Fleeting Thoughts

Midwestern Values: A trip to Madison, WI

2025-10-15T13:32:00.002-04:00

In a Michigan football hype video that is shown in the beginning of every home game, the late James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader and a Michigan alumnus) narrates some of the past history of what makes the University of Michigan the greatest university in the world (he verbatim says this!). Over blury black and white footage of Michigan playing football in those leather helmets, Jones declares that the University stands for "Midwestern Values".

I have often thought about what he is referring to here. Unlike other terms such as being a "Michigan Man" for instance, there is considerably more ambiguity and not much ink expounded on what exactly might constitute values espoused by the good people that abide in the states in the "midwestern" part of the country (itself a misnomer). I have lived a considerable amount of my adult life in the midwest, and did all of my higher education in the same. I got my B.A. in Grand Rapids, MI, at Calvin College, and eventually after a unintended gap year, eventually got my Masters in Architecture degree from the Greatest University in the World (see paragraph 1).

Having lived in Albany NY for sixteen years as well as the prior nine years in Brooklyn, NY, I perhaps have some distance and perspective in what Jones (and the writers of the hype video copy) may have been hinting at in this video.

Before I delve into this topic further, I will digress and mention this electronic "snitching" system in the City of Albany that I have recently discovered and subscribe to. It is not unique to Albany, and it is hosted by an app/website called "Clickfix". Citizens armed with this app or perhaps just a smart phone can upload photos of what they perceive to be dangerous or not desired conditions around the City and report it to the City for them to fix or otherwise address. There are daily numerous citizen reports of what they consider to be inadquate city street cleaning, for instance. What is particularly entertaining for me as an architect are the daily and numerous reports of people reporting "code violations" upon encountering noteworthy conditions amount buildings, such as stair cases, windows, HVAC systems, etc.

One particularly memorable Clickfix in recent weeks was an exasperated citizen who uploaded a photo of a mountain of trash left behind at a city park following what appears to have been a gender reveal party. There were of course balloons, tableclothes and other evidence of said gathering, as well as a plethora of soda/alcoholic beverages, cups, etc. What was noteworthy about this observation of trash and the subsequent request to the City of Albany to send tax payer workers to remove all this trash was that this was the marking of a baby coming soon to the presumably reside in Albany.

I offered up a public comment that this child would surely grow up learning the values from his/her parents that it was in fact perfectly normal and fine to leave behind trash upon concluding your business at a public venue, and other people owed you the courtesy of the clean up. Or perhaps they didn't even care whether anyone picked up the trash at all; they were done with their party and had Elvis had left the building. This additional human being soon to be added to the family will also surely do their part to spend their lives not only leaving behind trash everywhere they go, but as a natural extension, behave in ways that put their own (and only their own) interests in the forefront. This could include behavior such as blocking busy intersections, crossing busy pedestrian intersections against the red light, but also perhaps could include more egregious examples of blantantly selfish behavior that rises past the annoying to the public and in to the terrirtory of genuinely harmful.

When we landed in Madison, WI fairly late in the day, we were surprised by the level of activity in the airport. The airport was not much bigger in feel than Albany, which feels like a deserted mall afterhours: you see tired and quiet travelers slowly making their way towards ground transportation in silence, and you see airport workers riding along waxing the shiny terrazo floors, etc. But instead, that night in Wisconsin, we saw multiple tables set up everywhere with uniformed people buzzing about, we saw boy scouts with flags, and a platoon of perhaps middle school age cheerleaders with pom poms excitedly running about. We later learned as we were waiting to check out our rental car that the festivities were in anticipation of the return of some veterans from the area that had traveled to Washington, D.C. on some sort of official event. The entire passenger arrival area was buzzing with people, and we later heard the crowd erupt with clapping and cheering for presumably when the veterans arrived and made their appearance.

We eventually procured our rental car (a severly underpowered Mitsubishi that one would encounter only at rental car agencies; I can't imagine anyone actually test driving this car and exclaiming "this is the car for me!").

The next day, we attended an official walking tour with the University of Wisconsin. It kicked off with everyone gathered in a large auditorium. The admissions person gave a presentation with a lengthy slide deck. One image in particular caught my idea. There was multiple mentions of the Wisconsin Idea. The gyst of it seemed to emphasize service and volunteerism in your community.

At Calvin College, where I did my undergraduate studies, there was something called the Service Learning Center (SLC). This is where you went to find volunteer opportunities, and they also helped log all of your volunteer hours. My volunteer activities at Calvin were pretty light, and I did not see the benefit of having the SLC log my hours.

Are volunteering, selfless pursuits, community service more explicitly pursued in the Midwest? Are these ideas germaine to the inhabitants of states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and the like? Are there similar things here in Upstate New York that I am unable to see simply because I live here? Am I being too cynical in daily noticing the residents in the City of Albany who will double park in bike lanes, throw their fast food trash out of car windows, and generally behave like the needs and safety of their fellow residents are far less imporant than their own?

I would like to think that this is not the case, and I will both try to embody and live these supposedly "midwestern" values here in my community in Albany. It is too easy to shake my head, cluck my tongue and judgingly observe the decidely unneighborly behaviors in Albany daily, and further withdraw into my echo chamber in my head while longing to eventually move away to greener pastures. No one loves a cynic and it's in the end not good for your soul to live life that way. I would like to hold on to and exemplify a more optimistic outlook, one that believes that one can in some incremental way improve one's neighborhood by serving the community in some small way daily.

Walking in Troy

2023-05-15T13:02:00.009-04:00

I drove to Troy to pick up Yuna from her new gig working as a server at Sunhee's Farm and Kitchen. I got there early and parked the car and walked around the block. It was Cinco de Mayo, and kitty-corner from the restaurant, the Mexican taco place had set up an impromptu seating area in their parking lot. There was a DJ playing Latin music, and a booth serving tacos outdoors, and lots of guests enjoyed the beautiful May weather and the festive atmosphere.

There wasn't enough time for me to sit and eat anything or to order a drink. So I just wandered into the parking lot to soak in the atmosphere on the cheap. I could see many local Troy residents attracted by the music making their way over to the restaurant to enjoy the offerings.

I live in a suburb. It is a dense suburb, where from my living room, I can just about look into the houses from my neighbors on either side if the angle is just right. The lots in my town are measured in SF, not acres. So it is a small/dense suburb. But it is still a suburb. There are no stoops for people to sit in front, to have a coffee or a glass of wine after dinner. There are just a handful of places you can walk to: a coffee shop, a deli, and a couple of pizza places. Most of the people walking around in my town will not happen on any chance encounters. You may run into your friend/neighbor out for a walk, or running, perhaps.

There is much value in chance encounters. It enriches your life by offering unplanned, real-time simulations. Maybe you were on your way to the grocery store and chance upon a new great restaurant. Maybe you work in a certain department in your university or laboratory, and you bump into someone with whom you share no common areas of interest or research, and the conversation opens up new avenues of thought or exploration. Or maybe you just make a new friend or acquaintance from a different walk of life, someone you don't work with or live near. All of these random variables exist in an urban environment that is less common in suburbs or rural areas.

I am attracted to the unplanned, the random offerings served up in real-time, and the sudden twists and turns that come up. I feel comfortable changing gears mid-walk and find that it is exciting in a way that the predictable, limited variables lifestyle offered up by the suburbs. Living in a free-standing house in a suburb, it is possible to get into your car from your office garage and drive home into your house garage, and not set foot outside anywhere in the public domain. And what chance encounters would your life offer in such a hard dualistic existence, between work and home? It is those minutes walking on city streets that open the door to hopefully pleasant opportunities to step outside the planned daily patterns of life, and I crave such unsolicited stimuli.

Cheap Thrills: Plant-napping

2022-03-29T08:55:00.005-04:00

There is a co-worker that in my opinion neglects his plants. In fairness, the past two years has been a mix of remote work, and perhaps for that reason, he is very rarely physically in the office. He has come in a handful of times the past year at best. He has plants that are clearly crowding their pot. They are also starting to dry up from neglect.

I have a plan to covertly plant-nap them and take them home on a weekend, and free up a plant or two into smaller pots, before returning the larger pot back to his desk the next week. In my mind, this is akin to relieving a negligent dog owner of the privilege to own a dog. Will he even notice? Seems unlikely.

I imagine this is like the thrill of breaking the law in some small, mostly harmless way. The thrill of shoplifting, perhaps? I have not engaged in shoplifting myself, although I have declined to correct the cashier when they forgot to ring up an item or two in my cart. There have also been times when I forgot to ring up items that were at the bottom of my cart. And while the value of those ill-gotten items was very small, it was still a thrill to take them home thinking that I did not pay for it, and I broke the law (unknowingly, with an assist from the cashier).

A middle-aged white-collar professional living a stable life in a firmly middle-class suburb. That's me. This may be as close as I come to the adrenaline rush of an outlaw life; taking a sapling from a crowded, neglected pot from a coworker without his permision. We all gotta get our thrills somewhere.

What turns me on [architecturally?]

2021-05-26T09:10:00.003-04:00

Mid Century Houses

Why?

For me, they are always rooted in California. Maybe LA. And I like California.

Can you build them somewhere else?

I suppose there is nothing about their shape that would make them unsuitable in harsher climates. Maybe no more partially enclosed carports.

Would they be "authentic"?

Well, it's clearly not midcentury anymore. But we build in styles from bygone eras all the time. Or you could argue that modernistic architecture has done away with the idea of "eras" altogether, and we are in a post-style era. Which of course could be itself an era.

What about them?

I like their roofs. They are not extrusions or manipulations of the mass of the body of the house. Rather, they are thin, often starting to tilt away/beyond the house proper. They peel away and create clerestory windows. They extend and become carports, canopies, etc. They have a life of their own and they are not afraid to assert themselves.

Do I want to build one for myself?

I think it'd be fun.

COVID and self reflection

2021-05-26T09:05:00.000-04:00

When I was in my first year of architecture at Michigan, one of our studio design projects was to design a firehouse. The class took a field trip to tour a local fire department to talk to the firefighters and familiarize ourselves with the way a fire department works.

I still remember the chief of the department telling us that when we "grow up" and perhaps design a fire department in the future, we should always make sure the fire department is two stories and includes a fireman's pole. He said that when boys are young, they all dream of being a firefighter, but most eventually grow out of that dream and move onto something more "sensible". HE said the boys who actually do become firefighters are boys who never gave up their childhood dreams, and as such, the romance (my word, not his) of the fireman's pole is an important part of the job.

I have had the occasion to tour fire departments subsequently, and I believe for liability and safety reasons, fireman's poles are not commonly used any more. And a firefighter twisting his ankle from an awkward landing while responding to an emergency may create additional problems.

I still remember this story because I think being an architect is somewhat analogous to being a firefighter. True, only one of these jobs saves lives and is often referred to as "heroes". But many children dream of being an architect when they're young, only to move on to more sensible professions as they grow up. Architects too like firefighters, are boys (and girls) who held onto their childhood dreams as they they grew up. And likewise, I believe that the romance of the profession is also important to architects.

Benefits of believing in eternal life

2020-01-07T15:54:00.001-05:00

One of the benefits of believing in eternal life must be that when one is confronted (or perhaps in a position to appreciate) with a truly poignant moment, you can simply enjoy the moment for what it is, knowing there will be a never ending supply of such moments to come. The alternative is to be cognizant of the diminishing opportunities to enjoy such happiness and joy, as one progresses in an inevitable journey to a terminal and final end.

When we all fall asleep, where do we go?

2019-06-17T14:48:00.001-04:00

Last night, Emma was sleeping in my bed due to Yayoi being out. All of the sudden, she turned to me and said "I'm said, because when I get old, you'll get old and die. Then I won't have a parent".

It's hard to know how to comfort a child when they realize that you won't be with them forever. I could feed them some sort of standard Christian response, such as "we'll be together in heaven". But I don't believe that, and I doubt that Emma would either. It is a well intentioned, but tremendously unsatisfactory answer.

I could say "we'll have many good years together". But that doesn't address the essence of the qustion/obervation: That our years will, eventually run out.

When Pandora opened the jar, many evils/pain/suffering escaped out into the world. She replaced the top just in time to prevent the last item from escaping: the knowledge of how we will die. This is, indeed a tremendous evil and suffering. I believe, if people knew this, it would be truly sad and depressing, and would not allow us to enjoy the precious time we do have on this earth.

When looking at retirement calculators, the fundamental question is: When will we die? Obviously, if we knew this answer, it would be a simple matter to know how much money one will need in retirement, and subsequently, how to draw that money down. Draw it down too quickly, and you'll outlive your nest egg, and be desolate in your old age. Draw it down too slowly, and you'll have unnecessarily perhaps, sacrificed quality of life/experiences that you could have safely partaken. Of course, the comfort is that the nest egg will be left to your heirs. But is this in and of itself a satisfactory and comforting thought? Or is it far more desirable to be around our loved ones, and see them enjoy the inheritance, and see how it would change their lives? To pursue their passions without worrying about how to make a livelihood? To make life decisions without the constraints of the perhaps mundane but necessary questions that drive most of our life decisions?

Dogs are very loving and they love you with a love that is purer than any that we will ever experience. They don't hold grudges, for not taking them to the dog park yesterday when the sun was shining. They don't nurse ill will for forgetting to feed them or cutting short their walk. They love you more than they love anything in this earth. And they enjoy each moment and day to the fullest.

They do this because they are not aware of their own impending death. They are blissfully not aware that they may experience deteriorating health as they get older. Or that their days enjoying life with their beloved owners will one day come to a final and non-negotiable end. They are happy and in the moment because they live without this knowledge.

What if we could also live this way? How would we do that? By being at peace with one's own death? By accepting that our days with our beloved family and friends will one day come to a terminal end, and being 100% OK with that?

Vampires

2019-06-03T15:29:00.000-04:00

Is it a blessing or a curse to live forever? To die is to end relationships. With spouses, friends, children, parents. This is sad. It's not sad for the person who is dying, because they will not experience the loss, except as a feeling of anticipation. But it is undeniably sad for those that are left behind.

But if you could live forever, would that be the answer? I think no, unless everyone lives forever along with you. If you were the only one living forever, it would seem like more of a curse than a blessing. You will continuouly repeatedly experience loss, as those around you live a lifetime and die, leaving you with a void in your life.

Then, what is the answer? To live oblivious that our relationship will come to an end? This is easier when you are young. Children, or teenagers, or even young adults live blissfully unaware of the passage of time, or the finiteness of our existence. But as we inevitably get older, and our bodies slow down and fail, giving us a unavoidable reminder that our bodies have an expiration date.

What about the concept of a soul? That will live on forever? It is cold comfort for me to say that we will live on forever in some form of existence that is so radically different from our current one that it is impossible to fathom or imagine. To be told that our existence will continue in some shape or form is cold comfort. How can we be happy about or even begin to understand such a radically different way to exist?

So what is the answer? Some sort of vague notion that we'll continue an existence akin to our current one, but in "heaven"? This is so problematic that it is hard to even begin to unpack the many ways it is unsatisfactory.

I think of art as maybe an answer. It gives us soothes our minds for a fleeting moment. It takes us away from the heavy burden of a person who is aware of our impending terminal end, and gives us pleasure. This can be art as in visual art, or more often that not, music or performance art.

Do drug users manage to experience the same escape, through the injection of chemicals in their body? Perhaps, but it seems contradictory at best since the very act of consuming drugs quickly destroys all good things about their life, and shortly thereafter, brings about an ignoble end.

With many millenia of human existence, there is more beauty and art that mankind has produced at this point than can be consumed in a life time. Just as in the age of Netflix and other internet streaming, there are far more content than can be consumed by a person. It is all we can do to simply enjoy and digest the beauty that the people that have lived before us have produced. Bethoven. The great works of architecture. The commulative, layered beauty of the architecture and culture of ancient cities. Works of great literature. Dostoevsky. This all gives us solace and comfort in an otherwise unbearably depressing mortal existence.

Ping's Visit

2018-11-13T15:38:00.002-05:00

Ping visited for the day yesterday. Officially, the order of business was to visit our last building that we still own to brainstorm strategy. We closed on the sale of our second building last week. He arrived by bus, and I worked the morning.

We spent some time visiting my newest acquisition. Then we walked up the block to visit our co-owned building. We raked leaves and cleared trash in the front, then raked leaves in the back lower roof as well as the upper roof. The lower roof of this building has several large trees that dump leaves on to the deck and roof every fall. It is a maintenance issue, as the leaves and branches clog the roof drain and result in a pool of water sitting on the roof (never a good idea).

After some physical labor (by our standards), we lunched at Rain, the Chinese place on Lark. We had dim sum. Then, we spent the rest of the afteroon and evening playing poker at Rivers Casino, in Schenctady. I ran into my old boss, who is retired and spends quite a bit of time in the poker room. We took a break from cards and got a drink together to catch up.

Card wise, I endured a long dry spell, but caught some decent cards towards the end and was up a pretty good amount by the end of the night. It was a long but fun day. The only down side was that I missed spending time with the family for dinner and evening. I didn't get home until quite late and the family was all in bed.

Showing a new unit

2018-11-11T18:40:00.002-05:00

I had a tenant move out a week ago, after a 7-year stay at our Delaware Avenue duplex. This family had moved in not long after we bought the house, and was the first and only tenant in this apartment. She had three children in the Bethlehem schools, and her youngest is still enrolled in the high school. But she had declined to renew her lease this fall, and after some minor turmoil, moved out on her own accord.

I have been doing a fair amount of renovations at the apartment. Initially, I was thinking of just a minor spiff up consisting of a thorough cleaning of the bathroom, and possibly some painting touchup. But as the work got underway, the renovation scope kept increasing to the point where I am now pretty much repainting the entire interior, replacing a porch door, replacing all the door hardware, reglazing the bathtub, installing new light fixtures all around, and a minor renovation of the bathroom consisting of a new recessed medicine cabinet and a new light. It will be not an insignificant expense, but I think that this will allow me to attract the kind of tenant I am hoping for in this next chapter.

November and December are slow months for looking for a tenant, and in the week and change that I've had this unit listed, I have only had a handful of inquiries. I am resigned to holding on this unit empty until the new year if it comes to that, and not settle for a less than ideal tenant. In the years I have gotten into the landlording business, I have learned that a good tenant is absolutely crucial for success, and in the long scheme of things, having a subpar tenant that is available now is not a good idea.

Today, I had a pretty promising showing. And I have another very promising prospective tenant scheduled for a viewing next Tuesday. If I can get a signed lease (and corresponding security deposit and first month rent) this year, then I will consider this a success even if the new lease doesn't start until January 2019. The money will help to defray the cost of the renovation, but more importantly, I will have a dependable source of cash flow for this asset for the future. I am keeping some Champagne on ice in anticipation.

Dinner with family

2016-06-03T01:19:00.002-04:00

Today we are past the halfway point in our stay in San Francisco. The seemingly endless transcontinental flight is a distant memory. Everyone is more than fully acclimated to Pacific Standard Time, the cloudless, perfect blue sky that characterizes "normal" weather in northern California.

Yayoi and I took all the girls, less Minjung to a city pool. Yuna and Juniper passed a "rigorous" swim test, consisting of three laps in the pool the short way, followed by a 1-minute treading session. the reward was a wristband awarding them privileges to access the deep portion of the pool. The primary attraction at this pool were two water slides. Yuna waited her turn in line to tumble down the twisting slide. Juniper is maybe slightly more cautious in her inclination compared to the speed loving daredevil tendencies of Yuna. But she did join Yuna on her second turn on the slide. Afterwards, we hit nearby Japantown for some crepes.

We initially had reservations at the Perennial, a new restaurant owned by Jiyoun and Simon's friends for dinner. But Jiyoun was still under the weather from an apparent stomach bug she picked up while we were visiting our friends in Pacific Grove, so we postponed the reservations and ate in.

Joining us for dinner at home was my aunt and uncle, in town for my cousin's wedding the previous week, but also for tonight, my grandfather and my uncle in San Jose was also visiting. I took on the task of preparing a meal for some fifteen people, plus a plethora of little people. I covered Jiyoun's kitchen with bacon grease as I embarked on an abbreviated version of David Chang's Chicken and Egg (oyako donburi).

I hadn't seen my grandfather in many years. I knew that he had moved in with my San Jose uncle (his eldest son) a few years ago. I was surprised that he didn't attend my cousin's wedding last week. It appeared that he was not so mobile and perhaps it was difficult logistically to attend the ceremony. He spent a long time in the bathroom, and left behind a soiled adult diaper, which my mom and aunt disposed of discretely.

My grandfather was apparently not in the mood to eat any dinner or cake, and spent the hours during dinner slumped on a couch, sleeping. He was oblivious to the energetic chaos of the little girls, his great granddaughters, playing around him the whole time. He declined to eat a thing, even dessert. Towards the end of the evening, he wanted to go home, but my uncle insisted we stay a bit longer so he could catch the ending of the NBA finals, game 1 (GSW VS CLE). My grandfather seemed to be expressing an interest in stopping by a yogurt place on the way back, but my uncle seemed to be saying that by the time they got back to San Jose, the place would be closed.

Seeing my grandfather and his state of health at the time of his youngest granddaughter's wedding made me project into the future to my own parents. Would they be healthy and able to attend Minjung's wedding? She is basically being raised by them in her early years. She is very attached to my mother and my father plays the part of the doting grandfather, basically unable to see her cry and rarely says no to anything.

We are in the process of buying a house in Delmar. We are very excited, and I was wondering is this our last house purchase? Would we retire here? It's sobering to think that maybe eventually, my own parents will need closer help, and would we want to consider relocating nearby to SF so we can be near them? Traditionally, the eldest son takes on the primary responsibility of caring for the parents in their old age. Certainly, my sister will have a great house for them to all cohabitate, as my brother in law has been laboring mightily to finish their dream house. But would their work hours and the demands of their own three children allow them to provide the care to my parents? How would I be able to afford the astronomical cost of living to be anywhere near them in SF? Currently, the real estate in SF is probably five to six times what it costs in Albany. It's hard to imagine a scenario where I could afford that.

Guerilla Gardening

2015-03-13T15:35:00.002-04:00

When we lived in Brooklyn, we owned a tiny, 600 SF 1-BR apartment in Park Slope, with no outdoor space save an emergency staircase. This was one of those hair raisingly horrifying, metal staircases attached to the exterior of the building. We were on the fourth floor. Our building had been renovated to introduce an interior staircase that would serve as our way out in an emergency, but this relic of the pre-renovation condition remained. This is a pretty common feature in much of the older brownstones in Brooklyn.

In the warmer months, I would take advantage of this tiny plot of space for plants and vegetables. This space wasn't much bigger than 6 SF, if that. But to a New Yorker deprived of any outdoor space to call his own, this was very precious space.

Living in Delmar, we obviously have a little more space. But we still do not have any indoor space to cultivate much in the way of plant life. With the imminent arrival of Spring, I have been incessantly dreaming of what vegetables to grow once the ground thaw in earnest and all the piles of old ice and snow finally melt away. Our house suffers from a dearth of space near the windowsills, and this has been a source of much angst and brain wracking for me in recent weeks.

My solution was to seek out some unused, unclaimed window in my office building and appropriate it for some starter beds. I work in a very large office building, and I just realized there is an adjacent bay that is completely empty of occupants. It has a huge window, and there are lots of boxes being stored there, awaiting archiving.

My plan is to set up my starter seeds on the window sill, securely tucked away behind those boxes and take advantage of the daylight afforded by the big windows. Unfortunately, the location only gets direct light in the mornings, as it is close to due east. But this is still a palatable and exciting solution for me, one I am eagerly looking forward to executing next week. Pics to follow.

A response to an article on NYT about Zingerman's: http://nyti.ms/1mUtTti

2014-07-07T11:06:00.000-04:00

Hey Harv,

Great article. Zingerman’s is an Ann Arbor institution, one of the first stops for any visitor to Ann Arbor. I went there many times during my years in Ann Arbor. And yeah, their prices are high but their quality is unparalleled and I feel good about giving my business to them (for many of the reasons the article explores in some depth).

In fact, the fireman that fought for my wallet and was instrumental in getting it back to me, I tracked down which fire house he works at and I sent him a Zingerman’s gift basket. The wallet only had like $40 in it, and the gift basket cost way more than that (like $70, with shipping), so it was a net loss to me in terms of cash. But obviously, this was not about the cash, but rather about a gesture to recognize an amazing act of selflessness in a world filled with opportunistic thieves and people all too ready to make advantage of other people’s misfortune.

I also thought about the values expressed by the founders of Zingerman’s in this article, and their approach to growing their business (rejecting the easy money of a cookie cutter franchise model, but staying true to their core values, even if it meant the foregoing of the chance to “cash out” for instant millions. The motivation to create something lasting and that has a positive impact on its employees and its neighborhood, well that’s very admirable and rare these days. Is the ultimate goal of business (or broadly, “work” to make money? Or is it to build something like Zingerman’s? Something that provides a sustainable and livable lives for its employees, creates a clearly superior product than its competitors, and is something that one can be proud of at the end of the day?

Awhile back, I sent you a Lifehacker post from the founder of Treehouse, and his awesome work routine and his business. You wondered whether that business will still be around in five years, with the dizzying change of pace in technology, whereas you knew with certainty that your old world business of owning investment real estate will most certainly still exist. I thought that this was an interesting comment because it only mattered what your ultimate goal of your work was. If your goal was to make a fortune, than the founder of Treehouse couldn’t care whether it ceased to exist next year; he will already have made millions, and will simply move onto the next startup. But if the goal is to build something that is lasting, or maybe even more ambitiously, that is lasting and also provides some “good” to its employees, users, and its neighbors (in a broad sense, whomever it may be), than Jonestree Properties may outperform Treehouse by those metrics.

Memento Mori (from an old blog entry)

2014-06-13T16:30:00.001-04:00

In preparation for our impending parenthood, Yayoi & I recently learned CPR. The class taught CPR for adults, but mainly focused on the procedure for infants. The class was filled with other couples, with the woman often with a bulging stomach revealing their motivation for being there.

During the class, we all leaned over our own rubber infants and vigorously blew into the tiny mouths and nostrils of our make-believe babies. The scenarios laid out by our instructor were unnerving for any future parent. While she assured us that the chances of us ever having to perform CPR on anyone, baby or otherwise were very slim indeed, it would undoubtedly be every parent’s worst nightmare.

Koreans have a saying which states that giving voice to a terrible thought will make that event more likely to come true. Literally, it may be translated “The utterance becomes the seed”. I also subscribe to this school of thought and make it a habit never to discuss even hypothetical scenarios too terrible to conceive. This is also why I find it extremely annoying when my non-Korean friends will casually suggest terrible hypothetical scenarios involving me in order to make a point.

This “see no evil” attitude towards dealing with mortality presents a conundrum for Koreans when trying to prepare for these unfortunate events. Purchasing life insurance, preparing a will and other steps which acknowledge the possibility or inevitability of evil visiting our lives make me very unhappy and nervous. With a baby about to join our family, I was forced to get over my culturally inherited apprehension of addressing our mortality.

I find that it becomes a more difficult pill to swallow as one’s identity grows to encompass other people. When I was younger, my own mortality did not bother me so much other than the sadness it would cause to my parents. But as I added a wife, and now a baby, my mortality became something to fear and curse because it meant that the remainder of my identity would suffer if I were to pass away.

Helicopter Parenting in the Modern Age: When is the responsibility of the parents to step in, VS pulling back? and other thoughts about being a coach/parent of a child/athlete

2014-05-20T10:22:00.001-04:00

Emma started soccer this spring. It is her first time playing soccer, after following Yuna to several seasons of soccer. Emma knows the drill. She has eaten oranges at half time, gets the team popsickles (an all important rite of soccer at this age), and has seen many practices and games. But this is the first year where she is herself playing, with her own cleats, shinguards, and a team shirt. I wasn’t sure how she’d do, as neither she nor Yuna has shown a particular affinity for sports thus far. Emma did far better than I expected. While she was not a star player, she seemed interested, following the action around the field, if not yet “getting in there” to mix it up with the five or six pairs of little four and five year old legs fighting for the ball. Emma is a lover, not a fighter, a very gentle soul.

There is a child on Emma’s team, a boy. From what I understand, he briefly attended Emma’s Montessori school, before there was a “mutual” understanding that it was not a good fit. But he remembers Emma. He is hyper active, rarely listening to the attempts by the coaches to run a drill or teach a group of four year old children about the fundamentals of soccer. He runs around the periphery of the soccer field, kicking the balls of the other children, or occasionally even kicking the children. He continues to mildly harass Emma, in his mind all in just good fun.

I was planning to be a coach for Emma’s team, but a mistake when signing up meant I was relegated to a garden variety parent, with no coach’s team shirt, and no official standing to intervene. I have had raucous and hyper active children before on my teams. After it was clear who they were, I always made a point of keeping a special eye on them, both to make sure they weren’t disruptive to the team, but also because discipline is an important part of team work. But unfortunately, the coaches on Emma’s team were probably fairly new to coaching (this was a pre-K team, after all). They made some mild pleas to this child to pay attention, to stop kicking other children. It was an exercise in futility.

To my dismay, the parents of this child were on the side lines, paying scant attention to their child (and oblivious of my silent pleas to step in and discipline their own child). Maybe they figured that since they have deposited their child at soccer practice, now it is the sole responsibility of the coaches to keep everyone in line. Or maybe they are familiar with his behavior, even accepting of it (boys will be boys), and allow it. The question I have is, isn’t it ultimately the parent’s responsibility to coach their own children, to discipline, to teach, and to otherwise keep in line? Does that fall to the exclusive domain of the coaches/teachers once the child is dropped off or transferred into their care?

I have been coaching Yuna for many seasons now. It is really no additional time commitment, as I am at all of Yuna’s practices and games anyway. I started coaching because the first season Yuna was playing soccer, I was really underwhelmed by her coaches. I thought the coaches were more interested in playing soccer related games rather than actually trying to teach the children how to play soccer and improve at it. They looked to me like they had little to no prior experience with competitive sports. It’s not that one must have had played sports at a high level (Division I? ) as a qualification to coach. I certainly haven’t. I didn’t even make the tennis team at my Division III college. But I have and continue to play sports competitively, where one does novel things like “keep score” and compete. So after Yuna’s first season, I volunteered to coach and have been coaching ever since.

Emma has been really enjoying her soccer practices and games. She is at this point not so interested in physical contact. She is one of the lightest and littlest children on the team, and has no appetite for mixing it up in close quarters with more rambunctious children. She hovers on the periphery, near the action but not really in it. If the ball were to squirt out, she may take a kick at it as it rolls by her, but she certainly is not athletic enough to keep pace with the movement of the ball on the field.

Yuna has really improved as a soccer player. She still has the distinction of never having scored a goal in four plus seasons of playing soccer. But she loves being out there with her team, runs hard and is a great sport. For me, I have no designs on either of my daughters playing soccer at a high level or earning an athletic scholarship to college. But I do want them to play a team sport and learn how to be on a team. I love soccer because it is the ultimate team sport. There is one ball, but all the players move in concert with the movement of the ball, and the team must play as one to be successful. The half time oranges, the post game popsickles, the lining up to shake hands with your opponents following the game, those are all important rituals that I am very glad my children are learning. In today’s society, if you can’t work on a team, you can’t work. The age of the solitary genius is over. There is little patience or place for the anti-social but brilliant artist types. No matter your chosen profession or walk of life, it is essential to learn how to work with a plethora of other people, on a team. And this is the goal with soccer.

Eyes Wide Shut, from a message to Ethan (never sent)

2013-10-16T16:16:00.002-04:00

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0096.html

IFC has been showing “Eyes Wide Shut” (EWS) recently, so I was inspired to do some more research into the film and came upon this article. Like the article about “Mulholland Drive” that I shared with you years ago, I find this type of writing amazing. Like most art, the actual “real” intention of the artist is almost moot, as the world of the writer is a subsequent world built upon the first world of the artist (in the case of “Eyes Wide Shut”, itself based upon a book). I had seen EWS when it first came out, but like many of the reviewers mentioned in the article, also found myself similarly disappointed by its lack of erotic titillation (with the very limited scenes of Nicole Kidman).

The article is amazing to me because both myself and the author (Tim Kreider) saw the same movie and yet I came away with none of what Kreider writes about. Like the author, I did perceive the dream like narrative of the movie, its undertone of a sinister, mildly Satanic theme, but I did not at all understand it within the overall larger arc of the movie, or even Kubrick’s movies. Somewhat painfully, it reminds me of the extremely fractious nature of political discussions in recent years, when the same “reality” is perceived in vastly different ways and both sides come away with completely opposing conclusions from the same story.

Male/Female

2013-06-17T16:33:00.000-04:00

During my kitchen renovation, I pulled out my existing electric stove during demolition. To my surprise, I found a capped gas connection behind it. I knew there was gas present in the house since the house had been converted from oil to gas at some point in time. I didn’t surmise that a gas line had been run for future accommodation of a gas stove. Unfortunately, I had been well beyond the planning stages at the time that I discovered this. I had already demolished most of the kitchen and had spent weeks designing the whole kitchen. My plan was to retain the existing electric stove.

I know that all foodies will be shocked at the horror of cooking with electric heat. The truth is, I had known only electric heat for most of my adult cooking life. We had electric heat in our Brooklyn kitchen. So in the school of thought being “you can’t miss what you don’t know”, I briefly considered but quickly dismissed scrapping my kitchen design and converting to gas heat. The biggest change would have been that I would probably have to raise the clearance above the stove if I switched to gas, and this may have nixed my plan to have the microwave above the stove. Getting the microwave off the countertop and onto the wall was a big goal of mine in the kitchen project, so this was no palatable to me.

I decided to cap the gas line with something more permanent from what was existing, a shutoff. Since I had no plans to convert to gas heat in the foreseeable future (being 10-15 years), I didn’t see a compelling need to retain the shut off. I went in search of a threaded cap to more securely and permanently close the gas line.

At Lowes, the sales person helping me find the right cap asked me if I needed a male or a female cap. Having no expertise in plumbing nomenclature, it took me a few moments to surmise what I was looking for. I gathered that the way the parts fit together was being compared to the sexual anatomy (or further, sexual intercourse) of a male/female. Is it just me, or is this mildly obscene way to describe and communicate plumbing fittings? What if the person in question were a sexual novice, that is to say, a virgin? Is it necessary to subject this nomenclature to the general public? I am not proposing an equally clear but less sexual system of plumbing connection nomenclature myself, but to a novice this does take some getting used to. And for the record, I needed a ½” female, black iron fitting.

Thoughts on being away from NYC in the aftermath of the damage wrought by Superstorm Sandy

2013-01-30T16:42:00.001-05:00

I finished my Masters degree in architecture in December of 1999. I still remember packing up our little Civic in the cold December winter in Ann Arbor and driving through rural Pennsylvania to travel to our new home, New York City. We arrived in Brooklyn on January 4, 2001 and settled in a tiny studio/1-BR in an iffy part of Brooklyn. Our first year in New York City proved to be an eventful year. September of 2001 brought the events of 9/11. I remember walking home from Manhattan to Brooklyn amongst the tens of thousands of stranded and bewildered New Yorkers in the suffocating summer heat. It took about 4 hours to walk home, primarily because the sidewalks were so packed with people that we could crawl along at a snail’s pace. As I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, practically being pushed along in the dense humanity of Brooklynites, I felt like I was living in the news; millions of people around the world will read about these events and see the pictures, but here I am, actually walking across the Brooklyn Bridge! Later, we all wandered downtown, trying to give blood or donating supplies for the workers. For several years following, I remember looking towards downtown when crossing Brooklyn Bridge on the subway, and seeing the two pillars of light that eerily signified the lost profile of the fallen towers.

Later, we were also there for the Blackout and again found myself walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Again, it was a hot summer day. As we crossed over to the Brooklyn side on the bridge, I remember people sitting on stoops with big drums, pounding a beat; it was like a festival! I remember people handing out cold bottles of water to strangers. I remember people yelling out encouragement to people obviously not used to walking this distance in the hot weather, their suits drenched with sweat, they yelled out “Welcome to Brooklyn! You’re almost home!”. Shopkeepers were outside handing out ice cream since the power was out and they would all be ruined soon enough. The sense of camaraderie was palpable: The City and all its millions of inhabitants were living through yet another slice of history again.

Since our move to Upstate some three years ago, we have been largely spared of large scale natural disasters. Hurricane Irene did flood our basement, but it was unoccupied (since I knew it was prone to flooding) and mostly harmless; it receded on its own accord in a few days. This time around with Sandy, again we were spared. We had some extra water on hand and tried to keep our cell phones fully charged, but that was the extent of our “disaster” preparation. I think the wind blew the cover off of our picnic table, but that’s about it.

Seeing the images of NYC and especially Brooklyn, I am struck by the immensity of the damage there and the disruption to life, but also the fact that we are this time not part of this latest chapter of NYC’s coming together to pull through this latest disaster. With subway systems paralyzed, no one is going to work, or anywhere for that matter. Everyone is coming out, taking stock of the fallen trees and debris, looking for opportunities to volunteer, clean up, make donations, or to extend a hand to a friend that may have been affected more by this latest disaster. And while I am in no way implying that this is a fun experience or that I would wish it upon myself and family, I am familiar with how events like this brings the community together and everyone’s busy lives stop for a moment as they converge to get through together. A small part of me felt like I was somehow “missing out” when I read the news coverage of the subways being down, people all holed up in their homes, or the photos of the giant tree that fell right in front of our old apartment building. I had lived through the previous events in NYC where among the mass panic and destruction of 9/11, the immense standstill bought on by the blackout, New Yorkers came together to help each other out, to bond, to forget their career ambitions and class divisions for a moment and to come together as a community. This is what I am missing.

We chose one of the more denser neighborhoods in Albany to settle down, and one with a nominal “downtown” within walking distance. We can and do walk to the library, church, and are very close to the various destinations that our family frequents, such as the YMCA, or the town pool. I have biked to Emma’s school, with her on the back seat, and I felt so happy as I coasted along, with friends occasionally passing me by in cars waving out the window. I felt connected to my neighborhood and felt good about being able to physically travel to my destination and live my life without the aid of internal combustion. I love to see cars I recognize when driving or biking around town, to honk or be honked at, and know exactly where they are going right now. In some way, it is my attempt to recapture the experience of living amongst neighbors and friends, where happy accidents can happen, where you can run into friends at the local grocery store.

Once, Yayoi was biking to drop off Emma at her Montessori school one morning when the chain fell off her bike. She was not able to slip it back on, so she decided to push the bike (with Emma sitting in it) all the way to her destination. Our friends, also enrolled in the same Montessori and on her way to drop off her son, noticed Yayoi trudging along and gave Emma a ride. These are the kind of moments when I feel we are successful in finding a new community in our new home in Albany, and while it’s not exactly the same as what we left behind in Brooklyn, it does embody a quality that is important to us in where we live.

Architect as Profession

2013-01-24T12:52:00.000-05:00

I don’t want our daughters to go into Architecture, or any design related field. I have been researching some freelance gigs from CL recently. It’s a very depressing exercise. Seemingly, no one values architecture or design, or values it very little. They think it’s superfluous and want it done for close to nothing. It’s even insulting to hear what people think your time/services are worth.

I’m glad that I’m not in a design position now, and I don’t think I want to go back into design. I want to work for myself only, and have a variety of income sources including a salaried position, real estate and others.

One ad wanted a STAMPED drawing/design for $300 for some non-profit offices. For stamped drawings, I’d probably have to get professional insurance, and that alone would cost over $300. Another guy wanted me to give him a quote over the phone to provide him with stamped permit drawings for his house. He said he had hired someone for $600, but he wasn’t happy with the product (shocking). I told him I can’t give him a quote without seeing the house first, and that was the end of that conversation. But again, people simply don’t think architects are necessary or worthwhile. And that’s not how I want my daughters to feel for their entire professional lives.

I think being an MD or a JD is preferable because no one disputes how critical their services are. No matter how crazy or uninformed you are, you will still probably understand you can’t start treating your own physical ailments, popping medicine or cutting yourself open to perform some DIY surgery. You understand that it’s an expensive but non-negotiable expense. Likewise, law is nothing to mess around with or try to skimp on costs. You could end up in jail or lose a case and ruin your life.

On the other hand, the general public sees architecture or design as superfluous and unnecessary. If it weren’t for the law that requires permits, people would go and build whatever they want in any method they want. Of course, we’d probably have a lot more people dying in fires, building collapses, people falling off stairs and building edges, rooms with insufficient light/ventilation, or any matter of less than desirable building environments. But this all sounds terribly self-serving, like an ad claiming that their product is superior and that your lives simply wouldn’t be complete without it. Not exactly an unbiased opinion, I know.

I loved the experience of architecture school. The unbridled freedom to pursue your own creative agenda, the intellectual challenge of learning why humans build architecture rather than simply seeking some shelter from the elements, the incredible studio environment where you are challenged and stimulated by the work of your colleagues, all of this made for a very enjoyable period of my life. But I wonder if it’s been all downhill from there since I graduated. Professionally, architects are so powerless. We are pushed around by owners, engineers, or even contractors. We are seen as easily replaceable and our time and value added is constantly questioned on the project team. Sometimes, I wonder if our education sets us up for a lifetime of constant disappointment because it opens our eyes to things that we will pursue and desire for the rest of our lives, but will rarely attain.

Somewhere over the Rainbow

2012-08-12T11:23:00.001-04:00

There was an Ice Cream social at the church tonight. After a quick dinner, I took the girls by myself to give Yayoi the night off. The church is on the corner from us, an easy walk on a pleasant summer evening like this. I attached the Buggy Board to the stroller, and the three of us walked to the church.

We could see the Bouncy Bounce on the front grassy knoll as we approached from down the block. I stopped the stroller and the girls darted off so they could arrive faster rather than enduring the ride on the stroller over the grass for the last fifty yards.

I talked with a recent friend that I had made in town for most of the night. His older child was starting school at Yuna's elementary school in the Fall, and we were talking about schools and teachers and the experience of having your child start school for the first time.

The Ice Cream Social was wrapping up, and the crowd began to thin. I had to tip the Giant Rubbermaid lemonade cooler for several children who had been unsuccessfully trying get the last few drops.

My girls and my friend's family and one other family that I did not know decided to move to the church playground. The light was beginning to thin and the Bouncy House was down, the ice cream put away. But the children were determined to enjoy the last bits of the evening in each other's company, expending energy running around and climbing in joy.

We were typically the among the last families to leave any given event, not unlike the children looking to get the last few drops of the sugary lemonade from the almost empty cooler. I would see who the likewise minded souls were as the crowd began to thin, and people would start putting chairs away and picking up trash. It was like a fog slowly lifting over San Francisco Bay, revealing the beautiful houses built into the hillside. I would often help put the chairs away or join in the clean up crew.

It was now almost completely dark, and the three families decided that the best exit strategy was to leave together simultaneously. That way, it would be clear to the children that there was no point in asking to stay any longer, and there was no more "play" to be had in a empty and dark playground. It worked, and as the other two families loaded their children in their cars, I scooted out with my two girls in the stroller, Yuna riding on the Buggy Board behind me.

Yuna started to sing Somewhere over the Rainbow as we hurried home on the bumpy sidewalk. She had been attending a week long drama camp, and there were many songs she was learning for a Friday performance at the end of the week. Her singing was so beautiful, unadorned, unselfconscious and pure. To her, it was the most natural way to wrap up her evening, in the fading sunlight, zooming home on the stoller pushed by her father, to practice the songs for her performance.

Dream: Leaning House

2012-08-12T10:59:00.001-04:00

I dreamt that my house was leaning. My house in real life is very old and indeed does have myriad problems, but nothing quite so serious in nature as this. The lean was causing the finishes and other layers to start peeling off and fall, and the structural connections were visible from where I stood on the ground, in some cases.

I became extremely worried and went into the house to seek counsel with a wiser, older architect, This middle aged lady that I found in the house told me that there were ways to pushing at the connections with certain equipment, and this would bring the house back in alignment. I thought to myself that this sounded like a very expensive repair.

When I was outside, I noticed that there was a Kindergarten or some sort of children's school next door to me. There was a group of children wearing uniforms sitting around in a circle. One child was off in the corner of the yard, oblivious to the activities of her class, off in her own little world.

There was a electrical source outside the house in the corner. Upon inspecting it with my two companions, one of them concluded that it was not working and that he should have been informed about this earlier.

I was hungry and found three bite sized snacks in my car for myself and my two companions: Halloween sized Kit Kat, Mars Bar, and Twix. I decided to choose first, and told my companions that I will be having half of the Kit Kat, and either the Mars Bar or the Twix (which now I am realizing comprises entirely half of the available snacks, not a third).

Schenectady Summer Hard Court Championships

2012-07-16T15:31:00.002-04:00

Saturday

The start of the tournament was delayed because of a morning downpour, throwing the schedule into a disarray. My first match didn’t begin until 4:30PM, some two hours after the initial scheduled start. My opponent was apparently some high profile player (my double partner Googled him and turned up a Player Profile), and I was a little intimidated and nervous. I played tight, and lost the first set quickly. I was mentally preparing my concession speech in my head during the second set. I was able to relax a little bit and started to play better, and won the second set. We played a third set. The sun was merciless and there was no shade to be found on the courts. After some two hours of intense exertion, my opponent started to fade physically, stopped moving his feet. I took the third set largely on account of my better fitness.

After a short break, I also played a double match that lasted until the last rays of the sun were fading, 8:30PMish. my partner and I won in three sets. Again, I played nervous and tight in the first set, and basically gave it away on account of my flurry of errors. I felt apologetic to my doubles partner, who had already lost his singles match earlier in the day; lose the doubles, and he was done with the tournament on both fronts. I was cramping in both legs by this point (although I tried not to telegraph it to my opponents). Luckily, doubles is not as physically demanding and the points are shorter. We somehow took the second set, and I started to feel more relaxed and comfortable in the third set. We got an early lead and maintained the momentum to the finish line, winning in three sets. It was starting to get dark and we were the last ones off the court.

Sunday

My doubles partner had played my next singles opponent in the previous round and lost. He warned me about his general awesomeness of his game, and when I stepped on court and started to warm up with my next opponent, I quickly realized my doubles partner had not been exaggerating. He was 52. He looked 30. He was a semi-retired dentist whose true passion in life was sports. He said he trains for track year around (100M, 200M), and in addition to tennis he was the world record holder for a sport called “snow shoe racing”: you race 100M in the snow wearing snow shoes. He held the world record in two divisions. He was incredibly fit and strong. Oh, and he just happens to dabble in tennis when he’s not too busy with his other athletic pursuits, and was once a USTA 5.0 rated tennis player. The inevitable came quickly: 6-1, 6-3. Sure, I was still semi cramping and returned to the courts in less than 12 hours after having logged six sets in the 90-degree heat. But in all honesty, even if I’d been 100%, he would have beat me soundly. Maybe it would have been a more respectable 6-3, 6-4. But my game wasn’t where I needed to be to challenge him.

After a short break for lunch, I teamed up with my partner for our doubles match. It was clear that we were overmatched technically. First of all, the average age of our opponents was probably about 22. Between me (39) and my partner (42), we were almost two decades older. But honestly, it wasn’t the age or fitness that determined this matchup. One half of our opponents team was the winner of the singles division, and was currently on a tennis scholarship at a Division I university (SUNY Stony Brook). His game was miles ahead of where I dreamed of being one day: clean, efficient strokes, excellent movement, basically without any weaknesses. I tried to be optimistic, but one part of me didn’t want to get double bagelled in front of the small crowd that was gathering to watch our match. My wish was granted, as we lost 6-1, 6-1 in a short 30 minutes or so. And just like that, I was out of the tournament. I had played ten sets in two days, and was cramping in both legs, so tired I can hardly climb the stairs. But it was really fun to play with something on the line, to step on the court with a brand new opponent, get to know his game and try to beat him. And I look forward to moving without grimacing and regaining my lithe, catlike movement again soon.

Picking up Chinese Food

2012-07-15T19:22:00.001-04:00

I went to pick up Chinese food from the corner store for dinner tonight. I was a little early, and I had to wait a little bit while our order was filled. It was your typical Chinese takeout place, with peeling laminate countertops, a red/gold Chinese calendar, and a collection of forlorn pieces of furniture in the corner.

There was a little girl, probably about Yuna's age, about 5 or 6 standing behind the counter. She was scribbling absentmindedly on a tall stack of menus. Her older sister started talking to her in English, offering up a Rubik's Cube, almost fully completed. The little girl's eyes lit up, and started to reach for the toy from her sister while excitedly asking about how she'd gotten so far.

What appeared to be the girls' parents were operating the restaurant. It was a family affair, as is often the case. The dad was busy poring over the flaming hot wok, filling the order sheets pinned up by his wife who operated the phones while also busily keeping a steady flow of spring rolls in the fryer. The crew was rounded out by the older daughter, who appeared to be in middle school age, perhaps, cashing out orders and occasionally taking orders when her mom was busy putting together a food order.

I think about the parallels between this little girl, very beautiful, standing behind the counter on a sweltering Sunday afternoon, and my daughter at home. Both are surely beloved by her parents. This girl maybe doesn't have her parents able to spend the same resources, time and finances to fill up her summer with various camps, lessons and other pursuits. But they are at least very much cared for and loved, far from neglected even if one set of parents are not in a place to spend the family resources advancing the child's education during the summer months.

It's unlikely that this family lives in Delmar, with its relatively higher cost of rent/real estate, and corresponding reward: excellent public schools. It's more likely that they live in Albany, or perhaps even further away, with less than stellar public schools and higher crime rates. But again, this girl and her sister are the reason why the parents wake up in the wee hours of every morning, and spend the whole day on their feet, busily feeding the Delmar area with its demand for cheap and quick orders of cashew chicken and beef with asparagus for busy families.

They could be classmates in school next year, bunkmates in camp in the future, and their lives are very different right now. I hope that this litte girl will have the kind of opportunities later in her life, and her daughter or son will not have to spend her afternoons behind the counter at the family's restaurant on Sunday afternoons, and instead she will spend it at the town pool splashing with her friends, going to the park to listen to a children's concert, or taking piano or tennis lessons. This is, in essence the American Dream, that the next generation has it better because of your sacrifice and hard work. And I feel lucky to live in this country that this is still a possibility, or even a reality. And I feel good about my $30 dinner order, surely way more than our family can possibly consume for dinner tonight, and more than likely to provide a few lunches for me at work. My family gets a quick and delicious (albeit greasy) dinner and this family takes a small step towards a better future for these two children.

My Snake Dream last night

2012-01-13T12:41:00.000-05:00

I was walking down a large lobby, maybe of a high rise? Lots of highly

polished stone on the walls and floors, but curiously no one else is

around. On the walls, I noticed that there is a very large snake, kind

of partially buried into the stone wall. It's like it's cast into the

wall or something. It's not moving.

My curiosity gets the better of me, and instead of leaving well enough

alone, I look for something to poke it with. I notice a pen on the

floor so I pick it up and throw it at the snake. To my great shock,

the snake is aroused by my provocation and manages to quickly free

itself from the wall!! It is now on the floor and looks at me and says

that I will be punished for my unprovoked poke!

I run into an elevator cab and manage to close the doors before the

snake makes its way in! It reaches the top floor and starts to make

its way down to the lobby again, but I am scared that the snake is

still there, waiting for me. So I get off on the next floor that the

doors open.

It's a large and lively bar. Lots of people around, eating and

drinking, chilling. And at one table, I notice YB sitting by himself!

I join him.

Dear Yuna

2011-04-26T22:36:00.010-04:00

You are an amazing child.

Tonight was my weekly tennis night. Usually, I lay down to sleep with you on our giant family bed (actually two mattresses put together) where the entire family co-sleeps every night. My job doesn't require me to be away much, so as a consequence you are used to my getting you ready for bed, reading, then actually falling asleep with you every night. So my tennis nights were hard for you.

After my match, I checked my phone and there was a text from your mom: "Yuna is crying, misses you". It was sent at 9:30PM. It was close to 10PM by the time I saw it. I raced home but was relieved to find the apartment dark and quiet. You had managed to fall asleep, on your side of the mattress.

This past weekend, we were in Brooklyn. It was Easter weekend. We stayed with Ethan and Alice, as usual. They are close friends of ours and have a big apartment. But they also live around the corner from our old apartment on Garfield Place.

Yuna, you had an all day play date with Emilia, your best friend from Brooklyn. The two of you had been close since you were both six months old and tiny babies in day care. You two always got along so well. With other children, I had to keep a watchful eye. There was the child that went through a biting stage. There were bullies. But with Emilia, the two of you are so busy in your own little worlds that every minute you are together is a sheer joy for the two of you. So your mom and I made it a high priority to time the visit to Brooklyn so we can fit in the play date with Emilia's family.

I know you love Brooklyn. You went to the Park Slope Presbyterian Church, where you know almost the entire congregation, or at least they know you. On Sunday, the children were going to sing some special songs in front of the congregation. You arrived at church in the morning and when you saw Kaila-chan, the two of you started jumping with joy in place. It was so cute. Then, you immediately joined the children's choir practice. Later, you stood in the middle and sang the songs with the rest of the children from the church even though you hadn't even practiced before. I noticed that you learned the chorus after the first verse and were able to sing along.

Chi-ling remarked to me after the service how amazing you are, that you walk into the church for the first time in months, then without any hesitation just join the children's choir and get up in front of the congregation and sing.

I think you have a winning personality. When I attend the parent-teacher conferences at your Montessori school and ask your teacher who your best friends are, they always reply that you love to play with everyone, and everyone, in turn, loves to play with you.

It was very difficult for me to leave Brooklyn. All of our friends were there. We loved living in Park Slope, living in that tiny apartment on Seventh Avenue and Garfield Place. The night before the movers were to arrive, a crazy thought went through my mind: I should just call the whole thing off and just stay. Sure, I had no job in Brooklyn while I had a great career opportunity waiting in Albany (a job that took some four months to finish jumping through the requisite hoops). I didn't want to leave "home".

But you made it easy for me. If you had thrown a tantrum and cried, refusing to leave Park Slope, your friends, Prospect Park and everything you knew (after all, you were born and lived every single of your three years in Park Slope), this would have made it very difficult for me. I was barely holding it together myself. But you were open to the idea of going to a new place, somewhere you didn't know a soul, more than a hundred miles away from the only home you've ever known. I am very thankful to you for making the transition easy for me.

You read your first book last week: Hop on Pop, by Dr Seuss. You can read most words and can read most Dr. Seuss's books by yourself at this point. We have been practicing your numbers. You often write them mirror-imaged, like Leonardo da Vinci's secret handwriting. It's because you are left-handed and it feels more natural for you to start right and go left. We have been working on correcting this problem on your 3's, 4's, 7's, and 9's.