Blog

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

Brace yourselves

Word on the street is that El Niño is super strong this year, and that means it will be an especially wet winter here in California. Great news for water reservoir enthusiasts, but not so great news for people like me who walk to work. We’re going to need a bigger boat.

The past few winters have not been all that wet, so I’ve kept delaying buying some proper rain gear. Regular shoes get absolutely soaked when walking in the wet, so rain boots are in order. The beauty of ChatGPT is that I can simply ask it for the best reviewed boots for walking in the rain. I can see why review websites detest and block A.I. access because they are absolutely getting their lunch money stolen. When people don’t need to visit your website to know the results, you lose out on advertising revenue.

Nevertheless, ChatGPT pointed to the XTRATUF Men's Ankle Deck Boot. A waterproof yet breathable lightweight boot that isn’t too cumbersomely tall. For the less than $100 I paid on Amazon, I think that’s a pretty good deal. What’s important is that I need to have a regular pair of shoes to change into once I get to work, because the XTRATUF doesn’t look to be that comfortable for eight plus hours.

El Niño also brings strong winds. I need an umbrella that can withstand some headiness. No more $15 units purchased at the local Target that flips over at the slight hint of a breeze. I need a sturdy stem that can withstand some bashing. My friend put me onto davek umbrellas. Indeed, $120 for an umbrella is a different tax bracket sort of steep. Hopefully this is a buy once cry once situation. Davek’s got a lifetime guarantee, but as we know, the promise is only as good as the solvency of the company making it.

I think I’ve sufficiently braced myself. Winter is coming!

Another heat wave done

San Francisco Bay Area just finished its annual heat wave around Labor Day. As I type we are basking in the foggy coolness once more. Thank the heavens for our natural air conditioning.

You know when hot weather rolls around, the official puts out a spare the air alert? That’s purely symbolic, right? Someone isn’t going to see the alert and then go, “You know what? I don’t need to drive today. In fact, I don’t need to go to work!” Especially not in our American individualistic culture. Especially not in the current climate of: “I got mine, fuck you!”

Besides, in this region, a significant percentage of cars are electric. No emissions to begin with. But I’ll have you know I personally decided to not drive my car during yesterday’s 90 degree deluge, even though I needed to move my car back to its typical parking spot post street cleaning. Because I am a citizen of the world. Where is my Eagle Scout badge?

The problem with heatwaves in this region is that it is completely sun. Soon as you go outside, you are beaten down by the ceaseless rays. There’s not a cloud to be found. No momentary shade to salve the heat. I’ve been less miserable in hotter and more humid climates in Asia, because there were plenty of cloud cover to be found. An enclosed oven is more bearable than one with an open flame right above your head.

Good news is there’s only but about two weeks’ worth of days out of the entire year where it is truly uncomfortably hot. No wonder San Francisco’s homeless population is so high. If I were to shack up somewhere out on the streets, the mildly cool year-round climate here is the most logical option.

Old man father

I know it’s going to sound supremely ungrateful, given the rest of the country is covered under layers of snow: did San Francisco really get a winter? It seems like we got one true week of coldness, then it was back to the same mildness we get year around. This weekend it got to the mid 60s during the day! Perfectly comfortable weather. I’ve even stowed away the winter duvet.

What’s it like to see your parents visibility age? I was recently shocked to noticed my dad have turned into complete old man status, replete with balding head and entire grayness of hair. The relationship has reversed now: instead of parents taking care of me, it’s my turn to return the favor. Physical and mental decline is a great worry when small mishaps can now easily morph into disaster. The mortality rate for falling and breaking a hip is alarmingly high.

You know how we complain about old people driving on the road? Yeah, my father is of that age now. It’s tough: the more you don’t do it, the faster the skills decline. But there’s got a be a certain threshold where you take the keys away before the risk becomes too high. Whether the parent will willingly give up said keys is also a challenge.

Which I think the fast emergence of self-driving taxi services will be a timely solution to that problem. For my parents who seldom need to drive, the few times that they do can be covered by calling a Waymo. The service will only get cheaper, with better coverage, over time. It of course helps to live in a city with solid public transportation options, and in a neighborhood with shops.

Atrophy comes for us all. We can only do our best to stave off the worse consequences by practicing excellent self-care - diet, sleep, exercise - as much and as early as possible.

Path of least insanity

San Francisco is experiencing its typical Summer weather, right as we are heading into the beginning of autumn. It’s been warm and humid for the past two weeks, and the next two weeks look to be much of the same. So far, so tropical. (Our family immigrated from southeast China to move away from this sort of weather!)

I now greatly regret weightlifting and getting buff because in this muggy weather, there’s too much chafing going on. The inner thighs rubbing on each other. The latissimus dorsi interacting constantly with the triceps. (Very not humble bragging.) The perfect body shape for this weather is an emaciated 130 pounds soaking wet.

BART - our area’s subway system - having a complete system shutdown last Friday morning is a fond reminder how fortunate I am to not have a commute. It remains a superpower to live within a 10 minute walk to work. That is, until they need someone in an emergency. My proximity at that time is not an advantage if I want to skip out of assisting.

To be at the whims of public transportation operating normally - can’t be me! This isn’t Japan where trains and buses are frequent and always on time. And if any one is ever late by one second, the driver has to commute seppuku as penance (very much joking, if you cannot tell.) Here in America, schedules are merely suggestions. There’s no telling when the next train will come, should you just missed one.

No wonder people will chose commuting by personal vehicle if the option exists. Even if you were stuck in traffic, at least you are in the private airspace of your own car. No bad smells, no rowdy passengers. It’s the path of least insanity.

The Healy travel luck

I have what my friends jokingly refers to as the “Healy travel luck.” It seems that when I go on vacation, things go very smoothly for me. And I’m not the type to obsessively plan things out into a rigid schedule. Serendipity has been kind to me, it must be said. Weather seems to cooperate where ever I go. The restaurants I encounter are all fine and delicious. A local immediately appears whenever I get stuck in a quandary when I’m in foreign countries.

In 2025 I wanted to make the annual trip home to Guangzhou, China during the QingMing Festival. It’s a yearly event where Chinese people visit their family burial sites to pay respects. I’ve never done it for the family on my father’s side (all residing in China), so the excitement was considerable.

But there’s only one problem: early April in Guangzhou can be rainy. And it’s the sort of tropical rain that you’re hopeless to defend with an umbrella. Never mind performing the rites: the rain is so heavy that you’d never get out of the car. My attention was glued to the weather forecast in the weeks leading up to the trip, with the unfortunate prediction that it was going to rain on the day of the visit to the graves.

Enter the Healy travel luck. It did rain that day, but it started in the afternoon. By that time, we were completely finished with the ceremonies in the morning. Funny enough, the sky opened up like crazy soon as we got back into our vehicles for the trip back to the hotel. It cannot get any more fortuitous than that.

Of course, I’ve completely jinxed myself just by typing out the previous paragraphs. Farewell, good fortune!

Sadly, another one

It’s sad to see the utter devastation of Pacific Palisades burning to the ground. I was last there back in 2023, meeting up with some car people at the local Gelson’s. We then took a spirited cruise on Malibu canyon roads. All of that beauty is gone, in a flash of monstrous 100 mile-an-hour winds.

At least folks in California aren’t stupid enough to blame President Biden for controlling the weather.

Indeed, can municipalities even prepare for sustained dry winds in the triple digits? I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s really no one to blame here but the act of god. A god who isn’t completely benevolent when he is wont to inflict such ruin on a community (shoutout to The Brothers Karamazov). Losing a home is a horrific ordeal, no matter your income circumstances. It’s disgusting to see the worst of social media relishing the destruction, because Malibu and the Hollywoods hills happen to be high net worth zip codes.

Envy is a disease.

Climate change seems to be throwing at us weather emergencies the size and frequency of which we can’t prepare for. Florida got hit by two seismic hurricanes within the span of a week just last year. There’s nothing one can do other than not be there when the disaster happens. Emergency rations aren’t going to do shit against fires capable of leveling towns. (Well, you absolutely should make sure to have insurance for the most valuable things. If you even can get insurance for it.)

A hearty best of luck and a speedy recovery to those suffering from the fires in Southern California.

That's not very nice

It’s not everyday you get woken up at 6:00 AM to a tornado warning. Actually, it’s the first of its kind ever in the recorded history of San Francisco. Though I wonder how far back that stretches. What did they do for alerts before the advent of the cellphone? The emergency sirens dating back to World War II, I suppose.

The tornado warning advised to “Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building.” Seeing that it was early Saturday morning, most of us were already indoors - asleep. Good news for me, my room is already the bottommost floor of the house. So what did I do with the warning? Sent a screenshot of it to my friend group-chat, and then promptly went back to sleep.

I think the proper thing to do was to get up and hunker down? I don’t see what difference it would make. If a tornado actually materializes in our vicinity, that in it of itself will promptly wake me back up. You know what? I now understand how folks in tornado and hurricane alleys refuse to heed warnings and stay put. Just like soldiers going into battle, you never think you would die. Despite the mathematical probability staring at the face.

Along with the tsunami warning from last week, it’s been a wild time for San Franciscans. Let’s hope it’s not one of those precursors to a giant earthquake. They’ve been telling us about the next big one since I was in elementary school - three decades ago.