Here I am in Las Vegas again to spending Thanksgiving Holidays. I must have been in Las Vegas for more than 100 times in the last 20 years, making this City of Sin my second home town where I am no longer a tourist. I have done and seen it all since my college days which hopefully does not make me a sinner. These days when I come to Vegas, I do exactly what I do back in my first hometown ( Fremont). I go to starbucks for coffee, dining at my favorite restaurants, and hit all of the usual spots as well as my favorite casinos and bars. ( Caesar, Flamingo.) Now I do my daily blogging wherever I travel. I have always enjoyed Las Vegas and been coming here three times a year for the past 20 years. Needless to say, I know every inch of this town. I must say the sin city has recovered very quickly from the phase 1 shut down back in March due to covid 19 and many small businesses have closed for good while others are doing their best to stay opened. This is a glorious city with fabulous shows and gorgeous women performing on the stage, so how can anyone not like Las Vegas?

While all of these glamorous events are going on here in Las Vegas, I am in the midst of writing a blog and this is the time for me to do some self reflection away from work, running errands and giving exams. This is also a getaway for me and choosing to come to Las Vegas is the best bet. ( I don’t gamble, by the way.) I can do what I need to get done for myself and hit the town for some of the exciting events, killing multiple birds with one stone. I must say the traffic scene here in Las Vegas is horrific and it is one of the most dangerous cities to drive around. Since I have come to know this town so well, I managed to get through the roughest spots without offering too much of any slack to cabdrivers and to stay a little on the aggressive side. While I am generally not an aggressive person, but when I am on the road, watch out.

I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in a traditional sense, meaning turkey dinner, stuffing, cranberry, gravy and sitting with big crowd chatting about current events. It is a bit too family oriented for me but that doesn’t mean I did not enjoy it when friends had me over for dinner when I happened to be in town. Most of the time, I travel away from home during holidays season because I needed the time to myself and try to sort things out and continue  seeking The Truths about everything in life. This is an important moment for me and unlike many other people, I want to do it alone without any other interfering events around me. Now I am sitting in my hotel room blogging on my laptop computer with a beer, and that often help a little. ( I am no alcoholic, no worries.)

This year like many other years in the past, I want to take the time to be thankful for the opportunities coming to America to receive a good education and grateful for how I become the way I am and what I do these days in my life. I am very fortunate despite all the struggles I had to face which is precisely what I am so thankful about, not just on Thanksgiving day, but every day of my living. All of the struggles had shaped my life through the mistakes I made to be a better person today. Now with such a solid foundation behind me, I am no longer in fear of what I have to face in the future. We are all children of the sea, and there will always be strong waves ahead, but we will continue to rock with it. Don’t forget to take the time to enjoy the sea when it is calm. We have to enjoy the good things while we still have them because they won’t last forever. The same thing goes for bad things, and they won’t last forever either. Let go of it and  don’t ever look back. Life is short, unpredictable, precious and often challenging at times. But there is that light which you don’t always see, don’t be afraid to go for it when you do see it. I am still seeking The Truths these days about life in general and my mind is filled with many unanswered questions and despite all of the glamorous events happening now in this City of Sin, I am attempting to find solutions.

When I was a kid, I used to think that life and purposes were created for us and we simply needed to follow a set of doctrines in living our lives. As I got older and being a lot more familiar with how natural science works, I become distant from all of the religious doctrines. Life is inevitable given the right ingredients and conditions, and therefore it doesn’t have any real purposes. Since human life span is so short (100 years or less), and there is no substantial evidence suggesting or proving life after death, therefore we only live once. We need to create our own purposes to make lives somewhat more meaningful for us while we still have it. I strongly believe in it although I am probably facing lots of opponents here, but this is the way I express my thought. So in all these years, I have been thankful for the good purposes being created successfully for myself due to all the right conditions and ingredients that were seeded in me and I took the seeds without hesitation. When opportunities open up, don’t be afraid to go grasp them. You may or may not succeed, but given the right moment and the seeds, the chance is always looking good. ( Bayesian science)   For myself, I will continue to aim at the light I see and look for better seeds to come along to grow on. While there is no 100% certainty that I will succeed in whatever I do in the near future, the chance is always there. ( non-zero) Don’t be afraid to try because luck doesn’t fall from the sky and opportunities don’t always come knocking on your door.

All in all, life has been great and no regrets for me whether I made right or wrong choices in the past. I am grateful for every day that I live and get to do things which I considered as fairy tales at a younger age. It almost seemed like miracles how things turned out the way they are but at a price of endless struggles. I will forever be thankful and treasure every moment of my life and not afraid to move on to more daring things in the future, even chasing ghosts have taught me some real life lessons these days, haha! As I was saying earlier that I am not very good in expressing myself to others, but through the words I use here from time to time, you may begin to see that I actually have another side which you don’t see. The David Lau you come to know is the one who works like a maniac from day to night running around like a chicken with its head cutoff, stressing about all the daily errands and projects to complete in a timely manner ( precrastinator) not to mention the posts he puts on FB are limited to physics most of the time. How boring! On the flip side you can think of me as the light you don’t always see and don’t ever shut it off. Reach for it and maybe, just maybe that light will somehow help illuminate your path so you will no longer be afraid of the dark.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and many more to come in the future.