Merry Christmas 2003   From: Dave

A very merry Christmas shout-out to all my
family, friends...
people I haven't talked to in ages...
casual acquaintances...
strangers on the Internet...
and a few people who don't even like me .

I'm in Vancouver this year for the holiday season and I won't be seeing
too many of you, so I just wanted to send out a little web eCard.

Sorry there is no Christmas flash animation of animals singing Christmas tunes or
anything like that... but if I did do one it would have probably been better than this.

One bookkeeping issue... My contact info has changed:

when in doubt, google me and you can find me.

For those of you who want an update on my life,
including some very boring details,
please keep reading, otherwise...

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

So what's up with me going into 2004?

No, I'm not going to get married soon (although friends are dropping like flies)
I'm not even seeing anyone right now
and yes... it would probably help if I lost some weight
and no, I'm not gay... (not that there's anything wrong with that)

I had an accident playing goalie in a soccer match a couple of weeks ago:
I now have what is known as a mallet finger which may be around for
the rest of my life.  I have a splint on my finger which makes typing a bit of a pain.
Between that and my torn leg last year I think I'm giving up soccer.
However, I have been snowboarding this season which is nice.

The picture above was from when I was DJing a Christmas event on campus.
I'm trying to DJ as a fun way to pick up extra money.
I did about a dozen events this fall, and I have a bunch of 'gigs' lined up for 2004,
including several weddings which will be a lot of fun.

As an alternate method of earning some extra money
I've been doing some consulting work with a U.S. Company.
I won't get into the details on-line... e-mail me if you're really curious.

Of course, the extra money is just feeding into my DVD addiction
which is just getting ridiculous.

I write a monthly horoscope and cartoon strip for the Graduate
magazine out here in Vancouver (my stuff can be found here)
but the funny news is that my strip may be appearing in other grad papers soon.

My housing situation is stable.  It's kind of pathetic that I'm -cough- 31
years old and living in student housing... but it's a really nice place
and I plan on staying here until I finish my PhD.

I guess the only thing left to discuss is my school career...
the situation is a little complicated, so stay with me here...
(I'm tired of telling the story so you can read it all here)

After finishing my Master's degree I took the 2000/01 school year off
and worked at UB Video (and no, they weren't a video rental store)
I returned to UBC and started my PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE)
working with Tim Menzies in ECE and unofficially with Holger Hoos in Computer Science (CS).

I was more interested in Holger's research areas and when Tim left UBC to work for NASA
 I continued to work with Holger, but officially I had no supervisor.
I tried to make it work staying as an ECE student, but the final nail in the coffin was when
they cancelled my teaching gig (I was teaching a 4th year ECE class)
and I couldn't find any other funding.

So after some soul searching I decided to switch over to Computer Science.
It was a fairly big decision that will affect my career (when I finally get out of here)
but the research I'm doing is more Computer Science and this way I can work
in an official capacity with Holger -- who really is a brilliant man
(and I'm not just saying that because I sent him this eCard)

In order to facilitate the transfer of departments, I was required to complete
my qualifying exam in ECE first, which I did one week ago (yeah!)
I'm going to have to do another qualifying exam in CS in a few months.

On December 23rd I received a nice Christmas present...
I've been officially accepted into the CS PhD program at UBC.
I wasn't counting on any funding, but as a nice bonus they guarantee
a level of support (~20k/yr) -- it's not 'free'... I have to work for it,
but it gives me a lot of peace of mind.

So the big question everyone wants to know is... When will I graduate?

In my recent PhD proposal I outlined a plan which would have me finishing my
thesis two years from now: Christmas 2005.  It's an agressive plan, and it would
require some of my research experiments going well... so who knows for sure.

I think I've bored you enough with my life here,
so have some Egg Nog and enjoy the holiday season.