driving in the PA

i love palo alto. spacious bike lanes, expensive restaurants, ridiculous housing prices and (best of all) resident-exclusive parks requiring ID for admission are just some of the perks of living in this tree-lined little city. however, the one thing i cannot stand are the ridiculous speed limits here. take middlefield road as an example: a road with two lanes going in either direction for a total of 4 car lanes, plus a bike lane on both sides of the road. the speed limit for this road? twenty five miles per hour. twenty five! my car goes faster than that even when i'm not pressing the gas pedal! does it really make sense for me to have to brake in order to keep within legal speed limits on a 4 lane road?

dealing with a lost badge

this past weekend, i went on a skiing trip with my cousins. on returning to the bay area on sunday evening, i went to drop off my cousin at the car garage at work so she could pick up her car. this was about the time that i realized i had no idea where my badge was. i searched my entire car and through all of my bags and clothes for the badge that would allow access to the gated parking garaged. stymied, we started calling around to the various locations we had been during the weekend when i noticed that a car had just exited the garage. seeing this opening, i quickly grabbed my cousin's car keys and with an indiana jonesesque leap, i managed to dodge the descending metal gate and obtain entry into the garage. crisis avoided!

the next day, i had to request a new badge at the security office. i told the security guy that i had lost my badge and wanted a new one. he handed me a temporary badge and told me to come back tomorrow if i hadn't found my badge by then. i explained to him how i had turned my car inside out to look for my badge and that it was nowhere to be found. he told me that getting a new badge the next day was security's policy. who am i to argue with policy? so i took the temporary badge and planned on returning the next day for the normal badge. of course, genius me ended up finding the badge in my backpack--the very same one i had checked ten times the previous night. so i had to trudge back to the badge office that same day to return the temporary badge and get my normal badge reactivated. luckily, i was able to get a different security guard to do all of this; however, the one guard i dealt with in the morning was certainly eyeing me.

10SITLOY (10 seconds in the life of yao)

lady:
how much you want off?

me:
hum... about half an inch.

lady:
oh, that's not short enough for you!
*snip* *snip* *snip*

me:
...

cooking class

in cooking class the other day, we made our own pasta, except i kind of cheated and used the pasta dough that they prepared for us. rolling out the pasta in the machine was fun, though it does make me wonder why those things are so damn expensive. it's just a few pieces of metal and plastic here and there. apparently it's because they are from italy.

while i did make some spaghetti and linguine, the main event was the ravioli. the chefs had made several different types of stuffings for use to use, and all we had to do was shape, stuff, and close up the ravioli. i made about 12 raviolis and stuffed them inside a zip lock bag for the bike ride back home.

after biking home, i found that instead of a dozen little raviolis, i ended up with one big one. they had all become stuck together. so rather than cooking the pasta unevenly in water, i doused the clump with water and threw it in the microwave. the results were... less than fantastic. the filling was nice and piping hot though!

clearly a case of "an ounce of flour is worth much more than a pound of inedible ravioli".

in like flynn

well, not quite like flynn; but after months of searching and emailing and calling and even begging(!), i have finally secured a place in the city. it's rough out there, but i think things have finally come to a close.