It's amazing what young people can do these days.  To be more specific, it's amazing what 11 year old girls with a ping-pong paddle can do these days.  And it is not often that I will have the opportunity to play against a young professional table tennis player so when the time came, I jumped all over it...and got my sorry ass whopped big time in front of all my friends.  But I wasn't the only one to go down big.  Albert Z. was the guinea pig; she demolished him with much ease.  I think he underestimated her skills.  I went next; managed to score 7 points to her 11 including a fearsome topspin forehand that zoomed past her forehand; didn't get to do my signature Open Eagle Spread Backhand due to her determination to test my hit-or-miss forehand shots.  But in the end her ball placement skills won over my power shots and I like my predecessor walked away defeated but with my chin up happy to have been at least competitive.  Robert went next and the match was over before it even started.  Silky played the little girl last and while the two of them had some really good rallies, the end result was no different from the previous four. 

I made my first cardboard bar...I mean...protein bar from scratch last night.  It took no more than 20 minutes of prep time and about 45 minutes to bake the dough-like mixture.  The recipe indicated a bake time of roughly 35 minutes or until the internal temperature reached 210 F.  At no time in the first 45mins did the temperature ever go above 150F and given the fact that a somewhat darkish brown color was spreading all over the dough mixture, I decided to remove the dough from the oven.  I left it to cool down overnight and got my first taste of it this morning.  I think it is best to leave protein bar making to the pros.  Or may be I should just follow the recipes line by line rather than make substitutions and changes all over the place. 

The one good discovery/outcome from this whole baking adventure is that I found a new favorite dried fruit.  Dried cantaloupe is sooooooooo good. Even better than dried mango or dried strawberries. 

I've been such a klutz lately.  I don't know why.  I am not my usual self.  Is it old age? Or just carelessness on my part?  This past Sunday, while dining at this Japanese restaurant down in LA, I accidentally knocked over my beverage glass, filled to the brim with this chinese fruity drink, as I was moving plates around and got drenched all over.  Good thing I am older and more mature now so the sight of having very large wet spots around my crotch area no longer bothers me.  It would have been a different story if i were in high school. High school ppl are just mean about little inconsequential things like that!  Anyway, and last night as I was putting whey protein into a bag, I for a second couldn't understant why the very same whey protein powder I just scooped into a plastic bag found its way onto my brand new shoes waaaay down there.  To my surprise, there were two openings to the bag.  wtf?!?  Yeah, I made a mess but thankfully they didn't ask me to pay for all the whey protein on the floor. 

Oh, I am training to run the San Francisco Marathon this coming July.  Heheh.  Perhaps a half-marathon is a more realistic target given my very poor performance at the Jamba Juice 5K run a couple of years ago.  Hahah.  It was the wind!!!  Yeah, I really really want to get one of those medals they give out to those who complete a marathon.  :oP