Day 289: I am addicted to.....

... bubble tea. I know they are about 500 calories a cup with pearls. When I'm thirsty, I am craving a bubble tea. I feel very bloated after I finish one myself. If I share one, it's ok. I have been having one an average of one every other day for the past two weeks. I detour to the nearest bubble tea place if there is one close by. I was at Metrotown the other day and I made a detour to Little Tea House. My friend lives by Highgate. Recently when I visit him, we hang out the Estea which is a few minute drive from Highgate.

At Estea they offer soya pudding with a choice of beans (red, green, or mixed) and pearls. The first time I had soya pudding with taro with half pearls and half coconut jelly. It was in a takeout cup with the sealed lid. It was layered: bottom layer was the pearls and the coconut jelly, the syrupy sugary liquid layer, then there was the soya pudding, the top layer was the chunk of taro. Taro is kinda like a potato and they just put a chunk of taro in my cup. It wasn't even in a liquid form where I can sip it with my straw. How would I get the taro out? I had to wait till I was finish the liquid and open the lid to eat the taro. The other two times I went to Estea I ordered the mixed beans with half pearls and half coconut jelly. We stayed in the restaurant so my bubble tea was served in a bowl. It was kinda weird eating bubble tea with a spoon. Not many bubble tea places offer soya pudding. Because I was at a place which offered soya pudding, I will order it.

I prefer the fruity slush flavors, like mango and papaya. I had watermelon slush for the first time the other day. It was refreshing. I tried grape slush. It wasn't very good. It tasted like a grape slurpee with pearls. I don't like the mixed fruit flavours. I tried strawberry and a bunch of other flavours together. It was just one big mush. I couldn't distinguish the different flavours. I dated a guy who would deliver me a mango slush bubble tea about once a week for a span of a few months. I guess I was a bit spoiled. Now I have to get my own bubble tea. There aren't that many bubble tea places close to my work or else I would have one every day. The closest one is the one in Tinseltown. It is kinda of a pain to go there because of the parking situation and it is upstairs in the food court. There are other bubble tea places that we know of but they don't open till about 2 pm. That's too late. Because if they opened earlier we can go get our lunch and detour to the bubble tea place. The coffee shop across the street from where I work started to offer bubble tea, but it's powdered and they don't mix it well so it's crap. In the summer time, I prefer the cold flavours. When it is cooler outside or when I need to warm up, I order the hot flavoured teas.

We were at Seattle Premium Outlets a few weeks ago. There was a small bubble tea stand. I saw all the powder flavour containers. They did offer a few fresh fruit flavours. I ordered a fresh fruit flavour. The young guy cut the fruit and put it in a Magic Bullet (http://www.buythebullet.com/). We have a Magic Bullet at home and I thought about making my own bubble tea. I think about all the work involved in making the bubble tea and that thought passed quickly.

I know it's kinda of a rip off cause I can probably get a big bucket of soya pudding for $5. I guess bubble tea is a rip off. The ingredients cost almost nothing and they jack up the prices for the customers. I think it's kinda like coffee. People are willing to spend $4-$5 on a coffee. I am willing to spend $4-$5 on a bubble tea. I think you can buy the ingredients and make it at home. It's like drinking home made coffee versus store bought coffee. It's not the same.

Day 288: Blood Donation

After being rejected at Canada Blood Services a few weeks ago for donating blood, I attempted to go again.

This week I had Tuesday off because Monday was a stat holiday. Canada Blood Services on Oak street is closed on Sundays and holidays. I didn't know if I would have time to donate blood on Tuesday. I went to dim sum with my Dad then I went for bubble tea with my friend. After all that food, I drove home and call Canada Blood Services to see if I can do drop in or if I can make an appointment. Lucky me, there was an appointment slot available. I made an appointment and drove there right away. On the phone, the lady said to make sure that my blood sugar level was good and to drink lots of fluids. I got to the Oak Street location and noticed that my blood sugar was dropping. I know it is low when I get weak, cranky and moody. I asked the receptionist if there was a vending machine. She asked me what I was looking for. I told her I needed some sugar. She said I can take some cookies from the refreshment station. I grabbed some Oreos and some Fudge-o's. I felt much better.

I had to do the process from the beginning. They had to check my iron level. I was confident my iron level was good. A few weeks ago I went to my doctor to get a check up done. I told him I get cold easily and he suggested that I get my iron level tested and my thyroid tested. Those test came back fine. Then I had to fill out their questionnaire with the million of questions. Make sure most of your answers are 'no' or else they will prob more on why your answers were 'yes'. Next step is where I was rejected last time. This time it went fine. They took my blood pressure and heart rate. I think this time my heart rate was about 93, not 103 like last time.

There is a small waiting area you have to go before you get to sit on that comfortable chair to give blood. In the waiting area, there are about 9 seats in a 'U' shape. The TV was on the Food Network. I like the Food Network, except when I'm hungry. The food makes me hungry. After waiting for 10 minutes, it was my turn. They ask if you prefer to give blood on your right or your left arm. I chose my left arm because I am right handed and my right hand is my dominant arm. If I have pain on my left arm, that's ok. It's easier to rest it than my right arm. On my lounge chair, I can still watch the Food Network on TV. The most painful part is when they insert the needle in you. It is a pokey feeling. After it is in your arm, it is a bit uncomfortable. Canada Blood Services lets you back out from donating blood at any time you feel uncomfortable. I was thinking since I'm there already, might as well go all the way. I sat there on my lounge chair for about 10-15 minutes before they took out the needle. They escort you off the chair and to the refreshment area. They have juice and cookies. You can sit there for as long as you want until you feel well enough to leave. I had my juice and lots of cookies before I left.

They suggest that you don't do any strenuous activities for 6-8 hours after blood donation. I just came home and rested. I felt quite light headed and weak for the rest of the night. It is good to know that your sacrifice of an hour of your day can save up to three lives.

Day 287: Many Munchies at Milestones

In the last week I have eaten at Milestones three times. The first time was on a Monday. The second time on Wednesday. The last time was Sunday.

My adventure on Monday at Milestone's was with two girl friends. We were at the Cambie and 8th location. On Mondays at Milestone's they have a Girls Nite Out deal. I met the gals at 3pm so we didn't know if the special was valid during the afternoon. I called to double check and they do serve that deal all day on Mondays for girls. The Girls Nite Out deal consists of 4 appies and 4 bellinis for $40. We ordered the spinach and artichoke dip, yam fries, the flatbread plate and honey phyllo shrimp. I did eat before meeting the gals. But with all the food we ordered, I ate some more. I was in the mood for the spinach and artichoke dip. Boy, was I stuffed by the end of lunch!

On Wednesday I went out with my male friend. We had the date night special. No, we weren't on a date. We went to the Lougheed Hwy location. Both of us are dating other people. It was $50 for the deal and it included one appie, two entrees and one dessert. For the appie, we had the honey phyllo shrimp (sounds familiar). We both had the angus beef top sirlion. It was served with mashed potatoes and vegetables. The steak was unique becuase it was served with three different dipping sauces: house made Worcestershire, Kobe mustard and gaucho sauce. We ended our meal with the caramel gingered apple crisp. It was good.

The third time to Milestones was to attend my friend's birthday party. We went to the Yaletown location. It wasn't very busy for a Sunday night. There was a private room that wasn't being used. We asked if we can use it for the birthday party. Luckily for us, the manager approved and we had our dinner at the lovely private room. For dinner, I had the slow roasted AAA prime rib. It was done medium rare and served with mashed potatoes and some vegetables. There was a bit too much fatty parts to my prime rib but overall it was delicious.

Day 286: Review of Tom and Jerry's

http://lisa-restaurants.blogspot.com/2010/09/tom-and-jerrys.html

Day 285: PNE

PNE is a Vancouver tradition. I used to work at the PNE for 5 years in a row. The first 3 years I worked at a concession stand. We sold foot long hotdogs and sno cones. The last two years I worked as a hostess. We were basically roaming guest services. After I stopped working at the PNE, I would go to the PNE at least once a year. Last year they had a promo where if you were a Gold Card member, you can get in for free. A Gold Card is a casino loyalty card. This year there wasn't that promotion, but I had some of my friends send me their promo codes so I could save $5 a tix. I didn't end up using the promo codes, I managed to get free tix. I went to PNE three times this year.

The first time was right before the Bryan Adams concert becuase our concert ticket included gate admission to the PNE. We only spend about 1.5 hour there. We had to strategize on what to see in such a short period of time. One thing we wanted to see was the prize home. We walked by and there was a long lineup. We didn't want to spend our time in line. So we skipped the prize home. I heard about this new candy exhibit that started this year. We found it. It is called Candy Nation and it is on the concourse of the Pacific Coliseum on the right hand side. It's a really neat exhibit. There is all kinds of candy for sale. There were also old candy dispensing machines. There was also a history on the various candy makers. I am kissing Elvis! The Elvis poster is made from jelly beans.

One thing I have to do at the PNE is to play the games at Playland. I know it's a waste of money but it's a lot of fun. Most of the games are too hard for me or they are games of chance / luck and I don't always have luck on my side. The two games I have to play are the 'horse racing' games. One is the one where you throw the ball into holes and the holes determine how fast your 'horse' goes. The fastest 'horse' wins a prize. The other one is like a pinball game. We won a prize playing the first horse racing game and we also won a prize playing Whack-A-Mole.


The second venture to the PNE was Friday night. PNE this year has a line of performers on their mainstage. On Friday night Cyndi Lauper was performing. She had a few hits in the 80's. One Cyndi Lauper favourite song was 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun'. It's a classic party song. In the 80's, she sang pop songs. Now she is a blues singer. She did sing her 80's pop songs near the end of her performance. While she was singing her blues songs, we managed to see the PNE Prize Home. It was nice. I always find the bedrooms too small in the prize homes. The washroom in the master bedroom upstairs was the highlight for me. It had a TV and a hot tub. It is nice and spacious. The last show we watched was Kaboom! It is a pyrotechnics show with dancers. It is quiet neat. Because this is PNE's 100th year, they had clippings (video and pictures) from the various era's.

Today was my third time at the PNE this year. I wanted to see some of the things I didn't manage to see the other times I went. We went to see the Superdogs. It's a cool show. They take dogs out of the SPCA and train them to be Superdogs. Being a Superdog entails being disciplined and fast. Some dogs are faster than others. The Superdogs show is basically a dog race. Its fun because there is lots of audience participation. One the way to the Superdogs show, we picked up some little donuts and a whale tail. We got a whale tail with rasberry jam.


After the Superdogs, we were going to watch the mariachi band. We got to the location and watched for a few minutes. It is a very small space. We wanted to head to the Agrodome to watch the horse jumping show. Once we got there and sat down, they made an announcement saying that the 2:30 show was postponed to 4pm. We couldn't make it to the 4 pm show so we just left. We ended up going to the Marketplace. It's a place where they sell lots of stuff. The gals I went with liked to stop and look at many of the booths. Each of us bought something from the Marketplace.

Day 284: Fraser River Gold Panning Championships

My friend Troy was at the Fraser River Gold Panning Championships this past weekend. I met Troy in 2004 while working at InfoNet (http://www.infonet-tech.com/). I was a marketing assistant and he was a computer programmer. Most of the employees at InfoNet didn't speak English that well. After Troy got hired, we hung out at lunch time and during work hours. He would get in trouble because we were hanging out too much during work hours and his boss didn't like that. After a year of working there, I decided to go back to school. At around the same time I submitted my resignation, Troy had enough of the place and decided to move on to other ventures. It was Facebook that reconnected us years later. He just emailed me today about his adventure at the Fraser River Gold Panning Championships. It is very interesting and I've decided to share it with anyone who reads my blog.


Hi guys,

This past weekend I got back from the Fraser River Gold Panning Championships. A 4 day camping trip up at Yale,BC. Thursday and Friday was gold panning tutorials/demos down by the river (and yes, we all found flakes of flour gold!

http://www.yukondan.com/
http://www.yukondan.com/home.php?page=championships

Saturday and Sunday was the Championship itself. There's some serious events, but there's some really fun ones too. Here Brenda and I took turns in the blindfold event. Oh sure... find some flakes of gold in a bucket of dirt while blindfolded... goooood luck! :P




There were a lot of older fellas out there are wearing their prospectin' hats and whatnot.

Check out this guy's truck. It's from 1940. He said he tried to buy a vintage trailer too, but it never worked out so he made that trailer you see below.




This is the guy himself and his wife. There's a core group of these gold panners that are right into these competitions!



They also had great events for all the kids. Amanda was in something called the "Mini Miners" and "Mini Miner Gold Rush" events. All the kids under 7 won prizes too.




When getting ready for the trip, I figured I could use a satellite dish to get a cell phone signal at the Yale campground so I threw it into the trunk. Later, I duct taped the antenna to the dish. But no luck :( I couldn't get a signal to save my life.




Well, it turns out one of the contests is called "Anything but a gold pan".

People were coming out with frisbees and frying pans and hubcaps. One guy used a big chunk of tree bark and actually did really good.

I figured this contest would be the one where everyone would get to know Troy :D

Night before I pulled the stand off and made some other slight mods and voila...


The younger teens and kids thought it was hilarious and it got lots of laughs from people. But the "Professionals" were all quite interested in my "pan". One of them suggested I switch to the big tubs at the back of the field. and 2 others came over to give me a crash course in something called "flat panning" which is what the experts use for "speed".

I got 6 flakes of gold out of that crazy pan. Took me 6:08. Turns out everybody else only got 5. Ah, but there were only s'pposed to be 5 in there and extra flakes don't count. Is too bad, if everyone had gotten a 3 minute for a missing flake I would've won it! Still though, whatever... the satellite dish is actually pretty effective for panning although it is a bit heavy on the arms... even with the extra handle.


Although there are several fun events, the teen, adult, professional and flat-panning contests are all really serious. Some of the pics I took really show how serious people take these events.

Game-Face Robin. This guy is a serious prospector. He'll tell ya tips & tricks, but not his special places to go looking :) (He's a super nice guy, don't let the expression fool ya).



This one here was called "Grudge Match" maybe? I call him HipWader Willy on the left and Castlegar Sam in the back. getting ready. Ted Turner in foreground. Notice the pins in their hats?

HipWader Willy so calm, so cool. I had invited him and Sam to our campfire the night before and we had a great time talking about gold prospecting. I had no idea they were such high-calibre panners. At the bottom of the screen is Ted Turner who drives the red truck. Not until I started looking at the photos did I realize how competitive these guys are!



(Hip Wader Willy won the prestigious flat-panning competition!).

I had a really lucky moment on the first day in the Adults competition. After shaking the gold to the bottom of the pan, I over-sloshed the pan and lost almost all the rocks and dirt in one go. Figured the gold was gone :( Heart sunk. I kept at it and "whattyaknow? I found 4 of 4 flakes in crazy fast time! I came in second in the qualifying heat of the Adults category, one category below the "Pros".

I figured best to enjoy it that night though, cuz in the final heat on Sunday I was sure to get blown outta the water.
That night we had a salmon BBQ across the street at the Hope River Esso-General Store - native style. Was good eatin.


On Sunday the same thing sorta happened again... I'd gotten down to a much smaller amount of dirt in the pan really fast, but I was too adrenalized and sloshed too much out again! Crap!

Suspect this was the moment of disaster :( Too much sloshed out.


But then -hey! I saw 4 flakes of gold!

I was about to call "GOLD!" (Your timer stops the clock and whatever's showing in the pan is what counts). Then I remembered that there might be more in the pan!.... oh crap... little swishes now but so hard to be steady. Lost one back into the dirt again."crap" - couple more little swishes and I had 7 flakes pushed off to the side, good enough "GOLD!". Was a fast time... 2:03. Really fast.

But then while waiting in line to report to the judges I heard people saying they got 8 flakes :( Means I took a 3 minute penalty so 5:03. Too bad eh? The rest of these guys are all really good and lots of people started calling "gold" so that's it, with the 3 minute penalty I was out of the running for sure.


After lunch this girl Cheryl (who had provided critical tips about panning on Thursday and Friday) came over and gave me a hug and said "Let me be the first to congratulate you".


What? What the hell for? I walked over the office where results were posted.



Third??? !!! Just unbelievable. I was just walking on air after that!




I had the trophy sitting on the dash of the RV as we drove out of the lot. Yukon Dan laughed when he saw us pull out with the RV later.



Pretty good for my first time out eh? :D

Thanks for lettin me bend yer ear guys,
Troy

Day 283: Landmark Education

A few months ago a friend of mine mentioned to me about Landmark Education (http://www.landmarkeducation.com/). I have known him for a few years. But I didn't know him that well. One day after so many years of knowing him, we went out for dinner. He started to open up to me. He told me about how he was depressed for years and was taking antidepressants. One day his friend took him to show him about Landmark Education. My friend decided to sign up for the course. The beginner course is only four days long. At the dinner, my friend said the four day course changed his life. He is much happier. He has more focus in life. He enjoys his job. He found the love of his life. To make such an impact on someone's life, this is a pretty good course / seminar.

Another friend took the beginner course and it made an impact on her life. She just graduated from the advanced course. She is very excited about the positive changes she is making in her life because of this course. Because of these great changes in her life, she wants to teach / mentor others on how to live a great life.

When I went to the seminar last night, it gave me an introduction on what the program is about. It is about learning about yourself, your feelings and emotions to live a better life.You learn to analyze various aspects of your life and how to improve them.