Looking over Oxford Greenhouse (grow me some plants woot):

The weather was perfect, and the hike was picturesque. It made me sad that I didn’t bring my better cameras. Instead, I brought my Flip Mino and Jules brought her little Canon SD630 and here’s what we came away with.

Video from the Flip:

Pictures from the Canon:

Today I walked over to my lab bench, and saw a present for me:

What could it be? I unwrap it and lo and behold:

He made them! Awesomest bday present ever! d(^_^)

I immediately thought of a scene from the movie The Devil Wears Prada, where Meryl Streep plays Miranda Priestly, a powerful fashion magazine editor, and Anne Hathaway plays Andy, a non-fashion oriented journalist trying to move up in the world:

Miranda Priestly: [Miranda and some assistants are deciding between two similar belts for an outfit. Andy sniggers because she thinks they look exactly the same] Something funny?
Andy Sachs: No, no, nothing. Y’know, it’s just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. Y’know, I’m still learning about all this stuff.
Miranda Priestly: This… ‘stuff’? Oh… ok. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St Laurent, wasn’t it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.

Courtesy of Tiffany & Co. Keys splashpage.

Try #3 happened today, and it was the most successful yet. I only stalled once trying to reverse out of parked position over a period of an hour and a half. As the bored passenger, Mike decided to start playing a game with me to try to speed up how long it took me to shift gears and response time by yelling out, “Stop!” “Go!” “2nd gear!” “Park!” “Reverse!” and timing how long it took me to reverse out of a parking spot and move forward in first gear. I wanted to swat him like a fly at one point when he sped up his maniacal commands, but I must admit that my response time and shifting smoothness improved quite a lot as a result. Woohoo! I think it’s time move out of the parking lot to tackle driving in a neighborhood next. A flat one please.

Our pots and pans are fairly basic, and can be counted on one hand:

1. saute pan
2. sauce pan
3. stock pot
4. Non stick fry pan
5. cast iron fry pan
6. hot pot pan

Okay, I lied. I forgot about the hot pot pan. I would say that 99% of my cooking utilizes the first 4 items, while the last two are very specialized items. I would say the hot pot pan actually gets more usage then the cast iron fry pan, and comes out of it’s drawer every 1-2 months. The cast iron fry pan, on the other hand, only makes an appearance for bacon (twice a year at most) and pizza. I don’t know why I don’t use it more. While I lust after certain le creuset items and all-clad pots and pans, these relatively inexpensive pots and pans have lasted me a good number of years- and for the amount of use I get out of them, are an amazing deal.

Of kitchen knives: 1 chinese vegetable cleaver, 1 9-inch chef’s knife, 1 santoku paring knife. Necessary and sufficient for all my vegetably and meaty and otherwise-y needs.

1. I’ve worked with the same group of 10 people over the past 4 years at 3 different jobs.
2. I have a degree in genetics and plant biology and a career in web development.
3. Jules and I have been together for 5 years!
4. I’ve been playing soccer for over 20 years.
5. I have bigger baseball trophies than soccer trophies, even though I only played for a few years.
6. I was kicked off the track team in high school for skipping practice to play golf. (Probably because I admitted to it.)
7. I love Jules’s red pumpkin curry.
8. I felt more awkward in the Hapa club with my “peers” than I do living my every day life.
9. Sea scout camp never sent me my merit badges.
10. I’ve kept a written journal since elementary school.
11. I do my best thinking in the shower.
12. In high school I learned that your middle name is given and isn’t just your mom’s maiden name.
13. In high school I loved math and hated english. In college it was the opposite.
14. My college room mate gender pattern was: 1 guy -> 1 girl -> 2 guys -> 2 girls.
15. I don’t like chocolate. Except reeses, those are delicious.
16. Vanilla is my favorite flavor of ice cream.
17. I had a turtle since junior high. He died this year.
18. I played four years of varsity soccer and never got a jacket.
19. I made a bet with a friend in high school to see who would get a Jeep (wrangler) and a motorcycle first. I won.
20. When I play soccer I look angry because I have to squint all the time. I don’t wear contacts.
21. I went to Illinois once to meet some people I met online. It was awesome.
22. I don’t have a passport.
23. I like potatoes with my ketchup.
24. I moved in the middle of kindergarten. I still remember that day.
25. I want to hike all 2600 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail.