Up the rocky mountain they will go

i'd better post this as an intro before we go take a long (time wise and distance wise) trip to Colorado. an 8 day trip from july 1st to the 8th. here's how the plan is laid out.

our outdoors man, woman and child friend... a.k.a jept, anis and baby adam will drive from Peoria to our place friday june 30th. the 3 of them plus the 2 of us will leave for Colorado (a 12 hour trip) saturday evening after all world cup matches have been viewed. Brazil lawan France tuuuu, tak boleh miss... bila la ronaldinho nie nak score gol.

upon reaching destination, we'll go around doing tourist stuff. then a 3.8 mile hike up the rocky mountain to the campsite. 3 nights and 2 days roughin' it in the american wilderness. more walking from campsite to interesting spots. nature uuuhhh and aaahhh, snap-snap pics of every critter, rock and plant. cooking and sleeping under the moonlight... that kind of thing.

this kind of trip is the first for chot and i. we've gone to a few campings of the "park your car nearby, proper bathroom provided" kind. but this "haul your own food, tent, sleeping bag on own back and "going" in the bushes" kind is a bit (okay a lot) different.

i worry about the "going" in the bushes part. i don't think i can and chot also expressed the same worry. i mean no.1 ok la, no.2... eerrmmm... NO. so we will berusaha to keep it alllll in until we reach civilization.

another worry is of bears. i hope none come to visit our campsite... maybe baby adam's pile of dirty diapers (we have to bring all non-biodegrabable items back down with us) will deter any bears from coming close.

so i wish us luck... "GOOD LUCK".

The Cake

as promised, i'm sharing pictures of the (so-so looking) Father's Day cake. these are all the pictures i took, i was so into making... (errmm worrying of failing is more like it) that i forgot to take more pics.

after baking, removing the cake "bump"... an important step because i wanted to stack another layer.
leftover... chocolate stash for the coming week.the chocolate ganache. it is essentially heavy cream and chocolate. the recipe asks for heavy cream but i can only find heavy whipping cream. i guess it's the same thing. and since i wanted to whip this chocolatey goodness up into a lighter texture, it didn't make me worry. the end product. the writing on the cake... my 3rd try. all in all, boleh laaa... the taste??... i guess it could taste better, but it didn't taste bad... plus, we all ate it with vanilla ice cream... cake and ice cream, a combination that will always work... always...
i was suppose to bring the cake to the saturday farewell picnic but we all came up with a better plan. since all of us were meeting up again on sunday for world cup viewing and nasi lemak eating, the cake will be consumed sunday. since sunday is father's day and since sunday get together is indoors and since i didn't want the ganache to melt... and since... and since...

that's it. the story of the cake.

bake a cake

this saturday, there's a farewell picnic of sorts for Vivi and family (they're regular makan2 get together buddies) moving from Peoria to N. Carolina. i offered to bake a father's day cake since this weekend is a father's day weekend.

the plan is chocolate cake, and i am going to... yes, bake the cake but most importantly

1) attempt making... and
2) applying ganache frosting. AND
3) try very hard to make the writings on the cake look decent.

why ganache frosting u ask??... well once i watched alton brown on good eats made some and he used the word "easy". also, i have cooking chocolate sitting pretty and doing nothing in the pantry (it's the unsweetened variety, not fit for consumption unless altered in form and taste. this contributed to it's long existence in le' pantry). so, combining "easy" and availability, i've decided on ganache...

; )... as soon as i peel myself from this computer, i'll go do cake/ grocery shopping : )...

pictures will follow later...

a quick one

have tons to do so a quick post... i want to post a picture of the first rose of the year. likey likey. most of the roses we planted are hibrid tea roses. they are of the long-stemmed variety. saje jek, rasa macam cool coz that's what amoi2 kat cameron highlands jual... : )...

reminded me of the time i accompanied cikgu bai dan cikgu zt and cikgu shah pi cameron highlands. we took a bus full of form 1 kids ( i think)... the trip up wasn't as bad but the trip down... masyaallah, torture!!!... some puked and i was questioning the usang college bus's breaking capability when we were roller coaster-ing our way down those slopes... torture...

and the kids were buying roses, like a lot of roses... even the boys got into the action... i don't blame them when us grown ups were also feverish buying...

but alas, halfway down the mountain all roses wilted. when we got to gerik, they were wrinkly. some optimistic students (and teachers) placed roses in buckets of water and as i walked to class the next day i saw sorry looking roses dalam timba aligning the hostel corridor...

Eye Candy

i woke up and headed straight to te computer to check my email. got this forwarded one from a friend and decided to post it on my blog. usually saturday mornings i'd be busy preparing something special for breakfast but chot is out since 7.45. dia pi menembak... and if doesn't get home in 30 minutes... i'm gonna have breakfast without him...

the title of the email is "THIS GUY IS FROM INDIA AND HE IS THE WINNER OF THE MOST GOOD LOOKING GUY IN THE WORLD".

peerrrggghhhh...

i wonder if he's gay??...

and speaking of gay-ness. we were at the mall a couple of weeks back and this middle aged guy was walking towards us. he was wearing shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, he's bald and tan and very fit. has one of those mustaches like the village people... so naturally, my first thought was "oh misai dia macam orang village people la" and as i was looking at him, i caught him looking at chot, from top to bottom i tell ya!!!... reallllyy checking my hubby out...

i told chot in malay "orang tu gay, dia tengok u dari atas sampai bawah"... and then i was bothered for the following couple of days... i guess it doesn't matter if a she or a he looks at my spouse with ideas of hooking up... anyone looking at my hubby like that, makes me a bit pissed...

hehheh... my chot is my chot is my chot...

How exciting... the World Cup is starting

the first game is currently playing on t.v (Germany vs. Costa Rica)...

we're recording it so later when chot gets home from work, we can watch it together. for this month, we've upgraded our cable services to include the DVR service. DVR stands for Digital Video Recording. It'a like VCR but much2 better. With DVR, we can record up to 80 hours of programming, watch any of them whenever we like. Aside from pausing and rewinding the program we've recorded (duhh??...) we can even pause live programming... LIVE PROGRAMMING. and replay critical moments... very useful in this world cup season, now that's gold : )...

and, i think (always did, always will...) that angelina jolie is some kind of beautiful... gorgeous... sensuous : )... see, when we put in the DVR unit, we temporarily got all movie channels. they were showing Mr. and Mrs. Smith... man... she's soooo cantik.

of dirt, rocks, wood and blooms

the planter is 98% complete. i somewhat feel it could look better... i.e use all railroad timber all around but that would mean prolonging the process, hauling big chunks of rocks over long distances and spending more on materials. it's ok... i'll plant something that will overtime cover that rock face. click here for pictures.

also to report, my first rose of the season is blooming. the story of these roses is that in our excitement buying and planting them last year, we made a little boo-boo... so 3 of the hibrid tea roses didn't come back. i was about to toss the whole roses idea out the window but instead replaced/ put in new ones. hopefully they'll grow nice and give me nice blooms.

6.6.6

was yesterday.. i told myself i will write something on this memorable date. but i didn't... am totally unmotivated.

so here i am a day later... the next row of sixes will be another 1000 years 6.6.3006... errmmm waitsaminute, there will be 6.6.2066. apa2 pun in both cases i'll definately already be in the ground.

the movie "The Omen", a remake of the old one premiered on 6.6.2006, very fitting indeed. all day yesterday on t.v, the programs had a similar theme... the anti-christ, satan, exorcism... stuff like that.

but then i went and read the malaysian online newspapers and it was a 180 degree take on the date. it's a good date for the chinese, a good date to get married... and if one could manage, a good date for your baby to be born on...

it's not in our culture as malays to interpret or associate negatives or positives for certain dates. but some will choose nice combination of numbers for weddings... chot suggested 7.7.2007 to my sis if she is looking for a wedding date... but unless it's on a weekend or a school holiday, it won't work as a wedding date.

that's it...

we went on a date

yesterday we went for a movie date. haven't seen a movie at the cinema for the longest time. being in a dark room with flashing lights gives me a massive headache... a recent fenomena... i blame the lupron 100% : )...

so a few hours before we went, i took eleve (macam panadol) as a precaution. i wasn't about to walk out in a middle of the showing with a head that's about to burst... besides, it a movie i wanted to see.

it was the latest (and last) X-men movie and i quite enjoyed it. i read that it got a lot of bad reviews. most probably from the comic book fanatics or those with so high expectations... ye la kan, it being the last in the trilogy they kot wanted it end with lots and lots of umphh!!!...

i won't divulge specific details but it sucks to see some good guys die... it's a shame and still a bit bothered... wtf win??... they're just characters!!!... this must be influences of chot and his anime...

++++

today's friday and we plan to continue rebuilding the planter (another planter...). this one is located behind the house. the back wall is low and the glass is creeping into it. chot bought railway timber (huge 6"x8"x8') a month or so ago and we just started the work a couple of weeks back... it's progressing veeerryyy slow... like everything with us, more rehat dari kerja...

i want to put a picture of before we did anything to it but something is wrong somewhere, preventing me from doing so... later then.

i wanted to use it to grow vegetables/ food stuff but chot is not budging from his plans of stuffing it with flowers. he said that vegetables belongs way back at the end of the property... ok la, i don't care, his plans is ok osso...

with the beginning of the sunny season and working outside, we are slowly getting dark. we don't use sunscreen coz they give me rashes, and chot doesn't use them because he refuses to put any lotion like stuff on his skin. he is getting darker faster due to longer time spend outside (he mows the lawn and plays football... i mean soccer).

hassan, his kulit putih bosnian friend remarked of the "tan" chot has, at which point chot answered "this is my natural skin color man, it's just turning back to normal". hassan said "cool"... here, fair skinned mat sallehs want to be tan... and people in malaysia/ asia in general wants to be fair (what's that one face cream product kat malaysia??... "fair and lovely"??...) macam- macam...

so happy weekend then... may it be a good and enjoyable one.