Ghost Chili - Second Try

If you still remember, a few weeks ago, I posted our first-time experience trying a ghost chili. Alex and I were both surprised that the so-called "hottest chili in the world" was not hot at all. After telling my colleague about our experience, he also felt something's not right. So, the next day after our conversation, I found on my desk a bag of chilies - ghost chilies and Thai chilies. The ghost chilies were picked from the same ghost pepper plant which produced the non-spicy ghost chili we tried the first time.

I went home with the chilies and Alex made fried tofu again, with a ghost chili (seeds removed). Everything was the same as last time except this time the whole dish was spicy. I mean, not that spicy for me, but definitely spicy for Alex. He was drinking ice water the whole time when we were having dinner. 

Apparently, the ghost chili will become more spicy when you leave them on the vine a bit longer than normal, say, when they reach their full color.

And, no matter how many times Alex wants to challenge Rui on eating spicy foods he loses.  @_@

Colorful Tomatoes

When asked about the color of tomatoes most people will think of red. Or yellow, you may say. Exactly! That's the kind of tomatoes I eat most of the time, and that's why when I saw green tomatoes in a local farmer's market I didn't even bother to check it out.

Well, I had a tomato lesson in Liz's tomato garden yesterday, and that enriched my understanding of tomatoes. Two things I learned for growing tomatoes:

1) The good news is tomatoes love a lot of sunlight so you can definitely grow them here in Texas. The bad news is they, as many other veges in your garden, also need you to devote time taking care of them - watering, fertilizing, pest control, and so on. So, no, no, it's not something I can do for sure.

2) For those of you who are bothered so much by birds and racoons eating your tomatoes, here is a trick I learned from Liz's husband Dave. He painted Christmas ornamental balls, big and small, in red and hung them on the tomato cages. Birds and racoons then stopped pecking and eating real tomatoes. Apparently, those ornamental balls became their new targets. (Honestly speaking, they do look like perfectly grown ripe tomatoes.)

Different kinds of tomatoes I learned and tried:

• Green Zebra - the one with dark green and yellow stripes (oh, yeah. it's a ripe tomato. The color just won't turn red.)
• Earl of Edgecombe - a kind of yellow tomato
• Black Krim - the tomato skin is kinda dark
• Lollipop - a kind of really tiny yellow tomato
• and some other tomatoes...

So, what did they taste like? While I was describing all kinds of tomatoes Alex asked me this question. Huh....They were all full of flavors. Really fresh, juicy, and tasty. That's the only answer I could give.

Wanna have tomatoes for your dinner now? You can buy them from wholefood or central market, and you may find them from your local farmer's market.
 

Chili Pequin

We had our annual retreat at Liz's house yesterday. A very nice house with a lot of collectables (antique cameras, masks from different countries, etc.). What interested me most, however, were plants in her gardens. She has three gardens - a tomato garden, a garden full or flowers and edible plants, and a cactus garden. It's interesting to see varieties in your yard, but of course, you need to have a really big yard (Did I mention that she has a land of five acres? Yeah...I know what you are thinking...this is Texas. :-)).

Let me begin by telling you my first-time experience tasting a chili pequin. Alarm bells should have rang in my head when Liz introduced this plant's name - CHILI pequin - to me but it didn't. I actually only paid attention to the edible part and wanted to give it a try. After handing me a tiny fruit picked from the bush, she warned me it's spicy, but for some reason I still thought it wouldn't be that spicy (well, if you see the fruit you will understand what I mean. It looks just like a sweet berry.  Who would think it will be spicy at all? :-( )

So, I just threw one in my mouth and gave it a bite. The juice came out immediately and so was my tears. I simply felt my whole mouth was burning and had to drink some ice water to cool my mouth down. Actually, after almost five minutes I was still wiping tears from my eyes. Later on, I checked it online and here is the information about this unique plant:

Chili peguin is also known as bird pepper because it is loved by all kinds of birds. It is both fiery and tiny, making it ideal for pickles. It is indigenous to Mexico and has a elongated oval shape. Its nutty and citrous-like flavor is responsible for its usage as liquid hot pepper seasoning agent. Pequin plants are suited to grow in any kind of climate, being both heat and drought tolerant.

Pretty fruits, huh? Believe me, they are really spicy.

美国的动物

室友从黄石公园回来，说到在那里看到很多bison。

Alex小朋友问：bison中文叫什么。
偶答曰：美国水牛。
又问：那coyote中文叫什么？
偶沉思片刻......答曰：美国的狼。

光棍节 v.s. 老兵节

晚上做饭的时候（注：昨天）室友说，今天是啥节日啊？光棍节！我不假思索的回答。实在是被林MM铺天盖地的FB光棍节宣传影响了（由此可见广告的力量是巨大的）。然后室友发愣了……过了半天才反应过来说什么光棍节啊，今天是老兵节。汗！原来人家想问的是老兵节，想谈是为啥老兵节有些学校会放假。

老兵节好象已经N年和我没啥关系了，想当年在学校的时候还享受过休假一天的待遇。至于工作了之后，那节日也就成了日历上标注的摆设。不过呢，偶们还可以过个光棍节。赶巧的上周订了Cirque Du Soleil - Alegria的票，是巡回表演的杂技秀正巧这周来屯子里，于是偶们的光棍节就在Toyota Center渡过了，感受了一下Cirque Du Soleil的艺术魅力。

其实如果说风格，我还是更喜欢以前在Vegas Bellagio看的O秀，感觉更流畅唯美。不过Alegria的主题歌还是很动听的，柔术表演很精彩，和观众的互动也很有趣，没看过Cirque Du Soleil的同学还是可以一看的。

来，听听主题歌，我很喜欢。

剪发

周末的时候本来想约了去剪发的，实在是几周前去老哥那里见老爸老妈的时候老妈上来就盯着我的头发说，要好好打理打理啊。其实我自以为我现在正处于短发到长发的过渡期——一个短不短、长不长，不好打理的阶段。无论如何，周末还是准备去剪发了，然后在和室友提起剪发顺便带她去中国城买菜的时候她就主动提出：我来为你剪吧，我老公的头发都是我剪的，而且我这里各式剪发工具一应俱全。犹豫不可说完全没有，不过室友很热情，周末上午又特意来提醒可以剪发了，所以我就决定一试，反正如果剪得不好之后再去沙龙修剪就好。

DIY了披肩，室友拿出工具若干，经我提醒又准备了发夹若干，还真和外面剪发的感觉类似，一层一层的剪层次，唯一区别的是沙龙里是削出来的层次，这里我们就简化成用锯齿剪刀剪层次。别说，最后剪出来尽然效果还不错。该有的层次感觉也都完全出来了，以业余达到这个水平，还是蛮赞的。

开玩笑和她说，以后你就在这里挂牌给人剪发吧，也是副业一项，先为她打个广告。

伞

我总算有了一把狂大无比的伞，早上撑在办公室里的时候把地面的空地占了个满。话说，我在很早之前就想要把大伞，实在是因为我自己的伞刚刚好就能cover我头顶的样子，来个风吹雨打都得淋个半潮，于是在某日开会Debbie提出是不是需要购买带有新校名的纪念品时，偶就积极的提出要买伞的建议。纪念品是没订购（现在学校穷啊～），不过偶们老板倒是记在心里了，次次来办公室看到我的小伞就要tease一下，直到昨天抱了把大伞过来，呵呵，估计是天下雨，他就又想起了我的伞这回事。

无论如何，我现在有把大伞了，超大，撑开来完全埋住人的那种，据Marcos说绝对能引起回头率，所以各位下次看到雨天一阵黄风闪过，说不定就是偶了。

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man

我的书单上最新一本要看的书，小U强力推荐。

呃...为什么我们会突然提到这本书呢，我都不记得了，好象是某天在Google Talk上两个人海聊之际不小心就触及了这个话题，又好象是提及关于女人半边天的时候。无论如何，我Inter Library Loan了，然后Patty也超感兴趣，呵呵，又吸收了一位读者。我先来看看吧，觉得好的话也推荐给大家看。

Steve Harvey’s book:

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men
Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment

P.S.

My Four Nicknames Given by Dr. K, just in case I forget after I leave the Academy. Yeah, I am finally leaving here. Yipee!!

1. Dr. Z.
2. The Designer from China
3. The Mandarin Moodler
4. The Confucian Keyboard

I love Intel-Library Loan

 I simply love it. For two years, I didn’t even think of reading something. For
one year, when Eunice was still here I asked her to borrow books I want to read
from her school library. Then, when she’s gone I began to wonder whether I need
to begin spending money buying books online. Luckily, it’s a big NO.

One day I talked with our library assistant about books. My
initial thought was to borrow books from our own library. Huh…what can I say? I
searched a book and found a 197x edition. That’s it. Apparently, our library
doesn’t have resources I am looking for. What can you expect too much when your
library has no budget? (Surprise, huh? At least, I feel so. )

Anyhow, out topics changed from books to online resources
and then to Intel-library loan. I was glad that I brought this topic up 'cos
Patty, the library assistant, told me she actually has a list of libraries from
which she can borrow books. Hmm…I never thought this would happen here but am glad
it does exist.

So, now I am reading books from libraries all around America,
from university libraries in Alabama to those in Texas and even Pennsylvania. It feels good to be able to experience information sharing.

Many thanks to Patty!!

Eight Cases of Cheese

What gifts did you get from your company this Thanksgiving?
Well, I got a small box of cheese, not from local but from Wisconsin. What made
it interesting is I didn’t get it before or during Thanksgiving. Instead, I got
it today after coming back from the Thanksgiving vacation.

Yeah, we did get eight cases of cheese before Thanksgiving.
Pay attention here: It’s eight “cases” not eight “boxes.” While ordering cheese
from a food company in Wisconsin, the lady who was assigned to call the company
emphasized that we want eight cases of cheese to be shipped to Alabama. The company
agreed to ship the cheese immediately. Done deal! Everybody’s happy – I mean,
not me, whoever was involved in this transaction. Then, we got the cheese right
before Thanksgiving. Eight cases of cheese that can be put into a fridge
without worrying there’s no enough space for them. Yeah. It’s eight cases, not
eight boxes. Basically, if the CEO wants to distribute these eight cases to all
the employees he needs to cut them into small chunks, and each of us will get
one.

English words are tricky, right?

Btw, if you are curious why we get cheese for Thanksgiving
it’s because we have this so-called fitness program which aims at promoting
healthy eating. Huh…I won’t judge whether it’s good or not, but I bet I will
still follow my eating habit ‘cos it’s already healthy enough.  

感恩shopping

今年感恩节想买很多东西哦。

• 8G的U盘
  

Checked; $16.27 from Staples SanDisk 8GB Cruzer® Micro Skin USB Flash Drive

• 一个台式机

台式机还没买，先买了个宽屏显示器的说。实在不行咱也能把显示器连在半歇菜的笔记本上充当个monitor啊，是吧。$119.99 from Tigerdirect - 10% Bing
Acer
X213HBid 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 5ms, 1920x1080, 20000:1 Native, 60Hz,
HDMI, Black

• 一个专业相机
  

Checked; $719 + $61.12 tax (killing me!) - hopefully, 20% Bing Cash Back from Dell (我最后还是投奔了佳能的阵营，谁叫看来看去没看到尼康的deal呢)
Canon EOS Rebel T1i EF-S IS Digital SLR
Camera Kit (with 18-55 mm Lens)

• 然后看到什么心动的deal再出手吧

恩，在乱逛瞎看中，买了个tomtom的GPS $94.72 from Target。明年一月南加游的各位，安心吧，俺们有GPS用了。
TomTom
Navigation System - Black (XL340S / 1EM0.05202)Electronics

呃.....Black Friday未到，我已经shopping进入尾声。

无标题闲唠叨

其实我最近真是不闲，倒是可以反过来说忙的晕头转向，当然抽空里还是挤出时间来发呆一会。只是那发呆的一小会就真是发呆，恨不得脑子不动的那种，所以也就提不上更新AK游记了。我没造烂尾楼的嫌疑，抽空还是要写完的，等哪天兴之所至之时。

Huh…我贼大胆的在办公室的机器上除了MSN又装了一个Google
Talk，就为了Eunice。以前我们是坐对门办公室的，不过大家都安静的该干吗干吗，然后在MSN上噼里啪啦的交换信息。不过伊两个月前换了工作走人了，新单位用不了MSN，捣腾了2个月总算给她发现了Google
Talk她能使用。好吧，就发来了邀请函，捣腾着让我也装一个。呵呵，结果是又回到过去了，只是我还在我的办公室，伊现在在OH。

我最近沉溺于阅读京味小说。别说，还真蛮有韵味，我指在书面上。恩，真的很有味道，不然我也沉迷不了。若说读书、音乐、电视排个先后，我的首选会是读书，所以最近电视都看的很少。另外么，我有个坏毛病，读了啥就得读到完，所以整个一周都顶着熊猫眼。也不戴隐形眼镜了，就顶着丑丑的边框眼镜去上班，呵呵，反正也没啥形象可以注意。

Ok，唠叨完毕。该干吗干吗去。周末希望能写个一两篇游记，暂定目标。

剪发

Geez! 我现在是完全搞不懂大家的审美观了，原因在于大家对我短发的评价。周五的时候我把头发剪了，原因之一是在于小尤无止境的唠叨“Your hair is too long”；原因之二是因为我想着现在即使没到too long的境界，等我要去Alaska的时候也肯定是too long了，所以干脆先剪了以做准备。

周五下班的时候其实还在犹豫中，所以我对小尤说我要是去沙龙不用排队那么周一你就看我的短发吧；反之，要排队就不剪了。结果…千年要排队的沙龙周五尽然空空如也…注定了得剪。我想另一个原因是因为沙龙门口的牌子：Apprentice on Duty。所以，其实我的短发是学徒手艺。

并非说学徒不好，不过缺乏经验是肯定的了，以至于开始让我照镜子的时候，很明显是左边长右边短的，然后削了一阵，等我回家感觉又变成右边稍稍长过左边了，我是实在觉得剪的凑合的了，短倒是超短了，完全形象大变。不过大家为什么会觉得剪的好嘞？我的结论是：People are just try to be polite to say so. 小尤说，这次看着有发型了，不象上两次就仅仅是hair cut…无评价中。搞笑的是，偶还有个同事超大红字斜体发过来个msg，说I like your hair cut。偶就迷糊了，早晨压根没见到他啊，也不知道他到底在哪里瞄到我的发型的，结果他说看到个背影。lol，我彻底囧了。

其实吧，我觉得剪发唯一的好处就是我的耳环终于可以见一下天日了。

周末计划

1.  好好学习，天天向上。去铁锈中～，偶就是那块生锈的铁。
   
   
2.  练习Donna的两个recipe：西兰花沙拉（Broccoli
   Salad）和柠檬小蛋糕（Key
   Lime Cupcake）—— 这两个都是味道超好啊，我品尝了之后就决定得学做了，不过卡路里可不低，你看着办吧。周末贴recipe出来，做成功了再贴图。Baking
   dummy和非dummy的区别就在于是不是看了T就知道是Tablespoon，看了t就知道是teaspoon。反正我是不知道，所以被归为dummy之列。
   
   
3.  整理再下周西雅图游行李。我很郁闷，天气预报这周4天里3天西雅图都在下雨。希望我去的那周天气放晴！现在北边到底算是春天呢还是夏天呢？得做做research。反正鸟装是肯定得带的，防雨；泳衣也是肯定得带的，泡温泉；滑雪服呢？这个…买了两年没穿过一次，是不是也该亮亮相…考虑中。
   
   
4.  赶快写完我的德州游记。最近好象事情真是够多，更新博客动力不够。
   
   
5. 当然，余下的时间偶还得看看动漫，读读小说，追追电视剧，如果还有时间余下的话。 
6. 忘了...周日还得去deep sea fishing？好象我前面几个没法实现了啊。 前5项变周六计划吧。
   

1000 Places to See Before You Die

I added a gadget called 1000 Places to See before You Die
in Igoogle. Today's picture is Corcovado, Brazil. Knowing that I had added this
gadget, Eunice said, "That's a wrong gadget for you to find. Soon you will be planning
trips to those places." lol. I told her, "The moment I saw that picture, I told
myself I need to go to South America next year. There are wonderful places
everywhere in the world. I just cannot resist the temptation."

Check the website (http://www.1000beforeyoudie.com/); I think it's a really
good resource─ a well-designed
website with a lot of nice pictures (Nay, I take back my words. This is more like a book advertising website.  Only a few places are introduced. The book should be good, though.) You will definitely want to just pack your
stuff and go. At least, I am.

We Are Bad

So called 院长和副院长出差3周，大家欢欣鼓舞，但好日子昨天结束了，两个都回来了。早晨部门小范围会议，闭门密谈，这基本上是惯例（大部门会议——浪费时间听与己毫无相关议题时间；小部门会议——讨论工作＋获取信息＋八卦时间）。谈完了工作，俺们部门主管P心情很好的说，Ok. So, now what?

于是聊了这个，说了那个，就说到了关于President和Vice President。

偶说，偶在Intranet上看到这两位好象3月底4月初又要同时出门啊。

P说，显少两个人同时出门还坐一架飞机的，不合理。

偶很疑惑，问为啥。

J解释说，因为要是万一飞机失事，两个同时遇难那咋办。

偶说，又不是美国总统、副总统，没事。

P说，机长千万别是在Hudson river上迫降的哪位。

偶说，先确定好了那地方没河就好。

P说，有河也得是里面有鳄鱼的。

偶说，middle of no where也行。

E从头至尾大笑中。

We are all bad!

NBC抽筋了么?

连着两天的晚间新闻都来回音效果，不能忍受了！这可真是锻炼听力，简直就是象坐在大厅里听远处的演讲——余音绕梁。没辙了，只好换台。我还刚说过我爱看ABC的电视剧，FOX的SHOW和NBC的新闻，伊马上就挑出来让我对它的新闻也爱不起来了。

杂志推荐——Prevention

我看了两期Prevention，非常喜欢。Prevention属于健康养生类杂志，和Reader's Digest一样的16开本，介绍很多健康饮食、健身、医药方面的常识和知识，读了真的感觉受益非浅。保持健康的身体是每日坚持锻炼和良好饮食习惯的相辅相成，而一些基础的医学常识让你在遇到特殊状况的时候不至于束手无策，所以这本杂志我是强烈推荐哦。

Ipod Shuffle

或许我和蓝色有缘，刚收到的ipod Shuffle又是蓝色。第一次买mini的时候是我自己选的，因为很喜欢网上mini蓝色的纯正。不过实物其实没那么好看，让我小小的郁闷了一下。如今mini早已经成了ipod的往事如烟，不过我的4G mini还好好的呆在家里，渡过着与我陪伴的第四个年头。每到出门旅行的时候，总是我的必备装置之一。

shuffle的颜色没的选，因为是银行给的免费礼物。我不喜欢Nano，总觉得这是apple设计比较失败的一款产品。nano做的薄是薄了，但太长，整体的感觉不协调。不过shuffle我倒是蛮喜欢的，因为小的精致，也因为小的可爱，还因为小的方便，随便做什么事都可以带着听，实在是小的可以忽略不计，很适合随身携带。其实shuffle也推出了很长时间了，现在好象是ipod touch的时代了。：）不过偶是不准备再添置ipod产品了，除非真的需要更新换代。

用了我的shuffle，音质很棒，体积很小。不过也因为小，不象ipod可以跳转选歌，也没有ipod特别的旋转调节音量功能。1G的容量我倒是觉得挺足够的，也因为懒得跳来跳去的选歌，终于完整的听了Eagles 07年推出的那两张Long Road Out of Eden专辑。：）倒是发现了很多好歌。

决定把这个shuffle作为work out时候的随身装备。

菠萝和Renaissance

两个完全无关的主题。

我终于从Walmart抱回来一个菠萝，花了10分钟用了大刀、小刀轮流操作，削了个还过得去的形状。其实好象不是很复杂，就是有耐心就好。:) 下周再买个回来削。

然后，周末去了最最无聊的Renaissance festival，唯一的收获，看到一个pirate of Caribbean，真的很象，不管是扮相、口音还是动作。:(其实偶是有和他合影一张的拉，不过是闭眼照。唉～～