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.

It’s amazing that in the absence of actual work, I still manage to find ways to keep myself busy. Aside from the massive undertaking of digitizing my file cabinet, I’ve also been spending the past week converting my few remaining VHS cassettes into DVD format and optimizing the JPEG compression of all my digital photos. I’m also finding new ways to organize the documents on my hard drive, as well as the drawers and shelves in my apartment, even to the extent of folding our extra plastic grocery bags into neat origami triangles. Fortunately, the great weather gave me plenty of opportunities to escape the confines of my apartment (where my obsessive-compulsiveness is roaming wildly). Just beware of wearing bright colors when going out – my bright orange T-shirt apparently made me look like a huge flower on the tennis court the other day as I got chased around by a fat bee.

Having my wisdom teeth removed last week left me not only looking like a chipmunk and chewing soft foods (and vicodin), but also a little more … stupid. First, after finally replacing my broken scanner, I decided to digitize my entire file cabinet, which entailed scanning all my forms, bills, and receipts, and having to shred the knee-high stash of paper left by said endeavor. I also decided suddenly to Ebay off a bunch of old stuff in my apartment, like my DVD collection (to make room for future Blu-Ray discs, of course) – only to realize that after the fees, commissions, and shipping costs, I was left with a net profit of just about $2-3 per disc. Yet it was not until today that my stupidity reached its nadir when we made the ill-fated decision to drive out to Danvers to pick up our free anniversary cake on Patriot’s Day, the day when Sox fans, Bruins fans, and Boston Marathon runners pour into the streets to enjoy the spring weather while ruining any attempts by drivers to navigate the roads by automobile. Ironically, our anniversary is not for another 3 weeks. Nevertheless, being stuck in traffic under the afternoon sun did remind me that tennis season has returned, and I’m ready to enjoy the outdoors again.

Coming out of my honors thesis defense this afternoon felt like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after his duel with Bruce Lee – like mud. What I thought was going to be a pleasant half-hour Q&A session turned out to be a full-on 2-hour grilling session, as I tried to deflect questions even tougher than those from my PhD defense two years ago. At least now that the battle is over, I’ll get to enjoy true senioritis until internship year (a.k.a. “the storm”) hits in June. Besides running a few errands and getting some freelance work done, I’ll also continue embarking on Captain Picard’s Season 1 adventures and resume my movie list, including Bruce Lee’s Game of Death, which despite the lookalikes and cardboard cut-outs to make up for the star’s untimely death, still retains its moments of guts and glory. Hiiiiyah!

To celebrate the last birthday of her 3rd decade, I took Melody to L’Espalier, where the 6-course Spring Degustation lunch menu sent her into dreamy-eyed contentment. The meal began with an amuse bouche: a duo of spring radish soup with sherry vinegar mignonette and Skip’s Island Creek oyster shooter topped with Italian caviar. The oyster was fresh and briny, but the soup was a tad sour. Next came a “B.L.T.” for her (lobster salad, tomato, smoked bacon and avocado butter on toast) and a parsnip and cepe (tasty, earthy mushrooms) flan with balsamic caramel for me. This was followed by her pan-seared skate wing on Chantenay carrot puree and my Ricotta and spinach ravioli in a sweet onion broth. Compared to my only other experience with skate wings in Paris, which was rather uninspiring, this chef’s take on it took the fish to a whole new level. The 3rd course was a rare but salty grilled hanger steak with pommes frites and a dreamy mushroom risotto with asparagus. Melody then went into raptures over the cheese plate, which included the Lakes Edge goat’s milk cheese from Vermont (mild but yummy), Pecorino Ginepro from Italy (salty but tasty around the balsalmic and juniper berry-rubbed edges), and Big Woods Blue (in your face with a spicy kick). These were paired with condiments of preserved plums, pine nuts in honey, and golden raisins in liqueur. Dessert was a trio of hazelnut praline cake, buttermilk lemon zest panna cotta with blueberry compote, and chocolate decadence cake with chantilly cream and raspberry. The decadence cake was so out-of-control intense, finishing the thing felt like a battle against chocolatiness itself. Luckily, some Earl Grey soothed our palates. Definite recommendations: the cepe flan, the skate, the risotto, and the panna cotta. This will probably be our last time at L’Espalier in its current location in Back Bay – the restaurant is moving to its new digs in the Mandarin Oriental in July. Although I’m sure they’ll enjoy their new home, we’ll surely miss the character of the original space.

Little did we know when we checked in this morning that participating in the medical emergency aboard our last flight earned us upgrades to the First Class cabin. While we would have appreciated free round trip tickets instead, flying First Class was nevertheless a novel experience for us. But aside from the priority boarding, larger seats, free food, and after-dinner sundaes, it was really nothing to brag about. Sure we had warm nuts, hot towels, table linens, and dinner served on porcelain plates with metal utensils and real glasses, but the lasagna was no better than your average cafeteria food. We didn’t take full advantage of the beverage service either since neither of us drink alcohol. Since the plane was small, we also didn’t have the private screens, noise-cancelling headsets or 180 degree reclining seats that the airline advertises. Although it was an interesting flight for cheap bums like us, I doubt we will ever shell out the dough to experience it again.