Archive for January, 2007
Skiing!
Jan 30th
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
Ski and Sun
Jan 29th
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?
Thesis Quest
Jan 25th
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:
- Pick up printed thesis from the printers.
- Take signature sheets and get signatures from the 3 members of my thesis committee. Two of them are in CS, but one is a little walk away in Education.
- Put theses together, ensure all pages are there, in order, and are in the correct orientation (I found a couple pages upside down!).
- Take theses to FGSR where they are inspected. Fill out forms at FGSR.
- Take a form up to financial services to pay microfilming fee
- Take theses across campus to the Tory building for binding. Fill out more paperwork and spend more money. Estimated binding time: 12 weeks.
- Return form to FGSR. In my case, go by CS to print out the CV that I forgot to bring with me in the first place.
- Relax!
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
Smoke Photography
Jan 25th
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
New Blog Theme
Jan 25th
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
Pool Trick Shots
Jan 24th
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
Major Site Overhaul
Jan 23rd
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
Torino
Jan 22nd
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!
Thesis Defended!
Jan 18th
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
New Monitors!
Jan 16th
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
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