4F's and Many More

This summer is heading off to a busy start. Now with the weather 24/7 sunshine and daylight lasts until 8pm, it's easier to pack more into our day.

Saturday was spent with Friends. Ted's pre-school friend who just returned from their honey moon in Tahiti was in town and we had brunch with the bride's family. They had a wonderfully large fig tree in their backyard which they share the neighborhood racoons. Then after a few errands, we went to meet my college friend and his fiance at the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco. This is a place for foodies as we made our way through the gourmet local farmer's shops and picked up some porcini mushrooms to make with pappardelle pasta. This recipe is particularly good and reminds us of Italy.


Sunday was spent with Family. We celebrated Father's Day and Mom's 60th birthday with a nice banana pancake breakfast. After an hour or so at the Furniture store where they bought two sofas, we went grocery shopping at the Japanese and Chinese grocery stores. The day just flew by.

A fabulously fun and fantastic weekend!

Reunions

I attended my fifth year reunion at Harvard Business School a couple of weeks ago. As an introvert, I found myself a bit overwhelmed with such a huge turnout not only from my class but also the 10th, 15th, and 20th reunions. It was difficult to have many meaningful conversations in such a short amount of time, but I think reunions are only meant for us to spark good memories which remind us to write or call those who made an impact on us in our two years at HBS. I was lucky to spend some significant times catching up in person with people who now live on opposite coasts or abroad.

I also enjoyed the professor lectures, which I only found out later is atypical of business school reunions. In fact, most reunions (Stanford also exclude) is just a gathering of classmates with more social agendas. For me, the lectures are sometimes more enjoyable than the pub nights where you spend most of the time shouting above the loud music. Sessions we attended: Professor Andre Perold is one of my all time favorite professors who not only had the ability to make complex finance theories accessible to the layperson, but also had me on the edge of my seat the entire semester. We also attended sessions on network affects by Professor David Yoffie, how to tell if someone is lying by their microexpressions by Professor Michael Wheeler, and how to derive more meaning from our relationship by Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone.

Have you ever gone to a reunion? What do you enjoy the most about them?

New York! New York!

For those who have never been to New York, it's a bit like putting different colors of construction paper into a blender with a bit of water, turning it on high and what you end up is a brown mushy mess.

However, those initial pieces of color are sure beautiful.
Take for instance, the American Museum of Natural History. The exhibits are spectacular where the African and North American anmical collection are posed with such life that it becomes more active than a live zoo. I enjoyed the frog exhibit the best with the posion dart frogs.

Then there was the food, oh glorious food, Bathazar, Grimaldi's, Katz's Deli, Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, Ess-A-Bagel, Dunkin Donuts, John's Pizzerria.

What I would pass up though are the hot dog vendors. Our friend was right, Costco hot dogs still rule, hands down. Picture below of different hot dog vendors.





This last picture is of a famous New York landmark. Though it might seem obscure, if you have been there, you'd know exactly where this little piece of wood came from. Any guesses?

If you're looking for great guides to getting around in New York, check out TripAdvisor. Otherwise, just keep walking - there is always something happening in the Big Apple.