Thirty Years On American Soil

Thirty years ago today I stepped onto U.S. soil for the first time. To be exact, it was U.S. tarmac, but you get the idea. Before that I spent a few weeks in Singapore and prior to that a few months in Indonesia. It was a long way from Viet Nam. Some day I will drill into more details about my experience as a boat person, but today the story is what I remember of that first few days in a new land.

• I don't recall ever having motion sickness before, not even on the indirect plane ride from Singapore to the U.S. However, when Uncle Ping drove our family from JFK airport to his home in Sheepshead Bay, sitting in the front passenger seat, I felt dizzy.
• The first time ever taking a bath in a tub, I spent a long time in it. I filled the tub with water and played with Cousin E's toy ship, I think it was an aircraft carrier of sort. It was not until Auntie knocked on the door that I finished up. Eek, I was a bad guest!
• The first pie of pizza was not very welcomed. We probably never had cheese before in our life.
• I may be wrong but in offering soda to us Uncle Ping referred to the drink as "leung tsa" (凉茶) or "cooling tea". To me, that was the bitter or tasteless stuff that my father used to make us drink to negate the effect of fried food and other bad stuff. The whitish soda, probably a Sprite, was not bitter or tasteless at all.
• Uncle Ping probably thought that we were going to stay in the area for a while. He took me to some school to register for class. I do not remember learning anything that one day. I think I did not even spend the whole day there.

Good grief, that is all I can remember of the momentous day. Not until high school that the idea of keeping a journal or diary came to me, so all I remember of the day is what little I myself can recall and whatever my siblings and parents, or maybe Uncle Ping's family, can recall.

Coney Island Boardwalk

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The nice thing with bicycling, versus jogging, is that theoretically I can go farther to carry out the exercise. With jogging, I would walk from home to Caesar's Bay shopping area and start jogging from there. With bicycling, instead of slowly pushing the bicycle, I would ride it to the destination. Bicycling should be faster than walking, so the time saved can be put into covering a longer distance, say, to get to a destination further away. Today, that destination was Coney Island. I just found out that Coney Island is about 2.6K from where I live, whereas Caesar's Bay is 1.6K away. That translates to 2K for a round trip.

It was not the first time I visited Coney Island, but rather the first time I was there unaccompanied. I was free to snap photos here and there without being slowed down or slowing down any company I would be with. A big group may be fun to be with sometimes but most of the time I prefer to be on my own, to do what I please.

I started around the Wonder Wheel then went east to the very end of the boardwalk. I totally forgot what this end of the boardwalk looks like. I was there a few years back with two nephews. We did not stop there but went on to the street and all the way to Manhattan Beach before heading back. For me, the goal today was just to reach one end then the other end and back to the starting point. Just my luck, I did not bring a real camera and my cell phone's battery died by the time I reached the western end of the boardwalk, so no photo for that end.

The distance I traveled today was about 8K, again 1K less than the maximum distance I reached with jogging. Oh well, something to do to burn the fat while the right foot recovers...

JHS 73 Class of 1985 Yearbook - Administrators

Page 8 of the JHS 73 Class of 1982 yearbook. The theme of Our Place really gets drilled into our heads in the descriptions of the School Administrators. I do not recall any of them, except Mr. Gotkin. For those who may have missed my mention of the two incidents I had with Mr. Gotkin, here goes.

The first incident was unpleasant. I rarely use curse words but it was just my luck that one day while going from one class to another, someone made fun of me or did something bad to me and I shouted some obscenity at him. Just my luck, Mr. Gotkin was nearby and took me to his office for that violation. I spent the whole period there with nothing to do and then was let go. I suppose I curse even less, or never again for a long time, after that. The man looked menacing to kids, I must admit.

The second, more pleasant, event was when I went to school one evening to attend some Junior Arista ceremony. I did not know what the event was for and did not come to school with a formal jacket. I did not have one anyway. When it was my turn to go on the stage to accept my Arista certificate, Mr. Gotkin let me wear his jacket. It was some sort of a tweed jacket, if my feeble memory is correct.

I referred to the events as first and second but they did not necessarily happen in that order. Of course, it would be better to be a bad kid then get accepted into Arista instead of the other way around.

Re the Guidance Counselors, I did not know they existed. In Newtown High School, I visited Ms. Touhy often for information on colleges and such, but in JHS, I think I just went to whatever school kids in my district were supposed to attend. I suppose if a kid excelled in school, he could have applied to some better school instead of the one in his district. I was relatively fresh off the boat, having arrived in the U.S. about two years earlier. It was good enough to break of ESL, so never mind better high school and extra curricular activities.

JHS 73 Class of 1985 Yearbook - Intro

In Asian culture, teachers are held in high regards. With that in mind, coupled with the responses I got about my JHS 73 entry about a year ago ( http://www.qaptainqwerty.com/2009/03/william-cowper-jhs-73-maspeth-queens-ny.html ) I am going to post some more photos of the teachers of JHS 73. I already used the ones I have from my graduation, so these "new" ones will be from my 1982 yearbook. I am starting the series with Ms. Patricia M Ruddy, the Principal. This is the only photo of her in the whole yearbook, AFAIK. I do not recall having any personal interaction with her, although I was somewhere on the stage in that photo as she gave a speech at the Junior Arista ceremony. I even saw the program pamphlet for the event in my messy room recently.

How To Wake Up at the Time You Want To Wake Up at

At one time or another, my web-surfing landed me at one of those how-to sites, like eHow.com. While some entries provide useful, step-by-step instruction for some complicated process, others are just outright comical. In the attempt to cover every possible scenarios, the entries would spell everything out, from the subtle to the ridiculously obvious that any sane person should already know. Here's my own concoction on the topic of How To Wake Up at the Time You Want to Wake Up at.

• Use an alarm device. This can be a regular desk alarm clock, a clock-radio, or common these days are cell phones or smartphones.
• The louder noise the device can make the better. I no longer have trouble getting my son out of bed for school ever since he started to use the train locomotive clock his aunt sent him. It can wake the dead, supposedly.
• If you use a cell phone, be sure it is not set to Vibrate mode.
• Make sure the alarm device is properly charged or has reliable batteries.
• It helps that the alarm device is out of reach so that you have to get out of bed to shut it off.
• Sometimes we just ignore the alarm and instead want to know what time it is. In this case, it helps to have a time device nearby.
• If you are nearsighted like me, wear a watch to bed so just a flip of the hand and you know the time.
• If you normally share the bed with a spouse/partner, if the thing you want to do in the morning is important enough, consider sleeping separately just that night. If not, it might happen that neither of you have a headache that night, one thing leads to another and you end up staying up late.
• It definitely helps to go to sleep early if you want to get up early the next day.
• Do not drink coffee, tea, or energy drink before going to bed.
• Do not be On Call at work - you might be dragged out of bed any minute of the night.
• Read a book, newspaper, or magazine. Traditional, wood-based kinds, that is.
• At the time you are supposed to sleep, do not log into Facebook etc. One game, one email, one status update... they all can translate to many hours into the night.

There you have it! Now it's time for me to sleep...

Impossible Resolutions 2009

Misadventures in Bicycling

It was a cold and windy morning so I did not cover much grounds with the bicycle. Along the waterfront the wind was blowing against me and I had to strain my leg muscles with every cycle. I went along the waterfront for a short distance and took the first footbridge to get away from it. I made a big loop around a golf course and its adjacent public park then back to the waterfront, this time with the wind behind me, although I didn't feel any noticeable push, just that it was easier to pedal like normal. All together it was only 8.3K, even less than the 9K I normally would cover on foot.

Up to now, my use of the bicycle was for entertainment, something to do for fun on vacation, to be outside on a nice day. Not as an exercise device or as a mode of transportation. When my nephews, on the wife side, were younger I would take them, along with my son, first in a bucket seat then in a trailer, to go riding along the waterfront. One time I ran into a major pothole and got a flat tire. We were almost at the end of the 4-mile trail so we completed the trail and then headed back. Even with a flat tire, I was still able to pedal the bike although eventually it became impossible to pedal. I think it cost me something like $25 to replace whatever parts it was that needed replacing.

Another more recent misadventure was a few years ago when we went on vacation in the Poconos. We were told the trail was a gentle slope all downhill. There were two options - a 10-mile trail or a 25-mile trail. The shorter trail was really just part of the longer one - if you want the longer trail, you are driven further up the path. The trails end at the same place. I figured the 15-mile difference shouldn't matter that much, it's the same price, might as well get the most bang for my bucks. Bad choice! The key word was "gentle", not downhill. I had to exert force to get the bike moving, the bike would not roll on its own, as the slope was not that noticeable. It didn't help that I had my then 100-pound son in the trailer behind me. I was completely exhausted at the end of the trip. It was the first time I needed to spend time in a bathtub full of hot water to provide some relief for the aching muscles. Getting old + being a weekend warrior = bad.

Perhaps some day when I bike more regularly and don't get so tired easily I'll try a 25-mile trail somewhere. For the time being, putting in a few excursions on the weekends will have to do.

Have Bike, Will Travel

I did it! Got up 7ish, took the bicycle to the local gas station, 75¢ at the air machine did wonder. My bicycle is wholesome again!

I went along the same route that I normally go jogging, Belt Parkway Green Way, only of course the distance is longer. Instead of 4.5K out and back, for a total of 9K, I went 7K out, all the way to Owl's Head Pollution Control Center and the Bay Ridge Pier, and back. The total distance is 14K.

I don't get the same sense of accomplishment as when I go jogging. With jogging, I would sweat profusely, with the innermost layer of clothes soaked. I would actually feel warm from the heat I generated. It was a windless morning and I didn't feel a single drop of sweat formed. The inner T-shirt got somewhat wet on the back, but that was it. My legs did feel wobbly when I first stopped pedaling and resumed walking. They feel tired now, so I guess I did get some exercise out of the whole thing.

Let's Get Physical - Plan B

I thought with my exercise program my weight would drop below 200 pounds but alas here I am on the last day of the year and I am still right on 200 pounds. It does not help that as of last Saturday the arch on my right foot got really hurt. The left foot got some boil but that's skin level. For the right foot, I think some muscle or tendon, or whatever, is really banged up from all that pounding of the pavement. I also need a new pair of sneakers, as the one I'm using really wore away much at the heels. This Saturday will be exactly one week of rest, I cannot rest any more. Time for Plan B.

With the injured foot, I think I still can pedal. No pounding of the pavement there, so hopefully it should be OK. Of course, bicycling goes against my idea of simplicity in execution. Whereas with jogging I just need to put on some clothes, extra layers for the cold weather, a pair of shoes, perhaps even an iPod, bicycling will be more involved. Getting the bike out the door is one extra step. Helmet is needed - Step #2 right there. Air does leak from time to time, so I may lose some more time pumping the tires.

I actually spent some time this evening getting the bicycle into usable shape. The last time I used it was to attend my son's Field Day, back in May. On the way back, the left pedal fell off and I had to push the thing back. Even since then the bike just stood in the vestibule, taking up space and collecting dust. With Plan B in motion, I managed to put the pedal back on - the task is so much easier with the wrench of the proper width. Next I tried to pump the tires but I think I actually let the air out. The foot- and hand-pumps I have didn't work. Some Mechanical Engineer I am, cannot even get the tires of the bicycle pumped. Maybe the pumps are defective. I'll splurge tomorrow morning and spend the 75¢ at my local gas station. Rain or shine, I will be biking tomorrow!

New Year Resolutions

Here are two of my New Year Resolutions, without words, can you guess what they are?

500

Guess the Famous Movie Scene

Growing up in Viet Nam, even though my family was considered middle-class, I was taught to be frugal and make the most of what we had. I had enough toys to play with but I also made use of found objects. A neighbor gave me some wood blocks, probably leftover pieces from a carpentry task, and I played with them for so long the blocks became smooth. I also had small paper boxes for use as furniture and buildings. I don't recall ever throwing away toys or ignoring them after a few days of playing.

It pains me these days to see my son lose interest in his playthings so quickly. One week it is little green plastic soldiers, the next week it is building paper structures like Capitol Hill and Statue of Liberty. This week it's Thumb Wrestling Federation and its associated papery toys - masks, decals, belts, even a wrestling ring - but who knows what next week's favorite toy be. What to do with all the forgotten toys?

I don't watch too many movies but I try to catch a classic one every now and then. Or at least those that are cultural phenomenon or cult classic. In the photo above, I tried to re-create a famous ending scene. A shirtless man on his hands and knees pounding the floor. A woman sit on an animal that can pass for a horse. (I am not sure if the actual scene has the woman sitting on the "horse" or standing near the animal.) In the background, we have a famous statue somewhat titled to one side, somewhat hidden behind a mountain. Name the movie!

Footbridge

Besides the idea of recycling, my other reason to like the High Line Park is that it is basically a footbridge. One can walk on the High Line from around 14th Street up to 20th Street totally unobstructed by traffic lights and vehicles. Footbridges are perfect for separating pedestrians and vehicular traffic. You go your way, drivers, and I will just go right over you. The above photograph is from my trip to Hong Kong in 2007. On a small island like Hong Kong, it is necessary to have footbridges otherwise traffic would be even worse. What I love about the Hong Kong footbridges is that they do not just cross over highways and roads, but connects to pedestrian plazas that extend from the buildings. You can walk a long distance on these pedestrian plazas, going from building to building and not having no chance of being run over by a car. The closest I see to these footbridge and ped plaza combo was the Winter Garden in Battery Park City and the former World Trade Center Plaza. The footbridge in that case would be the bridge crossing over the West Side Highway. With the bad traffic condition that New York City has, I think we can use many more footbridges, even pedestrian plazas, too.

High Line Park

The High Line. An abandoned elevated railway converted to an elevated garden. It is a great example of recycling. When the High Line was first opened in June 2009, I wanted to visit it but the plan simply did not work out. The first time, as I walked west along 14th Street toward the park, I got a call from home about some fuse blow-out. I had to rush home to flip the switch back. The second time I had this idea that if the High Line intersects 14th Street then if I go west along 11th Street I would bump into the structure eventually. Not so. I hit the West Side Highway instead and walking east along some street north of 11th Street, a Bank Street, I believe, which eventually connected to 12th Street, did not do the job either. The sun already went down by the time I made the trip back so even though I was mere blocks from the High Line I could not see it. Unlike the rectangular grids of Midtown Manhattan, the streets of the Greenwich Villages do not necessarily run parallel to each other. Instead, they just turn and twist to fit into the triangular shape of the tip of Manhattan Island. For example, instead of running east-west, 4th Street at one point run north and intersect West 12th Street and others.

Finally, on a windy and cold day, -5 °C to be exact, I made it. Certainly not a day to be high up above the street. Thanks to the cold weather though, there were few people on the High Line. There was a wedding party, not surprisingly. Supposedly a few publicized proposal happened on the Line, so why not get photographed there too in wedding gown and all. I love the large benches but it was too cold to lay down on them. I especially love the supposedly movable benches. They have wheels that run on the remaining exposed tracks. For safety, they were immovable. I can easily envision a couple of friends clowning around these benches and eventually one get his fingers crushed between two benches.

The Line only goes up to 20th Street. There is much more to do, but funding is always in question, especially in a down economy like now. Do go check out the High Line and if you like it please donate money to the cause. It is easiest to go along 14th Street toward the West Side Highway. You can even stop by the Apple Store at 9th Avenue to check your email or update your status in your social network, free of charge.

The "poster" above was made with Posterino. Click on it to see the bigger version. I just threw the photos together randomly. Enjoy!

When I Was Your Age...

Let's Get Physical

It is a beautiful day in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, New York. About 55° F (or 12°C), us New Yorkers don't complain and try to have some outdoor activities. I started the day with a jog along the Belt Parkway totaling about 5K, with Leo Laporte of This Week In Tech pitching $3 toasters via the ear buds. Foot muscles a bit sore, but I feel good and alert since the exercise. I've been exercising regularly since September, mere months ago. Checking back through old Blogger posts, the last time I tried to exercise regularly was in late 2006. Wow, three years ago! The arrangement was similar to what I do now - get up early in the morning, go jogging, come home, take son to school then shower and off to work. That time, however, at some point the weather got too cold and I stopped jogging altogether. Then spring rolled around but I didn't resume, until three years later. This time I have a GoogleDoc spreadsheet to keep track of the progress as well as social networks like Facebook to post news about the endeavor. It really helps to hear encouraging words from my Facebookies (that's my way of referring to Facebook friends.) Besides support from friends, what does it take to keep the momentum going? Here's how I do it, in no particular order.

Keep it simple. I used to have the need to change into "jogging clothes". Sweatpants, sweatshirt, headband, music player, etc. Too much work! As I usually jog in the morning, I wear the same clothes I l slept in - it'll get all sweaty so it cannot be any worse. I do have to change the pants to something that have pockets to hold house keys, some money, and a piece of ID. I do have music to listen to along the way but I use my cell phone for that. Just listening via the phone's speaker saves me the time to find a headphone. I jog in the morning before going to work so there is a very small window of opportunity to get ready and be out of the house. The longer I linger in the house the more likelihood I will change my mind. On weekends, when things are less hectic, I do use an iPod with earbuds.

Keep it short, "it" being the distance between your house and the place you want to around. I usually run around some playground/park and usually go to the one that is closest to my house. The sooner you can start the exercise the better.

Keep track of the effort. I use a GoogleDoc spreadsheet, but anything would do, really. Perhaps you are a pen-and-paper person - then just dedicate a notebook, sort like a diary, to record the date you made the run, the distance covered, perhaps location if you want to exercise at different places for changes of scenery. I am sure there are some iPhone apps to help record the info.

Keep track of the kilograms. If your goal is to shred some weight, in the same tracking document, record your weight periodically. It may be disheartening to learn that you only lose 2 kg after 2 months of exercise, but deal with it. No pain no gain, really.

Keep track of the distance. I would love to run around a sports track but there are none around where I live. The typical track length is 1/4 of a mile or 400m. A pedometer is probably the best way to record your effort, but that means one more thing to remember to bring and goes against my idea of keeping things simple. For me, Google Earth works fine. The software is free from Google and is available for both Mac and Windows.

Keep it up! Getting up at 5:30 AM is a big challenge for me but I managed to pull it off most of the times. There was days when I got pulled back by the warm bed and blanket. It really helps to have friends, physical of Facesical (that's another word I conjured up to mean someone you know not in real life but via Facebook only), to encourage you to continue. Share your daily or bi-daily exploits, perhaps even get others to join in your effort.

Good luck with your exercise program! We have only one body to live in, let's take good care of it!

Childhood Innocence

A few years ago, probably when my son was in first grade, I took a little time off from the work day to attend a book fair at his school. Scholastic brought in a bunch of books and toys to the school and the classes got to spend some time browsing the merchandise. The fair was a small area of the school so any kids who did not have money would sit to the side while others walk about the fair. My son was among the kids sitting on the side. I deemed him too young to carry money, that was why I showed up at the school to pay for the books. He greeted me but stayed with his classmates to the side. I asked him if he wanted to buy books and he truthfully answered "But I don't have any money" and that was it. I had to point out to him that was why I visited the school at the time of the book fair, that I would pay for the books. Only then did he get up, all excited, and picked some books.

Fast forward to 2009. This past week there was another book fair - it is probably a good fund-raiser as the school seems to have them regularly. Weeks before the event son would ask for money to buy books. When I gave him $10 he even brought along $5 of his own.I was hoping he would buy some chapter books to help maintain his reading skill. He ended up buying some papery castle construction kit for $13. He even boasted that he saved me $2 by not spending the whole $15. Alas, the lost of childhood innocence.

Heartbreak Hardware - My First Mac, A Picture Gallery

My first Mac, a PowerBook G3 "Wall Street", shown with a CD for size comparison. When closed and facing the user, the Apple logo on the case is right-side up, but when the user opens it up for use, the logo is upside down. Later generations of the PB and MacBooks have the logo upside down when not in use but right-side up when in use.

The many ports available for the Mac back then - audio, ADB, Ethernet, SCSI, VGA, S-Video. I remember buying a $100 specialized printer cable so I could use the PB G3 with an HP LaserJet 4L, which back then only had parallel port.

Side view of the PB G3 opened at about 45 degrees.

The PB G3 opened at past 90 degrees.

The PB G3 can lie flat on its back. I remember laying in bed using the computer in this position. It was not comfortable.

The PB G3 up close. "Macintosh PowerBook G3", with the rainbow Apple logo, too.

Compared to today's unibody Macbook, the touchpad is so tiny. A U.S. penny takes up most of the center of the pad!

Like a first child, the PB G3 was showered with expansions. Shown here are USB and FireWire expansion PCMIA cards plus the VST Superdrive, which can read both its own 120-MB disks and standard floppy disks. Slow, but usable.

For nostalgia purpose, the phone jack is also shown. How did I get anything done back then without broadband access?

The PowerBook G3 still boots up as long as it is connected to AC power. The original battery then the replacement one both died.

It was able to run OS X but it was painful. I didn't upgrade it much.

The End of the Romance

What do you think the blog post is about? Worry not, there is no real romance involved here. The Romance I referred to is that in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a series of books in old Chinese literature. In Chinese it is known as 三国演义 （sān guó yǎn yì ）My Chinese is never good enough to read anything more than comic book so I read the Vietnamese version years ago, in Viet Nam, when I was in my early teen. In Vietnamese, the title of the book is known as Tam Quốc Chí.

A long time ago when Oriental Culture Enterprise was still on Pell Street, I bought from it a 9-book set of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, quasi comic book version, in Chinese. Sure every page has two frames of pictures, but it is definitely not a comic book. I thought by reading it I would reinforce what little Chinese I know and perhaps learn some new characters. Already knowing the story in Vietnamese should help, right?

It turned out years later, as Oriental Culture moved to Elizabeth Street and I moved to a few different homes, the books just got moved along without ever being read. As I set the set of books aside to be photographed for this blog before I took it to the library for donation, I discovered a makeshift bookmark in it, so perhaps I did read a little bit. A very little bit. In the spirit of ridding myself of things I don't need, the set of books went to Ulmer Park Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. I know that branch has a set, or at least a few books from a set, of The Journey to the West. Or maybe even Water Margin. It would be only appropriate that the branch also has my Romance.

PowerBook G3 "Wall Street"

As a Mac geek, it makes perfect sense for me to write about my first Mac computer as the first entry in the Heartbreak Hardware series. It was 1997 or 1998, I was recently married and living with the in-laws in Brooklyn, space was tight. I had a 486 Packard Bell running on Windoze 95, but I had no place in my room to keep it so it was put in the basement. It was accessible but I just had to make the trip from my room from the second floor to the basement. It did not help that the PeeCee, like the typical machine back then, and even now, took forever to boot up. I am sure there were instances when just as the PeeCee was ready for use, it was dinner time and I had to turn off the computer then made the trip back upstair. I also had an Amiga 3000 but without the ability to get online I left it at my parents' home in Queens. Perhaps the A3000 can be written about in a future Heartbreak Hardware article.

Twelve years ago, I had no problem recalling the specs on the PowerBook G3. These days, I only remember that it is a Wall Street model. It still works so I now know that it runs at 266 MHz. It has 530 MB of RAM but I know that is not the original. I do remember dropping it off at Tekserv to have the memory upgraded. When the hard drive died, I got a 12-GB replacement drive from Other World Computing and did the change myself. I love how the keyboard comes off easily to grant access to the hard drive. Hot-swapping was, and still is, a great feature on the PB G3. The default hot-swappable items are the battery on the left and the CD-ROM drive on the right. The Removable Media War at the time involved everyone trying to unseat Iomega's Zip drive. I sided with "everyone" and bought the hot-swappable 120-MB SuperDisk from Imation. (On the drive itself, the maker is identified as VST Technologies). One major selling point for the SuperDisk was the it could do double duty as a floppy disk drive. It was a slooow disk drive but it got the job done. Eventually, I ended up with a Zip 250 USB external drive.

Like having a first child, I bought many extra hardware for the PB G3. In no particular order, they included: a PC Card USB adapter; a PC Card Firewire adapter; a Firewire CD-RW burner that was half the size of the PB G3 itself; a $99 special cable to connect the PB G3's ADB printer port to the parallel port on an HP LJ 4L; a $50 SCSI cable, bought from DataVision (Fifth Ave. and 39th Street) so I could use the 1-GB Jaz drive I originally bought for use with the 486 Packard Bell PeeCee. The battery had to be replaced then even the second battery died.

On the software front, I upgraded the OS once to 9.2.2 and a few times in OS X. Eudora Light was my email client, Roxio burnt backup CDs or CD-RWs for me, and I tried out many web browsers, including Netscape Navigator and Camino.

Some time in 2001, possibly with great influence by OS X's ever-greater demands, I got a domed iMac and the PowerBook G3 finally got retired. Four years of life is a long duration in computer time.

Heartbreak Hardware

What is worse than a ranting and raving computer geek? A nostalgic, ranting and raving computer geek, of course! I have thought about writing a series called "Heartbreak Hardware" but got distracted by things like work, family, and Facebook.

Unlike software, hardware, or physical components, are not easily upgraded or improved. Sure, for a computer you can add some extra RAM and put in a larger hard drive and get a few more years of useful life out of it. But there are other hardware pieces that simply become so outdated there is nothing you can do about them. Many people buy new computers every few years and toss the old ones out. It is heartbreaking, to some geeky people like me, to think about these hardware pieces. In the next few posts, I'll interlace my usual, infrequent rants with trips down hardware memory lane...

Return To JHS 73

After about 27 years I re-visited JHS 73, just the outside, of course. It was a rainy Saturday, the morning of which I spent at my high school. I was disappointed to find the school covered by scaffolds but the school yard sure looked nice. After such a long time, I can only recall the time spent waiting for the Q-58 bus and sometimes going upstream, as far as past the LIE to catch the bus. Other times I just made the long walk home, all the way back to Elmhurst Avenue and Roosevelt Avenue.

Meet My Philo

Much as I think of myself as a green person, I am no gardener. I cannot easily identify plants like some real gardeners and the only garden plot I ever had was overrun by weeds because I wasn't around often enough. I do have one plant that, sort of, has been around almost twenty years.

At my first job out of college, an engineering consulting firm, I volunteered to water the plants in my area. There was a tall cactus and a few others that I don't remember now. A co-worker bought a house and there was this plant sitting in the backyard. It wasn't well-tended so she brought it into the office for me to take care of. Sitting by the window, the plant grew healthy and started to climb its way around. Exposed to plenty of sun, the plant's leaves can become really big. Cut a piece and you can grow a new plant from the dismembered piece. As I changed job over the years, I brought the plant, or a descendant of it, with me. A few people liked it and I would cut a piece, put the piece in the pot and gave the pot and plant away. I can recall at least three people I met at the jobs I had who received a piece of the plant from me.

All along I didn't even know what type of plant I had. I told you I am not a good gardener, right? It was not until the year 2000 that I finally did a little research and arrived at the now-defunct web site www.vg.com. It was supposedly something related to Time-Life books. Good thing I have a printed page telling me the plant is a philodendron, of the burgundy variety. The plant shown here is now in my home office, although there may not be enough light, sun-provided or otherwise, so I may have to move it elsewhere later on.

Here's to a few more years of growth, my Philo!

Thank You!

Facebook - Share Photos With Groups

I've been active in helping run my high school reunion scheduled for next year. We have a Facebook group, naturally, and found a few hundred people already. It is great to see the old photos when someone managed to dig them up and share them. Most of the time though, the owners of the photos only share them via their personal albums. One would have to be friends with the owners to know about the photos. I suggested that the owners share the photos with the group but most of them don't know how. So here it is, the step-by-step process of sharing a photo, which was already uploaded to one's personal album, with a group.

For this example, I will post a photo that I already put into my personal album called "Recycling". The group that I will post the photo, that of a recycling bin under the sink, to the group called "I Love Recycling".

First I went to my list of groups. There are many ways to get there. You can go to lower corner of any Facebook screen to click on the Groups icon, which is a picture of 2 people, blue one on the left and a black one on the right. The way FB present the groups can be annoying. It defaults to show only those with recent activities on the right, plus groups that your friends have activities in on the left, so that the group that you want to get to may not be visible right away. If that's the case, you would need to click the See All but on the right side to see all your groups. Even then your groups list will not be in alphabetical order but rather in order of activities. Find the group you want to add the photo and click it. (I'll assume everyone uses a Mac and there is only one button to click. I sure wish life is really that simple, but I digress...)

Once in the group, scroll down to below the Wall Posts and above the Link List to find the Photos section. Click Add Photos.
As shown in the screenshot below, you want to have the tab called Add From My Photos selected. You can upload photos from scratch but why repeat the work? In my mind, the only time you want to do that is if you don't want to share certain comments people already added to the photos that were already uploaded into your album.
You may have many albums and again FB annoyingly doesn't list things alphabetical by default but rather by creation date, or some other way. Find your album and click it.
To add just the photo of the bin under the sink, I clicked its checkbox. Note that the photo of the standing bin in the dark is already selected. I added that photo earlier so it remains selected. To finalize this part of the process, I clicked Add Selected Photos.

If I have many photos to add, there is a Select All button on the right, but my screenshot doesn't show it.
Back in the "I Love Recycling" group, my new photo is now shown as the latest addition to the group's photos album. Done!

Tiger, Snow Leopard, Oh My!

This cartoon reflects my recent experience of going from Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.6. You sure save some money by not upgrading whenever a new OS comes out, but the bigger leap, when you do upgrade, takes more time to adjust to. Especially when the new OS is really new. Some software simply stop working, as is the case with NeoOffice. There was a fix, but you had to donate some minimum dollar amount to have access to it. I donated some amount before and didn't mind meeting the higher, minimum amount but it was something I'd rather not have to deal with.

The Strangers We Meet Everyday

One of my favorite songs by Cantopop singer Sam Hui is 天才與白痴 . It can be loosely translated as Geniuses and Idiots, although the movie by the same name is called The Last Message. Such is the usual case with movie titles translated from Chinese to English, or vice versa - the original meaning does not necessarily stick. But I digress.

A great play on words, the song is mostly about the many types of people in this world. You can not always tell who is dumb or who is smart. The first two lines of the song go

呢個世界上 有精仔 有懵仔 有叻仔 散仔 賭仔 重有戇居仔

有衰仔 有好仔 反骨仔 癲仔 蠢仔 重弊過敗家仔

Still, this past Friday I came across two different people and I am pretty sure which one is an ignoramus.

After picking up my son, niece, and nephew from school, I treated them to Italian ices at the store near the school. Nephew got his treat first then my son accidentally knocked the cup onto the ground. Nephew was very upset and started to cry, even though I told him I would buy him another one. The Ice Cream Man noticed the commotion and told Nephew that he would scoop him another one. When it was time to pay, I was ready to pay for the extra scoop but the Ice Cream Man didn't charge me for it. Maybe he was the owner and was business-savvy enough to know not to nickel-and-dime every customer. Maybe he just knows it's good business to give back a little some time to build loyalty. Whatever the case, he won my approval and although with the cool weather fast approaching he may close down for the season soon, I will no doubt patronize the place again and again in the future.

At dinner time, I had a much less pleasant experience. I went to dinner at Popeye's Fried Chicken with a big group, something like eleven people. The place was crowded and we only had a 4-people table to squeeze 6 kids in. The adults had to stand or sit at some other tables. Right next to our kids table there was a man, all by himself at a 4-people table. He even had a plastic bag on the seat next to him so he actually took up 2 seats out of 4. We were right in front of him and he could not have possibly not seen us. He made no attempt at moving a table back to the 2-people table. One of the adults in my group eventually asked him if she could sit opposite him and he didn't object. Yet he still made no effort to move. Maybe in his culture, wherever he was from, sharing tables at restaurant is to be expected. But if he was a considerate person, he would have moved away and let us have his table. Some people are just plain clueless.

When I Was In Fourth Grade

My son started fourth grade this week. New home room, new teachers, new requirements of school supplies, etc. It got me thinking about my own fourth grade experience... and I came up with nothing. Not just fourth grade, but fifth and third as well. Actually, anything older than sixth grade. Mind you, it's not like I don't remember anything at all, just that I couldn't place the few memories I have at an exact grade.

I am actually a fifth grade dropout. It was some time in April or maybe March 1979. My family and I were a few months away from our scheduled departure from Viet Nam as boat people. The arrangement were made with the Vietnamese government that on some day in May 1979 we would leave Viet Nam forever with a bunch of other people. By boat, of course, thus the moniker "boat people." So some time early May 1979 I simply decided I shouldn't bother going to school any more. Perhaps someone with better memory can correct me, I think in Viet Nam, at least back then, summer vacation had 90 days, from June through August, inclusively. There is a line from a popular song that mentioned "chín mươi ngày hè", or "90 days of summer". Of course, I cannot recall the name of the song either. Whatever the case, I know I didn't finish fifth grade. Nobody from the school got in touch with my parents. Maybe many Chinese were leaving Viet Nam and the school already many similar cases like mine so the school didn't care less. That's all I remember of my fifth grade experience.

One other thing I remember about my school experience in Viet Nam was that, along with my second elder sister, I spent time after school to collect paper for recycling. I can confidently place the activity as after 1975, the year the country became unified under the Communists. I was a "red neckerchief" scout, sort of a Boy Scout thing but it was a government program to get kids involved in government activities. I guess we didn't have much homework to do, if any, because after school we, just me and my second sister, be allowed to visit the classrooms and go through all the drawers and trash bins looking for paper left behind by the students. Kids back then in Viet Nam, and now in the U.S., are equally wasteful. We always collect stacks of paper for recycling. I have zero recollection of where we turned in the paper or whether we got any recognition for doing it. I just know that we did it.

It was some time in those early school days post-1975 that I learned of the idea of a public library. A male teacher told a class I was in that the school was going to build a library from donations by the students' families. Each family would bring in a book for the school to collect then in turn the students could borrow from the library. All for free, what a wonderful idea! Back then, my only exposure to books, outside of the classroom, was to rent them by the days or even for the minutes. My sister would rent books from some place, we read them at home then bring them back a few days later. Kinda like Blockbusters or NetFlix except we were dealing with physical books. The practice is still in effect at certain stores in Manhattan's Chinatown. I myself, when I somehow had money, would rent graphic novels and read them right there and then. When I was done, I would return them, mere minutes later, or however long it took me to read them. The idea of a free, public library was very appealing to me. I don't recall the school's library ever took off, but ever since then I love the whole concept very much. I am a regular library patron these days, all thanks to the idea I learned of from about 30 years ago.

Parlez Vous Francais?

About 500 miles and many hours from Moncton, New Brunswick, we found ourselves in Quebec City in Quebec Province. I remember how French the area is but still found it somewhat amusing as the road signs started to show only French words and abbreviations. No more RD for "road" but instead we have CH for "chemin."

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my three years of high school French, from 24+ years ago, somewhat useful. Even though my spoken French is limited to "bon jour" and "merci", know the days of the week helped greatly with parking. Like any big cities, Quebec City has traffic regulation to keep the flow going. I sure wish I made more use of conversational French, but it's not like every year that I would visit Quebec.

From the few photos I've shared you would think there are not that many of them. On the contrary, among our group 4 minivans, 16 people, 6 or so cameras, we amassed over 20 GB of photos and movies. The group leader probably accounted for half of the number, since he snapped almost everything in sight everywhere he went. Always the techie, I already shared the photos as simple pictures and as a Flash slideshow. For this post, I'm sharing some photos taken in Old Quebec section of Quebec City. The photos are arranged in a neat collage using the program Posterino. The particular template I used only shows photos in landscape mode so for some pictures in portrait orientation I used the photos twice.

Being tourists, we were limited to Rue De Buade, Rue St-Louis, the promenade that leads to the Quebec Citadel, and of course the Citadel itself. Do click on the picture to zoom in a bit.

Hopewell Rocks

For me, Hopewell Rocks was probably the best leg of the multi-destination vacation. Formed by eons of tide water slowly eroding the shoreline, the Hopewell Rocks are beautiful to see. I cannot remember the special names associated to the many rocks other than the many flower pots. Supposedly there were some resembling Homer Simpson and E.T. Of course, the Lover's Arch is easy to recognize. It was a bit of a stretch to advertise the experience as "walking the ocean floor" as it's basically walking the shoreline at low tide. A twitterer pointed out to me that in other parts of Bay of Fundy one can walk miles out into the ocean, but definitely not at Hopewell Rocks. It is still a good experience to have.

Maine Event

Wikipedia, FiOS, and free MP3 tour guide. All the convenience of the modern life, yet the one rare commodity called TIME is what I don't have. I went on vacation to Maine, mostly for Acadia National Park, and much as I wanted to research about it prior to the trip, by the time we got there, all I knew about the place was that it had some great places for rock-climbing. An ex-colleague told me that some years ago.

I do know now that Acardia National Park is on Mount Desert Island, usually referred to as MDI by signs around the island and nearby area. The park does not take up the entire island, but rather is made up of donated land, so there are parts of the island where people have their normal lives. We visited Mount Cadillac, the highest point on the East Coast of the U.S. Along the way there were many scenic outlooks but our caravan of 4 mini-vans had to find one that was big enough to accommodate us. The picture above of my son enjoying a nice breeze is at one such place. The mountaintops may look barren from far above but up close there is plenty of vegetation.

We next visited Jordan Pond then Sand Beach. On the way out, we passed through Bar Harbor but I didn't realize it. At first glance, Bar Harbor is just another touristy town, with artsy shops and sidewalk cafes. However, not greatly highlighted is the fact that it has a natural bridge to nearby Bar Island. At low tide, you can walk from MDI to Bar Island over a sandbar. The sandbar is so wide the photo doesn't do it justice - only one side shows water. Another view of the sandbar from shore shows it as if it did not extend all the way to the island.

The reason the sandbar at Bar Harbor is important to me is that it reminds me of the Berhala Island in Indonesia. I spent a month or two there as a refugee, after a trip as a boat person from Viet Nam. Near the northern part of the island there was a sandbar that connects the island to its neighbor, larger island of Laytung (?). As a tall kid at the age of 12, I was able to use the sandbar, with water at the highest point reaching up to my chest. I still remember the story of someone, possibly my youngest uncle on my father's side, leaving a pack of cigarette in his shirt's pocket while using the sandbar and ruining the pack in the process.

Save More Time With Facebook - Open in Tab

One of my Facebook activities is checking out the other groups for Newtown High School. I would search for the phrase "Newtown High School" and end up with a long list. It turns out the Newtown H.S. in Elmhurst, NY is not the only Newtown H.S. out there. There's one in Sydney, Australia, then one somewhere in Pennsylvania, and one in the New York metro area, up north in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. From the list the search return, I would go to those groups and see if there's anything good to learn about my old school. Some groups have pictures of articles from the school newspapers, others pictures of the school or the surrounding area. I sure regret throwing away my little collection of the school newspapers when I moved back in 1999. How would I know then that 10 years later I would scramble through my worldly possession looking for anything Newtown-related?

Back with the search list. If I simply click on a link to a group, the group page would open up in the same browser window. I may wander from there and before I realized it, I would be far from the lsearch list. I can use the browser's Back button to trace my way back, or the History list in the browser, but both methods are tedious. The better way would be to use the browser's support of tabs. Instead of just clicking a link, on my Mac, I would first hold down the ctrl key. As I click the link, I have the option to open the link in a new tab or new window, along with other options irrelevant to this post. In the new tab, I can wander on and on and when done I can just close that tab and return to the search list and explore the next group. For the Windows crowd, I think the right mouse button does the job of showing "open in new tab".

There you have it. With all that time saved, you can spend more time in Mafia Wars or whatever silly Facebook game you are addicted to.

Save Time With Facebook

"Save time with Facebook", is that not an oxymoron? Facebook is a time sink, you don't save any time when you log into it. A more apt title would be "Waste less time with Facebook" but there is no joy in uttering that.

One thing that Facebook users do is to join groups. There is probably a group for everything imaginable. I had my own share of going wild with Facebook groups. Before I knew it, I belong to a few too many.

Navigating FB can be an inefficient use of time. Even with the Groups app already bookmarked within the FB environment, i.e. sitting on the Applications bar in the lower left corner, getting to a group you belong to can take too many clicks. You use one click to open thee Groups application. Instead of seeing only the groups you belong to, the screen is divided into two columns, the left column showing groups your friends joined or had activities in then some groups you belong to on the right. FB sorts groups by level of activities instead of alphabetical, so unless the group you want to get to has some recent activities it will take more than one click to get to it. You may end up needing to click See All to list all your groups. Again, the list is sorted by recent updates, so knowing the name of your group will not help you too much. You may need to go to page two, or to order the list by names - more mouse clicks.

The best way to get to groups quickly, AFAIK, is to bookmark them with your browser. Not just any plain bookmark, but bookmarks on the bookmark bar. As shown in the screenshot, I have many groups related to Newtown High School in Elmhurst neatly group into the Newtown folder on the bookmark bar. I have to invest a little time organizing the list, but now I can quickly jump to a class year with just two clicks - one to pull down the list then the second one to select the year. I am not even a member of most of those groups, so this is something you cannot even do with the Groups application. As exotic as FB may appear, what with the many apps and notifications, in the end you still use FB mostly via a web browser. Web browsers and bookmarks go hand in hand way back and bookmarks are still very useful today.

Crossing Williamsburg Bridge

I love walking and especially walking over long bridges. It helps to live in a city like New York. Years ago, when I was done with jury duty early I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to eventually catch the L train to get back home in northern area of Brooklyn. It took me 40 minutes. I was not married and life was simpler. When the Manhattan Bridge was opened to pedestrian traffic, I no longer had the spare time to walk across it just for the heck of it. Same thing for the Williamsburg Bridge. Recently, I had the rare opportunity of killing a few hours while my son and his cousins take their swimming lesson. The pool building is in the shadow of the Williamsbug Bridge and the Bridge called my name so off I went. It took half an hour each way. With its protective fence, the Williamsburg Bridge is certainly not a photographer's dream. With the simple camera in my cell phone, I couldn't snap anything better than the ones shown below.

Computing Life, Simplified

I have a long road to travel to attain a simpler life. My home office is a mess, I started to upload to the attic, the backyard shack is more manageable but can use some more cleaning, the list goes on. But when it comes to a simpler computing life, I recently achieved one point.

For some years now I've been writing software review for ATPM magazine. I would use a template in NeoOffice so that once it's opened I already have a few lines of text entered, like so

blurb:

Product:

Rating: OK/Good/Very Nice/Excellent

Publisher:

Web: http://www.blah.com/bleah

Price: $

Requirements: Mac OS X v. 10.n Universal.

Trial:

A true template file when launched would have a name like Untitled, not the template name. You do not run the risk of overwriting the template with data. All I would need to do, supposedly, is sort of fill in the blanks and choose one of the rating. The trouble was that there is a noticeable delay between the time NeoOffice is launched and the template is ready for use. NeoOffice, as great as it is, free competitor to M$ Office and all, is no speed king at startup. Writing is a strange process, a few minutes delay can make the difference between non-stop ranting and raving and having writer's block.

I recently discovered that the system built-in TextEdit works just fine for my need. I would create sort of a template file and open that, whether directly or via Open Recent. I would need to name the file properly lest I lose my "template" because TextEdit opens the file as is. Small price to pay for the instantaneous access to the tool. Besides, when using NeoOffice, the final product would need to be saved in RTF anyway, something that TextEdit already does automatically. NeoOffice is definitely useful for typing combined with graphics and tables etc, but for my simple need, less is more and TextEdit suits me perfectly.

Meet Sharky

My sister made a scrapbook showing the stuffed toy "Benjamin" my son gave her visiting various places. It's a variation on the Flat Stanley Project. My son liked the scrapbook and wanted to make his own, but he is too easily distracted and never got around to putting together the scrapbook. It is up to me to introduce the world to... Sharky!

Sharky was picked up at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island on a school field trip. Here we see him inside the big box that came with the massage chair. Kids throughout the ages love to play in empty big boxes. Son called it his art club, thus he and a cousin drew all over the box. I provide some whiteboard and markers for them to draw while sitting inside.

The Angst of Internet Oh-Nine

What do you do when you realize you spent hours wasted on Facebook and other social networks? You make the most of the experience by drawing a cartoon about it, of course!

I must say I am not that much into Twitter. While I did start out on Twitter I found the "conversations" there too messy. I don't see how people follow hundreds of people with Twitter. I only followed a handful and had to drop some people who tweeted too often. I still use the web browser instead of some fancy Twitter client so I don't see threaded messages. I prefer to see a variety of tweets, so if one person monopolizes my Twitter page, off he goes.

Plurk, on the other hand, keeps messages threaded so that you see both the original posts and replies to them. How logical! And no need to do @ and #, just address the person's name and it's automatically highlighted. I even use Plurk to update my FB and Twitter status now. You just have to watch your karma, a point system that probably doesn't mean anything, but fun to maintain. Don't plurk for a day or two and it drops fast, whereas climbing back up is measured in units of .01.

I also spent a lot of time on the reunion for my high school class, Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens, New York, Class of 1985. I had to sneak the school reference into the cartoon. Hopefully I'll snare a few more alumni.

JHS Graduation Day

I wrote about my JHS 73 experience as an afterthought after I started looking for high school classmates. Interesting enough, I got a few feedbacks about the JHS 73 entry but nothing on the high school one. Here are some photos in case anyone know the teachers. This was 1982 so it's been almost 30 years, who know what happened to them after all that time.

I had Dr. Michael for some English class. I remember reading The Hobbits although I hardly knew what was going on. There was no DVD back then, but I might have read some Cliff Notes or Monarch Notes.

I cannot recall what class I had Ms. Cuffs but somehow I remember her name. In New York City, at one time there were these ads for teachers. It touts that people don't remember their managers' names etc. but teachers are remembered well. It is true.

I had Ms. Butler for English As A Second Language class. I had a great time when we had a school trip to Rye Playland.