Because My Life has been Boring in Trichotomy

That’s the reason I have for not writing.

Middle Management

I’ve been a tech-lead for 2+ months now and I cannot say I have enjoyed it. As an engineer I have a short set of objectives to build something that fulfills a need, but as a lead, I spend my time running around meeting people to get them to build something to fulfill a need. If the people under me are competent, then I’m superfluous, if not, there isn’t much I can do to change it, so it’s not an enjoyable point to be in. I’d talked to my boss to try to get myself demoted (I’d still get paid the same, just not do the same job function), but decided I’ll give it till the end of the year since no one can take the tech-lead position yet. I’ve been secretly training the Columbia post-doc to be exposed to more part of my project, so hopefully if I want to switch by the end of the year he can take over.

I also accepted to become a board member of the amateur musicians group’s Board of directors. I’d only been to one meeting, and it was not as bad as everyone said it is. Even the Annoying Harpist Lady made good points and thoughtful contributions - she just had a difficult time shutting up. But it’s clear that the organiser wants to take the organisation in a different direction - instead of providing a forum for amateur musicians to get together to perform, he wants it to become an arts organisation, with primary goal of giving concerts, generating publicity, and building an audience. With that goal in mind, he concocted several plans that would result in us giving a concert at the main auditorium (Stern) at Carnegie Hall, including: partnering with other amateur orchestra/choir, forming an alliance with other arts organisation, or involving a (still-undecided) non-profit organisation to raise-funds for. and a lot of it would result in our core members being excluded from the Carnegie program, which would alienate them. In the end he abandoned the idea because the rental cost is prohibitive, but it is also clear that he does not see serving the current crop of core members as a priority.

Many of the justifications he brought up while generating his plan for us to bend over backwards just to get a concert at Stern was actually meaningful - he pointed out there is a niche for an umbrella amateur musician organisation in the area, or using fund-raisers as a means to generate publicity. None of those actually necessitate a concert at Stern, but were valid points nonetheless. I wonder if he’s going to pursue them now that Stern is out of the picture.

I can sort-of see why he want to expand the membership because the organisation is on a non-sustainable path. (Last year the Zankel Hall lost us a whole lot of money - it was only 2/3 sold, and if we didn’t have the Zankel Hall concert, we would be just barely in the black. However, that was only because our rental hall screwed up one of our concerts last summer and ended up giving us several rentals for free, so we got lucky/unlucky there.) However, the way he is going about it - inserting professional-level ringers into the Carnegie Hall concerts, limiting the scope of regular concerts - is alienating a lot of the core members and has undone any expansion work he’s doing.

The Japanese pianist and the Annoying Harpist Lady both pointed out the need to cater to more diverse level of musicians, so they are going to trying doing a Masterclass with the Japanese pianist. I’ll see how that turns out, but I’m not optimistic; a masterclass is pretty limited in scope (people will only play Bach WTC), so I won’t be surprised if there is a limited reaction. I had an idea to run a workshop, like the way the Opera Performance group or the Art Song group used to do, where it’s a very informal 2 hours for people to test/present stuff the are working on. It’ll also give people a chance to network too. I’d written to the Art Song Group’s Organiser and he said it had very good reaction when he ran it, so I’ll suggest it after the Workshops.

It does feel strange on the other side ‘making decisions’. But I’m increasingly aware that, just because I’m making decisions doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing.

• S

CA visit

I was sent to New Hip Company Headquarters last month to meet with a coworker based in Singapore, so we can take over the XML parser that he’s been maintaining and had been trying to transfer ownership to us. Technically it’s my co-worker who is taking over, but I am also going to the knowledge transfer meetings to ‘oversee’ the transfer as the tech-lead. It was very productive, not just for the XML parser, but also because I figured out how New Hip Company’s buses work, found New Hip Company’s piano rooms, squeezed in time to visit the Piano Student Ex-Classmate, the New Father Ex-Classmate, Lovely Girl, and my family in Sacramento.

My co-worker actually planned the whole thing - booking the rooms, arranging the agenda, and taking notes, so I didn’t really have to do or plan much. So most of the time I was just working as normal. The highlights of the days were not work-related.

We arrived Monday, and had dinner with our Singaporean co-worker in downtown Mountain View at a Mongolian hot pot, and I discovered that I liked it.

Tuesday night I went to visit New Father Ex-Classmate, whose kids are now in 5th and 6th grades now; they seem to be the perfect Chinese kids - over achieving and obedient, but I still remember when they were babies. Nothing like children to remind you of how fast time flies. We again went to downtown Mountain View for food, even though they live in Palo Alto, but this time we had Hong Kong bistro.

On Wednesday I took the time to explore New Hip Company’s music practice rooms scattered at a collection of remote building that looks like an abandoned mall (the company’s visitor center is also in the area; I think these are second-tier buildings that no one visits often). I discovered that they got a few uprights, some drum sets, a harpsichord (that was loaned from someone in the company), and a very old grand piano with serious action problems in the practice rooms.

Thursday night I visited Lovely Girl; she seemed much better than last time I saw her, but still bitter about her divorce, and still blaming herself for getting into the situation in the first place. But she is on the mend now, and seeing a therapist has helped a lot. So I was at least glad she is getting help.

On Friday the Piano Student Ex-Classmate visited, and I took her to the afore-mentioned practice room. I also managed to book the auditorium (because it was Friday night) where there was a Bosendorfer grand piano. I did not expect it to be one of those designed by Audi (http://www.boesendorfer.com/en/special-and-designer-models/audi-design), so I was pleasantly surprised. I tried it and PSEC tried it. The piano was very forgiving, as it would moderate everything you do to a comfortable middle, so you can’t do anything too extreme, and can’t play too loud, soft, harsh, weak, etc. So whatever you play, it would just sound normalized. I also realized that I don’t have a repertoire anymore that I can just pull out. I could play “Ave Maria” and “Alt Wien” (because I just performed it at the amateur musician’s concert in January) and “Je Te Veux”, but that’s pretty much it. I should pick up a few pieces to work on this year.

For the week I stayed at Sunnyvale, and the hotel did not have very good Wifi. I was happy that I still have an unlimited data plan with Verizon, as I just used it to satisfy all my internet needs. And it was fast.

On Saturday I checked out of my hotel and took the Caltrain to San Jose and transferred to the Amtrak to Sacramento. I met up with [spencer], his wife, and our parents. It was a pleasant visit. I don’t like to visit often or for long, as it tends to get unpleasant when I stay too long.

The next day, on Sunday, my father drove me to the airport, and talked at length about the family drama he was having with the siblings, caused by - to me - stupid reasons. Some wanted to save face and not admit being bullied by his wife, some spent all his inheritance living the life and a mistress and tried accounting tricks on his share of the family company to get a few more dollars, some wanted to dictate the medical care his brother should get when the brother was sick and override the wishes of the child or wife, some was hiding details about the execution of their father’s will, the list goes on and on… They whole thing just sounded stupid to me.

I was glad to come home.

• N

Party with Friends

Since the last time I wrote, we had no fewer than 3 musical gatherings. We hosted one on New Years Eve. It was to be an alcohol tasting party, and we invited La Professeure’s co-workers and many of the music friends. A lot of people came, and I don’t even remember the whole list. The Treasurer brought her own small group (most of them we already knew), but each of the 3 groups pretty much stayed to themselves. I didn’t drink, but I don’t remember much from the party, except that there were some music playing, Dramatic Soprano’s Vocal Coach getting drunk, and for it being a stressful time. Whenever we host a lot of people, La Professeure would take over to make sure everything is ‘just right’, but because I have no sense of what is ‘just right’, I rely exclusively on her instructions to set up the place. Some, like the practice of preparing about 3 time more food than consumable by the party, makes little sense to me (I would shoot for 150%). In any case, when it gets to crunch time, she wouldn’t be able to give me detailed enough instructions, and thus I wouldn’t be able to follow them, and then she would get frustrated with me and interpret my incompetence as me being angry at being given instructions. So that part was not fun.

I think we just shouldn’t handle that many guests by ourselves.

Two days after the New Years Eve party, we went to the Treasurer’s for another party. I don’t remember much from it either, except I think it was a ‘dumplings’ themed party. There was a lot of music playing, some of it was opera (with Dramatic Soprano, and her Starter Friend), some of it 80s music that I don’t know about. So that part was boring. But it was a fun time on the whole. Last week we went to the ENT doctor’s again for another party. I think as we do more and more of these, they tend to blend together. I remember there being a lot of music-playing, a lot of hanging out with ENT doctor’s wife’s friends, and a lot of very good food.

PR visit

Last week I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico for 3 days, for New Hip Company’s off-site. Basically to spend time with my co-workers, paid by the company, to bond?

In any case, it was a fun experience on the whole. San Juan is beautiful. Our hotel sit just next to the beach, so we could go on the pool, take walks on the beach, or get drinks at the beach bar. It reminded me of the resort hotel we spent in Myrtle Beach last August.

My team spent most of the time with each other, and planned out the one full day we had. We chartered a sail boat in the morning to sail out to San Juan bay. The bay itself was nothing special, but the boat was the fun part. It was a bit strange to be sailing and hearing no engine sound. The best part was when the boat tilts to the side, and I could stretch out my arm to touch the water. It was also startling how fast the boat an accelerate when the wind picks up. The captain was very chatty and friendly, and suggested several places for us to get lunch - one of them was a chocolate bar in old town, which intrigued everyone.

We got McDonald’s for lunch (my idea; I figured we were pressed for time), and then went to visit the Bacardi rum factory. The Ex-Goldman Engineer co-worker was very exciting about visiting the rum factory (more on her later), and she successfully pushed the agenda through. Unfortunately, because of the timing, we couldn’t join a tour of the distillery (it would involve waiting for an hour, and then taking 1 1/2 hours for the tour itself, and we still wanted to see the old town), so instead we went to visit the museum instead. It was underwhelming, but at least my co-workers get to taste some rum. I just got a virgin mixed drink.

We then went to the fort in old town. It was a good place to look out to San Juan bay, and afforded many great photo ops. That would have been a nice place to relax and enjoy the weather. But just as we left, it started pouring rain. We ran through old town to find the chocolate bar the sailboat captain mentioned. It turns out it has a menu similar to all restaurants, except every single item has chocolate in it. I had, for example, a grill cheese sandwich with chocolate in it. The Ex-Columbia post-doc had a ‘chocolate pizza’ (basically pizza dough, chocolate, and marshmallow, think s’mores but with pizza dough instead of crackers). Ex-Goldman Co-worker has a salad with chocolate shavings (which she said she couldn’t taste). And our Team Leader had chicken tender and fries - with chocolate ketchup. He said it tasted like expired ketchup. So, it’s a hit-and-miss. I liked my food though. The grilled cheese with chocolate would have been better without the cheese (grilled chocolate sandwich sounds like a good idea - put nutella between bread, butter the outside of the bread, grill it lightly, and put powered sugar on it), but it turns out the Puerto Rican eat hot chocolate with cheese in it. It was not bette or worse - just different. Ex-Columbia post-doc got the worst dish for his drink: he got a ‘thick’ chocolate, which has the consistency of pudding, and a taste of sour, sweet, tart, and salty, all mixed together. He had a third of a cup and lost his appetite for the next 8 hours.

At night, we joined the other co-workers from the company to go on a kayaking to a bay where there were bio-luminescent planktons. The bio luminescence was a disappointment, because you could only see sparkles in the water, when we were all expecting light shows like they have in ‘the Life of Pi’. However, the kayaking part was fun. We had to kayak through a mangrove groove to get to the bay, and it was an adventure to be in a tandem kayak, through complete darkness, with the only light that guides you being the glow stick on the kayak in front of you. It was also scary, as there were times when I was 3 inches from being hit by a mangrove branch on my head, and I didn’t know about it until it was past me. It was the night after a new moon, so many stars were visible in the sky, and it made for a very nice viewing. My teammates all partnered up between themselves and I got assigned to a co-worker that I didn’t know and who didn’t speak English well. There were time when I was paddling, and noticed that it was really hard, and when I looked around, I saw that he was just sitting there doing nothing. I was sore the next few days.

Each night, the company would have bar out for people to gather and socialize, and we went to all of those. It was Ex-Goldman co-worker’s first off-site and she took it as a challenge to down as many drinks as possible, and as a result, towards midnight on the first day, she got drunk. She’s a huggy drunk, and started going around putting arms on people and invading their personal space. That made several co-workers uncomfortable. The Canadian Reliability Engineer’s expression was priceless when she went and put her arm around his waist: what are you doing? I don’t know you that well. So we were all a bit embarrassed by her, and it fell to our Team Lead’s job, as her manager, to keep her in check. And it was painful to hear him try to talk to her down, and her getting defensive. Eventually, because I knew we were going sailing the next day and I wanted Dramamine, and everyone wanted to get water to stay hydrated, I proposed going to a walgreen near by. So at least we got her away from the alcohol for her to sober up a bit.

That’s the problem with partying with co-workers: you have to work with them in the office the next day.

• D