Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Thankful for the balance

Welcome back, everyone! I hope you’ve all had a very nice Thanksgiving holiday. I most certainly did. I accomplished the one task I set out at the start: vacuum and clean the interior of my BMW M2. Job done, the rest of the time is pure rest and relaxation.

Cleaning the inside of my car is an annual tradition (unlike any other). Because I drive the BMW so seldomly - and typically it’s just me inside - the interior never gets too grimy. The few people I’ve chauffeured around have all remarked in amazement how clean it is. I would sheepishly reply that it is not due to any sort of cleaning diligence on my part. Granted, I probably would vacuum more often if the M2 needed it.

I am thankful I live close enough to work for me to walk (instead of drive). Furthermore, what I am most grateful for this Thanksgiving is happy employment, one that allows for taking an entire holiday week off with zero issues. There was no stress at all in going back to work today. I slept quite soundly the previous night; the dreaded “Sunday scaries” are fortunately not a thing for me.

You absolutely cannot pay me enough (more) to break this peace of mind.

The contrast of seeing people working during Thanksgiving week (shoutout to the folks keeping Whole Foods open for half a day that Thursday), while I am freely hanging out on vacation, fills me with immense gratitude. Sure, I’ve hustled tremendously to be where I am at, but it would be naive to think there weren’t some lucky levers that got pushed by some sky deity along the way. My original staff position - some 10 years ago - only opened up because someone left.

No amount of agency on my part could have control that!

Respect the Thanksgiving

It’s November, and you know that means: it’s officially Christmas season. Well, not in my house! In this rented studio of mine, we have respect for the major holiday before Christmas. That’s right, I am talking about Thanksgiving. The Christmas tree (and decorations) goes up after the fourth Thursday of November, not before. There won’t be any Mariah Carey on the music rotation. And if I see Santa at the mall available for pictures - before Thanksgiving, I am punching him in the throat (tongue fully in cheek).

I get it: the Christmas atmosphere is pretty awesome. To get two months of it - from the beginning of November to end of the year - stretches out that specialness. I certainly like Christmas more than Thanksgiving. The latter doesn’t have songs to compete with the many famous tunes related to Christmas (shoutout the woman being horny for Santa). Aren’t Thanksgiving decorations simply autumnal-themed? Pumpkin spice latte can never compete with the evocative Starbucks holiday cups. (Or for the folks on the American political right: Christmas cups.)

You know what does respect Thanksgiving? Capitalism. The local Walmart may already have Christmas decorations up, but it hasn’t forgotten that it’s (day after) Thanksgiving that brings in the biggest revenue of the year. It seems like Black Friday has morphed from Friday after Thanksgiving to an entire month of sales and consumerism. These big box stores all have Black Friday sales way before the actual day. Take the Walmart example: if you join their membership program, you get first access to “Black Friday” sales on the second Wednesday of November (that’s tomorrow).

Black Friday is the best time to do your Christmas shopping. If you’re the frugal, non-procrastinating type.

Additional dealer markup

During Thanksgiving I met up with my cousin who I’ve not seen for a quite some time. Turns out he recently traded in his long-serving 2006 Toyota Corolla for a brand-new Toyota Sienna. The move makes perfect sense: he’s got a young kid now, and loading-unloading the car seat is just that much more convenient in a van than a tiny sedan. Besides, the improvement in vehicle safety has been magnitudes over the decade plus. I too would want the best and safest for my baby nephew.

Being that we are still amidst the great supply chain shortage in terms of new cars, I naturally asked my cousin if he paid over MSRP for the Sienna. Turns out he paid about $3,000 in ADM, plus the color blue he bought was not really his first option. I guess you absolutely cannot be picky in this market, especially the sought-after Toyota hybrid products (gas is still super expensive, after all). You agree with the dealer on the price, and then you wait until it’s your turn to get the latest shipment off the boat. For a particular color the wait can be months.

With high inflation, high interest rates, and a seemingly looming recession (tech companies have announced significant layoffs in droves), the current feeling is that the new vehicle shortage vis a vis demand will come back down to earth sometime next year. I hope the prognosticators are correct because the timing would be perfect for me. As I’ve written before, I am looking to buy the latest Honda Civic Type R. The car has just been released to the public earlier this month, so I’m waiting out the initial rush of folks who are willing to fork over the $10,000 or so dealer markups.

I’m looking to make the move sometime in the spring of next year. The hope is that serendipitously the market conditions would become favorable enough that I can buy a Type R with minimum to zero markups. In the meantime I’ll be scouring the forums for all the information pertaining to the FL5.

Hooray austerity

It is Thanksgiving week! That means Black Friday shopping is upon us. This year I plan to buy absolutely nothing. 2022 has already been a bit of a high spending year for me, in terms of material things. Earlier in the year I bought an LG OLED TV, and a PlayStation 5 to go along with it. Later on a pair of bookshelf speakers that costs $400. Just two months ago I replaced my 20-year old mattress with a fancy box unit from Helix.

I don’t always buy things, but when I do, I purchase the good stuff.

It’s time for some austerity. The Black Friday deals will certainly try their best to tempt me, but I am determined to prevail. Actually, that’s a lie. Last week a friend informed me a set of Google Pixel Buds A-Series was on sale for only $50 on Amazon (from original price of $99). It is downright disposable at that price. And since I am in need of replacing my pair of basic AirPods with something that lasts longer than one hour on a charge, the timing of that deal was perfect.

Let’s revise this, then: I endeavor to spend no more than $50 (plus tax) on things material during this holiday season. I will instead spend money on food and experiences with my friends. It’s not really about saving money, but rather spending money on the important stuff. I may want a standing desk that I’ve been eyeing for a long time, but I’ll be happier buying food from Costco for our Friendsgiving later this week.

Besides, there are other ways to get the benefit of a standing desk, such as going outside for a 10 minute walk.

Post Thanksgiving

Hello, friends. I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, socially-distanced, of course. Indeed I’ve written before that I don’t blame anyone for wanting to gather during the holidays, even under these dire COVID circumstances. Because it’s been a really rough year, and human beings are social animals (even for the introverted me). Certainly, the “right” thing to do would be to not gather at all, but we wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place if every American did what was right far earlier during this pandemic.

We have to accept reality: people are going to get together for the holidays. Christmas season is next.

It comes down to how much risk you are willing to take, and amongst my friend group, we chose a short gathering for Thanksgiving, with the appropriate masks and precautions (my own family never celebrated Thanksgiving). We hung out for about an hour at a friend’s house, and then individually took home food to-go. Later on we joined a Zoom session as the replacement for chatting over the dinner table. It was the best we could do under the circumstances, and most importantly, everyone felt good about it instead of someone stressing they are taking an undue risk.

It’ll be fun to look back at the pictures from this year and laugh at how peculiar it all is. A moment in our lives that hopefully is an anomalous blip, rather than a new normal.

Celebrations aside, I took the entire Thanksgiving week off work, so it was nice to have some leisure time to recharge the mind and body batteries. At first I was hesitant to even take the days off because I can’t go anywhere for obvious reasons. Normally I’d be off to Asia for the week, or at least not stuck at home the entire time. Instead, the only difference from work in taking vacation during COVID is that I don’t have to follow the online work channels for eight hours out of the day.

That being said, the respite from work allowed me to get the last bit of things I need to completely finish the moving process that started almost a month ago. It’s always nice to able to go to IKEA on a weekday when there’s far less people, and I can flaneur through the showrooms unbothered by crowds.

There’s one more month to go on this crazy year. I am grateful that me and the people close to me are still healthy and gainfully employed. That’s all we can ask for.

No trip to China

As we roll deeper into October and the final months of the year, the sad reality is finally dawning on me that I am not traveling back home to China this year. Stating the obvious: the coronavirus pandemic have made doing so absolutely untenable. The yearly trip to Guangzhou to see family on my dad’s side is always a wonderful and loving time, and it’s rather disappointing we won’t be able to do the annual meetup this year. The steak of six straight years of spending a few weeks of winter in China will come to an end.

The holidays are a difficult time of the year to be stuck in our homes and unable to see friends and family. Humans are social animals, after all, and at this point even the most ardent introverts are feeling the pain of the lack in social interactions (that’s me!) Therefore I don’t blame anyone for meeting up for Thanksgiving, even with all the risk associated with COVID-19. For some of us, our grandparents are quite up there in age, and who knows if they’ll make another turn of the planet. I think it’s important to take all the necessary precautions (mask up!) to see them before this calendar year is over.

Fortunately, my grandparents are on this side of the pond, so the inability to travel to China this year wouldn’t be detrimental.

Further good news: while much of America is experiencing a rebounding rise in COVID numbers, San Francisco have good enough stats to enter a new phase of reopening. The city’s restaurants have already been allowed to open indoor dining at a reduced capacity, and now, more places of commerce will be allowed to join that group. In a year of never-ending horrible news, how San Francisco have handled the pandemic response is something to be happy and proud of. Despite the sky-high housing costs, I am really glad to be a citizen of this city and county.

Our friend group can feel less guilty about gathering for Thanksgiving in a month’s time.

Thanksgiving is cancelled

It has to be, right? I know we’re only in the middle of August right now, but I don’t think it would be possible for us to have our typical large gatherings for Thanksgiving. It would not be the responsible thing to do, not when there will be at-risk elders present (are you really not going to invite grandma and grandpa?). One of the biggest cause factors to the spread of COVID is large indoor gatherings where air-circulation is minimal; we would be naive to think that our homes wouldn’t be one of such type if we do invite our friends and family over for Thanksgiving dinner. For sure, plenty of people will have one anyways - because this is America.

I am definitely sad that I probably won’t get to eat my friend’s rather delicious turkey this year, though with the way 2020 have gone, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. We all thought the coronavirus would subside by the Summer months, but here we are approaching autumn and we are still in de-facto lockdown. In California I still cannot yet have a meal inside a restaurant, the traditional bonding act of breaking bread that I miss dearly. Some days I would wake up and wish that all of this would be over in an instant, however irrational it may be, and then reality sets in once more, and I move on with my day as I have done since March.

I did not intend to be somewhat depressive on a Monday, but this past weekend was one of the few times I got tangible frustrated at the current predicament. On top of the pandemic, the Bay Area is experiencing historically bad wildfires, and the air quality around here is so awful that it is advised we stay indoors unless absolutely necessary (good thing we’ve had a lot of practice). I was suppose to take the 911 out for a long drive on Sunday, but the terrible smog from the wildfires prevented me from doing so: last thing I want is to further exacerbate the problem with my petrol-burning toy of a sports car.

Instead then I was stuck indoors watching automotive-related videos on Youtube, which really didn’t help because all I could think about is wanting so much to go outside and drive. Seeing others being able to do so in those videos made me rage at my current situation, desperate for the moment when we can go back to our previous normal. There’s so much I want to do and be able to do again, and that future right now seems quite far away.

Perhaps I’m finally experiencing cabin fever.