Blog

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

It's cozy season!

It’s gotten properly cold in the mornings around here, well into the 40s. It makes getting out of the warm and toasty bed incredibly difficult. I wake up well before I actually have to go to work, so the impetus of leaving the bed is totally up to me. There are indeed days I succumb to hedonistic incentives and simply stay in bed until I actually do have to get ready for work. Especially so during the winter months.

But not today! Because here I am typing this out this morning, with a hot cup of coffee as fuel. A woman walking her dog just passed by outside my window. She was reading a book while doing so, which is kind of weird because shouldn’t you be focused on the actual task? I guess it’s slightly better than staring at a smartphone that everybody else does. It’s a cool and crisp morning! Look up and take in the fresh air instead.

Having a pet dog does keep you honest about keeping a consistent schedule of going outside. That bit of exercise - three times a day - benefits the dog and the owner. I think if you’re stressed or otherwise in need of some movement in your life, adopting a dog from a shelter is as much of a win-win situation as there is. You can never have a bad day when you see the incessant joy a dog has when you come home.

Sadly for me, I’m more of a cat person. Nor do I have space in my studio for a pet.

But shoutout to the morning dog walkers! It cannot be easy leaving the warm cocoon of home and having to put on thick layers. People without pets like myself struggle to even get out of bed. I do love this winter weather though. As the kids say these days, it’s cozy SZN!

Government work

Last week I wrote about the aim to not spend any money on Black Friday. I am happy to say: mission accomplished. Going away somewhere during Black Friday helped tremendously. I’m not tempted to click on the latest slickdeals tweet if I’m nowhere near a computer! Today is Cyber Monday, yet another black hole of potential spending. I’m doing my best to avoid Amazon right now.

During Black Friday we ran into a friend whilst getting lunch at Costco. Say what you want about inflation, but Costco food court prices have remained consistently low. A hot dog, a soda, and a slice of pizza can still be had for less than four dollars. If gas prices weren’t so enormously inflated, I’d drive to Costco more often for lunch. If the price of a hot dog ever increases from $1.50, surely the American economy have gone to the toilet. Hasn’t happened yet in my lifetime!

Right, the friend. He works at a credit union slinging loans to people looking for a lower interest rate than the big banks (credit unions are great). He said he’s looking to switch to a government job, perhaps with the city of San Francisco. The allure of excellent benefits and a pension at the end is rather tempting for a person in his mid thirties wanting long term stability. Especially during these uncertain times: we’ve all read about big tech massively laying off employees. Companies not doing layoffs are freezing hiring.

I guess I should consider myself lucky to be employed by the State of California. I didn’t realize a government job can be so desirous by those on the outside looking in. The conventional wisdom is that the private sector pays substantially more than the public sector. Everybody wants a solid rock to climb onto during times of uncertainty and recession. Public sector jobs also typically offer excellent work-life balance, something I cherish greatly.

Additional dealer markup

During Thanksgiving I met up with my cousin who I’ve not seen for a quite some time. Turns out he recently traded in his long-serving 2006 Toyota Corolla for a brand-new Toyota Sienna. The move makes perfect sense: he’s got a young kid now, and loading-unloading the car seat is just that much more convenient in a van than a tiny sedan. Besides, the improvement in vehicle safety has been magnitudes over the decade plus. I too would want the best and safest for my baby nephew.

Being that we are still amidst the great supply chain shortage in terms of new cars, I naturally asked my cousin if he paid over MSRP for the Sienna. Turns out he paid about $3,000 in ADM, plus the color blue he bought was not really his first option. I guess you absolutely cannot be picky in this market, especially the sought-after Toyota hybrid products (gas is still super expensive, after all). You agree with the dealer on the price, and then you wait until it’s your turn to get the latest shipment off the boat. For a particular color the wait can be months.

With high inflation, high interest rates, and a seemingly looming recession (tech companies have announced significant layoffs in droves), the current feeling is that the new vehicle shortage vis a vis demand will come back down to earth sometime next year. I hope the prognosticators are correct because the timing would be perfect for me. As I’ve written before, I am looking to buy the latest Honda Civic Type R. The car has just been released to the public earlier this month, so I’m waiting out the initial rush of folks who are willing to fork over the $10,000 or so dealer markups.

I’m looking to make the move sometime in the spring of next year. The hope is that serendipitously the market conditions would become favorable enough that I can buy a Type R with minimum to zero markups. In the meantime I’ll be scouring the forums for all the information pertaining to the FL5.

Hooray austerity

It is Thanksgiving week! That means Black Friday shopping is upon us. This year I plan to buy absolutely nothing. 2022 has already been a bit of a high spending year for me, in terms of material things. Earlier in the year I bought an LG OLED TV, and a PlayStation 5 to go along with it. Later on a pair of bookshelf speakers that costs $400. Just two months ago I replaced my 20-year old mattress with a fancy box unit from Helix.

I don’t always buy things, but when I do, I purchase the good stuff.

It’s time for some austerity. The Black Friday deals will certainly try their best to tempt me, but I am determined to prevail. Actually, that’s a lie. Last week a friend informed me a set of Google Pixel Buds A-Series was on sale for only $50 on Amazon (from original price of $99). It is downright disposable at that price. And since I am in need of replacing my pair of basic AirPods with something that lasts longer than one hour on a charge, the timing of that deal was perfect.

Let’s revise this, then: I endeavor to spend no more than $50 (plus tax) on things material during this holiday season. I will instead spend money on food and experiences with my friends. It’s not really about saving money, but rather spending money on the important stuff. I may want a standing desk that I’ve been eyeing for a long time, but I’ll be happier buying food from Costco for our Friendsgiving later this week.

Besides, there are other ways to get the benefit of a standing desk, such as going outside for a 10 minute walk.

Not so simple

My set of first-generation AirPods are on their last legs. A charge barely lasts one hour before I need to put them back in the case for a battery top up. One hour is not enough for a workout session, so I don’t use them for that. I also don’t use the AirPods for voice calls, as they would likely last only about 30 minutes. To me, these earphones have become effectively useless

It’s not that surprising: I bought these AirPods just after initial launch, way back in 2017. After five solid years of use, I somewhat expect the battery to go from its rated five hours of listening time down to just one. Battery aside, my AirPods are still functionally fine. Nothing is broken, nothing is falling off. What would be ideal then is to replace the battery and continue using them. Instead of buying a new set and tossing the old units into landfill.

A greener, most holistic approach to tech products nearing end of life.

Quick search on Apple reveals that there is battery replacement available for the AirPods. $49 dollars (as indicated) is not a bad price to get (hopefully) another five years of use. I quickly made a Genius Bar appointment at the local Apple Store.

Sadly, it was a bit of false advertising. Turns out, Apple absolutely does not perform battery replacement on AirPods. The company will simply swap out for another unit. The cost of which is more expensive that buying a new complete set of AirPods. That $49 figure earlier? That’s the cost to replace the charging case! At least the guy at the Genius Bar agreed the website is somewhat deceptive. He even commented that it’s Black Friday, and sales on AirPods are everywhere where electronics are sold.

Apparently, replacing the battery on AirPods is incredibly difficult. Which is probably why Apple doesn’t do it. The material and labor cost would make the procedure cost prohibitive. It is indeed cheaper and less hassle to buy a new pair. I guess I’m just dismayed at the disposability of it all. Companies ought to design with an eye towards longevity and reparability.

Then again, I’m the guy who gets a new iPhone every year…

Don't want to go, unwilling to stay

Twitter is now owned by Elon Musk. What I am most sympathetic for is the roughly 50 percent of the workers who got fired the first week. It doesn’t bode well for the already suffering San Francisco downtown in terms of people traffic during the work week. Or perhaps a large cohort of those who were let go were working from home. Elon famously rejects remote work for his companies. He’s already demanded that any able body twitter employee must come to the office.

But what does Elon Musk taking over twitter mean for users like me? Well, nothing really. I’m as addicted to the app as everybody on there are. I cannot start my morning without a 10 minute peruse (more on the weekends!) of the bird app. Throughout the day, TweetDeck is present on the browser at all times. It’s like a slow IV drip that I cannot tear the needle out of my skin.

I mean, we were all hooked onto twitter during last Tuesday’s mid-term elections, weren’t we? The app has tremendous value during critical, news-making moments.

So despite talks of Elon going to ruin twitter - the roll out of verification for the masses have been predictably disastrous - I am staying until the bitter end. Elon may indeed take twitter down, but I am going down with that ship. There’s also an optimistic side: perhaps Elon can indeed make twitter better for all users. Obviously I don’t think we’ve seen any indication that would be the likely outcome, but it’s still very early days. Let’s see what twitter is like a few months out.

Amazed at Buc-ee's

On the three hour drive between Austin and Dallas, my driving friend stop us at a place most wondrous. It is called Buc-ee's. The best way I can describe it is the biggest and best highway rest stop I’ve ever been to. There’s apparently many of them dotted all over the expansive Texas highways. To quote the great Stefon, it has absolutely everything.

Perhaps not all Buc-ee’s are similar in size, but the one we went to is enormous. The gas station portion alone I would say is three times the size of a typical Costco gas station. There’s plenty of space between each filling station too. Because it’s Texas, and large pickup trucks rule the road. So then imagine a whole Costco-size building itself is the rest stop - that’s the scale of Buc-ee’s I’m talking about here. The men’s bathroom alone have about 50 stalls, and it is spotlessly clean.

The rest of the store have anything and everything you could possibly want on a road trip - Christmas decorations included. Need an entirely new wardrobe? You can buy it at Buc-ee’s. There’s fresh BBQ and Tex-Mex at the hot foods section, and the world famous wall of jerky. If you’re a jerky enthusiasts, you’ve got to make a stop at a Buc-ee’s. Any meat suitable for jerky-ing, it is there. You can even buy it fresh, unpackaged.

The whole time we were stopped at the Buc-ee’s, I was just in awe of its amazingness. I’ve only previously been to these sort of fully-featured - and clean - highway rest stops in Asia. Never did I expect to find it here in the United States, much less in the State of Texas. Infrastructure has not really been our thing since they last built the great interstate system, you know? I’ll be long dead before the California bullet train project is completed.

Speaking of my State of California, why don’t we have something like Buc-ee’s alongside our highways? It would be perfect on the interminably long and straight highway 5. You can’t even argue there isn’t space like there is in Texas. I’m not asking for a Buc-ee’s in the middle of Los Angeles. Anyone who’s driven on highway 5 knows there’s nothing but farmland and cows for hundreds of miles. I think this is something California can learn and copy from Texas.