Construction Day 21

Everything's still going pretty well despite the trouble we're having finalizing our plans. We've had to switch structural engineers because the ones we had been working with are asking for an arm and a leg to do the new calculations. We've also been told that we do not have enough shear wall in the master bedroom due to all the new windows we've added, so we're waiting to see if we have to get rid of a window to add that support or if there are any other alternatives.

Construction-wise, things are pretty much set in the front of the house. We decided to shorten the coat closet by the main entry last week once we saw how narrow the entry into the living room would be, and it's looking much better now. The electrician's starting to position all the recessed lighting and the first window is in!

A Slight Retraction

The last time I blogged about Barefoot I was deeply unhappy about the changes they'd made. This time I'm writing to retract my statement that I could no longer recommend them as the best place to go for coffee. While I can't say I'm ecstatic about the changes, I can at least say that I've come to terms with them and understand their reasons for it.

While I still miss the old milk, I have come to appreciate the new one as well. Barefoot is right; once I got over my disappointment that it no longer tasted the same, I did actually notice that the new milk lets the coffee come through better.

I did, however, get another surprise today when I ordered a cold latte. Apparently iced and cold lattes now comes pre-mixed using cold-brewed coffee by default (as opposed to using an espresso shot). This is probably a good thing if I was ordering an iced latte because throwing hot espresso on to the cold ice shocks the coffee. For cold lattes (no ice, just cold milk), however, I still prefer a real espresso shot. So now I have to remember to custom order my cold lattes. *sigh*

If only they'd publicize these changes instead of springing it on their poor unsuspecting coffee addicts...

Happy Chinese New Year!

Welcome to the year of the Earth Rat!

We rang in the new year with the wife's extended family, who are all in Sacramento this week since her brother is getting married this Friday.

Don't Forget To

Construction Day 16

The framing is still going on, but the major internal walls are all there now and things are really starting to take shape. The plumber and electrician have also started doing their thing, and the next major step is to get the windows in.

As for the plans, they're still not completely nailed down yet. We'd gone back to the city with an updated set of plans, but they want further revisions. *sigh*

Super Tuesday

I've been hemming and hawing about the candidates for a while now, but in the end, my choice hasn't really changed. I remember my mom asking me who I'd vote for about a year ago, and I'd said that if I had to choose, I'd opt for Hillary on the Democratic side and McCain on the Republican side. The New York Times recently recommended these two candidates as well, and they've vocalized better than I could why Hillary and McCain are our best options.

The choice on the Republican side is extremely simple for me: McCain is the only one who seems willing to bridge the chasm between the Republicans and the Democrats, with a proven track record for building consensus, and lord knows we need that now more than ever. I've been tempted by Huckabee because he's been running such an amicable and friendly campaign, but I really don't think someone who references his religion every chance he gets will be able to keep the church and state separate.

As for the Democrats, it's a tough call, but in the end I buy into Hillary's experience shpiel. After all, when you're looking for a doctor or a lawyer, do you go for the young guy just out of school? Or do you go for the most experienced one you can find? A few random observations:

• I was pleasantly surprised by how friendly the race on the Democratic side has been, at least until a couple weeks ago.
• Even more surprised that Obama has been complaining about Bill Clinton campaigning on behalf of his wife. Really? Is he seriously saying that his team didn't think this was going to happen? I think it's just childish jealousy on his part. If he could have a former president campaigning on his behalf, I don't think he'd say no either. I mean, Bill's basically a very famous volunteer...

A Bit of Oddness

Came across this bit of trivia while surfing: While sitting down, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles. Continue doing this and try to draw the number six in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it.

Construction Day 6

End of day six, and pretty much the end of the demolition phase. The front half of the house is completely opened up, and you can see clear to the ceiling. The framing phase starts tomorrow.

Unfortunately I still don't have the final plans yet, so things may slow down if I can't get it asap. We've been making some last minute tweaks and getting it all into an official AutoCAD drawing is taking a bit longer than anticipated. In principal, this is the kind of thing that should have been completed before we started construction, but our designer gave us such amazing ideas that we had to incorporate them.

Construction Day 3

Taken this morning... The demolition continues.

Construction Begins!

Woo-hoo! The remodel is now officially under way! Stopped by the house early this morning and watched them take a sledgehammer and pickaxe to the kitchen.

Refracted Sunshine

After a couple days of heavy rain it was nice to finally get a break. Drove around the corner from the house and saw the rainbow, which brought a smile to my face, even if everything else was a dreary gray.

Surf's Up

Went to Pacifica to get a quote on some cabinets today and stopped to admire the immense waves that were coming in. Made me wish I'd brought my camera with me. Mother nature can be totally awe inspiring when she wants to be. I was mesmerized by the chaos and power of the waves until the cold drove me back to the warmth of the car.

And a Happy New Year!

Best of luck to everyone, and may you hold true to all your resolutions!

Personally, I can't wait for the year to get started. I still need to finalize a bunch of things for the house remodel, but can't since many of the stores and people I'm working with have been on vacation for the past week or so.

Merry Christmas!

圣诞快乐
Joyeux Noël!
C Pождеством
Frohe Weihnachten!
Maligayang Pasko!
Selamat Hari Natal!

Woosh

Went to Sugar Bowl today for my first day of snowboarding this season. I have fond memories of Sugar Bowl as this was where I first really learned how to snowboard oh so long ago.

Unlike the powder of memory though, the snow cover was pretty sparse. The storm that blew through last week must have melted away or missed Sugar Bowl completely.

Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day, there were no crowds, and the runs off Lincoln were good enough to occupy me for much of the day.

Disappointment in a Cup

I've been a big fan of Barefoot Coffee Roasters ever since the wife discovered the place. It's not too much of an exaggeration to say that they've changed my life -- how I've thought of coffee specifically -- and I've been recommending it to friends at every opportunity.

You can surely imagine my sadness and disappointment then when I say that I can no longer recommend Barefoot. They've recently redone their menu, increased their prices, and changed their source for milk. I can handle the first two, but that third is a killer.

Now I'm paying more for less (smaller cups) for lattes that taste worst (mainly due to the milk).

Woe!

Their claim is their new specially-formulated-for-Barefoot milk by the Strauss Family Farms is superior, but my tongue begs to differ. I can only dream of the days when they served Clover's Extra Rich Milk.

I guess I should point out that Barefoot still makes good coffee. It's probably still the best in the area, but they no longer make great coffee.

White Elephant Waste

I've been to two white elephant gift exchanges so far this Christmas season and have friends that seem to be going to one at least once a week. The rise in popularity of white elephants has also coincided with the decline in popularity of secret santas, at least in this neck of the woods.

I have to say I prefer secret santa gift exchanges more, because you can then put some thought into what the recipient might like. White elephants, on the other hand, seem to be an exercise in finding the most generic gift that would appeal to the biggest audience.

More often than not, white elephant gifts are just kitschy items that you play with for a while before it gets retired to the junk pile, and I think this just contributes to the feeding frenzy of Christmas-time consumerism.

I'm going to avoid going off on a tangent on waste and consumerism here, but if you're interested, just google it. Celebrate Discardia!

I think from now on, if I'm participating in a white elephant, I'm going to follow a couple simple rules:

• Something old: instead of buying something new, I'll try to regift instead.
• Something new: if I have to buy something new, it'll be something consumable, like a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates. Something that won't just sit on a table or end up in the garbage can or be set aside for regifting...

A journey of a thousand miles...

... begins with a single step. And for our remodel project, that step was taken a long, long time ago. We have been thinking about it for what seems like forever and started working with an architect in July 2006.

And now, it looks like we're actually going to begin construction! It took two tries, but we finally got our permit to begin the job from the Los Altos building department yesterday.

Free Rice

My sister sent me a link to FreeRice and I thought I'd share the joy. And by joy I mean a great time suck.

The whole rice thing is sort of a silly gimmick, but the vocab quiz itself is fairly addicting. The highest vocab level I've gotten so far is 48. What's yours?

Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

The Perfect Bag

Camera bag, that is. I'd been looking for one before leaving on our honeymoon because the one I had at that time could not hold a guide book in addition to my Nikon D40. As I hunted around, I realized I also really wanted it to be big enough to fit my flash, Gorillapod, a ball head for the Gorillapod, and a bottle of water, yet still be small and light.

After a few false starts, I finally discovered the Tamrac Messenger 4, which met all my criterias. After traveling with it for the past two months, I've been more than happy with the way it's performed. It's even survived a soaking when I got caught outdoors in a flash thunderstorm.

I'm Baaaack!

We're finally back home after our month-long honeymoon, and I have to say it feels good to sleep in our own bed again. Not that I would have said no to traveling for another month or two, mind you, but it's good to be home.

The biggest surprise for me was how comfortable I felt in France. I've always known that I liked France after my last trip there in 2001, but after having traveled so much, to Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and Greece recently, I've come to realize just how "right" France (and Paris in particular) feels to me.

The wife had planned our time in France, and she'd originally thought to spend the whole week in Paris, but changed things around when I said that was just too much time since we'd both been in Paris before. I was wrong. Nevertheless, I couldn't have been happier with her final itinerary, since that would mean we would never have gone to Troisgois.

Troisgros

After 2 days of gray, overcast skies, the clouds have finally parted and allowed the sun to come out and play, and it's been glorious.

We drove down from Paris to Roanne, and we're staying at Troisgros tonight; a boutique hotel and restaurant with a Michelin three star rating. As you would expect, dinner was amazing, and the main course, a beef dish, was nothing short of mind-blowing. Normally, I'd reserve that for meat that's so tender that it just melts in your mouth like butter. And while this dish had a little of that, what made it so amazing was the texture and how it was just a joy to chew. It had the perfect resistance for chewing, and every bite just delicious. I don't know how else to describe it.

I'd mention how well appointed the room is, but I'm honestly just too satiated to write any more.

Good Read

Just finished Judas Unchained, the sequel (and finale) to Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton, and I can't recommend them highly enough. It's space opera at its best. The first book starts with dozens of major characters, each with their own thread that slowly but surely links up with one another until they all meet in book two in a tremendous climax that doesn't disappoint.

Habitat

I spent yesterday volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in San Jose. This was my first time with them, and all in all it was a pretty fun time. I floated around for most of the morning as there were more volunteers than work, and got to learn a little about plumbing and putting up siding. In the afternoon, I found myself on the roof again as I worked on nailing tar paper to the roof.

One Bad Apple

Had a rather infuriating visitor tonight. Answered a knock at the door around 8pm and found some girl who identified herself as a Sierra Club member looking for signatures and donations. I figured I'd give her a chance since I'm a fan of the Sierra Club's work, so I listened to her spiel about global warming and Sierra Club's effort to pass S.309 in the Senate. I offered to sign her petition, but declined to donate.

As much as I'd like to support all efforts to combat global warming, and as much as I appreciate the grass roots efforts to raise awareness of the Issue, I definitely do not appreciate being guilt tripped/insulted because I'm not willing to donate. Accusing me of lying about my beliefs is just not acceptable.

WTF, Sierra Club? Please train the people you send out a little bit better. Personally, I don't like giving money to people who come to my door. When I donate, I'd like to make sure it goes directly to the organization I'm donating to. This experience has definitely given me a negative impression of the Sierra Club.

Kyoto, Day 3

On my last day in Kyoto, with only a few hours before I had to catch the shinkansen back to Tokyo, I was hoping to see both Nijo Castle, the Tokugawa shogun's Kyoto home as well as walk around Gion. Alas, I ran out of time and only managed the former, with just enough time to stop at Unkai for lunch.

Kyoto, Day 2

The next day, I decided to check out Ginkaku-ji (the Temple of the Silver Pavilion). It was built in 1492 as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, and meant to be coated with silver (like Kinkakuji). Unfortunately, he died before this could happen, so it's just a simple two-story wood structure. What I liked best about this place was it's moss collection. At least, that's what I think it was, since I can't read Japanese.

From there, I walked down Philosopher's Pathway to Nanzen-ji, a Rinzai zen temple set amid a grove of spruce. I have to admit though that the primary reason I took the walk was because of Nanzenji's proximity to Okutan, supposedly one of Kyoto's oldest and most authentic tofu restaurants. Lunch there was pretty amazing, although I'd pretty much reached my tofu limit by the time I was done (which I wouldn't have thought possible before).

After lunch, I headed to Heian Shrine, a huge orange and green structure commemorating the 1,100th anniversary of the founding of Kyoto. I wasn't terribly impressed and decided to skip its gardens (supposedly the highlight of the shrine) and headed to Sanjusangendo Hall. Now this place is just stunning. The hall itself is almost 400 feet long, the longest wooden building in Japan, and houses 1,000 life-sized statues of the thousand-handed Kannon, 500 on each side of the central 11 feet high statue of Kannon. The hall is so long they used to have archery competitions in the corridor behind the statues. Definitely a must see.

Unfortunately, it had started to rain while I was in Sanjusangendo Hall, so I got nice and wet as I waited for the bus to Kiyomizu Temple. Fortunately for me, the street from the bus stop up to the temple was lined with stores, most of them with umbrellas for sale, and I'm now the owner of a green transparent umbrella.

Kiyomizu Temple was one of three highlights in Kyoto for me, despite the rain. It's built on Mount Otowa and has some great views. There's also a spring here on which it's name is based: kiyomizu translates as "pure water", which it certainly is. There's a line to drink the water as gushes from three fountains, and I can only imagine how refreshing it must be when it's hot.

It was dusk by the time I left Kiyomizu and caught the bus to Gion. The rain pretty much dissuaded me from doing any exploring though, so I went to the Yasaka Shrine instead. It's open 24 hours, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it lit with lanterns at night.

From there, I made my way to Minako for dinner. Their specialty: kobe beef, teppanyaki style. I've never had kobe beef before, and since I've been to Japan about five times now, I figured it was time I gave it a shot. I had a piece of sirloin, and it was good. I actually find it a little hard to describe. You know it's definitely beef, but it just doesn't taste like any beef I've ever had before. The difference is in the texture, and the only word that comes to mind is that it's "springier", somehow lighter than regular beef.

Kyoto, Day 1

After checking into my hotel to drop my gear off around 2pm on Sunday, my first stop was Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion), a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu constructed in the 1390's. It's claim to fame is a three-story pavilion covered in gold leaf. This is not a small building, and is dazzling when the sun is out.

Ryoanji Temple was next, and is one of my three favorite sites in Kyoto. The main structure houses a famous Zen rock garden, but what I liked most about the place was the architecture and the temple grounds (with its large 1,000 year old pond). Very peaceful.

By the time I left Ryoanji it was already past 5pm, and all the other sites were closed so I just caught a bus downtown to Shijo-Kawaramachi and walked about Pantocho until I found a place to have dinner. Since not much else appeared to be open, I just called it a night.

Kyoto

Whoo! Took the Hikari super express shinkansen to Kyoto and back. It's fast (135-188mph) and extremely smooth, so there's very little feedback to clue you in on how fast you're going. It's misleading even when you're looking out at the countryside because of the distance to any point of reference. It only becomes obvious when there's a fence or something else running along side the tracks, which whips by faster than the eye can follow.

I had about 48 hours in Kyoto, barely enough time to see the major attractions. After being spoiled by the Tokyo subway system, it's a shock to try getting around without it. Kyoto's subway isn't as developed, and you mainly have to rely on buses to get everywhere. The problem, of course, is the fact that they are totally unpredictable because of the traffic. Not a problem when you have the time, but very challenging when you're on a tight schedule. It felt like I spent 40% of my time either waiting for or riding on a bus. My one recommendation to anyone else visiting Kyoto is to get a bus route map, which is an absolute must have.

The good news is that Kyoto's relatively small compared to Tokyo. Better yet, it's laid out on a grid so things are easy to find.

Sadly, one thing you won't find in Kyoto is an onsen. At least, not in Kyoto proper. You'd have to go out to the suburbs to find one.

Land of the Rising Sun

I'm in Tokyo again for the PML conference and repeating my standard jet-lag recovery procedure: hitting an onsen.

The conference doesn't start till next Wednesday, but I figured I'd come early and do some sightseeing. This time, I'll be going to Kyoto. I'm pretty excited about getting to ride the shinkansen tomorrow.

Head Cases

It's way past time for me to replace my motorcycle helmet, and while I've been keeping an eye out, I haven't found anything that works for me. Shoei no longer makes the model I have, and their replacement models don't even come close to fitting me as well as my current one.

While looking for a replacement, I've been doing some research on helmet standards as well. Apparently there's a big controversy over what constitutes a "good" helmet. This article at Motorcyclist Online covers the issue fairly well, and offers an independent analysis of the situation. My take-away message from it is that you should avoid Snell certified helmets if possible because it doesn't provide enough cushioning. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a problem because most helmet makers view Snell certification as a nice marketing check point, and there are fewer and fewer new helmets that are not both DOT and Snell certified.

Another interesting thing I've learned is that helmet makers pretty much certify their helmets themselves. The NHTSA only does spot checks to make sure that their certification claims are true. And the scary bit? There are quite a few that don't pass these checks. Results for these checks can be found here. I was surprised to find that they found an Arai that failed in 2006.

So what's a guy looking to buy a new helmet to do?

The Doctor Is In

Best Doctor Who episode ever: Blink.

It was absolutely perfect from start to finish, with fantastic writing and great pacing. It also has the dubious honor of being the episode with the least amount of screen time for the Doctor (at least, of all the episodes that I've seen). If you've never watched Doctor Who before, this is the one to start with.

Element 114

I never used to be a fan of Barefoot's Element 114 blend, but they've recently tweaked the formula, and now it rocks! Definitely check it out if you ever get a chance.

Games

I've been playing a bunch of new games lately, and thought I'd do a quick write-up of them.

On the PC, the new Civilization IV expansion, Beyond the Sword, is definitely a worthy addition to the original classic. The addition of corporations and espionage really adds a new dimension to the game.

On the DS, I've been wasting more than a few minutes with Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, which is basically Bejeweled in a yummy RPG wrapping.

On the Wii, I've been infected with Alien Syndrome. It may not be the most original or amazing game, but it's still entertaining nonetheless. Part Diablo, part Gauntlets, it's 100% fun and has a great control system.

Finally, on the table top, we've just discovered Caylus. For now, it has replaced Goa as my game of choice because of the bewildering array of possible strategies for it. Every game so far has been vastly different from the previous ones.

Riddikulus

It boggles the mind, but China's just released regulations banning Tibetan monks from reincarnating without permission...

Seriously? Is this actually going to have any effect other than to galvanize opinion against China?

Grounds for Dismissal

Oh so true. I've never forgiven Orson Scott Card for Xenocide, although I can't say I think Speaker for the Dead was all that great either.

Karma Chameleon

Relieve your suffering now!