North Cascade National Park is about 3 hours to the east of Seattle. I stayed in Bellevue the night before entering the park. Bellevue has a huge mall and a lot of food options and I have been staying here more compared to Seattle. This time I tried a very poplular, new japanese “Ten-don” place called “Kohaku”. It is worth the wait time.

The vivid aqua colored lakes are iconic scenes that welcome me entering North Cascade National Park. This color is also called turquoise or cyan and the color is truly vibrant in the lakes. It is hard to imagine that a lake can have so different color from one another. The photo is taken at the Diablo Lake Vista Point, which is accessible by car. From the campground north of the SR20 at Diablo I also hiked the Thunder Knob Trail to a vista point to view the lake from a different angle.

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Photo taken by TWL in Lisbon on Tagus River, 2024

There is a saying: “You are what you eat.” And my variation on that is: “the world is how you sample it.”

Our perception of the world is built upon the information we and stimulus we receive and absorb - the article we read, the Youtube video we watched, or the podcast we listened to. The keyword here is “absorb”, because the amount of information in this modern world of 2025 is abundant, and you are only doing a sampling of it – a fraction of the available information.

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Crater Lake National Park is the only national park in Oregon. I think this is my third time visiting Crater Lake. It was a very spontaneous trip this time. P and I were visiting Bend and staying in McMenamins Old St. Francis School. It was our first time staying in a McMenamins hotel. They converted old school buildings into lovely hotel rooms. McMenamins is a pub but its coffee is suprinsingly decent. This hotel has a really nice soaking pool and we enjoyed staying here.

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Photo taken by TWL in Joseph, Oregon, 2024; text produced with help from Grok AI

Elon Musk’s 5-step Engineering Process

Source: Everyday Astronaut Interview at SpaceX Starbase, July 30, 2021

During an interview with Tim Dodd of Everyday Astronaut at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, Elon Musk outlined his 5-step engineering process for optimizing design and manufacturing. These steps, which must be followed in order, are designed to streamline innovation and reduce unnecessary complexity at SpaceX and Tesla.

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This year I started several projects for my personal growth.

Learn about cryptocurrency

I played with mining crypto during Covid-19 purely just for fun and the technical aspect of the blockchain. After a few month I got bored and later the entire crypto fever was cooled down. Until recently I was inspired by my cousin who had bought bitcoin and had crypto exchange account for many years. Then I tried to educate myself and understand the logic behind owning bitcoin. It all makes sense now, although I am a little too late in the game. I am still excited about the technology of the blockchain, but now I also see bitcoin as a way to preserve my purchase power and other blockchain as a new way to do transaction with lower cost.

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Oregon beach is cold even in summer. There is often strong wind and the sea water is freezing. Nevertheless, the sand is very soft on Oregan beaches and I still enjoy walking on the beach and dipping my feet into the waves, even in the winter.

This photo is taken by PJ with a disposable Kodak film camera. Nowadays shooting with a film camera is becoming a niche hobby the same way that poeple listen to music with vinyl records. People even look for digital camera brand such as Fujifilm, which has its unique film-like color profiles.

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I have been to many countries in Europe since I was a kid, but somehow I did not think about visiting Portugal. The closest thing I have done that links me to this beautiful country is a book titled “Cork Boat”, which I bought during my time in the grad school.

Fast forward to last year, I was watching Eugene Levy’s TV show “The Reluctant Traveler”. In the show, Lisbon has a relaxed lifestyle with an artist vibe. In addition, I love the Pastel de Nata a lot. So I decided to see Lisbon as my first city after my last trip to Europe 12 years ago.

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Maui is the second island I visited in Hawaii. Driving up to Haleakala National Park and watch the sunrise. At 10,023 feet, it is the highest peak in Maui. Reservation is required to enter the park.

The sunrise moment is the highlight of this Maui trip. As people are waiting for the sunrise, a park ranger sang the Hawaiian sunrise chant “E Ala E”, meaning “awaken”, to welcome the sun.

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I got my first “real” camera in 2024 - a camera with a detachable lens and adjustable aperture and shutter speed; it is a Sony a6700 mirrorless. I used point-and-shoot camera growing up when films were the only way to record photos. I remember that people would worry about their films getting exposed under X-ray luggage scanner. Entering the digital age, I owned a golden Sony CyberShot point-and-shoot. Then I skipped the entire the DSLR age by exclusively using iPhone to take photos. Perhaps it is the first time I felt that the photo can be aesthetic, in addition to being the practical recording media that captures an event.

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I live among tall trees in Oregon. Conifers in my backyard are easily taller than a 3-story house and I am so used to seeing and walking amongst these tall trees. The trees in the Redwood National Park, however, are beyond my imagination.

Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area. We saw a large group of elks here. This is on Umpqua highway along the Umpqua River, near Reedsport in Oregon.

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