went to a coinstar machine in safeway today because i realize that im keeping a lot of loose coins and change at home from grocery shopping at home.

first you pick either you want to convert to cash, donate or get a gift card. getting cash cost you a penalty ~15% so theoretically you only want the other 2 choice. if it's a gift card then unfortunately there's no amazon gift card to be chosen. it's mostly retail stores and doordash. then it's where it get a little confusing. there's a slot you are supposed to dump all your coins in, but I don't know what happen then. i asked an employee nearby then only she showed me the slit at the side - you are supposed to lift the bucket and the coins will fall into the slit. from there, you need to make sure it doesn't get stuck and it's slow enough so the counting is accurate. you also have to check for rejected coins. i found a few coins left behind by someone in there so I got a few extra nickels and dimes.

my total sum came to be $50 and i opted for an apple gift card. that seems to be the best option.

oh there's also a minimum for each gift card you choose, and there's a disclaimer where you may or may not get your money back if it's below.

August 7th, 2025

recently, I had been exclusively using waymo as my mean of transport with a big caveat. as long as i'm able to apply my $10 discounts that comes from referrals. with that, it became free or under $3. just browse the waymo referral reddit, you can use it as many times as you want.

waymo is much cheaper in the city at odd hours ie midnight, 8-9am, 11am, 2pm - 4pm, 9pm to early mornings. my theory is that there are not many people on the other ride sharing platform and this drives down demand

fun fact: if you catch yourself running late and the waymo is about to leave, just open the trunk from the app. with my experience, they stay for quite some time until it's too long and customer support dials in

August 7th, 2025

it's monday so it's the start of the 5 days work life again. i'm lucky i go to the office only 3 days a week and WFH the other days.

morning is pretty productive with me finishing a few of the tasks I want to look into. lunch is ok - it was bbq today. I realize I am bad in small talks because I don't know what to say - maybe that's the disadvantage of being an introvert in an extroverted world. but it's fun listening to them. I learned about a new game called metroid prime that's coming out. it's a retro game and the graphics is quite nice considering it came out a while ago.

one of the meetings after lunch reminded me to always question what i'm doing so I can prioritise the right thing. that's something im still figuring out, to value the value of time i put in to each task i do

some things im thinking about

• i want to get a speaker so i can enjoy good music at home. was looking into sonos but price is a little high 😭

August 4th, 2025

went back to CT today to visit a place I frequent on Waverly St. the corner store has a bunch of cute and artsy things and right in the middle, is a 3rd floor temple. today, it's quiet but sometimes there is a group of tourist in it. the aunty gave me some sweets and a red packet with tea.

i wanted to get roasted pork because there's a place which is famouse for it - kam po on broadway. ended up not get it because the store wanted a minimum of $20 worth and i only want half of it

lunchtime: cooked eggplant with minced pork for lunch with leftover soup. for some reason, eggplants are such a simple yet tasty meal. i did canto style today but the next one will be japanese: nasu dengaku. first time i had it was at echigo

ended the night with some work before monday starts again

August 4th, 2025

life update today:

• I graduated from USFCA a month ago - my family came and it was one of the happiest time for me. We took a lot of pictures and travelled to lots of places together

• I started work at Retool

  • Got the call during my trip with fam at Disneyland
  • I joined a smaller team of 3 in DE
  • Workplace is quite fun with a lot of activities. There's a thriving club for both mahjong and poker

• I moved to a new place. After 2 months of searching, I finally settled down in a nice studio in the Mission. I longed for a plce for myself so this is finally here.

  • I'm happy that I'm the first tenant so eveything is new. The building itself was completed this year
  • Selling things on Facebook Marketplace is tough (almost got threatened because a buyer had buyers' remorse)

• Paused working on InkLink and figuring out if we can raise pre-seed

• Sent off my close friends since they are moving OOS for work

• Bought a new plant and both are thriving now

August 2nd, 2025

One of my fear of being abroad is losing that friendship and connection with friends from high school. We share so many shared memories and experiences that being with them felt like home.

Every once in a while, I call my friend and we talk for hours. We talk about everything and anything. Me updating him on what I did, them updating me on what happened to them + other friends.

I feel appreciative that I have friends that I can call and talk to even when I'm abroad. They keep me realistic and help me see things from a different perspective. They give me the condidence to try things and even if I fail, I know that they will be there to support me.

Thanks for being there for me.

I hope you have friends like that too.

❤️

February 3rd, 2025

Unfortunately, it's a work day today so I couldn't sleep in. I woke up at 7am and got ready for work.

The sky is unusually cloudy today. It must be because of all the fireworks last night.

Work was pretty chill today, we are mainly polishing up the app for the upcoming release, and to help C with his event later in the evening.

We had lunch at Dragon Beaux, a dim sum restaurant in the city. The dim sum is so delicious albeit it's on the pricier side. The siu mai are XL sized with prawn, scallops, mushrooms in them. It's not usual siu mai from the roadside. The pork ribs are also very tender. Overall, it's a very good experience!

At 6pm, we released the second version of the webapp, with more UX improvements and bug fixes. The last time we did this was Dec 31st's NYE. So maybe New Years are good days for releases?

Later in the night, I called my family because they were doing some visitation to my relatives' houses. I saw some of my cousins and wished them the usual '恭喜发财'，'身体健康'，'青春美丽'，'步步高升' and others.

p.s. It was after the meal that I realized we are not supposed to order porridge today. See here to know why.

January 30th, 2025

It's CNY eve and it's my first time spending it away from family.

I feel a little sad because this is the time I most look forward to every year. I love the atmosphere, where cousins come together and gossip, the food, the shouting and laughter when we play a game of blackjack, the red packets, the fireworks, and the list goes on. Oh also, being able to talk to my uncles and aunts about their lives and their experiences. And of course, angpowes! 😆

Not forgetting the reunion dinner where it's a custom that our family orders a Lok Lok truck and we eat till we drop. We are quite a big family so it's usually finished in no time. It's a truck filled with different type of skewers and we either dip them in boiling soup hotpot style or deep fry them. It's so good!

This year, I spent it with my closest friends, A and B. We had a simple dinner at Yee's restaurant where we had our first dinner when we came to the city. The ngau-nam is still as good as ever. So one thing that happened here was that I accidentally tipped the waiter 6 cents instead of 6 dollars. The machine didn't read the decimal point. I was so embarrassed when I realized it. The waiter then came over and asked me if I made a mistake and I was like "Oh no, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that." I quickly took out some cash from my bag and put it on the table. Sorry Mr. Yee!

food from YEE's

Good food, better company.

Throughout our time eating, the sky was just filled with explosions left, right, and center. It was worse than Malaysia because these fireworks are very low and loud. I felt like I was in the middle of World War 3.

Then after that, we went to an event meetup but Adrian's registration wasn't approved so we couldn't all go up. I gave him an egg tart and we went back to his apartment to watch a movie and to countdown to the new year.

We watched 'God of Gamblers' and it was so funny. I like the part where they set up a trap to catch the Indian guy with dogs just because he was blocking their way. This movie is such a CNY classic.

all time famous chow yun fatt movie

10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1.. Happy New Year!

Where's the explosion? Oh wait, it's just a few fireworks. We came to a conclusion that the majority of the fireworks were at 9-10pm and Chinatown is filled with old people who had already gone to bed.

Went back around 1.30am and I was so tired. It's a work day tomorrow, I need to sleep now.

Good night and Happy New Year! 🧧🎉🎊

January 29th, 2025

bing is pretty good

Finished the prospectus for the hackathon I am hosting. And I am pretty happy with the result for the time I spent. I am not a great designer or anything but I hope the content tells a story.

Claude helped a lot in refining my drafts. OpenAI and Bing for building the logo. I used ChatGPT to come up with prompts e.g "Write 5 best prompts for a dragon logo, simple and minimalistic, focus on modern design with traditional aspects". Then for each prompt, I paste it into Bing to generate images. To my surprise, Bing is quite tasteful in its selection.

From there, I used Canva to add text, edit, shape the logo etc. Finally, export as a PNG and upload it.

No need to pay for any tooling or use one of the many logo generators that's stuck behind a paywall.

p.s If you are willing to sponsor, reach out to me!

January 28th, 2025

Some days when I sleep early, I also wake up earlier at 5am.

I don't know why, but I feel like I have less energy when I wake up at 5am compared to when I wake up at 7am. I needed an additional 30 - 40 minutes to ramp up my energy levels before I can start focusing.

Then, energy usually slumps after lunch, so I take a nap. But my naps are 1 hour long haha! Power naps are supposed to be 20 minutes long, but I tried and this only works if I'm really really tired.

I went to Costco today and I am surprised a 2-3 weeks' grocery is ~110 dollars. But it's just 8 items 🥲.

Why are groceries so expensive!

I got some Char Siew from Costco. I was surprised they have it all vacuum packed and you just need to heat it up. I was planning to make it myself, but I guess I can try this first.

January 26th, 2025