A Tale of Two Parks

Over two days. And both within minutes from our home. Yesterday evening we dropped by the Lettuce Lake Park for a change of scenery during a different time of the day (the previous visit was at noon). Mark was nowhere to be seen, but armed with our newly acquired knowledge, thanks to Mark, we set out on our own.

We had better luck this time though, spotting a young gator lazing on a small log. We would have missed it if not for a couple training their eyes in a certain direction, the male through a long-lens camera. So instinct told me that it had to be something unique. I was able to locate the alligator while wify needed some guidance before the outline of the alligator was reflected into her retina which the brain then interpreted, after scourging through the stored images including those of Alberto and Alberta (the UF mascots), as a close cousin of the crocodile, with a different shape of the snout.

Then there was the blue heron (or was it the snowy egret? We could not be sure as we could not see its legs clearly). However, the evening scenery was as panoramic as the noon's.

The observation tower in the distance, framed within the branches draped all over by spanish moss.

The young gator, motionless, oblivious to the attention it had attracted. When we doubled back about half an hour later, it was in about the same posture. Talk about the ability to maintain stillness, the very best candidate for a meditation stance. The slightly blurred image is the result of extending the optical zoom (3X) on our Nikon Colorpix L6, so I reasoned.

The first time we spotted the blue heron, roosting on a shallow shoal.

The same blue heron from a different part of the walkway. Look at the near perfect reflection of the blue sky above, and the reflected image of the head of the blue heron, as if it had just emerged from the tree canopy.

The eagle has landed. No, it's the same blue heron, exercising its ability to fly, perched on a branch amidst the leaves, and playing hide and seek with me.

Today, we decided to drop by USF, just across the street from us. The place we visited faces the Psychology Building, where we know there is a lake from our prior visit to the campus. The time was evening too. However, instead of a multitude of wildlife like in Lettuce Lake Park, this lake setting is dominated by monoculture: ducks. There were everywhere, in the lake, in the air (ducks do fly), on the bank, up on the pavement, and even on a bridge railing. Also, they get close to the human species, of which there were many then, people like us yearning for some quiet solace in an urban setting.

We sauntered twice over the looped paved walkway, enjoying the cool breeze brushing by, the sun setting in the distance. Further afield at the Music Building, several people were seen hurrying toward it, each lugging a piece of musical instrument. We also heard several musical notes emitting from the Building, disrupting the stillness, the otherwise quiet save for the birds squawking. “A musical performance may be slotted for the night,” wify commented.

At first, we thought this could just be a nameless place of quiet refuge for USF students to seek communion with nature, giving the mind a well-earned rest from the seemingly incessant book cramming in order to stay afloat in the academic setting. Then we passed by a monument, declaring this to be the Simmons Park, dedicated to the memory of Ellsworth G. Simmons, a Tampa civic leader.

Hence, a tale of two parks, at close proximity but different in all other aspects. It's our good fortune that we live close to them, by design of sort but gradually discovering the locational advantage of our chosen residence, a time-lapsed unveiling process that guarantees more pleasant surprises to come.

A panaromic view of the USF lake, colonized by ducks only.

The denizens of the lake, one of which was standing on the bank nearby as if on sentinel duty, giving me a "Don't mess with me" look when I approached.

Wify standing on one of the two bridge crossings, with the fountain as the backdrop.

A duck on a railing, a proof that this duck flies. It obviously can't climb with its webbed feet.

Wify standing next to the Maple tree, a bit of deduction on my part from its distintive leaf shape. Scroll down for the next image for a closeup.

The sharp pointed leaves characteristic of maple leaves, as seen here, the branches seemingly ensnarling a jumbo, a photographic trick applied just in time by yours truly, after mentally calculating the relative position of the plane, allowing for its forward speed, with respect to my ground position vis-a-vis the stationary tree on the fly ... Just kidding.

An urban sunset, the sun as if escaping from the out-stretched booms of the two tower cranes while the ducks seemingly scuttling away from its reflection on the lake resulting in tiny wave crests rippling across the lake surface.

Chai Found Revisited

We learned of this year's Chai Found Music Workshop at USF from a local monthly magazine catering to the local Asian community, The Asia Trend Magazine. Since we were nicely serenaded by the same group a year ago (having made the trip from South Tampa then), we filled the event on our working calendar and waited for the day to arrive. And it did, on Tuesday. This time it was a short drive from our home just across USF, and the party, augmented by one, CE (a pleasant surprise indeed).

Before the evening, I got caught in a traffic snarl, the gridlock along the Interstate precipitated by the evening downpour. I was debating whether to take the local road but decided to stick to my usual route. But I would not be so sure the next time around when it pours.

Anyway, I still had time for dinner, a home-cooked one, and arrived at the venue, Music Recital Hall in USF, with some minutes to spare. I actually spent about 15 minutes before that searching for the location on the Internet because the USF campus map that I have does not indicate the venue; perhaps the map only shows buildings and this Music Recital Hall is a facility in one of the buildings.

I remember last year it was held at the Fine Arts Building but could not recall whether the theater that we were in was called the Music Recital Hall. Googling it only yielded the USF address along Fowler. I told wify that we just had to try our luck at the same place and hope for the best. Then drilling deeper while Internet sleuthing, I found a reference to a room, FAH101, FAH being the acronym for Fines Arts. So, it is the same place as last year. Wonder why the organizer did not bother to put FAH101 in parentheses after the venue, which would have saved me some anxious moments.

I brought my pocket-sized camera along, but heeded the answer from the lady in the ticket booth when I sought confirmation that there was to be no photography . It was a nearly packed house, and the same troupe as last year marched on to the stage, all six of them, resplendent in traditional Chinese garb. Each played on one different traditional Chinese instrument: erhu (spike fiddle), dizi (bamboo flutes), pipa (Chinese lute), yangqin (hammered dulcimer), guzheng (zither), except for one lady who played two: daruan (bass banjo) and liugin (piccolo lute).

The group consists of two gentlemen and four ladies, shown here in a picture scanned from the program book. The man on the right is Mr. Huang Chen-Ming, the director who plays the erhu with gay abandon. And Mr. Wu Chung-Hsien, the flute player, comes equipped with a bagful of flutes by his side on stage. The lady sitting on the left is Ms. Liang Yen-Ping on double duty with the Daruan (shown here) and liuqin. The lady next to her is Ms. Lin Hui-Kuan, who plays the pipa. The two ladies standing from left are Ms. Lin I-Hsien, holding the guzheng, easily the largest piece of the instrument, and Ms. Lee Shu-Fen, her hands resting on the yangqin.

Themed A Merger of Tradition and Modernism, two of the ten performances also featured a mix with western instruments, a bass clarinet paired with liuqin, and another featuring a family of percussion instruments: drums, cymbal, and vibraphone (I actually looked this up after the fact) with pipa. These two “merged” compositions are the works of USF Music faculties. I can only describe them to be bold attempts that sounded contrived, lacking harmony, to my untrained ears.

If you click on the image, you would be able to see the two
merged" compositions, being the last two before the intermission. I think it's easy to tell which one refers to the earthquake-inspired composition as described next.

Perhaps it is understandable, I mean the apparent lack of harmony, for the second composition, which according to the preamble given by the faculty member concerned, was to capture the chaotic moment, shattered peace, and the subsequent reconstruction effort in the aftermath of the 1999 earthquake in Taiwan. The pipa rendition certainly played to the gallery, emitting discordant notes of urgency and pending disaster, reminiscent of similar moments of music accompaniment in Chinese movies portending and symbolizing looming danger. But the percussionist deserves credit too for his spontaneous display of juggling different sticks and striking different surfaces seemingly at random to the extent that papers (his music score notes actually) were sent airborne. I'm sure some in the audience must have found it hard to suppress a chuckle or two in what was supposed to be a serious music appreciation session.

The remaining eight performances were by the troupe themselves, comprising Taiwanese folk songs and sizhu (literally silk and bamboo) music. I have to admit that they are all beyond my repertoire of Chinese music, which is admittedly a rather narrow one. Somehow it's that much harder to be enthused by music that one is unfamiliar with. Put in others words, one needs to grow into a song by listening to it a couple of times. Then immersion will truly be the case.

The highlight of the event, to me, was the encore performance, which came after the audience were up on their feet accompanied by thunderous applause. Why? Because I know the song. It's an oldie that I have heard numerous times growing up. My English translation of the name of the Chinese song is The Night Brings the Fragrance, but it is really a name of a flower that emits scent at night.

That was our second attendance at the Chai Found Music Workshop, which was every bit as enjoyable as the first one, our non-familiarity with the music of the night notwithstanding. And we await the opportunity for a three-peat come next year.
Since I was mindful of the dispensation against photography, I did the next best thing: getting one from the website of Chai Found Music Workshop, surely of much better quality than my amaterish work would have been should it be the case.

Credit Worthiness

Two aspects of life in US that any young college-bound people should heed are credit history and health insurance. The first is for one to build up, and the second is to purchase. Often the second one is taken care of as part of the university registration requirements that pay for medical costs for treatment/consultation at the Student Health Center. That leaves the first aspect to the devices of the individual students.

So today we brought our daughter to a local Bank of America (BOA) office to start her maiden step toward financial responsibility: opening a checking account and applying for a student credit card. BOA has a special facility for college students: 5-year free checking and a credit card limit of, well, let’s just say it’s a generous amount considering that she is a freshman (or dare I say, a freshwoman?).

Perhaps it has been adjusted for inflation, I’m not sure, but her credit card limit is more than her elder sister's and brother's when they first started off, 4 years and a year ago, respectively. Come to think of it, it’s even more than what I was offered by none other than BOA more than three years ago when I first came to work in the States.

I did have my credit history built up while I was a grad student at Gainesville, but apparently any credit history more than 3 (or is it 5?) years old does not count (I’m not sure whether the same consideration is extended to bad credit history that one can just start from a clean slate if one just drops off the radar screen of the credit bureaus for the same length of time).

And my impeccable credit card history accrued in Malaysia does not matter either. So there I was, a fully and legally employed professional in US, was only able to secure a secured credit card, i.e., one that requires a fixed deposit equal to the credit limit in the bank. And today, my daughter was offered a student credit card, unsecured. I can’t help but thinking that the banking institutions here seem to treat a fresh college student with no working history better than one who has earned advanced degrees and has been working for the past two decades, at least in terms of credit worthiness. Anyway, I’m happy for her, and I am glad that I was able to help give her a head start toward financial independence.

Credit worthiness is an indispensable part of daily life here. The credit score, which is a measure of one’s credit worthiness, determines the amount and the interest charged on a loan. I remember when I first started with a zilch credit history, meaning my credit-worthiness was non-existent, I had to dole out a big chunk as down payment toward payment for a new car, another essential item here. And I was charged an interest rate of more than 10%. Subsequently, that has come down to a respectable 6% when I refinanced after 1 year.

So, credit worthiness, and health insurance. One secures our financial future, and the other guarantees our access to affordable healthcare.

A Walking Tour of USF

Our younger D will start her very first day as a college freshman (girl?) at USF tomorrow. Since USF is really quite a sprawling campus, we decided to conduct a familiarization walking tour in the afternoon with her so that she does not waste valuable time transiting from one lecture hall to another, given that the turnaround time in between periods is only 15 minutes. While she has been to the orientation, the walk-around then was confined to specific buildings only and she did not emerge any wiser as far as the spatial relations among the other buildings are concerned.

Fortunately, three of the lecture halls are clustered together close to the main library, which serves as a strategic reference point. There is the Cooper Hall, which she has already visited several times, and the Social Science Building and the Behavioral Science (BEH) buildings close-by. So we covered the ground with her, telling her to use a Burger King outlet in between as the guidepost. We showed her the main entrance to the BEH Building that I would drop her off tomorrow morning for her first period and also told her to exit the other side of the same building but at the 2nd level in order to get faster access to the Social Science Building for her second period. This modus operandi is dictated by the fact that BEH has split-level access, a fact pointed out to us by a friendly American lady who was getting into the building.

The remaining lecture hall is another story. It’s at the Department of Psychology and Communication Science (DPCS), her major department. From the campus map in our hand, we see that it is located beyond a vast field, next to a lake. Since there is no direct road connection between the main library and DPCS, we had to drive around to DPCS and trek back on foot to the main library (bottom right corner of the image) in order to help her get her direction and to remember the walking route. Also, I might add that we were not the only threesome doing the last-minute orienteering. But we all share one commonality: there was at least one middle-aged person in the group with a campus map in hand looking more like a tourist.

As indicated in the image below (sourced from here), the most direct route is still through the field lined with a geometrical design of paved paths which looks like the UK flag from above. My wife said the layout of the paths reminded her of the circular paths carved out by some alien visitors in the movie, Signs, directed by M Knight Shyamalan, but minus the spooky feel since it’s a grass field with unimpeded vista in all directions.


While there, we spotted a lop-sided tree with one side of the branches practically supported by the ground instead of cantilevering out from the trunk like the other side. Wonder what could have precipitated that asymmetry as there is no tell-tale sign, at least to our naked eyes. Another natural occurrence was the swarm of dragon flies that seemed to circle around in the vicinity of the leaning tree of sort. And here’s Mom and daughter sauntering along the paved path, bottle in hand ready to quench the thirst. Did I mention that it was a hot day?



But the weather can be fickle this time of the year. The next moment, an ominous looking cloud loomed large in the horizon like so. So after our D assured us that she has the routes and the spatial layout of the various lecture halls committed to her mind, we bid a hasty retreat to Publix to do our weekly grocery. And until I finished this blog around 7.30pm, the rain that threatened to drench the earth a few hours ago still managed to stay up in the atmosphere as water droplets. The vagaries of weather!


But the other daughter of ours over at Oregon is much more predictable. And she delivered her creations for my new blog header as promised. The new header that graces this blog from now on is a fitting testimony to her creative bent, a sort of run in the family, on the maternal side. It’s a collage, or montage of pictures taken from her collection that feature a bit of our roots, Malaysia (the 2nd image from the right depicting a top corner of the Petronas Twin Towers), and another bit of where we are now (a Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame in LA) , and a lot more of the natural setting in between. Hope it appeals to you as it does to us.

A well-balanced weekend with learning and workout

Since the loss (or theft) of the license plate of our minivan occurred over the weekend, its replacement would have to wait until Monday, which is today. But I still have to send our D to her school early in the morning, before the license tag office opens. That means another day of car rental, this time without any consideration for cargo space. So we settled for a full-size car, from Avis, for a reason that would become clear in a minute.

Early on Sunday my wife left in Yu Huei’s car for a Buddhist session at St. Pete. And the Budget rent-a-car outlet closes at 1pm on Sunday. My plan was to return the rented car after 3pm the next day (in order not to incur an additional day of rental unnecessarily) at the end of Our D's school day. So that leaves the Avis outlet, which closes at 4pm on Sunday, within a manageable walking distance from our home.

That was the contingency plan (by foot) in case Yu Huei and her entourage could not be back in time to give me a lift to the outlet. And I was right. So I started walking from our home at 2.55pm, across the entire breadth of the USF campus, about diagonally. Kind of like a self-guided tour, taking in all the academic buildings, the green, the lake, TV9 station broadcasting a baseball game just next to the Sun Dome, with spectators cheering on, parents chaperoning their children for Sunday Chinese Schools at Cooper Hall, some tailgating exchanging tall tales perhaps, some students heading toward the library, minds afloat pondering issues of the day, the gentle breeze helping to evaporate the light veneer of perspiration on my body, and my feet brushing and crushing the dead leaves strewn on my path, a rather zig-zag one as can be seen from the approximate track traced out in red on the aerial map below.


I arrived at the Sear Auto Center where the Avis outlet is located after 35-min of rather brisk walking, though still giving me some time to smell the roses, so to speak. While the clerk was completing the paperwork, I could see the sheen of sweat on my exposed arm, a sight I have not seen for quite a while. But I did not feel short-breathed, the ambulatory aerobic workout was just what the doctor ordered.

Guess what I got this time? A white Dodge Caliber, from the Grab Life by the Horns people. It’s a dainty car, and our D even remarked that she would like to make that her first car. However, the engine noise was a wee bit loud for me. Also, the acceleration was on the under-performing side, even for an auto shift, a case of the noise output being not commensurate with the torque output. (I forgot to take a photo of the one I rent, so this one downloaded from the Dodge Caliber website would have to do.)

I returned the car this afternoon. But got a free lift to get home from Avis. A nice gesture from the We Try Harder people.

But before that and earlier in the morning, I made a beeline for the downtown County office building where the license tag office is located, resigning myself to a long wait in a crowded room. And boy was I ever wrong. I left the office about 7.45am, got myself in a little gridlock in downtown, but was lucky enough to find a metered parking space just when I was burying myself in regret for being indecisive in grabbing an earlier vacant lot.

From there it was a brief walk across the road, then up the elevator to the 14th floor. And I found myself to be the first customer of the day. Here’s the ticket as proof of my Uno position just as the clock struck eight, the magic opening time. And I left with a brand new tag complete with decal, without spending a dime for the replacement, and I had not even warmed my seat yet. Because I have the police report case number, courtesy of the Hillsborough Sheriff Department last Friday. My colleague was amazed at my good fortune after undergoing a loss of sort. So next time if you happen to lose a license tag, you know what to do.

The only “loss” of the day was I put in two hours worth of quarters in the parking meter when one was adequate, after the fact. But I did make somebody’s day, whoever chanced upon the “paid-for” parking lot that is.

On balance, it turned out to be quite a balanced weekend. We incurred some unforeseen expenses, but I got a great workout, not to mention test-driving two American automobiles, and learning something about replacing license plates, literally as well (we spent some time in the Ace Hardware store looking for the two screws for fastening the license plate and thanks to a lady helper there who alerted us that we should look for metric sizes since our Minivan is a Japanese import after we could not find an Imperial size (the politically correct term should be British) that matches the hole exactly, the license plate was secured). I guess for the next few days I would be checking my license plate regularly.

Adjustments and Transformation

The recent moving further away from my office, but just next door to USF where my younger D will be enrolling this fall, has necessitated some changes to my routine. Gone are the days of leaving the home JIT (as in just in time).

For the past four days since I started the longer commute, I’ve been taking the Interstate 275, leaving our new home just before 6.30am. And the journey so far averages about 25 minutes for a travel that is best described as free flowing but at a controlled speed.

Here is a morning shot from our complex across to the USF campus. You can barely make out the name USF at the entrance pedestal.

The return trip, on the other hand, is a different story. I’ve tried three different routes, leaving the office around 5pm, and they all took at least 45 min. People are all just anxious to get home, clogging all the lanes at the same time. The I-275 way is shorter, but is a grid lock at several places where feeder roads join it, debouching near endless streams of cars into the over-stretched I-275.

The city road has too many traffic lights, ensnarling the traffic into a frequently idling mode. It seems a better solution could be to change the time of travel and not fight with the first wave of traffic, during both the morning and the evening rush hours. At the moment, I’ve no choice because my D has to get to school before 7.25 am. But she will soon be done with high school in another one and a half months, and counting whence I will experiment with the new time slot.

After more than three years of enjoying a single digit minute commute, I’m really not about to spend more time on the road than I absolutely need to. The aggravation of traffic woes, the increased chance of accident exposure, not to mention the apparent waste of valuable time and burning fuel. Except when this glorious vista comes into view, kind of driving (though galloping would be preferable) into the sunset.

Since school is off today for Easter, I arrived at the office about 10 min before 7am. So I was able to leave proportionally early, a practice known as flexi-time, which I did at 4.40pm.

And to my surprise, the I-275 route was relatively free-flowing. In fact, it seemed to be slightly better off than the morning’s commute. Then again it could be because the school is off and also because of the long Easter weekend. So it’s premature to generalize today’s ease of travel as being the rule.

I also located the nearest public library, which is my favorite book haunt. Actually, it’s even closer to our home than before. Then there is the huge USF library, which provides free access to the public, even though the loan facility is not likewise extended.

So tomorrow will be a busy day of exploring the neighborhood, which we first did by foot around the perimeter of our complex yeterday. It was around 7pm and the neighborhood road was quite deserted, save for another woman walking her dog across the street. So serene.

As for unpacking, just witness what the lady of the house has done, transforming an empty house into a comfy abode where many hours will be spent in leisurely pursuits.

Chai Found Music Workshop

I enjoy listening to music, and have a particularly liking for instrumentals. My early favorites were the Shadows, who provided music accompaniment to many a Cliff Richard song, and the Ventures. Later on I caught on to symphony music performed by the likes of Mantovani and James Last. Then I migrated to the more contemporary music of Richard Clayderman and Kenny G. But I’ve never cultivated a ear for classical music and the most I did was to hum along to the tune of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

My liking for Chinese music started actually earlier. Back then my favorite group was the Stylers from Singapore who has a wide range of repertoire: from traditional to popular tunes, coupled with some English hits in between. Through the years I have also collected tens of CDs on Chinese traditional music, some solo performances based on yangqin (hammered dulcimer), erhu (spike fiddle), pipa (Chinese lute), and guzheng (zither) [ I never knew the English terms for these Chinese music instruments until last night] and others, chamber music.

Also, I prefer the warm comfort of home to listen to audio CDs and have almost never attended a live performance of instrumental music. Of course those trips to DisneyWorld and Splendid China where live performance is part of the admission deal do not count.

So last weekend I came to know about a performance by a Chinese music group at USF. That was followed by announcements in this week’s newspaper where we learned that it was going to be an instrument group from Taiwan, Chai Found Music Workshop.

At first we thought Chai Found is short for Chai Foundation since Chai is a popular Chinese last name. It was when we were at the venue, the Music Recital Hall at USF, and read the program sheet (partly shown above) last night that we realized they are actually phonetic translations of two Chinese words that have nothing to do with a typical Chinese last name nor foundation.

It was a six-person performance divided into two halves of five performances each separated by a 10-minute intermission.

Of the ten, I’ve only heard of one of them (Black clouds in the Sky) before last night. Two were composed by USF faculty. The audience was varied, about half comprising student-age patrons (a good guess would be USF students, seeing that the admission only cost $4/= a head for students). I would say close to half (my wife estimated the total turnout to be more than a hundred) were non-Asians as far as I can tell, which perhaps says quite a lot about the appeal of Chinese music, or maybe just any good music regardless of the ethnic qualifier.

That precisely fulfilled the aim of the Chai Foundation Music Workshop, it being “to perform and promote Chinese Music within and beyond the Chinese part of the world". In that regard, the group has quite a credential, having “played numerous concerts of Contemporary Music at festivals in the US, Europe and Asia. [The phrases in quotation marks are taken verbatim from the Program sheet.]

The spontaneous applause after each performance bore testimony to the fine performance by the group of music talents, each handling a different instrument that in combination produced a well-orchestrated ensemble of sound and melody.

However, from my personal perspective, I did not seem to be able to be “in tune” with most of the performances, primarily because I don’t know the tunes. I’m one who needs to know the tune and be able to hum along before I can appreciate the performance. So “falling in love at first listening” does not apply to me as far as music goes.

Frankly, a couple of the performances sounded like discrete notes strung haphazardly to my untrained ear. It just goes to show that music appreciation, of the serious kind as opposed to the popular genre, does require some level of understanding of the fundamentals of music on the part of the listener to enjoy the concord rather than be distracted by the apparent discord.

Fortunately, it was a live music performance, which afforded the opportunity for visual appreciation of the total immersion by the performers, each with his/her own manifestation of blending in body and soul with the music: eyes half-closed, head shaking in unison, hand motion, foot tapping, etc.

For me, seeing these performers so absorbed, seemingly lost, in delivering the maestro-like rendition of the auditory delight made last night a night well-spent.