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| Lately, I've been feeling my age. When I fill out my age on applications, there's a part of me that still can't believe that I'm writing down a "3" followed by a "5". I honestly just stare at the number, and it takes a few moments before my brain can convince itself that yes, I really am that old. Here's a sample of what I've been experiencing lately.
Is there a name for this? - College freshman all look like they're 13 years old to me. People at work who are in their 40s don't look so old to me anymore. I don't know how else to describe it. There's just this weird shift in perception of people's ages that happens when you get older.
Snap, Crackle, Pop - When you get to my age, your body starts to wear down physically. Your knees creak, your back aches, and it always seems like you have a crick in your neck in the morning. When you injure yourself getting out of bed (been there, done that) you know you're no spring chicken anymore.
Grumpy Old Man - I find myself starting sentences with "Back in my day...". I'm amazed that kids have to go through metal detectors just to get to class. I stare in disbelief at 12 year-old girls dressed like they're trying out for 50 Cent's latest video, and I shake my head at the parents who dress them. I'm shocked at how much violence and sex kids can be exposed to on primetime TV, and I'm upset at how Christianity has become synonomous with ignorance and intolerance. I'm a grumpy old man, and I'm getting grumpier everyday.
What's my name again? - As I get older, it gets harder and harder to remember the names of new people that I meet. It was easier to remember Maxwell's equations back in college than it is to remember new names today.
On a final note, about two weeks ago, I was mistaken for someone's dad. Now normally, this wouldn't bother me...except the person I was with is 19 years old.  Ouch.
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| An Engagement Story
When I woke up on Tuesday January
16, 2007, I knew it wasn't going to be like the other 12779 days before
it because I left the apartment
carrying one of these:
Here's the "view" from the top.
Contrary to what is portrayed in
movies and tv shows, most women aren't surprised when they are proposed
to. I think this is mostly due to two factors:
- Women can see right through men.
- If a guy is going to drop
two months salary on a diamond ring, he wants to have some reassurance
that the ring is going to be well received.
In my case, the ring was my grandmother's and was a lot more retro-looking compared to modern, Tiffany prong-styled
engagement rings. My parents brought it up from Ohio over
Christmas break and I showed it to Maggie to see what she thought of
it. I must admit, I didn't think she would like it since the
setting was a bit on the high side. But to my pleasant surprise,
she genuinely liked it. It made my parents very happy as
well! The ring was a size too large so I had to buy a ring guard, but I doubt
we'll ever get it resized since the ring is an antique.
So how did I propose?
I decided to recreate our first date which first involved going to
Tupelo Point on the Wellesley Campus where Maggie went to school.
It's a really pretty place, and we've been back there several times
since our first date. There are two swans that live on the lake
and everytime we're there, we like to look for them. More on the
swans later...
After spending a few moments admiring the view on the lake, I took a deep breath, got down on one knee
and told Maggie what she means to me. For each letter in her
name, I had an attribute which described her. I won't divulge all
of the sappy details, but "A" stood for amazing. After the
proposal, Maggie replied with a resounding yes (whew!) and we prayed
for a little bit afterwards.
Now in our previous visits to
Tupelo Point, we've only been able to catch occasional glimpses of the
two swans off in the distance. This time however,
when we were done praying, we looked for the swans and were startled
when they swam right up to us!! One of them came so close I think I
could have reached out and picked him/her up. Needless to say, we
both stood there amazed, and thanked God for his many
blessings in our relationship!
After spending time on the lake,
we headed over to Blue Ginger where we went on our first date.
We didn't get a chance to see Ming Tsai the first time we were there,
but this time, just as we were getting our appetizer, I looked up and saw
Ming Tsai walk up next to our table and start talking to the head
receptionist. I quickly whispered to Maggie that he was standing
right behind her and she whirled around and got their
attention. We told them that we just got engaged and Ming
congratulated us.
(Note: I'm surprised at how well-built Ming Tsai
is. I think he could snap me in two like a pair of disposable
chopsticks.)
He invited us up to a table in the front and we met his wife Polly,
who to my surprise is very blond and very Caucasian. We chatted for
a little bit, and we learned that Polly's engagement ring is actually
from Ming's grandmother as well!
Ming was also nice enough to sign a menu for us. Ming Tsai and his wife are very cool people.
Maggie and I then proceeded to
stuff ourselves silly on Iron Chef-worthy food. I highly
recommend the Sake-Miso Marinated Alaskan Butterfish. It's to die for. Some of
the wait staff came by to congratulate us on our engagement, and at the
end of the night, they gave us a couple glasses of complimentary
champaign to go along with our dessert.
We both took a breath and blew
out the candle together, and at that moment, I realized that Maggie has made me the most
blessed man in the world.
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| The Possessed Washing Machine
(and other short stories from the last 2 months).
The rumbling sounds of my washing machine running greeted me as I arrived home yesterday afternoon. Ely must be doing his laundry
I thought. The flaw in my thinking was quickly exposed when I
remembered that the Elyinator had left for Newport RI a good six hours earlier. I ran over to
the machine, opened it up, and saw only water sloshing around.
Uh-oh...that's not good.
I speculated that a power surge may have triggered the machine to start,
but an examination of my microwave and all alarm clocks in my place revealed no
flashing "12:00" displays.
I let the washing machine run it's course, but immediately after it
finished, it started a new wash cycle! I hit the "off" button,
but the machine immediately turned itself back on!!!
After
repeating this several times, I finally concluded that my washing
machine was completely possessed and wasn't going to turn itself off
without a fight.
Unfortunately, the power plug for the machine isn't accessible without
moving the entire machine out of the wall so I ended up having to throw
the circuit breaker in order to turn it off. I felt like a mad
scientist throwing the switch on a failed Frankenstein
experiment. I then called the Maytag repairman/priest and hope to
have my machine exorcised this Wed.
"What's an It's It?"
I found myself uttering this not-quite-complete sentence while on a
trip to Sunnyvale CA last month. After my company's last round of
layoffs in April, I was reassigned to help out on a project based in
Cali. As a result, I was able to scam a business trip out there
and took advantage of that opportunity to visit and hang out with naturallyyoyo and inkyau.
For dinner, they took me to Hukilau
in downtown Palo Alto. This was my inaugural taste of authentic
Hawaiian food and let me say, my tummy was quite happy
afterwards. There's a dish they serve called "ahi poke" which, if
you're into sushi, is just heavenly. Trust me on this one.
After dinner, they asked me if I'd ever tried an "It's It". "What's an It's It?", I inquired. It turns out that an It's It
is actually a dessert: Vanilla ice cream sandwiched by two soft
oatmeal cookies and the whole thing is completely covered with a
dark chocolate coating. As Rachael Ray would say: Yum-O!
So if you ever find yourself out in the Bay Area, just remember the
words "Poke", and "It's It", and you'll be good to go.
The Bucket In My Ceiling
During last month's flood rains, I was awakened early Monday morning by
the soothing pitter-patter sounds of rain falling outside my window. Then I felt
a water drop hit my forehead. Then another, and another. I
scrambled out of bed, turned on the light, looked up, and sure enough,
water was steadily dripping from my ceiling. Since my apartment
is on the top floor, I knew immediately what that meant: a roof leak.
I knew I needed to put a bucket under the leak in my roof so I got
dressed and proceeded to climb up into my ceiling area through a
small access space in my closet. The area between my ceiling and
roof is unfinished so I found myself crawling around in a pitch dark
area (with a flashlight of course) maneuvering between various ducts, vents, and
support beams, all while keeping my feet balanced on the 2-inch wide
support beams. When I got to the general area where I thought the
leak was, I had to laugh:
The previous owner of the place had already put a bucket underneath the
leak, and now the bucket was overflowing!! That's some nasty
water isn't it? And to think it was falling on my head...*bleeech*.
One important lesson I've learned from my leaky roof is this: The
last thing construction companies want to do is fix roof leaks because
unless your roof is physically collapsing, it's very difficult to
pinpoint the exact cause of the leak. It's been over a month and
after many ignored phone calls and one attempted fix, my roof is still
leaking. Hopefully this short story will have a happy ending.
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| Yesterday, I survived my fifth round of layoffs here at good old Sun
Micro. My project was also canceled yesterday, bringing my career
project record to 1-4 (1 shipped product, 4 cancellations).
Miraculously, I technically still have a job at Sun but I don't
actually have anything to work on. Thus, I'll be checking my
email and Xanga subscriptions every 5 minutes starting today. If you have
anything even remotely interesting to post, please do so and know that
you are doing a good deed and preventing me from dying of boredom. 
I now present:
Anatomy of a Layoff
Phase 1 - Rumors Rumors Rumors
Layoffs don't happen overnight. They're usually planned weeks,
even months in advance. Eventually, word starts to leak
out. Your group's admin usually knows more than anyone so it pays
to be nice to her.
Phase 2 - A day or two before
The actual day of layoffs often becomes apparent one or two days
earlier. Be on the lookout for notices on last-minute all-hands
meetings (which are never good news btw). If you worked in my
group, you would've received an email like this:
Subject: IMPORTANT Please Read
Sender: <Your Boss>
To: <Everyone in your group>
Folks,
Please plan to be on site all day tomorrow. We will
have some important information to share with you
throughout the course of the day.
Thanks,
<Your Boss>
Even though there are only two sentences in this email, it
tells you everything you need to know. The first sentence
basically translates to: "We can't give you the axe if you're not physically here." The second
sentence translates to: "For those of you that aren't getting the axe this time around,
we're going to meet to talk about the factors that resulted in your
project getting canned."
You could also make a strong case that the above email translates
to: "We're laying the whole lot of you off and we need you all to be
here to turn in your badges."
Phase 3 - Judgment Day
If you come into your office and there's a voicemail or email saying
your boss wants to see you, you're toast. If your boss walks into
your office and immediately shuts the door, you are also toast.
After your boss
gives you the hook, you will then be asked to pack up your things and
leave the premises. In more totalitarian-run companies, you may
not
even get a chance to pack up your stuff and are immediately escorted
out of the building by security. Your stuff will then arrive in
the mail later in the week or you will be asked to return later to pack
your stuff with a security guard standing over your shoulder.
If the
clock hits 11am and nothing has happened to you yet, then you can congratulate yourself on being a survivor!
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| Another year wiser...I think.
Thanks to everyone who came out and helped me celebrate my birthday
this weekend! I had a lot of fun, and it was definitely the most memorable birthday I've ever had. Some highlights:
Rollerskating - Wow, I haven't done this in ages so it was a real blast
to do this again, and I only wiped out once. The place was packed, and as expected, we were
the only Asians in the entire joint. I think the average age was
13, but hey, it's not how old you are, but how you feel right?
Kowloon - I promised everyone that the best Chinese restaurant in
Boston (as rated by white people) would be an experience not to be
missed and it didn't disappoint. The place was packed, and as
expected, we were the only Asians in the entire joint. The wait
staff was so shocked to see us that they had to ask us where we were
from. I guess they don't see too many Asians in that restaurant!
I have to admit that I have a soft spot for americanized Chinese
food. My dad does too so I'll go ahead and blame my weakness on
genetics. I
actually really liked the crispy tangerine chicken, crab rangoon, and
lobster egg foo young that we ordered. It should be noted that
the others on Xanga who posted negative reviews of Kowloon were sitting
at "the
other table" and yes, I will confirm that the dishes they ordered were quite
horrible. Thanks to Howard for the pics.
Move
over General Gau! You've got competition on the menu.
Here's me trying to decide between the "Red Auerbach Special" and
"Eddie
Andelman's Lo Mein".
Mmmmm...who can resist crab rangoons? 
Eddie Andelman's Lo Mein! It's actually not that bad. It's
not that great either, but I guess Eddie must've thought it was.
Volcano Chicken. Whatever you do, don't order this dish...unless
you're trying to get back at someone for stealing your boyfriend.
After-party party - For those
that managed to survive through the Kowloon experience, we headed back
to my place and proceeded to test our knowledge of 90's trivia by
playing The 90's Game. I played The 80's Game
last time and my team won. Being old does have its advantages
when it comes to 80's trivia. However, I was in college
for most of the 90's, and college is pretty much a black hole when it
comes to keeping in touch with the real world. As a result, I
completely sucked at the 90s game. Fortunately, NatureB4E
single-handedly carried our team to an incredible come-from-behind
win. I'll never forget calling him after he had to leave early
and having him answer the game-winning question over his cell:
"Dikembe Mutombo falls to the floor while holding the ball after the
eighth-seeded Denver Nuggets upset this top-seeded team in the first
round of the NBA playoffs."
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