Some site updates today. I got some more web space so I uploaded a bunch of old mp3’s of “music” that I wrote in 1998 when I had a burst of musical inspiration.
I also updated my book blog with the last few books I’ve read.
Christine organized a birthday part for me where I got an Xbox and everyone who came chipped in with some games or accessories. That was very cool (thanks everyone!) and also a very brave gift for Christine, who is not a gamer, and already knows well the back of my head. I’ve been playing Halo 2 mostly.
Last month we released a major update to our Poker Academy software. We added new graphics, sounds, features, AI, and no-limit play. It’s been so much fun to work on, I honestly have trouble leaving the office at a reasonable time nowadays. I feel pretty damned lucky to have a job where I can say that. Today is the one-year anniversary of releasing that product.
Saw Ministry last night at reds. The first opening band was Hanzel und Gretzel who totally kicked ass as well. Ministry was fabulous, as I expected they would be. I really liked the new stuff they played, and the last half of their set was all golden oldies. For an encore they did their cover of sabbth’s Supernaught, and then launched into Jesus Built my Hotrod. Good times. Al’s off the junk and looked good.
I baked some cookies.
On August 28th Christine & I tied the knot (quite literally!). It was a fantastic wedding. I doubt it could have possibly gone better. We even had a rainbow come out for some stunning photo-ops. We haven’t got the professional pictures yet, but above are some teasers. My dad put his pix up on his page. It’s been two weeks, but I’m still a little stunned from the experience.
The other day Christine and I got his&her iPods with some of the wedding gift money (thanks everyone!). What fantastic little machines.
A few months ago I was web surfing and found an amazing graphic artist who creates algorithmic complexity based art. Very cool stuff. One caught my eye especially, called the Buddhabrot method. A new way to render the mandelbrot set probabilistically, which generates an image reminiscent of the meditating buddha, and a space nebula.
I did a little background research and then, of course, wrote my own buddhabrot program. The result is below (click image for a much larger high-res version). The image is the result of a few billion pixel exposures. It took several hours of CPU time to produce.
Christine has just started up a web page of her own. She’s still learning how to do things so she apologizes for the newbie colors and layout. I’ve gotten her onboard the open source bandwagon. She’s using Mozilla and OpenOffice.org now — a private triumph of the household. The only thing keeping me from going linux right now is gaming.
Oh Yeah, and everyone should go see The Corporation. In this day and age, where corporations are such a huge part of our lives, documentaries like this should be made part of the curiculum in high schools.
I have become a Call of Duty nerd. Not such a hardcore nerd that I’ve joined a clan or anything. I’m still a free agent, so I still have my dignity. My Grandfather was in WWII and saw a lot of nasty action, and this personal connection has instilled upon me somewhat of a morbid fascination with the WWII era. That combined with the fact that I’m actually 0wnz0ring (or whatever the kids say these days) all the 1337 noobz with my fast reflexes, incredible aim, and advanced tactical skillz, make the game like sweet sweet crack-cocaine. Hah.
Going to go see Metallica tonight. Got tix for Xmas from Christine’s parents. I haven’t been to a big show in a while, so looking forward to some righteous old school metal.
Okay, it’s been a while again. I’ve been SUPER busy lately with work and contracts and holidays. The big event going on of late is the release of our new product at BioTools. This one is my baby, as I was the primary developer for it. We spent the last several months working on a commerical version of our Pokibot AI, and at long last we released Poki’s Poker Academy. If you like poker, check it out! It’s a great training tool for Texas Hold’em. If you ever play poker for money, our program will pay for itself easily. If you can learn just one new thing about playing the game, it pays off for the rest of your poker career. Anyways, our marketing has been a little weak so far, so spread the word ’cause I want to keep my job!
So there are a LOT of new things to report on since my last update. Christine and I went on a trip in August to Vancouver Island. We started with a wonderful visit at a family reunion (on my mother’s side). It was a smashing good time. My uncle rented a cabin on Shawinigan Lake and we got to swim and eat and eat and eat a lot. We had a talent show night which was also a lot of fun. When it was my turn I dropped dah bomb on everyone by getting up and proposing to Christine in front of everyone. Yuppers, I’m so sorry ladies, but I am engaged. That caused a great deal of hoopla, and everyone started leaping around hugging and crying. I’m typically not a very romantic guy most of the time, so I like to save all my romance points up for a long time and then unleash them in a fury of scalding romantitude.
Anyhoo, after the reunion we went to Victoria and visited my Grandparents who put us up in a oceanside motel with a grand view of the harbour. The next day my dad drove us up to Jordan River and we started a hike of the Juan de Fuca trail. I had been hoping this trail would be a lot easier than the West Coast Trail, so that Christine would enjoy it. As it turned out, this trail is pretty damned greuling as well. It wasn’t nearly as muddy, but there was very little beach hiking, and the ups and downs through the rain forest were a slog. Our second day was quite the adventure. It was a measly ‘eleven kilometers’. Of course, these kilometers are not normal kilometers. It took us 8 hours of hiking to finish that day. Each kilometer consisted of a series of switchbacks up a few hundred meters, and then back down into a valley to cross a stream or river. Repeat ad naseum. At about the half-way point we ran into a solo hiker, Jeff, who was retreating back down the trail to find us. He had just run into a black bear and knew we were close behind. Together, we walked back up the trail and found the bear just sitting there by the trail. It wasn’t acting agressive, but it wasn’t showing any signs of fear towards us and it certainly didn’t care to move from its comfortable spot (it was reclined against a tree).
We decided to bushwack around the bear. This turned out to be extremely difficult. Off the trail it was a meter or more of rotting forest debris covering everything. It was slow pickings, and treacherous terrain. Besides the foresty type obstacle course, the terrain consists of high amplitude hills and valleys, and impenetrable portions of brush and water channels. At one point I stepped on a rotting log and disturbed a wasp which proceeded to sting the bejeezuz out of my ankle. Later, Christine took a spill down a hill and snapped off one of her hiking poles, and she got scratched up pretty good too. It took us an hour and a half to walk about 200 meters past the bear. Once we found the trail again (which was not an easy task), we slogged more of the same awful ups and downs for hours. At one point Christine sunk into some mud past her knees. It took both Jeff & I to pull her out. She was not a happy camper. We reached the campsite just as the sun was setting and had just enough twilight left to pitch the tent.
The next day we hiked again with Jeff, on what was luckily a much shorter day (3 or 4 hours of hiking). Jeff was extremely fun to hike with. He was one of those super-nice, super-well rounded, super-experienced type guys. It seems he had worked a half-dozen totally different carreers, and tried just about every hobby there is. Needless to say, we had a lot of good conversations to pass the time while hiking. The next campsite had a gorgeous beach, and we arrived early enough in the day to relax on the beach and enjoy the sun. Someone tipped us off about a secret waterfall. We hiked two minutes up from a little brook running out of the forest and down to the ocean. We climbed over big fallen trees and roots and through the creek, into what progressively became a large narrow canyon. The walls were about 40 feet high and covered in lush green moss. The canyon was no more than 2 meters wide, so the effect was stunning. At the end was a breathtaking waterfall and beneath it, shallow pool. We took turns showering in the abso-freezing-lutley frigid waterfall. It was nice to wash the sweat and grime off.
The next day, the eternally kind Jeff offered to drive us back to Victoria, so we took him up on his generous offer and did just that. What a nice dude. We spent the next two days hanging out in Victoria, shopping, sightseeing and visiting with relatives.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Long time to update. I guess that must mean i’ve been busy. Yup, I sure have. I’ve been working, hiking, consulting, scheming, reading, and playing poker of course.
Christine and I did a weekend excursion to the Lake Louise area recently, and did two nights in the backcountry. We discovered a beautiful gem of a place to camp — Hector Lake. It is under an hour hike from the highway, and is right next to a jaw-dropping beautiful mountain lake. We got to fall asleep to the sound of loons and wake up to the sight of tall mountains reflecting on the emerald waters. The only catch is that you have to ford a river on the way. It is a fairly wide river, and gets to be several feet deep (luckily it stayed below my bits and peices), where the current is fairly strong.
This friday I’m off to Vancouver Island with Christine. We’re going to a family reunion (my mom’s side) and then we intend to hike the Juan de Fuca trail.
I’ve also discovered the joy of Paradise Poker’s new 1v1 No-Limit tournaments. It’s fun and fast paced, and most importantly, most of the players suck really bad. I’m doing pretty well so far with 29 wins and 12 losses (a 70% win-rate). I havn’t tried the higher buy-in’s yet, but once I build up a nice big bank roll, I’ll give it a try.
I’m also involved in making a little program to help out the
Methuselah Mouse Prize which is a fantastic idea to help promote research into life extension and curing the aging disease. More people die from aging than any other cause of death — why do we spend so little on combatting this awful disease? It has a 100% mortality rate, and we are all afflicted. Hopefully this will raise public awareness of the problem, and excite research in the area.
