http://kolinateng.com

I’m not a huge baseball fan but even I can appreciate the nice waterfront view at AT&T Park and Gilroy Garlic Fries.

Thanks Lockheed Martin!

Worst tablecloth ever for this puzzle.

I consider myself overbearingly sentimental and probably emotionally volatile to a fault. Because I’m self-conscious of this (and, subsequently, self-conscious of being self-conscious), I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, in the past to stifle that part of myself. Instead, defense mechanisms kicked in and as a habit, I now approach emotionally-charged situations with the polar opposite reactions—sarcasm, general avoidance, and inappropriate laughter. This typically does not bode well for, say, a marriage proposal.

But, I am happy to report that I was neither sarcastic nor did I avoid Reid’s proposal last Saturday, August 7th. I did, however, giggle uncontrollably. What can I say? I’m the queen of awkward.

Reid and I had discussed our future extensively for awhile, so I can’t say I was too surprised when it happened. I even suspected that it would happen on that particular day, which made me incredibly anxious all morning while Reid was unfazed and out happily biking with friends. He had made an early dinner reservation for us at Alexander’s Steakhouse, which was the major tip-off that he would propose—Reid likes to announce special news over good food and wine—but I had no idea when he would actually pop the question.

Well, it didn’t happen during dinner. Our host asked if we were celebrating a special occasion; “No, just having a nice dinner out,” Reid answered.

…Uh, what.

It didn’t happen after dinner either. He even insisted on ordering tea after dinner (he never orders tea), and then insisted on stopping at Yogurtland (he never wants yogurt that much)—certainly he didn’t plan on proposing at Yogurtland? Nope, he played on his phone per the norm while I felt silly working myself up for an entire day.

When dusk finally fell and Reid had prolonged my agony as long as he possibly could, he drove me back to my place. By this point, I was ready to shower, change into some pajamas, and inhale my stash of dark chocolate as consolation.

However, when I reached the front door, the walkway and porch were lined with flowers and candles, and my favorite John Mayer song* was playing softly. That’s where I stopped, uttered “Oh, my God”, and then preceded to giggle through the next couple hours. There was no long speech accompanying the proposal for me to transcribe here, but he simply asked me to marry him, and I very simply said yes—to which he responded, “You haven’t even seen the ring!”

Well, fine. I SUPPOSE I’ll accept this incredibly nice ring that is worth more than all my worldly possessions combined.

Inside, the hall to the living room was glowing softly by candle and stringed lights. THAT definitely was not Reid’s doing, but I had a good suspicion who was behind it all. I rounded the corner to the living room, and my closest friends were waiting: Linda, of course, Eric, and Kent, and Nancy.

And surprise Number Two, Kim flew in from L.A. to be a part of it!

Flowers, candle pillars, floating votive candles, bread, crackers, cheese, and chocolate-dipped strawberries covered the dining room table, and we opened a bottle of 2006 Cakebread Chardonnay reserve that we had been saving for a special occasion. And then my friends, knowing my habit of changing into pajamas whenever I’m at home regardless of company,  announced, “Pajama time!” I pishposhed at such an idea during this occasion, until I found out that everyone had brought pajamas.

Never have I been presented with so much love and fondness (and such an extravagant gift!) from any man and any friends as I did that night.

This is where things get mushy and I have trouble blogging about them. This blog post is Reid’s impassive response to my indignant “You proposed to me but you blogged about BIKING?!”, so if he’s not going to get all mushy, I’m not either :P

Okay, just a little bit. I love you, Reid! I promise to love you, forgive you, ignore your weird manly habits, and direct Internet traffic to your sites.

Wow, where have I been? I’ve just completed my first month in my position at work where overtime seem to be the norm on my team, and particularly for myself as I get up to speed in my new function and role. I’ve had little time to myself even at home; I must have 3000+ items in Google Reader to read and I’ve probably missed every viral video in the past month.

And I, you, Internet.

Earlier this week, Linda roped me into watching a pre-screening of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, courtesy of MOViN 99.7 because St. John is so fierce. In case you missed it, Jezebel is liveblogging the movie–it’s like I’m there in real time! And in case you’re unfamiliar with Twilight, The Oatmeal has a pretty good summary.

I felt a little dirty just looking at Taylor Lautner, who was wearing a shirt for all of maybe only 3 minutes during the whole movie. Isn’t he like, 15 years old?

Edit: Jezebel has the best commenters. This one takes the gold:

Dodai I really wish you had been able to plan ahead not just to have booze and snacks, but also to try to smuggle in a vuvuzela.

I like brewing tea with loose leaves but it’s a hassle trying to avoid the floating leaves in my cup whenever I take a sip. Solution? Makeshift tea steeper with a coffee filter and some binder clips!

I’m now a quarter-century old! Remember when in high school, popularity was measured by the number of balloons received on your birthday? Yeah, I wasn’t me. BUT LOOK AT MY BALLOON NOW. Take THAT, you popular girls.

In celebration, Linda gifted me with the most obnoxious balloon she could get her hands on–at work, no less. I spent a good 30 seconds trapped in the security turnstiles with it when leaving work, and then spent another two minutes or more wrestling this behemoth of a balloon into my car on a really windy afternoon.

Balloons aside, everyone knows that Facebook wall posts is now the true measure of one’s popularity, and I am now 230% more popular than I was last year*. So, that’s an improvement! I’m sure the fact that Facebook has blown up like crazy in the past year has nothing to do with it.

*Yes, I counted. Again. What can I say? I’m an analyst and I’m driven by metrics.

Is it weird to ask my readership to save their toilet paper rolls (the paper core) for me? I’m up-cyling trash into wall decor!

What a weekend! I absolutely love long weekends packed with activities. These days are probably the most carefree days I’ll have for the rest of my life - before the inevitableness of grad school, before mortgages and large loans, before family obligations, and before health concerns that most certainly accompany adulthood. I thank God for the comforts he’s blessed me with (and my workplace that allows me to work a 9/80 schedule!) that allow me to have wonderful, indulgent weekends like this!

On Friday, a few of us took advantage of the beautiful weather to take make a non limited-hassle 4-hour trip to Northstar. It hadn’t snowed there since the previous Friday, where we in the South Bay experienced an unexpectedly large rain downpour. As a result, the snow was packed and way too icy in the morning - Debbie Downer here was starting to dread the rest of the day. Fortunately, the sun warmed up the ice and the snow took on the consistency of a snow cone, and it became much more fun once I started imagining that I was riding down a mountainous snow dessert with a rainbow of colors and sugary flavors trailing behind my snowboard. It was the last day of winter for the year, and probably won’t snow much for the rest of the year, so it was a great way to close the season with such a nice, relaxed day of riding snow.

And, what a perfect transition to Spring! With Reid and Linda’s March birthdays recently passed, a barbecue was definitely in order. Ever since Reid got that super nice grill last year, I’ve loved playing host for our BBQs and potlucks. It’s a great way to get all our mutual friends together (and it’s especially fun trying to figure out how we all know each other - it’s a complicated and fun mess) with good food to usher in the new season. I started food prep at 10AM on Saturday and didn’t stop until 3 hours into the birthday bash. I’ve got to say that while I love hosting a social event, I’m definitely happiest in the background and facilitating via food - the social glue of any good party.

I’m not a great cook, but I was pretty happy with the spread this time around: grilled garlic soy sauce drumsticks (a recipe adapted from HK), 15 pounds (fifteen pounds!!) of kalbi (courtesy of Linda’s parents’ store - Seoul Market in San Jose), pulled pork sliders (with Reid’s manager’s recipe here), pulled pork soft tacos with the works, prosciutto-wrapped goat cheese, bruschetta (I LOVE bruschetta), red velvet cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting (Joy the Baker’s recipe here), nachos, and salami and kalamata olive pizza bagels. Everything was put together from scratch (except the kalbi); I get a particular satisfaction from that. And of course, there was some awesome contributions by many, many others: Charlene’s homemade guacamole, Sandy’s veggie platter, Kim’s thumbprint jam cookies, Wilmot’s healthy grilled peppers and mushrooms, and lot of beer and chips and drinks from others. Thanks for helping, everyone! :D

And even after all that delicious food, I spent several hours on Sunday afternoon eating more. Thanks to Nelson, I recently discovered SF Food Wars, which hosts local food competitions and hopes SF’s local denizens “compete and eat until your knife is dull and your stomach explodes”. Today’s competition was that of chocolate cookies with an overarching Jersey Shore theme, appropriately titled “The [Chocolate Cookie] Situation” at Mighty in SF. COUNT ME IN.

There were 20 different baking competitors doing everything to chocolate and cookie that you can imagine… and I had to choose ONE favorite. 20 cookies don’t seem like a lot for a girl who can eat half a package of oreos in one sitting (who? me? what?), but I was SO SAD by the 10th cookie. There was so much that I couldn’t even finish my favorite one. Eric took the smarter approach and ate only one bite of each cookie to judge, but who DOES that? You’re WASTING. COOKIES. Will someone think of the children?!

Anyway. Reid’s pics here. I was too busy shoveling cookies into my gaping maw to take my own pictures.

On a side note… Jersey Shore: wtf?

hahahahahahah

Thanks a lot, MTV, for your value-added contribution to my generation.

Just ‘cuz there is such a POINT to be made… My patriotism is about as strong as my love for ba tzang, and those tetrahedral “Taiwanese tamales” were a-plenty in the video with a jingle to boot, evoking enough pride to “write in ‘Taiwanese’”.

Anyway, my mom would kill me if I said I was just Chinese. If she gave me some ba wan, o-a mi-soa, or  chhau tau hu, I just might say I was ALL Taiwanese.

Due to growing up in the Silicon Valley or my social circle of geeky tech friends, I’ve always been a wannabe-geek but without the shiny new gadgets that real geeks can show off. UNTIL NOW. Sure, it’s not the MacBook Wheel, but thanks to Reid, I have recently come into possession of the “Google phone” - the Nexus One! Since I’ve been using a free flip-phones with antennae (!) up to this point, this is a whole new horizon laid out for me. Amazing. Let me give you an example of what I can do with this bad boy.

Over the weekend, I met up with some girlfriends that work at Google (just another step towards Google HQ infiltration) for some tea at Palo Alto’s Tea Time. First, I had gotten a Google calendar invite (that Android pushes directly to my mobile Gmail). I was able to respond to it, and it syncs with my Google calendars.

I do a speech-to-text search for Tea Time since I can’t very well type while driving, and GPS navigation and text-to-voice directions help me get there since the Google God knows I have no sense of direction. Point in case: I parked in an underground garage, and when I emerged, I had no idea in which direction to walk. Out comes the phone! And I pinpoint my exact location and walk towards the little red dot marked Tea Time. BTW, this phone renders my $140 Garmin nuvi useless.

I meet the girls, and we’re all a-Twitter about this super cute place with super tiny I-need-5-of-these-to-be-full-cuz-I’m-about-as-dainty-as-a-pig English crumpets and sandwiches, so we all take out our Android phones and communally tweet about it via Twidroid. And then Foursquare check-in because… I don’t know. Because we CAN.

The Yelp application helps me decide which sandwich is most highly recommended.

And then some pictures are in order, using our 5 megapixel phone cameras (that also captures video).

Looks like I won't be needing my point-and-shoot anymore. On a different note: look at the tea cozies! I've never seen one before!

Then we chat/gossip about the upcoming Valentine’s Day, and we (or just me) joke that we can keep tabs on our significant others’ current locations via Latitude.

As I leave, I notice that I’ve missed a phone call from Mom and she’s left me a 2-minute message as she is prone to do, but have no fear, because Google Voice has transcribed the message so I can just read it quickly. Unfortunately, Mom speaks in Chinese, and Voice doesn’t do Chinese-transcription-to-English translation yet. Bummer.

Bummer #2: I can’t take screenshots of my phone to supplement my blog post here. But that’s okay because you can already read about them at much more reputable tech blogs.

Bummer #3: Still waiting on a widget/app for Google Buzz that was just released yesterday (which, I might add, still hasn’t shown up on in my Gmail yet…)

Yes, I realize these are all things you can do to some degree with various other smartphones, and in another year, this phone will probably be as obsolete as the G1 that came out almost exactly one year prior to the Nexus One. But let me bask in my new phone’s glory, OK? This is a huge step for me since I have been waiting to upgrade for a long time, but wanted to wait for an worthy phone. Ahh, all praise to the Google!!!

Where is my friend Reid***?

Maybe I need to find new friends.

"Sorry, you can't hang with the totoros."

"Hi! Do you wanna be my friend?"

"You're not supposed to even be on my continent, mang."

"Excuse me, sir. Do you want to play with me?"

Eeep!

Ooh! Circus animals are fun! They will want to play with me.

Where are all the animals? How do I get in?

Sigh.**

*** Reid is in India and won’t be back for a few weeks. I’m learning how to use his DSLR.

** Snuffles is sad. I am not projecting my feelings onto Snuffles.

Halloween is quite possibly one of my favorite American holidays–not so much for monsters and ghouls and girls in leotards (or less), but for the pure crafting and baking potential.

One of these Halloweens, when I’m not lazy or spending 15+ hours putting together 2 costumes, I need to make these Vampire Cupcakes from Baking Bites:

And these creepy crawlers from Not Martha:

Also, this meatloaf is pretty fantastically disgusting from Not Martha:

Anyway, when I’m rich and/or find an excuse to throw down a large Halloween party, I promise I will go all out, food and decor. Until then, I will have my costumes.

Initially, I had planned to just throw on a carved pumpkin T-shirt from Target and a pumpkin stem that I made out of cardboard, silk leaves and wire on a headband for tonight’s Party Chef Halloween event. But then I realized I couldn’t get excited about Halloween if I didn’t put in much effort in making something I was proud of. So instead, I spent around 8 hours each on these bad boys. I have a tendency to get really absorbed in my work and my shoulders tense up (from the excitement!); now I have a strained neck or something and have trouble turning my neck more than 45 degrees in any direction. I can’t see well out of my peripherals either, so I hope no one tries to scare me tonight out of my line of vision…

Here we are at Googleween in my rendition of Max from Where the Wild Things Are. They sure do go all out there with the haunted house (with paid actors!) and snacks. More than half of all the employees were dressed up!

Photo courtesy of Sandy!

This is Reid’s coworker Greg that took “On a Boat” fan-dom to the next level. His costume is complete with the tuxedo shorts, “Free boat ride for 3″ tickets in his pocket, Santana champagne (’cause it’s so crisp!), the dolphin, and blue flippy-floppies! (He wasn’t able to find a “nautical-themed pashmina afghan” either - so I feel better that I’m not the only one who can’t.) I wish I would have thought of the costume, but I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off. Best costume I’ve seen yet!

Photo courtesy of Reid!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Update: For reference, here is what we were supposed to be! (We forgot to pose like this :( Sadness.) And I’m disappointed that Reid and I didn’t get a picture with Nelson and Kim - Max quadruplets!

So Reid pointed out to me that I hadn’t blogged for the past month and a half, but I promise you I’ll have a good update soon! After all, it’s the day before Halloween 2009, and that can mean only good things. Yet in spite of my enthusiasm, I don’t know if I can truly beat what was last year’s awesome group costume: The Asparaguys!

Okay, so your definition of “awesome” may differ from mine, but I assure you, this year will be awesome.

Here’s a hint and a teaser for this year’s costume; Snuffles is wearing his version of what both Reid and I will be wearing!

LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN!!!

Sorry Mom and Dad--I was kind of an ugly kid!

When I was younger (and still today), my mom always teased that all my birthday gifts should go to her as gratitude for bringing me into this world. (For the record, I didn’t ask for it!) But thanks anyway, Mom and Dad. I turned 3 years old in the picture to the left, which was taken in the house in which I currently reside. (That’s right, I moved back in two decades later!)

Thanks for all the calls, texts, tweets, IMs, and, of course, Facebook wall posts! And since we all know that the number of Facebook birthday messages received is a direct one-to-one positive correlation to your popularity factor, I can now claim that I am approximately 5% more popular this year than I was when I turned 23. w00t! (But that’s not saying much.)

No, really, thanks everyone! :) I’m officially in my mid-twenties now, and next year, I’ll have to start rounding up to 30-years-old!