i have to stop blogging in my head and actually get something online every so often. a few highlights from the last couple of weeks:

we ate hong kong style western food. basically it’s either fusion HK-american food or what HK thinks american food is, resulting in a very bizarre lunch. each entree came with this kind of seafood egg drop soup and garlic toast. then some ridiculously huge portion of spaghetti bolognese with a pork chop and rice hidden under sauce or some other strange concoction. the food was cheap and it was worth it just for the experience.

it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but i feel fairly stressed at work lately, caught up on most of my projects but sadly far behind on others, making me feel stressed. coupled with that is the fact that i’m adamantly protecting my weekends (except when i have to work events), so that’s not allowing me to catch up on everything. the result is that my blood pressure is in the completely normal range for the last two weeks. it doesn’t make sense to me, but i’ll take it!

we’ve been to a ton of great talks lately. most recently, jonathan bloom talked about food waste, which was fascinating. he’s spent a lot of time with food recovery groups, chatted with dumpster divers and more. it’s a fascinating subject and completely depressing. his estimate is that america could fill a rose bowl with wasted food per day. our focus on perfect food means that produce assistants cull fruits with blemishes and they go right in the garbage, sell by dates are deceiving and in general, huge portion size ends up leading to garbage. i did learn about a lot of cool things, too, like the scroungers at reed college - students without meal plans that depend on leftover plate food to eat and gleaners that clear farmers’ land when they don’t harvest due to poor price points. i definitely think the whole subject is worth more awareness on society as a whole.

sunday was fun to catch up with christy and nasun. we saw a short on a man with the largest record collection, that he unfortunately can’t sell. and typeface, this great film about the hamilton wood type press, its struggles, and the people who love letterpress (me included). it reminded me of the shop class is soulcraft book i was recently reading about how these days no one knows how to make anything with their hands…sad. i still need to find my own craft niche so i can participate more than just consume.

so that’s it from my little corner, other than lots of board games and spending time with friends. hope all is well with you!