football

Purdue's playing Notre Dame tomorrow.... crossing my fingers... praying hard... Will miracle happen?

Update 1:
Purdue is down by 14 at the half. The defense is not playing very well, but I love the offense. Curtis Painter (our quarterback) is better than I thought. Lymon's (wide receiver) got a big body and a damn good receiver. Of course Kory Sheets (running back) is a delight to watch. Hope the defense will show up in the second half.

Update 2:
Didn't watch the second half. A family from church invited us to their home for dinner. Anyway, I just checked the score and we lost. Oh well... Purdue has a very young defense. Next year will be better I hope.

A Giant Bug

A giant bug was found near the town of Hulen, Germany. Here's the aerial downloaded from Google Earth.
The bug measured 167 feet long. Huge!

mid week

Sunday... I was nervous. Never had led a worship service before. I didn't start very well... kinda fumbling with words and forgot the name of the family who gave the flowers on the altar. But everything turned out ok in the end. I am glad that I did it.

Work has been incredibly busy lately. Now that I have to do all the cad and gis work for the ecological group, meaning I have prepare all the maps and figures for their reports and stuff. On top of that I have my own flood studies and projects to do. My to-do list is usually 10 items long. I wish I have help, but we are not going to hire anyone this year. Bummer.

Mom was mad at Dad (as usual) today. But today, she has a good reason too. She was making the lotus seed paste for mooncakes... and she ran into a math problem. She had a bowl of sugar measured at 16 "lurn" and she only needed 11 "lurn" of sugar. So she poured some sugar out until the whole thing measured at 5 "lurn" (remaining sugar + bowl). The whole time my mom was doing it, my dad kept challenging her that she was not doing the math right and that she didn't take into the account the weight of the bowl. My mom got soooo annoyed that she almost wanted to call me at work. Over dinner, I tried to explain to my dad that the weight of the bowl didn't matter. But my dad still didn't get it. Poor dad.

To delete or not to delete

ok... duplicate posts. wasn't intentional and wittybb has spotted the difference. to delete or not to delete. oh well.... who cares.

i am still a little apprehensive about tomorrow. I need to read the scriptures tonight and make sure i don't screw up.

baking a cake with my mom for my dad's b-day tomorrow. just finished whipping the cream. and the cake is out from the oven. we'll see. man... that kitchen aid mixer is sure worth the money.

went to IKEA today with a coworker. she needed some shelves. she never been to IKEA b4 and was excited (and a bit overwhelmed) about the whole thing. oh... actually... we had to work today. there's this detention pond in Schaumburg that we had to look at and see if we can make any improvement on the landscaping and type of vegetation. anyhow... my parents tagged along as well... coz they wanted to go shopping... and they got bored sitting at home. a fun day i guess.

damn it. the cake didn't turn out right. have to redo it.

moon cake

Mom made these mini mooncakes. Brought some back to work to share with colleagues. They were quite a hit. I was surprised how well they liked the mooncakes, even the ones with salted egg yolk. Well... afterall the mooncakes are sweet. People here like all kinds of sweet stuff anyway.

I helped make the lotus paste. It was quite time consuming. First melt the sugar in a wok of hot oil. The oil can't be too hot otherwise the sugar will become charcoal. Then add the cooked groundup lotus seeds. Keep stirring untill everything's mixed together. The longer you stir... the thicker the paste becomes, and the harder it is to stir.

If you realize the amount of oil that goes into a mooncake... you probably will not want to eat it again. But heck with the cholesterol... it tastes sooooooo good.

moon cake

Mom made these mini mooncakes. Brought some back to work to share with colleagues. They were quite a hit. I was surprised how well they liked the mooncakes, even the ones with salted egg yolk. Well... afterall the mooncakes are sweet. People here like all kinds of sweet stuff anyway.

I helped make the lotus paste. It was quite time consuming. First melt the sugar in a wok of hot oil. The oil can't be too hot otherwise the sugar will become charcoal. Then add the cooked groundup lotus seeds. Keep stiring untill everything's mixed together. The longer you stir... the thicker the paste becomes, and the harder it is to stir.

If you realize the amount of oil that goes into a mooncake... you probably will not want to eat it again. But heck with the oil... it tastes sooooooo good.

thursday

believe it or not... i did have a better sleep last night. but still... woke up in the middle of the night for no reason.

rev. craig asked me to lead the sunday service. hmm... i agreed to it, but i am a little worried. well... God will watch over me.

...

New sheet + new blanket + new pillow case =?= good night sleep

I don't know. Haven't had good sleep lately.

untitled

If only I were to be carefree,
to be free of worries,
to be free of wants and desires,
I would have been a child all over again.

Some random thoughts

being too rational is not too good sometimes. but i guess that's the only way that I can keep myself sane. no... nothing dramatic happened in my life. in fact it was a wonderful weekend. the weather couldn't have been any better. my folks were happy. my friends were so nice and hospitable.

that feeling of emptiness is overpowering at times. difficult to articulate what exactly it is. no reason? for knowing the reason might not yield any solution.

time to immerse myself in my work. being busy is a damn good way of avoiding being too rational. hehee... doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?

Yellowstone

I have been so busy lately that I haven't had the time to update my blog. With my being parents here, I really don't have much time to myself. Anyway...
Just got back from a trip to Yellowstone. My dear friend from Cali, her husband, some friends of theirs, my parents and I, total of 9, made the trip. We stayed at a surprisingly nice cabin in West Yellowstone. The scenery was just amazing despite of the haze and smoke from nearby forest fires. Here're some of the pictures I took.

A hot spring with beautiful colors. The blue color is from the mineral and I guess the reddish brown is both from mineral and bacteria growing at the bottom. I think this picture is taken at West Thumb.

A stump of dead wood by a hot spring. This spring is less hot and therefore the color is paler in comparison to the previous picture. This hot spring is in the Norris Basin.


There are so many crystal clear streams in the Yellowstone National Park. This is one of them. I forgot the name of this creek. Next time I go there... I will definitely spend time fly fishing.


A B/W photo taken at Jenny Lake in the Grand Teton National Park. The sun was setting. The haze from forrest fire was masking the mountains. So I decided to try B/W instead. The picture turned out really well.


Evening at Jackson Lake (Teton). We stopped at a beach on Jackson Lake and saw the sunset. We were throwing and skipping stones on the water and had a lot of fun.


Elk up-close and personal. We saw quite a bit of wildlife at Yellowstone... elk, big-horn sheep, bison, and even black bear. My friends saw a moose on their drive back.

We were stopped by some rangers letting their herd of horses crossing the highway. It was quite a scene. Galloping horses and dust flying....


Fire destroyed quite a bit of forests. But fire is a good thing. It kills off dead and diseased tree and allows new growth.


A shadow of me.