Blog

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

This might be it

I think if something unfortunate were to happen to my BMW M2, I would probably replace it with something tame and economical. (The refreshed Tesla Model 3, rear-wheel drive with the long range battery is looking good.) The new enthusiast car market has gotten so expensive that the logical brain side of me doesn’t want to pay for something that largely sits (I don’t have a commute). The new Porsche 911 GT3 starts at $200,000 now - $40,000 more than the previous model - which is absolutely insane. Makes me feel slightly better about paying $126,000 for a 2015 model back in 2019.

Even the cheap end of the continuum is in the mid $30,000s (Toyota GR86, or the venerable Mazda Miata). While that is somewhat affordable for me, what isn’t affordable is the insurance costs for enthusiasts cars. I would know: it’s quite expensive to insure the BMW fully. Again, logical brain is working overtime to convince me that maybe this whole love of cars is getting defeated by monetary mathematics.

But we’re suppose to spend a high proportion of our money on hobbies, right? I can’t be looking at my vehicle situation from the lens of a regular person. In their case, yes, they should limit the spend on what is the second biggest money purchase (first would be the house, if anybody can afford one around here). It makes zero sense to drop extravagantly on a depreciating asset. To do it financially responsibly, people should buy a brand new Toyota Corolla and drive it as long as possible.

Because I like cars, and have liked them since I was a kid, I get to spend more of my adult money on them. But these days the adult brain is cautioning loudly against the inflated costs of vehicle ownership. I actually paid off the M2 earlier this year. I certainly feel more carefree with that monthly car payment now extra cushion in my savings account. It’s a very good feeling. The 10 years ago me would have already used that freed up money to buy another car.

Either I have tremendous self discipline, or it is indeed true that there are seasons to life. Perhaps I’ve outgrown my car enthusiasm…

It's not for me

Have any of the presidential candidates said anything about ending Daylight Saving Time? Whoever promises to abolish the abomination gets my vote. My expertly calibrated sleeping schedule does not wish to be arbitrarily interrupted twice a year. Recalibration always takes a week, if not more.

I am enjoying the autumnal flavor of early dark evenings. In combination with the lower temperature, it makes for a cozy atmosphere at the home. Don’t you dare string out the Christmas lights already, though. Have some respect: absolutely nothing Christmas-related until after Thanksgiving.

Human anatomy differs from person to person. Certain exercises is fine for some, but may cause pain for others. For example: I am Asian, so I’ve zeros issues with squatting deeply (Asian squat joke). Ankle mobility is just fine over here. Some are not so lucky in dexterity, so their knees might bark loudly in anger in every attempt.

The exercise I’ve encountered thus far that creates pain for me is the upright row. After I increased the weight to 50 pounds, my right shoulder cannot take the load. Afterwards, anytime I raised my arm above shoulder height, pain shoots from the shoulder joint. I thought not raising the weight above my chest would alleviate the issue, but no. Upright row is simply not in my exercise repertoire moving forward. At least it’s not a big three compound movement!

Perhaps it’s unavoidable, given a long enough timeline (and actual progression in weight), that I will eventually injure something while lifting these damn weights. I’m trying to avoid it, obviously. Primarily by not adding on weight that quickly. Apparently, even if the muscles are ready for more load, the tendons and connective tissues might not be. It’s safer to progress slowly.

Cheap Chinese food

A friend told me his favorite Taiwanese restaurant is closing down. The owner couple are retiring, and there’s no one to continue on the legacy.

This is similar to the story of Sam Wo, the restaurant in San Francisco Chinatown operating for over a century. It is also closing down by the end of the year if no buyers can be found. The owner is retiring, and his children wants to so something other than working long days serving up food.

It makes sense, right? Parents start a humble restaurant to provide their children with a better life. Because their children got a better life (they are Asian, failure is not an option) as white-collar workers, there’s no one to take up the wok and spatula once the parents are of retirement age. Another friend of mine, his parents also closed down their long-running restaurant upon retirement. The friend and his siblings all have successful careers, far from the physical toil of the kitchen.

I think Chinatown is going to look very different in the coming years. Lots of restaurants there are run by the older generation. I suspect many will close down soon enough, because my generation are either unwilling or do not need to take up the proverbial mantle. The margins are too low, and the hours are too long.

I hope I am wrong about that projection, and there is an unknown cohort out there that’s going to step up and take over running these legacy Chinese restaurants. Because we cannot let Panda Express win the cheap Chinese food game!

With what money?

I go the mall sometimes during the weekday lunch hours, and I would see the local high school kids buying lunch at the food court. How on earth do they have the money for it? The allowances they get from parents must be hefty. I make above the American median household income, and I only feel comfortable enough to get Chipotle once in a while. Kids, with no income - how are they doing it?

Especially these days when $10 can’t even buy you a meal at McDonalds. At least back when I was in high school, there was the dollar menu. That’s a lot of McChicken for the $20 my father would give me once in a while. A dollar now can literally buy nothing at the Golden Arches. I understand inflation, but people aren’t making that much more money? A suitable food allowance for a higher schooler of today must be in the hundreds per month.

I guess there’s a lot of rich parents out there in San Francisco.

No wonder it’s said that child rearing is so expensive. With the recent inflation it’s got to be more than the quarter million to raise a child from baby to 18 years of age.

My parents most certainly did not spend a quarter million dollars to raise me. They didn’t have to money to. Not even close. I think it’s people’s expectations of what entails child-rearing that drives up the costs. Childcare, birthday parties, toys, trips to Disneyland (allowance when they reach teenage years); a lot of it is more wants than needs.

I read an article about parents getting into debt to bring their kids to Disneyland. News flash: if you cannot cash flow a Disneyland trip, you cannot afford it. There’s no rule that a child must experience Disneyland. For sure they will be sad when they hear from their school friends who went, but I didn’t have Nike shoes growing up, and I turned out just fine (allegedly). No emotional damage at all.

Do you even lift, bro?

The only thing I bought from last week’s Amazon Big Deal days is a scale. Not for food, but to check my body weight. I’ve been lifting weights consistently for about a year now, and I was curious to see if I’d gotten any heavier. Muscle weights more than fat, I’ve been told.

And drum roll please, since last October I’ve gained a grand total of two pounds. I’ve certainly gotten stronger compared to last year, but I guess I am not eating at an enough surplus to gain lots of weight. The laws of thermodynamics cannot be violated: burn more calories than you take in, you lose weight. Intake more calories than you burn, you gain weight. It seems I’m barely above maintenance.

Sugary foods doesn’t necessarily make one fat. If I give you only one sugar cube to eat everyday - and nothing else - you’re going to be skin on bones in a few weeks’ time. The problem with sugar is that it tends to be part of calorically dense foods. Think ice cream, or a can of non-diet soda. Therefore it’s super easy to overeat. Halloween is coming up soon. Parents ought to look up just how much calorie those tiny pieces of candy contain.

If I want to built muscle mass quickly, I have simply must eat more. But, I am okay with this two pound per year pace, honestly. Besides, the point of strength training for me isn’t hypertrophy: it’s for longevity. I want to be mobile and able as late into my twilight years as possible. There’s also correlation between small body mass and lifespan. Think of the people in Okinawa.

Getting too big is also cumbersome for flying. I’m always envious of tiny Asian women, where economy seating might as well be business class for them.

My exercise goal is to be as strong as possible for my current leanness.

Dell support

At work we deploy, on the PC side, mainly Dell computers. Word on the street (I don’t handle purchasing) is Dell is a fantastic vendor to work with, and the discount we get is hefty. As well it should be, with the amount of hardware we buy.

Obviously, on the Mac side it’s just Apple.

As personnel on the support side, I can say Dell computers can do with better quality control from the factory. Every batch we buy, there seems to be always a few computers that need immediate servicing. During the pandemic, we bought hundreds of Dell laptops, of which dozens had to be serviced because of poor fit and finish (a trackpad should click). I get it, pandemic times were uniquely funky, but the batch of Mac laptops we bought from Apple had zero such issues.

Good news for Dell is that the servicing is solid. Though that’s a back-handed compliment, isn’t it? I reckon companies would want to put out a product so reliably good that the end-user never has to know about after-purchase servicing. Nevertheless, if Dell isn’t capable of ratcheting up its quality control, at least it’s super easy to get items fixed.

So long as the product is under basic servicing warranty (we prepay for four years for everything we buy), Dell can dispatch third-party technicians to your location within business days. Or, if the customer is not in a hurry, an overnight prepaid mail-in option is also available (the Dell repair facility is in Houston). All of this can be initiated on the Dell support website via chat, which is great for people like me who avoids using the telephone as much as possible.

It still won’t pry the MacBook Pro out of my hands. But, if I ever need to run a Windows PC, A Dell-branded unit is a fine option. Even if it malfunctions within the first week of use, Dell support will get it fixed with haste.

Unforgiven

As a person employed by a university, I am perhaps not the most unbiased opinion in this whole student loans forgiveness issue. My job depends on the college system continuing on to be a revolving door of incoming students turning into graduates. Should the value of a college degree crater into oblivion, well, I better go find something else to do.

The students are the paying customer, that is of no doubt. And in grand American tradition, they pay in credit. How else can anyone afford to attend college when room and board for a year is the equivalent of a used car. I managed to avoid student loans because one, my family was poor enough to get me all sorts of State and Federal grants, and two, I lived at home.

I’d have signed loan papers too had I needed to pay $900 per month just to share a tiny dorm room with a complete stranger. Probably a guy named Mike from Souther California.

Students graduate with a tremendous amount of debt weighing down their financial future. Unlike other debts, students loans do not get wiped off in a bankruptcy. I wonder what were they trying to prevent when that was implemented. Seems to me they don’t want people to declare bankruptcy upon graduation to shed the school debt. The graduates can take the credit hit because they’re just starting their adult career anyways.

Piggybacking off that, I think student loan forgiveness will create negative incentive for universities. There would be no motivation to control costs (like building a lot more student housing) if there are no consequences for the students down the road. Don’t worry about the tuition increase! Borrow all you want from the government! Uncle Sam will wipe it away eventually!

We need to look at the whole thing holistically: how to lower the total cost of college, so that whatever students has to borrow can be repaid timely and responsibly. Numbers getting too large (and inescapable) is how we got into our current mess.