give it up to the 'city' of lakewood

i woke up this morning to the site of heavy wet snow. after brushing off the car, i headed to work on the usual route - straight down colfax. the streets in d/t denver weren't bad at all... just wet from the melting snow... but once i got up the west side hill to the city of lakewood, completely different story. it seemed as if the city was blind and ignorant to snow removal. for the whole stretch of colfax that crosses lakewood, each car was met by up to 4" of slush with every possibility of ice beneath. then, once over the hill and into golden, it was about 1/4" of snow on top of ice patches. i think i'll write a letter to the city of lakewood to commend them on their upkeep of city roads.

d-town and lake'hood' in a fog

i woke up this morning thinking i'd be driving down colfax to work in the rain. instead, i was met by a dense fog where the visibility was a 1/4 mile at best. it was a nice change from the usual nothing, it hasn't even snowed in quite some time. and driving through lakewood was pretty eerie with the leafless trees lining the center island; it felt like a tim burton film. then, two-thirds the way through lakewood, the fog was no more.

story time... at 2 o'clock AM

this morning, i woke up to the cries of the little one. p was already awake and had been for about 3 hrs feeding apk - crazy. he'll feed, fall asleep, wake up and feed all within matters of minutes and continue this pattern for hours on end. and thankfully, there has always been an end, for an hour or two. this time, though, he didn't seem interested in food, just wanted to fuss. so after a diaper change and a couple paces in the apartment, i put him in his bouncy chair and read him a story, 2 to be precise. the first one was a barney book. yes, that's right, barney. my cousin from nj sent us a care package that included four books and barney's easter parade was one of them. so poor, i must say, the writing and rythming. couldn't believe i actually read the whole thing. but, it did the trick as far as pacifying the little one for some time. i asked my dad to retrieve some children books from their bookshelves and bring them with when they visit on sunday. i can't wait. if i have to read that barney book again, i don't know what i'll do.

did we just buy a house?

for the past few months, p and i have been looking around denver for a house. two weeks ago we received a call from one of the builders at stapleton development and filled paper work for a house. last week, we signed the contract, but were given a seven day writ of recision. if we didn't want to proceed after seven days, we could just call up and they would put the house back on the market. well. that seven days ended saturday at 6pm. i believe p was feeding apk at the time, but at 615 i turned to her and said, 'hey! we're home owners.' not quite, but the ball is rolling and looks like we're gonna be buying a house. crazy year this 30 is turning out to be. never expected it, but bring it on.

a new baby and an old back

on jan 18th, 2005, 11:24am, p and i were blessed with the birth of our child, aiden paul kuo (more info here) we are both thankful to our friend gretchen for assisting with the birth since i've been having a nagging back injury for the last two weeks, which has sent me straight to the floor for 3 days, both weeks. i am a bit tired, so i added the link to our new baby blog for simplicity, instead of typing everything over.

it's funny. i thought i'd be much more tired from staying up all night, but actually, i got really good rest. p had an epidural and the drs and nurses would give us times when they would return to the room so i was able to sleep on the bench for a couple hours at a time. and since the pushing was only about 15 minutes long, it was all over quite quickly. and the rest of the stay was quite easy for me, really, since p's got the goods, but i do believe i woke up each time the baby came into the room just to take a look.

27 and 1

when i was growing up in my parents' house, often times on the weekends my mom or dad would make us homemade dumplings, scallion pancakes, or some other wonderful chinese meal that required quite a bit of preparation.
i finally found an acceptable rolling pin at crate & barrel, of all places. for 5USD i got a rolling pin, 2 wooden spoons, a wooden spatula and a wood wisk. not sure what to do with the wisk, but on 01.01.05, i put the rolling pin to use by making dumplings.
i started around 830pm working together the flour and water. while letting the dough rise, i helped p rearrange some furniture and hang some posters while preparing the filling of pork, nappa cabbage, green onions, soy sauce and sugar. after about two hours of rolling and pinching, i was finally done. 27 dumplings were yielded with an extra quarter of dough. having an abundance of green onions, i decided to make a scallion pancake.
at 11pm, a sleepy p and i enjoyed six dumplings. reminded me of childhood.

image: finished dumplings

new years weekend walks

New Years Day - 01.01.05

for the past week nad a half, p's been craving dairy queen. last week while shopping for the receiver we passed by two dairy queens, both of which were closed... possibly for xmas. throughout the week, we've had a couple of ice cream pops but those didn't curb the craving. so finally today, after we woke and watched the ending of the last emporer, we got on the walking shoes and caught the 0 bus at 17th and california, passing a man on a bike and exchanging new years greetings. we took the bus south down broadway to the 2200 block south, the nearest DQ.
after me having a chocolate chip cookie dough and p having a snicker's bar blizzard, we walked north on broadway through antique alley, had a quick bite to eat at thai basil's at one broadway, past our favorite stores (decade and crown), past the denver public library, past the capitol building and back to our home. all in all we walked 6.25 miles. woah. didn't really realize it, but after checking the streets and maps program, we did a whopping 6.25 miles around and from south denver in five hours. not a bad day out with the preggo.

New Years Eve - 12.31.04

having a day off from work due to the holiday falling on a saturday, p and i decided to head out for our weekly walk around denver. this time, it was to run a few errands, while also getting in the exercise. our first stop was the post office. while in line, a man behind us started to complain about the fact that the post office wanted him to retreive 13USD in cash to pay his PO BOX... apparently he had neither check nor credit card, how else is he going to pay? and then launched into a speal about how the city of denver is hiring 'foreigners' to work the parking spaces during rockies games and how he had a civil suit against the city that he was going to win followed up about how he was traveling to baltimore to work those parking lots, but would be delayed cause of his pending suit. the most depressing thing about this man was that his daughter was with him. i'm sure she was a bit embarrassed... and hopefully wouldn't grow up jaded like her father.
the next stop on the grand tour was the asian market. i've been in the market for a rolling pin for the last month or so... especially after making homemade ravioli and rolling the dough out with a plastic cup. this time, i was in the mood for making dumplings. as rolling pins go these days, they are all outfitted with ball bearings and have handles and a central roller. it is very difficult to find one my mom uses. just a cylinder of wood, nothing fancy, but since i am used to seeing/using that type of pin, that's what i've been looking for. unfortunately the asian market didn't have anything, but we did pick up a head of nappa cabbage (recommended for dumplings).
on the way back from lodo, we headed into radioshack to purchase a splitter to create a bigger sound when watching vhs tapes. we don't have a stereo vcr, and by pumping in the sound through our receiver, we can create a bigger sound- all of which i knew, but the salesperson at radioshack was a bit perplex, but pointed us in the right direction anyway.
our, unbeknownst to us, last stop was at TJ maxx (max for the minimum at the minimum price). we figured if nothing else, we could possibly find a rolling pin for cheap at this store. instead, we found ourselves leaving with four retro blue plates (that go really well with some plates we have in the cupboard) and a bamboo cutting board. i've also been eyeing a wood cutting board for about four months. we first saw them at wild oats, but due to our pending child and my not have an engineering job at the time, we felt it would be splurging. we still felt it was a bit of splurging, but this time it was about ten dollars cheaper than at the regular stores. and the plates, only 5USD each. not bad finds, i'd say... and we also found our coming baby a sleeper onesie, hat and receiving blanket.