Thoughts in Veeberland

I was too young to remember the struggles that my parents went through.  While I knew we weren’t wealthy later in life, I knew that everything we ever needed was always met and taken care of.  If anything Kevin and I were a bit spoiled and didn’t really get to know what it could be like to struggle with finances.  While dad’s story is not unique it does offer perspective.

My dad grew up in Shanghai, raised by his grandmother.  The rest of his family had already moved to Hong Kong.  He’s always been a very bright man, but realized that the burden of college would be too much for his family.  He attended a junior college and became a commissioned radio officer for the merchant marines.  He spent six years on the water before meeting my mom, at which point he realized that he needed to have a land based life.  He told my mom that he was going to leave the service and move to the US.  My mom was at that point planning to go to Rutgers for her master’s degree.

He first landed in LA, where he worked for two months in a photo development store.  The owner there was apparently not very honest, and cheated my dad out of his salary.  Angry, my dad moved to NY, where he began working as a bus boy in a Chinese restaurant, and moved his way up: waiter, bar tender, then a manager.  Eventually he moved to a larger restaurant but disliked the supervisors and quit.  During this time he had already started formulating his idea of opening an auto shop.  He still needed some more income at the time so he began driving a cab in NYC.  I’m still confirming dates, I believe this is around the time my parents got married.  He eventually opened his auto shop the month before I was born, which probably presented it’s own difficulties.

My dad, is a very perceptive man.  He is can read people very easily, and has a very refined understanding of his customers and their thoughts.  While he never thinks of himself as being very sophisticated, I can see where Kevin get’s a lot of his characteristics.  I’m more like my mom when it comes to these things, more gullible and trusting, but thankfully I got both of their desires to learn and be inquisitive.  In case I forget to tell my kids this, or they don’t get to experience this, your grandfather lives by a very simple creed.  Loyalty to your family is always primary.  Do whatever it takes to protect them and provide for them, everything else is secondary.  I know we have all been blessed with his steadfastness in this belief.

Thanks Dad, and happy birthday.

So I’m sure everyone has been familiar with all my past attempts to get back in shape.  I’ve been playing with the Wii Fit Plus for a bit, but honestly it doesn’t really give you that good of a workout.  Some of the games are fun, but that’s about it.  Apparently just playing Wii Tennis or Boxing ends up being a better calorie burner that the entire Wii Fit genre.  It’s still nice to use to track your weight and play every so often.

Instead I’ve embarked on something that I had tried in the distant past.  I know I’m never going to run a marathon or be ripped like a 20 year old.  But doing simple fitness items like push-ups, squats, sit-ups, pull-ups, and jogging should be within my ability … eventually.  So for the last six weeks I’ve been going through the 100 push-ups program.  The goal is eventually to be able to do 100 push-ups in one set.  I’ve had to repeat weeks three and four, so I haven’t finished the initial six week program yet, but already I’ve gone from less than 10 in a set to 20+.  I’m going to have to continuously repeat the whole program to get to the goal, but it’s a start.  This week I just added the 200 squats program to the list.

These programs seem to be effective and don’t take that much time.  There’s a straight forward progression and it’s pretty easy to see progress.  As I get closer to completing the first round of these two I’ll add sit-ups.  There’s also another site that has a program for getting to run a 5K.  Here’s to hoping the new shoes can help me run again without the knee and back pain.  I just got the Vibram Five Fingers, so I can’t give a good feel for them yet, but so far they seem to be working to reduce my foot pain.  One of these days I’ll talk about them a bit more.

The most attractive thing about these programs is the lack of equipment required.  It’s pretty cheap to engage in these activities and the author even went ahead and developed an iPhone app for each one.  It makes timing the rest period pretty easy and tracks all of your progress.  I think it would be pretty annoying to use the Twitter integration to post my progress, but who knows, maybe I’ll be vain enough to do so one of these days .  I bought a set of the Perfect Push-ups to reduce the wrist pain and after I lose some weight I may get a Perfect Pull-up to start those workouts as well.  Still that’s less than $60 overall.  If anything, the new shoes cost me more than that.

So here’s to yet another attempt to get healthy and lose some weight.  Hopefully going slower this time around will help me stay focused and motivated.

[Originally posted December 22, 2005]

NYC will always overcome.  I am quite proud to be from there, though I really don’t fit the typical Manhatten resident.  This strike has really put a lot of people out and yet it seems everyone’s making a great attempt at getting in to work regardless.  I’m sure the casual shopping is down, but they brave the 2-3 hour walks or incredible traffic on the bridges and streets.  What troopers those New Yorkers are.

I really think the TWA is being greedy.  They are arguing because the city wants new employees to pay 6% of their salary towards their pension, which they can start claiming as early as 55.  Most workers across the US can’t really retire until 62 and probably don’t even get a pension.  You’ve got really good benefits already and you’re asking for respect and dignity?  What is that saying about all of the other workers in NY or the rest of the country.  Those people who working for minimum wage and no benefits are just suckers?  The strike really only hurts them.  The rest of the business world is moving on since their companies can afford to have them work from home or to arrange transportation.  The MTA should fee free to negotiate the best contract that they can, but they cannot claim the moral/judicial high ground when they are causing tens of thousands more to suffer.  That’s just rediculous.  At least go back to work while you are negotiating.  The people of NY are not on your side in this.

There have been lots of stories about screaming children, especially on airplanes going around.  Just ran across this rant that I liked.  Just seems everyone’s tolerance and understanding has grown shorter as we isolate ourselves from each other.  Almost makes me wonder if we are moving to a society more like “Surrogates” where everything is obviously perfect and we only interact through a virtual world.

Over the weekend we picked up a Wii Fit Plus at Costco.   Sarah and I had been looking at it for awhile.  I know that there is no way that the game itself will provide enough exercise to really get me to lose weight, but just having it these few days seems to be acting as incentive to get some exercise in.  I have a feeling it’ll be just enough incentive to get us to do non-Wii workouts to try and beat the game, because some of the routines are actually quite difficult to perfect.  The mid term goal is to learn all the routines over the next few months.  The longer term is just to get the Wii from calling me fat.  My little Mii is wonderfully rotund at this point.  So here’s to working out.  Anyone else up for a Wii Fit challenge?

[Originally published March 10, 2006]

If you’re squemish, you might not want to read this one.

So I had my ingrown toenails corrected on Wednesday.  I had a correction when I was younger, I think in middle school, and boy did that hurt.  The old doc at the HMO had to inject the anesthetic under the nail bed.  That had been the worst pain ever.  Since then I decided I never wanted to through that again.

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Most of you know that we went up to NYC this weekend.  We primarily went up to get the car fixed, but Mom and Dad took us out to dinner .  Of course I can’t remember the name of the restaurant but it’s in Astoria and was a fabulous Italian restaurant.  But of course our day had to be more interesting than that…So we go into the city on Saturday to meet up with Sunny and Paul.  I’ll put up some pictures in the gallery somewhere.  It was a very rainy day.  We went out and had lunch at Applebee’s, which was pleasant.  We decided to go down to K-town to have coffee and dessert.  It was rather cold in there and we were pretty wet.  We had our dessert and tried to make our way over to the Empire State Building.  When we got there the security folks there told us that there was zero visibility on the roof.  That was kindof a downer, but so be it.  We made our way back out into the rain. read more »

I’ve made this a while back, and haven’t in a long time.  It’s good and hearty.  Freezes well too.  Make sure you brow the ribs well, otherwise they come out a really unattractive gray color.  If you do the browning in batches it usually works better than trying to throw them all in at once. read more »

So Roman Polanski is in the news again. He was finally arrested in Zurich while trying to attend a film festival that was honoring him.  I’ll leave his background and filmography to Wikipedia to discuss, and it’s just a waste of time for me to rehash the whole thing.  The thing that bugs me so much is the response to his arrest and extradition request.  Lots of articles are coming out now (and here, here, and here) about all the people who seem to think he should be released.  There’s the French minister who is saying authorities should his rights, and there’s this petition signed by lots of Hollywood elite saying

“It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him,”

Huh WHAT?  What makes him so special, or this “international cultural event” so special that a man should not be arrested for breaking the law? Would they have been ok with it if they let him attend then arrested him on his way home?  This seems like an absolutely horrible standard.  I will give them the fact that Polanski has had a troubled life.  First he loses his mom to the Holocaust, then the Manson’s go and kill his wife and unborn child.  These can be devastating things and I can see how they may contribute to some of his troubled thinking.  But even with this, does this excuse him from showing up in court to face the penalties of his actions?  Then you get rich quotes like this.

“You have to understand them, these poor stars. What’s the point of being a celebrity if you can’t have the women you want, whether they’re above the age of consent or not, whether they’re willing or not; if you can’t flee abroad and prosper there while our country’s justice system looks after you, circulate freely wherever you want to go to be awarded medals and charms at international festivals, and then mobilise opinion in your favour when things start to get tricky?”

So if you are a celebrity 1. Poor you, you should be pitied for your fame 2. You can have any women you want (seems a bit sexist, I thought the French were all about equality) 3. You should be able to circulate freely to be honored as a celebrity even as a criminal.

He admits to drugging and raping a 13 year old girl in the 70’s.  He was held for 42 days while they conducted psychological evaluations.  Then he’s suppose to show up for sentencing, where the judge was thinking of giving him another 48 days in prison, so he decides to skip out and run off to France.  I have never been to prison, and do not ever plan to do so, but California’s minimum sentencing guidelines at this point is 36 months for rape.  He would have had a total of 90 days.  Seems like he is getting off easy.  Why does he get an exemption, according to all these outraged fans, politicians, and Hollywood actors, from doing the simple thing of showing up in court?  Even in light of possible judicial misconduct, a new judge has agreed to resolve the matter, but all he has to do is show up in court.  Why is this so hard?  Why is everyone fighting so hard to let him off the hook?  Why does everyone think he has a right to be let off?  What has he done that is so great, so amazing, so life changing and beneficial to the world that he deserves to be above the law?

I am all for forgiveness.  The victim has forgiven him, and it seems like the current presiding judge is willing to let this go.  But can we really just him not finish up all the pieces that are required?  Roman, just get to the court, get this over with, and guess what, now you can freely travel around the world without the threat of arrest and go attend your precious international cultural events.  All you have to do is show up and admit you made a mistake by not showing up 30 years ago.

UPDATE: I just read a little commentary on Slate.  I think the final paragraph does sum things up well.

Notwithstanding the due process concerns that the Polanski case raises—which are for legal scholars, not Hollywood directors, to quibble with—if we excuse Polanski from punishment, aren’t we really saying that his life is more valuable than the life of a 13-year-old girl’s just because he happened to direct Rosemary’s Baby? Taking that to its logical extreme, we have to assume that Bob Dylan can never go to jail, even if he rapes a teenager or two, and that Picasso could not have served time for whatever felonies he might have committed in his brazen lifetime, and—well, I could go on. Where would we draw the line? Does Leonard Cohen qualify? Neil Diamond?

In fairness, comparing apples to apples, as they say, the life of a great director is probably more valuable than that of a 13-year-old girl—young ladies that age are really irritating. But if we follow this modest proposal to its logical conclusion and valorize some life over other life, then we are creating a society that was last tried out on a large and (highly) organized scale by the Nazis, who are the bogeymen in Polanski’s closet. After all, to say that Aryans are better than everyone else is not much different than saying talented people are better than everyone else. And if we make this ruling for Roman Polanski, we pretty much have to do it for everybody.

[Originally posted March 17, 2006]

Ok I have no idea what this dream means, but it was at least entertaining.  So somehow I had bought a Condo, but it was located inside a mall?!?! The upper floors were actually above the mall, and quite posh, but the living room/kitchen was on the first floor and all glass, so I could actually see all the mall shopper walking around.  It was a really interesting layout with the kitchen more like a bar.  There was a sink accessible from both sides and there was a shelf that slid out so you could get into the middle.  Inside were the draw style refrigerators which were assessible from both sides, and the cooktop and oven was at another end so that you could could from either side of the bar.  Pretty cool.  The patio was actually inside the mall.  The glass could frost over for privacy.  Just seemed really weird.  Ok go back to your regular day