We are what we choose

"Jeff, one day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than clever."

"Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy -- they're given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you're not careful, and if you do, it'll probably be to the detriment of your choices."

From Jeff Bezos, as delivered to the Class of 2010 Baccalaureate, Princeton University

Almond milk two ways

This YouTube clip is mind blowing. Almond milk in 3 minutes? Yep, it is possible. I just made some almond butter tonight. Almond milk here I come!

Traditional method of making almond milk

- 1 cup of raw almonds, soaked in water overnight
- 4 cups of drinking water
- pinch of salt
- vanilla extract (optional)
- 4 stoned dates (optional)
- a straining bag or cheese cloth lined mesh strainer
- a decent blender

Drain the soaked almonds. Put almonds, drinking water, salt, vanilla extract and dates in a blender. Start blending until it becomes creamy. Pour the almond milk into a straining bag. Gently squeeze almond milk out. Enjoy.

Three-Minute Almond Milk (or Almond Milk On Demand)

- 2 tablespoons of almond butter
- 2-4 cups of drinking water (vary the amount of water to suit your taste)
- pinch of salt
- vanilla extract
- dates

Blend everything up and drink! No straining necessary.

Now that's what I call magic almond milk.

Note added on 19/09: 2 tablespoons of almond water to 2 cups of water makes a rather thin almond milk to my taste. I understand that it won't be fair to compare almond milk to the rich taste of cow milk. To make it taste richer, I added another tablespoon of almond butter to my milk. Now that's better.

One step at a time

One and half month without phone and internet, life was actually not too bad. In fact, I quite enjoyed my evenings with books and chatting to Mom and Dad. I finished two very good books, one fiction, The Shack, and one factual, The Natural. I am usually not really into religion theme but I really enjoy reading The Shack. Although it has an unmissable religious undertone (or overtone), I see it more a book about human relationship. It's thought provoking. I want to read it again.The Natural is about Clinton presidency which took place at the time when I was still in the States. It's kind of like walking into the memory lane while reading the book as I remember quite a lot of the snippets of news events in the book. However, it's a very deep and personal look at Clinton presidency. Very sharp and to the point analysis. I have to say that it changed my views about Clinton.

Today, we got both phone and internet installed. So much for the widely advertised 30mb per second, my foot. We barely reach over just 1mbps. Very disappointed.  The engineer said it may take one day to stabilize the installation. Well, let's see whether it's another sales tactic.

In any way, I am back to the civilized word, or sort of. One at a time.