Stamps:

From my 4th grade in elementray school until when I turned 20, I collected stamps of the world. Standing and waiting in lines on the day new commemorative stamp was issued was fun and enjoyable. I tried to collect any stamps which I didn't have at that time, and I collected quite a few.

As I lived in Korea and was a young student, collecting unused Korean stamps was the easiest way, and with the help from father and uncles, I collected some from foreign countries. When I had duplicates of one kind, I exchanged it with friends. My collection of stamps grew big after 10 years, but I didn't know how to organize those.

I emphasized on collecting Asian paintings on stamps, issued from Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. As my resources were limited at that time, my collection was not professional, but was quite extensive.

After came to America, and had become independent enough to enjoy my hobbies, I bought the 3-D-looking stams from Bhutan, which I saw when I was 4th grade, and some more stamps which I admired to have along the way. That marked the end of my enthusiam on collecting stamps. If there's a motivation to take on again, I will collect stamps again. I just haven't found a way to orgazine it professional looking. I still keep all those stamps in the book, and look at it once in a while reminding myself of younger days.

CDs/LPs:

From my 7th grade, I started to collecting LP's and cassette tapes, oops, there was 8 tracks at that time too ;-) There were 5 categories I collected (which is still true for me): American Pop, Korean Pop, European and Asian Pop, Classical Music and Instrumental Music. As LP's and cassette tapes, I collected it until I came to America in 1980. As we had to cross the Pacific Ocean, we tried to minimize the moving goods we had to pay for, and somehow I decided not to take LP's and cassette tapes.

After coming to America, I found it difficult and costly buy all those LP's and cassette tapes I had before, and ended up buying less than 5 LP's following 10 years. As for cassette tapes, I recored the songs I like from radio.

Reel tapes and 8 tracks also occupied a portion of my music collection, but it's really a thing of the past.

As I was known as a music lover, a friend of mine handed me over with 1,000 LP's he collected when he had decided to move back to Korea. It was huge collection of 70's Rock and classical music, but I haven't got much time to enjoy all those, as I was attending and transferring universities every year. I stored in a storage in my friend's house, and it's still stored there without getting any attension. It was in 1989.

After CD player hit the U.S. market, I considered buying one, but hesitated as it was quite expensive. Several friends of mine gave me CD's as gifts, and I collected about 20 CD's of my favorite classical music, without a CD Player for over a year.

Then, one of portable CD players in the market at that time, was on sale at $299, which was the half of the cheapest of Sony's. I bought it and started playing CD collection I had. It sounded to clear and cold. The sound quality was too cold compared to that of LP, cassette tape, reel tape or 8 track. Anyway I started collecting CD's of my favorite musics in above mentioned 5 categories.

Right now, I have about 1000 CD's, but mostly from classical music and instrumental such as new age and electronic. CD is handy and easy to keep the music safe from damages. With CD-R, duplicating it for safe-keeping has become a routine after getting a new CD.

Thesedays, collecting mp3 interests me, although there's serious copyright issues. Even so, CD will last for a while, and mp3 will take over eventually.

Diecast Miniature Cars:

About 12 months ago, I started a new hobby: collecting diecast cars. Just before Christmas, I decided to reward myself with something I didn't do. I stopped in a toy shop in a shopping mall, to find diecast cars on sale. Actually I bought a Kodak digital camera for a first gift already, so I decided not to spend much on a second gift for myself, and I bought "four" 1/18 diecast cars.

Playing with model cars was quite a fun. As I was in architecture early in my career, I felt comfortable and was also knowledgable in working with smaller scale models. I visited that toyshop following day to find out that 1/18 scale model is 2 1/2 times more expensive than 1/24 model. I decided to collect 1/24 model and started buying one by one.

In terms of scales I collected, all scales are included as one model is not necessarily available for all scales. It ranges from 1/12 to 1/64. I collected about "200" 1/24 and 1/18 scale diecast cars, and more than "300" in smaller than 1/32 through 1/64. As I'm in the process of making a catalogue of it, we'll know the exact number in a couple of months.

My collection of miniature cars will grow for a couple of years, as it excites me when taking a break from hard work.

Miniature Train Set and Scaled Buildings:

As I was in architecture quite a while, I have some scaled models of buildings, which are now just stored in boxes. When I have a big house to display all those, I'll open boxes to decorate my house with those. Until then, all of building models will be stored in boxes. As I moved a lot, some of those were damaged, but I don't have energy to fix those.

Along with model houses, I also have a small collection of miniature train set in HO and N scales, but I don't play much thesedays. I'll catch up later on.

Books:

I used to keep a good library most of which inherited from my father and grandfather. After moving into computer animation and systems integration, my library is not growing. As for technical books, those are outdated usually within a year, so buying and throwing away became a routine. Other than technical books, I seldom buy one other than in computer animation. As for most literature and classics, I read omnivorously during my teens to until early 30's; so I have little desire to read fiction, in addition to saying I have little time for it.

Furthermore, as I move quite often, all books are put in box and stored in storage.

I still buy few books on graphics design, comics, and animation for reference, but after one reading it's either stored or sold back.

When I settle down in near future, I will keep all my books in the library and refer it more often.

On my desk at home and at work, only dictionaries of various languages and computer books are stored as I use those quite often. If you want to read for fun, I can't offer you any from my desks. But I want to assure you on this: reading computer book is quite fun sometimes.

Copies of Paintings:

I've never collected original paintings and art work, as those are quite expensive. As I needed some for reference, I used to keep a xeroxed copy of art work, which is handy for a reference. As there's a copyright problem with that method, I keep it strictly in my home office only.

Although those copies are of poor quality, those are good for me to imitate and get an inspiration to move forward.

Miniature Set:

I stopped collecting miniature set of household goods after I had left architecture. While in architecture, I collected minatures for a couple of years, but now I collect miniature cars only, and collected miniature train set for a while. When I have kids, I might catch up again for them ;-)

(December 12, 2001)