Yesterday I completed my trip booking to Chicago. I have never flown into Midway and I've never flown a discount airline like ATA, so I have two new experiences this weekend.

The importer who was supposed to meet me today was unreachable, but I went to the meeting place anyway and waited. I studied Korean a bit, and then made a couple of other phone calls. After 45 minutes or so I didn't hear anything so I prepared to take off.

At the cake shop where I was waiting, I gave the baker and his business partner a sample of my Hong Kong confection and they responded positively... It looks like they are interested in making a small order after talking it over with their other partner. So that's a good thing... I hope there's more of that to come. I had another conversation at a little pearl tea shop in Bellevue just before Korean class, and the owner there was in disbelief that the product could even be imported (he knows it normally has a very short life after being made). So there's some definite untapped potential.

Apparently FedEx decided not to ring me this morning when they brought a shipment by, or else they came when I was in the shower, so I didn't get the rest of the product samples I expected today... I hope the same thing doesn't repeat itself tomorrow because I want to carry some along to Chicago this weekend in case I can find some shopkeeper who might be interested.

I booked a trip to San Francisco on the 21st, where I'll meet with a supplier who is in town for a few days, and start researching the Asian media and gift shop type places that I will try to sell to down there.

Coincidentally, this weekend I discovered a couple of college friends on Orkut, and one of them is now living in San Francisco and practicing law.  Today we chatted a bit on the phone about career frustrations (current or previous), food, and so on. We made plans to meet up for lunch and so on. I also have another friend there, Sally, an importer who previously lived in Seattle, and we'll talk shop a little when I'm there. I found out that Sally was in Seattle today heading over to Spokane.

One of my suppliers sent some product samples that are apparently needing more precise descriptions for customs. Hopefully that will all be cleared up tomorrow... I'd like to get them as soon as possible. This is a quantity sufficient for sales demonstrations.

Today I cooked a nice little lunch for a friend using good spring ingredients. She's going out of the country for probably just a few weeks so it's kind of a mini-farewell. I got a few morels and patty pan squashes and shallots and made a cream-based sauce for tortiglioni. I cooked a small dish of asparagus and garlic. I roasted a red bell pepper and stuffed it with a mild cream-cheese-textured chevre from a small cheesemaker in Blaine WA, and adorned with a basil leave, pepper, and meyer lemon zest. And I made my signature yuzu salad dressing with honey and mustard. I actually made small portions of each but it turned out to be a lot of food. Somehow we managed to eat almost everything though...

Afterward I took care of some trivial things and went to pottery class. I didn't feel productive, but I started assembling pieces that I threw on Sunday. I'm trying to build a kind of small sculptural piece in the style of something I saw in Japan a couple of times.

I'm also planning to take a little trip to Chicago this weekend, which I'll commit to in the morning, but I have fewer business justifications for. It turns out that it's just going to be a relatively inexpensive trip overall for various reasons so I think I'll go for it.

This morning I sent off my final visitor, and my week of being a tour guide came to a close. It was a pleasant distraction and I am happy that I am able to take time to do this kind of thing without having to ask for permission from someone. Of course, it means I do have a lot of work to do now.

Actually I was able to accomplish a small amount of work over the last week as well. Yesterday I met with another guy who had been working as a small importer/exporter and has since moved on to build a marketing firm in Bellevue. He gave me the names of some distributors that may be useful for me.

Also I got a call from a tea importer that I met at FoodEx who is based in Bellevue. He had also been attending the Las Vegas tea show which was going on a week or so ago. He offered to introduce me to some buyers he works with, and we'll also have a little meeting at my favorite Japan-esque cake shop in Seattle next Wednesday.

I may need to make a little trip to the Bay Area later this month to meet with one of my suppliers, so I'm going to need to hunt for some cheap tickets.

Finally, it looks like my ceramics are set to ship now, so I should be able to get my hands on them soon and start building up my retail web site.

Today I need to do some revisions on some sales objectives that I have for one of the products I am working on and prepare for another conference call with that supplier. And I need to play handyman also... I should finally put together the shelving I bought at Ikea a week or so ago for my office.

This week ended up being relatively unproductive when it came to work, because I needed to prepare for visitors and run various errands. On Thursday, I had two visitors from Japan and one from Victoria, BC.

Hiromi came in on Thursday morning and I picked her up at the airport. We were hoping to take a look at tulips up in the La Conner area, but the early spring weather this year had forced all of the growers to top their tulips a little early this year, so we ended up relaxing on the beach at Golden Gardens in Ballard, then having a little iced tea at Masalisa.

I had a conference call with one of my suppliers around 7pm. It was encouraging. I'll need to make some changes in my plan with that product and revise my sales objectives, but actually they are going to be more conservative than before, and that makes me feel a little better about the project because I don't have to take risks quite as substantial as I had expected.

Sachi and her Canadian friend, Sandra, arrived via the Victoria Clipper a little after 8:30, and cleared customs a little shy of 9pm. We made our way to La Spiga restaurant on Broadway and ordered Crescioni and Piadina in addition to various pasta choices. I had a pretty nice asparagus tortelli with a lemon butter sauce. We stopped at Dilletante and shared a single piece of cake between the four of us.

Friday, we played tourist all day and into the night. I took everyone to breakfast at Cafe Besalu in Ballard, we stopped at Archie McPhee and at the Ballard Locks, and we headed over to West Seattle for some postcard photography opportunities at the fishing pier and at Alki beach. We ate a little lunch at a tiny restaurant on 8th & King in the International District, Szechuan Noodle Bowl. I ordered their cold seaweed dish, a little braised bamboo shoot dish, and green onion pancakes. Two of us ordered vegetable dumplings in la-yu and soy sauce, and two ordered a vegetable udon dish in soup.

Afterword, we made a stop at Pacific Place mall, and then walked over to the Pike Place market to get vegetables and other things for dinner. We did a little gift shopping, and then briefly visited Vivace's for coffee and tea. We also made a quick run to Fran's chocolates at University Village.

Finally, we came to my place and tried unsuccessfully to get Japanese natural oak charcoal to burn in a tiny tabletop grill called a “shichirin“. This was the first time I have actually tried to use the shichirin so it was a little more trouble than I expected. I had gotten one of my potato pizzas done while my guests were fighting with the shichirin, and finally we gave up on it. I was asked to re-warm the potato pizza, which on a baking stone turned out to be a bad idea because there would have been no way to quickly bring the oven temperature down to a “warming“ temperature. and I managed to char the previously flawless but cold pizza. I them promptly managed to drop a slippery and unfortunately too flexibly plastic bottle of oil into the sink and it splashed back on to Sachi's clothing. I don't think I've ever had so many things go wrong in one meal. We did manage to eat grilled vegetables and my guests had shrimp, scallops and squid also; I just used my indoor grill pan and a cast iron skillet to stand in for the finicky oak charcoal. It didn't occur to me until far too late that I probably could have used my small “konro“ (like a gas camping stove) to ignite the charcoal.

We also had some nice yuzu ice cream and a kona coffee sorbet that I made, and dipped into a quince infused liqueur that I had started back at the end of January. Except for the comedy of errors, the food was mostly pretty good.

We finished the evening by going up the escalator in the Space Needle during the last open hour, and taking in the cityscape. Sachi and Sandra went back this morning, and Hiromi is here until the 4th.

Earlier in the week I finally got my car detailed by Fremont Auto Detail, which seems like a bit of an indulgence for someone without any consequential revenue but was very worth it... my car had been looking very sad especially on the interior. I also took care of getting some shelving I need to handle the ceramics boxes that will be coming from Japan later in May. I didn't do much that was actually useful for my business except for creating some price lists. I have another visitor to entertain from the 4th through the 7th, and then I'll get back into the swing of things.

The last few days I've been meeting people who are either potential customers or have some useful contacts for doing sales. I'm encouraged, though it's still going to be a lot of work to get the kind of volume I need in order to make a living.

I also talked to a banker who was encouraging about the prospects for my products and may even have some useful contacts for me. I still haven't picked which bank to go with, but I'm starting to feel inclined to have a small local bank on my side for keeping most of my money plus an account at a big bank for handling credit card transactions and international wire transfers.

Today I even got contact information for a buyer at a pretty significant department store, and someone at a smaller group of stores around here that tends to do specialty stuff. In both cases, it was just due to chatting with some employee at the store that I was snooping around in. It's not a sale, but it's a more direct route to people that make buying decisions than I expected I'd need.

Of course, it would have been sensible to get customers lined up before I made this leap. But there is a kind of thrill in doing it the hard way :)

One thing I'm a little embarrassed about is my product samples presentation... I really need something better than a cardboard box filled with an assortment of things when I start presenting to customers that are strangers to me... so I started hunting for something that will work better as a samples case.

I ate a dosa today at a South Indian restaurant in Bellevue for dinner. I need to avoid spending money at restaurants right now, but it was a kind of business meeting. Other good stuff I acquired this week include a cheese with embedded lavender and fennel made by Quillisascut. I love those guys. I've been eating simple stuff this week but I haven't completely gotten out of the habit of buying good ingredients... I may have to be more parsimonious if I don't manage to make a few good sales in the near future, though.

On the night of my last day at Microsoft, April 15, I didn't really start working until I got home. I had to finish up a business proposal to one of the companies I want to work with, and there was a lot more work left than I remembered. I was up until about 3 AM focusing on that.

Saturday and Sunday I jogged in incredibly good weather around Greenlake... I also made some plates at pottery lab on Sunday.

Today I went to the North Seattle branch of Puget Sound Blood Center for the first time. I've usually donated at the Bellevue location, which was across the street from my old apartment, or at the mobile donation bus that came to Microsoft every couple of months.

I also had to go bank hunting. I have been operating from my personal account, and that's very confusing and also not good to do since I'm organized as an LLC. I wish I had this figured out 6 weeks ago... talking to banks and trying to make sense of their fee structures, especially when my stuff will involve international wire transfers and so on, is not the most entertaining part of this job.

Actually, I did start developing a lead for one or two products I want to sell when I stopped to get some tea. It would be small volume but potentially a good thing.

In the late afternoon I went back to Redmond to do my exit interview with an HR person. I played nicely... and turned in my cardkey, parking pass, corporate card and all of that stuff.

Somehow I had a series of disasters at pottery class tonight... I guess my hands weren't steady enough or something... I kept on ruining simple cylinders. At least I was able to finish up some pots that I had started last week.

After years of working a well-paid, challenging, and ostensibly prestigious job which was often interesting, occasionally satisfying, but rarely fulfilling, I’ve decided to move on.

I have three obsessions that I’ve indulged outside of work for the last 7 years or so. One is an uncompromising passion for cooking and eating good food. Another is a love of travel. And third is a wallet-thinning habit of collecting Japanese and Korean ceramics and craftwork. Beyond that, I have a long-neglected impulse to write and create, which, most likely due to excessive comfort over these 7 years, rather than inadequate time, I have mostly failed to pursue and develop.

My goal over the next few years is to explore each of these passions with an eye for making a reasonable living doing the things I love the most.

This is a life-altering transformation. My job at Microsoft, working as a test lead in software internationalization, has allowed me to live comfortably while I regularly invested at least 20% of my income. Now, for the first time in years, I expect many months during which I’ll be slowly eating away at my reserves.

My plan for the next year is to take advantage of my safety net while taking a lot of personal risks. I've established a small business entity focused on importing foods, gifts, and other things that I am excited about.

I’ll travel, but with the objective of generating some kind of return from each trip, either in a financial sense or in the sense of personal growth. I'll be exploiting my ceramics obsession by buying ceramics and craftwork, but with the intent of using my eye to bring back items that could be introduced to the U.S. market for resale. I’ll also at least occasionally be working in restaurants as a cook and waiter and whatever else will teach me what it will take to make a successful business serving food. I expect that I’ll create some opportunities to write and to create again. Within a few years I intend to have established enough of a network to be ready to start a small café/restaurant, and on the way, I will focus on building up my import/export business.

This journal is the document of my transformation.

At least once a week, I’ll be telling part of my story. I intend to be pathologically honest, but I promise to do my best to avoid sentimentality, wistfulness, or excessive self-indulgence. I don’t promise to be authoritative, profound, or even important. But I do promise, more than anything else, to live.

My work is almost finished at Microsoft, so I'm starting to feel some sense of accomplishment.

After work I decided to go jogging at Greenlake for a little bit. I wanted to run a single lap and walk another lap. Unfortunately, the weather turned after I started my walking lap... it became progressively windier and some rain came pouring down... I wasn't anticipating that, so my shorts and t-shirt were not the most comfortable attire for the job. I decided to jog as much of the second lap as I could handle, and I don't think I've done that kind of speed in a long time. The squall did die down after about ten minutes or so, so I was able to slow down again and not ruin my knee.

I guess I should get some gear suited for wet jogging... I won't have a gym membership for a while after I leave Microsoft...

I spent a few hours today talking to someone I met at the party last week who has a great marketing and business development background in Japan. I think she could be very useful doing sales, marketing, and some logistics stuff. Although there are some complications that I'll have to figure out, I think we will find a way of working together in my import/export company.

We both ordered quiche and coffee at Cafe Besalu for brunch, and later continued the conversation at Hiroki. Besalu makes excellent brioche and pastry, and I like going there on weekends to get brunch... It's just a bustling, tiny, intimate space with a good set of basics. They serve Lighthouse Coffee, Tall Grass Bakery bread, and their own homemade pastries and quiches. Hiroki, on Greenlake, is a bakery run by Hiroki Inoue, a Japanese guy whose signature cake is a "green tea tiramisu." He does a lot of other interesting sweets also, sometimes with a Japanese touch and sometimes with a more French style, though all with slightly American proportions. He seems to avoid overdoing the sugar, which I truly appreciate. This time I had an "Earl Grey" cheesecake and the woman I was meeting with ordered a Grand Marnier mousse cake. Good stuff.

The weather was pretty hot but I went jogging a couple of laps around Greenlake anyway. My endurance seems to be getting better these days... I'm trying to avoid re-injuring my left knee, though, so I'll mellow out on the distance for a few days.

A friend of mine is having a housewarming party today, although she actually moved in to her place about 4 months ago. Earlier this week I had planned to bring some little dish to the party, so this morning I went over to Whole Foods in the Roosevelt area and picked up some maroumi sheep’s milk cheese from Greece, as well as some spinach, onions, and shallots, and a few other things. I made a thick béchamel sauce mixed with eggs, nutmeg, allspice, and the maroumi cheese, sort of like the topping you’d expect on moussaka. I lightly caramelized the onions and shallots, then briefly sautéed the spinach. I also made a simple yeast dough, fairly moist but with relatively low yeast content.

After that I put the spinach filling and the cooked béchamel sauce in low containers to cool in the refrigerator for a few hours.

I wanted to go to the pottery lab to do a little bit of glazing of some work from last quarter. As usual with things pottery, I didn’t quite finish everything I had hoped by the time I needed to leave. I set a couple of things aside and went back home to finish cooking…

Basically I just rolled out a dozen or so small discs of dough and filled them with a little bit of the spinach-onion mixture mixed with some egg, topped with the béchamel sauce, and I closed them up sort of like Chinese buns. I baked them on a stone in my oven until they were brown and smelled nice, and packed them up for the party.

Attending a party as the owner of a small business is a different experience than attending a party as an “engineer” at a tremendously large software company. Meeting someone at a party has, up until now, been a pleasant diversion, a mild form of entertainment. But as a small business owner, every new face is an opportunity… people with job descriptions or educations or backgrounds that were merely interesting in my old life suddenly seem like potential partners, customers, people I can learn something from, or people who can introduce me to someone that might be useful for developing my business. It’s also kind of an opportunity to refine the story of my work. Hopefully I avoided sounding like too much of a salesperson… anyway, my spinach and béchamel buns disappeared, and I met some interesting people, and I don’t think I annoyed anyone too much.