Geek on Two Wheels

An old CBC Report on the Internet.

• Whistler trip cancelled: boo!
• New laptop should arrive sometime on Friday: yay!
• Lots to set up on new laptop: boo!
• Riding Burnaby Mountain with Max on Friday: yay!
• CMPT 383 assignment much longer than initially expected: crap.
• Just over half a week to complete said assignment: shit.
• Part two of LING 260 take-home final will be handed out on Monday: boo!
• CMPT 383 assignment due on Wednesday: fuck…
• A week of classes left: meh…
• Barbeques and parties: YAY!

Due to a scholarship trust fund my parents put me on, and my desire to aquire the last batch of money eligible to me from said trust fund, I will actually be taking four courses in the Fall in order to qualify as a 4th year in January. 4th year, IIRC, is equivalent to haveing completed 85 credit hours of courses, which I will be short by one were I to take three courses as planned originally.

Now, this worries me slightly, as bad things occured the last time I took a four-course semester with three upper division computing courses. However, as I have freed myself of quite a few major non-academic responsibilities in the last two semesters, things will hopefully turn out a lot better this time around.

Nevertheless, don’t be surprised if I fall off the face of the Earth come November…

It is now 2:30, and I am about a fifth of the way into a slideshow presentation that I must present tomorrow.

Damn you procrastination!

• Nintendo DS ruins relationships
• Dance Matt, dance!
• Open Source games, and lots of ‘em!
• Burnaby Mountain group rides
• Cats that look like Hitler…?!

Laziness v.s. responsibility, academic success, and dignity.

One-on-three doesn’t seem entirely fair, but laziness can be a formidable beast.

Results at August.

It’s that time of the semester again. Actually, it’s been that time of the semester for the last two weeks. This semester, however, lethargy towards school seems to have hit a lot harder than previously.

Having lost my laptop and disrupted my calendaring dependency, I’ve lost track of almost all semi-longterm objectives. Worse yet, I’m enjoying it: feeling carefree is just too awesome.

My data sits untouched encased in a borrowed 2.5in enclosure (btw, Dom, I owe you a beer) and all I can think of all day is planning my next biking trip to a different edge of the GVRD, or going for a few rips up and down Burnaby Mountain. Of course, I know that if I spend the whole day biking, I actually won’t get any work done. So, instead, I opt for some DS gaming, tube watching, or web surfing, telling myself that I’d get down to work after the next race, show, or page.

Naturally, I don’t.

So, the moral of the story, boys and girls, is for me to never, ever take another summer semester as full-time. My grades and psyche won’t survive it, at least not at the same time.

Due to a rather untimely misfortune, I am currently shopping around for a new laptop to replace my beautiful yet bricked Thinkpad R51. Naturally, I’m opting for another Thinkpad, as I am horribly addicted to their solid construction, excellent reliability (not talking about the power module: la la la la la, not listening!) and fairly solid Linux support.

Unfortunately, IBM has sold off its PC division to Lenovo, and, as is usually the case with such acquisitions, the overall service suffers. In this case, the culprit is Lenovo Canada’s website.

(more…)

Today, I transitted to Fromme Mountain in North Vancouver and did my first real Shore ride.

Simply put, I got my ass kicked. Kicked hard.

I managed to get lost three times, ended up backtracking at various points for at least a mile or two, carried my bike over obstacles as much as riding over them, and, by the two hour mark (not including the initial one hour climb), was totally disoriented and lost, had used up all of my water, and was feeling light-headed and about to pass out. Fortunately, I did eventually make it off of Fromme Mountain alive.

Next time, I’m planning my trip better.