Back from Thanksgiving Philly [Friday 30]
Got up late, spent a lot of time having a bad stomach and searching for a jacket I hadn't brought to Philly. Walked with NG to the Station Market (which is 15 mins from his place, awesome location for an Apt!) got on the bus, napped, got down in NYC and then got back in after 20 minutes, spent almost eight backaching hours on the bus finally in Boston at 9.45. Took the red line to Davis, 96 to Main St. and 101 to our apartment. Spent some time catching up on youtube and everything else (and feeling comfy back home) as I write this. Haven't done any workout for two days but it's fine. I got my coworkers hoodies and they're gonna be awesome! Also, happy second month of a hundred posts to me!
Crying babies
They say babies cry not because they have nothing better to do, or to make their breathing easier, but because they're so traumatized by the act of being born of leaving whatever great cosmic place they were at having a great time and be thrust into the crappy physical sad painful existence here on Earth. The more they grow up, the more the trauma eats away at their memories until they remember no more of their former existence while they become new humans they also lose whatever identities they may have previously held forever.
An alternate theory suggests that babies can see ghosts and spirits much like dogs and cats their cries are just cries of fear that's misread. As they grow older their extrasensory perception declines and so does crying. It is said some artists and people as such can still have those visions beyond their infant years which is where the inspiration for their art comes from.
There's no way to tell, people.
An alternate theory suggests that babies can see ghosts and spirits much like dogs and cats their cries are just cries of fear that's misread. As they grow older their extrasensory perception declines and so does crying. It is said some artists and people as such can still have those visions beyond their infant years which is where the inspiration for their art comes from.
There's no way to tell, people.
Bus rides ugh
Eight hours of busrides over the entire day today and ugh, the more I ride buses the less I want to ride them and start driving. What's up with my back I wonder that I can't stand sitting on the same place for more than a few short hours.
A happy black Friday [Friday 29]
Breakfast of champions with supplies from the Chinese bakery. There was the pigtail bread which I shouldn't have eaten felt like a rebel so ate it anyway. To bad consequences. Since Kim's convenience was over we watched bunch of other things NG played FIFA and we lounged about until 2 ish when we left for King of Prussia mall. Fyi it's the second largest mall in the US.
The ride there took over an hour. Since we had no set plan we ambled around for hours not looking for anything particular. Found a good deal at Clarke's so we got the same pair of shoes mine a half size smaller than NG's.
Our ride back took forever to get to us due to bad the traffic and gasfilling. Had heart to heart conversation with the driver on the hour-long drive home. She seems to be living a tough but happy life.
Back at the pad, NG's roommate who refers to himself in the third person had cancelled his plans elsewhere and was back from Thanksgiving. We went to a pretty great taco place called Rosie's the veggie tacos there were one of the best I've had and the choice of sauces (they have a sauce bar) was unmatched. The nachos were amazing too.
Walked home in the chilly winds and the gang played FIFA as I pretended to fall asleep. I was tired the day had been long and I wasn't particularly looking forward to dancing around late at night. Anyway they somehow made me get up at twelveish and we walked to a pretty great club slash jazzbar Time. That's the great thing about NG's place, everywhere worth being at a twenty minute walk at most from their place.
At the club I danced and jumped around the most as the rest of the guys seemed to get cornered by more aggressive dance circles. After much pull and push we reached a stable configuration and started having some fun. Which is when the guys decided they had had enough and we went down to check out the band. It was alright. We walked home at 1.30ish and watched Baraka due to NGs insistence I fell asleep at some point during the watching.
And that was my black Friday!
On Chinese bakeries
Went to a Chinese bakery on the evening of Thanksgiving. Liked most of the things we got, something that was obviously bad that I shouldn't have eaten but did anyway gave me bad stomach poisoning.
In this piece I'll write about my love for Chinese bakeries how I go to them every Sunday when I can make it, our bakery trip in Philly and what's to come going forward regarding them.
On Kim's Convenience
I finished the three seasons of the series in less than a day. A lot of comments to make which I'll remember to add when I'm in front of a computer. For now, this from texts I've been sending to people.
But you know what, What Kims Convenience does the best despite being a pretty good show is successfully convincing people that their life is exciting and fun and interesting and worth peeking into, having fun exciting lives is not just for a bunch of white friends in New York LA or San Francisco as TV would let you believe. No matter who we are or what we look like or how well off we are, each and every one of our stories is worth telling, on television.
A low key Thanksgiving [Thursday 28]
My first full day off in Philly. Since I'd watched Kim's convenience till 3am got up pretty late. And watched more Kim's convenience. In fact I watched it all day long as NG played FIFA in between and napped. I finished the three seasons of the series in less than 24 hours. More on the series later.
In the evening we went out for dinner. We walked for maybe an hour in the chilly winds of Thanksgiving night, coming across only families with kids getting from one place to the other and students who were out for sustenance. Ended up in Chinatown and took a full round of it so we'd have an informed choice. I wanted to explore a Chinese bakery and ended up getting a ton of baked goods, which I gifted to NG (ended up eating most of it anyway). We figured we didn't need any more food but went to a mediocre Chinese restaurant whose server told me their mapo tofu didn't have pork even though it did. Came back home, finished Kim's convenience talked a bunch more, made plans for the next day and went to bed at a pretty reasonable time.
To the king of Prussia
We went to King of Prussia the second largest mall in the United States on the day of Thanksgiving. I bought a pair of pretty good Clarke's shoes though I didn't need any. Ended up waiting forever for the return ride and had great conversations with the driver. More on all of this later if I have any time.
Clubbing in Philly
After three maybe four years we went clubbing, in Philly Friday night. Despite being the most reluctant to go I was the one who ended up having the most fun. Details coming later hopefully need to catch up on a lot of posts
Another working day [Wednesday 27]
Got up in the morning had a productive day went to a nearby brewery had 5 0z of different beers got back and started watching Kim's Convenience more on that later. Didn't leave home before the outing and didn't do anything really except work.
Good juice
Carrot apple ginger cucumber juice had it yesterday was damn good maybe I've been underestimating carrot juice lately by a lot?
When the reckoning comes
And when the reckoning does come,
As we know it will my love
We will die arms on arms and lips on lips
For everything we have fought for
All these years
Come a mad man, shall not be undone.
On the streets in the alleys
The squares and the nooks and crannies
We shall defend the last room, the last ally
Till we can no more
Only with fearless passion doth come glory
But I ask my love not to you just
Why fight only battles for survival
How did we get here
Guns on our heads in our schools and hospitals
Did we not see this through
Or is our conviction not really true
Do we just seek glory
And not what it defends?
Do we care only for the defining moments
And not those that make them?
Why didn't we watch out
When they took away the poets
The singers and the storytellers
Why did we stand by
As the comedians, head in shame,
Retracted what got them to fame?
Must we not
Prevent wars by fighting battles
And avoid becoming the martyrs
We seem to crave?
Working from Philly [Tuesday 26]
Was groggy and tired when I got to Philly at 6ish to friends at 7. Got to work right away, Ng was off to work. Pretty productive work day, put the office on in the background to distract me away from distractions.
Walked around the city with Ng got food are and went to sleep at maybe 9pm because I was so tired. Ngs caffeine candies didn't help either. Showed off pushups etcetera.
Really, spent the entire day at home working and left to get food in the evening walked and talked with friend and his roommate later in the evening and slept while they played FIFA. My days are simple but this was as boring as it got.
In addition, it's not at all usual to eat tomatoes raw by themselves, they are fruits too people!
Walkabout Philadelphia edition
NG and I walked around downtown Philadelphia for a couple of hours last evening. He tells me only some part of Philly are like Boston. It was a weekday evening and there were people all over, the clothing stores open till way past seven. In other words not like Boston at all. People are prettier but that's probably because he lives in a rich neighborhood, more things happening, for some reason I keep thinking the food scene here in Philly is more thriving than in Boston.
Got veggies from an Indian restaurant where I've had dosa before. It's probably more if a compliment to trader Joe's than an insult to the restaurant but I've had better TJ's frozen foods from the Indian section. But hey, that's just me.
I want to explore Wawa's a lot more but there's never a good reason to go. Might be going to king of Prussia the second largest mall in America later this evening. Fingers crossed
The pheels
Too many Philly puns in mind haha. First day in Philly, spent doing serious work. I want to be either doing my job or be writing or be talking to someone or be reading something good and not social-media etcetera. Getting things better and be back on track to get get my plans accomplished on time
Gone to Philly [Monday 25]
Got up early in the morning left for work almost 40 minutes before and had a productive workday. Lunch at Cava and back for a second half of a productive day. Left early to chill at home, for called by AB. I never ever pick up my phone usually because it's on silent mode but someone it wasn't I picked up it was her birthday and she wasn't doing anything so we ended up hanging out at Hong Kong restaurant in Chinatown. Good meal of mapo and seasonal veggies. Took the orange line and 89 back home, chilled with the boys (roommates BB and PK and semi-roommate I), roommate BB gave us an amazing Thanksgiving gift. The gang tried convincing me to take a taksi to South station to take my bus but I presevered and despite everything still got to the stop an hour before by bus left. The busride was comfortable and relaxing and except for a few false starts and stops there were no issues. Got to Philly comfortably this morning.
Some latenight bullshit that happened
[fic]
The lights were on, the people were in, I sat looking though that window for ten minutes, ten fucking minutes, and goddamn they never answered, I smoked two cigarettes, but no one fucking answered. I was so hungry, I had a raw half-eaten apples, fuck that fucking restaurant, I was so mad, those fuckers who put American cheese in the fucking taco, and I chucked it right through the window that's what I did. And this was fuckin' three am, and they still didn't care. This was the worst annoying shit hat ever happened man I didn't go to mcdonald's to go there.
That was some annoying bullshit, it was, and I say to myself right there at then I do that I've had it with upstate newyork and it's bullshit crap stores
The lights were on, the people were in, I sat looking though that window for ten minutes, ten fucking minutes, and goddamn they never answered, I smoked two cigarettes, but no one fucking answered. I was so hungry, I had a raw half-eaten apples, fuck that fucking restaurant, I was so mad, those fuckers who put American cheese in the fucking taco, and I chucked it right through the window that's what I did. And this was fuckin' three am, and they still didn't care. This was the worst annoying shit hat ever happened man I didn't go to mcdonald's to go there.
That was some annoying bullshit, it was, and I say to myself right there at then I do that I've had it with upstate newyork and it's bullshit crap stores
So called super-secure secrets
It was a secret no one cared for yet everyone had to go along with the hush-hush that it was supposed to protected by three layers of security and a group of heavily armed guards who absolutely hated there job and wouldn't care if someone as much as showed them a knife and stole the last page of document in there. They would help them even, to hell with everything so all the drama and the decorum just ended they had had too much of it they just wanted it to end.
What the fuck was up with the lasers anyway those blue and green colored rays of lights that checkered the corridor. They weren't red, the fun color, and you could hardly see them besides there was no point of those the same task would have just as easily by achieved by ten-dollar motion detectors and cameras or even trip wires the million-dollar laser system was for the show, to make it obvious how expensive the goods inside were, almost if encouraging inciting daring the villains and thieves to raid the vaults. And they malfunctioned a lot, it was best to disarm them unless someone was visiting to oversee the outposts. The system had never actually been tested, even if it was working and somehow enabled on an occasion it wasn't clear it would actually be triggered by capable cons.
The fingerprint scanners were of course the most obvious, a ten-year-old child could get through. You could 3-d print fingerprints from photographs taken several hundred feet away on two-hundred-dollar printers in a public library. The iris scanners weren't that sophisticated -- a color photograph picked off of instagram or tinder or what have you printed on a transparent sheet would get you a better chance of entry than a real-life person in front of a scanner. That's how these things worked, those multi-million dollar super-secure technologies protecting a so-called secret that no one cared for.
What the fuck was up with the lasers anyway those blue and green colored rays of lights that checkered the corridor. They weren't red, the fun color, and you could hardly see them besides there was no point of those the same task would have just as easily by achieved by ten-dollar motion detectors and cameras or even trip wires the million-dollar laser system was for the show, to make it obvious how expensive the goods inside were, almost if encouraging inciting daring the villains and thieves to raid the vaults. And they malfunctioned a lot, it was best to disarm them unless someone was visiting to oversee the outposts. The system had never actually been tested, even if it was working and somehow enabled on an occasion it wasn't clear it would actually be triggered by capable cons.
The fingerprint scanners were of course the most obvious, a ten-year-old child could get through. You could 3-d print fingerprints from photographs taken several hundred feet away on two-hundred-dollar printers in a public library. The iris scanners weren't that sophisticated -- a color photograph picked off of instagram or tinder or what have you printed on a transparent sheet would get you a better chance of entry than a real-life person in front of a scanner. That's how these things worked, those multi-million dollar super-secure technologies protecting a so-called secret that no one cared for.
Good nap-py creative day [Sunday 24]
It's 10.15. Need to go to bed early to get up early tomorrow to get to work early so can be productive the whole day. Watched high-maintenance, cleaned up the room, had dinner, talked to roommates PK BB and semi-roommate I. Roommate SM is in NYC. Wrote a ton of catch-up posts. After several days finally feel caught up, the next time it's going to make much more sense to just write it from the phone than spend hours and hours coming up with post ideas and writing.
Earlier today slept for several hours because it rained really loud and hard and there was not much to do. Had a headache due to the lack of sleep probably and dehydration too who knows so the nap felt relaxing. It rained the whole day didn't get to do any groceries or even walk out due to that. Ate some grapes as fruit, they're in the fridge. Finally decided what I'm doing with regards to Philly travels.
Got up super early in the morning despite going to bed late because needed to use the bathroom. Wanted to go to the grocery store (I promise JD I'd help with that) so I could return home quick but it was raining and she didn't want to go. I took a Lyft home (are you okay, you should just wait for the bus instead you never take rideshares, she said quite reasonably), it was gloomy and raining I was feeling sleepy really wanted to be home to catch up on work which by the way I haven't been able to do due to the napping eating watching tv catching up on the blog posts etc. The ride was alright but felt like throwing up because I felt dehydrated and really tired, again the lack of sleep is what must have done me in.
Just finished reading a paragraph from the light fantastic and need to do 45 of the pushups. Cleanup and then am ready for bed.
Got a lot of writing done for this blog and high-quality snuggled sleep. Good day, despite not doing any planned work. Hope I can get early tomorrow.
Earlier today slept for several hours because it rained really loud and hard and there was not much to do. Had a headache due to the lack of sleep probably and dehydration too who knows so the nap felt relaxing. It rained the whole day didn't get to do any groceries or even walk out due to that. Ate some grapes as fruit, they're in the fridge. Finally decided what I'm doing with regards to Philly travels.
Got up super early in the morning despite going to bed late because needed to use the bathroom. Wanted to go to the grocery store (I promise JD I'd help with that) so I could return home quick but it was raining and she didn't want to go. I took a Lyft home (are you okay, you should just wait for the bus instead you never take rideshares, she said quite reasonably), it was gloomy and raining I was feeling sleepy really wanted to be home to catch up on work which by the way I haven't been able to do due to the napping eating watching tv catching up on the blog posts etc. The ride was alright but felt like throwing up because I felt dehydrated and really tired, again the lack of sleep is what must have done me in.
Just finished reading a paragraph from the light fantastic and need to do 45 of the pushups. Cleanup and then am ready for bed.
Got a lot of writing done for this blog and high-quality snuggled sleep. Good day, despite not doing any planned work. Hope I can get early tomorrow.
Story idea for the imps project thanks to the conference
Inspiration can come from the least expected places. You need to widen your horizons not just as a writer but as a human being generally and look into all sorts of fields and industries to get ideas and inspirations for your work. It can be surprising sometimes.
This came to me during the first day of the conference where I made a mental note to write about in detail, just thought of it again. Here's the idea. AWS, Google, Azure, all the cloud provider companies, they're just the magic providers where other engineers can create their worlds tools and technologies. The providers all have to work within the physical rules of the underlying world but the way they implement things can be different. The API's often look the same to external users but when you get into the nitties and the gritties you expose the technological chasm and the implementation details. There's benefits and disadvantages to this. The benefits are that the overall ecosystem is more robust -- a bug in the AWS hypervisor for a certain processor system does not affect clients for GCP services working with similar technologies, etcetra. The one big disadvantage is that the incompatibilities become more obvious the closer you look, also it can make adapting and changing things quite hard if you somewhat-kinda have to maintain compatibility with everyone else. Also the fear of competition can scare away providers from making big investment or changes that are needed but could be seen as overly risky in the face of massive competition.
The same could be true for the godly worlds, the system that creates their systems. Sure the Imps look after those, make the rules, make the systems that enforce the rules and maintain everything. But what if we find out in an expanded universe that they are not the only beings who have such a system. That alternative beings races kinds do similar things and have similar 'APIs' for their technologies though sometimes the outcomes can be drastically different. And it would be interesting if all the beings met one another in a conference of sorts, talked about adopting a common standards, discussed the problems they all encountered and ways to tackle them. Obviously the question of clients or employers would also come up and they would all complain about how stupid and lame they are and show absolutely no interest in learning the underlying technologies yet complain if even a minor thing that can be easily fixed breaks.
And what about competition even? What if the Imps go on a strike or what have you, and there's real threat of their entire race being replaced by one of the competitors by the gods who have just had it with them and their rebellious curious nature. Or newly burgeoning potential rivals, perhaps Chandradev and his folks (or any one of the smarter deutas) get a bit curious about how things work, and start coming up with their own home-brewed versions implementations of existing technologies which the imps cant stand because one, that could end up dangerous not integrating well with the existing systems, but also that threatens their services and privileges. What if they weren't given the benefits they got that were better than every other race in the known realms and treated like any other mortal class? Their fears could trigger them backing off and becoming more secretive and actually obfuscating their api's so potential rivals would have harder time figuring out the rules of the universe.
This came to me during the first day of the conference where I made a mental note to write about in detail, just thought of it again. Here's the idea. AWS, Google, Azure, all the cloud provider companies, they're just the magic providers where other engineers can create their worlds tools and technologies. The providers all have to work within the physical rules of the underlying world but the way they implement things can be different. The API's often look the same to external users but when you get into the nitties and the gritties you expose the technological chasm and the implementation details. There's benefits and disadvantages to this. The benefits are that the overall ecosystem is more robust -- a bug in the AWS hypervisor for a certain processor system does not affect clients for GCP services working with similar technologies, etcetra. The one big disadvantage is that the incompatibilities become more obvious the closer you look, also it can make adapting and changing things quite hard if you somewhat-kinda have to maintain compatibility with everyone else. Also the fear of competition can scare away providers from making big investment or changes that are needed but could be seen as overly risky in the face of massive competition.
The same could be true for the godly worlds, the system that creates their systems. Sure the Imps look after those, make the rules, make the systems that enforce the rules and maintain everything. But what if we find out in an expanded universe that they are not the only beings who have such a system. That alternative beings races kinds do similar things and have similar 'APIs' for their technologies though sometimes the outcomes can be drastically different. And it would be interesting if all the beings met one another in a conference of sorts, talked about adopting a common standards, discussed the problems they all encountered and ways to tackle them. Obviously the question of clients or employers would also come up and they would all complain about how stupid and lame they are and show absolutely no interest in learning the underlying technologies yet complain if even a minor thing that can be easily fixed breaks.
And what about competition even? What if the Imps go on a strike or what have you, and there's real threat of their entire race being replaced by one of the competitors by the gods who have just had it with them and their rebellious curious nature. Or newly burgeoning potential rivals, perhaps Chandradev and his folks (or any one of the smarter deutas) get a bit curious about how things work, and start coming up with their own home-brewed versions implementations of existing technologies which the imps cant stand because one, that could end up dangerous not integrating well with the existing systems, but also that threatens their services and privileges. What if they weren't given the benefits they got that were better than every other race in the known realms and treated like any other mortal class? Their fears could trigger them backing off and becoming more secretive and actually obfuscating their api's so potential rivals would have harder time figuring out the rules of the universe.
Open source contributions
JC has been contributing to a couple of high-visibility open-source projects I've been inspired by him. Thinking about choosing a few core projects I work with and helping them fix the common issues I or other engineers have to face. It'd be good practice to get coding again and do something besides work. Also might help folks at work get more invested and interested in such projects.
Been looking at how other companies make open source contributions and they seem to have an open source fund that rewards projects that need funding and also gives encouragement bonuses to employees that contribute. It might be worth it to become a cheerleader, organizer, salesperson for such a strategy at my company. Could get our name out there and make a name for us as a valued member of the OSS community, helping with not just attracting talent but also technical interest into company's core products etcetera. A company that has a proven track history with good software contributions to open source software projects could be seen as one that has good products and has its shit together generally. Need to work on the sales pitch better than that, but that would be the general outline.
Been looking at how other companies make open source contributions and they seem to have an open source fund that rewards projects that need funding and also gives encouragement bonuses to employees that contribute. It might be worth it to become a cheerleader, organizer, salesperson for such a strategy at my company. Could get our name out there and make a name for us as a valued member of the OSS community, helping with not just attracting talent but also technical interest into company's core products etcetera. A company that has a proven track history with good software contributions to open source software projects could be seen as one that has good products and has its shit together generally. Need to work on the sales pitch better than that, but that would be the general outline.
Thanksgiving plans
Since NG moved into his apartment in Phila, I've been going to DC less often. It's in an incredibly convenient location has all the restaurants and bars near it and museums and performance centers are just next door to it. Our friends too are quite excited about the location and the apartment. Despite being an old building the corridors are well taken care of the bedrooms are large and the living room is comfortable yet accommodating. They have a pretty large tv too.
Due to all our friends' other plans for thanksgiving, this year it's going to be just he and I in Philly for thanksgiving. It'll be low-key but I'm looking forward to it. Loud and busy holidays are fun but quiet and intimate celebrations with the people closest to you are something else. SS (of HLS fame) and her sister might be coming too with her sister or it could be my misunderstanding of her plans either way it's going to be interesting.
The last time I was there we went to a Dosa place nearby which made me realize what a long time it had been since I had a good dosa. Friends from DC who went to Philly last weekend explored the culinary scene of Philly quite a bit, they were so inspired they're now doing experimental food runs back home instead of going to their favorite Sichuanese restaurant every week. Interesting times lay ahead from them as well.
The tickets to Phildelphia are expensive even for the bus and I'm not yet sure when I'm leaving. The plan was for me to be productive over this weekend and get work stuff done asap and then work from home twice a week this week but I spent all of this weekend getting caught up on sleep so it's still unclear if that will happen. And the busride will be brutal which means more sleep to catch up on. Besides that things should be fancy.
Due to all our friends' other plans for thanksgiving, this year it's going to be just he and I in Philly for thanksgiving. It'll be low-key but I'm looking forward to it. Loud and busy holidays are fun but quiet and intimate celebrations with the people closest to you are something else. SS (of HLS fame) and her sister might be coming too with her sister or it could be my misunderstanding of her plans either way it's going to be interesting.
The last time I was there we went to a Dosa place nearby which made me realize what a long time it had been since I had a good dosa. Friends from DC who went to Philly last weekend explored the culinary scene of Philly quite a bit, they were so inspired they're now doing experimental food runs back home instead of going to their favorite Sichuanese restaurant every week. Interesting times lay ahead from them as well.
The tickets to Phildelphia are expensive even for the bus and I'm not yet sure when I'm leaving. The plan was for me to be productive over this weekend and get work stuff done asap and then work from home twice a week this week but I spent all of this weekend getting caught up on sleep so it's still unclear if that will happen. And the busride will be brutal which means more sleep to catch up on. Besides that things should be fancy.
Plans for the upcoming weeks etcetera
Adding more tasks to my daily checklists so I don't remember it all and actually bother with the checklists every day rather than just going off of memory. Working on
1) Writing and sending a letter to someone every day.
2) More complicated workouts.
3) Actually seriously doing high-intensity training workouts
4) Complimenting a random person every day
5) More phone-based fiction posts so I get in the habit of posting from phone when my laptop is not nearby.
6) And all the other plans from here:
https://yuppyuppyupp.blogspot.com/2019/11/more-plans-for-future.html
1) Writing and sending a letter to someone every day.
2) More complicated workouts.
3) Actually seriously doing high-intensity training workouts
4) Complimenting a random person every day
5) More phone-based fiction posts so I get in the habit of posting from phone when my laptop is not nearby.
6) And all the other plans from here:
https://yuppyuppyupp.blogspot.com/2019/11/more-plans-for-future.html
The wait for vote count
The warm days were warmer than a dragon's armpit and the cool days were cooler than a girlfriend's whose birthday was forgotten, Raul smiled at the description of Arizona. It was true, he hadn't ever thought of it like that when he was here. That was an eternity and a half ago. Even with the internet he had lost touch with everyone from college -- since coming back he had contact with most people from New York even. He chuckled. Three years, he had told them. I'll try my luck for five years see if I can survive in that godforsaken land and I'll be right back. That was then. It was now... Seven years, wow, the years really had gone by, and his group had all gotten married had kids and moved away from the city. Everything was quiet and content, no more partying till 3am in Manhattan and then moving to Brooklyn for the afterparty till the next afternoon. He wouldn't enjoy going back even if he wanted to. People had changed. Everyone was more mature now, and what fun meant was very different now. This is where he belonged.
Old memories came rushing by as he reflected on his journey. He was waiting for the votes to be counted; the latest polling suggested he was slated to win but you could never count on those and the opposition could pull anything out of the hat at the last moment. Maybe the case of jumping monkeys again to invalidate the results and when he reran they would make a deal his party highcommand couldn't refuse and his career would be over. You couldn't not trust anyone in politics not even your own party, maybe your family. Even that, maybe hardly even.
He wanted to go back, just for a monthlong holiday if he could get some time. Visit his old friends his family, the people who had meant everything to him for almost a decade and a half. That was a long time. He had spent more time in the U.S. than he had been conscious in Nepal. And then decided to come back. A long sigh. It was a tough decision to have made and he had made the plunge. Into a freezing painful vat of acid that burned his insides and outside, it felt at many times. This would be the result. If it had all been worth it or not.
What if he lost? And it happened fair and even. It was unclear if he had the stomach to take it all anymore. He wasn't afraid of these lowlifes, it was as if he was fighting a fight whose outcome he didn't care for the rewards were worthless -- what's the value of the houses vehicles servants all the recognition and perks you got if it came from misery and pain for people around you. The smog and the dustcloud choked his lungs, running outside even in a morning was not an option. Traffic was as worse than in Manhattan and Kathmandu was no Manhattan. Not that Manhattan itself was what it was back in his day but these cities those people had always been the center of civilization for him despite everything how things had turned out to be. He had nothing against the people, not even those who had voted and encouraged the fascist regime. It was the politicians the greedy businessmen who had led the country into the spiral it was now unsuccessfully trying to get out of. It had worked out great for him in the end, that's what made him come back and join politics against the wishes of his family and friends. All by himself lonely as an island among enemies and traitors where you can trust no one not even your allies because everyone was out for himself. It wasn't just Kathmandu, it was politics in general. He wouldn't have been in politics in the U.S. no matter what. Making money was more fun and stress-free than being in politics. You have to compromise a lot to be a politician no matter how corrupt or greedy you are. Yeah everything was shit in here but it was clear they didn't get into politics just to make money. There were ideals and principles and dreams underneath the deep layers of corruption and cynicism, he had seen those in the dying brightness of his collaborators.
Old memories came rushing by as he reflected on his journey. He was waiting for the votes to be counted; the latest polling suggested he was slated to win but you could never count on those and the opposition could pull anything out of the hat at the last moment. Maybe the case of jumping monkeys again to invalidate the results and when he reran they would make a deal his party highcommand couldn't refuse and his career would be over. You couldn't not trust anyone in politics not even your own party, maybe your family. Even that, maybe hardly even.
He wanted to go back, just for a monthlong holiday if he could get some time. Visit his old friends his family, the people who had meant everything to him for almost a decade and a half. That was a long time. He had spent more time in the U.S. than he had been conscious in Nepal. And then decided to come back. A long sigh. It was a tough decision to have made and he had made the plunge. Into a freezing painful vat of acid that burned his insides and outside, it felt at many times. This would be the result. If it had all been worth it or not.
What if he lost? And it happened fair and even. It was unclear if he had the stomach to take it all anymore. He wasn't afraid of these lowlifes, it was as if he was fighting a fight whose outcome he didn't care for the rewards were worthless -- what's the value of the houses vehicles servants all the recognition and perks you got if it came from misery and pain for people around you. The smog and the dustcloud choked his lungs, running outside even in a morning was not an option. Traffic was as worse than in Manhattan and Kathmandu was no Manhattan. Not that Manhattan itself was what it was back in his day but these cities those people had always been the center of civilization for him despite everything how things had turned out to be. He had nothing against the people, not even those who had voted and encouraged the fascist regime. It was the politicians the greedy businessmen who had led the country into the spiral it was now unsuccessfully trying to get out of. It had worked out great for him in the end, that's what made him come back and join politics against the wishes of his family and friends. All by himself lonely as an island among enemies and traitors where you can trust no one not even your allies because everyone was out for himself. It wasn't just Kathmandu, it was politics in general. He wouldn't have been in politics in the U.S. no matter what. Making money was more fun and stress-free than being in politics. You have to compromise a lot to be a politician no matter how corrupt or greedy you are. Yeah everything was shit in here but it was clear they didn't get into politics just to make money. There were ideals and principles and dreams underneath the deep layers of corruption and cynicism, he had seen those in the dying brightness of his collaborators.
A lazy day and a party [Saturday 23]
Spent the day lazing around in my bed and catching up on the posts. I'm only 7 posts behind the regular schedule should be all caught up by this evening. In the evening, around 5-ish, took a shower, went with SS (Phd) to AD's place in Malden. We spent eight-ish hours their, tried spinning things, I convinced people I'm really good at Taboo by picking the easiest cards and not timing myself also spoiled it for them probably because we went through so many cards. Since JD is going to NP said bye to her and went to their place to crash. Watched a movie called Frank which was effing weird and not something I ever want to watch again because it was strange and not my type. I'm not fully onpace with weekend workouts yet but that's improving so thank god for that. Went to bed on the couch at 2-ish while the folks were still watching the movie. The sleep was not very restful and got up early this morning.
The year Amazon went to crap and everyone knew it
Amazon's retail business is a street market where the origin and authenticity of anything bought there should be met with a high degree of skepticism. This was known to folks in the tech industry for a few years now. It appears everyone knows now that the reviews are either all fake or for different products, that you can't rely on anyone or any piece of technology to identity what's real and what's fake. Amazon has become a market for lemons in a way that's much worse than what eBay was 9 years ago. If you want to buy something on Amazon cut out the middleman and just buy it for much cheaper on AliExpress or eBay. The shipping may take a long time, but do you really want next-day delivery on a stinking pile of horse manure anyway?
To me it's pretty clear Amazon has given up on the online business and doesn't care what happens to its brand image as long as it can keep its logistics business and aws alive. It's game plan is to surely sell logistics to its current and former competitors who it has priced out of market or is in the process of doing so with its store of shit goods. But then, why did anyone expect otherwise?
I for sure expected exactly this to happen. Nothing out of ordinary. As more people discover this I wonder what the implications for the larger market are going to be. We'll be living in interesting times that's for sure.
A battle scene
The tiny green men scuttered about the field, took to their positions, armed themselves and braced for impact. The other green men ran into the concrete barricade and dragged out wheeled platforms with thick barrells. They connected the platforms to centralised power unit and set up portable generators, making sure the redundant supplies were working as expected. The gunners surrounding had their fingers twitching against the triggers.
Another group of green men ran over and uncovered a green missile turret. Three rangers sat down to aim and fire, the anti-aircraft gunners checked with the turreteers ...two of them would be cover fire and the other two proactively targeting nearby aircraft.
The air roared with the sound of the fighter jets. Faraway one could hear the loud explosion of the mines being set off. The heavy guns thundered and trembled as they showered destructive rounds upon the incoming armoured vehicles. The air stank of petrol gunpowder and raw blood. The mechanical roars and bullet thacks were punctured by screams, wails and sirens.
Spinning the world
At a party in Malden with the near and dear ones. JD leaves for Nepal in two days. SS (PHD) invented this game earlier where they're trying to spin anything they can get their hands on for as long as they can. It started with a dice now it's gone into chargers cellphones mirrors and everything else that even remotely lends its shape to being spun around.
The shape of the path traced by the die should be interesting. What can NOT work we wonder, what determines how well something will work? The mass distribution and the shape probably. And the rigidity of the bodies and how they lend themselves to being spun around.
This has gone on for a surprisingly long time, almost two hours now and has brought in everyone to it. Fun times haha.
Sleeping in an airplane
It's not just the buses that hurt my back when I sit down in the same position for may hours. Not anymore. It must be the age. The plane right to and from San Diego was painful during all the time I was not asleep. Fortunately I was either asleep or otherwise distracted not to be too discomforted my it but the lower back hurts within an hour of sitting on a seat. There's nothing that can solve it either it seems, no back pillows, no neck pillows, no nothing can fix the ailment. Am I completely or truly fked or is this just a temporary situation that can solve itself once lower-body workout starts going on too? Hopefully it's the latter.
Speaking of workouts, I'm now at 70 pushups (25 regular, 25 wide, 20 narrow), 60 situps (30 regular, 30 reverse) and 15 squats. The squats are the most irregular and hurt the most, but they've been getting better. The pushups don't feel like anything anymore, except the last 3 reps. If I started doing high-intensity cardio and controlled my caloric intake in a manner that didn't drive me crazy, I'd have a solid pack to show on my tummy. Alas, the half-inch / an inch of fat on my tummy that I've been trying to always get rid of is still there and hiding my gainz.
Speaking of workouts, I'm now at 70 pushups (25 regular, 25 wide, 20 narrow), 60 situps (30 regular, 30 reverse) and 15 squats. The squats are the most irregular and hurt the most, but they've been getting better. The pushups don't feel like anything anymore, except the last 3 reps. If I started doing high-intensity cardio and controlled my caloric intake in a manner that didn't drive me crazy, I'd have a solid pack to show on my tummy. Alas, the half-inch / an inch of fat on my tummy that I've been trying to always get rid of is still there and hiding my gainz.
Wild dreams of Nuclear Silos
This was the dream I had this morning right before waking up.
I'm in Kathmandu, being driven up the hills to BNKS. I'm talking with SBK and he tells me his friend -- a spanish guy from MIT and a full-time professional architect -- had gone to BNKS the day before and he had fallen sleep suddenly over the night, he was in a hospital. I'm like, whatever.
I get into the campus and am in awe of the new building. It's majestic, magnificient, incomprehensibly large. I fail to understand why anyone would want to build such an incredibly large building on the hills in a suburb at a boarding school. It looks almost like one of those scary buildings in Metropolis in Superman. I go in, talk to the guards, explain to them why I'm there. They let me in, have me be guided by someone. We check out all the lower floors, they're mostly in construction, they tell me these will be converted into classrooms for the college they're going to be building here. I take the elevator up.
The elevator shaft is huge, the elevators are not. They're tiny in fact. The elevator we're on is almost child-size, a toy-like contraption that I'm not very comfortable riding. It takes us to the top floor and suddenly jerks shut, a few feet from the floor. No sounds. Fortunately for us, the elevator itself is open, so we just jump out of it to the floor, not wanting to create drama. The elevator falls down suddenly in the deep dark depths of the building. A short cut pipe dangles by from the top, and swings at me. I'm confused, and very afraid.
I'm thinking. I'm thinking. It can't have been a coincidence. SBK's friend who is an architect who'd know about buildings got sick. And I got shockingly close to a massive disaster. Something was up with this building. Someone was trying to discourage people from poking around in the building. I tell my companion, who's now replaced by my current roommate PK, that something's up, it's all so suspicious how all the curious people are being endangered. I tell him suspicion that actually I don't think SBK's friend is unwell...he may have well passed away. He thinks I'm imagining things. Something about the tone he tells me that tells me he may be on it too. I smile and say it must be the hunger, I do come up with strange and ridiculous theories when I"m hungry. I'm thinking, still thinking and thinking and thinking.
We walk down the building, we don't want to endanger ourselves with elevators anymore. I'm still telling PK how it's so strange the chinese decided to spend so much money on such a large piece of infrastructure at a school, instead of on more productive infrastructure. He says the chinese don't know what they're doing, they just have too much money. We're walking out of school gates after visiting everyone I know. I'm a little shaken and traumatized but I don't want it to be apparent.
I check the guest book as we check out. SBK's friend's entry is there. He entered at 11.36 and departed at 2.30. The next person came in at 6.30. On the remarks section next to his departure entry were the words "DEAD" written. I connect all the dots. It all makes sense now. I can't tell this to anyone or I'd be endangering myself.
They want be dead because I know the geology of the area and would figure out there had to be a reason for such a large expensive cavern in such hard rock, that it had to be worth it. With such a large cylindrical hole in the ground, I'd quickly connect the dots and understand what was happening.
The chinese are afraid of U.S. advances in the region and uncomfortable with how closely they're working with the Indians. And their nuclear capabilities can hit any part of China at any time. India is getting emboldened. The chinese need to make their moves without being too obvious. They come up with a masterpiece of an action. They will build a hidden nuclear silo in the most popular and elite school of the country. Where everyone who matters will have some family member studying. As safe a place as any in the country, protected like people protect their kids. They would build a large skyscraper with a wide base. The elevator shaft would be exceedingly large, but hidden behind other piece of infrastructure when completed. It would be dug deep within the ground, and it would be the path upward for the nuclear missiles. That would also explain why the construction crew got a separate entry and did a lot of work in the darkness of the night. And also the large new hill surrounding the building. The dig-out material was used to make the hill to hide the level of digging. It was a nuclear fortress, hiding right inside the most elite school in the country. I can't tell this to anyone or my life is in danger.
I come back to boston three weeks later. I reach out to the CIA/FBI and tell them what's up, and how crazy that is and something needs to be done. I find myself being tailed by random men. A hint left by a stranger in a random place tells me I've made a terrible mistake. It wasn't just a Chinese project. The Americans are in on it and encouraging it. If this gets revealed as it's being constructed, there won't be any nuclear missiles in there. The Americans won't get to send in the 'expeditionary force' inside Bangladesh and India, something they've always wanted to do. The Indians and the Bangladeshis won't just let American boots in the ground for no reason. But if he Chinese had nuclear missiles capable of hitting their capital a hundred miles away within a matter of minutes, they would need security guarantees. And thus the American presence. The Chinese didn't really care for the American presence in India -- they were close than that in South China sea anyway and a land-based force wouldn't dare cross the Himalayas. The Chinese would get to scare their close enemies with a nuclear silo right in their borders and the Americans would get to expand their force presence in the subcontinent, to no loss of China. If I let the news lose, I'd be a dead man.
I end up in an island, unharmed my any of the secret agencies some months later. I'm always on the run, but soon they won't care about me anymore.
I come back a few years later to the area. My dad wants to build a house there and wants me to return and live there, preferably married to someone. I'm tired of all the running and escaping and hiding by now. I move back and live near what everyone knows to be a dangerous nuclear silo. It's the most public positioning of dangerous weapons in the world and no-one cares. So it goes.
Many, undetermined number of years later, at the epilogue of the book, we find out that there's a college in the building, which is disrupted by officials shouting at everyone, blaring emergency sirens, etc, to get the heck out of the buildings. A shiny piece of metal with yellow-white fiery tail is seen exiting the building.
I'm in Kathmandu, being driven up the hills to BNKS. I'm talking with SBK and he tells me his friend -- a spanish guy from MIT and a full-time professional architect -- had gone to BNKS the day before and he had fallen sleep suddenly over the night, he was in a hospital. I'm like, whatever.
I get into the campus and am in awe of the new building. It's majestic, magnificient, incomprehensibly large. I fail to understand why anyone would want to build such an incredibly large building on the hills in a suburb at a boarding school. It looks almost like one of those scary buildings in Metropolis in Superman. I go in, talk to the guards, explain to them why I'm there. They let me in, have me be guided by someone. We check out all the lower floors, they're mostly in construction, they tell me these will be converted into classrooms for the college they're going to be building here. I take the elevator up.
The elevator shaft is huge, the elevators are not. They're tiny in fact. The elevator we're on is almost child-size, a toy-like contraption that I'm not very comfortable riding. It takes us to the top floor and suddenly jerks shut, a few feet from the floor. No sounds. Fortunately for us, the elevator itself is open, so we just jump out of it to the floor, not wanting to create drama. The elevator falls down suddenly in the deep dark depths of the building. A short cut pipe dangles by from the top, and swings at me. I'm confused, and very afraid.
I'm thinking. I'm thinking. It can't have been a coincidence. SBK's friend who is an architect who'd know about buildings got sick. And I got shockingly close to a massive disaster. Something was up with this building. Someone was trying to discourage people from poking around in the building. I tell my companion, who's now replaced by my current roommate PK, that something's up, it's all so suspicious how all the curious people are being endangered. I tell him suspicion that actually I don't think SBK's friend is unwell...he may have well passed away. He thinks I'm imagining things. Something about the tone he tells me that tells me he may be on it too. I smile and say it must be the hunger, I do come up with strange and ridiculous theories when I"m hungry. I'm thinking, still thinking and thinking and thinking.
We walk down the building, we don't want to endanger ourselves with elevators anymore. I'm still telling PK how it's so strange the chinese decided to spend so much money on such a large piece of infrastructure at a school, instead of on more productive infrastructure. He says the chinese don't know what they're doing, they just have too much money. We're walking out of school gates after visiting everyone I know. I'm a little shaken and traumatized but I don't want it to be apparent.
I check the guest book as we check out. SBK's friend's entry is there. He entered at 11.36 and departed at 2.30. The next person came in at 6.30. On the remarks section next to his departure entry were the words "DEAD" written. I connect all the dots. It all makes sense now. I can't tell this to anyone or I'd be endangering myself.
They want be dead because I know the geology of the area and would figure out there had to be a reason for such a large expensive cavern in such hard rock, that it had to be worth it. With such a large cylindrical hole in the ground, I'd quickly connect the dots and understand what was happening.
The chinese are afraid of U.S. advances in the region and uncomfortable with how closely they're working with the Indians. And their nuclear capabilities can hit any part of China at any time. India is getting emboldened. The chinese need to make their moves without being too obvious. They come up with a masterpiece of an action. They will build a hidden nuclear silo in the most popular and elite school of the country. Where everyone who matters will have some family member studying. As safe a place as any in the country, protected like people protect their kids. They would build a large skyscraper with a wide base. The elevator shaft would be exceedingly large, but hidden behind other piece of infrastructure when completed. It would be dug deep within the ground, and it would be the path upward for the nuclear missiles. That would also explain why the construction crew got a separate entry and did a lot of work in the darkness of the night. And also the large new hill surrounding the building. The dig-out material was used to make the hill to hide the level of digging. It was a nuclear fortress, hiding right inside the most elite school in the country. I can't tell this to anyone or my life is in danger.
I come back to boston three weeks later. I reach out to the CIA/FBI and tell them what's up, and how crazy that is and something needs to be done. I find myself being tailed by random men. A hint left by a stranger in a random place tells me I've made a terrible mistake. It wasn't just a Chinese project. The Americans are in on it and encouraging it. If this gets revealed as it's being constructed, there won't be any nuclear missiles in there. The Americans won't get to send in the 'expeditionary force' inside Bangladesh and India, something they've always wanted to do. The Indians and the Bangladeshis won't just let American boots in the ground for no reason. But if he Chinese had nuclear missiles capable of hitting their capital a hundred miles away within a matter of minutes, they would need security guarantees. And thus the American presence. The Chinese didn't really care for the American presence in India -- they were close than that in South China sea anyway and a land-based force wouldn't dare cross the Himalayas. The Chinese would get to scare their close enemies with a nuclear silo right in their borders and the Americans would get to expand their force presence in the subcontinent, to no loss of China. If I let the news lose, I'd be a dead man.
I end up in an island, unharmed my any of the secret agencies some months later. I'm always on the run, but soon they won't care about me anymore.
I come back a few years later to the area. My dad wants to build a house there and wants me to return and live there, preferably married to someone. I'm tired of all the running and escaping and hiding by now. I move back and live near what everyone knows to be a dangerous nuclear silo. It's the most public positioning of dangerous weapons in the world and no-one cares. So it goes.
Many, undetermined number of years later, at the epilogue of the book, we find out that there's a college in the building, which is disrupted by officials shouting at everyone, blaring emergency sirens, etc, to get the heck out of the buildings. A shiny piece of metal with yellow-white fiery tail is seen exiting the building.
The foods of San Diego
I began writing this post a lot earlier, but that post turned into a piece about my vegetarianism. Here's the thing -- it was not a consideration when I landed in San Diego that it would be a city worth eating meats for. For japan, it'd be worth it, maybe even Brazil, but San Diego with its beans and vegetables and Mexican food wasn't a particularly vege-unfriendly place I thought. Why should it, Mexican food was traditionally a meat-and-potatoes kind and for the peasants and surely they didn't eat a lot of meat that I'd be missing out a lot on?
The answer was...unclear. We went to La Puerta which was supposed to be an amazing restaurant for Mexican food. It was just ok. Then to the Blind Burro (the blind donkey), it was the most overpriced mediocre vegetables tacos I've had the misfortune to eat. $3 tacos I considered expensive in the East Coast and they were pretty good, there we paid $8 per piece of taco and it was quite... not good! Then again a mexican restaurant after that for dinner, and then a mexican breakfast. The nicest part of all the meals was the Jalepeno poppers I had and a small sip of the IPA-style lager I took from JC's glass. That was it.
So here's the question: what's up with that? Were we outrageously unlucky, or was our neighborhood known for overpriced mediocre places which were somehow well-rated on the rating websites, or was it the vegetarianism? It can't have been the vegetarianism because JC didn't find any of it particularly good either and he tried all things meat and seafood. I've had much better for much less even in Boston, he said, and he should know for he was born and brought up in the great nation of MX. The ratings don't make sense, the place is supposed to be nice, nothing makes sense. I don't know what went wrong, and I'm not sure if I want a redo. It was crappy and it's unclear if there's a good defense that can be brought up for it.
At least there were tons of tequila options and surprisingly SD is a beer-rich city with dozens of micro and macro breweries. If I were a drinking man I'd have had a good time in the city that's a guarantee. It's unclear if the same could be said if I ate meats and seafood.
It was a disappointment. Not sure what people find so great about the city. Perhaps we were imprisoned inside the Gaslamp and it's actually the beaches, the old-town it's Spanish-style churches etcetera, the nice pueblos that make it great? Perhaps everyone who goes to the part of town we went to and rates the places is a deluded asshole and really messes it up for us all. Our expectations must have been set really high. Wish there was a better change to explore the place. I'd like to go to the beaches and the churches driving around taking in the full smells and sights of the place, not just walking around in hippest part of the town.
I've been there twice, and not impressed yet. I'd like do give the city one last chance.
The answer was...unclear. We went to La Puerta which was supposed to be an amazing restaurant for Mexican food. It was just ok. Then to the Blind Burro (the blind donkey), it was the most overpriced mediocre vegetables tacos I've had the misfortune to eat. $3 tacos I considered expensive in the East Coast and they were pretty good, there we paid $8 per piece of taco and it was quite... not good! Then again a mexican restaurant after that for dinner, and then a mexican breakfast. The nicest part of all the meals was the Jalepeno poppers I had and a small sip of the IPA-style lager I took from JC's glass. That was it.
So here's the question: what's up with that? Were we outrageously unlucky, or was our neighborhood known for overpriced mediocre places which were somehow well-rated on the rating websites, or was it the vegetarianism? It can't have been the vegetarianism because JC didn't find any of it particularly good either and he tried all things meat and seafood. I've had much better for much less even in Boston, he said, and he should know for he was born and brought up in the great nation of MX. The ratings don't make sense, the place is supposed to be nice, nothing makes sense. I don't know what went wrong, and I'm not sure if I want a redo. It was crappy and it's unclear if there's a good defense that can be brought up for it.
At least there were tons of tequila options and surprisingly SD is a beer-rich city with dozens of micro and macro breweries. If I were a drinking man I'd have had a good time in the city that's a guarantee. It's unclear if the same could be said if I ate meats and seafood.
It was a disappointment. Not sure what people find so great about the city. Perhaps we were imprisoned inside the Gaslamp and it's actually the beaches, the old-town it's Spanish-style churches etcetera, the nice pueblos that make it great? Perhaps everyone who goes to the part of town we went to and rates the places is a deluded asshole and really messes it up for us all. Our expectations must have been set really high. Wish there was a better change to explore the place. I'd like to go to the beaches and the churches driving around taking in the full smells and sights of the place, not just walking around in hippest part of the town.
I've been there twice, and not impressed yet. I'd like do give the city one last chance.
Just a lame friday after California [Friday 22]
As uneventful as days can get, as unproductive as they should hopefully never get. Got up late, started working from home, didn't get much done, ate lunch that roommate Sm had made, went back to work did tons of work-related writing but not much journaling -- personal or otherwise. After work hours ended watched some TV, napped for four hours, got up, had nothing to do so listened to podcasts -- thank god for podcasts, by the way -- attempted to help a friend get out of a very very difficult position, unsuccessfully, and went back to sleep at 3am. The podcasts were not paid much attention to. I also got apps and got addicted to them. Lets see how good I'm with this discipline thing with them. Also trying to get back to the discipline thing starting tomorrow. I did not refer to the checklists for the last two weeks at all, but that was because I was doing the things that were going to be done anyway and even on days the checklists happened I was skipping the things -- such as running -- that I didn't want to do. Need to make a habit of doing those lists again no matter what. I'm not sure if the apps are a good use of my time or just something stupid, but we will find out!
Had the same rice and vegetables curry the evening before sleeping too. So. Much. Rice. At least it wasn't mexican food again so thank god for that. God's being thanked a lot today huh.
Had the same rice and vegetables curry the evening before sleeping too. So. Much. Rice. At least it wasn't mexican food again so thank god for that. God's being thanked a lot today huh.
Final Day of Conference [Thursday 21]
The final day of the conference there were to be a couple of keynote presentations which JC and I independently decided to skip. We got up super late, and checked out of the hotel at 10.45 ish. Went to a nice breakfast place and I got the mexican tortilla and eggs breakfast. There's a post coming ahead about this, but here's a summary of my feelings on issues Mexican food: SD is overhyped and I'm over 'special' mexican food for a while. We took a Lyft to the airport, JC got into his special entry line and I stood on the pleb line. The terminal and the gate we were at was quite shockingly tiny -- not enough standing space and it caused us great consternation. Even though JC and I were side-by-side (and we were by an exit door so extra space for us, woo), he was two boarding groups behind me which befuddled us all. I only went through the metal detector inside and not the super creepy machine.
The flight back home was quite uneventful. We agreed we were both to be working from home the following day and headed home. I ordered a Lyft, to a wrong terminal because that's what Lyft told me, tried to contact the driver after changing the settings to come to my place, but the call and the texts were all unanswered so I ended up paying 50% extra and waiting for 40 minutes to find a write home. Finally got home late in the evening, and went to bed. Nothing much happened really.
The flight back home was quite uneventful. We agreed we were both to be working from home the following day and headed home. I ordered a Lyft, to a wrong terminal because that's what Lyft told me, tried to contact the driver after changing the settings to come to my place, but the call and the texts were all unanswered so I ended up paying 50% extra and waiting for 40 minutes to find a write home. Finally got home late in the evening, and went to bed. Nothing much happened really.
Day 2 of Conference [Wednesday 20]
Got up at 6-ish, wasted two hours doing nothing and just messing through my belongings creating work for the poor room cleaners. Talked to a bunch of folks all over, I should really take that down and focus on my writing instead. As a result we didn't leave on time enough to make it for breakfast, so we stopped at SD/Cali equivalent of Whole Foods. I brought three fruits: a pear, an apple and a tomato, that lasted me until the next day. We walked straight to the keynote talks, the talks were pretty great this time around too (note from the previous day: Kelsey Hightower is such an incredible awe-inspiring speaker) though again there was this confusingly long display of 5g technology by a systems company.
The talks were all great, the lunch was disappointing -- as disappointing as it could get actually it made me sad -- the final four talks at the end of the day did end in a great note. The last talk JC and I went to was extremely relevant to our work and opened our galactic brains to new possibilities that are going make our lives so much easier!
When the talks ended we were trying to figure out where we wanted to go next. I wanted to go back to the hotel and maybe attend the grand party, and JC was not sure. So we ambled around and took the longest most stupid way to the location of the party which we misread the directions to and then blamed the organizers for poor planning. The party was great, they'd reserved the entire neighborhood and you could go to any of the restaurants or bars to get buffet style food and a limited choice of drinks. JC and I unknowingly went to what was a cleaned-up stripclub that had been rebranded for the occasion. We sat there not doing much when PB called and videochatted with her for a while. Then I saw it was her birthday and congratulated her. JC wanted to go somewhere else so we walked around the block, watched a cool band play, and went to this expensive-looking restaurant for their tiny appetizer plates. The only reason we went there was because I saw a long line outside it and figured it must be something great if people were so eager to eat at it. As it happened, the two people in front of us also worked in our company. We ended up spending the next 3.5 hours having great work and innovation related conversations. It was great times. We shut down the bar (to be fair they shut down at 10.30) and all headed to our hotels, us walking in mild rain. Went to bed pretty soon after that.
It was a fun and productive and to a pretty great conference.
The talks were all great, the lunch was disappointing -- as disappointing as it could get actually it made me sad -- the final four talks at the end of the day did end in a great note. The last talk JC and I went to was extremely relevant to our work and opened our galactic brains to new possibilities that are going make our lives so much easier!
When the talks ended we were trying to figure out where we wanted to go next. I wanted to go back to the hotel and maybe attend the grand party, and JC was not sure. So we ambled around and took the longest most stupid way to the location of the party which we misread the directions to and then blamed the organizers for poor planning. The party was great, they'd reserved the entire neighborhood and you could go to any of the restaurants or bars to get buffet style food and a limited choice of drinks. JC and I unknowingly went to what was a cleaned-up stripclub that had been rebranded for the occasion. We sat there not doing much when PB called and videochatted with her for a while. Then I saw it was her birthday and congratulated her. JC wanted to go somewhere else so we walked around the block, watched a cool band play, and went to this expensive-looking restaurant for their tiny appetizer plates. The only reason we went there was because I saw a long line outside it and figured it must be something great if people were so eager to eat at it. As it happened, the two people in front of us also worked in our company. We ended up spending the next 3.5 hours having great work and innovation related conversations. It was great times. We shut down the bar (to be fair they shut down at 10.30) and all headed to our hotels, us walking in mild rain. Went to bed pretty soon after that.
It was a fun and productive and to a pretty great conference.
The amazing Amazon fiction flirt
From Matt Levine's column this morning I discovered that Amazon is encouraging fiction writing, fictional Press Releases more precisely so people can specify their product requirements more clearly. I mean it's great or whatever, but the irony that the retailer that basically all the stores selling fiction copies is itself encouraging the art of fiction-writing is not lost on anyone.
Day 1 of conference [Tuesday 19]
There's not much to write about. JC and I met at the hotel lobby, to walked to the conference center, got the breakfast. Attended keynote presentations, some or them were quite good though one dragged on and on forever and it was unclear why it was even there. The metaphor of Minecraft for corporate strategy in technology innovation was pretty good.
Attended a bunch of talks, got lunch which was a mediocre tofu banh mi, attended more talks. The evening talks were better, the hands-on coding during the end keynote was great.
Went back to the hotel and rested for a bit, before we headed out for a party organized by one of the sponsors. After waiting for fifteen minutes in the line before realising the party had a invitee list, we changed lines to the waiting list and quickly got ourselves in the waiting list on line. Ten minutes later we got entree to the grand k8s or die party.
It was a disappointment of epic proportions. Imagine if you took a regular disappointment, multiplies it by ten, took an assload of other unrelated disappointment heaped them all up in one disgusting sandwich before slathering with s bucketload of shit, that's how disappointing it was. The club was poppin and with different people in there at other times it might have been a fun place to be, but that wasn't it. The conversation from earlier between techies were still the same it's just the context was confusingly... hyperactive? It didn't feel like you were having fun, it was as if someone had put an eighteen year old in charge of an important corporate meeting without telling them what a corporate meeting actually was and they had decided to to all in to show their high school friends how cool they were. I don't drink and JC forgot his id so we were out after fifteen minutes
We went to a Mexican restaurant nearby called the blind burro for dinner. Eight dollars a taco for mediocre tacos, JC said they were pretty good but not worth it, I definitely had much better tacos for a lot cheaper. Second day in a row that we were disappointed by SD food. We walked back, sad at not having our minds blown, I talked to a bunch of people and went to sleep at 12ish.
Meat and me
I'm not a vegetarian. As in, I don't go around telling people I'm vegetarian and don't avoid meat like I'm allergic to it. I'll eat little bits of meat once in a while and be reminded how much I don't enjoy eating meat anymore. As I've told everyone who will listen, if you pay attention, most meats have no flavour. If it's about the flavor that's just spices. It's about the texture that's just the method or cooking, you can have anything cooked like that taste similar. If it's about the indescribable quality that's the fat in the meat, add as much fat in any food with the spices and it too will taste good. In any case, there's not much about meat that I crave or miss.
There's an exception though. Goat meat, barbecued over coal. Goat brain, fire-roasted tongue and ears. From Pushkar's in putalisadak. The meat has the flavor no vegetable can even come close to. I wouldn't eat it every day of course like people eat chicken and rice every day, I treat it as a treat, for special occasions. What do I miss about home the most, I've been asked many times. Goat sekuwa and good sweet mangoes, I reply every time. Oh yeah and my family, I guess, I'll add, almost as an afterthought.
Lots of posts incoming
I'm behind regular posting by seven posts, three each for the two preceeding days and one for today. With two daily journals and one post on the food of SD that's four posts I have to think about before the evening. Count this one and only three more to go! I'm winning at this!
Day zero of conference [Monday 18]
7am Got up
715: Need to get ready for the day soon
8.30 : Met up with JC. No free breakfast at hotel, walking to the hotel with the event.
It's a pleasant walk, we're confused by how spread out everything seems to be even though there's tall buildings here. On one of the intersections we saw escooter parking on three of the four corners!
9.00 JC went to the contributor event, I'm waiting in the line for my badge. The lines are insanely long, it's crazy how long actually.
9.07 still several minutes from getting the badge
Pleasantly surprised at how open and considerate everything seems to be, by design. You can choose stickers to put in your badge to let people know how social of a mood you're in!
9.10 finally getting near the badge pickup area
10.00 Finished posting yesterday's events to slack. I need to attend the aws event but not sure if I'm signed up for it
10.10 The aws event is 20 minute walk away from where I was at. Since everything else was a paid event today, that's the only thing happening. Gonna walk to it, weathers perfect for a walk. If I'd forgotten to register for it just gonna go to the museum.
10.15 interestingly unpowered sccokters seem to be pretty popular too!
10.20 just took a bunch of photos...of cheesecake factory. Cheesecake factory like a museum lol
Have seen so many scooters Parked around and being used it's not even worth mentioning anymore
10.25 on closer inspection and in hindsight the aircraft carrier docked conveniently at a tourist location was a decommissioned tourist site and not an active ship
10.30 overheard from a tour guide that like in San Fran, the scooters are limited to 3 mph at least the commercial touristy ones. Unclear if the policy holds for personally owner e scooters.
11.05 Aws eks talk:
Intro topics on Amazon and their upcoming pipeline. They open-source their project roadmap on github, sounds interesting
11.35: They have a product called App mesh. It's getting more mature might be great in a year or so.
11.50: Progressive delivery with app mesh. They're really trying to steal Istios lunch here.
12.30 Lunch was okay, too crowded and sunny outside ate inside
1.40 Good lunch still hungry but nbd don't need to fill myself up. Machine learning with aws talk
Lots of interesting distributed computing features that make it easy for data scientists to deploy their models without knowing too much kube internals coming soon.
4.20 The workshop was a major fiasco no one got too far due to aws region-specific issues gonna come back to the hotel now. There's a talk called 'birds of a feather' which is mighty non-descriptive. Heading back to the hotel now
4.30 Almost got the lyft escooter but too stressed out by the rules of the day road to actually follow through it.
4.40 No one's actually following the recommended rules though. If I'd known that I'd most definitely get the Lyft. A bunch of girls honked and waved at me and I waved back etcetera, so I'm thinking either the guys are uglier in California or the girls have looser morals. Either way, SoCal seems to be the place to be.
5.15 Planned on going to a theater show and yeah I get how public transport is the worst here. 14 minutes by driving, an hour and thirty minutes by public transport
6.00 At La puerta restaurant outside. Just saw Fred the free ride hail app based on ads.
6.30 La puerta is popular as hell, and the restaurant next door the one with the cute hostess gets only the spillovers it seems. Their serving sizes are so strange. I couldn't finish half a really cheap veggie quesadilla and JC's three tiny tacos were extremely expensive. Perhaps I ordered the wrong thing but I'm not impressed La Puerta!
7.00 Walked back from the restaurant. We keep talking about exploring the nightlife and becoming more interesting people but there's not a lot of interest from either of us. JC says there's something happening with places that pretend to be gelato shops but are just hookah cafes. I buy it. He tells me how he and R used to spend entire days in hookah bars and do their assignments.
Compared notes about the days events with JC we agree the workshops could have been more organized. We're planning for the next day of events and my concerns that we might need to move between hotels cross-town are fortunately unfounded. We have a good schedule planned out for tomorrow.
We agree we'll meet up later in the evening if we want to explore the nightlife and go from there.
10.00 neither of us wants to go out. I'm talking to a bunch of folks.
12.00 Sweet sweet sleep finally.
The good, pretty alright people of Cali
Are the people of the People's Republic of California nicer and friendlier or did I just stumble into a non-representative sample of them?
Example 1: Everyone who has reached out to me and talked and chatted yet has been from California. There was close to zero effort from my part. This is with the confrerence attendees. How does that even happen?
Example 2: This has happened twice now so it's worth nothing. Age appropriate women good looking have waved, smiled and tri d talking to me out of nowhere. I checked if there was anyone behind and there wasn't and they laughed and pointed at me so that was definitely nice. It's all either a massive practical joke to befuddle and mess around with the naive East-Coaster who doesn't know the wily Californian way, or it's that people are nice.
Example 3: This is maybe not the best example but the people who're out on the streets playing dice randomly -- there's a good number of people who seem they're not homeless just roaming around in the streets having fun aka 'loitering' if you want to be a boring narc who hates fun -- they've invited be to their dice games and even offered me good odds. Not that I'd do that, but it feels good to have human contact with random strangers that's not strictly transactional even if there's a possibility those strangers might be attempting to scam you.
I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into random occurrences which I'd have noted in Boston to. That's the issue, things like these don't happen over and over. Once a happenstance, twice a coincidence, third's a weird occasion, and more than that and it's a pattern.
Notes on the SD hotel and neighborhood
The hotel we're in gives our rewards points to guests for 'saving the environment' if they request no room cleanup during the day. Did that because I thought it was genuinely good for the environment. JC got a folded elephant of towels with chocolates for eyes when he got back to his room. I want that too! Having my room cleaned both the remaining days now.
The hotel has no free breakfast and slow WiFi though the rooms seem to be pretty nice and I do love the decor of the lobby. It's apparently an old building which has always been a hotel, the elevators look like they are a hundred years old no exaggeration and JC was told only two of them work because they're so old. I should really take photos of them they might as well be in a museum. So much character!
Our neighborhood has enough character itself, all the bars and clubs and all that. In a fifteen minutes walking radius there probably fifty good bars and clubs and maybe give hundred decent restaurants. And this is San Diego which isn't exactly a dense city even in its densest parts which we're probably in anyway. We're lucky to have ended up here, far enough from the convention center that we're forced to explore the city but close enough to walk comfortably to it.
On our walk back from the Mexican restaurant last night (more on that in the upcoming journal) we encountered three maybe four Indian restaurants and a dozen Mexican restaurants. And about five hookah bars. Our walk was ten minutes long. San Diego is certainly a city with character for sure.
To the cool coast! [Sunday 17]
7am. Got up. Ish. No idea when my plane ride is I need to get up seriously. I'm thinking it might be sometime in the afternoon.
7.10 : Ugh it'd be a shame to miss my flight because I was too lazy to open my laptop and check work email. Ten more minutes and I'll be up.
7.22 : Probably have some more time idk why I'm even stressing out so hard.
7.45: My flight begins check-in in an hour. Uh oh. Should get ready now. Need to pack up too but I'm already mostly prepared
8.05: Tried walking up PK for his fifty percent discount but he's not home. Ordering a Lyft ASAP.
8.35: This is stupid. I hurried like a crazy person and I'm already in the security line and will be in soon. Of all the problems I foresaw for today, being too early for my flight was not one of them.
8.55: Supported the great Boston business Dunks by ordering their impossible sausage sandwich and hash browns. The impossible stuff doesn't taste like meat at all, has its own flavor profile. Are Dunks hash browns a tribute to lattkes because that's what they're like
9.38 EST: Got on the plane, doing final catch-up. Lady next to me had three young children across the aisle it must be quite a task to keep them check
10.02 EST Took off.
1.40 PM EST: JC tells me his flight hasn't left when he was supposed to leave two hours earlier than me. He's spent eight fruitless hours in the airport and apparently will reach SD five hours after I do. In return they gave them a ten dollar meal pass that no one at the airport accepts
2.15 EST: Many people in JC's plane, like mine, are going to Kubecon too. Overheard a guy earlier who said his team was the only one in Google cloud hosting Microsoft VMs due to licensing issues and what not.
2.20 EST: Second round of drinks, tomatoes and water now. The three kids across the aisle are well-behaved.
2.50 EST: The guy sitting next to me is preparing a keynote presentation for he contributor summit. He's hard at work preparing for the presentation.
12.36 PT: we're four minutes from landing. 50 minutes earlier than scheduled landing
12.44 PT: Landed and waiting for the plane to leave the gate. They've taken away stairs thing away apparently so it should not be too long. Dear god how I need me some rest!
1.32 Got into the room, checked in early. The rooms nice but I got queen because I checked in early. Nbd. The hotel's really nice and has the very Mexicali architecture style. The receptionist at the lobby was really friendly. Apparently everyone here is for kubecon in the hotel.
Met a guy called Jonas and talked to him, he said there's 12000 attendees expected in the conference which blew my mind because I'd have imagined a fifth of that at most. He gave me great suggestions on how to get involved with contributing for kube.
On the Uber to the hotel met a guy who was attending the architect conference nearby. Apparently there's 10000 attendees in there too. Yikes, there's 22000 people in the city just for those two conferences!
3.44 Couldn't go to sleep, getting setting to eat. First meal in SD is going to be at dominos lol
4.05 Damn the half a Domino's pizza I had was so good
4.05 Notes on moving around in SD. So. Many. Scooters. People use them and they're in every corner of seems. Also public transport generally, there's a train line that runs a block away from us, and I noticed several buses in the short pizza run I was out for. Perhaps public transport is not as awful as I was led to believe. Another comment on that: the receptionist told me the convention center was a walkable distance away from where we are, should be interesting. Will try to nap for one last time and then go on a walk.
Also, how great is SDs weather! Is almost December and I could be in shorts and t shirt!
I was expecting people to walk a lot slower from what I've been led to believe about the west coast but that seems to be not the case. More on that upcoming.
We're living in the Gaslamp Quarters of SD which I'm told is the hip neighborhood with the bars. But don't all receptionists say that about their neighborhood. We'll see how this develops.
4.15 Cleaned up the room, had some water got everything in order. Will rest for a bit before making any moves. Head still hurts unclear why.
8.30 Got up from a solid round of napping, hope this doesn't disrupt my evening sleep. Haha who am I kidding my sleep schedule is going to be so off.
9.22 Met up with JC who attended the contributor's summit which was actually just a party which they changed the location of to a different hotel at the last moment.
9.25 We walked for fifteen minutes to the nearby McDonald's where JC is getting sandwiches. Just got a drink because the pizza is bound to stay around for long.
10.01 Got supplies from CVS, back to our hotel, going to bed.
12.00 Went to sleep.
San Diego sparseness and wet dreams
The city of San Diego is one of the larger Californian cities though it may not appear so at first sight to an uninitiated East-Coaster. The streets are wide, sidewalks huge, even tall buildings have large swaths of empty space between them when there are tall buildings because even in the heart of the city, in the densest parts, there aren't too many of them to begin with. JC asked me if I'd move into this city, I said I'd consider it if it filled in a little bit, got more dense, had more people and life within its boarders. No way, he said, they would never allow for vertical construction, those Californians, they would never let their beloved -- looks around a random corner -- random Chinese takeout to be torn down and have the one-storeyed building add 25 floors. And unfortunately that's true. Californians, as cool as they are and they do seem somehow cooler than east coasters, do not appear to have a good understanding of vertical construction technologies and the fact that the random Chinese takeout place can come back at the streetfront level after the new construction. You could add all the Chinese takeout places you'd ever want in the new building and there'd still be space for people to live in. Alas!
There was a Fleabag one-person show happening in SD last night. A 15-min drive which would be a cheap Lyft ride. I figured it'd be a good idea to use the public transportation system of the great city since it's somewhat related to the work I'm here for. Not an option. The trip would cost be as much as a Lyft right if not more, and six times as longer. Ended up not going because I was too tired but you get the point.
Investment in better transportation infrastructure, including added bus service, creation of bus lanes, tram services, and service to areas outside of the core downtown region would relieve the traffic pressure. Investment in upping the density and lowering the parking requirements within city limits would encourage usage of such public transportation. With decreased traffic, half of the wide boulevards could be turned into world-famous public parks, stretching out for tens to hundreds of miles. Adding better last mile options and encouragement for bikes would make it a more lovable, walkable, breathable city. Income from tourism would increase, cultural cache would go up, local business would benefit. Increases demand for business would help flourish larger entrepreneurs, creating a tighter job market, helping with the massive homelessness problem. A better city for the tourists and a better quality of life for all the locals. Greater talent would pour in, and the city, with its understanding of vertical construction technologies would easily accommodate them all without impacting the affordability for existing inhabitants.
Such are my wet dreams.
In San Diego
I'm running a little behind on all the posts because of the travel. I've had to keep in touch with a bunch of folks due to various issues and fires coming up everywhere so that has complicated matters further. Also maintaining a log for work. Too much writing not enough time for blog posts what an irony. Might do a massive dump at the end of the trip we'll see how it goes.
Big fun day [Saturday 16]
As I write this it's 9.41 in the morning on Sunday and I'm on the flight to San Diego for a previously mentioned conference. We've all boarded and are prolly waiting for clearance from ATC. I'll be writing this in keep knowing how bad blogger app is at dealing with networking issues.
Going to start chronologically because the meatiest parts come at the end.
Got up at 8.30 in the morning only to go back to sleep and arise at 10.00 in Brookline. My hosts had other couple friends coming in for lunch which I didn't want to hang around in for. We made a solid breakfast: cauliflowers, Pepin-style creamy scrambled eggs that I made, avocado, and meaty remains of the previous night's dinner for AD. All in tortilla and rotis warmed to be almost crispy. They could have become a tad too crispy I'll admit for it was easier to eat them as tacos rather than rolls that we intended. After helping JD clean the dishes (and a few more) all of us watched Priyanka Karki's YouTube series. As previously alluded JD wants to make movies and videos and is starting from the basics, with the series as a starting point. I was getting ready to leave while they watched the series but JD said she didn't fully understand what was happening and AD said he couldn't tell the characters from each other and he had even lesser understanding of what was happening. It must have grown on them because they did watch three episodes of the series right as I was getting ready to leave though to be fair it could also have been because each episode was only like ten minutes long.
On the way to the 66 bus to the orange line I met SD, who lives near the Heath St stop. He was trying to get me to amble around but I had to catch the bus to make a tight timetable. Just as he was talking to me, he found someone else who he knew also Nepali who he started talking to. Must have been such a wild morning for him, to bump into a bunch of people who don't even live close by one after other.
The T ride home was frustratingly long and full of delays due to the T. The trip which I've made in 45 minutes on my bike took an hour and forty minutes by train and bus. Honestly... What to I even say? The only good part about it all : it was ridiculously cold all day and almost impossible to walk outside for long without being fully prepared for it which I was not so in some way the wactra time was a cost of convenience. This has been said a hundred times already and will be said a thousand times more in this blog: thank god for podcasts for saving me from the mouth of insanity.
At home, got caught up on Fridays posts (as I get caught up on Saturday's posts this Sunday haha) and caught up with the housemates and CC. In a way it was a 'best of' of all the recent seasons, if roommate BB had been around too, he was in ME to see R, it would have been the complete apartment set for the last two-ish years. CC's found a great job in DC, lives in a decent neighborhood near the zoo and has a good group of friends. To celebrate her jetting the job I drank a can of beer, my first one in almost eight months. It's not that I've been completely dry all this time but this was the only celebratory drink. It's a great cause for celebration!
I rode my bike, after what felt like a really long time, to Aldi to get cheese and crackers. This was for the evening potluck, I was in charge of the cheeses. Got three flavoured goat cheeses (cranberry which SS loves and tastes like jam and cheese, honey which is sweet and mild, and garlic and spices which is flavorful) a serious Gouda block (oof so cheesy) and an extra sharp cheddar (not sharp enough). Also got a comically large amount of green grapes.
Back home I cleaned my room, picked the grapes out of the stems and cleaned them (you laugh but it took so long and it wasn't a quick task) and with Cc set up the cheese board with little description of each cheese and everything. The guys cooked meat and the staples. We spent the next several hours preparing listening to songs and cleaning up.
The first guests got in at sevenish and they weren't really guests as much as regular house occurrences. The first real guests aka people who don't come over every week or two weeks got in at a little after eight.
Too many things from the party it doesn't make sense to describe transcribe a party anyway. There wasn't enough booze because people who drink beer brought in wine and were looking for beer. A bottle of wine disappeared and reappeared after the party. The half open bottle of wine we'd hidden to not make people sick due to it being halfway to vinegardom was consumed quickly. The game of antakshari, the first one I've been in, in perhaps a decade and a half lasted for solid three, maybe four hours until the participants gave up because they were too tired to go on. The group as a whole largely ignored a game of mafia that was happening while those playing loved it, a little for everyone. The women got talking as a group and planned for their meetings. I made potentially new friends. Discovered that ND gets very flustered when she's complimented. Found out A (of the video fame, first time meeting her) is amazing with songs and so are AP (of the PhD fame) and RSS (of the Forest hills region). CC is unbelievable with rare Bollywood movie names.
The folks started heading out at 12.30 and by 2 everyone was almost out. We could have tried harder to keep folks around but CC needed to sleep in the common room so there wasn't too much interest in taking the party on while disturbing her sleep. SS and her friend S ( Green st) were the last folks to leave which made me so happy because they were the ones most concerned if this was going to boring because they didn't know too many people around. At least one of those concerns was addressed.
SM was the first one to go to bed, after comparing notes on the evening. We agreed generally everyone had fun and the drinks running out early wasn't really on us. Pk Cc and I talked for another half hour before I went to bed so I could catch my flight this morning. The flight I'm currently typing this in right now.
Lazy weekend workouts
I've been totally out of whack with my workouts this weekend. I generally am most weekends but this one has been quite brutal. My defense is that I got tonne of socializing and hosting done and hey in travelling to a far away place in so long I've forgotten what it feels to be in a metal box full of other smelly annoyed people who haven't gotten proper sleep for several days either.
Also I've been half-assing my posts as of late because I've been trying to catch up with previous day's posts every day. As I write this, I'm about two posts behind, and haven't done Saturdays journal, which should be an interesting fun one. It'll be fine and I'll get back on the habit in confident but it's scary that I can just let go of something I've worked on for so many months (almost four months of regular writing now!) just like that!
What do you call
Q: What do you call a plane full of attendees going to a large Cali city for kubecon?
A: There are multiple answers. Sausage fest. Schlongfest. Fiesta of the eggplant. Etc. You get the hint. It's all literally all dudes talking about programming stuff. There's no running away from it for th next four days. I could cry for help but the emt are bound to mention clusters or machines or AMIs and what have you considering where we're at. Still in Boston, it's 9.10 am and flights an hour away boarding should begin soon. I'm not sure how much fraternising I'll be doing beyond strict professional courtesies, this doesn't seem like a fun and diverse crowd but who knows maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Hope is the only thing that keeps us alive stops us from falling into the void of insanity and despair. That tiny ray of hope of finding something interesting besides techie things is what's moving my gears right now
On balance [Friday 15]
I write this the afternoon of the next day (Saturday) as i was too tired and busy to write this last night. The details of the day are more or less preserved though the excitement about the events may not be.
The morning was unmemorable -- roommate BB and PK left very early since PK has his SQL training sessions at 8am every day. They texted in our group about how the Orange line was seriously completely fucked, so avoided it and took the red line to work. The walk was rather pleasant, I'm so thankful for podcasts, but the trains were more busy than I'd anticipated.
At work, it was just another engineer and I who were working from work. The work was tiring and frustrating and I didn't want to get lunch but got too hungry after so went with the one coworker to get a subway sandwich. The subway six incher that was 6.30 was actually pretty great -- their veggie patties are nothing to be sneezed at -- and with mayo, chipotle mayo, buffalo sauce, veggie patty, lettuce tomato red onions spinach, American and Provolone cheeses, olives before toasting on an Italian bread with Herbs was a tasty sandwich that I would get from a much nicer place too. It's fun and games to make fun of Subway and I've done that myself on many occasions but this was a legitimately good piece of sandwich that I highly recommend to everyone.
Post-lunch work wasn't particularly productive either because the things that needed to work kept failing. I kept trying, until about 5.30, when the evening gang showed up. It was SS [of Allston] with her friend S [who also shares her name with SS's roommate S] who showed up first. We talked about their plans, their recent trips, how many different countries S has left in (5 countries 5 languages 2 years in Nepal over 25 years) and SS's exciting new business and artistic ventures. It was PB after that, with her Eurotour plans and NYC moving plans, and finally SBK and his cousin and roommate showed up. The full gang talked covered a lot of ground including what women want, arranged marriages, the importance of ambition in guys [my comment: owh shit, things are nooott looking good for me], peoples and persons etc and how almost all the single persons in the old group were now kind-of looking. Which is a pity because we have what we don't want, but what we want we won't get because of fundamental incompatibilities. No one actually said that but it was a takeaway of mine from the conversation and I got a little sad and disappointed at everything that's ever happened but such is life and we can't really complain about the hand we're given we just have to play the best hand out of it. Roommate PK who is usually a presence in these hangouts was notably absent due to being present in a backbay bar party with his own friends and we made fun of that and how all of us guys go wherever there are girls and vice versa. It's not primetime movie material but conversations are conversations because people need to know each other.
The balance that the headline mentions is that there was an equal number of guys and girls in the group which is a rarity in our hangouts.
I had to leave the gang at seven due to another meeting but not before inviting everyone to our party tonight and answering questions in detail about who I was meeting which was fun to answer because people don't ask me that enough so there's no opportunity hints about things that may or not be happening and they should totally be on their toes because anything can happen etcetera. What I'm saying is my life is boring and and any opportunity to imply that I'm living a more interesting life than I really am is a great opportunity.
Left at 7, before everyone else, to go to Brookline. We went to Orinoco which is an expensive Peruvian place that I don't mind paying money for, AD, JD, KS and I. KS is in Boston for a conference presentation, and it was nice catching up with her after such a long time. And to think we spent so many winters together back in the day! Black beans and rice, with fried sweet plantains is comfort food of mine, and sure I ended up paying a lot for the simple pleasures but that was what I wanted at that particular time, and it made me happy.
We dropped KS to the greenline stop, and walked back to JD's place. Watched the movie Sonu Ki Tittu ki sweety for like the fourth time or whatever and everyone enjoyed it. Some serious conversations after what we want to do with life etcetera (JD wants to make movies and videos and everyone fully supports it) I went to sleep and don't remember sleeping meaning it was goodtimes.
Need to go to Aldi to get cheese, and then post for this morning, nothing big to do really except prepare for the party this evening. Slightly drunk right now because I drank a can of beer after a really long time in celebration of CC's arrival and getting a job (she's in Boston crashing in our place rn btw, but that's another story, for today).
The morning was unmemorable -- roommate BB and PK left very early since PK has his SQL training sessions at 8am every day. They texted in our group about how the Orange line was seriously completely fucked, so avoided it and took the red line to work. The walk was rather pleasant, I'm so thankful for podcasts, but the trains were more busy than I'd anticipated.
At work, it was just another engineer and I who were working from work. The work was tiring and frustrating and I didn't want to get lunch but got too hungry after so went with the one coworker to get a subway sandwich. The subway six incher that was 6.30 was actually pretty great -- their veggie patties are nothing to be sneezed at -- and with mayo, chipotle mayo, buffalo sauce, veggie patty, lettuce tomato red onions spinach, American and Provolone cheeses, olives before toasting on an Italian bread with Herbs was a tasty sandwich that I would get from a much nicer place too. It's fun and games to make fun of Subway and I've done that myself on many occasions but this was a legitimately good piece of sandwich that I highly recommend to everyone.
Post-lunch work wasn't particularly productive either because the things that needed to work kept failing. I kept trying, until about 5.30, when the evening gang showed up. It was SS [of Allston] with her friend S [who also shares her name with SS's roommate S] who showed up first. We talked about their plans, their recent trips, how many different countries S has left in (5 countries 5 languages 2 years in Nepal over 25 years) and SS's exciting new business and artistic ventures. It was PB after that, with her Eurotour plans and NYC moving plans, and finally SBK and his cousin and roommate showed up. The full gang talked covered a lot of ground including what women want, arranged marriages, the importance of ambition in guys [my comment: owh shit, things are nooott looking good for me], peoples and persons etc and how almost all the single persons in the old group were now kind-of looking. Which is a pity because we have what we don't want, but what we want we won't get because of fundamental incompatibilities. No one actually said that but it was a takeaway of mine from the conversation and I got a little sad and disappointed at everything that's ever happened but such is life and we can't really complain about the hand we're given we just have to play the best hand out of it. Roommate PK who is usually a presence in these hangouts was notably absent due to being present in a backbay bar party with his own friends and we made fun of that and how all of us guys go wherever there are girls and vice versa. It's not primetime movie material but conversations are conversations because people need to know each other.
The balance that the headline mentions is that there was an equal number of guys and girls in the group which is a rarity in our hangouts.
I had to leave the gang at seven due to another meeting but not before inviting everyone to our party tonight and answering questions in detail about who I was meeting which was fun to answer because people don't ask me that enough so there's no opportunity hints about things that may or not be happening and they should totally be on their toes because anything can happen etcetera. What I'm saying is my life is boring and and any opportunity to imply that I'm living a more interesting life than I really am is a great opportunity.
Left at 7, before everyone else, to go to Brookline. We went to Orinoco which is an expensive Peruvian place that I don't mind paying money for, AD, JD, KS and I. KS is in Boston for a conference presentation, and it was nice catching up with her after such a long time. And to think we spent so many winters together back in the day! Black beans and rice, with fried sweet plantains is comfort food of mine, and sure I ended up paying a lot for the simple pleasures but that was what I wanted at that particular time, and it made me happy.
We dropped KS to the greenline stop, and walked back to JD's place. Watched the movie Sonu Ki Tittu ki sweety for like the fourth time or whatever and everyone enjoyed it. Some serious conversations after what we want to do with life etcetera (JD wants to make movies and videos and everyone fully supports it) I went to sleep and don't remember sleeping meaning it was goodtimes.
Need to go to Aldi to get cheese, and then post for this morning, nothing big to do really except prepare for the party this evening. Slightly drunk right now because I drank a can of beer after a really long time in celebration of CC's arrival and getting a job (she's in Boston crashing in our place rn btw, but that's another story, for today).
The escape
Just now I heard that the Prime Minister had resigned, and the Deputy PM was declaring an emergency is that right, Snigdha said to her husband.
Where did you hear it from? From the party people or from someone else?, Jatin asked. Snigdha had access to the party I control through her side of the family but she was also known to listen to street gossip and surface that up. On several occasions Snigdha had heard the news on the streets before hearing it from the family, but on some occasions there was massive disinformation on the news on the streets. The street, it seemed, was a lot more pessimistic about people's deaths and martial law than real life.
They were talking about it by the medical shop. They're saying the radio and tv stations have been warned to not even mention it before the official government source comes out. And that Army trucks are mobilizing in other big cities. Apparently the armed police in the valley thinks they don't need Army for this yet and they're not enough, so the Army chief and the police chief are having a meeting somewhere secret to figure out who's securing the valley, she said.
For something she had heard on the streets that was a shockingly detailed explanation of how things were conspiring. The thing was though, there was no real reason to declare emergency the party hard won its second term after completing its first full term, a first for the country in over a century, and things had been going quite well. There was still internal dissent within the party, but the serious dissenters were either given government jobs or thrown out of the party. Not that anything was impossible in this day and age in the country. The Prime Minister had just barely gathered an internal coalition for himself so giving up the post would have been shocking for him. Jatin scratched his head. Nothing made sense, but the ridiculousness of the rumor had to have something in it.
The door flung open, and Kasyap jumped in, his face red his hair a mess. He was breathing heavily and could barely string words together. Dai, bhauju, we have to leave, right now. I have got a car and driver ready, I can get us out safely until Thankot and I have arranged a few friends for multiple vehicles. We might have to hide in a truck between Chitwan and Raxaul, but we should be in Jogbani in,...he looked at his watch..six hours if we drive fast enough. We'll take the first train to Patna, we can't risk the bus, and the to Delhi. Let's figure out what's next there, he said in a single breath.
All sound had been sucked away from the room as if by a blackhole. Snigdha and Jatin stared at each other. Gather our dollar bag and passports, I'll get the important documents and devices, Jatin told Snigdha, she was already rummaging through the drawers for their passports. She stuffed several bundles of hundred-dollar bills in a fanny back, two bundles srapped to her body, and stuffed the passports in the pockets of her pants. Kasyap, go up and disconnect the gas line and the main electric breaker please, she said, as she rushed to make sure all the taps in the restrooms were shut tight. They were zooming towards Thankot in five minutes.
A convoy of heavy vehicles with heavily-armed men appeared on the scene twenty minutes later.
Where did you hear it from? From the party people or from someone else?, Jatin asked. Snigdha had access to the party I control through her side of the family but she was also known to listen to street gossip and surface that up. On several occasions Snigdha had heard the news on the streets before hearing it from the family, but on some occasions there was massive disinformation on the news on the streets. The street, it seemed, was a lot more pessimistic about people's deaths and martial law than real life.
They were talking about it by the medical shop. They're saying the radio and tv stations have been warned to not even mention it before the official government source comes out. And that Army trucks are mobilizing in other big cities. Apparently the armed police in the valley thinks they don't need Army for this yet and they're not enough, so the Army chief and the police chief are having a meeting somewhere secret to figure out who's securing the valley, she said.
For something she had heard on the streets that was a shockingly detailed explanation of how things were conspiring. The thing was though, there was no real reason to declare emergency the party hard won its second term after completing its first full term, a first for the country in over a century, and things had been going quite well. There was still internal dissent within the party, but the serious dissenters were either given government jobs or thrown out of the party. Not that anything was impossible in this day and age in the country. The Prime Minister had just barely gathered an internal coalition for himself so giving up the post would have been shocking for him. Jatin scratched his head. Nothing made sense, but the ridiculousness of the rumor had to have something in it.
The door flung open, and Kasyap jumped in, his face red his hair a mess. He was breathing heavily and could barely string words together. Dai, bhauju, we have to leave, right now. I have got a car and driver ready, I can get us out safely until Thankot and I have arranged a few friends for multiple vehicles. We might have to hide in a truck between Chitwan and Raxaul, but we should be in Jogbani in,...he looked at his watch..six hours if we drive fast enough. We'll take the first train to Patna, we can't risk the bus, and the to Delhi. Let's figure out what's next there, he said in a single breath.
All sound had been sucked away from the room as if by a blackhole. Snigdha and Jatin stared at each other. Gather our dollar bag and passports, I'll get the important documents and devices, Jatin told Snigdha, she was already rummaging through the drawers for their passports. She stuffed several bundles of hundred-dollar bills in a fanny back, two bundles srapped to her body, and stuffed the passports in the pockets of her pants. Kasyap, go up and disconnect the gas line and the main electric breaker please, she said, as she rushed to make sure all the taps in the restrooms were shut tight. They were zooming towards Thankot in five minutes.
A convoy of heavy vehicles with heavily-armed men appeared on the scene twenty minutes later.
Wordplay
Janky Jenkins jumped away from the jeep just in time to avoid being jailed for jaywalking. "Jinkies", Janky joked.
In early [Thursday 14]
Writing this at 7.12 in the morning the next day because I got too tired and went to bed quite early last night. Finally got caught up on several days of incomplete sleep.
Chilled in the evening with roommates BB PK SM and semi-roommate I. I had brought in candy like chocolate he wanted me to try it was pretty good. Ate several slices of bread with Jam and butter because I was tired and didn't want to do anything else. That explains why I slept so early.
I tried my new scarf over the evening, the one I bought in TJ max last weekend and it was well-liked.
Commute home was pretty regular, took almost 50 minutes, nothing strange happened. Work was regular, not too busy, a little productive. I had a cup of hot chocolate they had out in the afternoon, it upset my stomach and made me feel guilty about ingesting such large amount of sugars without having a proper workout plan, hope to avoid doing that in the future...the hot chocolate part not the guilt part, guilt is important. Lunch was the last serving of bean salad.
Pre-lunch was regular. Commute to work was frustrating since I had to wait for the bus for ten minutes and then for the train and almost also waited for the second train, but I squeezed in to avoid the added ten extra minutes of waiting. I need to take my bike to davis and then the train from there but I haven't yet made my plans properly yet, so it's not figured out. Need to plan out for the Cali trip soon.
Morning was regular, I ended up getting delayed despite being up early because of various rather small and stupid reasons I can't remember. Definitely didn't get enough sleep last morning.
It was a slow and a rather uneventful day, the way I like it. I had to work on a personal or a work project about it, but gave up. Whatever.
Chilled in the evening with roommates BB PK SM and semi-roommate I. I had brought in candy like chocolate he wanted me to try it was pretty good. Ate several slices of bread with Jam and butter because I was tired and didn't want to do anything else. That explains why I slept so early.
I tried my new scarf over the evening, the one I bought in TJ max last weekend and it was well-liked.
Commute home was pretty regular, took almost 50 minutes, nothing strange happened. Work was regular, not too busy, a little productive. I had a cup of hot chocolate they had out in the afternoon, it upset my stomach and made me feel guilty about ingesting such large amount of sugars without having a proper workout plan, hope to avoid doing that in the future...the hot chocolate part not the guilt part, guilt is important. Lunch was the last serving of bean salad.
Pre-lunch was regular. Commute to work was frustrating since I had to wait for the bus for ten minutes and then for the train and almost also waited for the second train, but I squeezed in to avoid the added ten extra minutes of waiting. I need to take my bike to davis and then the train from there but I haven't yet made my plans properly yet, so it's not figured out. Need to plan out for the Cali trip soon.
Morning was regular, I ended up getting delayed despite being up early because of various rather small and stupid reasons I can't remember. Definitely didn't get enough sleep last morning.
It was a slow and a rather uneventful day, the way I like it. I had to work on a personal or a work project about it, but gave up. Whatever.
Boy gone gone
Green dots, red dots, blue dots. His vision was checkered and blurry. He blinked. The dots were still on his vision, they moved as his eyes moved, as if he had a pair of glasses over his eyes. "Lots of colorful dots overlaid over my vision, this is not right," he shouted.
A nurse attending a nearby bed rushed to him. "Hi, you're up! How do you feel? Can you move all your limbs? Does it pain anywhere? I can give your medications if there's any trouble tell me," she sad hurriedly.
"There's something like colored plastic over my eyes, I can see tiny dots on everything and the dots are moving with my eyes," he said still moving his to the left and then to the right as if to leave the dots behind.
"Ah yes, the doctor said they're for calibration, they're remove then next week, they're for you to get used the the image overlays over your eyes. First it's static dots, then the dots move at your control, then they're going to make them disappear and appear at your control, it's a gradual process, okay, don't be alarmed, " she said, smiling.
"Why do I need an image overlay in front of my eyes" he said.
"Ohh, about that. Do you remember anything about how you ended up here," she said.
He raised his brows. Come to it, he had become so distracted by his vision issues he had forgotten to attend to a more basic issue, which was him being in the hospital. He couldn't remember anything about he had ended up in the hospital. He tried remembering the last thing before waking up, but he couldn't. He thought about it until his head hurt, he got nowhere. He didn't remember anything about anything. Who he was, what he liked doing, why he was there, who had brought him, who he lived with. Nothing. His eyes welled up. The nurse attended two patients, and walked backed to him with some urgency as she saw him cry.
"It happens. You can't remember anything right? It'll come back to you eventually with proper medication and treatment. You can think the reason you're here is because you lost all your memory. I'm not clear about the details myself, they've told me to let you know a specialist will be here to orient you to your new circumstances Until then don't worry about it too much alright? We know what's happening with you and we're taking of you. You can trust us," she said with a big bright smile on her face as she left the room.
A nurse attending a nearby bed rushed to him. "Hi, you're up! How do you feel? Can you move all your limbs? Does it pain anywhere? I can give your medications if there's any trouble tell me," she sad hurriedly.
"There's something like colored plastic over my eyes, I can see tiny dots on everything and the dots are moving with my eyes," he said still moving his to the left and then to the right as if to leave the dots behind.
"Ah yes, the doctor said they're for calibration, they're remove then next week, they're for you to get used the the image overlays over your eyes. First it's static dots, then the dots move at your control, then they're going to make them disappear and appear at your control, it's a gradual process, okay, don't be alarmed, " she said, smiling.
"Why do I need an image overlay in front of my eyes" he said.
"Ohh, about that. Do you remember anything about how you ended up here," she said.
He raised his brows. Come to it, he had become so distracted by his vision issues he had forgotten to attend to a more basic issue, which was him being in the hospital. He couldn't remember anything about he had ended up in the hospital. He tried remembering the last thing before waking up, but he couldn't. He thought about it until his head hurt, he got nowhere. He didn't remember anything about anything. Who he was, what he liked doing, why he was there, who had brought him, who he lived with. Nothing. His eyes welled up. The nurse attended two patients, and walked backed to him with some urgency as she saw him cry.
"It happens. You can't remember anything right? It'll come back to you eventually with proper medication and treatment. You can think the reason you're here is because you lost all your memory. I'm not clear about the details myself, they've told me to let you know a specialist will be here to orient you to your new circumstances Until then don't worry about it too much alright? We know what's happening with you and we're taking of you. You can trust us," she said with a big bright smile on her face as she left the room.
Yet another milestone post - YAMP
This post will be the 1014'th one in the blog to get published. There are 30-ish more draft post that remain unpublished for one reason or another and they'll be getting cleaned up soon. I crossed the 1000-post line some time a few days ago without any fanfare or notice. What a big freaking deal. I'm not one for milestones, you may remember me saying from a milestone post last month (haah), but this is truly an occasion for celebration. I have done very few things consistently and regularly over time, and quite a lot fewer that I can claim to have done a thousand times.
My twitter account, when it existed had maybe 3000 tweets. That's it. My facebook page when I had one almost a decade ago (yikes it's really been that long!) had fewer than that. I haven't worked out for a thousand times all occasions combined. I haven't gone to the movies a thousand times. I (probably) haven't gone to eat out a thousand times. It's this blog here, right in front of your eyes, that's the only thing where I've gotten this far. Congratulations, congratulations to you to me and all of our well-wishers.
The first thousand posts took a bit more than ten years. Curious as to how long the next 1000 will take. It's possible it could happen in a tenth of that time -- if I keep this pace of writing for next year, it'll easily cross a thousand posts for the same year. That's an incredibly exciting and insane concept. Considering I have been averaging 2000-3000 words a day in my current writing sprint, that will mean I'll be writing a million words two or three times over, within a single year. They say the first million is the hardest. I wonder how hard the fifth million is. Or the tenth million.
This all does not mean I'm giving up on quality and focusing solely on the quantity, if that needs to be cleared up at all. It's just that for the last few years there was neither, and as I've been saying every day almost now a consistent quantity and build up a solid writing habit is important to develop before you can fully focus on actually becoming a good writer. Two million mediocre words are still a win over zero point zero words of nothingness.
My twitter account, when it existed had maybe 3000 tweets. That's it. My facebook page when I had one almost a decade ago (yikes it's really been that long!) had fewer than that. I haven't worked out for a thousand times all occasions combined. I haven't gone to the movies a thousand times. I (probably) haven't gone to eat out a thousand times. It's this blog here, right in front of your eyes, that's the only thing where I've gotten this far. Congratulations, congratulations to you to me and all of our well-wishers.
The first thousand posts took a bit more than ten years. Curious as to how long the next 1000 will take. It's possible it could happen in a tenth of that time -- if I keep this pace of writing for next year, it'll easily cross a thousand posts for the same year. That's an incredibly exciting and insane concept. Considering I have been averaging 2000-3000 words a day in my current writing sprint, that will mean I'll be writing a million words two or three times over, within a single year. They say the first million is the hardest. I wonder how hard the fifth million is. Or the tenth million.
This all does not mean I'm giving up on quality and focusing solely on the quantity, if that needs to be cleared up at all. It's just that for the last few years there was neither, and as I've been saying every day almost now a consistent quantity and build up a solid writing habit is important to develop before you can fully focus on actually becoming a good writer. Two million mediocre words are still a win over zero point zero words of nothingness.
Laundry and long convo [Wednesday 13]
It's 2 after 12 and I'm late to go to bed because I did my laundry finally. It's a chore because I have a lot of spare clothes so I can go a long time without doing laundry but when I do do it it takes a long time to get it done and fold it. It was that day today. Spent 2 solid hours folding the clothes.
At least I was calling people over the phone, having long conversations about life, people, self respect, the universe and everything so it wasn't a total bore. Got my 60 pushups done, and just finished reading Light Fantastic the book, a couple of paragraphs out of it. It's just about the technicality of reading it and I did it well and good.
Watched The Office a couple of minutes between laundry rounds. The house was rather quiet today because roommate PK is at a friend's, roommate SM came in late and went to bed early, and roommate BB was busy with his things. I was busy with laundry so didn't get much time to hang out with them either.
Commute back from work was fortuitously timed though it still took me fourty minutes. At least I was productive for the last ten minutes or so when I wrote the post about Indra and the clouds, but also I fell asleep during the last part of the trip so I went one stop over.
Work was amazingly productive, had a great meeting with my manager, we're planning for the trip to San Diego now, lunch was good, I'm almost done with the big batch I made, and the morning was great too. Got a solid hunk of writing done at work. Some of it was around the theory of how writing shittier things at works makes me write better for this work and I'm beginning to see a lot of merit into that approach of analyzing my writing habits. Need to follow up more on that later.
Got a BB sandwich at work, the one that I've told multiple times should be named after me. It's one of the most satisfying breakfasts I ever have, with three packets of spicy sauce, and i know sometimes I have a lot of snacks and lunch at work and it's not totally sensible to eat out, but it makes me so content and happy that I just...must. I can't do it every day because of the egginess of it but once in a while as a treat...oof, maamma miaaa!
The morning commute was such a frustrating experience, I ended up missing three trains, had to go back two stops, and then had to move out of that train into a different one because they just stopped in Park Street. In the end it ended up taking me 1 hr 10 minutes to complete the journey which is ridiculous because I could have walked the whole way in 20 more minutes. I had actually left home a little early today because I got up at 6.30 without wanting to, delayed it to 6.55, showered got ready, did the writing, and left at what I thought was a reasonable time. So despite all of that, the delay was quite annoying. I really wish to become more of a morning person.
Still haven't figured out the cardio/high-intensity task I've been planning on going back to, should really work on that. Also look at the list of things I made here couple of days ago and get to that. The current plan is to wait at least till the SD trip to get back to all of it we shall see how it goes.
Finished writing all of this in less than 10 minutes, I'm pleasantly surprised at the achievement. I should practice the pomodorro technique more. It's cold inside and I'm not wearing warm enough clothes so I need to sleep. Goodnight world. Goodnight R.
At least I was calling people over the phone, having long conversations about life, people, self respect, the universe and everything so it wasn't a total bore. Got my 60 pushups done, and just finished reading Light Fantastic the book, a couple of paragraphs out of it. It's just about the technicality of reading it and I did it well and good.
Watched The Office a couple of minutes between laundry rounds. The house was rather quiet today because roommate PK is at a friend's, roommate SM came in late and went to bed early, and roommate BB was busy with his things. I was busy with laundry so didn't get much time to hang out with them either.
Commute back from work was fortuitously timed though it still took me fourty minutes. At least I was productive for the last ten minutes or so when I wrote the post about Indra and the clouds, but also I fell asleep during the last part of the trip so I went one stop over.
Work was amazingly productive, had a great meeting with my manager, we're planning for the trip to San Diego now, lunch was good, I'm almost done with the big batch I made, and the morning was great too. Got a solid hunk of writing done at work. Some of it was around the theory of how writing shittier things at works makes me write better for this work and I'm beginning to see a lot of merit into that approach of analyzing my writing habits. Need to follow up more on that later.
Got a BB sandwich at work, the one that I've told multiple times should be named after me. It's one of the most satisfying breakfasts I ever have, with three packets of spicy sauce, and i know sometimes I have a lot of snacks and lunch at work and it's not totally sensible to eat out, but it makes me so content and happy that I just...must. I can't do it every day because of the egginess of it but once in a while as a treat...oof, maamma miaaa!
The morning commute was such a frustrating experience, I ended up missing three trains, had to go back two stops, and then had to move out of that train into a different one because they just stopped in Park Street. In the end it ended up taking me 1 hr 10 minutes to complete the journey which is ridiculous because I could have walked the whole way in 20 more minutes. I had actually left home a little early today because I got up at 6.30 without wanting to, delayed it to 6.55, showered got ready, did the writing, and left at what I thought was a reasonable time. So despite all of that, the delay was quite annoying. I really wish to become more of a morning person.
Still haven't figured out the cardio/high-intensity task I've been planning on going back to, should really work on that. Also look at the list of things I made here couple of days ago and get to that. The current plan is to wait at least till the SD trip to get back to all of it we shall see how it goes.
Finished writing all of this in less than 10 minutes, I'm pleasantly surprised at the achievement. I should practice the pomodorro technique more. It's cold inside and I'm not wearing warm enough clothes so I need to sleep. Goodnight world. Goodnight R.
A fallen image
The house had frozen and thawed and frozen and thawed again a thousand times. Water had seeped between the cracks, weakening the house every winter until the cracks got bigger and bigger and bigger and then one day it all crumbled into a pile of rubble and dust.
It had hosted kings once. Presidents and Prime Ministers had walked by those corridors, empires had fallen based on the papers drawn up here. Secret conspiracies had been hatched and executed, assassinations had been committed, power had changed had gradually or abruptly, all within these very walls that had for a long time seemed impenetrable. It was the capital of the capital of the world. Yet time the greatest king rules above all. It too had fallen.
Outside in what used to be a lush lawn with massive sculptures commemorating the nation's heroes, tall vines gripped tight the stone masonry and pillars the sole reminders of the grandeur of the land. Green and yellow moss covered every visible surface, tiny insects had hollowed out the reinforced concrete structures and made them home. Fallen heads, half-cut torsos, floating limbs. The human corpses had rotted a long time ago and now the cement corpses were done with too. Nature takes back what it gives.
The river, unencumbered by the concrete prison it had been imprisoned for centuries had broken the shackles and roamed the town much like the pack of wild dogs that colonized the surroundings. Every dozen years or so it overflowed its banks flushing it with fertile alluvial land that became a host to a variety of lush vegetables and fruits that had volunteered from the surrounding dump. As the tiny shoots turned to large adult trees they held the soil better, forcing the river to change its course again. Artifacts that would have helped a curious detective figure out the human history of the place were buried deep within the ground or swept away to the sea.
It had hosted kings once. Presidents and Prime Ministers had walked by those corridors, empires had fallen based on the papers drawn up here. Secret conspiracies had been hatched and executed, assassinations had been committed, power had changed had gradually or abruptly, all within these very walls that had for a long time seemed impenetrable. It was the capital of the capital of the world. Yet time the greatest king rules above all. It too had fallen.
Outside in what used to be a lush lawn with massive sculptures commemorating the nation's heroes, tall vines gripped tight the stone masonry and pillars the sole reminders of the grandeur of the land. Green and yellow moss covered every visible surface, tiny insects had hollowed out the reinforced concrete structures and made them home. Fallen heads, half-cut torsos, floating limbs. The human corpses had rotted a long time ago and now the cement corpses were done with too. Nature takes back what it gives.
The river, unencumbered by the concrete prison it had been imprisoned for centuries had broken the shackles and roamed the town much like the pack of wild dogs that colonized the surroundings. Every dozen years or so it overflowed its banks flushing it with fertile alluvial land that became a host to a variety of lush vegetables and fruits that had volunteered from the surrounding dump. As the tiny shoots turned to large adult trees they held the soil better, forcing the river to change its course again. Artifacts that would have helped a curious detective figure out the human history of the place were buried deep within the ground or swept away to the sea.
Indra's message
The purple clouds hung low and heavy like a pregnant cow's udders, ready to fill the valley below to the brim. A thunderclap and instantaneous flash if blinding light. A longer, rumbling roar with a might that shook the ground, as if with fear . Raindrops large as a guava pummeled down, as if daring the ground below to resist. The smell of freshly-wet ground earthy minty seemingly full of life, filled the air. Drops to puddles, puddles into streams, streams to rivulets, the poorly drained parts of the parts filled up with the cold water.
It was not the time for concern yet. This could he a different situation... The gods didn't have to have a personal vendetta against you for you to fall into a puddle and while lightning bolts as fat as an elephant were not common, maybe he just hadn't seen enough lightning yet.
The electric metallic tangy smell in the air as it burned blue from a surge of power was mildly concerning, yes. But so what. If Indra himself wanted something from him why would he not rather show himself it shoot a bolt right through his heart rather than giving unhelpful hints like a treacherous friend. He was after all the king of the gods, a great warrior and an honourable man. He wouldn't succumb to underhanded means to communicate his message no that was only the lowly beings who did that.
The post mania an explanation
The joke about this blog and the recent mania in posts is that I'm trying to aim for mediocre, mehh, bad posts so I don't fail, while I work on getting a steady wordcount out of the door. The idea goes that once I get in the habit of writing a certain number of words every day rain or shine, it'll get easier to come up with ideas for those words and eventually the quality of writing will go up. Or be less mediocre, because mediocrity itself is a high bar.
So last month there was more meat and potatoes in my works of fiction work (and also more fiction work to begin with) than there has been this month. One of the reasons is that last month I was on a 'free mornings' schedule where I had 20/25 minutes free in the morning so there was an opportunity to be thoughtful and write what could be construed as 'good shit'. Then some weeks ago I got into a 'morning heavy' schedule so mornings got tighter. The time I had for writing the pieces got tighter, so less creativity, less content. Perhaps as an after effect of the dissatisfaction at the morning posts the afternoon posts went down too. Unclear on that but something worth exploring.
The other reason is that I've recently posted four posts daily on an almost consistent basis. This is not something new, this was what happened not rarely last month. What's different this time is that I'm making myself write the fourth post to make it a habit. So when on the way back from work I try to write small posts. On days that I miss on them, like yesterday, I make myself write something later in the day. So at this point I'm doing a morning post, a commute post (or an evening post), another piece in the evening, and then the daily journal. The added weight of the fourth post may be what's causing an imbalance in quality in recent writings. Think of this as adding extra reps to your sets / adding an extra set in your daily routine in physical work out. Your arms are bound to get sore for the first couple of days and it's understandable if the overall quality of your workout suffers until your arms heal completely. My running theory is that this is what's happening right now, but for 'writing muscles'.
In any case, the recent bout of fiction posts haven't been very inspired, not that I care about inspiration. It's about maintaining a consistent writing habit, I do need to find it fulfilling, so I guess there's that. It's unclear who I'm writing for anymore, I know why I'm writing. We'll figure this out as we go.
So last month there was more meat and potatoes in my works of fiction work (and also more fiction work to begin with) than there has been this month. One of the reasons is that last month I was on a 'free mornings' schedule where I had 20/25 minutes free in the morning so there was an opportunity to be thoughtful and write what could be construed as 'good shit'. Then some weeks ago I got into a 'morning heavy' schedule so mornings got tighter. The time I had for writing the pieces got tighter, so less creativity, less content. Perhaps as an after effect of the dissatisfaction at the morning posts the afternoon posts went down too. Unclear on that but something worth exploring.
The other reason is that I've recently posted four posts daily on an almost consistent basis. This is not something new, this was what happened not rarely last month. What's different this time is that I'm making myself write the fourth post to make it a habit. So when on the way back from work I try to write small posts. On days that I miss on them, like yesterday, I make myself write something later in the day. So at this point I'm doing a morning post, a commute post (or an evening post), another piece in the evening, and then the daily journal. The added weight of the fourth post may be what's causing an imbalance in quality in recent writings. Think of this as adding extra reps to your sets / adding an extra set in your daily routine in physical work out. Your arms are bound to get sore for the first couple of days and it's understandable if the overall quality of your workout suffers until your arms heal completely. My running theory is that this is what's happening right now, but for 'writing muscles'.
In any case, the recent bout of fiction posts haven't been very inspired, not that I care about inspiration. It's about maintaining a consistent writing habit, I do need to find it fulfilling, so I guess there's that. It's unclear who I'm writing for anymore, I know why I'm writing. We'll figure this out as we go.
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