señor taco’s travels

These are mostly here so I can find them again.

Goals for before New Zealand:

• get as close to 220 pounds as possible
• do more weights in my workout to build strength
• get a lot of work done at work so I won’t feel bad about the
  two weeks off (hehehe)
• make sure to have all the gear I’ll possibly need
• hit up friends for cat sitting duties

Goals for my time in New Zealand:

• have a blast
• get better at snowboarding
• kick keiths butt once or twice (just for the heck of it)

So, now I won’t be going to New Zealand by myself. My roommate Keith just
booked the same trip. How sweet is that? This is going to be such a blast.

Only 129 days, 5 hours, 58 minutes to go.

Back in January I told you dear readers about href="/SenorTaco/2005/01/10/">Jeff proposing to Natasha. Well,
according to Jeff the show, href="http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/perfectproposal/perfectproposal.html">Perfect
Proposal, will air on June 2nd.

Enjoy.

Last night was our third href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/03/08">Thai cooking class.
I didn’t write about class last week, but href="http://rotomonkey.org/archives/000348.html">Chris did.

We talked a lot about sticky, or glutenous, rice. Generally used by
the working class because it fills you up is it also used in snacks
and desserts. We were also introduced to a black variety of sticky
rice that when soaked (you have to soak sticky rice before cooking it)
the water turns almost the color of wine. There was also a brown rice
that needs to be soaked for 22 hours before cooking and had the most
amazing flavor with nothing added to it.

This week had the following menu:

• Garlic Peppered Shrimp (and Pork) - This is one of those dishes that
  you just love. Basically you take shrip (shells on) and toss them
  with ground white pepper, tapioca starch, and chopped garlic. Once
  the oil in your wok is hot you toss them in and let them cook for a
  few minutes. All you do is make sure they aren’t touching after a
  minute. The deep frying makes the shells edible (and you can even do
  the shrimp with the heads on if you want). Served on a bed of lettuce
  with some tomatoes around it this was an appetizer for our class and
  disappeared fast. We also made it with pork cut into thin strips
  (across the grain of the meat). Same great effect but with pork.
• Hot and Sour Calamari Salad - I like squid a lot, but the
  preparation can take a while. Thankfully there were many people in
  the class and it went fine. Mixing the squid with cuttlefish we
  blanched them for 30 seconds and then tossed them into a bowl with
  mint, cilantro, lemongrass and galanga. Once the herbs had wilted we
  covered it with the hot and sour sauce made of pulverized garlic and
  thai chilis, lime juice, fish sauce, and some sugar as a balancing
  agent. Just the sauce was awesome. Perfect hotness and a great sour.
  Easy to fix and not tough at all this is one of those “oh wow” dishes
  you can do.
• Stir fried long beans with basil and garlic - taking long beans,
  making them between 1.5″ and 2″ long and then stir frying them with
  garlic and chili paste. I’ve always loved that dish and I never knew
  how easy it was to prepare. Because of the roasted chili paste it had
  a sweet flavor that wasn’t too hot and would be good in many
  settings.
• Coconut-Flavored Sticky Rice with Mangoes - cook up the soaked
  sticky rice. In another pan mix coconut milk, a little sugar, and a
  tiny bit of salt. Add in pandanus leaves for flavor. When the rice is
  done pour a small amount of the coconut milk over the rice, but not
  too much, just enough to coat the rice fully. When you serve it you
  can put more of the coconut milk on top. With the pandanus leaves
  there is a distinctive flavor to the dish. An excellent dessert.
• Black Sticky Rice Pudding - using the black sticky rice you cook
  it and then form it with a bowl. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds and
  shredded coconut over top. Another great dessert and very unique.

All in all it’s a great class. I’m learning a lot and I can’t wait to
take the intermediate class.

This weekend we went to South Lake Tahoe for some more snowboarding.
There was a good bit of snow on Friday and during the day on Saturday.
We got to Kirkwood and got a few
good runs in. Unfortunately there was almost no visibility from the
flying snow and me not having any experience on powder made for not
that fun riding. Riding in powder I’ve heard is great, and what
little I rode good in was fun, but the stuff I had a hard time in had
a lot of tracks and I couldn’t see where to navigate to because of the
visibility.

Coming down an advanced run (first black run, wooo!) I hit a deep pile
of snow and endoed my board. The board, being stuck nose first,
stayed upright and I continued to fall down the hill. This produced a
sprained left ankle because I was, of course, strapped to the board
and had the big boots on. Having the boots actually was a good thing
as it kept me from breaking my ankle I think. I was able to ride a
couple more runs but I was a little sore. the swelling and stiffness
didn’t occur until the boot came off. Last night at home the bruise
finally started to come out and it’s a doosey. I’m a little sore and
stiff still, but walking, keeping the ankle wrapped, ibuprofen, and a
heating pad are all making it much better.

I can’t wait to ride in powder again. I just hope it’s clear next
time as that will make it easier. I’m not going to count that as a
day of riding because I don’t feel I progressed at all.

…in August. I just booked a href="http://monkey.org/sl/afce1c30">trip
to New Zealand in August to go snowboarding. I’m pretty darn excited.
My friend Cortney went last
year and pretty much is the reason I’m going (well, that and it’s New
Zealand and I’ll get some wicked snowboarding instruction).

More details will follow. Only 140 days, 4 hours, and 35 minutes
until I leave for it. Now I’m off to Tahoe for another
snowboarding weekend. Have a good weekend everyone!

Last night, my friends Chris,
Dado, Martin, and I started our four week href="http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/classes/series.html">Thai
cooking class. I would say more but I just noticed Chris has href="http://rotomonkey.org/archives/000346.html">said it pretty
much exactly as I was going to. No sense re-posting now, just follow
the link to him.

On Saturday Keith and I went with Chad and Andrew to href="http://www.squaw.com/">Squaw for the day. Leaving our house
at 4:30am to get to Chad’s house and drive up was not the best, but we
did get there by 8:30am in time for the lifts to be just opened.

Keith rode with me the whole day and we were on blue runs
(intermediate) all day. The first run the guys wanted to take me down
was a black and at the top of the ridge. On that and a blue run there
was a lot of wind coming up the slope. So much so that I chickened
out on those runs and took the easy routes down. I’ll try them next
time, but for now the high winds were a bit unnerving.

At lunch we met up with Kelly and David. Unfortunately Kelly fell on
her first run and dislocated her shoulder. We waited with her for ski
patrol to come and then rode down to the Funitel with her on the sled.
She was out but David continued to ride after her checkup at the
medical facility.

After riding all day and waking up early I was pretty wiped out
towards the end. Keith and I rode down the three mile mountain run.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it and I did have to stop a couple of
times, but I was able to make it down just fine. Next time I might
have to try that at night since they light up the run until 9pm.

All in all it was a good day and just what the doctor ordered. I want
to get about four or five more days in this season so now I have to
plan those trips.

A little while back my friend KP
IM’d me and the conversation went a bit like this:

kp: dude. your face…
me: what?
kp: it skinny
me: where?
kp: look at the diff between nov and
dec. even back then it looks like you were in better shape in dec
than nov

Of course he’s referring to href="http://danimal.org/MeMyFaceAndI/">here. Now, I’m inclined
to disagree with him. I’ve lost a good bit of weight, but I’m not
skinny yet. The same sort of thing happened at a party about a week
and a half ago. A couple of people kept telling me I was skinny and I
had to kindly disagree.

If you look at my current weight I’m still far above my ideal body
weight, but just today my href="http://danimal.org/health/weight-view.png">trend weight passed
under 250 pounds (if only by about a third of a pound). Overall
I’ve lost about
55 pounds with about 50 or so of that since last July.

I still have a good bit to work off and with the rate of loss slowing
lately (although part of that was due to holidays, me slacking a bit,
and eating more while href="http://danimal.org/SenorTacoSnowboarding/">snowboarding
because I expend a lot of energy). I’m still keeping up on the gym
(albeit with some bigger breaks due to soreness from said snow
adventures) and the diet and I will continue to try and get skinny.

However, until that time I’m not skinny and people will be kindly
rebuffed for saying so.