Tuesday, July 21, 2020

[852] Wax On, Wax Off

Last Sunday, July 19, 2020, I decided to give my trusty silver 2001 Toyota Rav4 a wash and a wax. The day before I already tried to clear the yellow off the headlights as best as I could, so I decided to try to give the car some cleaning. It's literally been a while since it got cleaned and waxed, as far as I can remember.

The main reason why I decided to do this was not because the car needed some love. It was a more selfish reason. I wanted to do something productive during the weekends, and seeing as how the pandemic is still going on I really have no plans of going out unless absolutely necessary.

I was also getting a bit bored and fatigued playing computer games all day. And I sure as hell was in no mood to practice anything related to 3D, but that's for another blog post if ever.

So I washed the car. I mixed some human hair shampoo with a bucket of water and gave it a good scrub. I rinsed off the really diluted and barely soapy water then proceeded to dry her off. Once that was done I used this really old bottle of wax that I found in the garage. I applied it in sections and buffed it out as well. It took me a good hour-and-a-half to do everything, give or take a few minutes.

It was tiring, more tiring than my typical fifteen-minute HIIT / Tabata workout I do every MWF. It was also fun, in a challenging sort of way. I'm thinking of ordering the correct car shampoo, wax, applicators, and microfiber towels so I can clean the car even better next time.

It was a good change of pace from what I usually do during these past few weekends. Hopefully I can use this as a launching point to finding more productive things to do during weekends. Honestly I've been feeling drained and burned out these past few months, specifically when this goddamned pandemic started. I'd rather not go into that anymore.

Out.

Sunday, July 12, 2020

[851] On This My 40th Birthday

Today I celebrate my 40th birthday. During the middle of a pandemic, in a year full of sadness. From Taal Volcano erupting, to the sudden passing of Kobe Bryant, the Australian wildfires, and on a personal note, the passing of one of my good friends and mentors, 2020 has been a relatively horrible year.

Yet here I survive. I keep fighting despite all the negativity and sadness and tiredness I am feeling. I know it sounds melodramatic, but I guess this resilience and hard-headedness is part of growing up and maturing.

I wanted to do a lot of things for my birthday, I wanted to eat the food I wanted. Due to circumstances beyond my control I'm celebrating it a lot more differently than what I wanted. Yes, I feel bad, yes I feel angry. Part of me, though, is convincing myself that I can't always get what I want. That I should just accept things and find a way to cope and overcome.

People keep telling me to be grateful, and I guess I should. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for a lot of things. I guess I should just find a way to make that be the dominant mindset in myself instead of all this negativity.

Forty years. I wonder how many more I have left. This has been quite a journey.

Out.

Monday, July 06, 2020

[850] Birthday Wishlist

As is tradition when my birthday is nearing, I like to write down a wishlist of stuff I wouldn't mind receiving. Because I'm a greedy bastard. So without further bullshitting from me, here are the things I wouldn't mind receiving. And yes, these are all things I doubt anyone would give me.
  • Honda BR-V. Any automatic variant. I know we're still in a quarantine but if things finally get better and people are allowed to travel again, I wouldn't mind driving around in a new family vehicle. BR-V fits the bill since it can seat five to seven people. Seat five and you have generous cargo space in the back.
  • Suzuki Jimny. Another ride? Sure, what would I use when the BR-V is coding? Plus this will be my toy car. I'm getting too old and I've lost my "need for speed" so I don't drive as fast nor do I have any plans of going too fast anymore.
Some of you may be wondering, "What about your dream car, the Volkswagen Beetle?" Good question. While I would love to own that, I'd rather own some really modern, fuel efficient rides with air-conditioning at the moment. Besides, I'm pretty certain maintenance costs for both the BR-V and Jimny will be crazy.
  • A really powerful gaming laptop. Ideally RTX video card, 32gb RAM, 1tb M.2 SSD, 2tb HDD, and the fastest Ryzen processor. I really wanted to build a desktop but prices are skyrocketing because of the pandemic. Lots of people need to build PCs for either working from home or learning from home. So I guess I'll wait until demand goes down before I assemble my own.
  • 24-fret electric guitar with a nice amp, two good cables, and a handful guitar picks. I still have my guitar, I don't know if it still works. Neither do I know if my amp still works. I want to get back to playing the guitar. Find a hobby that doesn't need a computer.
  • Power tool for DIY furniture / car maintenance. I watch too much youtube videos. I enjoy "Get Hands Dirty" and am always inspired to DIY our own furniture here. "Chrisfix" is my go-to channel for car related stuff.
  • New 3-in-1 printer / fax / scanner. One that uses ink bottle refills instead of cartridges. It's just cheaper and with Martina doing learn-from-home I'm guessing she'll be needing to print a lot of stuff now.
And that's it for now. Stuff I would like to have off the top of my head. There are other luxury stuff like mirrorless cameras and the other stuff but these are the ones I really would love to get as gifts. Not that I'll be getting any of these.

Out.