Organic produce distributors

You are what you eat

An old saying. And I start to believe it.

I did not care much about my meals. As long as they are tasty, I did not pay attention on the nutrition side. Until this year... I heard people talked about organic more and more. Before, I thought organic was just a marketing slogan. Just a new way to promote products. Just a new touch to attract educated people. Just another way to justify your expenditure. I was cynical.

I met more and more people eating organic food. Some people were picky and would just want to purchase organic produce regardless of its price. People like my sister will replace their toothpaste with organic toothpaste. I am not sure how manufacturers produce organic toothpaste. I just knew the organic toothpaste used less petroleum and used more natural ingredients. I tried the organic toothpaste once. I felt the same. Anyhow, my sister was happy with her organic toothpaste.

In a friend gathering, people talked about fresh produce distribution. I heard you could get fresh food produced from Sonoma Valley once a week. You could not choose specific produce combination. But you could say what you would dislike. They would just give you what was available. The produce was seasonal. They delivered to your home once a week.

I suddenly wanted to try fresh produce. I knew it is not economic for people like me to subscribe this kind. Because I barely cook. But, it is for the health. You are what you eat. I am afraid this saying is true.

I found a website that might help you if you also want to try organic fresh produce.

http://www.omorganics.org/page.php?pageid=207

Surfing in Santa Cruz

Do you know how people in 50s surfed?

A picture of Santa Cruz Surfing Club. The picture was taken in June 1941

I came across this picture when I tried to find some materials for my surfing post. I remember seeing this picture in a local Santa Cruz mueseum.

$10 lesson

Some companies know how to have fun. For example, DemandTech

Charles and John asked me if I wanted to play Poker. I said why not. So, Totof and I went to DemandTech after work. The company looked nice. We were brought to a conference room. Apparently, this Poker night is business as usual. How nice.

Unlike my previous Poker experience, this game was play-for-money. You needed to pay 10 to buy in. We had 7 people in the game. Most people were Charles and John's coworkers. They seemed nice and friendly. People were not aggressive. I liked it.

Small blind was 25 cents and big blind was 50 cents. People apparently were quite familiar with Poker. The girl on my left (Karen) and the girl on my right (Tara) played professionally. I was frightened. In the first round I got a King and a Jack. Not bad. People raised and I followed. I thought I had a good hand. Before the last was revealed, we saw the table had a Ten, a Queen, a Three, and a Six. Karen raised a lot. I called because I thought I would have the chance to have a straight. I did not win. I lost 2+ dollars in my first game.

After few rounds, my stack got low. I needed to be more careful. I got a pair of 10s. I was confident. Karen again. She raised 1 dollar at each turn. I called at each turn. The table so far had a Queen, a Nine, and 2 crappy cards. Karen raised 2 dollars. I was hesitant. Did she have a Queen? What if she had? She looked like she had something good. Should I put 2 dollars in the pot? Should I quit or should I stay? I quit. I was chickened out.

My stack got so low. Only 3 dollars left. Looked around. People except for John had high stack. I was losing. I clearly realized that my strategies were wrong. I used the same strategies I learned from play-for-fun Poker. Apparently, not every strategy worked at play-for-money Poker.

I did not revive myself. I wanted to observe people. It was fun to watch people and know their styles.

Siz (?) was quite calm. At some point Totof had a Spade flush but he did not realize that. Because he only paid attention on Jack (he had a pair of Jacks). He turned his hand face down when John claimed his victory. Siz asked Totof bluntly "don't you have a Spade?" He turned his hand face up and realized he WON. If Siz did not remind him of Spade, he would lose at least 4 dollars. Technically, he would not win that game. But, people were nice to him. So he got around 15 dollars back in this game.

Charles and John were funny. Totof and I did not know if Charles was bluffing. Charles liked to raise a lot at early turns then reduced or checked at later turns. This kind of raise would scare me away. But apparently not many people were scared away. Maybe because they were all familiar with Charles' style.

Charles and John had some bloody games. You could sense the atmosphere was violent. We sometimes were afraid if Charles went a bit over. But apparently this interaction was common between them two. We did not know how John felt exactly. But to us, the way he irritated John was amazing and entertaining.

In the end, beyond my expectation, Totof won. He got 35 dollars. We left and went to a Japanese place for dinner.

It was a nice Poker night. I used $10 in exchange of some strategies. A good $10 lesson.

The Widow of Saint-Pierre

LaVeuve de Saint-Pierre

That night was for a party initially. Totof got an invitation and we decided to check it out. The party location was in an international school in Palo Alto. Interesting location. Not many buildings around the school. A bit deserted. When we saw the reception table, we suddenly had a thought that this party might be quite different from what we expected. We were right. The party was not something with high tech and fancy lighting. The party was more like a community party. It had welcome and warm atmosphere. Nice music. Good authentic French appetizers. Various cheese. Various pâtés and terrines. Of course, French were all over the place.

We circled around. We met Fabian and Lucile there. They arrived earlier than us. Apparently this party was well organized. Around 8pm, there was a welcome speech. The speech was followed by professional ballroom dancing. The dance was nice. Then Navaline arrived. We could see her disappointment immediately. She dressed up (not for a community party). We chatted and enjoyed some dancing. Then, we decided to leave and go clubbing.

At the time we left, the night was still young. So, we decided to stop by Navaline's place first to kill some time. She has some DVD's. We came across The Widow of Saint-Pierre and thought it might be worth to watch it. We did.

The movie was in French with English subtitle. I would be toast otherwise. I could just recognize two people on the movie cast: Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil. I knew Daniel Auteuil from Le Valet, another movie. You will see a post about Le valet.

The movie was narrated by Juliette Binoche. The story began with a murder in Saint Pierre. One murderer was hit and died immediately when a riot occurred. The other murderer was survived and put to the building next to Juliette and Daniel's place. In the movie, Daniel was the captain of Saint Pierre and Juliette was the wife of the captain. Emir Kusturica was the survived murderer.

The wife apparently believed that this murderer was not a bad person. She was totally a humanist. So that she asked Captain to have Emir to help her with gardening. Since the Captain loved her wife so much, he made a deal with Emir. Emir could go out of his cell with the condition that he needed to comply with Juliette's every order. You saw Juliette rehabilitate Emir. Taught him to read, taught him to plant, taught him to help people... Some dialogues and interactions between Juliette and Emir were well performed. These absolutely enriched the movie. Juliette tried to let Saint Pierre's residents understand Emir. Emir became a small town hero at some point. Of course, by law, Emir was still a murderer. As movie went, you saw some dark politics in Saint Pierre. The governor wanted to use a guillotine to kill Emir. But since Paris was busy with its own problems (history), Paris government could not handle Saint Pierre's guillotine issue fast. The people in Saint Pierre started liking Emir and wanted to protect him. No one wanted to be the executor. Many good scenes were there. Those scenes made the movie real. Of course the governor was pissed by people's reaction. So He plotted. He set the Captain up. The Captain and his wife were carried away to Martinique for mutiny. The Captain was executed.

You saw love in this movie as well. The love between the Captain and his wife was highlighted. How the Captain used his eyes to show the devotion in an official meeting for high level people and their wives. Also how the captain protected his wife when others questioned her deed. Daniel acted these parts well.

The interactions between Juliette and Daniel were also subtle but detail enough to send the audience right message.

AFTERTHOUGHT:

You will like this movie if you want to spend some time to appreciate a story and good acting. This movie will not entertain you. But, it makes you think.

Happy birthday to Pei-Chen

A birthday is always a good excuse to indulge yourself

We went to Korean Palace BBQ on Friday night to celebrate Pei-Chen's birthday. We wanted to avoid a long wait so we decided to meet there at 6. Totof apparently tried very hard to meet the time since he was the first one to arrive...

Palace BBQ is always a good choice when you want to indulge yourself with good quality meat. Nice marinated meat. I always want to find out what secrets Palace has in marination sauce. The sauce makes Palace's meat stands out among the bay area Korean BBQ places.

Totof and I like their side dishes. For me, I like their kimchi, noodles, radish, bok choy, and spinach. For Totof, he prefers kimchi, bok choy, noodles, meat ball, and rice. We barely try their crab meat, tofu, squeeze and jelly fish.

The first round we got two plates filled with beef and two plates filled with side dishes. Yongjin was good at picking meat. As our dinner went, a question was raised. We saw Yongjin's plate was filled with raw crabs. So we asked why. He and Pei-Chen told us that crabs in Korea were very expensive. Therefore, he liked to get some crabs. We did not try any crabs due to their spiciness. But according to Pei-Chen and Yongjin, these crabs were good. Palace apparently had done a good job at making these crabs. Just one drawback, the crab size is too small. Yongjin said they should serve larger crabs.

We talked about surfing. One day Totof told me he bumped into Yongjin in the water in Santa Cruz. So Totof asked Yongjing how his surfing was going. These two big boys were enthusiastic at surfing. We talked about the length of surf boards, talking about the skills, talking about the performance difference between surf boards, and talking about locals.

Then the topic turned to focus on stock market. I recall that Pei-Chen mentioned the Wave Theory. The Wave Theory said that in long term, any stock price movement can be generalized by five step up and three step down. Stock prices need to have momentum to go up. When stock prices are low, it means the stocks are accumulating energy. When a stock's energy tank is full, the energy will then push the stock price to go up. All healthy stocks therefore in long term moves up.

We had so many rounds. As usual, we feel the fullness was up to our throat. But we still like to visit Palace and make ourselves suffered a bit. Maybe this suffer also produces a kind of satisfaction. Dinner went well. Everyone was happy. Happy atmosphere. Happy meat. Happy belly.

After dinner, let's play games

The initial plan was to go to Totof's place to play a board game. Pei-Chen, Yongjin and I arrived 10 min after Totof because Pei-Chen needed to refill. So, you could imagine Totof already turned on the projector and watched some cool stuff with nice sound. We sit on the sofa and watched Totof showed off some cool Linux features. Linux was filled with astonish features.

We then talked about Guitar Hero. Pei-Chen played Guitar Hero 2 before. But not with the guitar, just with the controller. We turned on XBox 360 and BANGed, Guitar Hero 2. I could tell Yongjin knew how to play music instruments immediately. Yongjin tried playing Rancid's Salvation and Cheap Trick's Surrender. The way he placed his fingers and moved his fingers showed this fact out loud. He did not perform the songs like the first time to play. He got some nice scores. Pretty good.

Then, Pei-Chen tried it. Accidentally she got a medium level on Pearl Jam's Life Wasted. Totof and I thought we needed to restart the song. It turned out we did not need to. Pei-Chen missed several notes at beginning phrase. It did not matter. She quickly understood how to play and got the Mojo. She moved her fingers on frets accordingly. She strummed with perfect rhythm sense.

She did not fail. In stead, she rocked. Totally, she rocked.

Her performance revealed that she must have a great music training.

Pei-Chen and Yongjin, this couple, truly amazed Totof and me. We have seen so many people. This was our first time to see a couple can nail down songs like this in first try. We stunned.

They went to every level. They were unstoppable. Toadies' Possum Kindom and Cheap Trick's Surrender were like a piece of cake. Warrant's Cherry Pie and Iggy Pop and and Stooges' Search and Destroy were defeated immediately. Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine and Police's Message in a Bottle were completed without any difficulty. Deep Purple's Hush and Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name of were nicely performed. Dick Dale's Misirlou was also challenged.

Besides, Pei-Chen and Yongjin has tried some bonus songs. For instance, Freezepop's Less Talk and More Rock.

When Yongjin played Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine, he told us a story. He had this CD when he was in Junior High. He liked to listen to this CD, esp this song. Somehow, his dad did not like him to spend time on rock music. So, one day, when his dad found out what Yongjin was listening to. His dad threw his CD away.

In the end, we did not play board games. We could not stop playing Guitar Hero.

Pei-Chen and Yongjin, you are awesome.

Korean Palace BBQ

1092 E El Camino Real # 1, Sunnyvale, CA