Eric’s Blog

The sound of laughter, gives the illusion of happiness. 水月鏡花, 喚起睡夢中的思想

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Meeker Ave Richmond, CA 94804

2181 Meeker Ave Richmond, CA 94804 – Google Maps

Fake 2181 Meeker Ave Richmond, CA 94804 – Google Maps

Did you know that two streets with the same name can exist in the same city? Look at the above links and images to see what I mean. This exists in Richmond, California, near Richmond Field Station, where I do my research. I like to call the top version the real Meeker Avenue because that one actually has stuff, and by stuff, I mean it is in a plaza, with Long’s, Wingstop, and other stores. But the “fake” Meeker Avenue has nothing; it is just a desolate piece of land located near the railroad tracks. Actually, I got fooled, too, into thinking that the desolate area is the Meeker Avenue I was looking for. Last time I was looking for Long’s and I couldn’t find it. I only know of the real Meeker Avenue’s location because my friend took me there. The interesting thing is that Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Mapquest, GPS, and anything else I can think of all point to the fake location. This can be very confusing to people foreign to Richmond. I wonder how many people tried to go to a store on Meeker Avenue and went to the wrong street.

posted by eric3chang at 11:35 pm  

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Injured

I injured myself playing basketball today. I landed awkwardly on someone’s foot and twisted my left ankle. It looks pretty bad, and it’s all swollen. It’ll probably take two weeks to heal, at least, I’m guessing. Good thing it happened at the RSF and I just got a permit yesterday so it just happens that I parked at RSF. Otherwise I wouldn’t know what to do. I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t have played basketball today :-(. At least I won’t miss my belt test, I guess, since I’ll have some before that happens.

posted by eric3chang at 10:37 pm  

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Deer

Man, I almost hit a deer again. I was coming home from Richmond pretty late, like 1, and a deer was on Moraga Way almost at the intersection with Moraga Road. But actually I was driving pretty slow, 35mph, so it was okay. Actually, there were two deers trying to cross. They look confused.

posted by eric3chang at 7:26 am  

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Steering Column

Today I tried making a U-turn, but I messed up. Why did I mess up? Well, I was trying to use this driveway for my U-turn (so it was actually a 3-point turn, not a U-turn). But the driveway was too steep. Stupid Northside and its old streets. So I hit the front of my car on the driveway. While that didn’t seem to do any damage to the body, the shock must have did something to the steering column, because I can hear pieces of the steering column when I turn my steering wheel. Sounds like it’s loose. Anyways, I’ll get it checked out, but there shouldn’t be anything major.

posted by eric3chang at 12:26 am  

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Cal Day

Yesterday was Cal Day. In the morning I tabled for APA. Then in the afternoon we demoed our car. Actually, there was a lot of problems, and we couldn’t show off our vehicle until 4 in the afternoon, when most people already started leaving from Berkeley. Also, the gasoline was filled too much to the brim, such that when we opened the vent, the gasoline expanded and spilled over. So we had to run the generator for a while to use up some gasoline before we could vent it. We kept having problems with this imu, don’t know why.

It is getting pretty warm, these days. Everyone is wearing T-shirts and shorts. Unfortunately, it seems like the gasoline prices are rising with the temperature. Prices for regular gasoline are at $3.81 per gallon now :-(.

posted by eric3chang at 4:38 pm  

Saturday, April 12, 2008

K-Con

So I went to K-Con today. Sang 天天想你, and did a bad job at it :-(. I don’t know, I guess it wasn’t my day. After intermission I got a massive nose bleed and had to miss I-Lin, Kristy, and Esmond’s combined performance of 屋頂 and the finale of the 特務丁 skit that TSA put on :-/. I didn’t know I had that much blood to bleed.

Anyways, tomorrow is Cal Day and it’s going to be pretty busy for everyone, I s’pose. Also, I think I’m sick. I’m getting running nose right now. It’s funny, I only get sick when it’s super sunny and hot and I get plenty of sleep.

posted by eric3chang at 12:45 am  

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Bad Day

Today I got a ticket for parking at BART because I had no permit >:O. Let me explain how BART parking works. Most spaces fill up before 9am, but there are some reserved spaces that open after 10am. Guess when I parked? 9:59am. That’s right, the f***ing officer gave me a ticket for parking 1 minute ahead of time. That’s ridiculous. Then I was so distraught I almost hit these two black girls crossing the MLK. I’m gonna say I was at fault. But those girls shouldn’t be crossing the streets when there were so many cars passing through; basically, they crossed the street as if they saw no cars on the road, even though it was rush hour and at that moment tons of cars were driving through that intersection. I was driving in the middle lane, and the car to the right of me kind of obstructed my view of the girls, since they were coming from the right. If I had swerved left to avoid them, I would have hit the cars in oncoming traffic. Then later two white girls were crossing the street, and they stopped. So what does that say. I guess I’m a racist, but I thought crossing the streets is basic knowledge.

posted by eric3chang at 9:26 pm  

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

ESPN – More protests expected as torch reaches San Francisco – Olympics

ESPN – More protests expected as torch reaches San Francisco – Olympics

I knew this would happen when Beijing hosts the Olympics. I’m not saying boycotting the Olympics is a good idea. It is unfair to everyone. What I’m saying is, it should have never been held in Beijing. Some people are arguing that sports and politics do not mix. But ultimately, they do, and whoever says they don’t is ignoring the way China conducts this Olympics. They use it as a way to demonstrate their economic power. Other people say that holding the Olympics in Beijing does not mean they condone China’s human rights records. But how does it not? is what I ask. I mean, the rest of the world sure equate China’s hosting of the Olympics with the Chinese government being good. Anyways, the whole thing is messed up. I’m betting 10, 20 years from now people won’t even remember that there ever were protests, and China will still be oppressing Tibetans.

posted by eric3chang at 2:55 am  

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Long Day

This morning I saw a Lamborghini look-a-like. I forgot to take a picture, but the interesting thing was that the car looked like a Lamborghini, but was obviously fake. Although it had the shape, the paint was very dull, not shiny like it should be. Anyways, it was used to advertise the ASUC elections.

Then in the afternoon, a fire alarm sounded as I was wasting time in the OCF. That’s pretty rare. Everyone in MLK had to evacuate, I guess.

At night, I went to rfs. We ran some tests and it got pretty late. Got home at 1:30.

posted by eric3chang at 2:49 am  

Monday, April 7, 2008

Big Post

Hi, this is a culmination of many unposted items because I was slacking off on the posting. I will go chronologically.

The first one is from last year, this was when my sister and I were still in Taiwan. Actually, let me start a while earlier. So we were hanging out in Santa Barbara, looking for gifts to bring back to Taiwan, when we saw this:

Dog Cat Mouse

It’s a dog, cat, and mouse all sitting together harmoniously. If animals can learn to live together, maybe we can, too.

Okay, so back to the situation in Taiwan. We were in Taipei MRT, tired from a whole day of walking around, and I thought this was an amusing view, so I took a picture of it:

Taipei MRT

The girl in the middle staring at me is my sister. I don’t know why the person on the right it looking at me. Maybe she thinks I’m weird for taking random pictures in the MRT, but I’m sure lots of people do that if they’re tourists. The girl on the left looks like she’s dead tired.

This following picture is when we were hanging out with Irene. Can’t believe she’s moving to New York. I wish I could go there sometimes. Oh, the following is where we were hanging out. It’s Anna’s Jazz Island, across from Jupiter.

Anna\'s Jazz Island

The jazz music was good, and the musicians were talented, but jazz isn’t really my thing. Still I enjoyed it.

Spring Break

I thought spring break deserves its special subsection in my super gigantic post. So when we (Dad, Rose, and me, Rose is a former student of Dad, don’t know why she’s here) were driving down to Santa Barbara on 101, we saw a large barn on fire. I didn’t take a picture because I was too busy staring (I wasn’t driving at the time). Still, it was kind of strange to see a house on fire.

I wrote the following on a notebook when we were in Santa Barbara.

We went down to So. Cal today. It turns out there wasn’t as much traffic as I thought there’d be on 680. I mistakenly thought it was Friday instead of Thursday. 680’s harder to drive than anticipated. I’ve forgotten how difficult it was to maneuver the car through the giant pass entering Fremont. It was windy, downhill, with horrible road surfaces, and I think my brakes don’t work. I hate that pass.

On the way through Gonzalez, we saw a house on fire really close to 101 such that we could all see it. There were quite a few cars parked to watch the flame. I forgot to take a picture with my phone though I saw the smoke from far away :-/, me=absent-minded.

One thing I really hate, though, is that I can’t listen to my music while I’m driving. Dad doesn’t like my music, so we had to switch back to his songs. What’s the point of driving if I don’t get to listen to my own CD’s? We stopped by In N’ Out on the way in Atascadero, between Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo. They still make the best burgers, and their fries aren’t bad, either.

By the way, Rose bought $600 worth of Coach merchandise when we stopped by in Gilroy. That’s part of the reason we arrived in SB at 10 instead of 8. The other reason was because we left at three instead of one like originally planned.

So the above was what I wrote when everyone else was asleep in my sister’s apartment. Also, when we went down to Irvine the next day, we stopped by the outlet in Camarillo again to pick up some more Coach.

We went to eat at this place called Veggie Grill, it’s in University Center. The restaurant serves all veagen food, but it tastes like meat! It was actually quite good. I wouldn’t mind going back there. Dad’s adviser seems old but still working hard. He told us to go 405 when driving back, so that’s what I did. What I SHOULD have done was take the 405 to 605, then stop by Ding Tai Feng for dinner. That way, we would have avoided part of the Friday rush hour traffic :-/.

39th Annual UC Map Open

I helped out here, after getting home at 12 the previous day. I woke up at 5:30, but went to sleep at 2. I got 4th place, behind Abe Mua, Lawrence, and Kyle, but I was fine with it. Man, the whole day of scoring was tough. I hate TrueScore.

2008 Pacific Rim Championships

This was a gymnastics competition. I had to rush there right after the UC Map. The event was held in San Jose state. It was cool ’cause this was the lady’s competition, and I get to watch Taiwan compete. An interesting thing was that Taiwan’s flag was originally up on the Pac Rim website, but I guess the anti-Taiwanese flag guy saw it and it got changed to Chinese Taipei flag a couple of days after. I say Taiwan should just declare independence as Chinese Taipei and change our flag to the Olympic flag. It really isn’t a very aesthetic flag, though. I have a picture of the Taiwan Team:

Taiwan women\'s gymnastics team

Or, “Chinese Taipei,” as Taiwan is known at international sports competitions.

16th Chinese Martial Arts Tournament

I also helped out here. After partying the previous day with the Taiwanese friends I met only a couple of weeks ago. Again, I slept like 4 hours :-(. This tournament seemed less organised than UC Map, but was still interesting to watch.

My Face!

Take a look at this:

For all of you who don’t go to Berkeley (or who don’t walk around any), this is in front of the Valley Life Sciences Building. Why is my face up? I don’t know. Do I mind it? Not at all. Actually, other people have their faces posted up, too, along with their quotes, and I was one of those. It’s part of the celebration of 140 years of Berkeley.

MV

Man, looking for music videos kept me up a whole night again, why do I do this to myself :-(.

posted by eric3chang at 9:39 pm  

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