Beethoven In Trance - Episode 74

2023 is like Seattle weather, a lot of grey and hazy days mixed with some beautiful sunny days from time to time. 

2023 started with company layoff and re-org. It was on the national news. The tech companies have overhired over the pandemics and finally came to the senses to trim fat. All the tech companies in the area let go thousands of employees, and our CEO announced no salary increase for the year as well. A few of my friends got impacted but fortunately found opportunities in other companies. Both my wife and I were fortunate enough not to be laid off, only moved to different organizations. I was not particularly happy about the timing of it because I thought it would reset my trajectory for the promotion. Fortunately it didn't. I did get a promotion mid year with lower than usual raise due to the "hard economic condition". I wasn't jumping up and down for celebration when I heard the news, rather felt "ok, finally!", a feeling of relieve and "now what?". I stopped thinking about promotion long time ago so that I can swallow the disappointment that I haven't got any. when I really got it, I was too numbed to react to it. 

Later, my team got restructured again, my manager expanded his responsibilities and had to introduce a layer of mid management. I got a new boss to report to, who I have worked with when I first joined the company. I didn't have a good relationship with her because I didn't think she was qualified for the job. I thought she take credit for others work while not doing her own. As a matter of fact, I thought I should be her manager instead. Well, apparently that was not what the leadership team thought. Fortunately, I had a new perspective in life and that helped me to working with her. That new life perspective however, came at a hefty cost. 

At the beginning of the year, my mom was diagnosed lung cancer, and it has spread to other parts of the body. It was a huge hit on everyone's spirit. We didn't even now how to react to it, let along handle it. We eventually managed to find a oncologist and started the treatment process. She was prescribed with meds and went through a week of radiation therapy to control the tumors. The meds is fortunately effective so far, and no side effect from either radiation or meds impacting her daily life. She is just weak, and doesn't have much appetite. She is trying to gain more strength so that she can be more mobile and active. We all hope for the positive trend to continue. 

My mother in law was also a lung cancer patient. After my father in law passed away last year, she has been living alone with my brother in law in Cleveland. They decided to go back to Shanghai this Summer to take care of some family business. My wife and her brother went with her in July and spent 2 weeks there. Unfortunately things took a bad turn in Shanghai after one night she fell on the floor. She then was in critical condition. Eventually she made it back with much back and forth between airlines regulations and hospital release requirements, but barely. My wife drove her to the local hospital the night they landed. She stayed in the hospital for couple of days then got release back to our home while her son went back to Cleveland. My wife extended her leave to take care of her and eventually travelled with her back to Cleveland weeks later. It was a particularly hard decision for us. Per Chinese belief (or superstition), my parents couldn't have another senior (my mom in law) pass away in the same house. Therefore, they strongly oppose my mom in law staying, but my mom in law wanted to stay and not traveling back to Cleveland any more. It puts us into a very difficult place. It was the first time I felt truly powerless and helpless. I couldn't fulfill my mom in law's last wish, because it was directly against my parent's wish. After my wife travelled back to Cleveland with her mom, she stayed there for couple more days to help settling her in. My wife came back days later and returned to work eventually. Weeks after, her mom passed away. My wife went back to Cleveland for the funeral and brought back her ashes. We found the same captain that we used last year and scattered her ashes at the same spot as her husband. And that, was a painful conclusion of that chapter.  

When my wife was in Shanghai, I took my daughter to Banff National Park in Canada for the summer break. We drover the whole trip. When we entered the boarder the first day, we had to drive through  a forest wide fire. It was pretty surreal, like the movie scene in "Bladerunner 2049". The air around was reddish grey, and we couldn't see anything in close distance. We stayed in a hotel over night and got pretty smoked. I got up early the next day and escaped to the park where it was not impacted. We stayed at a nice cabin in the woods for the rest of the trip. The scenery was grand and beautiful. We did a lot of hiking and walking trails. On the road, I made a big mistake that I regret till this day and determined to never repeat. That is, I passed a semi truck on the highway. It was a very dangerous pass, the semitruck didn't slow down to let me pass and there was an another semitruck coming from the opposite direction. 

In the late summer when my wife was in Cleveland, I had to take my daughter to the California for her Kungfu competition. It was her second tour, and the event was much better organized this year. She did well this year, couple golds, and silver and brown. I was very proud of her. We had a good time in Cali, and have some good food. I also went to the local table tennis club and took a lesson. It was pretty helpful. After we came back, however, my daughter got Covid from school, and passed it to everyone at home. I initially thought she got flu and wasn't being careful around her. Plus the season started to change, eventually everyone got Covid one by one. My dad first, then myself, then my mom. It was scary time for my mom as she has lung cancer. Fortunately she tough through and recovered after a month. My dad was taking care of her mostly (because I was down for couple of days myself). As a matter of fact, my dad has been taking care of her since her cancer diagnose. He certainly has more chores to do everyday. He has ups and downs in his health as well. He went in for hernia surgery early this year because he has persistent pain in lower abdomen. Good news is that the surgery was smooth and successful. The same with his digestive system inspection later this year as well. My wife has been finding small appliances to help him reduce the workload. I will spend more time home making dinner as well. 

With all the changes at work and home, I have developed a new appreciation to mental health. I found an online class called "Manage Happiness" offered by Harvard Business school and completed it. It was a good learning and I found something practical that I could use. Our company also offers mental health consultation as benefit, so I scheduled two sessions last year. It was helpful and I intend to continue next year. 

Another mental model change for me is my greater appreciation of the health, and the time in life. On the other hand, a less emphasis on money, and the chase of rank and fame at work. This is what's been helping me going through my daily routine in the office.

Lastly, I continue to decompress over the weekend by taking table tennis lesson and practicing. It's essential for me to relax and recharge over weekends and ready for the grind in the next week. 

Another big change we have made this year is updating our cars. We have had our Corrola over 17 years and our Sienna for about 10 years. I felt it was time to move on to the newer generation. It was not easy to find good options early in the year because the used car price was overheated during the pandemic caused by low inventory and broken supply chain. There was a guy in the company selling a used 2018 Honda Odessey and I jumped on it. He got it used as well from the online car dealer. I sent it to the garage for inspection and it passed, so I bought it. What I didn't realize was that it had some knocking sound coming from the engine area. I then needed to find the local Honda dealer for repair. Luckily, the repair was still under warranty. They replaced some ball bearings in the engine, and the noise is reduced. This experience really poses the question to me whether or not I should buy used vehicle. The experience to find the replacement for my Corrola was a bit different. I didn't know which car to choose initially. I had a light bulb moment when I realize that EV was actually a good fit for my daily work commute because I can home charge EV. I then picked the used Tesla from its website the next day. I went to the service center to test drive the car and bought the car right after. The purchasing experience of Tesla is straightforward and simple. The Tesla is certainly a new experience (coming from 2006 Corrola CE). My only complain is that it feels every single bumps on the road. It's not a comfortable and cushion ride. The windows got hit by rocks disproportionally. Our Corrola didn't get any windshield damage in the last 17 years. The Tesla got a crack in front windshield in just couple months and I have to replace it for $1400! After the upgrade, we sold our old cars through company's buy sell distribution list. I sold the minivan well below the private party price (because I based the list price off the trade-in price offer we got from CarMax). I learned and sold Corrola at a more reasonable price. 

We end the year with a much needed vacation. Unfortunately my wife couldn't join us because she ran out of time off and leave. My parents couldn't join us because of their condition. So just me and my daughter. My daughter picked Japan from the choices between Europe and Japan. The air tickets are astronomical (due to the holiday), but it worth every penny. We spent 10 days travelling in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, and we had a spectacular time. We did a lot of sightseeing, shopping and walking. The food there is amazing. The local restaurants we tried are fantastic. Even the convenient store food is great. We both love the fry chicken there. It can rival any fry chicken joint in the US. The planning of the trip took me a lot time, but it was well worth it. I got the eSim before we left US, and brought some cash with us. We bought the prepaid transportation pass and used public transportation through out the trip. It was convenient and on time. We only used Taxi once when we needed to catch an early morning train with two large luggage. This trip makes me appreciate vacation and makes me realize the amazing and great things in the world to appreciate and look forward to. My daily grind at work seems trivial in comparison. I can't wait for our next trip, we are thinking about Iceland in the next spring. 

My music taste changed this year as well. I came across a radio program "Coffee Chill" as I drove to my Sunday morning table tennis practices early this year and have been following the program ever since. Downtempo and Chill music it's called. The 4 hours program airs on Sunday from 6 to 10, and available for streaming through Apps. I have been listening to it everyday during my commute. Likely related to my mom's cancer diagnose but the music seems to be at the same pace of my energy level. Last year I could still listen to some DnB music and feel pumped about it, but not really this year any more. I will need to monitor it in the next year. I guess I refuse to accept it as a natural aging process at the moment. 

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 73

 2022 Annual Letter

Pandemic year 3. 

Change is not always good. Back in 2021, I noticed house mortgage rate dropped noticeably. After much analysis, I decided to refinance to a lower rate. Our month payment since dropped and our overall interest obligation wasn't impact either. It seemed to be a good move. Feeling empowered, I decided to switch our home and auto insurance carrier to State Farms at the beginning of 2022. It was triggered by the rate increase from the carrier at that time. I thought the No.1 insurance company would provide better service and coverage. Well, it turned out the service is underwhelming, and price is higher than expected. The company increased the premium price after the policy went live, and requested moss cleaning on the roof before renewal. The agent was only helpful when asking for premium payment. By the end of the 2022, I switched again to All State insurance. I hope not to change again in 2023. 

Early in the year, I got into a car accident on my way back from the table tennis practice on Saturday. It was raining in that evening. I wasn't able to stop the car and the car slide over a distance to hit the car in front. Fortunately no one is hurt and the Start Farm at the time didn't increase the rate. Possibly the other car didn't request the repair for such a minor fender bender. I took the car into the garage because the windshield wiper failed weeks later. The mechanics told me that the complete brake system needs to be replaced. It was a $1800 job to replace rotor, clipper and pads, front and back. Also the brake fluid system needs to be flushed as well. It was a very expensive repair on a 2006 Corrola, which normally worth almost the same price of the repair. However, all used car prices were inflated due to pandemic. I decided to bite the bullet and repair the car instead of getting a new one.

During the sprint break, my daughter and I went on a "dad and daughter" trip to the east side of the state. It was a great trip despite the bitter cold. The landscape is different from the usual ever green around the Seattle area, more similar to Arizona and Utah (boulder states). We visited a few state parks and stood on frozen lakes, it was pretty cool. 

Early in the year, we are moving to a new office at work. It's a new building which adds 10 more minutes to my morning commute 20 minutes to the afternoon. The new building offgas so much that I had to wear a mask in the office. I felt dizzy and sick after the day in the office. I raised a ticket for the property management team to evaluate the offgasing in the building and the team did some adjustment on ventilation. It helped, but still took months for me to adjust to the new building. By that time, more and more people were coming to the office to work, as the pandemic restriction had eased. 

2022 is also filled with ups and downs at work. I was able to transition out of a project and took on a different one (one with more visibility). It was a longer transition than I expected, and the new engineering team needed quite a bit of hand holding. After the new team got on the track, I was assigned to another project, another new team to manage. Second time was not a charm. The new project didn't go well, things were breaking, no one knew what to do, and stakeholders were escalating. Eventually, the team survived, but barely. It was the first time my conversation with my manager didn't go well as usual. It was a painful but good lesson to learn. 

My wife also landed the job at my company. That was a good news. I think (and hope) she is a good fit for the company and the work she does. 

In late 2022, I changed my wine selection. I decided to explore wine outside of US (CA and WA typically). I decided to prioritize region (Italy, Spain etc.) over price, and enjoy some new flavor. I was able find couple wines from Spain and Italy in Costco. They are not expensive and very enjoyable. Combined with the decision that I no longer drink on Friday and Saturday (to get myself ready for the table tennis practice the next day). I basically reduced my alcohol consumption. 

In Sept. I travelled with my daughter and my mom to CA for my daughter's Kungfu competition. We stayed at our cousin's home and had a great time. The competition was jam packed and everything was delayed. We ended up staying there from 7:30am till 11pm. It was my daughter's first national competition and she did well, taking home two meddles. Proud of her, she did something I wasn't able to do what I was at her age. 

In Nov, my father in law passed away. My wife went to Ohio with my daughter in the late summer to spend some time with the in laws, but my father in law had dementia and he didn't recognize much any more. We found a local captain and scattered his remains in ocean per his request. 

My parents still go to food bank in town religiously last year. It has become their routine every week and they enjoyed it. 

Home fight still happens last year, but got better later in the year. 

My daughter is still on ADHD medicine. The medicine suppresses her appetite as a side effect. We were getting used to her eating schedule last year. We didn't eat together everyday any more because either she or her mom won't be able to join due to lessons or classes. 

Last year, I upgraded to a newer model of xBox and bought a PS5. I finally finished The Last of Us Part 2 and Horizon West. 

I upgraded the table tennis robot as well, but the new one is not used as often as I imagined. The robot wasn't used by my parents either because they both are recovering. 

We decided on Arizona for our winter vacation. We booked the trip, and two weeks before the trip, my mom got a compression fracture on her spine. We had to cancel my parents flight, hotel, etc. They were left home unwillingly.

We had a great time in Sedona, the airbnb is huge (considering we are two people short). and it has great view of the mountains. The mountain trails were not very challenging, and color of the rocks (red) is particularly vibrant against the blue sky. By day 5, we were ready to go home, but the night before, we got an email from the airline that our flight was cancelled due to freezing weather condition in Seattle. We had to stay in Phoenix for two more days. We found a hotel close to the airport and did some local sightseeing, museum and movie (Avatar 2). The Avatar 2 was a disappointment for me, but my daughter and my wife enjoyed it. 

The movie I did enjoy last year include batman, Arcane: league of legend (which is fantastic  tv series interpreting from the video game)

Another good change last year is on the wardrobe. Just before the winter holiday, REI trade-in program had 10% promotion for trade ins. I took the opportunity to turn some clothes into gift cards. It reduced my clothe "inventory". I think I could do more in the coming years as well. 

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 72

2021 Annual Letter

05/29. A long overdue annual letter.  

Year 2 of Pandemic, it's a blur. I can't really remember much about that year.

At the beginning of the year I moved to another organization due to a company reorg. It was a mixed feeling as I did enjoy working in the old group, as I had a pretty good relationship with the manager and I felt that I had a path to promotion and career growth. I felt that I had to start from the beginning in the new group. For a period of time after I moved to the new group, I wasn't too happy, especially when I saw people got promoted in the old group. The displease was felt at home as it was difficult to keep a high spirit after a seemingly "all the hard work for nothing" day at work. Now, I do want to clarify that the work itself is actually challenging and interesting to me. It's a good learning opportunity. The manager in the new group is new to the company but he seems to be reasonable and easy to work with. Through the year, I think I have established a good relationship with him. Or at least he has successfully made me believing that, in which case, he is a fantastic leader.

Around May, I finally decided to take some private lessons for table tennis. I realized that no equipment would make me a better player. I thought I would just take a class or two to learn the basics, then I would be on my own practices to get better. I got hooked on the lessons very quickly. Every Saturday, I look forward to the lessons when I will learn and finetune my skills. It quickly becomes my favor part of the week. It's an investment, as the lesson is not cheap. I however feel particularly strong about this investment in myself. This is a learning experience that brings me much joy. 

Our family relationship between my father and my wife took a dive since we moved to Seattle. It's unrewarding, draining and hopeless even to try to reconcile and savage their relationship. I would say that their relationship has openly broke from hanging on by a thread in the last year. Both have formed an opinion on each other. It's a tough situation to be in, as I haven't been able to find a successful way to remedy and heal the relationship. It's not fun to come home after a long day's work only to get into another fight at home, especially one that I lose no matter who wins. I was once strongly against my parents staying a senior home, despite they we so interested in it that they applied for it. I have to admit, now I'm open for this option. I don't know how long I could see them scathe their relationship further. 

2021 finance started to rebound after the pandemic. My wife didn't work for the year, so our finance didn't make any significant progress. I originally thought we would change our cars before the pandemic but had to postpone the idea after the Covid hits as the price skyrocketed. 

Our daughter continued to struggle with ADHD, she wasn't able to focus for long and wasn't able to follow instructions or directions as needed. It's been a struggle for my wife to keep her on track. Fortunately, the school opens for in class learning in September so she could go back to class. She loved the classroom and said she learn better there. 

In Nov, I decided to go watch World Table Tennis US tournament event in Houston, TX. I enlisted my wife to go along and it was a great trip. I met some of the top players in the world. The moment I met those star players, I realized that must be how it felt like when a high school girl met her favorite rock band lead singer. We enjoyed the game in person and some local food. I thought I had a glimpse of our retirement lives. 

My wardrobe continues to expand. I still find it difficult to say no to a perceived bargain. However, I did spend some time read through the color matching and learn about how color could enhance the skin tone. I now have an additional selection criteria: color, adding to price, cuts, style, function, and brand.  

Other than that, can't really recall much else about that year...

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 71

Year 2020 will go down US history (and world history) in important ways.

The year started normal, I was busy at work and playing table tennis every week. The life was normal and was in its own rhythm. I had an opportunity to travel to Las Vegas for a BI conference in Feb, and brought my folks with so we could share the hotel room. While I was in conference, they were touring the city sightseeing. At that time, we have heard of a virus outbreak in Wuhan China, and it was spreading. I wasn't paying too much attention at the time, actually no one was. People were still going on with their lives. The Sin City was still buzzing, and tourists were still crowding the casinos. 

We went back and went on with our lives. One month later, the news broke about a deadly virus called Covid-19 that has caused the quarantine of Wuhan and big cities like Beijing and Shanghai since December 2019. The virus has been spreading globally since then. Covid-19 has been declared as a pandemic and officially a global crisis. 

Everyone started to operate in a pandemic model. Washington was the first state in US that became the epicenter of the outbreak, followed by New York, and California. The medical system simply couldn't handle the overwhelming influx of patients. The states have since enforced stay home order and shut down public restaurants, sports events and public gathering events. The streets were all of sudden quite down and highways became empty. During the lock downs, people could only go to grocery stores for food, gas station or drug stores. Everyone is ordered to stay at home. Everyone is required to wear mask if they go outside of the home unless their medical conditions prevent so. People are required to keep social distance from each other for at least six feet. These requirements met with some stubborn resistances who disbelieve the benefit. So we often hear stories about people were kicked out of store or air plane because they refused to wear masks. 

The business got hit disproportionally. Travel and hospitality industries took a dive as there were just no traffic. Ecommerce skyrocketed because people sitting in front of PC were buying things online (aka amazon.com). Local restaurants and bars were disappearing. Gyms, clothing stores, and car rental company (Hertz) either closed down or filed for bankruptcies. Many people lost their jobs. The shut down also caused a wave of panic shopping. People were stocking up toilet paper, sanitizers, paper towel, rice, instant noodle, yeast, and flour. All stores were out of stock of those items. People lined up before the store open so that they could get their hands on a roll of toilet paper! Things did get better after couple weeks, but toilet paper was definitely the hottest buy from Costco in 2020.

MS has weathered the storm relatively well. The cloud, health care and gaming business picked up while other segments underperformed. The business overall still came out better. Everyone was working from home, and everyone is fighting with internet brand width with family members and kids. Yes, schools are shut down as well, so kids were staying at home attending classes online. Everyone had to adjust to remote working and learning. Graduation ceremonies were cancelled as well. I feel pretty bad for those kids. 

I worked from home for about a month, and it was not easy. Very busy and very easy to be distracted. Sitting at home and attending meeting marathon was not fun. I did commit to walk at least half hour every day so that I didn't end up a couch potato. Around May, the company offer an option to come to office to work as an accommodation to employees with special needs. I applied and I came to work everyday since then. 

Working in office has its benefit: a regular cadence, amenities, ample lighting and total silence in the office since I was the only one coming in. It suits me better as it provides structure to my life. Other people adapted to the working from home well. They liked the flexibility of taking care of family during the day and enjoy the saving on commute time.

Around Summer time, things were getting better even the daily Covid cases were still rising. The country has started to open back up slowly. We went to some local parks and local beach with mask on and keep social distancing from others. No vacation to anywhere else. 

Coming to the fall, aside from the pandemic, another important event also left an important mark in US history: the US 2020 election. The amount of political drama, media frenzy, and social chaos, injustice and conflicts was unprecedented. There will certainly be a flood of documentaries, books and movies on this subject for the years to come. People will not forget and forgive what happened this year.

My wife has been working from home since the outbreak, and taking care of our daughter at home as well. She was overwhelmed. Late Summer, she decided to leave the job and focus on our daughter and think about her next step in career. She quitted the job in Oct. Her decision does put pressure on me to keep my job. Fortunately, I do enjoy my work so far, and I think it's a good fit. It does influence my working relationship with colleagues however, as I am more accommodating to others so that I don't get a negative feedback that will impact my career. There is one individual in the office has been on my nerve because she often took credit of my team's work and she liked to give orders to us. I have been trying to remedy the situation. It's getting better, but I doubt if there is ever going to be an end. Maybe it's just the reality of corporate working relationship. 

My wife's decision has its ramification financially, but I anticipate no major long term impact on quality of life. We are fortunate that our savings were not impacted by the pandemic. I expect her break is temporary and I remain cautiously optimistic on our financial future. 

One alarming trend of spending I did notice in 2020, is the expense on wardrobe and kitchenware upgrade. In 2020, I sold a few chef knives and cookware through company's trading email list but quickly upgraded to higher price items. So not really a downsizing exercise. My outdoor clothing collection also exploded. I have over a hundred technical outdoor clothing today. These upgrades costing thousands of dollars. One reason as I mentioned in the last annual letter was that I was compelled not to miss a deal. Another reason, I felt the lack of opportunity to experience the tool causing me to buy more. Almost like I was trying to compensate the experience by buying the tool, but not realizing the tool will only give the experience when you use it. In 2021, I need to spend more effort experiencing rather than buying the tools.  

Speaking of experience, I bought a small belt grinder machine around Christmas. The machine turned out surprisingly effective, and more importantly, it gave me some new experience. I bought it because I needed to thin a knife that I bought earlier. The knife was too thick and I found it painfully slow to grind it thin by hand. So I did some research and ended up buying this cheap grinder. I spent couple days using it and really enjoyed it. I look forward to sharpen my friends knives. I also sent one of my Wusthof carbon knife to Carter for repair. The blade was slightly bend, but I love how the knife feel in my hand so I didn't give it up. I found a youtube video where Carter demonstrates how to fix a bent knife. I was convinced. The shipping and repair was not cheap, but he did a great job, I certainly enjoyed the knife more, and won't let it go.

My table tennis practices stopped since the pandemic, but I have been playing once a week with my dad and a friend living on the island. So I am not completely out of practice. I upgraded my paddle, which now I have grown into. I am also starting to run again and sometimes bring my daughter with me. She is doing surprisingly well. 

Our family relationship continues to hinge on our daughter. Everyone has different opinions and strong views on things. It's difficult to reconcile and align. Everybody wants to rule the world as I call it. No one is always right, but no one wants to admit it. 

Since last year, we have started to use our fire place. It was really nice. We have plenty of the wood left my the previous house owner and it took a lot of space in the storage. It will last for years at our rate of burning. I plan to use it more often this year.

Not many good movies came to mind in 2020, only "the croods new age". It's highly entertaining. We watched it with our daughter and everyone enjoyed it. Music wise, no recommendation on CDs, but really enjoyed the mix from David August for Boiler Room, Hernan Cattaneo b2b Nick Warren @ Caffee Del Mar,  DJ Tiesto Tomorrowland 2019, Tangerine Dream @ Boiler Room.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 70

2019, what a year!

Returning from the year end vacation in Mexico, I jumped right back into work. I wasn't enjoying the work during that time and I had to drag myself out of bed to work in the morning. I told myself that I am a professional, I will show up, do the work, and come back for the next day. And that was what I did.

By March, things at work seemed to slow down, and my team was planning for the upcoming global team meeting in Japan. I was invited to join as well, which made me very excited. I booked a flight at personal expense between Japan and China, and hope I could take the opportunity to visit Shanghai as well.

Until one day everything turned 180 degree. In retrospective, there have been signs that the manager started to collect evidences against me to let me go. I was at the time still have hope that I learned the lessons and I could prevail despite that my former Amazon friend warned me that that was how it all started before she got kicked out. That day eventually came. One Friday, the manager sat me down with HR and lay out the options: either take the severance package and leave, or stay and finish some challenging projects. If I'm not able to finish the projects to their standards, I would still leave with half of the severance package. By that time, I have sensed what's coming, so it was not a complete surprise. I left the meeting with a week to "think about the options".

Fortunately, I have a lot of support from my friends who lived through the exact experiences. I received a lot of encouragement and assurance that I could easily find another job. My friends suggest I tell the company that I would leave with severance in the following Friday to maximize the "pay time". I had a different idea though. If I stay for the week, I will still be professional and try to finish the challenge projects that they intentionally arranged for me. Why give the company that pleasure if they don't value me at the first place? I have told my friends that I would join them at the 15 years high school reunion in Shanghai (a nice coincidence), and now I had to skip it if I stay working for the week. It was a trade off between money and my happiness. I leaned towards one options but I didn't make the final call until I went to work the following Monday. As I was sat in the office and reviewing the emails, it became clear to me that I needed to quit. I notified the manager in the morning and I left he company that afternoon. When I close all my documents and turn in the laptop, I realized that I don't need to work on these shitty tasks. I was overwhelmed by a surreal feeling of relieve. This time, I chose happiness over money.

A few coworkers are shocked to find out that I'm no longer with the company the next day. I met them around the company campus to say goodbye. It was very strange feeling to be on the campus as an outsider. Somewhere in me, there is still a slice of bitterness and resentment to what happened to me.

So I took the lost on the air fair from Japan to Shanghai and bought a new one direct from Seattle to Shanghai. I decided to go back as promised and had some fun.

And I had fun. I stayed at my aunt's place in Shanghai, and spend some quality time catching up with my nephews and nieces. I attended the 15 years high school reunion, and had a blast. I also connected to a professional table tennis player and had a training session. It was a great trip, a necessary break before my next job.

I started my search right away after I came back. I quickly narrowed my focus on a few companies, and eventually decided on MS. I was introduced to a MS employee through a former Amzn coworker who I was nice to. She became my referral and helped me review resume and suggested the position that I should focus on. I followed her advice and submitted my applications. It took me about a month to get my resume polished and submitted. And then, the waiting game began.

About the same time, we were on schedule for our Hawaii vacation. This is on our in-laws bucket list, and we booked the trip before I left my last job. It was a big group, 4 seniors, a 9 year old and us. My cousin in California were also there vacation so we got the chance to meet them as well. It was a great vacation, as usual, we were under prepared for the water sports gears. Thankfully, my cousin have been there many times and lend us some gears so everyone is able enjoy some water time. There are some very very beautiful days, just bit hot. My father in law got motion sickness as we travel in the mountains and he certainly didn't enjoy it as much as we could. I have to say, the water is not as clear as in Cozumel for snorkeling, at least comparing the two places I have visited. 

One week on the vacation, I started to get phone calls from MS for phone interviews. I was able squeeze some time to go through the first round of HR phone screens. By the time we return from the vacation, I was scheduled for hiring manager phone interviews.

Things then started to going to the right direction. I was invited to onsite interview, and after several round of interviews, I was offered the job. I was satisfied with the compensation and position. I have another month before I start.

During the break at home, I tackled some house projects that have been on the list for quite a while. First, I replaced the two toilets, then, learned electrical to replace light switches and a ceiling light. I also finally added the door trim for the entrance inside the garage.

On Sept. 9th, I started my new job. It felt good. The new company has different vibe for sure, and I like it so far, there are some team member issue but I will talk about in the next letter.

We hosted three parties this year, started with our annual Chinese new year with old friends at the beginning of the year. When my folks went to California to stay with my cousin, we invited our neighbor over for our very first "neighbor getting together lunch". The last one with my MS referrals to thank her for her help.

This year, we got hit by some big repair and replacement bills. First, we replace the garage door in the winter time. It was a cold winter, so I added a few paper insulation around the garage door. I forgot to take them off the next day when I opened the garage door. The paper got jammed and caused the door panel going out of alignment with the track. I tried to fix it, but failed. So I called Costco to replace the garage door, as it was a old wooden door due for replacement any way.

In the following late fall, things start to break down around the house again. First, the water heater started to leak, and we had to replace them (again, old units due for replacement). Right after, the minivan driving belt and water pump broke and needed to be replace. Around the same time, the fridge gave up and stopped to freeze. The replacement cost of water heater is about 50% more than in Ohio (as we replaced one in Ohio as well). We sent the minivan to a Chinese garage (based on the recommendation from my mom's Chinese wechat group). It was cheaper than the dealer, but it took two weeks, so there was a trade off.

As for the fridge, I searched the youtube for videos on how to fix the problem and tried myself, but it didn't work. I finally spent $90 for some appliance guy to inspect the problem, he spent 10 minutes and told us that it would cost about $1600 to fix it. That is practically the price of a new fridge. We decided to replace the fridge. Not convinced that the fridge would took $1600 to fix, I asked the new appliance delivery guy to move the old fridge to the basement instead of hauling away. I hoped that one day I could fix it somehow because the fridge still looks new and it's just wasteful to throw it away.

Then something interesting happened. The new fridge had some issue with the interior lights. They didn't come on when the door was open. I had to call the company and scheduled the repair. The Tech came two days later. He was a Chinese. I asked him to look at the old fridge as well hoping he could identify the problem and give me lower quote than $1600 to fix. He looked at it and quoted me $700 to fix the problem. I was glad to hear that, he ordered the parts and came back two more times to put in the fix and inspected the result. Now we have two working fridge, which works well with us because we tend to haul food a lot.

In 2019, the family relation took a negative turn. It's not easy for a family of five living together and everyone has opinion on how things should be done. Many fiery exchanges triggered by child education. Our daughter has not been easy to deal with. She is easily distracted, and have trouble following directions. I am sure my daughter will call her mom a helicopter mom if she understands what it means. Right now, I don't have a good solution, only hope it goes away once my daughter starts to behave.

Pingpong has became my new passion this year. I started to spend money trying different paddles, also expanded my wardrobe for it. MS actually has a program that I can use for sports equipment purchase reimbursement. I bought a new paddle set up(more expensive, over $100). I like it so far. I played in the local church Tuesday night and weekends afternoon every week. In fall, the Sunday afternoon session got cancelled, so I had to find other places to play. I found a club in Bellevue that opens Sunday morning and signed up. There are mostly 1 on 1 play in the club (vs. double in the church), so I need to adjust a bit. I continue to practices at home with the iRobot whenever I feel like it after work.

In 2019, my technical wardrobe expended significantly. We have been buying online and from a retail store 2 hours drive from where we live. I love colorful technical jacket. There are so many grey and black in Seattle, I don't like it, so I am making a statement I guess. Since I shop deals for the whole gang, the whole family wardrobe is updated. My "retired" technical clothing got handed down to my dad, and his "retired" clothing got donated. I now have an extend collection of technical wear with various color, style, insulation material, DWR coating. Unfortunately, I don't see this trend stop, as I could always find deals on these and I hardly say no to deals...

This year movie, other the Marvel Avenger End Game that I watched in iMax, nothing else came to mind at the moment. Two movies in 2019 "The Green Book" and "Bombshell" that I watched in 2020 are good, but nothing that I watched in 2019.  Music wise: Balance Present Sudbeat from Hernan Cattaneo (listening to it right now in fact "life is a wonderful abnormally), and Balance 029 James Zabiela are so good that I bought both CDs.

Financially, we are doing ok, other than the repair bills that I mentioned earlier. I set up a $518/month cadence to investment account. I maxed out the 401k account before I left the previous company, but it turned out not the best idea. MS actually has a much better matching program, so I lost that. I did the tax myself this year, and it took me less time to prepare this year.

Right around the holiday season, I thought it only make sense that I would buy a XBox because I worked for MS. So I did. The machine was overpowering the TV, so I had to upgrade my TV to 4K as well. My company has an annual game pass for us, so I can play a few free games. I had to say, it was under utilized. I simply don't have that much time to play games now.

2019 is like a roller coast year, with pronounced ups and downs. Job change was a big deal, but glad that it worked out. 2020 is an important year with major life changes, but I will address that in the next annual letter

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 69

2018 went by fast!

We finally found our new home and moved out of our apartment in Feb. The first thing I did was to replace all the light bulbs to LED. Then, I started my painting journey to fresh up the look of the house. In the following 5 months, I painted the four bedrooms(including taking down wall paper in one of the bedroom before painting), one basement room, two bathrooms and over 20 doors. I also cleaned and refinished the wood trim. It was a big undertaking, but I am glad it’s done. I got most of the paints as “mistinted” from the paint stores and I was lucky to find a few good colors including a pink color for Alice’s room. Once the room is painted, we replaced the carpet in the living room, stairs and one bedroom. They were in horrible shape. We still have the basement and three bedroom carpet need to be replaced, but that will be future projects. 

We hauled a few free furniture to fill the home after we moved in. There is an email list in my company for people to trade stuff. Sometimes people give away furniture, provided that I pick them up myself. I made a few of those trips for several bookcase, three desks, dressers for my parents and Alice, and two sofa. All in great condition. I was able to get rid of some cookware through that email list as well as I changed to the induction cooktop in the new house.  

Once all the home projects are done, I started to look to change team. My team at the time wasn’t doing well, and the team mates weren’t strong. I looked around and quickly found a similar role in a different team. After couple interviews, I moved to the new role in July. I also explored another PM role at the same time but didn’t get it. I did enjoy the chat with the hiring manager so I asked him for being my mentor, and he agreed. The new teammates are strong, and I do see things that I can learn.

Soon after I joined the new team, I started to playing pingpong with the software guys in the office. I haven’t played since secondary school, but I was still able to dust off my skills and beat them. I have been getting more and more serious about the game and watching videos online to learn the technics. My mom even found some community center in town that have tables for people to play throughout the weeks. I now have options to play during week days in the evening or weekends in the afternoon. It’s a good exercise for my parents too. I take them to play in the local community center during the weekend and my dad met some people from his hometown in China. It became a social events for him. I get more exercise as well.

I started to run again during the weekends since the house is close to the parks. The view along the way is very pleasant, but the route shares the road with traffic so it’s not a quite run in the woods. I signed up the half marathon in March 2019 just to prove that I still got it. Fortunately, one of the best work perks is that the massage is covered under health insurance. I started working with a therapist for a year now it helped with my recovery. I now have monthly appointments.

In 2018, I started the hi-fi reboot by selling my Logitech 5.1 speakers, and trading some used speakers and amplifiers from the company mailing list and local thrift stores. It was a lot of fun. The performance of the speakers doesn’t disappoint. I bought a set of speakers through company email, and eventually turn around sold it as I didn’t like it that much. I did learn from the experience and started to noticed the difference in sound. I appreciate the music better than before. There are a lot new music I come to appreciate in 2018, but Alison kraus and union station’s “you say better when you say nothing at all” is particularly worth mentioning.

The memorable movies in 2018 include Ready Player 1, and three billboard outside of ebbing Missouri. I also revisited AI and Minority Report and found both movies excellent. I saw those movies before and watching them again brought new appreciation. I watched Avengers Infinity War in IMAX, and I wasn’t blown away by it. Few months later, I caught up with all the previous Avengers movies, then I realized how many details I have missed in the Infinity War. Now I have high anticipation on the last installment of the movie which will come out next month.

2018 is not a good year on finance. We made several financial mistakes that I think we can avoid and some unforeseen costly events. First, I decided to try a CPA for tax filing. I go the referral from our friend and hired a CPA in Ohio to do the tax. I thought the filing would be complicated due to the moving state, and selling the house. In retrospect, it’s not that complicated. What ended up happening is that we missed several tax due dates and had to pay penalties. That was painful, I don’t recall we ever paid late penalty for tax when we did our own tax. Hiring a CPA to do tax doesn’t mean letting go the whole process.

The second financial mistake is that we overfunded the FSA and by the end of year, we still have a thousand dollars in the account that we didn’t use, and we couldn’t get it out. Seriously, a thousand dollar wasted!

Third, my wife underfunded her 401K plan in 2018 by thousands. We usually max out our 401K but my wife somehow missed the target by a large margin. This will impact our retirement projection, and let’s hope this doesn’t happen again.

Another money eater in 2018 is the legal fee for the neighbor easement dispute. The neighbor uphill has been trying to cut trees in our backyard in the last two centuries. The previous owner has been fighting them since the beginning because the cutting could potential damage the soil and cause landslide. The neighbor has been trying tactics to get us agree to let them do it. We had to get a lawyer involved so that there are no misunderstanding and miscommunications on what’s allowed and what’s not. This costed money, and we still see no ending of this. This neighbor will keep bugging us, and every time he does, we need to get the lawyer to respond. I am anticipating another letter from him and I will ask the lawyer to issue an ultimatum to tell him to stop harassing us.

One unfortunately event that also costed us is an accident happened in the memorial day. My in laws came into town to visit before they flied to Shanghai. My mother in law jumped over a steep steps on the lawn and fell. She broke her FEMA and had to get to hospital. We were so inexperienced and tried to go to the right hospital because she doesn't have insurance. We ended up having to change the hospital because the first one doesn't have necessary equipment for xray. We then had to call another EMS to transfer her. She had the surgery the next day and stayed in the hospital for several weeks. They missed the flight for sure and they lived with us after she came back from the hospital for recovery. Fortunately, the hospital approved our application to waive the fee due to their income status. We still need to pay for the EMS, and our home insurance went up after this incident as well.   

We started to look into Will last year, because it was covered under the legal benefit that I enrolled. However, we never follow it through. 

The food theme changed a bit after we moving to Seattle. We have a lot more Asian food grocery stores to shop from. We went to couple local restaurants and buffets and are pleased with most of them. I also love the local wine at Costco, they are cheap and cheerful. I bought couple variety of beer from my friends’ husband this year. Some of them are good, but consistency is lacking.

We finally got time for vacation this Christmas. We went to an all inclusive resort in Mexico. It was not a long flight, and we spent all the days in the hotel. It was ok, worth going once, I guess. I wish the food is better. The swimming pool is not that clean. The unlimited drink is an overkill for us. I remember the checkout day wrong and almost missed the flight on that last day. Fortunately, we realized it the last minute and got back home as original planned.

Close to the end of the year, I got bitten by a wardrobe upgrade bug. My original line up for work was completed replaced except one merino shirt. Thousands of dollars were spent on technical shirts, jackets and sweaters. I got them on sales, and they do look great. They keep me motivated to stay fit.

Alice settles into the new school well. She is in violin, Chinese dance, and Kungfu classes. Not much changed from living in Ohio. My parents are more and more accustomed to the city, they bus around town for English classes, shopping and Chinese senior activities. My wife has found local dance classes as well. Everyone has some activities, that’s good.

As for my work, it’s not that glamorous as it sounds working in my company.  It was ok, but I do love the fact that I can use shuttle bus to work. I will keep my options open in the coming years. My wife will keep her eyes open as well.

Beethoven In Trance - Episode 68

Today is 05/22/2018. We are in Seattle!

A year in motion

2017 started off great. I accepted a job offer and moved to Seattle in March, while my family stayed in Ohio to sell the house and wait till my daughter to finish the school.

As part of the relocation package, my wife and I came to the state before the final move date to check on the housing and Washington state in general. We spent 3 days in Seattle and looked a few houses and visited our friends. After 3 days, I checked into the company assigned apartment (as the part of the relocation package). 3 days is really short considering that 1 day is used on transportation and moving to the new apartment. We did enjoy our short stay and looked forward to the final move. My company is a big tech company. The hiring philosophy is that the new hire needs to be 50% better than the existing one in the same job. The caliber of the team varies among groups but I appreciate the opportunity nevertheless.

Living by myself in an apartment was new to me, as I always live with my wife since I came to the states. I definitely noticed my shopping behavior scaled down along with my personal consumption. It was a pretty steep "ramp up" (as it was called internally) due to the complexity of the business my team dealt with. I was working week days and weekends to catch up.  It was not too difficult though because I was alone and life was relatively simple. I commuted by bus and it was about 1 hour in and 1 hour out. I didn't find it too bad though, as I usually took a nap on the bus or just simply clear my head sitting on the bus.

3 month in the job, I felt better about it because I realized that no one else would be able to do what I do, and if there is one, then that person is not doing it for the salary that I was getting.  That's when I stopped working in the weekends.

After six week, I moved into another apartment that is close to where my wife would be working. In early June, my family finally came joining me in Seattle. Our furniture came about two days after my family landed, as well as our cars. We had to rent a storage unit because we are limited by space in our two bedroom apartment. If we were doing it again, we should have sold most of the stuff back in Ohio before we move, as our Ikea furniture doesn't worth much and it's easy to get second hand furniture at bargain price here in Seattle. A lot of time I can even get them for free. There are a lot of people moving in and out in the area and it's easy to find free stuff if you keep an eye on things. My company even has an internal email listing for employees to sell their stuff. I have been using it to get rid of stuff that I found little or no use in Seattle, and at the same time, hauling free stuff from people all around Seattle. We paid over 2K for all the stuff about 10 month, but the stuff itself might not even worth that much. We did get convenience but, it did cost us.

We didn't get the chance to do any vacation this year. We did go to state parks in the Summer. Alice loves the beach park where she could flip over rocks and find crabs. We even found a live sea star one day on the beach. We also hiked a few state parks and saw water falls. The best part of the summer is that I got the chance to swim in the lake after work then go home for dinner afterwards. It was a fun summer outdoors.

In Oct, I had an opportunity to travel to Luxembourg for work. It was my first trip to Europe and I enjoyed it. Lux is pretty. Amazon office is located in a park setting, I even got a chance to run around the campus. After the business in Lux, I traveled to Berlin to visit my good friends from high school. It was a great time with them despite the weather in Berlin was miserable. 

While living in the apartment was easy on my wife's commute to work and I could use company shuttle bus to work. We are not complete happy with the school district and the public transportation. My parents were still limited to where they can go. We were actively looking for houses and kept exploring the region to find the perfect location that suits all of our needs: easy access to the public transportation, good schools, and easy commute to work. We finally decided on Mercer Island as it check off a lot of boxes on our wish list. The price tag is hefty but my parents pitched in and made it possible for us to finance the purchase. At the end of the 2018, we finally bought a house on the island and were scheduled to move in the next Feb.  Moving into the house means more time spent on maintenance of the house, which I will talk abut in the next annual letter.

There is a iMax movie theater in downtown and is close to my office. I took the advantage to take the afternoon off and go watching movie, then went back to shuttle bus to go home. iMax is awesome. I watched Bladerunner 2047, and Dunkirk there. I wasn't disappointed. Another movie worth mentioned is Windriver. The best Oscar worthy movie is the three billboards outside of Ebbing Missouri.

While my settling in in Seattle was moving forward, my career wasn't advancing as I hoped. My team was broken apart after 6 month I joined. My team then was merged to another group, my responsibility extended but not in a good way. At the time of this writing, I am looking for opportunities in other groups. My observation of the people in the company so far is that there are a lot of people with interesting background to show for during the interview, but that doesn't translate into their work performance.

I sometimes asked myself if it was worth to move out here. From my career stand point, right now, it was not a step up, but a step down. I told myself that sometime one needs to move down in order to move up. My parents are having a much better time in Seattle than in Ohio, and we believe the big city will provide better career opportunities for our daughter in the future as well. The quality of living here in Seattle is better, it costs more, but the city does have a lot to offer.

Another benefit of living here is that we have two good friends here in the state. We continued our tradition of annual backyard party in our apartment. It was a great time despite the limited space.

In 2018, our focus will be settling in the new house, change my job in the company, and start enjoying the life is Seattle. It would be an interesting 2018.