Happy Birthday to My Baby

 

I won't say what age Amy is turning today, but I will say we've been married 26+ years, which means a lot of cycles of ups and downs and lefts and rights. Blessed to share this roller coaster with you baby!

The Sun Never Sets on Huang Family Operations

 

 

We have a saying in our immediate family, which is that at any given time, someone among the five of us has to be making money, spending money, sleeping, and having fun. It's not literally true, but it's not far from true, particularly when Jada is 12 time zones away so her day is our night and vice versa.

The saying is usually invoked to emphasize something that is often true in our family, which is that we keep relatively individual and varied schedules. Sure, there's a bunch we do together as a family. But there's a bunch that we do on our own, too. And, our preferences are varied, too, so for example Amy and I are early to bed and early to rise, and we keep Asher on the same schedule, whereas Jada and Aaron are night owls.

I think the saying is also invoked to remind everyone that there is a place for both work and play, resting and striving. Which is to say that, in order to spend money, you have to make money, and also that it's not good to go go go without resting, and it's also not good to not get out there and have some fun. I guess there's a lot to this simple saying of ours!

Travel Log: Florida, July/August 2026

 

Destination: Orlando and Miami

Date: July 30 to August 5, 2026

Party: 4 in Orlando (Anuj, Eric, and Jeremy), 1 in Miami

Itinerary:

Day 1 - fly to Orlando, get groceries and check into unit, pick up 2 friends at airport

Day 2 - pick up last friend at airport, afternoon golf round at Providence, dinner at unit

Day 3 - morning golf round at White Heron, dinner/sightseeing in downtown Orlando

Day 4 - morning golf round at Orange County National, drop off 1 friend at airport, hang out at ICON Park, drop off 2 friends and car at airport, Brightline train to Miami, check into unit

Day 5 - walk Miami Beach, pick up rental bike, bike to Little Haana + Little Haiti + Perez Art Museum, bus to airport, pick up rental car

Day 6 - morning golf round at Colony West, sightseeing north of Miami Beach (Samson Oceanfront Park, Newport Fishing Pier, Oleta State River Park, Bal Harbour Shops, Harding Avenue in Surfside, Brittany Bay Park

Day 7 - morning golf round at Grand Palms, sightseeing south of Miami Beach (Cape Florida Lighthouse, Rubell Museum, Lowe Art Museum, Deering Estate, Pinecrest Gardens, Matheson Hammock Park and Marina, Coconut Grove), return rental car, fly home

 

Spending:

Transportation $1,005

Accommodations $0

Food $251

Entertainment $569

Total $1,825

Travel Log: Manhattan, July 2026

 

Destination: Manhattan

Date: July 27 to 28, 2026

Party: 2 (Amy)

Itinerary:

Day 1 - Amtrak to NYC, walk Lower East Side sights, check into Hotel Mimosa

Day 2 - check out of hotel, subway to northern edge of Central Park, walk Central Park, Amtrak home

 

Spending:

Transportation $102

Accommodations $187

Food $114

Entertainment $0

Total $403

Prove Yourself

 

For a while now, I've been following closely the plight of today's young people entering the workforce and encountering uncertainty in landing that first entry-level job. Through my previous job I tried to understand this from an employer's and university's perspective, and as a dad I'm processing the same topic through our oldest two who are on the precipice of the start of their careers.

Being a child of well-educated immigrants, I feel deeply that school is an important foundation upon which you built your employability. But I also know it is a tumultuous time for workers, employers, and universities alike, given the growing uncertainty in our global economy, the advent of AI, and the proliferation of non-university paths to credentials and careers.

As a cold-blooded capitalist, all of this chaos doesn't surprise or bother me; indeed, it's how things work out, is through free market exchanges and innovations and failures and successes. If anything, I want there to be more direct and proportionate feedback to the system. If a student flakes in college, they shouldn't expect a good job offer. And if a university doesn't provide a quality education, it won't properly prepare its students, and students and employers alike will choose away from those schools. 

Innovation doesn't take us on a straight path but it does lead us to progress. Students who try crazy things like travel and entrepreneurship and volunteerism may find they unlock skills and confidence that help them stand apart from others even if they lack the grades or pedigree their peers have. And universities that experiment with alternative forms of education delivery (e.g. streamlined 3-year degrees as opposed to 4-year degrees, internship experiences baked into the degree requirement) may similarly unlock a path to career prep that students and employers take to and want more of.

But let's step back for a second. I suppose that life is just one big game, one of signaling and networks and cause-and-effect. But, fundamentally, jobs go to those who can contribute to their employers, and they do so because they have a set of hard and soft skills that an employer can work with to get value out of. In olden days, that skill set was more defined, which lent itself to an apprentice model in which you prepared for a career by learning the craft of that career, and as you learned it you became more ready to take on that career.

Nowadays, the white collar workforce's skill set seems far more nebulous. Sure, there are hard skills that can be defined, and we should (employers and universities) be more rigorous about expressing what those skills are and measuring who has and doesn't have those skills. Indeed, we are woefully weak about this, relegating much of what passes for a credential to the branding of a school rather than an actual and unassailable analysis of whether a graduate from that school actually knows how to do X and Y.

But what today's employers really want, since a lot of what entry level white collar workers used to do can now be done far more quickly and cheaply by AI, is a much squishier set of traits, which are hard to gain and similarly hard to measure. The accumulation of "reps" that make up someone being described as "experienced" can be hard to access if you're only 22. But, you still need to get those "reps" in. Does it matter how many years of college you got through or where you went? Absolutely. But, those are merely proxies for, do you possess a set of foundational skills that I as an employer can work with, such that I am willing to trade you their money for your time. I think that's on today's youth to prove, and universities to provide.

Travel is an Optimization Puzzle to Solve

 

After 31 consecutive years of work or school, giving myself this summer to leave one job while looking for my next has afforded unique space for lots of productive things, including travel: excluding day trips and overnighters, I was able to see Cabo, Virginia, Connecticut, and Singapore/Kuching, as well as my current annual visit to Orlando/Miami. Travel is, of course, a great privilege and wonderful teacher, so I'm pleased to have made space for a lot of it this year.

It will come as no surprise that I treat travel much like I treat the rest of my life, which is that it is an optimization puzzle to solve. Not that I efficiently script out every minute: even if I had the time for that kind of prep, I think I've grown comfortable with the fine line between exhilaration and terror when I leave some aspects of a trip to chance, not quite knowing in advance how things will play out but finding it fun to figure it out along the way, and roll with good and bad as needed.

But, there is a sense in which travel is a sort of game, in which I have to figure something out based on multiple dimensions. Which is kind of how life works, too. You have to worry about finite time and money. You want to have the best time possible, and maybe do something impactful along the way, whether learning something or giving back or at least not being a total asshole to those whose home turf you're invading.

Of course, different objectives are differently important and different times, which is part of the challenge. I may want to conserve money, but if something really cool presents itself that costs a lot I might still do it. My belly might rumble midday from running myself hard with an aggressive itinerary, but if I can hold off a couple hours and get to a really great spot for food I'll do it instead of settling for something more immediate but less appealing like fast food or a museum cafe. 

Here's another fun one I often puzzle over, which is how heavy or light to pack. For 12 days in Singapore, I basically packed 4 days' worth of clothes, and I did 2 1/2 loads of hand-washed laundry mid-trip to recycle those clothes back into good use. It's a pain to hand-wash and it takes up time, but I prefer that hassle over a heavier load. (Of course, one can also find a laundromat, which introduces money and convenience considerations.)

Perhaps the biggest thing to puzzle over is what to see. A lot or a little both have their pros and cons, and assuming you literally can't see everything possible then you have to make some choices about what's worth the time and money. Of course, you can carefully lay your plans and they can blow up in your face: the weather doesn't cooperate, something turns out to be temporarily closed for renovations, or on a more positive note you literally stumble into something completely off your radar screen that is adjacent to somewhere you did have on your itinerary. This too is part of the fun, both in bracing for these uncertainties and then dealing with them in the moment.

Needless to say, travel is one of the finer pleasures in life. I feel lucky to be resourced enough to do it in general, and fortunate that this year allowed me the choice to carve out extended time for multiple excursions. Not every activity was A+ but the whole package was something I'll never forget. 

Travel Log: Singapore, July 2026

 

 

 

Destination: Singapore, Kuching

Date: July 13 to 24, 2026

Party: 2 (Jada)

Itinerary:

Day 1-2 - fly to Singapore via SFO, check into hotel, get groceries

Day 3 - Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Discovery Centre, Hell's Museum, National University of Singapore, Le Pau Sat w/Jada

Day 4 - Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Mount Faber, Sentosa Island, Maxwell Food Centre w/Jada

Day 5 - Little India, Singapore Flyer, Clarke Quay, Fort Canning Park, National Museum of Singapore, fly to Kuching w/Jada

Day 6 - Cat Museum, Brooke Gallery, Borneo Cultures Museum, Sarawak River Cruise

Day 7 - Jong's Crocodile Farm, Semenggoh Nature Reserve, India Street Mall, Top Spot Food Centre

Day 8 - Kubah National Park, Sarawak Cultural Village

Day 9 - Bako National Park, fly back to Singapore

Day 10 - Tiong Bahru Market, West Coast Park, Bukit Batok Nature Reserve, Windsor Nature Park, Singapore Zoo, Newton Food Centre w/Jada

Day 11-12 - Garden by the Bay, Cloud Forest, Flower Dome, ArtScience Museum, Shoppes at Marina Bay, Boat Quay / Merlion Park, Asian Civilizations Museum, National Gallery of Singapore, Jewel Rain Vortex, fly home through SFO

 

Spending:

Transportation $2,005

Accommodations $529

Food $352

Entertainment $379

Total $3,265

 

A few additional notes beyond the facts above, to provide some flavor to my trip.

16 hours is a long time to be on a plane, especially when you have a bad back. I allowed myself to nod off when I couldn't fight it, even if I was trying to trick my body into thinking this was just a really long (36-hour) day that I could fall asleep for the night at the end of it. The 22 hours in the air did allow me to make a huge dent into a very long list of movies that I consider must-see that I'd just never seen.

Singaporean drivers sit on the right side of their cars, drive on the left side of the road, and pass in front of slower drivers by moving to the right. Which took some getting used to. Which also meant that pedestrians walking towards each other tended to pass each other on the left, although not exclusively, especially in the many cases where folks had their noses in their phones and were meandering in the middle of the sidewalk, which I was a bit annoyed with. More annoying to me was the very frequent case of bikes and even e-bikes on the crowded pavements. I thought Singaporeans respected order!

Much of the core of the city is a wonderful combination of dense and lush. They have a saying here, that Singapore is a "city in nature," and they seem to have pulled off both the look of that and the sustainability initiatives required to say that with integrity. In this regard, the place gave Miami vibes a lot for me. Also very Miami-like was the extraordinary diversity and tolerance exhibited as I walked about, just a mix of ethnicities and religions peacefully coexisting, and I found that really appealing.

Hawker centres are really fun to eat your way through, especially to observe the diversity of offerings and of people enjoying the offerings.

Sentosa Island is an amazing place I could've easily spent my entire trip and all my money on.

Changi Airport in Singapore is by far the best airport I've ever been to. No matter how hard airports try, they can tend to feel the same wherever you go, and it's not a good feeling: soulless shuffling from one place to another, in-your-face consumerism, undistinguishable food offerings. Here you clearly knew it was an airport but it felt like so much more: a high-end mall, a fun place to grab a bite and watch the game, and countless things to engage the senses like gardens and play spaces. I didn't even get to visit the marquee destination, the Rain Vortex, though I saw it in passing when riding one of the shuttles. Truly an amazing place, and so on-brand for Singapore.

Kuching is full of cat statues, as it is billed as "Cat City." It is far less cosmopolitan than Singapore: no subway, can't drink the water, a sleepier vibe in the morning. A high concentration of truly wonderful tourist sites, mostly related to the lush parks and diverse wildlife available to see here. I'm glad Jada and I landed on this as our weekend jaunt during my Singapore trip.

Most food places only accept cash, as well as many of the sites I had on my list, so exchanging money was a must. It was a lot harder than I expected, given that my initial research indicated there were automated machines on the main street where I was staying. Turns out there aren't, and bank machines require a debit card which I don't have. Hotel front desk indicated there was a money changer down the street - he just pointed out the front door and said "straight," which it turns out was a 30-minute walk down the main road. Halfway through, when I learned this from asking folks along the way, I was bailed out by people saying there was a grocery store that did money exchange just across the street. Just my luck! Even better, after trading dollars for ringgits, I got my grocery run out of the way, procuring some fresh fruit and snacks.

The sunset cruise was recommended to me, and it did not disappoint. It was very comfortable to slowly meander down the Sarawak River, taking pictures of sites and enjoying a shady and breezy evening while the sun melted into the horizon. Even better, they served unlimited orange drink, which I had 5 cups of since I was a bit dehydrated from the day's events in the punishing sun. They even handed out a local favorite, layered cake, which I also scarfed up. The waterfront area was nice to walk around in before and after the boat ride, with Jada and I deciding to grab a bite and an ice cream after dark. I think how cities use their waterfront space is really important to quality of life, and I have to say Kuching had immaculate vibes.

I went to two natural parks, both after Jada returned to Singapore. Kubah I felt I had to myself, hiking an extremely strenuous trail that rewarded me with countless jaw-dropping photo opps. Bako worked out splendidly, even as I was dreading the logistics beforehand. You need to book a boat to enter the park, which I did in advance, but they told me a couple of days before that I was the only one who had bought a ticket, which would mean that they couldn't use their usual boat shuttle but would have to count it as a private charter and charge me an extra 150 ringgits in cash. Secondly, I wasn't sure how I was going to get back into town after, since ride share drivers often balk at fares involving long drives out to meet their passenger, and I was getting conflicting info on whether there was a bus I could take. All of these problems ended up not being problems! Ride share isn't that hard to hail out there. I saw the bus that takes you back into town, so that could've been an option too. But best of all, 4 other American travelers, 2 from Boston and 2 from New York, showed up that morning to join me on the boat, so I didn't have to shell out the extra 150 ringgits, AND the 5 of us had an amazing time walking the park together, AND I even got a free ride back into town from 2 of them who were nice enough to give me a lift. The park itself, by the way, was amazing, most of all the up-close encounters with wildlife, including an entire family of macaques that waltzed right through us on the path early on our hike. An incredible experience!

It was amazing to see Jada navigate a big city solo as a grown adult. She is more well-traveled than I am even though I had a 30+ year head start. Proud dad moment getting to see her on this trip.