Chicken Salad Veronique

It is almost the long Labor Day weekend. The weather finally gets better now. It will be cooler around 70F, sunny and dry. Have some friends in town to visit and we mostly will try kick back and relax. We might go to see the Wisconsin Highland Game this weekend as well. I volunteered for that event last year as a first aid provider and it was quite fun. Only two heat related problems as I could recall.

Last night, I tried to make a new dish, Chicken Salad Veronique. Roast the chicken with olive oil, salt and pepper. Once it is done and cool. Then toss the chicken with fresh green grapes, celery, tarragon leaves, mayonnaise, salt and pepper. It turned out very good and delicious!

Well, hope y'all have a nice long weekend!

Lunar Eclipse This Morning

I still feel tired after getting up at 4:30am this morning to watch the lunar eclipse. The sky was actually not very clear and the cloud covered the moon from time to time. But I did get a good 20-minute observation of the moon eclipse. It was kind of interesting experience. However, I am tired and yawning now.

Gree Bay Visit

Finally, it is a sunny weekend. Went to Green Bay to help friends' daughter moving back to college. She has several big boxes, luggage, TV, clothes and a refrigerator. Lots of heavy stuffs to carry from the parking lot and walked almost 2 blocks to her dorm, and up to 3 floors. Fortunately, it was a small size of the refrigerator so i could carry it all the way by myself. I don't think I need to go to gym tomorrow. Guess I should not let people know that I lift weight and quite strong. :)


On the way back to Milwaukee, we stopped by one of the grocery store, Larry's Piggly Wiggly. Somehow, the name of that chain store always makes me smile. :)

Red Cross Volunteer Work

It has been almost 7 years since I started to volunteer for the American Red Cross in Southeast Wisconsin. I am part of the FAST (First Aid Service Team). We provide the first aid service for lots of local festivals such as summerfest, Fiesta Italian, German Fest, Irish Fest, etc. We also work for most of the fund-raising walk/ride such as MS Walk, Miller Lite Ride For the Arts, or AIDS walk. Most of those activities happen on the weekends of the summer so I spend lots of my weekends in the festival ground in the Milwaukee lakefront.

I talked a little bit about my volunteer work in my old post, Me And Summerfest. It is really a great way to know more people and also contribute back to the community. Of course, it does not hurt that I can enjoy those festivals without paying the entrance fee after my shift. I really to learn more of the medical skills and get to practice them. Most of the time, all we got was just small bruise or band-aid condition. A little more exciting case would be drunk or heat problem. Personally, I really don't like to deal with the drunk victim. They often will puke all over you if you don't pay attention to the condition. Usually, the newbie is usually asked to deal with it. I think remember that a victim vomit on my sneakers during my first volunteer year. It was just too nasty so I had to throw that pair of sneakers away. Nowadays, I will always warn the new volunteer about that. It is also fun to work with EMT, Paramedics and Bell ambulance during those festivals.

Through the years, I got more trainings and became the CPR instructor as well. Now I can help train the newcomers to certify for the professional rescuer CPR/AED. It really makes the summer more interesting. Well, it looks like that I will have to work for Mexican Fest tonight. Hope that it stops raining so the festival can have decent crowd. Have a nice weekend!

Coconut Cake For Rainy Day

It is getting annoyed that we have heavy down pouring rain everyday. It has been very hot and wet recently. Today is the 5th day with the thunderstorm/rain and the temperature is around 85 degree. I almost think I am back to Florida. But it even did not rain continuously so many days back to my days in Florida.

Anyway, due to the rainy weather, I decided to make a cake and devote it to the blog friend, Jimmy. It is a coconut cake with vanilla pudding filling and vanilla-whip cream frosting. However, since Jimmy was actually living quite far away and a bunch of my friends stopped by coincidentally when the cake was done, a big piece was already gone before I could even take a picture. And the whole cake disappeared in less than one hour. Guess everybody must be pretty hungry and boring in this wet rainy day. Hope the rain stops soon.

Rush Hour 3

Okay, I admit that I have seen way too many movies this summer. However, it has been raining since yesterday noon so I could not go running outdoor as I planned to. Naturally, to see a movie would come as the best option in such a rainy day. It took a while to decide between "Stardust" and "Rush Hour 3". As usual, a comedy usually won.

"Rush Hour 3" is pretty much using the same formula as the previous two, that is, Chris Tucker's funny jokes plus Jackie Chan's ass-kicking actions. It has some funny moments and good action sequences, especially, the final Eiffel Tower fighting scenes. And the surprising cameo of Roman Polanski as a French cop is actually quite funny. However, it does show a little bit of getting old for this series of the movies. The storyline is just silly and sometimes does not even make sense. But as an entertaining summer movie, I will give it a thump up. At least, I think it is much better than the "Superbad", which I think it is really super bad. If you want a 2-hour of relaxed fun movie time, give "Rush Hour 3" a try.

Rainy Day Pool Party

It is finally the weekend again. There are surprisingly so many parties to go this summer. Today, it was a pool party in one of the friends' big house. They have a big mansion and a nice size of outdoor heated pool. Their 3 kids really like to go swimming and play in the pool in the summer. They even rent this big outdoor 30-ft tall air slide for all the kids that come to the party. Unfortunately, it rained hard the whole day during the party. The rain made the slide too slippery for the kids to play on it. What a pity.

I made some lemon bars for the party. I made slightly change of the recipe to cut down the tartness of the lemon but still kept the good flavor. And it received pretty well in the party, especially, from women. Guess most of the ladies just like the tart stuff more.

Since it was rainy outside, everybody was crowded indoor. The food was very good. They had a food catering inside the house and there were tons of desserts, pies, cookies, snacks. They also got a 150" plus big home theater with the customized airplane first class kind of seats so all the kids happily gathered there to watch "Shrieks" and "Sponge Bob".

Overall, it was a nice party and of course, I ate too much again. If it stops raining tomorrow, I will have to go for another 5-mile run again to consume all the sugar calories.

My Avatar Walks

It is almost weekend again! It has been raining a lot and gets to very humid and hot here recently. Pretty quiet and nothing special so far this week. Got 3 phone interviews and should have 3 on-site interviews next week for the new job. Hope something good and solid will come soon.
By the way, just found out from Simpsons movie site that I could make my avatar walk!Have a nice weekend!

Summer Weekend

It's another nice summer weekend again. The weather is still quite warm and humid. Apparently, the Hibiscus in the garden really likes the weather since it has been blooming like crazy with each flower the size of a dinner plate (7" plus).

Did not really plan to do anything special. Just relax. Went to a lunch business party yesterday and had potato salad, one bratwurst, and some chicken. The brat was good but the chicken was cold and tasted a little bit raw. Fortunately, we got to go to the Thai food restaurant to have some delicious chicken Pud Thai for the dinner. Pud Thai basically is a rice noodle dish cooked with vegetable, peanut sauce and the meat of choice. Yum! And the leftover will be for tonight's dinner then.

Aw, it is almost 4pm on Sunday afternoon again. Why is weekend always passing so fast? Hope that everybody has a nice weekend.

Simpsons Movie

Finally got sometime to watch the Simpsons movie. It is a fun movie to watch, especially, if you are a Simpsons cartoon fan. The story line is quite simple (or silly for some parts of it). Basically, the Springfield was under pollution crisis, and Homer messed up with it even more and caused the whole city to be quarantined by a crazy government official. Eventually, the Simpsons family resolved the problem and saved the town.

My favorite scene of the movie is the part that wild animals help Homer and Marge strip off the clothes so they can be happily to get on bed to have some XXX. It showed that Homer and Marge kissed then switched to those wild animals watching on the side. Their expressions of seeing the human sex were so funny that it was worth the price of the movie ticket. I would definitely recommend it for sure.

Weekend Party At Lake Geneva

The weekend really passed fast. Went to a party on Sunday. The party was held at the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva. The place used to be the Playboy club back a long time ago.

I was really surprised how big the place was. After driving through the entrance, it took us almost another 15 minutes to get to the banquet area. There were at least 4 high-scaled(priced) golf courses and multiple condos/spas/restaurants on the way. Needless to say, it is the place for some rich people. I don't think that I would ever go in there if it was not for that party.

The party was to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the friend's parents. 50 years! That's quite a long time. All their 7 kids, 20 something grand kids and the first great grand kid were there. People asked them about the secret to stay married so long. The husband was half seriously saying that you just got to listen to whatever your wife said, or at least pretend that you were listening. :)

The food was the usual summer picnic food in buffet style. Hot dogs, sausage, grill chicken, salad bars, and of course, disserts. There were lemon tarts, apple pies, and 4 kinds of ice cream bars. Fortunately, the party was indoor since it was very hot and humid that day (90 degrees!). Overall, it was a nice party!

Wisconsin State Fair

It is the time of the year again: Wisconsin State Fair. Every year, in the middle of the hot summer, it will be the time to go to the state fair for animals watching and cream puffs tasting. Even though I don't really like the high-fat content and sweet taste of the cream puffs, I still give it a try every year.

Basically, it is just bulk of the whip cream in the middle of two pastry buns. However, people here just eat them like crazy during the state fair.

Besides all the food and the show of the cows (lots of them since it is diary country here in Wisconsin), sheep, ducks, chicken, and horses, there are concerts every day featuring popular pop, blue, and country musicians. I might go to see the concert of Lonestar but not sure yet. I also want to check out the agriculture and baking competition. There are always some huge vegetables, fruits and flowers to see. However, the 90 degree heat the high humidity really make it not that comfortable to hang around outside. Well, hope that it will be a nice weekend and also got a party to go on this coming Sunday!