FBI and Aliens

Last Saturday was a party at Nate and Erin's with an FBI and aliens theme. The reason for it was that Nate's sister Amanda wanted to have a party while her man from New Mexico was there. He was staying for a week at Nate and Erin's place. Nate chose the theme because the alien landing was allegedly at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.

For the party I went and got some toy guns and dressed up
in the mobster style suit I bought last year for Nate's wedding.

I also made a cake to bring to the party. I wanted to make something interesting that could pass for an alien dish, so I made a spicy chocolate cake. It contained cinnamon and jalapeno peppers and it was quite good. Not sure I'd make it again though since I prefer just a straight chocolate cake. It looks messy but lets say that was all part of the plan.

Nate and his brother were both dressed as aliens with these creepy masks.

A lot of us came as Men in Black. We are a pretty cool bunch.

The place was also decorated with some UFOs,
Buzz Lightyear cups and other alien decorations.

There was lots of good snacks there, some of which followed the alien theme.

During the party some of us played Asshole (a card game like Big 2) and I won almost every round until I broke one of Mike's special rules and so lost by default.

Rob wanted to do some more physical activities so he setup this bag on the floor and you had to try and pick it up in your mouth but you were only allowed to touch the floor with one foot and no hands. It was really hard but I eventually succeeded.

At the party Mike broke one of my guns. It was no longer making the noise and lighting up. Even though it only cost $1.25 (dollar store inflation) he wanted to fix it, so he opened it up with a screw driver. Then he fixed it with some tape. It's not as good as new but it works. On the firing mechanism there was a phone number! I wonder if people often call that. Perhaps they make firing mechanisms for more complex things too.

Anyways, it was a pretty sweet party with good company and good food and I look forward to the next one. Nate and Erin have only lived there 3 weeks and I've already been over there 3 times for events. They are excellent hosts.

July So Far

June was very busy for me with work on the VAST Challenge that was due on June 29th. In July, there's been Canada day on Saturna Island, camping in Osoyoos, a house warming party and a Cranium party.

I was pretty tired at the end of June so I messed up many of my travel plans. On June 30th, I tried to get to Saturna but I should have taken an earlier bus because my bus was scheduled to show up just on time but didn't show up at all because of an accident in the tunnel. So I missed the ferry and instead took a ferry to Vancouver Island and slept at my grandpa's place in Sidney. He was already asleep when I got there but I visited with him briefly in the morning before taking a ferry to Saturna. My brother, aunt, uncle and cousin were on the ferry. When we got to Saturna my dad was driving the bus that brought us to the field by Winter Cove where the BBQ took place.

I forgot to take my camera on the trip but the Canada day was much like the past Canada days on Saturna excepted it rained a little - for the first time since the 1986 BBQ. There was a lamb BBQ of about 15 lambs cooking around a bonfire. There was a used book sale with 3 paperbacks for $1, bingo, and many games including the dunk tank my sister and brother went in, and the ring toss called Hook on Saturna that my dad and grandma ran. I visited with my family and tossed the frisbee around with my brothers. I believe about 1000 meal tickets were sold despite an island population of 350 and the food was quite good. It was lamb with a mint sauce, coleslaw, and spanish rice. All too soon it was time to get back on the ferry and head out. Normally I would stay at least one night, but I had a busy exciting weekend ahead.

I got home around 8:30pm, and immediately got ready to leave again at 7am on a greyhound bus from Langley. I was going to Osoyoos to meet a girl named Toni who I'd met online. She was there for a week to visit her dad who is working there. We had managed to get a campsite booked for a couple nights only a week early because I guess someone canceled. I talked to her online while I packed and planned and I got a bit stressed out because I really didn't have room to take anything to cook or store food. I also realized my air mattress was still on Saturna. So I just ended up packing essentials like the tent and a sleeping bag.

My greyhound travel was ridiculous. I do not want to take greyhound again anytime soon. They failed at exchanging my ticket, they failed at remembering to transfer my luggage and when I was getting back to Langley during the start of the heat wave they failed at having air conditioning working.

So anyways I got to Osoyoos safely and met Toni and her dad Jack. Toni and I had an awesome weekend although I don't have that many photos of it.

Jack gave us a tour of Osoyoos including some good views and we drove up the hill to where these new streets had statues of animals at their entrances.

Toni and I camped here, right next to the lake. The land across the lake is the US and we saw fireworks there on July 2nd and 3rd. During the trip I went swimming in the lake a couple times and it was warmer than I thought it'd be. We ate some dinner on a patio right on the edge of the lake. We also went for a long walk in the sun and sat on a dock splashing our feet in the water.

We went on Jack's friend's Dave's boat and boated around the lake and ate some good food out in the middle of the lake. Then we went to this beach that's on native land where teenagers go and party and make a huge mess. We stopped there for 10 minutes to clean up all their bottles and cans. I'm not sure why the natives don't care about the assholes littering all over the place.

We watched one of Toni's favourite movies, The Lost Boys, on my laptop in the tent. She's seen it so many times but I never have and she fell asleep beside me. We played cards, crib, and Toni beat me by a small amount. We threw my frisbee around on the grass by a beach and Jack and Toni are both quite good with the frisbee. It was pretty windy so that made it tricky to not hit innocent bystanders.

We watched the first Lions football game at a pub as they beat the Eskimos. We had some drinks at a bar where Jack played some pool and Toni taught me a game called hockey using three nickels. I really suck at it.

We slept out under the stars on the lawn on the roof of Dave's house with a clear sky and a view of all the lights of Osoyoos down in the valley. We went inside when it started to rain.

Then, all too soon, I had to catch the early morning Sunday greyhound home. I was so tired I kind of messed up the goodbye in that there wasn't much of one. Fortunately, I saw Toni again for half an hour at the airport on her stop there on the way home to Edmonton. We had a much better goodbye and I am sure I will see her again sometime in the future. I really wish she didn't live so far away.

After saying goodbye to Toni I went straight to Nate and Erin's house where they were having a house warming party. They just moved into their nice new home in Surrey and there were about 15 friends there to check it out and have a good time. They've got a pretty big crawl space under the main floor which is apparently pretty cool for playing games in....except they might as well play games in the living room, since they own the whole house. We played Guesstures and my team lost despite having an extra person.

The next night I met 5 friends at Q and Rob's place downtown for a Cranium party. We won a contest by sending in footage of ourselves playing Cranium and so we moved onto the 2nd round. They wish to make a Cranium commercial featuring real people playing Cranium. For the 2nd round they sent me a brand new unreleased Cranium game, a Flip HD camera, $100 for snacks and 2 8GB memory sticks. We used the $100 at Costco to buy way more food than we needed (don't shop hungry!) and then filled out all the release forms. Then we shot ourselves playing Cranium. Hopefully they will use some of our film in actual TV commercials.

This month I hope to not just have a good time, but also get lots of work done. This weekend I've just been working on some programming to prepare for a user study for my thesis. I hope to get the study all ready by the end of the month and I should be starting an internship really soon.

Gordon's Graduation and BBQs

This last weekend was an action packed one. Well, at least there were a lot of events and I ate a LOT. This weekend was Gordon's convocation ceremony on Friday afternoon and then a party for him at his place on Saturday evening. In between these two events I went to 2 BBQs.

So I found Gordon right after he put on his hat at the hat station. A moment after this photo a voice announced "Everyone who is not a graduate please clear the area", so I went up above to the AQ gardens to wait for the graduate walk.

It seemed to take forever for the graduates to finally appear and Gordon was more than halfway down the line. He was the first graduate with a BSc (yellow ribbon). Once he got up by the Terry Fox statue the line stayed there for a long time. Some girl volunteered to take our photo together. That afternoon many people wondered if he cut his afro off just so the graduation cap would fit on his head.

So after the long graduation ceremony and the SIAT reception, I hopped on a bus and headed over to my bosses house near UBC. The skytrains were running slow since there was a power outage downtown so I arrived fashionably late. This is what the lamb looked like when I got there. It was already being picked apart. Walter had been cooking it all day since my boss Mark had to go to a conference.

Here's what it looked like when we were done with it. Pretty bare! It was a good BBQ with good food and company. While I was there Rob messaged me to ask where I was and when I said I was at my bosses he asked "She hot?". Uh, not a "she", Rob, and no.

That night I crashed at Rob and Q's place in Vancouver. I slept on some couch cushions on the floor of the kitchen. I didn't want to intrude on either of their rooms or sleep in the entryway, bathroom or outside hallway where I might get stepped on. I also didn't dare sleep in the mystery void behind the closet.

The next day I arrived at Kitsilano beach bright and early at 10am to save a table for the grad student's BBQ at 2pm. Unfortunately I found that around the central area there are no tables, just benches. I walked along to near the end of the beach and found a couple tables near each other. I sat down and did some work on my laptop. There was a few tables taken before I got there by a group preparing for a kid's birthday party.

Between 11:30 and noon is when lots of people started claiming tables. Some people asked about the other table where I had left my bag but I said it was taken because a big group was showing up and we needed both the tables. Despite this, an annoying guy decided his group was going to take the table anyway. He argued that I could not save 2 tables with only 1 person, since they were a limited resource. It pissed me off but he kind of had a point. Anyways, it didn't matter because by the time many people showed up for my BBQ another nearby table was free.

Around 1pm Diego, the organizer of the event, showed up with this food which he claimed was all for me to eat for lunch. I did not eat it all because it was a bit too much but I did finish the burger and tried everything else. The sun was melting the chocolate chips so the cookies were almost as if they were freshly baked.

Ben was one of the first people to show up and we threw the frisbee around for a while. At first he claimed to be terrible at throwing it but once we started he decided that my disc was simply much better quality than what he was used to and in fact he was quite good at throwing.

Eventually many people showed up and Diego created this line
of condiments and pita fillings he had brought.

The BBQ was a lot of fun. Again there was some good food and some good company. I even went swimming in the ocean. It didn't seem as cold as I expected, however it was still a couple days before summer and only Diego dared enter the water with me. We both ran in and then he ran out shortly after. I stayed in for a while and swam way out to the buoy which said that no boats should come any closer than 300m to the shore. Unfortunately I could not climb onto as it kept tipping over.

After the BBQ I took transit back to Surrey and went straight to Gordon's house for the graduation party. There was lots of food there including a couple different types of meat but I had just eaten a ton at the BBQ. I ended up eating a LOT of Mars bars squares that Gordon's aunt made using actual Mars bars. They were amazing. Mars bar is one of my favourite chocolate bars.

Greg showed up to the party later. Q, Brad and Tanya were also there.

All in all it was an awesome and fun two days in the sun. This weekend I really don't care what the weather is like since I will be at the school working like a maniac finishing up a project, but the weekend after it better be damn good weather for the Canada day lamb bbq and camping in Osoyoos with Toni.

The Shearing of the Afro

Friday, May 28th, 2010 marked the end of era. It was on this day that my friend Gordon had his head shaved to raise money to send kids to camp. It was on this day that the afro disappeared. He grew it for 6 years.

I decided to bike to the momentous occasion even though it was raining lightly and about a 2 hour ride. I biked down the hill and over the Pattullo bridge into New Westminster. Then through an industrial area by the river and up and over Coquitlam.

I went down the other side and into Port Moody. I biked through a park near the ocean and up the hill over to camp Sasamat where the shearing took place. It was their annual dinner on the patio fundraiser. Dinner consisted of burgers and salad followed by some fruit and cake for dessert.

Rob was at the camp with his crazy shoes with the toes.

Q was at the camp and went out in a canoe by himself while drinking wine. Greg, Jon, and Josef also showed up to the camp later.

They had a climbing obstacle course that I raced Q to the top of. I won by a great distance but I was on the left which had a much easier route.

Of course Gordon was there too with his afro and all. We didn't actually get to see the afro in its full glory until after dinner was done since he had to have it contained while cooking. He works in the kitchen at the camp.

I had my last photo with him before the shaving.

Then when everyone was ready, it began. His hairdresser was the camp's executive director who was not exactly skilled at it. Photos were being snapped left, right and center.

Gordon wore a garbage bag to protect him
from the massive amounts of hair that fell to the floor.

In the end he held some of his afro in his hands, no longer attached to his head. I'm not sure what was done with it but there was no going back.