My Life
Updates
Mar 18th
It’s been quite awhile since my last general update, so I figured I’d give a quick update.
The interview process is still underway. I’m not entirely sure what the status is, but it looks like I might be scheduling a visit for Diane and I over there to check out the office and have a chance to meet people and show off what I can do. It’s a little nerve wracking not knowing whether I’ve got a job or not, but it should be cool to meet some of the people face to face.
Outside of that, the poker group is gearing up its significant resources prepping for the upcoming AAAI poker bot competition. We’ve got a couple new tricks up our sleeves which hopefully will be enough to secure some more first place finishes. We’re also hoping to put together another man-machine challenge. There’s some tentative support here, so it might actually happen, but I don’t really know the details. As soon as I can share details about that, I will. I’m really hoping it happens. In my ideal world, I’d get a nice job offer from FT so I could breathe easy about that. Then the man-machine match would go ahead and we’d play some high profile players in Vegas during the WSOP. Then I’d get a bit of holiday time to honeymoon with Diane before moving to Ireland to start work at FT. It seems plausible to me!
Speaking of honeymooning and wedding stuff, the wedding is getting close to two months away. That’s a bit scary … the time has never gone slow that’s for sure. There’s probably a bazillion little things we should be organizing for the wedding, but it feels like we’ve got most of the important details done. Probably the biggest remaining thing is to arrange a list of volunteers for various tasks at the wedding. We’ll probably be compiling a list of things that need doing and call for volunteers over at minoragenda.com.
I’ve been pretty busy working, so I haven’t had much time to put into poker. My 200NL experiment went pretty well, although I’m pretty sure I was running hot. I’d like to get a chance to play some more soon, but my evenings seem to be full of too many things. In other poker related news, I’ve been playing in the World Rec.Gambling Poker Tournament (WRGPT). This is a large play-by-email poker tournament that predates online poker. This is the first year I’ve competed in the tournament since I only learned of it last year but I missed the registration that time. I’m doing not too shabby in this tournament, although I’ve gone pretty card dead over the past couple rotations. Then this hand happened. Woohoo flush! I now sit in ~60th or so place of ~180-ish remaining players. I still have a shot!
So that’s a pretty decent update of what I’ve been up to. Lots of stuff going on, not a lot of time to update the blog. Hopefully I can get more regular updates in the next little while.
Heraldk
Interview Stage 2
Mar 11th
Well it didn’t go too bad. I think. It’s hard to say.
I … was a little nervous. This was the first real set of interviews I’ve had since I interviewed for a internship between my third and fourth years. I had a couple interviews then – one on the phone with IBM that went disastrously, and one with the math department that went far better, but they didn’t give me the job. To be fair, the IBM interview was after a week of final exams where I had 4 exams, one on each day at 9am.
So yesterday morning I waited for my 9am phone call. Well, even that was complicated. They were calling 4pm their time 9am our time, but with the daylight savings time changed this past weekend I figured they might’ve not remembered we switched time. So I did the “math” … and got it wrong. So I was ready for an 8am phone call that didn’t come. Then half past nine I finally looked it up on the internet and found that it was wrong and that 4pm Dublin time was 10am our time. Well, that was a good start to my interview.
I don’t want to go into tremendous detail about the interview here. I kind of feel like I’m not well-suited to interviews. I have this tendency to guard everything I say with conditionals, even if I’m relatively certain of the answer.
The interview consisted of talking with a total of 5 people. I first was asked questions from one pair of developers, one of whom did his masters on Poker in our research group. Then I talked with another pair for awhile, followed by the head of the IT division. The last part of the interview was the most pleasant, partially because he wasn’t grilling me but partially because it was kind of cool to talk about shared interest in the computing area.
I have mixed feelings about how the interview went. I kind of feel like I didn’t do well, but at the same time I think I didn’t give any wrong answers and not too many blank answers. I stumbled through some questions, and I probably didn’t sound very confident on the other end, but we’ll have to see what they say in the next couple days. Hopefully at the least I’ve managed to earn another interview, if not an offer.
In the meantime, I’ve got a bunch of cool things to work on for work so I have some interesting stuff to occupy my time with in the meantime.
Heraldk
Interview Step One
Mar 4th
Well today I was a nervous wreck. For quite some time I’ve been considering applying for a job with pocket kings — the company that writes and manages the software and details behind full tilt poker. A couple of former UofA grads have got prominent positions there and they’ve been making the case that I should go join them.
It took me awhile to come around to their case. It’s an awfully large amount of upheaval to move to a country so far away from home. I sort of feel though that it’s coming to a time in my life where I need to get up and experience the world a little more than I have been. I’ve finally started to admit that I’m too much of a homebody, and I need to get out of my comfort zone a bit.
Ireland has a lot of appeal. It’s situated in a spot where Diane and I could take frequent traveling trips to see Europe. Dublin is a youthful city with a huge amount of IT people flocking to it. The opportunity to head to out and see the world while having an exciting job seems to good to pass up. The downside is I’d have to leave a significant number of family and friends behind, and that might be harder than I am willing to admit just yet.
So, after thinking about this for quite some time, I’ve started phase one of applying. I had my first phone interview today with one of their lead server guys. It went … decently well I think. The topics ranged widely, and I learned a fair amount about the company that I hadn’t managed to glean from my other contacts there. I was asked quite a few questions about several things that he thought was of interest on my resume. I gave the best answers I could — I don’t believe I perform all that well under intense scrutiny like that, but I didn’t do badly. The only question I botched was when he asked me to come up with an example of deadlock. It wasn’t until I had hung up the phone and muttered to myself about it for a moment or two before I came up with the answer. It’s so simple too! For those who aren’t into systems stuff, deadlock is when two processes or threads try and access sections of code that you deem need to be run or used by only one process at a time. So an easy way to create a deadlock situation is to have a process that grabs the lock for resource A and then the lock for resource B, and another process that attempts to acquire locks in the reverse direction. That way, it can happen that the first process acquires the lock for resource A, but blocks because the other process has acquired the lock for resource B which is blocked because the first process already has that lock. Thus … deadlock! *sigh*.
Other than that, the interview went alright. I answered his questions to the best of my ability and only stumbled a few times. It’s interesting trying to pull pieces of my memory out from the last few years of work that I’ve done. As the interview progressed, I began to pull more and more pieces of details that I hadn’t thought about in awhile. My maxflow algorithm implementation, my adding additional functionality to openssh, my building a user registration system for westgrid, and the details of the Trellis file system that I hadn’t thought about in ages.
So I gather I’ll be getting another phone interview sometime in the near future where I get to be “grilled” to find out how knowledgeable I am. I’m super nervous about that one. Anyone have any good interview questions that I can ponder as practice?
Heraldk
3-0 Baby!
Jan 31st
I’ve been playing floor hockey with the CS team again this year. This year we’ve got a pretty competitive looking team. Several new additions to the team mean we’ve got some serious firepower on the floor almost every shift, and the players that don’t have that firepower are good solid players. So with last night’s 10-1 win capping off the 3 game round robin, we’re on top of the division for the first time since I joined the team several years ago. Woohoo!
It’s a lot of fun to play and have a shot to win. I haven’t often been on a team that has had a competitive shot to win.
In related news, it looks like I might be able to join a floor hockey team in the Edmonton ball hockey league. I’ve been looking for a league to play in for a long time, so I’m pretty excited about getting a chance to play finally. The short intramural season was just not enough time to play floor hockey each semester.
Heraldk
Busy December
Dec 10th
It seems like this time of year is packed fuller than any other time. I think the only night this week that I am not busy doing something is Thursday. Yikes.
This weekend was pretty fun. On Saturday, Diane and I made some apple crisp and headed over to her work’s potluck Christmas party. The food that people brought was amazing … I ate entirely too much, but it was super tasty. It’s a little weird going to the party though since I didn’t really know anyone. I guess I’m still not too comfortable in a setting where I don’t really know anyone. The people were nice, but I’m not a strong conversationalist, so there’s usually too much awkward silence for my comfort level. Ah well, the food was good!
On Sunday I spent the afternoon at home playing some poker for the first time in a little while. I ended up with a pretty profitable being up more than 4 stacks playing 100NL. I enjoy winning! The session started out real slow. I stacked off with KK against a set, but made that back fairly quickly when my AK beat AQ when we both flopped two pair. After that I went on a pretty big rush, flopping several sets as well as winning a KK versus AK allin preflop situation. There were a few significant setbacks but I kept the hot streak going throughout most of the session to make a tidy profit. Cake poker is turning into a pretty nice place to play. I think I’ve pretty much decided to clear the deposit bonus there before moving on. I’m about 1/3 the way through that now, and am already up quite a bit. I’ve heard other people describe cake poker being pretty soft, and I think I’m agreeing with them.
This week I have a dinner party to go to, as well as my condo’s annual general meeting, and an evening to play poker with the members of the UofA CPRG. Should be a fun week!
Heraldk
The passing of a good person
Nov 22nd
I was out most of yesterday. My Aunt Eleanor Bayne passed away recently after a very full 87 years of life. So yesterday was her funeral. There was two parts to this funeral, the first was the viewing at the cemetery early-ish in the morning, followed by the internment. Then in the afternoon there was a memorial ceremony. Aunt Eleanor was a very good person, and I’m sorry I never really got to know her as well as I probably could and should have. The bulk of the time we spent at her house was when I was too young to appreciate good conversation over tea and her wonderful baking. Well … I appreciated the baking, but not so much the conversation. I do know that she was well loved and that she was quick to give her love out to the people who were a part of her life in any small way. She will be sorely missed.
I (thankfully) haven’t had to deal with death very often in my life. There have been a few funerals I’ve been to since I was old enough to start to understand what death meant. Each time, particularly for the three that were untimely, you kind of have to think about how short life is, and how precious it is. It makes me wonder if I am doing all I can with my life. Is it enough to just be happy and comfortable? What else is there to make life worthwhile? Twice in my life I’ve had to deal with someone in my grade or university year pass away in an untimely fashion. Both times it was a shock – how can death come to someone so young? How is that a fair way to go?
As much as we will miss Aunt Eleanor’s presence in our lives, I am very thankful that she lived a very fulfilling life. In the past couple of years she has been suffering a great deal due to health problems, and in the end this may be for the best. I really don’t like to see people suffer for long periods of time. I certainly wouldn’t want to go through that much suffering.
The funeral was nice for the most part. I had a few complaints though. The internment was held in the cemetery which is a naturally wide open area. The wind was blowing, and it was pretty cold (although at least the sun was shining). The pastor drew the service out much longer than I thought was appropriate for the several older people in the crowd (and really for my comfort level too). My Grandparents were of the same opinion, so I wasn’t alone on that score. Later, the same pastor did the Devotional near the end of the memorial service, and I was none too pleased with the full three point sermon he gave. It felt entirely inappropriate to me. But I will attempt to delay that rant for a future post because this is not really the place for it.
Other than my complaint about the pastor, the memorial service was excellent. We got to hear from several of the people in the family. Their memories, stories, and gifts of music were shared, and it really was a lovely ceremony. Very fitting for someone as lovely as my Aunt Eleanor.
Heraldk
Reorganization
Nov 16th
Every so often I feel the sudden urge to reorganize the furniture in my room. Today was one of those days. I don’t know what it is – maybe it’s a fresh perspective on something I see everyday, maybe it’s a chance to try something else … but it seems that whenever I do it, I am almost always completely satisfied with the result. This time is no different. Several of the elements in my room were moved around and the room feels like a totally different place – and the organization is altogether better (in my mind at least).
I completed the furniture move before the hockey game (that’s another post), and then sorted out a bunch of crap that had accumulated. I’m going to be spending some time in the near future sorting through paper that I’ve accumulated and trying to discard as much as possible. It seems pretty unlikely I’ll need my high school financial management course work, don’t you think? (Oh yeah, I kept a lot of crap). Something tells me I’m going to need a couple of boxes to take all the paper I’m going to discard to the recycling bin.
I love it. I find a reorganized room refreshing and different – and yet familiar in the same way. So it is nice to be able to get that feeling here.
Heraldk
Catchup
Nov 13th
Okay, it seems these catchup posts are getting to be the norm. I hope they aren’t though – so I’m gonna try and get caught up here and start getting myself back in the habit of posting here.
First up, the big thing lately has been my return to poker. I started playing a few weeks ago to catchup on some PSO promos that they’ve been adding with remarkable regularity. I started with Carbon Poker where I jumped right in at 100nl and did quite well and banked a $500 profit plus my $120 PSO bonus. Next was Action poker, which I didn’t do quite as well at. Even with the $100 deposit bonus, I was only able to claw my way back up to even a little after finishing off the $120 PSO bonus. I didn’t really like Action poker – there wasn’t enough tables, and I never really felt comfortable. So I was quick to move on. My next promo though was Cake Poker, and it feels much better. Being up $500 plus the $90 PSO bonus doesn’t hurt in that respect … but I’m also rather enjoying the fast bonus clearing rate. So I think I’m going to stick around at Cake for awhile before I move on to my next PSO bonus.
Work is going well. I just moved offices, and have started to get familiar with the code that produced the bots that played in the man-machine match this past summer. I’m super excited to work on the next iteration of these bots … and even more excited to pit them against the world’s best players. At the moment we’re trying to lock down some money to challenge some players with. Any ideas where we could get that money? We’d ideally like something on the order of $50K or more to use as prize money. I don’t have many ins with people, but if you have any ideas I’d love to hear them.
Diane and I are doing well. We’re currently in the midst of wedding plans which are going pretty smoothly I think. We’ve got several months to go, but we’ve got a lot of the important things locked up and several others in progress. Hopefully we can have invitations out in a month or so. We’ve been pretty busy with social stuff too – attending quite a few fun events over the past month. Too many to really recount in a short space here, but the latest was a Chili cook-off. We made some pretty awesome bison chili (if I do say so myself) along with some skillet cornbread, apple crisp, and cookies. Mmm – it was quite a cooking day! We had a lot of fun in the kitchen, and it’s making me want to force myself to spend more time cooking on a regular basis. I’d certainly eat better (and healthier) if I did.
The Oilers are maddening to watch at times. The most recent game against the flames was sweet to watch though – now if only we could put together an effort like that on a more consistent basis. I see a lot of potential on our club. If we get a few key members back and contributing, we could have a contender on our hands. I realize it’s a lot of ifs, but what else do we have? In particular, I’m really impressed with Robert Nillsson’s play. He’s been fast, creative, and strong with the puck – I’m starting to get excited every time I see him get the puck. One last thing: what the hell is with the hit on Hemsky? That should’ve got a suspension for sure! He could’ve been badly hurt on a play like that!!!!
Not bad for an update post huh? If you’ve got questions, let me know – I’m feeling a bit lonely in blog land!
Heraldk
End to Carbon Poker
Oct 29th
Wow, it was awhile ago already when I last talked about what’s going on.
So I finished off the carbon poker promo in about a week, having played about 4 sessions. I ended the sessions up $500 plus the $120 bonus from PSO. Pretty sweet deal, I must say!
I’ve got my eyes set on a new camera lens, but I think I’m going to force myself to win the money for it through poker, so hopefully I’ll get some time to play a little more in the coming weeks. It’s been pretty hectic lately, so no guarantees. It looks like I need to win another $500 to buy the lens I want, so I’m looking at 1 or 2 more promos I’m guessing.
What else … gaming! There are so many good games to play, I don’t have enough time to do that either. I bought guitar hero 3 yesterday, and it’s a lot of fun. I also have Metroid for the Wii on loan from a friend that I haven’t touched … and then there’s the addictiveness that is puzzle quest. *sigh* – maybe I need to drop video games – they take too much damn time out my life.
Diane and I are doing great. We’ve started getting plans for our wedding down, and hopefully we can get a lot of the stuff we need to done well before the day of so that the day is smooth and fun. Fingers crossed! Diane’s sister is off to Vancouver, so before she left we had a pre-wedding wedding party party (isn’t that the best sentence ever?), where the people we chose for the wedding party got to meet each other — those who hadn’t yet. It was pretty fun, and included some good food from Vi’s for Pies. (If you haven’t been there I highly recommend it!).
So yeah, life is good, and busy, and I wish I had more time to work on side projects!
Heraldk
Family Reunion
Sep 17th
This past weekend, Diane and I joined her family on a trip to Manitou, Saskatchewan. It was the location for a family reunion for my family-to-be. It was quite an interesting trip, although with the amount of driving we had to do, it seemed like we barely spent any time there.
Four of us, Diane and her dad and sister plus me got into their two BMW cars and drove to Saskatoon. We dropped one car off at the airport and took the other the remaining hour and a bit drive to Manitou. Diane’s mom and brother, who were attending a wedding on the Friday, hopped on a plane and flew to Saskatoon where they picked up the car and joined us in Manitou.
Upon arriving, we checked into the hotel there and then joined some of the reunion goers in the community hall which was about a block up a hill. It was a little odd – I kind of felt the same way I did at my family reunion… I was introduced to a bunch of people who I didn’t know, but looked particularly happy to see me. In fact it was a little more odd at Diane’s family reunion because none of these people had ever met me before. Huh. Anyways, I got introduced to a bunch of people that I probably have already forgotten the names of. I was pretty proud to be introduced as Diane’s fiancé.
We hung around the hall talking to people and looking at some photographs. After a couple of hours we returned to the hotel to try and get in contact with Diane’s mom and brother who were supposed to have touched down over half an hour ago. Eventually we did get in touch with them and I retired to my hotel room to sleep (since I didn’t have any role in meeting up with them).
Highlights from the Saturday: we spent quite a bunch of time in the pool at Manitou springs. It’s a very interesting place – the water in the lake is very high in salt and other minerals which means that you float a lot easier in it. So the pool in the hotel uses this water and it’s rather neat to be more buoyant in it. Unfortunately, the water is a bit unappealing in colour … they call it “golden waters”, but it really is a kinda murky brown colour. It also is terrible to get in your eyes due to the salt, and it tastes terrible. So it isn’t the type of pool that encourages some horseplay. In fact, you really kinda just float around and talk and jump between the hot and cold pools.
There was a lot more talking and photo browsing. We had dinner at “Danceland” which is a very large converted barn that has a rather nice dance floor. We didn’t end up staying there for the dance though because they were charging quite a bit extra on top of dinner for the dance, and the reunion organizers had hired some entertainment of their own. So we enjoyed our dinner buffet at Danceland and walked back to the community hall. There was a gorgeous sunset that we thoroughly enjoyed … and I got a bunch of photos that you’ll see hit my flickr stream in the next week or two.
The entertainment we had was a one-man band who had a guitar and some equipment that would play the drums/lead guitar for him for a wide variety of songs he played. He was pretty good. At first I kind of felt sorry for him since people seemed more interested in talking than listening to him. After awhile though people started to get into it a bit more and some dancing broke out. Diane and I even shared a jive! The guy had a good voice and played some pretty good tunes, including an impressive version of Mari-mac (covered by great big sea recently), and finishing things off with the Last Saskatchewan Pirate (oh, the arrogant worms …).
Not too much happened on Sunday, except that on our way back, one of the family members gave us a quick tour of their farm. It was pretty cool actually, particularly our first of three stops on the tour. On that spot there was an old farmhouse that hadn’t been occupied for years. It was quickly decomposing, which was rather interesting to see. It kind of gives you something to think about — how quickly the land will reclaim the building if you don’t upkeep it. I got a bunch of photos there too, and I think I’ve got a few good ones to post. We’ll see how that goes.
After the tour we endured the 8 hours or so that it took to drive back to E-town. I was pretty tired last night so I kinda flopped into bed pretty early and have been slow moving this morning. So I hope I can get things going later on in the week!
Heraldk
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