Category: Personal

Posts about me (TJ) and my life that doesn’t fit into the other categories.

Jumping a Car Battery

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In places that have cold winters (such as the place I’m in right now), cars that haven’t been driven in a while sometimes won’t start because of a dead or low battery. It didn’t happen to my car, but it did happen to a friend’s VW Jetta and I was asked to help jump start the car. I’ve never done a jump start before and also haven’t touched the battery of my car before, so this was a new experience for me. The friend had jumper cables, and connecting the cables is pretty easy and there are plenty of online guides (such as this one) on the topic. Basically, you hook up the positive terminal of the dead battery with one end of the red cable and then the positive terminal of the good battery with the other end of the red cable. Then you connect the black cable to the negative terminal of the good battery and then connect the other end of the black cable to an exposed metal part of the dead car’s engine bay. Once that is done, start the good car, and then try to start the dead car while the good car is running. Once dead car has started, keep it running and disconnect the jumper cable in reverse order of connection.

Although the process itself is simple, it took us a hour or so to finally get success. The main reason is because I’ve never messed with the battery of my own car and because my car is designed differently than most cars. Unlike most cars where the battery is under the hood, the battery of the Mercedes ML 350 is in the floor behind the front passenger seat. There are leads for the battery accessible in the engine compartment, but they have plastic covers and it took me forever to remove those covers. I guess the original owner never touched those leads and that might be why they were so hard to pull off. When we finally got everything hooked up and tried the jump start, it didn’t quite work. The Jetta made the cranking noise instead of the clicking noise when it wasn’t connected to my car, but it couldn’t start. Thankfully, another friend returned and offered up his VW Golf, and with the Golf we were finally able to jump start the Jetta. I guess it takes one VW to jump start another VW.

Anyways, this was a good learning experience. I’m not sure why we couldn’t jump start with my car, but it might have something to do with the design of the car. Perhaps Mercedes cars aren’t built for jumping other vehicles. If my car ever gets a low or dead battery, hopefully my friends’ cars can jump start mine. I’ll make sure to take my car for a spin every few days to make sure the battery doesn’t drain though.

Vacation Over, Back to Work Once Again

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My four week long winter vacation back home has come to end, and so I flew back to the small town where I am pursuing graduate studies. Obviously, I wish I could stay home longer, but I have work to do and classes to attend. It’s the life of a graduate student. I am already fortunate that my adviser was nice enough to let me return home for so long, so I can’t complain too much. My time at home wasn’t quite as productive as last year’s winter vacation, and so I’m sure I have plenty of work to do.

So what have I been up to during my time back in Vancouver? Not much as usual. In terms of research related things, I had some assigned reading to go through, but I don’t think I really understood anything I read. I don’t think I was that productive with my projects either. I mostly just stayed home and relaxed, and I didn’t go anywhere far. I went shopping a few times, and also hung out with some friends from college. Since I was back in Vancouver with its excellent selection of Chinese restaurants, I couldn’t resist eating out. The area that my grad school is in has some Chinese food places and they aren’t horrible, but they are not comparable to what Vancouver has. The fact that I ate more while at home in combination with less exercise meant that I gained around 10lbs during the break. It’s not that I didn’t exercise, but I didn’t exercise as often or as hard as when I am at school. I did play more badminton while I’m back, but that wasn’t quite enough to make up for extra intake. I don’t think my badminton skills has gotten any better or worse than before, and I probably need to train a bit to become better.

In terms of things that I actually accomplished while back at home, I helped my father replace a heating element on my family’s flat top stove. The element burnt out some time during the year and my father didn’t get around to fixing it. I am no handyman, but in this age of the internet it’s easy to find information online on how to fix stuff, and replacing the element wasn’t a particularly difficult task. I also helped my dad’s trusty but aging Toyota Echo pass its emissions inspection. I bought a car diagnostic trouble code scanner back from the States to investigate the check engine light on the Echo. The Echo is getting a bit old and has high mileage, so it’s not really worth it to spend hundreds of dollars to fix anything. The check engine light was a persistent problem though, and I thought the car would have trouble passing even if we turned off the check engine light with the scanner. However, by some stroke of luck, our trusty little Echo managed to pass its emission check against all odds, and now my dad can keep on driving it for two more years.

So that’s all for my boring little winter vacation. Staying at home over the break has been very nice, but I still have a Ph.D degree I need to finish. It’s time to get back to class, get some research work done, and also to work off the pounds that I’ve gained during this vacation.

2011 Fall Term in Review

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This post has 2,489 views.

I am at home now waiting for Christmas, and that means another semester of graduate school had come and gone. This was my third term as a grad student and also my final term as a Masters student. Because I had to take my doctoral qualifying exams and finish my Master’s thesis, I only took two courses in the past semester rather than three for my previous two semesters. As always, here are my thoughts on the courses.

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Back Home for the Holidays Once Again

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It’s the holiday season once again, and like millions around the world I traveled back home to spend my winter vacation with my parents. I managed to get off my exams slightly earlier than last year so I was able to travel yesterday (Dec 20) versus last year where I flew back on Dec 22. Since the place I study at is rather far from Vancouver, traveling back will always be a bit of a pain, but the prospect of spending almost a month at home is well worth the effort.

I don’t have any big plans for my winter break. My adviser expects me to do work, so I can’t just bum around and do nothing. I’ll probably just stay around Vancouver/Richmond. I’ll likely be eating out a lot given that the town I go to school at can’t compare with Vancouver in terms of the Chinese food. On the other hand, it means I’ll probably gain a few pounds during my vacation. I’ll have to make sure that I get enough exercise even when I’m at home.

I wish all of you a Happy Holidays :grin: .

Done with Master’s Thesis and Black Friday

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My second Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the States has arrived. Before the holiday weekend, I finished up my Master’s thesis and handed it in to my university. Before handing the thesis in, I did a presentation on my research for my adviser and a small number of professors and colleagues in the department, and I think that went pretty well. Unlike a PhD dissertation defense, I’m not being evaluated on my presentation, so there wasn’t much pressure. My thesis went through a couple of revisions to make sure that the content, spelling/grammar and formatting were correct, so hopefully the university won’t reject it because the margins are 0.1 inch off or something. If the thesis is accepted, then all I have to do is to pass my two courses for the semester and I shall receive my Master’s degree diploma in the mail in January. Even though my thesis is done, I’ll probably still continue to work on the project to add features and fix bugs.

I was pretty happy to finish my thesis before Thanksgiving, because it meant I had more free time to enjoy the holiday and go shopping for Black Friday deals. I went to the nearby outlet stores on Black Friday midnight to buy some clothing, and I bought a couple of t-shirts, two pair of jeans and a pair of runners for about $100 which is pretty good considering that they are all from decent brands. There were a fair number of people braving the winter chills at the outlets, but it’s not really crowded or crazy like some Wal-Marts and big box store that sell electronics. I don’t think I’m ever going to those places to line up for Black Friday sale. On the downside for shopping in the wee hours of the morning, I was pretty much half-asleep during the day time on Friday because I didn’t get enough sleep. Besides clothing, I also picked up a vehicle GPS from an online retailer because my car doesn’t have navigation. I’ll probably write a post on my new gadget once I receive it in the mail.

I hope all of you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend as well.

Now Officially a Doctoral Student

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I haven’t posted for a while. One reason was that there really wasn’t anything too interesting to write about in the last months or so, and the other reason was that I have been really busy studying and then taking my doctoral qualifying exams. I’m currently still working on my Master’s, but I plan to do my Ph.D at the same school and thus had to take my qualifiers this semester. My department has a pretty tough exam format which involves multiple oral exams on a bunch of different focus areas. We can choose the focus areas, but there is a ton of stuff that can be asked on each area so there is a lot to study for. I studied for at least two months prior to my exams, and thankfully the effort did pay off and I managed to pass. I didn’t do well in every subject, but I did well enough in my main area (electrical power systems) to pass and now I am officially a doctoral student.

The qualifying exams were one of the bigger obstacles in my pursuit of a doctoral degree and it’s a big weight off my shoulders now that I’ve passed, but there is still plenty more to do. Now that the qualifiers over and done with, I need to focus on writing my Master’s thesis and making sure I get my degree on time.

My First Year in Graduate School

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It’s been a year since I’ve left home and started pursuing graduate studies in the United States. It seems like the older I get, the faster time passes. This one year anniversary is the perfect occasion to write my yearly reflections article. Since I had to relocate and settle down in a new place, my first year in graduate school has been quite eventful… when you compare to my years as an undergrad student at least. The article actually starts from the summer of 2010 after I graduated with my bachelor’s. Keep on reading if you want to find out what I’ve been up to in the past year.

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My Car Was Attacked By a Rodent

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The title says it all. Today I noticed my car’s check engine light was on, so I decided to pop open the hood. I wasn’t expecting to find anything since most of the time check engine lights come on because some sensor malfunction, but what I found was a mess inside my engine compartment. There was insulation foam all over the place, and a plastic compartment was clearly chewed open (see pictures). I popped the hood a week ago and the car was perfectly fine, so it must have happened in the last few days. Judging by the damage, the culprit is likely a rodent. There are lots of squirrels where I live, but it could be rats as well. I’m not sure why they suddenly decided to attack my car now given I’ve had my car for three months now and park at the same lot. The good news is that the car still drives, but that doesn’t change the fact that this sucks since it’ll probably cost at least a couple hundred to fix if not more, and who knows if whatever did the damage will return after the repair. Maybe it’s time for me to start shopping around for rodent repellent. In the meantime, I decided to park on the street to see if it’ll stop our little furry enemies from coming back.

Car Rodent Damage 1
The culprit chewed open the plastic box and left pieces of grey foam all over the place.
Car Rodent Damage 2
The engine bay after I cleaned up some of the foam. Notice that there is more damage above the engine (yellow foam).

2011 End of Semester Vacation

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This post has 7,643 views.

I survived my first academic year as a graduate student, and my adviser was nice enough to let me have a bit of a vacation before I start my summer research work. My parents came to visit, so it was a family vacation. Over the last three weeks, we went to New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Boston, so basically the major cities in the northeast/eastern part of the United States. As always, the post contains an account of the trip accompanied by some thoughts and photos.

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2011 Winter Term in Review

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Another school semester/term has come and gone. This is my second term as a graduate student, and somehow I managed to survive. So once again this is my thoughts on my courses from last term. Just like the 2010 Fall semester, I took only three courses, but they sure weren’t easy.

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