This story is one of my favorite stories about my dad so I want to put it in a written form.

As mentioned in my previous post that my dad works for USPS (United States Post Service), he has been working there for almost 30 years. I think he has about two years left before he reaches the magical number and is second on the seniority list, which means he gets to choose almost any day he wants to get off. Before I go with this story, my dad is an avid private pilot and it’s been his dream to own a Cessna himself. My dad told me if he wasn’t deaf, he would have gone to army and fly a fighter jet somewhere deep in Vietnam. He even had tears during when Tom Cruise lost his buddy partner in the ‘Top Gun’ movie.

My dad has been working on a graveyard shift as long as I can remember. About a few years ago, he wanted to move to a daytime shift so he could spend more time with mom during the weekday nights and weekends but the management kept closing any position that had weekend days off (something to do with productivity or whatever). My dad gets off on Friday and Saturday, which isn’t that bad as he starts work on a Sunday night. So he stayed at where he is now and will most likely retire that way.

My mom told me that when they decided they want to adopt a child (which eventually would be me), my dad was working as a printer for some company but they weren’t paying him well enough, so he told my mom that he’d have to change jobs and apply at USPS. He got hired but had shitty days off—they were on Wed and Thurs but that’s usually what you get when you are at the bottom of a ladder. Eventually, he passed the trial and became permanent. Soon thereafter, he saw that he could be home with my mom on Sat. and Sun. if he signed up for this graveyard shift (11 pm to 7 am). My dad figured it’s a lot better than having to work on Sat. and Sun, even it’s during daytime. Also, it paid a bit more (about $200 more per paycheck, or $2,400 a year). He stayed on this shift ever since.

As my dad worked his way up the ladder, he became a level 5, which means he can work on a forklift. He really loved operating that forklifter and pile up the boxes as neatly as you would play a game of Tetris. Until one day, there were some changes in the management and since my dad was deaf, they felt he shouldn’t be operating on a forklift in case someone gets hurt and would sue them for being irresponsible to let my dad drive a forklift. Of course, my dad got pissed, and he contacted his union leader. The personal injury law firm got some black civil rights lawyer from Chicago and they had a meeting together.

After some discussions, my dad got a vibe that it was getting nowhere so he decided it’s time to do something and pull a trick out of his sleeves. He asked one guy from the management. The conversation went something like this.

my dad: you have a car, yeah?
he: why? yes I do.
my dad: well, me too, and to drive our cars, we need our driver’s license, right?
he: uh-huh.

my dad: so if we can drive cars, what made you think I cannot drive a forklift?
he: well it’s not about that, it’s for safety and we have to think about our employees.
my dad: right… so let me show you something *pulling a license out of his wallet* and give it to the guy.

he: what is this.. uh it says private pilot license?
my dad: yes, it is, i’m a licensed private pilot. Do you have one?
he: no I don’t.
my dad: well if the FAA thinks I can fly a plane, what made you think that I cannot drive a forklift?
he: well, you know…., well, I’ll talk abt it with my management group.

The next day, they agreed to let my dad drive a forklift but they said that my dad would be the last such person to have this exception.

Since then, my dad has been forklifting boxes like it’s a game of tetris and how many accidents in his almost 30 years of working at USPS? zero.

Ha!

You probably heard it often. People tell you, “Life’s short. Make the most out of it.” or something like that.

I never deny that life is really short, as people seem to be saying but I just never GET it. I don’t have that feeling where I go, “Oh shit, I’ve got only 10 mins left to study for my calculus test or to finish a ten pages paper in less than a half hour.” That kind of urgency. So, I don’t get that when people say life’s short.

Till now.

I think I’m finally realizing that life is getting SHORT. What’s more, it actually makes sense to me. As we’re growing up or getting older, we find more things we like and the list grows. There’s a lot of stuffs on the list you’d like or want to be good at. I like to do many different things and I admit I do have a lot of competitive instincts in me and I carry with this mindset—to kick your ass. Whenever it’s on a pool table, darts, basketball, foosball, etc, I will do my best to kick your ass, to beat you. I’ve had many people telling me that it’s just a game, play it for fun. I do try to think that way sometimes but then I lose the excitment in playing a game and effectively become bored. It’s what you make of it. Even if I lose, I will challenge you again and my “luck” is only going to get better.

Anyway, so you have many things you want to do and you’d like to become good at them. That’s when I think becomes short. Because if you want to become good, you have to invest a significant amount of time toward them and I have to accept the fact that you can’t simply become good at everything. I do want to become good or at least skillful at photoshop, programming, fish spearing, fishing, snowboarding, golf, writing, calculus, tuning cars, skateboarding, and the list just goes on. I want to become good at all of them but I know I can’t. I’d have to pick one or a few. And practice them everyday to finally become good.

The bottom line is that the longer your list grows, the shorter your life is going to be. That has to suck. :-(

I was supposed to write about this coupon when I took a pic of it but of course, things had to come up and I lost sight of writing this post. Now, I’m back to this.

While waiting for my flight back to DC, my dad said “Oh, I almost forgot, let me give you this coupon.” and took it out of his thick leather wallet. It was time for me to head back to DC after spending some family time with my parents. Soon enough, my hearing aid amplified my ear, alerting me that the speaker box were making some mumbling sounds and that it probably means it was time to go and strip myself in front of some security officers at the airport. Seeing some people standing up and getting into a line helped confirm this.

For some reason, my dad seems to enjoy holding my mail ever since I left the parents’ house for college and I don’t think I have ever spent more than two weeks at the house after having lived there for more than 15 years. I also should add that my dad is a P.O. worker and he likes to brag that he knows every zip code around the midwestern states. Anytime I get a box from someone, I can immediately tell if it’s from my dad by the way how the box was packaged, taped and labeled. And it would require a good scissor to pry it open, not just your hands. One of these days, I just ought keep the box unopened and re-send it to the P.O. museum and be placed in a glass to show how crisp the box is and its taping.

Now, back to the coupon, since my dad gave me the coupon right when it was time to go, I didn’t really pay attention to the coupon and I just took it right into my wallet. Heh, from his wallet straight to my wallet. After I was decidedly settled into my airplane seat, I took the coupon out and looked at it. The expiration date says “03-14-06” and today is May 14, 2006. So it was expired but stayed in my dad’s wallet for two months. I suppose by looking at all these zip codes has made my dad a victim of hyperopia. I put the coupon back into my wallet and some tears began to form as the plane began to take off the ground.

They even engraved on the styrofoam.

My newest toy! Courtesy of Google.

It’s been a while since I have last looked at my web statistics. My total hits has experienced a huge surge since I embedded Wayne Betts Jr.’s video clips. I use Firefox browser all the time, so I thought my website would be viewed most frequently with Firefox because in the early days, I was probably the only one looking at my own website, ha. But now, it’s totally reversed and Internet Explorer dominates more than 80% of all traffic to my site. Sigh. It’s forcing me to cater to IE’s design rules so my web audience can view my site properly. Looks like I’d have to overhaul my coding and bow my head to IE. :s

All gone!

My daily intake. Daily.

Some meme on five random quotes from here that I think reflect who I am or what I believe in.

Post idea taken from kottke.org, which was taken from Rivers are Damp.

– “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” –Henry David Thoreau

– “Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.” –Judy Garland

I always liked this quote that I once saw in a restaurant. “It’s nice to be important but it’s more important to be nice.” Anyone knows who said this? According to Google, seems like it’s John Lennon but I’m no music buff. :-)

Gotta love this spam!

Ah, MNF. Monday nights were never the same without you. Welcome back!

What I learned today is that a bonsai is not a plant, it’s a tree.

After realizing that someone special is having a birthday in three days—August 31st, I better do something quick before it’s all too late and a potential long night.

One of the important things to remember about buying a gift for someone’s birthday is the amount of recognition it can ignite. If you could buy a gift that costs a few dollars but it attracts a lot of attention and bring people to say “oh, I didn’t know today is your birthday! Happy Birthday!”. The gift becomes priceless almost instantly—no matter how little you paid for it. On the other hand, if you bought a gift that costs like a grand and it brings zero people to say happy birthday, well, the gift won’t be more than it is.

So, I decided I’d send her flowers at her internship in New Jersey with Kraft Foods Co. Surely, someone would see the flowers and say happy birthday to her. That’s what I’m talking about, the recognition.

Knowing that Google not only ranks websites based on their revelance but also their popularity, I simply typed “flowers” into the search and I would probably only bother to check out the top five sites. Interestingly, I knew FTD is a well-known flower delivery service but is ranked at #4; however, it does have an ad box out on top. Clearly, it has paid for that top ad placement. The first one to come out is 1800flowers.com. So I clicked on it and I can immediately see why it has the top rank. Clear, visible layout with a nice color scheme to match the “flowery” feeling. After browsing around, the pictures of flowers are nicely taken but I found the prices to be a tad high. So I put that website on hold and check out the top second website, virtualflowers.com. It has a simpler, less bold looking layout and the prices are a little lower.

I was initially planning to send her flowers but the images of flowers or roses came back to remind me that it wasn’t my first time getting her flowers and that all of them have withered, dried, and then died. I do recall that one time she said “maybe you should have gotten me a plant. I’d love to take care of it.” Bingo, time for me to get her a plant.

So, which plant? I looked at the plants and found nothing that seems to suit her taste and lifestyle. Most of them would look like a good choice for someone who’s in a hospital. Like if that person has a terminal disease and it wouldn’t be a good idea to send that person flowers ‘cuz they probably would die before s/he did.

I thought of what she’d like and what would be suitable for her office cubicle. Bingo, I know what kind of plant to get her. It’s a bonsai. So I quickly looked around and found some. Oops, it’s not a plant. It’s a tree! A bonsai tree. I quickly read about its history on the wikipedia to be a little more educated than I was ten seconds ago. I knew she would love it. She likes miniaturized, simple stuffs and a bonsai tree certainly falls into that category or at least I think so.

With this tree, she should have a soothing time looking at it and perhaps take a few minutes to cut a few shrubs from the little tree. I should know that ‘cuz she likes to cut my nails—both fingernails and toenails.

I started the checkout process and whew, if I order it tomorrow, it’s going to cost me 20 extra dollars to ship the tree. Instead, it’s 10 dollars. Fine with me. Now, if you’re still reading this, remember the recognition I mentioned earlier in this post? I feel that this tree alone is not going to garner a lot of attention so I decided to add a happy birthday balloon to it so that it can hover above the walls of cubicle world. It costs 5 dollars and hopefully more than 5 people will come to say happy birthday to her. :-)

Just so you know, Bonsai is a tree, not a plant.

The king of sodas. Nothing tastes better than in a can.

Abstract:
The incidence of rape in the United States has declined 85% in the past 25 years while access to pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults. The Nixon and Reagan Commissions tried to show that exposure to pornographic materials produced social violence. The reverse may be true: that pornography has reduced social violence. –ANTHONY D’AMATO

The link – Porn Up, Rape Down

This reminds me of one book I read, Freakonomics. The book says the crime rate has declined not because of increased policing or better economy but the decision by the Supreme Court to allow pro-choice in abortions.

I don’t find it surprising at all. I remember one guy told me a story that in some european countries, he saw 12 years old kids reading porn magazines while rapes there are almost non-existent. Makes sense to me.