Mass Shooting (大规模射击, 대량 사격, 銃乱射事件)

 Well, it happened. One of the few bright spots of the pandemic was that people weren't gathering in public as much anymore, so America got a hiatus from the string of mass shooting incidents (I remember one weekend in the summer of 2019 when mass shootings occurred in multiple cities within days/hours of each other)......and now that America has reopened and schools are back to in-person instead of online instruction, a mass school shooting happened in Uvale, Texas, devastating everyone around the country and confirming that the trend of mass shootings in America is not over. 

America is indeed the only country in the world that this regularly happens. Other languages don't really have a good term for this type of event, the translations above are kind of awkward words thrown together to form an idea, nothing as accepted and used frequently as to be introduced into the lexicon as "mass shooting." The few days following the shooting has been full of outcries for the Senate/Congress/federal government to act to stop mass shooting through gun control, and I agree with this seemingly obvious sentiment: guns make it so easy to turn one killing into mass killing, whereas in countries like China there have been incidents of crazy people trying to kill as many people as possible but without a certifiable killing machine like guns/ semi-automatic rifles. 

Beyond the gun control solutions which seem futile because Americans have been asking for it for 10 + years (Sandy Hook mass shooting was 2012), is there anything else we can do, or at least diagnose the problem? I do feel as though those who are clamoring for gun control need to press Congress and make it their No. 1 issue no matter when it is, not just when it's convenient (not get distracted by other issues like racial tensions, BLM, etc.). For example, maybe instead of trying to solve 200 things at one time just hone in on 2 or 3 issues that are in dire straits and emergency, has-to-happen yesterday, like climate change, gun control, and the nursing shortage (this is one of MJ's top issues). 

One problem is that because mass shootings have occured before, it's likely to lead to more, if just the copycat instinct of some psycho killers perhaps admiring previous killers and seeing the news coverage that they received, or some kind of perverse satisifaction derived from going out in a blaze of glory and taking others with them (my life is going to be over anyway, I'm going to do something extreme). I forget where I heard this, but a way to deter this (that seems inhumane but might be effective given the alternative now of just doing nothing about it) is to do everything possible to keep the mass shooter alive at the end of their shoot and force them to bear pain for the rest of their lives, or just make them watching videos of the kids they killed that day, because right now it's too easy for the killer to just kill everyone else, then commit suicide or just get shot by law enforcement, allowing for no consequences. We desperately need to disincentive future potential mas shooters. 

Part of the problem is the nature of U.S. society: we glamorize the "winners" and leave the "losers" in the dust. Any group of people you've ever been in: everyone gravitates towards the most popular or more successful people, forgetting all about the loners, and the loners just fade away to be forgotten, until they wind up in the news for being the mass shooter. It's hard, impossible maybe, to account for everybody, but it might help to reach down and help the lonliest and worst-off in the society instead of devoting so much energy towards those who don't need it, like following Kim Kardashian's twitter and getting to know every detail of her life, Youtube clips of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial, maybe everyone can try to reach out to one person who has no social media presence is likely hurting or doing badly, that has much more of an outsize impact than being the 15 millionth person to "like" an influencer's tweet. (Bill Maher did a segment like this 2 years ago.........https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGp-omDD3V0) 

The 1% of superbad people inflict so much damage to everyone else. It's not that America as a society is full of terrible people and everyone is inherently evil, it's just that the worst of the people can make everyone else's life miserable. Just like the guy on the road who stops his car in the middle of the road to get out and grab his pizza, blocking up traffic, if one wants to use one's powers for bad, it can get really bad. 

Finally, one problem I find is that America emphasizes too much to let everyone do want they want to do. That's a fundamental American way of thinking that has allowed it to become the most powerful/wealthiest/most advanced country in the world, where entreprenuers, innovators, scientists are allowed to do what they want to do, and it's great on one extreme but on the other extreme, it allows the worst in sociey to make the downside really bad as well. Kind of like the guy in traffic who wants the freedom to cut you off in traffic or stop in the middle of the road, MJ feels the effects of this problem at the hospital every day: adults who behave like children who still want to be allowed to do what they want to do, like they contracted Covid because they wanted to go unmasked but now need help at hospitals, or people with heart problems/ diabetes who want to eat whatever they want but don't want to accept the responbilities of having medical problems (many STILL order the greasiest/saltiest foods at the hospital even knowing their diseases were based on bad diet). So many people just want to be allowed their freedoms, and it's great when the those who can channel those freedoms for good do it, but often we are also saddled with the freedoms of the worst in society who want to do bad....like purchase guns and shoot people with them. In America we're living with the extreme good and the extreme bad, and in order to take out the bad stuff we may have to temper the good stuff too. 

Neighbors (邻居, 隣人, 이웃)

 Part of growing up is realizing what impressions we had of things as a child were total fantasies, exaggerations, or untruths, like the allure of Disneyworld or the sweetness of sodas (they're arficially sweet and bad for you!), and also neighbors. I grew up with this idealized version of neighbors from reading Dr. Seuss books and watching shows like Home Improvement (where Tim the Toolman Taylor talks through a fence to the faceless but sage advice-giving neighbor Wilson). My parents always had pretty good neighbors growing up in suburban Chicago, where I would see them leaving their driveways and say hi.....it was the Midwest in a nice neighborhood. 

Not all neighbors are nice, and like the general population, there are some good ones, some not-so-good-ones, and some downright nightmare neighbors. Neighbors are like umpires: If they're doing their job, you don't notice them. As I write this my upstairs neighbor is stomping around in his/her unit (I've never seen my neighbor ever since I moved in during the pandemic) and making incredible noise through our ceiling so that I can feel the pounding of his steps in my heartbeat, like a steady drumbeat traveling through the walls. There are also occasional sounds of tables being dragged across the floor, furniture moving, chairs scraping, but mostly it's these loud footsteps that cause the most distress, more to MJ but even to me, the more tolerant one. It's become a problem, but in today's society we don't meet our neighbors ever: people barely look at me when I'm in the elevator with them, unless I do my best to initiate some sort of conversation. So how do I deal with this ruckus- causing faceless and nameless neighbo whom I've never met? I've decided to write them a note and ask nicely first. 

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but for some reason I feel like it used to be the standard thing to do upon moving in to introduce oneself to neighbors by knocking on the door and saying Hi, or when bumping into them just start a conversation, just in case some common problem occurred and we needed each other's help, like if I locked myself out of my apartment or something. I actually did that when I was in college and starting law school.......it was not met with very warm responses. I guess I was naive then, but it does seem emblematic of today's society of being online and social media to actually get farther away from those people who are closer in physical proximity to us; seems counterintuitive. By making everyone around the world closer each other, we've pushed the people closest to us further away. 

Maybe I'm causing distress to my downstairs neighbors as well, but I doubt it: MJ has these magic slippers she has me wear to control the thuds of "heavy steps." I am a big fan of the Korean standards for being a good neighbor: Be as quiet and as considerate as possible. Hopefully Mr. Upstairs will reciprocate in kind. 

Stacey Park Milbern

 No inspiring movie this weekend to report about like the last 2 Sundays, as I wasn't exactly "inspired" by the 2019 movie Hustlers starring Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez.....it's about women hard on their luck who expanded strip club jobs into a business of hustling men through some devious means after the 2008 financial crisis. My takeaways were that I didn't realize how bad the 2008 crisis hit regular people, maybe because I "hid out" in law school and didn't have a source of income to begin with, and also that I'm probably underestimating the economic toll on regular people due to the 2020 pandemic, despite what I hear about the labor market being favorable and companies actively trying to hire and not finding enough candidates. 

May has traditionally been Asian Heritage Month in America, and while I do appreciate the gesture and the section of the library dedicated to Asian culture ( I found a nice Pop History of Asian America full of influential Asians like Steve Aoiki, George Takei, Sandra Oh, Daniel Dae Kim, Ken Jeong, etc.) I've never really found the month to have any sort of measurable effect for me (never got a discount at Chipotle for being Asian, or be congratulated walking down the street to be Asian. I HAVE been mock-cheered while running by people to "congratulate" me for running, which I find annoying, but I can think of many more negative instances of the general public pointing out my Asian identity than positive ones. It unfortunately goes with the territory, at least for now- Asian Americans are seldomly depicted in positive lights or as heroes in mass culture (the recent successes of Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi, etc. is helping to change that, so I hold out hope and not just a Debbie Downer), but I do feel an underlying sense of resentment towards Asians by certain people, whether it be the micro-aggression "China virus" used to blame the virus on Chinese people, or just being pointed out as "Chinaman" and not in a positive light, I find that the further down in sophistication the level where I'm operating at, the more likely my Asian American identity gets derided. (Nobody in lawyer circles, for example, even notices that I'm Asian). 

Stacey Park Milburn was the feature of a Google "Doodle," where Google points out a certain event or person on its home page, a week or so ago. Stacey was an LGBTQ activitst who was a Korean American disability rights activist. Sadly, she needed dialysis treatment for her kidney cancer (a member of a family also had this type of cancer and needed surgery, so I know how much of a crisis this can be) but surgery was delayed for Stacey due to the pandemic, and she passed away on May 19, 2020, which in a cruel twist of fate was to be her 31st birthday. It may be a somewhat touchy topic, but Stacey's case really signals to me that there was a devastating hidden cost to lockdown measures in American, quarantine, and totally shutting down the world that we knew: other problems besides Covid developed, including depression, loneliness, and delayed treatments. Sure, Stacey's kidney cancer might have been delayed regardless whether lockdown measures were applied because so many Covid cases went to the hospital, clogging up the resources, and doctors/ nurses weren't as available during those early months in 2020 anyway, but I do really wonder if quarantine was a net benefit..... if the world had not locked down, or locked down in a different way, lock down certain portions of the population, etc., if it would have been any worse than the results we get. I'm a big proponent of "hindsight is 20/20," and the CDC/government purportedly chose the best option with the limited information they had at the time. Statistically perhaps a population of potential Covid patients might have died if we didn't lock down, but it's a grim reality that one death is tragic, a million deaths is a statistic (Stalin quote)- people like Stacey Park Milburn became part of the statistic of people who passed away at least partly due to the lockdown. 

I do appreciate the Google Doodles because they give attention to the lesser known people/ events in history, those who might not pop up in a trivia question but nevertheless had courage and/or some sort of impact on the world and should be recognized, whereas trivia, like history, is just a bunch of stories/lies people have agreed on." (Napoleon quote). I don't necessarily trust history/ news nowadays to be an accurate reflection of the outsize impact of different people (For every George Washington, for example, there are thousands of soldiers just as impactful who didn't happen to be in a position of power and get all the accolades for the American Revolution), and often I really wonder if these historic people are worth memorizing, committing to memory, or if we're just memorizing a fact/statistic/story, not a real person. Stacey Park Milbern feels much more like a real person, if only because we lived in the same time and were contemporaries. 

Privilege (特権, 특권)

 Sometimes society abuses certain terms or distorts it to a degree that the term doesn't mean what it was originally meant. The 2021 word of the year was "vax," as in Covid vaccination, but another addition to the lexicon has been "white privilege," indicating that white people get special treatment in society, contrasted with the plight and systemic racism that cuts against black Americans. Well, if we're talking about just privilege, I am not white but still did get the kind of privilege that "white privilege" connotes, like having 2 parents married living in the same household, with a steady income, and I had every expectation of going to college, didn't have to help my parents' business or otherwise work to put food on the table as a high school student. I had all the conditions and privilege to become a successful individual. The white people depicted in the movie, "Coda," however (the 2022 Academy Award winner for Best Picture! Somehow I missed that, but the movie is definitely worthy of the title. As I've grown older I've come to appreciate much more the artistic, storytelling, cultural value that movies like Coda provide but do not privide the financial value like the big blockbusters Marvel movies, Harry Potter create), do not have that privilege, as the whole family except 17-year-old Ruby is deaf, and struggling to make ends make owning a fishing boat and selling their catch. One of the central conflicts is if Ruby can go to college and pursue her dream as a singer at the Berkely School of Music (in Boston, and apparently almost as famous as Juilliard, though I've never heard of it) or if she must stay home and support her family who need her to translate in sign language. 

I might start judging the quality of movies by how many times they make me cry or shed tears, and "Coda" definitely made me do it 5-7 times, all wonderfully depicted moments reminding me of my college years of confusion and pursuig dreams. Sure, it's not as believable as someone as beautiful and gifted as the actress Emilia Jones (who plays Ruby) would actually have these problems in real life, but someone out there there definitely is someone like Ruby who's struggling, and it's not about race, and it's about not being born into wealthy families who can provide their kids the best conditions to success, and having to fight from the bottom to gain traction into society and battle against powerful forces that life has thrown against you, and in that way everyone can relate to the characters in "Coda." Really a feel-good movie that I personally needed after ranting out the deterioration of society just yesterday. Also "Coda" makes me want to learn sign language, just in case I'm ever stuck on a boat or desperate situation with deaf people who only speak sign language, or somewhere that it might come in handy. I really also hope that colleges nowadays can get more people with backgrounds like Ruby who have come from families with lower socioeconomic status and they are the first ones in their families who are going to college, people for whom college means so much more, rather than just a stepping stone like a lot of college studnets treat it as nowadays. I definitely took college for granted (mostly due to my privilege) and thought of it as just a given, and I'd just need to get into the best college I could get into for my own vanity, not thinking about what college is really for or wat I could learn from there. I was so focused in my wild dreams of getting into an Ivy League school, and then when I didn't get in, felt so disappionted to "settle" for my state school in a time where disappointment is exactly what I needed to knock me down a peg, to make me realize how many smart and talented students there were out there that had struggled a lot more to get there, and I'd need to step up my game upon getting to college and use it as a springboard for life, not just use it as a status symbol or medal of accomplishment for getting into X school. 

Assertiveness (断言的, 断定的, 독단적인)

 There are plenty of moments in my life that I remember vividly, and will for the rest of my life, and I know that if that moment had gone differently, my life could have have been differet. At the 7th grade class spelling bee, I was confronted with a word pronounced by my English teacher at the time, Ms. Vaci, who pronounced a word that I wasn't that familiar with: either "windsome" or "winsome." Every other part of the word was obvious except that transition from the first syllable to the second syllable, and I couldn't tell if she was adding the "ds" sound or not, and I couldn't eliminate either of those words based on the definition. So I spelled "windsome," and I was wrong, a fitting word to lose a comeptition in. That was the the definitive end to my spelling bee career......no county spelling bee, no state spelling bee, no national spelling.  I don't even remember if we had an 8th grade spelling bee, if we did I might have been so traumatized from that the 7th grade one I just blocked it out of my memory. 

The spellig bee is just an example of losing out in a situation due to not being sufficiently assertive. I could have asked Ms. Vaci to repeat the word over and over until I heard it right. I could have told her simply, "I can't tell if you're saying windsome or winsome." But instead of putting her on the spot, my 7th-grade self didn't want to inconvenience her and slow down the whole class, so I just guessed. I've always kind of been that way, wanting more to please others or at least not to inconvenience others. Don't get me wrong, I can be selfish and am not trying to suggest I'm a better person because of this character flaw, it's just an instinct I have to put other people's interests in mind even if it runs counter to my own. 

In today's society, most people operate in the opposite way: don't worry about others' interests at all, only take care of yourself. That's one extreme on the spectrum, and my passive approach is on the other. Somewhere in between is likely the right balance. 

Even when it comes to hosting parties and organizing events, I think too much about pleasing people and giving others what they want, to the point of not even putting on an event because I don't know if other people will show up/ will like it. I know plenty of people who set up their weddings at faraway locations that are way out of the way for all the guests (like a destination wedding in China) or mark "You will need a car" on their wedding invitations, even for guests arriving from the other side of the country, who would then have to get on a flight, get a rental car, find accomodations in the remote location, and drive themselves to that event (and worry about the alcohol consumption). Some might defend that as "oh well that will cut down the guest list!" and it very much may, but what's the whole point of a wedding then, if you're trying to disincentive guests to come? 

Also, defensive driving: it's served me well to think about "what other people want" when in condensed city streets or busy highways, because I'm aware that someone might want to change lanes, or someone behind me might want to get around me to turn right, or any number of unexpected occurrences on the road. All that honking, though, in the East coast, shows that few drivers reciprocate my feelings, choosing to honk (and honk continuously, in a very vindictive way) whenever they don't get what their way, and often stopping in the middle of a 2-lane busy city street for some sort of "emergency" as they put their hazard lights on, only to find that they stopped just to wait for the pizza to be delivered to them, some other non-emergency personal errand. It's actually one of the frustrating realities that makes me veer towards MJ's stated view of the world (when she gets pessimistic about humanity), which is that, "We're all doomed!" It sometimes sure seems that way, right, when able-bodied guys will wave a cup when cars are stopped to ask for money while hospitals just can't find enough nurses and assistants to fill the spots needed (always shortstaffed), the discourse in the country and really the world is very divisive and people seem to be angry all the time, people consuming greedily on fast food, using up resources and being entitled to it since it's their own body, but then winding up in the hospital with all sorts of issues expecting others to fix that same body that they've destroyed themselves. (This applies to Covid and other diseases as well). 

I do realize that the thing with irresponsible people is they make everyone else look bad, but they are only the outliers of society, and there's plenty of good in the world that doesn't get noticed as often (good acts are often not rewarded). But because of all the outsize attention we're giving to those behaving badly due to social media, etc. ( I saw a "cheating on your boyfriend loyalty test" video that is just so wrong on so many levels of the cheating itself, but also that videos espousing entrapment of one spouse to cheat on others, or these videos are scripted and it's fake but in that sense we're rewarding the broadcast of inauthenticity) that the good will drift over to being bad......and then we just have a society of irresponsibility. It's a really depressing feeling that's difficult to shake, and difficult to remedy on an individual level. 

Alzheimer's Disease (My Emotional Viewing of "Still Alice") 老年痴呆症, アルツハイマー, 알츠하이머

My grandfather never suffered from Alzheimer's Disease. His mental capacity was fading towards the very end, but even at 96 he still read the newspaper and seemed to remember every single Chinese word he ever learned. He never forgot my face until the day of his death, a terrible day where he was disorientated by drugs and the foreign surroundings of the hospital. All things considered, he lived his last days with dignity. The same can't be said, however, for many older people suffering from Alzheimer's disease. 

My paternal grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's towards the end of her life, and at the end she could not recognize my dad's face. It was a heartbreaking feeling, and it made me value the preciousness of life, that all of a sudden it could all fall apart, or in the case of many Alzheimer's patients, it could be a slow grind down, with memory slowly deteriorating. There are suggested methods to prevent the disease like not smoking/drinking/eating a balanced diet but then others like learning a second language, doing mental exercises, etc. that I can really get behind. It can happen to anybody, though, especially in the rarer form of familial Alzheimer's, as depicted in the movie "Still Alice" starring Julianne Moore. A linguistics professor at Columbia, the character is as shocked as I was that she could develop early onset Alzheimer's at the young age of 50. (I'm turning 35 Monday, that'd be only 15 years away!) 

In the movie, Alice slowly loses her mental faculties, which is truly relatable to someone like me who relies on brainpower to make a living, be conversant, etc. (It's certainly not my physical abilities or hands-on abilities). At one point an exasperated Alice laments, "I wish I had cancer." A Hobson's choice, for sure, but I can only imagine the symptoms inflicting her: brain constantly in a fog, constantly forgetting things (I'm already pretty forgetful as it is, being more so would truly affect daily activities), not knowing what she might lose next. The disease also affected her family members, who not only inherited the possibility of the disease as well through genetics but also have to make decisions about how to take care of her. I am extremely grateful in old age that my grandpa was generally able to take care of himself (use restroom, feed himself, go on walks, etc.) allowing the rest of the family to live their lives and not become a heavy burden, but the cruel reality of Alzheimer's is it renders a patient unable to function and in need of caretaking/maintenance. At 50-something years old, that is the time to be enjoying grandkids, finishing out one's career and looking forward to retirement, not losing one's capacity to think. There are a lot of horrible diseases out there (incluidng Covid-19 and long Covid) but particuarly virulent is Alzheimer's that rips away one's memories, which at the end of life, isn't that all we have? The memories of a life (hopefully) well lived? 

I've mentioned this before, but I've been crying more at end of sad movies/ stories that depict a loss of something, not even necessarily death but the inability to achieve one's goals, or understanding that a way of life, a lifestyle, a relationship, has come to an end. I guess it makes sense as I grow older to be sad at others not being able to continue the good times, the realization that the end is near. The same feeling may have fueled my dislike of the 23-year-old Jeopardy champ Mattea Roach, who by accounts is a very smart young lady with a bright future, but constantly scraped out narrow victories or lucked out against inferior competition on Jeopardy to become the holder of the 5th-longest winning streak ever. Her success at such a young age makes me jealous, and makes me sad that I did not achieve goals like she did, and I won't ever be able to go back and amend that. But I shouldn't look backwards, I still got time to achieve goals with the rest of my life before one day, a long long time away, it all fades away and all I have are my memories (if I can fend off Alzheimer's). 

Costco in Quebec

 Some observations from a short, compact weekend trip to Quebec, the largest province in Canada (there are territories that are larger, but Quebec surprisingly stretches through most of the eastern part of Canada, and MJ and I definitely felt that distance just driving along the banks of the St. Lawrence River from Montreal to Quebec- almost a 3 hour drive). 

1.) COSTCO! Nice to see justification for my heavy investment in Costco stock firsthand, as it's almost literally eating other retailers' lunch in the grocery department, but also wading into gasoline territory: I've witnessed really long lines for gas at every single Costco that offers gas stations (they don't all have them!) from coast to shining coast; it looks like a breadline from the 1930's except it's the cars demanding fuel and we're beholden to Costco. Well, Quebec ALSO has Costco and the lines for gas also stretch way back even during mid-day on a Monday, even with 3 pumps in every lane instead of the usual 2. This may be because gas in Canada is more expensive than U.S. possibly due to different trade agreements with oil-rich countries, but 20-50 cents per gallon discount on every gallon makes up for the cost of a Costco membership for sure. Only downer: only accepted Mastercard, which I didn't have, so I had to drive off with my tail between my legs. 

2.) Montreal and Quebec City: beautiful cities, but also beautiful attitudes toward veganism! Reflects the general progressive attitude of the country (see universal healthcare system) and love of animals (MJ posited that Canada tends towards veganism due to having more species of wild animals within its borders- hey, maybe!) and we were able to go the whole trip maintaining vegan. 

3.) The return of real breakfasts! It's been quite a long time since I've had a real breakfast at a hotel (most chain outlets will just stick you with a breakfast bar and some fruit and advertise it as a free breakfast), but the hotels we stayed at offered a real spread, even accomodating MJ's strict vegetarian needs. In general the hospitality experience was as expected Canada-friendly, no sourpuss service people making me feel unwelcome, very hearty "BONJOURS" wherever we entered and no smugness/disdain at all when we started speaking English. I'm convinced everyone in Quebec speaks at least English and French well, with French being the lingua franca but English accepted everywhere you go.....like both Visa and American Express credit cards being accepted at most establishments, with small exceptions. 

4.) The language portion is a big deal because I always feel a bit of a superiority complex from some people who I work with on Japanese and Chinese projects.....I feel a bit of "better-than-thou" attitude from some speakers who can speak multiple languages to "come down to you" and speak your mother language even though they know I can speak their language too. No pressures at all in France and Quebec with English, and even though people just started speaking English to us I felt more relieved than anything. 

5.) The search for the Red Door- part of a fun scavenger hunt for me throughout Quebec City for filming sites used in the hit Korean drama series "Goblin." Of course being me, I was about 5 years too late for the craze where many Asian tourists (a lot of Chinese people also watch Korean dramas) flooded to Quebec City to see the awesome views depicted on TV, with the most famous spot being a red door in Old Town Quebec found in a very European alley......I'll never forget the feeling of coming upon it, spotting the telltale color of the walls and the familiar feeling of having been there before.......and also of the Asian tourists who were taking a photo there, clearly also having been searching for the Red Door as well. 

6.) Montreal is a bustling city whose residents I'm jealous of.......I'd have liked to have worked there on a job assignment or something for at least 3 months, in the summer of course or at least not during the dead of winter.......it's got an impressive art museum, a scenic hilltop that overlooks the city, a river that runs through it, an old Olympic grounds from the 1968 summer Olympics and 1967 Expo, a botanical garden, an old town, and MJ's most desired spots: vegan croissant bakeries. What else do you need? Oh and the mystique of an "underground city" with tunnels and shops to hang out during the winter. 

7.) Montreal is not far from the Canada-US border, just a one-hour drive, but it takes a while by driving to GET to that border, as New York is a big state by population but also by land mass; there's a whole more to the geography than just the Big Apple. It goes Catskill mountains, Albany, Adirondack mountains as you go up, and it definitely feels like a drive up from Los Angeles towards San Franisco, Oregon. Except the roads are not free in the Empire State. Maybe that's why they became an empire. 

Did I mention there's Costco in Quebec? Forget Amazon (bad quarter sunk the price of my shares, Costco's taking over the world!)