How Gow

Well, it's been a few years since we last tried this....

Here are Tiff's and Trina's latest atempt at folding How Gow. Not
nearly as pretty as what Cousin Cheri did a few months ago, but maybe
with a little more practice.. :)

Dim Sum with Grandma & Grandpa Chow

My sister and I are in Stockton today visiting our Grandparents.

First things first: Dim Sum at China Palace, then a trip to Costco.

Once we get back to their house, Grandma is going to teach us how to
make her special How Gow!

Dickies Girl

That's Me!

Yesterday, I went shopping with my sister at an Army Surplus Store in Santa Clara. She's been looking for a certain type of jacket, and we thought we might find one there (we didn't).

I wasn't looking to buy anything. But, you know, there are times when things literally jump out at you, and you just can't help yourself.

Somehow, I managed to find 4 things that I apparently "needed" that I didn't even know!

First off, I found a great wide-brimmed sun hat! I've been thinking I should get one for when we go to Hawaii later this year. It was 20% off, too!

The next thing I found was a great, RED Pea Coat! I've been coveting a pea coat for many years now, and I loved that this one is red, and that's it's "authentic". It was the only red pea coat there, and it just happened to be in my size. As well made wool coats go, the price was right, too!

So, yeah. There's two items that I wasn't planning to buy that I couldn't resist.

But then... we walked by the clearance rack, my sister saw these great women's t-shirts that said "Dickies" on the front. Dickies is a clothing company that makes work clothes that I'm guessing are well made, and long lasting, and are sold at the army suplus store.

It appears that they have a line for girls/women called Dickies Girl. (who knew?) Anyhow, I bought two t-shirts (because I couldn't choose) which were on clearance for only $6 each. They crack me up! (I'm not sure how amused Dick is, but my sister and I both thought that they were super funny!)

Here's one of the shirts that I got:


Gotta love that.

Tonight's Dinner

I don't think it gets much fresher than this!

This morning, Pete brought over a bunch of heirloom tomatoes from
their garden. I cut a couple, added some fresh basil, red onion and
fresh mozzarella on top of a bed of watercress, topped with some
Italian olive oil. Nice!

BMW Mini Electric Cars Available in U.S. From Summer 2009

Well, this is cool news.

Only, I suppose I'd have to have a garage, so I could plug it into an outlet. ;)

(thanks to my buddy, Todd, for sending the article to me!)

Birdie Breakfast

I spent the night at my parent's house night with my sister. She's
staying here while my parents are away on vacation.

My sister has two cockatiels - both well into their mid to late 20s!

This is their morning routine: they all share a bowl of cereal. :)

They're Back!

I was walking down Castro Street this afternoon when I saw "them" again!

The pink bunnies are back! Standing on the corner of Castro and 18th -
handing out roses, and waving at passerbys.

When I took this picture of them, I double checked to see... are they
out here for a specific purpose or cause? No. They're just out here to
make people happy,

I'm all for that.

Apparently, they come out about once a month. I've only seen them once
before, about a year ago.

Mom & Claude

I'm hanging out with my parents at their house today - they leave on
vacation to China tomorrow.

I love hanging out on my Mom & Dad's deck in their backyard. It's so
beautiful and peaceful out here.

My Dad is finishing up on his yardwork, and my Mom and Claude just
came out for a visit. He's such a good kitty. :)

Stunt Husband

Dick is out of town this week, so Christopher is stepping in to play
the role of "The Husband" while he's away.

Tonight, Bro made a new Curry Chicken recipe. Mmmmmmm....

We also took a walk down to Castro Street to get cookies, then came
home for a little "Rock Band" practice.

I love my Gay Boyfriend.

Really, everyone should have one. ;)

One. Singular Sensation....

... Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch.... Again!!

Yesterday afternoon, Dick and I saw the matinée performance of the revival of "A Chorus Line" at the Curran Theater.

I had never seen a professional performance of this show - I'd only seen the movie (albeit, many, many times) and a local high school performance back in the 80s.

Dick was lucky enough to see it in London's West End over 30 years ago when he was an early teen. He has great stories about the first time he saw the show, and how much of an impact it had on him. He absolutely loved it. (...and yes, he knows all the words to all of the songs, and he even knows all of the names of the steps in the dance choreography! (see above!) )

I had high expectations of this production, and it did not disappoint. We both thought the cast was very strong, and that the show holds up incredible well. You can't beat the music - so many great songs. The thing I love about this show is how "raw" it is compared to all of popular Broadway shows. It's stripped down to the basics - minimal set, minimal costumes... and let's you really focus on the story lines of the individual characters.

This is the revival that started out in San Francisco two years ago before going to Broadway. This touring production has some of the same cast members.

Dick and I had planned to see the show two years ago. We had planned to go for weeks, and my sister had arranged amazing seats for us. Unfortunately, I got really sick the night before the show, and although I was still hoping to make the show on the day of, I just wasn't well enough to see it. We were really bummed. As it turned out, the symptoms that I had that weekend were the same as I had about a year afterwards, and was the precursor to my appendicitis. How about that?

The show runs through July 27th.

Here's a review of the show from sfgate.com.

My friend, lef, the Writer

I love this smile...

I met my friend lef (that's Lawrence Everett Forbes, but I've always simply refered to him as "lef", a name I believe he only went by in art school) during my first semester at The San Francisco Art Institute. We had a crazy class called "New Genres" together - one of the wackiest classes I've ever taken. lef and I became fast friends. I sometimes think we were the only two sane people in the entire class. (I'm sure other people would be quick to argue that!)

The class that we had together was twice a week, and was held in the evenings - from 7:00-11:00pm, if memory serves. I lived about a mile away from school, and I walked back and forth on the many steep each day. lef lived somewhere beyond my apartment, and would always walk me back to my place after our late night class together. Once in a while, when we weren't too tired, he would come into my place to share a cup of tea and a whole lotta laughter with me.

Funny, we only spent one semester at school together (he graduated), and he moved away from SF soon afterwards to pursue a Masters Degree, but we managed to remain close friends over the next 12 years.

lef is a writer. One of the best that I know. He has such a way with words. He always has. He's been working on his first novel, but in the meantime, has recently had 3 pieces published - one in Newsweek.com, another in Gay City News, and one that will be published in this Sunday's New York Times!

I just read the three essays, and they blew my mind. I especially loved the NY Times piece.

I'm taking the liberty of posting the links here to share with all of you:

A Brother as Significant as Any Other (New York Times)

Realignment (Newsweek.com)

Making My Own Safety A Priority (Gay City News)

Congratulations, dear lef! Kudos to you, my friend!

Not upgrading to 2.0 yet

I woke up at 6:30 this morning (thanks to a certain little cat who was eating in the bedroom). I decided to wake up and check out my computer.

I remembered that today was the iPhone 3G release, and that the new iPhone 2.0 software was going to be available as well for all "old" iPhone users.

I thought I would install the new software update, and play with the new features.

Well, it was not to be....

I opened my Apple Updates to see what needed to be updated on my MacDreamy - the new iTunes update was in there. Cool. That went fine.

When I checked to see if the upgrade also included the new 2.0 update for my phone, I was it wasn't available.

So, I check the Apple iPhone Forum online and discovered that (apparently) thousands of iPhone users had tried to download the update this morning, only to have major problems with the install, essentially turning their iPhones (hopefully temporarily) into useless paper weights (or "bricks" which I think is a much better term).

The theory is that Apple is selling a ton of new 3G iPhones today, and they all need to be activated via iTunes. Plus, you've got the rest of us who have the "old" iPhone trying to install the new 2.0 software update... from iTunes. What's that mean, iTune overload.

From what I've seen on the forums thousands of users are stuck with non-working phones this morning. How frustrating.

I've decided to wait it out a few days until the dust settles.

Some of the new 2.0 features look really cool, but seeing as I've already had my fair share of computer issues over the past 24 hours, I think it would behoove me to wait this one out.

Update
Just found this story on sfgate.com:

Software problems bug Apple's launch of new iPhone

..and this story on MSNBC.com:
The 'iPocalypse' is at hand

My new Genius Bar Buddies

Many, many thanks to my new genius buddies who helped make my day much
better!

Thanks to Ryan and John. : )

Reinstalling the OS with the geniuses...

Yeah, that's what we figured. They're essentially reinstalling the OS
while retaining the files that are in my user folder. I may have to
reinstall my software and other files.

This should be okay, as I've backed up everything through Time Machine
and on my secondary laptop. This still makes me super nervous, but
what are you going to do?

Now, about that battery connection problem...

Blech.

it's been one of those days...

Okay, not really bad, just not very great.

Mostly it's just that I keep having electronics break all around me, and it's kinda driving me nuts.

MacDreamy is acting up. Again. I'm getting tired of this.

This morning, I decided to finally install Office 2008 for the Mac. I've had the software for a few months, but was holding off on installing it because Dick had heard that it had some major syncing problems. We thought this could possibly cause even more problems than I was already having with syncing with my iPhone.

Well, last weekend, I finally got my iPhone syncing successfully with my newly established iCal. I don't love iCal. In fact, I don't really like it at all, but it'll have to do.

So, today I figured I should bite the bullet and finally upgrade my old Office 2004.

How hard should it be? I've installed dozens of applications to my Mac over the past couple of decades.

The installation seemed to go just fine....

...until it was almost finished, and instead froze my Mac.

Blech.

Long story short: MacDreamy is not working again. The finder doesn't even work, let alone any of my applications.

Luckily, I can still access all of my files with my Handy-Dandy extra Mac laptop that comes in really handy for just such events. I'm managed to copy over all of my super important files on to it, plus I have Time Machine back ups of my computer on an external drive.

I have an appointment tonight with the genius bar at the local Apple Store. I have a hunch that we're going to have to wipe my drive with a clean OS install. Painful, but probably the best idea at this point.

MacDreamy hasn't been all too dreamy this year...

In other news, my Xbox kerbusted last week. I got the all-too-familiar 3-ring circle of death on my Xbox last Wednesday when I was trying to play a friendly game of Rainbow Six: Las Vegas with Dick and Reeves. No go. Three red lights for me. I finally got around to calling Xbox support on Tuesday, and they sent me a nifty box to send my Xbox in for repairs. Again. You may recall that I've been through this with 2 Xbox 360s already. bummer.

Did I mention that I got an urgent call from a web client last night saying that their web site and their email had been down all day? I promised to look into it first thing this morning, which I did. I managed to figure out that their domain name had expired, and gave them the information to reinstate it again. They were very happy by the afternoon.

That was nice. It made me feel like I was able to trouble shoot something.

Dick was working from home today, and was with me when my Mac went all kablooie on me. I was at my wits end, as I'm kind of sick and tired of having computer problems, and not being able to figure out why. He assured me that these problems were pretty complicated, and not something that I would have been able to prevent from happening. I was feeling lame because I've been having to ask him for I.T. help a lot lately.

blech.

Birdie!!

Fleming: 4th hole. Par 3.

: )!!

I took this photo in hopeful anticipation that I *might* make my putt - which I did! It was about 4-5 feet away from the hole.

...and yes, that is a pink ball that I'm playing with. My friend Melissa turned me on to them a few months ago. They're so much easier for me to see (and find!), and I never have to double check to see if I'm hitting the right ball. Plus, you know, it matches all of my pink and pastel golf clothes - because that's the only kind of colors that they seem to offer for women's golf clothing!

12 Bags Full

Last weekend, Dick and I did the annual closet purge. The result: 12
bags full of clothes, shoes and even a few purses.

Dick is always much better than I am at this; he doesn't have the
sentimental attachment to things that I might, and he certainly
doesn't have the emotional consequences of clothing that no longer fits.

I did pretty well this year. Finally got rid of some clothes that I've
had for more years than I can really remember (that's a sign, right?).
Also got past the psychological hump of purging anything that
resembles a size 2.

I brought the 12 bags down to my Mom, who then brought them to a
shelter in San Jose. I'm sure these clothes will be put to much better
use now.

Happy Birthday, Mom and Dad!!

This evening, we went to The House of Prime Rib to celebrate my Mom and Dad's Birthdays!

My parents were born in the same month (July) of the same year! My Mom's birthday was on the first, and my Dad's is on the 28th. They will be away on vacation during my Dad's birthday, so we decided to do a joint birthday dinner for them before they leave.

HoPR never fails - always an amazing meal, and good fun!

Happy Birthday, Mom & Dad!!!

Past Midnight...

... On a school night even!

We went out to Hotel Utah tonight to watch Graham play in Jonathan
Douglas' Band. Had a really fun time with my sister, Jolie, Ayumi and
Paul.

It was a late night, though. The set started after 11:00, and we're
just now driving home. Time for bed!

My Cousin, the Presbyterian Rock Star

I've mentioned before that all of my cousins are hyper-overachievers, but this one takes the cake!


Last Saturday, my cousin, Bruce, was elected The Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). This is the highest elected post in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The San Francisco Chronicle (and consequently, sfgate.com) ran this really great article about him today:

New moderator seeks to unite Presbyterians

I cannot begin to express how very proud I am of Bruce, and how impressed I am of the work that he does. I have no doubt that he will do incredible things in his new position.

Congratulations, Bruce!

Mom's Birthday Dinner!!

House of Genji in San Jose!!


At least the day ended on a high note. :)

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Poor MINI!!

Hmmmn, my Mom's Birthday has gotten off to a bad start.

We were driving on 680(N) to have lunch with my Dad. As we were
approaching our exit in Fremont, we hit a very large piece of metal in
the road that my Mom couldn't avoid.

Her poor MINI (named Picaboo) had a really bad tire blow-out. It's
dead.

We just called MINI roadside Assistance, and they're sending out a tow
truck to put on the spare.

In the meantime, we're sitting here in a small divide between the
freeway and the offramp.

Waiting....

Poor Mom. Poor MINI.

Hopefully, we'll stillbe able to have lunch with my Dad.

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

I'm taking the day off today so that I can spend the day with her.
We're going to have lunch with my Dad at his new office, and dinner later tonight with my sister.

Should be a really nice day.

Happy Birthday, Mommo!
I love you!