Four Weeks With a Glucose Monitor

| November 9, 2026

I’ve always been curious about my own body data, so I paid out of pocket (insurance wouldn’t cover it) and wore a continuous glucose monitor for four weeks. Quick disclaimer: everyone reacts to food differently, so this isn’t health or medical advice. It’s just what happened with me.

First, no, I didn’t lose weight. And if you have a bit of fat on the back of your arm, it doesn’t hurt at all. It didn’t mess with my triceps workouts either.

The biggest surprise was how hunger-proof I am. I went 24 hours without eating and my blood sugar didn’t budge. Same while sleeping, and same during cardio as long as it was under an hour. Lifting made it dip a little and then come back. So for me, the “secret” to losing weight is pretty boring: just be okay with being hungry.

Food-wise, white rice actually spiked me less than boiled potatoes or pasta, and it was no different from brown or purple rice. So I’m officially done forcing down brown rice for my blood sugar. Sugary drinks and added sugar hit fast, so I’m cutting back on those. Fiber matters more than I thought. And sour fruit? Still full of sugar. Don’t let the taste fool you.

What surprised me most was how much stuff that isn’t food mattered. Sitting still after a meal was the worst thing I could do. Even light chores or a short walk kept my numbers way down, and calf raises worked like magic. The second big one was sleep. A bad night showed up in my numbers the next day.

My favorite moment, though, was taking my daughter to get our flu shots. I played it totally cool in front of her, like it was nothing. But my blood sugar jumped for a minute and gave me away. Apparently I’m not as brave as I look.

My First and Last Subaru Lemon Law Returned Today

| August 25, 2026

I originally posted this on Reddit in r/Subaru_Outback on August 24, 2026. I’m the same person who wrote that post. I’m keeping a copy here as an extra record, in case Reddit ever removes it for any reason.

Returned Subaru Outback

Bought the 2026 OB Wilderness for my ski trips on March 2026. Did a few round trips to Lake Tahoe but did not really test driving it on snow since it was late season.

My previous car was a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4×4. 10 years of owning that car bought me many trips to service centers and quite some maintenance knowledge, not in a good way. It was fun driving it despite all the small issues until final kick (“pentastar tick” engine issue). When looking for the next car my ski friends recommended me Subaru, especially on how the service center and customer service always go above and beyond.

So I bought the new OB wilderness, happily drove it for 3 months then the head unit is dead. Search “Subaru Operating System Issue 2026” on Google and Reddit there are a few posts and comments talking about this (mine included). Service center checked car and decided it’s not fixable. I asked them to replace the head unit if it’s not fixable but they said I would need to involve Subaru of America to further investigate this. Then I filed case with SOA. The case investigator was surprisingly not helpful. He first claimed he could not get the service center to reply to any of his emails or calls. Then after a few days I decided to call the service center myself and asked them to check if they missed any emails from SOA. Service center said no email about my case. Then I emailed the case investigator telling him the Service Center never got his email. 30 minutes later Service Center called me that they just received the email from SOA about 5 minutes ago and that was the first email they were noticed of my case. I don’t know who lied here but anyways the case started to move. I offered SOA I can drive the car to the same or another subaru service center to recheck. But only half a day later, I received this email from SOA:

Email from Subaru of America

The case investigator basically just said, there’s nothing they can do.

I was more than angry after wasting 2 weeks with this guy and called SOA again asking to escalate the case to his supervisor. So the case was transferred to a “Senior Customer Advocacy Specialist”. Then it’s just standard follow up process but I can feel the new case investigator is much more professional and efficient. She later provided me 2 options: repurchase by Subaru, or keep fixing the car plus some cash settlement.

This is how much damage the first case investigator had made. All my request at the beginning is just fixing the car. He single-handedly made it a Lemon Law case, or cash settlement plus fixing the car.

At this point I was too exhausted. I just want to get rid of this car asap.

If the service center was as capable as others I read from reddit, they should had just fixed the issue at the very first place. If the first case investigator was as professional as the second one, I would just let them to schedule some further checks and likely fix the car.

Anyway just my last rumblings about this outback.

(WIP) My New Bouldering Fun

| January 20, 2022

In the last week of 2021, I was brought to a rock climbing gym by my friends and started bouldering. It reminded me how many weak points my body has due to the lack of variety of sports I did. There are too many “missing” pieces of muscle flexibility constraints to achieve the V1 difficulty. And the bodyweight! I didn’t realize how much weight I have until I had to hang myself to the wall (my friends taught me it should not be “hang” but to use my feet to stand, however, I still couldn’t help but use too much “hang” with my arms).

The CAP Theorem of Choosing a Project: LIE

| July 16, 2021

In theoretical computer science, the CAP theorem, also named Brewer’s theorem after computer scientist Eric Brewer, states that it is impossible for a distributed data store to simultaneously provide more than two out of: Consistency, Availability and Partition tolerance.

I recently had a similar thought while looking back at all the previous projects I worked on. It is impossible to hunt for a project inside a big company (or any environment with great competition) that simultaneously provides more than two out of:

  • Low risk: High probablity to launch it once it achieves the quality bar to become usable
  • Impactful: Large impact if launched
  • Easy: Low techinical difficulty

So it’s a LIE when someone tells you that you should go for a project with all the three attributes above.

A Quick Review of XGIMI Horizon (Not the Pro)

| July 3, 2021

I pre-ordered XGIMI Horizon (not the pro version) back in May. Finally got it delivered today right before July 4th holiday.

The size is basically what I would expect. It has a tripod socket at the bottom but it just looks ugly when it is installed on a tripod.

The set up is quick, standard android TV stuff. The auto-adjust and focus are also quite smooth. However, neither Netflix nor HBOMax works. I can install these two apps and login and find the videos I want to play. Then Netflix showed a message that this device is not supported. HBOMax just crashed as soon as the video started. Is this device too new to be registered with these apps? Fortunately, the device does have a built-in Chromecast. I ended up playing a movie using my iOS HBOMax and casting it to XGIMI.

And by the way, the remote control does not come with batteries. Good luck getting some from your other remotes.

Let’s Call It a New Year Resolution of 2021

| June 6, 2021

It’s already June 2021 when I decided to write these down. It’s still “early” 2021.

  • Write something down on this website at least once a week. Anything is fine.
  • Walk/Scoot/Bike at least half an hour a day with the kid
  • Increase vocabulary to 12k
  • Ride my OneWheel to 500 miles
  • Feel more hunger than “food coma”
  • Feel more sweaty than “AC comfort”
  • Learn a new physical challenge: motorcycle, climbing, anything that requires physical training
  • Control the anxiety during weekdays
  • 107 License

My Thoughts After Leaving Google for 3 Months

| May 9, 2021

I left Google after a bit more than 5 years. Google was my first job and my dream company. It feels like a blink how fast the time passed by.

Many friends asked me why. Working for Google is definitely a privilege. I will always be grateful how much I learned and gained in these 5 years. It worths a separate blog to document what actually drove my decision making process and led to leave Google. In this one I would only write down my thoughts in the last 3 months after I left Google.

Am I happier in the last 3 months with my new job?

Yes!

As an engineer, Google (when I joined in 2015) provided me the 2nd best environment: largest data, mature infrastructure, billions of users. You might ask what is the best if Google is secondary? The best environment is challenging problems, innovative people and an infrastructure with less limitation.

A great infrastructure is both weapons and shackles. It demonstrates what was the correct way to solve a problem. However in real world problems are always different with their cousins. A lot of times in order to make sure we are utilizing the “great” existing infra, we either cut the toes to fit the shoes or kill the flies with a cannon. It is seldom encouraged to spin up a new infra to solve a new problem since the belief is deep in a lot of people if not everyone: our existing infra is great you should reuse it.

Yeah I know it’s always a trade-off.

In my new job, the infra basically does not exist compared with what I have seen in Google. This actually makes me really excited since no one will ever use “we have a X infra that solved a Y problem, you should use it as well” as a reason to oppose an effort of building another something.

In fact I won’t recommend any new grads to join my current job: it is very chaotic, though full of opportunities. As a first job it definitely requires a lot of effort and proper mentorship to figure out a career path. I do recommend my current job to many seasoned engineers and my Googler friends, especially people who are great problem solvers and willing to think differently. The years in Google provided me a very good view of how the infrastructure evolves with larger and larger traffic, where it settles, how to mitigate tech debt while still be able to deliver new features. These are like golden standards in some sense that always come to my mind while I’m facing the chaotic problem space.

I began to appreciate more of Google’s infrastructure after I left Google. It began to guide me through the fogs of uncertainty.

I still recommend a good engineer should be aware of not being spoiled by “Google-level” infra. You stop growing when you start to believe the existing infra will handle all your new features and take it for granted. Try to understand as much as you can and even dig into ancient docs to understand how it evolves into this shape. In the future these will be the best knowledge you can keep with yourself.

Right I started to miss Google after 3 months. But I know I’m a better engineer than 3 months ago.