Team Tigercats dominates

In Eugene's Marathon Relay this morning, Team Tigercats (comprised of me, Kasey, Jen, Keri, and Lauren) dominated the competition, winning the division (all female open) by nearly 4 minutes, over a 26.2 mile course. The fact that the division consisted of only 2 other teams is completely irrelevant. The fact that the fastest team overall finished over an hour ahead of us is also irrelevant. What matters is that we won, and we won ourselves Nike hats. Nice ones. Ones that cost $20 each, when we only paid $17 each to enter the competition. Running is *clearly* a money-making business. I'm going to autograph this baby and sell it on ebay.

I set a personal record by running 5.25 miles in 44'51". Some might say that a personal record isn't hard to set when you've never run a particular distance before. Again, I consider this a trivial and irrelevant detail. What *is* completely relevant is that I ran it with a cold, a cough, and having suffered from food poisoning just two days ago. I am clearly the toughest woman on the planet.

Team Tigercats also demonstrated extraordinary sportsmenship by making disparaging remarks about the losers right in front of the losers' husbands, and dropping the f-bomb in front of a 4-year-old child. All acts were performed without malicious intent...

21 miles...

DONE!!!

I feel really good. It took 3 hours and 27 minutes. My back didn't hurt. Everywhere else does, but that's expected. It felt easier than the 18.5-miler.

Happy Hour

For about a month and a half now, I've been charged with organizing a department happy hour every Friday. You'd be surprised at how hard it is to get people to come out and drink a few beers. The following is my latest effort at rallying people. Despite of it being a masterpiece (in my not very humble opinion), it still only drew 4 people, myself included. And one of the other 3 is my German officemate, who really doesn't need any encouragement at all to come out and drink...

-------------- BEGIN EMAIL -----------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 08:52:35 -0700
From: "Shan Shan Huang"
To: XXXXXX
Subject: Happy Hour -- Call to arms!

AP recently reported that 80% of Americans between ages 16-64 do not believe in the existence of "Computer Scientists". When asked why, the #1 reason for their lack of faith is that they've only heard of these "Computer Scientists", but have never seen one.

Is this the kind of world you want our children to grow up in?!? A world devoid of values, references, or reference values? A world where garbage collection is a dead-end job with no career advancement options? A world where Lisp is just a speech impediment, and Smalltalk is something you do before getting into deep conversations
about the embodiment of the meaning of life in Impressionist paintings???

Restore the faith in "Computer Scientists"! Let yourselves be seen!

Organizational meeting:
Time: 6:00pm
Place: Eugene City Brewing Company. 844 Olive St.

-----
Shan Shan Huang
http://www.freeflygeek.com

-------------- END EMAIL ---------------------------------------------

Drinking Chocolate

I like chocolate quite a bit. I'm not willing to name my first born Xocoa or anything, but I am more than willing to make character judgments about people based on their chocolate preferences. Personally, I like dark chocolate. The darker the better -- up to about 85% cacao. Milk chocolate is for wimps. Or people who like milk. I don't like milk. I'm lactose-intolerant. I also like chocolate *without* nuts and funny crunchy things mixed in it. I don't like anything that breaks up the texture of the chocolate. I do like spices -- cayenne, cinnamon, and even anise, all taste quite good with dark chocolate.

I had this drinking chocolate in a chocolate shop in Portland some time ago. I loved it. It was thick and creamy and it is to your regular hot chocolate what Peet's French Roast is to Foldger's Instant Coffee. I think I'm a little late to the party, though. A quick search on the web tells me that drinking chocolate has been in fashion in the States for at least 2 years now. Even Starbucks tried to sell it! I don't know how it's possible that I didn't know about it. Oh wait, I do -- because I've been stuck in the South eating pulled pork instead!

So when I saw this at the store, I really just had to buy it. (Check out the rest of Kekau's savory chocolate collection. Yumm!) I followed the stove-top directions at first. But now I've gotten the process down to under a minute in the microwave. And it tastes delicious with regular soy milk -- all the better for those of us who are lactose-challenged!

I tell myself when I drink this that it aids my "recovery" from my runs.

French Press and Mukka Express

I was actually trying to *simplify* my kitchen when I made these two purchases...

It all started with the French press. All I've had for a few years now is a Krupp's espresso machine. It's a steam-driven little thing, and it works relatively well. I'm not terribly picky about my espresso -- not *nearly* as picky as I am about my alcohol -- so the Krupp has served me well. While the latte's and cappucinos tasted ok, I can't seem to be able to make decent tasting Americano. I know it's just espresso with hot water. But whenever I added hot water into the shots of espresso the Krupp made, it just tasted like crap. I think it's because the Krupp always burns the espresso just a little bit. Now if you add milk to it, as I normally do, the milk masks the burnt taste. But if you just add hot water, the burnt taste really lingers around. So I wanted something I can make just regular coffee with, for those times when I want the kick without the milk (or soy milk, in my case). I've been impressed by the simpliciy of the French press. And it doesn't take much counter space -- counter space is at a premium in my kitchen. So I set out and bought the
Bodum Shin Bistro. It's a pretty impressive little thing. All you do is put some really coarsely ground coffee on the bottom, and mix it with hot, but not boiling, water. Wait 4 minutes. Press the screen down, and voila, you're done!

A confluence of events led me to my second purchase, the Mukka Express.

Event 1: Vicky has been using the Bialetti Moka Express for making espresso for as long as I've known her. And that's what we did in Barcelona.

Event 2: In conversation with Martin, I found out he uses the Moka to make espresso, as well. I've seen the guy drink 3 shots of espresso in one sitting, so I figured he knows his espresso pretty well. However, Martin gave a rather negative review of the Mukka Express, the cappuccino/latte making version of the simpler Moka Express. Reviews on the internet about the Mukka Express are quite mixed, as well. But my impression is that the only people complaining are people who are not mechanically inclined (read: can't screw the top/bottom parts together correctly), or can't seem to follow directions very well.

Event 3: I am on a "simplicity" kick, I found the idea of a simple little stove-top replacement of my Krupp's electrically-powered, steam-driven thing rather appealing.

Event 4: I happen to be talking to Michal Young, the U of O resident coffee expert, at the department Happy Hour Friday. I made some comments about my steam-driven Krupp's machine, and Michal said that the Bialetti for sure makes better espresso than the Krupp, because the steam-driven machines need to run the water way too hot to get enough steam -- I guess that explains the burnt taste in my espresso!

Event 5: The final event that set my buying spree in motion was that the Mukka Express was on sale at Bed Bath & Beyond for $30 off its regular price.

So I plunked down $59.99 and bought the thing. My experiences so far have been *very* positive. I made three pots on Sunday -- it is advised that you throw away the first three pots, because it takes that many times to "temper" the pot well. But honestly, they were quite drinkable. But if you're serious about your cappucino/latte, you might want to temper the thing with cheaper beans -- I realized after the three throw-away pots that I'd just tossed 6 shots worth of Peet's French Roast. The foam the machine makes is quite impressive, and I must say, the espresso does not taste burnt at all!

I'm a sucker

Last post about Barcelona. I bought this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_puppets_trick

I'm a sucker. Note that the photo in wikipedia is actually taken in Barcelona! The tiles shown in the photo are the typical Barcelonian tiles. Joel and I paid 4 Euros each for two pieces of cardboard, basically.

Picasso, Gaudi, and CosmoCiaxa

As bad tourist as I am, I still managed to hit some of the Barcelonian highlights.

Picasso: The Picasso museum was interesting. Most of it really isn't what you expect to be Picasso at all. Apparently before he turned all abstract and cubist and blue and rose, he did lots of run-of-the-mill type of paintings. And most of them are quite average. Particularly his attempt at copying the impressionists paintings -- they were flat out bad. But the story goes that he didn't really know what impressionists were, and all he had to go on were newspaper black/white prints of the impressionist paintings at the time. So he tried to copy those and failed spectacularly. It just goes to show that it's much better to create than copy ;)

Gaudi: The Gaudi buildings are interesting. They look like they were built for the smurphs. It's definitely things that would get tiresome to look at after a while -- kindda like a crazy party dress, you can only pull it out of the closet once every few years, but when you do, it's fun. It's definitely not your classic black gown that stands up to the testament of time.

CosmoCiaxa: The science museum of Barcelona. Fantastic! As soon as we walked into the CosmoCiaxa, it became clear that the three of us are undeniably nerds. As much as Picasso and Gaudi were interesting to look at, put us in the science museum is like dropping 3-year-olds off at Willy Wanka's chocolate factory. The museum's exhibits were all very hands-on. You get to apply magnetic field to this fluid and watch its viscosity change; you get to wind up this hand-shaped wire, then unwind it, apply heat, and watch how it goes back to the exact original shape; you get to apply strobe lights of various frequencies to a bunch of bouncing balls enclosed in a while glass box; etc. The museum had an indoor rainforest, too. There were some pretty big fish swimming around the tree roots. There was also this room called "Toca Toca" that we didn't get to see -- you could touch rats and turtles and what not. And then, there's an outdoor science park, with an archimedean screw and many other things. Anyway. It's a fun time. I would definitely go back there if I were ever in Barcelona again.