Smokers' exhibition

In the lab, I sit by the window, at a corner near the front of the building, and just far enough away from the phone. From my seat, I see people entering and leaving the building, I see the parking lot (to which I move my car after office hours), but what I see most of all are the smokers on break.

It's frightening how often some of them take a cigarette break: some people are out there 4 or 5 times in as many hours! I wouldn't be entirely surprised if some of them spent more time outside puffing away on their cancer sticks than inside working.

There's a mini-patio at the recessed front door, so it's a little unnerving to have someone smoking, leaning on the side rails of the concrete walkway, less than 2 meters away from me. The big window between us doesn't put up much of a barrier. I keep the blinds half-closed so that I don't feel like an exhibition. "And over here on the right, we have scholasticus eruditus, a species that spends much of their time indoors, away from natural light. They are a philanthropic species, constantly investigating and studying methods to progress the homo sapien species, however sometimes, we never see the fruits of their labour."

On a diet

Alright, I still don't like the waif look, but this is impressive, for lack of a better word. Talk about stomach capacity: Sonya Thomas is a competitive eater. Check out her bib sheet! Daaaaang!

Her latest accomplishment was winning the World Lobster Eating Contest in Maine this past weekend. She devoured 38 lobsters in 12 minutes. That's almost 4.5 kg (10 lbs)! And about 1 kg more than the runner-up!!

What's frightening: lobster isn't her "best" food for competitive eating. She holds a record for hard-boiled eggs.

Artist at Work

The other day, I was hunting for images to go with my post about being stranded outside my lab. Gotta love Google's images search. Anyhow, I came across the pink drawing that I have displayed, and, probably out of sheer procrastination, started clicking away at the artist's site: Nymbus 7.

I. was. amazed.

I am really impressed! I really like Chris Musto's art - his lines, his use of colour, his use of black!, the presentation of his ideas. There's a wonderful boldness about it. Some of the pieces have an almost "grunge" feel to them (like Acid Jazz) - which, if you know me, you would never have thought to associate with my goody-two-shoes-ness. Others I appreciate just for their brilliance (colour-wise, that is) (and idea-wise, too) (but I was referring specifically to colour here).

Given that this was more personal artwork (i.e., not just some vacation photo MS Clip Art), I left a message asking his permission to use that picture for my illustration, and get this: he was way cool about it, as long as I mentioned his name and provided a link to his site (not a problem: see the last line of that blog post). That just blew me away. It made my day! To be able to use nice art on my website - legally (ahem) - and free! Not that I think all artists are snobby and over-copyright-protective about their work. Okay, the first one, at least; the second one, rightfully so.

Have a glance! Here are just a few of my favourites, to entice you to check out his gallery:

• Kokopelli's Ghost,
  
• Sometimes the Music Doesn't Love You Back,
  
• Star Hunter, and,
  
• Ghost of a Silverfish Grapples with Mortality.

Anyhow, Chris Musto is located in southern Virginia, but if you're Googling "artist Virginia State", maybe this site will pop up. :)

Beautiful British Columbia

My Aussie friend was in town, so I took her on my favourite drive of all time: the Sea-to-Sky Highway. I. love. that. drive.

I love how the road curves, snaking alongside the mountains. I love the water just below, at the bottom of a 50-foot drop. Little islands dotting the ocean water. Trees galore. I love the esses that show you sunshine and shade and sunshine again, all within 3 minutes of driving. I love the feeling of crisp, clean air filling my lungs.

I love the splendor with which Nature graces us. The green of trees, the blue of sky and water, the white of snow-capped mountains in the distance, the grey of rocky cliffs.

I love the peace of the drive. Usually because you're on your way to a weekend getaway, or have just had a relaxing one. Even in the dead of night, it's a fantastic drive that makes you feel free.

And then, if you need a break from all that wonderfulness every so often, there are little sites along the way: Porteau Cove, Shannon Falls, Alice Lake, and my all-time favourite Brandywine Falls. Places to picnic, to gaze at waterfalls and lakes, to wade and wet your feet, to feel like you are on vacation. And then you return to a relaxing drive.

What's not to love!

PS - This drive is also fabulous from the passenger seat of a Porsche Boxster with its top down.

Vacation's over.

What the heck??

Today on my way up to campus, a bum is back on the intersection island!!

This ain't no tropical island.

Yesterday was the last day of exams, so at midnight undergraduate access to the building was cut off. Unfortunately Security may not have made the distinction between undergrad and grad, and when I returned to campus at 01:00 last night, I found that I was locked out of the lab building.

As I was repeatedly waving my card past the card sensor in hopes that it would suddenly decide to grant me access, my labmate S came up the stairs inside and let me in. He had been packing up to leave and made a quick trip to the bathroom (in the lobby, just outside the inner card access door), and got stranded in the lobby!

Forty minutes and several unhelpful calls to SFU Security later ("They're at the Pub Night. Call back in 10 minutes." "There was a brawl at the Pub. Call back in 15." "Okay, somebody will be over in 10." "We can't do anything about it until Monday."), my labmate S and I got let in.

We were rather concerned about this lack of access, since we both had looming deadlines and needed to work in the lab over the weekend. We ended up staying another 2 hours until almost 04:00, tag-teaming for washroom trips (letting the other back in), since we didn't know what the situation today would be.

This morning, I got a call from my other labmate N: "Are you coming up to the lab soon? My card isn't working." I told him to call Security and ask to be let in. When I arrived, N told me about how the Security supervisor wouldn't dispatch someone to let him in because "maybe [his] card access was cut off for a reason [that they weren't able to know], or maybe [he] was a bad guy."

This is not the kind of sh!t I need so close to finishing my project. Every hour counts. That said, it's back to work for me.

[ Artwork used with the permission of artist Chris Musto. ]

Bored as a low-fat muffin

You know you're bored when you start searching the Internet on "bored".
And sometimes you find something amusing. :)

Smooth move

I had to get up early this morning to drive my dad somewhere. Mind you, any time before 11:30 is considered early for me, but today it was 07:30, so I think we can all agree that that was pretty early.

As I was getting ready to leave, I noticed a lot of flyaway hairs. Grabbing my hairspray bottle (and testing it in the sink first), I targetted the loose hairs.

And sprayed hairspray right into my eye. Smooth move.

No bummin' around

Near my residence, the major intersections are often home to homeless-jobless-moneyless-foodless bums sporting Nike shoes (or people that are travelling and inevitably run out of/lose all their money).

The other day, I bought some really bad Chinese food. The honey garlic chicken on plain noodles was more like honey honey honey garlic chicken on noodles with an extra scoop of honey on the side. I barely ate half of it. My brother once gave his leftover pizza to a person on the street, so I decided that even if I couldn't stomach it, someone less fortunate might still appreciate it. If I saw one of the vagabonds on the street islands, I would beckon them over to my car window and offer my leftover Chinese to them.

Apparently, vagabonds have office hours, too. I wasn't surprised not to see them when I headed home at 01:00: they'd probably shuffled off to a shelter or something. But the next day and the day after, around midday ... nada. Not one in the entire week. I couldn't find any bums to whom to give it!

I suppose they're entitled to summer vacation, too.

Lookin' cool in mah shades! B)

I am now the proud owner of Oakley Half Wires in Blue Black Iridium! :D I got a great deal on them. This will be the first set of nice sunglasses that I've ever owned. (If you know how I take care of my stuff, you'd know why.) But I love them. They actually fit, which you would think is just a "well, duh" criterion, but for my small face, it's so hard to find sunglasses that aren't too wide/big for me!

I now have my sights set on a pair of Oakley Minutes in Silver Ice Iridium, so that I can have wraparounds to wear for sporty/casual outings. Sweeeeet.