ABOUT ME

Way better than any Facebook listing.

So, you want to know a little bit about me, huh? Well, since I don't want to ask my friends what they really think of me and I don't wish to share my reference letters (and rejection letters) with you, I guess I'll have to do all the talking. I hope that everything is satisfactory!

What's Up - December 2010 Archive

Here are the past postings...

2010.12.29 - 15:52 PST - Vancouver BC Canada
Possibly I've Seen Too Much

There are two guarantees whenever I return to Vancouver for the holidays. First, I am going to gain weight and second, I am not going to have much free time. Instead of trying to resist the urge to exercise and plan out my days, I decided to let things happen as they may during this trip.

I was excited to learn that The Social Network was playing on my flight to Toronto, so I watched the first hour of the film. However, when I switched planes to continue my trip the movie was no longer on the menu. Instead, I resigned to watching The Other Guys and finishing up my Christmas cards on the plane.

My first Wednesday was saved for Christmas gift shopping. As usual, I mapped out a plan to start and finish my spending spree in the same day. In three hours, I had time to go to the mall, pick up some much-needed shaving cream and have some fake poutine, all while buying the necessary presents.

That evening, everyone got together at my grandparents' house for the annual winter solstice dinner. I'm sure that most Chinese families celebrated much like we did with ketchup chips, orange pop, a Canucks game and some Texas hold 'em. Along with that came two plates of dinner, some dessert and five extra pounds that I'll be bringing back with me to Ottawa.

The only day that my parents, my sisters and I could get gather during my stay was on Christmas Eve, so that was when we exchanged our gifts. This year, we didn't even bother decorating our mandarin plant and our gift lists were quite short. That made for an uneventful swap, but practically everyone got exactly what they wished for. I was very happy with my sweater and book.

On Christmas, I had some more eating to do. The family brunch was held in Coquitlam and featured the anticipated nine pounds of bacon, jelly bean count (my volume formula didn't account for enough empty space), paper draw (I got toilet paper) and 31-person RPS tournament. That evening, it was off to Surrey for a huge turkey dinner.

With the holiday rush done and being annoyed at watching standard-def TV, I decided to build my own antenna. Somehow, Dad found a balun so it was easy to put together the components in a couple of hours. After plugging in the device, the antenna picked up an amazing eight stations. Unfortunately, the clearest signal was that for an American shopping channel. Nuts.

The past few days I've managed to maintain my weight by going for morning walks to Marine Drive and Killarney Market. Still, I also had a good dim sum lunch yesterday that will probably put me in a resolution state of mind come January 1.

When I head back to Ottawa tomorrow, I'm sure I'll realize that the unlimited food and free time was a luxury. Still, it will be nice to cook a bland meal for myself after a long day at work.

2010.12.20 - 21:27 EST - Ottawa ON Canada
I Held the Book So Tightly in My Hands

Every weekend in Vancouver, there is a warehouse sale of Olympic souvenirs. There is so much supply that the warehouse is forced to give away mascot dolls that were all the rage earlier this year. Because of that, I keep asking for my friends and family to stockpile the unwanted freebie mascots for me.

I had been thinking about my volunteer experience recently when I went to the library and borrowed a copy of the official commemorative book of the games. Weighing in at a hefty six pounds, this is a pretty complete photo album of the Olympic and Paralympic experience.

It was cool to look at the pictures since my memories of the events are obviously different from those attending the events. For example, when Sidney Crosby scored the golden goal, I was supervising my volunteers at the welcome centre. I still remember the large roar from across False Creek where people were watching the game in Yaletown.

Also inside the book was the name of every single member of the VANOC workforce. Sure enough, there's my name on sixth line of page 391. It is pretty amazing that the names of all the athletes fill just one page while the employees and blue jackets take up nine pages.

With the sales from the book along with auctions of games-used memorabilia, the organizers say that the Olympics broke even. Still, some Olympic assets can still be found on auction sites. Anyone want some street banners?

As for me, I have a shelf full of Vancouver 2010 goodies. I don't think I need to buy anything else... but if someone is willing to give me a plush Quatchi with red mittens for free then how can I refuse?

2010.12.12 - 16:18 EST - Ottawa ON Canada
And I Think I Think Too Much

When I woke up a couple days ago, I noticed that my bedroom was a lot colder than it usually is. When I pulled back the curtains to check out the miserable near-winter conditions, I also saw a vertical crack in my wall running from the window sill to the floor. (The picture above is rotated.) Once again, I was forced into a do-it-yourself repair.

I went downstairs to see my building office manager and ask if anyone else had similar problems as me. She simply pointed to the window where there was a crack exactly like mine. I was now pretty certain that stresses like the recent weather and earthquakes contribute to little things like this.

After my towel rack installation a couple years ago, I knew that I would have to spackle the crack. The next morning, I sanded the patch smooth and then applied a second layer of spackle to fill in some loose spots. A second sanding flattened the crack and left me with a stripe that needed to be painted over.

There was a near-empty can of paint in my storage closet, but all that was inside were some dried blue chunks. I took the paint can and headed to Home Depot to try and figure out the faded colour combination on the lid. The woman at the paint counter did that and a few minutes later, I was the happy owner of a freshly-shaken quart of eggshell gloss paint.

All it took was the paint on the inside of the lid for me to cover over the spackle. After that, I left my bedroom to go curling with friends and have some post-curling eats at Whispers. Back at home, I checked out the paint job and decided on a second coat just to make sure that the wall colours matched.

So far, it looks like I have completed yet another successful home repair. You can see the crack up close, but everything looks okay otherwise (especially when the curtain is closed shut). To celebrate, I'm heading back to Westboro for a gourmet burger. Let's just hope that there isn't another crack by the time I get back.

last updated: February 6, 2012