Blog

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

I officially feel old

Perhaps I’ve come to this realization too late in the game. Along with many of my fellow Americans, I was watching American football over the weekend. It was during one of the games that it struck me: I am older than every single player out there on the field. It’s one of those “you know you are old when” moments, one that came shockingly because we’ve all grown up looking up towards professional athletes. For the longest time, these were people who are older, stronger, better, and richer. And now I’m just an old fart watching kids play a game.

This is it: being older than entire sport teams is my demarcation line. I now firmly feel like an adult, one hundred percent. Any remnants of childhood innocence have ceased to exist. No one mistakes me for a student at my university job. I probably won’t get carded at bars, if I were the drinking type. There isn’t enough cocaine-grade retinol to erase the age lines on my face.

At least my hair is as full and black as it ever was.

This is not to say I was immature before. As the child of first-generation immigrants, I had to be an adult way earlier than I should have been allowed to. But it’s not like crossing the magic 18 or 21 somehow bestow upon us some magical new feeling. Maybe the difference between 20 and 21 is truly just the number on the birthday cake. The changes are so gradual year-over-year that it all feels the same. There’s nothing extravagant about it: make money, then try not to spend all of it. (That’s not very American, is it?)

I think for my friends who have birthed children, there truly is a “switch” of sorts. Soon as the baby comes out of the mother, the clarity of where you stand and the job to be done must be absolutely crystal clear. The success of this thing will be entirely dependent upon you for the next two decades. Surely that will make you feel like a full-on adult very quickly!

A master debater

The first workout after time off for sickness is the best. I finally feel like my normal, productive self. Though surely I will be worse for it tomorrow, as delayed onset muscle soreness is especially acute when you exercise after some time off.

A coworker was regaling me with his horrible experience on the bus to work. There was a guy openly masturbating on the bus, yet no one was saying a word about it (I guess there weren’t obvious school-aged children on the bus). Everybody on the bus was content to pretend the problem away, until my coworker finally said something. Not because of any civic-minded heroism, but rather the masturbater was in his way of alighting.

And that, kids, is why you study hard, go to college, and get a high-paying job: to avoid having to take the bus. As a seven-year veteran of bus taking during my latter schooling years, I too have seen my share of blood and craziness on public transportation. And soon as I was able to drive for a commute, I never looked back.

It’s a sad referendum on our civic decline when bystanders simply by-stand. Nobody says anything, so long as the crazy doesn’t directly affect them. I don’t blame them one bit. In this country of second amendment freedom, you don’t want to risk personal injury by speaking out. We live and let live not because we condone, but in self preservation.

Because it should be the job of sworn-in police - paid for by our tax dollars - to handle a masturbater on the bus, or a delusional homeless person on a drug-fueled tirade. Even that social contract has deteriorated. The people on the bus with my coworker didn’t call 911; they know that nothing is going to be done about it. It seems we live in a time where civic nuisances are tolerated, so long as no blood is involved.

Apathy towards our civic duty is very dangerous. Things will collapse when a critical mass of people give up on doing what is right. When law-abiding citizens stop paying for bus fare because they see fare evaders go unpunished, that will be it.

Sadly, another one

It’s sad to see the utter devastation of Pacific Palisades burning to the ground. I was last there back in 2023, meeting up with some car people at the local Gelson’s. We then took a spirited cruise on Malibu canyon roads. All of that beauty is gone, in a flash of monstrous 100 mile-an-hour winds.

At least folks in California aren’t stupid enough to blame President Biden for controlling the weather.

Indeed, can municipalities even prepare for sustained dry winds in the triple digits? I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s really no one to blame here but the act of god. A god who isn’t completely benevolent when he is wont to inflict such ruin on a community (shoutout to The Brothers Karamazov). Losing a home is a horrific ordeal, no matter your income circumstances. It’s disgusting to see the worst of social media relishing the destruction, because Malibu and the Hollywoods hills happen to be high net worth zip codes.

Envy is a disease.

Climate change seems to be throwing at us weather emergencies the size and frequency of which we can’t prepare for. Florida got hit by two seismic hurricanes within the span of a week just last year. There’s nothing one can do other than not be there when the disaster happens. Emergency rations aren’t going to do shit against fires capable of leveling towns. (Well, you absolutely should make sure to have insurance for the most valuable things. If you even can get insurance for it.)

A hearty best of luck and a speedy recovery to those suffering from the fires in Southern California.

First and last of the year

After going the entire 2024 without once being sick, it took but six days into 2025 for me to catch a cold. I guess it was my turn. At least it’s not COVID! (Are they even counting COVID deaths these days?) My record of never testing positive for the coronavirus remains intact.

Honestly, I rather be not sick and at work, than being sick at home. Staying home is not so glamorous when you are completely lethargic. It’s not like I can do chores or go for a drive on the mountains. I don’t have the energy to workout (this is especially rough). The only thing to do is slump over the couch and watch TV, which is torture for a type-A productivity chaser such as myself.

Perhaps this is nature forcing me to take a break.

With the common cold, you’re just kind of wasting away the day as quickly as possible, so you can get to sleep. Slumber is where the real virus fighting happens, at least that’s how I think of it. I always feel better (than the day before) after a night’s sleep.

As it is anytime I get sick, I am reminded how great it is to be normal and healthy. I shall savor the first meal I eat once I am fully recovered. To be able to actually taste the food is something I won’t take for granted for at least a whole week. A great dish for those with a cold: oatmeal and two eggs. (Bring oatmeal to a boil, then add in two eggs. Stir until egg is cooked, then add milk to the desired consistency.) Takes five minutes to make, and it goes down as easy as porridge. Obviously tastes like nothing, but your buds aren’t working properly anyways.

I can’t wait to be done with this.

If I die, I die

The book The Last Place on Earth narrates the duel between two teams of explorers aiming to be the first to reach the very southern pole. The too long didn’t read is the winning team took a measured, calculated approach, while the losing team went full Rambo at the beginning, running out of steam at the end. It’s the same tortoise and the hare story that they’ve been reading to little kids since forever.

My personality is definitely on the hare end of the spectrum. Years ago while running a 10K, I drained myself going too fast on the first half. I then essentially walked the second half, leading to a slow result. If it were on a North Pole expedition, I would have surely perished.

It’s a deadly thing for motivation to strike me, because the sudden inspiration will cause me to focus so intently that I forgo everything else. I can be researching hotel accommodations in South Korea for hours, and won’t pause to even drink a lick of water until the job is done. Fiction books are especially dangerous towards the end, because I won’t stop reading until the very last page. Bed time? No it isn’t!

Besides, it’s not likely I would be able to sleep anyways. Slumber is not possible when that thing with the car still isn’t fixed (so glad my brand of car enthusiasm doesn’t involve massively fixing or upgrading car parts). Or the stuck kitchen pipe needs something stronger than Drano to clear. Is this the opposite side of the coin to procrastination? Once I begin something, it’s difficult to stop until the job is done. Regular life be damned.

Good thing then that none of my projects or tasks have downsides that involve death.

Toasty hands

The best feeling in the world during these cold winter months is a heated steering wheel in the car. I think toasty hands are more important than a toasty bum (read: heated seats). Funny enough, my previous Subaru came equipped with the cold weather package, but it didn’t have a heated steering wheel! I guess they expect users to wear gloves.

What are some car features that you absolutely cannot live with? I reckon Apple CarPlay (or the yucky Android Auto equivalent) has got to be number one on the wishlist. Though it seems that feature has already reached critical mass. Ferrari has stopped implementing factory navigation software because most customers connect their phones. Smart: why waste software engineering hours on a feature customers don’t use?

Only General Motors is dumb enough to drop CarPlay support (in their EV lineup). GM wants to be Tesla - own the entire software stack, but does it have the requisite engineering talent to execute? (It’s going so well over at Volkswagen.) I can excuse Tesla cars not having CarPlay support because the built-in software is amazingly intuitive and effective.

As much as I love the heated steering wheel feature in my M2, it’s not something I steadfastly look for in a car. My needs are what most cars come as standard: keyless entry, automatic climate-control, and Apple CarPlay. Any features above that are merely nice-to-haves. That means if I weren’t a car enthusiasts, I’d be just fine driving a bog-standard Toyota Corolla from new until it stops running.

I’d be far richer today, too. Expensive hobbies are expensive.

Where it all went

As a person who doesn’t typically do New Year’s Resolutions, I have but one in 2025: no buying new books until I’ve read all the ones I already bought. Tolstoy’s War and Peace will finally be devoured before I can clear off additional books on my Amazon cart. It’s the right thing to do. The least a book can do before becoming a gatherer of dusts on the shelf is to entertain me with its infilled information.

As 2025 gets underway, a good exercise to do is to take a look at your money in 2024. Credit cards make it super easy to gather and export all your purchases in an Excel file. The Chase cards that I predominantly use even categorizes the spending for me, and lets the user compare year to year. That’s how I was easily able to know that I successfully spent thousands less money (2024 compared to 2023) on Amazon.

I think it’s valuable to know the big picture of where my money went, so that I can intuitively plan for the new year. Performing the audit (if you will) was how I found out I only filled up my BMW M2 a total of twelve times. For a car that goes 200 miles before the gas light comes on (which is to say: pathetic), that means I did very little driving in 2024. I endeavor to accumulate a lot more miles in 2025. To pay for that extra gas, the amount of money not spent on books should cover a good chunk of it!

A surprise spend of last year was food delivery. How it can add up to so many hundreds of dollars, even though I’ve only ordered seven times. Those fees and tips really add up to already inflated food prices. This year there will be zero food delivery orders, unless I am so unfortunate to become incapacitated.

Spend wisely, my friends.