Week of January 15: Snow Dog

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This week, lots of snow fell up in Lake Tahoe. We decided to pack up for a mini road trip and head up to the mountains for Kodi's first introduction to snow. Kodi is a 3 yr old Siberian Husky but he has never seen snow. So Andrea and I were very excited to see how he would react. My friends Luke and Nannette live up in South Lake Tahoe and graciously offered to have us stay with them. I've known Nan since my college days at UC Davis and she had gotten married to Luke last October. We had not seen Nan and Luke since the wedding so we were also excited to spend some time with them. Unfortunately, Luke was down in North Lake Tahoe with a friend who had come up from San Diego. But Andrea, Nan, Kodi and I spent some quality time together snow shoeing up to Fallen Leaf Lake.

Kodi's thought bubble... 'What is this stuff? This isn't powdered sugar!!' This was Kodi's first introduction to snow.

By the time we got to Fallen Leaf Lake, Kodi was quite used to the snow and was trotting around off leash by himself. Here is Nan and Andrea enjoying the sunshine.

Left: Nan and I walking around Fallen Leaf Lake. Right: Andi and I with a reach around self-service shot. What talent!

Week of January 8: Giddy Up Cowboy

This week, I traveled for work to the Informatica Sales Kickoff. It appeared that I had joined Informatica just at the right time. Traditionally, Informatica's Sales Kickoffs were held in exotic places and this year, my first year, would be no different. Hello Dallas, Texas!!! Yeee Hawww!

We all know the obvious factoids about the Lone Start State. Texas is the home of JR Ewing, GDuyba Bush and Barney the Dinosaur. But did you also know these interesting gems about Texas? :

• More wool comes from the state of Texas than any other state in the United States.
• Texas is the only state to enter the United States by treaty instead of territorial annexation.
• The state was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845.
• Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. The Dublin Dr Pepper, 85 miles west of Waco, still uses pure imperial cane sugar in its product. There is no period after the Dr in Dr Pepper.
• The first suspension bridge in the United States was the Waco Bridge. Built in 1870 and still in use today as a pedestrian crossing of the Brazos River.
• Texas comes from the Hasinai Indian word tejas meaning friends or allies.
• El Paso is closer to Needles, California than it is to Dallas.
• More land is farmed in Texas than in any other state.
• The nation's first convenience stores, the vast 7-Eleven chain, now in 18 countries, started in Dallas in 1922.

Now, don't you want to move there?

The Sales Kickoff was actually a lot of work. I would have guessed from the nature of those attending, mostly Sales people, it would have been just a formal business disguise for an all expenses paid 'we are so great' party (my previous experiences from other companies) but it turned out to be three days of 7 AM to 5 PM back-to-back meetings and presentations. And I had to present at one of the meetings! Needless to say, my presentation was flawless and inspiring. With my presentation out of the way on Day 1, I managed to sneak out for a bit and check out a few sights.

Not many Asians can pull this look off like I can. You can't tell from this picture but I was wearing a pair of cowboy boots to match! Who says cowboys don't wear Banana Republic's Stretch Poplin Dress Shirt with J Crew's Boot Cut Jeans? All that was missing from this picture was a mustang horse and perhaps a bandanna around my neck.

This is located in the West End Historic District of Dallas. The building on the right was where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the fatal shot that assassinated our president John F. Kennedy.

The X marks the exact spot where JFK was when he was shot.

The picture on the left is the view from the X spot to the Dealey Plaza, the building where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot. The picture on the right shows 'the grassy knoll', the area where many conspiracy theorists believe shots -- and probably the fatal one -- were fired at President Kennedy.

Week of January 1: Happy New Year

The Warriors
For Christmas, much to Andrea’s joy, her parents, Karen and Rick, gave me a game called The Warriors for my Xbox. This game is based on the 1979 cult classic movie by the same name. Perhaps it was Karen and Rick’s way of getting me mentally prepared for this game but they originally presented me with The Warriors for Play Station 2. And if you’ve ever tried to jam a square peg into a round hole, you know that you can’t play a PS2 game on the Xbox. I had to endure the torture of staring at the unplayable game for a week. So by the time I got The Warriors for my Xbox, my anticipation and my expectation for this game had surpassed any reasonable standard. Would The Warriors live up to my hype?

"Can you dig it?"

The Warriors playing spin the bottle with the Furies

The answer was (and still is) YES and then some. I know most of you are not regular gamers and for the most part, I don’t consider myself neither. So I won’t really go into the painful details. I will say this much though… there is a lot of violence and foul language (the f-word is pretty commonly used) and I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone. But if you can live past those minor moral standards, the game is pretty fun and very clever. One advice… make sure you have the hardware to enjoy the game, as I have come to find out. My trusted companion of probably 10 years, the 27 inch Sharp TV, is having a hard time “hanging” with The Warriors. The screen is going out and I am no longer able to make out the dark underworld of The Warriors’ turf. I guess it’s a glorious way for a TV to go. Or perhaps it’s Andrea’s way of controlling the amount of my game play. I hear the price of HDTV is pretty reasonable these days… hint, hint!

Fantasy Football
Andrea and I, along with 8 of our friends, belong to a Fantasy Football league. It’s a lot of fun, trash talking and even a little of NFL education. Since joining the league last year, Andrea has fully embraced Fantasy Football and even complained a few days ago that her Thursdays (the day that most people started adjusting the starting lineup unless you were Vin) now seemed a little empty.

This year yielded a disastrous outcome for me. I could go into a non-stop rant about why my team imploded but the end result was that I came in last place. The penalty for coming in last? I now have to host the Super Bowl party. As for Andrea, she failed to make the cut for the playoff round but she won the consolation round which put her in 5th place… well ahead of me. Andrea has been pretty good at not rubbing it in and has graciously offered to supervise my team for next year. I am sooo lucky! Grrr!!!!

Week of December 25: Crab boil for Crabby Weather

On Friday (12/30), Andrea and I hosted our first crab boil of the season. After the failed first attempt (see November 6 blog), I was determined to make this happen. We had invited my parents, my brother (BK), my sister (Stephanie) and brother-in-law (Doug), and the parents Doug (Doug, Sr. and Roberta) weeks ahead and had patiently waited for this day to come. When Friday finally rolled around, Andrea and I were very concerned. It had rained continuously for a week and the report from the harbor master at Pillar Point was that, as of Thursday morning, no boats were selling crab due to the weather but a few boats were making their way out on Thursday when there was a break in the weather. There was no additional information when I called the Pillar Point's Fishfone early Friday morning. To top it off, the weather was moving in and it began to sprinkle. The odds were against us. What were we to do? Take a gamble and drive an hour (each way) to Half Moon Bay's Pillar Point Harbor and hope that there were live crab? Postpone the crab boil? Pizza Party? With no clear favorable alternative, I did what a real man would do... I took a gamble, braved the storm and headed down to Half Moon Bay. With my Patagonia extreme rain gear on, Kodi, my fearless dog by my side and driving my lean-mean-baby-blue-station-wagon-driving-machine, I thought I had a fighting chance of returning home safely with some crab.

As Kodi and I approached Pillar Point, we could feel the stormy Pacific crashing against the harbor. There were no boats outside the harbor and the parking lot was virtually empty. The fish guide whiteboard outside the harbor master, which usually was packed with names and locations of boats selling crab was blank! My heart sank. But I didn't give up. I had gotten up at 7 AM and had driven for an hour and I wasn't about to let a little week long storm deprive me of a crab boil... I had to keep hope alive. I began to scan up and down all of the docks for any sign of activity. Docks A, B, C... all quiet. D, E, F... nothing as well. Then as my eagle like eyes glanced over Dock G, I noticed a man, nay a brave buccaneer, shoring his boat and unloading his catch. I could see the heat plume still rising from the boat's chimney. I quickly grabbed my cooler, zipped up my rain gear and headed out into the rain towards Dock G. As I dashed out of my baby blue station wagon, I could hear Kodi's howl cheering me on. At that very moment, the rain stopped and the sun peaked through the clouds. At Dock G, I had found what I was looking for... I found crab. The boat had just got in... barely beating the storm surge in. From what the Capt'n was telling me and from my observation around the harbor, he was the only "crazy son of a b**ch" to make the crab run. The Capt'n told me that he didn't expect to find anyone at the docks to buy his catch that I was as crazy of a "son of a b**ch" as he was. I took that as the ultimate compliment and I was rewarded with the first pick of his catch. The Capt'n stated that because no one had made a crab run in over a week, his crabs were very fresh and very large. Indeed, they were. I bought 9 crabs, weight totaling over 20 pounds. They were all very lively. I threw them into my cooler, packed ice over them, and started my journey home.

At home, I was greeted a hero welcome by Andrea and again later that day by my hungry and appreciative family as they feasted on the crabs.

All happy faces enjoying our crab. For the first time that I can ever recall, Doug Jr. was very quiet during his meal... not even self-humoring jokes from his mouth!


After the meal, we had some fun playing with Karaoke Revolution on our Xbox. In the father vs. son head-to-head competition, Doug Sr. schooled Jr. Even American Idol's William Hung would have laughed at Jr's performance.

Ray's Crab Boil Recipe
Hardware:

• Outdoor Burner. I used the Kick "A" Banjo Outdoor Propane Stove. If you're cooking for a smaller number, you can do it inside on your stove... but it will smell like crab for a week!
• Big Pot. I believe mine was at least 30 quart size.

Seasoning:

• Sea salt. Enough to have the water taste as salty as the ocean.
• Vinegar. About 1/3 of the bottle. It helps the meat of the crab separate from the shell.
• Season mix. You can use Old Bay or Zatarain's powder mix. I used about 1/3 of Whole Foods' Spicy Shrimp Boil mix.
• 3 lemons cut into halves.
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 whole garlic head (no need to peel)

Other ingredients:

• Dungeness Crabs
• Potatoes
• Corn

What to do:

Fill pot with 2/3 full of water. Salt water, put in all spices and potatoes. Bring to a boil. Insert all the crab (or as many as it will fit with a couple of inches of water level to spare). Throw in the corn. Bring water back to boil and cook for 20 minutes. Remove crabs to let them cool. Remove the corn and potatoes and keep them warm (cover in foil and keep in oven). Clean the crab. Serve with corn, potatoes, crusty fresh bread and melted butter on the side (optional). Eat!