September 8 - 27: Off Street Cafe, Paige & Tiffany, cleaning, fixing computer, short lamp, and unavoidable gluten

There's this new word I've been hearing/using for the past few years: foodie. It's someone who's really into eating good (tasty) food. I'm not a foodie, but it seems like everyone else is.

Anyway, my cousin Mark got me hooked on this Food Network show called, "Restaurant: Impossible." This guy and his team help struggling restaurants turn around in only 2 days. It's actually a very nice show; you always feel warm and fuzzy at the end.

One of the restaurants on the show is the Off Street Cafe in Cerritos, CA. It's pretty close to us, so I wanted to try it out. We went for lunch.

The inside of the Off Street Cafe, after the makeover. Very white and cheery. I like the plates as wall decorations.

Although it was lunch time, they serve breakfast all day. Mark would want me to point out that all the food showing isn't his, even though it looks like it. :-)

Both our breakfasts were quite sufficient. For my starch side, I had to choose corn tortillas (gluten-free diet). Mark chose biscuits and gravy. You can see both in the picture. The tortillas worked really well with my meal, but I can't shake the feeling that Mark chose more wisely…

The Off Street Cafe's cinnamon roll. I think that's melted cream cheese on top. It was literally dripping off the cinnamon roll.

Mmmmm...

From Off Street Cafe

If you watch the episode of the show, you'll want to visit the cafe. One of the owners invested her entire retirement in the cafe and had been working there for decades. The other owner had so much trouble making ends meet that she was waitressing 30 hours per week to get by. All things considered, I give the Off Street Cafe 5 stars out of 5!

From Paige & Tiffany

These are my friends Paige & Tiffany. We're in the same Bible study group. Both girls were celebrating their birthdays that week. I had bought all these boxes of Gluten-Free Rice Krispies, so I made Rice Krispy treats.

One weekend, my relatives and I had a special mission: cleaning.

It started sprinkling that day. The drops reminded me of puppy feet.

My cousin Cindy was in charge of doing laundry. Lots of laundry. Halfway through the day, my cousin Pat and I went to help her out.

See, here we all, all smiles. Ready to do laundry.

Overall, I think Cindy ended up doing laundry for 9 hours straight. And I mean straight. We had half a dozen washers and dryers running in the laundromat continuously. (Did you know they have washers that can do 6 loads at once!) I don't remember sitting down once.

From Cleaning

So by the end, we were a little tired. But at least we could still laugh about it.

Our new motto is, "So many sheets!"

A few days later, I had to fix a computer for one of my uncles. The computer had simply been moved from one home to another in a car, but now it wasn't working.

From Fixing computer

I was stumped, but I called my friend Glenn in Sacramento; he's an expert at building and fixing PCs. I had to take this picture to remember where all the cables went.

In the end, Glenn led me in the right direction, and we saved an expensive trip to the repair shop. Whew! Glenn, thank you!

From Short lamp

Later, I was staying at an uncle's house, and we didn't have enough lighting in my room. But I found a small Chinese lamp and this lamp shade, so I made a short lamp. Isn't it cute?

On Day 90 of my gluten-free diet, I faced a dilemma. I was having dinner with one of my uncles, and he made me a stew.

From Unavoidable gluten

The stew definitely looked like it contained gluten/flour/pasta, and lots of it. But my uncle had never cooked anything for me before. Also, he had recently suffered a stroke.

In the end, it was an easy decision. I ate the stew with gusto. And then I had a second bowl to clean out the pot. I definitely felt bloated later that evening, something I hadn't felt since starting the gluten-free diet.

But the privilege of eating my recovering uncle's home-made stew? Priceless.

August 14 - September 6: Grocery shopping, praying mantis, basketball, Santa Barbara

I've been on a gluten-free diet for about 70 days. People often ask me if it's hard to stay on the diet. The hardest part is eating out, since I don't know what's in the food. So, this is forcing me to go to the grocery store, but I don't mind since it's cheaper.

I was walking through Albertson's the other day, and look what caught my eye!

Special, gluten-free Rice Krispies! I thought Rice Krispies were already gluten-free, but I'm not complaining. What I appreciate most about this is that "Gluten Free" is so prominent on the package.

From Grocery shopping

Later, I was at another Albertson's with my friend Nick. We saw Cinnabon pastries, which can be warmed in the microwave. How long do you think that takes?

The box says "3 secconds"! A misprint?

Actually, only a few minutes ago (as I'm writing this), I saw a guy microwaving a cinnamon roll from Panera Bread. He had it in an enclosed plastic box and set for 1 minute, but we told him to stop after 15 seconds. 15 seconds was plenty, so I guess Cinnabon knows what they're talking about.


Once or twice a week, I visit some friends at a software/business group called Atlas. We help each other with programming. Recently, they got a pet praying mantis.

The mantis' name is Darrell (not to be confused with the Atlas founder, Daryl). He (or she?) was just a baby when we got him, so he's been molting. I assumed Darrell would just break out of his old skin, but it's like he just slipped out of his old exoskeleton.

How did he get his legs out?!


We feed flies and crickets to Darrell. Darrell will eat them only if they're alive.

Poor cricket.

From Praying mantis

Here's Darrell!

From Basketball

The church I attend, EBCLA, has a summer basketball league. I didn't play, but several people in my Bible study were on a team, so I watched a couple games. In the last game of the season, they won by one point!

I hope all the teams had fun!


On Labor Day weekend, my Bible study group made a day trip to Santa Barbara. It was my first time there.

Below is a view from the pier.



Doesn't it look beautiful?

Santa Barbara has a main street which is very long and has lots of shops. However, we had lunch at Panino, a sandwich/salad shop a couple blocks away.

I had the curry chicken salad, which was perfectly tasty.




After lunch, we walked up and down the main strip and to the beach. Some people went kayaking, and some went to a coffee shop. Kayaking was only $12 per hour per person, so I may try it next time!

Here, we are waiting for a dinner table at Pascucci. Less than half of our Bible study group came on the trip. On the other hand, almost half our Bible study group came on the trip!

From left to right, it's me, Nancy, Peien, David, Daniel, Nat, and Vince. Daniel, Nat, and Vince were our resident photographers, so that's why these photos look so good. Nat's photos are here, and Vince's are here.

At dinner, I was able to levitate some of the silverware!

(Some of the knives were magnetized, for some reason.)

Pascucci's had gluten-free pasta. Yay!

After dinner, Peien wanted to visit a pub. As he informed me, a pub is quite different than a bar.

We ended up at The James Joyce, an irish bar (pub) featuring live music. They also had infinite peanuts, pool was only $1 per game, and soda was only $1. Nice place!

From Santa Barbara

Vince took this great photo of me playing pool. Thanks, Vince! (How did he do this? Was there a mirror on the ceiling?)

Since this photo looks so cool, let's pretend I made the pool shot. :-)