Andrew Underwood

MS Bike Tour

So I’m involved in another fundraising escapade, this time involving riding a bike ride from Leduc to Camrose. At least this time I don’t have to grow a mustache. It’s the MS Society of Canada’s bike tour and it’s to raise money for people who have MS who need help financially and funding for research. Personally I hope more money is invested in the research end of things as I feel the long term solution of a cure is the most important thing. But hey, I’m sure they have struck a good balance, although I’m not sure what it is. It’s a two day thing so you ride, then camp over night, and then you ride back.

Anyhoo, I NEED to raise $250 in order to participate. If I don’t raise it I think you get dragged out of your tent at night and curb stomped and then made to promise not to tell anyone ever. They tell you if anyone asks to just say that you just fell.

So PLEASE for the love of anything decent in this world, go here and donate to my cause. Even if it’s just $5, it’s getting me that much farther away from the curb stomping I hope to avoid.

23rd Avenue and Calgary Trail / Gateway Boulevard Intersection Edmonton

The City of Edmonton has finally decided to upgrade the intersection that is not only the gateway to the city but also the site of the most traffic accidents in the city. I’m not exactly sure of the light timings but I’m willing to bet that greater than 50% of the traffic coming into the city has to stop there. What do they see while waiting to proceed? Industrial style wood poles that suspend cables that swing in the wind giving the traffic lights that lovely rickety feel. There is no landscaping done, tall dead grass is just left there amidst the gravel strewn about that blinds any pedestrians waiting to cross as vehicles fly by at 80 km/hr. Another big problem is the train tracks that run by the east side of the intersection causing major delays anytime the iron horse arrives or departs.

The plan now is to build overpasses that will hopefully solve all these problems. They’ve put up a site called 23avenue.com that doesn’t seem to be indexed by Google to keep us all updated with a webcam and other textual snippets. Incidentally they are using the open source platform Joomla to manage the site. You can access all the plans including their vision on how the landscaping will look. They say it will take THREE years to complete, which seems like a long time but it’s probably going to be longer, especially if any of those guys from the Wayne Gretzky bridge are involved. So this is good, the overpasses will make everything better, but in the meantime the whole intersection will be a construction site. How will they manage this?

Where I work is just on the other side of the intersection from where I live implying that it should be feasible to walk to work during the summer months. Now due to the construction pedestrians are no longer allowed to walk through the intersection because it is deemed a construction zone. What they have done to accommodate this is set up a free bus service from bus stop to bus stop to get you across the intersection.

Two big problems with this:
- The bus (number 74) only comes by every half hour. This is NOT good enough for someone just wanting to cross an intersection.
- The bus stops are very far apart. The distances are AT LEAST 1 km apart. The stops should be right before and right after the intersection. At least put in a temporary bus stop in at 99th st and 23rd Ave so when you’re coming out of South Common you don’t have to backtrack to catch the bus. For example, if you’re coming out of the A&W there you can start walking down the side of the road to get to the bus stop but there is no bus stop because the last one wasn’t even in sight and is now far behind you.

It’s an unacceptable situation right now. Perhaps it’s best just to don a hard hat and reflective vest and hoof it across?

It’s so nice to live in this bubble of the universe

For the most part life is great right now. The only things bringing me down is being sick and also my main computer system isn’t working. The big picture, however is brilliant, radiant and has a high contrast ratio.

The last time I blogged I briefly mentioned that I was looking for somewhere else to live. Since then I have moved, to the south side of Edmonton, just minutes from where I work. Living close to work is truly a luxury. It means having one more hour to do what I want, not having to use that time driving. It means being able to go home for lunch. It means saving money on gas and getting a little more exercise from walking or riding to work. It means fluidity, if that makes sense. The place itself is a semi-detached townhouse (joined on one side), with four bedroom plus den, fireplace, dishwasher, fenced back yard, high vaulted ceilings, and a big park out back. Another plus is that my friend Allan who I grew up with is my roommate, and we share a number of interests like electronics, gadgetry, and science in general.

I don’t usually talk about relationships on the blogo-net, but I have met someone pretty awesome and things are going famously.

My apologies to everyone who has been checking back here every day with nary an update. I always say that I’ll keep this thing up to date but it never seems to come to fruition. It’s fun to blog, the hardest part is getting started. I always feel I have nothing to write about until I force myself to click the ‘write post’ button.

Another thing to note is that the comment spam that I have been getting lately isn’t too traditional. Thing like office furniture rental and band lyrics sites… Still the largest fraction is for drugs of which I have no idea what they are.

Unclearly written content

Hoo boy! I haven’t visited the blogging tree house in months. Last time I was here I forgot to take out the garbage, and now it just reeks like a simile! It occured to me that I should get some blogging done after Dreamhost decided to bill me $213 for two accounts from the future. Yes they did this for every customer, depending on what your account was. I might not be paying that much, but I am paying for this.

What have I been up to? Hmm. Well I bought another 1981 Celica Supra, with the 5-me engine, except this car was turboed way back in the 80s. This would be a very unique characteristic as I have not heard of a turboed 5-me ever before. Once the mark 2 and 3 (mkII, mkIII) came out in the later 80s, people would just swap engines from those cars into the mkI (my model) to give it more power.

Jared gave me his snow blades to try out. I went to Fernie and used them for the first half of the day, and aside from looking ridiculous they are pretty fun. However I switched back to snowboarding at noon because there was lots of deep fresh snow that wasn’t being properly exploited with the snow blades.

I went to Calgary to play some guitar in a studio called The Slaugherhouse. I guess it use to be one, our studio room was called “The Killing Floor”. I made a recording using my mp3 player and it came out great! I’ll post some clips sometime. Meanwhile, see all the pictures here.

In case you are wondering, that thing on my head is a helmet cam.

I am also looking for somewhere to live, closer to the Alberta Research Council. If you have any ideas, let me know!

AT-ST Walker Halloween Costume

Unlike other years, I put lots of time into my Halloween costume this year. I built an All Terrain Scout Transport (AT-ST) Walker from Star Wars out of cardboard, bristle board and blood (and some white out to cover up the blood). The blood was due to stapling my thumb with an ancient staple gun. It has working legs that walk similarly to how a bird would walk, thus the slang for the machine: Chicken Walker.

Here’s a video of it in action.

Right after finishing it.

Work

Working for the Alberta Research Council has been great, they are really a classy operation. After about three months of employment I really can’t say anything bad about anything. I get treated well, my opinion counts, everyone is easy to get along with and my pay is pretty good too. About 30-40% of the time is spent out in the field using cool scientific instruments, and it’s great because I always wanted a job where I could do outside work some of the time and the rest of the time I’m at a computer.

This job was only suppose to last until the end of August but now I am staying longer, with a distinct possibility of me getting a full position here… which would cause me to stay here in Edmonton. However I am torn because I was planning to move to Calgary after this job was finished to be close to good friends, the mountains and my parents. I have very good friends here in Edmonton but I am also a bit sick and tired of it. Since I was 17 I’ve moved around quite often, at least every 10 months or so, and I love it.

There won’t be any decision making whether to move or not until later in the year but even by then I know it’s going to be a hard decision. It’s hard to leave such a good job for the unknown.

What Ho!

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged on here, and for that I blame Facebook. I’ve been communicating on a more personal level than the public level. As a result, only a few people know what I’m up to. I suppose I should endeavour to strike a balance between the two mediums. Facebook has brought back the old style of personal level correspondence which I hadn’t really been engaged in very much for a few years.

At the moment, I’m sitting in the front seat of a Suburban heading from Fort McMurray to Sycrude. For those who don’t know, Ft Mac (people just say/write Mac instead of Mc) is the closest town to the Alberta Oil Sands. It’s a small town but everything about it is a day at the horse races. It’s a town populated by temporary residents, mostly from the city. There is no small town feel, it’s a town that’s lost it’s innocence far too early. Syncrude is the biggest of a handful of companies extracting oil from the dirt.

I’m working for a company called the Alberta Research Council, it’s a summer job. Four other guys and myself are studying the reclaimed land they have up here. After they are finished getting the oil out of the ground they are left with a ginormous hole in the ground which needs to be put back to normal with plants, trees, and birds. The guys who install the birds get around to that after they finish installing the insects. Anyways, we are seeing how the reclaimed land is doing. Can’t really say much more than that since it’s private contract work we are doing. Half the time we are up here in the field, and the rest of the time I’m at the lab back in Edmonton working with the data we collect and working on various other things.

We stay at relatively nice hotels up here, relative because they are suppose to be 5 star but 5 star for Ft Mac isn’t up to par with a 5 star in New York. I just ate a free buffet style breakfast at the hotel with omelets, bacon, sausages, pancakes, pineapple and coffee. There are more things to choose from but there is only so much room in my stomach. I’m just taking it one day at a time, we shall see if I gain any weight with this breakfast. When I eat like that there isn’t a need to eat much for lunch, as by then I’ve still got fuel in the tank.

In other news, I’ve entered the mobile computing world with a used laptop from Ebay and a Palm Treo PDA from XSCargo. These devices are no longer prohibitively expensive for me. I’ve got Ubuntu Linux on my laptop instead of Windows XP, which came installed on it.

So that’s the skinny on the latest happenings in my life that’s suitable for public viewing. Thanks for reading.

It’s the Library’s Fault

Back in December I took a few books out of the library including one about remote sensing. That particular book was the largest of the ones they lent me. When finished with them, I returned all the books a few days before Christmas. The next time I went to take books out of the library I was told that the remote sensing book hadn’t been returned and was still overdue. They let me take those books out anyways, which was nice. So I went home and looked around for this book even though I was 99% sure I had returned it, especially since it was the largest of the group and hard to miss. A month later or so I got a letter in the mail informing me that I had lost the book and I owed the library $40 to cover the cost of it. By then I had gone back to the library a few times to look for it, sifting through unsorted books and looking in other related sections to see if it would turn up. It didn’t and after a while I started ignoring the problem because I felt I wasn’t in the wrong. Then last Friday I got another letter from the library, “Oh great,” I thought “another reminder that I have to pay them $40.” Except this time the note said that there was an overdue charge of $17 and they wouldn’t allow me to take out any more books until it was paid. So today I went back to the library and headed to that familiar spot on the shelve and there it was, complete with a sparkling beam of light coming from the ceiling tiles and choir music. I picked it up and took it to a librarian who cleared my account after hearing my story but she could offer no explanation as to how this all happened. Where was the book all this time? I sure don’t know but the moral of the story is don’t trust shifty eyed librarians. They will take your money and the book and fly to Mexico!

How much food do you buy at once?

Usually I’m on foot when I go to the grocery store and how much I buy there is limited by how much I can carry.  I go for the baskets, for me one basket holds $30 worth of food.  This is an average, but it’s often very close to this.  Using just a basket, you’re bound to have to return fairly soon.  This isn’t all bad since your food is always fresh.

You could take your TankUV to the store and load up on 15% off day and save money.  This requires you to arrive early since later on in the day all the good stuff that was on sale is out of stock.  You have to brave the crowds.  Also, you are required to have sufficient storage space at home.  Personally, my roommate and I share the freezer attached to the fridge which isn’t too big.  However if you have a house and a big freezer it sure is economical to use this method.

I’ve been thinking about this after visiting my parents where they only go to the grocery store once in a while since they live out of town.  As a result, some of their food isn’t that fresh.  Some garlic I was going to use while there was almost sprouting.  Still good they say.

Funday

This fun day took place on Saturday, it all started with me going to the mall and buying a boat load of things I needed.  Coincidentally I bought some jeans and then later in day the older pair of jeans I was wearing ripped.  Almost as soon as I got back my roommate Michael came home too, at which point we ventured back to the mall.  City Center Mall is really close and thanks to pedways we are only required to walk outside to cross the street.  Thus going back and forth to the mall is really convenient and sometimes justified.

This time we went to the video game store to get an extra Xbox 360 controller.  During our time there we tried out the new Nintendo Wii.  A off-road racing game was loaded, and the steering is done by physically tilting the controller.  It’s fun, give it a shot next time you’re in one of those stores… if you’re ever in one of those stores.  It’s the cat’s pajamas.

Upon arriving home we started playing the new Gears of War game in co-op mode for the Xbox 360 with the newly acquired controller.  This is quite possibly the most cinematic game I have ever played.  It’s not cinematic in the sense of the cut-scenes so much but the actual gameplay itself.  The whole game is based on hiding behind objects and then reaching out and shooting out over them.  Then there’s the rodeo run, the crouched sprint with the the camera following at a low elevation behind.  The story line is really lacking, but this obviously wasn’t a focus during dev.  What ended up happening was an eight hour marathon of gaming only stopping for a short lasagna break.

We finished the whole game on hardcore difficulty in that time.  The credits rolled at about 2:30 am, way later than either of us though it was.  I haven’t played a game the whole way through in one day since the days of the Turbo Grafix 16.

In other news I finished my last university lab every today creating a few different types of digital circuits.  More importantly I finished my third last final exam ever.  I’m not going to talk about that right now.