brisk, wet ride

almost...

dog on boat, seine river, paris

this small, cute, and somewhat dirty sailboat was on the river next to massive river barges-turned houseboats.

inception

an evening stroll around Paris: that spot from the movie...

baby book

ice storm!

Not enough monitors. Running Synergy allows you to share desktops across multiple computers. It was fun but not that useful, in this case.

there's no place like yvr, home

no matter where i travel to, it always feels good to be back in vancouver. (or in this case, richmond, which is close enough :p)

It was a spectacular day for a winter bike ride. Here's the gps track for it.

magic happens here, too.

Disney's Magic Kingdom. What a place...

this is what florida looks like...

So all that marketing was accurate after all. This was the resort we stayed at. Our family friends own a time-share, and has been trying to get us to go with them for a while now. This is partially why we ended up in Florida for this trip (otherwise I have plenty of other spots I'd want to go to...)

Also, I started using the term "Floriday" to refer to here. It's Florida+Friday+Holiday, and totally sums up the general sentiment of this trip.

I took many more pictures of the palm trees, just for the heck of it. :P

Did I mention it was warm down there?

before takeoff...

Leaving Phoenix after being delayed, missing a connection and spending the night there. (Luckily they paid for our hotel).

vacation

We're going down to Orlando, FL for a family vacation. Its the first time in many many years that all 3 of us managed to book a trip together (usually its just my mom and dad, or me and mom, etc). To save on the flight, we got tickets that leave from Seattle instead of directly from Vancouver. This also means for a side road-trip down to Seattle, with a stop at the outlet mall. I'm not a huge fan of shopping for clothes, but it has to be done once in a while (as my mom keeps on reminding me..)

This was at the border crossing, after which we would be in the US for just over a week.

(It was also the last place I could have 3G connection without having to pay for roaming charges :P)

pork overload

ribs wrapped in ham wrapped in bacon. i inappropriately call it "kosher vegan delight".

ribs were slow cooked for about 6 hours. dipped them in my "standard" honey mustard recipe and then wrapped in ham, and then bacon. then cooked in oven until bacon was done.



i also made a batch of more "regular" ribs:

makeshift music stand

I helped out subbing for a big band that practices at the Scottish Cultural Centre. The upstairs room where they practice is used as a kindergarten during the day. I didn't have a music stand with me that day, and made one out of a stack of teeny chairs they had. Making good use of my engineering degree... :P

cooking up ... bass strings?

So Alex told me about a trick to revive old bass strings. Apparently, part of the reason why they sound 'dead' after a while is due to all the gunk that gets caught in between the windings of the outer layer. Therefore, cooking them in water can help! (Obviously it doesn't change how the material itself wears out).

After boiling it in water for a while, and adding a dash of assorted spices, drying it out and restringing, it made a very significant difference in the sound (Not quite new, but much closer to new than before!)

Another term, another convo...

Robin's convo, Nov 2010. Congrats!

Meat N-gons

because we are nerds; because we can. proudly presenting:

meat n-gons! (where N = 1, 4, 5, and 6)

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 :)