Yhippa's Blog

My Frail, Frail Body

2009-03-24T00:41:00.002-04:00

I had a conversation with my mom the other day a little while after I broke my elbow snowboarding. She criticized me for doing reckless things like that and that I shouldn't do things like that. I told her that you need to take risks sometimes to get a great reward. In this case it's the adrenaline rush from bombing down a mountain. Or in my case, uh, bunny slope.

Then this weekend I walked down a flight of four stairs in broad daylight. I'm not sure what happened but I totally bit it. For some reason the first thing I thought was "Is my camera OK?" Kind of stupid once I finally saw the total damage on my leg later that day.

So back to my original point. I don't know if I'm getting old and my coordination is getting worse or what but I fear that I need to invest in elbow, shin, and knee pads. What the hell, why not ankle pads at this point. Are these the "extreme" activities in my life now that I need to watch out for? Walking down stairs? Wow.

Bacon + Chocolate

2009-02-10T23:27:00.014-05:00

Bacoloate? Chacon? Whatever you call it, it is one of the rarest forms of enjoyment in the universe.

Let's start with the packaging. Standard fare for packaging as far as I'm concerned. Please make notice of the ginormous strip of bacon adorning, no, almost spooning the piece of chocolate. The child of their strange union is waiting inside.

Let's see what else is in there:

OK, nice silver wrapping. Not quite hermetically sealed but still pretty good. If you can read it, notice the "BACON EXOTIC CANDY BAR" product labelling. Truth be told I got kind of excited when I saw the word "EXOTIC" preceeded by "BACON." The candy bars are little squares:

I got tired of taking pictures so I finally dug in to the little sucker. What a treat this was, let me tell you. If you're a fan of sweet and salty products you will enjoy this. If you like chocolates with nuts you might like this as well. Honestly I didn't know what to expect upon digging in.

First you really taste the milk chocolate. I was almost searching for the bacon but I kept chewing the chocolate as I normally would. So far so good. It took a while but finally the bacon made itself known. I dont' really think it was that salty but the sweetness of the chocolate probably brought it out a lot more than if I had eaten it by itself.

The chunks of bacon are quite small, smaller than the bacon bits they put on salads in nice restauraunts but probably bigger (and more pure) than the standard bacon bits you can buy from the grocery store to put on your salad at home.

All joking aside this is one of the nicest contrasts of sweet and salty I've had in a long time. I probably didn't do it justice. I'll post a picture of the designer's thoughs about how she came about this idea. In conclusion, I highly recommend this. $7.47 after taxes at Joe's Market on Libby and Grove. Yes it's expensive, but you're paying for something really, um, unique. That's for sure.

The Economy

2009-01-21T00:41:00.003-05:00

The current state of employment , I admit, scares the living crap out of me. For the first time since I've started working I have seen people I know get laid off. My overall stock portfolio is negative for the first time in my life.

I like to think a lot and this issue has me stumped. I cannot think of how this will play out. It's easy to make plans when things are booming but when the chance that you could lose your job (which is your sole source of employment) increases each day, it's a scary thing.

I work for a bank which is a problem. We're not doing too bad but that's a non-fully informed assessment. The government is giving banks lots of money to lend but it seems like it's just filling the losses they have been experiencing. The money is going into a black hole which is funded by us, the taxpayers!

I hope that this economic purge is quick and painless and that new opportunities come about as a result of this. Unfortunately I've never been through one of these things and I have no idea what's coming. All I can do is put money under a mattress and hope for the best.

First-Born Asian Male

2008-11-30T13:30:00.002-05:00

I had a discussion with one of my friends about the fact that the first-born male in an Asian family has a tendency to feel responsible for his parents. To help them out with anything and to make sure their life is good. I never thought about this until it was spelled out to me like this.

I grew up with primarily American, not culture-specific ideals (or at least I think so). I grew up very far away from extended family members so I don't think their influence in this matter had much sway over me. Yet for some reason I do appear to follow this stereotype of the first-born Asian male.

I'd like to think it's just a part of my personality. I've seen examples of families of friends growing up and seen their family interaction. Some were contentious. Some friends were essentially kicked out of the house at 18 (could be to teach their kids how to live on their own or because they were sick of their kids). In any case I bet that I have modeled my interactions with my family based on what my parents have shown me, what I've observed in life, and what my natural personality is.

I don't necessarily think that that this was something forced on me or something someone told me to do. Maybe if you trace my bloodline to the very early part the environments were different then. The chances of survival in this world depended on having a strong family vs. becoming a novus homo and completely shunning your family.

Sopheap's Birthday

2008-09-27T20:56:00.001-04:00

Sopheap's birthday was a success. The grilled food was good as usual. The best part was the cake.

With the help of a friend I got a picture cake from Ukrops. The picture was of him from middle school of him (I believe). I am not sure if he liked it or not. You be the judge.

Fire Safety

2008-06-04T01:46:00.003-04:00

I was about to head out to band practice when I heard very loud thunder. Soon after that I heard lots of fire trucks near my house. I didn't think anything of it until it kept going on for a few minutes. I stepped outside and saw all my neighbors walking to the interior of the neighborhood and three fire trucks coming in through the main road to the neighborhood.

As it turns out I believe that lightning struck one of the end units of a block of townhomes. There are usually four homes in a block. I saw pretty clearly a fire in the attic and I think the fire was so hot at one point that it looked like you could almost see the roof turn orange-hot. I could be seeing things though as our roofs are made of the tar-papery stuff that you see on most houses. I got kind of nervous initially. I saw the fire blaze through the roof and the wind picked up which made it worse. Even though it didn't happen to me, just seeing something like that in person is unsettling.

This fire was under control thankfully. I saw the firefighters hacking at the roof and walls of the house. I tried taking pictures with my cameraphone but like usual, it ate the pictures. I heard tere was damage on the back which I haven't seen yet. When I drove by earlier tonight all the lights were on and it appears that they were venting the house. That's a good sign. Hopefully the damage is as minimal as you can get for having an attic fire.

This kind of freaked me out today. The odds of this happening are slim but whenever I see lightning around here it looks like it probably strikes the ground somewhere within a half-mile radius of where I live. This could happen to me one day. Then I thought about what would happen if the same thing happened to my house. What if it burned down completely?

Then I realized that I would lose a lot of important things. A lot of them are replaceable but not without great effort. There are things that I would probably have an impossible time replacing like pictures stored on hard drives and other invaluable soft-copies of documents. Even though they're digital they're still stored somewhere physical within my house. I even have fire extinguishers in my house but I don't know where they are right now nor do I know how to use them!

So one of the first things I have to do is figure out Fires Safety 101 again from what, 4th grade? The second thing I need to do is have a contingency plan for all my valuables. I think this something everybody probably should do but doesn't get done until it's too late. I am definitely guilty of that.

Murder by Death

2008-06-02T00:18:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago I had ants in my kitchen. To those of you who have been inside there it is no secret that it is not the cleanest place in my house. Little bits of food are scattered here and there. Never fear, I finally cleaned that up last weekend.

When I first saw the ants I knew that this was a problem. I don't know why ants in my kitchen are bad but it sounds like they are. I don't want insects hanging out my food preparation area I suppose. That sounds like a good reason!

I went to Home Depot to check out what they had. Most of the stuff sounded pretty awful. I balked and left the store empty-handed. Fast forward to today when I woke up and saw lots of ants crawling around my front step. I said "screw it" and went to Wal-Mart to check out what they had.

I ended up bringing back a package called "Grant's Kills Ants". I didn't know using a sentence as your product title was effective marketing. Anyway on the box it claims to destroy entire colonies. So far so good. What sounded bad and which made me change my mind this time was the following sentence: "Ants carry bait back to the colony to kill the queen". This is starting to sound like a pretty exciting drama already.

This is where it starts to get sad. This is what is claims to do on the back of the box:

Bait attracts scout ants seeking food for the colony
Scout ants take bait back home where it is eaten by queen and worker ants
Colony stops reproducing and begins to die
Weakened or destroyed colony can no longer infest your home

This is what made me balk the first time. If it hadn't been for that description I probably would have just bought the stuff the first time and been done with it. But the way they describe it I actually kinda felt sorry for the ants. I can visualize this thing being played out and it's kind of sad on an ant-level.

I ended up putting the stakes for the poison outside anyway. So far I haven't seen any ant activity but I presume that is due to the sun bearing down on the colony. I guess we'll see in a week if this stuff actually works and whether or not I am responsible for ant genocide.

I have no idea why this bothers me. In the grand scheme of things this is pretty much pointless. Maybe it's that time of month and I'm having my manstrual cycle or something.

Women and Power

2008-06-01T01:30:00.004-04:00

Driving home tonight I was thinking about the fact that men throughout history typically exercise power through physical or direct methods. I'm going to do some gross generalization here but women typically lack the chemistry or physiology to exert their force of will in the manner that men do. This produces some interesting social interactions I've observed.

Don't get me wrong. This by no means women are powerless in society. Also throughout history there are famous women (Cleopatra for example) who have risen to the top by no accident. Women have had to learn to get power through alternate means. Means in the form of passive-aggressive and manipulative behavior.

I have observed this in various forms throughout my life. It is pretty different in comparison to dealing with my dude friends. Guys tend to be more direct. If there is a disagreement they will fight or whatever then "hug it out, bitch".

It is a different story with women sometimes. They like to bottle things up and then get you to guess what's wrong with them. Instead of being mad at something that's not going well in their life they will transfer that anger to whomever they are talking to or people close to them. Social engineering occurs frequently in packs of women. This is necessary to establish a pecking order.

I have lots of female friends who buck this trend. I feel sorry for them though because this must have been difficult to deal with growing up as you adjust to social norms within female social circles. They just didn't play those games but I fear they might have paid the price for that along the journey of life. And I can't blame the women who do play the game. That is just how things are. There is immense social pressure for men to act like men and women to act like women. However that is.

As a guy this is a true pain in the ass to deal with sometimes. I acknowledge that I have extra special ways of pissing off women myself. But it seems like the more I get to know women the more I observe this type of behavior no matter how much I idealize my interactions with them.

What do you mean by "no"?

2008-05-19T11:53:00.004-04:00

I was thinking about this the other day. What does the word "no" mean? The opposite of "yes"? How about "I do not agree" or "Permission denied"? I find it absolutely fascinating that two letters in the English language combined have so many different meanings that are hard to describe.

Chicken Biscuit + Egg Biscuit = The Circle of Life?

2008-03-31T13:54:00.010-04:00

Two weeks ago I happened to arrive at the fine culinary establishment known as "Sheetz." Sheetz is a national chain whose business proposition is mostly gasoline and as the trend in most gas station businesses, value-added services such as car washes and food service.

One of the marvels of this particular place is that they have a list of highly customizable menu items ranging from nachos that you can construct with as many or as little options as you choose (lettuce, peppers, etc.).

One curious abomination I ran across during this particular post-party visit was that one of my partners-in-crime was able to order a fried chicken and egg biscuit.

This brings up all sorts of ethical questions. Mother and child, all on one delicious platform. Is this the unholy union of one of nature's most sacred processes?

It really didn't weird me out at first but in retrospect it is really disturbing. I suppose technically it is all just matter in the form of human nutrition. I mean I don't question how hot dogs are made or where sausage comes from. Those are questions that will forever remain a mystery to mankind.

What was the most disturbing thing you ate?

Brown Town

2008-03-19T00:05:00.005-04:00

Ahh yes, Richmond, VA AKA "Chocolate City." Well not really. Isn't that supposed to be Washington, D.C.?

It is tough being a person of brown skin. I was travelling with some friends once to Tampa, FL. We were in line to have our bags checked. I didn't know it but one of my friends in front of me had a switchblade in his backpack. Somehow he got through the scanners unscathed. Me, they pulled me out of line and asked me fun questions and checked my bags thoroughly. It may or may not have to do with the fact that I'm brown but considering I'm almost always being pulled aside out of line I'm going to err on the side of the fact that the TSA hates me.

Also growing up brown in VA has been difficult. If you live in Richmond or central VA you know what I'm talking about. The stares when you walk into a room. People assuming you are Indian (dots, not feathers), Filipino, or Mexican.

The worst part is getting a date in Richmond. The unfortunate thing about being brown here is that a lot of women seem to care about skin color. I'm OK with that. You like what you like. But jeez, I would like to have the odds in my favor for once in my life!

Chemical Computers

2008-03-08T10:57:00.004-05:00

Whenever I run I typically have a lot of time to think. It helps pass the time when you're running through some lame-ass suburban neighborhoods. This post is going to be a little bit "out there" so bear with me. Think of it as a thought experiment.

One of the classes I took in engineering school was about computers, their organization, and design. I believe it was called Computer Architecture. It was one of the most interesting classes I took becuase I really enjoy understanding how things work. And being a computer engineer, you can imagine this was pretty exciting to me.

At the heart of the computer is the CPU which performs arithmetic logic and communication tasks. You have RAM and hard drive storage which are two different types but essentially similar way of storing (caching) information that the CPU uses. Then you have all sorts of other subsystems (which are typically discrete and separate systems) such as the graphics card which works hard to generate data to display on your monitor. There is the sound card which performs tasks such as getting input from a microphone and outputting sound to speakers.

Now getting back to my main point, I was thinking about how similar this is to a human being's organization, if you will. I know this type of connection has been made before so I'm not going to claim that I came up with this novel idea.

The power supply is the equivalent of the heart, transforming one input (electricity) into power for the rest of the system. The CPU and storage would be equivalent to the brain. Your eyes are the most advanced graphics card ever created! I can't imagine the day when our digital cameras or TV's years from now approach the resolution of what we see out our eyes. And I could go on.

But what struck me most was what happens when you "boot up" a computer. You give it some juice and it boots up into Microsoft Windows or whatever OS you prefer. You tell it what to do, and for the most part it gets it done. Send a few emails, watch YouTube, then you shut it down. But wait, what happens to the computer when you shut it down? For the most part it just sits there lifeless and retaining no prior memory other than what was last saved in it's long-term memory.

I can see a view of humans as essentially "chemical computers" where we are the exactly the same from a high-level as the computer you're using to read this. The main difference is of what the computer composed. In our case, organic cells.

When we experience love, pain, and happiness, are they true feelings that we have or are they just a series of chemical interactions within our body that take inputs and produce outputs? Your skin is one of the largest organs your body has. When I touch a hot stove, my the nerves in my skin transmit that information back to my brain which then sends a signal (involuntarily to me) to withdraw my hand from whatever it is touching. You could abstract many interactions that we have to an input, processing, and output flow.

Then there's another issue this brings up. When enough of our body fails that we die, do we go to heaven or an afterlife or do we just stop processing things much like a computer does? Then our body goes back to the earth ready to be used as resources for the rest of the world to use eventually.

So if you've made it this far, congrats. I apologize for the wandering style of this post. At this point I'm too tired to think of anything else today. If you have any thought that agree or disagree with this, I'd love to hear them. I'll post any particularly interesting responses later!

Chain Restaurants

2008-03-02T23:57:00.002-05:00

I don't know how I feel about them. I used to despise them with a passion. I think I might be starting to soften my stance on them though.

One of the things I like to do in Richmond is to try different restaurants particularly ones that are unique. I figure that there's a T.G.I. Friday's every half-mile on my side of town so I could go there anytime.

After going to my fair share of restaurants around town I can see why people would go to a chain. I am not going to name names but I have been to a few restaurants in Richmond that have been hyped up only to deal with atrocious customer service once I get there. I mean we're talking Waffle House bad. No, worse than that.

I guess the plus of the chain is that the food and service is fairly consistent from one restaurant to the next and that the food is of a certain quality. I didn't say good necessarily. I find that the food usually tastes good at a chain restaurant but that is mainly due to the excess fat and salt within the food.

So there you have it. It seems your choices are average quality and average customer service or crappy customer service but potentially good food. It's almost a lose-lose situation. Which do you prefer?

California Tortilla

2008-02-28T13:51:00.001-05:00

I had lunch at California Tortilla today. I had the Havana Chicken Burrito. It was very filling. As far as satisfying, I'm not so sure. It wasn't quite as tasty as Chipotle but not quite as gross as Moe's either. I'd put it squarely in the "neutral" postition on the burrito spectrum. I must say that I enjoy the impressive amount of hot sauces they have on display (which are also for human consumption).

My coworker pointed out to me that California Tortilla is actually based out of Maryland. Isn't that kind of strange? I guess it is much more of an exotic locale than say North Dakota or Wyoming. Wyoming Tortilla? I don't think so.

Pictured here are two actual California Tortilla customers at an actual California Tortilla somewhere. The one near where I live never seems to be busy but has been around for almost two years now. I have no idea how they stay in business. I predicted they would close up shop in Q4 '07. I was wrong.

100,000 Miles

2008-02-25T10:09:00.001-05:00

Well, my car finally hit 100,000 miles this morning. It has been fun what with all the trips to Charlottesville and D.C. Now, time for an oil change!

NCSU @ UVa

2008-02-24T17:53:00.000-05:00

Somehow we're winning by more than double. I suppose the 'Hoos have 16 minutes to blow a 26 point lead.

On another topic, am I violating NCAA rules by blogging from this game live?

Lazy Sunday

2008-02-24T13:33:00.001-05:00

I <3 the show Reba.

Lazy Man

2008-02-24T13:20:00.001-05:00

I am sitting next to Pheap on a couch. What a lazy bastard!

Competitive Eating

2008-02-23T21:24:00.001-05:00

I am sitting next to John. All that's on his mind is food. He failed to eat three cupcakes at the same time.