I Love My Mom

Especially when I am not feeling 100%.

She would obsessively fuss over me at the first cough, despite my protest that I'll be fine. I been 'force' to eat a lot of speciality dishes that suppose to have healing power. Having my mom around is the only perk of not feeling well.

Guts

That is what I admire most. All of us have guts, some have a lot more than others.

I realized that when I look back in my life, the occasions when I just go for it despite being scare shitlessly are occasions that I am most proud of.

I also realized many of my friends that I admired (yes, I admired you!) is because I think they got guts. They may not see it that way, but as an observer/outsider, I see they acted in courage.

There is really nothing in life that can stop us if we can face the fear but still go for what we wanted. Of course, it's easier say than done, we just need to keep remind ourselves that "It's no big deal, what do we got to lose? JUST GO FOR IT!"

Discovering Culver City

Winston and I decided to explore Culver City tonight and discovered it has many cool places. Culver City deserved more frequent visits.

We started the evening with dinner at La Dijonaise. It's a cute little cafe at the corner of Washington blvd and Helm.

The french onion soup was really good. The onions were hearty, with just right amount of saltiness. The cheese are lightly toasted on top but definitely melted, which made for lots cheesy stringy fun but probably an appalling sight. I'd imagined French Onion Soup being a bad dish to order on a date. Since Winston and I already know each other for a decade (scary, isn't it?), we thoroughly enjoyed the soups and all its cheesiness. This is definitely one of the best french onion soups I had. I was pretty much full after the soup as it was unexpectedly hearty (yum!).

Pricking the meat out of the shells is one of the thing I greatly enjoy about savouring escargots. The escargots came in the typical 6 holed escargot tray. Unfortunately, the shell was already gone and despite being soaked in the butter and pesto sauce, the escargots was rather bland. The complementary bread was pretty good, so I put the escargots on top of a piece of bread and added salt to make the escargots a bit more flavorful.

The Quiche Lorraine was very moist, though I think the dish would be better if added spinach. The salad green accompanied the Quiche was lightly dress with vinaigrette; it was delicious. Since I was already full from the soup, I only ate half the Quiche but I did managed to finish the salad.

Winston's research indicated that La Dijonaise is known for its desserts, so we shared a chocolate mousse cake. It was good but did not wow us like we anticipated it.

Overall, I really like La Dijonaise as the food is pretty decent (really good french onion soup) and the price is very good (entree from $7-$20). I probably will go back and try more of La Dijonaise dishes.

Across the street from La Dijonaise, there is an Asian fusion restaurant called Beacon. It seem very chic and there are many things on the menu that caught my interest. Beacon is now on my list of restaurants to check out.

After dinner, we walked around downtown Culver city and added another place to the list of places to check out: Bottle Rock (for good wines and tapas). We ended up at the wine bar, Vinum Populi, next to Ugo Cafe (good value Italian restaurant).

I love Vinum Populi's approach to wine tasting. There are 4 sets of vending machine style wine dispensers around the bar, 3 for reds and 1 for whites, each set has ~10 different bottles of wine. To sample wine, insert the prepaid card into machine reading slot (price listed on each wine dispenser, ranging from $1 to $6 per 1 oz sampe), put the glass under dispenser, push the botton and 1 oz of sample is shoot into the glass. Additional wines can be order from the bartender (e.g. an 1 oz sample of a 1927 dessert wine for $3.75). And I am not the only one who think Vinum Populi is cool; the place only been open ~4 months but it is already packed. This is a great way to sample wines that maybe out of budget (several samples cost >$100 per bottle).

Whitney is the one who told me about Vinum Populi and he joined us in wine tasting. We drank, we chatted, we gossiped, we people watched, we sang birthday song to some guy name Brook (whoever he is) and ate homemade cake from some girl that baked the cake for Brook. It was great fun!

To visit places in Culver City:
Beacon
Bottle Rock

Note to Self

Dear Self,

As much as you love a cup of coffee on a lazy Sunday, AVOID IT!!!

You'd a small cup of coffee after brunch, mixed with too many hazelnut shots and too many bags of 'natural' sugar. You loved the sweet bitter taste. And now, you're paying for it!

It's 4AM now. You have to be ready for work in 2.5 hours because of early Monday morning meetings. By noon (if you can stay awake that long), you're going to feel like shit and you will continue to feel like shit until your head hit the pillow. But you can't rest yet, according to the work calendar, you will be in meeting until 5PM (4PM if you're lucky).

Then you will feel even more shitty because you are suppose to go to the gym with your friend at 6pm, but now, because of the sweet tasting coffee, you will be too exhausted and you will have to flake on her. You'll feel like you're dying by 6pm so you'll flake on her and then feel shitty for being a flaker. If you can drive yourself home without causing major road accident on the LA freeway, you will go to sleep early on Monday evening and then wake up ungodly early again on Tuesday because you go to bed too early. And you will feel shitty again on Tuesday. And the cycle shall repeat itself until Friday night, when you can finally sleep till whenever on Saturday morning.

See how one sweet tasting cup of coffee can hurt you? Coffee is only allow on special occasion, like on vacation (or Saturdays) when there is no such thing as early morning meetings.

You hate feeling like shit, so don't drink coffee the day prior to a busy work day. No matter how much its deliciousness is calling out to you, you must resist!

Love,

Self

Review of "Chasing Daylight"

Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life is a memoir of Ex-KPMG CEO, Eugene O'Kelly. This book chronicled his last days in life after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

After reading so many raving review for this book on Amazon, I had high expectation. Unfortunately, it fell short. My opinion of this book mirrored this reviewer's opinion.

Because I like list, I'll list what I like and don't like about this book/author.

I admire O'Kelly for:

• Able to see the silver-lining despite being given a death sentence.
• Facing death calmly and dealing with it in a logical and methodical manners.
• Have discipline to get things done.
• Having good intentions to make his death easier and a more positive experience for those around him.

I dislike O'Kelly (and this book) for:

• The constant self congratulatory tone in the writing. He constantly mention his past accomplishments. Yes, his career accomplishments are very impressive. However, the frequent mentioning of these and the name dropping make him come across as selfish and arrogant.
• He proclaimed how much he loves his family and yet he did not talk much about them in the book.
• O'Kelly spent most of his last days writing and people in the 'outter circles' that he rarely spent his good days with his wife and daughters. I feel sorry for his wife and daughters. Despite having good intention to make his last few days on earth more meaningful (consciousness), with more perfect moments, stop and smell the roses....he still doesn't get it, even at death.
• It seems that his purpose in writing this book was to let his family know how much he loved them, but more so to let them and everyone in the world to remember him, to not be forgotten. Selfish?

"Chasing Daylight" is more of a self-congratulatory book that chronicle Eugene O'Kelly's accomplishments as CEO of KPMG than an insightful book on life and love. If you want to read a good book on life and love, read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. I will write a review for it later. The Year of Magical Thinking is the best book I read this year!

One good note for "Chasing Daylight," the book does remind one that life is short, live the moments. This book also bring to mind a forward story:

A professor gathered his students around him. And while they watched, he filled a gallon-sized Mason jar with about a dozen fist-sized rocks. Then he asked the students a question. He asked: "Is this jar full?" And everyone in the class agreed that it was. Then he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of gravel and poured it into the jar. The gravel worked its way down between the cracks and once again the professor asked his students: "Is the jar full now?" The students weren’t so sure this time. Next, the professor pulled out a bucket of sand and poured it into the jar. And the students watched in amazement as the sand filtered down among the rocks and gravel. And the professor asked again: "Is this jar full now?" Of course, the students were believers by now and all responded with a single “No.” The professor agreed and pulled out one last bucket. This one had water and he poured that into the jar as well, filling it up to the very top.

“The jar,” he said, “is now full. But what’s the point?”

One eager student raised his hand and said, “The point is that, no matter how full your schedule, there’s always room for more.”

But the professor had another lesson for them. “The point is,” he said, “that if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you won’t get them in at all.”

As you begin to struggle with the everyday kinds of questions about what direction your life should take. As you struggle – as we all do – on what you need to focus on ... and what you can let slide. Let me suggest that, like the professor, you focus on putting the big rocks in first.

What are the big rocks in your life?

Garden Clogs

So ugly!So comfortable!