Reflection and Introspection

I just took a quick run through the last 14 (inconsistent) years of my blog.

You know that old saying – the more things change, the more they stay the same.

My interests are basically the same – tech, video games, anime/manga, sneakers, cars. My feelings on politics and our current social climate are very much the same. I’m not a different person from who I ever was, just more real life experience to mix in and maybe a little more empathy.

The change is represented by my age, responsibilities, and experiences.

I’m on that demographic shift now. I don’t get to check the 18-35 demographic box anymore. I’m close to that second act of life; the part where you’re supposed to be the most productive, where the most responsibility to a young family and your career hit – and I’m feeling it.

It’s not bad stuff, just heavy. I have two kids now. A mortgage to pay.

Work life has me dealing with stuff like my boss getting fired and wondering where that’s going to leave me. My career path hasn’t been the kind they write about in the books – it’s been a mix of luck and odd specialties which leads to lots of weird roles that don’t seem to fit, but I end up in them. Sounds great until someone asks you what your next move is – there isn’t a blueprint for this thing so I can’t tell. It’s stressful.

The pandemic has left things in a weird place, but it feels like we’re finally getting to some kind of steady state that could be mistaken as “normal.”

It hurt to see some of the names and faces in my posts that I haven’t seen in a long while – one friend has moved abroad for a job which is great for him, but he is missed. One person said “mask off” during the 2016 campaign and I cut them out (no regrets there). Two friends have since passed away – one was a few years back, one was just this year and a total shock as I had seen them just months before. Both were gone too soon and left young ones behind.

It wouldn’t be so hard to go back to writing about the tech and the cars and the games, I just don’t get anything from it anymore. I think I was looking for like-minded folks in that time and space, but they never really manifested (not that I did a very good job of blogging anyhow, but that’s something I didn’t realize at the time). I found value in what I was doing, it’s just that value calculus is different now.

My world is a little bit smaller now – by choice. I feel like I have everything I can carry right now. I have to curate and cultivate rather than collect like I once did.

If I have something to put out into the world, it isn’t to attract others to it – it’s to either get something out that needs to be out, or it’s something I hope can help others somehow.

Maybe this post could be a bit of both.

Upgrading the old PC

I built myself a PC back in 2016 that was already a generation old:

-Intel E3 1231 v3 which is good for 3.4ghz

-16gb of ram

-RX480(8gb)

-Massive 250gb SSD for my C: drive.

I already had a couple TBs in HDDs for storage, a OCZ 550w power supply, and 12 year old case that I’ve recycled a few times.

It did (and still mostly does) the trick – I have edited many videos and pictures, it still plays games around 60fps at 1080p, so no real complaints.

Since the pandemic, it’s only gotten harder to source parts, so instead of building a new rig like I planned last year, I’ve just been running my old workhorse into the ground.

Unfortunately, not everything is has made it – the power supply fan started to tick (loudly) over the last 6 months, my HDD were terrible for larger video editing files and running games, and my case sucked, so time to make a few upgrades to keep the thing running.

So a few upgrades:

-Corsair H50 hydro cooler (I bought this 2 years ago, but it didn’t fit into my old case)

-A NZXT H510 case

-1tb Samsung SSD

-Super Flower Leadex III Pro 550w power supply

The machine doesn’t actually perform any better, but it stopped squealing, it runs almost silently at low load, and I have more SSD space to put games.

The silver lining – when I do upgrade the CPU, motherboard, RAM and graphics card, I’ll still have a decent spot to put it and not have to output the cash later.

Auto Restoration on YouTube

Is the current thing for my ADHD to attach to.

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve watched two YouTube channels rebuild some of the best cars of the 90s/00s.

M539 Restorations and Speed Academy are two channels I’d definitely suggest to folks who want to see the nitty gritty of taking apart and putting together cars in all aspects. Both channels do the engine work, suspension, brake systems, body work, interior, wiring – there isn’t really much they don’t do themselves.

I think I have a thing for these kinds of videos because it’s kind of like the work I used to do in my driveway 15-20 years ago on similarly aged cars (but way less cool). It’s something I aspire to get back to doing with an IS300 Sportcross I have in the garage.

Wrenching on cars is something I enjoy doing on my own time, but not as a job. I did work at a shop in college and got a feel for what that’s like, but I found that I never had the energy or interest in working on my own cars after working on others, so I decided that wasn’t the job path for me.

Travel Light – Every Day Carry

Sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference.

In your day to day, what you carry around with you can either be a hindrance or a help. With that in mind, here’s what I carry with me on the regular – just enough to get me through the day and then some without being overly cumbersome.

I decided a long time ago to downsize my wallet after filling old ones with cards and receipts, and for almost the last decade I’ve lived with a front carry wallet and no more than 6 cards at a time. My latest was a $10 flash sale on this model from Amazon.

NOMATIC Slim Minimalist Front Pocket Wallet For Men and Women, Holds 4-15 Cards, with Hidden Cash and Key Pocket

I usually carry a multi-tool as well – in this case, it was a gift from a friend in the form of a Leatherman Juice S2. I don’t think that model is available anymore since I got it over 15 years ago (still going strong though, quality stuff from Leatherman).

JUICE® S2

Other than that, I keep my iPhone on me (been an iPhone user since the first model) in this case as well as a pair of AirPods.

The Next Generation of Xbox – Still Waiting to Show it’s Stuff

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3 weeks into Series X ownership, and it’s been kind of underwhelming. That’s not the Xbox’s fault – there’s just no games out there. The infinitesimal power of The Next Generation (TM) is instead being employed as a Xbox One emulation system. And a YouTube playback machine.

YouTube in 4K is impressive. And Red Dead Redemption 2 loading in less than a minute is really cool – but at the end of the day, it’s never not disappointing to not be playing The Next Generation games while this $500 box dwells within my home.

Yes, I should have known better. No, I don’t regret buying the thing.

There has been a lot of folks making the very apt comparison to a PC upgrade. With GamePass making a good analogue for a Steam library, I’m downloading a lot of games I’m already familiar with, and they’re all playing the same just with much faster load times and maybe higher graphics settings. It’s a worthwhile upgrade and makes a meaningful difference in quality of life stuff, but it doesn’t feel Next Gen which is the first time I’ve felt this way about a new console.

Looking at the tea leaves, I think it’s a feeling I might need to get comfortable with. With the advent of the “half-step” console generations (Xbox One X, PS4 Pro), I think the industry has recognized there is an appetite for iterations of systems along the lines of the iPhone – we’re going to get upgraded systems on a more regular basis and it will maintain a baseline experience and platform that will operate on an N-x basis. Adding to that the streaming opportunities that render a local system a luxury rather than a requirement to play games, I think we’re going to see a large shift this generation that sees the “generation” idea left redundant.

But putting all that speculation aside, the new Xbox is a solid piece of tech – controller is a slight but welcome upgrade with better textures and a dedicated share button. The system itself is using some cutting edge tech in it’s CPU, GPU, and hard drive technology. I just can’t wait for some games that really leverage the tech to it’s full potential.

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2020 – The Decade Long Year

First off; wow. Apparently this page has been going for 11 years. Not really sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I went through and read most of my old posts and it was cool to see a few things I’ve lived and enjoyed, and that I could revisit them on this site. From cars, music, clothing and shoes I coveted, events I attended, trips I took; it was really nice to look back on the stuff I thought to document. I have ADHD, and it messes with my ability to remember/recollect memories, so having the words and the pictures are really valuable to either help me remember, or prove to myself I did it, even if I can’t recall.

As for the 3 year gap between posts – I kind of lost my creative streak. Politically, things have been a mess and that consumed the back of my mind, so it was kind of just trying to keep my head on straight and survive. That may seem a bit dramatic, but quite honestly it’s taken a toll on my mental health. I’ve since worked on coping and doing some self-care, but I’m just now getting to a space where I’m feeling a spark again to do something. So hopefully this becomes a more regular occurrence. I think I’ll treat this site a bit more like a journal than I had previously.

So, 2020. To try and summarize the really big stuff:

March was the start of the Covid-19 outbreak. 8+ months later, we’re still in lock down and things are still getting worse. The US government’s response has been to do almost nothing. The US reported 190k+ infections yesterday, so we’re going to see a million+ infections a week for the foreseeable future, and we’ve already lost 250k Americans. At a federal level, the only action that’s been taken was a one-time $1200 check sent out to every adult (which would have barely lasted anyone a month, let alone 8). Local governments have gone through 2 or 3 rounds of lock downs with varying success, but the lack of a national strategy – and the pig-headed who deny it’s existence and risk everyone’s safety – has resulted in the escalating numbers. The latest attempt by our local governments is to (again) ban large gatherings and shut down all but essential businesses to slow the spread again.

May 25th, George Floyd was killed by a police officer who pinned a handcuffed Floyd down with a knee to the neck for 10 minutes. This sparked months and months of (ongoing) protests against police killings throughout the country. Local police departments responded with great force to protesters, and the federal government intervened in many places via ICE, DHS, and national guard. Black Lives Matter has entered the mainstream, the movement to Defund the Police has grown, and all of it brought a new spotlight to discussing and addressing racism in the United States.

Counter to those progressive protests and movements, there has been an increase in nationalist and racist factions, some of which seek to incite a second civil war or a race war.

November brought the presidential election, which has been provisionally awarded to Joe Biden as we wait for votes to be recounted in states that were very close. The previous president has denied losing and has made unfounded claims of voter fraud. I’ve put that all in very soft terms, but the reality is that this country is heavily divided and our democracy is cracking. The president and the Republican representatives who support his claims of a stolen election have mobilized a base fueled by Fox News, Q@n0n conspiracies, and white supremacy. While it would be nice to say these folks are fringe, the reality is that over 70 million people voted for the president – the second highest vote total for any president ever. 4 years from now, we could easily find ourselves in the same predicament.

Looking forward, a vaccine is in the cards for early 2021 in small amounts. Optimistically, we could see it available more broadly by March, so things may be back to some level of normalcy by mid-to-end of 2021. Our democracy will see some stability return with a new president, but I don’t anticipate our country addresses the underlying issues.

After 3 years of political and social back-sliding, nothing could have prepared me for what 2020 was to bring. Nothing is materially different or better, but I feel like I’m better built to handle what comes my way. I hope things can get better and that we as a people can progress, but the world has a lot of lessons to learn that I’m not sure they’re ready for.

All Thing Being Equal…… (Thing is, They’re Not)

jal

This post has me on an emotional roller coaster.

It starts as the twitter version of “I Have A Dream”.

It ends with ‘diverse/different doesn’t always = best’ – which….. fine – fair point.

But it’s that middle sentence.  “We are getting closer because everyone is considered now, but people are now chosen because of their diversity” (emphasis mine).

I’m not sure if this dude is flat out ignorant/bigoted, but if he was trying to be slick…….

Let’s just say if he winked any harder at his “secret” bias, he’d crush his eyeball.

To believe that opportunity is now universal and free from bias is the height of naivete, borderline ignorant, and at worst, closet bigotry via gaslighting. Racism is a thing; Classism is a thing; Sexism is a thing; Discrimination is a thing, and all of it permeates into any and all opportunities.

Then, to state – in no uncertain terms – that determining factors come down solely to race/gender, and accounting for the statement above where different =/= best, is also to say that you think someone else could have done the job better if they weren’t different; aka if they weren’t a minority.  It’s predetermined that an individual who happens to be a minority has not earned their spot; they were gifted it “because” they’re diverse or different; that there is certainly someone more qualified/deserving –  and that person would not have been different.

There are those who will have read that comment and who have been on the receiving end of closed doors due to their being different or diverse.  At the same time that people are chosen with the goal of diversity in mind, there exists more cases of those being denied because diversity isn’t valued, or worse, discouraged and feared.  Those people may feel the social subconscious that has kept them from achieving that which they are qualified for is represented in the attitude that different =/= best.

So, I replied.

If all you’ve ever eaten in your life is ham sandwiches, you probably can tell what the best ham for a sandwich is. You don’t have anything against other lunch meats, but you’re comfortable with ham and you know it well. Sure you’ve had turkey (for thanksgiving) and (fried) chicken; they’re fine and great, just not in a sandwich. Ham is for sandwiches.

The difficulty is, if you never try other types of sandwiches, then you wouldn’t really have any idea if you’re actually getting the best sandwich, nor would you be a good judge of good/bad sandwiches in a different context. Ham and cheese is well and good, but french dip is really good too with a different approach to a sandwich – but you wouldn’t know that.

The reason we even argue over “inclusion” is getting some people to choose beyond just what they’re comfortable with or they think “will sell” (or avoiding what they’re biased against). Without working with those from another walk of life – via forced interaction* or by conscious decision – they may continue to choose only what they’re comfortable with and we will never have the opportunity to learn what the best is.

*I am not an advocate for FORCED inclusion, but I also recognize that some people have ingrained biases that ruin things for everyone; those people should be removed from a position of decision making. In lieu of that being an option since we can’t easily identify biases and discriminators, we have forms of forced inclusion that – at the very least – creates an opportunity for those in the minority.

Yeah, I slow peddled it.  I wanted to try and get the conversation moving a little, playing to ingrained biases that we’re all blind to on some level and hoping to get that point acknowledged to start.

The words didn’t make it through.  The discussion devolved into a poor comparison of analogies with basketball teams and short people, Asian people, disabled people, etc. that could never make up the best basketball team.  Depending on context, that’s untrue: Everything requires context.  We don’t play basketball in a vacuum.  We certainly could make up the best basketball team depending on our situation, but I digress.  We never even got to the heart of the issue.  The point, that even opening the door to those who are different is the real issue, was already lost, or rather, it was dismissed.  As he said, “everyone is considered now”; oh right, you know, except that they’re not.

This isn’t to harp on this one guy; it just highlights a broader attitude towards diversity.  Some people believe that since we all use the same water fountains and bathrooms, racism is no more.  That sexism went away once women could vote.  That bigotry is something that only happen when crosses are being burned in yards.  Putting it nicely, that’s naive.  Putting it plainly, it’s flat ignorant.

Do You Have Any Hope……..?

Colbert: “Do you have any hope tonight for the people out there, about how we could be a better country, we could have better race relations, we could have better politics?”
Coates: “No”
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I hang my head a little after hearing that, having had similar thoughts over the last few month.
America has had a funny habit of moving the goal posts, or changing the rules of the game, in order to maintain the only balance of power it’s ever known. It’s something I had assigned to the past, thinking the America I grew up in would never cheat, lie, and steal the way it once did; it had learned; it knew better, and it had evolved into a more just and transparent democracy that would not let itself fail as it had in the past.
I was wrong.

America – A Land Founded on Protest

This country, its flag, and our military is strong enough to withstand being questioned and criticized; even disrespected if you decide to frame it that way. I find it offensive that anyone would think less of our country’s strength and resilience, and choose to put symbols of America over the needs and cries of its citizens. The people are what make this the country that it is. Without them, the US is nothing but another rock sticking out of the ocean; the flag is nothing more than cloth; songs cannot be sung; even the Constitution is nothing more than paper and ink without its people to enact and abide.

John Adams envisioned “a government of laws and not of men.”

Unequal application of the law betrays that very notion. Everyone should be up in arms – not about the anthem or kneeling – but the betrayal by our fellow man of one of our core tenants; that all men are created equal.

I will not dismiss the collective experience of some 46 million fellow Americans when they protest unfair and unequal treatment by our police, by our justice system –

By OUR government.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said – “Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for rights.”

This country was founded on protest. Protest is not what will bring harm to this country. Blind loyalty to a flag and a song – at the expense of your fellow Americans – can and will harm us all.

Not quite a year…

….between posts.  I think that’s a win?

Anywho, I’ve been keeping busy.  A second kiddo means I have less time than ever, but I still need to have my creative outlets.  Recently I’ve taken to social media-ing, broadening my horizons.

Instagram hosts pictures of cars that I’ve taken:

 

I’ve tried to continue writing as well. This time I partnered up with my friend Dan and we’ve started a website called Unique Drops. I’ve always loved digging into niche and subgenres, so we’ve taken the approach of trying to cover the societal impacts that games have, and tell some individual’s stories within the community and industry.

 

 

It’s certainly a part time thing, but I hope to keep sharpening skills (that I may or may not have, admittedly) and it’s fun at the very least.