nonstick weblog

My friend told me she heard of this great restaurant. Hmm. I heard it was good too. That’s two data points. Ack. Turns out she heard it from me. We need more friends.

I grew up in Oakland Chinatown. There is this park on 10th street that I spent many a summer. There was this big junk boat on it that was old when I was a kid. In recent years it has become very dilapidated due to use and age. This last year, the park district allotted monies to replace the old boat. Here is the placard on the new boat. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a pic of the actual boat. Next time.

This is what I see out my front door. The valley is supposed to be behind the house you see. Winter has finally arrived to Salt Lake City.

p.s. It’s so bad on the roads that the U declared a snow day.

My husband and I were watching the Oscars last night, kind of. We decided to Tivo it and start about 1 hour in so we could FF through the boring parts. We got about 2.5 hrs in when we caught up to live TV. Drat. Should have watched the whole Dreamgirls singing bit. I switch to something else we have recorded, planning to switch back to the Oscars. Dammit! Turns out Dishnetwork in our area only allotted 3 hrs instead of 4 to the Oscars and didn’t record the last hour. And that’s when all the good stuff happens. But to recap.

They stole the Oscar from Eddie Murphy. I didn’t see the movie, but I really wanted him to win. Personally, he should have won for Trading Places, he was genius.

Then there was Mark Wahlberg. He didn’t win either. And when Ellen went up to him to start her bit with Martin Scorsese, he was none too happy. He looked pissed, like Ellen was there to needle him about not winning. Which makes me think, what would have happened to Ellen’s bit if Mark Wahlberg had won? In any case, he should have known better, if the Academy was not going to give an Oscar to The Nutty Professor, they were not going to give it to Marky Mark. But’s it’s an honor to just be nominated.

My husband and I don’t see movies much anymore, what with the kid and all. We sometimes rely on the Oscars to filter movies for us. I say sometimes because we watched Academy Award winning The English Patient and it was the longest 30 minutes of our lives. We didn’t finish it. Then there was Dodgeball, the best movie ever, which didn’t even get a nod from the Academy. But I digress.

The Departed looked interesting, but we had no clue what it was about, until it got to the adapted screen play award. It was adapated from a movie, Infernal Affairs. Infernal Affairs is an awesome movie. I love Hong Kong bang-bang flicks in general, but this one had a plot and a twist. It wasn’t just directing and cinematography. I tried to get my husband to watch it, but he doesn’t like subtitles. Maybe after watching the Departed, we can watch Infernal Affairs and compare. I like Leo and Matt, but they are no Andy and Tony.

I have no idea who won best actress, actor or picture. That all happened during the last hour that my DVR did not record. Oh, well.

I was on vacation the last week for Chinese New Year. Since my family is in CA, my daughter and I traveled there to celebrate. I have no clue how to celebrate Chinese holidays. I depend on my mom.

Chinese New Year is for my family what Christmas is for my husband. It’s when you see relatives you don’t see all year. When you find out who married whom and who is still around. It’s the time of year when you see relatives you don’t recognize, then realize that they grew up a lot in the last year or that you really haven’t seen them since you were three.

This year there is an addition to my immediate family, a nephew, my sister’s kid. I also found out that a couple of my great aunts are not doing so well. They will likely not make it to the next New Year. It makes me sad. They have always been a family instituion. Much like my mom and dad. Seeing their health degrade puts into perspective my own parents’ mortality.

Anyway, Chinese New Year for me is about growing up and seeing the progression of life. This year, my daughter could appreciate the Lion Dance whereas last year it was just noise and movement. I am truly looking forward to celebrating the year of the Rat.

My husband and I were watching Office Space last night. We get to the part where Peter Gibbons asks Michael Bolton about his idea to steal money from Innotech by siphoning the fractions of a cent that get rounded out in paychecks, taxes, whatever into their account. I said “Hey they stole that from Superman 3!” right before Michael admitted that it was an idea from Superman 3.

Now keep in mind that I have never watched Office Space all the way through. And I am pretty sure I never saw this scene. But for me to know it was in a Superman movie, and that is was Superman 3? I think the nerd in me is trying to eke out.

It’s not what you think. Engineering, not engineers, need women. My husband got his February copy of Mechanical Engineering last night. The title is “Left Out? Engineering tries to attact the other half of the population.” He was surprised that they were bringing it up now since it has been an issue for years.

The headline article states that although 50% of college graduates are women, only 13% of students graduating in engineering are woman. The article talks about the different efforts groups and universities are doing to increase women’s interest in engineering. The key is to start young, involve them and evangelize.

One interested thing they brought up is that women want to believe they are contributing to society, doing something bigger than working for a paycheck. I heard that before a few years ago in a study from Carnegie Mellon, I think. I know that I like to know the big picture and how what I do fits in it. In fact, the same Carnegie Mellon (or Cornell, I can’t remember) study said that many women drop out of engineering because the first few classes were focused on discrete theories?skills that were not tied to an end result. I stuck it out long enough to get to the upper division and senior lab classes. That was when I finally understood the purpose of all the statics and dymnamics and mechanical design classes.

I think mechanical engineering programs are better now. But I haven’t been in one for over a decade. My husband says that at Utah, they are working on showing the students how the classes they take fit into the bigger picture. Now we just need to get more women applying to engineering.

I was reading Sun Ray Blog and this pic inspired me to post one of my kid’s ability to sleep anywhere.

I am watchig Heroes while I am working. But I gotta tell ya, it’s hard concentrating on work. I started watching around the 5th episode. I happened across it and was like, Huh? What the hell is going on here? I got my husband hooked with “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World”. Tonight’s episode is a doozie like all the others. I feel like I am watching a horror movie whenever Sylar is around. I yell at the TV. “Don’t open the door!” “Don’t trust him!” “No!!!!!” Ok. It’s over now. I can concentrate on work once again.

My husband and I are avid CSI fans. But lately, the episodes are going down hill. It’s less about science and police work and more about relationships.And it’s just getting plain weird. This week’s episode was incoherent even. It was about the new cop, Keppler, and his past. There was all this info and action, but there didn’t seem to be a point.

I bet that once CSI is canceled and we look back, we will find that the show jumped the shark when Grisom slept with Sidle. That’s just plain wrong. It’s too normal for Grisom to be in love, or rather, abnormal. And it makes him less interesting.