Checksum Arcanius

Dan, Scott and I arrived in Toronto today. We stopped at Niagara Falls briefly right after passing customs into Canada, and while very impressive, the falls would be a lot better in a nature preserve instead of overly commercialized as they currently are. Nevertheless, I’m still glad we went — it was pretty cool.

At the moment, we have only 15 of the 40 tickets we asked for; the balance we have in the form of vouchers that we have to find movies for. Thats crap; never come to the Toronto International Film Festival because they RAR you: as it currently stands, we paid about $50 per ticket for movies the bottom half of the list of movies that we wanted to see. Awesome.

At any rate, its nice to be in another country again, even it it is “just” our neighbors to the north. And we’ll make the most of it. Scott and I went on a run tongiht, and tomorrow we have two movies. Should be fun!

It has been a long time since I was in an honest-to-goodness lightning storm. Today, on my way home from Bellevue where I enjoyed food and entertainment from the Morettis, I stopped a while to listen to the rain fall, watch the flashes and bolts, and hear the thunder roll. Majestic, enchanting, and awe-inspiring. I would like more.

Major recent events thats I would like not to forget:

• Presented a poster about my CREE project at the UW’s Summer REU poster session at Mary Gates Hall on Thursday, September 16, 2007
• My brother Ben and his wife Kaylee came to town last weekend. I got to play ultimate with Ben and eat dinner and watch Serenity with the whole family
• I’ve been spending about one day a week testing Cochlear implant users with the Rubinstein lab at the Bloedel Hearing Research Center at the UW Medical Center. A lot of their stories are truly incredible — cochlear implants have had huge positive impacts on most of their lives. Its great to talk to the subjects between tests and learn about their stories
• Today (Tuesday), was the final “required” CREE event, the third BRI lecture
• Also today, I got to run a major software package at work that I built. After a little debugging, it is working well, and it is an incredibly fulfilling feeling to have it working so well at this point

On my way back to the U-district after work on Tuesday, the sunroof on my car, a 1996 Saturn SL1 Sedan, stopped moving when I was trying to close it. This was a long time in coming — for a while I have had to help the motor get the job done by pulling or pushing on the roof as it opened and closed. So when it finally stopped moving, I suspected that the motor had died. It was a good day to have the roof stuck open, as it was nice and sunny. I took a few parts of the car apart to take a look at the motor, but it ends up that the real problem (apart from the physical friction) was a burnt out fuse. Replacing it allowed the sunroof to be closed. Apparently, ’96 Saturn sunroofs have a corrosion problem, so I am not alone. At some point, I will get around to checking to see how much it might be to get it fixed.

Because of the great success from last year, Kunlun, a roommate of his, and I hit up Coleman Park just south of I-90 to watch the Blue Angels. Most everyone else was lame and wanted to play frisbee or study or work, but we still had a good time: the roommate and Kunlun brought a grill and meat, I brought the buns and condiments, and we had some good hamburgers while watching the show.

Honestly, the show seemed a little toned down this year — Kunlun suggested that maybe this is because the Angels lost one of their own a few months ago? At any rate, the sky opened up to the sun just in time and it was hard to beat the view. Of course, having the jets roaring overhead always makes for a worthwhile activity.

Early this morning before sleep, I watched Fight Club. I thought the twist was better than the one in The Usual Suspects, and it was overall more interesting as well. I give it a 4.5/5 (A).

Before that, I caught the Simpsons with Jon and Joe & Company before heading to Applebee’s for happy hour appetizers. It was as advertised, a slightly longer, slightly more involved episode that might as well have been on TV during some special. Still, some laughs, but most of then were given away in the previews. I guess I’d give it a 2.5/5 or a C.

That brings me to today, where after a good ultimate game, we headed to Jamba Juice and then the Apple Store, where we started playing with some iPhones. Somehow, after figuring out that the iPhones were active, the four of us there got the idea to put our numbers into the phones under the name of “Steve Jobs.” We then left the store, waiting for someone else to start looking at the targeted phone, and called. It was much too hilarious to watch as a man and his wife were surprised to see that they were getting a call from Steve Jobs. When the man answered, I identified myself as Steve Jobs and asked if this was the Seattle Apple Store. He seemed surprised, but answered in the affirmative. I then asked if he could get an Apple employee on the line. He paused again, but then said, “Yes” and proceeded to look around the store for the nearest employee. At this point, I was laughing too hard to remain inconspicuous, so I had to hang up and walk away from the store. But oh my, was it fun.

All this was followed by an afternoon chilling with Dan on Alki beach and a dinner which got canceled (tear), but it was a pretty good day overall.

By my 25th birthday, I want to be in the best shape of my life.

To start out, I ran about 4 miles today, then walked one more to cool off on my way back home.

I also did two sets of twelve 25lb curls and lifts. Not much, but its a start.