Blog

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

I washed the car

This past weekend I was reminded why I don’t wash my BMW M2 often: it’s those damn wheels. The “Style 788M” factory alloys looks amazing (clean or dirty, honestly), but that multitude of spokes is horror on the fingers. I actually tore a piece off my right ringer finger, and as of writing it’s still hurting rather nicely. What I really need is my old set of wheel woolies. However I just don’t have to mind to spend hours on car detailing anymore.

In fact the only reason I even washed the M2 this past Saturday was because it’s been over four months since the car last got one. That I didn’t even do:: a neighbor borrowed the BMW for a bit, so in return he cleaned it and gassed it up before returning (a gentleman always hand back a borrowed car with a full tank of gas). The neighbor did a fantastic job because up until recently the paint was still beading water nicely, indication of a layer of wax.

Well that layer was completely gone. I don’t detail my car as often as a I used to (once every two weeks!), but I’m not negligent either. Time to bring out the single bucket, many microfiber towels, and that bottle of Optimum No Rinse Wash with Wax. It was actually kind of nice: a beautiful Saturday afternoon, warmish weather, with a slight breeze. Perfect conditions to spend some time with the M2, podcast playing in my ear. If I weren’t so lazy about it, I’d probably do it more often.

I could pay a professional detailer to do it periodically, though I don’t mind a bit of manual labor. It humbles the mind, and it’s great exercise. The best workouts are the ones that have utility, the everyday tasks. Squatting to clean those aforementioned difficult-to-clean wheels sure beats squatting at a gym rack. My thighs get the burn, and the M2 gets clean.

These damn fingers

One obstacle in my ongoing practice of learning the piano is that I have a bad tendency of hitting the key adjacent to the one I want. The problem is especially acute when I’m going left with my motion. My hands and fingers aren’t particularly big, so I’m not sure what’s going on here. All I can do and have been doing is stop and start over every time I hit a key errantly.

I don’t remember having this problem back in high school. We all had to take a year of art classes, so I chose the piano. Perhaps my fingers weren't as mangled as they are now, with an additional decade of knuckle cracking and surely ligament damage. Trying to learn the piano in my thirties was always going to be a challenge vis a vis the condition of my fingers. Much like learning a language, it’s far easier to do when you are young and malleable.

But then again I taught myself Korean in my late twenties, so it’s not impossible. It’s all about the amount of hours put in (read: a lot). It took me about five years of studying to be able to listen to Korean language radio station and understand about 80 percent of what they are saying. I’m only on year two (pandemic years, no less) of my piano learning journey, so I’m not too worried about my bad tendencies just yet.

If I have to practice a simple piece for a whole week just to play it perfectly, so be it. I’ve got all the time in the world. Besides, I’ve spent way too much money on this Yamaha keyboard to give up so quickly. Money is always a good motivator!

I can't watch

Ever since I’ve sold my Porsche 911 GT3 over a year ago, I cannot bear to consume media about the car anymore. I skip right over video reviews of the latest generation 911 GT3. It’s just too painful of a reminder of what I used to have. My god that was an amazing car. The 991 generation GT3 was one to hold forever and take to the moon. Sadly I had to move out of my parents’ house, and therefore lower my monthly expenses. It had to go.

My BMW M2 Competition is not a bad consolidation in the slightest. I’ve adored it on the very first weekend drive. But an M2 is no 911, never mind a 911 GT3. The mystique of the weird rear engine layout and the side silhouette bourn out of a Volkswagen Beetle is utterly unique in the automotive world. Every car guy aspires to own a 911 at least once in their lifetime. But they forgot to tell you how much you’ll miss yours when you sell it and move on.

It was the correct decision. The M2 is a far better fit for my current lifestyle, even if I disregard the money situation. The extra bit of ground clearance and utility compared to the super pure 911 GT3 mean I can use the M2 for the daily errands far easier. An IKEA run to get a kitchen table would have been impossible in the Porsche. Would have made for an interesting Youtube video, but I don’t do that kind of media.

The one thing I’m most proud of in owning the GT3 has to be my GT3 diaries. I can’t believe I found the motivation to write about the car every month for nearly two years. From a writing perspective, it’s an era of creativity I’ve yet to find again. Notice that I don’t have an M2 diaries. The BMW just isn’t that interesting of a car, and I drive mine so seldomly that there wouldn’t be much to write about on a monthly basis.

Hopefully there would come a time I’d be able to get over my bitterness and enjoy content about the GT3.

Separation of spaces

One of the reasons I actually like physically going in to work is the separation of spaces. There’s zero chance of mixing up whether I’m working or doing home stuff. The different location allows me to mentally switch to another mode soon as I enter or leave a space. I know I’m done for the day when I depart from campus. I don’t get triggered by Slack notifications when I’m home because I know for sure those hours are outside of work.

Due to the omicron strain of COVID because super virulent, our campus operations got shut down last week. We all had to work from home, something I haven’t done since last September. There goes keeping work and home life separate! I tried my best, however: instead of logging into work portals from my own MacBook Pro, I took home a 13-inch MacBook Pro from campus. Even though I have a gorgeous 32-inch Pro Display XDR, I rather stare at a much smaller screen than integrate work back into my home tech ecosystem.

Working from home also meant eating lunch at home (again, something I’ve not done since last Fall). That’s when I realized I really should stop eating at the same computer desk - I don’t have a dining table. It’s cumbersome to have to move my computing peripherals off the desk in order to have the room to put the dishes and bowls. Eating noodles (which I often do) can get a bit splashy, too, which doesn’t bode well for the monitor in front of me.

To have separation of spaces, it was time to get a table specifically to eat on. As I’ve written before, I’m one person living by myself, so I don't need something huge (not that I have the space anyways). A small kitchen island, plus one singular high chair will suffice. Off to IKEA! But there’s a problem: due to the never-ending supply chain issues, the closest IKEA location with the items in stock was in West Sacramento. Three hours roundtrip, $50 in gas, and $14 in bridge tolls wasn’t going to stop me. The sad thing is, I had already made the same trip a week ago to buy the stands for my new TV…

Hopefully I’m done needing stuff from IKEA for a long time!

I'm only one person

In the fabulous TV series Hawkeye, Florence Pugh’s character Yelena had a funny interaction with Hailee Steinfeld’s character Kate. In Kate’s apartment, Yelena cooked some mac and cheese for the both of them. She went to look for spoons for the both of them but only found one. Yelena then asked Kate why she’s only got one singular spoon, to which the response was, “I’m only one person!”

I felt that innately! I’ve been renting by myself for over a year now, and I too only have one spoon. I don’t even have a fork, preferring to use chopsticks. Due to the coronavirus, I hardly entertain guests. There isn’t even another chair in my studio apartment. Any visitors would have to sit on the floor (a very clean floor, mind you). It’s just as well because it’s rather tiny for more than one person. Besides, most of my friends know my landlord/friend/housemate as well, so when they come visit, we just hang out upstairs.

It is interesting some of the quirks of living alone in your own space. Like having only one set of utensils. I also drink straight out of liter bottles of drinks, because honestly who else is drinking it but me? I pay top dollar for the expensive toilet paper and the most organic of eggs. Unlike a family of four, it takes me a long time to go through one giant Costco package of Charmin Ultra Softs. The extra few dollars over the Kirkland brand is insignificant.

As I always say to my friends, “Come on, guys, we make money now!”

I’m definitely going to lose lots of money to this place.

I got a new TV!

Late last week I wrote that I was finally able to purchase a PlayStation 5. On that Sunday, I picked up the notoriously scarce gaming console at my local Best Buy. Was I a bit self conscious carrying the PS5 to the car? You bet! With the rampant retail crime going on in the Bay Area, some thugs could have rolled up in a Honda Accord sedan and rip the PS5 from my hands in a flash. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have parked at the lot on the roof. By myself.

Thank providence I made it home with the console unscathed. But now there’s another problem: I don’t have a television to plug the PS5 into. It’s been more than a year since I’ve moved to this new spot, and yet a TV still hasn’t materialized. I’ve always planned to buy one, but it’s definitely been on the back-burner, seeing as I don’t really watch that much TV. Other things I used more often were worth spending the money on, like a new MacBook Pro.

Because if I’m getting a TV, it’s got to be a good one. None of the poverty-spec models that costs in the hundreds. So it’s going to be spendy. The best in the business right now is the OLED televisions from LG. Dubbed the best TV for the PlayStation 5 by RTINGS.com, the LG C1 OLED is the one to purchase. 65-inch is the size I bought; could have gone bigger but alas I’m not made of money, despite appearances.

I’d thought about returning to Best Buy to buy the TV, but the 5% back at Amazon with my Chase Amazon card is too irresistible. What’s another few days of wait? Besides, I didn’t have to bug a friend with a large enough vehicle to transport the thing. It was white-glove delivery by a third-party contractor from Amazon. I know this because afterwards, Amazon emailed me a customer satisfaction survey regarding the delivery. I gave the team high marks as I’m sure their pay would be docked otherwise.

Needless to say I am loving the LG OLED TV. The picture quality is expectedly amazing. I’m happy to see the display has a glass cover, which enhances contrast and it’s easier to clean. Cheaper units would have been polycarbonate. Indeed the LG wasn’t cheap, but much like my Pro Display XDR, I’m looking to keep this for a very long time.

Be generous

Back in my high school days, the Initial D anime series was all the rage amongst us car enthusiasts. Drifting - the act of deliberately power-sliding a car - was fast becoming the rage, even for those us of an age who can only dream of driving. Youtube wasn’t yet a thing then; media distribution was still largely on physical media. That’s precisely how I watched Initial D, popping in a disc one episode after another. Kids have it so much easier nowadays.

One particular day after school, an older friend of a classmate was visiting from another school. Sadly, I’ve completely forgotten his name. It was probably Henry. Like me, he was also enthusiastic about cars, so we naturally got to talking about various automotive-relate topics. Initial D and drifting came up, and Henry mentioned he has a DVD called Drift Bible. The premise is simple: the drift king of Japan - Keiichi Tsuchiya - teaches you how to drift.

Seeing as Henry and I (I’m pretty sure that’s not his name) have only met a few times, I was totally undeserving of the kindness that was about to happen. He offered to drive me to his house, give me the Drift Bible DVD to borrow, then drive me home. As someone who lives an hour bus ride from my high school, the generosity of a lift home was overwhelming enough (no such thing as an UBER back then, kids). Lending a DVD to practically a stranger? That is above and beyond.

I’m writing all this because I feel tremendously guilty: I still have that DVD! I’m looking at it right now as I’m typing these words out. The jerk that I am never returned the borrowed item. An olive branch utterly cut off, a possible long friendship over cars completely disregarded. I can only say thank you to Henry for his massive generosity. If he’s somehow reading this, you can find me via the contact links at the bottom right.

And I know, your name is not Henry.