This afternoon at 4:30pm I have yet another CT scan down at St. Paul’s Hospital. I’ve been waiting for this one nearly a month now, so it will be nice to finally have it done. I’ve been told I can’t eat for at least four hours before the scan, so apparently this banana bread is my only meal until supper time. I’m not sure if they are putting some funky dye into my blood, but I’ll know in a few hours I guess. Update — Ok, so it’s all over now. I got down to St Paul’s at around 4:15pm and just chilled in the waiting area for a while. At around 4:35, some lady calls me up and walks ...

So I called my friend Margo the other night and asked her if she could contribute to the recent discussion on global warming and ways to reduce CO2. Margo is a good friend of mine from Chilliwack who now works in the conservation department of BC Hydro. Here’s what she had to say: There are lots of little and big things that we can all do to make a difference. The problem of global warming was created by the actions of many individuals and so the solution will also have to come from all of us. Really it’s not that hard. It’s about becoming more conscious about how you live your ...

In 2004, some friends and I got together and decided we would attempt to do the Vancouver Sun Run. We started our “training” that January, first doing little tiny runs around the block, then eventually moving up to hour long runs along the water in Steveston, or through the University Endowment Lands (which is an amazing place to run). The actual run itself was really fun, but a little too crowded for my liking. I didn’t expect to have a very good time, but after training for four months, I really wanted to see just how good I could get — unfortunately, I was sidestepping people for the ...

Well, yesterday I posted my CFL challenge update. So far, I only have verbal commitments from people to change a few lightbulbs this weekend and contribute some photos. But hopefully they all pull through. As for me — I stopped at London Drugs on the way home and bought 6 CFL lightbulbs. Surprisingly, those 6 allowed me to replace 9 normal ones in my place (since the new CFL ones are way brighter in my bathroom — so bright that I don’t need all the lights I had in there). Here’s a summary of what that did: Power removed from incandescent bulbs: (7x40W + 2x70W) = 420W Power added from ...

Well, I haven’t had an interesting blog entry in a while, so I thought I’d give an update. I went out with Jana tonight to Sandbar on Granville Island — it was a great time, and an absolutely amazing night to spend on an outdoor patio with good company and a bottle of wine. After I came back home and demonstrated my oh-so-rusty guitar skills in front of a live audience. This week is completely packed solid, so look forward to a pile of photos from the events.. Next update will probably be in a few days 🙁 ...

Last night Jason and I went down to Morton’s Steakhouse here in Vancouver for dinner. I’ve heard about it alot from friends and business people — apparently it’s one of the top three steak houses in Vancouver. I’ve been to Gotham before (which is also very nice), but it was my first time being at Morton’s. Jason and I both agreed that it was better than Gotham, at least for the meal we had. Afterwards, we met up with Cisco down at Cardero’s on the water and had a few more drinks. All in all, a nice relaxing night on the town. ...

Last week Rob and his wife welcomed a new addition to his family: baby Cole. Congratulations Rob and Debbie, and of course, welcome Cole! ...

I promised a few people today at brunch that I would put this up. I completely forgot about it until now. ...

I went to my second of the Vancouver Young Professionals bi-weekly brunches today. Today was sushi down at Nikko Sushi on Robson Street, and the 12:15 start time allowed me to sleep in until about 11:30am or so (I love Sundays). Afterwards, a bunch of us braved the cold with some Starbucks and good laughter. Here are some shots from today. The next big event is snowshoeing up on Grouse in a few weeks. ...

So, today I took the plunge and bought a new lens. I have been debating for a while just which I was going to get: the 24-70 f/2.8L or the 70-200mm f/2.8L. I found some guy in Vancouver who needed to sell his 70-200mm to get some cash, so that basically made the decision up for me. I saved about $500 compared to buying it new. I met him at Richmond center early this morning and did a bunch of test shots near the mall. I had my laptop with me so I could see just what this puppy could do. I was really happy with the shape of the lens (mint), and the pictures that it produced. So, I handed over the ...

So the day before I went into surgery in November, I walked across the stage a second time at UBC. This time, I was picking up my master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. It took me four years of part time work, and it was a real struggle, so walking across the stage finally was a big relief — I was so happy it was finally over. I had an eye exam about an hour before the ceremony, and they were forced to dilate my eyes for some of the tests. So after four years, I couldn’t even really see the ceremony I had waited to attend. I had to get someone to help me find my place in ...

I’m out at UBC today for a computer science career fair. I’ll add the photos here in real time.. ...

I’ve had an adsense account for around a year now. I tried putting it on the blog once, but it really seemed out of place, and who was I kidding — nobody was really reading at that point. Nobody’s really reading now, but I got bored, so I put some ads up on a few pages I thought people might hit occasionally. So, after one full day of having adsense enabled, here are my earnings: 65 cents Oh yeah, that’s it baby. At this rate, I can get a case of beer in about a month. Unfortunately, I can’t cash it out until I reach the $100 mark, which means I won’t be sipping that sweet nectar until ...

Northern Voice is a conference geared towards personal bloggers who want to get together and share good ideas. This is the third event of this nature in Canada, and it looks like it’s going to be a great event. Kasia and I both signed up today to check out the conference and meet all the other bloggers out there. The conference runs from Feb 23 – 24, out at the University of British Columbia. As a testament to the people who are running it, they’ve even offered travel bursaries for those people who live out of town, but would really like to attend the event. Also, here’s a testimonial ...

If you love to eat, or are in desperate need of some new recipes, check out FoodLikeThat.com. Dreamed up by internet guru Boris Mann, here’s a little low-down on what it’s about: Food Like That is a new kind of recipe sharing site. It’s designed to rank highly in Google. When people find your recipe, and click on the ads on your recipe page, we share the revenue with you. But that’s not really the cool part. The cool part is that it helps you find more food you like. Do you like dishes with eggs? You’ll probably like quiche or maybe a frittata. Check it out. I added my world famous ...

So I had a few more hours today to mess around with the website. I really wanted to integrate flickr comments into the wordpress ones somehow, but I didn’t see an easy way without changing some of wordpress under the hood. However, I’ve still managed to get the comments showing up in nearly the right place. If you click the title of a blog entry, it will take you to the single post page where you’ll see all the blog comments along with the flickr ones. I’ve added a few photos to this entry just to demonstrate. Once this is all over I’m gonna clean up the plugin I wrote and release it ...

A little bakery on Beach and Howe here in Vancouver: Tartine breads and pies. ...

So tonight Joe called me and told me to head down to Au Bar for Ben’s Sister’s Engagement Party. I didn’t really have much to do, so I thought it would be a lot of fun. It was really cool seeing some of the old guys from UBC — Joe, Balhar, Ben.. All of us used to be a bunch of dorky guys in 1995 at Totem Park, and now we’ve all done pretty good for ourselves.. So it’s a lot of fun seeing everyone again. Joe and Jane are getting married soon, so it should be a really fun party. ...

Well, as you can see, I’ve started making changes to this website. They are far from done, but I think I’ve made enough headway to put it back up for a while. Here’s what I have done so far: Made a new theme, borrowing a few elements from the “default” wordpress theme Added a custom flickr plugin that has read/write access to my flickr account Added the ability to associate abritrary images or sets from flickr with any blog entry. These images can be viewed using the ImageBox javascript library I’ve associated my HDR set with this blog entry just so you can get an idea of how it ...

So, as promised, Sheila and I went out today and purchased a pile of wine down at the Alberni liquor store. Here’s a list of what I picked up: 2004 Las Rocas (Spain) 2003 Altos de Luxon, Jumilla (Spain) 2003 Chateauneuf du Pape (France) 2005 Wits End, Cabernet Franc, The Procrastinator 2003 Renwood Zinfandel (California) 2003 Woodhenge Shiraz (Australia) 2000 Cote de Nuits “Le Vaucrain” (France) 2005 Malbec, Achaval Ferrer (Argintina) 2004 Glen Carlou Syrah (South Africa) Tomorrow I’m gonna head down to a place on 4th and figure out how to do this home brew stuff. I’ve been told that ...