It's an Exciting World

Steph and I hosted a succulent planting party that turned into an Oscar watching party as well.  We had Tina, Amit, Adam, Candice, Micah, Riley, and Rong over to plant succulents.  I had a few planters and had bought a number of succulents to plant.  Tina brought over a huge supply of succulents and earthenware that she had made.  We got a a lot of planters replanted and had a great time doing it.  We used up a good amount of the gravel from the planters we made for our wedding as well.  Since it was insanely windy outside, we put down the tarp and table inside.  It worked surprisingly well for catching dirt and only a little bit got of the tarp.

I had a great time and would love to do more crafty get togethers, especially when it involves improving things we already have instead of making more stuff.

Steph was having a diving weekend in Mendocino to kill some purple urchins.  She invited me along for the trip, but I stayed in a little cottage nearby and worked on different projects that day.

Steph was going to kill the purple urchin that had taken over the Norther California coast.  This was caused by the sea stars dying off from a disease when the Pacific there was warmed.  The urchin population explosion then led to the destruction of all the kelp forests.

We headed up early on Friday, and I was able to get a decent amount of work done in the car.  We got to the cabin pretty late, but in time to go to an adorable restaurant for dinner.  We got a great night’s sleep and the next day Steph headed out to the dive.

Afterward her dive we spent some time in the room because it was raining pretty hard at that point.  We used the huge jacuzzi tub and hung out until it was about dinner time.  We headed to an Airbnb that some of the other divers were renting.  We had dinner and drinks there before heading back to the cabin.  Steph decided not to dive on Sunday, and we just headed straight home.

George hosted a nice dinner at Plumed Horse in Saratoga for his birthday.  He invited Tina, Steph, Adam, Liz, Adam, Adisa, and myself to join him.  Steph and I were going to be a little late.  Waze took us on an interesting back route through the mountains, but we made it there earlier than we expected.  The dinner was delicious, and I had the meat courses, which my stomach ended up not liking after not eating any meat for a long time.  Steph had a few glasses of wine, and the veggie course.  We discussed the current state of the world and our hopes for the future.

Linday and Kevin joined Steph and I at Sandbox VR in the Hillsdale mall for one of their new experiences, Star Trek Discovery Away Team.  It was one of the better produced experiences.  The tech being used isn’t the best, so there was a good bit of latency on 6dof movement.  This made it better to stand in one place instead of moving around.  They also broke some of the things I consider to be core rules of VR, like you don’t have your player fall.

Lindsay and Kevin didn’t particularly like the experience, but were good sports about it.  Kevin was getting VR sick from the bad latency, and the gear they had us in was just uncomfortable.  The Void is probably a better experience, and I’ll be organizing some outings to it once the Westfield Valley Fair mall.

After VR we had a great dinner and conversation at the food court.  We had more of the jiggly cheesecake and some tasty ramen.

I thought it was time to actually put down exactly what goes into my smoothies, and show how easy it is to make them.  I have 3 of these a day, and have chosen the ingredients because I think they are healthy, and because I’ve grown to enjoy the taste.  I think that enjoying it is an important first step.  Find something that is convenient, healthy, tasty, and cheap.  Then make that a staple of your diet.

List of what goes into 6 24oz (0.7L) smoothie bottles:

7 powders / dry ingredients

1. 6 teaspoons of nutritional yeast
2. 2 heaping teaspoons of ground flaxseed
3. 6 heaping teaspoons of rice protein powder
4. 6 teaspoons of chia seeds
5. 2 teaspoons of looseleaf tea
6. 1 teaspoon of turmeric
7. 3 teaspoons of spirulina

3 frozen ingredients

1. 1 bag of frozen spinach
2. 1 bag of frozen California veggie mix (carrot, cauliflower, broccoli)
3. 1 bag of frozen strawberries

Fill with water and blend for 30 seconds.

Steph and I joined Lexi for a nice Saturday morning dive.  We went to Del Monte beach, and dove along the pier.  I’d never done a pier dive before, although we had tried to plan a night dive along the Santa Cruz pier.

Shortly after we got there a group of people up on the pier started playing with remote control surfers.  They were adorable, and seemed to work really well.

Steph’s new cave diving buddy, Madz, joined us a little late, but we waited on him to get ready before getting in the water.  It was decently clear once we got past the breakwater zone.  We were able to wade out along the concrete portion of the pier before putting fins on and descending.  I was the only one diving wet and the only one diving back mount.  The other three were diving dry suits with side mount.  This was largely training for the Mexico diving and getting more used to that gear, but also just for comfort on the thermals.  I was getting pretty cold, but I kept myself warm by going through more air than I normally would.  We had only planned for a dive at 25 ft for one hour, and my take was a 120 nitrox, which could keep me down at 25 feet for nearly three hours.

We got to see a lot of pretty nudibranchs, lots of hermit crabs, some gigantic snails with tiny shells, several of the largest sea stars I’ve ever seen, some well camouflaged decorator crabs, a few jelly fish, strawberry anemones, and skeleton shrimp.

I wanted to try out the Impossible Whopper vs. the normal Whopper so I got a group of friends to join me in the side by side taste test.  Debby joined us at 6:30 with Andrew, Debby, and Kevin coming in shortly after.  Ricardo and Irene came in around 7:10, but I sat with them for the bit they were there.

The Impossible Whopper was good, and if you got just that you wouldn’t think anything was amiss about it.  Side by side with the normal Whopper it did come up a bit short on the umami flavor and the chargrilled flavor.  I’m not sure how to exactly explain why the normal one was tastier.  I thought the Impossible Whopper was plenty good, and I wouldn’t miss the normal one if that was the only option.  I wouldn’t miss the normal one anyway, but that is another thing entirely.