Year 2005 is over, welcome to year 2006. In the past, I havn’t made any new year resolution or new year wishes. Therefore, I don’t have any review for my last year’s resolution or wishes. This year, I would like to make a list of things I want to do in the next 265 days. This year, I will be turning 30 and officially become a middle-age man. I have to think about my career plan and the path I want to take in the future. There are a few options I am considering after having my master fully completed and get the P.Eng title. Switching jobs or moving back East is an option, going back to school to switch field is another option. I may considering staying in PMC for a few more years if I land on an interesting project with learning opportunities and prospect to get a promotion. I don’t want to feel like stucking in a dead end at work. If I am leaving PMC, I want to complete my toastmaster CTM certificate.

I have been keeping up well in writing articles and blogs, I will definitely continue this effort, I found it is very rewarding in term of consolidating my thoughts. I have spent too much time watching anime and movies, and end up writing too many reviews. I want to work on more serious articles on religion and social values. I want to read at least a book a month, and finished the books I have purchased but havn’t read. I’ll see whether I have time to pick up learning piano again, that would mean at least 30 minutes practice per day to make it meaningful.

I will keep my promise to Pat of going to church every week with her. In my opinion, I am already a very spiritual and faithful christian, although no one seems agree with me. I will also continue on the ball room dancing lessons, as I have already pre-paid the fee. Playing badminton every week gives me the excerise I need. I want to ski more often in Whistler and if Cypress’s condition is good, I would buy some day pass from Ian to take more ski lessons. I want to know whether I am good enough to take CSIA level 1 again.

I want to move closer to Pat, the perfect location would the rental apartments at Joyce station. I need to refresh my home to keep myself more energized. The only problem is I am not even start looking at places. I will start looking once I get the defense out of my way.

I want to get a new computer to replace my existing desktop machine, then flush it for linux to upgrade my web server. This time, I will document the steps I took to setup my server, probably with minor extra efforts and turning it into a tutorial. If I don’t writing things down, it will take me much longer to recall the memory, or basically I have to relearn the skill. My CRT monitors system is very out of date, I will upgrade to LCD displays. If the price of LCD price drop low enough, one 24″ with two 19″ is the best solution. I may consider buying my first laptop, but I will try to get one form work first. Leon had pointed out a very good point, I have to decide which kind I want. Since I am not using it as my desktop replacement, I will probably get a light and protable one. iPod video and flight sim controls would be nice to have items, but I don’t really see the need of them, so I will probably put them off until I can afford them money-wise and time-wise.

Looks like I want to accomplish too many things next year, probably some items in my list will overthrow to the year after. I only have to set the priority right and try to get as many things done as possible.

Lastly, Happy New Year to whom may read my blog. Thankyou for your patience in following my poorly throught out mubbling every day.

I just drove Andy and Leon to the airport and they are on their way back to Toronto. I realy enjoy spending the past few days with old friends. I found that if someone visit you and staying in your place, not only they are having a vacation, you are also having a vacation at the same time with them. My normal daily routine is changed, instead I have having being a tourist in my own city. It is surprising that there are many things I havn’t seen even I have been living here for 5 years. In this vacation, we went to Whislter two times, and mindlessly tour the city for the other two days. When old friends get together, it is natural to talk about the old days. Old memories tends to clash with each other, somehow my version of what had happened is quite different from others. Me and Leon spent lots of time arguing what really had happened back then, as well as almost every single issues ranging from which LCD monitor is better to renewable energy technology. Both of us enjoy arguing itself, regardless the topic involved nor the outcoming, since most of the time is inconclusive. Now, my life is getting back to normal until my next vacation.

Today I went to Whislter again with my friends from Toronto and Pat. I am not very tired today, since I stay with Pat all the time on the green runs. Pat has kept up with her snowboarding skill, she is doing pretty good on wide green runs, even blue runs. Her biggest problem is on narrow green runs which connect different parts of the mountain. She is scared to made turn on the narrow run, afraid she will fall off to the cliff. It is very tried and hard to control if not changing edge from time to time. I think Pat has the skills already, just she havn’t overcome her fear. The only way to work on this problem is by taking snowboarding lessons. I can’t convince her to try turning even I can demostrate it is safe to make turns on those narrow runs. There is some woman only snowboard clinic in Whislter in Febuary, maybe I should sign her up in one of those sessions. I need to take skiing lessons myself too, I have reached the plateau of just practising by myself. It is time for me to reconsider taking CSIA level 1 again, but I need some professional opinions from ski instructors on my chance of succeed first.

Today I showed my friends around the town by sky train, since I don’t want to drive between two days going to Whislter. One of them had visited Vancouver many years ago, he really missed the osyter in Lansdale Quay, so we went there for lunch. Fortunately the osyter shop is still around and he had a dozen of fresh osyters, almost clean all the osysters in the shop. Then we tried something I had never done before, took a bus going to Vancouver downtown thru the Lions gate bridge. Then, there is a standard vancouver download tour start with Mondo Gelato, then walk along the English Bay. The guy also missed the steam clock in gas town, so I have to take him there fore photos. I don’t really understand what’s so interesting about the steam clock, especially when it is broken at the moment. We had dinner at Guu, and I am surprise they never had izakaya in Toronto. After dinner, we ran out of things to do and end up going to Metrotown. Then we have to call it a day, since we all need a good rest preparing for the 2nd visit to Whistler tomorrow.

Two of my Waterloo buddies visited me this christmas holidays. To be exact, they come over to have a ski trip in Whislter and crash in my place. I havn’t seen them for years, we used to live very close to each other in Mississauga. Together with another Waterloo friend visiting his girlfriend in Vancouver, four of us drove off to Whislter to have our first ski this season. The snow condition is not very great, it is too foggy up in the top, and worse there is no enough snow, we cannot ski all the way down to the village. I keep hearing praise about Whistler from my buddies comparing it to the ski resorts back east. I guess I quite spoiled by Whislter and take it for granted. This year, I found my skill has improved comparing to last season, my balance and movement is getting better. On our way to and from Whislter, my friends keep telling me stroies about their jobs in ATI. Now, I realise PMC is not very bad after all, there is some other company has much worse practise.

This christmas, I have a warm house gathering with my mom, my two aunties and my cousins. My thin auntie has prepared a very delicious dinner together with my mom. After dinner, we just hang around waiting for the dessert, watched TV and sing old songs karaoke. The night is quite relaxing, me and Pat enjoy the good food including abalone, bordeaux red wine and sallow nest. My only complain is there is a small dog I allergic to at thin auntie’s plase. I tried to get dog stay away from me for the whole night. At the end I still have some mild rash on my face. I hope after taking some medication, it will disappear tomorrow morning. I am fine with big dogs, like Pat’s golden retriver, but I don’t like small dogs. Not only they will cause allergy to me, they are so annoying. Whenever I see a small dog, I am so tempted to kick it. It just looks like a fur ball ask to be kicked right at the stomach.

It is Christmas Eve today. Last night when I open an ecard form a friend, suddenly I wanted to send my greetings to all my friends. I don’t like sending out ecard by putting everyone on the cc list. I took the time go thru my address book, personalize each ecard I sent out with related greetings. It took me almost 2 hours to go thru my friend’s list and determine whom I wish to keep in touch with. I am so happy that I received over ten replies this morning. I havn’t talk to some of them for a long time, it is good to heard from them. I think next year, I will try to send real christmas card to some selected ones. I always wanta to send real christmas card, but keep push off to ask for the mailing address until its too late. Maybe next year, I will send out a mass copy email in october, and ask anyone who wish to receive a real card from me response with their address.

Tonight I have home made dinner with Pat and her family. After washing the dishes, we played the Dogoploy game I bought Pat, which is a Monoploy with breeds of dogs replacing properties. It’s kinda fun to play silly games sometimes. At the end I went bankrupt by stepping on Pat’s Golden Retriever. I joke that since I can’t afford the rent, I will pay it with myself. How ironic.

We went to midnight mass at St. Mark’s college in UBC. It’s a long drive but the atomsphere is quite nice. Pat may not agree with this, but in my opinion going to church in Christmas and Easter is the absolute mininium requirement of being a Catholic. I really like going to midnight mass, and listening to the all familiar christmas songs. The carol I like most is “O Holy Night”, probably rooted in my mind from the the movie Home Alone when I watched as a little kid.

Me and Pat signed up for a cooking class with Chef Eric tonight. The course is on french cruise, a very delicous 6 course dinner. I even send out the course information to my friends, trying to convince them to join us. Other than Verona, none of the guys is interested. They all think the course is too expensive, they could have someone serving the dinner at a nice resturant paying the same price. Oh well, this cooking course is not just to learn how to cook, it is an activity to spend sometime with your other half. All the ingredient are prepared for you. After the dinner, you don’t have to clean up all the mess. You can just enjoy the fun of cooking and the good food. Ok, it maybe not so good if you screwed up. Unfortunately, this morning the cook shop called us to inform us Chef Eric is sick, so the course is cancelled. I am very disappointed, since I am so looking forward to my first cooking class. I end up paying about the same amount to have someone served me and Pat a nice dinner. Heron in Waterfront Fairmount Hotel is highly recommanded, plus they accept the entertainment book, so one of the entree is free!

Visiting internet forum is my daily habbit. I first heard about TTF throught boxup, the mp3 download site that I get all my mp3 from. Boxup started TTF, later on TTF is spinned off as an independent forum, but they still have close relationship with links to TTF all over boxup’s pages. I have been with TTF for over 5 years, and it is where I get my interest of writing articles. Today I just became a moderator of TTF for their new Anime board. I don’t know why I take up this role, they are asking for moderators for the new Anime board, which is my interest, and I know the super moderator there thru Anime related discussions. So I agree to help him out on the Anime board, and I become a moderator myself. Being a moderator is not much different from a normal user, except a moderator has to delete advertisement, give marks to good posts and participle in the forum, which I do it normally. The only benefit of being a moderator is it satisfy my curiousity, I am finally able to enter the moderator board. To my disappointment, there is nothing interesting to see, mostly are forum businness.

Today the IT department took back my dual 19″ LCD monitors. They would like me to evaluate the difference between a 24″ widescreen LCD and two 19″ LCD monitors. Costwise, a 24″ cost $1000 while two 19″ cost $900. The resolution of the 24″ is 1960 x 1280, while a 19″ is 1280 x 1024. Two 19″ has more screen area, but it has a stripe right in the middle. My initial feedback depends on what application I am using, each setup has its advantage. Two 19″ is good for using Linux side by side with Critix, since the two monitors are two seperate virtual desktop. A single 24″ is best for viewing waveforms, such that I can see longer period of time in a single screen. Writing code or document doesn’t make a big difference as long as I pull up the reference on the side. It is really a tought call on which setting is better. I am wondering how about a 24″ with a 19″ on the side? I guess that would be asking for too much.