Snap! Snap!

As we go about our daily lives, we talk, walk, sleep and interact with others. We are constantly making decisions about what we are doing, what we want to do, places we want to go and people we want to meet. After a while, the humdrum of everyday life really gets to you, sometimes to the point where you switch into a sort of "auto-pilot"; coasting through your day with glazed eyes and having monotonous dialogs with colleagues and befuddled peers.

Several days ago I was "auto-pilot-ing" my way through an afternoon of tree planting when something made me snap out of my stupor (ok well not actually a stupor, I'm exaggerating... sort of). Someone had actually called me by my name!

Ok now, this makes me sound like a huge loser ("Haha no one ever uses your name ahahaha.") but it's not really as simple as someone saying my name. It was more the way that she kind of enunciated and said it meaningfully after asking "Where do you want to go now,".

Perhaps this has never occurred to you but it really made me think about how little we use each other's names. Often with friends and acquaintances we are tempted to say "Yo, what's up!" instead of "How are you doing, Joe?" I find that the latter bears much more significance and in a way makes someone really feel like someone!

From that point on I have tried to make an effort to use people's names more often... perhaps there are others out there that think the same way as me.

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Off to Colorado in a few days for a week of sight-seeing, hiking, backpacking, rock climbing (on real cliffs, hopefully) and whitewater rafting on the Arkansas river.

kamster

Sand Shrimps

You know what people say about making a good first impression? Well, it turns out that leaving a good impression on someone is actually a pretty sound idea. This is especially true when in your in, say, the food business.

The other day mother and I were hanging around Scarborough and we decided to sit down at a small sushi restaurant called Hanabi Sushi. Hanabi Sushi is a quaint little plaza tucked into a corner of one of those chinese plazas that dot the Scarborough landscape, hehe. Anyways, this is a small little store that we visited; the interior is kinda small and cramped, and there isn't much room to manuever with the tables, wooden partitions and all that inside.

Like many other Japanese sushi joints, the fare they offer isn't very much different from those of other restaurants. You can find at Hanabi sushi the quintessential Japanese lunch box, or bento box that has many little compartments for different food items. At Hanabi sushi, there is also a lunch and all-day special menu where you can choose from a variety of yummy combos such as tempura and chicken teriyaki, spicy chicken, salmon teriyaki, chirashi, sushi, and alot more that I can't quite remember.

When you first sit down, you are given a menu with all of the aboved mention food items. At most restaurants. after ordering, there is a period of time where people chit-chat, often waiting anxiously for the food to arrive especially if you've been starving, and often this period of time can seem very long even though it may be but a few minutes. At Hanabi sushi however, they get right in on the act by serving up some appetizers for you.

First, you get your own little salad with orange-ish dressing which I'm sure you've seen at other restaurants, and some miso soup after that. After you're done with this, they give you even more appetizers (Chef's Service is what the waiter called it) after that! First they gave us some tempura sushi. Yeah, that's like pieces of shrimp tempura rolled up in rice and seaweed. And you know me, I love sushi, but I love tempura even more! So having these two together is really good thing... especially because you can't normally order that kind of sushi, at least where I go to eat. After this, you get a few pieces of crispy fried salmon, and not like the leftover head or neck parts, but like salmon belly, fried to a golden crisp and deliciously melt-in-your mouth kind of-ish! Also, they give you a small little bowl of porridge type stuff, which I was kind of surprised at just because I've never seen that kind of fare offered at a sushi joint. Nevertheless, my surprised sensation was a pleasant one. Later on when you finally get your meal, they may give you even more stuff, courtesy of "Chef's Service"; when I went there, it was a free eel hand roll! And you know hand rolls are those pretty big seaweed ice cream cones with some fish or whatever else on rice rolled up into an ice cream cone shape with seaweed, and so that was a pretty pleasant surprise as well.

My point here is that Hanabi sushi which would otherwise be another overpriced Japanese restaurant left a good impression as me as a first-time customer. And all that Chef's Service has made me think about coming again, and perhaps even telling people I know about it, which I am evidently doing as I type this. So, if you are in some sort of business that involves clients (ok nevermind almost ALL businesses involve clients at some point or stage), it could potentially pay off in the long run if you take the extra step, go the extra mile or simply take pains to make your client base comfortable, make them feel like they are appreciated, let them know you are thankful for their business, or whatever it is you decide to do. And if you don't think that it will pay off, think again. Because the only reason I'm writing this right now is because Hanabi sushi left me thinking "Hmm... that was a noteworthy meal", and now I am writing about it.

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U of T residences are small and nasty.

kamster

Do what makes you feel Good!

Another thing that I forgot to mention (actually, that's a lie, I just figured this out yesterday)... keeping your two hands locked (with thumbs and pinky/forefinger of either hand interlocked) helps alot too. For a while I was doing just fine without locking my hands together, but yesterday after having a dismal session at the driving range, my dad told me once again to do this. For me, it feels really unnatural locking my hands together when I grip the club, but I did it, and voila, I started hitting balls to 150 like that *snaps fingers*.

Again I have no idea if that will work for you... but who knows?

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Are backyard bonfires legal?

kamster