We spent last weekend in NYC to attend a good friend’s wedding, where I relived my glory days of geekdom catching up with old college buddies on such important topics as board games, Magic cards, and Star Trek TNG. I also took my parents out to the new ramen sensation in East Village, Ippudo, which sadly did not live up to the hype as the richly-flavored broth was paired with skinny noodles that were limper than McCain without his Viagra. Fortunately, we more than redeemed ourselves down in Cape Cod last week for four days of seafood heaven. Thanks to some research on Chowhound, we were made privy to some of the best eats there, including delicately seared scallops at Brewster Fish House, ginormous lobster rolls at the Friendly Fisherman’s, sweet sweet mussels at Mac’s Shack, and a wallet-friendly fried seafood platter at JT’s Seafood. Thanks to a gift certificate from our wedding last year, we stayed at the fancy Ocean Edge Resort. There, we burned calories with visits to the indoor pool, tennis courts, and even a private beach, which given the chilly weather was more suitable for beachcombing for hermit crabs than actual swimming. We also explored the surrounding area, playing tug-of-war with deers using Melody’s dress at the ZooQuarium, hiking two hours along the Nauset salt marshes to behold the underwhelming Doane Rock, and watching a hilariously unsuccessful glass blowing demonstration at the Sandwich Glass Museum. The trip also offered unique opportunities for my new dSLR, like photographing a bird with my 200mm zoom lens, only to realize that it was actually a glass bottle. As my friends back home in Boston are already firing up their grills for the summer, I’ll be looking forward to our next indulgence in gastronomy.

After months of staring at the cracks along the bathtub edges and pieces of old caulk gradually disintegrating, I decided to put an end to it all and re-caulk the bathroom. The project took longer than I thought, partly because it was my first time, and also because the previous owner filled a lot of those spaces with grout which I had to remove (and I was too cheap to buy an actual grout saw to do it properly). Fortunately, this new Kwik Seal 3.0 let us take a shower just 3 hours after caulking. After the 2-day job, I was awarded with my new toy – a Nikon D40. I ultimately chose this low-end model since this is my first dive into the world of dSLR. And after reading a number of excellent tutorials from Ken Rockwell and Cambridge In Color, I feel truly humbled by the breadth and depth of this immersive hobby. Now that I’ve just finished reading a couple of books like Empire of Light, Choke, and Prince Caspian, my next step will be to break out my digital field guide, get some filters, and take this baby out for a spin.

A year after embarking on our journey together in marriage, we found ourselves closer than ever before. We returned to Walden Pond last evening for our first anniversary, sitting by the water in the cool, serene glow of the moonlight to ponder our past, present, and future together. It was nerve-wracking parking by the roadside and sneaking into the park in the dark, but well worth it. Not surprisingly, our outing was preceded by dinner at Hong Kong Eatery for some old favorites – pork and preserved egg congee, BBQ pork and dumpling noodles, and dried scallop egg white fried rice. Though certainly more low-key than our 10-course extravaganza last week, it was a much more meaningful evening for the two of us.

To celebrate our engagement anniversary, I created a special degustation dinner menu featuring many of Melody’s favorites as well as a few new dishes, with an emphasis on East and Southeast Asian cuisine. Rather than describing each dish, I will just list the 10-course menu with photo links:

My OCD continues to reign over me as I discover new ways to fully control my world. Besides building new shelves for our kitchen cabinets, I also set up my new universal remote this weekend. Unlike my old Sony model, which was a nightmare to program, Logitech’s interface is so much more user-friendly that it took me just minutes to do the job – far short of the 2-3 hours I had originally allotted. I’m also in the final stages of designing an album for the HK trip. Since Hallmark has discontinued the scrapbooks I usually use, I’m switching over to a digital album through Blurb. It’s taking a hellish-long time working around their clunky software interface, so I hope the end product looks good enough to make it worthwhile. Otherwise, I’ve also been watching a few Oscar winners from last year like No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Javier Bardem and Daniel Day-Lewis both put up quite an act, but sitting through both movies was just dreadfully depressing. I’ll need find some stupid comedy or mindless action flick to balance out all this pathos.