Carpinteria Triathlon

Brooke did great in the Carpinteria Triathlon this morning. She completed the Olympic distance course in 03:15:59, which is much better than she expected. Due to very tough competition though, she finished only 15th out of 17 in her age group. We're still waiting for the official split times to be posted. Check Brooke's Training Blog (see link at the right side of the page) for more details and pictures.

Yet another day revolving around FOOD....

In the morning, we made another visit to our favorite breakfast spot, Renaud's. We used our Axxess Card to get a great 2-for-1 deal. I got the "Renaud's Breakfast", which is a lighter, European-style breakfast consisting of coffee, juice, a pastry, and fresh fruit. Brooke got an omelet (which she split with a friend), an almond croissant, and coffee. Although the omelets are good, it's the pastries that keep bringing us back. They're possibly the best, and by no coincidence, the most buttery pastries anywhere.
Immediately after breakfast, we headed to a 5hr-long sushi-making class held by the SBCC Adult Eduction program. We made nigiri, temaki-zushi (hand-rolled sushi), maki-zushi (sushi rolled with a bamboo mat), and miso soup. The amount of fresh fish was a bit weak, but for a $15 class, it was understandable. Later in the afternoon, we went to the open house of a new cupcake shop, Sweet Buttercup. Free mini cups. Yumm...
Brooke and I each tried a few, including chocolate, vanilla, cherry, and red velvet. The cake portion was a bit dry, but the frosting was excellent.
Despite our busy food schedule, we managed to get down to Carpinteria to pickup the race pack for tomorrow's triathlon. Brooke is doing her first Olympic-distance triathlon (1.5km swim, 40km bike, 10km run). As always, I'll be watching from the sidelines, assuming the role of event photographer. We'll update you on the results tomorrow night....

Table for one

I spent 3 days last week in Portland, Oregon working a trade show. I hate trade shows and I hate working in sales, but most of all, I hate traveling alone. It sounds fun initially....time away from the office, meals paid for by the company, opportunity to see a new city. But when I finally get there and find a nice restaurant, I can't bring myself to go inside and utter the words "table for one". I always end up eating a burger alone in the hotel room, or sometimes I get brave enough to eat at the hotel restaurant. I figure everybody there will understand.
I did take some time to go on a scenic drive on the Historic Columbia River Highway. The views of the Columbia River gorge were amazing, plus the eastern half of the drive is lined with a number of waterfalls. I think Multnomah Falls (pictured below) was the most beautiful.On Saturday, Brooke got free tickets for us to go on a Double Dolphin cruise from the Santa Barbara Sailing Center. The words "dolphin" and "sailing" in their name is a bit misleading. First of all, we didn't actually sail anywhere. They opened the sail just for show, but used the motor for actual propulsion. Secondly, we didn't see any dolphins. The only wildlife we saw were sea lions on abandoned boats. It okay though, the price was right.

Sandcastle Contest

Today Brooke and I competed in our first sandcastle contest, the annual Santa Barbara Sandcastle Festival. It was held on East Beach with 35 teams competing. I never actually saw a rulebook, and one may not even exist. But from what I've seen, the rules are fairly simple:
- A team shall consist of no more than 10 people
- A plot is approx. 15 x 15 ft.
- Construction time is limited to 3 hours (water gathering and cleaning of the plot is allowed prior to the start, misting is not allowed during the time between the end construction and when the judges arrive)
- Only the natural materials found on the beach is allowed to be in the plot at the time of judging


We attended the sandcastle building workshop last weekend. Here's our very humble practice sandcastle.....At 11am this morning, we started by raking away the large debris, leveling our plot, filling our buckets full of water, and sifting the sand. By sifting the sand , we get better structural integrity in our sandcastle. Plus , the collected debris (mostly crushed seashells) makes for good decoration.At noon, the official start of the construction period, we set up boards to support the base....By 2pm, we had most of the large elements complete. All we had left to do was carve the details and continually mist.....Team photo with the completed sandcastle.
As you can see, our theme was Mayan ruins, loosely basing our project off the ruins of Chichen Itza.....
Going into the competition, our only goal was to not embarrass ourselves. But in the end, we had taken second place in the "Sandcastle" category. The other categories were "Sculpture", "Sandcastle and Sculpture", and "People's Choice". I don't know what the categories really mean. I just know that the People's Choice award is considered the grand prize.Here's the People's Choice winner. It was clearly the best sandcastle/sculpture.....Go to our Picasa album, for a few more photos.

New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies

I read a lot of food blogs and recently began to notice everyone has tried this recipe. It seems you can't call yourself a true lover of baked goods if you haven't tasted this cookie. If you're curious, go to the Google blog search and type in "NY Times cookie recipe", you will have plenty of opinions to read. It was my turn to bring something to our "dessert club" at work, so I decided it was the perfect time to try what has been called the best chocolate chip cookie of all time. The recipe calls for a mixture of approximately one part cake flour and one part bread flour. From what I read, in these proportions, it makes it about equal to all purpose flour. I wanted to know if it really makes that big of difference, so I made two batches, one with the mixture and one with all purpose flour. With a pound and a quarter of chocolate needed per batch, I couldn't justify the $20 price tag for that much "good" chocolate, so I went to Costco and got the big bag of Nestle semi-sweet chips. I actually weighed the chocolate chips, and man that is a lot of chocolate!Before putting the cookies in the oven, you are supposed to sprinkle sea salt on top of each cookie. After reading that, I knew I was going to love this recipe. I find that most choc chip cookie recipes are seriously lacking in salt. I baked a few right after making the dough, and they were pretty good. I really liked the salt. We ended up putting around 6 pieces of sea salt on each cookie, I wouldn't have minded more, but Van is a little salt sensitive. I then put the dough in the refrigerator to let it "rest" for 24 hours. When I cooked the 24 hour batch, they turned out really great. The cookies had the perfect texture. I polled my coworkers and it was about 50/50 for the all purpose flour vs. the bread/cake mix. Van and I both liked the all purpose flour better. I think next time I would make them with the all purpose flour, but use better chocolate. Overall, they are the best home made chocolate chip cookie I have ever had. The sprinkle of salt really makes the flavor pop. Each cookie contains the full spectrum of texture, crispy on the edge, chewy as you move inward and soft in the middle. Yum!

My Cousin's Wedding

Like all other Chinese weddings I've been to, the day starts early. The groom's family is at their home, and the bride's family is at theirs. The groom and his groomsmen drive over to the bride's home, but they're kept from entering.The bridesmaids block the door, requesting a payment for entry. The bridesmaids start the bargaining at $999. The groom counters with 99 cents. The bridesmaids suggest $999 plus a song from the groom. This continues for a few minutes, usually ending up around $200-300.
When finally inside, the bride and groom pour tea for all of the bride's elders. In return, the bride gets jewelry and cash. Here's me and Brooke receiving our tea....Then everyone hops in their car and drives to the groom's house. Here the tea pouring ceremony continues for the groom's family. This is my grandpa entering the house...After a marathon picture-taking session, everyone relaxes during lunch and then goes home to prepare for the evening's reception.
The reception was held at a Chinese restaurant. The meal was the standard Chinese wedding fare: shark fin soup (sometimes bird's nest soup), jellyfish, crab claw wrapped with ground shrimp, Peking duck, steamed fish. The groom and bride made the obligatory rounds to each table to toast their guests. This usually ends with a sloppy, drunken groom, but on this evening, the groom didn't drink at all. What a wimp.

My cousin dancing with grandma....All the guests received a small refrigerator magnet with a boy and a girl figurine. When you combine the adolescent sense of humor of me and my brother with the disposable cameras set at every table, you get photos like this....

To the person who stole my bike.....

I hope you get what's coming to you! I would like to say a lot worse things, but I'll leave it at that. Sorry everyone, I just had to get that off my chest. As most of you know, since my parking permit expired in June I have been riding my old mountain bike to school. Last night, as I got ready to leave work and walked out to where my bike was parked (locked up with a very thick cable lock), it was gone. That bike (I called him Bullet) has been with me since I first moved to Santa Barbabra. Although I gave it little attention for four or so years, I had really come to enjoy my ride to and from work this past summer (and the previous summer). I had even equipped it (on Tuesday night no less) with the latest and brightest flashing head and tail light. I am now pondering how I plan to get to work today....

Seattle Day 2

With the exception of dinner plans with Van's family (mom's side), we again had nothing to do but stroll the streets and shop. We had pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) for lunch, then proceeded to two of our favorite stores, REI and Fran's (yet another two businesses originating in Seattle).

A brief detour to Meydenbauer Beach Park in Bellevue between REI and Fran's....
Van's uncle's house in Renton, WA.
Notice the child-height, foam pads along the walls of their giant playpen aka living room. There's no question who's running the show in this house.....
Van's uncle cooked a fabulous meal featuring no less than 10 crabs, tons of steaks, and roasted veggies. Yumm....On the right is Van's uncle, the chef for the evening....Van's youngest cousin, Tammy....Emily, the future pro athlete....Van with Serena and Micheal (yes, that's how he really spells it)....