MISSION : KETCHIKAN

About two weeks before I was scheduled to leave on my cruise, I found out that I was not going to be the only SJC resident to go to Alaska in May.

My neighbour down the hall, Carolyn, was also booked for an Alaskan cruise. She leaves this Saturday. When I discovered this, we excitedly went over her ports of call. Carolyn is also going on Princess Cruise Lines and her stops include Ketchikan, the only port of call on my short four day cruise.

I thought it would be really neat if I left something in Ketchikan for her to find, retrieve, and then bring back to Vancouver.

I hadn’t really thought it out very much in advance. In fact, the morning that we got into Ketchikan, I still didn’t know what I’d leave, where, and how. After breakfast, I decided I’d use some Princess stationary and write her a little note. I stuffed it in a Princess envelope and left the ship.

My parents were doing a tour of Ketchikan by themselves, so I only had my sister with me. As we walked around town, we kept our eyes out for suitable locations. We certainly didn’t want a place to leave the envelope where it was far away from the dock. We passed by several phone booths, information stands, public buildings and the like, but none of them seemed right.

In the meantime, I remembered I had no tape to secure the envelope to anything. We passed by a drug store and I bought a roll of Scotch tape (TM).

We looped back towards the ship and that’s where I spotted a somewhat suitable place. It was this gazebo thingy with a plaque in front of it. I was going to secure the envelope underneath one of the benches in the gazebo. It was covered, so that if it rained, the envelope would stay dry.

My sister and I had to wait several minutes for some people to leave the gazebo. Time was well spent inside a souvenir store. When the location had been vacated, we sat down on the benches and I pulled out the envelope and the tape. I put several pieces of tape on the envelope and paused briefly.

How the hell could I do this without raising suspicion?

I decided I should do it quickly and without fanfare. Without missing a beat, I reached down and slapped it underneath my bench. Then I decided I didn’t have enough tape on it, so I slapped a few more pieces on it and the bench.

It was done and all I could do was hope for the best. We walked away and I was really tempted to just run back, get on my knees, look underneath the bench, and just tape the hell out of that envelope. I didn’t though.

Who knows what has happened to it now. Maybe someone saw me and decided to take a look. Maybe a dog ate it. Maybe the tape wasn’t strong enough and it fell off. Lots of things could have happened.

I really hope it’s still there. Carolyn has asked me for an intel report. I gave her one. You can read it here.

BUSTED SPEAKER

A few weeks ago, one of my speakers for my computer system fell off the ledge it was sitting on and hit the floor. It was the never the same again.

I shook it and didn’t hear anything moving inside the enclosure. Unfortunately, while no parts had been dislodged, the speaker began to hiss static. It was most noticeable when I played my DVDs. It would drown out dialogue. HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It was the right rear surround speaker in my 5.1 system. You really can’t have your right rear speaker dominating every other one and hissing noise.

I decided to open up the speaker enclosure to take a look. I was hoping maybe a soldered joint had broken or something. Alas, it was not to be. All the joints I could see were solid. There were no circuit boards to speak of. The damn thing was broken and I didn’t know how exactly.

I saw two, well three ways really on how I could deal with this situation. First, I could get a replacement surround speaker from Creative. I’ve sent them a request for pricing, but they haven’t gotten back to me yet. Second, I could just get a new set of speakers. This option makes no sense whatsoever. If I were to get a new set, I definitely would get a better system. I have my eye on a set from Logitech. They are the cheapest set of THX certified speakers on the market today. 280 Watts (RMS) of sweet sonic power. I can get them for about $200. If I were to get a new set, the best thing (logically) to do would be to purchase similarly performing system. In that case, I’d be spending around $85 for a piddly 50 Watt (RMS) system. The third option would be to do nothing. Just forget about doing anything. While watching DVDs, I’d no longer hear any ambience from the right rear. While playing games, monsters could sneak up behind me on my right and I wouldn’t even know it. While listening to music, I’d be down one speaker. I’d get a little less William Hung coming out of my room.

I’m still not sure what I’m going to do. In the interim, let’s take a look at another speaker system.

If I had money, this is the one I’d buy. Too bad it’s $650.

THE LIST

I had a big list of things to do today. To my great surprise, I nearly got all of them done.

The one thing I wished I had done today was to go get some groceries. I need to go to Safeway bad. I cleaned out my fridge before I left for my cruise, so I have nothing to eat at home. I did make a quick stop in the Village produce store, so I have a few apples and strawberries though. It doesn’t replace a full-on Safeway trip unfortunately.

I paid to use the bus today as well. After eight months of U-Pass, man did that ever feel wrong. There must be some way of getting a free bus pass… SFU students… I’m looking in your direction…

I also filed my tax return today. I’m getting a refund. I wish I could use the money to buy frivolous consumer goods, but every cent of it will go towards tuition. It’s just the grown-up thing to do.

I can now (legally) drive again. I got my driver’s license renewed when I was back home with my parents. It was the first time I’ve ever had it renewed in a shopping mall. Here’s a tip if you’re renewing your license: go to the ICBC Express Driver Services Centres. These places don’t offer written exams nor road tests. Because of that, the line-ups are a tiny fraction of the full service centres.

Before I end this post, I’d like to mention that I’m drafting a post on my cruise as we speak. You’ll find out soon enough what I thought about my vacation.

A FEW THINGS

Wow, I had originally planned on popping in here and making a few short comments, but upon logging into Blogger, I was floored.

Blogger has added a ton of new features and completely revamped their interface. I’ve spent the last 15 minutes just reading through the additions and changes. Some of the stuff you probably won’t care about, but a lot of you probably will. The biggest change is that Blogger will now support comments natively. That’s right, no more crappy, free commenting from Enetation. The only problem is that I haven’t figured out how to keep the old comments from old posts and to have the new Blogger comments enabled in new posts.

Also, the new posting window doesn’t work very well with Netscape right now, so I’m doing this in IE. If you know me, you’ll realize I feel really dirty right now.

So, onto my original comments. These are kinda of stream of consciousness thoughts right now, so bear with me. I know everyone is waiting for a post about my cruise, but that’s gotta wait for a bit. I have a million things to do right now.

What I will say about the cruise is that you do a lot of eating on a cruise ship. So much so that now that I’m back, I feel like I should be eating all the time. I constantly feel hungry now. Bleh.

My next totally random thought has to do with the ball hockey I play every Saturday. When I yell out, “time!” during play, that’s short for “There isn’t a checker around you right now, please take your time and make the right play”.

It does not mean to stop playing and look up at me with wonderment. If I actually meant to stop play, I always yell out “car!” or “time out” or “stop” or “hold up”.

I’m glad I was able to make that distinction. I’m going to press the “Publish” button now and see what happens.

LAND AHOY!

I’m back on solid ground now. I have some stuff to do at my parents’ place. I’ll see everyone in a few days.

HELP ME

I’m onboard and everything is great. It looks like it should be a great trip. I need to be quick here since it’s costing me $0.35 a minute (in US dollars) to do this.

I forgot to set my VCR to record Friends On Thursday. Could someone do this for me? I want the whole two-hour special. If you can, leave a comment here. Thanks!

THE LOVE BOAT

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I’m going on a cruise to Alaska on Tuesday. Let’s rewind back to an evening about eight months ago when my Mommy called me.

“What are you doing on May 5th?”

“Um, I think I was going to do laundry that night.”

“Do you want to go on a cruise that day?”

“Um, ok.”

It turns out that my mother had arranged for the whole family to go on a short cruise to Alaska. We haven’t been on a family vacation since 1997 when we went to Hawaii (just 48 hours after I wrote my last exam as an undergrad).

Well, after that phone call in September, I filed away this piece of news for several months as it seemed like it was so far away into the future. Like it always does though, time flew by and on Tuesday I leave from Canada Place for Ketchikan, Alaska. It’s only a short, four-day cruise. The trip will end in Seattle. I’m not complaining since the whole trip is almost free for us. One of the benefits of having a travel agent Mom.

Our stateroom is a mini-suite with a living room and a balcony. It sounds quite nice, but I’ll still have to share a bed with my sister. I wish I didn’t have to, but my sister hates sharing a bed with me more than I do. She doesn’t like it, and I must stress these are her words, because of “all the crusties from snot and jizz”. I can assure you that nothing of the sort exists in any place that I’ve slept in. The odd chicken bone from a KFC bucket? Yeah sure, I’ll admit to that, but that’s the extent of it. Maybe I’ll sleep on the couch in the living room.

I’ve never been on a cruise before so I’m kinda excited. I vaguely remember watching The Love Boat as a child, so I have these preconceived notions about a cruise ship. I swear it’ll take all my strength not to give the bartender a double-gun salute when I order my first drink. I’m also quite keen on playing shuffleboard. After discovering shuffleboard at the local pub, I’m interested in seeing how it’s done shipboard. I’ve also prepared myself for spending a lot of time with old people while on board. I’ve heard these cruises up to Alaska can skew towards seniors. I imagine the younger crowd are more apt to head towards the warmer waters of the Bahamas.

The vessel that we’ll be on is the Diamond Princess. It’s the largest and newest ship in the Princess fleet, so I feel quite lucky to be on it. It offers 24-hour dining and you can bet your ass that I’ll be trying order ribs at 3am. The ship also has a wedding chapel. Don’t be surprised if I head home as Mr. Britney Spears. There are also 29 computer workstations with Internet access (more on this later). Last but not least, they have what’s called the Skywalkers disco/lounge. I’d like to make a joke here, but too many are running through my mind.

If you want to see a web cam from the ship, click here. It’s the view from the bridge. There’s also a web cam from the wedding chapel. If I decide to get hitched, I will make sure everyone knows when to log on.

Since 1997, I’ve worried about accessing e-mail on every trip I’ve been on. This time is no different. Fortunately, I’ll have access to my e-mail account. So, if you want to send me e-mail, I’ll get it. I’m going to try to check my e-mail once a day and if the fancy strikes me, I’ll even make a post here. Did you know that Princess ships now sail with a “Computer Officer” aboard? I’m not sure what the qualifications are, but it is certainly a sign of the times. I wonder what his or her duties are exactly. I’ll have to find out.

Ok, so I better go wrap this up, I still haven’t packed yet and I’m going to my parents’ place on Monday. I should be back here at SJC on May 10th. I’ll see everyone in person then. In the meantime, check my blog for updates. Bye!

AW CRAP

You know, for the last twenty minutes I’ve been writing a post that detailed the meaning of life. I laid it all out… in great detail. Everyone could understand what I was trying to get across. Then I deleted the post by accident. I don’t feel like typing it out again… instead, I’ll tell you what I had for lunch today.

Chicken with rice.

THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

Well, exams ended on Tuesday and the mass exodus of undergrads have begun. On Wednesday, I saw plenty of cars, vans, and trucks filled with belongings as students headed off to wherever they live during the summer.

The campus will become a lot quieter and less crowded now. Summer at UBC is my favourite time to be on campus. The weather is nice and you don’t have to fight your way through throngs of people.

Unfortunately, the arrival of summer also means the end of the U-Pass for the year. U-Pass was our cheap bus pass for the year. It allowed UBC students go anywhere for a fraction of a regular bus pass. No worrying about transfers and no worrying about zones. Stupidly, the AMS and Translink could only agree to make the U-Pass go from September to the end of April. This despite the existence of summer classes, not to the mention that grad students are in school 12 months of the year. A broadcast e-mail was just sent out tonight about the earliest a summer U-Pass could be instituted… summer of 2005. I’ll be done by then. Guess who does have a summer U-Pass though? SFU students…

In other news, unlike last summer, I actually have some guarded optimism about getting a summer job this year. Last year, I fretted for about a month before I pulled a horseshoe out of my butt and landed a great job on campus. Things are much better this time around. I don’t want to jinx it, so I’ll keep quiet for now.

Alright, I gotta go do some stuff. Later.

PROJECTIONIST BOOTH

I was going through some files on the old hard drive tonight. I found a picture I took when I had the LCD projector for my lecture here at SJC. They give you the projector the day of the talk and you get to keep it almost twenty-four hours.

I got the thing in the afternoon and even though I was supposed to study, I couldn’t help but set it up with my computer. I placed it on my desk and had it face the wall next to my bed. It was awesome seeing my Windows desktop that big on the wall. E-mail was larger than life! It was like surfing the Internet on a huge billboard sized screen. Later, some guy told me porn must have looked great too at that size, but I wouldn’t know anything about that.

Of course, I had to try out some DVDs, and it did not disappoint. In a perfect world, every room here at SJC would have an LCD projector mounted in the ceiling.

Take a gander at how movies look at my wall. A prize goes to the first person to correctly identify the movie I was watching (it’s a gimme).