A year ago last Monday, Kimberly and I adopted young Baozi (包子), our German Shepherd mix¹ puppy. “Baozi,” pronounced “Bow-dzuh,” means  “little stuffed bun” in Mandarin.  As you can see below, she certainly was a little dim sum when got her at about 3 months old.  Now, at 1 year & 3 months, “giant stuffed bun” would be more appropriate.  We could have expected that change, but there were a lot of things we didn’t expect…

3 months old
for this & more pics, see my “Year of Baozi” album
____________

I had expected a month or so of pure chaos and plenty of joy, but that isn’t what happened.

For starters, the total chaos never happened. I thought the first few weeks would be a whole lot of cuteness – but also like a puppy bomb exploded in our house: there would be poop and destruction left, right, and center. It never happened. Sure, there was a total rearrangement of our schedule, but it felt surprisingly manageable. And she really didn’t destroy much.²

Having a puppy was simply awesome as far as I was concerned! SO. MUCH. CUTE. I was sooo happy! SO. FASCINATING. Then, a month or so in, I found Kimberly angry and upset with “everything” & I couldn’t understand why. She explained all that was wrong & I tried to convince her otherwise, but in doing so I realized she was right, actually. My life had become a mess, without me noticing.

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It’s been a few weeks now & I’m finally psychologically “home” as in “back from travels” (In addition to our trip to the genetic LOMP (Land Of My People), we had a quick trip to the historical LOMP: North Carolina). As is the case after all my big trips, I return with lots of thoughts and reflections from my adventures… I like writing them down especially for myself, but also in hopes that some of you will find them at least entertaining.

If you want to skip all my blather & just go look at the pics, check out My Top 25 pix &/or the Next Best 60 pix, but otherwise, what follows is a series of thoughts & comments from our trip:

(Feel free to just jump around to the parts that sound interesting, or read it all the way through… )

• Were You Really Looking?
• My 3 Favorite Things
• Chains of Trust
• Chai Ho!
• Indo China
• TechnoTravels
• Bikes
• How Did the Missus Like It?

WERE YOU REALLY LOOKING?:

I’ve now traveled to India 3 times as an adult (in addition to a handful of times as a child) & think that I’m starting to understand it a tiny bit. I’ve spent more time in India than any other foreign country by a long shot. It’s a hard but rewarding country.

I never quite get it when travelers tell me that they “loved India” or “hated India” – to me it is always so much more complicated. To both sets of people, my question is “were you really looking?”, because in the same 5 minutes I’d find something I loved juxtaposed with something I hated.

I guess maybe people mean “I loved traveling in India” or “I hated traveling in India.” I can completely understand both of those sentiments. For a Westerner, India is loud, intense, smelly, trashed, and above all else, chaotic. It is also rich, colorful, fascinating, simultaneously ancient & new, diverse, and rambunctiously alive. In the end, India is all of the above, and intensely so.

[Update: 2/8/13: Came across a cool Ganesh costume for an off-Broadway show in NYC - see footnote 2 at bottom]

[Ed. Note: I sit here on a plane to India (via London) in the first week of December. Clearly, a perfect time to discuss this past Halloween, only 2 months late... Ok - actually I never covered Halloween 2011, where this story really begins, so really, I'm a year and 2 months late :-/ Sorry! You'll understand why by the end of this post - or if you don't care, feel free to just check the pix - it's a great costume!]

Lord Ganesh 2.0 at Work, Halloween 2012 (photo by Srabasti Mukherjee)

When this blog last left our Halloween costumed hero, in 2010, the costume was Disco Ball 5.0. The disco ball series are always impossible costumes to follow. No matter what costume I do the next year, many people say “Hey – no Disco Ball this year?” with a tone of mild disappointment.¹

To make matters worse in 2011, I was working incredibly hard at a project at the office (one of the two most difficult stretches of my 10 years at Apple) & was dramatically stressed. I really had no time for a Halloween costume that would meet my standards. That being said, I could NOT miss Halloween – I LOVE Halloween!

I was caught in the all-too-common vise-grip of October: between my volunteer political efforts (October = election season) and my job (iTunes updates are often in October, due to our Christmas product cycle) and my own Halloween ambitions, it can be quite the pressure cooker.

The internal part of this pressure comes from my ambitious Halloween requirements. A fully ‘Deepian Halloween requires that:

• ‘Deep can skip Halloween, but will most likely be heartbroken about it.
• ‘Deep can only participate in Halloween if he has a costume that meets his standards. To wit: the costume…
  1. must impress ‘Deep
  2. must be primarily self-made
  3. must have high production values (at least attempted high production values)
  4. must have a “Wow” factor
  5. gets bonus points for: crowd-pleasing, interactive, clever, funny
• ‘Deep can possibly reuse a costume, but it is frowned upon.

So given all that, what to do?

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[Ed. Note: After years of the 'Deep Slate being email only, I've moved it to my blog as well as email.]

1. You can find your polling place in SF HERE or for the rest of CA HERE.
2. You can print just the LIST (all the better to take to the polls) from HERE.

Thanks again to the number of folks who have asked me for my opinions. I know I say it every time but it is quite true: I really am honored by your interest.

Sorry this has taken so long, but as usual, I’m doing the best I can under the relentless pressure of October (Work deadlines! Halloween costume! election stuff!).

If you like it, please do let me know! Also questions, criticisms, comments welcome!

GO VOTE!
‘deep
—–

The format of this post is simple:

1. The LIST: The simple list of my endorsements for this election
2. The DETAILS: The whys and wherefores of each endorsement.
3. My VALUES: A brief explanation of my values and sources, to help make sense of my opinions.

THE LIST:

The key is as follows:

• The more UPPERCASE – the more strongly I feel.
• An ‘*’ by the Yes/No means I don’t know a lot about it & went with the SF Bay Guardian or California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) or some set of organizations I value, like the Sierra Club.

US:
President: Barack Obama
US Senate: Dianne Feinstein
Congress: Nancy Pelosi

CA:
Assembly D13: Tom Ammiano
Assembly D19: Phil Ting
State Senate D11: MARK LENO
BART Board D9: TOM RADULOVICH

Prop. 30: Temporary Sales Tax & Progressive Income Tax for Schools: YES YES YES
Prop. 31: Budget and Legislative “Reforms”: No
Prop. 32: Unfair Limits to Political Spending: NO NO NO
Prop. 33: Changing Insurance Rates to Benefit Insurance Companies: No*
Prop. 34: Replace the Death Penalty with Life w/o Parole: YES YES YES
Prop. 35: Deeply Flawed Human Trafficking Legislation: NO
Prop. 36: Improve Three Strikes Law: YES YES YES
Prop. 37: Require Labeling for GMO Foods: YES
Prop. 38: Raise Income Taxes for Education: Yes
Prop. 39: Tax Treatment for Multistate Businesses: Yes*
Prop. 40: Support Redistricting Decisions: Yes*

SF:
Board of Supervisors
D1: Eric Mar
D3: David Chiu
D5: 1. John Rizzo 2. Christina Olague
D7: Norman Yee
D9: David Campos
D11: John Avalos

Community College Board
Chris Jackson
Rafael Mandelman
Steven Ngo
Amy Bacharach

Board of Education
Sandra Fewer
Jill Wynns
Rachel Norton
Matt Haney

Prop. A: City College Parcel Tax: YES
Prop. B: Parks Bond: Yes
Prop. C: Affordable Housing Trust Fund: YES YES YES
Prop. D: Consolidate Off-Year Elections: Yes
Prop. E: Gross Receipts Tax: Yes
Prop. F: Hetch Hetchy and Water Study: YES
Prop. G: Corporations Are Not People: YES

Read on for the details of why I’m recommending the above…

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On May 2nd, 2002 I took a leap & started working at Apple. Today I got my 10 year crystal award.  Pictures don’t do it justice – I love it: 

 And this letter from Tim Cook pretty much nails it:

This award celebrates 10 years of your amazing contributions to Apple. Through your hard work, passion, and commitment, you have helped to show the world that technology can do more than engage and expand people’s minds. It can also touch their hearts and reach their souls. It can be both human and humane. In doing so, not only have you helped to alter what people have come to expect from the devices in their lives, but you have also changed what people expect from themselves. You have helped them create, relate to, and enjoy the world around them in a fundamentally different – better -way. Thank you for making this kind of difference. It is a great accomplishment in 10 years.

Tim Cook, CEO

Proud?  Yes I am. 

(click more for a few additional pics)

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[Ed. Note: A few days ago, Kate Antoniades contacted me because she runs a blog, "From Alone to Home: Stories of Adopted Pets" (www.fromalonetohome.com), which collects pet adoption stories as her way to encourage other people to choose shelter/rescue adoption. She asked me to write up Baozi's adoption story & it turned into a nice little piece on why we decided to get a pup from my point of view! Here it is.]

[Ed. Note: Also check the previous post to listen to her awesome puppy yawns & see pix and video ]

Baozi Snoozes

Pet’s Name: Baozi (包子)

Adopted by: Amandeep & Kimberly

From: SPCA, San Francisco, Calif.

Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve wanted a dog¹. Growing up, my Mom never allowed us to get one because she feared she’d be left to take care of it. In hindsight, I can understand, as my brother and I were plenty of work as it was².

My entire childhood was thus spent longing for a dog & getting all the B-list pets I could get my Mom to sign off on. A menagerie of parakeets, fish, hermit crabs, snakes, lizards, toads and jumping spiders paraded through our home, but none filled the void. (Many of these hapless creatures were captured from the woods near my house.)

As soon as I moved out on my own, I thought about getting a dog, but with adulthood came a dawning realization of how much work that would entail. I knew I wasn’t quite ready. But still the idea persisted. Every friend’s dog that I baby-sat tested my resolve. Every girlfriend I had was measured up as a potential puppy-mamma. Every “sidewalk-adopt-a-pet” event I passed on the street was a crisis.

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Not all posts here at Deeptrouble.com involve issues of magnitude and commentary most insightful.

Some involve…. (drum roll)…

PUPPY YAWNS!

(click here to hear the goodness)

The last one is the best actually

I’ve always wanted a puppy & last weekend Kimberly and I adopted little Baozi* from the SPCA here in San Francisco. She is as adorable as you might imagine. These yawns are compiled from two of the early morning (2:45am and 5:15am to be exact!) “take her out to pee!” runs (iPhone Voice Memo app FTW!)

*It means “stuffed bun” in Mandarin & is pronounced “Bow-dzuh”! She’s a German shepard mix…

[Ed. Note for friends: I have decided to have a new custom trike built: Trikeasaurus Rex! To do so, I need to explain what Trikeasurus is, so I made this video & blog post as an RFP (Request For Proposal). It is a simple history & set of requirements - but by all means DO CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO I MADE BELOW:]

[Ed. Note for potential suppliers: I'm just using the term "RFP" because I have delusions of grandeur - don't worry, I don't necessarily need a formal "proposal". This is really just a framework for discussion.]

History

For almost 5 years now, I have been enjoying Trikeasaurus, my roving tricycle-sound-system.

Trikeasaurus was initially conceived as a simple way to transport my sound system to my FlashDance events. Flashdances are free, outdoor dance parties I put on in various locations in San Francisco every month or so during the spring & summer.¹

As it has turned out, Trikeasaurus has become a much more general purpose source of fun and I use it often, not just for FlashDances. Watch this video to get a sense:

Trikeasaurus in its Natural Habitat

The video shows Trikeasaurus mostly in its initial configuration, a cheap, Husky adult tricycle with a small, custom metal-work speaker mount system.

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GLAAAAAAM IIIIN SPAAAAAAAAACE!

Glamsters! Thank you all SO MUCH for making my GLAM Party such a huge success. So many of you! So many rocket-packs! So many aliens! SO. MUCH. GLAM.

A few quick thoughts:

• I LOVED SO MANY OF THE COSTUMES. SO GREAT! I think Liz won on overall Rocket Glammiest and Best Rocket Pack! (& bringing the hotness!)
  
• I get an honorable mention, coz I LOVED my costume, and it did not turn out looking like a GLAM SPACE CHICKEN as I feared. If I wear it everyday going forward, someone please intervene. My best Glam Costume to date!!!
  >
• I also was SUUUUPER happy with the playlist (see below) I hope you were too!
• So I’ll post a few random shots here, but for gods sake, at least check out the BEST 50 Photo Booth Shots here on Facebook
• Here is the full set of photo booth shots on Flickr – honestly there are closer to 85-90 GREAT shots in there!
• Sorry the photo booth was a bit balky (& the first chunk of shots were out of focus) – we just got it & it will be in better shape for the NEXT GLAM Birthday Big thanks to Adrian & Kimberly & all the volunteers who took pix!

Big thanks to Kimberly for all the hard work in making this happen (and putting up with the fact that we made it happen “my” way ) You rock babe! (And damn you’re hot!)  And you make the best ridiculous facial expressions in the photo booth shots.

ROCKET GLAM!

‘Deep

.ps For those of you who still don’t understand, here is why (as I said after my 40th Birthday GLAM of the Dead party):

Q: Why GLAM? A: GLAM – because I love bright shiny things. When i turned 31 I decided to reclaim my love of all things shiny, sparkly & bright. Guys (at least straight ones) aren’t supposed to love that stuff as much as I do. Yeah. Whatever. It’s been all GLAM ever since

You can find pix from all my GLAM parties here.

.pps

And here is the playlist. Like I said, twas one of my best!

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Ed. note: Numerous people have asked for “the story” of me proposing to K, so I thought I’d write it down. It feels a little odd to write a blog post about such a moment, but we here at deeptrouble.com are all about giving the people what they want. Also, this post allows me to explain why we have unexpected pictures of the proposal itself.

Updates 2/16/12:

• The pier is actually Pier 7
• For the story of how we met, go to www.kimandeep.com/prequel

I’ve been thinking about asking Kimberly to marry me for a while now & I told myself that if I felt like asking her 5 times or so, I should just do it. In the end, it ended up happening half by intent and half by serendipity, like many of the best things in our relationship.

Unexpected Proposal-Cam! (courtesy of Hannah Tries)

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