Monday, August 29, 2005

Havent' posted for a while...

Yes I know, but life's been way too friggin busy to post to the blog. But i know with better time management it could have been done. Now I have several things back logged including

Darlington Park Camptrip
London DB Festival
Wasaga Swordfish Getaway
Crazy House BBQ ( my house.. had like 70 people! ) it was actually 69 but i didn't want to say that.

Um and School is starting and i'll be gone for a week in Miami and Bahamas. hopefully things will turn out alright (even after the Katrina hurricane / storm ). I'll be gone Sept 3rd to 10th with my family and idy to a cruise + stay at Miami :)

Chow for now.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Montreal DB Trip with PA

Yeah, I know these posts are delayed, but might as well do em. This one is about my weekend with Paddlers Anonymous in Montreal for the International Dragonboat festival held during Civic holiday weekend ( July 29th August 1st ). Thursday
  • Left at night from work back to Toronto to Idy's place and slept over at my Richmond Hill home.
Friday
  • Got on the bus at Yorkdale where most people were getting picked up and loaded up the bus with our stuff. Went to McDees for a pit stop and sandwiches were quite delicious for a cheap price as usual!!
  • Had some trouble figuring out where exactly Gardner Hall was in Mcgill residences but finally found the place and we all unloaded our stuff and settled in. No air conditioning there but it was pretty clean residence. Reminded me of V1 in Waterloo with the shared washrooms on each floor.
  • After settling, we went to Guido and Angelina for italian food. It wasn't that great but some dishes were pretty alright. I had a pasta with very unfresh mussels and clams and it was expensive for what it's worth / size. Service wasn't that great neither. The place looked nice though. So some of the ladies took some pictures there. Girls like taking pictures don't they?
  • And here's me and Idy at G&A
  • And here's her beating me up ( I love this pic )
  • Ok, so after dinner, we went clubbbb/bar hopping in st.laurent. Taking the Metro or whatever it was called for the first time in Montreal. Btw, this was my first Montreal downtownwalking around chilling in Montreal experience!
  • A bunch of us went to bars here and there had a round of shooters that were suppose to be Polar Bears but ended up to be hardcore polar bear vodkas. They were cheap but they weren't too easy to swallow. I was expecting some sweetness there!! Chugging beers I'm not much of a beer chugger but I do have a picture of me chugging two at the same time!!
  • After that, we hit the club district, there were a few empty clubs with free entrance bought a few drinks here and there and danced a little bit. They weren't that bad at all : I like the Montreal clubs. Afterwards we hit up Tokyo Bar and that place was PACKED , free entrance for guys and girls with flyers . Drinks were decent priced and it was quite an experience. Idy got quite drunk so stayed there the rest of the night.
  • Got home at 2am ish? Walked the way back like drunkards on the streets. Like 10 of us arms over shoulders linked and just wandered back to the residences. The worst part was the road that went to the residences was one LONG and steep uphil' 10 minutes if you're not drunk but 20 minutes if you are
  • I was quite tired for the races but up and at em on Saturday.. 7am oh boy.
Saturday
  • Had breakfast at the Mcgill cafeteria.. had like 5-7 items of carb food items
  • Effects of alcohol still felt during the first race of the day.
  • Montreal Race at Park DeJean or something was very nice. It was made for some Olympics event that happened a few years back. Lanes were nice and wide and deep.
  • Pulled some 2:26-2:30s times on qualifying day. People were tired and it wasn'tof a huge importance here. Eventually we were placed in Rookie B division the next day. No matter, it was all about the hardware.
  • Oh well went back to residence, and showered got ready to get out to go to Old Montreal for dinner and chillin'Walked our way around downtown first actually and I bought my sexy ham sup sunglasses cuz my old oakleys were stolen. Oh well took a really good pic of me with em at Caban :
  • Then afterwards, we went back to the Residences to change into some pimping clothes to hit Old Montreal. Wow Old Montreal is beautiful. So many people at night on the weekend.
  • Resauranted du vieux port .. after waiting in line too long at this other steak place; every good restaurant was like filled. Anyhow the food at this place was cheap and good to eat. $20 bucks ish. I had some fish and Idy had some chicken. We heard rumbling that night and apparently it wasa fireworks show and from what we hear, it happens every weekend for some international fireworks festival / competition.
  • After dinner, met up with couples from the PA daWave team hehe and spent a good night in old Montreal. Had ice cream cones / some had crepes, and ben and jerries and we also did caricatures!! Ours was deemed the most funny, I would scan and post here if I had a scanner. I'm known as the Sailor now lol. ( The guy we had was VERY good and is very creative at the end of the picture.
  • It was a blast, having new friends laugh and poke fun at us while we couldn't see what was being drawn! And then of course these things outdoors catches quite a bit of attention from everyone so we had a crowd going because of our obnoxious and loud laughter. At times, there were periods of confusion and curiosity from bystanders as to what the artist was going to paint next. As it made sense, they laughed at the funny results. It was a fun night indeed and we also took an early trip back 1 am ish with taxi and slept early for the semi and finals the next day. This was it.. HARDWARE day. No hardware = sadness haha j/k (
  • I was running on low sleep because I worked very hard the week before at work to compensate for skipping Friday so I was really tired. I'm tired right now posting this so I'll keep it short:

  • Sunday was REALLY early due to our rookie b placement. First race was like 7-8 am I can't remember. But it was early enough that we werne't able to have our included breakfast at mcgill again.
  • Semi Finals and Finals; for Finals we really focused and silence in the boat there was. We pulled a fast time of 2:19 ripping and killing all babies in the other lanes. Our times were faster than the A div by like 3-4 seconds but we dind't really beat them because of the weight difference screw up in the SRS boats used there at Montreal. If you are an avid paddler then you would know from Network54 and all the things that messed up at Montreal

  • We didn't actually care, lol winning was awesome. There is an action pic of us crossing the finish line winning with around 3/5 of the boat. It was quite an experience, surprisingly, I felt good that day, I pulled so hard that I had to grunt once and made a face. It was crazy, I felt I broke a seal to my pain threshold for db. It;s all about experiencing your limits of endurance and pushing it to the max in subsequent races. I know in the future races, I will be better because of this.
  • Because in each of the top divs of each class, you can get medals and a big cups for placing first (Montreal was really generous with the medals and cups ). we were able to bring back gold and a nice big gold cup that could possibly fit a couple champagne bottles.
  • Just went nuts after the race there, it was exciting as heck. All I remember was Nancy from daWave yelling 'hardware' as we rocket finished to the finish line. Rockets baby !! We had our lunch again PA BBQ at the park and also Chill, our bold friend got our medals and cups because we had to leave early due to our bus schedule.
  • Of course, this didn'tt look good for Montreal but it wasn't a big deal. And I heard from the paddling forums that they ended really late that night like 7 pm or something.
  • Lots of joy, carrying the cup and doing the PA famed pyramid and trying to put the cup on top to the person on the top. Fearful of crushing the cup, we only tried doing that once. The pyramid would collapse before the cup went up top.
  • Though we have some pictures that look quite nice.
  • So yeah , we went back to res and showered and packed up to leave on our school bus and went to mcdees again.. quite good hmmmmm
  • It was a long drive back to STC it was like around 9pm but the night didn't end and we went to Danny's bar one of the member of daWave to Keele and Finch near York university at Cue Bar to have DELICIOUS wings and drinks. We also played some poker cough cough and me and idy.. well Idy.. WON half the pot ( split with Jer sun)
  • It was an awesome weekend overall made new friends and chilled with old ones! ( GOOD TIMES )
  • Francis Roque is quite a guy with his dSLR. Make sure to check out his website for those 800 pictures of us in PA Montreal. Some awesome shots here and there!

Couple other people's posts + picture links

Jeremy Tse's Blog on Montreal

Idy's Blog on Montreal

Dan Ho's Blog on Montreal

Francis Roques dSLR pics of Montreal

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Wow imagine all that money...

Imagine those 500-1000 people who can turn that want into something more useful for the World like turn counties in Africa into more prosperous self-sustaining countries...

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Waterloo Festival July 16th 2005

This is long due but here we go:

Kiwanis Waterloo Dragonboat festival went down on July 16th 2005 and my team Swordfish, were preparing for it since it was deemed our last festival of the season. However, the the day rained out but that didn't stop us Swordfish from partying and celebrating the 'fake' end of the season. To summarize, here is my bullet point form summary:

  • Friday night, had a quick practice drill at Waterloo Laurel Creek with the entire team. Most Toronto peeps came up to sleep over at our co-captain Ron's place that night.
  • Post practice dinner at Ben Thanhs' prior to head-shaving ritual
  • Went over to Ron's place and grabbed clippers to shave off heads of several male team members. Some wussssed out or avoided the ordeal weeks earlier... I had the most dramatic change with a long hair reverse mohawk. It was the funniest experience I've had for a while.
  • Slept late : Race day happened the next day. Early morning stares and laugther from people at the festival and bystanders due to our strange looks. The day was great pitched a nice tarp thanks to James to avoid the down pour that day ( which was supposedly due to the tornado weather down south ). We got in at most one qualifying race and a 250m Iron Swordfish ( combined with Iron Dragons / Swordfish ) and pulled in decent time of 2:19 for the 500m qualifier. As for the 250m, we took 3rd place beating Who's your Daddy and PA Men in this Waterloo regatta.
  • Day ended with the cancellation of the festival at around 3 ish. We all went back to shower and prepare for that night's after party. First headed out to East side Marios. Was very nice. Other people shaved off their hair already by then!!! EXCEPT FOR ME! I wore my reverse mohawk ( as you will see ) to East sides. It was great ... Comments, Glances, Props were given :)
  • Went to LCBO to pick up loads of booze, got shakers and shot glasses. Went to Ron's place for the afterparty. A good bunch of people along with friends and roommates. Drinking, drinking games, mixing shots with Prae serving multiple rounds to people was definately fun. Getting drunk and doing 'PILE-ON' definately got people hyped up for Bomber. Before heading to bomber, our captains Dan and Ron gave us all small little gifts with significant meanings as a token of their appreciation for our efforts this season. We also chipped in money to buy our captain's gifts! :) I got some Foot powder WHICH I am using to match my B*Porn slippers
  • Headed to bomber that night after the party at Ron's. Some people stayed back and slept but most went out to bomber to dance away the night while still buzzed. I wore my hair once again and got stares and laughter. Bumped into my roomate Ed and his first surprising shocking expression was priceless :). It was a long night of dancing and drinking till we left for Ron's place again.
  • Somehow, Asian people in general would not be as extreme to get mohawks or something of that sort but people of other background (caucasian) are more use to it. Definately that day, I got lots of attention because of the hairdo. But more so, it was fun to do it for the team and to just do something wild and extreme from time to time for myself.
  • Went back to Ron's, was so tired and drunk but stayed up to play MAFIA with those who were still up!
  • After that night, it was the end of the season. But afterwards, the team built up even more fire to do more festivals including London ( August 20th ) and Stratford ( September 24th ). Somehow, the awesome fun we had thru Waterloo and the fact that we weren't able to show off our potential from hardwork we made in the period between Toronto and Waterloo, caused the team to want to do more to end the season off in a full regatta.
  • I missed the last two practices however due to previously planned trips including guest paddling with PA to Montreal ( next post ) and camping with Team China ( the post after next ) !! But i'm excited to reunite this coming Saturday and will be hitting Wasaga with my fishies and doing a Cottage overnight stay 'Cottage Remix'.
Well that was one of the memorable weekends I've had this Summer. Spending time with Wakeen ( he lived at my house for the entire week working for clients up until race day ) as well as chilling with Swordfish crew, has made my Summer that much better. The next day some of us got together to have some Pho and said some parting goodbyes.

*Yawn* I need to use a blogging Client, this is too much hassle!!

Links :

Wakeen's Post

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Quick Post: - Decent Day

Quick Post:

Decent day today

  • Work was okay. Stuck on some problems
  • Petcetera with TK to buy some fishies and ate some good ol' vegetarian Al Madina
  • Read up on Working out . Setting up workout routine and training logs to use
  • Hit the gym for an hour doing low volume training + ERG 500m : 1:51 : 6 resistance
  • Sobeys: 40 dollars of healthy snacks / foods (cost so much :p)
  • Washed the Fridge due to roommate incompetence ( soy sauce + fruitopia sludge )
  • Computer Wannhhh... ( workout routine, blogging, music organize )
  • Things on my mind: thirsty, hungry, need to post blog entries etc.
Good day!

Monday, August 08, 2005

Slacking.. Head hurts

Yes yes I said before the weekend started that I would post some blog entries for the month of July and early August.. but right now I have a headache and I've been working 'hard' at work at RIM ( staying long hours there ) in hope of getting things done that would help me do my Work term report *shudders*

It seems like Jeremy, Dan, Idy, Theresa all have their big blog post about how fun Montreal was while I have nothing to give you guys. hehe. And I haven't really posted about Waterloo either. Now another event has passed by : Darlington Park with Team China :)

I will make it this weeks' goal to post blogs for all the events including pictures so that I won't leave it all to the end.

This coming weekend, we will be hitting Wasaga so there will be more events coming that I will need to post about . Better do these things soon!! :)

My eye lids are slowly drooping... Too tired from thist weekend's healthy camping ordeal... and work today. *yawns*

Once again... till next time

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Time... ahhh can't handle Tomorrow camping lah

holy crap.... can't handle... Been organizing my pictures .. take so friggin long. There must be a better organizing solution *yawn*...

i have yet to pack for camping for tommorow argh and i don't think i can get this load of laundry in.

sometimes i just wanna do nothing! freeze time!

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Busy two weeks...

So, haven't posted a while so I thought I'd take some time off work *ahem* to post something :)

In point form:

  • Last weekend : nothing much really I can't recall where I was : oh I remember now all of a sudden. I chilled with Idy on the friday night and all was better Saturday. Chilling it was. We hit up Mix2 Karaoke for Jonquil's and Brenda's Bday celebration. It was fun times, not really singing but drinking and playing drinking games with new acquaintances. I got so drunk that Idy had to drive me home, but sitting in the bumpy passenger seat wasn't the best idea. We had to stay at my house cause I felt sick lol. No puke though. I'm still on my no puke streak! Next day (Sunday), I was suppose to wake up and head to Milestones to see off Jacky to HK but i couldn't handle it, I needed my extra hour sleep. I had a long long day that Sunday as I had to wake up 'early'. I spent two hours driving across the city west to east and east to west to pick up my grandparents, idy, and arrive at Mississauga Living Center of Arts for the festival / orchestral performances. It was great, albeit my lack of sleep enjoyed my dad's performance at the 1:30pm and the 7:30pm show along with various artists and performers in that chinese singing / orchestra scene!!. Also had a nice lunch at Moxies at Square One ( it was behind Living arts ) with my family. I even had a long island ice tea and some banana shakened liquor drink... (after Saturday night of mad drinking). The night was mighty long and so I slept in Toronto and drove back to loo in the morning.
  • Last week - Just mighty busy week at work, eating out the whole week lots of money spent. Had to get some bugs and features completed ASAP before the long weekend started ( which started one day earlier for me cause of my Montreal Dragonboat trip with Paddlers Anonymous ). So yeah quite brutal. Staying up at work till 4 am for two nights and 10/11pm on the Thursday. But after that, it was good.. good break in Montreal ( though I didn't really sleep during the weekend... sleepless nights and paddling during the day...
Anyhow, I feel like doing some work so this is to be continue on the next post regarding my awesome Montreal trip (hint: the team i was paddling with won gold baby GOLD!)