Roger Hsu's Blog

Originally posted to RohJuh.com on Apr 17, 2005. After passing by the Carnes Piano right next to our house last night, we decided to head there today to check out their selection of pianos. It turns out that this store is the Carnes Piano Store while the store we visited yesterday in Palo Alto is the Carnes Piano Company. Although the two stores are affiliated with each other (I didn’t get the details on exactly how they’re affiliated), they are not the same company and are not part of the same chain. The owner took us around and Judy tried a bunch of different baby grands. There was one that wasn’t too bad (forgot the brand, Hazelton something???) and it was on sale for $5K. The owner actually discouraged us from getting this piano because he thought that Judy was too accomplished a pianist for this class of piano. The main issue in his mind was that this particular piano was made in China and he didn’t feel that the build quality of pianos made in China were as up to par as sa...

Originally posted to RohJuh.com on Apr 17, 2005. As part of our rental lease, we agreed to maintain the landscape. We have a small yard in front and a small grass area in the back. The landlord supplied us with a manual mower the likes of which I had never seen before. When you push it, the blades rotate and clip the grass. It doesn’t work nearly as well as a real lawn mower, but it actually doesn’t work all that bad. The trick is to get momentum and to maintain that momentum so it helps to try to get a bit of a running start. Here are some pics of Judy with the push mower. I knew she had to be good for something. :-)

Originally posted to RohJuh.com on Apr 16, 2005. The weather was nice this weekend and we had no other obligations so we decided that it would be a great day to finally check out the bouldering at Castle Rock. During the morning, Judy came across an ad in the paper for a piano warehouse sale. There were some pretty compelling prices listed so we decided to check it out. The sale was at Carnes Piano in Palo Alto so we decided to stop by on our way to Castle Rock. We got to the store and were greeted by a nice gentleman by the name of Bob. We were told that the reason for the sale was because they were closing down their piano warehouse (which was right across the parking lot from the main store) and they therefore had to clear all the pianos in the warehouse. Judy tried a bunch of different baby grands, and decided that there were two that she liked, both Story and Clarks and both in the $5-$7K range. Well, actually, the one she really liked was in the $15K range, but that was a b...

Originally posted to RohJuh.com on Apr 5, 2005. A raw and shocking expose into the life and times of one of Latte’s toys. Due to scenes of disturbing violence and stuffed animal dismemberment, parental discretion is advised.