Shoutout SoCal Interview

April 30, 2021 Michael Quan

I was recently interviewed by Shoutout SoCal about my perspective on work life balance. Here is the link to view the interview and I hope you learn something new about me after reading it.

https://shoutoutsocal.com/meet-michael-quan-professional-organizer-aerospace-project-engineer/

San Diego Home Organization Blog — Shoutout SoCal Interview 4/27/21

Life At Home: March - June

June 14, 2020 Michael Quan

Where have I been and what have I been up to these past 3 months since the start of COVID in America? What does the future of home organization look like for me? Let’s find out.

Most of you probably have seen my last Thought post of coming back from London right at the start of the virus happenings in America, but here we are exactly 3 months later. Once returning home, my day job as an Engineer transferred to working from home. I ended up created my “office space” in the kitchen, a place I never thought I would end up working from.

It was also really interesting going to the grocery store to get basics as everyone was panic purchasing at the time. Everyone at this time was also afraid of everyone else breathing on each other it seemed. The beaches and boardwalks were closed. Gyms were closed. The only time I left my house was to go for afternoon runs.

Panic buying of paper products at Ralph’s in Pacific Beach

It took a few weeks for me to get into the swing of things being at home most of the time. I laid out some goals I wanted to achieve during this time.

Build a gym and maintain normal workouts. Weights were very difficult to acquire during this time but after enough persistence and Amazon pre-ordering I was able to build a full set of 10-35 pounds dumbbells with a bench.

Roasting my own coffee beans - I’ve always been a fan of great coffee and usually purchased beans for the weekends from micro roasters from all over the place. I was going through coffee really fast at home now and wanted to find a way to reduce spending while getting great quality coffee still. I purchased a Popcorn roaster to start with. Most beginners go down this path - So far i’ve roasted around 10 pounds of beans from various sources since April. I love being able to consume something that I’ve made myself! Please reach out if you are interested in this hobby!

Playing guitar more frequently. I decided to re-arrange my music setup to have everything I needed in one corner of my home to allow playing music on any instrument or amplifier instant. I’ve somehow enjoyed playing Nickelback and Creed songs regardless of what others may think about them. It was a running joke to play their songs in our household but it really caught on. Just ask Justin or Natalie next time around.

Start bicycling again. I recently traded one of my road bikes for a gravel bike and have been riding the neighborhood and fiesta island multiple times a week. It’s been an enjoyable way of getting fresh air and exercise at the same time. Fiesta is closed to vehicle traffic for almost another month so I can do laps around it without worrying about cars trying to run me over.

The last thing that I’ve enjoyed doing was standard household maintenance. I cleaned my dryer vent out since laundry was taking longer times to dry. I don’t think it’s ever been cleaned in the 20+ years my condo has been around. Sometimes it’s the little things that give you enjoyment and satisfaction.

I’ve done a lot of self-satisfying things, but where does Home Organization currently stand in my life? The entire industry was basically shut down during COVID so I really knew it wasn’t worth my efforts to put in much work if I couldn’t go into someone’s home at the time to help them declutter and store items. As the state of California slowly has been re-opening again, I’ve started back up doing sessions with existing trusted clients. Just this past weekend I was able to help a client re-organize an entire kitchen storage and pantry!

I want to keep helping as many people as I can with their clutter moving forward - virtually or safely in person. I know it’ll take time for the industry to get rolling again but I’ll be ready for any twists or turns that come my way throughout the process.

Stay safe. Stay well.

Adventures in London during COVID-19

March 20, 2020 Michael Quan

Natalie and I recently returned from the United Kingdom on 3/15 during the happenings of COVID-19. What was planned to be a 10 day trip got cut a little short and a few countries that we intended on visiting were skipped due to changing circumstances. We made the most out of our short journey and got to experience great culture, historical aspects, and many consumable items. I think this medium is a great spot to document the experience of what was planned versus what we actually did with some photos and insights of each day!

The Planning Phase

Back in October 2019 I had another itch to do a trip over the Atlantic Ocean after my month long Europe trip in 2016 that brought me to Ireland, Romania, Chez Republic, and France. Natalie had never been overseas before and it was a priority for her to go to Paris and other spots in Europe. I was monitoring Scott’s Cheap Flights prior to this time for low cost opportunities to get my behind in an 10+ hour airplane seat once again. We were in luck at the end of October as round trips from Los Angeles to London in the sub 400’s had come up. I talked to Natalie and found her availability which was about 2 weeks in March or sometime in May. Her birthday was also March 15 and would be during this duration and what better way to spend a birthday than in Europe and hopefully Paris! On October 24, we made the booking to depart March 10 and return March 20 (which is the day i’m typing this).

Over the next few months some ideas were thrown around of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. I was pretty open to most attractions and destinations. Natalie’s high priority was to see the Paris Opera Ballet perform George Balanchine at the Opera Bastille on March 14. Tickets to the show were acquired February 11 and gave us a baseline of how to plan around this. Another big show that she wanted to see was the Royal Ballet performing Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House in London March 12. After some discussion with peers who have traveled before we decided on visiting Amsterdam after Paris. After booking all the train tickets our city schedule looked like this

London: March 11- March 13

Paris: March 13 - March 17

Amsterdam: March 17 - March 19

London: March 19 - 20

With that notional schedule in mind, I was able to fill in a day to day itinerary spreadsheet with attractions from each city around ticketed events and add in time for shopping and leisure. See screenshot below for our “working schedule”

As we got closer to our trip COVID-19 was becoming more of a concern but no travel advisories were in place yet besides Italy. France was taking precautions at some monuments by only allowing online ticket purchasers to enter the facilities. With that in mind, I pre-purchased tickets to most of the places we wanted to see in both Paris and London. London at this time still had no restrictions at all.

The Journey (from the time zone we were in)

March 10 - Tuesday

It was March 10 the day of our departure; we had everything ready to roll to LAX and start the trip. We departed San Diego for the airport around noon just to account for some traffic and buffer time to make our 7:30 pm flight. After getting to the airport we were able to relax for a few hours in the Korean Airline Lounge at the International Terminal and reflect on the adventure we were about to have. We boarded our flight and off we went. I spent most of the flight taking many mini naps while jamming out to some pre-downloaded tunes on my phone. Natalie ended up watching a few movies.

March 11 - Wednesday

We landed in London an hour early at 1 pm! We navigated the tube to our hotel on the London West End.

After riding the tube for the first time it really makes you think about how horrible public transportation is all over California. In most cases out there its quicker to hop on the tube to get to your destination rather than a car or taxi. You don’t have to plan times very much as the trains come every few minutes for almost all routes making connections easy in the same underground stations. All payments can be done through Apple Pay also so you don’t need to keep track of a decreasing balance on a pre-paid card.

After getting to the Double Tree West End hotel, we were upgraded to a King Premier Deluxe room with my Hilton Diamond status from originally a standard double room. Score! The room was remodeled recently and reminded me of a standard upscale American hotel room. I heard that hotel rooms were tiny in London so this was a surprise to me. After being on a plane for hours, it was time to clean up and head on out. After some polling around for spots to have afternoon tea - Fortnum and Mason made the cut as the one we would go to. Natalie’s friend Karin was in town and decided to meet up for tea also. We made a quick stop to the Freed ballet store on the way to Tea to snag some goodies for the ballet lover.

After tea was over, we decided to see some sights such as Big Ben, House of Parliament, and the London Eye. Seeing these landmarks in the dark for the first time was pretty neat.

Westminster Abbey (closed at night) - 3/11/20

The next stop was to find a pub to have a drink at. The first one we walked across and entered was called the Silver Cross which had many great real ales on cask.

Another highly recommended pub was Brew Dog SoHo which we headed over to afterwards. I love this spot. They had so many great tasting beers on draft from the UK and other parts of the world. The food was on point too.

What a great first day in London! After returning to the hotel room we looked up current events around the world. France was in the phase of starting to cancel events for the next few days but the performance on March 14 that we had booked was still on the schedule. The best course of action at the time was to just get some rest and re-assess day by day.

March 12

Sticking to the original plan, we woke up extra early and headed to the Tower of London for the 9 am opening! The first display we went to here were the Crown Jewels from the royal family. They had ALL the good stuff especially historical crowns and scepters. After seeing the jewels we scoped out the white castle that had armor and weapon displays. The Tower of London had so many exhibits that every time you entered one it put you further away from the exit! From certain vantage points in the tower, you can also see the world famous Tower Bridge also.

White Tower at Tower of London - 3/12/20

The next stop on the journey was Sky Garden. Sky Garden is one of the worlds highest gardens on top of a high rise building. From the top of the garden, you can get a high up 360 degree view of London. There were also cafes and bars for people to spend an extended period of time here.

One of Natalie’s favorite “hobbies” is shopping - this meant a trip to the world famous department store Harrods in Knightsbridge. This is hands down the biggest store I’ve ever seen with 6 levels of shops over an entire square block. If you combined 2 huge malls into one store, this is what you get. The most fascinating thing was each clothing designer or brand had their own mini section within the shops where you could get service on-demand unlike in the US where one person covers an entire section of the store.

Hours of “shopping” left us hungry and we wanted to try some authentic British fish and chips. A quick Google search brought us to Golden Union Fish Bar where they proceed to serve us a whole fish fillet. I was totally expecting little fish bites. The food was delicious!

The nighttime had the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake in store for our view pleasure at the Royal Opera House after a pregame drink at Punch and Judy around the corner. Our seats were in the amphitheater which gave some great sight lines of the stage. The performance was one of the best ballet performances I have seen where the dancers were synchronized like robots and the movements and choreography were nicely done.

Royal Opera House for Swan Lake - 3/12/20

When we got home from the performance, thats when events in the United States started to unfold where travel from Europe back to the US announced (excluding the UK). It seemed liked France would be one of the next countries that would start closing non-essential services and go on lock down. We were supposed to hop on a Eurostar train the next day to head to Paris to continue the journey. In light of events, we decided to not proceed to Paris and rebook our return flights for Sunday 3/15 while this was still an available option. We would get to spend 2 more full days in London and then head back home ahead of the planned schedule.

March 13

Waking up in the morning, we learned that France closed down all museums and monuments. The Paris Opera ballet performance was also cancelled in light of recent events. There was a sense of relief that we had not continued our journey onto Paris. We checked out of our hotel and dropped off our bags at a boutique hotel Mimi’s in SoHo where we would be spending the next 2 nights.

Buckingham Palace was one of the stops on the list that we were able to finally see. There was a long walkway to the entrance of the palace surrounded by a park. In front of the palace there was some activity with the changing of the guards that was witnessed. Seeing this entrance in real life after seeing it in the news and television so many times was amazing. Around the back end of the palace was the Royal Mews exhibit which displayed all the coaches and carriages used by the Queen. The grande finale of the Mews was an all gold carriage!

Close by to the Royal Mews was a famous bakery Peggy Porschen that specialized in cupcakes and sweet treats. We grabbed a cake slice to go from there and navigated our way through the busy Victoria Station back to SOHO to scope out the Liberty Department Store which was made out of old ships. Liberty was nice to see but no where as extravagant as Harrods. All the walking tired us out and it was time for food. Around the corner from Liberty was a pub called The Clachan that served traditional British Pie’s and had many beers on casks. The pies were extra yummy and way better than the pot pies available in the states.

Checking into our hotel, a much needed nap was on deck. This hotel room was 75 square feet! It’s exactly what I thought a London hotel room would be. Both Natalie and I are comfortable in working with small spaces so this wasn’t a big deal.

Dinner that evening was Brew Dog Seven Dials. This was a different Brew Dog location from the previous time and the inside had a different layout and beer selections. The crazy thing is everything closes at 11 pm or midnight on the weekends in the UK besides Night Clubs.

March 14

Near our hotel was a coffee shop called Insomnia coffee inside a Primark store. We were able to have tea cakes for the first time and they did not disappoint. It reminded me of a cranberry bagel meeting a muffin. The Primark store had lots of Harry Potter merch which Natalie had her best shopping journey of the trip.

Next up was a visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral with multilevel viewings of the main floor, crypt, and 2 galleries that overlooked the city. I was really glad we were able to see St. Paul’s too as it was one of the most wonderful buildings I have stepped foot in. The climb to the galleries felt never ending but the views they offered were breathtaking.

View from 2nd gallery at St Pauls - 3/14/20

After a few hours of St. Paul’s the world famous Millennium Bridge was nearby and was calling for us to cross it! I’ve seen this bridge in so many films and photographs so it was surreal to walk across it.

On the opposite end of the bridge, there was a walkway on the river that passed by the Shakespeare Globe theater - we didn’t get to go inside but was able to admire it still. At the end of the path was a public marketplace called Borough Market where may vendors sold foods and goods similar to the Liberty Public Market in San Diego. We tried hot juice for the first time there and it was yummy. You could tell that this market place didn’t get the memo of COVID-19 yet as it was jammed packed and food items were easily touchable and in sneeze distance.

Brewery hopping was the next item on the list for the day. We hopped on a bus that brought us a warehouse/storage unit district of exactly where you’d expect to find the breweries at. The first stop we visited was Cloudwater which is ranked top 8 in the world for breweries. I tried a variety of their selections and get some cans to go.

My friend from college Chris and his girlfriend also met up as we were leaving Cloudwater. They came into town from Reading which is just outside of London for a concert that evening. Together we all walked to The Kernel Brewery which had a bunch of great fruited Saison’s. I also got some to-go here also to bring back to the states. The Kernel was ranked 11th best brewery in the world in 2019. After some indulging it was time to part ways for the next portion of the day.

Guess what we had in store for the evening? Harry Potter the play! We were able to snag tickets the night before to this famous show. I was never a Harry Potter fan growing up not being able to get past the first 10 pages of the first book - I did enjoy the play though and was able to follow along with Natalie giving me some backstory. After the play, we had to go back to Brew Dog SoHo again for some beer and food!

Getting back to our hotel and finding out the latest world news, the UK was being included in the travel ban to the US, but luckily we were getting out before Tuesday when the ban would start. London was still business as usual the entire day with some of the breweries taking extra precautions for service but overall you could not tell that anything was happening in the world outside of this city.

March 15

The day had finally come to return to the US after an extended London trip. We hopped on the tube for an hour journey back to the Heathrow airport. Things at the airport didn’t seem too out of the ordinary. The American Airlines agents were screening passengers that didn’t have US passports more heavily given the travel bans in place if they visited China or the rest of Europe. On our flight back home the pilots announced that we would need to fill out a CDC health questionnaire for enhanced screening once we landed in Los Angeles after customs. Some previous internet researched showed that in Dallas these additional screenings were taking an additional 6 to 7 hours to get out the airport. We braced ourselves for the worst case scenario.

Once we landed we did our custom declarations digitally at the the stations lined up, picked up our luggage and went to the appropriate immigration line. The airport staff separated the US citizens and non-US citizen lines. From the looks of it the non-US line was long and had additional health screenings. The US immigration line went pretty quickly and once we spoke to the CBP officer for 10 seconds, she basically said have a nice day barely checking our documents. The next thing you know we were exiting the airport without ever getting health screened. The time from airport de-board to on the shuttle to the parking lot was 30 minutes. We hopped in my car and drove back to San Diego which took less than 2 hours.

Our journey was complete and had very few hiccups along the way besides the re-plan mid trip. I am glad that we went on our trip and got to experience many of the sights of London before the world shut down. As I am typing this today, London finally caught up to the rest of the world and is in a similar situation as us in the US. We were always just a few days ahead of the situation when we were out there and everything seemed to have worked out accordingly to get us home in a safe and timely manner.

The history of DJ Quanson

March 7, 2020 Michael Quan

I thought today would be a good opportunity to share some stories about my life with you. One of the stages in my life was my DJ career that probably spanned a solid 5 years where I went by the name “DJ Quanson”. I know there are some of you out there who have seen me play live or heard about what I previously did through casual conversations. Here is a brief history behind this venture and where I currently am today with DJ Quanson. Pictures included in this summary too!

Growing up, I was always a big fan of music - listening, playing in a band, going to shows. My favorite genres have always been punk rock, metal, and hardcore since as early as I can remember. Around 2010 I started listening to electronic music quite a bit on Sirius XM BPM. This was probably the time when DJ’s started to become mainstream. Being the dreamer I am, I asked the question - why aren’t there more DJ’s out there who mix the music I like to listen to and not all the “mainstream” stuff. I wanted to hear some punk rock and metal thrown together! I decided to make that happen myself.

November 2014 I ordered my Pioneer DDJ-SB DJ controller to mess around on my Mac mini desktop. I remember the first groups I tried mixing together were Northlane, Knucke Puck, The Story So Far, Enter Shikari, Arhitects, etc. I’m sure you haven’t heard of any of these groups but I had a blast doing so! Around the same time. I put out a few mixes on Mix.lr back when that was the way to broadcast live mixes to the world. I had some selections of electronic music but not too much around this time.

Word got around that I had a DJ controller in 2015 and I was asked to play a private casino night event at board room of an apartment complex. Of course I wanted to give this a shot and try something new! At this time I didn’t have ANY equipment besides my controller and Mac mini. I borrowed lights, computer monitors, a sound system to pull this event off. The biggest problem was I didn’t have any MAINSTREAM music that a general audience would want to hear. Like most instances, its who you know and not what you know. Luckily I had a friend who was a DJ around town that let me use his music library for this event. I didn’t really know any of the songs and could barely beat-match properly at this time. I ended up performing at the event and it went well and I learned so much about performing.

June 2015 - First DJ gig with mostly borrowed equipment.

After the casino night event I felt lots of momentum moving forward. This was when I decided to brand myself as DJ Quanson. The name Quanson comes from my college fraternity days where there were multiple Michael’s in our organization so we would all be referred to by last name. Quanson was one of the names I was referred to by some close friends so I decided I would carry that forward. I wanted to create a logo but didn’t know anything about graphic design at the time. Once again its about who you know, so I had a friend create the logo you see below.

August 2015 - First and only logo

Around this time of getting my “brand” up and running I decided to purchase a laptop computer so I didn’t have to borrow as much equipment to get my mobile setup up and running. I was also asked to play at one of my friends pool parties which would allow me to casually experiment with new techniques and songs.

After the pool party, I was asked to play another casino night - same organizers and spot as my first event. This time I was more prepared with my laptop and lighting although I still borrowed a sound system. I remember at this event having an active dance floor in front of me which was an awesome feeling that people were “feeling” off the music I was playing.

After this second casino night event I felt great about my new found DJ career. I was then asked by a friend to perform at an Oktoberfest event at the Tin Roof, a bar downtown San Diego. Of course I accepted the event, but was extremely nervous since this is the first time I would be playing in front of complete strangers on an actual stage. For this event I actually did lots of preparation of a song list and mixing strategies. I actually got people on the dance floor for this event too which was awesome. After this event I realized that my go-to specialty tunes were late 90’s early 00’s pop hits - a complete departure from punk rock and metal.

October 2015 - Oktoberfest at Tin Roof, San Diego

Things were on a roll here it seemed. I was referred to others to perform a Halloween party in Pacific Beach at the Night Owl bar. Not many people can say they’ve DJ’ed at this fine establishment. This was when I knew I needed to get more equipment - my own huge speakers, more lights, more everything. I had a blast doing this event and it was really fun to perform on the busiest night in Pacific Beach.

October 2015 - Halloween at the Night Owl in Pacific Beach.

At this point I thought I’d be done for the year with the holidays coming up…Think again! I was referred to play a private event at the world famous Razor House in La Jolla. Alicia Keys currently owns this house. I stepped it up even more this time and got bigger speakers. This was the probably one of the coolest events I was able to play.

2015 was finally over with lots of momentum heading into 2016. I was then asked to play my first wedding at a winery. I had never done a wedding before but was up for the challenge. Preparing the playlist for each portion of the evening and following a set time line was probably the biggest portion of the wedding. The stakes were really high too because any sort of mess up could ruin the couples special day. We went back and forth a few times with all the songs the couple wanted for each portion of the ceremony and reception and everything turned out perfectly with no hiccups! First wedding under my belt complete.

April 2016 - Winery wedding in Ramona, CA

After my first wedding, in the summer of 2016 I ended up doing my first house warming party, then another small backyard wedding.

After the summer of 2016, I did a night time pool party. This was when I acquired a bunch of new music to experiment with which gave me new energy and variety to keep it interesting. I also was able to do the Oktoberfest event at the Tin Roof once again. Things were starting to get stale around this period of time for me as many of the events I was doing used a similar set of music and I no longer got the “nerves” prior to each event. Everything was still “cool” but nothing really excited me like it did in the first place.

October 2016 - Oktoberfest at Tin Roof, San Diego

In November 2016, I also got another interesting opportunity to just throw up some speakers and hit play on a pre-set playlist at the San Diego Air and Space Museum. One of my favorite parts of each event was always seeing how the space was set up and the organizer letting me be a part of their experience.

November 2016 - Air and Space Museum event

Also in November of 2016, I was able to do another wedding of 2 of my good friends that were getting married in San Diego. This wedding was beautiful and I was so glad to be a part of the couples special day. At this point, I had all my equipment and setups optimized so little prep work needed to be put into an event. At this time I felt like DJ Quanson was slowly winding down too and this was a great way to slowly put this business to rest.

At this point if I wanted to DJ again, I wanted it to be a fun event where I could show up throw on some tunes and have a good time rather than lots of expectations from the client. What better way to do that than a one-off house party.

I ended up putting DJ Quanson to sleep for the almost the rest of 2017 as it no longer “Sparked Joy” in my life at this time period and I didn’t see much happening in the future. I felt really satisfied with what I accomplished and the events I was able to perform at. There was always one thing that I never got to do though…..DJ a Night Club. At the end of 2017, I was asked to do event at Fluxx Nightclub downtown San Diego - I couldn’t say no to this one! After dusting off the equipment and getting a refresh in music I was able to execute the event and felt extremely satisfied at the end of it. There’s nothing cooler than being the source of infinite bass in a super packed club where people are having a fun night out. I ended up doing this same event in 2018 also!

December 2018 - Fluxx Nightclub San Diego

In the summer of 2019 after performing the Konmari method on my home, I made the conscious decision that DJing was no longer really a part of my current lifestyle and future life. I sold off almost all of my mobile DJ equipment (speakers, lights, cables, etc.) I ended up keeping my DJ Controller and a few lights in case I wanted to have a fun moment or another unique opportunity popped up where I could plug into someone else’s sound system. All in all, I had some great times over the 5 years of doing it - there is a time and place for each and everything in our lives and we must always keep moving forward with the next adventure!

Live Where Your Lifestyle Is

February 21, 2020 Michael Quan

We all get a choice for the location that we call home. At the end of the day a combination of priorities lead us to make that decision for one reason or another.

I made the conscious choice of making the neighborhood of Pacific Beach in San Diego my home as it suited the lifestyle I want to live. I highly value the always perfect temperature, walkability to goods and services, proximity to the Pacific Ocean, and especially the culture of everyone out here having an active lifestyle. I’ve been a resident here for over 7 years now and it never gets old.

Prior to moving here, I lived in the sleepy and “family/educational friendly” neighborhood of Poway, CA - this is where my day job is also located. Although my daily commute was only 9 minutes each way through the city streets and the people were friendly, something just didn’t feel right. Growing up it seemed like it was the norm for everyone to eventually live in the suburbs and buy a “house” with a million bedrooms, large backyard, and multiple vehicles. None of these items were ever important to me and I was going down that path because that’s what society deemed normal.

I used to struggle with the concept of what I “should” do versus what actually made me happy. In 2013 I finally made the conscious choice of leaving the societal “safe choice” behind and pursue that active lifestyle I always wanted. I ended up financially paying more for “less” but I definitely got what I wanted and am extremely happy to live out here. Who needs a backyard when the ocean is right there? Who needs a million rooms when i’m hardly at my home? Who needs multiple cars when I can just walk everywhere? Why drive to the gym when the journey down the street is part of the exercise?

Now I want you (the reader of this) to think about where you currently live and what compelled you to make that decision to do so. Is the location the lifestyle you want to live? If it isn’t, what’s stopping you from making a plan or taking action? Food for thought.

Bonus photo that I took during my run today of Pacific Beach from the pier:

Photo of Pacific Beach from the Pier 2/21/20 1:06 PM