Ch^H^H...Train of Thought

Ooh... shiny!

While driving along 237 today, I saw a Lotus Elise. Don't know how much it costs, but I thought it was supposed to be fairly rare around here? It also appears to have no license plate, so I'm guessing it's new. I wish I could take a picture but I was driving and couldn't get my camera out on time. And then shortly after, I saw another one on Castro St. in Mountain View. This time in yellow instead of burgundy. They're multiplying.

And on a different note, I saw one of those people who stand outside and wave signs around along El Camino Real. Except instead of apartments, he's advertising computer repair. And he's wearing one of those silver mock spacesuits/bunnysuits like you'd see in a cheesy Backstreet Boys video or the old Intel Bunny people ads. I think I'd feel kinda embarassed doing something like that.

"We have done it!"

A couple weeks ago, I was helping clean my friend's backyard. While rolling up the plastic surface, it occurred to me that the scenerio looks familar.....

Okay, so it's not as funny if you haven't played Katamari Damacy before.

Unemployment

So in about 2 weeks, I will have been unemployed for 6 months. I will also have exhausted my unemployment claim. Time to really get really serious on getting a job, eh?

When I graduated from Cal and started considering whether or not I wanted to go apply for grad school immediately, something that occurred to me was how much time I've spent doing schoolwork. Okay, so I wasn't exactly the typical college student. For what I was actually taking, I was technically in the wrong major (CS vs EECS). I also had some absurd sense of honor regarding classes. I'd do all my homework. I'd also attend every single class lecture and discussion, except those which coincided with a visit to the hospital due to broomball injuries. Yeah, I'd even wake up and go to class just to sleep in class just because, well, I was still in class.

So yeah, I spent so much time doing schoolwork, it put undue strain on my mental and physical health. Having 2 jobs didn't help that at all either. On the few days that I wasn't busy, I noticed that I don't know what to do. And that was something that confused the heck out of me. How do I forget how to waste time? Before you all tell me about the TV. I couldn't watch TV, since it had been so long since I last watched TV that I didn't know what was on anymore.

Well, after becoming unemployed, I think I managed to make a decent use of the time I had availiable. So, I'm going to try to list all the stuff I managed to do, or start doing in my free time. (excluding job related stuff)

1. Build a poker table top with Brian.
2. Evaluate how difficult would it be to make a pool table.
3. Refinish a coffeetable.
4. Clean out the garage to make more space for my car.
5. Work on maintaining the Acura Legend: Smog check, headlights, paintwork, antenna retractor module.
6. Backed up and recycled 150+ old floppy disks to CD/DVD.
7. Watch a lot of anime.
8. Watch a lot of movies.
9. Fix my old Apple Powerbook Titanium 400.
10. Learn to play bridge and spades.
11. Play basketball, football, and badminton with other friends.
12. Fix my digital camera.
13. Attend a few ResComp events back at Cal.
14. Put up a web site and journal.
15. Get a new cell phone, install some hacks, and make it upload pictures directly to the web site.
16. Fix the garbage disposal at home.
17. Finish wiring an 15 inch LCD panel.
18. Copied 10+ old audio tapes to CD.
19. Copied 20+ old video tapes to DVD.
20. Started writing a small OS kernel for the CS152 project.
21. Attended a Xilinx conference event to learn more about logic design.
22. Helped try to build a MythTV box (Linux Free Tivo-like thing)
23. Rebuilt 4 old PCs to set up a Half-Life gaming LAN.
24. Cleaned out my closet.
25. Went to a few car club meets.
26. Went to MacWorld 2005.
27. Attended a few bible study gatherings at Cindy's.
28. Helped my sister buy a new car. (Infiniti G35x, like mine but cheaper)
29. Went shopping and attended a bunch of bday gatherings
30. Went snowboarding at Whistler/Blackcomb.
31. Played Dance Dance Revolution for exercise when it was too cold outside.
32. Played broomball once with Brian's church friends. (no injuries sustained, yeah!)
33. Learned that when the Salvation Army and Goodwill won't take your old exercise bike and tv stand, the hoards at craigslist.org will fight tooth and nail for it. I think the best email I got for the bike was something like "my boyfriend's fat, so if nobody's picked it up yet, I really want it."
34. Attended my sister's graduation at Purdue.
35. Whipped up a cheap little remote control thing for Nick for his MythTV box.
36. Visited NASA/AMES to see rover stuff.
37. Played Star Ocean 3 (PS2 game)
38. Lifted weights.
39. Participate in the American Lung Association Asthma Walk.

I know there's more than that but that's all I can think of for the moment.

Must be the SSH.....

Your nerdiness is: Supreme Nerd. Apply for a professorship at MIT now!!!.

Cat

There's a circular window next to the desk that my computer sits on. Outside the window is a wooden fence and a brick fence right next to each other.

On some evenings, a neighborhood cat perches on the taller wooden fence and stares at me as I type. It also might be the same cat I've seen resting on the coarse welcome mat on the front door in past years. But where it came from, I don't know. What it's thinking as it sits there staring at me, I don't know.

Maybe it's hungry and waiting for the bird that used to try to fly into my house through that window. (Unsuccessful as the window can't open.)

Maybe it's training to be a guard cat by surveying the area for hostiles.

Maybe it's trying to be creative. Like making poetry or something.

I tried taking a picture a few days ago, but it didn't turn out well because of bad lighting. I'll try again another day.

HIV vs Cancer

Wired has an article about using HIV as a carrier to attack cancer cells.

A guy on slashdot.org has a great quote: "HIV vs. Cancer: The microscopic version of Alien vs. Predator."

Overall, it's a pretty good idea. I just think that people won't accept the idea too well knowing the cure's connected to HIV/AIDS somehow.

17, eh?

Do not eat iPod Shuffle?

http://erasing.org/i_ate_ipod_shuffle/

When kitchen applicances turn 16

My family moved into our current house in December of 1989, I think.

So, the house is about 16 years old.

The dishwasher door is about to break off at the hinges because it's so old.

The stove range only has 2 useful burners. The other two take forever to heat up.

The garbage disposal on the kitchen sink stopped running about a month ago.

Now, we don't actually use the dishwasher all that often, except as a dish rack. But the garbage disposal is sorta important because my mom likes to cook. So there's food waste sometimes.

It's not the first time the garbage disposal stopped running. But this time, it's final. Previously, it just gets stuck to the point that the motor can't get it loose. With a large bamboo stick shoved down the hole, we could turn the blades and loosen it up a bit and it'll start working again. So a couple of weeks ago, my mom decided to do like we always do and find the stick.

But this time, my mom cracked a hole in the side of the garbage disposal unit.

That's right. 1/8th inch thick metal, after 16 years, isn't what it used to be. The walls of the garbage disposal became brittle like cheap clay. I touched part of it earlier today and a chunk of it just caved through the side. I'd post a picture I took, but dude, it looks pretty disgusting.

After punching hole in the side and watching in horror as water leaked all over the cabinet under the sink, mom put a plug on that side of the sink and avoided using that side until I could get around to looking at it. As you all know, I was in Whistler for a week.

So, today, in my boredom (since nobody's home), I went to Home Depot to buy an InSinkErator Badger 1 in efforts to surprise my mom when she gets back. I'll spare most of the details, but here's the interesting/useful stuff.

1) The 1989 Sears/Kenmore disposal unit (1/3 HP), is like exactly the InSinkErator Badger 1. (also 1/3 HP, $55) In fact, I'm still using some of the installation parts from the Sears Unit cuz I'm too lazy to change the mounting hardware out. No pipe realignment needed. A perfect drop-in replacement. Even the body of the two looks almost identical. Damn, I'm lucky.

2) Buy plumbers putty with it. It's supposed to seal the mounting rings to the sink so it doesn't leak at the top. I'm just using the old hardware, but I know the old putty isn't what it used to be. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem to be leaking..... yet. Expect me back at Home Depot if it does.

3) Read the instructions and open all the baggies first. It would have saved me a lot of work with screwdrivers and hammers if I had known that a tool to get a grip on the ring that holds the disposal in place was included. It would also have helped to know that a gasket to keep the drain from leaking was in the baggie too. Yeah, it'll be a day before that dries up.....

4) Trash can are handy. When disconnecting the old dishwasher pipe from the disposal, I was surprised to find some hardened goo flowing out from there. I guess the dishwasher doesn't exactly drain everything completely. You don't want me to go any further on the description beyond "looks like a cross between sand and a slug." I let it drop into the trash can, and then quickly plugged the hole with a paper towel.

5) Have too many computer power cords? Perfect. You'll need to grab a thick one, cut it apart and wire it in so you can plug the disposal into the wall. (unless yours is directly wired into the wall instead of a socket) Excessive use of electrical tape serves to make sure nothing comes apart. And don't forget the grounding line.

6) A shower feels so good when you know that before, you probably looked and smelled like crap.

gong xi fa tsai

My pinyin skills are awful.

So I tried calling my grandma's house in Taiwan early this morning using a phone card and discovered that the South San Jose access number was busy. And the Cupertino one too. And the Saratoga, Campbell, Fremont, Berkeley, Oakland, Hayward, and 1-888 numbers as well. It's like the entire freakin' Bay Area tried to call Taiwan at the same time.

Anyhow, a few minutes ago, I tried again and got through. My uncle is visiting so I was able to chat with both of them. They seem to be doing well themselves. Though the world feels like it's getting a bit suckier.

I remember as a kid going to Taiwan during the Lunar New Year celebrations that there were a lot of cool firework shows. They're cutting back on them because "you can't tell the difference between a firecracker and a gunshot."

Well crap. It's been how long since guns were invented and firecrackers were used for the celebrations? And I thought it was only the US being overly paranoid after the 9/11 stuff.

Okay, sure, it's seems like reasonable precaution in public areas. In fact, in 4th grade, I went to Taiwan to visit and one night a police officer died in a street gunfight against a robber literally right around the corner from my grandma's house. Quite frightening. Quite depressing to die during a celebration week.

But if you're putting on a show in a controlled area like a stadium, it's more likely that the sound of a firecracker really is a firecracker. Afterall, you can screen people if you're paranoid. And the density of people usually makes it hard to get away with something evil anyways.

Whistler : Jan 30 - Feb 5

This past week, I was out at Whistler in Canada riding the slopes. I made a few small notes about what we did each day, and then filled in the rest after getting back. Here, goes...

Day -1:
Before leaving, Brian, Albert, and I decided to test our skills at p-texing and waxing our snowboards. P-tex is a plastic compound that resembles a hot glue gun stick. You light it on fire and drip it into the deep cuts in your board. Since it's really hard compared to wax, it doesn't come off easily. So it's used for patching. The problem is, it tends to burn and turn black. While the bottom of their boards are black, mine's white. So it looks like I have dirt embedded in my board. Ugly. Oh, and we found out afterwards that it's a cyanide compound. Yeah, should have done it outside instead of breathing in the fumes in Brian's living room. As Brian also learned, ironing P-tex with a foil covered clothes iron isn't a good idea.

Waxing was a bit easier. We melted wax onto the board and then ironed it into base material. After it cooled, we started scraping off the excess wax and made a mess of the kitchen. We also learned that we need to get a better scraper. Using a kitchen cleaver is not quite the right way to do it. :P

Day 0:
We arrived at Whistler after a 2 hour plane ride, and a 2.5 hour limobus ride. The limobus smelled bad and had horrible suspension. Dave threw up from motion sickness. Not cool.

Day 1:
Today was my first day on the slopes at Whistler in Canada. Brian, Irene, Miles, Albert, Chris, and I started out on the green runs twice since my board was freshly waxed and slippery. Near the Emerald Express. After doing that twice, we decided to hit GS, to Harmony Express, to the Saddle. Getting to the Saddle, we had absolutely no visibility since it was snowing with fairly high speed winds.

The Saddle was basically a large chunk of a hill with great powder for hundreds of feet. Being that the snow was pristine and the light was shaded by the mountain, it was also hard to see the bumps and stuff. In short, it's like you're going down it blind. Feel the bumps. Adjust to the contour. If you don't, you'll trip up. Most of us did, but since it's so soft, it doesn't hurt at all. There's a picture of me after flipping over when I tripped on a mound of snow.

Anyways, the loop through Saddle takes about an hour and a half. We did it again after lunch and then rode Olympic Run to meet the gondola at the halfway point. Since there was rain and snow at the lower parts, Olympic Run turned into a large slush pit which, as it turns out, makes for a really fast, soft, and fun ride. It's like snowboarding on an Icee drink. Since a large number of snow mounds dot the area, you get tossed into the air a few inches every 5 feet or so, but fouling up the landing is harder since it contours to your board and dampens the landing for you.

Dinner was at Caramba and was pretty good. I got a pesto pasta dish. I forgot what it was called specifically but I'm tired so I don't feel like thinking about it.

Day 2:
Yesterday, we went to board on Blackcomb; the more difficult mountain. The area's really wide so I tried riding switch a lot and messing that up. We stayed around the 7th Heaven Express lift area and then moved on to the terrain park after lunch.

Albert's good at the park stuff. I tended to run off the edge of boxes and rails. I did some smaller jumps successfully but wiped out on the larger ones. My shoulder's sore since I landed on it.

Hy's Steakhouse has pretty good filet mignon. 11 oz. $39.

Day 3:
Miles and Irene are expert skiers. Brian and I are expert snowboarders. What's wrong with this picture?

Yup. This past day was "t0t41 n00b" day. As you can see, all of us except Albert switched from boarding to skiing and vice versa. Quite an interesting day.

Miles and Irene seemed to learn snowboarding really quickly, although Irene has a head start since she's done it at least once before. Brian apparently remembers how to ski quite well. And I'm surprised that after 10 years or so, I made it down Olympic Run (to the gondola halfway point) at the end of the day falling only about 4 times.

I learned that despite it being a decade since I last used skis, type 1 settings are crappy. For those of you who don't know, it's a grouping that people use to figure out how much to tension the binding springs. Miles says, "Type 1 is for the people who are afraid that they'll break their leg or something skiing. It'll disconnect at the drop of a hat."

Type 2 is more likely to be better for me since during a sharp right turn, my right ski disconnected. :P I was like, "okay, start turn, tweak right foot to be parallel to left. Eh? WTF? Where's my right ski?!?!" Yeah, not cool.

So after returning the rental stuff to Affinity, we had reservations for Ziptrek. (zip lining)
Basically, we're strapped into a harness and we go from one end of a line to the other 4 times over a creek separating the Blackcomb and Whistler mountains. (Fitzgerald? Whistler Creek? Ah, I don't remember.) It's really fun.

The third run was longest one spanning 1100 feet. And the fourth run we had the option to flip over on the line and go across upside down. Going across in the darkness upside down, the view of the landscape looked really cool. I could see the silhouette of the mountain and trees. On the last run, one of the guides suggested that we pick up some snow and attack the other guide with snowballs as he zips over. :P

When we got back, we were really tired. However we hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we tried making meatballs. Of course, we didn't actually know how. So based on what Miles and Albert suggested, I took an egg and then
mixed in some hand-shredded bread slices. Looks like puke, but it fits the "egg and starch" description.

I started massaging that mixture into the ground beef and let them take over that so I could take a shower. When I got back I discovered that they decided to add bacon in there and were about ready to steam the meatballs. They actually tasted pretty good and held together with about the right texture. Note for future reference: 1 "large" egg (actually pretty small), and shred 2 slices of bread. Massage in 2/3 lb ground beef.

Day 4:
n00bfest continues! Albert switched from boarding to skis (he's pretty good at it too) and Brian's got ski retrieval duty now that he's back on a snowboard. Chris joined us trying to do switch for as long as possible. (he normally rides goofy)

Chris, Albert, and I first went on the green runs and after lunch went for the blues and finally a black run. We finished off by going down Olympic Run all the way to the village. That was tiring.

Day 5:
Okay, so it's the 5th day in a row on the slopes. I'm friggin' tired. At least I'm back on a snowboard now.

On the positive side, the night before carried in at least a foot of snow and the temperature was dropping below zero up at the top of the mountains. So there's fluff everywhere. So much that we have problems getting stuck knee high in snow.

In the morning we ran the green runs near Emerald since all the other lifts were closed. You could hear the dynamite charges going off as they cleared avalanches. After lunch, Albert and I took the Harmony Express up to some unknown runs with crappy visibility and then went down what looks like a double black. Mostly on our asses.

After that, we took the Harmony Express up one more time to the Saddle, to Franz's Run, to Expressway to find out that's closed. We're directed to the Big Red Express which takes us back to the top of Emerald and we race down Olympic Run without stopping. We ended up at the bottom at the same time. It was 3:54 as we got off Big Red. It was most likely 3:57 as we passed Emerald since we were looking for some dude playing bagpipes as we were on the Big Red. Couldn't find him after we got off the lift so no picture of him. And we arrived at the Whistler Village at 4:14. So, we took about 17-18 minutes total. Very tiring.

In the evening, the 5 of us in the suite decided to go out to walk about since it's friday night and we've played cards too many evenings already. We stopped by the Longhorn Saloon to get a drink and sit for a while then went to Garfinkel's (a bar/club). Irene, Brian, and I each drank a kamikaze. Since Irene wanted to dance and there wern't any other people already dancing, Albert, Miles, and I went with her on the floor. Shortly after, more people started dancing. Some random group of girls were taking pictures all over the place and wanted us to pose in there too, so now we're in somebody else's vacation photos. :P

We leave for home tomorrow. The trip was nice.