We had a huge tour today of the new space in Bentall One.? ? It’s very awesome, and I think it’s a great change for the company.? I put a few photos on flickr. ...

So Sat. night, on my way back from the wack, I stopped at Future Shop and somehow got suckered into buying a Sirius Satellite radio system. It’s probably a pretty dumb thing to do, since I don’t drive very often, especially now that it’s warm out. But I was in one of my “hey, I’m a guy and I need to buy a gadget from time to time” moods, so I picked it up. Installing it is actually pretty easy — I plugged it in, opened the sunroof, stuck the antenna on my roof, and in about 10 minutes, I was listening to music. My first impression is that it’s pretty cool, although 95% of the 150 ...

While I was reading about the “science” behind Superman tonight, I found this article on chickens. Funny. There was the hyper-G work done on chickens, for example, by Arthur Hamilton ("Milt") Smith in the 1970s. Milt Smith was a gravity specialist at the University of California at Davis who wanted to find out what would happen to humans if they lived in greater-than-normal G-forces. Naturally, he experimented on animals, and he decided that the animal that most closely resembled man for this specific purpose was the chicken. Chickens, after all, had a posture similar to man's: they walked ...

I used to be such a big fan of the Transformers back in the 80s. I religiously watched the cartoon show every afternoon after school, I owned about 50% of all the toys (which I stupidly sold for about $50 one summer to fund my arcade game playing). Now, there’s a new movie coming to the big screen about these guys — I hope it doesn’t suck too bad. Here’s a little teaser trailer for it: Click here ...

My last Canada day in Ottawa, my friends and I woke up around 10am in the morning, and started drinking our first few beers. That day, we ended up sitting in 43C weather on the rooftop of the Hard Rock Cafe in the Byward Market. I remember that I had to drink about two water for every beer, just to keep hydrated in that heat. Now by comparison, Vancouver is pretty tame on Canada day. This one will be even worse, since everyone is preoccupied watching the world cup (which I have to say, looks pretty sweet in high definition at my place). However, a bunch of us are still going to brave today’s ...

Well, it’s official — I passed my master’s exam with a whopping mark of 84% (A-) — good enough for me. So, all that’s left to do is get a few pieces of paper signed, print off a nice copy of my thesis, and hand it into the library for processing. And then it’s done. The guys from CounterPath took me out for a few free rounds of drinking last night. We started at Nevermind in Kits for a few beers after my defense. Then Des and I went for dinner on Granville Island (Bridges) and met up with everyone at 8pm for some drinks at the Yaletown Brew Pub. Here’s a photo of me waiting to catch ...

Wow.. Four years doing my master’s degree.. Where does the time go? It seems like only yesterday the wheels of the 737 came off the ground at the Ottawa airport, and I was heading back home to Vancouver to pick up my old life, and start a master’s degree in EE. And here am I, 11pm, only a few hours to go before it’s all over. It’s weird looking back on things like this.. I remember starting school again, thinking it would be so much different from my undergrad, only to realize that after a few classes, nothing really had changed — it was the same boring lectures and crap. I remember ...

I went out with Jason, Hesty, Chris and Shiela tonight for a little while.. We bounced between a few bars and checked out some of the Vancouver nightlife.. It was pretty hard to get into most pubs, so we had to settle for a few lesser known places.. We started laying the groundwork for a wicked Canada day pub crawl on Sat. Should be great! Also, Dustin show me this crazy ass video from a Norweigen band that uses kitchen appliances for their instruments.. This stuff is pretty messed: Click here Oh, Hesty turned the big 3-0 the other day. Fucking way she goes buddy.. Happy Birthday! ...

I can’t believe how nice it’s been over the last few days.. I actually have a slight tan going, which is pretty amazing considering how much time I’ve spent indoors lately. I think I’m going to pull a steak out of the freezer, sit on the patio and relax for a few hours.. This is going to be a pretty awesome week. If all goes well, this Tuesday will be my last day as a student, and I’ll be able to put my whole graduate experience behind me. I’ll probably go for a few drinks that night, but I’m more excited about the big pub crawl on Saturday. Some friends and I are going to hit the ...

So last night I had a chance to see my first Cirque du Soleil down at Concorde Pacific with a few friends.. It was pretty wild, and I didn’t really know what to expect. I have to say that the highlights for the night were the jugglers and the flipping guys.. It was also really cool to hang out with some of the people that I started university with in 1995 (it was our UBC reunion night… ) Today I woke up and headed over to Dustin and Dori’s house to hang out for a few hours.. We walked around and enjoyed some of Kits Day, and then came back to Dustin’s (where I am now) for some early-afternoon ...

I check my weblog periodically to see who actually reads my web page.. I mean, if nobody is coming here, there’s not much point in putting tons of effort into it (although it gives me something to do). However, I’m averaging a between 200 – 400 unique visitors a month that aren’t web crawlers, but only about 2 or 3 of you are commenting. So my question is, who are the rest of you!? If you stop by here, please sign my guestbook so I can see where you came from and maybe check out your web page too! Thanks! Click Here to Sign My Guest Book Here’s a random shot from when I was in Costa ...

For those of you who don’t know me that well, I spend a lot of my spare time reading, mostly engineering (audio, speech, DSP type stuff), but also alot of articles/papers on food & nutrition. Unfortunately, my family is sort of plagued with a lot of bad health problems — most of my mom’s side has high blood pressure and heart problems. So, I’m always trying to figure out the best way to maximize my odds of living to a ripe old age. What’s funny is that most of the stuff I read, that is most of the stuff that is new research and is generally considering to be “correct”, is widely ...

Cool article, courtesy of digg.com Read it here I think it’s cool when people refer to the phone company as “Ma Bell.”? This is a very old term that was used by hackers in the old days when they were doing Red Boxes, Blue Boxes and all the other neat things you could do back before everything was digital. ...

I may have the opportunity to go to London, UK for a week at the beginning of July. Originally I was going to take a week of holidays next week and go camping in the rockies, but in light of this recent opportunity, I’ve been thinking of postponing my vacation, and using it up in Europe. I have never been to Europe, so I think it would be pretty cool to have a week there.. The question is, what should I do with a week off in Europe, knowing that I’ll be starting in London? I’d like to fly to Paris, and then maybe explore a bit by train. Does anyone have any suggestions? ...

First off — I hate my tripod.. I’m going to get a new one, just because it’s nearly impossible to figure out if mine is level. Anyways, I’m one of those somewhat stubborn people in life. I can be reasoned with, but if I’m in the wrong mood, it’s hard to change my mind about some things.. I’d rather do some weird acrobatic maneuver with a pool cue than admit defeat and use the granny. So when it comes to photography, I can probably count the number of times I’ve used a tripod in my life on one hand. That being said, I read once that the difference between a good photo and a great ...

“BT has stepped up the battle in the increasingly competitive broadband market by unveiling its new Total package offering interactive TV, videophoning and other integrated home media services.” “The new services are being described as the biggest shake-up in communications since Alexander Graham Bell made the first landline call in 1876. ” Yet another major carrier is adopting VoIP as part of their mandatory service offering. Read about it here ...

Well, I got back from Chilliwack a few hours ago, and have just been lounging on the couch since then. I had a great time in the wack — I spent Saturday night at my sister’s house, playing with my neice and nephew, and watching a couple of movies. In the morning, we all headed over to my dad’s house to watch him open a few presents. Afterwards, dad, Cathy and I went over to Frank’s house for a nice BBQ. I’m pretty happy that I finally got to wash and vacuum my car this weekend.. There’s nothing worse than having a new car that’s caked in mud and dust. There’s not much new going ...

I just finished making all the modifications to my thesis. If anyone wants to see what $12,000 and four years of your life gets you, here you go: My Thesis I’m off to Chilliwack now for a BBQ with my sister, and then spending the day with my dad tomorrow. I’m taking the big dog (the 20D) so hopefully I should come back with some great photos of cows or drunk people. ...

I haven’t been sleeping very good lately, and as a result, I tend to be awake at weird hours.. Take this morning for example — up at 6am, even though I typically don’t get into work until 9:30am. So, I’ve just been killing time on the computer, reading articles, taking a few photos, and working a bit on my thesis defense presentation. It’s funny because even though I consider myself a night person, I always like getting up at this hour — it makes your day seem so much more productive for some reason. Here’s a shot off my patio a few minutes ago: ...

First off, I met with my supervisor tonight to finalize my thesis.. Although I don’t have an official answer yet, it’s very likely I’ll be giving my defense next Thursday.. That’s really soon, and I have a lot of work to do before then, but the good news is then I’m completely done before I go on vacation, which would be pretty awesome.. There will definitely be booze ‘a flowin ‘a plenty Thursday night if I pull it off. On Friday I’m going to Cirque de Soleil, so I hope that my defense is Thursday so I can go out and get sloshed. On another note, I found the best way ever to make ...