Dinner at Tokyo on Thurdsay
Posted on December 29, 2007 by Ching under Family, Food and Drink, Life, Reviews.
The last time we were in Derby (Christmas eve) I noticed a new resto — Tokyo Steakhouse. Brian and I both like Sumo and Kobe so we figured we would give this place a try. We managed to talk Jen into going with us. Here is her colorful account of the evening:
Arriving at Tokyo, and realizing that my sister had not made reservations, I started making a mental calculations of how long we would be waiting based on how many people were sitting and eating, how far along they were at eating, and how many people were standing around waiting for a table.
As we waited I noticed I really pissy looking hostess. She was short and thick, and had those faces you just immediately want to slap. No clue why. Then beside her, another hostess, this one super tall and super skinny, and her mannerism kinda made you feel like she’d been picked on for most of her life. I couldn’t help but watch them really, because as the people piled in at the waiting area their attitudes started really showing. The skinny one kept looking at the seating chart, looking around, looking back at the seating chart and periodically she kept putting her elbows up on the table and burrying her face in her hands. I think she was trying not to make eye contact with the patrons, now growing impatient, and all watching both of them to see who was going to be seated next and when. The pudgy one kept walking from the back of the restaurant and back to the hostess table, and she was carrying this air of importance that you could tell didn’t belong to her. I guess, Brian overheard an argument between the two of them on whether to seat people on the empty tables or wait for thsoe that actually made reservations. In the long run, skinny chick won.
When we got seated, Ching started getting really concerned about whether they served sushi or not. I’m not sure why, because she didn’t want to order sushi, but she was really concerned. And she also started jotting bits of information about the night, I think for her review. Like she would have a really hard time recollecting the night or the food if she decided to sleep before writing about it. So she sat there looking around for a sushi bar, and jotting things down on an Inspector Gadget looking notepad. And then when the hibachi chef came by, the show really started. Not because he was anything different than all the other hibachi chefs we’ve seen, but because Ching was really into interacting with him. In a fairly somber table, she was trying to out-joke the guy whose job it was to make jokes. I think this happens because she rarely drinks, and my theory is that your body has to expel weirdness and absurdity. Usually people that drink have an outlet, but with Ching you just get it randomly, whenever her body feels it has to expel these things to make more room.
Either way it was a great meal, but for my money, I still prefer Kobe’s.
I haven’t written my review for Foodies yet, but that is coming. First, I need to find my “inspector gadget-looking notepad” and get some “weirdness and absurdity” out of my system.
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Christmas Eve Celebration
Posted on December 28, 2007 by Ching under Family.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from Christmas eve..
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NORAD Tracks Santa 2007
Posted on December 24, 2007 by Ching under Family, Web.
I can’t wait until Logan gets here so I can show him the Santa tracker web site by NORAD. It’s pretty nifty! They’ve got a map marked with all of the places that Santa has already visited. As of the last time I checked, he was in Congo. He’s pretty fast, too. He’s already been to the Philippines and Australia and part of Europe. He should make it to the US in good time.
Brian says that NORAD has been tracking Santa since he was a little kid. I didn’t believe him until I checked their web site. They’ve got over 50 years of historical data. Amazing! Other features of the web site include video footage and the ability to track Santa in 3D via Google Earth. I bet they didn’t have this when Brian was a little boy!
Anyway, I’m really excited to show this to Logan. I think he will love it!
P.S. To speak to a NORAD Santa tracker in person, you can call 1-877-HI-NORAD or 1-877-446-6723. The call is free within the United Sates.
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Happy Holidays!
Posted on December 23, 2007 by Brian under Family, Life.
Well its that time of year again! The Holidays are upon us and the commercialization of a long standing religious tradition is once again blatantly thrown in our faces with TV spots, Radio ads and now Online Spam. The Christmas music has been playing since shortly after Halloween, the people flocked to the after Thanksgiving sales like the drones that they are, responding to the mass media that filled there brains weeks prior to the 2nd most commercialized holiday of the year. And now with one day left to shop the “Last Minute Sales” are flooding the airwaves enticing folks to spend even more money (that most of them do not have) to satisfy the cravings of friends and family all in the name of……..oh that’s right. Christmas isn’t about counting our blessings anymore, its not about family or tradition or spending time with loved one’s that may not have much time left on this good earth. No, its about products, selling, MONEY! I remember that when I was growing up, my family would look forward to Christmas not because it was a time to give gifts to everyone (we didn’t have a lot of money in those days and my parents did whatever they could and we were very grateful for what we got) but because it was one of the only times of the year that we would all get together as a family and spend a significant amount of time with each other. To this day we still hold that tradition strong. To us Christmas is about family, being thankful for the lives we have and for what we can share. I cringe every time around this year because I see more and more people falling out of this tradition and falling deeper and deeper into that pit that commercialization has dug in the souls of humanity. I weep for what the world brings, but in my heart I know that the family I have and the values we keep will hold us together through anything that life has to throw at us.
I hope that this makes you think and I wish everyone a very safe and Happy Holiday and a blessed New Year.
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The First Ever Life After Marriage Newsletter
Posted on December 23, 2007 by Ching under Blog, Life.
Below is a copy of our first monthly email newsletter, borne mostly out of boredom but hopefull some of you will find some use for this. If you did not receive a copy of the newsletter and would like to receive it next time, please email newsletter@brubakers.us with SUBSCRIBE either in the subject line or the body of the message. We will gladly add you to the distribution list. I cannot promise that this will be a regular monthly recurrence because there may be times that I will be too busy to send one, but I can promise a similar newsletter at the end of 2008. 🙂 That’s all I can guarantee for now. Anyway, here is the newsletter that was sent today:
Well, we are snowed in as you can tell from this blog entry. Since I am bored out of my mind, with no homework and no work-work (Thank heavens I’m not on duty this weekend!), I have decided to create a monthly newsletter for our blog. If a monthly newsletter is too frequent for you and you do not really care to receive our updates, please read no further. Respond to this message with REMOVE in the subject and your email address will be promptly removed from this notification list. For the rest of you, welcome!
Since this is the very first email newsletter for our blog I felt a recap of our life together is in order. Before we begin, however, allow me to wish everyone merry Christmas! May you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday season, and a prosperous year ahead!
Though our blog didn’t begin until shortly after our marriage, life with Brian really began in early 2000. That’s when we moved in together. We lived in a two-bedroom townhouse at the northeast side of town with Brian’s brother Kevin. Incidentally, 2000 is also the year my nephew Logan was born.
A year after living together in the townhouse, Brian and I decided to become homeowners. We moved into our house in April 2001. Less than a month later, he proposed. We set the date for August 10, 2002. We chose the date because it is approximately three years into our relationship. You can find other 2001 highlights here.
These are all pre Life After Marriage events. I have been blogging about my life since before the word “blog” entered the vernacular so you could probably still find old journal entries floating around. You can try Google, but here are a couple of places that I was able to find if you’d like to read up:
- Chingay – this has stuff that I salvaged from the old Chingay.com web site. Many things are probably lost at this point. I never was any good at doing archives and backups.
- No. 2305 – a few things from my old Geocities. There was a period after Chingay.com and Chingay.net and Goldensushi.net when I didn’t have a domain and was using free hosting providers.
- I had a XOOM (pre-Chingay.com) and an Angelfire and a Crosswinds and a Scribble and all of those are pretty much gone. Always do your backups!
In 2002, I was laid off from my previous employer. Thankfully, I had another job lined up so I was only without work for a week. Someone up there is looking out for me. 🙂 To this day, I firmly believe that the closing of the Spiegel call center is the best thing to have ever happened in my life (career-wise, anyway). You get comfortable and without even knowing it you’re stuck in a rut.
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