take me to aruanda...

In just a mere few hours, the new year will hit, and I will have at my disposal, a replenished arsenal of vacation days for the next year. In celebration of this fact, today’s will be a special travel-dedicated post. Now granted, most of Asia, South America, Africa, and pretty much a bazillion other places are completely unknown to me; however, I do like to leave the Davis bubble every once in a while and venture out into the world, and I also like encouraging my fellow bloggers to travel, so here’s a list of travel recommendations of sorts (places I've been) and also a few places I wish to explore.

For the Californian looking to do a day trip: Monterey & Carmel, CA. Monterey/Carmel is easily drivable in one day and back and is a nice escape from the everyday trappings of Davis. They’re both small coastal towns with beautiful beaches, friendly local community, and good seafood. They’re also packed to the brim with an assortment of odd Asian tourists (you don’t really have a choice) complete with tea-bottles (if you’re from China/Taiwan, then you should know what im talking about…), DSLR’s, and interesting poses.

For the Californian looking for a high-stress, high-reward vacation: Southern California. Yes, So-Cal is the place to go for Disneyland, Magic Mountain, Knott’s Berry Farm (totally underrated…it’s THE place to go if space mountain is undergoing renovations), and LegoLand. There’s also the usually other touristy stuff like Hollywood and San Diego beaches – LA beaches are to be admired from a distance (unless stepping on glass and used needles is your cup-o-tea). Of course all this fun-fun-fun comes at a high-price. If you’re trying to go from Santa Monica to Disneyland, you may need to bite the bullet and book a flight from LAX to OC, cuz driving will likely take you much longer. Plus emptying your pockets and taking off your shoes at security is still a walk-in-the-park compared to LA traffic (there’s a chance you get jumped at a stoplight and have to empty your pockets and shoes anyways).

For the American without a passport: The Grand Canyon, AZ. This place is pretty cool, the Colorado River, over time, carved out a canyon in the Arizona desert over a mile deep. It takes a mule-ride to get to the bottom of the canyon by the river and buns-o-steel to get to the other side. Unless you’re Evil Knevel – in that case all you need is a motorcycle and a death-wish. At the bottom of the canyon there’s rafting and other fun stuff. Apparently it’s also 40 degrees hotter in the valley than the rim.

For the American with no passport and a fear of heights: Washington DC. With a completely flat terrain and a Federal law restricting building height in DC, this is the perfect place to go for the adventurous yet height-cautious tourist. With over a dozen federally funded museums (read: free), Smithsonian and otherwise, there’s plenty to do in this town. Additionally, there are sights to see for both history buffs (monuments and significant government buildings), and the historically-nonchalant folks (national zoo and indie culture/music scene).

For the American who has never traveled outside the states: Amsterdam, Holland. I know, I could've picked the UK or Ireland, but I figured Amsterdam would be a little different, but relatively low culture-shock compared to other countries. Also, the language barrier is very low. English is spoken here almost as commonly as Dutch, and a lot of the seasonal restaurant workers are from other European countries and don’t even speak dutch. The English here has been nearly native in my experience. I know, there’s pot and other vices here, but I can tell you right now that you can have a blast in this city while still managing to avoid all of that stuff. For one thing, Amsterdam is a flat city littered with man-made canals, and I’d say is even more of a bike-town than Davis. You can rent bikes anywhere and get around town, and there are plenty of museums and other sights to keep you occupied.

For the American who wants to experience something with a wow factor: Giza, Egypt. The Pyramids are definitely on my bucket list. While I've seen some edifices that made me go wow, I can’t even begin to fathom how impressive it’d be to stand next to a pyramid built thousands of years ago. Can you imagine the sight of the sphinx in real life? I’d think that that’d be an experience you won’t forget for the rest of your life (plus imagine the monumental bragging rights…).

For the American who wants to experience a completely different culture: India. I know this is a very vague answer, as within india, there are thousands of different people groups and therefore, thousands of internal cultural differences, but honestly, anywhere you go in india would be a different culture from what we have in the states. I wasn't able to go this year for work, but I’m lobbying hard to go next year if we send more people over for our offshoring project. My Indian counterparts are in Pune, India, about 3 hours away from Mumbai in the western part of the country. This place is a center for technology companies, many of which perform outsourced work for foreign companies. As you can imagine, there would be a lot of cultural differences. I think it’d be cool just to live there for a few weeks and check out the local food, customs, and lifestyle.

And of course, for the Davis-ite who wants something close but different: Old-Town Sacramento, CA. Yep, it’s close…very close to Davis, and yet it has a completely different vibe than any other part of the Sac metro area (if you can call it that…). Old Sac has a bit of a western feel, with saloons and small shops. Of course, the entire section of town is geared toward tourists, so there are some intentional tourist traps here. Navigate with caution…I recall seeing a guy on stilts. People on stilts are not to be trusted.

Whew…that was quite possibly the longest post I’ve ever done. Well there you go…some travel recommendations for all types of people. Bon Voyage!

50 beans | saturday morning cinquain

coffee

or no coffee?

the pourover awaits...

the brew mixed with the coffeemate

elates.

the closest i'll get to a new laptop for under $150...

Have you ever been in the situation where you like your trusty old laptop, but it kinda stopped being trusty? I would imagine most laptops get replaced after a few years as new technology comes out and things start acting funny on the older ones. Anyways, my (sometimes) trusty laptop started acting up about 6 months ago, and I was reluctant to replace it, mostly because I didn't really feel like shelling out the $$ for a new one.

I'm not entirely sure what an average lifetime is for a laptop, but my thinkpad x61s was in the 5-year-old range when it started acting up. It took the better part of 10min to boot-up (it used to take 5-7min – vista was never all that fast...), 25min in, the computer will want to restart and install some updates, then the update would fail for some reason, and it would revert back. It also didn't help that I had the laptop plugged in all the time with the battery in, so the battery life went from 6hrs average down to roughly 40min. Not to mention 80gb isn't really that big for a laptop anymore. Yep...this badboy was due for an upgrade.

This crackpot scheme started two weeks ago when fry's had a sale on laptop hard drives – 500gb SATA (5400rpm) for $39, which i guess is a good price? I picked it up, thinking at the very least i could swap out the drive. A quick peek at ebay confirmed that windows 7 goes for a decent price, and I hear good things about it (compared to vista – many things are said about vista too, none of which are repeatable in polite conversation), so i picked that up as well. Since i was on an upgrade roll, I got my hands on a few gb's of memory and ebayed a new laptop battery to boot.

Now here's the tricky part, actually opening things up. Oddly enough, there were two 1gb memory sticks in the laptop. Only one can be removed, so i swapped that one out. The drive was easy to remove, and the windows installation went in without a hitch. Here's the aggravating part. I spent the better part of 3 hours doing the upgrading part. Parts swapped, new OS installed, no problem. Then windows updater kicked in. =( 36 hours of updates later, and the laptop was finally ready to use.

The rest of the hardware couldn't really be upgraded (read: i was either inept or too lazy to look into how to do it), so even though the upgrades went in, the windows baseline performance indicator was still at a pedestrian 3.1 out of 7.9 (btw who the heck makes a scale from 1-7.9??). I can say that it runs much faster and with the new OS/drive/memory/battery, it's functioning better than it ever would have when I first got it. Hopefully it doesn't crap out for another 5 years... **fingers crossed**

twenty-five | day 25 – merry christmas!

experience God

season of love, joy, and peace

Jesus Christ is born

Today's the day we've all been waiting for! I hope that, from wherever you're reading this, you're surrounded by loved ones. If not, that's cool too. In any case, today's Christmas! It's a celebration of the birth of Jesus and the fulfillment of a hope longed for. It's also the start of a new promise, one of redemption and salvation. As we celebrate this time today with family and friends, I hope we are able to experience a bit of love, joy, and peace in a world that isn't always so. I hope you have enjoyed this christmas season.

this is the last of the 25 christmas posts (it's been fun, but the christmas haiku's were killer to write). Merry Christmas!!




**oh update!!** to a post from a few days ago...my friend on holiday text me a pic of an actual hawaiian santa (although from the photo, i'd say he's surprisingly pale for island-folk...well anyways, mele kalikimaka!

twenty-five | day 24 – christmas eve

are those bells I hear?

deck the halls with festive cheers

Christmas time is near!

Christmas Eve has always been a special time for our family. Not only is it christmas eve (for obvious reasons), but it's also my dad's birthday, so in my family, the focus is on my dad today. At Christmas time, whether you believe in God or Santa Claus, the focus of the holiday is still centered on a family. It’s fitting that God, in His infinite wisdom, chose to reveal Himself to us through this family. Much is known about Mary and Jesus, but the Bible is relatively quiet on the life of Joseph. So what do we know about him? Well as we learned in sunday school (2nd grade) yesterday, we do know that Joseph is a gentle, loving and courageous father who was guided by an angel of God to take his family on a dangerous journey to Egypt to escape from Herod. He taught his son his own trade (as many fathers still do today), and watched over Jesus as he grew up. Joseph died before Jesus matured and began His ministry, but Joseph still believed. He had faith in that what he was doing was the right thing. At his best, a father is a solid foundation of a house, his support taken for granted. At other times, he may need shoring up himself. However, the father always looks beyond the here and now. He keeps one eye trained on the next generation, driven by necessity, he becomes a man filled with hope, hope that a knowing God watches over the universe, hope that justice will prevail, hope that God’s love will shine through His will. As Paul says, abide by these three: faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love. When we gather this Christmas, we focus mostly on baby Jesus and Mary (and rightly so), but for me, Christmas has always been a time when I think about fathers the most. It’s a time for me to remember and reflect on what a blessing it is to have a father in my life.

Happy birthday Dad.

twenty-five | day 23 – family-friend frenzy

my one Christmas wish...

will it snow on Christmas Day?

Too bad it's Davis...

my house is projected to look nothing like this...but heck, a boy can dream right??

As I was driving down to Sunnyvale today, I kept thinking...if only the temperature was what it had been all last week (in the low 30's), we'd have a snowstorm on our hands! Too bad it was just a crazy rainstorm =/ although there were several times i wanted to drive back through a puddle a few times for fun...i like that loud sound and wall of water that comes up when you drive through a big one =)

Of course, since today is christmas-eve eve, it marks the beginning of what i like to call the family friend frenzy. Between today and new years, my folks like to pack in as many family friend visits as possible. I assume it's because all the kids i grew up with (term loosely applied – for some of these people, we may have shared a laugh some 15 years ago) are back for the holidays and they want us to get together so we can talk about random stuff and catch up. While there are some I look forward to, a lot of them are people i don't really know, so it's a lot of smiling and nodding. Hey, at least i don't get pinched on the cheek anymore (for the most part...i still have to hide whenever that one lady from my mom's fellowship comes by). I suppose let's raise a glass of eggnog to the next few days...hope i survive!

twenty-five | day 22 – slow afternoons

the fireplace roars

stockings hanging overhead

warm light fills the room

I think just about every year I say I'm going to start using the fireplace, and every year I end up just turning on the heater and leaving the fireplace untouched. To this day, my fireplace has gone unused. I got it cleaned when i moved in back in December of 2009, anticipating the need to use it basically every day. Now, three years later, nope, not even once. As a matter of fact, in the three years that rudolph has been hanging there, I don't even think that hearth-door has even been opened once – something i hope to rectify sometime this winter. I would imagine the first step would be learning how to open the flue (otherwise house will be filled with smoke – earning me another visit by the davis fire dept). One of these days I'd imagine I could pop a log in there (or a few) and finally put it to use (aww heck i just want an excuse to play with matches #boyswillbeboys). Maybe after the new year when my vacation days reset, I could take a day off work just to bum around at home, fire up a log, and find something fun to do. Until then, the heater will have to do.

twenty-five | day 21 – the absurdness of some Christmas traditions

what’s that sound I hear?
who’s coming down the chimney??
Ohh it’s santa claus…

shamelessly pilfered from the internet...

When I look at secular Christmas traditions from an objective point of view, a lot of it comes across as a tad ridiculous. A guy flies to the roof of your house on a sleigh. Pulled by reindeer. He then breaks into your house by coming down the chimney, and you don’t call the cops. Instead you leave out milk and cookies. Then instead of jacking your stuff, he leaves presents and takes off - back up the chimney (i have no clue how he makes it back up the chimney...it's not like he's a stick). Then he flies to the next house and does the same. He can cover the entire world in a day. Absurd?? Nope…it’s Christmas tradition apparently.

twenty-five | day 20 – the simple things

oh happy season

wish you a Merry Christmas

filled with peace and joy

have you ever seen Christmas Vacation, the national lampoon movie with Chevy Chase? There's one scene in the movie where he's decorating his house and is struggling to get them to turn on. It exemplifies how complex our christmases get. We need electrical systems with bigger capacity to accommodate christmas lights. We have to have frustration-free packaging because people aren't patient enough to deal with clam-packs. We pay companies to do our christmas cards because we're too lazy to do them ourselves. The christmas holiday has become so convoluted that it's tough to remember what the real reason behind the holiday is. I like it when christmas is simple. A tree, a present, and a few christmas songs. I like getting a hand-written christmas card in the mail, maybe a greeting from a neighbor, just to say merry christmas. The simple things are what make this holiday fun.

twenty-five | day 19 – moment of silence for the men in (mostly) blue

christmas cards are sent

holiday cheer's in the mail

wishing joy and peace

No, i'm not talking about cops (although im sure they deserve a moment of silence too). No, i'm talking about the postal workers. As we find ourselves in the final week before christmas, nearly gone are the days of christmas letters and cards (well, cards still remain to a certain extent). Those days are now replaced by the advent of amazon prime and the HSN. Now instead of getting a nice, thoughtfully written christmas card from grandma, she's sending you a weightlifting set, shipped in 2 days through amazon. And guess who's the lucky fellas who get to carry said weightlifting set to your front door? That's right, the US postal service. Of course, these days there are no longer holiday fruitcakes and stuff like that. These days, with businesses like amazon, ebay, and macys/ nordstrom/ buy.com hawking their wares on the interwebs, well, mr. postal worker is suddenly overworked. That and Fido still wants a piece of him too (hey somethings never change).

So as we're a few days away from christmas, let's have a moment of silence for mr. postman.

twenty-five | day 18 – intentional gifts

wrapping gleaming bright...

presents under christmas tree,

is this one for me?

today I read a post that made a bit of sense to me (doesn’t happen as often as it should…). Even though I don’t have kids, I still think this would be a good rule of thumb for being intentional with Christmas gifts. These days we seem to give gifts just for the sake of being able to go shopping for stuff. There’s no rhyme or reason behind the gift giving. So this lady has a creative way of giving her kids gifts, but not necessarily spoiling them (sorry if you’ve seen this before…I thought it was creative). A child would get:

want – usually something the kid will enjoy like a small toy or other item they may have had their eye on
need – a sweater for the next year or something
spiritual gift – a bible or something else that would help promote the child’s spiritual growth

this seems like a decent thought, to try to be intentional about what kinds of christmas gifts you're giving your child (although is it just me or does 3 gifts for a kid seem a bit much?). Anyways, in this time and age when we're blasted by ads and messages telling us that we need to find the perfect gift for our loved ones (or 10 perfect gifts), i wonder how many people I know with kids would be willing to try this three-step gift giving concept for christmas? Maybe next year I can get an experiment going...possibly see if switching to this kind of gift giving simplifies the holiday pageantry and allows a family to focus on more important things during christmas.

twenty-five | day 17 – keeping a Christ-centered Christmas

therefore, go in peace
greet others in love and joy
Shine your light around

Christmas-time seems to have gotten so convoluted these days. There’s so much focus on holiday decorations, giving of gifts, and other stuff that we often lose sight of the real focus of the holiday, which is the birth of Jesus. I’m guilty of this a lot too. I get wrapped up in the music and the fun atmosphere of the holiday more than I should, and I will lose sight of the importance of the holiday. Well, anyways…in the spirit of a Christ-centered Christmas, here’s the Christmas story, courtesy of Luke:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.

twenty-five | day 16 – turkey, turkeeyyy

eggnog and turkey

festive christmas company

what a nice sunday

all of this will go together – except for the nog...that's for me =)

Every year after thanksgiving, Costco comes out with their holiday cookbook (with new recipes – I imagine costco has a room full of grandmas cranking out recipes for this cookbook). One of my favorite holiday recipes was shamelessly pilfered from one of these cookbooks about 2-3 years ago. Today, I'm pulling out the recipe for turkey breast with cranberry risotto stuffing one more time for a potluck. The recipe is fairly simple, and takes about 45 min. of prep-time and 1 hour in the oven. Of course, any recipe from costco seems easy, but you inevitably end up elbow deep in turkey remnants wondering if the rice stuffing will actually stay in the bird remains. Good thing the pictures are convincing enough that you trust it will come out looking at least 75% like the one in the book. You just have to be ok with that concept.

I guess I might as well describe this turkey a bit. It's a turkey breast from nugget (apparently if you ask for turkey breast, they'll just bust open a turkey and carve out the piece you want) and you just have to carve out a little pocket for the stuffing (much harder than costco recipe grandma makes it seem). The risotto is made with chicken stock and stuff into the turkey (laid to rest in a pyrex surrounded by turkey stock – might as well be with other turkey stuff right?).

This thing comes out of the oven with the ability of feeding a basketball team (or 20 potluckers). Of course, it takes another 30 minutes just to make it look like the picture in the book. Yea...I'm a little too lazy for presentation. We'll just say this is good enough.

twenty-five | day 15 – count your many blessings, count them one by one...

gather loved ones close

it's the time to be thankful

God has blessed us so!

Christmas time should be a time of great rejoicing for Christians. It gives us a chance (not that we shouldn't be doing this throughout the year) to reflect on the year and what God has been doing in our lives, and a time to look forward to the new year. We have so much to be thankful for! On top of which, it's the opportunity to talk to people about what Christmas means to you! A chance to talk about Jesus and what he did for us, starting with being born in a manger in Bethlehem. Many people complain about the holidays (i do too sometimes), and others will give alternate views of Christmas. With so many distractions around us, it's understandable that people can easily forget to count their blessings. But, if we continue in the word of God, and rely upon the Holy Spirit, then we can better appreciate the blessings that God has graciously allowed to flow into our lives. As you navigate the business of this holiday season, remember to count your many blessings, name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done!

twenty-five | day 14 – a little holiday sadness

tis advent season

joy cometh in the morning

sure could use some now

It’s sad that in the holiday season, something like today could happen. I’m sure you’ve all heard by now about the shootings this morning. It just disappoints me when I see what evil some people are capable of. Joy cometh in the morning, scripture tells us. I sure hope so. I’m saddened to hear about the shootings in Connecticut, and I can’t begin to imagine what goes on in the guy’s head that causes him to do this. All I can say with fair certainty, is that he wasn’t born wanting to do this. Maybe something in the environment he grew up in caused him to snap. Maybe he was too taken in with the violence and mayhem in the culture. I don’t know. I don’t know what people in the coming days/months will suggest we do to prevent these things from happening again. I just know that people aren’t born wanting to do this. All throughout the day people at work were talking about what happened, sharing articles on the details. I kept hearing about horror stories from teachers with kids, kids that just wanted to make it till Christmas. Kids shouldn’t have to wish for that, and teachers shouldn’t have to hear their kids say that. I know they will be in the prayers of many people tonight.

Joy comes in the morning. I sure hope David is right.

twenty-five | day 13 – holiday decorations

white icicle lights,

inflatable santa claus

please don’t blow a fuse

Back in the southbay, there was a street off of Grant road in Los Altos near the Mountain View border that was known for having elaborate Christmas decorations. This street and the great wall of china are probably the only two things visible from outer space this time of year. It was so well-known in fact, that cars used to line up so they could drive down that street to view the lights.

Of course, the question arises, when do you take your Christmas decorations down? After all, doesn’t it get tacky to see a house in the middle of june with Christmas lights over the garage and an inflatable snowglobe on the front lawn? (I know…this kind of talk should be coming from anyone but me) I suppose for most people it’s after the first of the year. Certainly before memorial day. Anytime after that and you subject your house to teepee’d trees and eggings. Of course there is something to be said about having the Christmas spirit year round…but maybe just keep it indoors and away from the resentful stares of your neighbors.

twenty-five | day 12 – tropical christmas?

santa’s wearing shorts…

palm trees swaying in the wind

is something not right??

I wonder how people in tropical places celebrate Christmas? The other day, I posted about being somewhere tropical for Christmas…not necessarily because I want to be on a beach during Christmas time, but because I wonder what they would do? Living in California, we already have a taste of what it’s like to not have white Christmases, albeit we still get 40 degree weather around December; but what’s it like for Christmas in the Caribbeans? Or Hawaii?

A buddy of mine goes to Hawaii every Christmas with her family because of a timeshare. I wonder what that Christmas tree looks like (do they even have pine-trees in Hawaii??). Do you have wet-sand fights instead of snowballs? Would santa’s sleigh work as well in the sand?? Soo many questions…