WHITE SPOT

Nearly all the residents of SJC did not grow up in Canada, let alone B.C., so they have no concept of White Spot restaurants. For me (and probably for many B.C. residents), White Spot brings pleasant memories of my childhood. My family used to go for lunch on weekends, and it was my father who introduced me to their burgers and famous Triple "O" Sauce.

Wanting to share this experience with others, I organized a dinner to White Spot tonight. It was myself, Dana, Jamil, Frank, Adam, Nick, Phil, and Carolyn. We ran into Stock and Monica along the way and they joined us for dinner.

Before we sat down, I recommended the burger platters and milkshakes. For the uninitiated, I thought these would be good starting points.

I told Adam and Carolyn about the Pirate Paks and they were so impressed, they had to have those cardboard boats. They both got one and took them home. It was neat to see their enthusiasm.

Almost everybody ordered a burger platter and a milkshake. The milkshakes took a while to get to us, so most of us were nearly full from the burgers by that time. There was talk of a "dairy challenge". I gotta admit, the shakes kicked our asses. Adam wasn't looking too hot at times. At the end, we truly did agree that "nobody wins in a dairy challenge".

I think everyone was quite happy with White Spot and I'm glad that I was able to share this part of my childhood with them.

Adam summed it up best when he said to me:

"Erwin, I'll never forget this night, thank you."

Here are some pictures from the evening.

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THAT'S ALL SHE WROTE

I'm done my exams. I wrote my final exam for databases today. There was a section of the course that I wasn't really able to wrap my brain around. I kinda bit it on that part of the exam, but I think I was able to muddle through with some marks.

It's amazing some times how the material only makes sense a day or two before the exam. If you were to ask me how to recover a DB from a crash on the weekend, I would have looked at you like I had just caught a bat with my teeth. Today, it was clear to me.

I was thinking the other day that a final exam is probably the closest thing a "normal" person comes to playing a game-seven in hockey. Three months of classes, assignments, readings, tutorials, late nights are distilled into 3 hours or less of writing on some paper. If you have a bad day, you might have very well wasted all that effort. Scary.

Anyways, now that I'm free, I can do anything I want until January. Woo-hoo! Rather than paint the town red tonight, I didn't really do anything. I am exhausted. It's been a tough week and I look forward to some free time.

So, what am I going to do? I really need to clean my room. It's a mess in here.

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In between this sentence and the last, Chris, Adam, and I went to Subway and Macs. I got a seafood and crab sub. It tasted awful, worst Subway sandwich I've ever had. I hope I don't get sick.

More later.

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KENNY CATCHES A BAT

I'm about to switch chapters in my studying for my final tomorrow. I'm taking a ten minute break. This is what I'm doing with that time.

In this installment of Kenny Rogers' Jackass, Kenny tries to catch a bat with his teeth. Hilarity ensues.



Hey, it's only 4.7 Mb long! It's worth the time, especially you broadband people!

Check out the fun here!

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NOBODY WINS IN A DAIRY CHALLENGE

Do you like country superstar Kenny Rogers? Do you like the MTV show Jackass? Have you ever wished you could combine both of them? Wish no more!



Kenny Rogers' Jackass - 17.8 Mb .mpg

Yeah, I know the clip isn't new, but hey, I found it funny.

A PROMISE TO DO BETTER

I came to the conclusion last week that I'm not satisfied with how I lived the last three months of my life.

In general, I felt like I was just going through the motions. I did the absolute minimum that I needed to do to get by. By that, I mean I did all that was required of me to do get my classwork done. In that respect, I suppose I was satisfied since I did a good job as a TA and I learned a lot in my two classes. Other than that though, I didn't think I got enough out of life.

One of the most important lessons I learned in undergrad is that you have to live balanced life. It can't all be school because you wind up looking back and thinking what a waste it was to just have your head buried in a book. It's vital to do things other than schoolwork.

With this lesson firmly in mind, I made the first year of grad school a success. I am especially proud of my second term, where I had three challenging courses, yet found the time to many things other school. That was the balance that I sought.

Somehow, I forgot that lesson this term. What I am most disappointed with is how I falied to maintain relationships with friends outside of school. My closest friends at SJC last year were Nic and Marcia. They moved out of SJC over the summer and I've barely talked to them since their fall wedding. It would have not been impossible to just phone them for five minutes a week. Yet I didn't even do that. Unacceptable. I met one of friends Ryan in undergrad. Before I went into grad school, we lived quite close to each other and talked quite regularly. I learned through e-mail this fall that he and his young family moved to England. Despite this huge development in his life, I have yet to contact him to see how he is doing. Shameful. I have a friend Raymond who lives in Northern California. He's left two messages on my voicemail in the couple of weeks. I have yet to call him back. Poor.

Beyond my friends, I used to do a fair amount of baking last year. On average, I'd bake a batch of cookies once a week and distribute them to residents around SJC. It's a good way to make new friends and see how everyone is doing. I've made cookies maybe three times this year. Before the summer ended, I had this cookbook that I want to try out. I thought the fall would be a good time to do that. I've done nothing of the sort this fall.

Last year, I had food in my place for the most of the time; things for a late night snack or lunches on the weekend. This year, I've rarely had a fully stocked fridge. This is despite knowing it only takes an hour to go to Safeway and come back.

You can also take a look at my web site. Last year, I had updates on a regular basis whenever we had an event here at SJC. Whether it was the welcome dinner, harvest dinner or Halloween, I made the sections for them. You can see for this year, I've done none of that.

I really have no excuse. I wasn't any more busy this term that I was last year. I was just too lazy.

In light of this, I've made a promise to do better in 2004. I'd be a fool to continue going through the motions again. I have to wring more out of life than I have.

Here's to a better and more well-rounded Erwin in the new year.

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WEEKEND WALLOW

Well after kicking ass yesterday, it was more like sitting on ass today. I spent the same amount of time studying today, but got half as much done. I guess there's only so much in the tank at one time. Maybe I'll go to bed a little earlier tonight and re-charge for tomorrow.

The SJC movie tonight was The Two Towers : Extended Edition clocking in at nearly 220 minutes, I would have loved to view the new footage, but I had to study. I wonder how many people saw the whole thing. I bet they had an intermission.

Today, I found more reason to hate Microsoft. I logged into Messenger in the afternoon upon which I was notified that there was a new version available. Great, I thought. Usually updates are a good thing. So, I download the new version, it installs and I'm prompted to log in again. I enter my info and it boots me back out again. What? I try again. Same thing. Try again. Same thing. Try again. Same thing. Try again. Same thing. Try again. Same thing.

Now, I'm cursing myself for updating, couldn't leave well enough alone. I get a knock on my door. It's Sarah. She's here to deliver some brownies to me. She also tells me that my Messenger is going crazy and that I'm logging in every two seconds. Great.

I check the system reqs for Messenger 6.1 and it's says I need Internet Explorer 5.1. I have 5.0 because I don't use IE. So I upgrade to IE 6.0. I try to log into Messenger.... same damn thing. Now I'm getting peeved.

I try to roll back to Messenger 6.0, the version I had before. It takes me a while to find it on the Internet, because Microsoft doesn't archive their products (like Netscape does). I uninstall 6.1 and install 6.0. By all accounts, this should work. I try logging in again. No dice. Can't log in.

I briefly think about continuing on with my life without using a messenger client. I come to the conclusion it would be a poorer life. What to do? What to do?

I decide to download Trillian which rolls AOL, Yahoo, and Messenger clients all into one. You lose a bit of functionality, but it the price you pay for all-in-one. I install it and cross my fingers. I attempt to log in... and am met with success.

I can chat again, but I've got to do it with this weird Trillian thing. If anyone knows what the hell is going on with Messenger 6.1, you drop me a line.

Ok, I'll leave you with a bit of Internet fun passed on by Matt Farish. Go to google.com and do a search for the words miserable failure. Tell me what the first item returned is.

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THERE IS NO SMALL BLUE PIECE

Hey look! It's the Matrix, done in Lego!

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WEEKEND WARRIOR

Saturday. Yeah. I made the day work for me. After a less than stellar start to it, I was left dead, dog, and flat-out tired even before noon. I was so tired, I couldn't even get food for breakfast or lunch. All I could do was sleep for an hour.

Awaking at 1pm, I felt like how the floor of a public washroom looks. Through some stroke of luck or some properly firing neurons, I remembered I had a slice of pizza left in my fridge. After consuming that, I sat at my desk to study. Quickly reviewing my notes, I came to the decision I had slightly miscalculated how much work I'd have to do before my final on Thursday. Whoops.

For some reason, my eyelids felt like they wanted to turn inside out on me. Has anyone ever experienced that? It's not fun. I fought the desire to sleep with music and tried to work until 2:30pm. That's when I got myself ready for ball hockey. I'm the unofficial dude at SJC that organizes pick-up ball hockey.

At 3pm, four good Canadian kids from SJC made their way to the parkade where we proceeded to learn we've probably been spending too much time at our desks. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, but I was bent over most of the time like it was prison. Our little skills competition was much more fun and required less running.

We stopped around 4:30pm, and this was when my body made it clear that I had only had a slice of pizza all day. I started get all crazy and I ate some of the brownies I had made earlier. I usually get the sweats and shakes when I don't eat, but it didn't happen this time.

I did another hour of work before I had to go to dinner at the Village. It was a lightning quick dinner and I was back by 8pm.

From 8pm to 4am, I laid down the law, I did it up, I got it done, I was a nerd, I blew through two chapters of databases my friend. Sometimes you've got to put your head and get things accomplished no matter how tired you are, how hungry you are, or how many other extra-curricular activities are happening at SJC.

I think I maybe still fresh as a daisy right now. Maybe I'll keep on trucking.

First star to the right, straight on till morning...

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