Bye-bye Wisdom

Before I get into the main topic, I just like to frown upon the fact that this blog is turning into a monthly entry again... :(

Anyways, I am now wisdom-less (although one might argue that I had no wisdom to begin with...) That's right, all 4 of my wisdom teeth were extracted last Thursday. Glad to say the whole ordeal wasn't as terrible as I imagined. The surgeon did quick work on my teeth, took him only 20-30 minutes. I was actually more worried about the recovery process afterwards, after hearing that for some people, it took a few days for the bleeding, the swollen gums and the PAIN to subside. Luckily for me, the bleeding pretty much stopped 2 hours after the surgery. But that was when the freezing started to wear off and the pain hit me. Extra-strength Tylenol became my best friend that night. And by Friday, the pain was almost all gone and I even ventured to resume brushing my teeth.

Now I am left with a weird feeling in my mouth. Not really pain, just discomfort and soreness. And I also get this weird feeling that my teeth are rearranging themselves (well that might be a bit of an exaggeration); it feels like they are spreading apart, even if ever so slightly, now that there's more real estate in my mouth.

Congrats Marca!

Haven't blogged in a while, been kind of lazy. Today's Mark and Rebecca's wedding day (Oct 6). Very happy for them, will have some pics posted soon, hopefully :) What a crazy day today! Tried... a bit drunk but don't feel like going to bed yet, hence blogging.

Actually quite a bit of stuff happened since the last time I bloggied. My cat, baby, has a cut on her paw and it's been bleeding on and off. We got her on antibiotics and just this friday she undergone surgery to have the wound stitched up. She seems to be more active afterwards so I guess that's a good sign that she's recovering. I hope she gets back to normal soon (we've kind of been paying a lot of attention to her that I think chumsley is a bit jealous).

Btw, Sept 29, 2003 was when I joined IBM... I didn't realize how much time has passed until my manager reminded me. Wow, 4 years already, time sure goes by quickly. Seems like yesterday that we just graduated... In another 4 years, would I look back again and feel how fast time has gone by? Who knows. Next Jan I will start my masters degree. I actually kind of miss doing school work (yeah, call me a nerd). I hope I can manage. Well, that's all for now. Bed time.

Model Making

Model making is sort of a hobby of mine, although I don't have much finished models to show for it (some of them can be seen in my galleries). I am not really pro at it either, I do some regular sanding and painting stuff, but haven't done any air brushing or panel lining yet.

Painting a model really makes it look much better, but unfortunately, it's quite a tedious process. What I've done so far is to paint the parts while they are still on the runners, wait for them to dry, clip them, sand down the connection points, assemble the model, touch up and wait for it to dry again. This lengthy process is kind of what puts me off from building more models.

There's actually an alternative to painting though. I've read about this sanding technique which I have wanted to try for some time. Basically, the idea is to sand the parts until the top layer of shinny plastic is gone (it is this shinny layer that essentially make the model look like a cheap plastic toy).

So finally, I am going to give this technique a try on an SD Zeta I recently got (head is sanded down in pic above). As it turns out, sanding is a lot of work too! But as least I don't have to wait for the parts to dry. Also, I have found that having a can of compressed air around is a must, since the sanding create a lot of fine plastic powder that sticks to everything. Other than that, I am fairly please with the result so far, and if I'm successful in using this technique on this model, then I may use it on the MG Strike Freedom which is still sitting in my closet =)

Center Island

I'm dead tired after today's (18th) Center Island outing, but what a great day for some outdoor fun! It was a bit on the cool side in fact, and we decided to leave the water guns behind which is why everyone looks dry in the pics (hey look, Mun's bag is at the center of both pics).

We got there at around 4 and had several hours to enjoy the weather and do some rollerblading. Yes, I finally got myself a pair (pic below). First time rollerblading, I think I didn't do too bad, just a bit (OK more than a bit) on the stiff side. Hopefully that will change with more practice.

Rice Lake Fishing

It was a great day for fishing yesterday, it was bit too sunny and we all got a little sun burnt tho. Still, it was quite a relaxing day. Too bad we didn't get any big fish; I got 12 really small sunfish and perch, no bass :( All fishes were returned to their homes in the lake :)

The really funny thing that happened is our ~$30/person fishing trip turned into a $66/person fishing trip. That's because our boat ran into some rocky waters and we actually broke a pieced of the rudder off! We didn't know at the time of course, all we heard were 2 big thumps and we looked at the propeller and that looked fine. Oh well, things happen that you cannot foresee. Even though it became an expensive fishing trip, we all had fun so that's all that matters in the end.

Congratulations to My Dear Friends, Billy & Eli

It was a long day today, but it was worth every minute. Today (Aug 4th) is the big day for my dear friends Billy and Eli. Their story is a sweet fairy tale that started from high school through to University, leading up to this wonderful moment and continues forward into the next chapter of their lives together. Words cannot describe how happy I am for them. Billy, Eli, thank you for letting me share in the joy of this special occasion.

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S !

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P.S. This is such an interesting picture Mun took that I just had to post it. I never seen our Miss Coconut look so "inch"! Hey, is that a middle finger??

Wasaga Beach

Went to wasaga beach today for a bit of BBQ and fun in the sun. Today's weather was just perfect; no rain and not too hot. I can't remember when's the last time I went to a beach and actually got in the water. For sure I have not done that in the past 20 years that I've been in Canada. Today, we played some water volleyball, monkey in the middle, running against the waves. Haven't done any good exerciese like this in a while, I'm dead tired!

Thanks to mun for organizing. It was great to hang out with my closest buddies from high school. Even Billy and Eli are back (for their big day next week, congrats). Haven't seen them in over a year!

For pictures of today, click here.

I'm Back

People's been asking if I've been abducted for the past couple weeks, well, of course not! I took some time off to spend some time with my Grandma, Aunt, and cousin who came to visit us from Vancouver. They just left this morning so life is now returning to normal. Speaking of which, I was on the way to the airport and back between 5-6am, and as you probably heard by now, there was a truck rollover on westbound 401 just before 6 this morning. Luckily I just missed the massive traffic jam.

Work is slowly (a bit too slowly) picking up the pace now. There was a recent re-org in my department and now I'm officially transitioned to a new team. I'm still under the same manager but going to be working on some entirely new stuff so that should be exciting. But I feel a bit lost since everything is so new and still very uncertain about how it's all supposed to work.

One more piece of news is I got accepted to the ConGESE MMath program at Waterloo. The ConGESE program let's you take the degree part-time and courses are offered on-site at the workplace. If all goes well, I should be starting classes in January.

That's all for now. P.S. Happy Birthday Greeting #4, Coconut.

Happy Birthday Crab

Crab is one year older, yay!! And so the gang went to Brix to celebrate. I ordered a grilled veal loin with corn risotto, it wasn't too bad, except it tasted exactly like the dish I ordered there for lunch last time. Different ingredients, same taste, isn't it amazing? The company was great tho, great long time friends, some I haven't seen in a while. It's a shame we get together less and less nowadays. Everyone is busy getting on with life (well except me, I am pretty free, for now).

I kind of miss the good old days; I know I know, we are not really that old... but I feel old, esp within the last year. Part of the reason is probably because after switching jobs, I really do have much more free time on my hands. I'm no longer glued to my laptop *after* work and on weekends. Unfortunately I don't know what to do with all this time. I never was an active or adventurous type of person, and always buried myself in school and office work. I would even go as far to say that I define myself through work. A workaholic? Not really, I am lazy by nature; maybe I'm just a square peg in a world full of round holes.

Anyways, inevitably the table conversations come to the topic of Facebook. Seems like this is pretty hit right now, everyone is on Facebook (well again, except me). But isn't this a souped up Friendster? Apparently not, or so they keep telling me. Is there really that much to do on Facebook? OK, well, I am slightly intrigued now. Being in the IT industry shouldn't I be jumping on top of all the latest techno fads? Actually, what I am interested to know is what makes Facebook a success while Friendster a flop? I wonder if there are any case studies done on this... would be worth a read.

Gundam 00

Woohoo, it's official, the next Gundam series coming this fall is called Gundam 00, pronounced "double-O" (an object-oriented Gundam?? =)

Here's a trailer from YouTube. The main Gundam looks a bit like the force impulse.

SCWCD

I haven't done a review in a while, so I am going to write a review about this book: SCWCD Exam Study Kit, Second Edition, by Hanumant Deshmukh, Jignesh Malavia, and Matthew Scarpino.

If you are considering getting yourself SCWCD certified, I would highly recommend you to *not* get this book. There are just so many problems with this book.... for starters, I don't find this book making the studying any easier. Cert guides like these are supposed to cover the exam objectives which the reader needs to master in a clear an concise manner. This book however, has a number of sections that goes into details that are mostly irrelevant for the exam while other sections don't cover the topic adequately.

And for a book that's in second edition already, it's hard to believe there could be so many mistakes, just take a look at http://www.manning-sandbox.com/thread.jspa?messageID=51256. That's just plain sloppy

My rating: 3/5

Bill Gates' Predictions

An interesting read while on break:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/316483_software21.html

So apparently, Gates never said 640K of memory is all anyone ever needs. Well, shame on us, we had you wrong...

Up and Running, Sort of.

Cause of death: faulty power supply leading to frying the motherboard (see the blown capacitor in the picture below...)

I got the board and power supply replaced at PCvillage. And sorry to disappoint you Ed, I didn't upgrade my comp, just wanted to get it back up with the minimum hassle. I don't really have a need to get a super fast computer and video card simply for checking email and going on Internet (kind of sad really, I don't play computer games anymore, but there's the DS =). In fact I have downgraded to using the onboard video since the they didn't have a board with the old AGP slot (oh gee, seems like only yesterday that the AGP was the next big thing in gaming, and now it's obsolete...) The board does have a PCI Express slot so I could get a better card later on.

So at least I can boot up now, had to repair Windows which turned out to be less painful than I expected. But my system is a bit "flaky" now, there are stuff here and there that doesn't work quite like it used to (for example, my bluetooth keyboard and mouse just refuses to connect). Well, I gotta format my comp, something I expected to have to do anyways. What fun.

Isn't it odd that I blog more when my computer is busted?

Computer is Fried

My computer started making a siren sound during the middle of the night; it was like my alarm clock going off. I sleepily got out of bed and shut the darn thing off.

This morning, I turned my computer on and it ran fine... for about 10 minutes. Then it made one more siren sound before it promptly keeled over =( I can power on the computer but nothing happens after that, it doesn't boot, nothing on screen... dead. Probably the mobo fried I suspect... *sigh*

The Hype is Over!

** This post may contain spoilers about Spiderman 3 !!! **

The hype of course is the long awaited Spiderman 3 which opened on Friday. Before going to see it, I had already heard the reviews saying the movie is only so-so. But still, it's the blockbuster of the summer and I just had to go see it! So off I went on Saturday for the 11 am IMAX show (yup, that's am).

Now that I've seen it, I agree with everything the critics said about the movie; there are just too many plot elements, even for a movie that's 2.5 hours long! And they didn't pace the movie very well, lot of the scenes felt rushed and were not developed fully, they simply do the bare minimum to tell the story so that people who don't know about the storyline from the comics can follow. It's the age old balancing act of quantity vs. quality.

And I am disappointed that Venom got such a dinky treatment in the film, wasn't he supposed to be the focus of the movie? And he's suppose to be Spiderman's arch-nemesis, he's not supposed to die so easily... let's hope he's not really dead and comes back for a proper treatment in the next one.

I give it a 7/10.

CN Tower Climb for WWF

Yesterday morning was the first time I participated in the CN Tower Climb for WWF. I must be crazy, that was what I kept thinking even as I began climbing the steps. It was around 2/3 of the way up that I actually started to think that I can actually do this! And then before I knew it, I was at the top! My time was 34:31, nothing spectacular but my goal was only getting to the top =p

It's unfortunate that I couldn't take any photos of my climb, they didn't allow you to carry any cameras or cell phone with you (even if you turn it off). They are pretty strict about that too, they had metal detectors to check you and my friend Phil was actually turned away because he had his phone with him. Really sucked for him, basically the whole morning just waiting in line for nothing and not to mention having to pay for parking too! I wonder why they are so strict, my guess is that these loose items are easily dropped and it would be bad if they dropped down the stairwell and land on the people below.

At a glance

Haven't written here for a while. Nothing really to write about, or maybe I'm lazy and lacking motivation, yeah, that's it. But I thought I just do a quick post to list some stuff that has happened since the last entry:

- Finished FFXII (I hope I get around to writing a review for this)
- I bought an NDS :)
- Considering getting a car... Went with Eddy to some car dealership yesterday. CSX looks nice (I'm biased). I'm clueless when it comes to details of pricing/financing options and other junk like that. I wish I can shop online and have the car mailed to me. Need to do some research.
- Went to a wonderful house warming party hosted by Ka & Corrie yesterday. Thanks for the great food, and I am happy to say, no stomach problems.
- I'm in the process of applying for part time graduate studies, starting next Jan, hopefully...
- CN tower climb is one week away!

Otters Holding Hands!

The otters vid that's was talked about on the news, very cute indeed!

Wireless power a reality

I remember back in university, when Logitech first came out with their wireless computer peripherals, I was thinking that wouldn't it be cool if the mouse or keyboard also received their power wireless. My friends laughed at me and said that was a crazy idea. Well guess what? That crazy idea is now a reality with wireless power technology developed by a company called Powercast. You can read the article on this from CNN here:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/04/01/8403349/

I hope this is not some April fools joke. The possible uses of this technology is endless. This is truly exciting!

Breaking with tradition

I broke tradition this year by going skiing a second time (though it's a tradition I only started last year, in any case I couldn't call it an annual ski trip anymore :p). We went to Moonstone this time; poor Ed couldn't come even though he had been trying so hard to organize one last ski trip for the season. All his attempts got cancelled due to non-cooperating weather.

This time I would say I spent 60% of time on green hills and 40% on blue hills (well, just one blue hill that I felt comfortable with). Definitely I felt some improvement since the last time and I discovered a few things about my skiing style:

1. My right turns are better than my left turns
2. I don't have too much problems with the turns, it's after the turn when I am cutting perpendicularly across the slope that I have trouble with
3. As a result of 1 and 2, I am actually better at doing small turns going down the hill than doing the big "S" turns.
4. But since I am doing small turns, I'm picking up more speed and it's easy to lose balance and control. I need to work on coping with speed.

I was alternating between experimenting on the green hill and then applying the results on the blue hill to come to these conclusions. I hope I don't forget these insights next year :p