Blog

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

Laundry day off

As a public employee, I got the day off yesterday due to it being Veteran’s Day. It’s rather nice to have this mid workweek break on a Wednesday, and today feels more like a second Monday than a regular Thursday. Nevertheless, because there’s a still a pandemic raging on - with drastic upticks in cases in many parts of the country - having a day off just doesn’t seem as awesome as it used to. Even though you can go out to places, you really shouldn’t if it isn’t something essential like getting groceries.

What about hanging out with friends? Well, you probably shouldn’t do that either, though the fact most of my friends don’t have Veteran’s Day off sort of solved that conundrum for me.

So what I did yesterday was just hung out in the new-to-me studio apartment, enjoying a quiet day of solitude. It was also a good time to do my first load of laundry at the new (again, to me) premises. The place has got the latest fancy and eco-friendly front-loading washers and dryers, very smart and super quiet in operation. It’s such a stark contrast coming from my parents’ apartment, with its nearly two decades old top-loading units that make a horrendous racket - everybody in the house knows when laundry is being done.

Advancement in technology is lovely indeed.

Another point of difference from my parents’ is that I no longer have to hang-dry my clothes. Even though there is a dryer at the old house, for the sake of saving a few dollars of energy cost, my family have hung-dry our clothes since forever; the dryer is there only for sucking up the lint afterwards. So to go from that to immediately transferring freshly laundry into the dryer and using that machine as intended is rather awkward at first, though the end-result of slightly warm and fresh-smelling clothes is such a luxurious feeling.

Surely some of my stuff that’s never seen a proper mechanical drying session will shrink from the heat; I guess I’ll find out which ones eventually.

Now that I’ve sold my 911, of course I’m seeing them everywhere. Like a taunt!

Walking to work

One of the major reasons for my recent move to a new place is for its utter proximity to work. Instead of a 45-minute multi bus ride or a 20-minute car ride (relying on others to ferry me), I can now walk to work. And I’ve timed it, too: about three songs’ worth, going at a leisurely pace. Living this close to work truly has no downsides: walking is tremendous for your health, and the time that would otherwise be squandered towards a long commute, you get that back to use productively (or not) within the day.

Being able to walk to work takes stress off me that I didn’t even know existed. Not having to do the whole song and dance of getting ready and watching the clock just so I wouldn’t miss the bus and be late is such a luxury, one that is worth the extra money I am spending on housing costs. At the end of the work day, I am not dreading a slogging commute home or fighting with the crowds on a bus. I can now take my time and stroll back home slowly, taking in the glowing sky of the setting sun, and smelling the freshness of the air. In 10 minutes, I would arrive at home, calm and unbothered.

This have obviously spoiled me for life: I am going to try my damnedest to not have a long commute ever again. To waste up to two hours of my day stuck in traffic or on public transport just feels wrong, no matter how many insightful podcast episodes I consume along the way. It is indeed a privilege that I am able to move home like this and be this close to work; the circumstance of others aren’t so convenient. If I had to buy a house right now, there is no way I’d be able to afford a one anywhere near my current place of employment.

Every single workday, I’d be stuck in a car for hours like so many out there, resigned to the malaise of San Francisco Bay Area traffic. A day in the future might come where I may indeed have to do that, but as I’ve said, I’m going to try really hard to avoid such a situation. In the meantime, I’m going to really enjoy living so close to work.

Costco rethink

Who doesn’t like going to Costco? I sure do. There’s no place else that can get you as best a bang for your buck, no matter what it is that you buy.

Groceries is what my family most often buys from Costco, and now that I’m living by myself away from my parents, I’ve continued on that tradition. However, there’s a problem: buying in bulk is great in terms of price per single unit, but now, that giant bag of potstickers will need to be eaten entirely by me. There’s no other persons in the household to share in that burden of depleting a multi-pound tray of fish, so while it remains tempting to buy, these days the purchasing decisions involve careful planning on how to eat it all.

It turns out, that stops all the fun. Instead of buying multiple items, I’m stuck to buying just one package of breakfast sandwiches, because it will take me some time to get through all 10 of them. Never mind the fact the fridge I’ve got in the studio unit is not that large.

It won’t stop me from going to Costco probably every other week, but now I have to be more strategic with what I buy. If variety is what I want, then it’s the smaller chains like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods where I’ll need to shop at for groceries.

Luckily, there’s a Trader Joe’s within minutes walking distance from where I live, and sometime in the near future, there will be a Whole Foods as well. Be that as it may, I don't think I can give up going to Costco. It remains the most economical place to shop: a box of Keurig cups is half as expensive on a per-cost basis compared to Target.

Good thing those cups don’t need to go into the fridge, because mine is absolutely full.

One can never escape from a Costco run with less than $100 spent.

Got by with a little help

Followers of this blog would know: I recently moved.

And I could not have done it with my good friends. I don’t have many of them, but the few friends I do have I consider equally as dear as my family. The successful move out of my parents’ house reminded me just how awesome it is to have help from others.

Admittedly, I am a bit of a lone ranger when it comes to things: I prefer to go at it myself. It’s not like I see asking for help as a sign of weakness, it’s just that I’ve always had this mentality that in asking for assistance, I am being a huge bother to people. This is going to sound like I am blaming my mother: she’s the type of person who doesn’t like to owe anyone anything, and is quick to return a favor. She treats relationship with others as somewhat transactional, and some of that no doubt rubbed off on me.

So I was genuinely surprised and a bit taken-back when, without prompting, my friends offers their services to help me move. Things I would have done myself, like renting a van to haul my mattress, was taken care of voluntarily by my friends. In the case of the mattress, one of them had a Tesla Model S with a big enough boot to swallow the entire thing whole. Another friend - who happens to be the home owner I am renting from - saved me a trip to IKEA and got the bed-frame and bookshelves I needed. Yet another friend pitched in to ferry items from one house to the other, and assisted with building said bed-frame and bookshelves.

My stoic exterior belies how immensely moved I was by their gesture. My friend literally cut the time needed to complete the move by magnitudes. We started at 9 AM in the morning, and by noon the major move and build was complete, leaving me the afternoon to unpack and get my things into place.

If they are reading this: you guys are awesome! Thank you so much, with all sincerity.

What's the topic?

This is one of those mornings I really don’t know what to write about, but the show must go on. I try hard to not skip any scheduled writing days, because like missing a workout, the regret of having done so afterwards is rather unpleasant. Nothing should stop me from putting down the few hundred words on this page every day; except for Fridays, and the weekend.

With nothing to write about, I instead picked up a book and read for about an hour. I thought perhaps doing another task first would allow the time for inspiration to hit me and I’d have something to write about. Well, that completely failed on this day, and here I am rambling about particularly nothing just to fill up the word count.

But the show must go on.

The next time I put words to this page, I would have moved to my new spot closer to work, living the solitary independent life for the very first time. I am looking forward to this big life change with humbled anticipation, though with a few days still remaining at what I can now refer as “my parents’ home”, I am trying hard to not fast-forward time with the excitement of the future. It would be too easy to take these next days off and sort of lounge around until it’s time to move.

In those moments, I remind myself the core of what I do, which is plastered on the landing page of this very website: writer, photographer, car enthusiast, reader, traveler. So long as I am doing any one of those five things at a given time, (not so much traveling going on these days, sadly) I can confidently say I am being productive. Not to say one shouldn’t have hours of pure leisure, but for those with a tendency towards laziness like myself, reminders and affirmations are helpful tools to keep me on track.

Until next time, friends.

New car unlucky

It seems my somewhat rash action of trading in the 911 GT3 for a BMW M2 Competition have inspired my brother to do the same. He recently sold his Audi A3 to CarMax for a surprisingly large sum (the used car market is absolutely on fire) and is now the proud owner of a brand new Mazda MX-5 Miata.

Emphasis on owner, because he’s not really driven the car much since he bought it home some two weeks ago. On a cruise to Monterey during the weekend of purchase, the car threw a check-engine-light on the highway and went into limp mode. A brief stint at the dealership found everything to be okay, though after a few days the CEL returned, and as of writing the car is still at the servicing department, on a hoist with the transmission taken out.

At least they’ve provided my brother with a courtesy car.

Sometimes the luck of the draw is just not in your favor, but that’s not something my brother can control. Good news is it’s a brand new car, so the MX-5 will get repaired to proper standards without costing him a dime. The powertrain warranty covers the next five years of driving, so there’s really nothing to worry about. If my brother’s car buying patterns continues (I certainly hope not), he won’t even see the end of that five years with the Miata anyways.

If the dealership cannot fix the problem, then Mazda will be compelled by California lemon law to buyback the car. If that comes to pass, my brother will simply get another MX-5. The ND2 generation of the iconic Mazda sports car is indeed too sublime and fun to forsake just because the sample he purchased happens to have a few gremlins to sort through.

I look forward to many blasts through the local mountains with my brother once his new car is fixed.

This is not going to help my wanderlust.

Magical sunrise

As someone who tends to wake up rather early in the morning, I for one am looking forward to daylight savings time ending this Sunday. Right now when I get out of bed at 6AM, the sky doesn’t even begin to get brighter until an hour later. I resort to turning on the desk lamp so my body would know it’s actually time to wake, rather than it’s still the middle of the night. Turning the clock backwards one hour will sync up perfectly with my sleep schedule, with the sky beginning to turn lighter just as I end my slumber.

And then obviously I hope they never institute daylight savings time again, because jumping forwards one hour in March is always a tiring experience, like giving ourselves artificial jet-lag for no bloody good reason.

That said, it is something special to awake before official sunrise time; looking outwards through the window and seeing the sky do its magical transition from absolute darkness to intense bright. The mightiest object in our solar system creating the biggest shift change to planet is at once awe-inspiring and meditative. The sunrise phenomenon puts things into perspective, of just how tiny and powerless we are against the might of nature, unending for billions of years. So perhaps that small annoyance that’s been bothering me suddenly doesn’t seem to bad after all.

I am lucky to have a bedroom window that faces east, so I get to watch the sunrise and enjoy its delightful light shift every single day. It’s something I’ll miss when I move out at the end of this week, to a spot where the windows faces west, but it’s on the ground floor so it isn’t high enough to see the sky without a crane of the neck.

I shall relish these moments while I still can.