Month: November 2023

On a lazy afternoon in Florida, I visit a friend of the family at his restaurant.  I worked in very this restaurant before, under different management and a different name.  I simply called him “Mr. Five” because his surname sounded like the Cantonese word for ‘five’.  We catch up on how our lives progressed.  At some point, he outright suggests that I should “go back to China to find a Chinese girl; it’ll make your mom happy.”  While I didn’t respond in the way that I otherwise might, this conversation filled me with disappointment.

Now, I’ll go into a little detour.  I’ll give you a sample list of names, and I’d like you to ponder about what they have in common:

• Anne Frank
• Betty White
• Mother Teresa
• Rosa Parks
• Julia Child

Continue reading “The mother of all dilemmas” →

I have been a computer geek since my teen years.  On my early days, I learned to program on a TRS-80 Model 3.  It literally had no ability for any graphics; it was all text.  We saved data and programs on cassette tapes, which predated floppy diskettes.  Yes, you read that right.  My sister got the first legitimate computer in our house which ran MS-DOS.  This computer had a handle and its own screen.  Toshiba sold it as a ‘portable’ only because it was completely self-contained.  I don’t believe that this computer fit in any backpack I’ve ever owned, and it weighted about nine pounds.

In high school, I carried a lot of books.  I lugged around both a backpack and a purple duffle bag with school colors.  Once I entered college, I continued to carry more weight than I needed to, opting to keep books or other items with me in case I wanted them.  This included music in the form of cassettes, and later CD’s.  I opted to be prepared at the expense of lugging all that weight.

Continue reading “What a difference a week makes” →