Peanut Butter Coach Cakes

I'm a lover of griddle foods.  I can't help that, and while those parts of my palate haven't grown up, my waist-size and blood pressure have.  In an effort to keep breakfast comfroting, while minimizing the damage to my internals, this morning I threw together a nice and simple recipe for a quick breakfast treat.

Here is all I had laying around, and all you need:

1 1/2 c Coaches Oats (or oatmeal of choice)

1/2 c flour

1/3 c egg whites

2 tbsp butter

1tsp baking powder

1 package (single serving) oikos Greek yogurt

1 big fat spoon full of PB, crunchy if you are awesome

Preaheat the stove to a med / med low setting and turn on your oven to 350

Following all the best pancake recipes, throw all dry ingredients together in a big bowl and mix until they are well blended. Make a well in the center of the bowl.

Add all your wet ingredients to the center of the bowl and stir from the center allowing the dough/batter ball to form.  Get that peanut butter well mixed in there.

Spray your Pam into the hot pan over the sink so you don't have to spend an hour getting the smears off your cook top

Drop child-fist-sized balls into the pan and sear on each side 2.5 minutes just to get that crunchy crust

Throw all your oatcakes on a greased baking sheet and bake for 5-10 minutes depending on how done you want it.

Stack all your oatcakes on a nice plate and pose them for your preferred social media outlet.

If you are looking for something sweeter, you can add fruit nuts, chocolate chips, or brown sugar/cinnamon.  Don't get too crazy or you'll defeat the whole purpose and may as well just go to cinnabon instead.  Damn that sounds really good right now...

Looking Forward to Icing

Well I'd be lying if I said I haven't been busy this year.  I'm not sure if you knew about my journey these past few years, but to quickly fill you in...

I got laid off just before graduating with my MBA back in 08.  It was heartbreaking.  I went back to school to jump-start my life, to start fresh and anew, and everything was going seemingly well, until that happened.  I ended up graduating into the financial meltdown with very little job experience, and a whole bunch of debt.  After collecting unemployment for a month or two, I settled into the Waikiki travel industry, and have been learning and working my butt off though this recession trying to keep my financials out of the proverbial 'red.'

I've learned more about myself in these past few years of my early thirties than I have in my entire teens and twenties, and this year have finally arrived at a place I can be proud of.

At Aqua, I have dedicated myself completely and wholly, offering to be cross-trained in as many positions at my property as possible.  So far, I've been trained in back-office reservations, front desk guest service agent, and night-auditor. Mastering each has been a challenge, but gives me new insights into how a hotel operates.  I've gotten so into it I autonomously wrote some S.O.P.s  for the night audit position that we've never had before.  I've also made it a habit to offer my graphic design services, and have been able to get portfolio work doing things such as an entrance-awning, a mock up illustration of a front-desk redesign, promotional flyers, and video advertisements that play at the front desk.  I have since asked to be a part of the next 'transition team,' a trusted group of individuals who move into newly acquired properties to train and acclimate the existing staff to our company policies and procedures.  The next one is forming in December, so I've got my fingers crossed...

This past year I have invested much of my time into Taiko, www.ryukyukobudotaiko.org :the group I coach/teach on Monday nights.  We have doubled our enrollment, have had 2 successful fundraisers, and have a strong performing group that I think can really go places.  In addition to that, our leadership team has been working on decentralizing, meaning the other instructors have really stepped up their game in order to lessen the burden on yours truly so that I can keep all the other plates spinning in my life.

Most importantly (in terms of personal achievement), this year I have finally launched my own business.  As of October 2010, Sweet Ignition Design is officially in operation, and I have been spending most of my non-hotel and non-taiko time on creating logos, business cards, a micro-website www.sweetignitiondesign.com , even taking on my very 1st client, Dr Stephen Chu, DDS.  Finally having my own business is so liberating and satisfying on so many levels.  This step is definitely a step in the right direction in terms of my personal AND professional growth and development, that I only wish I had done it sooner.

I am both excited and validated by these three personal projects of mine, and I finally feel like I am on 'the path' that I've been searching for this whole time.  Its funny, how things turn out isn't it?  I am all at once no where I thought I would be, and exactly who I wanted to become.  When know you are on your path, getting to the end is just the icing on the cake, and oh there will be icing.

Google: 'don't be evil' World: 'don't be naive'

A week after Google released it's social networking feature, the public has gone from hype, to hysteria, to full-blown panic attack.

Google's social networking feature 'buzz' made a heck of a debut by merging social networking features into it's G-mail application. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, where users can choose who they follow or have following their 'updates,' Googlers found (some to a shocking dismay) upon clicking the shiny new 'buzz' tab, that they were already following the people they contacted most frequently, and these lists were PUBLIC for all the G-world to see. This list of new contacts could have included prospective job recruiters for competing companies, a cheating spouse's lover, or perhaps a mailto address for erectile dysfunction.

With the outcry from the public, (and now a formal investigation into certain privacy laws) Google has been scrambling to fix the default settings that buzz imposed upon its G-mail users, by allowing clear opportunities for Google users to update, edit, or if you wish delete with a kill-switch any public profile attached to you and your account. Google it seems, has lost the faith, and some respect from everyone: the average user and the tech nerd now asks themselves: what will they do with my data next??

It is no surprise to me, that a product like this was conceived from the company who's mantra is 'don't be evil.' To Google, a company invested in ideals such as openness, and transparency, a product like buzz could have been nothing but positive and productive. It embraces the notion that people can and will find a way to slide in Facebook time, and can still be productive at work. It attempts to bring the world of social networking into our daily work-flow, allowing us to pop in and out of conversations without missing a beat, or an email. Googlers (I among them) would simply defend, that online or not, you shouldn't have or do things you expect to hide from others, period. Perhaps maybe one shouldn't be courting other jobs in secrecy, or other spouses for that matter...

But, the question still remains: what will they do with us? Google has been a leader in innovating the way we interact, communicate and retrieve data. Even now, with all the criticism Google has taken for buzz, Microsoft is positioning itself to counteract the big G by integrating Facebook and Myspace into Microsoft Outlook, its own email client. Jessica Mintz from the Associated press reported wed. that "Microsoft is releasing a "beta" test version of the Outlook Social Connector. The add-onsoftware, which was first discussed last November, adds a new pane to the main e-mail reading screen on Outlook." Sound familiar? Google continues to lead the industry into uncharted territory, and the bigger issues become those of privacy, and the disconnect that no longer exists between our real and online selves. The disconnect that some of us want there.

In speaking with my friends (those that were worried, weirded out, or pissed) the conversation became less about what Google was doing with buzz specifically, and more about what we are becoming, and if we should trust a company like Google to take us there.

A concept like buzz, is the culmination of baby steps we have taken to align the online world with the real one. When we started this Internet thing, Avatars had a purpose, not just to represent us, but to misrepresent us as well. To allow us to participate in an anonymous community. Online social networking destroys the latter part of the avatar's purpose and replaces it with the profile pic: and forces us to show the net what kind of douche-bag we really are. By allowing others to 'tag' us in pictures, post about us in blogs, and read about our trivial musings can show anyone right off the bat what kind of person is behind that pic. Like in the real world, posturing and posing can be seen spotted outright, and yet the genuine traits of a person can be extracted as well. Buzz, and a host of other next-gen networking apps take us to the next level, where we now share where we are, what we are doing, who we are talking to, and when this all goes down. So how do we behave now that we have all this, and who do we trust with this information? The world? our peers? just our families? The good folks over at http://pleaserobme.com/ make a great point and have put together a convenient list of people who have just left home so they can be promptly burgled.

Does a company who's mantra is 'don't be evil' ever think that maybe the magical products and services that they create could easily be transformed into digital weapons? I'm not saying I agree with my friends, I still have my profile up and running. I want to believe that Google can fix this. That they will deal with this fiasco in a way that makes me forget just how vulnerable I've become. To reinstate my core beliefs in transparency and offer insights to us on how we might manage this new frontier. For now, I guess, I'll be OK blogging about it... with my mouse cursor over the buzz kill-switch.

Mini Meh.

Well now that the Mobile World Congress is in full swing (only like the largest cell phone expo on the planet duh dudes), It looks like we have a pretty good idea of the trends to come, no matter how small (ahem) they might be. Looks like largely followed sony x-10 android phone will be gettin' bite-sized iterations of itself: one just like the daddy but smaller, and one with a sass-a -frass snap out qwerty keyboard. Both builds look slightly cheap and toy-like, but seem surprisingly responsive given-that both phones seem to be running sony's proprietary home-screen 'rachel' interface. (image courtesy of slashgear.com)

Kinda kewl, but mostly kinda been -there-done-done-that with my ipods evolution from big to tiny then really BIG again with the I-Pad.

But it micro-trend doesn't stop there: HTC is getting mini with the HD mini, and hey, LG announced the smallest touchscreen phone EVER with their GD880. Apparently elves and babies are target market of 2010, because I don't see how anyone of normal proportions could actually use these devices productively, right? Seriously, didn't we just do the whole 'mini' revolution a few years back? Is the 'retro orbit' really getting that small?

Fwd: Filipino feast & bacon maple bar from frost bakery

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Bryce Watanabe" <brycewat@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 16, 2010 5:03 AM
Subject: Filipino feast & bacon maple bar from frost bakery
To: <blog@gmail.com>

Redmill burgers and alki bakery croissant

Peggys house feast & organic brunch @ portage cafe

Seattle in a flash!

Holy moly that was fast!  This trip was an eating tour to be sure.  We started out slow and steady, so I could bring my bro up to speed with all the favorite places I found last year- breakfast in alki beach, piroshkis at pikes, etc, but it quickly escalated into something else entirely.  The llamas' (leah and john who took me in for thanksgiving last year) took us to pesos, where we nibbled on some of the best pupus ever, ranging from bacon wrapped prawns, to grilled pork loin and cheese sammies. Reids buddy jen showed up to greet us in downtown with a box full of bacon maple bar doughnuts.  Angel and Jack treated us to a home cooked filipino feast.  Peggy took us out to an organic brunch, seasoned with its own fresh fruit and whipped cream bar.  To end things, my brother, peggy and I cooked for all our new friends @ peggys house: fresh sashimi, hawaiian style poke, guava chicken, lemon butter mac nut mahi mahi, and kalbi style short ribs.  We have eaten for 5 days straight, and are ready for a liquid diet in vegas! Pics to follow...

Tullys makes me smile

One of the best things about Seattle? Tully's coffee. So rich and smooth it puts all the competition up here to shame. We started today by taking Melisa to her job interview in the city, went back to peggys to sleep a bit more, went to visit her at wrk briefly before checking out the scene at Bellvue Square, the shopping mall in the area. Man these people up here are rich. Or at least it seems! My brother noticed the amount of money that is being poured into streets, parks, sidewalks... Its so sad when you compare it to whats going on back home right now. I know these people are hurting from the recession too, but ya wouldn't know it.

Fwd: De plane de plane!

Whoa!...that's..uh...cute!  Where do they put the luggage?

*update - we finally boarded the plane 3 hours later, and just before takeoff, we had to stall for another 45 minutes due to a hydrolics issue!  yowza!  We flew into sea tac and baggage claim was delayed for 45 minutes our luggage load broke one of the belts on the conveyer system.  shyaeesh.  In bed, at peggys safe and sound at around 3am!

Here we go again!

West Coast Trip

1/11/10, 2:52 pm *post-posted

Well well well. I'm back. And not just bloggin', but traveling up to the pacific northwest for the second year in a row. If the allure of the place doesn't wear off after this trip, I'm definitely moving there. My brother and I are doing it together this year, and I think he's really going to enjoy Seattle's laid back yet modern feel. I'm writing this from the airport bar, because as of right now, our flight has been delayed for about 3 hours. A small kink in our plan, we continue un-phased, and order a round of beers to kick this vacation off right. It's all in the attitude, and we are positive about being on break starting now!

TIDE CHART 08/28/09

Is the ocean half full or half empty?



HIGH TIDE
1:45 PM
Elevator conversation is usually uneventful, awkward, and most times leads both parties to an agreeable conclusion about some unimportant topic or another, where the tail end of the dialogue is along the lines of: 'you are so right...I've always preferred a cold day to a day like taday..ugh its gunna be rough huh?' And that's it. End of story, go back to your own life and remember this meaningless conversation for a follow up should we ever fall into this situation again. Well today was different, for some reason or another, I divulged to my co-passenger that my last blood pressure reading I did at the longs robot was pretty high. I think the double-shot of espresso was making my conversational attempts bolder too. She beamed. 'Oh I have one of those electric machines upstairs!' and preceded to tell me how she was hypertensive and needed to monitor her bp regularly. Although a little creeped out, I was happy to get somthing real out of someone from the elevator. After lunch I was invited up to the partnership office for a free screening from my new nurse. Turns out the guy next to her has diabetes and has a blood sugar needle, (he was kind enough to give me a fresh one) and so i got a two-fer one special. Although my results were less than stellar, it wasn't as bad as I'd thought, and now I have 2 new friends and a personal clinic right upstairs.



LOW TIDE
10:30PM
I always try to give punk kids that come into the coffee shop (night job) the benefit of the doubt. I remember how it is to be young, dumb and nowhere to hang out, so when they came in as a crew, and helped themselves to water cups and plopped their baggy asses down on the couch without buying anything, I let them be. As an adolecent, I remember being yelled at by some old know-it-all or another for somthing that was stupid and harmless, like hanging out in a park after hours, or tossing beer bottles up into the air in an empty parking lot. The old man in me was getting older as I watched them, and I was tempted to just give'um the boot, but I figured I'd just wait until they did something stupid enough to get eighty-sixed. After the last rush of the evening, i checked the lobby to lock things up, and found a sculpture of trash, and 2 water cups filled with cream where they were sitting. Ahh, this destruction of faith is what makes grumpy old men who they are. I realized that I I deserved every scolding I'd ever gotten, and I actually let a 'bah!' slip out of my mouth as I cleaned up the mess.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

One last thing

On the subject of media's transormation, and my recent paranoid rants, well apparantly the subject at hand is called Net Neutrality and has been a big deal fer a while now, and as we suspected (me and my other selves), its all coming to a head.

see the following from our comrades at tech liberation.com:

http://techliberation.com/2009/04/19/internet-openness-net-neutrality-and-beyond-event-in-nyc-april-21/

Knock On Wood - for the internet (a continuation of yesterday's rant)

I've been thinking about the whole media-convergence thing all day, and I have to put it out there, just so I can get it off my paranoid mind. This TV merger between our two local stations has got me thinking about the shift from TV to the internet. The bottom line is, that marketing geniuses are collecting data on our clicks, and following the channels that we follow online, in an effort to see where and when they can effectively advertise, thereby increasing the effectiveness of online media Monetization.

Before, there were less obvious ways to follow our consumption habits (TV ratings and surveys), but there were also less options. Even with the 300 + channels to choose from, content on TV was geared much more linearly, than say the surfing habits of a web driven consumer. The reason online media may be so hard to predict, is the 'openness' of it all. The kind of openness that network television is probably VERY freaked out about right now. Imagine having an ad for the Simpsons during a prime-time show on NBC. never gonna happen. Or a view of other news perspectives on a network news broadcast? silly right? That's just the kind of thing that drives us to Google news, or You Tube for that matter, what makes them so much more engaging, thorough, and well, maybe self-destructive.

We can look at our own internet surfing habits as the new 'channels' that advertisers are desperate to try to find. They need to know where their consumers are, and now that we are so diverse, so 'free,' that makes things very sticky for media providers that depend on these advertiser's success to keep producing the information we need them to produce. What's the reaction?

Don't be suprised if we see more restrictions on the internet. The easiest way to find us as consumers, is to keep us somewhere. That means exclusivity to links, the very foundation of the world wide web. The idea (for them) is to keep us on 'channels' or 'structured surfing habbits' that the media can control in an effort to get advertisers to maximize their returns. More legislation, and less freedom is what I fear. Kiss google news goodbye, and look forward to the linear browsing style of of MSN.

IDK just a thought.

A Map to The Cave?

Well it seems that times have been pretty tough for 'old school' journalism. Media as we know it is going through some incredibly tough growing pains as it attempts embrace the digital era, and it's becoming more and more obvious, that analog anything is dead. first music, then newspapers, the print media, and today, like a scene out of a sci-fi movie, broadcast television.

If you haven't read or seen on the news (which apparently maybe we haven't), local broadcast journalism has started what could be interpreted to a political observer, as the beginnings of a socialist environment. In an effort to survive the economic downturn and avoid total shut down on a larger scale, KFVE, KGMB and KHNL are merging stations to deliver one MASSIVE media outlet here in the islands. This is good for TV news media's survival, but could be interpreted as bad, to those who may fear that a lack in competition in news journalism, will no doubt lead to 'newsy' journalism which in turn of course means we are a few paces away from a complete and total political propaganda machine. Goodbye free speech, hello Kim Jong Il.

I know that sounds worrisome. Maybe even downright bad. The fact is though, that as the media voice of traditional outlets like newspapers, periodicals, and broadcast television begin to shrink into one small whisper, the digital media outlets continue to grow, diversify, and expand into screams. Google, Twitter and even Blogs (mine excluded) have all proven to be as or more effective than the status quo, in delivering useful and relevant content to knowledge hungry users. We are in the midst of a media renaissance.

The only question then, Is what are we saying? And maybe more importantly, what are we listening to?? Where cable-fed media had us for a full 30 minutes, covering all subjects of a front page index, the bookmarks on a web browser lead users to subject-specific content as determined by that user. Netscape had it right, in that NAVIGATOR is the position we assume for our own news content. That could mean MANY different things in terms of the shaping of our information world. Will we take the opportunity the internet has to offer us to thrive in critical thinking? Will we season ourselves with the cornucopia of perspectives out there to become better informed? Or will we simply retreat to a more specific perspective, sheltering ourselves in in a cave decorated with video clips of dogs peeing on themselves, fat folks breaking furniture, and musically talented toddlers?

One thing is for sure: the dynamics of between the general public and 'journalsim' as we know it is about to become a whole lot more complicated. You excited?
Mee tube.

The Calm

There are rains coming, though from the ridiculously sunny weather this weekend you'd never know it. Apparently, a small storm system is on its way, originally slated to arrive today, has been now pushed back to Tuesday.

Here in Hawaii, this is very common. Tropical storm and Hurricane warnings come and go, and usually with nothing but a drizzle by the time they make landfall. The breezy winds and sunny sky suggested to me that this would indeed be a similar case. The weather has in fact been some of the nicest weekend weather I've seen. Beach-day and hike pics to verify via camera phone:



But the steady breeze that's been playing with my curtains all weekend just stopped dead.

And wave of humidity just followed suit.

Have we actually got some accurate predictions??? We shall see...

BEST GIFT EVER

I just got back from my 31st b-day celebration wih my buds. We had a world buffet, with foods from India, the Mediterranean, Italy, Spain, Thailand, Japan, Cuba, and Mexico. (Mexico was a large bottle of pitron). I had my fair share, and I'll leave it at that.

What I really wanted to blog about is the ULTIMATE gift I got. For all you creative nerds out there you understand what I'm talking about from the pic:


I have the BEST BUDS EVER.

TIDE CHART 08/06/2009

Is the ocean half full or half empty?



HIGH TIDE
8:45AM
I seem to have befriended the lady that works at L&L Drive Inn next to my work. On a breakfast run, she interrupted my order to ask if I was at a surf sample sale (where the surf industry gets rid of design samples to the general public for cheap - usually held at public school cafeterias or church halls) 2 weeks ago. I instinctivley said 'no' cuz its not really my scene, but had to recant, because my friend and I did indeed drop into one on the way home from the beach. She admitted to have tried to wave at me in order to say hello. It felt nice to have a stranger forge that gap between the register.



LOW TIDE
10:45PM
I'm making a spinach and garlic pizza tomorrow night, and figured I'd stop in at the market to get some of the stuff for it on the way home from the coffee shop. I couldn't find the spinach. I looked between the kale, the choy sum, the red leaf and even the radish bunches. I finally found the last bunch, the last shredded and beaten bunch, and reluctantly went for it. The underside of the leafy mess seemed to have lodged in it, a lumpy brown formation. Again with the instinct, I brought it up to my nose.

Driven

My brother is about to take the board exams for nursing. He just got back from a 10 hour study sesh this evening and was telling me about how worried he is about taking it. It's par for par for newbee nursing grads he says. Hair falls out, teeth crumble, and sleep neglected. He was telling me stories about classmates, and coworkers who've all experienced this epic moment, about a friend, who sat in her car catatonic for an hour after she'd taken it, and I could tell it's getting to him. He's been studying like this for the past two months, vacant from all conversations that have nothing to do with nursing. He's committed to this test, and has been since he started his journey into nursing two years ago.

The kind of passion I see in him I hope to someday find myself, in whatever it is I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life.

But how do people get there? How is it my brother transplanted himself from a world where he was ordering kegs to the backyard of friend's houses on weekdays, to becoming so serious and dedicated to a single personal vision?

I think about those two asian jouralists who were recently pardoned from a North Korean prison. How could anyone be so SURE the story they wanted to tell would be worth the risks involved? Is it somthing they decided to commit to? Something they just stumbled into? Where does the passion really lie? More importantly, do they think it was worth it now?

Im asking this because at 31, I still haven't found that 'thing.' I work in a coffee shop. I take reservations at a hotel. I'm a drumming instructor, a freelance designer, and a somewhat of a tech nerd. I've been a cook, recreation director, film coordinator, aquarist, marketing assistant, furniture mover, a leader, a follower, and an observer. Since I've had jobs, I've always managed at least two, sometimes three of them. The thing is, there are so many THINGS out there to get lost in, but the culmination of them doesn't add up to a single vision. Do i shave them down? Deny the curiosity? There's this saying that has always haunted me because a part of me knows it to be true: Do just one thing, but learn to do it REALLY WELL. I hate that saying. If I do ingnore the other urges picking just one, does that mean I'll finally find my path? Is that how it works? If I don't am i destined for mediocraty?