The Long Road

Well Mich made me a great meal tonight. And as you might expect, it involved two new and scrumptious recipes. Mmmmmmm.

Dinner was Scallops with Asian Noodle Salad. Damn! Scallops are a bit of a special treat that we only have a few times a year, so I was extra excited to find this on my plate tonight. Mmmmm.

For dessert is a great cake that Christian originally introduced us to - Cassava Cake, a great little Filipino treasure. It just came out of the oven and is too hot to try yet, but the house smells right now of cassava and vanilla. I just drooled into the keyboard.

Both of these great recipes are available online. Both are also pretty easy to do! Click on the links below to check ‘em out.

Scallops with Asian Noodle Salad.

Cassava Cake

Thanks Mich!

One thing that was always fun for us in China was to come across a “chinglish” sign. It was part of the charm. They often didn’t make any sense at all, and were all over the country. Mostly though, they did make a strange sort of sense, but were phrased in a way that no native English speaker would ever use. “Please do not disturb the little grasses peaceful slumber” (Don’t walk on the grass).

After Beijing was granted the summer Olympics, we wondered what the world would think about chinglish when the masses descended upon the city. We also wonder why, why, with so many native English speakers in the country, did sign makers neglect them? Even our school, with over 100 of us, insisted on creating these signs without consulting any of us. The best answer I can come up with has always been about losing face.

Anyway, it turns out that an ex-pat took things into his own hands, making it his mission to rid Beijing of chinglish before the Olympics arrived. I doubt that he was 100% successful, but I’m sure he made a big, big difference. Read about him here!

Had a great early autumn hike with Jamie, Heidi and Tod yesterday, starting a few km south of the tollbooth on the Coquihalla Hwy. We’ve done this trail a few times now - it’s a great hike and ski in the winter. The weather was awesome; predicted rain and cloud cover just behind us all day.

The blueberries, huckleberries and salmonberries (at the bottom) were out. Mmmmm.
So were beautiful fall colors. Thanks for a great hike guys!!

Here is a pic of me really, really freaked out at the top of the peak. Tod talked me down several times, helping me get my sorry butt up to the top. Damn, I DON’T like heights! Anyway, click on the link below this pic if you’d like to see the rest of the shots of this glorious hike…

From September Needle Hike

Shaky video taken by me at the top of the peak…

Not long ago I posted about a mind blowing Tom Waits concert available to stream online. If you didn’t check it out, well, shame on you.

For those with a short attention span, for those who need visuals to suit their needs - I’m happy to provide a similar, but much shorter performance here. All I can say is, megaphone, glitter and dance baby.

See genius:

Recently Noel Gallagher was attacked on stage at an Oasis show in Toronto. He kinda got blindsided. Too bad. If he had seen it coming and had been all rock ‘n roll kick ass like Keef, he’d have done this:

Oh well, I guess they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

Thanks to Craig. No, HUGE thanks to Craig. He did a few cool things for me that included:

1. Commissioning the construction of a Crokinole board for me by one of his minions of Chinese craftsmen .

2. Bringing it back to Canada for me. And this was no small feat in that he CARRIED IT ON. This of course included fighting vigorously with Chinese, Japanese and Canadian security and airline staff. Craig felt fully comfortable and reasonable in these struggles knowing full well that one Adrian Conradi had in the past brought home MULTIPLE boards in the same manner. Only later did he realize the folly of his ways after speaking to Adrian and finding out that he had actually bubble wrapped them and stuck ‘em in carg0.

Upon this information I think Craig said something like, “Oh.”

3. Not only would he NOT allow me to pay him for his trouble or the board itself (which is absolutely beautiful by the way), he threw in a package of crokinole discs. Solid.

Tonight Craig, we drank to you. And it was locally craft-brewed suds to boot!

**Note** Much as it pains me to say so, my brother in-law Jamie went undefeated tonight. Doh!

Q: What do you do when you have so many peaches that your tree loses branches?

A: You get an ice cream maker attachment for your mixer. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

This is, perhaps, an obvious choice of a tune to share with you… but I’ve not heard it for a long time - maybe you haven’t either!

Wow. September is here. And with it comes transition - the kids are back in school and thus, I’m back to work - the weather is changing - I’m starting to think about winter sports even.

Summer is a thing of the past.

The coolest guy in the world? As far as I’m concerned is Tom Waits. In the words of Hans and Franz, “Hear me now and listen to me later…” (in a strong, Arnold, Austrian accent), trust me, listen to this concert now. Listen to it loud. However, actually, little weakling, I don’t think you are strong enough to handle it. Maybe you shouldn’t.

Click here… if you dare, and prepare to have your mind blown for two and a half hours.