It’s sort of funny, because Jason and I were talking about this big bitch tonight. Apparently it’s going to be making a brief appearance in Vancouver sometime in November. It truly is an engineering marvel, but I really don’t want to go on it. Why not? Well, firstly, it’s 590 tons of reinforced plastic travelling at mach 0.85. Doesn’t scare you? How about the fact that during the initial stress test of the new plane, the wings snapped in half. Maybe it will be safe, but considering that nobody really understands the failure modes of composite materials, and that at least one airplane ...

I was going through some old things tonight, and I came across a few tokens of my past that sort of reminded me how I first got into computers a long time ago. It all started back in Chilliwack, years ago, when my dad got picked up a Commodore 64. That was the first “real” computer that we had access to, and we both got into gaming. Chilliwack was pretty ahead of the curve, and they even opened up their own computer club that my dad and I dropped in on from time to time (oh yeah, we were cool). Not long after, I got my own C64, complete with the “fastload” cartridge, bringing game loading ...

Goodbye Mexico.. It was nice to know you.. ...

My dad sent me this link today: Oaxaca Crisis. That’s really near where I’m going in a few weeks. It seems whenever I go somewhere, there’s always some big crisis that happens right before. When I went to Cuba a few years ago, our plane was turned back halfway in the air because of Hurricane Michelle. Hopefully things get better for the people down in Oaxaca soon. ...

Last night was Mel’s big halloween social down at the Marine Club. It was a great time, and everyone appeared to like the beer. Here’s a link the some of Mel’s photos from the night here. She also had a scary faces contest during the night. Here’s mine (photo by Mel): A funny thing happened on the way home. I realized that being a national icon is hard work, and after a night of dancing, I thought the Statue of Liberty could use some poutine. So, I stopped by Fritz and ordered some food. While standing in line, I look over and Elvis Presley is calling my name. Him and and Marilyn Monroe ...

I spent a half hour tonight getting caught up on medical research. I try to read pubmed from time to time just so I know when my doctor is pitching crap to me or not. This was an interesting recent study comparing diet composition with weight loss. I’m always surprised when I read research, because so much of it is bad, and the author’s never want to go out on a limb and say what their research really means. For example, in the study I just linked to, 57 people went on diets, half on one type, half on another. The average weight loss by group one was 5.7kg, while the average for group two ...

So tonight I had originally planned to come home and work on some costume ideas.. However, while on my way home, Hesty stopped me and thought it would be a good idea to go grab a drink or two at a pub on the way home.. Thinking I wouldn’t be out very late, I tagged along.. However, Adrian then invited us down to the Wild Coyote for a cool Russian Party. Since I’m part Ukrainian, and I happen to think Eastern European girls are pretty cute, it didn’t take us long before we wer down there having a few drinks. Good news is that cute Ukrainian liked me, so she took my number and wants to go ...

Set your clocks back one hour tonight. ...

So, I have bounced between a couple of ideas for Halloween this year, humming and hawing about what I was going to be. I woke up this morning and realized that I still didn’t have a costume. Frantic, I started scanning around my living room for ideas.. And that’s when it hit me.. on my floor, in a nice picture frame, was a picture I took in New York back in July. A picture of the Statue of Liberty. So, I spent this afternoon putting together a costume of the Statue of Liberty. I made a funky torch out of my camping flashlight, and the hat thing out of a beer hat I had lying around..I think ...

I’ve been getting a lot of notices from Air Canada’s Aeroplan recently. Apparently they have changed their policy so that air miles accumulated on airlines actually expire after a period of time. What that means is my airmiles from a long time ago are going to start disappearing off my statement in the near future. So, I guess the easiest way to get around that is to cash them in sometime in the next 6 months and go somewhere. I don’t really have a lot of vacation at work, so I’ll probably just have to go somewhere for an extended weekend. I have 40,000 miles right now, which will basically ...

So, yesterday night Cisco and I met up with Cullen at Gotham for dinner. Gotham is arguably Vancouver’s finest steakhouse, and despite living here for 10 years or so, I had never been there. Steaks start at around $40, and go up to the $50 Porterhouse that I had. Apparently they cook them in some funky infrared chamber that can cook a steak in around 6 minutes. Anyways, it was fun, but I’m not sure my steak was worth $50. Afterwards, we met up with Jason, Ecker and Derek for a few drinks. It was a fun night, but I wasn’t looking forward to the 8am conference call in the morning. Oh, another ...

I’ve always been a big fan of his. He’s grew up in Burnaby, he used to live in Chilliwack, and his uncle lives up at Cultus Lake near where I spent a few years of my life when I was a kid. I was watching a few youtube videos of him tonight. It’s pretty sad what Parkinson’s does to the body. ...

So this morning I woke up, hangover free, and decided I should get outside and take advantage of the nice weather we were having. I called Dustin up and said “hey man, let’s go do the Grouse Grind,” to which he responsed: “are you *(#%#ed in the head?” After a few minutes, I managed to convince him that we should go hiking. I had never done it before, although I used to do a bunch of hiking in the old days (Lake Garibaldi has a similar elevation gain). I wasn’t too worried about making it to the top, but I was a bit worried about my knee. A few years ago some friends and I did the ...

A few weeks ago, when I was back in Chilliwack for thanksgiving, I stopped by Cory’s house to hang out and see his new kid. They just sent me a photo of Carson in his costume for Halloween. Speaking of Halloween — Chris and I are constructing our costumes this weekend. I’m pretty pumped. ...

Here’s my friday update from the whole fitness thing. Times at the gym last week: 3 Weight lost this week: 0.6 lbs Weight lost total: 4.5 lbs Days without caffeine: 24 I’m shooting for the 10lb mark before I leave for Mexico. ...

I was in a bit of a hurry this morning, so I thought I would save some time by using my microwave for a change. I cooked a few eggs up last night (hardboiled) so that I’d have a little snack in the fridge when I got hungry. But, unfortunately, cold hard boiled eggs just don’t really do it for me. I figured — why not just warm those puppies back up in the microwave before I eat them? Sounds like a good idea. So, I deshelled them and stuck two eggs in the microwave. They weren’t even in there that long really, just like 45 seconds. The first waited until I had opened the door to take him ...

I added a partial movie list. Check it out. ...

I was killing some time while waiting for Chris to get off work so we could go see a movie. So, I popped in the nearest movie on my rack, which just happened to be Back to the Future. Usually while I watch a movie at home, I’ll surf the net and investigate random things that spark my interest while watching the show. So, I was surfing to see what happened with all the people from the movie since 1985. I found a funny youtube video of Marty McFly’s dad (Crispin Glover) from an interview on David Letterman. It’s almost painful to watch. ...

Who hoo — it’s official: I’m graduating next month from UBC. Even though I did my thesis defense in the summer, there was still some red tape to jump through with regards to having all the correct paperwork in order. I was working the phones a bit last week trying to get everyone to agree that I was allowed to graduate in the November ceremony. What made it hard for me is that you have to return your keys to the UBC security office before your grades are released to the graduate committee. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen my keys in several eons, and the procedure in this event isn’t clearly ...

Here’s the latest on my quest for a six pack. Times at the gym last week: 4 Weight lost this week (this was a long week): 2.4 lbs Weight lost total: 3.9 lbs Days without caffeine: 17 I’m moving these updates from Monday to Friday, just because I always end up cheating a bit on the weekend and Monday is usually a depressing scale day 🙁 ...