Hard to say, too hard to say

Late night is when people are most vulnerable, mentally.

Life is a bitch, it strikes at the most unexpected moment. I feel weak just when I need to be strong. Just read Milk Bottle's latest post, and felt the same. Although I don't want to pass my time in unconsciousness; one thing is certain, we will survive, we will thrive.

The senseless ramble surely expresses something, something I don't know how to say yet.

Friday

Another Friday, another weekend; this one is a long one. High temperatures will drop to a little above freezing point, which has precluded the possibility of hiking. Last night when I checked the weather at Adirondack NY for this weekend, I saw -9F as lows, friggin hell. If I could find some company, I probably wouldn't mind being frozen dead in the mountain though.

The gang has been active for as many weekends as my wife's been away. The Eastcoast Gang (TEG) is the largest gang from my college class, so even some hermetic member keeps being absent, there's still a large enough congregation that can only fit in a cargo van.

Life with TEG is hectic, exhausting and fun; although the fun factor has dwindled a little bit when the cold weather has kept us indoors with card/video games for many weekends. When the gang is not in session, I would just make do myself, like today.

It is pretty windy today. As while I'm typing now on a train, I start to worry a little bit about the walk after this ride. It's a 25 min walk from the station to my home, not too far, just enough for me to stretch my crooked bones from sitting all day long when weather is good; it is a different story on rainy/snowy/windy days though. It seems today is still not too bad, I probably will still enjoy this blow. It would be too boring if you have sunshine every day.

I still have some fresh vegetables and frozen shrimps from last weekend in the fridge, will enjoy my cooking again, with a beer. Within maybe 2 hours, I'll be a complete and happy man.

Oh, one thing worth mentioning is that this blog just received the first several comments, among which there is an obscene one by Six Crawl; but I published it anyway as I'm a pretty tolerant person 8-)

P.S.
The wind was not strong in here, so the walk home was ok. Did not have beer, ate too much, no space for beer any more.

Dream Big

A couple of days ago I attended a talk with an astronaut, Mike Mullane. Dream Big was what he signed in my copy of his book.

"Many people never know what he's capable of all his life."

That's quite a statement, but I believe it true. Just like what I wrote in a previous piece, most people are carefully calculating risks vs gains on everything. Under such circumstances, who could give it all out for a "very risky" item? Well, maybe it'll be much easier for single orphans. I don't know.

I really don't know. Maybe I am too conservative on everything, which makes me sad.

Anniversary

First anniversary without wife aside, quite a different experience.

Being quite busy, haven't posted anything here for many days. Today I have to as this is a special special day. I don't want to confess what I'm busy with though.

V-Day

It's Valentine's Day.

Rose price near the office: $3 for single rose, $8 for 3.

Wife has more or less of decided to come back on March 18, so I've got a solid 1 month ahead of me.

3 Weeks and Counting

It's already Valentine's Day in China. As both my short-term and long-term memory are quite poor, I have to keep reminding myself about this day, so that my wife wouldn't be mad at me. Well, consider this a small cost for the life with a companion.

Life as a single man is not bad; I've got plenty of interesting things to do, while still don't feel too much of lonelyness. With 3 meals covered by the company on weekdays, I can enjoy cooking some meals or just shamelessly crash into Pangza's home to keep myself from starving. However, imagining living the whole life like this is scary, me coward don't have the gut to try that out.

This reminds me of Robert Kincaid in The Bridges of Madison County. Such a seemingly fulfilling life, as a National Geographic photographer, could not stop him from burning himself into ashes in the heated emotions. Maybe it's always this way, seemingly beautiful stuff is the hardest on the bearer.

Wife has been in China for more than 3 weeks. She told her buddy here that she doesn't want to come back. I am also not so eager to get out of this life either. When time flies, you're enjoying. These 3 weeks did just zip through for both my wife and I; sadly it seems I have achieved nothing except this blog, which is not an achievement after all; all the ambitions have lapsed, or vanished. Anyway, it is still an enjoyable experience.

Snow Day

It turned out to be the heaviest snow recorded in NYC. I originally thought about getting a bunch of people to Valley Forge on Saturday, so that we could have a pretty good snow fight on Sunday; unfortunately, some people were too scared to travel in snow, some were so deep in sleep that could not be waken up by the mere cell phone ringtone, yet some others were too sick to even be considered an active fighting force.

As the war plan was called off, we headed to New Port, figured maybe this time we could have a healthier weekend as it seems every one had realized endless card games were not so fun at all; the hope was shattered ruthlessly by reality in the end.

The highlight was still the snow. The drive to the hotel on Saturday night was already spicy enough; the drive to Pangza's home the next morning was even more fun. Although my car was almost completely submerged under the snow, I was still able to drive it around. The car pushed through the snow, just like a boat cutting over the open water. Needless to say there were quite some cars stuck in the knee deep snow along the way, frustrated, trying to roar through the hopeless white.

The drive to home was ok. Turnpike was already clean enough for us to cruise at normal speed; Local roads were in pretty bad shape though, even RT-27 was covered with a hard shell of ice. Driving on the curvy tracks were like slow-motion rally racing, you get all kinds of turns, skids, swings, bumps; yet you don't have to pay for the race track. Next time I should just find a parking lot and try out some stunts. After all this is a risk-free opportunity to try out those things, plus it's much less demanding on the car than the real tracks.

Today I Cooked A Meal

In fact, this is the first complete meal I have cooked ever since my wife is away. It's been 3 solid weeks, and every week it was endless party, thanks to my dearest friends around here. Even today, Six Crawl invited me for dinner as well; thinking that's a bit too much leeching for that young couple, I gratefully said no :)

Cooking is quite fun, and my cooking skill is pretty much ok, as long as I'm willing to spend the time. I can't make very delicious dishes, but I happen to enjoy the taste I can make. Lucky me. Wife sometimes wonders how come I rarely cook, but still can get the taste roughly right, even for those dishes that I've never tried. For most dishes, that actually is not too hard; just decompose the taste and try to paint it back with whatever ingredients you have access to. Well, enough for the boasting, time to get some sleep.

Snow is on the way!!!

Finally, this weekend, a blizzard of possibly 12.2 inches of snow. What better can life give me? And a possibility of thunder snow, which I have never seen in my life. This is truely the weekend of gift, Yahoo!

Risk Management?

Before leaving office, I took a small Sam Adams. The good stuff unlocked my stiff mind almost immediately, put my thoughts gliding freely in a borderless darkness. Suddenly I felt all excited and eager to do stupid stuff, like what I saw in the Top Gear clip last night.

Jeremy, the host, raced up and down a mountain in an Audi RS4 with 414 BHP, against Leo who climbed on the cliff bare handed, well, almost. Jeremy lost miserably.

Uphill was shockingly fast for Leo; it took him 1 hr 57 min, fast enough to beat the RS4; going downhill, both parties tried to make best use of gravity. Jeremy didn't have to push hard on the gas, while Leo jumped off the cliff like a bird. That would be the most beautiful 3 seconds of the clip, until a chute came out of his back. "1200 feet in 20 seconds. Beat that Clarkson!"

For a moment, I wished I were Leo.

For many years, I admired such a life, doing irrationally stupid things, constantly puttying yourself on the edge, and risking the precious life; but, is "stupid" the right adjective? Speed and courage are what men craves, no matter how pointless the action itself looks in others' eyes. The motto should be "I come, I see, I conquered"; no asking for what, at what price; those questions are stupid.

However, the calculative reality slowly wears off men's edges, risks are calculated and managed, projects are tagged with feasibility researches, dreams are dead. If things were so calculative, I wonder how the Colossal, or Alexandar's Library, or the numerous wonders, could ever be made into reality. Unfortunately, we are living in an era where risks are managed; fortunately, we, as human being, still have one nation that is never afraid of dreaming.

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5252945100827089880, check out from minute 11:00.

On Sleep

Sleep is a bloody greedy insatiable monster. The more time you give to it, the more it craves for. Irritated and refusing to give it any more? You'll be the one that's crushed. Sometimes it might feel good to be a small-brained and sleepless shark.

Lovely Hearts

Valentine's day is around the corner, and Google has also joined the chorus.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=valentines&btnG=Google+Search

Enjoy!

Sad Story ---- from Diary

Here is one story from my diary. This incident gave me quite a shock at that time, and I thought I would remember it for quite a long time. It turned out it didn't last that long. Good that I put that into ink, so now I could be shocked again, for good.

The story was about a mid-aged guy, and the time was quite late after dark. There was no record of what I was doing that late outside that day; given around that period I usually didn't do much meaningful stuff after work, it was quite possible that I just finished a nice dinner with friends in a restaurant, or came out of a kara okay bar, or something of the same sort. As I wasn't spoiled enough to take a taxi home yet, I had the chance to experience this at the bus stop.

It actually wasn't a hectic story; everything happened pretty much quitely. This guy, a little bit dilapidated, mid-aged, was selling newspaper. It was a cold night, so there weren't many people around; for those around, they all hustled towards a warmer place, like home. Suddenly that guy started sobbing, for one obvious reason ---- there was still a pretty big pile of newspapers in front of him. That didn't last long, before he wiped off the tears and started yelling for sales again.

Although I babbled quite a lot about what I thought and what I felt and what I guessed in my diary, I'm not going to put it here. After so many years, those are all irrelevant. All I know is I still feel a heart wrenching guilt for not having helped him while I definitely could. Althought most likely that guy overcame the hardship he experienced that night (or I would rather believe so), and probably has already forgotten what happened what happened, it still cannot acquit me.

While less than 10% of the world's population is enjoying a pretty excessive life, more than 50% are experiencing the other extreme. I don't know how to help because I feel like a coward. My wife and I once talked about experiencing some places where people are extremely deprived of the basic necessities of life, and then we flinched at the thought that we would end up giving up all what we have to help; there simply is no way to be rational under such circumstances. Maybe that's why we all bear sins, whoever has the luxury to go to a church or read the bible all bear sins for not being able to help enough.

After I wrote up the above piece simply based on my impression, I checked for some facts, and it is astonishing; over 2.8 billion people are living on under $2 a day; it's pretty sure most of them are living on even much less than that, if the distribution is really like a triangle.

Pangza's Anniversary

Three years ago on this day, Pangza was married; and so did Sister Three (a.k.a. Six Crawl). Sounds much of a coincidence, unless it was not. (For the record, it was 2/4/2003)

Today the couple wanted to have a romantic dinner, without Max around. Was a dinner enough? No fruits? They did spend more than 3 hrs on fruits and kept us waiting for that long before the big day. With such an obsessiveness for fruits, it's amazing to see them returning in 2 hrs, straight from dinner and no leeway whatsoever.

The night after dinner was pretty much eventless. The big gang gathered in front of a 17" monitor and watched a movie, after which a subtle atmosphere of amour inevitably grew in the room ...

Music Night

While I'm alone, I start to try something new. Wife is pretty skittish about sounds when sleeping, whereas I am not. Therefore, I start to put music on throughout the night, although weekends only.

That is a gorgeous experience.

There is a long play list for this, and all tracks are classic music. My favorite musical instrument being classical guitar, music in that is dominant, followed by violin and cello. Pop or country music cannot get into this list, as they don't feel as fluent most of the time, and I don't want to be suddenly waken up by the drummer's impromptu. After several nights' fine tuning (not much), this list is just the right recipe to sooth me into a hypnotized state, and to gently pull me back to reality in the morning with the perfect touch of harmony. The only sadness is that I never have the chance to get the taste of tracks in the middle hours, unless I get up for the bathroom trip which I rarely rarely do.

I remember the years when I had the radio on for the whole long nights from time to time. I'm not sure what the music did or does to my sleep; but in those timeless tunes, my thoughts could just wander into any borderless ecstacy. Finding this neverland again is like getting into touch with a long lost friend, so familiar yet much more to explore.

Top Gear

Top Gear is a talk program about cars, and it's made in Britain.

The special recipe of it is hard to describe. It is a weird but nice mix of passion, chanting of esthetics, and admiration of fine human engineering; of course a pinch of British humour is also indelible. The guys are passionate, not only about cars, but about anything that eminates beauty. Unforntunately, only several clips and full episodes can be found in Google Video, and none of them are among my favorites.

One of the most astounding machine is the Bugatti Veyron built by Volkswagen. To many people's surprise, Volkswagen actually owns quite some exotic brands like Audi, and Lamborghini; in 1998 Volkswagen bought the right to make cars under the famous Bugatti name. The result is a magic machine that packs as much as 1000 brake horsepower into an astounding looking car: Bugatti Veyron, TWO V8's, 4 Superchargers, 1000 BHP, 0-60 in 2.5 sec, and top speed limited at 252 mph. To put it in perspective, for most cars, making 0-60 in 6 sec would be a pretty good mark already. This is by far the most powerful car, and probably one with the highest price tag: $1.7M when I last checked. Now what's the use of such a car? None in quotidial errands.

However, it's not the blind touting of power and price tags that amazes; it's the proud we feel as a human being that such a magnificant machine could ever be made, and some one would commit all the humongous resources that is required. To be fair, how many people would purchase such a car? And in fact, words are spread that Volkswagen made this car just to showcase the capability of it, and they do lose money on every single Bugatti they sell; and I would rather believe it.

Another fine example is an episode in which the three hosts each drove a super car to le viaduc de Millau, the Millau bridge (slightly boring version), in southern France. Why?

Supercars aren't just glorious poster material for kids' bedroom walls. They are a prime example of man's superiority over animals. Our ability to construct objects of awesome power and exquisite design is what drives us, what inspires us, what constantly says to the dolphin: 'you may be pretty clever, but where are your opposable thumbs, smart arse?'

Our celebration takes us through France until we reach another example of mankind creating splendour just for the sake of it - the epic Millau Bridge.

Such a bridge could only be born in a nation that never skimp on esthetics; and such appreciation of engineering could never be felt by Honda drivers.

• One fine clip available on google video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6250016339336225105
• It's just road, seat, us, the end.

Diary - Part Deux

Finally finished reading my diary book late last night; it was boring. Obviously wife had read it all (I never hid it from her), and she added the final piece in it long after I gave up the habbit. Just thinking of the fact that wife had gone through every word in there is a little bit scary, there just are quite some private thoughts that should not have been shared with anybody; and I assume that should be the case with most diary keepers.

Then what is a diary for? If the written record is not to share thoughts, is it only for his or her own consumption at a later time? Or for a memoir? Most people won't have much use of it for sure. Probably keeping a diary just shows the eagerness to be understood and to express oneself, with a conflicting fear of exposing too much of the deepest thoughts; pretty much the same case as when weighing the writing of a love letter, or a confession. In this blog, I do carefully measure what I would like others to see, and what I would rather hide from public eyes. Do I really have much to hide? Probably not. Do people really care much about my little clean or dirty secrets? Maybe. Anyway, the torture of this telling/no-telling has been one of the most powerful driving forces of the finest arts.

Body Weight

As this data tend to get lost as time goes by, I'm also recording it here. As of today, my weight is 62 kg.

Cross Continent Trip

The other day Gang of East Coast was planning a cross continent trip. As much as I know that this group does more talk than action, I still hold some hopes. The basic plan would be flying to the west coast, and rent a car to drive back, on which we are going to spend 2 weeks.

Cross continent trips always remind me of Forrest Gump, the dumb headed guy who ran back and forth, and crossed the country 3 times (or more?). When the open road extends in front of you, the temptation of immersing in is irresistible. Once is not enough. I don't know which trip I would prefer better ---- travelling a lonely soul or be with a big gang; both must be treasurable; let alone there are so many different routes leading to different worlds.

Diary

I sleep pretty late these days, for the enjoyment of a little bit freedom with wife away. It seems time never enough, and every night I end up jumping from fun to fun.

Last night, after a shower, I went to bed, but didn't sleep right away. Instead, I pulled out the last diary I kept; that is the only one we brought here. It started from Nov, 1999, when I just started working, met my wife, prepared for graduate school entrance exam (which was a failed attempt), and enjoyed as well as hated the life as a bachelor.

Most of the pieces are just sporadic records of my daily life, dotted by some not-so-sparkling thoughts. Reflecting the life then, I was amazed. It seemed I had more than enough time to take care of everything; hanging out with friends, playing badminton, swimming, going to movies, jogging nightly, having hot pot, singing kara okay; and all these happen almost on a weekly or monthly basis. Even so, I could still stay in the office for much more than 8 hrs a day. Maybe this was just illusion, caused by reading too many pages in one night. However, one thing is certain ---- life is getting more and more monotonous. Friends cluster into families, seeking opportunities around the globe, no longer share the ups and downs together; movie going becomes more of a purpose rather than an excuse for gathering; when the party is over, one thing called maturity settles in.

In memory of the days when Sun Bin, Lao Fang, Wang Kun, Zhang Jialu, Xu Jing were all regular member of the gang.

We rarely shed tears, that doesn't mean we're any less moved.