Trina's page of Blogginess

Dick has a colleague at work who is English, and recently came back from a trip to London.

He brought a can of "Spotted Dick" back with him to give to Dick.

I had never heard of it before, so I looked it up on the web today. Here's what I found:

(from amazon.com)
Heinz Spotted Dick Sponge Pudding in a 10.5 oz. tin. A lovely sponge pudding studded with raisins. Has the consistency of a rich moist cake. A favorite dessert amongst English school children - hence the silly nick-name!

Oh, there are so many things about this that strike me as funny. :)

I thought perhaps we should start a new collection of foreign grocery store products with our names on them.

We started with "Trina" soft drink, and now we have Spotted Dick.


A match made in culinary-delight heaven?

...or, maybe we have the makings of tonight's dessert?

Labels: dick, funny ha-ha

Dick, playing at the final table. At this point, there are only 5 players left. He is the one with his back to us. Graham is standing near his watching

Dick played his first Poker Tournament ever today. It was a Texas Hold 'Em Tournament (aren't they all?) and there were about 60 people who played in the tournament.

The tournament started at 2:00pm. Dick and Graham both played, while my sister and I went out to lunch. We figured it was a good sign when neither of the guys called us within the first hour.

Graham called us after about 1 hour, 45 minutes. We thought that was pretty good for his first time!

Then the three of us (me, Sis and Graham) wandered around the casino and the adjoining mall for a while. We still hadn't heard from Dick.

We went back to the Casino Poker room after around 3 hours into the tournament. Dick was still there! At this point, he had made it to the final table, and there were about 7 players left. (The last 6 players would receive winnings of various amounts.)

Graham went into the poker room and watched the last few rounds, while my sister and I watched from afar. I was totally afraid of jinxing Dick with my presence!

One by one, we watched the players stand up, shake hands with the others, and leave the table, yet Dick was still there!

Dick ended up in third place!!! We were all very excited for him, and couldn't believe he did so well on his first tournament.

Today was a good day in Vegas. :)
(but, we're not addicted.)

Labels: dick, travel

Um, yeah. Dick's really getting into this.

I don't really know what to say.

Be afraid.
Be very afraid.

Labels: dick, funny ha-ha

Editors Note: I know that I already posted 2 blog posts today, but this just happened, and there was just no way that I wasn't going to blog about this!

Apparently, it's been declared that the month of March will be Moustache March at Dick's place of work. Dick just sent this email out to a few of his fellow co-workers:

Me: Oh, by the way, next month is Moustache March
My Long-Suffering Wife, Trina: huh??
Me: Moustache March. A bunch of guys in the office grow moustaches.
Trina: Great! You already have a moustache.
Me: Actually, I have a goatee. Here’s what I look like in a moustache (shows Apple employee badge from 1986)
Trina: Do I get a say in this?


Dick, circa 1986

The funny thing is that the conversation that Dick wrote was pretty much verbatim of my reaction.

Oh, my. It's going to be an interesting month.
I'll keep you all posted.
(I just made him promise that he wouldn't grow out his bangs)

Labels: dick, funny ha-ha

Dick was very sad when he accidentally left his hat on CalTrain a
couple of weeks ago. I've left messages with Caltrain's lost and
found, but so far, no luck.

This morning, we drove down to Fillmore Street to Mrs. Dewson's Hats
. My sister had worked with Mrs Dewson a few years ago when she
worked on the show, "Crowns".

Mrs Dewson has had her shop on Fillmore for over 35 years. It is THE
place to find a hat in San Francisco.

After searching for a while, Mrs Dewson was able to help Dick find the
perfect hat. :)

Labels: dick, san francisco

This is a look that Dick has been sporting for the past month or so.

I call it his "Honey, I'm Home!" look.

I love it. It's got a 50s, Ward Cleaver thing going for it.

It's really all about the hat. Love the hat. Apparently, he's had the hat for several years, but hadn't worn it in a long time.

Labels: dick, funny ha-ha

Our friends, Abbe and Eve, have recently moved into the neighborhood! :) Their new (gorgeous) home is only about 3 blocks from us.

Abbe started a new job yesterday in Palo Alto. When we had dinner together last week, she asked Dick about his experience with CalTrain. Dick has been taking Caltrain to work for several years now, and highly recommends it, so she decided to give it a try.

We told her that Dick usually rides his scooter to the station, unless it's very cold or raining out. If that's the case, then I drive him back and forth.

Abbe and Eve decided to start out by having Eve drive Abbe to the station since they don't quite know the parking situation yet.

Yesterday, Dick and Abbe saw each other while they were on the same train home. Dick rode his scooter home, and Eve picked up Abbe. After Dick told me about their encounter last night, I suggested that he call Abbe to offer her a ride today, since we were expecting rain for the next few days.

Abbe went in earlier than Dick today, so Eve dropped her off again, but I'm all set to pick them both up from the station this afternoon.

Eve called me about an hour ago, confirming my plans to pick both Dick and Abbe up. She also offered to drive Dick tomorrow morning, if he wanted to go on the same train as Abbe.

I started laughing because we sounded like a couple of mothers trying to arrange a car pool for our kids. I told her that this must be what it feels like to be a soccer mom. :)

Labels: dick, friends

Dick's company's Holiday Party was this past Saturday Night. It was held at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. What an amazing venue that is. It's the second time in the last 5 years that the party has been here, and both times, the parties were really top notch and amazing! Really great food, open bar, and live entertainment (acrobats and musicians). Plus, the building itself is just gorgeous. The museum exhibits were actually open to us during the party, but unfortunately, Dick and I ran out of time, and didn't have a chance to see any!

While Dick's family was in town over Thanksgiving week, we brought them to Chinatown for shopping, and dim sum. I took them to Dragon Seed, the store where I had my cheongsam made for our wedding a couple of years ago. It's a really neat store, with all kinds of beautiful fabrics and clothing.

While we were there, Dick eyed a really beautiful men's silk Chinese-Style jacket. He tried it on, and it was a perfect fit - so much so, that his family and I all agreed that he had to buy it! That's when we remembered that the company Holiday Party was going to be held at the Asian Art Museum this year, and it would be the perfect event to wear it to.



Dick's jacket was a hit - he had many people compliment him on it during the evening. I wore a little black dress, along with one my my Chinese-Style jackets that actually complimented Dick's jacket quite well. :)

Labels: A day in the life, dick

Labels: A day in the life, dick, family

It's Happy Anniversary Day!

Today, Dick and I celebrate our 2nd Wedding Anniversary.
Amazing, isn't it? Those two years went by so quickly.
Happy Anniversary, Dick! I love you!

Now, as happy as I am to say that Dick and I have been married for two years, that seems to pale in comparison to the fact that today is also my parent's 40th Anniversary!

That's right, we share our anniversary date with my Mom and Dad!
Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! Thanks for being such a wonderful inspiration!



disclaimer: I'm kind of cheating here. My parents were married on October 9th, but they had their Chinese Banquet a few days/weeks later. The photo is from their banquet, and not taken on their actual wedding day.

Labels: dick, family

Labels: dick

because there are so many...

I was having one of those "ugly days" today.

You know the kind: every time I saw my reflection in a mirror today, all I saw was "bleh". My hair was all wonky from sleeping on it semi-wet last night, so I pulled it back in a barrette today. I spent the day with my Grandparents in the hospital today, so I was just wearing an over-sized t-shirt, jeans, and no make up. I just felt so frumpy, mousie and dowdy all day.

When Dick came home this evening, the first thing he told me was how pretty I looked!
It simply astounded me that he saw me in a completely different way from how I saw myself.

I have the best husband ever.

Labels: dick, just trina

At the airport.
Dick playing

Labels: dick, Star Wars

Labels: dick, family, travel

Labels: dick, family, travel

Dinner at "Prime" at the Bellagio.
After dinner, the waited took us to a reserved table on the patio -
just in time for the water show.

All time. Epic.

Labels: dick, family, travel

The Birthday Boy enjoys a cup of joe before starting his Big Vegas Birthday Day!

Labels: dick

Dick's birthday is approaching (September 14th)!

To celebrate, we chartered a catamaran, and took a bunch of friends out on Bay for 3 hours. After spending the last week recovering from my surgery, it was really wonderful to spend a day out and about with good friends. It was a bit overcast and foggy in San Francisco, but was nice and sunny near Tiburon and Sausalito.

We had everyone over for an early dinner afterwards. To make it easy, we catered in from Pasta Pomodoro, which turned out to be a great call.

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it today.
I think there are few things that make Dick happier than spending the day sailing out on the Bay with a great group of friends.


Happy (early) Birthday, Dick!

Labels: dick, san francisco

Okay, this is hysterical.

I just found out about the MyHeritage Celebrity Look-Alike Match off my cousin Bruce's blog. He had mentioned that he was worried that he would be matched up with every Asian Celeb in the database. Well, lucky him: he got matched up with Robert Downey Jr! (not bad, cuz!)

So, I thought I'd give it a try. I know it largely depends on which photo you upload, but I decided to just go with the most recent front-on photo that I had from my night of picking up Harry Potter at Safeway.

So, I upload the photo, waiting to see what it comes up with...

..and what it comes up with as my highest match lands me in hysterics:

With a match of 76%: Michelle Kwan



This cracks me up.

I mean, I knew that.
I've been told this on more than one occasion.

I even blogged about it before.

I've had the side-by-side comparison:


But, I didn't think that that was would be the number one choice for this program, too!

After it tells you of the #1 choice, it also gives you a few others.
The others? Well, they are, in fact, the "every Asian Celeb in the database" that Bruce was talking about. I don't even know who any of them are. Do you?

update

Here are Dick's matches.
(Robert Downey Jr. seems to be popular!)

Labels: dick, funny ha-ha, trina-isms

I just walked into the bedroom and found Dick and Marcel reading a book together. Couldn't resist taking a picture. :)

Dick just started reading Harry Potter Book 4. It's one of Marcel's favorites.

Labels: dick, harry potter, kitties

Dick drove to work today.

When he came home, I noticed a blue rectangle stuck on the side of his car.
Upon further examination, I saw that it said:

I roll with the hot

It's a huge rectangular magnet promoting Windows Live Hotmail, which is the project that Dick (and many of our friends) work on.

Cracks me up!

Labels: dick, funny ha-ha

Ever since I've been on my latest Harry Potter kick, Dick has been coming up with new Harry Potter titles based on our everyday life.

I thought this one was especially funny.
(Noe coughed up a hairball sometime during the middle of the night last night.)

Labels: dick, funny ha-ha, harry potter

...this is what we might look like


Dick and Trina Simpson

Make your own Simpsons character here:

http://www.simpsonsmovie.com/main.html

Labels: dick, just trina, pop culture

Believe it or not, next month will mark 10 years since Trina Chow Design was hired by my first client to design and implement a web site! (That client, by the way, was Adler & Co Gallery way back when they were an animation gallery on Union Street!)

There are obviously many pros and cons to be said for working for yourself. Sure, I get the benefit of setting my own hours, choosing my clients, having creative freedom, etc.,

However, I also work by myself, which, after 10 years, I've learned can be somewhat limiting.

Case in point: I learned HTML the old-fashioned way...
About 12 years ago, I read the classic Teach yourself HTML in 14 Days by Laura Lemay.
I learned all about tables, formatting, how to code by hand, gif animations, image-mapping, frames, etc.,
Sure, I picked up some tips and tricks here and there, but I always stuck to the tried-and-true basics.

This limited knowledge worked well for me for a very long time.

About 3 or 4 years ago, Dick started to introduce me to the idea of CSS. (Cascading Style Sheets for those of you who aren't in the know...) I admit it: I shied away from learning CSS for months, and even years. I couldn't grasp the thought that I might need to change the way that I'd been doing things for years. (gasp!)

A couple of years ago, Dick helped me in the complete redesign of the Adler Gallery site (yes, the one and the same as my first client!). This would be my first major CSS project, and what an enormous project it would be! I came to embrace CSS, and learned to love it. Gone now were the days of doing layout using tables! Style tags don't belong in HTML! They belong in my .css page! Begone you table tags! Stop cluttering my HTML!

So, I've been enjoying a couple of years of basic CSS euphoria, when, every-once-in-a-while, Dick brings in something new and different (gasp - again!)!

Each time, I cringe! I shy away! I wonder why do I need to change?

Each time, I get over my fears and anxieties, and eventually learn that it's good to learn, it's good to expand, it's good to keep up. It's good to learn about "ems".

I feel very fortunate that my hubby is so interested, on a personal as well as a professional level, in some of the same technologies that I use for my small, one-person business. He keeps me up-to-date, and helps broaden my mind to new ideas that I wouldn't have if I kept to myself.

So, it turns out that I'm one lucky girl. I have all the benefits of working by myself, but I also get to benefit from the fact that my hubby will make sure that I won't fade away into HTML oblivion. I even get my own personal tutor who actually enjoys learning, and sharing his expansive knowledge with me!

It turns out that I'm not working entirely by myself after all! I get to work with my hubby!

In case I haven't mentioned it in a while, I love my techie-honey! :)

Labels: dick, web design

....and then I started to date, then married someone who is an even bigger computer geek than I ever was!

I have an external drive connected to my laptop that backs-up my computer each night. Tuesday morning, I noticed that my computer was unable to read the drive, and the only option I had was to initialize the disk. Well, that's never my first choice, so I decided to restart my computer a few times, and re-connect the drive. No go. It didn't work at all.

I considered reinitializing the entire disk, but decided not to do anything until the weekend. A full backup of my drive takes a bit longer than 24 hours, and I didn't want it to disrupt my work for an entire day (or two). I figured I'd have Dick look it over during the weekend, and if I still needed to initialize the disk, I would just leave my computer alone for the entire weekend.

This morning, I asked Dick what he thought I should do. I asked, "Should I just initialize? It hasn't been able to read the disk all week."

He said he'd come up to look at it. I asked if he wanted me to restart my computer, and disconnect an re-connect the drive.

He said he'd just turn it off, and on again first.

....then he left the room.

....then my external hard drive showed itself on my desktop, all fine and happy...

...and I felt like an idiot.

I should have known this! This is the first thing I should have tried after restarting my computer didn't work.

Why is it that I rely so heavily on Dick's geekdome, that I've relaxed my own inner-geek, and can't step up to the plate to figure these things out for myself?

It's like there's some weird geeky-comfort knowing that Dick can fix things. I used to be the one my friends would call for computer questions! I used to be able to figure stuff out like this all the time. This is not difficult.

I've become the techie-geek damsel in distress because I married a knight in geeky armor.

Shame on me. Time to step things up, and become my own geek again.

Dick just walked back in, and read my blog.

He said that Craddock's First Law is "When in doubt, power cycle."

I should write that down.

Oh, I'm so embarrassed!

Labels: computers, dick, geeks

...in case you didn't notice.

Yep, there are a few new posts up there. They're pretty funny.

You should read them in chronological order, though. (don't read from the top down)

One Grumpy Dick.

Labels: blog, dick

...this is what he would look like



The game is called Half Life 2.

The character who looks like Dick looks like is one of the main characters, whose name is Gordan Freeman.

Let's compare, shall we?


I can hardly tell them apart! (Plus, Dick recently grew in his goatee again, but he didn't have it in this photo.)

It's possible that we may have just found next year's Halloween Costume!

Labels: dick, xbox

It's game night here at His 'n Her Condos.

That's right, first javascript lessons, Yahtzee, then Scrabble.
It just doesn't get more exciting than that on a Saturday night!

The Scrabble game ended up being one of my best ever.

In the end, it came down to the last play. Dick's turn was first. He was able to play his last three letters, enabling him to take my last three letters (only 3 points). He also managed to get a triple word score on a 3 point word (ion).

He won by a mere 7 points!

Ouch, that hurts.

But, I was still really proud with how I played and with some of the words I came up with.

Notable mention goes to: "evoked" paired with "ware". Also, "guava" worked really well for me when I had a bunch of vowels.

Labels: dick, home life

I took this picture of Dick this weekend.
It makes me smile. :)

Labels: dick

I ♥ my husband! :)

Labels: dick

This is SO funny!

Dick and I were just having a conversation over MSN Messenger. I had asked him if he could pick up a copy of Mac:Office for a friend of mine from the company store.

Here's what happened:



Funny, isn't it?
Who knew?

Perhaps this should be their new logo :)

Labels: dick, funny ha-ha

It was a momentous occasion!

After 8 years of dating/being married to Dick, I have finally had lunch with him at work!

You may being thinking, "So, what's so special about that?"

Well...I have a running joke going with Dick and several of his work buddies. All the people that I know who work with Dick have, at one-time-or-another had their significant others over to join them in the campus cafeteria. Whenever I mention that I've never been, they're all always quite amazed, and always ask Dick "Why Not?".

Dick's answer to this is a simple, "Why?".

I've certainly had the opportunity to join him for lunch, but when I'm that far down along the peninsula, I usually already have plans to have lunch with my Mom or other friends. I have asked Dick a couple of times if I could meet him for lunch, but he's usually busy with meetings, and doesn't really understand why I'd want to have lunch with him in the cafeteria with him anyway.

So, the joke I have with our mutual friends who also work there is that I will plan to have a lunch date with them, not with Dick.

Dick was planning on working from home today, but realized late in the morning, that he really needed to get into the office for a few hours. He'll be switching offices late next week, and realized that he wouldn't have a chance to pack/organize for the move beforehand. I offered to go with him today to help out, and to also be an additional warm body in case he got caught in commute traffic driving home, and needed to use the commuter lane.

Anyway, we got to the campus right before noon, and Dick decided we should eat before we got too involved in packing. That's when it occurred to me: I was going to eat in the campus cafeteria!

How was the experience? Why, it was quite nice, really. I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of choices offered, so followed Dick's lead, and opted for a simple soup and salad combo.

Unfortunately, all the rest of the guys who work there who I would have liked to have seen were not working on campus today.

I'll have to go back another time! :)

Labels: A day in the life, dick

Today is the 8-year Anniversary of the day that Dick and I met!

Amazing!

Still the luckiest girl ever... :)

Labels: dick

I was just going through our pictures from Halloween, and came across this one:



I laughed, because i realized that Dick took this photo. He's so much taller than me, that this is probably what his vantage point is whenever we stand next to each other.

It's no wonder he always teases me about how short I am!

Labels: dick