Sydney restaurants on the downhill
For the past few months I’ve noticed that restaurants are increasing their prices across the board–from the holes-in-the-wall joints to the high-end ones while at the same time portions are getting smaller.
On top of that, many restaurants also seem to be on the downhill when it comes to the quality of their food.
Not a good trend.
Be good to your friends
Three years ago today I lost one of my best friends in a mountain climbing accident, and three days later, sometimes about 9-10pm I came across an email from a close friend of ours telling me to call him at any time. Stupid me thought it was good news. And it was only when I had to re-read the email to get the second phone number (he had listed three different numbers) that I realized the instruction to call him “at any time of the day” was not an indication of good news.
Patrick Wang was my first friend when I moved to the US. His house was about a 10-15 min. walk from my apartment, though later on getting to his house became a matter of crossing the backyard of my apartment, someone else’s backyard, that same person’s front yard, and then across the street and a few houses down the left.
I still remember the first time I had to call-in sick and miss school for a day. Pat was the person I called to ask about homework (all I remember is the awkward English I used, specifically, “… from what number to what number?”). I remember being so nervous as I was speaking a foreign language, despite the 2-3 years of classes I had already received by then.
But that was all in the distant past.
A few years later we developed a close friendship (especially after the infamous “Doc Project” for our Advanced World History class in 10th grade) and he was also the first person I called and got in touch with after moving to Alabama in the summer between my 10th and 11th grade. He was “quite honored” I recall him saying over the phone. And since then our friendship was nearly exclusively phone/email based as we were always quite a distance apart, though we were geographically nearby when I attended university in Connecticut and him in our hometown State College, PA. However, where I ended-up in Boston after graduating, he ended-up at first in California and then Oregon. And so our phone/email friendship continued.
Actually, now that we were on our own and could afford our own phone bills the “phone” portion became a bit more noticeable though it was still mostly all emails. And to this day this is where I really feel that I dropped the ball.
When I still lived in the US he called me up once a month (almost religioiusly) but sometimes I avoided his call. And now, now I can only wonder what he would have thought of Sydney as he was set to visit around mid-2005.
So today, on this day, I promise and hope to be a better friend to all my friends, many of whom I know I’ve neglected. Just as Pat called me up once a month, then maybe it’s up to me to keep in touch with some of you.
He was a friend, a rock star, a nerd, an Intel engineer, an adventurer, a traveller, a photographer …
… a dear friend whom I sorely miss still.
