An End and A New Beginning

I was so tired for a while. Didn't think about it recently. But when I look back, I wonder why how I survived after all.

As an electrical engineer, I faced too many troubles since the beginning of 2009. 02 generators suddenly broken down, burned out both stators and rotors, 01 other gen. failed after 03 non-working-years unexpectedly. And many motors of all kinds needed to be overhauled due to their mainternance time. All the technical details, drawings, standards to follow and take care of. The result was that I had to travel back and forth among Saigon, Hanoi, Vung Tau a lot. I went to Hanoi on business nearly once a month from Feb through Sep. At first it seemed interesting, but after sometimes, I was disappointed in my Hanoi musician friends' spirit. Without their leader, they almost lost their faith and seemed to give up music. Besides that, my business in Hanoi was not always smooth, dealing with and supervising the contractor were like playing games. It's hard to guide them to follow our company's Western standards. And a lot of paper works and payment receipts... Yep, works'll never end.

With Microwave, I achieved a big step with the 2nd album - "Time". The production phase was interesting and fun, but sometime it's a pressure to finish it on time. Lots of experiments, re-tracking and re-mixes to fit the sonic to every members' tastes. Yes, it's fun but it took more than 1 year already dudes. And I'm glad that it got some success recently :D In 2009, I was so crazy about musical gears, spent a lot to get 02 Mesa Boogie amps, a Paul Reed Smith Signature guitar, and a lot on my Protools studio gears. Have you ever heard of G.A.S.? Yep, the Gear-Aquisition-Syndrome hahaha :)) Now I need a lot of acoustic treatments to shape the studio room sound. But right now, I could start composing and producing again :D

And this year ends with 02 big events. One is my wedding, and the other is the sudden death of our oil rig's captain due to a block vein in his head. He was active and fun in the morning meeting, but passed out so fast in the early evening out there, in the middle of the sea. Both of these happened so fast. The wedding assigned a new role to me, and the captain death reminds me that life is unpredictable. We just got one chance to live, one chance to do what we want. So dudes, let's live up to the fullest!

I had no idea of what would happen in 2009. But now I could see some things to do in the next 2010 and I'll keep them to myself.

So see you guys in a Happy New Year! Best wishes to you and your family!

A.