Mundanely interesting … today
[16-19 July, 2026]
My niece and her family who relocated to Maryland came back to visit with us over a long weekend for some now-rarer-than-usual family time. Of course, what is a Filipino reunion without lots of food and eating? We had great weather, great eats, and overall, a great time together back in Ohio just like the good old days!
I did some furniture re-arranging in the living room, largely repositioning the sofa and the Eames lounge chair/ottoman. That threw off the overall symmetry and placement of the pieces relative to the “area rug” under them, and the overall space in general.
The solution was to “expand” the rug by placing five additional FLOR tiles to one end of it. That’s the beauty of FLOR tiles arranged as area rugs — flexible enough in terms of size and placement, and compatible enough in terms of style and color even if you didn’t plan for a larger one (with different-style tiles) in the beginning. I’m pretty happy with the result.
… and a freshly mowed lawn. Favorite time of the day.
[4 June, 2026]
On a day when the only thing on the calendar is a “4-Mile Outdoor Walk”, I sometimes indulge in a more-lavish-than-usual home cooked brunch of crispy bacon and thick cut Challah bread French toast, sprinkled with fresh blueberries and doused in rich maple syrup, accompanied by slow-brewed coffee on the Moka pot.
Needless to say, I don’t eat like this everyday.
[23 May, 2026]
My friend Brad regularly goes fishing for freshwater salmon on Lake Erie and never comes home without a healthy catch. This time, he gave me both fillet sides of an entire salmon, around 4 and 1/2 lbs, cleaned. I cut the tail ends for a regular salmon dinner bake, and the rest I cured in the fridge over 4 days in a melange of Kosher salt, sugar, ground multi-colored peppercorns, chili pepper flakes, fine-chopped dill and juniper berries, and just for extra flavor, a good helping of Hendrick’s gin. Unlike most color-enhanced salt water salmon you can buy in the store, the freshwater variety is quite lighter in color, which is characteristic of non-salt water fish.
Of course, it was delicious! But Brad will never find out just how much. He is allergic to seafood!
[16 May, 2026]
Every year, I buy flowering, if not colorful, annuals that I plant in several old containers in my Japanese-inspired rear courtyard. This year was no different, except that I bought a bunch of perennials instead. I guess I got tired of pulling out old plants and replacing them with new ones every year. In addition to saving money, it also gives me back a lot of time that I can spend on another “favorite” task every spring — pulling weeds and errant grass amongst the permanent ground cover in the courtyard.
Additionally, I also re-built a 4-year old succulent pot that’s been adorning my indoor dining table. Easy-maintenance and quite resilient, these succulents should be good for another 4-5 years, I reckon.
I’ve been trying to up my sandwich game recently, building up on previous efforts with my must-try sliders with sweet potato fries, and of course, famous breakfast sandwiches: egg soufflé on ciabatta; and egg, cheese, and bacon on either brioche bun or everything bagel.
This time, I added my classic favorites: a Reuben and Italian pesto+prosciutto. Trying to find the right balance of high quality meats, dressing, the right cheeses plus the rest of the necessary accoutrements, on proper bread, is a fun and tasty adventure, one that I’ll continue to expand into other sandwich types. My other favorite, a lobster roll, perhaps? Bon appetit!
Current read … on the Kindle reader. Not from the public library this time, and my first e-book in a while.
Just recently got this new two-sided classic-style analog wall clock from Dulton, a well-known Japanese homewares manufacturer and seller. It would be the latest addition to my growing collection of iconic and interesting timepieces. In case you couldn’t tell, I am fascinated with unique and oversized clocks. Big time!
Our annual Pi Day tradition had a unique twist this year: pizza! It is a pie after all. But Gary couldn’t resist and snuck in a coconut cream pie, nevertheless, for dessert.
Oh, and today is also Jiro’s 12th birthday!
Jiro on his 12th birthday, 3/14/2026.
[5 March, 2026]
A rare dinner get-together with former Honda colleagues at the local Japanese bistro.
Well, after over a month and a half of preparation and waiting, this year’s batch of limoncello is finally bottled. Spring is just around the corner, and so are evenings spent sipping that sweet, smooth, ice-cold nectar.
After steeping in lemon peels the past 4 weeks, my limoncello is ready for the simple syrup addition. It will take another 2-3 weeks for the solution to mellow out, then it’ll be ready for bottling. Can’t wait!
I’ve been going through books every 2-3 weeks the past couple of months, perhaps a result of not having much to do outside during the winter. Nevertheless, brain food is always good for the soul. Here’s my current read.
Current read … continuing my exploration of the universe and how we came about.
As I indicated in a previous blog post, I’ve been reading Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s book, “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” the past few days. If you haven’t read that book, I should mention that I highly recommend it. I just finished reading it yesterday and was struck by certain realizations about how our place in the universe is both awesome and precarious. More than that is the realization of how our ego creates realities, imagined and perceived, about how the world revolves around ourselves. which is as laughable about our nature as previous beliefs about the Earth being the center of the universe.
Dr. Tyson reflects on this cosmic perspective in the book’s final chapter, and eloquently describes this rather circumspect viewpoint in the following passage:
When I pause and reflect on our expanding universe, with its galaxies hurtling away from one another, embedded within the ever-stretching, four-dimensional fabric of space and time, sometimes I forget that uncounted people walk this Earth without food or shelter, and that children are disproportionately represented among them.
When I pore over the data that establish the mysterious presence of dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe, sometimes I forget that everyday — every twenty-four-hour rotation of Earth — people kill and get killed in the name of someone else’s conception of God, and that some people who do not kill in the name of God, kill in the name of needs or wants of political dogma.
When I track the orbits of asteroids, comets, and planets, each one a pirouetting dancer in a cosmic ballet, choreographed by the forces of gravity, sometimes I forget that too many people act in wanton disregard for the delicate interplay of Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and land, with consequences that our children and our children’s children will witness and pay for with their health and well-being.
And sometimes I forget that powerful people rarely do all they can to help those who cannot help themselves.
I occasionally forget those things because, however big the world is — in our hearts, our minds, and our digital maps — the universe is even bigger.
— Neil DeGrasse Tyson, “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry”
He goes on to explain how we, as a society should consider ourselves lucky that we can have the resources and luxury of time to continue to explore the wonders of the universe. But at the same time, the cosmic perspective compels us to strive to be humble, and to open our minds to extraordinary ideas and our eyes to the universe as a cold, lonely, and dangerous place that forces us to assess the value of humans to one another.
Personally, it is a wake-up call to the noble notion of life’s purpose, and how our own lives have the opportunity to enrich everyone else’s. Our time on earth is but a blink in the eye of cosmic time, yet if applied in proper perspective, can bring such fruits as joy, meaning, and connectedness. We cannot, and we don’t have to, make a ‘dent in the universe’. We just need re-calibrate our expectations.
Finally, Dr. Tyson implores us to continue exploring what’s yet to discover about the universe, reminding us that …
The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us.
— Neil DeGrasse Tyson, “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry”
[25 January, 2026]
Well, it was bound to happen. It’s winter time, after all.
Over a foot and a half of snow fell on Sunday, the 25th of January, and threw Central Ohio into Level 3 snow emergency mayhem over the next two days. With only emergency vehicles and essential workers allowed on the roads, I was stuck in the house for 2 days. Luckily, we didn’t lose power but this week’s forecast of negative single digit temperatures the rest of the week, with windchills way below that, guarantees all this snow should stick around for a while.
[20 January, 2026]
The winter doldrums settling in, I needed something that reminds of summer and warmth. So, a new batch of organic limoncello it is!
Steeping the lemon rinds takes about 4 weeks, and another 2-3 weeks after the rinds are removed and simple syrup is added. That gives me plenty of time to clean and sterilize my bottles and get them ready for the liquid gold. But what to do with all those lemons?
Current read … I’m not exactly someone in a hurry, however, in the fabric of space-time, I guess I’m always moving about.
Current read … This will be a quick one - tiny little book, only around 90 pages long.
