Holidays are often an interesting time for me.  Especially when I visit my parents.  I guess it makes me think about family dynamics, and why I visit them - do I feel a sense of obligation?  Of having nothing better to do?  Do I really want to be here?  I think the lesson I have learned over the past year is to listen to all the voices in my heart.  If they are in conflict, there is a deeper issue to resolve.  Fear, uncertainty, lack of confidence - the more those are resolved, the more united my heart will be, and the clearer it is how to live.

I feel content with how this year is ending.  I am very thankful for the friendships I have, true friendship, like life itself, is precious and in many ways so delicate..  I feel lucky to have had the opportunities to enjoy the friendships I have, and to be able to maintain them, despite my sometimes lack of effort.  I was reading my chinese horoscope on facebook today, and it had this to say:

"Dragons are usually popular people, but because of their personalities,
they seem to gather as much criticism as they do esteem. Due to their
tumultuous temperaments, Dragons are not the most sensitive friends to
those in need of a shoulder to cry on. Those who truly know the Dragon
know he is a loving soul who will become your best ally in times of
need. Once the dynamic Dragon has given his friendship, he will not let
his friends down and will never falter in his allegiance to his
companions. To a Dragon, a friend is a friend for a lifetime.
Incredibly honest, Dragons are known for sincerity and are trusting
souls. Because of this honesty, Dragons don't realize others may not
demonstrate or uphold the same codes of ethics. Making the discovery
that they placed their trust in someone who is dishonest makes the
Dragon person quite sad, yet much more perceptive for future encounters."

I guess a lot of that is true for me, but I especially do strive to be there for my friends in their times of need.  And I also hope that is something they know.   Reading the horoscope also brought to mind that there is a curious conflict between being a cancer and a dragon.  Cancers are known to be loving and emotional, sensitive and nurturing, sympathetic and protective, which are certainly characteristics I possess.  And dragons are supposed to be opinionated, egocentric, conceited, prideful.  And those are also characteristics I possess..  But those seem almost like opposites.  How is it that I can have seemingly opposing characteristics??

Ok, enough self evaluation for this post.  I could write more and more but I'm already approaching wall of text status, so best to move on.

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

So I finished this book today.  It was really interesting, I like how it shows some characteristics can really succeed in certain market conditions, and then turn around and punish the same player for lacking another characteristic.  The managers of LTCM were incredibly bright people, lots of PhDs and two nobel prize winners, and they believed so unfailingly in their models..  They took 1 billion of capital and turned it into about 4 billion in their first 4 years..  And then in 2 months lost over 90% of their capital and were on the verge of bankruptcy.  Their intelligence and models carried them for the beginning years, and then their inability to be prudent with leverage, difficulty in working with others (they had treated their banks with disdain, only to come back begging for help), and perhaps most of all their greed and stubbornness (unwillingness to listen to the warning signs) set them up for a giant fall.  The world of finance is quite fascinating in many ways.  It brings together so many contrasts.  There is no one type of person that succeeds most (well, personality-wise that is - I'll admit certain demographics probably have an "advantage").

In a way, I also saw that when I gained and then lost a lot of net worth a few years ago, there was definitely a positive side to it.  I saw that I needed to learn how to be prudent and a little cautious with money, rather than just hope for the best.  Better to learn that lesson with a big loss early on in life, than one late in life.  I also noticed that though for years I have wanted to learn more about managing my finances, I procrastinated..  But in addition to procrastinating, I held myself back in a way from succeeding, subconsciously reasoning if I really succeeded again monetarily and didn't know how to handle it, I might just lose it again (which is at least a logical line of reasoning).  I guess all this is to say that I feel I have a better handle on financial matters recently, and in turn is perhaps creating in me a very unusual state (for me) of actually being interested in my career and sort of wanting to succeed in it.  I think this is actually the first time in life I've ever felt any career ambition.  But then, it could also be I remembered, I want to basically be mostly retired by the time I have kids (so I can spend more time with them and be a good husband and father), so I better hurry and make more money, because if I don't, I can't move on to the next stage of having a family!

Anyone interested in acquiring Will and Grace season 4?  Evidently in some murky haze of DVD purchasing, I seem to have purchased 2 copies of this DVD set.  If anyone wants it let me know, especially if you have some interesting DVDs of your own you are interested in getting rid of and might want to exchange it for.

It's also not the first time that's happened.  I have 2 copies of the (Kiera Knightley) Pride and Prejudice (though my excuse there is one is full screen and the other is wide screen, plus she's so pretty it's worth it to have two copies).  And then multiple copies of various Cure and U2 cds (I forget which ones I've already bought, and sometimes I lose ones I've already bought and have to rebuy them).  Ah well, just another one of my quirks.

http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/122868.html

Sometimes when reading the reviews on amazon.com, I find it funny how people assume that because a signal is digital, it is somehow magically "perfect."  Digital signals are of course subject to degredation just as analog signals are.  Most digital signal systems have both very strict cable requirements and length limitations (eg the familiar cat5 ethernet for 100mbit - up to 100m, cat 5e for 1000 mbit up to 100m, single mode fiber for long distance fiber optics, etc etc), and they also tend to have error correction built in - implying there is the chance of some errors in the signal.  It's interesting when designing HDMI they chose to put no error correction into it.  But maybe that's because (as that article says) HDMI is just exactly DVI with some extra stuff (eg audio).  And it's a lot more reasonable to think they didn't put error correction into DVI.

that I really like rhapsody. Unlimited subscription-based access to 4,000,000 songs..  That's just awesome to me.  I can have just about every cure song available through a few mouse clicks.  No more buying 3 copies of the Show CD because I lost the first two.  All those Hillsong songs that I have no idea which CD they are on, I can now search through rhapsody and find them and listen to them nearly instantly.  And I can listen to music while I keep searching, instead of listening to silence while I juggle CDs.  Well, I still listen to CDs, because I can still hear the difference between the compressed versions and the original CDs (though I'm hoping eventually Rhapsody will make available lossless compressed versions)..

Ok, but I didn't really post just to rhapsodize about rhapsody.  Which brings up the question why am I posting?  I guess because I've had trouble sleeping, and thought perhaps writing something here might help.  Getting my thoughts out often has.  I think it is likely I will change jobs soon.  I haven't been challenged at work for about the last 8 yrs.  That's a long time to not really have interesting and challenging work.  But I guess it's what I wanted for that time.  I don't think I'll completely leave Lithium, but I will definitely be less involved..  And - well nothings for sure yet, but I can feel it..  And, it's sad..  They are almost like my family.  They've supported me through a lot, I'm a co-founder.  I've been there from the start, made sacrifices for the company and put my heart into it.  And they helped me in times I needed help.  It will always be a part of me, and I know I left a positive mark on the company, and I will always remember what I helped create there..

But, while I can still contribute and am valued there, they don't need me anymore.  They can survive and succeed even if I'm not there, and I need to find interesting work again.  I want to find things that I get excited about.  Here's a (totally nerdy) story. So those of you familiar with my work know I work in the IT department, mostly with Unix systems and networking gear.  About three weeks ago, a friend of mine at Lithium in the Dev group, issued an "anagram challenge."  He gave the framework for a contest where everyone had a week to write the fastest anagram-finder they could in java, that ran in 64mb or less (there was a given dictionary of about 450,000 words).  And I got that email, and totally got into it.  The first two or three nights I stayed up until about 3 or 4 am working on my anagram finder, thinking about it a lot - finding ways to make it go faster and faster.  So at the end of that week, 6 of us had submitted entries (or 7 including a "just to see" entry by the contest organizer).  And I ended up winning, beating out all the entries submitted by the actual developers.   But what it made me realize was how bored I was by my job.  An anagram challenge comes along, and I get so excited because my job is contrastingly so boring to me.  And there are times I just feel like my talent is being wasted, one of my coworkers had trouble connecting on VPN the other day and I was helping him troubleshoot it.  It's not that I don't want to help my coworker fix his VPN, it just really made me feel underutilized, and how much more potential there is inside me.

So this all might sound a little prideful too.  Maybe it is, I know that's something I've been dealing with as well.  Pride is not only ugly and something that I personally find a turn-off, but it's also something that holds us back.  Pride is having our mind on our past accomplishments and fear that we can't replicate them again, and courage is looking forward to what in the future we can do to be a positive force in this world.  But I know the thought enters my head at times that I'm better than someone, or "why are they doing that?" in a judgemental way..  So it's something I'm working on.

I just watched Mansfield Park again tonight.  It's just great.  Fanny Price is the best.  Intelligent, beautiful, true to her own heart, strong and honorable in the life she lives.  Thank goodness for Jane Austen, and her pictures of some of the best things one can look for in love.  A good reminder to me, of some of the things I value.

that having a good life is possible.  it takes being true to yourself, listening to all the voices inside - the hopes, desires, fears, beliefs, doubts, and harmonizing and resolving them until we find our cohesive selves.  and then having the courage to be true to that, to not let fears stand between us and an authentic life.  and taking responsibility for our lives and the way they turn out.  not that we can control our lives, but if we do not take responsibility for our lives, most likely no one will, and in that case one is just floating and tossed about by the passing winds.

I've found a lot of inspiration recently.  Perhaps surprisingly, a lot of it from movies and TV.  Perhaps it began from watching Heroes season one.  The characters faced questions about who they were, the life they wanted to live, what they did in the face of trials and conflicts.  And also I read some about the actors, and just seeing what they were doing - I thought to myself, "here are people doing something they love to do, and creating something wonderful and beautiful."  I also watched Firefly, and I felt that even more, especially watching some of the extras in the dvd set.  The cast and crew shared about how much they loved what they were doing, how intense it was because they always knew there was the threat of cancellation, and how that drove them to put the most poignant stories and questions in each episode..  You could see how much of their heart they had put into it.  I also rewatched the movie (Serenity), and also Garden State.  Both great movies.  In the past, I didn't consider TV or Movies to really be art.  But now I see that some of it is.

And I have learned to be more accepting of myself.  To see that when I'm hiding out at home, afraid to go out - accept that there is a reason for that choice, and to use it as a learning opportunity.  Why am I hiding?  What am I afraid of?  What am I trying to avoid or escape?  To not feel bad for the choices I make, but to explore the reasons behind them, to try to understand why sometimes I seem to make choices counter to my conscious goals.  To understand as best I can all the internal forces that drive me, and do my best to honor them all in working towards wholeness.  It's definitely not a fast process, but very worthwhile, and as far as I am concerned, a necessity on the path towards a worthwhile life.

also, if anyone owns an HD TV and is considering buying a new DVD player I strongly recommend considering the oppo.  they came out with a new model http://www.oppodigital.com/dv980h/default.asp which is only $169.  It doesn't play blue ray or HD-DVDs, but it plays DVDs almost as good as either (or so I'm told - I haven't been able to compare myself).  But what I can compare is how my DVDs look compared with HD movies on cable, and playing on the oppo looks as good as the native HD from the cable in stills, and looks a bit better during fast motion (my cable box can't seem to handle playing high speed movement that well).  And I can compare how DVDs look compared to my old dvd player and using the ps2 as a dvd player.  There's no comparison, the older DVD players on an HD TV look fuzzy and pixelated, reminds me of watching mpeg movies on the computer (or youtube or something like that).

Anyone that's interested to see the difference, I'll be happy to show you, just let me know!

this one sounds nice too..  and since when did violinists get so pretty?

I purchased a new amp recently (NAD C352 - my old amp had burned out), and while I was auditioning the amp, I had listened to this one SACD they had there.

It turns out the new DVD player I bought a few months ago (the oppo DV-981HD - which is AWESOME as a dvd player, it makes a lot of the discs I put into it look like native HD) is capable of playing SACDs.  So I finally got around to ordering a couple SACDs, and it sounds incredible.

Her playing is a little fast, which some people may not like, but I find the recording very enjoyable and beautiful.  I hope these SACDs don't spoil me to the point where I have trouble listening to regular CDs..

i just watched an episode of bobby flay throwdown featuring crab cakes, and now I really want one.   Anyone know a good place to get some around the bay area?  Maybe in fisherman's wharf or something?

Anyone wanna go find some with me?