A Wascally Week for the Wecord Books

Ok, today's gonna be two-for-one blog night since it's been so long since I posted. This has been one of those weeks that seemed to have come from the twilight zone (a main reason why I haven't been blogging very consistently). It started with a very busy Monday: my son's first day of preschool and a day trip to Kauai for work. Granted, Tuesday was pretty uneventful, but yesterday, I managed to slice off the tip of my thumb while making dinner. What's going on? When will things get back to normal? Or, can I just rewind and start over?

Outback Steakhouse | Honolulu, Hawaii

This week's flog entry is almost a week late, but oh well, that's life sometimes. We went to Outback Steakhouse in Hawaii Kai for dinner (wifey let me choose the location, even though she's vegetarian).

Outback Steakhouse
6650 Kalanianaole Hwy
Honolulu, HI 96825
(808) 396-7976
Website

Anyone who's been to Outback knows that this bread is absolutely amazing.

Of course I went to Outback Steakhouse to get me a steak. This is the 7 ounce (quality over quantity) Filet Mignon, cooked to medium-rare. The baked potato is the result of ordering "everything on the side" then promptly dumping it all in.

Wifey ordered her own potato and this side of sautéed mushrooms.
For dessert, we went for the 1200+ calorie Chocolate Thunder from Down Under - awright!

HealthPass Appointment

For those of you who aren't familiar with HealthPass, it is an annual benefit for HMSA members. There are three components to HealthPass: a health risk assessment (that evaluates your health behaviors and lifestyle choices); biometric measurements, which include height, weight, body mass index, blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, waist circumference, and body fat percentage; and fianlly, a Health Consultant will have a comprehensive discussion with you on the results. On Thursday, I went for the biometric part of the appointment. The first image is the waiting room in the Kaimuki HealthPass center. They have a nice little display of interesting facts. My favorite being a model of 5 pounds of fat. The next image is the blood pressure machine then you see my finger being poked. The Medical Assistant does this to get a small sample for the machine in the next picture, which measures glucose and cholesterol levels. The final image is me standing on something called a Tanita scale. It takes your weight and measures your body fat percentage. Overall, the experience was great. As Benjamin Franklin once said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we really want to see changes to health care in this country, it will start with taking preventive measures such as these. If you have any questions or would like to schedule your HealthPass appointment, call (808) 948-6456 on Oahu or 1 (800) 525-6548 on the neighbor islands. Website

Himalayan Kitchen + Little Oven | Honolulu, Hawaii

Last night's date brought us to two very different places. We got dinner at the Himalayan Kitchen in Kaimuki then moved on to Little Oven for some dessert.

Himalayan Kitchen
1137 11th Ave
Honolulu, HI 96816
(808) 735-1122

Little Oven
1467 S King St
Honolulu, HI 96814-2504
(808) 947-6836
Website

Himalayan Kitchen is a small place that specializes in Nepalese cuisine. There are lots of great vegetarian options for my wife, so it's definitely one of her favorite places to go.

We started with the garlic jalapeño naan. Somehow, the spiciness of this dish sort of crept up on us. About halfway through, out mouths were on fire, but it sure was worth it!
I ordered the mixed Biryani, which is made with bits of lamb, chicken and shrimp cooked with vegetables and basmati rice. The mild was plenty spicy for me (and I'm the kind of guy that loves to put Tobasco on everything).
Wifey got the Malai Kafta. The best description I can come up with is that these are "meatless meatballs."

After dinner, we really needed something to cool our taste buds, so it was off to Little Oven. The first time we went (a few weeks ago), it was pretty empty and last night was a little more crowded, but it still wasn't packed.

I ordered the Peach Cobbler. It was the perfect size, but could have used a scoop of vanilla.

The perfect end to Wifey's dinner was the Ice Milk/Sorbet sampler. It was meticulously put together, but she did miss the mint chip scoop they had in there the last time.

KUM-fused?

Is it me or does the image in the Kumon logo look like a very confused child? I'm no marketing expert, but if you're a learning center and one of your main goals is to build confidence in kids, wouldn't you want a happier looking face on all your material?

Tsukuneya Robata Grill | Honolulu, Hawaii

Every Friday, my wife and I get "date night." My parents watch our son and we get to try new places. This Friday brought us to Tsukuneya Robata Gril, on the corner of Dole and University. This particular experience taught me two things: (1) I need a better camera as the wimpy 2MP one without zoom or focus on my iPhone just isn't cutting it - major 3GS envy right about now - and (2) lots of little dishes fill you up just as well as one monster dish.

1442 University Ave
Honolulu, HI 96822-2415
(808) 943-0390
Website

This dish isn't much to look at, but it sure was tasty. It's crispy nori wrapped around some mashed yam.
Apparently, this place makes their own tofu on a daily basis. This is called the "Tofu Dengaku", which is grilled with a sweet miso sauce.
We asked for the Avocado and Shrimp roll without the shrimp (wifey is a vegetarian).
Their take on fried cheese was interesting, but a little rich for me.
Last, but not least, is their version of Oyako Donburi, stewed chicken and egg on rice. Did I mention wifey was vegetarian? Yeah, I ate the whole bowl by myself.

In search of the elusive magic number...

So I've been a member of the Xbox Live community on and off since I first signed up as a beta tester; I have had a Facebook account for a couple of years; in March, I posted my first tweet; yesterday, I became a member of the LinkedIn community; and now I'm writing my first blog. All this has got me thinking...what's the magic number? Although I feel like I'm on social networking overload, I know I've only scratched the surface. Digg, Youtube, Delicious are all out there, waiting to be tapped. I mean, I understand that the whole point of social media is to connect with as many people as possible, using whatever channels are available, but surely there's a point where you start to get diminishing returns or find yourself spread too thin. Where is the balance - that magic number? How many different communities must you join to maximize your reach, while still keeping things manageable?