bastards ate all my leftovers

WTH MAN! No more turkey, no more mashed potatoes, no more gravy, no more stuffing. All I have to eat in my house is spam and eggs and those mi garang noodles that dennis bought (which are fuckin legit, btw). Steven Yoon is an awesome photographer. That pic was taken by him. I told him he should drop out of school and just be a photographer.

The End Game

My Gravy

My turkey (didn't take pics of my parent's grilled turkey)

My Dad riding my bike in his Raider's apron

Yesterday I was talking to my friend DJ K.Choi on skype. Hadn't talked to him for awhile since he has been teaching English in Korea. He is reading this book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He was explaining to me how Andrew Carnegie said that a man should take the first third of his life acquiring knowledge, the second third acquiring as much wealth as possible, and the final third giving all that wealth out.

After a few minutes of discussion, something so powerful came over me. I have always told others that if I won the Lotto, I would build a beautiful concert hall for my community where I work and I would continue teaching the rest of life performing all my concerts there. I also said that I wanted to be a professional symphony conductor, but always questioned it when I matched it up with the lotto scenario. Now I know that this is my End Game. In the final third of my life, I will have the wealth to build my Cathedral for music. It will be a concert hall built for my community in San Jose where all the high school bands, choirs, and orchestras will perform in. Actually there will be a building for each. I want my students so badly to perform in a beautiful venue like the cathedrals in Europe, Disney Hall, and Davies Hall. But we shouldn't have to raise hella money to do that every time we want to, we should have it in our own backyard and it should be free for all high schools. I'm so sick of performing in a cafeteria. Santa Teresa just got a beautiful new performance space, but I bet they have to share it with the Drama department. This Cathedral of Music will not be shared with Drama or with a Religious organization (unless their choir wants to perform in it), it will be purely for art music. It will be a place where we can have summer music festivals inviting many different musical groups to come perform and maybe even have a friendly competition like the Marktoberdorf or Spittal. Maybe it could become a place like the Salzburg festival.

So now I gotta read this book, honor my word, and set out to build my dream.

Thanksgiving

ode to the turkey
in the stile of e.e.cummings

HAthe turkey was awesome
mashedPPotatoes were drY
sTuffing was okay
i don't know why

THen i pAssed out
from all the triptophyN
that was real nice
woKe up from the nap
and had Some tea with ice

Grandma was there as grandpa too
uncle mIke came by and aunt mary to boo
it was Very exciting and all sorts of fun
i hope you did tooING

r.g. rodriguez

Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe Suite 2

Turn on your computer, turn off all the lights. Play the whole Daphnis et Chloe Suite 2 with the visualizer on full screen. No need for shrooms!

Ft. Lauderdale

So I had my TA during band look for new jobs for me today. This is the point of the year (and yes this happens every year) where I start looking for something more, better, and different. He found me a job in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. What would I do if I moved to Florida? I would be so lonely. I don't know anybody in Florida.

The most important part of making Gumbo is making a good roux, never turn your back on it, cause if it burns, you gotta start all over again.

Make the roux using equal parts of flour and olive oil. Stir until chocolaty brown. Add a chopped onion, chopped celery, and 2 chopped bell peppers. Cook for 10 minutes. At this time add some salt to taste, cayenne pepper, some sausage (andouille is the traditional sausage for gumbo), some thyme, and a bay leaf.

Here is where things get creative:
To make seafood gumbo, you add about 32 oz. of seafood stock. Let that simmer for a couple of hours. When you want to eat, add your clams, fish, shrimps, oysters, squid, crab, lobster, and any other sea critters you like. This now has to be completely finished by the end of the night. Seafood gumbo does not refrigerate well.

To make chicken gumbo, you add 32 oz of chicken stock. Let that simmer for a couple of hours, add some seasoned chicken pieces an hour before serving. Serve over hot rice. This can hold up well and be taken for lunches.

Other Options: You can add some tomato paste to your roux right before you add the veggies. If you like okra ( I don't), throw them in when you throw in the meat. If it were me and i wanted to serve okra in my gumbo, I would slice them up in little rounds, bread them in corn meal, fry them, and serve as a garnish. Try using beef broth and little chunks of beef. You could also skip the seafood or chicken and do purely sausage gumbo.

my fixie

my aquarium

Wednesdays dinner, chicken enchiladas

Screwin' with Chow Dog's new Mazdaspeed3

A view from the trumpet player's perspective

Top 5 Breakfast places in San Jose

1. Los Gatos Cafe
2. The Country Inn
3. Bill's
4. Southern Kitchen
5. The Flames

If I had a 6th spot, Hobbee's would probably be next. Stack's is definitely not on there, just don't like the atmosphere, food, or wait staff.

Love the Country Inn, I go to the one on Almaden and Camden and the manager is such a great guy and everyone is so friendly. Same with the one on Monterrey, wait staff is a bunch of sweet Mexican ladies. Everyone knows my name at both places. Sit at the counter for the best service. Don't sit next to the creeper at the monterrey location or the scary guy with the Jewish nose at the Camden location.

Bill's is awesome because of the atmosphere, I got drunk there just this morning. Mimosas and Cranberry mimosas are a must sometimes and Bill's in Willow Glen is the place to be for those. Shots are a must there as well. I had 2 regular mimosas and a cranberry mimosa and that got me very happy.

Flame's is cool, just a great place to eat. The one on Bernal is not so good. Your food might be cold when it comes. The one downtown is great, though as is the one on Winchester. Nothing special about this place. You can get greek sausage with your eggs. Also their chicken apple sausage is the best.

Southern Kitchen is crazy busy, but has great food. A good place to get some menudo on the weekend. Definitely a southern breakfast place if you like that sort of thing. Your pancakes will come with margarine and there are several different creams to put in your coffee.

Los Gatos Cafe is the finest food. They offer great grits, fresh pastries with all your meals. The steak and eggs are killer cause the use high quality steak that is marinated. Hashbrowns and homefries are always good. Definitely my number 1. Make sure you bring cash.

10 things I'm greatful for

1. A career
2. Money in my account
3. My car
4. My bike
5. My friends
   
6. Hookah
7. My family
8. My fish tank
9. My iPhone
10. Chicken
    

My weekend in Haiku

Yesterday I went
to an autism dinner,
Chi Ling performed well.

I met Martin Yan
"if Yan can cook, so can you!"
that guy is so G.

I played Brahms today,
it was a great performance,
I played very well.

Went to Boiling Crab
with Will, Bianca, and Tonez
my ass hella hurts.

I got schooled today
on crabs, by a fine crab wench.
She was pretty hot.

The Aquarium

I quit smoking on Sunday Nov 1. Me and 5 others have each agreed to pay $100 into a pot if we fail. Last one standing gets the pot. It's really not that hard. It's all a mental game of who has the strongest mind and discipline. I know I will be $500 richer before 6 months is up.

I bought a North Face jacket. Only $100 with my mom's hookup at Macy's. Gonna sportin' it on the fixie rides. Haven't posted my fixie up yet, might be selling it soon. I want an upgrade.

¡Aquí está desayunos tradícional, chorizo con huevos!

Lastly I want to share the aquarium I got for my birthday from FarmerChow. It took him a month to clean the tank, but today I finally got it. I went to Walmart and got some stuff for it. Still need a filter, though. I have such caring friends!

I got two job offers this weekend for conducting. One is a conducting gig with CMTSJ. They are contracting me to be music director for Once Upon a Mattress. I may also be vocal directing. I would love to do both. I also was asked by the orchestra director at Mission College if I would be interested in taking over the orchestra if his sabbatical goes through. This would be very optimal. I hope these both go through. I think somebody has been praying for me, sending me good energy, or maybe its me and my positive energy. These two gigs seem miraculous to me because I didn't seek them out, they just came to me. I haven't been pursuing the conducting career lately cause I have been being complacent. I have been happy with my career right now. My constant struggle is do I leave my nice comfortable music teaching job for something bigger and risk losing my comfortable lifestyle? Then I ask myself if I won the lotto, what would I do? The answer is always to continue teaching and on the side create my own professional symphony where all the players get paid good salaries and perform in a beautiful venue.

The Earthquake Drill

So every year at some point we have a disaster drill at school. The most relevant being an earthquake drill here in the bay area. So here is what happened today:

We're rehearsing our music and our earthquake drill is announced, so we are all supposed to duck and cover under desks. Music rooms, however, don't have desks. So I tell kids to get under the piano, doorways, and stuff of that nature. This creates some chaos especially for the one kid who thinks this is all a bunch of bullshit and that he can just sit at the piano and play. So once this is over, we have to evacuate, so that means I have to lock my doors and leave. Since I have three sets of doors to lock, I tell the kids to go on without me and I'll catch up.

So I lock the doors and I go out there to see the vice principal yelling at my kids on the bullhorn to stop singing. The gentlemen in my choir thought it would be funny to sing Marching to Praetoria as they marched out to the soccer field. When I finally caught up to the kids, I was told by the vice principal that my kids were misbehaved. I finally corralled all my students, took role and told them to sit down while I go take care of my responsibilities in this drill. I go do that then I come back and give the kids a piece of my mind and how they behavior reflected poorly on me. When were dismissed to go back to class I told them to sit down and don't say a word. They obeyed.

When they were all seated and silent, my vice principal came in to have a word with them. She told them that in an emergency, it is not okay to make alot of noise.

I wasn't that mad that the students did what they did. I was a tiny bit embarrassed. Reza happened to be there at this time because he wanted to drop by, say hi, listen to the choir, and give me some coffee. When I told him what happened he told me I should be proud that they are so passionate about singing. I think he is right. This is the first time I have had a choir that is not embarrassed to sing in public. They are made up of the kids like Andy Chung, who would bust out in song in the airport if every part was covered. Granted, that is not my personality. But this choir has that personality and I am proud. When I was telling the teachers in the lunch room, they just laughed. Kids will be kids. I think we all did the right thing. My vice principal did her job, she is supposed to be the mean lady that takes away the fun. I did my job of yelling at them because I had to be told to keep my class in control, and they did their job in being good choir students. My program is definitely getting better!!!

Question of the day

Is there no honor for a woman to stay at home and take care of the kids and cook for her husband anymore?

Ove Lass il bel viso

Best Choir on the Internet!!!