Storm the Wall! ► North America's Biggest Intramural Event

This week is UBC's massive intramural event - Storm the Wall. Friends form teams of 5 people: 1 Swimmer, 1 Sprinter, 1 Biker, 1 Runner, and 1 Extra Hand. In that order, they each complete one leg of the relay event. When the runner reaches the end of his/her section, the other teammates are all waiting there already. The team then runs up to one of two 12 foot walls, and one by one everyone goes over the top.

Today I took photos of one of the Science Undergrad Society (SUS) Council teams, so here they are:

Martin and Rebecca waiting for their respective sprinters to arrive. Martin was on one SUS team, but I was taking photos for Rebecca's team



Here comes Cameron (Science Student Senator and Sprinter)



After Cameron arrived, Rebecca had to race around the bike loop 4 times:



Once the cyclist had finished, it was time for Alex (AMS Representative and Runner) to do a lap of the bike loop and then run around the Chem building to the Wall:




Once Alex had arrived the rest of the team, now including Diana Diao (Public Relations Officer and Extra Hand), headed for the Wall:



Ara Koh, the Swimmer, was the first to start climbing the wall for the SUS team:



But Alex got over the top first:


Next was Rebecca:


Then Diana...


And last, but not least, Cameron the leprechaun clicked his heels together and floated upward:



Of course, after all that effort, they got a team photo and a bunch of free milk (according to Alex, TOO much free milk).

Pillow Fight!

Today was the Flash Mob Pillow Fight downtown in Robson Square (south side of the Art Gallery). What's a Flash Mob? Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashmob

So basically it was a big pillow fight. I took part as a photographer, but was definitely hit a number of times despite the rule that photographers are not to be attacked. No worry though, I knew it would happen and everyone was in a good mood, no malicious people there at all. The fight lasted 15 minutes, and afterwards a lot of people just hung around, even though they were supposed to leave immediately after the fight.

Either way, it was TONS of fun and I saw loads of people I know, some of whom I hadn't seen in a long time. The one person we really wanted to talk to, a reeeeally cool guy named Brendan O'Neill (we met him in Chiang Mai, Thailand) was there, and I even got a photo of him without knowing it at the time, but we weren't able to find him when the whole thing had ended. We haven't seen him in over a year, since we last saw him in Thailand!

Well, without further ado, here are some photos I took. Some of them have watermarks - those pics are ones I uploaded to a yahoo group album for others to see and I'm far too lazy to spend 5 minutes resizing those pics without watermarks.

Tim Louman-Gardiner:





Random people:



Dan, my oldest brother:


Random people:





Jos, my sister:


Random people:

Ping Pong, Granny, and Jos

Today is Josephine's 20th birthday, but this entry is about Granny. Granny always comes over to our house when one of us has a birthday (ie 7 times a year for birthdays alone) and we love seeing her here or at her house nearby as often as we can.

Before supper, Gran recited a few poems for us. She still has uncountable stories and poems memorized from years ago, and delivers them with real passion. She's a wonder to listen to - I should tape record her telling her poems and stories, they would make excellent audio files to play to children. I'll try and record one sometime and post it here.

We had a nice supper of smoked salmon and stir fry, as requested by the birthday girl, and afterwards I asked Gran if she'd like to play some ping pong - and of course, she said yes.

Downstairs to the ping pong table we went, and after several minutes of warming up, we had a championship game. Lisa kindly took a photo and video of the match:





I won 21-8.

Granny is 96 years, 7 months old.

Hot Peppers = Suicidal Cancer

Seriously - hot peppers make cancer cells suicidal. That's crazy. See for yourself at Al Jazeera

It just isn't the same...

I'm sorry, but Pepsi is no match for Coca-Cola.

Several days ago, I ran out of Coke. Coke has, to the detriment of my health, become a regular contributor to my sanity. Without caffeine, the high stress days turn into get-nothing-done days of misery. Coffee, a potential substitute for Coke, upsets my stomach and makes my hyper. Coke does neither of these; it helps me focus and stay awake.

As I said, several days ago, I ran out of Coke. I travelled beyond the horizon to London Drugs, my favourite department store and perennial supplier of Coke. The problem: they had no more 6 x 710ml Coke packs. They had 6-packs of Diet Coke, but Diet Coke tastes bad and is filled with evil Aspartame (not that I'm actually worried about Aspartame).

It was with a heavy heart that I was forced to pull a 6 x 710ml Pepsi pack off the shelf and not only take it home, but PAY for it too! Well, Pepsi has slightly more caffeine than Coke, but it just lacks the same great taste. It's that simple.

London Drugs has just advertised $2.99 for 6 x 710ml packs of Coke. Time to go on a mission.