Indonesian Fruits

The other day we stopped by H-Mart Grocery store and bought a single pomegranade fruit that Jan has never tasted. She was curious about this and wondered how it tasted. So, later that day I showed her how to open it, and inside the fruit there are cluster sections separated by a thin white membrane. The fruit contained clusters of red kernels separated by thin white membranes. The kernels are small tiny fruits each with a tiny seed within. It tasted mostly sweet with a little tartness to it. You can softly bite and suck out the juice, then spit the seed. It is too tedious to eat, but now she knows what that taste is like. The juice is almost similar to cranberry in taste, but sweeter. Needless to say, the numerous seed and lack of "meat" of this fruit is not it's selling point. Jan said that she's not going out her way to get it anymore. This strange fruit reminded me of the many, many fruits that I remember having eaten when I was still young in Indonesia. For example there is durian, which most every Caucasian find it dreadful. Even the strange food eater Andrew Zimmern (Bizarre Foods host) was unable to eat it because it has a very strong smell and take some getting used too. To me, it smells and tastes good. The smooth, sweet custard like meat is just delicious. They even make cookies, jellies, and drinks with those flavor. You can even buy the concentrated essence in oriental grocery stores, just like vanilla flavorings. Then there is the rambutan, a hairy, reddish fruit with sweet, translucent meat when you peel off the hairy skin. Another fruit is called nangka (English name is jackfruit). This fruit is used in two different ways. When it is still unripe, the meat is used in cooking as a vegetable, cut up in small cubes. When ripen, the meat is somewhat dry, but has a sweet smell and taste. And then there is mangosteen. This is a round fruit the size of a small apple, the bottom of it has a flower pattern image usually about 4-6 petals. As a kid, we used to "gamble" on it and we'd guess how many segments of wedges there are inside the fruit (doesn't always match the petal pattern). The meat is white, and it is juicy and very sweet. I haven't eaten this fruit in more than 40 years! For more info and pictures, see the link I posted below.

http://www.indoindians.com/food/indfruit.htm

Three days of tennis, back to back.

On Thanksgiving day, after I put the turkey and turducken in the oven I was checking my email, and there was one from GaryO saying that he's got three people lined up and if I could come out and play. In 10 minutes, I was out the door heading to the tennis court. I got there and no one was around. So I wandered over to the club's gym, and found Gary exercising. Of course he dropped everything and we played single for about an hour. It turned out that I missed a keyword "tomorrow" on the email.

Friday morning I went there again and that time we do have a foursome. We played for about two hours and I was really worn out. At the end of the game Gary told me that he has recently written his third book, and to celebrate that, he and PaulF organized a Tennis Mixer at the Shores for next day, Saturday (which hadn't had one for years), that included a book signing event. He said a lot of the people I know will be there. So of course I couldn't pass that up.

Jan dropped me off at the club on Saturday morning and sure enough there were a lot of old friends that I haven't seen for a long time. I had a good time, my tennis is as bad as usual. We played four 8-game sets and I won only 1 out of 4 matches.

Later that afternoon, my left rib where the diaphragm is attached hurt really bad. I cannot cough, sneeze or even blow my runny nose without feeling a sharp jab. It took two days before I felt better (today). But, tennis is always a lot of fun. It was good to see my old friends still playing tennis.

No blog. Passed yesterday.

Got sick on the way back from Dallas, went to bed at 630pm!

My Supra is still alive

I haven't driven my Supra for almost a year, and the last time I drove it was to get it inspected. The inspection sticker expired in 12/2008. Unfortunately, at that time the place I normally took it to get the car inspected was not able to do the job because their dynamometer was down. Mine is a 1994 with 140K miles so it just missed the cut off date for inspection without dyno test. I think 1995 and newer are exempt because the car's internal computer logs the car performance as it is being driven. So I took it to another place, and they too couldn't do that inspection because some bozo in the shop evidently broke the cable on the pick up tool that sense the engine RPM. So I took it back home and the car sat in the garage for the past year.

Yesterday, I hooked up my battery charger to the dead batteries and today I checked it. After a little cranking action, the car fires back just fine. I put some air in the soft tires, drove it around the block and all seemed to be fine. I am glad this is going well. At least the next time I come home for the Christmas break, I maybe able to get it inspected and have a back up car to run around with.

Joy Luck

I bet your first thought is the book titled Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan. You're wrong. In the past couple of years every time we come home from Denver we somehow managed to squeeze in a family dinner at a place called Joy Luck BBQ. Like the one I posted earlier about a BBQ place in Australia, JLBBQ is an authentic chinese restaurant replete with barbecued ducks, chicken whole prok roast and other entrails displayed in the front of the restaurant.

So today we ate dinner there. Jonathan was not able to be at the Thanksgiving dinner, and we use that excuse to eat ath JLBBQ so he can be there. This place is only a few miles from where he lives with his dad. It was god to be able to see home and spend sometimes with us. Maria also was there. Jen and Shea was planning to come too, but with Amy and her husband planning to drive back home to Houston, she ended up spending one more afternoon/evening with them today.

As usual, the food at JLBBQ was great and we enjoy and finish almost every dish we ordered. Unfortunatley, I forgot to take a picture of what we ate. Sorry.

Thanksgiving Day - what else is there to say but Turducken?

Getting ready for tomorrow!

We arrived home a little after 130pm today. Teddy and Paddy picked us up from the airport. Ate lunch at Five Guys in Southlake on the way home, and then we had a nice visit and dinner with the family. Brian and Maria drove in from Houston and we met them for dinner at a new seafood restaurant in Rockwall, called Catch-22. The food was good, but I wonder if they can survive much longer in the location they are currently in, doesn't seemed like they have much people traffic there.

After dinner, I de-boned a 14-16 lb turkey and will stuff that with stuffing tomorrow. Along with that, we'll also cook a 10 lb boneless turducken that Brian and Maria brought down. Dinner is set for around 1PM tomorrow. We'll have everyone but Lauren, Jonathan, and the Rozell family in the cold Alaska. We'll miss them at this family gathering. Lauren and Jonathan are with their other family members. We miss them all very much and pray that they are doing well tomorrow.

Family

Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away, and I am going to use this opportunity to say how thankful I am for the blessings our Lord has been to me and my family. Since my arrival in the US over 42 years ago, I had been given the opportunity to get an education, a good job, a wife and kids, and even after the painful divorce, the Lord has given me a second chance with Jan. Through that ordeal, I was taught by our Lord to help those who are going through the pain that I experienced. It has been almost 5 years since Jan and I involved ourselves in the Divorce Care ministry. I am very blessed with the gifts of grandchildren, our children, and with the love that you all have for Jan and I.

Thank you Lord for everything.

CRT Coolant: Who would've thunk of that?

We bought our rear projection TV (RPTV) several years ago, and since we moved (temporarily) to Denver, each time I went home I noticed that this TV is getting dimmer, redder, and the pictures looked terrible. The videos are really hazy, cloudy, and bright objects have this halo effect. See the pictures below. I got these pictures from the internet and cropped it, but mine looked just like it.


The last time I was home (early October), I took the back of the RPTV apart thinking that maybe the lens on each of the CRT guns (red, green and blue) are dusty after all these years. Sure enough, when I got to the lenses, they are covered with a fine layer of dust. I cleaned that up, and put everything back together. The TV picture looked much better than before, but it was nowhere near what it looked like when it was newer. Look at the pictures below after someone else did his coolant work. I hope to be able to do this too soon.


A few days ago, I decided to google "cloudy picture in rear projection TV". The result surprised me. I was thinking that maybe my cathode ray tubes (CRTs) may need to be replaced. But as it turned out this is a typical symptoms of CRT coolant getting contaminated, and the coolant developed growth that looked like algae. Who would have thought that a rear projection TV have coolants, and this coolant turned opaque because of some unknown growth?

Evidently, on this vintage of RPTV with CRT-based lamps, as opposed to liquid crystal display (LCD) projection TV, there are liquid coolants (ethylene glycol) in each of the CRT color guns that resides between the CRT face and the lens. This coolant protects the CRT from overheating and burning the phosphor coating. Ethylene glycol is the same basic liquid used in your car's radiator to cool the engine. For RPTV, the coolant is the clear variety. Someone explained that the coolant, in the presence of heat and contact with the metals that contained the liquid started to develop algae like substance, and thus changed the liquid from clear to opaque. Another interesting fact is that in almost all cases, the blue CRT coolant is the worse followed by the green CRT. The red, according to these folks, almost always is least affected. Thus the prevalent reddish color. So, after reading these articles and checking procedures on how to do it, I decided that I am going to try to correct this problem. I found an electronic supplier that charged about 9-10 dollars a a bottle plus about $9 in shipping. Then I found on eBay a seller that will sell me 3 bottles for $25, with free shipping. It is now being shipped directly to Rockwall, and I hope to be able to work on it during the Thanksgiving break. I will try to remember to take a picture of before and after.

Finally, I got Win XP SP3 working in my MacBook!

Geek stuff, if you're not into computer nitty gritty, skip today's post.

Recall that I installed BootCamp (BC) partition in my MB after upgrading my hard drive to 500GB. Well I did a little more research into that and found that to be able to install SP2 (service pack 2) and Sp3, I had to do some registry editing on the Windows registry.

The Win XP disk I had was SP1 vintage, and evidently BC wants to start with Win SP2 before it can do its thing installing the Mac specific drivers.

So during the ensuing weeks after that initial install, I've been burning and throwing away several DVDs in an attempt to "slip-streaming" SP2 and Sp3 packages into my WinXP SP1 installer disk, on my trusty Dell 710m. That attempt to create bootable DVD failed miserably. I think I am almost there because the Mac attempts to boot from it, but I get the message that says: CDBOOT: Couldn't find NTLDR. I do have NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM in the root directory of that disk. So, I decided to go to another direction.

I am still able to boot into my Win XP in my MB, so last night I launched Firefox and searched for "Windows need 4MB ... to install Sp2". I found a discussion board that says I needed to:

1. edit the registry, and
2. to install the service pack using command line with "no backup" option

REGISTRY EDITING (while in Windows, not in Mac OSX obviously):

Go to Start -> Run, enter "regedit" in the command bar.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
\Setup
From the Edit menu select new entry
Give this new entry a name BootDir
Then right click an unselected part of the line and select Modify
Enter C:\

Exit out of the registry editing.

WINDOWS STUPID FILES:
Make sure you have NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM, OSLOADER.NTD, OSCHOICE.EXE in the root directory of your Windows HD (BootCamp partition, aka C:\ ).

Extract the SP2 and Sp3 files (assuming you have it downloaded and available in your HD)

Go to Start -> Run
Enter the command line "cmd" that birngs up the black command line window
In that window enter:
> c:\sp2_package /extract:c:\sp2files (NOTE this command assumes you have the Sp2 package in the root C;\ directory)
This command will then extract the SP2 files into the C:\SP2files directory
(BTW, windows "cmd" lines are not case sensitive, so you can actually type away
without care when you are doing this task.
Go to:
> cd c:\SP2Files\i386\update
> update.exe /n ( NOTE: for SP3, the command should be update.exe /nobackup )
The above step will bring up the typical Windows XP popup about agreeing to its ruke etc and install SP2 upgrade. You wll then be asked to restart. At this point you will have to press the "Option" key so it goes back to Windows.

Once you're back in Windows, download and install BCUpdateXP from Apple (or use your Mac OSX disk One if your BootCamp OSX disk is newer version). This time around, after some delays ( seemed like a minute with nothing happening but maybe less, the BCUpdateXP will install Apple specific drivers and after a restart, your Windows XP will say that you're now at SP2. Go through the same cycle with Sp3 upgrade!

So now, I have an MacBook with 400GB partition, running Snow Leopard, and a 100GB partition, running Windows XP Sp3. what am I gonna do with it? Not much, its just a technical challenge to keep my brain cells exercised.

About Australian Open - Part 2

I was going to write more about the A.O. today, but am too tired to write. So this is my entry for the day. Come back later and I'l edit this one to add more. G'nite.

UPDATE:

Attending the AO was a fun event. Our time in Melbourne was pretty much spent at the Tennis Center and not much else. My memory is fuzzy, but I think we ordered the tickets to the tennis center online, before we left the US. As in the US OPEN (USO), tennis matches don't start till 11AM, and so we usually have a leisurely time for breakfast and then spent most of the daylight hours at the tennis center. Like in the USO, the ticket we held allows us to go into the tennis facility, any other tennis courts and matches, as well as an assigned seatings at the main stadium, Rod Laver Arena. (On the other hand, if you've ever been or plan to go to the French Open, you'll need THREE tickets every day to see any possible match scheduled for that day, one for Chatrier, one for Lenglen, and one for Court One).

The atmosphere is great, many people around dressed casually and in shorts, and lots of people with face painting, clowns on stilts, and lots of beer.

I am looking forward to scheduling another trip there, the Lord willing, and see much more of the beautiful (so I heard) Melbourne and the beaches.

About Australian Open - Part 1

A few years ago (2004) I was on a work assignment in Australia around the time that bracketed the Australian Open. Knowing this, we went ahead and scheduled for Jan to fly out to Melbourne, and I would take a week off from my work to meet her there. We made reservation on a B&B close to the tennis center and I was to arrive there a few hours after Jan got to the B&B.

I thought our B&B reservation had been confirmed, but when Jan got there alone from the airport by taxi (after spending 19 hrs. getting there!), they told her that we didn't have a reservation! Needless to say, she was a bit irate and proceeded to inform the B & B management that she had just arrived from Texas and wasn't very happy! We were very fortunate that Aussies speak English and they are relatively friendly to Americans. The proprietor suggested she try another place 3-4 blocks away, so Jan got another cab and dragged her loaded 31" rolling duffle bag to that other place and fortunately was able to get a room. In the mean time, unbeknownst to me, I too took a taxi to the initial address and got the "sorry mate, we don't have anyone by that name registered here!" After patiently explaining to them that we thought we had a confirmed reservation, they remembered the American Jan and that they had sent her to another B & B. So I walked the extra blocks to the other place with my backpack and fortunately was able to connect with Jan. As it turned out, the B&B we stayed at was not that much different from the one we initially booked. In the picture above, our B&B is in upper right corner of the map. The tennis center is at the lower middle, and to thr right of it is the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), a new facility that was nearly finished when we were there.

Our first day there was spent exploring the Chinatown of Melbourne, within walking distance of the tennis center and the B&B. We found a small hole in the wall Chinese barbeque place called City BBQ. In the map, it is the one with the red droplet near the upper left.
.

As it turned out we liked the food there so much that we ate there every day! We only tried maybe 2 or 3 other restaurants the entire time that we spent in Melbourne! This place is very much like the First Chinese BBQ in Dallas, with many cooked ducks and marinated meats hanging by the window. Yummy. It was Chinese New Year's while we were there and we watched a Dragon Parade snake through the streets of China Town.

Our days would start by walking several block through the Fitzroy Garden to Little Bourke street, get some delicious meal, then took a free bus shuttle from the Business Center (Flinders Street) to the tennis center at Brunton Avenue. On another day, we would go south from the garden, cut across MCG parking lot and walk directly to the tennis center.

Part 2 tomorrow, at the tennis center.

Being a grandfather - is a joy!

It seemed not so long ago that I told each of the kids that I am not ready to be called grandpa yet. I was in denial of my age and role in life. And then came Jacob, followed successively by Owen, Toby, Paddy, Sarah and Eric, and of course Jamiee. Now that I have become a grandfather so many times over, I realized that God has truly been good to me and has blessed me with a great family and life. I have to admit that I was wrong then. Every year since has been a joy to see them grow and accomplish many things and discoveries. I have enjoyed every minutes that I am with them, even when I have to change their diapers, or going through their terrible twos. I want you all to know that I am very thankful for everyone of you, for your love to each other, and for the great grand kids I have been blessed with, and for allowing me to get to know everyone of them. I love you all, and am looking forward to see more grandkids from you know who! Yes, you, you and you!

Another recipe day

Pork and Napa Dumplings (image from the internet, not mine)

Ingredients

1 lb ground pork
1/2 Napa cabbage
2 fingers of fresh ginger
1 egg white
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 table spoon of corn starch
1 table spoon of onion powder
salt and pepper, as needed
2 table spoon Kikkoman soy sauce
Dumpling skin (the round ones, about 3-4 inch diameter, thawed).

Finely shred/chop the Napa cabbage, then using one table spoon of salt, continuously squeeze and drain the water that resulted from doing the squeezing. The idea is to remove as much of water from the Napa as possible. The salt will wash away as you do this de-watering. Skin and then grate the ginger using a grater. Mix the all the above filling ingredients by hand until they are well mixed.

Making the dumpling: take one sheet of the dumpling skin, and scoop about a teaspoon full of meat and place it in the center of the skin. Then wet the perimeter of the skin around the meat with water, and fold the skin in half. Pinch the edges in z-shape folds so they are like crimps. Set that aside in a lightly powdered tray. When you do this, press down on the meaty side so they form a somewhat flat bottom, crimps up. Now you're ready to cook them. There 3 ways to do that:
1. Deep fry them in oil till they are golden brown and floats
2. Put them in a non-stick pan, add about 1/2" of water, cover and let it steam until the water evaporates, then allow the bottom of the dumpling to brown slightly.
3. Boil it in lightly salted water, then remove from the water whne they have floated up.

Condiments for dipping: mix a table sppon of garlic chili sauce (see my previous blog, the bottle with green top), a squirt of lemon juice, and 3 table spoon of kikkoman sauce and mix.

Any recipe requests? Dish I know how to make and you have been waiting for the recipe?

The marathon and black Ice

We flew home from San Antonio very early this morning, landing in Denver around 830am. The weekend we were in SA, the daytime highs were in the 70s, and Denver had about 9-10 inch of snow.

The marathon were well organized. I think they said over 30 thousands participated, with the majority in the Half Marathon. We parked at the AT&T Center, and took a free shuttle bus to the finish line. Once there, we walked to the 12 mile marker and waited for Lauren to pass us by. Jan subscribed to the Lauren race report, and every so often she gets a text message on her phone of Laurens progress. For example, after we left home and dropped Lauren off near the start line, we ate breakfast at Magnolia's Pancake house, and while there she received a text message saying that Lauren started her race at 8:32am. While waiting at that mile marker, we saw several racers with funny costumes. Here are a couple of examples:


And here's the one leading the race for the full marathon at 2:05 into the race, with a mile to go:

And second place:And here's Lauren a mile from the finish line. Her time was 2:30:29.

After we got back, we picked up our car, it was covered with snow. The roads seemed dry, so I got careless while clearing the snow from the car. I fell and slipped on a layer of black ice around the car. It didn't seemed bad at all at the time, but now, a few hoours later, my butt, my left arm and elbows are sore, all muscles though, no broken bones. . Ibuprofen to the rescue.

In San Antonio

We flew here this morning and arrived just a little after lunch time. Went directly to the har salon where John, Lauren and jan all had haircuts. I was going to take a picture of the new "do", but didn't get chance to do that. For dinner we went to an Italian restuarant called Tre Trattoria. We had a nice meal and a great Italian wine. It went well with the family style rib steak that we ordered. Lauren and jan got the pasta Amatriama (or somehting like that.. ).

Anyway, tomorrow is the Rock & Roll Marathon and Half-marathon. Lauren will be doing the half. Along the way, I also saw on FB that Sheri Elam is heading down to SA, so I asked, and turned out she's doing the same half-marathon. Maybe we can meet up with her there.

Most Embarrassing Moment

I've never been very good with machines or anything that's automated. That would include computers, photocopiers, fax machines, postage machines, especially VCR's, you get the idea! I'm especially afraid to try NEW machines and I usually won't try it until I absolutely have to.

When ATM machines came out, I was working in the NationsBank (now known as Bank of America) building which is the tallest building in downtown Dallas. I had received an ATM card from the bank, BUT since it was a machine, I vowed that I would never ever use it! Soon thereafter, they installed an ATM machine in the underground tunnel leading from the main building to the parking building. I walked by this ATM machine every day to and from my car. For weeks, maybe months, I walked by the ATM machine but I was too fearful to use it.

One day as I was going out for an early lunch, I realized that I didn't have any cash. I was late as usual and didn't have time to go to the main bank. I noticed that there wasn't anyone using the ATM machine as I approached it, nor was there anyone in the vacinity in either direction of the machine. So I whipped out my shiny ATM card. After several tries with the card, I finally inserted it correctly and proceeded to the next step. I was able to successfully put in the correct commands to actually receive some cash! I was so elated and feeling so proud of myself!

By this time, there was a line gathering behind me to use the machine. After I received my cash, I wanted my card back so when the machine asked me if I had any more transactions, I said YES! Well, I didn't know that I would get my card back once I let the machine know that I was finished. So I kept saying YES!

The line behind me was getting longer and longer and I was so flustered I was beside myself. Finally, some guy about 20 people back yelled, "Push NO"!!! He said it at the exact moment that I was about to push YES for the fourth or fifth time. So I pushed NO - out popped my card! I was so embarrassed that I didn't use that machine for a loooooonng time!

Motorcycles

When I was just a teenager back in Indonesia, I had a small two-stroke bike made by a company called Zundapp. So I searched the internet and here's one that looked almost like mine, a Zundapp Super Combinette circa 1960, with 50cc engine. I don't remember how I got this bike, but I've taken apart my bike countless of times, and did all kind of repair work myself. Notice that the bike has no foot pedals, but in instead it has a crank pedals like a bicycle. Here's a link to avideo if you want to hear how it sounded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkFIUo536eI

A few years ago, I bought a used Honda motorcycle from a co-worker. It was a classic and unique bike with drive shaft instead of chain, an Ascot Vt500, with only 6000 miles on the odometer. Look at the beautiful picture below. The one I have is the red one, just like you see here, and it has a front shield like the black one. I think

Food and some Random Pictures

There are plenty of prairie dogs in Aurora, Coorado. This picture was taken not too far from where I worked. They are so cute.


On the way back down from going to Mount Evans, I saw this silhouette of the mountain goats. On the way up, they were just grazing by the side of the road, no fear of people or cars.


Churuscaria at Rodizios, in downtown Denver. Went there with Jan's nephews who were visiting us this past summer.


Corn bread at White Fence Farm. a family style fried chicken place.


One of the dim sum dish we ate last weekend in Denver's "china town". Actually though, there is no such area. However, the area we went to is about as close as I can call it china town as there are many chinese restaurants there. Also near the place where we were finally able to find a box of "Tung I Onion Flavor" ramen noodle.

PEPPERS AND SAMBALS

The picture above is just a few collections of the condiments I have here at the apartment in Denver (Jan says that we actually have other kinds of hot sauces, but these are all I could find this morning when I lined them up to take the picture with my cell phone). I have a few more back in Texas. I grew up in a place where hot sauces are standard supplements to any meal, as common as ketchup, mustard, and mayo are to our meals here.

So, looking at the picture above, you see crushed red peppers, powdered red peppers, Frank's Lousiana Red Hots (regular, and extra hot), Chili sauce, Habaneros hots sauce, Sambal Djeroek, and Garlic Chili Sauce.

Like wine connoiseurs that know the difference between various white and red wines, to me, these hot sauces have different flavors that enhances certain foods. For example, we have a family dish simply called lemon fried chicken, and believe it or not, only one of the above hot sauces (Sambal Djeroek) fits the bill when it comes to making the chicken so unbearably good. On the other hand, ramen noodles is not compatible with the one we use with fried chicken. Some member of our family have to have the Frank's Louisiana Red Hot, and no other brand, not even Tabasco, which on the surface seemed pretty much the same. Ditto for egg rolls. So when you look at your fridge and see a collection of salad dressings, in our house, you'll find many different kinds of hot sauces.

STEAMED EGGS

The other night we made steamed eggs. What is it, you say? Well, here's what you do: In a mixing bowl, add 4-5 eggs, chopped scallions, a few dash of crushed red peppers, a dash of soy sauce, and 1/4th cup of water, and of course salt and peppers to taste. Make sure that the bowl is sufficiently high enough to allow this egg batch to rise as it steamed. It may go twice as high, and then deflate when you take ot out of the steamer. Steam the entire thing for about 15 minutes. As usual, enjoy it as is, or use it as a side dish.

Indonesian style chicken curry aka Opor Ayam

Revised: 20091111: Forgot one additional ingredient: boiled eggs

OPOR AYAM
(Indonesian style chicken curry, without curry powder)

1 whole chicken, cut up in pieces
1 pack of the flavor shown, or make our own (see footnote)
6-8 potatoes, skinned and quartered
2 cans of coconut milk
2-3 stalks of lemon grass (the stalk part, cut off the leave top and root, then cut into 2-3 inch pieces)
1 pack of (mung) bean threads (optional)
water, salt and pepper as needed
3-4 tablespoon of olive oil
8-10 eggs (optional)

Boil the eggs for about 10-15 minutes, peel and set aside.
In a stew pot, brown the chicken pieces in olive oil then add the flavor mix, potatoes, salt, pepper and water till the chicken pieces are just covered. Add the boiled eggs, one can of the coconut milk and the lemon grass pieces, bring it to a boil and then simmer for 1-1/2 hour. Add the second can of coconut milk, and simmer an additional 10-15 minutes. If you opted to use the bean threads, add them at the same time you add the additional coconut milk. Serve over steamed rice, in a large soup bowl.

NOTE: If you can't get the flavor mixture where you live, make one yourself: chop half an onion, a few cloves of garlic, half a teaspoon of turmeric, a teaspoon of salt, pepper, and lightly blend.

If you use the Indo Food mix, the instruction says to boil the chicken for a while then add the flavoring. I find this to be silly. You want the chicken to absorb all the good flavors and cook in the mixture, so ignore the packet instruction.

The question that no one asked?

Did you see the videos of this girl named Elizabeth Lambert playing dirty soccer match? After the video was broadcast many times over, she later apologized saying: "I let my emotions get the best of me in a heated situation."

My take: she apologized because she was caught red-handed. That kind of behavior does not just developed overnight. I am willing to bet that she has been playing dirty for quite some time. So the reason for the title of this blog is why haven't any of the news reporters asked the school/college officials, the coaches, and the people around her life the key question: how can they allow this to happen? The suspension didn't happen until it became a media frenzy. Was she such a star player that anything she did was permissible? The people that are responsible for allowing that behavior to develop are just as guilty.

And on to the next recipe.

FRIED SHRIMP DUMPLINGS

Ingredients:

1 lb of peeled and deveined raw shrimps
2 cups of flour
2 eggs
1 bunch of chopped scallions (cross cut, thinly)
1 table spoon of onion powder
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
water, as needed, to dilute the mix.
Frying oil

Put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, and add water a little at a time until the mixture is about the consistency of thick oatmeal (for lack of way to describe it :-) )

Heat oil in a fry-pan or 2-quart size pan, my guess is about 350 degree F. The oil should be about 2-inch or more high, so the fried pieces can be submerged and then float as it cooked.

Using two large table spoon, scoop one portion of the batter mix and try to get 1-2 shrimps per scoop, drop it in the hot oil by using the other spoon to slide the mix in to the hot oil. After the piece turned golden brown, scoop it out and let it cool down on a drain rack.

After the first piece is fried, check to see that they are fully cooked inside. If not, lower the heat a little before frying the next batch. Fry three or four pieces at a time.

Its best to serve this warm, and for a little kick, use Lousiana Red Hot sauce (a specific name brand) for dipping! It's just maahr-ve-lous!

Simple Meals

Lauren got me to thinking that putting out recipes for blogging idea is a good one. So here are some simple recipes that our family has been making for some time now. Many of these simple foods are good for when you are homebound due to colds or have flu symptoms. They are fairly mild and warms the tummy.

GINGER CHICKEN

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, cut up in pieces, with the skin
1 clump of ginger (about 2-3 square inches), skinned and sliced cross wise about 1/2 inch pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Put the entire ingredients into a stew pot and add water so that it covers the entire item with about an inch or so of water covering the chicken pieces. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer for about two hours.

Serve over cooked rice in a soup bowl. Garnish with chopped green onion, or a dash of fried shallot. Bon Appetit.

RICE PORRIDGE

Ingredients:

1 cup of uncooked rice
8 cups of water
1 chicken buillion cube
Shredded pieces of left over chicken meat (optional)
Pieces of julienned (sp?) chinese wood ear mushroom (optional)

Garnishes:

Chinese fried bread (optional, sliced cross wise, 1/4 inch thick, can be bought in Oriental grocery store, frozen)
Chopped green onion
Kikkoman soy sauce
Chili Garlic hot sauce (Tuong ot toi Vietnam)


Boil the entire ingredients, then lower heat to simmer, and stir often to prevent burning and sticking of the rice to the bottom of the pan (non-stick pan suggested).
They are done when the mix is the consistency of a watery oatmeal.

Serve in a bowl, garnish with the above ingredients. Go gentle with the hot sauce.

Coming to a blog near you soon: shrimp wonton soup, pork and napa dumplings, fried shrimp dumplings, egg rolls, opor ayam (I think I blogged on this a year or two ago), and maybe gado-gado (Indonesian salad with peanut sauce).

Downsizing?

Someday, Jan and I will move back to Dallas area, and we've been talking about downsizing. It has been so convenient to be able to just set the thermostat to a minimum, lock the door, and be gone for an extended time without worries and maintenance of anything.

Every time I come home to Texas, I'd look at the pile of junk I have and work that needs to be done and I get depressed (well not really) seeing how much of this stuff I really need to get rid of. In the 3-car garage, there are stuff in boxes that had moved with me from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Milford, Massachusetts, and now in Rockwall, Texas. Some of these boxes have never been perused, so why am I keeping all these stuff? There are cans of paint that I know I will not use again. Why is that still in the garage?

Then I have a motorcycle that have not been driven for a few years, and the carbs are now gummed up. The last time Teddy and I looked at it and try to get it started, it won't even fire. My friend here offered to pick it up for me (he's driving his truck from Denver to Texas and said he can swing by to pick it up). But the registration expired a few years ago, no longer insured, and I really to have to have someone tuned it up to get it in running condition again. I can do it, but don't have time nor place to work on it here in Denver. With winter coming up perhaps that is not a good idea.

I also have a TOY car that has not been started in almost a year. I think it will start up just fine if the battery is charged, but the inspection sticker has expired. The last time I tried to get it inspected, the place I took it to had a broken inspection computer, thus it never got inspected. I think I am going to post it in CL during this Christmas break and see if there is a "rice boy" interested in buying it.

Then, there is house maintenance. Some rooms have never been painted since we moved into the house in 1986. The deck leaked and needs to be fixed. It needs a new staircase (been thinking of installing a circular stairway). Teddy and Mel have done a good job keeping the house in order and fix little things before they get worse, and he had fixed the plugged air conditioning drain tube and rotted celing underneath that unit.

And lastly, we want to replace the outdated formica kitchen counter top and replace the carpeting in the living room and family room with laminated wood. So much work to do.

Once all that is done, Jan and I will begin to look for a smaller house nearby and downsize. I can't understand people that are near retirement age and bought a much bigger house. It just doesn't make sense.

MER

About a month ago Jan and I went to a Marriage Enrichment Seminar at the Navigator's facility called Glen Eyrie. It is a beautiful place, in an area near Colorado Springs next door to a place called Garden of the Gods. There were 8 couples altogether, and we had a very intensive meetings and discussions. Today we met again as a follow up and the topic was on personality/behavior. We filled in a form that classify our personality type. Here are a couple of pictures of that facility:


The result of my self analysis says that I score highest in D, then C (next highest), then S, and lowest in I (Dominant, Conscientiousness, Steadiness, and Influenceness.) Does that surprise you?

Jan will add hers later (maybe).

St. Mary's Glacier, Idaho Springs, CO

Two weeks ago Jan, another couple from our Sunday School and I went hiking to the St. Mary's Glacier, near Idaho Springs, CO. I've never thought that there would be a glacier here in Colorado, especially at the end of Summer. But, as you can see from the pictures here, its real and it is not that far from Denver. The drive to Idaho Springs took about an hour, then we had to hike uphill for about a mile to the glacier. When we left Aurora, the temperature was in the mid 50s, and by the time we started our hike, it was snowing and the temperature dropped to below freezing. The glacier itself is located at 11325 feet above see level, according to my iPhone's Motion-X GPS. Enjoy.

"She's With Me!"

My mother passed away in January and she was not a believer. So I spent the last 3 weeks of her life praying by her bedside that the Lord would give me the courage and words to share the gospel with her. In her last week of life, I got some guidance from my pastor and he gave me the courage and the words to say. So I shared with my mother some of the wonderful things Jesus had done in my life. But I had to tell her in English - she didn't speak English! I wasn't sure if she got it.

After she passed away, I continued to pray that God would intercede and have mercy on my mother and take her to heaven. For 4 months I continued to pray for His intercession and mercy and wonder if my mother was in heaven. Then one Sunday morning just before Mother's Day, I was sitting in church listening to a lady sing a solo about how God intercedes for us. While she was singing, I felt this glow and warmth around me and I could see God looking down on me and He said, "She's with me."

Hugs for Heroes

Jan and few ladies from our church have been busy preparing an event called Hugs for Heroes (HFH), to take place this coming weekend. The event is to honor our American heroes serving in the military anywhere in the world, and the families of these men women that are members of our church. Since we do not have any family member serving the military branch, we've adopted Mike and Joe Hughes (Maria's brothers) as our honorees. They are US Marines currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jan and I have been busy getting songs (from iTunes) and making a patriotic playlist to be played during the HFH dinner, and ordering and re-ordering the songs. For some reason just a few minutes ago, Jan accidentally deleted the playlist, so she is now starting over. Luckily, its just the playlist, not the songs theselves. During the morning service that Sunday, the pastor will be blessing the care packages that will be sent to our servicemen/servicewomen associated with the church members, wherever they are located.

THANK YOU to all American servicemen and women and their families for your sacrifice and your life to preserve our freedom. May God bless you and the USA.

BootCamp - not ready for primetime

When I first got the macBook last year, I attempted to install Win XP but never got it to boot at all. Last month, I upgraded my HD to 500GB, so I thought I'd give it another try. First I partitioned the HD into two part, giving the Mac 400GB, and Windows 100GB with BootCamp. However, right of the bat I already knew something was wrong. Windows XP wants the HD to be formatted as NTFS, but BootCamp only supports FAT32. Thus it was a no starter from the beginning. I went ahead and installed WinXP following the BC instruction, but at the end, Windows will not boot correctly. I think part of the issue is that MacOS still have not been able to write to NTFS partition.

So I took the HD out from the Mac, and using a USB carrier, I hooked that up to my Dell and format the 100GB partition to NTFS. Then I put the HD back into the Mac. Relaunch BC, and proceeded to install WinXP. It went to completion, including the reboot afterwards. Then I was supposed to insert Mac OSX Disk One for the Apple drivers. No Go. Unfortunately, the XP installer I had was of ServicePack1 vintage, and BC does not like that version. It complained about not finding 'UPDATE', or something to that effect. So, copied the Apple driver folder from the Apple disk to the Windows HD. I then individually installed the drivers for the video, trackpad, audio, wireless card, etc. That step got most of the functionality to work from Windows in my Mac. But, keyboard volume control, complete shutdown, and a couple other function did not work. I then downloaded SP2 (and for good measure SP3 service packs).

Invoking the Sp2 did not work, it says I don't have enough disk space, and need a mere 4 MB more. My gosh, I know I had at least 80GB disk space available. So something is wrong here. So the next thing I did was to download Apple's BC 2.1 upgrade. This too failed to launch and install, saying that it could not find ordinal 264 in msi.dll something.

So after wasting almost 8 hours of work doing all that, I thought about "slipstreaming" SP2 into my Windows XP SP1 install disk. I spent the better part of last Friday and Saturday trying to do this, and made several CD and DVD coasters (in other word: un-usable trash disks). So far I have NOT been able to make these new disks bootable.

On hindsight, the fact that I have to reboot the Mac to switch OS is not the way to go. I've contemplated of trying Parallels, but I am not sure if this is even worth the effort. So for now, I just have to switch laptops if I need to run some utilities that only exist in the Windows world. I also installed CrossOver in the Mac, but I don't like the way it intercepts Win applications by creating "bottles". It semed too slow and confusing. That's it for today, November Two.

First entry for NABLOPOMO 2009

Another attempt at BootCamp ...

Since going back to my roots (original Mac Classic, to PC then now to MacBook), I've been trying to get BootCamp with Windows XP to work. I can now boot to XP and most of the functionality worked, e.g., audio, wifi browsing, video resolution, etc., but some other function such as complete shutdown or volume control from keyboard are still not working. I'll do a write up soon to finish today's late blog. Stay tuned.

Four laptops with four different OS

1. My Dell Inspiron 710m running Windows XP sp3

2. My MacBook running Mac OS X 10.5.6

3. My IBM Thinkpad X40 running Ubuntu 8.10 (Linux)

4. Jan's Dell 1410 running Windows Vista Home

Maxima CD Error F0 Fixed!

I was working on my 2002 Maxima BOSE radio with internal 6CD changer, in an attempt to see if I can add an AUX input for my iPhone/iPod. Along the way, I removed the radio from the car, and started to trace down the main printed circuit board to find where the audio input were for the CD, TAPE and AM/FM. I found that there are several place marked AUX IN, unfortunately, the components associated with this port were not installed, so I think that I can not just add a wire to these holes and expect to be able to drive the iPod/iPhone audio signal to go though the radio selector, so I have to do it another way.

In doing these tracing, one of the CD already in the unit (there were 4) slid out unexpectedly, and I didn't think it was a problem. Wrong! When I hook the radio back up to the car, the CD changer made an attempt to play the CD that was in slot that no longer had a CD (the one that fell out) and I immediately got a "CD ERROR FO" (that's a zero) code on the radio display. I googled, and everyone said that I am toast and that I need to have it fixed or replaced, to the tuned of $300-2000. I took the radio back out, and opened the cover over the CD changer unit. I found the problem: The moving laser head that reads the CD is jammed hard against the multi-disk separator and cannot be moved out of the way. In the picture you see that one of the separator is angled downward and is sandwiched by the laser read head arm and disk top clamp. I carefully uncouple the head unit from the separator, making sure that I do not bend anything to prevent misalignment. The photos in this blog shows the various stage of jammed to free state. Along the way, I lost one of the pins that holds the multi-disk separators, and I fashioned a replacement using a small screw almost the same length. I filed the threads off to make it slide freely like the other one.

I also carefully removed the remaining CDs that are still inside the unit, and the entire multi-disk tray then dropped down to their lowest levels. I put everything back together, and back into the car. My CD ERROR FO is now gone!

More story later when I attempt to hook up the PA11-NIS iPod adapter. Its on order. Everyone says it will not work for a Maxima with integrated 6CD changer. We'll see.

MagSafe Repair

I recently bought a broken MagSafe power adapter for the MacBook on eBay with a frayed cable at connector end for $19.01. I wasn't sure when I bid on it that the brick is still good or not, but I thought it was worth a chance to safe a bunch of Moola when compared to Apple's price.

Step 1: Cut of the plug from the cable at the frayed end. On the cable end I strip about half an inch of the outer insulation and found that the cable only has two conductors, the center one being the positive side. Plugged in to a wall outlet, the voltage measured 6.5 Vdc. I thought to myself, hemh, it should have read 16.5 volts. So I CAREFULLY checked the voltage of my other MagSafe and it too measured about 6.5 volts, with no load. Based on that I guessed that the brick is probably ok.

Step 2: Using a small vise grip on the metal/magnetic part, I carefully slide the white portion of the MagSafe connector off from the magnet. Then I slit one end of the whitish translucent insulation cover that surrounded the small circuit board. I carefully peeled that off from the metal plug/circuit board. This step exposed the three part of the wires, one being the positive center wire, the other two are split ground wires.

Step 3: I removed the old broken pieces of wires from the now exposed circuit board.

Step 4: Insert two different size of heat shrink tubings on the cable end of the power adapter, then the white outer cover of the MagSafe. I split the ground wire into two bundles. On the center wire (white sleeved) I stripped about 1/8th inch of the insulation. The wire ends are then soldered as shown in the picture.

Step 5: Put all the pieces back together and test it. Notice that the green and subsequent orange glow of the LEDs indicated that all is well.

Step 6: Slide the smaller diameter heat shrink towards the plug and shrink it. Next the larger diameter heat shrink and shrink that too.

I don't know how to label and sequence the pictures in this blog, but you can see the progression of each step in the attached pictures.