Not really sure if it is officially the Santa Ana winds but it is crazy windy outside right now.

This is from the Ventusky app, and it is showing 65 mph gusts near my house. The wind has been very loud since about 3:00 am. I thought about going into the office today, but it may be unsafe on the freeways.

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It feels like the winds are getting worse, but app still shows 67 mph gusts. The wind pattern is strange. There is high winds all around the LA basin, but no wind in Los Angeles.

I just finished a forty-five-minute call with my Ukrainian friend. We are still part of the ENGin program where I am volunteering to help Ukrainians with learning English. It has been several months, so we usually just chat about nothing and everything. I was asking him if he had any travel plans for the rest of the year. He mumbled something then started telling me about the recent air raid warnings. Many people in Ukraine thinks that Russia will start attacking infrastructure again now that winter is coming, and the weather is colder. He also told me that his son likes football/soccer but playtime is often interrupted by missile attack sirens, which means hiding inside for three hours until everything is clear. Sad.

I do not understnad why Russia is dragging this out. I do not believe Russia will be able to steal any more land, and will eventually get pushed back. What Putin is doing now will just kill more people on both sides without any gains whatsoever. What a piece of shit.

Today is vesting day at work. Every six months the company grants us shares that were earned over the period. Since I have been at the company for so long, I have built up several tranches of grants, and it is not an insignificant amount. However, since the next vesting date is in May, there is no incentive to stay in the very short term. Since I decided to retire, there is no equity difference between walking out tomorrow and three months from now. I did promise my boss that I would stay on for a few months to help close the year, but I am feeling more impatient about moving on.

I gave a tour last night for my niece and her boyfriend. They are sophomores at a local college, and they are very bright kids. We have also hired a lot of young people at work, and all of them are smarter than me. Sometimes I look back at the past forty years, and I wish I were more aware. It feels like I did not really have any plans in life, and stumbled to where I am now. I should have studied harder for the SAT, I should have worked harder in college and got better grades, I should have skipped my first master’s degree, I should have worked longer before getting my MBA degree, I should have been a better husband, I should have been more aggressive at my prior and current job, I should have spoken up more about the terrible management culture at work, and the list seems endless.

Since I am “only” fifty-five, I do feel sometimes that I am running away from responsibility instead of sticking it out for another ten years. I hope I do not regret this timing when I look back even later in life.

I wrote this paragraph several posts ago about depression.

I also met a new friend at work. She is only twenty-five and very socially active. It has been fun and slightly educational talking to her about her dating challenges, but it also made me realize how boring I was in the past, and how boring my life is now. There is a lot of regret, but also helplessness, as if I am watching a movie about the rest of my life. The problem is that I am even less motivated to do anything.

https://mybadkidney.wordpress.com/2023/10/27/depressed-again/

She initially shared her location for one day since she was on her way to my house. We were attending a semi-work-related event. However, she decided to share her location permanently with me, and I did the same. I do not even remember what the reasons were. Since she was very socially active, I began to check her “dot” more often, with the abovementioned negative impact on my mental health. Other than a rare emergency, there is no good reason for me to know her location 24/7, yet I was “addicted” and often made-up wild stories based on a dot on a map. I should have deleted the connection much earlier, and I did so just now. Hopefully, that will help me focus on my own life instead of watching others.

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Despite the clickbait title, I do not have an addictive personality. I do not drink, smoke, or do drugs (other than all my prescriptions). I almost have the opposite problem. My ex-wife once said I do not have any passions, not specifically within a relationship, but passion about hobbies or other interests.

I really like my Tesla. I bought it in December 2016 and put around 86,000 miles on it. Other than tires, I have not spent much money on repairs and maintenance. However, the technology is dated so I have been looking for a replacement EV.

About a month ago, Tesla sent me an email with an offer to transfer my free supercharging to a new Tesla if I take delivery by December 31, 2023. I was considering a Model X Plaid, but Tesla raised the price before I could order (after dropping it), so I ordered a regular Model X. At the time of the order, the estimated delivery date said Nov-Dec 2023. No problem, right? Wrong!

So even when Tesla caused the delay, they may not honor the free supercharging transfer offer. That is false advertising. During the order process, I also said I would trade in my 2016 Model S. Tesla initially quoted me about $15,000, which was low, but I continued with the process. After placing the reservation, Tesla asked for photos from all four sides and the interior. I have no accidents and the interior still looks new. After a day, Tesla revised their trade-in offer to $10,800. They lowballed their already low offer.

I checked online and comparable Tesla Model Ss were selling at $30,000. This morning, I asked for a trade-in quote from Edmunds and got the following:

They also included this preliminary quote from Carmax:

KBB.com also gave me a similar quote for a trade-in. WTF? After enticing me to order a new car, they came back and screwed me by lowering the trade-in offer, any may screw me again by reneging on the free supercharging offer. Despite all the bad press, I really like my Model S, enough to drop another $90,000 on a Model X. However, my experience with Tesla corporate so far has been total shit.

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I looked at my investment portfolio at my bank and I have twenty-eight shares of Tesla.

I wanted to do a cover of this song. I even bought an official lead sheet from Musicnotes.com.

How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart,
And let me live again.

I chose the wrong song.

I bought one of these over the weekend. It just arrived Tuesday night.

I do have a lot of color film negatives, but this was more of an impulse buy. The original plan was to buy a cheap flatbed scanner to scan old photos, but I have a sheet feed scanner that works well enough. For photos with negatives, the quality is likely better if I scan the negatives instead of the print as the physical photo may deteriorate over time. So, I ended up buying one of these.

The first pile of negatives I looked at were from September 1999 and it contains photos from my wedding and honeymoon. Not the images I expected to see right away at 5:00 am. Anyway, the scans at 22 megapixels are decent. The negatives are slightly curved and that may cause focus issues in the scanner. I need to find a way to flatten the negatives without scratching or damaging the plastic surface.

Tesla recently lowered their prices on the Model S and Model X. The new price for a Model X Plaid is “only” $90k. I was contemplating a purchase at $110k so it looks like Tesla dropped prices by about $20k. I do not really need a second car, although having an SUV would be handy for moving things and carrying more passengers. However, the Model X Plaid only seats six as the second-row seats are split. I could also just borrow my sister’s Acura MDX if I need more cargo capacity. The main reason I would get the Model X Plaid is for the ridiculous acceleration. I would get the Model S Plaid, but I already have an old Model S with terrible range. I want to keep the old Model S for road trips since it has legacy free Supercharging.

The other option is a manual two-seater like a Mazda Miata or the new Nissan Z.

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I believe if I refer myself or purchase it though the app while logged in on my account, I will get a $500 discount. This sounds cool until you remember Tesla does not include a charger with a new car anymore. When I purchased my old Model S, I received a high-power mobile charger. Now the only option is a lower power mobile charger, and you must pay $230 for it and probably more for a SAE J1772 adapter.

I have many computer pointing devices at home. From mice, trackpads, to even trackballs. Some are wired and some are wireless. The one in the picture above is just called IntelliMouse Optical USB and PS/2 Compatible. Yes, PS/2. I remember it came with a green USB to PS/2 adapter plug. I think it must be at least twenty years old. Despite its age, the IntelliMouse is still the best performing mouse I own. It has four small silicone pads that allow the mouse to glide over surfaces. The construction feels very solid, and the buttons have exceptionally good tactile feedback. It even has two extra buttons that are usually used for page forward and page back on websites. If you look on eBay, used mice for this model still sells more than some new mice on Amazon. I think it will last forever.

I found out today that my nephew passed away this past weekend. I am not 100% sure about the details, but my mom said he had a massive stroke and was left in a vegetative state, and the decision was made to take him off life support. Ugh.

The first time I met my nephew was when I picked him up from LAX. He was accepted into the master’s program for Electrical Engineering at UCLA after graduating from college in China. I still remember taking him to get housing and telling him to open a bank account as soon as possible. He had a huge wad of $100 bills. He graduated from UCLA, found a job in the Bay Area. I helped him with some material for his green card application and he just recently received it. I also heard he recently got a girlfriend and bought a house. He was living the American Dream.

I am not sure what is happening now. His parents will probably come to the US and take his body home to China. I think he is only thirty years old. So sad.

A good friend released an original song on YouTube. Go watch, like, and subscribe.

I took the screenshot two days ago, but the high temperature forecast is still about the same.

For the past ten weeks, I had a roommate living in my house. Since I did not charge rent or anything, it was more like a house guest. The daughter of long-term friends received a summer internship in Orange County, and my house was closer to the company location. In preparation, my parents and I cleared out one of the spare bedrooms. In addition to moving my heavy adjustable bed into the room, I also purchased several items of furniture: dresser, desk, nightstand, end table, and two lamps. My friends bought the office chair and left it for me.

The house guest mostly kept to herself and spent the night somewhere else for about one-quarter of the time. She did not cook very much, and usually ate in the bedroom. She was very unintrusive, but it was still an inconvenience to have a non-family person stay with you. Now I have a fully furnished empty room in my house.

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Updated: Monday, August 28th @7:40 pm

It is strange. Even though I only interacted with my house guest three or four times over the ten weeks, I feel more alone once she moved out. Maybe it is the knowledge that someone else is in the next room? It was only ten weeks but I feel I need to readjust to living alone again.

This is the default home screen on my iPhone:

Each time someone sees my screen, they always make a comment on the number of unread emails, text messages, or missed calls. Most of these items show up on the notifications page, where I can see the first few lines of content. For Gmail, the count also includes the Social and Promotional inboxes, which I rarely check. I do not believe I have missed any important messages, even though the unread count is a bit ridiculous.

My ENGin student’s father got conscripted into the Ukrainian military over the weekend. He is 57 years old. I believe all males 18-60 are eligible for the draft and my student is also waiting to be called. This is terrible news.

Hurricane Hillary has mostly been a dud here in Southern California. Here are the precipitation map from last night and right now:

The storm has moved north, but the rain intensity has dropped off dramatically.

I think it is because the storm took a northwest path, so it came across the colder Pacific Ocean instead of the warmer waters of the Gulf of California. Hurricanes and tropical storms will lose strength as it travels over land or cooler water. It has been raining on and off since last night but has not been that heavy. It is also not that windy outside

I did move my car out of the garage onto the driveway so the rain can rinse off months of dirt and dust.

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As if a hurricane/tropical storm was not enough fun, I just received an earthquake warning for a 5.5 quake in Ventura County. My phone sounded a strange alarm, and a voice told me to drop and take cover. It has been about five minutes and I have not felt anything yet.

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Whoa! The earthquake warning was legit. I just did not feel anything.

I purchased a circle of fifths wheel on Amazon from a company called Noisy Clan. There are several versions, and I got the cheap one that comes with an e-book instead of a printed book. Anyway, since I am on their mailing list, I have been getting emails from them regularly.

The latest email was about chord progressions and mood, but also included a quiz:

I took the quiz and only got one right. My answers were: 1) do not know, 2) Vivaldi, 3) violin, 4) Aretha Franklin, 5) White Album. Here were the answers posted:

So, I got question #4 right. But wait, Mozart composed the Four Seasons? I could have sworn it was Antonio Vivaldi.

Since the email asked for feedback, I sent Noisy Clan an email questioning their answer for question #2. I have not received a response, nor do I expect one. They probably got an email from each person that bothered to read the email quiz.

I have a home NAS to store videos, music, photos, and random personal files. I wrote about the issues I had adding a second 6 TB hard drive previously. The transfer speed seemed awfully slow, and any mistakes take forever to fix. Well, not the second drive I purchased has failed. I set up the NAS as RAID 0 so it writes data across both drives. This speeds up performance, but there is no redundany. I do have all the data backed up using HyperBackup, but it uses a proprietary file format so I am not 100% confident I can restore the data if I just wipe out the NAS.

To be sure, I purchased a 8 TB external storage hub from Costco. It cost me $150 but I was able to copy over all my data. It took about four days to copy 7 TB of movies to the backup drive, plus two more days for smaller volumes for music and photos. After all the data was backed up, twice, I tried to create a new data pool with the existing drives, but received warnings that there were too many bad blocks on the second drive.

At this point, I realized that the second drive was still under Western Digital’s 3-year warranty. I pulled up the Amazon invoice, screenshotted the error messages, and filed a warranty claim online. A reply came quick, but they wanted me to put the drive in an external enclosure, download test software, run tests, and send in results. I do not have such an enclosure, so I purchased one from Amazon. As I am waiting for it to arrive, I received an email from WD saying that I have not responded with test results, and they will close my ticket after 24 hours. I will be very pissed if I am still waiting for the enclosure, I had to buy to test their failed drive.

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If WD rejects my warranty claim and I must buy another drive, I am going with Seagate. I wonder if their warranty claim process is as burdensome on the customer as Western Digital.