/**
 * file: karbytes_22_august_2024.txt
 * type: plain-text
 * date: 24_AUGUST_2024
 * author: karbytes
 * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN
 */

I have been reluctant to share with the public the unusually high number of hardships I have been facing within the past three months (especially this week and especially today) because I did not want to take the focus of my blog off what I consider to be my professional interests (i.e. what pertains to information technology and consciousness research). Because the events I have experienced have been so dramatic, I decided to share them in a public journal entry.

Last week my Patelco debit card and driver’s license were apparently stolen while I was not watching my wallet which was placed next to me while I was sitting on the ground charging my electronics at an outdoor electrical outlet in the courtyard outside of Philz Coffee in Sunnyvale, California. (Fortunately, I still had my PayPal Business debit card and other wallet items). Within two days of that event, I went to the Santa Clara Department of Motor Vehicles to apply for a new driver’s license (which cost approximately $40) and reported my Patelco debit card lost or stolen and ordered a free new replacement card.

Within the past four days my HP laptop became severely damaged (but minimally functional enough to allow me to use it despite the screen being almost completely broken except for approximately 30% of space on the left side of the screen) while I was attempting to use the laptop to charge my phone during a bike ride out in Alviso slough (and I only had one portable laptop charging battery because the other one went missing while I was walking around South Bay approximately two months ago). Fortunately, I was able to purchase, obtain, and set up my new Lenovo laptop by partitioning it with Ubuntu in addition to its native Windows 11 Home operating system (and I also installed some open source software on the Ubuntu side such as Sublime Text editor and VLC Media Player).

This morning I biked all the way from the Fremont baylands to the border of Sunnyvale and San Jose before I realized that my wallet was missing from my left leg pocket. In a panic and with grim determination, I bicycled back to where I thought I left my wallet in Fremont as fast as I could. Fortunately I found my wallet. Then I made my way back down to Sunnyvale to that aforementioned courtyard to charge my electronics, install some software, and make updates to my blog. (I could not help but notice a lot of people making rude comments seemingly at me but I tried to ignore them and played some loud music on my devices in an effort to block them out).

Then, while bicycling up Mathilda Avenue towards Sunnyvale slough and while crossing a freeway on ramp, some guy hit me with his car and sent me and the bike flying through the air for what seemed like three seconds. Thankfully, I was not injured (and neither was my laptop nor my phone) but my bicycle got bent out of shape to the extent that the back tire would not turn, the handlebars are slightly turned to the right instead of parallel to the front wheel, and some of the back wheel spokes became dislocated. I noticed the driver’s wind shield of the car that hit me was cracked significantly. The driver asked me if I was okay and I said yes and he drove off. I am now sitting at the location the collision happened typing this note.

I think that accident was more “my fault” than the fault of that driver because I did not look before crossing as carefully as I ought to have and, also, I was not wearing any kind of reflective gear nor light (which I already got pulled over for and issued a warning about in Dublin approximately one month ago).

* * *

It is approximately 12:08AM Pacific Standard Time on 23_AUGUST_2024. I called my parents on the phone and told them what happened and asked them if they could come pick me up and bring me back to Castro Valley so that, hopefully tomorrow, I can take my bicycle into the local bike shop and (hopefully) get the bike back in functional condition.

At this time, I am waiting for one of my parents to arrive to pick me up near the freeway entrance. From now on, I am going to try to stay proactive and keep doing things which I think are productive, worthwhile, and which make me feel more good than bad. Future updates to karbytes (i.e. the collection of web-based digital files) might be less frequent than past updates to that collection were due to the fact that I intend for future updates to be relatively compact and constrained to mostly what I consider to be “professional” subject matter (instead of subject matter which is what I consider to be excessively informal, personal, and banal).

It seems that I try my best to be careful but I still seem unable to avoid getting into accidents and hardships I do not foresee happening before they do. That is partially why I feel the need to keep my blog updates less frequent and more succinct than they used to be. I am honestly a bit scared about getting hurt or otherwise seriously inconvenienced (with the reasoning that, as I grow older, the chances that bad things will happen to me are steadily if not sharply increasing). What I mean to imply (as morbid as it may sound to some) is that, as the total number of karbytes updates approaches infinity, each successive update feels increasingly more and more like my final blog update. (Ideally, I would be immortal, immune to serious injury, and have the means to travel across different “planes” of existence while retaining the same sense of self identity. Perhaps a more “modest” goal is to live for as long and as comfortably as I can and while making the most of every opportunity I get to do something which I think is worthwhile (i.e. something which seems to net more benefit than cost)).

* * *

On 23_AUGUST_2024, I took my damaged bicycle to the Trek bicycle shop in Castro Valley to see if it could be repaired. I was told by a staff member that the bike was severely damaged beyond repair. Fortunately, it was a cheap bike which cost approximately $100 and which I bought from the Walmart store in Dublin. After that visit to the Trek store, I placed a pickup order for another of such bikes (which is a blue Huffy 28-inch-diameter wheel mountain bike). I was able to purchase that bike and even have it pre-assembled upon pickup for under $120 total (taxes included). Then I set out to look for an accessory I should have had all this time but procrastinated on getting: a USB-powered light which allows me to safely (and legally) ride my bicycle at night.

I went to five different stores in an attempt to find such a light but only had luck at the Trek bicycle shop in Castro Valley (and there I was able to purchase a USB-powered light which has a strobe feature for approximately $25). I was surprised and dismayed to see that the other stores I went to did not have any decent lights for bicycles (but a few of them had only rainbow lights which are powered by disposable (i.e. non-recharging) batteries only and which are designed to be placed on the spokes of the bike wheels (which I think looks annoyingly childish and flippant (because what I wanted was a light for my bike which functions as a lamp to illuminate my path, which signals to other people that I am present so that we do not get into a collision, and which is rechargable instead of not quite so ecologically conscientious))).

The Walmart at which I bought my new bicycle today had most bike accessories except for the kind of light I was looking for. (While I was inside of that Walmart, I did purchase a new pair of sunglasses for approximately $15 because the pair I was currently wearing has been damaged since I accidentally stepped on them approximately two weeks ago (and I had to frequently keep putting the right lens back in and reconnecting the fragment of the frame which broke off and which holds that lens in place on the right side)).

I then went to Target near West Dublin/Pleasanton BART station and saw roughly the same lineup of accessories as what I saw at the previous store. (I noticed quite a bit of young women of what I assume is Mexican origin perusing the premises wearing pajama pants and a few of them wearing what looked like mere underwear for pants and some of them in high-heels especially near the most “ghetto” of the stores I frequented today. (I do not mean to judge any person solely for what they wear. I support people’s right to dress however they want to. I am all for freedom of personal expression and the right to practice one’s own “religion” (i.e. ideology and accompanying lifestyle). I just personally thought that, the poorer the demographic, the more slutty the women of that demographic seem to dress and behave)).

After I went to the Target store in Dublin/Pleasanton and did not find the light I was looking for, I went to the Target store in San Leandro near Bay Fair BART station. Again, I saw roughly the same lineup of bicycle accessories (and none of the lights I was looking for). I asked a staff member if there were any of those lights in stock at that store. He and I went over to the aisle of the store where those lights were apparently “supposed to” be in stock but were not. (I cannot help but suspect that there is some kind of “war” on people who seriously want to commute via bicycle (instead of by car) because so many of the stores I frequented today which “should have” been selling decent bicycle lights for safe night bicycling were not (and I assume that is because the target demographics which shop and work at those stores view bicycling as a daytime leisure activity only and not as a legitimate means to commute (and I assume that is because such people are supposed to be metaphorically tethered to a car (especially a petroleum-powered car) which can be used to transport multiple people, provide emergency shelter (and a place to fuck), provide hauling functionality (for items larger than what can safely be carried by one person on their back or bike), and to get around quickly and with minimal physical effort and minimal exposure to the elements (because all of such “trappings” are conducive to growing and providing for a family)))).

The last store I tried before going back to the Trek store in Castro Valley was the Walmart in San Leandro approximately one mile south of the Bay Fair BART station. (At the Target near Bay Fair and at the Walmart near Bay Fair, there were private security vehicles guarding the store entrances which had emblazoned on the back of “In God We Trust” (which I thought was a bit theocratic-sounding and not sufficiently secular for my tastes)). In the “ghetto” Walmart there were several giant American flags hanging from the ceiling and a disproportionately large grocery section. There was also a built-in Subway Sandwiches store whose smell permeated the store especially near where I picked out some black, gray, and green-trimmed basketball shorts for approximately $10 (because the basketball shorts I was wearing at that time had become so dilapidated that the waist band broke (which meant I had to keep pulling my pants up to keep them from sagging to expose my buttocks and thighs and which sprung a hole in the inner left leg component (which caught onto my bike seat several times and almost had me fall off the bike while trying to more casually get off the bike)) and those shorts seemed to retain the smell of Subway Sandwiches even after I left the store). There were several homeless people panhandling on the outskirts of the parking lot and, as usual, a long line at the In-And-Out hamburger restaurant drive-through windows. That Walmart store had the most abysmal selection of bicycle gear I have ever seen for a place that is supposed to sell such merchandise. All I saw were kids bike helmets and zero other bike accessories. That’s when I decided that I was not meant to be shopping in such a store (but I did buy those aforementioned shorts at the “self checkout” which was heavily manned by employees who scanned the items for me seemingly to prevent theft (probably because people in that area are more likely to steal as a consequence of not having much money)).

It is nearing sunset at approximately 7:24PM Pacific Standard Time on 23_AUGUST_2024 at the time this line of text is being generated. I feel optimistic yet cautious about my future because of how many accidents and material losses I have been through recently. I feel the need to do a better job of keeping my personal belongings organized and of traveling by bicycle more safely (especially at night). What seemed to (at least partially) cause me to experience so many hardships lately is rushing around in an attempt to get more shit done faster (instead of proceeding more slowly, carefully, and with greater awareness of my surroundings). Then again, I cannot help but attribute much of my apparent distractedness and impatience to being in frequent and prolonged exposure to other people being belligerent, distracting, and rude. What seems to give me the “cutting edge” I need to stay sane, productive, and happy is avoiding places where I expect such people to be loitering at and lording over. Thankfully, I have several nice places to go which are relatively devoid of humans and which are abundant with natural beauty in the form of geographical formations, vegetation, and animals. Last night I was serenaded to sleep by a coyote barking and had some vivid and quasi-surrealist dreams which featured the following events: I found myself bicycling around on a trail in some kind of field near some hills during the daytime after apparently getting my (previous) bicycle repaired almost to full capacity from the Trek store (but with the handle bars still slightly bent to the right but not to the extent that I could not ride the bike). I was also somehow bicycling (or hiking) near the top of one of those hills and immediately ran (while jumping as though Earth’s gravitational pull was only a quarter or less what it actually was and hence “flying” down the hill) after seeing a “mountain lion” (which looked more like a female adult African lion than an actual cougar) and fleeing for my safety (but without feeling very scared because the lion did not seem interested in hunting me). When I got to the bottom of that hill, I saw that lion stand on a ledge and look regal. I then endeavored to see if I could get a video recording of it to add to my blog and/or also video record me jump-gliding down that hill. As usual, my recollections of that dream (like most dreams I remember having) is not crystal clear and the order of events seems unclear to me. (Perhaps someday I will master the art of lucid dreaming and be able to recall and experience dreams in more vivid detail and with the conscious realization that I am in fact in a dream rather than in my normal waking universe).

As an aside which is related to that little dream anecdote I shared, I personally defined UNIVERSE to mean some kind of simulated environment and time interval for that environment to take place inside of and to noticeably evolve inside of (according to exactly one information processing agent which is the sole entity rendering that particular (simulated) space-time-matter-energy continuum). I mean to imply that multiple UNIVERSEs could potentially exist either “in parallel” (i.e. simultaneously) or “in serial” (i.e. not simultaneously). Whatever “contains” all UNIVERSEs which ever exist is what I refer to as REALITY (which is synonymous with NATURE or with EXISTENCE). For more information on what I mean by UNIVERSE, see the web page at the following Uniform Resource Locator: https://karlinaobject.wordpress.com/multiverse/