Weekend Update It was warm and sunny during the week when I was inside. It was cloudy and overcast on the weekend. This is not the way it is supposed to be in Southern California.
I did catch up with the Princess over the weekend. She had been busy with her wedding plans and going to a bridal shower. She did receive her birthday gift from Dad. I always get nervous when the package tracking information says “package left at front door, no signature required.”
The Princess was happy that Daddy gave her the remaining place settings for her china. I said that she would have plenty of plates for the food that she was not going to cook. The Princess never learned to cook as well as I do. I don’t cook fancy meals; I just cook simple meals well and try to liven up the food presentation with a catchy side dish like sautéed asparagus with an egg, olive oil, and mustard sauce.
I got my annual physical examination lab test results. I was pleased to see that I am healthy and that all of the tests were either normal or at my goal. This is nice but I still want to lose a bit more weight before Summer and the wedding. My doctor was happy that I had given up smoking for the most part. He felt three cigars in six months was not too bad and not likely to cause me grave injury after all of those years growing up when I was exposed to tons of second hand smoke.
My Amber Alert
I phoned Amber around noon today. Amber is not a morning person when she can sleep in. I can understand that. I told her that I indulged myself and that I slept in until a little after 7:00 AM today.
Amber thought I was crazy for getting up so early.
Amber liked what I planned to cook for dinner from reading the blog. She asked me what kind of fish I was planning to cook. I said that I wouldn’t know until I went to the fish market on Saturday morning and saw what was available. I think I will have a better fresh fish selection on Saturday morning than if I wait until Sunday morning.
[Note to self: be careful what you write in the blog.]
We decided to have dinner on Sunday for a variety of reason. I teach class on Saturday afternoon until 5:30 PM and I would not be home for another hour. Then, it would be around 7:00 before I could think about cooking. Amber works on Saturdays and she does not get off until 5:00 or when she finishes her last appointment. That makes it a long day for both of us.
Sunday works well because Amber can sleep in and indulge herself. We can have a dinner at a decent hour and not worry about staying up too late. I can also do some early meal preparation like make the asparagus sauce for example.
I also started working on my list of Things to Do with Amber this weekend. I am an organized guy who plans ahead. The list is places to go and things to do that are not dependent on a particular time of the year. For example, the Things to Do with Amber List does not include any St. Patrick Day events.
All of this talk about Amber and dinner leads, of course, to an early programming note.
Programming NoteSince Amber will be here for dinner on Sunday; the Weekend Update blog will be posted in two parts with the final part appearing on Monday.
VisitorsLast week was a singularly important week for the blog. We passed the 4,000th visitor mark. I forget on which date but this is a nice milestone for all of the regular visitors to celebrate.
The week’s Visitors Section is a bit distorted because of the carryover from last week’s server troubles with Site Meter. I think it is better to have a distorted week than to lose the data completely.
We had visitors from Canada [15], India [3], Texas [3], Philippines [2], Netherlands [6], Hong Kong, Singapore, Turkey, United Kingdom [9], Japan [7], Argentina, Spain [3], Bolivia, Belgium [2], Portugal, Malaysia, Thailand [3], China [3], France [4], Nicaragua, Sweden, Israel [2], United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Germany [4], Indonesia, Finland [3], New Zealand, Korea [3], Italy [2], Switzerland, Poland, and Australia.
I make it a practice to list the countries in order that they appear at the blog site in the week. For example, a Canadian visitor was the first foreign visitor last week.
When I was searching around for an answer to my problems with the Site Meter traffic count function, I learned about how the program works. I have decided to only acknowledge visitors who stay for a longer period of time from now on. We had visitors who stayed at the blog for 25 minutes, 20 minutes, and 11 minutes.
I expect the blog to register its 400th visitor for the month on Monday. That would be very nice.
I do appreciate all of you who regularly visit and therefore support the blog. I would not be writing the blog if I did not have any visitors.
If I wasn’t writing the blog, I could spend time with Amber.
DAE JO YOUNGThis is a painting of how Dae Jo Young would have looked, based on historical styles of dress and descriptions of him.
I got it when I was out looking for some information on a Korean warship that was named for him. The Dae Jo Young is the third ship in the Korean Navy’s KDX-II class of destroyers. The other two ships in the class are the
Wang Guen and the
Yi Sun Shin. These warships are named for famous Korean kings or admirals who drove foreign invaders out of Korea.
I am going to stop referring to the show in the blog now because it seems my comments about the television show are now showing up when you do a Google search for Dae Jo Young.
I missed a lot when I went to the cinema and dinner with Amber. My time with Amber was a much, much better use of the evening.
I think I will be able to pick things up in the next week or so and be able to follow the plot lines better. On the plus side, I managed to learn that there are only 100 episodes and last night was 21. The opening or closing credits do not mention the names of the cast in English so I was very happy when I found a web site that has the cast information in English. One or more of the actresses from the show may end up as a Woman of the Moment or Weekend Bonus Feature.
Furniture ShoppingI went furniture shopping for a new bed and bookcase on Friday. I wanted to get a Mission or Craftsman style bed and bookcase. I have become interested in their simple and Southern California based styles.
My search for the bed and bookcase took me to the San Fernando Valley. I went there because I was running out of choices locally. I could not find what I wanted here. I don’t like driving to the Valley because the drivers there seem a bit on edge and a little too aggressive for me plus they tend to have their cell phones in the ears all of the time. Traffic on the 405 Freeway is often terrible so that makes a trip to the Valley nasty.
Traffic was predictably bad and I was stopped for a few moments in Westwood; for those of you who know the area, between Santa Monica and Wilshire on the north bound 405. I saw a sign that advertised Amber’s radio station. I decided to give it a try since I had some time.
Amber likes country music and this is a country music station. It is the only FM band country music station in Southern California so it was easy to find on the dial. I did enjoy the music and it was nice to listen to a radio station and actually understand the words of the song. I made her station one of my pre-sets on my car radio now.
Doug, on the other hand, is very partial to rap and hip hop music and those songs are so very hard to understand. Well, they are hard for me to understand.
Actually, Amber likes just about every type of music. I checked her My Space page and it seems that her list of music that she likes is very broad and comprehensive.
Full and Fair Disclosure: I don’t think Amber had bagpipes on her list of music that she likes. This is very understandable since bagpipes are an acquired musical taste; much like single malt Scot’s whisky.
I did find a bed that I wanted and they had the size I needed in stock. The bed and bookcase will be delivered this Friday.
DissertationI think my dissertation took a turn for the worse on Friday.
I got an email from school that said my committee chair was no longer with the school. This means I may have to reorganize and possibly start over with a new committee. I am hoping to be able to just add a third member to the committee and have one of the existing members act as the chair. This is the second time this has happened to me.
My next trip to school promises to be very interesting.
TeachingSpending four hours teaching Accounting on a Saturday afternoon is a terrible way to spend a perfectly fine day.
I have twelve students assigned to the class but only eight showed up on Saturday. I don’t take the students who do not show personally. It is part of the process. Many of the students lack any form of personal motivation to go to school and study.
One of the students is already in trouble and I think he is going to be struggling for the rest of the class. He is having trouble with some of the basic concepts like assets and liabilities. He lacks a good business vocabulary and this may be a cause of his troubles. Fortunately for him, the class is small enough so that I can give him more individualized attention and help.
I spoke with a fellow instructor about the student who was continually talking and not making any sense in my Microeconomics class. It turns out he has Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. The other instructor gave me some advice on how to manage the student in class.
El GringoI had my dinner at El Gringo tonight. I had a grilled mahi mahi burrito. I really like the burrito except for the fact that it is served without any sauce and melted cheese on it.
Oh well, life happens sometimes.
Jess the Server was working tonight when I walked in. It is certainly nice to be greeted with a “Hello Charles, it’s nice to see you again.” That makes you feel very welcome. Last weekend, when I was off watching 300 with Amber, Jess was not working and off in Temecula.
That made me feel good about not going to El Gringo for dinner. Next weekend, I will not have dinner at El Gringo because Amber is coming to my place for a home cooked dinner.
Woman of the MomentThis will be the next to last appearance by Vivian Hsu as the Woman of the Moment. I am certainly glad that my friend Vivian suggested that I should use her as a Woman of the Moment.
Be well and stay happy.
My Amber Alert was a non-event. As you may recall, Amber was supposed to come over to my flat for a home cooked meal on Sunday. Dinner was an event designed for Amber since she does not do well with time sensitive events. This was easy for me. Amber would show up; I would cook dinner; and then we would talk after dinner.
I phoned Amber around noon today. Amber is not a morning person when she can sleep in. I can understand that. I told her that I indulged myself and that I slept in until a little after 7:00 AM today.
