Blog: Latest Entries

Because we got Hawaiian Airlines points at the start of 2020 but were unable to use them because of 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.

We flew Hawaiian Airlines and the flight was uneventful. 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 on the flight, 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. Then we 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 Creek 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 got 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 bus 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.

We last visited the Bay Area in October for me to say goodbye to my coworkers and for us to see friends and family. We thoroughly enjoyed our time up there, but we thought it would be longer before we visited again. However, last week we found ourselves visiting again.

The main reason was to go to my uncle and aunt's place to retrieve our guitar and keyboard, which they had graciously let us store there during our move. Priscilla needed those to practice since we're starting to help out with worship at our church, with Good Friday being our first time serving in this way. We always had a feeling that we would reprise our roles playing piano (her) and drums (me) for worship after joining a new church.

So the previous Friday, after our morning gym session, we drove up the 101, stopping at our new halfway spot in Atascadero for a short break. We got to Mountain View in the afternoon and I joined up with Frank to go running. We ended up running 8 miles on the Stevens Creek Trail like old times.

We stayed up in the Bay for four days, which gave us plenty of time to see people and get stuff done. We stayed two nights with the Chans, having breakfast with them on Saturday, then two nights with the Leongs, having breakfast with them on Tuesday. We also caught up with the Yehs for a late-night hangout, did lunch with Albert and Ruth, dinners with both pairs of my uncles and aunts, and dinner with Tracy at Google. Plus talking to a lot of people at church for 3.5 hours until our voices were sore. Whew. Thankful for all the people we've gotten to know and their generosity in letting us crash at their houses (several families had previously offered).

We also had time to get the prongs on Priscilla's ring adjusted at Shane Co, and also hike Mission Peak on Monday. Hiking Mission Peak once a year has been our annual tradition, so we (I) thought it would be cool to do it again this year during our trip. Will we keep up this tradition going forward? I guess we'll see. Priscilla is as thrilled about it as I am about traveling in general.

We've also been busy helping parents, both remotely and in person. The cadence for now is to visit Priscilla's parents about once a month, and we saw them yesterday and fixed a lot of things around the condo.

Her dad's dementia is getting progressively worse, and during the last visit we helped them fill out and get notarized a Durable Power of Attorney and Advance Health Care Directive for each of them. We also bought her dad a medical ID bracelet which he lost within a day. We also ordered a bracelet with a tracker that's difficult to remove, so hopefully that will be better. There's the doorknob cover to prevent him from wandering that I mentioned in a previous post, and yesterday I installed a keyed lock for her mom's bedroom to help prevent her dad from going in there and taking things. He's also been breaking things around the condo because he can't figure out how they work. He seems to have clarity less than half the time, and usually when he talks, his communication is all over the place and nobody knows what he's trying to say. It's sad seeing him decline and not be able to do a lot of the things that he used to, but I have to remind myself that this happens to just about everyone as they age—whether it's our bodies or our minds breaking down. I myself have been having a lot more aches and pains in the last few months, so I'm getting to experience things through a new perspective.

Things are the most difficult for Priscilla's mom, of course. She feels like she's being driven crazy daily due to his actions and him frequently talking about seeing/hearing people in the condo. Priscilla and I have it easy, relatively speaking, though I'm sure that will slowly change as we start helping them more. We have to remember that we're here to love and support them, and this is what we signed up for when we decided to move back down.

Because Priscilla constantly has the travel itch, and because she keeps forgetting how much land sickness she gets after a cruise, she signed us up for another cruise to Ensenada last month. This was our third time cruising there, the previous time being in 2020 a month before the world shut down. How things have changed since then.

We stayed at Jo-Ann and her sister's condo in San Pedro overnight, and they kindly brought us to the Long Beach Cruise Terminal the next day. After waiting in lines for a good while, we boarded our ship, the Carnival Firenze. This is a newer and larger ship compared to Carnival's Fantasy-class ships that we've sailed on previously.

We went straight to the Lido Marketplace for lunch, avoiding the crowds that were mostly checking into their muster stations. After lunch, we reported to ours, but they just asked if we had sailed before and knew how to put on a life jacket, and then they signed us off. I don't know if they were supposed to bypass the safety briefing like that, or maybe they figure that people don't pay attention to or remember the briefings anyway.

We had time that afternoon to do the adventure course on the top deck. It wasn't as exciting as the treetop courses we did at Go Ape and Highline Adventures, but it was still cool to see this new addition. Here, your harness is tethered to a rail system and you're able to change freely between an easier side and a harder side at each platform. Kudos to Priscilla for pushing through her fear of falling and making it to the end.

The next day was supposed to be Catalina Island, but it ended up being our day at sea due to strong winds that made docking infeasible. Unfortunately, the wind also made for some choppy waters, and the ship was swaying a lot. I had to go back to our stateroom and lie down, but that day we still managed to eat a lot, work out, walk around the track on the top deck, and watch the Color My World music show which was beautifully done. We had dinner at the upscale Michelangelo Restaurant, and the prime rib and molten chocolate cake were divine.

Fortunately, the wind had subsided the next day and we were able to go ashore at Catalina (Avalon). We hiked 10 miles around the town, the Wrigley Memorial & Botanical Gardens, and the Trans-Catalina Trail. I did a couple bonus miles and hiked to the Lone Tree Point on the south side of the island, where I was treated to breathtaking views of the coastline below. The trails this far out were also fairly devoid of people.

Ensenada was the following day, and this time we just did a zip lining excursion with Desert Nest. A bus brought us to their basecamp outside town, and then two vans took our group of a dozen people up to the nearby hills. There are five successive zip lines and the views were decent. I have to admit that zip lining was not as exciting as I was hoping, but I guess the experience is more about the views than the inherent thrill of the ride. Maybe also because we were not permitted to do it hanging upside-down like our guides were doing.

After we got back to town, we walked a mile around the Port of Ensenada but otherwise didn't have too much time or inclination to do much. We don't care to eat in town because there's plenty of food already paid for back on the ship. When we were walking along a street with merchants trying to get tourists to eat at their restaurants, I even said "ya estamos llenos" ("we're already full") to a lady, which was true because we'd eaten a big breakfast. I guess we like being boring when traveling.

There were a couple things that had changed this time around. One our first cruise in 2009, all the pictures being taken of people got printed out and hung on the wall to nudge people into buying. I always thought this was wasteful. I'm not positive but I think even in 2020 they were still doing this. Now, to cut down on costs, you just view your pictures through the Carnival app and purchase prints there. I don't think there's an option to purchase digital versions of the pictures, though. Maybe in a few more years.

The other difference we encountered was that reservations to the restaurant are now made through the app. They also don't give you a printed menu by default (though you can request one), instead making people pull up the menu on their phones. A little less personal, but it again cuts down on costs and is better for the planet.

Priscilla ended up having land sickness for a few weeks after the cruise, while mine was minor and lasted only a few days. The trip was fun enough but I was reminded that I'm not really a cruise person. Priscilla, on the other hand, enjoys being able to try different things and having all our needs taken care of. I don't think she's really itching to do a multi-month around the world cruise anymore, though doing another short cruise in the future seems to still be on the table.

I've been thinking a lot about purpose lately. It's now been four months since I left my job with Pure, and being free of a job has afforded me time to actually do things like think.

But kidding aside, in some senses I've been busier than ever. I've definitely had my hands full with fixing things around the house, doing things for parents, working out, researching health, relearning science concepts, and fellowshipping with people at church and in our small group.

I reckon that most of us won't find our "grand purpose" in lofty ideals like changing the world or becoming the top ranked in something. But, to loosely paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, we can all do a bit of good where we are, with what we have.

To say that life is more about finding purpose in the day-to-day rather than living out some "grand purpose" is helpful. But, for followers of Christ, I think that doesn't capture the whole picture. We are called to a higher purpose, and that is to glorify God and find joy in doing so. Our purpose should be the one that He has set for us. Nothing more, and nothing less.

So we continue to live each day—learning, laughing, and loving. Finding small doses of purpose in enjoying life and helping others do the same. All the while, allowing Christ to work in us and wanting the same for others. That, I submit, is our grand, glorious purpose.

It doesn't feel like it to me, but it's now been over six months since Priscilla and I moved back to SoCal, and over three months since I left my job with Pure. Where does the time go?

This has been an eventful time for sure. We've seen my parents on 11 occasions, her parents on 5, and Aaron and his family on 8. The most recent time was just last Sunday when we saw my family to celebrate our nephew's 5th birthday. Wow, he's 5 already?? Time really does fly.

Back in August, we signed up for lifetime memberships at our local gym. We go 1-2 times per week, depending on Priscilla's schedule. I'm usually lifting while she goes to the Pilates/yoga and Zumba classes, though I might be going to Pilates/yoga with her more often (I've already gone once) since my back has been acting up and I need to strengthen my core. Gary from our church usually joins me at the gym biweekly since he gets every other Friday off from work.

We've committed to the church in Thousand Oaks that I previously mentioned, and we submitted membership applications in November. We're still waiting to be approved, as applications are supposed to be reviewed at the next elder meeting, but this is just a formality and we're already somewhat involved in church life. We visited four fellowship groups and ultimately joined one that has people similar to us in life stage. There are usually 8-10 people in the group and we meet weekly, with one week per month set aside for an outing to a restaurant (we haven't always gone to those). We value the discussions and getting to know people in the group.

Despite not having a job right now, I feel as busy as ever. Since 2013, I've been using a spreadsheet to track my notable daily activities, but last October I started also using Google Sheets to track a breakdown of my activities in five categories: Mind, Body, Spirit, Others (i.e. other people), and House. I don't always do something in each category every day, but it's a good goal to have. When I feel like time has gone by without much to show for it, I can look back at the sheet and remember that I did do meaningful things, even though each of them might've been fairly small. I've learned that life is less defined by grand acts and more by small but cumulative actions. I gave the sheet the title "The Next Right Thing," the name of a song from Frozen 2—not a very memorable movie, but the song has a powerful message about just putting one foot in front of the other, especially when things are hard.

We've spent a good amount of time with family and friends (both new and old). We've met most of our immediate neighbors, though our relationships haven't developed past the quick hello on the street yet. We've gotten half of the house set up the way we want; the gym and master bedroom still need to be done. I've been brushing up on various topics like chemistry and biology, and every time I learn something, I put it on the sheet and highlight it for easy reference. Fitness has been okay, but there's still a lot of room for improvement and I still have my near-term goals that I want to hit. I haven't quite found my "grand purpose" and perhaps I never will, but I've been getting little doses of purpose in daily life. Maybe that's enough.

We also had a memorable time in November when evacuating due to the Mountain Fire (as I talked about in a previous post), and this month there have been a lot of wind-driven fires in SoCal, most notably the hugely destructive Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire in LA. Challenging times ahead.

Speaking of challenging times, Priscilla's dad's dementia has been slowly getting worse. He seems somewhat okay during the day, but past the evening his clarity diminishes and he gets more confused—this apparently is known as sundowning. Priscilla's mom asked us to buy a door knob cover so that he can't leave the condo late at night; he had already wandered out twice. Two weeks ago, we stayed three nights at their place to help them with various things, and it was somewhat challenging. We're going to stay with them one night next week in order to help them with more things, including driving them to a doctor's appointment 45 minutes from their place. A sign of things to come, but this is what we knew we'd have to deal with when we decided to move down.

Overall, we're glad that we moved down and still glad that we settled down in Camarillo, even though it's an hour drive, give or take, to get to parents. It's nice to have a little bit of separation, and we like our house, neighborhood, and city. Retaining a bit of comfort will be critical when we find ourselves helping parents more. But we'll deal with that as it comes, one day at a time. Doing the next right thing.

In my last post, I mentioned that the Mountain Fire was raging in Camarillo Heights and areas to the north. Our neighborhood was evacuated that Wednesday. Fortunately, Priscilla and I were able to go stay to my parents' place far from the fire (one of the benefits of not living too close to parents). The power at our house was cut in the morning but was restored 7 hours later, so we had a limited view of our street from our Ring Doorbell camera.

The first day was excruciating, not having much information and fearing the worst. The fire map showed that the fire was 2,000 feet from our house. At least two of our neighbors decided to not evacuate, and in the evening one of them sent Priscilla a picture showing the sky glowing orange just over the ridge in front of our house. Fortunately, the 60mph winds that fanned the blaze started subsiding that evening, returning to a normal light breeze the following afternoon. Had the heavy winds continued for longer and in our direction, I could imagine the fire, or at least embers, coming down the hill and reaching our house. The 182 structures that ultimately burned were in the mountain area north of us where there's more vegetation and where there aren't as many direct roads into the area, but I think it could've easily been a lot worse. We're thankful that our neighborhood was spared.

After the first two days, the fire perimeter was kept from expanding significantly more thanks to the tireless work of the fire crews. We returned to our home on Friday, and the evacuation order in our area was downgraded to a warning later that day. We're also grateful that we receive city water and didn't have the water quality issues that some other Camarillo residents had. Many of the outlying areas are unincorporated and have their water provided by local companies, some of which had issues with contamination due to toxins and firefighting chemicals seeping into the water supply.

As of today, the fire has burned 19,904 acres and is 98% contained. Life in our area pretty much returned to normal that weekend, just 3 days after the fire started, though air quality was noticeably impacted for the first week or so. There's still a trace of smoke at night, but it's so much better now.

This ordeal made me and Priscilla think about our priorities. We didn't bother getting fire insurance when purchasing our house because it seemed pricey and the fire risk in our area seemed low. Our next-door neighbors don't have it either, and apparently neither did some of the people who actually lost their homes. Our neighbors who have lived here for 13 years told us that a fire has never gotten this close to our area in that time. But we're considering getting insurance now. Premiums will probably increase due to what happened, though rates in California are still being kept artificially low—that's why a lot of insurance companies are leaving the state. We still think that our house will probably be fine, but it's good to have peace of mind. And I think of it as a way to help subsidize insurance for people who need it more.

But moreso than insurance, we've been thinking about the things that we treasure. Seeing how anxious we were about our house, and thinking about how devastated we would feel if we lost it, made us realize that we don't have enough of a stewardship mindset. Ultimately God owns everything, so if it's His will that we should lose something, then we should be able to say like Job, "blessed be the name of the Lord." Easier said than done, of course. Lord, increase our faith and our dependence on You, and let us act as stewards over all you've given to us—our home, money, time, and relationships.