Soul Searchings

Just like that, it’s been another month. I’ve got to admit I’ve definitely been feeling less motivated to post nowadays. I think a big part of that is my lack of enthusiasm with Friendster overall, and I don’t think this is out of the ordinary. I think a significant portion of the people have made the migration over to Facebook, and I’m definitely one of them. I hardly log into Friendster anymore, but I check Facebook routinely. While I’m not about to abandom Friendster altogether, my participation is definitely on the decline.

Let’s see what I’ve been up to…

Several weeks ago, several coworkers started talking about mountain biking, and eventually decided to head up to Burnaby Mountain on the weekend for a ride. I was definitely interested in participating, but the problem was I had no bike to use. As I’ve mentioned before, I used to bike all the time when I was younger, but it’s been over ten years since I last rode for any significant duration. This was the incentive I needed to finally get another bike. I think it was more difficult for me to choose a bike than it was my car. There are so many things to consider - type of bike (full suspension or hardtail), brand, price, components, size, new or used, etc. I decided that since I wasn’t likely to use it all that often, I wanted to spend about $300, and no more than $400. At that price range, it was either going to be a crappy new bike, or a decent used bike. I chose to go with the second option, so I started looking on Craigslist and PinkBike. After a few days, I saw one attractive listing for a 2006 Kona Blast with a 16" frame for $400. Brand new, the price is about $750 plus tax, so for roughly half price, this was quite the deal, since it seems like good, quality mountain bikes do not depreciate very much over time. I tried my hardest to buy this bike, but in the end, I was too late, and someone else snapped it up before I got the chance. The following week, I saw a 2005 Kona Stuff with a 17" frame for $400. This bike is a year older, but more rugged. The 17" frame might have been too big for me, but for the price, I was wanting to check it out anyway. Once again, I contacted the seller right away and tried to arrange to check it out that night. But apparently someone was so eager to buy it from him, that the guy picked the seller up during his break, treated him to lunch, and bought it on the spot. When I received the email from the seller about it, I was contemplating whether I should even bother writing back just for the heck of it, and in the end I did… and it turned out to be very useful. I was saying how this was the second time in the last week that I’ve tried my hardest to buy a Kona bike, but someone always beat me to the punch. I mentioned how the other bike was a 16" 2006 Kona Blast. He emails me back saying that maybe this is fate, but he had just been in the elevator with his neighbour, who was looking to sell her bike. When he went down to the storage room to take a look at it, he saw it was a 2004 Kona Blast with a 16" frame and front brakes upgraded to disc. The asking price was $380. I arranged to take a look that night, and it looked decent, except the front brake cable had not been attached yet. I decided to let him take it in to get fixed up, and ended up taking it off his hands for $350 the next day. It just barely fits in my Yaris, but thank goodness that it actually does fit. I took it for a test spin that night, and unlike swimming, where I totally lost all my skills, I was still perfectly comfortable riding the bike. I rode it to McBride, and managed to ride up a set of four steps, and jump down the same, which I was quite happy with.

Two weeks ago Saturday, I went on my first ride on Burnaby Mountain, and it was quite the blast. I didn’t know we’d have to climb uphill for over half an hour first though, so that took quite a bit out of me. But the downhill portion was fun, and I managed to handle all of the easier runs without a problem, but it was still challenging enough for my first time. I’ve got to say that I’m glad I had all the biking experience back when I was younger. For real beginners, this would not be easy at all. This last Saturday, we went up again, and this time we chose some more difficult runs, and there were some parts with significant drops directly into tight switchbacks that I was not ready to attempt at all. I was scared I would go flying over the bank and fall down the mountain side. But all in all, it was great fun, and I’ll definitely continue riding when I can.

Elaine is all moved back to Vancouver now, so this means big changes in lifestyle once again. Drove up on the 30th with the big cargo van, and helped move everything back on the 31st. Got stuck in the rush hour traffic heading back into town around Abbotsford, and I’ve got to say I don’t know how some people can put up with it day in and day out. It was so frustrating having to crawl along for two hours for most of the stretch until the Port Mann Bridge. I’m glad the only heavy traffic location I have to commute through is the Knight Street Bridge, and I’m also glad I go to work after 9:30am and leave after 6:30pm so that I avoid most of the rush hour congestion.

Yesterday, played my first session of tennis in about two weeks, and it wasn’t the best. Played a doubles match with Ken against Gary and Kent, and we got beat pretty soundly. I definitely wasn’t playing my best, and just couldn’t get much of anything going. The first set featured all of one service hold, by Kent, and that was the deciding margin in a 6-4 set. The second set was the opposite, and surprisingly we managed to hold serve all the way until 5-6, but couldn’t continue the streak on Ken’s serve, and losing the set 7-5. Just like what happens in the pros, after being down two sets, you’re pretty much deflated, and we went away quietly, getting bagelled in the third. My serve was gone, as was my backhand. Even my forehand was a lot worse than usual. All in all, a very poor outing to be forgotten. I think it’s the first time I’ve actually lost any type of real match in years, if you can believe that. Somehow I always seem to find a way to win, whether it’s singles or doubles, but not this time.

While stinking up the court at Gladstone, Federer was marching towards his fourth straight US Open title, and 12th Grand Slam title overall. I set my computer to record the match, and tried my hardest to not find out the results until I got a chance to watch it later that night. After eating over at Elaine’s and then driving Ken to the ferry terminal, I finally got to start watching it at almost midnight. Even with the ability to skip commercials and fast forward in between points, it still took me until about 1:30am to finish watching the match. I couldn’t believe how Federer managed to win this match the way he did. Fighting off five set points in the first to take it in the tiebreak, and then warding off another two set points in the second to take that tiebreaker as well. Novak Djokovic - or Dchokavic - really gifted him the match. Regardless, I was still glad to see Federer win it, and take another step closer to breaking Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam titles. I also hope he does finally win a French Open, so solidify the claim to being the GOAT - the Greatest of All Time. Granted, with Nadal around, it’s going to be a very difficult task to accomplish, and with Federer already 26, and some young guns like Djokovic rising quickly, I think the days of Federer completely dominating the field is coming to an end. I still firmly believe he will easily surpass Sampras’ 14 slams, but I think we will not see Federer win three slams again next year. I’d be more than happy to be wrong about this though!

Wow, I can’t believe I almost neglected to mention I finally got a new computer. After living with my AMD XP2000+ for the past five years or so, the machine started having stability issues, and one of the hard drives starting to fail was the last straw. After the new Intel Core 2 Duo CPU’s with 1333Mhz FSB came out, I promptly purchased all the parts to build my new rig. The specs are the following:

• Apex TX-373 mATX Mini Tower Case Black 2X5.25 1X3.5 4X3.5INT
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz Desktop Processor - 2.66GHz - 4MB L2
• Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mATX LGA775 G33 Motherboard
• OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-15
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB
• Thermalright ULTRA-90 775 Heatpipe Cooler LGA775 Heatsink
• NMB-MAT (Panaflo) 92MM High Speed Cooling Fan 2950RPM 56.8CFM 35DBA
• Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120MM Cooling Fan 1600RPM 28.0DBA 63.7CFM FDB
• Sapphire Theatrix Theater 650 Pro PCI NTSC TV Tuner Card

Altogether, it cost me about $1000. Amazingly, after having worked with computer hardware for so long, I had never overclocked any of my machines until this one. I bumped up the stock 2.66Ghz to 3.32Ghz and it’s running perfectly stable. The difference in speed between this new machine and my old one is tenfold. When encoding a video, it would take almost an hour with my old machine, whereas the new one churns it out in about four minutes. That’s sweet.

I’ll admit that not everything is perfect with my new rig though. For one, while the Theater 650 TV tuner is significantly better in terms of video quality, I’m actually disappointed with not being able to use the ATI Multimedia Center for watching TV anymore. I just can’t seem to find software that is a suitable replacement for it, and K-Player is the closest that I’ve found. It’s the only software that will change channels in a timely manner. For video recording, I’m using BeyondTV, and the quality with that is very good, so I have no complaints in that regard. Another annoyance with my machine right now is that it doesn’t seem to know when it’s idle or not. It will never put my MSN as being Away, even if I have left the computer untouched for hours. Also after I have watched a video file while going to sleep, it refuses to activate the screensaver or go into power save mode. I think that might be a codec problem or some issue with the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack but I haven’t yet had a chance to mess around with it just yet.

To finish this entry off, I’ll briefly mention something that happened to me several weeks ago. I was playing grass volleyball after dinner out at Memorial Park, when my stomach started churning. Diarrhea was coming on, and every now and then the pain would come and after a few moments it would subside again. This has happened to me many times in the past, so I thought I’d be able to handle it, and just continued playing. As time went on, it just got worse, and the pain got to a point where I knew I had to find a washroom, and quick. There used to be a washroom right where we were playing, but to my dismay, they got rid of it for some reason. Whatever the case, let’s just say I didn’t quite make it anywhere. If you want the down and dirty details, you’re going to have to ask me about it in person. =P