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Fleeting Times

Last night was a blast.

Well all made it to Elk Island sorta safe and sound. We all got there, a hodge podge mix of my friends. I realize that some people tend to be very exclusive with their friends. They don’t like mixing friends from one circle with another. I hate that. I love mixing things up, and anyways, meeting and getting to know new people is always fun.

And mix we did last night. We sat around the campfire in the middle of nowhere Alberta, some of us drunken, some of us baked out of our minds, and some of us just having a simple good time. It didn’t matter who we were, but we got all along and just partied ’till the wee hours of the night.

It was a great way to send things off and to say goodbye to a life that I probably won’t have anymore. The whole being “responsible” schtick with being older means less spontaneity, less “magical” moments of connecting and discovering new people. I’ve got great friends in Ottawa, and I have a ton of fun with them. But the maturity gap makes things more predictable and more conservative. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a different thing.

That spontaneity of gathering a ton of random people together for boozin’ and chilling by the campfire is something that seems to be just a young immature university kid thing to do. I could be wrong, and I hope I am. But these times are definitely fleeting for me. But I’ve realized that being young is really just a mental state. The only thing that I can’t will is the fact that I have to say goodbye to all my wonderful friends.

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Random events at the booze-out:

• Having a transmission on a car die on you on the highway is scary. Mylore’s car crapped out on the way there and his transmission got stuck in 3rd gear. We parked and camped, but found out he couldn’t get out of 3rd. No reverse and no neutral (so we couldn’t push the car to reverse). We had to lift the car up and push to get it moving. It only took 6 full grown men half an hour to move the bloody thing 5 feet.
• Letting Reg, a fellow comp sci guy who hasn’t smoked pot in years, smoke half of a fat blunt is a terrible thing to do. Poor Reg was so baked that tears were seen rolling down his cheek. Reg being all philosophical with Mylore: “Life man… life…”.
• My crazy buddy Ryan cannot handle a massive 5lb axe.
• We were bitching and complaining about Quebec separatists at one point of the night (not sure how this started). Soon as we did, some random Quebecor drove up all drunken and demanded we sell him cigarettes. Other than the fact that he was completely loaded and didn’t know where he was, and that we were probably the only living souls 30 km’s from that place, he was coherent enough to explain his anger at English Canadians and how he fixed his anger. “We lost the war man… we lost the war and we should accept it.” I found it strange that the French feel this way even after losing the war 250 years ago.
• It’s very easy to sell a six-pack of cheap beer to a drunken Quebecor for $20. Watching him moon one of our friends for being a “French hater” and almost falling into a raging fire because his pants are at his knees is funny and a sure sign of karmic justice.
• My awesome friend Thea has amazing tastes in music. I’m waiting dearly for her mix-CD that she promised she’d send to me in Ottawa. Also, she might be a civil servant and might move to Ottawa. More friends from the West, woot!
• Leo: “Damn I got the pasties, it’s all dry.” Reg: “Dry as a nun’s cunt?”

Good times!

Ryan all badass:

Ryan a few hours later:

Some of the gang, Aaron is passed out in the little green tent so we had to include him somehow:

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Officially a Bum

Yes, I am officially a bum.

I have no job.

I am not a student.

I have no source of income.

As of April 23rd, when I placed my pencil down from my Tibetan Buddhism final exam, for the first time in my life I became a bum. I honestly don’t know why, but it is all very anti-climactic and I feel really strange not having something “pending” to study for or to do. Well, other than packing up to leave for Ottawa on May 1st.

My job hunt begins now, and right now there’s a very good chance that Statistics Canada will be hiring me. I also have sent my resume out to some private sector companies, and I’ve heard back from one of them. So I’m hoping a few will give me a call back and I’ll have to weigh in my options for what I should be doing.
It is a very good time to be a Computing Scientist though, as enrollment has plummeted and is almost non-existent across North America. At the same time, the demand keeps increasing.  Entry level pay for us CS folk now ranges between like $50k-$65k per year.  Ottawa especially, since it’s the silicon valley of Canada, has very high rates.  Kanata, a suburb, averages $64k per year for ENTRY level programmers… a national high.  It’s a good time, so I want to make sure that I’m not selling myself short.
On that note, I want to congratulate my close friend Mylore on landing a job in Calgary.  He’s definitely getting compensated very well, and it’s with a cool R&D company (a dream job for me in many ways).  They even had an opening there, and I’d so be there if I wasn’t moving to Ottawa.  Congratulations Mylore!

Anyways, I’m enjoying my idle time while I can.  Tomorrow I’m headed off to Elk Island with a bunch of my University buddies.  It’s kind of a good way to say goodbye, all drunken around a campfire.

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Double You Tee Eff

Holy @%#$!!!

The weirdest and most unexpected thing in the world of Mixed Martial Arts just happened.

I can’t believe I just saw one of the most talented and dominant kick boxers in the world lose to a wrestler… via headkick! Seriously, Mirko Crocop, the world’s most feared striker, get knocked out completely with a high kick from a wrestler.

That’d be like McDonald’s moving into the fashion business and selling $10000 handbags. WTF!!!

Sick!

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Lotto 6/49 Playage

So my parents play the lotto. In Canada it’s called the 6/49, because you choose 6 numbers out of a possible 49. Recently my mum won a whole $10 and reinvested that money into more lottery tickets.

She’s won again and has asked me to head over to the corner store to grab another set of tickets. Now, in the irrational depths of my mind I want to believe that if I goto the lotto store at the right moment, the right numbers will match up coincidentally with the winning numbers.

Think about it. The computers that print out the random “quick pick” numbers on a lotto ticket base their numbers off of a pseudo-random generation algorithm, and the seed of that algorithm is most likely time based. In layman’s terms, the time that you buy your lotto ticket will affect the outcome of the numbers being printed.

For the sake of fun, let’s say that before each lotto ticket is spat out of the machine, it grabs the current millisecond before printing out the ticket. And let’s assume that there are just as many seeds (possible random number combinations) as there are possible numbers for the 6/49, roughly 14 million. If you count that all up, your corner store hits that winning lotto ticket number roughly every 4 hours.

Buying that lotto ticket at exactly the right millisecond within that 4 hour cycle will yield you the winning lotto ticket.

Sometime between now, the moment you read this, and the next 4 hours… your nearest corner store has the potential to print out the exact numbers for the next winning lotto ticket.

However, considering the odds that you have are 1 in 14 million per entry… it’s probably not very likely that you’ll win.

But who knows. Maybe that jerk who cut in front of you on your way to work today delayed just enough time, in the order of milliseconds, so that all the events leading up to you buying that lotto ticket line up to be the correct winning ticket for the next draw.

Why am I writing this? Because I’m trying to decide when would be the perfect time to head over and buy more tickets for the next draw. I realize that the lotto is a fool’s wager, but doing foolish things is fun sometimes

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Last Day of Classes… Ever?

It’s a weird feeling to know that today will be the last day of classes… possibly ever.  I am definitely happy that I’ve finally reached the end of it all, but sad to know that I won’t be a university student anymore.  Honestly, I have enjoyed being a student despite all its stress and anxiety, and constant lack of money.

It’s been a place where I constantly learn new and cool things.  I’m sure I’ll still continue this, but it won’t quite be the same.  Meeting and learning from people from all sorts of fields and disciplines is mind-expanding.  There is enthusiasm between us class-mates for what we learn.  Sure that happens in the workplace… but I don’t think to quite the same extent.

Anyways, it feels surreal that the day has finally come.  Shortly afterwards I’m off to the CS Grad Banquet for an expensive dinner and a funtastic time.

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Ugh Essays

Yes, I’ve fought through it.  The dreaded term paper that has been haunting me since the beginning of the term for my Tibetan Buddhism class.  So far I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the class, and I find the Tibetan culture to be incredibly rich and complex, but my interest in the subject could never fix my lack of essaying skills.

I’m glad I chose to be a Computing Science student, rather than an Arts student.  I think I’d get slaughtered.  Well, I’m sure I’d learn to adapt but I sure as hell don’t find essaying to be more fun than coding up a cool program.

Anyways, after wrestling with it for the past week I’m done my 2200 words of crap!  Hopefully it’ll pull enough for a B+.

Other than that, life has been dedicated to more school!  My last graphics lab has me writing functions for a 3D modeling program.  It sounds cool cause it IS cool, but at the same time it’s a ton of work and frustration.  I’m just glad that I am allowed to submit this lab late (we all get to use 2 late submissions for the term) as I get a chance to garner some bonus marks that I desperately need.

It looks like at the rate I’m going, I’m shooting for A-’s in both my CMPUT classes and hopefully a B+ in my Buddhism class… *crosses fingers* let’s hope I can pull through.

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Other than that, I’ve been ramping up for graduation and post-graduation activities.  It looks like the South Boundary Trail in the rockies won’t be open in June, so Renata and I have decided to switch our grueling backpacking trip to the West Coast Trail.  This too will be grueling as we don’t quite have all the free time to do the trail at a somewhat leisurely pace.  Hopefully we’ll be done it in 5 or 6 days, but that just means I have to train for it so that I’m not in my usual lollygagging pace.

I am incredibly excited for it though, and really happy that my girlfriend is probably even more gung ho than I am about the whole thing!

Well, hopefully the upcoming 4 day Easter weekend will revitalized my tired brain.

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