Mavisology.com

Orlando, FL, 2010

2011-07-22T12:53:00.003-06:00

What made me happy thses weeks - Apr 3 - May 29

2011-05-29T19:07:00.004-06:00

Sorry for not updating but a lot has happened:

#1: Finished and submitted my thesis proposal; just the proposal, not the whole thesis but it is still 50 plus pages. Now awaiting for the supervisor to review and comment, then it is back to the drawing board.

#2: Went on a 3-day skiing trip to Sunshine and loved it; we rented a vacation condo and literally skied for 3 day; okay, it was more like 2-half-days and 1-full-day. The second day I signed up for a day-long lesson and it really was worth the money; I improved a lot. Before this trip, I had a 5-hour lesson at the local Snow Valley ski hill and by the end of the Sunshine lesson, I was able to go down the blue hills (green = beginner, blue = intermediate, black = advance, hence black diamond and double black diamond).

My best friend Sonya and her boyfriend Ian were also there and we had so much fun together; in the next season, I am going to first invest in some decent clothing and gears, then take more lessons all winter long! Black Diamonds here I come!

#3: I officially resigned from being on the condo board, neither as the president nor a board of director; I am too busy but the real reason is I am just tired of people making no effort trying to resolve difficult situations by discussing with others. I think a lot of times we all forget how important it is to have a face-to-face conversation with our neighbours to resolve our differences; I guess having a discussion is harder then just sending a warning letter or taking drastic actions ...

#4: Attending many cultural events and worked out at least 2-3 times a week; feeling very fulfilled both my mind and body. In the summer, I am planning to sign up for some weight training and yoga classes. In the fall, I am already a season subscriber to Alberta Ballet and Broadway Across Canada, now I plan to add Citadel Theater subscription to the list and attend more MET Opera events at the Cineplex.

#5: Filled 9 planters with beautiful annuals from the local greenhouses; pictures to follow next post. Tried growing more seeds but the results weren't that great, maybe only 20% survived and still too weak to be transplanted outdoor.

#6: Participated in 2011 Mitsubishi City Chase with my buddy Linda! Since how it was our first time, we were pretty clueless. Turned out one of the clues was release on the Facebook the night before the race and there were a lot of strategies involved which we didn't anticipate. Do it again and better next year.

#7: Looking forward to cat-sit for my friends Abigail and Daniel; pictures to follow next post. Also looking forward to a small weekend Calgary trip with the Woodwards. Last but not least, can't wait for the summer festivals (Capital EX, Cariwest, Fringe, Heritage Festival, Street Performers, Taste of Edmonton) to begin.

#8: Celebrate volunteerism like there is no tomorrow - I signed up to volunteer at the MacEwan Convocation and for the MacEwan Dragon Boat team this year, I hope my arms don't fall off ... I am considering to volunteer for some of the above festivals this summer and the Crisis Line in the Fall as well ... Give back, people, give back!

What made me happy this week - Mar 27-Apr 2, 2011

2011-04-02T18:57:00.007-06:00

After two weeks of dealing with crap at work, I am finally feeling like myself again; this past week has been nothing but happiness and fun.

Didn't get prank on April Fool's Day, yay!

Netflix is producing its own original series - House of Cards starring Kevin Spacy and recently signed a deal with Paramount Pictures, yay!

OMG, driving with sunroof open and sunglasses on, what a new concept. Yes, the weather in Edmonton has finally improved. We even BBQ outdoor twice already!

Finally caught up on all the work responsibilities after being behind for about 2 weeks; completed about 80% of offices moving that is taking place at work right now; although nobody is upset at me for missing deadlines, I just feel better when I am all caught up.

Just had some frozen pork dumpling that I purchased from Save On Foods and they tasted just like how my family used to make them; I am just so happy how improved frozen food had become and how culturally diverse local Edmonton grocery stores had become.

Hardave and I are planning a ski trip to Sunshine; I took a 5 week skiing lesson at Snow Valley and can now stop using the snow plow technique and make wide turns, so I have been official graduated to the beginner green hills. Hardave, on the other hand, picked right back up after not skied for over 10 yrs, so we are eager to try it on a "real" mountain.

Most importantly, I am not sure what to do for my 2011-12 cultural/entertainment/sports calendar; Alberta Ballet, Broadway Across Canada, The Citadel Theater, Edmonton Opera, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Met Opera are all having incredible lined up for their season (Cinderella, Death of a Salesman, The Mikado, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Swan Lake, Wagner's Ring Cycle, Wicked, Wonderland ... etc); I want to see them all but meanwhile I also want to try continue to improve on downhill skiing, learn cross country skiing, horseback riding, sewing and maybe some sort of musical instrument AND at the same time, be careful to the schedule and the wallet ... I just want to say, I love you Edmonton despite your occasional -40 C winter but you have such amazing activities and something for everyone!

Well, one cannot be happy all the time; I am sad about Elizabeth Taylor's passing away. Actually, I don't know of her much and hasn't watched any of her movies. All I knew of her was for marrying 7 men 8 times ... and I am ashamed of myself; one of her husbands die in a plane crash ... She is, of course, famous of her beauty and turned out she had the mutation FOXC2 gene which caused her to have double eyelashes and also gave her so many health issues. She is also a two-time Academy Award winner and an early AIDS activist and that is how I am going to remember her as.

What made me happy this week - Mar 7-13, 2011

2011-03-13T20:16:00.009-06:00

Poor blog, I know I have been ignoring you for quite sometime now but I suddenly have a strong urge to describe the things that had happened to me last week because they made me very happy.

I have been having lower back pain for about two weeks now and finally I got the courage to see a chiropractor and it really helped. I was a bit skeptical before but she first corrected my seating and standing posture, massage my back a little and did two "adjustments" to "open" up my hip joints and it felt instantly better. Continued with cold and heat pad, massage therapy and core strengthening exercises, I am feeling so much better now.

We had an event at work on Thursday where we had to move and put away 15 folding tables; I have a poor sore back so I pleated for help with a group of students standing outside of their classroom waiting for their next class to start, 2 jumped up immediately without any hesitation to help!

Friday night was consisted of East Indian buffet and Battle LA with good friends; I cried a little during the movie because it made me think of my grandparents, how they fought in WWII and had to leave everything behind in China when they fleet to Taiwan. It also reminded me of the war that is happening right now; although Canadian Forces are not engaging in active combat, peace keeping in unstable countries has its price ... Every Remembrance Day, local newspaper lists all soldiers who passed away while on active duty in the past year, I carefully comb through their names and many of them were so young ...

Today I had my 4th (out of total of 5) skiing lesson at Snow Valley and because of the nice weather, the ski hills are super busy and in the midst of confusion, my class (of 1 instructor, 2 students) accidentally cut in front of a middle age lady and she told us angrily to get to the back of the line; a elementary school girl behind her offered to let us go ahead of her ... hum!

What's New?

2010-07-18T14:29:00.002-06:00

In order of importance:

1. Working on thesis proposal, furiously! It is due next Sunday

2. Practicing driving with Hardave and Uncle Steve; goal is to pass the Basic Road Test by end of Aug.

3. Getting the condo ready for sale slowly; I am thinking about cashing in on my equity for a bigger place. A Duplex with basement and garage will be my first choice, if I can afford one. If not, I will settle for a Townhouse. It is not a good time for selling, unfortunately ... but I am hosting the Cacovic's visiting from Victoria next week, so it is time to tidy up the place anyway.

Vancouver/Victoria, 2009

2010-03-02T16:30:00.003-07:00

These photographs were taken during our road trip to Vancouver and Victoria in summer 2009; I was attending the Canadian eLearning Conference at UBC so we thought we should visit all my friends in Vancouver and Victoria. Big kudos to Hardave who drove straight for 12 hours from Edmonton to Vancouver.

First, we went to the Vancouver Zoo:

Goats Panoramic!

I actually got to hold one of the predatory birds;
I will try and squeeze those pictures out of Hardave.

One of these little guys (world's largest rodent) was recently killed at Calgary Zoo ...

UBC Botanical Garden

We had some nice visits in Vancouver with April, Jordan, MingJin and Tony; I got to eat my favourite Taiwanese food too! Otherwise, we didn't do too much. Oh, we did go to the Granville Island but that was about it.

After a week in Vancouver, we hopped on the BC Ferry and went over to Victoria. We stayed with Lori and Nick; they put on a BBQ party for us and invited many of our mutual friends from our good-old-days working at COUS, that was very fun. Otherwise, we visited the new Shaw Ocean Discover Center at Sidney and spent a LOT of time visiting with my old co-workers at the UVic. I wonder how many times Hardave were asked if he was born in Edmonton ...

Empress Hotel Rose Garden

BC Legislature

Panoramic Shot - Don't forget to clicky for biggy!

Victoria Harbour Panoramic

Braces will be soon gone!

2010-02-24T20:39:00.002-07:00

Tomorrow, Thursday, February 25th is going to be the big day as my braces are coming off! It has been a long process; I got them on January 23rd, 2007, so it is just over 3 years. I am super excited!

Today, I found out that my best friends (Carla and Mark Cacovic and their two daughters Elena and Imrie) might be visiting me this summer and am feeling extremely blessed to have some many good friends. We have two set of good friends getting marry this summer; both are out of town weddings, one in Las Vegas and one in Saskatoon. April and Jordan are visiting me in May and the Cacovics are shooting for July. And I might be going to Orlando for a conference in October and of course, visit Joy and Krishen! Fletcher and Melissa are about to have their second baby anytime now; Lori and Nick are also expecting their first girl! WOW, lots of good things to celebrate; the Year of Tiger is going to be GREAT!

Las Vegas, NV, Grand Canyon & Hoover Dam, 2008

2010-02-10T21:06:00.011-07:00

I figured I should probably put these pictures up before we visit Las Vegas again in May 2010 ... More pictures to come next month as I already used up my Flickr bandwidth of this month ...

These were taken during our trip to Las Vegas in 2008 summer; I was attending Bb World 2008; it was very hot ... I think our car's thermometer registered 50 degree Celsius when we were at Grand Canyon. Other than the heat, it was fun but after a while, all of the hotels started to blend together. We are invited to go again to attend a wedding in May 2010, so hopefully the weather will be more reasonable and suitable for more picture taking.

Treasure Island at night; this is where we stayed and Bb World 2008

was only across the strip at The Venetian.

Siren

Harrah's

Excalibur

New York, New York

MGM Grand

We went to Cirque de Solei's Ka here; it was awesome!

The famous MGM Grand Lion

Luxor

Can't remember which hotel has the Eiffel Tower ...

Bellagio

Bellagio's famous musical fountain, don't forget to clicky for biggy!

Peace Statue ... I think ...

Hoover Dam interior floor design, very art deco.

Hoover Dam Panoramic 01

Hoover Dam Panoramic 02

Hoover Dam Panoramic 03

Hoover Dam Panoramic 04

Grand Canyon Panoramic 01

Grand Canyon Panoramic 02

Grand Canyon Panoramic 03

Grand Canyon Panoramic 04

Grand Canyon Panoramic 05

Grand Canyon Panoramic 06

Grand Canyon Panoramic 07

Grand Canyon Panoramic 08

Grand Canyon Panoramic 09

I know I have been neglecting my blog for a while but I am going to try my best to get it going again. In the next couple of weeks, I will post more photos from our trip to Vancouver/Victoria last summer and our most recent trip - a 10-day Mexican Riveria Cruise and 4-day visit of San Diego.

Crunchy Baked Pork Chops

2009-10-24T15:06:00.002-06:00

We made this last night based on the American Test Kitchen recipe; it was awesome. We are going to get its bible cookbook when it comes out this Fall and try every single recipe that is in there ...

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-10-12T22:47:00.002-06:00

My poor blog, I have been completely ignoring you for so long ... but don't worry, I am back to your arms!

Ever since I got my full-time continuous status, I felt more secured financially so I signed myself up with many activities after work. For example, I have season subscription to Alberta Ballet Broadway Across Canada, & Edmonton Opera. So far the first performance already took place in the summer, it was The Lion King and boy, just to see the customs is worth of the ticket price. The next even in line is opera - Rigoletto. Other than engage in art and cultural events, I have been listening to podcast like crazy!!! I was hoping to read a few books but this summer was full of movie-watching, traveling, podcast-listening ... and now Grad. school starts and I am taking two courses this term. Hopefully, next week I will have time at least to post some photos of my recent trips to Vegas and Vancouver/Victoria.

Tofu is fully-grown now, about 10 lbs and doesn't seem to be getting any bigger. She has calm down a lot ever since we got back from Vancouver/Victoria and although she is not the lap cat I had hoped for, she loves snuggle up in bed with us, just not on the couch. She has also developed a habit to milk my neck when she wakes up in the morning; she gets right up to my neck, buries her nose and starts to kneed. And she slobbers all over my neck as well.

OK, time for bed but here is what I made for Thanksgiving dinner this year (in clock-wise direction): Green Bean Salad, Cous Cous Salad, Roasted Butternut Squash, Apple/Cranberry Chicken, Portabella Mushroom Basked with Brie.

Star Trek - Loved it!

2009-05-24T17:59:00.007-06:00

Let's see, I can post some more photos of that cute kitty of mine or announce the fact that I just saw Star Trek and it was AWESOME! Okay, the time traveling plot was a bit confusing and I think I might need a timeline to be completely clear but it was AWESOME! It didn't matter at all that I never saw any of the tv series nor the old movies, the plot made sense and the actings were good especially the guy who played Zulu (he played Harold in Harold and Kumar). As an ESL, I totally sympathize with Anton Yelchin's pain with voice-recognition-password ... I especially like the fact that JJ Abrams didn't make the movie out to be totally serious and injected lots of humours. Oh and the special effects were pretty good too, I loved the Rumulan ship.

I have had a lot of fun this past weekend; the weather is finally nice after all the snow we had last week. Replaced my good-old-cheap double mattress with a pocket-coil queen and it is worth every dollar I spent; I never knew a good mattress can make that much difference in sleep quality. Planted some Delilah and herbs in outdoor pots; fingers cross they will grow nicely as this is my first time planting Delilah bulbs.

I also had scored some good-buys; we got two huge bag (approximately 30 lbs) of potting soil from Costco for $10 per bag, paid only $400 for a 12,000 BTU Danby air-conditioner at Rona and bought this sparkly Sydny Bar Tray from Urban Barn - it was $270 but on sale for $109.

Just Tofu

2009-05-18T14:22:00.002-06:00

Had some free time today as it is Victoria Day long weekend ... Tried some different Photoshop goodies ...

Update on new house celebration

2009-04-22T09:16:00.003-06:00

OK, maybe celebrating the new house by drinking champagne and having our first dinner at the new house is a bit of a silly idea after all; the house smell quite strongly due to the new paints and it requires some light cleaning and dusting ...

We ended up going back to my place to babecue some nice steaks and topped them with wasabi butter and sesame steak sauce and paired with a bold Shiraz. Today we have the utility company installing water meter and City of Edmonton inspectors checking on some of the works that were done. We will be doing some light cleaning and dusting and measuring windows to order blinds. Hopefully, we will get the colour recommendation from our interior designer soon so we can start painting; otherwise, we will be visiting a few more furniture stores for ideas.

Big Day Today

2009-04-21T09:53:00.003-06:00

Hardave is getting the keys to the house as I post this entry; I will be buying a bottle of champagne and some nice take-out-dinner to celebrate tonight - first meal at the new house has to be extra special! Will get some pictures tonight.

Tried giving Tofu a spoon-full of Iams can food last night as a treat, she looked at it, smelled it, licked it, poked it and prodded it, then walked away! I guess she is not crazy about wet cat food ... We had been giving her tiny bits of human food like beef, chicken, cheese, fish and milk ... Maybe she is holding out for the good stuff ... Anyway, I am not too concern about it because dry food are better for her teeth anyway.

We met with the interior designer that our friend recommended over the weekend and she is GREAT! She gave us advice on various things that we would have never thought of ourselves; for example, she told us to buy proper size furniture to fill up the living room and suggested to buy cream leather dinning chairs if we are buying a black leather sofa ... She is going to put a little portfolio for us in terms of colour recommendation. Will update you once we get the portfolio.

More house pictures ...

2009-04-05T20:52:00.003-06:00

None of the Beyonce pictures I took turned out, so here are more pictures of the house and Tofu ... I have been sick again, seems like the head cold had returned ... Carpet and Hardwood floor are laid, gas and water were hooked up; the only things left are appliances, mild cleaning and touch ups.

Here is Tofu sleeping with her paws covering her eyes, too cute ...

Main floor powder room

Double sink in the kitchen

Arch entrance to den

His and her sinks in master ensuite

SuperKitty

2009-03-30T13:31:00.003-06:00

Beyonce and trip to Saskatoon were both awesome; pictures and write up later but apparently Tofu was quite bad while I was out of town; she knocked over a glass and fall/jumped off the balcony. Luckily, we only let her out onto the balcony while we are there and she wears a harness with a tie-out, so Hardave was able to rescue the flying-kitty right away. I wish he had taken a picture thou, it would have been a funny scene. Instead, here is slightly disgruntled-just-woke-up shot of Tofu. Notice the droopy branch on the left of the palm in the background? Well, you are looking at the guilty one - plant murderer! The pop cans were there to stop her from jumping from the box-spring onto the dresser; we put changes in the cans so it makes a very loud noise when she knocks them over but so far it hasn't been very affective. Only if Hardave and other geeks can figure out a program that automatically resets the pop-cans once they had been knocked over ...

Beyonce Tonight, Saskatoon Tomorrow

2009-03-26T09:49:00.004-06:00

Got a floor ticket tonight to see Beyonce, should be fun; taking tomorrow off and will be driving with my friend Jenni to visit friends in Saskatoon. Although Hardave is looking after Tofu for me, I feel a bit weird about leaving her, it is my first time ...

Next week, we will be booking an interior designer to help us choose paint colours for the accent walls in the new house. Walk-through is on Apr 9, procession is Apr 21, then we will do the paintings ourselves ...

In June, I am going to attend the Canadian e-Learning Conference and will probably book some vacation time before and/or after to visit friends in Vancouver and Victoria, more updates to come.

More house pictures!

2009-03-23T20:22:00.003-06:00

The front door is painted and the porch railings are up.

We plan to paint the wall across from the kitchen
(where the fireplace is in the living room) in an accent blue.

We pick chocolate/blue for the main floor
but upstairs we decided to go with cream/chocolate.

By the way, I took these photos with the camera of my new LG Neon and the quality is surprisingly good.

House & LG Neon

2009-03-22T21:39:00.006-06:00

Big news, the house is going to be ready for procession on Apr 21 and on Apr 9, we will do our walk-through. Things are moving a mile a minute; counter tops went up right after the cabinets were installed, all paints were done, all baseboard, casing, trims were installed and painted and this week, the tile were laid. I only have a picture of the outside as we were not allowed to enter the house as the tiles were just laid.

There were a couple of minor mistakes; we upgrade the baseboard, casing and trims to a flat profile and they didn't order the correct ones; luckily they only installed the second floor ones when we caught it. They also ordered the wrong tile for upstairs ensuite and second bathroom but we caught it before it was laid. It definitely pays to pay attention.

I wrote a thank-you letter to Edmonton Humane Society, check it out - http://www.edmontonhumanesociety.com/cgi-bin/section_switch.pl?section=other&sub=lovetofu and I asked them if they kept Tofu's shelter picture on record and if I can have a copy; she looked a little deer-caught-in-the-headlight-ish:

Now, compare what she looks like now to see how much she had grown:

There used to be room in her bed for her teddy bear; not anymore!

We have an evening-tv-watching routine every night
- she will sleep in my lap if I cover myself in her favourite blanket.

I got a new cell phone - LG Neon and switched services to Fido; old phone number still works thou. I ordered online and it arrive the next business day; every since I got it, I couldn't put it down. It has a full qwerty slide out keyboard which makes browsing the net, e-mailing, texting much easier. One problem - the phone is so new, there are no accesseries available to purchase; I love it so much I want to buy a pouch and some screen protector ...

Tofu's First Picture

2009-02-27T09:59:00.006-07:00

Just recently download it off the cellphone; we took it while we were waiting to finish up her adoption process and she was so sweet - she had already snuggled up in Hardave's arms.

It is a bit late to have a new year resolution but hey, why not? I think this year, I will update my blog more often ... I have photos of the house and will post it over the weekend; it has sidings now and they painted the first coat of the interior walls. ETA is April and I am hoping it will delay even further as I don't want to move during the cold or through the melting snow.

We also have two tickets of Bill Maher's Edmonton show on Mar 15 for sale ... Don't ask, it is a long story; Hardave and I had a miscommunication as of who should be buying the tickets ... Once again, Edmonton has become my favourite concert/event town; I got ticket to see Beyonce, Edmonton Symphony's Video Game Live, Lewis Black, Bill Maher, Shumka ... It is going to be a eventful spring!

Last Payment of Student Loan

2009-01-26T09:31:00.002-07:00

Just paid off my last payment of student loan, yeah! Now I just have another 10 year worth of mortgage to pay off ...

I luv Mac!

2009-01-21T20:51:00.002-07:00

Tofu in a Bag

2009-01-19T19:09:00.005-07:00

Just some cute pictures of Tofu; she is getting bigger, almost over 5lbs now. She is also becoming more independent; she used to want to sleep in our laps ALL the time, if we put her down next to us so we can get up and do things around the house, she will just go back to our laps immediately. Now, she will either sleep in her own bed or besides us. She still wants to follow us around and be with us even though the condo isn't that big.

Hardave was trying to feed Tofu a carrot.

Piggy in a Blanket or Let the Cat Out of the Bag comes to mind?

Things I Learnt About Tofu!

2009-01-05T16:29:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Wikipedia ....

- Tofu is a Torbie! Torbie is a mix of Tortoiseshell (black and brown patches) and Tabby (tigery stripes); Tofu has black, brown and white patches (from Tortoiseshell) with black and grey stripes (from Tabby) mostly on her feets, stomach and tail. She also has the letter M on her forehead which is the defining mark for a tabby! Torbies are also always female because is linked to the X gene and they apparently have a pretty distinct cat-sonality - like to sleep and play on their own terms (and I thought all cats are like that ...) Tofu's body shape is also considered to be Cobby - "short, muscular, compact build, roundish eyes, short nose, and small ears".

- Many people say cats are not social animals, the truth is they are very social, but they do not have pack mentality. Cats take care of their own needs but this doesn't mean they are not social animals; they definitely form bonds with their caretaker but the caretakers don't become the leader of the pack to them. It is of course easier to socialized a kitten than a feral grown cat; Tofu has become very attached to us.

- Tofu likes to groom herself and sometimes she grooms me too! Her tongue is full of little spines in a shape of backward-facing hooks which is why it feels like a sand paper grooming you when a cat licks you.

- Tofu sleeps sooooo much! Apparently, cats sleep 13-14 hours on average. They require a lot of sleeping time because they don't go into deep sleep.

- Tofu is not nocturnal, she is crepuscular which means she is mostly active in the evening and early morning; cats do not stay up all night and hunt!

- Tofu can fit through any space that her head can fit through thanks for her free-floating clavicle bones.

- Tofu and I are similar, we don't like sweets; cats lack of the taste to sweetness.

- Tofu is 100% carnivorous; cats actually can't digest plant very well.

BTW, Wikipedia's article also points out that antifreeze, mothballs, Pine-Sol ... etc are not good for cats, duh! Let me try and feed you those things and see how you feel, he he!

First Trimming the Claws and Kitten Damage

2008-12-26T21:25:00.003-07:00

I waited until Tofu almost fall asleep to try to trim her claws and it didn't bother her at all; she sorted of pull her right paws back but I think she just want it to support herself with it because I had already trimmed her left paw then. I am not sure if we need to trim her back paws, any suggestion?

It has finally happened - first kitten damage ... Tofu jumped onto my side-table and knocked over my lamp and when I put it back, I didn't notice the shade wasn't on properly and it was too close to the light bulb until later when I saw a burnt mark.

Home for the Holidays Campaign

2008-12-24T21:15:00.003-07:00

As I mentioned in Our new kitten-Tofu! blog post, Edmonton Humane Society is having unusually large amount of cats this winter for adoption; apparently, they have 120 cats ready for adoption and another 100 or so coming ... They also have 8 times of normal amount of rabbits ... As a result, they are reducing the cost of adopting an adult cat from $110 to $55! Check out their Home for the Holiday Campaign webpage for more detail.

If you are in the position to adopt a small pet and are interested in doing so, I highly recommend checking out your local Humane Societies. We looked at the kittens at the pet stores before we adopted Tofu but I was always certained that I wanted to adopt a kitten instead of purchasing one. And if you were there with me last Sat when we were waiting to be process for Tofu's adoption, you will want to adopt one as well; because of the unusually large amount of cats the shelter has, some cats are living in temporary cages which are fairly small and they are sleeping in their litter boxes ...

So adopt a pet for good karma!

Best Kitten in the World

2008-12-24T16:51:00.018-07:00

Tofu has been living with us for 4 days now and I am convinced she is the best kitty in the whole world! She doesn't seem to be exhibiting any behaviour problems that I have heard from so many kitten horror stories!

To start, she was sound asleep in Hardave's arms while we were still waiting at the Edmonton Humane Society to finish the adoption process. When she first arrived at her new home, she didn't hide; she explored and was sitting out in the open. She would however meow for about 5 minutes if we left her alone but she eventually stopped; she quickly learnt that it is okay when we are out of her sight. She loves to play with us but when we are busy, she plays with her toys too. When she is tired, she will just slump herself into our laps and fall asleep but she is also happy to lay about by herself. As I am typing this blog post, she is sound asleep across my stomach and my right arm ... I don't know how she can sleep though my arm moving up and down from typing ... She is also a super affectionate kitten; she headbutts our hands and our heads often.

We gradually introduced her to other rooms in the condo and she seldom scratches and tonight she started to use her scratching post already. Also, when she is touching us, she NEVER sticks her claws out! She often slides off furnitures or our laps because she won't use her claws to stop herself from failing! She doesn't climb our vertical blinds either! She tried a few times jumping onto furnitures but we pull her off and that seems to register. So far, we have been leaving her dish full of food and she doesn't pig out.

Tofu also let us do pretty much anything to her! We have been putting a harness on her for a few hours a day and she never struggles with it. We pick her up all the time and sometimes we turned her on her back and she never tried to get out of our holds. I rub her paws and had flipper her lips up to check her teeth once and Hardave went so far as to flip her eyelids open while she was asleep! Yeah, I know, we are strange pet owners ... what can I say, Tofu is our first kitten and both us being scientists ... Just let me put it this way - we like to know how things work.

So far, my only worry is that Tofu is most active in the morning while we are getting ready for work and in the evening before bedtime which can be a bit annoying (hopefully she will calm down a bit as she grows older). Last night, we tried to let her sleep with us but she wanted to play instead ...

I hope her best traits last forever! Maybe I am being naive ... but I am crossing my fingers ... Don't change, Tofu, don't ever change!

Update: Tofu has now learnt to sleep in her own bed ... and she sleeps with her eye semi-opened ... I can see her eyeballs are rolled back into her eyes ...

Our new kitten - Tofu!

2008-12-21T12:12:00.008-07:00

We finally did it; we had been thinking about adopting a cat for a while but never felt we are ready; we wanted to be responsible pet owners and finally, we think we are ready. So we went to Edmonton Humane Society yesterday afternoon and at first, I was very overwhelmed; there were so many cats, probably 200 of them and according to the staff, they are at their maximum capacity. It was very sad; all of them are lying around in their tiny cages waiting for someone to take them home. Some of the cages are so small, the cats are sleeping in their litter boxes ...

We saw a black/brown/gray/white multicolour tabby kitten in a large cage with 3 other kittens; the others were sounded asleep but she was up and about. However, we didn't see its record. How it works at the Edmonton Human Society is when you see a cat you like, you take its record clipped onto the cage and proceed for adoption paper work. When the record isn't there, it means someone is in the process of adopting that cat. So we decided to go with one of the orange tabby that was sleeping.

There was a fair bit of paper work and it was very busy, they said we might have to wait 2-3 hours and they might have to just interview us and we will have to come back the next day to pick up the kitten. I felt very overwhelmed; it was crowded and loud but Hardave kept me calm. While we were waiting around, we saw the record of the multicolour one returned, so we grabbed it immediately. We wanted a friendly female, so the multicolour one was perfect because she was meowing and rubbing her back on our fingers whenever we were near by.

After waiting for about an hour, we and other 5 families were asked to go to a group interview room where we got to hold our cats. Ours was very energetic at first but calmed down later; it was just cuddling/purring in Hardave's arms. We waited for about another hour to finish the process and the staff decided they would work overtime to process our adoptions tonight, so we can take our kittens home. Meanwhile, we get to sit and hold our kitten and we named it Tofu.

It was a bit rocky on the way home; the Human Society is on the north side of Edmonton and I am far south plus it was -30 out and we had to stopped by to get some supplies. She meowed a lot at first but once she figured out laying down is more comfortable, she settled down. We are keeping her in the office for now and she is doing very well. She didn't even hide we she first was let out of the carrying box and she is already toilet trained at 4 months. She is drinking and eating lots as well and we have her schedule figured out already; she is most energetic in the evening and morning but likes an afternoon nap.

Here is some much anticipated pictures of Tofu:

BTW, these are all taken with flash; it didn't bother her at all ...

We got a kitten!

2008-12-20T22:36:00.002-07:00

Just a quick note to say we went to Edmonton Humane Society and adopted a kitten this afternoon; pictures to follow.

Nothing Important ...

2008-12-16T10:21:00.004-07:00

1. I am sick and it is my birthday.
2. I have arthritis on my lower back ... :(
3. I have only 2 more payments left for my braces and 5 more payments left for my student loan. No words on when the braces will be coming off thou.
4. The house now has full air ducts, plumbing, electrical works and shingles. We think the construction is pretty much done now until after XMAS.
5. We had construction mistake #2; the electricians forgot to put the extra fan bracing we purchased but the mistake was corrected instantly after we notified the builder.
6. We might be getting a kitten this weekend form SPCA ...

House Part IV - Build, Baby, Build!

2008-11-26T19:28:00.002-07:00

We stopped by the construction site yesterday; we have roof, stairs, air ducts, tubs, doors and windows. The outline of the cabinets for bathrooms and kitchen are also on the floor. We met the trades person who was there sealing the windows and he thinks the house might be ready in 4 month! The sales person estimated 6-9 months! I am not sure about moving in -40 weather but I think it is still better than when the snow is melting ...

I will try and squeeze some pictures out of Hardave and post them over the weekend, keep checking back.

House Part III - Construction Starts and Interior Decor

2008-11-25T11:03:00.003-07:00

After we have selected the elevation, exterior color and decor and deciding on structural upgrades, then it is time for mortgage approval, first payment of the down-payment and signing of legal documents. Meanwhile, the builder applied to the City of Edmonton for permit to start the construction; the permit was issued Oct 17 and we had a hole on the ground on Oct 20. Then the foundation and foundation walls came very quickly and we officially had a basement! Currently, they have already put up the all the walls and are building the roof. The doors and windows have also been delivered awaiting to be installed.

At this stage of the construction, it moves pretty fast; we had been going out to there pretty much every other day. It is very exciting; I remember vividly when they first dug the basement and we got there just as the delivery person was dropping off variety of wood products ... felt it was such a milestone.

And we already had our first construction mistake; we had upgraded the sub-floor to plywood instead of OSB but when they put the sub-floor down, they put down OSB! I am glad we caught it early by vising the construction site frequently ... We informed the builder and they corrected the mistake but gluing and screwing down another layer of plywood ontop of the existing OSB and we were happy with the solution as the floor is now twice as strong.

While all the construction was happening, we had to make decision on interior decor and trust me, I have never made so many decisions all in such short period of time in my entire life ... Looking back on the process, we were actually pretty systematic; we selected the kitchen cabinet first as there are only a few choices and then we selected flooring that go with the cabinets.

If I am doing it again, I will hire an interior designer; my friend told me it cost her $45 an hour to hire one and I think we spent about 4 hours to make all the decor decision. So for $180 bucks, I think an interior designer is definitely worth it. Other other hand, we were too chicken to go with bold choices and stayed pretty neutral, so I am sure the result will be great anyway.

Here is what we picked:
Backsplash - 8 x 12 medium hazelnut tile (same as the floor tile) with two 5-row of mosaic blue glass tiles; later on we are going to paint the wall opposite to the kitchen (with the fireplace) in the accent color - General Paint - Blizzard. We also added a 5-row and a 7-row mosaic brown glass tiles above and surrounding the tub in the ensuite.

Glass tiles are actually pretty cheap; I think it worked out to be only a couple of hundred dollars extra to add them including labour.

Cabinets - Dark chocolate brown shaker style for kitchen and antique cream white shaker style for bathroom, both with brush chrome knobs.

If you are building a house, don't forget to ask if you can have the option to select different cabinet for the bathroom and kitchen! Our full bathrooms are all upstairs, there is no reason the bathrooms and the kitchen have to have the same cabinets!

At first, we have choose this new product - theremofoil cabinet doors; they are basically plastic pressed into shaker molds but we decided for the kitchen we will spent the extra $1000 to upgrade to wood cabinet door instead. Somehow installing plastic cabinet doors next to the oven doesn't sound save to us.

Countertop - Medium grey stone looking laminated countertop for kitchen and soild dark chocolate brown laminated countertop for bathroom. We were hoping for solid countertop but they are way too expensive; laminated is part of the builder's standard, so it won't cost us extra. With solid countertop, we are looking at around $5-6000 extra. We really like undermount sinks, but I guess we will just have to save up and replace the countertop later.

Floor - For the main floor, we went with medium hazelnut brown hardwood and 13 x 13 tile (same as backsplash) and we will have the tiles lay in brick/stack pattern instead of the traditional grid pattern. For the stairs and second floor, we went with cream color berber carpet and 13 x 13 tiles.

Walls and Trims - Upgraded the baseboards to 4-inch flat and for wall color we have select General Paint - Tracing Paper and for all baseboard, doors and trims, we selected General Paint - Bonaparte. What we don't understand is how come upgrading to flat baseboard costs more than having traditional baseboard that has pattern on it ...

Window Treatment - We have decided NOT to purchase any as $1000 worth of blinds will only cover 4 windows. We find wood/faux wood blinds at Sears.ca much cheaper and they even cut it to size for you. The only problem is you have to order online, so we are not certain of how they look like in reality.

Paint Colours

Accent - Blizzard

Doors/Trims - Bonaparte

Walls - Tracing Paper

Hardwood

Glass Tiles

House Part II - Elevation, Extior Color & Decor, Upgrades

2008-10-21T11:20:00.014-06:00

The next step is to pick the elevation and we selected the simple one which should make the house appears larger:

We had also decided on the following exterior colours and decor:

Siding - Satin Grey

Trims - Old World Blue

Door - Stratus

Stones - Chapel Hill

Here is a list of upgrades we have so far selected; these are the upgrades that will most likely affect the building process, so we must decide on them before the blue print gets drawn.

Exterior upgrades:
- Add 6-inch curb to parking pad.
- Add stone (Chapel Hill) to the column bases.
- Paint front door in color - Stratus.
- Remove couch door lights and replace with 3 pot lights on veranda.
- Upgrade parking pad to 21"-23"
- Upgrade rear entrance door to 9-lite.

Overall upgrades:
- Add 6 fan bracing.
- Add 6 structural cable outlet.
- Rough-in security system.
- Upgrade all structural cable outlet to CAT-6.
- Upgrade to plywood sub floor.

Basement upgrades:
- Upgrade to 9 foot ceiling.

Main floor upgrades:
- Add raised eating bar.
- Add vacuum dust bin in kitchen.
- Remove decorative column in den and move wall in 6 inches.

Second floor upgrades:
- Replace ceiling light in ensuite with 2 pot lights.
- Replace make up table with second sink in ensuite.

House Part I - Location, Builder, Plan

2008-10-08T11:21:00.022-06:00

OK, I am still working on the Vegas photos but I figure I will provide a brief update on the house we are building first to tie you over:

The area we selected is called Terwillegar; it is southwest of Edmonton. As you can see, the neighbourhood is close to Anthony Henday (the freeway going around Edmonton) and yet short drive away from the river valley; it is also very close to Heritage LRT station. The neighbourhood is approximately 8 years-old, so it has a variety of amenities such as community halls, nature reserves, schools, transit center, shopping ... etc. We looked many other locations but found Terwillegar is the best; it is planned to really resembles a tradional community.

Remember when I was buying my condo and how I really enjoyed doing business with my builder - Daytona Homes? After comparing all the builders, we pick Daytona to build our first home as well. Dayton is the only builder in Edmonton who builds 16 inch joist instead of the code-required 24 inch; as a result, our house will be very structually sound.

By the process of elimination, we decided we want a two-story detached home with detached garage. We can't get used to the bi-level floor plans and are not crazy about the big giant attached garage in the front of the house, so we opted for a lot that has back alley access and we will build the garage in the back yard in the future. This way, our house will also have a front veranda.

When it comes to picking the plan, we knew there are two things very important to us, one is a decent size kitchen with decent counter space and one is a airy ensuite bathroom (I always dreamed of windows in my bathroom) and one of the Daytona's house plan - Touareg has both. To our surprise, many larger homes (~1800 Sq Ft) do not offer this style of bathroom.

Don't get me wrong, the decisions were not easy to make; the entire time, we felt quit surreal but yet we managed to make decisions alone the way. I think we were pretty lucky; we first decided on the location, then we decided on the builder and the plan. Everything sort of just falling into its places for us; we love the neighbourhood and it happens the neighbourhood still has lots for sale; we love the builder and it happens the builder is building in the neighbourhood we like; we love the house plan and no other builders' house plans attract us.

Then it's time for us to pick the lot where we want our house to be on and we picked Lot #41 on the South Terwillegar Drive; there are bus stops along the Drive, ample parking spaces. Also, we face a park rather than other people's homes and we are only 3 houses away from the pond.

House!

2008-10-08T09:49:00.002-06:00

Sorry for not updating the blog since I returned from Vegas (yeah, I know, you are waiting on the Vegas photos); I had been SUPER busy in the past month or so; I was helping Hardave buying his first home. And note to myself, never buy a lot to built a house in September ... because it is generally the busiest time of the year at work since how we both work for post-secondary education institutions.

So this is just a teaser, if you want the Vegas photos and details on the house, check back after Thanksgiving weekend as I am planning to sit myself down and get a load of work down ...

Improved Bus Services

2008-08-17T21:33:00.002-06:00

Sorry for not updating the blog since I have returned from Las Vegas, it has been insane both at work and at home recently. A more detail update to come but I just want to post a quick note on the improved bus services to my area. Currently, there is no bus services after 6:30PM and on Sundays. Starting this Fall, there will bus services every 15 minutes, evening services until shortly pass 10PM and Sunday services. Check out the schedule! I am very exciting, because now I can catch the after work aerobic classes until 6:30PM and still get home.

2008 Canadian E-Learning Conference

2008-06-17T06:43:00.003-06:00

It is 6:44AM and I have been up for hours; I don't sleep well on new beds. I am in Calgary until Friday to attend the 2008 Canadian E-Learning Conference, check out the program; I am specifically interested in the sessions on Accessibility.

So tired and sleepy ... but I will try to update later on what I have lerant today; there are two hand-on workshops happening today.

SF Day 7 - Golden Gate Bridge, Taiwanese Food, Golden Gate National Park, SFO-YEG

2008-06-07T19:34:00.002-06:00

Today was my last day in San Francisco; Hardave will stay behind to attend Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. He had also booked the same hotel but it was under a separate booking; so we had to move his stuff to the new room which wasn't that big of deal as the new room is on the 12th floor and much quieter.

To be honest, I can't wait to get back home and get back to the routine. I still have a lot of school work to do as I am in two courses right now and I am sure at work there will be a pile of e-mails and phone calls waiting for me to reply. Yeah, I know I am a bit of a workaholic ... but I am scheduled to attend a conference in Calgary the week after I return to work, so I just want to get as much done possible in the week that I am there. And it looks like July and August will be insane at work.

We quickly had some breakfast, moved Hardave's stuff to the new hotel suite, checked out of our old suite, packed my stuff in the car and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. We were a bit worried when we arrived as the parking situation was insane; there was nowhere to park. However, we found an overflow parking area and thought we will just have to pay for the parking but the parking ticket machine was broken, so it was free anyway! Scored!

The Golden Gate Bridge is very grand and the viewing area is also nicely done into a small garden with bike and walk trails. We would have probably walk the entire bridge but it was too windy, so we just did probably 1/3 of the bridge; we turn back after we reached the first anchor.

Also check out this panoramic!

I suggested that Hardave should take the opportunity of the rental car to come back later at night to take some night shoots. They will for sure look amazing.

I have planned even before I left Edmonton that I will make a special visit to the Taiwan Restaurant (445 Clement St) because I really crave for Taiwanese food but unfortunately, I was disappointed. I think the dishes they made there are southern Taiwanese style and I am more used to the northern style. Nevertheless, we did like the Taiwanese fired rice vermicellis and pork chops. Hardave was being very quiet and I thought it was because he felt sad that I am leaving! Turned out he wasn't feeling that great; he thought the sea bass he ate the day before was not good ...

After lunch we decided to stop by at the Golden Gate National Park; we walked around a bit but was a bit disappointed that a variety of places within the park requires entrance fee. We wanted to see the Japanese Garden but we were press on time and my camera had ran out of battery, so we decided to save the $4 USD entrance fee and just walked around. It is a nice park and I will definitely revisit; I will probably come on a weekday and come early on during the trip as it requires a lot of walking.

We still have an hour or so to kill so I suggested to check out Twin Peaks; the highest peaks in San Francisco. Hardave was feeling unsure about visiting it as I think he had never heard of it, but once we arrived, we knew we had made the right decision as there were lot of tourists. The view from the Peaks was amazing; you can see the entire San Francisco bay area. In addition to the Golden Gate Bridge, I will definitely return to Twin Peaks at night time for some great photo-ups.

After I squeeze out that little bit of juice out of my camera at Twin Peaks, it was time to get to SFO; my flight was at 6PM and scheduled to get into Edmonton around 10PM. We booked through Air Canada; however, the flights were operated by United Airline; there was no self-check-in kiosk in YEG but in SFO there is self-check-in service. I originally was going to check two luggage but it only allowed one as flying from SFO to YEG is considered to be DOMESTIC!!! At first I thought it was odd that Hardave drove to the domestic terminal to drop me off ... What a ripped off!

The flight was uneventful; the most enjoyful part was chatting with the boarding gate staff; they said airlines tend to overbook their flights out of SFO, so they always had to ask for volunteers who will take a voucher to flight at a later flight. I thought that will be okay as I don't need a hotel but my flight was nearly empty ...

The flight arrived at Edmonton pretty much on time and going through Canadian Custom and Immigration is always pretty fast. I got home around 11PM and actually unpacked a bit before I hit the sack.

So, I guess this concludes my visit to San Francisco. I enjoyed it and would definitely revisit or even consider moving there only if the US economic is not this low right now. There are few things I particularly did and didn't enjoy, I will make a post tomorrow to summarize them.

SF Day 6 - Sonama and Napa Valley

2008-06-06T07:39:00.002-06:00

We got up relatively early on Day 6 as we have a car reserved for 10AM at Hertz and the car rental place was very busy. We had some minor problems with our reservation because Hardave reserve the car via Hertz Canada, but it wasn't a big deal. While we were waiting to get our problems sorted out, I looked to the right of me and saw a familiar Alberta Operator's License at the counter next to us. Canadians are everywhere and we kept running into each other a city of almost 7 million people; the couple lined up in front of us to see Russell Peters are also Canadians.

We did book a car that has GPS which came in very handy. Our original plan was to go west and cross the Bay Bridge, drive through Berkerly to Napa but the rental car agent recommended to avoid the Bay Bridge as the city is building a brand new bridge next to it and the construction has caused some delay.

View Larger Map

So we changed our plan to go north and use the Golden Gate Bridge to get to Sonoma first. It worked out even better as the wine tasting place we planned to check out was on the way to Sonoma.

View Larger Map

We did some research and had decided to check out Mayo Family Winery's food and wine paring. The idea is certain wine compliment or contract the taste of certain dishes. The Winery hired a chef to create 7 dishes to paired up with 7 different wines and the chef was actually the person who does the presentation of the food/wine pairing.

I felt a bit tipsy, so Hardave and I stop by McDonald's to have more food ... To be honest, the drive from the Mayo Family Winery Reserve Room to Sonoma was a bit hazy for me as I am such a light weight, I felt quit sleepy after the tasting, so I sort of slept through the drive. When we were in Sonoma, we had decided to check out Sterling Winery as it features an aerial tram ride to the winery on the top of the hill. It reminded me of Mission Hill in Kelowna a lot. As you walk through the winery, the staff will give you 5 different wines to try.

However, I saw something disturbing thou. We arrived at the Winery around 4:15 PM and they closes at 5 PM, so many of the staff are starting to clean up. As one of the staff took the spit bucket into the bathroom to empty it out, a couple of desperate housewives look-a-likes reached over the counter and took the bottle of wine and pour themselves glasses.

I tried not to drink too much as I don't want to sleep through the drive back to SF! When we got off the aerial tram, we saw this kitty sleeping under the shades and by the time we were leaving, the kitty is still there; it was like the kitty had never moved! It was a very friendly kitty too, I wanted to keep patting it but we had to go as the last aerial tram was leaving.

For dinner, we decided to drive into Sausalito. It is a waterfront community with beautiful views! We cruised along the waterfront street and decided to eat at an Italian restaurant - Cacciucco Cucina Toscana at the end of the street. I had clam with homemade green pasta in spicy garlic tomato sauce and Hardave had sea bass.

By the time we finished dinner, we were super tired, so we headed home right away. Finding a parking spot downtown was a challenge; Hardave wanted a garage that will allow in-out privilege and the information the hotel has provided for us was outdated. Plus driving on hills with impatient drivers were very nerve-racking to me.

SF Day 5 - Poke Tuna, Well Fargo Museum, Little Italia, Gelato

2008-06-05T21:57:00.001-06:00

I think we were starting to get tired now from all the sightseeings ... We pretty much slept in, laze around in the morning and went to the Westfield Mall food court for lunch. Westfield Mall has Bloomingdale and Nordstorm on each side and they are high end department stores, so there are even two price range food courts in the mall. One is similar to our food course but cleaner, the other is like food court with Ikea furnitures and cutleries. I ordered a $15 Poke Tuna dish and it was AMAZING! Probably the best dish I had since I am in San Francisco; I think I am going to try and make it myself.

We then visited the Well Fargo Museum; Well Fargo is a bank now but it was first established during the San Francisco gold rush ear and it had a variety of business. For example, it operated couch transportation and pony express.

This couch can hold 9 passengers .... and you still think there is no leg room on the airplane?

We then walked up to North Beach to check out Little Italy and had some gelato; I discovered that I really like coconuts and mango gelato!

After visiting Little Italy, we decided to go see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull; I just want to say I can't believe there is a space ship in the movie and I am disappointed at it. We thought the movie theater is cool thou, it has 12 theaters but arranged vertically, so you have take like 12 set of escalator to get to the top theaters. And they still have Matinee price in the US!

We felt super tired after the movie; we hit the rush hour on our way back to the hotel and got into a little fight afterwards. We both had Quizno for dinner and went to bed early as we have a car reservation at 10 the next day as we are planning to drive up to wine country (Napa and Sonoma).

SF Day 4 - Lombard St, Crabs, SS Jeremiah O'Brien, SS Pampanito,

2008-06-05T21:15:00.004-06:00

We started the day by visiting the Lombard St, a. k. a the Crookest Street. It is one way downhill and VERY crooked.

People actually live on each side of street and there drive ways are part of the street! I wonder why the guy who was waiting for me to finish taking a picture so that he can get into his garage thinks about the tourists ... All of the houses have large windows and nice gardens outside, makes me want to live there ...

Afterwards, we decided to try some fresh crabs at Nonna Rosa Restaurant at #7 Fisherman's Wharf; I think I still like the Chinese salt & pepper fried crabs and steamed with ginger vinegar dipping sauce better. It wasn't bad, the crab was roasted and served with butter which really brings out the sweetness in the meat ... but I think I like it with more spice!

Once we finished our crabs, we took a strode on SS Jeremiah O'Brien (Victory Ship) and SS Pampanito (submarine).

Yeah, I am pretty sure there were no female personnels on board WWII ships ... They couldn't get away with this today! SS. Jeremiah O'Brien is one of the Victory Ship; the parts were made in assembly style by women in the homefront and then later reassembled; it's main responsibility in WWII was to transport arms and goods.

I think one of the strength of the relationships Hardave and I have is that we always amaze each other with the knowledge (sometimes useless knowledge) we each process. Hardave told me that SS Pampanito is not a nuclear sub so it cannot stay under water forever because it needs oxygen for the fuel consumption. I was like, duh, I should have know that; it makes sense. After the tour, we felt it will be appropriate to watch U-571 now.

I think I ate out too much; my stomach wasn't feeling all that great that evening, so I had some instant noodles for dinner instead of dine out and Hardave had Quizno!

SF Day 3 - Shopping, Cable Car Museum & City Hall

2008-06-03T15:48:00.003-06:00

I had decided to go shopping on the morning of Day 3 in San Francisco because I figured with the Canadian and US dollars being almost on party, buying stuff in US currency will worth a while. However, most of the stores in downtown area do not have sales. I did scores some basic items such as belts, handbags, jeans, shoes, undershirts ... but I was hoping to find some great career suits.

Hardave stayed at the hotel while I went shopping and we met up in the afternoon for lunch. This time, we ate at a small Thai place near by our hotel and after lunch, we went to the Cable Car Museum. At the Museum, we learnt the differences between Cable Car and Street Car (a.k.a Tram or Trolley). The cable car has no engine and power; it is moved by the cables embedded underground; the cable car operator clinches tight on and off the moving cable at appropriate times to move the cars up and down the hills and turn left or right.

When the cable car is making a turn, the cable car operator must let go of the cable at appropriate times to avoid ripping up the pavement because the cable is positioned underground in a 90 degree angle but the cable cars turn in a more smooth motion. Once the operator let go of the cable, the car just coast along the track to complete the turn.

These are the cables that moves under San Francisco streets and they power the cable cars.

Also, check out this video (4.31 MB, 19 Sec) showing you how the cable car operators turns the car around at the terminal. It was still early in the day after we had finished the Cable Car Museum, so we went to take pictures of the City Hall.

I just have to take a picture of this sign; I know what it "really" means but it is still funny!

City Hall

Asian Art Museum

Here is another video (5.9 MB, 26 Sec) that shows you a 360 degree view of the buildings around the civic district. On our way back to the hotel, I realized I have lost my 7-day SF Muni Passport ... I was pretty upset. I think it flow out of my purse when I took the map out to navigate; I felt so stupid as I have lose anything for a while now. Plus this is only the third day! We had to stop by at the Cable Car terminal to purchase another 3-day Passport which cost us another $18 USD.

The fun part of the day has yet to come; we went to a Shabu Shabu restaurant called Happy Shabu Shabu (1401 Fillmore St) in Japantown for dinner. Shabu Shabu is Japanese founde; instead of cheese/chocolate/oil, means and vegetables are cook in a tasty broth and then dipped in spicy sauce. We both ordered the beef shabu shabu and the beef was slice in very thin layers to ensure it cook quickly. Hardave seemed enjoyed it and I have promised I will make my own shabu shabu this winter as I have the equipments at home and I make a better and tastier dipping sauce.

SF Day 2 - Fisherman's Wharf & Alcatraz Island a.k.a The Rock

2008-06-02T21:36:00.000-06:00

On Day 2, we had ticket to visit the Alcatraz Island; there is only one official ferry company (Alcatraz Cruises) that runs the ferry services from Pier 33 at Fisherman's Wharf to "The Rock"; other companies only run ferry tours around the island and along the Bay.

We were at Russell Peters' comedy show until pretty much midnight the night before, so we tried and sleep in but were woken up by ambulances, car alarm, drunk people all night long ... The hotel is so old and the windows are not sound proofing at all; the windows also let in a bit of a cold draft which made it sleeping extra difficult. On the other hand, our duvet was huge, so our bodies were hot and our heads were freezing.

Anyway, we got to Fisherman's Wharf around 11 and walked along the pier until we had some clam chowder for lunch.

Hyde Street Pier

Alcatraz Island from Fisherman's Wharf

I had to take this picture below because I grew up in the area
North Point, Hong Kong and on Wharf Street!

Along Pier 39, there are a group of seals hanging around; we were rushing to have lunch so that we won't miss our ferry, so we didn't get to take pictures of them but I managed to record the sounds they make, check it out here (178 KB, 12 seconds). We had fresh New English Clam Chowder for lunch and discovered that Sourdough Bread is invented in SF!

Coit Tower from Fisherman's Wharf Pier 33

Thanks to Hardave for booking the Alcatraz Cruise before we left because when we were lining up around 1 PM, the ferry sales person announced all scheduled ferries had been sold out and the next available one will be tomorrow morning at 9 AM. The ride was very short, about 12 minutes; it cost about $25 and includes a very engaging audio tour narrated by formal prison guards and inmates. I highly recommended and I would be interested in doing a night tour next time when I visit SF again; apparently the night tour is more comprehensive. Now, please seat back and scroll through the pictures I have taken on "The Rock" and don't forget to clicky for biggy for the panoramic.

Jail House from the Ferry

In the 60's, a group of Native Indians occupied the island after the island is no longer a prison and tried to started up a Native Indian Colony; they didn't last very long as the island has very little resources and is heavily depended on the outside.

Guard Tower

Water Tower

Isolation Rooms

These damages on the floor was caused by a escape attempt gone bad and the military used heavy arms to kill the inmates who was holding up the jail house.

Light House, still in operation!

The Island now has a garden taken care by volunteers:

More Panoramics!

Recreation Area

San Francisco from Alcatraz Island

It was so windy on the island, you can see the strands of my hair
on the top left corner of this picture!

Through out the tour, we wished we had the movie - The Rock with us! We were planning to have some fresh crabs for dinner but I got sun burnt and the wind was just to strong, so we took the street car back to the hotel. I don't usually get sun burnt but my colleagues at work told me later that the UV light is stronger at the island because it gets reflected by the ocean water. Hardave just got darker ...

Dinner we ate a Japanese restaurant called Katanaya (430 Geary St), it is only a few blocks away from our hotel; we walked by the night before on our way to the comedy show and saw a bunch of Japaneses folks in the restaurant, so we figure it must be an authentic place to eat. I introduced Uni-Q (BBQ eel roll) to Hardave and I think he wasn't too crazy about it. Again, the shrimps in our Shrimp Tempera roll were very fresh. I wasn't too thrill about the Toro rolls either; the ones I am used are fat tuna mixed with fresh green onion, these ones were mixed with pickled vegetable which was too sweet and crunchy and overpowered the fat tuna.

SF Day 1 - Chinatown & Russell Peters

2008-06-01T21:06:00.003-06:00

After a day of traveling, we were pretty tired and wanted to take it easy, so I was surprised when Hardave suggested to visit San Francisco's famous Chinatown as it involves a fair bit of walking ... On the way to Chinatown we stopped by Union Square as well; SF has a lot of street people everywhere; more than I have seen in Victoria ... The weather is also not very good, cold, wet, and windy and we were under-dressed.

Academy of Art University

Union Square

Chinatown is large and crowded but was not what I thought it will look like; I thought it will be like a traditional market that I am used to in Hong Kong ... To be honest, I was a bit disappointed as everyone I talked to before I went to SF raved about the Chinatown and it just has a bunch of touristy gimmicks. However, we stopped at a small restaurant for Dim Sum and the food is 100 times fresher than we get here in Edmonton because they don't steamed the dishes until you order.

Chinatown Gate

Chinese National Party US Headquarter

This is a very special building to me; it belongs to the Chinese National Party; the Party my grandfather fought for in Chinese Civil War.

Financial District

We than walked back to the hotel to take an afternoon nap as we had tickets for Russell Peters' SF last show at 10PM which is way past my normal bed time. We woke up around 5 to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant - Colibri (438 Geary St); I discovered that dishes in SF are not only large but salty. I had Sopes Surtidos (3 small corn cakes each with chicken, pork and mushroom and cheese atop) and Sopa de Tortilla. Hardave tried the Carnitas (Michoacan style marinated tender chunks of pork, served with guajillo and chile de arbol salsa). When clearing the table, the waiter dropped one of the left over corn cakes on Hardave and ruined his new shirt ...

We got to the Cobbs' Comedy Club around 9:15PM and there were a tone of people lining up outside already. The couple stood in front of us just happened to be Canadians as well, so we stroke up a great conversation with them. We were a little worried about getting a good seat because it is general seating but they had ushers help finding seats for the audiences and we found a great spot on the second floor. There were 3 other comedians opening for Russell, one is Philippino, one is Hindu and one is Caucasian, so you can imagine the amount of cultural and racial jokes being told that night. We laughed so hard, our stomaches were in pain. I hope Russell comes to Edmonton soon with new skits ...

Today was also the day we first tried Cable Car, another famous SF icon. We bought a $24 7-day SF Muni passport that allow us to travel on all Muni services (bus, cable car, subway, & streetcar). One way fare for Cable car is $5, so the passport is definitely a good deal. The rest of the travel options will cost you $1.50 one way. After the comedy show, we caught the last Cable Car back to hotel and SF downtown is very sketchy at night ...

YEG - SFO

2008-05-31T09:48:00.005-06:00

We made it to San Francisco without any problems; well, Hardave sort of left home a bit later than he should have, so we didn't get to set together on the plane. The flight was delayed for about half an hour; we got in around 4:30 Pacific time and the cab ride from SFO to our downtown hotel is only about 30 minutes.

We unpacked a bit and went out for dinner; I totally forgot how large American food portion is ... We ate at Sears Fine Food (439 Powell St) a block away from Union Square; we ordered some calamari for appetizer and it was huge; we saved half and for entree, Hardave had seafood pasta and I had Asian style pork short ribs which I could only eat half. It is okay though because our hotel room is a suite with kitchenette so we just packed up the left overs for later. We also got some breakfast items and snacks as we don't like eating out too much.

We had a problem with our hotel room door lock; it was broken and wouldn't lock properly, so we had to change rooms. It worked out for the better, the room we ended up with is more spacious and the furniture arrangement was better.

Gaylord Suite #701

Clicky for biggy!

Podcast Producer Training

2008-05-27T22:14:00.003-06:00

I spent today and yesterday attending Apple's Podcast Producer Workshop at the U of A and it was very awesome. First, trainers like myself are paired up with system administrators and were each given a Macbook and a switch to create a server-client environment. Then we learnt how to set up the server and it was easier than I thought; the GUI was a lot simpler than I would have imagined and plus the manual Apple provided us has step-by-step instructions. However, I think experienced system administrators who has set up servers via command-line will still have an advantage over me as there are settings the GUI cannot get to. We learnt how the Podcast Producer was able to take an object, put it through a workflow and produce the final product.

On the second day, we spent the morning learning how to customize workflow by editing the plist. I have experience with HTML and XML, so editing the plist wasn't difficult; you just have to be very meticulous about format, spelling and syntax. Workflow is consisted of preflight, tasks and postflight and you can add as many tasks as you wish and they can be processed in parallel. We spent sometime looking at Quartz Composer, a tool allows you to create multimedia files using pre-programmed scripts. Then we discussed on how it can be integrated with Windows system, security and scalability.

I learnt a lot; especially my partner just happened to be Hardave as we just happened to be in the same workshop and he is great at explaining technical details in layman's term. Some of the attendees were struggling, so I feel very confident with my technical knowledge as I was able to grasp the server settings and workflow customization.

However, I was a little ticked off at the end. One attendee came up to me and asked me if I feel everything is "pretty much over" my head and I answered - "no" which surprised him a fair bit ... He was like, "oh, so you are getting it?" And I was like, "yeah, I set up my own web server at home ..." I am ticked off because I have never met the guy before and I felt he made a judgment on me because I am a chick and I don't look like a geek ... See, there were only 3 girls in the workshop as oppose to 20 other guys and 1 of the girls couldn't understand the material and the other looks a bit more like an IT person than I do ... Perhaps next time I should trade my business suit in for t-shirt and jeans ... Very annoyed :(

Mavis Teaches Easy Simple Weeknight Dinner Lesson #2

2008-05-22T20:11:00.005-06:00

I save half of the halibut steak from the night before, throw on a pot of rice and made some vegetable for the next evening ...

Sea Salt Fried Vegetable

Ingredients: 1 onion, 1 red pepper, 1 yellow pepper, 1 Tbsp of minced garlic, 1 Tbsp of minced ginger, sprinkles of sugar, 2 stalks of green onion, cilantro and parsley, sprinkles of sea salt

Equipments: Wok

Steps:

Slice all the vegetables.
Add oil to the wok and heat it at high heat.
Add minced garlic and ginger.
When it starts to sizzle, add the sliced peppers first.
Keep frying the peppers at high heat until it starts to turn brown; add the sliced onion.
Add sugar and keep frying all the vegetables at high heat until all are soften.
Turn the heat to low, sprinkle cilantro, parsley and sea salt. Serve as sides.

Tips:

I buy pre-minced garlic and ginger to save time; I know Hardave's mom also makes her own and freezes them into small squares for future use.
I really like the crunchiness and saltiness of the sea salt, so I don't fry the vegetable any longer after the sea salts are added otherwise the sea salt will dissolve.

Mavis Teaches Easy Simple Weeknight Dinner Lesson #1

2008-05-20T22:14:00.005-06:00

Sometimes, I just don't feel like cooking an elaborated dish when I get home after a busy day at work, so I learnt to throw quick and dirty dishes together; most of them involves only a few ingredients and require very little prep time. Combine with some left-over sides from the weekend, you got an easy simple weeknight dinner.

Steamed Halibut Steak

Steamed Halibut Steak (or Fillet)
My mom used to make this dish with those big bamboo steamers but now I invest about $40 for a small electric steamer instead.

Ingredients: 1 halibut steak or fillet, 2 stalks of green onion, 12 slices of fresh ginger, 2 Tbsp of Chinese rice cooking wine, Pan

Equipments: Steamer, small plate that will fit inside of the steamer

Steps:

Add water to the steamer and turn it on.
Spray pan onto the small plate and place the halibut steak/fillet on the plate; this will prevent the steak/fillet from sticking to the plate.
Pour Chinese rice cooking wine over the steak/fillet; most of the Chinese rice cooking wine is salted, so don't pour too much as you can add salt later.
Slice the ginger and green onion and cover the steak/fillet.
Place the plate in the steamer for 10-15 minutes.
When the fish is cooked through, it can be easily flaked off by using a fork. Remove the plate and serve the fish.

Tips:

Halibut can be expensive, so I normally buy them when they go on sale and freeze them in Ziploc bags. Before I go to work in the morning, I take it out of the freezer to thaw; if you forgot to thaw the fish, just put the Ziploc bag in hot water as a thin halibut steak/fillet will thaw quickly in hot water.
Sometimes if I remember, I will soak some dry mushroom the night before, slice them up and place them on top of the halibut. They must be soaked to soften the night before.
Halibut cooks fairly fast, so if this is your first time, open the steamer every 5 minutes to see if the fish is cooked through and of course different steamers can make a differences in cooking time.

DIY Candles

2008-05-18T14:24:00.003-06:00

As I have mentioned before, I have been using Candles at night to conserve energy, so I have a bunch of left-over candle scraps. Hardave have suggested to use the scraps to make another candle. First, filled a soup can with all the scraps and heat it in a pot full of water. The candle scraps melt very quickly; once it is all melted, pour it into a milk carton. I have find the small cream milk carton is the best size. When the melted wax is almost solid, insert a birthday candle in the center. Check it out, the big square one is the one I have made:

Mavis Teaches Cooking Lesson #1

2008-05-18T13:31:00.009-06:00

I love cooking and I hope to share with you some of the great recipes I have tried.

Honey Lemon Chicken with Roasted Garlic Gravy,
Asian Noddle Salad and Orange Horseradish Dip

Honey Lemon Chicken
I first saw this recipe on Edmonton Journal and I made a few changes; it tastes great both hot and cold and is great for Spring/Summer.

Ingredients: 6 Chicken legs with thighs attached, 6 lemon, 2 Tbsp sea salt, 2 full garlic heads, 1/2 cup honey, pinch of ground black pepper and sea salt, 1/2 onion, 1 cup of mushroom, 1 Tbsp corn starch

Equipments: Large Ziploc bag, baking sheet, aluminum foil, Pan, brush, turkey baster, small pot

Steps:

Put the chicken legs, lemon juice and sea salt in the ziploc bag; mix them well and store in the fridge for at least 6 hours (no more than 1 day). Turning the bag occasionally.
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degree C, warp the baking sheet with foil and spray with Pan.
Cut the top of the garlic heads to expose the cloves and wrap them in foil; place the wrapped garlic and chicken legs on the baking sheet; bake for 20 minutes.
Heat honey until it is pourable; brush honey all over the chicken legs and bake for another 20 minutes.
Bast the chicken legs with the pan juice then bake for another 20 minutes.
Remove the garlic; reduce the heat to 325 degree C; bast the chicken legs with the pan juice then bake for another 20 minutes.
Bast the chicken legs one last time; pour any left over honey over the chicken legs and sprinkle with sea salt and ground black pepper; return them to the oven for another 20 minutes.
Slice the onion and mushroom; saute them in a small pot. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of its skin and add them to the pot.
Turn the oven off; plate the chicken legs on a platter, separate the legs with the foil to prevent them from sticking to each other and returned to the oven to keep warm.
Pour the pan juice into the small pot with the onion, mushroom and roasted garlic; cook at high heat until it boils.
Mix corn starch with cold water and pour into the small pot as the gravy is boiling; gravy will start to thicken. Turn the heat down immediately to low to keep warm.
Serve the chicken legs with the gravy.

Asian Noodle Salad
This is my own invention ... I pretty much use whatever ingredients I have on hand, so every time it tastes slightly different.

Ingredients: 4 squares of egg noodle, 1/2 head of garlic, 6 slices of ginger, 1 red and 1 yellow pepper, 1/2 onion, chopped cilantro, green onion and parsley.

Sauce: Chili sauce, chopped garlic and ginger, honey, oyster sauce, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame paste.

Equipments: Large frying pan and large pot, small bowl, strainer.

Steps:

Boil the noodles in the large pot.
Chop the garlic and ginger; reserve half for the sauce; saute the other half in the large frying pan under high heat.
Chop the red and yellow pepper and onion; add to the large frying pan to saute.
Drain the noodle and run cold waters over it to cool it down then add the cool noodle to the frying pan and fry the noodle lightly.
Transfer the lightly fried noddle and vegetable to a server platter and add sesame oil to the noodle prevent it from sticking together.
In the small bowl, mix all the sauce ingredients; adjust the taste to your liking. Pour the sauce over the noodle and sprinkle with chopped cilantro, green onion and parsley.
Store in the fridge and serve at a later time.

Tips:

You can replace the sesame paste with almond or peanut butter.
Although you can replace the vegetables, try and pay attention to the colour of the vegetables; I always try to make sure there are green, red and yellow colours.

Orange Horseradish Dip
Originally, this recipe I saw on a grocery store flyer is meant for beef but I found it goes well with chicken too.

Ingredients: 4 Tbsp of horseradish, 2 Tbsp sour cream, 1 tsp frozen orange juice

Steps: Mix all ingredients; store in the fridge and serve at a later time.

Tips: You can replace the orange juice with any citric juice.

Smmer Plan

2008-05-11T20:42:00.003-06:00

This Summer is going to be a busy one. Ever since I returned from Atlanta and recovered from being extremely ill, I had been very busy at work. Currently, I am moving from Instructional Media and Design to a new department called Faculty Commons; it is a one-stop faculty service depot, similar to the Teaching and Learning Center at U of Victoria and University Teaching Services at U of Alberta.

To promote the new Faculty Commons, my colleague - Jon and I had been planning for some Blackboard events. We planned 5 sessions of the 4-hour Planning to Use Blackboard workshops and a Blackboard Course Showcase. After attending the 4-hour Planning to Use Blackboard workshop, participants will not only gain an understanding of all of the tools and functions available in Blackboard, they also learnt how complex each of the tools are and how much time they are required to commit when a tool is selected for their course. At first, I was skeptical about delivering a 4-hour workshop; I wonder how much participants will be able to obtain for such lengthy instruction. However, I have only received good feedbacks so far after facilitating 2 sessions already; the participants said they felt the time went by very fast. For the Showcase, Jon and I have invited 5 faculty members from different subject areas to showcase the Blackboard course they have designed; hopefully other College instructors will find them interesting and will learnt something from them.

We are also physically moving office early next week; I am all packed up but it looks like we will have to reconfigure our own office furnitures as the Facility dept. is swamped ... So I will be wearing crappy clothes and bringing my electrical drill/screwdriver to work tomorrow.

This summer might be a summer full of traveling and challenges:
In early June, Hardave and I are planning to visit San Francisco and see Russell Peters perform prior to the WWDC Conference. We got a good deal for hotel; $110 a night include kitchenette and wireless internet. Later on, I might be attending the Canadian E-learning Conference in Calgary and BB World in Las Vegas.

The College is hosting 45 or so Chinese instructors in late July and I have been asked to be trained to become a certified facilitator and help facilitate workshops planned for these instructors. I have also been helping Dan and Naoko's new business - Omnibus in recording tour scrips in Mandarin and it hasn't been easy. I have some minor problems annunciating properly which took me some time to practice to get over but the translating portion has proven to be more difficult than I originally thought. I really need to study up on my Mandarin and Cantonese.

In additional to the certified facilitator training mentioned above, I have signed up for one Graduate course and work signed me up for the Barrier Free E-learning course which I will be able to learn about accessibility issues specifically related to e-learning. Also, I might be attending a two full-day training on Apple Producer (podcast server and software).

Meanwhile, Hardave and I are trying to find time to take some cooking, massage, photography and wine tasting courses ... And of course we planned to enjoy all the summer big-ticket blockbuster movies; we planned to start with Ironman next Monday. We have already been to the Edmonton Zoo to visit my new found obsession - Red Pandas; I will post some pictures next time.

It is going to a busy but fun summer!

I need 48, no wait, 96 hour days!

2008-04-02T21:07:00.002-06:00

Why do programmers have to be so smart to invent RSS and the podcasting technology? Why do journalist have to be so responsible and produce quality podcasts?! WHY?! I think I am drowning in a sea of quality podcasts ... Currently, I have over 600 new podcasts to listen to and they won't fit on my 8GB iPod Nano already. My recent new beaus are NPR's Fresh Air, PRI's various documentary programs and WNYC's Radio Lab.

It is from listening to Fresh Air that I discover The Mande Variations by Toumani Diabate; Toumani Diabate is from Mali and he is a master Kora player and Kora is a string musical instruction from Africa. When I first heard the music, I thought it was Spanish Guitar (which I like as well), so I was very surprised to learn it is African related.

Radio Lab is a natural science show that is so good that I wish I can buy a copy of the program after listening to only 2 of the episodes! Its first episode is about the nature of stress; I always thought a little bit of stress is good because it keeps me on my toes but turns out that the modern day stress is no longer beneficial to us human being. Researchers say the stress we experience when facing the fight or flight situation is absolutely necessary because it keeps us alive, but today we often are stressed about things such as traffic and work which are not life or death situations and can be harmful to us.

My another favourite show is NPR's Bryant Park Project; on Monday's podcast I learnt that Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran passed away at the age of 65; he was also a Cambodian genocide survivor. His partner Sydney Schanberg gave a haunting interview about his relationship with Dith; Dith was Sydney's assistant when Sydney was reporting in Cambodia during the civil war and they later became life-long friends and Sydney helped Dith later escape from Cambodia. You can listen to the report or read the transcript here and I planned to read Sydney's book - The Death and Life of Dith Pran.

A lot to catch up!

2008-03-23T11:19:00.004-06:00

Man, I seriously hadn't been this sick for years! The illness actually started almost 2 months ago; I felt dizzy, headache and nauseas often and thought was inner ear infection. When I was in Atlanta, I didn't feel at my best either and I flew in on Sat, by Sun I was sick, very sick. Started with a serious headache; I never had a migraine but the headache was killing me; it made me wanted to puke. Hardave measured my temperature and luckily I didn't have a fever. I kept taking over the counter medication; they sort of relief the symptom a bit but I was still very miserable. I figured at the time it must be a cold or flu which will just go away if I take in lots of fluid and rest, so I took two days off work. By Mon and Tue, my headache was gone and the illness moved down to my sinus and nose. I went to work on Wed and my throat started to hurt and there were a lot of mucus and phlegm. A combination of cough syrup and pain killers didn't help much; by Fri, my throat was in serious pain, so we went to the clinic as I couldn't get an appointment with my family doctor until the week after.

The doctor at the clinic figure I have some sort of infection, so he prescribed me some antibiotic. It did cure me but gave me really bad side-effects, so my family doctor gave me some other antibiotic that is even stronger but less side-effect then the first one I have. It caused a list of completed different side-effects I tell you ... but it certainly is treating the infection, I feel 99% healthy now and I still have 2 more days of medication to finish (always finish the antibiotic they prescribe).

Since how I am feeling great now, I thought it is time for us to catch up a bit. My trip to Atlanta was SUPER fun. I learnt a lot at the conference and met a lot of interesting folks in education institutions around US. I went to CNN with Leo, a participant I have met at the conference; we get to see how the control room, weather report and teleprompt works. Turns out they no longer use the blue/green screen technique for weather report; they use a rear image display system so the weather reporter can actually see the image when they are trying to point to a spot. We saw the news room and learnt that from receiving to approving to writing to editing a piece of news, it can be done in 5 minutes.

Before I flew out, I had some time to kill so I went to visit Coco-Cola:

I guess Coco-Cola is very popular in Asian ... The most interesting part of the tour is to see a short film made of a bunch of international Coco-Cola ads. One particular catch my attention was from Malaysia; Malaysia is made up with different Asian races and the ad shows a Muslim girl painting hanna onto a Hindu girl's hand before her wedding; it was very touching for me.

NOTE to yourself, if you are every flying out of Atlanta airport, apparently it is the most busy airport in the world (I am not convinced of this, wouldn't Heathrow be pretty bad?) It took me about an hour to line up and get through security. Folks in Atlanta are very friendly; I loved the Southern hospitality. I found folks who work in customer services are genuinely nice to tourists; I was waiting for the airport shuttle and 3 hotel staff came to ask me if I have been helped. And they are not afraid of touching you! The waitress at restaurants will wink and nudge me with her shoulder! That is something you do not see here in Canada and I know some people will be offended if that happens to them. I loved it thou!

I have had great conversations with the folks I met at the conference and on my flight back; the guy who sat down next to me for lunch was on the same flight with me to Minneapolis, so we started to chat. We talked a lot about health care, illegal immigrants, sup-prime mortgage crisis, US election ... I was shocked that it is only recently some states in US that have decided hiring an illegal immigrant is unlawful! It has always been illegal to hire illegal immigrant in Canada! On the contrary, most of the US people were shock that we can basically have an election whenever we want! Personally, I like to shock them by telling them how cold this past winter had been!

And I just realized I have some old photo from my XMAS trip to Victoria:

I made these above 2 documents, in, like, early 2000; I can't believe they are still using them!

Most of my old colleagues have left but here are some familiar faces - Ikuko and Greg!

Happy Easter everyone, I have been pretty much lay around and enjoying the 4-day long weekend. I made a lot of different type of food: cedar plank BBQ salmon, pickled cauliflower, roasted vegetable with pesto sandwich, seaweed soup, spicy sausage pasta with sun-dried tomatoes. I watched Atonement, Born into Brothels, Elizabeth The Golden Age, Gone Baby Gone, Lust Caution, Michael Clayton. I listened, like, a million podcasts and I guess the only thing that I really missed is I didn't get to read too much ... And of course, not much house work and cleaning are done ... Oh wait, that is not entirely true, I clean the bathtub ...

Mysterious iPod

2008-03-15T08:03:00.002-06:00

You might remember my previous post on how my iPod has been behaving badly, see post Problematic iPod and Planned Obsolescence. Basically, my iPod has been displaying the following 2 symptoms:

1. Persistent "firewire error" that will not go away even if I follow the instruction to press the center button; restarting doesn't help either.

2. It no longer will turn off when press and hold down the bottom button or select Sleep on the menu.

After more researching on Apple's discussion forum and someone suggested the problem #1 is caused by debris in the connector and a blast of the compressed air can be helpful, so I did and problem #1 did go away; the error message reappeared shortly so I tried the blast of compressed air again and ever since the error message have been staying away. But I still couldn't turn my iPod off.

After a week of two, it started to hum, turning itself off after I pause and lock the iPod ... So I tried turning it off both using the click wheel and the menu, both worked! Awesome, it fixes itself! I don't know exactly how it did it; I am just glad it is working perfectly now.

Sicker then ever

2008-03-12T14:26:00.003-06:00

I am back to Edmonton and I have pictures to post and stories to tell from my Atlanta, GA trip but I am sick; I haven't been this sick since I was in Grade School. Check back later for my trip to Atlanta.

Atlanta Bound

2008-03-03T17:41:00.001-07:00

I am sick and tomorrow I am heading to Atlanta for a 3 day conference, that is all I have to say for the time being; will blog about the experience once I arrived ... that is, if I am not feeling like crap.

No more Bill Maher!?

2008-02-21T10:43:00.003-07:00

I have been a big fan of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO but ever since the WGA strike is over, HBO has decided to restrict the access to the show's podcast to US ip addresses only. So I guess there will be no Bill Maher for Canadians or ANY US citizens living outside of US ... There are quit a bit of uotrage on the net, check it out here and here and here.

I understand if the WGA contract prohibits them for making the podcast available for listeners outside of US but what I don't understand is how did it happen to Real Time with Bill Maher! Bill is suppose to be one of the smart ones ...

Thank god that NPR programs are still available but I really need my Bill Maher fix ...

Good Job: Global Edmonton News Hour

2008-02-14T11:01:00.004-07:00

Ever since I started to listen to podcast, Global TV has provided Global National with Kevin Newman and Calgary News Hour, but not Edmonton News Hour. I waited for a few months and finally was a bit fed up; not because there is always a rivalry between the Calgarians and Edmontonians, but because I simply enjoy Global National with Kevin Newman and would like to listen to the local news.

So a few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to the Global Edmonton office and to my surprise, I got a reply and a prompt one, AND it was from the News Director himself apologizing for the inconveniences. He expressed how frustrated himself is in regards to the same issue and reassured me that his IT folks are working on it.

Today, I went to iTunes to check and see if there is any new podcast and there it is - Global Edmonton News Hour! Good job and keep it up, Global TV Edmonton!

New Addictions

2008-02-08T21:00:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone, my name is Mavis and I am an addict ...

Well, it is just too easy to be environmentally friendly! I have been recently addicted to recycling; I often wash food wrappers and frozen dinner containers, so they can be recycled. Oh, and I even recycle the teabag wrappers. Also, I have started to put grocery items directly into my backpack instead of using up extra plastic shopping bags and use a travel coffee mug when I buy hot drinks. I think what I might try next is getting a small compose for my balcony ... Any suggestions?

I am also a full blown podcast addict now; kudos to the WGA strike, I have stopped watching television and discovered the best new medium - podcast. My favorite podcast are Times UK's The Bugle, Filmspotting, Global National with Kevin Newman, iTunes' New Music Tuesday, NPR's Bryant Park Project, Fresh Air, and Pop Culture and HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

When I am excited about a podcast is often because the podcast has great host(s) who can really draw my attention to the topic of discussion. One of The Bugle's host is The Daily Show's John Oliver, his dry sense of British humour cracks me up a lot. Filmspotting is hosted by Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson; their casual conversation combine with their in depth cinematography knowledge always makes me feel I am getting an honest opinion on which movie I should spent my $11 on this weekend. Kevin Newman adds a lot of personal touch to the pre-written news he reads and ITunes' Kim Monroe is upbeat and genuinely excited about the music she introduces. Bryant Park Project's main host is Allison Stewart but it often has a guest host; they are generally very sharp and entertaining. And there is of course Bill Maher, he is very cynical and listeners be aware, he swears a lot because it is HBO ...

Of course the host(s) doesn't make a podcast great without great format and materials. NPR Pop Culture and Movie are made up of excerpts from many other NPR programs. For example, the movie Cloverfield might be reviewed by different critics and discussed in various NPR programs, the NPR Movie podcast will pull those experts related to Cloverfield together and deliver to its listeners.

iTunes' New Music Tuesday has built-in chapters so if you hear a genre of music that you don't care much for, you can simply skip it. NPR podcasts also do a very good job at providing a description of the content.

Last but not least, NPR's Bryant Park Project (BPP) is hands-down the best podcast because of both of its format and material. It is geared towards a younger crowd of listener compare to traditional NPR listeners, so they discuss a lot of current issues and trends in pop culture such as environment, US election ... etc. They talk about serious stuff by in a very casual entertaining way. For example, the show has a segment called - Make Me Care where the show invites the people who are involved in an issue to convince the listeners why they should care about the issue in 60 seconds. Another example is the Riped Off, where the BPP saw an interesting report on an issue but instead of re-reporting the issue, BPP invites the original reporter to come on to the show and discuss the issue in detail. BPP also has a blog where it displays some of the topic discussed in the podcast visually.

It is on the BPP where I first heard of the Pangea Day - a day (May 10, 2008) where people around the world are encouraged to stop their daily business and watch documentary films on humanity; the organizers are hoping through watching powerful documentaries on various humanity topics can help us to bond as human beings.

Freezing Ass Cold ...

2008-01-29T17:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Edmonton's temperature was as low as -32.4 C and as high as -27.5 C, but of course, with the windchill, it felt like -40 C especially at suburbs (where I live). I don't mind being cold, it is standing in the wind waiting for bus and the heavy snowfall that really get to me. We didn't have too much snowfall but the wind drifted the snow everywhere, so at certain locations (which just happened to be around my condo unit entrance) the snow are piled up to knee high.

It was an absolute mistake to try to get home last night; first the bus was delayed and as a result, I had to wait out in the cold for about 20 minutes to get on a bus that used to go near my place (it had just recently changed its route but I didn't know ...). Luckily, I saw the bus that I need to take passed by and I jumped off the one I was on and made a run for it. Then I had to walk about 10 minutes from the bus stop to my condo. The side walk leading to the condo, the condo parking lot and my condo unit entrance was covered in small mounts of snow; I had Sorel boots on but the snow were still up to my knee.

This morning was about -45 C; I tried putting on a pair of 12 year old snow pants (which I had purchased when I first arriving to Canmore as an exchange student in 1995) that no longer fit (well, I think it will fit if I just wear long john underneath it, not long john and then another pair of pants). So, it was walking in the knee high snow to the bus stop all over again. What was worst was today, I had a doctors appointment and an orthodontic appointment and I teach tonight from 6-7PM ... at a campus that is an hour bus ride away from the main campus ...

I blamed myself for the mistakes; we knew the weather is going to be extremely cold, we had a car in the weekend and we were at my place on Sunday; we should have planned ahead and packed enough clothes so I can live with Hardave in the city temporarily.

Planned obsolescence

2008-01-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

If you have visited the Story of Stuff website and read my previous post on problematic iPods, you know what planned obsolescence is and how I have been having problems with my iPod. It had just recently gave me another scare; after charging it all night, it suddently wouldn't turn on anymore and all the research I had done suggested the battery had die. I tried rebooting it, plugging it into my MacBook and an external poswer source but nothing; the screen remained dark. I was almost about to send it in to Apple and spend the $59 USD plus $6.95 USD shipping to replace the battery when I had an idea to plug it into my PC; I figured it can't hurt. And it WORKED! I was able to reboot it and now it seems to be working fine. It still won't go to sleep unless I plug it into a power source but I think I can live with that for now.

Sigh, it had only been 14 months old and I started to have problem last month! In other words, it started to have problem a month after the warrenty ended! Sounds like Planned Obsolesence to me ... I really liked Apple's product but when this iPod died, I will have to think hard on getting a second iPod or something else because I don't like the fact that you can't replace the battery easily. I was originally hoping to get an iPhone because I loved the idea of only have to carry one gadget for communication and entertainment but now I am having second thoughts ....

EarthHour

2008-01-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

I first saw this event on the Facebook and decided to check it out; since how my new year resolution is to try to reduce, reuse, and recycle more, EarthHour seem to fit the theme. And OMG, you should really check it out, I highly recommended. The website is http://www.earthhour.org. The idea is to promote energy conservation by asking the world population to turn off their lights, unplug their electronics ... for an hour on March 29, 2008 at 8PM and the goal is to reduce the global energy consumption by 5%.

It really made me think; every since I got rid of my cable subscription, I have been listening to digital radio and podcasts more often and I figure why not turn off the lights and light some candles while listening to my favourite shows! I made sure I have candles around the house and kept them all lighted; when I need more light then I turn on the lightbulbs. It has been working pretty well! You should try it.

A Problematic iPod Nano and Cole's Note

2008-01-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

After Krishen's iPod committed suicide, I am afraid 8GB Nano almost died of exposure as well. I dropped it on the snow a few weeks ago (what can I say, I live in cold country) and some water got into the connector, so now it periodically shows a "firewire error" and refuse to go to sleep unless it was attached to a power source. I have googled it many times in attempt to fix it; well, the "firewire error" message has gone after I baked it over a heat register for few hours but it still won't go to sleep. Sigh, it is only a little over a year old.

Hardave said I need a Cole's Note on the jokes I hear; I thought that was very funny and I love a boy who can make me laugh.

Story of Stuff

2008-01-05T22:57:00.000-07:00

Hardave and I had decided not to buy each other birthday gift last year; instead, we just took each other out for a nice meal at fancy restaurants. We weren't going to buy each other XMAS gift but I saw a wonderful nature show called Blue Planet produced by BBC and decided to get it for him for XMAS, so we did exchange XMAS gifts. I am pretty happy with this XMAS because it was pretty non-commercial. I tried to encourage my friends to not to buy me any presents and most of them respected my wishes; my reasoning is that I make reasonably good money and in the rest of 364 days of the year, if I need something say like an iPod, I can just go out and get one; I really don't need to wait until XMAS time. I really feel very good about this XMAS; my best gift to all my friends is being able to visit with them in person! :)

I recently was introduced to this website - http://www.storyofstuff.com and I highly recommended it. It explains how our favourite daily "stuff" is extracted, produced and distributed and during these processes our environment and those less fortunate workers are being exploited and the most saddening point is - we ONLY use 1% of these "stuff" for more then 6 months! That mean we throw away 99% of the stuff we purchase in less than 6 months time!!! If you care about our environment, watch the video on the website above.

So, my new year's resolution for 2008 is to try and reduce consumption. Instead of using plastic bags, I am going to bring my own reusable cloth bags for grocery shopping. Instead of using foam take out containers, I am going to bring my own food containers to take left over home when I eat out. Happy Reduce, Reuse and Recycle in the new year everyone!!!

Victoria Day 3-10

2008-01-02T22:32:00.002-07:00

Day 3 in Victoria was spent on UVic campus as well; got to have a good long chat with Coreman.

Day 4 consisted of having brunch with Krishen, Lori, Nick at our favourite breakfast place in Victoria - The Blue Fox Cafe; Krishen and I did some last minute shopping at the Hillside mall and went to hang out at his parent's place for the rest of the afternoon. It was great to see Krishen's parents; Krishen's mom is a great painter and I got to view some of her best paintings. Jack, Krishen's dad also bought out some of Krishen's baby picture for a good laugh. After the visit at the Greenwells', I went downtown to meet up with PC and Sam for some much needed Chinese hot pot dinner; we ended up ordering way too much then our stomach can hold.

Day 5 - Krishen and I arranged to visit Carla, Mark, Elena and Imrie in the morning and I spent the afternoon resting, reading and watching Heroes with my hosts. I was starting to get very tired ... In the evening, I had dinner with Dan, Naoko and their friend Kathleen; I slept over at their B & B as they had some empty rooms due to the raising Canadian dollar.

Day 6 - Dan and Naoko drove me in their vegetable oil fueled truck to UVic where I had lunch with Eugene, Tara and Tony. I was REALLY tired by the afternoon, so I headed back to Lori and Nick's place to just laze around and read Jeff Lindsey's Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Lori and Nick went for a hike to mout. Finnlyson with their neighbour Bradley, who invited us for Christmas Eve Dinner a. k. a. Turkey Dinner #1.

Day 7 - It was XMAS and another lazy day for myself and my hosts; we watched more episodes of Heroes. In the afternoon, we started to cook Turkey Dinner #2. Lori's sister Angela came for dinner and gift-opening.

Day 8 - It was time for dim sum! We went to Jade Fountain and it was quite busy but we manage to get a table quite quickly; my hosts though it was because I told the manager that we need a table in Cantonese; I think it is just easier to get a smaller table. Then I got on the Pacific Coach Line to Vancouver to visit Tony, Jordan and April. Tony came and picked me up for dinner and we hang out until Jordan got home from his XMAS family visits.

Day 9 - The day got even lazier! I went to a have a quick breakfast with April and Jordan, then we got something at Futureshop and went home to rest. They have been traveling around to visit their families, so we were all very tired. The rest of the day consisted of mostly laying around the apartment, read and chatted.

Day 10 - Time to go back to Victoria! Had brunch with Tony again and man, traveling around is tiring, I was beat when I got back to Lori and Nick's place. Lori and I made turkey won ton for dinner!

Day 11 - Woohoo, time to go home! I loved visiting my friends but I think I was starting to miss my own bed by day 11. Vancouver and Victoria rained most of the time when I was there and trust me, it felt colder then -10 C in Edmonton. The humidity plus the ocean wind can really give you chills to your bones.

Some of the gifts Lori and Nick gave me got confiscated as I didn't check my luggage; my flight was scheduled to arrive at 11:40 PM and the last shuttle to Hardave's place was at midnight; I figure if I carry on my luggages then I don't have to wait for them. I met a wonderful lady from Edmonton; she introduced me to an author named James Lee Burke and I have listed it a book by him on my Amazon wishlist so I can try it out.

The Calgary-Edmonton leg was delayed; we didn't touch down until 11:55 PM and by carrying my luggages has paid off as a plan. I grabbed my luggages and walked straight out of the airport into the shuttle and made it to Hardave's place around 12:30AM. It was wonderful to see him and sleep in a bed that is sort of mine! :)

Victoria Day 1-2

2007-12-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry there won't be any photo for the time being because this older eMac in HSD Computing Facility won't read my digital camera; I will have to wait until I get back to Lori's place to use my laptop.

Anyway, I got up quit early to make sure I have enough time for the holiday lined-up at the airport but there were many unfortunately passengers who didn't and missed their flights. It was busier then I have anticipated but I had about 20 minutes to spare before they boarded my flight.

Victoria is SO nice; it is green, moist and warm. I was very impressed with myself as I still remember the town enough to give the shuttle driver direction to the HSD building where I dropped off my luggage with Eugene, then we went to our favourite Chinese restaurant - Lin Heung for lunch. After lunch, I went back to the campus and visited with many of my old colleagues.

A big thanks to Lori and Nick for putting me up at their townhouse; I was exhausted and went to bed about 9PM. I slept in until about 8AM and then I bought some doughnuts to feed the system administrators that I used to work with; had lunch with Greg and will be having sushi at Ebizo tonight with Brad and Sarah. Krishen is suppose to join us too but he got really sick; I hope he feel better soon because I am looking forward to spending quality time with him.

For now, going to go upstairs to visit Mary.

Final Assignment

2007-12-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

I have printed out the following pictures and will be submitting both of them as the Digital Photography class' final project. I really struggled with Assignment 3 - Portraiture and Assignment 4 - Composite. I am just not very into taking pictures of people and photoshoping an object into a container picture at the moment; I want to get the technique and the composition down first. So I think Hardave and I will be taking more lessons in the Spring/Summer. I am also hoping to be able to take some pictures when I am in Victoria.

I am quite pleased with the above two photos; I have printed them in 8x12 at London Drug as a test as I am planning to enlarge them to 16x20 eventually and have them framed.

Need to write this down ...

2007-12-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

The next time when I am second guessing of how much my boyfriend cares about me, I will forever remember the fact that he called me at work immediately after he had just woken up from surgery to let me know he was okay and called me again an hour later on my cell just in case I had called in sick at work and missed his first call.

A Victorian Christmas

2007-11-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

Just booked the tickets to spent my Christmas vacation in Victoria and Vancouver; from Dec 19 to 29. Lori already booked me for Christmas dinner; I have also made contact with Eugene and Mark C to arrange a get together, so if you want to see me, better start calling my scheduling people! :) Just kidding, I think I will be in Victoria from 19-21 to catch some of the UVic old-timers and then head over to Vancouver (22-24) to visit my best friends April, Jordan and Tony, then back to Victoria for XMAS day and the rest of the vacation (25-29). Just writing about it is making me excited, I haven't been back to Victoria for two years!

I did it!

2007-11-15T23:57:00.000-07:00

It is getting pretty late, so I am going to try and make this posting short and sweet.

As many of you might have already known, I am not super enjoying the Photography class I have signed up for; it focuses very little on technique and composition. Instead, it's major focus is post-production using Photoshop. I found manipulating digital photos somewhat time-wasting; I spent 7-8 hours a day working in front of a computer, so I really don't want to sit in front of the computer for more hours during my evenings working on fixing my photos. I don't mind getting rid of a power line or piece of garbage on the photos I have taken, but I really don't care much about removing that pore off someone's nose.

My next assignment is going to be digital composite photograph; it means I must "photoshop" two or more objects into one photograph. I was very dreading it because I can't think of any situation in the future I will need to do that; I just wanted to be able to snap a few good photos when I am traveling and these photos should be good enough so that I don't need to "photoshop" them.

The other problem I have is I am not very creative, I can't think of any two objects that I would want to photograph and composite them together ... So I started to go through some of my old photographs and you might remember this one from the traditional landscape assignment:

I have been applying various photoshop techniques to make this above picture more interesting (especially the sky is sort of boring and not very intense) but with not much success until I came across another picture:

I suddenly had an idea, why don't I "photoshop" this more-interesting sky onto the the other photo to replace the boring sky. With this idea in mind, I started to play around myself but the fuzzy tree branches were giving me grief, so I went online and searched specifically how to separate tree branches out of the background in Photoshop and I got lucky. I will try and explain the details on what I did later but here is the result:

Not bad huh? It took me probably about 2 hours but I will say I am not a complete beginner of Photoshop, so with the right instruction, things started to move towards the right direction very quickly. With great results in sight, I am now more excited about "photoshoping" my photos.

I hope it looks more vibrant on your monitor, I couldn't get it to display on the web the same as it is displayed in Photoshop despite changing the color profile of my laptop's LCD to Adobe RGB (1998), not sure what is going on but I think I will invest more at a later time.

Start the Car

2007-10-25T10:33:00.000-06:00

Hardave and I were totally reenacting the commercial last night after shopping at Ikea, except it was actually a mistake this time. Let's just say, we saved $60 bucks + GST on some table legs due to some minor human errors.

I have some friends from Canmore visiting this weekend; what a great excuse to clean up the condo and finishing up some home improvement. Pictures will follow after this weekend.

Locking myself out of the condo for the first time ...

2007-10-23T20:07:00.000-06:00

Clearly nobody reads my blog these days, so don't complaint next time when I go on hiatus again. Due to the lack of feedback (or none at all), I submitted the second last picture on my last posting; it printed very nicely after I have increased the contrast.

For the first time, I locked myself out of my condo this morning. I was all ready to go but forgot that I left my purse and keys on the dinning room table. I blame the American's for delaying the day-light-saving day; it is getting very dark and hard to get up in the morning. I also blame my door lock, it has a deadbolt and a door nob and the door nob is lockable.

Luckily, I had plenty of changes in my pocket so I figured I could just tough it out as I will see Hardave tonight and he has a set of my keys. Even more luckily, I ran into my construction manager as they are still finishing up a few of the last units in my condo development and he kept a copy of my key because he needed to let workers into my condo to do some fix-up. He was very nice though, he said he had locked himself out of his car two days in a row once and it was very frustrating.

Vote for my next Assignment submission!

2007-10-22T20:20:00.000-06:00

I know this is a bit of short notice but I am going to post the pictures I have taken for the VCPH 100 second assignment on traditional landscape, if you get a chance before tomorrow at 4PM SMT, please post a comment to let me know which one you think I should submit for the assignment. I haven't altered any one of these, planning to do it once I decided on which one to submit.

I'm a Podcast Mania!

2007-10-22T20:03:00.001-06:00

I have agreed to help two of my colleagues at the Library to do a Podcast workshop during this year's MacEwan Faculty and Staff Professional Development Day, so I thought I better start listening to some podcast to get myself ready for the workshop. Well, I mean, I know what podcast is and how it works, but I hadn't actually subscribe to a feed or watch/listen a podcast before.

So I went on iTune and wow, there are some great stuff and here is what my current subscriptions are like:

It has been great for those long and boring commute that I must endure twice a day and I particular found the Hong Kong Today podcast to be interesting; it has been starting its podcast recording with a public announcement letting the HK citizens know that the HK Police will be practicing shooting at certain parks and the public should try to avoid those parks. Hum, I am sure if the RCMP wants to practice shooting, they can just drive far out of town and they will find places without worrying the public walking into the crossfire!

Anyway, sent me some suggestions on what other podcast you listen to; I like world, Canada, HK, Taiwan, Alberta, Edmonton, BC, Victoria news, film reviews, political comedic talk show types of stuff.

Loss of Originals

2007-10-15T10:03:00.000-06:00

I was organizing all the photographs I took this weekend and sadly, I discovered that I lost all of the photo originals of my first vacation with Hardave; we went on that 5 day road-trip through The Rockies and I have all the photo originals from the Florida trip and my friend - Michelle's visit prior to our road trip and I have everything after the road trip as well.

I do have some low-res ones that I used for the blog but not the originals, very sad ...

Out of Hiatus

2007-10-14T15:08:00.000-06:00

Lately, I have been mainly focus on school. The MDDE 604 has been going very well; it is on Instructional Design - something I do have a good understand with already, so I got 85% for the first assignment. The same thing couldn't be said for the VCPH 100 course I am taking through the College; rather then focus on photography technique and composition, it is focused more on manipulating digital photographs using Adobe Photoshop. Don't get me wrong, I did learn a lot of stuff such as how to burn and dodge a photograph, but I was hoping to not have to fudge the photos I take in Photoshop; I want to take a good photo to start. Here are a few photos I took for the first assignment on Urbanscape:

All 3 have their contrast increased using the s-curve and have been burnt and/or dodged; I found the process very tiresome and the artistic concept hard to grasp - how do I know when a picture is done? Anyway, I am getting pretty good at using the manual mode and the light meter of my camera. Hardave also just purchased the Nikon D40X and a expensive tripod, we are planning to take more classes later together.

Next assignment is going to be on Traditional Landscape, I will more picture after the assignment is due.

Bellerose Place? I live in Summerside!

2007-09-20T19:22:00.001-06:00

My builder sent me a letter asking me if I will agree with the rest of the Bellerose Place owners for installing satellite dish. I selected yes and wrote in the comment area -"Sure, why not? I live in Summersid thou ..."

I looked it up online, Bellerose Place is in St. Albert, that is a completely different municipality outside of Edmonton!

A Mac Question

2007-09-17T21:49:00.000-06:00

Every Thursday, I take my laptop down to the MacEwan South Campus and work there for the day. My laptop is a Dell and I would like to hook it up with the 23 inch Apple Cinema Display in the eBox where I work. the Cinema Display has a DVI-out port and the Dell has a VGA-in port, both are male. So to connect the two, I will need a DVI-VGA converter, female on both end. But I have been looking all over the place and can't find one. You Mac users out there, any ideas? Hardave seem to think a digital display like Apple Cinema Display won't work with VGA-in ...

Update: Never mind, Hardave was right, I founded on Google and I need a Scaler such as this one - http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=4341 Sigh, they should have just bought me a MacBook Pro.

Is it Friday yet?

2007-09-11T21:01:00.001-06:00

After reading Krishen's post - So, I just want to say that I haven't had a proper lunch break for god knows how long; I have been working overtime, eating at my desk and skipping coffee breaks for the last couple weeks now. I don't know how the College Administrative thinks that my job should be a term position because there is CLEARLY enough work for 2 (if not more) Ed. Tech. Facilitators ...

Anyways, I learn something new about myself as a trainer - after working all day showing people on what to do, after work, I just really like to be taught as a student. I have signed up for two courses this term; one is to fulfill my Master degree requirement and one is purely for interest. The one to fulfill my Master degree requirement is a course on Instruction Design Principle which I am really looking forward to get started because I have been advising instructors on how to not only design a course online but how to design it properly for a long time and now I finally have the opportunity to put some of my knowledge to test. The other course I signed up for is through the College; as a benefit for all employee, we get to take a course a term for free and the one I picked this term is Digital Photography. I have been wanting to learn photography for awhile now and finally, I have a very economical opportunity.

Hardave and I also went to Edmonton Public School's Photography Classes Overview session last night where the instructors of photography classes provided an overview on ALL of the photography classes offered by Edmonton Public Schools. We learnt a lot and are both interested in not only the artistic sides of Night Photography but also the scientific aspects of it. However, Hardave is interested in more on trial-and-error on his own time and I am more interested in taking lessons from professionals.

I figure this is because I spend 90% or more my time at work training and after that, I just want to shut up and be a student.

Cable No More and Busy at Work

2007-08-20T21:23:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post to let you all know that I have finally did away my cable, I just don't watch TV that often, so I figure I can save $25 a month if I canceled it.

We are into the busy time of the year now at work; faculty members are slowing returning to work and I worked until 6PM tonight ...

Kelowna Panoramic Pictures

2007-08-10T23:48:00.000-06:00

Man, the last time I rendered panoramic pictures was on my old computer and it took sometimes over an hour to render one but now the new computer is so fast ... Don't forget to clicky for biggy!

Mission Hill Vineyard

Downtown Kelowna

Lookout from a Mountain

Since Kelowna

2007-08-10T21:49:00.000-06:00

Day 6 - Lori & Nick's Wedding
The wedding was absolutely beautiful and we forgot our camera, so you will have to wait for pictures later. The ceremony took place at the Gellatly Nut Farm; the wedding couple rented some white lawn chairs and sat them up under a canopy of nut trees. After the wedding, the couple headed for some picture taking and we went to the groom's parents house for the reception. The reception was very nice, all the guests just hang out at the lake front house, drank, ate and laughed. We had great conversation with many of the couple's family and really enjoyed everything. Too bad we planned to drive back to Edmonton the next day, so we had to leave around 10PM, just when the party started to get interesting as some of the younger crowds were changing into swim suits and jumping into the pool.

Kelowna - Edmonton
We got up reasonably early; around 8:30 AM and had our final breakfast with our host of the Shore_Line Bed and Breakfast - Abe. Abe had been a great host for us, he made us breakfast every morning and tried so hard to find things we like to eat; he always tried to change up the breakfast items. This was our first time staying in a B&B and we loved it, because we could care less about fresh daily sheets and towels. We love the variety of breakfast items, being able to use the BBQ to cook dinner and the fridge to store the 10LB cherries we purchased; Abe even gave us some bread to make lunches! We definitely will returned to Abe's hospitality and recommend staying at his B&B to anyone we know. Abe has high-speed wireless internet too for all of my geek friends!

The drive back to Edmonton was more painful then the drive to Kelowna, we think it might because we were sad about the end of our vacation and having to go back to work. However, instead of driving through Highway 1 and Calgary, we took Highway 97 and went through Jasper instead. Although it is longer in distance but the roads were wider and the traffic was less busy. So we made it in 12 hours, from door to door with stopping for food.

When we were driving through Jasper, we saw some animals and they are the ones we didn't see last year.

On the way back to Edmonton, we stopped at Hinton Boston Pizza for dinner and realized it is still legal to smoke in the lounge in Hinton and the service was pretty bad; it took a long time to get our bill. Last year when we visited Drumhiller, we had bad experience with Boston Pizza too, so maybe we should stay away from it when we travel.

We got home and crashed immediately; the next day was a holiday so we went out for breakfast and amazingly none of the neighborhood restaurants were opened. We ended up having lunch at Earl's and I ordered a Vietnamese Steak Sandwich which was delicious but again the service was super bad. Hardave ordered a glass of orange juice with ice and it came with a pint class 2/3 full of ice; he took two sips and the juice was gone. When we mentioned it to our server, he said he will have to charge us for the second glass and I said no. He did bring another glass of juice with no ice out but we were not sure if we will be charged at that point. Later the lead server came and asked us how was the food and services, so we told her about the juice, her reply was, "Well, you got a free one!" a.k.a "What are you complaining about?" If she doesn't want to know, then she should have asked! We were pretty upset, I wanted to pay with my credit card and leave 1 cent down for tips but we didn't want the cook to suffer as the food was tasty.

Edmonton has becoming the worse-service capital; we went to Superstore and when were ready to check out, it was 6PM and there were about a hundred people waiting to pay for their groceries but there were only 4 tills open. A guy who was in line with us had the worst luck, he went up to one of the tills and the cashier told him that she is closed, but later, she let a different guy through and the guy didn't even have to line up. Our cashier was also closing after serving us but she won't put the sign up to say she is closed and when people asked her if someone else will be replacing her, she replied, "I don't know, just look aroud."

So I have decided I will start a campaign to combat bad services, I will not tip if the service was unacceptable in a restaurant and will tip 20% if the service was exceptional. We have had very good services at many local eateries; for example, when I mentioned to the server that my salmon burger was too salty at High Level Diner, he not only told the cook about it and he took the entire meal off the bill. We were not expecting that because I have ate most of the burger. At my birthday party last year at Ric's Grill, we had close to 20 people at the table and our server served only our table that night, he didn't do anything amazing but he made sure he find out if it was a birthday party, who's birthday it was and made sure I got the gift certificate right at the beginning so he won't forget later, he got every order correctly and was always around when we needed something. Being able to serve such large table and made no mistakes, I will consider that to be good service. So, if you are reading this blog entry, join me with the campaign to combat bad services and maybe it will become a national (or even international) hit and we can get our own wristband for the campaign!

Kelowna Day 5

2007-08-03T22:34:00.000-06:00

Day 5 - Mandy & Me Horseback Riding, visited Lori, fixed tire, returned to Kelowna Land & Orchard
We got up quit early this morning to make sure we arrived at the ranch on time for our horseback riding appointment. It was so much fun; we rode about an hour and at some point we were trotting. We rode in the Okanagan Mountain overlooking the Lake, the scenery is amazing. The owner also had a black pig which we got to play with.

After the ride, we had a quick bite then visited my best friend Lori at his fiancee's parent's house in Westbank; we sat around and chatted, helped with wedding decoration and gave her and her sister a ride downtown Kelowna. We then headed to Hertz to look into a car problem: the Mustang kept displaying the tire pressure is low and despite Hardave checked the tire pressure and filled the one that is low, the tire pressure light is still on, so we thought we better take it to the car rental place and have it look at. However, we couldn't find it so we ended up calling them and they told us to just take it to mechanic and have it fixed for later reimbursement. So we went to Kaltire and they found the problem and fixed it in less than an hour; it was a nail!

Then we headed back to Kelowna Land and Orchard to get some fruit to take home; the staff there remember us from yesterday's tour and gave us a big welcome; we purchased 10 lbs of cherries to take back home; I plan to share them with my colleagues. Just when we were leaving, we saw the two goats fighting so we decided to check it out. They stopped as soon as we approached and one of the goat came up to the fence and stood up halfway to rest his head on the fence. So Hardave started to feed him apples!

Check out this video of the goat chewing at the apple (MOV, 11.7 MB, 50 Sec) as well!

Kelowna Day 3-4

2007-08-02T22:08:00.000-06:00

Day 3 - Calona Vineyard and Tree Brewery
Wed we visited Calona Vineyard because I really like their Copper Moon Harvest White and I couldn't find it anywhere in Alberta and had a hard time finding it even when I was in Victoria, so I bought a case of 12 to take back home. It is one of their cheapest white wine (the vineyard doesn't even listed it on their website) but what can I say, I am a cheap date; even the sales person at the vineyard store says that. And we got some free tasting; the sales person also told us that we can always order it over the phone and shipping for a case of 12 is only $9.

After lunch and a short drive we went to a local microbrewery - Tree Beer for a tour of the brewery; it was freezing cold, loud, and smelly but we learned a lot about beer making and of course, we bought a case of their Rebel beer home.

We bbq'ed some beef and chicken kabobs for dinner, so the day was pretty low key and relaxing.

Day 4 - Kelowna Land and Orchard
Today was the hottest day since we arrived in Kelowna, about 34 degrees, so we decided we will try to stay indoor and do very little. We slept in a little and after lunch, we decided to go visit Kelowna Land and Orchard. They have a tractor-pulled wagon tour and the tour guide is the best ever, he was so very funny. He also asked the kids on the tour to drive the tractor for him! There are also a lot of science went into orchard farming and both Hardave and I were very intrigued. One of the problem with apple farming is moths laying larva on the apples, so the scientists have managed to use radiation to neuter the adult male moths, so they can no longer reproduce. They also use twist tight that has pheromone that attracts male moths and caused the male moths to fly around and eventually die of exhaustion. Also, they spray calcium on the cherries to prevent them bursting and calcium is also good for our bodies, so it is not consider bad for environment or human.

After the tour, we got to taste the apple cider wine and ice wine they make and they are excellent; we ended up buying 2 bottle of large fuji apple ice wine and a cider wine.

Tomorrow, we are going horseback riding at 9AM and hanging out with Lori afterwards, I hope I can get up one time ... ...

Edmonton-Kelowna and Kelowna Day 1-2

2007-08-01T20:14:00.000-06:00

Edmonton-Kelowna
We got up quite early on Sun as we knew there will be a long day ahead of us and we were on the highway around 10AM. We were quite disappointed at a Italian restaurant in Revelstoke; the service was very slow, so we left and had MacDonald for dinner; it was fast food all 3 meals after all. The drive wasn't too bad, including stopping for meals and some sightseeing, we made it to Kelowna around 9PM Pacific Time; we totally forgot about the time difference but it turned out to be a nice surprise as we rented a Bed & Breakfast room, so arriving too late will result in the owner waiting on us.

Day 1 - Mission Hill, nap, Memphis Blue BBQ
We were quite tired after the 12 hour drive and the spacious room we have rented has a sky light right above our bed; as Hardave would say, "the 5AM sunlight was not pretty!" The owner of the B&B was wonderful, we had a selection of cereals, drinks, fresh fruit, yogurt to choose from and scramble eggs and toasts. We decided we will take it easy today and just drive around; we saw Mission Hill Vineyard on our way visiting Westbank (where Lori and Nick will be tying the knot), and we were immediately drawn to its beautiful structure and decided to take a tour. Since how neither of us know anything about wine, we decided to take the 1-hour tour including 5 wine tasting for $17 per person. We got to try an ice wine the first time and surprisingly, I like it better then Hardave considering I don't like sweets.

Still recovering from the 12 hour drive, we went back to our room and had a nap after an amazing yet expensive seafood meal at the vineyard. I woke up around dinner time we a bit of a headache but decided to check out Memphis Blue BBQ House.

Day 2 - Read on the beach, watched movie, ate sushi, walked downtown
I wanted to book horseback riding and mountain bike trips, but wasn't have any luck at first, so I got a little grumpy Tue morning. Once again, I got stressed out about "having to do stuff" on our vacation, but Hardave reminded me that we are on holidays and we are suppose to relax, so it is okay to do nothing. We settled down at reading Harry Potters (Hardave is just starting to read the first book) on the beach and had some left over BBQ-meat-sandwich for lunch. We did manage to book a horseback riding trip for Fri morning but we gave up on the mountain bike trip due to the small size of our car. I wanted also to go tubing down the river but it was suggested to us that we need 2 cars, one each at the beginning and end of the river, so we don't have to walk upstream. We then read more of Harry Potter while having some delicious soups at Tim Horton; it was nice to see how the local Tim's are just like the ones in Edmonton at being very consistence at having bad services. After we filled up our tummies, we decided to watch the most recent Harry Potter movie at the local theater. Dinner was the highlight of our trip so far, we had a love boat platter of sushi at MoMo Suhi Cafe. Both Hardave and I agree it was the best sushi we ever had; the seafood just taste so fresh. And we ate way too much, so we decided to take a walk downtown along the lakeside.

In Kelowna

2007-08-01T10:05:00.000-06:00

Hardave and I attended one of his best high school friend's wedding last Sat and Sun we made the 12-hour trip to Kelowna for our vacation and to attend my best friend - Lori's wedding this upcoming Sat. The drive isn't too bad; actually, better then our 5 day trip to Jasper-Columbia Icefield-Lake Louise-Banff-Canmore-Drumheller-Calgary trip; we figure this time we are only driving to and back from Kelowna and after the drive, we can relax.

So far we have been taking it easy, visited a vineyard, read on the beach, watched a movie and today we are going to visit another vineyard and take a tour and tasting at a brewery. Fri we are going on a horseback riding trip and we are hoping on the day we are leaving, we will go visit an orchard and pick some fresh fruits; Hardave really wanted to do a mountain biking trip but there was a screw up in our car rental; instead of the Ford Fusion we have requested, they gave us Mustang GT convertible; we don't think we could fit two mountain bikes into the car ... More pictures to come once I return to Edmonton, for now, enjoy the grapes.

Capital Ex and miscelaneous

2007-07-26T22:34:00.000-06:00

A serious thunder storm pass through Edmonton a few days ago and the wind was blowing so hard, it blew my BBQ on its side and the rain was pounding on the windows loudly, check out these pictures I risk my life to take just before the storm -

Clicky for biggy, remember!

Went to Capital Ex last night with Hardave, Jeni and Crystal (I think it is spell with a C) except I have been suffering from asthma for quit sometime now (about 2 weeks), so we only did 2 rides and I feel quite sick for the entire evening. We missed the Peking Acrobat performance but opted for visiting the Butterfly Exhibition!

I had a couple landed on my head and body and they really tickles; Hardave had like over 15 of them all over his body, we figure maybe them are attracted to heat as boys generally are warmer!

I have been slowly reading Harry Potter but we are leaving for Kelowna for our summer holiday and Lori/Nick's wedding this Sunday, so there is quite a bit of preparation needed to be done.

Spending the Weekend with Harry? Maybe!

2007-07-21T18:10:00.000-06:00

Yes, I was one of those millions of muggles who pre-ordered Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows via Amazon.ca and it was delivered this afternoon by Canada Post. According to the tracking information, it was shipped out of Ontario on July 17. I opened it immediately but am too afraid to start reading it because I need to work on a paper that is due next Fri. I am afraid if I started to read it, I won't be able to stop, so I am going to wait until I finished the paper and it can be the reward. The book is only just over 600 pages, which mean it is probably very well-written and condense with interested plots.

Bike Accident and Poor Amber

2007-07-09T21:34:00.000-06:00

Two Sat ago, Hardave and I finally went on our first bike ride and I crashed miserably after 5 minutes into the trip. We were going downhill into the river valley and I didn't realize we have to make a sharp left turn and stop right away after the turn to carry the bike down some stairs. By the time I saw Hardave stopped, it was far too late for me to get into the proper breaking position (I have a road bike with one of those bending forward handle bar and shift/break combination), so instead of flying off sets of stairs, I decided to crash into the fence. Amazingly (or unfortunately), I managed to avoid Hardave and dragged the right side of my body alone the fence. My forehead and my shoulder were scared and quite a bit of skin fell off.

This recent weekend was my unpacking weekend, I am about 80% unpacked now. I found it difficult to do any unpacking on a weekday evening as normally I don't get home until 6:30-ish, make some dinner, clean up (as I always go to the fitness classes after work), do some homework and pack lunch for the next day, it is almost bed time. So I had dedicated the entire weekend to unpack and I did get a lot done.

My colleague - Dave is attending BB World '07 in Boston and taking some vacation after the Conference, so he asked me to cat-sit Amber. If you remember two summer ago, I helped cat-sit Kevin's cat - Boots when Kevin was attending WebCT Impact '05 (WebCT has since merged with Blackboard - hence BB World), so I have been telling everyone that I am the official WebCT Conference cat-sitter.

Amber is a lot different then Boots, Boots was a bit more relax; it took her one day to get used to living with me and later she became very affectionate towards me. Amber was a bit timid and shy, she is still hiding in dark corners and not drinking/eating properly. She seems to be doing worst, because the first day when she arrived she actually slept on the bed with me and pawed me to wake me up in the middle of the night. I got up to give her some more food and water but she ran away from me. Every since, as long as I am sitting or lying down, she will come around to hang out but as soon as I stood up, she will ran for her life and hide. I hope she become calmer soon; otherwise, I am not sure what to do ... ...

Web 2.0 Online Learning Fim Festival

2007-06-29T13:58:00.001-06:00

I heard of Web 2.0 Online Learning Film Festival during the The 5th Annual Canadian Elearning Conference and had a quick look at some of the nominations today; found some very interesting (not sure if it is all "that" educational) videos. Most of them are pretty informational and/or entertaining; for example, check out the Spider on Drugs video -

No matter you are in the Education Technology field or just in IT, you will find some good entertainment on this website, do take a break from work and check it out.

Condo Move-In Experience #13 - A pile of paper work!

2007-06-25T17:53:00.000-06:00

I have no idea how much paper work gets generated when a property is purchased. I spent 4 hours, literally, 4 hours filling them out last night. Just to give you some ideas, here are some of the paper works I needed to filled out:

- Change of address: Not every where allows you to change your mailing address online! :( Many places still do the old-paper-and-pen-mailing-it-in style.

- Insurance and other: I have a whole life insurance policy in place already but I am getting another term-life policy to cover the mortgage. Plus I need to transfer my U of A pension to my RRSP and maybe purchase some critical illness and short-term disability insurance.

- Legal stuff: As you might remember, I had signed a pile of paper work earlier already at the Lawyers, I should be getting them and the title back soon.

- Registration: All of the appliance came with registration forms and needed to be filled in and sent back for warranty. One of them has online registration but it is only for US customers!

- Payments: As I have mentioned before, there is a condo and membership fee for living in Summerside, so I need to get automatic direct withdraw set up for both of them.

Almost had a heart-attack!

2007-06-25T16:45:00.000-06:00

I found my scale this morning and weighted myself; I weight 160 lbs! But, two weeks ago, I only weighted 140 lbs, how can it be? The pants do feel a little bit tight but not that much tighter ... ... The insurance company asked a nurse to come and do a quick medical examination for me this morning and she weighted me as well. So turns out my scale is probably broken because her scale indicates I weight 140 lbs. Maybe it got broken during the move ... ... I have no idea how to fix it because where there is nothing on it, it is pointed to zero ... ...

Home Improvement #1 - Automatic Timer

2007-06-24T20:04:00.002-06:00

Because my condo is build very air-tight and well-insulated, my builder has installed ventilating fans and instructed me to turn it one 3 times a day and 1 hour each time. However, the original timer the builder provided is only a manual one, so Hardave and I went out on Sat and bought of bunch of home improvement hardwares including an automatic timer.

Old Timer

New Timer

Thanks Hardave for being so handy, he installed it perfectly and nobody got electrocuted in the process. :) We are going to save the older timer and installed it in the bathroom for the fan in there. I am very excited as this is our first home improvement project; we plan to also replace the shower curtain rod, thermostat ... ... etc.

We also stopped by Ikea and saw some great options for furnitures; the two of us work very well together in coming up with new ideas. I have been looking for a small buffet with glass front to showcase my china and wine glasses but most of the buffets these days are so huge. Hardave have suggested using Ikea's Effektiv system; it is design for furnishing home office but who says it can't be used in the dining room? It came in modules, so you can choice what size and what kind of base/leg and door front suits your style.

Later when I was browsing the Ikea website and I had another idea:

Tobo

Tobo is originally designed to be a TV bench, but again, who says you can't use it in the dining room? It comes in two size; the one above is the large version and the small version only has 2 compartments (1 side with glass front and the other side with solid front).

Where are the comments?

2007-06-22T10:51:00.001-06:00

OK, maybe I should stop keeping up the blog, because clearly nobody reads it! ;)

Condo Moving-In Experience #12 - Still very tired ...

2007-06-21T09:37:00.000-06:00

I have not yet spent a night at my brand new condo yet as I am attending the 5th Annual Canadian E-Learning Conference at the U of A all week this week, so I figure I might just well crash at Hardave's since how he lives across the street from the conference venue.

I am going home tonight thou; I don't think I can spend another night at someone else's home anymore. Still very super tired, no matter how much I rest and sleep, still feel exhausted. It might take a few more days for me to recover.

I returned the apartment keys to my landlord and am happy that I don't have to return to that crappy neighbourhood.

Condo Moving-In Experience #11 - Very tired ...

2007-06-17T21:19:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was the big C(ondo)-Day; Hardave and I started the day by picking up the moving truck; it was a 16-foot track with hydrolic ramp and Hardave had no trouble driving it even thou it was his first time. Took us a little time to figure out how to use the hydrolic ramp thou ... ...

By 1PM, all my "movers" arrived and started stuffing the truck with all my belongings. It spit a bit at the beginner but it stopped. Hardave and I realized we made a pretty huge mistake; we made sure there was plenty of beer, pop and water at the condo but forgot about having some water at the apartment. So halfway through the move, I ran over to the neighbourhood corner store and pretty much cleaned them out of bottle-waters.

It took about 1.5 to move all my stuff from the apartment into the truck; as soon as we started driving to the condo, it started to downpour. We were all very obsessed of the direction of the rain clouds during the entire drive; luckily, it wasn't raining at all in south Edmonton. Because the ground around the condo was dry, Hardave was able to back up the truck very closely to the unit.

The sky was still very grey at that time, so everyone rushed to unload the truck and pretty much by 3:30PM, we were done. There were only some small dents and scratches on the newly painted walls but most importantly, nobody got hurt considering the ground outside of the condo is unpaved and uneven and one of the stair's carpet is not laid.

Everyone then went home to shower and Hardave and I went to return the truck. We then regrouped and had a huge Chinese dinner. We were pretty tired by then, I am surprised that I didn't fall asleep halfway through the dinner. Hardave and I had a minor argument because we both were exhausted and tried to do too much. Our original plan was to go back to the condo and stay there for the night, so Shaw can come the next morning and hook up the cable and internet. We decided it will be best if we rescheduled the services call and sleep in the next morning instead.

We did try to sleep in the next morning but realized we need to go back to the condo and rip up the carpet protector, so they can laid the missing carpet next week. After dragging our sorry ass out of bed to drive to the condo, I had to go back to the apartment and clean. I spent total of 6 hours cleaning the old apartment and it is 90% done. I need Hardave to help me to pull the fridge and over out, so we can clean around and behind it. Plus I can't reach the ceiling fan ... ...

Now, Mavis is off to bed.

Condo Moving-In Experience #10 - Got Keys!

2007-06-15T23:52:00.001-06:00

This morning, I went to the Builder's office to finalize the closing procedure and I received a bunch more of information on taking care of my home and some coupons for restaurants, Shaw and The Brick. Again, the experience was very pleasant; I arrived 10 minutes early and 3 people came and asked if I have been helped.

Then I went home and worked from home for a bit until I had to go to the construction site to pick up the keys. There are still a lot of little things need to be fixed inside of the condo but it is more or less ready. One thing we are a little disappointed is part of the stair case is not yet covered by carpet and you can see the spike strip underneath; we will need to warn the movers tomorrow to keep their shoes one. Nevertheless, I have the keys (all 3 of them) in hand and later the lawyer will mail me all the documentation and the deed.

We went back to work afterwards and went and did some shopping for the new condo after dinner. We found these carpet protectors which are basically very sticky tapes; it goes on top of the floor or carpet and it really stays on. We also stocked the fridge with beer, soft drinks and water for the movers. Then we went back to the apartment to finish some last minute packing; it is 99% packed and ready to go, just a few more items to pack due to running out of boxes.

Forecast is indicating 60% chance of shower tomorrow again, so wish me luck!

Condo Moving-In Experience #9 - My Builder is Awesome!

2007-06-14T21:59:00.001-06:00

Today was the Pre-Occupancy Orientation for my condo and it was a very wonderful experience. I have heard a lot of horror stories about how some Alberta builders don't build homes properly and damage owners' appliances, hardwood floor ... ... etc, so I was excited yet a bit worried this morning.

However, it was completely unnecessary to be worried as my builder - Daytona delivered good services once again. I have mentioned before that the builder has been good at communicating and informing me with the progress of the condo. Today, the rep and the site manager gave Hardave and I a very detailed orientation on how to operate my new condo; I didn't realized there are so many extra things I need to know when owning my own property as I always lived in apartments. I learned how to clean the garbarator safely, how to protect the ceramic cooktop, how to operate the breakers, furnace, hot water tank and fans.

One important thing I was suppose to be doing is be picky and point out any problems I see inside of my condo; however, the builder's rep and the site manager did 90% of problem- pointing-out. I mean sometimes if there is something very obvious, Hardave and I will notice it. For example, he saw some paint scratch on the window and I saw the bathroom drawers not lining up properly. However, it was the builder's rep and the site manager noticed the fridge door need to be install on the opposite side and the stove is sat too low. They also found many minor cosmetic problems and marked them down for other workers to fix it. Meanwhile, the workers were actually still fixing and cleaning up the condo. So sometimes when we turned around, the problem is already fixed.

All the upgrades I have ordered are done perfectly and there are a lot of new and energy coefficient technologies being implemented in the condo. For example, I have CAT 5 hook up in every room. In addition to the fan in the bathroom, I also have a air circulation fan outside of the bathroom which I am suppose to run it 3 times a day, an hour each time. The rep and the site manager said it is because the condo is build very air tight, so there is very little fresh air entering the condo other then the air intake for the furnace, so the fan will help expel wasteful air. I think my first purchase will be a programmable thermostat and fan control ... ...

Another big shout out should go out to Hardave; he was awesome as he grew up in a house and helped out his parents with home improvement often, so he understand how the new breaker system works, how to monitor the furnace, how to drain the hot water tank ... ... etc. Apparently, the breaker system in my bedrooms will shut off when it sense heat in the circuit, so I cannot use straightening irons in the bedroom! I was completely overwhelmed with the information and my brain was shutting down. However, Hardave knew all the questions to ask, such as if the smoke dictators is hardwired in or battery operated. I am so in love with him.

I tried taking a few pictures, but didn't want to disturb the workers working and there is no furnitures in the condo at the moment, so the pictures were not very interesting and my server is down at the moment due to the computer being packed up already. So you will just have to wait a little longer for the pictures.

Condo Moving-In Experience #8 - Completely Weather Obsessed! Again!

2007-06-13T18:21:00.000-06:00

Weather Office (Environmental Canada)

Finally, the weather forecast changed for this Sat; it used to be rain but now is sunny but cloudy. I think I can live with that. I still check every couple of hours just to make sure it stays sunny! :P

I don't think I will be able to sleep tonight because tomorrow is the first time I get to see the inside of the condo.

I want to give a big shout out to my dearest boyfriend - Hardave; he has been very busy lately due to family events but he still found the energy and time to help me with my errands. He not only rented a car for the weekend to help me move, he is also insisting on helping me pack this Friday night which is pretty much his only night away from his family. He has been helping his family and entertaining out-of-town-guests for the last couple of nights, so he is probably very tired. We haven't had too much time to ourselves in the past couple of weeks; I bet he is feeling bad about not being able to help me with the packing and cleaning up.

Condo Moving-In Experience #7 - Completely Weather Obsessed!

2007-06-11T21:12:00.000-06:00

Couple of weeks ago, Hardave and I drove by the condo and peeked around the outside of the building. The pavement around the building was not yet paved and very uneven; as a result, I am very worried it will rain this Sat and one of my "movers" will trip or slip and get hurt. So I have been checking the weather forecast couple times a day hoping it will change from rain to sun! What makes me think I am a bit over-the-top obsessed of the weather forecast is that I go and search through different weather sites until I find one that predicts sunny weather for this Sat! Check it out:

Accu Weather

Yahoo Weather

Weather.com

Weather Network