Peter’s Blog V2

Going back to school always makes me happy.  Even back in the days when driving down I-81 meant having to prepare for finals after Thanksgiving, I could never help but start to hum “country road… take me home…”

Well, this time we picked a really memorable weekend to visit.  The school was shut down on Friday, and so were most of the stores and restaurants in town.  Even the Math Emporium!

Nothing stops Wally World, though.  Where else would thirsty people go to clean out the water shelf?

While Blacksburg is still a rural town, the urbanization and commercialization had been cranked up like crazy.  Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond, Jos A Bank, and other big brand retailers creeped in.  A third parking garage is being erected in town, not that long after the first one surprised us with its presence.  The Kroger on South Main, holy cow, had doubled in size, added a drive-through pharmacy and a huge groumet section.  It’s now as impressive as Super Walmart and Boeing’s airplane factories.

Saturday’s lunch took place at Owen’s.  It brought a new definition to “home food”.  The same pasta sauce, garlic bread, General Tso, Philly cheesesteak, and smoothies that we had had hundreds of times since freshman year.  Freshens now has a new design to the cup, but that’s it.  Even the texture of the rice remained the same weird tasting that we’ve never had anywhere else.

The best moment of the weekend was when Phil walked into the bookstore and inquired, “TEN YEARS AGO, you guys used to carry this thing on that shelf…”  The cashier responded to the awkward question with professionalism, that if they had any of the older merchandise left, it would’ve been kept in another section of the store.  Right, she was probably still learning the Times Table when we last saw what Phil wanted.  Did we sound like grandpas or what?  Looking at the youthful faces around us and counting the number of businesses that used to be in More Than Coffee’s place, well, definitely didn’t help.  After all, we returned to visit our retired friend, Jason, right?

What did bring us back to youth was the incredible snow storm.  Running in knee-deep accumulation, taking silly videos, and throwing snow at each other helped discounting our maturity.  The white Drillfield, wow.

Here’s Jason, with one of several mini snowmen that we built.

One of two awesome snow forts, which always get built on the DF after a major snow:

Woohoo!  In the face!  (not a nice thing to do to the elderly, though)

And there on Alumni Mall, the cadets (I assume) built a huge snowman and a giant snowball.  It’d take some clever engineering students to make something that size.  Awesome.

Later that day, we found tons and tons of other snow sculpture around town, in front of frat houses and apartment complexes.  It was a calming throught that we all once knew how to put down the busy work to enjoy life and the world surrounding us.  The thought almost made me believe that I was young again… until I got exhausted walking across the Drillfield…

Phil and I decided to take a weekend trip back to VT.  So did a record snow storm.

We managed to escape before the worse part of it hit NOVA, and the highways were kept clean for most of the trip.  However, we did have to go through some pretty bad sections of the storm:

For the very first time since the marquee sign was installed!  No manager’s special today!

Virginia is full of farms but certain things just aren’t that visible when the world is not covered in white.  The black moo moo cows, for example, were everywhere!  Poor cows must be freezing!

Our return trip began a whole day after the snowing stopped.  Great.  Now the roads were perfectly clean and the sky was bright and clear:

We had assumed that the closer to civilization, the better the road condition would be.  After all, the rich NOVA people have all the money and expectation to keep things under control, right?

Wroooong… the closer to DC, for some reason, the worse it became.  The stretch of I-66 around Manassass/Fairfax averaged about 2 accidents per mile.  It was crazy!  We saw an H2 with the hood poped open from a collision, and watched a Camry spinning in circles until it hit another car sideways on the shoulder.  Lots of trucks, pickups, and cars trapped on the shoulder or the median.  Here’s a rather strange situation with black slush flooding onto the road:

I also expected the nation’s capital to be maintained with the same diligent snow shovelers as NYC… wrooong again!  The streets were almost not drivable!  We need more illegal immigrants!

Happy New Year.

Logically, however, I don’t see what’s there to be so happy about it.  New Year happens on roughly 0.3% of the days, which is a lot more common than your birthday if you were born on February 29th.  A new year means a rent increase, a new set of work goals to meet, an older age, closer to death, and higher insurance premiums.  Maybe the new year partiers would realize this once they sober up.

I happened to turn my head during the countdown to the “1 hour to go” mark at 11, and the crowd exploded in cheers.  Obviously, when you have been standing in the cold rain for 11 hours and know the suffering will end in one more, you’d be pretty happy too.

The cheering, honking, and other noises were even louder when the 2010 sign lit up.  One avenue, 33 stories, and a thick layer of glass away, those noises could still be heard.  Remind me not to buy a condo in this neighborhood.

For this NYE excursion, I pulled out the camcorder that I haven’t used in about five years. It’s got much better zoom than my point-and-shoot still camera, but the only problem is I have no Firewire on this computer to upload that stuff with.  So here we are stuck with slightly less than optimal images:

The actual ball drop, fireworks, and confetti rain at midnight was unsurprisingly unimpressive.  Perhaps the point of this event is mostly about the celebrity presence and not so much the fireworks?

When you have hundreds of thousands of people, they not only pee in their pants but also produce a lot of litter.  Therefore, as soon as the clock hit midnight, a mile long of sanitation trucks were deployed.  Is it just me, or does everybody think this is more cool than the ball drop?

The Times Square ball drop is one of the biggest events in the world on New Year’s Eve, and the ball that drops is practically right outside my office window on a year-round basis.  This New Year’s Eve, over the option of staying home to play video games with myself, I chose to commute into the city and exercise a privilege that many would dream to have, by staring at the silly ball from the comfort and warmth of my office.

As you might remember from my post last year, Times Square on NYE is all about police work.  A pretty large chunk of the city around the ball is barricaded at every street intersection.  Very few, such as guests with proof of staying at a hotel within the area, can cross the police line and all their belongings have to be searched.  Hundreds of others stay on this side of the police line staring hopelessly into the distance.  Cops get tired explaining all day how, in theory as if there’s still space available, to detour into Times Square.

I’m not a fan of that Times Square ball, but always love the lights on Sixth Avenue:

Sixth Avenue from above:

The ball (the dot of light) from 42nd floor:

The ball (note how it changes colors) from the 34th floor:

Times Square at 46th Street.  Those ant-sized dots underneath the American Eagle ad are crazy tourists who had probably been standing there since noon.

Had McDonald’s for dinner.  For some reason, they think by printing blue lizzard people on my food would enhance my appetite.

Here’s the nearby McDonald’s with some crazy crowd of customers.  Note the security guard that restricts access to the upstairs seating area.  Hey, this is New York.  Even a McDonald’s has to have heavy security!

While waiting for the moment to take this picture, someone who I assumed to be a student-tourist from Taiwan, pointed to my cup and asked whether I had seen the movie Avatar.  We then exchanged some mildly excited thoughts on the movie, and the fact that he saw it in IMAX 3D (which I pointed out must be at Lincoln Center).  The Eve is one of the few occassions when it’s appropriate for a New York person to respond to a random and pointless inquiry and actually carry out a conversation that lasts over 5 seconds.

Haven’t updated my blog in a while so here’s a half-assed quick round-up of interesting things that happened.  Gotta do this before 2010 hits!

On Nov 14, Hong took me ice skating for the very first time.  It was supposedly disappointing that I didn’t fall on my ass.

On Nov 21, I participated in my first Chinese Harp recital.  I messed up my song terribly but at least I can now say I’ve done a music recital.

Thanksgiving was spent at Dennis’s house with a subset of our large family network.  Not sure why Ariel and CS weren’t in this picture.

The first turduken I’ve tasted.  There were a lot of firsts this November.

Hong and I also (for the first time) learned to play mah jong.  It was sort of like deeds done for senior appreciation day as we appeared so dumb and slow next to Grandma and Anita’s dad.

We watched two awesome movies - Jim Carey’s Christmas Carol and James Cameron’s Avatar.  The similarity that they share is the amazing blend of computer graphics with actual film.  It was hard not to think that they drew Jim Carey by hand and captured those blue people on film.

On Dec 19, the East Coast had a blizzard supposedly most severe since 1996.  I assume that means the biggest snow I have ever seen in my life.  Shoveling driveways sure brought back memories.

Christmas was spent with Hong’s family.  Here’s a group picture after the fun-filled gift exchange session:

On my birthday, a bunch of coworkers took me out to a very nice lunch.   Here’s the cake that Lauren got me:

After work today, I went with a bunch of coworkers to see Yankees play the Blue Jays.  This was the first baseball game, also the first sporting event since graduating from Tech, that I have been to.  Well, I figured that as I start my fifth year being a New Yorker, this was sort of a necessary experience.

Prior to this, all my knowledge surrounding baseball came from the Mitsuru Adachi comic books, and all I knew about the Yankees was that the entire island of Taiwan raves about Chien-Ming Wang.  As a result, I didn’t know any of the terms in English and couldn’t name any of the top stars.  Then I learned some tonight.

The new Yankees Stadium:

The game:

The remaining gang after 10pm:

So the Yankees got their ass kicked 10-4, so I declared myself a Blue Jays fan and celebrated the victory.

We did it.  The pre-wedding glamour photoshoot.  Exactly 10 months before our wedding.  In the one and only Central Park of the world.

It was surprisingly an awesome experience.  The weather was gorgeous - sunny, with just enough fluffy clouds, and not at all hot.  The photographer and makeup artist were both pleasant and professional.  Everything went smoothly, clothes fit, prep time was shorter than expected, and we spent more time taking pictures.  The only downfall was that we had to pay a lot of expected hidden costs and dropped handful after handful of cash.  Even at four-digit price tags, everybody demanded cold cash!

It was fun taking bridal pictures in Central Park, with hundreds of locals and tourists watching us climbing rocks, lying on grass, making funny poses, etc.  Tons of random people took pictures of us, some asking for permission (to which our photographers always said “sure - five dollars”) and others secretly snatched shots.  Many also said congrats and other comments (”your dress is beautiful”, “now you guys can have kids”).  We’re unlikely to get this much attention ever again, even on the wedding day (since it won’t be in wide-open public).

Proofs will supposedly be ready in two weeks.  Can’t wait to see them.

Uncle called and said, “Sean’s visiting New York.  You still remember him, right?”

“Of course,” I said.  But the caveat was, if he still looked like what I remembered, I’d be pretty concerned.  It had been a while.

It was great to meet up again.  Kind of like making a new friend, kind of not.

This is the 11th Chinese New Year since we moved to the States.  I realized that the more I grow up, the more it strikes me as a saddening holiday.  Perhaps it’s because I’m in New York?  Back in Virginia, sometimes it was hard to remember there were any cultures outside the White/Christian norm; but in NYC the big melting pot, it’s a lot easier to be reminded of my own roots - and everybody else’s.  And the fact that not everyone’s is equal.

Half of New York stays home on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Hanukkah.  The consultants are out of pocket, the jewelers put away their diamonds, and the Kosher restaurants stop serving food.  On top of that people respect the Jewish population to take 52 half Fridays off every year to observe the Sabbath.  The Chinese?  We work.  We work as if we forgot to check the calendar.  We don’t take the day off to celebrate because our moms and dads and friends all have to go to work, too.  People don’t expect you to celebrate until the following Sunday.  Those who cut school or work are lazy asses.  We despise them.

Last month, an article on New York Times discussed how the Jewish dine at Chinese restaurants over Christmas - because we are the two largest minority groups who don’t celebrate Christmas.  We have no urge to spend the time home with family, so we eat out or keep the business running.  Guess what?  Chinese restaurants open also on Chinese New Year (and the following Sunday)!

When Rockefeller Center lights its Christmas tree, my commute home becomes a nightmare.  When Catholic schools and military units take St. Patrick’s Day off to parade on 5th Avenue, it becomes impossible to grab lunch around my office.  People who drink on Cinco de Mayo and dress up on Halloween also celebrate the right holiday on the right holiday.  They don’t care about screwing over other people’s regular work day - and we Chinese work work work according to everyone else’s schedule.  We want to be team players.  We want to look good.  We want to make money.  And somehow our very own culture goes to the bottom of the priority list, and we gather for a meal on Sunday if everyone else is free.

But Chinese New Year is supposed to be about family!  Clean the house before the Eve, gather for a big family meal around the stove, play games all night waiting for the New Year to come, give and receive red envelopes, eat more big family meals, run around the streets while the businesses closed for at least 3-5 days…

And what did I do on the Eve?  Last year I ate pizza by myself in a foreign town, on a business trip.  This year I feasted on Cheetos while trying to fix the RAM in my computer, and trying to call my parents for four hours without success.

And what did I do on New Year’s Day?  Last year I interviewed 14 students who drained my energy and voice like nothing else.  This year I put on my red shirt, rode on the crappy morning Subway, had conference calls all day, pissed off a senior colleague, and had dinner with coworkers before returning to my desk for more late-night work.  So exciting and festive.

I miss the sound of firecrackers at midnight and the cheesy happy new year songs from the TV.  I miss the smell of red envelopes and the plates of hot food on a big round table.  I miss the sight of empty streets and the burden of saying silly lucky words.  Chinese New Year sucks without them.  It sucks when nobody, not even myself, is doing anything about it.