I have just installed Mediawiki to my webserver. Mediawiki is the wiki program behind the wikipedia. I would like to give it a try and use wiki to create a library section in my website. I found blog and forum are not very suitable for static pages with regular updates. There is a very steep learning curve in using Wiki. The concept of Wiki is very different from normal webpages we are used to, it is completely dynamic. I am still figuring out what is the best way to present my information. One thing I have to be very careful about is user permssion. I notice Mediawiki doesn’t have very fine control over what user can and cannot do. I have to strike the balance between letting reader intractive with me and preventing spammer clogging up the website. On top of that, Mediawiki is not very good for customization, which is something I wish to have, but probably won’t have time to execute.

This is the first time I have fire alarm since I had moved into my new place. I was waken up by the alarm suddenly while I was sleeping. It took me a while to realize what’s going on, and get changed quickly, grab the keys and start going down stairs. I semlt some burning smell once I get out of the door, so I know the alarm is for real. It took me quite some effort to walk down twenty floors, especially with sour legs from skiing yesterday. I can find at least one advantage of my old place, it’s at the 4th floor. When I finally got down to the ground floor, I saw the firemen are already here and put out the fire. It’s probably just some stupid person over cook his midnight snack. There are lots of chinese or asian faces living in the building, almost 70% of the people gathered in the front yard. Not long after I went down, the firemen turn off the alarm and let us go home. It is another long walk, and this time is even worse to walk up twenty floors. I have to stop a few times on the way up to catch my breath. While I was on my way down, I think about the worst case scenario what if my place really burnt down. I found that actually I don’t miss anything, except some personal data in my computer. Nothing is irreplacable, including the passport and the identifications. The good thing is I have backup my emails at gmail, so my contact is safe. The only thing I need to do is the database of my website. When I setup the my new linux box, I gota write some script to schedule regular backup.

Today I went to Whislter first time since I have became an instructor. We have a solid day of all black runs. I found that black runs is not as hard as I thought before, although it still quite tried coming down on a black run. The snow is really good this weekend, probably the most fun weekend this year. The runs at the side Harmony has lots of powder, and we can ski all the way down to the bottom. Since black runs consumes lots of energy, we call it the end of the day at around 2:45p.m., and ski down slowly. We left Whistler at 4:00p.m., came back to Vancouver before 6:00p.m. This is probably the last ski of the season, unless there is some more big snow dump next week. Tonight I went to the Easter virgil at CMCC. It is also Pat’s god daughter’s baptism as well. The virgil is really long, lasted almost 3 hours. I think I had slept though at least 2 hours. After the virgil, there was food and people chat with each other, I was so tired that I can merely stand there following Pat.

Today is the first day of the Easter long weekend. According to the Christian tradition, Jesus suppose to be crucified on the cross today, died and took a break for three days before resuming his duty as the Messiah. As a good Catholic, I go to the church tonight with Pat to walk the station of the cross. Station of the cross is a common fixture in every Catholic church. It is a set of 14 pictures portraiting 14 scenes of the last moment of Jesus, from being judge to carrying the cross, PKed 3 times, died on the cross and buried. In some large churches, they have scultures instead of pictures for the station of the cross. I just had a vision about a high-tech version of the station of the cross. Instead of same old boring pictures, we can use hugh LCD displays playing the same scenes from Mel Gibson’s movie Passion of the Christ. I think this new station of the cross is more interesting than the most familiar one. Actually, if we can borrow 14 laptops, we can setup one in this year’s WCCCLC camp. What a gimmick!

Tonight I have a small advantage to try Afghan cuisine. The resturant is next to Rasputin on Broadway and Cambine. I have passed by this resturant many times and wonder what’s inside. Looking into the door, it looks pretty normal, just like any other small family resturant. When we arrived, the place is quite empty, but we were told almost all table are reserved. We couldn’t sit inside the Afghan style room with low-raise table and cushions. The menu is in English, so at least I know what I am ordering. The food is very similiar to Greek food, with lots of lambs. Since Afghan is a Muslim country, no pork is served. I have ordered a platter to share with Pat, it has a little bit of everything. The taste is ok, but I still prefer Greek better, these two are pretty similiar anyways. The service is sub-par, the waiter at the reception looks kinda scary, and they didn’t refill water for us often enough. I am a bit disappointed they don’t have horse meat in their menu. I was told horse meat is a famous cuisine in Afghan. Maybe I will try another Afghan resturant with horse meat next time. However, I suspect that is probably the only Afghan resturant in Canada.