Archive for the 'Happenings' Category

A (New) Necessary Evil

After driving my Mazda RX-7 for over 15 years, I have dumped it in favor of a new Toyota Prius. I have felt quite guilty for many years for having driven a car that got such bad gas mileage, and I am atoning for my sin with the Prius, a hybrid Electric/Gasoline powered vehicle.

Besides the super-low emissions and hybrid powertrain, the coolest feature of my new car is the GPS/DVD navigation system. After playing with a friend’s such system for so long, I just had to spend the extra money and get it.

I just have to be careful that driving such a fun car doesn’t make me drive more, thus cancelling any positive effects. I still promise to take public transportation whenever possible.

For the people on the Toyota Prius group on Yahoo, I have put up some scans of the Japanese Toyota Prius brochure and the Japanese Accessories catalog for the car. (Higher quality JPEGs are here.) They sure offer many more options back in the car’s homeland, and next time I’m there I think I’ll pick up a few.

I should also mention the great woman who sold me the car. Dianne and her crew were so nice and accommodating, not to mention selling me the car for over $1800 cheaper than any dealer here in San Diego. I never even had to go to the dealership. They drove the car and met me at the Irvine train station, while I came up on Amtrak. I gave them the money; they gave me the car; and we were both happy.

Living in Boston

Last year I spent a week in Boston after the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and I enjoyed it so much I vowed that I would come back to live for a while.

Well, that’s what I did this summer. I found a room (owned by an MIT professor) to rent over the Internet, and after a few nights in the summer hostel, I moved in to my new digs.

I spent my mid-days geting my work done, then my late afternoons attending classes at Harvard Summer School, and almost every night I went to a concert or two, usually at some venue within walking distance of my place in Inman Square.

I also went again to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and even flew out to Denver for the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest.

Spring Quarter 1998

Spring Quarter at UCSD I took a class titled “History of the Modern Chinese Revolution: 1911-1949”. This was one of the most interesting classes I’ve ever taken, made especially so thanks to the unbridled enthusiasm of the instructor, Paul Pickowicz.

environmental journal volunteer work

I am also still working on an environmental journal put out by UCSD’s Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

I work as an editor, reading, reviewing, and editing journal articles for publication. It’s pretty interesting work, though the journal doesn’t have that many subscribers (mostly university libraries).

Summer 1996

Summer 1996 was pretty busy. Lots of events to keep me entertained.

Toronto was great! I really liked that city. Too bad it gets so cold in the winter or I would consider living there some time. I went for Greg Wong’s wedding, and a good time was had by all. I found it interesting that they felt it necessary to hire two armed guards for the banquet (this is super safe Canada) because there had been a spate of recent robberies of wedding banquets due to the large amounts of cash given as wedding gifts.

The Barenaked Ladies were wonderful, as usual. I dragged my business partner along to the concert and he liked them so much he flew off to Arizona to see them again the next night. Ahh, another rut he’s in…

I saw my sister twice, once in New York in July and then again in L.A. in August.