I’m finding myself wondering what I’ve done in my life. This is a blog of my 2009, just to remind me 20 years from now, what life was like in 2009.

2009 started cold. Well, that’s a given since I’m living in MN. New Years Eve was spent with Kayla, Kris, Lauren and a few others. I flew to Malaysia in January for Chinese New Year. I stopped by in South Korea first. Spent the evening exploring what’s to eat in Seoul with Rachel. She had flew there to visit her cousin. I had a 23.5 hours layover. I remembered it was cold. Just like in MN. Got to KL the next day, tired as heck. My mom and brother picked me up from the airport.

I spent most of CNY with the family. Didn’t do much other than be home, have breakfast with dad and went shopping with mom. Got into some arguments with my bro, as usual. But we’re family, so things are easily forgotten. Visited my cousins and uncle in Penang. The drive to my uncle’s place usually takes 5-6 hours with dad in the car. This time, it only took 3 hours 45 mins.

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This is what I learned today. To get sound working over HDMI for a PC, you’ll need to get video card driver installed (since HDMI is technically on the video card) and the kicker is you need to have the correct display resolution in order for it to output sound. So, if you see an option for 1280 X 800 but the “recommended” is 1900 X 1080, you need to select the latter.

I just don’t get why the video card driver can’t have a little more intelligence in it – don’t display the resolutions that will not support both audio and video. And don’t let you see a HDMI sound option unless you’ve got the video card installed… Otherwise, there’s a lot of endless loops you’ll be sending people chasing after.

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Between work and personal life, I’m not sure how my life got so complicated. As time goes on, I find myself holding on to more and more crap. Why is that?

I also find myself with more bills and more things that I don’t really need. I would go into times where I want something for a while and then not. It goes for many things in my life.

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I went to Kansas City, MO on 12/3/09 to watch Metric, The Bravery, Spoon and Hockey play. Spoon was headlining and Metric was the second band to play. They played for 30 minutes and it was amazing to watch them perform songs from Fantasies.

Here’s a video clip. I have still hands.

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As humans, we have basic needs – air to breathe, water to keep our bodily functions working, food to give us energy, etc. Once we figured out how to get the basics, we work on figuring out what’s next. At some point in time, human began to think about fire. Fire lead to cooked meals. Cooked meals led to many other things.

The point is… Once we get what we are looking for, we move on, to something that we want. The want becomes a need. The need is sometimes in the form of invention or it can be as simple as friendship. As we evolve, our needs evolve as well. Our needs get bigger and bigger. It’s not supposed to stop. We will continue to want something new, something better.

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The View for the Basswood Room

You know how some people talk about moons aligning for something to happen? Well, this is kind of how I found Thimbleberry Inn. I had wanted to take pictures of the Fall but wasn’t thinking about driving far for it. I had wanted a vacation but am really afraid to take more than a day off at a time because of my crazy work schedule – I do sometimes live around my work.

I had decided to take Friday off and had no plans. The night before, I had thought about Bayfield because I remembered it being on Lake Superior and it’s been a place that I’ve wanted to visit. I looked up some hotel information. Found a couple of Inns and I had decided to call them up. Everyone I had talked to sounded the same – told me how much a room was going to cost me and what they included – a continental breakfast.

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Many people including myself don’t realize how much of a hypocrite we are. We know and hate the things that bother us but yet we find reasons and justifications to tell ourselves that what we’re doing is different. And that is okay. I do hope that someone somewhere would remind me if I’m out of line when I am.

But then again, is it just being human that there’s no real black and white approach to things? Everything is okay, with the exception that sometimes, there are just maybes that will make it okay to do things a little differently. Should everything have a maybe? Maybe… (puns intended).

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The incredible feeling you get when you’re on vacation disappears quickly when you get back to reality. First day back at work and all the pressure is back on. I know it’s just something that I do to myself now and forever and it’s just who I am.

So, the question that came to mind today over and over again. Is past performance a predictor of future conditions? You know, that famous line when they advertise about stocks? Well, I know they are covering their ass when they use that line. Isn’t that telling us that history doesn’t matter? Well, for stocks, perhaps – companies change daily.

What if you took that into another context? Say someone you worked with? If they made a mistake and is eager to fix it? And the trend continues… Well, I wouldn’t fault them for making the mistake but I would caution them before they start something new. What if someone makes a mistake and passes it off as just the way it is? And what if something they did negatively affects you? Would you think I hold a grudge if I’m going to be cautious when I ask them to do something the second time around?

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Fall Colors

Leaves changing colors

Colors on Trees

Berries

I would call this a pretty spontaneous trip. I had previously talked to my friend Josh about capturing Fall colors and we had decided to take Friday off and head out to Taylor Falls to spend a day taking pictures. Josh bailed on me and so I had to decide if I wanted to go through with it or go back to work.

It was not until Thursday evening that I decided that I should get out of town and make this a longer trip than just a day trip. I looked at the map and remembered about Apostle Islands. I keep hearing about it but haven’t really looked into it until now. I called a few places in Bayfield, WI and most of them did not pass the gut test.

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It’s hard to explain to someone what I do for work. Truth is, I do what’s needed. Most people think I studied in IS and that’s the field that I’m in. Truthfully, that’s not what I went to school for and it’s something that I did not finish. Well, the story goes like this. I had thought that I might need a second thing when I wasn’t finding my thing in Electrical Engineering. So, I dabbled into getting myself MCSE certified. I got as far as taking 1/6 classes.

Well, fortunately for me, I did finish my Electrical Engineering degree. I then found myself a job doing a lot of systems integration. Putting robots together, programming, vision systems, and just engineering. This is when I did a little IT on the side. Well, I maintained the server and workstations for my company. So much for side-job right? If I had to find one my thing in life, it would be that I do what’s needed. Too bad, a resume can’t be written that way.

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