This is a photo taken through the car's windshield as we were driving up to Marmot Basin. The gradient colour on the top is from the coloured strip at the top of the windshield. I'm actually really surprised that this photo turned out as well as it did since it was taken through a dirty windshield. Sometimes my camera totally surprises me.
Last night, Jeffu and I held our free beer night. In the computing science department, it has been a tradition for graduating graduate students to buy beer for anyone from the department who wishes to come. So last night was our night, and we held it at Campus Hudson's. The waitress we got was amazing. She took careful note of our ground rules and was very good about making sure they were followed.
Last night I got more drunk than I have ever been in my whole life. To some, I know I really wasn't all that drunk - I mean, I didn't get sick, nor did I have a hangover the next morning, and I also can remember what happened last night. But for me to drink roughly 10 beers and 4 or 5 shots is a lot of booze to hold. It was quite an evening for us ... and we had a really good time. Unfortunately the Oilers didn't win :\
Something I should mention is that I am extremely happy with Diane and what she is willing to put up with! Diane took very good care of Jeff and I - making sure that we got home alright and being extremely patient with us. I am absolutely amazed by how wonderful Diane is to me, and last night was just another example of how wonderful she is.
One thing I was amazed with last night was the sheer number of people who came to share in our beer night. Not only that, the large number of people who stayed well past the end of the hockey game to continue partying with us. I have known other beer nights to die down before 8:00 (when the hockey game started) so I think we can call our beer night an unqualified success!
Heraldk Not a drunkard
Last night, my friend Jeffu and I held our part of the department tradition of buying beer for anyone from the department who wanted. It was an astounding success. To be honest, I was blown away by how many people came *and* how late people stayed. This picture is of the bill afterwards. We did pretty well, besting several other free beers in recent memory.
I got fairly late Sunday night from the annual department ski trip to Jasper. As usual, it was a ton of fun. Diane and I joined many of our friends for two days on the slopes of Marmot Basin. We had some absolutely gorgeous weather for skiing -- just a couple degrees below zero with sunny skies. I'm not all that great a skier, but I definitely took my shot at some of the tougher runs (read: blacks not double blacks). I think I'm going to have to take some lessons some day soon to try and figure out how to ski better and not stress my knees too much. Since I'm largely self-taught (apart from some early lessons in elementary school), I can't say I have any good technique! On the last run of the day on Sunday, I grabbed my camera and went up to the top of the hill to go snap some photos from the knob and eagle ridge. I got some photos that turned out pretty well, so you'll be seeing them hit my photoblog soon.
Now that I'm done my MSc, I'll be looking for a job soon ... but first I've been hired on for a few months by my supervisor to work on more poker stuff. I'm really excited about this work ... I think it has a lot of exciting potential and can't wait to get started!
Heraldk
I've just returned from a wonderful weekend of skiing at Marmot Basin. We had some truly marvelous weather - with the temperature staying above -5 degrees for the most part. The sun was shining for the majority of the time on both days as well! Because of my camera's size, I didn't really feel comfortable bringing it with me all day, so I didn't quite get as many pictures as I would've liked. However, I did bring it up near the end of the day on Sunday to make sure I got some of the scenery we were treated to on a clear sunny day.
This shot is of the knob chair lift at the top. I rather like the effect in this photo ... what do you think?
Yesterday I finally completed Thesis Quest -- that being the running around doing all the necessary paperwork and errands necessary to submit my thesis and be finished for this semester! Here's what I had to do:
I had 15 minutes to run to do the bindery part of the quest before they closed. Thankfully I got there in time so I was able to finish yesterday. Hooray! So now, after a few hundred dollars in printing fees, bindery fees, and tuition/microfilming fees, I am now ready to be graduated in June! Hooray!
It looks like I'll be working for Jonathan for 6 months or so starting in February. It'll be pretty nice to not worry about schooling and just work a fairly normal 9-5 sort of thing. The trick will be getting myself back into a routine I haven't done in several months. We'll have to see how that goes!
Heraldk
I never thought that this would be quite so cool as it is, but the smoke images are astoundingly beautiful. There's an in depth guide on how to take these photos - I wonder if I should give it a try someday! Heraldk
There's still some kinks to be worked out, but the main functionality for the template is now in place. Let me know what you think! Like it? Don't like it? Either way, I'd like your opinion. Note that I have only tested this design in firefox in linux. I'm going to try and test it with IE7 and firefox on windows when I get home tonight - hopefully it works alright on those. If you see weird things happening in other browsers, please let me know - I will do my best to fix up any weird stuff. There'll be some tweaks going on over the next couple weeks, but most of the important elements are already finished.
Hope you enjoy the new design! Heraldk
These trick shots are something else. Its pretty incredible to watch them go by, one by one. I didn't know some of these were even possible! The new design is well on its way to being complete. I'm going to put in a little more time tomorrow and hopefully it'll be ready for its unveiling before I leave on the computer science department ski trip this weekend!
Heraldk
In addition to installing Wordpress 2.1, I'm working on a new site design. I figure it is more than time I made my very own blog design ... rather than tweaking an existing design. If you see some weird stuff happening with this blog, you'll know what's going on (not that I have all that many readers!). Heraldk
A wonderful view of the city of Torino, Italy from the top of the tallest building in the city: The Mole (pronounced mo-lay). The view from there was absolutely amazing. You'll notice that the city is incredibly level. In fact, buildings in this city were not allowed to be higher than a certain height for many years which means that everything spans out around the Mole in all directions.
Inside the Mole is a cinema museum, which was a really cool spot to spend an afternoon wandering around in. A glass elevator takes you up the middle of the building, giving you an incredible view of the building inside before taking you up to this view outside!
Enjoy!
So I am now in the final stages now of finishing my masters degree in computer science. Today I passed my thesis defense -- which is a pretty nerve wracking event, even though I knew there wasn't a lot of reason to worry about it. It is like an interview with multiple interviewers trying to think of hard questions to stump you with. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how simple it was. The questions that were asked certainly made me think, and there were times I overthought the questions asked. But all in all, it went fairly smooth. So now that I'm done that major hurdle, all that's left is make the final revisions and get the thesis printed and bound and the final paperwork done. Is this ever exciting!
So yay for being done. Someday I will have a party to celebrate. It probably won't be until February though - this weekend is too soon to plan a party, and next weekend is the department ski trip!
Heraldk
I went and picked up my new monitors this morning and got home and quickly unpacked them. They are now installed and let me just say that I am very happy with them. I love having all the desktop space, and I'm really looking forward to playing some poker with no overlapping windows!
Sweet huh?
Heraldk
I finally got my brand new 24" monitors from Dell. I missed their delivery yesterday, so I had to go pick them up today. Now that they are all setup, I am totally happy with them so far. They are ginormous! A couple really nice features about these monitors is the plethora of video connections they can take. I am very tempted to get a cable splitter and a cheap vcr so I can watch TV on one. They happen to have picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture which is pretty cool!
Anyways, this is my setup - pretty fancy huh?
So in 48 hours, I will be defending my thesis. If all goes well, I'll have obtained my second university degree! Hoorah! My supervisor assures me he expects no trouble. Of course, I'm still getting nervous trying to think about questions I might be asked. I'm sure it will go fine - but as the day gets closer, I'm starting to feel my nerves. Hopefully things go well. Wish me luck!
Oh, and my monitors got here today, but I was at the university when they arrive so I'll have to go pick them up tomorrow morning. It figures ... I've never had a package delivered in the morning before ... and I was going to be home all afternoon to receive it!
Oh well ... I'll go pick them up tomorrow morning.
Heraldk
My sister got a huge toblerone bar for her help in the Christmas eve service last month. Unfortunately, she's allergic to particular nuts, so she kindly gave it to me. I saved it for the first poker party I had in the new year, and before chowing down on it, I decided to try out a photo. What do you think? I don't do a lot of close-up photography, but I think it turned out kinda neat.
It seems to me that there is a certain subset of businesses operating in today's world that just don't seem to get it. If your business treats me with respect, then I will be far more inclined to do business with you. If, on the other hand, you treat me like an idiot, then I will avoid your business like the plague. Take, for instance, the numerous credit card offerings I get in the mail. The chances are, if you have sent me 20 previous offers for credit cards, I will refuse your latest one that presents no added benefits compared to the previous bazillion other offers. So STOP SENDING THEM! I don't care that I get a low interest rate if I transfer an existing balance to another card. The reason I have good credit and can get a platinum card if I want to is because I'm smart enough not to carry a balance!
I also find that many advertisements on television and the radio seem to want to go out of their way to annoy me. I know that creating a good advertisement is a difficult and expensive proposition. But so is running a good business. Put in some effort to make the ad effective without being annoying. If ads start to annoy me, I start to actively avoid going to those establishments.
The thing I like to see businesses do to gain my respect and my money is for them to display a strong image taking the high road. If you treat your customers well, have a good product that you support very well, and don't annoy me or treat me like an idiot, then I will likely do business with you!
Examples of the wrong way to do this:
I really like how there are some really upfront companies that treat their customers with respect and do a good job doing what they do. Examples of these companies (note that I am not paid by these companies for saying this ... they are just an example of what I mean. The PSO link does give me referrals if you signup with them, but that is their standard referral program):
There are a few other companies that should stand out here. I'm a fan of Apple, Nintendo, and Blizzard - companies that release great products with a great eye for detail and quality. They also tend to have top-notch support which certainly doesn't hurt!
So ... if you want to impress me and earn my hard-earned money ... keep this in mind. I'd also urge you to not support the business models I mentioned earlier. I don't believe we'll see a change away from these terrible things that annoy me so much, but its nice to dream!
Heraldk
Once I finished my four party poker bonuses, I moved over to Ultimate Bet where I played a week there and made a couple hundred dollars plus bonus money and rakeback. Then, intrigued by the tales of good poker tournaments at Booya poker, I decided to deposit there and get started on their deposit bonus. I had some early success, but recently I've seen a negative turn in variance. So I'm going to take a day break from it and re-evaluate my play. I know I've started to make some mistakes so it'll be good for me to do some reading and re-watching some of the training videos I have. The good news is that I am about 60% complete the $300 deposit bonus, so it shouldn't take too long to get there. Once I'm done the bonus, I'm thinking about moving on to Interpoker where I can get rakeback + regular monthly bonuses. Lots of poker to be played!
Heraldk
It only took a couple minutes, so if you didn't notice the short downtime for this blog, then no worries. It looks like everything upgraded smoothly, but if you notice something not behaving like it should, let me know! Heraldk
This is another shot while we were in the small town of Susa. To be honest, I'm not sure why I like this picture so much. I could have sworn I saw a picture or a painting very similar to this somewhere, but now I cannot tell you where that was. Still, I kind of like it - it isn't the prettiest house around, but this is in kind of an alleyway of sorts so this house looks kind of different than other houses in the village.