Nitrous Extreme

Nitrous Extreme players (cyan uniforms) going for the ball

My new soccer team is well into our season. Being that about 30% of the kids in our age division went on to select teams, our division has lost a lot of the really skilled players, or the kids who didn't want to travel the island to play.

Despite the thinning of the pool that our teams are made of, we have a great team with a lot of talent. As usual, I see that there are the bigger kids who are good at muscling in, as well as the smaller faster kids who can drive the ball up to the goal.

We lost our second game this weekend, but we lost by a smaller margin than the previous, and the players are really starting to gel. Overall it looks like it's going to be another fun season, despite the fact that the kids couldn't choose one name for the team (hence, Nitrous Extreme).

My contest guitar arrived

I finally received the guitar I won from the online guitar playing contest. Though the pictures on the contest page showed a translucent dark red guitar, I was surprised to see they sent me a green one.

This green one is a special limited edition - only 60 were made. Initially though, I didn't like the color, and the shape seemed like a warped Les Paul.

The abalone trim seems a bit over the top for a rock guitar.


But on the plus side, look at the carve on the back of the neck where it joins the body - the upper fret access is really good for a set neck, Les Paul styled guitar (yes, I am guitar geeking out here).


And it is made REALLY well. Super high quality construction and some premium woods, from the mahogany back to the quilted maple top. And after I did some set up on it, it plays like a dream. So whereas I was planning on selling it before I even received it, now I will keep it and play it. Schecter is one of the few pretty big guitar brands that I've never owned. Plus it's a nice "trophy" for winning the guitar playing contest, and how can I complain about a free guitar?

Thanks again Sam!

On Saturday afternoon, I went over to my neighbor Sam's house to ask for some rosemary from her herb garden. She wasn't home, but her husband told me to go around back and help myself. Sam was the neighbor who had brought over the screwpine (lauhala) leaves that I used a couple of months ago to make Thai chicken.

Last night (Monday), we were totally wiped out from a hectic four day weekend, and I wanted to make a simple dinner. Using up all of the leftover ingredients I had in the fridge (chicken breast, basil, eggplant, onion) and a few things in my pantry (yellow curry paste, coconut milk, chicken stock, fish sauce, sugar), I decided to make a Thai yellow chicken curry.

In the end, it turned out good, but it was missing something. I spooned some out and was about to start eating, when the doorbell rang. I wondered who it could be, since I spoke to my mom earlier and she didn't hint at coming over, and my son's friend never drops by after dinner.

It turned out to be Samantha, my neighbor with the herb garden. She brought over some kaffir lime leaves.


Considering that I make curry maybe four times a year, and she drops by our house and brings various herbs maybe two or three times a year, you can see the chances of her bringing the missing ingredient in my curry, at the exact moment it is perfect to drop it in, as being about a one in a million chance.

So I added the kaffir lime leaves, stewed it about two minutes more, and then it was perfect.


Thanks again Samantha!!

I'm SO not a plumber

and neither am I an electrician, but at least when doing electrical work around the house, the fear of electrocution makes me turn off the circuit that I'm working on.

This morning while I was removing the shower mixing valve to check the part no., I inadvertently removed the part that holds back the water, and water came shooting out at high velocity. Fortunately it was cold so I didn't scald myself, but by the time I reached the main property valve, the entire bathroom was under about a quarter inch of water.

It wasn't funny at the time, but now it's hilarious. Now I wish I had a pic of the shooting water to blog about, to remind me of how stupid I can be. At least with the burning wok, I had pics of the toasted microwave.

Christmas Dinner 2009

Tonight was Christmas dinner, so we had L's family over. To save time I started prepping things yesterday.

The first dish I prepared was a sicilian sweet and sour butternut squash, which was butternut squash, shiitake and grape tomatoes, drizzled with rosemary and garlic infused extra virgin olive oil, then roasted. The dressing was red wine vinegar sweetened with some sugar and drizzled over the top.

Next I braised some shortribs in herbs and vegetable stock, then refrigerated them til today.

This afternoon I resumed cooking, and started by heating the spiral sliced ham in the oven. While heating the ham, I prepared the celery sopressata salad, which also has basil, lemon juice and olive oil.

Next I made a festive Waldorf salad with Fuji and granny smith apples (for the Christmas colors), toasted walnuts, celery, flat leaf parsley and cranberry raisins, with a yogurt mayo honey dressing.

After that I took the shortribs and did a light au jus dip breadcrumb crust. I broiled the shortribs to brown the breadcrumbs, which was a deviation from my original plan to do deviled shortribs (there were too many sweet items on the menu).At the last minute, I ended up doing a honey dijon mayo sauce, but as it was on the side, the sweetness was optional. It had a vaguely horseradish flavor so I thought it worked well with the beef.

Next I heated the wok, coated the opakapaka with cornstarch and salt, then deep fried. The sauce was a sweet and sour sauce.

Last we added some 'nalo greens, and L's aunty brought pasta salad. The dinner was close to being a little too sweet, but optional sauces countered that.

Though everyone was told to come at 5:30, people showed up as early as 4:15, so we scrambled to finish things up. That's partially why the salads were last on the buffet line. But it ended up working out fine. Can't wait to come up with next year's dinner!!

Fried opakapaka (snapper) with sweet sour sauce

Braised shortribs with honey mustard sauce, sicilian sweet and sour butternut squash, spiral sliced ham

Nalo greens, waldorf salad with craisins, celery sopressata salad, pasta salad

More opakapaka

Last night's opakapaka turned out much better than the previous one. As I predicted, the high pressure burner heated the oil really quickly, about 8 minutes. Here's the opakapaka in the oil - I could have added more oil to immerse the fish completely, but that would have been too much oil just to cook its tail.


It came out quite nice. Once again I took it out to early and the inside was underdone, so I put it back in, but only for a minute. When I took it out it was much more tender and flaky than the last time I overcooked it.


Everybody at the pot luck seemed to enjoy it, so I'm confident that it will come out decent on Christmas day.

I think next time I will stand it up on it's bottom. At the pot luck, when one side got eaten and I flipped it over, all the grease had settled to the bottom. If I had more time to experiment, I would try cutting the fish in half lengthwise.

Propane Stove

Part of the whole Christmas opakapaka experiment / learning experience is how I'm going to cook the fish. The fish in the previous entry was relatively small, and I had to turn it and cook the tail by holding the rest of the fish and immersing the tail in oil.

My Christmas present this year is a wok and propane burner. It burns REALLY hot and fast. So fast that I have to be careful. I'm thinking it will heat a wok of oil in maybe 3 or 4 minutes.

Here's my burner sitting on the wall in the back patio area where the grill is supposed to be.


And here's the wok, partially seasoned.


Tonight for our block party I'm going to try another opakapaka, this time in my new wok. Having made two opakapakas so far will put me in good practice to make a decent on one Christmas day. Hopefully.

Fried Opakapaka

For Christmas dinner, my brother-in-law is coming over. He doesn't eat meat or poultry, so I'm making a whole fried opakapaka. The trouble is, I've never made one before! So I found some at Tamashiro market, our big fish market here in Honolulu. I bought two - one to experiment on, and the other for Christmas dinner.

Here was my first attempt. It came out quite well, if a bit overdone. First I put some "dragon wings" on by slicing the sides to the bone. I salted it lightly and dredged with a 50/50 mixture of cornstarch and flour. Then I fried in my wok in canola oil. I'll make a sweet sour sauce for the Christmas dinner.

Death/Black Metal song idea, take 1

The drummer I'm working with just sent me a drum track that he wrote over some guitar ideas I had. It sounds awesome and I can't wait to write lyrics and a vocal line for this, and put in a bass line.

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8447502

Historic Hawaii Foundation Fundraiser

Mrs. Irene Hidano Inouye

Last night we went to a fundraiser for the Historic Hawaii Foundation at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, which was also an event honoring Senator and Mrs. Inouye.

The good: Our table was pretty close to the head table, and we had an excellent view of the stage. We got to sit next to our host (the guy that bought the table) and it was fun talking story and joking with him. The program was excellent - the MC was great, the invocation was excellent, and the video honoring Dan and Irene's accomplishments in the historic community was really informative and well done.

The bad: Despite our proximity to Dan Inouye's table, he was not there! He was in Senate hearings in Washington and he couldn't make it, but his wife Irene was there. Parking was a nightmare - after idling in line for 20 minutes they turned us and everyone else away at the valet because they couldn't accommodate us, which forced us to park at the top of the neighboring parking structure, so we missed the entire cocktail hour (I told my wife that I really wanted to get a picture taken and show up on the Paina section of the Midweek!!). The food was quite atrocious - super salty soup, the main course was really starchy with gnocchi and an edamame flan and a steamed snapper, and the "study in coconut" dessert was too heavy and too sweet. Lastly, the waiter spilled water all over me and our host. When the manager came out and asked if they could do anything for us, we both said no, but I later (jokingly) realized I should have told her "can you bring my car around for me?"

Trojan soccer

We went to see our old alma mater Mililani Varsity Girl's team play Campbell tonight. It was a pretty lopsided game but still fun to watch.

Rats

This is a place we used to shop at. With an emphasis on "used to".

I won a guitar!!

I entered this video for a contest called Coverband 2010.



After the judging went through, I ended up in second place and won this $1000 guitar.

Mid life crisis guitar

I think a lot of guys my age that go through mid life crises want to get a really nice custom shop Les Paul or a relic Strat. My mid life crisis guitar is this:



It is both awesomely evil and ridiculously silly, all at the same time. Part of the reason I like it is because it's the anti-Les Paul - it's devoid of beauty, class and refinement. And no, please do not remind me of the extremely poor resale value of something like this.

Eh HOWZIT!!

There was this guy that was in my Mechanical Engineering class back in 1986. I believe a year after that, he dropped out of Engineering and went into Computer Science.

Fast forward to around 2000 - I had been working for 4 years for the State, and this guy gets a job in my building. The first time he sees me, he's all like "Hey Ryan!" and I'm all like "Eh... howzit!!" (because I couldn't for the life of me remember his name, after only having him in one class 14 years earlier).

For years, my friends have joked with me about the guy named "Eh howzit". Every time he sees me, he says "Hey Ryan" and I say "Eh howzit!". I really should have just asked him his name the first time I saw him, but after seeing him like 12 times, I'd feel like a fool asking him his name.

After 9/11, we were required to wear our badges around the building. One day I'm wearing my badge, buying a soda at the snack shop, and I see him. I say "eh howzit..... where's your badge?" (hoping I can get a glimpse of his name on his badge). He replies "I leave it in the office". Dang.

Then a few years later, I'm standing in line with my son at McDonalds and he's a few people in front of me. He turns and says "hey Ryan" and I say (say it with me) "Eh howzit!". My son then proceeds to loudly ask me "DADDY, WHO IS THAT?" Well, at that point, I can't say "oh, that's Eh Howzit".

A few years back, he leaves our building to work for another division.

Fast forward to today. My wife and I are sitting in a restaurant and who should walk in but "Eh, Howzit". He walks in with my Aunt's brother, who immediately sees us and starts talking to us. As they're leaving, I hold him back and ask him "what's that guy's name", and he tells me "oh, that's Jared".

A long standing mystery, solved at last.

And by the way, if I ever see you on the street and say "eh howzit", please, please, just tell me "hey Ryan, I'm (insert your name here)", because as evidenced by this post, I am REALLY crappy with names.

I'm the death metal soccer coach, so how appropriate.....

that soccer season ends, and death metal begins. Knowing that the season is over, I put an ad in Craigslist for a drummer, and I finally found one. It's been years since I've been searching for one, and I got a message last week from a guy who plays death metal. We jammed today. We both have similar interests musically, and I think we have common musical goals so it sounds like I finally have the foundation for the band I've wanted to put together for a long time.

Jack-O-Lantern 2009

Yesterday was a totally crazy day. I got up early because I had to meet the Age Group Coordinator for AYSO U10 Boys at 7:30 a.m. to pick up sportsmanship badges. Had to set up the goals early, then we had our boys game at 10:00, which we won. My brother met us and got to watch the kids play. Had our potluck after and presented the kids with trophies, and had to run away to the girls game at 12:00. We won that one too, and had the second potluck, where I presented trophies to the girls. Ran home, took a shower, and had only an hour to come up with a concept and carve my pumpkin.

Since we just came back from Disneyland, I wanted to go with a Disney theme. After a couple of failed design attempts, I decided to do an easy Mickey sihouette, since I had about 20 minutes to do the carving. It's not as intricate as past years, but I'm happy with the design - sometimes simple is best! If I had more time I might have done the signature buttons on his shorts.

Went to our friends' house for dinner and the kids all went trick or treating together. We didn't get home til 9:30, so the kids didn't have time to sort through and eat candy!

What a crazy day.

Why I coach

I've gotten some nice words of encouragement from parents throughout the season - one from a parent whose kid was previously on my team saying "the kids on Ryan's team always have fun", another from a parent saying her son's skills have improved this season, and lots of e-mails of thanks for what we do.

But the ones that are especially nice are the words that come from the kids. When I was telling the girls about registration for next season, I told them I can't coach them again, and some said "awww". And yesterday, one of the boys on my U10 team told me that when I was on my trip, he missed me.

These are the moments that make all of late night line-up arranging, coaching classes, unsuccessful referee recruiting, leaving work early, etc. all worth while.

The Puppies

One of the parents on my team is an excellent photographer and offered her photography for our team picture. It's awesome!

Soccer 9-19-09

Sara on the ball!

Connor and Keani on defense

The girls had another excellent day today, with 4 of my 6 girls scoring goals throughout the game. One girl scored 2 points! The other team was much more aggressive than last week's team so it was a stronger challenge, but we still played well. Though I wasn't keeping score, I'm pretty sure we won by about 3 points. But winning's not the priority in AYSO, and it was nice to see teams playing on our field before us allow the losing team to score some goals without too much defense.

And Sara played her first game ever!!! She got to go to the movies and Fun Factory in celebration!

Ryan's big kick

Our boys struggled a bit more, but still played well. We had previously scrimmaged the team that we played, and they beat us then too. They have a really strong offense. Still, we could not get any scores in. But it was a good learning experience and gave me a lot to work on with the kids at practice. Oh, and speaking of "firsts", this game was Evan's first as goal keeper too!

AWESOME soccer day

What an incredible day it was today. We started out taking pictures for our girls U6 team. Then we had a 9:00 game. Though AYSO is supposed to distribute the teams evenly, it seems like we have a lot of really good players on our team. And in fact, my girls were scoring too much today. I had to ask one of them to start passing off and playing with her less dominant foot, because AYSO discourages running up the score.

Here are a few of the girls enjoying some downtime:



And here's a video of one of the many breakaway scoring drives of the game:



It was a really nice victory for us, but in a lot of ways it was really sad. There was a girl on the other team that (according to my wife) just gave up every time she saw one of our girls breaking away with the ball. At the very end, there was a girl who just stood there, not facing anyone, and just cried. I felt so sad for them. And yet I can't ask my girls not to play their hardest. So finding ways of getting them to NOT score so much (like playing with your less dominant foot, etc.) is something I'm going to have to research more before we progress through the season, just in case this happens again. But I'm sure we'll have our share of crying due to getting outscored too this season!!

We had a little break before we headed over to our U10 boys game. We were missing two boys, one due to baseball, and another to a church event. So no one was able to take a break during the game. It was intense, but we won 5 to 2. I was particularly proud of my son, who went head to head with one of the best players I know from last season. And my son stole the ball from him several times.

This video is one of my son's steals, though the opponent in the video isn't the kid I was talking about.



And here's my son stealing from the kid I mentioned.

Thai Pandan-Wrapped Chicken (gai ob bai toey)

Our neighbor Sam, who is from Singapore, sometimes brings us herbs from her garden. A few days ago she brought us a bunch of leaves called Screwpine leaves.
Along with the bunch of leaves, she left us a note about the different ways you can use these in cooking: as a rice or dessert flavoring, as food coloring, or to wrap chicken in.

I decided to try wrapping chicken, so I looked up a few different recipes and made a sort of amalgamation of all of the different elements that I thought looked good: soy sauce, sugar, oyster sauce, fish sauce, garlic, sesame oil and a lot of coconut milk. I marinated the chicken for an hour, then went through the tedious process of wrapping about 30 bundles and securing them with toothpicks.

Next was the part that I HATED. I had only enough oil to do a medium deep fry. The wrapped pieces leave little pockets of liquid that explode when they hit the oil. Or they lie dormant, waiting for you to walk by to check the doneness, then BAM, they splash all over your arm.
But according to my wife, all of the work and oil splashes were worth it. She loved it!! The marinade for the chicken is similar to a chinese minute chicken, with the exception of the fish sauce and coconut milk flavoring which gives it the Thai taste. The Screwpine leaves added a really nice and unique fragrance, almost like a cross between ti leaves, green tea, and maybe lemongrass. Just a really unique flavor that really can't be replicated with any other leaves, though I guess I would try wrapping in ti leaves sometime.

To complete our meal, we had it with some rice, and a Thai red vegetarian curry with cabbage, bamboo and onions.
Kinda ambitious undertaking for a weeknight, but there was no soccer today, and I had the kids bathe and finish their homework early. Next time I'll wait for a weekend!!

Soccer banners

I finally finished the banners for my U6 girls team and my U10 boys team. Overall I'm pretty happy with them, but I would have liked to scale the elements a little bigger to fill the banner up more. But I was working with 8 1/2" x 11" printouts on a 7' x 30" banner so it was tough.

Here is the Puppies banner:


And here's the Extreme banner:

My son is blasting the ball into the Herbalife and Meadow Gold logos!! In hindsight I could have extended the lightning bolts farther out.

Both banners were built onto PVC frames to provide rigidity while the kids parade around the field tomorrow. Hope we win the banner contest!!

Dee

Here was my attempt at Dee by Randy Rhoads. It's sloppy, but mostly because my classical technique is poor, and partially because the action on the classical is really high.

Tofu Musubi

My daughter wanted spam musubis for her class for the last day of preschool. Since there are two vegetarians in her class, I had to think of some other musubis to make.

We bought this tofu, already fried, and chopped em into spam sized slices. Then we marinated em in shoyu and sugar, fried em up again, and put em atop some brown rice with green furikake, and wrapped with nori. They turned out pretty good!!