edci336 artsy photos requirement from an artistically impaired mathematician

Original photo:

http://search.creativecommons.org/?q=Canada&derivatives=on&format=Image
credit: from Creative Commons Canada
          no name provided, only e-mail: jons2 at pdphoto.org

photo is of Banff, Alberta, Canada; dated 2004-06-19

liscense: "This image is public domain, because I took the picture and I've made it public domain. I don't care at all what you use this picture for."
 
 edit 1:

edited with Sumopaint
tools: blur, smudge, pain bucket, free transform/rotate

edit 2:

edited with Picnik
tools: sharpen, exposure

review: I found Picnik a little non-intuitive and didn't really like it much.  Sumopaint was much more straitforward in the use of its tools and such, but the website itself was a little choppy, the mouse cursor cutting in and out intermittently was rather frustrating.

Who am I

My full name is Alexander Brendan Kirkpatrick Frey, but I just go by Brendan (because a few weeks after being born, my mom got terrified that people might call me Al Frey)

by the way, "Frey" is pronounced 'fry' and not 'frei' (I think the only person who ever pronounced it right was a native German speaking prof here at UVic who taught me German history)

Immediate family is Michael (father/lawyer), Mary (mother/teacher), younger brothers Connell and Keith

Born in Vancouver July 24th 1986, moved to Victoria part-way through grade 4 and lived here ever since, so that makes a life-time here on the wet coast...

Took 6 years to do it (2 full-time years to start and then 4 years of intermingling classes and work trying to keep the bank account non-empty)...finally got my double-major in Mathematics and History this spring (2010)...and yes, I realize that is a very strange combination

a few things about me...

I LOVE the Vancouver Canucks...I saw my first game at the Pacific Coliseum when I was 5 years old (Dave Babych erased a 1-0 Boston Bruins lead in the 3rd period before Pavel Bure won it in overtime), used all my saved up birthday and christmas gift money to buy a jersey a few months later, and have been a very devoted fan ever since

I also play hockey in some local recreational leagues having grown up playing minor hockey, and in more recent years I've picked up playing soccer too...I enjoy playing team sports a lot, which is a good thing because I don't particuarly like running or working out (at least on a regular basis) so it keeps me from being lazy

I like music...didn't particularly like high school band, where I played french horn and trumpet, but I do enjoy playing both guitar and bass (for what it's worth, I'm a more proficient bassist than guitarist).  Of course I like listening to music, but I hate the business of getting into what styles and bands I listen to, so let's leave it at that

I make beer! 30-35$ brew-kits making 20 litres of beer (for the mathematically non-inclined, that's just over 50 cents per beer) are both much tastier and much more affordable than the cheap beer I'd probably be buying from liquor stores otherwise

I don't have Facebook (*gasp*).  I'm probably one of the last people under 50 years of age who can still say this.  People often have trouble undertanding this, but I just don't think I need it...I have a telephone, an e-mail, and a hockey pool with my close friends where we basically use the message board for the same purpose.  There's a South Park episode called "You have 0 friends" that pretty much sums up my opinion...definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it yet.

me in a nutshell, I guess

(kind of) math game from math website

linked from the blog divisbyzero.com showed in class

http://gopherwoodstudios.com/entanglement/?n=1

if you're in need of some time to kill, this simple game can be surprisingly addictive

if you don't see the immediate connection to math, try to ask yourself why a certain move is better or worse than another (hint: 6 sides to a hexagon, so out of the 5 sides you can move along to, are any more or less likely to get you stuck)