One Week Of Second Snack

Its been just under a full week of Second Snack being live and Sarah and I couldn't be happier with how its gone. We've run home from work every night and checked out the comments you're leaving. Its great to see so many of you liking what you're reading here.

We can't wait to bring you more articles and we're working on February and beyond. Lots of great stuff is coming up and we hope you like our posts as much as we like writing them.

If you haven't done so already, follow us through the widget over on the right side of this page. Its a great way to see updates to our site, and you can follow other blogs you like with it as well.

Have a great weekend everyone. Check back on Monday!

1,000 Places To See Before You Die: The Amalfi Coast

The Amalfi Coast stretches from Sorrento south to Salerno on the western coast of Italy, just below Naples. This is where Thomas' favorite meal of fresh spaghetti with steamed clams originates and where limoncello can be found around every corner. Pictures don't do the Amalfi Coast justice. It is a place you must experience in person to fully appreciate the beauty found in this extremely difficult to reach corner of Italy.

Thomas and I went to the Amalfi Coast in September 2010. We started our drive from Salerno as a storm was rolling in. The roads are windy and barely wide enough to fit 2 cars side by side, let alone the buses transporting tourists up and down the coast. The road between Salerno and Sorrento is just under 35 miles but the trip can take hours because of the congested roads, the slow speeds and the traffic breaks when sections of the road are only wide enough for one car. It took us over an hour to drive the 18 miles between Salerno and Ravello. Thomas expertly drove our rented Audi A4 Diesel Wagon (his attainable dream car, ironically enough) and we got to our destination just before the clouds opened up and let loose with the most insane rain storm we have ever experienced.





Despite the intense storm, the views were amazing. The water is a shade of bluish-green that we don't see in California. The cliffs jutting up out of the water are covered in grape vines, vegetable gardens and green vegetation that make for a very tropical look and feel. Every color is vivid, bright and alive. Ancient, tiny homes all with similar weathered white paint dot the cliffs. Every doorway was unique, each wall made of different stone, and gates all painted their own color. In the morning, residents burn leaves in their terraced gardens, and the hills are covered with a white smokey haze as the sun rises. Pictures capture none of this, so if you are ever in Italy and have the chance to visit the Amalfi Coast, give yourself a couple days to enjoy the views, you will thank yourself later.





Questions or comments? Post them below!

Time Machine Backups With An External Hard Drive And The Airport Extreme

When Apple added Time Machine to their ever popular OSX, it introduced the concept of backing up a computer system to the average personal computer user. I remember when backups went on to tape through a server machine in the mailing room at an old job of mine. Recently I decided to set up a backup system using Time Machine for the Second Snack office. I used the handy USB port on our Airport Extreme to give our iMac and MacBook Pro completely automated hourly backups over wifi/ethernet.

How it works
Time Machine (OSX 10.5+) makes a backup of your entire system every hour of the day, every day of the week, every week of a month, and then monthly. What this means is that eventually it will fill up your entire hard drive so if you want to keep some extra space for other uses, just partition it and assign the backups to one partition. Once the space gets filled, it just starts deleting the oldest data by itself. Time Machine really is a matter of setting it and forgetting it.

What you'll need
Along with this post you'll see an Amazon Ad for a Western Digital My Book 500GB external hard drive. Its an affiliate link in case you're wondering. Its just one example of the hundreds of great hard drives out there that you can use to run hourly backups but I wanted to show you the one we chose.

For the topic of this article you'll also need an Apple Airport to utilize the wifi backups we're talking about here. True you can plug the hard drive directly into the computer which is great for a single desktop, but not ideal for multiple computers or if you have a laptop you like to move around a lot. Along with these two items and your computers, you just need the cables that are provided with each of these items.

Set up
The physical set up is really easy. Just plug your hard drive into the back of your airport through the USB port. Your hard drive will most likely come with many different versions of fire-wire cables as well as traditional USB cables. Find the one that fits! For our office, the USB to mini-USB (looks like the end that plugs into a digital camera) was the cable we needed.

The rest of the set up will be done on your computers. Go into your Finder (half blue, half light blue smile face on your dock) and look under the shared heading on the left. You should see your airport now. Click on it you will be able to connect to your hard drive. In the screenshot below, the Sleepy Base Station is our Airport, and we are connecting to the hard drive that its hooked up to.





Now that your computer and external hard drive are talking, go to your Time Machine preferences, turn the feature on, and select the disk you want to back up to. In this case, you are selecting your external hard drive.

That is the most basic set up. There are tons of options you can tweak to customize Time Machine to your exact preferences and I suggest checking out Apple's website or many of the Apple fan websites for advice on the more advanced stuff.

Writing how-to's is always difficult because its hard to gauge where the audience is in levels of tech-savyness. If I missed something really big in this write up, let me know in the comments. I'm sure I'll need to revisit this post and edit it often.

Budgeting: A How-To Series

Budgeting is probably one of the most complicated concepts to wrap your head around. It's one thing to say, "spend less than you earn" but its another issue entirely to know how to get there. Having been unemployed for as long as I was, it's something we had no choice but to master. We've been working on effective money management since before we were married and we're no experts, but we have lots of experience trying out different methods and using different tools.

We're about to launch a series of articles explaining how we have been managing our money. Our aim isn't tell you "the best" way of doing things but to give ideas and insight on how one middle-class couple has been able to manage their personal finances.

This is one of Sarah's passions, and she is always looking for new tools, tricks and ideas to budget effectively, so while we will be posting our ideas, we would also love to hear yours as well. Our budget is always changing and we revise it frequently. We welcome any new ideas or methods you have that we may not have encountered just yet.

Next up: Budgeting: How to Get Started

Questions or Comments? Post them below!

New Year, A Japanese Tradition

Some of my earliest memories are of packing up the car and going to grandma's house on New Year's Day. Every year my grandmother pulls out all of the stops and cooks for a week in preparation for the big meal. I don't know many other Japanese people but the few I've run in to say their New Year's Day festivities are fairly similar.

America is used to hearing about the Lunar New Year which the Chinese and several other East Asian cultures celebrate. However, the Japanese New Year celebration happens on the Roman calendar New Year (the calendar the world operates on). Like all great celebrations from all the different cultures in the world, this one focuses on food. Lots and lots of food.

My grandma has been hosting the New Year's feast for decades before I was born and she continues to this day. She is an incredible 93 and a half year old who is able to outlast and out-cook the entire family. In recent years, the cooking tradition has brought the grandkids into the kitchen. I've come to really look forward to having my grandmother teach me how to prepare sushi, and to show her I still remember how to do what I learned the year before.

This year the family helped her make Tekamaki (Tuna Roll), Wantons, Spam Musubi (The Japanese LOVE spam...), panko chicken, and more!




For my family, the best part of the day is simply hanging out with my grandma and my uncle. Generations have grown up hanging out in the kitchen and eating food that blows any restaurant out of the water. Learning from the master, and having her approval is something I cherish.



Questions or Comments? Post them below!

Happiest Penguin Ever

Found this video this morning. Enjoy.

My New Years Resolution: Working Out

It's a pretty cliche New Years resolution, but I have decided that I will make it my goal to start working out this year. I have been thinking for a while that I need to get rid of this extra weight I have put on from unemployment (Thomas', not mine) depression. And what better time to start than now....right?

My problem: I always get the fantastic idea to start working out and then can never stick with it. I haven't found anything that has held my attention for longer than a month. It literally doesn't matter what I choose, be it a work out DVD in the comfort of my living room, walking in the neighborhoods around my apartment, hiking, swimming, or doing the treadmill. I give up on all of them. Maybe working out just isn't my thing, but I need to find a way to, at the very least, tolerate it. This year, I will be working on that.

So what type of work outs do you enjoy the most? What do you do to keep your motivation and interest up? How do you get yourself to work out, even when sitting on the couch and reading sounds like a better option?

Now, I'm off to do my first work out of the new year, a Self DVD strength training work out!

Why Second Snack?

Welcome to our new blog, Second Snack. There are two equally important reasons why we've jumped in to the blogging world with this site.

Reason 1: An Experiment

Hi I'm Thomas and my professional life has revolved around the online space for over five years with social media and Internet marketing being the two cornerstones of my expertise. I use the word "expert" lightly because if anyone ever claims to be an expert in this area, they are lying. I am in fact, still quite the amateur or novice.

Having worked for agencies who influence or direct the social media or online marketing initiatives of their clients, I'm well aware of the steps involved in these projects. In a recent sleepless night, I realized I've never actually managed my own presence on the Internet. I've never written for myself or managed my own keywords, ads, or publishing schedules. What you are witnessing on this blog is my experiment in running my own campaign from top to bottom. I've been involved in many of the different steps before, but never responsible for the success or failure of an entire project.

In speaking to my wife Sarah about this, she made the excellent point that for all the knowledge I think I have about running a campaign, what good is that knowledge if it doesn't make a blog interesting? So we decided to take on this project as a couple with Sarah being the other author of this blog. We both bring different personalities and views on what this blog should be and we think our collaboration will greatly enhance what you read. It is with her influence that the second reason for starting this blog is just as important as the first.

Reason 2: Talking To You More

Facebook is great for blasting a couple of status messages a week or posting up a funny meme. But how much communication can really come from that? My mother sent us the LEGO Advent Calendar which turned out to be a huge hit for our friends on Facebook. I had friends from across the world asking if I'd be showing pictures of what came out of the little doors each day. I heard from people I hadn't spoken to or seen in years. It was an amazing thing to see. I want to keep that going. We've got things to say, and you have thoughts we want to hear. Please leave comments on anything that strikes you as interesting or funny. We will read anything you share with us, trust me.

What You'll Find On Second Snack
Sarah and I will be publishing new articles during the work week from here on out. Below you'll see 9 articles that give a sample of what you'll find here. Topics will range from advice on things we've discovered in our personal lives, to bits of information we find on the Internet and in the zeitgeist.

You're not going to find any political debates, religious discussions, or hard hitting journalism. You have cable news for that. Second Snack is a loose reference to those bits of information you consume after you've already had your morning dose of top headlines. We're here to give you the extra stuff; a Second Snack.

How to Make Panko Chicken

I never imagined what it would be like to marry into a Japanese family. The traditions and food are so different from what I was raised with, but I have really enjoyed jumping in and learning about all of it. One of the tastiest things I have discovered is panko chicken.

As Thomas and my entire family will tell you, I am a picky eater. I don't like chicken that tastes like...chicken. I want the chicken flavor hidden so I can trick my taste buds into thinking I'm eating something else. The chicken in this dish is marinaded for a full 24 hours in a delicious combination of soy sauce, mirin, sugar, ginger, garlic and pepper. The intense flavor from the long marinating process is why panko chicken is one of my favorites.

Thomas' grandma likes to include this dish with her traditional New Year's Day feast, and this year, I decided to take on the challenge and make it myself. The pressure was on!

First, I mixed soy sauce, mirin, sugar, ginger, garlic, pepper and eggs to create the marinade. It should feel like a thick syrup. We made a double batch because we were cooking for a large group, but just the normal batch is fine for most situations. The chicken will soak in this marinade for a full 24 hours before it is cooked.







New Years Day morning, I got up early to cook the chicken before we went to grandma's house. First, I poured a bag of panko into a large bowl. Then, I took each piece of chicken and coated it completely before putting it on the wire rack (see recipe below) and baking for 50 minutes.

When we arrived, grandma tried a piece of my chicken immediately, and said I was "Terrific!" It did taste pretty good...if I do say so myself!

Recipe:
1 cup sugar
1 cup soy sauce
3-4 tablespoons mirin
ginger to taste
2-3 garlic cloves
dash of pepper
1 egg
bag of panko flakes

Combine the sugar, soy sauce, mirin, ginger, garlic, pepper and egg. Pour into seal-able bag with chicken. Let marinade for 24 hours. Next day, coat chicken with panko flakes on both sides. Place chicken on a wire rack, which is then placed over a baking dish (Pyrex or similar) with 1/2 to 1 inch water in the bottom. Cook at 350 degrees for 45mins-1 hour. Let cool then slice thinly for easy chopstick eating. Enjoy!

Lego Project, A Series

One of my favorites toys as a child was my large collection of LEGO. I spent hours hanging out with neighborhood kids playing with our LEGO castles, towns, pirate sets and spacemen. I could never throw away or sell these sets because I knew how expensive they were to buy in the first place, but if I'm honest, I'll never be able to part with them because of how awesome they are.

I realize in trying to write this introduction post about my LEGO project that I don't have to explain to you why the LEGO blocks are such an amazing and valuable toy. Anyone who finds out I still have my tubs of blocks instantly smiles and recalls all of the sets they used to play with. I have blocks that are well over 20 years old by this point and they are still as brightly colored and sturdy as the day I took them out of their boxes.

The Internet has unleashed a whole new era for LEGO enthusiasts and I've been swept up in it. With sites like Brickfactory which have scans of every single set LEGO has produced, and Peeron a wiki-like database of all the sets ever made, a person like me with millions of loose pieces sitting in tubs can reassemble old sets.

This series on Second Snack is going to showcase an individual set or group of sets from my collection. Pictures will of course be the showcase of each blog entry. Hope you guys like it, I know I do.

Which set was your favorite? What memories do you have of your bins of LEGO bricks?

The Emotional Effects Of Unemployment

Unemployment is an emotional experience. That's not a surprise as half of you reading this have probably gone through it at some point in your life. Everyone knows about the financial hardships that come from being unemployed but one thing I haven't read about much is the unspoken, darker side of unemployment. As a result of my year dealing with this, I'm going to share from time to time what I did right and what I did wrong so that hopefully, anyone reading this may be helped. There's a lot I closed off about myself in the past year, and its time to open up.

A Strange Comparison
I lost my father to a battle with cancer almost six years ago. The months that followed were depressing and shaped my life in a way I never could have imagined. To date, its the hardest thing I've had to deal with.

I came up with the strange comparison that when my father died, no one ever expected me to go out and find a new father. I didn't have to apply to be a son or hope that someone will know a father looking to add another son to his lineup. The thing about death is that it's final and while losing my dad was extremely difficult, it wasn't something I would have to relive. There's a culture and support system that has built up over the course of human existence to help people deal with death. Funerals, memorials, and other rituals give a structure to the process. These rituals may not be pleasant in the moment, but they are very helpful when you look back on it.

Unemployment makes you relive trauma every day and there is no program of rituals to follow when you're out of work. By necessity you need to go out and get back in the game as soon as possible.

For Second Snack Readers
Right now I'm employed on a part time basis and doing projects for several wonderful companies and individuals. The money is always nice, but being able to work and exercise my brain is the true benefit. With a year's worth of figuring things out, winning and failing, I think there's a lot about my experience I need to share with you. Someone reading this may find help with what I have learned over the course of a year being unemployed. I'm not a career counselor or a motivational speaker. I'm just a regular dude who's gone through this and I'm going to share some strategies with this audience.

Have you been unemployed for an extended period of time? What was your experience like?

The Second Snack Bloggers

Second Snack is written and published by married couple Thomas and Sarah.

Thomas is a half-Japanese, half-white guy born and raised in Orange County. He has two sisters, one older, one younger. His mother lives just outside of San Fransisco and is currently going to school for her PsyD. His father passed away almost six years ago, but is thought of often. He has a 93 year old Japanese grandmother who loves to share stories and remind everyone how old she is. Thomas has been involved with online marketing and social media for about five years. While full-time employment hasn't been a reality for a year now, he has two part time jobs and several freelance projects that have been a great source of professional fulfillment.

Sarah is a full white girl who was born and raise in LA County. She has one brother and 3 step brothers whom she is very close to. Her father and stepmother live in her childhood home and her stepfather lives in a suburb of Chicago. Her mother passed away 11 years ago and sadly never got to meet Thomas. Because of all the step families, there are multitudes of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers and grandfathers and Thomas still isn't sure he has met all of them. Sarah works as an executive assistant while she contemplates what her dream job would be.

Thomas and Sarah live in a diverse Orange County community and fit right in being an inter-racial couple. They are both college educated with degrees in Psychology from University of California, Irvine, which is where they met. They were close friends while at school, but never anything more until after both of them had graduated and moved on to full time jobs. They were married 3 1/2 years later in Las Vegas. They are your typical middle class, middle of the road young couple who spend most of their time and money on traveling, wine, and good food.

Questions or Comments? Post them below!

1000 Place To See Before You Die

The first wedding anniversary is traditionally marked by a husband and wife giving each other a "paper" gift. Sarah's gift to me was really a gift for us as a couple. 1000 Places to See Before You Die has become our go-to travel guide.

Originally Sarah was going to mark off places that she wanted to go with me but after flipping through the book, every destination became a new addition to our wish list. So instead, we started marking off the places we've already been. Maybe we'll never visit half of the places, but we have fun trying to knock off as many as we can. So far, everything we have done has exceeded our expectations. We're going to post up some entries throughout the weeks to give you guys a glimpse of each of the unique places we've been.

This has also encouraged us to start getting creative with the things we see and do in every city we visit, and we have started making a list of our very own to supplement the book. We will include posts about some of these awesome places we have experienced and hope that you get to experience them as well.

Traveling together has become a real passion of ours and we are always dreaming about our next destination. What are some of your favorite places that you think we need to visit?

Questions or Comments? Post them below!

Meme Monday: Kittah picture

Meme Monday brings you a weekly Internet Meme that we have found. Internet Memes are described as something that catches on like wildfire with Internet communities with no outside source of promotion. They exist purely for enjoyment and laughs.

Photography For Beginners: Where To Start

This will be the first in a series of guides through photography. Lesson 1, where to start.

Chances are, you've got a point and shoot digital camera lying around. You've probably owned it for a while and are quite familiar with how it works. Maybe you've got something more advanced in the DSLR department. Whatever you've got, you're going to read these posts because you want to take better pictures. This is going to slant towards the DSLR side of the spectrum because you need to take a more active role in shooting but the concepts can cross over to make your point-and-shoot work better for you. I'm a total amateur at photography but I know how to troll the Internet looking for information on how to shoot better photos. So here's where I share what I've found with you.

Equipment:
My advice for when you begin is to start out with a minimal amount of gear. Don't go crazy when you buy things, especially because this is not a cheap hobby. The simplest way to start is to get a combo set sold by most electronics stores which will include a camera body and a lens. The lens that comes with your camera will be referred to as 'kit' lens in most places on the Internet. The kit lens will almost always be something that you can zoom in and out with. This is helpful for giving you flexibility with just one lens. We'll get into how you figure out what the lens can do in a later lesson but for now, just know you need to have one to get the camera to work. By the way, a camera that allows you to switch out lenses is a DSLR. D stands for digital and don't ask me about SLR.

If you already have a point and shoot, lets stick with that. Its something you already own and will help you learn the basics. The first lesson or two will cover techniques that work for any camera you own. Next in the series is Composition: how to set up the shot so it looks great.

Questions or Comments? Post them below!

The Cliff House, San Francisco

My mom, Sarah and I visited The Cliff House in San Francisco on one of our recent visits to the Bay Area. My mother lives and works in the area and we visit occasionally to get in some good quality time. Over the past two years, we have discovered a lot of great things about San Francisco.

The current Cliff House building is the 3rd or 4th version of the original that dates back to the late 1800's. Inside you'll find a gift shop and three different restaurants. We chose to eat at The Bistro and it turned out to be a great choice.

Breakfast is served until 3:00PM so Sarah picked the bacon and cheddar omelet (a favorite of hers). This thing was absolutely overflowing with chunks of thick bacon. My mom had the fish and chips with flaky, moist beer battered cod and giant steak fries. I ended up choosing the steamed clams from the appetizer menu which I ate along with our table's side of garlic fries. For the price, I got an insane amount of clams. I really fell in love with steamed clams while we were in Italy as the Italians often throw them over a plate of pasta with a simple white sauce.

As you can see in the picture, the weather wasn't ideal. This was the beginning of a week's worth of rain for the entire state of California but all three of us happen to love the rain, clouds, and fog. The view was spectacular and eerie with waves crashing on the rocky beach below the restaurants.

The famous Camera Obscura right outside of the Cliff House was closed the day we visited, likely due to the weather. It sits right on the edge of the terrace out back with an amazing view of the ocean. I've been told it has one of the largest camera lenses ever made inside, so I can't wait to get back and see it someday.

Questions or Comments? Post them below!

Canceling Cable And Getting An HDTV Antenna

Almost nine months ago we canceled our cable service. A few friends were shocked, and most we told were just confused.

"So you don't watch TV anymore?" Actually we do.

We bought a Terk HDTV Antenna for less than the cost of one month of cable service. Buying and using our antenna has been a cost effective and surprisingly fun investment. We've been really happy with the antenna and don't miss 99% of what we found on cable anyway.

We get all of the local channels which lets us watch the news in the morning as we're getting ready and also gives Sarah access to Glee. Being able to watch her favorite show every Tuesday for free is completely worth it.

There are a bunch of channels offered over-air that you can't get with your local cable company. Many of these are non-English, so a lot of shows above channel 13 we skip over. However there are a few exceptions.

I discovered channel 18-2, the English language version of NHK, the Japanese equivalent of the BBC. I've learned so much from that channel about Japan, its culture, food, and daily life. Public television stations are also available over air and there's actually some really great programming there. PBS's Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates Jr. kept us sitting on our couch for about four hours one day.

For a review of how to set it up and how it works, keep reading. Otherwise, skip it!

Terk offers an unpowered unit as well as an amplified unit to boost receiving strength. Reviews say people aren't sure if the amplifier actually works, but we keep ours plugged in anyway.

Setup is really easy. Unbox the antenna and follow the instructions packet. If you've ever hooked up a cable box, then this will look familiar. Plug the antenna in and then visit AntennaWeb to check out which direction you should be pointing your antenna. Your ability to maneuver it really depends on your available space but so far in the two apartments we've had, we haven't had any huge issues with reception. Some might say its unsightly, but then you have to remember after you buy it, you're getting free local TV. After you've positioned it, make sure to run a channel scan with your TV so it can gather whats actually out there for you to watch.

So how about the channel selection? Sarah and I are able to get channels 2 through 13 with no issue. It really depends on your area but chances are you are going to find a lot of non-English programming past channel 13. Dialing in channels is a bit different as well as all the channels have a dash "-" placed in them. For example:

4-1, 7-3

#-1 will be the main channel you are used to but anything #-2 and above are interesting over-air HD channels you don't even get with your local cable provider. Weather and alternate news channels can be found there. For example on Saturday mornings, we have been watching In Wine Country on 4-2 (NBC HD station).

Questions or Comments? Post them below!