Looking back at the date of my last post, it caught me by surprise how long it’s been since I’ve written anything on this site. From just looking at the dates, you’d think I’ve been majorly slacking off! While I have been slacking as far as updating this site goes, I haven’t been in general.
First off, congratulations to Tiger Woods and the win at the Masters – he’s back!!!
Second, much of my time lately has been consumed with writing my PhD thesis and preparing for the wedding/honeymoon. For those that don’t know, Amanda and I will be heading to New Zealand for three weeks on our honeymoon which should be a great relaxing vacation. We’re probably also going to be in the market for a new digital camera (I want something more compact) before we go, so I’ll let you all know how that search pans out.
I’m also heading to Chicago for five days in May for a conference with the lab. People in the lab might want to go see a taping of Oprah – while I’m usually not a big Oprah fan, just on the off chance that we go on a day where she has a huge giveaway might be worth it even for me!
The Skinny on Sports is still going strong. We should have some big news and announcements about some changes to the show shortly so stay tuned for that. We’re also in the process of upgrading some of our equipment to hopefully make the audio quality even better. I’ll post some details here when everything is all setup and what we decide on.
I’ve been fighting the urge to buy a new Powerbook lately. I think I’ll wait until we’re back from New Zealand. Apple has just announced that they will begin shipping their new operating system Tiger on April 29th and the updates look really interesting. That’s another reason why I’ll wait a bit – let them get all the kinks worked out!
We’re making the transition to VOIP – voice over IP. Basically, it’s phone service but instead of going over the normal phone lines, it goes over the high speed internet connection. Basic service from Primus TalkBroadband is only $19.95/month including 8 services on the line. Then you can either bundle unlimited long distance to Canada and US for $10/month or $3/month for 300 minutes. Both are outstanding deals and our phone bill will be less than half of what we were spending with our phone company. I’ll update here when we get our package and get everything setup to let everyone know about the quality, etc. We get to keep our existing phone number so no difference there. If you’re in the market for a second phone line, an alternative to your local phone company, or to simply save some money, you should definetly give them a look. There are some disadvantages as well – but I’ll wait to touch on those after we get the system setup so maybe wait until then if you have any concerns before taking the leap yourself.
I think that’s all the major updates for now. I’ll try and post some more regular things in the coming days/weeks but understand that it’s only going to get busier for the next little while. Thanks for reading!
On Tuesday, some people from my lab headed out to the mountains for Lab Ski Day 2005. The weather was outstanding as you can see from the pictures – by mid-afternoon it was easily above 10 degrees! Plus, with it being a Tuesday, it felt like we had the mountains to ourselves and were able to get a good number of runs in. Spring skiing in Alberta is one of the best times to be out there – the snow gets nice and soft in the afternoon and you never have to worry about getting cold. The scenery is magnificent and you just enjoy the day!