Baseball

I don't really watch baseball much anymore, but last night I took a look at a television when Diane and I were out with Curtis and Pam. I blinked, and I blinked again, and then I just had to bring up the score into the conversation. The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles 30-3. Yes, that is correct and not a typo. The Texas Rangers scored 30 runs in just four of the nine innings, breaking all kinds of records along the way. Apparently it was a scoring fest. There was another big score of 15-3 that night as well, which now seems like a tiny win. Crazy.

Also, I tried a pint of the new Rickard's White beer. It was VERY good! It might be my new favourite beer now.

Heraldk

Victor Borge

Last night, Diane and I saw the best fringe show that I think I've ever seen. It was Rainer Hersch's Victor Borge. The show had received a 5 star rating in the Edmonton Journal, and they were totally not kidding. For those who don't know (I was among you before I saw the show), Victor Borge was a famous piano comedian for something like 50 years. His most famous sketch was one where he gives sounds to every punctuation mark which results in a rather humorous reading of a story.

So what happens in the show? Rainer Hersch jumps in and out of the Victor Borge character with ease. He probably spends about half the show as Victor, and half as himself as he talks about Victor's life story and how he rose to fame. The show was incredibly fun to watch. The jokes are hilarious, the acting was superb (I later was talking to my first piano teacher whom I ran into at the show, and she said that Rainer had his Victor impression almost perfect), and I really think that most everyone should enjoy this show.

Unfortunately, I'm sure it is all sold out for all the shows that remain during fringe week. However, if they decide to hold-over this show, or you see Rainer Hersch's name back in Edmonton, you should check him out!

Heraldk

Jellyfish

This is a very picture friendly area in the Vancouver Aquarium. There is a beautiful, well-lit, round display that holds a number of jellyfish like this one. A current in the pool ensures that the Jellyfish move around, giving plenty of opportunity to take some wonderful photos. I waited rather patiently to get this shot. I hope you like it!

Observation

This was on wreck beach in Vancouver. Diane and I wandered down to it, not really realizing that it happens to be a nudist beach. It was a little awkward, but not too much since there were plenty of other clothed people around. I'm quite happy with the way this photo turned out. Diane is a rather beautiful subject to take photos of, don't you agree?

Fringing

I've have had the pleasure again this year of checking out Edmonton's famous Fringe Festival. The festival is only half over, so if you haven't checked it out yet, then ... go check it out! Diane and I have seen three shows so far. The first two were really good, but the third wasn't quit as amazing. Here are my reviews: The Fugue Code This was an excellent play. It involved a solo performer taking the roles of four very different personalities as they frantically tried to crack the Fugue code. The plot roughly parallels the plots in Dan Brown's books "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons". Overall, the play was extremely well done. The actor was admirably capable of being able to portray each of the 4 different main characters uniquely enough that we were able to identify which character was speaking at any given point. Perhaps it was because he would assume a different physical stance for each of his characters. At any rate, the play is fast-paced and humorous, and you should check it out!

Bald Ego This is a British standup comedy routine performed in the intimate Yardbird setting. This was an ideal venue for the act, and the comedy was top-notch. Diane and I were still giggling when we left the venue. It is pretty clear though that if you go check him out later in the week, you'll get a different show that we saw. He has some prepared material, but a lot of our laughs involved some interaction with the audience. If you get this, then you'll get a different show than we saw. I highly recommend seeing this guy.

Copyright Infringement Well our string of good luck with fringe shows had to end sooner or later. When I look at show descriptions, my eyes usually light up at the word "Improv". Perhaps it is because my past improv experiences have been most excellent thanks to the excellent local improv people, Improvaganza. This show, however, which was half improv and half prepared skits, was more silly than funny. Lots of physical comedy, but not much in the way of earned laughs. Oh well, you can't win them all.

We'll be hitting the fringe for at least 2 more shows. Maybe more, but we'll see how it goes!

Heraldk

Sunset Glow

This was the scene that Diane and I got treated to on our last night in Vancouver. It was a tremendous trip!

Willow Tree

This Willow tree is also located in Stanley Park. I rather enjoyed taking photos while I was there!

Recovery

It seems that after any big event, my work habits need a couple weeks to return to form. This has been the case after coming back from Vancouver -- for some reason I just have trouble ramping up to get things done again. Thankfully, today has seen some sign that these problems are starting to pass. I've started cleaning up the DIVAT code base, and have plans to make it a) more efficient, b) more correct, and c) implement a service for people to run the DIVAT analysis on their own matches. Another thing I've been trying to do is get some of the raw video files from the matches, and make a few highlight reels of quotes and good hands. The quote highlight reels I should be able to do now ... it's just going to take some time. I didn't realize just how long it takes to watch video to find good clips. I'm not really sure how people do this in real video editing, but my methods are extremely slow and time consuming. Ugh. So expect a highlight reel, but don't expect it soon.

What else? Things are going well in general. I've been playing super mario strikers on the Wii lately. It's a pretty fun game, but it's also frustrating. I can't seem to pass the "Crystal Cup" difficulty level. The game (which is soccer, mario style btw) format involves playing a 6 team double round robin tournament to seed a single elimination tournament amongst the top four places. When you win the two matches in the single elimination tournament, you get to play against a new team which you unlock if you win. The problem I'm having is that before each kickoff (at the start of the game and after a team scores), the level knocks out some number of players from each team for the entire time between kick offs. This seems to be entirely random ... but it seems to screw my team over every time. You see, each player on a team has his own unique traits. Some are slower, but have a better shot, some have a poor shot, but are fast and can pass really well. If you get stuck with just your slow scoring players, then the opposing team has the freedom to run circles around you ... and you give up a goal or two that way which so far has cost me the game more often than not. I've only managed to eke out one victory in this format in 7 games. So frustrating.

My roommate, Mike, has an interesting carrot-on-a-stick approach to writing his thesis. He's already bought an xbox 360, which sits under his desk until he finishes his first draft of his thesis. Incredibly, he's less than two weeks in and he's already got one chapter left to write. I can't really imagine how hard it is not to crack that box open and play some of the coolest next-gen games. Speaking of consoles, I'm pretty impressed with the xbox actually. I haven't played much of it, but it looks like it has certainly helped kill of the PS3. Of course, the jury is still out, but between the Wii and the 360, I really don't see the PS3 finding room to compete.

Diane and I have finally begun planning out our wedding. There's a pretty long list of things we've got to arrange. I don't suppose anyone has any suggestions on who we should go with for a photographer? It's really hard for me to tell how one person's photography style will suit Diane and I. I suppose the correct way to go about this is to meet with several photographers and see what they have to say for themselves and talk them through a typical wedding shoot. So that's the next thing we need to do. It's a little surreal, thinking about getting married. It doesn't seem like all that long ago when I was a socially awkward little kid running around. Now I'm a socially awkward person that's somehow getting married in a few months. Huh. Who would've thunk it?

It's been awhile since I last updated. Part of the reason for that is my shiny new Macbook pro which has had me spending time tweaking it and playing with my photo collection in Aperture. It's amazing how much time you can fill up just installing different programs and fiddling with settings. That might also be part of the reason I haven't been all that productive over the last couple of weeks. Fortunately, my productivity should increase now that I have my laptop all setup!

Anyways, I'm off to a games party tonight. Hope everyone is having a good summer and is planning on checking out the fringe this year. Should be fun!

Heraldk

Shadows on Green Water

This is an algae filled pool of water located in Stanley Park in Vancouver. Diane and I were wandering along and noticed that some of the water had some neat patterns. In places, it looked like the sand had a cool colour -- but later discovered that it was algae! Here there was more algae which gave it much more of a green hue. This shot includes shadows of Diane (left), me (left center), and some grass (right). If you look carefully, you can also see the reflection of the tree leaves and the sky on the surface of the water.

Look! A Lighthouse!

This is Diane pointing up at the lighthouse on one of the corners of Stanley Park in Vancouver. It's a rather beautiful spot to see! In this photo, I particularly like the clouds behind the lighthouse.

Yellow Burst

Back to the fireworks! This is a cropped photo of a particularly bright yellow/orange firework near the end of the Spain set. The finale involved just about every colour of firework I've ever seen! With the thumbnails of some of my other shots, I see green, pink, red, blue, orange, yellow, white, and several in between colours. It was breathtaking to watch!

Goose Family

This is a whole family of Geese in Stanley Park in Vancouver. I wasn't very close to these guys - thankfully I had my zoom lens on my camera at the time. There was actually several people around and one girl was very close to the little ones. The father was *very* unhappy with her presence ... I'm surprised somebody didn't get hurt ... although I'm glad an accident didn't happen.

Look Up

For some reason, I love these kinds of shots. This is at the Capilano Suspension Bridge park in Vancouver. It's hard to choose the photos to post here - I have too many I want to post! Be prepared for daily updates to continue for a few weeks!

Strange Tree

This is a tree in the park located after you cross the Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver. It's very bizarre looking, but also very cool to have in a photo like this. I particularly like the perspective in this shot.

Red Burst

There is a long string of fireworks photos that turned out from good to very good in my eyes. Here's another one. Unfortunately, a lot of them have the person in front's camera in the way. Oh well, I'm not too sure what I can do about that.

I'll try and interleave some other holiday pictures in here so those who don't like fireworks photos won't get bored :)

Spain Finale

I have quite a few fireworks photos that should look excellent when done, but require a bit of processing before I get them uploaded. Here's one that's pretty good all on its own. This is nearing the end of the Spain entry in the Celebration of Lights fireworks contest. It was pretty incredible! In fact, some of my shots after this were overexposed even though I only had the shutter open for relatively short amounts of time! Soooo much light.

Enjoy! Tons more photos to come!

Desk

I just bought a new macbook pro and to celebrate I decided to clean up my desk area. I swapped out my old desk with another one that I had in my room and got everything setup. So here's my setup with my old powerbook that my mom will be getting in the next day or two!

So this is my current setup. Be sure to checkout the notes for the various pieces of equipment on my desk.

Cleaning

I had a rather exciting long weekend. I cleaned! Yeah, I was being sarcastic. After getting back from holidays and the man-machine match before that, my condo desperately needed a good cleaning. My room had stacks of junk piled everywhere and my storeroom was even worse. So I took it upon myself to start cleaning stuff up. On Sunday, I cleaned out my room and boy does it look a whole lot nicer now! There's still a pile of papers I need to file and a desktop full of odds and ends that need to find places, but on the whole, the room is incredibly clean compared to what it was like in the past few months. Similarly, yesterday I cleaned out the storage room. You can now see the floor in there which isn't something you could say last week. There's something about a good cleaning that makes me feel clean as well. I'm not too sure what it is, but it feels a lot nicer.

There's still lots to cleanup, but none of the remaining projects are nearly as large -- just kind of the normal chores that have needed doing for a bit too long.

It feels good to see clean things around me! Heraldk

Water Crab

This is a giant crab sculpture that stands in front of the planetarium in Vancouver. Duane, Maria, Neil and I went there on the first day we were in Vancouver to check out something in the town before settling into the AAAI conference and setting up for the man-machine match. Nolan, Josh, Mike and Andrew all joined us there later on in the afternoon.

Ali Eslami

A profile shot of the other professional poker player involved in the recent man-machine match. Ali Eslami is an incredible poker player. He's also really quite intelligent and I was rather glad to meet him.