Wow talk about an exhausting weekend!

Friday night was spent at Lee & Kelly’s no pants house warming party. Let’s just say there were some very interesting costumes at the party. The VOC’ers at the party were certainly more “open” when it came to costumes (or rather the lack of) compare to Kelly’s architecture friends. Knowing that I had to drive to Whistler Sat morning I intended to leave earlier than usual. That didn’t happen as I ended up going to bed at 1 AM.

The lovely hosts

Somehow I woke up at 5:20 AM on Saturday morning without too much problem. After picking up Lee, Evan, and Greta we were off to Whistler. Lee had less than 2 hours of sleep due to excessive partying so he basically passed out the whole car ride. Luckily the coffee from Timmy’s and loud music certainly helped me staying awake. We skied a few runs before meeting up to the other car group of 5. The entire day I kept hearing people commenting on these “goofy” telemark turns. The skiing was wicked, so much pow and of course lots face plants on my part. For a few runs I was having so much fun I was singing “Pow pow pow pow pow” down the entire run. People must thought I was nuts or something. To get the most of the day we skipped lunch (well ate lunch while waiting at the lift), and ended the day with like 9 or 10 runs. Needless to say my quads were burning like fire by the end of the day.

Evan sporting his “moose”stache

After getting back in town from Whistler and having a shower I then headed off to 2 parties – Lorraine’s birthday & house warming party and Mitch’s birthday party. It was funny meeting some of Loraine’s friends again. Apparently I was remembered as Lorraine’s roommate that stole her vodka at a house party many moons ago. I couldn’t remember a thing from that party. Oops. I arrived at Mitch’s birthday party in Yaletown Brewpub finding him already pretty wasted. The 151 shot I gave him certainly put him over the limit as he ran to the bathroom immediately afterward. I admit, I can be quite evil sometimes.

Today was spent recovering from my lack of sleep. My quads were basically non-functional the entire day. Walking up and down stairs and getting up from chairs was a real choir. My skis were in very bad shape from last year’s action so I ended up spending a bit of time ptexing and waxing the skis. I won’t say they are as good as new but certainly looking better than earlier today.

Before, lots deep scratches

After putting on Ptex

Final product, Ptexed and waxed. Can still see some scratches but better than before.

I know I know, I haven’t been exactly the best blogger out there. The last few nights I often find myself amazed how fast time passed by… one minute I look up it’s 8 pm then the next minute I look up it’s already 11 pm and it’s bedtime already.

-With the rainy weather we’re having lately in Vancouver I haven’t been taking any pictures. This is rather disappointing considering I have all these new toys but I can’t really play with them. I have all these ideas in my head but mother nature just isn’t cooperating. Boo. I did, however, finish going through a portrait shoot I did with a friend of mine about 3.5 weeks ago. I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. Getting better with portraits…I think? Hopefully once weather’s better I can find some willing volunteers to take some more edgy shots.

-Decided to tune my skis tonight. Boy there are some major scratches at the bottom of my skis. Need to get a ptex candle, some wax and fix up the skis myself one of these days. Luckily with the amount of snow we’re getting I don’t think I’ll damage the base further until maybe spring time. Still not quite sure what’s going on this weekend yet. I have couple party invites for Sat night, I would like to go to both but I also want to head out and ski. Backcountry condition looks a bit concerning, if I go skiing I’ll probably end up going to a resort. We’ll see. It’s Thurs and it’s still too early to decide weekend plans.

-The head boss is in town from CA this week so tonight my work team headed out for drinks & dinner. My “head boss” changed from person A to person B back in May or so. He is based in California but visits Vancouver occasionally. This was our first social outing with the head boss and it was nice to get to know him on a personal level. I was pretty impressed that he knew everyone’s name on my team. Not bad considering there are about 150 ppl underneath him. (My team is only about 15 ppl).

-Unfortunately not much update on the dating front (as if this is a shock). There have been a few interests from parties/events but never went anywhere. Let’s just say online dating is really frustrating. To a certain extend it’s almost like window shopping. Some girls seem to be so high of themselves. It’s quite annoying when you put in the time to think and write a non generic message and the girl simply reads it and deletes it right after. Wow gee thanks a lot. Then there are ones that you message back and forth for a bit, make some connections, then they either stop responding all of a sudden, decide that they don’t want to meet up (seriously? Then why are you on there in the first place?), or all of a sudden “not interested in dating anymore” yet you continue seeing them appearing on the dating site. Serious WTF? What the heck is with Vancouver dating scene? At this point of my age it’s so stupid to be playing head games. Really what’s the point?

Went to Mt. Baker again today for some wicked skiing action. This time, however, was resort skiing. After about 5 hours of skiing my quads were burning from all the telemark turns. Funny to say this but the burning felt so satisfying! Still can’t believe it’s only November and there’s already this much snow already!

Love it!

From Wed, completely stuck in fresh pow (Photo: Rich)

Mt. Baker resort is scheduled to open tomorrow, earlier than schedule, due to the recent snow dump. Since today is a Canadian holiday (Remembrance Day) bunch of us decided to drive down to Baker for a day of backcountry skiing. This was my 1st turn of the 09-00 season and it was a fabulous one! 150+ cm of unconsolidated powder meant skiing down the slope was a lot of work. All of us got stuck in the snow a few times. It was quite amazing there was so much snow this early in Nov! Hoping this season will be a good one.

Lots ppl had the same idea as us.

First run of the day! Sweet!

Rich disappearing into the snow

There was so much snow Jay managed to get his entire body stuck in a deep hole.

Some guy’s phone went off with the ringtone blaring
“A HOT GIRL IS CALLING, A HOT GIRL IS CALLING.”
The guy answered the phone and said “I can’t talk right now, mom, I’m in class. I’ll call you later.”

—-
5 yrs ago, MATH 100 class, an exchange prof:
1 day in class, as he started calling out names to hand back our midterms,
Prof: “My Cock”
students: silence…. “What?”
Prof: “My Cock”
Students: silence…then some ppl started giggling
*confused silence by the prof*

name on the midterm = Mike Hawk

Full moon + low tide + no rain = 14 young aspiring ninjas on top of a famous Vancouver landmark.

No names shall be mentioned.

For those of you that follow me on Twitter you probably read a few of my tweets about going to LA. Yup last Thurs a few friends and I drove down to Seattle to catch a flight and went for a 5 day vacation in LA. Some highlights:

• Went to the LA Kings vs Vancouver Canucks game on Thurs night. The Canucks played horrible but somehow walked out with a win. It was really cool checking out the warmup skate. Since it was the “Canadian” night, there were tons of Canucks fans. We sat in front of bunch LA fans and throughout the game we were trash talking each other, it was great fun. As part of the Canadian night ticket package, after the game there was a concert with The Tragically Hip at Club Nokia nearby. Walking out of the arena tons of Canucks fans were high fiving each other and chanting “go Canucks go.” While waiting in line to get into the club a bunch of us began singing Oh Canada on top of our lungs. It was awesome! Never been to a Hip concert before I wasn’t sure what to expect but I’ve heard lots things about how entertaining their concerts are. The Hip did not disappoint! The concert was amazing and they rocked the place!
• After about 6 hours of sleep the 6 of us went to Disnleyland the next morning. It was tons of fun. Somehow though, the roller coasters didn’t seem as scary as they were when I was younger. I almost managed to put my hands up as our log plunged down the Splash Mountain drop. Thunder Mountain was tons of fun so was Space Mountain.
• We spent Halloween in Six Flags Magic Mountain. Man the roller coasters there were sick! I felt queazy just looking at some of the roller coasters. I was too scared to go on some of the extreme rides like Superman the Escape or X2 but managed to get on tamer ones like Colossal, Scream, and Terminator. My favourite was probably either Terminator or Scream. Evan & Colin went on X2 and Tatsu and both said those rides were just really silly scary. At night the park turned into a hunted park with lots actors dressing up as zombies, vampires, etc. It was really funny looking at the actors chasing some scared girls. The hunted houses were very very well done!

• The next two days were spent walking around in Hollywood and lazing around in Santa Monica. I couldn’t believe we were able to lay on the beach shirtless in November! Talk about unbelievable sunny California weather!

Lowlight?

• Eating like a bloody American, tons of fast food and not enough veggies. It was really nice to get home and cook a delicious home-made dinner.

I have had a few rants about Canadian cellphone carriers on this blog over the years. Since I’m on Telus, my rants seem to be more focused on them like my rant about Telus charging money for SMS and me giving middle finger salute to Telus. Today while browsing the internet I came across CBC’s news about Telus scrapping the much hated system access fee.

From the story:

The company [Telus] announced Tuesday that it was discontinuing its $6.95 system access fee, which it said went toward maintaining and upgrading its network, as well as the 75-cent 911 charge.

“Nobody likes surprises. We are listening to Canadians, who have told us wireless pricing can be confusing,” said Telus chief executive Darren Entwistle said in a statement. “With Telus’s Clear Choice plans, the price you see is the price you pay.”

Great news right? Until you read the story a bit deeper…

Telus subscribers won’t see a huge savings though, as the company is also increasing the price of its monthly service plans by $5 to make up for the revenue shortfall. Telus is, however, including its Voicemail 3 service — which lets customers save up to three voice mail messages — with the plans. Rogers also boosted the price of its plans when it dropped the system access fee.

Wait a minute, wait a minute here! Let me get this straight. For the longest time Telus, or rather all Canadian cell carriers, have been telling us that system access fee is an unavoidable charge. This fee is used for are for maintaining the network. This can be found in many old articles such as this one and I quote:

Canada’s existing cellphone companies — Rogers, Bell and Telus, as well as MTS Allstream and SaskTel — are currently embroiled in a class-action lawsuit over system access fees. Regina-based lawyer Tony Merchant claims the companies have misrepresented the charges as government-mandated fees for years and is seeking a repayment of nearly $20 billion. Merchant’s lawsuit was certified as a class action last year and is still before the courts.

The fee began as a government licensing charge in the 1980s to cellphone providers for using public airwaves. In 1986, the government transferred the collection of the fee to cellphone providers, who were to incorporate them into their monthly charges. Instead, the carriers opted to keep them separate.

The cellphone companies say the charges, which no other carriers in the world break out separately, are for ongoing maintenance and investment in their networks.

So by scrapping system access fee you need to increase all monthly plans by $5 to cover falling revenue? Hmm looks like Canadian cellphone carriers’ little white lie has been uncovered. System access fee had nothing to do with network maintenance and network investment costs! It’s just another method to squeeze more pennies out from Canadians. Hmm I wonder how much Rogers, Bell, and Telus made on so-called “system access fee” since 1986…

(cue Dr. Evil) ONE BILLION DOLLAR!!!

I’m pretty sure we’re talking in the many many multiples of a billion dollar. Sure you can argue that scrapping the system access fee is a step in the right direction but charging an extra $5 on all monthly plan is like taking a 3/4 step backward!

I guess this is what they meant by tough economic times call for tough measures.

I can’t stop listening to this song. This band is seriously talented! Enjoy.

Hmmm seems that I’ve been posting a lot of pictures lately. It’s probably because I’m too lazy to type stuff up, so here’s another picture related blog post!

This past Sunday I attended my 1st No Compacts Allowed photowalk and met up with some local photographers like Tyler Ingram, Jeremy Lim, and John Biehler. I went into this photowalk without meeting any of them in person previously, only knowing them from blogs & twitters. The original plan was to meet up and wander around the island. However 3 models tagged along and the photo session quickly went from “photowalk” to a full on strobist session. Since I’m still learning how to shoot models using off-camera flash setup,I wasn’t complaining!!! This was my first time shooting outdoor portraits at night with a group of people. Faced a few challenges along the way and I found the session to be a great learning experience. Here are some pictures from that night:

It was really cool to final meet up with these fellow photographers/tech nerds I’ve known for a while through blogs & twitter. Hopefully I’ll be able to attend the next photowalk!