Blog

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

What is sleep?

As I’m listening to this podcast episode about sleep this morning, I am reminded of just how little my housemates have been getting these past months. Ever since their twin boys were born last September, both parents have been running on four hours of sleep per night. I cannot comprehend how they do it. The last time I only got four hours of sleep (had to pick up a friend after the Taylor Swift concert), I was in a suboptimal daze for the entire week following.

Either I am weak, or, you know, proper amounts of sleep is the best thing for our body that pharmaceuticals can’t hope to replicate.

But, as new parents, my friends got to do what they got to do. Though it’s not really good advertising to entice others to have kids. So you’re telling me: the babies will cry every few hours (like PTSD), I only get few hours of sleep a night - therefore my body don’t have the necessary time to repair itself, my stress levels are through the roof, and my diet is absolute super-processed shit. All for the privilege of bring a new life into this world. Honorable, but damn if it looks like not so good a time.

Life is a big game of tradeoffs. That aforementioned is the sacrifice required to have kids. Just like if you want to date and get married, then some of your leisure activities will have to go. One quite literally cannot have it all. You drill down to the few things most important, and then focus on them solely. Once kids arrive, then obviously something - a lot of something - else is no longer in the “most important’ category. Like sleep, or traveling to foreign countries for fun.

Thankfully (and hopefully soon), my housemates will get some sleep hours back. Once the twins reach a stage where they are able to sleep overnight consistently. Surely other parenting challenges await after that. But, a well-rested and well-slept parent is better adept at meeting those challenges.

Let's get it!

Hello! Welcome to 2024. That means the residential parking permit on my BMW M2 is due for renewal. (That’s right: pay to park in front of your own house.) And what the French? The price has jumped from $148 annually of last year, to now $170. I understand inflation is inevitable (Thanos style), but this is just plain greed. The city of San Francisco is collecting more money from us for parking simply because it can. You can’t possibly tell me that administrative costs for the program have risen 15%. They don’t even print out stickers anymore because license plates are scanned.

I’m still going to pay the new price like a chump, of course. Where else am I going to park my car?

The start of the new year also means increased traffic at your local gym. I wish all the New Year's resolutioners the very best. Consistent exercise is the most beneficial thing for the body and its longevity. I hope your gym visits also reach decent longevity. My advice? (Because, you know, as a person who works out three times a week every week, I am ultra qualified to give.) Don’t try to do a lot - or change a lot - at once. Stick with a certain program or routine for at least six weeks.

More importantly: embrace the suck. The days when you do go for that run - despite everything enticing you to not (warm bed, everything that’s in the iPhone) - are the true winning days. The freshness of New Year’s resolution wears off really quickly. That enthusiasm for change will only sustain you initially. If you don’t find another motive force to keep going - be it the carrot or the stick - then that is when people quit. I’ve certainly quit on things started on January 1st before.

Anything that is worthwhile takes time. A long time.

He’s sick of seeing. Yeah, that’s what it means.

So close yet so far

Hey, remember the COVID pandemic is over? We don’t think about it anymore, right? No news of frightening new variants, no daily death counts. There’s people working in hospitals that no longer wear masks! That last one is kind of stunning when I went in a few months ago for my annual checkup. Things are truly back to what it was at the end of 2019. If we don’t counting the millions dead…

Just when I thought we would end the year at work with no one getting truly sick from COVID, a coworker caught the disease last week. (So close.) Unfortunately for him, COVID absolutely knocked him out. Every single flu-like and cold-like symptom you can come up with, he got it. The coworker was out for the entire week. Compounding the misery is that he can’t pinpoint where and how he contracted COVID! He would’ve felt slightly better if he were able to offload the blame somewhere.

I am fine, by the way. Very unlikely the coworker contracted COVID at work as the rest of us were business as usual. I still have not knowingly contracted the thing, though I maintain it’s because I don’t show any symptoms (thank god if that is indeed the truth). No symptoms, no tests, less chance of positives. Didn’t the smart people say that it is statistically likely that all of us will get COVID at some point?

Nothing will make you appreciate good health like coming out of a serious bout of sickness. The recovered coworker is filled with gratitude today in his return to work. He definitely do not want to experience that again. I bet if his COVID vaccine schedule isn’t up to date, it will be shortly!

Paul Blart, library cop

Every time I’ve walked by the local public library lately, I’ve noticed a security guard out front. I guess that’s a permanent fixture now? What a sad commentary on the state of things here in the Bay Area, that even a freaking library needs someone menacing to stand at the entrance. Let me guess: teenagers were doing wayward things inside the library during the afternoon hours. I can’t imagine anyone would actually rob a library. Used books on the secondary market aren’t that lucrative.

The local mall not only has its own security guards, but some of the shops inside - the ones with highly prized merchandise - feature their own security detail at the entrances. (Yo dawg, I heard you like mall cops…) This is a fantastic situation for rent-a-cop businesses: look at all the jobs being created! But for the patronizing public (read: me) it’s a jarring reminder of the reasons these security people have proliferated. We’ve seen the videos: the concerted looting, and rowdy teens (respectively or not).

Target closed down its self-checkout aisle because too many folks were scanning and leaving without paying. We really cannot have nice things around here. The utter tyranny of the minority of people breaking the law, and ruining the entire experience for the rest of us.

We laugh at China for being a policed state, with cameras everywhere. Have anybody noticed the we - at least in the San Francisco Bay Area - are getting there as well? I mean, at least here it’s not government sponsored! There’s private security guards at stores (and public libraries, apparently), and there’s private security cameras outside homes, businesses, and inside public transportation. We’re are absolutely being surveilled whenever we go outside. A price worth paying for being safe?

I should build a PC?

You know what I want to do? Build another PC. Not that I have any use for one, mind you. This is a strictly Mac household. But what I miss is the artistry in putting together various components into something functional and useful. The joy in picking specific parts that play well together, then fitting them in the most aesthetically pleasing way. You have not lived until you’ve spent hours in managing the mess of power and data cables into a pleasing presentation. This is the sort of passion project I am pining for.

Because once upon a time, my main computer were PCs that I meticulously (well, perhaps not the very first one) put together. Before I was able to afford playing with cars (read: being a working adult), customs PCs were the primary domain of my geek-dom. I remember getting a side job during junior year of high school specifically because I want to spent (relatively) extravagantly on a new self-built PC. I printed out a list of components-to-buy to put in my binder as a reminder of precisely what I am working towards.

Those were simple and magical times.

These days I don’t really build much of anything. I buy quality items that (hopefully) last a very long time. PCs have given way to Mac computers that work beautifully right out of the box. I rather use the time that would otherwise be spent tinkering with things for something more productive. Like reading a book, or studying Korean. It’s kind of ironic: I can afford to buy every top-of-the-line PC component, yet I haven’t built one in a long time. The high school me would be utterly dumbfounded by this.

Listen, if there was a way for me to build a PC, and then break it apart and return the parts? I simply want the joy of putting it together. I have zero use for the finished product.

Inflating age

The thing about inflation slowing down of being “over”: will prices of things ever come back down? Or is the reality of $10 meals at McDonalds going to remain forever? Heck, gas prices have been above the five dollars-per-gallon mark for as long as I can remember. I don’t suppose I’ll see the number four or three again unless I venture outside of California. The custom photo calendars that I make every year have gone from $20 per unit to $30. That’s a significant jump when I have to buy 10 for gifting.

Workers of America: unite and get those raises! As high and as soon as possible. Because we know consumer prices are never receding, even if (and when) the Federal Reserve manages to tame down the massive pandemic inflation. The purchasing power of a dollar has forever changed, so get more of those dollars while you still can.

Today is my 36th birthday. I am filled with gratitude for what is, and tremendous happiness for what is to come. Growing older isn’t so scary or fearsome when you are improving bit by bit every single day - at whatever measure you choose. I wake up in the mornings excited to execute and get on with what I am passionate about. At this juncture in my life, I think it’s real key: what gets you out of bed in the morning is something to focus on and cultivate continously. Things you’re so enthused about that you would rather forgo sleep. (Not that you should!)

36 is a fantastic number. And honestly, if we count the three lost years thanks to the pandemic, it’s really more like 33. The COVID years were spent treading water and avoiding death. The grand plans all got put on hold. Now that we (the worldly we) are unequivocally back to business as it were before (I am traveling to China, for the first time since 2019, in two months), I can once again look forward to what’s to come with great anticipation and joy.

Take care of yourself now

Today a coworker told me the sad news of her elderly mother taking a fall. She is still at a care facility on the long road to (hopefully) recovery. Falling down at that age is absolutely one of the worse things than can happen. My own grandmother was never the same after an accidental fall. Not only are elderly bones more brittle, but they also have less growth hormones and repairing capabilities. It is best to avoid entirely. For example, a broken hip hugely increases all-cause mortality:

A recent meta-analysis revealed that women sustaining a hip fracture had a 5-fold increase and men almost an 8-fold increase in relative likelihood of death within the first 3 months as compared with age- and sex-matched controls.

This is something I latently worry about my parents, as they enter into their retirement years. I stress to them often that they have to remain constantly active, and to continue moving heavy things (cardio fitness alone is not sufficient). They also must eat plenty of protein, and less carbs. Obviously, I can’t physically force them to do anything, so whether or not they follow through with my heeding is beyond my control. I think in the near future I will buy for both my parents an Apple Watch: for the fall detection feature. I want to be alerted immediately if my mom or dad takes an unfortunate tumble.

Hearing anecdotes of the fragility of aging, and the ignominy of being mobility hindered and needing assistance to perform basic human tasks, is always a reminder for myself to avoid that outcome to the best that I can control. That means taking care of my body and building a strong foundation now, while I am still at the meat of my adulthood. The retirement years are only worth living if I can be as active and moving freely as the younger years (relatively speaking).

Having grandparents that suffered through it, I can say with certainty that being confined to a living facility for the last decade of life is not the way to go.