Eye of the Tiger

From the Enchanted Sanctuary...

2007-04-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

Get Your Monster Name

(thanks to the Quantum Pontiff)

More Cypress Mountain

2006-12-29T17:38:00.000-08:00

Arthouse Photos

2006-12-29T17:34:00.000-08:00

Mohan these are just for you!

Cypress Mountain

2006-12-29T17:28:00.000-08:00

Christmas Dinner

2006-12-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

Are The Living End the greatest band ever??

2006-12-18T01:25:00.000-08:00

Why yes, yes they are. No band has kicked so much live ass since Bon Scott passed out in the back seat of a car! This evening I witnessed the boys put on a power-house display of live music at a downtown club here in Vancouver. Despite this being the last show of a hectic north American tour before heading home, the band still managed to show these Canucks how a real rock n' roll show is done. Kicking off with Red Room, from the new album, then finishing with an encore performance of West End Riot, complete with Chris standing on top of Scott's bass during his solo, it was no stop live energy. For me, I was happy that after a day of snowboarding yesterday, and my 27th birthday 2 weeks ago, I could still get amongst it in the mosh pit. Not only that, but during the support act, I met the bass player Scott, who came out the front for a beer (top bloke!) then caught a drum stick from Andy at the end of the show. The other went to another Aussie, who I caught up with after the show, for some stick bashing and an AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, OI OI OI!! you can see the stick displayed proudly in the picture. Seriously, how good are they.

Let it snow and snow and snow...

2006-12-04T15:21:00.000-08:00

Following a week of torrential rain, resulting in the tap water becoming undrinkable - we had to boil up drinking water - the temperature dropped and, just like a year ago, it snowed in Vancouver. Unlike last year however, it didn't stop for nearly 3 days and we had over 30cm of snow in the city and temperatures going below -10. Now Vancouver is not a city designed for thius weather, and the resultant fallen trees (from the weight of the snow) led to a lot of power outages, including the entirity of UBC. This meant that last Monday the university was completely shut down. That wasn't really a problem though, except that I had no power, or drinking water, at home, which meant no idea that the uni was shut down. So I left my cold powerless basement without food, hoping to get heat and a hot meal out at UBC. Of course that wasn't to be. So after trudgubg around in the snow for an hour or two - taking photos, fresh powder makes for some beautiful pictures - I had to knock on th door of some grad student friends to ask for food and shelter until the power came back on at my place. Thankfully, they had power, heat AND curry, since the power wasn't restored to my area unti 8pm. However, despite the power outages, the icy roads etc, snow really does make it seem like winter and Christmas - thanks to an egg nog latte from Starbucks!

Flava of Halloween

2006-11-05T12:36:00.000-08:00

So last week I experienced my first Halloween - no one told me the neighbourhood turns into a backyard fireworks warzone - along with my first Halloween party and costume.

Do you know what time it is?

Last days of summer...

2006-10-19T14:40:00.000-07:00

Orcas, etc.

2006-10-07T00:52:00.000-07:00

Now entering MacBook-ville...

2006-10-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

population: ME

Following the burnout and subsequent death of my trusty old acer laptop - the computer that recorded every word of my thesis, and took with it a whole lot of not-backed-up data - a new electronic work companion was needed. But where was I to turn? To the new version of the old faithful? No, it was time to move forward. So with Mohan's raving laughter in my ear, I entered the world of Apple, with my spanking-new 13-inch, 2.0 GHz, 1Gb ram, white MacBook! Yes it is cool and I'm all about the Mac now.
Thanks to the educational discount and the start of the school year here, I saved some cash, and got a free 2Gb iPod nano in the deal. Sweet.

Here's a photo, taken with the MacBook built in camera, of me and my nano - check out the engraving.
I also picked up an 250 Gb external hard-drive - I learnt the back-up lesson the hard way.
Now I got no excuse to not get some work done... except for the start of hockey season!

Les Houches

2006-08-31T00:48:00.000-07:00

The 3 week summer school in Les Houches was arranged with lots of time for hiking and taking in the beautiful scenary all around.

Here's the Chamonix valley, taken from just above the location of the summer school.

This is the Galcier Des Bossons, from about a quater of the way up. See those trees on the left - me and some fellow physicsts had lunch above there, on the edge of the glacier.

This is the view from the edge, as appreciated by Nate and Taylor.

Cooling off on the way down - that water is straight of the glacier. Damn cold.

The lads, town centre Chamonix - Tony, the Argentinian, Jose and Nate, enjoying his ice-cream.

MMMM Ice cream.

The soccer playing crew...

...and the world cup soccer watching crew.

There were some talks about physics too, and some intense discussions. Really.

Back from the Tour

2006-07-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted, but I have been rather busy. Here's why;

1) In May, I was back in Oz for a month, visiting UQ for work, and visiting Jacqui, my family, her family and all my mates. When trying to see everyone, catch up, get some serious work done and spend time with Jacqui, a month is not a very long time at all! I was a quite a full month. One my brother sends me the photos, I'll post some pictures from a night at the Finn's with the boys before I left. It was good to see everyone, though it was harder to leave this time.

2) Following my Australian tour, I went directly to Europe, for a three week workshop on quantum magnetism. This was held in the research centre above the town of Les Houches, France. Les Houches is near Chamonix (near the Italian and Swiss borders), which sits at the foot of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Western Europe (that's some of it behind me - photo taken from a hike up to 2000m above sea level, Mont Blanc is 4800m).
All I can say is WOW - what a location! Really, it's indescribable; I'll need a whole post to show a fraction of the photos from all the hiking. During the winter it's skiing and summer it's hiking and mountain biking. Here's a photo of me on top of La Prarion, ~2000m above sea level.

Also the view from the balcony of my own room. Not a bad view, eh?

Then there's me a with a bit more altitude: around 3800m, on top of Aguille du Midi. Talk about thin air, after an hour and a half I was starting to see stars. Then a blizzard hit and we got stuck in an elevator (more about that in a later post)

Finally, there's the result of hiking up a couple of mountains and two glaciers!

3) One day after I gor back from France, Jacqui arrived in Vancouver for a 2 and half week holiday. This time we went over to Victoria, on Vancouver Island for a night, which included a day on scooters and high tea at the Empress hotel (expensive tea and scones). We also did the Grouse Grind - a ridiculously steep hike up to the top of Grouse mountains, where we saw a pair of Grizzly bears. and went whale watching, and saw some magnificent Orcas, including 2 babies, right up close - one jumped out of the water about 3 m from the back of the boat, awesome. On top of all this, we experienced Canada day, complete with fake maple leaf tattoos!

4) WORK - seriously I've been working.

This Friday I'm back on the road again. I'm giving a seminar at a conference being held in Banff, which is another absolutely beautiful location for a physics conference! We sure know how to pick them.

Springtime

2006-04-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

The cherry blossoms

One of my neighbours

Decaf...must find antidote

2006-03-31T11:58:00.000-08:00

The concept of good, espresso coffee seems to have eluded north Americans. Here, Starbucks is considered good coffee, and they are everywhere. Luckily, there's a little cafe near where I live that makes good coffee (well, depending upon who serves you) but at UBC, it's Starbucks, or the blue chip cookie (they make AWESOME cookies, however they should ask if I'd like some coffee with my foam.).

In the physics department, they do have half decent, fresh filter coffee that is made everyday, and actual milk to add to it, as opposed to powdered "creamer" or "whitener" or whatever. Today, I accidentally poured myself a cup of decaf...

It smelled like coffee. It tasted like coffee (close enough). But where was the hit! I drank it and just felt let down, unfulfilled. It was like having a hangover without the big night beforehand; like biting into a meat pie and finding nothing; like Ballymore without rum - it was just wrong!

Road Trippin' to the Rockies - Part 1

2006-03-10T13:20:00.000-08:00

It's been a while coming, but finally I'm going to post some photos from the road trip Jacqui and I undertook from Vancouver to Banff. As you'll see, the scenery was absolutely spectacular, and these are only a fraction of all the photos we actually took. Here's part 1, which gets us to Banff.

Here's our trusty vehicle - a Nissan X-Trail, courtesy of Budget. Take a note of how clean it is.
This won't last.

The first mountain range we had to cross on our way to Banff.

Suddenly the "Great" dividing range back home didn't appear to be so great.

Big red barns - not just a stereotype.

Here they come - are the clouds really low, or they mountains really high? Better go up and find out!

Now we're in the middle of it. So this is what winter really looks like! Nothing but Christmas trees everywhere! Also, icy roads and limited visibility in places. I'm glad we got the four-wheel drive it was needed.

Passing through Kelowna, where we had lunch, we started along the edge of this lake, for the next 20 or 30 kms I think! Unfortunately it got dark, and we missed a lot of good lakeside scenery, as we headed towards Golden, out first stop.

Start of day 2 - the X-trail gets treated to some snow which we had to wash off.
Thanks to the Lonely Planet for picking out the motel we stayed at - it was cheap, clean, warm, and close to a real nice, late night pizza place!

Some sun AND blue sky - you just got to treasure this!

Just outside of Banff, we stopped next to this huge frozen lake, where there were signs pointing out the surrounding mountains. It was damn cold, but there was a dude playing ice hockey on the lake!

In Banff, everywhere you looked was a postcard image.

Jacqui exploring the frozen waterfall.

Jacqui playing with the ice

Main street Banff - home to Grizzly House restaurant, where fondue is king. Jac and I had beef, lobster, buffalo, venison and wild boar, cooked on a hot rock. The rattlesnake was a bit expensive.

The view from out hotel room, road trip day 3.

Snowboarding is Addictive

2006-03-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

I think it's fair to say that I've become addicted to snowboarding. With three mountains within 30 mins of Downtown - Cypress, Grouse and Seymour - it's just too easy. It's also cool to cruise through the centre of downtown, snowboard under arm. 1 in 3 people will ask either where you're headed to, or how the conditions were. Imagine seeing people cruise through Queen street mall with surfboards.

The jury is still out for me on what is better - surfing or snowboarding. Surfing is probably still ahead, but I think once I start hitting the jumps, snowboarding may win out. It's sure nice not to have to paddle out, though that is half the fun of surfing.

I had five lessons in December/January up at Mt Seymour, and in the last two weeks I've hit my first Black Diamond run. It was the Unicorn, #13 on the trail map. There were some damn steep parts, but it was a long, fun run.

Next stop - the terrain park.

In the next episode of South Park...

2006-02-22T16:14:00.000-08:00

Dude, I look SWEET!

Raccoons and spelling H-I-N-E-S

2006-01-23T20:16:00.001-08:00

Just finished my first session at my new gym - the UBC 'Birdcoop'. Not a bad gym, lots of equipment that is in good nick, lots of benches, lifting platforms, and most people in there seem to stick to the machines.

Anywho, I had my first encounder with a raccoon - a pair of them in fact, climbing up one of the trees outside the entrance to the Hennings (physics) building. All I can say is raccoons are BLOODY HUGE. I thought they were possum or cat-size. No way. Try more like the size of a decent-sized dog. Dusty, Jacqui's parents Smithfield (a stumpy-tail cattle dog, on the left, teaching a rubber snake a lesson) would size up pretty well to the two raccoons I saw.

The ringed tail and white face make them quite distinctive, but their size sure surprised me. Perhaps I should shelve my plans for my evil cat-army of the night, and replace them with raccoons. That is something to ponder.

Now I know American spelling is different to ours back in Oz, but c'mon, how hard is it to spell Hines, when

You have it written in front of you on some form of official ID
You're given an email address, spelt out, consisting of hines@ blah blah
The bloke is standing in front of you spelling his name out.

Sounds simple? Not for some of these Canadians. So far, my Mount Seymour lift pass has me as Andrew Haines and now my new gym membership card has me as Andrew Himes! Both have my photo, so it now appears I have two aliases.

Well, at least its better than "Phonesy", as anyone who was on the last Tour of Duty pub crawl will recall.

Australia Day and Triple J

2006-01-19T21:50:00.000-08:00

January 26th is just around the corner, meaning it's time to get out that singlet, put a carton on ice, put triple J on the radio and crack a XXXX gold at 10am to kick off Australia Day 2006, and the Hottest 100.
Of course, that would be the plan if I were kicking it back in Oz.

But being in rain-saturated Vancouver (we've had, in total, 17 hrs of sunshine in the last month!!) will not stop some Australia day celebrations. A big part of that is of course, Triple J's Hottest 100. Having been reminded by Mick's post, here's where my 10 votes went:

Catch My Disease - Ben Lee
Wish You Well - Bernard Fanning
Lounger - Dogs Die In Hot Cars
Do You Want To - Franz Ferdinand
Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz
I Predict A Riot - Kaiser Chiefs
What's On Your Radio - Living End
Flame Trees - Sarah Blasko
Joker & The Thief - Wolfmother
Evie (Pt.1) - Wrights

There were some of hard decisions to make, but most of the songs above picked themselves for me. Some Reasons? Well...
I love Ben Lee's new album - pop music has never really been my thing, but there's just something so catchy about "Catch my Disease", I love listening to it and bopping down the street. It's got to be a hot tip for at least the top 5. Same with Bernard's solo effort - very catchy, very cool song, that's fun to sing along too.
My girlfriend Jacqui got me into Dogs Die in Hot Cars - they are one cool band, and this song rocks. In fact, the whole album, Please Describe Yourself, is awesome.

I had to give a vote for Franz - last year, they got me interested in new music and new bands, and their second album was a good follow up to their fantastic first album. I could have voted for all the Gorillaz songs off Demon Days - it really is a bloody good album - but I do like to spread the love around. This song though, Feel Good Inc. is by far one of my favorite songs of the year. The same goes for I Predict a Riot, by the Kaiser Chiefs - a definite sing/yell-along song.

Now anyone who knows me will have predicted this one. The Living End count have released Chris and Scott farting on a snare drum and I would have voted for it, that's how much I love this band. Incidentally, if this song sneaks in (it was released only recently) the Living end will extend there record of consecutive appearances in the Hottest 100 to 9 years. They are indeed the greatest Aussie band ever!

The original Flame Trees by Cold Chisel is a great song, but Sarah Blasko's version is something completely different, and I loved it the first time I heard it on the radio. The song gets a whole different feeling.

Wolfmother have given me a reason to dust off my tight black jeans, which is a good enough reason for a vote for this old Black Sabbath fan. This song especially for its use of "..in the NIGHT!", which is reminiscent of Eye of the Tiger.

Finally, a vote for the Wrights is a somewhat sentimental one. Firstly, I love this Aussie "super"-band. We've got musicians from the Living End, You Am I, Spiderbait and Jet. More importantly, my best mate Ben Herlihy, named his recently into the world, little girl Evie, which is reason enough. Of course, it's also a very cool cover.

So there you go. Now for Australia day itself. My plan is to spend it with the whole crew of Aussies working away from home up at Whistler-Blackcomb. Apparently, it is one hell of party up there, and I may take the day off. Coupled with some awesome snowboarding fun, I may just be able to enjoy Australia day away from home.

Oh and don't worry, the green wife-beater will be on, as will the Wallabies jersey!

The Tiger in Jasper!!

2006-01-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

Jacqui and I have been road tripping through British Columbia and the Rockies for the past week, and I intend to post a full picture summary in the near future. However, some things can't wait.

Close to the halfway point of our trip, we stopped off in Jasper (~3hrs north of Banff) to have some lunch/dinner at the Jasper Pizza Place, the home of some very nice wood-fired pizzas. Having ordered pizza, a burger and some poutine - I didn't realize chips and gravy could be made better/more unhealthy - we sat down in a booth against the wall. Just as I took a sip of my root beer, a familiar sound immediately caught my attention...

daadadadadaadadadadaadadadadaadadaDAH DAHdahDAH DAHdahDAH DAHdahdaaaaaaah

and those famous words

"Risen up, back on the street.."

That's right, it was Eye of the Tiger, heralding my arrival and pumping me up for the next leg of our journey. It was all I could do not to jump up on the table and start boxing the light fixings!

Unfortunately for Jacqui, this meant that I managed to make a song which is only 4 mins 7 secs long last the next 2 hrs!

My first Eye of the Tiger in Canada not emanating from my Creative Zen.

Good times, good times...

2005-12-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

Would you trust this man?

2005-12-25T20:46:00.000-08:00

Andrew - 1. Black bear - 0.

2005-12-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

Nice Beaver at Science World

2005-12-25T20:41:00.001-08:00

Our Christmas Dinner... note we haven't cut the turkey yet and the plate is already full.

2005-12-25T20:41:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas turkey

2005-12-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

Our cold Christmas morning. Not quiet white... only 5 degrees.

2005-12-25T20:38:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

2005-12-25T20:37:00.000-08:00

They breed their Ibis a little different over here!

2005-12-25T20:36:00.001-08:00

More Beluga's

2005-12-25T20:36:00.000-08:00

Artic Beluga Whales... an amazing sight

2005-12-25T20:35:00.000-08:00

The otter's at Vancouver Aquarium

2005-12-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

Science is Cool! Jac's busy playing with Bernoulli's Balls

2005-12-24T01:14:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas Tree! Its little, but its real!

2005-12-24T01:02:00.000-08:00

2005-12-24T01:01:00.000-08:00

Pictures from Mount Seymour where Jac and I have been learning to snowboarding. Pictures of actual snowboarding will appear in the future.

2005-12-24T00:54:00.000-08:00

Jacqui and I - see the steam, that means it's really cold (as does our red noses!)

2005-12-24T00:53:00.000-08:00

Flowers of light - all the living flowers are dead due to the cold!

2005-12-24T00:52:00.000-08:00

The Festival of Lights at the VanDusan botanical gardens. Jacqui is in there somewhere.

2005-12-24T00:51:00.000-08:00

More Festival of Lights - I loved this place!

The Fog

2005-12-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

I had my first experience of a midday fog today. Being from Brisbane, we have the odd fog of a morning which rapidly clears as the sun rises higher in the sky. Today in Vancouver was a little different. I headed to the bus stop from my apartment in an unseasonably (but very welcome) bright, clear and sunny day. I think it may have even hit 7 degrees Celsius! Walking down Dunbar (the main street near where I now live), I could clearly see the mountains, but there was a thick layer of fog over the inlet at their base. Wishing I had my camera, I thought this looked pretty cool.

It then literally started to cool. Turning around and look up the street, the sun had begun to darken, as this sea of fog came rolling down the street, engulfing all light, happiness and warmth in its path. Seriously. Gone was the bright sunny day, vanquished by the irrepressible fog.

I felt like I was in the middle of a Stephen King story - the "Strawberry Spring" short story from "Night Shift" to be exact. This was only heightened on the bus ride, upon looking down the fog-filled paths lined with leaf-less trees in the forest around UBC. Spooky, but cool at the same time. I almost got off the bus early to walk through the forest.

Who knows what might have happened...

Sustainability at UBC

2005-12-06T13:26:00.000-08:00

I read an article in the UBC newspaper (called "The Ubyssey"... get it, that's the joke), which discussed how the university is well ahead of its Kyoto protocol goals for reducing energy consumption. I think this is fantastic, considering the huge amounts of energy that university campuses use (I know my computer is on all day).

The university supplied funds to set up a sustainability office (hence the stickers about switching off lights under many light switches). It is obviously doing its job, paying for itself in terms of savings on electricity bills. University are huge consumers of energy, though we should know better, and it's inspiring to be somewhere that is being proactive.

Fairfield triple-choc cookies usurped!!

2005-12-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

I didn't think it was possible, but I have found a better cookie than those produced by the bakery in Fairfield gardens, back in Brisbane. My new landlady was nice enough to give me a box of cookies from "Cookies by George" for my birthday yesterday (that's right everyone, my new landlady remembered my birthday!!!). Damn those cookies are good. Considering that one of the major ingredients is Belgium chocolate, it is hardly surprising. Last night, I had a Milk chocolate chunk, and half a Peanut-butter and chocolate chunck. Bloody awesome!

Sorry Fairfield.

Meeting of ex-Villanova School Captains at UBC

2005-12-03T16:43:00.001-08:00

In an effort to alleviate the drastic shortage of Bundaberg rum in the greater Vancouver area, three ex-school captains of Villanova College (AJ Bremner, Michael Lyons and myself) met in a residence on the UBC campus to discuss tactics. Unfortunately, this meeting only served to worsen the situation, thanks largely in part to numerous games of "4-Kings" (the drinking game).

Above is a photo of AJ, me and Michael. Can you tell the lawyers from the physicist?
(The lawyers have either a beer or nothing in front of them. The physicist has two empty shot glasses.)

2005-12-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

Three ex-Villanova skippers discuss the availability of Bundaberg rum in the Vancouver area.

New place, new physics

2005-12-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

Being in a very strongly quantum information oriented group during my PhD at UQ, it was very easy to get lured into the trap of focusing solely on this area, forsaking all others. This is true anywhere I suppose. Especially with the vast amount of literature, it can be difficult to keep up with your own area of research, let alone worry about something else. Coming to a department with a strong focus on condensed matter theory at UBC, is giving me the opportunity to really try and expand my knowledge base into new areas of physics (and let's face it, my knowledge needs some expanding).

More importantly, ideas and techniques from one area of physics can be very useful and applicable to another. Often similar results are known by different names, or in different contexts, and the differing approaches can open new doors and prevent research from re-inventing the wheel.

Multi-disciplinary research groups are in no way new, however I think a lot of the notions of collaboration can sometimes get lost in the fight for funding.

Purple Snow

2005-11-30T10:46:00.000-08:00

To contrast what it looks like back at UQ at this time, below is a photo I took before I left. The Jacaranda flowers are gone now that BrisVegas is into summer though, and it's stinking hot. A cold, possible white Christmas will definitely be something different for me. Not sweating profusely in the face of a large roast dinner will be a something of a novelty!

2005-11-30T10:45:00.000-08:00

The Jacaranda's down by the lake at UQ. Pretty special.

Snowing in UBC

2005-11-29T15:18:00.000-08:00

Didn't people tell me that it didn't snow in Vancouver? Well, as you'll se below, it has indeed snowed and snowed hard. I must say, with the snow around it doesn't feel as cold, and the winter seems that much nicer.

2005-11-29T10:57:00.000-08:00

Me in front of the Walter C. Koerner Library, at UBC. Notice the snow. It's not meant to snow in Vancouver.

2005-11-29T10:54:00.000-08:00

The clock tower near the Physics and Astronomy building. With that old school lamp post, and those real-life Christmas tress, I feel like I'm in a Christmas movie.

2005-11-29T10:53:00.000-08:00

Who said it doesn't snow in Vancouver?

Why the title??

2005-11-27T20:59:00.000-08:00

So to kick off... Why "Eye of the Tiger"?

"Eye of the Tiger" is THE song written by the early '80's rock group 'Survivor', and is unarguably the greatest inspirational rock anthem in existence. Yes, I put it above "We are the Champions" - it has more words, better music and just makes you want to jump back into the ring (just ask old man Dawson).

"Eye of the Tiger" was written as the theme sing for Rocky III (released in 1982) at the request of Sly Stallone himself. From www.songfacts.com

In the movie, Rocky Balboa is shown resting on his laurels, living the good life, doing American Express commercials and photo-ops and slacking off his training regimen. in stark contrast were scenes of the ominous Mr. T, training hard, sweating, bleeding and pouring out every last ounce of effort to become the boxing champion of the world. Rocky's trainer, played by Burgess Meredith, implores Rocky to get back "The Eye Of The Tiger," meaning his edge and his hunger to be the champ.

Apollo Creed also gets in on the action, once he's become Rocky's coach, after Mr T kills Mickey. Before his fight he tells reporters, Rocky has the 'eye of the tiger' back again, the same thing he saw in Rocky's eyes before his fight against him in Rocky II. Very inspirational stuff.

The song was #1 in 1982, won a Grammy award and was also nominated for an Oscar!
I think it is best left to one of its authors, Jim Peterik of Survivor to some it up:

"I guess if you want to analyze it, it would be an unbelievable, powerful beat which is so simple and primal. It's the reason marching bands still make formations to it, it's very simple. It's 2 and 4, that's it. Then you have the term 'Eye Of The Tiger' and the tiger imagery. It's a great image, it's a ferocious image. Then you have the very simple melody - the chorus is like 3 or 4 notes. I guess simplicity with a message people can relate to. It's all those things."

For me, it's all about drunken New Years Eves on Stradbroke Island. Good times, good times...

Risin' up, back on the streets..

2005-11-27T20:43:00.000-08:00

...and those streets are the streets of Vancouver.

Since my first, and somewhat unsuccessful, attempt at a blog, I've created this new and improved blog, with a much better title!!

Now that I'm living quite far from home, my hope is to use this blog as somewhere for friends and family to catch up on what I'm doing, see photos of where I'm going, and to simply get their daily dose of Hinesy! As such, many posts may contain widely inaccurate and inappropriate statements, and much teasing of Mohan. Some may contain both simultaneously.

Hopefully you'll also get a look at how my time with the Canucks is fairing (and prevent me from sending large amounts of email!)

Happy reading!