No Limits

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Seattle Restaurant Week

This past evening wrapped up this edition of Seattle Restaurant Week. Now, before I continue, I'm not the person who takes pictures of all their food to share on Instagram (I don't even have one).

A friend of mine and I had dinner at The Georgian at The Fairmont Olympic Hotel. This was the first restaurant that I went to that had a dress code since I ate at Lung King Heen in Hong Kong last summer. Since it was restaurant week, there was a three-course prix fixe menu.

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After the duck liver amuse bouche and bread offering (including four kinds of butter), I started with the Caesar salad, which was presented in a most interesting way. On the bottom was a rectangular sheet of cheese, with a long bundle of lettuce leaves on top of the cheese. The crouton (yes, singular) was also a thin rectangular slice. This was definitely the first salad I had that required a fork and knife. The salad was followed by the cod, which was flavorful and not dry, which tends to happen a lot when I order it at restaurants. Dinner was finished with the lomoncello and lemon drop (which was a piece of shortbread topped with lemon sorbet and toasted meringue). Overall, other than the presentation of the salad, there wasn't too much to write home about (though of course there wasn't anything detracting from the experience). I suppose the restaurant week selection is just a taste of what the standard (and pricier) menu offers, and helps get diners through the door.

We'll Leave The Light On For You

Unfortunately, my apartment is not a Motel 6. However, all of my roommates have this bad habit of leaving the lights on. The roommate I share a bathroom with never turns the light off after using the bathroom, and all of my roommates leave all the kitchen lights on. They even leave their lights on when they go home for vacation. I don't understand how it can be such a difficult concept for them to keep the lights off and not waste power. Also, sometimes they forget to lock the windows in their rooms.

I know it's a small sample size (n=3), but from my experiences white people don't seem to be aware of their resource usage as they should be. Is this a general trend across the population, or did I just get three roommates who can't keep anything clean and always have a case of bad body odor?

Poke...In A Wrap?

Today my apartment complex has its big open house to try to attract students to move in next year, and in addition to balloons and cheap swag, there was a food truck they catered for the day. Of all the things I have seen on food trucks, this was the first time I say poke served on a food truck. This particular food truck, Sam Choy's Poke, operates multiple food trucks in Seattle and surrounding areas most days, and offers poke (in addition to other options) served over rice, on a salad, or in a wrap. Since it was free, I obviously had to try it.

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I tried the spicy salmon wrap with a spicy aioli sauce (the little container in the back). Overall the concept of the wrap wasn't bad (rice + greens + slaw + wasabi aioli + poke) and there was a good amount of poke. What I didn't particularly like was how the rice was warm while everything else was cold, sometimes creating areas of different temperature in my mouth. The poke itself was pretty good, though. Would I pay $9.50 for one of those? Probably not, but it's still decently good such that I could enjoy it for free.

The Love Song

Of course, this is already more complex than today's love songs...

Flirting With Spring

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It almost felt like spring, or at least it did for a few days. A nice lunchtime stroll through campus, a walk away from the lab and from my work, serves as a reminder that there is life outside of work (and that it can be nice). It seemed that spring was around the corner.

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Of course, this is the pacific northwest, and as immediately as this weather appeared, it reverted back to the typical clouds and rain. Alas, it will be a while before it approaches the majestic conditions of a typical summer.

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Easy Listening

I'm not sure why, but music that I would categorize as "easy listening" makes me more productive than any other kind of music. I feel like if there aren't any lyrics then there are fewer distractions in the music. Of course, this is probably not as productive as working without music, but is definitely more entertaining...

Upgrade!

This past weekend I received my first (!) free upgrade to first class on my own! Finally being a lowest-tier elite has its perks! All you have to do is fly a leisure-traveler-intense flight, such as out of Las Vegas late on a Sunday, which, you know, we all do all the time...

/end sarcasm

Also, winter quarter sucks. It always seems to be the busiest, dreariest, and generally least happy quarter of the year. All this rain definitely doesn't help...

Daft Punk Fans: The New Beliebers?

Since the death of Turntable, I have since migrated over to plug. It's pretty similar to Turntable where you share your music with other individuals and they share their favorite tunes with you.

Towards the end of Turntable's lifetime and through my time at plug I've noticed a disturbing trend among some of the younger users. These individuals practically jizz over Daft Punk, much like weak little teenage girls obsess over Justin Bieber. And much like Bieber fans, these new-found Daft Punk "fans" will savagely attack you at the first utterance that doesn't worship their holiness. I can understand (though not rationalize myself to the extreme), albeit somewhat difficultly, that people can be enamored with a particular group or genre, but I don't understand why people feel the need to bash anyone and everyone who doesn't follow their narrow views. Too many young folks these days go around screaming that dubstep is the only music and that anything that doesn't have a drop is utter trash. (Personally I feel like if you only like dubstep because it obviously places the drop for you, you are not sophisticated enough to understand anything about music.)

/end rant

The Supposed Right of Way

A large portion of the country seems to feel that the pacific northwest is a somewhat more "progressive" society, full of hipsters and people who aren't downright buttoned-down and closed-minded. However, this doesn't mean that they are necessarily not assholes who believe that their self-worth comes above the worth of anyone and everyone.

I've noticed this a lot more as I get back into riding. While riding and other forms of non-solitary vehicular transport are more prevalent (in addition to exercising in general), a disproportionately large group of these people act as if they're above the law and above reproach. The prime example of this behavior is when the bike trail crosses any road.

When many bikers (and runners) reach these crossings, they choose not to stop and then just continue on through the crossing regardless of traffic. While some of these crossings have stop signs for cross traffic, most of these crossings just have a sign indicating that there is a trail crossing at that present location and no more. However, this does not stop the endless berating of these drivers who choose not to stop at these crossings that have no stop signs and let the bikers/runners pass.

It's quite obvious that those drivers owe the trail users anything and anyone who does stop at these crossings is only doing so out of courtesy, but yet it has come to the point where these runners and bikers, for some strange and unfounded reason, expect any and every car to stop at these crossings as if it were the law, and will actively curse out drivers who don't wait at every crossing to let everyone cross.

What is especially maddening about some of the cyclists here is how they feel like they're above all laws and that no laws apply to them. In many places it is illegal for bikers to use the sidewalk, so bikers must use the road and designated trails. That being said, many cyclists feel like traffic laws don't apply to them and bike around the streets as if they were pedestrians, with everyone yielding to their every whim.

What would be entertaining is to see these bikers and runners try to be "progressive" and everything in the LA area, where I started riding. I feel like they would be a lot more grateful for what Seattle has to offer them...