Life

Goodbye Cognitive Systems; Hello Oenology + Viticulture

Things change. People procrastinate. I am that complete snob in the fourth row of my algorithms class, reading about the granite soils of Beaujolais instead of listening to the professor show us how hash tables (hash functions? double hashing? hash keys? hash browns?) work. I’ve prepared the interview question but I’ve unsurprisingly never been asked: one of my biggest weaknesses is the fact that I’m interested in a vast amount of things such that I can often lose track, but at the same time, get really dedicated to an idea if I feel so inspired by it.

It was around a year and a half ago, where three of my best friends and I hung out after the riot-inducing Canucks playoff game.… read more

Life

Playing with Lego for University Credits

A really cool aspect of my major is that we get to build Lego robots in a third-year core lab course. So, essentially, our project is to code and actually have fun doing it, and while (ugh) I understand other normal courses are slightly more “practical” in the sense that, for example, we’re expected to implement a boring word-sorting algorithm for a programming project, this course wins hard in comparison. Word-sorting algorithms: I love you, but you aren’t made of colourful blocks that bring me back to my 6-year-old joys and wonderments. Okay – that was a blatant lie: the same friend that bought me my first serious bottle of wine also bought me my first lego set for my 18th birthday.… read more

Life

omg

Okay so clearly I haven’t updated in like, ever. Typing up tasting notes for all those wines proved to be a challenge and I eventually got sucked up at work and on personal programming projects. Who knows if I’ll ever get to those blog posts, but that’s okay. Because here’s a post.

I got my WSET advanced results back. I don’t normally brag, but I got a pass with distinction! #awyiss. Yeah. Exciting. And annoying for you. I’m sorry.

Also, I’m helping to lead a wine tasting at UBC this Friday. We’re going over the basics. Hurrah!

I thought I had lots to say but I don’t. So here’s a picture of a wine we might have on Friday.

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Life

Birthday 2012!

My regular birthday occurs at such an inconvenient time, so I decided on sone pseudo-arbitrary future date on which to PAR-TAY. In terms of wine, though – my friends are all across the board. Some don’t drink wine (ouch), some do, some prefer beer, some don’t drink at all – you know. I tried to select a bunch of wines that would be crowd pleasers, but not in that sort of overly sleazy way.

I ended up only being able to review the 2011 Chateau Cailleteau Bergeron Sauvignon Blanc and 2011 Wild Goose Autumn Gold beforehand, since I didn’t want to open the three sparkling wines (Cava, Moscato, Brachetto) that I did have until we wanted to drink them. We didn’t get to open any reds I had except for this generic and jammy Argentinian Malbec a friend bought.… read more