I just upgraded the website software yesterday (to Drupal 4.7 if you care) so I decided I’d try a fresh new design.

I think it’s rather pleasant if I do say so myself.

This year’s May 2-4 weekend wasn’t too bad. In fact, considering last year’s experience, it was a great weekend.

It started late Thursday night when my friend Arda randomly asks me if I want to go to New York City. Hmm kinda out of left field but hey, I’m always up for random things, especially road trips. Anyway it turns out Saturday was the Turkish-American Day Parade and Arda, being Turkish, really wanted to go revel in the atmosphere of thousands of his kind. Suuure Arda, sure. I think he wanted to go show the girls some Turkish Delight.

Fast forward to Friday evening, we had mostly everything planned out. Arda had a van so we were gonna go with a group including myself, Arda, Ryan CW, Daveed, and possibly Caustan pending some rescheduling of a show of his. We were set to leave around midnight, do the 8-9 hour drive and arrive in time for the 11 am parade. We figured we’d enjoy that for a while then tour around a bit, check out a concert, then go out on the town at night. Stay one night, then add in some more touristy things Sunday morning then back in Canada by Sunday night.

So we’re all excited about this random road-trip and it definitely promised to be a great time but then disaster struck. There was a flaw in our equation. Around 6:30 pm Arda messages me with the news that his dad unexpectedly took his van. To Montreal. And left his cellphone. NOOOOOOOO! Of all the things to happen, Arda’s dad takes his van without telling him. I mean, had the van blown up, or got crushed in a freak road hockey accident, or ANYTHING other than his dad taking it, I would have been resigned. But this reality was too much to bear.

After a couple hours of sulking, we started thinking of a solution as we didn’t want to give up just yet. We thought of renting a car, but then realized all car rental places were closed that late at night. Then Ryan had the brilliant suggestion of checking car rental places around Pearson Airport. Turns out he was right and they were all open late. But then came the harsh reality that it was the long weekend and every place we called was totally out of cars.

As a consolation prize, Ryan and I decided we’d hit up Toronto to visit Daveed and go out for a night and come back Sunday. We ended up leaving Waterloo around noon and we spent the afternoon and evening touring around downtown. We ended up at the Eaton Centre and there we checked out Hollister. Ahh Hollister, where do I start. Seriously, it’s like they expected me there. The moment I walk in I tune into the music they’re playing…it’s Jimmy Eat World. I’m thinking sweet, I love Jimmy Eat World.

So there I am, navigating my way through the dark chambers of Hollister (if you’ve never been to one, believe me, it’s like spelunking in a deep, underground cave) humming along to Jimmy Eat World. My first thought is that I should have brought a flashlight or a torch. My next thought is that I’m listening to a different song now, but it’s still Jimmy Eat World. Now repeat these two thought processes about 8 more times and that about describes my experience during my time in Hollister. Walking into the store during the 2nd song of the Futures cd (one of my favourite cd’s ever), and then listening to the entire cd was the surest sign that I was meant to be there.

Later that night we picked up a case of beer and went back to Daveed’s place to pre-drink. Now I was hoping to be able to drink with at least a few other locals, or meet them at the bar. None of said events occurred. I blame Daveed. Anyway, we ended up at Madison’s which is on Madison Ave. and it’s basically 2 massive houses transformed into a ginormous, multi-level, patio-covered, pub littered with live music. We ended up running into a few people we knew and despite not knowing many people, it was a good time. A good introduction to what I hope to be a place I’ll go back with a huge group of friends sometime later this summer.

On our way back home from Maddie’s, Daveed and I dropped into some karaoke bar that Daveed has often tried to visit before. I say tried because each time he has entered (drunk, no less), they’ve told him it’s a private party and kick him out. This time was no different and we walked all the way into the place and I just remember hearing everyone say in broken english “private night, private night” and we respectfully left.

Our escapades were not yet over however, as we dropped into a Pizza Pizza shortly afterward and came upon a huge line-up. The line-up consisted of several random customers and then a flock of teenagers. About 6 or 7 of them. They reminded me of the goslings I see around campus. Except they were without their mother. And dumber than the goslings I see around campus. Ryan was taking a picture of Daveed and one of the guys got protective and told us not to take pictures of “his girls” who was in the background. He then walked away to a table. So we made fun of him for being such a douchebag…in front of his other friends still in line.

Like all immature brats who yearn for attention in life – but unfortunately do not receive any from the cruel, cruel world that they live in – he proceeded in being a dick. He startd throwing bits of crust in our general direction while we sat on a bench waiting in line. After a few, I returned the favour and then in a state of pure machismo he walked over and tried to shove me. Except I was sitting so I didn’t exactly move. In any case, I laughed at him and I think Daveed got in his face.

The sad part is that his friends were telling us to back off and to mind our own business…if only they realized how much of a loser their friend was. It must really suck having to stand up for some loser because they hang out together.

I remember thinking how badly I wanted to fight the kid but I laughed it off because being in a drunken state I probably wouldn’t have had any self-restraint. Ironically, he’s lucky I wasn’t sober or I may have had to exercise my right to ill.

The next day we all slept in and had a nice breakfast before going out around town again. We walked through U of T campus where I got to immerse myself in its rich history. I thought it was kind of cool, but even the buildings felt snobby. For example, the following is a picture inside one of the main halls of the Hart House…basically their student centre.

Like…whaaaat? Where are the comfy couches? The littered Tim Horton’s cups? Feels like some boarding school in jolly ol’ England.

My May 2-4 in short: no glorious road-trip to NYC, no mad partying, no fireworks, but some quality time spent with some good friends.

My excuse for not having blogged for so long is that I’ve spent so much of my time learning web programming and building the new site for uwstudent.org which I help run. It’s rather ironic that since leaving computer engineering and going into the arts faculty, I’ve spent significantly more time doing computer geeky things. I can’t hide it, I’m still an engineer at heart.

The site has finally gone live again after months of being offline. To give a bit of a background, uwstudent.org is a student-run website that delivers news on the University of Waterloo community that was started 5 years ago by four students, including my good friend Ryan Chen-Wing.

I’ve never expected to be a news writer but it’s kinda just worked its way onto my plate. I originally got involved because of Ryan and my interest in student life here at UW. As of late, I’ve been using my involvement to gain awesome experience with web programming and now I’m at the stage where I’ll finally get to use this involvement to start contributing to the UW community by keeping students up to date on all the things going on.

Anyway, I’m really excited to make the site huge again – in its heyday it had upwards of over 3000 unique ips per week – and I’ll be working on building up a thriving online community and hopefully an awesome resource for incoming and first-year students.

It’s official, I am leaving the nest. Ya, I am moving away from my adopted Aussie family because I have found the house of my dreams. Sure it will cost me $600 a month, but you can’t buy the view I have. I am a 2 minute walk from the beach, and I can see the ocean from my bedroom window. It is gonna be great, my landlord is chills as well, but no match for Bill Simpson, I will miss him. If any of you are going to be in the area in the next 6 months you are more than welcome to stay with me!

Other than that, the weekend was pretty slow, just took it easy, lived the Aussie way. So basically just watched rugby and drank beer, good times.

My 3 year retirement from baseball ended on Saturday. Very emotitional day for me stepping onto the field without the blue and red and number 6 of the Aurora Jays on but it was good to get back out there. It was a top of the table clash, with my new club, Forest Hills coming out on top in a nailbiting last inning comeback.

Well I have finally made it back to Sydney after two weeks of utter debauchery on the beautiful Australian coast. Let me tell you, it is tough getting back to uni life after a two week holiday, I am struggling. It has hit me that for the next 5 weeks until exams I have to do work, very depressing.

It all started in Airlie Beach, the one fateful night I spent on land. I went to the bar around 9, just in time for happy hour. Now happy hour led into 2 for 1 drinks at 10:30, by which time I felt very happy. The 2 for 1 drinks were probably not necessary at this point but who am I to turn down a bargain? Needless to say that night was interesting, I met a bunch of random Canadians which is always good fun. The next day I was off for 3 days and 2 nights of sailing around the Whitsunday Islands. It was awesome, I got to sleep on the boat, and the days were pretty much a cycle of lie on the deck, sail, snorkel, lie on the deck, and repeat.

My next stop was Brisbane which was pretty good as well. The city itself wasn’t too exciting but had some good crazy nights on the town. From there I went up to Surfer’s Paradise which looks exactly like the start of CSI Miami when they show the beach. There is a long stretch of beach, a road right near it, and condos and apartments everywhere you look. After Surfer’s I went to Moreton Island for a 4WD adventure tour. The island is made of sand so we went sand surfing and sand toboganning which is very dangerous. They sent 10 of us down in a row which was a terrible idea. I had a front row seat as one of the guys got drilled by a girl on her sand toboggin. Poor guy sprained his shoulder and fractured his finger. Then a girl fainted and some other guy sliced open his foot and I had to carry him back to our truck. I was talking to the tour operator and it sounds like this injuries are quite common, I can’t believe they can still run this things. I managed to escape the day with some sore ribs and shoulder, shocking considering what I was doing.

After that I headed to Tweed Heads to meet up with Robin, a friend I met on the plane over to Australia and we travelled to Bryon Bay together. We did some sea kayaking and some lying on the beach, and some bar hopping. Best bar would have to be Cheeky Monkey’s where I ended up on stage with minimal clothing, and came away with the grand prize of a 4 day diving course. I couldn’t do the course because I had to leave, but I was able to score a sweet t-shirt, well worth it I think!

Now I am back at uni, not totally hating my life but not quite liking it as much as during my vacation. Oh well, I suppose I can’t live like a bum the whole time I am here can I?

We finally got some new recruits for touch footy, Captain Iron Mike now has 2 wins under his belt. We are just hitting form, hopefully we can make a late push towards the playoffs!