Tales From the Milk Drinker

Snow, snow, snow, and more snow

2008-03-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

Hello hello. I decided to start blogging again at the request of my beautiful and multi talented girlfriend Amber. Good call sweety. I sort of feel like ranting on about her for a few pages now but I think that might spoil the spirit of the blog - to talk more about pointless things.

Today it's storming "like a bastard" outside. The snow is coming down and the wind is blowing it round. Our driveway has some bare spots and some spots where the snow is up to your hip. Well maybe not your hip. But my hip. And I'm almost 5' 6". They have not plowed our road yet and this prompts me to the rant I am about to begin.

It could be my imagination but I think when it used to storm snow plows used to wander the street of summerside continually looking for freshly shoveled driveways to fill in. Now this winter I have been in Summerside for about 3 spectacular storms and it seems that they now only plow when it's all over and done with, thereby making more stingy and cost effective use of plow driver's time and valuable diesel fuel. Perhaps the price of oil had something to do with this or perhaps the city now feels that environmentally it's irresponsible to spend fuel cleaning up a storm before it's over and done. I would think that this now method is probably unpopular with the plow driving community as I would assume less hours = less pay.

I almost think that a decent effort should be made to keep the roads open. I can certainly appreciate that to anyone with a sick family member in the house (and I mean genuinely sick with a threatening problem, not a runny nose) an unplowed road can spell insecurity as it blocks off the logical route to the hospital. I suppose some folks who don't plan ahead well could also be stuck with no way to get to a pharmacy if they had important prescriptions which needed to be filled.

One of the nicest ideas I've heard of is the club which opperates in the HRM. I forget their name but it's basically a gathering of folks who drive oversized four wheel drive trucks who offer their services to those in need during extreme weather. For example a health care worker (like a nurse or a doctor) who needs to get to the hospital for their shift can phone the club for a ride during a storm and a team of a few vehicle opperators will do their best to get them there in their jeeps/large trucks. What a nice idea.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I miss my four wheel drive. Don't tell the sexy sunfire. It'ld hurt it's feelings.

Two Great Inventions

2007-10-15T16:42:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to my fellow engineer in training Dan the Man Schaef Daddy.

I have two ideas for businesses/inventions that I think would make some pretty good cash or at least a few laughs.

The first is a Hourier service. Notice that it's Courier with the C changed to a H so it's pronounced like Hurrier. The purpose of my Hourier service would be a perfect mirror image of a Courier company like Purolator with the only difference being that the Hourier would try to deliver packages at such a speed that it would endanger the lives of the senders, recievers, and the general public. The Hourier would drive at break neck speeds and stop for no cross walk nor school bus. Also while on foot between the vehicle and the recipient the Hourier would run like the wind and flip out at anyone who got in his way - "Holy #$$# get out of my way!"

The second idea is a High Speed Electric Bus. I'm not talking about wires inside your vidjo games, I mean the kind of bus that drives little old ladies to the superstore (afterall, they may not like those potatoes but gosh darn it they keep buying them, don't they?). The bus would be like a regular bus except perhaps more sleek in appearance. It would be powered by large electric motors and would travel at slightly higher than normal speeds. It's trademark difference however would be that it would accelerate at insane rates, causing wiplash to the driver and passengers. Also, mowing down of pedestrians would not be encouraged but not frowned upon either. Any time someone met their demise at the bumper of the HSEB company management would merely explain that people should be happy because we all have to work together to fight global warming. Come on guys, it's cereal.

So what do you think are these ideas great or what?

The best update I can give you

2007-09-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

I made a very important decision yesterday - I'm not applying for any PhD programs for next year.

This might come as a surprise to some readers as I've always been known for my enjoying school and my success in it. But this is a decision I've made with conviction.

The reasons are as follows:

1) My heart (or "gut" if that helps your visualization) is telling me not to.

I'm not saying I wouldn't apply for some in coming years, nor am I saying I will. I just have had a very strong feeling that whatever I do next year is not going to be start working on a PhD.

At this point I'ld invite your comments and criticisms. I have many other points to ramble on about this but for once I don't feel like making a long post full of horrible spelling mistakes.

Ready to Rock!

2007-04-08T05:49:00.000-07:00

This is a big week for getting stuff done for Sambo. Tomorrow at 12:30 I write my final exam for air pollution control and then I have my exam in Combustion on Friday. In between I need to polish off my air pollution project (a research funding proposal) and then Saturday is my powerlifting meet in St. Thomas.

I'm maintaining a positive "can do" attitude about it all because it should be very doable. A key factor will be staying well rested and stress free, so I'll probably lay low most of the week. On thursday and friday this week I layed down for 10 minutes after lunch and ended up sleeping for 4 hours each time - I guess I was more tired than I had realized.

I'm starting to think about leaving Ontario in the early April 20's, maybe about the 24th? My time between the end of exams and leaving should be filled with dicking around. My room mate Tim's parents are coming to visit him from New Zealand and I volunteered to take us all to Niagra Falls to see a famous piece of Canadian geography. If it's nice enough out we can probably ride The Maid of The Mist.

Last night we went out to eat at a Japanese/Korean restaurant at University Plaza. It was okay, at first I was really overwhelmed because nothing on the menu sounded eatable. I settled on chicken taryaki and rice which ended up being fairly normal but pricey. It was a neat experience to eat with sticks but next time I'll probably opt for something less international.

My study strategy has been what I'ld call short bursts. I study intensely for short intervals (20 minutes to a half hour) and then take a break. I believe I will retain a higher percentage of the material this way than through long multi hour study sessions. This week I'll also be big on napping as it keeps stress levels low and should preserve my energy for when I need it.

I'll leave you with this memory:

It was last summer when I visited Neil in Halifax and I didn't pick a day to go home yet. Sunday night rolled around and I was thinking it was time to hit the road soon when I realized - hey wait I don't have anywhere to be for days so why dont' we go back to Kart Bahn for another few laps. Neil agreed and it was a mighty good time, even if I did get a little lost on the drive back to his place. Wether you leave him an upper decker or not visiting Neil is always a fun time. Hahahaha. Beef Stew.

2007-04-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures from a high school powerlifting meet my club (Golden Triangle) put on a couple weekends ago in Waterloo. These guys all did a great job lifting and I'm posting these pics here because I'm too lazy to email them out. I hate waiting for attachments to attach so I'll post these here and email the guys the link.

Checking in

2007-04-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. I thought I'ld post and share my thought for the day.

This is the marvelous week before my exams when I have no classes. I spend my 9-5 dabbling in my research and going over the material that will be on my tests. I feel pretty good about air pollution and combustion - I've been paying attention all term and these topics pop up in my research all the time so I think I've got a decent handle on what's happening.

In 12 days on April 14 I have my first powerlifting meet in nearly a year. It will be in St. Thomas Ontario down near London. This will be my first raw meet, meaning that I'm not going to use any supportive gear which would aid me in lifting more. For each event I normally wear some sort of piece of magical apparatus like a squat suit or a bench shit that adds support to my frame and allows me to lift more than I could in normal clothes. I thought this time around it'ld be fun to leave the support at home and see how I fair without it. It meant rearranging my goals a little but I'm happy to rise to the challenge.

Finishing the St. Thomas meet will be the real "icing on the cake" because at that point my 2 exams will also be over and done with. I'll basically have accomplished all my short term goals for the month. Tasks remaining will be to pack up and move back to PEI for the summer. I plan to drive to about Quebec city the first night and then go to Fredericton the next day where I'll visit some friends. I never realized until I left that I was always under guesstimating the number of people from Fredericton that I actually like. Make no mistake, it's a really small frigging number. But there are some real great people there.

There are some plans in the works for me and my room mate Timbo to head to Toronto for a little holiday of sorts on April 16th. I wanna go in the CN tower and possibly visit the mech eng department at the U of T where my cousin works. And after that maybe we'll do some fun touristy stuff that real normal people would find entertaining.

Somewhere in the middle of it all we've got to clean out appartment up for our moving out inspection. Seeing as how I'm a fairly lazy bugger when it comes to cleaning there's a GREAT chance Molly Maids will be getting a call from me. In other news I figured out how to do my income tax return and can finish it tonight. The only thing I might be getting wrong is my RRSP amount I'm allowed to contribute.

Well I should crack a book for a while and crank out some Air-Po-Co-Tro as I call it (Air Pollution Control for you non Sam-tech Savvy).

Like a Damb Pig

2007-03-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

It was the fall of 2003. After spending the summer living in 8G^(-1) and working with Sheila (best co-worker ever) I was off to UNB to finish my degree. I was living with Roger Gillis and Jeff Malone on Dirty old Needham street.

We had ordered our internet connection from aliant (I think?) and being 3 technological tools at the time we couldn't figure out how to hook it up. A box came one day from Aliant claiming to have internet in it but the question was could this one box possibly contain enough internet for our whole appartment. We tried to install it and couldn't figure it out for the life of us. We could get internet on Roger's computer but couldn't get the router to talk to the computers in Jeff's room and my room.

We were in "Big Poppa" Abdel Elsaway's class, "Design Zero" when our prayers were answered. In walked a fellow student who looked like a pig, I shit you not a real honest to goodness pig. We explained our woa's to "Pig Man" (who we later found out was like 30 years old and that sort of creeped us out) and he agreed to come over and spread the box of internet around the appartment for us.

He came over one day after school and sat down at Roger's machine and checked a few settings and then declared "I'm going to have to ping your router." This sounded pretty scarey to me because I didn't know what the hell pinging was, or even a router for that matter. And remember, this guy looked like a fucking pig. The tone of his voice was serious enough that I knew he wasn't joking and to be honest I was getting pretty nervous. The expression on his face told me that whatever pinging my router was it was some serious shit.

It turned out it wasn't a big deal at all and he got our internet hooked up right away. I payed him 2o dollars for his troubles and gave him a drive home to the North Side. On the way there he confided in me that he finds big breasts disgusting. To be honest that sort of scarred me for life, I prefer to think of Pig Man as a very non-sexual creature. He went on to ask me how we had landed such a sweet appartment and did I know how he could get such a nice one? This also bugged me because I knew our place was so disgusting that if he liked it he must live in a really bad spot.

Later Jeff and I realized that Pig Man must obviously be into eating human babies. Nothing else could make him look so much like a pig.

There's some great story tellers in this world we live in but really could anyone make this shit up? Ask Jeff. Ask him! He'll confirm my story!

Like a damb pig.

Woa! Gotta start watching that!

2007-03-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

For those who don't know I spend 90% of my money through my visa. One nice side effect is that my statements show a window into my monthly spending. I just realized something shocking - I spend 50% as much money on fast food as on groceries! This trend has held for 2 months that I checked! My typical weekend routine consists of brunch out saturday morning with the powerlifters and supper out also with some friends. Also on Wednesday night I usually go to William's coffee pub with one of my fellow coaches from Special Olympics. These 3 times a week add up to half a grocery order! Ouchy! This week I might hit myself up with a tighter fast food budget. Not that I can't afford it, I really can. It's just that I should be spending the money on things that would last longer like new clothes and books/dvd's that I want.

I feel like a fool for spending so much money at William's. It's such a sham!

WINTER DRIVING TIPS

2007-03-01T18:35:00.000-08:00

It's storming out pretty good right now in Waterloo and I just drove home from the gym. This is going to be a post of me venting my frustrations about things I see on the roads here this winter. I have developed a theory that people who grew up in places with lots of snow make good winter drivers and people who grew up in places with little snow do not. My disclaimer is that most of you reading this blog are from PEI, maybe a few blue nosers or haren chokers also, and I'm not mad at your driving I'm mad at other people's driving.

1. Be Gentle for crying out loud!
Those of you who took a physics course sometime probably remember that for an object of fixed mass (your car) bigger acceleration requires bigger force. The snow and ice in wintertime basically means you MUST expect your car to have a lower maximum gripping force on the road. Simply put you must be GENTLE with your moves. Expect to speed up, slow down, and turn at lower rates than in dry weather.

2. DON'T SLAM THAT FU*$ING GAS PEDAL!
EVER!
DON'T DO IT!
This is EXACTLY the same as point #1 but it's the most important point and I think it's possible my physics talk could confuse some people so I'm restating my point in non-science lingo. "Your car WILL NOT grip the road as well if you press the gas hard" You should press it softer than you do on dry roads. BECAUSE I SAID SO DAMB YOU!

3. You do not "need" a big truck or an SUV. What you need is a set of good tires and some driving lessons. If there's more than a couple hours per year when you can't get where you're going it's because you suck at driving, not because you drive a small car. I had a 4 wheel drive truck in high school and now I have a small compact car and I can still go where I want to go.

"It's slippery out, I better smash the gas pedal really hard so my car can push itself forward better"..... Smart like a box of rocks.

I couldn't have said it as good myself

2007-02-25T07:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.ryanwatchorn.blogspot.com/

Go read his post about technology and society.
Ryan is a you guy (16) who is in our powerlifting club here in Kitchener. He's way smarter than most adults I know.

I'm doing it

2007-02-16T18:45:00.000-08:00

I was just reading a post on my friend Dan-o's blog about how people work in jobs to make enough money to do what they really want to do. I think he made a great case.

The reason I am making this post is because I have to share with you dear readers something that another full fledged member of the boys boys and all around non-generic guy Neils Mo said one time. Neil and I were discussing how we have both been in school for much longer than most people on PEI expect a person to be. From time to time we have both been questioned by lesser informed people about why we're on the path we're on. Neil hit the nail right on the head with some timeless wisdom I'ld like to share with you all:

"They always ask me 'so what are you going to do with your life when you're done?' so I respond - what do you mean? This is my life. I'm doing it right now"

/getting changed my ass!

Best Movie I've seen in a long time

2007-02-16T18:34:00.000-08:00

I knew I was in for a great relaxing weekend this afternoon at about 3:30. We just finished a car team task and I returned to my office and had a snack when I felt myself mentally unhook for a minute. I decided to take the rest of the weekend until monday morning and just dick around.

Tonight we kicked off by going to the movies, me and my room mate Tim and our neighbor Keisha. Keisha's from Barbedoes so she's freezing cold 100% of the time.

We went to see "Bridge to Tarabithia" and it was hands down the best movie I've seen in ages. An excellant Disney film about the imagination of children. I suggest you go see it, right now!

Lunch in a Jiffy

2007-02-04T19:17:00.000-08:00

This semester I've made some daily schedule changes. I decided to stop working "from home" and spend about 9-4 on campus working either in my new office or at the biblioteque. This also affords me the opportunity to be closer to the UWAFT garage so I can stop in and lend a hand when possible.

One thing about being gone that long is that I'm going to HAVE to eat. I'm not like a lot of weirdos my age who can just drink a coffee at 9 am, eat a bag of chips at 6:30 and hop into bed and call it a day. I demand good meals around the clock.

My new pattern is to cook enough food on Sunday evening to provide supper that night plus lunch monday through friday. Since the Christmas break my weekly menu has consisted of:

-Bone in Chicken Breasts with Bread and Butter as a side with a piece of fruit
-An interesting concoction best described as spaghetti with meat sauce except replace the noodles with rice
- Roast Beef with Potatoes, carrots and turnup (a real crowd pleaser for people like myself who frown on alternative eating styles)
-Boneless Chicken Breasts and rice with a side salad
- Spaghetti and meat sauce with a side dish of crunchy veggies

I find this strategy prevents me from falling into the typical student pattern of going over to the plaza for lunch at a pizza or pita place or eating on campus. UW has on campus dining in damb near every building (chinese food in the computer science building makes me laugh my ass off) and I've heard the one in south campus hall is actually great so I may try it one day soon. I've also enjoyed a lovely bowl of beef and vegetable soup at the grad house in september, and it was amazing and cheap. I can't figure out why I never went back.

2007-01-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

Today we had no school in waterloo because of weather. Waterloo has some policy about closing the university if the local schools are closed. I like it.

check this out
http://milaadesign.com/wizardy.html

Great Saturday!

2007-01-14T09:18:00.000-08:00

I just had an awsome Saturday! I started out with my usual gym/brunch with the gym crew and then came home and me and Jen and Tim and Shi Lie went to the chinese grocery store. What an adventure. It's down a little back alley in downtown kitchener. Jeff remember how victory meat market seemed cheap and possibly not as clean as the big stores? This was like that multiplied by a thousand. Maybe a million. Here's the entrance. Like how they pile up the garbage behind that fence? It smelled pretty bad.

So what do they have in there that we don't get in Sobey's? EVERYTHING! For examples canned bamboo and catfish

Overall I'ld say there's no chance in hell I'ld eat anything from here.

Helpful Household Hint

2007-01-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

For those of you using the george foreman grill or similar I will now give you my instruction for cleaning this appliance. This method was perfected this year with some helpful advice from Adam Eddy.

Step 1) Unplug grill when done cooking and while grill is still hot place a wet paper towel in it and close the lid. If you've already let the grill cool plug it back in for a minute to reheat it and then unplug it and put the wet paper towel in.

Step 2) Open grill after letting wet paper towel soak about 3 minutes. Throw paper towel in garbage.

Step 3) Use new wet paper towel or cloth to wipe grill surface. If you've done steps 1 and 2 correctly the gunk will wipe right off.

I've found any other method absolutely frustrating.

It's my Airoplane....

2007-01-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

I just flew back to Ontario last night and boy are my arms tired! But seriously, allow me to present an argument for why driving home would have been the WRONG choice for me for Christmas break.

1) Money
My complete trip including taxes and fees was 510 return on westjet with 150$ spent on shuttles to and from the airport (about a 1 hour ride each way. ) Let's look at driving up home. For the sake of my argument say I go alone and don't cost share with anyone.
Gas+Bridge+Motel for one night somewhere in Quebec(I would not drive straight through alone for fear of fatigue induced driving errors leading to an accident) = 300+40+125= 465.
We won't count fast food i'ld buy on the road but just so you know it'ld be about 40$ and twenty cholesterol points.

So you're saying "Sam, you're losing 300 dollars" - oh contrair mon frair. It takes me 2 days each way so that's 4 days total. Since I'm on the road I'm basically useless all day so let's charge this as 4 X 24 hours. That means I'ld be able to "afford" to pay myself $3.07 an hour for my troubles on the road with the money I'm saving by not flying. I dunno about you but my Christmas break time is worth more than $3.07. Not a big fan of giving up 4 days of my break to the open road.

2) Fear of Foul Weather

Canadian weather can be unpredictable this time of year and there's no telling when a storm can blow in. Imagine adding another night's hotel cost and a storm could really wreck my good time on the TC (that's trans canada). Worse yet weather could increase my chances of wrecking my car or far worse yet getting hurt.

3) Flying makes me feel fancy

I hate to admit it but I'm totally one of those dicks who dresses up for the ride and works on his laptop the whole time and mumbles important sounding scientific jargon and tries to sound like he's stressing out about some major issue "at work". I'll admit it's a show I enjoy putting on.

There's my case. I understand some people would rather save a few hundred by sharing a long cold drive home but I figured I might aswell enjoy the opportunity for air travel while I've got it.

I just got an email!

2006-11-30T19:06:00.000-08:00

From UNB Mech Eng and all around good guy Paul Lapointe, aka "Good Paul" (as opposed to bad Paul). He's alive and well and working as an engineer in the Fredericton Area.

Doug this one is for You (Smokey old something or others)

2006-11-25T21:01:00.000-08:00

I found these out there in the vast world of the interweb. Pretty funny in my opinion.

An honest type Survey

2006-11-17T08:17:00.000-08:00

Could people please comment and say (if you are a student OR were a student) how many hours per day average you work on school work. For the purposes please include hours spent in class. If you're shy leave your comment annonomously.

For those who transferred to the working world from school - do you find you spend more hours on work than you did school, the same or less?

I propose that about 40 hours a week is healthy and normal. Something that distrubs me is when students cut sleep out to work. I don't think that is healthy.

A well deserved word of praise

2006-11-13T09:13:00.000-08:00

I wish to publically announce that I am impressed with the service I've recieved from the University of Waterloo Housing and Residence Services.

I'm living in a 4 bedroom townhouse residence which is, in 99% of cases, reserved especially for graduate students. Thinking back this is the first place I've lived in my university career where there was absolutely no bullshit from the landlord about unpaid rent (when it was actually paid), late payments (when it was paid on the specific date they asked for), lost cheques, unpayed damage deposits and damage deductions for damage the last people living there did. I just showed up and they handed over the keys and they never hastle you.

The staff just left my place now. They come every 4 weeks and scrub the hell out of the kitchen and bathroom and vaccum the floor. Service with a smile. I could eat out of my bathroom sink right now. They do an amazing job.

We also are the only residence to be offered a free ride to school on a dedicated Columbia-Lake-Village only shuttle. Sure comes in handy when you have a sore ankle like I had this week.

We even have a community center with a huge big screen tv, pingpong, pool, and laundry driers that actually get your clothes fully dry for 75 cents. They burn natural gas instead of heating with electricity so they've got a lot more punch. The community center also has a respectable library of DVD's that are free for the borrowing.

Two thumbs up for you Columbia Lake Village Staff. You're a big cut above the morons out there trying to pass themselves off as providers of fine student housing.

Finally Caught Up!

2006-11-08T07:25:00.001-08:00

That week I spent in Ottawa at the ChallengeX workshop put me behind in my 2 courses but I think I'm finally getting back where I need to be.

Life is so routined and busy but I like it. I try to do schoolwork during office hours and then the nights are taken up with powerlifting 3 nights a week, and coaching special olympics one night. Me and my room mate Tim and 2 of our neighbors Jen and Amir are in the habit of going out Saturday night for food and a movie which is great - sort of a degreased version of the Fredericton friday night greasers.

Today I'm feeling an undeserved sense of accomplishment. I better not just slack off though, I've got some thermo to write up.

How is this not more famous?

2006-11-06T06:51:00.000-08:00

How many of you use www.pandora.com

Go to this website and enter the title of a song or singer/band you like. Pandora then plays a list of songs it thinks you might like based on your input. It's like a custom radio station. It's free (after you listen for so long you have to register but that basically just means giving them an email address that works).

Makes for good listening whilst you work. Try it out.

Home for Christmas

2006-11-05T10:27:00.000-08:00

I just bought my plane ticket home for Christmas. I'll be home from the 14th till the 4th of Jan. I recommend those others planning to do so do it soon. You will already have a very restricted window of available flights do to sold outedness.

In other news I'm working pretty hard and these grad courses are tough. But I'll make it. I always do.

I signed up for anothe Powerlifting meet in Niagra Falls on January 20. Should be really fun.

Log Driver

2006-10-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

Who remembers this commercial from the elementary school era? I totally love this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ngTQNQwlf8

I also loved the one about the chainsaw and how it revolutionized the logging industry.