My brother brought my attention to 529s about a year ago, when my baby was born. The past year was filled with taking care of this newborn, so it wasn't until last week that I got to spend a few days researching 529s. 529 is a tax deferred investment account solely for the purpose of paying for education expenses. It is imperative that all the benefits and restrictions be listed so that an informed decision can be reached regarding whether or not such an account should be opened.In the ideal situation,...
Written on September 24, 2024
In the beginning, each computer had one hard drive. When space ran out, you would go to the store, buy a bigger drive, transfer all the data over, and swap the drive.Then, computers began to support multiple drives. Now, you could add a hard drive to the computer, and give it a new drive letter. Then, it would be a new space you could save files to.As time went on, several issues would crop up. The biggest issue is that you could have one drive run out of space while the other drive had plenty of...
Written on September 21, 2024
Birthdays for me are often times of reflection. It is a day to commemorate living one more year. Implicit in this are all the events leading up to this point. After considering how things have been, I can recognize trends that are surfacing, and plot a course for the future, making adjustments where needed.
Ten years ago, I was deep in debt, though modern times would consider having a mortgage just a part of life. For me, I had been chipping away at it, and taking a step back to look at...
Written on September 15, 2024
The past month has been exhaustively memorable. This was our first family vacation with our baby boy. It was immensely rewarding at times, and incredibly trying most of the time. Our baby got to meet his great grandmothers and cousins on his mother's side, and vice versa. Everybody enjoyed the time spent with each other mutually.
We started off at Taipei, where we stayed with my brother-in-law's family. He has two kids and they played very well with baby Joseph, though I don't think...
Written on July 26, 2024
Well, things have been incredibly busy recently with my upcoming trip, so I haven't had time to make this post earlier. We finally had a home meeting at our home last night, so I have a breather now before going on "vacation" Monday morning.The first landmark is that our baby boy has now spent more than half his existence outside the womb! I think he's getting used to it. He's been exploring the world around him and figuring out how to get around the barriers. He's resourceful and determined,...
Written on June 22, 2024
It has been about three months since the previous update concerning my current number one priority: my little baby boy. He has grown a lot since the previous update. Today marks his 8th month outside the womb, and he continues to surprise. The previous update was the start of certain behaviors which have continued on: becoming more vocal, becoming more mobile, and becoming more discerning concerning the amount and food he eats.
We watched Boss Baby a while back, and we often joke...
Written on April 27, 2024
Printers have always been flakey a major pain to deal with. I just spent the past hour setting up this Samsung laser printer that I bought back in 2011, but have seldom ever used. Now that I went through this pain, I want to help others and myself in the future, should I ever need to do this again.
The good thing about laser printers, and why I will never ever spend money on an inkjet printer again, is that the ink will never dry out. This printer is still on the original ink cartridges that...
Updated on February 29, 2024
A lot has happened this past year. One year ago, I held a wedding feast in town for those who are dear to me. Then, we discovered that my wife was pregnant. We spent the next few months renovating the house and getting ready for the baby. We got new vinyl flooring and carpet for the first floor, moved a lot my parents' stuff back to their house, bought two pianos and a new car. Then, we had a baby, a beautiful baby boy.
In the three months since the previous update, my baby has steadily...
Written on January 28, 2024
Now that the dust has settled, and a sufficient number of the followers of the Test-Driven Development (TDD) religion have moved onto the next fad, I can crawl out of hiding and voice my objections. I have always been against TDD, as I felt it was a literally backwards approach to coding, which had glaring flaws.Test-Driven Development is the concept that unit tests or automated tests should be the starting point of a project. You know what results you want. You write tests that should produce those...
Updated on December 27, 2023
He's two months old! Glad he's made it this far so far. This past month has been much easier than before as he's gotten fatter and stronger. I'm no longer worried that he might break or die on me. He's a survivor.
He's started to smile, and just last night, laugh. I'm not sure he finds anything funny, but it's more of a reflex or coincidence. These moments are fleeting and are hard to catch.
He's grown accustomed to tummy time and now prefers sleeping on his belly. This is in stark...
Updated on November 7, 2023
My only begotten child has survived one month, and he's still an adorable little baby boy. The first week was the hardest. Here, we had the failure to communicate. It took some getting used to, but I believe we now have a mutual understanding. Usually, he's either hungry, has gas, or has trouble pooping. I can help with the first two, but he has to resolve the last one all on his own. Sometimes, leaving him alone to cry it out, and he'll reboot, and that's the best solution. Babies are strange.Crying...
Written on September 28, 2023
This is one of the most significant and consequential events of my life. Yesterday, my firstborn son, Joseph, was born into the world. We have spent months preparing for this day, and my parents have spent more than a decade anticipating this day.
Praise the Lord that the whole process went smoothly, more or less. It's been a difficult few days. For my wife, she began to feel mild contractions since Thursday. By Saturday morning at 5AM, she woke me up and told me that her contractions were...
Written on August 28, 2023
I've been getting error codes intermittently on my tankless water heater, which causes the hot water to shut off. I finally decided to get to the bottom of this issue once and for all this past Friday. I found the user manual and a video guide online, but my water heater turned out to be a little different, so I ended up having to feel my way around. This guide explains how to fix the issues that cause error codes 12, 13, and P1.
What you will need is a good Phillips screwdriver, a vacuum or...
Written on May 21, 2023
Married life has been busy. This is a different kind of business than being occupied with work or a hobby. It's changed the pace of my daily routines. The days go by quickly.
It took some getting used to. But, I wouldn't say that previously my way of life was better or worse. Just very different.
Since getting married, I feel like I've been preparing a nest for a new family. We moved a lot of furniture around, got laminate flooring over the tile, and replaced the carpet.
We got a piano and...
Written on April 18, 2023
Over the past month, I took a two week trip to Taiwan. During the course of this trip, my newly-wed wife and I took wedding photos - a modern tradition, met her family, held a ceremony in Taitung, where she is from, and had a short honeymoon. It was a rollercoaster of a trip.
The itinerary began as soon as I got off the plane. I got off the plane at 8PM, but had to wait another half an hour before I got my bags, which had the clothes I had prepared specifically for the photo shoot. The wedding...
Written on December 27, 2022
My first serious relationship lasted almost three years. It was a wild three years of extreme emotions and experiences. All that came to an end when we decided to take things to the next level. Parents on both sides disapproved, and after having entertained some fairly absurd demands, I decided to settle. I walked away for the last time, exactly one year ago, with the firm conviction that despite all of our shared experiences and feelings, things were not meant to be.When I came back home, I...
Written on November 22, 2022
Life has been easy. I'm probably in the minority. What's my secret? God's blessing, and simple tastes and basic needs. Due to a combination of the genes I was born with and a modest upbringing, I've been blessed with being content with a lifestyle that is well below my means. In my opinion, this is the key to the good life.Yet, such a life seems to elude most of my generation. News articles and YouTube videos are filled with accounts of unhappy, stressed out people buried in debt and living paycheck...
Written on October 14, 2022
I'm now 36. These last few years have flown by with not much fanfare. Granted, there were potentially life-altering events along the way, but none of them materialized. Thus, I have quietly been living these few years in relative monotony.I've clocked in 6 years on the job at my current employer. In that amount of time, I've been on four distinct teams, working on a single page application, a cloud application, a backend enterprise application, and now, a homegrown inventory tracking application....
Written on September 17, 2022
In the few times I've done this, they have never been fun. My server has now gone from 12.04 all the way to 20.04 (I had intended to upgrade all the way to 22.04, but it seems 22.04 hasn't been out long enough). But getting there involved many hours of painful troubleshooting, desperately searching online for possible answers, thinking hard about what the problem could be, shooting in the dark, and miraculously hitting the issue through this spread fire approach.Here, I document the many common causes...
Updated on August 2, 2022
South Korea is an interesting country. It is very similar to Japan and Taiwan in terms of cleanliness and social norms. The food was very affordable, relatively healthy, delicious, with decent portions, a large variety, and available virtually everywhere at any time of the day or night. Living accommodations can be had for also a very reasonable sum. I could expect a clean room with all the basic amenities, though there were clear differences in quality amongst the different establishments....
Written on June 23, 2022