The Hapa Canadian

Buntzen Lake, Port Moody, BC + Campbell Valley Trail, Aldergrove, BC

6:55 PM

Went to the furthest (3rd) parking lot, if you go towards the Dog Park (big opening where most people will be walking), you will find the washrooms. If you want to do the "Diez Vistas" you should go towards the opposite side of the parking lot, there is a no parking sign there. Once you cross over the bridge, you will see the sign. There are many ways to go around the lake and a lot of signs, we did that trail along with the Power Line trail where you spend your route traveling along a gravel road.

Panoramic view of Buntzen Lake

Starting our journey off on Power Line trail

Having a view of the lake from above

Eventually our trail went down and we ended up at a beach

There were several hydro buildings along the trail, this was a giant water tube

Eventually the Power Line trail (after you cross a cement bridge) leads to an "Old Buntzen Lake trail." There is a sign that points towards the woods as opposed to if you were to keep going, you would be going down a road.

After walking on the trail in the woods, you end up popping up and then you get a nice view of the lake

At this point, there is a sign that says there is a Lakeview trail. We would have taken it if we had more time but, we were advised not to since it was already 12pm and being fall-winter season, it can get dark in the woods pretty early. So that trail you can see in the background is what we needed to take to get back.

Time to take this bridge back towards the parking lot. This is the bridge you should take at the start from the parking lot if you want to do the Diez Vistas trail (behind this photo is the sign for that trail).

Campbell Valley Trail, Aldergrove, BC

Since we weren't tired after our hiking in Port Moody, we decided to continue on doing another trail in Aldergrove! Went with doing the longest trail there called the "Shaggy Mane trail."

We decided to do the Shaggy Mane trail since it was the longest trail (11km). This was a really nice wetland I got to see along the way at the start.

The trail is really easy, the only downside is that since it is a horse trail also, there is a lot of horse poop. So if you are squemish about that, then you will be dodging around a lot. Also as you can see from the photo below, this trail is a little muddy too but, just walk along the edges and you will be fine.

This trail is probably a great trail to go running on or walking your dog, there isn't anything to view except it is nice to be in nature. Sometimes the trail opens up to some pretty fields and several stables.

Technical Interview Example for Microbiology Lab Technician

7:27 PM

I just wanted to write this post because I have been looking for jobs and before I go into a job, I do some research to see what the interview will be like. I tried looking up what a technical interview would be like and I couldn't find any information online.

So the technical interview is when the employer is going to be testing you of your skills that would apply to your job. At the job I applied for, I did a regular interview first where the HR representative asked me general interview questions such as:
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Why did you apply to this job?
Tell me something about yourself that I don't already know (something that you did not write on your cover letter and resume)?
Do you have your WHMIS? Any other certificates that I should know about?
What is one thing about your last/current job that you didn't/don't like?
Can you tell me about a time you worked as a team? Acted as a leader?
Give me an example of a time you had a difficult situation and how did you deal with it?

Then there was a second interview for if you were a candidate that made it past the first stage, this was the technical interview. This time I met with not only the HR but with a head scientist. When I walked in, I was given a 2 page list of questions, this was so I could read as the scientist was asking the questions. These questions had simple calculations, a graph, problem shooting and safety/SOP questions. Before I went into the interview I was actually sent a question the night before that I needed to write out and hand in at the start of the interview, this question asked me to write an SOP on how to make a __% agarose gel. Some of the questions during the interview asked:
Calculate the concentration of solution based off an absorbance vs concentration graph (there was a y=mx+b formula).
You are given a photo of a gel and given background information on it, what went wrong with this gel? How would you fix this?
How do you deal with Ethidium bromide?
Make a 2% NaCl solution in 1L.
You are given 2 different types of MSDS sheets, how would you file these?
Give me an example of a job you did where you had to pay attention to detail and was repetitive.

After all the questions, I was then given an already made agarose gel and told to load the gel (so place the gel, put in the buffer, get the micropipetter ect.) Then of course you are given the opportunity to ask any questions.

Every technical interview will be specific to the job you applied for, this job said that you needed to be able to file MSDS, do math calculations and the biggest part of the job was doing PCR and running gels.