A couple of hours ago as we were all getting ready for bed, all of our phones started buzzing with a National Weather Service Tornado Warning. We took the kids and rushed into an indoors bathroom and stayed there from 10:40pm until 11:05pm, wondering how far the tornado was. I was able to view our outdoors cameras on my phone and the rain was coming down heavy. We could hear the wind pick up speed around 10:45pm. Thankfully for us, everything quieted down by 10:55pm and a quick backyard inspection showed no trees down. I'll have to do a thorough walk-through tomorrow and make sure no roof tiles were damaged. We're 4 months away from the hurricane season in Florida but the unexpected alert from a winter thunderstorm felt no less severe.

I heard on the news that there were people injured from downed trees a few miles away from us. Coincidentally just earlier today I messaged my lawn guy to trim down some branches that are starting to hunch near our garage. Such is life in evergreen Florida.

One late night a few years ago, overcome with stress and anxiety from all facets of life, I decided to blog about everything that was bothering me, hoping for some sort of catharsis. But a funny thing happened when I wrote them all out, even before I posted anything online. I felt better. Just writing down a list of things that were causing chaos in my life made me feel better. So instead of posting it for the world to see, I just copied them to my todos under the heading: Chaos List.

The Chaos List isn't a list of chores I hate doing or bills I'd rather not pay. It is for the big problems in life, things that utterly bring me down, sometimes literally like the neurosurgery I needed on my C6-7 discs. I can control a lot of things in my life, from work schedule to eating healthy. But for the things I cannot control, there's the Chaos List.

I recently added "C5-6 discs" to the list because my neurosurgeon said it looks like I will need another surgery, right above the previous one. My pain level was down to 1/10 by mid-July but it is back to 6/10 now. I'm getting headaches, neck pain, and back pain because even though my doctor wanted to operate on both my C5-6 and C6-7 in March, the insurance company would not cover the cost of C5-6, only C6-7. So now I have to go under the knife again, the doctor has to re-operate on a recovering patient, and the insurance company has to pay 100% of the cost instead of just 15% additional. If this isn't chaos beyond my control, I don't know what is.

Another item on the list is "Old house sale." Today the buyer for my old house canceled the sale after being under contract for 90 days! The sale was supposed to complete tomorrow but the buyer got fired from his job on Friday. And since the lender denied the loan due to buyer's unemployment, I don't even get to keep the escrow. Now we start the whole process again and the earliest we can find a buyer and complete the sale is October or most likely November. This means 3-4 months of mortgage, electricity, water, and lawn mowing bills for an empty house. Argh!

There are a few more items on the list, most of them too personal and honestly too boring to share. Nobody cares about these issues other than me or my family but they definitely ruin my mood every time I let my mind wander. So I put them on the Chaos List. If it is on the list, I do not allow myself to think about it. No point in wallowing in self-pity over things already on the list. That's why they are on the list. I have already admitted that they are self-pity worthy! I don't need to keep wasting my time thinking about them.

Of course I cannot always consciously stop my anxious mind from running wild. So when I am absolutely past my ability to function or think straight due to the stress of everything, I stare at this list. Not just one item in the list but the whole list, because it is never a single issue that weighs me down, but the burden of the entire pile! And so I stare at this list.

I think of all the qualities that define me, that constitute my personality, my being. Nothing on this list has anything to do with my true nature. I am who I am, good and bad. But I am definitely not an unsold house. I am not a denied insurance claim. I am not a rejected application. Things that happen to me are not things that are me.

I don't stare at the list hoping all of these will be fixed or go away. They may not. They might get worse. The list could double in size overnight. But I will still be me. Even when I change, from experience, wisdom, or life just knocking me around, I am still never going to be a list of out-of-control events and situations. I am always going to be a real person, experiencing life, sometimes in control, sometimes out of.

Earlier today after I signed the cancellation agreement, I felt a cloud of uneasiness slowly coming over me. So I did what I've been doing for the past few years and stared at my Chaos List. It takes a bit of effort to detach myself from the events in my own life but it helps me focus on what matters without losing myself.

I've spent almost the entire year planning, designing, and repeatedly modifying the duck and tortoise area you see in the photo below. I worked with my wonderful neighbor Bevv (who did the initial design), my handyman Dan and my lawn expert Chris to build it all.

We have a large Sulcata tortoise (Lola) who lives with the two ducks (Peek & Poke). Here are the major structures:

Fence: The back portion is just a typical fence with a stained wooden 1" trim on the top, everything held up straight by 8ft 4x4s. The side and front edges are 4x4s piled on top of each other, with 6ft iron rods drilled straight down through them with concrete at the base. Then we piled up dirt on the outside and planted a variety of greens. Since the ducks kept jumping out and chased our small Chihuahuas around the whole yard, I added the wooden criss-crossed trellis around the front. A primary reason for making the fence solid is that it prevents the tortoise from trying to scale it.

Enclosure: They all sleep in together in the wood enclosure built by Dan (towards the bottom left of the picture). The enclosure is heated by infrared bulbs on thermostat set to turn on at 70F. The enclosure has a front-flap that can be raised up with a simple pulley and hooked on the side to keep it open during the day. At night I just lower it. There is also a back flap that you can open up like the trunk of a typical sedan and we use that to fill up water/food. Also very useful when I want to hose out everything. There is a small mesh on one side of the enclosure to make sure it doesn't get too hot in the summer. If it gets too cold, I can put a small blanket on it to keep the warmth in.

Pond: This was the most difficult thing to get right and I spent more time, money, and effort on it than anything else. Initially we had one of those pretty koi-style ponds with a big pump and filter as you can . I was prepared to deal with duck poop but I had no idea what the tortoise had in store for me. The tortoise ate grass all day and clogged the pump, filter, and pipes so bad we had to scrape the entire pond and rebuild. The pond you see now has a simple gravity drain. It is a large stagnant pond which gently slopes to the back. There is a 4" PVC pipe that drains everything out towards the back of the yard. There is a single heavy-duty valve that I can access without getting into the duck area which empties the pond within 30 seconds. I hose off any messes on the pond, close the valve, and refill. Takes about 10 minutes. The ducks and tortoises get fresh water and I barely have to do any work to keep it clean. I'm pretty sure I can use the drained material as fertilizer around the yard.

Plants/ground-cover: These I left up to Chris. We tried typical sod in the middle but the tortoise kept eating that instead of her food. Also the ducks made a mess everywhere. So we opted for pine-straws and lots of small shrubs. We planted Jasmine on the outside of the front fence and bunch of other flowering plants like Lily of the Nile. The planters will hopefully grow long enough to cover the back fence soon.

We got the ducks last Christmas and I have spent the entire year getting this area setup just right. The ducks are SO happy and the tortoise is very active too. While I may not have done much work with my own hands, I came up with all the little solutions for each tiny problem and trust me there were many. We wanted our critters to live as close to their natural habitats as possible and I think we got it pretty close.

Now that spring is here, I've been spending a lot more time on house projects than coding marathons. With the help of my handyman Dan, last week we built a custom bonsai table for Juliet. Our wonderful neighbor Bevv designed our new tortoise and duck area earlier this year. Last weekend, I finally designed the perfect house for the big tortoise and the ducks and Dan built it yesterday.

This week I'm going to setup a small waterfall and filter in the duck pond with my lawn guy Chris' help. We're also going to add rocks, driftwood, and heat-lamps to the enclosures for our prairie dogs, rabbits, and tortoises. Within a week or so, I'm pretty sure we'll have a real-life mini-zoo right in our backyard with five-star accommodations for all of our critters. I'll post photos within a week or two at most.

Amazon.com, we need to talk. I love your service. I happily pay $79/year for Amazon Prime to get free shipping and on-demand video rentals. I buy something from you every week and spend thousands each year on Prime Eligible products. I even used your EC2 AWS service when I had to crunch through a lot of data during my research for KType. So it hurts me to tell you that you have the worst product sort and filter interface that I have ever used. Not because you do not have enough features or the interface is confusing or bland, but because you do it wrong. Here's what's wrong with a typical search on Amazon.com:

1) Incorrect sort order: I searched for 'cat food', filtered for only Prime-Eligible items, and sorted it by Price: High to Low as you can see in the first screenshot. I don't think $34.89 > $38.99 > $39.74. I understand that behind-the-scene, you are trying to calculate the lowest price offered either by you or a 3rd-party vendor and applying lots of complex calculations based on item characteristics, bulk quantity, and other parameters to make sure each item price is calculated correctly but that is not what I asked for. I said Prime-Eligible for a reason - I want to buy directly from you and I don't want to pay for shipping. Most of your 3rd-party vendors charge slightly lower than you but charge a lot for shipping. You need to ignore their prices when I choose "filter for prime-eligible, sort by price"

2) Broken filters: Why is the second item in the first screenshot even shown? At first glance, it doesn't have a price, it is not prime eligible, and it doesn't even seem to be sold directly by you. When I dug in, I found out that Amazon.com does sell this item directly, with free shipping for $42.84. If that is the case, then it should have said Prime-Eligible and shown up higher up in the sort order. Look at the second screenshot. I searched for new, Prime-Eligible 'tv remote' under $25. Why is the first item you show me priced at $69.95? What about the second and third item that are missing prices?

3) Unavailable sort: Why do I have to "Choose a Department to enable sorting"? Why do I have to decide if "disposable nitrile gloves" are categorized under "Health & Personal Care", "Home & Kitchen", "Automotive", "Industrial & Scientific", or "Patio, Lawn & Garden" by you or other 3rd-party vendors before I can sort by price or customer review? Especially since the same products show up in most of the departments. If external sites can do this using your API, why can't you?

It's 2012. Sorting and filtering at the most basic database operations. You created A9.com - a product search engine. You enable programmers around the world to use your servers at low-prices so they can build complex websites backed by your RDS and SimpleDB database services. You have some of the smartest developers around the world working for you. And yet I get frustrated every time I try to find something on your site. I can't be the only person who has a problem with the aforementioned issues. Can you please fix them so my cats don't go hungry? Think of the kittens!

2012-03-16 (2 photos)

A funny contradiction has been happening to me over time and only now am I starting to realize it. I find that the older I get, the more time I feel I have. One would think that as you grow older, you have less and less time to achieve what you want, yet I feel quite the opposite. When I was fifteen, I was always running out of time. Everything had to happen NOW. There was no time to waste. It's now or never! At twenty-six, other than committed deadlines, time doesn't really bother me. There are so many things I want to do and I feel I'm on the right path. I've found some sort of balance between impatience and procrastination. Even when I wrote about patience, I did not know how that came about, other than inheriting my mother's patient attitude.

While reading The Future of Leisure That Never Arrived, I realized what is missing from my life today that overwhelmed my being ten years ago - competition. I don't compete. There is absolutely no competition in my life. At age fifteen, I competed in more activities than I can remember, from soccer, volleyball, athletics, to violin, theater, and aero-modeling (that's making model planes that can fly, not mile-high modeling). Today, I create. I sit back, take my time, and make whatever I want. I build things I want and at my pace. Nobody else is doing what I'm doing any more. There are no standards to measure my worth by.

The void of competition is not some happenstance. It is completely intentional, albeit indirect. I have chosen to not involve myself in activities where the sole purpose is to win by being better than others. While competition in kids fosters development and personal growth, I find that competition among adults simply regresses communal advancement. I learnt a lot about my strengths and weaknesses when I practiced months on end for music competitions as a teenager. However, by spending three hours a day on my yard to make my lawn greener than my neighbor's, I'd pretty much be wasting my time. My time would be better spent making new things instead of proving I AM BETTER!

What makes the world a better place: A bunch of adults that study for months to get the highest score in mySAP-ERP certification so the winner gets a new laptop and a bonus, or the bunch of them working together or on their own projects to actually make software that help others? Having decided that I'd rather build things than run rat-races, my life has become quite different. I know many people that are winning their selective rat-races, and not just eking out a living. Yet they find their lives miserable and often whine about having no leisure. I know many folks that instead build things and they are generally the most interesting people because despite having twenty-six ongoing projects, they are always interested in learning new things and figuring out how to make something else.

Exceptions to the competition rule is when competing professionally is all you do, i.e. sports professionals, athletes, and the ilk. These are the people that, by doing their very best, actually push the human boundaries on what can be done. If I could run a mile under 3:50, I would and my respect goes to those that can. However, this kind of competition is different from forcing your daughter to get better grades than your brother-in-law's kid. People think that by pushing kids to compete non-stop, the kids will learn to win in life. No, they will learn to win in competitions. Then they will compete for that promotion and then that client account. Next thing they know, they have no time for anything, except of course, pushing their own kids to be the best basketball player and the best pianist in their class.

Thankfully, I competed out of my own volition and not parental or peer pressure. Consequently, I found it easy to get out of the competitions without a loss of self-worth. I never measured how good I am by how many people I'm better than. I do measure how good I am by what I make and how does it make the world slightly better.

Of course, everything has side-effects and my lack of competitiveness has its own repercussions. The fact that I refuse to compete in anything seeps into my private life, especially dating habits. I simply won't compete with other guys for a girl's attention. I won't. I don't care how great you are but if you expect me to prove myself better than the four other guys you're eying, have a nice day and a good life. I'm pretty sure if I wanted to compete and win, I could. But I won't. I'd rather be valued on my absolute merits than some relative edge I might gain over others momentarily.

So who's up for a little kayaking this weekend? I'll race you across the Bay to Tampa and back!

Just got back from an hour of kayaking at Lake Seminole, about a three minute drive from my house. I figure I could go to places around my house 2-3 times a week for quick workouts and check out the pretty places across Florida 2-3 times a month for my little nature adventure trips. One hour of stringent paddling every other day will improve my technique. Longer trips I take across the state will help boost my stamina and let me take pretty pictures.

Now, I cook something up and relax. Not going anywhere tomorrow or day after. This is my stay-at-home-and-do-chores weekend. Lots of little things to do - laundry, lawn mowing, cleaning etc.

In other news, I got a replacement cellphone and everything is working again. I lost only a handful of contact numbers and it's not really a big deal.

I got some more backyard work done today. I rented a gas-powered soil tiller from Home Depot after work and spread Bahia grass seeds all over my back and part of my front lawn. I mixed the seeds with the soil using the tiller. Here's hoping the seeds sprout soon and I get a nice lawn.

My 'blog has been kinda quiet lately because I've been pretty busy last few weeks with work stuff. Things are progressing quite well and a lot of the stuff I made over the years is finally coming together. Still a few more months before it's all done though.

So my backyard that was in very bad state last year when I bought my house, is finally starting to look decent. Last month I bought 20 cubic yards of fill dirt to cover the big holes and level the yard. Then I had the wild weeds cleared and just tonight, I tilled the entire backyard and half of the front yard. I added some calcium/lime mineral and some good weed & feed everywhere. Soon I'll add the grass seeds and hopefully I'll have a nice green lawn in a couple of months. Once the lawn is better, I can get on with my projects. I haven't given up on any of my plans, just got terribly delayed due to... ummm... the space-koalas eating my literature homework.

I haven't been doing much lately other than work and house chores. Last weekend it rained pretty heavily, albeit sporadically, and I didn't go out in the water. I'm hoping this weekend is better so I can have some fun exploring the wild again. I don't have any travel plans in near future so other than my weekly kayak trips, I don't really have much to keep me entertained. Especially since the motherboard on my PC-TV got fried. By PC-TV, I mean the computer in my living room that is wired to the TV and wirelessly connects to my 2TB Raid array in the PC Room that contains 300+ movies in DVD quality. I love to just sit back on the sofa and watch a good movie or two on weekends so now I'm kinda bummed that I have to wait for a few weeks till I find a decent replacement motherboard.

Well, there's always YouTube.

I just read a surprisingly blunt article by Felix Dennis, a British publishing tycoon, titled "If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened." He's brutally honest in saying how he became rich and what all he had to do on the way to get there. His shortlist of who wouldn't get rich includes these gems: "If you cannot bear the thought of causing worry to your family, spouse or lover while you plough a lonely, dangerous road rather than taking the safe option of a regular job, you will never get rich. If you have artistic inclinations and fear that the search for wealth will coarsen such talents, you will never get rich. (Because your fear, in this instance, is well justified.)"

I always wanted to hear a really rich guy say everything he said in the article because at the back of my mind, I knew that was exactly what one would have to do. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, but by and large, money and power aren't attained by the kindness of your heart and the virtue of your soul. I feel vindicated in a way because while I (just like my father) know exactly what I'd have to do to get all the way up there, I can't make myself do it.

Addressing his shortlist, I don't really have much of a fear of failure anymore. I used to but after tons and tons of disasters, failure is just another non-event to me. I rarely care what neighbors think (except when my lawn is ill-kempt). I can work 18 hours a day for a year if I want. I know I'm smart/good/capable enough to be filthy rich. I know getting rich is a game and I can play it if I put my mind to it. However, I'd rather not.

While I have the tenacity and drive to achieve "success," my definition of success is different from most people. I want success in invention and innovation, not in investment and influence. I think once you are above a certain IQ-level, you can pretty much do anything you set your mind to. After all, if you are smart enough to understand particle physics, you can understand the Ricardian Model of Comparative Advantage or Loss Distributions and Survival Models just as well. It's a matter of selecting which field you like; some just pay much more than others.

My favorite example is Investment Banking because I think it has the highest pay/effort ratio among all the typical jobs out there. Typical, because anyone with basic financial resources and a triple digit IQ can get an MBA and become one if they set their mind to it. It's not something like acting or sports that require talent or physical characteristics. It's not operations research or econometrics that requires intense appreciation of mathematics and statistics. If I had wanted to get comfortably rich, with say a salary of $150k-$200k by my late 20's or early 30's, I'd be an investment banker. It's not that complex really. Now writing a script that isolates specifics GUIDs from the registry and generates .Net code for a COM wrapper to extend every single class of an existing DLL written in VB in order to enable access the indexed properties of an object from PHP so that I can migrate and merge the data from two Btrieve 6 databases to a Pervasive 9 database is complex. And pretty much always goes unnoticed because nobody really understand what the hell I just said. But I like it. No, I LOVE it. And I'd rather be doing that than making money - because this makes me happy.

We have a choice in what makes us money. We have no choice in what makes us happy. For me, it's the unwavering desire to spend my 30's researching mundane computational or economic theories. For others, it's getting whatever job pays well enough to support their golfing ambitions or their family. And for others, it's eating pie. Hey, whatever makes you happy.

As for me, I'll have the PhD please. And would like to be comfortably poor as per Felix Dennis' Wealth Guide: £1m-£2m in assets.

I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself.

I hope it rains today. My lawn seriously needs it.

I found a good electrician last month and finally this weekend, he came over to complete all the projects I had for him. Initially, he was going to charge $350 for just a few things, primarily a new circuit to power my computers, fixing of my backyard lights, and fixing my old water pump. During this past Saturday, Sunday, and tonight, he spent about 15-hours inside and outside my house, as it usually happens, fixing a lot more things than originally planned.

In the end, for a grand-total of $700 I got a new 4-point circuit with its own breaker to my PCs, a pump with pressure gauge, pressure tank, pressure cut-off switch and main switch connected to my underground well, two twin-halogen 90w motion-sensing lights in my backyard, 2-point outlet in the backyard to plug tools into, a lightening arrestor to protect the electric devices inside my house in case of a direct lightening hit, a fresh new ground/Earth line for the main circuit, and pretty much all the wires on the main board reattached. It just feels so "clean" now that my main computer is connected to a strong 20-amp line with decent grounding instead of multiple UPSs split from one tiny plug without ground.

Now that my roof and electric circuits are done, I can get the 4-point inspection my insurance company wants me to get - roof, electric, plumbing, heating/airconditioning. Hopefully there's not going to be any issues with the latter two. Cost of inspection is probably about $300. In these three months, I've spent about $5,000 to fix up the house. Of course, a house almost exactly similar to mine down the street is selling for $185,000 - I bought mine last year for less than $150,000. So it'll be worth every penny spent when it's time to sell. But till then, it makes for some tight financial planning.

I'm also thinking of getting a sprinkler system installed before my lawn is fixed up. It's much better to dig trenches and install the pipes on barren land. It all depends on how much money I can save up for these projects.

Nature elicits the deepest, most innate thoughts in my mind. Beautiful ideas, primal awareness. Sitting five minutes on the edge of Lake Okeechobee, peering into the restless flora sprouting from 'neath ethereal freshwater, I realized my place in the world. I was at one with my environment. I was breathing, living, being. An earth-shaking wave of overconfidence swept me off my feet when I thought I figured out the answer to a question that has plagued and challenged mankind for eons: "Why are we here?" My answer: "To embrace nature." Took me a few minutes to consider that there must have been tons of people before me that thought the same. Turns out Einstein said, among other things, "... to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Hmmm, he said embrace too. I wonder if he ever went to Lake O.

We drove down to the Okeechobee KOA early Saturday morning. While it didn't faze my friends, to me, it seemed the drive was beautiful. I guess my senses heighten whenever I am outside my daily routine. Things just seem more alive. We setup the tents and that's when we met our camp-neighbors and their big cuddly Wolf! Yup, a real-life pet wolf, not in the least bit wild - perfectly tame. He stood up on his hind legs, put his paws on my shoulders, and licked my face when his owner told him to 'kissy.' I know my dad isn't into dogs, so I figure someday I can get a wolf instead. Right? Hehe. Apparently it's a tough job to take care of wolves. Nevertheless, I think I'm up to the challenge; probably 10-15 years from now when I have half-an-acre of chain-fenced enclosure to keep my canines in safely.

While there were a lot of fun activities to do within Koa grounds, I was more interested in driving around the big lake. I took a some pics during my 2.5 hour drive around the lake. It was definitely the most scenic drive I've ever taken. This whole area has some pretty interesting names for roads and places. Hooker Highway, a town called FrostProof, Lake Buffom, and many more. I drove counter-clockwise around the lake and saw a lot of farms full of cows and horses. Since I was driving full-speed, I could only take pics when I stopped. Passing through miles and miles of orange groves, I heartily breathed in the fresh air of the lovely countryside.

As I was crossing over the neverending concrete expressway through downtown Tampa towards St. Petersburg on my drive back home, I couldn't help but be amazed at how I was so close to the rural life just a few hours ago and how stiff and obstinate these tall buildings look compared to throngs swinging palm trees that line the big lake. I know my thoughts weren't too enlightening and neither were they revolutionary or brilliant. What made me smile was the fact that I was thinking about things other than materialistic goals. During the whole weekend, I didn't think about anything that I think of on a daily basis - no computers, no systems, no processes, no TV, no bars, no Home Depot. Just nature and me. And it felt good.

I think next time I want to take a diary and jot my thoughts down. Like I remember, I wanted to make a list of things that we think are really necessary, and then try to narrow down the list as much as we can. Say, if you were asked what all do you need this whole month, what would the list look like? What are the things you absolutely need during a typical month, without which you cannot survive? In addition to food, water, clothing, and shelter, I bet cellphones, cars, computers, and cable TV channels are on most people's list. Let's not forget toothbrush & paste, soap/shampoo, wallet full of cash, and above all, other people. What if it was just a week? Could you live without your money? How about a few days without soap or seeing any other human? What if you have 24-hours and absolutely nobody around and nothing other than water and the clothes you wear? No food, no car, no phone, no people. Just you and 86,400 seconds in which you try to keep your sanity. And what's the longest you can go like this? A few days? A week? Forever?!

Sometimes it's refreshing to think about these things instead of how many miles my car will go before I need to fill the tank again. Or how many people will show up at the next party I throw. Who cares if 100 people show up at your party if you can't even live without a toothbrush for a day?! Nature makes everyone feel so insignificant that they realize their true worth is not determined by petty measures of money, status, or beauty, but rather by their ability to survive and embrace nature.

Unsurprisingly, I do not have much respect for people who are incapable of enjoying nature in its most serene form. It's quite easy to be in awe of and be entertained by nature at its wildest, but if you cannot appreciate life just sitting idly by the beach or walking through a little trail between thick bushes, you're not my kinda person. I don't want to be a hermit in the Himalayas but I do know I want to spend a lot more time outside than inside as I grow older.

Sometimes that means fixing my lawn and other times it means going to the beach, skiing down a slope, or kayaking up a creek. If I'm lucky, it'll mean going to more places like Lake O in the near future. For now, the hum-drum of daily life beckons - the dryer is ready for the next load of laundry. I'll do that, you check out my Lake Okeechobee photos.

Last night I saw ColdPlay in concert with Lanie & Mike. It was absolutely the best concert I've ever seen... now if only I could have heard it too! Turns out the Ford Amphitheatre folks in Tampa were sued for noise violation by neighboring homeowners' associations and as a result, had to turn down the volume on all events. Worse yet, they turned off all the speakers in the external lawn area. My friends and I had tickets to the lawn, because it's much nicer to relax and chill there instead of sitting in plastic seats at a music concert. And the tickets were slightly cheaper too. But despite all our excitement, it's hard to rock when you can barely hear the music. Nevertheless, we stayed on to watched Fiona Apple & ColdPlay and enjoyed as much as we could. After that we drove to downtown St. Pete and chilled at a bar. Then I suggested the best 24/7 diner for some past-midnight breakfast - The St. Pete Diner on Route 19. The food was sooooo good that we pretty much forgot how much the concert sucked.

I know for fact that ColdPlay were good, especially Chris Martin - the lead singer. It just looked so awesome, but since there were no speakers, it pretty much sucked to be in the lawn - there were over 3,000 people in the lawn area! Oh well. Time for dinner.

My backyard projects have begun. Tonight I got rid of a very nasty bush with lotsa weeds growing within it. I got one Brazilian Pepper Tree in the far corner and it's pretty wild too. While it grows beautifully in South America, it is pretty much an invasive species in Florida and rarely welcome. Once I've got rid of all the weed and unwanted bushes from my backyard, I'm going to get on with my big plan.

Here's my 5-step process for the next two months: (1) Clear (2) Level (3) Seed (4) Garden (5) Landscape. As mentioned above, first I have to clear the yard from all the wild growth. Then I gotta buy truckloads of junk dirt, fill dirt, topsoil, and potting soil - four different types of soil for different areas of the yard. Once I spread the dirt everywhere it's needed, it's time to seed the lawn with new grass seeds. Still not sure what type of grass I want and am open to trying something interesting. While the grass is growing, I will plant a vegetable garden around the edges of my backyard. This will give my property a nice boundary, reduce the size of lawn I have to mow, provide fresh vegetables for me to eat, and of course, a cheap way for me to have a useful healthy garden. I don't like flowers and they're too much work. Vegetables like basil, peppers, and tomatoes grow pretty well in this area - especially since I have some good shade in my backyard too. Finally, after I've marked off the different areas, I can start landscaping and building. I want to get lots of marble rocks and colorful stones. And finally I want to start building structures and items out of wood. I'm not sure exactly what but I'd absolutely love to have a nice bench under my big Ficus tree. A bench, some Bamboo chimes, and if my plans work out well, a simple self-made gazebo.

Basically, when my parents come visit me next year, I want them to enjoy living at my house and feel as close to nature as they possibly can. And instead of paying some company $15,000 to do all this for me, I'm gonna spend a few hours every day and more on weekends getting it done myself. Hopefully this will give me lots of exercise, stress-relief, and a break from computers, TV, and slacking off.

Another great day at work today. I solved a lot of little problems and one big problem. I love it when stuff works. I got home and sat on my lawn chairs for a while, just sitting and relaxing in the beautiful weather. I need to go to the beach. It's so gorgeous :) Things are finally back to normal *touch-wood*

I don't 'blog everyday, not because I'm too busy or have nothing to say, but rather I like saving up the energy to write slightly longer posts and to say things I normally don't in course of everyday life. In everyday life, people just execute their daily duties. You wake up, go to school and/or office, get home, do the chores, entertain yourself a bit, and go to bed. Next day, lather, rinse, repeat. And the cycle goes on.

Life's like an analog clock that you have to wind-up every 24 hours. And more often than not, the clock gains or loses a few minutes every day. In a month, you could be as much as half-an-hour off the correct time unless you synchronize your clock with some official time keeper. Similarly, if you just live your life without any form of introspection and retrospection, sooner or later, you're gonna be out of sync with your own life and the rest of the world.

In other words, if you never take some time to stop everything you're doing and take a 36,000 mile big-picture overview of yourself, your life's path, your goals and dreams, then things are just gonna get tougher. If you're lost in a maze, you can forever run around every corner to find a way out but the most optimal way to get out is just look at the maze from above and find the shortest path to the exit. Everybody knows that is the best way but nobody wants to do it.

We're all in a rat race. Life has become a rat race because we're all materialistic - chasing objects that money and only money can buy, running after goals that solely bolster our egos. So now even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat. The trick is not to win the race but to stop being a rat. How can you do that? It's easy and sounds so very cliched. Take control of your own mind. Stop letting yourself be led by others. Realize that you and only you make your own destiny unless you unfortunately happen to be living under some ruthless dictator or corrupt communist government. But even then, there's a lot you can do to control your own mind. Sure you may not be able to control the fact that your dad's not a rich industrialist but you can sure control the emotional turmoil your mind goes into after the love of your life rejects you.

Control of your own mind is quite possibly the easiest and the hardest thing to ever do. It's hard because throughout our lives we have been force-fed the notion that we are all emotional by our very human nature and we are but the victims of our moods. We have adapted to feeling sad when our mind decides it's time to feel sad and we are trained to feel happy when our mind tells us so. But it's not at all hard to decide to tell our mind that shut the hell up and stop being so moody. And after that, it's all easy. Once you realize that you can tell your brain to feel calm in the most adverse of life's circumstances, you suddenly find yourself equipped with the world's greatest arsenal of strength and power - emotional maturity. Most people get stuck in life because their emotions overpower every rational thought.

I know, everyone says you gotta think straight and do right but so many people just can't. Why? Because saying is one thing and doing is another. It's very easy to say "never lie to yourself" but very hard to do. It's the wide gap between saying the nice wise quote and explaining HOW to do it, that prevents people from actually doing it. So I said above, take control of your mind. Well great quote but how does one go about doing it. What's the first step?

The first step is to stop all negative thoughts. That's it. It's a very easy thing to do once you start doing it. No matter what you're doing, something is going on in your head and if that thought happpens to be laden with negativity of any kind, be it sadness, guilt, remorse, angst, revenge, stress, worry, or anything else, just let it go. Tell your brain "hey that's a negative thought and I'm not gonna have any of that in my brain." And stop. Change the topic and focus on something else. Keep doing it every single moment, every day and every night. Very soon you're realize yourself that things just seem so much easier. Life will suddenly be easy, much more clear.

I know, all of this sounds so pseudo-wise psycho-babble but from personal expeirence, I can say it's very true. College years were quite tough on my mental stability, especially the stress of multiple degrees and multiple jobs and I always felt so lost. Lately, things have got so much better since I started following the aforementioned guidelines. None of the stuff I said above is something I pulled out of thin air. Most of this 'wisdom' stuff is from ancient Hindu and Buddhist teachings. Too many people apply the practical rituals of religion in daily life instead of following the wise teachings.

Nah, I've not suddenly become overtly religious or anything. I'm just saying, the day you take control of your mind is the day life stops being difficult. The grass really is greener on the other side because you have a lot more time to tend to your lawn as you're not stressing all day about meaningless objects.

"The strange new truth, according to census figures, is that the single largest chunk of American households now consists of people who live alone. No spouse or partner, no kids or other relatives, no roommate or boarder. Alone." Thus reports the Wall Street Journal. I am a statistic now. Here's the original Census Report in PDF.

The report goes on to say "Yet a list-topping surge to 27 million separate little cocoons is still disconcerting. Among other things, it suggests a demographic bulge of lonely souls. Even if you discount the college graduates who paint the town every night before crashing happily at their first pad, you're left with a huge number of people who have found companionship and lost it or are still looking for someone to share their life with. They may not be miserable or call themselves lonely, although many senior citizens do use those words. But most probably are missing something, and we don't mean the better health and the longevity boost that scientists have associated with marriage and other forms of intimate living."

The author of the article goes on, "27 million lonely grown-ups probably isn't great for society either." So that's one side of the story. The other side of the story is what random people are saying here on Fark: "Living alone is the greatest thing in the world." "People are choosing to stay single. I'm single by choice." "I wish I lived alone."

I can pretty much attest to the awesomeness that is living alone. I love the fact that I have a house I can go to every day without having someone nag me to depression on when I'm gonna cut the lawn or paint the backyard door. I love the fact that I can do whatever I want, whenever I want - nobody bothers me, nobody annoys me. If I feel alone or bored, I can either stay at home and entertain/educate myself or I can go out and hang out at my friends' places. I really don't see how living alone could be such a bad thing. I don't have to worry about anyone's dirty laundry and nobody leaves dirty dishes in my kitchen sink. It's awesome! Sure, I miss hanging out with someone 24/7 and that's why I have my friends come once in a while for sleepovers etc. We can watch TV and play boardgames all evening till late night and then have breakfast together. No force, no compulsion. So very stress free.

I think the biggest mistake this author made is assuming that living alone means being alone. Repeat after me: Alone does NOT mean lonely. I live alone, by myself, no other person in my house. However, that doesn't mean I am lonely or sad or feel neglected or unloved. This is just a different way of life than previous generations were used to. And as long as I'm comfortable with it, why should anyone care?

However, there's the economic side to this issue. Be it one person or two living in the same house, you're pretty much gonna use the same amount of electricity, phone, gas, and other utilities. If everyone lives alone in their own house, a lot of resources are wasted. By living together, people can save a lot and split the bills. Maybe that's what I will look into down the line - converting my computer room to a bedroom and renting it out to a friend. I'll be able to save on my bills and my friend will have low rent. But till that day, I think my kids are enough for me to take care of :)

I can see blue skies out of the windows on three sides of my house. and yet it's raining so hard the noise is scaring my kitties away. Just been relaxing this weekend, recovering from my sickness. Coughing a lot less now but still not feeling strong enough to go out and mow the lawn. Everything else is just normal, just one of those forgettable weekends when I did nothing great.

After work I went over to my new house and replaced all the entrance locks - five in total! Man... homeownership is hard! Then met my neighbors on both sides. Turns out one of the neighbors is a senior-level computer programmer and we actually had a pretty cool time chatting out on the lawn. Now I gotta get back to packing in a few minutes, once I get some food.

Oh and I got new pictures of my house. Here is the cutest house in the world :)

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM A HOMEOWNER NOW :) I just signed the papers and am now in possession of a beautiful 2 bedroom 1 bath house with palm trees and a lawn :) It is only two miles from the beach! I will post more details once I get to my aparment (notice how I'm not calling it my 'home' anymore ;)

I just got home from 4 hours of house hunting! I put an offer on a slightly older house which is extremely close to the beach. I will know by 5pm tomorrow if they accept it or want to negotiate further. If not, my agent will put an offer on another really nice house that is actually much better in condition but nowhere close to the beach. The prices of houses next to beaches go up much faster despite the condition they are in.

So basically my first choice is an ok-condition house near the beach and my second choice is a really nice house away from the beach. Either way, I think I'll be happy. The second house is in fact next to a very beautiful park/playground area with lots of courts for tennis/volleyball etc. I kinda like my second choice more than my first choice especially because it's beautiful, has a nicer lawn/backyard, and is in perfect condition but in the long run, the house near the beach will increase in value the most.

The only reason I'm ok with a house near the beach is because it is on high elevation and not in the flood zone. So hurricane's can't really flood the house. Anyways, I will know by 5pm tomorrow what the sellers have to say.

Well I found out my parents aren't going to New Zealand anymore - stupid International Visa problems. See that's exactly why I don't count on getting my student visa extending 100%. There's a slight chance that I might not get it renewed. And if that happens, I don't want life to be stuck. My parents are going to Nepal. I guess I'll go to UK or Australia. Let' ssee :) In the mean time, I study day/night and they sit on a lawn chair enjoying the fresh mountain air. Not fair!

It's nice and cold outside. I love it! Got lotsa work this morning. Have soooooooo much studies 'n stuff to do tonight. Urgh. I need more time. A lot of times I think maybe it's not the time that's lacking, but rather my skills at managing it. Would have enuf time if I did things a little differently, a little more efficiently? Maybe... who knows! But I doubt that no matter what I do, nothing will save me more than 5-10 mins a day at max. Here's my schedule from Monday to Saturday: I wake up at 7 am (too early already), I leave the house by 8 am, my work/classes take up the rest of the day - till about 7:30 pm when I get back home. By 8 pm, I've had dinner and am ready to do stuff. Since I gotta wake up at 7 am next morning, I guess I have at max 4-5 hours (unless I decide to kill myself by staying up longer). During the 4-5 hours, I have to work on my websites, do my college homework, study for exams, help out my cousins with their homework and school projects, do some basic household chores, and reply to any personal emails that I get. I have already stopped responding to business emails or emails relating to my softwares (mostly tech-support); just can't handle it. I haven't worked on any beta softwares in a long time either.

So clearly there doesn't seem to be much I can do regarding my time between 8 pm and till I sleep. I can't wake up earlier in the mornings either. If I do wanna manage my time better, I guess I should use the 10-11 hours that I spend on campus more efficiently. Now on Mondays and Tuesdays, I have classes from 9am till 6 pm non-stop! Yikes! If I try hard enuf, may be I can squeeze in 30-40 mins of homework time somewhere, but that depends highly on where my college buses are. And plus if I have any errands to run (like posting a letter, going to the registrar etc.) then I actually end up being late for classes. Now on Wednesdays and Thursdays, I work till 1 pm and then have classes till 6 pm. On Fridays, I have classes till 1 pm and work till 6 pm. On Saturdays, I work full day from 8 till 6 pm. Thankfully, I take Sundays off! So in the end, I work around 20 hours a week and have 18 credit hours of classes. I am taking 6 classes by the way. If I want to graduate within 2 years, then I have to take at least 6-7 classes per semester.

I guess the only free time I have sometimes, is actually during work (like now!). But that's only because I'm waiting for input from my Dean regarding the project I am currently working on. In the end, it leaves me with just one day in the week with some free time: Sunday. I stay in bed till 8:30-9 am, freshen up, clean my room, clean my bathroom, shower and help out my aunt 'n cuzins doing household chores (most impoortantly laundry). In the afternoons I do get some quality time with myself, but in the evenings, it's mostly outside backyard work (raking leaves, lawn mowing, watering the pretty roses etc.) Of course, since I have 5 classes on Mondays, Sunday nights are spent either doing homework, or studying for exams & quizzes.

Now will someone PLEASE suggest me how I can actually have FUN in my life without drastically changing my current lifestyle? I'm in a pretty good mood at the moment, but with my work & studies increasing gradually, I don't think I'll be able to handle all this much longer without going crazy go nuts. I think I need to prepare myself for mania, depression, hysteria, dellusions, and hallucinations that will soon come on to me within the next few weeks. Oh well... everyone's life is hard and yet everyone's life goes on! I should stop being such a whiny little b*tch! Hehe.

Wow! Yet another perfectly lovely day :) The weather is soooo cool @ the moment - I loveeeeee it. Anyways, had a good day @ job. I'm workin on this website for my university and one of the neat features I made today is server-based dynamic PDF file generation and auto-email daemon for MS IIS. Hehe. Complex but interesting stuff.

Well then I came home and worked out for 40 mins or so and went to water the plants and lawn outside. I feel like fall's here... it's just soooo nice and cool. I hope it stays like this forever *unlikely*. And my aunt made such lovely baigan ka bharta! Normally I don't like baigan (eggplant) but oh my this was seriously good... I think baigan tastes the best when it does NOT taste like baigan. Hehe. And now here I am... just relaxing, listening to Chalak Chalak from Devdas.

Anyways it's been quite a long time since I discussed how my life was going. Life is going pretty good actually. I love my work on campus and things going good @ home too. Actually my work stuff is getting more and more complicatd lately - and I like that. They're giving me more and more high-level internal stuff to work on - like this thing called Radius and Tacacs authentication, which is like the highest and best form of network security present today - and my job is to make a system that can interact with these high-performance servers etc. I know I'm not making much sense @ the moment, cuz I'm still learning this whole thing too, but boy... is it complex!!!

Oh so it rained today and that's good - cuz no watering the lawn tomorrow. That means I'll prolly get to sleep till 10-11 am :) Yay! Anyways it's 2:45 so I better go to bed.

WOW! The more I talk about this movie, the less it seems... It's beyond doubt a great movie. Before seeing this movie, I was kinda apprehensive that the movie might be a big flop but thank god it isn't. I dunno how good/bad it is doing in the theatres in India but it looks like it should be a big hit.

Guess I'll call it a night now. Days are kinda short when you work full-time. I wake up, go to work, come back home, water the lawn a bit, have dinner, and go to bed. Life's decent. Can't wait till college starts though.

Song for the night: "She hates me" - Puddle of Mudd (Oh this is just a song I like... has no reference to anyone or anything going on in my life)

Woohoo! I mowed the lawn with our new 12.5hp 5-geared 6-levelled gasoline tractor mower! My butt aches though... I feel like I've been riding a horse for 5 hours! Haha. The mower's pretty quick though, only took 40 mins to finish the whole lawn and with practice I'm sure I'll get it down to half an hour or less.

Rest life's going on as usual. Tomorrow my cuz from NYC - Purvi's coming! Yay! Fun fun fun...

I don't know why but somehow my family here loves to mow the lawn. It's kinda weird. Every 3-4 days we end up mowing a lawn! Today right after dinner uncle/aunt decided to go outside to mow the lawn between 7-9 pm! This time the grass wasn't even 3 inches! But oh well, forecasters say it's gonna rain all weekend, so it's better to cut the grass before it grows to a foot, cuz that can be a pain... So uncle/aunt/me/bro cut 75% tonight and the rest yours truly will finish tomorrow :) Ahhhhhhh..... I need a twin/clone/slave. LOL.

Things to do when you are drunk:

1. Write a letter to the US President.
2. Mow the lawn like a guy!