Roger Hsu's Blog

Originally posted to RohJuh.com on Feb 26, 2005. Wow, it’s been quite the weekend for Judy. Yesterday she gets a new iPod Mini and today, nothing less than a new car! A new car was not really necessary. After all, there was really nothing wrong with Judy’s old Civic. Aside from having a few dents and scratches here and there, it was running just fine. However, the perception of Judy’s mom was otherwise. Because the car was old and seemed small, it was, in her mind, unsafe, and since Judy was now commuting more miles, it was imperative that she get a new car. So being basically forced to get a new car, Judy had to decide what car to get. Her mom wanted her to get a Camry or an Accord because those are perceived by her to be safe and high quality. But Judy didn’t like bland, boring sedans like those. I suggested looking into the Toyota Matrix; I thought they looked cool and kind of sporty, they got good gas mileage, and being a Toyota, they should be very reliable. We did some r...

Originally posted to RohJuh.com on Feb 25, 2005. I bought a 15GB iPod for Judy some time ago because she likes to listen to music while she’s running. That iPod replaced a piece of crap Creative crap Nomad II which was a piece of crap. Oh, did I mention that the Creative was a piece of crap? It’s no wonder at all to me why the iPod is so successful. Companies like Creative just didn’t seem to understand that a music player is more than just hardware. It’s about the software and how well the hardware and the software work together. These days, it’s also about how seamless the hardware, software, and service (a la legal downloads through the iTunes Music Store and the like) work together. Getting songs onto the Nomad was a pain in the ass and their tech support was useless and worse, condescending. I bought the Nomad to save a few bucks, but the time and aggravation getting it to work just wasn’t worth it. I ended up paying quite a bit more for the iPod, but it not only works, but...

Originally posted to RohJuh.com on Feb 20, 2005. Judy’s mom was visiting this weekend. While she was lounging on the pompasan chair, Latte insisted on lounging with her. Judy grabbed the camera and snapped these cute shots of her mom with The Dog.

Originally posted to RohJuh.com on Feb 13, 2005. This was our first trip of the season to our favorite resort Powder Mountain. While California is having a great season snow-wise, Utah is unfortunately having a pretty dry one. Driving up to the resort, we are accustomed to having the mountain banks on the sides of the road covered with white snow. This trip, however, much of it was dirt. Despite the conditions, we were still able to find plenty of good snow on our first day there. This was quite surprising and is a testament to how good Utah really is. During our second night there, we got lucky as a light snow made for some really nice conditions the next day. A good time was had by all. Here are the pics .

Originally posted to RohJuh.com on Feb 5, 2005. It is Chinese tradition to have a big celebration for one’s first birthday so that’s exactly what Shawn and Mia did when Jordan turned one today. The lunch party was at Scott’s Seafood in Palo Alto. The food was very good, and Judy took the opportunity to throw her healthy dietary ways to the wind and to eat with reckless abandon. She even finished off my dessert – can you believe that?! This amazing event was captured on digital film. Oh yeah, there are some pictures of the honorary birthday girl as well. :-)