there’s a Venezuelan food spot in Brickell that’s really good and well-priced! gave us some chicken soup on the house too 😭 also gave Joe’s Stone Crab a go & it was good! for the ambience and history, the value is still quite good there—1/2 chicken for like $9 and lowkey I quite enjoyed the free bread (ate it before the camera did 💀). The hashbrowns were really good (but tbf I love hashbrowns), and I ordered a large after sampling some, and our waiter downgraded it to a half-size on his own accord and thank goodness he did 😭 the half-size was very much more than enough for me alongside my other two dishes LOL (both of which I needed help finishing). Evan and Gabi said the crab is good and quite conveniently pre-cracked, but not like to die for, but solid. at the end, we were all very stuffed and satisfied.
El Sitio Coffee Bar 19 NE 2nd Ave, Miami, FL 33132
Joe’s Stone Crab 11 Washington Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139
update on the $6 NBA game! was quite fun & enjoyable for the price for sure. wiggins dropped a 40+ game, which was ridiculous, and miami ended their 10 straight loss streak 😭🙌 seats were also noticeably better than nosebleeds @ chase center
brunch @ coconut grove! the cast iron pancake was too much 😭 I warned Evan beforehand but alas he did not heed my advice. otherwise, it was solid & enjoyable. Evan says 7.5/10.
Chug’s Diner 3444 Main Hwy Suite 21, Miami, FL 33133
umiami has quite a nice and huge campus—it really makes you feel you got ur bang for ur buck on tuition. weather is quite nice too today, high 70s to 82°. very green + clean. not many asian students tbh. didn’t take many photos whoops, but overall, I like it, but I wouldn’t go to school here. still quite the car-demanding county with not much to really do around 🚗
just snagged 3 Hornets @ Heats tickets for $6 each all-in 🏀🏀🏀 sideline nosebleed 🙌🙌🙌 timed the bottom perfectly
Vizcaya Village Farmers Market + Vizcaya Museums & Gardens were both successes! The farmer market had a lot of good & diverse food, and we had a bunch of empanadas as well as fresh Floridian orange juice and sugarcane juice. The museum and gardens was really pretty and was overall a fun time! Lots of lizards abound in Miami 🦎
cuban food @ little havana — was really good with live music and a dancer 🕺 had the churrasco (medium) w/ arroz blanco and it was very delicious 😋 would recommend
Sala’o Cuban Restaurant & Bar 1642 SW 8th St, Miami, FL 33135
these benches outside Miami’s Frost Science museum remind me of Antoni Gaudí’s works, like Park Güell. they have that flowy organic curvilinear vibes, but just lack the complex mosaic and ornamental characteristics. it’s kinda a modern minimalistic adaption, but I could honestly be totally off on all this.
things i gotta get done over the break (a rough draft)
some top-level goals:
- enjoy miami w/ evan and gabi + chat w/ evan & help figure out gameplan after umiami visit
- check out chicago neighborhoods & chicago food/museum scene oam the goat for housing me and gabi
some immediate goals (like tmr 💀):
- pray that i make the plane from nighttime SFO-MIA tmr (4:1), if not, probably midnight IAD (9:5) then early morning MIA (decently open iirc) 🙏🙏🙏 (MADE IT 🙌🙌🙌)
- reply rohit about work-related things ✅
- call up the “neighbor” for insurance deets ⚠️
- start & finish 61c lab ✅ (forgot for a sec so used 2 slip days)
- ipira meeting ❌ + rdi siteimprov work ✅
- cry over retainer realignment pain (have them off right now and savoring each second before the inevitable pain agony misery despair melancholy depression) ✅
- nlp meeting for ap3 ✅
- can’t think of anything else, oh… weather check + pack!!!!! 🛄✈️ 📦✅
just general goals (only a week, no need for that much depth):
- TBD, it’s 2:30am rn
im in so much pain. my mom threw away my retainers on accident right when I started that part of the treatment, and the dental clinic had my pay $600 to replace it and also failed to inform me of when they arrived despite repeated left voicemails inquiring about it. so, only got the replacement a month later (today) AND THEY HURT SO MUCH. awfully painful. oh the misery 😭 gloom despair agony depression 🫠
hmm… midterms didn’t go great. in fact, quite probable it’s the worst performance in my Berkeley career. really not enough time this semester to do the things I need and want, which includes studying and genuinely being familiar with the material. it’s a shame really, the classes are interesting, but I have notably more responsibilities & also a heightened desire to enjoy life this semester than previous ones.
www.app.traveltime.com is a dope tool to check reachable areas via given time of day / mode of transportation. using it right now to see what areas are reachable to work w/in 30 min!
www.hoodmaps.com is another really cool map, but it’s instead crowdsourced and vibe-based where people tag areas w/ stereotypes and local knowledge like “tech bros,” “warzone,” “run and don’t look back,” “smart college students,” etc. it’s more of like a social/cultural snapshot of how ppl percieve different neighborhoods.
www.opportunityatlas.org is a pretty cool website to look at how neighborhoods shape economic mobility/life outcomes. really interactive maps & full of research/data. honestly, pretty cool website to gauge where to move to and where certain demographics are living within a city/county.
I thought an assignment re. a DCF was due tonight, so I instead did comparable trading multiples instead due to time and I was like, I’m sorry!! I didn’t have time, but I did put in full effort for the comparables… it turns out it’s due tomorrow night… question is whether I should redo it and actually do a DCF and be like, whoops, I did have time… I’ll let tomorrow me decide since I have a midterm Wednesday morning. I feel as though I over-committed myself this semester, seems like I always have things to do and things due. Oh well.
update: did not re-do it bc of a competing priority, that being a midterm for another class, which I did post about (tl;dr: didn’t go well)
mimi aint passing smog check, pain
ok why does everything cost money?
so went to get my smog checked, $30 regardless if pass or fail failed, obviously by the title, and it’s because error code P0012 - “A” Camshaft Position - Timing Over-Retarded Bank 1. just great because I diagnosed this issue months and months ago and found that it’s not only a common problem on the Miata NB, but also very hard to find the root cause…
ok so after an hour dooming and researching outside because I can’t sell my car without passing smog. I found the California CAP (consumer assistance program) which can help cover costs of repair up to X amount if I qualify. well I’m on CalFresh so I do, but it’s a joint ownership so I’m worried my mom will disqualify mimi for it. sighs.
anyways I went to a cafe to collect my thoughts bc the smog check place said it’d be $150 for diagnosis.
I called Fred’s Warehouse and didn’t really know what to say tbh. kinda out of my field of expertise. are they able to diagnose over the phone? is there even a point telling him my error code? like what?? anyways he was a bit stern but nice and straightforward, said that I should check my oil as a first measure since it can affect the camshaft position. that I knew but I guess I got overwhelmed by the tens and tens of other issues that could cause this error code on mimi. also he said $175 for diagnosis, pain.
so I was like okay, let’s oil change mimi myself bc I should learn anyways and I like doing DIY. but tell me why miata owners say the oil/filter the most inconveniently located place for NB?! also I don’t want to hurt myself, hurt the car, and have a mess to deal with like waste oil. so yeah, it was not worth my time right now as I’m a college student without much time nor tools. sooooo, looked at places to get my oil changed and I was like might as well get my leaking tire fixed.
so tires. I called DC Tires bc a AAA mechanic brought gabi and mimi there once to get a new tire and apparently a really good experience + good price. they were indeed nice and said they got nothing that old in stock, that being 24 years old model. fair. they recommended me to buy a tire online and they can switch it for me. as for oil change, they didn’t do it but referred me to an oil change shop, which would top off my other fluids, too. not sure what other fluids there are tbh. i know there are other fluids, but how good is that deal persay.
anyways, my smog test place also did oil changes and they were nice. $60 was their quote, but they told me to first check if I need a top-off or an oil change, and that I shouldn’t do an oil change if unnecessary. hence why I like that place in general, solid advice. so, I guess that’s the next step. something about a dipstick and oil level. sighs.
the nice reprieve is that all these places (DC, Fred’s, and 15min) seemed pretty helpful and considerate and gave me tips to move towards resolving the issues I brought up w/o necessarily trying to upsell me their services. for that, I am quite appreciative, esp. given the poor reputation the mechanic/car industry as a whole has in their treatment and exploitation of the uninformed and poor.
registration apparently expiring in two days, what to do. got an exam that day, too, which I’m behind on, so that takes priority. being broke is tough. but just fyi, at least in cali, I already paid the registration fee so I won’t get charged late fees, but when my tag expires in the two days, I can technically get pulled over and get fix-it tickets, which should be resolved once I, yk, fix the problem in question. impt thing is: avoid public parking. apparently u can just get parking tickets for incomplete registration, which is the case here. sighs.
“it is expensive to be poor” - james baldwin
starting microblogging
first day of microblogging, not sure why I was so interested finding something like this, maybe just wanted to have a place to say things and look back—got an exam soon, gotta lock in
btw joseph, don’t forget to think abt categories