Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Golf Cart One


The text came just a few moments after 12 noon: "Golf 5:30 today. Longview."

Crap, and I still have a bunch of stuff to finish today.

I often wonder what it must be like to be a "regular" person. Someone who works a nine to five job, wears a suit, collects a paycheck and goes home to a house, wife and 2.5 children. These are the people who go to soccer in the afternoon, have off on weekends and for whom Sunday Brunch really means something.

They're also the people who can plan a round of golf after the working day ends at 5pm.

As for myself, I'm trying to compress my work day into four hours. Total. At least I'm trying to make it look that way. The truth is that it's all-consuming. A true 24-7 obsession. While I was in California, it was not unusual for me to check in at opening to see how things were going. And considering the time-difference, opening is 4am in Los Angeles.

Regardless of what tomfoolery I had been engaging, or who's flat I ended up, the morning phone call to see how things were going, then another call a couple of hours later to see how the day was progressing caused my staff to ask me when I actually slept. Truth is, I sleep very little. Ready to crash at 4am, a call to check in, about three hours of sleep and then another call around 9am L.A. time.

So, while I try to make it look like I'm working a twenty-hour work week, I'm actually working non-stop.

Which brings me to today's round of golf. Three hours of no phone calls. Amazing. Not one phone call or issue to address in three hours. Hard to believe. I work with great people. And once in a while, these great people give me the chance to have a few hours to myself to do whatever I want.

14 holes, 1 birdie, 2 bogies and lots of water later, it was time to put it all away and go back to work. Afterall, there are strawberries in need to my attention...

Somewhere Out There

Dog Days of Summer

New Shoe Madness

The Day's Bounty

Pickling Daikon & Carrots


A test batch of daikon and carrots.

My family is from the Philippines, which means that I'm SouthEast Asian. The question is: can a SouthEast Asian guy like myself recreate the flavors of Vietnam - another SouthEast Asian nation?

Already I'm playing with the ingredients and adding a little coconut sukang maasim to the mix to see what will happen. I guess we'll see what happens in five days.