Hubert's Random Blog

Chef Pan

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:25:00 +0000

My new favorite food recipe website after we had to cook again for our House Church group last Friday is Recipezaar, mostly because the printouts are so snazzy looking. We used it last week for our "breakfast for dinner" to make a chorizo scramble and some cinnamon french toast.

For tonight, I decided to go all out with the shrimp that we bought for the first time to make some honey-walnut prawns. I figured it was a decent recipe since it had 16 reviews and was rated 5 stars and it came out great:

While the dish was tasty, it took me freaking two hours to make, most of it spent prepping/cleaning the shrimp and preparing the walnuts. I really should have actually read the reviews, many of which suggested alternatives to spending an hour on the nuts. With candied walnuts and pre-peeled shrimp, I might be able to churn it out in 10 minutes like the restaurants!

Whee, one year!

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:57:00 +0000

Wow, the first year of marriage flew by rather quickly. Having our anniversary be the last day in June is great since it gives me the entire month to remember not to forget about it! It's been a blast getting our own place in downtown Dallas, setting it up with a bunch of furniture, and living together after doing the long distance thing for two years. I think I've managed to mostly keep in Ruth's good graces and made some progress in developing my latent culinary talents. We even took the plunge and added some parental responsibility to the mix by adding a dog to the household :)

After spending our one year dating anniversary at Gary Danko (which may not have been the best move to set low standards from which to build up), we visited one of the acclaimed restaurants of the DFW area, Abacus. We stuffed ourselves silly, particularly enjoying the lobster shooters and sushi roll appetizers so we could hardly finish the main course. We'll definitely have to come back during Restaurant Week in August. Good thing they just posted the restaurant list today so I had something to link to :)

Happy anniversary, silly wifey!

Vegas!!

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:12:00 +0000

We headed to Sin City at the end of June to join other folks from my high school for a 10 year reunion, along with celebrating the end of Ruth's 3rd year of med school and a quick getaway before our one year wedding anniversary. Tickets to Vegas are ridiculously expensive on the weekends, but we were fortunate that Ruth's dad had some extra Southwest vouchers that we used. It was the first time I had ever flown the airline and I was somewhat dreading it since we had to make a quick stop each way, but I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with their efficient turnaround, although it did mean we had to fly the wrong way for about an hour towards San Antonio first. It's no wonder that Southwest is doing fairly well in an industry that has fallen on hard times.

We decided to rent a car for some added flexibility and given the high price of gas, we of course opted for... a white Prius! It was nice to cruise around in a familiar vehicle and we spent the initial night watching our first Cirque du Soleil show, <<O>>. It was pretty spectacular as a bunch of different acts performed over a water-filled stage. At first I thought there was some cryptic storyline that I wasn't artistically knowledgeable enough to follow, but now I'm pretty sure it was just a bunch of different acts strewn together. In any event, it was pretty cool.

It was Ruth's first time in Vegas, so we drove down the Strip for her to check out the various resorts and casinos. It was oppressively hot, so we pretty much actually only ventured into the nearby Bellagio and Caesars. We couldn't pass up the photo op at Caesar's, but it looks pretty ridiculous.

Saturday evening was the main organized event, but we met up with some friends earlier in the day for the Bellagio brunch. It was decent, but I must have had unrealistic expectations because I left unsatisfied. We even stopped by the Wynn's brunch buffet on Sunday before we left for the airport and it was about the same.

Finally at the main event, we had a little over 50 attendees, which wasn't too bad for a class of 180 that graduated in Singapore. It was a little embarrassing that there was at least one time I introduced myself to someone thinking they were a guest, but had in fact been in our graduating class. Then again, I was slightly consoled that Jordan made the same mistake :) Although I had seen a lot of folks at our wedding last year, it was nice to catch up with some that I hadn't seen for a couple years and others since high school. I guess everyone is still pretty much the same at a 10 yr reunion (like I'm still taking undergrad classes), but I'm sure another 10 years will do the trick.

I managed to chow down on a few double doubles for an In N Out fix, but unfortunately didn't have any extra time to find a card room to play some poker. Ruth was also sad that she missed out some of the other opportunities in Vegas so perhaps we'll have to make a return trip...

I'm getting behind on the blogging so will have to post about anniversary in a few days...

Hawaii

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:30:00 +0000

I'm getting bored of watching the Lakers get killed so I figured I should catch up on posting since returning from my trip to Hawaii last week. The first part of the trip was spent in Oahu where the main event was the Changina wedding. The flowers courtesy of Fujikami Florist were amazing, of course, and covered the hotel ballroom in an endless array of purple and pink. I think I spent most of the first few days continuously being fed by wedding-related events, which was sweet. Congrats to the newlyweds!

In between partaking in wedding-related activities, we found time to laze around at the beach, which was one of the main goals for our time in Oahu.

The other goal in Oahu was to eat Japanese curry multiple times at Curry House. I managed to have two normal, delicious meals there before Jeremy, Rob, and I agreed to partake in a simulated curry challenge to mostly Chang's pleasure. Since it was no longer officially available, we ordered three curry dishes each which included 400g of rice (the regular portion is 300g). After starting out a couple bites behind on the first plate, I managed to pull even with Jer by the end of the second plate as Rob faded. It was a close finish, but I managed to eek out a victory by the narrowest of margins by the time the third plate was done. I felt ridiculously gross afterwards and Chang recorded the whole thing, so I'm sure it will be on YouTube soon.

We spent the last couple of days in Kauai, which had beautiful areas that were nice and secluded, perfect for honeymooners or, in our case, four dudes. We spent more time lazing around the beach the first day before Ravi convinced us to go on a ridiculously unsatisfying hike highlighted by a freaking dry waterfall for our 13 mile efforts. I didn't pack any athletic shoes, but was pretty impressed with how well my $15 Court Classic tennis shoes from Costco in Kauai held up through the hike. We spent our last day there relaxing on a golf course. It's quite sad how messed up my golf game is, but it was fun enough that I might try dig up my clubs and hit the range a few times in an attempt to salvage my game.

Unfortunately, Ruth was stuck in Dallas on her surgery rotation and wasn't able to make the trip, but I did my best to honor her request to gain weight during the trip by eating everything in sight. The curry binge didn't hurt either. :)

Happy Birthday, Wifey

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:08:00 +0000

Ruth's been on her surgery rotation for the past two weeks, which entails being on call every 3rd night at UTSW. Amidst the tiresome routine, we've been celebrating her birthday in bits and pieces over the last few days. Her real birthday was on Friday, but she was on call Thursday night, so I gave her a gift on Thursday morning. On her post-call birthday, it was our turn to host and provide dinner for our church small group. It was the first time that I've had to cook for a dozen people and it thankfully went off alright, although I accidentally burned a pot that still requires scrubbing. One of our guests brought a birthday cake, so we sang and devoured it, unfortunately before we took a picture. We were going to go out to celebrate over dinner last night (Saturday), but Ruth was too tired after a day of shopping, studying, and playing mario kart, so we ended up staying in. Dinner out has been postponed to tomorrow (Monday) since she's on call again tonight :( But at least it will have taken 5 days to get through an entire birthday celebration :)

So... did we win or what?

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:07:00 +0000

We've been attending this largely Korean church in Dallas and when I found out there was an interchurch volleyball tournament, I signed up figuring sports is as good a forum as any to get to meet folks. The tournament was this past weekend, involving a total of 11 Korean churches, but with only 4 teams in the A division. It was entertaining, although I didn't really understand any of the official proceedings since they were conducted in Korean.

I'm not sure that a sports tournament is necessarily the best way to develop friendships between different communities. Scrimmaging, open gyms, or intermixing squads helps people get to know each other in more laidback situations, but putting on a team jersey and playing for a trophy just brings out competitive fire, at least for me. There was at least a few times where I was screaming at the ref (provided by one of the teams not playing) about a missed call during a point and had to apologize afterwards :)

The tournament was 9-man volleyball, which I hadn't played before, but didn't really follow the standard rules I had found online. It seems like an Asian invention for lazy volleyball players, which suited me pretty well. For us, it mostly meant we just played a single position without rotating and had nine players on the court. It was perfect for me since I just played defense in the middle (no tiresome blocking responsibilities) and hit mostly medium sets out of the middle (no tiresome quick sets in the middle).

We ended up sweeping through round robin with the other 3 teams and pulling out victories in both playoff games to bring home the trophy! It was good that I had almost no other responsibilities than hitting; I was plenty exhausted from hitting non-stop as the primary recipient of our sets. My favorite moment was actually on a play that I got stuffed by a 6'5" Korean giant, but while the opponents went into instant celebration, the ball popped up off my head and a teammate poked it back over near gigantor for the point. Volleyball can also be an aggravating game since teams celebrate so much between points, so of course I immediately pointed at him and laughed ;) While my teammates called me MVP, Ruth should probably then be co-MVP; I spent the morning matches getting into a decent rhythm but then just tried to crush the ball after she came to watch in the afternoon :)

It's unfortunate that it's hard to get any sort of pick-up volleyball game going since it's not a widely played sport. It's so satisfying since it's the only sport where I can just swing as hard as possible without worrying about an unforced error. With golf and even softball (!), swinging hard often results in whiffing, which is more than a little embarrassing. There's actually a softball tourney coming up in a couple weeks and I agreed to join if they could recruit enough players for a no pressure B team :)

Azuki

noreply@blogger.com (lpan) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:31:00 +0000

Azuki is officially 17.0 lbs and pretty much finished growing (at least that's what we think since her paws are so small). We're really happy about that since she's the perfect size for a lap dog (Hubert likes to keep his feet warm by putting them on her like a foot rest; if she tries to get up and move he can maneuver his feet to keep her down), and she is easy to carry around and play with.

This is an example of a typical conversation we have with people when we take Azuki out:
"Wow, what a nice looking dog. What is that?"
"Shiba Inu"
"She looks like a fox"
"Yeah, haha"
"wow, she really looks like a fox! Dang. Or a wolf."
"yeah......"

i guess it doesnt really sound that annoying but when you get it every day multiple times a day i just want to put a sign around her head that says, "i'm not a fox. Or a wolf. Wolves are gray for goodness sake."

I even told one couple that she really was a fox when they asked what she was and they believed me. When their eyes stayed like saucers I just walked away and laughed.

Here's some new pictures of our non-fox, all dressed up and looking super cute.

Edit: Azuki graduated from dog school today!!

Post-MCAT Update

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:40:00 +0000

Now that I'm done with the MCAT and my semester at UTD is winding down, I have a lot more time on my hands to focus on important things like monetizing my infrequently updated blog. The test itself went alright, but I still have to wait two more weeks until I find out my score online. With that out of the way, I've been working on my personal statement, tracking down some reference letters, and making sure I can satisfy most of the requirements at the schools that I'm applying to. It's pretty amazing that I'm actually going to start applying this summer, but the whole process seems somewhat daunting. After interviewing several hundred candidates while at Google, I'm not sure sitting on the other side of the table will be all that fun.

With the NBA regular season concluding, the only fantasy sport that I'm still playing is baseball, which gets kind of boring after the first month and still over a hundred games to go. Gerlad amazingly won our fantasy basketball head-to-head league (beating me in the finals) despite not having any activity since October 30 of last year. In fact, reading about it here might be the first time he knows of his victory. I would attribute it to his genius drafting abilities but his final posted comment from last year was: "how did yahoo picks screw my draft up sooo bad?????" Maybe he just wanted us to think we had a chance.

I'm planning to read some books and work out while I have extra free time. I've lost weight since moving out to Texas, which is a bit scary. It must be the lack of the goodness that is the Google cafeteria. Unfortunately, I think I tweaked my quad while working out last week and aggravated it playing volleyball yesterday. Hopefully it won't be too gimpy for next weekend's tournament. In the meantime, my workouts might have to be restricted to Wii Sports while I recover...

New family member

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:19:00 +0000

Dang, I've gotten pretty behind on blogging since this is the first post of 2008 and we're over 50 days into the new year. I might as well write a new post to try change up my AdSense block to see if something will actually monetize. Don't be surprised to see a post about mesothelioma or web hosting soon :)

Since we've gotten back from our Christmas break trip, we moved to a more spacious unit in our apartment complex (pics to be posted after we finally get our couches in a couple of weeks). We decided to fill the new space with a new member of household, a 5 month old Shiba Inu:

She thankfully doesn't bark much at all, resorting to some whining when we put her up for the night or leave for the day, so we shouldn't have any problems with neighbors like Ruth did when she first got her other dog Logan in Mountain View. That the apartment complex over there didn't allow pets didn't help much either :)

In the eventful week that we've had her, she's no longer deathly afraid of being on leash, will actually walk up and down the stairs without having to be carried, is reasonably housebroken, plays with all of her toys, and can reliably fetch one of them.

Single guys are welcome to visit us and borrow Azuki for a walk in an attempt to pick up girls...

Mmm, food...

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:30:00 +0000

With Ruth getting two weeks off from school, we took full advantage by leaving town for the entirety of her vacation with stops in four countries along the way. There was good food to be had all along the way, so I was easily satisfied :)

California
First was a brief stop in the Bay Area to catch up with some friends and family. The first sign of having been away for a while was stepping off the plane into SFO and remarking at how many Asian people were in the airport.

We were obliged to take some more photos since we were now tourists, although we just visited all the usual spots. We had to eat at Sono Sushi for Ruth, of course, but this time we took a photo with our favorite sushi chef there who reminds us of Gerald, although not so much in this pic:

We stayed at Felix's new digs out in Milpitas, watching my Clinton Portis eek out a fantasy football victory for me in the first week of our playoffs:

We also stopped by the Goog on the way out, enjoying breakfast at the cafes before turning in my laptop and calling it quits. It felt like a lifetime ago that I was actually working there and strange to be back even after just a few months away.

Taiwan
Next stop was Taiwan, where we met up with lots of family in Taipei who weren't able to make it out to the wedding in June. The night markets are full of food both ridiculously good and cheap, so we frequented them often to kick off 10 days of nonstop eating:

We also took an overnight trip out to Sun Moon Lake with my family and grandparents. To get there, we took the newish high-speed train in Taiwan which travels at a few hundred km/h, getting us to Taichung in less than an hour. It was a nice little area sort of like Tahoe with some nice scenery and a relaxing atmosphere:

The trip was capped by a mini family reunion with various aunts, uncles, and cousins, culminating the requisite group photo finale:

More photos from our stop in Taiwan:

Tokyo
From Taipei, we took a short flight to Tokyo. Having passed through the Narita airport dozens of times while living in Singapore, this was surprisingly my first venture out of the airport and into the actual country. It was pretty much as one would imagine: busy and bustling with lots of good food and shopping. I think we stopped by a department store of sorts each day that we were there, mixed in with seeing a few sights and finding good food. We stayed in Shibuya, right next to the hustle and bustle with a great view:

The food was top notch and we managed to try a different type of cuisine for virtually every meal. It was so good that it'll be the focus of my recap :) I'm not sure if I can enjoy Japanese food in the US as much anymore now that I've tasted it cooked in the motherland:

First stop was Curry House! Too bad they didn't have a curry challenge...

The next day consisted of teppanyaki and tempura. Teppanyaki was at the Meridien Hotel in Odaiba while we knew the tempura place (Tsunahachi) was good by the long line that snaked out the door and were not disappointed at either:

Next up was some amazing seafood. This necessitated a visit to the Tsukiji Fish Market. So much fresh seafood everywhere that it was unsurprisingly followed by the best sashimi ever. It was so good that the uni (sea urchin), which I usually detest, was almost tolerable :) For Christmas dinner, we headed to a restaurant serving blowfish for a multi-course blowfish meal. The experience was capped by watching the chef scoop out a fish from the tank before proceeding to kill, skin, and prepare it right in front of our seats at the bar.

After spending the first few days on our own, we were thankful to meet up with a few friends over the next couple days who could help us do the ordering so we wouldn't have to resort to pointing at pictures anymore. We have our guidebook to thank for the reference to a katsu place called Maisen, a popular chain which we managed to find in the back streets of Harajuku. Using pictures started to break down as my order was oysters and Ruth ended up with a fish cake-like dish, so we had to order a separate pork katsu that I of course scarfed down. Dinner was with Megumi at a yakitori place at Ebisu featuring all sorts of yummy grilled food:

The last day included an old favorite from Singapore: Mos Burger, home of the tastiest teriyaki chicken burger ever. They really need to open up one of these in the US, although I guess Dallas probably wouldn't be there first location. Dinner was at a fancy multi-course restaurant with Ruth's friend from Stanford, Hou. It was a nice way to cap off our last dinner and a good balance to fast food for lunch :)

Our final lunch before we had to take off for the airport was at a ramen place called Ichiran where we had to sit in individual stalls but it was so tasty! Throughout the trip, Ruth was constantly on the lookout for mochi. After consuming dozens of mochi, we still bought a few boxes at the airport to bring back, most of which was already eaten during our stop in Vancouver. We did some other stuff too like visit a couple shrines and looking at super expensive department store shopping, but those aren't nearly worth mentioning as much as the food :)

The rest of the pics:

Vancouver
Last stop was a trip to Vancouver, really a stop in Seattle and a drive across the border, to attend Ssonia's wedding. It was ridiculously cold there and we spent most of the time indoors when not at wedding events. Despite the biting cold, we got talked into visiting a gelato place featuring over 200 flavors. We hardly knew anyone at the wedding, but it was still a fun time and we got to catch up with Merisa, Dan, and their two kids:

Alright, that's it. I'm tired of writing now. And hungry too...

Late twenties...

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 02:34:00 +0000

Dang, I guess I officially enter my late 20s today. It was a good birthday weekend in what I think was the first time I've had it outside of either California and Singapore :)

Roothie surprised me with some tickets to the Mavs game last night. It's pretty awesome living right next to the arena so we could just walk to and from the game without having to deal with driving, traffic, and parking. It was also a good game that the Mavs led most of the way, although the Jazz kept hanging around. I decided to cheer for the Mavs since we'll be here for a while and might attend games with more regularity in the future. Plus, I feel bad for them that the Warriors worked them over in last year's playoffs. To top it all off, they have Erick Dampier! There were a few times that I did catch myself cheering for Deron Williams since he's on my fantasy team. :)

Ruth posing with a drawing of the Mavs, trying to look as tough as Damp.

Blocking out the lower section view with our faces :)

Dampier before making a free throw (he went on to air ball one later)

The arena is really nice and we had a good time. Despite eating right before the game, I couldn't pass up the opportunity for some overpriced chicken tenders and fries.

It suddenly got really cold overnight as the daily dropped some 30 degrees as it's prone to do around here. On account of the cold and pure lethargy, we stayed indoors with time well spent watching football and playing video games :) If only my fantasy football teams could have managed to win as well, but I suppose I'll take a nice weekend in reality :) Thanks Roothie!

Mario!

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:56:00 +0000

I was meaning to post around Thanksgiving, but have been feeling blog-lethargic recently and now it's kind of late. Ruth posted about our Thanksgiving holiday already anyway, so you can read about it over there. The only thing I have to add is that it's nice to be able to attend weddings now and just enjoy them instead of dealing with the inevitable consideration about whether to include certain elements in our own wedding :)

I'm not sure how UT Dallas is on the semester system yet manages to have finals start the last week of November, but I'm done with classes for the year! I thought Stanford was one of the earliest to get out in early December on the quarter system, but I'm not going to complain about a 5 week break from classes. After taking both Anatomy & Physiology and OChem this semester, I'm just going to be taking OChem along with an MCAT class next semester, which should be nice.

In the meantime, I received Super Mario Galaxy just in time as it arrived yesterday after I took my last final. I was terrible at the original Mario games, never able to jump quite the right distance to ~~kill~~ squash people. I'd either leave it short and run into the bad guy or jump over them and have to try again. Trying to cross chasms was also a disaster. I'm usually alright at video games so I don't understand why I couldn't handle a game that basically allowed moving left, moving right, jumping, and shooting fireballs. Fast forward a few consoles later and I'm still horrible at the game :( I shouldn't have expected to improve at it, but now it's even harder since it's evolved from a side scrolling game to a 3D world. I beat the first level which was basically a tutorial and kept dying at the boss of the freaking second level!!! At least I'll have a few weeks to keep trying :)

Back for Big Tex

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:35:00 +0000

After taking a one year break from our previous visit to the Texas State Fair, we celebrated the end of Ruth's internal medicine rotation and Gerald's visit by heading there this past weekend. It was a crowded affair since it was the last weekend of the fair, but we were bound to have more fun this time as grizzled fair veterans.

Food
The first highlight is of course the plentiful food. Having gone conservative by partaking of corn dogs and fried turkey legs last time, we fully embraced the fried Texas goodness. We started off fairly normal, with a corn dog repeat, a bbq beef sandwich and some really good fried okra:

We then had to try the "most original of 2007" Fried Latte, which was somewhat of a misnomer since it really amounted to cappuccino ice cream on top of some fried donut. We were planning on trying Fried Coke and Fried Cookie Dough, but the coke concoction was pretty much like the Latte except substituting coke for ice cream so we switched it to the scrumptious looking Fried PB&J&B (peanut butter and jelly and banana). They were both extremely tasty but also filling turned somewhat gross by the last bite:

Fun
Roothie demands that the fun always start with pig racing where viewers are ushered into a barn and folks dressed as hicks (or maybe they aren't acting) bore you with filler time around three pig races. It was made much more exciting by Ruth, Gerald, and I betting coupons on pigs. Unfortunately, each of us won one race, so it came out a wash, but it certainly made it entertaining. Of course, the only race I filmed was my victory :)

We also had to have Gerald go look at Tiny Tim, the world's smallest horse, since Andrew missed out last time. It's actually pretty sad since it's all boxed up and doesn't look very happy, but Gerald jumped in to get an up close look:

We also played a bunch of games, largely to no avail. We started with a softball type toss game, which Ruth did really well at, but I kept overthrowing. We actually won a prize throwing darts at balloons! It's a good thing we had a dart board living in Mountain View... the practice came in handy. We also threw some cash away playing some skeeball and this rope climbing game. I was sure that Gerald and I were both going to make it, but alas we fell short:

More Food
After having that much fun on Saturday, we proceeded to eat even more on Sunday before vegging in front of some Sunday afternoon football. The Blue Mesa Grill Sunday brunch is some fine Tex Mex dining, especially the chocolate cake with ice cream:

All of the pics from the weekend:

Alas, Gerald left already this morning back to his favorite town of St Louis, but Ruth is starting pediatrics this month so hopefully I'll get to see her more often!

Job Perks

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:22:00 +0000

Instead of lavish parties, gourmet food, free tshirts, and all things computer-related, I now get a few pens, a lab notebook, and lots of nice lab equipment. It sure beats some of the lame supplies I have had to use over the semesters taking chemistry and bio lab, but nothing really to write home about.

But... I did get an ID badge for UT Southwestern and Children's Hospital, some freakishly green Children's scrubs, a pager which nobody contacts me on, and a white lab coat that says "hubert pan, department of pediatrics" on it. But alas, it will take another 6 years before I can formally stitch on the all important additional two letters of "MD". I was considering submitting my name as "hubert pan, m.s." on account of my time at Stanford. I figured there would be at least an outside chances of either: 1) the person inadvertently making a typo since "s" and "d" are next to each other on the keyboard and they're probably conditioned to type "md" a lot or 2) the person noticing it and figuring there was a mistake in the order and intentionally changing it. It would be a lot more convenient if my initials just happened to include M and D like Gerlad...

Overheard at an advising office

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:20:00 +0000

I randomly declared Electrical Engineering when I applied to UT Dallas and they made me go in today to switch my major. Apparently they force students to do a degree audit where you go in and lay out your course schedule, but EE wanted no part of a postbacc, premed student who has no intention of taking a single EE class. So I was introduced to my new advisor for Biology and these are snippets from the half hour I spent there:

ADV: [ looking through my academic history ] Stanford. Where is that?

ME: [ are you kidding me? ] California, also [ in addition to SJSU ]

ADV: [ clearly trying to help me get my stuff done ] Have you heard of the Stanford story?

ME: [ what the heck is the story about Stanford? The Play? ] Um, what story?

ADV: [ appalled that I couldn't read her mind ] The story! [ my paraphrasing ] The founder was a rich guy who showed up to Harvard dressed casually asking how much it cost to erect a building in his son's memory. The son had passed away but had attended Harvard. The folks at Harvard thought he couldn't afford it and he started Stanford as a response.

ME: [ bored to tears ] Um, yes, Stanford was a rich fellow from the railroads. I haven't heard of that story though. [ Can we get on with this? ]

Note: this story is of course urban legend. Leland Stanford Jr passed away at the age of 16 so did not attend Harvard. [source]

ADV: [ looking through my transfer credit ] Now this is going to take a long time to match your transfer credit to our classes. I know you said you're not planning to finish the degree, but we need to make sure you have all the prerequisites for the classes you want to take. For example, I don't see Calculus I & II on here.

ME: [ not seeing how Calculus had anything to do with my classes ] Yeah, I AP'd out of calculus at Stanford and then took a quarter of multivariable calculus at the end to fulfill my CS requirement.

ADV: [ thoughtful ] Well, multivariable calculus is after calculus I & II, but...
[ incredulous ] They gave you AP credit for both Calculus I & II? At UT Dallas, you only get credit for Calculus I. Did you take some sort of departmental exam?

ME: [ um... ] No, they gave me credit for it.

ADV: [ trying to be helpful ] Our computer won't let you sign up for a class which has Calculus as a prerequisite because I can't find Calculus I & II on your transcript, so we'd need to get approval for something like that.

ME: [ you just said multivariable is after calc I & II, right?? ] ...

ADV: [ thinking I understood perfectly ] This is what I mean when I say this will be tricky to match up!

ME: [ is there a wall I can bang my head against? ]

[ after I finally got the 2 minute form filled out to change majors ]

ADV: [ satisfied with a day's work ] You'll have to make another appointment in the future if you want to sit down and do a degree audit. But I'm afraid you'll be missing quite a few classes.

ME: [ what happened to the part where you understood I didn't want the degree ]

ADV: [ continuing ] You'd think that we'd be able to match up a lot of the transfer credit. I mean, it's Stanford! An Ivy League school!

ME: [ okay, somewhat understandable, but not really for an undergrad advisor. the ivy league is a sports conference in the northeast. we're pac-10! ] ...

ADV: [ insightfully ] But there still might be extra classes to take. It's a state law that you would need to complete this set of requirements to receive a degree here. For example, you'll need to take US & Texas History.

ME: [ Texas history. Why am I not surprised? ] ...

Hopefully they'll still let me register for classes in 6 weeks, but somehow I'm not that optimistic that it will be a smooth process. Why can't they just let you take whatever classes you want?

Back to School

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:19:00 +0000

Done with my first midterm at UT Dallas! It was an ochem midterm and it went alright, definitely harder than some of the midterms at SJSU that took 20 minutes to finish :)

Since I'm paying out of state tuition, I figured I need to find other ways to take (legal/ethical/etc) advantage of my time on campus. So I decided to try and get back into the exercise routine and swimming laps when I'm here on Tuesdays/Thursdays. The initial goal was to come in early since the pool is only open from 7-9 and 11-1, but I think that's only happened a couple times in the last few weeks. I even paid a nominal fee for a locker and towel service as extra motivation to go more consistenly. Swimming is kind of annoying, but I figure it's good for me and the swimmers on tv are always super buff. It's always satisfying at the beginning when you see a lot of progress and feel really sore as you go from pure lethargy to somewhat regular exercise. After three weeks, I can finally swim 20 laps without dying in short pool. Of course, we used to have to do this every other week in middle school so I'm now almost as fit as I was when I was 11.

There was a job fair going on today in the gym right next to the pool so I was going to go and check it out after my swim: see if Google Dallas was there, see if anyone would believe that I was a PM at Google without a resume, snag a few freebies, etc. Unfortunately, there a freaking dress code to get into the gym for the job fair! WTF! No shorts, no sandals, no athletic shoes, no jeans. At a CS/EE job fair!!! I had jeans on so I couldn't go in, but there's no way I could have passed that kind of dress code when I was in college. Alas, maybe next time.

Domesticated

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 16:44:00 +0000

Random updates from Dallas:

I've surprisingly settled pretty quickly into the new routine, which involves going to work/lab a few days, going to school a few days, and cooking periodically. I don't really mind staying at home, having time to take care of errands, doing random things like cooking, and having to do homework.

We haven't gone too adventurous with cooking, but have done various Chinese dishes, dabbled in pineapple sorbet and banana bread, and tried some panini-making skills with our Foreman Grill last night. It's actually been pretty fun and somewhat satisfying to be able to make food, although I probably would still jump at the opportunity to be Google-fed.

Our location here is pretty nice since we're right next to the freeway that makes all my commute times under 30 minutes when traffic is decent. Most of my longer trips are reverse rush hour which keeps it manageable, but it can take up to an hour to go from UTSW to UTD on the one night I go with rush hour traffic.

It's also great that UTD is near the "chinatown" here. Chinatown is a few small strip malls that have Chinese restaurants and shopping areas, but you can always count on cheap prices and random Asian products at Chinese grocery store. I think I probably go to that grocery store 2 - 3 times a week. I still haven't figured out how to buy groceries once a week so there's enough to cook for the whole week but not too much so that some stuff gets thrown out at the end of the week so I end up buying in smaller chunks.

Driving in Dallas is pretty annoying: the speed limit is 60 on the freeways, there are always cars going 60 in every single lane, and nobody moves out of the way. Going 70 in the Bay Area would have made me one of the slower cars on the highway, but that's faster than most here. In addition, people seem challenged to turn into the correct lane when there are multiple turning lanes and turn erratically in parking lots.

Ruth is on call again tonight so I've got the day to myself. It was a little weird the first couple times, but I guess I'm getting used to it. It makes it easier that there are four football games and a US Open men's final on today to keep me company while I also catch up on homework!

I might even take a study break to do advance my Madden 2008 off-season. As fun as it was to win the Super Bowl with the 49ers while throwing for 5,700 yards and 65 TDs to four 1,000 yard receivers while rushing for 2,200 yards and 39 TDs, I think I'll have to increase the level of difficulty for next season =)

Week 1 in Big D

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:58:00 +0000

I've now been in Dallas for a little over a week, long enough to get somewhat settled in, go to my first day of class and an orientation day at work. My schedule seems manageable for now: work on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with classes on Tuesday and Thursday. Monday is a bit of a pain since I have an evening lecture from 7:00-10:00, but it seems fine otherwise. We'll see if I say the same thing in a few weeks as both classes and work ramp up.

In the meantime, this post will focus on food since I like to eat all sorts of good food. After driving here over a grueling two days with Felix, we arrived in time for Restaurant Week which showcases a lot of fancy restaurants at the relatively cheap price of $35 a head for a three-course meal. A portion of the proceeds goes to charity while we get to enjoy partaking in some nice restaurants.

Since we had guests visiting, the first stop was a steakhouse last Monday. Ruth and I had been to Del Frisco a while back on Jeremy's recommendation, so we all went this time for restaurant week. The steak was flavorful and the prime rib was tender so we were satisfied:

Ruth has been getting through her first rotation and to celebrate the completion of her presentation for family practice, we went to Nobu. It was amazing: wakame/cucumber salad followed by an entree (I got the wasabe steak while Roothie got the seared shrimp) accompanied with sushi, and ending with some yummy mousse. I wanted to go again the next day to try the other entree selections, but that would have been excessive :(

Without the provision of Google food and the promise of a regular Silicon Valley paycheck to fund eating out, we eventually had to cook. Yedeh and I cooked up a storm on Sunday, raiding the Chinese supermarket, consulting cookbooks, the Internet, and my relatives in San Francisco to produce: broccoli and mushroom with oyster sauce, steamed fish, some stewed beef shank, and a spare rib soup.

It actually went pretty well, except of course taking us like the entire afternoon. I think we might try cook every Sunday to get us through a few days and once more mid week for the rest of the week, but we'll see if that actually happens!

Hi, I'm a Mac

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 03:16:00 +0000

In very big news, I am now a Mac user instead of PC. I never really liked Macs all that much when we had to use them in middle school mostly due to the single click mouse. It was also a royal pain to try and help residents who had Macs when I was an RCC because I knew virtually nothing about them nor how to fix them. These days the annoyances are keyboard shortcuts that I am used to no longer working, web pages rendering funny on Firefox, and generally being treated like a second class citizen when it comes to client software (like Picasa, for example).

But it sure looks cool :) The keyboard is backlit, the Apple logo on the cover lights up, and those shortcuts that re-arrange the desktop are super slick.

Working at Google for four years has turned me into a web application freak so I spend like 95% of my time on the computer just using a web browser. I suppose it might come down a bit if I ever end up learning/using iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie, but this transition should probably be okay.

In other news, since my recent marriage, I have: moved out of my house, moved out of the state, currently en route to Dallas, quit my job, preparing to take classes, and switching careers.

It's hard to devote attention to such minor things when I'm no longer a PC user! Fine, my real reason for switching is that the Mac commercial dude is such a stud, especially in Die Hard 4.

Married!

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:26:00 +0000

We got digital copies back from both our photographers last night and promptly stayed up till 2am looking through them, selecting some for our print album, and picking some out for a web album so the blog entry can now be posted!

The perfect California summer day started for the groomsmen like around 7am. We intended to go to sleep early after the rehearsal dinner the night before but instead made a late night rendezvous to In N Out. Not a bad place to spend my last meal as a single guy! Luckily our getting ready consisted merely of showering and changing, although I did actually also stop by a hair salon on the way out since my usual hair routine consists of just letting it dry in whatever condition it feels like.

We started off the morning with some pre-wedding photos at Stanford, which seems to never disappoint. We eschewed the tradition of not seeing each other before the ceremony in favor of practicality to keep enough time to take photos. As we went through the photo session, a bus showed up and dumped lots of Asian tourists in the quad, who then proceeded to join in the photo taking festivities. There might be lots of random blogs out there with pictures of Ruth on them, but here are some from our photographers:

With that out of the way, we went and prepared in our respective rooms at the church while the rest of the wedding participants arrived and other guests started trickling in. I was feeling fine until we stood in this little room all lined up ready to go outside when I suddenly started to get really nervous about forgetting where I was supposed to be at what time, but it was show time soon enough and we headed out for the processional. The bridesmaids had already come down before we went out so we didn't have to wait long and it was pretty spectacular when the doors re-opened, light flooded into the dim church, and the silhouette of Roothie and her dad appeared to walk down the aisle.

The ceremony started with some awesome music from our worship team and a wonderful reading by Merisa from Colossians 3:12-17 before Mike gave us a message from it about forgiveness and thankfulness. So my posture is generally pretty lousy so I was trying pretty hard to stand up straight. But then my back started getting tired from trying so hard and Ruth later told me I had this serious, stoic look on my face the entire time. But we got through the message which was followed by the exchange of vows and rings. Ruth had forgotten to move her engagement ring off her finger so the target finger was already occupied and then it got stuck on her knuckle, but we eventually got through it.

It was a pretty fun ceremony because our wedding party and us got to move around a bit instead of standing in one place the whole time. By this time we had already started lined up at the foot of the stairs and made a circle up on stage. But now came the tricky part where Ruth and I went to light the unity candle and they broke into lines as we walked forward. We lit the candle and spent some time talking, which was kind of strange since everyone was looking at us, before proceeding back down to hug our parents. As we walked past, the wedding party reformed the circle. It's a good thing we had talented groomsmen and bridesmaids! The parents part was pretty emotional so I didn't really say too much to keep from crying, of course. But after that was the pronouncement, kiss, and just like that all done!

The reception at a nearby golf and country club was a ton of fun even though we had to improvise a lot. We ran extremely short on time, barely making it to all the tables, didn't have time for any dancing (we had planned to have an hour for it), skipped the bouquet and garter toss, and found out a few minutes before entering that Ruth's dress was too long to waltz in. So we just did what we could manage to: a slow, middle-school style dance to start, some entertaining toasts, visits to all of our tables, an entertaining guestbook-populating photobooth, and a comical attempt to cut cake. The only real disappointment was not being able to knock everyone's socks off with our limited waltzing abilities after we had practiced a few times during the previous week, but everything else was great, albeit going by in a flash. The guestbook is remarkably entertaining as we had very creative guests. The food was terrific and the atmosphere was amazing!

For those who are planning bay area weddings, we were absolutely thrilled with all of our vendors and we even managed to keep our wedding under budget! The vendors were:

- Photographer: Ching Liang and Jay Tsai
- Flowers: Never Forget Flowers
- Stationery: Olio Style using Envelopments
- Dessert: Sugar Butter Flour
- Photobooth: Party Booths
- Videographer: John Ling, a high school friend and all-around film dude
- DJ/MC: DJ Osvaldo, a college friend/roommate and DJ extraordinaire

We uploaded a number of photos in a Picasa web album and a slideshow follows below. And in case you guests didn't know, we get all the copies of photos from the photobooth too, so we may have some good blackmail material if you were up to no good in there...

Thanks to everyone who came and made it an amazing and memorable day!!

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 05:49:00 +0000

Still waiting to aggregate all of the wedding pics so I'll post about that later and instead provide an update on our honeymoon. :)

If you haven't seen the preliminary wedding pics yet on Facebook, you can try Ruth's Xanga post or this flickr set from one of our photographers.

Australia was a sweet two weeks and we spent our time in three different areas: Sydney, Melbourne, and the Great Barrier Reef.

Sydney
First stop was beautiful Sydney with its famous harbor and Opera House. After landing early in the morning, the preliminary event was taking a nice ferry ride out to Taronga Zoo where we had our first encounter with the Aussie wildlife:

The animals were alright, but we had to pay extra to get close to the koalas and they were all sleeping, so we had to keep an eye out for better opportunities.

We went back to the hotel to take a quick nap before a fancy dinner that evening but ended up sleeping FOUR HOURS on account of jet lag and woke up 75 minutes after our reservation time for the posh restaurant of Tetsuya's. They thankfully let us come late and enjoy the experience of the 3+ hour meal across 12+ courses, including some amazing desserts:

We couldn't come to Sydney without visiting the opera house, so we spent the second night at the symphony that is Mahler 6. Despite my best efforts, I don't think I managed to stay awake for more than 20% of the performance, but I think I had some pretty good mitigating circumstances (a 90 minute session without intermission, lots of food and drink beforehand, and still suffering from jet lag). The parts that I remember were pretty good.

Last on the agenda was a day trip out to the Blue Mountains area and enjoy the laid back environment. The mountains were fine and dandy, but the highlight was stopping by Featherdale Wildlife Park where we were able to get up close with almost every animal, even getting to pet koalas and feed kangaroos! There were so many animals there that we even saw some koalas that weren't sleeping and were actually moving around:

Melbourne
We actually didn't spend much time in the actual city, instead taking to the road and going along the Great Ocean Road, which is sort of like Highway 1 in California, but on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. While Sydney was nice, sunny, and in the 70s, the weather wasn't as cooperative on our first day. After renting a car, it also took a while to get used to:

Thankfully they also drive pretty slowly, so I was able to get the hang of it, eventually making it out to our main objective by the end of the day, the Twelve Apostles. The weather was still pretty bad, but we spent the night close by and had enough time to pay a quick visit in the morning as the sun was coming out:

We spent the next night at Phillip Island, the main highlight being able to watch the little penguins come in from the ocean at night back to their nests. I had signed us up months in advance for the Ultimate Tour, which gives you a private viewing right on the beach, but the tides were high and the winds were strong, so we had to settle for front row seats in a different area. Photos were also not allowed, but here are what they looked like at the zoo:

We spent the final day lounging in Melbourne, including a trip to the Crown Center. I didn't spot any poker pros to play against, so we settled for some time at the slots and managed to win a few bucks before going down 20 for the night :(

Great Barrier Reef
The final stop after cold Melbourne was tropical Queensland where we stayed near Port Douglas and took a trip out snorkeling. It was amazing to see the size of the corals out there and we even rented a digital camera equipped for underwater photos from the tour company, Wavelength. It was pretty difficult to just stay still enough to take a pic, much less try compose something interesting and make sure lighting was sufficient, but definitely something I'll want to try again in the future:

Okay, so I kind of cheated and the crew actually took that turtle pic since mine didn't turn out as well. But we did get to see a few turtles, a couple sting rays, and lots of coral and fish.

Our last organized activity for the trip was a day trip through the Daintree Rainforest region. It was raining that day, but we had a good time trekking through the forest and seeing some crocodiles along the river.

The last day we spent lounging on the beach and just plain relaxing. I even accompanied Roothie to spa for my first ever spa experience. It was actually pretty fun and especially relaxing, although I'm not sure I'd go back again on my own!

We've caught up on some movies (Ratatouille and Potter) and laundry since we've been back, but now I have to go to work tomorrow! :( I miss Oz already!

More photos online at our Picasa web album:

What's in a name?

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:19:00 +0000

Neither Ruth nor I have any strong preference about whether she changes her name or not after we get married. It does seem kind of annoying to have to go through all the hassle of changing one's name and Ruth Lo does sound better to both of us, but there's also the downside of having to deal with oddities related to having different official last names.

more at twiigs.com...

Bachelor Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Tue, 29 May 2007 21:46:00 +0000

What a weekend! The last long weekend of my life as a single guy was packed with events running from an airport pickup on Friday night through an airport dropoff early Tuesday morning...

Gokarting
First on the agenda was a gokarting session at GoKart Racer in Burlingame. As wimpy as it sounds, gokarting is actually pretty grueling, especially since our session included practice, qualifying, and a race. Thirty minutes in a gokart without the luxury of power steering made for an exhausted bunch of guys when it was all said and done.

Having done it once at a corporate offsite, I already knew I was terrible at gokarting, finished last in practice, and almost last in qualifying. I'm generally risk averse and I think the Prius has only made me even less aggressive. With a little bit of luck avoiding the big pileup accidents and gradually going crazier on the racetrack, I managed to finish 7th!! Eric's gokarting experience shown through as he consistently did well and finished 1st in the race.

Football
From cars and driving, we then moved onto the wonderful world of sports, setting up shop at the Stanford Oval for a couple of hours underneath the sunny Californian skies. Football was the game of choice and we finally had the chance to bust out the flags that were purchased last year but never saw the light of day with the continuously wet spring.

It was a fun time and that was the first time I remember every playing QB, which was pretty fun despite my lack of touch in just randomly chucking the ball. Part of the benefit of playing QB a fair amount was also not having to run as much! We didn't really keep score, but I'm sure my team won =)

Food and Drink...
The wonderful place that is Buca Di Beppo played host to our dinner. Lots of tasty, heavy Italian food was a great way to recharge after an exhausting day. We got all the usual goodies: garlic cheesy bread, calamari, chicken parmigiana, and chicken marsala, among other things. It's definitely good to go with a bunch of hungry guys to order a lot and try a bunch of different things.

Along with dinner came the drinks, which I were pretty punishing, given the lightweight that I am. More on that later...

Poker and Wii
The original plan was to head to a Bar and Lounge place after dinner, but we changed course and headed for Chang and Andrew's place to gamble and play video games. I partook in the poker tourney until I busted out and decided that I needed to lie down. I'm a talented sleeper, so I managed to even doze off for a little while:

Meanwhile, I think the other guys finished up the poker tourney and competed across various Wii games:

I eventually woke up when everyone was about done and we called it a somewhat early night since the plan for the next two days was...

Yosemite!
The most awesome national park played host as the wedding party headed up for an overnight trip. We lucked out into getting a recently canceled room at the Yosemite Lodge, which usually requires extremely early bookings, more so for the most popular Yosemite weekend of the year. With the popularity came a ton of cars as we inched our way around the valley to our place right next to the picturesque Yosemite Falls:

After a restful night, we then headed out to the Mist Trail on Monday, which was thankfully much nicer as most of the crowd headed home that day, leaving us a relatively empty trail on a gorgeous day. The first stop was Vernal Falls, which soaks hikers in mist as they navigate their way to the top, where we devoured our packed lunch of cheese, salami, and crackers while we enjoyed our surroundings.

The final stop was up a more grueling segment to the top of Nevada Falls, where we relaxed for another half hour and enjoyed the view of the valley floor. Before starting on our descent, we took a brief respite in the icy cold waters:

The episode included the highlight reel of the trip as Richard lost his footing and miraculously bounced back on his way to a rock in the middle of the river:

Thanks to everyone who came out and made it a memorable weekend!!

We believe

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:35:00 +0000

Sore as can be

noreply@blogger.com (hpan) — Mon, 07 May 2007 03:26:00 +0000

It's a little frightening when you are cognizant of factors that make you feel old. A classic one is when you catch yourself saying to kids, "Wow, you're so much bigger than when I last saw you." It's the standard old person line to a young kid when you have nothing better to say.

I finally got off my lazy butt this weekend and exercised, which is the source of all my aching and now blogging from the comfort of my bed. After our weekly Bible study small group on Saturday, we hit the tennis courts for an hour or so of tennis under the now summer-like sun, which was already enough to exhaust me. Looking forward to a relaxing nap at a park as part of a Cinco de Mayo gathering only resulted in more athletic activity to the tune of a lot of grass volleyball and a smattering of football. After lunging and running for a couple hours, I couldn't jump anymore without it being accompanied by a twinge in the calves or a cramp in my feet. Pretty pathetic. Throw in the fact that most of the gathered folks were '06 and (gasp!) '07 at Stanford, and I was downright ancient.

Fast forward to today and my entire body hurts. Being the foresightful (is that a word?) person that I am, I did all of that knowing that I had to pitch in a set of doubleheader softball games today. I thankfully got through it in one piece (and we won both games!), although I was particularly happy when the guys behind me walked after I got on base so I didn't have to run as much. I don't know how I'm going to make it up the stairs at work tomorrow.

In other news, I'm excited that Ruth and I are tentatively planning to meet up with a couple of my high school friends (Loren and Kaori, for those who know them) while we're on our honeymoon in Australia. One of the key perks to attending international school is definitely having familiar faces in a lot of places!