No Wonder

I've been silently cursing at my router and computer(s) for not being able to access the internet at home. Now I know that it's definitely a TWC problem!

Dear Time Warner Customer,

During the past week, hackers have launched a series of attacks on Time Warner Cable's servers. Time Warner Cable is working with law enforcement agencies to resolve these crimes.

As a result of these attacks, you may have experienced a temporary "outage" when attempting to surf the Web, including an intermittent "page cannot be displayed" error message. The outages did not result in services being 100% unavailable; and were limited to sporadic timeouts which appeared to be random events. Some users may have experienced a total disconnect. These types of attacks are not uncommon, especially for a network as large as ours. We suspect that the attackers are using "zombie computers," or hijacking unsuspecting subscribers' machines to perpetrate the attack without its owner's knowledge.

All of us at Time Warner Cable take these attacks extremely seriously. As previously mentioned, we are working with the appropriate law enforcement agencies that specialize in investigating these types of crimes. We will pursue prosecution of all perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law. We apologize for the inconvenience that these attacks may have caused and encourage you to report any suspicious activity. Instructions for reporting security abuse are located at http://help.rr.com.

Sincerely,

Time Warner Cable Customer Service

Late Night Bike Ride

Max and I went on a nice, brisk bike ride last night. It was a cool 51 degrees but once we got going, the breeze felt good. We rode down San Vincente to the Santa Monica steps to check out the view. Then we took Ocean down to Main St for a stroll around the shops and headed back home on Broadway. The whole thing took a little over an hour with rest stops here and there.

Oh and I should mention I totally fell off my bike when I was stopped at a red light. A slight miscalculation and I completely missed the curb with my foot and toppled over to the right. Embarrassing and painful.

Another Warehouse Classic

Once upon a time I went on a trip (I can't remember where) and Yona documented "A Day in the Life" of the doggies as they went to work to temp for me during my vacation.

Here is Lulu in a meeting with Moley.


Elaine the slave-driver must have cracked the whip and forced these two to do inventory.


And of course, following in my footsteps, Lulu ends the day with some shopping, as she tries on various things in front of my favorite white mirror.


circa 2006

Scooting around with Lulu

I was just telling Max about this yesterday... I'm so glad Yona captured this in her blog. =)

When Jimmy got his fake version of the Segway, I was determined to get either Moley or Lulu to ride with me around the warehouse. Moley was so scared he kept peeing all over the scooter and carpet around it so that was no good. Lulu was a better candidate for co-captain.



After a few attempts, I got her to ride with me up and down the hallways. Of course it wasn't without "trapping" her between my legs to make her feel safe.





After a while she warmed up to the idea of scooting around with me. That is, until I took a turn too fast and got in a scooter "accident". We hit the wall and Lulu jumped off, never wanting to get near the scooter again.

circa 2006

Aai joins the working professionals.

Yona with her class in Japan.


Vina with the check at Chabuya.


And now Aai, manning the cash registers at Yogurtland. Look at all that tip! Must be because of the "pretty girl at the cashier".

Hahahahahahhahaha...

Yona can't cut bangs straight and Aai didn't notice.

Leftover Leftovers for Lunch

After I got back from our trip, I wanted to clean out the fridge so I took all of the leftover vegetables we had and made a casserole. This is my super-special casserole of potatoes, broccoli, mushrooms, spam and cheese inspired by Marcela's Potatoes au Gratin recipe.



I am now eating the leftovers from that leftover meal for lunch at work. That's considered saving money, right? :)

Wii Fit: Finally!

Max and I went to Target last night in Cerritos and were *shocked* to find the Wii Fit in stock. Finally! We couldn't wait to get home to try it.



The enthusiasm was short lived when I finally got on the balance board to test my Wii Fit Age. Somehow in the last 3 months since I've tried this game at Ie Ing's house, my age has increased rapidly to 40. I am more out of shape than I thought.

Lulu had a fine time watching us make a fool out of ourselves hula-hooping and dancing around the balance board.




Joanna hula-hooping to burn some fat.


Max working on his balance by practicing some yoga poses.


After about an hour, the dogs realized that the pilates mat was better suited for resting than doing actual exercise.

Venza Dog Days

We all went to a Toyota Venza dog event in Pasadena today. I've been working on the Venza launch campaign for months now... I think we started when Elaine was still here last year. Anyways, I was looking forward to checking out both the dog event and the Venza since I'd never been in one.

They had a small set-up in the parking lot but it had a lot of things going on: free donuts and coffee, dog treats, training packets, Toyota dog gear as well as two dog-equipped Venza's for owners and doggies alike to jump in and explore. They took doggie shots and also had a station set up to make your own screensaver of your dog licking cheese or peanut butter on plexiglass. We had a hard time getting Lulu interested in licking.

After checking out the Venza-related stuff, we headed into the park to let the dogs run around. Lulu was more excited than usual to run around in this park. (Must have been the cleaner Pasadena air)

Some action shots of Lulu...









Finally taking a rest...

Max bought a bike today!

We stopped by Cynergy Cycles on the way home from work today to pick up Max's Rockhopper Comp Disc that they built out for him the week before. After 20 minutes of searching for his "Satin Charcoal" mountain bike we realized they built out the wrong one -- they reserved a Rockhopper Expert Disc for him instead, which was $330 more than the one he originally wanted.



But that's the thing with bikes... it's too easy to always look at the model above and want more, justifying the extra $1-200 along the way. They ended up giving him an awesome discount to make up for the mistake so that he could take the bike home with him that night. So now I have to get a mountain bike to be able to ride trails with him, or convince him to get a secondary road bike so he can catch up with me.

Rockhopper Expert Disc Features:

• The Fast Track Control 29x2.0-inch tires feature a dual compound tread for superior traction and durability, whether you opt to go 2Bliss or not.
• The Indie XC saddle uses our patented Body Geometry design to protect your soft parts.
• The Rockhopper Expert Disc 29’s M4 manipulated alloy frame features our 29er-specific geometry for a lower center of gravity and increased stability. A fully butted tubeset adds to its lightweight strength.
• The front suspension features 32mm Cr-Mo stanchions and a smooth 80mm of coil-sprung travel, rebound and preload adjustments, and lockout.
• The Specialized 3D-forged alloy stem is stiff and strong and features an oversized 31.8mm bar-clamp area for precise steering.
• Tektro’s Auriga Comp dual-piston hydraulic disc brakes feature smooth lever action and easy-to-control stopping power.
• Shimano’s Deore 9-speed rear derailleur uses a wide-link parallelogram design for increased rigidity, which means accurate shifting and long life.
• Shimano’s Deore Rapidfire trigger shifters feature Dual Control for extra-fast shifts from thumb and/or forefinger.
• The triple-chainring crankset features Shimano’s splined Octalink BB connection, which gives maximum power transfer and smooth pedaling action.

Technical Specifications:
FRAME Specialized M4 Manipulated Alloy frame, fully butted, ORE DT, forged dropouts w/ replaceable 98954020 hanger, disc only
REAR SHOCK FORK RockShox Tora SLite, 100mm, alloy steerer, 32mm Cr-Mo stanchions, magnesium lower, coil spring preload and rebound adj. w/ LO, 13-15": standard spring, all others: "stiff" spring w/ preload adj., disc only
HEADSET Specialized 1-1/8" threadless, loose ball
STEM Specialized 3D forged, 4-bolt, 7 degree rise, 31.8mm clamp
HANDLEBARS Specialized butted alloy, 31.8mm, 25mm rise, 640mm wide, 8 degree back sweep, 8 degree up, 2.6mm thick
GRIPS Specialized Enduro, dual compound Kraton, no flange, 131mm
FRONT BRAKE Tektro Auriga Comp, hydraulic disc, dual piston w/ 160mm rotor
REAR BRAKE Tektro Auriga Comp, hydraulic disc, dual piston w/ 160mm rotor
BRAKE LEVERS Tektro Auriga Comp
FRONT DERAILLEUR Shimano Deore, 34.9mm clamp, bottom swing, dual pull
REAR DERAILLEUR Shimano Deore
SHIFT LEVERS Shimano Deore SL- M531, 9-speed
CASSETTE Shimano HG-50, 9-speed, 11-34t
CHAIN KMC X9 w/ reuseable Missing Link
CRANKSET Shimano FCM442, forged alloy arms, Octalink Spline w/ replaceable rings
CHAINRINGS 44A x 32S x 22S
BOTTOM BRACKET Shimano BB-ES25, Octalink spline, cartridge bearings, 68mm x 118mm
PEDALS Alloy body and cage, 9/16"
RIMS Specialized RHD 26", double wall disc, pinned w/ eyelets, 28/32h
FRONT HUB Specialized Hi Lo, forged alloy, double sealed, ground race, 28h
REAR HUB Specialized, forged alloy, double sealed, ground race, cassette, QR, 32h
SPOKES 1.8mm (15g) stainless
FRONT TIRE Specialized Fast Trak Control, 26x2.0", 60TPI, aramid bead, 2Bliss ready
REAR TIRE Specialized Fast Trak Control, 26x2.0", 60TPI, aramid bead, 2Bliss ready
INNER TUBES Specialized schraeder valve
SADDLE Specialized Indie XC, Body Geometry, 143mm width, front and rear bumpers
SEATPOST Specialized alloy two bolt, micro adjust head, 30.9mm
SEAT BINDER Specialized alloy w/ QR, brass washer

An Old Favorite

We started the day and trip up the California coast at one of my favorite sushi places, Cho Cho San! I haven't been there in so long -- it was nice to see familiar faces behind the sushi bar. Driving up I also realized that in the 10+ times I've been there, I've never been during the day!

Good thing about lunch -- we were seated right away. We had a spicy tuna hand roll, spicy tuna rice krispy, Ken's special roll and a pink lady. We wanted to keep it light since we'd be eating at various pit stops on the way to San Francisco. It was the perfect lunch.

Best Clam Chowder Ever

We spent so much time in Camarillo finding the perfect suit for Max at the Barney's outlet that we were still on the road around dinnertime. We were approaching San Luis Obispo so I asked Marcela for a restaurant recommendation since she used to visit Mason in SLO so often during college. Since it was Valentine's Day night, we didn't want to go someplace too busy and she recommended the clam chowder at Splash Cafe.

The cafe itself was very low key. It was a casual cafe/bakery known for their chocolate and chowder. We both had the clam chowder in a bowl and it was AMAZING. The soup was flavored just perfectly with fresh clams and potatoes and no bitter or clammy aftertaste at all. My favorite part was the carved out bread which was toasted with garlic butter -- so crispy and soft at the same time.

This is going to be a hard craving to fill in the future as the only two locations are in San Luis Obispo and Pismo Beach.

Edit: Just found out that select Costco stores sell their clam chowder... will definitely look for it the next time we go to Costco!

With BBQ Sauce

It's like I've joined some human race to see how much weight I can gain in one month. I've grown accustomed to our gargantuan dinners followed up by late-night dessert (or Taco Bell!) runs. This is not good. At this rate, I'll be 140lbs by springtime.

Anyways I had a non-stop day at work today so I barely had time to eat lunch. Coupled with my sickly inappetite during the daytime, I could barely finish my chicken+vegetable soup for lunch so by 5pm I was STARVING. I am slightly hypoglycemic... or at least I like to believe that is the reason for my dizzy spells and headaches when I'm hungry and not something like I'm a hungry fat kid, but anyways when 5pm rolled around today I was starving and visions of sushi and BBQ started dancing in my head.

As soon as a hush puppy creeped through my mind, there was no stopping it. We had to have dinner at Mr. Cecil's BBQ Ribs on Pico. Max had never been there and I thought tonight might be a good night to overeat.



I tried to be sensible -- we went with 1 full rack of baby back ribs and a 1/2 rack of beef ribs. On the side we had cole slaw, beans (with bacon) and a double order of hush puppies. It was the most silent dinner we've had in a while. Max was literally eating the beef ribs in disbelief -- I don't think he's ever had beef ribs as tender, juicy or flavorful.

We weren't the only ones with a feast. We brought a large beef rib bone back for Lulu and she had her way with it for a good 20 minutes.



Until it made her throw up. =/

Xooro: Premium Spanish Fritters

Tipped off by Los Angeles Magazine's top 20 LA bakeries, we decided to try Xooro in Santa Monica. The idea of a premium churro filled with various fillings including Nutella and adorned with different types of chocolate toppings seemed promising.

Unfortunately, Xooro fell short, literally. Each churro was about 5" long and instead of the hot, crispy fresh churros the web site promised, the ones we got were stale and reheated. I got an original with Nutella filling and Max got the Jordans which had Nutella filling and white chocolate on the outside. The Nutella mixed with the traditional sugar/cinnamon outside was a weird combination I could not get used to. It reminded me of the Mexican hot chocolate I had at Leonidas right before Christmas. Max's was drenched in chocolate sauce and was way too rich and sweet. At $4 a pop, we thought it was an interesting experience to try once but we probably won't be going back.

Flash Flood!

I hate a mess and this is definitely entirely messy. :(

The ceiling above my computer area started leaking in multiple spots over the last couple of days of rain. This resulted in a sleepless Thursday night and a wet and flooded corner on Friday night. Victims of this week's rain include my printer, some pictures, random boxes and a bunch of documents. My white console table is a bit water damaged and we have yet to test my Bose sub and keyboard from the latest splashes of water.

Rain, rain, go away!

DineLA - Valentino

Last Friday I had my first Restaurant Week/DineLA experience at Valentino in West LA. I have always heard good things about Valentino and it is a 1-star Michelin rated restaurant so we thought this would be a good occasion for a Friday night date.



My first impression of the place was that it looked like a night club. I had no idea this restaurant existed on Pico. Once you pull into the driveway, past the wall, you get the grandiose feeling of a Vegas restaurant.

The place was packed. It seemed that the restaurant put out extra tables to accommodate DineLA patrons and they even filled the bar with two-tops -- not my choice of seating for dinner. We waited for about 10 minutes to get a table in the "dining room" and we were seated in the corner of an over-populated room off to the side.

The DineLA is a fixed price, 3-course menu. For $44 each, I had:
Le Crespelle - Ducking and Tomato Ragu Filled Crespelle, Mostarda di
Branzino Con Carciofi - Grilled Sea Bass, Artichoke Sauce
Sicilian Cannoli

And Max had:
Tortini Funghi
Vitello All 'Uccelletto - Ligurian Style Veal Casserole
Chocolate, Walnut and Espresso Mousse

We paired our dinners with a glass of wine each. (Max had the house Chianti and I had a house Pinot Noir, Mark West) The meal itself was pretty good -- I especially liked my duckling crepe appetizer, though my entree was pretty average for sea bass. I'd have to say the experience might have been a little bit rushed and "generic" because the restaurant was so crowded. It took a while for our waiter to finally make it to our table to take our order. The waiter (or was it the sommelier?) seemed displeased to offer any type of wine recommendations. I felt like we were bothering the wait staff whenever we asked for anything -- not what you would expect in this type of ambiance.

All in all, DineLA *is* a great way to try out new restaurants, as long as you keep a few things in mind. Remember the rest of LA is testing these restaurants too, so you will encounter overworked wait staff with impatience for new diners. Also remember that the kitchen is repeatedly cooking the same dishes over and over again that night so the extra care you get when you perform varied tasks vs. repeating an onerous task will be missing.

Daily Lulu

Thinking of starting a blog called Daily Lulu where I can post a cute picture of Lulu everyday. So hypothetically, if this were the blog called Daily Lulu, this is where I would describe the picture above:

Lulu hearts pillows. Here is Lulu knocked out, perfectly balanced on top of a pillow, after a quick run around the country club.

Eeeep~

Why does it still feel like Christmas?

Quality Seafood

On Saturday we finally made it to Redondo Beach for our crab fest/Yona's bday celebration. We waited for Vina to drive up from San Diego in the morning so didn't leave West LA until 1pm. The traffic was a little painful to get through but as soon as we saw the water we were getting pretty excited.



We decided to try out a new place called Quality Seafood. Well, the place itself is over 40 years old, it was just new to us since we normally go to Captain Kidd's for fresh crab.



The market/eating area was situated at the end of the dock and was a lot larger than I expected. There were so many seafood choices spread out into 4-5 stations. We all split up to make the best use of our time: Max went for the crab, I was in charge of clams, Vina went straight to the uni and Yona and Aai bought cooked food.


There were so many choices of clams I just asked the guy to recommend me some. We ended up with little neck or long neck or something or the other and it only took 5 minutes to steam. They were so good! So plump, fresh and I love the wine sauce they used.


I'm not sure if Vina was delighted or shocked to find that they, indeed, would be serving us live/fresh uni. Here she is peering into the uni tank choosing her lunch targets.


I was surprised to find that they are a little purple in color and really don't move all too much. (Which is probably a good thing -- didn't want to get sick BEFORE the meal)


The two victims Vina picked out went immediately to the chopping board. The guy pounded on the poor sea urchin a few times, cut out and ripped off it's "face" then drained a clear, red liquid. It was pretty gross.


But the end result was pretty tasty...




It was kind of weird scraping the sides for the sea urchin meat. I felt like I could have done better with chopsticks, and that it would have tasted more "normal". It was sweet and mushy but wasn't as thick and rich as other premium uni I've had. It was still really good and definitely fresh.


Max was in charge of picking the oysters... there were at least 12 different kinds and they all looked the same to me. We ended up letting the master oyster shucker choose our platter.




We ended up with 5 different types: Fanny Bay, Sunset, Hamma Hamma, Blue Point and Kumamoto. (I think) The larger ones were tastier than the smaller ones but they were tough to swallow. I think the oysters would have tasted much better if they served better condiments with it -- we were stuck with lemon, ketchup, horseradish and Tapatio and that mixture overwhelmed the oysters.


There were a lot of different types of crabs. Pictured here are the Santa Barbara crabs. In addition to these, there were local crabs, live blue crabs (most expensive per pound), spider crabs (these were huge!) and dungeness crab which is what Max ended up choosing. We each got a 2-pounder, they were huge!




The crab was so good, undoubtedly the best steamed crab I've ever had. They were sweet, juicy and had large chunks of meat falling out of everywhere. Even though I didn't get my original request of finding female crabs with lots of eggs, these were oozing with goodness and I found myself licking my fingers throughout the entire meal.


Aai was so excited to be taking a picture of all the food. =)


After a solid half-hour of eating nonstop, these two were still going at it, picking apart the last of the crab legs. Well, at least Max was. Aai was downing her beer. :(


We left quite a scene when we were done. Pictured here is solely Vina's carnage... oysters, what's left of her crab and her uni.


All in all it was a great meal. The weather was perfect for a walk on the pier, the seafood was fresh and tasty and we somehow made it back to West LA at exactly 4PM, in time to pick up Lulu from the groomer.