一期一会

looking throw doors
一期一会

个把月前逛旧金山的日本城 Kinokuniya 书店的时候看到「The Book of Ichigo Ichie 一期一会」这本书。可能因为中文是母语,所以从一堆书中一眼就看到了。进门第二排的书架,应该是畅销书吧。这套书中的另外一本「Ikigai」很久之前我就买来看了,很喜欢。我觉得一期一会这个概念以前我听说过,并没有留心看是什么意思。翻了一下一期一会是把每次茶会(见面)都当作一生一次(或者最后一次)的机充满诚意的去珍惜。这个概念来自于茶道,体现了日本禅的一些观念,每次的聚会都独一无二,要仔细体会。那本书并没有很好的阐述这个问题,而是从这里出发介绍了日本的一些文化的知识,所以我当时并没有买下那本书。

今天听梁文道的播客又一次提到一期一会,我想不要放下这个概念,应该写下这个点滴。

早上在数码相框上看到 2019 年与 Lord Hong 一家在我们后院一起放小的烟火,我想应该是借着庆祝 Diwali 吧。看到照片的那个瞬间,我心里想的就是一期一会。因为现在看来那已经非常接近于两个家庭友谊的终结了。我这边体重又涨了,而他们那边已经搬到大陆的另一端了。照片中,小孩子的大人玩的都很开心。眼镜蛇的烟花在水泥地面留下的黑色痕迹到现在还在。但是那份友情已经蒸发不见,留下唏嘘和我们对他们单方向的思念和祝福。一期一会,每次都认真的准备,每次都玩的开心。

再往前想。曾经用毛豆的付费 RSS 听着“盗版”的锵锵三人行 Podcast,聊一聊我们对嘉宾观点的意见。那时的生活是那么的多彩,大家还可以开着玩笑讨论时事,不用机会政治或者宗教。那样的瞬间是美好的,放在木头盒子里面珍藏着,时不时拿出来还发着彩色的光。所以,生活中的茶会即使茶杯中只有水,但是还好当作最后一次去珍惜。因为真的,它们都有了最后一次。

唐山打人事件和女权主义

最近看到 Loddit 在微信朋友圈分享了翻转电台一期节目,讲了唐山打人事件是绝对的关于性别平等和性骚扰。我一直很喜欢翻转电台拽拽的务虚-形而上风格(奥,我还要强烈推荐一下同样形而上而务虚的 重轻老师做的不在场 节目),而这期着重说了为啥性骚扰是这个唐山打人事件应该关注的核心,而不是“打人”所用的暴力。我深表认同,同时我个人也觉得这个事件被叫做“唐山打人”事件本身就证明了目前媒体对这个事件的定性就是错误的。

而后梁文道在八分(抱歉,看理想 app 没法直接 link,所以只能发了喜马拉雅的 link)节目里面也讨论了唐山打人事件。梁文道的干净的软刀子切割的非常到位,他不仅提到了性骚扰是不能容忍的,还提到了女权(和被污名的“女拳”)主义被曲解和污名化的问题。我觉得梁文道能够保持八分持续更新,并没有触法红线是非常厉害的。

而后我还在听的 大内密谈 也谈了一期,不过做那期节目的缘由确实对这个事情促进了“性别对立”火上浇油的曲解转而在讨论了和上面两个意见领袖类似的观点。

我个人一直支持妇女平权行动。我不仅支持妇女平权,我也支持非顺性别群体平权运动 “Pride 运动” 还有 有色族群平权运动的 “Black Lives Matter”。当我们说妇女平权的时候大部分人都支持,而且很多人以为“妇女(在中国)早就已经有平等权利了”,或者有些人认为“(中国)妇女比男性收到了更多的社会帮助”。不过实际上,如果我们关注妇女的平等收入,平等收雇佣,平等接受教育这些问题其实都没有实现完全的公平。但是所有的社会问题都很复杂,我们去看一些值得关注的事件的时候可能会放大局部,我们可能看到所谓的“反向歧视”。所以这里我们必须用统计学的方法全面的看问题,而不能被”媒体“控制了眼球的流量关注局部。

这个唐山打人事件的起因是男性对女性的物化,男性可以利用自己的社会地位和物理优势来对女性性骚扰。而后是酒精造成的“受药物影响”的降低了理性约束后的滥用暴力,这个是另外一个方面,当然也很重要(我个人就经常受酒精影响,所以我对这个非常重视)。还有的就是围观群众并没有足够的制止暴力,另一方面参与劝架的女性证明了我们也有闪光的灵魂在身边。后面还可以挖到大家对公信力的不信任,试图简化问题常见的地图炮等等任性的逻辑谬误(Fallacy)。

关于唐山打人事件这几个博客说的比我要有理有据的多,分析的也深刻,所以推荐大家也扩展阅读一下。我之所以想要写这篇博客,是因为最近还有其它相关的事件发生,很多人开始在这个乱世中娱乐化两极分化的社会信息部落(Tribalism),比较有代表性的就是最近的 Depp v. Heard,我看到我很多朋友对这个问题都表示非常尴尬,不敢表达自己的意见。这个案件本身的确比较复杂,这个大家可以自行搜索,我个人觉得我们应该相信陪审团充分的得到了各种证词,他们也做出了公正的陪审团意见。但是这个事情被社会信息部落用力传播的却是所谓的 MeToo运动 的矫枉过正(reverse bias),因为在这个个案上面我们看到了在 MeToo 运动的顶峰 Heard 公布里自己的故事然后 Depp 就受到了 “社会公正” 的铁拳打击,所以损害了他的个人名誉和其它权利。这个问题要分隔开,因为这个案件我们讲究的是司法公正,控辩双方公平的展示自己的证据,随机选择的陪审团作出了公正的裁决意见。所以这个案件的司法公正给我们看到了“翻案”的可能,这本身是社会公正,值得庆祝。但是司法公正和社会公正是不同的,我们不能因为这个个案的司法判决就推断 MeToo 运动矫枉过正的社会公正。平心而论,我们去看看身边的暴力事件、性侵事件,妇女还是处于绝对的弱势地位。这种根深蒂固的不同瓶只能通过所谓的“矫枉过正”的社会文化运动(主义,不是保利运动)来逐渐的消融,所以这个个案在社会公正反面没有任何的意义(没有统计意义)。凡事用 Depp v. Heard 去污名化 MeToo 和 女权运动 的人都是有不良居心的,这个我们要划的非常清楚。(我在 FB 上面看到我一直在支持的一个本地保护亲密关系中受害的女性的 NGO 的创始人就表达了她的担忧。她说它真的很难对 Depp v. Heard 这个事情表态,因为她跟不不了解这两个人也不关注这两个人。但是任何的站队行为只会让男女平权的努力开倒车。)

请不要说我在和稀泥,但是请允许我切割这个事件。如果你关心名人的新闻(这完全没啥可羞耻的,我觉得这是光明正大的爱好),那么这个事件值得仔细咀嚼,看看 Depp 到底之前收到了哪些不公正的对待,并且正义最后又如何得到了伸张。但是对于这个事件对社会公正和女权主义,请绝对不要过度解读,它完全不能作为”女拳主义矫枉过正“的统计证明。我们需要看到的是社会正义在美国的司法体系下得到了伸张,值得赞许。但是男女平权的污名化问题我们要特别警惕,因为这很容易被污浊的社会政治现状而变得愤世嫉俗(Cynical),这会让我们忘记了我们在历史中所在的位置,很容易不进则退。

Last Kiss – No Boundaries

在我高二的时候,我记得我拿到了这张 No Boundaries – A Benefit For The Kosovar Refugees 的 CD。我忘记是一张打口还是盗版了,放在我的 Panasonic SL-CT570 里面反复的听,非常喜欢。因为 CD 的播放方式,第一首听的最多。第一首是 Pearl Jam 的 Last Kiss。我印象特别深,那个时候我很讨厌珍珠果酱这个翻译,一般就说英文的 Pearl Jam,听起来原汁原味一些。不过我记得我们当时几个小伙伴说话都很脏,所以一般都管它叫 “屁眼儿 Jam”。我的英文发音烂,所以这个“屁眼儿 Jam”又和当时经常玩的一个游戏“Earthworm Jim(蚯蚓吉姆)”在记忆中被放在了同一个盒子里。我当时要好的朋友小关同学会学者唱 Last Kiss,那个浓厚的嗓音(口音)被他学的惟妙惟肖,所以我现在一听到 Last Kiss 还会想到那个一脸不正经的小关同学。这张专辑还有大爱的 Rage Against the Machine,还有当时觉得嗓音超级古怪的 Neil Young,还有还有好多。不管怎样,这些奇怪的记忆和喜爱就都被放在一起了。因为这里有个“屁眼儿”,所以这些记忆又燥又滑稽,但是那是我的珍爱。

前几天我在 Tidal 上听某个 Playlist 突然偶遇了这首熟悉的 Last Kiss,我随手点开歌词。然后,突然我的脑子就空白了。我第一次感觉到这首歌讲的是生离死别的悲剧,和我印象中那个不正经的中年人唱出来的有点诙谐的记忆完全不一样。我受到了很大的冲击,感觉到悲剧的震撼。冲击很大程度上来自于对比,一个不好好看歌词的人把音乐只当作旋律,而现在我可以听懂英语但是我却从来没有想过去理解过去我听过的音乐的歌词所讲的故事。随后我在维基百科查了原作者 Wayne Cochran 的故事,原来作者写的也是身边的故事(并不是作者本人发生了这样的悲剧)。一开始这歌并没有红,后来的一些翻唱才让这首歌红了起来。Pearl Jam 这版 Last Kiss 是为了 No Boundaries 这张慈善专辑而录制的,后来也收录在他们的 B-Side 专辑 Soldier of Love 里面。Pearl Jam 是美国西雅图的乐队,不知道为啥我以前以为他们是澳大利亚的。

这些混合的“新知识”和旧记忆让我觉得很有趣。这不是第一次当我看到歌词时才发现我完全理解错了歌曲的 sentiment,妥妥的 Lost in translation。但是,这首 Last Kiss 还有这张 No Boundaries 在我成长的时候是我最常听的,所以记录一下表达我对青年时代的追思还有当时的无知的自省。

23 年以后,我用的还是 Panasonic SL-CT570。CD 在亚马逊上还很容易搞到(各大 Streaming 平台由于这种合集的版权限制,所以都缺一大半的歌曲,所以我很开心的去买了一张正版)。接了一个 C&C Box(一个多年前的国内高手 DIY 产品),因为我的 CT570 的音量划钮已经坏掉了,所以需要用耳房把 Line-out 的音量控制一下。耳机这次用了Focal Elegia。

虽然是多年以后我还是强烈推荐这张专辑。到现在听到还兴奋不已的包括:

  • Pearl Jam LAST KISS (favorite!!!)
  • Alanis Morissette BABA (Live)
  • Rage Against The Machine THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD (favorite!!!)
  • Neil Young WAR of MAN (LIVE)
  • Black Sabbath PSYCHO MAN (DANNY SABER REMIX)
  • Bush COME DOWN (ACOUSTIC)
  • Ben Folds Five LEATHER JACKET (favorite!!!)
  • Oasis TAKE ME AWAY
  • Sarah McLachlan MARY (LIVE)
  • Indigo Girls GO
  • Tori Amos MERMAN
  • Pearl Jam SOLDIER OF LOVE

Last Kiss

Oh, where oh where can my baby be?
The Lord took her away from me
She’s gone to heaven, so I got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world
We were out on a date in my daddy’s car
We hadn’t driven very far
There in the road, straight ahead
A car was stalled, the engine was dead
I couldn’t stop, so I swerved to the right
I’ll never forget, the sound that night
The screamin’ tires, the bustin’ glass
The painful scream, that I heard last
Oh, where oh where can my baby be?
The Lord took her away from me
She’s gone to heaven, so I got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world
When I woke up, the rain was pourin’ down
There were people standing all around
Something warm flowin’ through my eyes
But somehow I found my baby that night
I lifted her head, she looked at me and said
“Hold me darling, just a little while”
I held her close, I kissed her our last kiss
I found the love, that I knew I had missed
And now she’s gone, even though I hold her tight
I lost my love, my life that night
Oh, where oh where can my baby be?
The Lord took her away from me
She’s gone to heaven, so I got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Wayne Cochran

Last Kiss lyrics © Universal Music – Mgb Songs, Universal Music Corp., Sony/atv Songs Llc, Beyondidolization, S.l.a.c.k.a.d. Music, Fort Knox Music Inc., Trio Music Company, More Water From Nazareth, Trio Music Company Inc., Emi Pop Music Publishing, Trio Music Co., Inc., Lark Music Inc, Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited

谢谢,我又可以听这张我最爱的专辑。我又可以听 Last Kiss 心动(心痛)了。好久不写中文博客,错字或者句子不通顺请谅解。

Noise Neighbor

LOL, it’s weird that anger is a good drive for a quick blog post.

My next door neighbor rent their house to a family. That family is mostly normal except they party sometimes. I mean party in an animal manner. Sorry to use that strong word, but every time you will see the whole street side parking are full, and the loud music will last long past midnight.

I used to call the 311 and report the noise neighbor. But the noise party just kept coming back. It last to 2AM normally, and in some cases it last to 3AM. That totally ruin my sleep. Previous report doesn’t work in most cases. My other neighbors also complained about it, and they exchange idea of sending letters to this family couple of times.

But over the time I start to give up. Sadly.

Last night the family party again, it’s so loud (some Iranian deep house dance music, I don’t know if that’s a genre), and both me and my wife can’t fall to sleep. So I called the San Jose police department (using their direct number) at 12:20 AM, they told me they will dispatch officer. The noise continues. We took our noise cancellation headphone to resist the deep beats. And then the police department calls back at 1:17 AM asking me if the noise are gone. I told them the noise is still there, and they told me they will send some officer here.

Around 1:45 AM, the noise is gone. I don’t know if the officer is dispatched here. But I guess the first call didn’t get any dispatch here. So next time I will make sure I report early and keep awake to reply the police department’s call. I guess they will defer the noise complaint for a while and only send officer after a delay. So I called too late.

I can’t give up.

Fixed a SSL cert issue on my blog

I remembered I saw my site’s SSL was not working. So I visit it today (how lazy I am). I see it’s complaining my cert belongs to blog.diamondtin.com instead of www.diamondtin.com. I forgot why I choose www.diamondtin.com over diamondtin.com, but I’m sure I have long abandon the domain blog.diamondtin.com.

SSH to my server I found my certbot settings is very messy. That auto detected config changed my nginx config and somehow prioritize the blog.diamondtin.com as the primary domain name. So I manually deleted the domain from certbot and nginx. Restart, and it seems OK now. If you still experience problem, please ping me on twitter @diamondtin.

Experience the 2021 Macbook Pro

My family went to Westfield having lunch together. While we wait our dishes, I took a quick detour to Apple store to experience the new Macbook Pro. I had watched couple of reports and video reviews, but I’d like to experience them in person. I only have about 5 mins to experience them.

The 16 inches feels really heavy! The previous 16 inches is also heavy, I just don’t lift them up very often. My work computer is a 2019 16 inches (last gen before the 2021 Macbook Pro), which also feels cold and heavy. I will just type MBP instead of Macbook Pro. The new MBP feels heavier and thicker, and it’s not just a feeling, the did. But that’s totally OK. The new rounded corner body is really good, I really don’t know why you need to create the sharp corner on previous unibody MBP. I mean the square corner looks professional and cool, but they feels pretty bad in hand or on lap. I’m glad MBP’s shape is back to “a good feel” and friendly again.

And then I feel the keyboard, they feels as good as the previous “upgraded” keyboard. The worst keyboard is those on Macbook “lovely”, the shallowest version. And the infamous butterfly keyboard is bad. Current version is totally OK. I have a wrong impression that the arrow key’s layout is changed to something like a normal keyboard (which have same size for every key). But unfortunately those arrow keys still have 1/2 size for up/down arrow. I really hate that design! So that disappointment is still there. But maybe that’s an industry’s problem now, I think all laptop’s arrows are just using 3 keycaps’ spaces instead of 4.

And then I checked the screen. The apple store is very bright, and the 1600 nits brightness screen does stand out. But the light condition in apple store has glamour, last time I experienced the 24 inches M1 iMac its screen are also very impressive. I tried a HDR 4k video on YouTube, which looks just OK. I don’t have HDR monitors at home, so I can’t compare. Also the HDR content eco-system on YouTube is hard to trust. So maybe I just choose a SDR video which mark itself as HDR, I should check the video info (but I forgot). And then I used the “Photos.app” checked the photos, they looks gorgeous. Interesting thing is that all the photos are taken either on iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro Max. A lot of those photos are taken in California, mostly mountains of Santa Monica Coast. Maybe instead of those gorgeous screen maybe we should use the phones in our hand to capture some good photos. I feel not all the light are natural in those photos, at least some of them have reflector boards used?

And then I used the 14 inches MBP. This one feels like the one I may get. (NO, I will not buy it this generation) It feels much lighter than the 16 inches, the screen is definitely in the same league of the 16 inches screen. Keyboard size and layout are the same. I didn’t test the speakers in both 14 and 16 MBP, the reviews saying they are great. If the only difference is the size and weight, then I will definitely go with the lighter one. That’s one of the benefit of owing the M1 chip Macs. I need to cut through my materialism desire, I should use what ever I have to entertain myself. And for work, I should just use what company gives.

Then I try to test the 3D capability. I don’t know what’s the best thing to try. So I just open the ocean horn 2 on the MBP. But this game used a blur rendering powered by Unreal. I expect Unreal’s rendering quality should be better. But this grain and blur 3D rendering is not impressive at all, I don’t know how to change resolution too. So I didn’t get any sense how the 3D rendering capability of the MBPs.

Next time.

Chocolate Orange

I don’t know why, but this piece of memory surface up again when I read my favorite book Zen and Motorcycle Maintenance. Let me put it on my blog then.

It happens on west side of ThoughtWorks Beijing office. @cread visited our office for Mingle. He would help us create a software installation package for Mingle. The scene happens about the end of the day, his first day visiting Beijing Office. Chris have strong British accent, which gave me some hesitation sometimes because my English listening was not great. He says “Almost forgot, I get chocolate orange!”. Chocolate and Orange sounds like a weird combination based on my limited experience, so I double check what I hear is right “Chocolate Orange?!”. Chris replied “Yes, chocolate orange.”. My head was bursting weird idea, not sure if that’s orange flavored chocolate or some toy? Chris brings out a white cupboard box with some cutout on it which looks between fancy chocolate and toy, so that appearance doesn’t assure what I see. I was imagining how a bursting fruity orange flavor will blend with chocolate’s distinguished flavor, that may not work well? So I asked Chris why it’s a good idea to blend orange flavor with chocolate? There’s an odd expression on Chris’s face, and he said “Oh, no, it’s just orange shaped chocolate”. Oh, it’s not orange flavored. Then I feel even more odd, I thought a big round ball (bigger than a bulb) of chocolate will be very hard to bite or break. So I asked “why they make big orange shaped chocolate ball?”. This time Chris didn’t answer my question directly, he just pull the orange shaped ball with orange color alumnium foil wrap out of the box. And then he hold it, lift it up and then heavily drop the chocolate ball on the desk. Bong! The aluminum foil wrap popped, and then the chocolate ball opened on the desk like a water lily, or I can say it opened like you cut a whole apple with an apple slicer/cutter. I wowed, and then all my questions are answered.

Winding road

Yesterday, we just went back from a vacation. I was tired physically, but very satisfied mentally. I lost some photography gears during the adventure, but that doesn’t matter. What I want to say is those tiny lost can’t compare what myself and my family got from the long-overdue vacation. I feel that I’m living a life again, I’m in control of my emotion.

Today, I woke up with a motion-picture in front of my closed eyes. I see winding road moving ahead, like what I see from a drone’s perspective. The winding road has not much scenery around, there’re not much details. The winding road goes left and then right and then left, it curves naturally and I feel like flying. I get that feeling when I swim in the shallow and turquoise sea near Hapuna beach, I can see the sea floor and I’m flying above it. I love a winding road without motion sick, the road is my new hope.

I’m grateful, feeling surrounded by love.

A Serious Man (Almost can’t make it)

I’m very serious recently, like a serious man. Since the Pandemic starts, I rarely feels less serious. Seriously, I lost friends, sleep and humorous, like a tree burning inside.

My family, my reason for life, plan a Hawaii trip with another family this summer. I know everyone is flying to this island to get rid of their tedious prison time at home, and I think that popular idea is not too silly. My brilliant wife booked a very very nice vocation home at the big island, and it’s about 4 time the size of our current home. And Hawaii is just a couple of fold better than San Jose where famous for their sands industry.

That vacation feels like a hole of light when I’m trapped in a dungeon. I’m counting every last bit of my fingers and toes. That’s the hope that I will not murder by my new boss in my deadly enterprise company, if I miss the flight I will definitely found dead. American has a drinking problem, and I lost my sense of beer tasting, totally eclipsed by the guilty of drinking. I can’t fake. I have no talent of beer tasting, I’m just using that as an excuse. There’s no cure for being a dull and tasteless soul. Not even Pixar’s soul, which is brilliant BTW. Before I gave up myself to “Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days”, no offensive, but you may know that’s the joy of being a fundamentalism (so you won’t be a hacker). Oh, I mean it’s hard to be a good dad, being optimistic, being a OK husband. I feel that is a wormhole to reborn. Maybe I can be “not serious” about everything, like a desperate meat ball.

When I march through this long and dark tunnel, I can see the light is at end of the tunnel. It’s only weeks away. It’s my nirvana, like “Negative Creep”.

And then, a day, then weeks, I get stuffy nose and other allergies symptoms. It’s OK, it happens every year. It’s the pollen, a good year for vegetarian, bad for my nose. Every year my months of allergies turns to Sinusitis around May, this year no exception. Oh, some exceptions, I also get a very sore throat. I mean like something burning inside, I shared the link above, that’s what I felt. I virtually visit my doctor, she is so nice, she told me that I should be under antibiotic. Oh, lovely, I love writing scripts with a powerful language. Penicillin is as lovely as PHP, which is the best language in our world. Penicillin is definitely better than beers! When I can eat Penicillin I will not even dream about beer. I was so happy, I start to worry. I worry that my nose and throat may get worse.

Oh, and it did. I lost my voice the next day, even with my favorite Penicillin. I didn’t get my bonus fever though. Lost voice is a good thing, I don’t need to show up in meeting. I just kissed my pillow for 2 work days, and a weekend. On a Monday, my voice becomes funny. My throat is burning. But my nose feels better, the Penicillin works. And a week later my voice sounds less funny, but throat is still dry, burning, like the unlucky California tree, still burning inside. Oh, it’s OK, it’s still two weeks until our vacation, I still have time to win the battle with feeling stressed of ruin my vocation being down.

Time flies to 72 hours before the trip day. We need to do our COVID test together. I’m sure my dry throat is not because of COVID, I got my Pfizer shots and are fully cooked.

But the night before the COVID test, my younger daughter got fever. I can’t believe that happened, I’m shocked it’s not a nightmare, it’s real. But we still need to do our test. We drive a hour and visit a city 1 hour away from our home, that’s another indicator that everyone is flying to Hawaii. I’m a serious man, doing a COVID test for a hot baby is a good idea, we can tell if she got COVID!

The next day, we got a good news that everyone is negative in our family. I mean we really feels negative, because our vacation is very close to vaporized. We will not fly when anyone in our family has COIVD, we will also not fly with a hot baby! Oh, I forgot the good news that we are COVID negative. One thing is off the list, but our little flower is still fever “not free” on that morning! It’s 48 hours until the flight. I’m a serious man, we almost can’t make it. Indeed!

But our little is fever free on that 47 hours mark. And then she stays fever free until 24 hours mark hit. So we have a thin hope to fly honestly (fever and symptom free, and COVID negative). But in the meanwhile I don’t feel sick, but my throat still feels funny, I still get dry mouth at night, I still feels like shit that we almost can’t make it. I start to plan for the worst, so I won’t die from heart attack. We start to pack our luggage, like there is still hope, like the summer Olympic this year. I start to worry that theft will visit our home. I found that I forgot my password combination of my safe, a physical safe weight for a ton (a metric ton not US ton, use as a metaphor). Then I search my home, from 1Password to every piece of paper I may use, I can’t find the combination. But I’m looking for that combination? I don’t need my passport, I don’t need money there (and there’s no money in it), I don’t need to use the prime lens in that safe, I don’t need to leak more secret of my life. And then I found the combination, I tested and been positive that I can open and close the door of safe. And then I continue pack my luggage. We sent our guinea pigs to our most thrusted friends’ home, they have a pool so everyone is happy to take care of other’s pets. We even get BBQ treat from my friend, we even tested our Snorkeling equipment from him. He even have snorkeling equipment we can borrow so we can return our equipment bought from Amazon. Sorry to waste some natural resources, I feel guilty because I love what Greta is doing. Oh, you can tell I’m a serious man, I’m talking with my “Rabbi”, and I feels like approaching a black hole. That’s just a metaphor, like what Christ Nolan used in his interstellar. Oh, where is my train of thought. I’m packing my luggage. I packed too much, like moving home. I want to pack a lot of medicines, so that we won’t sick in the trip. At this stage, me, the little flower may be sick at any time. We may be super tired, we may miss the flight. We may catch COVID on the flight because our immune system is weak. Lost our ticket for life is a step away.

I can’t sleep at night. My watch told me I didn’t sleep well. I still need to work, and the work feels heavy like black hole. This is mental disease, I’m not a capable man to raise two kids and keep my wife afloat.

I’m beer free for 3 weeks minus a day. I’m pretty sober but feels worse than those days I drink beers. But you know you can’t trade sin with god, you can’t please gods/goddess. Oh, I forgot to mention. I got neck pain, like lose a wrestling game. That was 3 days before the trip, the day after we did our COVID test. My neck and back just sore like lemon. I can’t tell the difference of sour and sore, I’m a bad language user, I don’t like PHP. I wore my winter cloth, because I see snow at peak of Hawaii big island. I worry I may get more cold and develop more symptom of serious man. I have a metaphysic feeling that warmth helps my neck. But you know that feeling is not much difference of getting helps from god. And I don’t even know how black hole feels. But it turns out the warmth doesn’t help, my neck and back still sore like stoned (I don’t know why stoned doesn’t mean it feels like stone, but have a sinful meaning. I don’t mean that “stoned” literally). So I used a pain reliever called ibuprofen, and it worked. Sorry, I’m not reducing fever, I just want to get rid of the back pain. It doesn’t work that well, my work still feels like sucking my soul out of my skull. So I used a pain relieve cream from Walmart, and it worked! There’s a volcano eruption on my back, near my neck. The ingredient of menthol burns my skin, but rather than that other ingredients do their job. The warmth do work, I mean that feeling like Salonpas patches, they smells like root beer, but they do relieve the pain.

So there’s a chance that I can reborn before the flight, my ticket to life. And only time can tell.

I’m writing this in Hawaii. I’m not detained by police. Our flight didn’t dive into sea water. Black hole doesn’t burp with our earth. So we actually made it! Flora is fever free and have a very high spirit. My wife didn’t divorce me. But Hannah did get her fever from yesterday, but then fever free for a whole day. Lyft scheduled pick-up worked. We get a XL car, and it caries our over-sized luggage just fine. No traffic, no traffic accident, no highway cops. We didn’t catch COVID, finger crossed. The Hawaii travel’s official website do work, and our PDF is not eaten by my Mac. We don’t have food poison. I do get some deep sleep before the trip, at least better than some other horrible day. I didn’t lose any electronics on the airplane. I didn’t forget batteries of drone, cameras. My back pain is still with me, but fades a bit. I get a blister on my foot, but it’s not broken. I still make mistakes, but they didn’t take my ticket to reborn.

Oh, I’m a serious man. I will go to interview, find some work which doesn’t eat planet earth. I still suck at leet code, but that will not take my ticket to reborn. I have some cash to stay afloat even my boss hate me. I love my daughters, my wife, my parents and the beautiful world. Hawaii is nice. It’s not as weird/cool as Australia, but very nice. It’s the same feeling to hear “Aloha” after you did your apple fitness+’s mindful cool down. The ramen place we went right after landing was a disaster, but it won’t take my ticket to reborn. There’s a small beach near the nice rental house where kids can practice snorkeling before they go to real snorkeling.

I’m doing my meditation, and my neck is sour like sore. I did drink an Ola light hazy IPA yesterday, and that taste worse than my home-brew hazy IPA I yielded last year. Which make me feel like not the worst beer taster in the world, at least I can brew something not horrible. Oh, I’m not saying Ola beer is horrible. It’s using the wrong malt bill and wrong yeast, used not enough dry-hopping and added to much hops to their wort. I’m the most hateful person in our group, because I critics like hell. But today, I start to joke like I used to be. Because I know I’m a serious man, and you can tell the end is as black as it is in the movie. You can only blow that gravity away by a laugh, like the serious Sci-Fi TV serious “Dr Who” (Sorry I only see maybe 3 episodes of them, and they are old, scary but fun. Newer episodes are boring, see I like critic like hell). And then I cleaned all the dishes, cleaned kids’ wounds from today, washed myself. Then I sit down, alcohol free, writing a poem of myself down. I will post it on my blog, I’m not a private person, I’m the opposite.

I lied a lot, like I used to be. But there’s some truth in this blog post, like I used to be. I hope that I actually get a reborn, been lighter body, been funnier, been serious only with none-PHP-language and maybe English and Chinese. I don’t want to lose my sleep, and the 3 hours time difference helps, it’s still before 10PM when I finish typing the words before this sentence. Why I’m pouring this much of negative words here? Because I’m really a serious man? I never own a motorcycle but I love to learn how to do maintenance of them. I love the craft of living, like I love making coffee and tasting beer.

Hope tomorrow I will fly away from the black hole, lands in Island Hawaii. Seriously joking like that’s the real quality of life.