Christopher Suh's Blog

Susan went to a book signing last week for Linda Greenlaw up in Newburyport.   Linda is the female swordfisherboat captain who was made famous by the book "The Perfect Storm".  Linda has gone on to write a number of very well received books of her own, including "The Hungry Ocean", "All Fishermen are Liars" and "The Lobster Chronicles".  I have a copy of the Lobster Chronicles, which tells the story of how Linda decided to leave the swordfisherman business and give a try at lobstering up at a very small island up in Maine.  The book reminded me a little of another book that I have, called "The Secret Life of Lobsters".  Anyway, Linda and her mother have now written a cookbook, which is mostly New England recipes centered around seafood, dairy, and berries.  The recipes look tasty, although maybe not as spicy as I am accustomed to.  Susan said that Linda was very personable, and easy to talk to. 

Saturday was Susan's summer picnic for work.  We went up to New Hampshire to a lake, where we played tetherball, and went canoeing and kayaking.  Susan prefers kayaking to canoeing, but I prefer the latter.  I find that in kayaking you're more inclined to get soaked, because you are busy swinging both sides of a wet paddle over your head.  Also, my arms and chest are in better shape than my deltoids, and so I get tired from kayaking quicker.

Sunday, everyone (everyone being Susan, Andrew and Matthew) came into work to help me move my files from work.  Ed (the partner I work for) was there, and this is the first time he had met Andrew and Matthew.  In order to validate my parking, I had to buy something in the building, so I ended up getting a CD by a group called The Hives.  If you are wondering what their music sounds like, think mountain dew and Xtreme snowboarding.  I also went shopping for Susan's birthday, which is on August 15th.  I'm debating between an MP3 player, a digital camera or jewelry.

Afterwords, we all went into Brookline for Japanese food at Fugakyu, with my brother, who was in town for a funeral.  Here's what he said on his blog at: http://www.livejournal.com/users/insidenoize333/

So today, I'm back at work, with one more week left to clock.  I just ordered cable television and an internet connection for my apartment.  I did this because I plan to spend alot more time in the city, and would like to be able to watch the NFL Network at 3 in the morning at my place.  I think tonight I'm supposed to meet up with Angela (an old college friend) at the gym, so it'll probably be a non-Boxford night tonight.

 

Here is an image of 10 St. James Avenue, the building that my new law firm is located in.  It's located in Back Bay, very close to the Common.  I had lunch with those guys on Tuesday, and had a good time.  It seems like a nice environment to work, and so I'm looking forward to it.

Anyway, I give Wedding Crashers a B-.  Amusing but not great.  The premise behind the movie is a promising one. Two friends (Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson) make it their hobby to crash weddings in order to have a good time and pick up girls.  As the highlight for this year's wedding season they take it upon themselves to crash "the Kentucky Derby of all Weddings", the marriage of the daughter of a prominent Senator.  While there, the Owen Wilson character meets another one of the Senator's daughters and decides to pursue her.  Meantime, a third daughter of the Senator falls for the Vince Vaughn character, and proceeds to became wild and clingy with desire for him.  Vince wants to run, but Owen wants to pursue, and the pair end up accepting an invitation to stay at the Senator's summer home in Maryland for a weekend.  This is where the movie really should have gotten good.  Owen Wilson pursues Senator's daughter.  Senator and Senator's daughter's boyfriend oppose him.  Senator's wife pursues Owen.  Other Senator's daughter pursues Vince.  Vince opposes her.  Senator's son pursues Vince.  Vince opposes him.  Vince pursues escaping household with his dignity and all of his body parts intact. 

Unfortunately, I think that this is when the movie falters.  Most of the scenarios in the movie end up being mildly amusing, but not as wildly trenchant as they could be.  Still worth seeing, but not quite purchase-worthy.

 

 

Here are some pictures from my birthday.

I had a wonderful day, and it was great to receive both emails and phone calls from old friends.  My friend, Corey Peterson, took me out to the Palm for lunch.  And Susan and the boys prepared spicy steaks for dinner, with a watermelon sherbert roll for dessert (my favorites). 

So, today is now Friday the 15th, and I think that we're going to go out to see the movie Wedding Crashers tonight up at the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers.  The reviews were very positive about this movie, and I have been a fan of Owen Wilson ever since Shanghai Noon.  Certainly, the movie looks more appealing to me than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I saw the old version of that movie when I was like 5 years old, and the scene in which the heavy kid falls into the chocolate river and gets sucked up the glass tube gave me nightmares for months.  Even as an adult, my gut keeps telling me that something ain't right about those Oompa Loompas.

Saturday, we'll be at the YMCA in Andover.  I am debating to myself which gym I should join once I start the new job.  Originally, I worked out at Cambridge Racquet and Fitness, which is one of the better gyms in the city.  Since I was living in the Esplanande, near the Cambridgeside Galleria, it made alot of sense  at the time.  Now, I belong to two gyms: 1) Fitcorp, which is downstairs from Tarlow in the Prudential Mall, and 2) the YMCA in Andover.  I'm cancelling Fitcorp.  People have recommended that I join LA Sports Club because it is close to my new job.  I'm dubious about this.  It seems like it may be mostly sizzle and less steak at that place.  I'm not going to a gym to socialize with young high maintenance single people.  I'm going to a gym to work out, and maybe make a business contact or two.

Sunday, I think we'll be going to a picnic at the Blue Hills reservation in Milton for the Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts.  It's nominally a networking event, but I'll probably spend most of the time chowing down on hamburgers and hot dogs (look out for Chris "The Tsunami" Suh) and tossing the frisbee around with the boys. 

Here is a picture of Toby, Susan's dog.  He's a Cairn Terrier, the same type of dog that Toto was in The Wizard of Oz.  He really has a very distinctive personality, and is very affectionate.  Each evening when I come in, he rushes up to me at top speed, barks his head off, and then rolls over on his back for me to scratch his stomach.  Sometimes he gets so excited that he pees on himself.  Must be some life, in which this is the highlight of your day.  Sometimes though you have to wonder if pets have the right idea.  No work, free food, and lots of attention.  Of course, I'm not sure how happy I'd be about the whole neutering thing.

Anyway, today is my 31st birthday.  I'm planning on spending a quiet night up in Boxford to celebrate.  Susan has apparently went gift shopping for me yesterday.  Since I'm all about immediate gratification, I tried to convince her that it would be okay to open the presents last night as soon as it was midnight.  She remained unconvinced.  So instead we drank Margaritas and watched Remains of the Day.  Susan hadn't really been a Tequila drinker before we met, but now it's one of our favorite drinks. 

Aha!  I just received a box of flowers at work.  Wait now, it's actually a Hawaiian lei.  It's quite fragrant and beautiful.  It's from Susan, of course.  How thoughtful she is! I don't think I've ever received flowers at work before.  I can't wait until tonight.

Okay, I didn't realize that Friendster was busy sending emails to everyone every time I edited a post.  I'll have to be more careful about that, and only post each entry once.

The weekend was pretty uneventful.  I spent the entire time up in Boxford. Susan got the boys bikes, and I spent alot of time playing a Tetris like game called Lumines on my PSP.    We watched Monsters, Inc., had a BBQ, went the the YMCA, and went out kayaking on the pond behind Susan's house.  It makes sense that the weekend was low key, because today is Susan's first day at her new job.

My brother very kindly got me a gift certificate from Amazon for my birthday, which I used to buy a copy of Into the West.  Along with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Into the West is considered one of the greatest classics of Chinese literature.  It tells the story of a monk who undertakes a pilgrimage to India to seek some holy Buddhist scriptures.  He is accompaigned by three monsters as servants: the Monkey King, a pig man, and a water demon / kappa.  The Monkey King is, of course one of the most popular fictional characters of Chinese literature, akin to Mickey Mouse, although he is probably more like Bugs Bunny or Woody Woodpecker in temperment.  I got the idea of reading the book after watching an episode of Love Hina (an anime) in which the characters put on a play based upon Into the West in order to raise money. 

Susan said that the story reminds her of an Indian trickster story she once heard about a character called "Buddy Mongoose".  In one story, Buddy's brothers decide that they have had enough of his tricks, and pay a person passing by to stuff him in a burlap sack and toss him in the lake. Buddy manages to trick his would be murderer, and run off with his cart and the money that the brothers paid him for the drowning.  He then returns home, much to the chagrin of his brothers, who jealously wonder where he got the fine new cart and money from.  He tells them that there is a palace below the lake that he found when he was tossed in the water, and that he would be happy to tie them up in a sack and toss them in the lake so that they too can get a cart and money for themselves as well.  Needless to say, he ends up drowning his brothers this way, thereafter living happily ever after.

At the risk of sounding cheezy, it's much better to have a younger brother who provides you with gift certificates instead of burlap sacks.

 

Susan was in the Boston Globe on Thursday

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/07/07/churches_find_a_fair_trade_in_coffee_sales/

Fair trade coffee is about making sure that the growers get a larger percentage of the profit from the sale, instead of the distributors. 

Although I often lean to the left politically, I often have my doubts however about certain liberal shibboleths, such as restricting free trade and human rights.  Take our country's stance on China for example.  We argue that China has violated human rights with regard to Tibet, but seem to take a double standard when it comes to confronting our own collective past.  If China should be required to relinquish control over Tibet and make reparations to the Tibetan people, doesn't that also require a similar settling of the books between our country and our Native and African Americans?  This is not to demonize anyone, simply to point out that it is often easier to moralize from a distance than one's own backyard. 

With regard to free trade, I often wonder if people are really worried about the people working in the factories in China, or more about protecting union jobs in the United States.  After all, the people working in the factories in China must choose to do so, after weighing for themselves the costs and benefits of taking that job versus another.  What right do we have to paternalistically determine for them what choices they should make in terms of how and where they work?  I'm not against trying to keep jobs local.  But most of the manufacturing jobs have already left the region that I live in, New England.  They left because of the fact that we have free trade with the southern and western states.  This is fine.  New England in the meantime has moved itself into other industries, such as biotech and financial services, and has been selling its new products to the same regions which took its former jobs.  Now those same southern and western states are losing manufacturing jobs overseas to countries which have been able to offer even lower manufacturing costs.  This does not seem to leave those states in any worse position than New England was a century ago.  Like New England, they will have to move into new industries, and sell new products.  The transition may be painful, but it seems fair, and may even help those states in the long run.  High labor standards and costs may drive away certain types of businesses, but the benefits they provide may also attract cutting edge industries and highly skilled workers.

I suppose that part of the problem is that culturally, I don't feel much closer to a person in Texas, compared to a person in say Canada, England, or Korea.  If Massachusetts and Texas are required to engage in free trade, why shouldn't Massachusetts and China also be able to engage in free trade as well? 

 

I just figured out that I can post pictures to my blog, so I thought I would post some photos of Susan, whom I think is very pretty.

I turn 31 on July 13th.  I was bad yesterday, and bought myself a birthday present.   I bought a playstation portable, and two games: NFL Street and Darkstalkers (a street fighter fighting game).  An impulse purchase, but I think it's a good one, because I am constantly moving around between Backbay, Charlestown, Boxford, and Maine.  Both Susan's boys like the same things that I like - namely computers and televisions, so having my own portable game system should ease video game congestion.  Not that I plan on playing games all the time, just every now and then.

My brother told me that he nearly got into a fight on Fourth of July weekend.  Some of his friends and him were walking down the beach, when one of his friends made a somewhat inappropriate comment to some women nearby.  Their husbands apparently took offense to this comment, and became pretty aggressive.  Jon, as is typical, tried to calm things down, but one of the men grabbed him from behind and started choking him.  Jon did not retaliate, and things eventually calmed down.  Still, the husbands were not appeased, and apparently followed one of Jon's friends back to his house, and ambushed him.  When the friend ran into his house, they then tried to batter the house door down, and called the police.  The police however clearly saw that the husbands were the ones being physically aggressive, and tossed them into jail.  Both criminal and civil charges are being pressed against them, but are likely to be dropped. 

In comparison, my Fourth was certainly much lower key.  Susan, me, and the boys took a walk to Faneuil Hall, and watched the fireworks from my copula as planned.

 

It's been a busy weekend so far.  My high school classmate and ex-roomate, Stefan Cegalis got married on Saturday.  Thursday was his bachelor party, which was a pretty tasteful and restrained event.  I met Stefan, Alfred, Odo, Beo and Nat at Cigar Masters in Back Bay, and then spent the rest of the night at Limelight, a pretty sparseful populated karoke bar around the common. 
Stefan's wedding on Saturday was very well done.  The ceremony was elegant, and not overly long.  Afterwords, they gave us little bells and bubbles to welcome the new bride and groom.  The reception was outdoors in a big tent, and the weather was great.  Overall, a great success.

Susan and I and the boys also went to the DeCordova museum this weekend.  It's been years since I went there, and I was pleasantly surprised.  It was exactly the type of modern art that I like - art that is colorful, accessible, and fun.  Like most people, I don't really care for art that thinks too highly of itself.  Andrew and Matthew in particular liked one installation called Rain Gates, which was reminscent of a Japanese garden, with little waterfalls and mini tranquil pools.

Today is the Fourth of July.  I think we're going into the city to watch the fireworks.  I'd like to stop by Coldstone Creamery (an ice cream place) with the boys, and also take a walk around the new Paul Revere Park.  My apartment has a great copola, which overlooks the city, and gives an amazing view of the city and the Zakim bridge.  The only problem is that there is always a little contingent of old women from the condo association there during major events, who adamantly refuse to let anyone open any of the windows to the copola, no matter how hot and humid it gets.