Knowing Known Books

I admit it. I'm a book hoarder.

Today I went to two used bookstores (Know Knew Books and Book Buyers ) and spent three hours browsing through their selection. As you can probably tell from their websites, BB seems to be much more organized and has a bigger selection. KKB is clearing out their entire inventory right now for 50% off all books to make way for 50,000 books they currently have in storage. I wouldn't be surprised if they are going to be renovating their space as well to compete with BB.

I was able to buy four books from KKB for a total of $18 - 'Tis by Frank McCourt, Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, Waiting by Ha Jin, and The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan (hardback).

Not sure when I'll be able to start these books since I'm concurrently working on Wicked, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Carly Fiorina's autobiography, Germs, Guns and Steel, The Bean Trees, The Rape of Nanking, Saving Fish from Drowning, and Heat. Not to mention Businessweek magazine, bible reading, blog readings.

Not sure what starting books and rarely finishing one before starting another says about me. But eventually, I do get around to the end.

Scary, my friend just told me about BestWebBuys which does comparison shopping on all online bookstores including used and new prices. This could be dangerous - my bookshelf doesn't have enough space.

Not Your Average Grocery Store

Besides the weather, there are many perks to living in California. My favorite by far though is the variety of grocery stores that are within a 20 mile radius of my house.

Not in any priority order:

1. Mitsuwa - Japanese Grocery Store. The reviews are pretty amusing.

2. Han Kook - Korean Grocery Store

3. Trader Joes - Cosmopolitan Grocery Store at affordable prices

4. Whole Foods - for the gourmet cook

5. Ranch 99 - Chinese Grocery store

These are the ones I frequent, but there are Indian, Mexican and yes even British grocery stores in the area.

My sense of food stuff has been heighted since I started working for a company that provides meals prepared by some of the most amazing chefs. They've introduced new produce into my own cooking including the broccolini. Over the years, I've also noticed that fruits and vegetables that were once seasonal are now available year round. Cherries in winter? No problem! Imported from Chile.

With this much variety, would it inspire you to try new dishes?

It's a Zoo Out There

The San Diego Zoo is one of the largest in the United States and few could barely cover a quarter of the grounds in four hours. The 100-acre (40-hectare) Zoo is home to over 4,000 rare and endangered animals representing more than 800 species and subspecies, and a prominent botanical collection with more than 700,000 exotic plants.

As we were observing the baby gorillas, one put his face up against the plexiglass to get closer to the little kids lining the bottom of the exhibit rails. The moma gorilla hurried over to grab him away by the arm - probably scolding him for getting too close to the human display.

Some people say that animals in captivity have an easy life with guaranteed meals and regular checkups. However, they aren't allowed to do what nature intended - to hunt, to leap from tree to tree, to have the excitment of new discoveries. Are Polar Bears really happy in the 90 degree San Diego heat?

If you were a wild animal, would you rather be in captivity or in the wild?

Feeding the Hype

Tomorrow is opening day for Transformers, the Movie. eBay was able to offer its employees a sneak preview last week. Ted said it played like a GM commercial with eBay and PayPal ad placements throughout the movie. Google also procured opening day tickets, but quickly ran out. Most of us in our thirties can still remember the theme song of the cartoon - "Transformers - more than meets the eye. Transformers - robots in disguise." Now they are making a come back and my nephew (4 years old) has graduated from Disney's Pixar Cars to these shape shifters.

Ted found his old Transformer toys from over 20 years ago and is now selling them on eBay. The first two listings sold with both buyers snapping them up with "Buy It Now". the next two are displayed in the column to the left. Tempting to keep them, but better that they are sold to fanatic collectors. We'll always have our Star Wars collection.

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.