First snow of the year

The first major snowfall for the year. Also happened to be the day I decided to go volunteer at the sailing club. A nice, but somewhat chilly day out.

We cleaned out underneath the kayak racks, and here's the fleet in their temporary holding place while the racks were being cleaned. The UBC lasers and vanguards are in the background

Laptop Orchestra Concert

First concert of UBC SUBCLASS. Recital Hall in the music building. The best part was the colourful stands that Dr Bob ordered just for the event:

There were some puzzled looks as we waltzed them around in the corridoors of the music building... Here's an on-stage shot with the stand in action:

The concert went very well with no technical difficulties (the kind that is well known within this community). Here's a video clip of our piece.

MAGIC Demo Day

Annual magic demo day. The cookies were good :)

Never too old to...

fly a kite!

it was a gorgeous late fall day, and we did not want to let it go to waste. we went to the fields of Eric Hamber Secondary (a block from our place) and had some fun running around the field while high school kids were looking at us wondering if we were old enough to be hanging out there.

Ruffled Feathers, Pumpkin Carving, Handsketch + Keyboard Practice

This was a long and eventful day. Starting at around 11PM the previous night: The Ruffled Feathers at the Backstage Lounge on Granville Island. They were absolutely amazing. Can't believe it was the first time I've heard then after knowing about them for so long!!

Technically the above picture was taken past midnight, so... :P And then, on Thursday afternoon, I dropped by pumpkin carving at HCT. This was Tricia and Ling's creation:

Check out the stop motion video :)

And then, later that evening: first rehearsal with Nicolas and his Handsketch at Ryerson. Did some improvisation, instrument trading, and practiced our first piece: Handle's Violin Sonata VI

Laptop Orchestra Rehearsal

This has been wayyy to much fun for us...

See Dr Bob's zanzithophone in the background :)

Its a book

That is all.

the band, 13

The awesome people in the band for 13. It was great playing with you guys!

An eventful Saturday that involved Longboat race in the morning, bike ride to campus to see the sunset with Gabe, Ian and Bruce, and then The Madwoman of Chaillot put on by UBC Theatre. Perfect day.

13, the musical

Took a short, spontaneous gig with Awkward Production's 13, the first production for this new non-profit company. It was originally put on during the Fringe festival, and then voted for Pick of the Fringe. Then the company decided to do an extended run at the Norman Rothstein Theatre over Thanksgiving weekend. Due to some shuffling I ended up playing guitar instead of keyboard, but it was still awesome! Had the music and lines stuck in my head for a long time afterwards :)

Pots and Pans

My favorite (and only) set of pots and pans. They're over 10 years old but still going strong!

Extractor fan for wormbin

The outdoor bin could use some more ventilation, so we decided to add a fan to it. This old VGA cooler was a perfect candidate:

The attached potentiometer allows speed control (although it wasn't *really* necessary in this case :-)

Here's the fan mounted on the lid of the bin:

Geeks live here...

nuff said.

Intense game of settlers

A game of settlers that lasted about 3 hours. I waited for a winning 12 roll for about 30 turns, but alas, it did not come. I love taking pictures of the game board.

Jello shots

Benny's idea. Peach flavored jello with vodka. Added some gelatin to counter the anti-setting effects of alcohol. Tasted great! Tipped glasses for visual effect :)

Pancakes

Nothing like pancakes made from scratch with fresh fruit and whipped cream... :)

New Wormbin

I started making a 2nd worm bin. The first one was made from blue recycling boxes, the inner one being about 20 litres in volume. It was working out quite well after some initial fruit fly problems, which appeared to solve itself once the worms really started churning the material. Pretty soon I had a full bin of healthy worms, but there was one problem: it wasn't processing the food scraps fast enough. A lot of fruit and vegetables are consumed in our household (even when I was living by myself throughout the month of August), and the amount of waste plant matter far exceeded the amount being consumed by the worms. Therefore I decided to start a second, considerably larger bin:

It's hard to tell without a shot of the previous bin, but the new ones are about 20 gallons (vs 20 litres). I recruited Robin and Gabe to help during the construction process:

Pictures of finished products to follow...

camping, day 2

The lake was amazing:

It warmed up in the afternoon and we went for a quick swim.

On the way back:

Camping, day 1

We finally got around to going camping this year. Destination: Ross Lake. The weather had been iffy all day, and we went through a series of spectacular sunshine, pouring rain and everything in between. This was on highway 1 somewhere near Chilliwack:

The last 50km of the trip was on this dirt road, and in the rain dirt turns into mud:

Having braved the mosquitoes, set up the tarp in the rain and cooked some dinner despite the miserable weather, it cleared up and we were greeted by a beautiful sunset:

egg and tofu curry

A glimpse into my bachelor life: cooking around midnight for next day's lunch :)

If I ever turned vegetarian, I'd be making this a lot. Actually, I make this a lot anyway haha.

It's really easy:

- Chop onions and some garlic

- Fry in pan with olive oil; add some salt. Wait until brown

- Add some water, and potatos and carrot

- Simmer *

- Add Japanese curry cube (e.g. Glico) *

- Add tofu, cooked egg and green veggies near the end; simmer a bit more *

*during these steps I kinda add more water as it dries up to maintain the right amount of moisture. Thats what happens when you don't follow recipes :P

Along side, I steam some plain rice with a dash of butter.

Cute card :)

Received this lovely card from the lovely ASM's of Singin' in the Rain. I generally don't edit photos (even cropping is rarely done), but this is just too cute :)

Thanks Belle, Izzy, Melanie and Tanya!!!

SITR Closing night: The orchestra pit

The place I spent at least 22 evenings this summer, and what a great place it was.

2010-08-17 - car fire in stanley park

On the way back from Stanley Park after tonights show, we saw a bunch of people jumping up and down looking across Pipeline Road and a firetruck turning. Woah...

requiring no introduction...

my twin brother friends Tony and Jack both received their iPhone4s ordered from the Apple Online store. shiny!

Rain at Fireworks 2010-07-31

We had some pretty crazy weather just before the final fireworks show this year. A few clasps of thunder (which could have been mistaken for test shots that are usually fired earlier during the evening) sounded as we crossed the Burrard Street Bridge. As we headed towards English Bay a few droplets of rain quickly turned into a downpour. Luckily we brought a tarp and improvised a human tent (4 people, one being each corner) and arrived on the beach relatively dry (compared to the majority of people on the beach without umbrellas or other forms of cover).

Luckily the rain was extremely brief, and the rest of the night was clear. The sudden turn of weather created some interesting patterns in the clouds, such as:

I took a time-lapse of the actual fireworks show, and am currently figuring out the music to put for it. In the mean time, here is the silent version:

bike co-op beach day #2! 2010-07-29

Another ridiculously gorgeous day at the beach. This time we went to the dog beach at Spanish Banks. The food was one-upped from last time with the addition of whipped cream, blueberries, and Reese's cups. Skinny dipping may or may not have commenced after dark.

One of those moments...... :

Fireworks, 2010-07-29

The Team Mexico performance for the 2010 season. Caught it on the Burrard Bridge on my way back after the show from Stanley Park. Didn't have a radio nearby so no music unfortunately.

The spot wasn't ideal due to the tree that blocked the barge which meant most of the lower effects weren't visible. The good spots of the bridge (near the centre) were full by the time I got there, and lined up with heavy tripods and fancy DSLRs :).

DiVA AURA recording 2010-07-26

The linguistics part of our project involves the study of how performers learn to speak using DiVA and as such, recordings are made at the linguistics lab at certain points during the learning/practicing process. During these recordings, the performer is verbally given a target phrase. They then have to say the phrase, and then attempt to "say" it again using the DiVA.

The recorded data includes:

- The performer's own voice repeating the target phrase

- Voice from the DiVA

- Head position (using an OptiTrack)

- Video frame of the performer's upper body

The data is then analysed by the linguistics folk. (Details mostly beyond my realm of knowledge ;)

Here we see one of our musicians, Erica, in front of the green screen in the ISRL lab calibrating the video frame.

Thanks Cam for bringing the DSLR :)

Stanley Park Open 2010-07-24

Had a bit of time before the musical to see the Chu brothers play in the semi-finals of the Stanley Park Open. An intense match that got more intense after I had to go :(

The day we (didn't) go sailing 2010-07-21

On the first HSBC Celebration of Light evenings, we planned to go sailing. There was no wind, so we hung out on the roof patio instead.

Richmond Night Market 2010-07-17

Try to go there at least once a year. The crowds are huge on weekends, and the food is (imho) often hit and miss. This year the one of the new-and-gimmicky foods seem to be the Hurricane Potato Skewer - basically, as my friend Gabe tried to downplay - fries on a stick. Nevertheless, the potato lover that is me really wanted to try it. The ridiculously long lines prevented me from doing so.

Things that were good:

- Popcorn (sweet + salty + delicious)

- Crispy Chicken (very well made, verified by my TW friends)

Things that were meh:

- Rice "hamburger" (meat too salty; rice too dry)

- Lamb kabobs (an authentic Chinese lamb kabob usually has smaller bits of meat and lots of seasoning... the ones I tried was more like chunks of steak. some might like that)

Big Dummy @ the Beach 2010-07-15

Friends + Bikes + Music + Beer + Wine + Food = awesome.

The Big Dummy made the transportation of my ErHu, wine, strawberries, cheese, naan bread, chilli-hummus and pepperoni from UBC to Spanish Banks a breeze. (The downhill also helped).

We hope to repeat this on as many Thursdays as possible this summer...

Singin' in the Rain Opening Night - 2010-07-14

This is my 2nd year working with TUTS. We're doing the classic, Singin' in the Rain. Needless to say its an absolute blast - this show is much more challenging in a number of aspects compared to last year, but totally worth it! Come check it out if you can! The show runs from July 14 until August 21, every other night.

BBQ at Robin's - 2010-07-11

To say summer arrived late in Vancouver this year would be a gross understatement. However, considering the similar patterns we had in the last few years, I'm beginning to sound less confident when telling visitors "it's not usually like this here" during a rainy day in mid June. Therefore, it was with much appreciation (and overdue anticipation) that the warm sunny weather finally arrived in early July. At the end of a great week, Robin hosted a wonderful BBQ.

Art display? 2010-06-20

While in Sydney, Australia, I went to the habour area with my uncle. One of the things recommended by others was to take a ferry ride, and someone mentioned Cockatoo Island at one point... so off we went. I wasn't quite sure why exactly... As so it happens, it was the location for the 17th Biennale of Syndey, a contemporary art festival. The island housed a quarry, some industrial warehouses, a prison, and also a dry dock during WWII. It was quite an interesting setting for many of the art pieces on display. I don't consider myself knowledgeable with visual art, but it was not too difficult to imagine old, abandoned warehouses and rusty machinery to be a suitable setting for a modern piece of sorts.

Personally, the most striking thing I saw on the island, however, was not any of the art pieces. Instead, it was the campground. As follows:

I thought it was one of the pieces on display... but it was not :-)

Other pictures from that day, including some of the other art works: here.

NIME presentations 2010-06-16

This was the main presentation room at the University of Technology Sydney for NIME2010.

The particular talk was a comparison between the open source monome and the Yamaha Tenori-on - two quite similar devices technology-wise, but presented under different business models. The gist of the presentation was that an open source project allows people to constantly modify and update a device according to the whims of the user/developer, while a close sourced one (obviously) does not. As such the monome has undergone hundreds of firmware versions, while the Yamaha has maybe a handful. However, as one of my professors on the trip, Bob Pritchard, pointed out: as a musical instrument, are such quick changes (even if they are improvements) always a good thing?

Aside, have you noticed that identical images from two identical projectors placed side by side never look identical? :P

North Head, Sydney 2010-06-14

An awesome day of sightseeing: View from North Head of downtown Sydney.

The three awesome people I stayed with for the first part of the trip, before the conference started: James, Anna and Maria.

Blue Mountains, NSW 2010-06-13

A breathtakingly beautiful place... (and a pretty good hike to boot - Grouse Grind eat your heart out :)

The hike took around 4 hours, with quite a bit of ups and downs. gpx track here.

Climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge 2010-06-11

First day in Sydney; Anna and James took me to the habour area, and I took some obligatory pictures of the you-know-what :P. One of the more interesting things I noticed was they had a special tour that involved walking up the Habour Bridge. Looks like fun, but not $200 fun.

Flight from YVR to LAX 2010-06-10

Postal Service is awesome. Moreso when flying down the California coast.

"I watch the patchwork farms' slow fade into the ocean's arms
And from here they can't see me stare

The stale taste of recycled air"

~Postal Service