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Some things

Posted by Elliswordpress on March 3, 2016March 3, 2016

Got to try out the FE 90mm F2.8 Macro- definitely liked what I saw, but for the amount of macro that I do, this is total overkill, particularly at the price. the 105 VR Macro would be a better buy used for my Nikon D90. Speaking of which, I recently picked it back up and have been shooting with it- and its a clearly different beast from my a6000 and NEX-5- really felt like I am leaving a lot of potential go to waste here.

Catching up with the Bellator DAD5000 and Kimbo slice fight, and the Ken Shamrock Gracie fight on the treadmill. Surface 2 going strong still.

Love Shaw’s hotspots- catching up with The Office on Netflix at the airport drop off area.

I’m really dropping a lot of regular dough at this Worlds Finest Donair place- definitely love the greasy hit the spot foods they have.

Hitting up Second Cup for some work- definitely miss this place in the good old days with S. Doing a lit review and then prepping for a doctoral course lecture on clinical intake interviews.

And then I forgot about the UFC Silva Bisping fight at the library and then no work got done. Still a good study sesh with W. On the good side, the lecture went well today and I really just did a lot of reflection on how my clinical intake has changed throughout the years as a developing clinician. Decided to completely scrap a formal lecture plan and I think that was a good idea.

Chinese take out with the family from Good Buddy, my fave Chinese restaurant in the city.

Kicking it hard on the blood pressure machine- nearly optimal in both counts.

Kicking it hard again with the lecture prepping at Starbucks- I’m realizing they do not actually mix the drinks properly and its all sweet on the bottom. Juciing up with the VAIO Pocket DAP.

FOUND A FREAKING BED BUG IN STARBUCKS. GROSS. I killed it and IDed it because it looked familiar- thought it possibly was a juvenile Hemipteran but it looked too similar to my nightmares. Starbucks management didn’t seem too bothered by it- I felt like they thought I was just afraid of bugs, aside from the fact that my entire undergrad honors thesis was in entomology and I have a nearly straight A record across all my entomology courses. Also I wish my phone had better macro since I don’t have that on my carry all camera anymore. Definitely makes me miss the Nikon P7700 for its versatile lens with macro

Trying to relax with a post study meal at Mucho Burrito but still unnerved by the bed bug. Ended up stripping down everything and doing a full inspection of all cracks and crevices. The burrito was monster sized though so at least there’s that.

So this happened- browsing classifieds and a Vaio F 2010 model popped up (specifically the VPC-F1) for a ridiculously low price. It had a bunch of things going wrong for it (at the time of sale, it was just a dead battery, which just turned out to be missing all together). After using it, a whole bunch of things came out- namely a dead USB port and a few keys on the numeric keypad totally dead. Other than that, there was also a lot of greasy stains on the key rest. Anddddddddddd the right speaker doesn’t work haha. Why bother going with it? Turns out it has a quad core Intel i7 and Nvidia GPU. Its just a 310m at 512MB, but I’ll take a dedicated GPU any day unless its one of the recalled Nvidias…which I continue to say no to (a bit of a shame because of lot of my favorite models have the recalled Nvidia chip including the VAIO L desktop). This is actually the first i7 I have ever owned, so I’m pretty excited even if its 6 years old (manufacture date on the laptop is March 2010!). Its also the first quad core CPU I’ve ever owned too. Lots of excitement.

The guy was actually really nice- he ended up throwing a ton of extras at the price that I didn’t ask for including a generic wireless mouse, a Cooler Master laptop cooling pad with a 200mm fan (that I had been looking for already) and a set of Sony noise cancelling headphones (ZX110NC). Pretty good haul I would say.

The VAIO F1 is honestly one of the models I hadn’t really looked into in the past…ever. This also includes the VAIO FZ (one of the recalled Nvidia models). I really think Sony dropped the ball on these models with design. They look positively….generic. I feel like I picked up a lower E-class model or something. Or a random Toshiba Satellite. It also feels fairly generic. Like super plasticky build all over. Meh glossy screen with washed out colors. ….I’m harping on it because I am very critical of the brand that I love, so that my love is fortified….spoken like a fanboy. Anyways, it was ready to go for a Windows 10 upgrade (right out the box!) and I did a clean wipe and install…and within hours I was making it my own machine. Smooth. I’m really happy for Windows 10- its made upgrading used laptops super duper easy. I’ll have a review up on this soon. So far I can say this laptop runs really warm (almost as warm as the Z11) and its positively huge as a 16 incher in my stable. The design is crazy different compared to my other laptops- the lid alone is as thick as the entire VAIO Duo 13. So far, I’m liking it just because its a brute. Even the HDD is 7,200 RPM. Nice.

I’ve also really enjoyed the CoolerMaster laptop cooler- its not as adjustable in height as my Thermaltake cooler but it feels very premium- something I think laptop coolers struggle with, as most of them are a bit chintzy. I do wish that there was an option to plug in through AC and have the fan blow absolutely nuts. I think this was an easy possibility and should be an option- even if its just as powerful as a desk fan. I think the fan blows harder in my desktop chassis. I do wish that I had a tiny portable one that would fit in my laptop bag for my 13 inch laptops- tehre was a perfect one from Vantec but its sold out locally.

Enjoying a nice spread at Duchess bakery- easily some of the best baked goods I have ever had, but can’t stand the crowds inside.

Meringues

Macaroons- my fave

Really rich chocolate cake

Some kind of buttery tart with sweet potato

Pleasant service- everyone is so stylish that works here.

H had a super scare that ended up in a three day stay at the hospital- a little bit of blood from the IV prick late at night in the ER. H had this look on her face when they put in the catheter and needle that said betrayal- why were we letting these terrible people put these sharp things in her?! I can’t imagine what its like from her POV at this age.

Crashing in the first night. The staff at the ER and the pediatric unit were amazing and I can’t thank them enough for the support they gave us.

Fortunately our day got better and H responded really well to the antibiotic – definitely didn’t need to experience that though. The pediatric ward has an amazing design- a fish tank, and a starry night in the ceiling are some of the highlights to make the hospital stay less crappy for kids. So that was our first major scare as parents and now everything seems to be a symptom and terrifying. Great. When it kicked in that her cries were not just calls for us, but might have also been signifying the agony she was undergoing, that just about did it in for me. Geeze. What a roller coaster. Also giving her oral meds was also an adventure. You don’t really think too much about medicine until you realize that its a baby that doesn’t take a bottle right now- why would the baby take medicine. OMG.

Watching the lion dance from afar

Went for dim sum and ended up in the worst possible place for children- RIGHT BESIDE THE FRIGGING DRUMMERS for Chinese New Year. While exciting, it was very terrifying to think of how the babys would be around loud noises and ear damage.

Really liked the deep fried squid here.

Made breakfast for dinner for Vday. Really enjoyed cooking and have picked up a few meals now under my belt. Could become my new hobby.

More dinners with fam and Chinese BBQ.

Coconut cream pie from Duchess. AMAZING.

Managed to get my overclock back in my desktop! Did a little more reading and felt lbrave enought to do it and got it back up to 3.44GHZ up from 2.66GHz. Pretty happy with it- everything is much more snappy on my 9 year old desktop. And temperatures are around 40 degrees (32 idle), not too bad really (before was 23 idle). The Zalman CNPSZ12X CPU Cooler is really awesome.

More bdays and more Duchess- the raspberry cake WAS AMAZING- it like had the essnece of raspberry in every bite. Ridiculously good.

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