Travels

Tamara and I joined Tamara's parents at Ya Ha Tinda, the government horse ranch west of Sundry. We were only there for about three and a half days, because Tamara could only convince me to take one day off of work. I should have taken a week off though, because I only got one ride in. And a bit of target shooting, during which I used a rifle bigger than a .22 for the first time in my life. It nearly kicked me off the little stool I was sitting on!

It was a good trip overall. The worst part was driving back into Calgary, because it was very hot that day. I have posted some pictures of the trip here.

Our trip to Seattle to see Serenity started on Wednesday, when we sailed to Vancouver. Our escape from Victoria was hindered by a condo fire. A ladder truck fighting the fire took up two lanes of the north bound Pat Bay highway, and traffic was backed way up. We though we weren't going to make it, but BC Ferries has put up a sign that shows how full the ferry is just after Sidney, and it was only 37% at about 4:45, so it wasn't a problem getting on. Seattle is normally a fairly rainy city, but of course the day we go we get a heat wave. Five people in a small car with no air conditioning... adventure! Traffic was also quite backed up on the I5 due to a rather nasty accident, but we qualified for the HOV lane and made good use of it, squeezing by most of the traffic.

After finding the theater, we went to the Space Needle and took a few pictures. The admission to go up was $13 USD or something silly, which we decided was not worth the view. We wandered around and stumbled across the Science Fiction Museum and hall of fame, which is housed in a really crazy looking building. Being a bunch of sci-fi nerds, we decided that it was much more worthy of our $13 USD than the space needle, and we were not disappointed! There was a lot of exhibits on old sci-fi books, and newer ones like Neal Stephenson's baroque cycle. They actually had the hand written manuscripts, pens, and ink bottles Stephenson used. There were a lot of cool props, costumes, and so on.

After the super cool sci-fi museum, we drove over to the theater to see how big the line up was. This was about 5 o'clock, and since there were already people there, we decided to line up as well. There were lots of cunning t-shirts in evidence, and a few people even dress up as characters. After 4 hours of waiting, they slowly let us into the theater. They searched bags for recording devices, and took away one guy's batteries. Some people tried to just the queue, but some angry people near the front of the line yelled at them to go to the back. There could have been a riot if they had gotten in first, when everybody else stood in line all that time!

Finally seated, we found that lining up early paid off, as we ended up with five seats together in the middle about half way back, which is almost ideal. I immediately spilled greasy popcorn all over my blue sun t-shirt... argh!

The movie itself was awesome! There was only one bit of dialog that I didn't like. The film needed a little work, in terms of grain and colour, but I think that was just because it was a one-off print. Other people who know more about film than I know the finishing steps that have to happen. I was so engrossed in the movie that I didn't notice any special effects blunders or the filler music. Others noticed music from movies like The Fifth Element, but it worked fine for me.

This was not a two hour episode either. It's a self standing movie that contains enough information about the characters that people who haven't seen the TV show should have no problem following who's who. The story works well, and explains a lot of really interesting things. The dialog and acting is just awesome. So very, very funny in places, sad in others, subtle and nuanced.

It had less western elements than the TV show did, but I think to a degree there just wasn't enough time to go in to that. It may also help keep things on more of a sci-fi track, for those who think the idea of a space-western is silly, when in fact, it's awesome.

Marli and Walter both have some notes about Serenity, and some photos too.

I look forward to seeing it a few more times when it comes out in September.

We've been in Hawaii for a little over four days now, so I think I had better start collecting my thoughts on the trip before I forget them all. Our real vacation starts at about noon today (Thursday the 7th). Up until now, the conference has been on, but this did not stop us from going to Hanauma Bay to do some snorkeling yesterday. It was quite nice; we saw lots of fish and interesting things at the reef.

We left Victoria last Saturday. We flew to Vancouver, cleared US customs there, and then flew on to Honolulu. We left Victoria around 3 pm I think, and arrived in Honolulu around 9 pm. The only mishap we had was that the baggage identification tag the airline puts on bags some how got ripped off of Tamara's bag. We did notice until the US customs guy asked us if Tamara's (big!) bag was carry on luggage. Fortunately Air Canada was able to re-print the label, after tracking down my bag to make sure they printed the right one. They gave us a lift to our gate in one of those golf cart things. Riding the cart put Tamara practically beside herself with joy, but I was less amused by it.

On Sunday we met up with Marli for breakfast. We found the beach and went for a little swim. The beach had rather coarse sand, which tended to stick everywhere and was stubborn about coming off, even with water. The sand didn't go out very far into the ocean. Stepping into the water meant stepping onto a bunch of ugly pointy rocks. There were also jelly fish in the water that day, although none of us got stung.

On Sunday evening we went to the conference reception. Maria introduced me to a large number of people, but I managed to forget all of the named before the conversation even ended of course. They had a whole roast pig and various cheeses and things for snack/dinner. It wasn't really intended to be a full on dinner.

On Monday morning, 8:40, I gave my presentation. It went alright, but I tripped over my words a lot and there seemed to be a lot of confused looking people in the audience. Oh well. A few people were interested in it, including a guy from Lawrence Livermore National Labs. That night, Maria took us to Duke's Canoe Club for dinner, which was very nice. We heard the most beautiful rendition of "Happy Birthday," presumably by a choir which was there for dinner. They also sang some other songs, but it got a little tiresome after awhile because we were sitting right next to them.

Marli gave her talk on Tuesday, which went well. Tamara and I walked along the beach and inquired about surfing lessons at a couple of places. We might go do that this afternoon, after we pick up the rental car. We eventually ended up at the aquarium, so we decided to go though it, pretty much on a whim. It was pretty interesting. We learned a bit of stuff about coral and saw some interesting fish, including some very brightly coloured ones.

After that we made our way back up the beach, looking for a place to have some dinner. We eventually found a little Italian place. It was a little pricey, but every thing in Waikiki seems to be that way. I finally got to try some local beer, Kona Longboard. It was yummy... like Grasshopper, but better. The only bad thing about that restaurant was that the espresso was very bad. I expected much better espresso from an Italian restaurant!

As I mentioned, Wednesday was our snorkeling day at Hanauma Bay. There were a few talks I wanted to attend that day, but snorkeling was more fun, and I can just read the papers instead. Although Tamara had lots of sunscreen on, she burned quite badly. I fared better... I forgot to put sunscreen on in some places, but I didn't burn as badly as Tamara did where she had sunscreen. I have finger marks burned into my shoulders where the sunscreen ended.

The conference banquet was last night. The dinner was a sort of surf and turf: very good steak and some overcooked (according to Maria) swordfish. The desert was excellent! Some sort of layered chocolate cake topped with a white chocolate medallion with IEEE and ACES written on it. Entertainment was a series of Polynesian dances. They had an audience participation thing, which was comical to watch. Lets just say that many engineers don't like to dance, and those that try do it badly. Maria noted that the audience participation probably works much better with non-engineers.

The next three and a half days will be our real Hawaiian vacation. We are renting a car a driving around the island. Hopefully we can do some hiking and stuff. Lots of pictures to come I'm sure!

In the previous entry, I talked a little bit about the difference between self-guided and tour vacations. Most of the stuff we did was tour-guided, aside from our trip to Havana and our somewhat unplanned excursion to Matanzas. Self guided tours can be far more interesting when you get to know the locals a bit, which is not something you really get to do when you are on a tour-tour. This gives a lot more insight into the people, the place, and the culture. For us, we got to go where (resort) tourists normally wouldn't go, and it ended up being one of the most interesting and memorable parts of the trip.

With every intention of going snorkeling, Cathy, Andy, Mary, Tamara and I arranged for Oliwa, the same driver who took us to Havana, to drive us to Coral Beach for the day. Unfortunately for our snorkeling ambitions, the weather had turned ugly and the sea was quite rough. It's not fun to try and snorkel when the waves are tossing you against the coral and when you can't see anything anyway due to all the sand being stirred up.

While in Cuba, Tamara's brother Jamie pledged to set up a web site to host the various pictures people took. I haven't uploaded any of mine yet, but they are available here already.

Alana got much better pictures (number two) of creepy Jesus than I did.

Proof of SCUBA (I'm on the left).

There are two major forms of vacation: self-guided, and tour-guided. Of the two, I can't decided which I would prefer. The only two major trips I've ever been on have been tour-guided. The first was to Italy with my high school. The second is of course this recent trip to Cuba.

The advantage of the tour-guided trips is that you don't have to think. The downside is that you don't necessarily get to do what you want to do. Self-guided trips can be very stressful to arrange and organize, as we found out during our trip to Havana. There are a couple of different tours offered that go to Havana. One is a day trip, where they take you to old Havana and other touristy things. The other does some touristy things, but the focus is on the Tropicana cabaret show, which doesn't start until 10:00 pm. Some of our group really wanted to see the Tropicana show, others weren't so enthusiastic about it. One came only for the cigar factory tour. Unfortunately, the factories were closed for holidays.

We ended up renting a van and a driver to take the ten of us into Havana. Tamara found herself appointed tour guide for the day, a position which she initially embraced enthusiastically, but which wore on her as the day progressed. It turns out that steering nine family members around Havana is about as much fun and just as difficult as trying to herd cats.

It's been a long month and a half. Tamara and I flew to Calgary on the 21st of December for Christmas. We actually managed to get most, if not all, of our Christmas shopping done before we left this year. Good thing too, since there wasn't a whole lot of time for running around before Christmas. I did a little work, and there was a lot of running around to visit people and stuff.