So sometime this week I will check out a more permenant solution to the downtown parking problem. My friend Ken at work will show me his lot, which if I remember correctly is only 2 blocks away from work. It's supposed to be $85 bucks a month underground so that sounds much better than my $8-a-day parking at the closer lot to work. Damn $8 a day x 20 days = $160.. on top of gas.. holy..

for those who ask, my airbrush is a Badger 200-3..
Hope I can be satisfied with the single-action trigger.. or else.. "D'OH! Should have gotten the 150 instead!".........

Wow, so my bro reminded me that I have been working out for almost 10 months now. (heh heh, of course I really should exclude the month that I spend on my Japan-Korea-HK trip in December..) but yeah.. time flies I suppose.. My readers are encouraged to say thanks to LurLur for introducing me to the joy of the gym, and my bro for being the better half of the workout team.

Er.. now I have to ice down my shoulder or else I won't be able to drive; and someone send me some encouragment to turn my one-big-pack to a nice 6-pack.

Alright, I have to admit that I have a big snoring problem. I have been told by various people that I snore big time, and hearing the recording of myself on my prof's PDA proved that I sound like the illegitimate son of a chain saw and a Honda outboard engine. Damn. No wonder my camping friends look at me funny when I say I wanna join their camping trip.

Today I decided to try something.. I bought some Breathe Right nasal strips (some reviews here). So supposedly I just stick them on my nose and they lift the top part of my nose and thereby enlarging the nasal cavity and help me breath. I've hired my trusty brother to check on me at 3am to see if I still snore.

I'll let you all know how that goes -- don't wanna "wake up the neighbours" in Algonquin Park again.

Oh my... Surfing the web caused me to arrive at a site called Iraq Body Count.. hmmmm...

I think I am done with reading the book C++ template and I can't say I am 100% impressed with the book. Well, maybe that's not fair to say it's the book that I don't like.. Perhaps there are things related to C++ templates that I can finally admit that I don't like. Most likely perhaps it's the fact that there are a lot of things in it that isn't mature enough, and then the things template-users have to do (bending over backwards meanwhile) to get things to work.. etc.

I guess the best parts of the book for me (keeping in mind that I am not a complete newbie on the subject) is the more "intermediate/advanced" sections closer to the back on things like expression templates.. For me it was an easy-reading companion to the original literature by
Todd Veldhuizen, and the paper by Jim Blinn in IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications. Also I bet I will revisit the vast section of functors later..

Like I said, I did learn a few new things and was made aware of a few pitfalls that could have tripped me over, so I can still say that $60 CAD was well spent.. if I had to pay the full price of the book (plus tax.. I do live in Canada..) I'd think I was robbed. :-)

You know what? Perhaps adjusting the time I go to work (i.e. get out of the bed/house earlier might just be the key to stress-free commute to work afterall :) At least if I get out earlier I'll miss the rush for the parents to drive the kids to that school on Bayview before Lawrence Av...

But MAN that was a big sinkhole on Bayview before York Mills Rd. this morning. No wonder the traffic was tied up before then. Still, I made it into work in like 40 mins and that's not bad at all.

urgh.. still trying to read the book on templates.
First impressions is that the ordering of the chapters is a bit weird for me.. but that could just be me reading it at midnight underneath a 60W bulb..

Man I can't wait until the weather is warmer so I can break out my hobby kits again and try out my new Badger air brush.

Haha.. this is great.. now I get to bitch about things I just bitch to myself.. now I see why my friends that keep a diary say it's therapeutic.

So I've started to drive to work regularily since, oh, the week before last week, before then I've tried driving once/twice a week. Given the time I leave my house (around 8am), going onto the 404/DVP will be suicide..
so I take the Bayview extension.

During the March break it was great: I spend an average of 35 mins door to parking lot. I find it a relatively stress-free way to go to work, since there was not much congestion, and giving my annoyance with the TTC.. So life was good, even though at the going rate I would have spend 2.4x the money compared to riding "the rocket"..

But now, I guess all the vacationers came back and these few days I had so much fun jostling with other Torontonians.. Expecially fun is the section of Bayview between Eglinton and Moore (just before the Loblaws).. man, in the afternoon that section is parked with cars so effectively we have only one lane each way.. I guess even if it takes 50 minutes now it's still better than having to take the 1 hour plus door-to-door on the TTC..

I guess I'll just try driving some more and decide if I wanna spend the $98 on the MetroPass, or fork out the money to buy gas and parking downtown. hmm...

Well, after reading the review on slashdot I ran out ( er.. more like flung my arm out to the mouse and clicked ) and bought C++ Templates: The Complete Guide ISBN 0201734842... I'm going to start reading it and see if there's anything more to learn, or learn that I just wasted $60 CAD.. :(

ok good, so finally I figured out how to post (again).. off to workout now.

Apparently I've just joined the blogging revolution. Not bad, I say.