Published on
January 31, 2008 in
Politics.
You can consult this caucus finder to get the location of a Democratic caucus site near you for the February 9 event. I don’t know whether a similar site exists for the Republican caucus locations.
I moved to Washington state just as the 2004 primary season got into full swing, but I didn’t caucus (shameful, I know, but the nomination was all but tied up for Kerry by the time our caucus rolled around). This will be my first caucus experience and I’m looking forward to seeing how the process works. And it’s possible that Washington state will even be relevant this year — I for one suspect that this thing won’t be decided on February 5 (on the Democratic side at least).
Update 02/05/2008 9:30am:
Here are the websites to check for the Republican caucus locations:
Published on
January 30, 2008 in
Seattle.
As usual, the reports of impending snow in Seattle were greatly exaggerated. There was a bit on Monday, but not enough to justify playing hooky from work (although I know quite a few folks who live on the Eastside who couldn’t — or at least didn’t — drive in). There is still some snow in the forecast for later this week, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
We just adore talking about the weather in this town. But did I mention how f-ing cold it is?
Published on
January 30, 2008 in
Food.
My good friend Anjali is one of the most creative people I know. In the 12+ (!) years that I’ve known her, there has never been a time that she hasn’t been working on a new project (or three). These projects have included (but have not been limited to): jewelry-making, sewing her own clothing, knitting, making decorations for theme parties (and coming up with ideas for theme parties), papier-mache, designing outrageous Halloween costumes, and developing interesting (and attractive!) concoctions in the kitchen.
That latter interest has recently led her to make her first foray into the world of blogging, so that she can share her creations and the results of her experiments with the world.
My favorite posts so far are:
…with many more on the way. I can’t say the various attempts at bacon ice cream really do much for me, but I am a chickentarian after all.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention — by day she’s kicking ass as a first-year medical student, and this is somehow done during her copious amounts of free time.
Published on
January 27, 2008 in
Seattle.
I’m in California for the weekend visiting my family. I just decided to check weather back in Seattle so that I’d know what to expect upon arriving early tomorrow morning. Gorgeous:
Interestingly, Kenny told me that snow was a pretty rare occurrence in Seattle during his first six winters there. This is my fifth winter in Seattle, and we’ve seen snow every year. El Nino/La Nina? Climate change? (Somebody get Al Gore on the phone)
And while it looks like this coming week will be complete crap, it bodes well for snowboarding next weekend! This will be my first chance this winter, since I’ve been out of town for six weekends out of the last seven. Crystal got six inches last night.
P.S. When trying to come up with a title for this post, I asked my mom to tell me “something funny about snow.” She said, “well, it can be funny when dogs pee on it.”
Published on
January 14, 2008 in
Seattle.
This is a week old, but worth a read if you haven’t seen it already: Melinda Gates Goes Public, in Fortune Magazine.
Published on
January 10, 2008 in
Politics.
From Salon:
More important, if you take Edwards out of the equation, our money says the stunning but narrow victory Clinton won in New Hampshire becomes something that looks a lot more like the defeat that almost everyone was expecting. Clinton beat Obama by about 8,000 votes in New Hampshire. Edwards, finishing third, drew about 48,000. Assuming that Clinton is right in arguing that Obama and Edwards are aligned against her — and also assuming that race isn’t the controlling factor here — doesn’t it stand to reason that an overwhelming majority of Edwards’ supporters would have voted for Obama rather than for Clinton if Edwards hadn’t been in the race?
C’mon, John. Everyone knows you have no chance anyway. Time to set your ego aside so that you don’t spoil this race for Obama.
Published on
January 10, 2008 in
Politics.
Until recently, I was undecided about who I would support for the 2008 Democratic nomination. I enjoyed watching the race from the sidelines without choosing sides. And in the back of my mind, I did think that Hillary was inevitable. And besides, I like her.
But Andrew Sullivan’s December article in the Atlantic, Goodbye to All That, made an impression on me. After letting it stew for a while, along with continuing to follow the news and speeches made by both Hillary and Barack, I became convinced that Barack was the candidate who could bring about much-needed change in this country — not just a change of policy (and anyway, I’m convinced that all of the major Democratic players are essentially the same on policy), but a change in tone — and enable us to move on from the culture war that’s had us stuck in political deadlock for so long. Maybe it’s naive, but I’ve really bought into Obama’s message of hope.
I saw the Iowa primary results on the Bloomberg network from my hotel room in Saigon (our only English-language news channel). Having not followed the primaries in the preceding weeks that I’d been on vacation in Vietnam, I found that I was not only very surprised but also ecstatic about Obama’s win. So I suppose that confirmed for me that I really am an Obama supporter.
I’ll certainly support Hillary if she wins the nomination. And I genuinely like her and often find myself defending her when I hear others criticize her. But I’d be much more excited to get behind Barack. In any case, it’s going to be an interesting primary season.
Published on
January 7, 2008 in
Travel.
Being chickentarian* in Vietnam and Cambodia involved some challenges, but in general it wasn’t too difficult. I think that being vegetarian, on the other hand, would be much more difficult.
A few observations:
- Interestingly, I had an easier time finding good chickentarian food in the north than in the South (perhaps nowhere was as easy as Hang Ga)
- The chickentarian options on the Santa Maria Cruiser (Halong Bay) were fantastic and plentiful.
- Hue seemed to be a pho bo town for some reason — it was very hard to find ga, except at Pho 24 (more about Pho 24 in a later post).
- There are also many “Hue specialties” — food dating back to Imperial Vietnam — almost all of which contain pork. FWIW, they look very good.
- There was all kinds of seafood to be had in Nha Trang, which was all kinds of goodness.
- We had two meals in the street stalls in Vinh Long, one before and one after our boat trip. Vinh Long is somewhat remote, and very few people spoke English there. The first time it was a bit difficult to find anything — but a nice vendor made me a banh xeo (pancake that normally contains shrimp and pork) without the pork, in response to some very creative sign language on Kenny’s part. The second time, we had com ga (rice with chicken), which was fine, if a bit boring.
- Back in Saigon, it wasn’t especially easy to find chicken, and when we did, it was often a bit plain. In Saigon and elsewhere, we had a couple of dishes called “chicken with chili and lemongrass” that were disappointing (although we had an amazing version of the same in Hanoi!). Our three (!) meals at Pho 2000 were the exception — this was probably the highest quality chicken we had on our entire trip.
- One time while we were in Saigon, we sat down in a restaurant without inspecting the menu first. After we saw the menu, we noticed that there was nothing for me and had to walk out!
- There’s a lot of pork in Cambodia, especially if you stick to Khmer food. Fortunately, there’s always amok (with fish or chicken — I recommend fish)!
- I’m certain that there were a few times, in both Vietnam and Cambodia, that I unknowingly consumed dishes cooked with meat. C’est la vie.
In general, both the chickentarian (me) and the meatatarian (Kenny) ate very well in both Vietnam and Cambodia.
*This term means different things to different people. For me, it means: poultry and seafood are fine, but no mammals.
Published on
January 6, 2008 in
Travel.
Kenny and I were extremely excited to try all the fruits we could while in Vietnam and Cambodia. We had many old favorites and got to experience quite a few new ones as well:
- Bananas – apparently there are five types of bananas that grow in Vietnam. I don’t remember how many types we tried, but most of the ones we had were very small.
- Green orange – these taste just like oranges, but they are green on the outside instead of orange! Most of the local just call them oranges, although it felt so wrong to me to call something green an orange. When we told our Mekong Delta guide that oranges are orange back in the US, she couldn’t believe it!
- Green coconut – not too different from the brown variety, but in green!
- Dragonfruit – my favorite! They are fuschia on the outside, with green tentacles. On the inside, they are white with little black seeds. They are extremely refreshing, especially when cold. We always ate them with spoons.
- Papaya – just like the ones at home.
- Green papaya – usually in salads. Delicious.
- Mango – Nha Trang had the best mangoes I’ve ever tasted.
- Pineapple – we had delicious pineapples in both Cambodia and Vietnam.
- Watermelons – the watermelons in Vietnam are much smaller than the ones we usually get at home, although they taste about the same.
- Palm fruit – we had never heard of palm fruit, until one of our drivers at Angkor Wat pointed it out to us and then procured some for us to try. It has the texture of lychee meat, but not much discernible flavor, although it’s quite refreshing.
- Rambutan – they’re like lychees, but they have curly red alien tendrils on the outside. Quite tasty.
- Longan – these are also similar to lychees, but smaller. The seed to meat ratio is high.
- Starfruit – in Vietnam, starfruit is eaten with salt and a little bit of chili pepper.
- Jackfruit – we didn’t like the first one we tried, in Siem Reap. We had our second one in the Mekong, and we both quite enjoyed it. I don’t know whether it grew on us, or the Vietnamese one was better.
- Water apple – we tried green ones and red ones when we were in the Mekong. They mostly taste like water, with a slight tart flavor.
- Sapodilla – I never saw a whole one, but I had some sapodilla in fruit shake form and later in a fruit salad at the Hotel Rex in Saigon. It was brown and mushy and I didn’t quite like it.
We also tried something on our Halong Bay cruise that had a texture like jicama, but the flavor of a pear. Unfortunately I never saw what it looked like on the exterior, because they were always served to us pre-sliced (and skinned?). But if you have any idea what I’m talking about, I’d love to know the name.
Some fruits we wanted to try but never found:
- Mangosteen – supposedly these are delicious. We realized later that we might have seen them in a market in Saigon (but nowhere else).
- Soursop – we never had a solid one, but we tried it in fruit shake form, which was delicious
- Custard apple – I’ve heard of this, but I’m not sure what it is.
And although we saw many of them around the markets, we never did work up the courage to try durian. The smell was enough to scare us away.