You're at the wrong place!

My blog... now on my own domain!

2005-12-05T17:30:00.000-08:00

Check it out... www.soowei.com

Standoff at the xbox corral

2005-12-02T23:29:00.000-08:00

Hilarious xbox360 video that unfortunately didn't make it to tv... but nevertheless it is good!

Which File Extension are you?

2005-11-29T11:28:00.000-08:00

Which File Extension are You?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

2005-11-29T00:13:00.000-08:00

It's snowing abnormally early in Vancouver this year. I've never seen snow in November.... ever! Then again I've only been here for 4 years.

I dread to think what the roads will be like. I bet there will lots of people trying to drive as if it was summertime... I think I'll stick to the bus.

Nutrition Meal

2005-11-21T21:42:00.000-08:00

Yet another Chinglish nightmare... this is just a few days after the first one.

I'm not too sure butter, bacon and fried eggs are considered nutritious. If they are, please let me know and I will defrost the pound of bacon in my freezer and consume it right away!

November birthdays...

2005-11-17T23:27:00.000-08:00

A quick peek on Friendster shows that I have a whole bunch of friends who have birthdays in the month of November. I guess it's fairly obvious why when you think what major occasion occurs 9 months before.

On a more educational note, I have signed up for the Sun Certified Java Programmer 5.0 exam. Silly thing is that there is no study guide out for it yet, so I'll have to make do with the 1.4 book which is really quite different from 5.0. Theres so much new in 5.0 such as generics, autoboxing and typesafe enumerations... good luck to me!

Those who know me know that I always have a whole bunch of useless facts swimming around in my head. So I would like to present to you today's Useless fact of the day!

Useless Fact of the day: The Toyota Echo was designed in France, in Toyota's ED² design centre.

I'll try to post one every day!

Remembrance Day: Lest We Forget

2005-11-10T23:56:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. Every year, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Canadians observe two minutes of silence to remember those who died in war. So why that specific date? It turns out the armistice of World War I was signed on 11/11/1918 at the 11th hour. In addition, the week leading up to Remembrance Day is designated as Veteran's Week. It is only fitting that we all take a moment to remember the tremendous sacrifices that these men went through in order to protect what they believed in.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

- John McCrae

Using rootkits to defeat spyware

2005-11-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

Haha this is funny, using Sony's rootkit DRM to hide your cheating (and other secret information) from that snooping World of Warcraft warden.

Want to cheat in your online game and not get caught? Just buy a Sony BMG copy protected CD.

World of Warcraft hackers have confirmed that the hiding capabilities of Sony BMG's content protection software can make tools made for cheating in the online world impossible to detect. The software--deemed a "rootkit" by many security experts--is shipped with tens of thousands of the record company's music titles.

Blizzard Entertainment, the maker of World of Warcraft, has created a controversial program that detects cheaters by scanning the processes that are running at the time the game is played. Called the Warden, the anti-cheating program cannot detect any files that are hidden with Sony BMG's content protection, which only requires that the hacker add the prefix "$sys$" to file names.

Despite making a patch available on Wednesday to consumers to amend its copy protection software's behavior, Sony BMG and First 4 Internet, the maker of the content protection technology, have both disputed claims that their system could harm the security of a Windows system. Yet, other software makers that rely on the integrity of the operating system are finding that hidden code makes security impossible.

C-Jump progamming board game

2005-10-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Saw a programming board game where you gotta use control statements and stuff to determine your movement. It sounds pretty cool, they should market it to CS student societies in universities and the like.... probably would snap it up in a heartbeat.

Wouldn't mind playing it for fun... what a geek eh!

Canon on a guitar

2005-10-05T02:58:00.000-07:00

Simply stunning.

A dichotomy of good and bad

2005-10-03T22:58:00.000-07:00

The past week has been very interesting. Both good and bad things have happened, but luckily not in equal amounts!

First of all, last Thursday was my birthday. Spent the whole day with Esther. Since it was raining, her initial plan didn't work out, so she scrambled to get something else up. With me in the dark about any plans, we set off towards Vancouver. Going up Granville Street, we got stuck in this little jam on Granville and 33rd, with lots of cops on bikes blocking off the road. After waiting for 5 minutes, this huge motorcade drove by with lots of unmarked cars and important looking vehicles. Turns out it was the President of Mexico! Probably the closest I will ever get to fame!

We had a quick dinner at Cafe Crepe at 12th, and then made our way to downtown to Yuk Yuk's for an AWESOME night of stand up comedy. It was crude, raw and very politically incorrect... but maybe that's why it was sooooo good! Definitely a visit-again place... I suppose the quality may vary according to the comics present that night, but I wouldn't mind just going to check it out again.

On Saturday we had a dinner thingy at Red Robin with the usual suspects. Had to wait over an hour for a table, apparently none of the places we tried (Feenies and Rugby Club too) was willing to take a reservation for so many people. I got a peppercorn burger and freckled lemonade (delicious!)... with towering onion rings to start with.

After dinner I was pleasantly surprised with a huge ice cream cake! Too bad they didn't have candles, but it was awesome! Also got 2 birthday drinks... a shot of tequila and a Blow Job. Drinking that was pretty insane, got my face all covered in whipped cream while trying to down the shot!

With dinner out of the way, all of us came over to my place to continue the drinking. Some of us were feeling kinda uneasy (our theory is the ice cream cake) in the tummy so we didn't really drink all that much. I took like 5-6 more shots and walked Esther home later. The rest of the guys played poker/PS2 and stuff until 3 or so.

The next morning was crazy, headaches, fever, chills the whole day. Downed some tylenol and it's kinda better but still hanging around as of now... must be the bug going around!

On a shittier note, I lost my car keys! I don't know when I dropped them exactly, but it must have been sometime last night. I can't find my spare key too, so I'll have to visit the dealer tomorrow to get a new key cut and buy a new remote. What a waste of money!

That kind of sums up the week. Found a whole bunch of job listings so applying to those is a priority... Birthday pictures are up already, but I can't find the links yet so it'll have to wait... sorry!

Slow start to the week

2005-09-28T01:35:00.000-07:00

Haven't done much this week. Got an IBM info session to go to in school tomorrow, and my birthday is on Thursday... that's about it!

Probably gonna uninsure my car either on Friday or next week, I don't use it enough to justify insuring it all the time. I'll just get 1 day insurance when needed.

Boring week in review

2005-09-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a fairly boring week. Played a whole bunch of Winning Eleven 9, now I'm just waiting for Top Spin to come out for the PS2.

We were driving back from Metrotown today when we hit up some big jams along SE Marine Drive. I decided to skip Knight St bridge since it was crazy congested, but when we got to Oak St bridge, it was just as bad. Ended up going all the way to Arthur Laing just to cross back to Richmond!

My birthday is in 6 days, 25 years already wow!

Bacon Mushroom Melt is back at Wendy's

2005-09-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

Thank to my roommate and his astute observations, the Bacon Mushroom Melt is back at Wendy's! Since the Burger King here does not have Mushroom Swiss... this will have to do!

It's actually quite good really, with melted cheese, mushrooms and hickory smoked BACON! I've already eaten it twice in the past few days.

As Venitha commented on my Carls Jr post a while ago, maybe I have been away for too long... missing Carl's Jr instead of the amazing food Singapore has to offer.

There's so much more I miss in Singapore food.

Prata
Chicken rice
BBQ stingray with lots of sambal
Nasi briyani
Sugar cane juice
Sambal kangkong
Kway chup
Beef noodles (the dry one with the thick sauce)
Satay
Laksa (esp Katong laksa)

The list goes on really. I could spend a whole day listing all the food (and fruits!) that I want to eat. If Vancouver had a place with those 10 foods done right, it'd be perfect really.

Jobless in Vancouver

2005-09-18T01:23:00.000-07:00

It's been 5 months since I graduated and I'm no closer to finding a job. I seriously doubt my abilities to ever make myself productive in my chosen career.

Barriers to employment:

No relevant industry experience. I never did co-op, and I wouldn't have gotten in anyway. (See point 2)
Rubbish grades. It is a miracle I have a graduating average of 77%. For every A (only 2 I think), I have a smattering of mediocrity.... nothing like a D to round up your transcript. I have so many Cs on my transcript... I have no excuses for doing badly in them. Either I am dumb compared to the class (quite likely since I am often below the class average) or I didn't really care at the time (equally likely).
Being a foreigner. Telling an interviewer that you are neither a citizen or landed immigrant is as good as not being interviewed at all. I possess no attribute that would help me stand out from any other entry-level Computer Science graduate here, there or anywhere.... so why employ me over someone else who took the same courses, did bettter and requires no paperwork to be gainfully employed in your organization?

On a related note, I hate those damn interview questions. I don't know what my strengths are... but I can sure find a lot of weaknesses. BTW if you can think of a strength that I apparently posses, let me know, cos I sure can't find any right now.

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Lazy
Short attention span
Slow learner
Unmotivated
Gets tired easily, needs a lot of sleep
Horrible at socializing with people I just met (eg at job fairs, networking events etc)
Not exactly the smartest person around
Slower than a snail at coding. Moreover, the code I write is rubbish; inefficient, full of bugs and uglier than a bulldog... takes a long time to polish it up

Sending out resumes feels like wasting the (electronic) ink that it is on. I don't get calls, and on the off chance that I have, nothing comes out of them anyway. It's not as if I am asking for anything extravagant. All I want is a entry level position to learn from and start a career. Even that sounds mighty impossible right now.

Sometimes I wish I could have a simpler life... just end up doing a menial job everyday. Don't care for career advancement. Just get stuck in the same job for 35 years and collect my pension at the end.

Google Earth... now in Singapore

2005-09-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

When i first got Google Earth, I went straight to Singapore to see if the resolution was any decent. Much to my disappointment it wasn't all that great. Imagine my surprise today when I tried it again and they have got some pretty high resolution imagery in order! Unfortunately it doesn't include the western end of Singapore, it stops somewhere near Bukit Batok. Part of JB is included though interestingly enough.

It's interesting to check out all the SAF bases. Paya Lebar Air Base has a lot of green discreet buildings all over the place... very sneaky.

Here's some cool stuff I found...

My home haha... the one with the weird shaped swimming pool. It's Castle Green BTW... haven't been home in 3 years... sigh.

Jalan Kayu prata is either just below that mass of clouds, or hidden by it. I miss prata.

The 2 schools that I could find. ACJS was hidden beneath a swarm of clouds.
EDIT: I found ACJS!!!

ACS(I), with ITE below it

ACJC, with Fairfield Methodist below it

National Stadium and Indoor Stadium

Durian balls... Esplanade

Junction of Scotts Rd and Orchard Rd, you can see Tang's quite clearly

Turf Club

Piracy haven.... Holiday Plaza in JB haha!

IE developer switches to Firefox... ole!

2005-09-15T01:09:00.000-07:00

Never thought I would see the day... but it has happened!

http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/?p=115

It’s a sad day and a good day. For years I’ve held onto my IE install out of love. I worked on IE 1.0 thru 5.0, and was one of the people that designed much of its UI. But my love for the past has faded. Last week I switched to Firefox: and I’ve been happy.

Carl's Jr.... there but not here!

2005-09-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

I was just browsing around when I noticed that Carl's Jr has just opened it's first outlet in Singapore!

This is just great, I'm here and there's a Carl's Jr there. Sigh. I don't know why the Pacific Northwest has such a lack of great fast food. Gimme In-N-Out Burger and Carl's Jr and I'm a happy camper. Maybe there's too many tree-huggers/vegans/politically correct people here!

Delays delays delays

2005-09-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

Why do companies say they will get back to you by a certain day, and then stall and refuse to give you an answer? Just make up your mind!

iPod Nano... sexy

2005-09-08T23:34:00.000-07:00

Apple announced the iPod Nano today... looks damn good!

Here's some specs:

Holds up to 1,000 songs and full-color album art
Only 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27 inches and 1.5 ounces
Bright 1.5-inch color LCD display
Up to 14 hours of battery life⁽¹⁾
Apple Click Wheel
Charges and syncs via USB
Accessory-compatible Dock connector
Completely skip-free playback
Works with Mac OS X or Windows 2000/XP
Plays music, podcasts and audiobooks
Holds up to 25,000 photos⁽²⁾
Syncs contacts, calendars and to-do lists

Basically it's like what you would get if an iPod Mini and Shuffle had offspring. I wouldn't mind one, but I'd still rather have a good old 60gb iPod.

National Service and computer gaming...

2005-09-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

Singaporean defers army service to play computer games

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A young Singaporean man has been granted a deferment from military service so he can take part in an international computer games competition, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. In the first such a case in Singapore -- where military service is compulsory and lasts two years -- 20-year-old Stanley Aw was allowed to postpone national service by nearly two months so he could compete in the World Cyber Games.

"In line with the Government's support for sports, culture and the arts, the Ministry of Defense will consider granting one-time deferments for pre-enlistees who are selected to represent Singapore at prestigious international sports and cultural events," the Straits Times quoted a spokesman as saying.

The city-state -- which has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the world -- wants to boost its computer-games industry and has organized a host of gaming activities and courted game developers to set up shop on the island.

About 600 people will take part in the Singapore leg of the World Cyber Games competition from Thursday to Sunday. In the finals, which will be held in Singapore in November, some 800 players from 70 countries will compete.

Man this is just crazy. Why didn't have things like this back then? Who would have thought playing games would be so productive. If you told my parents that playing Nintendo and Sega all day would earn me money and make me famous, they'd probably have a heart attack.

Running errands and buying new phones

2005-09-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week since we got back... basically just running errands and getting things in order for the new school year. It feels weird to be not going to school this year. I've been in UBC for the past 2 days for various reasons and it's a new feeling to be there but not having to go to class or anything like that. Welcome to working life I guess!

I was with Esther last week getting a new phone (Nokia 6101) for her at Aberdeen Centre, and I chanced upon a smoking deal for a Sony Ericcson S710a. It was $350 - $150 = $200! Awesome deal I say. So what's so great about this phone? Well for starters it has a QVGA (Quarter VGA) screen which is extremely readable and retains great contrast even in sunlight. The phone also has the usual features; MP3/MIDI playback, themes, videos and even a 1.3 megapixel camera. Sure the K750i has a auto-focussing 2.0mp camera, but it doesn't have GSM850, which is a huge bonus to reception here. I had a GSM1900 phone (Nokia 6100) a while back and reception is rubbish in UBC. The only "bad" thing I can think about is the size of the phone, it's a little bulky to put in a pocket, and the fact that the screen is outside is just begging for scratches and dings. Overall I like it... and I changed my plan to unlimited incoming calls as of 24th Sep 05 so call me anytime!

Leaving Calgary for the final time...

2005-08-31T23:16:00.000-07:00

On Monday both of us left Calgary together for the final time (and for the first time together). It was hard work cleaning up the apartment and packing everything into boxes. I initially thought we would be able to pack everything into the car but it turns out the wagon isn't as big as I thought it was. Even with the seats folded flat, the TV and microwave boxes took up so much space that we weren't able to put much else besides the bare essentials. We ended up chucking a whole bunch of stuff:

2 Ikea folding chairs
Plates, cups, cookware and cutlery (donated to clubhouse downstairs)
Really old foam mattress and the sheets on it
Whole bunch of toiletries, paper towels and that kind of stuff
A lot of food, we left this outside our door with a note asking people to take what they wanted, or donate the remainder to charity

After an hour of packing on Monday morning, the car was finally filled to the max. We couldn't open the rear doors because things that we stuffed in there would fall out if we did! The car weighed down with the weight of 8 months of living, we set off for Vancouver. Good bye Calgary!

The weather report didn't look too promising the night before, and we encountered rain by the time we reached Revelstoke. We stopped for lunch at Denny's, which was crowded and served fairly substandard food. Getting back on the road, the rain wasn't too heavy until we reached Kamloops. We decided to stop at Tim Horton's and got 2 Ice Caps and a box of Timbits. Once we were on the Coquihalla the rain got much heavier; visibility was down to a minimum and standing water was everywhere on the road. Despite the weather, we kept pressing on and kept pace with some other cars, including a Nissan Murano that was maintaining a good 140 km/h in the rain! After some hairy moments, we emerged from the rain into a typical cloudy Vancouver evening. Traffic was heavy (as always) coming in on Hwy 1, but we managed to make it back to Richmond in good time for dinner.

We've been spending the past few days unpacking and just catching up on things. One of the things we missed most about Vancouver was the excellent sushi available at low low prices. We succummbed to the desire the very next day we were back and hit up Samurai Sushi for lunch. Esther got the always massive California rolls while I loaded on nigiri sushi as usual. I tried toro (tuna belly) for the first time, and I love it! The fat and the tender fish meat go perfectly. It's as good as salmon IMHO.

The rest of the week will be spent on getting Esther's new computer up and running, rearranging her room, and working on some other random stuff. I had an interview this morning, so I am eagerly waiting to hear back from them!

Ruby on Rails... interesting!

2005-08-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

Check out this introductory video to Ruby on Rails... very impressive what can be done with so little lines of code. I'll probably try to learn it over the next few weeks.

It's times like this where I wouldn't mind having a spare computer to do development on. Something to just fool around in. Maybe I should resurrect that Athlon 1.4 collecting dust and run a Linux box.

Weather in Calgary and other things...

2005-08-24T09:05:00.000-07:00

The weather in Calgary is pretty erratic, we went for a hike on Monday (more on that later) and the weather was nice, temperature in the mid 20s and sunny. Tuesday morning was not that great; cloudy overcast skies and a chilly breeze. This morning really takes the cake though. We get woken up at 5am by gusty winds slamming the blinds against the window. Stepping out of the car is a shock, it's 7 degrees, winds up to 50km/h and rain streaming horizontally... talk about rapid weather changes! It's a big change from Singapore, where it's hot, humid and steamy everyday. Even Vancouver isn't as bad, it just rains 8 months a year.

Anyway back to the hike. Since Esther had a day off, we decided to make the most of our last week in Calgary. We drove out to Banff in the morning and headed to Tunnel Mountain. The initial first few minutes were quite steep, especially for hiking neophytes like us, but it soon levelled out and we were going at a steady pace. The views were nice down below, but as we moved further up, the views became more and more spectacular, allowing us to see the downtown area of Banff, the Banff Springs Hotel and Banff Hot Springs easily. Near the top, the trail looped around to the other side of the mountain, showing us a view of a golf course way down below and beautiful vistas stretching for miles.

Banff Springs Hotel in the distance

Staring into the distance... think this was about the halfway point

Round the other side of the mountain... it was a sheer cliff down from here! Thank goodness for the railing!

Dinosaurs

2005-08-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of August, Esther and I drove up to Drumheller and the surrounding Badlands region. The area is famous for its dinosaur fossils and unusual geography, which makes it look like a mini Grand Canyon.

The drive up there from Calgary was uneventful; there is no major highway leading to Drumheller, so driving there consists of travelling on farm access roads. These dual carraigeways have a speed limit of 100km/h, so it only took an hour or so to get there.

Our first stop was the Royal Tyrell Museum. Here's a little blurb about the place from the website.

There's been life on Earth for more than 3.5 billion years, so we have a lot to show you: ten signature galleries and feature exhibitions that celebrate the spectacular history and diversity of life on Earth, and the palaeontologists who bring the story to life. Learn about the projects and passions of our scientists. Watch our technicians carefully removing the rock from fossils that may hold new clues to the past. Tour our Discoveries Hall to see some of our prize specimens.

Then, begin your journey through geological time. With every step, you'll experience the evolution of life. From sea dwellers to the Tyrrell's BIG attraction, the dinosaurs; to the rise of those furry little mammals and many of Earth's inhabitants in between. It's all here. Dozens of skeletons and hundreds of fossils that tell the story of ancient Alberta.

Opened in 1985, the Royal Tyrrell Museum is known the world over as an outstanding palaeontology museum and research facility. The Government of Alberta under the ministry of Community Development operates the Museum. Our mandate is to collect, conserve, research, display and interpret palaeontological history with special reference to Alberta's fossil heritage.

The museum was beautiful, with lots of real fossils, and mockups of dinosaurs. Seeing a life size Tyrannosaurus rex is pretty scary, you can just imagine how they could grab you up with those massive jaws and crush you into dinner in seconds! Photography was difficult in the musuem; tripods were not allowed so I had to make do with shaky hands and blurry pictures.

After touring the Museum, we grabbed a quick lunch at the cafeteria and then headed out to explore further. It was a HOT day, probably in the 30s, so we were both suffering from the intense sunlight, thus the squinting in the pictures!

Feeding a drink to the dinosaur... he must be hot out there!

Having viewed the Museum, we then embarked on a driving tour of the area, following the 48km long Dinosaur Trail. There are many scenic viewpoints along the way, which allows visitors to truly experience the weirdness of the surrounding lands.

The Bleriot Ferry marks the halfway point of the Dinosaur Trail. It is one of the last cable operated ferries remaining in Alberta.

After completing the drive, we headed south towards another minor attraction in the region; the Hoodoos. These are some weird rock formations that have been carved out of the rock over thousands of years.

Escaping the heat of the sun!

Our final destination was the Rosedale Suspension Bridge. It's a 117m long suspension bridge over a murky river that was used by miners to cross the river to a coal mine over 40 years ago. It's peanuts compared to Capilano Suspension Bridge but it's a piece of Alberta history.

After that, we were hot and tired so we decided to head for home. Turning the air con in the car up to max sure helped!

Zizou: Crazy!

2005-08-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

It's official: Zidane has gone crazy from earning too much money. It will be interesting to see him back though, especially with French football not exactly having many young ones coming up.

'One night, at 3am, I suddenly woke up and I then spoke with someone. But no-one knows it. Neither my wife nor anyone else. Until I die I will never tell (who that person was), this is just too crazy. This is someone that you will probably never meet. During the hours that followed I was on my own with that person, at home, and I took the decision to come back. I had never experienced that before, I felt pushed by this force which dictated my behaviour. It was a revelation for me, I had to obey that voice that was advising me.'

Happy Birthday Singapore!

2005-08-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

August 9th 2005 is Singapore's 40th birthday. It's been almost two years since I've been in Singapore. One of the most fascinating things whenever I go back is the fact that although everything looks so similar, there's always something new like a new bus service or a new building here and there. It's always nice to just spend the first few days discovering all the little changes (and trying to acclimatize to the heat and humidity!). I remember coming home the last time and trying to figure out EZ-Link... I still remember the old farecards with the 2 black strips at the back. They even had a huge arrow on the top to indicate which way to insert it... old school.

So what do I remember about National Day? Back during school days it would mean a holiday, and having some kind of celebration in school too. There would be songs in all 4 languages, with teachers trying to make us sing the ones we couldn't pronounce properly. The celebration itself would inevitably be somewhat boring but having a day off the relentless schedule of homework and lessons was worth it! When it came to NS, I remember helping assemble halfpipes and ramps for some stunt performance thing, and then having to watch them over the weekend because no one could find locks for the blasted things!

Since moving to Vancouver, I haven't done anything significant for National Day. It doesn't feel the same being 8000 miles away from home. Sure the local Vancouver Singapore Club has a dinner event to commemorate the occasion but it's kind of directed towards their members, who are mainly emigrant families rather than international students. Besides it's helluva expensive at $35. Am I not being patriotic or am I just plain lazy? Maybe I got overly brainwashed as a youngster.

Anyway happy birthday Singapore... 40 years ain't no small feat!

Calgary Stampede: The Greatest Outdoor Show On Earth

2005-08-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

The Calgary Stampede is an outdoor exhibition and rodeo held every July. For those 10 days, Calgary becomes a cowboy city. Everyone dresses western, people hand out free pancake and bacon breakfasts every morning, and there's a general feeling of festivity.

Having never seen a rodeo (or a horse up close for that matter), Esther and I decided to head down to the rodeo on a Saturday to see what all the fuss was about. We bought tickets online and headed down on the C-Train to Stampede Park!

Although it rained the night before, Stampede Park was packed with people determined to enjoy their day. The park itself is like a very big PNE/Playland/fun fair, with a multitude of food & game stalls. They even have beer gardens for adults to enjoy a nice cool one and soak in the atmosphere.

The rodeo itself was pretty cool, especially for a first timer. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Waiting for the rodeo to begin

The rodeo itself.

Cow milking demonstration haha!

Road Trip Pt 2

2005-08-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks later my parents flew over to Vancouver for my graduation. They had never been to the Rockies too so we decided to head over again. Since I was the lone driver this time, I decided to break the drive down into 2 portions in order to limit driver fatigue (on me). The first half of the drive consisted of leaving Vancouver in the morning and arriving in Revelstoke by evening. Turns out my estimation was kinda off and we arrived in Revelstoke way too early at 330pm. We ended up spending the rest of the time sleeping and eating at a Denny's.

The next morning, we headed off for Calgary and made it there pretty much with lots of time to spare. We then spent the weekend exploring the Rockies.

Plan:
Friday - Banff and Lake Louise
Saturday - Columbia Icefields, drive to Jasper
Sunday - Drive back home

The Icefields Parkway is one of the most scenic drives I have ever driven. Stretching from just north of Lake Louise to Jasper, it threads its way through the Rocky Mountains for hundreds of kilometers. The entire route is packed with scenic viewpoints, wildlife and amazing vistas.

Check out this lake!

At the Columbia Icefields, you can take a tour up a glacier, which is tres cool. It's surprisingly cold up there, even though down in the parking lot it's kinda warm. Freezing rain does not make things better too!

Look at the size of those tires! Those buses actually made it down a 45 degree slope, very impressive!

Jasper was kinda boring for all of us. There's not much to see in town, and we had a crappy dinner too. Looking back we should have turned back after the Icefields but we didn't know better. At least the scenery was nice!

Road Trip Pt 1

2005-08-02T09:13:00.000-07:00

So back at the end of April, a bunch of us decided to drive up to the Rockies to check it out. None of us had been there before so it promised to be fun!

Locked out of the car in the middle of nowhere! Luckily we found a mechanic who was able to unlock the car for us (on a sunday too!)

Back on the road... curves galore!

Welcome to Alberta!
Alberta Beef! The steak really is amazing, so tender and juicy, I can't wait to have more!
Red Lobster... seafood madness!

West Edmonton Mall... big but kinda boring really. Besides the waterpark and amusement park it's just the same old mall again.

Hwy 1 leading out of Calgary... heading home! The temperature was much much lower than when we first got to Calgary. We arrived there amidst warm air and summer like sunshine. Unfortunately the weather decided to turn against us and drop to freezing within 4 days, good thing everyone brought a jacket!

Banff Springs Hotel

Lake Louise
Too bad it was all frozen over.

Peeing again!

Welcome

2005-07-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

So this is the first post... nothing much to say really. I have a whole bunch of pictures to post up but silly me didn't bring my CF card reader to Calgary so whoever is reading this shall have to wait!

I'll dig up some other pics I can find on Esther's laptop... check back for more.