Showing posts with label Sushi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sushi. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Friday, December 24, 2010
A Quiet Christmas Eve
It was a very quiet day at work today. No one called. I got one email and it was an automated system generated email. My team got one call on the Help Desk (and I let my analyst who was working the day go home at 9:00 AM). I spent most of the day simply reading, with a pleasant break for sushi (Hon Sushi in Mountain View) and a couple of games of pool with my friend Don (Don won most of them 5 to 2).
After work I stopped at Safeway on the way home and picked up the ingredients for tomorrows simple Christmas dinner over at my friend Bob's. I am very much looking forward to a quiet Christmas Eve and an equally quiet Christmas Day, through Christmas Day will involve some visits (the aforementioned dinner and probably breakfast). I might try and fit a movie in there somewhere, since there are a lot of films in the theaters at this time of year.
I was sitting here trying to remember the last time I had a simple Christmas evening - I did last year, as I was recovering from the toe surgery, but I actually don't recall much of it. Most likely I was sleeping twelve hours a day and dreaming of a hot shower. I still recall quite vividly the sheer pleasure of that first shower. I am sure my neighbors thought I was having wild sex I was moaning so much.
After I got home this evening I took a walk around the neighborhood, looking at the various Christmas lights and breathing in the cool night air. We had another day of sun between rain storms here, so the day was very pleasant and the evening was equally as pleasant. The walk was short and nice and it took me over 10,000 steps for the days, which is the target.
Tonight, I am settling in for a quiet evening, my simple tree lit and my mood expansive and relaxed. Merry Christmas Eve, whoever you are and wherever you are.
After work I stopped at Safeway on the way home and picked up the ingredients for tomorrows simple Christmas dinner over at my friend Bob's. I am very much looking forward to a quiet Christmas Eve and an equally quiet Christmas Day, through Christmas Day will involve some visits (the aforementioned dinner and probably breakfast). I might try and fit a movie in there somewhere, since there are a lot of films in the theaters at this time of year.
I was sitting here trying to remember the last time I had a simple Christmas evening - I did last year, as I was recovering from the toe surgery, but I actually don't recall much of it. Most likely I was sleeping twelve hours a day and dreaming of a hot shower. I still recall quite vividly the sheer pleasure of that first shower. I am sure my neighbors thought I was having wild sex I was moaning so much.
After I got home this evening I took a walk around the neighborhood, looking at the various Christmas lights and breathing in the cool night air. We had another day of sun between rain storms here, so the day was very pleasant and the evening was equally as pleasant. The walk was short and nice and it took me over 10,000 steps for the days, which is the target.
Tonight, I am settling in for a quiet evening, my simple tree lit and my mood expansive and relaxed. Merry Christmas Eve, whoever you are and wherever you are.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Daily Life: A Smooth and Fast Thursday
Last night, after I got off work, I picked up my nephew Tom and met my friends Pierre and Helen at Kazoo Sushi, on Winchester, in San Jose for dinner. As usual, the sushi was excellent, and I knocked off five assorted varieties. My favorite was seared salmon, with mango, and a tiny dollop of tartar sauce. I washed it all down with miso soup and then chased it with a little tray of vanilla cream bon-bon's. It was an excellent dinner. We laughed, joked, and enjoyed a good conversation around the array of tasty treats.
From there, I dropped Tom off and then drifted home. Had a great phone call with T.R., then watched "Prime Time: The Outsiders" about two different men who were bonding with or rehabilitating lions in Africa. Let me say for the record, they were both crazy. I have a general rule - avoid animals that can eat you. I think it is a good rule. T.R. has Rule #1. If you see a wild animal outside - stay inside. That rule would also apply. However, it was a great show with some astounding footage. While I was watching the program I snacked on some strawberry ice cream. Once it was over I crawled into bed and red - oh, about ten pages in Michael Moorcock's "Stealer of Souls", a collection of his early short fiction, including several Elric stories. I am about two thirds of the way through the collection - most of the stories I had read before, so it is more a visit with an old and comfortable friend.
I fell pretty quickly to sleep, I dreamt without remembering what the dreams were, and then woke at dawn. It was a cool morning with a vivid golden sunrise glistening in the green tree outside my bedroom window. The start of the day was crisp and clean and the morning has been a cascade of meeting after meeting. I have thirty minutes for lunch, so I am going to do a quick walk down the street for a fast soup or salad, and then back to the office for two more meetings, the into what will, hopefully, be a quiet and productive afternoon. From there, it is into the three day weekend.
From there, I dropped Tom off and then drifted home. Had a great phone call with T.R., then watched "Prime Time: The Outsiders" about two different men who were bonding with or rehabilitating lions in Africa. Let me say for the record, they were both crazy. I have a general rule - avoid animals that can eat you. I think it is a good rule. T.R. has Rule #1. If you see a wild animal outside - stay inside. That rule would also apply. However, it was a great show with some astounding footage. While I was watching the program I snacked on some strawberry ice cream. Once it was over I crawled into bed and red - oh, about ten pages in Michael Moorcock's "Stealer of Souls", a collection of his early short fiction, including several Elric stories. I am about two thirds of the way through the collection - most of the stories I had read before, so it is more a visit with an old and comfortable friend.
I fell pretty quickly to sleep, I dreamt without remembering what the dreams were, and then woke at dawn. It was a cool morning with a vivid golden sunrise glistening in the green tree outside my bedroom window. The start of the day was crisp and clean and the morning has been a cascade of meeting after meeting. I have thirty minutes for lunch, so I am going to do a quick walk down the street for a fast soup or salad, and then back to the office for two more meetings, the into what will, hopefully, be a quiet and productive afternoon. From there, it is into the three day weekend.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Introspective Sunday Morning
I never quite know what starts a particular day in particular mood, but today I woke up and found myself quiet and introspective. I am not introspective about any one particular thing today - it is more of just a general sense of quietude and self-examination.
I am working on my Mac laptop this morning. (As a curious note of self-examination, I wonder why I chose the word "working" to describe what I have been doing this morning?) I had a scanner running on my other laptop - STOPZilla - a spyware, adware killer program. My friend Tony recommended it. I have been having problems with the other laptop - something is funky either with the network connectors or with the laptop itself.
Tony was telling me yesterday, in among the other conversations we were having, that STOPZilla had done a very good job in cleaning his computer up and improving the performance. It does a very deep scan that takes a couple of hours. I had kicked it off last night when I went to bed, but at some point in the night my nephew must have shut the computer down - so I have no idea if the scan completed successfully and cleaned the computer. Since I am not really doing anything this morning, I have the scan running again.
I am sitting here right now, drinking coffee, trying to decide if I am going to do anything today. I feel like getting out and wandering, so that is a good possibility a little later in the day. I have to do a load of laundry at some point today, but it is not an urgent task in any way. There is a certain zen cool that comes with doing the laundry and I think that is a good space to be in today. (Following immediately on that thought, I thought it would be a good way to spent the morning - doing laundry and then stopping at the Sushi Boat in Westgate for lunch.)
My mind seems to be doing a sort of stream of consciousness thing this morning, so I might try and stay in that zone and just flow with the day. It seems to be a good day for flowing.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
And The Day Turns Quiet
I was looking forward to today. I knew from the rhythm of previous years that it would be quiet at work. After the stresses of 2008 and "The Project That Almost Broke Me" - I was looking forward to today.
I was not disappointed. I came into the office about 7:00 AM and there were three other cars in the parking lot. I got to my desk and logged into my computer and after I sorted through the incidental email I found myself down to two actionable email.
It took me fifty two minutes to resolve both of them. Ahhhhhhhh. I worked at incidental things through the day, supporting my analysts and supporting the one customer who contacted me directly.
I went out to lunch at the Grand Indian Buffet on Lawrence Expressway with my friend Don. I had a superb chicken marsala and an excellent potato and pea curry. We talked about a wide range of things, just conversation. If there was a central theme it was about what to do as we got older.
After lunch we stopped at Fry's Electronics and looked at the big screen TV's and then wandered back to the office. I have one more actionable email. I took care of it.
I spent the afternoon cleaning out the flotsam and jetsam of last year from my electronic files (that is a big job - just to give you a rough idea, I receive and send about 20,000 email a year.) I worked a couple of tickets with my analysts (it is nice to dip down in the trenches and actually have the time to teach them new tricks).
I contemplated Christmas dinner (I am going to do a barbecue slow cooked turkey breast, mashed potatoes and stuffing, and vegetable - keeping it simple and tasteful is my plan).
It is now about three thirty PM and the day is winding down. My email and the phone lines are silent. Tomorrow is going to be even quieter.
For the first time in years I am ending the year with ONE ticket in ITSM (our task management system) and the only reason that ticket remains is the customer decided to delay it until sometime in the first quarter of 2009. I am positioned, professionally, nearly perfectly to enter the new year.
On the personal level the positioning is also very well. 2008 was a brutal and stressful year on several levels - personal and professional - and it simply feels nice to slid into 2009 with no turbulence, not carrying any particularly heavy baggage into the new year. Oh, I know that every year has its challenges and I know that 2009 will not be any different - but, I learned a lot in 2008 and I suspect that those lessons, as long as I remember them, will stand me well in the coming year.
My plan tonight is pretty simple - I am going to stop at Safeway on the way home and pick up some odds and ends to prepare for the holiday and the holiday weekend that follows (all intending to keep it low key, so I am making sure the fridge and cupboard are stocked with tasty things).
Once I get home I plan on going online for a while and playing and writing some Christmas email and sending them out. I am feeling reflective tonight and that is a good feeling. I haven't decided what to have for dinner, so I may run out and get sushi. Sushi is always my fall back position when it comes to dinner, in part because I like sushi, but also because you belly up to the sushi bar and have a wide variety of selections - the whole gamut of taste senstions. (Can you tell I like sushi?)
I was not disappointed. I came into the office about 7:00 AM and there were three other cars in the parking lot. I got to my desk and logged into my computer and after I sorted through the incidental email I found myself down to two actionable email.
It took me fifty two minutes to resolve both of them. Ahhhhhhhh. I worked at incidental things through the day, supporting my analysts and supporting the one customer who contacted me directly.
I went out to lunch at the Grand Indian Buffet on Lawrence Expressway with my friend Don. I had a superb chicken marsala and an excellent potato and pea curry. We talked about a wide range of things, just conversation. If there was a central theme it was about what to do as we got older.
After lunch we stopped at Fry's Electronics and looked at the big screen TV's and then wandered back to the office. I have one more actionable email. I took care of it.
I spent the afternoon cleaning out the flotsam and jetsam of last year from my electronic files (that is a big job - just to give you a rough idea, I receive and send about 20,000 email a year.) I worked a couple of tickets with my analysts (it is nice to dip down in the trenches and actually have the time to teach them new tricks).
I contemplated Christmas dinner (I am going to do a barbecue slow cooked turkey breast, mashed potatoes and stuffing, and vegetable - keeping it simple and tasteful is my plan).
It is now about three thirty PM and the day is winding down. My email and the phone lines are silent. Tomorrow is going to be even quieter.
For the first time in years I am ending the year with ONE ticket in ITSM (our task management system) and the only reason that ticket remains is the customer decided to delay it until sometime in the first quarter of 2009. I am positioned, professionally, nearly perfectly to enter the new year.
On the personal level the positioning is also very well. 2008 was a brutal and stressful year on several levels - personal and professional - and it simply feels nice to slid into 2009 with no turbulence, not carrying any particularly heavy baggage into the new year. Oh, I know that every year has its challenges and I know that 2009 will not be any different - but, I learned a lot in 2008 and I suspect that those lessons, as long as I remember them, will stand me well in the coming year.
My plan tonight is pretty simple - I am going to stop at Safeway on the way home and pick up some odds and ends to prepare for the holiday and the holiday weekend that follows (all intending to keep it low key, so I am making sure the fridge and cupboard are stocked with tasty things).
Once I get home I plan on going online for a while and playing and writing some Christmas email and sending them out. I am feeling reflective tonight and that is a good feeling. I haven't decided what to have for dinner, so I may run out and get sushi. Sushi is always my fall back position when it comes to dinner, in part because I like sushi, but also because you belly up to the sushi bar and have a wide variety of selections - the whole gamut of taste senstions. (Can you tell I like sushi?)
Friday, December 12, 2008
Sushi To Go
Just got home from a quiet-but-busy day. Stopped on the way home at Sushi Totoro, so I am now sitting here with a bowl of miso soup, California rolls and Philadelphia rolls. We have a cold front rolling in with the promise of showers over the weekend so I am looking forward to a nice quiet weekend spent - hanging out and just enjoying the quiet things in life. I have a couple of new books to read, I have a couple of loads of laundry to do, and I have a collection of movies from which I may take my choice. This weekend I have planned to have no plans - just take things as they come.
I spent most of the work day troubleshooting a problem that cropped up earlier in the week and they (meaning the developers) thought they had found the root cause - except - it turned out to be not the root cause. LOL - not only not the root cause, but at the end of the day I am pretty convinced it had nothing to do with nothing. (I did find the root cause after a couple of hours of methodical testing). I always like when that happens. Even though as a manager now my role is no longer purely technical it is nice when I put my technical skills to work and out perform other people. That is the part of me that is inherently competitive - it is good to be good.
I am almost finished reading Jack Higgin's "The Killing Ground", a Sean Dillon novel. It is decent, a well plotted if formulaic thriller that I latched onto when I was visiting my folks. Next up (novel wise) is "A Painted House" by John Grisham, which I also pinched from the folks. I tend to like John Grisham novels and my step-father Bill recommended this one very highly.
My mother was in and out of the hospital again, this time with a bleeding ulcer. She is now back at home. After she was released from the hospital they spent a couple of hours in a furniture store looking a new chairs (my sister and I offered to buy them new chairs for Christmas). My mom say's that they tried about twenty different chairs - but still have not decided on what to get. They both have features that they want in a chair and they could not find a chair that met exactly what they wanted so my sister is going to take them up to Pierre, SD in the next couple of weeks to look at another furniture store. (That is the challenge of living in rural America - many of the things we urban dwellers take for granted - i.e. multiple furniture stores - simply are not there.)
There was an amusing exchange - my mother is trying to convince my step-father to get one of the chairs that has the automatic lift - that eases them in and lifts them out of the chair. My step-father refuses, because he's "not that old yet". My mother thinks he is. And immediately after telling me that she told me "but, I am not old enough to need one yet, but Bill is". My mother is actually older than my step-father. I suspect she conveniently forgot that.
I am planning on going out with friends on Sunday morning to see the Keanu Reeve's remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Like me, my friends are huge Sci Fi fans, so whether or not the remake is any good is not particularly relevant. We will see it because it is. Zen Sci-Fi. After that the plan is to go to Hawg's in Campbell for lunch (an excellent sea food restaurant). Saturday is pretty wide open, beyond our routine breakfast at the Hickory Pit, also in Campbell.
I am of half a mind to sort through my CD collection this weekend - I have a new CD bookcase (have had it for a while) and I think the rainy weather might be a perfectly good excuse to spend the day indulging in music. My mood is good tonight, so who knows what sort of things the weekend will hold. I've been meaning to set aside some time to write, but just haven't been able to get to it, and this weekend might turn out to be the perfect time for it.
So, I am slipping into this Friday evening in a good mood, with excellent sushi and miso soup, with the Christmas tree twinkling, with Annie Lennox playing (Bare), and with the heater keeping the apartment nice and warm against the encroaching storm front. And I happened to notice that Charles Bronson "The Mechanic" is on TV a little later tonight...
I spent most of the work day troubleshooting a problem that cropped up earlier in the week and they (meaning the developers) thought they had found the root cause - except - it turned out to be not the root cause. LOL - not only not the root cause, but at the end of the day I am pretty convinced it had nothing to do with nothing. (I did find the root cause after a couple of hours of methodical testing). I always like when that happens. Even though as a manager now my role is no longer purely technical it is nice when I put my technical skills to work and out perform other people. That is the part of me that is inherently competitive - it is good to be good.
I am almost finished reading Jack Higgin's "The Killing Ground", a Sean Dillon novel. It is decent, a well plotted if formulaic thriller that I latched onto when I was visiting my folks. Next up (novel wise) is "A Painted House" by John Grisham, which I also pinched from the folks. I tend to like John Grisham novels and my step-father Bill recommended this one very highly.
My mother was in and out of the hospital again, this time with a bleeding ulcer. She is now back at home. After she was released from the hospital they spent a couple of hours in a furniture store looking a new chairs (my sister and I offered to buy them new chairs for Christmas). My mom say's that they tried about twenty different chairs - but still have not decided on what to get. They both have features that they want in a chair and they could not find a chair that met exactly what they wanted so my sister is going to take them up to Pierre, SD in the next couple of weeks to look at another furniture store. (That is the challenge of living in rural America - many of the things we urban dwellers take for granted - i.e. multiple furniture stores - simply are not there.)
There was an amusing exchange - my mother is trying to convince my step-father to get one of the chairs that has the automatic lift - that eases them in and lifts them out of the chair. My step-father refuses, because he's "not that old yet". My mother thinks he is. And immediately after telling me that she told me "but, I am not old enough to need one yet, but Bill is". My mother is actually older than my step-father. I suspect she conveniently forgot that.
I am planning on going out with friends on Sunday morning to see the Keanu Reeve's remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Like me, my friends are huge Sci Fi fans, so whether or not the remake is any good is not particularly relevant. We will see it because it is. Zen Sci-Fi. After that the plan is to go to Hawg's in Campbell for lunch (an excellent sea food restaurant). Saturday is pretty wide open, beyond our routine breakfast at the Hickory Pit, also in Campbell.
I am of half a mind to sort through my CD collection this weekend - I have a new CD bookcase (have had it for a while) and I think the rainy weather might be a perfectly good excuse to spend the day indulging in music. My mood is good tonight, so who knows what sort of things the weekend will hold. I've been meaning to set aside some time to write, but just haven't been able to get to it, and this weekend might turn out to be the perfect time for it.
So, I am slipping into this Friday evening in a good mood, with excellent sushi and miso soup, with the Christmas tree twinkling, with Annie Lennox playing (Bare), and with the heater keeping the apartment nice and warm against the encroaching storm front. And I happened to notice that Charles Bronson "The Mechanic" is on TV a little later tonight...
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