Blog

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

Car week is this week?

I guess Monterey Car Week is (still) happening this year? A bunch of rich guys running around with their vehicular toys might be slightly out of taste, given the current circumstances. If enthusiasts auction sites such as Bring a Trailer are any indication, there’s lots of money flowing around these days in the world of cars. Monterey Car Week provides the perfect platform for a bit of peacocking. “Looks at what I just purchased on BaT!” Or perhaps, “Please buy this ultra rare Porsche.”

For all the consternation thrown at the annual bike rally at Sturgis last week, I’m sure the same fervor will be shown to the crowd in Monterey. There’s no practical difference, right? A large group of people, from all over the country, descending on a region for a few days to hold large indoor and outdoor parties. This can’t possibly be good vis a vis the COVID delta variant. Yet I haven’t heard a negative peep about car week on twitter.

Please don’t tell me it’s because of the (perceived) demographics. A bunch of redneck bikers would surely be unvaccinated, threatening the precariousness of this pandemic. Meanwhile, sophisticated folks in formal wear walking around a pavilion of million-dollar cars would surely be the opposite. It shouldn’t matter, of course: it’s all the same passion for machines, be it two wheels or four. Then why only the bikers are getting bad press?

(Perceived) money sure have a way of distorting things, doesn’t it?

Admittedly, I’m sad I won’t be down in Monterey for the festivities. The historics down in Laguna Seca is my favorite event. Spending an entire day (or two) soaking in the smells of vintage petrol and metal is more my cup of tea than walking around a lawn with expensive cars that aren’t moving. There’s always next year, if the unvaccinated doesn’t continue to screw this pandemic up.

Not sure what this one is trying to say.

Dead batteries

As the university prepares for the return of in-person classes for the fall semester, some of the staff and faculty have started to trickle back on campus. But there’s a problem: their computers have been turned off since pre-pandemic, some 16 months earlier. No issues with the iMacs as they work fine once plugged back into power. The Dell PC towers, however, aren’t so convenient.

PC motherboards have a CMOS battery that provide just enough power for the board to remember its settings. If the battery were to run out of juice, say, during a pandemic when the PC is without power for more than a year, the motherboard is effectively reset. This becomes a problem when users boot it up for the first time in a long time, as the internal BIOS clock will be incorrect (and won’t boot further with an incorrect time), and also the hard-drive won’t be recognized.

Our department will then get the call and we would have to physical go to these users’ offices to replace the CMOS battery, and toggle everything back as it were. Tedious. Why can’t everybody use Mac computers to make all our lives easier?

Once we get the PC (and Macs too, honestly) back up and running, there’s another problem: the software is horrendously out of date. Performing updates to the apps and the operating system is at least another few hours. God forbid your PC is old enough to have a spinning hard-drive instead of solid-state; it’ll take the entire work-day for everything to sync back together and working correctly.

Solution? Well, let’s first agree to not have another pandemic. Then, opt for a laptop next time you’re given the option of a new work computer.

Galpao Gaucho review

Buffets and all-you-can-eat restaurants are great for spending a few hours with friends and gorging endlessly on food. The only downside is the inevitable food coma that comes afterwards from massively overeating. You want to get your money’s worth, so of course you’re going to eat way more than usual. Bring on the expensive stuff! Don’t fill your stomach with the cheapies like the potato salad.

Or a one liter bottle of San Pellegrino, as I did yesterday.

We went to a Brazilian steakhouse called Galpão Gaucho, featuring unlimited cuts of grilled meat and a full-feature salad bar. Time limit is two hours. There’s several locations in the Bay Area, we went to the one most convenience to us: Cupertino. Price on a weekend is about $63 dollars. Drinks and desserts are extra. That one liter bottle of Pellegrino? Five dollars.

It’s worth it because if you don’t constantly hydrate throughout the meal, you’re going to be drinking lots of water afterwards. The salt content is no joke, though the steaks are absolutely delicious, seasoned just correctly. My favorite cuts are the bottom sirloin, and the ribeye. Rather disappointing though the restaurant did not offer prime rib, in my opinion the best cut of them all.

Obviously, none of us could eat like we used to back in the college days. I purposely did not go to my limit (this isn’t a hot dog eating contest) because I still had errands to run afterwards. It was still a decent amount, and for the dinner that followed I only ate a peach and a banana. I’m going to be swearing off cow meat for this week, though honestly I’m more of a pig and chicken person anyways.

For a good time and properly done (unlimited) steaks, I highly recommend Galpao Gaucho.

Regularly scheduled programming

Is it okay to not have any future plans? I was stumped to think of any recently while talking with a coworker about what work will look like in a few years’ time. I’m at a happy equilibrium right now, and don’t really have any desire to see any of it change. The plan is to keep doing what I am doing and be content with it.

For the longest time it’s been chasing after cars. But that sort of ended once I bought (and sold) the 911 GT3. That car is the zenith of what I can realistically afford and would want to own. The next rung above is decidedly unobtainable (Lexus LF-A remains a dream). So I’m done pining for the next car to buy. I’m completely happy with the BMW M2 and can see myself driving it for a very long time (it’s parked 90 percent of the time, sadly).

I don’t want work to change either. I like where I am at: just senior enough to make decent money, but not too high in a position where I’d have to worry about work even during the off hours (I prefer to take vacations without checking work email). It would be nice to earn more money (always!), but as with anything in life, there are trade offs. More money, whether in the form of a higher rung up the current ladder or switching to another job, surely comes with more responsibility and stress.

I’m fine with not having that. For now.

Let’s not talk about buying a house in the San Francisco Bay Area with a non-tech salary. Dual-income can swing it, but I still feel like paying such inflated prices simply for the privilege of living in this region is not money well spent. There’s also the question of me finding that second income to pair up with. I have no current desire to test the dating waters.

The status quo is quite okay. Ambition and goals will grow organically, rather than dreaming up something to aim for.

Why autonomous cars?

I was listening to The Smoking Tire Podcast with guest Missy Cummings, an expert and professor in autonomous technology. At one point, host Matt Farah asks a really poignant question: why the need for autonomous cars? Why are companies spending billions on chasing this technology? The answer is simple: to save time.

Or rather, take back time. The countless hours stuck in traffic on a commute could be better spent doing something else, if the car is able to drive itself without any user input. Take a nap, perhaps, or read a book. What would I do in the hypothetical reality where autonomous cars are possible? Cook and eat a really nice meal. Induction, naturally. Open flame in a moving car just spells disaster.

Anyways, the want to regain the time lost in traffic illuminates an obvious solution that’s far easier than figuring out self-driving cars: get rid of the commute. One of the best things I've done last year was move within walking distance to work. Never again will I have to sit in traffic to and from the campus. The reason a sizable amount of people are clinging to the work-from-home lifestyle even as we are opening back up? (Delta variant notwithstanding) There’s no commute working at home!

We are lucky to even have this discussion. The entire service industry don’t have the option of telecommuting. Though it seems some teachers unions are keeping on the Sisyphean fight to the end.

It’s sitting in traffic for hours that really sucks the soul. Instead of waiting for autonomous technology (one that may never materialize in cars) to save us from our misery, employees can and will instead opt to work for companies that allow remote work indefinitely. Or, they can move closer to work as I did. Either which way, the solution is there. It’s better for the planet, too, with less cars on the road during peak hours.

Masks are back, baby

An indoor mask mandate is back in San Francisco and seven other counties in the Bay Area. Not that residents here ever really took their masks off while out in public. I can remember going into the local Target after California fully reopened last month, and practically everybody still had a mask on. My workplace - San Francisco State University - never got rid of its indoor mask requirement. The only time I was cavalier with not masking properly is at restaurants. Soon as I sit down, the mask comes off.

What I am trying to say is: San Francisco has some of the highest vaccination rates in the world, plus a robust masking culture. Despite that, the highly contagious delta variant of COVID is forcing City Hall to reenact safety measures officially. I shudder to think what other locales are like right now in areas of the country where vaccines are seen as the devil.

The whole point of this latest exercise is to curb the spread of the delta variant. Even though vaccinated people are super protected against it - breakthrough COVID case rates are infinitesimal- I guess we still make good carriers? It’s truly a pandemic of the unvaccinated now, but that’s the not the point. What we don’t want is for this COVID variant to mutate into something that will do things previously unseen: affect children, and render current vaccines ineffective.

To that end I have no issues with masking up again while indoors in public. I never stopped! I’ve had a habit of masking way before this whole pandemic (I’m Asian, after all). Often times you don’t want to make yourself up to go outside. A mask and a hat solves all the facial and follicle presentation worries. Real shame that masks have turned into such a hugely bitter partisan symbolism.

Let’s hope this delta variant wave will subside relatively quickly, with little damage.

Back in a theatre

First time back in a movie theatre since the pandemic began is super easy when said theatre is within walking distance. Proximity to a mall is one of the things I really like about this place I am renting. Groceries and everyday items can be easily taken care of by a Target, Trader Joe’s, and soon, a Whole Foods. There’s an Apple store should any of my computing electronics conk out. Of course, there’s plenty of food choices available if I don’t want to cook.

And now there’s a Regal cinema where an old Macy’s used to be (going to have to find another place to buy fragrance). I’ll have to start convincing my friends to come to this theatre, instead of our usual haunts further south. They can even pick me up en route to the mall, saving me even the short walk. But that would be just a bit too absurd.

So what’s it like to be back in a theatre? Other than wearing a mask (which isn’t mandatory, as of this writing at least), everything is as it were back before the COVID outbreak. Ticket purchasing at this Regal is mostly done via kiosks, though we found the interface to be laggy. A brand-new system shouldn’t act this, and also ought to accept payments via NFC. I only bought along an iPhone and could not use Apple Pay. Rather disappointing.

We watched the ninth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise. As expected, F9 is mindlessly entertaining, a really fun movie if you don’t scrutinize the details. The film is even self-aware to its own ridiculousness. There’s a scene when Roman (Tyrese Gibson’s character) went on a diatribe about how utterly unlikely it is that he keeps surviving the crazy missions the team has done. And he’s right: there’s at least a dozen times someone on the team should have die in this movie.

Enemy bullets aren’t nearly as effective as those of the protagonists!

Much like eating indoors, it was lovely to be back inside a theatre, briefly escaping reality with a film. Now that there’s one so close to me, I reckon I’ll go to the movies more often than I did before the pandemic.