Category: Memory

Music…

Come Back and Stay

Love Is No Crime

Bad Boys Blue

and Words

Walk in the rain
Tryin′ to wash away the pain
You went away
I made you cry so many days

Where do broken hearts go to?
How can broken hearts find their way back home?
When nobody cares about you
And you’re feeling blue

Come back and stay, don′t keep me waiting (oh, baby)
Come back and stay, don’t say goodbye

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

On a late weekend night in the 1980s, I arrived at a party.  This Friday started early; I shuffled, half-awake, from Pearson Hall to class in a lecture hall.  Classes mercifully ended by mid-afternoon, after which I went back to my dorm room to pack and change.  Next, I loaded both clothes and books into the trunk of my classic 1966 Mustang and drove to work, which was about an hour away.  Wearing the trademark long-sleeved, white-buttoned shirt and black pants, I walked into the restaurant where I’d spend the next few hours waiting on tables.

My shift ended at 9 pm, so I ran home and showered.  After getting primped and ready, I drive to the party.  I often go with my sisters, who are part of the same group of peeps.  Enterprising young Asians hire a DJ and rent a space for the night, like the Fort Lauderdale or Coral Gables Woman’s Club.  Add a collection of 2-liter bottles of soft drinks and a cover charge.  They’ll turn a modest profit.

Continue reading “Returning to my Neverland” →

Music…

Feels So Good

Feels So Good

Chuck Mangione

and Words

[Instrumental]

We arrive at St. John’s Resort in Plymouth, Michigan, early on a Friday morning after a red-eye.  The hotel desk won’t check us in for a few more hours, but they’ll happily hold our luggage.  We wander to Five Steakhouse, the restaurant a few dozen feet from the front desk, to get breakfast.  We made our order:  a couple of lattes and our respective dishes.

As you might expect, we were exhausted.  After a full day of work, we ran home to finish packing to get on a plane.  We got little sleep during our flight, but sleeping on a plane is never restful.  This quiet meal with coffee and corned beef hash, at least for me, would need to sustain me for a bit.  This day would run long, and we didn’t know precisely what to expect.

Continue reading “Our homebase in a distant city” →

Music…

Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)

Pieces of Eight

Styx

and Words

Give me a job, give me security
Give me a chance to survive
I′m just a poor soul in the unemployment line
My God, I’m hardly alive

My mother and father, my wife and my friends
You see them laugh in my face
But I′ve got the power, and I’ve got the will
I’m not a charity case

I′ll take those long nights, impossible odds
Keeping my eye in the keyhole
If it takes all that to be just what I am
Well, I′m gonna be a blue collar man

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

In March 2020, we received an unconventional message at work.  I attended to some work tasks as the message came in.  Microsoft instructed us to work from home for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19, the pandemic.  They anticipated that this situation might last for about three weeks.  I finished my work day as usual, but I packed up my laptop.  My desktop had considerably more storage (and processing power), but moving it home would be considerably more work.  I could accomplish most tasks by connecting to it remotely.

As the weeks turned into months, I broke down and invested in equipment to streamline working from home.  First came the standing desk that allowed me to work while walking.  Naturally, this also included a desk treadmill.  Next, I invested in some ultra-adjustable monitor mounts to outfit that desk.  With their blessing, I brought home a couple of the 4k monitors from my office desk.  My desk resembled the one from Swordfish.

On an otherwise ordinary day of remote work, they scheduled me for a cryptic late morning meeting.  I click on the link to open the meeting in Teams.  I see a familiar face, the director of my division, and an unfamiliar face, who ends up being human resources.  However, they deliver the news swiftly.  They eliminated my position.

Continue reading “Unemployment” →

Music…

No Green Eyes

Something Up My Sleeve

Suzy Bogguss

and Words

In my heart there always crept
a jealousy that never′slept
It lived on calls that never came
and whispers of another’s name
But your love is a light that shines so honestly
And now because of your true colors I can see.

No green eyes, no blue nights
No jealous heart, no little white lies
You showed me what love looks like
I had the colors all wrong but now they′re right
No green eyes, no blue nights.

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I rarely listen to country music; only a handful of artists adorn my collection.  A dear friend introduced me to Suzy Bogguss, and I subsequently picked up ‘Something Up My Sleeve’.  I genuinely enjoyed the album, and even today, when reading the song titles, I can hear most of the tunes in my head.  When we found that Bogguss had an upcoming concert in the Seattle area, we decided that we’d go together.

While I enjoy her music, I wouldn’t rank Bogguss among the top 50% of my favorite musicians; my musical tastes are far too diverse.  However, I will honestly list this particular concert among my favorites.  First, her live performance of each song didn’t deviate far from the studio version.  I understand this may be my baggage, but I’d like to hear a performance that closely resembles what I’ve committed to memory.  Second, Bogguss genuinely seems to enjoy herself as she performs; she frequently smiles as she sings or introduces a song.  Lastly, the venue and performance felt intimate.  At times, with her eye contact, it felt as if she was singing just to us.

Continue reading “An intimate concert with a cherished friend” →

Music…

Breathe (2 AM)

Wreck of the Day

Anna Nalick

and Words

2 a.m. and she calls me ′cause I’m still awake
“Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?
I don′t love him, winter just wasn’t my season”
Yeah, we walk through the doors, so accusing, their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize
Hypocrites, you’re all here for the very same reason

′Cause you can′t jump the track, we’re like cars on a cable
And life′s like an hourglass glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe
Oh, breathe, just breathe

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I started this blog over four years ago.  A dear friend who read my impassioned posts on Facebook encouraged me.  While I had never written professionally (and still haven’t), I kept an online journal decades ago.  Furthermore, I do not exaggerate when I claim that my writing led me to find the love of my life, or more accurately, for her to find me.  However, I first put that journal on ice and eventually pulled the plug.  I have told this story several times; for those who have read my writing, you’ll remember.

While WordPress allows the author to scope the visibility of particular posts, I choose not to.  My posts are visible to everyone.  I try to update this blog once every two weeks; it keeps me accountable.  I imagine I’ll run out of songs or memories someday, though until then, the posts continue.  When I first started, I texted the links to the posts to a handful of friends.  One day, I got an unexpected response.

Continue reading “Why I write” →

Music…

Please Mr. Postman

環球萃取升級精選 許冠傑3

Sam Hui

and Words

Wait!
Oh yes, wait just a minute Mr. Postman
Wait!
Wait, Mr. Postman

Please Mr. Postman, look and see
Whoa, yeah
Is there a letter in your bag for me?
Please, please Mr. Postman
It′s been a might long time
Whoa, yeah
Since I heard from that girl of mine

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

We arrive at Wild Ginger early on a weekday evening.  It’s an Asian fusion restaurant and one of our favorites.  The bar runs lengthwise along the front façade of the restaurant, save for the entry.  Small circular tables line the windows that overlook the street, Bellevue Way; they sit opposite the bar.  As we enter, we head directly to the bar area, where they have open seating.  We select two adjoining seats in the bar and place our bags in an adjoining seat.

Two shallow shelves line the entire wall behind the bar, each discreetly lit with LED strips that emit a magical luminescence.  These shelves display the distilled liquors, both flavored and straight.  The subtle light shines through the colored bottles like a kaleidoscope, beckoning you to have a taste at the hands of their mixologists.

Continue reading “A decades old postal delivery” →

Music…

The Howling

The Heart Of Everything

Within Temptation

and Words

We′ve been seeing what you wanted, got us cornered right now
Fallen asleep from our vanity, might cost us our lives
I hear they’re getting closer
Their howls are sending chills down my spine
And time is running out now
They′re coming down the hills from behind

When we start killing
It’s all coming down right now
From the nightmare we’ve created
I want to be awakened somehow (I want to be awakened right now)

When we start killing, it all will be falling down
From the hell that we′re in
All we are is fading away
When we start killing

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I joined Microsoft in 1991.  I started in the Multimedia team.  At the time, computers with sound cards and optical drives were fancy.  However, they were standard equipment on our computers, along with the ‘large’ 200MB hard drives.  Other teams envied our team for the sheer coolness of our work.  I arrived at the tail end of Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions.  I started as an STE (Software Test Engineer); I manually verified that the product worked as expected.  This team brought audio to Windows; it started with Windows 3.1.

Over the years, my role in the audio team changed.  I transitioned to an SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test) to Development and back to SDET.  I contributed to every version of Windows, from 3.1 to 7, as an audio engineer.  Even today, I understand many parts of that code.  I spent way too many hours debugging intricate idiosyncrasies about that source code.  To this day, I still tell people, “If you’re listening to any audio on Windows, you’re running code that I wrote.”

Continue reading “The Bunker” →

Music…

Goodbye

7 Wishes

Night Ranger

and Words

As the sun hides its head
Another nights rest
And the wind sings
Its same old song

And you on the edge
Never close, never far
Always there
When I needed a friend

But it′s hard living life
On this memory-go-round
Always up, always down
Spinning ’round and ′round and ’round

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

They moved my work desk to a new location, about 10 feet from John’s. He sat in a quiet corner diagonally from mine. He mostly sat on his desk, on his bone-conduction headset, as he conducted his meetings. Dutifully, he ran his routine. He arrives early in the morning, puts down his bag, and puts his coat on the coat rack. Upon ending his day, he reverses this ritual.

I had the opportunity to consult with him on several issues. He spoke calmly and confidently, though without ego. We teamed up to discuss challenges and pondered them together; we brainstormed. John could’ve easily directed or instructed you to “do it this way,” but instead, he persuaded you.  In a world of ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ people, he is a ‘carrot’ person.

Continue reading “Saying goodbye to a friend” →

Music…

Piano Man

Piano Man

Billy Joel

and Words

It′s nine o’clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There′s an old man sittin’ next to me
Makin’ love to his tonic and gin

He says, “Son can you play me a memory?
I′m not really sure how it goes
But it′s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man′s clothes”

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I don’t remember precisely when I first discovered this Billy Joel song, ‘Piano Man’.  I moved from Puerto Rico to Florida in 1978; at that time, I spoke Cantonese and Spanish.  Billy Joel released this single and album in 1973 before I started listening to music in English.  Gradually over the ensuing years, I integrated more with American culture and listened to the radio.  Billy Joel, a talented singer and songwriter, released many songs during that time.  He became an integral part of my American experience.

During college, I picked up The Essential Billy Joel collection.  They filled those discs with many songs I recognized; with great anticipation, I happily bought that collection.  I may have zipped directly to the songs I knew the first few times.  I’m embarrassed to admit that ‘Piano Man’ was not among the songs I recognized, and I thus delayed listening to it.

Continue reading “Don’t sing us a song, Piano Man” →