The price of beauty
When I cut all my hair off a year ago I didn’t realize how expensive it was going to be to maintain my new style! My hair starts getting shaggy at the 5 or 6 week mark, so I end up getting my hair cut about once a month. Haircuts are crazy-expensive in Vancouver; It seems like you can’t get a decent cut for under $50 in this town!
A week or so ago I was getting pretty shaggy and feeling particularly broke, so I decided to check out the Hair Art Academy in New Westminster – $12 a cut! Sadly, I got what I paid for.
My $50 stylist usually cuts my hair with a razor, varying the lengths and making it look all funky-like. The $12 stylist used scissors for the whole job and created something freakishly two-tiered and mushroom-looking on top of my head.
One of my favourite things about having short hair is being able to spike it up. But the $12 stylist also somehow managed to cut my hair in such a way that no amount of styling product will keep it from falling flat.
Tomorrow I’m off to the $50 stylist to have it fixed, bringing this month’s haircut bill to $62 (plus tips). Guess I’ll stick to the expensive salons from now on.
A weekend of work and costume geekery
We launched a new version of Status Report this weekend – It is now driven by a content management system which will make it super-easy to keep up to date. I’m really excited to be involved with this project. Lately I have been a bit down on the whole research thing, as I feel like academic research in HCI never seems to contribute much to the real world. Using my computer skills to help a meaningful project like Status Report has made me feel like my training actually has some relevance.
Speaking of meaningless academic research… 
I’ve also been hard at work prepping my demo for the CSCW 2006 conference, which will be held in Banff next week. I’m excited to be returning to Banff for a visit and in addition to attending the conference I look forward to enjoying some beautiful hikes and possibly a dip in the hot springs.
In lighter news, Dan and I decided to display our geekiness this weekend when we went to two Halloween parties dressed as Battlestar Galactica Raptor pilots. (If you haven’t seen this show, I implore you to visit your nearest video rental store and pick up Season 1. It’s the best sci-fi show on TV today, and possibly the best sci-fi show ever!) Sadly, I didn’t bring my camera with me to the parties, so there is no photographic evidence. I plan to wear my costume again on Tuesday though, so I’ll try to remember to snap a picture then.
Canadian politics is pretty interesting these days…
Garth Turner got dooced!
My first sale!
The purchase of my first french cuff shirt last month prompted me to make some neat-o cufflinks to wear with it. After spending an afternoon in a button store in downtown Vancouver I went a little overboard with the cufflink-making and decided to set up shop over at offthecuff.etsy.com and try selling some of them.
I had practically forgotten about my etsy site until yesterday, when I received an e-mail informing me I had made my first sale. Woohoo! So now a pair of my cufflinks are on their way to a customer in the UK.
Status Report
I’m very excited to be involved with a website that launched today in response to the Conservative government’s cuts to the Status of Women Canada:
HALIFAX/OTTAWA, October 11, 2006 – A new website launches today to rally support for Status of Women Canada (SWC) and related issues.
Statusreport.ca will house objective information about the federal agency, along with tools and motivation for people to lobby the federal government to revisit changes made to the agency’s funding and objectives.
Fall update
(Maybe one of these days my blog will change more often than the seasons…)
The fall semester is in full swing, and so is my half-marathon clinic. The past month and a half I’ve been splitting my time between puzzling over my algorithms course homework and running all over North Burnaby. Both activities are going reasonably well.
The algorithms course is turning out to be fairly manageable, though I’m using parts of my brain I haven’t used since my third year of undergrad (which further in the past than I care to admit!) and have had to relearn calculus. In other school-related activities, I am hoping to have a first draft of a research plan for my thesis sometime soon. I’ve got a workshop paper on my research topic at a conference in Banff next month and will hopefully be able to get lots of good feedback there.
Running is fun but has been taxing on my body. I’ve spent a small fortune on physio and massage therapy in the past month to deal with some IT band problems. Oh, and I also need orthotics, apparently. Luckily UBC’s student health plan is pretty darn awesome and covers almost 100% of the cost of my orthotics, and 50% of the physio and massage. I haven’t been able to do a lot of the longer runs with my half-marathon clinic group lately, which has been frustrating, but I am slowly recovering and increasing my mileage. It’s just a little over a month until the half-marathon now!