lab0rat's bl0g

Christmas presents!

2012-01-01T16:31:00.000-08:00

Oh... I forgot to mention... thanks everyone for the wonderful Xmas presents!

Thanks mom and dad for the wonderful slowcooker. I will sure make lots of use of it (I actually already made a batch of chili last night hehehe).

Thanks to my bros for chipping in for the Apple TV!! It is such a wonderful product. Ian and I (Ian especially) LOVE IT!!

Thanks Ian for the power toothbrush you got from here. I am assuming it is not because you think I have bad breath LOL... just kidding... I did asked for an electric toothbrush :)

And thanks Jane for the Burberry wallet. Wow! You shouldn't have spent so much on me :)

Happy New Year 2012!!

2012-01-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

2011 is behind us, and it's time for new resolutions!

My resolutions of the year?

Lots lol.

- Gym 3x week
- Read at least 1 book per month (gotta get back into that)
- Respect my budget (I've been spending way too much!)
- Try to eat paleo (I said try... lol)
- Calling my friends more often (i.e. more than once a year)

That's it.

What are everyone's resolutions?

Puppy wanted

2011-11-28T07:31:00.000-08:00

But what to get?

I would really like to get a puppy for my little one. So I searched the web for the best family dogs.

So I found this --> Top 10 Family Dogs

I am actually tempted with a bulldog, because I heard they are very temper even and require little exercise.

What do you guys think?

Happy feet 2

2011-11-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

Cheesy at times, strange other times, simple yet fairly philosophical, with a touch of darkness and foreboding, but overall very interesting. I would have thought the movie would not be suitable for younger kids (due to all of the above), but from reading parent's reviews, this movie seems to please both young and old.

NOTE: Worth being seen in 3D, this is a visual treat.

The Smurfs Movie - A review

2011-08-20T15:46:00.001-07:00

I think it was good movie for kids movie and actually very true to the cartoons I grew up watching. Of course, the "cheese" factor in some parts was a little bit gut wrenching, but overall, this was what I expected to see...

I'll give it an 8/10 as a kids movie, a 6/10 for a remake of a classic.

Quote of the day

2010-05-31T02:28:00.001-07:00

Criticism quote : because we sometimes have to be reminded

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (probably erroneously)

Bathroom

2010-05-30T22:12:00.001-07:00

I'm dreaming about my ultimate bathroom. It has to has marble walls with stones floor. Then I want a his and hers different washbowls. Finally I want lots of natural light.

work out

2010-05-30T11:43:00.001-07:00

First cross-fit class - I tried my first cross-fit class at Centennial gym ... It was so tiring!!!

We threw a 20 lbs ball and did so many burpees and squats

AMMERICANNN IDOOLL

2010-05-29T13:34:00.001-07:00

AMERICAN IDOL WINNER HAS TO BE Crystal Bowersox!! She's so different and unique

AMMERICANNN IDOOLL

2010-05-29T06:47:00.001-07:00

Crystal Bowersox is sooo goodddd! She's something really special!

Hungry

2010-05-28T13:34:00.001-07:00

I have no idea what to make for lunch I have some leftover cheese from yesterday and some pita bread and salsa left in the fridge... What about some grill cheese?

Synthetic life form

2010-05-28T04:56:00.001-07:00

I read this in the paper this morning

From The Guardian : Craig Venter creates synthetic life form

Craig Venter and his team have built the genome of a bacterium from scratch and incorporated it into a cell to make what they call the world's first synthetic life form

Scientists have created the world's first synthetic life form in a landmark experiment that paves the way for designer organisms that are built rather than evolved.

The controversial feat, which has occupied 20 scientists for more than 10 years at an estimated cost of $40m, was described by one researcher as "a defining moment in biology".

Craig Venter, the pioneering US geneticist behind the experiment, said the achievement heralds the dawn of a new era in which new life is made to benefit humanity, starting with bacteria that churn out biofuels, soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and even manufacture vaccines.

Cool! Now what?

allergies in dogs??

2010-05-27T23:26:00.001-07:00

Damn... I think that Mr. Winston has some allergies! He is constantly scratching and chewing... I feel so bad for Mr. Winston! I did some research and he seems to have all the symptoms described in thiscanine allergies site ... Should I go to the vet??? It's gonna cost me a fortune...

Don't know what to eat for lunch

2010-05-27T08:01:00.001-07:00

I have no idea what to make for lunch I have some leftover cheese from yesterday and a bunch of pita bread and salsa in the fridge... Maybe that can make some good grill cheese?

Scientists create life

2010-05-26T21:35:00.001-07:00

I read this on the internet this morning

From Times Online : Scientists create artificial life in laboratory

Synthetic life has been created in the laboratory in a feat of ingenuity that pushes the boundaries of humanity’s ability to manipulate the natural world.

Craig Venter, the biologist who led the effort to map the human genome, said yesterday that the first cell controlled entirely by man-made genetic instructions had been produced.

The synthetic bacterium, nicknamed Synthia, has been hailed as a step change in biological engineering, allowing the creation of organisms with specialised functions that could never have evolved in nature. The team at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, is investigating how the technology could yield microbes that make vaccines, and algae that turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon biofuels.

Wow... I wonder what the next step is!

Star Trek

2010-05-26T03:42:00.001-07:00

I'm watching Star Trek Voyager... I'm really a nerd lol! But I love it... I love that tv show!

News of the day

2010-05-25T11:43:00.001-07:00

From the New York Times

NEW ORLEANS — After more than three weeks of efforts to stop a gushing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers achieved some success on Sunday when they used a milelong pipe to capture some of the oil and divert it to a drill ship on the surface some 5,000 feet above the wellhead, company officials said.

Gulf Spill: Readers' Reports

Where have you seen the impact of the spill?

Submit Your Report

As the oil spill reaches land, we would like your updates and photographs of what you’re seeing. Photos are optional but recommended.

Multimedia

Multimedia Feature

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Multimedia Collection

Related

    *

      Green: Gap in Rules on Oil Spills From Wells (May 17, 2010)

    *

      Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf (May 16, 2010)

After two false starts, engineers successfully inserted a narrow tube into the damaged pipe from which most of the oil is leaking.

“It’s working as planned,” Kent Wells, a senior executive vice president of BP, said at a briefing in Houston on Sunday afternoon. “So we do have oil and gas coming to the ship now, we do have a flare burning off the gas, and we have the oil that’s coming to the ship going to our surge tank.”

Mr. Wells said he could not yet say how much oil had been captured or what percentage of the oil leaking from a 21-inch riser pipe was now flowing into the 4-inch-wide insertion tube. “We want to slowly optimize it to try to capture as much of the oil and gas as we can without taking in a large amount of seawater,” he said.

So far, the spill has not spoiled beaches or delicate wetlands, in part because of favorable winds and tides and in part because of the use of booms to corral the oil and chemical dispersants.

The capture operation on Sunday was the first successful effort to stem the flow from the damaged well, which has been spewing oil since a rig exploded on April 20 and sank.

The announcement by BP came on the heels of reports that the spill might be might much worse than estimated. Scientists said they had found giant plumes of oil in the deep waters of the gulf, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick.

BP officials pointed out that even if the tube was successful, it was only a stopgap measure. The real goal, they said, is to seal the well permanently.

Preparations continued on Sunday on a plan to pump heavy drilling mud into the well through the blowout preventer, the safety device at the wellhead that failed during the accident.

In the procedure, called a top kill, the mud would be used to overcome the pressure of the rising oil, stopping the flow. The mud would be followed by cement, which would permanently seal the well.

Mr. Wells said Sunday that BP was a week to 10 days away from trying the maneuver.

The mud would be pumped from a drill ship, the Q4000, that is in place on the surface. Mr. Wells said the ship had more than 2 million gallons of mud on board — far more than needed — to pump into the well, which had reached about 13,000 feet below the seabed when the accident occurred.

In a brief interview, Mr. Wells said that a “junk shot,” an effort to clog the blowout preventer with golf balls and other objects before the mud is used, was still a possibility.

But in an apparent indication of the tube’s success, BP was already building a backup version.

The tube is basically a five-foot-long section of pipe outfitted with rubber seals designed to keep out seawater, attached in turn to a milelong section of pipe leading from the drill ship to the seafloor.

It was one of several proposed methods of stanching the flow of at least 210,000 gallons of oil a day that has been threatening marine life and sensitive coastal areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. BP officials have emphasized that none of the methods have been tried before at the depth of this leak.

At the briefing, Mr. Wells was asked about reports from a research vessel that discovered the huge plumes of oil. He said that he did not know anything about them, but that the Unified Area Command, the cooperative effort involving BP and state and local agencies, was seeking more information.

The plume reports added to the many questions that have been raised about the amount of leaking oil, which many scientists have said is far higher than the official estimate of 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, a day. That estimate was reached using satellite imagery, flyovers and visual observation, company officials have said.

The reports also raised concerns about the use of oil dispersants underwater, which the Environmental Protection Agency approved on Friday after several tests. Normally, dispersants are used on the surface, and scientists have said that the effects of using them underwater are largely unknown.

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, criticized BP, saying it had failed to respond substantively to his requests for more information about how it had reached its estimate of how much oil is leaking. He also said the company had refused to engage independent scientists who might offer a better assessment of the amount.

“BP is burying its head in the sand on these underwater threats,” Mr. Markey said in a written statement on Sunday. “These huge plumes of oil are like hidden mushroom clouds that indicate a larger spill than originally thought and portend more dangerous long-term fallout for the Gulf of Mexico’s wildlife and economy.”

BP began trying to insert the tube on Friday, but an effort to connect the pipe leading from the drill ship to the tube failed and the device had to be brought back to the surface for adjustments.

“This is all part of reinventing technology,” Tom Mueller, a BP spokesman, said on Saturday. “It’s not what I’d call a problem — it’s what I’d call learning, reconfiguring, doing it again.”

Around midnight Saturday, the tube was reinserted and worked for about four hours before it was dislodged after being mishandled by the submersibles, Mr. Wells said.

“At that time, we were just starting to get oil to the surface,” Mr. Wells said.

The oil was going to the Discoverer Enterprise, a drill ship, which has equipment for separating water from oil and can hold about 5 million gallons of oil.

Though that attempt failed, it was important because it demonstrated that features designed to keep hydrates from forming were working, Mr. Wells said. Hydrates, icelike structures of methane and water molecules that form in the presence of seawater at low temperatures and high pressures, forced BP to abandon an earlier effort to corral the leak with a 98-ton containment dome.

Henry Fountain contributed reporting from New York.

News of the day

2010-05-25T08:38:00.001-07:00

12:11 pm

Kensalazar A week after grilling executives of the companies involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Congress this week turns its attention to the federal agency charged with overseeing offshore drilling.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is due to appear at back-to-back Senate hearings Tuesday, first before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and then before the Environment and Public Works Committee, as lawmakers step up their investigation of the spill.

Salazar and other administration officials will report on efforts to stop the leak, estimated at 210,000 gallons per day, and arrest the spread of spilled oil. A number of lawmakers also are eager to grill Salazar and others about the activities of the Minerals Management Service, the agency in the Interior Department charged with enforcing safety and environmental rules for offshore energy exploration.

"It is critically important to hear the administration's point of view and to get their take on what safety lapses occurred and if any regulatory breakdowns happened at the Minerals Management Service that may have contributed to this terrible accident,'' Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) said last week during a hearing by the House Energy and Commerce's oversight and investigations panel.

Salazar has moved to split the Minerals Management Service into two agencies – one to oversee leasing of federal lands and waters for energy exploration and to collect royalties for the U.S. Treasury and the other to inspect drilling operations and enforce safety and environmental regulations.

BP America Chairman and President Lamar McKay will be back on Capitol Hill on Monday and Tuesday.

He will appear Monday, along with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. McKay will testify Tuesday before the Senate Commerce Committee, along with Steven Newman, president and chief executive of drilling-rig operator Transocean; and the U.S. Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Thad W. Allen.

-- Richard Simon, reporting from Washington

Photo: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Credit: Evan Vucci / Associated Press

GREAT DAY!

2010-05-24T03:05:00.001-07:00

I'm walking on sunshine yyeeeyyeee The weather is gorgeous today! Woohoo!

I love sushi!

2010-05-23T05:33:00.001-07:00

I went out for lunch (Samurai again!). I had a tuna sashimi.. It was excellent!

Watching TV

2010-05-22T16:02:00.001-07:00

Tonight I'm watching Damages .This is an adorable show!

Successful bridesmaid dress shopping

2010-05-22T14:11:00.001-07:00

Earlier today, my cousins and I went shopping for bridesmaid dresses. It was such a tough choice! Fortunately we found something really nice! I can't wait for the wedding to wear it!

YPA event

2010-05-21T19:07:00.001-07:00

I'm blogging from my cell phone hehe. I'm at a Young Professional Association event. It's killing me... Too many speakers! YAAWWWNN

samples sale!!

2010-05-04T08:36:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I went to the La Perla sample sale. I got a sweater Yay!

How to train your dragon

2010-04-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

I rate How to Train your Dragon 10/10. This is probably 10% too high of a mark but who cares. Dreamworks Animation absolutely deserves it. This is the best animated movie I have seen in the last two years.

I find it so funny compared to Avatar . I find the movie is so much better in terms the storyline and the development of the characters. The script was remarkable.

Nonetheless I found the visuals effects to be spectacular even without it. It is so good, it feels like Pixar HAD to be involved LOL. Is it possible that Dreamworks has finally figured that out? In several sequences just like when I saw UP (my favorite last year animated movie), I felt like it had to be written by pet-lovers because they show so much much comprehension on building the bonds between a man and an animal.

This bond between the kid and the dragon makes the movie so believable and I simply enjoyed every minute of How to Train your Dragon. "How to train your dragon" is funny and smart. My favorite scene : Toothless trying to force a smile. This movie is a great movie for young like old. I highly recommend "How to train your dragon".

Hilarious French ad

2010-04-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

Bathroom artwork is brought to life in this impressive commercial for safe sex.

GSP GSP GSP

2010-03-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

Georges St-Pierre is fighting Hardy tonight at UFC 111! This is going to be an exciting fight! I bet he will simply dominate the fight. GSP is getting only better with time, and stronger too.

Women's rain boots and cute rain boots.

2009-04-28T13:13:00.001-07:00

Oh my god.
I just found the perfect women's rain boots and cute rain boots I could ever dream of.

They are from Coach. Guess what I am asking for my bday :P

Why choose organic material

2009-04-09T19:30:00.002-07:00

Why should we chose organic material, such as organic clothes, organic blankets, organic crib mattress?

Well the biggest problem with traditional material is that producers will use ENORMOUS amounts of insecticides, synthetic fertilizers and herbicides to help it grow and protect them from insects, parasites and more. It is estimated that cottons crops use 25% of all the agricultural insecticides used throughout the world each year.

Watch our for heartworms in dogs

2009-04-09T19:30:00.001-07:00

Heartworms are parasites that can affect your dog (and in some cases you cat). They are transmitted from dog to dog via mosquito bites.

When a mosquito bites an infected dog, it gets the larvae from the infected dog. The larvae quickly develops within the mosquito and when the mosquito bites another dog, the larvae will take home in that new dog. Although some vets say that dogs having heartworm do not need to be treated, some dogs may, in some cases die from heart failure. In other case, the dog can become blind.

This is why it is important to treat your dog with heartworm medicine if you know your dog has been infected, or if there is a big infestation of heartworms in your area (mostly warmer and humid areas, where there are lots of mosquitoes)

Costa Rica Inclusive Vacation anyone?

2009-04-01T10:32:00.000-07:00

Costa Rica Inclusive Vacation anyone?

I have been thinking about going on vacation lately... Costa Rica inclusive sounds pretty nice heheh

those images from www.cheap-all-inclusive-caribbean-vacation.com will make you drool.

Clinical Trial Software

2009-03-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

With this upcoming economic recession, the need to cut down on the cost of... well of everything is part of everyone's worry.

Find out how you can cut down on the cost of clinical trials by using Clinical Trials Software.

Vacation

2009-03-22T22:43:00.000-07:00

Vacation
Vacation
Vacation
Vacations!!!

I need vacations...

A cheap all inclusive Caribbean vacation maybe?

Playing games online

2009-03-01T14:02:00.001-08:00

I've been playing some games online these days :D

Here is a list of what I have been playin' :

Ahhh.... my favorite of all times! : Chuzzle

My new findings : ArmoredLegion

More online games : SwitchIn

Exergaming

2009-02-23T22:18:00.000-08:00

I didn't know there was a new for that LOL : exergaming, or the use of video games for exercising

To read, on this Health & Fitness blog

More Bulldogs Pictures... Enjoy!

2009-02-23T22:14:00.001-08:00

My love for bulldogs

2009-02-23T22:04:00.000-08:00

YES... I am a big bulldog lover!! I do not own one (yet), but my heart melts each time I see one... I even already pick the name for my future dog. Hold on to your seat, you may like it, you may hate it : SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL :P

I was a little heartbroken recently to learn that bulldogs were amongst the dumbest dogs in the world :(

From the book The Intelligence of Dogs :
Rank Breed

1. Border Collies
2. Poodle
3. German Shepherd
4. Golden Retriever
5. Doberman Pincher
6. Shetland Sheepdog
7. Labrador Retriever
8. Papillon
9. Rottwieler
10. Australian Cattle Dog
11. Pembrook Welsh Corgi
12. Miniature Schnauzer

At the low end of the intelligence rankings are:

106. Borzoi
107. Chow Chow
108. Bull dog
109. Basenji
110. Afghan Hound

SIGHHHHHHH

Learn about clinical trials

2009-02-23T22:01:00.001-08:00

Because I work as a clinical research coordinator, I would like to share a bit of my everyday life with you. Here you can learn more about clinical trials and clinical research studies.

A few of my favorite pictures that I can find on my laptop

2009-02-23T21:46:00.001-08:00

My future dog!! sigh

The Aquarium in Vancouver, BC

The little girl from Apocalypto, in Mexico

Playa Del Carmen

Flowers in West End, Vancouver

London!!

A snowy day in Vancouver (yep!)

Start by the beginning

2009-02-23T21:34:00.000-08:00

Start by the beginning... I guess the beginning would be to introduce myself?

Name. Kandi
Age. 26
Location. Vancouver, BC, Canada
Occupation. Study Coordinator
Hobbies. Anything remotely related to working out and fitness
The last movie I watched. Nights in Rodanthe
The last good movie I watched. In Bruge