Nothing short of perfect..

Thats what I can say about the amount of blogging I do!!

Summer was laid back.. maybe too laid back. I'm still looking for a job.

I worked banquet stuff and made some money but nothing more promising.

Bluesfest was good, but I would have liked to see more of the shows.. There was a new tent, the Mill St Brew Pub, and we had the food for it. Deep Fried Pickles, Sweet Potato fries, Chicken Wings and Pretzel. The first three were great! the Pretzel not so much..

But by the end of the festival, I think the bosses were thinking a no go for next year. Mainly because they didn't do any advertising!!

I have not cached as much I have wanted!!!! I did get one great day out with Mike doing the CHL series about 2 days before it was removed so I'm very glad about that.

Daryl and I were discussing placing a few caches on the PPJ near Shawville, a great rail to trail but There was 125 caches placed on it last week.. Oh well, guess we have 125 new caches to find!!

I have been looking at my stats for various challenge caches, and I also have started to write a marco. The challenge caches are just looking back at what I found when, etc.. The marco is for a challenge cache, http://coord.info/GC28F5K. You have to find 5 different caches which are 'islands'. At the time of finding those caches, there can't be another cache within 3 miles. Not that hard to program when you think about it, I guess..

Next time I'll break it down and maybe someone can help!

Been forever...

SO I haven't been on this thing forever... loads of things going on...

I'm been geocaching, done a bit of traveling and also been looking for a job.. yippie me.

Master's in Science in Medical Physics and all I can do is be a banquet server..

So I do have a fan... Rob it's a good thing you did update every 6 hours for the last years. You would have missed it!!

The book I read was The Google Story. About Google from the start up... I was thinking about Matt G and Rob F doing the same thing in Thornton... hehehe

Two things, I've taken from the book, I want to make a LEGO computer, and there is a recipe for fried chicken, it's suppose to be good..
Oh, you should check out the site, there is a GLAT, Google Labs Aptitude Test, for those smarties out there you should try it... who knows you might be working at Google soon!! (if you do get a job, send me a cool Google thing.. i.e. not a shirt)

back to writing

Well it's been forever...

So I have posted about a year ago... and I'll try to post more.. but I'm trying to get my thesis done.. so I can't spend too much time on this...
But a few times I wanted to say:
- Add Google analytics to see how many actually read this thing.
- Just read a book about Google and man the stuff they are doing... will take over the computer world... with the internet almost conquered, and a mobile phone on the way.. next thing is an OS!!
- moved in with the GF... we even got X-mas pictures... things are good
- I'll update thing in 2 months when I'm done the master's thesis...

Lates!!

Yes I'm alive

SO it's been like 5 months since I last posted...
Lots has happened... but I'll only update on a few things...

I'm still here in Ottawa, just starting my second year on my Master's, research is going well but now I have to take some classes so it gets in the way of research.

The summer was great, lots of great bands, Sloan, Trews, Signal Hill, Great Big Sea, Live, Nelly Furtado, Jimmy Swift Band, and a bunch more that I can't remember right now.

I volunteered at the HOPE volleyball tounry (because The Trews and Sloan were playing so I saw them for free), but I met a cool girl, it's sort of funny, we didn't really talk at the event but after we hung out at the volunteer party and she came with me to see some jazz with friends (from work) in Hull.

Took a weekend trip to MTL, it was fun. Helped a friend move but stayed the night and meet up with some friends (some Brits). I'm on this site, couchsurfing.com and Globalfreeloaders.com and got a message asking if (two days from then) 5 Brits could stay at my house... I thought about it... and I was like hell yeah!! so they crashed on the floor of my apt for 2 nights I hope that they had a great time... and then that weekend I saw three of them in MTL... really nice to see them again... and one went on to Halifax and had a day visiting with my folks... went to Peggy's Cove and the like.. this assures me a few places to craash when I'm in the U.K. next!! (for the first time)

well thats enough posting right now... I'll check back in another 5 months....

Andrew

Ok here I go!

So not much has happened in the past little while..

I posted my DVD list if you want to check out my list, you can say that it's pretty big....

I got back a couple days ago from a trip to Mont St Anne and Le Massief, two ski hills just north of Quebec city, it was a really great time! great snow, and had some good times with friends! We changed our trip from Jay Peak Vermont to Quebec because there was 40 cm of snow that fell in Quebec. It was a great choice.

I started using Facebook . It's another friend network website, I think that more people use it, so if you have it... add me!


Thats about it for now.... off to get ready to head out to party!!

Good new Bad news

So two things I didn't talk about in my last post.

One, I am a published Physicist!!!
I had my paper that I was working on last year published in Canadian Undergraduate Physics Journal, you can check it out
here . I have the main reseach article and also the cover!!!

and the bad news....
I was robbed... On wed, I came home to find the door frame of my apt cracked and I went to my room and it was a mess, (more then usual). My DVD/CD-R drive, bottles of Vodka, Rum and Tequila, my nice watch, 128 CD holder... empty! and my knapsack, because you can't steal things andnot carry it in anything!! FUCKERS! Well it's not as bad as my roommate, his laptop and XBox was taken!!

oh well, I'm pissed and ..... later

Andrew

Blogging is not for me!!

SO I haven't blogged in like a month and before that another month!!
I need to get on this!!

Well lots of stuff has happened in the past while.
Home from Hawaii it was an awesome time! Good flight home, I talked with a girl from Hawaii who now lives in Rhode Island. I flew on my brithday too, so it wasn't a very exciting b-day but thats ok.
When I got home it wasn't as cold as expected, so thats a bonus!!

For more social things, I'm now single again which is good for going salsa dancing, I met this cool girl from school who used to dance in New Jersey so we went out and it was great! Went out last night with friends so that was great too!

Tonight I'm going to my friends engagement party!! Man, I'm starting to feel old. Friends are getting married or having kids, this is weird, maybe I'll stay in school for a lot longer to try to keep that young feeling!

For school stuff, I'm now just just researching, no classes this term. So, I'm at NRC (National Research Council of Canada) about three days a week. For those who don't know or can't remember, I'm doing my research at the
NRC Institute for National Measurement Standards (NRC-INMS) as part of the Ionizing Radiation Standards group. So I work with the guys that say what the standards for the cancer clinics are for all of Canada, so it's pretty cool work.

So I'm going to be making an effort to post once a week so you guys have to keep coming back to check it out!! and comment!!

Andrew

DONE!!

SO I'm posting from Hawaii!!
But I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still alive and posting!!
I just finished my final exam in computational physics, it's an ok class, but it's done!!
So why am I writing it in Hawaii?? I guess you didn't read any of my other posts but I'll recall it for you:
Dad and Chris - Conference
Mom and Dad - "Let's make it a X-Mas holiday"
Me - has to write my exam here in Hawaii after being here for a week studying hard core, right!!

Anyway, I'm done and thats that!! so now I can enjoy the rest of my trip.
Tomorrow we are flying to Hawaii (big island) and then after about 5 days we are going on to Kaui'i so it should be awesome. I'm excited to get a tan and maybe get some awesome pictures of some fishes!! take a look at the islands if you don't know about them. Map

You may be thinking, did you study all this time?? well no.. I did do some hikes and go swimming with my family and I got some great shots of Hanauma Bay, it was so nice there, except for all the people!!

well not much other news!!

Later

Andrew

Man I suck!

So I know it been like 3 weeks since I posted but I have been super busy, with school and other stuff so that means that you should try to a) stay awake and b) read the whole thing (or I guess if you don’t care about school and social stuff you can just skip those!!), but I plan to try and be more active.

But first school then social things!!
In school I had my last midterm test!! It went ok, in the last like 3 mins I figured out how to do a problem and I left really happy but I don't know about the rest of the thing, well.... it went ok.
I’m pretty happy that I’m done those test but I still have a project in one class and assignments in both of my classes, we hand one in and get another one right away!! Thanks for no break; I don’t really like to do anything else except physics!!!
One more thing about school, I don’t know if you know but we (my family and I) are going to Hawaii for X-mas, what a crappy present eh?? He he he!!
Well we booked tickets for this before I got here in Aug so that might that I might have to miss one or both of my exams because we are leaving on the 13th of December and the exam schedule is from the 7th to 22nd. So the exam schedule came out two weeks ago and one exam is for a small class so we picked a date, the 12th and the other was ….. get this the 22nd!!! I was like great should I drop the class or what?? Well I talked to my parents and then talked to the professor and we came to a conclusion. If I don’t talk to the class, I’m writing the exam on the 21st…… IN HAWAII!! At the University of Hawaii, it should be a good time!! My friend told me that I HAVE to wear a grass skirt and a lay.

So in terms of social things, my girlfriend, who is from Mexico, had he birthday on Wednesday, so I got her a piñata and filled it with candy, it was a awesome!! She really had fun.
Nothing much else much is new, we went out last weekend to Heart and Crown and also last night went there again, it’s a good place. One thing that I have found out about Ottawa is that it’s like a town in the middle of two really different places, like Ontario and the Maritimes. You can find really nice people (from the Maritimes) and then you find some huge snobs (from Ontario). And this places is really trying to be the Maritimes it’s sort of funny. Like there is a bar (well used to be) called the Lower deck, I don’t know if they knew about the lower deck in Halifax but I think that it’s closed because of that. Oh well!! I miss the Maritimes, but tonight should be good, I’m going to see Grand Theft Bus with a crew from the Maritimes so we should have a blast!!!

Later
Andrew

PS My roommate told me about this website www.tuckermax.com, this guy it so funny, I'm sure that we have stories like this from MTA I just wish I could remember them!!

OK I'm posting!!

So lots of stuff has happened in the past couple weeks. I even had to read my last post to know what I haven't written about.

A couple weeks back I visited my research lab it's really nice, with lots of great people, a group about 15 or so, only first name bases, I found this out the hard way asking from Dr. McEwen, the guy almost yelled at me!! But it will be a good time working there for the next twop years, if I make it past first year!

So Thanksgiving weekend was awesome, Chris my bro, drove through on his way home from Edmonton. He and Jason, were only here for a couple days but we went to the Parliment and saw question pierod. On Fri night we headed to a football game after eating dinner with his good friend Chris and his girlfriend Megan.

Quillian had about 15 people at his place for a potluck thanksgiving and it was awesome I was soo stuffed after it. I made bread for it and people liked it so I was happy, but everything else that people made was soo awesome!! The turkey was great the desserts and meal courses were sooo great, I was really happy to have all these new friends to spend thanksgiving dinner with them.

This weekend was great too, Hilary and Toby both there birthday's during the week, so we had a party at Toby's for both of them, it was great to see everyone, because when we are in the middle of the term it's hard to see everyone. On Sat night, I went over to Adirana's boyfriend's , Pat, place for a BBQ. It was a good time, got to meet some cool people and also had a great time with the BBQ, I don't have one here and I would love to have one during the summer so it was nice to be able to BBQ again.

well I think that I'm going to have go for now but I'll try to post every week, for now on!!

Andrew

Lots o' stuff

So this past couple weeks have been pretty full with stuff, I had a blast meeting people and I have a cliche that I hang out with, I'll post some photos when I get off my ass, I'll try to do it today. During the first week here, I did a tour of Ottawa and also we had a few pub nights to meet poeple, well I think that I have lots of people confused as to which program that I'm in beacuse most of the people that I hang out with are NPSIA (Norman Paterson School of International Affairs), but then I tell them that I'm in Physics and they are like really?? I guess I shouldn't be out drinking if I'm in physics, I should be in studying or doing some experiments in my room!! Well it's been great, we have a soical organizer, Josh, who eamils everyone about things coming up and was thinking about creating a message board for us so that he didn't have to keep emailing people.

So this past weekend was a great one, saw Dave H, he was up in Ottawa for the CAP meeting and we went to eat at the Irish Village a good time. and then after I hang out and watched a movie with Alexa and then Sat night was a housewarming/goodbye party at Hilary's place (which is only about 3 mins from here, which is great for gatherings!!) Then yesterday, I played my first intramural soccer game, we only had 5 guys playing against a team of 10, so playing 7 on 7 was a little tought but we mantions to keep the score somewhat close, it ended 5-4 for them, and it was funny we scored first too!!

well I'm going to end back to working and work on these pics!!

Later

Andrew

Ottawa

So I'm here!!!

Well tons of stuff has happened in the last coupld weeks, Mom and Dad and I drove up here it was good. Stopped in Bangor for a BBG at Kelly's, good times.

When I got here didn't really know anybody so I sat at my place watching movies and going to the library (free internet, whoop!!). Last night was the last thing for the grad frosh week, it was an awesome week!! I met lots of people it great beacuse most everyone is not in my program (it's pretty hard when your program is 4 people) but I have a nice base of friends now so I'm happy.

During the week we did a boat tour, bus tour, went to a few bars, I'm pretty excited to be here with these people for the next two years.

Also had two classes, both look like they will be a challenge, one (Computational) beause I have to remember my C++ from first year and the other (Medical Physics) because the amount of work that I will have, I'm excited about this one because it will give me a nice introduction (well to built on the couple courses I had at MTA) to the field of Medical Physics.

Well I'll talk to you later

Andrew

Ottawa Bound!!

Well I'm not leaving for Ottawa yet, but I'm heading there in about a week. I have a place, it's 174 James st. I guess that it's an apt building but I'm not sure yet, I'm waiting on my landlord to get back to me.
I guess the place is pretty decent, the huge plus is that's is $400 a month, which is like unheard off!! so I was like do you have any pictures, so I can have a look at the place, he says no, but the current guy is coming back for a second year which means it must be a decent place.
I'm going to be living with two other people, I don't know much about them except one is a Carleton student and one a Waterloo Co-op student, this might mean that they are only there for half of the year. I don't know anything else about them, but I'm sure that it will be cool to live with them, I'll have my friends from grad school and they will have there friends, maybe we can mix, but only if they are cool!! I would hate to live with a couple weiners, I did that already and I'm glad thats over!!

I'm going to be stopping by Sackville for those who are going to be in town on Aug 26 or 27 (we haven't picked a day to leave yet), let me know.

Well, I have to do some errands before heading out
Later
Andrew

week away from Germany - Day 8-10

That night we went to another bar, but we were getting tired of the little bars that we usually went to so, we had heard about this huge club, 7 dances floors different music on each, so we were set to go to it!! But on the way there, we met up with other people from the hostel who just were outside and the bouncer told them that it wasn't a very good night, so we went back to some other bar called Commo, it was pretty awesome, played some salsa, so i was able to salsa with Flor, that was pretty cool, we could have bar hopped for the rest of the night but Flor and I headed back to the hostel.
The next morning, Flor was heading back to Argentina so I woke early, I was soo tried but I wanted to see her off. THat day we walked around some more and then left Grant and Janelle, only later did I find out that Grant had booked a flight to Paris the day before so he was meeting us there!
We took the over night train to Paris, man it was bumpy, the other guys couldn't sleep, but I was able to sleep since, I had been up for most of the night. When we go to Paris, we headed right to the hostel checked in and then headed out beause we had to see as much as Paris in 28 hours!! So we started a the Eiffel tower then past the Chaillot palace and then to the Arc de Trio, then we walked down Champs Elysees a famous steet in Paris (we got Royals with Cheese), from there we walked to the PLace de la Concorde and then over to the Opera ohouse and then past the Louvre, we knew that it was free on the first Sun of each month so we polanned on heading back the next day, and then over to the Notre Dame. After that we were pooped and also had to meet up with Grant back at the hostel so off we went and relexed there with people fromthe hostel, mostly from the States but there were a couple Irish guy and one guy from Australia.
After drinking for a while we wanted to head to Moulin Rouge and that area, there are lots of clubs on the street, Boulevard de Clichy. On the way there, Sinco ( don't remember how to speel his name) started talking to these French girls, it was funny because they didn't really know English and him no french, so I was talking to the girls in French for him and in English to him for the girls. But they ended up coming with us to the bar area and we sat down and had a few drinks at a pub, then I went down to get some pictures before we headed to a club. Wel that was a dumb iodea because they are really expensive like 20 euros!! no thanks!! so we ended up going to a sit down club and getting this thing called an aquarium. It's a drink for people every one gets a straw and it's in a fish bowl, it was really yummy.
From there we headed back to the Eiffel tower to see it all lite up, but it was like 4 am so it wasn't lite up any more, BOOO!! oh well it was nice to see it at night and also we walked around, and then headed back to the hostel. Funny thing, it had a 2 am lock out and I think that we got back at about 5am but fortunatly someone was up and was able to let us in.
The next morning, it was up bright and early because the Louvre was free. Well, the line was huge, I mean like an thousand people, but fortuantly for us, they took our line into a door that just opened and we were in front of the Mona Lisa within 20 mins of getting there!! We thought if we didn't move in 20 mins we would leave! So we did a very quick tour of the good things and then headed back to the hostel, to say bye to Grant and then head to the train for the trip back to Mainz.
We got back to Mainz and packed up our stuff and started to watch a movie but I was way too tried to try and stay awake for it, so I went to bed.

But thats our trip to France and Spain, also concludes my trip to Europe!!!
I guess my next trip is to Argentina!!

Photos to be posted in the next couple days!!
Andrew

Week away from Germany - Day 7-8

Janelle and I got up earlier then the other boys, and we didn't want to wait for them so we headed to the Museo del Prado: and told them that we would be back at about 5-6 pm for supper with them, well Janelle and I saw the Argentina girl (Florenica) and her sister Laura. Janelle leaned over and said "guess it's going to be a great day, eh?" I said, " yeah, but I need to get some water!!" But we had an awesome day, all four of us went to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. It was a great day!! we went back to the hostel to get the other guys and then went to a shopping centre to have a look around. I didn't buy anything, because my bag was heavy enough. After that we went to a place the girls had gone before for supper the night before and they liked it, so we went back, it was a great place!
After that the others went back to the hostel to have showers, but Flor and I went to the Bear and got our picture with it, but the craziest thing happened. There are guys selling stuff on the street, illegally, but while we were there a couple undercover police were there and the guys sprinted every which way, it was pretty crazy!!

Week away from Germany - Day 4-6

So I left you where we had met Grant and Janelle, well that last full day in Barcelona, we started by heading to the train station to get reservations on the train to Madrid and we alo invited Grant and Janelle to come with us. They did and I'm glad we had a blast, but I digress, we went to Sagrada Famíla it was a cool looking building but on the inside was just a whole lot of construction. but we did walk up to the top ( or close to it, was an awesome sight). After that we headed back to the hostel and relexed for a little bit and then went to the Travelbar, they had cheap eats, which is a place of food for 1 euro, not bad. Afer that, we went back to the hostal and got ready to hed to the club that we had been to two nights before, and it was a good time.
The next morning we walked around and saw some sights, and caught our train at 4:30pm we cut it close, we had about 5 mins to spare!!!
But the train ride was awesome, we met this woman from LA, Dima, and also a guy from Brazil, Predo and Yunas from Morocco by has been living in Japan for the last 20 years. It was good time on the train heard about peoples travels.
We met up with Pardo and Yunas and Grant and Janelle later that night, beacuse our hostel was full so they couldn't get in. It was crazy as soon as I walk into the hostel, we met two girls that went to school in NS, so there was someone else to add to our group. We stayed at Cat's Hostel , the best in the world, and it was AWESOME!! I had blast every night and day that we were there. The first night we went on a small pub crawl that the hostel people do, we started at the hostel bar and then head to a few over places, it was a good time. The next day it was sort of relaxing day, I walked around by myself for a little while while Vance and Craig slept.
That afternoon we did a little walking around, Janelle, Grrant, Yunas, Vance, Craig and myself. Saw the Plaza de Real and Plaza Mayor, and other great places. That night was a pretty crazy one drinking but t was awesome, I really got to practice my spanish, I had seen a girl at the hostel the night before and I ended up talking to her that night. I found out that she was from Argentina and she had noticed me because I had the look of an Argentinin boy, i thought that was pretty cool.

well I'm going to leave you there so stay tuned to see what happens with this beautiful Argentinin girl!!

Andrew

Week away from Germany - Day 1-3

Ok Guys this is going to be a long few posts, or maybe one big one, I haven't figured it out yet.

So we left Last friday which gave us 10 days of pure partying/sightseeing and both we did!!
Go up early Friday morning and went to the Birckstock outlet store and got some sandles very comfortable, which is good for me and my stupid feet. They onlt problem was that the trains were a little late so I missed out on most of Strassburg, just inside the France border (to start our rail passes), but thats ok because it was raining there.
Vance and I took the overnight train with no really problems, Craig on the other hand forgot his passport in Germany, so he went back, poor guy.

Vance and I got to Barcelona and walked around checking out the port and seeing some sights, I'll post them when I get home. That night there was a pub crawl at Travel bar, it was great fun, on this crawl we meet Grant and Janelle, two great people and infact we invited them to come to Madrid with us and they did!!! Grant is an awesome guy, he works in NYC at a theatre and Janelle is a Canadian working in Perth, AUS, so she had a really weird accent. The next day I ended up going to the beach with them and Simone, another Australian, this was the start us my sunburn from hell!!!! it lasted the whole trip and I'm not going to be able to tan for a really long time. After being on the beach for a little bit I went back to the Hostel to meet up with Craig who got into twon and also Vance was there, we then went back to the beach, There we met some girls for the States working France so that was pretty cool. That night, the five, Janelle and Grant had join us in our travels, we just went back to the Travel bar to have a few beer. I left after one drink because I was soo tired. I was soo tried that when the other guys got in, they couldn't wake me up to get into the room so they had to get another key for it.

Well I'm going to save the last night of Barcelona and Madrid and Paris for another one or two posts, but this should get you going again.

Later

Andrew

Thrusday!

So last Thrusday was a good time, it was the Institut für Kernphysik BBQ, there were lots of Physics people around so it was sort of weird, but it was a great time. Lots of Free Beer and Free food!!! We got there at like 3pm and sat around had a few beers and a steak and then Vance wanted to head downtown so he left Craig and I at about 5:30pm, we said that we would finish that beer and head over to his place and then we could make some food for supper, well at 7pm Vance came back and was like 'have you guys been sitting here drinking?' Yes!! we drank some more and talked with Andy, one of the few German physics guy that we talk to, he and Dave are good friends, We ended leaving there at about 11pm. Drinking from 3pm - 11pm!! I have to get all this drinking out before I head to Carleton, because I'll be studying hardcore and TA'ing.
From there we headed back to the Barracks, I left 5 mins before thoses guy but when they walked in Craig had beer all oer the front of him it was sooo funny, he sliped on the hill that we had to walk up from the BBQ. Then, we headed to meet up with some friends who called us while we were at the BBQ. We went down to a place called the Muschel and there was a big party so we hung out there until it was time to head home.

Well I should start to look into place to live in Ottawa, any suggestions?

Later
Andrew

Kirchheim

This weekend I went to Kirchheim unter Teck to visit my cousin Celia. Kirchheim is just below Stuttgart and near a mountain in the Schwäbische Albs called Teck. It was a great time, first night I was there we went to a biergarten with two of her friends and had a beer then we went to Fischdorf (a festival) and had one more drink. The next day, Celia had to work so I went to Stuttgart (about 30 mins by train from Kirchheim) to do some shopping and sight-seeing. it was great, I went to the castle and the Mercedes-Benz muesum and just walked around. Celia, Christoph (Cerlia's boyfriend) and I met up after they were down work and walked around. Celia had lived in Stuttgart for a year, so she showed us the market, place to get great döners (but the guy had retired, but we still had one, it was good) and also went to a biergarten. We were geting tried so headed back to Kirchheim.
Saturday morning, Celia and I had a weißwurst breakfast (weiß - white, wurst - sausage), it was yummy and served with a bretzel and beer. After theat we walked around the downtown area and then went back to the apt, got Christoph and we headed off to Ulm, the birth place of Albert Einstein!! We also climbed the münster, which is one of the tallest chruches in the world, we got all the way to the fifth little bump from the top, which is 143 m up!!!! The craziest thing happened while we were in Ulm, it started to rain and then truned to hail!! It hailed in the middle of July!! they were the size of marbles, it was really weird! We walked around town for a little longer and then left to meet up with a few of Celia's friends are a different biergarten and had some supper.
On Sunday morning, Celia took me to her work to show me, the thing was that I couldn't go inside due to security issues, but it was nice to see where she works, also while in the parking lot she said that I could drive her smart car!!, I got to drive a smart car it was awesome!! It's like a normal car just that the back is 2 feet behind you instead of the usual. Then we headed to the Teck and walked up to the top, there is a castle up there and we were able to see for a long way and it was beautiful view of the area.
That afternoon, we went back into Stuttgart to visit the Porsche, except it was family day at the factory, so we couldn't go into the museum!!!! It was annoying, but I guess another reason to come back to visit Celia and Germany again!