Blog

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

Saturday morning cup

That first sip of coffee on a Saturday morning is the absolute best. It’s the weekend, and I have no concrete plans to be anywhere (certainly not work). That alone makes the coffee taste extra sweet. The rest of the day can wait; let me finish my cup of coffee first.

Mind you this coffee isn’t some fancy pour-over stuff that I’ve painstakingly measured-out to make. I don’t want to invest the time to grind fresh beans, and boil water to an exact temperature. The coffee I drink is simply K-Cup pods from San Francisco Bay Coffee (Costco has them in boxes). That’s right: it’s made on a Keurig machine, nice and easy. The coffee coming out of it tastes just fine.

Not to say I’m unable to savor a well-made “artisanal” cup. I simply don’t want to do it myself. If a gourmet cafe wants to open up at the nearby mall, that would be lovely (currently, there’s only a Peet’s and Starbucks). I definitely would walk the five minutes to have a freshly-made cup of coffee (of the non-franchise variety). Maybe sit down to read a book while I’m carefully sipping it down.

But no! Instead of a nice coffee shop, a bowling alley is coming to the mall. That does nothing to improve my Saturday mornings! Granted, we will for sure patronize that establishment on certain evenings. I haven’t gone bowling since Serra Bowl was still in business.

Alright, cup of coffee is finished. Time to get onto weekend business.

One time at a bar

It’s been over a decade since I’ve been at a bar on a weekend evening. It’s really not my scene, you know? First of all, I don’t drink, so the raison d'être for going to a bar is completely lost on me. Since I’m not drinking, it’s got to be for the conversation with friends, right? Well, if you’ve ever been to a bar on a busy night, it’s bloody difficult to talk to one another. It’s so loud that you can’t even hear the jukebox music properly.

And that is why I - and my friends - don’t go to bars.

But there I was this past Saturday evening, sat at a bar in the Marina district. I was there because the classmates from the improv class I’ve been taking decided to go. Nothing like peer pressure, isn’t it? We took in a professional improv show earlier in the evening, and apparently the night was still young enough for some alcoholic refreshments. Thank goodness for non-alcoholic beer: I can partake in the shitty taste, without the alcoholic downsides.

Upon entering I was immediately reminded why I stopped partaking in such festivities. The amount of humanity at that bar was amazing. All there for the privilege of overpaying for drinks and having to yell at each other just to have a conversation. Though if you’re with a significant someone, a bar offers the perfect excuse to get close and whisper sweet nothings into each other’s ears. It’s definitely a younger (than us) crowd, too: a whole lot of twenty somethings not wanting to stay home on a weekend night.

Us older responsible adults called it quits way before the clock struck midnight. Sleep is important! So is limiting the amount of alcohol. We were all one and done, except for one guy who had three beers. He seems like the type of dude who can handle his drinks, though. Nevertheless: no need for a Sunday recovery day!

Again and again

It’s one of those rare weekends that I hardly spent any time home, other than to sleep. While the homebody me isn’t inclined to do so every weekend, it’s nice to have a packed schedule once in a while. I mean, that’s what we’re all chasing after, right? Novelty. A break from the monotony that is our work week. We fight so hard for change and excitement, yet the Sisyphean task of rolling up the rock remains ever constant. It’s Monday again! Time to go back to work.

You either enjoy the process, or be miserable.

Like the friend I was with yesterday. During dinner, after a long day of hiking around Angel Island, he lamented the oncoming workweek. I mentioned that perhaps he doesn’t sound all the enthused about his job, to which he replied, “I hate my job.” Quite a succinct way to say exactly what I was asking! Why stay at a job you actively hate? Why do most people, really? It’s the money, of course. And the sunk cost of the previous effort (read: education) to get you at that job in the first place.

No one wants to - or can - take a pay cut switching to a less stressful job. They’ve adapted their lifestyle to their current income level. Decreasing that means having to make other hard choices as well. For someone already miserable at a job, adding that complexity to the decision means they rather not make it. Or perhaps they can’t: the cost of mortgage and kids can’t really decline, can it? So let’s just slog through the workweek for that sweet reprieve of the two day weekend. Some weekends you might be lucky and get three days.

Then the loom of Monday creeps in on Sunday evening. The joy of that reprieve vanishes in a flash. To each their own, obviously, but that’s not how I want to live my life. Work is a necessity, yes, but I won’t stay a job that I actively hate. Life is too damn proverbially short for that.

Doing nothing that costs nothing

Recently I saw on television a commercial for vacation rentals. The tagline was you can get away to some place from home and do absolutely nothing. Just chill on the beach, or on the deck of the rental. To escape the hustle and bustle of your regular life.

To the advert I remarked, “Wait a minute, I can do nothing right at home!”

It’s rather absurd that someone needs to spend thousands of dollar to fly somewhere simply to do nothing. I on the other hand try to do so every Saturday. I greatly admire the Jewish tradition of Shabbat (and the Christian sabbath equivalent). Adherents abstain from any type of manual labor from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. It is pure leisure for 24 hours. A mini vacation every single week, if you will.

I love that idea. After a week of busting ass at work and taking care of chores at home, it’s good to take a pause. Otherwise, what’s the point of working? Isn’t it ultimately to buy more free time? (Beyond the basic food and shelter stuff.) The brand of hustle culture that makes you feel guilty for lethargy on weekends is utterly toxic. To fill every waking hour with “productivity” and “self improvement” is how you get burned out. That’s how you speed-run through life, always onto the next task.

That was me.

Here’s my ideal Saturday morning these days: wake up and make coffee. Then sit in front the window drinking that coffee while listening to music for the next two hours or so. No social media, no YouTube. Only the sounds out of the speakers and the view out the window. Can you do that without the urge to grab your smartphone?

Weekend routine

Saturday mornings are the best. I wake up well-rested because I got to sleep in. Mind you that means waking up at around 8:00AM instead of the usual 6:30. Even if I wanted to, my body won’t allow me to sleep deep into the morning like before. Unless of course I absolutely had a very late night on Friday, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve gone out on a Friday. What with the pandemic and everything.

Upon waking up, I head straight for the iPhone. Not to browse twitter, because I’ve deleted that app from my phone (it’s the only New Year’s resolution I have). Instead, it’s the McDonals app. I’m ordering breakfast before I take the leisure stroll to the mall that’s three blocks away. Buy one get one free of the breakfast sandwich is always a good deal.

The walk is super lovely. Blues skies, early sunshine, and breaths of fresh air. There’s not a worry in the world. Because it’s Saturday; the Sunday evening panic won’t arrive for another earthly rotation. So I’m the calmest I can be over the two days of the weekend. Errands can be done later. My friends are still in bed at such an early hour. The Saturday morning is sacred, and mine alone.

I see grocery shoppers heading into Trader Joe’s. A silent high-five to fellow early risers. As I grab my order from McDonalds, I notice a woman also getting breakfast to go. However, she’s not heading home, but rather she’s off to work. McDonalds is the reward, a treat for herself before she has to face the arduous work day. I silently wish her well, and count myself lucky to have a job with proper weekends off.

So I can have these Saturday mornings.

I washed the car

This past weekend I was reminded why I don’t wash my BMW M2 often: it’s those damn wheels. The “Style 788M” factory alloys looks amazing (clean or dirty, honestly), but that multitude of spokes is horror on the fingers. I actually tore a piece off my right ringer finger, and as of writing it’s still hurting rather nicely. What I really need is my old set of wheel woolies. However I just don’t have to mind to spend hours on car detailing anymore.

In fact the only reason I even washed the M2 this past Saturday was because it’s been over four months since the car last got one. That I didn’t even do:: a neighbor borrowed the BMW for a bit, so in return he cleaned it and gassed it up before returning (a gentleman always hand back a borrowed car with a full tank of gas). The neighbor did a fantastic job because up until recently the paint was still beading water nicely, indication of a layer of wax.

Well that layer was completely gone. I don’t detail my car as often as a I used to (once every two weeks!), but I’m not negligent either. Time to bring out the single bucket, many microfiber towels, and that bottle of Optimum No Rinse Wash with Wax. It was actually kind of nice: a beautiful Saturday afternoon, warmish weather, with a slight breeze. Perfect conditions to spend some time with the M2, podcast playing in my ear. If I weren’t so lazy about it, I’d probably do it more often.

I could pay a professional detailer to do it periodically, though I don’t mind a bit of manual labor. It humbles the mind, and it’s great exercise. The best workouts are the ones that have utility, the everyday tasks. Squatting to clean those aforementioned difficult-to-clean wheels sure beats squatting at a gym rack. My thighs get the burn, and the M2 gets clean.

Entirely shot on iPhone

It is a good weekend indeed when I accomplish everything I list out to do. Errands were done, a book was read, and the piano was practiced. While sometimes it is good to do absolutely nothing on weekends, I have to say it’s a nicer feeling come Sunday evening when the two days have been spent towards action. I guess that’s just how I am wired.

Now that I have my new MacBook Pro, I was finally able to put together my annual calendar (shoutout to the Apple Photos app and the Motif plugin). Made up of photographs I took throughout the year, the self-made calendar is what I give out to friends during Christmas. It isn’t exactly cheap at about $25 a copy (altogether), though cumulative speaking it is cheaper than buying individual gifts. Not that my friend group does that anyways. This year we’re doing a white elephant gift exchange, with a limit of $30.

It would be cruel, wouldn’t it, if I put my calendar into the white elephant pile. “Sorry guys, only one copy this year. Fight it out!”

After nearly a decade of making these calendars, this is the first year that every single photo was taken with an iPhone. The cameras in the iPhone 12 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro are simply that good. I bet if I didn’t explicitly tell my friends the pictures were from a smartphone, they would not suspect otherwise. Smartphone camera technology have come a tremendously long way indeed. All hail the gods of computational photography, bending the rules of physics.

Perhaps then I should sell my Sony A7R2 full-frame camera. I honestly have only used it once this year, and otherwise it’s sat on the shelf collecting dust. Are there a huge demand for used cameras due to the global chip shortage, similar to the used car market? I’ve read the waitlist for the newest Canon full-frame mirrorless camera is six months!

Yeah, probably not. Once I can properly travel again, I would prefer to take the Sony with me. For the truly beautiful and breathtaking stuff, I still want the “proper” camera. For now.