Blog

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

Chad driver

A few weeks ago in Portland, my friend and I hailed a LYFT car to take us to the airport. The name of the driver who accepted our ride request was Chad. Immediately I thought to myself: this can’t be good! The name Chad carries all sorts of negative connotation these days, and we waited to find out what kind of douchebag is going to show up.

Turns out my gut feeling was correct. Soon as we enter the car we notice Chad was unmasked. While indeed the States have largely opened up completely from pandemic restrictions, federal law still dictates a mask requirement when traveling on public transportation, including taxis and ride-share. Of course, we were ready and masked up.

A small sticker on the window claims masks are not required inside the car, which is rather false. Nevertheless, we didn’t mind that Chad lacked facial covering because we were both vaccinated (with the best vaccine Pfizer has to offer). Chat did asked whether we would like for him to put on a mask, to which we declined, not wanting to risk any anti-mask tirade coming back our way.

Right on cue, Chad then started ranting about the sorry state of Portland and how the mayor has been doing such a shitty job of it. He’s not wrong: we stayed in the Chinatown area of Portland, and practically every block was littered with homeless tents. A stark contrast to the bougie apartments in the area, and the long line at Voodoo doughnuts. No wonder Portland Chinatown has a somewhat deserted feel. Who would want to come here to hangout amongst so many homeless on the streets?

To this point, we agreed with Chad. The ride to the airport was uneventful after that. He realized we were not hostile to his believed ideologies. I’m sick of mask wearing as much as Chad is, though he probably was so from the very beginning.

Just the iPhone

When I travel to places I usually bring along the “big” photo kit. It consists of a Sony A7R2 camera and a few lenses, plus a tripod. The obvious downside is that the kit adds a bit of weight to the whole luggage situation. That’s the price to pay in order to capture the beautiful scenes. You do the best you can to mitigate things, of course: my travel tripod is made of carbon fiber and weights only two pounds.

Thankfully, smartphone photographic technology have improved leaps and bounds in recent years. Pictures from a modern smartphone can look just as good as a big-sensor digital camera. Computational photography is a wonderful thing. In the past two years I’ve use almost exclusively my iPhone for photos. It suffices for simple snapshots and the semi-serious stuff like producing a photo calendar. The A7R2 has sat on the shelf, doing nothing but drain the battery.

No surprise then that during my two week vacation at the end of June, I took just the iPhone with me. It’s incredibly freeing to not have to lug around the big camera kit. And honestly, I didn’t miss it that much. The only time I wish I had the Sony with me was in Seattle. We were hanging out by the waterfront area during golden hour, and Mount Rainier was visible at the distant background. Great as the iPhone is at taking photos, it simply does not have physical resolution to do that scene justice.

Other than that, it’s amazing I can use just the phone as the main camera on my travels. No doubt things will only continue to improve as the years roll on. Might I actually sell the A7R2 and go solely smartphone? Possible!

Breaking the schedule

I am definitely too old for this.

The season finale of Loki aired yesterday. Being intrepid followers of the show, my friends and I decided to watch it at midnight, right when the episode becomes available on Disney Plus. That meant gathering on Tuesday evening and hanging out until we can watch the finale.

Sounds great and doable for the college kid, but for a fully-realized adult who goes to sleep at 10:00 PM, I have to say it’s was a struggle. Yesterday - Wednesday, the day after staying up to watch Loki episode six - I felt like crap the whole time because of insufficient sleep. I don’t exactly regret hanging out with friends, but as with everything in life, there’s a trade-off.

Getting a consistent eight hours of sleep, going to bed then wake up at the same time every single day of the week is something I try to follow as best as possible. This is to ensure maximum recovery and energy for the next day. Any (nexus) event that breaks that cycle is something I try to avoid. Just this Monday I was invited to an 8:45 PM movie showing and I declined because I would be breaking my sleep schedule.

Then why did I break it for Loki? Simple, really: the gather was upstairs from when I live. Right after the finale was over, I went directly downstairs and straight to bed, having already showered. Thought it would stave off some of the next-day drowsiness, but the answer was no.

Remember when we could stay up Into the wee hours and then not feel any adverse affects the next day? Those were the days.

Back to live baseball

This is the short story of how I attended my first live baseball game in almost two years.

My friend and I were traveling in Los Angeles. We had a day in the schedule to basically do whatever. Turns out our hometown team the San Francisco Giants were playing a series agains the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim. It’s a sort of goal of mine to visit as many baseball stadiums around the country as possible. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tick off Angels Stadium, and get to watch the Giants play.

Coincidently, two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani was scheduled to pitch on that Wednesday. This kid is straight out the wildest create-a-player fantasies in video game land. Not only can he throw an 100 MPH fastball along with one of the best splitters in the game, but he is also one of the best sluggers in baseball. As of this writing, Ohtani leads the major leagues in home runs. This guy is once-in-a-lifetime special.

Needless to say we jumped at the chance to see our team play and Ohtani pitch. But there’s a problem: the game is in Anaheim, which is rather far from where we were staying in Koreatown - especially when we don’t have a car. Luckily, there’s a local train that takes us right to the Angels Stadium doorsteps. We just have to get an UBER to LA’s Union Station. Imagine that, taking a train to go do stuff in America.

Of course, going to Anaheim and back, plus the game itself, consumed our entire day. That’s okay, because we’re on vacation and we built in that slack in the schedule on purpose. The game itself was spectacular: a five-hour, extra-innings thriller. The Giants persevered, even though Ohtani pitched supremely well, finishing six innings for a quality start. That’s about the best outcome we could’ve asked for.

It felt great to be back in a baseball stadium, taking in a game. God bless the people who got us the COVID vaccine so quickly.

Chinatowns around the country

You might be wondering why did my friend and I travel through four cities in the span of 12 days. It’s not typically how I would like to travel; that’s too many destinations in such a short timeframe. My preference would be to spend at least a whole week at a particular city. Travel days - the days when you have to get on a plane or train to go somewhere else - really drains you. Another friend of mine just came back to San Francisco from Hawaii. She was utterly drained, even though all she did the entire day was sit on an airplane for five hours.

The hectic schedule was dictated by the want of my friend. The whole reason for our trip was to visit the various Chinatowns in Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland. My friend has a travel Youtube channel that’s currently focused on Chinatowns. His goal is to visit as many as possible, culminated in actually doing a long tour of China. Please go give it a watch and subscribe!

It’s super interesting to actually visit the Chinese communities that have sprouted up throughout the country. I think it’s fantastic our people back then did well to build their own communities and support each other. It’s invaluable to the newly immigrated who lack any knowledge of the language and customs of their new country. Take a walk through San Francisco’s Chinatown and you can see all sorts of services specifically catered to Chinese people who don’t yet have the ability to navigate from themselves. My family have certainly used translation services way back when.

It’s important then for our generation - and younger - to not forget about these enclaves. It’s great that we’ve largely assimilated to American culture and achieved monetary success. Now we must use those resources to keep Chinatown communities going for the next wave of immigrants. It’s also about protecting the traditions and culture. The concern is that once the older generation of Chinese proprietors currently operating in Chinatown retires, there wouldn’t be any successors to continue on. I sincerely hope the people in charge of Chinatowns have a plan for that.

Packing lightly

When you’re doing a four-city tour in the span of 12 days, packing light is a prerogative. Even though half the time we were traveling by train, where there aren’t any TSA checkpoint hassles, weight is weight. Lugging it all in between the cities remains a chore regardless. The less poundage there is, the better.

This is usually a problem for me because I tend to bring my photography kit on my travels. It guarantees I’m unable to fit that and everything else into a one bag - physically impossible. During this recent vacation, I decided to not bring the big camera and lenses. Smartphone photographic capabilities have advanced so greatly that bringing along just my iPhone 12 suffices for casual documentary of the trip.

I didn’t bring my MacBook Pro as well, saving an additional four pounds. No need for the laptop to backup data from the big camera nightly if I didn’t bring the latter! That said, it would have been nice to have a laptop during the chill periods, but that’s what an iPad is for. The tablet also saved space in the bag because I didn’t have to bring physical copies of books along to read (14-hour train ride). The Kindle app is great for traveling.

It also helps to be traveling during the summer months: there’s far less layers to pack. I got away with just a few t-shirts and two pair of pants (one short, one long). All in all, I was able to pack for the two weeks with only my Tortuga weekender bag, 26 liters of carrying capacity. It can fit in an overhead bin or under the seats on a plane easily, which is super convenient and a time-saver.

Packing so lightly does present a problem: you will have to do laundry eventually. Hotels typically has that service, or do what we did: go to an actual coin-operated laundromat.

Waiting more and paying more

Indeed it is true: it is tough to get an UBER/LYFT these days. Demand is high as people are back out and about, but there’s a shortage of drivers. A 10 minute wait before your ride even gets picked up is not uncommon. Oh yeah, you’ll be paying more than what you were used to before the pandemic.

My friend and I personally confirmed this during our four cities in 12 days tour of Southern California and the Pacific Northwest. Despite the wait times and the cost increases, hailing a ride-share is still more convenient and cheaper than renting a car. Because the same supply-and-demand skew happened to the rental car market: too many travelers, not enough vehicles. In major cities you’re looking at $80 and upwards per day - if there’s even a reservation to be had. And then you’d have to worry about parking the car. The places we stayed at all charged extra for parking.

With that in mind, we figured it is best to hail a ride share whenever we need it, instead of renting a whole car. Of course, splitting the costs two ways alleviate some of the hurt from the general price increase.

How would we have done this before the invention of ride sharing? Dialing up a taxi, perhaps. Easy enough at major transport hubs like a train station and airport, where there are dedicated taxi lines. Major hotel chains should also be able to call a cab for you when asked. The only problem I can see is on the return trip from a destination. Actually standing on the side of the street and raising a hand at a passing taxi? I’ve only done that in Asian countries.

For all their ills and of which there are plenty, I’m glad UBER/LYFT made it possible to get a ride at anytime with just your smartphone (and a credit card on file). The convenience factor is huge, and this recent vacation of our would not be as smooth without this ability.