Work work

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I found out that there are some theoretical issues with my code so it turns out that I'll need to continue working right up until Christmas to see if I can find what the issues are. It also turns out that because of this, the results I've finished running already aren't valid anymore :( *sigh*

Oh well, its not so bad ... I don't really mind working right up until Christmas. My "job" is really fun - so while it would be nice to have a holiday, I'm having a good time anyways :)

Plus I get to see Diane today. That makes every day better :)

Heraldk

Poker Satellite!

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Saturday night was crazy. I bought a deep freezer for my condo, as well as a couple of Christmas gifts - and then picked Diane up. From there we visited three parties, including Diane's work party, a fantastic dinner at Lingnan, and then a birthday party for one of our friends from Dance class way back when. Lingnan was awesome. Amy, the owner of the lunchtime establishment in Scotia place (by the name of Chicken for Lunch) is an awesome host - particularly when you are a loyal patron of her Chicken for Lunch restaurant. She took care of us and gave us gifts and we ate far more food than we should have. It was awesome!

I didn't get long to sleep in today - we had a satellite tournament to send one of us to an upcoming Canadian Poker Tour event in January. Amazingly enough, I managed to come out on top - which I was hoping for, but not too sure if I could manage. There's a lot of luck involved, and I picked up some key hands that got me through. By the time I was heads up with Curtis, I had a pretty sizable chip stack and was able to take him out in a couple of hands. Hooray!

So I'm going to be looking into details on securing my seat - but I'm not too worried about getting in. Should be fun ... wish me luck! I know a lot more about poker than I did last January - maybe that will be a good thing!

Heraldk

Narnia

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Last night Diane and I joined several of my friends to go see the first of the Narnia films. It was amazing ... at least I thought it was really well done. I didn't really like the discovery of the wardrobe sequence - but other than that, I felt that the movie was really quite well done. I really quite enjoyed the Narnia books - and so I was quite excited to hear that they were making movies out of the books. My understanding is they are going to do them all ... which should be pretty cool.

So indeed ... a very good movie in my eyes and a movie to go see if you can!

Heraldk

Blog Revamped!

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Well I can finally say that I have my own custom blog template! I borrowed this template from Open Source Web Designs which is an awesome site for those who want to have professional looking websites without the web design ability. Frankly, I'm learning a lot just by playing with them. Anyways, I found this template which I liked a lot. It'll be the basis of my new web page hosted on the CS department servers. But since I liked it so much I figured I'd work it into my blog - and this is the result! I hope you like it!

If there are issues (there will likely be some) please let me know!

Heraldk

4 colour playing cards

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Well then. Ever since I've started playing poker online, I've come to really appreciate the 4-colour deck. For those who haven't seen them, the clubs are green and the diamonds are blue ... making it easy to distinguish the different suits for flush purposes. I have considered for awhile looking around for one, but everytime I couldn't find any. But now I have. These were linked to from the PSO forums - and I immediately pounced on them. I ordered a set for myself, and Darse wants a set as well. I also took the opportunity to order a standard set as well to add to my collection of nice plastic cards. Gotta love them.

For those who gawk at the price, consider for a moment what you get. You get a set of cards that will last a *long* time. They are beautiful cards that will endure a lot of punishment before they show any sign of them. They're even washable so if they get dirty you can just clean them off and use them some more! Really, I don't think you can go wrong. Plus - if you're playing any serious game, a non-marking card is always nice.

I can't wait for these cards to get here!

Heraldk

CS Department Christmas Party and the Singing Christmas Tree

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Ahh Christmas ... so much to do, so little time! Saturday was the department Christmas party - and it was a blast as I kind of expected. The food was not spectacular, but the dancing was fun. Diane and I showed off our dancing skillz - though I felt really rusty at most of the dances other than the waltz. Our waltz is our best dance for sure :) The DJ at the party was a little too involved in the dance. At first it was pretty cool - with him playing several instruments along with the music. But after he switched costumes a few times and tried getting people to dance all night, I started to feel a little awkward. Oh wells. I also won the limbo contest, which was kinda fun. I dunno what I do right there - I just seem to know how to do it. Kinda weird :) For a prize, I got a cool see-through digital clock. It sits on my desk now :)

Last night I joined Diane and her mother to go see the singing Christmas tree. For those who haven't gone, its a big tree with tiers for a choir to get setup in it. Its usually pretty good - and while I didn't think it was too bad this year, there was a couple of things that I kind of didn't like. Mostly, I didn't like how the sound was setup. Usually, the capability of a largish choir to sing doesn't need a lot of amplification through the sound system. But using a little is okay too. However, some sort of effect was being applied I think, and the result didn't sound very good to me. The concert also seemed a lot shorter than past years too. *shrug*.

The other thing that I've started thinking over the past few years that I've gone there is that I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable in a church like the one the tree is in. Its too ... over the top for me. I consider myself to be a Christian - at least in a lot of the ways I think about life and its opportunities. But I just can't feel comfortable in an environment where there's this big speaker setup, with tv monitors lining the aisles and corporate sponsers for the program and the refreshments. I'm fond of the little church my family goes to - its nice, its not near as flashy, and it just feels more comfortable. *shrug* This will probably come up later in another post. For now, I'll leave it at that.

It certainly doesn't look or feel like Christmas outside. All the snow is gone again - and its less that two weeks to Christmas. Weird weird weather. But no matter - I'm starting to look forward to a chance to take a holiday here ... I need some time off I think :)

Heraldk

Life

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I'm the luckiest guy in the world. At least, I'm really really fortunate with what I've managed to accomplish in this life of mine so far ... and honestly, I'm not too sure that I deserve it all.

First and foremost, Diane and I have an amazingly loving relationship. From the way I stumbled into the relationship, I'm a little surprised that it turned out so well. It turns out that we have so much in common that we've just clicked. Its pretty amazing when the worst things we have to argue about are things like who gets to pay for dinner or the movie.

My family is caring and wonderful. They are a significant reason why I was able to put together the funds to purchase my condo. My dad lets me borrow the car just about any time I want, and I'm always welcome home for dinner! ;-). Those are just the physical things that are easy to describe how wonderful they are!

I own my own condo which I'm hoping to have paid off (with a little help) in around five years. I love living on my own. Don't get me wrong, living with my parents isn't too bad - it certainly had its perks. But there's something about having the freedom to come and go under your own whims ... something I could never really do at home. I think I've settled down pretty well - though perhaps I need to force myself to start trying new food recipes so I don't just eat the same things all the time.

I'm in grad school working on a master's degree on something I've grown to like a lot: poker. I have a scholarship that is paying my living expenses as well as putting me through grad school. I have one of the best supervisors in the research world, and its a fun laid-back environment to learn and develop my computer science skills.

Really, not only do I have no reason to complain about anything, I feel kinda spoiled. Its not that life has been easy ... that's certainly not it. But I feel super-amazingly fortunate, and I don't know how to describe it. I don't want to gloat ... I just want to put how I feel into words and this isn't a bad place to put it (since as far as I know, there's only one person that regularly checks in on this blog).

And that's how I feel. Heraldk

Esks Win!

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What a wild weekend. Friday night was a pretty calm night as I pretty much just stayed home and watched the hockey game (an exciting game between the oilers and flames ending in a shootout Oiler win... yay!). I also won another $75 player poker that night. Full tilt has been an awesome room for me this week.

Saturday morning I had to be up to get to first aid training. I needed a recertification, so this was the second of two training sessions. Thankfully, its over now - the course definitely isn't all that exciting. The best parts were laughing at the acting jobs of the people in the St John's ambulance videos. Some of their "painful groans" were really funny.

Saturday evening my parent's had Diane and I over for dinner - an offer I couldn't refuse. One of our family friends was up from Calgary and so her and my mom and my sister all went to the Opera that night after dinner. Elizabeth got a chance to see my condo on the way and she seemed pretty impressed :)

Diane and I spent the evening together. We had intended on going to see Harry Potter, but ended up missing the show we wanted to see so we just hung out. Its pretty wonderful to spend an evening with my sweetheart :)

Sunday was crazy busy. Elizabeth, mom, Diane and I all went to the UofA mixed chorus dress rehearsal for their yearly Christmas concert. I understand its tradition that they put on a show at Strathearn United Church every year before the actual concert at the winspear. It was pretty cool to watch. Then, we wandered down to Rutherford house where we had a lovely little lunch.

After that, Diane and I parted ways with the rest of the group and went south to join Leanne and Jon's grey cup party. It was a pretty intense game and there were many moments where we were on the edge of our seats hoping that the esks could come back. Next year's grey cup has little chance of being this exciting!!

Afterwards we needed to leave so I could get the car home, but it was a very fun party and a super exciting game to watch. I'm still amazed at how it all turned out!

All in all, a busy weekend. Now I'm tired and need to sleep :) But I have to get through today first!

Heraldk

+EV

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Wow was tonight ever an awesome night for poker! I played for a couple hours this afternoon and had a pretty non-descript session where I won about $22 or so. I then wandered off and watched the football game (esks are on their way to the grey cup! hoorah!). Then I came back and started winning money. The players tonight were just TERRIBLE. And wonder of wonders ... I got cards to cost them money. It helped that I was hitting everything in sight. I hit several straights, flushes and sets throughout the session. Even when someone sucked out on me with his flush after I hit a set of eights, the hand afterwards I punished a guy with pocket kings.

Beautiful.

All told, after I had received my next $20 bonus increment from full tilt's deposit bonus, I was up over $120 after only a couple of hours of play! Insanity. So today I made $140 playing poker. Sweet deal!

Heraldk

iTunes and non standard pricing

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This is a really interesting article: This guy is claiming that the real reason the record companies want to change pricing at the iTunes music store is because they want to establish 'image' that a higher priced song is 'better'. It makes a lot of sense.

The iTunes music store currently sells all tracks at $0.99 a song. If the record companies get their way, then they would sell more popular tracks for more money. But now what happens? If popular, 'good' tracks sell for $3.00 a song, then what kind of song is a $0.89 song? You or I might might be able to say that it doesn't matter, but the majority of people will automatically go for the higher priced songs because they are what are 'cool', 'popular' and ... 'good'. Now the record companies have another barganing chip in their deals with artists. Don't want to agree with what we want? We'll price your songs lower.

You know, I like music, but at times I wish I didn't like it so much. I really like to support artists I listen to, but when most of the money I pay for their music goes to these damn record companies, it makes me feel kinda ... unclean. Maybe I don't know how everything is from their side of the issue, but really ... when every move they seem to make is an attempt at keeping their wallets padded, I can hardly show feel like they have the best interests of the music artists at heart can I?

Heraldk

Floor Hockey playoffs

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So I'm a member of the computer science grad school floor hockey team. We're playing in a division that isn't high on the competitive scale, but of course everyone likes to win. We finished the regular season (all of three games) with an 0-3 record, but I don't think that record was fully deserved. We actually played pretty well, and didn't lose by more than 2 goals on any of those games. For those unfamiliar with the campus rec floor hockey league, the games tend to be high scoring affairs with many lopsided wins happening. Our games we played had scores of 3-1, 5-4, and 5-3. Amazingly low scoring, tight games for the league! Had the ball bounced in our favour a little more we would've potentially won all three of our regular season games. So last night we played our first playoff game. If we won, we would go on to the final. We came out firing ... scoring three goals in the first period. We only had 7 guys besides our goalie, so we tired ourselves out pretty fast. But after getting up 3-0, we were able to hold the opposing team to only one goal in the 2nd period. Our goalie played fantastic, and we ended up winning 4-1. Several hilight reel saves from our goalie and some pretty clutch defensive plays including a penalty kill in the third period were what backstopped our win.

Oh, and I scored my second goal of the season, which means I've now scored more goals this season than all others combined. Haha. I'm not exactly an offensive player. In fact, I'm lucky that my shot this time around actually made it in, because I had a huge amount of net to shoot at but I hit the post instead and it bounced in from there. *whew*. I like to play a defensive minded game where I knock the ball off my opponent's stick and send them running back for it. I leave the fancy plays for those who can make them ;-)

So we're on to the final next week. Wish us luck! We could win our second campus rec t-shirt in as many years!

Heraldk

Successful Poker Party

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Well I'm glad for all the people who were able to make it to my poker party on Saturday. It was quite the event! We held two tournaments, the first before dinner and the second afterwards. The first was a full 10 people and the second was 13 people large! Congrats to Curtis and JR who won each respective tournament. Also, congrats to Kepi and Curtis who made the money in both tournaments. I think (hope) that everyone had fun. The food everyone brought was amazing and it was nice to have people over finally. I hope to hold more parties soon.

Heraldk

Poker!

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Well, its been awhile since I last talked about poker. So I guess I will have to now won't I? For the record, I've been playing online poker for almost a full year now. I started playing .5/1 tables, and it didn't take more than a couple months for me to do better than break even. I lost about $30 at party poker whilst getting my chipset, and then I broke even (not counting the sweet $300 bonus) at the gaming club. After that, I started making money at each site I played playing .5/1.

I've since started trying to move up in limits to 1/2. I'm sad to say that I have not had near the same success here as I did at .5/1. I think part of my problem was that I got myself into a little bit of a downward swing, and then frustration would cause me to lose more than I should have. This happened at a couple of sites and its taking me awhile to analyse my game and read some more about the game before I started to feel like I've got my game back. Now, I'm almost finished digging myself out of the hole I made, and am feeling a whole lot better about my game. Hooray!

Keeping this in perspective though - my downward swing was not dangerous in any way. It was only endangering money that I had won at lower limits. My neteller account holds the money that I've won - the money I initially deposited is sitting safely in a USD savings account, and I don't expect I'll ever need to pull money from it again.

I find myself wondering what people think of my poker habit. There's a lot of people out there who view and gambling as a negative thing. I can't quite imagine what Diane's mom would think, for instance, if she knew how much money I was wagering in online poker. I'm not too sure if it matters that I'm up around $1400 US in a year's worth of play (not counting my winnings in that CPT event in January, nor does that count the several hundreds of dollars worth of PSO gifts). I don't think it even matters that I'm taking a studious approach to the game - an approach that requires some heavy reading. The underlying problem though is that Poker is gambling, and thus it is bad. Its odd, and even more odd that it kinda makes me feel guilty for playing. And yet, that guilty feeling has no practical basis!

I guess the main thing is that poker will never be more serious for me than it is now. At the moment, its a fun game that I can spend some of my free time playing and studying. I think everyone in my situation ponders the idea of playing pro ... but that is way too far outside my realm of reality that there's no way I'd ever consider it. I'm pretty sure that the game would lose its fun value the instant it became a job. Plus, I like to do other things besides play poker :)

Oh, and I hit a royal flush the other week. Its about time! I'll post a screenshot sometime soon.

Heraldk

Confidence

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It seems like life is all about confidence. If you are confident in who you are and what you are doing, you will tend to succeed at the things you do. Not only that, succeeding breeds further confidence and from there you go onto doing bigger and better things. But confidence is a fickle quality. If, despite your confidence, you start to fail, then watch out! And just like gaining confidence breeds more confidence, losing confidence breeds more lack of confidence.

I have found that through the earlier portion of my life, I have taken many a hit to my confidence. I have now started to realize that my confidence levels at this point in my life are the highest they have every been. Its not hard to see why. I've got a big scholarship, a caring family, keen interests in several areas including my field of study, and most importantly, a loving relationship with Diane. When looked at this way, I can't help but feel a little proud of what I've managed to accomplish. I am loath to say anything particularly good about myself. Frankly, I hate boasting, and I try to keep my ego in check by realizing that there are so many people who better than me at anything that I can claim any measure of skill at.

Still, my record looks pretty. Or at least shiny. Well ... maybe not even that.

My life is an interesting story. There's a whole lot more to it than I'm entirely willing to put up here on my blog for everyone to read. Lets just say that throughout my life confidence in myself has been ... probably a lot less than is probably healthy. My low confidence levels led to moodiness, over self-examination, and low comfort levels around other people. I found myself retreating away from people who I didn't understand - which turned out to be nearly everybody. I found my niches of interests and found people who shared some of those interests and we hung out where the geeks hang out. Away from popularity.

Its taken me a long time to embrace who I am. Even now, at the highest level of confidence ever, I still find that I feel awkward around people. I find that I feel like people are judging me. Evaluating who I am based on the actions that I take. I'm pretty sure that people don't do that. But I can never be sure - and until then I find myself always careful about what I say. I feel foolish when I say something that could be misjudged and whenever that happens I find that I will closet myself up to prevent it.

Its really odd thinking about confidence like this. Lately, I've started to feel really confident in myself. Its an amazing feeling ... one sometimes wonders just how long it will last.

Heraldk

A lovely Sunday brunch

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My sister gave Diane and I a wonderful little Christmas present last year. A gift certificate for La Ronde to have a Sunday brunch there. For those who don't know, La Ronde is a rotating restaurant on top of the Crowne Plaza hotel. You get a beautiful scenic view of downtown Edmonton and the river valley, and if you don't like your current view, you only have to wait a few minutes and you'll have a new view! :) Its a classy joint. I'm not the most comfortable with these higher end establishments - I kinda feel like people are watching me and disapproving of me. Its probably just my imagination. Still, the company (Diane) was wonderful, and the food was amazing. The view was incredible on a sunny Sunday afternoon ... and really, the whole day was just fantastic. So, many thanks to Megan for her generous gift. It certainly was nice :)

Heraldk

“If You’re a Christian, Muslim or Jew - You are Wrong”

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Religious discussion always seems to bring out the worst in people. This guy claims that religion is the cause of so many problems in the world both in the past and today. He talks about people who go insane and believe that their religion is what is guiding them through their life's actions. Ugh. It's a touchy topic. I'm not going to go out on a limb here. Religion, both in the past and today, has been the dispution point for many many wars and much hate and disagreement. This guy here seems to be just paying attention to the headlines. The newsmakers. The people who give religion a bad name. Seriously, for the average joe person who believes in one faith or another, religion can do a lot of good. There's a lot of psychological comfort available! Not to mention a community of people who are friendly and willing to help when you are in trouble.

What I don't understand is why people cannot give each other respect for their own decisions. For me, actions speak FAR louder than the label they bear. I don't care what faith you are in. If you can't give other people respect for what they believe, then you need to chill out and realize that faith should really be a personal choice. Sure, you can talk to other people about your faith, and if someone shows an interest, you can introduce them to it. But there isn't a "right" way to believe. I'm sorry folks, but that's where its at.

But then, maybe I'm just crazy. Heraldk