tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-127940812011-12-14T19:35:29.733-07:00Life events, rants, internet goodies and whatever else catches my eye.Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.comBlogger1271100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1155853800785539312006-08-17T16:28:00.000-06:002006-08-20T22:24:00.686-06:00

This will be my last post on this blog!Got your attention?I'm moving my blog to my own webserver ... so please update your links, bookmarks and whatever else that happens to point in this direction. My new url is http://heraldk.ca/blogEasy enough?It's a bit of a work in progress, but it won't take too long to get everything back up to snuff. I like wordpress a whole lot better than blogger, so

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1155682062039160212006-08-15T16:42:00.000-06:002006-08-15T16:47:42.096-06:00

Well I've finally managed to put together several days of productive thesis work. My thesis is now flirting with the 40 page mark, and there's still a long way to go, but it is coming. It helps that since I did a lot of discussion with Darse concerning the ICGA paper and his thesis, I now have a pretty standard graph format I can use so I don't really have to figure that out. In fact, most of the

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1155075058039259372006-08-08T15:58:00.000-06:002006-08-08T16:10:58.083-06:00

But it was fun!This long weekend was filled with food and fun and very much a lack of workiness (take that Stephen Colbert!). Friday night I helped Diane unpack several of her boxes and got her setup so she could actually stay her first night at her new place. Saturday, we headed to Rob Holte's games party which was a lot of fun. There's a new Ticket to Ride game that is, in my opinion, the best

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1154491980787654992006-08-01T22:02:00.000-06:002006-08-01T22:13:00.803-06:00

Well now is the time that I concentrate on my thesis. Yikes! It's already August!My main goal now is to attempt to get as much of my thesis written as possible over the next couple of weeks. This will require a lot of concentration, but hopefully I'll be able to get as much done as I can with the hope that I can try to graduate without having to pay for another term of tuition fees.So really,

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1154151130443387602006-07-28T22:23:00.000-06:002006-07-28T23:32:10.506-06:00

Well the last day in New York really wasn't all that eventful from a sightseeing perspective. We all slept in, which I was grateful for since I was still feeling pretty sick. We were actually woken up by housekeeping at 9:30 reminding us we needed to check out by 11:00. Bleah. We finally got up and checked out, leaving our bags for $2 a person at the front desk.We stopped for brunch at the cafe/

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1153962356642750092006-07-26T18:40:00.000-06:002006-07-26T19:05:56.886-06:00

Alright, so the exciting thing that happened last night didn't really pan out as I'd hoped. But it still makes a good story. At the comedy club last night, the first comedian to standup was introduced as recently being featured on "The Colbert Report". I was shocked and wondered who he was ... turns out he was Jordan Carlos. For those unfamiliar with the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert has

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1153887668618887352006-07-25T22:05:00.000-06:002006-07-25T22:21:08.633-06:00

Well, New York is really overwhelming.Still, its cool to get to see some stuff, so we slept in a little later today because we were all pretty tired from our rather full day the day before. After we finally got going, we headed out for a quick brunch before heading to the United Nations. We got there just in time before a large group of people and took the tour, which was actually really cool.

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1153800049135261852006-07-24T21:42:00.000-06:002006-07-24T22:00:49.180-06:00

Okay, today was a heck of a day!We got up on our own accord around 8:30am ... after which we got ready and started out on our big day. Our plan was to try and hit some of the major tourist attractions that are "must-see" New York. We could've done this by transit for most of the way, but decided to instead do most of it on foot so we could also get a feel for the atmosphere of the city and see

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1153714792686717872006-07-23T22:00:00.000-06:002006-07-23T22:19:52.713-06:00

Well it was a long day today!Mike and I got into New York late last night, dropped our bags off at the hostel and went out in search of food since we were hungry. We bumped into Nolan and Mike on their way back from their dinner so they lead us to a fast food/sit down hybrid restaurant where we had some pretty good wraps.After a quick bite to eat we returned back to the hostel and got ready for

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1153658390699316102006-07-23T06:36:00.000-06:002006-07-23T06:39:50.716-06:00

Mike and I met in the lobby on Friday morning all set to take a bus to Foxwoods casino. This was to be my first live poker ring game experience, and I was pretty excited. The bus ride was about 2 hours long from Boston, and we arrived at Foxwoods sometime in the early afternoon. Foxwoods is an amazing sight - it is absolutely *huge*, with three buildings of hotel rooms, slot machines, poker

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1153457126596260882006-07-20T21:33:00.000-06:002006-07-20T22:45:26.653-06:00

Well today was the last day of the conference, so tonight is the last night in Boston. Man, time goes by quickly, particularly when you're being kept crazy busy! Tonight's post is only one day of coverage so shouldn't be quite so long.This morning was another 8am wakeup. The night before we had Brad and Chris stay the night in our room since they hadn't had a place for the night. Apparently the

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1153403631743094752006-07-20T07:51:00.000-06:002006-07-20T21:40:00.966-06:00

I'm up fairly early this morning and the first person to shower so now I can wait for everyone else to shower and spend some more time catching up on me blog!So last night four of us got back soaking wet from a night out at another bar. You know, I'm not a big drinker or anything but it seems I'm out a whole lot more often than I am in Edmonton. I guess its kind of fun to explore the city and

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1153372741815962872006-07-19T23:14:00.000-06:002006-07-19T23:24:35.393-06:00

I haven't had a large amount of time to actually sit down and keep up my journal, and I'm falling rapidly behind as a result, so I think I'm going to try and very quickly summarize what I've been up to.After exploring the MIT and Harvard campuses, we returned to the hotel via transit and joined several others for an excursion to find dinner. So ... apparently Bostonians don't eat dinner on Sunday

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1153106530307245542006-07-16T20:42:00.000-06:002006-07-16T21:22:10.370-06:00

I continue to experience great internet connectivity in Boston from our fancy hotel room so this is a wonderful opportunity to post more of my travel journal *while* its happening! So here it is, my second full day of adventures while in Boston!After my post yesterday, I napped for a short while and then managed to get a hold of Mike to organize heading out for dinner. As far as I knew it was

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1152995285715651182006-07-15T14:00:00.000-06:002006-07-15T14:28:06.046-06:00

I think with the lengthy time that I spent between webposts on my Torino journal, I'm going to attempt to stay up to date with my blog *while* I'm here in Boston. It certainly will be easier for this stage of the trip since our hotel has a convenient LAN ethernet port which I can just plug my laptop into.So here goes for the first part of my trip. My relatives from Austria are in Edmonton, so

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1152917569377389102006-07-14T16:38:00.000-06:002006-07-14T16:52:49.400-06:00

Well tonight (technically tomorrow morning), I leave for Boston where I'll be attending AAAI - one of the biggest conferences on artificial intelligence research. Once the conference is over on the 20th, a couple of my friends and I are going to spend a week in new york with a short stopover at Foxwoods casino.I'm pretty excited. It is pretty fun to travel, and it is also interesting to attend a

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1152590697105677762006-07-10T21:54:00.000-06:002006-07-10T22:04:57.106-06:00

Well I'm glad I decided to play some poker tonight. I got home a little late from school since it was raining really hard and I didn't really want to get poured on on the way home. When I finally got home, I threw some laundry in and decided to fire up full tilt and play a little 2/4. I ended up over $300 in the space of maybe an hour and a half! (two tables). This was a big relief - I have been

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1152256458529748692006-07-10T01:03:00.000-06:002006-07-10T01:07:34.440-06:00

Finally, I finish off my Torino journal and can get back to doing other stuff on my blog!For previous entries in my Torino Journal, see Day One, Day Two, Day Three, or Day Four and Five.We got up on the morning of our 6th full day in Europe early enough to head in to the conference area for the last day of the conference. The talks were pretty interesting, including a couple of cool ones from the

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1152169948645906482006-07-06T00:55:00.000-06:002006-07-07T00:22:03.376-06:00

Yup, my journal is coming slowly but surely. Soon, I'll find myself catching up on my boston/new york journal! Uhoh...For previous entries in my Torino Journal, see Day One, Day Two, or Day ThreeWe got up the next morning for the first day of the conference. The conference was held at a different location than the olympiad so we needed to find our way to a new location. Unfortunately, we got

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1151776288457509362006-07-01T10:48:00.000-06:002006-07-01T11:51:28.523-06:00

For previous entries in my Torino Journal, see Day One and Day Two.On Sunday, our third full day in Torino, the conference organized an excursion to see some sights in the area surrounding Torino. We gladly signed up for it when they first announced it, so we needed to get on the bus fairly early in the morning. Unfortunately, we found ourselves moving a little slow that morning so we ended up

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1151337811690899782006-06-25T00:00:00.000-06:002006-06-27T00:10:55.540-06:00

This is day two of my Torino journal. For part one, go here.Tired from almost two full days with only a couple hours of "sleep" on the plane, we got a good night's sleep and were up and about around 7am. We wandered downstairs and got some breakfast from the provided breakfast buffet - which was good for the first day, but started to lose its appeal later in the week. The greatest thing about the

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1150867969431401232006-06-20T23:09:00.000-06:002006-06-20T23:32:49.470-06:00

I've been pretty busy since I got back from Italy, so I haven't had much chance to update here, and those times that I have had a little bit of time I ended up playing poker or doing chores around the house. So ... updates here have been pretty scarce.Anyways, what's happened? The Oilers! Man, they put in a good run didn't they? Just one game away from the stanley cup and they came SOOOO close. A

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1149458980731614462006-06-04T15:38:00.000-06:002006-06-04T16:14:30.980-06:00

Alright, I'm finally sitting down to chronicle my trip to Italy. I'm going to do this is one-day size segments so that a) you'll have less text to read for a given entry and b) I'll have less text to type all at once! A win-win scenario as it were.Our flight was scheduled to leave at 2:00 pm on Thursday May 25th from Edmonton International Airport. Our itinerary looked like this (all times local

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1149456838018741312006-06-04T15:31:00.000-06:002006-06-04T15:34:07.473-06:00

I was talking about doing this for awhile, but finally got around to cleaning up the template and putting up my brand new Photoblog!. In the next few weeks I'll be uploading several pictures that I took with my trusty old Canon Powershot A10. These photos will act as a kind of ramp-up to the photos taken with my new Digital Rebel XT (including select shots from Italy).Excited? Well I am!Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1149090727566670382006-05-31T09:45:00.000-06:002006-05-31T09:52:07.586-06:00

Well I've been meaning to post here about my experiences in Italy thus far. But I haven't had an internet connection where I've had the chance to relax and just browse the 'net let alone post about my experiences thsu far.I promise - posts are coming. I have text written, I just need some time to edit it and make it more readable rather than a slew of messy notes. For now, with just a single full

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1148574233911939372006-05-25T10:14:00.000-06:002006-05-25T10:23:53.976-06:00

I was talking to one of my friends this week and we both agreed that the last week or two have been pretty surreal. For me, doubly so!The Edmonton Oilers are just one win away from making the Stanely cup final for the first time since 1990. That's a really long time ... long enough that I can barely remember sitting up "late" with my dad watching the games. At that point, I really didn't know

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1147967275614392982006-05-18T09:42:00.000-06:002006-05-18T09:49:21.266-06:00

Wow. I think I have another favourite artist all of a sudden. His name is Rob Gonsalves, and his paintings are very satisfyingly Escher-esque ... and there's a lot of them! Now ... if only I could afford purchasing one of these guys. The trouble would then be, I guess, picking one of them!I think this one's my current favourite, but really, they're all very stunning.Here's some more links to

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1147672512720426132006-05-14T23:15:00.000-06:002006-05-14T23:55:12.780-06:00

Quite the day today! My family decided to postpone our Mother's day celebration ... partially at my request since for some reason PSO's poker rewards freeroll was scheduled for tonight. I really didn't want to miss this freeroll because there was a huge overlay on it. It was a $10K freeroll which I qualified for by playing 750 raked hands at poker rewards. Less than 150 people qualified and only

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1147412719222880932006-05-11T23:37:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:45:19.223-06:00

Hahaha. Instead of actually coming up with some more content, I decided to improve the "read more" links that I had on my site. Thanks to these scripts I was able to make the posts an automatic shrink/expand functionality possible. I really like it this way. Now I don't have to write my posts in a way that will split into two parts. This script will automatically make sure that each entry is the

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1147409807519610892006-05-11T22:47:00.000-06:002006-05-12T23:02:25.703-06:00

I haven't posted in awhile, but I plan to get to a longer post with stuff I've been up to in a bit (hopefully tonight). But first, here's a couple of pretty cool photos that have been pointed to all over the internet today.First, there's a picture of a mirage that appeared just off of East China and lasted for an astounding 4 hours. I was not aware that such detailed mirages that can be seen by

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1146636950408350232006-05-02T23:54:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:29:50.386-06:00

Why do I feel so busy? This weekend wasn't all that incredibly busy. I mean, I was at a couple of parties, and spent a day with my mom on her birthday on Sunday, but that's not all that busy. And even though I've got a lot on my plate for school, I still come home and don't do much on school. I'll keep working on the various poker and casino promos that have made me a tidy profit over the course

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1146069651357369542006-04-26T10:26:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:30:15.196-06:00

Last night I was able to go to my first ever playoff hockey game, and boy was it a blast! The crowd was loud, half drunk and cheering really hard for the hometown Oilers. It was so easy to join in the loud cheering that I no longer have much of a voice today. The Oilers played an impressive game and deserved to win. They played an amazing first two periods of hockey. In the second period, Detroit

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1145853656767557482006-04-23T22:18:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:31:48.500-06:00

Well, I hope I can get myself going next week. Both this weekend and the week preceding it were wildly unproductive affairs which is really not what I'm aiming for at this point when there's plenty I *could* be doing. I wasn't even all that busy with other stuff ... I just kept getting distracted by silly little things like Sudoku. I'm aiming to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight and then

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1145767356142489722006-04-22T22:31:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:33:42.940-06:00

When the Oilers are in the playoffs, this is my favourite time of the year. Well, maybe not my only favourite time of year ... but it certainly ranks high!The Oiler game last night was exciting playoff hockey. Despite the disappointing finish, I think the Oil can certainly recover from the loss and come out strong tomorrow. I'm frankly confused with the "afternoon" game tomorrow though. The game

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1145422751022122862006-04-18T22:54:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:34:02.646-06:00

I now, finally, have in my posession a Canon Digital Rebel XT. This digital SLR camera is pretty fantastic, and I am really excited about learning to use it over the coming months/years. I have some material to learn from already, and I'm going to spend a few weeks taking some photographs. When I get a bit of a collection going, I'm going to start a photoblog to post the best ones for all to see!

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1145081977293548452006-04-15T00:06:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:34:26.506-06:00

Not much of a post here tonight. I just wanted to mention a couple of bits of the current news.The Italy trip is looking like a go ahead for sure. Ryan was looking into plane tickets for us today. Hoorah! Its gonna be a good 16 hour flight to Turin at least. Gotta bring my laptop so I can get some stuff done :)Next, one of the 2 papers I've been working on of late was officially accepted to AAAI

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1144993117829300042006-04-13T23:33:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:34:41.156-06:00

Its been an up and down season for my beloved Oilers. At times it has been damn frustrating to watch the team choke against weaker teams. At others, we seem to pull out all the stops and are able to come up with a big win here or there. They just never seem to make it easy on themselves. They've got a lot of talent, and there really should be no doubt that they make the playoffs.If only it were

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1144862513780194102006-04-12T10:34:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:35:05.170-06:00

I can't quite seem to get enough of tweaking my blogger template. I've added the ability to have short summaries for a post followed by a "read more" link. This will let me split up some posts that are too long for the mainpage so you can read them if you are interested in them. I also changed some of my statistics tracking so it'll be easier for me to interpret what my statistics mean. For those

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1144776386236513612006-04-11T11:16:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:35:55.473-06:00

Well, this weekend was interesting on the gambling front.First of all, a guy on the PSO forums noticed that PokerNow has closed down permanently and offered players to transfer the remaining money that they had at PokerNow to an existing party poker account. The great part of this was that he and several people were transfering totals of less than a dollar to party poker and getting $25 and $50

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1144259632250617052006-04-05T11:45:00.000-06:002006-05-11T23:36:12.983-06:00

You know, it is very easy to spend money.With my upcoming trip to Italy looking like a sure thing, my thoughts turn to how to catalogue my trip in the best possible way - and I started thinking about a camera. My current digital camera is a Canon Powershot A10 ... one of the first digital cameras on the market sitting at a 1.2 megapixel rating. Don't get me wrong, this camera has served me well .

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1143878839787198522006-04-01T01:03:00.000-07:002006-04-01T01:07:19.803-07:00

Well this doesn't happen everyday. Last night (the 30th), I was on discovery channel as part of some coverage of the poker group at the UofA. A few weeks ago, they came through and filmed mostly Darse, but got some footage of me "coding" and a mock "poker meeting". While the process makes me a little cynical at the whole television thing, it is kinda cool to see myself on TV.The video will

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1143609721041125632006-03-28T22:17:00.000-07:002006-03-28T22:22:01.056-07:00

Well, lets see how this goes.Darse and I are working on a paper that is due on Thursday at some undefined time on that day. The nervous thing is that this paper is much less complete than the last paper I worked on. There's *a lot* of writing to do yet. So the next couple days are going to be pretty busy for that! After that, I get to really start concentrating on the Hex codebase in a push to

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1143343449271307762006-03-25T20:09:00.000-07:002006-03-25T20:25:26.420-07:00

This is the first record that I've gotten excited about for a long time. Part of the trouble is that my music library is so vast that I have a hard time giving the songs I already have the listening that they deserve.One of the latest bands that I really latched on to is Stabilo - a band out of Vancouver (if I remember correctly). They had one fairly big hit song called "Everybody" which I really

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1143052527158312732006-03-22T10:18:00.000-07:002006-03-22T11:35:27.370-07:00

Wow ... this would be cool.Apparently there is funding available to send our Hex programming team to Torino Italy where they are holding the CG (Computer Games) conference and the Computer Olympiad competition.I had just about gotten myself out of working on the project with the attempts to focus on my own thesis work ... but now I'm going to have to put some time into the hex project, or I'd

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1142925416969091802006-03-21T00:04:00.000-07:002006-03-21T00:16:56.990-07:00

There's something strangely calming about walking outside after its snowed. Edmonton got a huge dump of snow this weekend ... making this March the most snowy March EVER. When you walk outside for a bit, there's this hint of quiet beauty in the air. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but the crisp cool air with the clean snow just seems to bring me a feeling of peace.I'm in a weird mood again tonight.

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1142831684335282652006-03-19T21:49:00.000-07:002006-03-19T22:14:44.363-07:00

You know, it's odd.This is the first time in a long while that I haven't spend any part of the weekend with my girlfriend Diane. To be frank, she is the most wonderful thing to ever happen to me and being away from her is not exactly what I'd choose if I had a choice. But that's not a problem. Really, it's comforting to know that Diane is still there, on the other side of town ... and that she's

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1142547971749480672006-03-16T12:11:00.000-07:002006-03-16T15:26:24.150-07:00

So I'm trying some new things with my blog. I honestly have no idea how many people view my blog - its kind of just sitting here on the web with more posts than I thought I had actually written for it. So, I'm kind of curious what kind of traffic I'm getting (if any) and what people like looking at.Recently, a tool for weblogs called Performancing Metrics was released, and it kind of looks like

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1142445324325527772006-03-15T10:44:00.000-07:002006-03-15T10:55:24.346-07:00

Well I finally get to do the Poker Room PSO promotion. PokerRoom.com was my first ever poker room that I signed up for and I played a couple of their freerolls there. What I didn't realize was that that was going to interfere with my doing a PSO promotion there.Fortunately, I was allowed to wait 6 months after closing my previous poker room account and now I've reopened it and am ready for

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1142025728568354602006-03-10T14:09:00.000-07:002006-03-10T14:22:08.596-07:00

Well, hockey season is super exciting this time of year. The trade deadline was yesterday, and our Edmonton Oilers are looking poised to make a push higher into the standings and deeper into the playoffs. Here's the trades we made:To Minnesota: 1st round draft pick, conditional 3rd round draft pickTo Edmonton: Dwayne RolosonEdmonton gets a pretty good goaltender and they don't even have to break

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1141326235753842182006-03-02T10:17:00.000-07:002006-03-02T12:03:55.836-07:00

An interesting question came up the other day when some friends and I sat down for coffee. "Why do people blog?". Its an interesting question, and one that I can't quite be sure of the answer right away.The purpose of my blog is to have a kind of journal that I will actually keep an interest in maintaining. One of the problems I've had whenever I try to start a personal diary or journal is I tend

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1141186011825771262006-02-28T21:02:00.000-07:002006-02-28T21:16:46.313-07:00

For those who read my blog regularly (which is almost nobody), they know I mention PSO pretty regularly. Well guess what? The best online affiliate hit 25,000 poker forum members recently.The sheer success of this site is an impressive feat. It takes a lot of patience and good customer support (read: more patience) to deal with the vast majority of people looking for a free lunch. To Mike and all

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1141060503095433692006-02-27T09:59:00.000-07:002006-02-27T10:15:03.170-07:00

Well yesterday was an interesting poker day.I played some 2/4 limit at Ultimate Bet for a very short time, losing far more than I really liked (some $150). I just couldn't have my good hands stand up or when I had a good hand someone had a better one. Bleh. So I quit and played xbox for awhile. I started playing Jade Empire this weekend, and I'm really enjoying it so far!Then, at 7:00, PSO had

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1140718789516252082006-02-23T11:03:00.000-07:002006-02-23T11:19:49.586-07:00

Honestly, I can't stand the media.First, what's with the debacle of accusing Gretzky of being involved in the gambling scandal? This man does more for the game of hockey than anyone ever before. He has always been an amazing role model for the kids everywhere and what does he get as thanks? Seriously, if he says he wasn't involved, why don't you believe him unless some reason not to comes up?

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1140331397231483882006-02-18T23:38:00.000-07:002006-02-18T23:43:17.243-07:00

Well, I was supposed to be skiing this weekend. Supposed to be. The 24th Parkallen scouts have their annual ski trip on the family day long weekend every year. It was a blast last year and I was quite looking forward to going out this year.Unfortunately for skiing, I had to stay in town this weekend because ... I'm working on a research paper! Five of us from the poker group are preparing a paper

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1139854622259864582006-02-13T11:08:00.000-07:002006-02-13T11:17:02.366-07:00

Got back last night from the big camp our rovers do - the Devon Winter Challenge Camp. For those who don't know, the event consists of a number of challenge activities that the scout troops go through. They are marked on these events and at the end of the camp, they top score gets a prize. The DWC camp is one of two big challenge camps put on in the winter each year in our region (the other being

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1139522030468035432006-02-09T14:42:00.000-07:002006-02-09T14:53:50.510-07:00

Lets take a moment shall we and discuss politics?Normally I wouldn't do this, but the latest outbreak on the federal politics stage has *me* fuming ... and I don't even live in the riding in question!I'm sure you've all heard by now about Mr Emerson crossing the floor from liberal to conservative to accept a cabinet position. He did this before the parliment even sat ONCE!Frankly, I don't agree

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1139422961554930482006-02-08T11:12:00.000-07:002006-02-08T11:22:41.643-07:00

Goodness me. Last night was the best night for poker I've ever had.To set up the scenario, I had lost a lot of money on the weekend playing 2/4 limit. Apparently the cards just weren't with me and I played a little too aggressive in spots which cost me more than I probably should have lost. All told, I lost about $160 or so on Sunday which is the single worst day of poker I've ever had. Ewww. I

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1139208243516260412006-02-05T22:49:00.000-07:002006-02-05T23:44:03.586-07:00

Well last night was the Sonata Arctica concert that I've been looking forward to for quite awhile. For those who don't know, Sonata Arctica is a Finnish melodic metal band that took the scene by storm when they released their first full length album. When I first heard some of their music, they almost immediately became part of my musical library.This was the 2nd of two shows that I thought I'd

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1138657345932535232006-01-30T14:23:00.000-07:002006-01-30T14:42:26.000-07:00

Well, department ski trip weekend is now over, and I'm in a pleasant but kind of guilty stage of tired non-workness. I didn't get a lot of sleep this weekened, but I think I may have got a heck of a lot more than I might've got had I stayed up for all the parties that went on.Diane and I left Edmonton around 4:00 or so, and made our way into Jasper around 9:00 with a stop in Edson for dinner. It

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1138298816337608822006-01-26T10:45:00.000-07:002006-01-26T11:06:56.473-07:00

I mentioned a little while ago that I had won a satellite some friends and I put on to enter into one of the Alberta poker championship tournaments. It was a $200+20 affair, and it was last night. The summary is ... well, I did well, but didn't make the money. There was ~133 people in the tournament with the top 15 places paying out.It didn't take me too long to get comfortable. The play was not

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1138037006660445412006-01-23T10:12:00.000-07:002006-01-23T10:23:26.696-07:00

Ugh. I hate politics. Everytime it happens it feels like I've got to decide between a bunch of idiots who make a mitt-ful of promises that there is no way on earth they will keep, or if they do keep them all then they'll screw over an aspect of the country they didn't stress in their political platform.Blah. I'm scared of the conservatives. I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems oddly creepy

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1137799039599417752006-01-20T16:12:00.000-07:002006-01-20T16:17:19.620-07:00

My roommate ordered the PS2 game guitar hero last week and it arrived last night. Excited, he went home to his parent's place (where it was delivered) and returned to our place and we promptly set it up and started playing.For those who haven't heard of it, its a game where you have these guitar shaped controllers and you basically play DDR, but with a guitar instead of hitting arrows on a dance

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1137608182746856842006-01-18T11:03:00.000-07:002006-01-18T11:17:30.016-07:00

Its been a little while since my last post, so this will be a post that catches you up with what I've been up to for the last little while.First, the big news: I bought a new TV! I ended up choosing option 2 from my list of options in TV Shopping. I figure that choosing that option is the best price/performance that I can get for my money. While LCD screens are really starting to go mainstream, I

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1137005573080988232006-01-11T23:23:00.000-07:002006-01-11T23:25:27.426-07:00

Well I've started to go into the full swing of Television shopping. There seems to be a dazzling array of options out there, and its tough because I'm not really sure how much I should spend. So I figure if I post my options, one of a couple things might happen.By typing out the options that I have, I can more easily weight the pros and cons of my potential decision.If someone is actually reading

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1136788711038844202006-01-08T23:16:00.000-07:002006-01-08T23:38:31.110-07:00

I didn't really plan it this way, but this weekend was more poker filled than it ever was.On Friday, I left work with a couple friends and went for dinner at the Druid. Then afterwards I was able to go to a poker night at Ryan's place. I bubbled out at that tournament unfortunately. The game was pretty wild - everyone who played was crazy loose, and I didn't really get cards to help me take

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1136352349883597942006-01-03T22:25:00.000-07:002006-01-03T22:25:49.896-07:00

What a pleasant surprise!I arrived home today and in my mailbox is a letter from the alberta government who as part of the Alberta Heritage Scholarship fund decided to award me a cool $2000 scholarship for my achievements in my first year of grad studies.Sweet!Since my finances are all well and good at the moment, I may well turn my new found wealth to my Television fund where I am looking to

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1136266769017458992006-01-02T22:18:00.000-07:002006-01-02T22:39:29.036-07:00

It has now officially been 2 years since Diane and I started Dating. Naturally, we had to get out to see each other and we spent a lovely evening together. It wasn't all that fancy, but you know, that's part of the reason that I love Diane so much. Its a pretty big day for us ... two years is definitely not an insignificant amount of time. But part of what makes what we have so special is that we

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1135909473667644112005-12-29T19:24:00.000-07:002006-01-18T11:18:15.493-07:00

I really should be working. But since I'm not, my holidays have been going by far too quickly.Still, its been a good holidays - lots of time with the family, and a couple friends are coming ober tomorrow afternoon. Then there's new years and the two year anniversary for Diane and I coming up in short order! Amazingness!Last night I watched Memoirs of a Geisha ... I don't know what rotten tomatoes

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1135574731667760832005-12-25T22:19:00.000-07:002005-12-25T22:25:31.690-07:00

Merry Christmas everybody!I hope everyone is having a relaxing, wonderful holiday season. My own holidays have been busy, but good so far - and I hope everyone has had a similar time of it :)Until next time, enjoy some Christmas grow!Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1135205279313640822005-12-21T15:46:00.000-07:002005-12-21T15:47:59.340-07:00

Ahahahahaha. I particularly like the chart that says "6 billion plus people who aren't me" "1 person who is me".I dunno where this guy came up with this, but its funny :)Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1135200966085905692005-12-21T14:36:00.000-07:002005-12-21T14:36:06.150-07:00

I found out that there are some theoretical issues with my code so it turns out that I'll need to continue working right up until Christmas to see if I can find what the issues are. It also turns out that because of this, the results I've finished running already aren't valid anymore :(*sigh*Oh well, its not so bad ... I don't really mind working right up until Christmas. My "job" is really fun -

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1134976269697247022005-12-19T00:05:00.000-07:002005-12-19T00:11:09.713-07:00

Saturday night was crazy. I bought a deep freezer for my condo, as well as a couple of Christmas gifts - and then picked Diane up. From there we visited three parties, including Diane's work party, a fantastic dinner at Lingnan, and then a birthday party for one of our friends from Dance class way back when.Lingnan was awesome. Amy, the owner of the lunchtime establishment in Scotia place (by the

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1134854599519405152005-12-17T14:18:00.000-07:002005-12-17T14:23:19.540-07:00

Last night Diane and I joined several of my friends to go see the first of the Narnia films. It was amazing ... at least I thought it was really well done. I didn't really like the discovery of the wardrobe sequence - but other than that, I felt that the movie was really quite well done.I really quite enjoyed the Narnia books - and so I was quite excited to hear that they were making movies out

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1134635165983934642005-12-15T01:23:00.000-07:002005-12-15T01:26:05.983-07:00

Well I can finally say that I have my own custom blog template! I borrowed this template from Open Source Web Designs which is an awesome site for those who want to have professional looking websites without the web design ability. Frankly, I'm learning a lot just by playing with them.Anyways, I found this template which I liked a lot. It'll be the basis of my new web page hosted on the CS

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1134493932520254442005-12-13T10:07:00.000-07:002005-12-13T10:12:12.520-07:00

Well then.Ever since I've started playing poker online, I've come to really appreciate the 4-colour deck. For those who haven't seen them, the clubs are green and the diamonds are blue ... making it easy to distinguish the different suits for flush purposes. I have considered for awhile looking around for one, but everytime I couldn't find any. But now I have. These were linked to from the PSO

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1134424732579466002005-12-12T14:27:00.000-07:002005-12-12T14:58:54.786-07:00

Ahh Christmas ... so much to do, so little time!Saturday was the department Christmas party - and it was a blast as I kind of expected. The food was not spectacular, but the dancing was fun. Diane and I showed off our dancing skillz - though I felt really rusty at most of the dances other than the waltz. Our waltz is our best dance for sure :) The DJ at the party was a little too involved in the

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1133975928500819762005-12-07T09:55:00.000-07:002005-12-07T10:18:49.143-07:00

I'm the luckiest guy in the world.At least, I'm really really fortunate with what I've managed to accomplish in this life of mine so far ... and honestly, I'm not too sure that I deserve it all.First and foremost, Diane and I have an amazingly loving relationship. From the way I stumbled into the relationship, I'm a little surprised that it turned out so well. It turns out that we have so much in

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1133734987504186952005-12-04T15:21:00.000-07:002005-12-04T15:23:07.536-07:00

Seriously.They're crazy expensive ... like $315 expensive. But can you imagine playing poker with a deck of cards like that? It'd be friggin sweet!Not that I can afford a deck like it. *sigh*. I guess I'll have to stick to KEMs.Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1133248236026626502005-11-29T00:08:00.000-07:002005-11-29T00:10:36.060-07:00

This is neat ... I'm not sure if any of them actually work, but its neat.Check it out here.Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1133199412454935572005-11-28T10:20:00.000-07:002005-11-28T10:36:52.576-07:00

What a wild weekend.Friday night was a pretty calm night as I pretty much just stayed home and watched the hockey game (an exciting game between the oilers and flames ending in a shootout Oiler win... yay!). I also won another $75 player poker that night. Full tilt has been an awesome room for me this week.Saturday morning I had to be up to get to first aid training. I needed a recertification,

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1132549797878012212005-11-20T22:06:00.000-07:002005-11-20T22:10:24.300-07:00

Wow was tonight ever an awesome night for poker!I played for a couple hours this afternoon and had a pretty non-descript session where I won about $22 or so. I then wandered off and watched the football game (esks are on their way to the grey cup! hoorah!). Then I came back and started winning money. The players tonight were just TERRIBLE. And wonder of wonders ... I got cards to cost them money.

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1132353071429738222005-11-18T15:24:00.000-07:002005-11-18T15:31:11.446-07:00

This is a really interesting article: This guy is claiming that the real reason the record companies want to change pricing at the iTunes music store is because they want to establish 'image' that a higher priced song is 'better'.It makes a lot of sense.The iTunes music store currently sells all tracks at $0.99 a song. If the record companies get their way, then they would sell more popular

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1132259921194226432005-11-17T13:29:00.000-07:002005-11-17T13:39:15.896-07:00

So I'm a member of the computer science grad school floor hockey team. We're playing in a division that isn't high on the competitive scale, but of course everyone likes to win. We finished the regular season (all of three games) with an 0-3 record, but I don't think that record was fully deserved. We actually played pretty well, and didn't lose by more than 2 goals on any of those games. For

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1132089569638127712005-11-15T14:16:00.000-07:002005-11-15T14:19:29.650-07:00

Well I'm glad for all the people who were able to make it to my poker party on Saturday. It was quite the event! We held two tournaments, the first before dinner and the second afterwards. The first was a full 10 people and the second was 13 people large! Congrats to Curtis and JR who won each respective tournament. Also, congrats to Kepi and Curtis who made the money in both tournaments.I think

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1131386347931714122005-11-07T10:35:00.000-07:002005-11-07T10:59:07.953-07:00

Well, its been awhile since I last talked about poker. So I guess I will have to now won't I?For the record, I've been playing online poker for almost a full year now. I started playing .5/1 tables, and it didn't take more than a couple months for me to do better than break even. I lost about $30 at party poker whilst getting my chipset, and then I broke even (not counting the sweet $300 bonus)

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1131145298436102662005-11-04T15:33:00.000-07:002005-11-04T16:01:38.453-07:00

It seems like life is all about confidence.If you are confident in who you are and what you are doing, you will tend to succeed at the things you do. Not only that, succeeding breeds further confidence and from there you go onto doing bigger and better things. But confidence is a fickle quality. If, despite your confidence, you start to fail, then watch out! And just like gaining confidence

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1130860961399666042005-11-01T09:01:00.000-07:002005-11-01T09:02:41.410-07:00

Boy this is awesome.Its a really really long list of available internet services for doing almost anything you *can* do on the internet. I've already found a couple of ones that I might very well start using - one is an online calendar that looks like it better suits my purposes than remember the milk does.Excellent!Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1130173085790272892005-10-24T10:49:00.000-06:002005-10-24T10:58:13.336-06:00

My sister gave Diane and I a wonderful little Christmas present last year. A gift certificate for La Ronde to have a Sunday brunch there. For those who don't know, La Ronde is a rotating restaurant on top of the Crowne Plaza hotel. You get a beautiful scenic view of downtown Edmonton and the river valley, and if you don't like your current view, you only have to wait a few minutes and you'll have

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1130172517140678372005-10-24T10:23:00.000-06:002005-10-24T10:48:37.153-06:00

Religious discussion always seems to bring out the worst in people. This guy claims that religion is the cause of so many problems in the world both in the past and today. He talks about people who go insane and believe that their religion is what is guiding them through their life's actions. Ugh.It's a touchy topic. I'm not going to go out on a limb here. Religion, both in the past and today,

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1129517912056013432005-10-16T20:55:00.000-06:002005-10-16T20:58:32.070-06:00

Seemed to be a theme this month. First, someone plays a level's worth of super mario brother's theme music plus the sound appropriate sound affects entirely on guitar. Craziness.Then, someone comes up with a super mario brothers opera. Yes, really.Some people, I tell ya. Crazy!Still, I can't help but be intrigued. Somehow, mario still holds my interest.Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1128872540287948542005-10-09T09:37:00.000-06:002005-10-09T09:42:24.636-06:00

Wow.My dad was able to get a pair of awesome tickets from his boss to last night's Vancouver vs Edmonton game and I got to take my sweetheart to the game. It certainly was an experience and a half!!The house was packed with fans including a surprising number of vancouver fans. The game was exciting, though extremely frustrating in the 3rd period when the Oilers got into penalty trouble. Edmonton

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1128359367908340722005-10-03T10:29:00.000-06:002005-10-03T11:09:27.933-06:00

Boy was I excited. And nervous.Since I found out that Stratovarius was coming to town, I was really wondering what sort of crowd would turn up to a band that is, as far as I know, virtually unknown in town. I was also nervous that the people I had dragged to come see the show (like Diane) wouldn't like it and be forced to endure a few hours of misery.Thankfully, I really had no reason to worry.

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1127947838283740702005-09-28T16:47:00.000-06:002005-09-28T16:50:38.290-06:00

Check this out.A company's cookbook There's an underlying theme to the book ... and its just hysterical looking at some of the pictures and wondering how the people expect others will like them.One thing is certain, if you like the combo of sausage, eggs and cheese, you'll find several of these recipes in much variation!That, and orange jello and cool whip - which is a recipe handed down as a

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1127766887878102332005-09-26T11:48:00.000-06:002005-09-26T14:34:47.956-06:00

This is really neat. Someone with a really good imagination and some good photo taking skills ... neat stuff!Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1126813281877269012005-09-15T11:24:00.000-06:002005-09-15T13:41:21.956-06:00

This is great, if a tad on the geeky side. Some guy came up with Magic: the gathering style cards for the Katrina disaster. It makes me kind of want to laugh ... but also makes me want to hide away from my childhood geekiness.*shrug*Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1126111233025354822005-09-07T10:32:00.000-06:002005-09-07T10:40:33.030-06:00

On Saturday, Diane made plans to have us rent a canoe and be shipped down to Devon to spend a day floating down the North Saskatchewan river into Edmonton.Its a pretty relaxing experience - as long as you have a nice day. Since you're floating down river, you don't even really have to paddle unless you'd like to. You can relax, lay back and enjoy the company of your partner. For those who haven't

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1125588981113204302005-09-01T09:34:00.000-06:002005-09-01T09:36:21.116-06:00

I don't think I've seen a clearer picture of how much trouble new orleans is in than in this photo. It's truly scary to see so much of a city underwater!Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1125524951905057512005-08-31T15:48:00.000-06:002005-08-31T15:49:11.910-06:00

Ahahahahah ....Enjoy!Heraldk

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1125524161611156572005-08-31T15:27:00.000-06:002005-08-31T15:36:01.616-06:00

Last night was Mark's birthday so of course we had to celebrate! His plan was to go down to the Melting Pot, but when we arrived we realized it was closed (and being replaced ... alas I will not be able to taste their ginger beef which was apparently really really good). So instead, we wandered down to Chianti's for cheap pasta Tuesday. Really, I think its one of the best deals in town ... the

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12794081.post-1125184738286860642005-08-27T17:16:00.000-06:002005-08-27T17:18:58.293-06:00

Well playing poker today I got myself into a little bit of a jam. Down about $27 and not too happy about it - the day had been very up and down. Sometimes up, sometimes down. I was ready to call it a day when at one table I get dealt, in sucession:ATo, QQ, KK, AA, JJ, and AKo.Wow talk about good starting hands. Unfortunately, while I did make money on the last 4 hands, I lost a couple pots with

Heraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01545421669207259332noreply@blogger.com0