These Days

Two weeks ago Neil had his karate testing. I have not been to his regular classes for a long time so we made sure I was present for this. This was a more elaborate testing -- they had songahm forms, sparring and kamas. Unlike previous tests, they didn't give the results right away but the following Saturday, he came home with a new belt.=) Some pictures from the event. Three to four classes a week. One year and counting. It takes commitment, effort and teamwork. It's worth it. This is my favorite from the day.

We had brunch at Stone Soup Kitchen last Sunday.  It's more than 20 minutes away, which we don't typically do for brunch but there a very good reason this time.  We met Doc Joey, a good friend from Intel. We haven't seen him for many years and he happened to be driving by Atlanta so we arranged to meet. He was taking I20 so I looked for a restaurants close to this route on Yelp. There were a lot of options around the area, which I didn't expect because it looked like a quiet residential area. If you're not actively looking, it's easy to miss this place. Parking is on both sides of the street and we were lucky that someone was about to leave and we snagged a spot right across the restaurant. Many people were standing by for tables. We were advised that the wait would be ~25 minutes.  When Rich followed up, it looked like another group got our table, so we had to wait a bit more. The food was good and serving size was enough for one person. Not too much. I l...

30 Rock rocks! I did not watch this show when it was airing live, started watching it on Netflix during my ML. It took 4+ months but Rich and I finally completed all 7 seasons today. As far as I can remember, it's the only long-running show I watched from start to finish. I've had other favorites but my interest somehow wears off and I eventually don't even bother knowing how they end. Not 30 Rock though. It's my kind of funny and kept me laughing episode after episode, which is a gift at the end of a long day. The last episode was especially touching. It tied characters/plotlines together in a fitting final episode for TGS. Thank you Liz Lemon, Tracy, Jenna, Jack, Kenneth, etc!  And thank you, Tina Fey, for bringing this show to life.=)

I treasure pictures so creating backup copies is a priority. Redundancy is good in this case and I don't delete pictures from the camera memory card unless they're saved in two locations. I still have CDs of old pictures but we know this format is on the way out. My office laptop does not even have a CD drive so it's time to move to the cloud. I used to have a pro account on Flickr for this purpose but the old process was too cumbersome. You had to manually drag and drop the folders into the site and it took too long to process. Now there's a Flickr Uploadr that can run in the background and more importantly, 1 TB of free storage. I already have 50k+ backed up, 24k+ to go... and counting. With so many pictures, organization is important. There are many ways to go about it but what works for me is organizing by date. I have folders by year, subfolders by month then sub-subfolders by date/event. I used to not have the year on the lowest level but Flickr does not recrea...

Because we have a very small Filipino community here, we're always excited to have visitors from Manila and get together over food. There have been quite a few lately and many of them for longer than a week. Here's a roundup from the recent months. Brunch at First Watch brunch with Kring, Kee and Erle. Erle's in Atlanta for summer internship and Kee and Kring are here to attend the RM All-Team Meeting . This was on Fathers' Day and they gave the daddies small packs of ground coffee. Dinner at Shoya Izakaya with the same people plus Mike L. Mike's here for more than 2 months. I've been looking for a good ramen place and thought this would be a good candidate but it's not likely that we'll go back because Rich did not like the ambience. The search continues. Dinner at Shane's Rib Shack  with Mike SB and Joy. Dinner at Mellow Mushroom to celebrate the birthdays of Erle and Joy. Adi and Twinkle are also here. Dinner at La M...

Daniela turned 4 months old last week. She had her regular check-up yesterday and the currents stats are: Height: 2 ft (50th percentile) Weight: 13 lbs 11 oz in weight (35th percentile) She was scheduled for 2 shots + 1 oral vaccine today but we decided to space it out. One shot today and the other shot + oral vaccine on Thursday. She was fussy and inconsolable the last time we did multiple shots so we hope she takes it better this time. Daniela is now an expert at rolling from back to front and vv. She enjoys tummy time for extended periods now. She has recently taken to sucking her fingers. I know she should not get used to this but it soothes her especially when she's about to sleep or gets roused. She's very attentive to people and sounds and she likes to be carried upright to see things. She's on my lap or Richard's when we eat and seems to be interested in big people food. So we're watching out for other signs to start solids. We've packed away her...

I believe that anyone who can read and follow instructions can cook. I personally do not tackle Master Chef level recipes but I am not afraid of them either. It's a good thing my family is not choosy with food. Simple is ok.=) But we like trying new recipes, too. Rich tasted the Luau Ribs  in Publix, picked up the recipe card and recreated it at home, at least 3 times now. It's really good. We served this during Neil's birthday and everyone liked it. Even his first attempt at this was already perfect because he followed the recipe. Or maybe he's a natural in the kitchen?=) Rich didn't cook much before and I think he's surprising himself that good food is not necessarily difficult to make. He has tried other recipes and those also turned out well. These days he cooks more than I do and it's something we truly appreciate. Keep it up, Dad!