Today didn’t go so well for both Yuka and I. Yet I was surprised at myself for not getting so ballistic over what had transpired. We had a plane flight early at 6:30 am with Southwest Airlines. We woke up super early at 3:30 am in the wee morning, all red-eyed, got ready, waited and waited for Super Shuttle van to come pick us up, at around 4:15 am, except the van never came. So, I had to get my iPad and called Super Shuttle via VRS. I finally got on a call with a live rep. and told her about our situation. She said that all Shuttle van drivers are occupied and wouldn’t be able to get us picked up. WTF is this?, I thought. Instead, she’ll call a cab driver to come get us, at no extra charges. Ok fine, I said. The cab driver came rather quickly; I thought it’d be much later even we had lost significant amount of time waiting for Super Shuttle anyways. I was getting worried about not having enough time getting to the airport, and sure enough, by the time we got there, there were lines of people waiting as if it was an amusement park, these kind of lines that take an hour or longer. You just knew. I must admit—I underestimated the situation that there’d be fewer people at the airport but no. Acting on my survival instincts, I tried to look for a shorter line or something, and then saw a Southwest rep agent who was standing near the long lines and it looked like she was helping monitor or direct people to the lines. I walked to her and showed her our flight itinerary, hoping perhaps she’d sympathize and get us bypass the line. She looked at it and told us we can wait here and she’d get the tickets for us. She got back to us with our tickets but told us we’d have to wait in the line behind other people to check in our bags. Great, no such luck, I thought. It took us a good half hour before we finally got to the front desk and checked in our bags. We quickly went up to the upper floor and saw that security line was also full of passengers too. That’s when I knew we may not be able to make it to the gate and it took almost another 25 mins before we could get through the security line and we walked as fast as we could to get to the plane gate but the doors had gotten closed. It was 6:25 am. The plane was due to depart at 6:30 am, so I was kinda surprised it’d leave that sharp. Usually, it’d take few more minutes before it undocks from the gate for good. I suspect the plane was already full so they closed the doors sooner than usual. So, we had to go to a tickets booth again to reschedule our flights but all flights were full till the next day. FML.

Naturally, I was disappointed at myself for letting this down and missing the flight, like maybe we should have left sooner, but it all started with Super Shuttle not picking us up and not anticipating the rush hours at both heavy lines at the airport. Those just ate up time. I guess we’ll use Lyft or Uber next time. Despite the whole thing, I noticed I wasn’t as let down as I thought I’d be. One lost day. Perhaps that’s because I have someone now at my side, my wife. As we were walking back to head out of airport, I saw a Mexican tacos shop that was opening for breakfast and thought it’d be nice to get breakfast burrito. My stomach seemed to agree and make grumbling sounds. My wife seemed to read my mind and said she wanted to get some Starbucks coffee. Then, I realized we’re on xmas vacation after all, as I stepped into another line for my burrito.

If you had to ask who is Dexter, then you probably haven’t heard of TV drama show named Dexter.

I have a friend who’s pretty much a film buff himself. He’s like Ebert except he doesn’t do movie reviews in writing but in ASL discussions. From time to time, we’d bring up movie/TV shows conversations and talk about these plots, meanings, acting or how bad these were. The conversation came to Dexter and he was telling me how good it was. Finally, I got to watch the drama and it took me longer that I’d expected to finish all of the episodes (8 seasons, 96 episodes).

Well, you can read all about Dexter on Wikipedia or movies stackexchange forum to get a broad idea of what Dexter TV show is all about. In a nutcase, it’s about a guy who is a serial killer himself yet he works as a blood splatter analyst in forensics and homicide investigations. That’s the “hook” this TV show drama has and the guy carried the TV show like no one else’s business. He does a good job of being cold to people around him like if you needed to talk to him, he’d tell you he has somewhere to go to and that he’d talk to you later. He has that impression about him yet he remains invested in what’s going on and would be able to give you advice, as long as you’re not in his way or a threat to him.

In many ways, it reminds me of another TV show and more well-known at that—Breaking Bad and Walter White. We see his transformation from teaching chemistry to high school students to the mad scientist that he’s become, with the best meth not just in town but in the whole nation, and with his new ideals that justify his actions and the purpose in making meth and ultimately, money and security.

We see similar transformation with Dexter and he was convinced at first that he was born a serial killer because of his unimaginable trauma of witnessing his mother getting murdered cold-blooded. Apparently, he thought he was destined to be one, after what had happened to his mother and to himself too, enabling him to be a serial killer. So, he’s trained himself to be one and in controlling his ever urges to kill someone, his father taught him the code, in which he acts as a vigilante to kill others who have committed murder themselves and that gives Dexter a sense of justice while appeasing his urges to kill. That’s the idea of the code. However, over time and through episodes, Dexter learns more about himself and what it really means to be a serial killer, and naturally, fatal mistakes that he’s made. It took a long while before he realized he can stop being one but of course, just one more killing he needed to do, then he’d be all done with that business, as he seeks to wrap up things for good. That came with a dearly cost and a tragedy. The TV drama finally came to a bizarre ending and it looks like he’s not done yet and perhaps, he’s born to be a serial killer.

100 Notable Books of 2014 by NYTimes.

Looks like I’ve got some reading to catch up. Maybe 10 of them.

My wife hasn’t visited NYC yet so I took her to the Big Apple. Took a few shots of the city. I’m surprised at how well our smartphones are capable of taking decent photos. Took subways, Central Park, tried new restaurants, and saw the new Freedom tower.

I happen to come across this article that says South Korea has the most Starbucks coffee shops in the world, besting major cities such as NYC and London. In addition to that, Starbucks isn’t even the only coffee brand in South Korea; there are other coffee shops as well. Caffe Bene, Pascucci, and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, to name a few. Among OECD countries, South Koreans work the most hours and young Koreans are always studying to pass college entrance exams, so I suppose they do need their caffeine fix. Reading this article also reminds me of another article I’d recently read, that South Korea is also the world’s highest per capita alcohol consumption, mostly with soju beverage, consuming more than 3 billion worth of bottles. So, as a country that has the most coffee shops and lead the world in alcohol consumption makes South Korea the thirstiest drinkers in the world?

Links
KOREAM: CAFFEINATED NATION: SEOUL HAS THE MOST STARBUCKS LOCATIONS IN THE WORLD

The Guardian: Soju the most popular booze in the world.

Apparently, North Korea has a regular visitor named Aram Pan, a 37-year-old Singaporean, who took a spin around Pyongyang on his GoPro camera. The city looks like a typical Communist town that isn’t overflowing with cars.

It’s time to write another birthday post, right? I know I haven’t been able to keep my blog updated at all. Need to work on that but here goes my birthday post. As I read my last post, I realize I accomplished almost all of them. Ran a marathon in SF. I ran 4:05, was hoping to run under that, but mile 15 hit me again (this was my 2nd marathon and in my first marathon, I withdrew because of bad cramps) and I started having cramps again. I had to walk a few miles and tried to get hydrated. Then I’d try to jog again. That went on for another 11 miles and crossed the finish line. 5 mins past 4 hour mark. That’s ok, I’ll try to run faster than that next time.

Another thing I did in 2013 was traveling to Japan and Korea, which I did mention in the last post. I did climb Mt. Fuji! See the pic below. I actually did some training prior to climbing, mostly running and lifting some weights. Then, I did some hiking with my brother in Seoul. I’ve hiked 5 peaks around Seoul. The next one will be the big mountains in Gangnam with my brother and do some real camping. That’s next. I learned something about myself that I really like hiking/climbing, so that’s something to look forward in 2014.

2013 also was the year I did a lot of thinking, reading, and walking. On my work breaks, I go out and walk around the campus a bit. Sometimes, to get fresh air, a drink, or try some new fruits. I need to eat more fruits tho. Then, I’d get back to my desk and resume working.

Towards the end of 2013, something happened. I met a girl. Last summer, I stayed mostly local in SF and explore new coffee places and restaurants. Hm, I need to work on my Yelp reviews, the goal is to become elite member this year. I also tried to meet friends, some are far away, and that’s how I met her. We met a few times during summer and had a BBQ. As I was working the grill, my eye started to glance at her, then follow her around. I notice she was attentive to things and would try to help out if she can. So I asked her if she could help with this and she did. When the meats got done cooking, she would stand by and hold a tray next to me and I flip into it. Once the whole table was set up and the foods ready, we started eating. I had a question to her. “How was the steak?” “Good!” she replied, still chewing. Remember we can sign while eating.

Looks like I’ve already got some plans ready this year, 2014. It should be fun and I’ll try to write more often!

More pics here.