Goose Egg - Good baby?

As many all of my friends and family are aware, Julie is entering her seventh month of pregnacy. I don't know where this comes from, but apparently, eating a goose egg helps to birth a child that is smart and easy to raise. Hey, anything to help along that line is worth a try. So yesterday, Julie and I drove up to Dana Point to pick up a couple of goose eggs my mom had purchased for Julie. This morning Julie boil the first one for 20 mins like my mom instructed and consumed it. I keep threatening to take one and make an omlette out of it and eating it for myself. You all know how I like to experience the taste of new food. I have never ate a goose egg before, so the thought appeal to me. However, I did not want to get an flack from my mom about taking food away for a yet, unborn baby...so I was satisfied with just a taste. :) Hard to tell from the picture but the goose egg is significantly bigger than normal chicken eggs we are all accustomed to. I'll try to put one of each side by side next week when she cooks the second goose egg. What do you guys think? Have you heard of goose eggs being good to eat during pregnacy?

The goose egg

Julie taking a bite of the egg

Halfway done...and she said it taste great. No smell or anything weird taste at all

Looks like she's enjoying it too much...I need a taste as well!

All done...and it didn't taste bad at all

Nguyen Christmas 2006

It's amazing how fast Christmas comes and goes each year. Julie and I went home to Diamond Bar to be with the family for Christmas. This year, we met at Nancy and Walton's house on Christmas morning to exchange gifts and open presents. I got a cool electric carving knife that will come in handy for next year's roast. After all the presents were open, dad as took everyone out for some Dim Sum for lunch. Leave it to the chinese to continue doing business as usual even on Christmas day. We all had a great time and below are a few of my favorite snapshots. More pictures can be found at: Nguyen Christmas 2006

*update* Slideshow can be found here: http://www.happymaifamily.com/ss/nguyen_christmas_2006

Christmas Dinner

What started out two years ago as a secret santa gift exchange among the BTF has grown to become an annual tradition for good friends to come together around the dinner table and share in the holiday joy. This year, we had eighteen people show up for dinner, a little tennis, bowling and boxing...courtesy of the new Nintendo Wii. Thankfully, nobody in the group got hurt by the flying nunchuku. Thanks for such a fun time all. And special thanks to Florence, Helen, Krystal for lending a helping hand, cleaning all the dishes and such. Hope you all have a happy holiday and to stay safe whether it be home with family or traveling to distance cities. Enjoy some of the pictures below. More pictures here: BTF Holiday 2006

Julie and Florence making bread

The final result of the bread making

Gingerbread cookies

Nice form!

Aging 20 lbs of ribeye

Beginning the 3 day aging process of the ribeye for Saturday's prime rib dinner. The small and large end has nice marblization so the roast should be tender and full of flavor. Mmmm....can't wait!!!

Bike ride at Penasquito Trail

Tee and Krystal came down to SD for Thanksgiving so we all got to meet up and hang out for a little feast at Lee and Denny's place. The day after, we had to jump on the bike to work it all out. We decided to head out to the local trail on Black Mountain road. We first explored the north side of Penasquito Trail a few weeks ago and decided it was a nice easy ride and perfect for the beginners on this trip. My GPS is lame so I am not going to post the easy track trail. But here are some pictures instead.

I love the sight of the sun streaming through the trees

Two mile marker...beware of Coyote

Denny deciding to do a little climbing

Tee taking a cue from Denny following him down

I am content to just sit here and watch

A little flower on the side of the trail with a ant exploring it

Tee and Krystal making the climb

Bike ride around Lake Hodges

Late post since the holiday came and I had to travel and didn't have much time to blog. But better late than never. Two Sundays ago, we were scheduled to start early at 8AM and meet up with Phong's coworker for a bike ride at the Effin Forest two Sundays ago. However, there was some confusion and the plan needed to be changed. So Phong heading off first to meet his coworker at Lake Hodges. The gang finally arrives at 10 and we headed off to the Effin Forest like we originally planned. However, we were not able to access the road that will take us around to the Olivenhain dam, so we turn around and headed to Lake Hodges to try and meet up with Phong. We were successful in meeting up with Phong and it was a really nice ride. Very gentle for the first part and a nice climb at the end. Here is the bike ride as mapped by my flakey Garmin Vista GPS that always seem to turn off during the ride even with brand new batteries. I hate it so much and am about ready to return the unit back to REI, abeit a couple of years later.

Dumpling house in Arcadia

Long wait for dumpling...that's a good sign that it will be good. Currently, it is an hour wait to get seats...but I have a feeling that it will be longer than that. To find this place...210 freeway to Baldwin...and into the Baldwin plaza, just south of Huntington. The plaza is on the east side of the street.

***Update: Well, the food was good...but a big group is hard to accommodate at this place. They can't bring the order out fast enough and things seem to be very disorganized. To top it all off, the electricity when out midway through the meal so we weren't able to finish.

Black Friday madness begins

After a nice deep fry turkey meal, Lee and I headed out to CompUSA to try and score some 2GB Sandisk Ultra II for $39. We went to the most remote store but there was still a long line of at over 100 people. Can't imagine the craze that will ensue on Friday.

Mmmm...good eats!!?

Stirfried silkworms(?). Toma fried these up with salt before Lee, Denny, Monica and himself left to go watch the Happy Feet animated movie. I told Toma that it would be a good snack to take into the movies. Could you imagine a popcorn tub full of these? :-)

Second entree

I also ordered salted crispy fried quail to compliment the noodles dish. Mmmmm...haven't had quail since Phong and Florence's wedding banquet.

Dinner away from home

So...I flew up to the bay area again and usually on the first night, I have dinner with my friend Ham. However, tonight he is on duty as a bf/fiancee and is having dinner with Karin and her visiting friend from Hawaii. So, I am having dinner alone tonight.

First, I drive to the pho shop near Ham's place. Unfortunately, they are close. So I decide to drive down El Camino looking for a nice bowl of noodles. Not too far down the street, I see a couple of chinese food place. So I make a u turn and end up at Silver House. I ordered the beef noodle soup as seen here.

Having breakfast at Chins

Testing GPS tracking software

Testing the new software that will track our future mountain bike rides. This morning I use my Garmin Vista GPS device to track my route driving from home to work. According to the trip log, the total driving distance was 14.3 mi and I was moving for 29 mins, stopping for 15 mins. Wow, 15 mins stopping and waiting for the traffic lights since there wasn't any traffic this morning.

Anyways, the everytrail software responsible for this feature is pretty cool. It has a program to pull data from your Garmin or Magellan gps and then overlay the trail on google map. You can then interactively view the entire trip, including topographic data if you so chooses. The neat thing is, if you take pictures on your trip and upload the pictures, the software will extract the time stamp from your photo to place points on the trail indicating where those picture were taken.

Warrior Entering the Court

The picture didn't make it to my blog last night so here it is. Bad, blurry picture from my cellphone of the Warriors entering onto the court.

At the Golden State Warriors Game

Ok...gave up exploring some good vietnamese eats in San Jose as recommended by Nena and Ian to attend my first basketball game.

Windows Error at Airport

People complains but hey, it keeps me employ. I like the Sony monitors in use for these displays though.

Serenity at Sunset - La Jolla

Denny, Monica, Julie and I went to La Jolla Shores last Saturday night hoping to catch the sun as it was setting. Unfortunately, the marine/cloud layer prevented the nice red sunset we were anticipating and would be ideal for Monica's beach shot. Nevertheless, we played with long exposure and here is one of the resulting shot. Interesting, serene and almost ghostly. I like the mood this picture evokes.

La Jolla Shores - North of pier

Pictures from Penasquito Canyon Trail

We decided to take it easy this week and ride a trail we are already familiar with. Each time we have someone new joining the group, we somehow always manage to go to an unknown trail which always turns out to be more difficult than we anticipated. So, the idea is for Kathy to be able to finally enjoy a nice leisurely ride for the first time since she got her bike by going to a trail we are all already familiar with. We all decided to meet at Pensquito Canyon Trail on Black Mountain Road in Mira Mesa. As luck would have it though, Kathy came down with something and wasn't feeling up for this week's ride.

That means we have to come up with an interesting alternative for those of us who are already veterans of the south Penasquito Trail. We decided to take the unfamiliar (to us) north trail instead just to try something new.

The north trail is so nice and different than what we had in our mind. We always thought the north trail was more difficult with more hills to acend and decend. In reality, it was a very scenic and pretty easy trail that meanders pass cascading pools of water before ending at Sorrento Valley Parkway. However easy it is though, we BTFers manage to get a few scrapes and bruises along the way. Just ask myself and Monica. :)

Here are some pictures from the day's ride. It was a long one at 22miles but we did manage to make it to the Torrey Pines beach, allowing Monica to take some pictures for her class project.

Took this shot why laying down on a nice cool rock by the cascading waterfall

Group picture...but I didn't quite beat the timer

Group picture...Ah...that's better

Looking for fish

Picture Monica took for her class project entitled "My Favorite Place"

Another shot taken by Monica

Beautiful sunset to end the day