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Summer updates

Posted by ellisaurus on August 26, 2017August 26, 2017

The BC forest fires have made the skies grey and gross most of this summer.

Taste of Edmonton was mostly meh and a reminder to me that I don’t need to get caught in the hype. There was nothing unique to look at here food wise unlike before where there was weird and exotic things like crocodile. We had sliders….and chili fries. And smaller proportions and ten dollars for sample sizes. I skipped out and actually didn’t spend all our tickets because I brought a Vietnamese sub to eat.

I had one of the best chest days one Friday- I had no loss in power right up to the final set. There was somebody else working out with me at the time, so I guess some group effect was in place. I burned through chest day that day.

One of the chow mein dishes we had.

Downtown in the summer sun- the water was freaking so cold, but many adventurous kids went out into the cold.

Lots of people out and about for Taste of Edmonton.

One of the fancy bathrooms in the Legislature.

AND here is my newest gadget, the Sony ZX1 35th Anniversary Walkman- its funny because when I say that, most people expect me to bring out a tape player. Sony really messed up their marketing to only sell the Walkman as a tape brand, and completley missed the boat to make it a household name post tape era. I’v ebeen dying to get one of these ever since I passed it up at the Sony Store closing (I had already splurged on the amp and headphone deals). After almost missing this auction (good but not insane price), I snagged it and it surprisingly came with the whole package, aside from the little plastic insert to keep it level on the amp. So far its been a joy to use, and it sounds great. I don’t get the HOLY MOLY this is a HUGE step up from other DAPs to be honest- I’d say its right beside my Z1000 and X Walkman in favorite sound signatures.

H running out in the twilight hours of the night. I think this is one of the few things that makes me realize I’ll get through this insane process of getting my internship. H has been a consistent factor in getting me to smile.

I am really liking the shots I get out of my 35mm f1.8 especially with it being stabilized. Its just so so tight for me to shoot at this focal length, being used to shooting more at like a wider equivalent. Really makes me want that 24mm f1.8 Zeiss. One day I will have it.

Tropika cafe which is supposed to be a HK style cafe- a bit pricey for me, but o.k. food.

I’ve always enjoyed the look of an ominous storm incoming, especially one on the prairies. Its just so ominous and there’s no shelter. That’s kind of what I feel like right now. I’m at a point in my life where I feel I have to make it or break it. CBT on my self says this is not true and not the case, but my irrational thoughts and catastrophic thinking and unrelenting ups and downs (mostly downs) in me trying to secure an internship site at my clinics and balancing the university and clinic’s needs has been exhausting. This pic really reminds me of where my beginnings used to be- out on the prairie farmland wondering where I would end up in the future and not really having a lot of huge hopes or feelings of a concrete place. While I feel this is really insane right now and overwhelming, I have to remember that I have an incredibly huge of amount of amazing things right now. I remember doing my research for my honors undergrad thesis out in the farm lands like this pic, and being uncertain. I don’t think I would have ever imagined I would be where I am professionally right now. I just gotta keep reminding myself to look for the positives.

Checking out the new Surface laptop- its ok, and looks interesting because of the use of the Alcantara like material for the keyboard, and the 4:3 aspect ratio screen- its funny how laptops are moving to that aspect ratio again (I could be wrong on this ratio exactly, but it certainly is less widescreen than 16:10/9). I remember when widescreen was making its waves and I was part of the crowd oogling it.

Enjoying the city pool at Taste of Edmonton. It was a gorgeous night to be out, and the ambient lighting was just perfect.

Dad made one of the best dinners weve had in awhile- simple stir fried pasta, but really really home cooked feeling and a lot better than the usual take out we get when we meet up. It felt great to have this, especially when my family was traveling and I was eating poop.

I snagged my purple Asia exclusive color Xperia Z3, and its just as lavender as this picture. Its been pretty good so far, I mean its exactly like my old Z3 Copper, but I haven’t been able to get it to register LTE bands (which is annoying but fine, because HSPA+ is giving me up to 60 MBPS, which is more than I need), and I don’t see any drops in signal quality. Its also bizarrely short in battery life the last week, and I am a bit worried that its a deteriorating battery, rather than a rogue app sucking juice.

Been on a slow recovery for my lower back after blowing it out on a deadlift months ago. I’ve been using much less weight and continuing my deadlifts (initially went back to dumbbells before back to barbell). I’m now back maybe 80% strength right now, and it feels great, vs. my old method of simply not working out that muscle for 3-4 months. I’m going to be reevaluating my deadlifts, because I think the high reps I was doing was part of the problem.

These plants were surprisingly gentle on my completely unprotected legs as I plowed through ripping out weeds. I even encountered thistle and had minimal issues- one of the guys told me it was easier because of the rain, so maybe I lucked out. I thought I would get murdered here with my bare legs. The mosquitoes did some harm though.

The park at Kinsmen was gorgeous with the summer sun settling down.

Hailey also trying Skin the Cat, but she can’t quite do it yet- shes gonna have to work on those lats.

I always like these scenes- bright sunny times behind you and monstrous clouds in the front.

W gave me his old Pentax Optio X, my first Pentax! It is probably one of the coolest looking cameras I have ever seen, and rivals my F88 and F77 cybershots in selfie mode. I remember specifically lusting after this for months, and it surprise went on sale, and W picked it up in undergrad.

Walking up one of the giant steps in the Legislature.

Doing “Skin the cat”s- I learned that this is an actual exercise in Cross Fit, but I had been doing it for fun before- mostly to show off upper back strength haha.

H and grandpa playing on the slide.

Bif Naked was headlining the Taste of Edmonton- really surprised she showed up for this. I heard a couple classic tracks including the one from the Buffy soundtrack.

Out on the farm. We were voluntold to help with a farm that supports the food bank- I sound a little bitter because the person running this farm was an absolute uptight individual. She treated us like we were here to exploit the farm to take our own vegetables and not contribute to the farm at all. So we had fun but we were constantly reminded that somebody was watching over us- as in she called out my mother in law and H, a grandmother and a baby for not doing the right order of labor (keep in mind they were still doing labor, but had been told by another supervisor it was ok to do the less stressful labor because of their age). Needless to say I wasn’t impressed.

Looking at our haul from the angry farm. The fresh soil smelled great at first, but now the unused veggies have started to smell gross. We have like 1/2 the amount we were allowed to take home.

H having fun in the Bay toy section- I really can’t remember going here in such a long time- I used to do it when I was younger and hunting rare Star Wars toys- except the Bay was always pricier so it was all a big tease.

Lots of Golf Rs on the road now- always a little jealous of the R, although its only 30 hp more than my other car. It seems to hold its own well against the other hot hatch cars like the Civic Type R, STI and Focus RS.

Change of scenery in my private practice office- new photo in the back and its ok. I miss my old photo a little bit- it was a turbulent ocean scene which makes me think of despair. This picture makes no emotion to me.

A reddit user showed this headphone section in Harrod’ sLondon, where there is a smattering of all headphone types- from Beats (and other eurgh things) to the freaking SONY Z1R that is currently just under 3 grand CDN right now! I am so jealous. AFAIK there are no stores that let you sample these flagships in my area.

Hanging out with family and enjoying the summer- I never realized how fun a yard is with kids.

A bau with sticky rice inside. It was rather bland.

Looking out at the Legislature interior from one of the upper balconies.

All the kids hanging out in the backyard, and H taking their object of interest and disrupting their game. Oh boy.

It turns out eating a giant beef tataki for yourself is kind of awesome. I really enjoyed it.

Its a shame this ramen was just o.k., especially since they seemed really intense- they always close early because they are out of soup. But I didn’t think the soup was all that good.

I imagine one day this is what I will end up looking like- surrounded by gadgets and in my basement in bliss. Sort of bliss.

The university under an ominous set of summer storm clouds.

We went down a giant slide at Kinsmen Park- the slide that is closed is used by many children with parents who don’t seem to care that its probably boarded up for a reason. And the parents that don’t regulate their children and enforce taking turns or NOT climbing up the slide- one kids nailed me in the back, which is fine because I’m like 6 times bigger, but annoying because the parents didn’t intervene.

H having a blast in the Disney store- its actually surprisingly fun for a store.

Lots of take out food for somebody

Walking through the business section in the legislature.

The Kinsmen water park is really fun – in fact the whole park is pretty amazing. Its pretty packed with families and super family friendly. Its too bad there are no amenities nearby.

I have to say as much as I don’t like the CLAs interior, I am really really intrigued with the newest model- its up to 375 HP and its a tiny chassis! It could be ridiculous to drive as a daily driver. I like the exterior styling a lot, its just rather cramped and impractical inside.

I really like this restaurant- I hope they stay in business for awhile.

Sunflowers from the crazy slave driving farm. These died like immediately a day later.

H exploring Chapters on a scooter.

More food from Tropika- generally fine, but nothing to write home to.

Eating my own Beef Tataki and loving it. Its like a mini steak for yourself with intense seasoning.

I love storms on the prairie. It reminds me of the ominous doom in Twister, with nowhere to hide.

Great summer night- so warm and lively.

Close up of the special room at the top at the Legislature. I really want to get up here.

This summer has had some really great storms. Really foreboding clouds

Fireworks for Canada day.

H exploring Walmart with a toy vacuum.

More views of the weird room at the top with palm trees.

Great ambient lighting at Taste of Edmonton. The new library under construction right in the background.

Walking through the Legislature building and being completely lost because I don’t really understand politics at all, and have forgotten all of my social studies and history courses. Took a picture of the only familiar name in the room, our premier Rachel Notley. I usually see her name on angry truck bumper stickers.

The top of the Legislature has a weird little palm tree room that is apparently unaccessible from construction- staff tell me it was a smoking room before, but hasn’t been in use for awhile. Its really high up.

Wading with Hailey out in the downtown wading pool. Its rapidly cooling down and getting darker, so these summer days are getting scarcer. I guess I am looking forward to Halloween and Christmas.

Lots of people hanging out in the downtown Legislature grounds for Canada Day- we lucked out and made it back home before the giant rain storm hit hard.

H climbing around- I have a hard time watching her do stairs on her own after she had her stair accident earlier this year. She seems to understand the need to hold rails more though now.

While the farm staff were questionable, the scenery was a nice change from the city- of course I came underprepared and showed up in a tank top and soccer shorts. However, I still did a ton of manual labor and the shameful other father who showed up in brand new florescent orange Under Armor runners shamefully skipped out to his truck because his kids were tired and stayed there the entire duration. SHAMEEEEEEEEEEE.

H doing laps around a big hexagonal park bench- it was a grogeous day to be at the park, and a giant set of trees provided much needed shade for breaks from the sun.

Water weights at this new Japanese dollar store in WEM. Gonna get jacked on these.

More ominous summer storms over the city. This summer has had a lot more rain and lightning that usual- its been rad.

One of my consistent restaurants in the city, SFC always has good portions and great flavors. This is the spicy sweet BBQ chicken with my fave pesto mac n cheese.

We have been having a ton of fun on playgrounds this summer. Maybe me more so than H. Here, H takes the slide at sharp angle and I managed to capture the terror, and then immediately feel terrible as a dad.

The view from the highest level I could access in the Legislature- its really really high up here.

I stacked this HARD. I think I could have lifted 4 pallets at a time if I wanted to. I felt kind of vindicated, because that slave driver farm coordinator was saying we weren’t working hard enough, and I PICKE DUP ALL THE BOXES. MORE THAN ANY OTHER PERSON. ESPECIALLY THE FATHER THAT RAN TO HIS TRUCK WHEN HE REALIZED IT WAS REAL WORK. BOOM.

Managed to snag these for 20 bucks! These were 299 bucks in 2001- they have a unique design like the weird angled stands and the separate amp. They honestly look a bit too styled to me, like a picture of what the future might look like if somebody from 1990 was designing it.

H enjoying the grey rainy day out on the angry farm.

Speaking of gadgets in undergrad, I also picked up a the Sony VAIO K series laptop for 40 bucks. Its a Pentium 4 CPU with 512 MB of RAM- needless to say it runs like butts on Windows 7 32 bit. I got this because it was one of the first laptops with a glossy screen, and I remember absolutely dying over the glossy screen (I had a iBook G4 14 inch with a matte display at the time). The glossy screens just looked so cool with very high contrast and eye popping colors. Now I realize that was more of a fad, and the screen looks a bit washed out. It was also a HUGE beast, and its gotta be at least 2-3 inches thick. Interestingly there were actually two variations of the K- a 4:3 aspect ratio one, and a 16:10 aspect ratio one- I have the former model. An SSD is a no go on this one- it uses an older PATA connector and those are just stupid expensive in SSD, and I really don’t feel like dropping money on this one. Even with an SSD, the CPU is just too slow.

One of the Taste of Edmonton’s dishes- SO lame this year. A waffle?! That’s pretty much all it had to offer this year.

However, they do sound quite good for near field speakers- they sound like an upscale laptop speaker set, which isn’t necessarily bad. They actually sound MUCH better than their successor, the Sony ZX1 speaker (which I reviewed here) and are much more clearer in detail.

I did this for my gym set up- ZX1 Walkman, PHA-2 amp, and SRS-X9 speakers. It sounds bloody fantastic, far better than I need gym speakers to sound. Great match up overall. I also discovered the ZX1 in all its audiophile glory supports neither LDAC or APTX bluetooth streaming, and it sounds like ass streaming bluetooth. Really surprised about this.

One of Toshiba’s new convertibles – while kind of interesting in specs and build quality. the design is still ho hum. I still can’t believe I was a Toshiba fan boy in the past. I can’t name any Toshiba models anymore, and I know them FAR FAR less in depth than Sony’s. I honestly can’t remember why I took this picture at the Microsoft Store, because this is really unremarkable. Maybe for nostalgia that this is where they are at right now and I used to be interested in the brand.

Having some Seoul Fried Chicken for dinner- one of my favorite restaurants for sure- great portions and really really tasty flavors.

Saw this posted on an audiphile forum- I just love love this listening room- the combined outdoor view and intimate setting looks like a place I could really snuggle up to a great album.

First time I have ever removed a security tag from a clothing article- W had purchased this years ago and never worn it. She realized they never removed the tag and didn’t have the receipt. I looked it up online and covered the end just in case there was a dye bomb inside, and then crushed the other end with pliers. It was satisfying.

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