The Near Future - October 2010

First the recent past again, then the future. This week has been pretty busy.

I wrote an outline for my thesis and gave it to my supervisors, although I have already written a bunch of pages in some of the parts. It's crazy that the biggest task left is just the writing of my thesis. I'm also working on some analysis of my study data. It's not good. I don't think the numbers prove anything. I learned a ton watching people use the tool and hopefully that's good enough for a master's thesis.

I also gave a presentation to some first year students about our lab and what we do as grad students in it. It went well, I made some jokes and they laughed and hopefully some of them found the subject interesting.

I also went to one of the Vancouver International Film Festival movies with my brother who bought 20 movie tickets. I used one of his tickets but my birthday is just around the corner and he did stay at my house for a week. We saw End of Animal, a Korean film directed and written by someone just out of film school. It was one of the first times it aired outside of Korea and the director/writer and producer were in the audience. The director introduced the film by warning that it might get boring at times. It really wasn't...it was very intense and quite dark. Afterward, the audience asked him questions through a translator. It was pretty sweet to hear directly from the director.

On Tuesday I went to drop-in ultimate and got a good workout. Tonight I went to the pool for some swimming but the damn deep end was closed again for some water polo practice.

So I have a really busy month ahead of me.

I am continuing work on my thesis and analysis of study results. But I'm also doing an internship with a sub-company of Boeing called AeroInfo so I need to get a lot of work done on our software for this.

On top of that I need to prepare for the VisWeek conferences in Salt Lake City from October 23rd - 29th. We have 3 presentations there of varying lengths and a lot of demoing. I will most likely be doing the medium length presentation of 3 minutes. It's at the start of the workshop we're going to along with all the other people who submitted entries to the challenge. The conference should be awesome. I went last year and this year I am again a student volunteer. I should meet a lot of new people and recognize many from last year. I've managed to schedule all my volunteer hours so I have no hours on the VAST presentation days. The conference location in Utah is pretty much the opposite of Atlantic City where it was last year. Maybe I will get more sleep this time around.

In the short term future of next weekend I'm going to the BC lions football game with some other grad students. Also, there is a LAN party at a friends house. I don't think I've technically ever been to one of those. I will most likely be slaughtered in a variety of games.

In the shorter term future I am traveling on Friday to my parent's new place on Saltspring Island for Thanksgiving weekend and also an early celebration of my birthday. Last time I visited the place was to help them move in so I haven't seen it with them all settled in yet. It will be quite the packed house but it'll be lots of fun. We should go play some disc golf and hopefully the weather will be nice so we can go swimming. Maybe I'm a little delusional about wanting to go swimming in a lake in October. I don't think I've done that for my birthday before.

In the very short term future, the students of my research group are getting together tomorrow to plan some programming and how pieces fit together on version 2 of our software. Development has been moving at a snail's pace but hopefully it will pick up soon. I should get some sleep.

The Recent Past - Sept 2010

September was busy. October will be even busier. I haven't gotten around to posting recently because I'm mostly been doing work instead of play and haven't take photos recently. Here's an update on my recent past.

Back near the start of Sept there was a party at Nate's where everyone dressed up as something starting with the letter A. I came as an addict (to alcohol (beer), drugs (ritalin (tic tacs)) video games, and gambling). We played some A games such as Are you the Traitor? and Apples to Apples and ate a lot of A food. I assume, someday in the future we will have a B party.

I've also gotten together with family and friends a few other times. I went and hung out in Vancouver at Rob and Q's place a couple times and we drank mango juice with mango ice cubes, and slices of mango. My brother Farley stayed with me for a week while he did some writing and he came to the drop in Ultimate. For my sister's birthday we made some sushi at her place and played scrabble. I barely beat her. In the last week I was sick for a few days, but I think I'm better now.

I've been going to Surrey drop-in Ultimate since the Spring and for the fall it's back at Newton Athletic park. Not many of my friends have shown up but it's great exercise and still fun. I've also gone to the aqua recreational goofing hour (ARGH) at the north Surrey rec center pool a couple times. It's simply called that by the grad student who organized it so that there is a time when lots of grad students go there together. Unfortunately this last week the deep end was closed for some people to practice water polo. Normally it's awesome though with a climbing wall coming out of the water, ropes up to monkey bars (called the Skywalker), a rope swing, and low and high diving boards. The pool also has hot and hotter sauna rooms.

At school, I did a couple presentations but spent most of my time running a user study and organizing the results. I managed to get 20 participants over the course of 2 1/2 weeks so I am all done now and onto analyzing the results. I kind of doubt I will prove anything statistically but I have a ton of useful qualitative feedback about what works and what doesn't with my text document visualization technique.

Eric and I presented an update on our work on my research groups software CZSaw to the Boeing guys and people from SFU and UBC at our face-2-face Boeing meeting. We have one every term. This time it was a two day thing but the skytrains were totally gibbled on the Friday so I missed most of the second day. Eric and I also did demos of CZSaw at a mini-conference on visual analytics for public safety at the Justice Institute of BC (JIBC) in New Westminster. I think that went pretty well and maybe some day in the distant future we'll work with the VPD.

This next month is going to be busy as I do a couple more little presentations before the big ones at VisWeek. I'll also be working on my thesis and study data analysis throughout. On top of all that there is Thanksgiving weekend, my birthday and then Halloween. I can't really think of anything planned for November. Perhaps I should just delay all my sleep time until then.

Moving from Saturna

So on Sunday morning we woke up and took the early ferry to Saturna.

The island up ahead is Saturna and there's our moving truck.

They didn't have the right size truck for some reason so they gave us a bigger one at no extra cost. Normally that'd be great, except we had to pay more for the ferry! Also, the back of the truck scrapped the ramp when going on each ferry and the truck was too big to make it up either driveway. On Saturna, the driveway makes a sharp turn and has many trees beside it. We were forced to take loads of stuff down in the van.

Luckily almost everything fit inside the van.
The couch would make a cool new back seat for the van.

Here's their old house on Saturna.We spent the rest of the morning
and all of the afternoon moving loads down to the truck or packing.

While they were packing things into boxes I was carrying more stuff

out of the house and out of the cottage.

The attic of the cottage had a bunch of stuff in it and

walking across these planks is the only way into it.

In the evening we went across the island to their friend's place for a goodbye party. It took place in this shelter which resembled a kitchen and living room with 1 and a half walls. There was plenty of good food people brought and one of the hosts had planned a 5 hole disc golf course. Unfortunately the discs were already on Saltspring, so we played with plastic plates. On hole 3 they kept breaking in half on the trees. I got a very high (bad) score.

After dinner we sat in front of the fire and many people made some speeches about how my parents did some really good things for the island in their 5 years there and everyone is thankful for that and will miss them. Also my dad read some messages my little sisters wanted everyone to hear.

We stayed longer than most people and then got home around 8:30pm. We did some more packing until about 10 and then went to sleep. We kept Triscuit, the cat, inside so that she wouldn't be spooked by the almost empty house and run away. Unfortunately she meowed throughout the night and kept us all from sleeping much.

At 6am Monday we woke up and started more packing. We took one more load down to the van and then went to a friend's house for breakfast. The friend runs the bakery and we ate pancakes, bacon and eggs (fresh from their hens). Then we went right back to packing. Some people came to help including Dave who was driving the truck back to Sidney after. We lugged all the mattresses down the driveway and finished packing the van, while my dad put the kayaks on the car.

We actually got to the ferry dock early for the 10:20am ferry.

We set Triscuit's carrier on a rock by the car and
she kept trying to hide under the blanket.

The ferry showed up almost on time which was a change
from all the other late ferries that weekend.

We left the ferry at Mayne to wait for another ferry to Saltspring which was 45 minutes late. On the 2nd ferry we met my sister Rebecca and my grandma. They squished into the car while my mom and I went in the truck with Dave.

On Saltspring we drove to the new house and Dave walked up the driveway to see if he could turn around at the top of it. After deciding that he could probably do it, he got in the truck, ready to drive forward up it.

Unfortunately the driveway is really steep and Dave did not line up the truck well so when he tried to drive fast from the road one of the wheels missed the driveway. The back of the truck dug into the road with the hitch ball making a big groove across the yellow line.

Then the truck was stuck. It couldn't go forward or backwards. So then we tried unloading everything out of it. We put all the stuff on the side of the road and the side of the driveway. I took a couple turns helping direct traffic since there was only one free lane. After the truck was completely empty it was still stuck. They managed to move it a bit by putting some boards behind the one wheel but in the end they called a tow truck. The tow truck lifted up the back and pulled it back no problem.

After that I helped my dad load the van at the bottom and then unload it at the top a few times. We also moved the really heavy furniture up the stairs and into the house, but then I had to leave. Dave drove the truck to the ferry and I went with him and we caught the quick ferry to Swartz bay. Then I said goodbye and walked onto the big ferry back to the mainland.

It was a pretty ridiculous and tiring weekend. I heard later my sister got a really good workout helping get most stuff into the house before it got really dark. Then they covered the remaining stuff with tarps, which is good because it poured the next day. Also, my parents missed the back to school BBQ they were invited to. I guess there are a lot of worse things that could have happened when moving between islands, like missing the ferry, but it was quite the stressful move. I'm glad it's over and they're all settled into the new place. I'll have to visit them sometime soon.

New Saltspring Home

Last weekend I helped my parents move from Saturna island to Saltspring Island. These are both Gulf Islands but for comparison, Saturna has a population of 350 and an area of 31km squared. That's tiny. Saltspring has a population of 10,500 and an area of 183km squared. That's more normal. Delta is the same size but with 10 times more people.

So anyway, I took a lot of ferries! On Saturday I took a ferry to Long Harbour on Saltspring (it has 3 different ferry dock locations) and then a bus to my parent's new place. I had about an hour to hang out there before anyone else showed up, so I walked around the outside.

At the top of their steep driveway was a shed and a doghouse. My little sister Emily insists my parents have now promised to get them a dog. Currently all they have is a cat.

Most of the house is raised up on a rock so you have to
go up some steps to the porch to get into it.

The porch wraps around 3 sides of the house and is nice and wide. Their house is much smaller than the last place, but will get way more sun because it's up on top of the bluff it's built on. Also, they have way more land. My dad is already planning a disc golf course across it. I'm not sure how that's going to work because some of it is quite steep and it's all covered in bushes.

So next I walked down these stairs from the house.

I went down and down and down. Apparently a stream will flow down the hill under these steps in the winter and there will be a little waterfall or two.

At the bottom of the steps is a little cottage/shed that Emily will eventually move into. Right now I would call it a shed because it is a single room with no insulation. However, it does have a window and electricity. On the side of the little building is a covered outdoor shower. If it's not going to be used, she could always put a desk out there and work outside.

So eventually my parents and Farley showed up with a van load of stuff for the house. Also, my other brother Ben showed up with his new girlfriend to see the place and help unload.

Between the many windows in the living room / dining room is the wood stove.

Adjoined to the living room is the kitchen. It has much less cupboards than their old place and the stove and oven are separate. Also downstairs is my sisters' room that they will share until the cottage is fixed up. It has a skylight and Natalie, who will eventually get the room to herself is going to put her bed directly under it.

In the bathroom there is a big jacuzzi tub (jets included)
with windows right there and a skylight above it.

Upstairs and sort of overlooking the living room is my parents room and their bathroom.

It has a ton of windows like the rest of the place.

It also has glass doors that open up onto the living roof. Yes, this part of the roof is growing and so you are supposed to walk around on it by only stepping on the bricks.

So after unloading at home, some of the stuff in the van was meant for my dad's new classroom so we drove over to the middle school.

One thing going in the classroom is his very first computer from the 90's, a Macintosh Classic. I remember programming in Hypercard on that thing and playing games on it. It still works.

After the school we got some pizza and took it to Fulford ferry dock to eat. Then we took the short ferry trip (5 nautical miles) to Swartz bay, Vancouver Island.

We spent the night at my grandpa's place in Sidney, except for Ben who took the bus home to his place in Esquimalt (suburb of Victoria). The next day we got up really early to go to Saturna, but I will leave the move story for the next post.