Bali Hai! (Hello there from this quiet oasis in the Indian Ocean)

Just wanted to drop you guys a note.. been a long long while since I posted here. But so great here in Bali and well, I’m sorry I didn’t come here earlier :(. We’re staying at the Le Meridien Nirwana Bali Golf & Spa Resort . It was part of our time share program and found it through here.

It’s great so far, alternating with relaxing on the premises, doing a lot of spa stuff, golfing on the driving range, or hooking up with a cool local driver to drive us around to different parts of the island. We’ve seen Eastern Bali (Almapura area), Jimbaran Bay, Nusa Dua (where there are over 20+ top rate spas! and the 5+ Star hotels), Uluwatu and tomorrow we’re heading up the volcano to see Lake Batur and Kintamani (coffee plantations).

I feel better and more relaxed.. away from the stress and minimized the work stuff… it just reinforced the need to be out away from the cubicle/office/Dilbert hell and doing things the way I’d like…

Hope you all are well…

Ice Cream Dreams

I don’t eat a whole lot of dairy (that lactose intolerance thing) but I love ice cream, and Haagen-Dazs has too neato things this week. First, Green Tea flavor is now available in the U.S.!!!!  We first encountered it in Tokyo, where it was a gazillion times more rich and intense than the stuff you get at Japanese-American sushi restaurants. P- actually wrote the company to put it out, and they’ve finally done it.

Second, Tuesday is free Vanilla Honey Bee flavor day – free scoops from 4 to 8 PM. Profits from the flavor go towards protecting the honey bee, which makes possible agriculture as we know it today.

Post-Mother’s Day Stuff

Thursday TV: “Lost” – somehow, it almost never ceases to amaze me how this show simultaneously raises more questions even as it (kind of) answers them. I haven’t been an avid follower of “Lost” by any stretch of the imagination (I think I skipped a good chunk of last season and the season before that). But, this season has been pretty awesome (“Heroes” ought to take note of how to balance characters and storylines – learn from “Lost”!). Some pointless thoughts:

Actor Nestor Carbonell as the ageless Richard Alpert – mmm! He’s hot and he’s creepy! (well, the character anyway; the actor’s simply hot – although I still remember him from his “Suddenly Susan” days, when he played the silly accented photographer guy – but, he was funny and cute – a case can be made that everybody but the Susan character was funny; so not exactly a good thing for Brooke Shields when your supporting cast was more interesting than your character…).

Actor Terry O’Quinn as John Locke – is he a man of faith or of science? A premature baby whose life of repeated abandonment got really depressing. A man of destiny – or not? When Alpert appears to young John with artifacts, young John is told to pick what is his; he selects the knife. The scene felt like something reminiscent to me of the story of how the young Dalai Lama was discovered as the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama – and so, I wonder – is John Locke a reincarnation of someone/something else?

Well, really, what the heck is going on with “Lost”?

Saturday stuff: CAPA Festival. Different venue, but interesting; FC has the review. Plus, with the Japan Society across the street, great opportunity to check out more stuff. I liked the exhibit of Shibata Zeshin’s lacquered art.

Such a sad story on the state of Brooklyn high schools – Lafayette HS’s transformation may affect John Dewey HS; Lafayette’s situation becoming horridly untenable. It didn’t use to be this way, and it wasn’t that long ago that I was in high school (okay, yeah, it is a long time ago, but still —) – I didn’t think it was that bad at Lafayette or John Dewey when I was in high school; nobody hated the schools to this extent; are kids that nuts because parents are so not helping? What is really the state of education in NYC?

Furthermore, with the state of (quality) education in NYC – they’re just not building new schools fast enough, and they’re simply not taking demographics into serious consideration, are they?

In the latest issue of Time: fascinating 10 answers to the 10 questions to Toni Morrison.

Gee, this is a great review of Bill Moyers’ new book; I so want to read the book now. Well, Moyers is a good read and good watch either way.

The problem with a famous trademark – people are going to try to counterfeit it and ruin the value of it… “I Love NY” is too easy to exploit on top of that.

IKEA coming to Brooklyn; this is either going to be very good or a very big disaster.

NY Times’ Eric Asimov on a closing of a Chinatown institution.

Finished reading: P.D. James’ “A Certain Justice,” wherein Venetia Aldridge, a criminal defense barrister, is murdered in her chambers. Commander Adam Dagliesh, Inspector Kate Miskin, and the others of Scotland Yard, are on the case. Thoughts: What a compelling read – a page turner. Lots of food for thought – what is “a certain justice”? What does it mean to be a criminal defense lawyer; what does it mean to be a human being? Did Commander Dalgliesh do the right thing? The ending was a bit strange and probably not entirely satisfactory (depends on what you’re looking for – closure? hmmm), but P.D. James is a good writer. A recommended read.