February 2007

Yesterday we went to a "dumpling party" to celebrate the Chinese New Year organized by Bonnie and Emily.

It was a fun evening, and it was interesting to see how dumplings are made (I stirred a big pan with stuffing). Ingredients included a lot of finely cut cabbage, pork, some shrimp, garlic, ginger and an egg. The dumplings were boiled for 10 to 15 minutes and the result was delicious.

The party was in Emily's place which is a few minutes walking from our house and was nice to be able to go to a party by foot. New Year in China and Taiwan is a big event -- our office in Taiwan is pretty much closed for a couple of days.

Home made dumplings.

This morning I went to work a bit later after an early conference call. When I drove on the I-40 I saw a car crashing in front of me.

The driver lost of control over the car somehow, perhaps a blowout. The car swerved back and forth for a few seconds and then hit another car and bounced off the road. It happened in the lane in front of me, but I was far way enough to evade the car next to the crashed one that came to an emergency stop.

I pulled over to the other side of the road and called the police. I was about half mile away, but luckily it seemed that the driver of the car was okay. I saw him standing outside the car a bit later.

I was parked on the side of the highway and the police operator told there was no need for me to stay, so after a few minutes I waited for a gap between passing cars and joined traffic again.