Blog

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

For the kids

It is wedding season! I attended one in may, and now another is coming up in three weeks for one of my best friends. I will be in the wedding party for that wedding, so it'll be an all-day production of endless ceremony. Good news is I took that week off from work so I can see to wedding business with leisure. What we don't want is to cram everything into the day before.

This past weekend, the groom and groomsmen went to a shop for renting our suits. I was all prepared to simply wear my bespoke black suit - with whatever colored tie to match the bridesmaids dresses - but the groom wanted a different color. We ended up with a dark navy, which in my opinion is only slightly off the side of black in terms of typicalness. If I were the type to have to wear suits on the daily, I'd probably own a navy-colored suit already.

It's good to see inflation hasn't yet reached to the suit rental industry. The entire kit - jacket, shirt, pants, vest, and shoe - is only $217. That's not bad at all, though perhaps we're getting a multi-order discount. It's far cheaper than custom tailoring a suit that I will only wear maybe once a year. The shop is even on my side of town, so I won't need to use too much pricey gasoline to pickup and return. Petrol is still $6.99 per gallon in my area!

I am very excited for the wedding, and happy for my friend who's finally tying the knot, moving on to the next stage of life. Replete with an albatross of an hefty mortgage around the neck, of course! Housing cost around here may be insane, but if you are dead-set to stay in this one place for at least the next 30 years, it's a worthy and necessary life expense.

A house is for the kids.

You already know what it is.

I drove a large van

Last week I got the opportunity to drive a U-Haul van for the very first time. For work they needed someone to bring a bunch of equipment from main campus to the auxillary campus downtown. I happily volunteered, thinking it would be a nice change of pace from the monotony of the school semester. Great chance to exercise, too. Thankfully, there’s a U-Haul rental location a few blocks from campus. Which makes sense when you think of all the profits to be made from undergrads hauling their stuff to and from the dorms.

I was adamant in not wanting to drive the typical U-Haul box truck: looks too wide and super unwieldy to drive. The cargo vans I was okay with, though that would still be somewhat challenging coming from a small two-door coupe. I might as well be driving a bus. Worse, the U-Haul cargo vans do not have a back-up camera! At least the one I got - a Chevy Express - didn’t! No parking sensors either. It’s kind of stupid: when it’s filled to the brim with cargo, you literally cannot see out the rearview mirror.

Obviously, we made a point to not put any boxes above the driver sight-line towards the rear.

It is surprisingly calming to be driving such a big and slow vehicle. It’s one of the tardiest thing on the road, so I just stick to the slow lanes and mind my own business. No need to stress about getting ahead or worry about holding somebody up behind me - there’s nothing I can do about it! It seems other drivers treat me better as well, because they understand the big van is only ever going to go so quickly. It’s not like I’m the Toyota Prius going slowly on the left-most highway lane. Those are objectively the worse.

Of course, driving is one thing; parking is an entirely different matter. I’m glad I was able to simply pull up to the curb and unload. Any sort of maneuvering in a parking lot (downtown San Francisco parking lots are notoriously tight) would have been disastrous for my nerves. Having a whole normal car’s length worth of van behind me is a very atypical experience, to say the least. So is having to crane my neck and look backwards whilst reversing!

If my current career trajectory ever falls apart, I think can take up long haul trucking as an alternative. One drive in a U-Haul van certainly counts as a successful tryout, right?

The glorious.

Four months since moving out

Hard to believe it’s been four months since I’ve moved out on my own. I think it’s finally sunken in that this new place is indeed my home now, and that my previous home is solidly my parents’. When I tell people I’m going home, this place I’ve been renting since November of last year is what I am referring to. It’s wonderful.

On certain days it still feels like I’m off somewhere on vacation, renting from an AirBnb. Exacerbating that feeling is the fact I’m renting from friends of the same age, so this whole thing feels like we’re traveling somewhere, away from our respective parents. How long does it take after moving out of your parents’ house for it to truly feel like you’re an adult? I don’t think I’ve reached that stage yet.

I have to say there’s great advantage to renting from a friend, though I guess you run the potential risk of a ruined friendship also displacing you from a place to sleep. That’s why I recommend renting from friends that you’ve known since high school, and which point the friendship should already be unconditionally lasting. The positive of renting from someone familiar is that the process is far smoother and less formal. The place is also friendlier.

Like I said, it’s like we’re all on vacation somewhere and renting a whole house.

The primarily reason for moving - other than finally striking it out on my own - is to be closer to work. The ability to walk to work within 10 minutes is an absolute game changer, a huge positive to my mental health. The feeling that at the end of a tiring day, I can be home in minutes rather than a slogging commute in a car is worth every penny of the rent I am paying. The difference will be even more stark once the world returns to normal, and I will have to go into the office the regular five days a week.

If I can help it, I am never going back to having a commute.

Saturday drive.

Of budgets and cents

Boy, who would have thought that it’s harder to save money now that I have to pay rent! It sure was easy when I lived with my parents, and I get to squirrel away that 30% of my gross every month. It’s how I come to afford a six-figure sports car on a decidedly not six-figure annual salary. Well, the fun times are over: a far tighter monthly budget is one of the consequences of moving out.

And yeah, I’ve sold said six-figure sports car.

“Adulting” stops the fun. Everybody knows this. The need to save for some future probabilities means we shouldn't squander our entire paycheck. After subtracting rental cost, my discretionary spending have obviously gone way down. Nowadays, every dollar spent requires some serious thought and consideration. Gone are the days of dropping hundreds without thinking. Every outflow has to be reviewed. Did I mention I also have to buy groceries now?

The goal each month is to have something left over to stuff into savings and investments. Because having a money cushion provides optionality, and optionality provides stability and freedom. Stability in the sense that you have enough to cover any surprise money emergency. Freedom in the sense that you can do what you want, without being a slave to the any income. Work is turning out not so pleasurable? You can leave immediately, unless of course the next paycheck is figuratively life and death for you.

Having options is what I am continuing to strive towards. Paying rent is just a part of life, a new consideration that I have to account for. But it sure would be easier to not have it!

Giving props.

Movie watching

Lacking for things to do on the weekends - because once again, COVID - I’ve recently started to rent movies to watch. It’s as if life is one long inescapable plane ride right now, and I’m just looking to fill up the time. This might sound horrible to the ears of the productivity-obsessed, but what the heck do you want from me? Surely I’ve hustled enough during the workweek for my regular job; shouldn’t I get to relax come Saturday and Sunday? Reminder: we’re still in a bloody pandemic!

Anyways, I digress. It’s been a long time since I’ve actually watched movies at home, with Youtube content having so dominated my free viewing hours in recent years. But, there’s only so much automotive-related videos to fill up the time, especially when creators are somewhat restricted from going outside (as we all are), and manufacturer model launches aren’t exactly happening like it used to be. With movie theatres still closed down, where else am I going to watch movies but at home? I think this is a great opportunity to catch up on some movies that I surely must be one of the last to see.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with coworkers a few weeks ago, about how back in the days of our high school and college, we’d pirate the movies we want to watch (surely the statute of limitations have long expired, right?) For me, piracy was due to the lack of money, and the availability of an Internet connection. I had dreams of amassing a big digital collection, and in some ways, I succeeded; but I sure as heck did not pay a cent for it.

Contrast that with the present: when I want to see a film, I simply rent it on streaming platforms (whichever is the cheapest, naturally). I make good money now, and it feels morally wrong to continue bootlegging movies (it is morally wrong). No matter how easily accessible illegal copies are, the expediency of logging onto Amazon and clicking one button cannot be beat. I also no longer have the desire to hoard movies into a collection: I seldom watch a film a second time, so that would just be taking up hard drive space for no good reason. This is why I prefer to rent instead of buy: the initial cost is far lower, and I don’t need to see the particular movie more than once.

I look forward to catching up on many good movies in the coming months.

Room parking lot.