I am finally officially a certified ski instructor of the Canadian Ski Instructor Alliance. I just passed my CSIA level 1 instructor exam and qualified to teach beginners up to easy blue runs. I have been quite nervous about this course for the past week. I know my skiing is not perfect, so there is a chance I may fail again. I had took the course two years ago and failed. At that time, I just did it for fun companied a friend, didn’t expect I would pass. However I failed so miserably and make me itchy to fix that black dot in my life. My ski definitely improved alot in the past two weekends, and I think I barely pass the skill test, having standard rating all along. I did pretty good on the teaching portion, I got above average rating. The exam is not only physically but also mentally challenaged. The exam ended at 2p.m., I thought I could have a few more runs while waiting for the instructors writing the report card. I found I couldn’t even turn properly on the first run, I had completely drained my energy and mental power in the morning. So I joined other classmates to have beer in the pub instead. The instructors posted a list of name who had passed the exam. My heart was pounding when I am reading down the list. Luckily, I found my name at the 2nd last line. It really scared me. Since I am now a ski instructor, I plan to will give some free lessons to my friends. If any one interested, just drop me an email or give me a call.

A friend at work just bought a Mercedes B class yesterday. He did it on impulse buying although he has been shopping for a new car for a while. The B class is on sales until the end of the month and having a 20% discount. My first impression on the car is it doesn’t look like a Benz. It looks more like a Matrix to me. Although he has the Mercedes logo in the front, with very nice interia, I can’t help thinking is the B class a true Benz, or merely a Crysler with Benz logo. The special feature of the B class is the sun roof. Instead of one piece sun roof, it can fold up like window binds. This design looks really cool and gives a large sun roof surface. However I worry about the sealing will leak between each pieces of the sun roof. I can pretty sure this type of design can’t use in Winnipeg or Toronto. The plastic sealing would crack under the harsh winter of -40 degrees. To me, the B class is not a true Mercedes. It lacks the charms of traditional C, E or S class. I wonder will the B class actually dilute the brand of Mercedes Benz by lowering its image? Is it a sound business decision to gain short term profit on entry level cars by sacrficing the long term permium of the luxury lines? Only times can tell.

I am not a crazy sport fans. I like watching hockey and socceer, but I won’t follow the score of every game in the season. I would start watching when the team is in the playoff or in international tournament. I won two tickets to watch Canucks games, which is the 2nd last game of the season. This year Canucks is having a close call on getting into the final and the game I am going to watch is life or death match, should be quite exciting. I was discussing the chance of Canucks going into playoff with colleagues during lunch. I just couldn’t understand why they can be so crazy about watching hockeys. I can understand watching the game as a social event to have good time with friends. I can also understand watching the game as an entertainment like watching movies. I can understand watching the game to support your national team. But the city teams in the major league are merely business, how can you attached to a company whose solely purpose is to profit from you? The thing puzzle me most is the thrill of unknown when watching the game. What is the difference between this thrill than the thrill from gambling? Maybe I am too logical to be a sports fans, I can only be a sports spectator.

This is a true story happen to a friend of mine. This guy like this girl for many years, everyone knows about this. He had made several attempts but all failed. Here is his latest attempt. He got some hockey tickets from his friend, he decided to ask the girl out for a date. Mistake number one, unless the girl is hockey fan, normally a hockey game is not attractive enough nor able to show your sincereness. A better choice of event would be a concert, musical, or anything that is romantic. Then instead of asking the girl himself, he let a common, although good friend to the girl, do the job. Mistake number two, never let a 3rd party involving in the dating process, unless it is a stunt that you can’t handle alone. The result is quite obvious, he got rejected once again. This time he even got hilmulated by the girl. I really feel sorry for that guy, but I just can’t stop laughting at his foolishness. Sometimes I wonder, why can’t that girl give him a chance? In my opinion, as a friend of him, I think the guy is pretty decent, other than he is a bit boring, not handsome enough and probably have absolutely no common sense on dating tactics.

I brought my Tomy Bitchar-G mini remote control AE86 back to my office. I put it in my cubilce as my new cubicle toy. I have bought it for a few years, but never have any chance to play it at home. The motor of the car is not powerful enough to run on home carpet. I attempted to run it on my desk, which should be big enough to set up a race track, however it’s coverd with document. Fortunately, the carpet at work has much less resistance, so the car can run in the aisle. My colleagues sitting in my aisle seems very interest to my tiny RC car. I let them drove the car for a while and they are quite impressed that this tiny RC car is nicely built. I am thinking of buying a few more Bitchar-G and bring them to work. So when we are bored writing codes all day long, we can have a car race to relax our mind. I will have to make sure the remote runs on different frequence and all the cars has the same motor. Otherwise, it is no fun if one car over power another too much and end up always winning the race.