Blog: Entries Tagged With 'family'

It's hard to believe, but it's been a little over a year since Priscilla and I moved back to SoCal. July 4th of last year was when we finished packing the last of our stuff into our cars and drove down from the Bay Area. This year on July 4th, we went over to the Camarillo Premium Outlets and caught the nighttime fireworks show there. I guess we'll have fireworks every year to remind us of our moving anniversary!

I already wrote a summary for our six month anniversary, so I'll just mention the highlights from this past year.

We've seen Priscilla's parents and my parents about once a month on average. Priscilla makes it a point to have us visit her parents every month, whereas things are a little less formalized with my parents - we saw them more frequently towards the beginning.

On hold are getting the gym room and master bedroom set up and making room in the garage for a second car, but I expect that we'll start in a few months. I've been prioritizing other things like infrastructure improvements and quality of life enhancements. On the infrastructure side, I had a plumber fix a valve that was causing us to not have hot water, got our sewer lateral replaced, roof vents installed, downspouts piped out to the street, and recently got our dishwasher fixed through our home warranty. For quality of life, we've gotten new furniture for the common areas and a daybed for Priscilla to use in the backyard. We got solar torches for the front and back, and we got the water fountain (included with the house) up and running. I also hired a company to clean and set up the hot tub, and I've been maintaining the water ever since. Having a hot tub is a luxury that we never imagined we'd have, but Priscilla makes time to enjoy it about once a week (I don't care for it).

We do a fair amount with our church. Our small group meets weekly for study, except the last week of the month in which there's a dinner outing (we usually skip those). We've been helping out with worship about once a month, including at the retreat last week. Speaking of which, this was our first retreat with this church. It was an all-church retreat at Pepperdine University, though we barely interacted with the other congregations (the main purpose of having all the congregations at the same retreat, we were told, is to save on costs). We enjoyed our time there except for the dorm housing; there's a certain level of comfort that we've come to prefer, and Priscilla had neck pain when sleeping there. In future years, maybe we'll take the commuter option (it seemed like a good number of attendees did). We enjoyed the food and the conversations over meals, and the preaching was great. One of the things the speaker said is that if you've done your Bible reading for the day and you haven't been moved, then go back and read again. Words to live by.

It also looks like I'll be helping to redesign the church website. Previous efforts had kind of fizzled out, and the English congregation's elder (we only have one, and he's also in my small group) had mentioned recruiting me for the website not long after Priscilla and I joined the group nearly a year ago, but only now did I get connected with the main guy in charge of the site, so I guess it hasn't really been a priority for the church. There seem to be some basic goals that we need to get consensus on, so we'll see.

Finally, I've been learning things across various domains, including trying to learn piano. I took lessons for perhaps a few months early in grade school, and I didn't have the interest or the discipline to make it very far. Since then, I would infrequently take a peek at my grandfather's old music books, and in high school, I learned how to play Canon in D using the lesson mode on my electronic keyboard. But I never really had a grasp of the basic fundamentals. So now I'm going exercise by exercise through my old primer books (the ones with illustrations for kids), and I also learned to play Minuet in G Major from a YouTube video. I wish I had realized as a kid that piano could be so fun. I'm still terrible at it, of course.

All in all, though things could always be better, I think we've had a meaningful year. My strength (and also weakness) is that I focus on one day at a time. I feel like I've mostly been purposeful with each day, but Priscilla has been challenging me to think about what my purpose looks like five and ten years from now. I think it's largely the same as what I'm doing now, but it's always good to keep one eye on the horizon.

The qualities that Priscilla considers when determining what place we should travel to next, in order of most important to less important:

1. Cost of airfare
2. What airport lounges we'll be able to visit
3. What free hotel nights we can use
4. The activities that will be available

Because she feels like we don't travel enough, and because Frontier Airlines was having a sale on flights to Denver, Priscilla was all too happy to book another trip for us. Flights from Burbank to Denver were $26, a steal by any measure. Of course, Frontier has its downsides and we had to rebook after they canceled our original flight, but at last we made it to the Mile High City last week.

The rest of the day was spent getting settled: picking up the rental car, getting a few grocery items from Costco, and driving to our hotel in Golden. We wanted to be in Golden due to its proximity to hiking, though that can probably be said about most places in the Denver area.

I had originally wanted to do an all-day hike in a more remote area, but those places tend to be at a higher elevation and, as I would later find out, are still getting snow at this time of the year. So we were consigned to doing two shorter (well, my definition of "short") hikes over two days.

So on Day 2, we hiked at Red Rocks Park, Priscilla doing 5 miles and me doing another 2.5 miles on top of that. The rock formations there were pretty unique and made for a scenic hike, and it was cool to see the famous outdoor amphitheatre. We hit up the gift shop and Priscilla bought a keychain that will be this year's Christmas ornament.

After hiking, we drove over to Downtown Golden to get lunch and walk around some more. The downtown area looks really nice, and they have a creek that's full of water and a walkway on both sides. It was similar to the San Antonio Riverwalk but less commercial. We even saw someone paddling around in a kayak.

We hiked at Green Mountain on Day 3. Priscilla was not fond of the elevation, but we finally made it to the summit. The scenery was beautiful and the panoramic views were lovely. The whole area was filled with green grassy hills, and to the west in the distance, we could see the amphitheatre at Red Rocks Park. There were small mountains as far as the eye could see, and behind those rose the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

In the afternoon, we headed over to Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (which is not in the actual Rocky Mountains) to do the wildlife drive. It was a warm day, and perhaps as a result, we didn't see a lot of animals out. Priscilla had downloaded a podcast that narrated the 11-mile self-guided drive. We saw what appeared to be buffalo off in the distance, a field of prairie dogs, and a couple deer resting beneath a tree. The visit was a bit of a letdown, but I know that timing matters for these kinds of places.

That evening, we checked into the Staybridge Suites near the airport, which would be our home for the final two days. We had a small but functional kitchenette, and they even upgraded us to a two bedroom, two bathroom suite! It was cool to have two sides, but we ended up not using the other side since we didn't want to make more work for housekeeping.

Day 4 was Meow Wolf's Convergence Station. It's hard to completely describe what Meow Wolf is, but perhaps I'll call it an eclectic collection of immersive art, a thematic universe with an unfolding story.

We bought the QPass (RFID) card so that we could interact with consoles and unlock the story. But because it was a Sunday, the place was crowded and we weren't able to get our hands on everything. I appreciated the huge amount of work that went into creating this place, but I felt like it was a one and done kind of experience. The abstract, artistic style at teamLab Borderless in Tokyo was much more our cup of tea.

After Meow Wolf, we walked over to Downtown Denver but didn't do too much. Downtown Golden was a lot nicer; for instance, the river trail in Downtown Denver didn't have as much water and was a little run down.

Monday was our last day and was essentially just travel. We hit up the Capital One Lounge (courtesy of Priscilla's Venture X card) at Denver International Airport before flying Southwest back to Burbank. The lounge was fine, but I couldn't eat most of the food and I felt like the counterpart lounge at DFW had more food options and amenities. Priscilla, of course, is happy with anything she can get for free.

Overall, Denver was fun enough and I'm glad that we got to do a couple popular hikes. But what would really be up my alley is an all-day hike/run where I can explore and feel like I'm challenging myself. Priscilla and I agree that I can do that on my own while she hits up a coffee shop and explores the town for the day. Whether one of those days is really in the cards is going to be up to me.

We last visited the Bay Area in October for me to say goodbye to my coworkers and for us to see friends and family. We thoroughly enjoyed our time up there, but we thought it would be longer before we visited again. However, last week we found ourselves visiting again.

The main reason was to go to my uncle and aunt's place to retrieve our guitar and keyboard, which they had graciously let us store there during our move. Priscilla needed those to practice since we're starting to help out with worship at our church, with Good Friday being our first time serving in this way. We always had a feeling that we would reprise our roles playing piano (her) and drums (me) for worship after joining a new church.

So the previous Friday, after our morning gym session, we drove up the 101, stopping at our new halfway spot in Atascadero for a short break. We got to Mountain View in the afternoon and I joined up with Frank to go running. We ended up running 8 miles on the Stevens Creek Trail like old times.

We stayed up in the Bay for four days, which gave us plenty of time to see people and get stuff done. We stayed two nights with the Chans, having breakfast with them on Saturday, then two nights with the Leongs, having breakfast with them on Tuesday. We also caught up with the Yehs for a late-night hangout, did lunch with Albert and Ruth, dinners with both pairs of my uncles and aunts, and dinner with Tracy at Google. Plus talking to a lot of people at church for 3.5 hours until our voices were sore. Whew. Thankful for all the people we've gotten to know and their generosity in letting us crash at their houses (several families had previously offered).

We also had time to get the prongs on Priscilla's ring adjusted at Shane Co, and also hike Mission Peak on Monday. Hiking Mission Peak once a year has been our annual tradition, so we (I) thought it would be cool to do it again this year during our trip. Will we keep up this tradition going forward? I guess we'll see. Priscilla is as thrilled about it as I am about traveling in general.

We've also been busy helping parents, both remotely and in person. The cadence for now is to visit Priscilla's parents about once a month, and we saw them yesterday and fixed a lot of things around the condo.

Her dad's dementia is getting progressively worse, and during the last visit we helped them fill out and get notarized a Durable Power of Attorney and Advance Health Care Directive for each of them. We also bought her dad a medical ID bracelet which he lost within a day. We also ordered a bracelet with a tracker that's difficult to remove, so hopefully that will be better. There's the doorknob cover to prevent him from wandering that I mentioned in a previous post, and yesterday I installed a keyed lock for her mom's bedroom to help prevent her dad from going in there and taking things. He's also been breaking things around the condo because he can't figure out how they work. He seems to have clarity less than half the time, and usually when he talks, his communication is all over the place and nobody knows what he's trying to say. It's sad seeing him decline and not be able to do a lot of the things that he used to, but I have to remind myself that this happens to just about everyone as they age - whether it's our bodies or our minds breaking down. I myself have been having a lot more aches and pains in the last few months, so I'm getting to experience things through a new perspective.

Things are the most difficult for Priscilla's mom, of course. She feels like she's being driven crazy daily due to his actions and him frequently talking about seeing/hearing people in the condo. Priscilla and I have it easy, relatively speaking, though I'm sure that will slowly change as we start helping them more. We have to remember that we're here to love and support them, and this is what we signed up for when we decided to move back down.

Because Priscilla constantly has the travel itch, and because she keeps forgetting how much land sickness she gets after a cruise, she signed us up for another cruise to Ensenada last month. This was our third time cruising there, the previous time being in 2020 a month before the world shut down. How things have changed since then.

We stayed at Jo-Ann and her sister's condo in San Pedro overnight, and they kindly brought us to the Long Beach Cruise Terminal the next day. After waiting in lines for a good while, we boarded our ship, the Carnival Firenze. This is a newer and larger ship compared to Carnival's Fantasy-class ships that we've sailed on previously.

We went straight to the Lido Marketplace for lunch, avoiding the crowds that were mostly checking into their muster stations. After lunch, we reported to ours, but they just asked if we had sailed before and knew how to put on a life jacket, and then they signed us off. I don't know if they were supposed to bypass the safety briefing like that, or maybe they figure that people don't pay attention to or remember the briefings anyway.

We had time that afternoon to do the adventure course on the top deck. It wasn't as exciting as the treetop courses we did at Go Ape and Highline Adventures, but it was still cool to see this new addition. Here, your harness is tethered to a rail system and you're able to change freely between an easier side and a harder side at each platform. Kudos to Priscilla for pushing through her fear of falling and making it to the end.

The next day was supposed to be Catalina Island, but it ended up being our day at sea due to strong winds that made docking infeasible. Unfortunately, the wind also made for some choppy waters, and the ship was swaying a lot. I had to go back to our stateroom and lie down, but that day we still managed to eat a lot, work out, walk around the track on the top deck, and watch the Color My World music show which was beautifully done. We had dinner at the upscale Michelangelo Restaurant, and the prime rib and molten chocolate cake were divine.

Fortunately, the wind had subsided the next day and we were able to go ashore at Catalina (Avalon). We hiked 10 miles around the town, the Wrigley Memorial & Botanical Gardens, and the Trans-Catalina Trail. I did a couple bonus miles and hiked to the Lone Tree Point on the south side of the island, where I was treated to breathtaking views of the coastline below. The trails this far out were also fairly devoid of people.

Ensenada was the following day, and this time we just did a zip lining excursion with Desert Nest. A bus brought us to their basecamp outside town, and then two vans took our group of a dozen people up to the nearby hills. There are five successive zip lines and the views were decent. I have to admit that zip lining was not as exciting as I was hoping, but I guess the experience is more about the views than the inherent thrill of the ride. Maybe also because we were not permitted to do it hanging upside-down like our guides were doing.

After we got back to town, we walked a mile around the Port of Ensenada but otherwise didn't have too much time or inclination to do much. We don't care to eat in town because there's plenty of food already paid for back on the ship. When we were walking along a street with merchants trying to get tourists to eat at their restaurants, I even said "ya estamos llenos" ("we're already full") to a lady, which was true because we'd eaten a big breakfast. I guess we like being boring when traveling.

There were a couple things that had changed this time around. One our first cruise in 2009, all the pictures being taken of people got printed out and hung on the wall to nudge people into buying. I always thought this was wasteful. I'm not positive but I think even in 2020 they were still doing this. Now, to cut down on costs, you just view your pictures through the Carnival app and purchase prints there. I don't think there's an option to purchase digital versions of the pictures, though. Maybe in a few more years.

The other difference we encountered was that reservations to the restaurant are now made through the app. They also don't give you a printed menu by default (though you can request one), instead making people pull up the menu on their phones. A little less personal, but it again cuts down on costs and is better for the planet.

Priscilla ended up having land sickness for a few weeks after the cruise, while mine was minor and lasted only a few days. The trip was fun enough but I was reminded that I'm not really a cruise person. Priscilla, on the other hand, enjoys being able to try different things and having all our needs taken care of. I don't think she's really itching to do a multi-month around the world cruise anymore, though doing another short cruise in the future seems to still be on the table.

I've been thinking a lot about purpose lately. It's now been four months since I left my job with Pure, and being free of a job has afforded me time to actually do things like think.

But kidding aside, in some senses I've been busier than ever. I've definitely had my hands full with fixing things around the house, doing things for parents, working out, researching health, relearning science concepts, and fellowshipping with people at church and in our small group.

I reckon that most of us won't find our "grand purpose" in lofty ideals like changing the world or becoming the top ranked in something. But, to loosely paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, we can all do a bit of good where we are, with what we have.

To say that life is more about finding purpose in the day-to-day rather than living out some "grand purpose" is helpful. But, for followers of Christ, I think that doesn't capture the whole picture. We are called to a higher purpose, and that is to glorify God and find joy in doing so. Our purpose should be the one that He has set for us. Nothing more, and nothing less.

So we continue to live each day - learning, laughing, and loving. Finding small doses of purpose in enjoying life and helping others do the same. All the while, allowing Christ to work in us and wanting the same for others. That, I submit, is our grand, glorious purpose.

It doesn't feel like it to me, but it's now been over six months since Priscilla and I moved back to SoCal, and over three months since I left my job with Pure. Where does the time go?

This has been an eventful time for sure. We've seen my parents on 11 occasions, her parents on 5, and Aaron and his family on 8. The most recent time was just last Sunday when we saw my family to celebrate our nephew's 5th birthday. Wow, he's 5 already?? Time really does fly.

Back in August, we signed up for lifetime memberships at our local gym. We go 1-2 times per week, depending on Priscilla's schedule. I'm usually lifting while she goes to the Pilates/yoga and Zumba classes, though I might be going to Pilates/yoga with her more often (I've already gone once) since my back has been acting up and I need to strengthen my core. Gary from our church usually joins me at the gym biweekly since he gets every other Friday off from work.

We've committed to the church in Thousand Oaks that I previously mentioned, and we submitted membership applications in November. We're still waiting to be approved, as applications are supposed to be reviewed at the next elder meeting, but this is just a formality and we're already somewhat involved in church life. We visited four fellowship groups and ultimately joined one that has people similar to us in life stage. There are usually 8-10 people in the group and we meet weekly, with one week per month set aside for an outing to a restaurant (we haven't always gone to those). We value the discussions and getting to know people in the group.

Despite not having a job right now, I feel as busy as ever. Since 2013, I've been using a spreadsheet to track my notable daily activities, but last October I started also using Google Sheets to track a breakdown of my activities in five categories: Mind, Body, Spirit, Others (i.e. other people), and House. I don't always do something in each category every day, but it's a good goal to have. When I feel like time has gone by without much to show for it, I can look back at the sheet and remember that I did do meaningful things, even though each of them might've been fairly small. I've learned that life is less defined by grand acts and more by small but cumulative actions. I gave the sheet the title "The Next Right Thing," the name of a song from Frozen 2 - not a very memorable movie, but the song has a powerful message about just putting one foot in front of the other, especially when things are hard.

We've spent a good amount of time with family and friends (both new and old). We've met most of our immediate neighbors, though our relationships haven't developed past the quick hello on the street yet. We've gotten half of the house set up the way we want; the gym and master bedroom still need to be done. I've been brushing up on various topics like chemistry and biology, and every time I learn something, I put it on the sheet and highlight it for easy reference. Fitness has been okay, but there's still a lot of room for improvement and I still have my near-term goals that I want to hit. I haven't quite found my "grand purpose" and perhaps I never will, but I've been getting little doses of purpose in daily life. Maybe that's enough.

We also had a memorable time in November when evacuating due to the Mountain Fire (as I talked about in a previous post), and this month there have been a lot of wind-driven fires in SoCal, most notably the hugely destructive Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire in LA. Challenging times ahead.

Speaking of challenging times, Priscilla's dad's dementia has been slowly getting worse. He seems somewhat okay during the day, but past the evening his clarity diminishes and he gets more confused - this apparently is known as sundowning. Priscilla's mom asked us to buy a door knob cover so that he can't leave the condo late at night; he had already wandered out twice. Two weeks ago, we stayed three nights at their place to help them with various things, and it was somewhat challenging. We're going to stay with them one night next week in order to help them with more things, including driving them to a doctor's appointment 45 minutes from their place. A sign of things to come, but this is what we knew we'd have to deal with when we decided to move down.

Overall, we're glad that we moved down and still glad that we settled down in Camarillo, even though it's an hour drive, give or take, to get to parents. It's nice to have a little bit of separation, and we like our house, neighborhood, and city. Retaining a bit of comfort will be critical when we find ourselves helping parents more. But we'll deal with that as it comes, one day at a time. Doing the next right thing.

In my last post, I mentioned that the Mountain Fire was raging in Camarillo Heights and areas to the north. Our neighborhood was evacuated that Wednesday. Fortunately, Priscilla and I were able to go stay to my parents' place far from the fire (one of the benefits of not living too close to parents). The power at our house was cut in the morning but was restored 7 hours later, so we had a limited view of our street from our Ring Doorbell camera.

The first day was excruciating, not having much information and fearing the worst. The fire map showed that the fire was 2,000 feet from our house. At least two of our neighbors decided to not evacuate, and in the evening one of them sent Priscilla a picture showing the sky glowing orange just over the ridge in front of our house. Fortunately, the 60mph winds that fanned the blaze started subsiding that evening, returning to a normal light breeze the following afternoon. Had the heavy winds continued for longer and in our direction, I could imagine the fire, or at least embers, coming down the hill and reaching our house. The 182 structures that ultimately burned were in the mountain area north of us where there's more vegetation and where there aren't as many direct roads into the area, but I think it could've easily been a lot worse. We're thankful that our neighborhood was spared.

After the first two days, the fire perimeter was kept from expanding significantly more thanks to the tireless work of the fire crews. We returned to our home on Friday, and the evacuation order in our area was downgraded to a warning later that day. We're also grateful that we receive city water and didn't have the water quality issues that some other Camarillo residents had. Many of the outlying areas are unincorporated and have their water provided by local companies, some of which had issues with contamination due to toxins and firefighting chemicals seeping into the water supply.

As of today, the fire has burned 19,904 acres and is 98% contained. Life in our area pretty much returned to normal that weekend, just 3 days after the fire started, though air quality was noticeably impacted for the first week or so. There's still a trace of smoke at night, but it's so much better now.

This ordeal made me and Priscilla think about our priorities. We didn't bother getting fire insurance when purchasing our house because it seemed pricey and the fire risk in our area seemed low. Our next-door neighbors don't have it either, and apparently neither did some of the people who actually lost their homes. Our neighbors who have lived here for 13 years told us that a fire has never gotten this close to our area in that time. But we're considering getting insurance now. Premiums will probably increase due to what happened, though rates in California are still being kept artificially low - that's why a lot of insurance companies are leaving the state. We still think that our house will probably be fine, but it's good to have peace of mind. And I think of it as a way to help subsidize insurance for people who need it more.

But moreso than insurance, we've been thinking about the things that we treasure. Seeing how anxious we were about our house, and thinking about how devastated we would feel if we lost it, made us realize that we don't have enough of a stewardship mindset. Ultimately God owns everything, so if it's His will that we should lose something, then we should be able to say like Job, "blessed be the name of the Lord." Easier said than done, of course. Lord, increase our faith and our dependence on You, and let us act as stewards over all you've given to us - our home, money, time, and relationships.

We're not even a full week into November and already this month has turned out to be one for the books.

Last Friday, Priscilla and I visited my parents and then her parents. We stayed two nights at her parents' place so that we could drive them to the memorial service at CCAC for Priscilla's uncle William, since her dad can't drive anymore and her mom isn't comfortable driving far. It was a nice time seeing parents and the memorial was really touching. We didn't know Uncle William well, but we learned about his great faith and his love for others and desire to see them come to Christ. He had a quiet spirit but such a profound faith in the Lord. His words of "Be a Christian on the inside," as recounted by his granddaughter, were such an encouragement to us all.

On Sunday, we drove over to Hollywood and stayed at the Lexen Hotel. We joined Gina, Weber, their parents, and Gina's friend Sally at the Hollywood Bowl for the concert for David Foster's 75th birthday. A lot of the songs were too old for us to recognize, but it was cool to hear and learn that he had produced songs like Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," Celine Dion's "All By Myself," and Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up."

Fast forward to this morning when news broke that Donald Trump had won the presidential election in a landslide. I consider myself a moderate, and my views on various issues generally fall closer to the middle than towards either end of the political spectrum. That said, in terms of character and moral fiber, I think Harris would've been the better person by far to represent this country, and had I lived in a swing state, I probably would've voted for her out of fear for what Trump's presidency means for the country and for the world. I really hope that Trump will serve with integrity, humility, and fairness, and that he will submit to the perfect Judge who gave us the ultimate example of love.

With a Republican majority in the Supreme Court, Senate, and possibly the House, I'm concerned about issues like the environment. But regardless of who's in power, I think massive repercussions of climate change will be inevitable. Society is just not willing to make the drastic lifestyle changes needed to avert a crisis, and by many accounts it's already too late. As followers of Christ, we know that this world is temporary and will eventually pass away. The book of Revelation talks about hail and fire and a third of the earth being burned up - metaphors for climate disasters and nuclear warfare, perhaps? It saddens me how many people, some Christians included, don't seem to act like stewards when it comes to taking care of this world. Nonetheless, our ultimate hope must be in Christ, knowing that only what is done for Him will ultimately last.

And on that note, I'll finally mention that there's currently a wildfire blazing in parts of Ventura County including Camarillo Heights. We lost power this morning when the power company shut off power to tens of thousands of residents as a precautionary measure. The Mountain Fire, as it's now called, quickly grew to over 10,000 acres due to the strong winds that are expected to last until tomorrow afternoon. We had to leave around noon when the evacuation area expanded to our neighborhood. On the fire map, the fire boundary appears to be 2,000 feet from our house. Supposedly, many homes to the north have already burned, but that area seems a little more remote with more vegetation. Some of our neighbors stayed behind and one of them just texted a photo showing the sky lit up in orange behind the hill that's close to us. Power was restored around 3:30pm, which is encouraging. I have confidence in our fire crews and I know they're working tirelessly to contain the fire. We know that the Lord can (and does) give and take away, and that He is sovereign over all things. It's hard to not be anxious, though. And I don't think that anxiety will just go away. We just need to trust, and pray. In all things.

This past Friday was my last day with Pure. Since moving to SoCal, I've been fortunate to have been working remotely for 3 months. But alas, the company denied my manager's request for me to be permanently remote, as the executives have been pushing to have everybody back in the office and are apparently not granting any new requests for permanent remote positions. We knew that this would be the most likely outcome when I decided to move.

I could've stayed and made them fire me, but I didn't want to make life difficult for my manager, and I gathered that they probably would have fired me with cause due to non-compliance, so I left voluntarily. This means that I don't get severance or unemployment, but I do get 90 days to exercise my stock options. A dismissal with cause would've meant losing my options (as well as no severance or unemployment).

So for my final two days, I visited the office in order to see my coworkers one more time. Priscilla and I drove up Wednesday, this time taking the 101 because it's now the most direct route for us, and the drive wasn't too bad save for a couple places where there was construction.

I had lunch with some team members on both Thursday and Friday, and my manager arranged a farewell get-together with our combined team Thursday evening. Some team members even came into the office when they would normally be working from home, just so that they could say goodbye. It was great to hang out with people one last time, and people were really kind and encouraging. Our team has been the best part of working at Pure and we've always supported one another. I'm going to miss everyone but I hope to visit again.

When people would ask me how I'm feeling, I would say that I'm wistful but optimistic. I've been with the company over 11.5 years and have been part of its culture and growth. There's so much that I didn't get to do that I wish I'd had the time for, and there's so much more that I did get to do that I will treasure forever. I enjoyed the ski trips, holiday parties, board games with my team, foraging for leftover lunches with fellow-minded teammates, the fun antics, mentoring 8 people, and being part of the amazing work that my team has done to make the rest of engineering more productive.

At the same time, I've been feeling somewhat burned out for the past several years, feeling like the work that I do often doesn't really matter. I'm planning to take at least a few months off before thinking about finding another job. It will be nice to finally be able to sleep more, train more, and have time for all the things that I've been wanting to do. Work would often leave me drained by the end of the day, lacking the energy to do things requiring much effort. I have a lot of things that I want to do now that I have an extra 30 to 40 hours a week.

We're fortunate to have reached our goal for financial independence, largely thanks to my job at Pure, and we're incredibly grateful for that. I'm hoping that I will be intentional with how I use my time and that it will be not just for bettering myself but also serving others. I don't know for sure that I will actually want to find another job, but if I do, it will be because I want to rather than because I have to. If I do find another job, I'm hoping that it will be at some sort of Christian/humanitarian non-profit, ideally still doing software development, where I feel like I'm making more of an impact in people's lives. Regardless of what I end up doing, I hope that it will be purpose-driven. If it's not working at a job, then that time should be spent doing something even more purposeful.

While I was working on Friday, Priscilla hung out with old church friends. Saturday, she had lunch with old coworkers and then we brought dinner to my uncle and aunt. And yesterday we visited our old church, caught up with people there, had pho for lunch with Randy and Eva, and then brought dinner to my other uncle and aunt and picked up some stuff that we'd left at their place.

It also seems like we're entering the season of helping parents more. Priscilla's uncle passed away last week and the funeral will be at CCAC later this month. Priscilla's dad can't drive and her mom isn't comfortable driving that far, so we're going to be staying with them for two days so that we can all go to the funeral together. Eventually they will need more help more frequently. So part of living purposefully will mean being more involved in parents' lives, particularly through the hardest times.

We'll have a lot to figure out. But for the first time in a long while, it feels more manageable now.

For the second time in our lives, our new house is beginning to feel like our home.

It's been 1.5 months since we moved in, and we're taking our time getting settled so as to not feel overwhelmed. We're using the corner room for our sleeping quarters and for my office. Eventually, after we get a couple more home improvement things done in the master bedroom, we'll probably want to buy a bigger bed and start sleeping there.

So far we've spent a combined $17k on termite treatment and repairs, a water heater repair/repiping, sewer lateral replacement, and installation of roof vents. The outlets in three bedrooms need to be grounded and the master bedroom needs to be painted a color that doesn't burn the eyes. I also need to drywall over a couple outlets which were placed in a weird spot halfway up the wall in the gym room before we can have a full-length mirror put in there.

The first week in the house, we bought a washer and dryer and a dining table with 6 chairs. Next was a sectional sofa, 3 small bookcases, a large coffee table, and finally now a TV stand. I just finished building most of the TV stand and we finally set up our PlayStation 3 and watched a DVD that we had borrowed from the library - The Money Pit. My coworkers had mentioned it when I first mentioned buying a house. The movie was a little weird but had its moments. Our house is a bit of a money pit, but fortunately nothing like the house in the movie!

There are a lot of small things that need to be done for the house. I cut down one of the giant bird of paradise plants that was growing too tall next to the house, and I've been repairing various leaks which are present in half of the 13 irrigation zones. In a month, I'll have more time for these things. My company is not approving any new requests for people to be permanently remote, so I'm going to have to leave after September 28 when my 3-month transitional period comes to an end. I could refuse to leave and have them fire me, though if they fire me with cause then there would be no severance, but I'd rather leave on good terms and not make life difficult for my manager. I should be able to give 2 weeks notice on September 28 which would allow me to remain employed for the first two weeks of October. That way, my 90-day window for exercising stock options will extend into next year. I'd rather exercise them next year since we have too much income this year, though our stock has fallen $20 in the time that I could've exercised this year, so was that really the right call?

I've been working for 16 years, 11 of which have been at Pure, so I'm feeling overdue for a change. It's been good here overall, but lately I've been feeling like the work that I do doesn't really matter. I'm planning to take several months off before deciding whether to find a new job. I'm looking forward to having more time for the things that I want to do, and I'll also need to help Priscilla's parents understand their finances. We probably have enough to be financially independent, assuming the stock market doesn't crash, so I don't need a high-paying job anymore. If I do get another job, I'm hoping for it to be with a Christian non-profit where I feel like I'm making more of a difference in people's lives. But in whatever I ultimately decide to do, I hope that I can live with purpose.

Being down in SoCal has allowed us to see family more frequently. They came over the first week and helped us unload the pod, and Aaron came by one day to mount our TV and another day to bring my bike which I'd been storing at my parents' place. We visited Priscilla's parents during a weekend when we went to Arcadia to see Sharon who was visiting her daughter there. We got together with my parents and Aaron's family earlier this month to celebrate birthdays. And we'll be staying at Priscilla's parents' place again next week in order to keep her dad company while her mom is helping out at a church retreat during the week.

We've also visited a few churches, two of which are in Camarillo. But we feel the most comfortable at a church in Thousand Oaks due to the worship style being close to what we're used to and the people being similar to us demographically. Church community should not be constrained by demographics, but I can't say that they don't matter at all. We haven't committed definitively to the church yet, but we're hoping that it will be a place where we can grow, serve, and build deeper relationships.

There's no shortage of things to sink money, time, and effort into. Some of it is meaningful, some of it less so. We have a lot to figure out, but one step at a time. Do the next right thing.

This is going to sound silly to everyone (the wife included), but since I do a lot of Yelping, I also like to check in on Yelp for every place that I visit. Partly to rack up dukedoms (awarded to the person with the most check-ins to a place within a certain period of time), and partly to keep track of where I've been and how many times I've been there.

Upon moving away from the Bay Area, I collected the stats on my total check-ins to the places we've visited most frequently. They kind of provide a high-level snapshot of where we've been the most during the past 12 years. They are as follows:

Church:
CCIC: 616

Cities:
City of Mountain View: 1,839 (I checked in basically every day I went to the office)
City of Santa Clara: 639
City of Sunnyvale: 440
City of Cupertino: 68

Recreation and fitness:
Central Park: 445
San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail: 191
Rancho San Antonio: 105
UFC Gym: 53
Monte Bello OSP: 33
Mission Peak: 28

Restaurants:
Mediterranean Grill House: 99
El Pollo Loco: 43
Yiassoo: 30

Other commercial:
Mariposa Shopping Center: 188
Santa Clara Town Centre: 154
CVS: 115
Chase: 109
Sprouts: 95
Dollar Tree: 65
Safeway: 62
Home Depot Santa Clara: 50
Home Depot Sunnyvale: 35

It's only been 10 days since we left the Bay Area, but we're already starting to adjust to life down here in SoCal. We of course miss our friends and our old church, but hopefully absence will make the heart grow fonder and we'll keep in touch and have a sweet time with people when we visit.

We drove down July 4 and stayed a couple nights with my parents and a couple nights with Priscilla's parents. We then stayed 5 nights at the Bella Capri Inn in Old Town Camarillo, and now we're in an Airbnb in Santa Rosa Valley for a week, and then finally we'll be in another Airbnb in Camarillo Heights for 1.5 weeks. The idea was to be in town so that we could look at houses, but we're actually closing on a house in two days!

We liked the house in the west part of Camarillo Heights that I'd previously mentioned. We had an offer in the pipeline before our move, but the sellers wanted us to see the place in person to verify that we actually liked it. So we saw the place the day after our move and submitted a stronger offer that day (same price but even faster close), and the sellers accepted it the next day. They interestingly had no other offers. Our agent said that the market had slowed down, and it also helped us that the house was shown for just one weekend, with the next weekend being a holiday weekend. And another thing that probably helped was that the house was in a price valley - higher than most other houses here but lower than the really expensive houses that people with a lot of money can afford. But the market is picking up again now, so we bought at just the right time. We're grateful for God's providence, for our amazing agent who'd been sending us listings for nearly two months and finally found this place when it was off market, and for having enough funds from selling our Bay Area house to make a cash offer.

This new house basically checks all of our boxes except for walkability - there's a Ralphs a mile away but nothing else within reasonable walking distance. It's a single story house and is over 2,700 square feet, which will be ideal if we ever have parents living with us. The lack of stairs will be ideal in terms of mobility, for them as well as likely for us someday. Priscilla has her big kitchen and I have my gym room - the one bedroom that's on a slab foundation; the rest of the house is on a raised foundation. There are 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, and also a 2-car garage. I wish the garage was slightly wider; one side of it has some cabinets that protrude a little into the space behind the garage door, and I think we can fit two cars and a couple bikes in there, but it's going to be a squeeze. Other than the garage, there's a lot of space everywhere since it's also a corner lot. The place has been kept pretty well and the backyard is nice. The plants are all on drip irrigation, and the backyard features a large patio, a patio cover, and a hot tub. I really like that the backyard is completely private, unlike most other houses that we've seen that have a neighboring house with a view into the backyard. Priscilla is planning to spend more time there compared to the backyard at our previous house.

God really paved the way for us to get this house. We weren't crazy about it due to the location, so we were committed to offering $45k under the asking price and not going above that. Our reasoning was that if it was God's will for us to have this place, then we would get it. And sure enough we did, and without anyone else bidding. Our hope is that we honor Him with this house and everything else that we've been given.

And now that the question of where we're going to live has been settled, we now need to find a good church to call home. Last Sunday we visited Priscilla's old church in Woodland Hills, and today we visited a church in Thousand Oaks that would be 18 minutes from our house. We talked with a few people today and they were very welcoming. And one couple and another guy also live in Camarillo! We'll probably check out a local Camarillo church next week. I think these are all good churches and great people, so it might be a difficult decision. But we trust that God will lead us to where He has planned, like He's done for everything else thus far.

Well, it finally happened. This afternoon, Priscilla and I moved out of our house and out of the Bay Area. I'd been living in this area for 16 years, and she'd been here for 12 after we got married.

This past week has been crazy with loading the pod, tidying up the house, and packing up our cars to conclude our move. Packing and loading was a huge ordeal, and suffice it to say that I should've had us hire movers at least to load the pod. We had such a stressful time doing everything ourselves, and Priscilla made me agree to let us hire movers when it comes time to unload the pod when we have a new house.

Saying goodbye is hard. During the past weeks, when people asked how we were feeling, I'd respond by saying that we were feeling mixed emotions and it's a bittersweet time. Today, however, there was no sweetness, only deep sorrow. Sorrow over leaving this house that we've been in for 10 of the last 12 years of our marriage, leaving our wonderful neighbors and neighborhood, leaving our church and the so many people we've gotten to know there, and leaving the Bay Area which we've come to love. I'm a pretty emotionally stoic person, and I think the last time I cried was when I moved up to the Bay Area and my dad had just left after staying with me for a week to help me get situated up here. But today I was sobbing involuntarily when getting the final things ready for us to leave the house for good. Priscilla, the less stoic one, was in tears as well. There's something about a sense of loss that really cuts to the soul.

Indeed, there's so much we're giving up as we begin this new chapter of our lives. The last chapter can be defined by growth and accumulation. It was our first years of working after college, building adult relationships for the first time, cultivating relationships in the church, and building a life together after marriage. Now we are starting over, venturing into the unknown both in terms of life events as well as community. The main reason we're moving down is to be closer to family, and our parents are getting to the point where they're going to need more help with things, and their health will only just eventually get worse. We've been fortunate to not have really had to deal with significant trials in this past stage of life, but the next stage will undoubtedly be marked by them.

But as Priscilla's coworker said to her, it is a privilege to be able to spend time with parents, whether they are healthy or otherwise. God has gotten us this far in life, He's given us strength and many mercies during this move, and He will guide us in the future from now until the rest of our lives. Our hope is that we honor Him in all that we do, in where we ultimately settle down, and in the relationships placed in our lives.

We closed escrow on our house last Monday! It felt so good to finally be done, and closing and having the money wired to our checking account (the most cash we've ever had and probably will ever have) felt like turning the page towards the end of this chapter of our lives.

It's hard to believe that we only started the home selling process with Susanna two months ago. It certainly has been a journey, and it's gone by very quickly. The buyers gave us a month of free rent back, but we're planning to have everything packed up over the next week and drive down to SoCal on July 3. We ordered a container from PackRat that's supposed to be delivered tomorrow, and half of our stuff has been packed up in the garage ever since we did the house showings.

We've been constantly looking at Redfin listings for houses in Camarillo. There were two houses that we were considering: a single-story house in Camarillo Heights that's far from everything, and a two-story house in Mission Oaks that's close to a Vons and 10 minutes closer to parents. But talking with some church friends about their and their parents' experiences with two-story houses convinced us that a second story can be a major obstacle later in life. Having just one bedroom (or in some cases no bedrooms) downstairs just won't do for what might be our forever home, especially if we ever have parents come live with us. Unfortunately, that rules out most houses in Mission Oaks.

We're quickly passing through a season of "lasts." Today was Priscilla's last day going to the office; Thursday will be mine. Sunday will be our last time at this church. Over the past few weeks, we've had over a dozen get-togethers with various people/families from church, including a dinner with many people who've been in Family Fellowship with us. We/I have had just about as many get-togethers with other friends (old friends who used to come to our church, old coworkers, current coworkers, and more). There is just not enough time to say goodbye. In a way, this is showing us that while we haven't felt close to many people, there are actually a lot of people whom we care about and vice versa.

We'll have a lot to think about when we move down. Like whether we really want to live in Camarillo, which house to get, where to go to church, how to serve our families and others. Aaron had a serious health scare a couple weeks ago and was in the ER/ICU due to meningitis. I guess he ate some old food, and having a compromised immune system plus additional risk factors due to lifestyle caused him to get a brain infection. He ended up being in a coma and was intubated, and tests revealed that he also had a small clot in his brain. Apparently he'd also had a mini stroke. When he woke up, his speech was a little slow and he would sometimes exhibit minor confusion and occasionally forget that he'd had some conversations. There was also indication that he might need dialysis.

Fortunately, he seems to have made nearly a full recovery (and continuing to get better by the day) and didn't need dialysis. He'd started trying to take better care of his health before the hospitalization, and we hope that he continues doing so. Maybe I can use his guest pass at 24 Hour Fitness to go work out with him, and hopefully we can have a deeper relationship in adulthood than we had as kids. Even though it would be a 30 minute drive, maybe we'll want to go to Priscilla's old church in Woodland Hills, partly because it's familiar and we know some people and partly because Aaron and his family go there.

We'll have a lot to think about and work through. But we'll have a whole new chapter of life to figure it out.

This past Sunday, I got to do the Monterey Spartan Sprint at Toro Park with 4 other guys from RBF: Joe, Wilson, Kelvin, and Frank. It was the first time doing a Spartan Race for all of them. I really enjoyed the camaraderie of doing the race with a group. During the race, we repeated the infrequently used joke that RBF stands for "Really Buff Friends" - somewhat fitting given that we've been training together (well, sporadically at least in my case).

A few of the ladies from our church did this race last year (go them!), so this year was the guys' turn. I haven't been training as much this year, definitely not as much as I was two years ago when I did a Spartan Trifecta with Dan, and I had gotten injured at the gym earlier in the week due to overstressing the joints. So I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do some of the obstacles, but I ended up having no pain on race day and was able to complete all the obstacles successfully except for the spear throw. During practice in the morning, I stuck the spear 3 out of 5 times, but I just couldn't get it during the race.

Overall, the race seemed less difficult compared to what I've done before. The men's sandbags were definitely 60 lbs since that's what it said on the bags, but the gravel buckets for the Bucket Carry felt around that weight or slightly lighter, which is odd because I thought they were supposed to be 80 lbs. And my bag for the Hercules Hoist felt noticeable lighter than I remember it being before. Or maybe they had heavier weights for the Super (10k) but reduced them for the next day's Sprint (5k)? Some of these impressions are probably subjective, but what was definitely true was that all of the major obstacles had penalty loops (where you run a short distance) instead of burpees for failing obstacles. Kind of takes some of the challenge and the uniqueness away, IMO. But I can appreciate that Spartan wants to make the race more appealing to more people, and the Sprint in particular tends to be the first Spartan experience that first-timers have.

Everyone in our group failed at least one obstacle, but we all did great overall. And the training paid off - for instance, thanks to our practice with the rope that Joe bought, everyone was a pro on the Rope Climb!

After the race, we hit up The Butter House in Seaside for brunch. Everyone else headed back home afterwards in order to be able to make it to Sunday Evening Fellowship, but Priscilla and I drove over to Monterey so that we could walk around the area one more time before our upcoming move. We walked almost 7 miles between Old Fisherman's Wharf, Cannery Row, and Lovers Point. The weather was perfect and we got to see sea lions, harbor seals, otters, and got to relax and enjoy views of the ocean.

The weekend was nice - spending time with people, conquering the race together, and seeing some sights like in years past. What a great way to spend one of our last few weekends before we move.

The last week has been a flurry of activity for the home selling process. We had open houses on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday a week ago. We stayed at the nearby Granada Inn from Friday to Wednesday in order to leave the house vacant for the open houses as well as the private tours with people coming by with their agents. On Friday, we had a private tour that was scheduled at the last minute and we were running around trying to get stuff straightened out and were out the door one minute before the tour's start time. We saw what looked like an agent waiting in his car; he was probably shaking his head at these people who obviously didn't have it together.

On both Saturday and Sunday, we had 30-35 people come by the house. Our agent Susanna said that a few people from Saturday came back Sunday to take a second look, so that was a good sign. Based on conversations with buyer's agents, she had expected 5-6 offers. We had priced low ("only" 1.569 million) in order to attract more bids, and in the end we had 4 offers, though she didn't bother mentioning one of them since it was too low - "just" 1.65 million, even though it was a cash offer. We also had an early offer of 1.68 on Thursday, but we turned it down because we thought we could get more by seeing the process through.

So this past Wednesday, when offers were due, we had basically 3 offers to choose from: Offer 1 at 1.68 million, Offer 2 at 1.71, and Offer 3 at 1.83. The third offer was by far the best, but they had opted for 3 days to transfer the deposit to escrow, which Susanna said was too long and needed to be changed to 1 day. I thought the 3 days indicated that the buyers might have another bid on another property and were considering backing out of ours. Offer 1 was from a couple who work at Google who stopped by Thursday morning before the open house and chatted briefly with me when I was outside sweeping. They've been renting in the area for 10 years and they're familiar with our neighborhood. I told Susanna that I'd be fine with giving it to them for 1.75 since Offer 3 didn't seem like a sure thing, but she told me to wait.

Susanna got Offer 1 to increase their bid to 1.828, and similarly she got Offer 2 increased to 1.825. She also got Offer 3 to change their terms to specify just 1 day to transfer the deposit. So now we had three comparable offers and were leaning towards giving it to the Google couple since we liked them. However, Susanna then sent us another update saying that Offer 3 had been increased to 1.85! Offer 3 was also giving us a month of rent back for free. So this was the best offer overall, especially since they had offered such a high amount to begin with, so we accepted that one. As much as we liked the Google couple, we were also concerned that the amount they would be paying for the down payment was nearly all of the amount in their proof of funds. It felt like they were getting emotionally tied up and probably bidding more than would be good for them long-term. Though it benefited us, I felt bad that Susanna got the buyers into a bidding war. I guess she was just doing her job and this is just how the market is, though. There's a reason why houses are going for this much in our area. And our area is still cheaper than Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Cupertino, etc.

At the end of the day on Thursday, after an agonizing wait, Susanna informed us that the buyers had taken a cashier's check to escrow and that we were now under contract. Whew! We're really blessed to have gotten such a high offer, and we're blessed that the process has been so smooth and that we have a shrewd agent who knows the market and knew what improvements to make to have our house appeal to today's buyers. We'd had doubts about whether anybody would want our house and whether it would even go for 1.6 or 1.7 million, so this has totally exceeded our expectations.

We're supposed to close escrow within 21 days, so we'll probably move around the end of June. We want to move down sooner so that we can start touring houses in SoCal. The hardest part is over and we're in the waiting period, but we've been trying to do small things like pull weeds so that the buyers don't think this place is terrible and get buyer's remorse when they move in.

We've also been spending more time with old friends from church. So far we've done dinner with Ryan and Steph (they bought us El Pollo Loco), dinner with Uncle Kenway and Aunt Susan and their family, dinner at Google with Tracy, dinner with Ruth and Albert with Richard and Michelle joining, dinner with Jerry and Vivian (she's an amazing cook), and brunch today with Tim and Irene. Coming up, we have dinner plans with James and Charlotte, a going away party with people from previous Family Fellowship groups organized by Emily, a going away get-together with the people on our worship team, a Korean BBQ meal with Jeff and Eleanor since we won their service auction, and a meal with Jean and Brion that we'll have to coordinate when they get back from traveling. Plus probably a final hangout with Tracy and my uncles and aunts, respectively. It's too bad that we're only spending time with people now that we're leaving. When we're in a new place, we need to be more intentional about meeting with others and cultivating relationships.

For now, we're enjoying a little bit of respite and a slower (but more intentional) pace of life. Priscilla and I did our annual hike at Mission Peak yesterday, followed by dinner at an old favorite, Layang Layang in Milpitas. I ran at Rancho with Yang last Saturday, and I trained at the park today and last Saturday with Joe and Wilson; we have our Monterey Spartan 5k coming up next weekend. We're learning to make the most of our time as our time in the Bay Area is rapidly coming to an end.

After signing the listing contract to begin the process to sell our house, the work to do hasn't let up. Our agent Susanna has handled coordinating with the various contractors to fix up our place, but there has still been plenty for me and Priscilla to do.

The house has received a lot of updates including a new thermostat, a new toilet and refinished bathtub, ceiling fans replaced with LED light fixtures except in the family room where we got a modern fan (with its own LED fixture that's not very bright), two recessed lights in the living room and two in the hallway, all doors painted white, redwood mulch everywhere in the backyard, and flowers on drip irrigation in the front and back yards. I was not in favor of removing ceiling fans and painting doors white; we used our fans when the weather was hot and barely used the A/C, and I felt that the wood doors had more character and appeal than plain white doors. But Susanna felt that the changes would make the place look more modern and appeal more to younger buyers, so I deferred to her experience. When we buy our new house, I'm going to consider putting in ceiling fans if they aren't there already. ;)

Two Thursdays ago, we were extremely busy with fixing small things, packing for our trip to SoCal, and moving everything to the center of rooms so that the painters would be able to paint the baseboards. We didn't finish everything that night, and we were scrambling to get everything done the next morning while the guy doing the refinishing and the painters were in the house starting their work and covering everything. It was pretty hectic and though we packed a lot of stuff in the car, mostly the day before, we weren't able to load it as fully as we would've liked.

So Friday, we drove down to my parents' place and unloaded a few boxes into my old room, to be kept there until we have a new house to move into. We had a quick dinner with my parents before driving down to Camarillo to stay the night there. On the way, we hit up the gas station at the Oxnard Costco. Should we move to Camarillo as hoped, we'll be visiting this Costco a lot, at least until Camarillo opens its own Costco in several months.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express and it was a little noisy because of its location next to the 101. Apparently, almost all of the hotels in the city are located next to the freeway. The next day, we viewed 3 open houses, walked around a couple parks, and had beef pho at Love Pho N' Mor where they had pretty big portion sizes. The houses we saw were a bit small and needed work. $800k is probably too low to get something that we'll be happy with; I'm thinking we'll end up spending $1 to $1.2 million. We're thinking we want to buy a place either in Camarillo Heights or Mission Oaks. The former would have older but more one-story houses, while the latter would have nicer but probably more two-story houses. Our preference is for a one-story house since stairs might be hard to use in old age, and the home we buy could be our forever home. We also value being able to walk to places, and Camarillo Heights would be closer to lots of stores, whereas Mission Oaks just has a Vons, CVS and Chase. But Mission Oaks offers nicer homes and nicer neighborhoods. Decisions...

We returned to my parents' place that night to have dinner to celebrate my mom's birthday. Aaron and Lauren and the kids joined us, but Lauren's parents had cooked a lot of food for us (I think my mom had requested that they bring a dish but they made a few) and were too tired to make it as a result. It was a low-key but good time with family, as usual.

The next day, we went to church at CCAC and ate with Gina, Weber and Cindy at California Fish Grill. Gina wanted to pay for Priscilla (since it was our anniversary) and she made Weber pay for me - it felt a little awkward accepting since he was compelled to do it, but he was a good sport about it and what's $15 between friends?

We drove back up on Monday and there's been a ton of stuff to do since then. This week is our neighborhood's turn to participate in the Santa Clara annual city cleanup, so we've put a lot of stuff out on the street, including our old sofa that is sagging in the place where Priscilla sits. Whatever we're not throwing out, we need to pack up and put in the garage since we have a cleaner coming in a few days, followed next week by inspections, staging, and hopefully listing. Most of our furniture will be used for staging, so the only large things that need to go into the garage are the bookcase, my desk, and the old area rug. I'm concerned that we'll have a lot of boxes and that will make our garage look unsightly, but we'll see.

I've been taking these last two days off from work in order to be able to focus on the things we need to do for the house. And I still need to finish installing door knobs for half of the doors. Okay, that's enough blogging, time to get back to work!

Until now it's just been something we'd been discussing, but now the plan has been set in motion. Yesterday we met with our real estate agent and signed the listing contract to begin the process of selling our house.

We're using Susanna as our agent again. She was our buyer's agent when we bought this house 10.5 years ago and though she's not working as much these days, she was touched when we reached out to her. We're grateful to have her help and expertise, and by yesterday evening she had already reached out to her HVAC guy, gardener, and handyman, and also picked out items from Home Depot that she wants to have installed.

Susanna is coordinating all the logistics of fixing up the house, and she's going for small but impactful improvements like painting the front, painting baseboards and trim, removing ceiling fans, tuning up the air conditioner, painting doors, painting bathroom cabinets, and replacing cabinet handles in order to make the place look more modern. She said that painting the whole house is not worth it since most of the paint still looks fine. Priscilla and I don't have to do much other than be home for the contractors and declutter and pack up stuff. Susanna is trying to save us money, and she asked for only 2% commission but offered to lower it to 1.75% if we use our own furniture for staging. Most of our furniture looks fine and she said that the stuff that staging companies provide is not always in the best condition, so her proposal seemed sensible.

Previously, Priscilla and I had thought we'd be using Redfin due to the lower commissions. But we read some poor reviews of the level of service that Redfin provides. In going with Susanna and getting a discount because of our previous relationship with her, we're getting a better rate than what we'd get with Redfin, and much better service. What a win!

We also thought that we'd have to rent a container and pack all our stuff and move out prior to listing, but now we get to stay in our house and avoid having to book a lot of hotel nights. It might make sense for us to be in a hotel during the two weeks that the house will be shown, since it'd be a lot of overhead to come back each evening and tidy up, pack up, and be out the door again in the morning, but we'll see. Either way, though there is a lot that needs to be done, Priscilla and I have the easy part. I guess this is why people like having a dedicated agent.

Susanna thinks that we'll be able to list the house four weeks from now. I think the process could be delayed if the pest or home inspection discovers things that need to be fixed, but Susanna is also on top of her game. So if there's a delay, I don't think it will be much.

So yesterday Priscilla and I went from having a fuzzy timeframe to having a more defined, accelerated schedule. Supposedly the closing process typically takes 30 - 45 days, so we could be moving out in June. At that point, we'll probably want to move down to SoCal and be in a hotel or Airbnb until we can find and buy a house. So that likely gives us two months to spend time with our family and friends here, and hit up the places that we might not have the chance to visit again. Time to get cracking!

For international travel, our regular cadence has been one trip every two years. Before last year's Japan trip, we hadn't done one since 2019 due to the pandemic (Priscilla doesn't count our 2020 cruise to Ensenada as international). Since she felt gypped, we agreed that we'd do another international trip in 2024. We settled on Japan again because prices are still cheap, the exchange rate is even better now (about 150 yen for $1), and because we enjoyed our time last year.

We departed last Sunday and the day was pretty grueling. We got to SJC a little after 9am and headed to The Club for breakfast. Brandon and Josephine from church were already there; they were on our flight but unlike us, they were going to visit different cities in Japan for a whole two weeks. Our trip was 10 days and we were only staying in the Greater Tokyo Area this time, since the JR pass is a lot more expensive now and it wasn't economical to get to cities like Kyoto.

The flight was around 11 hours and was pretty uneventful until the last half hour. Tokyo was getting 40mph winds that day and there was so much turbulence during our entire descent. The wind was so bad that we had to abort the first landing attempt and re-ascend and circle around. The plane was shaking so much right until it touched down on the runway. This was the worst turbulence I've ever experienced and my stomach was quite upset. Another minute of that and I probably would've thrown up. At least a couple other people did.

At Narita, there was a lot of waiting. Half an hour to get through customs. Half an hour to get the Pasmo transit card (preloaded with 1,500 yen with the 500 yen activation fee waived), which is similar to the Suica card but only available to foreigners. At least there was no wait to get food from the Lawson convenience store at the airport; we each got a couple things since we hadn't eaten much on the flight.

Odaiba and Tokyo:
Then we took a Keisei train and a Yurikamome train (2 more hours of travel) to get to our hotel at the Tokyo Bay Ariake Washington Hotel. The room was pretty small, just a little bigger than the room at Ibis Styles in Kyoto last year. We got more food from another nearby Lawson for dinner, and then we were pretty tired so we turned in "early." We woke up in the middle of the night because of jetlag, but we were still able to get 6 cumulative hours of sleep.

The next morning, we had a buffet breakfast at the hotel. It was 2,200 yen per person and the food was pretty good, though the buffet we had at the Hilton Tokyo Bay last year (free because of our Hilton Gold membership) was better. There was a decent variety of western and Japanese food, fish, meat, vegetables and more. I liked the gyūdon and sauteed bean sprouts the most.

After breakfast, we walked over to Odaiba and did Joypolis. We did most of the attractions, but I had to skip a couple of them because I don't do well with spinning rides. I liked the Sonic Athletics game where I competed with 7 others in track and field events. I had the raw speed but I came in 3rd overall because I suck at timing my button presses (for the long jump and hurdles). :p

Joypolis was okay but it's more Priscilla's kind of place than mine. I liked our time afterwards a lot more - we walked around the area and saw the Statue of Liberty, Unicorn Gundam statue, Odaiba Kaihin Park, and Daiba Park.

We started Wednesday with breakfast buffet at the hotel again. They didn't have the items I liked from the first day, and the place was more crowded, so we decided that we wouldn't do the buffet again the next day. After breakfast, we walked to Odaiba and crossed the Rainbow Bridge (terrific views) and walked over to teamLab Borderless.

Borderless was amazing! A lot of the art moves between rooms and it changes periodically. Some of it even reacts when you touch the wall. Every room was masterfully done. The room we liked most was the one with a 360 degree projection of celestial bodies in space. It periodically transitions through different scenes and the one that has crows flying through space is really something else. The other rooms that were terrific were the one with the forest of LED light strips hanging from the ceiling, the one with lighted metal balls moving around a track, and the one with hundreds of spotlights choreographed to music.

We also liked the tea room (only 600 yen for most of the teas) where you sit in a dimly-lit room and a projection shines into your tea cup. The projection shows flowers growing in your tea and then the petals all scatter when you pick up the cup. You watch as the petals blow away and fade once last time when you pick up the cup to drink for the final time. I thought it was a poignant metaphor for the beauty and fleetingness of life.

Borderless was truly moving and inspirational. At first I didn't see what the big deal would be, but I'm really glad that we did this. Priscilla paid $78 for the Joypolis and Borderless package through Klook, so each was around $20 per person. I don't think it was worth it for Joypolis, but it definitely was for Borderless!

Hakone:
On Thursday, we took the Yurikamome and then a JR train to get to Odawara. We picked up the Hakone Freepass from the train station and walked around Odawara Castle Park and also got some produce from the grocery store at the train station. The tomatoes in particular were really good - they looked like regular tomatoes but were very flavorful, almost like heirloom. Way better than all the tomatoes we get at grocery stores back home. Compared to the US, produce in Japan seems to be more expensive but higher quality. Even the hard-boiled eggs we bought at the convenience stores had orange yolks; hens in Japan are apparently fed a more balanced diet, while hens in the US are fed mostly corn and soybean.

From the train station, we took the free shuttle provided by our hotel, Hotel Indigo, to Hakone. This is a boutique hotel and they're very service oriented, which we're not accustomed to, though Priscilla didn't mind. This was by far the nicest hotel during our trip, and Priscilla redeemed all of the travel points in our respective Capital One accounts to book this. The room was quite large and had a lot of amenities, including a private onsen on the balcony and sliding wooden doors between the living area and the bathroom area that blocked out light. Since this day was mostly a travel day, we didn't do too much walking - we just walked 2.5 miles along the side of the Hayakawa River near the hotel.

Hakone is known for its hot springs, and every room at this hotel has an onsen. There was a 150 yen onsen fee (so just $1) per person per night, and we made good use of it since we used our onsen each of the three nights that we were there. The water is supposed to have healing and rejuvenating properties, and I did detect a slight sulfur smell one night, so it's probably the real deal.

The next day, we walked up some really steep steps to get to Gora Station, and from there took the Hakone Tozan Cable Car and then the Hakone Ropeway up the mountain. There are four consecutive ropeway lines, and once you crest the ridgetop of the Owakudani valley, you're treated to a gorgeous view of Mount Fuji in the distance and the sight and sulfur smell of the volcanic steam vents below. We stepped out at the lookout point to admire the landscape and peek at the gift shops. There were lots of shops selling black eggs, which this area is famous for and are said to add 7 years of life, but people say they just taste like regular eggs. Instead of eggs, we opted for black ice cream, which just tasted like vanilla. This place seemed like a tourist trap, but at least our ice cream was only 400 yen.

We took the ropeway down to Lake Ashinoko and did the pirate ship cruise to get to the southeast side of the lake. We went to the Heiwa no Torii, a famous torii (traditional Japanese gate) out on the water, but there were too many people in line waiting to get a picture, so we just took a picture from the side. After a quick lunch at Lawson, we found our way to the Kyu Kaido, a portion of the historic Tōkaidō road. The hike was very rugged due to the steep terrain and the large uneven cobblestones, and it was a little more difficult since we weren't wearing hiking shoes, but at least we did it in the eastward direction going downhill. Going the opposite way would've been quite challenging.

At the start of the hike, we were looking at the map on a sign and were met by a girl who looked to be in her early 30s. We ended up hiking together since we were all planning to visit the Amazake Chaya Tea House around the midpoint of the trail. We learned that she was from Perth, Australia and was on her second day of a 30-day backpacking trip through Japan. She gave us some travel recommendations for Australia and we chatted a bit when we settled down at the tea house. Priscilla and I had the amazake (sweet rice wine) and the sesame seed mochi. The tea house apparently has been operating for 400 years, and the recipe for the amazake is still the original. It's non-alcoholic and is sweet without sugar. After staying a bit, we exchanged well wishes and Priscilla and I continued on our hike while our friend waited for the bus.

We hiked to the eastern end of the trail in the town of Hatajuku, completing the approximately 3 mile length of the Kyu Kaido. East of the tea house, the trail gets more technical, including steep stairs with shallow steps, and occasionally crosses and even merges with the modern road. Finally, the old trail pretty much disappears once you get to the residential part of the town. We walked along the residential road for a short while, but it was a semi-busy road and the shoulder was narrow, so we decided to catch the Hakone Tozan Bus back. The bus took us to the Yumoto Station, and from there we took the Hakone Tozan Train, famous for its switchback railway, back to Gora Station. All the transportation that day was covered by the Hakone Freepass.

Saturday morning, we splurged and did the breakfast buffet at the hotel for 3,729 yen per person. Priscilla didn't mind doing this since she could get it credited on her Capital One Venture card. They had some fancier items that I didn't really care for, but I was still able to find some things that I liked that also agreed with my stomach. It was raining a good part of the day, so we stayed in the hotel and I caught up on work emails until the early evening, when the rain stopped and we hit up the Hayakawa River trail for a short walk again. Priscilla had originally planned for us to do more activities with the Freepass, but it was nice (for me at least) to have some downtime.

On Sunday, we used the Freepass once more to visit Hakone Gora Park. This wasn't the best time of year to visit since rose bushes and most trees weren't in bloom yet, but it was still nice to wander around the gardens and also see the plants in the greenhouses. Regular entry is 550 yen per person, and I don't think we saved money on all our activities by getting the Freepass, but convenience is worth something as well.

Afterwards, we took the hotel shuttle back to Odawara Station and checked into our new hotel at Toyoko Inn. We'd wanted to walk around Odawara Castle Park again but didn't on account of the rain. So we just chilled at the hotel and then went to Yoshinoya for dinner - our first time eating at a restaurant this trip. We were able to order more adeptly compared to last year. Yoshinoya in Japan is way better than Yoshinoya in the US. You get dine-in service, they give you complimentary tea and free refills on rice, food is made to order, and they don't have silly American desserts like cheesecake. And dinner here was only 1,453 yen - less than $5 per person!

Yokohama:
After stuffing ourselves from the free breakfast at Toyoko Inn (not bad selection for free) on Monday, we took a JR train from Odawara to Yokohama. We visited the Cup Noodles Museum and learned the story of the founder, Momofuku Ando, who invented instant noodles after a string of failures. It was neat to learn how he came up with the idea of flash flying noodles to dehydrate them after watching his wife fry up some tempura. We also hit up Chinatown for Priscilla to get some light bites. On the way back, we stumbled upon a fresh squeezed orange juice vending machine and had to try it out of curiosity. For 350 yen, the machine squeezed 4 oranges to make a cup of juice. The oranges rolled down a track and were loaded one by one onto a gear-like wheel, getting pressed between two wheels as they rotated towards each other. This was probably the coolest vending machine I've ever seen.

Tuesday saw us stuffing our faces for breakfast yet again. Priscilla got the breakfast option when booking our Yokohama hotel, The Square, for two nights. All the eating helped us not be hungry until dinnertime. It was raining fairly hard, but we walked over to Animal Touch Minatomira at the World Porters mall to go feed and pet animals. We liked the room with the capybaras, toucans, lemurs, and a sloth the most. At 1,800 yen per person plus 1,000 yen for 6 feeding vouchers, this was the most expensive activity we did.

Afterwards, we rode the giant Cosmo Clock 21 Ferris wheel, which Priscilla had booked for $4.26 per person. The ride lasted 15 minutes and gave us a nice view of Yokohama, though sadly we couldn't see far in the distance because of the rain and fog. But the coolest thing is that the Ferris wheel lights up at night with LEDs on every spoke. Its regular mode of operation is counting up the seconds of each minute, but every 15 minutes there's a 5-minute light show with different colors and patterns. Really a sight to behold. And our hotel room on the 15th floor had the perfect view of it! This was my favorite thing in Yokohama.

There's an OK Store a stone's throw from the hotel, so we went there for groceries and to the Hama Sushi restaurant there for dinner. This restaurant is really cool - you check in at a kiosk and it tells you what table to sit at, then you order individual items using a tablet and they are whisked to your table on a conveyor belt. The tablet plays a little jingle when your item arrives. It was really cool to see how everything was so coordinated and just worked seamlessly. Utensils, sauces, and a tap for hot tea are provided at the table, so there are no waiters. If the cashier was replaced with a self-pay option, you'd really not have to talk to anyone! We spent 1,804 yen here and got mostly full, and we had a second dinner from stuff we bought at the grocery store. I felt like the sushi was a splurge, but it still came out to only around $6 per person! What!

Wednesday, our final day, we stuffed ourselves at the hotel buffet one last time before taking JR trains to get to Narita. Learning a lesson from last year, we hit up the duty free shops first to get Tokyo Bananas (for my coworkers) before they ran out. We were able to use the remaining balance on our Pasmo cards and the rest of our cash here. We then got some light bites at the IASS NOA lounge. They had miso soup and some dehydrated seaweed and tofu that puff back up when added to soup; I wondered if those had been dehydrated through the flash frying method! The flight back was thankfully uneventful, though I wasn't able to sleep much and I developed a massive sore throat shortly after getting home. Looks like I'm catching a cold, but at least I got sick on the last day of travel, not the first day.

Overall, I'm glad that we went on this trip, though like last year, I was getting city fatigue and travel fatigue a few days in. Having some downtime definitely helped, even though some of it was because of staying at the hotel due to rain. I guess we didn't do as much this year, and that includes going to convenience stores even more this year. We got to see some cherry blossoms this time around; most of the trees were still bare, but some had started blooming.

Priscilla once again did a fantastic job with planning all aspects of our trip, including knowing the exact fare we would need for each train ride (mainly just to know how much we needed to load on our Pasmo cards), and getting some of our hotel stays, breakfasts, and some activities credited from her Capital One card. The total cost of the trip was around $2,250 and after credits, we spent around $1,775. Not too shabby given that the flights alone were $1,026.

Japan does so many things better than the US and there are a lot of things I will miss, but for now I'm glad to be home and I'm looking forward to catching up on rest.

Call it... February frenzy and March madness?

Over the past couple months, it feels like I've done a lot and also not done a lot at the same time. Where does the time go?

After my large project wrapped up in November, my workload at work has been manageable. The first week of February, our business unit started requiring employees to come into the office four days a week. I'm typically a lot less productive in the office - there are so many distractions in the form of meetings, people asking for help, having to walk around to use the bathroom or get food, and overall just not having long blocks of focused time. Last week, I was so behind on interrupts that I decided to just take a WFH day so that I could focus, and I was able to close/dispatch 50 tickets in our triage queue. Granted, I ended up working some extra hours that day, but there's no way that I could achieve that level of focus in the office. Leadership really needs to understand that everybody works differently and that people, and thus the company, benefit from flexibility.

Since I have to be in the office, I make time to go running with Frank almost every week. We ran together sporadically before the pandemic, but starting at the beginning of 2023, we've been running together after work one or sometimes even two times a week, with each run averaging around 5 miles. It's a good way to stay accountable, though he already runs most days each week, unlike me.

Two Saturdays ago, I participated in the annual RealOptions Walk for Life 5k race. Our church participates every year, though most people do the walk instead of run. Thanks to the generosity of our church, our team raised over $19,500 to support the work of RealOptions. This was my fourth year doing the 5k and I ended up getting 1st place out of 65 runners this year, though my time of 21:34 was slightly worse than my time of 21:31 from last year. It just depends on who shows up - when I first participated in 2018, there were 8 people with a time under 20 minutes! I had been hoping to get a time under 21 minutes, and my personal goal is to be able to run a sub-20 minute 5k, so I have a long way to go.

The day after, Priscilla and I sang in the combined choir during the combined service at church. We had 6 people total from the English congregation joining the regular choir members from the Chinese congregation. I think this was a record turnout from the English side! We sang an arrangement of "Then Sings My Soul" by Mary McDonald, which is a little different from the traditional hymn. It was actually kind of fun, and it was awesome hearing how the four vocal parts came together in a beautiful composition. I was actually the one who suggested joining, as Priscilla was thinking that I wouldn't want to do it. I guess I'd be okay with doing something like this again - but not on a regular basis, Priscilla!

On the home improvement side, I've been working on replacing the old blinds in the spa room and gym room. I ordered some basic blinds (still not cheap at $230) from blinds.com and I've had to find bits of time on random evenings to get the brackets installed. One of the windows is not totally square and so one of the brackets isn't flush with the other one. Since the design of these blinds makes it so that they just sit inside the brackets without being tightened down, the entire assembly wobbles when pulling on the lift cord. I'm trying to see if I can get something to act as a shim to sit inside the bracket so that the headrail doesn't have as much room to move vertically.

We're leaving for Japan tomorrow and need to spend today packing and getting things ready. After we get back, we'll try to find a real estate agent to get information on selling our house. We're thinking of listing with Redfin due to the lower commissions. There are still a lot of things we need to fix including reglazing the showers, replacing a toilet, painting (definitely exterior and maybe interior as well), cleaning grout, cleaning patios and walkways, landscaping, finishing the drip irrigation, and more. So we might not even list our house until May or June. We just have to take it one day at a time.

You know how the song goes. There's no place like home for the holidays.

For the second year in a row, Priscilla and I stayed home for Christmas since we made an extra trip to LA in July ("Christmas in July") in addition to our usual trip for Thanksgiving. Despite not traveling in December, we had a pretty eventful holiday month. Here are the highlights.

We went to WinterFest at Great America on December 1. We both had the Gold pass this year due to me getting an award at work. It was nice to see all the lights and the holiday magic, though it was a little sad to see that the "It's Christmas, Snoopy!" show had been updated and no longer has the scripture reading from Linus. It was an impressive show in its own right, just not the same and felt a little empty without referencing the real reason for the season. We did a couple rides - RailBlazer twice and the holiday version of the Barney Oldfield Speedway, the latter at which we learned the lyrics to "The Twelve Days of Christmas" due to signs and decorations they had up.

Priscilla visited Great America again last week to get food one last time, since she had the dining pass for the year. The Great America app said that she's been there 53 times this year, and that's not including the days where she visited twice (once for lunch and once for dinner). She's definitely gotten her money's worth from that pass.

I took two weeks off work to make up for the four weeks of overtime that I put in when I was scrambling to get my big project done. I'll take a couple more weeks off when we go back to Japan in March. I got back to work the week before Christmas, which was a light week. And then nobody was really working the week between Christmas and New Year's. So, while I've been doing some work here and there, it's been a good time of getting away and focusing on other things.

Unfortunately, I was battling a cold during two of those weeks, and it seems to have turned into a mild case of pneumonia. I'm almost over it now, but progress has been slow.

We attended my business unit's holiday party on December 15. For the second year in a row, it was held at The Plex in San Jose. We enjoyed the food (and got a decent amount to take home when they brought out the takeout boxes at the end of the night), hit up the arcade, and did a good amount of roller skating. This was a familiar and predictable holiday party and I can see how some people would be turned off by that, especially since the parties of yesteryears were no-expenses-spared amazing, but we enjoy this venue. We don't mind the simple things.

Throughout the last month, we've been better about meeting up with people. I ran 10 miles at Rancho with Yang, we had dinner with the Leongs the first week of December, ate with Sharon during church lunch, I had my third and final training session with Brian (through the service auction at church), we had Christmas dinner with Uncle Kenway and Aunt Susan and her family, did respective Zoom dinners with my parents and Priscilla's parents, and Sharon and two of her daughters came over the day after Christmas and we walked and ate ice cream. And Tracy came over tonight for dinner and then we walked around the Willow Glen Holiday Lights. Unfortunately, visiting on New Year's is apparently a little late, since a fair amount of the lights were turned off. Our previous visits there were on the 28th and 27th, so I think that's what we'll have to do next time.

But there might not be a next time for us, at least in the near future. Priscilla and I have been talking about moving back to SoCal to be closer to family, particularly since her parents are getting to the age where they're starting to need more help with things. Weather is a big factor for me and I wouldn't enjoy living in the San Fernando Valley where summers get pretty hot. But we've been eyeing a city called Camarillo in Ventura County since it's semi-close to family while still providing some separation, homes are more affordable there (most places we've looked at seem to be between $800k and $1.2 million), and the weather actually seems to be better than where we are now. Camarillo is more coastal and it's not in the San Fernando Valley, and it doesn't get as hot in the summer and doesn't get as cold in the winter compared to Santa Clara. The crime rates are lower as well. It's not the perfect place, but no place is, and it would seem to suit our needs. I'm pretty sure that my manager would let me work remotely since three of my coworkers are fully remote. Priscilla thinks there's a chance that her workplace can shuffle job duties so that she can also work remotely, but it remains to be seen.

We're thinking of moving this year once the right house comes on the market. So far, I haven't really liked any of the houses that have shown up on Redfin, though I have more criteria than Priscilla. Hopefully inventory will pick up in the coming months. But I don't think we'd really want to buy anything before our Japan trip. We've also been discussing whether to sell our current house first and the logistics around that.

At any rate, moving will be a big change. I've been in the Bay Area since 2008 and at RBF since 2009 or 2010. Priscilla married into the church in 2012 but, even so, has been there longer than most people. Though we're not super close to people here, we do have valuable friendships that we will miss. Who knows whether we'll be able to cultivate the same level of relationships when we move, even if we end up going to Priscilla's old church (which would be a 30 minute drive, doable but not ideal). And we've worked hard to make this house a home over the last 10 years; moving and going through that process again will be no small effort. So much is up in the air, but we do think we're intent on moving. We've been in the Bay Area together for nearly 12 years, but it didn't take long to come to this conclusion once we started seriously discussing it. The timing and circumstances just felt right. So we'll see how things go.

On a final note, my home improvement project for the past two weeks has been to install motorized shades in the family room. The wand on our old blinds broke and we had to operate them by climbing onto the couch and turning the mechanism by hand. Not great considering that we operate those blinds a couple times every day. The blinds also never worked that well. So I did some research and decided that I wanted motorized shades, and I found a company on Yelp that quoted me $1,700. But I found some shades on Amazon that came out to $400 when I selected my dimensions and options, so I decided to order those and attempt to install them myself. I had to remove the old blinds and patch the holes, and the first time I installed the new shades, the drywall anchors that were included started pulling out of the wall. The shades are mounted on the underside of the window frame and the anchors didn't provide much holding strength when used vertically. So I had to remove everything and patch those holes as well. I ended up buying 2-inch screws from Home Depot and used those to attach the mounting brackets to the window frame, with an inch of each screw secured tightly in the header of the wood frame. Those brackets aren't going anywhere now. So now we have some pretty useful shades that are programmable and can even be operated using a voice assistant. Priscilla loves the shades and loves telling the Google Home to open and close them. This was something that was time and money well-spent, and it should also enhance the appeal of our house when it comes time to sell!

I think it's been a productive month and a meaningful year. I hope that we can be intentional about how we spend our time, who we spend it with, and where we spend it, so that the new year is equally as purposeful.

As in previous years, Priscilla and I went down to LA for Thanksgiving. We drove down Thanksgiving Day, leaving around 7:15 am and traffic wasn't too bad. We got to her parents' place and had a late lunch, then brought them to my parents' place where Aaron and his family were already there. Lauren's parents were also there, as they moved from China and have been living with Aaron and Lauren in their in-law unit.

Lauren's parents don't speak English, so I had trouble communicating with them. Her dad has his learner's permit and Aaron has been teaching him to drive. I guess he had a license in China, but driving here is a little different. Our niece has gotten better with math - she was playing with a cash register toy and likes counting money. Maybe she'll be an accountant one day.

My parents made a turkey and Aaron and Lauren made another. Priscilla's parents, per their own tradition, supplied a chicken and a duck from Sam Woo. So we had no shortage of meat. No dessert though, since people are now having blood sugar issues.

During our time in LA, we stayed two nights at Priscilla's parents' place and two nights at my parents' place. I helped her mom and my dad, respectively, with computer stuff. And we went to church at CCAC and ate at the Galleria food court afterwards with Gina, Weber and Crescentia. After that, Priscilla and I walked around Northridge Park and I got to remember some childhood memories from when my mom used to bring me and my brother there.

We drove back up Monday morning and only hit a few brief slowdowns on the road. Of course, my mom made a ton of food for us to take with us, and she also bought me sodium-free peanuts from Trader Joe's since she knows I like those. She is too loving, on everyone. So much so that she was feeling slightly under the weather because she's always serving others instead of sleeping enough. I can't really criticize, because while I too don't sleep enough, I have a long way to go in the area of service to others.

It was a very typical trip in pretty much every way, but it was still meaningful. Even though we don't really do anything exciting, the time we spend with family and friends is precious.

In October, Priscilla and I went on a 5-day trip to Dallas. And, more so than on previous trips, almost nothing went as expected!

Why Dallas? Priscilla likes to find places that have cheap flights and then plan the trip around that. Round-trip tickets to Dallas were just $101 on Spirit Airlines. Also, she wanted to visit the Capital One Lounge at DFW again. And there was a treetop obstacle course called Go Ape in Plano (20 minutes from North Dallas) that was the main incentive for me, since I'd always wanted to do one of those.

We departed Saturday morning and the flight was a little over 3 hours. Spirit is a budget airline that charges for everything, so we didn't have snacks on the plane. We did of course stop by The Club at SJC before our flight, and we effectively had dinner at a lounge at DFW called Plaza Premium. The food at the latter was pretty good!

We took the shuttle to Thrifty to pick up our rental car. We had booked the manager's special, the cheapest option, and to our surprise and somewhat horror, we were given a Chevy Bolt EUV - an electric vehicle! Apparently, Thrifty is owned by Hertz, and 10% of Hertz's fleet is electric. We'd had no prior experience with EVs, and vacation in an unfamiliar area was the worst way to get up to speed. But more on that later.

It was around 8pm when we checked into our hotel at the Holiday Inn Express. We walked to the nearby Walmart (nearby meaning a mile away) to get a few groceries for our trip. And that was pretty much it for the day - just a travel day.

The next day, we drove up to Oak Point Park in Plano where Go Ape operates from. The obstacle course is 30 feet up in the tree canopy. The height made me a little nervous at first, but I quickly got over it and started focusing just on how best to get through the course. Some obstacles required some strength and endurance, but there was nothing too crazy, except for one impossibly hard obstacle that I and others had to zip through instead of doing "properly."

Priscilla did the hard obstacles with me since we missed a transition point where she could've taken an easier route. She was tired by the end of Course 3, so she sat it out while I did Courses 4 and 5. That was too bad since Course 5 was easier than 3 and 4 and had arguably the most fun obstacle - the Tarzan Swing. Hopefully we can do something like this again and both make it to the end!

After Go Ape, we drove over to a nearby business park to charge the car. There was only a level 2 charger there and it was pretty slow, but it was the best thing we could find nearby. We'd found it using the ChargePoint app, which seems like the main way to find public chargers outside the Tesla network. We walked over to a nearby plaza where there were a lot of Asian stores including 99 Ranch and 85 Degrees. After a long lunch and a leisurely walk about, we returned to the car and found that it had charged 31 miles over 2.5 hours - barely enough charge to cover our trip to Plano and back.

The next day, we did some sightseeing in Downtown Dallas. We first drove around trying to find a place to charge, but the two free chargers at City Hall were taken, the one inside a residential garage was broken, and one was supposedly inside a public parking garage but we didn't want to go in since you had to pay starting from the first minute. We eventually just parked the car a mile from downtown, not charging. Our trip had become all about finding places to charge and we were failing. I can't see how widespread adoption of EVs is viable. The charging infrastructure is just not there.

Since it was lunchtime, we walked over to the Dallas Farmers Market and perused the different shops before deciding on jerk chicken at a Jamaican place. It was decent but wasn't as good as Back a Yard in San Jose, which in turn probably can't hold a candle to food in actual Jamaica.

After lunch, we walked around and saw the Giant Eyeball, AT&T Discovery District, JFK Memorial, Pioneer Plaza, and City Hall. And that was it for the day. A pretty low-key day, but I guess that's how we roll.

It was raining most of Tuesday, so we just stayed in the hotel and did work instead of visiting Fort Worth like we had planned. But the rain let up on Wednesday and we were able to walk around the Fort Worth Stockyards for an hour before returning to the airport. We missed the daily cattle drive, but we saw the longhorns in their pen afterwards. The Stockyards felt a little touristy and I wouldn't really call this place a must-see, but it was fun enough to walk around and explore.

We had decided to just return the car to Thrifty undercharged and pay the $35 fee. A minor fee to avoid a lot of headache. We returned the car with around 40% charge remaining, but interestingly, Thrifty never charged us the fee. Maybe they felt sorry for us, or just didn't want to process it.

Finally, back at the airport we headed straight to the Capital One Lounge where, after a 10 minute wait, we enjoyed a variety of hot food, sparkling water, and desserts. We tried to also visit Plaza Premium but the place was packed and we weren't able to get in before our flight. Which was fine because we were pretty full from the previous lounge!

Overall, this trip wasn't as restful or as eventful as we had hoped, but it was enjoyable and memorable in its own way. I'm writing this a month late because it's been insanely busy at work, with me putting in a lot of overtime to wrap up a large project that's been on the books for too long. Priscilla has already booked a trip to Japan for next March, so hopefully during that trip things will go a bit more smoothly and I won't have to think about work.

It'd been a while since someone in our group of high school friends got married (the last person was me!), but this past Sunday we got to see David and his fiancée Steph tie the knot in Silver Spring, Maryland.

As this area is close to Washington DC, this was a good excuse for me and Priscilla to travel and do some sightseeing. The last time I visited DC was on a family road trip, perhaps when I was in middle school.

Most of my friends got there on Thursday or Friday, but I didn't want to take too much time off work, so Priscilla and I flew out Friday night on a red eye. We flew American Airlines (because we have points) from SFO to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), with a layover at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). At DFW, we visited the Capital One Lounge, which is quite the premium lounge, though we only had around 15 minutes to eat before we had to get to our connecting flight. We arrived at DCA on Saturday around 11am. We managed to get a little bit of sleep on the two respective fights, but it wasn't quality sleep. Doing a red eye with a layover is tough.

DCA conveniently has a metro station right there, so we took the metro and then walked a mile to get to the Capitol Hill area. Steph works at the Library of Congress and was supposed to be gathering people there for a tour at 1pm. Priscilla and I got there at that time, but we were the first ones there and had to wait a bit for everyone else.

I enjoyed seeing the library and learning about some of its history, though my favorite part was looking at the architecture and reading the different quotes around the Great Hall while Priscilla and I were waiting for people to arrive. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see anything behind the scenes on our tour. We didn't have time to visit the reading room, either.

Afterwards, our small group walked to the US Capitol through the tunnel from the library. We got into one of the last tours of the day, but the tour felt a little short, maybe because the building was closing.

After that, we took the metro up to Jongro Korean BBQ in Wheaton-Glenmont, a few miles from our hotel in North Bethesda. David had invited us all to dinner there, so I thought it was just going to be our small group of friends, but it turned out he had invited 40 or so people. We had 6 people at our table and so the food on the grill had to be split up many ways, but at the end we were all decently full.

On Sunday, we made our way over to Brookside Gardens in Silver Spring where the wedding took place. David had booked a premium shuttle to ferry guests over, but only a few people actually took advantage of it. Brookside is a public garden that also has a small outdoor venue for events. The wedding was quite streamlined with no bridal party, no hymns, no candle lighting, and a fairly short sermon. It felt pretty low-key and totally reflected the bride and groom's personalities. There were around 100 guests.

It was getting warm and DC is very humid, and there was no shade at the venue, so perhaps it was a blessing that the wedding was over so quickly. We all then made our way over to the reception at Fogo de Chao, located very near to our hotel, and there we ate way too much meat for the second day in a row. David had half-jokingly told me to come to the wedding/reception wearing pants with an elastic waistband.

Not ones to let the fun die early, David and Steph had invited everyone to their place for the afterparty, stretching from afternoon till night. But Anton, Richard, Raymond and I decided to first head down to DC and rent bikes to bike around the National Mall. It was pretty cool seeing the different memorials and being able to get to them quickly. Afterwards, we headed back to Silver Spring and rejoined the rest of our friends (and Priscilla) and a few others at David and Steph's place. Priscilla and I stayed a couple hours but then booked an Uber back to our hotel, as it had been a long day and we were still jet lagged from the previous day's travels.

For breakfast the following morning, we met up with our friends one last time at the Original Pancake House. David and Steph were there too, her sitting with her friends. Afterwards, we all went our separate ways, one person flying out shortly after and another having flown out the day before. It was nice hanging out with our friends for 2.5 days straight, but it was also nice finally having some time for me and Priscilla to explore on our own!

We took the metro down to DC again and dropped our stuff off at our hotel there. Then we visited the Museum of the Bible, which some church friends had highly recommended. The museum has an impressive collection of old Bibles and other manuscripts, interesting displays making good use of multimedia, and an amazing walk-through experience on the Old Testament story. It was really well done. The place was also not crowded, likely due in part by there being an admission fee.

After that, we had about 45 minutes to tour the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum before closing time. We kind of rushed through it but felt like we got the gist. The place was super crowded, a little surprising since it was Monday, so it was hard to get a good look at things. I guess that's what happens when a museum has free entry.

After a late lunch/early dinner and some resting at the hotel (mainly waiting for the weather to cool down a little), we ventured out again to walk around the National Mall. Our hotel was about a mile from the east side of the mall. We walked around the Washington Monument, World War II Memorial, Reflecting Pool, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the Tidal Basin, George Mason Memorial, and finally the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. It got dark by the time we left the Lincoln Memorial, but it was nice exploring the Mall in a different light and getting to spend more time at each place than I was able to while biking. The place that made the most impact on me was the wall at the Korean War Veterans Memorial that's engraved with the reminder that "Freedom is not free." Words to live by.

On Tuesday, it was time to pack up and head back to the airport. On the way, we stopped in Crystal City and had brunch with my coworker Spencer who moved to DC several months ago. It was great catching up, and Priscilla enjoyed discussing travel tips with him, as he is an avid traveler.

For the return trip, we had a layover at DFW again but the final destination was SJC instead of SFO. Unlike the last time, this time around we had ample time to rest at the Capital One Lounge and enjoy all the food without rushing to our connecting flight. We finally got to SJC around 8pm and had a small dinner at The Club before they started closing up. A pretty tiring day to end a pretty packed four days of travel and activities. I needed an extra day off work just to shake off the exhaustion. But I'm glad that we went to be part of David and Steph's special day, spent so much time with friends, and saw some of the many things our nation's capital has to offer.

Like last year, Priscilla and I went down to LA for the July 4th holiday. We stayed with my parents for two nights and Priscilla's parents for two nights. It was a pretty low-key visit, and we didn't see Aaron's family this time around because they were camping.

We drove two cars down so that we could leave Aaron our old Corolla for his in-laws who are staying with them (they moved from China and are trying to get a green card). The Corolla has needed a new catalytic converter for over a year, but we had been planning to donate it to charity instead of spending money fixing it since Priscilla's parents gave us their Civic. But Aaron didn't mind getting it fixed up (he actually got it done today for $600, far less than I thought it would cost).

So Saturday morning, Priscilla left around 8:15am and I left half an hour later. She avoided a couple slowdowns that I got caught up in. We met up at Harris Ranch, where she didn't mind waiting since she wanted to take a longer break. Then we caravanned the rest of the way down. There were a few slowdowns, so the total driving time was around 6 hours.

Most of the time we spent interacting with parents was over meals. As usual, I helped my dad and Priscilla's parents with computer issues. On Sunday, Priscilla went to CCAC with my parents and I went to Shepherd Church by myself since I've been sleep deprived and wanted to wake up later, and since Crescentia had asked if we wanted to see her sing in the worship service, so I figured that one of us might as well be there. The church is massive and has the pros and cons of a typical mega church, but one thing I liked during the sermon was how the pastor reminded us that despite the battles we're facing in our own lives, the real battle is "out there in the Valley," i.e. highlighting the importance of evangelism.

After church, we ate with Gina, Cindy, Weber and Crescentia at California Fish Grill in Mission Hills. The food was pretty decent and the portions were ample. It's nice that we can maintain our relationships with some of our longtime friends, but it requires conscious effort, for which I have Priscilla to thank.

On Tuesday, we walked with Priscilla's parents to the main street near their condo and caught the nighttime fireworks being launched from Almansor Park. We made it to the street at 9pm, right as the fireworks kicked off. The show was pretty good and was nice to watch, especially since our own city still hasn't resumed its fireworks show after dropping it in the first year of the pandemic.

We headed back home the next day, though we got a late start since I had to help everyone with more computer stuff, but traffic wasn't bad. As usual, my mom made us a lot of food to bring back.

It's always nice seeing family and friends. Sometimes I don't know what to talk about. I don't even remember much of the conversations that we had. But I think the act of getting together says more than words can. It says "I care about you. This relationship matters to me." Like I talked about in my previous post, time is fleeting and people grow apart if effort is not made to maintain the relationship. The relationships that do stand the test of time are precious and are worth the world.

This week, our church bids farewell to Dan and Melody as they leave for their new home in the Boston area. They started coming to our church 3.5 years ago (right before the start of the pandemic), but though their time here has been relatively short, they've touched a lot of lives. Dan has a new role at work that's taking him to Boston, and they've always been East Coast people and viewed their time in the Bay Area as temporary. They'd originally planned to be here for just a year, so they ended up staying a bit longer than planned.

I've enjoyed training with Dan and doing Spartan races together. No one else has been crazy enough to sign up for a race with me, but Dan is even crazier than I am. He'd already done a dozen Spartans, and when I suggested doing the Trifecta last year, I didn't have to ask twice. Priscilla and I had a great time traveling to SLO and Monterey with them for two of the races. Priscilla got to know Melody as I got to know Dan. Their kids are also adorable. Other kids don't pay me any attention, but their kids are always saying hi and want to play. Though, my theory, half jokingly, is that they just have a positive association between me and getting to go to the park and going for a stroller ride when Dan and I are training and running. They were the first (and only, so far) kids that Priscilla and I babysat for.

Dan was also good about asking me and another church friend to go running most weeks during the time that we were training for Spartan. We had some meaningful conversations during that time (as much as we could talk in between breaths while running) as well as during our travels and at church. But more than challenging me in physical fitness, Dan encouraged me to pursue spiritual growth, service, and relationships with others, both by his direct encouragement to me as well as through his own example.

Yesterday, we all had hot pot dinner at Seapot with them as a final farewell. Priscilla and I wanted to pay, but they wouldn't let us. Just another instance of the many times they've been generous to us. We'll miss them a lot, but a future trip to Boston is in the cards for us. I'd be down for doing an obstacle course race there, and Priscilla has been researching flights. Some church guys are also thinking about doing next year's Monterey Spartan, and Dan and the family are considering flying back for that. Our friendship means a lot to me and I really hope that we can maintain it. But maintenance requires more than just hope.

So far, the people with whom I've had the closest relationships have all moved away and contact has become infrequent, if we haven't fallen out of touch completely. High school and college friends. My college roommate of four years. My two officemates from my last company. Friends from my current company. Church friends that we would often eat with on Sunday. People move, drift apart, make new friends. It's part of life and I'm sure it's true in everyone's life. And there's always a reason for not reaching out. I'm busy. They're busy. I'm always the one who initiates; why does it always have to be me? I'll get to it another day - there will be time.

And yet, time is slipping away and one day it will be too late. Everything good requires work. If we don't spend the time to pursue the things that matter, then one day, perhaps at the end of our life, we will look back with regret. I don't want that to be me.

Every year, our church participates in the RealOptions Walk for Life. It's a great way to raise money to support a faith-based pregnancy resource center, and to push one another to exercise!

The event is held annually at Martial Cottle Park in San Jose, and participants can either walk 2.4 miles or run a 5k. In addition to this year, I've participated in 2018 and 2020. Naturally, I sign up for the run. Priscilla prefers to walk with church friends. We had 15 registrations from our church this year, with 10 of those being families. Our church has gotten big, and we had a large turnout today. A lot of the kids are starting to get to the age where they're able to run a 5k, and we have some fast kids!

The primary goal of the Walk for Life is to fundraise for RealOptions. With over $16,000 raised, our church placed 3rd out of all groups signed up for the event. I don't like asking people for money, so Priscilla and I just donated $400 to ourselves (and more to others). But we set a goal of $1,000, recalling that in the past, there were people at church who wanted to support participants. We didn't ask anyone for donations, but 7 people donated to us! Most of the donations were made anonymously, but they were almost certainly from people at church, as the link to join/support our group has been in the church bulletin for the past few weeks. Our last donor gave $25 after the event and brought us to our exact $1,000 goal! Everyone else in our group got at least several donations, and most people got to their fundraising goal. We have a lot of generous people at church.

My training hasn't been ideal. The past several months have felt colder than usual, and there have been so many rainy days, many of them with heavy and prolonged rain. Atmospheric rivers have been dumping so much rain on us that half the state is no longer in a drought. So it's been hard to get outside and run, though that's partly just me making excuses.

During my last training run, I ran a 5k at a 7:01 pace at max effort. I always have a tendency to start too fast, especially when I'm with people and they sprint out of the gate. So for today's race, I knew that I had to start intentionally slower and gradually increase my pace so that I could save some fuel for the latter half. I started almost at the front of the group (64 runners in all), but quickly had 15 or so people sprint past me, many of whom were kids. But one by one, I started passing people as I maintained a mostly constant pace while people started slowing down. 0.5 miles in, I saw one guy stopped on the side of the path catching his breath - he definitely went all in way too soon!

There was one guy who stayed in the lead the whole time, way up ahead, and I knew I had no chance of catching up to him. Trailing him by a fair distance was a pack of three or so guys who seemed to be trying to keep up with each other. I knew I wouldn't be able to catch up to them while maintaining that pace for the whole race, so I let them get a little ahead while making sure I never lost sight of them. Towards the 2 or 2.5 mile point, I increased my pace a bit more and was able to pass two of the guys, who might've also been slowing down. I then hustled to catch up to the third guy, but we both full on sprinted at the end and I crossed the finish line a fraction of a second behind him. Interestingly, though I came in 3rd place by gun time, I came in 2nd place by chip time, and the final results were based on chip time. My official time was 21:31, putting my pace at 6:56. My times in 2018 and 2020 were 23:17 and 21:38, respectively, so it seems like I've improved. The winning time today was 21:09. It really depends on who shows up - in 2018, there were 8 runners with a time under 20 minutes, with the winning time being 18:06!

I guess I do like the competition of racing, but even more, I value self-improvement. I recently read an article about a "totally average runner," close to me in age, who trained until he was able to run a 5-minute mile. That's become a goal of mine, as the necessary progression seems like a worthwhile investment to pursue. It sounds crazy and I know there will be a ton of work involved, but I'm not getting any younger, and late is better than never.

And hopefully all the training will help me get an even better 5k time next year. Anyway, I'm glad that today we were able to have fun and support a good cause. But the work, for all of us, is never done.

Our 11-day trip to Japan has come to an end, and what an eventful, fun, and tiring trip it has been! I'm currently writing this on our Zipair flight back to San Jose. The plane has power outlets, USB charging ports, and free WiFi. The flight to Japan was a grueling 11+ hours, while the flight back is only 9 hours (jet streams FTW). Thank God for that, because my body and mind are exhausted, and it's 6pm Japan time and 1am Pacific time. I've just barely gotten over my jet lag from flying to Japan; reacquiring jet lag now will be a doozy!

Priscilla has done an amazing job chronicling our day-to-day activities, so my post will just be a summary of the major things we did.

This was our first international trip since COVID. Priscilla couldn't wait for us to travel internationally again, and she was originally eying Portugal, but flights to there were pretty expensive. Then she found flights on Zipair, a budget airline, that were $470 per person roundtrip from San Jose to Tokyo. That's insanely cheap and was too good to pass up, and since she'd always wanted to go to Japan, we (she) decided to pull the trigger. I don't care for travel as much as she does and I'd rather be at home than running from place to unfamiliar place, but she did all the research and planning for this trip and all I had to do was just enjoy it with her - and she was accommodating of my preferences, so I really can't complain.

Tokyo:
So last Monday, we took an Uber to San Jose and departed on Zipair, headed to Tokyo's Narita International Airport. Because it's a budget airline, they find ways to charge extra for every little thing (so it's amazing that the WiFi is free - maybe it's because they don't have entertainment screens on the seat backs). Each checked bag costs around $50, and if your bag weighs more than 15 pounds, you have to check it. So we made the effort to travel with just backpacks. It was actually not too difficult, and we did laundry halfway through the trip so that we didn't need to bring too many clothes.

We forgot to fill up our water bottles before the flight, and of course Zipair charges for water, so we ended up paying for three bottles of water. Lesson learned.

Since Japan is 17 hours ahead of Pacific Time, it was Tuesday when we landed. Going through the health checkpoint and customs was pretty quick since we had submitted information in advance through the government's Visit Japan website. Everyone else on our flight seemingly did the same. After customs, we had to exit out of the secure area and then there was only one lounge available to us and it only served drinks. Since we weren't able to get food there, we had to get lunch from a Lawson convenience store - the first of many during our trip. There are vending machines and convenience stores everywhere in Japan, and the big convenience stores seem to be Lawson, Family Mart, and 7 Eleven. We went to Lawson the most since they had this premium onigiri with grilled salmon that I really liked. It was a nice way to get something to eat without spending too much.

So then we took the Disney bus to our hotel at the Hilton Tokyo Bay. Tokyo's Disneyland and DisneySea are there, as are several really nice-looking hotels. Our room at the Hilton was pretty nice and spacious. DisneySea was the biggest thing we would do in Tokyo, so we stayed at the Hilton for three days because it was convenient to have a place to leave our baggage during the day.

For the three days that we were at the Hilton, we ate at their breakfast buffet since we got it for free from our Hilton membership. The buffet was amazing! There was so much food, including a salad bar and various hot foods. Our favorite item was the salmon sashimi with onions; I had to take out the onions due to my gut issues, but Priscilla was happy to eat them as long as there was salmon to go with it. We filled up our stomachs at the buffet so that we didn't need to eat much the rest of the day.

So on Wednesday, after a big breakfast, we took the JR train for the first time. Tokyo is huge and they have so many train lines, and it was intimidating trying to interpret route maps, use the ticket machines, and get to the right platform. It didn't help that signage is mostly in Japanese with small English text underneath. But we managed to make our way from Tokyo Bay to the Tokyo JR Station, and then to the famous Shibuya district. We explored Shibuya and walked through a few stores (most of which were several stories tall), and visited a store called Tokyu Hands that my coworker raved about. Hands is like a cross between Target and Daiso and they really have something for everybody, and we spent the most time in the games section playing with different puzzle games that were pretty challenging. I ultimately bought a metal puzzle to complement my collection. When we got back to Tokyo Bay, we explored the Ikspiari shopping mall and had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Saizeriya (going to Japan to eat Italian food, heh) and got produce at a grocery store. For some reason, our credit card didn't work at Saizeriya; not sure why, since it worked everywhere else that accepted cards.

Thursday was our DisneySea day. We thought that since it was a weekday, there wouldn't be too many people. Nope, there were a ton of schoolkids there; not sure why, since as far as I could tell, it wasn't a school holiday. We did several rides and saw a show, but we skipped the Soaring and Toy Story Mania rides because the lines were way too long and we did those rides at California Adventure last year. Probably the best ride was Journey to the Center of the Earth - (spoiler alert) it's a dark ride that starts off dramatic but slow, but the end is exhilarating as your car gets launched out of the "volcano" like a rocket! But perhaps more enjoyable than the rides was the spectacular theming throughout the park, particularly around the Mediterranean Harbor area at the center of the park. It got pretty cold in the evening, so we sought shelter at the Cape Cod Cook-Off eatery while we waited for the 7:40 nighttime show. There was a lot of seating in the cafeteria area and not too many people, so we were able to relax there for an hour while we enjoyed a tea and clam chowder. Restaurant food in Japan is generally pretty reasonably priced, and we were surprised that the food at DisneySea wasn't noticeably marked up. That place felt very welcoming to us cold, weary travelers.

Around 7:15, we headed out to try to get a spot to see the "Believe! Sea of Dreams" nighttime show, put on at the Mediterranean Harbor. Thousands of other guests were already there, so it was hard to get a good spot to stand, though we finally found a spot not too far from the harbor. It helped that we're tall-ish and could see over people, heh. The show was phenomenal! It was hard to grasp the story, especially since the narration was in Japanese with no translation, but it was more or less about the battle between good and evil, interweaving stories from Aladdin, Frozen, Coco, Moana, and more. There were huge boats wrapped with LED displays, speedboats with giant stars on them, light projections on the hotel behind us and on the mountain on the other side of the harbor, music, and fireworks. It was a bit of sensory overload but came together in a beautiful, uplifting way. I guess Disney does still have some of that magic left.

Kyoto:
On Friday, we departed Tokyo and took the Shinkansen, the high-speed train, to Kyoto. We activated our 7-day JR passes on this day. This relatively affordable pass is only for foreign visitors (i.e. not available to Japanese citizens) as the government's way of promoting tourism. We got our money's worth from the pass, as that trip from Tokyo to Kyoto would've been around half the cost of the pass. We checked into our hotel at Ibis Styles, where we would stay for the next five days. Our room there was the smallest hotel room I've ever been in. Space was definitely lacking, but we were saving a lot of money by staying there, so we made it work.

We had dinner at Yoshinoya near the Kyoto JR Station. The format is different from the Yoshinoyas we're used to. Here, you seat yourself at the counter, and menus, chopsticks, and sauces are all in front of you. You order there, eat there, and then pay at the register when you're done. It's optimized for efficiency, and the typical customer seems to be lone Japanese travelers popping in for a quick meal. The menu was all in Japanese, so we had to use Google Lens on Priscilla's phone to translate one item at a time. It took forever to look through the menu and decide what we wanted. The employees not speaking much English didn't help, either. When it came time to pay, we had a hard time understanding when the worker was trying to tell us that they don't accept credit cards. We kept wondering why the machine wasn't registering our card and thought it was a repeat of the Saizeriya incident. Apparently, the only cards accepted here are debit cards.

On the topic of the Japanese language, we had learned a few key phrases but otherwise didn't understand any Japanese that was spoken. Most people we interacted with understood at least a little bit of English, probably more so in Tokyo than in Kyoto. The people at the hotels all spoke mostly fluent English. Same for the people at airport and train station kiosks. Restaurants were where we had the most trouble, particularly in Kyoto, but signs and menus typically had English translations, and pointing at things never fails.

So the next day was our trip to Arashiyama, a rural district just 15 minutes away by train. We walked 11 miles there, starting with the Bamboo Forest which, since it was morning, wasn't too packed with tourists yet. We continued on through Arashiyama Park and then, because I'm crazy, hiked to Mt. Ogura on a semi-beaten dirt path that soon turned into a not-beaten, ambiguous path. At some points, we were hiking on the edge of a steep hill, where a misstep could mean a long tumble down. We sometimes had to hold onto tree branches and roots to keep from falling. But we eventually encountered a section where someone had marked trees with red tape to assist hikers in finding the trail, and we ultimately made it to the top of the mountain. The Mt. Ogura summit was pretty underwhelming and was basically just a clearing in the forest with some signs.

There wasn't a good way down the mountain and we certainly didn't want to return the way we came, so we walked down a road where fortunately there weren't too many cars, until we got to the north side of Arashiyama. There, we visited the Adashino Nenbutsu-ji Temple and took some pictures in their own mini "bamboo forest," free of the crowds that characterize the touristy part of Arashiyama. We continued north and found a traditional ryotei establishment named Ayuchaya Hiranoya, where we enjoyed cherry blossom tea and a couple light bites while sitting on tatami mats. We then walked through the touristy part of Arashiyama again, walked across the Togetsu-kyo Bridge, walked along the river, and then toured the Kimono Forest on our way back to the train station. Arashiyama was quite nice and I really enjoyed the scenery, particularly the places not swarming with people. When we got back to the Kyoto JR Station, we ate at Yoshinoya again. Unlike last time, we pulled up the English menu on our phones (we found out we just needed to scan a QR code on the front of the menu), and we had the right amount of cash ready when paying. Showing real progress after learning from our mistakes!

On Sunday, we took another JR train to Nara. This was a little further away (50 minutes) but well worth the trip. We explored Nara Park and did the thing that probably most people come here to do - fed the deer. Vendors in the park sell stacks of rice crackers for 200 yen, and we bought one and walked around the park. Most visitors congregate near the western entrance of the park, so the deer there are overly fed, but as we went further into the park, the deer got hungrier! The deer furthest into the park would swarm us once they saw that we had food. They were pushy but always gentle. We saw signs warning about deer kicking and butting people, but maybe that only happens if you don't give them what they want! After walking through the park, we hiked up to the Mt. Wakakusa summit and enjoyed the wide, sweeping views of the city from there. In all, we walked 10 miles that day.

The next day, we had lunch at Sushi no Musashi, a conveyor belt sushi restaurant inside the JR station. This was our first time at this kind of restaurant, and Priscilla in particular really enjoyed the experience, as it's something she always wanted to do. We then took a JR train to Inari (around 10 minutes) and walked to the Mt. Inari summit at the Fushimi Inari. It had rained earlier in the day and we went in the afternoon, so there weren't as many people. This is a popular place for photos, and we were able to get some photos without people in the background. We enjoyed walking through all the torii, though it was sad seeing some of them having wood rot at the base or even completely cut down. We walked up to the summit, though it was so unremarkable that we didn't know at that time that it was the summit. I think there were just one or two businesses up there including an ice cream place. We did 7 miles of walking here.

On Tuesday, we were surprised that it was lightly snowing, despite the weather report not mentioning it. We took the subway from Kyoto to Shijo; this was not a JR line, so our pass couldn't be used for this. From Shijo, we walked to Mipig Cafe, where we had a 30-minute reservation to hang out with their mini pigs. We had to put all our stuff in a locker and then go upstairs, where we sat on the floor, put a blanket over our laps, and then in no time we were swarmed by half a dozen mini pigs! They really seem to like people, perhaps if just for the body warmth. I thought it was a little boring just sitting there having pigs on my lap, and I didn't really like getting pig hair on my clothes, but Priscilla really enjoyed the experience. Unfortunately, contrary to the name of this place, their (free) vending machine dispensing drinks was broken, so we weren't able to get any of the drinks that are customarily included.

We then walked over to the nearby Nishiki Market to get small bites at various vendors, and then walked over to Maruyama Park. It was pretty cold and the snow started coming down more heavily here, so we had to seek shelter under an umbrella until the snow let up. It was pretty cool, though. Prior to Kyoto, we've never really seen actual snow falling in person.

Finally, we walked over to Kiyomizu-dera and decided to pay the 400 yen per person for entry. That place was pretty nice, though the large crowds really detracted from the experience. Apparently, it being a weekday, cold, and snowing is not enough to dissuade many people from going! Halfway through the campus is a soup restaurant, seemingly the only place where you're able to sit. That marketing strategy certainly paid off because it got us to eat there. We shared a bowl of soba and fried tofu soup while sitting on tatami mats, a break from the 10 miles we would walk this day.

Tokyo again:
On Wednesday, it was time to say goodbye to Kyoto and hello to Tokyo for one more day. We took the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, this time going to the Shinagawa station where we then took the local JR line to the Hamamatsucho station. We checked into our hotel at the Intercontinental Tokyo Bay, which we got for free thanks to our IHG card. We checked in early but they still had a room for us, and they upgraded us to a deluxe room with a terrific view of the bay and the Rainbow Bridge! My coworker had recommended walking across the bridge, so we did just that. We had to walk 1.5 miles just to get to the bridge. The view from up there was amazing, but it was pretty chilly and windy, and we saw only a few other people crazy enough to be walking the 1-mile length of the bridge with us. Once on the south side, we checked out Daiba Park (not many people there) and then Odaiba Kaihin Park, the latter where there's a small beach and a Statue of Liberty. The views of the bay from there are stunning! We ate at the Yoshinoya there, go figure. There's so much to do on Odaiba, which is actually a man-made island. But we didn't feel like we had the time, so we headed back to the bridge, only to find that the pedestrian route was now closed! Online, various sources say that the bridge closes to pedestrians at 6pm during the winter, but the guard pointed us to a sign that said that the bridge closes at 5:30. We got there at 5:34. That was frustrating, as I don't see a valid reason why the bridge should be closed at all. There are fences preventing pedestrians from falling over, and there appears to be lighting along the pedestrian paths. We had to pay to take the Yurikamome train back to our hotel. I wasn't very happy about this but Priscilla was, since her feet were hurting due to us having walked 44 miles over 5 days. Okay, I guess that's a lot.

Finally, today was our travel day back home. After a brief walk around the IHG courtyard (mainly because I woke up feeling dizzy and needed some fresh air), we packed up and took the train to the Tokyo JR Station, and then the Narita Express from there to the airport. It was only when we were in the security line, taking our electronics out of our bags, that we realized, to our horror, that we didn't have our iPhone. Priscilla's mom gave her old iPhone 10 to Priscilla, and since it has a much better camera than our phones do, we had been using it to take pictures during our trip. The Find My app showed that the iPhone was back at the hotel, and we used a payphone to call the hotel (we had to learn that we didn't need to dial the 81 country code, but we did need to dial the trunk prefix of 0 first), and they confirmed that housekeeping found the phone. The Narita Express trip was about 50 minutes each way, and we didn't have the time to go back to the hotel, so hopefully the hotel will be able to ship the phone to our home address.

Thankfully, going through security was pretty smooth, as they just use metal detectors and then they watch you turn around in a circle with your hands above your head (that was kind of fun, haha). Customs was equally as smooth - the agent just asked if we bought any duty-free items, and then we scanned our passports. But then the "fun" started again when we tried to go to two airport lounges, only to find that the first one was no longer operating (the Google Maps entry was out of date), and the second didn't accept Priority Pass. We were directed to another lounge near our gate which fortunately did take Priority Pass. It was nice to sit there and enjoy some rice curry and soba noodle soup, a reprieve from the earlier chaos.

After eating, we had about 10 minutes to pick up some gifts from the duty-free shops before our boarding time. My coworker had asked me to pick up Tokyo Bananas for him, but the two closest shops were completely out of those. We saw lots of Tokyo Bananas on our way through the airport, including at those two shops, so I didn't expect them to all disappear. But apparently, popular items can disappear when a lot of people are passing through close to the departure time. So we ran down the terminal to the next shop, and I think they had some Tokyo Bananas there, but the line was insanely long and we had two minutes before boarding. We didn't want to chance it and try to find another shop even further away, so we just ran back to one of the shops closest to our gate and picked up the Tokyo Bananas Pie version (seems like it's not as popular, so we'll see if my coworker wants it) and five boxes of various flavors of Kit Kats. This cost 5,100 yen, which was the exact amount of cash that we had left (we started with 24,000 yen and I used up all of our odd coins yesterday). It was great that we got rid of all our cash, as we would otherwise have to pay a fee to convert back to dollars. We then dashed over to our gate... only to find that the flight was delayed. Shortly after, the boarding time was pushed out by 50 minutes. Sigh. Had we known this, we probably could've gone back to the hotel and we definitely could've found another shop in the terminal, but we couldn't have possibly known. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. At least we remembered to fill up our water bottles before boarding this time.

Final thoughts:
So today did not go as planned, but I'm glad that we're on the way home now. I kind of did just write a summary of each day, but there was so much that happened each day! I feel like we did more on this trip than we've done on previous trips, and a lot of that involved just finding the right train to get from one place to another (thank you Priscilla). This trip has been fun but also a bit frenetic, and I haven't really felt rested. Maybe that's why I woke up feeling dizzy this morning.

Tokyo and Kyoto are huge cities, and there are crowds just about everywhere. You have to constantly maneuver around people when walking through the train station, and the crowds don't seem to let up at any time during the day. The trains are typically full and, except for the Shinkansen where we reserved seats, there was usually no sitting room on the trains we got on. On one train, a bunch of people got on and we were completely packed in like sardines. It was hard to find grocery stores selling fresh produce until we really looked for it, and even then, the produce options there were a little limited and pricier than back at home. And everything is packaged in plastic, even single pieces of produce. There are probably some advantages to that, but it felt wasteful. And the convenience stores were definitely convenient, and we ate some onigiri from there just about every day, but I wouldn't want to eat like that for an extended period of time. By our fourth day in Kyoto, I was getting city fatigue and a bit of travel fatigue in general.

There are a lot of great things about Japan, of course. The trains were nearly always on time. The roads are clean and in good condition. We didn't see much litter anywhere. People seem to prioritize society over individuality. It does help that they're a pretty homogeneous society. People tend to not want to stand out. Pretty much everyone wears a face mask, even when outside. Most people were wearing dark clothes, certainly not bright clothing drawing attention. And most of the cars I saw on the road were white, followed by black. I didn't see a significant percentage of cars of another color. People are very polite and frequently bow as a gesture of mutual respect. We soon found ourselves doing the same. It's crowded, but people somehow maneuver around each other in an orderly fashion. We never got bumped into in all our time walking through crowded spaces. Crime is rare. We felt safe walking around dark places at night and counting money in public. Even in the bustling cities, I saw lots of bikes just parked there without being locked up. Sure, there seem to be cameras everywhere in public and in every private business as well, and those probably deter bad behavior, but I have to imagine that people behaved this way before the era of mass surveillance as well (the Big Brother thing is an entirely separate discussion). They have a culture of respect that seems to be taught from a young age. Even the kids at the breakfast buffet were well behaved. Whenever we did hear a child making a lot of noise, it turned out to be a non-Japanese child.

On that note though, the Japanese as a whole do seem to be more reserved. They seem to not make small talk with strangers or even verbally acknowledge them (like in an elevator). At DisneySea, there was barely any applause at the end of the show, though that might've also been because after what seemed like the finale, the show kept on going and it wasn't clear that the end was actually the end. But I think the point still stands.

No society is perfect, and there are things that I think the Japanese don't do as well, but those things are few and far between. On the whole, I really admire what I saw in Japanese society, and I wish that Americans would take some cues from them. Can you imagine if our cities were like this? Maybe some of the small ones are, but the big ones?

Whew. I wrote a lot more than I thought I would. Our trip is over and I can't wait to get back home, drink lots of water, go to Costco to get groceries, and get back to a regular life, jet lag notwithstanding. We should be getting back around 8am Thursday, so the whole day will essentially reset. I'll need a vacation from vacation, but this trip has been meaningful and I'm glad that we did it. Ask me in 1.5 years if I'm down for an international trip again.

For the last four days, Aaron's family was staying at our place. The kids have two weeks of winter vacation, and Aaron and Lauren wanted to do a bit of sightseeing in the Bay Area and needed a place to crash.

The last few days have been tough for me and Priscilla (okay, mostly me). Ever since our last renter left over two years ago, we've been used to having privacy at home. We're definitely not used to having kids around, and anyone who's spent a day with young kids knows how demanding they can be. The kids are 5 and 2, respectively, and the older one seems to have become quite the extrovert (or maybe this is just a phase that most kids go through?). There have been lots of requests for hide and seek and other preschooler games, climbing on furniture, numerous questions about why things are the way they are, a certain metal toy being dropped repeatedly on the floor, some screaming and crying, and a couple pee and poo accidents. These are just normal things that parents have to constantly deal with, but for me, they've revealed how much I value order and control, how much I covet quiet and alone time, and how (inwardly) annoyed I get when those things are taken away. I've never really wanted kids of my own and maybe that's fine, but I think my reasons for it are pretty selfish. I need God to change my heart.

But there have been plenty of sweet times. Aaron and Lauren have tried to be good guests - they've cleaned up after themselves, and while Aaron and the niece have been sleeping in the gym room, he's moved the bedding in the morning so that I can use the gym room to work out. We all went out for a walk one night and that was a nice time. And the niece is beginning to demonstrate the ability to learn and understand things. She loves counting; Priscilla joked that maybe she'll be an accountant one day, and I've noticed that she has attention to detail, so maybe she'll be an auditor. She got pretty good at matching up the numbers on dominoes after I taught her how to play. And she had trouble with a metal puzzle until I showed her how to solve it, and then the next day, she was able to solve it on her own in a couple seconds. She also enjoyed spelling a bunch of words using the tiles from my Bananagrams game. Meanwhile, the nephew is a bit young to really understand anything, but he's starting to take behavior cues from those around him.

During their time here, Aaron family's managed to visit different places including the Willow Glen holiday lights, Christmas in the Park, and Pinnacles National Park. And they took the kids out a couple nights so that Priscilla and I could have some time to ourselves.

So it felt bittersweet when they left this morning. Originally, they had wanted to leave Monday or Tuesday in order to visit Lassen Volcanic National Park, but those plans fell through due to snow (a lot of the country is experiencing freezing temperatures right now). So they had then expressed the intent to stay with us until Thursday or Friday, but they ultimately left for Sacramento today because that made more sense for their travel plans, and because the kids were starting to get restless (more than usual). So while I'm definitely glad to have peace and quiet at home again, I will kind of miss having them around. I still don't really have a desire to have kids of my own, but I think I'm beginning to actually understand why most parents say that it's the best decision they've ever made.

Yesterday was Pure's engineering holiday party at The Plex in San Jose. This was our first holiday party since 2018; we didn't have one the previous two years because of the pandemic, and in 2019 we had a 10th year anniversary party in lieu of a holiday party.

This year, our party encompassed just the engineering orgs, as the company has gotten so big that we can't fit a couple thousand people under one roof just anywhere. Other orgs got their own parties. For budgetary reasons, this party was originally open to employees only, but it was changed to allow guests after enough people complained. If there's one thing the company does right, it's caring about and trying to listen to its employees.

Sadly, nobody from my team appeared to have attended. A few people were traveling, a few were sick, and a couple people probably didn't want to make the long drive. I saw just a couple people that I recognized but didn't get a chance to talk to them. So Priscilla and I just kept to ourselves and enjoyed the many amenities there. Cost savings aside, I can understand why the company wanted this to be an employee-only event; being there with a spouse/guest results in a very different dynamic. Of course, if only I were able to go, I probably wouldn't have gone.

But I'm glad that Priscilla made us go. We arrived 10 minutes after the start time and went straight to the buffet, where we loaded up on a little bit of mostly everything. The dinner theme was burgers and tacos, though the taco shells were absent at the start. I piled up my plate high with salad, potatoes, chicken, ground beef, tater tots, bacon, a burger patty, pulled pork, and cheese. They also had things like charcuterie, Impossible Burgers, and beignets. There was also a beer wall with different kinds of beer; Priscilla sampled a few of them and liked the Angry Orchard the most, as usual. We probably could've eaten more but I didn't want to stuff myself silly, though we did grab a slice of pizza later in the evening.

So after dinner, we hit up the arcade, where most of the games were free to play. We did basketball, ball throwing (I was very bad), bowling, skee-ball, and a couple shooter video games. Then we did roller skating for a little over half an hour. Nobody else was skating at first, but people started gradually joining. The first few of us weren't that great, but I think we all improved with a little practice. Priscilla had a tough time as always, but she too was a little better by the end. And she liked that the DJ seemed to be playing an entire album by rapper NF.

We ended our time by playing a couple rounds of cornhole. I did a lot better with this, redeeming myself from my prior poor performance at throwing balls.

We had a lot of fun. This party was noticeably not as fancy as previous ones, but I think this one was my favorite because of all the activities we could do at our own pace without it being too crowded. If future parties are like this one, I guess I won't mind going!

This past Thanksgiving was pretty normal. Which, given how abnormal things have been since COVID, was a welcome change.

In both 2021 and 2020, we saw my parents and Priscilla's parents separately during our time in LA. I think the last time we all had Thanksgiving dinner together was in 2018 (though I apparently didn't blog about that - bad Anson).

We headed down around 7am on Thanksgiving Day and though there were a couple minor slowdowns along the way, traffic was pretty smooth overall. We rested a few hours at the condo before driving with Priscilla's parents over to my parents' place. We arrived a little late since we got stuck in a standstill due to an accident on the 118. Aaron's family was already there, and the kids look like they've grown a lot. Our niece wasn't shy this time and wanted to play with us right away. It's nice that she seems at ease with us now!

We had most of the traditional fixins for dinner. My dad and Aaron both made a turkey, and Priscilla's parents brought a chicken and a duck from Sam Woo BBQ. Unlike in some previous years, we didn't have dessert. Maybe my mom reminded my dad that people have blood sugar and gut issues.

We stayed a little long, but it was nice to see everyone interacting. Priscilla and I were pretty tired as we drove back to the condo with her parents that night. On both Friday and Saturday, we visited The Huntington, first with her mom and then with our old church friend Cindy. Adult tickets are normally $25 on weekdays and $29 on weekends, but I get free admission for myself and up to three guests with my Cultivist membership, which I have a 6-month free trial of due to getting the Capital One Venture X card. It's a decent card for travel, and Priscilla's already used it to book things for our trip to Japan which will be in February.

So back to The Huntington. It was really crowded on Friday (according to an employee there, Mother's Day and the day after Thanksgiving are the two busiest days), but there were far fewer people on Saturday. The gardens are immense and you can really spend a whole day walking around and taking it all in. The two nicest parts are the Chinese Garden and Japanese Garden. I really liked the water, bridges and buildings that create the atmosphere of a tiny village in the Chinese Garden. Between my two visits, I also saw some European art at one of the art galleries, and paid a short visit to the library. There wasn't much to see at the library, but they did have a Gutenberg Bible on display.

On Sunday, we went to CCAC and ran into Tim and his mom after the service. Tim gave us a tour of the new A/V room in the back of the upper level that he and his parents built out. It was really a sight to see - different stations for people to control camera feeds, audio, and the livestream, and a rack of servers that all the equipment is hooked up to. And most of the equipment was either donated or purchased at bargain prices.

After church, we had lunch at Galleria Market with Gina and Weber. It's always nice to catch up with old friends, even if we don't have the most exciting updates. Priscilla also caught up with Crescentia at Starbucks later that day while I was back at my parents' place catching up with work (bleh).

After a quick breakfast with my parents on Monday, it was time to head home. My mom of course packed us a lot of food to take back with us, including some amazing pot pie that my dad had made. The drive back was smooth pretty much all the way. So even with Thanksgiving travel being nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, Thanksgiving Day and the Monday after seem to be good days to make the drive.

And of course we had to get sick while traveling. That's pretty common for me, but this time both of us came down with a cold, with Priscilla showing minor symptoms about a day before me. The definitive symptoms started while we were driving back up, and we've been stuck at home with a minor cough and stuffiness ever since. And now it's supposed to be raining for the next three days straight, so no going outside for fresh air.

So the time in LA was nice. The days after, not so much!

Now that most people seem to think that the pandemic is over, life appears to have gotten back to normal. Well, maybe a new kind of normal.

At the beginning of March, governor Newsom lifted California's indoor mask mandate. And in April, the federal government's nationwide mask mandate for public transit was struck down by a federal judge. As COVID turned the world upside-down in a matter of a couple weeks in 2020, things have gradually started turning right side up in the last year or so as people have gotten vaccinated and as the virus has mutated into a less deadly form. Nowadays, supply chain issues, labor shortage and inflation seem to be more pressing problems than "the rona."

As such, companies have been calling employees back into the office, typically under a hybrid schedule where feasible. Pure gave us notice a couple months ago that today would be the first day of the mandatory return to office (RTO), where most of us are expected to be in the office three days a week at minimum. So at last, after being able to work remotely for 2.5 years, I and most others stepped foot back into the office under the new schedule today.

The office had been open for the last several months, though most people unsurprisingly chose to keep working from home during that time. Attendance had been ramping up over the past couple months as lunches started being offered on Thursdays and then on Tuesdays as well, and as upper management "strongly encouraged" people to come in in order to make the transition to official RTO less jarring. I'd gone in a few times over the last two years, including stepping in a couple weeks ago, but by and large I preferred the flexibility that working from home gave me.

Going back today felt pretty, well, uneventful. I stopped by the IT helpdesk to get another dock, since I'd gotten a new laptop during the pandemic and I'm keeping my current dock at home. I spent time setting up the new dock and cables at my desk, clearing out emails, eating with coworkers, being in two meetings, and I managed to get a little bit of actual work done as well. The Tuesday and Thursday lunches are now buffet style, served in the kitchen close to where my team sits, and today we had BBQ chicken, brisket, mac and cheese, Hawaiian bread, salad, and roasted vegetables. Pretty decent fare. There were cookies and other sweets for dessert, and some cupcakes showed up in the kitchen a couple hours later. There were balloons and some decorations set up in the kitchen, which I thought was a small but nice way to welcome people back, but otherwise, the RTO went by with not much fanfare. Maybe because many people had been coming back already.

I still prefer working from home, but I'm glad for the lunch and the snacks (and I got some leftovers for the next day), and it was nice seeing teammates and some old familiar faces in person. Today was fairly special, but I'm sure the days will start feeling more mundane and more of a slog soon. Maybe let's just try to make the best of it. Having to commute this way again gives me more reason to hit up my gym in Sunnyvale; I kept the membership since it's just $14 a month, but I haven't been going often because I have dumbbells at home and I don't usually have any other reason to drive that way. And I'm looking forward to sometimes biking to work again since my cycling ability has fallen off a cliff during the 2.5 years of working from home. I'm thinking of biking to work this week but we're in a 1-week heat wave after nearly a whole summer that's felt cooler than usual. Today it apparently got up to 107 degrees, tomorrow it'll be 96, and Thursday will be 101. LA's been pretty hot as well; Priscilla's been down there visiting her parents, and one day it was 115 in the San Fernando Valley. We seem to be smashing a lot of climate records in recent years. Yesterday, both Livermore and Fairfield hit 116 degrees, an all-time record for the Bay Area. Hottest day ever? More like hottest day so far! This is fine. Totally.

This past weekend was our church retreat - the first in three years, retreat having been cancelled the previous two years due to the pandemic. It was our second time meeting at Sonoma State University, the last time being in 2019 for the all-church retreat.

The Chinese congregation didn't join this time due to COVID concerns. Regardless, there were a lot of people there because our church has gotten so big. Our program, which listed discussion group assignments, listed 200 names, not including children. 2019's program listed 186 names. There were probably around 100 children there this year, certainly more than last time because a lot of people at church have been having kids over the past few years.

The accommodations were mostly the same as last time. Each person had a room, typically shared with a roommate. Each room had its own bathroom and there were four rooms per suite. Dining and services were held at the student center a short walk away. The food was alright but I remember it being better last time. And I was bummed that the recreation center, which has a climbing wall and gym, was closed this time.

Overall, retreat was good but tiring. We ate with someone different for each meal, and we had more impromptu fellowship for an hour each night after the nighttime session. The schedule also kicked off early each morning. So it was hard to get sufficient sleep, and so during the free time hours on Saturday, Priscilla and I went back to our room and took a two hour nap.

Our guest speaker, Pastor Tranwei, covered the biblical narrative during each of the four sessions. It was cool how each message had the thematic consistency of God's work in the Garden of Eden, in Israel, in Christ, and finally in the new Heaven. Most of the material was pretty familiar, but there were some great nuggets of insight - for instance, in discussing how Satan tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world, Pastor Tranwei pointed out that it was because Jesus wants all the kingdoms of the world, that one day He will reign over them, and Satan was essentially telling Jesus to skip to the end and skip the cross. It's the same idea as in Matthew 16 when Jesus talks about being killed and raised to life, Peter rebukes Him and says that this shall not happen, and Jesus responds with "Get behind me, Satan."

The weekend was pretty busy and though we relished the opportunities to fellowship with a handful of people, we also felt a little overwhelmed being amidst so many unfamiliar faces. We feel that way at church as well. The English congregation was maybe 30 people when I first joined (I think that was in 2009), and we've become a somewhat large church over the years. I'm feeling like how I felt when I was attending GRX back in 2008 - i.e. only knowing a handful of people, mostly the people in my small groups, and feeling distant from the church body as a whole. Sometimes I don't see the point in corporate worship when I don't feel entirely part of the corporate body. But in those times, I have to remind myself that it's not about me, and that we are to be like Christ, who came to serve, not to be served.

Last year, traveling between NorCal and SoCal at Christmastime was pretty hectic and it felt too soon after Thanksgiving to go down again. So we decided that this year, we'd try visiting in the summer instead of for Christmas in order to better space out our visits, and see how well that works out. We decided that the July 4th weekend would be the best time during summer to visit. Christmas in July... sort of. Our families don't really do anything special for Christmas anyway.

We were originally planning to drive down Friday, but then we learned that my mom tested positive for COVID. Her patient at work had it, and it was either going to be my mom or her coworker attending to him, and my mom didn't want her coworker taking the risk because that's how she is. Fortunately, my mom's symptoms weren't terrible and she's getting better by the day. She's been limiting direct interaction with my dad and so far he hasn't gotten sick.

So we drove down Saturday, waking up early and leaving early (around 7:15am) to try to beat traffic, but traffic didn't seem to be much of an issue. Though there were some minor slowdowns, it wasn't too bad overall. The worst part was a 17-minute slowdown caused by an earlier accident; interestingly, that cleared up a couple hours later. Overall, the traffic map was pretty much green the whole day. Fewer people driving this year because of sky-high gas prices?

So instead of splitting time between staying with my parents and Priscilla's parents, we just spent three days with her parents this time. We did visit my mom briefly (my dad was out) and talked to her from outside the house. She was only willing to open the window a crack because she didn't want us to breathe her germs, so we could barely hear her. Heh.

As always, the time with Priscilla's parents was pretty low-key. We mostly just ate and I also helped them with lots of computer issues (I'm always their IT guy whenever we visit). On Sunday, Priscilla and I visited New Life Church, joined people for a small lunch (tacos) there, talked to Aaron and his family briefly at the end of that, then had another lunch with Gina and Weber at California Pita, and then hung out with Crescentia and Raymond for 3.5 hours at Tang & Java. Whew. It was nice seeing people, but I definitely needed some downtime after so much socializing.

On Monday, Priscilla and I walked to Gen Korean BBQ since she had a hankering for buffet and it was either going to be Gen or All That Shabu, and the latter was a bit more expensive. We got to Gen at opening time and were seated in a section with several other tables. There was just one waiter for all those tables, so it took a while to get any service. But once our waiter got things started, he made sure to keep coming back to take orders so that there was always a steady stream of meat at our table. I've never seen a waiter hustle so much - he was constantly running up and down the aisle, whizzing by to drop off food or take away dirty plates, and when taking our order, he spoke in a fast, energetic manner. Priscilla remarked that he seemed like an anime character. His bleached hair might've contributed to that impression as well. At the start, we were about to leave after having waited 20 minutes without getting any attention, but our waiter turned a miserable experience into a terrific one. He definitely got an excellent tip from us. We left full, though we refrained from gorging ourselves this time. Maybe we're getting wiser and learning moderation.

Then that evening, we took a post-dinner walk with the parents when the city fireworks show happened to be in progress. We walked down to the main street where we (and lots of other people) were able to find a decent view of the fireworks being shot from the park less than a mile away. From there we also had a partial view of fireworks shows from several other locations maybe a few miles away. It was awesome to see so many; I guess LA loves their fireworks. Meanwhile, our own city back up north is foregoing its fireworks show for the third year in a row, humph.

After a quick breakfast this morning, it was time to head back home. There was a moderate amount of cars on the road but for the most part, traffic was pretty smooth. I do think fewer people were driving this year, though maybe Friday and Sunday were heavier days.

For Christmas, it does feel like something will be missing when we don't go down. But we might spend Christmas with my uncle and aunt and their family; they typically have a get-together and we're unable to go. And I'm sure that Priscilla will use her Great America pass a lot this December, and she'll probably make me go there once with her during WinterFest. And hopefully, our time with family and friends in LA for Thanksgiving will be all the more meaningful.

This week Priscilla and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. We've been through a lot during this time - she left her home in LA and relocated to the Bay Area to be with me, we got an apartment, I changed jobs once, she changed jobs more than once, we bought a house, had several renters over a six-year period, we've served on the worship team at church, been in small groups, seen friends come and go, gone on walks almost every day, done lots of hiking, and we've traveled to many places across the state, country and world. It simultaneously feels like hardly any time has passed and also like a meaningful ten years have passed. We've made plenty of mistakes and this isn't the best life that we could be living by far, but I'm content. And there's no one I'd rather have spent this ten years with.

This week we were down in LA to celebrate our anniversary and to be with family. It was also my mom's birthday, so all the more reason for family to get together. We spent the first three nights at my parents' place and the latter two nights at Priscilla's parents' place. We saw Aaron and Lauren and the kids twice and got to see their new house, and our niece actually talked to me a good deal this time. The time with family was pretty low-key as always, but we enjoy the normalcy.

The rest of our time was spent in Hollywood! We went there three days in a row - for the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, then to watch Everything Everywhere All at Once (it was interesting but really weird) at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and walk along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and finally to go to Universal Studios. We'd bought the Go City LA pass and chose those activities. Originally we had wanted to do Catalina Island as one of the activities, but the ferry hours were pretty inconvenient (7am arrival and 4pm departure). And when we bought the pass, the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens was available as one of the activities, but at some point it was dropped and only remained available with the more expensive pass. So we scrapped Huntington from our plans and replaced it with seeing a movie at Grauman's. The expression about best-laid plans is all too fitting in today's day of rampant inflation and skimpflation.

The Warner Bros. Studio Tour was cool. Our guide was very knowledgeable and drove us through the campus and pointed out building after another that was used in the filming of some show or movie. We got to see different sets for a TV show in one of the sound stages. I couldn't place most of the things the guide pointed out because my familiarity with TV and film is limited, but I appreciated seeing all the work that goes into set design to the finest detail. The tour ended with a self-guided portion through DC and Harry Potter exhibits; most of that was kinda meh, but I really liked this one display that uses forced perspective to make it look like Hogwarts letters are swirling all around you, where the attendant used our phone to take an awesome-looking picture.

Universal Studios doesn't have as much stuff as Disneyland, so we had time to do all the rides and see both of the shows. It brought back some memories of the times when my mom would bring me and my brother there. I guess the last time I went there was in 2004 when I brought my grandfather there. A bunch of things have changed noticeably, like Jurassic Park now being Jurassic World with some technological upgrades, Back to the Future replaced by The Simpsons, no more Backdraft, and the Backlot Tour now branded as the Studio Tour including two attractions requiring 3D glasses. The two shows running were Universal's Animal Actors and WaterWorld (there's also the Special Effects Stage show, but that wasn't operating on the day of our visit). The execution of both shows was great, though the trainers in Animal Actors had occasional difficulty getting the animals (mostly the dogs) to obey commands on the first try. It's gotta be a hard job. And the stunts and effects in WaterWorld were spectacular - this was probably the only attraction that I enjoyed as much as an adult as I did as a kid. Overall, Universal was fun, but the motion sickness I now get on thrill rides mars the experience, and I've for the most part outgrown the desire to go to theme parks. Priscilla probably would not mind still going every now and then.

Last week, I was working hard to get new sprinkler valves installed for the front lawn. Our irrigation system didn't have a manual shutoff, so I had to have the city shut off the main so that I could install a manual shutoff valve. Then I had to replace the old, leaking sprinkler valves. The task was difficult because the pipes were installed almost right next to each other and at weird angles, so I had to rework the design with very little clearance. There were also tree roots growing everywhere. I also discovered a sprinkler head next to the valves, buried under landscaping fabric, which meant that that area got a good soaking every time the sprinklers came on (that might explain all the roots). I had wanted to put in PVC and drip irrigation in the back before our trip so that our backyard plants wouldn't die, but I ended up only being able to finish the front and had a neighbor water the back while we were away. But at least the hard part is done and I can work on the back at my leisure (well, we're going to LA for a few days in July, so I guess that's my new deadline).

So overall, we didn't do anything really special to celebrate, but we're fine with that. The traditional gifts for the 10th year anniversary are aluminum and tin symbolizing the strength and resilience of the marriage, and while we don't really give each other gifts for special occasions, one can say that our marriage is just as comfortably boring, and just as dependable, as those metals.

Last year, we went to LA for Thanksgiving but not Christmas due to lockdowns. But now, with a good percentage of the population vaccinated (albeit supposedly still not enough), the days of COVID lockdowns might be behind us for good.

So Priscilla and I drove down on Christmas Day, leaving around 9:15am, and we didn't run into much traffic (there were also not as many trucks on the road because of the holiday). It was around a 5.5 hour drive to get to her parents' place and we stayed with them three nights. Our time with them was pretty low-key. On Sunday, Priscilla and I visited our old church friend Cindy in Irvine; I hadn't seen her for two years, but Priscilla saw her during the pandemic. The three of us went to Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, got lunch at a Taiwanese place in Irvine, and walked around Great Park. On Monday, I hung out with four of my old high school friends and we went bowling in Pasadena, ate at a sushi place a stone's throw away, and hung out at a boba place. The rest of the time Priscilla and I were with her parents, we ate food that she prepared (mostly from the insane amount of stuff in her parents' fridge) and stuffed our faces one night at Kami Buffet & Grill (her mom got three vouchers for helping a church friend).

Tuesday after lunch, we drove north to my parents' place and stayed with them two nights. That time was pretty low-key as well and we didn't see friends, but I did run a few miles around the neighborhood both on Tuesday and Wednesday; the latter day saw me running in light rain with an umbrella. Priscilla went to hang out with Gina on Wednesday during lunch, but otherwise we both ate with my parents at each meal during our time there. My parents made a ton of food as always, and they packed our cooler and then some with a lot of food for us to bring home. They are too good to us.

We didn't see Aaron and his family this time around, as they were on a trip to New Mexico in a rented camper van. How fun!

Priscilla and I left for home yesterday. Unfortunately, the Grapevine section of I-5 was closed due to snow, so we (and everyone else) had to take the 101 instead. That added 49 miles to our trip, and it was a pretty miserable drive. It was raining steadily at my parents' place and pouring hard on the 118 and first leg of the 101 freeways. The heavy rain on the 118 made it difficult to see, and we and everyone else had to drive around 50mph. There were multiple places along the 101 where traffic slowed to a crawl due to an accident, construction zone, or just general congestion. Overall, we spent 7.5 hours on the road. Guess that's what happens when it's the day before New Year's Eve and the 101 has to accommodate holiday traffic in addition to traffic that would normally be on I-5.

To make matters more "interesting," 2/3 of the way through, the check engine light came on in the car. Not wanting to drive another 130 miles without knowing what the problem was, I had Priscilla look for a nearby AutoZone. Fortunately, there was one in King City about 10 miles north of where we were. I was able to borrow an OBD-II reader there and found out that the DTC (error code) indicated a problem either with the catalytic converter or an O2 sensor - not a critical issue requiring immediate attention. Thank God!

So we made it home at last, my head aching due to stress, and we ate my mom's food while watching more episodes of season 5 of Fringe (that season is kinda meh). Today we hit up the Sunnyvale Costco early-ish (before the crowds really started piling in), got our booster shot at the Mountain View Community Center, and went to The Dish for me to get my last run in for the year (that's my go-to place for elevation when the ground is still muddy due to rain). A more relaxing day to bookend the madness of yesterday. And as I finish writing this blog entry, Priscilla is off watching the marching band and fireworks at WinterFest at Great America. She bought a Great America season pass ("only" $85) that's good until the end of 2022, as well as a dining pass that gets her lunch and dinner (as long as they're four hours apart). She's gone twice this year and will probably go several times next year. I think it's pretty clear by now that theme parks are one of her hobbies!

Overall, we had a good time in LA with family and friends, though I was not fond of all the driving. For next year, I'm thinking of having us go down once in the summer instead of for Christmas in order to avoid the travel mayhem of the latter, as well as to more evenly space out our visits. We'll be going down in January for my Spartan Sprint, probably in April for our anniversary trip, and again for Thanksgiving. Taking another trip down around July will give us 3-4 months in between each visit. Priscilla feels that it will be weird to not go down for Christmas since that's when everybody else is seeing family and friends, but maybe we can try it once and see if we can make it work and make our summer visit meaningful. Our respective parents are cool with it. Well, I'm not sure about my dad since he's very traditional, but my family hasn't really done anything special for Christmas since my high school days or so. We can do a Zoom dinner with parents for the holiday, and maybe I can entice Priscilla with more days on which she can go to WinterFest...

For the Thanksgiving holiday, Priscilla and I went down to LA a week earlier this year. The hope was to avoid the crowds - both on the road as well as at Disneyland!

The last time I'd been to Disneyland was 17 years ago (I blogged about it in 2004, but I scarcely recall the experience). After Priscilla went to Disney World with friends a couple years ago, and because she's really into Marvel movies, she's been wanting me to go to Disneyland with her. So she decided that we should squeeze in a trip in between visiting family for Thanksgiving.

So we drove down to LA on Sunday and stayed two nights with my parents, then went to Anaheim and explored the Downtown Disney District on Tuesday, woke up bright and early and got lined up at California Adventure before rope drop on Wednesday, and woke up early and did the same thing at Disneyland on Thursday. The last two nights we stayed with Priscilla's parents. The time with parents was pretty low-key.

We thought that by visiting a week before Thanksgiving, when kids should still be in school, the lines at the theme parks should be tolerable. How naive! Unfortunately for us, both parks were still pretty busy (though apparently Thanksgiving week was worse). And there were still plenty of kids (why aren't you guys in school??). And to our detriment, Disney has apparently stopped doing FastPass. We waited on average maybe 20 minutes per ride, with the longest waits being around 40 minutes. We even got into Rise of the Resistance, which was only accessible via virtual queue at the time of our visit, but even having a place in the virtual queue still subjected us to a 40 minute wait once it was our turn to get into the physical line.

But we stayed 10 hours and 12 hours at Disneyland and California Adventure, respectively, and we were able to ride just about everything we wanted to, with the exception of Radiator Springs Racers at California Adventure. At California Adventure, I liked the Soarin' ride the most, and the "Turtle Talk with Crush" show was pretty entertaining for kids and adults alike. We did the Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT! ride early, and the harsh ups and downs of that ride gave me motion sickness that lingered the rest of the day. So apparently it's not just spinning rides that mess me up. The rest of the day, I had to take it slow and I sat out a couple times while Priscilla went on a ride for a second time. I guess I'll have to listen to Priscilla and take Dramamine the next time we go to a theme park. The joys of getting old.

At Disneyland, I most enjoyed Jungle Cruise (I for one enjoy dad jokes), Rise of the Resistance, and Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain was fun but we got moderately wet, which kinda sucked because we did it late in the day when it was starting to get cold. No wonder there was no line for it! And Rise of the Resistance was amazing - the most advanced and immersive ride I've been on. The first part involves walking through expansive detainment areas after your transport ship gets captured by the First Order, and then Resistance members break you out and you're whisked around in a self-driving car moving through the building, at a fast pace with things happening all around you, moving in all directions, not along a fixed track. I've never seen anything like it (not that I have a whole lot of experience in this area).

I'm glad we went to California Adventure and Disneyland, but it was tiring. Not to mention, expensive ($470 for the tickets). The crowdedness of the parks really detracted from the experience, and the axing of FastPass was a real bummer. Priscilla felt that Disneyland has lost some of its magic compared to when she visited as a youth. Watching some videos on YouTube, it looks like the rides at Disney World put Disneyland to shame. I'm slightly intrigued and I think I'd be willing to go, but not for a good while (don't get any ideas too soon, Priscilla).

As for the drive down, we left just shy of noon because we wanted to stream our church service first. By the time we left, there was an accident on the 152, but Google wasn't showing too much of a slowdown. What we didn't realize until we got there was that that part of the 152 was closed and drivers were forced to take a congested detour. We ended up detouring back to the 101 and, including some parts of the drive where we hit heavy traffic, the drive down took around 40 minutes longer than under ideal conditions. Lesson learned there - next time if there's an accident on the two-lane part of the 152, we'll skip the 152 and stay on the 101 for longer. For the return trip the following Sunday, we left earlier and didn't hit significant slowdowns.

Thanksgiving week was somewhat quiet and it was nice to finally have some downtime, especially since I picked up a cold while traveling (which tends to happen when we do a lot). My uncle and aunt forwent their usual Thanksgiving family get-together because of COVID, so Priscilla and I just stayed at home and had hot pot on Thanksgiving Day. It was nice to have the holiday to ourselves, but next year maybe we should go be with family on Thanksgiving again. My dad is very traditional and has to have his customary Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving Day, regardless of who else is there that day. My parents love to cook and see it as an act of love, so we should probably join them on that day and bring Priscilla's parents as well. It's a little harder since Priscilla's parents are further away now, but family matters.

Because no amount of travel is too much for Priscilla, she made us go to South Lake Tahoe for the weekend of my birthday. I prefer to spend my birthday at home catching up on housework, whereas she likes to go out, so she entices me with hiking as a compromise. I'd been to Tahoe in the winter 3 times for a company ski trip but never in the summer, so I didn't mind (too much) going there for summer hiking.

So that Friday, we made the 4.5 hour drive to Econo Lodge in South Lake Tahoe, where we would be staying for the next two nights. Our plan originally was to go to Kiva Beach to do some kayaking first, but I'm bad at leaving the house early. So instead of visiting the beach, we consigned ourselves to walking around Heavenly Village, walking through Harrah's, Harveys and Hard Rock (and at the latter, we hung out for a bit under a gazebo at the pool area when there was nobody else there), and walking by Lakeside Beach outside the fence since we didn't want to pay to go in. Obviously, we like to do things that don't cost money (and the hotel was booked using travel points).

The next day, we drove up State Route 89 to visit Emerald Bay. What a sight! The most majestic vantage point was one short segment of Route 89 where the shoulder of the road slopes down towards the water below and it looks like you're surrounded on most sides by water - Emerald Bay on the north, Cascade Lake on the south, and Lake Tahoe on the East. There were a lot of cars already parked along Route 89, so we had little hope that we'd be able to find parking in the main Emerald Bay lot. So instead, we parked on the shoulder halfway between Eagle Falls and the Bayview Campground. We took pictures at the "mid" Eagle Falls - a spot just below the road but above the Lower Eagle Falls. Then we did the short hike to see Upper Eagle Falls and then the longer hike to Eagle Lake, entering into what's known as Desolation Wilderness. It was less than a mile from the upper falls to the lake, but it was a little tiring because of all the rock steps. Definitely not like the packed dirt trails that we're so accustomed to when hiking in the Bay Area.

Eagle Lake was so picturesque! You have the trees and mountains in the background and crystal-clear water in the foreground. We stayed here a bit and ate some of the salad we brought before continuing on. At this point, Priscilla would've been fine with heading back the way we came, but I as always wanted to do a longer loop. Well, this loop ended up being a little over 8 miles and took us nearly 7 hours to complete because of the elevation gain, the rock steps, and the altitude. At one point, Priscilla felt lightheaded because of the thinner air. But she pushed through (with many breaks) because she knows I enjoy hiking and that's what compromise looks like.

This is one of the most scenic hikes that we've done. Everywhere you look, there are trees, canyons, lakes, and blue skies all around. Plus some mountains still capped with some snow. We ran into a fair number of people during most of the hike, but that didn't detract too much from the experience.

On my own, I also stopped by Granite Lake and Cascade Lake and Falls. Granite Lake, about a third of the size of Eagle Lake, was just off the beaten path but nobody else was there. It was nice to be able to gaze at the lake in total solitude. Cascade Lake was viewable from the Cascade Falls Trail but was not directly reachable; there are some houses on the north side of the lake (lucky them), reachable only by private road. The trail terminates by Cascade Falls, and while the view of the falls from there is likely not as grand as when viewed from the front, I was still in awe of the beauty and power of the waterfall. I sat near the edge of the falls for a few minutes, watching the water flow down the cliff below and marveling at the beauty of the landscape. For a while, there was nobody else around. Just me, sitting there in appreciation of nature, cares momentarily forgotten.

The last stop was Inspiration Point, a vista point with its own parking lot, looking down towards Emerald Bay. I rejoined Priscilla there, but we didn't stay for too long, as we'd already been treated to better views along the hike. So we headed back to town and picked up pizzas at Base Camp Pizza to replenish the calories we'd burned during hiking and then some.

Monday morning after checking out of our motel, we stopped by the Tahoe Trout Farm, the part of the trip that Priscilla had been looking forward to the most. She's more into fishing than I am, so I let her do all the work while I took care of the online research when it became evident that our method of baiting the hook was consistently allowing fish to get the worms without getting hooked. After a lot of lost worms and after one more adjustment, we finally caught a 13-inch trout! We'd been given a metal pipe to hit the fish with to humanely kill it, but after several hits, the fish was still not dead. It was sad to know that we probably caused the fish more pain than necessary, so if we do something like this again, hopefully we can learn how to kill the fish properly.

The final stop before heading home was the Kiva Picnic Area where we had lunch, followed by a short walk around the adjacent Tallac Historic Site (the buildings were not open on the day of our visit). The drive home was somewhat difficult as we were both tired, but we made it back home at last.

We had a good time in Tahoe. If it were practical, I would probably have wanted to stay longer and do more hiking/trail running in Desolation Wilderness and other spots. The scenery is so beautiful and there's so much to explore. I'd also want to kayak at Emerald Bay to Fannette Island. And there's so much to see all around the lake - the southern area is just a tiny portion of it. Priscilla would say that these are the best years of our (remaining) life, that we should be traveling more, and that we already have enough to have financial independence given our relatively modest lifestyle. I, on the other hand, feel that we go on a good number of trips already. I don't enjoy the actual travel and being away from home, but once I'm there, I enjoy the places that we get to see. And I feel that we don't have enough yet to be financially secure and that it would be difficult to take a lot more time off work. So I guess we're still trying to find that balance and compromise.

Because we haven't been doing too much traveling and Priscilla has the travel itch, she booked a camping reservation for us at Coyote Lake for Memorial Day weekend last month. So that Saturday, we hauled it over 45 minutes down near Gilroy. Traffic was heavier than usual due to holiday travel but not terrible.

It was our second time camping at Coyote Lake, the first time being in 2017. We arrived around 4:30pm and found that most other people had already arrived and set up. Check-in starts at 3pm, so I guess people wanted to make use of as much of the day as they could.

We set up our tarp and tent, split some wood (I just bought an axe that morning), and then hiked until 7:15 (and saw a coyote in the distance while hiking - very fitting given the name of the place). Back at the campsite, we got the fire going and cooked the hash brown, cheese, chicken and tomato foil wraps that Priscilla had prepared, while eating chicken salads.

We were pretty tired after eating, and our fire had died down because we hadn't bothered to cut all the wood into smaller pieces, so we turned in early for the night. Doing so also allowed us to brush our teeth at the restroom and not really have to wait for others, since many people were still at their campfires enjoying the night. But people generally weren't too loud, and by around 10pm, the campground was pretty quiet.

It was a cold night, but the three sets of blankets that we brought helped. And I guess the design of the tent sort of kept some heat in. So by the middle of the night, we had shed a couple blankets.

We used our camping pads and were able to set the tent at a more level angle compared to last time, but sleeping on the ground still was not very comfortable. So as a result of going to bed early and not being able to sleep too well, we woke up around 5am. At least this allowed us to get a jump start on things while most others were still asleep. No line at the restroom again.

After staying in the car for a bit while Priscilla did her devos (we were also waiting out the weather since it was really cold outside), and having a quick breakfast, we went out for another hike. This time I hiked/ran 15 miles while Priscilla hiked 5.8 miles. I did a lot of the western side of the park where there's a good amount of elevation and a nice view of the valley with its farmland and scattered homes, and I looped back along the eastern side close to the lake. It was nice to get some vantage points looking out towards the lake, especially since the lake was dried up on the south side where the campground is. The drought is real.

Priscilla had everything packed up by the time I got back, and after another salad, it was time to head home. We're glad we went, but we realized during this trip that we're not really camping people. We enjoy having a comfortable bed and amenities and being able to shower after getting smokey. And camping (at least for us) involves a lot of food prep that's disproportionately high compared to the return we get. Maybe we'll do this again, but not for several years. And it would be more fun to do it with people who are actually camping minded and can show us how to have a more rewarding time.

Well, it's been a pretty eventful four months into 2021. We're still in the midst of a global pandemic, but places are starting to reopen and life is starting to get back to some semblance of normalcy.

So far, 44% of Americans have gotten at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, with 31% fully vaccinated. In California and most other states, vaccination appointments are now available to anybody who wants them; I got my first dose last week. Daily infection rates in the US have been hovering around 50k, down from a high of 300k in January. Around the world, the situation is still more dire. Right now, India has it the worst with daily infections having ballooned to around 400k, and with only 9% of the population having had at least one dose of a vaccine and 2% fully vaccinated. Of course the western countries would get faster access to vaccines than the rest of the world. It's especially ironic that India is the world's largest producer of vaccines. The inequality is real, sometimes seemingly unreal, and visible. We have so many blessings living here that we must not take for granted.

One thing we're grateful for is the ability to attend church in-person with others again. Our church resumed in-person gatherings in February, and we've been meeting outdoors so as to not be limited by the capacity and singing restrictions for indoor services. Each family sits in their own socially-distant space in the parking lot and brings their own chairs, so there's a bit of setup involved each Sunday morning. We have to be there at the unbearably early hour of 9am for the morning service, and 8am on days when we help with worship, but I don't have a good excuse to not be waking up early anyway. The livestream (which we still have) is so much more convenient, but there's no substitute for meeting in person. Sometimes it feels like a drag to get myself there, but I know it's a good thing.

As for the two of us, Priscilla and I took a short trip at the end of March to hike at Pinnacles National Park, California's newest national park and the closest one to the Bay Area. We visited on a Monday, and we ran into a fair number of people but not a lot of people. Because I underestimate trail distance and difficulty, we ended up hiking for 8 hours and did nearly 14 miles over 4,000 feet of elevation, which included going a good ways up the side of a hill where there was no marked trail (I saw a sign saying there was a vista point and I thought it was at the top of the hill, but it was actually refering to an observation spot nearby which didn't register in my mind as an actual spot with a view). Priscilla was extremely tired through the latter third of the hike, but she very graciously put up with me.

I really enjoyed the relative solitude of Pinnacles, seeing a few condors on the Condor Gulch Trail, and visiting the scenic reservoir towards the end of the day (I ran there while Priscilla hiked back to the car). Because of COVID, the two caves at Pinnacles were closed - quite a bummer since they're supposedly awesome to visit. Hopefully we'll be able to visit again when the caves are open, and I'm sure that the hike will be better planned the next time around...

So during that trip, we stayed overnight in Hollister, which is a 30-mile drive to Pinnacles. This allowed us to save some money (hotels near Pinnacles are pricey) but still be able to get to the park early-ish without having to drive too far. On the way to Hollister, we visited the Gilroy Ostrich Farm, which Priscilla particularly enjoyed, and Casa de Fruta, where we didn't buy anything and spent more time walking around outside than looking at goods inside the shop. After Pinnacles, we ate at Carpo's Restaurant and stayed overnight in Capitola (Soquel, technically) and walked around Capitola and the beach the next day. The coolest part there was walking along the old railroad trestle (the rail line is no longer active, so no chance of getting flattened by a train) high above across Soquel Creek. This trip was our first since the start of the pandemic where we stayed in a hotel (wow!).

Then at the end of April, we drove down to LA to see family. We hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving; we didn't visit during Christmas because of the increased travel restrictions at that time. Our visit was pretty low-key, but it was good to see everyone, and Aaron's kids are a little older and the older one seems slightly more comfortable with me now and couldn't stop pointing out what color everything is. It's pretty cool (and a big relief!) to see her opening up, because before she would always just stare blankly at me, not wanting to engage.

Finally, Priscilla will be going through a career transition soon. She and her coworkers have been having a rough time due to the new CFO who's been difficult to work with. Priscilla was experiencing a lot of stress that was taking a toll on her mental health. Finally, she asked to work from home until the company found a replacement, after which she would leave. For reasons, her last day was supposed to be last Friday, but the new person hasn't started yet, so the company asked Priscilla to continue working another two weeks, which she agreed to because she knows how overloaded her team is. After she leaves, she wants to learn about self-employment and will be going down to LA for 10 days to help her parents sort out their finances, which they will pay her for - they gift her money every year anyway, but she wants to use this as a way to make self-employed contributions into a 401k. Later, she's planning to find a job with another company, ideally part-time and remote. It'll be good to see her more and for her to have more time to help me with things around the house that I don't have time for. Her sleep cycle got really messed up due to the stress she was experiencing, and she still can't help but wake up at 3:30am many days, but she's had more free time as a result and has been using her time more fruitfully.

I too need to better learn to carve out time for the things that matter. I think the pandemic has made me better in this area, but I'm still very much a work in progress. You never know how life is going to go or what day is going to be your last. If there's one thing that this time has taught me, it's that life is a gift and should not be squandered. As our modern-day millennial philosophers so eloquently put it, YOLO.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

I think the opening line from "A Tale of Two Cities" perfectly sums up the year 2020. In multiple ways, this year has been one for the books. And while the pandemic rages on across the world, and now a more infectious variant of the virus is spreading rapidly, there is also hope in multiple viable vaccines which to date have been administered over 10 million times across 29 countries.

This year has separated us from loved ones, prevented people from doing things that bring them joy, and even caused tens of millions to lose their jobs and over 100,000 businesses to shut down. But during these past several months, we've also learned to slow down, refocus on the things that matter, and find new ways to connect with others. Despite the pain, or perhaps because of it, we've seen how creative and resilient people can be.

Due to increased restrictions in LA and Santa Clara County, Priscilla and I decided to not go down to LA for Christmas this year - a first. While we of course missed family, it was nice to do a virtual dinner for the first time with my parents and her parents, respectively. My dad initially thought the idea was weird, but I guess he warmed up to it. It's too bad we waited this long to do something like this - we should do this with our parents more often.

While this year has undoubtedly had its unique challenges, life has overall been fairly good for the two of us. I'm grateful for our stable jobs, our savings, our house, for our new home gym and spa room, our continuously improving backyard, and for family and friends who love us. There are many who are missing some or most of these things.

Time is a construct. There is perhaps no New Year's celebration more joyous than this one, but we celebrate now not because things will improve overnight, but because in spite of the difficult months ahead, there is hope of a better future. As Christians, our hope is in Christ who has conquered all things, but as human beings living through a pandemic, sometimes we need to be reminded to hope and that there is hope.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the new year. Nobody knows for certain whether the worst is behind us or is yet to come (though my bets are on the latter). But rather than worrying about what we can't control, let us spend our energies on what we can control.

This week, Priscilla and I visited the Willow Glen Holiday Lights for the first time. It was a spectacular sight. One reason why I enjoy lights is because they represent something in the midst of nothing, warmth and light in the midst of cold and darkness. So it is too in the metaphorical sense. It is during times of darkness when light is needed most - it's up to each of us to find that light in the world and to be light for ourselves and for each other.

So thank you 2020 for one heck of a year. For the pain, for the joy, for the love that you've taught us to not take for granted. I would not want to go through all this again, but I am grateful that I did.

Like this year as a whole, this Thanksgiving deviated far from the norm.

Coronavirus cases across many parts of the world are on an exponential rise, with the US topping the list at around 150-180k new cases on a daily basis now. 51 out of California's 58 counties are now back in the purple tier, and the state has a curfew from 10pm-5am, effective until December 21 but likely to be extended, during which non-essential work and gatherings are prohibited. And authorities have been asking the public to not get together with people outside their immediate household during Thanksgiving. The fear is that widespread travel will cause a surge in the infection rate.

Priscilla and I still wanted to see our families and deemed the risk acceptable since most of us have just been staying at home. We decided to see Priscilla's parents first since they're older and more at risk than mine. Since we always go down on Thanksgiving Day, this meant that we had Thanksgiving dinner with Priscilla's parents instead of the traditional dinner that my parents make. So instead of turkey, we had Peking duck! We got it and a couple other dishes from a nearby place called Tasty Duck (the food was ok).

On Friday, we found out that LA County was prohibiting gathering between people from separate households, effective the following Monday. No worries, we thought, since Monday was the day we were planning to return home. We stayed at Priscilla's parents' place for two nights and then the plan was to stay at my parents' place the next two nights. But on Saturday, we found out that effective 12:01am Monday, Santa Clara County is requiring that people traveling from 150+ miles away must quarantine for 14 days. This cutoff seems completely arbitrary and the 14-day quarantine seems too heavy-handed for Priscilla's and my situation, but we wanted to be above board for the sake of Priscilla's workplace since she needs to work from the office four days a week. So we decided that it would be best to leave Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately we had no time to see Aaron and his family, but it probably wouldn't have been a good idea anyway because one of his kids is sick with the cold.

We had enough time to eat three meals with my parents, and I was also able to fix my dad's old computer (turns out his motherboard and two sticks of RAM were bad). My mom of course made a ton of food for us to bring back with us.

In terms of driving, the drive down was surprisingly fast. We started heading down at 7:40am on Thursday, and except for a couple very minor slowdowns, traffic was relatively light the whole way - way better than in previous years. The drive back up on Sunday took 6 hours due to several slowdowns. Sunday is the busiest day after Thanksgiving to travel, so 6 hours is definitely better than it would've been in previous years. The drive up was very tiring, so we were just glad to get home.

This morning, my mom informed us that a patient with whom she interacted at her workplace has tested positive for the virus, making it the 4th infection identified there during the pandemic. My mom had gloves and a mask on when interacting with the patient, so she's probably fine, but she'll be testing in a few days. As it doesn't sound like Priscilla and I were directly exposed, Priscilla's workplace is fine with her going back to the office after getting a negative test (a general policy that was put in place for the holiday for any employees traveling out of the county), as long as my mom does not test positive. Fun times. This is the kind of thing that health experts were cautioning about, though the orders are probably aimed more at people who aren't exercising caution.

I don't think that life should stop because of the pandemic. Just about everything we individuals do carries some level of risk, yet we have learned to live our lives while unconsciously accepting calculated risk. With the pandemic, we should be able to see our family as long as people are acting responsibly and keeping others safe - and from everything I've seen, we definitely need a lot more of that. Lockdowns can only get us so far without personal responsibility.

It's amazing how quickly society can adapt to a new normal.

It was only 7 weeks ago that the 3 major US stock indexes were at an all-time high and most people didn't have a reason not to be confident in the economy.

Since then, due to the ongoing pandemic, the indexes lost 33% of their value in a 1-month period, though they've been climbing slowly (currently down "just" 22% from the all-time highs) due to the unprecedented $2 trillion stimulus bill passed by Congress.

It seems that nothing about this crisis is precedented. Statewide shelter-in-place orders, aimed at slowing the spread of the virus, have caused millions of jobs to disappear. 10 million people filed for unemployment in the span of 2 weeks. Many who can still work are forced to work from home (I'm in my fourth week of doing so). The amount of vehicular traffic I've seen around here is maybe 15% of what it used to be not all that long ago. Weekly gas demand has fallen to the lowest rate since 1993, and gas prices are at a 4-year low.

California was the first state to issue a statewide shelter-in-place order, and since then, 41 other states have followed suit. Under those orders, people are allowed to go out only for essential purposes including buying groceries, exercising, and commuting to essential places of work. Maintaining six feet of distance from others who don't live in the same household, a.k.a. social distancing, is required. When two people are nearing each other on the street, one of them moves well out of the way. It's become so second-nature.

Only businesses considered essential are allowed to be open. The stores that are open are limiting the number of people who can be inside at one time, causing lines to form outside during peak hours (which, at Costco, seems to be all hours of the day now). It's common to now see stickers on the ground, both outside the store and inside leading up to the register, guiding people in where to stand to maintain adequate distance. Stores have put up plexiglass barriers at the registers to separate cashiers from customers. And it seems like more people than not are wearing some sort of face mask, with Santa Clara County having recommended cloth masks to help limit transmission of the virus. All of this would've been a foreign concept a couple weeks ago, but now it's the norm.

Priscilla and I have been walking outside every day. Exercise, after all, boosts the immune system. In the quiet of night when there's almost nobody out, it feels like, in Priscilla's words, an introvert's dream. Grocery stores now have special hours and are closing earlier, so there's really no reason for people to be out at night unless they're crazy, which it appears that most people are not. On the flip side, it's hard for me to not be able to go to the gym. I can do pullups and dips at the park and bodyweight exercises at home, but it's not as practical. I'm getting tired of working from home, mostly due to the lack of office perks - I realize how entitled that sounds, but something can be said for being able to better focus on tasks when you don't have to worry about things like grocery shopping, cooking and washing dishes. Meanwhile, Priscilla wishes she were working from home more (she's only able to work from home twice a week, and she had to fight hard with management to be granted even that). But at the end of the day, we're very fortunate. We have stable jobs, shelter, food, savings, and good health. How many others can say the same? Plus, it seems like the curve is starting to flatten in the US, echoing what's already been seen in some other countries. There may very well be a second wave of infections down the road, especially if the virus mutates, but hopefully by then the world will be more strongly positioned to handle it. Ultimately, as Christians we must trust in God's sovereignty over all things. Yes, we must all do our best to protect health and save lives, but ultimately God is our shelter, and we must bring everything to Him in prayer.

Priscilla loves traveling, and perhaps cruising in particular due to the aspect of everything being taken care of. And because I'm married to her, I occasionally have to go along with her crazy schemes. So three weeks ago we took a 4-day cruise from Long Beach to Catalina Island and Ensenada aboard the Carnival Inspiration. At least we got it free thanks to credit card points; all-in-all, it would've been $600 something otherwise.

This was my third cruise overall (all of them with Carnival) and my second cruise to Ensenada, the first one being in 2009 when Priscilla's parents brought us there (but we didn't do Catalina that time). Priscilla was particularly keen to include Catalina this time because it's where I proposed oh so many years ago.

So on Monday, we flew down to Long Beach Airport and Ubered to the Long Beach Cruise Center where we boarded the ship. The next morning, the ship docked off the Catalina coast and we had to take a ferry to get to shore. We walked around Avalon, which was in a quiet, sleepy state, perhaps because it was a weekday. We hiked up the same trail that we tried hiking up last time (where I had proposed), except this time we made it to the top! Priscilla had brought proper footwear this time and was resolved (or more like resigned) to get to the top, not because she likes hiking, but because she knows how much I like it. We enjoyed the scenic ocean view on both sides of the island, and had a local there talk a lot to me, before we continued along on a route down the mountain.

The route down took us to the Wrigley Memorial and Botanic Garden through the rear entrance, where we were able to enter without paying a fee. I got that tip from another local who struck up a conversation with me when we were at Vons getting sparkling water (those locals really like to talk!). We were able to enjoy the memorial and garden before heading back to the ship. Altogether our trek was a little over 10 miles - not too shabby, especially for Priscilla.

Ensenada was the next day, and our time there started with a 1-hour horseback ride with Rancho los Bandidos, an excursion booked through Carnival. We joined around 18 others riding single-file on a trail in the mountains above the city. The views were great, but the pace of the horseback riding was pretty slow. I did get a lot of chafing from the times when the horse was running, due to me bouncing up and down as a result of not knowing proper technique. So I guess there's an upside to the pace being mostly slow.

Priscilla's feet were sore from the day before, so we only walked 4 miles around Ensenada before going back to the ship. We briefly passed through the area with touristy shops but were scared off by all these guys wanting us to check out our their respective souvenir shops. We didn't have a pre-planned route, so most of our walking was through nondescript parts of town. But along the way we managed to pass through the grounds of the Riviera de Ensenada, Plaza Cívica de la Patria (a park with busts of the heads of three historical figures), and Ventana al Mar (a park along the harbor near where the ship was docked). I wish we had done more walking, but next time we should probably have a plan, or at least some idea, of the places we want to visit.

The day afterwards, Thursday, was the day at sea. We went around the track in the morning (I mostly ran, Priscilla mostly walked), learned how to fold towel animals at a session, worked out at the fitness center for the third time during the cruise, and enjoyed the Motown musical Motor City in the evening.

I definitely ate a lot and often on the cruise (though my waistline would disagree). We always had breakfast and lunch at the Lido buffet, and we got burgers from Guy's Burger Joint a couple times. For dinner, we ate at the dining room except on the last night. We found that the quality at the dining room was hit or miss, and service was extremely slow. A lot of the same food was at the Lido buffet. And unlike with our previous two Carnival cruises, there was no longer a night when lobster was on the regular menu at the dining room. Lobster tail was on the menu as a $20 item, but of course we didn't want to spend extra money. Since there was no free lobster to look forward to (we were able to preview the next day's menu), we skipped the dining room and ate at the Lido buffet on the final night.

On Friday, we disembarked after breakfast and walked along the Long Beach waterfront to Yard House, where we had a couple unmemorable appetizers. We weren't too hungry and I was also starting to get sick (which happens often when I travel), so I didn't feel like ordering more.

Speaking of cruises and getting sick, there's been a lot of news/panic lately about the coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan, China, and everyone on the Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined in Yokohama as a result of passengers being infected. Fortunately, things haven't gotten too bad on this side of the planet (though reading about shoppers snatching up all the basic provisions at Costcos may make one wonder). Based on my symptoms, I only had the common cold. Unfortunately, Priscilla later caught it from me. Plus she had prolonged land sickness (MdDS) to deal with, lasting much longer than it has in the past for her. And she'd already booked the same cruise for her and her parents for later this year. Fun times!

The quality of the cruise could've been better. But it was still nice to get away for a few days, have food always taken care of, work out when I wanted to, and have some time to catch up on writing Yelp reviews (Priscilla had spent some credit card points to get the unlimited Internet package since she knew it would keep me sane). I guess I do get the appeal of cruising. I'd be hard-pressed to want to go on a 3-month cruise around the world, but a 4-day cruise to a couple places where we have some cool activities planned, ones that don't involve chafing on my rear end? Sure, sign me up.

Happy New Year (and New Decade)! This holiday season, because Christmas and New Year's fell in the middle of the week, Priscilla and I stayed in the Bay Area for Christmas (and had dinner with Uncle Kenway, Aunt Susan and their family) and went down to LA for the four days leading up to New Year's.

So the Saturday after Christmas, we departed at 7:30am en route to LA. I-5 had been closed at the Grapevine just two days earlier due to snow and icy roads. Fortunately, it was nice and sunny on Saturday, and unlike on Thanksgiving Day, we didn't need to detour to the 101. There was constant traffic but it wasn't too bad until we got to the Greater Los Angeles area, and the total transit time was 5.5 hours. Not the most optimal, but way better than Thanksgiving's 9.5 hours.

Saturday night, we had dinner with my parents and Aaron and Lauren's family at Mandarin Deli. We stayed at my parents' place that night, and Priscilla's parents' condo the following three nights.

Sunday was pretty packed - we went to CCAC in the morning (at the new Granada Hills location), ate with Gina and Cindy at Pieology afterwards, and ate dinner at Gen Korean BBQ with Raymond in Alhambra. Our original plan was to stay at my parents' place Sunday night, but since my other high school friends weren't available to hang out that day, Raymond was the only one who could make it. He had to drive from Orange County, so we decided to go Priscilla's parents' condo one day early and meet him in Alhambra.

Monday was a more restful day, and I took the time to run a few miles. Cindy (the other one) and Tracy visited us on Tuesday and we ate lunch at Bopomofo Cafe. We even caught a sighting of the cafe's cofounder, Philip Wang of Wong Fu Productions. He said hello to the people at the table next to ours - that's as close as we got, though Priscilla later went inside to ogle at him working at the counter.

And today, on New Year's, we stopped by my parents' place to pick up food before driving back up north. My mom had cooked us a lot of food - mung bean noodles with ground turkey and vegetables, chicken and vegetable soup, and turkey porridge - so that we wouldn't have to cook after getting home. This was on top of the soup, porridge and ribs that she had us take to Priscilla's parents' place on Sunday. I've realized that cooking for us is one way that my mom expresses love, and she usually always overdoes it and heaps food on us in her neurotic, loving way, but I'm really blessed to have a mom who loves me this much.

Our trip down to LA was a good time of seeing family and catching up with friends. We're really blessed to have so many people who continue to care about us after all these years.

Ever since moving to the Bay Area and joining RBF, Priscilla has always wanted to have an English choir at church. We have a Chinese choir, but nothing on the English side has materialized. Chalk it up perhaps to a lack of interest on the congregation's part, our pastors' seeming view that singing should be congregational, and the lack of somebody stepping up to lead.

Well that has changed over just the last three weeks. One of our more musically-inclined members, Stacy, used her influence to assemble a seasonal choir, with her leading/directing, to perform at this year's RBF Christmas party. And the pastors were ok with it. Nearly 30 people signed up, and Priscilla of course jumped on the opportunity, and she pretty much forced me to sign up with her. Anything for the wife...

There were three practices held, with the expectation that everybody would make at least two. The first was in late November, but we missed it because Priscilla was traveling in Orlando with Tracy at that time (and I didn't care to go to that practice by myself). The second was last Sunday after church, and the final practice was this afternoon after church. Our performance songs were "A Joyous Christmas" (a medley of "O Come, All Ye Faithful", "Angels We Have Heard On High", and "Joy to the World") and "Silent Night" in four-part harmony. We were also to lead the congregation in singing "Go Tell It on the Mountain", "The First Noel", and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing", with all of us singing just the melody. Vera, who was visiting for a couple weeks, got roped into playing piano for us after the original pianist got sick. That's what happens when you've got a heart for serving others and have mad skills.

Doing choir doesn't come easy for me. Reading music is not my forte, and I'm not really able to look at notes on sheet music and immediately turn that into musical notes (hence why for worship, I play drums). I'm only able to sing through a song after essentially memorizing the notes, using the relative positions of notes on the page as a guide. The first practice that we attended was rough for me, but I spent a lot of time afterwards working through the sheet music learning my part (I chose the tenor role). I even highlighted every one of my notes, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to pick them out in real-time with so much other stuff on the page. By the time the final practice rolled around this afternoon, I knew my part fairly well, and it seemed like everybody else was in the same boat. Stacy was great about giving us constant feedback about technique, style, and everything in between. She mentioned things like rounding out our vowels, singing more legato instead of staccato, and being mindful about crescendo and decrescendo to make our singing more dynamic. People incorporated her feedback well, and we all sounded undeniably better at the end of practice versus at the beginning.

Finally, this evening, we performed for the 150 or so people at the Christmas party. I think we sounded terrific, especially for having only three weeks of practice. The choir was split roughly 50-50 between guys and girls, and there were a few other guys in the tenor section. Where I messed up, they and the rest of the choir would carry the song, and it sounded... beautiful. I really enjoyed singing as part of a large group, hearing the sum of each individual's effort culminate in something collectively grand. I guess there was interest after all!

When Priscilla first signed me up, I thought the experience would be miserable for me (only slightly exaggerating). While it's still true that doing choir is not something I would pick for fun, I did enjoy the experience of seeing the fruition of the work put in, singing with others more musically gifted than myself who lifted me when I stumbled, and reaching a shared objective as a team. I daresay that I perhaps even had fun. No promises, but if we do another choir next year, I wouldn't be entirely opposed to signing up.

As usual, Priscilla and I visited LA for the Thanksgiving holiday. But unlike the previous few times when we went down, this time we drove instead of flying. Not having the Southwest Companion Pass this year was part of that decision.

We departed the Bay Area on Thanksgiving Day at 6:30am, hoping to beat most of the traffic. However, we found out halfway down I-5 that the highway was closed at the Grapevine mountain pass due to snow. We were previously made aware that this might happen, but I possibly didn't check traffic conditions the morning of and thought that any snow would've thawed by the time we got down there, and furthermore, Google Maps wasn't reporting the closure. When we saw highway signs indicating the closure, we started looking for detours. I thought that taking SR-58 through Bakersfield was the next best option. Google Maps was reporting that route as closed, but I couldn't find any information from Caltrans online for that route, so I decided that we should chance it and head that way anyway. That turned out to be a mistake, since we shortly after did see a road sign warning of SR-58's closure.

So we headed back to I-5 and hopped on SR-166 going west, hoping to take SR-33 south to get across the mountains. Alas, SR-33 was closed due to snow as well. So we ended up taking SR-166 all the way to the 101, and then the 101 down the rest of the way, encountering traffic jams along the way in Santa Barbara. Altogether, a 5-hour drive turned into 9.5 hours. Had we stayed on the 101 the whole time, the drive would've been closer to 6 hours. Next time if it's raining up in the Bay Area and is expected to be cold around the Grapevine, then we'll play it safe and stay on the 101.

Our time down in LA was eventful as well. We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house with them and Aaron and Lauren's family. Priscilla's parents didn't join us, since they didn't want us driving on the highway at night in the rain in order to go pick them up. So instead we saw them the next day, bringing them lots of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner that my mom packed for us, and stayed at their condo for two nights. The first night at the condo, the ceiling above the kitchen started dripping water. We thought it might be due to the rain, but when the rain stopped, the dripping continued and then got worse. Priscilla's parents got the upstairs neighbors to agree to let us shut off the water (shared by both units) before everybody went to bed, and that stopped the dripping. Fortunately, the condo plumber/handyman was able to come the next day and found the issue to be a leaking fitting on the wall-mounted electric water heater for the upstairs unit. Replacing the fitting fixed the leak, and it looks like there shouldn't be much long-term damage to our unit.

On Sunday, Priscilla and I attended the second service at CCAC. Coincidentally, this was the last service ever at the Northridge location, as CCAC is moving to a new location in Granada Hills. Looks like that site used to be occupied by St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, and the buildings there are a good size. After the service, the pastors for the three congregations prayed, and we all took a church photo in the sanctuary, which was difficult because people were spilling out into the foyer. This was definitely a bittersweet moment for CCAC, but I'm excited to see how they will continue growing.

The rest of our time down in LA was more normal. It was good spending time with family and friends. And the drive back up on Monday took around 6 hours, with some extra time added due to a traffic jam on the 152 caused by a vehicle being on the side of the road. It was pouring rain at that time, of course.

December weather is fun.

Priscilla and I took a vacation to Barcelona from February 23 to March 6. Why there? Mainly because she wanted to go somewhere international, and non-stop flights to Barcelona were pretty cheap ($350/person round trip on Google Flights with Iberia Airlines, contracted out to Level). So on Saturday, we boarded an 11-hour flight from SFO en route to BCN.

Day 1:
It was Sunday when we arrived. We took Aerobús to Plaça de Catalunya (the city centre), then walked to our Airbnb, a 6th floor apartment in a neighborhood close to La Rambla. Markets in the city are closed every Sunday, but restaurants are open. We ate dinner at a tapas place near our Airbnb, La Viena Blanca, which included patatas bravas (these are pretty common in Barcelona) and bombas picantes, the latter which we liked the most.

Day 2:
We first stopped by La Boqueria, the outdoor market, and bought zumo (fruit juice), an empanada, and a dish with potato and cheese. We bought groceries from Carrefour Market (we would end up visiting several times during our trip). We then joined five others at Foodie Experience Barcelona and learned how to make paella, sangria, and crema catalana from our welcoming host, Carmen. Each of us was given a different task, and mine was to make the sangria. We all got to cook our own crema catalana dish with a blowtorch. And then we got to eat everything! This was so fun and educational and was one of the highlights of our trip. We walked to Plaça de Catalunya for a free Gothic Quarter walking tour, but we were the only tourists there because it was not peak-season, so the guide canceled the tour. So we spent the rest of the day back at our Airbnb taking it easy.

Day 3:
We elected to start using our 3-day Barcelona Pass on this day and used it to visit 5 museums: Casa Batlló, Egyptian Museum of Barcelona, Casa de Les Punxes, Casa Milà, and the Museum of Modernism. So tiring! My favorites were Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, both designed by famed Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí. His works are so creative and inspired, yet also thoughtfully functional.

Day 4:
We used our pass to see the city via the hop-on, hop-off bus (Barcelona Bus Turístic). The first stop we got off at was Parc Güell, a park designed by Gaudí. We decided not to pay to see the buildings there, but walking around the park and admiring the viaducts was enjoyable and relaxing. Our next stop was Camp Nou (the home stadium of Futbol Club Barcelona), where we toured the stadium from the locker room inside to the press boxes up top. Very cool. Then we got off at Poble Espanyol, where we walked around the quaint village, saw a film about how people in different regions of Spain hold celebrations, and visited a modern art museum. The village was pretty quiet and a third of the shops were closed, not that we minded. Finally we walked over to the nearby Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), which was closed for the day but had a really photogenic exterior.

Day 5:
The morning began with a 2.5-hour walking tour of the Old Town (I learned quite a bit about architecture), followed by L'Aquàrium Barcelona (they had a cool oceanarium but everything else was meh), Las Golondrinas for a boat tour of the city shoreline, and Museu de Cera (wax museum). All these were included with our Barcelona Pass. We definitely got our money's worth from that pass (it cost €116 and we used €226 worth of benefits).

Day 6:
We had originally planned to do a day trip to Sitges (a coastal town) on this day, but instead decided to take a rest day. And Priscilla's idea of a rest day is to eat, so we got tapas from Quimet & Quimet, pinchos from La Tasqueta de Blai and Blai 9, and finally chocolate con churros from La Churre. Each place was good in its own way, but we liked the quality of the food at Quimet & Quimet the most. Their signature dishes were the most enjoyable: mussels and caviar, and salmon with yogurt and truffled honey.

Day 7:
This was our day trip to Girona, another highlight. From Plaça de Catalunya, we rode a bus for a little over an hour to Girona, a city that feels like a mini Barcelona. Our guide Guillermo gave us a tour of the old part of the city including the outside of the Girona Cathedral and old Roman fortifications. Priscilla and I had time to explore on our own while most of the group headed out to another town (Figueres) on the optional part of the tour. We had seafood paella at Via Augusta (was ok) and explored everything from the city's distinctive bridges to walking atop the Roman wall. There's much to enjoy in the old part of the city, but the sweeping views from atop towers along the walls were probably my favorite. We ended our day trip by strolling through Parc de la Devesa before reuniting with the tour bus.

Day 8:
The day started with a couples photoshoot in the Gothic Quarter, from which we got some nice, professional-looking photos. Many museums in Barcelona are free to visit on the first Sunday of the month, and since this day was that, we visited MUHBA and enjoyed seeing the underground remains of the ancient Roman city of Barcino. Next, we tried to visit the Picasso Museum but found that tickets were sold out (they need to be reserved online ahead of time). So we consigned ourselves to finding lunch and settled on Taperia Princesa, where we had some decent tapas.

Day 9:
This was our day trip to Montserrat, which was my favorite part of the entire trip. Priscilla had purchased ToT Montserrat passes from Expedia which paid for everything: subway and train fare to get there, a cable car ride up the mountain, unlimited use of the funiculars, lunch (unfortunately the buffet place was closed, so we were only able to get selected items at the cafeteria), and admission to the Museo de Monserrat. Admission to the monastery is free, and there we enjoyed the grand architecture and saw the famous Virgin of Montserrat (La Moreneta) statue. We did the hardest hike up to the Sant Jeroni lookout point (and were rewarded with amazing panoramic views) and took a funicular back down to the village. We revisited the monastery towards the end of the day, after the tour busses had left, and were pleased to find the place almost empty. I enjoyed Montserrat for the hiking and architecture, both of which there are plenty of. If I could, I would stay overnight in a hostel here so that I could explore the area over the course of two days.

Day 10:
Priscilla liked Quimet & Quimet so much that we went back again for brunch. We had the two signature dishes again plus a few other things, but the signature dishes were still our favorites. Afterwards, we walked over to La Sagrada Familia for a pre-paid tour from a company called Visit Europa Today. Our guide Isaac had a deep knowledge of the place, but more importantly, his passion for the history and culture of La Sagrada Familia was evident. The tour was very helpful, as there's so much history that you would otherwise miss. My favorite part of the church was the polychromatic stained glass windows, which bathe the inside in a flood of multiple colors. The church was designed by Gaudí, who drew his inspiration from nature. Maybe that's why his works speak to me on a personal level. After La Sagrada Familia, we made an impromptu visit to the Arc de Triomf and Parc de la Ciutadella (I enjoyed the beautiful fountains at the latter) before eating at La Viena Blanca again.

Day 11:
This was the last day of our trip and consisted pretty much of walking to Plaça de Catalunya, taking Aerobús back to the airport, and a 12-hour flight back home. The end of the flight was pretty turbulent and made me nauseous, and I arrived home still dizzy on top of being extremely tired. There's no place like home!

Barcelona was really enjoyable; the flights there and back less so (I don't enjoy being cooped up on a plane). We went when it wasn't peak season, fearing that the weather would be a little chilly. But it turned out to be fairly comfortable. The city is unfortunately known for pickpockets, so Priscilla and I tried to travel light with our valuables in inner pockets. We left the suitcases at home and managed to fit everything inside of two backpacks, my laptop bag, and a tote bag for food. We brought a few day's worth of clothes, and Priscilla washed our clothes at the halfway point during the trip. It's surprising how much space you can save when you really try to avoid packing non-essentials.

Maybe more so than on past trips, we tried to incorporate rest time so that we wouldn't feel overwhelmed. I think that helped me enjoy the trip more. Also, Priscilla tirelessly cooked food almost every day (hence the reason we went to Carrefour so frequently), so that helped us save money. Our total cost for this trip was $2605, cheaper than our trips to Hawaii and Ireland. And after travel credits from credit cards, it was $2127. Which seems very reasonable, all things considered.

Barcelona is a polyglot city with Spanish, Catalan and English seeming to be the predominant languages. The people that we interacted with there generally seemed to understand English, but once we got out of the city, it seemed like a smaller percentage of people spoke it. Priscilla and I had tried to re-learn some Spanish leading up to the trip, but I felt that my vocabulary during the trip was pretty lacking. It was enough to get by, but only barely. Every day I would pick up a little bit more Spanish, and sometimes Catalan since some signs were only in Catalan. Trying to learn a new language is hard enough, let alone two new languages at the same time! Google Translate was an invaluable tool.

Would I want to live in Barcelona? Not really. The city is pretty dense (1.6 million within city limits, making it the second most populous city in Spain) and felt busy. I can only imagine that it would be even busier during the peak tourism season. There is also a lot of graffiti around the city, including on historic buildings. Apparently graffiti there is associated more with free expression and political dissent than gang activity, but it was still off-putting to see, especially on buildings of historical importance.

But would I want to live somewhere else in Spain? Somewhere smaller and quieter? Maybe for a short period of time. The weather during our trip was nice and the food was generally a little cheaper compared to back home. But the most appealing thing would be being immersed in a culture and having to pick up the language. I probably wouldn't want to live there long-term, but staying for a couple months learning to get by might be fun. It aligns with my desire to learn to do life better. I've been spending more time learning Spanish since the trip, and Priscilla is planning for us to take a cruise to Mexico early next year. Hopefully by then my vocabulary will extend past just the menu at a restaurant!

Lots of changes this year, but for others in the family.

My mom had taken a job in Orange County and rented an apartment there to be closer to Aaron and Lauren in order to help with the baby. But just recently, Aaron and Lauren moved to the Valley in order for Lauren to be closer to her new job. Because of that and because long-distance marriages are hard, my mom moved back home to be with my dad. My parents had originally planned to sell their house and move to Orange County, and my dad was working hard to get the place fixed up, but now they intend to stay put. At least they have a house that looks nicer now!

On Priscilla's side, her parents sold their house so that they could move once and for all to the condo. They had 40 years worth of accumulated stuff that they had to pare down. This was hardest mostly for Priscilla's dad, who liked living in a house and having lots of things. But he finally acquiesced, likely due to much pressure from the family.

They initially explored the option of having some things (cracks in the walls, paint and carpet) fixed up before listing the house. The two realtors they consulted both thought that the place would sell for around $600,000 after $30,000 in repairs. But ultimately, her parents felt that it would be too much hassle to have the repairs done and get all their old stuff hauled away, so they opted for selling the place as-is (including junk left behind) to a cash buyer. The agent they decided to work with arranged to have one of his contacts buy the house, and Priscilla was able to get the price up to $520,000 after a few rounds of negotiation. After fees and the realtor's commission, Priscilla's parents walked away with $490,000. If I was in their shoes, I would've spent the money to fix the cosmetic issues so that the place could sell for a lot more, but it would've been a lot harder for them. It was worth it to them to get less money and avoid the many headaches. They should have enough to live a comfortable downsized life. They closed escrow on Christmas Eve, but they asked for the final moveout date to be three days later so that Priscilla and I could stay there one final time when we went down to LA for Christmas.

As for me and Priscilla, not much has changed this year. Lately I've been thinking about what I'm doing and what I want to do with my life, and I think I'm in a bit of an existential rut. I've been feeling like the writer of Ecclesiastes who wrote that everything is meaningless. But I think that rather than trying to find the meaning of life, we should be trying to find meaning in life. Like being grateful for what we have and the relationships we have. And of course as Christians, Christ should be the center of our lives and the root of our meaning. I guess I'm still trying to figure out what that looks like.

Since I bought a new used car, I decided to donate my 1990 Taurus to Habitat for Humanity. The company that handles donations on their behalf is known to return around 80% of the proceeds of vehicle sales to the respective charity, which is supposed to be a lot more than some other charities typically get, so this seemed like a good option.

The tow truck driver came this morning to pick up the Taurus and haul it away. It was a bittersweet experience, but in two halves. Yesterday I was feeling some sadness and regret, but today, watching the car being loaded on the truck and watching it being driven away, I felt mostly relief. Like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

My grandfather bought the car on May 12, 1990 at Vista Ford in Woodland Hills. The base price was $12,690 and the final cost after taxes and fees was $14,169.94, the latter which would be $27,416.72 today when adjusted for inflation. According to the receipt, $900 was paid by check and the rest by cash, though that probably was in the form of a debit card.

My grandparents had their house in Honolulu at that time, so he likely had the car shipped over there right after buying it. The car still has an old Hawaii registration sticker on the rear bumper. Not sure why he didn't just buy a car in Hawaii - perhaps it was cheaper to buy one in California and have it shipped over.

The car came with my grandparents when they moved to NorCal. And in the last few years of his life, I don't think my grandfather drove it much. Mainly just to the nearby grocery store and such. It had around 20,000 miles on it when he passed away in 2003. Then my uncle inherited it and it sat around for about a year until he gave it to my dad. Then it sat around on the dirt to the side of the driveway at my parents' place until Aaron started driving it. Finally, I started driving it in 2010. So this car has really been owned/operated at one point by every guy in the family.

When I started driving the car, it had around 30,000 miles on it. The final odometer reading was 63,427. That means I drove it about 3,700 miles a year, which is more than Aaron did but is still way less mileage than most people put on their cars. Guess we're all just a low mileage family. 63k miles is really low for a 28-year-old car.

The car had a couple major mechanical issues. There was a wheel bearing failure in 2011 which left me and Priscilla stranded 20 miles from home. And a gradual coolant leak spanning a year until one day in 2012, when the leak suddenly turned catastrophic and I had to drive the car, engine smoking, to my mechanic who was fortunately a mile away.

As mentioned in my last post, I've gotten more knowledgeable about vehicle maintenance in the last year and have tried to take better care of the car. But keeping it has not been worth the amount of effort involved in maintaining it. There's too much to fix, and gaskets that get replaced have started leaking again soon after. Yes, the car would probably be in better condition had it been driven more regularly and had I been more regular with maintenance intervals. And yes, the design makes it harder to work on. So in the end, I decided that my time was better spent elsewhere and that it was time to let go. I was hoping to get this car to age 30, but I suppose that 28 will have to do.

The Taurus was the first car I've really felt was mine. It was certainly the first car where my name was on the title. When I first moved to the Bay Area, my dad let me use the family Previa. But it was too big for my needs. I didn't really use it to haul things regularly or transport a lot of people. It was a lot of wasted space. The Taurus, while still bigger than some other cars, felt like the right amount of space. Not too big, not too small. The faux wood accent on the dash gave it some personality. The engine, though not overly powerful, felt responsive. I liked beating other cars when the light turned green. Beat by a 1990 Taurus. And not even an SHO model! I felt at home in this car. And it was more than just a car. It was heritage.

So Taurus, here's to you. Thank you for getting me and my family where we needed to go. I'm sorry that my grandfather put a small dent in you when he scraped the mailbox while backing up. And I'm sorry for adding another dent as I was turning around a parking structure column. I'm sorry that I didn't take better care of you for the longest time. But you've taught me a lot, and I promise to remember those lessons with the cars I own henceforth.

Well hello there. In case you haven't noticed, it's 2018. I'm now just writing my first blog entry for the year, which is by far the latest that I've started in any given year.

I might try to say the dearth of blog posts is because some of the experiences I used to blog about I now instead write about on Yelp, but that's not quite the entire picture, is it? Whereas in college I'd write about nearly every class, every encounter and what I'd be doing on holidays, nowadays my writing is limited to infrequent highlights of the year, at best. Granted, some of my earlier posts were just a few words long and resembled a Twitter feed before Twitter was even a thing, but what's changed? Could it be that I've simply grown tired of writing about my life? That the novelty of having an active blog has faded? Or could it be that I'm at the stage in life where people commonly settle into a routine where not much changes from day to day, or even year to year?

"Hey, long time no see! What's new?"

"Oh, well, I'm still at the same company I've been at for the last few years. We did some traveling last year and this year. Still playing drums for church. Not much else."

Is this why people feel like life just flies quickly by and is over before they know it?

I don't want that to be my life. There's more to life than work and even more than the sporadic vacation to an awesome place. What am I passionate about, really?

Well, let's get the yearly highlights out of the way, since they do matter. Last December, Priscilla and I contributed a good chunk of money to help her parents buy a condo close to their church, so now their drive to church is 7 minutes instead of 40. Since her parents are retired and her mom spends a lot of time helping church people, this was a logical step. Her mom spends a lot of time at the condo but her dad prefers staying at the house (I completely sympathize with him), but they're trying to get him to commit to moving to the condo so that they can live there full-time. It'll mean serious downsizing, which will be difficult to say the least.

In June, Priscilla and I visited Chicago. I was awed by the architecture and the human ingenuity behind it. Some highlights of the trip were an architectural river cruise, Navy Pier, Buckingham Fountain, Maggie Daley Park, the Field Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and visiting Skydeck at Willis Tower when there were no lines due to heavy fog.

Then last month, we went to Seattle and visited a couple airport lounges (Priscilla loves using her Priority Pass and American Express Platinum card to get into lounges), the Seattle Art Museum, Pike Place, the Museum of Pop Culture, and the Amazon Go store which is an amazing technical feat. We also spent a whole day with Nathan and Andrea and their very energetic toddler at their church, house and two restaurants. We stayed with them longer than planned, but it was the most rewarding part of our trip.

Five months from now, we'll be visiting Barcelona. We're spending a few minutes a day learning Spanish, hoping to better immerse ourselves in the culture when we visit, and hoping to better remember and utilize the Spanish that we learned in high school. I took three years of Spanish in high school and quickly forgot almost all of it. Sad.

This year, I've taught myself more about cars. It was just a year ago that I knew almost nothing about car maintenance, and cared almost as little about having it done. Once it sunk in that this was not a good long-term approach, I started researching more about what maintenance items needed to be done on our old cars. My cheapness, as well as my mechanic's reluctance to fix everything on my nearly 30-year-old car, made me decide to learn to fix some things myself. YouTube, after all, is a great teacher. On the Taurus, I solved an idling issue by cleaning the IAC, diagnosed and replaced a faulty multi-function switch, replaced the fuel filter, and replaced the valve cover gaskets. The car is not designed to be easy to work on, especially since it has a bulky V6 engine. On the other hand, the Corolla is designed nicely, down to the little things like all the bolt heads being 10mm. I haven't had to do as much work on the Corolla (it's a very reliable car), but I did replace the spiral cable behind the steering wheel (the dealer wanted $700 to replace it; I did it myself using a $12 part from eBay), diagnose and replace a faulty compressor clutch relay, and replace the spark plugs. I never imagined I'd learn so much about vehicle maintenance, but YouTube and Haynes/Chilton repair manuals have gotten me far.

So back to the issue of passion. Where is mine? As much as some people claim to be passionate about their jobs, I can't honestly say that I'm passionate about mine. I have a great job with awesome teammates, and I generally enjoy the work that I do. But at the end of the day, it's just a job that's a means to an end, and not something that I live and breathe. A tow truck driver (whose services I enlisted - see above about not taking good car of my car) once told me, "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life." That guy claimed to love his job that much. I don't think that will be me. Work is not what fulfills me.

I guess what I enjoy is learning skills and then putting them into practice. I think that's what kept me interested in working on cars - learning a skill to solve a tangible problem. Given enough time, there are a few things I want to do. I'd like to get better at running, trail running in particular, and be able to easily run an ultramarathon. Running the 30-mile Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail is on my bucket list. I'd like to learn to sail and get an ASA certification; being able to charter a boat from SF to Angel Island or even be 100 miles from shore for a week sounds great. And I'd like to learn to fly a plane and get a private pilot license. But these are goals, not passions.

Honestly, I don't think I've found a real passion yet. Maybe I'm still trying to get in touch with myself, to figure out who the real me is while working on the things I think need adjustment. But one thing's for certain - I want to make sure that (what are hopefully) the middle years of my life are meaningful, a time of growth, and not just gone in the blink of an eye.

In keeping up with my madness, and for her own health, Priscilla has been setting a fitness goal for the last couple years. Last year it was to do 10,000 steps every day. This year it was to do 40 hikes.

I initially thought that 40 hikes would be difficult to do, but we powered through and were always ahead of schedule. Our last hike was last Friday at Big Basin, and I enjoyed it especially because of the waterfalls, which none of the other places we went to had (unless you count Barton Creek Greenbelt which had small ones).

The places we hiked were:

1. The Dish
2. The Dish
3. Picchetti Ranch
4. The Dish
5. Monte Bello
6. The Dish
7. Los Gatos Creek Trail
8. Monte Bello
9. Los Trancos
10. Castle Rock
11. Fremont Older
12. Los Gatos Creek Trail
13. Mission Peak
14. The Dish
15. Calero County Park
16. Villa Montalvo
17. Muir Woods
18. Wahkeena to Multnomah Falls
19. Stevens Creek County Park
20. Rancho San Antonio
21. Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
22. Mt Madonna
23. Purisima Creek
24. Coyote Lake
25. Vasona Lake
26. Joseph D Grant
27. Monte Bello
28. Purisima Creek
29. Redwood Christian Park
30. Glen Canyon Park and Twin Peaks
31. Coyote Lake
32. Coyote Lake
33. Saratoga Gap and Upper Stevens Creek
34. Upper Stevens Creek and Long Ridge
35. Barton Creek Greenbelt (Texas)
36. St. Joseph's Hill
37. Griffith Park
38. Castle Rock
39. Topanga State Park
40. Big Basin

Most of the hikes were naturally in the Bay Area. We went to The Dish five times, the most of any place. I don't enjoy that hike as much as other places, but we went there during rainy days (which there were a lot of this year) because it's paved. 7 of the hikes were to fulfill the Pix in Parks Challenge put on by the Santa Clara Department of Parks and Recreation, where the reward was a free shirt. A couple of the hikes were done by Priscilla with other people (not me), but I made up for it because I went to a few places on my own.

Usually on our hikes, we would start together but I would soon go off running on my own, since she likes to go at a relaxed pace while I like to do trail running. I would sometimes run ahead and then run back to tell her which path to take at the next fork. Or if it was a place we were more familiar with, I'd go run a longer route on my own and then try to meet up with her at the end. This allowed us to both get what we felt was a good workout for ourselves, and we only ever lost each other once (at Castle Rock, lesson learned there).

Her goal for 2018 is 10,000 steps again, but I'm sure that we'll still find fun places to go!

Today was Jonathan's last day playing on the worship team with us, and it was a bittersweet time for me and Priscilla. It was great playing "Jesus Shall Reign" and "O The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus" with him today. He has his own unique style (and level of talent) that nobody else at church can replicate. It may very well be that we'll never do those songs at church again.

Jonathan joined the team in either 2009 or 2010. Before that, it was just me and Scott. Over the years, Jonathan and I have played together under every worship leader we've had: Scott, Uncle Raymond, Tim, the other Tim, Joe, Daniel and Brian, though he's had to play less frequently as a couple other pianists joined over the years. I've really admired him for his talent, his humbleness, and his words of godly wisdom over email and on our short-lived RBF worship blog.

I'm a little sad that I never got the chance to know him outside of worship at RBF, but perhaps there's still time for us to get together before he leaves. He is leaving at the end of next month to accept a professorship at my alma mater. We wish him well, and he will be sorely missed.

For about as long as I've known the concept of money, I've always been a saver. I would probably credit my father for instilling in me the value of money, and my paternal grandfather for instilling in me the value of saving that money.

In Christmas of the year I was born, my grandfather sent me a $200 EE savings bond. Holding this bond in my hands right now, it feels like a piece of history. It's printed on cardstock - slightly thicker and heavier than more modern ones. The bond features a picture of John F Kennedy and has several rectangular holes punched through it, for running through what was surely a state-of-the-art computer back then.

The bond is addressed to me with my dad listed as the co-owner, in case future me would stick a fork into an electrical outlet and fry himself. Our names and address appear to have been typed with a typewriter. "Moanalua Branch First Hawaiian Bank" and the date are hand-stamped onto the right side of the bond.

I can picture my grandfather over 30 years ago, when he and my grandmother were living in Honolulu, walking into this bank, filling out a form and paying for this bond with $100 (half the face value) from his checking account, and mailing it to his son 2,500 miles away across the Pacific. Maybe the bond was mailed with a Christmas card, and as he wrote that card, I wonder if he wondered himself what kind of person his grandson (barring any mishaps with electrical outlets) would grow up to be. Did he have aspirations for my career and family? Did he want me to go to good schools, to become an engineer like himself, to marry a good Chinese girl? If so, he would probably be pleased on all accounts with how things turned out. Unfortunately, as he wasn't a Christian himself, he wouldn't have had in mind what is truly most important - learning to live a life glorifying to God.

But my grandfather did teach me the value of saving and of planning for the future. By the next year, he was sending two $500 bonds every year, for my birthday and for Christmas. He started doing the same for my brother after my brother was born. My grandfather kept this up for over a decade before his health started declining rapidly.

He may have intended for the bonds to be used to pay for higher education; college never gets cheaper, after all. But EE bonds reach full maturity in 30 years, several years after a person typically graduates from college. Was he hoping that I would pursue more education after undergrad, or was the money for my older and (hopefully) wiser self to decide what to do with, including redeeming before the maturity date if I thought it prudent? I don't think it was ever made clear to me, and in fact, my dad held onto the bonds for me until I asked for them after I graduated college (he probably just stashed them away and then it was out of sight, out of mind). My parents graciously put me through college, so I didn't have to spend any of that bond money. Now that I'm working, the amount of money I get from maturing bonds, though not insignificant, is not a life-changing amount. But for me to even be in this position of relative security is something I owe to my parents and grandparents. Many others are not as fortunate.

In terms of the value of money, my dad said to me when I was young that "$1 is a lot for a kid." I don't remember the context, but it probably had to do with him giving me some money for discretionary spending at school (e.g. a book fair or something). I guess that idea stuck with me, as I've been pretty frugal my whole life. In grade school, I would enjoy buying the occasional item from the book fair, and in middle school, I went through a phase where I thought it was ok to pay $50 for a deck of Pokemon cards, but by and large, I didn't buy a lot of things.

I was never given an allowance. In grade school, when I wanted a new bike, I had to earn it by doing chores; each completed chore was worth a dollar or two. That was a lot of chores for a bike that cost over $100. My parents trusted me to keep a tally of completed chores and to let them know when I had reached the goal. It was never about them not wanting to spend the money; rather, it was about instilling a work ethic in their children. I think that paid off.

Nowadays I still consider myself to be frugal, but I've learned to spend money on things that really matter - on activities with people, and on quality things that will make my life better. It's still hard for me to be ok with spending $50 on dinner with friends, but if it's a special occasion with people I care about, then I'll do it. Or for me to let Priscilla spend a few thousand dollars on an international trip for us, but I do appreciate the value of experiences.

Someday if we have kids of our own, I hope to be able to provide for their growth and happiness, while instilling in them a strong work ethic. And while I'll teach them the importance of saving, I hope I can also demonstrate the importance of spending money and time intentionally on the things that matter most.

Our dog Lady died last Thursday, Feb 2. My mom called me the day after to let me know that Lady hadn't been eating for a week or drinking water for three days, and that she passed away peacefully in her sleep. She was 16.5 years old.

Lady was born on July 7, 2000. We found her through PennySaver from a woman whose dog had had a lot of puppies. My mom and brother went to see the puppy, a German Shepherd and Chow mix, and my brother liked her a lot. The woman gave us Lady for free; apparently the $10 "price" was just to dissuade people who collect dogs for animal research.

I still remember when we brought Lady home. We brought her home in one of those yellow recycling crates, which she fit easily inside. She was very timid and scared, but warmed up to us in short time. My parents named her after the dog in the movie "Lady and the Tramp". She especially liked my mom and would always wait by the gate for my mom to come home from work, and would willingly let my mom give her a bath, even though it was pretty clear that she didn't enjoy being wet.

Like the two dogs we had before Lady, we kept her outside. Is this primarily an Asian thing? I'm not sure, but we probably did it for the same reason we don't wear shoes in the house. We had a doghouse and a dog feeder for Lady like we did for our other dogs.

For most of her life, she would love to chase the tennis balls and spikey balls that we threw, and would never seem to tire of it. One would merely have to say "get the ball!" or even simply just "ball!" in order for her to run and bring one over eagerly. Seeing us get the leash was a visual cue for her, which let her know that we were about to take her on a walk/jog. For most of her life, she was able to keep up on my dad's jogs around the neighborhood, and there was only one place out there she would poo without fail - on an undeveloped tract of land at the base of a hill.

Lady had a good sense of direction. One time when my uncle was over visiting and took her for a walk, he got lost and said to Lady, "go home!". Lady took him back to our home. Later, my mom wanted to test Lady's sense of direction and took her to the bottom of the hill, made a pointing gesture away from our house, and said "go home!". Lady turned around and ran home.

She was also a bit mischievous. We built a makeshift fence in the backyard with chicken wire, separating the patio from the grassy area and the slope beyond it. I don't recall the reason why we did this, but it probably had to do with not letting her poo just anywhere in the backyard. But Lady could easily hop the fence, and we often caught her after the fact, because we would call her and she would come bounding back over the fence and act like nothing ever happened. She knew that she wasn't supposed to go on the other side, since she wouldn't go through the makeshift gate when we were outside and had it open. But that didn't stop her from enjoying her freedom when she was alone.

She also liked to chase the occasional small critter that wandered through our yard. At one point, my family got a bunny from somebody through PennySaver. We put the bunny on the grass on the outside of the makeshift fence, which was probably a bad idea, because Lady would chase the bunny across the yard with only the fence in between them. No doubt she also hopped the fence when we weren't around, which must've been traumatizing for the bunny. The bunny disappeared a few days later; we think she ran away. I still feel bad about that.

In the last couple years, Lady's health began to noticeably wane. Her hearing got worse, and she would no longer bark at people passing by on the sidewalk. Her energy diminished, and she wasn't so energetic about playing fetch. I saw her last when I visited over the Christmas break last year, and she just looked so tired. She would lick my hand and follow me in the backyard, but not do much else, and she wouldn't pick up the ball when I asked. I had a feeling that that might be the last time I would see her.

So her death wasn't really a surprise for us. It's obviously sad, but we're also relieved that she's finally at peace, and if there is an afterlife for dogs/pets, hopefully she's enjoying it with the renewed energy of her youth.

The two dogs we had before Lady were Lucky and Amy. Lucky, an Australian Shepherd, was my mom's first dog. He, like Lady, lived to 16.5 years. Amy was a German Shepherd and Collie mix, and we got her after Lucky, but she only lived to age 11, dying before Lucky did.

While Lucky was leaner and nimbler, Amy was bigger and less athletic. My brother and I would love laying a plank of wood across the retaining walls in the backyard, creating a hurdle for Lucky to jump over as he ran after a tennis ball. He was able to do it with no problem. Not Amy.

Amy was the caring one of the two. When I was small, I went (fell?) down the slope in the backyard, and my grandmother, who was babysitting, went down to get me. She wasn't very athletic, so she failed to climb back up, and called for help. Lucky ignored her, but Amy (the unathletic one!) came to the rescue, letting my grandmother hold onto her back as she helped her climb back up. My mom recounts that one time at the park, Amy refused to start leaving with her, tugging stubbornly on the leash and looking back at me and my brother, until my brother and I also started leaving.

Amy was always my favorite dog, and I was the one who spent the most time with her. She made a weird howling sound that I've never heard any other dog make, and I could get her to howl by making the noise myself. We could go back and forth several times just howling for the sake of it. She died when I was in middle school, and her death came as a shock since I didn't feel like she had really been sick. I never fully understood how she died; my understanding is that she had a stomach illness, and the night of her death, in a lot of pain, she dragged herself to the sliding glass door to my parents' room and died there. Her death hit me hard, possibly the hardest amongst my whole family, and in some senses I'm still not completely over it.

Lucky, according to my mom, was the smartest dog in the world. He was the one who figured out how to eat from the dog feeder, and he taught Amy to do the same. One night, my dad tried to go running with Lucky not on a leash, but Lucky ended up running away. Lucky was a fast runner, so he got away easily. We spent a few hours driving around trying to find him, with no luck. Amy cried the whole night. The next day, we woke up to find Lucky waiting outside the front gate of our house. He had found his way back on his own. Apparently, all he wanted to do was go for a long run. Or find a mate somewhere. Who knows.

Speaking of being strong-willed, Lucky never enjoyed being given a bath, and unlike Lady, he actually growled when my mom tried to give him one. Nonetheless, he liked my mom the best, and one day when my mom was showing affection to my dad in front of Lucky, Lucky got jealous and voiced his disapproval by growling and barking. My mom also recounted a funny story when she one day brought Lucky into the master bedroom, and when Lucky saw himself in the mirror, he started barking, thinking it was another dog.

Lucky's death was probably the most gradual of all our dogs'. Towards the end of his life, his vitality and eyesight waned, and the last week or two, he could barely move. I remember him just lying in the planter box on his side, in pain from arthritis, with my parents unable to do much for him. His passing was a huge relief, though obviously sad.

Nothing in life is permanent, and that includes our canine companions. For me, it's hard to know that a dog that becomes such a huge part of our lives will probably not live much longer than 15 years. Why intentionally create that strong emotional connection when you know it will be severed in just a matter of several years? But I think there's a lot of truth to the saying (cliche) that "it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." As I write this, I'm still thinking about how much I miss Amy, and fighting back tears. But if I had the power, would I erase Amy's existence from my life to remove the pain I feel at her loss? Absolutely not. The pain of loss, though great, is easily overshadowed by the joy she brought in life. And that means the world.

My parents love dogs and are now looking for another one. Priscilla has never had a dog, and has wanted one ever since we got married. I liked Lady, but I don't think I was ever fully taken with her since I've never fully gotten over Amy. And maybe that's ok. I think I'm open to letting Priscilla get a dog for us, and maybe I'll never be fully taken with whatever dog we get, and there will probably be some feelings of pain since I know what will inevitably happen, but that's ok. Dogs bring joy, and joy is one of the best things that we can have in this life. And it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Another year has unceremoniously come and gone, and while 2016 was a prodigious year for us in terms of activity, the same cannot be said of my blogging habits.

So for the benefit of posterity (or, more likely, my future self), here are the highlights from 2016.

At the end of April, Priscilla and I went up to SF to celebrate our anniversary. We got free entry to the California Academy of Sciences, de Young and the Exploratorium, courtesy of our friends' Chase Private Client card. We stayed a night at the Grand Hyatt for free, courtesy of Priscilla's credit card rewards. And we rode Uber and Lyft for free due to a signup promotion. Not a bad deal for an anniversary weekend!

At the beginning of June, we went to Carmel to celebrate our birthdays. We hiked Point Lobos and stayed a night at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands, again for free. We spent some time exploring Fisherman's Wharf the next day before returning home.

In mid-June, Sarah got married, so we drove down to LA and got to spend some time with family. Sarah got married at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, which has a really beautiful building and campus. I got carpal tunnel that weekend, presumably triggered by the driving, but that cleared up after a couple weeks of wearing a brace and trying to not type much. The joys of getting old.

Our all-church retreat was at Redwood Christian Park in August. It was about the same as the last time we were there, except Priscilla and I were in a family cabin this time instead of in a suite. We hiked to the cross in the nearby hills, and even got to do rock climbing this time around. The rock climbing was difficult and I didn't see anybody make it to the top of the "medium" difficulty route. Our retreat speaker was Pastor Alton from Berean Mission Church, and his messages encouraged us to live as a steward, a disciple-maker, a child of God, and a pursuer of Christ.

After the retreat, when trying to look for productive things to fill my time with, I came across a fitness mobile game called "Zombies, Run!". Definitely more productive than sinking all my time into an MMORPG. I played it for a month and ultimately quit due to the game always restarting when being run in the background, but during that time I bought some gear for running including bluetooth headphones for listening to music. In October, I bought a heart rate monitor to use with Strava, as well as a yearly subscription of Strava Premium. I really like Strava's Beacon feature, which allows me to share my real-time location data with Priscilla, and the Heatmap, which shows my running and cycling activity as a colored heatmap. I've also been more motivated to rack up running badges on Strava, which are admittedly easier to get than cycling badges. Apparently, badges and points, even if they are virtual, are the key to my heart.

So in trying to maximize my Strava achievements, I've been trying to do more runs and hikes. In 2016, I went on a total of 29 hikes; Priscilla a couple times fewer. My favorite hike this year was Mount Diablo in September. The panoramic views from the top were amazing. I went with Priscilla and Tracy and we did a 15-mile hike, and they were pretty tired most of the way up, but we slogged through it and I later designed die-cast medals for them for making it to the top.

We drove down to LA for both the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Both were a good time of getting together with family and friends. We hiked with Victor and Sally during the Thanksgiving break, and ate with my Van Nuys friends and hung out with Raymond during the Christmas break.

During the Thanksgiving weekend, I bought new phones for myself and Priscilla. I got us both the ZTE Axon 7 Mini which, despite the name, is quite a large phone. This phone is better than our old ones in nearly every way, and we've enjoyed no longer having to deal with the frustrations of having a cheap smartphone.

During the rest of the holiday leading up to and following New Year's, I took the time to get housework done and look for contractors to help overhaul our front yard. I'd like to rip out the neglected plants we have and put in drip irrigation so that I can plant something that will be low-maintenance. With any luck, and a bit of money, we will have a nice looking front yard yet.

I have no doubt that the new year will be exciting and productive in its own capacity, but I'm hoping that it will be equally as restful. There is a saying that in the beginning of your life when you are young, you have energy and time, but no money. Then in the middle of your life, you have money and energy, but no time. Finally, towards the end of your life when you are old, you have time and money, but no energy. Well I'm clearly in the middle of my (anticipated) life, as I wish there were more hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. I guess what I need is more downtime!

Since I've been on an unintentional blogging hiatus (another way of saying "neglecting my blogging duties") since August of last year, here's what's happened since then:

On the CI team at Pure, we had two college interns join us from June till September: Celia and Candice. I was their mentor, and the three of us worked on a project called the Artifact Cache, a system for caching build artifacts. The interns did well for their role, but we ended up extending an offer to just one of them, who initially accepted but later declined due to having moved up to San Francisco. Overall, it was a pleasure working with them, and our team learned a lot process-wise and what expectations to set on both sides of the fence.

In the middle of September, Priscilla, Christine and I flew up to Seattle to visit Nathan and Andrea, who had moved up a few months prior for Andrea's new job at Microsoft. On Saturday, we explored Pike Place, Chihuly Gardens and Glass and the Sky City restaurant at the Space Needle. On Sunday, we went to their church and did some hiking at Snoqualmie Falls, which has a beautiful waterfall. We flew back on Monday, but not before getting a tour of Microsoft.

On October 7, Pure IPO'd! Most Mountain View employees gathered early in the morning to watch the livestream of the opening bell at NYSE. The day was filled with much partying and food and little work, but the next day was back to work and business as usual. Since then, not much has changed, except for the fact that our options can be exercised for real shares of stock now (still in the 180-day lockup period until April).

Shortly after the IPO, our newest team member Maciej joined CI, and I served as his mentor. I've learned a lot about Docker and related technologies from him, and it's been a good pairing. So far we've used Docker to deploy a cron runner service and an HA-environment for our CI web applications.

Last December, Aaron and Lauren tied the knot at their church in Laguna Hills! I was the best man (returning the favor), and I didn't say anything too embarrassing during my speech, so presumably it went well. Priscilla and I drove down for the weekend and then drove back to the Bay Area on Monday. So for once, we were in the Bay Area for Christmas and New Year's and were able to spend those holidays with Uncle Kenway, Aunt Susan and her family.

It's been a busy few months, and with many things going on in 2016, it's sure to be a busy next few months as well!

Since MetroPCS got acquired by T-Mobile, a couple months ago our area was being transitioned off the CDMA network and onto T-Mobile's GSM network.

Metro did something nice, offering trade-in upgrades for old phones, and in June I was able to get a new LG Leon, a case and a 16GB microSD card for free after trade-in. The Leon is a quad core phone with 8GB of internal memory, and seems superior to my old LG Spirit in every way except one: the camera is fixed focus and doesn't take clear pictures up close. But overall I'm pretty happy with the new phone as well as the blazing-fast LTE speeds.

At some point in the past, Metro upped the amount of data in my plan from 1GB to 2GB without changing the price. Priscilla's also had smartphone envy for a while now, so two weeks ago we drove to the Metro store and got her a Samsung Core Prime. We also switched to the 1GB plan, so each of us would be paying $30, but Metro was also doing a promotion where multiple lines under the same plan would pay just $25. So while before I was paying $40 for just myself, we're now paying $50 for the both of us. Not too shabby!

Now I just have to watch my data usage, as I tend to go over 1GB at the end of the month (Yelp and Chrome are such data hogs). Metro does unlimited data, so after you pass the cap, you still have data but it's throttled a LOT, such that you should basically not bother trying to watch Youtube or view pictures on Yelp.

Because we haven't traveled enough this year, Priscilla and I visited Portland from last Friday until the following Monday. Actually she had scheduled this trip before deciding to schedule Hawaii, but that was besides the point.

So Friday morning, we landed at PDX. We liked how the airport was well-laid out and had lots of restaurants and shops - in some places it looked more like a mall than an airport. We made our way to the Alamo counter only to find a sign saying to go outside and wait for a shuttle. A shuttle came shortly and brought us to the Alamo lot a mile away, where the agent said we could choose any of the economy cars. There were actually only two left in the lot, and we picked a blue Kia Rio.

Our first stop was Forest Park, where we hiked 5 miles. I was really impressed by how much greenery there was everywhere. We had a late lunch at The Waffle Window, which we thought was just ok (the waffles weren't crispy). We went to Costco and got a cup of chilli and four salads, two of which we ate that night in our hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express.

Saturday morning at 11am, we met up with our tour guide Erik from the Secrets of Portlandia free walking tour. We met in front of the Pioneer Courthouse, and our first stop was the Pioneer Courthouse Square just across the street. The square is nicknamed "Portland's Living Room" and is the site of 300 events a year. We walked past the Teachers Fountain, where our guide explained that it's legal to swim in many of Portland's fountains, and they're purposely designed to be swimmable. We walked through the South Park Blocks and learned about the Abraham Lincoln statue there. We walked past The Heathman Hotel (which is supposedly haunted), the Portlandia statue (whose image rights are owned by its sculptor, so its image can't be used commercially), the Elk Fountain, and Mills End Park (aka Leprechaun Park), which holds the Guinness record for the world's smallest park. The park is a mere 452 square inches but continues to be the site for St. Patrick's Day festivities. People even get married here.

Food carts, the Keep Portland Weird sign and Voodoo Doughnut were our final stops during the tour. The tour was quite informative and we learned a lot about Portland's history and culture.

Afterward, Priscilla and I got food from different food carts - I went to a place called The Cultured Caveman, while she got a pita taco from a Mediterranean place. We walked to Powell's City of Books, a huge book store occupying an entire city block. We stopped by a coffee shop called Public Domain to get some coffee before hitting up the International Rose Test Garden, a public 4.5 acre garden which has 10,000 rose plantings representing 600 varieties. Minus all the people, what a beautiful and serene place! We had some really good Mediterranean food at Nicholas Restaurant, and ended the night watching the Starlight Parade on TV back at the hotel. Apparently lots of people set up chairs along the parade route in downtown, because when we were walking through during the day, we saw lots of chairs already set up where people had staked their claim!

On Sunday, we hiked around and saw the Wahkeena Falls and Multnomah Falls, just two of the many locations along the Columbia River Gorge. We parked right off the road by the start of the trail up to the Wahkeena Falls, and it was a short 0.2 mile walk up to see the falls. The water flows down in a series of steps, and you can get pretty close and get misty.

We then walked over to the lodge in front of Multnomah Falls; walking turned out to be a good idea because it was extremely crowded there with lots of people waiting for parking spots. It was very touristy with a restaurant, snack shop and gift shop. It's a short walk up to a bridge at the base of the falls, but you can continue the rest of the 1.2 miles to get to the top of the falls. The view isn't great from the top since there are some trees obscuring, but at a little over halfway up, you get a nice view of the Columbia River. Plus, the all uphill hike makes for good exercise! I really enjoyed both of these, but I think my vote is in favor (only slightly) of Multnomah Falls. It's a lot taller than Wahkeena, and the pattern the water makes is very distinctive. From in front of the bridge, you can see the main waterfall behind the bridge, as well as a smaller one in front. This was my favorite outdoorsy activity during the trip!

We had a restful remainder of the day and watched a lot of Shark Tank back at the hotel. We even worked out at the hotel's gym, which had only an extremely basic set of equipment.

It was raining on and off on Monday, but we managed to avoid most of it during the times that we were outside. We had lunch at a place called Shut Up and Eat, picked up donuts from Voodoo Doughnut Too (their second location, which had no line) to bring back home, and walked around a Catholic sanctuary called The Grotto. The gardens there are beautiful, and they have an upper level atop a cliff that costs $5 per adult to take an elevator up to. We enjoyed walking around up there and enjoying the view from the meditation chapel. Finally in the evening, we returned our rental car and boarded a plane back to San Jose.

Portland was a lot of fun, though on Sunday my skin started breaking out again like it did in Hawaii, only this time a week earlier into the trip. Perhaps I haven't had enough downtime from traveling, though us having walked around in the sun for a couple hours the previous day, and it being too warm at night, might've also had something to do with it. But I think at this point, I really just need rest. Aside from there being lots of fires at work to put out, June should be a restful month, and I hope to have some time to finish up some Yelp reviews and home repairs that I've been putting off.

Priscilla, her parents and I went to Hawaii from February 20 to March 2. I'm only writing about it now. I guess you can say that I've been busy, and that when I try to multitask, it's easy for me to let things fall by the wayside. Here's one step towards turning that around.

Friday, 2/20
Because her parents had never been to Hawaii, we (Priscilla) wanted to take them before they get too old to travel. So on Friday at 8am, we headed off to San Jose Airport for our flight to Honolulu. Our plan was to visit Oahu for six days, reliving some of the things that Priscilla and I did the first time we visited for our honeymoon, and then something new afterwards - Kaua'i for five days.

Upon landing in Honolulu, we got picked up by Star Taxi and taken to the Aqua Bamboo Waikiki, where Priscilla had arranged our stay at a rental unit owned by a guy named Norman and his wife. We had an early dinner at Marukame Udon (of course), watched a music show at the Royal Hawaiian Center, walked around Waikiki and bought food from Food Pantry. So far, all familiar activities.

Saturday, 2/21
The next morning, we got a rental car from Budget and hit up Manoa Falls, a short hike out in the jungle where parts of LOST happened to be filmed. It was really cool hiking through the jungle, and the first half of the hike was mostly flat, but there was a small ascent in the second half over terrain that was narrow, rocky and sometimes muddy. Priscilla's parents had a more difficult time with this portion, but they forged ahead and made it to the end eventually. People on Yelp had called this an "easy" hike, and for me and Priscilla it was on the easy side, but had we known exactly what to expect, we probably wouldn't have brought the parents here.

The falls at the end were a bit underwhelming - just a small trickle down the face of a small cliff; I guess it just wasn't rainy season. But it was definitely a memorable hike!

After Manoa, we did something more manageable - visiting the Dole Plantation for Dole Whip and the pineapple cutting demonstration. No pineapple maze this time, as they've raised the admission fee to something like $15. We visited a beach at North Shore, took a wrong turn on the way back and ended up at the spot where the food trucks congregate. Hono's Shrimp Truck again! We got three plates of shrimp and Priscilla's dad got a fish sandwich from the McDonald's across the street (he's funny). On the way back to Waikiki, we went to Walmart and picked up a multi-box of Hawaiian Host chocolate-covered macadamia nuts to give to friends.

Sunday, 2/22
The next day, Priscilla's parents went on a bus tour and visited Pearl Harbor while Priscilla and I took TheBus to Hanauma Bay and swam (me)/snorkeled (Priscilla) with the few fish scattered here and there. The beach was quite beautiful but it was sad for me to later learn that the now-brown coral used to be colorful but was killed due to human activity.

We rejoined the parents for early dinner #2 at Marukame Udon, got more groceries from Food Pantry, and watched TV back at the hotel.

Monday, 2/23
We went to the Royal Hawaiian Center the following day and attended a session where we learned huli huli massage, went to a storytelling session given by a docent, and did lei making with Aunty Bella's, where I, for whatever reason, was better at lei-making than Priscilla.

In the evening, we took a bus up to Paradise Cove, our first-ever luau! Our guide, Cousin Kai, was hilarious and a really down-to-earth guy who likes to keep it real. At the luau, we were welcomed with shell leis and found some games (like spear throwing and bowling with a rounded block of wood), a 2-minute canoe ride, and beautiful scenery. The blowing of the conch took us to different portions of the evening's activities - a hula lesson that a few selected guests got to participate in, a shower of flowers from atop a tree, pulling in the fishing nets, hula dancing, hukilau on the beach, more hula and the unveiling of the pig that had been cooking in the ground for hours, and finally the nighttime dinner and show, where you don't eat till you're full, but eat till you're tired.

The dinner was so-so; can't say that I was really enjoyed having non-traditional food like spaghetti and fried chicken, and I tried the poi at Cousin Kai's suggestion and can't say that I really cared for it. The nighttime show was entertaining, and the fire dancer was really talented (I think he'd won first or second place in some legit competition), fearless, and probably just a little bit crazy. All in all, a fun luau!

Tuesday, 2/24
On Tuesday, we hit up the Royal Hawaiian Center again for hula and ukulele lessons, respectively. I was equally unadept at both, but it was fun. Back at the hotel, I did a bit of swimming while Priscilla and her mom relaxed in the hot tub, and then the four of us went to see some hula put on by dance troupes at the free Waikiki Beach Hula Show. We picked up dinner from Me's BBQ on the way back to the hotel.

Wednesday, 2/25
We spent this whole day at the Polynesian Cultural Center! Maybe because it was a weekday, the place was not as crowded as the first time when we went. It was fun like the last time, but the island of Tahiti was a notably smaller production this time around with just a single dancer. The Gateway Buffet was again fine, and the HA: Breath of Life show was enjoyable as ever.

Thursday, 2/26
After checking out of our hotel, we boarded an Island Air plane for Lihue Airport on Kaua'i! After getting our rental car from Avis, we ate poke at Pono Market, popular with the locals, and visited the Kapa'a Beach Park nearby. Priscilla and I walked a bit of the paved path while the parents napped. We bought groceries from Cost-U-Less and checked into our room at the Aston Islander on the Beach - quite a charming place located in a beautiful spot (aren't they all?) on the beach. Each room has a PS3 in it, and there are two DVD/game rental kiosks downstairs, so I played some PS3 Minecraft (my first time really playing it) and we watched Big Hero 6. We got dinner at TC's Island Grill in the shopping complex next to the hotel.

Friday, 2/27
While Priscilla's parents spent the day around the hotel, Priscilla and I rented a kayak from Kamokila Hawaiian Village and did the kayak + hiking trip to see the Secret Falls. The falls were slightly more impressive than Manoa Falls, and there was a pool in front of the falls where people were going in. Priscilla and I stood right under the falls and let the water rain on us - it was like taking a big shower! We saw Opaeka'a Falls from a lookout point on the way back. I swam at Wailua Beach in front of the hotel, which I would not recommend. People generally say you shouldn't swim at non-lifeguarded beaches on Kaua'i because of the fierce currents, but the currents at this beach were not bad and the water was shallow - I could stand on the ground even 200 feet from shore; but the worst part was all the coral that I kept being pushed into, which gave me some cuts. Yeah, not a great swimming spot. Dinner was at Tiki Tacos, and the tacos were just ok.

Saturday, 2/28
This was another outdoorsy day for me and Priscilla, and we made the 1-hour drive to Waimea Canyon, sometimes referred to as the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. We drove along the two-lane highway 550, ever so often taking pictures at photo op spots along the way. We hiked the Canyon Trail, which was only a 3-mile hike but had lots of inclines (Priscilla didn't enjoy that part). On our hike, we saw a small waterfall and had lots of gorgeous views of the canyon. I would love to come back here.

We made a short stop at Kaua'i Coffee Company, sampled several flavors of coffee and took a guided tour. The place had a gift shop and a visitor's area with a movie about the plantation playing, and felt more touristy than Mountain Thunder on Big Island. We had dinner at Kaua'i Ramen (a Chinese ramen place) on the way back, and at night was when my skin started breaking out.

Sunday, 3/1
Like with our trip to Europe several years ago, I found out again that my body doesn't like it when I've been traveling for several days. I think the combination of not drinking enough water, not getting my normal dose of vitamins and healthy foods, and travel-related stress causes my body to freak out, which manifests as hives all over my body. This time around it was all over my arms, legs and neck. It took a few weeks to fully dispel, but I learned a valuable lesson for the next time we travel.

So on Sunday, being in a bad condition to go out, I spent the whole day in the hotel room, playing Minecraft on my computer after I bought it. Hooray.

Monday, 3/2
This was our last day, and after checking out of the hotel, we had Pono Market and made a short visit to Kapa'a Beach Park again. Priscilla's mom got a coconut from a vendor, and we all agreed that it wasn't the most fresh. We returned the car, took a shuttle to the airport, and all got on a plane bound for San Jose. I had the next day off from work and dropped Priscilla's parents off at SJC again for their return trip to LA.

Overall we all had a good time, though Priscilla's dad's stomach is a little weak and he can't eat everything and has to use the bathroom frequently. He was always a good sport, but it was clear that certain parts of the trip were hard for him.

Kaua'i was definitely interesting in contrast to Oahu. It felt slightly less touristy than the Big Island, even though life seems slower and more relaxed on both. Priscilla had planned full day's worth of activities for Oahu, but we sort of winged it for Kaua'i. I wouldn't mind coming back to Kaua'i, but hopefully we'll do a bit more research and I'll keep myself from getting sick next time!

Thanksgiving: Lots of being sick
We drove down to LA on Thanksgiving day; I was getting over being sick and Priscilla had gotten sick from me. Both families plus Aaron's girlfriend Lauren met at my parents' place for Thanksgiving dinner.

Priscilla and I took it easy over the weekend. We walked around the pond at Reseda Park every day and had hot pot with her parents on Saturday. On Sunday we went to CCAC and joined some old church friends afterward at Poquito Mas. And on Monday we drove back home.

Christmas: Lots of little things
Trying to avoid traffic again, we chose to drive down on Christmas day; we left at 8:30am (not super early) but traffic was light all the way (and barely any semi-trucks on the road!). Christmas dinner was again at my parents' place, but no Lauren (she was on a road trip with friends).

The next day, Raymond joined me and Priscilla in going to a sushi place (Sushi For You) I found on Yelp and hiking at San Vicente Mountain Park and Westridge-Canyonback Wilderness Park. On Saturday, Priscilla and I went with my family to Forest Lawn, where we visited my grandparents' columbarium. I think it was my first time visiting after they'd both passed away. The grounds at Forest Lawn are quite nice, and we visitied this large building where the Crucifixion (HUGE! The largest painting I've ever seen) and Resurrection paintings are on display, and another building housing a stained glass reproduction of The Last Supper. We had lunch at Hong Kong Kitchen (it was alright), and Priscilla and I had hot pot with her parents for dinner.

Sunday was perhaps the busiest day. Priscilla and I again visited CCAC and had lunch at Pieology with people; afterwards we all went to a new boba place called Boba My Tea. We hung out for a long while, and Raymond (who came with us) and I barely had time to make our way over to Van Nuys to hang out with our VNHS friends that evening. We watched The Interview (meh, occasionally funny but way too crude), which a couple of them had wanted to watch because of the recent hype, and had dinner at Kinnara Thai Restaurant (woot).

Monday again was the day we chose to drive home.

New Year's: Crowds, crowds, crowds
On New Year's day, after a month and a half of having to postpone our visit for one reason after another, we finally visited Nathan and Andrea at their new rental house and watched Mockingjay and had hot pot at Little Sheep. Both the theatre and restaurant were packed. I guess this is what many people do on New Year's!

I took Dec 25 through Jan 1 off from work, and returned to work today. I managed to get a lot done there, but it feels strange/liberating to work just one day and get another weekend. Here's to a restful and productive weekend, and a great new year!

After a couple months of sporadic training, it came time yesterday for Alex, Judy, Daniel, Sandra and me to do our 82 mile Waves to Wine ride with Bike MS!

Participants had the choice between 40, 82 and 104 miles from Daly City to Rohnert Park. In order to be closer to the starting point, Priscilla and I stayed Friday night at a hotel in South San Francisco, while the rest of the team made their way up from South Bay Saturday morning. We met up around 6:45am and rode out at 7:30. The ride lasted 9.5 hours which included 3 hours of breaks. There were 6 rest stops along the way, including one for lunch.

It was awesome that three meals were provided: a light bagel breakfast was served at the start, sandwiches were for lunch (I had turkey), and dinner including pesto penne and chicken was served at the finish. Water, energy snacks (I probably had at least 10 snacks over the course of the day) and porta-potties were abundant at each rest stop. Volunteers scattered along the way were extremely encouraging in cheering riders on and helped keep everyone's energy up.

Our group seemed to be slower than most riders, so over the course of the ride we fell towards the rear of the crowd. This meant the rest stops and ride itself weren't as crowded for us. We made it across the finish line 15 minutes before the 5pm deadline.

So from Daly City, we made our way up along the SF coast and through residential areas, across the Golden Gate Bridge, through Sausalito, then onto Highway 1 (which spanned 46 miles of the total trip) through Point Reyes and Tomales Bay, then finally along rural roads up to the finish line. Priscilla, Christine and Jessica were doing wine tasting in Napa and Sonoma during this time and met us in Rohnert Park after we'd crossed the finish line. Sandra's boyfriend, Daniel's parents and James and Charlotte were also there to give people a lift home.

It was a lot of fun, and over twice the furthest distance that we've done during practices, and I'm glad we all made it. Alex and Daniel separately had falls at low speeds but weren't hurt. Towards the latter half of the ride, they did have trouble keeping up with the girls, though. The girls rock!

Safety felt like a big issue, namely the lack of bike lanes on Highway 1 (which can't really be helped) and having to cross a busy two-lane road with traffic going at highway speeds at the end of the ride unassisted. There were police in SF and Sausalito to help direct traffic; after that I didn't see any police, just volunteers who were doing the same. A couple more volunteers placed at key points to direct traffic would've been appreciated.

The event was challenging, mainly in terms of stamina, but nothing that a steady pace and frequent breaks couldn't conquer. The next big ride, I hope, we can do a century!

So would I do this event again? The ride itself was fun and the event was overall well-coordinated, but it was a bit out of the way and I feel bad that people had to drive two hours from South Bay to pick us up. So... maybe? Perhaps the five of us can do a century ride closer to home - I think we could pull it off with the right determination!

It's hard to believe that half a year has already passed since we moved into our new house! For the sake of brevity, here's what's been going on, in timeline format.

End of January:
Got a sofa and chaise for the family room.

Beginning of February:
Replaced three sets of door locks, all keyed to the same key. Discovered that our yard has lots of snails; spent lots of time catching snails at night.

Middle of February:
Installed solar garden lights. Bought a push reel lawn mower. Assembled a credenza. Uncle Kenway wanted to buy us a TV as a housewarming gift; we picked a 55" LG TV. Finally was able to use the Comcast cable receiver that had been sitting in the closet for a year. Bought a pole saw and started trimming some of the overgrown elm tree in the front yard; it was so overgrown and inter-woven that dead branches and leaves had nowhere to go.

Beginning of March:
Finally installed the gas dryer. Lots of yard work.

Middle of March:
Bought a bbq grill. Bought patio furniture (table, four stationary chairs and two swivel chairs). More maintenance on the elm tree.

End of March:
Replaced a sprinkler head that I had broken while mowing the lawn. Dug out and sawed off old connector and attached a new one.

Beginning of April:
Cut fungal-infected leaves off rose bushes. Lots of elm tree cutting. Used bbq grill for first time and made chicken wraps, steak and turkey patties; the turkey patties fell apart, the steak came out decent, and the chicken wraps were slightly overdone.

Middle of April:
Cleaned everything out of the second bedroom; previously we'd been using it for storage. Cut down a large tree/vine in back of the house, because it'd gotten too large and when we started to prune it, we discovered that the inside was just unsightly vines.

End of April:
Grouted the side of the vanity in the hallway bathroom. Finished removing all dead branches from the elm tree!

Beginning of May:
Got new water heater delivered and installed.

Middle of May:
Bought two accent chairs. Bought a 99 gallon deck wicker box to store chair cushions in; the cushions were getting too dirty from material from a nearby tree and spiderwebs. Aaron and my dad visited; my dad helped redo the mail slot in the garage (previously it had a sharp metal edge sticking up), removed an unsightly battery backup on the wall of the second bedroom, installed a new showerhead in the hallway bath, and a bunch of other small things. Bought a new fridge and pantry cabinet to put in the living room for our renters to use. Our respective renters, Sarah and John, moved in on the same day. John moved out two weeks later because his commute to Oakland was killing him.

Middle of June:
Got a PlayStation 3 to be able to play DVDs and Blu-rays. Started playing Heavy Rain, which plays like a movie; Priscilla really enjoys watching.

Home improvement never ends, and I've gotten more handy in the last few months, but I think we've gotten to the point where all the important stuff is done and we can take improvement projects one step at a time. We've had several people/families from church over, and Priscilla sometimes has friends come over. We're blessed to have a home and things that we can enjoy and use to serve others, and this place pretty much feels like home now.

When Aaron and my dad came up last month, Aaron brought up a new road bike I'd asked him to order for me, a white Specialized Roubaix SL4 Elite 105, MSRP $2,600, which he was able to get from the bike shop he worked at for $1,600 including tax.

Since then according to Strava, I've put over 100 miles on it, mainly commuting 8.5 miles each way to work. After moving to our new house, the commute was too tiring to do on my Crosstrail so I'd only done it once, on Bike to Work Day. But with the new road bike, the commute is so much more comfortable. Whereas hitting 20mph on the Crosstrail took quite a bit of effort, on the Roubaix I can do it with relative ease.

I've gone riding with co-workers to Philz twice, and I'm trying to spearhead semi-regular afternoon cycling rides at work. This past weekend I biked with Alex on a good deal of the Stanford Loop, except instead of starting from Stanford, we started from his place in Mountain View and took Foothill Expressway to get to Arastradero Road. The whole ride was 24 miles and my first real ride with hills. Fun!

The next thing to do will probably be upgrading the stock platform pedals; those are the only things that feel cheap on this bike. I swapped the hard saddle with the more comfortable one from my Crosstrail, which helps alleviate the pain on my sit bones from prolonged rides. Once I get used to wearing my new pair of bike shorts (Pearl Izumi from Amazon), I may put the original saddle back. I also feel soreness in the shoulders after prolonged rides; I haven't figured out the cause yet, but a co-worker suggested replacing the stem.

Right now, perhaps due to the new cables stretching, my shifting has gotten sloppy. Interestingly, I've never had this problem with my Crosstrail; it still shifts fine after I've put maybe 1,000 miles on it. Anyway, learning how to adjust the shifting on the Roubaix will be good to add to my repertoire of experience.

Igude-who?

I'd never heard of them, and the promotional image looked kind of corny. I mean, two guys dressed up in Mozart wigs standing dramatically in front of a pink-purple backdrop? Come on, now.

But Yelp was giving out a limited number of pairs of free tickets to see their show tonight at the Flint Center in Cupertino, so I figured what the hey, musical comedy can't be that bad.

Well I'm really glad we got the tickets and saw the show, because I was blown away! These guys have a great stage presence, are amazingly talented musicians (Joo on piano and Igudesman on violin), and are freaking hilarious!

Their aim is to make classical music more appealing to a broader and younger audience. The show was called "And Now... Mozart!" and contained absolutely no music by Mozart. There were lots of antics, much novelty, and a ton of fun. My favorite sketches were:

• Musical Police: Igudesman dressed as a musical police officer, and to verify that Joo wasn't drunk, made him play a few lines from a couple dozen songs in rapid succession.
• Musical Navigation: Igudesman played a song with the guidance of a musical navigation app on his phone
• Do You Believe In Gravity?: Igudesman rips the lid prop out of Joo's piano, only to reveal that it's actually a customized electric violin. Joo rips off one of the legs of the piano to reveal that it's a customized electric keyboard. They then rock out in a song where all their lyrics "rhyme with 'E'".
• Mozart Will Survive: Igudesman begins by singing a Russian rendition of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" and then gets the audience to sing a three-part harmony in the tune of Pachelbel's "Canon in D," and the two of them close the night with a rap.

The show was a lot of fun, and I wish they did more tours in America; they're not as popular here and are more popular in Europe. It seems like they're rotating through three different shows on their tour around the world. Way to keep things fresh and keep the two of them on their toes!

The wifey and I celebrated our second year anniversary over in Half Moon Bay this past Saturday. Only a 45 minute drive from our home, it's a lot closer than I thought. We'll have to go there more often!

Our first stop was Spanish Town on Highway 92 at the entrance to HMB. There we found large dinosaur statues, a ton of fountains, statues, pots and birdbaths that, according to a shop attendant, are handmade from around the world. Pretty cool place, and it was fun seeing rows and rows of unique stuff and finding more rows around every corner.

We made our way over to Half Moon Bay State Beach and paid $10 to park right at the edge of the beach. It was chilly outside, so we sat in the car and ate sandwiches while we watched people flying kites and a large group of Asians congregating for a BBQ.

After lunch, we walked south along the HMB Coastal Trail and sat for a few minutes at Poplar Beach, a small self-serve beach with no amenities. We continued past the Wavecrest Open Space, a large empty grassy area, until we reached our destination beach - Redondo Beach (not to be confused with the city by the same name in LA County).

Redondo was my favorite beach - somewhat secluded due to not being directly accessible from the road due to steep cliffs, with beautiful long stretches of white waves and squiggly patterns in the sand. There was a beautiful country club mansion resting atop the plateau that I really enjoyed as part of the scenery.

After the beach, we took a walk along downtown (Main Street), stopped at a coffee shop for Priscilla to get her caffeine, and rested at the quaint John L. Carter Memorial Park. We stopped briefly at a soap/fragrance/gift shop for Priscilla to look around, and we wanted to go to a feed shop that had a sign saying "The best place in town to pick up chicks," but sadly they had closed when we passed by on the way back. Lastly, we found the Spanish Town Historical Society Jail a small block off Main Street. The jail was built in 1911 and was restored in 1990 as a museum, with visiting hours unknown. Inside are only two jail cells, harkening back to a time when things were smaller and simpler.

For dinner, Priscilla had bookmarked two places: Mezza Luna, a nice Italian place, and some low-key Indian restaurant. We'd decided ahead of time on Mezza Luna, and we were glad we did, because on our walk along Main Street we passed by the Indian restaurant which was run out of an old-looking house that did not look too appealing. Then again, you know what they say about judging a book by its cover, so maybe next time.

We really enjoyed the food at Mezza Luna. Priscilla had alfredo with chicken, and I had a healthier form of chicken stuffed with vegetables. The mussels we ordered as an appetizer were flavorful and fresh, and the broth they came in was great for dipping bread into. For dessert, she ordered a chocolate cake and I ordered a mango gelato. Both were great, but each of us liked the other's dessert more than our own.

We took a short walk around the marina after dinner, and then it was time to head home. Dinner including tip was $82, meaning we spent a total of $92 on our anniversary trip. Not too shabby, considering we had a great time and were able to do/see lots of things. Till next time, Half Moon Bay!

The week before the official move-in, we made a few trips by car between the apartment and the house, moving what small stuff we could. I had electricians come by the day before our move to ground 14 of our outlets for $125 apiece. Two outlets remain ungrounded, along the front wall of the house, which I skipped because it sounded like it'd entail damage to the wood siding to drill a hole to run a ground wire through the wall. But based on what the electricians did, it sounds like they can drill straight down through the space there and avoid having to drill through the siding, so I'm going to have them come back to finish grounding those two remaining outlets.

Then on moving day, January 18, I picked up a 16' truck from Budget, and Jacob and Kevin came by to help load all our furniture. Surprisingly (to me), all the furniture fit in the truck without having to stack anything. Christine showed up later and helped move small stuff. Unfortunately, both Jacob and Kevin had to split and couldn't stay for lunch, missing out on the yummy sloppy joes Priscilla made! The moving process took about three hours.

Since then, Priscilla and I have gotten the bed, our desks and the living room set up. She moved all the boxes of stuff to the two smaller bedrooms, where we'll deal with them when we have more time. I ordered a Maytag washer and dryer from Home Depot, and they arrived yesterday. I set the washer up (always nice to have more automation!), but I still need to order a gas hose for the dryer. We also now have a shag rug from Costco that Tim delivered to us in his minivan (which was a funny story because we called him to ask for his help transporting the huge rug that wouldn't fit in our car, only to find out that he was at that moment at Costco in Mountain View, 20 feet from the rugs). Finally, a sofa and chaise from a local furniture store is on its way this week, and Priscilla is looking at accent chairs. After that, a TV stand and TV will likely be the next items of purchase.

Yep, this place is beginning to feel more like home. There's still a ton of stuff to do, but we need to remember to take it one step at a time.

Officially as of today, Priscilla and I are homeowners! We got the keys from our agent this evening, and the sale was recorded today.

Owning this house feels a bit surreal, similar to how I felt when we were first married. It's our house, but it doesn't quite feel like our house yet. It feels like somebody else's house, and with many quirks- like kiddy light switch covers, tiles on the kitchen wall painted with a picture of fried eggs, a bathroom sliding door that jams, locks that collectively require multiple keys, and a backyard with a plethora of plants unknown, kept alive only by a sprinkler system, the inner workings of which might as well be black magic.

Yeah, it'll take a while for us to settle in and furnish the place the way we like and get to know all the little intricacies of this 5,500 square feet of land. Tonight we shopped around at a few stores and ultimately bought a fridge from Best Buy's website, so I guess that's a start.

And so the perpetual home improvement begins. 3/4 of the outlets need grounding, and some are wired incorrectly. The door that jams needs to not jam. Old blinds need to be replaced. Maybe the bulky fan/light fixtures, too. Hey, recessed lighting would be nice. So would a working outlet in the shed. And that yard... surely a garden should go somewhere?

One step at a time. For now, we're grateful to have this house, quirky as it may be. We're looking forward to making it our home.

After losing bids on houses in February and June, Priscilla and I got a little discouraged and stopped looking. But at the end of last month, Daniel and Kelly got their offer accepted for a house in Sunnyvale, which motivated me and Priscilla to start looking again. Hey, why not? After all, the bidding isn't as intense during the winter holidays, so we thought we might have a better chance now.

So on December 7, we looked at five open houses in Santa Clara. We were surprised at how much inventory was on the market; we passed by signs for a few other open houses not on our list. Of the five we saw, our impressions ranged from "everybody's going to want this" to "who's going to want this?". We eventually decided on one in a quiet neighborhood, with 3 bedrooms (but more like 2.5 since one is very small) and 2 baths, and a 1-car garage. It didn't seem to be getting the same attention that some of the other houses we went to were, and ultimately there were 13 other offers (as opposed to 30 when we were bidding on the second house!). The house was listed at $683k, we bid $755k and the highest was $762k with some contingencies. Thanks to our top-notch buyer's agent, Susanna, ours was overall the most attractive offer since we put down no contingencies and a large deposit. The personal letter and pictures from us probably helped, too. ;)

Due to her previous job as a loan processor, Priscilla knew which documents she would need to provide to the loan company, especially since all large deposits from the last two months needed to be explained. Verification of my employment and financials went pretty much without a hitch due to her tireless efforts, Susanna's clout, and the excellent processors that we're working with, and today we were notified that our loan was approved, ahead of schedule, by the underwriter. All that's left is to go sign things, and close of escrow is January 8. I've largely taken a backseat to the whole loan process, but I'll definitely make up for it when it's time to make monthly mortgage payments!

One nice thing about the house is that it's move-in ready. The paint, roof, wood floors, granite countertops and copper piping are new. All that really needs to be done is some electrical work to run a ground wire to the outlets in the house. Priscilla's parents also want to buy us furniture and appliances.

We're very blessed to have parents who love and support us, adequate savings (again made possible mostly by our parents' and my grandfather's support), Priscilla's brief background in loan processing, and fortunate timing. God has blessed us with this house and made the process very smooth. Our hope is that we'll use this house to honor him and as a tool for ministry to those around us.

Last December, the wife and I were victims of gift card fraud, where a thief drained the balance on our Macy's gift card, while the card was in our possession. Though Macy's replaced the card, it was not without hassle and prior embarrassment, something that could've altogether been prevented by Macy's physically securing the cards prior to sale.

Below is the review I posted on Yelp for the Northridge Macy's where our card was issued and re-issued. Though our card balance was restored, I was left unsatisfied with the manager's response and Macy's failure to protect consumers. I'm re-posting my review on my blog in hopes that 1. it'll get more exposure, and 2. I'll have it backed up in case Macy's attempts to get it removed from Yelp. The latter scenario seems unlikely (Streisand Effect, anybody?) but not altogether improbable.

My hope is that more people will be aware of the dark side of the gift card industry, will take steps to protect themselves against fraud, and perhaps even avoid buying gift cards going forward until said gift cards are made more secure.

Original review posted 8/24/2013:
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Did you know that a gift card purchased from a store can already be compromised, allowing a thief to spend your balance without your knowing?

What Happened:
Last June, the wife and I received a gift that we returned to the Northridge Macy's for store credit. The gift amount of over $150 was loaded onto a Macy's gift card. Then at Christmas time, we received a shocking "present" when we tried to use our gift card at the Sherman Oaks Macy's and were told it had a zero balance!

After some helpful investigation by Sherman Oaks Macy's, we found that our gift card was used in October at the Macy's in Montebello, a city we'd never even heard of. But how could this have happened when the gift card never left our possession? Clearly, something fraudulent occurred.

The Scam:
So I did some research online and found that this type of gift card fraud is getting more common. And as recently uncovered, there's a whole crime ring that's been targeting Macy's: article here.

One method I read about involves the thief cloning a gift card. He'll do this by stealing a card from the store, taking it home, and using readily-available hardware to copy the account number on the card's magnetic stripe onto another card. He'll then return the original card to the store, wait for an unsuspecting customer to activate it with a balance, and then use the cloned card to drain the account's balance.

Macy's is ripe for this scam because they leave their gift cards on top of counters, often unsupervised, open for anybody to grab.

Our Money Back:
After I figured out what happened, the wife and I returned to the Northridge Macy's, where our card was issued, to get our card replaced. A manager helped me, and after 45 minutes of him making calls and taking my information, he was able to hand me a replacement card with the original balance.

However, I wasn't impressed with his attitude. He acted like he was doing me a favor, that this type of theft happens with all retailers and that Macy's is just another victim. Which is true in one sense, but the fact that Macy's leaves their first line of defense wide open by not physically securing their cards, places some fault on them. Not once did the manager apologize for the trouble and embarrassment that my wife and I were subjected to, trouble that Macy's could've and failed to help prevent.

Protect Yourself:
I asked the manager if my new card was secure, and he replied that there should be no problem with it since it was taken from a new box in the back of the store. Implicitly, he was admitting to the fact that the cards left wide open on the counter are insecure.

So if Macy's and other stores aren't going to protect your cards, how can you protect yourself? First, understand that though this type of fraud is very rare, it still does happen. Consider not buying gift cards and instead giving cash.

If you still must buy a gift card, try to buy one that's locked behind a window or is in large packaging, which is harder for a thief to have snuck out of the store.

And if you're the recipient of a gift card? Look for signs of physical tampering, try to use your balance quickly, and check your balance frequently for signs of fraudulent use. And keep all receipts, especially the initial one that shows how much money was loaded onto the card. If it wasn't given to you, ask for it.

Retailers love gift cards because they generate instant revenue and bring shoppers into the store. Retailers don't address the dark side of the gift card industry for fear that people will stop buying them. But if a store fails to reasonably protect consumers from gift card fraud, maybe it's time to rethink whether those gift cards make sense to buy.

CCIC had our all-church retreat from August 9-11 at Redwood Christian Park in Boulder Creek. The guest speaker was supposed to be Pastor David from my home church in LA, but he was unable to make it due to being sick, and our very own Pastor Daniel was the surprise speaker instead. I'm sure he was a little surprised himself!

I enjoyed Pastor Daniel's sessions focusing on unity of the church body, how our salvation in Christ is the basis for unity with one another. We had some fun outdoor games, as well as pre-session games led by our fabulous emcee, Deborah.

The campus was beautiful, and for once, Priscilla and I received an upgraded room with bedding and our own bathroom! The first night, the English congregation met in one of the rooms onboard a recreation of Noah's ark- pretty cool. We spent some of our free time exploring the grounds and hiking- a few of us started on a hike, and the girls turned back early while the guys (me, Eddie and Richard) continued on till we reached our destination, a 6-foot wooden cross at a scenic point overlooking the forest below.

The food was alright, nothing over the top. At one point we had a rice porridge that was very bland. Still, I appreciated that the kitchen staff was trying to cater to our large group of Chinese people.

Overall, Priscilla and I had an enjoyable and restful time. I'm looking forward to the next retreat!

Slight change of plans: rather than me and Priscilla going down to LA for Memorial Day, her parents came up.

For Priscilla's birthday, they came up on Thursday, May 23. They visited their friends in Petaluma on Friday, and the four of us made the drive up to Sacramento on Saturday. Priscilla's been meaning to make us visit Sacramento, and her parents' spontaneous decision to visit made for a convenient time to take that trip.

On the way, we had lunch at Denny's, where I played the crane game and won a duck! We stopped at the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, where went on the free factory tour. Though the tour runs daily, factory operations don't happen on weekends, so our tour consisted of listening to our guide talk and watching videos of the manufacturing process. Still pretty cool. We also had free samples from the sample bar!

That evening, after checking into our room at the Fairfield Inn in Natomas, we walked around Old Sacramento and admired all the old western-style buildings and had dinner at Railroad Fish and Chips, somewhat of a hole-in-the-wall place. But the deep fried shrimp and fish were simply divine!

Sunday afternoon, we visited the Capitol Building and went on a free tour. It was interesting to learn that San Jose was the first capital of California after it became a state. Vallejo served as the next capital, then Benicia, then finally Sacramento. We visited the Assembly Chamber, modeled after the House of Commons in England, and the Senate Chamber, modeled after the House of Lords. After the tour, we posed for pictures outside of the governor's office in the Capitol annex. Too bad he wasn't there!

We tried to visit the Stanford Mansion for another free tour, but the building was unexpectedly closed. We had a late lunch at Shoki II Ramen House, where we each ordered a large ramen without knowing that "large" there would be HUGE by any other place's standards! Quite full after lunch, we somehow dragged ourselves over to the Sacramento County Fair, where we saw everything from a hypnotist show, variety show, an art, game and puzzle area, mechanical bull riding, and a huge building where livestock was being kept to be auctioned.

Finally on Monday, we visited Sutter's Fort and saw a live cannon firing, musket firing and blacksmith demonstration. It was cool learning more about the history of the area and about John Sutter, whom I did not know was from Switzerland! We were homeward bound after lunch at The Sandwich Spot, pretty tired after a full three-day weekend's worth of activities.

My birthday was slightly more low-key, and Priscilla and I celebrated it over two days. This past Saturday, we hiked at the Sawyer Camp Trail at the Crystal Springs Reservoir in San Mateo. That was followed by lunch at Espetus Churrascaria, where we finally got to use the $100 giftcard that Justin and Vicky gave us as a wedding gift!

Today I took the day off from work and used that time to go to the junkyard and get a parking brake release handle+cable to replace the one that broke on my car. It's nice to have an easily-releasable parking brake again. ;)

Priscilla and I had our buyer's agent submit an offer on a house that we're looking at in Santa Clara. Our agent expects up to 30 offers on the place, and without having made an extremely competitive offer, we probably won't get the place. It's just not a great time to buy right now.

Priscilla took a half-day and we used that time to get chores done and go to the gym. We had dinner at Ramen Seas, our new favorite place on Murphy Street that we've been to four times in the last two months.

We've definitely been keeping busy! And there's lots more lined up for the rest of June!

Weekend trips galore! That's what we've been doing these past few weeks. From March 23-24, Priscilla and I were up in Napa, and this past weekend we were down in Monterey.

The Napa trip was started by meeting a rep from a timeshare company at the Santa Clara Travel Expo. She promised us airfare and a two night stay in Hawaii and wine tasting for two, in exchange for attending a 90-minute timeshare presentation at their resort in Napa. So in March, we made the 1.5 hour drive up to Napa.

We found the presentation a bit sketchy, and apparently so did lots of other people who posted their experience on Yelp. We were given travel vouchers for a company that also has bad reviews (so we might not use it) and a buy one get one free coupon for wine tasting (not exactly what we were promised). No matter, we ended up going to one of the wineries listed on the voucher, Falcor Winery, and really enjoyed it. The wine was strong, the host was super friendly and helpful, and he gave us a tour of the whole winery. They even waive one tasting fee per bottle of wine bought, so we bought a 2008 Chardonnay with a nice butterscotch flavor.

We had dinner at Hilo Hawaiian BBQ, a place with decent food that resembled L&L. But they were cheap and didn't give us cups for water. That night we enjoyed walking through downtown Napa, and we stayed at the Fairfield Inn in nearby American Canyon to save money. $100 after tax for a large room with a kitchenette, sweet!

The following morning, we hiked at Skyline Wilderness Park and enjoyed visiting Lake Marie at the end of the hike, even though we took a wrong turn initially. Before heading home, we had lunch at Tarla Mediterranean Grill, and the food and service were sadly mediocre.

Fast forward to this weekend. Our one year anniversary is coming up in two weeks! Can't believe we've been married for almost a year now. Time sure flies. Originally we had planned to visit Monterey on our anniversary, but Deborah, Priscilla's maid of honor, recently got engaged and announced that her wedding would be on the 27th (her fiance is in the army and shipping out to Afghanistan soon). Since we didn't want to miss their wedding, we pushed our Monterey trip up by two weeks.

So on Saturday, we visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Our church friends have an annual membership that provides them with two transferable guest passes, so they often let their friends use their guest passes to get into the aquarium for free! That's a savings of $35/person each time!

The aquarium was very enjoyable, albeit crowded. I particularly liked the psychedelic 1960s-themed jellyfish exhibit and the feeding held in the Kelp Forest. The otters were by far the most fun to watch. What a great place to visit!

Dinner was at a small, one-man-show place called Paprika Cafe. There was only seating for about a dozen people, but we got there early and missed most of the crowds. Service started getting slow as the place filled up. I felt bad for the poor guy. Ah, the Yelp effect.

We stayed the night at the Comfort Inn for $130. That room was pretty small, motel sized. And that was one of the cheaper places to stay in Monterey, sheesh! What's up with Monterey being so expensive?

The next day we hit up Point Lobos National Reserve, where we enjoyed a beautiful 5-mile hike through serene forest and along magnificent rocky coasts. Easily the most scenic hike we've been on to date. For lunch, we headed over to Fisherman's Wharf and ate at The Grotto Fish Market, where Priscilla had a coupon that gave us a free cup of clam chowder with purchase of an entree. We got a 1/2 pound crab and shrimp plate for $20, which included a cup of clam chowder, meaning each of us were able to have a cup. We also ordered 5 raw oysters. The food wasn't spectacular, but it was enjoyable. I enjoyed walking along the wharf and sampling the clam chowder from a few different places, even though I felt bad for not buying.

And hence concludes the past few weeks of fun. As mentioned, we'll be going to LA in two weeks for Deborah's wedding, and again for Memorial Day to spend some time with our parents. So the traveling is far from over this summer. I'll need to catch up writing my Yelp reviews while I can!

I've always wanted to see the Bahamas. And now I have, thanks to Priscilla's travelholism and her parents generously paying for a cruise to the Bahamas for the four of us.

Last Wednesday, Priscilla and I flew from San Jose to LAX, where we rendezvoused with her parents and caught the red eye flight to our layover at Dallas/Fort Worth, and then the morning flight to Jacksonville, Florida. From there, it was a short shuttle ride to the Port of Jacksonville, where all the cruise ships sail out of. Our ship was the Carnival Fascination, and this was the second time I've sailed with Carnival. Once we passed through the TSA-like security checkpoint (minus full body scanners), we were on the ship and enjoying lunch on the Lido deck.

This time around Priscilla signed up for "your time dining," which gave us more flexibility in allowing us to eat dinner in the fine dining hall on own schedule. The food options were fine indeed - escargot was one of the starter items, and for the main course it was difficult having to choose between the lasagna bolognese, pan-seared tillapia fillet, chicken a la grecque, cinnamon pumpkin and veggie pot pie, or the braised beef briskey in gravy. I finally opted for the chicken, though we ended up ordering a few different main courses and sharing. Sharing is caring!

And how can a night be complete without entertainment? At night we caught the welcome show, where our cruise director Paul gave some introductions and a mini-comedy show. Two other comedians also did short routines, a preview of the longer programs that they would do the rest of the cruise. Fun times.

Friday at noon, we disembarked at Freeport, our first stop in the Bahamas. There wasn't a lot to do in town and we didn't sign up for any shore excursions, so we just walked around the small shopping plaza and Straw Market where there were tons of vendors selling souvenirs catering to tourists. It seemed like the same kind of stuff you could buy anywhere else, minus the logos that read "Bahamas" and whatnot. Priscilla did buy two postcards for herself, and her parents bought a souvenir magnet, but overall the stuff there just didn't interest us.

Not to be deterred, I looked around at our food options - I wanted something authentic. I passed on an authentic-looking (as much as possible) shack selling seafood for exorbitant prices - a $20 fish sandwich wasn't my thing. We passed by a bar that was offering $1 shots, which was cool but their food looked pretty Americanized. Finally, we took a look at the menu of a place called Senor Frog's, a seemingly pretty popular place for tourists. They touted their authentic Mexican food. Wait, Mexican food? I must be in the wrong country! Their menu had things like a fish taco plate for $17 - loco! We had lunch back on the ship.

The attire for fine dining that night was dressy. After dinner, we took advantage of our swanky looks to take photos at the various professional photo stations set up on the venue floors. Finally, we caught a night show called "Divas" in which male and female performers danced and did a cover of many popular diva songs. Two particular performers, both guys, really stood out in their vocals. The show was pretty cool.

Having learned our lesson from Freeport, when Saturday rolled around and our ship docked at Nassau at 8am, we had tickets (purchased through Carnival for $70/person) for a "sea and see" excursion. A short walk into town brought us to a ferry that took us on a harbor tour. We saw mail boats (the method of mail transportation between islands), bridges carrying traffic over the harbor to Paradise Island, and waterfront mansions owned by celebs including Tom Cruise, Chuck Norris and Oprah (who has two properties next to each other).

Our ferry was met out in the water by a semi-submarine and we transferred over for a short sea tour. Our tour guide threw rice overboard to attract fish, and we sure saw a lot of them! Everything from grunt fish, ballyhoo and yellow snapper. We didn't see any sharks, unfortunately.

The third part of our tour was onboard a bus, which took us past Bay Street, the police station, a Methodist church, the Parliament buildings and the Supreme Court. We stopped for 20 minutes at Fort Fincastle and the Queen's Staircase. The bus tour felt pretty short, and we ended earlier than the brochure claimed. Booo.

We then walked through the Nassau Straw Market, stopped at McDonald's to use their WiFi (and bought a crispy chicken sandwich so that we didn't look cheap), and then finished up the afternoon at the free Junkanoo Beach, where we just sat on the shore due to not having swimwear. We didn't eat any real food in Nassau, but we did buy a coconut from a shack at the beach for $5. I liked how they chopped off the shell on one side right in front of us, and stuck a straw in there for us to drink the coconut water. Everybody in the cities we visited accepted U.S. money, and supposedly the Bahamian dollar and the U.S. dollar have a one-to-one exchange rate.

Nassau was interesting. It had a small town feel but did have a steady amount of cars on the street. The buildings aren't dirty but do look worn with time. The aggressiveness of the locals trying to sell taxi, sightseeing and other services kind of put me off. We certainly didn't experience this kind of aggressiveness in Hawaii! Though perhaps that aggressive desire for our business could've been used in our favor as a bargaining tool had we been interested in their services (we might've scored a better deal than we did through Carnival).

Back on the ship after dinner, we briefly visited a piano bar and listened to a really talented guy playing requests from a list. Then we looked at our photos from the night before that were posted in the photo gallery. We were pretty tired after that long day, so we then called it a night.

Sunday was the day at sea. After waking up late and having a light breakfast, we went to a towel-folding session, where we learned how to make some of the towel animals that the cleaning staff had been making and putting in our stateroom every night.

After lunch, Priscilla and I went to a comedy show called "The Game of Love" where our cruise director picked three couples from the audience, two senior couples and one newlywed couple, and asked them questions to see how well they knew each other. The result? Pretty well overall for each couple. The show was hilarious, thanks to our wise-cracking cruise director.

In the evening we caught another show called "Motor City," a dance and musical performance that went through a few decades of oldies music. I liked this one better than "Divas" and loved the singing and all the costume and background changes. I think this show is done by the same performers that did "Divas." They actually had both shows playing that night and Friday night. Mad props to those performers for having to memorize songs and choreography for two different shows in the same night!

Monday morning after breakfast, it was time to debark! The debarkation process was pretty smooth, and most of the time spent waiting (15 minutes?) was waiting to get off the ship. Various shuttles were waiting to take people back to the airport, and we caught one for $10/person. Our flight from Jacksonville to DFW wasn't for another five hours, so I used that time to get caught up on friends' Yelp reviews. Our flight from DFW to San Jose was rough at almost four hours long! We finally got home around 8:30pm and were pretty exhausted.

Overall it was a fun trip, but we could've done more in the Bahamas. I learned that I don't really enjoy stuffy plane rides, and even on a cruise I get restless when there's not much to do. I also gained four pounds temporarily, even though we were going to the gym every day. Just something about being in the midst of so much good food every single day makes me want to eat a lot despite my body telling me to slow down. I don't think I could handle a longer cruise; four days was already plenty. It was fun, but I'm glad to be back home.

Gordon, my second cousin's brother, and his soon-to-be wife Iris had their wedding banquet this past Sunday. My parents came up from LA on Friday, and they, Uncle Kenway and Aunt Susan, and Priscilla and I drove up to the reception at Tong Palace in San Francisco.

Strangely, Gordon and Iris are not married yet. Their wedding will be this Wednesday (12/12/12). My mom's understanding is that this Sunday was the only day the restaurant was available for booking. Still, I've never before been to a wedding reception where the bride and groom aren't married yet! Why they didn't find another restaurant I'm not sure, but I'm guessing they didn't move their wedding date up because of the significance of that date.

At any rate, the reception was fun. There was a magician, a friend of Iris, whose magic acts were interwoven with encouragements to the bride and groom - like a toast, but without toasting. The quality of the restaurant food was a bit bland, and the service was sub-par, but we still had fun. I think I last saw Gordon when I was really young, but he remembered me and knew that I'd gotten married recently, and he also remembered my brother by name. Scary.

Gordon was pretty hilarious. Just talking to him for a minute reveals what a joker he is. During the dinner, as people clinked their glasses for the couple to kiss, he either turned them down, pointing to various initiators in an "I'm coming for you" type way, kissed his mom on the cheek, or kissed his bride while holding up a napkin in front of them. It was all in good fun. They ended up doing one real kiss for the camera!

Last week was the first Thanksgiving that Priscilla and I celebrated as a married couple. On Thanksgiving day, we went down to LA with a friend from church, Eunice, at 6am. There were a good amount of cars on the road, but traffic flowed smoothly, and we got there in 5 hours - our best record yet. That night, Priscilla's parents joined us at our parents' place for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

The next day, we did some Black Friday shopping! Priscilla's parents had been talking about getting an iPad, so we got them an iPad2 from Target, where it was being sold with a promotional $60 Target gift card. We also stopped by Fry's to get a 2.5" hard drive enclosure, since my laptop started having boot problems, and I hadn't been good at backing up my files.

On Friday afternoon, we joined Deborah in hanging out with Crescentia and her parents at their house. Crescentia had said she was too busy studying to hang out with us, so Priscilla's plan was to bring the hangout to her! Although it was supposed to be a potluck, Crescentia's mom cooked a lot and provided about 80% of the meal.

Saturday morning, Priscilla and I went hiking at Aliso Canyon Park in Porter Ranch, went to DSW and failed to find boots that fit her after an hour of searching, and picked up food from Hot Wok to take to Justin and Vicky's house for a potluck/hangout. Tim and Victor joined us and we ended up playing Star Trek Catan. Sally joined us a bit late, and she ate while we finished playing. I felt bad because she didn't get to play with us, and after the long game it was already too late to do anything else. But a few of us did just end up talking for half an hour before we went home.

Finally, on Sunday after church, a bunch of current and former CCAC people (all different people from the ones we'd hung out with previously) joined us for lunch at Small Island. We had a good dozen people, including the guy that Deborah's been seeing! We had a good time of catching up with people.

We ended up leaving LA around 3:30, and traffic on the 5 was stop and go! It was so bad that I ended up taking a detour through the mountainy highways 198 and 25. We ended up getting home around 11:30, and I'm sure it would've been even later had I not taken the detour! Lesson learned: Sunday afternoon is probably the worst time to drive back from a Thanksgiving holiday.

Another entry late by a month. I really need to get on top of blogging about things right after they happen. I tend to take care of things in a LIFO manner, and when too many new things come up, the older things get buried. Hence I still have a bunch of Yelp reviews to write for Oahu.

So from the 28-30th of September, I was down in Central California with the wifey, Kenny and Raymond on our de facto annual camping trip. We camped at Montana de Oro State Park in Los Osos and visited Morro Bay during the day. The location was ideal because it's roughly halfway between the SoCal and NorCal folks. Bao, Minh and Christine were supposed to join us, but they bailed at the last minute to do house shopping. At least Minh and Christine were nice enough to hand off a ton of food and supplies to Raymond, who brought them up from SoCal.

So the three of us NorCal people carpooled down in Kenny's car early Friday afternoon. We grabbed lunch at Vito's Famous Pizza (meh) in Sunnyvale, stopped at an archery shop in Gilroy for Kenny to scope out prices, then continued the rest of the way to the campgrounds. The total drive took about 4 hours and traffic was light.

When we got to the campground, we scoped out sites (they're available on a first come, first serve basis) and decided on one that was flat, spacious and isolated - pretty much perfect. Being a Friday and not during peak season, fewer than half of the sites were occupied when we arrived. Priscilla and I set up our tent while Kenny bought us some firewood, we walked to Spooner's Cove nearby, walked back to camp when it started getting dark, and waited.

Meanwhile, Raymond had gotten a late start up from LA (understandable, since he had to pick up gear from Minh), had been stuck for a couple hours in LA traffic, and still had a ways to go. Unfortunately he had Minh's tent and all the food, so there wasn't much the rest of us were able to do while we waited. He finally arrived around 9pm, and we all worked to prepare chicken foil wraps and steak and pitched the large tent that Raymond and Kenny would be sharing. We ate until we were stuffed, Kenny brought out Bourbon for us to try, Raymond got humorously tipsy, and we all went to bed. Priscilla and I were extremely comfortable, since we had new sleeping pads that I got from Amazon (having learned my lesson from being very uncomfortable the last time we went camping). But Priscilla was cold, since her sleeping bag is old and thin.

We got better at starting campfires compared to the last time we went camping, since this time Kenny knew to use more kindling. He brought an axe to split firewood, and Priscilla somehow had the best wood splitting technique of us all. After a steak and egg breakfast in the morning, we drove over to Morro Bay and went to Rock Kayak where we rented two doubles. We weren't allowed out of the bay, so we just paddled around looking at boats and sea lions, saw Morro Rock semi-close up, and docked on the sandbar on the opposite side of the bay. Kenny and Raymond went for a walk while Priscilla and I made our signature heart with A+P in the sand.

For lunch, we went to a plaza and had turkey sandwiches. Afterwards, we bought three containers of redworms at a fishing shop and headed down to the north t-pier for some fishing. Kenny, Raymond and I had all bought fishing poles from Amazon specifically for this trip. Priscilla was the only one with prior fishing experience, and she was the only one who caught something! She caught a small jacksmelt, which we would gut, cook and eat a few days later. Meanwhile, the more experienced family fishing off the end of the pier was catching fish left and right.

We had more chicken wraps and steak that night. Bourbon followed again, and I showed a slightly higher tolerance for it this time, drinking three standard pours without getting too red.

After breakfast the following morning, Kenny took us on a hike on the trails around the campground. We probably hiked a good 3-4 miles, and we got a great view of Spooner's Cove and the camp site below from atop a hill.

It was late after camping, and we decided that we would have time only for lunch. We had two containers of redworms remaining, so we just dumped them at the edge of camp. In hindsight, Kenny realized that they were the right kind of worms that he could've used in his home garden.

After packing up and debating where to get lunch, we finally agreed to go back to Morro Bay. We ended up eating a late lunch at one of the few places that was still open - Giovanni's Fish Market. The food was ok; I enjoyed eating some of Priscilla's clam chowder bowl, but it was a little pricey for such a small bowl.

We parted ways here, with Raymond heading back to Irvine, and the rest of us heading back to NorCal with Kenny. The trip was fun and the basic level of amenities are probably the lowest I'm comfortable with. I was starting to feel dirty from getting smokey from the campfires and not showering for two days. Any longer than that and I would've started to feel really gross. Needless to say, one of the first things I did when getting back home was to take a thorough, hot shower!

Sadly, this blog entry about our Hawaii honeymoon was written a month after getting back from Hawaii. Being busy writing a ton of Yelp reviews (all linked here) has been part of why it's taken so long to finish writing this entry, but I still don't have a great excuse. I just needed to sit down and force myself to do it, which, evidently I've now done. So without further ado, I present to you our adventures in Hawaii in this super-long wall of text, which I'm sure all of you are going to read in one sitting, word for word.

After a "mere" four months of being married, Priscilla and I went on our honeymoon to Hawaii! Now I know that couples typically go on their honeymoon shortly after the wedding, but we had a few reasons for not following convention. First, with all the wedding planning we had to do, we didn't even want to start thinking about the honeymoon till much later. Second, we wanted to allow ample time for us to transition from an LDR to marriage, and for Priscilla to adjust to life in the Bay Area. Finally, we wanted to avoid the summer peak travel season in order to save some money.

Originally, we were thinking of visiting just Oahu, but somebody mentioned to us that Big Island has the only active volcanoes amongst all the islands, so we decided to visit both islands in this trip. Kona and Hilo are the two main cities on Big Island, and we decided to stay in Kona because it's less expensive. On Oahu, we stayed in Waikiki, which is pretty much the place tourists stay. We planned our trip from Friday, August 31 till Sunday, September 9. This gave us two full weekends and a holiday (Labor Day), meaning that we would need to take off only 5 days from work to have a 10-day trip.

Day 1 (Friday):
So at 7:40am on August 31, we took off on an Alaska Airlines flight bound from San Jose to Kona. We went with Alaska because they had a better fare than Hawaiian Airlines, strangely. The in-flight snacks were pretty decent: we were given drinks three times (I was introduced to pog and ordered it twice), a macadamia nut cookie, and a free Mai Tai. The flight was about five hours long, and we landed in Kona at 10am due to the 3-hour time difference.

After picking up our rental car at Enterprise, we drove to Costco and got two loaves of bread, sliced turkey, sliced salmon, and sliced cheese. It was cool to see regional items like surfboards for sale here! Some prices were extremely high compared to back at home, like a 2.5lb bag of Spinach selling for $10 that back at home sells for $4. Our first taste of Hawaiian prices.

We then checked into our hotel, Keauhou Beach Resort. Since Priscilla had told them we were on our honeymoon, we got a free upgrade to a king size bed, a better view of the ocean, and a free gift of a stone picture frame. Our room wasn't modern-looking but it was quaint. We made sandwiches, then drove quite a ways to Mountain Thunder, a coffee plantation where we got a free tour. It was cool seeing all the machinery used in coffee bean sorting, and our guide Taro was pretty knowledgeable and interesting, but it would've been cooler if we got to see some of the machines in action. We bought an expensive bag of 100% Kona coffee (supposed to be really good).

By now, I was learning why people say that Hawaii has slow drivers. Just about everywhere on Big Island, we would get stuck behind somebody going at or below the speed limit. Granted, slow drivers exist everywhere, but I think they're more apparent in places like Big Island where roads often are one lane in each direction. Drivers in Hawaii did seem to be nicer than what I'm used to, though.

Anyway, after Mountain Thunder we went to Walmart, since we decided that it would be good for me to have a pair of shorts in humid Kona. We went to the Safeway next door to get tomatoes for our sandwiches and nectarines, then returned to the hotel and had more sandwiches. We ended the evening by swimming in the hotel pool. We were the only ones there, probably because it was raining! But rain isn't really an issue when you're already in the water. ;)

Day 2 (Saturday):
After a nice, hot breakfast at the hotel, we drove two hours to Ka Lae (South Point), the southernmost point in the United States. We parked at the South Point Cliff Dive and looked around and saw people deep-sea fishing and swimming in the water below the cliffs. We took a stroll in the direction we thought would take us further south, found a rocky beach area and went out into the water. I got my shoes soaked after venturing out onto a rock and failing to dodge a wave. =( We didn't know exactly where the southernmost tip of Ka Lae was, but it turns out we were about 400 feet from it. Doh! But we can still say we've been to Ka Lae.

We then continued up the coast, stopped at Punalu'u Bake Shop for a malasada (tasted like a normal donut; I don't see what's so special), and then made our way to the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach, which had coarse black sand and really sharp rocks (not good for swimming). There was a turtle sunbathing on shore. It was so still that I didn't know whether it was alive until several minutes later when it moved slightly to escape the rising tide.

Lunch was at a vegetarian place called Cafe Ono near the town of Volcano. Lunch was locally-sourced and delicious. We tried to pet the goat out in the backyard, but it started headbutting us because it was hungry/cranky.

The last activity of the day was at the Volcanoes National Park, where we saw steam vents, the Kilauea crater volcano, and a tunnel that was formed by lava flowing through the ground. It was cool, but I wish we were able to get closer to the lava. Supposedly you have to take a helicopter tour if you want to see lava.

Day 3 (Sunday):
This day we took the northern route across the island. The highway on the west shore ran across black volcanic rock, on which lots of people have piled white rocks to form names and pictures. We stopped along the highway and "borrowed" some rocks from words that were illegible, and made our own heart with "A + P" inside (the first of many).

The first stop on our list was Akaka Falls, where we enjoyed some scenic views around the walkway loop. For lunch, we got chicken and fish wraps and smoothies at What's Shakin', a touristy place off the beaten path. The smoothies are the real deal, made largely with fruit grown right on the farm in back of the restaurant. This place sells double entendre soap and other funny gag gifts.

Next up was Rainbow Falls, which wasn't as much a sight as Akaka Falls, especially since the rainbow wasn't out. The last item of the day was the Pana'ewa Zoo in Hilo, a small zoo where admission was free. We went there mainly to see a live feeding of the white Bengal Tiger, Namaste. However, we found that Namaste wasn't in the best shape due to old age, being unable to stand for more than a few seconds on his hind legs. It was such a sad sight to see him struggling and limping, so we skipped the feeding and checked out the rest of the zoo. There were birds of various kinds in cages, reptiles in tanks, anteaters, and a petting zoo which was unfortunately not open that day.

Day 4 (Monday):
We took a free language culture class after breakfast at the hotel. The class helped us understand how to pronounce Hawaiian words and the meaning behind words like "aloha" and "haole." We learned how the written language was brought by missionaries; prior to that, Hawaiian was an all oral language. A consonant never directly follows a consonant, an apostrophe separates two vowels into different syllables, and a macron over a vowel draws out its length.

We went snorkeling at Kahalu'u Beach Park, where Priscilla got bitten by the state fish - the reef triggerfish, known in Hawaiian as the humuhumunukunukuapua'a (a word we had coincidentally just learned in our language class). Apparently that fish is very territorial and doesn't like humans standing in its nesting area. Priscilla was so honored to have been bitten by the state fish and couldn't stop bragging about it afterward. She was also a lot better at snorkeling than I was. I had trouble keeping water out of my snorkel tube, and my goggles constantly got fogged up.

It was then time to say aloha (goodbye) to the Big Island and aloha (hello) to Oahu. We returned to the Kona Airport, where we boarded our 45-minute Hawaiian Airlines flight to Honolulu.

The difference between Oahu and Big Island is like day and night. Big Island was very scenic and serene, while in Honolulu I felt like I was back in LA, and in Waikiki with all its high-rise hotels, I felt like I was in San Francisco. We were picked up from the airport by a shuttle driver who was really entertaining and knew a lot about the island. He told us about some of the places to see around Waikiki, how there are ABC Stores everywhere, and how only recently China has surpassed Japan to claim the largest percentage by ethnicity of tourists to Hawaii.

We checked into our hotel, the Waikiki Sand Villa. That place wasn't nearly as nice as Keauhou and they were unable to fulfill our request for a courtesy room upgrade. The room was smaller than the one we had at Keauhou, had less furniture, and the decor was drab. Well we wanted a budget hotel, and that's what we got.

That night we had dinner with my friend Nessa, whom I know from an online MMO, at Old Spaghetti Factory at the Ward Center. The decor there was grand. Taking TheBus to get there was, however, not so grand, as that bus neither displayed nor announced the names of each stop. I had to ask the driver where the Ward Center was, and we ended up getting off one stop too early since the Ward Center is a very large place and has multiple stops. Taking the bus back to our hotel was much easier, as that bus announced every stop.

Day 5 (Tuesday):
I had gotten sick from traveling and not drinking enough water or getting enough fruits, so we tried taking it easier this day. Still, we had a tour that we'd already paid for to go on. Our bus tour took us around Waikiki, Punchbowl (we were let out once to see the statue of Kamehameha I), National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (we saw it all from the bus), and a couple hours at Pearl Harbor. At Pearl Harbor we toured the outdoor exhibits and visited the Arizona Memorial, a white memorial on the water next to the sunken U.S.S. Arizona, which requires a short ferry ride to get to.

After getting back to Waikiki, we had lunch at Marukame Udon, a pretty decent udon place with great prices. I got the regular niku (beef) bowl. Yum! We got some oranges and water at the ABC Store nearest to our hotel. Eating those oranges really helped me get much better by the next day.

Day 6 (Wednesday):
This is the only day we had a car rental. We got a swanky Chevrolet Impala LTZ from Budget, which had a rental office located inside the Hyatt. My dad had given us the address of his family's old house in Honolulu, so we stopped there in the morning to take some pictures. We were afraid of staying too long, as it's weird from somebody else's point of view for some random person to be taking pictures of their house. We found our way to the Dole Plantation and watched a pineapple cutting demonstration, got dole whip, and did the outdoor maze. Priscilla and I competed to see who could find all eight relics in the maze first. We were given complete maps of the maze, but I handicapped myself by not allowing myself to look at the map, save for determining each relic's approximate location. This handicap proved too much, as I ended up at the same relic four times and was unable to find them all without giving up and using the map. Needless to say, Priscilla won by quite a bit.

For lunch on our way up to North Shore, we stopped at a parking lot where shrimp trucks are parked. Priscilla got a plate of shrimp from the famous Giovanni's Shrimp Truck, while I got mine from Hono's Shrimp Truck. I liked mine better because I got more food than Priscilla for $1 less. We stopped by Matsumoto's Grocery Store for Priscilla to get shave ice; I didn't really care for it, but I did eat the ice cream at the bottom.

We stopped at Hale'iwa Beach Park to take some pictures, then at Waimea Beach to relax some more. We hadn't brought our swimwear so I was in jeans and tennis shoes. I built a sandcastle too close to the water, and the waves washed over my feet unexpectedly when the tide rose, so my shoes got soaked for a second time. Joy.

Before returning the car, we stopped by Walmart in Honolulu to get macadamia nuts to bring back to our friends and family. Unfortunately, the less expensive trays of chocolate covered macadamia nuts were sold out; we should've bought them in Kona when we had the chance, and I think they were also slightly cheaper there. We ended up getting two 3-packs of nuts in a can: Kona coffee glazed, milk chocolate, and milk chocolate toffee.

Day 7 (Thursday):
The Royal Hawaiian Center offers a bunch of free events including a ukulele lesson four times a week. We tried to make the one this morning but were late and missed a good amount of it. So instead, we just walked and waited around until the dance and singing performance put on by the Polynesian Cultural Center - a small sample of the full experience one would have at the PCC.

We had lunch at Marukame Udon for the second time, followed by swimming at Kuhio Beach, the main beach in Waikiki. Even though it was off season, the beach was still very crowded. Makes sense, since it's the only beach in town, and Waikiki is the tourist capital of Hawaii. I noticed a surfboard rental place on the beach, so on a whim I suggested that we rent surfboards. I pretty much used my surfboard as a giant boogieboard. Catching waves was pretty difficult, but a guy out on the water gave me some pointers and I caught a couple waves at the end. However, I was still using the surfboard as a giant boogieboard - no standing up for me. I was still better than Priscilla, which makes up for me being so much worse than her at snorkeling!

The last major event of the day was back at the Royal Hawaiian Center, where we caught a hula lesson and learned the dance moves for a song about a rainbow. There was a large crowd participating - maybe 100 people, and only a handful of guys. I'm pretty sure all the other guys were slightly better dancers than I was.

For dinner, in addition to sandwiches, we got a steak plate from HiSteaks, a to-go steak restaurant inside of a Food Pantry near our hotel. We got the terriyaki sauce. The steak was pretty good - tender and flavorful.

Day 8 (Friday):
We made sure to get to the ukulele lesson early this time. There weren't as many people here as there were the day before, and the instructor turned out to be the same nice lady who gave the hula lesson! We learned a few chords and Priscilla got pretty good by the end of the lesson - such a natural! A lei making class was next. I thought it'd be kind of lame, but it was actually pretty interesting! It was put on by Aunty Bella's Lei Stand, the oldest lei stand still run by people of Hawaiian heritage. They use quality flowers grown right on the islands of Hawaii - the same flowers that we got to make our free leis with. People usually have to pay $20 or more for leis like the ones we made, hah!

For lunch, we had a steak plate from HiSteaks again. Priscilla was addicted to that place. This time around we tried the lemon/butter sauce, which I liked a little better than the terriyaki sauce (but both were good). We took The Bus in the afternoon to Diamond Head State Monument and walked up the road to the park. It was about a 45-minute hike to the top of the crater, where we had an amazing view of the coast and Waikiki. I'm really envious of the people who live nearby who can come here to hike regularly!

We then walked a good ways to Rainbow Drive-in for dinner. However many hundreds of calories we burned from all that hiking and walking, we probably gained right back from all the fried food at this place. We ended up throwing some away since it was just way too much fried stuff for our stomachs to handle. We got some adequate pastries from Napoleon's Bakery and then called it a night.

Day 9 (Saturday):
All of day 9 was spent at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Our booking included transportation, and our guide, Cousin Leon, was hilarious and interesting. We visited six villages in the park: Samoa, Aotearoa, Hawaii, Fiji, Tahiti, and Tonga.

The guys at the Samoa show were hilarious- climbing trees for coconuts, cracking open coconuts, making fires, and making jokes all the way. At Aotearoa, we watched a cool dance where people tossed sticks to each other, women gracefully swung poi, and we even played some games on the lawn afterwards. At the Hawaii village, we listened to traditional and modern Hawaiian songs and watched a girl dance hula to them. At Fiji, each audience member was given a hollow stick and we helped make music by banging them on the floor. At Tahiti, we watched a volunteer female audience member do the grass skirt dance, and volunteer male audience members do the chicken dance. This one volunteer happened to be from one of the Polynesian islands himself and was a really good dancer. Finally at Tonga, we listened as the guys here played these large drums. The lead drummer asked for three volunteers from the audience to help play drums, and they were hilarious. Especially this Chinese guy who didn't understand English very well but had a very entertaining stage presence. There was a canoe pageant at noon, where dancers from each village danced on a flat canoe on the river running through the PCC.

Dinner was held in one of the many dining halls. The buffet was excellent - there was plenty of Polynesian-style food, and we left really, really full. At the end of the night was the "Ha: Breath of Life" show, which features one storyline through the six different cultures that we'd seen earlier in the day. The dancers had a lot of costume changes, there was always a lot going on, and the show made good use of stage props and video screens. The choreography and execution were excellent, and the fire dancing with guys spinning flaming torches was utterly amazing. Though we wished that our visit was longer, it still took up almost the entire day.

Day 10 (Sunday):
Sunday was our flight back home, and we didn't do too much. We swam in the morning after breakfast (the pool had a cool island off to the side, creating a narrow channel between it and the edge), checked out, and got to Honolulu International a couple hours before our 2pm flight. The flight was five and a half hours long, but due to the time zone change we landed in San Jose around 10pm. We were pretty exhausted and it took me a few days to fully recuperate mentally. Like needing a vacation from vacation, people say.

Summary:
Hawaii was thrilling. It was a place where the pace of life seems a lot slower despite our feeling rushed to see lots of different things. I learned a lot (I think) about the culture and about the idea of ha, cherishing one's family and friends, sharing that breath while we are still able to. We'll probably visit a lot of other places before we make another trip to Hawaii, but I can't wait until next time!

Tis the season, for weddings! Two weeks ago, Victor and Sally tied the knot. My parents, Aaron, Priscilla and I made it to their wedding in Torrance. At their dinner reception at a fancy hotel, Victor surprised us all by doing a dance routine with Sally. I never imagined that I'd see him dance, yet he was confident... and loving it! Sally, who's a dancing queen, taught him well!

Then last week, it was Stan and Jackie's turn at the altar. Priscilla and I didn't get invited, but last I heard (i.e. saw on Facebook) they were having a blast on their honeymoon in Hawaii.

Then today, Priscilla's cousin Hanson and his long-time girlfriend Anna Grace entered into their own lifelong commitment. The wedding was also in Torrance and the reception was also at a fancy hotel. The steak was the best!

And lots of others are getting married too. Priscilla and I carpooled down from the Bay Area this weekend with two church friends. One was down for his niece's wedding, and the other for his friend's bachelor party. Yep, tis the season indeed.

Having been through the wedding planning process, Priscilla and I now have an appreciation for all the little nuances of other peoples' weddings. We notice program wording, the way the groomsmen and bridesmaids enter the wedding hall, the way people on stage are facing, verbal cues, the decor, photographer placement, and all the other little things we would've glossed over before. And if they're anything like us, we know that though the newlyweds have now passed the stressful part, the busyness is far from over.

Priscilla's been needing a bike of her own, so yesterday, being the loving husband that I am, I took her to Walt's Cycle in Sunnyvale to let her pick one out. We decided on a $400 Trek 7000, a 21-speed hybrid. It's got grip shifters and a lower-end Shimano derailleur, which is not unusual for a bike in the lower price range, but it feels solid enough, and Priscilla definitely values comfort over performance. Her model is indeed a comfort bike with its semi-padded seat, step-through frame, angle-adjustable stem and overall upright riding posture. Priscilla wants to bike to work and to the grocery store, so I've been getting accessories on Amazon to put on her bike so that she can haul stuff.

Since our place is small, we can only fit two bikes against the wall. So today we visited my uncle (and of course he cooked more awesome food for us) and returned the Huffy bike he let me borrow four years ago. He says he's going to start riding it (the reason he let me borrow it was because he hadn't ridden it much and it was sitting in the backyard gathering rust), so I told my aunt to hold him to it. Knowing her, she certainly will.

It's hard to believe that Priscilla and I have been married for a whole month already, but the calendar doesn't lie. Married life has been great overall. Sure, it's not perfect, but what marriage is? Anybody who says they have a perfect marriage is either lying or hasn't been married more than two days.

Priscilla is adjusting to living in the Bay Area and is starting to drive around without needing her GPS. She's been busy changing her name with various agencies, cooking, catching up on all her favorite TV shows on Hulu, and applying to jobs. I've become slightly less of a light sleeper and have been getting better sleep overall, but a king size bed still would be really nice.

On Priscilla's birthday, I cooked for her for the first time since we got married. I made one of the things I make best- spaghetti! I made my own sauce of course, consisting of Trader Joe's marinara sauce, ground turkey, onions, garlic, tomatoes and mushrooms. Priscilla enjoyed it, even though I took a long time prepping all the ingredients and the sauce was a little healthier than she's accustomed to.

The following day I took her up to the scenic part of San Francisco, and we saw Fort Funston and Sutro Baths and ate at The Cliff House Bistro, which had these amazing fresh-baked popovers! Unfortunately it was a bit windy that day, which cut our trip short since Priscilla was cold. But I made it up to her by taking her to see The Avengers that night. The movie was awesome. But it's Joss Whedon, so I expected no less.

As I mentioned in the previous post, this weekend Priscilla and I attended Will and Val's wedding at a cherry orchard in Leona Valley. I can safely say that I've never been to a more unique wedding. Will and Val really went all out. Guests were shuttled from the parking lot in a wagon pulled by a tractor, and paper parasols were distributed since the weather was so hot. Guests had been encouraged to wear cowboy boots and hats, and all the bridesmaids wore boots, and all the groomsmen donned suspenders. Between the ceremony and dinner reception, there was live country music, pony rides for kids, a petting zoo, polaroid photo op to make photos that would be given to the newlyweds, and a dessert bar with various treats brought by different people. A trailer with air conditioned executive restrooms was provided. The restrooms, adorned with wood paneling and classy artwork, rivaled those of high-end restaurants.

The dinner reception was held under a large tent. We had country barbeque with all the fixin's, and lemonade and iced tea drunk out of jars and striped straws. There were around 50 tables, each of which had a uniquely decorated picture frame with the table number and a fun fact about the newlyweds corresponding to that number. In lieu of the regular glass clinking-kissing tradition, there was a basket into which people could put either money or notes of encouragement, which would allow them to ring a cowbell which only then would make the wedded couple kiss.

Finally after dinner, two step dance lessons were offered. It was a lot of fun, but Priscilla and I are a little lacking in dancing ability. The whole day way a ton of fun, and this will surely be a wedding I'll never forget!

I never imagined that married life would be so... busy. As a "loophole" to us having a relatively small wedding, my parents threw two dinner receptions for people we didn't have room for, one reception in LA on the wedding night, and the other in the Bay Area the week after. I got to meet relatives I never knew I had on both sides of the family. Or at least they came to the restaurant and claimed to be my relatives, and I was none the wiser. The receptions were fun but exhausting, especially the night of the wedding, since after the wedding Priscilla and I just wanted to sleep. Needless to say, my face was sore by the end of the night, having to smile for pictures all day long.

Priscilla and I drove up to the Bay Area the day after the wedding, the car packed with her stuff and wedding gifts, but we got a late start and got there around 2am. Monday was supposed to be our day to go sightseeing around San Francisco, but we were really sick and ended up staying home to clean the apartment. I guess it was needed, since we had quite a bunch of stuff to unpack and put away.

That week I returned to Norcal Furniture to get a desk and computer stand for Priscilla. All the furniture I got from Norcal (including the sofa bed and dining set from last time) is a dark cappucino color, so it'll look good if we ever put it all in the same room.

The wifey has been cooking gourmet food for me. She made lasagna, slow cooked chicken and salmon when our parents were visiting, and chicken kabob and sloppy joes when my uncle and aunt came over. There've also been tacos and smoothies, egg frittatas and corn chowder, chicken pasta and lots of other things I wouldn't normally take the time to make for myself.

We've also been to a few peoples' houses for dinner, which will continue for the next few weeks, and we'll have them over to eat at our place soon. Finally, Priscilla and I have consumed the rest of our free time by writing most of our thank you cards. This weekend we're going down to LA for Val and Will's countryside wedding, and in fact I'm only finding time to blog because Priscilla's driving the first leg of the trip down.

So aside from all the business, how's married life been? Well, it's certainly different having another person in the bed when I'm trying to sleep. I'm a light sleeper, so somebody bumping into me or tugging at the blankets is enough to wake me up. The fact that I have a full size bed (smaller than queen) doesn't help. Fortunately some church friends lent us a king size comforter, which now means there's more than enough blanket coverage for both of us. If only we could buy a bigger bed if space permitted. For now, my sleeping will just have to adapt, or else.

Other than that, marriage hasn't changed a whole lot, except Priscilla is probably cooking a lot healthier than she's used to. For a while, it felt weird realizing that we're husband and wife, but it's mostly sunk in now. We've also gotten used to having gone from being in a long distance relationship to seeing each other every single day. ;)

Well, it happened. Priscilla and I tied the knot on April 28. She's now.... my wife. Ewww.

The wedding went surprisingly well. Aaron and I got there around 7:30am to help set up tables and chairs. Stephanie was already there directing people (like her sons who had or were volunteered into helping), and Priscilla was already there with her makeup artist. Aaron and I later got suited up, Priscilla and I had a time of prayer alone, and Tom joined us for prayer afterward. We were ready before 11am, the start of the wedding, but the ceremony started maybe 15 minutes past the hour to allow stragglers to arrive. Nonetheless, we still managed to stay on or even ahead of schedule.

The ceremony went pretty much perfectly. Auntie Jean played flawlessly (as far as I could tell), Crescentia sang beautifully, Tom gave an excellent message about how our marriage should be a testament of God's love, and Priscilla only stumbled over one part of her vows, which everybody in the room had a good laugh over. Deborah and Aaron looked great, Natalie was adorable, our mothers did really well lighting the candles, and my dad even learned how to hug! Before we knew it, the ceremony was over, we walked down the aisle happily, came right back for pictures, and then it was time for food!

Unfortunately due to all the excitement, I didn't have much of an appetite. I also had to scarf down my food quickly so that we could go take pictures with each table, so I didn't get to fully enjoy the food. But many guests told me that the food was excellent. Roz, Lowell and crew (they had a lot of people helping in the kitchen and helping to serve guests) did an amazing job.

In addition to being the maid of honor, Deborah graciously accepted the role of MC for the reception. She and Aaron gave really touching and funny speeches. Audrey's four-tiered cake was amazing, though Priscilla and I got to eat only a bite of it. Heeman's floral arrangements looked amazing, and we were happy especially with the table centerpieces which were really beautiful and cost only $20 each. Finally, after the rest of the guests had left, my school friends stayed and helped clean up and break down tables and chairs. By the time Priscilla and I had left, there were still people in the kitchen, cleaning selflessly for what surely would've been a long time.

The day went so well and according to plan. I wish I could've talked with everybody in attendance, but time just wouldn't allow for that. Priscilla and I are blessed to have so many friends who truly love and support us, as well as our parents who argued strongly in favor of having a wedding this large and who helped pay for many of the costs, including the whole reception. Planning such a significant event certainly was stressful (definitely moreso for Priscilla) and at times I downright hated it, but I'm really glad we did it. I feel like the wedding in a small way honored our parents, even though much of it was their money, and our friends, even though we recruited many of them to help. It was so wonderful being served by so many of our friends, starting from a few months ago till now, which also helped keep our costs down. I'm really grateful for our friends, and I know it will be hard for Priscilla to leave them behind, but I hope that we can stay in touch with them as Priscilla and I begin this new chapter in our lives.

This was another productive wedding planning weekend. I flew down to LA Saturday morning and back up Monday night. On Saturday, Aaron and I went to get measured for our tuxedos. I was originally going to get them from Men's Wearhouse, but I found a place called Friar Tux Shop on the other side of the street, listed in the yellow pages. Aaron and I ended up going to both and liked the selection and service at Friar Tux Shop much better. Priscilla met us there, and after much deliberation on my part and much input from the helpful sales associate, I ordered a fitted tux with white tie and vest to match Priscilla's dress, and Aaron ordered (rather, I ordered for him since he had no preference) a traditional-style tux with silver vest and green tie to match Deborah's dress.

After the two hour tux-picking session, Priscilla and I went to Justin and Vicky's house and joined a few people in cutting potatos and onions in preparation for an Easter Breakfast to be held at New Life Church the following day. For dinner, we got some mostly palatable fried food from Church's Chicken. Afterwards, Priscilla and I felt guilty, so we took a walk around the neighborhood and burned off 1% of the calories that we had consumed earlier.

On Sunday, Aaron took me to New Life, and afterwards Priscilla had her makeup trial at her house with a girl named Page she found online. Page made Priscilla look amazing with wavy hair (I thought it looked closer to curly but oh well), so I just had to take Priscilla to the park to take model pictures. Page promised that Priscilla would look even more amazing at the wedding.

Finally, the following day, the two of us went to the Van Nuys County Clerk to get an application for a marriage license for $90. Their website states that the processing time can be an hour, so we were prepared to wait a while, but the place wasn't too busy, so the clerk actually took our form, entered it into the computer, and came back a few minutes later with the application ready to be signed after the ceremony. We picked a good time to get there, because the line of people had grown much longer by the time we were done.

We've really been on top of this wedding stuff. I'll even dare say, it's beginning to be kind of fun. ;)

Since Christmas and New Year's fall on Sundays this time around, we get this Monday and Tuesday and next Monday off from work. I could've chosen to use my vacation time for the remaining three days this week and had over a week of not having to work. Instead for whatever reason, I took last Thursday and Friday off, drove down to LA with Fred Thursday night, and came back up today. So I didn't get as long of a vacation as I could've.

On the upside, I get to return to the gym sooner, since when I'm in LA I don't have access to one. Not getting ample exercise plus stuffing myself with a mountain of food everyday is a dangerous combination.

On the food note, Saturday was another family reunion with Priscilla's extended family. Various people brought short ribs, sticky rice, vegetarian skewers and pasta; and for dessert, a very delectable Kentucky Derby walnut pie courtesy of Johnson. The guys also faced off against the girls in Wii Pictionary and got our butts kicked.

Priscilla and her parents came over Sunday night and brought chicken and duck. My parents made jook, bean threads, chicken drumsticks and curry salmon. The next day, my dad and Aaron made chicken pie and pizzas in the oven while I was out with Priscilla and her mom at David's Bridal, where Priscilla tried on a few wedding dresses. We were there for two hours, but it wasn't so bad since I had my iPod Touch with a bunch of games with me. And we were able to pick out a simple yet elegant dress for $250 after tax! That's one more thing crossed off our long to-do list.

The weather was perfect this Saturday so my uncle and aunt invited me to go sightseeing in San Francisco with them. They took me to the scenic spots along the northwest coast, and wow, I never knew the coast was so beautiful!

Our first stop was Fort Funston, where we spent an hour walking the trails, looking at the ocean and taking pictures. My uncle brought two DSLRs and he and I traded off back and forth. Little did we know that he had the wrong filter on one of the cameras, so most of the 250+ photos from that camera would turn out too blue.

After Fort Funston we continued up the coast to Cliff House and the Sutro Baths. A picture of the Sutro Baths from before the place burned down shows how grand and immense the place was. It was seriously impressive.

From there we visited Eagle's Point, China Beach and other parts of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, taking more pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge the closer we got. We made it all the way to Fort Point, which is just about right next to the bridge.

Our sightseeing concluded at Twin Peaks, where we took lots of pictures overlooking the city as the sun was going down. Half the city was cast in shadow and the other half was still light- a perfect shot.

To reward our all-day "hike," we wrapped up the day with Chinese food at All Season Restaurant. It was alright- they had a corn egg flower soup with crab meat that I really liked. The bowl was huge and I finished most of it, since my uncle and aunt didn't want to get full on soup. There was also a Chinese wedding banquet going on in a partitioned-off area. They had people drumming while two dragon costumes came in and did the dragon dance. The drums were a little loud and went on for maybe 15 minutes, but it was an interesting experience.

My church friend Andrea is "funemployed," so she decided spur of the moment to drive down to LA to visit her long distance significant other and offered me a ride. How could I refuse? We drove down at 7:30 Saturday morning and she dropped me off at Priscilla's house just in time for lunch. Priscilla made curry chicken, salad and pork chops for me and her parents. I'm glad that she likes to cook for me!

Sunday night my parents cooked a feast like they always do when I come down. There was salmon, chicken stew, chicken broth that was way better than anything that comes out of a can, green beans and honey bbq chicken. Needless to say, I was given a lot of food to take back with me. I'm glad that my parents also like to cook for me! ;)

This weekend I helped Priscilla's dad reconfigure the router, since he reset it trying to do something, and reinstall XP on one of his computers. I helped Priscilla reconfigure her microphone in Ubuntu, and I helped my dad with making an XP slipstream CD and reinstall it on a computer that died. For some reason, things that stop working for people start magically working again when I try them.

Priscilla and I got in lots of study/work time. She needed to get caught up with her online accounting class, and I needed to wrap up loose ends at work and write a "letter to my 30-year old self," a "fun" project that was a year overdue. Nothing too exciting this weekend, but it was productive.

The drive back to the Bay Area on Monday was mostly uneventful, except for dangerous debris on the freeway leading up to the Grapevine. We narrowly avoided a cinder block in the middle of our lane, and I also saw wood boards and a couch cushion in the road. It's a good thing we were driving during the day when there was visibility. I hope that stuff got cleared off soon.

Edit from 2025: I had linked to a Caltrans page for reporting road debris. There's now a new page for that: https://csr.dot.ca.gov/. However, the page says that any kind of highway emergency should be reported to 911 or CHP. I'm pretty sure the situation we ran into would've qualified as an emergency.

This month might have the record for the most days I've spent visiting LA. I was down there at the beginning of this month, and again from last Thursday till today. It was Priscilla's birthday recently and Memorial Day yesterday, so I figured I'd take a couple days off work to enjoy a (relatively) long vacation.

Priscilla's been needing a new computer since her laptop has been acting up, so one of the things I did was build a new computer with parts I had shipped to her house. I built her a mini-tower with an Athlon II X2 250, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 500 GB hard drive, and Ubuntu 11.04- basically more than enough computing power for her Youtube/email needs. She seems to be happy with it.

For exercise, we went hiking at Lake Balboa, where I was sad to find that the peddleboats from my youth were no longer there. We hiked all the way to the Sepulveda Dam and even found, when venturing off the beaten path, an arbor, bench and cot somebody had skillfully fashioned out of tree branches and twine. On a different day we went hiking on one of the trails in the hills around my house, and saw a large number of rabbits.

Sunday we had lunch with a bunch of CCAC friends at King's Burger, where we also played Monopoly Deal. And speaking of food, my parents made no shortage of it during the time I was down there. I had BBQ ribs and chicken, salmon, ceviche, corn soup, spinach, mashed potatoes, meatloaf... and they packed me a ton of food to bring back with me!

Since I drove my car down this time, my dad took a look at it and found what looked like the cause of my coolant leaks- a loose hose. He tightened the clamp, and so far so good.

I love my family.

My uncle and aunt were down in LA from last Thursday through today, and I caught a ride with them. I naturally spent most of the time with Priscilla, and she planned our activities this time around with the deal that I would plan the next time.

On Friday I picked her up from work and we explored her world: the pet cemetery next to work where she goes to read (you know, because it's tranquil), New Life Church, 24 Hour Fitness, and Trader Joe's and a bunch of other stores.

On Saturday we went to the LA Times Festival of Books at USC. I was leery when she told me we were going to USC but wouldn't tell me why. But we had a fun time, even though (or perhaps because) we spent no money, and we scored some free Ben & Jerry's ice cream, tea, fresh flowers and airbrushed dragon tattoos. Afterwards we drove to Santa Monica Pier, walked the pier and watched people catch swarms of fish, and ate sandwiches on the chilly beach after the sun went down (my fault, for wanting to stay on the pier too long).

On Sunday we ate at my parents' house, where my mom per custom made a feast. Needless to say, I did not need a midnight snack that night.

Finally for Monday, Priscilla had the awesome idea of riding the Metro across town (day passes for just $6) to visit some tourist spots that we've never seen despite growing up in LA. The first stop was Hollywood and Highland, where we saw Grauman's Chinese Theatre, El Capitan Theatre and the Walk of Fame. Next was Olvera Street, in all its quaintness and homogenous trinket shops, where we had some greasy and probably authentic Mexican food. Finally we hit up Chinatown, where we were surprised to see many Vietnamese shops and very few Chinese shops. Unfortunately, since it was a weekday and getting late, most of the shops were closed/closing by the time we got there and we managed to only buy some sparklers for her and a pair of sandals for me. It was a fun day. Sadly, we forgot to bring a camera.

My dad and brother drove up on Thursday and stayed in the area (with my uncle and aunt) until Sunday. My dad worked on my car on Friday, changing out the transmission fluid, while Aaron was in the East Bay visiting friends. On Saturday my dad and I changed out as much power steering fluid as we could (with a turkey baster), and put in new spark plugs, spark plug wires and a distributor cap.

They also brought up a ton of food that my mom made for me- pork chops, salmon, chicken with green beans, bok choi, seafood soup and vegetable soup. My family is awesome.

Until this year I hadn't ever taken the entire week between Christmas and New Year's off from work. But this year, since both holidays fell on a Saturday, my company gave us Monday, Tuesday and Friday off during the week following Christmas, so I ended up vacationing in LA from December 24 till January 3.

During the long break I hung out with two sets of high school friends, went to three holiday parties (four, if you count the one at my house that I caught the tail end of), saw two movies in the theatre (Narnia and Tron), worked out with a friend once (not nearly enough), helped my dad install shelves in the garage, did a lot of work on the website I'm making for church, played many games of Monopoly Deal with Aaron and other people, and found gift money that had apparently been sitting around for years.

I of course spent the majority of days with the girlfriend. We decorated her family's Christmas tree, cleaned her room, did our weekly study discussion while walking at Balboa Park, did puzzles, watched random Youtube videos, and had a lot of meals with different people.

This vacation time has been good, but I'm ready to get back to "normal" life. For one, my body is in dire need of exercise after a plethora of holiday food combined with inactivity. I've also more or less repaid my entire sleep debt, so I'm looking to go back to work refreshed and to start off this year on the right foot!

As customary, I spent my Thanksgiving in LA, where I was treated by my parents to an overabundance of good food. For Thanksgiving they made the usual- turkey, yams, mashed potatoes, ham, biscuits, etc. On all the other days they made a lot more- including turkey pot pie, crab, chicken stew and seafood soup. They also gave me a week's worth of food to take back to the Bay Area. My parents are awesome.

During the holiday weekend, Priscilla and I also celebrated our four year anniversary by hiking on the Escondido Canyon Trails (where there's a famed waterfall, which unfortunately wasn't much more than a trickle at that time of year), making shepherd's pie (more like Priscilla making it and me eating it), and having hot pot for dinner with her parents. The next day we worked on a jigsaw puzzle (we're really into those now for some reason) and watched "Batman: Under the Red Hood." The next day we visited Chi at HRock, her home church away from home, had tacos with a bunch of her friends, and visited her grandmother who recently got out of the ICU.

All in all, it was a fun, relaxing holiday weekend. Too short though.

I drove down to LA last Friday and was there till Wednesday. I was there mainly to do maintenance on the Previa. I helped my dad change a bunch of fluids (brake, transmission, power steering, coolant and oil), we got new tires, and he changed a bunch of parts (hoses, belts and air filter) when I was out having fun with friends. Unfortunately due to some bad instructions on Chilton's website, he over-torqued a bolt and bent a part holding a pulley, so he had to order a new part and it didn't arrive by the time I had to leave. I ended up driving my grandfather's 20-year old Taurus back to the Bay. I don't really mind; the only slight nuisance is that the interior is dirty since Aaron had been using the car to haul dead trees.

Other than car issues, on Saturday I went hiking with a dozen CCAC people on a trail near Tom Sugi's house and played Dominion with a few people afterward. The next day I ate "Korean" chicken fried rice at Galleria while listening to Ezekiel's many thoughts on the healthcare reform, and in the evening Priscilla and I had our last premarital counseling session with the Sugis. Monday, I was sick with some sort of stomach flu (what a great way to spend vacation), as were Priscilla and a lot of other people who went on the hike. Tuesday, Priscilla and I were feeling better so we got snacks from Trader Joe's and she helped my mom make dinner (aka learning wife skills for the potential near future).

Overall, I had a lot of fun, caught up on sleep, and got a new temporary car. And I think I'm getting used to the 5.5 hour drive. I just kind of went on autopilot, especially on I-5 where it's all straight and boring. I did find a good Christian radio station out there, K-LOVE. They're in many cities on many frequencies, but I managed to get mostly good reception on the 88.3 frequency from Buttonwillow to Gilroy, which is more than half the trip. I also learned that driving next to big rigs can greatly boost spotty reception, since big trucks act as big antennas!

This Thanksgiving holiday, I caught a ride down to LA with Minh and was down there for a few days. I had some good food with family, fun times catching up with CCAC people, and obligatorily spent a lot of time with the girlfriend.

It was also Priscilla's and my three year anniversary, and we celebrated by doing completely everyday things- making turkey tacos, cleaning her messy desk, and having dinner at a restaurant we went to before we started dating.

The next day we had lunch with her parents at a Peruvian place called Las Dunas (their pescado a la chorrillana was really good), went on a prayer hike around Pepperdine University, and had our second session of pre-engagement counseling (doesn't mean we're definitely getting engaged) with Tom and Amanda.

I'm glad we can have fun doing ordinary, practical things without the expectation that fun comes only from spending lots of money or doing exotic things, though there's a place for that too. As long as we keep surprising each other, I think we'll be alright.

I'm really blessed to have everything I do.

Today I was down at UCLA recruiting students at the Winter Engineering and Technical Fair. This was my second time recruiting at a career fair, my first being in October of last year.

This time around, the fair spanned a single day instead of two, and there were fewer students and companies that showed up. Nonetheless, I talked to more CS students than I did last time, and I got 4 or 5 good leads.

This time around, management wanted us to pre-screen candidates on the spot, rather than us doing phone-screens later. So I spent several minutes per candidate drilling them on programming, design, and data structures, and having them write simple code. This wasn't too conventional for a career fair, so I'm sure the students were a little put off, or at the very least surprised, but I do see the merit in risking scaring students in order to narrow down the candidates of interest. Since I'm convening with management tomorrow to review resumes, it also means that we can contact students as early as next week with an offer to fly them up for an on-site interview. I don't know of another company that moves so quickly in its hiring process.

As customary, last night I surprised Priscilla at her house, since only her parents knew I was coming. Her dad's 70th birthday is tomorrow, so last night we sang happy birthday and had some chocolate cake. We had dinner at my (parents') house tonight, and my mom gave me more food to take home. I didn't anticipate otherwise. ;)

I spent this past Christmas down in LA hanging out with family and friends. I drove down Tuesday night, by myself unfortunately, since people I thought were going to go decided not to. But I had "The Case For Faith" by Lee Strobel on audio-CD to listen to, so the drive down wasn't too tough. The audio book was pretty engaging, so the driving part was merely secondary.

Christmas day I spent mostly with Raymond, learning how to drive stick on his Civic. Raymond- thanks for being a good sport and letting me wear down your clutch/transmission/engine/synchronizer in the name of practice!

On Friday, I finally did my second Slave Day with Priscilla (she's already done three for me). I made her buy me a dress shirt at Ross (this would come in handy the following day), play a logic game, sing praise songs, make food with me (I made turkey paella, which didn't turn out so great), and watch No Country For Old Men, which turned out to be boring, and she fell asleep.

The next day I went with Priscilla and her parents to the wedding of Nancy (a relative of Priscilla's) and Ricky. Priscilla's mom took a ridiculous number of pictures as usual, including many of me and Pris. But some of them came out really good. We actually look cute!

The weekend after New Year's, Priscilla's parents came up to the Bay Area for a friend's funeral. Priscilla had led me to believe that she wasn't coming, but she showed up and hid in my van, having borrowed a key from my parents.

That weekend we had fun making food (tacos), working out, studying, and me getting sick because of sleep debt. It's cool that we can have fun just doing the small things.

My parents and Priscilla came up over the Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately Aaron couldn't come, as he was at a youth retreat.

On Saturday we attended a wedding for Johnson and Mimi Ng up in a beautiful location in the Oakland hills. I forget how I am related to Johnson, and I don't really know him but apparently he knows my family. I liked the fact that it was a small wedding - probably less than 100 guests - but I am accustomed to Christian weddings, so when the female minister (who was dressed somewhat like a hippie) said "We are gathered here today in the spirit of love," it felt a little... odd. =)

Sunday was Priscilla's birthday and our 1.5 year anniversary, so I took her on a surprise trip down to the Monterey Peninsula. Our first stop was the Old Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey, where we spent half an hour walking the wharf and getting the iconic clam chowder bowls. From there we hopped onto the coastal part of the 17 Mile Drive where we stopped at half a dozen points and took lots of gorgeous pictures since we're both so good looking and all.

Finally our trip ended at the white-sand beach in the city of Carmel, where we watched the sun set behind the rolling hills caressing the ocean's profile, and the waves crashed gently upon the sand at our feet as the dying sun lit the sky in one last fiery blaze of passion.

Then we walked along the shore in the near-dark despite her protests that it was too cold. Man, I'm such a great boyfriend.

Since Priscilla left her job at Unitone for a better, less-dramatic one at National Technical Systems, she gave herself a well-deserved week of rehab-- err, vacation-- and decided to visit me with her parents from Friday to Tuesday of last week.

On Saturday we drove up to San Francisco to check out Pier 39 and Coit Tower. The scenery at Pier 39 was not as unique as any of us remembered. The place looked like a section of Universal Studios with its chain restaurants, a bungee harness you could bounce around in for $10, and even an NFL shop. Seems like it's become just another tourist trap without any semblance of real culture. Fortunately we found some folks selling 30 minute motorboat tours for $5 and got to see a good deal of the Fisherman's Wharf area.

After that we drove up nearby Telegraph Hill, atop which is Coit Tower. We spent considerably less money there (around $16 on admission for the four of us), but I enjoyed it more than Pier 39. From the top of the tower, which puts you higher than everything else except some skyscrapers, you have a great panoramic view of the city.

During the rest of the time her parents were up here, they were having meals with old friends, taking a ton of pictures, and washing my dishes for me. I had a lot of fun, and it was kind of them trying to serve me in any way they could.

So far Priscilla has been up here twice (the first time with Audrey). My dad and brother were up with me the first week, and my mom is flying up tomorrow and staying for a few days. Then my parents up are coming up for somebody's wedding in May, and we invited Priscilla to fill Aaron's spot since he's going to be away at a retreat. With all these people continuously visiting me, it doesn't really make sense for me to go back and visit now. I guess I'll have to wait until people stop visiting me. =)

Well one week has passed since I started working at Applied Signal Technology, and I'm still here, so apparently I haven't done anything too bad. :)

The week started with a full day of orientation on Monday, during which I was given a huge stack of paperwork to read and complete. I also got three free lunches in a row- Monday with my two managers, Tuesday after a welcome briefing for new hires, and Wednesday at the monthly company lunch, at which I boxed a lot of food to take to work on Thursday, so I guess that counts too!

Workwise, I've been placed on the several-person Switch Control team, the group that writes software to control network switches. The learning curve is very steep, and the first couple days were pretty tough, but oh how much more I know now compared to a week ago. One team member, Michael (and there are actually two Michaels and a Mike on the team, so maybe I should say one of the Michaels), has been my quasi-mentor and helping get up to speed. I'm getting bite-sized projects of increasing difficulty as I'm becoming more familiar with concepts and terminology (and there's LOTS of that) related to the project. I'll be a guru in no time!

I'm really enjoying the organized but relaxed environment at the company. The friendly social atmosphere and people-oriented mentality is one of the things that attracted me in the first place. Every person gets his/her own office, often shared with an officemate. My officemate is a really cool guy who started a week before I did, but unfortunately they relocated him today. Maybe they'll put in a new hire with me next week and then I'll be the one with one week's experience!

The company also tries to make sure its employees' needs are met. Relocation assistance has set me up with temporary housing and a rental car, the company offers 100% reimbursement for grad school (which I need to decide if I want to do), and free medical and dental coverage. We have a facilities request helpdesk system where we can put in a request for supplies and furniture. If I need an additional whiteboard in my office, want the desk behind me removed, or want my table adjusted, it's taken care of pretty quickly. We also have an IT department that takes care of computer issues, but unfortunately they seem to be a little slow because of understaffing.

So overall, things have been good. I'm really enjoying my job and being independent for the first time. Of course, my family (particularly my dad) has helped me immensely during this transition, and I owe them so much and am certainly going to miss them.

Today I went to the Griffith Observatory with my parents, Mrs. Dang, and Priscilla's and Crescentia's family. It was my first time going. I really enjoyed the panoramic Planetarium show with its CGI and the lively narrator who never skipped a beat in delivering his lines for half an hour.

We also watched a documentary about the history and the challenging renovation of the observatory, which required raising the building with hydraulic jacks and building a level beneath it.

Too bad we couldn't stay until 7pm for the telescope room to open. I'm sure it would've been awesome to look through the giant telescope there. Well, hopefully I'll get to go back again sometime. Even though I don't particularly like museums and whatnot.

Went to lunch at Mandarin Deli with my parents, Hannah Pang (haven't seen her since Mustard Seed), Mrs. Dang, and met Mike and his wife Jennifer who've been going to our church for a couple of years. Mike works down at a software company in Marina Del Rey and might be able to hook me up with a job. I fixed up my resume and sent it to him... we'll see what happens. Things sounded promising.

I volunteered to cook today's dinner for my family, since I really need to get better at cooking if I'm going to survive on my own someday. So tonight was my first time cooking (almost) entirely on my own for them. My dad was nice enough to come in and help me cut up some chicken, though probably because I was taking way too long with things and he was getting hungry. It took me no less than two and a half hours to make two things: soup and chow mein.

The soup was made from ground turkey, barley, carrots, celery, onions, a dash of basil leaves, flavoring from boiled chicken, and unintentional pieces of broccoli that I needed to boil for the chow mein. Boiling the chicken in the soup ended up making things greasy, since normally we boil the chicken on its own and run the resulting broth through a fat separator. Oops.

Then it was on to the chow mein. This dish sported spaghetti noodles, chicken, mushrooms, carrots, celery, snow peas, and broccoli. I stir fried this stuff, but I used way too much oil, so the chow mein too turned out greasy. Way to go.

So the greasy grub was finally ready at 7:30, a hour later than we usually eat. My family was appreciative of my efforts, but I think the only thing I managed to do was to encourage my dad to continue being the one who does most of the cooking. Oh well. Practice makes perfect. Or in my case, practice makes decent. Perfection has to wait.

Wow, I've been neglecting this blog a little. I don't think I've gone more than a week this year without posting something, let alone two and a half. I guess I'm just enjoying vacation too much. ;)

I've taken spring quarter off, for reasons that I won't go into here but friends are well-aware of. Suffice it to say that I've been using my time pretty productively, uh.. for the most part. I'm back at home, and having time off to read, relax, do programming, and enjoy the company of others is quite nice.

I'm still working at my tech support job because I promised them I would stay till the end of spring, but I had them compact my hours into two days so that I don't need to commute as much. And I take the bus, so I don't have to deal with the hellish 405 rush hour traffic. Whatever guy came up with the idea for carpool lanes is a genius.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday I was with Priscilla and her parents in fabulous Las Vegas. The night we arrived, we walked down one side of The Strip and back up the other side. We were staying at the Circus Circus hotel at the north end and walked all the way to the Excalibur at the south end - nearly the entire four miles of The Strip. I never knew Las Vegas was so... dirty. I was surprised to see so much of the sidewalks under construction, and we couldn't walk five feet without seeing ads for hookers on trucks and in things that resembled newspaper dispensers (interestingly I never saw a dispenser for actual newspapers), and call girl cards strewn about the ground like confetti at a festival, and shady-looking people, who would never in their life pass for call girls, trying to hand them out. We ended up getting back to our hotel at 4 in the morning. Yeah, walking The Strip and taking pictures of all the flashy buildings was fun, but I wouldn't want to do it again, at least not the whole length of it...

So the next day, being a little tired, we stuck to the hotel. We checked out the mini-circus area where they had some pretty cool shows every half hour, the two most notable ones being where one guy was using just one hand to balance upside-down on top of another guy's head, and some chick being twirled from a tall pole like a tetherball, held by only her hair. That didn't look quite fun, but she seemed to enjoy it enough.

Finally, somewhere in there Priscilla and I decided to hit the casino. Since we have no game whatsoever and are cheap, we avoided the tables and played $2 in slot machines. And lost it all. Then we put $2 in DDR at the arcade. And lost there too.

So that was Vegas. It was fun seeing her parents' neurotic side in taking a billion pictures of everything that blinks, and I had a good time. I don't know if I would want to go back, but if I did, I'd better find out beforehand where all the good shows and hangouts are. And maybe learn how to gamble.

Ok, I guess blogging after a hiatus isn't so hard after all, once you finally get around to starting. Just look at how much I wrote. If you did manage to read through it all, I give it up to you. Give yourself a pat on the back.

A bunch of us met up at China Star to kick off Chi's going away party. From there we headed to a nearby convalescent home where most of us split up into groups of two to go talk to residents. Crescentia, Ezekiel, and I stayed in the dining room and played piano and sang for the few (sleeping) residents in there. I guess it's a good thing nobody was listening because I messed up playing quite a bit. A few keys on the piano also didn't work at all...

After that we headed down to Priscilla's house to chillax and drink very sugary strawberry smoothies(?) We ended the long day at the food court at the mall where I had spaghetti with some pretty gross-looking meatballs. Aaron brought me and Christina back to UCLA. This weekend has been pretty exhausting. I'm struggling to type all this because I'm pretty out of it right now.

I also fried my phone charger. It's very dry in the Valley, so I'm getting shocked from touching everything from car doors to my dad's laptop. When I was trying to detach the charger plug from my phone, a spark from my finger contacted the plug, travelled up the wire and caused a huge spark to blow out of the charger base and instantly kill the thing. At least there's a large supply of new ones on eBay. For now, I have to use my car charger coupled with my dad's car-wall converter.

The plan today was for Priscilla to pick me up from school and the two of us head down to Chinese Bible Church, where her uncle Donald is the senior pastor. I had checked directions on Mapquest and knew we needed to go south on the 405 freeway and take the Santa Monica Blvd exit.

So there we were, cruising down the 405, and somehow both of us failed to spot the right exit. What we did spot was a junction sign that said Santa Monica, which we followed and found ourselves suddenly on the 10 freeway. We quickly got off and tried to get back to the 405 but couldn't find any on-ramp, so we ended up going south on Sepulveda Blvd which I knew intersected with Santa Monica Blvd. But since we were already unknowingly south of our destination, and I have a good sense of direction but a bad sense of distance (and no familiarity with the area), we just kept going... and going.

So faithfully following Sepulveda's curvature, we passed through Mar Vista and Culver City, Westchester and the famous LAX, and El Segundo. By this time we were half an hour late for church and were pretty sure that we had missed our destination, so we turned on a street trying to get back to the 405, and instead found ourselves at the end of the road at a place known as... the beach. Apparently the sight of the waves rolling onto the sandy shore was too captivating, and we realized that if we did manage to find our way to church, the church service would be almost over, so we decided to stay.

So the moral of the story is: a GPS unit is really useful to have in a car. And also that God (with his sense of humor and all) works in mysterious but wonderful ways. I don't think it was an accident that both of us missed the turnoff and that we ended up 20 miles off course at a beautiful beach with beautiful weather. I had my Purpose Driven Life book, so we finished our study right there and had a good time of spiritual discussion. I think we got more out of our discussion than we would've if we had made it to church.

So that wonderful winter vacation is finally over. It's been great hanging out with people almost every day, crashing (Christian) parties, strengthening relationships with friends and family, and growing in spiritual wisdom. Aside from having to wake up early once more, I'm (mostly) excited about starting a new school quarter. Still, I wish vacation had been longer, since for once I didn't spend all of it loafing around. I even managed to study for my next classes, albeit only two chapters when my goal was two books. We'll see how that goes.

Here's to a new year!

Today was interesting.

I've been in a mental, physical, and spiritual rut since school started. I've been excruciatingly busy, sleep-deprived, and since last week just out of it. I've also been going home every weekend, and customarily not studying well there, a great ingredient to add to the mix.

Today started pretty lousily. My brother and I were to drive to church separately from my parents, who had to leave early. Before she left, my mom woke us up, but we fell right back asleep. We would've missed church (or been very late) if it weren't for her calling 15 minutes before the starting time to ask us to bring something that she had forgotten. Needless to say, I was pretty tired, and I ended up nodding off during half of the sermon.

Adult sunday school went better. We are doing a seminar on spiritual warfare, and the topic was the breastplate of righteousness from the Armor of God section of Ephesians 8. The breastplate back in the day was also called the heart protector because of its obvious function.

In the same way metaphorically, God's breastplate is the strength we gain from his Word to protect our hearts from the snare of guilt that the devil brings. This is a big issue for me, as I always struggle with guilt from wrongdoings, as well as for not living the Christ-centered life I think I should be. I sometimes feel that God can't forgive and accept me because I am so wretched in his eyes. But my group leader said this kind of thinking is a slap to God's face. It is denying that his grace is sufficient to cover even our biggest sins.

In the afternoon I met with my discussion group to go over the first three chapters of the book we are studying - The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. Unfortunately, due to unforseen constraints, the group has dwindled down to just me and Priscilla. But we had a good conversation, and from Chapter 3 I realized that my life is driven mostly by guilt.

I arrived home exhausted and couldn't help taking a nap. I awoke right before dinner, still fatigued, and feeling (overdue) illness creeping over me. I realized that, despite being behind in school, I had not done any work over the weekend, and now it'd be even harder because I was getting sick. I felt miserable.

But afterwards, as my mom was driving me back to school, I had a moment of clarity when everything I had heard that day sunk in and clicked. God really did know every detail of our lives, before we were ever created. I can stop worrying about how things will turn out because whatever it is I am going through, he has allowed it. My life is in the hands of someone who is vastly more powerful and wise than I will ever be. And he has accepted and chosen me. There is nothing that can separate me from his love.

After I realized this, I confessed my biggest struggle to my roommate and asked him to help keep me accountable. I will no longer allow guilt for things done in the past to interfere with how I live in the present. I thanked God for what he has done for me, and I asked him to give me a renewed sense of purpose. I still don't know his will for me, but going through life, going through school and doing my daily grind, have a new meaning.

Whatever we do, we should do it for his glory. It's not about me. It's all about God.

Today I broke my record for the stupidest thing I've ever done.

9 people including myself went to Zuma Beach to hang out. I drove 6 of them in my dad's van. When we got there I decided to go in the water on one of the boogie boards we brought. I was out there for a bit, having a good time. I had forgotten that I had my van keys and cell phone in my pockets.

When I got back on shore I realized what I had done. The phone was completely dead. The keys were missing.

The only part of the beach I could search was the shore, and they didn't wash up there. It looked like my passengers and I were stuck.

In the end, my mom found a spare key at home and drove an hour to bring it down to me. Not once was she critical towards me. The only thing that puts me to shame more than my absent-mindedness, is being treated with that kind of love.

Seems like once you get a credit card, new offers just pour right in. My mom stopped by UCLA on her way back from work last night to drop off my jacket, and she brought 5 pieces of mail that had come for me. Four of those were credit card offers, and one was my monthly credit card bill. o.O

We had the memorial service for my grandfather at his church. It was conducted in Chinese, but most of it was translated into English. The awesome thing was that my grandfather, who anticipates just about everything that could happen, made a tape (I don't know when) to be played at his memorial service. In it he said that he is at peace in Heaven, and he invited all non-believers to seriously consider God's free gift of salvation. At the end, he played the piano and sang two hymns that he loved.

I'm gonna miss him, but I know that someday we'll all be reunited. That is God's promise to all who believe in Jesus Christ.

My grandfather (mom's father) was hospitalized and released a few days ago for an asthma attack. Today he passed away. From what I understand, today he was on the phone with my uncle when he started having another asthma attack. So my uncle waited while he went to go get his inhaler, but he never came back to the phone. Then my uncle heard a voice from God (God seems to speak to him a lot) saying "Don't worry, your father is with me now. He is at peace." My uncle refused to believe it so he kept phoning my family. My parents rushed to my grandfather's apartment and sure enough found that he had passed away. My mom said that he looked very peaceful, as if he just fell asleep, and his body was still warm until she dressed him.

I'm glad that my grandfather was a Christian, which means we will see him again someday. He had a powerful testimony and lived a godly life, one to be emulated. I regret not talking to him as much as I could have, and being impatient with him at times for giving me advice. My mom always said the same thing about her mother: that my mom was impatient with her, and now she just wishes she could hear her mom nag one more time. I hope I can learn to be patient with my parents and show my love to them. Because one day they too will be gone.

We took my grandfather to the Long Beach Aquarium today. Most of the people there were parents and little children. The stuff there wasn't as fascinating to me as it would've been had I been 10 years younger, but it was okay. The coolest thing I saw there were.. sea dragons! But any sort of dragon is cool. :D

I thought the sea dragons were sea horses before I saw the sign. They look similar and seem about the same size. Maybe variants of the same species? I wanted to take a picture of the dragons on my phone, but the tank was too dark. But I did get a blurry picture of a sea lion. =)

Today we went up north to visit my uncle and aunt. Coincidentally, we saw Crescentia and her family at the airport ready to go to Vegas! Now I gotta say (as most of you probably already knew), airport security is TOUGH. After going through baggage check, they found a socket-wrench in my dad's bag and said that we weren't allowed to carry tools aboard the plane (we thought it was just screwdrivers), so my dad had to go back outside and wait in the long line for bag check-in. By the time he was through and wanded (a second time) we had missed our flight!

Fortunately we were able to get the next flight which, although it was two hours later, was a huge relief. And I guess the flight made it all worth it. I haven't been in an airplane in ages, and the window view was a blast. Ever take a look outside when you're over the clouds? And then watch as the plane get enshrouded all around as it slowly descends back down through them? The same thing happened when we went back into the smog layer. Cept everything turned from clear to brown. Makes you think about all the crap that you live in. Gross!

We had a great Thanksgiving yesterday. We had 14 guests over at our house! I don't know how my parents cooked so much! Well, the guests brought some food too, but man.. craziness.

I was adamently against seeing The Incredibles, since I don't like animated films very much. But Priscilla made a deal with me: she said that she'd go ice-skating (which she loathes with a passion) with me if I went to see The Incredible with her. Fair enough. Turns out The Incredibles was what everybody says it is- incredible. I loved it! I really did!

At Priscilla's house we watched the first 30 minutes of Memento. Then I had to go home, so she let me borrow the DVD. Then I watched the rest at home instead of studying. =( The movie was awesome but SO confusing. I'll have to watch it over. But not tonight, nooooo!! Ok Anson, stop looking at the DVD box.. open your book, you can do it.. that's it.... now STUDY!! You have ice-skating tomorrow!

We went to a small Korean cell phone store called Power Comm and, after much deliberation, decided to get the Verizon 2 phone 600 minute local calling plan for $60 that was advertised in the ad. I finally have my own cell phone!

We also went to dinner at Carrows to celebrate my mom's taking her nursing exam. She felt pretty good about the test, and we'll find out her results shortly.

Whew.. I can't believe I'm going back to UCLA tomorrow. What a long vacation it has been. And unfortunately... for the most part, unproductive. Heck, I never even unpacked most of my belongings when I came home in June. I guess that can be a plus, since it's saving on the time that I'll spend packing (yeah, I haven't started doing that either).... But I won't let laziness get a hold of me this quarter. It's time for me to work more seriously and make sure I get good grades. That's one thing I'm going to commit to.

Every time I go ice-skating, I learn something new. Today at Iceoplex I bettered my skating backwards, and I discovered how to skate forwards without lifting my feet off the floor. Maybe I'll learn how to do triple axles next time. (Keep dreaming)

Also, prayers and condolences to the families of victims of the September 11 tragedy. May God give them hope and comfort, and help us bring the terrorists to justice.

I took my grandfather and his friend to Universal Studios. Aside from the driving, it was pretty fun. Since my grandfather uses a wheelchair, we were able to get this Guest Assistance pass that let us bypass the normal lines for the rides.. which meant almost instant access to everything.

Man.. it was so cool. We got front car seating on the tram tour, got to go in before everybody at the Terminator 3D show, got front row seating at other shows, and got into Backdraft and Back to the Future immediately. What would be cool is if we got to ride the new Mummy rollercoaster, but old people shouldn't go on those things so I didn't even think about suggesting that. Ah well.. it's all good. The only thing that bugged me was the admission price: even though I had a coupon that let each of us get in for the kid's price ($10 off), each ticket still cost $40. Ouch.

I haven't updated my site since the June 28 entry. I couldn't FTP using Internet Explorer into my UCLA account, so I couldn't upload my webpage. Today Kenny taught me how to FTP via DOS command prompt, and that worked perfectly. Kudos to him! And many many curses to Internet Explorer. <goes and downloads Mozilla's Firefox>

Towards the evening, I went hiking on the trail above my house with Daniel, Sarah, their 2 guests, my brother, and David. My brother and David were riding around on their bikes, and they were supposed to meet up with us on the trail. But the walkie talkies we were using to keep in contact didn't work too well, and our cell phones couldn't get reception up in those hills, so for a while we didn't know where they were.

Today we took grandpa to the Imax theatre in downtown (I think), where we watched a film about coral reefs. It was awesome to see the close up footage of the reefs, with details accentuated on the huge screen. Just seeing ocean life inter-working harmoniously, like it has for millions of years, was humbling (and a good reminder of the perfection of Creation).

What struck me most was the many symbiotic relationships in the ocean that we know very little about. We as humans upset one aspect of nature, and that in turn affects something that depends on it, and so on, potentially creating a cataclysmic chain of disaster. Of course nature tries to compensate, but in the end, we're still screwing ourselves over. What was sad in the film was seeing dead reefs, caused by ocean warming. In 30 years, half or all (forgot the quantity) of the world's reefs may be gone. =(

I love my Anthro class. The teacher gives us a break in the middle of the 2 1/2 hours of class, and we usually break for more than the 15 minutes that he designates. He also lets us out of class a few minutes early. Furthermore, a third of the time he's not really lecturing on the material, but telling stories that are related to it. Still, it's a fun class, and the material is pretty interesting.

This evening I took my brother and the three (other) Wong kids to see Spiderman 2. The movie was pretty good, though I got bored through all the dialogue and was almost ready to fall asleep. I expected more action! But as Crescentia told me online, I missed out on a lot of the emotional aspects, like Peter going through his inner struggle and finding himself. I guess she's right. (But hey, I AM a guy, so what do you expect =0 ) I also could've appreciated the movie a lot more had I seen the first one. ;)

My mother, perhaps in one of her all-too-common moods, took away my laptop (for the duration of the whole summer, she says) because she thinks I spend too much time playing games. It is my parents' laptop in the sense that they paid for it, but she could have at least given me a warning or talked it over. But instead, nothing.

All my files and programs are on that thing. How am I going to do my summer programming work now? How I long to be in my college dorm again. At least there I had some freedom. Needless to say, I'm more than a little pissed off.

Oh and if you haven't guessed, I'm typing this on the family desktop computer, which sucks and has nothing on it.

As expected, my final for Internet Programming was more or less easy. I got a few minor things mixed up, but overall I knew how to write the programs they gave us.

Packing went ok too. My dad arrived after noon and we spent like two and a half hours getting everything packed and moving it to the car. And now.. at long last, finally, after a year of anguish, pain, nauseating food, and countless sleepless nights... I AM FINALLY HOME!! <chants with glee the Dorothy click-your-shoes line: "There's no place.....">

Lol, this site is so infringing.. Yahoooooooo

My brother and an adult church friend John came by UCLA and brought care packages for a few people. I was at lunch when they came to my door, but I think I missed them by only a few minutes! They just left the package at my door. Man.. it's so cool, it's got all these different snacks in it. Even some my brother knows I don't eat, but hah I'll just bring it back home cuz he likes them. ;) But yeah, I'm really touched by their kindness.

My mom took the bus in the morning and brought back my fixed laptop. Thanks mom!

Dell replaced the fan and the processor, and now the computer runs without a hitch once again. =)

Woo, I went ice-skating with a few friends today. My brother came with me; I had to pick up David after his SAT exam, Roger and Crescentia came on their own, and Priscilla showed up unexpectedly after her work was cancelled. It was quite fun! Roger was the Michelle Kwan as always, and Priscilla and Crescentia are gaining more confidence. And I think I'm starting to be able to skate backwards. Word to the wise: beware of Roger on ice, he likes to push you. ;0

The physics final was horrible- the problems were similar to the ones we've done in homework, but different enough to preclude us from knowing how to do them. The teacher was giving hints and explaining the problems DURING the exam. That's how little everybody understood them.

At least I'm finally home! Ah, good food once again. I went bike riding with my bro and Daniel. It was quite fun, and it made me realize how out of shape I am. ;)

I've been having some asthma problems lately (after a year of not having asthma), so my mom graciously made a batch of Chinese herbal asthma medicine (it's supposed to be able to cure the asthma, and it seems to work.. hence the year of not having asthma). She also went to Costco and bought me a large mini-fridge so that I could store containers of the medicine at UCLA. My dad also went to Walmart and bought new clothes for me, some of my old clothes having holes in them. My brother also lent me his cool sweatshirt, since he has two.

Looks like I'm all set. I love my family. :)

My family (brother, parents, uncle, and grandfather) came down to visit me! We had lunch at Mr. Noodle, a Chinese restaurant in Westwood. For a Chinese restaurant, it was pretty good. ;) Heh actually I really liked it. They even gave me a "plain" dish the way I like it, no MSG, salt, or anything!

Believe it or not, it was also my first time in Westwood. Let me tell you, the traffic is horrible. People constantly crossing the street, cars suddenly jutting in your way, narrow streets and barely any room for obstacles in the residential district (including short driveways so people park with the car's rear sticking into the street). I'm glad I wasn't driving. ;D

I am thankful for..
1. Jesus Christ. He died on the cross that we might be saved if we believe in Him.
2. My family. Their unconditional love for me is shown all the time. They support me in everything I do.
3. My friends. I'd go crazy without companions who support me, talk to me, and simply are there for me always.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We left the house around 7 bound for Mountain View. I was asleep the entire time, but we arrived a lot sooner than I expected (I can imagine my parents doing 95 MPH on the freeways). The afternoon funeral for my grandfather was sad. My dad couldn't state assurance that my grandfather had eternal life, so all he could talk about was my grandfather's worldly life and accomplishments- the things that are left behind and fade away and thus ultimately don't matter. =(

I got an email from my mom this morning saying that my grandfather (on my dad's side) passed away rather suddenly of a stroke. What's sad is that he would always reject our expostulations for him to believe in Jesus Christ, so he did not have eternal salvation. Life is just so mercurial- you never know when it's going to end. Our faint hope is that he somehow decided to come to the Lord in his last minutes; otherwise the sad truth is that he won't be with us in heaven, and that he will be facing eternal judgment. :'(

Today I had my last meal with my family. My mom asked me if I would like anything special, but I said leftovers would be fine. Still, it was one of the best meals I've ever had.

Mixed feelings bounced through my head as I rummaged through my belongings, packing everything I'd need. "I'm going to college!" I thought. "But I'll be leaving home, missing everything I've known for 18 years." ... "But it'll be a great experience." ... "I'll be on my own." ... "That's bad." ... "That's good."

I know I'll be missing my family, my friends, but at the same time I'm ecstatic. It'll be a new life, a new experience. But that's what we do when we try anything new. College is, after all, just one of the many stepping stones on our journey. Onward bound!