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The summer before grad school I used to go on hikes quite frequently. One trail led from my parents’ house in Coquitlam all the way up Burnaby Mountain to SFU. Another favourite of mine was the trail that encircled Buntzen Lake in Port Moody. It says it takes 4-5 hours to finish the hike but I can usually do it in two and I don’t think I’m going that fast. The elevation change is about 100m which doesn’t seem much but believe me, it’s a workout.

I used to do this hike about twice a week for about three months during the summer of 2002. I stopped visiting the Buntzen Lake area once I started school again. Today, for the first time since then, I did the hike around the lake.

Three years is a longtime to be away from something but the trail is exactly as I remembered it. Even the same logs which served as landmarks along the trail were precisely where I thought they would be. As I walked through the familiar forest, it was interesting to think I had returned three years later with a lot more living underneath my belt. I had met a lot of people, learned a thing or two, and acheived a few life goals. The trees were still green though and the climbs just as tough.

I took a few pictures with my camera if you’re interested. The piece of metal on the ground is from one of my hiking shoes. Half way through the hike, it just fell out from the sole. Also be sure to look for the floating and suspension bridges which are located at the opposite ends of the lake.

From everyone here at erwintang.com, we’d like to wish you all a happy holidays. Eat well, stay safe, and be merry!

Here’s an article for all my readers who are/were in grad school. Many of you understand the joy/pain of writing a thesis for your degree.

This tale comes from the University of Maryland where a 43 year old woman was enrolled as a grad student in exercise physiology. After seven long years of grinding away, she was nearing the completion of her Master’s thesis. Amazingly, she kept the only copy of her thesis, the product of those seven years of work, on a small USB drive. Of course, her belongings got stolen one day and that included the all-important USB drive.

The article details her desperate search for the drive and her thesis. I’m not sure how any competent grad student keeps only one copy of their thesis. For every grad student that piece of work represents years of hard work, dedication, and effort. To have only one copy of that is flat out stupid. I know people who keep multiple copies everywhere and backup at least once a day.

The author of the article labels her somewhat as a modern day Sherlock Holmes but it shouldn’t have come to that. My thinking is that since she was older, she was less likely to backup her thesis on different formats. Technology scares older folks. Or maybe she was just an idiot. Wait a minute… who the hell doesn’t save a thesis to a hard drive? Man, that’s just dumb.

If you want to read the whole thing, click here.

After work I headed downtown to buy my sister her Christmas gift. I had an interesting time doing so. I went to a place where I’ve never been before and saw some things that I’ll file away as a life experience.

I’d tell ya all about it but then my sister would find out what I got her. In the meantime, let your imagination run wild!

If I’m not working late I usually take a 6:40pm bus that takes me from downtown Vancouver out to the boonies. This evening, I waited patiently for that 6:40pm bus to come. The time came and went without the bus arriving. It’s very rarely late. Then around 6:50pm a bus with a route number that’s my route came flying by the bus stop. Instead of the route name it had “Not In Service” on the front. I clued in that perhaps was my bus. It sailed off into the distance.

The next bus was in 25 minutes so I wasn’t going to wait around for it at the bus stop. I made a short walk to Pacific Centre where 25 minutes would pass much faster. In a short while, it was time again to go back to the bus stop.

At exactly 7:15pm my bus pulled up to the stop, except it was no ordinary bus. It was one of them fancy test buses that use on my route once in a while. These buses use alternative fuels to power them and Translink is assessing several models for a future fleet purchase. Usually they don’t look any different than your regular bus but maybe the engine sounds a little different.

This bus was different though. The seats were in a really non-Translink configuration. It was wild I tell ya. Some seats were facing each other like in a passenger train car. I sat at the back of the bus where it was only three seats across. There was a woman talking to two other people two rows ahead of me. She was telling them how she used to be a stripper and how she worked the strip club circuit in Vancouver. She stopped dancing because the money wasn’t so good anymore. I’ll be honest here and say that it looked like her best days as a stripper were behind her.

When the weirdness of my surroundings and the former stripper two rows ahead of me was no longer interesting anymore I feel asleep. I woke up to find myself just about at my stop. When it was time to get off the bus, I made my way to the rear doors. Standing there, I was confronted with these instructions:

1. Wait for the green light to come on

2. Wave your hand “here”

When I read the part about waving my hand to open the door I immediately knew this bus sucked donkey balls. The “here” part was this nebulous region on the door that was painted yellow for highlighting. So let me get this straight, you want me to do “jazz hands” in front of a sensor I can’t even see so the doors will open? This whole gimmick was designed to make people look like an idiot before they get off the bus.

So the bus pulls over to my stop and I’m getting ready to do my best Annie Oakley. The light turns green and I do Queen Elizabeth waving to her subjects. Nothing. Now, I’m thinking I gotta do it more gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I try it again with what I can only describe as a mime washing an invisible window action. That does the trick. The doors open with a whoosh so loud, it can only mean this bus is hermetically sealed.

I hope that bus never makes it into the fleet.

I realize that everyone and their dog that has a blog has posted about this already but I figure what the hell.

Jack Black hosted SNL on the weekend and it was one of the season’s better shows. The highlight of the show was a short rap video featuring Chris Parnell and new guy Adam Samberg. Parnell has been known for his amazingly good rap skills which seemingly contradicts his unassuming white guy in his 30s image.

The rap is a musical journey that involves going to see The Chronicles of Narnia, delicious cupcakes, red vine candy, and “Hamiltons”. The piece is smart and funny.

Click here for the video.

Though Chuck Norris’ show Walker, Texas Ranger was deemed by some to be good “family viewing”, I thought it so bad, it was actually funny. Why else would Conan O’Brien run random clips of the show at the pull of a lever?

I’m not sure how it happened, but Norris’ bad ass character has spawned a random list of Chuck Norris facts on the Internet. It’s hard to tell where Walker ends and Norris begins. Maybe it’s all the same. Anyways, here are a few of my favourites:

Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse… horses are hung like Chuck Norris.

When Chuck Norris’ shit hits the fan, the fan breaks.

If you ask Chuck Norris what time it is, he always says, “Two seconds till.” After you ask, “Two seconds to what?” he roundhouse kicks you in the face.

When Chuck Norris got lost in the mountains one time, he used is own pubic hair as kindling for a fire.

The full list can be found here. Chuck Norris facts have started appearing all over the place. Just type “Chuck Norris facts” into Google and see what you get.

I have uploaded the photos from last night’s office party. The first couple are actually from the office. Our team was delivering a milestone yesterday so we had to wait for the green light to head off to the party.

I’m trying something new with these set of photos. Rather than hosting them on my server, I’ve uploaded them to Kodak’s site. I rather like their interface for viewing photos on-line. You can add photo titles, leave comments, and view as a slideshow among other things.

You may view the gallery here. No need to sign in, just click on Nigel’s smiling face to begin.

Tomorrow is the office Christmas party. We’re taking over Chivana located on W. 4th Ave. I’ve never been but the web site makes the place look promising. It’s not an open bar but everyone gets two free drinks. Since we’re a company that makes video games you can be sure two drinks will be more than enough for some to get ‘faced. We’ve been told we can eat until we can’t eat no more so at least no one will go hungry. The company has also hired a “band” for the evening. 8 Bit Weapon plays tunes from retro video games platforms such as the Gameboy, C64, and Atari 2600. 8BW used to be comprised of a guy and a girl but the girl left, so now it’s just a guy. I can’t wait until the guys awkwardly line up on one side of restaurant to perhaps ask the girls on the other to dance.

Actually, a lot of the guys at work are married or have girlfriends so it’ll be interesting to see their partners. Some dudes have adorable children too so at least I know have someone to talk to during the party. Though one guy explicitly stated he wouldn’t be bringing his girlfriend since he didn’t want her to meet us. Funny.

This will be my third office that I’ve experienced Christmas parties with. The first was with Cypress Solutions. Despite being a horrible company to work for, they actually had a very classy party. The second was with a small local company called Electronic Arts Canada. The EA party occurred during a “lean” year so it was held in the EA cafeteria. The year before I got there, the party happened atop Mount Seymour and they hired Matt Good to play. As luck would have it, EA is having their party tomorrow as well. They’ll be at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Rumour has it if our two groups meet downtown, there will be a slapfight (not in the face) of massive proportions.

I’ll bringing my camera tomorrow to capture some of the merriment. I’m hoping some people get plastered and do some crazy things. Fingers crosssed.

Before the party though, our office’s charity raffle will take place. All the money will go towards the Children’s Hospital Charity. Prizes include a PSP, board games, a few video games, a spa treatment, and some other stuff. I bought five tickets but I found out today that in total 314 tickets have been sold. The good thing is that you can only win one prize, so if you bought 100 tickets and win a book, all your 100 tickets become invalid. So my odds are slightly better than 5/314… I think.

Ok, I’m off to hear what Jonny Stewart has to say tonight.

If you’re reading this, then that means my web and e-mail server got rebooted and things are back to normal over at the offices of erwintang.com. On a positive note, this is the longest period in quite a while that my server has been up without a crash.

Ok, so here’s to a more entertaining post tomorrow.