Marvin

One of the newest members at my working place is Marvin Miyoshi. He started last month and I already love him to death. His official title is "Physician Relations Representative". He acts as a liaison between our office and our referring physicians' offices.
One of the most interesting thing about Marvin is that he studied theater and dance in New York! Here he is performing in the Manoa Valley Theater production of "Footloose".

Bavarian Tart

My sister Sweetie made this dessert for Christmas. It's simple enough that even I can make it. It even won me first place in a dessert-making contest we had at work.

Sorry for the messy-looking recipe, but that's how I am. "Make double recipe" is for a 9 x 13 pan, and instead of 3/4 c. flour I use 1 c.

808 Urban Murals at Palama Settlement

A week ago I met John "Prime" Hina founder of 808 Urban, an organization that takes in kids off the streets and teaches them the do’s and don’ts in the graffiti world in a constructive, legal way. He told me that the murals on the Palama Settlement grounds were done by his group, so I went to check them out today. I was very impressed, and I commend John for all his efforts in providing different avenues for these kids to showcase their talent other than by vandalism.

Michael Israel

Amazing artist, Michael Israel.

Island-Wide Blackout!

The hardest part of the blackout was having no computer. Wendell had no problem just falling asleep early. I decided to do some lamplight beading.

I ended up finishing two hearts.

Still without electricity today, I decided to catch up on my magazine reading.

And for lunch I made soup and heated up some Sam's Club naan bread. If you don't have one of these portable gas stoves you just gotta get one. It's only about 15 bucks on sale at Longs and it's the handiest invention. It's small and light and with just a click of the dial, you're good to go. Our area was about the last to get its electricity restored, but it wasn't much of a big deal for us. We're usually well stocked on batteries and Wendell had just made choke ice with the Bane of My Existence, so waiting it out was no problem.

Christmas 2008

The food theme this year was batayaki.

Can you see Kona's nose at the bottom of the picture?
I told them, "Give me sexy" and this is what I got.

And now for the presents.

I guess Didi thought our hibachi equipment needed replacement.

A few years ago, as a joke I gave away my life-sized senior picture as a grab bag gift. It keeps getting regifted, sometimes with changes, by people trying to get rid of it.

Marbles

Merry Christmas everybody. Hope you all had a good one. My family just left; we had a really nice time as usual. I'll post some pictures tomorrow. For now, I want to show you these marbles that I got at the swap meet. Pretty, yeah. I gave them to my sister Geri for Christmas. She had mentioned that they'd look good in her fish tank. I lined them up on the hood of my car . . . which wasn't an easy feat . . . they kept rolling off. Instead of hand holding the camera, I rested it on the car (don't tell Wendell, but got small-kine scratches on the hood now). For my photog friends: Canon 40D, 60mm EFS macro lens, ISO 125, f6.3, 1/10 to 1/30 shutter speed. I loooove how the colors stand out with the low ISO.

T-Shirt Folding

Aiyaiyai . . . still wrapping presents. In the meantime, if you haven't seen this yet, it's neat:

Folding a t-shirt, Japanese style.

Lemon Chicken

Just a quick post today . . . trying to wrap Christmas presents. This is lemon chicken that Wendell made. He said he dipped the chicken in egg and then cornstarch before frying.
He used this Lee Kum Kee package sauce. I don't normally care for lemon chicken, but this one was really ono.