Seafood Connoisseur

Now me being from Seattle and all...I consider myself quite the seafood connoisseur. This is not to say that I have been a lifetime lover of all things "fishy", I've gone clam digging...once. I tried them, and there will be no way that anything that chewy will ever come into contact with my lips again. But I am willing to try new things, as was my experience with sushi recently. I was the tallest gringo in the place, and I felt that my clothes might match a little too much with zero Hello Kitty anywhere on my person. I was brief-ed on what to expect. We could sit in a booth or at the "bar"; then the Sushi chefs would make their creations right there in front of us. All very fascinating! Especially when Head Chef pulled out a 20 pound Salmon and with the biggest knife I have ever seen proceeded to de-head and de-scale the salmon in preparation of rolling it into our next sushi roll.

As you are sitting in your booth [or in our case at the bar] the plates of sushi would convey by and you would choose what you want off the conveyor belt and enjoy.

Each plate had 3 -4 pieces of Sushi

Purple plates were $3.00,
Blue plates were $2.50,
Green plates were $2.00, and
Orange plates were $1.00.

...and of course there was the $2.50 Budweiser in case you needed to wash out the sushi taste in your mouth!

As we were waiting for seats at the bar I noticed that Sushi Land had an

"All-You-Can-Eat" contest.

Easy you think? Until you read the fine print...30 plates within 90 minutes!! For those of you that think...no problem. Can you imagine making it through 29 plates? Not only would you be unbuttoning the top button of your pants but the extra space made from your sufficiently lighter, smaller wallet would definitely be needed.
"Sushi land also cannot be responsible for any health problems stemming from eating more plates {entrees} than your body was designed to hold"

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind the next time I am being rolled out the door from going for the Sushi Land Plate Champion title.

Conclusion: Be adventurous and try a roll of authentic "raw" sushi [I'm not talking "California Rolls" here] Just don't expect to become a Plate Champion on your first visit. Save that for next time.

Family Fun Night

Ode to my family's fabulousness. For this year's New Year's Eve we spent the evening together. Along with some adopted family members we played games, ate a home cooked meal, and in general made fun of each other's attempts to win. In fact we even attempted to play Trivial Pursuit, a game that not even Einstein himself would be able to successful play. Eventually after nearly 2 hours of trying to get through half the game, we decided that the next person to correctly answer a challenge would be the game winner. After the disappointment of Trivial Pursuit, I admit that I really wanted to play Pictionary. But indeed the game could not be located, and I was unfairly accused of stealing it!! I suspect foul play by those who despise Pictionary. So instead Yanaj suggested that we create our own version, roll a die: odds you draw, even you charades. We all came up with our own actions, people, movies, and events. The highlight of the evening was Yanaj's attempt:

Yup, even we couldn't guess what it was suppose to be, other than "giraffe-man attempting to wear his first necktie". Believe me, I guessed just that; and even that was not correct.

Any ideas?

...Locks...

Over the holiday break in Seattle I spent one of my days hanging out with my Dad. Now it was nice that he could take the days off of work while we were there, and it came in especially handy the day of The Engagement. Not my engagement... Lock #1 Boy That HPLuvr Admits To Liking: Rather the engagement of the unworthy boy that I liked all through high school. Suffice it to say that I probably liked him so long because I did not know him. Here is the scoop. So this boy -lets call him Fabio III- met a girl a year ago, brought her home from halfway across the country, and then proceeded to break up with her while they were in Seattle. Considerate. But that is not the end of it, no this year he decides once again to bring another candidate home, one that had already passed the mother-in-law-hopeful's "FP" test. This new girl then was given an elaborate proposal composed and plotted by mother-in-law-hopeful...and I was invited to go along and "help". Yup, so luckily that was the day me and dad planned to sight see Washington's Northwest coast.

One of our stops was a Granite Falls High School basketball game that my cousin was playing in. We only stayed long enough for the first quarter to end with a boy on the opposite team blowing chunks all over center court! YUCK!! We decided to make tracks and onto our next stop...until it was discovered... Lock #2 Car Keys: see anything wrong with this situation?
Believe it or not we were only standing in that freezing cold parking lot for less than 10 minutes! No one even came up to ask what we were doing...nice to know that our vehicles are safe! Either that or it has always been my Dad's plan to make sure that I could take care of myself in any car situation, flat tires, oil changes, smoking engines, and locking my keys in a locked car quickly.

Finally, digging deep for Lock #3 Apartment Doors: Nearly a year ago my good friend Nonnie flew to Utah to visit her family and me. We had arranged for an airport pickup time, and all went smoothly until we were hauling her luggage up the three flights of stairs up to my Salt Lake City apartment. I was excited to show her my place, in fact had been talking it up quite a bit. Except when I went to put my key into the deadbolt lock. Nothing happened. Hmmm...strange, it had always worked before. I checked to make sure I was using the correct key; I was certain that Bone Junior also had not switched our keys as a joke...almost certain. Finally, embarrassed, I stormed to the manager’s office and asked what the heck was up, my key was not working. Apparently maintenance had come to fix something in our apartment, finding that their key did not work, they decided that they had to change the entire lock. They came back to let me into my apartment. Once in my apartment, I looked over the copy of the maintenance request and job form...for our next door neighbors! No wonder their key didn't work, it was for another apartment. Luckily for me they switched the locks and once again I could go on talking up my new Salt Lake City apartment. My only advice would be to carefully watch the locks in our lives, you never know when you will loose, change, lock or hide them just as you need one!

Holidays over?

Now that the holidays are over, and I have survived my first full week back in Portable Land I have found the time to catch everyone up on whats been going on. Over the break I got to spend the best time back at home in Seattle. While there I was able to spend some quality time with those back there...and with them some crazy things happened. First of all, I went...

...wait a minute I am being threatened within an inch of my lap top's life... actual update to come later, again later.



Strange, this reminds me of another picture I've seen. Perhaps to pay tribute to one of our favorite visitors so far :)