Blog

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

The piano is here!

Remember early last week I wrote the piano I purchased was backordered for months?

Well, good news: it has since arrived safe and sound! I guess once they freed that ship blocking the Suez Canal, things do indeed move on pretty quickly!

Jokes aside, Guitar Center - from whom I bought the keyboard - really threw me for a loop. One day the order status read the Yamaha CP88 is backordered, the next day I get an email saying it has shipped via UPS. And it is due to arrive the very next day! I had to scrambled to tell my housemate to be on a lookout for a 55 pound package, lest a porch pirate runs away with a piano that costs more than two months’ rent.

Right, so I’ve got an intensely expensive - for my very low skin level - piano unexpectedly sitting at home. Because I did not think it would come so quickly, I don’t have any of the other stuff that needs to go along with it. So this weekend I bought a sturdy stand for the keyboard, and also ordered a pair of headphones. The CP88 is a stage piano, which like an electric guitar needs an external audio source to function. There aren’t any built-in speakers. For the sake of my housemates, I opted for headphones instead.

I also decided on an online piano course: Piano Marvel. Amongst its competitors, Piano Marvel seems most comprehensively focused on classical piano teaching, heavy on theory and sight-reading. It’s just a matter of connecting the CP88 to my MacBook Pro via a USB cable. Like with Korean, I was always going to self-teach piano. Progress will undoubtedly be slower comparative to hiring an actual teacher, but alone is how I like to roll in life.

I can’t wait to get started. The headphones cannot get here quick enough from Amazon.

First of April

I can’t believe it’s April already. At least things are looking very positive. Most people I know have either gotten vaccinated, or will be getting the shots soon. Since receiving my second dose last week, I definitely feel freer and less stressed when I’m outside of the house. There’s certain calm in knowing that at worse, COVID will just be a mild flu if I do catch it.

I had the day off yesterday - Cesar Chavez holiday for California public employees - which is just as well because it was the first 80 degrees plus day of the year in San Francisco. My first floor studio of a three story house remains cool and unbothered by the heat, so I basically stayed home the entire day. It’s good to know I won’t need to buy a portable air-conditioning unit for the studio. The old windows aren’t of the kind to accommodate one anyways.

A far cry from the southeastern side of city where I use to live. The third-floor bedroom at my parent’s house got absolutely steaming during warm weather patterns. We’ve been seeing more and more hot days here in San Francisco in recent years, so last year I finally bought a portable AC machine. My brother gets to use that now. Meanwhile, I can stay cool naturally at this new place, without mechanical intervention. It’s pretty fantastic.

That said, let’s see how it goes when the mercury goes well above 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

I’m also on call for jury duty this week, though my group have yet to be called in. I am somewhat interested to see what serving on a jury during these COVID times is like. From what I gather, people are still physically going in, though obviously there’s lots of provisioning for social distancing. If I don’t get called in for tomorrow Friday, then sadly I won’t get to find out.

I wouldn't mind going downtown on a lazy Friday, now that I’m fully vaccinated…

On to the next

Because I’ve largely fulfilled the life goal of learning a third language - I’m on my sixth year of studying Korean - it’s time to move on to another item on the list. Since childhood, I’ve always wanted to learn the piano, so that is exactly what I am going to spend an hour on every single day for the next few years. My arthritic fingers already hate me.

Learning the piano has been a nascent ambition for the longest time. My family was too poor to afford me lessons when I was little. Throughout high school and college, other things took priority over learning an instrument. I took a year of piano in high school as an art prerequisite, but it was so slow going in that class that we didn’t even get to chords. Being able to play an instrument is one of those things that I think everybody should know how to do, like changing a tire, or speaking a second language.

In hindsight, I should have started on this at the beginning of this COVID pandemic, and not towards this tail end where vaccines are available for everybody very shortly. Soon, I’ll have a proper social life outside of the house to occupy my time. But, as they say, now is always a good time to start. I am ready to devote the time and energy that will surely be required.

It seems a lot of people have had the same idea during these COVID times. The piano I’m looking to buy - Yamaha CP88 - is currently backordered for what looks like a few months (the Suez Canal blockage probably didn’t help). A coworkers mentioned there’s a been a great shortage of guitars, and that instrument makers have had the best year in terms of sales during the pandemic. Unfortunately then, this endeavor will be delayed until I can get my hands on the keyboard.

Good news!

Good news! The cargo ship that’s blocking the Suez Canal is finally free and moving.

Better news! I received the second of two Pfizer vaccine shots this past Thursday. In a few weeks’ time I shall be considered fully vaccinated, ready to meet the world again without fear of dying from COVID.

Best news: my parents are finally due to get their vaccines later this week! California will be opening up the eligibility to any persons 50 and over starting on April 1st. Half a month later on April 15th, vaccinations will be open to all adults over the age of 16. The endgame has truly arrived, and it’s a small miracle that we are this close to returning to normalcy.

It sure looks like San Francisco is already there. If this sunny and warm (for San Francisco) weekend is any indication, any semblance of lockdowns and restrictions are de-facto over. The citizenry are out in droves! The city has entered the orange tier, so practically everything is open, with capacity restrictions. I cannot wait to sit down and eat a meat inside a restaurant, though I’m going to wait out the initial rush of people. I’ve never seen Costco so empty on a Sunday noon: people have things to do now other than grocery shop!

You really love to see it.

It’s really perverse that United States have seen some of the worse COVID figures in terms of infections and deaths, yet we will likely be the first country on the planet to sufficiently vaccinate to fully open back up. Of course, countries like Taiwan and New Zealand didn’t need any vaccines to keep the numbers low and lives normal, but at least the problem here is getting solved. Bottom line: way too many people have died needlessly from COVID in this country.

But we’re almost there at the end. Thank you to the cast of many hundreds of thousands that made it possible.

The forever car?

Sometimes, the flow of life gives you outcomes that you didn’t think would be it, but is nevertheless the way it’s going to be. You just have to accept it. My Porsche 911 GT3 was going to be the forever car, but life circumstances forced me to sell it. Its replacement, the decidedly cheaper BMW M2 Competition, is meant to be a stop-gap until I’m in the position to buy another GT3. However, it’s looking more and more likely the M2 will be that forever car. At least one with an internal-combustion engine.

Spending six-figures on a sports car was a YOLO play, one that I don’t think I’ll repeat again. I miss my departed GT3 dearly, that sweet naturally-aspirated engine that revs to 9,000 RPM. Unless I hit some big financial windfall in the future, it’ll be a bad idea to spend that much on a car again. It’s a box I’ve already ticked on the list, so the solace and satisfaction of having owned a 911 for a time will have to suffice.

The headwinds in the automotive sector are blowing heavily towards full electrification. The next new car I buy will probably have an electric motor, rather than something that burns gasoline. Sports cars like the BMW M2 are going to be relics of a prior petrol age, when driving fun also involves a sonically-pleasing howl from exhaust pipes. An age when the driver has direct connection to the mechanicals, rather than a bunch of wires and bits. The changing world of cars might force the M2 Competition as the one I keep for a long time to come, the last of its ilk.

That’s not really something to complain about, however. The little BMW coupe is a fantastic car, and super fun to drive. If it is to be the last internal-combustion car I will ever buy and own, then that’s quite okay. Even if it really should’ve been a 911 GT3. The flow of life is what it is, and I’m choosing to go along with it.

Extra guac

“Come on, guys, we make money now!”

Is a common refrain I’ve used to my friends lately. For the times when they agonize over really small money matters. Such as paying the extra few bucks to get guacamole at Chipotle. Isn’t the point of making money so that we don’t have to think about these trivial things? The extra few dollars here and there isn’t going to amount to much savings. But a burrito bowl is immensely better with guac.

I get it: my friends and I are from working-class upbringings, so scrimping to the last dollar is sort of innate in our money psychology. Our parents did so in order to give us a better life, so why not live that? We should pay extra for more leg-room on an airplane, and we shouldn’t drive to Costco for gas just because it’s significantly cheaper. If an item is under $10 dollars, why bother with the hassle of returning it? Just throw it away (sorry, environmentalists).

Not to say we should go super crazy with it and not save a single penny. As with everything in life, it’s about moderation. If we are consistently putting away a comfortable percentage of our income every month, why not go slightly crazy with the rest? Preparing for the future is fine, but we still have to live right now. That is why I spent six-figures on a car.

I remember a guest on a certain podcast said he lives and spends with the confidence that his future self will always make more money. While I don’t quite have that kind of bravery, some modicum of that mentality is good to have. I am young: I can and will earn the money later to pay extra for guacamole today.

A house is not a home

Hate crimes and attacks targeting the Asian American community are very much in the news lately. The worst of which occurred last week, when a lunatic shot up a few massage parlors in Atlanta, killing eight people. The entire community is on edge, lacking a sense of safety when we step outside of our homes. You always have to be on alert, a certain amount of underlying stress that shouldn’t be there in a civilized society.

As someone who grew up in the south-eastern side of San Francisco, I am innately familiar with that specific kind of stress. It only takes a few muggings for the young me to realize I need street smarts to walk around my neighborhood. The five senses are always tuned in to the surroundings, always on alert for anything - or anyone - untoward. You relax for one moment, and the next thing you know, you’re getting robbed of your iPod (remember those?) violently. I still have the scar on my chin.

The subconscious trauma never leaves, so long as I never the left the neighborhood. Even as the crime rate fall as the years advanced, I could never relax in that corner of the city. Surely that’s the same feeling felt by Asian Americans presently, especially our elders. I can attest it’s the worst not being able to feel safe walking around your home neighborhood. Is there even an area of San Francisco where an Asian person can feel completely at ease? I am not so sure.

One of the reasons I love traveling to Asia is because the aforementioned type of stress simply does not exist. In major cities of Asia, I can walk anywhere, at anytime, and feel absolutely safe. The lack of stressor is so freeing, a sense of calm that I miss dearly every time I step off the plane back onto American soil. Safety - isn’t that what living in the first world is about?

Never mind the fact that gun violence and gun deaths are uniquely American. The problem is both structural and cultural.

I understand and empathize greatly with the trauma and anxiety that Asian Americans are feeling these days. I don’t have much of the answers, but one of them has to be that perpetrators of crime need to be persecuted to the fullest extent. There has to be stiff penalty for doing harm to others. Robbery may only be of material loss, but I speak from experience: the mental harm can last for a very long time.