Album Update

2009-09-07 Sushi

Home Improvement Pictures

2009 Jul-Aug DIY Home Improvement

Well.. this really just shows some of the home improvement that we have done. Kitchen floor was the major one.

I know that these pictures are long overdue already but I haven't been able to find the camera card reader since we moved. I still haven't found it but I found the cable to connect the camera directly to the computer. heh.

First we had to rip up the tiles. We thought that we were just taking out the tiles but we opened a can of worms. Underneath the tiles, there's this cement layer on a wire mesh that glued the tiles on the floor. And so we have to rip that up. But the wire mesh is nailed on the floor with like a gazillion nails and we had to rip those all up. And then there was the vinyl flooring and we had to rip that up also. It turned out to be a lot more work that we expected.

Before&After:

And then there's the front porch:

Before&After:

And the kitchen cupboards:

Before&After: (I know it doesn't look too bad in the before picture but it was pretty gross and stinky in real life...)

More pictures of the reno process can be found on my picasa album. There're a few more pictures for the house in general. I am unable to locate them. It's probably on the other computer. I will post them when I find them...

Album Update

2009-09-07 Cycling

Wa... finally got a bit of time today to upload some rather dated pictures... Just over a month ago, I was still wearing sleeveless and now, I can't go out without a jacket. Winter is approching fast.

好瞓

原因係因為唔夠瞓，一攤落床就好似死咗咁失去知覺，一直到鬧鐘響起。

搭巴士返工既時候都好好瞓，瞓到成個人斜哂，霸佔住隔離位位子上面既空間，唔怪得成日都無人坐我隔離。

返工既時候，兩點幾三點鐘既時候又好眼瞓，一定是飯氣攻心。

成日都同自己講話今晚要早Ｄ瞓，但真係好難做到，返到屋企已經好夜，食完飯又唔想即刻瞓，hae 吓hae 吓咁又 hae 到十一點先瞓，I know, 11pm is not that late but I get up at 6am ma... 即係唔駛八個鐘囉...

好似尋晚，等洗衫，等到佢洗完，又成十一點。我都想早瞓，但Ｄ衫真係堆到成坐山咁高，唔駛就無衫著，尋晚洗咗兩機，但坐山好似同之前一樣咁高，無奈...

Girls Day Out

Had a girls day out on the weekend. I haven't had such a relaxing weekend to just walk around for a very long time. Oh well... not completely relaxing cos I did attend a last minute workshop in the morning before the start of girls day out. But it was nice to hang around with 糖 n 愛麗斯. Haven't done that for a long time.

蹓躂完一輪，一齊去咗接妹妹，嘩好耐無見過妹妹啦，已經十三歲囉，剛剛沖完涼既妹妹好白，我一向唔太喜歡掂妹妹，但妹妹乾淨既時候好可愛耶，加上咁耐無見，我實在忍唔住要摸吓佢，仲幫佢影咗Ｄ相。

帶左妹妹返糖家，喺糖屋企 hae, 仲見到阿婆添，好耐好耐無見過阿婆喇，阿婆見到我就話我做乜咁耐唔見人，仲話如果喺街撞到我都就黎唔認得。對唔住呀阿婆，我都唔想架。阿婆即刻攞Ｄ花生糖同芝麻糖俾我食，正呀！我好耐無食過花生糖喇，Ｄ糖係阿婆親手做架，想買都買唔到，好好味。:)

hae 咗一陣，飛豬黎到車我地，去咗食日本任食，無奈我地得四個人，唔係食得好多野，不過都ＯＫ啦，今次我淨係食咗兩杯緣茶雪糕，好節制。

食完就踏上龜途喇，其實有少少耳油未盡，但其實都應該返屋企。返到屋企就起勢咁執屋，因為第二日有人到訪，係一個 force 自己執屋好好既 incentive.

Busy Life

Chatted with 小笨 last week and realized that I have been eating all my three meals in the office almost the whole of last week.

Long commute means that I rush out of the door way too early to eat breakfast so I eat breakfast upon arrival at the office. Lunch is at the office of course. And dinner... sigh... I have been having stuff to do after work almost everyday these days and these things are all either in 屎家or NY that it makes absolutely no sense to go home and then head out again so I stayed late in the office. So I ate dinner in the office.

It happend 3 days last week (monday was holiday. thanks goodness). I was able to go home to have dinner on Friday which was nice. And Sat breakfast and lunch (really just a snack) was also at home. And then I went into the office to work and hence not home for dinner cos I have to go to fellowship at night. And then Sunday was such a busy day, breakfast at home, sunday service, youth fellowship, meeting #1 over lunch, meeting #2, rush to grocery store to buy food for the week, rush home and rush to home depot to buy wood and stuff, go back home to have dinner. Trying to work from home but stupid remote desktop wasn't working and wasted time troubleshooting it. And then time for bed....

This week hasn't been any better yet. All meals are at work (besides this morning cos I slept in a bit. I have to stay late at work anyway). I don't have much scheduled for tmr and friday (well... actually there's something on Thur but I'm not going). So hopefully, the rest of the week will be slightly more relaxing.

Another thing about this hectic schedule is that it prevents me from cycling to work cos I don't want to hv to cycle home at night, especially when it's cold outside. But it's a big shame cos yesterday was actually a very nice day to cycle. Double digit temperature but I know that my thing last night wouldn't end until midnight (and it did as I expected) and cycling midnight isn't my thing. I prefer getting a little extra sleep. So I have been driving everyday this week so far. Hopefully, I can cycle the rest of the week. Weather forecast isn't exactly in favor for cyclists though sigh... I will see...

New Field??

One of the good things about this company is that there’s something called “Lunch n Learn". They usually invite ppl within or outside of the company to talk about something during lunch time. Sometimes, lunch is provided and sometimes you are to bring your own lunch. It’s not mandatory so you can pick and choose the ones that interest you.

I have never been to a lunch provided one since it’s always full of people and it’s just pizza anyway. And so far, the ones that have lunch provided are not interesting enough for me to spend an hour sitting there just for the pizza. Sometimes, the talk/presentation is really stupid, in my opinion. There’s this one time that they invited the benefit provider to talk about the benefit package. I have opted-out of the benefit so it really doesn’t interest me. Even if I have the package, y do I need to listen to the presentation anyway? All the terms and info should be on the policy booklet anyway. It got be to something a lot better than pizza for me to go.

I’ve been to two of these sessions so far. And both of them have been gd. The last one I’ve been to is about the tricks and tips of AutoCad. Ppl in this company use A LOT of AutoCad. I mean, A LOT. And they are all kinda experts on it. I only used AutoCad occasionally and compared to them, I really don’t know how to use AutoCad. This trick and tips seminar is about the even more advance features that I don’t use. Was actually a little lost at a certain point. Not really relevant to me but it’s still nice to know a few things.

Today, once again, the speaker was one of our own. This time, this person was talking about this new business line that the company has just introduced. It’s environmental management. I found it very interesting. There are a few aspects to this business line and they are very attractive to me.

I have grown to be more and more environmental-oriented in recent year, even before this whole “green” hype (talking about this hype, I have some complain but that would be another entry) started. That was one of the reason that I was interested in the company I am (well was and still am… the company has merged as I’ve mentioned before) working in. Well… besides the fact that I was quite desperate for a new job at that time in order to avoid the potential of being laid off in the old company and get deported back to HK.

Anyway, the current company called itself an “environmental” company (at that time) but it wasn’t. At least not in the sense that I define what “environmental” is. There’s almost nothing to do with the environment, other than the fact that sometimes the sewage (be it storm or sanitary) discharges to the creek. We did a lot of work to help land developers to get approval to build new subdivision and stuff. If anything, it’s more of helping human to destroy the environment than being environmental. Of course, there’s other aspect of my work that is not really that negative but they mostly don’t have anything to do with the environment either, other than the fact that we are dealing with water, which is one kind of natural resources.

Anyway, my point is, after this presentation, I am so excited about this new business line that I stayed behind and talked to the presenter about the possibility to work for them. Honestly, I was mildly interested in the environmental option in EngSci when I first enrolled in (as opposed to NO interests in most of the options). But then the year I was admitted to UT, that option was scrapped. I wasn’t too upset at that time cos as I said, I was just mildly interested. But now looking back, it’s really a shame that I wasn’t even given the chance to consider this option.

Right now, I even have this urge to go back to school to switch field, when I’m still relatively young. The presenter told me that there’re diploma and night school that I can take if I’m really going to pursue it. And that I can get a master degree in environmental if I wanted instead of another bachelor. Kinda make sense.

Really, this is the first time since I graduated that I have the desire to go back to school. I always thought that I’m so done with school that if I’m even going to go back, it’s more for hobby/fun, like taking language courses or something like film editing, nothing technical. And I always thought that it’s quite silly for a lot of my frds to take this exam that exam to get this certificate that certificate. I understand that it’s more like the culture that makes it a “need” to do it. If everyone in the industry is doing it and you are not, you are going to be kicked out eventually. So I guess it’s the culture that’s silly, not the people. 係社會的錯. I really don’t think that having those certificate means that you are gd at your work.

Given the fact that I hated university so much and I am still thinking about going abck to school, this is serious. Of course, it’s not going to be a full time thing. 我要食飯，我要供樓, I really don’t have the luxury to go back to school full time anymore.

But the question is, am I really that interested? I am not 100% sure. I know that it drives me nuts when I see ppl wasting energy, or do things/make decision that have no regards to the environment. But actually working in the field, I don’t know. Luckily, after talking to the presenter, she said that since we are in the same company now, we can probably coordinate something to have my hands to try on something. That’s cool. I can get a taste of it before I dive into it. But at the same time, I need to act quick cos I’m not exactly young anymore, I can’t take too much risk. Life is having a lot more burden and responsibility now that I’m old.

God, give me guidance.

Commute News

Have been quite consistently going to work by public transit + cycling about 3-4 days a week. Have to drive sometimes bcos I have other things to do after work or I have to travel between the old and the new office. I'm glad that I didn't buy any transit passes yet cos then it would be complete waste of money.

Also, on my cycling days, I have been very consistently cycling all the way home and that save me another token right there. Pretty please about that. Together with the time and frustration that are saves from cycling, it's totally worth it.

Unfortunately, with winter fast approaching and that it's raining quite often, I have to start thinking about what I should do during winter. Last week, I tried to do transit all the way both ways (it was a yucky rainy day) and oh my goodness, took me over 2 hours each way.

There're quite a few ways to do the transit. I was trying to be cheap and lazy last time. Cheap in the sense that I found this TTC bus that would go up all the way to where my office is. Even though I have to pay another token as I travelled into York Region but token is cheaper than YRT ticket. So that's the cheap part. The lazy part is that the bus has a stop pretty much right in front of the office. Minimal walking involved, especially on a rainy day. I hate it when my shoes and socks get wet.

But in order to be cheap and lazy, I have to pay heavily on time. As I said, 2+ hours per way, a total of 4+ hours. I have to say, it exceeds of my limit. I can't really justify spending so much time commuting everyday. TTC has failed me.

And it's not like I could sleep on the train/bus to compensate for my lack of sleep due to commuting. In order to do that route, I have to either walk->subway->subway->subway->bus or walk->subway->bus->bus. Regardless which one I do, the slowest bottleneck is the last bus leg, it has to wee through all the local traffic and loop all over the place and eventually brings me to my office. I can only see it getting worse when it starts to snow. Anyway, this many change of transit pretty much prevent me to have any kind of quality sleeping.

There's another way to do the transit thing. It's the opposite of cheap and lazy. Basically, I have to go all the way up to Finch and then go Viva and then walk half a city block to go to my office. Great. Not that keen on walking in the winter, especially not half a city block. I'm not exaggerating when I say half a city block. The stupid office is actually right in the middle between Hwy 7 and 16. Retarded. I suppose I can take the north-south bus along the street from Hwy 7 but with the YRT quality service, unless u time it right, you might as well just walk.

I supposed it's easier to time the north-south bus on the way home cos I can get out of the office at a relatively predictable time but it's the walk up north that's the killer cos it's uphill walking.

If it's anything more than or even close to 2 hours per way, it's pretty much out of the question. It only takes me less 1.5hours to do the cycle->bus->cycle route. And it acutally only took me 1hr25min cycling all the way home today, even with the wind blowly against me. Anyhow, I'm going to try that route tmr (raining again tmr) and see what happens.

I might end up saying, "Screw this. I am going to drive everyday."

Ironing

There're lots of housework that I don't mind doing. Not that I like them but I don't mind doing it if it needs to be done. But one of the things that I really don't like doing is ironing. 奈何e家返工要著 business causal, 咁就要熨衫熨褲，in my opinion, it's a total waste of time. 每次洗完都會熨，好煩。

喺轉 office 之前，對上一次需要熨衫既時候，我都係側側膊，叫詹占幫我熨；e家個個星期都熨，就唔可以當人家係工人咁洗，加上我欠缺練習，熨得超慢，真係覺得我自已喺度浪費光陰，all of a sudden, those steam things in infomercial (that I always laughed at) that can iron clothes while having them hanging from the hangers seems very very appealing to me. I can think of a few gd reasons to purchase them. 1. it's fast. 2. it saves you space cos u no longer needs an ironing board. 3. it won't wreck ur clothes cos chances of burning ur clothes with it is pretty low. Those machines just seems so good to me now.

我上次洗完諗住摺得好好哋，諗住熨少一次半次唔係好覺啦，點知返到公司換衫先發現著上身真係幾皺，不過都無傾，硬住頭皮都要著架啦。好在公司有件外套，著左喺面都唔係太礙眼。但原來真係唔懶得，會俾人發現。

其實我都唔介意著皺衫，平時d t-shirt 皺過９０歲阿伯d皮我都係咁著出街架啦，我阿媽都成日話我d衫咁皺都著出街影衰佢，我唔覺得有乜問題。唉，但返工唔可以係咁，雖然我唔駛見客，但我諗老細都唔想有客上黎公司既時候見到我影衰老細既。加上公司全部人都係咁著，如果我成個流浪漢咁都唔係幾好，我個人好低調，唔想咁突出。

懷念舊 office 自由自在的日子。