It's a Quinzee!!!!

Snow Quinzee!!!

Video tour of the quinzee

I built a quinzee! (Ya, I still don't have a Nintendo Wii...)

They're pretty easy to make:

1. Make a big pile of snow (the dry powdery stuff, not the wet stuff like the first snowfall)


2. Let it sit overnight (no packing or water required)


3. Dig out the inside (stop digging when you start to see light through the walls)

It's one of the bigger ones that I've made. I figure you can fit 4 people inside. Rather cramped, and the people have to be my size, but 4 people.

The snow piling took about an hour. It was harder than it looked b/c shoveling snow on grass is hard. You can't just shovel normally otherwise you rip out the grass and there was only a few inches of snow cover, so there wasn't much to scoop up. The excavation took me about 2 hours today. It would've been easier if someone was outside to shovel away the dug out snow, rather than me trapping myself inside :). It was rather surreal just sitting inside the quinzee with the entrance blocked. The world just disappeared as it was eerily silent. The snow is translucent, so it was still light enough to see inside the quinzee.

With the huge amount of snow I excavated, I decided to convert the bachelor apartment quinzee into a 1 bedroom! I'll dig it out this weekend.

1 bedroom quinzee suite available for rent Jan. 2007

Quinzee building has turned into a bit of a tradition for me. My older sister taught me and my younger sister how to build one after she learnt how in winter camp, which would've been like 1989 or 1990.

"Snowman Quinzee" 2002 (some rotten kids kicked it in) and Quinzee 1991 (there's a picture of Lucky inside of it, but I can't find it right now)

Aliens???

Mysterious structure in my front yard

I saw this appear over a 1 hour period. It doesn't look finished. I wonder what it is...

I think the only logical explanation is aliens. First they do Stonehenge and crop circles, and now this???

At least it's comforting to see that they use simple tools like shovels, and not crazy high-tech-laser-beam-matter-changing-nuclear-light-saber-human-genocide devices. Or is the shovel there just to throw us off and lull us into a false sense of security???

Merry Christmas! ...or whatever you celebrate

Presents under the Christmas tree

My loot!
Yes, I got a Nintendo Wii!!! ...but I have to find it first :s

I WON THE LOTTERY!!! This should help me with the expectations put upon me.

Tiggy playing with his new mouse toy

The mouse was no match for Tiggy...

We started the day late, like 10 am, as we slept in. We opened the stockings (gifts from Santa, which reminds me, I forgot to include the chocolates I got from Santa in the picture above), then we opened the presents under the tree from family. With Marigold closed for Christmas, we went to Kum Koon for dim sum. It was pretty busy. The restaurant is pretty big, housing a good 200-300 people or something, and yes, all you Torontonians, there are Chinese people in Winnipeg and pretty much everyone in the restaurant was Chinese, and no that wasn't the entire Chinese population of Winnipeg :p. The afternoon was a bit of a blur (mostly involved me and Pobo), but 2 sets of {aunt, uncle, cousins} + "uncle" Bob + cousin Edwin came over for Christmas dinner (mmmm.... turkey and ham!)

Now I'm planning my Wii hunting...

Happy 16th Anniversary Mittens!

On this day, 16 years ago, my life was forever changed, as me and my family brought Mittens home. Don't listen to the rumors that I spent part of the day in fear on top of the freezer.

Sometimes Mi-Mi goes nuts

Super Mario Bros. 3!!!

I think I still have this outfit somewhere...

Her current activities include sleeping on my bed

And drinking from the water fountain

Offline blogger gathering

Justin, Vince, Jill, and Rob

First time the four of us have been in the same place since we all started blogging, except Justin has basically stopped blogging. Jill, I checked, and your first post was Jan. 14th. Since then, I was out of town, and then Justin was out of town, etc., etc. Things overheard this evening:

Oh, it's weird seeing you here. I don't expect you to be in town. I expect to talk to you online.

It's in my blog. (This was said several times)

Some how we got talking about blogging (however did that subject come up???) and one thing led to another and we started a new joint venture! Nothing big, but it'll be pretty cool. I'll leave the real announcement to later once we've got it going in a more developed state.


Despite having many movies and video games on hand, we ended up watching the "fire channel" all evening. It was always exciting to see the hand put the new log on, and the point of the video where it fades back to the beginning of the loop.

Rocky Balboa Surprisingly Rocks

I know what you're thinking and I was thinking it too. I was extremely skeptical about this movie. This movie had trouble written all over it. Sequel of an old cheesy movie that had like a billion sequels, Sylvester Stallone is playing his old character, but is now 60 years old, I never saw the originals, so I wouldn't really "get" this one, but can probably tell you the plot of the originals (Rocky struggles, but wins and gets the girl), I don't usually watch "dick flicks", and finally, Kives was recommending it (he doesn't have a good track record of taste in movies, or frankly, anything). I went to go watch it with Kives tonight on his suggestion.

I expected the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen, but it was actually good!!! I still can't believe that it didn't suck!!!

I was fully expecting zero plot, zero character development, and an extremely large amount of cheese. I was wrong on every count. The plot was actually pretty good, and was built up well. It was a little unbelievable, but at the same time, just believable enough. It made complete sense despite not having seen the previous ones. The character development was actually surprisingly good for a "dick flick". And while some of the lines could have been cheesy, it came across as genuine and actually left me with some memorable quotes:

You or nobody ain't never gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit... it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.

Sir, do you have a reservation?
Do I look like a freakin' Indian?

(ya, it's bad, but it's so bad it's funny)

Despite not having seen the original movies, I had seen enough clips and parodies of them to know the soundtrack, and I have to admit, I was getting into it when the key songs were playing. Running up the stairs with the Rocky theme (microphone arrays memories) playing in the background is classic. I wanted Eye of the Tiger, but it wasn't in the movie itself. I think it was playing in the credits though.

I got fully absorbed into this movie. I felt for Rocky and I was cheering him on. When I forget about everything else and I'm fully engrossed in a movie, that's when it's a good movie. It was definitely entertaining and it was worth the $8.95 (that's the full admission price in Winnipeg).

Of course, Kives and I followed it up with some ping pong in my basement for old times sake :). For the record, I kicked his ass, 3-0 in games to 5. He's totally lost his game having not played for so long.

By popular demand...

My room in Winnipeg, or at least a part of it

Mi-Mi on my bed

Mi-Mi (cat, not person) has been sleeping on the same spot on my bed pretty much 24/7 since I got back. She leaves only to eat and visit the litter box. She will scratch at my door to come in if my door is closed and once inside, she doesn't budge from her sleeping spot despite the door being open, causing much jealousy in my sisters. I joined Mi-Mi for a 2 hour cat nap this aft :). She loves me and misses me and I do the same in return. Now if only she came in human form... And no, Mimi (the person), I'm not talking about you :p

Identity is a horrible, horrible show

Let's ignore the fact that Identity stretches out what should only take, at most, 5 min. of matching 12 pairs of things into an hour long show infused with artificial drama through commercial breaks. The whole concept of the show is exactly what is wrong with our society.

Identity is a game show where a contestant has to match 12 people with their occupation based entirely on appearance. The contestants cannot ask them questions and the people do not speak or do anything. They just stand there.

This is wrong on so many levels. First, it reinforces the concept of stereotypes of occupations, even worse is that it's based only on looks. Second, it defines individuals solely by their occupation.

It's very common to get those "oh, one of those" reactions when you tell someone what you do. Occupational stereotypes are very strong, but I don't think you should be defined by your job. If all you are is what you do for a living, then I think that's rather sad.

I read something once where the guy said that in introductions, most people start off with what their job is. He thought this was inherently wrong. He said that we should not be defined by our occupation, and rather, what is a better reflection of himself was that he was the son of Bob and Mary, husband of Sarah, and father of Paul and Wanda. I agree with this that "what we do" is not "who we are". Pragmatically speaking though, it's a decent introduction.

I don't like to be categorized into any type of stereotype - occupational, ethnic, cultural, gender, physical, age, or otherwise. I fight against them and like to have my own identity.

New camera!

The cameras face off... but how am I taking this photo of the cameras???

HP 812 (old)

Canon SD600 (new)

I got an early Christmas present! I don't think this counts towards my quota of Christmas presents either :D. It helps that my parents own a computer store and can get stuff for cost. It also helps that it's partially a business cost as the store is going to use my old camera in its business operations.

My old camera still works and the image quality's decent, but it's rather clunky, using AA batteries sucks, and the eye viewer is busted (it's permanently zoomed in). The old camera's a 4 MP, and the new one is 6, though the optics and sensors are better on the new camera. If you zoom in on the images above, you can tell the difference, though the focus is a little off for the HP camera. Of course, the first pictures I take with a new camera are of my pets :)

The new camera has a lot more features and you can control things better in manual mode (not that I know what I'm doing). It also starts faster, has less of a delay when taking pictures, is smaller and lighter, and uses a lithium battery, which lasts way longer than AAs. I was particularly frustrated with how my old camera did with things close to the camera as the flash would often ruin the image, but without flash, it'd be all blurry. The new camera seems to deal with the flash reflection much better and also has a bunch of low-light settings for me to play with.

In truth, this gift is not really a gift for me, but a gift for you readers out there! Expect more, and better quality pictures from this point on!

I'm sorry Shaftesbury, I disappointed you

I was flipping through the old high school yearbook and in my graduating year, I was voted the most likely to make my first million by the age of 25.

I'm sorry Shaftesbury, it doesn't look like that's going to happen :(. I do however, still have a little over 4 months to go, so I'm currently accepting donations. Show some school spirit!!! Together, we can make this happen!

Oh, and I retract my yearbook quote. Frankly, most people should retract their yearbook quote. Good on those that didn't submit a quote.

Reminder to self: bus stop is on the East side

Stupid 192 Airport Rocket (bus) left the subway station 2 min. early and I just missed it. I was about 1.5 bus lengths behind, but thought I was ok, b/c there was a girl in front of me running.

I even tried to be all clever today, as I walked all the way to the West side of the platform when I got onto the subway to save time later, only to find out that the bus stop was actually on the East side, so not only did I waste effort walking the entire length of the subway twice, but it also caused me to miss the bus. I ended up having to wait 20 min., at which point, that bus left a few min. late :s. The airport wasn't busy though, so I was still plenty early.

Home is just as I left it. There's actually snow here, not much, but there's snow and it's refreshingly cold (below -10), so it feels a little bit more Christmasy. The tree's up as well. I donno though, I'm just not feeling the holiday spirit yet. It'll hit sooner or later...

Congratulations Chris and Dayna!

Congratulations Chris and Dayna! I'm pretty sure I'm the last of the SSEA (Shaftesbury South Enders Alliance) to know. Thanks for telling me. No, wait... Justin told me. And he only found out yesterday. Rob, Jill, you two better come up with a good excuse. I'm sure both of you knew. Chris, you're not off the hook either. I know you've been to my blog several times this week.... from work :p

I already have the key point for my speech: "I slept with Dayna right in front of Chris". No, I'm not going to qualify that statement.

5th engagement this year.

iCook Sugar

I am disturbingly full...

First, I went with Jamie, Esther, and Trish to iCook. Hot pot buffet! It blew my mind. You got your own little pot, with whatever soup base you wanted (I just went with the regular chicken stock), then there's an actual buffet line of raw food for the hot pot! Usually with hot pot, you have to keep ordering. I've never seen a buffet line. They had a lot of spices and sauces as well and free fountain drinks :). The execution was quite well done and I ate A LOT. Two massively high piled plates. The food was alright, not amazing though. I was a little disappointed with the fish balls. They weren't very "song". They were also running out of stuff (namely veggies) near the end of the night. I liked the beef, tofu, and mushrooms :). I've been to places with better food (Times I think), but I really like the personalized little pot and the buffet line.

The girls were too full for dessert, but I insisted on going as I have been craving Chinese dessert for a while. I had red bean earlier today at Pho Hung (well, the "3 colour" drink), but wanted more red bean still. I didn't get red bean tonight though. We went to The Sugar to get takeout. I got the "House Special Super Golden Sago Mixed (sea coconut, mixed fruit, and ice cream golden sago mixed)". Ya, I wouldn't know what it was either if you just told me that. It was mango "sei mei lo" (small tapico) with fruit. It was rather tasty. Oh, I just found a picture:


I don't get either of these two things (hot pot in a restaurant and Chinese dessert) in Winnipeg and there are no Chinese dessert places in downtown :(

I'm struggling to fight against the food coma right now. Still SO FULL.

All I do is attend Christmas parties

I kept meaning to blog, but there was too much going on. Plus, I'm leaving in 12 hours and my suitcase currently has 2 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of socks, and 1 pair of underwear. There is clean laundry all over my bed and my room is a mess...

Seems like all I did this week was go to Christmas parties, which is bizarre b/c up until now, I hadn't gone to a single Christmas party in Toronto. The reason why I suddenly had so many is b/c I've met a bunch of new people this year, and I'm also staying in Toronto later than I usually do.

• Last Saturday - Tina's potluck


• Tuesday - Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research (CCBR)
  • Party in the middle of the afternoon, but we got a free drink and appetizers, but there wasn't much by the time I got there.


• Thursday - Probabilistic and Statistical Inference Group (PSI, aka, my research group)
  • Sat around eating cupcakes for Ofer's belated birthday and twizzlers telling jokes for an hour.


• Saturday - Toronto Chinese Alliance Church (TCAC)
  • Went with Elsa and Phila to Aaron's church's Christmas party. Free dinner :). The bread was really good. I had about 2 loaves... The program was pretty entertaining, though I was struggling to avoid food coma. It probably would have been funnier had I known the people performing/talking.


• Saturday - Nastassja's party
  • Party #2. Not very festive, but it was good to catch up with Nastassja, Jen, and Ron. I was pretty red.

Jen was pretty red earlier, but I easily surpassed her with just a single one of Nastassja's mojitos

The red faded as I discussed business with Mr. Appel

I missed the annual Shaftesbury South End Alliance Christmas party this year (it was on Friday). I just made up that name, but it's the people I'm friends with from Shaftesbury, but I wasn't friends when them when we were at Shaftesbury. You guys know who you are. North enders need not apply.

Other random things this week:

• Semi-friend's master's thesis presentation
  • Novel application of graph cuts, but not enough results and overly simplified experimental conditions. He was getting drilled pretty bad by the committee afterwards and he wasn't able to answer some pretty basic questions. It was kinda painful to watch and I just wanted to shout out the answers :s. I had to do some stuff, so I had to leave halfway through the questions and I'm not sure how it turned out.


• UTCCF Christmas / going away dinner
  • Met up with UTCCFers for a Christmas / going away dinner as "Little Jon" (Jon Fung) was leaving the next day to go back home for the holidays. We did the familiar Baldwin, but went for Korean instead of Kowloon.


• Indoor beach volleyball
  • Dinner at some ramen place near Finch station with Mike, Christine, Michelle, and Newton, then 3+ hours of indoor beach volleyball, meeting up with Tina, Donna, and other beach bums. Not many people were there, so we took over 3 courts and played 2's. The net was low, so I had a fun time hitting :). It was pretty fun. Afterwards, we went for *more* food. Korean again... I left my ball sac and balls in Michelle's car :s


• UTCCF Christmas / going away lunch
  • Michelle (different one from above) called me at 9:30 am on a SUNDAY. That's just inhumane. For future reference, the general guideline is to not call me if you see a single digit on the clock in the morning. She is lucky that Tony picked up b/c I would not have gotten it. I went to bed without setting my alarm clock and my cell was off. I met up with the UTCCFers at Pho Hung for lunch.

NO PST, BITCHES

My new snowpants and a look into my bedroom, a place where unfortunately, few have seen. My previous offer still stands.

Finally got a pair of waterproof snowpants! That should help me in times of rain, like last year and my recent trip to Snoqualmie.

I had the hardest time finding a new pair as Men's "small" is too big! MEC and REI didn't have a substantial kids section either, and the women's snowpants were just too fitting :s. I found myself in Eaton Centre today and in SportChek. I tried on like 10 pairs of snowpants, and finally settled on this one:

I still wear kids clothing

Even with a "youth" size, I have to make use of the elastic waist adjustment band :s. I tried one size lower, but it was too small. Using the adjustment thingy makes the back all scrunched up. I may have to find a belt instead...

I found the attached sizing chart rather humorous :). Europeans wear XL (18/20) when they're 14, but people in Japan and Korea wear it when they are 19!!! Heck, I'm still wearing it! I know that growing up, I would typically wear the same size as my age, as advised by this sizing chart for Asians, and I guess I just stopped at 19, which is about right, as that's about the age people guess that I am :p

Asians are small

Not only was the snowpants on sale ($80), but since it was kids, there was NO PST!!! Unlike in Manitoba, in Ontario, all kids clothing automagically gets the PST (provincial sales tax, 8% in Ontario) off, and you don't have cashiers asking you if you are under 14.

NO PST, BITCHES

Takes me back to junior high school

I went to go play badminton at Brown Community Centre with Tina, Donna, Sue (who asked that I bring her some mango pudding), and Darren. It took me back to Laidlaw as that was the last time I had played badminton. It was pretty fun, though it took a little bit to remember how to play and I'm still not that great. I was able to beat some old people though.

There were tons of people - 30+. 3 courts. Even with doubles on each court, there was a lot of sitting off. I think my record was 2-3 for the afternoon.

My right arm is pretty sore. My forearms are tired from gripping the racket for so long and my shoulder is tired. I was using muscles I just don't normally use, which is odd b/c it should be similar to a volleyball hit, but maybe I just used it more, or more likely, I used muscles I wasn't supposed to use b/c of my poor form :p

Afterwards, we went to Teppanyaki Sushi (maybe that's not it's actual name) near Don Mills and Eglinton (Ontario Science Centre and one of the few Superstores, but still not as Super as in Winnipeg). It was my first time having Teppanyaki, which is Japanese food where they cook it right at the table. I found it very amusing to watch. It's cool b/c you get to eat the food right after it comes off the grill, so it's nice and hot. You also eat as it's made :)

Tina dropped me off at the Loblaws near her place and I picked up a giant bag of frozen fruit (for blending of course) and some miscellaneous groceries before rollerblading home (only took like 10 min. b/c it was downhill :)). Then I did some hardcore vegging. Nice start to my vacation :)

Partied from 5 to 5

Second pan of mango pudding (first one was pretty much finished at the potluck)

First, Yue has his going away party, which started at 5 pm Saturday at the Korean BBQ place on Queen St. I had no idea that that place had an upstairs. Pretty much everyone there I had seen on a volleyball court at some point. We should have just held the party on a volleyball court :p

Then we headed over to the good 'ol Firkin pub right next to my apartment, where we had the back room reserved. I stayed for a beer, and then took off around 9ish to go to Tina's potluck. It was funny when I got there b/c I saw Mike and I was like "I already saw you tonight..." as he was at Korean BBQ, but skipped the pub to presumedly go to the potluck.

I feel that I was responsible for seeding the potluck idea into her head b/c it was obviously not her other friends seeming as how a few of them brought pre-made stuff!!! That goes completely against the whole spirit of a potluck!!! You're supposed to make something!!! Half the fun is poisoning your friends (or strangers) :)

Anyways, after going to the C-Lounge a couple weeks ago with Tina and Donna, we hit Chinatown for some late night food. Donna only wanted the mango pudding from there and I commented that that's my specialty. They asked me to make some, and I said, half jokingly, that if they had a potluck, I'd make it and bring it (if I could find the necessary special ingredient).

Tina hosted a potluck and I was obliged to bring my signature dish. No, it's not made from powder. That is insulting! No, I didn't get the recipe off the internet. No, it's not an old family recipe passed down through the generations. I made the recipe myself! No, you can't have the recipe.

It was quite well received, despite the mango pudding not in its most amazing form, as the coconut milk I used had congealed and left a white film on the top, but it tasted fine. Most of the pan I brought was finished, which is good b/c I wouldn't know what to do with all the leftovers, considering that I had a whole second pan. I've realized that I can pick up girls, or at least greatly impress them, with this dish, and I could open a mango pudding store next to my Indian restaurant.

Anyways, so after my second dinner, wine, dessert, chilling & talking, and charades, it was 5 am. Nice way to kick start my vacation ;)

Now I'm really done

Happy Holidays!

Just submitted the supplemental material for my CVPR paper, i.e. pretty videos. So, now I'm really done, and am on vacation!!!

I even have a Christmas / Holiday potluck to go to tomorrow, which reminds me, I have make my dish for tomorrow right now using that special ingredient I bought yesterday.

Ok, so I'm not technically on vacation, but I don't have any more hard deadlines for some time and everything can resume it's regular leisurely grad school pace, though it was nice to be uber-motivated again and it definitely paid off.

I sleep so little, I watch the stars fade into day

-- Tegan and Sara

I should open an Indian restaurant

Secret ingredient

I went to Little India today to get a secret ingredient, which is unrelated to the meal I made today, but the trip led me to buy curry and other ingredients necessary for my dinner. In Winnipeg, I can get mango pulp in Superstore, but I couldn't find it anywhere here and had to go all the way to Little India, where one small grocery store had like 4 or 5 different brands!

Today's dinner menu was inspired by Sarah's curry.

It was the first time I tried making curry and it was AMAZING!!! I swear that the flavour was exactly like chicken jalfrezi from a real Indian restaurant, except without the obscene amount of oil and more veggies.

Onions, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, chicken, curry paste, coconut milk, and naan-like bread

1. Cooked the onions in some oil in a pan


2. Threw in the chicken and scooped several teaspoons of curry paste in


3. Cooked for a few min. and then added the coconut milk and veggies


4. Simmered for a while, using a lid to help cook the vegetables


5. Wrapped the bread in aluminum foil and warmed it up in the oven


6. Made a fruit smoothie


7. Ate to the brink of food coma

SO GOOD

The only thing I'd change next time is to cook the potatoes separately for a bit b/c they took a while to cook despite being in small chunks and caused me to cooked the whole thing for longer than I needed, but it wasn't over cooked. I used "boiling" potatoes. I'm so confused at all the different potatoes - frying, boiling, baking, batteries, satellites...

Seattle wrap-up

I'm sure that this is going to be a long post, so here's the executive summary for those of you who have exams and don't have time to read the entire entry. Wait, people with exams need to procrastinate :). Ok, this summary is just for you lazy working folk then. Except those of you who read at work. You know who you are :)

My trip was quite good overall. Interviews went well (I think and hope), wrote and submitted a good paper (I think and hope), snowboarded twice (Stevens Pass and Snoqualmie), played volleyball twice (Pro Club and Kamiakin), GReunion 2.0 (Jonny!), saw most of the people I wanted to see, and had the most amazing dragon boat practice.


Dragon boating with Hot Sake

Being on the water on Saturday was simply amazing.

Bright shining sun. Clear blue skies. Still glass water. Fresh cool air. Magnificent mountain backdrop.

The most fascinating thing was putting my bare hand in the nice, cool lake water and watching the steam come off my warm hand.

I still remembered how to paddle and my technique improved with Charlene coaching me. Dropping my shoulders when the paddle enters the water made it so my arms were way less tired. My endurance and power were way up. My ass got bruised from the hard plastic seat of the boat, but I'm told that's a good thing b/c that means I'm rotating instead of just using my arms.


Chinese restaurant tradition

I've noticed that I've been privy to several Chinese restaurant traditions.

• After dragon boat practice, we always go to Jade Garden in Chinatown for dim sum.


• It's always Jeem's for dim sum with Nebojsa


• UTCCF always goes to Kowloon on Baldwin after fellowship


• I don't even have to ask where we're going for family Saturday dinner when I go back to Winnipeg, b/c the answer is Marigold

Tradition is good, but some variety is good as well.


GReunion 2.0

By freak coincidence, Jon and I were both in Seattle at the same time.... for interviews.... for different companies (MSR and Amazon)! Crazy. I always knew that we'd meet again, but I figured it would be here in Toronto since I'm here for school and his family lives here.

I was meeting up with Dmitry, his wife, and Sarah for dinner, and Mr. Deyo blessed us with his presence. We went to Bluwater Belltown Bistro in Belltown near Sarah's place. Nice place.

Sorry, no pics b/c I forgot my camera in Toronto. I had the battery charger and USB cable, but no camera :(


Snoqualmie

I went to Snoqualmie by myself on Monday. Pretty close, like a 1 hour drive. I wasn't impressed. Only a small portion of the mountain was open and there was only 1 good run. And it was raining / freezing rain. I got my bindings ladder fixed, now all 4 of the straps have been replaced and they don't match - 2 grays (instead of black from Blue Mountain), 1 ugly beige (from Stevens), and 1 shortish bright red (from Snoqualmie). The guy said that he wished he could give them away for free, but he couldn't and asked me if $3 sounded fair and I said 'ya'. I went to go pay, but the cashier was just ignoring me. I was obviously standing in a place to butt in (like you'd do at McDonald's) to just do a quick payment, plus I was next in line anyways, but in the wrong direction. Anyways, I got sick of waiting and just left.

The best part of the trip was when my fuel gauge hit empty on the way there and I took the next exit to get gas, only to find myself driving for a few miles into the town of Snoqualmie. I saw signs for Snoqualmie Falls and decided that I'd go take a look as I had heard about it previously and it was close by. I was impressed. The water flow was quite low when I went, but it was cool to see the huge drop. Again, no camera, no pictures :(


Volleyball

Volleyball at the good 'ol Pro Club was fun. Good to see all the familiar faces. Not as many as I had hoped to see though.

I went with Alex and Stacey to Kamiakin, which was a bust at first b/c there was no open gym, but they didn't change the hotline. We had to wait until the league playoffs finished. I ran into Reiner (Rodney Blanco's older brother) there who was playing in the league, which was pretty random.

Alex and Stacey have definitely improved since I last played with them in March.


Flight entertainment

Flew direct back to Toronto on Air Canada. They had screens on the backs of each seat with on demand entertainment. I was watching My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and it was fine for a while, but then it started to get freeze every few seconds and it was so annoying that I just had to stop (they should really do some buffering or something). Sleeping was a better alternative anyways since I only had 4 hours of sleep the night before.

At least my luggage wasn't overweight - 46 lbs, only 3 lbs heavier than I went, but that's only b/c I moved a stack of papers into my carry-on and stuck my gym shoes and some socks into my snowboarding bag. I went shopping at Redmond Town Center and Bellevue Square on Monday and Tuesday, and dished out like $300, which translates into a couple pounds of clothing...


Clothing rant

Clothing is expensive. My credit card bills were much lower when I didn't like shopping. Recently I've been thinking about the (approximate) amortization cost of clothing. If I buy a (relatively cheap) $30 sweater and wear it once every 2nd week, for 4 months out of the year, for 2 years, then that's ~$2 / wear. If I wear a pair of jeans 80-100 times, then it's about $1 / wear. Shoes are probably the best deal. I've been wearing my new pair of Sketchers (the infamous pair where I was asked if I was under 14) since Aug. pretty much every day, so that's already $1 / wear even if I were to throw them out now. I always thought underwear was cheap, but it's not. I have enough to last me about 2, maybe 2.5 weeks, so that's about 26 wears / underwear / year. Some of the boxer-briefs (yes, that's what I wear, and if you're a girl, you're invited to my bed to check them out for yourself ;)), are like around $26 (after tax, etc.), so that's like a dollar every time I put one on! 50 cents if the pair lasts 2 years, 33 cents if they have holes in them. Socks, I'm not sure about. I have a bunch and I don't know the price and I don't know how long they last, but I'm guessing around a quarter per wear. Coats are very seasonal. $100 coat, 3 months out of the year? If I wear that coat every day for those 3 months (unlikely) for 2 years, then that's still more than $1 / wear. So, given that it's fallish, every time I walk out that door, it's costing me more than $6. Say I'm wearing a few layers, and put on a toque and gloves. It starts adding up! Summer I suppose is cheaper though.

I think this is a good argument for walking around naked. Again, cute girls are encouraged to explore this option in my bedroom. I am able to accommodate multiple visitors simultaneously.

DONE BITCHES!!!

CVPR (Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition) paper is done!!!

It's pretty phenomenal how much work I got done this past week to get the paper up to speed. Very little procrastination! I think it's b/c I had meetings with Nebojsa all the time and there was big pressure because of the hard deadline. I spent a lot of time at MSR, Panera Bread, and the lobby, i.e. places with wifi. Not much sleep these past few days, so I'm pretty tired.

It was hard doing it remotely without a desktop and a good, permanent place to work, but I pulled it off. Nebojsa was key as he helped to write a lot and of course his guidance in the research was very important. It was good to be here in the days prior to the deadline to meet with Nebojsa in person. Too bad he skipped off to Whistler these past few days, but he did a lot of work while he was there.

I forced Nebojsa to get on MSN Messenger to communicate. It was WAY better than how we did it last time. Last time we wrote a paper together, 2 years ago, I was in Toronto, he was here, Brendan was at home. I got like a billion e-mails. They didn't use IM!!!

Same story this time though. Rush, rush, rush, finishing within like an hour from the deadline and doing revisions and resubmitting up until half an hour past the deadline, which was at midnight. Last time was funny in retrospect with Brendan waking up at like 6 am to write the intro when the paper was due at 7 am. Nebojsa stayed up with me to finish the paper.

It's the best paper I've written since last time and the best results I've gotten since as well, i.e. last time I wrote a computer vision paper. I might even have a thesis topic now!!! We found out a few days ago that this paper can actually be considered an extension of my video epitomes work. I might actually be able to graduate at some point afterall :)

I'm not totally out in the clear yet though. I have to create videos and submit them later this week. The videos are very important for my submission. If I get it right, I'm pretty confident that my paper will get accepted. Too bad the conference is in Minneapolis s: (yes, that is a backwards emoticon, tilt your head to the right)