MVP

"I'm better than you, and now you know it"

S-Dance, the Engineering Athletics Association's awards banquet, was tonight. Good times. Free pre-drinking at Sud's. Entertaining bus ride there (crazying singing Rugby players :p). Food was pretty good. Awards went well. Dancing, singing, and jumping was a blast :)

Would've been even more fun if everyone on the two teams showed up, but they all claimed illness, other plans, or too much work. Wusses.

(Updated) How can a delivery company not know how to deliver?!!?!?

WORST COMPANY EVER

The tracking page said an estimated delivery of 10:30 am. Important package. My J-1 visa stuff. I've been up since 9:00 am sitting by the phone, with less than 4 hours of sleep, bedroom door open, waiting, no music, complete silence. I even took the precaution of putting a sign on my door - "FedEx: Please knock loudly" b/c they don't know how to knock.

But no. Nothing. Nadda. No buzz. No phone call. No knock. Check the webpage. "10:09 am - Delivery exception, Customer not available or business closed". WTF???? I WAS IN MY APARTMENT AND AWAKE!!! WAITING!

WORST COMPANY EVER!!! HOW CAN A DELIVERY COMPANY NOT KNOW HOW TO DELIVER A PACKAGE??? I DON'T UNDERSTAND. APPARENTLY THEY ALSO DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS TO DELIVER A PACKAGE.

What is the point of doing an express delivery when they don't deliver it? I'd much rather have it be sent by Canada Post. At least then I can go pick it up at my leisure at the nearby Shopper's, not f*ckin' on the other side of town between 8 PM and 10 PM. WOW!!! You gave me a whole TWO hours to pick it up. And I don't have time to sit around and wait for them to try and redelivery and just sit here waiting day after day. Waste of a whole day basically.

I called and complained and asked that my package be redelivered today and I also gave them my buzzer code and phone number. I later went downstairs to check and they did leave me one of those stupid "Sorry we missed you when we tried to deliver". Umm.. no, I was here. I'm the only Cheung on the directory! BUZZ ME!!! HOW ELSE DO YOU THINK YOU'LL DELIVER THE PACKAGE??? OR, JUST COME UP AND KNOCK ON THE DOOR!!! IT'S CALLED DELIVERING THE PACKAGE, NOT DRIVING AROUND TOWN LEAVING MESSAGES ON PEOPLES' DOORS!!!!

My mom wanted to fedex me my driver's license renewal. I was like NO! DO NOT FEDEX IT TO ME! I WILL NOT GET IT IF YOU SEND IT BY FEDEX! SEND IT BY CANADA POST! She did and while I wasn't home, I was able to pick it up at Shopper's on a SATURDAY! That's right. CANADA POST IS EVEN OPEN ON THE WEEKEND!

I guess my apartment is partially to blame b/c there's no security at the front door to which to leave packages, which is annoying. But regardless, any half-assed attempt at delivery would have the package in my hands right now.

Hopefully they redeliver today. I'm gonna go back to bed. Sleep for a bit more. Just my luck they'll probably try and redeliver while I'm sleeping. F*ckin' FedEx, that company needs to be put out of business. I just don't understand how they only do one single thing and they're completely incompetent at doing it.


Update (5 min. later): Got my package! Didn't buzz me, just gave a very assertive knock :). Maybe FedEx isn't the worst company in the world afterall, but it still isn't my preferred method of delivery.


Update (10 min. later): Another package! This time from my beloved Canada Post :D. They got it right the first time. I didn't have to call them to have them redeliver. No worries with Canada Post! It's my new high speed ulta dsl package. Basically faster internet connection for no additional cost. It was really fast too! I only ordered it like 2 days ago and they were telling me that I wouldn't get it until like the 11th (or maybe that's when my service is supposed to be changed over). Regardless, I got the package fast, efficiently, and without hassle, unlike some delivery companies. Plus, the delivery guy was nice and friendly.

Found a place to live in California!!!

My new home!

Started house hunting Monday evening and went through N., C.L., S.D., 40 year old in 2001 claiming to be 28, and more (I have abbreviated the nicknames I made up for the people I interacted with to protect their identity and my ass since I gave all of them this blog address), and I secured the perfect place today! Just hours ago!

The place is amazing! Spacious! Really nice! Clean! Furnished! Well priced! Great location! Amazing roommate! I would not be able to get something nearly as nice for the same price if I was to get my own place.

I found the place on Craig's List. I consider myself very lucky for finding and getting this place. I responded to more than 25 listings on Tuesday and Wednesday. I included my webpage and blog in my replies, which I think helped me a lot because between the two, most of myself is laid out right in front of you. This is particularly important considering that I'm not able to see the place for myself or meet potential roommates in person. I figure that I have nothing to hide and people will find out anyways, so might as well just be frank about it. My webpage shows off my professional side (all that time spent redesigning my webpage paid off!) and that I'm responsible and successful (can pay the bills), etc. My blog shows my personal side and that I'm not some weirdo or hermit allergic to light and completely anti-social. Ok, I might be weird, but in a good way, at least that's how I like to think of it :)

The other good source to find information about and pictures of me is facebook. All you U of M'ers out there, sign up so I have more people from Manitoba on there!

Sarah told me that if I tell girls down in Silicon Valley that I'm an intern at Google, I'm set. If this is the case, I already like the place! A whole culture that appreciates geeks and intelligence (ok, and maybe money and free food)? Who wouldda thunk? It does seem like everyone in Silicon Valley's really techie (umm, duh...). I found it strange that like all the postings listed "wireless internet", not just "internet". I think it's great (since I have PoBo), but I was surprised so many listings were so specific about it. But then again, these are postings on Craig's List and you've got to be at least a little geek to post there in the first place.

This post was delayed so much b/c I hit the pub to celebrate! Just joking. It was Sasha's last time at Thursday volleyball today because she's moving to Ottawa to take up a job with Health Canada next week. Sad to see her go. She's a good volleyball player and a great person.

I'm not tanked I swear. I'm sobering up quite nicely. Regardless, I don't think my writing has suffered. This week is turning into a major booze fest (and very likely a personal record). Tomorrow's S-Dance, which is U of T engineering lingo for drinking A LOT.

I hate looking for housing

I find looking for housing to be a very frustrating, time-consuming, and stressful process. Damn it Google, you do search, why can't you do a good job of searching for housing??!?!?!?!?? Hmmm... maybe I should bring that up while I'm over there...

Anyways, here are some good things I got going for me to offset the lack of a place in San Fran:

Submitted my 3rd paper this year!

Started drinking really early this week - in the pub at 3 pm on Monday!!! Brendan took Inmar, Delbert, and I to O'Grady's to celebrate our recent paper submissions. I did however, do intoxicated coding until 10 pm at school :p. Hey, I was being productive and I knew that if I stopped to go home, I wouldn't do any more work. Plus I wasn't hungry b/c of the pub food.

Only 50 billion more papers to write this year.

Found the missing condom!!!

I was SO happy that I found my missing condom! I found it maybe 2 weeks ago (been meaning to blog about it, just kept forgetting). I put a bunch of batteries into one of the pockets on the side of my backpack meant to hold water bottles so that I could bring the batteries to school and put them in the recycling thing. I go to take out the batteries and I'm like, what's this? Who put garbage in here??!?!?! What?... MY CONDOM!!!!!!

The reason I like it so much is because it keeps my umbrella neat when not in use and it's cleaner to put in the side pocket of my backpack and also in my suitcase.

Chicken Noodle Soup... from scratch!

 

I love chicken noodle soup, but not the shit from a can. I mean like the stuff you get in a restaurant. I figured, how hard could it be to make it from scratch? Plus, it should be pretty healthy. Well, the answer is: pretty easy and pretty healthy. My first shot was about 2 weeks ago and I made it again last weekend.

Basically I just throw in 3 chicken breasts, onions, carrots, celery, and a couple black peppercorns into say 4L of water. Cook for like 2+ hours. Cut/rip up the chicken in the pot itself so as to not lose any precious juice. Throw in the noodles and simmer until done.

I cheated the first time and threw in a bouillon cube, though I'm not sure if cheating is the right word b/c I'm not convinced that it made it taste better, just gave it a little more colouring.

The second time, I added in more of the Italian herbs (from a shaker thingy), olive oil (mentioned in most recipes, but I just didn't have it the first time), and potatoes (inspired by my favourite Korean dish). The potatoes were definitely a nice touch. I love that the soup is so hardy. It's totally a meal in itself. More chewing than sipping and I almost needed a fork.

My next goal is to make my own noodles, then it'll be completely from scratch!

On a side note, I think I broke my camera while snowboarding (or should I say, falling while snowboarding). When I look in the view finder, it's always zoomed in, even though the camera's not zoomed in. It takes pictures fine, I just don't know what I'm taking a picture of. When I use the LCD, it looks fine, the problem is that that sucks up a lot of battery life and I can't use that when the batteries are low. My camera is also a couple years old so it sucks up batteries (AAs) pretty bad and my rechargeables aren't very good. I was thinking of getting new rechargeable batteries, but they're a little pricey and I'm likely going to be getting the hand-me-down camera from my family sometime soon (i.e. before I make my money's worth with the new batteries). For now, I have an extra set of batteries that I can keep charging and most of my pictures are just around the house anyways. For longer trips, I can just buy the photo batteries. Anyways, expect worse quality pictures from now on. At least I can now blame my photography on my camera :)

If it wasn't for my computer, I'd be one hour behind

Hop onto my computer after watering and trimming Vinaverra and adding soil to support it and spending 2.5 hours cleaning my rollerblades and bearings and rotating the wheels.

3:45 am???? What??? I thought it was only 2:45 am!!!! Oh right.... Spring forward.... Stupid daylight savings...

Seattle recap

Thursday - arrived and volleyball
3.5 hours after landing, I was on the volleyball court at the Pro Club for some pick-up volleyball and to say "hi" to all the people I played with when I was there. Most of the regulars were there, so it was good :)


Friday - MSR
Moved furniture


Saturday - Crystal Mountain


Convinced Manuel (a post-doc with Nebojsa) the day before to come skiing/snowboarding with me (he was very easily convinced :)). We went to Crystal Mountain. Got a freakin' $132 speeding ticket on the way :s. 47 mph in a 35 mph zone.... in the middle of NOWHERE on the highway in the boonies! 35 limit on the highway??? C'mon! Not that I was going that fast, it was just b/c I let the car roll down a hill. I'm so used to speeding like 10-15 over down there b/c everyone speeds like crazy on the freeways. Plus, it was like 8 freaking AM on a Saturday!!! First speeding ticket ever. Fortunately, it shouldn't affect my merits and insurance/license fees b/c it was down in the States and not in Manitoba.

It was a great day - sunny (for most of the day), warm, and great snow conditions. The runs were great, though the signage kinda sucked... We got lost in our first 3 runs and somehow on our second, we ended up down a black diamond when we wanted blue and in our third, we ended up down a double-black diamond with moguls when all we wanted was an easy blue run down to the base...

The runs were harder than Blue Mountain. Greens had parts that looked like blue, blue was more like black diamond, and black diamonds were steeper than Blue Mountain's black diamonds, though I think a tad easier than the double blacks.

Manuel was pretty good on skis and we were both having fun and being challenged on the same runs. Black diamond runs from nearly the top right to the bottom, almost a kilometre down was a lot of fun :)

Beware of the burgers from the grill there. I think mine was a little undercooked, but I was too lazy to do anything about it. My stomach felt a little funny for the next few days and I felt bloated. No diarrhea though!


Sunday - Stevens Pass

Hit Stevens Pass with Alex, Stacey, Minnie, and Ernie. It was busier (Crystal Mountain, even with a snowboarding competition going on had barely anyone on the slopes and lifts), but not too bad. The lifts were busy, but not many people on the runs, not like at Blue Mountain where you have to constantly watch out for people.

The runs were more like Blue Mountain in difficulty. The best was when Alex (the more tentative snowboarder out of all of us as he just started this year), led us down a trail that he said looked good from the chair lift. Started off as blue, then we went into the trees and some narrow areas that weren't too bad. Then we hit this really steep section with moguls and a post from the chair lift in the middle of it! I managed to make it down decently, turning a few times and then falling. It was great! Deep snow, so it was fun! The rest of them edged down, except Ernie, who on skis, took a diversion.

It was that run that made me love ungroomed trails. The soft powder was SO nice to snowboard on! Makes me want to go back to Snowbird and go down that ungroomed black diamond that I tried to ski on and killed myself b/c I didn't know how to ski in powder and I literally flipped head over heels and rolled down the hill.

The rest of the day, while we went down blue trails, I would take diversions onto the short black trails and looking for powder. The problem was that all the black trails there had moguls. It was pretty bad to learn there actually. The trails were either blue and too easy, or black with moguls and too hard. I went on most of the blues and blacks and fell many times on the moguls. I just have a hard time turning fast enough to get around them, but now I'm at the point where I can do a few of the turns, edge a bit, maybe another turn, and make it down without falling.

I had people on the chair lift laugh at me when I was trying to make it down one of the mogul runs as it was right under the chair lift route and I was edging down for a bit in order to get the courage to point my board down hill and attempt to carve around the moguls. I'm not a big fan of an audience when I'm trying new things on snowboard. When we were on that small trail with the post in the middle, some people were like "YA! DO IT!!!!"

Right at the end of the day, Minnie and I were the last to leave the mountain (trying to cram in a few more runs) and on the way back, we went through one of the small terrain parks. It was actually pretty fun. There was this rail made out of snow, but didn't really know what it was and thought it was a jump or something and I tried to go over the side of it :p. I went in the half pipe, which was cool, and I went over some small jumps, but I didn't really catch any air. I'll have to check out the terrain park next year.


Monday
Flew home


Recap
I managed to cram in pretty much everything I wanted to do in the short time I was there and had a blast! I guess the winters in Seattle would be bearable despite the rain and lack of sun because of all the mountains close by (Crystal and Stevens were like 2 hours away, Baker is a little farther than Crystal, and Snowqualmie (which isn't as good apparently) is only like 45 min. and then Whistler is just over the border). This whole snowboarding thing is really gonna damage the bank account as I can see myself making at least one snowboarding trip a year...

I was pretty pooped after my trip as I was active like every day that I was in Seattle. I think I need to rest for a little now b/c my left knee is hurting a little bit. I'm a little concerned considering that a lot of volleyball players have bad knees, but I've been fortuante enough to not have any problems. I think it's from snowboarding two full days in a row (falling may not have helped much) and then playing volleyball soon after.

Today, I realized that the best thing would be if they just left Yonge Street unshoveled so that you could snowboard to school (if you lived uptown).

CHAMPIONSHIP T-SHIRTS BABY!!!

What champions look like

School of Graduate Studies' Men's Div 1
Volleyball Intramurals Team
Greg, Jansen, Jon, Anthony
Ron, Bu, Vince
Missing: Utku, Gadi, Ahmed, Sam

Defeated UTSC (University of Toronto Scarborough) on their home court tonight in men's div 1 (the highest level) volleyball intramurals!!! We lost the first set badly, like 16-25. Then, we rallied back in the second to win it 25-20 and rode the momentum to win it all in the third 15-7ish.

Our first game was pretty bad. We just weren't playing well and looked dead out there. In the second, I was like screw this, I'm just gonna start screaming and try and get the team pumped up. I like to think that it helped because we started playing much better. We still didn't hit very well (probably b/c Jon kept setting right side all night and we weren't hitting well from there), but we won it on blocking and defense. Bu came up with some clutch blocks. They were demoralized in the third and we were up like 8-2 when we switched sides.

First time winning it all in volleyball in anything! It's all about the championship t-shirts!!!

Hit up Rowers back in downtown after the game and New Ho King for some late night Chinese food.

Gonna be fun making the figures for the paper while buzzed...

Stop with the Uma Thurman already!

4 flights. 4 movies. Only 2 different movies. All Uma Thurman.

On the way there, it was the same damn movie between Toronto and Phoenix as it was for Phoenix and Seattle. Now, on the way back (I'm on the plane from Phoenix to Toronto), it's the same movie that they just played from Seattle to Phoenix!!! I guess they just really don't expect people to take this route :s

I wouldn't have minded it as much if the actress playing on the little TVs on the plane for 8 hours of my life was actually likable or attractive.

"Research"

And by "research", I mean helping Nebojsa (my Microsoft advisor) move.

So I go to MSR (Microsoft Research) today to meet up with Nebojsa to discuss research. Turns out that for my 1-day internship, he's enlisted me and his two post-docs (Manuel and Joe) to help him move furniture from his old house to his new one!

It was pretty weird, and pretty fun just hanging out with these guys again. We did talk a bit of research in the moving van :p. And I did manage to mend fences.

Hey, I got a free lunch (really good near the Kirkland marina), free pizza for dinner (at Nebojsa's place), and wine. Apparently Nebojsa's having us over for dinner on Sunday now that he has furniture.

So, right now I'm at MSR by myself, a little drunk (like 3 glasses of wine), waiting to sober up a bit before I go back to Alex's place. Oh, and I'm swiping office supplies :)

:( No internet access on the plane

I was frantically using the free internet access here in the Phoenix airport (yes, not quite a direct route to Seattle...)

I was hoping to still be able to get the wireless access here on the plane, while we wait to depart, but no go. At least once I've been able to get wireless access on the plane...

So, not sure when I'll be able to post this...

(I'm now in Seattle in my friend's apartment on borrowed wireless internet access :D - 6:19pm PST)

The secret to being a grad student

Here's my secret to suceeding as a grad student:
Do whatever you want to do and don't tell your prof until you've done it

I realized after advising Sars about her current situation, that I've just gone and done my own thing many times and didn't tell Brendan until I had done it and had some preliminary results. Sometimes Brendan is indifferent to the idea when I first mention it, but I will go and do it anyways, and after I show him results, he's impressed. Other times, the idea just comes to me and I just do it without telling Brendan and show him if it turns out. This is how I developed my distributed computing system, did a lot of the "award winning" video epitome work, and factorgrams. I often found myself doing similar things at Microsoft. Nebojsa didn't always know what I was doing, except that I was doing "stuff" and he loved that.

My advice:

1. Do what you enjoy doing because then work doesn't feel like work


2. Don't be afraid to do things without specific approval from your prof (or even mentioning it) in order to satisfy #1

Well, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying just do your own thing and don't listen to your prof. I'm saying, listen to your prof, talk with your prof, but also take the initiative and don't feel that everything you do has to be approved by your prof. Sometimes you just have to take things into your own hands.

Of course, your mileage may vary. Both Brendan and Nebojsa are pretty easy going and don't micro-manage me and I'm able to put myself on cruise control between meetings. But if you've got an inkling about something and want to try it out, I say just do it. You don't have to tell your prof everything that you're doing (unless you're using expensive lab equipment, etc.). I don't mean you have to dedicate months, weeks, or even days to it. Just explore the idea, try it out, and if it looks promising, show your prof and pursue it further, if not, drop it. Of course, if your prof has you working on something, don't neglect it, keep doing that, but you can still work on your own thing on the side. Consider it a 20% personal project, Google style. Just for the record, I was doing this naturally before I had heard of Google's 20% rule. Though I don't consciously try and dedicate exactly 20% of my time to doing my own thing, I just do what seems appropriate.

This works for me, but as with most things, use your own judgement.

@ Library from opening to closing...

Got to the library at 10:45 am. Left at 10 pm when it closed. Though, there was a brief lunch break and an hour and a half dinner with Sars, Gaj, and Wolfman in there (of which like 45 min. of was walking to Spring Rolls, who's bright idea was that?...). All in all, a very productive day! It felt great!

Occupation: Writer

I've given up engineering to become a writer.

Two and a half months into 2006 and I've already submitted 2 papers (latest one today at noon). I'll have another one next week. And another hopefully before I leave for Google for the summer, but it'd be for NIPS, due in June. Maybe a second one for the NIPS as well. Then maybe another in Nov. for CVPR (but would be published next year). Plus, there's the old undergrad thesis turned journal paper that may actually get published this year and a bio journal paper with me in a 3-way joint first author if the biologists get their act together and write the paper.

I wonder if I'll have some time to actually do some research. If not, I'm going to have nothing to show for myself in 2007 :p.

I...umm...don't watch Canadian Idol

 

I also didn't go see Rex Goudie and Melissa O'Neil in concert on Friday (who I didn't know were 2nd and 1st respectiviely in Canadian Idol 3) with Sarah, nor did I go see Hedley tonight (and I didn't know that their lead singer, Jacob Hoggard, placed 3rd in Canadian Idol 2) with Kevin. I also never went to any live Canadian Idol 2 shows and saw Jacob Hoggard back in the day, nor do I have his and other Canadian Idol 2 contestants' autographes. And I didn't want to go to the live tapings of the Canadian Idol 3 shows, but couldn't because I was out of town in Seattle at the time.

The new Google Desktop is amazing!

Finally, I have functionality on Windows that I have on my Mac! You can now use Google Desktop as a program launcher!

• Hit Ctrl twice


• A floating search bar pops up


• Type in something (maybe the name of a program)


• Use arrow keys to select and press enter


• Program/file/etc. opens up!

AMAZING! No more having to look for programs in the start menu or in folders! OS X (Mac) has had this functionality for a while now and in the equivalent of the start menu (the dock).

Best thing ever! I've been wanting this functionality for Windows for a while now. Now I finally have it!

No Skule on Skule action...

Both Skule (Engineering) co-ed volleyball teams finished first in their pools and got by's to the semi's. Both teams lost today.

Our team wasn't too upset. The team I joined this semester didn't even make playoffs last semseter, so just making it as far as we did was an accomplishment. We played a good game today, but just made dumb mistakes (like serving out and not passing well in serve receive). It was a fun game nonetheless. I was quite pleased how well we did during the season considering the team we had. The other Skule team, the defending champions, was stacked and really cocky. They took the loss a lot harder than we took ours because they expected to win.

It's gotta be because of my youthful appearance and attractive personality

Not sure why I was chosen to give talks during the engineering high school recruitment. Not like I went to U of T for undergrad....

I guess I am the youngest ECE student in the group (Peter's in CS). I also like to think that I'm one of the most socially functional members as well. Plus, I don't go around barefoot, in slippers, or in sandals with socks.

So, several groups of prospective students came into the lab on Saturday and I gave a short talk and showed some demos. It was weird as I had to think back like 7 years and put myself in the shoes of a high school student. My goal was to convince them that ECE at the University of Toronto was the way to go.

I hit them from two angles. First, job prospects are good, "I myself went to Microsoft last summer and in 2 months I'll be going down to California to work for Google". That's just gold in terms of attracting students. Second, I made their jaws drop when I showed them my cool epitome videos.

Everything was a lie though. My situation isn't that typical and it's not b/c of U of T that I got my internships. It was Brendan's connection for MSR and my own application for Google. Plus, all the stuff I showed, none of them will be doing that even if they go into ECE. These students will never step foot in the labs that were shown to them.

Glad that Sarah was there to entertain me during the down time. She totally played up the part about going to U of T for ECE whereas I just talked about my group and my experience and didn't really say anything specific along the lines of "you should go here b/c of..." I showed her my slides and I can't believe that she hadn't seen my videos before. She's like been to my website and stuff and she was like she's seen images, but never looked at the videos. Afterwards, she was like "shit, epitomes are the best thing ever!" She even said "e-pit-o-me" instead of "epi-tome". She suddenly had much more respect for "e-pit-o-mes" :p

Not sure how many high school students I impressed, but the undergrad tour guides sure were. The tour guides directed the students and had to bring them from lab to lab and 2 tour guides with 2 separate groups asked about doing their thesis in my group next year after watching my presentation!

The best part of course was the free food. I'm all about the free food. I'm surprised that I ate it though b/c I have traditionally not eaten catered food. Not that I'm like above catered food, just that the pre-made sandwiches always have "stuff" in them that I don't like. Though these were pretty plain. I got the ham and all it had was lettuce and some white substance. I didn't ask what it was. Not sure if it was mayo or margarine, though I think it was the later. I ate it and it was good. I usually don't take either (esp. the former) with my sandwich. This is twice now (I had a wrap at the Hart House curling bonspiel). I'm making progress wrt my open mind project.

I need to kick it in gear. I was really gung-ho about it earlier in the year, but lately I haven't been working outside my comfort zone enough. I've just been doing the usual thing. Well, I guess I am going on a spontaneous vacation by myself (flight leaves for Seattle in 10 days). That's definitely something new! Plus I'm opening up more. I was gonna write a post about my new goals for the future (not really new year's resolutions b/c they're not just for this year and they kinda started before new year's), but I never got around to it. I should post it to remind me of my goals. If I recall, one of them is to stop procrastinating..... oops.

I need to go to a "real" mountain

After complaining to Mimi that it's raining and almost double digits (Celsius) at Blue Mountain and that it's gonna be shit conditions tomorrow and that I want to go to a "real" mountain, I remembered Stacey saying that if I was in Seattle, she'd bring me to a "real" mountain. It suddenly donned on me. Why don't I just go and visit! It'd be perfect, I get to visit friends AND do some good boarding!

I'm looking into heading over there in 2 weeks to visit. I really want to go snowboarding and use my board, but I don't want to board in slush at Blue Mountain.

I'm also considering Whistler and Eric Yau is pushing for this choice. I haven't spent much time in Vancouver and gotten to know the place...

California or Bust

I'm going to be a Googler (an employee of Google)! Well, at least for the summer... (May - July)

I finally made my decision after sitting on the fence for a month and a half. My ass is really sore from sitting that long.

I consulted with many people over this decision - Brendan, Anitha, Sarah, Jill, Rob, Rob (intentional repetition), Mimi (person, not cat, since cat was not here), Christina, Stacey (Microsoft employee and friend), Nebojsa (Microsoft guy), Ashutosh (Google guy), and my family. I probably missed a few. All non-Microsoft people said Google. All Microsoft people said Microsoft.

It was a hard decision. I was flipping sides like every few days. I enjoyed working at MSR and with Nebojsa and value him as a mentor. Plus we have some unfinished projects and there's the prospect of him nominating me for the MSR fellowship (not needed financially, but nice to have). My life in Seattle was also good and I have friends there.

Ultimately though, I decided that considering that I am still relatively early in my studies, I want to establish breadth before depth with respect to working environments, living locations, connections, projects, etc. Not to mention the free food at Google!

Couriers are the worst way to send stuff

Sure they advertise that they deliver in like so and so number of days, but what's the point when they don't actually deliver it to you? Worse yet, you can't go and easily pick it up, b/c there's like only one depot for every like billion sq. km.

Offer letters from G were being FedEx'ed to me. I go and leave my apartment yesterday and was like, wtf? There's a notice on my door. Damn, I missed the delivery... wait a second... 10:30 am?... I WAS HERE!!! AND AWAKE!!!! WTF??!?!?!!?? I even had my bedroom door open!! Ummm.... HELLO??? IT'S CALLED KNOCKING!!!!! They didn't buzz my number and I swear they didn't knock, at least not, by any means, loudly.

They give me the option of picking it up... on like the other side of the city between the hours of 8 PM and 10 PM. WOW! A whole 2 hour window when I can pick it up. No, that's not an error because it's a pre-made stamp that they used.

I decided not to go pick it up this time (I did it for my iPod, b/c I couldn't wait, but that was their fault b/c I was home and they delivered it to the wrong address, then they had to pick it up from them and then they didn't deliver it, just put it in the depot). I received the letter this morning. They actually knocked this time.

Stupid couriers never work the first time with me. Shit always happens or I'm not home (why do you think that I'd be home between 9 and 5 on a weekday???). And there's no reception person here to accept packages for me. Worst system ever. I much prefer Canada Post or USPS, where if it's small, they shove it in the mailbox, and if I'm not home, it'll be waiting for me at the post office in the Shopper's around the corner, which is a far better system. So if you send me stuff, don't use a courier b/c it won't get to me. Save time and money and just use the postal service.

Sports tape is the new duct tape: Engineering design at its best

 

Engineering design
The best possible solution within the available resources

-- First year Intro to Engineering, U of M, 1999

Usually I get stares when rollerblading, especially in winter. I get even more stares rollerblading in snowpants with a snowboard strapped across my back while also carrying a duffle bag with my boots, etc.

Snowboarding was great today. I hopped onto the Saturday bus b/c they have space. In many ways, Saturday is so much better than Friday:

• get your own seat on the bus


• a lot less noise (i.e. no Marsha)


• people are considerate of others and are punctual


• good company


• bus driver drives fast (we even passed cars!)


• we don't make a pee stop for a 2 hour drive


• we get dropped off and picked up right at the lodge so we don't have to walk


• not having to rush b/c I'm meeting with Brendan right before and have to stop the meeting so I can make it onto the bus

Did pretty much every run that night skiing offered, except the double blacks. Erik was there again. This time I was also joined by John, Ian, and Winnie (the VP). I managed to convince John to try snow blades, thinking that that would slow him down for us, but it didn't really.

I came home and saw that one of the screws on my rollerblade had fallen off and my wheel was like mm's from falling off! This has never happened before. Screws have never been loose on my rollerblades. I checked the rest and they were all tight. The missing screw was nowhere to be seen.

Seeking a temporary solution, I remembered that I had a replacement brake in preparation for replacing my worn out one. I took the screw from there and surprisingly it fit, though it was too long and the axis would then be able to partially pop out, which would be bad.

So, I tied some string between the screw and the aluminium base to prevent the screw from being pushed in. Reinforced the ends of the string with sports tape and taped the other side so the axis wouldn't pop out.

If you look at the bottom of the left image, you can also see that I've used sports tape to reinforce my laces. They were fraying from being repeatedly pulled against the lace loops and was about to break. I've been using the tape reinforced laces for a few weeks now and they're working great. Rollerblades aren't quite in season and I haven't been able to find laces in stores. I'm going to need a new screw soon though...

Sports tape is the new duct tape. It looks better, is more flexible, sticks great, and doesn't leave as much crap behind when you peel it off.

Broke before I even got the chance to use it

I'm at the top of the hill. Excited to try out my brand spanking new virgin snowboard. Go to strap my boots into the board and the adjustment strap on my bindings snap off!!!!! I'm like "FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKK....."

C'mon, not even a SINGLE run????

I strap in as best as I can and try to use my snowboards to help keep my back foot in. Fortunately it was only the bunny hill. I make it down carefully, thinking what the hell am I going to do.

Fortunately, the ski and snowboard repair shop was close by and this was apparently a very common problem with the Lamar bindings, but even the repair guy was surprised that it didn't even make it to the first run. The problem is that it's made out of really, really, really cheap, brittle plastic, which is retarded for something that's supposed to be outside in the cold!!! I decided to replace the strap on both bindings, b/c let's face it, the other one was gonna snap off soon anyways. The replacements are made out of a much more flexible plastic. Only set me back about $10.

Aside from that, my snowboard is awesome! Feels great, rides great. Considering that I changed the board (new height, new flexibility), bindings (instead of step-ins, which gives you less control), and stance (from duck to forward), I managed to adapt to it very quickly. Everything felt really natural and balanced, unlike others who had recently bought boards and seem to have to continually adjust them. Smoother and faster (esp. on the flat areas which is amazing) than the rentals and more control, plus no more gross rental boots!

I didn't wipe out today!!! Ok, well, a partial one, but I didn't hit the snow - I managed to recover. And another one, but that doesn't count b/c it was on a flat area and I was looking back to see if my crew (Erik and Johann) was keeping up. Oh, and that other one, but there were like bumps/horizontally stretched moguls.

I did all the blues again and did one black diamond (memory lane), and actually did it, didn't just ride the back edge. It actually didn't seem steep at all. Maybe b/c I desensitized myself by going down the double blacks the previous week (on skis). Pretty bumpy though, but at least not icy.

One down, 4 billion papers to go

Finished the IJCV Video epitomes paper. At least 3 more to finish over the next two months. Maybe throw in an extra one before June and a small section in another sometime. Probably another one in Nov. Sheeh!

Quote of the day

Why are you washing my grapes?

Indoor Challenge

Wasn't too sore today from all that stuff yesterday, but I definitely felt it in my quads, calves, feet, hamstrings, butt, triceps, forearms, shoulders, and upper back muscles (trapezius, lats, deltoids).  I was able to walk up stairs with minimal pain, so that was good.

Had a lot of fun at the indoor challenge (soccer, basketball, dodgeball, and volleyball).  Always kinda questionable how it'll be with a bunch of randoms thrown together.  Funny, I knew more people on the Skule and Grad House teams than mine and even recognized a bunch from other teams, but everyone on mine was a complete unknown prior to this.

Good group a people (4 guys, 4 girls).  We sucked, winning only a single game of dodgeball - I was the last man standing!  My strategy was to just jump over any ball that came in my direction.  Worked great b/c it left very little space for them to hit me - basically they could only get me if the ball was at the height of my torso b/c head shots weren't allowed and I jumped over anything below the waist, plus they had to get me when I wasn't dodging laterally :p

We were there just to have fun.  We say that only b/c we kept losing.  But, what do you expect anyways from a bunch of masters and phd students :p.  As a group, we're generally not athletes, we're nerds :p.

12 hours of physical activity today.... so pooped

8 hour volleyball tournament. 9 - 5. 6 games. Narrowly lost in the semi-finals. Serious sugar low at the end of that game.

4 hour curling bonspiel. 6 - 10. Lawrence & Don Valley, coming from Kipling & Lakeshore, i.e. complete opposite side of the city. Damn Patrick kept throwing light and made me sweep like crazy! I was inspired by Mark Nichols (my curling hero). Everything was like Mark Nichols would have hit the guard and did a triple take out and lie 3 in the house.

Undefeated through 2 matches. Won Kinder surpises! Every curling bonspiel I've been to, I've won a prize! (Not always because of merit)

Kevin and I are thinking of forming a curling team next year. We're aiming for the 2010 or 2014 Olympics. Team Gushue (Canadian gold medal winners) is mostly just a year older than us, so we have our work cut out for us to catch up to them by the time we're their age.

Gonna be so sore tomorrow, and what's worse is that I have this "indoor challenge" thing tomorrow - volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, and soccer. 7 hours :s. Crazy stuff. Maybe it's good that I missed skiing on Friday.

Then there's volleyball Mon, Tues, and Thurs and snowboarding Fri. Hope my body lasts...

FFFUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK......

It's just after 10, I just got up.  The bus left for Blue Mountain at 7.

Serves me right for going to bed at friggin' 1:30 am....

Sexy looking board

Finally got all the parts and assembled my board! Bought the board, bindings, bag, lock, and leash from SportMart.ca. Buying online was the only way to get a good deal on a decent board in my size (151 cm) - saved $110 and got free shipping! Got the boots from Sport Chek at the end of season sale. Not much selection, I just got what they had in my size. I picked up the maple leaf stomp pad from Blue Mountain, though I also saw it at SportsMart and it was cheaper there, but it was too late and I didn't feel like returning the one I already bought to save a buck or two.

All the online stuff came pretty quick - just over a week after I ordered. I actually got 3 packages as the stuff came from 3 different stores. The only problem was that the bindings didn't fit my boots! I figured a medium would be fine as it says that medium can be used with a size 8 boot, but my boot just wouldn't fit!

I called up the nearest Sport Mart to see if they had a large that I could exchange with. I then made the hour long trek there (only half hour back after lucking out on taking a shorter bus route). Why are Sport Mart's always out in the boonies, but Sport Chek's are subway accessible?

After being bamboozled why the large binding in the store was WAY too big for my boot (I brought one of my boots to try), I realized that the one they shipped me was actually a youth one! Right box, wrong product. Argh! The store didn't have any mediums in my binding or alternatives at the same price. I opted for the higher model in women's medium (hey, it fit, whatever, and bindings all look and work the same) and put down the extra $20 + tax.

Up until the unexpected extra cost of the bindings, the whole package was almost exactly the same price as my jacket :p.

Mountain was my bitch

I totally pwned the mountain
(picture stolen from BlueMountain.ca)

Amazing day of skiing. I literally went down every run on the mountain! Ok, well, except for the bunny slopes, glades, terrain park, and Calamity Lane (the double black that alluded me last year, but was closed today probably due to lack of snow).

I hit the North side hard, fast, and often since I was there during the day and it is closed for night skiing (which is all we get on the usual Friday trips). Started off doing all the blues and single black diamonds to get warmed up and to remember how to ski. It was afterall, only my 5th time skiing, and my 4th time was the first ski & snowboard club trip, in which I was skiing in the rain and only on easy runs to humour Mimi.

Last year, I tried doing Calamity Lane, a double black diamond. It was really icy and after doing like one turn, one of my skis fell off and slid all the way down, leaving me to just roll down the hill. Not the best of my moments. I wouldn't have been able to do it anyways, I just wasn't ready for it.

I finally built up the courage to do my second ever attempt at a double black diamond and this time I killed it! I did like two slow turns to get out of the worst of the icy areas and to get the courage to ski properly, then I was like, ok, let's do this! I faced right down the slope (as opposed to sideways) and carved my way to victory! I later went on to do all the double blacks that the mountain had to offer.

The mountain was totally my bitch today.

My skiing actually improved significantly today after working on the single and double black diamonds. I'm skiing much faster with more confidence with nicer, tighter turns and more control. I wanted to try moguls, but "Mogul Alley" didn't have any moguls! And I wasn't stupid enough to try the moguls on the double blacks. The skis felt quite good. 155 cm skis. Gotta remember that.

My other accomplishment today was more properly doing cross country skiing. I was totally inspired after watching Chandra Crawford win gold in the cross country sprint for Canada!!! Waking up 2 hours early wasn't for naught afterall :). Watching her motor along as if her skis were rollerblades was awesome. My perception of cross country skiing was tainted by grade 8 winter camp where we were put in tracks and had to like double pole or akwardly single pole while in the tracks and not move anywhere. Skiing like they do in the sprints is so much more fun :). Chandra's my new Olympic hero. 22 years old. First Olympics and completely unproven. Announcers didn't give her a hope in hell. She killed the field. Smiling all the way. Amazing!

 

Fuckin' kids have no consideration for others

You would think that me waiting for the bus at 7am, two hours early, would be the worst thing that happened to me today. Well, you'd be wrong.

This girl, Marsha, comes onto the bus and I'm like fuck, I CAN'T STAND HER!!! I know from past trips that she DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO SHUT THE FUCK UP. She's OBSCENELY loud, OBNOXIOUS, and TALKS THE ENTIRE FUCKING 2.5 hours there AND back. I've had the horrendous experience of sitting near her in previous trips.

I was ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATED when she sat across from me. NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!! I knew that I wouldn't be able to get my regular 2 hour nap there and back. She can be heard over my headphones and sleeping is difficult within 3 rows of her, let alone across the row. When the battery on my mp3 player died 1 hour from the mountain, my spirit was completely crushed as I had to put up with hearing EVERY SINGLE WORD that she said. I DON'T FUCKING WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR FAMILY PROBLEMS, LEAVES AND PLANTS, OR YOUR FUCKING YOGURT!!!!!

And to boot, she was FIFTY (50) minutes late getting back on the bus. We had like 50 people waiting for ONE person. We should've left her at the mountain. Not like she didn't know we were supposed to leave at 8 or where the bus was (she unfortunately comes every week). Everyone else was on the bus on time, except her almost equally annoying male friend who was 20 min. late. Everyone was on the bus by like 8:05 and we were just waiting on those two fuckers. How about some courtesy for others??!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!??

On the way back, they were chatting up a useless storm as usual in voices much louder than should be and louder than anyone else. After like an hour of trying to sleep, which was impossible with their screeching and my lack of music to drown them out, I told them bitches to shut the fuck up b/c people were trying to sleep. I may have put it in kinder words. They didn't really take the hint and kept on talking. FOR GOD'S SAKE, HAVE SOME CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS!!!! It's not enough that they have to make us wait nearly an hour, just sitting on a bus in a parking lot, but they have to keep us awake the whole trip back???!!!? Jesus Christ.

Marsha is my face for evil in the world. If I could ask Zeus to strike down a bolt of lightning on one person, she would be it.


Sorry for the excessive profanity in this post. I'm pissed and if I wasn't Canadian and gunless, I would have shot her.

OMG, e-mail is free!!!

U of T Ski and Snowboard Club reading week trip today. I rush to get to the meeting point at 7 am. No bus in sight. Not a soul around. I'm like shit, wtf? I'm 5 min. early!!! I rollerblade around and see a bus outside of med sci. I ask the bus driver if the bus is for the club, he shrugs, but when he asks where it's supposed to go and I say Blue Mountain, he says ya, that's gotta be it. Hopping on board, I know that I'm on the wrong bus. It was for biochem or something.

Calling Nick (the President), he tells me that they're not leaving until 9. WTF?? The e-mail said 7! Apparently they changed it on the webpage. OMG!!!! IT'S CALLED E-MAIL!!!! E-MAIL IS FREE!!!! I checked the webpage and it's not even like there's a big notice on the time change, it simply regurgitates the previous e-mail with 7 changed to 9.

Sigh. So many things have gone wrong with this club.

On the plus side, I'm able to watch some Olympics live (usually I'm not up early enough). Cross country skiing sprints are on right now. And the whole thing gave me a legit use for my cell phone, which generally goes unused.

Icewave

The Scramblers
Sherry, Phu, Andru, Sony, Ryan, Monica, Vince, Utku

I managed to raise $300 for the kids! Thanks to everyone who sponsored me! I was awarded a volleyball for raising that much (the red and white one). My ball count is now up to 4 - the 2 on the ends are the ones I actually use and the 2 in the middle are novelty/free.

My balls

This cat has a bigger waist size than me!

A 33-pound cat
...
31-inch waist
...
so heavy it needs the help of its owner to get onto a bed
...
eat six pounds of chicken and pork each day

Something's a miss...

Canada loses in two consecutive hockey shutouts???!?!?! Canada fighting for its life just to make the curling playoffs??!?!?!? A Jamaican (Lascelles Brown) wins a bobsledding medal?!!?!!? Shani Davis becomes the first black man to ever win an individual gold medal in the winter Olympics (which is awesome)!!! I'm watching the CBC voluntarily??!?! I'm even watching CBC French!!!!

WHAT IS GOING ON???!?!?!!?!??

Happy Birthday Nusraat!

People need to stop getting older b/c it means that I'm getting older.

Let's play good news, bad news

Bad news
Snowboarding trip was cancelled b/c black ice caused roads to be closed and several of the lifts were closed due to high winds.

Good news
I was able to stay for Anitha and Kannan's going away party and I got a free dinner by tagging along with the CS grad student candidates dinner at Asian Legend.


Good news
I have two offers for summer internships.

Bad news
I have two offers for summer internships.

Too good to not blog about

Take that El Al!!!

We wish to advise you that we have completed our investigation of your claim and that it has been determined to compensate you in the final amount of CAD139.59.

...

I trust the foregoing reassures you of El Al's interest and help to regain your goodwill.

SWEET!!!! I gladly accept this compensation, but sorry, that's not enough to buy my goodwill...

Of course, this is just a moral victory, as I have no use for money. It won't spur any sort of spontaneous purchase, it'll just sit in the bank.

Post #200!!!!

This is my 200th post! No jokes. Also coincidently, the 200th straight day that my computer at school has been on without being rebooted or turned off! Serious. No Photoshop in that image, except to circle the 200 days. I like deserve some sort of award or something for that! 200 days straight! By far a new record for me. That means the last time I rebooted it was right before I left for my internship at MSR in Aug.

So, about 200 posts in the last 4 months. That's 50 posts / month and approx. 1.67 posts / day. This is why I need to cut back on blogging and DO SOME WORK!!! And by work, I don't mean web design. I mean, ACTUAL work.

I was initially hoping that posting online would help me to post regularly as I do have some external pressure to get me to blog regularly, unlike the journal I was trying to keep a while back, which kinda died off. The problem, is that it's too effective of a motivation and this is an amazing outlet for procrastinating.

Expect this space to remain stagnant for a while or at least be updated much less frequently. I'll try not to have a life so that I don't have anything to blog about. Maybe I should commit to not blogging for like a few days...

Time to work like an undergrad

I've realized that I have a lot of shit to do and none of it is getting done at the pace I'm going at. 4 papers to write by the end of April (tentative date that I leave to go work on the West coast for the summer).

I need to work like I did in undergrad! I'm amazed at how productive I was back then. Study, study, study, work, work, work. 17 hour days every day. No time wasted. Now look at me. I'm lucky to get in that many work hours in a month.

I need to set deadlines for myself. Cut the fat. Get stuff done. First thing to go is the Internet. Need to go offline. Blogging needs to be severely reduced.

Studying with Mimi in SS the other day was interesting to say the least. She had an awesome shirt on that she got from her recent trip to Vail, Colorado. Beware if she offers you any granola bars from Vail - they're infested with ants. It was really creepy. Ants everywhere. Live. Crawling.

Happy Tuesday...

As if every other day isn't bad enough, the restaurants, flower shops, jewelry stores, card makers, etc. have to add insult to injury and make up this fake holiday.

My tune varies with my circumstance at the time, but this year, given my situation, I shall take on a bitter attitude. I preferred Sarah's greeting of Happy Tuesday to commemorate the day.

U of T Ski and Snowboard Club Group Photo

A number of my friends were not in this picture for various reasons - in Colorado, on the Saturday bus, not knowing where the picture was, or just not there. They have since been added.

Day ???: Ah, the smell of freshly cut grass

Before
Some improvement since we last saw the grass. 24/7 light and generous watering seems to have helped, but there's a lot of dried up grass that's not helping.



After
The supplied scissors were a little too small for my fingers. Trimmed the grass and tried to remove a lot of the dead stuff so the grass can grow without fighting through the mesh of dead. Bluegrass really isn't doing too well.

Seems all I do is webpage design...

Hot off the redesign of my webpage, I have just finished redesigning my research group's webpage, as it was in desperate need of a makeover.

Before
A horribly ugly webpage...



After
Now without the tackiness, eye straining background colour, etc. using CSS, Photoshop, and colour scheme tools.


A valuable lesson was learnt here: the colour blind member of the group should not be responsible for the design of the website.

Snowboarding, winter sports, and the olympics

First time that it was actually BELOW ZERO when we hit the slopes with the club! There was actually snow this time, not slush! Blue is definitely the new green and black is the new blue. Blue's are actually a bit of a yawn now. I tried a short black run, but it was pure ice and i just plowed down it. Not many selections of black at night. I'll do the 2 runs next week. The worst part is the flat areas.... fell on my ass like 4 times in flat areas. Pissed the hell out of me!

Random occurance of the day: girl tells me that when Googling "u of t ski and snowboard club" to try and find the club's website, she got to my blog :)

I think I'll have a greater appreciation for the Winter Olympics this time around, because since the last Olympics (well, actually just over the last 2 years), I've picked up a number of winter sports - skiing, snowboarding, curling, and hockey. Previous to that, I wasn't into any winter sports (well, skating I guess)

Subscribe to this blog by e-mail!

For those of you wishing to follow my blog, but don't want to check it every few hours and are too technophobic to try feeds, you can now subscribe to my blog via e-mail! You'll get my blog posts right in your inbox (with some delay). I won't use it to spam you or anything, or sell your address, etc., etc., and unsubscribing is easy if you decide you don't like it.

So, give it a shot if you like, the link is on the right.

Went with one girl, came back with another

Dinner was a bit of a bust, as it wasn't so much dinner as just hors d'oeuvres. Strangely enough, by the end of the night, I had a different girl on my bed than I had gone to dinner with. Unfortunately, it was Mimi and she was just waiting to get picked up.

Happy Birthday Rob!

Try to ignore the fact that you just hit the quarter century mark :p. Hope you have a good one!

On the fence so bad a post is jammed up my ass

Long D phone call. He makes a compelling counter offer and I haven't even told him about G. Not to mention the other things that we've got in the pipeline and a potential fellowship. Don't wanna ruin those. Sigh. Don't know what to do. I'm half hoping that my decision will be made for me.

It's a boy!

Anthony and Li-Yu with an artist's rendition of their baby boy.

Congrats to my cousins Anthony and Li-Yu who gave birth this morning in Melbourne, Australia to a baby boy!

Who am I to pass up a free dinner?

Table for 14 at Nataraj (Indian). Suprisingly how large the group has gotten, though Anitha and Kannan will be gone by the end of the month. This time the tab was on Brendan, unlike my US$626 dinner with Brendan and Nebojsa.... on me!

Yet another free dinner on Thursday. This looks to be a very good week :)

Finally made good congee!

"tea fish and peanut congee" (literal translation)

Finally got the texture and consistency right for my congee! Got some tips off the Internet to use about 10 parts water for 1 part rice and just to cook it for a long time on low heat. I didn't have that much time, so I only simmered it for an hour and a half. Quite tasty :)

I'm a lesbian

Rob has provided very good evidence that I am indeed a lesbian. It became quite evident when my breasts swelled and required additional support when I was drunk once. I still haven't tried on the rest of Lindsay's exotic bra collection, notably her coconut bra.

Why are we friends?

Jill brought up a good point. How is it that we are friends??? We share ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in common. She says that she asks herself like everytime we talk why we are friends. The only common ground is that we were in the same high school, but we didn't hang out in high school, frankly I'm not sure if we ever spoke to each other in high school. The string of people involved in us meeting each other again is also an amazing tale that easily could be altered by any number of slight adjustments if you were to go back in time.

As with most stories of lore, it all begins in engineering room 229 at the U of M. Here is the chain of relationships involved that eventually brought me and Jill together:

Me -> Nusraat -> Chris -> Rob -> Jill

I was friends with Nusraat from H.S. She would come to me for academic help... repeatedly. I recall frantic phone calls as well. Anyways... She was friends with Chris. I knew of Chris back in H.S., but we didn't hang out or talk. All of us were in comp. eng. together and with Nusraat sitting at my table, Chris would occasionally sit with us as well. Plus we had double-dates for labs. Me and Kevin, Chris and Nusraat. Chris was in turn, good friends with Rob. Being in mech. eng. he wasn't in our classes, but roamed around 229. With Chris now included at the table, Rob would occasionally join. Again, I knew Rob from H.S., but we didn't talk or hang out. No beef between us, just had sepeate social groups. In some aspects, Rob is a key figure. He was the one to call me (well, message me) to hang out. His core group included Jill. The rest is history.

The story of me and Justin goes through almost the identical thread, except that my first contact with him was through Tim Millican back in Laidlaw. Like 8 years later we became friends. That one is a little bit more obvious why we are friends as we actually share common interests.

Back to the main reason for this post. So, Jill and I have not figured out why we're friends. There are no obvious connections based on interests, hobbies, sports, roots, or anything. I am Yin, she is Yang. Complete opposites in almost all respects. I think it's more of a compatible personality thing with the mutual desire to just have fun and have an open mind with the added benefit of an untainted past. Frankly, the change of pace is a welcomed breath of fresh air.

The exciting curling adventure

My prizes (front and back of t-shirt and card to event)
Getting back from snowboarding after midnight and having to get to the curling rink around 9 the next morning isn't the most fun thing once you add in a shower before bed, a bite to eat, blogging, and a subway and bus to the rink.

Bussing was an adventure all on its own. Randomly meeting people on the bus also going to the curling bonspiel, completely missing the stop and having to walk several blocks. I thought you knew where you were going, no I thought you did.....

Sprinting a block and a half when chasing a bus in the rain with a few beers in the system after curling in order to avoid having to wait half an hour for the next bus and jamming my umbrella in the door forcing the bus driver to let you on was amazing!

Curling itself was really fun as well. We were short a 4th as Kevin couldn't make it. Two volunteers alternated playing for us in the two games. Stole the first game in the last end by scoring 3! AMAZING! Second game was a nail biter ending with a score of 6-6 after 8 ends. Draw to the button to break the tie. Their skip got within 4 feet and I came up short just inside the 8 foot line. It's all good as it didn't matter either way, neither team was gonna win a prize and we had a really fun time. My curling game is improving quite a bit. I'm able to get draw weight quite consistently now.

I'm going pro next year and the Olympics in 2010.

Lunch provided for a new experience. For those who know me, I'm an obscenely picky eater. I don't eat pizza, well unless it has no cheese, I don't have dressing on my salad, my hamburgers are plain, the list goes on. The lunch was box lunch catered through Hart House. I got a chicken salad wrap. I ate it. And it was alright, despite the fact that there was mayo or at least some sort of sauce inside. Maybe I was just really hungry.

Weird point system was used to figure out the prizes. Prizes based on overall points, runner up, biggest one game win (not just the score of the game but also how many ends you won), and most points out of teams that didn't win either game. Ironically, the team we beat in the first won a prize - biggest one game win by killing an obviously inferior team like 14 - 0. I suggested to them to try and get the best of the losers prize, but they obviously didn't listen to me.

There were also a crap load of other prizes given out through a draw system. I was sitting with the second team, as is typical in curling apparently since the winner is supposed to buy a pitcher for the losers. Their skip works at Hart House and was the first name drawn and won a Hart House t-shirt. He was like, shit, I have like a hundred of these. He offered it to me and I was like sure! It was a pretty cool shirt. There were Hart House baseball caps and other Hart House memorabilia. One of the guys on the other team works in the Hart House shop or something and when the cards of Hart House art was up for grabs, he was like, I better not win that, b/c I think he had all that stuff anyways. He won it! Our table cracked up hysterically. A bunch of tickets to various Hart House events were also given out.

So, name after name was drawn, with probably like 25-30 prizes. 16 teams of 4 people each (that's 64 in total). I just kinda gave up hope that my name would be drawn and was like whatever, I already got a Hart House t-shirt.

Grand prize: $120 dinner for 2 at this fancy dinner in collaboration with Winterlicious and Winter City. Creative Fusion - Fire & Ice (http://uofttix.ca/view.php?id=103).

A celebration of creativity in all its forms - food, wine, art, theatre, music - set in the grandeur of Hart House’s Great Hall, Gallery Grill, Art Gallery, & the serene winter beauty of our open air courtyard.

An evening not to be missed.

"Vincent Cheung"

WOOHOO!! Kick ass!!!!

The problem being that I'm currently unattached. I think this is my first time ever where I'm required to bring a date to something and where I'll need to find one. I went to high school grad with Kevin, John, Dan, and Fan... Undergrad grad dinner was similar. Not required to bring a date and other times I already had a date.

But, this is the first time where I have to actively go and find someone. Time is also short (this Thursday). I think I have however, a solution to kill two birds with one stone.

Day ???: I may have forgotten to do something

I do recall noticing that the grass was in desperate need of water about a week ago. In hindsight, leaving it in front of the sunny window out of sight behind my curtain was not a great idea.

The grass has since been relocated to the incubation unit in the washroom and heavily watered.

Woohoo! I can snowboard!!!

I think I can finally say that I can actually snowboard now!!! I've graduated from the bunny hills and went on to do most of the blue (intermediate) runs today! No big wipeouts today and barely any falls!!! Still need to work on making my turns tighter, going faster, and figuring out how not to fall on the flat parts.

Next week: black diamonds

Mimi ditched me again for volleyball and my snowboarding crew didn't show up! I ran into one of the guys earlier this week and he said he was feeling sick and not sure if he was gonna make it. I ended up snowboarding with Yonnah (sp?) for half the time, the volunteer people organizer for my bus, and a fellow grad student. I had seen him on the big bunny slope the previous week and he was pretty good. I convinced him to make the trip to Happy Valley with me and he didn't regret the decision.

Random girl on the bus commented that I got a haircut, even though I had only seen her the first 2 weeks and she wasn't on the bus last week, though we've both been sitting near the back of the bus. Cute, but one of those Chestnut girls.

More time spent in meetings than actually doing work

I had like 5 billion meetings this week. Ok, maybe just 5. PSI group meeting, Factorgram meeting, Epitome meeting, meeting with Brendan, Factorgram meeting with Brendan.... argh.

No time to get any work done with all these damn meetings, plus Tuesday's a throw away day b/c of class and reading papers for class and Friday's snowboarding :p.

Perhaps the nerdiest thing I've ever done

So, it all started with Sarah. I blame her. She convinced me to get the VincentCheung.ca domain. I would have gotten VincentCheung.com, if it wasn't for my mortal enemy, Vincent Cheung the religious minister, who has that domain and beats me on Google searches. As a result of having a ".ca" domain, I became a member of the CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority). I got an e-mail about an upcoming meeting here in Toronto where the members could vote on proposed changes to stuff related to the CIRA. The incentives being that it was at the Fairmont Royal York (fancy hotel), free food, free drinks, and a free 128 MB USB memory key. Hey, I'm all about the free stuff.

I convinced Sarah to come as she also owns a ".ca" domain. She was quite hesitant at first, but I managed to convince her based on an "open mind" argument, but it was really the Royal York and memory key that sealed the deal.

So we get there just past 5:30 pm, which was when they started the actual meeting part. There were shit loads of people waiting in line to register, obviously because of the memory key. The trick being that you don't get it until after the vote. So we waited in line, unable to see the beginning of it, meanwhile the talks have already begun, whatever, we didn't know what the changes were proposed and we didn't really care. The line was moving really slowly and for some reason we were still last in line. Then, some volunteer randomly comes up to Sarah and asks to confirm that she's on the list. She finds her domain name and he tells her that she can go to this other line. 5 min. of walking later (past the obscenely long line), we're like 2 people from the front of a second line! No idea how to managed to pull that off!!!! Makes absolutely no sense what so ever. The sensible thing to do would have been to just let the next people in the regular long line go to the short line. Whatever, we didn't have to wait, so we were happy.

We also managed to skip the line to get name tags. It was kinda scary at first, small table with massive number of name tags. Just stacks and stacks. But like instantly both of us were like, WHOA, my name's right here at the top of the stack!!!! AMAZING!!! They couldn't find hers (the piles were only slightly sorted) so they just wrote one out.

I'm really amused at the highly sophisticated mechanism for adjusting the length of the name tag. Yet, it's just string!!! Incredible!!! The inventor of that deserves some sort of knot tying nobel prize or something!!! Best thing that ever happened to name tags since names!!!!

The main room was full apparently, so we had to go into the overflow area. We later found out that there were 400+ people at this meeting!!! They really pulled in the crowd b/c of the free memory key :). The overflow area was just a room with a big screen showing a live feed from the main room. The demographics were not exactly what I thought it was going to be. More business type people than obvious nerds. Mostly like 30's - 40's. And actually some feminine looking females! Similar guy-to-girl ratio as in ECE, which is basically one girl for every 10 guys. I was disappointed at the lack of porn stars representing their sites. There were however, more people with purple and green hair than I had anticipated.

I thought the meeting part was just gonna be boring and suck, but actually it was kinda interesting...at least for the first 2 hours. The people going up to ask questions, make comments, and requesting addendums were quite entertaining and brought up good issues, at least for the first 2 hours. Like one part in the by-law said that there would be equality for "both genders" on the board, but he wanted it to read "all genders", a change which should be made to be politically correct. The ass in front of us was cracking up at the explaination that there are not everyone identifies themselves as one or the other. The way they counted the votes was kinda retarded and the motion was defeated, but later, an equivalent change was made in another motion.

We voted by raising these yellow stiff pieces of paper into the air. Ironic how this was a meeting about the ".ca" domain names on the Internet, yet there was NO INTERNET VOTING!!! HILARIOUS!!! THE IRONY!!! THE IRONY!!!! Kinda dumb actually b/c the only people that would go to the meeting were those in Toronto, but what about the people in Alert, NWT??!!??!?! This is hardly fair for them!!!!

Anyways, they needed 2/3 "for" vote for the motion to pass, with "abstains" essentially counting as "against", which is pretty dumb. They should've counted all the "for" and all the "against", with the "abstains" as neutral.

There were lots of arguments about wording and changes in the by-law about powers of the board, etc. I see why people would be concerned, but the board members and others have also interally argued the points for the past year or two. It was at this point that things got stupid and just tedious. People just kept asking questions and being retarded. I think these people just don't have any friends and desperately wanted to talk to people. That and they advertised their domain name everytime they went up. The same like 5 people went up to the podium like 10 times each. They definitely needed to enforce limits on the number of podium appearances.

There were however, some entertaining characters at the front table where the "important" people were. I don't know their names, but we made up our own. There was the "seedy guy who doesn't look like he could be trusted", the lawyer, the asian lawyer, the "ex-board director" (who was actually in my room and just in the audience), and the "angry guy". The angry guy was hilarious. He was like the main guy too. When the lawyer was talking and clarifying things, he would stand right behind with his mouth half open and looking as if he was gonna kill someone. Sarah took a video of him on the screen with her phone, but unfortunately it didn't turn out...

The by-law eventually passed. Then there was the "Letter Patent". What the hell is a letter patent????!?!??!!?!? Whatever it is, it was argued about for a long time. One particular thing about the CIRA potentially going into other Internet things. I totally see why people had problems with that and I did too until some of the board directors cleared things up. Sigh. That eventually passed as well, though only about 230 people remained as the meeting went for 3.5 hours instead of ONE hour.

The meeting finally adjourned at 9 pm. We jetted out of there pretty quick and grabbed our memory key. They took our voting cards in exchange for the memory key, otherwise it would have appeared in the picture at the top of the post.

When we got to the subway, a train was just about to leave and Sarah ran on, but her massive bag got stuck in the door!!! Thinking that she was also going up the University-Spadina line, I shoved her bag in, pushed open the doors, and jumped on. As we were pulling away, I was like shit, I'm on the wrong line.... I switched over at the King stop.

Worst of all, I think I crunched my balls a bit while sitting in those chairs for 3.5 hours. Stomach didn't feel so well after that and I'm still not feeling all that comfortable down there...

Was it worth it? Probably not. The experience was kinda interesting with the whole addendum and voting procedure, but it was WAY too long and you can't store anything on a 128 MB memory key...

Well, I did ditch out some cash today

I had a coupon for $10 off on an instore purchase of $50 or more at Chapters that expired today.

I'm always amazed at the immense number of books that I haven't read when I go to a bookstore. There are tons of bookshelves and all the books I've read doesn't even fill one of those. I sometimes wonder if anyone has ever read all the books in a bookstore. Time to get cultured and read more.

The Da Vinci Code is supposed to be good and I've been meaning to read more of Shakespeare's plays. I've read Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Othello (maybe more, I forget), but there are plenty of famous (and hopefully good) ones I haven't read yet (Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, King Lear, Julius Caesar, etc.). Shakespeare's plays contain great plots that are re-told time after time in movies, tv shows, etc. and are heavily referenced. After this, I'll pick-up the bible to see what all the hype is about and so I can get the billions of bible references that are made all the time.

Utility of money, or lack thereof

So, I got my pay stub for this month for $92 as my research assistant pay. Always a surprise how much I'll be getting. Brendan uses this weird formula to calculate how much you get. It goes something like this:

• Take 1/3 of your scholarship


• Add $15,000 (base amount)


• Add $1,000 as seniority bonus (if > 1 year phd)


• Add any TA money


• Subtract the amount of your scholarship


• Total is that amount that Brendan pays you

The problem is that my total is always NEGATIVE. He makes me PAY him money!!!! Just kidding....

His logic is that this formula of 1/3 of your scholarship + some extra should be more than your scholarship and this is the total amount of money that you will get, and he subtracts your scholarship b/c you're already getting paid that. And then for those without scholarships, they get a good amount of funding.

The problem is that these new scholarships are too big for his formula. In other words, $16,000 < 2/3 * scholarship....

Well, I obviously don't have to pay him any money, so it's supposed to round up to $0. But he's still been giving me a little bit. Some arbitrary small amount.


I realized when I got this pay stub and for a little while now, that I have no use for money. This little extra in my pocket won't change anything, aside from bumping up my bank account. I basically buy anything I want anyways. The only reason I don't buy anything is because I don't want anything or need anything. Like, I could have a car, but I don't need one living downtown and it doesn't make financial sense to have one considering the cost of parking and insurance for something I won't use much (unlike Jill who, being in Winnipeg, needs a car, and finally got her truck!). I could buy a new computer, but I don't need one (yet) or another. I could get a big plasma TV, but I don't need one. I could get a boob-job, but I don't need one (I'm telling you, I want one, I just don't need one).

I'm just finding that I'm not that materialistic and what I really want cannot be bought. My family wanted me to make a Christmas list, but the only things I could think of that I really wanted were things that they couldn't buy for me (happiness, a girl under the Christmas tree aside from my cat or a family member, my thesis written for me, a good job, world peace, etc.). Eventually, I'll have a use for money, but just not where I am in my life right now. I'm not going to buy a house here in Toronto, I'm not going to buy a car here, and I'm too far from the water to buy a yacht. My current lack of a significant other really cuts back the costs as well...

Though, this shirt is tempting:



And this could replace my grass: