The last year has been full of changes and I hoped everything would turn out fine (finally). I moved to a new part-time job with a decent paycheck, started working as a freelance sysadmin and got back studying at the university. On the last days of July I left my home in Milan to head towards Germany with my girlfriend on our first holiday trip with a car of our own and I was thrilled. It’s been such a nice trip, until we got an accident.
I was driving and I fell asleep, so we ended up in the ditch at the side of the road and I almost destroyed the right side of the car. The repair workshop in Germany asked us ~10,000€ to completely repair the car, but it costs 12,000€ to buy a new one. It should be way cheaper to repair the car in Italy, but it will be a huge blow to my finances anyway. All the plans I had for the coming months (including a few plans regarding this very site) were destroyed in less than a second.
But it’s not all dark and gritty. I actually found extraordinary people in these dire moments of need and I want to express my sincerest thanks to Christoph, who stopped by while driving on the same road and helped us go back to the camping, and to the people in the Campingplatz am Nationalpark in Klingenbrunn, who were so nice and helped us so much going through all this. I can’t express my gratitude with words. It would have been so much harder without them!
Now, while I was away I received a package from China – it was a pair of the new Venture Electronics Monk Plus SPC, complete with 2.5 mm balanced jack (Aune M1s and FiiO X5 III reviews updates incoming!). There was also an Asura 2.0s (thanks, Lee!), the new and improved version of the Asura 2.0 which I reviewed a few weeks ago . They’re all undergoing burn in right now, so I think I will publish the review in two or three weeks (or maybe a bit more, I haven’t created a plan yet). I’ll feature them in an upcoming “Headphones in Pictures” post, so stay tuned!
I am happy to be back home and I look forward to publishing a few reviews through the end of September. A couple products are very interesting and I’m sure they will get your attention as they got mine. Not to mention the fact that Roberto, a colleague of mine at Hardware Upgrade, lent me a Sony PS-HX500 turntable which is definitely going to make an appearance here in the future.
A person I met on the train yesterday who couldn’t walk properly told me: “I’m going to give it all I’ve got today, what about you?”. This was incredibly motivating and it’s the kind of attitude I’m going to have. Let’s get back to work!
