Fire Hydrant (消防栓, 소화전)

Fire hydrants are like the interstate highway system: No one thinks about them until they don't work. (kind of like referees of NFL games). And I don't usually think about fire hydrants until the summer, when you see water flowing out of one when the temperature gets too hot, or dogs peeing on one, or you notice them when you're looking for parking and finally seem to find street parking but realize there's a fire hydrant in front of that spot and it's illegal to park there. (I think I once had to go to the impound lot because I got towed for parking at night in front of a fire hydrant I didn't see) One of the biggest themes of the past week with the LA fires was the lack of water in the fire hydrants, a cruel twist of fate that really impeded firefighters and made stopping the fires even more difficult (as well as the strong winds blowing the winds, see last entry). I think I'm echoing what others are thinking that, it's nice fire hydrnats exist and for emergency purposes, so I'll give up on that as a parking spot and respect the rules against parking there, but hopefully those hydrants work when they're really needed! Otherwise what's the point? I realize I've never actually see a fire hydrant put to work in person, but I think in movies fire trucks just come and attach a hose and water shoots out. Makes me want to become a voluntary firefighter, if only because firefighters have a pretty good reputation: no one ever wants to defund the fire department, they fight obvious bad guys of fire and smoke and bad situations of cats stuck in trees, and they're always the first to step up in times of crisis. It's an obvious net benefit to society, but according to some LA mayor Karen Bass did actually defund the LA Fire department so that they couldn't react quickly enough to the fires? It's like paying into an insurance policy: it seems like a waste of money until something really bad actually happens, then it's dire. That's the thing about this fire too: it happened in the dead of winter, when people on the East Coast had the coldest temperatures of the year, everyone's stuck at home, and even in L.A. it's not even fire season yet, no one expected it on January 7. 

Fun facts about fire hydrants: they were invented in 1869 (or at least patented) by mechanical engineer Birdsill Holly (engineers doing good work! Every profession is better than lawyer, and I knew that before going to law school but now I understand what people were talking about, in terms of value of your profession to society) and still looks pretty much the same with the same design nowadays...no iPhone 15 or any newer, slicker versions needed, it's just water coming out of a pump. I did not know that not all fire hydrants are red, and the color actually matters: red ones have a lower water flow and other colors have a higher water flow. 

By the way, there are apparently indoor service dog relief areas at some airports like Baltimore's BWI airport for service dogs to go pee, and there's a green patch there with a fire hydrant to emulate a real place dogs need to go pee. Well thought out! Comes in handy because I often walk past areas that have been HEAVILY visited by dogs on their walk needing to relieve themselves, and during the winter it's pretty obvious which areas are most populated because there's yellow (and unfortunately also brown) in the snow. Apparently dogs pee on fire hydrants not only to mark their territory, the normal reason they pee anywhere, but also because there are dyes on the hydrant that attract them! Never thought of that, dogs' lives are interesting. Speaking of which, the fires have caused many dogs to run loose within LA county after their homes were burned, another negative side effect of the fires, and dog pounds have gotten overloaded during this week with dogs loose in the streets with no homes to go back to. Dogs have homes too! 

Beaufort Scale (蒲福风级, 보포트 계급)

 Many people know about Charles Darwin's famous journey on the Beagle (captained by Admiral Robert FitzRoy) in 1831 to study anmial species in the Galapagos leading to the theory of evolution, but that same ship was the first for another important reason: it was the first use of the Beaufort scale to measure winds, named after Francis Beaufort, a hydrographer for the British Royal Navy. For hundreds of years countries all around the world had been sailing with ships using wind power, but finally they created a scale to measure how strong the wind was, something that's important in weather conditions even in modern times, especially so in light of the LA fires this past week that hit various areas in devastating fashion including Altadena and the Pacific Palisades. The original causes of each individual fire (Eaton Fire, Hirsch fire, etc.) are still being investigated, but the big culprit for why it spread across so many acres (thousands, at last check) is because of the high velocity of winds, categorized as "hurricane level" that swept the fire quickly and rampantly through the mountains and down into residential areas. So unlike various disaster movies that depict earthquakes or fires or something tangible and obviously threatening, the invisible force of wind was the big villain this week. There are various levels of wind starting from "breeze" (the best kind, that warm soothing feeling on the skin) to gale, which start to get into the 20s mph, you don't want to scatter pieces of paper around in gales, to storm weather and then finally hurricane level winds, going over 100mph. I've encountered some tough winds before in my life and I did live for 13 of my adult years in a place called the "Windy City," but I don't think I've encountered 100mph winds before. I can tell you that the windchill makes a 20 degree day feel like negative 5 degree day and bitter cold slapping into your face does not feel good, but I feel like storm winds would be close to sweeping you off your feet and providing near-fatal conditions. 

It's kind of amazing that in these times of modern technology, when we're trying to send humans to Mars, see driverless cars in major cities through Google's Waymo technology, and created AI that has millions times higher processing ability than humans, that we can't solve......wind. Or climate change, or use any of the ocean's water to turn into drinking water. Neil deGrasse Tyson once said about the last problem that it's just a matter of money: it costs a lot to change that ocean water into drinking water. But wind? Is there no way to create windbreaks or barriers or some sort of invisibile field into the atmosphere to slow down the speed of winds? I guess the sky is too large and air covers such a large area to be contained in that way? 

I think these are all 21st century problems; I can imagine sailors now in the 16th century traveling around the world like Magellan or Francis Drake, at the mercy of the winds, thinking how lucky human beings have it now here in the 21st century. At least we're here on land, the explorers then were often in the ocean dealing with real hurricanes, not just hurricane-level storms, without any barriers like trees, mountains, or structures to stop those winds. No wonder you hear so many stories of explorers getting "blown off course" like Pedro Cabral who was trying to go through the African coast to get to India but somehow ended up in Brazil..... that's a pretty big loop, even for me who sometimes opts for huge loops off teh main road to avoid traffic. Whatever the case, whenever it may, Mother Nature always wins, and this week she definitely won against firefighting efforts and humans in one of the most populated areas of the world, Los Angeles County. Not many people died, but thousands of people are without their homes, losing everything. I asked my parents if they have fire insurance in California: they do not, and it's common not to have those covered in California due to the insurance companies knowing it's a big risk so not including it. Some homeowners lost everything. 

Freeze (얼음)

Taken straight out of Squid Game Season 2, "Eoreum" is the directive Gi Heun gives to his fellow contestants in the squid game for them to "Freeze" every time Yeongmi, the large mannequin in the Red Light, Green Light game, turns around and "sees" if any of the players are moving, shooting anyone moving dead instantly. It's fitting that Squid Game was released in the dead of winter here in America because in many places, we're definitely feeling that "freeze." Despite it being a Monday, many offices and buildings in the Baltimore/ DC area were shut down due to "inclement weather" and the trains didn't run at all, and even the library was closed! Basically a day to forget with minimal economic activity...except snowboarders got a workout! The fresh snow allowed anyone within distance of a tall hill to get a board, snowobard, really any flat surface (some people used pieces of cardboard) to go down the hill along the smooth white slopes, not worrying about breaking their fall because the snow is a nice powdery pillow to collapse in. 

The other idea of "freeze" is to tell someone to stop immediately in an emergency situation. I found at an early age that my parents do NOT respond well in crisis situations, usually when it comes to being lost on a road trip or picking me up from the airport, they get tense and frustarted easily. I tried to learn from that and take an "ice-in-the-viens" attitude of not cracking under pressure, as tha's the time that's actually most important to be calm and have all your wits about you. I think that's probably what separates the best performers in teh world from the rest of us: they have adated well to the idea of being in the limelight and actually thrive in it, they bask in the glory of it and want to do well, even when they know one small mistake can be amplified into something huge in front of billions of people. That's the impression I got from watching "Bohemian Rhapsody" for the first time all the way through yesterday with Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury and some other members of Queen I didn't know but should have, astrophysicist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. I was reminded how big of an influence Queen has to my musical experience, as "We are the Champions" was an even bigger song than "Bohemian Rhapsody" during my youth of watching sports movies like Mighty Ducks, it was everywhere. "We Will Rock You" was one of the first band songs I played (I played clarinet.......which I later abandoned to play violin), "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Another one Bites the Dust" was everywhere in my youth even though I didn't attribute them to Queen, and we wouldn't have gotten the artist known as "Lady GaGa" without the song "Radio Gaga." (Stephanie Germonatta still would have likely made it big, just with a different moniker). Freddie Mercury, though, was apparently one of those stage alphas who was at his best when onstage, everyone was watching, and had that "eoreum" attitude of being the calmest and most liberated, probably why his performance at LiveAid in 1985 was so memorable. him bouncing all over the place, playing piano, dancing, and flexing in his white T-shirt the whole time. It was the "show stopper" ( a technical term for the piece in a performance that get a lot of applause and briefly pauses the show). I think we all want to be the show stopper on some level, but I think that's what I yearn to be, to finally have my talents displayed and in a positive light; I was born with a Freddie Mercury attitude but with a "average Chinese man's face" so have never made it into the spotlight to allow my inner Freddie Mercury to let loose on the world. But when I do....maybe I'll go gaga like Queen did at LiveAid. (hopefully without the dying a few years later part due to AIDS, I'm not that big into going out in a blaze of glory, I'd rather skip that part). 

Fettucine alfredo (페투치네 알프레도, 阿尔弗雷多意面)

 I ate too many TV dinners in my youth, and especially the one I regret now is Stouffer's Chicken Fettucine Alfredo with Broccoli. This used to be my staple when I went to Ralph's by myself to "stock up" on food for the week, and I was very unoriginal in what I wanted, basically anything edible and quick, which translated to fattening and low-quality. I regret those times because I suspect all those plastic containers and Parmesan cheese mixed in with the fettucine alfredo was probably filled with microplastics, not to mention the alfredo sauce being filled with fattening foods and consisting of 55% of daily intake of cholestrol and 35% daily fat, roughly, plus who knows how much the noodles were doused in butter, etc. Who knows if all of that consumed microplastic content has contributed to infertility. My diet is totally different now and the stores I buy food from vastly different........still some frozen foods, but from Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and my first top on any trip is the vegetable/ produce aisle, something I avoided like the plague back in my bachelor days, probably why I still have trouble with chicory, endive, arugula, fennel, all good trivia material. I went to a Buffalo Wild Wing's recently with a friend and was just shocked at how salty everything tasted, almost unbearably dripping with fat and rich material. (That's the biggest problem with American food: how rich it is). The wings themselves dripping with buffalo sauce, plus what looked like a triple layer of cheese, plus potatoes..... no wonder I had weight problems! I'm glad MJ converted me to the world of healthy eating and vegetables, and what I realized is there's a hedonic treadmill with food too: if you always eat salty or fatty food, you keep craving those kinds of foods, and healthy food tastes bland. But if you eat bland (likely not tasting as good but good for your body) all the time, the really fatty stuff just explodes with flavor and you realize how much sodium + general badness there needs to be to make it have all that taste. Even BCD Tofu, one of the favorite restaurants MJ frequented all the time, has to be a once-or-twice-a-year thing now because I realize in that food is MSG up the wazoo, and it's not an exaggeration that I could be taking a few hours off the tail end of my life each time I consume one. Like fettucine alfredo, it's good but not worth it. 

TIL that Alfredo sauce was created by an Italian chef to satisfy his wife in the early 1900's, a man by the name of Alfredo di Lelio, and adding it to pasta was just a natural combination, especially fettucine, Italian for "ribbons." For a lot of food names like "pizza," Chinese and Japanese don't even have equivalent terms because they're from Italian specific names, so the Asian languages just do an approximate translation of them, especially the -o and -i words ending in vowels are hard to get just right in Chinese. It's lucky for Alfredo and most Italians that his name was so melodious, because I think a lot of food is marketed through names, and in that way French and Italian dishes have such an advantage because you just want to have escargot, or vichyssoise, or bouillabaisse, or pizza, lasagna, mostaccioli, mascarpone cheese, etc, whereas in Chinese we just have "Mu shu pork," "mapo tofu," Chow mein," not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing words that you want to put in your mouth upon first listen, not to mention the Chinese/Hawaiian dish "pu pu platter." I also think Asians don't have a word for fettucine alfredo because it's just too rich; Asians can't deal with all that cheese and lactate, we just have soy sauce for that. Sorry Alfredo but your food is killing America. 

Mayfly (蜉蝣, カゲロウ, 하루살이)

 Jeopardy clue on the last day of 2024 reminded me how quickly 2024 went; it was about the mayfly, which is a famous insect known for being alive for only a few hours (unlike its name which suggests it lives for a month). It's an aquatic insect with relatives like the dragonfly and the damselfly, and it's life is tragically short, but is it that different from humans? In the whole spectrum of the universe our 70 or so years of expected life span might as well be a few hours as it is functionally zero. 2024 definitely hammered that home; I remember distinctly it being 2024 and having to change all my date signatures to 2024 instead of 2023, just barely getting used to it being 2024, filing my taxes a few months after getting all my W-2s, seeing all the Google Year in Review videos of 2023, and then not having to worry about 2024 being over for a few months. But then suddenly......it was over. (although I did get through 104 blog entries, which is a personal high for this blog!) I saw a Facebook friend who posts videos of each year by sharing one second of every day of 2024.....a bunch of baby videos, driving in the car, short clip of playing dodgeball, snow days, etc.... that really hammers home how each day just passes by like a mayfly's life, you get about a few moments that you remember and then the rest passes into memory. 

I ended 2024 by watching Squid Game Season 2 with MJ which is a global sensation, but following the theme of "finding underrated shows that aren't talked about enough," I watched "Man on the Inside" with Ted Danson, Stephanie Beatriz (voice of Mirabel Madrigal in Encanto) but notably a Michael Schur-run show, producer of The Good Place and "How to be Perfect," a book MJ loves and swears by. In addition to all the trivia references and beautiful scenery (Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco), Michael Schur always throws in some wholesome philosophical debates and ideas on life and death, where the Good Place is all about moral decisions but "Man on the Inside" is more just examining the lives of senior citizens at their live-in senior center. It's sad, illuminating, and hilarious at the same time, a stark parallel to that other "end-of-life" examination of Squid Game where players also have only a short amount of time to live but for ddifferent reasons. One of the characters on the show, Calbert played by Stephen McKinley Henderson (almost guaranteed to be a Jeopardy clue at some point) confided how fast his child went from a baby to an adult who was no longer cute and adorable.....that hit home, not only how little time babies are cute and listen to their parents (probably from 2 years old to 10 years old, at which point now they just become terrors and just sit around looking at their phones into oblivion, from what I understand) but also like a mayfly, how quickly we all just grow up and grow old, and eventually end up at the Pacific Living Center, the fictional setting of the show. Pretty soon I'll be ringing in 2026 (maybe after having appeared on Jeopardy, or MJ and I having a baby? Who knows what will happen in 2025, but much like 2024 it's all going happen too quick and feel like the year just went by like a mayfly's life. 

Virtual Reality ( 虚拟现实, 仮想現実, 가상 현실)

 According to some really smart people this world is already a simulation and we are all part of a virtual reality world, but yesterday for my friend's 40th birthday I experienced the closest thing to actually experiencing another virtual reality world. I know technology exists now with the Oculus Rift and Meta Quest virtual reality machines to get your own personal virtual reality simulators, but we tried going into a VR simulator room for the low-low price (not really, but it was for fun) of $29.99 for 30 minutes of simulating an experience of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (starring the Rock DeWayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black, as well as the lesser-known Scottish actress Karen Gillian. We entered as a group of 4 and got strapped in with the necessary equipment (vest and headset) then randomly selected a playable character (I got Kevin Hart, aka Franklin Finbar) and entered the VR room. I was a little apprehensive about starting in case we had to go through obstacles and some sudden drops like a roller coaster, but I guess there are too many liability issues to allow for any physical risks while you're walking around without vision. The virtual reality experience is really realistic, it is really like entering a completely different world and now you've entered another body, like Avatar or the Matrix. Visually and audially, at least. There's music and surround sound built into the headset, and of course the visual is like watching a movie while moving around, and you can turn 360 degrees to see around you, making own decisions and not at the whim of a movie director to explore your surroundings. The other players are also physically the same distance away in VR as in real life, so there were times I bumped into surrounding players if we had to all fit in a small space or all "step on the platform or something. Spots on the "floor" helped us identify where to stand, and soft walls confined us to where we could actually go in the warehouse where the VR took place. But yea, pretty real. "Spiders" flew down from the sky and tickled us (probably some feathers) and we had to brave man-eating crocodiles (felt the wind coming from them) and if we "died" the vest would shock us simulating death. Pretty interesting expereince, and I thought once or twice about removing my headset just to disengage from the VR and see where I actually was, but I oddly didn't want to break the illusion of being in a different world, as the Jumanji world was so engrossing and more fantasitic than our "real world." 

If our "real world" is actually a simulation created by someone to see how humans would react, there are some real complaints we should have about playing with our emotions, heartbreak, grief, sadness, unbearable pain, etc., but one of the worst things about this world has to be lotteries. The illusion of being able to obtain massive wealth and contributing into a system that really rewards only a few winners (sometimes just 1, like the $1.22 billion dollar winner of the Mega Millions Friday night from Northern California) at the expense of thousands, maybe millions of people, willingly participating in decreasing their own wealth to fund one person, pretty much the antithesis of what we want in a fair society, where everyone is more equal and no one becomes drastically wealthier or more power than others, at the expense of others. (I readily admit I fall prey to the lottery conspiracy whenever the prize gets over $800 million or so).  We pretty much have ways of promoting massive wealth inequality already (see uber-billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, etc. - worth $237 billion or whatever it is based on their companies' stock prices), yet the lottos actively encourage that, and the players follow along because no one says no to a billion dollars (10-digit number). How many people have to suffer for that one person to win though? That's likely the message of Squid Game and its sequel that recently came out, Squid Game 2, the disgusting lengths that people do to win lottos, and really it's actually depicted more acutely with real contestants in "Beast Games," Mr. Beast's competition forcing real people to do crazy things and backstab, be ruthless for the pursuit of money. It's human beings at their worst, the naked pursuit of money and inevitable failure for 99.99% of all those going for it, with the chances for most lotto people functionally 0, yet that dream of winning fueling those 99.99% to continue with dire consequences. Oh, and in April each ticket for MegaMillions is increasing 150% from $2 per ticket to $5. Great, more money being fueled into what essentially is a poor tax, making poor people pay for one person to win (and the lotto system fueling it). Damn the lotteries, this should be a virtual reality, not our reality. 

JOMO

All throughout my twenties, I experienced severe cases of FOMO: Fear of Missing Out, wanting to be at every party, every wedding that I was invited to (not that many), every time friends got together, that I often tried to go to 2 Super Bowl parties at the same time (big mistake) because the friends realize at some point that you're going to another Super Bowl party, or another 30th birthday party, and you just can't be in 2 places at one time, and you have to commit to one or the other. Now in my thirties, though, it's been an opposite feeling: JOMO, or the joy of missing out, which according to Jeopardy and a cursory search of the internet, is actually a real thing: spending Friday and Saturday nights at home with MJ and not worrying about the world passing me by or whatever party is going on that I can't be apart of. With some rare exceptions, I end up being rather content, except if they are real friends who I haven't seen for awhile. Then I make my best effort to go. But JOMO is good for any clubs, bars, or any event that I'm not that comfortable at: lots of nigths "pissing the night away" (Tubthumping by Chumbawumba) that I now relish not having to repeat. MJ and I have gotten good at "missing out" on the big holidays too, just totally ignoring Christmas and Thanksgiving and visting my parents at different times instead of the usual holiday rush. It's great. Instead of putting pressure on making Christmas a bigger deal than it has to be, it's just been 2 days of rest and relaxation for us. The joy is most keenly felt in the wallet, where gifts don't need to be bought, no tickets to go see Taylor Swift, no European vacations with other people, no round of beers at bars to people who I barely know. In fact, our wedding marked a nice border line between my 20's and 30's, but also the FOMO and JOMO phases of life: after our own weddings we realize that life goes on after big parties, real friends will be friends no matter how many times you invite them to parties, going to events isn't always the huge thrill that my brain associates it with. I wonder if this is the case with pregnancy; are human beings all instinctively born with a FOMO chip of wondering what it would be like to be a parent? This would be a necessary part of maintaining the species. Or will it be a situation of JOMO and we have the joy of missing out on pregnancy and having kids even though everyone else seemingly is doing it? We'll find out! 

One other realization I've come to realize more recently: nails grown fast if you don't bite them. Sounds pretty obvious, but I've always had a habit of biting my nails, since probably 13 or 14 years old. It's my nervous tick, my go-to when I feel like I need to focus on something and get through it, kind of like me always rolling paper towels into a ball, it's just something I do as a habit, no utility to it or anything. Recently MJ encouraged me to stop biting as it's damaging my teeth (enamel has worn off the outer layer of my incisors, the 2 front teeth) and given that my dad wears a full set of false teeth now and needs them before eating, I should probably protect my teeth more. I'm Robert Yan and I'm a recovering onychophagist (nail-biter). I've been clean for about 8 weeks now. Will it continue? Hopefully; I have to stop myself sometimes as I instinctively just start biting when a stressful situation arises. Maybe I'm just lucky to not have an addictive personality, but I wonder if it's just a matter of willpower to quit doing something. If it's so easy, everyone should be able to quit drugs, quit alcohol, quit all the toxic elements of one's life, right? I don't think it's that easy and it depends on one's background, one's genes, what one did as a kid to develop an addiction, etc. I never drank coffee or ever got started with anything (except biting nails), so I never even had a taste of it. That's the key, I guess. Once your body is used to something, it can magically adapt to it and pretty soon you feel like that's how it's always been. (Maybe getting pregnant is like that too!)