Beethoven In Trance - Episode 63

2012 Annual Report.
 And it's April, 2013. 2012 is an important year. It's like a slow pace action movie, twists and turns along the way and reached the peak at the end. 2012 is a turning point for my career.
After 7 years of service to Progressive Insurance, I decided to leave the company. It was not an easy decision, it was a month long process to think through things. In the last quarter of 2012, I was really not happy at work. Search Engine Marketing is a cool job, and it's in hot demand. However, the pay is really not to my satisfaction. The work I do is important, but not on the priority list. Therefore, there is not much career advancement, and career advancement is really not on my manager's priority list either. I didn't feel like do any other jobs in the company, so I inclined to look for opportunities outside of the company. At the same time, a formal Progressive reached out to me and asked me if I was interested in joining him. At first glance, I wasn't impressed. It's a much smaller company, and I will not be doing paid search. Instead, I will be in pricing and market research team. However, the company is a global company, and there are many potential opportunities. I realized that I needed a change in my career and I told myself that it was an opportunity that knocked on the door, and most importantly, it's an opportunity that I can only be given, but not asked for. I finally said farewell to Progressive and started new in a new industry. I did interviewed another paid search job in NJ, but the pay wasn't competitive enough and neither me or Jessica is ready for the move. So I had to turn it down. Before I turned in my resignation, I took 3 weeks to visit home in Shanghai. I was tired and mentally drained by the career transition and I thought I needed a break. The visit was the best decision I made in 2012. It was a great visit that brought my strength back and reminded me who I was. I made a decision to come to US, and I took actions. I tried, and I succeeded. The visit also reviewed the career distance between me and my friends. Most of them are at manager level or even higher. While I am very happy to see them doing well in their career, I can't help thinking how mine turned out so far. After I came back from the trip, I listed three goals that I want to achieve in my career life: 1. Work in a global company. 2. Lead a team. 3. Have a company of my own. And I don't need to achieve them all at the same time. I like the goals. It was time for me to try different things. The only failure is the failure to try.

Setting career aside, my health in the second half of the year wasn't pristine. There is a tumor growing between my left ear lobe and jaw bone. I had a tunnel vision one day on my left eye, and it lasted a minute, after I got my vision back, I found out the lump. I went to the doctor for the eyes and I was told there was no problem. I then thought it was lymph node, but the ENT specialist couldn't confirm. I was asked to have CT-Scan and then suggested an operation to surgical remove it. I opposed the idea of surgical removal, so I put it off, and hoped it would get better. Well, it didn't get better, or worse, and I talked to a Chinese doctor when I was at home in China, and I was given some Chines medicine for it. I paid over $100 for it and have been using it for month, nothing happened. I finally went to another ENT specialist when I was back in the states, and did a MRI. It revealed the lump and I was given the option to remove it surgically. I have scheduled the operation in the next month. Another problem the MRI revealed is something called 'venous angioma", a predominant blood vessel at left front lobe of the brain. I will need to talk to a neurosurgeon about that. I look forward to get it resolved as soon as possible.

We did two vacation in 2012 with my mother, one trip to a water front rental house close by. one trip to Kentucky, visiting mammoth cave national park. It was our first field trip with Alice and we rent a house instead of hotel for both trips. We had great experience in both stays. The money is well spent. I have to say the stay at the rental cabin in Kentucky is pretty intense. The cabin is beautiful and new, but it IS in the middle of nowhere. It IS pretty scary at night. The rental house at the water front is a nice little house. Both Jessica and my mom had a great time swimming in the lake in front of the house.

Financial wise, nothing special, we funded Alice's 529 plan and it's doing ok. After tax investment account is doing all right as well. I don't monitor it very often, only once or twice a year. We have been funding our retirement accounts to the max and we are not feeling the pinch financially especially after we paid out the mortgage, but that could also be the fact we have developed the habit of not splurging. 

Speaking of spending money, I certainly invested a lump sum to upgrade my wardrobe for my new job. I also upgraded my gamer PC this year, along with monitor, TV, etc. I got a new car, a used car from Craiglist. A Toyota minivan with 100K miles on it. I did extensive research for buying the car, and I thought I would get a SUV, but the SUV was so overpriced due to the demand. I felt being ripped off every time I sat down with the dealer so I started to explore minivan. I finally found one candidate on Craiglist and called the seller. The seller said someone already put down the deposit the day he listed the vehicle. Bummer. The second day, he reached out again saying the buyer backed out. I immediately schedule the test drive that night. I put down the deposit that night after test drive and told him that I would buy it if it passes the mechanics check the next morning. It did, with some minor issues. I called and negotiated price and bought the car the next day. We went to bank for the transaction and the bank clerk did the title transfer wrong. I didn't find it out till I went to the title agency. I called the seller again and we met at the title agency and sort out the whole thing. I drove the car back after 8pm that night. So far we like the minivan, it's much easier to get Alice on and off and it's a much more comfortable ride for the parents. For the money I paid for the minivan, I am not complaining.

My wife also started to go beyond her organic realm. She started to explore organic shampoo, soup, house cleaning products. A perfect wholefoods target customer. I bet wholefoods has getting bigger and bigger share of our wallet. I don't expect we will do much travel this year because I don't really have much vacation time in the new company but I do plan to go to Germany and South Africa in the next few years. Alice is getting bigger, and I feel that we are ready to go through the list of places we want to visit now. Some memorable movies: 1. The Best Exotic Marygold Hotel 2. Prometheus (watched in 3D XD, it's awesome) CD: Balance 019 Henry Saiz.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 62

2011 Annual report

Another good year.

Early 2010, Jessica applied a job in emarketing and didn't get it because she was overqualified. Early 2011, I applied the same job in emarketing and got it because I was qualified and was lucky enough to know the hiring manager. It was a same level transfer between the two departments and I even got a small raise for it. I was pretty happy about that when I got the job.

The job is a demanding one. It changed the way I do things a bit and gave me a new look of the job in the company. I can't think of anything else in the company I want to do, and I can say it's the best job I have in the company so far. The job opens up a brand new area to me, and I like the prospect of it in terms of future career outside of the company. I wish it pays better comparing to the same level jobs in the other area. I am working on getting a promotion with my manager right now. He has been a tough nut to crack and I am targeting to get to the next level in 2012.

Jessica is still very busy at work. Alice has not been an easy baby to take care of, therefore, it adds more pressure to our relationship. After my parents went back home in China, taking care of the baby and work has becoming challenging. We finally decided to make some purchases to make our lives easier. We bought a chest freezer and put it in the basement so that we can alleviate the stress of stuffing the frig in the kitchen. This has been very helpful since we make our own baby food for Alice. We bought a steam mop base on her brother's recommendation, and I have to admit, it works pretty well. I finally decided to use the dish washer because spending 2 hours everyday after work to wash dishes is not funny at all.

We also bought a Ipad in part because I hope this purchase will land me one of the mobile account at work. We both love it. I can use it as phone and call and text for free. We can even use it to make video call to home in Shanghai. My experience with it makes me believe mobile computing is the future.

Alice has not been an easy baby to take care of. She is loud and demanding. Preparing her food daily is also time consuming and energy draining. She just started to work last week (at 15 month old). She is often fussy about the lunch we prepare for her and she always gives her teacher hard time.

There are a few more changes in the last year. I started to have lunch out more than ever in the new job. It's difficult to turn down boss and coworker's invitation. I also started to experience beer and wine. I have about 3 cases of wine downstairs right now and I don't think I can finish them all before I bring in more. I've learned to appreciate the taste of wine and grown to have a bottle almost once a week.

Our patronage to WholeFoods has been steadily increasing since Alice was born. Our food expense has increased year over year(though I don't have an exact number). We spend more on trying new things and healthy alternatives to what we used to eat. I expect our expense will continue to rise in the future, but probably not over 5%. Speaking of finance, 2011 sucked. Our 401K account dropped 3% and 5% respectively. Other after tax accounts also performed poorly after mid year. This is a good time to buy. I am transferring money between bank accounts to fund our retirement accounts. We also opened a 529 plan for Alice. We want to add more fund as soon as our bank accounts are linked.

Another major purchase I made this year is chef knife. I have spent hundreds to upgrade my kitchen knife. My knife collection now is almost exclusive Japanese knives. They are made from hard steel and sharpen easily. To keep those knives in their top conditions, I purchased several different grits for sharpening stones. I also bumped into some cheap sharpening stones in Chinese stores in downtown. Those are very low grits coarse stones, and they actually work pretty well. While I was there, I also bought another flat bottom carbon steel saute pan for $8.99. You just can't beat that price. I got the sense that the store is getting rid of those oldies but goodies and replacing them with nonstick shit, well, that's too bad.

I found the turkey frier is very useful to cater party this year. I borrowed one from my neighbor and hooked it up with a propane tank. It becomes a mobile cooking station and it cooks fast, very good for deep frying anything. I would have got one for myself if I didn't get one from my neighbor.

One major accomplishment this year is that I finally completed a full marathon this year. 26.2 miles. It was a perfect season. It all started with an idea at the beginning of the year to see how much I have recovered since 2008 when I injured myself in my first marathon. After several running sessions, I have decided to try a full marathon. I did get injured again month before the race, and I went to the massage therapies on campus weekly. I was trying everything and anything to get myself ready for the race and eventually, I went to the event and finished without any injury. Jessica and Alice were waiting for me at the finish line and I carried Alice through the finish line after over 6 hours of journey in the national park. It was a great day. To top it off, I didn't have to pay for the race because our company is a sponsor of the event.

There is one movie I watched in 2011 that stuck in my mind. It was a Korean movie called "Sunny". It got me think a lot about what life is all about, which is a topic that has been in my mind recently. We both feel that we are waiting for our next big dream, and we haven't yet found it.

It's Chinese New Year today and we are taking tomorrow off.