Posted by Andrew on Feb 26, '08 2:55 PM for everyone G'day close and distant Multiply relatives, I would really appreciate 5 minutes of your time to help out with one of my group assignments for a subject - Marketing Research. Our short survey includes watching a short Youtube video and answering questions on the video and your online video watching habits . Here’s the link:
http://teamtiger356.blogspot.com/ Another key factor here is that I'm running a competition with my team-mates to see whether I can generate more international responses by myself than my 4 American classmates can do collectively... Therefore I would also greatly appreciate if you would be willing to send this to as many friends as possible. It's a fun survey to fill out - a video clip and short number of questions!!! Do the right thing... let's collect more responses!!
Thank you for your help in advance!
Pro
Posted by Andrew on Nov 25, '07 2:55 AM for everyone Here's an interesting start-up in the valley that I'm willing to try out. They're providing voice-over-IP services for the general public... which basically translates to free international calls. Check it out if you're at all interested, and drop me a line some time:
Posted by Andrew on Oct 14, '07 11:59 PM for everyone I know I haven't blogged for a while, but I thought this entry would be worth the effort. So as you normally do on a Sunday night, I was at the Stanford gym. On the way out, I noticed a guy on one of the excercise bikes wearing a pair of blue tracksuit pants that had an awfully familiar red and white stripe on the left leg. I was looking for a little symbol just above the stripes, but couldn't tell because he was pedalling. Anyhow, long story short... I went up to the guy and asked him if he had ever been to Edmonton. And when he answered yes, I quickly followed with whether he was from Cheremosh. He was quite surprised that I actually knew who they were.. and as the conversation grew, it turned out that he was dancing when Veselka came through in 2002, but just didn't go to many of the parties. He and his wife billetted Tania and Yvonne. Looks like there are now 2 uki dancers at Stanford. At this rate, we'll have a troop in no time.
Posted by Andrew on Jun 7, '07 2:54 PM for everyone
Posted by Andrew on Jun 4, '07 12:40 AM for everyone Today was a fun day. One of my Stanford buddies and I took our "dreamers" (from the IHAD program) for a hike around the Dish here at Stanford. It's actually a paved road the whole way around, but for the kids the 2.5hr loop was more than enough. 
One of the highlights of the day was actually a Cattle gate we found along the way (or Texas Gate as they're called). For all you city folk that don't know what that is... it's basically a pitt with lots of bars across it. The bars are wide apart enough such that a cow can't step on both, and it just stops them from crossing. So the fun for us was to see how far we could jump... whether it was possible to jump across the gap from a standing start. Andrew and I did manage to clear it in the end, but it was definintely scary.... cause if you didn't clear the jump, you couldn't land on the bars (cause your ankles would turn into mush). 
With only 2 classes left, one on Monday and one on Tuesday, this session's screaming to a close. That also means that my flight to London for the summer is getting closer and closer. Between now and leaving I need to start packing my room. Hopefully most of it will fit into the suitcase that I brought, however I'm a little concerned about all the paper and text books that I've accumulated over the past few months. 
Yesterday involved washing my ski pants 3 times. You can see them sitting on the huge (and utterly useless) leather chair that we have in all our rooms. At least they're clean now, and it leaves something to say about walking through a muddy carpark during the last few weeks of the season. Perhaps my greatest find was that I can go to the local supermarket and get as many carboard boxes as I want or need. They chuck 'em out anyhow, so I may as well put them to good use - sitting in the garage of the house I'll be living in next year when I get back in September. 
So now I'm torn... I either read my case for tomorrow morning's 8am class... or I start packing... or I go and find someone to talk to in Schwab who is also procrastinating.
Posted by Andrew on May 21, '07 1:24 PM for everyone It's been a while since I've wrtten anything in my blog, mainly because every day seems to be just that... 'just another day'. Life here at the GSB is quite surreal, and although I have known that for quite a while, it's quite easy to start assuming it is the norm. This morning in International Business, one of my favourite classes so far, we spoke with the CEO of Inditex. While many of you may not recognise that name, it's the parent company of Zara (www.zara.com), one of the most profitable fashion companies in the world. We had a teleconference with Pablo Isla (CEO) and Jesus Echevarria (Director General of Comms and IR) in Spain. It was just after 6pm in Spain, 9am here in Palo Alto, and we had a chance to ask whatever questions we wanted. The focus today was about their sourcing strategy and how that influences distribution network. So perhaps the point of my entry today is not so much a case of "wow, we got to speak to another CEO", but rather how casually everyone approached the event. There was definitely a huge amount of respest for the gentlemen we spoke with, however probably not the same mystere I would painted a year ago before starting at Stanford. They're real people too, and to think of them as untouchable probably doesn't do them justice. Time to run and meet with the student association executive committee and present the student council budget for 2007-2008. Should be a formality since everyone already reviewed it, but nonetheless it's something on which we need to formally vote.
Posted by Andrew on Apr 21, '07 7:24 PM for everyone
… you take one of the world's best musicians;
… give them one of the world's finest instruments;
… ask them to play some of the greatest music ever written (no, Britney Spears doesn't qualify);
… as a busker at a subway station?
How big a crowd could they possibly attract?
How much money could they possibly make in under 1 hour?
Read all about what happened:
Washington Post article
Posted by Andrew on Mar 8, '07 11:04 PM for everyone
So at long last all my assessments for this week are over. I finished my strategy assignment a few hours ago, and decided to go to the gym to try and clear my mind. Every day this week there's been an assignment due, with 2 major write-ups, and one 7-hour exam. Yes, you read it right... SEVEN HOURS.
Over the past two quarters I opted in to the Leadership Development Program here (read: I had to write an application, like pretty much everything here). To be perfectly honest, people have had very mixed feelings about the program - good vs bad - depending on what they focussed. There was nothing revolutionary about the lecture content of the program, and we've all done MBTI or personality tests of some form in our lives. For me, the point where the experince was really excellent was through the role-plays that we did every session. I was sceptical at first, like many of you reading this post... "you're paying how much to do role-plays?!?!"... but once you're in the moment, you really forget that you're acting, and it's about being in the moment. The scenario's are meant to focus on different parts of the leadership toolkit: listening, empathising, leading, coaching, delegating... and I found them incredibly valuable. Each scenario presented a very safe environment in which you could experiment with different techniques to see how they worked, and then we provided each other with feedback on what we found effective, or counter-productive, from each of our team-mates.
Over the space of 2 sessions, it's amazing just how much everyone has improved, and the kind of high pressure situations that people can handle. Now I just want to say that my team was incredibly awesome, with a wide range of personalities and backgrounds:
aerospace engineering, consulting, investment banking, finance.... and IT 
So you want to hear about the exam, huh? Well, first, our team is all about impact... so we wore the power suits with red ties, sunnies... and the Stanford visor. We also got our executive coach into costume with us and visor too. It worked, because everywhere we walked, people knew "team visor" was coming. It was light-hearted, but accepted really well as just one of our points of distinction.
Back to the exam...it was team based, so the 6 of us were given a portfolio of cases (role-plays we'd have to perform), and we had to pick teams of 2 for each case. The really cool thing about the exam... boy, I never thought I'd hear myself saying that.... yeah, as I was saying, the cool thing about the exam was that there were 48 Stanford alumni that were going to judge and role-play with us. To put things in perspective, the youngest of the alumni were from classes in the early '90's, and as each one was introduced, we came to quickly realise that they were either: i) C-level executives, or ii) owned investment firms or hedge funds. These guys were heavy hitters, and they were going to be judging us... let the fun begin!
There were 3 rounds, 1 round per case. Jess and I were up first and had the 'thinnest' case where I was the CEO, she was the President, and we had just been brought into an IT firm that needs assistance to grow. Here we are before our case, ready for the Win ("w).
The founder had just been fired, and the two of us needed to come in, rally the troops and people to agree on a single goal. By thinnest case, I meant we had the least amount of data to crunch for the roleplay, we could see that it was going to be a relationship-building exercise. Our approach was to set out a plan for the case and bait the exec's to "voice their concerns"... what we didn't expect was just how BIG the bite was going to be... and we were in the case. 25mins of free-flowing discussion went by so quickly, and sitting back and reflecting it's amazing how much you get into the role, and how much we've all learnt. There was a point in the conversation where I told the 4 alumni (execs) to stop bickering, stop finger pointing and start taking things seriously. Jess had a punchy line with "are we done now?" after a major 'argument' they were having amongst themselves. All-in-all, it was a really tough case, but the feedback we got was great. Taking control of the situation and banking on the relationships was so key.
The next challenge, Ellen and Chris had to convince an investment firm that their target was worthwhile, and gain agreement from 'the board'. They had a monster of a case to read, with so much data to absorb and process.... and they absolutely nailed it! The other 4 members of Team visor went nuts on the side line when the round was over.
The last challenge was Andrew and Jason, negotiating with a board of directors about the most appropriate project investment, going head-to-head with another team (while the previous 2 teams were only with alumni). Again, they performed exceptionally and really controlled the conversation flow and filtered meaningful from useless information. We felt that some of the judging in this round got confused (ie: our team said something great, but it was attributed to the other team)... but in the end the team performance was brilliant.
Two sessions down... just about 2/3 of the way through the first year. It's flown by so quickly. Ok, time for dinner.
Posted by Andrew on Feb 26, '07 12:18 PM for everyone
BLIZZARDING...
Yesterday afternoon at about 3:30pm I decided to stop boarding cause the snow was really coming down, the clouds had rolled in and visibility had dropped to basically nothing. This is a distinct problem when riding... first you can't see where you're going, and second you're not sure if someone's there in front of you riding or fallen over on the ground. I'm guessing many of you have read the previous post showing pictures of the cars being snowed in.... I had to dig out 3 cars this morning... one person had driven up without chains so the first trip of the morning was to take the "4x4" (honda crv) into town and purchase a set of chains. It's a pretty sobering thought that we couldn't actually ride the mountain today if we wanted to...
So Tahoe city is in a complete white-out. Chains on, we're now driving in convoy at 30km/h to get out of this place. A stop at the petrol station for food.... enough for 40 days and 40 nights, we're now crawling on the way back to Stanford. Expected drive time is 4-6hrs just to get out of the mountains to Donner pass, and out of the heavy snow. We're looking at nearly 8 hours of driving today. I'll update along the way... between cases that we're going to read for class tomorrow morning. One bright side of the journey is that we'll get all our homework done on the road so when we get back we can just crash out for the night.
THE LONG SLOW CRAWL
...5hrs later, with extensive use of the Park gear... we had travelled a total of 13miles (ie: 20km). This is the heaviest snow-storm that anyone in both cars had ever seen. We have now finally made it to interstate80, and are crawling slowly with the chains on the wheels. Needless to say, this is going to be a very slooooow ride back to Stanford. It's 4pm now. We left at 10:40am.... I'll write again in a little while.
HIGHWAY SHENNANIGANS
Now we were really cruising, hitting an average of 10km/h on the highway, with visibility being about 50m at the most. It's the first time I've seen everyone on a highway with chains on the wheels. Even the big 4x4 pickup trucks had chains on their wheels. But then we had the dredded toilet stop problem. Luckily the wiper blades had ice frozen on them, so we needed to stop to clean them up. During that stop, one of the girls NEEDED to go.... like she REAALALLY REAAAALLY needed to in the middle of a blizzard, on a highway, you know just how high the need has to be to go. Anyhow, we had to create a shield on the roadside by opening one of the doors, but we got through the ordeal. On the bright side we are now moving... and moving in the right direction. This is incredible and so surreal.
FROZEN WINDSCREEN
NExt thing that happened was the windshield got really, really, really cold.... and started to freeze layers of ice on it. This is even with the hot air blowing. The windows were fogging up internally constantly. It was hard to see. What does this mean? Every few minutes (literally), as the traffic stopped I had to jump out and clean the windscreen with my gloves, and try and break off as much ice as possible off the washer blades. I can even claim now that I have run down the middle of a highway, as I was cleaning the windscreens on our 2-car convoy while the cars crawled through slowly. I have never seen weather quite like this...
THE CHAINS ARE OFF!
Wow, we've finally made it through Donner Pass and are starting to constantly travel on a down-hill gradient. The cars are moving constantly, and the snow cover on the road has turned to ice. Also, it's no longer snow falling from the sky but it's rain. Slushy stuff everywhere, but at least the speed's picked up to 20km/h. At this rate, we should be back in Stanford in a few days. A few km down the road, the cover on the road finally disappeared and we pilled over to the side of the road to get the chains off. Well, I got the chains off and told the girls to stay in the car. Jeff looked after the other car, and it's incredible just how difficult it is to get chains on and off a car with so much snow on the road. (Even though the main roadway was clear now, the shoulder was about 30cm deep in snow as the plough had pushed the cover off to the side). In any case, the chains were finally off and we could travel at (what felt super fast) 60km/h.
FOOOOOOD
It had been 11hrs by this stage as we just got out of the snow-covered areas of Tahoe, and had finished all that food that was bought in Tahoe city for what we thought would be a "few hours" to get through the pass. We didn't realise that 'few' would be 11hrs. Everyone wanted a REAL meal, so what did that translate to? The OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE. Yep, the only things aussie about it are the decorations on the wall and name of the chain. Oh, and the fact they sold Fosters beer was a sure sign that it really wasn't australian. We demolished 4 loaves of bread, entrees and mains (and even shared a dessert). Now for the remaining few hours to get back to Stanford. At least the traffic's lightened up and it should be a fast run home.
JUST ROLLED IN
Wow, it's 1:30am and I just crawled back into my room. It's been 14.5hrs since leaving Tahoe. I could have flown home in that time. But I tell you what, it's been a memorable trip. Wonder if i'll have to do that again some time soon. On the bright side, it's meant to be dumping snow all week.... which would mean some great riding next weekend. Ok, time for bed. Night all!
Posted by Andrew on Feb 25, '07 11:12 AM for everyone
Posted by Andrew on Feb 1, '07 1:43 AM for everyone So tonight was the 37th annual Arbuckle awards dinner, honouring a Stanford alumni that has distinguished themselves in professional and community pursuits. I was invited tonight, not because I am anywhere remotely close to earning such an honour, because the fellowship I received at the university was provided by the Dean of the school. That meant that I was fotunate to be seated at the small table with the Dean and the award winner, Hank McKinnell.
While that name may not ring too many bells, I'm sure the company of which he was CEO will.... the company is responsible for producing 2 of the biggest selling prescription drugs in the history of... drugs.... I'm sure everyone knows one of those drugs, uniquely recognisable as "the little blue pill" (no... not the pill from the Matrix)... yes, Viagra. Their other block-buster drug was Lipitor (cholesterol control)....
Yep, that company is Pfizer. While you may think "cool, he was CEO of Pfizer" (and I know many of you aren't thinking that, but just entertain me for the time being), the number of non-profit boards and committees that he has sat on over the years, and will continute to serve on in the future, is phenomenol.
So where what was the conversation like at the table? It really ranged a great deal. As soon as my accent was heard, there were a lot of talk at the table about the Sydney fireworks on New Year's eve.... which quickly moved to the Opera house... then to ballet... then to the San Fran Symphony Orchestra... then to learning to drive on ice in Davos, Switzerland.... then about how I ended up at Stanford.
What makes the whole scenario interesting is that the Dean of the business school is actually very well known and respected in Australia (not to mention that he's also an Australian resident). He was actually in Oz over the christmas break and attended a function for the 100 most recognised Aussie's living abroad. What did he do to be recognised? Well, there was a bleak period when the 'big 4 banks' in Autralia nearly became 'the big 3' as one of them was about to go bankrupt.The Dean came in as the CEO, turned it around and now it's in great shape. To think that I was working for a competitor of that bank, and worlds of difference in attitude towards post-grad education.
The other big thing happening at the moment is OCR... or more formally 'on-campus-recruiting'. Yes, recruiting season is now in full swing. I had 2 * 1hour interviews today back-to-back with a consulting company. The 2hrs went by really quickly... but it is still 2 HOURS that i spent talking to 1 company, and that's only first round. I'll find out very soon as to how things progress on that front, and I should decide what I'll be doing for Jul - Sept in terms of work. The options are open, and I could end up anywhere in the world... quite an exciting prospect, don't you think?
That's all for now. Finance is waiting to get done before bed tonight. 11pm now, 8am class... let's hope it doesn't take to long, huh?
Posted by Andrew on Jan 24, '07 1:59 AM for everyone
Those of you that don't recognise those quotes have forgotten the gymnastics commentating of our very own Roy & HG during the Sydney olympics. Now that i've seen the sport in real life, it's really weird to think that some people first go to the olympics, then finish high school, after which they go to university... but that's exactly what happens with female gymnasts. Normally they peak somewhere between 14 - 17, then it's just downhill from there.
Now I must be completely honest in clarifying that 'downhill' still enables them to do some phenomenal routines, as I witnessed on Friday night. One of my classmates used to compete in gymnastics, then coached the Stanford team for a few years. The current team is stacked with extremely talented athletes.... 1 olympian from Canada, and 3 of America's top gymansts (ie: they made it to the national finals of approx 15 athletes from whom they pick the actual olypmic team). One of the american girls should have been on the olympic team but tore an achieles a week into the training camp - which sadly ended all her olympic dreams.
Back to the spectacle of Friday night, where Stanford absolutely destroyed Arizona State University. Personally, I had problems picking out any faults in the routines, but Larissa kept pointing out mistakes: "ooo, bad form there"... "that's going to cost her".... Of the 4 disciplines that were on display I must say that I liked, in order of preference, Uneven bars, beam, floor, vault. Most of the night I was just in awe of seeing in real-life just how nimble the athletes were (even past their "prime"), and how laws of physics were seemingly being broken every few moves....
Overall, it was a great night and attracts a dedicated crowd of supporters. Even without understanding the intracies of the sport, it's definitely something everyone should go and watch if they get the opportunity. The only thing I thought that was missing was the Roy & H.G. commentary... but somehow I think I would have been the only one laughing. 
Posted by Andrew on Nov 22, '06 8:29 PM for everyone
Hi everyone... this is something pretty exciting that has been launched today...
Here an opportunity to ride the next big Internet wave. Get in early, build a network, get paid for surfing the net…. "Own the Internet"!
A bunch of my friends from Stanford have just launched AGLOCO. This new company is creating quite a buzz and has a very cool business model. Their slogan is ‘Own the Internet’… and that’s what it’s about: you can get paid to surf the internet as you usually do. I can understand you may be a little skeptical, so here are some point to convince you:
1) It is a company being launched by people I know from Stanford… and this school is responsible for launching companies like Google, so it's a very real business
2) First-mover advantage - the site just went live today, and you're one of the first people to know about it. Sign-up and grow one of the largest networks.
3) You surf the internet anyway - so for 5hrs per month have a small toolbar up, then hide it once you've racked up 5hrs for the month.
4) You might not make millions, but wouldn't it be cool to pay all your internet bills just by surfing?
5) The amount you get paid is all related to the number of people you refer, so the larger your network, the larger your payment. (you get paid for the time your referrals spend surfing)
There is a very strict privacy structure in place, so your information won’t be shared and you won’t start receiving loads of spam.
SIGN UP NOW – this is the key! Remember that you can maximize your earnings by getting referrals to the site… and YOU want to be the one referring everyone!
Here is a link to sign up – it has my ID code in it. www.agloco.com/r/BBBB0739
If you decide to check out the site first, please be sure to reference my membership ID: BBBB0739 (believe in karma… what goes around, comes around)
The toolbar is in beta testing atm, and will be released very soon - be one of the first to sign up and grow your network now! (No-one knows about this site in Canada yet)
Thanks, and hope you decide to join.
Pro
Posted by Andrew on Nov 11, '06 1:28 AM for everyone I've been slack for not posting recently, so I want to get something up here just to let everyone know I'm survining.
Last week, I went to Edmonon for Ben and Chelsea's wedding. It was nothing short of an amazing weekend! I'll write sepeartely about the wedding, but wanted just to let everyone know about the logistics nightmare I faced getting to and from Edmonton:
THE TRIP IN...
(1) Arriving at the correct (domestic terminal), only to be redirected to the international terminal by the friendly agents
(2) Failing the checkin at the international terminal, only to be told that I need to walk back to the domestic terminal - and you better hurry - because it's actually leaving from there
(3) An announcement saying that the plane may not be able to land in Edmonton due to heavy fog, and will be rerouted to Montana, USA
(4) People feeling sorry for me at the departure gate, because I had come all this way from Australia for a wedding... so they called family and friends in Edmonton to check the weather... and luckily it seemed fine.
(5) Landing in the middle of winter... the fields, the airport... everything was covered with snow! (that was actually quite cool, i thought!)
TRYING TO GET BACK TO STANFORD...
(6) Bumped from my Edmonton-Calgary flight
(7) No other flights, or airlines, could get me to Calgary on time for the Calgary-San Fran flight
(8) Re-route for an overnight stay in Vancouver (one major plus here was that I got to see my cousin and auntie sooner than expected! They also got an overnight guest they weren't expecting)
(9) Ordered a 5:45am taxi to get to Vancouver airport... only to see it drive past the house. I ran outside with my bags to catch him. It was pouring rain and cold.... I missed him... and managed to lock myself out of the house
(10) 15mins later, still no cab, so I called the company. He turns up while I'm on the phone
(11) I start getting abused for ordering a cab for Chateau Wynd (correctly pronounced as sha-toe).... when the sign clearly says CHA-Too. I said that 1/2 of canada was french speaking and that it was a french word. I was told that that doesn't matter and I was still wrong.
(12) I was blamed for ordering the cab too late, and got stuck in morning peak-hour. When I reminded him about being late, it became my fault again for not specifying the correct street pronounciation
(13) In next-to-no visibility due to rain, the cabbie abused an 18-wheel semi for going to slow. He was doing 85 in a 90 zone, basically driving blind given the conditions. I thought he was going to fast (the truckie) if that helps put things in perspective.
(14) Needless to say, the cabbie got no tip.
Posted by Andrew on Oct 8, '06 10:27 PM for everyone One of the funniest clips I have ever come across is starting to make rounds on the web again. Just click "start" once it has finished loading.
Posted by Andrew on Oct 5, '06 9:11 PM for everyone
This last weekend was the 'Outward Adventure weekend' for the graduate school. Pretty well the whole class elected to go somewhere for the weekend with trips including white-water rafting, hiking Sierra, surfing Pismo beach. I chose to spend my time at Lake Tahoe with 27 of my classmates. It was an epic adventure with some amazing scenery (and stories that I just MUST share with everyone).
Let me start the story this way... We left Stanford at 4:30pm after classes finished on Friday night, which placed us right in the middle of peak hour traffic. Apparently it's a normal situation that the city empties out for the weekend. So that's where we found ourselves for many, many hours... in the car... out of clear radio signal... with only 2 CD's of music for the drive. Yes, we played both of them several times over. The general consensus was that each CD was allowed to loop twice before it had to be switched over.
Our one and only stop was for dinner at In'n'Out in a little township called Tracy. Yes, that is the actual name of the town - I was surprised too when I first heard. In'n'Out is a burger chain on the west coast, and is the preferred meal of many locals (over the golden arches franchise) and I have to agree with them. The biggest difference is that they cook everything fresh after you order it as opposed to having a queue of pre-made burgers on the shelves. Seeing as it is the chain of choice for Stanford students, we ran into 2 other stanford parties that were on their way to outward adventure trips. The other main attraction of In'n'Out is the simplicity of the menu. Essentially you have 3 choices: Burger, cheese-burger, double-cheese-burger. Enough said about fast food, because it's really just greasy, high-calorie convenience for long drives.
Ok, so close to 5.5hrs later we arrived in Tahoe at the lake house. By this time nearly everyone had arrived. It was a massive 3 storey house with 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a jacuzzi and a private jetty onto the lake. It was also one of the 'stanford ski houses', so a few of the second years on the trip knew the house quite well. It was a pretty lazy night, but at about midnight we got the munchies and cooked 2 pizzas. Most people crashed out by 1am, and the last of us were in bed by 3am. Perfect way to start an 'adventure sports' weekend. There's a picture of the house in the photo below, and it's well hidden behind the tall pines.
The next morning we had a relaxed breakfast with an incredible spread of foods (the benefits of shopping in bulk!): cereals, fruits, bagels, croissants, fruit loaf, scrambled eggs... just so much good stuff to eat. There were two parties quickly forming; one to go on a day hike and another to go pick up a speedboat. You all know which group I was in. At that point, the trip leader called everyone out onto the balcony for a quick meeting:
"Guys, we have an importance announcement to make... you see, we booked the 'Blue Paradise' house in Tahoe, but what we didn't know was that there were 2 Blue Paradises in lake Tahoe. We are actually in the wrong house, and the owners may be on the way here now. If we could all pack up quickly, we'll go to the actual house we were meant to be at."
So how on earth did breaking and entering come into the weekend? Well, it turns out that the first group to arrive at the house about 2mins before the group leaders. That first group checked under the mat for a key, which happened to be there, and didn't think twice about walking straight in. When the leaders arrived 2mins later, they didn't bother checking the keys they had in envelopes for the front door and just started unpacking. When the booking was made, no-one checked the address and assumed it was the ski house. Essentially, 27 of us had just broken into a house, had a party the night before, and then packed up and left. At breakfast that morning, one of the second years was wondering where the 'grills' (or BBQ's) were in the house... there were meant to be 2 somewhere. A quick phone-call to the real-estate agent opened up the situation as it really was... we were in the wrong house. What was incredible to see, though, was how quickly you can actually pack up a house in a rush. Within 7mins the whole house was cleaned and emptied. Organised crime at a new level, huh?
The other house was literally down the road, and we relocated quickly and quietly. It was also a gorgeous house, and this time the keys in the envelopes actually opened the locks on the doors. (we did check under the floor-mats for keys just in case). Once unpacked, the 2 groups split up, and I was off to get the boats from the south end of the lake (the house was on the north-end). The area is simply beautiful, and the drive down was extremely scenic. Once we arrived at the marina, we took a runabout and a pontoon boat. In addition to that we took a wakeboard, skis, tubes and wetsuits. To give you an idea of the size of lake tahoe, it took us about 40mins of running at a really good speed to get back. The deepest part of Tahoe is 1600feet (that's over 500m!!!), and the water is so incredibly blue. Since the water is snow run-off, it's all fresh water, extremely clean and somewhat cold. That being said, it was nowhere near as cold as I expected it to be. In a full-length wetsuit I felt completely warm, and could have ridden all day. The best part is that there is nothing in the water to worry about - no sharks, no crocs, nothing with big teeth. You can point the boat out from shore to the middle of the lake and have no fears of falling off, cause when you do, there's nothing to actually worry about. THat's such a nice change from the sharks in the river back home, but it lacks a certain charm and beauty of the aussie rivers in Pittwater. That being said, in Pittwater you don't have the Sierra mountain range as your backdrop. The real Blue Paradise is in the photo below.
The night then got to the social aspects of dinner, and a few drinks and party games. Somehow 4am rolled around very quickly, and the prospect of getting out on the water again at 7am didn't seem likely, especially given that of the 10 people still awake, both myself and the other experienced driver was awake, the water skier and the wakeboarder. We all looked at each other and pretty well agreed that it was quite wishful to get out at 7.
So I'm not to bore you with more words, but will show you some of the photos (of both houses), and the boats that we hired. Enjoy the scenery!
Posted by Andrew on Sep 4, '06 8:55 PM for everyone What a weekend. If I predicted anything correctly, it was the fact that I'd be getting very little sleep. That being said, All the boys in Edmonton are now relaxing, and trying to catch up for the sleep we lost over the last few days. I may as well start the story from the beginning....
I landed on Thursday and was met by Ben at the airport. It was a nice quick flight from vancouver of just over 1hr with plenty of changes in scenery from the window seat. Our first stop was to visit Andrew, a buddy who's a sales manager at a foundry not far from the airport. That was my first ever trip to a foundry, and it was very cool. It actually brought back heaps of memories of Eng Sci from school (and I surprised myself just how much I actually remembered). First we visited the aluminium foundry, then their iron foundry, with the last stop being the pattern shop. As a 2sec intro for anyone that has no idea what a foundry is, that's where they make moulds out of sand, pour molten metal into the mould and then wait for it to set. I'm really not doing the process any justice by simplifying it so much, but I did say 2secs. Even if I never actually work in a foundry (and I guess it's +99% likely that I won't), it's still interesting to see how the process works to get an appreciation for the end-to-end supply chain. There's definitely a heap of art to how they design the moulds, because there are so many factors to consider regarding how the metal behaves when fills the mould and how it cools within the mould. I won't bore everyone with more details, but I'll just say again, it was a cool experience.
Our next stop that night was at the golfcourse for 9 holes before sunset. We had a 7:30pm tee off time (gotta love those northern summers). Now I mustn't have actually picked up a set of clubs in close to 2 years now so the consistency of my game needs a little work at the moment. Concerned that I'd be slowing the boys down with my poor skills, I asked how seriously they played... and the response was that they play "whackf&*k". Of course, I had no idea what that meant. "First you hit the ball, then you yell out f&*k when you see how bad a shot it was" Perfect - I was right in my element! So there were 4 of us out there - Ben, Ryan, Jason and myself - with 2 golfcarts, and a loooot of spare golf balls. I never really have a problem connecting with the ball of the tee, the problem is getting the damn thing to go where you want it to. I didn't hook a ball all day, but my slice was as good as it's ever been. Probably the funniest thing was that the other cart started to spill a lot of dark blue smoke... then it would actually start by itself and needed a push. Initially we did that by hand, but then realised that the second cart could also do that. Good thing there were rubber bumpers at both ends! We limped both carts back just after the sun went down in the late 'afternoon' light of 9:30pm. A quick dash home for a shower, change and a feed, then back out again to the local for a few drinks. I know that it's just the end of summer here, but I tell you guys back home that it is coooold once the sun goes down.
I think we made it home about 1am.
Friday morning was time to hook on the boat and head out to the lake for some wakeboarding. Having now been out behind a proper wakeboard boat on a lake, I can truly understand how the sport is meant to be played. We head out to Halfmoon Lake, about 40mins out of Edmonton. The boys were disappointed at how rough the water was on the lake surface... so to put that into perspective; this is a lake (no tidal influence), with no other boats on it
(no commuter disturbance), and a very mild breeze blowing (oh no! ripples!). Yes, they must have been at most 3cm high. Being the 'guest', I was first to go in the water. I also got a dry wetsuit. Yes, a wetsuit. And gloves. It was very, veeeery cold in the water. Fresh is another way of describing it. With 80feet of rope, 400pounds of ballast and nice open water it was great to be back out on the water. Given the conditions, I experienced a first.... this was teh first time ever that I had to stop due to the fact that my hands were sore and couldn't hold onto the tow rope. Back home, it's always the back and legs that get sore from absorbing the waves in the conditions we have to ride. Anyhow, there were some good wipe out from everyone. I also tried the wakeskate (ie: think sakteboard... no bindings) and if it wasn't for the fact that I could do the splits I could have had a very nasty fall. It's much harder than a wakeboard, but good fun anyhow.
That night (yes, after the day out in the sun, on the water) was Ben's Buck night. What goes on tour, stays on tour, so I can't share any stories. All I'll say is that with approx 20 guys buying the groom drinks, his night didn't last too long before he had to be ushered home. The rest of the crowd kicked on until bars closed at 3am. Home by about 3:30am after some pizza, and then I couldn't get to sleep until about 5am. You see, there were quite a few red-bull mixers in the last hour of the night (4 from memory).... and you know what they say.... it gave me wings.
The next morning (it was just before 12, so technically still morning) most of the same crowd made their way out to the family farm, about 40mins out of Edmonton. For me, simply getting out of the city is a novelty... but I normally associate that with heading closer to the water. Now it was getting out of an already comparatively small city to go further inland to a farm. It was time for some good 'ol Albertan (I think that's a real word) fun... one of the boys there called it "redneck sport"... so I'll paint you the picture.... there were 9 disposable cars (ie: they were not going to be working by the end of the sport), everyone had full crash helmets, and there was a bobcat... on lots and lots of private land... hrmm, any ideas? A 40foot jump was built, cars were launched, then they were smashed up derby style. Photos will be posted soon when I get a copy from some of the boys. There were pick-ups being launched, 'rice-rockets' (they're japanese imports for all those back home) flying, and a cavalier that just kept on going and goin and goin... even when 1 of the wheels got ripped off. No-one got hurt, so don't worry. Everyone was quite sore the next morning though... To ease the pain that night, there were 2 kegs (that's 120l to be finished between about 20 people) which were polished off. Actually, one of the kegs was half empty by the time that the round of keg stands were done (that's a handstand on the keg, and drinking from the keg upside down). Anyhow, it was a biiig night, with a few headaches in the morning.
And on that note, I'm going to leave it there. It was an epic weekend, and thanks to the boys for their hospitality. All things going well, I should be back very soon.
Posted by Andrew on Aug 29, '06 11:09 PM for everyone The past few days in Vancouver have been interesting, but not without incident. Luckily, no incidents involved the words "near death experience"... more so peculiarities of being a stranger in a strange land. The most interesting occurred yesterday while I was on the skytrain to Science World, the designated meeting place with a stanford buddy.
Sooo... I was the skytrain (for those in Sydney, think monorail style, but really just a train on elevated tracks... it's the main/only train system in BC)... yes, on the skytrain... I was listening to Sting's "Englishman in New York" when one of the passangers standing next to me turned around and stuck his face right infront of mine and mumbled something. Of course, I couldn't hear a single thing because the music was drowing out everything, so I took out the earphones and asked the gentleman to repeat himself. ONce again, he mumbled something and I could make out the word "commercial". He pointed at me, then at the front of the train. Dumbfounded, I asked him to repeat it again... and again... and again... "commercial" was the only recognisable word for me, although I could have sworn he was speaking some form of broken (well, mutilated) english. Some of my interpretations of his message:
"I used to be a commercial train driver"
"You should be on a commercial for train drivers"
"They're filming a commercial up front"
"Are you a commercial train driver?"
"Are you on a commercial about train stations?"
Luckily, at this point a fellow passanger took pity on me as he overheard the amusing conversation I was having. Turns out that there's a train station called commercial on the network, and the reason I couldn't find it on the network map was that it's abreviated. Thank goodness there are still some nice people left in this world that help each other out for no reason other than being nice.
The other occassion was when I went to buy a 'sea-bus' (ferry) ticket to Lonsdale. It's a cute little market on the north side of Vancouver harbour, which is a bit of a mix of Birkenhead point and Darling Harbour. Sooo, I went to buy a ticket and saw all these ticketing machines like we have at the train stations back home. Checking the price of the ticket it was $3.25... and whaddayakno... I have $2.75 on me in coins, and the smallest note I had was $50. At that point I knew I shouldn't have bought a coffee in the morning. Anyhow, back to my story. These ticketing machines give out change in coins.... and I didn't particulalry want to get $46+ back in shrapnel. I found an information booth next to the machines, and the conversation went something like this:
"Can I buy tickets for the sea-bus from a ticket counter"
"Well, the machines behind you sell the tickets for the sea-bus"
"I know, but I don't enough coins and only have large notes"
"That's ok, it will give you change"
"Sure, I realise that, but I don't want to get a whole bunch of change in coins"
"Why?"
"Well, the smallest note I have is a $50"
"so? You'll get change"
"Yes, I know... I'll get $46.75 in change..."
"Yes sir, that's right"
"... that's $46.75 in coins..."
"Yes sir?"
"...well, that means at least 22 coins assuming there are enough toonies in there"
"Yes?"
"I don't want over $46 in coins!"
"Oh right! I get it. Sure, ummm... well you can buy it from the newsagent over there"
I mean come on guys! I really like Canada as a country, and I know I went to an 'information' booth, but surely 'providing assitance' is in the job description. And my story continues... I walked across to the newsagent and asked for a ticket. They politely refused telling me that they don't sell tickets any more and that I'd have to use the machines. I explained my 'coinage' situation to them and they were quite happey to exchange any coins I had for notes! Yay! Even in badly broken english they understood it first time round. Once again, thank goodness for nice people... it just makes the world such a better place.
I'll be back in Vancouver on Sunday night, but now it's time to jump across to Edmonton to catch up with a few mates and kick back and relax. I say that now, but I have a feeling that I'll actually be doing very little sleeping over the next few days.
(Oh, and btw for all those rugby union fans, the womens world cup is on at the moment in Canada. I'm sitting here watching NZ kick the Canadians' butts. Score update: 24 - 7, 2mins into the 2nd half.)
Posted by Andrew on Aug 27, '06 8:52 AM for everyone Leaving Sydney
Surely this wasn't a sign of things to come? As I arrived at Sydney airport this morning, the queue for check-in was surprisingly short. However, when I actually got to the counter things took an interesting turn. First of all, the check-in attendant's computer was broken, so she was fiddling around with that. Next, one of my bags was 400g overweight...
"I'm sorry, you'll need to repack your bag."
"You mean I need to get 400g out of the bag?"
"Yes. Your bag is overweight. If it isn't 32kg, it will be left on the tarmac"
"Sorry, I don't quite understand... you mean that you'll accept the bag here at the counter, but the baggage handlers won't?"
"Yes, that's right"
"... ok then... I guess I need to get 400g out of that bag"
So it took me about 1 minute to open 2 bags and shift a couple of bottles of sunscreen between the 2 suitcases, and in that time my check-in attendant disappeared. Gone. Just like that. Off on walkabout. I wasn't worried, but it was a little strange. Anyhow, when she finally did come back 10mins later the suspect suitcase was back on the scales and our conversation started again with her comment:
"Hrmmm... exactly 32kg"
"Uh, no, the read-out here says 31.6kg, are you looking at a different reading?"
"No, what you see is what I see"
"But the one on the counter here shows 31.6kg" (I pointed)
"Yes, 32kg exactly"
Is it me, or does anyone else out there agree that 31.6 does NOT equal 32? I guess the most important point was they actually accepted my suitcases, but that wasn't enough. She opened another line of questioning:
"Why are you taking 2 bags anyway?"
"Excuse me?"
"You're taking 2 really heavy bags. Why?"
"I'm moving"
"Why didn't you just send it across?"
"I don't own enough to send across separately. Anyhow, I'm allowed 2 bags at 32kg, so I took advantage of that"
"Yes, but no-one ever really takes the limit"
"Well that's good then, the plane won't be overloaded. I decided to take 2 bags, Thank you."
That was the end of my boarding fiasco, and as the story unfolded, turned out to be worse than clearing customs in the USA. Never thought I'd have more problems leaving home than arriving in a new country. My plane was the supercolourful aussie icon, that everyone in the world loves, except probably Australians. I mentioned to a few americans at the gate that we got the plane done as a special episode of MTV's "pimp my plane", and they were like "oh, that's sooo cool. Hope they do that back home"
We have a (few) problem(s)...
The Sydney - LA flight itself was quite good. No complaints at all, and I got to watch a few good movies, brush up on some maths I had long forgotten and even get about 5hrs of sleep. The biggest problem was dragging my suitcases from customs to the drop-off for the next leg of my flight. You see, one of the tags was badly ripped, so the attendant at the line simply tore it off, put some temporary stickers on and used a highlighter to point out these new stickers (5cm * 10cm). All i could do was pray that the baggage gods had a sense of humour and my luggage would travel the next leg with me.
Most of my time Tom Bradley airport, LA, was spent trying to get my old phone (ie: the triband one) to boot up. It kept freezing just before, or just after, finding a carrier. In the end, it didn't work and I had to give up cause my boarding call was announced. I got a window seat for the flight from LA to Vancouver, right near the baggage loading conveyor belt. I was even fortunate enough to see one of my suitcases dropped by the handlers (he didn't look like he had any complaints about the weight). One of the highlights of this otherwise quite boring stop-over was getting a photo of both my suitcases on the conveyor belt.. I knew they were going to at least land in Vancouver, and hopefully be unloaded there as well!
Thank goodness you're here!
Once I landed in Vancouver and cleared immigration, I had a few minutes to kill waiting for my bags to come out. On the 10th attempt the phone splattered to life (after lots of sounds of grinding rusty cogs could be heard from inside the phone). I tell you what, that old T68i is a battler! It's even been lost in the snow, run over by skiers, found again, bounced on concrete, then shelved for 6 months.... but it battles. on. Anyhow, the short of it is that you can contact me by sms if you need to.... same number for now. I'll let you all know what my new 'cell phone' number will be in the states.
I was met at Vancouver airport by my auntie, cousin + wife + baby son. It was great to see some familiar faces. We chowed down some Yum-Cha for lunch (even the over here I think they use the same dumpling manufacturer/supplier!) and that was soooo gooood compared to the aeroplane food which tasted kinda like carboard in badly mixed gravy with a side of foam tid-bits. The rest of the afternoon was spent on a few shopping errands, dinner and just generally catching up. I even got to grab a beer with the youngest member of the Prohvatilov clan (dad and auntie's lineage).
Ok, time for me to try and sort out my bags.... then again, I could just live out of the bags for a few weeks, eh? (oh how Canadian was that ending?!?!?)    
Posted by Andrew on Aug 26, '06 5:01 PM for everyone Bags packed and about to head off to Sydney international airport. Here's the real beginning of my journey to Stanford. Today, I'm heading off to Vancouver to catch up with my cousin for a little while, kick back and enjoy life.
Getting yelled at that I'm going to be late, so I best be off.
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