's mom & sister, so I am trying to give them some breathing room, even though I want to be nosing in everyday. I've been able to squeeze some details on the baby's progress though. Hee hee. He was so tiny, yet to big considering where he came from. *runs in fear* Actually, he is a "little porker" according to U&C, according to his birth weight and the voracious way he gulps down milk. Heh.

In non-baby news, my dear friend R is enrolled in a month-long program to get her new career path started! And it seems like she's really grown from the experience. Congratulations on taking the step and hang in there!

On less fun news, my friend that I've known since the 6th? 7th? grade just underwent major surgery for thyroid cancer. :( She had to get both of her thyroid glands removed on Monday. Apparently, it went really, really well and they found no spread to anywhere else, which I am so relieved about. My high school friends really rallied and almost everyone showed up to the hospital. I wish I could have joined them. I think the only people missing were me, my friend up in MA, and my other friend in Korea for a job. You take care, A, and get better! She will be facing radioative iodine treatment in about 6 weeks.

As for me, I have neither good new nor bad news -- and no, this was not a lead-up to announcing a pregnancy or anything like that, in case I've misled you with all the good news. I just wanted to write some of it down! We also have three different sets of friends getting married at the end of May and beginning of June. It's a crazy year!

I wonder what the rest of 2008 will bring. While I ponder this, I leave you with this video clip from Planet B-Boy, a documentary about b-boying. And HELL YEAH, I am going to see this. Hehehe.

Kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:38:00 +0000

You may or may not have read Seppo's blog entry with photos, but I figured I'll post my own here.

Before:

After:

More here.

ETA: More views!

Before:

After:

Before:

After 1 (slightly different angle -- you can't see what's happening between the fridge and outside door):

After 2 (this shows the missing area):

Kitchen!

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:26:00 +0000

I think it's supposed to be done today. DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today is two days longer than the original estimate, but I think they were largely eaten up with our glass subway tiles, which did not come on 1ft sheets, but had to be laid out separately. I am glad they took their time with it, because it looks so pretty I could weep.

We skimped on light/electrical fixtures, but they are easily replaceable in the future. Plus, I don't really care too much about how they look in general. We also skimped on floor tiles, but they look fine and as long as I can stand on top of them without puking due to ugliness, I don't care.

The stuff I DO care about, the stuff that I didn't think we'd be able to swing on our budget, all are awesome: the sink & faucet, the glass subway tiles, the granite counter. Yowza. We could easily have spent 2-3 times the amount we did on those things, but we were pretty insane about our comparison shopping around the Bay Area and on teh intarwebs.

I am so excited to see the kitchen today. I am bouncing around in my seat like a kid on sugar.

Sneaking in a quick post

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:04:00 +0000

I have no time for a real update, just a quick one.

Here's the kitchen timeline so far:

Last week
Thursday: Demo
Friday: Start electrical work
Saturday (they came in because they wanted to resolve the wiring issues): Do more electrical work

This week
Monday: holiday
Tuesday: Finish eletrical and plumbing -- we put in insulation Monday night and that night
Wednesday: Start drywall -- everything that goes behind cabinets is taped and plastered
Thursday: tape & plaster remaining walls, drywall part of diningroom as a bonus, start putting cabinets in -- they say they will be done w/ almost all of the cabinets today
Friday: sand and plaster remaining walls
Monday: mystery?

We need to decide on a sink by tomorrow morning! Egads. Things are going at a breakneck speed. It is both exhilarating and a bit much.

My work is also going at such a speed. And I feel the same about it as I do about the kitchen.

Last Day

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:33:00 +0000

I lied about the next post in my last post. This post is not a comparison of GTD implementations, but a lamentation of the end of my 12 week hiatus from the working world. Some have referred to it as "semi-retirement". It has been woefully short, yet I am still extremely grateful for the break. I have no idea how the time flew by so quickly, but it has flown indeed.

Tomorrow morning, I start my new commute. My trusty iPod will help make the drive fun.

Now, I go to bed. See you on the flip side.

Getting Things Done: What I'm Learning

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:31:00 +0000

Yes, like everyone else 25-45 years old, I have been reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. It lays out a very straight-forward, even -- dare I say it -- trivial system of dealing with the things/tasks that come into your life. The thing I've found about every new learning experience is that honestly, the best lesson are straight-forward and trivial. It just takes having been exposed to the idea and trying it out to see how "obvious" it seems. For example, the two main things I've learned about personal finance are:

Spend less than you earn - duh!
Do something smart with the difference - duh!

But honestly? Those two perfectly obvious things are great lessons to implement. I was already doing 1, but not enough of it. And I wasn't being very smart with 2. So I learned to be better at both.

So being straight-forward and trivial is not a diss on GTD; it's a bonus. :)

The other thing I've learned about life is this: Things happen when you do them.

Ok, now I sound like a jerk. :) But here it is again:

Things happen when you do them.

That is probably the most profound thing I learned in the last ten years. That makes me sound like an idiot. Or an asshat. Or something. But I guess what I'm saying is that I really internalized it and have seen it to be true in my own life, as opposed to have thought about how obvious it is.

It's the single biggest thing that NaNoWriMo has done for me: to make me understand that writing doesn't happen in bursts of inspiration and that waiting until I felt like it is not the right thing for me, but that writing happens when you sit your butt down and write.

Getting Things Done is fundamentally about sitting your butt down (or getting up and about, as the case may be) and getting things done, off your checklist, out of your life, off your mind. The big tools the GTD system provides appears to me to be the following:

Giving you a concrete idea of where to physically (or electronically) file your stuff.
Making you dump out every single thing on your mind (from big work projects to watering the plants) into a single location, so that you know it's written down somewhere so you don't have to remember it yourself.
Forcing you to define the very next physical action you have to take in order to accomplish something.

The first thing is nice because you need to know where to put "stuff", whether it's pending emails responses or a list of phone calls you need to make or reading material that you need to get through. I never know where to put stuff, which is why my life is so cluttered. Having someone say concretely that these are the things you need makes it easier, but this hasn't been the best thing about GTD.

The second thing, however, has been absolutely awesome for me. I dumped out everything that is even slightly, remotely on my mind as a thing to get done, either now or in the next year or in the vague "someday" timeframe. I don't have to remember anything, so I've been feeling really relaxed in the last three days as far as feeling that vague poking in the back of the mind. When something comes to mind, I just write it down. I don't have to worry I won't remember it.

Even sorting through the mess is nice.

The third thing is really great too. "Get house fixed up" is a good thing to think about, but it seems like an unapproachably large project. Well, what's the very next physical action I need to take? It might be "Search through Berkeley Parents Network to read about locals who have recently renovated." The next item might be "Call 3 of the contractors they recommended." At any given moment, thinking about the house in general can be really stressful. However, thinking about doing some Googling and reading is really easy. Just one step at a time.

Things get done when you do them, and doing them becomes much, much easier when you can list all the things you want done, and having a system where you can sit down at any given moment and know what "next actions" you can take. When I'm sitting at a desk, I might have 5 different phone calls I need to make. If you took the time to "process" your list correctly according to the GTD system, then you don't have to waste any time figuring out who you need to call and for what. There should be one single clean list in front of you, even if they are for 5 different areas or projects in your life.

My next post will review four different GTD Mac implementations that I am looking into.

Self-Brainwashing

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:31:00 +0000

What I've learned

I call it "self-brainwashing" but it's really just something I do to put myself in the mindset I want to be. These last few years, I have surrounded myself with reading (and listening, via podcasts) materials related to personal finance. This action has allowed me to accomplish two main things I really wanted to do:

Learn enough about personal finance to actually take action (then take action, obviously)

Program my mindset to be finance-conscious in my everyday actions/habits

Because I had strategically placed this information where I couldn't get away from it, I succeeded in these two goals. How had I accomplished this "strategic placement"?

By having podcasts automatically download and load into a "smart playlist" on my iPod. All I had to do was plug in my iPod every couple of days and I had something new to listen to everyday. Since I had to charge up my iPod anyway, this was zero work after I first decided which podcasts to listen to. Admittedly, finding the right podcasts took some time at the beginning.

By subscribing to feeds from personal finance bloggers that I enjoyed reading. Again, as with the iPod, I had to first decide which bloggers were worth my time, but after that, I was able to keep the idea of personal financial responsibility at the forefront of my consciousness.

Where I need work

This year, I really want to get serious about fitness and healthy eating as a priority. The biggest obstacle in the past has been in keeping it in the forefront of my mind. I slip up, not because of hunger or tiredness or an intense craving, but because I stop thinking about it. Health just slips my mind and fails to seem very important. I know, that sounds like sacrilege to some people, but to me, that's just how I roll.

Given 1) information immersion works for me and 2) I see an area in my life where I fail because I stop thinking about my goals, I have decided to take the same approach for health that I did for personal finance.

Where you can help me

Please suggest health podcasts and blogs (with a preference for podcasts, since I will be doing a lot of commuting again soon) that you enjoy. Thanks!

Do any of you guys do this type of conscious immersion?

Wowzers, rain

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:06:00 +0000

It's raining a crazy amount out here. Seppo is at the optometrist, and I'm waiting for the slightest lull to take Mobi out. Granted, I just spent the last twenty minutes digging out our and our neighbors' clogged sidewalk gutters, so I'm soaked, which means the rain will make little difference to me. Mobi, however, being the fancy-pants that he is, does mind the rain, so I suppose I'll wait a little longer.

Can you see the rain in my hair and on my glasses?

New fitness blog

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:19:00 +0000

Seppo and I started a new blog to track our fitness/health/weight loss goals: Get Fit, Nerds!.

It is pretty empty right now, but it'll get filled up with our goals, observations, trials & tribulations soon. It feels weird to go so public with weight data, but there it is. I can't achieve the goal without stating a hard goal, so I put it out there. My main goal is to decrese my body fat percentage from the overweight-to-obese range down to normal. I've been hiding a bunch of fat where most people can't see it (behind my right elbow). Details at the blog.

Friends of the Seppo & Ei-Nyung Multinational MegaCorp (R), please be kind when I try to say no to seconds/cookies/dessert, should you have us over for dinner. ;)

End of year financial wrangling

noreply@blogger.com (ei-nyung) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 16:52:00 +0000

I've read a lot of convincing literature and analysis of data that dollar-cost averaging doesn't buy much in terms of long-term investment, so I am investing a big chunk of our non-tax-advantaged retirement funds that I had held back in the last round of purchase into the Vanguard 500 Index fund. It was one I had been looking at for a while, so when H suggested it to me, I looked into it again and found it a favorable one to put money into. Low expense ratios are great.

I'm also holding back a bit of money in case we qualify to contribute to a tax-advantaged IRA this year. In addition, I need to sell shares from my old, old dying company to take the loss. I think.