4 promotions away from running Google

It's true that Google has less hierarchy and is "flatter" than most. In browsing the company pecking order, I found out that I could be running the show in just 4 promotions! This is even fewer than the 6 I needed to take over Bill Gates's job. Being on the research side of things tends to cut down the heirarchy significantly.

You wouldn't however, realize that I was so close to running Google from the fact that I was basically eating all day. No seriously. I was eating like all day. It's disturbing to the point that it's scary. I have the uncanny feeling that they're trying to fatten me up for some evil purpose...something to do with the cafeteria food or perhaps human soap.

• Breakfast from 8:45 - 9:15


• *Productivity*


• Lunch at 12:30 - 2:00


• "Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Interns Social" 2:00 - 3:30


• *E-mail*


• Weekly company meeting led by Larry and Sergey (aka beer, wine, and hor d'oeuvres) 4:30 - 5:30


• *Semi-productivity*


• Dinner from 7:30 - 8:30

Business hours: breakfast - dinner

People often ask me how long I work here at Google, to which I reply,

Breakfast to dinner

It may seem like long hours, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for free food. Work also doesn't seem like work when it's fun. Being in a phd program, I got comfortable with the mentality that I won't work on anything that I don't consider to be cool, fun, and have a big impact. I maintain this attitude in the workplace.

It's also difficult to call it work when you take a nice leisurely scroll to the cafeteria you've never been to across campus with your friends for lunch (since the main cafeteria was closed because of press day and it was crazy busy in the main part of campus), you enjoy a nice bbq outside with friends, and after work, you spend 2 hours with other interns (avg age around 28) frolicking around Google playing the piano, relaxing in the message chairs, snooping around, playing pool, chillin' in the plastic ball pit and treating it like a hot tub while the full-timers look at you funny, playing in Sergey and Larry's play area, and just acting like 5 year olds looking at and touching everything :)

The drink challenge

6 days so far. 4 or 5 drinks per day. Haven't had the same drink twice! How long can I keep this up? :)

Naked Juice, Vitamin Water, Snapple, fresh fruit smoothies, random juices, Orangina, sparkling apple juice, water, chocolate milk, freshly made cafeteria drinks, fresh young coconut, Powerade, and more. These are only the ones that I've drank!

I haven't even hit the canned soft drinks or the fountain drinks! Though I'm purposely avoiding them. There's tons of coffee, caffeine, and energy drink options, but they don't interest me. I leave those to Michele. I discovered the asian drink fridge, so I'll be adding VitaSoy to the list soon.

Banks love giving me credit cards now

Just got approved (instant response over the Internet) for a Citibank Dividend Mastercard (5% cash back at supermarkets, gas stations, and drugstores, and 1% back on other purchases). Helps that I have like 9 months of credit history here and an existing credit card.

Weekend Snippet

Sawyer Camp Trail
'Bladed down the Sawyer Camp Trail in like San Mateo. Nice scenery, shitty trail. Bumpy, cracky, and craploads of tar filling in the cracks. Decent jogging/walking/biking trail, but avoid it for rollerblading.

You can't see the actual trail in that picture, but the trail goes along side the Crystal Springs Reservoir and there's a lot of foliage. The trail was nice in that it went through the trees, so it was shady for most of it, which is appreciated when you're sweating. Wildlife wasn't that exciting. I saw some deer, which is about as exciting as looking in Kevin's or Kives's backyards in Winnipeg. I did see this rather large black and white striped snake.... and it was stretched out across the path. It freaked the bejesus outta me. Didn't expect that at all. I just narrowly missed it too. It would not have been pleasant to have run over that.

Parking at the top of this sizeable hill seemed like a good idea at first because I could start off by just blitzing down it... going back up after 8 miles of rollerblading was not however, very much fun.

The intent was to buy a new pair of rollerblades and use them on the trail, but Inline Sports in Sunnyvale had shitty skates and Black Diamond Sports in Palo Alto was out of the pair that I wanted (Rollerblade Crossfire 90), which sucks because I tried them on last week, but hesitated to buy them because I hadn't decided if I was going to buy a new pair. They're supposed to call me this week when they get a new shipment in. I contemplated buying online, but I wanted to try them on again to make sure about the size.


You call that a Downtown?
"Downtown" Palo Alto and "Downtown" Mountain View are almost as exciting as Winnipeg's. Wait, that's a little harsh. Both of them are like one street with a bunch of restaurants and pubs, but they close at like noon. Ok, well, maybe they're open just a little after noon. Palo Alto's a little more lively than Mountain View, but for a college town, it's pretty pathetic. Tied House in MV wasn't too bad (restaurant and brewery), but it closed at 11 pm. Nola's (restaurant/pub) in PA was pretty good and lively. Apparently there's another place in PA that's good as well.


Extreme Jenga
Apparently Jenga's an appropriate game for a group who's average age is 29. The sad part is that we were playing sober. And we weren't even using it as a drinking game (that's for when the average age of the group is like 24)...

Our first game, we actually finished Jenga! Yes. I said FINISHED. There were no more pieces left to pull out! It was pretty crazy. After having conquered Jenga and playing a few more times, we decided to mix things up and GET PERPENDICULAR. Ok, well, maybe it was more of flipping the pieces onto their sides, which is still perpendicular, just not as extreme. It then fits 5 across and gives many more options :)


Knee seems to be healing
Limiting volleyball to just once a week, and where that once a week isn't that intense on my knees seems to be really helping. Knee didn't really hurt today, though I still felt that it wasn't at 100%. It's really the deep squat and jumping that's a killer, but with this clinic, I'm not having to jump and much as I'd do in say, pick-up or a game, at least not for as prolonged as a period.


Mosquito bite
I have a mosquito bite just above my left ankle. Kinda itchy. It's annoying. Not sure when that happened. I'm going to guess the rollerblading expedition. I haven't had many bites since like 2004. I managed to miss the insane Winnipeg mosquitoes last year, you know, those "30+ mosquito bites on each leg, even with bus spray on" and those "mosquitoes bigger than birds chewing threw jeans". Playing beach volleyball in Assiniboine park surrounded by forests at dusk and where you literally see swarms of mosquitoes flying around, is not the brighest idea, though I'll be doing it again in August :)


And now for the weather report
The daytime temperature around here is beautiful, highs consistently in the low-mid 20's. Sunny. No clouds in the sky. Temperature inside Google's a little cool sometimes though. Night time gets a little chilly, particularly if you're dressed for mid-20's. Lows are like 12 or 13, but with the wind, shorts and t-shirts are not a bright idea. Once the sun goes down, the temperature drops faster than my blog audience reading this post. In some respects a cool night is good because then it won't be hot when you sleep (unlike in say Winnipeg or Toronto), though I have well-functioning air conditioning here :)

One step closer to factorgraph world domination

My paper got accepted into UAI (Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence)! I don't think that I'll be going as it's only in Cambridge, MA. I'll save my conference trips to either ski resorts, beaches, or overseas. Plus, it's in July and I'll still be down here. I'll let Inmar handle it. It'll probably get more attention with a girl presenting it anyways.

Now I have to focus on writing these two papers for NIPS by the end of the month :s. Just gotta keep my eye on the prize: a free trip to Whistler *cough* snowboarding.

Cinco de Mayo?

First time I even heard the term was like a month ago. It's supposed to be like Mexico's equivalent to Independence Day, though I'm also told that this is not particularly accurate. Anyways, it's something that is actually celebrated down here. I think it's just an excuse to party and get drunk. They sure as hell don't celebrate Canada Day....

There were like tv ads for "Cinco de Mayo" sales. What does Oreo cookies have to do with Mexico and why should they be on sale for Cinco de Mayo?.... I don't get it. Looks like another bastardization of a holiday...

Google had a Cinco de Mayo theme for lunch. Outdoor BBQ and a live band, which was presumedly Mexican. I'm not totally sure, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. No one really paid much attention to them as they were too preoccupied with food. Some guy was also going around with a tequila bottle. I wonder if Google paid the band to play. I think the band was for the most part a no name band, at least no one knew who they were or had heard of them before, though none of us are really in the latino scene. I'm sure that they helped to pay for the set-up costs and equipment rental or something, oh, and the free food.

The rumoured Noogler humiliation on their first friday meeting where they have to wear beanie hats with propellers and half sandwich board signs and get ridiculed in front of the whole company, including Sergey and Larry, was over hyped. We stood up for like 5 sec. and that was that. There were quite a number of us so it was like whatever... I have never seen slides been flipped so fast before, as Sergey reviewed all the stuff that happened over the last week. I guess the whole thing is really about the Q&A session, which is cool b/c it lets anyone in the company directly ask Sergey and Larry (the billionaries that pay my salary) any question that they want. Eric Schmidt (Mr. CEO) chimed in a few times.

The intern co-ordinators were right when they said that you become good friends with the people that are in orientation with you. Well, for one, none of us really know any one else. Two, we were all in the same training sessions and we'd have the same lunch breaks, and it's just natural for us to sit together. So far, my social life at Google has revolved around the meal schedule. Using the internal communication methods, we managed to organized a sizeable number of us to go out and celebrate Cinco de Mayo. The suggestion to go some place to play pool and fooseball and get some drinks was shot down pretty quickly as we actually wanted to leave the campus :p

We soon discovered that places in Mountain View don't stay open that late. We did manage to get some drinks at a restaurant/brewery and just chill. The waitress was like, "really? none of you are getting food?", and we were like "ummm... we ate already". We also got to the point of the night when the Americans in the group realized that they were dramatically out numbered. That's always a fun moment :). I marked the occassion of my first Cinco de Mayo with my inaugural black out. One second I'm standing, the next I'm sitting up against a wall and I had no idea how I got from point A to B or how much time had passed. I didn't even have that much to drink. I think it was because of sitting so long and then just suddenly gettin up and getting too light headed. I'm also going to blame it on the altitude like Rob. At least I was in a private area with no audience and came out of it with no physical damage or enlargement of my hole. I like to think that I'm sober enough to blog right now.

Geyser spontaneously erupts right off the 101

I'm fully convinced that California has only days left before it breaks off from the continent. Today, a geyser erupted right off the 101, forcing half the highway lanes to close and me to be late for my first training session (not to worry b/c the slides are on the intranet). Water spurting everywhere and firemen apparently were trying to clog it or something to try and stop it.

The cover up story was that some retard ran his car off the road and hit a fire hydrant, though I don't buy it.

My celebrity encounter

I had a new hire luncheon today and the guest speaker was Matt Cutts! It was just for us interns, so it was pretty small. I was chuckling half the time b/c I read his blog and what he was saying was the stuff he talks about on his blog.

Matt works to fight spam websites (they are websites that contain no useful information and attempt to trick Google into ranking them high in some searches so they get traffic and try to make money by selling ads or running affliate programs). He was like, "let's put on our black hats and think like a spammer, how can we fool Google?" He told us some really interesting stuff and all these sneaky ways that spammers trick Google. Again, more confidential stuff :)

The other talks today weren't as good as yesterday's where they were basically telling us how Google worked. Tomorrow should be good. I get to be humiliated in front of the entire company, including Larry and Sergey.

I managed to control my food consumption better today. I was still kinda full all day and had to force myself to eat at lunch and dinner. The cantelope and blueberry drink at lunch today was pretty good. Every meal (day?) they have a special drink in these dispensers that tastes hand made. Well, at least it doesn't taste like anything that I've ever bought. I was much farther away from a permanent food coma today.

The "more out" part of my equation really kicked in today. My squatting technique that I perfected at MSR has really served me well. Not only is it more sanitary, but I also exercise my leg muscles at the same time! And you know how some people recognize stall neighbours by what shoes they were wearing? I noticed my badge hanging right by my shoes and was like ummm..... and tucked it in my pocket until I was done.

More in, more out

SO FULL! I was full ALL DAY. I'm still full even though it's 11 pm! My current strategy of seeing something I like, taking a pile of it and then continuing down the food aisle in the same manner, and sometimes even visiting multiple food stations, is perhaps, not the best strategy. I had this dull pain throughout the day as my stomach was permanently expanded. Bending over was not possible. I was fortunate that I didn't have to tie my shoes during the day. At both lunch and dinner, I was still full from the previous meal, but I ate anyways. The food is good. I can't help myself. No pain, no gain!

Today's highlights:

• Breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Google


• Fresh, fruit smoothie at breakfast


• Good, hot breakfast with a custom made omlette to start off the day


• Learnt more company secrets


• Couldn't figure out how to attend the "mandatory" company wide meeting


• One step closer to riding those scooters


• Real lobster in my soup at lunch


• Found the office supplies cabinet ;)


• Internal IM is great


• Learning stuff I kinda know


• Realizing that there isn't actually a "Google Store" to visit (boo!)

The food being this tasty is a problem, but because of being so full throughout the day, and not about weight. I'm not too worried about gaining weight. I managed to avoid the frosh 15 twice, and the last time I had buffet meals all year (though not nearly as good of food). Metabolism, don't fail me now! My motto in these kind of situations is

More in, more out

The only problem is that I'm pretty inactive at the moment (well, at least over the last two days and likely for the next two). I'm not rollerblading to school anymore and I haven't played volleyball for a few days b/c of my knee (and I'm busy). I'm hoping that once I get settled in this week, I can start ramping up the volleyball and start going through that open gyms list. I'll see how many of those I can get to (there's like 60 of them! So, 20 a month or 5 times a week :p)

I discovered the fresh, made right in front of you, fruit smoothie at breakfast today (frozen fruit blended, like the Freh and Fruity at Bubble Tease). Good stuff. The drinks are just amazing here. I went through I donno, like 6 or more drinks today. Fruit smoothie, fresh oj, one of the naked kiwi juices, V8 splash tropical blend, fresh young coconut (just rows of them sitting out for lunch), and the drink special at dinner which had a nice watermelon flavour. I'm just constantly going to the washroom because of all these drinks.

My only worry with these drinks is that many of them have various vitamin and mineral "boosts". While this is probably ok when just drinking one, but in the quantities that I'm drinking and mixing, this is probably not so healthy. I'm going to avoid all the ones with boosts from now on, or at least limit my consumption of them.

I have quickly discovered when the fresh fruit cups are delivered to my floor. I think at about 2:15 pm, all these little containers of fresh fruit are put on ice in the mini kitchen. They disappear very quickly. I've been going for the fountain drink sized ones. The alternative are these small little cups, though they are concentrated with berries as opposed to more melons. This sizeable snack so soon after lunch contributes significantly to my constant feeling of fullness.

All in all, while I'm consuming quite a bit of food, I think I am just naturally eating pretty healthy. More than anything, I'm consuming mass quantities of fruit (either in solid or juice form). I should probably shift to the vegetable side of things a bit. Pretty much everything is low fat and non-greasy. Of the meat that I'm eating, it's pretty healthy, today it was pork, shrimp, and sea bass. I will probably restart my "at least once a day" chocolate milk habit, like I adopted at MSR, to act as my calcium intake.

I plan on doing going on the Google "diet" again for all my meals tomorrow :). Will I ever learn? I'm going to say no.

Freakishly accurate...

You Are 24 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

I'll forgive it for being a week out of date.

Google Day 1: Overwhelming is an understatement

Just the decision on what drink to take is enough to overwhelm you.

Food is an entire beast of itself and I only went to one cafeteria. Food this way and that. So many decisions, so little room in my stomach.

And don't even get me started on the mini-kitchens on each floor. Un-frickin'-believeable! Fresh fruit in a cup (pineapple, cantelope, honeydew, watermelon, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries)! AMAZING!!!!

Then there are the fridges with Naked Juice (fresh fruit juices). I was coming in thinking that I'd be drinking a lot of Vitamin Water, but no, I'm gonna be drinking myself silly with this Naked Jusice stuff.

Oh, and if you didn't already know, anything you can get your hands on that's edible is absolutely, no strings attached, FREE. Seriously, don't hesitate. No, I mean it. Don't hesitate. Take it. Consume it. Put on that Frosh 15.

And in terms of actual work related things, shit loads of stuff. The project I will likely be working on is pretty cool, but very ambitious. I could tell you what it is, but I'd have to kill you. Seriously. I'll just leave it as that I'm going to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

I'm also now privy to way too much confidential information that I think I need to know. In a one minute conversation with the press, I could get myself sued on over a dozen different counts and personally hunted down and killed by Eric, Larry, and Sergey.

Browsing around, I no longer need to scour digg or slashdot for rumours about Google. I have now gotten plenty of information that I've wanted.

Now that I'm all excited (and giddy like the little girl that I am) about all this information that I have, I have to worry about keeping my mouth shut. They are super anal about confidentiality and security, as they should be. So, don't ask because I don't know (or at least will pretend not to know).

I have intentionally been very vague because I have to. I can talk all about the Indian food I had for lunch and the burrito and shrimp I had for dinner, and I'd have to say that Google's food does live up to its notoriety, but I pretty much can't talk about anything else.

Oh, by 6 pm, I finally had a computer on my desk and was able to log in successfully (which is actually better than most as while many had computers, they weren't able to actually use them for several number of reasons). I also have two brand new massive 20" wide screen LCD monitors. WAY more desktop space than I know what to do with. I stayed until 9:30 pm just carousing around. I only left b/c my contacts were getting really dry.

Tomorrow I'm going in for breakfast (8:00 am - 9:30 am), lunch (11:00 am - 2:30 pm), and dinner (6:30 pm - 8:00 pm). I tell you, these are the most important events on my calendar.

Wow, that is cold!

No hot water. I really needed to shower... Shrinkage is an understatement.

Apparently the hot water tank somewhere in the complex blew so they had to turn off the hot water. It could be worse, it could be flooding in here.

I had to shower b/c I had played 2 hours of volleyball (only 48 hours after landing :p). It was actually a clinic. While I've been playing for... umm... 13 years, I was only coached for the first 6 and I've been wanted to be coached again for some time. Good thing I have a car, otherwise it'd be pretty impossible to get to volleyball :p.

It was alright. It's supposed to be intermediate/advanced (have to have at least the basic skills). Level of play was like typical rec pick-up. The instruction was alright, but each person doesn't get much attention b/c there's like 30-something of us and only one of him. He doesn't even have any assistant instructors.

I think I'm gonna pass on pick-up for the next little while and only do this (it's every Monday) until my knee feels better.

More errands...

$25 drop fee waived. Free upgrade of 2 car sizes (from an economy car blue Dodge Neon to a standard car silver Chevrolet Cobalt). Free car wash. 1 hour (it was busy and they didn't have any cars there). I would have liked power windows, power lock doors, and remote access though... I wouldn't have minded to have kept the Dodge Neon, but there was damage that they didn't have marked down on their system (apparently some genius decided to put chains on the wheels).

The guy at Black Diamond Sports laughed when I said I had lost a screw on my rollerblade. Then he proceeded to trash my rollerblades. He suggested that I just get new 'blades instead of trying to find a replacement screw and getting new laces and wheels. I've been considering getting a new pair for a while now since I do use them quite a bit. If I can twist Google's bike purchase discount to apply to rollerblades, it'll be a no brainer and then I can have my family bring my old 'blades back when they visit.

Random sightings

The number of tech companies here is absolutely insane. Without even trying (and mostly when I was lost), I saw Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, Lockheed Martin (a bunch of big hangers, presumedly where they build planes, etc.), A9 (Amazon's search), Microsoft Research, and Google (ok, I was trying to find Google).

I'll have to go on a tech company tour or something one of these days. In addition to these, there's Intel, Apple, NVIDIA, and crap loads of others.

Here and there

Conducted some questionable transactions thanks to Craig's List. First order of business was to meet up with some guy outside of a gas station car wash to unlock my cell phone. Took a whole like 1 minute and $10 to do it. He hooked up some contraption to my cellphone and it was magically unlocked. Now I can use it with any sim card. While I didn't really have to do this because I could just use Amy's old one, I wanted to do this anyways so I can use a sim card in my phone when I say, travel to the states some other time and then have a local number and not have to pay roaming charges. Or, next time I go to Hong Kong, I can just buy a sim card with prepaid minutes and use it in my phone.

This comes to my next transaction. Meeting some guy, "Elvis", who's cell phone is weird b/c when you call, you don't hear a ring, instead you hear a personal message and then rap music. I met him at Kinko's and $10 later, I had a brand new Cingular sim card. This will let me use the sim card with a prepaid plan with my newly unlocked cell phone. While, I don't really need this, it will be useful when Jill and my family visit (in two separate visits) or next time I travel to the states. Oh btw, it's ok for you to stay here Jill. You can either sleep with me in my double bed or bring a sleeping bag. Well, the couch may work as well.

After these, everything else was legit. I had lunch at Subway's, followed by Jamba Juice - I had orange berry blitz (like a fruit based slurpee) with a femme boost (yes, I got the female boost, but I wanted the calcium). The drink was good.

Also hit up Target, Fry's Electronics (geek heaven and I got a bluetooth headset for my laptop), and Albertson's (usually a pretty nice grocery store, but this one was pretty ghetto).

Then I rollerbladed around my place for an hour and a half. People don't really rollerblade around here. I've seen like a billion cyclists, but no bladers. The roads are also not very rollerblader friendly - sidewalks are narrow, are made from tiles or are bumpy, sometimes the sidewalks just disappear, sometimes the paths are dirt paths. The most telling thing that bladers aren't common is that people are freaked out by me rollerblading. It's like in Winnipeg. People jump out of your way when they see or hear you coming, unlike in Toronto where they don't flinch at all.

Went to a Big 5 Sporting Goods store to see if I could get a screw for my rollerblades and laces. The guy really had no idea what was going on, even though I had my rollerblades on and showed him. I saw some laces, but they didn't look very good. I think i'll have to go to a specialty rollerblading store.

Google apparently has a bike purchase discount program, hopefully it applies to rollerblades and if it does, I'll buy myself a new pair. Mine are still good and I like them, but they are 5 years old and they could be made out of lighter material.

I also randomly bladed around the Stanford campus. That place is freakin' HUGE. If it wasn't for the maps on the side of the road, I wouldn't have made it out of there. They even had some beach volleyball courts on campus. I managed to find the Hewlett and Packard Electrical Engineering buildings.

Oh, and one other thing, I found myself in the "Stanford Shopping Center". It was a strange thing. I rollerbladed "in" to see if there were any sports stores (for my rollerblades). I don't know if I was allowed to or not, but I don't consider it indoor because I never went through any doors, thus I should be allowed to rollerblade through the mall, but it seemed weird. It was like just individual stores next to each other in one area and the corridor between the stores on the sides had a roof like thing, but it was partially open air, so it was kinda indoor, kinda not. No one yelled at me, but I just kinda zipped through. There was an Apple store there :)

Bloggin' from California!

California Baby!!! I'm in my place in Palo Alto that I'm renting out. I couldn't ask for anything more. Everything's great! My roommate's really nice and I almost feel like I'm living in a hotel.

She was out when I got here, but left the spare key hidden in the drain pipe. The place was exactly like the pictures she sent and it's really nice. She furnished my room with a bed and two side tables and lamps. I got sheets, bedding, pillows, linens, and even a bathroom floor mat! Great that I didn't have to deal with all that! She has even offered me her old cell phone, which is still active b/c it was cheaper for her to get her new phone under a family plan.

I managed to pretty much unpack everything in like an hour :). That's a new record for me, considering that I usually just live out of a suitcase. There's tons of closet and cubby space. I think I need to go get some hangers.

Nothing much to complain about the trip here. The Gardiner (big highway) was closed, so the cab driver had to take side streets and then the 400 to get to the airport. Good thing I negotiated the fee beforehand. That's the best way to do it when getting a cab from downtown Toronto to the airport - flag down a cab (don't call one) and then haggle because cab drivers love driving people to the airport b/c they get quite a bit of money. At first he asked for $45, I said $35 (I've gotten $30 before, but usually at the Airport Express stop), he refused, but then accepted $40, which was a steal considering the price it would have been if it was on the meter (b/c of the highway closure).

I still managed to get to the airport an hour and fifteen early. Stupid 50 pound limit on the luggage. Fortunately, my bigger one was only 53 pounds and they let it slide without charging me. They didn't even weigh my "small" one. Customs was pretty smooth even with the whole J-1 visa stuff. The 5.5 hour flight went pretty smooth. I don't know what was going on on that flight though - the last 3 rows on both sides all had kids, it was like they were segregating parties travelling with kids or something. The bad part was that I was in the row just in front of them. Fortunately with my headphones on, their screaming wasn't too bad and I did manage to get some sleep.

The San Francisco airport is pretty big. They've got a nice monorail system going that transports you between the terminals, the train station, and the car rental place.

Nothing really exciting at the car rental place except that they were gonna charge me $75 to return the car to a different location, which is absurd considering that my 2 day car rental (I'm renting the monthly rental from a non-airport location for a better rate) only comes out to like $38. I said that they guy on the phone told me it was $25 (which he did), but I couldn't give a name. The guy was like fine and made it $25. I'll see if I can get this waived when I return it and then get the long term rental.

I got lost getting here - got onto the wrong direction of the highway. It turned out alright though because when backtracking, I found a McDonald's and grabbed some drive through. I was hungry as I hadn't eaten since the morning and the cheap ass airlines don't give out food anymore.

Alright, well it's 4:30 am Toronto time (1:30 here), so I'm pretty tired. Not too sure what

I'm blowing this popsicle stand

Flight in just over 12 hours. Pretty much packed. Not bad for only having started this evening :)

Next time you hear from me, I'll be blogging from my 5th different location. If you can correctly tell me all the places that I've blogged in, I'll give you a prize.

Oh, and if you have a good thesis topic (b/c apparently I don't have one), I'll give you an even bigger prize.

Great, this is just what my knee needed

Fire alarm at 11-something pm. Had played a couple hours of volleyball earlier in the evening. My left knee was really bothering me.

Walking down and then back up 24 flights of stairs did not help my knee. There were a lot of cats downstairs. Well, at least I haven't showered yet and I can cleanse myself of both in one shot.

Great, and the fire alarm is back on. I'll just go into the shower and I should be safe.

It's all good now

Tony and I resolved some outstanding rental issues and signed a new agreement. We came to a sensible solution that is fair to both parties and did so in a calm and mature manner.

Only one broken nose, one set of broken glasses, a dislocated shoulder, two broken windows, 1.5 holes in the wall, a broken chair, a fractured femer, a broken wrist, and one bullet wound. Oh and we killed at least a tree's worth of paper. All in all, one of our best discussions!

TD Canada Trust really wanted to give me a credit card

Signed up for a TD Canada Trust Gold Select Visa card last weekend. Got it by expresspost (Canada Post) today! 7 business days to check my credit, authorize me for the card, print it, and send it to me! That is crazy!!!! They've asked me a couple times now if I wanted a credit card, but I always declined b/c I didn't need another card.

But, I needed to get another gold card for car rental insurance purposes (credit card only covers 48 days max. and you can't renew the lease to extend the insurance). I saw that TD was offering a gold card for no annual fee and that they'd get it to me in like 5 - 7 business days, which was perfect for my situation and it came right in time :)

Happy Birthday Chris and Happy Birthday Blog!

Chris, you share this very special day with my blog! Happy 2nd birthday blog!

But Chris, while you're pretty much over the hill and ready to kick the bucket (yes, you're that much older than me), this blog is still youthful and vibrant.

Let's reverse the clock two years and see my very first post. It was very exciting!

I should thank Jill for notifying me of the pending birthday of my blog. She suggested that I do a timeline of sorts, but I'm too lazy. Maybe next year.

While this blog is officially 2 years old, I don't consider it to be that way, as it went through a huge shift in focus in October 2005, morphing from Matlab rules! to Found the missing condom!!!

All the best wishes to you on this very special day of yours and I wish you happiness and fulfillment over this next year! (this was to my blog, not you Chris, but if you really want, we can pretend that I meant it for you)

Torrent racing

This is the hottest game to sweep the Internet since Googling people.

Here's how to play:

1. You and at least one friend download the same torrent file (eg. the episode of 24 that just aired 40 min. ago)


2. Run the torrent in your program of choice at the same time


3. Make bets and see who wins!

11:01:50 PM Justin: 31.8%
11:02:01 PM Vincent: 21.5%
11:09:46 PM Justin: 238.4k/s!
11:09:53 PM Vincent: whoa
11:09:59 PM Vincent: i'm *only* at 100
11:10:04 PM Vincent: 30.5%
11:10:47 PM Justin: I could have this in 15 minutes
11:11:01 PM Vincent: nice
11:11:10 PM Vincent: i've given up on being able to watch this tonight
11:14:57 PM Vincent: whoa 250k/s!
11:15:26 PM Justin: 9m17s left
11:15:28 PM Vincent: 300!
11:15:40 PM Vincent: 12m left
11:15:59 PM Vincent: go! go! go!
11:16:07 PM Justin: damn. It's a race now!

Even though Justin started 30s ahead, I beat him by just over a minute! He took a substantial early lead, but I pulled through from behind!

Until next week! Same time, different place (Vancouver and San Francisco as opposed to Winnipeg and Toronto).


In other racing news...

I raced a tram (streetcar) down Bathurst from Harbord to Adelaide (~3 subway stops, well, 1.88 km to be exact) on my way to some volleyball. Despite all the traffic on the sidewalks, I pulled through on this one by about half a block. I only had to push 2 people onto the tracks to slow the tram down and run one red to pull it off. I still attest that rollerblading is the fastest mode of transportation in downtown.

Spring cleaning

Very productive day. Finally put away all my papers and documents from Microsoft. Filed away all my mail and old course notes. Yeah for file folders! Cleaned up some loose ends on some things that have been neglected for some time. With all this out of the way, I am now mentally and physically prepared to begin packing!

T minus 5 days!

I need another hit!

C'mon, just one more episode!

Over the past, I donno, couple of days, I've caught up in 24. All 18 episodes so far this season. I was so used to having the ability to just double click the next episode if I couldn't handle the cliffhanger, now I'm left having to wait for the next episode to come out like all the other chumps out there! This sucks.... I should've waited another few weeks before starting to watch.

I guess I'll just have to entertain myself with this:
Sesame Street video clips

This helped me out in my time of need when working on my thesis proposal. These video clips are the epitome of old school! And, you may actually learn something while reminicising!

Polyphasic sleep in practice

Just finished my thesis proposal! A beast of a thing at 25 pages. I also literally have this mound of papers on my bed. Actually it's in several piles because it's structurally unstable as one pile.

I haven't really slept for the past 45 hours (proposal was supposedly due last Friday, but I delayed it to this previous Friday, but I didn't finish in time, but hey it's grad school, all deadlines are soft deadlines). I've taken 3 naps (the last one was unintentional). The first two were about 45 min. each and lasted me 40+ hours. This last one, I just closed my eyes for what I swear was a second and then I woke up 2 hours later. Fortunately I managed to wake up! It probably didn't help that I was laying in bed when this happened. I was actually surprisingly awake during this whole ordeal. Usually after pulling an all nighter (let alone two), I crash and burn like crazy. But I have been in a very low energy state, just sitting on this damn chair or occasionally rolling onto my bed to do work. On the otherhand, maybe this polyphasic sleep stuff actually works....

Anyways, it's time for bed! I'm not setting my alarm clock, so don't expect me to be up for a while.

Volleyball 1, Office 0

Number of hours in the office this week: 2.5

Number of hours on the volleyball court: 6.5

Volleyball wins this week :). Even more so if you count the 4 hours of beach on Saturday.

On another note, this is my 2⁸th post! Someone add another bit to my post counter!

13.65 km of rollerblading later...

Number markers indicate number of kilometres travelled.
From Google Pedometer

• Home
  Where everything begins




• Optometrist
  Prescription didn't change much, but needed to do it b4 I am no longer covered under my parents' health insurance plan.




• Running Room
  Picked up a Knee Pro-Tec Patellar Tendon Strap because my left knee has been hurting a little bit during volleyball since I went snowboarding in Seattle. It hurt quite a bit during and after beach on Saturday, but then on Sunday it felt great. I guess sand really is therapeutic




• Home
  Ate left-over tacos I made from the night before and did no work...




• Volleyball
  Seriously on the diagonally opposite side of downtown. Pretty good ball and a lot of familiar faces. I haven't been there for like a year and a half! The knee strap seemed to do the trick. I wore it under my kneepad. My knee didn't hurt while playing and there's only a little pain if I push on the tendon below the knee cap. I should really rest to fully heal, but at least if I'm going to play, the knee strap seems to help.




• Hot House
  Post-volleyball food (as opposed to drinking) is mandatory with this crowd (Donny, Christina, Abbey, Patrice, Tim). We went up-scale this time instead of the regular Timmy's and Wendy's.




• Office
  Made sign for the delivery guys to deliver to one of the secretaries if no one was there (I'm having my power supply replacement for my home computer shipped to my office at school instead of my apartment.... stupid FedEx)




• Home Sweet Home
  Currently blogging in my underwear (I'm hot after I shower...)

Nerds Make Better Lovers

Need I say more?

Beach volleyball... in mid-April!

Middle of April and I already hit the beach! That is awesome! Yay global warming!

Amazing day too! Sun was shining, weather was warm (like 17), sand was cool, not cold, and decently dry - slightly damp, which is actually good because then there's less dust.

It was like a perfect day aside from the wind (a little strong) and bugs. Why are there bugs out? Weren't they supposed to die off over the winter? Well, they weren't the biting kind, just kinda annoying, and they went away in the afternoon.

Any warmer and it would've been pretty hot when playing volleyball, so it was actually great the temperature that it was. I was really skeptical about hitting the beach today. Yesterday was like cold, rainy, and miserable. I was like, shit, tomorrow's definitely off and if not, it's gonna suck. But I guess it dried off pretty quick and warmed up real fast and it was amazing! I have never seen Ashbridge's so bare before. Only like 4 or 5 nets up (when usually there's like 90+). Some people were actually there for the beach too. Amazing day, just guess most people didn't figure that it'd be a good day to hit the beach because it's friggin' the middle of April!

I'm so ready for California now :)

Negative Tax Rebate!

I owe the government $2,500+ :s

I guess that's a good thing actually. Getting a tax rebate means that the government ripped you off all year long and now is apologizing by giving you your money back... without interest. So, those of your celebrating a tax rebate, you're celebrating the fact that the government is ripping you off! Congrats!

In my case, I didn't pay ANY taxes this year. Now I have to pay it, but at least I earned interest on that money in the meantime. 4% interest on $2,500 is $100!

I didn't pay any taxes on my scholarship, research assistant pay, or interest earned on savings. I paid minimal taxes (compared to Canadian tax rates) at Microsoft, none of that to the Canadian Government. I was technically only enrolled in one semester of school this year, so I get less tax credit for tuition. But then I get tax credits for RRSP, relocation (to Seattle), housing costs (in Seattle and Toronto), and donations. So, when you look at it from the perspective that I didn't pay taxes all year (ok, some to the US, but I think I get that back...), $2,500 in taxes for the whole year isn't bad at all, actually it ends up being like less than the GST rate, which is pretty damn good for income tax. Plus I didn't have to pay for EI or CPP.

Google Calendar

Ya, I know I'm slow about blogging about it. In short, it's pretty good and if you don't have a Mac, it's probably the best thing you'll find in terms of electronic calendars. Support for multiple calendars, nice interface, interoperability with other programs (you can do round-about ways of getting your calendar on your pda or iPod), sharing calendars, viewable and editable (not edible) from any computer on the Internet, electronic invites, reminders, the list goes on.

I started using Apple's iCal calendar program about a year and a half ago and now I can't live without it. It's absolutely crucial for keeping track of all my meetings, deadlines, social activities, birthdays, daylight savings, etc. You just have to add things as they come up and then it's not much maintenance. Plus, it serves as a record of my life. Like an abbreviated journal - where I was, what I did, etc.

I imported all my calendars from iCal like early on the 13th. Pretty easy process because Google Calendar uses the open calendar standard (ics files). The only hiccup is repeating events and exceptions to repeating events which iCal and Google Calendar handle slightly differently (b/c it doesn't look right in Google) and Google Calendar doesn't do time zones as well as iCal.

Google Calendar is basically a rip-off of iCal. The look of it is very similar. It does a pretty good job on the interface. I love iCal and I think it does the job very well. My only beef is that I can only update my calendar from my laptop and viewing it online is a bit of a hassle (I eventually managed to do it with spymac, which won't be updated anymore if I stick with Google Calendar) and sharing and collaborative calendars are not possible. Google Calendar is great in this respect - editing and viewing from any computer on the Internet, sharing calendars, reminders through e-mail (I don't use Apple's mail program), and the ability to invite people (say goodbye to stupid Evite).

If you want offline access to your calendar (only for viewing when not connected to the Internet, you cannot update it when you're offline), you can subscribe to the private or public webdav calendar link in iCal (or Sunbird for Windows and Linux). The private link is really nice. It uses a hash to make it nearly impossible for anyone to find your calendar unless you tell them about it and if they do, you can just get a new hash and the old link will be dead.

So, go to it. Get organized.

Confused. Disoriented.

2 am. Just woke up. No idea what's going on. I took a nap at 9 with the intention of waking up at 10. That obviously didn't happen. I set my alarm clock to turn the radio on quietly at 10. Now, I didn't expect to wake up at 10, but the quiet radio should have eventually woke me up when I was in a light sleep stage, but I guess that I missed the first sleep cycle and then eventually the alarm clock just turned itself off :s.

Now I'm not sure what to do. Sleep? Work? I have tons to do. Stupid thesis proposal... Pile of papers on my desk is causing it to bend (also a function of the cheap IKEA table). I'm gonna shower to wake myself up and then work. It'll be one of those go to bed in the morning, wake up in the morning things, assuming that I wake up.

Oh right, Mark from Canada! He's dead...

Brother of friend in Toronto who works at NVIDIA in Silicon Valley:

Do you know "Vincent Cheung"?

Friend:

Umm... yes, why do you ask?

Brother:

Oh, b/c my boss is looking to hire him and he is a phd student from Toronto and I noticed that one of his interests is volleyball.

Friend:

So the only reason you asked me was b/c he played volleyball?!!??!!?

Brother:

Yes, and it worked!

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?