Probably the longest period of time between posts, I got lazy and somehow didn’t feel like posting. Not even sure why. Maybe because I got busier. Been spending most of my time doing weight training, hanging out with Wendy, dealing with getting a new line of credit at TD Bank (all done, yay!), and of course, work. They suck up my time.

There have been a ton of new additions to my home gym - a pair of gymnastic rings; the “Isolator” arm cuffs that helps a lot to work out with my injured left wrist; built my own cable system (single cable only) with a couple pieces of hardware from Canadian Tire (it’s upgraded to version 2 now that I’ve switched to use steel cable instead of marine rope, much smoother motion on the pulley). With all these new tools I was able to expand the # of exercises two folds, pretty stoked!

Been eating a ton of dessert (unavoidable being around Wendy), Thomas Haas is my favorite, had it three times now I think. Guu became my favorite izakaya, followed by Zakkushi. In fact I was at this new Guu called Guu Kobachi which serves this “kobachi” style food which is small in portion but high in flavors. We ordered a couple items and every single one of them were good! Can’t wait to go back and try the other items on the menu..

Went rock climbing at the Cliffhanger for the first time yesterday. 3-hour introductory course, it was fun. It’s something that looks easy but when you get into it it’s insanely hard. You need the skills, and it will only come with practice. I’ll go there a couple more times see if I’m really interested.

Life is pretty much the same for the past week. Working out 3 times a week (injured my shoulder joint but it healed itself within 3 days), going biking everywhere, drinking protein shakes several times a day, hanging out with friends…etc. I finally got the Dahon Jetstream P8 yesterday! Super sturdy bike with some high-quality parts, and front+rear suspension. I didn’t cheap out on this bike so hopefully it’ll last.

One thing worth mentioning is the Sweet Revenge Patisserie where I went with Wendy couple nights ago. A really tiny and narrow place with great decor (80’s Chinese influences), and awesome desserts. We had a huge chocolate cake and a tiramisu, both were very yummy, but the drinks were just so so, not too bad though. Will go again to try the cheesecake, I think.

I made this pasta sauce from scratch for lunch today. It’s really easy: milk, 2 tbsp of flour, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, minced garlic, 2 tbsp heavy cream. And then I added pan fried grounded turkey meat, and chopped spinach (food processor) into the sauce. That’s it, so tasty too. Sadly I stained my carpet with the sauce, now it’s all green and messy. Trying to remove the stain with hydrogen peroxide, hope it works.

My skin problem continues… the peeling is almost all healed but now some nasty crusty skin is forming up near my chin, not even a clue why it happened. Why this has to happen to me. Going to keep putting coconut oil and baking soda on it, see what happens tomorrow.

I baked my first cake ever 2 days ago. It was a flourless chocolate cream cake with this recipe. Since I’ve never baked before I know nothing about baking. I thought I’d bake a bear-shaped cake for Wendy’s gift so I went ahead and bought a bear-shaped pan from Home Sense. Actually I did worry about that it’d be hard to take the cake out since there’s no tension clip like the ones on regular circular shaped baking pans. So I followed the recipe exactly, and the cake turned out to be really undercooked, or perhaps I made a mistake, or it could have been the oven, I still don’t know. I tried baking in the bear pan 3 times in total, tried removing the “water bath”, lowering the pan down 1 level in the oven, put less amount of liquid…etc. and none helped. Since I’m having allergy on my face and I have to cut down in sugar, I couldn’t eat the cakes that failed… =( At last, after few dozen of eggs, 5+ packs of belgian chocolate, lots of wasted effort, and a burned palm, I ended up baking the cake once again in a regular baking pan, with the sides nicely greased and wax paper properly lined. It turned out okay, still a bit soggy, not sure if it was supposed to be like that, but at least it’s holding its shape. I guess Wendy will be able to tell me tonight whether it worked or not during our 10th anniversary dinner!

On another note, my seborrheic dermatitis flared up like crazy the past weeks, and reached its top yesterday. I was super frustrated as I had no clue what I could do to fix up my skin. I tried to eat turtle jelly (which helped when I was in Hong Kong), drink lots of water, take vitamin B50 complex, have hot steam bath on my face, rubbing my face with Neutrogena T/Gel tar shampoo…nothing worked and it just got more severe. It wasn’t until this morning that I came across this website that’s fully dedicated to this skin condition with tons and tons of users talking about their past experience with it and what ultimately worked for them. It turns out that what works for most people is something called baking soda! Pure baking soda mixed with a bit of water, rub it on the affected area, rinse it and then moisturize the skin with virgin coconut oil. Some say that raw honey also works, so I’ve got all three of the above today. Tried putting coconut oil just now it seems to be quite soothing and I don’t feel itchy anymore, and at least it didn’t worsen the condition. I’m going to try baking soda tomorrow if it doesn’t heal up. Also I have to cut down in sugar, dairy product, and wheat which may stiumulate the growth of the malassezia virus, a kind of yeast which is the cause of the inflammation of the skin.

Haven’t been posting for 2 weeks. When I first started the blog I wanted to do a post everyday. Did I get lazy? Or am I just too busy. That’s not an excuse, and I don’t really know why. A couple different reasons I guess. Sometimes I just got too tired at the end of the day (this is an excuse, if I’m tired I could just do a quick post with 2 lines, that still counts.) Sometimes I’m too busy with work (an excuse again. I shouldn’t be working long hours anyway, I need to be able to stop working at the right time.) Sometimes I didn’t want to start a post simply because the content that I wanted to post isn’t quite ready - photos not downloaded from the camera to the computer…etc. (an excuse I guess. I should just download the pictures as soon as they are taken or they will just pile up.) I need to make up my mind to post everyday, or at least every two days…

On valentine’s Day Wendy and I cooked dinner at home. Appetizer was a taco chips with guacamole and shrimp cooked with butter. Soup was a butternut squash soup which was very easy to make and tasty. I failed at the main course though. Wanted to do a pan fried salmon with hash brown coating but I left the grated potato out for too long and they turned black! It looked terrible and gross, although it tasted alright. Apparently you’re supposed to either grate the potato at the last minute right before frying, or half-boil them before grating and they won’t turn black. Wendy made apple strudel, it turned out to look and taste really professional! It took me an entire week to finish it. I got a Kipling keychain, coin holder, flowers with magnets for the fridge, and a glittering heart. I made a kissing doll for Wendy, it has a crank and when you turn it the two characters would kiss each other, it’s really cool IMO, and took me forever to make it.

I was able to successfully launch my super mission-critical project on the 17th last month. I had worked on it for more than half a year, being able to release it to Production without major issue was really an accomplishment and I’m really proud of myself. It was a really fun project, although extremely stressful and demanding. Oh well, it’s over.

And then on the 26th I attended Peter and Melissa’s wedding. It was very tiring, but I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot. Learned a lot about getting married in a Church, heard some meaningful speeches from the “Father”, knew a couple new friends, and heard the most touching speeches at the banquet from the groomsmen and bridesmaid. The door game was fun, the boys were asked to dance, and stick their feet into ice cold water to pick up certain objects. It was a really awesome and unforgettable day for sure.

Bought this magazine today while I was doing grocery. I almost never buy magazines off the shelf, no $ and they usually are crap full of ads and spam and price lists. Okay this one is super cool, I knew it after flipping through 3-4 pages. Tons of very useful tips, for a variety of situations. Easy to follow, and the images the author’s taken were exquisite - the kind of images that I’d like to learn to take. Minimal ads too. At $11 I think it’s a no-brainer. I buy 2-3 magazines a year, I guess this is going to be the first one for 2011. It’s thick probably going to take me a month to finish reading it with my busy schedule. I’ll probably bring it with me when I fly to Hong Kong next month. It makes me happy when I see good books that I like and are hugely beneficial to my skills, AND easy to read. Thanks to whoever that wrote it.

I got this new McDonald’s buttermilk sausage and egg breakfast muffin for free with their promotion. I wanted to like it but I couldn’t, it just sucked. The bread/cookie could be tasty on its own but not when it’s bundled with the sausage and egg - super dry, mushy, made me super thirsty, and I almost couldn’t finish it cuz it was just too dry. Felt even worse than eating a raw potato. I doubt it will be a success, it sucks too bad.