Today, at like 7:50-something AM (I think), I'm 24 years old. Somehow each year feels like it's going faster than before. You know how when you're a little kid, a years seemed so far away? Summer vacation seemed so far away? Riding 15 minutes in the car in the same city seemed so far away? Heck, the 10 minute recess in first grade used to be enough time to play tag.
Now, driving an hour to Berkeley doesn't seem so bad. A game of Warcraft? 45 minutes. I order something in the mail. 2 days? Wow, so soon! While in college, working on a project. 1am? Still to early to sleep.
I guess it's something that you get used to after a while. Perspective. Segments of time that used to feel long are now relatively short compared to your length of existance.
Anyway, some people actually asked me what I'd like for my birthday. I really had no answer at the time. Heck, I have no idea what anybody else would truely want. So bdays and Christmas have moved away from the present exchange towards just hanging out. Usually if I want something, I just go buy it. I think many of my friends do that now so it's especially hard to get gifts for stuff that isn't too expensive.
For dinner yesterday, I said in advance that gifts arn't necessary. Simply because it's better to not have your friends spend money if they can't get something that a person really wants. The gift card and chocolate I did get still works out since you can pick something later with the card, and everybody likes chocolate. ( People better not all try that next year cuz a guy can only take so much chocolate and gift card spreads :) )
So I thought about it some more today and came up with a list of things that I want. They're sorted in order of difficulty.
New shoes ($60) - About while ago, my mom and I were at a sale and I bought 3 pairs of Sketchers sports shoes. I wore one of them for a while and then started wearing the others interchangably. Now 3 years later, the last one is starting to come apart at the front. I don't really care about name brands. I just want them to not look butt ugly and I want them to be comfortable. I'll probably go real soon to buy some myself.
An FPGA board ($110) - In my attempts to keep working on the CS152 project and the OS I'm writing while waiting for a job, I need a board to test it on. Yeah yeah, I can hear everybody from here going, "what a nerd." If I get that done, it'd be really cool to put in my portfolio of stuff.
My own set of ski/snowboard racks ($150) - So I got the clips for Yakima racks already. But it'd obviously be better that I own a full set instead of borrowing Eric's. Then again, I doubt he minds all that much since we'd be taking my car instead of his.
A pair of perscription sunglasses ($300) - Now that my eyesight has had the same perscription for the past 6 years, I think they've stabilized to the point where I wouldn't mind spending money on a good pair of shades. That and I feel really stupid driving an expensive car with fairly nice clothes and wearing a pair of sunglasses that are just resting on top of my real glasses. What can I say? Chicks don't dig guys wearing two pairs of glasses at the same time. Can't even look them straight in the eyes at a red light.
A Metcal soldering station ($360) - Yeah, more geek tools. Maybe someday I should consider getting tested for lead poisoning or something.
A pool table ($2,000) - You can't tell me you don't want one. Heck, even my mom's telling me to buy one. Why haven't I used that as an excuse to fork over the money? Cuz there's too much crap in my house as it is.
A 1986 Toyota Corolla GTS ($3,000?) - Panda paint scheme. Manual transmission. Fujiwara Tofu Shop Decals. Yeah.
A job (-$60,000/year) - Sucks that I want a embedded systems job and almost nobody takes entry level. And if they consider me for a related job, they see "CS Major" and automatically think I want to write video drivers instead of working on the actual card. Oh well, still working on it.....
A girlfriend (time, effort, courage) - You know how hard it is to meet girls out of college? Okay, it's not that hard. Lemme try again. You know how hard it is to meet intelligent cute single asian girls who are older than my little sister? Nearly impossible.
A small machine shop ($30,000+ blind guess) - People who've seen me do stuff sometimes say I'm quite a handy person. I like to make stuff. Having a machine shop that lets me work on metal, wood, plastic, and even less typical stuff like etching boards would be nice.
Welding tools, the motors from a Toyota Prius, batteries, and some help ($60,000+ blind guess) - For those of you who talk cars, you knew this was coming. Yeah, I want to make my old Acura Legend into an all wheel drive electric/combustion hybrid sports car.
A 200 sq ft extension to the living room ($?????) - I have too much crap as it is. If the living room stretches into the back yard a little more, it can't be all that bad..... then I can get a pool table!
A plot of land in norcal ($???????) - I want to build a house. Yeah, after seeing Cynthia's, Urania's, and Elaine's (my sister's college roommate) house, I gotta get me one of those. Well, custom of course. One of those things I really want my house to have is some "optimizations" to make it so that the month to month utilities costs go down. Solar panels, underground pre-heat/pre-cool air system... heck, even the gray water toilet.
I think that's all for now :)
Posted by hachu at January 10, 2005 07:59 PMAnd as suggested by Selena, I should also add that the plot of land in norcal would be around where I live now :)
Posted by: hachu at January 12, 2005 10:55 PM