The brochure told us that the travel time from Vancouver to Whistler was 2 hours and 10 minutes. We managed in about 1 hour and 30 minutes. This is after being stuck behind slow cars for most of the way.

There's not too much to see in Whistler, other than the mountains and lakes. It was very picturesque, but I didn't take any pictures. We rented bikes, and rode around on trails, and I was afraid of falling and breaking my camera. So I didn't bring it with me.

The rental car had no air conditioning, no power windows, no power locks, not even power mirrors. Very ghetto. And to think that I was outraged when one of the cars they gave us in Seattle had no CD player. I've been spoiled.

Now in Vancouver.

We went to the Hip concert on Saturday. It was fantastic. Gord Downie's rants are incredible. Trying to distinguish what he's saying amid all the background music is a real task in and of itself.

Yesterday we went and climbed Mt. Rainier. A lot of vertical altitude gained. We hiked in mist for 98% of the time. But when we finally got to the top, we saw the peak above the mist. It was majestic.

I can't believe it! The last day is done! I am done! And they want me back. THEY want ME back. I guess it'll be another term at Amazon.com for me.

Probably won't be near a computer too much next week.

One more day of work, and I'm done. Then it's another 2 weeks of fun in the sun, and right back to studying again. But school isn't all that bad. I always find myself looking forward to another semester of school after a long hiatus through coop. I often wonder what I would do if I didn't have school to "look forward" to. What if there was no way of just "falling back" to school, and being with all your friends again? This happened already once, when we all had to say goodbye to our high school pals. Can we do it again come the end of university?

I know I still have another two years of university to go, so I don't have to start worrying yet. But time passes by so quickly (not to sound cliche, but it's true). I'm beginning to think that I'm too old to truly appreciate the speed of time. When I was younger, I always thought time passed by too slow. I was always eager to grow up and do grown up things. But now, I just want to have preserve the time that I have. I'm not old enough to want it to slow down yet, but that'll be here soon enough.

I sound trite.

Hmmm, performance evaluation woes.

Very good = not good enough, or are my expectations too high?

Murphy's Law of Electronics: the probability of a gadget being dropped on a hard surface is exponentially proportional to it's price tag.

So while handing my camera over to someone else during the wedding, I dropped it, face down, onto unforgiving asphalt. I think my heart skipped a beat. It still works (kind of), but the lens cap does not close properly anymore, and it's got some battle scars.

Note to self: do not buy anything expensive that can't be dropped.

I don't know who started this rumour that airport security in Canada is slack. On my way back, they made me turn on all my electronics, and even made me take off my shoes and put them in the scanner because I'm going to the US. When I was travelling from the US to Canada, security wasn't half as strict.

So the wedding went on as planned. No one ran off to Mexico during the middle of the night (we had him under close guard), and no mishaps (like fainting or forgotten rings) during the ceremony. The weather was beautiful and sunny, a little too hot to be wearing a three piece tuxedo. I couldn't wait to take mine off.

The reception was just like our grad (or prom as some people call it), considering it was in the exact same hall with nearly the same setup and different decorations. At around 12 am, us youngsters and one "evil" step-mother ran out and decorated their getaway car with 24 rolls of toilet paper. The rain later that night just added to the effect. I've been warned that I'm going to get it "bad" when it comes time for my wedding. Good thing I'm not getting married any time soon.

I had way too little sleep and way too much alcohol the entire weekend. This week will have to be my rest week, and also my last week of work.

Wedding and August pictures.

How sad, I just realized that I will be bringing three chargers with me on my trip. One for the digital camera, one for the cell phone, and one for the laptop.

What a world we live in.

Remember the summers when you were six or seven, down by the cottage, swimming in the lake, jumping off of large rocks, running bare foot across the cold pine needle covered forest floor? Remember the marshmellows by the camp fire, making smores with graham crackers and Hershey's (R) chocolate bars, falling asleep under the stars? Me neither.

When I was six or seven, I had to do homework during summer holidays. Schooling in China was vicious. Children were given a workbook for the summer, with questions on the subjects of math, language, science, etc. We also had to write an essay (sometimes two) every week detailing what we did.

Sometime in the summer I'd go on a trip with my grandparents. They had their retirement posse that would drum up vacation packages. We'd take a train or ride in a convoy of vans, and go to these tourist traps that always seemed so far away to me. I guess when you're a kid you don't really have a sense of distance. As a result, I've supposedly seen a lot of interesting things. But my memory is so frail that I hardly remember any of it. The thing that sticks out most in my mind is the time when we were going along a winding road up a mountain, and I, after having one too many slices of watermelon beforehand, threw up on the side of the road. That was interesting to write about.

--------------------

Off to Thunder Bay tomorrow for the wedding, probably won't be near a internet connection for a while.

The last time I called my friend Heather, it was at the summer camp she was counselling at, and while she was being woken up, I had a brief conversation with Krista(whom I had never met before), another camp counsellor.

Last night, I was told that Krista went on a road trip to Kenora (fun times indeed). During said road trip, she decides to spray paint a rock. And what does she paint up there other than - "Krista + Ming".

Now my name is on a rock somewhere along Highway 11/17, between Thunder Bay and Kenora.

I can hardly detect the side to side swaying motion of the ferry anymore. This is my nth time crossing the sound on a Washington State ferry, and the atmosphere has become all too familiar. The long couches perpendicular to the large square windows with rounded corners, the parents with their young children running around the decks, the long urinals in the bathroom that look like elongated bath tubs with urinal cakes splattered here and there.

This time we went to see the falls (Marymere and Sol Duc) and the beaches (Rialto and Second) with an overnight stay at Lake Crescent Lodge. Sounds romantic.

The falls were spectacular. Marymere was an incredible, angelic waterfall with two tiers, the bottom one being slight larger and more fanned out. It had a small pool at the bottom, and the water flows and jumps in little sections all the way down the mountain. Sol Duc was a little noisier and more grand. I imagine it as half of the Niagara falls on a much smaller scale. There's a bridge overlooking the fall, and sheer cliffs right down to the water. Looking from the waterfall towards the bridge, one can see rays of sunlight cutting through the forest and reflecting off of the spray.

At the lodge we ate way too much food, and chowed down some raw oysters that the waiter forgot to bring out. the sunset over the lake was spectacular, as the wisks of clouds turned from white to light pink to dark red and fading to grey. The advantages of being away from the city is that you can actually see the stars at night, and they filled the sky with blinking twinkles. We discussed theories of why the ancients knew so much about the cosmos, and came out with the reason being that they didn't have TV, or the city lights. Electricity, the root of all things bright.

After an excellent brunch buffet (where buffet = stuffing as much food into one's stomach as possible), we were off to see the beaches. The day was sunny and warm, with only patches of clouds here and there. But as soon as we neared the first beach (Rialto), fog began to emerge, and the shore was completely covered in mist. It gave a hollowed look to everything. The second beach (Second Beach) was no better. After a good hike from the highway, and a 500 foot descent, we were again surrounded by fog. There were formations of rocks and islands off into the distance that would have made for a spectacular sight on a sunny day.

Three hours drive, ferry, home.

Sometimes, the amount of spam I get just astounds me. But this one cracked me up. It's anti-spam spam.

-----Original Message-----
From: bash.i@jump.net [mailto:bash.i@jump.net]
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 2:25 AM
To: mfli@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Hit the spammers where it hurts!


Do you want to send spam back to the ORIGINATOR ?
Of Course you do!
We are are going to expose detailed information about the largest spam operators in the USA that ripped us off so bad we had to get a bank loan to get out of credit card debt.
Forget about clicking REPLY...you know by now that doesn't work.
Forget about the remove lists....they ignore them.
Forget about junk mail boxes.... they work 50% of the time.
We know what DOES work.
We will provide you with telephone numbers, and 30+ email addresses of the corperate officers, and staff. This is the company that allows over 80 spammers to utilize their services and network to email you get rich quick plans, porn, online gambling sites, etc.
Do you really want your kids to see GRAPHIC PORN ?
Of course you don't !
We will tell you how to make sure you are mailing it right back to their email boxes and even tell you some SIMPLE techniques so they can not filter your return mail.
SEND ALL YOUR CRAP RIGHT BACK TO THE SOURCE ! For more information please email us at: SendSpamBack@zybermail.com Type "More Info" in the subject field.
We will also show you where to download a Great Anti Virus software for FREE!
SPAM CAN ACTUALLY PUT A SMILE ON YOUR FACE FOR NOW ON!
MAIL IT BACK!

From the Lusty Lady: The Eye Full Tower

More random spam:

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Ferguson [mailto:alexferman2002@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 11:31 AM
To: mfli@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: Thank's for a nice weekend

Hi, Nicole....

Got your e-mail....Thank you...I had a great time with you over the weekend....I wish, Steve will be out of town next weekend... I miss you.... By the way, I'v found a link to the program...one we were talking about.... Hope you will like it.... Yesterday, I was checking some HOT sites..and it's helped me a lot... You know, I am thinking about you all the time...my thoughts are jumping around....

Ok....M and L you

oooppsss....
here is a link.....
http://www.adshunter.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicole Freedman"
To: "Alex Ferguson"
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 8:59 AM
Subject: Thank's for a nice weekend

It's been one year since I started, and I still have nothing to say.

My posts this summer have been lacking in content because I feel uninspired. That or I'm just plain lazy. There are actually a lot of things going on here that I'm not disclosing. Maybe I'll reminisce about them at a later date.

We had our intern farewell party last night. A lot of people will start to leave in the next week or so. Another summer's end. The party was on my roof, with a barbeque to boot. I bought about $200 worth of food and alcohol, and it was a pretty good time. Some people decided to jump in the hottub, even though no one brought their swim suits. And Kyle leaped in, clothes and all. His car had a wet seat going home last night.

My mentor has countered my move by placing little American flag stickers all over my half of the office, including my monitor, my bag, and my Canadian flag. So every time my eyes wonder to the top left or bottom middle, I lapse onto the stars and stripes of red, white and blue.

I wonder if I can buy Canada stickers from amazon.com.

My head hurts from trying to visualize a Klein bottle in 4-space. Mainly because I have yet to master the art of visualizing 4-space.

Two days ago I tried to visualize the Klein bottle, but couldn't do it at all. Now I have seen some pictures, and get the general ideas. But apparently in 4-space you can have such a bottle with no intersecting surfaces (you can't in 3 dimensions). But I don't know how that works.

August Pic Tures

Having words and letters on the staircase up from the metro tunnel can be very disorienting. Trying to read the words on the staircase and walk up them at the same time is even more disorienting. Good thing I had enough sense to grab the handrail, and not fall down the stairs on a Monday morning.

I think I'm going to make it my life-long goal to tell people NOT to use flash at such venues as rock concerts and sporting events where it's mostly dark (unless you're about 5-8 feet away, in which case it's okay, photo-wise anyways).
a.) Flash does not work from that far away. It will only light up the heads of the people in front of you, and leave the stage completely dark since the shutter speed is way too fast, and the foreground is too bright (from the flash of course).
b.) They are annoying, not only to the other patrons, but to the bands I'm sure as well.
c.) They attract attention from the security guards, which are never a good thing.

I'm all for flash when it's the right time to use it, but sometimes there's just not enough room for light in this world.

This came from the Our Lady Peace concert I went to last night. I thought it was a great show. They had Greenwheel opening for them, who had okay songs (they are similar to OLP, but a little harder), but the guitars could have used some improvement. The main guys were awesome. They played some songs from their new CD, and a lot of older ones too like Superman's Dead, Naveed, and 4 am. The whole show ended with a sing-along to 4 am.

Pictures to come soon.

Three moons ago, when I was packing for the summer, I decided to bring along my Canadian flag. It's big and bright red (although I'm sure everyone knows what a Canadian flag looks like).

On Canada day, I decided to put it up behind me in my office. The only thing is, my mentor and I sit facing each other with our computers separating us. So he has to stare at the flag all day. He has made several comments about it's brightness, and someone has even likened it to the socialists (red being their colour). I have ignored his many (well mannered) requests to take it down, but now he's threatening me with my work term evaluations.

I guess I don't have to be that patriotic.

My only retort to their remarks: at least I can display my flag on my backpack. Oh, and Al our CTO quite likes it too (being Canadian and all).

More Photos From July.

In Seattle, there's an annual event called the Seafair. It's akin to the CNE. There are hydroplane races, air shows, and lots of stuff to do around town.

Today, while passing by the Lusty Lady on the bus, the caption said: SEE FAIR.

Okay, so it's not as good as the other ones, but it was funny at the time.

Score one for the home team