This is going to be about one of those little things about chinese parents that makes little sense.

Three weeks ago, my roommate and I drove to Arizona to visit and legally import antique handguns back into California.  The drive is about 800 miles, round trip.  My roommate's car is an old manual transmission 150k+ miles 1990 Integra Coupe.  My car is a 2005 Automatic Accord Sedan.

Last week, I drove with a friend up to NorCal to visit friends/family and to sell/trade off a handgun.  The drive is about 900 miles, round trip.  My friend's car is a new 2006 Toyota Rav4 w/ about 30k miles.

For the Arizona trip, we picked my car and split the gas.  Driving through the 115-degree HOT Arizona desert in a old junker car, not the brightest idea.  My roommate's car is also black with black interior, not only would it be cramped we'd also be melting inside even with A/C.  Plus, I've never driven a stick shift so we can't trade drivers.

For the NorCal trip, we wanted to use my friend's RAV4 but, her mother flips out.  Her mom forbids her from using the RAV4 because it hasn't undergone 30k miles maintanence and will therefore "breakdown".  Breakdown? OH REALLY, nice - her mom is chinese, I'll explain what that means in next paragraph.  We ended up driving my car and split the gas.

Sometime weeks later my mom asks me about my roadtrips and learns we used my car for both.  My mom says, "well, I should have forbidden you to use your car to drive that far".  (I roll my eyes)  "Not when I've technically paid for over half that car".  My mom flips out because we used my car and not THE OTHER GUY's car.  She then proceeds to start calling me so naive letting people "use" me by choosing to use my car.  My parents always tells me to do nothing, never pick up the ball and to use always THE OTHER GUY's stuff.

Its not even that big of a deal.  Cars were designed to be driven.  We split the cost of gas.  And the wear and tear from a road trip is a minute fraction of the car's lifespan, even less so if you properly maintain it.

Why do chinese parents tells us to try to use your friend's stuff everytime?  With my friends nobody cares about making the other bastard drive his car instead of his/her own.  It would be lame if nobody volunteers just so that somebody else will everytime.  This is exactly why Communism doesn't work.

This is just another example of the shrewed asian parent logics that we've all just thrown out the window.  All of my friends are all equally willing to drive their cars because this is small stupid stuff doesn't matter.

Off-hand shooting, basically standing and shooting the rifle.  The rifle is long and heavy, just imagine holding up a 10lbs rifle trying to acheive a 1" accuracy on a piece of paper hanging 2 football fields away.  It gets pretty tiring and shaky.

This is an excerpt from a Rifle Marksmanship book I'm reading, Leather Sling and Shooting Positions:

Years ago the left arm could not rest or even touch the side of your body.  It was considered "Artificial Support."  A line official would come up to you and place his hand betweeen your body and the left arm.  When the left arm is away from your body, it forces you to hold the rifle further forward and away from the center of balance.  You lose the "Bone Support", and are forced to use muscle tension.

This story has been around for at least thirty years or more.  It has to be considered an "Urban Legend", because no one can say for sure they saw it happen.  The story goes something like this:  A buxom female Army shooter at Camp Perry was said to have tucked her left breast under her left arm.  When challenged for artificial support, she loudly proclaimed, "Does this look artificial to you?"

Now that the left arm can rest against your side (who knows, maybe she was a pioneer in the sport)...etc.etc..

Using your breast to support a rifle that you shoot, isn't that supposed to hurt?

    Several friends have told me that I appear to be skinnier than usual.  My mom told me that too. You're probably right, and here's a piece of what's causing it:

This is a D Flip Flop, a special kind of memory circuit, built from transistors. Its 1 out of 7 components needed to constuct a Clock Data Recovery Circuit (CDR) for my grad. class project.  CDR is a crucial piece of digital communication techonolgy.  The design of the CDR is extremely complicated and invovled.  Every number must be calculated correctly.  Every wire needs to be connected in the right place.  

It's extremely frustating at times because %#$^ just doesn't work sometimes and you don't know why the %^#$ not.  I've spend entire days morning to night.  I've forgotten to eat lunch/dinner a few times.  I've been at it for a month now.

I have a second project to do too.  It's called a Phase Locked Loop (PLL).  Among other things, a PLL is apart of what makes cellphones a reality.  I'm lucky because there is an 80% component overlap between a CDR and PLL.  Still a ton of work and I'm probably going to start losing sleep soon because there's only 2 weeks left in the quarter. 

CDR is due next Friday.  PLL is due the following Friday.  I'm barely going to have anytime to catch up and study...in both classes.  I'm doomed I tell you!

I'm hoping that since everyone procrastinated and are just NOW starting their projects, that they won't have time to study.

Treat others the same way you wish to be treated, but also treat others the same way they are treating you...

It's like a rule to me.