Weekend events

So I've been quiet since Friday. Mostly been mulling over my job change, as well as making efforts to change my general life patterns. It'll be nice to get into a place that has a real sized kitchen. I'll be hanging out in there a lot.
Wedding
Last Saturday (the 14th) was Tina's sister's wedding; and Tina wanted Ngoc & I to go so that she didn't feel totally alone. I think it was more for Paul's sake than for Tina's, because she was busy with the whole wedding event thing. But its fine; they stuffed us in a back corner, and we all just kinda sat around, chatted and such. It was good to see folks again. I did have to wear dress-up clothes, but I tried to get past that. Twice before the food started coming out, as the place started to fill up (mind you Paul & I were the only white people, and probably the only non-Vietnamese, people in sight), twice a waitress came over to our table with a handful (and I do mean a handful, probably about 10 total) of forks. Twice. Now I, being one to not refuse technological advances when they're offered, happily secured a fork for myself. I'm a member of the school of thought that believes that having a multi-pronged instrument is more practical for eating than trying to use two sticks, but to each his own. So we got a good laugh about someone sending over the forks to the white-guy table. Haha. Cute.
So Paul & I had Ngoc do a lot of the translating for us, but, much to our table's surprise, a lot of the speakers spoke in both Vietnamese and English. I'm not sure if they were doing that just for us two white guys, or if that's part of the American influence.
So the wedding went like this: we arrived, and kinda stood around for a bit. Ngoc signed herself in (since I'm "guest") and she & I got escorted to our table. We sat there at our own for a bit talking, and then Paul came over. We talked with Paul for a bit, and then Minh Chau & Quang (not sure about that spelling, but I bet its not spelled "Kwang" like my English schooling would suggest) arrived. The room filled up (the fork incident occurred) and then the newly weds arrived. They milled around up at the stage area for a bit, while the room continued to talk and ignored the people on stage speaking (or so it appeared, but perhaps Vietnamese have a different way of listening than we do). The first thing that happened was the MC started to thank all the people that came, and the camera dude would point his video camera at the table, and people would clap. Now, I noticed that, amidst the applause, there was some cheering and whistling sounds (like what you'd hear at a concert or sports event). I asked Ngoc if anyone in this room would cheer and whistle, and she said no. It seemed a bit farfetched to be cheering and whistling. As the "thanks" went on (and yes they did go on, for quite a while), I noticed a particularly loud whistle that always occurred about 3 seconds into the applause. And as the MC went on, the people got less important, and so the room applauded less. However, this whistle continued un-affected by the importance of the people it was whistling for. I leaned over to Paul: "I think they have an applause track that the DJ is playing." I told Ngoc & she passed it down. We all agreed that they did have a fake applause track. Tacky? To me most certainly, but I don't want to pass judgement. Maybe they all like that extra "oomf" that an audio track adds.
The wedding party sat down, and they started playing really loud music. They had some professional singers, singing under the guise of being a karaoke singer, but he certainly was not just an average Joe singing karaoke.
The food started to arrive, a total of about 7 courses I think. They weren't large, and they were "family-style" for you white folks who're in the dark about Vietnamese food. One thing I noticed through all 7 or so courses, was that nearly all the food was rather slimy. A lot of Vietnamese food is seafood based, so we had stuff like sea cucumber, and such. The only food that wasn't slimy was the roasted quail. When I saw those, I thought, "there's not enough meat on there to feed a hamster", and I was right. I didn't eat one for the above reason, but both Ngoc & Paul did. Paul made his dance, since it was a whole quail carcass. Ngoc ate the bits of meat off the legs, and didn't bother with the body; probably a good idea, since there's little meat there anyway. So this quail thing got me thinking: why would anyone want to cook a quail in the first place? They're such small birds. It'd be like cooking a pigeon (without all the disease and filth). And also, isn't it illegal to cook and eat the state bird? I recall there being some laws against picking a poppy, the state flower. So other than the quail the rest of the food was good. Slimy, but edible.
The wedding party then goes around to each table, and the bride & groom at supposed to thank each table for coming. That's all fine and dandy, but when your DJs gonna be playing music at dance club volume, and you're going around speaking to each table, you're gonna have to shout (or use a voice amplification device). The bride seems to have done most of the talking, at least at our table. Now when I saw her approaching, I saw she was carrying a microphone. Now normally this device does fall under the "voice amplification device" category, but they seemed to have this one switched off. Lord only knows why. So she talked. None of us heard her. We all smiled. One of the Vietnamese guys (my apologies for not remember their names. I'm recalling this as an observer rather than a participant) stood up, and the bride passed the microphone to him. He spoke. No one heard. We all smiled. He passed the deceased microphone to the cameraman, and the party moved on, presumably to repeat the ritual at subsequent tables. As it turns out, this microphone isn't supposed to work. Its all just for the camera... now, why in the world would you ever have a microphone in a place that needs a microphone, and only have it as a prop for the camera? Its beyond me.
So the evening went on. More loud music. The food ended, they turned the lights off and revealed the dance floor. They cranked the music up, and people started dancing. Ngoc & I slipped out a back door so we didn't have to weave our way back to the front. And so ended the evening. All in all, interesting, but not unpleasant. But it would probably be unbearable if I had to be there by myself. Its not really a wedding format that appeals to me, obviously, because its not what I grew up with. And I'm definitely lucky, as Ngoc does not like this form of a wedding ceremony either. Too much red, and loud music and stuff. I'm very lucky to have her. She's beautiful, and she's okay with having a more American style wedding.
First Day of Work
Monday was my first day in the new job. It was very interesting to be back in a Peet's as an employee rather than a customer. And it will be great to get back into the routine of being a barista and such.
Yes, I mentioned my employer's name. No I do not intend to slander them. I will not complain about work here, in such a way that even remotely might jeopardize my employment. I will probably have bad days at work, but details will not be revealed if they're employee related. And never names, duh. More details will be revealed if it was an unpleasant customer. But again, never names.
Second Day of Work
I had training up in the Menlo Park store yesterday, but I totally mis-calculated the drive time. I forgot about traffic, and how metering lights create traffic jams. So I got to the training a half-hour late, swung into the nearest parking space, and dashed inside. I recall seeing out of the corner of my eye a green X-hour parking sign, but didn't see how long. When I got in, my trainer said that the rule is 5 minutes late is okay, but anything after that they have to say "Nope sorry. Let's reschedule." I told him I've worked for Peet's for 3 years before, and since this class was uber-basic, he said it was okay for me to stay. So I got a refresher on how to brew coffee in the urn, how to brew tea by the pot, and so on. There was very little new material. On our break, I went out to check the sign I had parked near. It said "1-Hour parking". Crap. I'd already been there for one hour. There wasn't any other parking in sight, and I didn't really have time to drive around looking. So I said a quick prayer, and asked God to smite any meter maids that came along to chalk my tires. When the training was over, I hurried out to make sure my truck hadn't gotten towed, and thankfully it didn't. I did get chalked though, and had a ticket on my windshield. Considering the fear I was operating under (I wouldn't have a vehicle when I got out of training), a $35 parking ticket was a relief. Next Monday however, when I have my next training, I'm leaving wicked early, and I'm gonna cruise around looking for a decent place to park. Damn cities.
I drove back down to San Jose, picked up Ngoc and we went to get some lunch, and went to Barnes & Noble. We wandered around (who doesn't like wandering in a book store?) and I picked up a Moleskine for my Myst notes. We went to Fry's, and wandered around there. Looked at our desired Apple hardware, and I looked at some Network Hard drive enclosures. The external hard-drive product line (at least at Fry's) is pretty sad, and I figured I'd be better off doing what I'm doing, and running my Linux box as a file server. Since all those "NAS" (Network Attached Storage I think) seem to only do FTP. Lame. We came home, and promptly collapsed for a nap. We woke up a bit later, watched some Food Network, and I took her home. All in all, a nice day. :)
Mini-vacation
Which brings me to today. Since I'm in training still, I don't have another training class until next week. So I get a bit of a mini-vacation here. Unpaid, but I think its actually good for me to have a small break. It provides a separation between the two jobs, so one doesn't seem to just spill into the other. And that's all for now.

NP: Paperback Writer from the album "One" by The Beatles