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The past couple weeks have been full—of people, service, and unexpected moments of connection.

After our plans with family fell through earlier this month, Priscilla and I decided to join our small group for a dinner outing at Cava in Westlake Village. It was only our second time joining for a restaurant outing in the nearly two years that we've been part of the group.

I'm glad that our small group didn't sing or get a dessert for my birthday this year. The reason might've been partly because I told people that I don't care to celebrate my birthday, but it was probably mostly because we skipped our regular meeting due to the group leader and his wife traveling.

But I did share the anecdote about how for my 30th birthday, my men's group leader made us all do 30 pushups because he knew that I would enjoy that more than a cake. That's a memory I will always treasure.

Motivated by that, our current group leader (who's also my workout buddy) sent me a video on my birthday of him doing pushups—one for each year. Of course, I had to send one right back. That was the most meaningful gift I've gotten since probably the last time!

Then for Father's Day, we all helped my dad with reinstalling a 40-ft rain gutter. He recently got a new roof but the roofers weren't able to reinstall the gutter. So with some extra hands there to help, we had five guys holding up the gutter (standing on ladders that my dad borrowed from the church) and my mom and Priscilla bracing it with long strips of wood, while my dad went around drilling holes and putting the screws in. As they say in the corporate world, teamwork makes the dream work.

The day after, my dad dropped me and Priscilla off at the airport for our flight up to the Bay Area. The occasion this time was that my former manager had invited me to a retirement BBQ for my former coworker, Jim. I normally would politely decline such things, especially when it involves travel, but as others have blessed me with their time and presence, I'm learning to do the same. As a quote from The Chosen goes, "If we don't make time for friends, we won't have any."

Since we'd already driven to the Bay Area in March and would only be there for two days this time, we decided that flying was the best option. Since I was given fairly short notice, tickets on Southwest were quite pricey. Round-trip tickets were $1,133.60 for the two of us, more than we've spent on almost any other flight. But there's something to be said for spending money, a renewable resource, to optimize for time and comfort.

During our time, we also had dinner at Google with Tracy and got to talking about some deeper things, lunch with Randy and Eva where we talked for 4.5 hours, and I ran and did calisthenics with Frank. Priscilla also ate with Emily and Sharon on Wednesday when I was at the BBQ.

The BBQ was nice. I was able to surprise Jim when I suddenly appeared next to him, and I myself was surprised to see another former team member who had left the company a couple years ago. There were maybe 40 people and I recognized about half of them. Almost all of my old team members were there, and also a bunch of people from adjacent teams, several of whom I've worked with before. A lot of my conversations involved answering the same questions about what I'm up to now that I no longer have a paid job. But I got to share about some of the more meaningful things that I've been doing. The time there with people just flew by, and before I knew it, it was three hours later and we were packing up and it was time for me to head back to the airport.

Priscilla had been chilling at the airport lounge, and I rejoined her for our flight back down. After my dad picked us up and we ate with them and loaded up the car with food my mom had made for us, we finally arrived home, exhausted but grateful.

Traveling is tiring, and seeing people requires planning and effort. Ten years ago, I likely would've passed on doing an impromptu trip like this and then later wondered whether I should have gone. I'm glad that this time I chose the option that will allow me to look back and remember fondly. Showing up was as much a gift for me as it was for others.

This year I finished redeeming the last of the paper savings bonds that my grandparents bought for me decades ago. As I mentioned in a previous and more personal post, my grandparents were very generous in giving both me and my brother savings bonds twice a year—for our birthdays and for Christmas.

I largely credit my savings mentality to my parents and grandparents. The first stock shares that I owned were inherited from my grandparents' estate. And their methodical gifting of EE bonds, which take 30 years to mature, taught us not only the value of money but also of patience.

The bonds only fully matured once I was at an age where I was already supporting myself. It's not life-changing money, but it's been enough to make life a little easier.

Redeeming the bonds used to be straightforward. I'd take them to Chase and the money would be credited to my account within a couple days while they handled the logistics of actually redeeming the bonds with the Treasury.

But as the Treasury has moved to digital bonds and paper bonds have become less common, they've also given banks more autonomy in how to handle redemptions. Since 2023, Chase only accepts bonds up to a value of $500, and only if the account has been open for at least a year. Redemption fraud is apparently a thing, and banks are left holding the bag when the Treasury rejects counterfeit bonds. It's sad that we live in a world where some bad actors like this ruin things for everyone. It seems like some other banks and maybe some credit unions still don't have many restrictions on how much you can redeem, but Chase is strict.

So I printed out the Treasury form and took it to my local Chase branch. I initially thought I needed a Medallion Signature Guarantee, which the bank was unwilling to provide. But Treasury rules have changed and a simple notarization is now sufficient.

After mailing the bonds and paperwork to the Treasury, I got an email two weeks later acknowledging receipt. And the funds showed up unceremoniously in my checking account after another 3.5 months.

Nowadays, EE bonds don't pay very well. The current rate is 2.40%, which is basically less than everything else including short-term Treasury bills, multi-year Treasury notes, and high-yield savings accounts. But there's something uniquely special about leaving money to grow in a 30-year time capsule, and giving that to someone as a gift. My brother and I were given more than just money—we were given a framework for how to think about responsibility and generosity. He's pretty good at paying it forward. I hope I can do the same.

Because Priscilla constantly has the travel itch and because she found cheap airfare to Copenhagen aboard Scandinavian Airlines for $510 per round trip ticket, we found ourselves traveling once more, exploring Denmark's capital city for 9 days.

We were able to see my parents for Mothers Day, and my mom dropped us off at the LAX FlyAway to take the bus to the airport. A very convenient option for not having to drive through traffic ourselves.

The flight aboard Scandinavian was fairly comfortable. We'd opted for extra legroom ($69 per person each way) and it was worth not having to deal with leg cramps. But even with this plus a comfier than normal reclining seat, we were unable to get much sleep on the plane.

Day 1:
We touched down at Copenhagen Airport mid-afternoon Monday and took the metro to get to our Airbnb in Vesterbro, our home base for the whole trip. Priscilla had originally booked a hotel, but we wouldn't have a fridge there and I like having some home-cooked food during trips. That evening we just explored the area and went to two SuperBrugsen supermarkets and went to Döner Corner for shawarma, which is considered fast food here.

Day 2:
We had planned for a bike trip up to the Little Mermaid statue the next day, but we ran into issues authenticating a phone number on the Donkey Republic (a local bike share) app, so we ended up just walking to several places. Still, we ended up walking 10 miles between Nyhavn, Broens Street Food, Freetown Christiania, and more. We also learned how to pronounce "Nyhavn"—it's pronounced like "Nee hown". Danish is not a phonetic language and, while Google Translate was invaluable, the pronunciation of most words threw us for a loop.

Nyhavn looked almost as picturesque as what you see online, and we took a picture at what I think was the best vantage point. Broens had several stalls and our respective lunches were each around 130 Danish Krone (approximately $20), which seems like the typical price here for food that's not fast food. And Freetown, a self-governing commune, was interesting to see.

Day 3:
We activated our 5-day Copenhagen Card, which covers 80 attractions and public transport. We visited Ripley's Believe It or Not! and the Hans Christian Andersen Experience (located in the same building), Museum of Illusions, Guinness World Records Museum, and finally a canal boat tour. I thought that Ripley's was the best attraction overall; I enjoyed the various eclectic items and tidbits. Museum of Illusions had some cool optical illusions and a room with different puzzles. The Guinness Museum had displays on a lot of unusual records and some interactive exhibits. The most fun thing was doing pullups during the "1 minute pullup challenge." The world record for that is... a lot more than what I did.

Day 4:
This was our day trip to Helsingør. It normally takes an hour on the regional train, but since it was Ascension Day, our train made fewer stops and got there faster. The main activity was exploring Kronborg, a 16th-century castle known internationally as Elsinore due to having inspired the setting for Shakespeare's "Hamlet". Climbing the stairs to the top of the cannon tower and exploring the catacombs beneath the castle were my favorite parts. Also, they had wooden stilts out in the courtyard for anyone to try, something that you would never see in the US for so many reasons. I tried them but failed to stay on for more than a second. Afterwards, we had lunch at Elsinore Street Food (the local food hall) and saw a feeding at Øresund Aquarium, probably the smallest aquarium I've seen.

Day 5:
We walked 12.5 miles on Friday, the most we did of any given day. The majority of the day was spent at the Open Air Museum; I really enjoyed the exploration aspect combined with looking at old buildings from the 1600s and on, and seeing how construction methods evolved over the centuries. They too had wooden stilts out for people to try, and I was able to greatly improve my technique and walk around on them, albeit ungracefully.

After dinner, we visited Tivoli, the local amusement park. The rides were closed due to the concert that was going on, but it was nice to walk around and see all the lights as well as the Illuminations light show.

Day 6:
We went to IKONO (an immersive experience but a bit of a letdown), and then walked briefly through the Botanical Garden, Palm House, and Butterfly House. Then we hit up the Natural History Museum of Denmark, had pho for a late lunch, and finally saw a film at the Planetarium. It was cool to see the various collections and the nature photography at the Natural History Museum, but we're realizing that museums aren't really our thing.

Day 7:
Sunday kicked off with a visit to Elijah's Church where we attended a jazz service! This was a one hour service where in addition to traditional hymns, there was also jazz music during the interludes. There was also real wine during communion. The sermon was a bit short and didn't really touch on the gospel message, and I felt like there was way too much jazz. They apparently have this service every week, so I hope that while people might come for the jazz, they leave with a real understanding of the gospel.

After the service, we headed over to another church, Church of Our Saviour, to climb the famous staircase that winds around the spire. What a fantastic view of the city! We then took a short stroll through Freetown again, saw the Royal Library Garden, and finished with touring the ruins under the Christiansborg Palace.

Day 8:
This was our day trip to Malmö, Sweden. The main draw for Priscilla was the Disgusting Food Museum, where we learned about unfamiliar, unconventional, and downright "disgusting" things that various cultures eat. Then we got to try 20 or so of those things for ourselves! Priscilla ate everything except the final variety of hot sauce, which requires signing a waiver acknowledging that it can cause abdominal distress and that consuming it is downright idiotic. I ate everything except for that one and a worm and a beetle. I surprised myself since I tried more than I thought I would, including crickets and ants!

Afterwards, we got some normal food at the local food hall, Malmö Saluhall. Priscilla ordered meatballs and I ate a lunch that she had packed for me. But we did get ice cream from one of the stalls there and the quality was terrific. Afterwards, we walked through Slottsparken (the castle park) and Pildammsparken (Willowpond Park). The parks were lovely, and overall we enjoyed walking through Malmö a little better than Copenhagen since it's slightly less crowded.

Day 9:
Tuesday was our last full day and we made good use of it by walking 8.5 miles between Assistens Cemetery, The Little Mermaid statue, and Kastellet. Assistens Cemetery is a tranquil place and is as much a park as it is a cemetery. The Little Mermaid (Den Lille Havfrue) is a 4-ft statue right off the shore and is often referred to on Tripadvisor as the "second most disappointing monument in Europe", right after the Manneken-Pis in Brussels. I can see why, as most people probably come here, take a picture, and leave. But for us, it was a nice point of interest on a longer walk and a relaxing place to rest. Kastellet, a historic star fortress, is nearby, so we took a stroll through there to wrap up the day.

Day 10:
After breakfast and cleaning up at our Airbnb, it was time to take the metro back to the airport. We were pretty tired from the long trip, so Priscilla managed to get some decent sleep on the plane, while I was only able to nap for a bit. Once we got back to the LAX FlyAway, my mom picked us up and drove us back to our car and gave us a lot of food to take home. She is very caring in that way.

Reflection:
Overall, we enjoyed our trip but were tired each day from all the activities. Each day back at the Airbnb, we would doze off and Priscilla would sometimes sleep for 2 or 3 hours. Finding the right amount of things to do each day is a balancing act, particularly when you're visiting a new location and there's no shortage of things to do and see—and especially when you have a city pass that covers more activities than you can realistically fit in.

Copenhagen is a unique place. It's dense and people are everywhere. Most people walk and/or cycle, and bikes are parked all around the city, sometimes in crowded bike lots. In fact, bicycles outnumber cars 5 to 1 here. It's a testament to intentional city planning and also a product of the city's geography. Denmark is also extremely safe. They're a high-trust society, and it was refreshing to see things like minimally-locked bikes being the norm and no turnstiles at metro and train stations.

And while food prices and living costs are high, it was cool that the country is basically cashless. We paid everything with a credit card and never needed cash.

While I was already longing for home halfway into the trip, in some ways I enjoyed it more than Priscilla did. She didn't care for all the walking (60+ miles total), and she wasn't impressed with Danish cuisine like smørrebrød, a traditional open-faced sandwich. But we're glad that we went, and she's already thinking about where she wants to go next—some place with cheap airfare AND better food!

For me, home improvement is often an endeavor born out of necessity. Two months ago I hadn't even heard of the term "vessel sink", but this week I just finished shoring one up because of a leak!

It all started when we found metal fragments and some water under one of our bathroom sinks. The sink had always been a little loose, and someone had been putting their weight on it while leaning over the counter. Since the sink bowl is round, this put a lot of rotational torque on the drain and exacerbated what was probably already a mediocre installation, causing water to get under and corrode the drain's retaining nut until it finally started crumbling.

I had a plumber (one whom I've worked with before) come by and he said he would order a replacement drain, but he never got back to me and ignored my followup message. So, like many areas in which good help is elusive, I had to learn how to do it myself.

That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as I was able to be thorough and do things that the plumber likely wouldn't have done, like replace the decrepit mounting ring under the sink bowl. It also allowed me to discover water damage on the underside of the sink. Apparently, counter material (like granite or, in our case, petrified wood) typically has a thin supporting layer of plywood underneath. Since the wood had weakened due to water exposure, the hole expanded slightly when I was trying to tighten the new rubber gasket and retaining nut. And not to mention, the hole had been cut too large to begin with. So instead of the gasket sitting flush against the underside of the counter to provide a good compression seal, it got wedged right up into the hole!

So, as with many home improvement projects where work leads to the discovery of more work, I had to find a way to add support below the underlayment. I originally went and got PVC trim board (which is waterproof and not susceptible to warping) from Home Depot and a hole saw kit from Harbor Freight. I was about to glue the board to the underside of the counter when I discovered that it would take up too much vertical space along the length of the drain pipe, leaving no room at the bottom of the pipe to connect a plastic tailpiece. Oops. I'll go with the excuse that clearance under the sink is really tight and it's hard to measure things under there, but yeah, that was a rookie mistake.

What I really needed was something thinner like a fender washer. All the washers I found online weren't the right size, so I ended up buying a 4-inch plastic electrical box cover and using the hole saw to cut a hole in it. This turned it into a perfectly sized washer which not only provided the surface area for the gasket to grip, but also spread out the force so that it wasn't all concentrated against the edge of the underlayment. With this washer in place, I was able to reassemble the drain assembly without any further hurdles. Success at last!

So in the end, after some mishaps, I have an installation that I'm fairly happy with. And by doing it myself, I saved at least a couple hundred dollars, got a new tool, and improved some skills. I'm hoping to not have to do this again for a while, but we'll see since the adjacent vessel sink is also a little loose!

After moving, we've been called back to the Bay Area each year. In 2024 it was to say goodbye to my coworkers, last year it was to get Priscilla's keyboard and guitar, and this year it was for a wedding!

Our church friend Joanne tied the knot last Friday, and there were so many people in attendance. The ceremony was held at our old church and there wasn't enough room to accommodate everyone, so some people were invited to the reception only. The reception had maybe 300 to 400 people. Joanne is so kind and outgoing and knows so many people, and it seems like her husband is the same!

Priscilla and I drove up Thursday, and the drive up the 101 wasn't too bad. We stopped in San Luis Obispo for poke at Pokirito and it was pretty good. We might go there again.

Thursday evening I went for a short run with my old coworker Frank. We kept it short since he's dealing with some knee pain. I can relate since I have my own knee pain and foot pain that I'm battling. The joys of getting older.

As mentioned, Friday was the wedding, and we talked to so many people. Saturday, Priscilla and I continued our yearly tradition of hiking Mission Peak. We saw one uncle and aunt that evening, went to our old church on Sunday and talked to many more people, had lunch with my other uncle and aunt, and hung out with Tracy at a park. Then Monday, I met up with my old team for lunch (6 people attended) while Priscilla had lunch with her coworkers. I saw Frank again to do pullups and met up with Lisa for dinner at a Korean place. Finally, at the end of the night, I went to pick up Priscilla where she was hanging out with some more church friends and we talked some more with them. Whew. Our trip was packed with social engagements, and while the time was certainly meaningful, my social battery was completely drained.

It was really nice to see my old team again; I hadn't seen most of them for almost a year and a half. Yet, the moment felt bittersweet. Getting together again was wonderful, but it dawned on me that I'm in a totally different chapter of life now compared to my coworkers. While they're still slaving away at work (one guy half-jokingly said that "everything sucks now"), I'm enjoying the "retired" life. And while I like to think of my situation as more "financial independence" than "retirement" since the latter has a certain connotation that doesn't accurately describe what I'm doing, nonetheless my life is really different from that of my coworkers. And without the bond of continuing to fight in the trenches together, it's difficult to sustain a relationship. With Frank I built a relationship based on shared interests (which is logical since we were on different teams), but with my old team, the thing that ultimately bound us together was the work. It was only after the lunch that I realized that this may have been the last time I'll see most of my old team. If someone is passing through my area and wants to grab lunch, I'd love to catch up, but I think it would be more awkward than anything else for me to go see my whole team again.

What I'm beginning to understand is that one's life is like a book loosely divided into chapters, where the divisions between chapters often aren't clear-cut, and where many characters might play a large role in some chapters and much less, if any, in the remaining. This in no way diminishes their contribution or their importance, but rather it means that the story takes a new turn with a different setting and different people. With a novel, we learn to be okay with this and even expect it. Real life is the same.

Coming to terms with this is difficult, especially since I like my coworkers so much. My team was the biggest reason why I stayed at the company for 11 years. But what arises most from this realization is a greater appreciation for them having been part of my life, and a stronger desire to be intentional with my current relationships. In so many ways, every day is a new day.

Because we got Hawaiian Airlines points at the start of 2020 but were unable to use them due to a global pandemic, and because our last time visiting Hawaii was ten years ago, Priscilla decided that we were overdue for going back.

We haven't been to all the islands, but Priscilla wanted us to go to Oahu again because the Go City Oahu pass covered a lot of activities and she got a good deal on it. The pass was $784 for the two of us, but after travel credits it was around $330. So last month, we flew out from LAX for our 9-day trip.

Since our flight was at 8:30am, we took Uber to the LAX area the night before and stayed overnight at Holiday Inn. We still got up at 5:30am to pack up and catch the hotel shuttle to the airport, though we probably could've pushed it back half an hour since getting through security was a breeze. But better safe than sorry.

Our Hawaiian Airlines flight was a little over 5 hours. They served a breakfast sandwich, but Priscilla packed me a healthy breakfast since I have dietary restrictions, and since it meant that she could have double the sandwiches.

There was free Starlink WiFi onboard, courtesy of T-Mobile, and it was quite fast. Unlike traditional providers, Starlink uses low Earth orbit satellites that communicate with each other using lasers to create a mesh network that covers practically the whole globe.

We touched down at HNL on a Wednesday and took some time to check out the Cultural Gardens at the airport. We had lunch at the L&L near the airport, then took Uber to the Residence Inn in Kapolei, our home for the next two days.

The biggest thing we did in Kapolei was the ropes course at Coral Crater Adventure Park. The course was fun enough but was a little short. Unlike the previous two ropes courses we've done, this one was completely supervised and didn't let you repeat obstacles. The course ended in going to the top of the tower and jumping off, with a belay system slowing your descent.

Our two days in Kapolei were pretty laid back. We did a lot of walking, enjoyed some of the nearby eateries (I mostly just went to the local L&L), rewatched Happy Death Day, worked out at the hotel fitness center, and swam at the hotel pool. Nevertheless, it felt like we did a lot in those two days!

Friday, before taking Uber to Waikiki, we visited Pearl Harbor for the third time, this time seeing the paid exhibits thanks to the Oahu pass. We saw the USS Battleship Missouri Memorial, Aviation Museum, and the USS Bowfin. We particularly liked the Missouri, as it had a really immersive tour around and through the ship, so you got a picture of what life on board was like. It was cool to see things like a post office and a bread baking room on the ship! And seeing the difference between the very cozy crew bunks on the lower decks to the small cabins for lower-ranking officers to the fancy cabins for the captain and executive officer was very illustrative.

After checking into Holiday Inn Express Waikiki, where we would be staying for the remaining six nights, we headed over to Fort DeRussy Beach to catch the fireworks put on by the Hilton. There were so many people packed onto the beach and so many people in line for Steak Shack there. At least we were able to see all the fireworks as we waited in line for food. There was also a guy playing guitar and singing covers. He was really good, and it felt like we all had our own private concert right on the beach!

Saturday was supposed to be our rest day, but we ended up walking 9.3 miles and doing a lot! After mini golf and working out at the hotel, we walked to Komedokoro M's for lunch, Ala Moana Regional Park, got groceries from Foodland Farms at the Ala Moana Center, then later in the day saw the Kuhio Beach hula show, had dinner at King of Thai Boat Noodles, and finally walked along the Ala Wai Canal. During the walk back, we just happened to catch the 10-minute drone show that was put on for 'Iolani School on the other side of the canal. It was really something.

We're now trying to go to an actual church while traveling instead of livestreaming, so Sunday morning we visited Waikiki Baptist Church, just a block from our hotel. The worship was energetic and the sermon was relatively short—not quite the style we're used to, but it was great to see a church so passionate about sharing biblical truth with those who need to hear it. There were lots of new people visiting; not surprising given the location.

Sunday ended up being more of a rest day since we canceled our evening catamaran sailing due to the strong winds that had been hitting the islands. So we just worked out and took it easy at the hotel before doing dinner at Marugame Udon. The food is still cheap relative to other places in Waikiki, and they have gyūdon bowls now, though I'm guessing not many people order those since the worker seemed a little taken aback when I did!

Afterwards, we did sunset yoga at Kapi'olani Regional Park, led by a nice girl from a local yoga studio. Watching the sunset while doing yoga sounds/is nice, but in actuality I was focused more on trying to get my form right than on the scenery!

Monday was the first day we had a rental car. We used it to drive out to Sea Life Park, where we saw a few small shows (the dolphin show was great) and then did the Aloha Kai Luau at night. It was a typical luau with games of skill that I'm very bad at, a Polynesian-themed buffet, dancing and musical performances, and fire dancing. I particularly liked the food and the fire dancing!

Tuesday was the last day of our car rental, so we used it to visit several places: National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (a.k.a. Punchbowl), Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden, a Hands-on Fireknife Experience, and then Foodland and L&L in Kaneohe on the way back. We walked around Punchbowl and the botanical garden, and I enjoyed the views at the former and the forested hiking at the latter. Ho'omaluhia is situated in a caldera in what was an active volcano two million years ago, and there's a lake with lots of koi where everyone goes to take pictures. But there are a lot of trails to explore, including one that takes you to a secluded part of the lake where it's peaceful and scenic.

The next day saw us hiking and enjoying the views at Diamond Head. It was more crowded than the last time we visited, and advanced tickets are now needed for non-residents. Fortunately, the Oahu pass included transportation and tickets. Still, I made us walk 3 miles back instead of waiting for the shuttle because, well, that's the kind of thing I do. A lunch at Marugame Udon was the consolation for Priscilla's tired legs. The rest of the day was fairly chill—we saw a free hula show at the International Market Place and got some onigiris and other things from a 7-Eleven.

Thursday was our final day. Since this was originally supposed to be our Pearl Harbor day, we had a lot of free time. After checking out of the hotel late, we did an audio tour by Shaka Guide which had us visit the Sheraton Waikiki, Royal Hawaiian, Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort, International Market Place, Moana Surfrider, Stones of Life, and the Duke Paoa Kahanamoku Statue. It was cool to walk through these different hotels and learn some of their history, and to see things like the huge 160-year-old banyan tree that the International Market Place was built around.

And before taking Uber back to the airport, we had lunch at... yep, Marugame Udon again. Priscilla can't seem to get enough of that place. And they have several California locations now, including one near her parents. Guess we'll be going there often!

Priscilla always likes traveling more than I do and this trip was no exception, but it was nice that she had us do some outdoor activities, had us go to grocery stores to get fruit and veggies, and scheduled downtime so that we/I wouldn't feel overwhelmed. I don't care for traveling for the sake of traveling, and I felt that this trip had a bit of that, but there were plenty of enjoyable things too. All of the activities we did were either free or covered by the Oahu pass, and we got our money's worth from the pass (after travel credits). But since there are other islands we haven't been to, we might do a new one the next time we visit Hawaii. Maybe Maui, in another ten years' time?

For the past month, I've been working on a new project: Church Slides, a web-based PowerPoint slide builder tool for worship services.

PowerPoint is a pretty old-school way of displaying songs during service, but our church still uses it extensively. And our individual worship leaders have the job of putting together song slides each week, which can be slightly cumbersome. So at the suggestion of one of the worship leaders, who also happens to be in our small group and is my workout buddy, I built this tool to help streamline the weekly prep that people have to do.

The tool is basically a web form with the backend being a Python script so that I could use the python-pptx library. Users have to manually copy-paste song lyrics, but the tool takes care of creating the slides with the desired formatting. Priscilla thought it deserved its own domain, and I was pleasantly surprised that churchslides.com was available, though that's probably because PowerPoint is kind of niche for church services now.

I think the tool is starting to gain traction; one of our worship leaders used it to generate the slides for last week's service. She said that it reduced the prep time from 20 minutes down to 5 minutes, so that's progress. My hope is that this will be a useful tool for other churches as well, e.g. small churches that still rely on PowerPoint for its simplicity and nominal cost. Eventually I'd like to see what integration I can do with Planning Center (the platform that we use to track services and manage song sheets), with the goal of being able to pull song lyrics automatically—basically eliminating the manual copy and pasting.

Even if this tool ultimately is not used much (or at all), I think it was worthwhile to build. In the process, I learned more JavaScript as I wrote code to manipulate the DOM and used AJAX to make the app more responsive. I even rolled some minor improvements back into my personal site.

On the topic of software development, I'm pretty sure that I'll never go back to a corporate job. Working at a non-profit, particularly one with a Christian focus, is still on the table... but probably still a ways out. In the meantime, I'm glad that I can still leverage my software skills, and learn some new ones, as I find new avenues to keep automating things and make people's lives a little better. Sometimes the focus is relatively small, but the impact is meaningful nonetheless.

I'm only about 20 years late to the party, but I finally added support for tags to my blog posts. I've retroactively applied tags to most of my posts, and clicking a tag will bring up all posts matching that tag.

I also fixed the search page, sorta. It's a little more flexible in finding results now and supports multiple keywords. The one limitation is that words smaller than 3 letters are not searchable (and thus ignored) due to how the database is configured.

So... why do I continue insisting on rolling my own code instead of embracing something like WordPress and the many features it offers? After all, I even set up a WordPress for the wife to use for her own blog.

Well, the purpose behind my blog and site has always been about chronicling and creating, and creating for me is just as much about building useful things as it is about writing content. And sometimes... I just build because it's fun. That drive to build things is what drew me to engineering in the first place, and was guiding my life even before I knew what a computer was.

Other than the wife, I don't know if there's anyone who still reads my blog. Life is kind of like that. But I'll keep writing and creating all the same. Not primarily for others (though if you are still here, thank you!), but because I find enjoyment in it.

So with my blog, as with life, there is more to come!

It's hard to believe, but it's been a little over a year since Priscilla and I moved back to SoCal. July 4th of last year was when we finished packing the last of our stuff into our cars and drove down from the Bay Area. This year on July 4th, we went over to the Camarillo Premium Outlets and caught the nighttime fireworks show there. I guess we'll have fireworks every year to remind us of our moving anniversary!

I already wrote a summary for our six month anniversary, so I'll just mention the highlights from this past year.

We've seen Priscilla's parents and my parents about once a month on average. Priscilla makes it a point to have us visit her parents every month, whereas things are a little less formalized with my parents—we saw them more frequently towards the beginning.

On hold are getting the gym room and master bedroom set up and making room in the garage for a second car, but I expect that we'll start in a few months. I've been prioritizing other things like infrastructure improvements and quality of life enhancements. On the infrastructure side, I had a plumber fix a valve that was causing us to not have hot water, got our sewer lateral replaced, roof vents installed, downspouts piped out to the street, and recently got our dishwasher fixed through our home warranty. For quality of life, we've gotten new furniture for the common areas and a daybed for Priscilla to use in the backyard. We got solar torches for the front and back, and we got the water fountain (included with the house) up and running. I also hired a company to clean and set up the hot tub, and I've been maintaining the water ever since. Having a hot tub is a luxury that we never imagined we'd have, but Priscilla makes time to enjoy it about once a week (I don't care for it).

We do a fair amount with our church. Our small group meets weekly for study, except the last week of the month in which there's a dinner outing (we usually skip those). We've been helping out with worship about once a month, including at the retreat last week. Speaking of which, this was our first retreat with this church. It was an all-church retreat at Pepperdine University, though we barely interacted with the other congregations (the main purpose of having all the congregations at the same retreat, we were told, is to save on costs). We enjoyed our time there except for the dorm housing; there's a certain level of comfort that we've come to prefer, and Priscilla had neck pain when sleeping there. In future years, maybe we'll take the commuter option (it seemed like a good number of attendees did). We enjoyed the food and the conversations over meals, and the preaching was great. One of the things the speaker said is that if you've done your Bible reading for the day and you haven't been moved, then go back and read again. Words to live by.

It also looks like I'll be helping to redesign the church website. Previous efforts had kind of fizzled out, and the English congregation's elder (we only have one, and he's also in my small group) had mentioned recruiting me for the website not long after Priscilla and I joined the group nearly a year ago, but only now did I get connected with the main guy in charge of the site, so I guess it hasn't really been a priority for the church. There seem to be some basic goals that we need to get consensus on, so we'll see.

Finally, I've been learning things across various domains, including trying to learn piano. I took lessons for perhaps a few months early in grade school, and I didn't have the interest or the discipline to make it very far. Since then, I would infrequently take a peek at my grandfather's old music books, and in high school, I learned how to play Canon in D using the lesson mode on my electronic keyboard. But I never really had a grasp of the basic fundamentals. So now I'm going exercise by exercise through my old primer books (the ones with illustrations for kids), and I also learned to play Minuet in G Major from a YouTube video. I wish I had realized as a kid that piano could be so fun. I'm still terrible at it, of course.

All in all, though things could always be better, I think we've had a meaningful year. My strength (and also weakness) is that I focus on one day at a time. I feel like I've mostly been purposeful with each day, but Priscilla has been challenging me to think about what my purpose looks like five and ten years from now. I think it's largely the same as what I'm doing now, but it's always good to keep one eye on the horizon.

The qualities that Priscilla considers when determining what place we should travel to next, in order of most important to less important:

1. Cost of airfare
2. What airport lounges we'll be able to visit
3. What free hotel nights we can use
4. The activities that will be available

Because she feels like we don't travel enough, and because Frontier Airlines was having a sale on flights to Denver, Priscilla was all too happy to book another trip for us. Flights from Burbank to Denver were $26, a steal by any measure. Of course, Frontier has its downsides and we had to rebook after they canceled our original flight, but at last we made it to the Mile High City last week.

The rest of the day was spent getting settled: picking up the rental car, getting a few grocery items from Costco, and driving to our hotel in Golden. We wanted to be in Golden due to its proximity to hiking, though that can probably be said about most places in the Denver area.

I had originally wanted to do an all-day hike in a more remote area, but those places tend to be at a higher elevation and, as I would later find out, are still getting snow at this time of the year. So we were consigned to doing two shorter (well, my definition of "shorter") hikes over two days.

So on Day 2, we hiked at Red Rocks Park, Priscilla doing 5 miles and me doing another 2.5 miles on top of that. The rock formations there were pretty unique and made for a scenic hike, and it was cool to see the famous outdoor amphitheatre. We hit up the gift shop and Priscilla bought a keychain that will be this year's Christmas ornament.

After hiking, we drove over to Downtown Golden to get lunch and walk around some more. The downtown area looks really nice, and they have a creek that's full of water and a walkway on both sides. It was similar to the San Antonio Riverwalk but less commercial. We even saw someone paddling around in a kayak.

We hiked at Green Mountain on Day 3. Priscilla was not fond of the elevation, but we finally made it to the summit. The scenery was beautiful and the panoramic views were lovely. The whole area was filled with green grassy hills, and to the west in the distance, we could see the amphitheatre at Red Rocks Park. There were small mountains as far as the eye could see, and behind those rose the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

In the afternoon, we headed over to Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (which is not in the actual Rocky Mountains) to do the wildlife drive. It was a warm day, and perhaps as a result, we didn't see a lot of animals out. Priscilla had downloaded a podcast that narrated the 11-mile self-guided drive. We saw what appeared to be buffalo off in the distance, a field of prairie dogs, and a couple deer resting beneath a tree. The visit was a bit of a letdown, but I know that timing matters for these kinds of places.

That evening, we checked into the Staybridge Suites near the airport, which would be our home for the final two days. We had a small but functional kitchenette, and they even upgraded us to a two bedroom, two bathroom suite! It was cool to have two sides, but we ended up not using the other side since we didn't want to make more work for housekeeping.

Day 4 was Meow Wolf's Convergence Station. It's hard to completely describe what Meow Wolf is, but perhaps I'll call it an eclectic collection of immersive art, a thematic universe with an unfolding story.

We bought the QPass (RFID) card so that we could interact with consoles and unlock the story. But because it was a Sunday, the place was crowded and we weren't able to get our hands on everything. I appreciated the huge amount of work that went into creating this place, but I felt like it was a one and done kind of experience. The abstract, artistic style at teamLab Borderless in Tokyo was much more our cup of tea.

After Meow Wolf, we walked over to Downtown Denver but didn't do too much. Downtown Golden was a lot nicer; for instance, the river trail in Downtown Denver didn't have as much water and was a little run down.

Monday was our last day and was essentially just travel. We hit up the Capital One Lounge (courtesy of Priscilla's Venture X card) at Denver International Airport before flying Southwest back to Burbank. The lounge was fine, but I couldn't eat most of the food and I felt like the counterpart lounge at DFW had more food options and amenities. Priscilla, of course, is happy with anything she can get for free.

Overall, Denver was fun enough and I'm glad that we got to do a couple popular hikes. But what would really be up my alley is an all-day hike/run where I can explore and feel like I'm challenging myself. Priscilla and I agree that I can do that on my own while she hits up a coffee shop and explores the town for the day. Whether one of those days is really in the cards is going to be up to me.