Reverie

Hitting the 'snooze' button on real life

2008-10-09T17:49:00.005-07:00

Image (c) Jorge Cham, PhD Comics

Long time, no post.

Apparently, five years of undergrad have not crushed my soul so completely as to have kept me from coming back for more. Hence, grad school. I am working in the Jones lab at UBC, which is an applied physics lab that uses ultrafast optics in order to do a whole bunch of things. It all relies on the huge peak intensity of light that you get when you pulse a laser: Roughly speaking, think of some amount of energy put out by, say, a light bulb. Now imagine that instead of the lightbulb staying lit all the time, you compress all of that energy into a tiny pulse, one millionth of a billionth of a second long. Femtosecond lasers are being investigated for applications into things such as micromachining and even dental surgery. As for me, I'm going to use it to make a source for extreme ultraviolet light:

Outside of work and school, I'm back in the band again (this is my sixth year in the UBC bands...), and I've lately taken up swing dancing -- but I'll leave that for another post; it's getting late and I want to get out of the lab.

Jazz fest recap

2008-07-19T21:54:00.004-07:00

So, summer has been busy as usual and I am finding myself not blogging nearly as often as I want to -- there's a lot to talk about!

The Vancouver International Jazz festival was fantastic this year. There was a whole bevy of good free shows around Gastown and such, and the evening concerts were great. I managed to catch:

Above is John Scofield. The video was actually from the concert I attended (though I wasn't the one who took it). He plays around with pedals a lot and has a really interesting sound -- harmonically, too; he plays with lots of crunchy intervals that give him a really unique sound. Energy-wise this was a great show too, as you can see from his solo.

Alas, there was a bit of tragedy associated with that show. It was originally scheduled to be a double bill with the group above, The Esbjorn Svensson Trio. However, about two weeks before the show the bandleader died in a diving accident. It's truly a shame -- Esbjorn Svensson was one of my favourite pianists of all time (certainly my favourite pianist post-Bill Evans), and there would have been many decades more of truly innovative, interesting, and fun music from him.

Brad Mehldau has gained recent fame (and notoriety) by covering popular tunes -- sure enough, as an encore for his Vancouver show he played Radiohead's Exit Music for a Film, from Paranoid Android (the version I put up here is from another show, but it's the same tune). This concert was kind of weird; there were two encores, and really it took until then for the group to really get into it, it sounded. The start of the show was very low-energy and abstract, and I think the vast majority of listeners just weren't ready for that -- I know I found myself drifting off. But it's more on this stuff that the trio sounded more together and interested (not to mention interesting).

I absolutely cannot wait until I head to New York for a few days in August -- the sheer amount of excellent music that I will be able to catch while I am there is staggering!

Iron, cold iron

2008-06-11T22:27:00.005-07:00

Oh, right: I graduated. One post in 6 months isn't bad, is it? More to come soon -- plenty to catch up on...
(For the curious, the homework in the background of that is Quantum Mechanics -- specifically, the WKB approximation...)

Hit the ground running

2008-01-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

After two months or so of not having blogged...here I am again! (anything to procrastinate on a senior project report, right?)

So! Apparently it's a new year and all that now. As for resolutions, I don't have much -- notably, I've resolved to...drink more water. Currently there is a litre-bottle of water on my desk that I fill twice daily, and empty. I figure this is the sort of thing that I can actually do in the long-term...hence, setting it as a 'resolution'.
School is starting up again. Four more months! To finish, what I have left is:
- PHYS 455 (Statistical Mechanics)
- PHYS 473 (Nuclear Physics)
- PHYS 474 (Solid-State Physics)
- PHYS 402 (Applications of Quantum Mechanics)
- EECE 450 (Engineering Economics)
- MTRL 478 (Electronic Materials)
- ANTH 100 (Cultural Anthropology)
- MUSC 409C (Jazz Theory and Arranging)
So, a fairly packed semester as usual -- but hey, anything to graduate on time, at this point...
The Jazz Arranging course, has, predictably, been introducing me to some pretty good music lately. In particular are big-band albums by the inestimable Gordon Goodwin, possibly best-known for composing theme music for such animated works as The Incredibles. His Big Phat Band is hard-swinging and a lot of fun to listen to! On the other side of the spectrum, what I have playing right now is Pat Metheny's latest album The Way Up. It's wonderful music, which really captures Metheny's masterful use of rhythm and his brilliant partnership with pianist Lyle Mays for some seriously beautiful music. Highly recommended. The class has also made me look at parts of my music collection that I've built but haven't really listened hard to, such as Metheny's Imaginary Day. One tune on there, "Heat of the Day" is totally nuts -- it's nominally in 3/4, but you'd never guess it by hearing it. There is some great virtuoistic work by everyone involved. Great stuff.
Less eclectic has been my recent acquisition of Radiohead's In Rainbows. Also good music, I think that it's their best album (as a whole) since OK Computer. It's a side of the band that we haven't heard too much of in depth until now, and I like what I hear. It's more organic, and I guess a natural progression for the band as it ages.
Besides all of this music-listening, I unfortunately don't have too much time for leisure these days (hence the title of this post). Not thirty-six hours after I rang in 2008, was I at the lab working on the last bits of my senior project. Now, we have less than a week to write the final report. This, coming quickly on the heels of a Jazz Arranging assignment that I couldn't finish until literally one hour before it was due earlier today. Amidst all this, there are grad school apps, and the rest of the courses that I need to take to finish. Busy busy!
During the break, besides lab work, I found myself making food. It's a lot of fun to do when you're bored...it's like arts and crafts, except you eat the results. The fact that you ingest the fruits of your labor really gives an incentive to now shirk hard work in food prep. Thus far I have made chocolate chip cookies (from scratch!), chocolate truffles (dead easy and waaay cheaper than Godiva et al., and tastes as smooth and good!), and a bolognese sauce (also from scratch!). There's a box of cake mix that is also waiting to be made, once I'm done this project report...and now I know how to do a ganache to top the cake! Turns out that truffles are basically a ganache made with a high chocolate/cream ratio to make it solid at room temperature, and that's it. I forsee a tasty cake in my future.
I'm still playing with the UBC Jazz Ensemble; the weekly big band session definitely keeps me sane. I've put a live recording of us playing Thad Jones' Low-Down here. In addition, I'm still trying to plug away at learning Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso (Aubade of the Jester) for playing sometime, perhaps at the department concert (I need some sort of motivator to get me to learn it!)

That's all for now -- I'm sure I forgot to mention something, but I've got to save something for the next time I procrastinate (hint: I'll be blogging more often, until this report is done!)

Clock out: 3:24am

2007-11-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

Not bad for an evening's work. 9 hours, 3 deliverables, 20 pages...

Alternate titles for this post: "What am I doing with my life?", "Watch the pages go by", "Busy", "hgglghfughh", "Sleep is for the weak"

Snowstarring pt. 2

2007-10-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

So, I'm back in Vancouver now -- I had originally intended for this to be a series that I'd post while I was up in Utah, but it was busy enough and the Internet connection was spotty enough such that I wasn't really able to realize that. Anyway! I have pictures. They won't necessarily be in chronological order >_>

Here's a picture of the team -- there were 8 of us who went down in total. The eight of us fit into the RV and camper van that is in the pic. The Penske truck served as the place to haul basically our entire lab down, short of full-on machine tools.

Here's a picture of the completed system -- the climber vehicle is mounted on the ribbon, with the two reflectors in place below, directing sunlight onto the solar cells.

Here's a picture of the Snowstar climber close to the apex of its climb -- officially, we made it between 250 to 300 feet on the 400 foot ribbon. We probably could have climbed higher but unfortunately we ran out of time. It was definitely cool to see the cells illuminated from these massive mirrors that were almost a hundred meters away.

Somehow we all managed to find some downtime after we built our system and qualified, and before our final prize run -- here's an amusing shot of 6 of us sitting around and doing homework amidst the bustle of the rest of the teams busily working and trying to qualify.

Some might be curious as to the actual result that our team achieved while down there. Out of 21 teams initially entered in the competition, Snowstar was one of four that successfully qualified for the prize run. No one won the big money this year, though U of S came close again. As for our own performance, we didn't go nearly as quickly as we thought we did; my personal suspicion is from a combination of system inefficiencies as well as damage that we incurred in severe winds during a previous qualification attempt -- the way the solar cells were wired, we were especially susceptible to system performance degradation with broken cells. Nevertheless, we went down there, we climbed on a 400 ft. ribbon, and in the end, that's what we decided to go for.

Snowstarring pt. 1

2007-10-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

So, I'm here in Utah now for the NASA Spaceward Beam Power Challenge. I am actually compiling this post from an RV parked on site here -- we're living out of these things for a few days, well, living with 7 other guys out of 2 RV's has been interesting in itself, to say the least. I've got pictures of the drive down (though I seem to have lost track of my camera, and it also ran out of batteries) -- pics later.

After driving all of Friday night and Saturday, we finally arrived in Utah. We unloaded our stuff and promptly got to work; by the end of Sunday we had built almost all of the Snowstar climber vehicle itself, and started work on the reflective ground mirrors to beam sunlight up to our climber. This took up almost all of today, as well -- it was a long day, totaling to fifteen hours with a short hot dog/red bull break. Tomorrow, we're strapping the thing onto a ribbon for the qualifying round. Hopefully there will be pictures soon!

If you're interested in keeping up, check out the official Space Elevator blog for pictures and videos of all of the competing teams! Hopefully I'll have the time and such to post more stuff on here as it becomes available (pics soon, hopefully).

Quasi-monthly update

2007-10-12T01:36:00.000-07:00

Still super busy. Especially with Snowstar coming up. In fact: In 15 hours, I will be on a truck heading down to the NASA Spaceward Beam Power Challenge. It'll be interesting to finally see the culmination of what I've basically given up my life to for the last six months.

Wish us luck!

More when I'm back from Utah.

Another overdue update

2007-09-04T23:31:00.001-07:00

So it appears that the summer has gone right by. I was just starting to get into it! The work was just getting interesting. Good thing that it looks like we can continue the project for my project course.

Speaking of courses, here's a brief summary of what I will in fact be busying myself with for the next eight months:

MATH 400 - Applied Partial Differential Equations
PHYS 402 - Quantum Mechanics II
PHYS 410 - Computational Physics
PHYS 473 - Nuclear Physics
EECE 356 - Electronic Circuits II
MTRL 478 - Electronic Materials
APSC 450 - Professional Engineering Practice
APSC 479 - the aforementioned Project Lab
CPSC 303 - Numerical Modelling of Dynamic Systems
EECE 450 - Engineering Economics
EECE 453 - Communication Systems
ANTH 100 - Intro to Anthropology (hee hee, serves me right for forgetting to take a technical elective in first year
PHYS 455 - Statistical Mechanics
PHYS 458 - Applied Optics
MUSC 409C - Jazz Theory and Arranging

So yeah, one of these courses is not like the others. Which one of these does not belong? :P I'm glad I'm taking the music course though. It will be the single course I take at UBC that will not count for my degree, and it's just something I have always wanted to take. Totally worth the excessive course load. I am, however, getting tired of the student services people sending me e-mails to tell me that they have taken the liberty of de-registering me from courses becuase I am "taking too many credits". Bah! I need to graduate in 5 years!

Besides school, Snowstar still isn't letting up. We're getting close to a do-or-die date though, so if it doesn't work, then there's no more for the project...and if it does work, there is only minor optimization and stuff for everything to finally be done.

Audition for Band this Thursday! I have definitely not practiced as much as I should have this summer...what with work and Snowstar and all. Hopefully I'll make the cut again!

I'm sure that more has happened this summer, but I am just forgetting everything. Early day tomorrow; time to hit the sack!

Music amidst a busy summer

2007-07-14T01:13:00.000-07:00

It's been another while since I posted -- hopefully I can post a little more regularly from now on, but it's doubtful...especially since my LCD still hasn't come in. That is, the power inverter for the LCD -- the screen itself came in the other day and it's just great. One more part, and then my laptop will really be a laptop again!

Caught a couple of Vancouver Jazz Festival shows this year. Christine Jensen's group was cool -- I really liked her compositional style...I thought that some of the harmony was evocative of Maria Schneider's work, and anyone who knows my musical taste knows how I absolutely adore the latter's music. Oliver Jones definitely did not fail to please. It was pretty much exactly the kind of performance I thought it'd be -- Oscar Peterson-esque demonstration of raw power and sensitivity in his treatment of a lot of great standards. At the Cultch I caught a Swedish ensemble, the Yun Kan 5 -- that was downright weeeird. The tuba player was making truly disturbing noises on the horn, and between valve-banging and the drummer tearing up sheets of paper in front of the mic, it got a little much for me. Following that was Vijay Iyer's quartet, and that was a pleasure. I found it interesting that a lot of their work was politically motivated (at least, so they said amidst their preamble for the tunes) -- I felt the statement less than the emotion behind the tunes, and the sheer 'applied virtuosity' that the whole group expressed. All in all, the shows were a good experience, making up for last year when I missed out on the festival! Though, admittedly, I did catch some pretty kickass bands across the pond, too.

Disaster strikes my piano keyboard! The E below middle C is currently stuck. After doing some reading on the tubes, it seems that some of the Yamaha P- series made around when my piano was manufactured, have an especially brittle resin for the keys, which causes fracture right at the place where it is supported -- so the key leans a bit to the left, and the friction caused by rubbing against the adjacent D causes the key to stick. Sucky!

I've signed up for a weekly big band session for most of the remainder of the summer. I definitely need my big band fix, and get the ears in shape for next year (despite the stuck key on my keyboard I still manage to play some things on there to keep my hands in working order.

For the past few weeks I've been reading through Ravel's Alborada del Gracioso (from his Miroirs cycle). It's a rather challenging piece for me, and I'll figure I'll document how learning etc. the piece goes -- learning this and polishing to a performing level will be the first time I've gone through that process since I finished my ARCT, so it will be fun. First impressions: It's so much fun to play. The harmony is so evocative of the rise of jazz and such. I figured out how to do the parallel glissandos, by separating the fingers when I invert my hand like in a regular glissando, going up in the right hand; descending in the left hand I don't use the fingernails like normal at all; I just rely on the fingertips not being too sticky, and dragging my thumbnail and finger 3 down, holding the position rigid so the interval between the two notes stays constant. Still trying to figure out how to do the rapid repeated notes -- a back of the envelope calculation indicates that I have to repeat notes at roughly 9.2 Hz...I'm not even sure that my piano can do that. Most likely will need a decently-regulated grand piano action to realize that passage at its full speed...

The length of this post is tantamount to diarrhea of the brain. I should probably stop now...perhaps more another time; I've been reading books (not related to coursework, yay) and I feel like I should write something about that!

More laptop woes

2007-06-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

So following the laptop hard drive debacle during APSC 459 next term, my computer decides that I still haven't had enough punishment -- the LCD has decided to die. Of course, then I fixed it...too bad that just then, a screw fell into the inverter board, shorting out the backlight and negating my work. >_> I am now borrowing my roommate's screen in rez and a random eye-hurting CRT in the lab(s), making my laptop slightly less portable. Replacement parts have been ordered, though, and will hopefully come in soon. I think that I will sell this computer after I fix it up and get something shiny (and with an extended warranty >_>)

But wait, there's more! My external hard drive (containing easily seven years' worth of collecting various out-of-print and rare music) decided to begin giving up the ghost yesterday. I managed to get it spinning and reading data again, and ordered a replacement part -- suffice to say that I will not power down the drive until I get my data copied off; if it stops spinning now it will probably not start again. Talk about an expensive summer; so much for taking trips and buying a keyboard amp.

Work and Snowstar are still claiming significant portions of my life, hence not much time or inclination to post (not to mention interesting happenings to post about). Here's a wide-angle panorama of my lab in the Physics building:

(Photo processed by Autostitch (great program, developed at UBC's CS department by David Lowe's Computational Intelligence Group)

Here's a photo taken through a microscope (literally; I probably looked like an utter toolbox putting my camera at the objective of the microscope) of a part of the project that I am working on, which involves pumping liquid metal through tiny fluid channels to make 'wire' shapes. This was just an initial test to see if Gallium (melting point 30 degrees C) would be able to be pumped through a channel with a syringe. For reference, the thin part of the channel is 100 µm (a tenth of a millimetre) wide and 10 µm high, and several millimetres long.

06-07 Year in Review

2007-05-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

At last, what I had intended to write up for a while now; between work and such (more on that on another post), I just haven't had the time to compile everything together into a massive post. Anyway, on to it!

It was, as they say, a very good year. There was a lot of different things going on, a whole load of new experiences, travel to distant(ish) places, and a sort of "end in sight" with respect to my undergraduate education, and a possible glimpse towards the future. In writing this, I'm realizing that I've covered a lot of this stuff in relative detail in previous overlapping blogs, so I probably won't go into much detail -- maybe some reflection, maybe some captions for pictures: I'm not sure what will go in the rest of this.

Without a doubt, the event of the year was the eight months that I spent over in Germany and the rest of Europe. Of course, almost all of that adventure has been chronicled earlier on my blog, but all in all, it was really good. And to think that I was going to turn the job down!

E-ball was great, again, this year. Good times with my friends in Fizz. I think that I've been really fortunate in finding a program that I mesh well with, and is pretty tight-knit. I can't even imagine what it'd be like in a bigger faculty and not knowing the people that I spend 6 hours a day in class with.

Clearly, I was enamored enough with Europe to return again less than 3 months afterwards! The optETH winter school was an excellent experience; the collection of so many grad students from such a diverse cross-section of physics was really beneficial. Hopefully I'll be going to more of these things after I graduate from here :P

Directing the musical pit band was another totally new experience for me too. I've always been on the other side of the band; this time around, it was a lot of fun working with everyone I had on board, and even to deal with the logistics so that everyone else can concentrate on making good music. I think I'll do it again next year...I really should start planning the lineup!

Fizz Social Night was, as always, a blast. This year we held it at Science World (my suggestion!), which made things a ton of fun -- built in icebreakers! I kind of wish I had gotten involved in running Fizz from the get-go -- it's really satisfying to do some of this stuff for the fellow students and all. Oh well, I'm waist-deep in it all and there's another year left. I've got a lot to do for this! Redesign the webpage, develop the FizzWiki, encourage forum usage...all the while making this sort of development self-sustaining within Fizz. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out by the time I graduate.

We had the first of two senior capstone projects this year. Despite the constant stress, long nights and frustration at seemingly-self-destructing equipment, I think that everyone got a lot out of their APSC 459. I definitely have my lessons to take from this to bring to 479, though -- first off, a clearly defined project! We did the best we could for ours this time around, but the inevitable truth with research is that it is nigh-impossible to set the hard deadlines that are a hallmark of these project management courses.

So, a lot happened this year. I wonder how I have changed from when I wrote the last one of these things. My first instinct is to say that I am starting to look inward more, again -- on the whole, a long-term observation of my own tendencies suggests this is true. I think that I've become a little quieter -- being in Germany for a few months kind of squelched any trace of extroversion that I did have. Go figure...

It will be interesting to see what the coming year holds for me. Suffice it to say that even with all the varied happenings of 2006/07, the near future will be eventful indeed. What do I have to look forward to? Graduation, whatever I end up doing after Fizz, and who knows what else? Those two alone are bound to be momentous in themselves...

I'm going to end this post with a picture that I have posted already: I just think that it captures the many different things that have happened this year, as well as what I perceive to be my own internal state as of now. (I must hasten to add, that this was by no means the top of Harder Klum -- there was still a whole bunch of trail left to climb, at this point...)

A quick update of sorts

2007-05-17T00:03:00.000-07:00

Between work, Snowstar and just living life in general, I am having less free time than I thought I would this summer. Hence, less blogging. I'll get that year in review up sometime soon; I even have the pictures prepared! Life is pretty good.

I'm (still) not dead

2007-05-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to say that 301 (nor any of my other courses) didn't eat me alive, and I have made it out of my latest academic term relatively intact. Starting summer work with the NMR group in the Physics department here at UBC. Also I've been updating my phas website...it's not quite done yet -- a couple of big swaths are missing still, and it could definitely use some content.

Involved with a whole bunch of other things too. Suffice it to say that I will still be busy...but at least the pace will not be as frenetic. I've been meaning to do a 06-07 Year in Review blog post...possibly tomorrow.

oh noes math 301

2007-04-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

This is what is going through my head as I am trying desperately to learn the MATH 301 course material for tomorrow:

Tunes I am listening to (AKA Procrastination)

2007-04-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

So! Instead of doing silly things like "study for finals" (seriously, who does that? >_>) I've been listening to a bunch of new music, and I'm diggin' some stuff so much that I felt compelled to share. Hence, music reviews!

Pilate: Sell Control for Life's Speed
(AKA "Into the West" by Pilot Speed)
Those of you who know what kind of music I listen to will know that I like Pilate a lot. They're a Canadian band, playing rock that while not overly unconventional, is neither boring nor parroting other bands. In mid-2006, they renamed themselves Pilot Speed and rereleased their second album Sell Control for Life's Speed as Into the West. This second album drives a bit more, I think, and has the kind of sound I like from them -- a rhythmic intensity to match their interesting choice of sound and lyrics. In particular the chorus to the tune "A Kind of Hope" on this album is really satisfying, both melodically and harmonically -- I just inexplicably enjoy the deceptive cadence at the end of each phrase. One issue that I had with them in Caught by the Window was their, well...'wimpiness'. It seems to have been largely rectified in this album. I'm sure that this shift in sound will alienate some listeners but I like the change a lot. How I regret not going to ACF the one year that they came to play! (Really, it's the only time I've regretted not going to ACF...generally I don't like it. At all. But that's a rant for another time.)

Esbjörn Svensson Trio: Tuesday Wonderland
Esbjörn Svensson is a Swedish pianist whose trio never ceases to surprise me. They play acoustic instruments steadfastedly -- that is, an acoustic piano, an upright bass, and a drum kit. However, they experiment with new sounds on these instruments...for instance, in one tune Svensson prepares the piano by laying a piece of paper on the strings, lending a quality to the instrument akin to a toy piano. The bass is sometimes fed through various pedals to create...interesting sounds. I'm a big fan of the title track -- it starts simply, but then the texture thickens as it moves to a dynamite blowing section. Right now I'm really digging these guys, along with Hiromi, for their innovation while still keeping within the genre and incorporating that rich tradition.

Clock out: 4:45am

2007-04-02T04:50:00.001-07:00

APSC 459...is done!

Now, to do it all again in 4 months.

Push it to the limit! (the limit!)

2007-03-29T01:49:00.000-07:00

Specifically, MATLAB. I was able to get it to segmentation fault. That's right -- hella expensive technical computing program, relied upon every day by thousands, if not millions, of engineers and scientist, every day. I managed to break it with the train wreck that is my senior project. Whoo!

So anyway. Super busy (and therefore, looking for excuses to procrastinate (ie blag). I've got the term project report (~150 pgs including appendices) due Monday, a (short) paper due this Friday, assorted usual problem sets, and a term paper due a couple of weeks Monday. Throw in a 'surprise' quantum midterm, as well as a photonics midterm, and you have all the right ingredients for a mad dash to the finish line this term.

One more year...then I can start it all over again. I enjoy this in a rather macabre sort of way.

Obligatory update etc.

2007-03-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

Another month, another update, apparently. So a couple of posts back I had this huge list of stuff that I had to do and such. Almost all of it is done now...I think out of all of them I just have my massive project report to complete. After that and one more midterm, smooth sailing for the finals.

About time, too. This term has been so ridiculously busy...I am definitely looking forward to the summer, where I may be busy, but at least it will be the kind of busy where the demands on my time are not competing with each other...

Anyway, onto some pictures -- these are from the recent residence musical production that I directed the pit band for.

Here's us at the final rehearsal before opening night in the Telus theatre. The band had a total of 10 players -- a relatively large pit band by rez standards. We had a very short turnaround time on getting things ready (the cast had ~3 months to practice their singing and dancing, we had ~3 weeks to learn all the music and accompany them). All the musicians were good though, so we managed to pull it off and sound half-decent.

Night of one of the shows -- here is half of my wind section in the dressing room!

All in all, even with some really sketchy parts in the music, it turned out okay. I'm sure it's responsible for more than a couple of grey hairs on my head, too...but if you asked me if I'd do it again, the answer would almost certainly be "Yes!". Am I crazy? Yea, probably.

The jazz band is sounding great this year too. In fact I managed to get my hands on one of our recordings from early in the year, and put an mp3 up on some web space. Check us out here! Playing with this band has been great this year. Hopefully I'll be able to come back next year...I should probably do some practicing and take some lessons this summer.

EDIT 2 April: Thanks be to Shannon for the pictures posted here!

Quasi-travel-blog-post!

2007-03-10T01:15:00.000-08:00

So, thought that this blog was done being a travelogue? WRONG! The following is somewhat long and somewhat less touristy, but it's a brief and heavily abridged chronicle of my recent adventure to Switzerland to attend the optETH Winter School. Lots of physics...but despite (or because?) of that, lots of fun!

We flew to Zurich with SAS -- it was something on the order of $400 or $500 cheaper...however, it necessitated a transfer through its hub in Copenhagen. Normally it isn't a problem, but just our luck -- on our way there, a freak storm hits the airport, and forces the cancellation of none other but our flight to Zurich! Stranded in a foreign country, not speaking the language, not knowing what to do next -- kind of reminded me of arriving in Frankfurt for the first time last summer...luckily, the weather cleared up enough to take a later flight in, so no biggie.

Our hotel was situated in a suburb some 20 minutes away from Zurich proper, called Winterthur. It's a pretty nice little town, got the usual small-town European feel. Felt somewhat jaded as we walked past several-centuries old churches and shrugging, "Ehh, been there done that."

Not too much time to relax, though! In addition to a packed schedule, we brought a few reams of homework to do while we were there. This is me sniffing my laptop, after Shannon remarked that it "smelled like burning". She was right.

This is the building where most of the activities (ie lectures, etc.) took place -- note the mostly metallic and concrete construction, dreary weather, and location on top of a hill. One delegate remarked, "It kinda feels like SFU." It really does. (It turns out that the small-world phenomenon is out in full-force for this conference -- this guy is from Victoria, graduated from Eng Phys at SFU, and works with a group at Stanford that worked closely with my previous group in Wuerzburg. It's really weird when the 'introductions' go like "So you're Matt? Stephan says hi."

The Hoenggerberg campus of ETH Zurich is pretty cool though, despite being depressingly similar to SFU. Here's a scale model of the campus...notice how clean and spiffy it is! I would bet money that if we put something like that up on campus here, it would be plastered with graffiti and bills after a week.

Ahh, coffee time. So very vital for those of us who were jetlagged and sleep-deprived. Of course, it's historically been the lifeblood of physics and mathematics -- hence a coffee break after every lecture!

We got to visit some labs too. Check out this optics table! I think it defines the term "density"...it is actually really cool work that this group does. Ask me if interested!

More coffee...I had been pretty good about not consuming ridiculous amounts of caffeine so far in the term. Then this trip hit. I'm hooked again now. ...it's probably not healthy.

After four days of lectures, we were pretty much burned out on physics (those of us who were undergrads, that is). So we skipped the last lab tour, and played foosball instead. I actually know (kind of) how to play now!

Here's a pic of (most) of the North Americans (we're only missing Dave). Four of us from Fizz, and Gopal is from Caltech. (Sybil has her eyes closed in literally every picture that anyone took of her. Weird...)

Saw this on campus, thought it was pretty funny. How does one even go about 'pimping' a 'studylife'???

I'm not dead

2007-02-08T20:16:00.000-08:00

(The title is not a reference to Pink's album of the same name. That said, she's all right.)

So! First post of 2007 and it's already more than 1/12 over. I guess a ton has happened since I've been back on campus. Some good, some bad, but either way I'll just be putting my head down and powering through, one way or another:

- Courses are 'interesting'. Some classes are genuinely so, others...not so much. E.g. Quantum is great. Math 301...horrid. etc. etc. I guess it averages out to a tolerable level nonetheless.

- Participated in WEC again this year, and it was hosted here in town...came third in Communications, which I'm decently happy with. It means I'm not going to CEC again this year, which I'm also fine with -- it's in Saskatoon, and on the other hand I'm also insanely busy with other things...

- Project Lab! So, as a 4th year fizzer I'm working on my first of two senior projects. Right now I'm working with the ECE department here on campus to characterize the frequency response of a new kind of diode laser. The project itself is interesting, but very esoteric (we were able to fill 4 minutes of a presentation merely by defining the terms in the project title)...so I won't really go into detail here.

- Speaking of lasers and optics -- I'm going to the first annual optETH winter school on optics! Best part: It's a free trip to Switzerland! I didn't think that I'd be headed back so soon...but awesome!

- Onto music: In a week I'll be performing with Shannon in the annual Physics department concert! We'll be playing Schubert's Fantasy in F minor for piano four hands...I'm really excited. Last year's social night duet debut was lots of fun (if somewhat sloppy), and hopefully this time around it will go well!

- I'm playing with the UBC Jazz Ensemble again. Lots of fun, and the pieces are nice and challenging. Had a first concert this week, which went decently well...

- This year I am also putting together and directing the pit band for the Gage/Fairview musical. It's proved somewhat of a challenge, especially to find wind players...but hopefully things will work out okay. I've got to get the music out to the band before reading week!

Anyway, this was just intended to be a quick update on what's happening right now, and to assure those 1 or 2 people who do read this thing that I haven't quite gone postal yet...maybe more later.

Random thoughts on home

2006-12-31T12:04:00.000-08:00

So what follows is more or less random thoughts that have occurred to me in the 1.5 weeks or so since I got home.

Eight months of basically no piano is really hard on the hands! I've been having to go back to the good ol' Hanon exercises to try and get my chops back into shape, what with the fair amount of playing I'll be doing in the new year. I've also got to get back on track with my program to learn a crapload of music in my lifetime -- I'm slowly (very slowly) pecking away at the Chopin Etudes for now, I figure that will occupy me for a fair amount of time (read: looong time)...

Canadian beer is really expensive and not very good...I mean, almost $2 for a can of Canadian? Give me my €0.57 Erdinger Weißbier! It made me sad inside to go into a liquor store.

We really are more polite here. First time a dude apologized for brushing by me on a bus I was so confused for a second..."what did he do to me?"

Speaking of buses...."free" transit is so vital! In times past, I've had a U-Pass, and in Germany I had a Semesterticket (essentially the same thing), and when I came back, the week between when I landed here and when I went up to campus to get my U-Pass, was super expensive...I mean, $4.50 for a 3-zone ticket? C'mon!

More later, probably...

Back to our regular programming

2006-12-29T00:37:00.000-08:00

So, I've been back in Vancouver since the 19th, but haven't really gotten around to posting stuff yet. "Stuff" including, of course, pictures from Athens, which I will do...eventually. And then after this, who knows -- maybe, as the title suggests, back to what I did with this blog before I went to Europe (what was it? I don't even remember...). Maybe I'll do something completely different. I dunno...

The last hurrah

2006-12-05T09:20:00.000-08:00

So! It's been a while since I've updated -- between work and travel (and the fact that I don't have Internet in my apartment), it has been difficult to update regularly. Aaanyway. So, since my last blog...I've been to Italy, and Vienna. Both were very excellent trips, and as usual, pictures + commentary follow: First up was Italy -- particularly, Rome and Pompeii. We managed to fit in a bit of time in Naples as well (pretty much just for dinner one evening on the way back from Rome and Pompeii -- best pizza ever), and we also went to Ostia Antica (which can kinda be counted as Rome, I guess). Despite the autumn, we were blessed with excellent weather. The following picture is taken from the Piazza Venetia, which is the old Venetian embassy to Rome. It currently houses the tomb of the Italian Unknown Soldier, and also offers a spectacular view over the Roman Forum and Colosseum, as you can see.

At night, a lot of the sights were just as, or even more, spectacular. Due to its central location and it being a great place for people watching, not to mention its very close proximity to some of the best gelato I have eaten in my life, we ended up spending a lot of time at the Trevi Fountain, both at day and at night -- here's a picture of the latter.

Pompeii was interesting -- so much of the stuff is so brilliantly preserved, and walking around with a city map and everything, it kind of occured to me that we were basically sightseeing around a city like usual -- except this time, everything is, well, dead. I remember seeing the preserved bodies, curled up in death, in a history textbook back in school; I have to say that it is somewhat more disturbing when viewed in person. I had a rather visceral reaction the first time I saw one of them; eegh. So instead I offer you this picture of me, standing in the beautifully restored and preserved garden of an old Roman noble's vacation villa:

On our last day in Rome we managed to get out to Ostia Antica, the old port for Rome. The entire area was built up during the Mussolini and post-war years, and now in addition to the restoration of the old port, now also boasts marinas and beaches for the lesiure of modern Romans. We decided to hit up the old port city though -- very interesting; the Lonely Planet guide was not kidding when it said that Ostia was a 'fascinating contrast to Pompeii' -- while the latter was a resort town for well-to-do nobles, it was pretty clear that Ostia was for business. Here's a picture overlooking a complex of buildings...

A couple of weeks later we headed on to Vienna. The night train was surprisingly comfortable this time around (contrast: see the trip to Prague...ick). Hence we were able to get out and explore just about right away, which was good considering we only had a weekend. Our hostel was in very close proximity to the Schloss Schönbrunn, which was, if I recall correctly, the residence of the Hapsburgs for a while. It is nice, and the grounds are expansive, encompassing a zoo, and a maze, among other things. It's too bad it's autumn bordering winter right now; I'm sure that the gardens would have been quite a sight to behold, rather than being just fallow soil.

We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the weekend we were there was also the first weekend that the Christmas markets were open in Vienna! It was great to walk around them, nursing a Glühwein or Punch to keep warm, and looking at the stalls, full of gifts and decorations. I didn't buy anything, as I had packed my backpack rather unwisely and didn't have much room at all for stuff, but I'll be sure to pick stuff up in the Würzburger Weinachtsmarkt!

They also had bands playing all day at these things, which was cool. There's just something powerfully festive about seeing a brass band play in front of a brightly lit Christmas tree, people milling about, chatting, sipping hot drinks, and just generally having a good time.

There are many markets like this in Vienna! The next day we went to the one in front of the Rathaus (city hall), and it was considerably more massive (not to mention busy, being a Sunday). What was really interesting was that a bunch of windows were marked with the numbers 1-24...indeed it's a massive city-hall-building sized advent calendar! Unfortunately we went before December so everything was still closed up but it's still a really cool idea.

So, I suppose the question remains, what next? This weekend I was supposed to go to Berlin. ...I didn't. I'm not sure how much more travelling I want to do. It's a question of Lust haben I suppose. On one hand I really want to capitalize on this opportunity while I am still here in Europe, but on the other hand I feel like I already have taken advantage of it enough already. There's still Greece right at the end, though. In addition, the other two possibilities on my list are Berlin and Brussels...both pretty reasonable price- and time-wise, so the question is just whether I feel like it, and of the two, which I would prefer. I'll also be going to the Nürnberger Christmas Market, it's arguably the oldest and most well-known of them all. Hmm...

3 posts in 1!

2006-10-24T02:07:00.000-07:00

So! It's been a while since I updated -- a bunch of stuff has happened since then, so check it, in reverse chronological order:

Salzburg
Amsterdam
Munich

Salzburg, 21-22 October

Last weekend Matt and I headed up to Salzburg, Austria. It turns out that it wasn't that expensive to get there at all, just ~€35 each way, which is only a bit more than to go to somewhere like Munich. Good hostel too, but I didn't catch a picture of it.

Salzburg is a really nice city. Not terribly large by any stretch, but the people seem to be relaxed and friendly. The scenery by the river, as shown above and below, is really nice.

The main reason we made it out to the area though, was to visit the Eisreisenwelt: The biggest ice caves in the world. They were really cool! (har har, I'm so punny.) Unfortunately the pictures can't really capture the scale and everything and the atmosphere in general...

Matt and I in the ice caves. Yeah yeah I know, my hair is getting a little long...I should get it cut. But at this point, there are less than 2 months left...

The ice caves are ~1.5km above sea level. As such we got a great view of pseudo-Alpine Austria on our way up to the caves. Really beautiful place, I'd say almost comparable to Switzerland!

Amsterdam: 14-15 October

A couple of weekends ago we headed up to the somewhat infamous city of Amsterdam. It was interesting, I'll give you that. Amsterdam is a really interesting city -- very cosmopolitan, just about as multicultural I've seen Europe, besides the megacities like London and Paris. I suppose that's what happens when you have a city right on the sea and stuff.

I forgot to take my camera on most of the adventures, unfortunately, but here's a picture across a canal at night. It's really quite a charming city, Red Light District and Coffeeshops aside...

We also went to the "Heineken Experience", basically a glorified museum where they serve you a beer at the end. It was pretty cool, I guess...

All in all it was quite the 'different' trip. Lots of the city is really nice, definitely...

Munich, 30 September

One weekend in late September we decided to take a day trip out to Munich while Oktoberfest was being held. It was a crazy, crazy scene!

It was so crowded. We also went on a weekend, which exacerbated things...I am told that it was less crowded during the week. The weather cooperated though!

Here's a picture of the Hofbräu Festzelt, the main beer tent of the famous Münchner Hofbräuhaus. It was so busy that we didn't even get into a tent! (Mostly it was just not getting into one easily, then just getting frustrated...)

So instead we went on a whole bunch of rides. It turns out that D'Wiesn ("the meadows", colloquial for the fairground that the festival is held on) is not only full of tents and drunks, but also whole families and PNE-style rides. If we weren't drinking, there was only one alternative: Rides!

The cast of this expedition: Rhiannon, me, and Matt. It was fun!

Two days late, but...

2006-10-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

床前明月光，
疑是地上霜。
舉頭望明月，
低頭思故鄉。

(李白- 唐诗三百首）

Status report!

2006-09-28T01:50:00.000-07:00

All right, so for want of things to do last night I decided to annotate a map of Europe with the places I've been to and the places I am intending to go to. It follows below: Black lines indicate places I've been, red indicate places I will be going to (already planned and stuff, pretty much 100% sure) and blue indicates places that I would like to go if I still have time/money.

Cologne!

2006-09-26T04:41:00.000-07:00

So! This weekend I headed up to Köln (Cologne) (again -- last weekend I was there with my parents for a day on our way up to Paris). So this time I took fewer pictures and such. The above was actually from the first time I went; Cologne probably has one of the cooler night skylines out of the German cities.

It turns out that there was a mussel festival on during the weekend! So for the two days, our lunch consisted of Kölsch (the local beer), and a thing of mussels. They were done in a broth that was really tasty!

The main reason I went though, was for a concert featuring the WDR Big Band. Maria Schneider guest-conducted a program of her own compositions. I have to say that it was one of the best big band shows I have ever been to. The WDR Big Band was great, and Schneider's compositions are simply awesome -- I'm not typically the kind of person to be persuaded to buy an album after hearing an artist in concert, but it's what I did this time! There's something about her compositions that stir something emotionally in the listener -- great horn harmonies and moving motifs. It was great stuff!

Dresden!

2006-09-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

The previous weekend we took a quick excursion to Dresden. A former East German town, Dresden was bombed heavily by the Allies at the conclusion of the Second World War, but decades of restoration (particularly after Reunification) have led to this place having lots of really nice architecture. Here's a shot of the approach to the Altstadt along the Elbe river.

This is the Dresdner Staatoper, the State Opera House of Dresden. In addition to it being a really nice example of Baroque architecture, it is said to be one of the best opera houses in the world. I was a little disappointed, they had productions of Wagner's Ring Cycle on during the time while we were there, but it was a production of Siegfried on Friday night and Götterdämmerung on Sunday night -- in terms of evenings, the only evening that was free for me was Saturday night, when they were doing Falstaff, which I am slightly less interested in hearing. Nevertheless it's a sweet building!

Next we headed out of the city center a little bit to the Großes Garten (Big Garden), which is a massive piece of green space, as well as the location of VW's Phaeton factory, pictured below. The Phaeton is VW's luxury car (approximately on par with the Audi A8 or the BMW 7-series). They had a little museum there, where you could see the production line (it was Saturday so it wasn't running, it was nevertheless cool), and also a simulator where you could 'drive' it, as well as a floor model to hop in and have a look. Everything in there is really nicely done; the UI on the driver computer was okay but I thought that the feedback wheel was kinda primitive and not so intuitive. Nevertheless -- really nice car, and cool factory to boot!

Walking back to the city, we pass by the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), illuminated by the setting sun. Dresden is a beautiful city (also the home of the best Döner I have ever had, but that's another story I suppose.)

P.S. I finally buckled and joined this here facebook...so now my blog posts will be RSS-synced to the news feed on there. If you're on it, feel free to add me...

England!

2006-09-07T07:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, Paris can wait...I was in England for 9 days most recently, and it was a blast!

We arrived first in London. It's a great town, lots of character I found. (Of course, I could possibily have found it to have more character because I can understand the language more easily...but either way. This is a picture of Charing Cross Station, taken from the base of the London Eye across the Thames.

After a couple of days in London we went on to Southampton, where we stayed at a friend's place and ventured out on day trips to various places. First stop was Salisbury -- the whole Stonehenge thing, and an obligatory picture of course.

Bath is another ridiculously nice place -- full of 'older' history, more to the Roman times and such. The thermal baths are really quite something, and at the end they let you sample some spring water (treated and everything of course). Warm and tasting like iron, it definitely wasn't too appetizing...but very cool.

After a day at Oxford, we spent the last day outside of London going to Portsmouth, an old Royal Navy port town and home of the Naval History Museum and things like that. Most interesting were the two ships, HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's ship, and Warriorthe first ironclad. This is a shot of the Victory...truly impressive!

We still had stuff to do in London before flying back to Germany -- We caught the Natural History museum, which was really interesting and fun. Only thing I regret is not spending enough time there, we were rushed for the schedule so we had to hurry through a lot of stuff, especially the inorganic Earth Science stuff, which interested me a mite more than the bio stuff that we tackled first. This is a shot of the main hall, bathed in midday light. I just really liked how this picture turned out...

All in all, it was a great trip and an awesome way to end the summer. Though by no means is the travelling over; I've still got a ton of places to go!

Paris! (Part 1)

2006-08-21T05:05:00.000-07:00

This post is going to be a doozy. Tonnes of pictures, etc. etc...I mean c'mon, it's Paris! Without further ado:

The first night that we were there (I arrived in Paris by plane close to the afternoon, and after getting to the hotel and meeting up with Phil and walking around for a bit, it was already nightfall), we went to Rue des Lombards, a street in Paris known for several venerable jazz clubs. This was one of them, Le Duc des Lombards -- that evening it was a local musician with a group that played some interesting avant-garde. Besides that we just kinda walked around and took in the sights.

Our second day, I spent outside of Paris actually -- Matt, Jim and I went out on a day trip to Caen, and Juno Beach, site of the Canadian D-Day landing during the Second World War. It was good to see the memorial that Canada has put up there also, and good also to walk the beach for a while and smell the sea air. Beachside they even had a Steveson-esque fisherman's market. If I had a kitchen handy I definitely would have picked up some outstanding-looking mussels. Later that evening, upon our return to Paris we met back up to Phil and made it out to the Arc de Triomphe. One thing that really stuck out about these Parisian attractions, is how much larger than life everything looked. The pictures that everyone sees, and the pictures there are here, really don't do it justice. Everything is just simply massive!

Ach, must get back to work: I'll post more about Paris later!

Mein Bayern

2006-08-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, I know I've been lax in updating. July was quite a relaxed month in terms of travel, but nonetheless I went to a few places, specifically Heidelberg, to visit June, and Nuernberg (Nuremberg). More on those, and pictures, another time, though.

I just wanted to put a few words in here about the things I like out here, besides travel. It's been real nice, living a little differently than the usual 'student' lifestyle ("like real people", we say jokingly). Some scenes stand out in my mind as representative of my summer here:

Watching the Bavarian countryside go by as I sit on a train going somewhere for the weekend,
Chatting with friends the the courtyard of a centuries-old castle at an evening wine festival, watching a summer thunderstorm slowly roll in
Simply sitting in a cafe, with a cup of coffee or perhaps a glass of cold Weissbier and a book, and occasionally looking up to take in the magnificent sunset.

Bingen! (Running out of punny titles...)

2006-06-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

So, last weekend I went to Bingen am Rhein for their annual jazz festival Bingen Swingt. My main reason for deciding to go is because the NDR Big Band was performing, but I'll get to that later.

So as the weekend rolled closer, I decided to book my accomodation. Unfortunately, the only youth hostel in the town was full up - I was too late. A stroke of luck, however -- Heather and Joel were also in Bingen for the festival, and they had 2 beds booked in that hostel. Thus, that problem was taken care of. Thus, on Saturday, I hopped on a train for the 2.5 hour or so ride there.

Upon arrival, I noticed that the town is quite small. It kinda reminded me of Nelson whenever we went there for band festivals in high school. The Rhine valley is as pretty as advertised, though. River, vineyards...very nice.

This dude was kind of interesting. It's a Louisiana band, and there was a washboard player. All well and good, as the washboard is a valid instrument in the genre...but he's wearing his washboard. The guy has freakin' washboard armor. A little awesome, a little confusing...a little disturbing. Amusing nonetheless.

No doubt the highlight of the weekend for me was Saturday night, which was essentially a program of big band music featuring the NDR Big Band, and the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebow, which are among the premier big bands in Germany and the Netherlands, respectively. They played good sets, both of them -- the NDR guys did a large work based on the music of Frank Zappa, which was interesting. It was quite heavy, very rhythm-section-centric. Admittedly, it was a kind of music that is difficult to listen to in an outdoor concert. The Dutch band did a tribute to Ray Brown, with a very good American vocalist, and it was somewhat lighter and more crowd-pleasing. Both bands are really tight and have some killer monsters for soloists. I most enjoyed a set when both bands took the stage, laying down some classic big-band sound. Sure, I guess it's gimmicky and kind of kitsch, but there's no disputing the raw power projected by 2 killer brass sections, and 2 world-class bands' worth of soloists. They were jamming out on this one modified minor blues, and pairs of musicians, one from each band, would alternate choruses during the blowing section. It was actually riveting, especially the two pianists. I have a video of part of it that I should try to upload somewhere, eventually.

All in all, an excellent weekend of great music. Only thing is, I really really need to find a piano to play on now...

Interlaken blog (Interloggin'?...)

2006-06-27T05:47:00.000-07:00

For the long weekend a week and a half ago, five of us decided to go to Interlaken, Switzerland, for a couple of days. It's well known as an outdoorsy area, a beautiful sub-alpine region noted for its hiking, skiing, and other active pursuits.

I'll let a couple of these pictures speak for themselves -- Interlaken is indeed amazing. Notice the blue color of the water; the lakes are fed by glacial-runoff, which makes them really cold, but really refreshing to have a quick dip in.

We hiked up the Harder Kulm, about 700 metres over 3 kilometers or so. Of course, my usual days consisting of sitting in front of a desk, I accomplished the hike up and down with some difficulty. I really should start exercising more...but I digress -- here's a shot from partway through the hike -- We've overlooking the town and one of the lakes, and it's definitely more breathtaking when we were there. The highlight of the next day was a white-water rafting excursion down the Lutschiene river, a glacial stream that feeds one of the lakes in the area. The water was cold, of course, but it was tonnes of fun. And of course, with me not knowing how to swim, things got interesting when we hopped into the water for a quick dip in the ridiculously freezing water (in wetsuits and lifeys, of course). A couple of pictures follow:

Of course, I had to try some Swiss Fondue. It was indeed tasty -- melted cheese with white wine and some spices, which you dip bread into. Yummy! All in all, the place (and the country in general, as first impressions go) is simply beautiful. It's definitely one of those places that I will want to return to, when I'm a little older and a lot richer -- Switzerland is an expensive country. However, this trip out was worth every penny.

Prague Blog (Prog?)

2006-06-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

So a couple of weekends ago, we went to Prague. It was the biggest group of us yet -- all six of us Fizzers, Heather and her friend Adam. A couple of us didn't have reservations for the hostel (it was really quite the last-minute thing), but luckily they managed to provide accomodation. Sidebar: The Boathouse hostel is really good -- really nice operators, clean rooms, etc...highly recommended! So anyway I'll post a few pictures out of the small pile that I took, that are generally representative of what we ended up doing:

Of course, of all Bohemian composers, a couple stand out among the rest -- I simply had to have a picture with Antonin over there. I originally wanted to go to a concert too, featuring some works by Dvorak and also Bedrich Smetana (they were playing Die Moldau from Ma Vlast, one of my favorites) but alas, I wasn't able to make it.

Much of the time was spent puttering around town, just generally taking in the sights and everything. Here's a shot of the famous Charles Bridge -- initially it struck me as a giant version of the Alte Mainbruecke that is here in town in Wuerzburg.

Later on Matt and I ended up breaking off of the main group and went out and about the town -- this is the gate to the big castle that overlooks the city. Back in Munich the chuches had tonnes of statues of angels smiting demons and such...apparently the Czechs are a little more down to earth, what with the statues of people smiting other people with various weaponry.

We went out to a sketchier part of town near this TV tower, and it was interesting -- a world of difference from the kitschy tourist setup that seemed to pervade the core of the town. We go from the clean streets and tonnes of people, warm and inviting, to...well, it kind of felt like Whalley. Except with more graffiti. On people's front doors. But that wasn't the point of the expedition I guess, it was just to check out this TV tower. ...Who puts sculptures of babies, climbing up and down and around the tower? Creeeepy.

The cast of this expedition -- minus Heather (who was in bed at the hostel, rough train ride apparently), and Adam (who was taking the picture). From left to right: Mark, Adam, Phil, Greg, yours truly, and Matt.

Classical Music

2006-06-19T00:17:00.000-07:00

(Somewhat sparked by Shannon's entry) I like classical music. Not a lot of people do, really -- the golden age of the music has passed, and often times I am sort of disappointed that so few people enjoy the genre. However, once in a while stuff happens that rekindles my faith in the cultural future of the world. Tonight I was flipping channels (German TV, I really don't understand much besides MTV, its European counterpart VIVA, and soccer games), when I happened across a channel that was broadcasting an outdoor Berlin Philharmonic concert. And it was great! Thousands of people were just sitting outside in the open air listening to one of the premier classical music ensembles this world has to offer -- young and old, kids, families; it was really heartening. The orchestra starts a march, and the whole park full of people starts clapping along, people just having a good time. No stuffiness, no pretension, it was just eveyrone enjoying good music. ...I really need to find one of these open air classical concerts to go to! P.S. Still working on the whole picture thing -- I'll have some from Prague and Switzerland up soon!

Yes I'm Still Alive

2006-06-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to alert the world to my continued not-dead-ness. Work's picking up, not much time to blog then so I figure I'll write up a good-sized post on my trip to Prague last weekend, and post it later. Until then, ciao!

Munich!

2006-05-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

So I promised that I'd talk a little bit about my weekend in Munich. Lots of sights to see for such little time, but Matt and June and I managed to get through many of them, and kind of get a feel for the town. Would I come back? Certainly! (especially for Oktoberfest...) But here are some pictures, and I figure I will just narrate as I go along.

This is Marienplatz -- smack in the middle of old Munich, it's quite the sight to behold. The work on it is really intricate...and this is also the site of the Glockenspiel, the old decorative clock that's on the tower that has moving figures and stuff.

We went to the Deutsches Museum, which is a massive museum of science and technology. When I say massive...it's HUGE! The thing is like a giant cross between a museum and Science World. We took about 5 hours in the place, and we only managed to cover about half of the place. This is June and me in front of a really reflective thingy...and possibly the coolest-looking piano ever. In fact this was built so that it could be played as an acoustic piano, but also accepted plugs for effects pedals and computer control (a la guitar pedals and stuff).

This is part of the Residenz, which was a living-place for nobility of old. It was a beautiful day too, luckily...it had rained on the way out and in the morning, so we were really worried that we'd be trudging along in the rain for some of this outdoor stuff. However, we lucked out!

This cool-looking statue was on one side of a massive town square, which was really cool. We were kinda puzzled because as we were here during the day, there were people setting up sound, lighting, PA...little did we know that as we crossed this area again in the evening, they were just playing some dance music and people were dancing in the street! (Including one member of our party of three, who just kept spinning and spinning and spinning...)

In the middle of the Residenz was a really beautiful park, the Hofgarten. The old buildings, meticulously well-kept, and everything...it's a really nice town. I can definitely see why the people rank Munich right up there as a top city to live in, in terms of quality of life.

My travelling companions, Matt and June. Their tired look can probably be attributed to a 5:00am wake-up time to catch the early train, plus a lot of beer.

The next morning we took a train out a little ways and visited the memorial for the Dachau concentration camp. The lettering on the door reads "Arbeit macht frei," or roughly, "Freedom through work". Walking through the exhibits was quite disquieting and disturbing...I didn't really want to take many pictures.

Upon our return to Munich, we visited the BMW Headquarters and museum, which is possibly the coolest-looking building I have ever seen. It practically looks like something right out of Sim City! The permanent museum was under renos so we went to their temporary exhibition which was pretty cool anyway. I swear the entire purpose of the museum is to make people love BMW and want to buy one, because that's certainly what I felt when I walked out of it!

Of course, I had to take that aerial photo of the BMW building from somewhere, and that somewhere was the Olympic tower, right across the street. It's something like 200 metres tall, and the view from up there is definitely spectacular. We tried to pick out the sites we had gone to see over the past two days from the top of the tower, but it was rather difficult...we were reeealy high up.

...where to go next?

Out and About in Wuerzburg

2006-05-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

Long time no post! Everything has just been really busy lately so I haven't had the time to type something up and get the pictures and everything. So the first weekend that we got here, we explored the town here a little bit more. It's really a nice place...I've some pictures!

This is a view of the Alte Mainbruecke (Old Bridge over the River Main) on Saturday...there was some kind of market or fair going on so the bridge was packed!

Another view of the bridge, this time taken from the surface. The sides of the bridge are lined with statues of the old ruling prince-bishops, and at night it's really cool; there's only one set of lights for each opposite pair of statues on the bridge, but the interference pattern is such that both of them are lit up...it's hard to explain but I'll get a picture sometime.

This is the microstructure laboratory at the University. I don't personally do much work in this building (the main Physics building looks kinda boring) but I've been in it and it's really cool. It's kinda like AMPEL back home...though this building probably looks cooler from the outside.

The castle up on top of the hill is really cool. I've pictures from when we went up there but maybe I shall post those another time.

Last weekend I went to Munich! I will post about that, with pictures, later. In the meantime, I have to get back to work!

Mass update

2006-05-05T01:08:00.000-07:00

[Delayed Posts due to lack of internet connection] Time: 1:09am May 3/06 Frankfurt time, 4:09pm May 2/06 Pacific So here we are, 39000 feet above the Atlantic. At last we're heading to Germany! It was a little hairy getting onto the plane though; our connecting flight was running late so we had to run from gate to gate just in time for the final boarding call. It's all good now though, had a decent meal (hooray for international flights and decent food), and a magnificent sunset just outside our window. So, packing was kind of crazy. I should have started earlier but of course, it's kind of hard to start right after finally getting some time off; nevertheless everything that I should need is (hopefully) on its way to Frankfurt with me! Really not much to report since last post though -- I'm pretty much bored on this plane so I figure I might write an entry while I'm at it and have nothing to do. This is a half-decent flight, not uncomfortable or anything, and I don't have to pee too badly yet. Go Oilers! Way to knock off the Wings...I had originally predicted Detroit in 5, claiming myself a realist, but I'm back on the bandwagon. Woo! In other news, a Happy Birthday to my Dad! --- Time: 10:23pm, May 04/06 Well, I'm sitting in the youth hostel that is my current home (for the next 4 days or so), enjoying some simple downtime. It's been so long since we have had real bona fide downtime, and it's great! Last night when we all arrived here, we headed out to downtown Wuerzburg (it's just a stone's throw away, literally down about a block and across a very nice footbridge) and had dinner and chatted a while. It's nice to be relaxed; I suppose when I get all of this downtime and general relaxation out of my system I will be able to head out (like some of the guys did tonight) to enjoy the nightlife and everything. For now I'm content to just sit back, write something up for the blog, and do a bit of reading... especially reading that German tutorial book. I guess that I'm very much a guy who likes to know what is going on, etc. so I really find it disquieting when I know absolutely nothing about what is going on. I had never felt quite as lost and alone as when I was waiting for the train to here from Frankfurt. There we were, waiting for the train that we were "pretty sure" was going to come because we "followed" the train info peoples' "directions"...luckily it did and it was good after that. I will definitely be working on some survival German; I just can't stand looking like a total idiot when I have no idea what is going on, or worse yet, when the hostel keeper or other renderer of service simply doesn't speak English and I can't even do anything. Wuerzburg is a really pretty city. The old architecture is really cool, like the bridges that connect two sides of the river that the city lies on. The downtown is nice too -- in the evenings, everyone is just out on the street, walking, sitting in the grass overlooking the river, having drinks on patios...it's really refreshing to see. Hopefully when we move into our 'permanent' place (a month or so from now), I will get an Internet connection so I will be able to actually post updates in real time instead of waiting for being at the lab or something before I can upload.

Year in Review (Reeeally long post)

2006-04-29T09:52:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so with the end of the quasi-infamous (at least among fizzers) 12-month stretch, I figured I might jot down a few notes for myself on happenings this year with regards to my pursuits on campus. I think I'll be kind of free-form in terms of structure and everything in this post, so I might be rambling, incoherent, boring, stark raving mad, who knows -- but here it is, my Year in Review! - The summer has been relegated to the stuff of memories, and, for some stories, possibly the stuff of legend. The high hopes our team had in the beginning of the term were quickly shelved in favor of desperation to get the robot done on time, then finally despair as the morning of the competition dawned and JENGA didn't work. Luck works in weird ways though -- mysteriously, the robot suddenly did what it was supposed to do for the first round, so we were the first team that built a structure on the competition surface. Of course it didn't work later on, but hey, it was pretty cool. - Coursework is getting different these days. A little more interesting, yet also a little more boring as well. I think I enjoyed courses the most when they were difficult, but not because the prof sucked. I really liked PHYS 350 (Lagrangian Mechanics) for example, and MATH 318 (Probability) also -- these are prime examples of what I'm talking about; some of the concepts are a little tricky but they were explained well enough so that we could take something away from lectures and try to apply it to problems. I'm pretty sure I would have found PHYS 454 (E&M) interesting too, but I'm not too sure...the way the class was taught, I didn't get much out of it. Such cool phenomena that can be explained within the electromagnetism framework though. ...hmm, here's a thought that just occured to me -- I was going to write another little bullet point about how this year I started to really appreciate the aesthetic beauty of some physical concepts, inasmuch as their elegance, brevity, cleverness, symmetry, and a whole bunch of other things. Maybe I am attracted to that kind of course matter, because I was thinking about some of the courses that I enjoyed less (some of the engineering courses, actually...) and a lot of the times thoses classes were more about narrowly looking at several cases and learning how to deal with the cases that one might encounter. It works to teach people engineering, but it's also missing out a little bit on the fundamental beauty of a lot of the results that are simply used as tools in design and analysis. - Had a good set of roommates in dorm this term too (shout out to the S5B crew). It probably helped that 5/6 of us are engineers; we got some pretty out-there converstaions once in a while, and it was always fun to even just hang around the quad and chat about anything. It's the kind of group you want for roomies every time you move into rez. - One thing that really stood out in my mind this year is the gradual integration of my year of fizzers into the fabric of Fizz in general. I remember the year before, when the Penthouse was really kinda foreign territory and I kept to my own little group of people I knew and no more. But with involvement of our year in a whole bunch of different stuff (exec, Ball Model, etc.) I think it's really cool that it's all kinda coming together. - Speaking of the ball model, that was quite the experience. We took the idea from just that, an idea, and just went for it, and we built the auto-tracking sentry gun we said we would. Way cool. - It's stuff like the Ball Model, and WEC, that really set the year apart for me. With a newfound bounty of time, I threw my hat in on stuff like I really haven't before, and it is lots of fun. I've always been of the opinion that school and learning goes way beyond the classroom, and this is just another way for me to apply that concept. WEC (and the subsequent foray to CEC) was definitely an experience to remember, and to repeat next year. - I've probably missed out on a half-ton of stuff to talk about, but the above are some of the things that really stand out in my mind right now. Next up -- Germany! Stay tuned on this blog...stories, photos, more random writing will appear on this blog -- from the other side of the pond!

Electro-what?

2006-04-22T14:46:00.000-07:00

"[PHYS] 454 has plans to rape and pillage my so-far-fairly-preserved exam virginity." - Davey

Closer and closer

2006-04-19T01:19:00.000-07:00

The summer's drawing near...I can feel it. Had another exam today, which puts me at 3/6 -- I'm halfway to done with this term. It was MATH 318 (Probability) today, which went reasonably well. The Markov chain problems were relatively simple, but I totally missed the boat on a question that I stared at for about 15 minutes trying to apply the Central Limit Theorem to it. I realized (with about 10 minutes left in the exam) that since it was a Binomial distribution with large n and small p it could actually be approximated as a Poisson random variable. Blaaagh. Fluid Mechanics on Thursday, Microcomputers on Friday, Electromagnetism on Tuesday...then I'm outta here for 8 months. I think I'm going to miss this here campus, considering that I've been in dorm (with the exception of short breaks here and there) since first term of 2nd year...that makes, what, a year and 8 months? It's quite the time span, and I guess while I'm going to miss what is shaping up to be a beautiful summer here in B.C., this European jaunt will be a good break and a good experience. I've really got to start planning what I want to do while I am in Europe, for that matter. I'm thinking about a lot of shows that I want to base some of my trips around -- I want to catch the Montreux Jazz Festival for sure, as well as the Bayreuth Festival. Esbjorn Svensson is touring Germany while I'm there, as is Rajaton. Then come fall when the season begins, there is the Berlin Philharmonic, and maybe Vienna too if I can swing it. I also found out the other day that Wurzburg has its very own Mozartfest! I'm pretty sure it'd be worth checking out, this year being the 250th anniversary of his birth and all.

Go Play Outside

2006-04-07T23:30:00.000-07:00

I mean the title in 2 senses of the phrase. The first one is pretty obvious, with the new beautiful weather I really should get out for some physical activity. Tim was mentioning playing some tennis; only thing is that my shoes are at home and I don't exactly have shoes to play in out here in rez. Looks like it'll have to wait a couple of weeks. One that's weighing more in my mind right now though is the meaning w.r.t. piano playing. I think one reason I've been kind of frustratingly bored with my own playing recently is that I am finally gaining enough of a familiarity with the basics of improvisation such that I am comfortable with playing in the changes. I have some canned riffs, I can think decently on the fly, etc. However, if I'm always playing inside the playing can get sometimes monotonous. After all, the whole deal is about tension and release, and one of the most effective ways to do that is to 'play outside' -- that is, improvise without necessarily following the stated harmony in the traditional sense. It's a skill I want to develop, but I just don't know where to start. I really need to go in for a lesson with Chris before I head off to Germany... (again, probably not terribly interesting to most, but meh)

It's a Beautiful Day

2006-04-05T16:13:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful day. Nothing quite like a clear spring day...it's times like this when I love this campus. I almost wish I'd be here this summer! Otherwise, not too much new to report. Last night was Fizz Social Night, which was good fun. We (my collegaue and I) did our piano four-hands thing, which went okay but was kinda messy. People liked it I guess, which was good enough. Hopefully we'll get more time to prepare next time... Of course I forgot my camera for Social Night, so pictures may be coming if I can find some. Finals...then Germany! I think it's finally starting to sink in. 27 days! Except it looks like it will definitely be a sprint to the finish in terms of the crapload of stuff that I have to do before I finally skip town. It looks like I will need to take a machine shop course in the days between my exam and my departure, so there will not be a lot of time to spend at home with my family before I head out, which is kinda disappointing, but hey, gotta do what I gotta do I guess.

More unfocused rambling on music

2006-04-02T00:59:00.000-08:00

College/University Big Band Festival today! It was fun, and good to hear a bunch of different bands around town. As usual, the Capilano College 'A' band was smokin' -- there were some monsters in the band too, for sure. I have to get used to taking my camera places! I always forget, and thus have no photographic memoirs of events. But yeah. Hearing those top, top college/university bands definitely makes me glad that I am an engineer, because I definitely can't cut it to play at that caliber. There's definitely a huge divide between "serious amateur" and "aspiring professional"... One thing occured to me during our set though, and it's that my playing style seems to depend on the kind of group I am playing with. With the big band, I tend to go more 'pedal-to-the-metal', and be a bit more flashy (or obnoxious?). On the other hand, in the small-group or trio settings I seem to play a bit more reserved, and introspective. For example, after our set one listener described my playing as 'wild'...though I'm sure that the same adjective wouldn't apply to my usual trio work. It's kind of interesting, this push-pull between more of an extroverted style versus introspection, between the visceral and cerebral. Kinda reflects the balance that is playing piano to begin with. It really seems to have two parts to it, a cerebral part which is concerned with structure, harmony, and all that stuff, and a physical part which realizes the ideas formed by the first. There's a certain divide between the two, and the divide is made more pronounced by the fact that we don't have to worry about manually shaping the sound and intonation of an individual note like a violinist or horn player has to. We press a key and a note comes out, and it's in tune. Though in the end this physical aspect of playing the piano is harnessed in service to the cerebral, in that technical ability is a tool to realize ideas more than anything else, it's this phenomenon which makes "silent keyboards" for practice realizable to begin with. For me, the physical act of playing the piano is really important too. There's something that's viscerally satisfying about drawing sound out of the instrument. Some have likened it to a dance of sorts, others to some sort of physical endeavor (wasn't it Rubenstein who remarked to Horowitz, "Congratulations, you have won the Octave Olympics"?). I think those two similies are definitely valid. After a certain point, what some pianists are able to do can be considrered downright athletic.

Musical miscellany

2006-03-31T01:35:00.000-08:00

Bill Evans' Symbiosis album is a most recent discovery of mine (discovered in my hard drive, that is...I don't know why I had never listened to it before). It's definitely not your usual Bill Evans stuff (that is, piano trio on standards and originals), but it is instead more "third stream" jazz...(for a definition, see Wikipedia's entry on it.) If jazz or classical music is your kind of thing, this is definitely an album to check out. Recently I've been working with a colleague on some piano duet music for an upcoming event. In preparing for it, I realized that I haven't worked on 'legitimate' music for quite a while indeed. That is, by 'legitimate' I mean stuff with a more classical bent. I mean, it's just an arrangement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the overture from Rossini's Barber of Seville, and it's not super-difficult so it's not really hard core or anything, but it's great nevertheless to get back into stuff where I have to sit down and grind away at some parts. One thing about playing jazz for so long is that I'm finding my chops are deteriorating; my fingers are definitely not as fast as they were four years ago. Maybe I should start working more on stuff like this. The duo work is good also because it's just plain fun to make music with people. It's why I've been a band geek for as long as I've had the opportunity, in the end it's a lot of fun. This is relatively unexplored territory for me, and I like it; maybe I should keep my eyes open for duo opportunities in the future. As for my usual jazz trio work, I think it's time to go in for another lesson or something...we've found lately that we're settling into a routine, playing the same old stuff the same old ways. It's fun and all, and it doesn't sound bad, but I think I've definitely got to keep on doing that growth thing. Two things I've noticied: Improvisation, and solo piano work. One is kinda linked to the other, because in the end I think it boils down to having a few new tricks up my sleeve. What I tend to play seems to be very diatonic (probably a product of classical background); I need to incorporate more chromaticism into my lines and such. Plus when we're doing stuff that's sparse (Miles' Blue in Green, if I'm playing a ballad by myself, etc.) the texture seems kind of thin and bland. I think I need some techniques to broaden the sound that I get out of the piano. Anyway, that was a rather long and probably uninteresting music-rant. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow, I should probably turn in now, considering I have a fluid mech midterm in 8 hours... ...32 days until Germany!

Blinding flash of the obvious, and no rest for the weary (wicked?)

2006-03-22T21:53:00.000-08:00

So I was sitting uncomfortably at my desk here in dorm, on my desk chair whose back had fallen off, and is just generally not fun to work in. Then it hits me, a blinding flash of the obvious. I am working on a laptop computer. Suffice to say that I am now sitting on my bed and it's infinitely more comfortable. This is a much more tolerable working state. I think I'll have to do this more often. Ergonomic epiphanies aside, this is shaping up to be an....eventful week. The musical finished off yesterday; it was a pretty good run. I didn't exactly play super-brilliantly, but considering the limited span of time and such that the band was together for it, it sounded pretty good. So we struck the set, and eschewing all sensibility and rationality, I went to the cast party, disregarding the fact that I had a midterm the next day. Originally I had intended to stay briefly, maybe have a drink, and chat with people. Suffice it to say that it did not go that way at all, and that there are tales of debauchery that cannot and should not be repeated in any company. Good news though is that the midterm went better than I expected given that I studied for about 20 minutes before the cast party. Writing a paper now, that's due Friday...I have a decent list of publications to reference so I should not have too too much trouble with this. But yea, I should probably get to it, consdering that I have 2 midterms on Friday to study for.

Montreal and Musicals

2006-03-18T00:30:00.000-08:00

Montreal is a pretty nice city. I think that I could possibly live there -- the city has a pretty good vibe, and nothing about it really offends me. Other than the rampant smoking everywhere. That was somewhat excessive. Out of all the cities I've visited thus far though, it's right up there with home (past and present), in that I think that I could really settle there. Either way it's a cool place to visit, especially for something like this. Twelve hours 'til opening show of the rez musical this year, "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"! It's been a mad dash to get ready; about this time 3 weeks ago I barely had a band to play with (ie it was just me and the director), and now with our combined efforts we have a full rhythm section and a couple of horns. It's sounding pretty good! Getting ready has somewhat been to blame for my lack of blogging; what with school and music and Montreal and so many other things going on at once, I've barely had time to just relax. Next week though...there's always next week. Hard to believe that in a month and a half, I'll be on a plane to Germany!

String music and cognitive dissonance

2006-03-07T01:43:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but lately I've really been into string music. Specifically, bowed instruments. I have never really been into listening to them in general; I didn't particularly dislike them but I always tended to focus my listening to piano repetoire, and when jazz came along, jazz pianists and small groups. But somehow along the way, I really started digging the sound of the string instruments. Though contrary to classical convention, for now at least I like the vibrato to be a bit more restrained than customary. While vibrato does add depth to the tone (visually I can see a warm tone filling the room), there is also something to be said for a more stark, austere tone I think (where it's a focused column of light as opposed to a lightbulb, to continue the visual analogy). Perhaps it's a reflection of my pianist sensibilities. Though, once in a while I find myself unconsciously shaking my finger while holding down a note, as if to 'fake' a vibrato effect. Regardless, I'm diggin' the string music -- not just in the classical realm, but also some Stefan Grappelli (jazz violinist), some covers of popular tunes by string ensembles (no, not just Metallica, it's overdone and a prof here does that with his group String Theory :P), and even some prog-bluegrass by Bela Fleck, virtuoso banjoist. An interesting thing that happens in my dichotomy between engineer and musician is sometimes I just feel like I'm more attuned to one than the other, at a particular time. I was playing horrible at rehearsal tonight -- horrible! But yet I came back and did some pretty good work on my homework, and I just felt on the ball with it. On other days it might be reverse, I could be the most scatterbrained when it comes to coursework but play pretty well. It's not particularly a 'left-brain/right-brain' thing, because really, I find music to be analytical as well, and a very beautiful theory in physics or concept in mathematics is as much art as science. I wonder if there's a mechanism for deciding when I'm "off" one thing and "on" another.

Glimpse into Matt's cave

2006-03-05T22:21:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am a power nerd. One of the first things I do with my new digicam, is to take a test picture -- what of? Of my desk setup. Specifically, note the dual monitor display that's running off the laptop, multiple empty caffeine cups, and general messiness. Yeeha!

Productivity and Coffeehouse Invasions

2006-02-27T01:17:00.000-08:00

What a productive weekend! Suffice to say that in the past 2 days I've done more useful stuff than the last 5, when I was supposed to be reviewing for four midterms. I've managed to make a massive grocery run, do assorted errands, cook a kickin' meal (see previous entry), make arrangements for flying to Montreal (for CEC, woot), and doing half the fluid mech homework to boot! This is unheard of, doing half the assignment 3 days before it's due; typically I'm the kind of person to start the problem set about 12 hours before it's time to hand it in. So! Jason, Paul and I hit up the Beanery to jam...well, less 'hit up' and more just 'invaded'. It was fun; hopefully it can be a nigh-weekly occurence. Pictures follow:

Jason on bass, Paul on drums, and yours truly at the piano.

Me while playing. Do I always look this ridiculous at the piano?

Anyway, I figure that I'm going to set a new record as well and sleep well before 1:30am. Hooah! (pluggage, in case any Vancouverites read this: Tomorrow evening, UBC Jazz Bands play covers of pop tunes arranged for big band, in "Pop Goes the Big Band!" 8pm Music Building recital hall.)

Tasty tasty

2006-02-25T22:38:00.000-08:00

I just set a personal best for a tasty meal, I think. I managed to make a spaghetti casserole. So I go to Safeway, buy the sausage meat, veggies, etc., then I take it all back to Gage. Boil the spaghetti, dice the veggies, put it in a pot with the sausage meat, mix in the sauce, combine with pasta, put it all into a big dish, cover with cheese, and bake. Sooooo tasty. And it was a huge dish too so I think I'll have enough meals for the next 4 or 5 days. Jello is cooling in the fridge too. Will have that in another, oh...2 hours or so. Good food, taking the Saturday easy...life is good. Gotta do homework tomorrow though. Drat. Speaking of work, I just had an extremely gruelling week -- 4 midterms in three days. Now, it wouldn't be so bad, except included in those midterms was electromagnetism (PHYS 454), which is definitely not a happy course, and the midterm was horrible horrible. Microprogramming (EECE 259) and probability (MATH 318) went pretty well though, I think. Electronic circuits (EECE 254) came somewhere in between. I'm justifying my no-work day today by virtue of the sheer pain of the last three days. But! No work today! So I'm off to...do nothing. Maybe play some video games. Eat Jello. Ah, blessed nothingness. Being bored is so awesome. [EDIT 12:38 am] Let it be known, that Jello made with ginger ale instead of cold water, is possibly the tastiest jelly innovation in dessert yet. Next step: Cascading Jello innovations, by layering multiple carbonated jello flavors with suspended cocktail fruit and cool whip. Hooah!

Not cool, Apple

2006-02-21T01:02:00.000-08:00

Geez, Apple. I thought you were cool. You had your new MacBook out and sure, I got a PC instead but I was pretty sure you would understand. Then I go and try to visit a website of a really awesome band but it turns out they need Quicktime to run...so sure, I go to the Apple website and go to install Quicktime. But lo! I can't just install the codec. I have to take your bloated player and iTunes, to boot. I have a better player already, as well as a music player. I don't need all this crap. So boo on you, Apple. Looks like I have a better offer. (This post has been inspired by late-night crankiness) On another note: I just realized that I'll be in Europe in time for the Montreux Jazz Festival! Dude. I mean, duuuuuude.

20th Birthday Hijinx, and a farewell to a computer

2006-02-20T00:29:00.000-08:00

I'm typing this post on my brand spanking new laptop. Sorry, all you Mac fans, but this bad boy has the Core Duo and is working just dandy for me. I couldn't help feeling a little sad as I packed away my desktop, though -- I've had the rig for 2 and a half years (I bought it for first year), and I'd probably still be pretty satisfied with it if I didn't have to worry about taking a computer with me to Germany. I guess it's going to a good place, though -- Alice is happy that she's getting herself a new old computer that might actually be able to play games without lagging all to hell. So yeah, Germany! I'm leaving early May for Wurzburg, Germany for an 8-month co-op position with the Technical Physics department at the University of Wurzburg (Link on the right). At this point I don't really know what I'll be doing in terms of work...but hey, I'll be in Europe! Half the reason I took the job was, of course, to travel! There will be many places to go to -- I've got Austria on this list for sure (Salzburg, Vienna...all the noteworthy places for music), tonnes of places within Germany itself...a week in England would be cool, as would the Mediterranean, especially Greece. Italy is on the list...yeah, there are going to be lots and lots of places to go to. Really open-ended at this point, I don't know many details myself but hopefully that'll clear up soon. And as for my 20th birthday...yeeeeah. It was messy. Pictures later...maybe? I really don't know if I should... >_> [EDIT (1:00am) - It's kinda hard falling asleep now, without the really loud drone of the CPU/case fans of my old rig....I guess I'll have to get used to this.]

2006-02-13T00:06:00.000-08:00

Pictures from E-Ball last night! It was a ton of fun. Remind me to go again, next year...The Fizz contingent at E-Ball...

The Ball Model Team...at least, those who came to E-Ball (many notable absences!) Me, Mark, and Carolyn at dinner

A new web-home

2006-02-12T11:04:00.000-08:00

Well, with the death of bandgeeks.org (though it was more euthanatized), I will be posting here from now on, I think! (I would do the livejournal thing otherwise, but the whole friends-listing thing and everything just seems to be a whole lot of bother). So! This past week has been one roller-coaster of a ride. Spent the entire weekend getting our E-Ball model to work, while simultaneously preparing for a whack of midterms and co-op job interviews. The hard work (and copious amounts of stress) paid off though, when I got a co-op job (at the Technical Physics department in the University of Wurzburg, GERMANY!), and we helped Engineering Physics win both the Ball Model competition and E-Week! Pictures to come.