Category: Blog

I worked through college, nearly every weekend.  I waited on tables in a number of Chinese restaurants.  Mostly, I allowed the customers enough time to browse through the menu and jotted down their orders.  Occasionally, I would answer their questions about particular menu items.  Every once in a while, they’d ask me to recommend an item or help them narrow it down.  After that it was about timing.

At a very basic level, waiting on tables simply involves getting people what they asked for.  Naturally, subtle differences will enhance the experience.  Timeliness matters, of course.  Good presentation gets you brownie points.  However, some exceptions exist; you can’t serve alcohol to underage drinkers.  Though generally, that’s close to it; you get people what they want.

Continue reading “And marriage for all” →

We moved to Florida from Puerto Rico in 1978, about a year after my father’s death.  I had just finished fourth grade in our Catholic school and transitioned into the Broward Country public school system.  During that first year in Florida, I attended a Spanish and English bilingual classroom.  Our convertible classroom sat in the corner of the school, and the few dozen students spanned all grades from the school.  My sister and I spent the entire school day in this room, except for recess.

David, a boy outside of our bilingual program, befriended me during recess.  We could barely communicate, but still he demonstrated a genuine interest in me.  As our friendship grew and the holidays approached, I asked him what his plans were for Christmas.  His face grew stern, and he responded, “I’m Jewish; I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

Continue reading “The paradox of tolerance” →

Gum in my hair.  Riding the 407-numbered school bus home from Parkway Middle School made me the target of a number of indignities; one of them was bullies spitting gum in my hair.  These boys sat immediately behind me and tormented me on the miles long ride to the bus stop.  On most days, they simply poked me or slapped my head repeatedly.  On one day, I could hear them plotting, “When the bus stops, let’s jump on the Chinaman.” and did precisely that.  I remember telling our bus driver, as tears streamed down my cheeks, that I wanted a different seat.

As I walked away from that bus with a wad of gum in my hair, I approached a friend’s house.  I didn’t endure the indignity of untangling the gum from my hair; I asked my friend’s mom to simply cut it away.  Did I ever believe that they threatened my life?  No.  Did I believe that I risked serious injury?  Not really.

Continue reading “To indeed make America great again” →

On a July morning in 2014, I haul a bag with me into my office; it weighs twenty-three pounds.  I participate in a long-standing tradition at Microsoft.  Upon your work anniversary, you bring in a pound of m&m’s for each year of tenure.  Today, I cross that threshold into 23 years.  Truthfully, I didn’t always participate, I started at 18 years (with 18 pounds) and have participated ever since.  I got the bulk of those at Costco; occasionally, I’d get custom printed m&m’s.

When I first floated the idea with my wife in the preceding months, she marveled, “How do you plan to dispense them?”  I simply responded with “a large bowl”.  This horrified her, and she insisted that I can’t do that.  Eventually, I landed on pouring them into a large plastic jug.  In order for you to get your candy fix, you’d need to pick it up and pour them into a cup.  How did I pour them into the jug?  I cut the bottom off a gallon jug, turned it upside down, and used it as a funnel.  It works well.

Continue reading “Why carry the weight?” →

For a number of years, a feel-good story of a cyclist transfixed us.  First, doctors diagnosed a twenty-five-year-old Lance Armstrong with testicular cancer in 1996.  That’s not uncommon, many young athletes become afflicted with serious illnesses.  Second, after he completes his recovery, he proceeds to win the Tour de France, the epitome of bicycle races, in 1999.  Third, he repeated this victory, winning the twenty-plus day bicycle race, six more times.  It had never been done before.

I did not know the name before these victories began.  In fact, I had only a vague familiarity of the Tour de France and really knew nothing about it.  I certainly knew of no names that had won that event.  However, I’ll admit that even I was seduced by the allure of that story.  I started to learn about the event, which includes the types of stages, the different awards, etc.  I learned that Armstrong excelled at the mountain stages; he passed other riders and grew his lead during these stages.

Continue reading “The Lance Armstrong bubble” →

Back at Microsoft, my friends and I had a tradition.  Every other week, on Tuesday mornings, we met for breakfast.  We called it The Breakfast Club.  It started many years before, but we had maintained it for that entire time.  We set a time at a nearby cafeteria, we’d even designate a particular portion of the cafeteria among the sea of tables.  First, I order breakfast, a latte, and a pastry.  Next, upon collecting all my food items, I sit down at the designated collection of tables and wait for friends to arrive.

Our collection of friends spanned from people I had known for over a decade to others that I had only met months before.  We simply sat together and chatted about anything at all.  Conversations ranged from talking shop, to family issues, to our current hobbies and plans.  On one particular day, we spoke about current events and the conversation turned to Michigan, in some ways my adopted state.  Meanwhile, one friend speaks of Michigan’s governor and calls her “Gretchen Halfwit”.

Continue reading “Respecting our disagreements” →

On a lazy Saturday evening, we make our way to our favorite Italian restaurant, Volterra.  As we approach the front door, all their blinds cover their windows, and we briefly wonder if they opened for business today.  However, we push the door and walk right in.  We arrive early to enjoy Happy Hour at the bar.  The hosting station where they greet guests separates the bar area on the right and the main dining room on the left.

The hostess leads us to our table.  The bar area holds about a half a dozen tables in addition to the bar itself.  They lay out this section intimately, and from our table, we can see everyone in the bar.  We glance through the menus; this includes the menus for dinner menu, Happy Hour, and today’s specials.  After some talking and negotiation, we make our selections, and we end up making a selection from each menu.

Continue reading “A night at an Italian restaurant” →

Many years ago, I struggled with foot pain.  I had repeated bouts of plantar fasciitis and occasionally instances of gout.  Many have described me as having a high threshold of pain, but for this, I suffered.  The best way that I may describe the degree of pain:  if you’re sitting down, but need to pee, you contemplate how long you can wait until you need to stand up and walk to the bathroom.  It is that painful.  I got custom (molded from my feet) insoles for my shoes.  Every time I changed shoes, I’d meticulously take them out of one pair and put them in the other.  Additionally, they didn’t work reliably enough; those insoles may have halved the number of occurrences.

I decided to try something completely different; I got a pair of Vibram Five Fingers.  I took the plunge and started the minimalist shoes trend.  They have incredibly thin soles, like 3mm thin.  They force you to land on the balls of your feet.  Though one feature that made them even more distinctive.  As the name suggests, each shoe individually wraps each toe.

Continue reading “Aversion, tolerance, and toed shoes” →

Decades ago, I needed to cut something in my office at work.  I don’t remember quite was it was nor why I needed to cut that paper; it didn’t matter.  I didn’t have a pair of scissors, so I wandered out to find a pair.  My teammates shared an office across the hall; I made it that far.  I asked my teammate if he had a pair that I might borrow.  He reaches into his desk drawer, pulls out a pair of scissors, and hands them to me.  However, he warns me that they’re left-handed scissors.

“Surely, he toys with me”, I thought.  I did not believe that such thing as left-handed scissors existed.  I simply took the scissors and started to cut, or more accurately I tried to cut.  Though I genuinely tried, I could not get those scissors to function.  Obviously, I could pull the blades apart and then back together, but they didn’t cut paper.  My friend charitably cut the item for me.  I played the fool; left-handed scissors actually exist.

Continue reading “Straight pride month” →

I grew up watching baseball.  I watched no other sports, just baseball.  They adhere to many conventions when it comes to sports in general, and baseball in particular.  When broadcasters (or website) list sports scores, they list the home team second.  If the Dodgers play in Atlanta, they’ll list the LA Dodgers first; sometimes they’ll even say, “LA at Atlanta” for short.  Though that’s just a convention.

The home team bats second in each inning; they actually wrote this into the rules.  There are nuances in game play that extend from this rule.  However, this is a generic rule about baseball.  Major League Baseball established a few additional rules.  As a teenager, I had picked up a book on the MLB rules, I had few other vices.  I found some of the more obscure rules to be rather interesting.

The players’ uniforms need to be consistent color and appearance.  Each uniform may have the player’s surname on the back (or no name at all like some Yankee uniforms); it may not be the first name.  Ichiro Suzuki wore his first name on his uniform, but he needed to explicitly get special permission from the commissioner.  Back in the 1970’s, Ted Turner owned both the Atlanta Braves and TBS (which was often channel 17 on the tuner).  He propositioned Messersmith, the player with the jersey number 17, to change his name to Channel, so that the jersey read Channel 17.

Continue reading “Baseball, fairness, and equal representation” →