Blog

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

Induction life

One of the most useful tool for living alone in a small studio apartment is an induction stovetop. A simple single-top unit from IKEA and be had for less than fifty dollars. That is what I bought, and it works magnificently. The best attribute of induction stove compared to a gas stove is that the lack of an open flame. Not only it is safer, it heats up the room less, too.

And it would be super easy to add another, to have two cooking surfaces. However, I haven’t gotten that fancy just yet. For now I am quite okay with cooking one thing at a time.

The pain-point of induction stoves is of course the need to have induction-ready pots and pans. Lucky for me, I had to buy a whole new set for the move anyways, so it was only a matter of bringing a magnet when I went shopping for kitchen stuff. If the magnet sticks to the bottom of a pot, then it is able to be used on an induction top. Best of all, should I ever move to a place with a gas stove, the induction-ready stuff works just as well.

Another quirk is that without a visible flame to look at, it takes a bit of trial and error to get accustomed to what a certain wattage setting means in terms of heating power. What is the correct wattage to perfectly cook an egg to sunny side up? How big is 800 watt, really? The answers will take some time to figure out.

But once you do, I don’t think you’d go back to open-flame gas stoves. The safety and convenience factor is huge in induction’s favor. Cleaning up is ridiculously easy: a few spray of your favorite all-purpose cleaner, then wipe with a towel. That’s it! One flat surface with zero crooks and crannies for food stuff to get stuck in. It’s brilliant.

PTO request

I guess the pandemic is truly over:I finally requested vacation time at work! The last two weeks of June will be the first time since the beginning of this COVID-19 mess that I’ll be taking time off. It coincides quite nicely with California’s plan to fully reopen on the June 15th. The possibilities are endless, even though there are no concrete plans as of this writing.

Given I still can’t yet visit Asian countries without a fortnight’s worth of quarantine, I really didn’t plan to take vacation this summer. Staying at home for two weeks just doesn’t have that much appeal to me. However, our manager is encouraging people to take time off. A friend of mine wants to go either up to the Pacific Northwest, or down south towards Los Angeles. So I figured why the heck not. Let’s see what those two weeks will develop into.

Difficult to say whether I will go back to traveling multiple times a year once everything truly goes back to normal. I rent a place now, so my disposable income isn’t what it used to be. Then again, I also don’t have a Porsche 911 GT3 to pay for and upkeep, so I reckon it all balances out. What will be weird is the first time I get back on an airplane. I wonder when I do fly again, if masks mandates will till a thing onboard. I’ll be wearing one for sure.

What I should do is take the BMW M2 on a road-trip. But have you seen the gas prices lately? The car does get around 25 miles to the gallon on the highway, so it shouldn’t be too bad taking it far away. The M2 could really use the miles. These days the only time I drive it is when I do my weekly grocery shopping, and visiting my parents across town. I am paying too much money for it to simply sit.

I think I’ll drive it somewhere far during some of the two weeks I have off in late June.

I went to school with that guy

Last night I was in bed scrolling through twitter on the phone (as one does) before shuteye. I came across a tweet on the KTVU account detailing the suspect linked to recent shootings in the Potrero Hill neighborhood. Reading the name and looking at the picture, the immediate thought came to my head: “I think I went to middle school with this guy!?”

This morning I message the lone classmate from middle school that I still call a close friend today. “Didn’t we go to middle school with this guy?” Said friend wasn’t sure, so I dug up the 8th grade yearbook. Sure enough, there the suspect was, right amongst former classmates I vaguely remember. It’s been two decades since middle school!

It’s kind of surreal to realize that I went to middle school with an alleged murderer. It’s just not something you think about back then, obviously. The childhood years are full of hope and goals. Even for students who aren’t academically gifted or behaviorally sound. You kind of expect everyone to figure it out eventually. The system sure gives people plenty of chances. Can’t get into a regular four-year university? There’s redemption at a junior college.

In the yearbooks, they never poll for most likely to murder someone. Not only because that would be wildly inappropriate - even as a joke - but also it’s not something you imagine would ever happen. You wish only the best for your school peers. I guess ultimately it’s jarring to see the divergent path of someone like myself and the former classmate who is now a suspect in a murder case. What were the influences and consequences that lead him down the dark path?

An intensely traumatic childhood, most likely.

Buy in bulk

One of the conundrums of living alone is: do you buy toilet paper and paper towels in bulk? A 32-pack of toilet rolls from Costco will last me well over a year. It’s not about saving money really, but rather it’s allocating the space to store the extras. Thankfully, I have plenty of unused cabinet space in the kitchen. If I were scarcer on storage space, I think I would buy a smaller batch from Target instead.

I mean, why move within walking distance to a Target if I don’t take advantage of it to the maximum?

I actually go through paper towels at quite a good pace, so the industrial-size pack from Costco is actually worth the initial storage hassles. My Asian mother would surely disapprove of how rapidly I go through a roll. I can remember her treating paper towels as if it were paper gold: only under the worse circumstances should I take a piece to use. Nowadays, I’d rip off a fresh sheet just to mop up some water on the bathroom sink. The Brawny branded towels do absorb very nicely.

The environmentalist part of me is just screaming in anger, but us first-world humans don’t care about that stuff when it comes to providing convenience and comfort for ourselves. Incentives have to come from above. The whole reason we’re getting the electric revolution in cars is not because of Elon Musk, or any altruistic feelings in the customer. It’s the super stringent European emissions regulations that are forcing automakers to ditch internal combustion.

I think if you have the storage space, you should still buy everyday essentials in bulk. Even if would take forever to go through a pack. Like the 24 dish scrubbing pads that would last me for many years to come. Something enticing about a low per-unit cost, even though we make good money now. Or perhaps I’m simply a hoarder at heart.

Forced relaxation

Part of being an ever aging adult is that some days you wake up and feel like shit. For absolutely no reason. This past Sunday was just that kind of day for me. I woke up in a massive fog of unwell, plus the pain of a right-side neck muscle from having slept on it incorrectly. I did nothing strenuous nor taxing on Saturday, yet there I was feeling like crap the day following. It never fails: you don’t realize how much you take feeling well for granted until you get sick.

It probably isn’t COVID, because I am typing this on the next day Monday, and I feel absolutely peach. Also, I’m fully vaccinated with the best vaccine available: Pfizer. According to new guidelines from the CDC, I have nothing to worry about whatsoever. No masks anywhere!

Anyways, feeling like crud on Sunday allowed me to do the one thing I can’t force myself to do: nothing. Yes, even on weekends when I am suppose to relax and chill, I usually still stack it full with stuff to do. Like working out, practicing the piano, or read. I didn’t have the mental power to do any of those things yesterday, so I sat in front of the laptop watching stuff, while keeping hydrated with plenty of fluids.

It took a bout of sickness for me to take a “day off”, which is kind of sad if you think about it. What is it about me that can’t seem to let everything go for a day and simply laze around? All the stuff to do will still be there the next day (and the next day). Even machines need to cool down and take a break every once in a while. I chuckle when I hear friends say they’re just going to chill for the rest of the day. It’s more envy than anything: I wish I can bring myself to do the same sometimes.

But soon as I woke up this morning feeling normal, it was back at it again. Break time is over.

Time horizon

It’s crazy to realize that it’s been four years since I traveled to South Korea. What a lovely two weeks that was, and it’s a shame that I haven’t gone back since. Obviously, the pandemic stole what will be two years of prime travel opportunity. I think it’s very likely the first place I fly to, once it is all possible again, will be back to Seoul.

I miss that country very dearly. And with four additional years of Korean language learning under me, I think I will have an even better experience the second time around. Like going to places the foreign tourists don’t usually frequent.

It goes to show just how long it takes for things to happen in our lives. We are so caught up with cheats and shortcuts, but ultimately anything that is good and great takes many years to achieve. Whatever grand plans you have takes time to execute; meanwhile, your everyday life is still as mundane and Groundhog Day-like as ever. I think it’s easy to be frustrated with such gradual change. This age of ADD and constant connection do not contribute well to waiting.

I probably would have raged if I were told back in 2017 that it would be another four plus years before I would go back to Korea again. That sort of time horizon just isn’t satisfactory to this culture of you only live once and wanting to fit as much life into the shortest timeframe as possible. This is why I spent six-figures on a Porsche 911 GT3 probably a full year before I was completely ready. Because I was unhappy with the sameness of life, and needed something new, big, and exciting.

I’ve changed my mindset since then. I understand that things take time to develop, and goals worthy of pursuit have horizons that stretch out in multiple years. The typical day-to-day life is going to be the same week after week, so I might as well be happy about that and get on with it. Be grateful that I even get to do any of this in the first place.

Invert and look

Customer service jobs tend to follow the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of your problems are raised by 20 percent of your customers. That’s certainly true in my field of IT support at a college campus, though thankfully the ratio is more like 80/10.

Sometimes the 10 percent that causes the headaches can be so overwhelming that you lose sight of the fact that the other 90 percent are perfectly nice people, and aren’t troublesome. Thank god for that! We should be grateful for that majority. Imagine if the numbers are skewed the other way: it would make the job downright intolerable.

The rule to invert your perspective and thinking of a situation can be so powerful. I’m fine with dealing with same few problem customers day after day: that’s the job, after all. So long as the work isn’t overwhelming in volume, who cares if I’m seeing the same person for the third time, troubleshooting the same issue after many weeks. Or so what if someone has two computers that need support instead of the standard one.

Instead of railing against whatever perceived unfairness, remember that they represent a small percentage of the supported population. It’s not worth the time and energy to force them onto some procrustean standard. Better to deal with them directly and idiosyncratically.

Because truly, if all customers were competent and never run into issues, there would be no need for people like me working in IT support. Therefore, at the very least, I am grateful that I can keep employment! That will quickly erases any stress or bad feelings towards any particular customer.