Kindle Double Whammy

I usually buy my books used (pre-loved? pre-read?), but every now and then I don't have the luxury and am forced to buy it new. That's pretty much what happened last week for when we got tired of waiting for a copy of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to be available at the library.

What's prompting me to blog about this is that I have a Kindle. If I want both the hard copy and a digital copy for my Kindle, I have to pay for the book twice, and there's no way I'm doing that. With a CD, I can just buy the CD and rip it, and I'd be able to listen to it on whatever system I want. With a book, I don't have that option. I'd be willing to pay $1-2 more for the digital copy, but I don't see that being a choice any time in the near future.

As much as I like the Kindle, I don't see myself only buying digital copies of books. Especially since it would be in a proprietary format so I wouldn't even be able to read it on anything other than a Kindle. What happens if I break it? The idea of having to shell out hundreds for a replacement Kindle before I can read those books again just makes me cringe.

I hope that as the number of people using e-readers increases, these issues will be worked out. I'm hoping the publishers are willing to work out some sort of deal for those who'd like a hard copy and a digital copy of the same work. But I'm not holding my breath...

Year 3 In Review

Our third wedding anniversary has come and gone, and it's time to once again look back and reflect. Unlike the past couple years, we didn't do anything special to celebrate. A lot of factors came into play to produce this outcome, but I'd like to think that it was Andrew that did it, and really, he's sort of a daily celebration in and of itself, so it all works out in the end.

Much of the past year has revolved around preparing for, and then learning to live with Andrew's arrival. Before September, it'd been one of the calmer years in my recent history. After September... Well, sufficed to say that it's been a banner year for new experiences and discovering just how much sleep I really need a night.

Looking forward, I can only imagine how much more life will change once Andrew becomes mobile. Personally, I'm hoping he puts it off for a while, but I'm not too sure he's going to listen to me.

Pop!

Since I had the entire family over for Christmas, I decided to get off my butt and work on a photography project that's been noodling around the back of my mind for a while. Once I got everything set up , it was fairly easy to run everyone through it.

I'm sure I can improve on the lighting, but I was in a rush because I'd procrastinated till a few hours before the east coast contingent had to leave to catch their flight home.

Happy New Year!

Better late than never, right? Happy New Year everyone!

Northstar

Spent the day snowboarding at Northstar at Tahoe, and it was insanely awesome. The snow was great for this time of the year, and the day was just perfect -- clear, sunny and warm.

Andrew's been helping me get in shape for snowboarding too, since he likes being rocked up and down as opposed to sideways. Which translates to lots and lots of lunges and squats.

Tomorrow is C.'s turn to hit the slopes while I stay home with Andrew.

Gender Bias

We took Andrew to Wendy's birthday dinner at Buca di Beppo in Palo Alto where he was pretty well behaved. All was going well until we had to change his diaper... and discovered that only the women's bathroom had a changing table.

Wendy's birthday celebrations continued with ice skating at the Winter Lodge where Andrew had to have his diaper changed again... and again only the women's bathroom had a changing table.

Seriously? Are women still the only ones expected to change diapers in this day and age? Or are these venues just behind the times? I know I've seen changing tables in the men's room before. I just didn't realize how much of a rarity that is.

What do we want? Gender equality. Changing tables in the men's room! When do we want it? Now!

Boo!

I carved my first pumpkin this Halloween! I have Andrew to thank for motivating me to finally give it a shot this year, but I don't think he was terribly impressed.

Last Hurrah

As we get closer and closer to B-day, C. and I have been trying to do the things we love doing but probably won't be able to for a while. For the most part, this involves going to our favorite restaurants. On the top of the list, of course, is Gary Danko in SF.

I'm only going to mention the top three dishes of the night, the first one being the risotto that C. got. Creamy, buttery, delicious... Everything that a risotto should be. This is the second time I've made the mistake of not ordering the risotto (the last time was at Cyrus). The seared scallop was also very, very good, and also ordered by C. I should just let her order for me as well next time. And we both ended with the same desert: french macaron ice-cream sandwiches. How could we refuse? Very much on the sweet side, but they definitely brought a smile to our faces.

Since this was potentially the last weekend we'd have to ourselves, we decided a quiet getaway was in order and escaped to Sausalito. On our way up on Saturday, we stopped at the Hog Island Oyster Company in the Ferry Building in SF for lunch. C. had their delicious clam chowder, while I tried their oyster stew. We both preferred the chowder.

Once we got to Sausalito we just walked around the downtown area. Usually, the only reason we'd be in Sausalito is to eat at Fish. We've only really checked out the town once before.

Of course we went to Fish. for dinner... and walked the two miles from downtown Sausalito to the restaurant. We started with the Fish Parfait, a crab cocktail that C. found a little too spicy but suited me just fine. For our main course, I had the pozole with Alaskan halibut cheeks while C. had the hamachi over pasta. I thought the corn was a little strange, but it was a good dish overall. As for the hamachi, it's a shame that C. has to have her fish fully cooked, because it came out a little dry.

The next morning, we drove to Stinson Beach. After brunching at the Parkside Cafe, we just lazed at the beach for a while before driving up Mt. Tam. By then though it was getting too hot to hike, so just walked a paved loop near the visitor's center before heading home...

High Tea

C. thought it would be fun to try out something a little different and made us a reservation for afternoon tea at the Ritz Carlton in SF.

I had the Imperial Earl Grey, C. tried the Eros. Personally, I much preferred mine... :) Along with the tea, we had a wide assortment of bite-sized snacks. We both loved the scones, but in general thought that the portions were much too small. This probably wouldn't have been such a problem if we went at tea time, but it was serving as brunch and we were both hungry.

Tasty, but not worth the price. I doubt we'll be going back.

McNally Lighting Seminar

Went to a lighting seminar taught by Joe McNally last Friday, and I figured if I waited long enough, he'd blog about it and include some of the shots he got that day. Sure enough, he did.

The class was a blast, and I learned:

• a better way to approach thinking about lighting a subject.
• what the various light-describing adjectives mean. Many times I read about "soft" light or "creamy" light or whatever and have a hard time visualizing it. Seeing McNally slowly iterate through and improve the quality of the light with each shot gave me a better understanding of what they're talking about.
• he really does talk the way he blogs!

Now I just need to convince C to stay still long enough for me to practice on her... And maybe pickup a couple of those Lastolite trigrips that McNally was using to play with.

First Harvest

C picked and cooked our first non-herb harvest from the garden tonight: string beans. We've been harvesting basil, rosemary and thyme for a while now.

Up next, hopefully, are the tomatoes and peppers.

Kindle DX

C got me the perfect birthday present this year -- something I wanted but would never have bought for myself -- a Kindle DX.

I've been extremely ambivalent about digital book readers in the past because I think they're insanely overpriced, I love the feel and smell of books, and except for some rare cases, always buy my books used. After using the Kindle for the past couple weeks though... I'm a believer.

The basic act of reading itself on the Kindle is fine. The text is clear, and being able to change the font size is surprisingly useful. The big advantages of the Kindle over a normal book (apart from the size and weight) for me are:

• the built-in dictionary (just hover over a word and the definition pops up),
• being able to search through the book (especially on long books with a lot of characters),
• and being able to surf the web while reading (I've mainly been using it to look stuff up on wikipedia).

I'm looking forward to try it out the next time I travel. It'll be comforting to know that I'll never run out of reading material. Maybe now I'll have a reason to buy a travel guide instead of just borrowing it from the library (assuming more guide book companies start making them available in digital format).

Speaking of which, I still haven't bought any books yet and I'm doubtful that I'll ever buy anything with DRM associated with it (which rules out books from Amazon). The only exception to this that I can imagine, as mentioned above, are travel books. Multi-country trips with all the books on the Kindle? Now that would be super-convenient.

Up

Up is just an amazing, amazing movie. Sublime storytelling, and whomever is responsible for the music deserves an Oscar. It had me crying within the first 20 minutes.

Up isn't just a movie, it's magic. It's art. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and go check it out. 5/5.

Tan Phaik Gan

At 10:27pm on Saturday, June 6, 2009, my grandmother died of heart failure at the General Hospital in Penang, Malaysia. It came as a total surprise. My mom had just spoken to her the night before, and she'd been insisting that she could take care of herself just fine despite the reports we'd been hearing that she needed help.

I was uncertain about flying back for the funeral, but in hindsight I'm so glad I did. My mom and I arrived on Thursday, a day after the cremation, and we interred my grandmother on Friday.

While cleaning out her room, we found a clock that had stopped at 10:30. A strange coincidence.

New Games

We've been a little obsessed with Agricola of late, but that may change with our latest acquisitions: Pandemic and Small World. They're all very, very different games, and are quite fun and (so far) very replayable.

In Agricola, you play the role of a farmer(!). Danny introduced it to us (thanks Danny), and now the problem is that he always wins whenever we play with him. *grrrr* As far as gameplay goes, there're a lot of strategies/options, and every game is different. Even the number of players can affect the feel of the game, which is a nice touch that adds even more variety.

Pandemic is a cooperative team game where you play the role of members of the CDC, trying to find cures to diseases breaking out around the world. One up side of this game is that when Danny wins, the rest of us wins too. Although so far, we win just as often as we lose. This game is easy to learn, but not easy to beat.

And in Small World, well, you basically try to take over the world. It's Risk-esque, without all the annoying dice rolling, and you can win even if your army gets decimated. OK, so maybe it's not like Risk at all. But still, a fun game. I can't wait to try it out with more than two players as C and I have only played it a couple times so far.

I should point out that we also got Dominion in the same shipment, but honestly, it's been eclipsed by the others. While Dominion is also a fun game, the past few times I've been given a choice between Agricola and Dominion, I've gone with Agricola. However, it definitely cannot be beat if you're looking to play something fast. You can easily play 3-4 games of Dominion in the time it takes to play a single game of Agricola

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks

C and I went to Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks over Memorial Day weekend and spent most of the time either sleeping or hiking. Lucky for us we were blessed with great weather. Not too hot, not too cold, and clear blue skies throughout.

In Sequoia, we hiked a 6 mile trail that took us from the General Sherman Tree to Moro Rock. Once we stepped off the paved path after the first mile or so, it was as if we were in our own private world as we rarely saw anyone else. My favorite points of interest along the way were Founders' Grove and Crescent Meadow. The giant trees were a sight to behold, but I could probably have spent all day in that meadow; it was just such a serene place.

In Kings Canyon, we did a 10 mile loop that took us to the aptly named Mist Falls. This trail was fairly crowded and were never alone for long. There was always someone coming or going (mostly going, since we started late). Still, the hike was relatively enjoyable, although if we didn't know better, we'd have said we were in Yosemite.

Wheels

After 10 years of faithful service, it's time to retire my rollerblades to the great dumpster in the sky. I tend to prefer the lace-free models, and after the third clasp broke, they just weren't usable any more.

Even worse, none of the major manufacturers make lace-free models anymore. Boo! I have, however, managed to find a pair that has vestigal laces which I can just ignore. Yay!

High Level Play

I've recently discovered Sirlin's blog on game design and one line in a recent post jumped out at me:

"We were cautioned that we all suck too much to do this and it's mostly an issue for high level play."

Ah yes, I'm quite familiar with this, especially when the game is StarCraft. For an interesting read, check out his discussion on flux.

Nine Square Feet

Now that we're more settled in and spring has arrived, we're starting to decide what to do with the yard. One thing that C's been clamoring for is a vegetable garden, so I spent a couple weekends building a planter box out of a couple wooden pallets. We got some free compost from Sunnyvale, some plants from a nursery, and we're now in the gardening business. We're starting with rosemary, thyme, mint, basil, tomatoes, and a couple Chinese vegetables I can't identify.

The box is 3'x3' and is based on the ideas behind square foot gardening. We'll see how well it works...

Pastrami

I was in NYC over a month ago and I'm still dreaming of a meal I had there! What I wouldn't give to have another pastrami sandwich from Katz's Deli. The juiciest, most delicious pastrami I've ever had. Mmmm...