Beethoven In Trance - Episode 61

2010 was a good year.

First, the year started out with Jessica transferring to another department. She first interviewed for a job @ eMarketing, but didn't get it because she was overqualified. Right after she got turned down, another job opened up (and actually a better one), she applied and got it. She even got a small raise for the same level job transfer.

Second, Alice Ai Liang was born on 09/08/2010 at 10:36am. She is healthy, loud and cute.

Third, we both got the green card.

To welcome Alice, I did couple home projects. I rent a carpet cleaner and cleaned the basement and upstairs. Completely cleaned my study room and moved my computer down to the basement. Reorganized the basement so that it's not longer a storage room. I rewired the speakers with the 16 gauge wire and mounted the speakers on the wall. It's my new entertainment room. The old study room is Alice's room now. She has her own wardrobe, and a bed, and a sofa. Jessica spends a lot of time in there.

We also changed the layout in the dining room. We went to Ikea and bought a dinner table, it's narrower than the previous one, which saves us more space. It can be extended out to fit more people though. We moved the old table to the basement. We also moved the dinner plate cabinet to another corner of the dining room. It opens up more space in the dining room which is a high traffic area. With the baby around, space is becoming an issue.

The living room is also reorganized. I bought a set of used speakers from Craiglist (after bought and returned a set from Amazon.com). It was my first purchase from craiglist and the visit to the seller was pleasant. The test CD performed very well, so I didn't get any chance to negotiate the price. Come to think of it now, I might overpaid the center speaker a bit, but oh well. I bought the receiver and subwoofer from amazon.com and a blue ray player from bestbuy. All in all, it costed me about $600, plus speaker wires. It's certainly a learning experience to build the system from the pieces and connect all of them together, calibrate them to maximize its performance. The placement of the speaker is not ideal due to the shape of our living room (and I don't have any space and budget for a rear set either), I will have to live with it. I got a storage rack from Costco to put the TV, receiver, blu-ray and center speaker. It worked well, and it costed only $34.

My first Hi-Fi system performs well to my taste, very bright, suitable for the materials I listen to. Jazz and Classical and vocal come to live with the speakers. The speakers are about 10 years old, but still kicking. The new system also broadened my collection in Jazz and Classical. Pop music doesn't sound impressive in these speakers, but then again, what are you looking for in pop song? There is a huge different between vocal performance and pop song.

To back up all the CDs, I found a new software called EAC, Exact Audio Copy. It works like charm. I went through 100 CD spindle quickly. With the new system, my taste to the music also changed. Classical had a big come back when Alice was born, and I started to explore jazz vocal. So far I came across some favorite artists: Eva Casidy, Melody Gardot, Marelyn Payroux, Stacy Kent, and Shelby Lynne.

For Alice, I also bought a used camera, Canon XT, with a 50mm f1.8 lens. It's a fast lens. After my research of getting better pictures in low light condition, I picked up this one because it's more cost effective for the time. It performs well to the purpose. I brought it to the delivery room, and it took sharp pictures of the baby. With the growing need for space to store pictures and audio, I bought two 1TB harddrive, and gave away the 500G external to my neighbor. I also got a 320G external from my dad.

In 2010, I volunteered to be a board member for the Asian Employee Resource Group in our company. It's been an interesting experience working with other Asians (mainly indians from IT group) in the company. Like any new machine, we didn't start working smoothly, but we are getting better. Also, I went back to Steiner House to be on the board member, and got involved with the house issues again. It's fun to listen to all the old storied again.

We didn't do a good job tracking our finance in 2010. Jessica basically dropped the task because she is busy with the baby. I didn't want to pick up the task, so we left with nothing in the accounting book. I only know that we did all right in the stock market and in our retirement account for the year.

As of this writing, it's July 6th already. I am really late for publishing the annual report.

Last but not least, a list of memorable visuals and sounds:
Top 3 Album: Shelby Lynne: Just a little lovin', Melody Gardot: My one and only thrill, Stacy Kent: Raconte Moi
Top Movie: Up