Google Translate as a hobby

Since I started studying Chinese a little while ago, I have made a hobby out of occasionally visiting Google Translate and translating some things from English into Chinese, and then taking the Chinese translation and translating it back into English. It's an amusing way to spend 20 minutes every now and then, and it helps me to remember how different the languages are. I don't try to use formal language that will translate well, I just type it in like I would say it if I were speaking to a friend. And then onto my segue of speaking to friends... So I IMed my friend, JC, at work today with a brief review of a movie I am watching via streaming Netflix to my Wii (which I highly recommend... it's very cool and relatively easy to stream Netflix to the TV that you have attached to your Wii, without having to wait for a DVD to come in the mail).

Here is my original review:

There's a movie on Netflix streaming called "Chocolate". Very entertaining, but in a Tony Jaa meets the 3 Stooges way. Well, the 3 Thai Stooges. And there's really only one stooge. Well, 1 and a half.

Here's what happens when I translate it into Thai, using Google translator, then translate it back into English:

Netflix streaming movies are called the "Chocolate 's" Ja Phanom but enjoyable as well 3 Stooges 3 Stooges to Thailand and have a really good one and a half's stooge.

And here's what happens when I do the same thing for Japanese:

Netflix streaming movies and called on "Chocolate." Very entertaining, and Tony Jaa meets the three general ways. Well, boss, Thailand 3. And, in fact, only one out of it. Well, 18 months.

And, of course, a trip to Google Translate for me would not be complete without translating something into, or out of, Chinese. Or doing both. Here it is:

There are a Netflix streaming movie called "Chocolate." Very interesting, but Tony Jaa manner consistent with the three Stooges. Then, three Thai lackeys. There's really only a puppet. Ah, half.

How I'm staying in shape

A couple of month's ago, I started reading a lot of buzz about a 100 Pushup Challenge on Simler.com (and speaking of Simler, if you want to get an idea of what it's all about, check out this little page that shows you some of the recent posts that people have put up on the site). I decided to see what all the hype was about, so I went to the one hundred push ups site, printed out the complete program in PocketMod format (there is a link on the left hand nav bar that says "Complete Program") and folded it up.

I finished the 1st week program at the 3rd level of difficulty, logging my progress in the pushup logger on the same site. The pushup logger was pretty limited, so I forked out the money to buy the app from iTunes. If you have an iPhone or iTouch, I highly recommend the app. It tracks your progress in a daily log, displays it in a bar graph (very nice for motivating you to keep going), and even gives you a little timer to count down your rest time between sets. If you decide to do the program, and you're trying to decide whether or not to buy the app, just buy it.

I got all the way to week 6 (the last week in the program), but I don't think I ever completed the last day before I pigged out for an entire weekend and couldn't hardly move, let alone pound out 225 pushups in 5 sets. After I got back on the diet wagon, I reset myself back to week 4.

For those of you who are still reading, the program is very simple and only requires about 10 minutes a day, 3 days a week. The trick is to just make sure to do it consistently, because once you take a break, you'll find that it's difficult to pick back up where you left off.

To fill out my fitness a little bit, I've also added the two hundred sit-ups and two hundred squats programs. If I have a ton of energy when I start my pushups sets, I will finish my 1st pushups set, do a squats set right after the pushups, then do the 1st sit-ups set. 1 or 2 minutes of rest, then on to the 2nd sets. If I am a little worn out from my day, I'll finish my pushup routine, rest for a little while, do all my squats, rest for a little while, do my situps and then have some dinner.

I also run a couple of days a week for cardio, but that's even more boring than everything I've already written, so that's all I'll say about that.

BTW, Jenny says my arms and neck are looking bigger. And so is my ego. She only says that 'cause she wishes she looked as ripped as I'm starting to look.

Of all the people in the world...

...to forget an anniversary. All day, Jenny has been telling me how glad she is that we've been married for the past year. She's figured out what were were doing a year ago today at various times during the day. We've received cards in the mail (thanks Eleanor and Don, Kathleen and Kevin, Butch and Misty, Sarah and Cody, Heather and Clint), text messages (thanks Emmy, Kyra and Brad, Makenna), voicemails (thanks again Eleanor and Don!) and phone calls (thanks Regina). Amanda even sang to us in the car on our way to Farmer's Market. Which brings me to this afternoon.

Jenny and I went to Fresco tonight for our anniversary dinner. I had her call them this afternoon to make the reservations. I'm paraphrasing, but this is generally how the conversation went:

Jenny: I'd like to make a dinner reservation please.

Dude on the Phone: How many will be joining us for dinner?

Jenny: 2, please.

Dude: We have reservations available for 7pm or 7:30pm.

Jenny: Do you have anything available around 6pm?

Dude: Let me check that for you ma'am.

...

Dude: Yes, we can accommodate 2 this evening at 6pm. Is this for any special occasion that I can make note of here on the reservation?

Jenny: Nope.

...

Jenny: Oh! I mean, yes! It's our anniversary.

So I told Jenny that I was just going to have to take someone who was enthusiastic about our anniversary, but Makenna, Emily, Amanda and Kyra were all busy. Just kidding. Jenny and I had a wonderful time at dinner, even though she almost forgot why we were going.

What actually happened (boating)

Jenny mentioned briefly what happened to my face on Sunday...

In the interest of accuracy, I'll tell you that the story actually goes like this:

(Scene 1)

(It's overcast and dreary. The lake is calm and eerily silent. Apparently no one thought it would be a good day for boating. These absentees have no idea just how right they are; these waters are about to turn darker... with blood!

Our boat sidles closer to the dock, but we're still about 10 or 15 feet away. The dock worker makes an under-hand throwing motion with the ski flag. I hold out my hand to indicate that I am ready to catch the flag when he throws it. Oh, how wrong I was. If only I knew what was in store for me, I would have worn a hockey mask, or maybe my grinding face shield (picture below).

The dock worker, sullen and grumbling about having to step out of the comfort of his rickety shack and into the squall that was now mercilessly battering the lonely dock, viciously hurled the ski flag at me like a blunted dart of fury. I, expecting it to tumble end-over-end like a baton, and not straight at my face, like a javelin of suffering, misjudged its speed and the projectile rammed into my face, just under my right eye, then ricocheted into Jenny, who was sitting just beside me.)

Dock worker: "Hey, sorry about your face!"

Jenny: "It didn't hit my face! It hit my boob!"

Me: "Uh, I think he was actually talking to me."

(Jenny turns her head up to look at me, and as the realization dawns on her, her face turns into a mask of horror and concern.)

Jenny: "Oh my gosh! Are you ok?"

My face: A Grinding Face Mask:

Random Photos

I went golfing a while ago. We saw a fawn (that's a baby deer, for all of you who never saw Bambi and who can't figure out how this internet thing works). I didn't get my phone out in time to snap a picture of that, but I did get a picture of this squirrel that was hanging out around our cart, probably hoping for handouts.

It kind of looks like I'm dancing. Or maybe I'm a puppet. Make up your own caption and post it as a comment.

O'Falafel

790 East 2100 South, SLC

http://www.ofalafel.com/

Last week (or maybe it was the week before), a couple of guys from work and I went down to O'Falafel for lunch. This was my first visit and I was not disappointed. Check out the menu on their website. I made sure to take pictures of the dishes that everyone got. I am going to try to remember what is what (sorry for the poor pic quality... these were taken with the camera on my phone).

My meal was called Yakhni Khudra. It was one of the less flavorful that I have tried here, but it is still very good. It is served with basmati rice. If you're not sure you will like Mediterranean style food, this would be a good dish to start with. There was some kind of vegetable in here that I didn't really like, but other than that, this was delicious.

One of the guys I work with had the Kifta (the near plate in the photo below), and he also ordered a Meat Pie (the far plate in the same photo). The Kifta is described below. The Meat Pie is seasoned, ground beef stuffed into pita bread (I think), then grilled like a panini. I haven't tried this (yet), but the guy who ordered it said it was really, really good.

I like the place so much that I made Jenny come with me to lunch the next day.

We both like the Fatoush from Mazza, so we decided to give it a shot here. It was very good; very fresh, and very colorful.

It looks kind of funny here because I forgot to take pictures until after we had started eating it. Actually, I forgot to take pictures until we were about halfway done eating everything.

Imagine that everything in these pictures looks much better than it does in the pictures.

The Baba Ganouj was excellent. It was chunkier than the stuff at Mazza, but still just as flavorful. I think this is because it's not made in a food processor.

We also had something called a Spinach Pie. If you're not a spinach fan, try something else. If, however, you do like spinach, definitely give this a taste. These kept pretty well in the fridge over night too (especially with the left-over baba ganouj).

Jenny got a sandwich called Kifteh. It is made out of ground, seasoned beef, and served in pita bread with some kind of magical sauce made out of pixie dust. It makes me salivate just thinking about it.

The Good, the Bad and the Charcoal

Every time I eat something new that makes me smile, I immediately want to try to duplicate it at home. Usually I forget about my aspirations, but sometimes I actually remember to try a recipe later. Almost always, I screw stuff up the 1st time I try to figure out a dish without a recipe. Which leads me to my next point...

Jenny and I have had sweet potato fries at Salt City Burger Co. a couple of times and have loved every minute of eating them. They're good with fry sauce, ranch, mayonnaise, A-1, or just plain. They are just plain good. When you get the cooking time right.

Also, the fries need to be turned over every 10 minutes so they don't turn out looking (and tasting) like mine did. Jenny and I were able to try a couple of the fries with the aioli sauce that I made for them. I will describe the aioli sauce in more detail in a later post. I made my 1st batch of fries a while ago and, after 3 attempts, am finally able to pay attention long enough to get them to turn out ok. They're still not nearly as good as the fries at Salt City, so I think I'm going to (mostly) give up on trying to make them at home.

Salt Lake City Farmer's Market

Yesterday morning, Jenny and I went to the Salt Lake City Farmers Market to browse around. We got there around 9.30am, so it was already pretty packed. There are a ton of booths for veggies, honey, fruit, arts, crafts, food, bread, etc. We ended up getting a couple of (huge) zucchini to make stuff zucchini, a 2 pound bottle of honey from Knight Family Honey, and lunch from a Sudanese vendor. We knew the Sudanese food was going to be really good because we've been to their restaurant out in West Valley already (someone remind me later to do up a proper review on that place... it's very tasty). The next time we head out there, we'll have our choice of Caribbean, Mexican, BBQ, Argentinean, Indian, Thai, fresh made noodles, blah blah blah. The Caribbean place was serving these jerked kabobs that smelled amazing, so I'm thinking that's where I'm going to pick next. I'll let you guys know how that is.

Another fun thing about the Market is sampling various things. While wandering around, we sampled honey from 5 different booths, hummus (the company is called Freaky Monkey, or Happy Monkey or something), jerky, watermelon, cantaloup, cherries, and greyhounds. Yeah, you heard me. We sampled some greyhounds while we were there. There was a booth for the GPA in Salt Lake where you could sample the affection of a retired racing greyhound. The Indian booth (mentioned above) also had samples that were pretty good, although I have to admit that eating Indian food out of a little plastic cup was almost too challenging for me.

Blog Confessions of a Honeybee

I hate Saturday mornings. I get to work this morning to discover that all of the honey is gone AGAIN! Completely gone. The other workers and I have been haulin' pollen all week long to make up for our hive getting cleaned out last week, and the week before, etc. We are all getting pretty sick of it, so we decided to knock off early today and just cruise around for a bit.

Imagine my surprise when I fly into Farmer's Market in Salt Lake and discovered what has been happening to all of our honey!

I'm cruising down the aisles and decided to stop in at the Knight Family Honey stand to sample some of the competition's wares. The guy giving out samples squeezes some honey onto a cracker and I'm thinking "man, this smells almost exactly like our honey". Then I take a taste. That is our honey! Oh man, and now this dude's trying to pawn my own honey back to me for $8 a pound! Do you have any idea how long it takes us to make a pound of honey?!

I may start posting again soon...

I am warning everyone ahead of time... when this semester of school is out and I have a little more time, I may start posting on this blog again. Also, I may not adhere to food-related topics.

Green Chile Rice Casserole

Cheryl's awesome recipe that Jenny made for dinner tonight:

• 1 14 oz box Minute Rice - prepared (6 servings)
• 1 cup sour cream
• 4 oz can diced green chiles
• 1 can cream of celery soup (undiluted)
• 1/2 lb monterey jack cheese
• 1/2 lb sharp cheddar cheese (grated)

combine ingredients - bake 30 minutes at 350. Can be mixed ahead and baked later. Chicken or ham can also be added (Jenny used chicken; Cheryl used ham)

What we're eating lately...

We've cut back on going out to eat in the last couple of months. We now go out once a week on a date night dinner. On Monday, we went to Epic Casual Dining. The appetizers were excellent, as usual, but the entrees were only OK this time.

To start, we had the chicken flat bread. This is one of the best appetizers in the world. I'm not even going to describe it in the blog, just go try it. We also had a couple of crab cakes, which are flaky and light. The sauce they come with is sweet and slightly tangy, but mellow enough to allow the nice flavor of the cakes to come through. They serve it with a homemade coleslaw that is fresh and crispy, but I didn't polish that off this time, because I wanted to save a little more stomach real estate for my entree.

As an entree, I had the Pacific White Shrimp over angel hair pasta. The shrimp was ok, but I think it had been frozen for a while before being thawed for my meal (think weeks, not days). The sauce was good, but a little heavy on the soy sauce. I would definitely not call it a $20 meal.

Jenny had a sirloin steak that was pepper crusted... very heavily. The steak was a pretty good cut, and the sauce was very good. If I remember correctly, it was a light peanut sauce. The pepper crusting on the steak overpowered the steak.

My recommendation for Epic is to definitely go and try their appetizers, but consider carefully before diving into an entree. Also, their salads are pretty darn good.

U of Utah!

Last Wednesday I checked my admission status and saw "Admitted". What a pleasant surprise! I am pretty excited that they (the Admissions Committee) are giving me a chance to come to the U, even though my transcripts look pretty awful. The funniest thing is the letter I opened from them when I got home from work on Thursday telling me that my scholastic history is below the U's normal admission standards and that I will be on academic probation and required to meet with an academic adviser for the first little while. Oh, and I have to keep my GPA above 2.0. I am going to be majoring in Chinese. It will probably take me about 7 years to finish everything if I go to school Spring, Summer and Fall semesters, but it will be a good lesson for me to learn (stay in school).

Update on my educational pursuits

Hi everyone. Yesterday afternoon I submitted my application for consideration to be admitted to the University of Utah. After speaking with the Admissions office (a couple of times), the transfer center, the academic advising office and the language advisement office, I feel that I have a decent chance of being considered for acceptance. My High School transcripts and the 3 classes I took at Cuesta back in '95 and '97 aren't going to help at all, but I am hoping that my SAT score, my recent grade from a math class I took online from SLCC and the letter I sent to the Admission Committee will at least give me a chance. We'll see. :) If I do not get accepted, I am still enrolled to start classes at SLCC in the Fall.

Going back to school... finally... again?

So one of the reasons I am trying to sell my house is because I am strongly considering buckling down again and going to school. I haven't decided where or exactly what I will study, but I have started a list of things I want to study.

Pink Floyd Laser

Jenny and I went to the Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular at Kingsbury Hall on Saturday night. The concert itself was very loud (probably louder than the Tool concert I went to in November), but other than that, it was awesome. They gave us 3D glasses and another pair of glasses that separated light and gave a kaleidoscope effect on certain lights and lasers.

Funny story #1:
When I sat down in my seat, someone behind me gently scratched my head with fingernails. I turned around and a lady of about 70 or so looks at me sheepishly told me "I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist." Jenny and I had some conversation with her and her friend until the show started. At intermission, she commented to us "Well, I guess now we know what a laser show is and we also know what Pink Floyd is."

Funny story #2:
While we were in line waiting to get inside, Jenny looked back and said "Oh my gosh. That I just saw my Calculus professor." A few minutes later she looked back at him and said "No way! He is with one of the girls from my Calculus class!" We got to our seats and sat down and Jenny said "I can't believe my Calc professor is here with one of his students." Then the two of them came down our row and sat right next to us. Her Calc professor is probably in his mid 50's and the girl with him was probably Jenny's age. And yeah, they were definitely dating. Hands were in places you wouldn't put them if they were just friends. (Picture her playing with his chest hair during intermission)

Funny story #3:
During the 2^nd half of the show, in the middle of a really trippy-looking laser / music video section, an usher comes down our row and starts asking us if we have a friend named Kyle. I told her we didn't and she said that he (Kyle) has a ticket for seat F8, which is Jenny's seat. I show her our tickets and leaves. Then, about 5 minutes later, another usher comes down the row, seats right next to me and says "I have a sick kid by the name of Kyle outside in the lobby right now, and he says that you know him."

Putting my house on the market

Hi everyone. I am putting my house on the market soon and just wanted to keep everyone informed. I am hoping to get it sold within a couple of months and start renting an apartment downtown. I've finally gotten to the point in my life where I don't want roommates (not to say I don't treasure the friendship of the two guys who share the house with me now).

On a completely unrelated note, Jenny and I went to the Tandoor (or maybe it's Tandoori) Grill last night for dinner. This is an Indian restaurant that is in the same place Bombay Express used to be (Mom, this is the Indian place that we ate at a while ago).

When Austin saw the Oechsle family picture...

He brought it over to me and asked "Who's the mom?"
I asked him who he thought it was and he pointed to Amanda.
Austin: Her?
Me: Nope.
Then he takes the picture back from me and looks at it for almost 30 seconds, then points to Regina.
Austin: Then it has to be her, cause that's Jenny (pointing to Jenny), and that's the dad (pointing to John). Who's that? (pointing to Amanda)
Me: That's her sister.
Austin: Oh, I thought her mom was a sister too.
Me: Guess what her name is... (pointing to Amanda)
Austin: Bonzai!

I will try to get the family photo posted in the next couple of days. :)

The Paris Bistro

Corner of 15th and 15th (1500 South, 1500 East), Salt Lake City, UT, USA
http://theparis.net/

This place was comfortable. Our waiter was very helpful in deciding what to try. They serve bread and butter to start. It's nothing spectacular, but it's not bad. We started out by splitting a Spinach & Endive salad. (Candied Walnuts, Apple, Maytag Bleu Cheese & Cider Vinaigrette). This was pretty good, but as Jenny pointed out, the bleu cheese kind of overpowered the rest of the salad. After we finished the salad, our waiter brought out our entrees... Jenny ordered the Butternut Squash Ravioli (Sage Beurre Blanc, Pan Roasted Hazelnuts, Parmigiano Reggiano) and I had the Wild Shrimp Risotto à l'Armoricaine (Chile Oil, Vine-Ripe Tomato, Basil, Garlic, Cognac Cream). Wow. Both of these were awesome and I would highly recommend this restaurant from the dinners we had. Jenny's was sweeter and mine was a little bit spicy. We finished off dinner with a LemonGrass Crème Brûlée. Make sure to call in a reservation ahead of time, because the next couple who walked in right after us were turned away.

Not to totally shock everyone, but...

I am going to try to start posting to this pretty regularly. I consider "pretty regularly" to be at least once a week, so we'll see how well I do with my new resolution.