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In an effort to further investigate what my options are regarding my passport status, I wanted to find out if I was eligible to obtain a passport from the People’s Republic of China (not to be confused with Republic of China, a.k.a. Taiwan). Common sense would dictate that I should easily be eligible since China contends that Taiwan is part of China, hence, anyone who’s born in Taiwan with Chinese ancestry is eligible for a Chinese passport. With a Chinese passport, essentially I would solve my “expired passport” issue and be able to go on to Canada to get my PR there… I wish things were always as simple as “common sense” though.

So today I made a trip to the Embassy of China located in San Francisco. When I got there, I was stunned at how many people there were, waiting in line, just to drop off applications for passports and visa. The wait was easily 35 to 45 minutes. Compared to the lack of line at TECO, it makes sense that China is now the popular kid on the block. But then again, nobody gives a rat’s ass about Taiwan anyway…

After having dealt with two information desks and wasted 45 minute of my life waiting in line, I noticed the ladies behind those bullet proof windows were rude as hell. They yelled at people and freely expressed their annoyances at the first sign of what appeared to be “stupid questions” to them. And when someone wanted to make sure what he’d heard by repeating that information back to them, those Embassy bitches ladies would get angry and told them off! Wow! Talk about being backwards in culture and basic respect for others.

At the end of the day, I guess my question was too tough for anyone at the lower level to answer. And as my luck would have it, the persons who would know the answer to my dilemma weren’t available at the time. So finally a nice man said I could write the Consulate a letter to get my answers if I wanted to (no, no emails. A letter written by hand!).

So my first dealings with Chinese officials left a really bitter taste in my mouth. I pondered if I should even consider taking the plunge of becoming a citizen of such public disgrace. Much of what I saw today at the Embassy of China would probably never happen in a Taiwanese “consulate”. Having dealt with various TECO offices in the U.S. and in Thailand, I have yet had one person expressed any signs of annoyance no matter how stupid some questions may be (including my mom’s infamous inquiries).

So maybe I should just play the cards I am dealt and take my chances that the current president of Taiwan won’t say anything dumbass to piss the world off, prompting China to stick it to Taiwan’s butt. Every month passes with more and more of my options being eliminated from the table. Short of becoming illegal, I am cornered by the conditions events around me have created.

Speaking of being illegal, it seems like maybe being illegal in the United States is not such a bad deal after all! Even illegal, ahem, “undocumented” immigrants’ children are eligible for scholarships! WTF!? So a hardworking, previously tax-paying LEGAL immigrant like me gets punished for doing all the right things? How screwed up is that? Like me, I’d say, those kids should just deal with it and find ways to become fricking legal first, damn it!

OK. Enough rant for today.

I had to implement my first child proofing today since Bryan started crawling — duct-taping an extended telephone line. Since we don’t own the house we live in, anything we do can not be permanent, hence the ghetto, but universally accepted, solution of duct taping!

Next we’ll probably have to look into those table edge bumpers.

August and September are probably the two busiest months for birthdays — or at least according to my humble calendar. I am sure nationally, aggregated birth dates probably average similarly throughout the months of each year. But at so far, August sure has been a busy month — Birgit gave birth to Ella, Hanny gave birth to Prestin, Su-fei is about to give birth to Xin-yi. And let’s not forget that Grace gave birth to Bryan, also in August! And just a side note, my ex-boss, Bella also gave birth to her son in August…

So maybe Sprint is not the season of love… Fall is!

Changing Bryan’s diapers has now become a real chore. Before he knew how to crawl, he’d just lie there helplessly to let you do whatever you need to do with him (change diapers, change cloths, putting on pants, apply sun screens.. etc). The task got tougher when he learned to turn around. And now we have to deal with him crawling all over the place with his butt naked. I had no idea how fast kids can fly with their butt naked even when I thought I got this “diaper change” thing down!

I was feeding Bryan small, chopped pieces of fruit (which he LOVES) when one of them fell right of out his mouth onto this booster seat. Before he could pick it up and throw it all over the place, I got it and put it aside. This was when Bryan started to “pretend” the fruit was still there — He picked up the invisible fruit with his thumb and index finger, pretended to put it in his mouth and smiled while tilting his head upwards looking at me. I laughed out loud. Now he knew I thought it was funny. So he did it again just to make me laugh.

This is now part of the “dropped food” routine. I didn’t think kids were able to “make-believe” until they are much older!? But whatever…

Kids are the best!

Murdza sent me a link to a short video clip of his son, Walker, taking his first steps. That was actually pretty exciting seeing a child started walking for the first time right in front of you. Seeing how fast and steady Walker was crawling all over the place, we started wondering why Bryan is taking his time with this “self mobility” business. Every child has a different development schedule and all, but when he’s falling behind on something, perhaps it’s time to take a closer look at what was REALLY happening.

It turns out that Bryan has been too cautious with the idea of being “hurt”. He drawls just fine on our bed (admittedly, he still falls face down on the mattress because it’s still relatively too soft), but when we put him on the hardwood floor, he refuses to crawl… because he knows it hurt if he falls face down… And crawling on the stupid hardwood floor hurts his knees….. What the hell!

So Grace started putting a spare area rug that Margaret had given us on the livingroom floor to encourage Bryan to crawl to her and/or to his toys. The “area rug” experiment worked wonders. In just two days, he can now fly across the area rug to his destination… sometimes in tears because he REALLY doesn’t want to do it. But hey, the kid’s gotta learn to move around sooner or later.

Now the task of child-proofing the apartment begins. Joys of early childhood development!

Most people don’t realize just how impossible it is to work at home in peace, especially when everyone else is also at home. But even when nobody is at home to bug you, there’s still plenty of distractions:

“Have I paid the electric bill yet? I better do that now.”
“What’s that sound in the living room? Did one of the cats knock something off? I better go check it out.”
“Did the postman just drop off the mail? I better go get that…”
“Why doesn’t the neighbor pick up her phone? It rings so damn loud…”

It’s especially tough this month because my mom’s visiting, and I basically gave our spare bedroom, a.k.a. “my office”, to her and work on our dinning table in the kitchen where it’s almost impossible to work because Grace and mom watch Korean drama, marathon style. Besides, mom is always doing stuff in the kitchen when she’s not watching Korean drama with Grace… Then there’s Bryan playing with his toys just 3 feet away in the living room right next to me.

With my latest project being 2 months overdue, and I am under tremendous pressure to “show” something in 3 days, I have had to “escape” from the house and find refuge elsewhere to concentrate and just crank out codes. At first I tried the library, but then it’s almost eerily quiet after having been in a house where there’s always something going on.

The most unlikely refuge, I found out, is the Mall, of all places, the most crowded and noisy space. The interesting thing about the mall though, specifically Vally Fair Mall in Santa Clara, is that the music is always blasting in full volume (which I never noticed before). The crowd and the noise actually help me concentrate even more. It’s like I find peace in my little 15.4″ laptop screen in a massive crowd where I intended to find refuge away from a small crowd at home. What an oxymoron.

Just a couple of months ago I debated really hard whether or not to rent a small corner office for a few hundred bucks a month just so that I have a place to go and just focus on my programming, homework and everything else. But I just couldn’t justify having to spend that kind of money when we are trying to save every penny we can being in the situation that we are in.

The mall then becomes an interesting choice because it has no distractions (as long as I don’t lift my head up from the screen), no trivial household tasks to take care of, even going to the bathroom is inconvenient. And it’s got free wifi connection right next to the Sony Store where there are lots of seats, tables and even power outlets. So there, about the only thing I can do is bury my head in my thoughts and programming logics and just work.

The joke between me and Grace now is: if you ever need me, I’ll be in my “office” at the mall…. Hah!

I came home from Yosemite with some mixed feelings about the trip — mostly good feelings but also some strange ones. I guess if I go in depth with each point I have, this post is going to be a pretty long one, so I will just give it a quick dry run and revisit some of them sometime in the future… I posted some images from the trip.

>> Lodging
Curry Village

Pros: Relatively clean tents; relatively rule-respecting crowd; heating provided in some tents when it gets cold; relatively comfy mattresses; electricity outlets; 24×7 shower.

Cons: Extremely poor facility for cooking; expect to dine at on-site commercial dinning facilities or cook on top of bear-proof lockers which is extremely inconvenient; extremely LONG lines for almost everything — parking, front desk check-in, dinning… etc. Small and expensive rooms, but then every lodging facility there is expensive; tiny bear-proof lockers; can be very difficult to find parking; EXTREMELY CROWDED — feels more like a cheap, 3rd class tourist area.

Housekeeping Camp

Pros: Great on-site cooking facility (provided if you bring your own portable stove; Grace has even seen people bring microwaves!!); literally walking access to mountain and river views; lots of open space; lots of returning families here every year; easy parking (drive almost right up to your tent!); short lines for everything. Feels more like “camping” and closer to nature (except for the “cons” below). Cheap.

Cons: Relatively dirty facilities; loud and annoying crowd (LOTS of kids and “red necks” blasting loud MUSIC! Yes, music in the middle of nature! Idiots!); limited shower and bathroom hours; lousy bunk beds; VERY hard to fall asleep at night because some people stay up with loud voices (including kids at 12AM).

>> Traffic
The traffic both to and from the park are pretty nice. The only traffic jam we experienced was at the entrance of the park where everyone paid for entrance fees. Also, there’s no easily accessible gas station within the park itself; so gas up before you enter the park!

Overall traffic in the so-called Yosemite Village is excellent. Almost everybody takes the free shuttle to get around (which are supposedly made just for national parks to keep emissions low). The shuttles are very frequent and drivers friendly (and some of them humorous). But parking is probably as bad as New York City…

>> People
It seems like there are lots of people who visit the park quite often. We talked to a few families who go back to Yosemite every year as a family tradition. And contrary to what Chee-hoi says about the “Asian crowd”, I heard a lot more French and British-English speaking people than any other ethnic groups. Unfortunately smoking is not banned in the park. It was very annoying and frustrating to see smokers almost everywhere (and lots of cigarette butts!). But mostly people are considerate and nice to each other.

>> Scenes
There’s only one word for the sceneries: Majestic. There are lots of breathtaking scenes no matter what angle you look at them from. It’s no wonder that John Muir lobbied hard to keep Yosemite a protected American treasure. The only regret I had was that we simply didn’t have time to see everything; there’s simply too much to see just within car-accessible parts of the park! It’s probably wise to plan for a longer trip (like one week) if you plan on spending more time at each spot and truly really appreciate everything.

>> Food
Unless you are camping and bringing your own meals, food can be a serious issue. There are only a few spots where you can have a nice meal. The good news is, food served by the commercial vendors are comparable to your neighborhood service providers both in quality and price.

>> Bryan
Bryan did pretty well considering how long the trip was (both the drives and the duration away from home). He cried about 20% of the time in the car having never been in a car for so damn long. So it wasn’t too bad. He also slept fairly well except at Housekeeping Camp where there were lots of loud people staying up way into the night despite of “quiet hours” imposed by the camp. But nobody cares (even though we did).

Before going on the trip, I taught Bryan how to growl back to bear if we ever ran into one at the park (not sure if he understood all that, but he got the growling down). During the trip, he learned that the growling sound goes with the Mandarin word “bear”. So now if we asked where “the bear” was, he’d immediately show off by growling like a bear (which is extremely funny).

I was pretty nervous about planning a trip to Yosemite National Park due to the sheer size of the park and the kind of activities one can do there. When I just casually asked Chee-hoi and Michelle about what to do there, all kinds of advice on what we should do was dizzying; the overwhelming information made me procrastinate even more. But after spending a couple of days studying a book we bought on the park (in 2003 which we NEVER USED), I suddenly saw the light on what was said to me. And of course, reading about others’ experience definitely helped (bless blogs!).

A few things about planning trips to Yosemite on a budget with a baby though…. staying in and around the park ain’t cheap! The economics of supply and demand is all over the rates on the kind of facility you can afford to stay (and how far you are willing to travel). If you are looking to stay within the park, a “normal” hotel with 4 walls cost about $200 - $400 a night. But if you are like me, with everything on a shoestring budget, “tents” are the only options available… You can either buy your own and set it up at camp sites, or you can actually reserve pre-built tents as a regular lodging option and pay through your nose (ahem, more specifically, around $70 - $140 a night). I wish I was more handy like Chee-hoi then I’d probably just buy and setup my own tent….

Speaking of reserving for lodging at Yosemite, that’s another sore spot I have about the business of running national parks… The entire operation of lodging within the park is outsourced to a commercial hospitality management company based in Delaware. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this. But what sucks is that this company is totally awful at running the reservation system either online or over the phone! The lodging reservation portion of the website is totally 1995. It’s slow and uninformative.

I was looking at lodging outside of the park (you know, with actual walls and roof over our heads), but with the closing of SR-140, it made my affordable top choices too inaccessible. Plus there’s opportunity cost involved here: driving for 40 min to 1 hour more to go where I want to go, or bite the bullet and save the precious time to enjoy the whole experience more….

So I am happy to report that we have decided to stay at the tent cabin at Curry Village on Monday and move on to a river front unit of Housekeeping Camp on Tuesday. There was an option at Curry Village to include breakfast, but then they also charge for children (even for 1-year-old! What greedy corporate monsters!). So I politely said, fuck screw that, I will buy my own breakfast…

Despite the lodging hiccups, I look forward to a relaxing and, in Michelle’s words, “near-spiritual experience” trip at the park.

Some thoughts/tips/common sense on car rental after my back-to-back experience with several car rental companies since my mom’s arrival:

1. Avis can be cheap if you deal with independent Avis agents (outside of airports) during peak periods (i.e. Grand Prix week).

2. Car rental companies take turns to hand out deals; one week it could be Enterprise, the next week it might be Dollar… etc. Economically speaking, they are avoiding competing head-on with each other by taking turns to share customers. The only exception, I noticed, is Hertz… which almost never gives out deals. But then again, most of their clients are corporate customers who are less sensitive to price than average consumers.

3. Booking a cheap deal one or two hours apart often makes a difference: I saw a deal for weekly rate of $102 for a midsize car on Enterprise; but hours later, the deal was gone and the price went up to $200+. The same can apply when you make reservation before or after midnight.

4. You don’t necessarily get a better deal if you reserve way ahead of time; I have checked for deals for 2 weeks, 1 week and just days (sometimes hours) in advance with varying results.

5. Experiment with selecting different locations and see the prices change. Some locations, even under the same company, are more expensive than others. Prices can vary for as much as 50% on exact the same size cars, dates… etc.

6. Experiment with selecting different hours to pick up the car; in my experience so far, before 2PM seems to be cheaper than after.

7. Different dates, of course, will see difference in prices — sometimes huge differences. Just common sense.

8. After checking in at the rental counter, most companies either tell you where your car is or just hand you the keys. But Enterprise uses a tactic akin to car sales (which I hate). You go meet a rental agent at the lot where he will hand you a bottle of water and tries to sucker you in to upgrading to a better car for more $$. Only upgrade if you know it’s a better deal (i.e. check beforehand online, such as Expedia where they usually tell you how much each car class costs). Also, with the Enterprise agent on the lot, upgrade rates are ALWAYS negotiable.

9. Hotwire, Expedia, Travelocity… etc. — They are almost all the same, rate, availability and everything else.

10. Avis and Dollar do not have imports (specifically, Japanese) while Enterprise always has imports as an option for upgrade (or if you really bargain, sometimes they’ll upgrade while keeping the price the same!). Hertz also keeps a nice fleet of imports for rental.

11. The only Japanese import that’s not available for rental (as far as I know) is Honda. Toyota, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Mazda can be rented from most companies.

12. Some rental companies will take Costco and/or Sam’s Club membership for a small discount. But you have to ask because it’s never advertised. Some credit cards offer exclusive deals for discounts with certain rental companies. “Sometimes” it’s worth it to check for deals. But most of the time, Expedia’s deals are better.

13. Renting through Costco is NOT cheaper than Expedia (though logic may say otherwise).

14. Most companies offer spouse as a FREE add-on driver.

15. Extending the same car for another fixed period (another 3 days, another week… etc.) usually means you get to keep the car at the same rate but not always. Sometimes it could be cheaper to go through the reservation process again to get an even cheaper rate (either from the same company or a different one (per #2).

16. Weekly rates are sometimes cheaper than if you rented the car for just 3-4 days. So if you need a car for just 3 or 4 days, check for the weekly rate anyway.

My humble experience for the past 2 weeks.

I found this via digg and felt glad that I, among a few of my friends, am not the only one noticing this.

It’s frustrating to know that the majority of American news stations are feeding garbage news to the people of the most powerful country in the world, the same people who put an idiot like George W. Bush in power, twice…

Jason and Alicia got Bryan the long-talked-about “frog towel” for his birthday.

He’s super cute wearing it!