Blog

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

Pops crackles and bangs

Readers of this blog will know that these days I’m driving around in my brother’s car when I need to physically go into work. He’s still in the phase of car enthusiasm where he likes to pour money into modifications and making the vehicle his very own. As someone who drives the car rather infrequently, it’s always a treat and surprise to find out what exactly has he done to the car each time around. It definitely reminds me of the days when I too put most of my discretionary income into modifying my Toyota Corolla.

The latest mod my brother did to his Audi A3 is an exhaust and a retune. While most people tend to purchase an aftermarket exhaust for more flow and sound, he simply got the muffler chopped off. Much like a Fiat 500 Abarth that comes from the factory with no muffler, my brother’s Audi A3 now barks loudly at any RPM. For someone of my age where I prefer to slip out of buildings unnoticed (don’t mind the GT3, please), the newfound loudness of the A3 is a bit bothersome. I can see why switchable exhausts with both a silent and loud mode is so en vogue in sports car these days.

My own 911 is rather noisy at any engine RPM, so it’s not really something to complain about in my brother’s car. What is worthy of complaint is the tune he’s put on the Audi: the notorious “burble tune”. This refers to the pops and bangs that happens when the throttle snaps shut as one lets off the gas pedal, something manufacturers have programmed into cars these days because for whatever reason, people seem to like the fake crackles and reverberations. Never mind the fact that it’s effectively gasoline being burned off in the exhaust track: an utter waste of gas for some noise.

You’d expect pops on the overrun from dedicated sports cars such as a Jaguar F-Type; on a plain Audi A3 four-door it’s downright silly. Worse, my brother have put a tune where the burbles happen even when I let off the gas at low RPMS, which is just about as fake and contrived as it gets. Honestly I it’s slightly embarrassing driving his car around, all the while wishing for a quiet cruising mode to toggle to.

Trying to turn a commuter sedan into a sports car have drained many a wallets from enthusiasts. Take it from me, someone who has done exactly that: save the money, buy the sports car. It doesn’t even have to be a 911, though it should be.

A hard day's work

The best days are when you’ve put in hard hours at work, that by the end of the night, you are so tired that soon as your head hits the pillow, you go right to sleep for eight plus hours with zero interruption. Yesterday was such a day for me, and sure enough I slept like a hibernating animal until I was once again unceremoniously interrupted by my morning alarm. Because no matter how awesome of a day you’ve just had, the cycle of life means you get to do it over again the next day.

It sure beats the alternative!

There’s this perception that those of us lucky enough to be able to work from home, the workload must be far lower than what it would have been during normal times. The mere fact that we are away from the workplace means there’s some tasks you simply cannot do. This is especially true in my field of tech support; there’s nothing we can do remotely if a user’s laptop mechanically fail. Zoom is awesome technology, but even it can’t replicate actually getting hands on a machine for troubleshooting. The scope of things to do may indeed have decreased, but quite honestly I’ve been as busy as ever these past few months of lockdown.

It’s all about making the most out of a situation, and for me, my goal was to learn as much as possible. I’m relatively new to my current team, and this year was suppose to be a period of transition and slowly learning the techniques and nuances. COVID-19 threw a wrench into that, and I was pretty much forced to grab everything on the fly. Google truly is my best friend, and so are colleagues who are super generous with their time in answering my surely inane to them questions. I have to say I've not had such a period of massive learning at work since I first started over a decade ago, and it’s always good to pickup new knowledge.

On the flip side, I could’ve easily used my newness to the team as an excuse to lay back and not do much of anything. It probably would’ve been okay, given the extraordinary situation, but that’s not how I wish to do things. One thing I always strive for and take pride in is being highly productive at work; it isn’t about making myself look great amongst colleagues or chasing promotions or whatnot, but rather it’s about feeling good about the work I’ve put in at the end of a workday, so I can return home and sleep soundly. That’s really as much as I would ever need.

No rest for everybody

I would like to know whose idea or agreement was it that said we are going to have nightly rounds of illegal fireworks for the entire month of June, presumably leading up to the Fourth of July. It used to be that only on the day of Independence Day would we had to deal with the loud bangs and pops of fireworks emanating around the neighborhood, but for some reason somebody decided this year that we are going to have it every evening for a whole month. According to what I can gleam from twitter, this is a phenomenon all throughout the country. New Yorkers are so fed up with the disruption that they’ve gone to the mayor’s house to protest - with loud honking.

It makes sense: if I can’t get proper sleep, why should the person who runs the city?

Normally I am not against illegal fireworks on the Fourth of July; it’s for the kids, and just one night out of the whole year having to endure thunderous sounds while trying to fall asleep is a worthy tradeoff. Thirty straight days, however? That’s got to be a no from me, man. Since the month of June began I’ve been wearing ear-plugs to sleep, something I usually don’t do unless I’m traveling. While I can indeed sleep through earthquakes, paradoxically I need absolute silence in order to fall into slumber. These nightly fireworks have not been conducive to say the least, and honestly I’m starting to get rather annoyed.

I have no doubts the coronavirus situation plays a huge factor in the endless melee of loud bangs every night. There’s got to be a surplus of fireworks that were made available to purchase online very cheaply; thus armed with an arsenal that couldn’t be depleted in one single night, one person decided to start lighting them up way ahead of the Independence holiday. Monkey see, monkey do, and everybody who’s got illegal fireworks began to shoot them on a nightly basis. Admittedly it was amusing at first, but after over twenty consecutive days of it, it’s really not fun anymore. Worse, there’s still almost two weeks before the actual Fourth of July; god forbid it continues on after that.

Not here to spoil anyone’s party, but the daily rounds of fireworks is a prime example of too much of a good thing. I hope this super quirky 2020 is but an aberration, and starting next year we go back to putting up fireworks on the day of only.

How would you like your adapter to be adapted?

Watchmen allegory

When weekends roll around during this time of coronavirus, options for leisure are rather limited. The typical social venue still haven’t yet open - as well they shouldn’t be - so just about the only choice that involves going outside is to the mountains and trails. Unfortunately, the same laws of physics apply to everyone, so hiking locations are absolutely packed with people. A few weeks back, while driving on the San Mateo mountains in the Woodside area, I passed by many full parking lots, with cars having to park alongside the road. I get it: people are craving activity, and if a majority of activities are still limited, the demand for what remains is going to increase.

The COVID-19 situation is still too delicate for my liking to be heading out on Saturdays and Sundays. I’m still in the mode of unless I absolutely need to - work, for example - I shall remain indoors at home as much as possible. So that means I have to find ways to entertain myself, and usually that involves the many automotive-related channels I subscribe to on Youtube. This past weekend, however, HBO made the Watchmen series available for free to watch on its website and stream platforms. All I’ve ever heard about Watchmen is how spectacular it is, so it was the perfect opportunity to finally watch the show. Eight hours of my Sunday, sorted.

Verdict: Watchmen the series is profound in so many ways.

The particular story arc I most enjoyed was that of Adrian Veidt’s marooning on Europa. Here he was living in actual heaven as envisioned and created by Dr. Manhattan, with everything he could ever possibly want taken care of. Yet he still sought a way to escape that paradise, to come back to this flawed Earth of ours. Veidt’s story allegorizes a lesson that resonates greatly with me: the grass is definitely not greener on the other side, even if that other side is quite literally heaven. Be satisfied with what you have right now, because what you are pining for instead may not be what you want, and it certainly won’t make you any happier.

Adrian Veidt wanted utopia, but when he got it, he sought to leave it instead. That’s an important and powerful lesson there.

An example of a packed parking lot in the mountains.

For the kitten

I get it now.

The enduring and unconditional love that people have for their pets is something I’ve finally come to experience for myself. Readers of this blog may know that our family adopted a two-year old kitten a few months back, and he’s simply been a tiny bundle of joy ever since. No matter how much of a bad day I’ve had, it instantly melts away as soon as I see our cat, him meowing back in greeting. How can I possibly stay in a bad mood when all he ever wants to do is lie on his back, begging me to scratch his tummy.

I totally get it now, why people get pets. I use to think I wouldn’t be a pet owner: why spend that money and time on raising an animal when raising an actual human baby (of my own, obviously) seems far more useful and rewarding. Your child would and should outlast you; meanwhile, a cat has an average of 15 years to live. I didn’t want to go through that anguish of falling in love with a being, only to lose him in such a relatively short amount of time.

As life would have it, I didn’t have to make the choice: it was my brother who adopted our kitten, and I’ve been thrust into the life of a pet owner through circumstances. After only two months, I’m really glad it happened that way. I deeply adore and love our little cat; some of the best times during this COVID-19 lockdown is feeding him and playing with him on the carpet. I’ve found that I don’t think or worry about the cat’s short lifespan at all; it’s so easy to stay in the moment when interactions are so pure and simple. It’s as if the anxiety burden of being human gets momentarily erased when I am playing with our cat.

A joy of the most natural kind.

No silence for the wicked

After the tranquilness of physically being at work yesterday and the absolute silence that comes from being one of the few people there, today was such a dramatic drag. I’m once again back working at home, and the loudness of the neighborhood - and from my family members who are also stuck sheltering at home - is especially grating today. I can practice zen buddhism as much as I can, but some days it’s difficult to ignore the things I can’t control; today, it’s the ambient sounds of where I live.

The kid that lives downstairs from us just so happen to decide that this day would be a good day to ride a super loud motorcycle around the neighborhood. Lovely.

Peace and quiet is what I want, is that too much to ask? Some days I am this close to risking it all and moving myself to the middle of nowhere out in the woods, to find my own version of Walden pond. I would gladly swap the sounds of city-life for the sounds of nature; the former can be hugely grating, and the latter is evergreen serene until eternity. What it must be like to be able to finish a thought without yet another car driving by with its stereo blaring way too loudly. I’m not annoyed most days - I wouldn’t have been able to live here for nearly twenty years if it did - but some days it’s simply impossible to keep a clear mind and focus.

How am I suppose to be meditative under such annoyance?

What does help to refocus the mind and keep calm is to remember that there are others out there who has it worse than me, that their surroundings is magnitudes more difficult than the mere noise pollution that I’m experiencing. Commiseration - even if it’s imagined - helps also: surely I’m not the only one who is bothered by the loud motorcycle whizzing by when the kid is riding it over the many streets of the neighborhood. It’s suddenly not so bad when I realize it’s not only me who is suffering.

This too shall pass, and as it always is with mental health, it’s a constant work in progress.

Aren’t you lucky, not having to deal with an hyperactive mind of a human.

I'm heading out

Some days it’s nice to simply get out of the house.

Today was one of those days where I had to physically go into work, and I have to say I quite enjoyed it. Routines are nice, but sometimes it’s cool to break it up and do something different. Who knew that actually going to campus for work would be the thing that is out of the ordinary, but such is the time that we are living right now. Of course, it’s a blessing that I get to drive my brother’s car for the commute, rather than take public transport; it probably wouldn’t be enjoyable at all if I had to slog it with the masses on the bus.

Nothing against buses, but you really cannot do social distancing inside one.

It is eerie indeed to be one of the few people on campus, a sort of silence that even during the breaks between semesters you wouldn’t find. Picture an entire floor of the library building, and it’s just me, my supervisor, and the attending security guard. Everything seems to be in suspended animation, other than the few items I interact with. It sounds a bit perverse, but it’s as if Thanos did the snap, and I’m amongst the few survivors combing through everything that’s been left behind. The coworkers that I’m used to interacting with have seemingly vanished.

On the other hand, I also like the silence very much. Where I live it’s not the quietest street in the world, and sometimes it’s difficult to concentrate on my third-floor room that faces the road. On campus - with almost everyone gone - it’s far easier to keep focus, and not be momentarily annoyed at the car driving by that’s playing music at the volume level of a rock concert. I know I shouldn’t let such a trivial and uncontrollable things distract me, and I really try not to, but to be in an environment where I know for sure that no such mental intrusion will ever occur, the mind is that extra bit calmer.

I reckon physically going to work once a week is a good thing for the mind.