Human Vacuum Cleaner

Today I finally found a bit of time to check out the computer that went bluescreen on Monday.

As I sprayed the inside with a can of air, a mushroom cloud of dust escaped from the case. At least I won't be feasting on dust - or so I thought. After an hour or so, I felt like the dust had settled on my throat and started to wheeze as if having an asthma attack.

I thought it is silly to wear a dust mask for these itty-bitty tasks, now the idea seems not that silly after all.

Trip to Wineries

My family just had the annual trip to the Niagara-on-the-Lake wineries this Saturday and it sucked.

First of all the weather was bad, there was no sun, just thick black clouds. Second, we spent most of the time in Scotland looking for the Gingsen Farm we visited last year. I gave one wrong map direction and from this point on, Dad snatched the map from my hands for any slightest doubt in directions. This is suppose to be a relaxing trip for crying out loud, why everything in his life have to become a mission of some kind?

Then came the final straw. Dad was a road warrior and I can tolerate that for short trips in the local, but a 2-hour drive is too much to bear. Why the heck is he driving at 120 km/h at a 60km/h zone? Tailgating any car in front of him? What's the rush? By the time I reach home I had a pounding headache and a sick stomach.

I think this would be the last time I'm going to any out of town trip with my parents.

1st Day of Class

Last night is the beginning of the Auditing class. The instructor spent about 10 minutes to go through some standard term-opening items and then...

"That's it for tonight. You may go."

Everyone in the class were in shock. No one moved for one full minute and the instructor just smiled and said nothing. We then realized that this was not a joke and started to leave.

I could still catch my last train and had an easy night, but imagine those who fought the traffic, drove all the way to downtown, and paid $10 parking only to hear the instructor calling it a day in 10 minutes - I would not be happy.

Let's see how the next class will go.

Scream!

My boss was gone for a 2-week vacation in August. Guess what happened? 5 computers went blue-screen within the 2-weeks span!

The last time she had a 2-week vacation, the server room's UPS went dead and down with it, the servers. I swear there's a curse going on.

Wolf Totem

Finally I got my hands on the Chinese novel, Wolf Totem, the story of a young Beijing student on exile in Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution.

Because of my background in environment science, the first chapter had already lured me into the story: it described the local leaders who insisted on total eradication of wolves in the grassland without considering the effects on the food chain. My head is screaming "this story must be translated into English", "this is great environment course material" as I flipped through the pages. Not surprisingly, an English translation project is already underway. The British Penguin Group bought the English copyright and will publish the book in 2007. I'm really looking forward to it.