On my deck, out the back of my house, I have this plastic storage shed in which there are two metal garbage bins. In one there is cracked-corn which ducks and crows love to eat, and the other one has striped sunflower seeds which virtually every other bird eats. This morning when I opened up the sunflower can, this is what I found.
None of this was here two days ago when I last fed the birds. Since then 3 mice have built a home and brought in a whole supply of peanuts (you can see them in the other picture...in Flickr). (Apparently the limitless supply of sunflower seeds was not enough they had to steal all of the remaining peanuts I had and store them inside the plastic container I use as a scoop.)
This all leads to a problem in that I really don't like to kill animals, but now they know about this place, and there will be no stopping them from rebuilding -- likely every single day. Time to think of some ingenious plan I guess...but they are cute.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Mmmm Cops.
(I give up on apologizing for not blogging regularly, my life is busy, an entry will come whenever I have time and enough motivation to conjure-up a degree of creativity.) (Like now!)
When I was in Stoney Creek a few weeks ago, on one of the last mornings, I was in line at the local Tim Hortons' drive through (which really is kind of silly being that Tim Hortons is in the parking lot and I could just park in my regular spot and walk there, but it's 5:30 and really cold) and I see a cop car in the alternate entrance to the drive through. It's kind of hard to explain the layout of the place, but when our old store closed we left an empty area so that now there are sort of two entrances to the drive through. For the most part this works peacefully as people just pay attention to what position everyone was in when they arrived and they go when it's their turn -- no big deal.
Anyway, when I was one spot away from the bottleneck point the cop pulls up and there are still 3 cars behind me. The guy in front of me goes into the bottleneck, but then I broke all the rules and let the cop in. Besides the fact that she was cute and I find most chicks with guns to be especially hot, she was a cop and I have a belief that people should do whatever it is that they can to make cops' lives easier (actually, this feeling extends to people in the emergency services field in general). (One coffee shop in Whitby used to give free coffee to all uniformed police officers which I thought was great.) Anyway, I get up to the window, and I've got a big order because I'm buying for several other people in the store so I'm expecting to pay about $8-9. The girl at the window tells me the cop was very thankful and paid for my order along with hers. "WHAT?!? She can't do that.", I say, followed promptly by "have you ever seen anyone chase down a cop?"
I raced out into the parking lot to try to catch her and at one point I got to about 50 feet behind her, but she raced off and I was only willing to go so far to catch her, I was already skirting a few laws about how one should drive. So several of us ended up with free coffee that morning because of the good-heartedness of one really hot Hamilton police officer. Guess there are still good people out there...
When I was in Stoney Creek a few weeks ago, on one of the last mornings, I was in line at the local Tim Hortons' drive through (which really is kind of silly being that Tim Hortons is in the parking lot and I could just park in my regular spot and walk there, but it's 5:30 and really cold) and I see a cop car in the alternate entrance to the drive through. It's kind of hard to explain the layout of the place, but when our old store closed we left an empty area so that now there are sort of two entrances to the drive through. For the most part this works peacefully as people just pay attention to what position everyone was in when they arrived and they go when it's their turn -- no big deal.
Anyway, when I was one spot away from the bottleneck point the cop pulls up and there are still 3 cars behind me. The guy in front of me goes into the bottleneck, but then I broke all the rules and let the cop in. Besides the fact that she was cute and I find most chicks with guns to be especially hot, she was a cop and I have a belief that people should do whatever it is that they can to make cops' lives easier (actually, this feeling extends to people in the emergency services field in general). (One coffee shop in Whitby used to give free coffee to all uniformed police officers which I thought was great.) Anyway, I get up to the window, and I've got a big order because I'm buying for several other people in the store so I'm expecting to pay about $8-9. The girl at the window tells me the cop was very thankful and paid for my order along with hers. "WHAT?!? She can't do that.", I say, followed promptly by "have you ever seen anyone chase down a cop?"
I raced out into the parking lot to try to catch her and at one point I got to about 50 feet behind her, but she raced off and I was only willing to go so far to catch her, I was already skirting a few laws about how one should drive. So several of us ended up with free coffee that morning because of the good-heartedness of one really hot Hamilton police officer. Guess there are still good people out there...
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
A Gentooist Am I.
After years of benefitting from the toils of the Gentoo Development Team, I am now officially on the road to becoming one of them. Today I was accepted as a Gentoo Arch Tester with the amd64 herd. Basically the arch testers work with the developers to track down bugs and stabilize as many packages as possible. Should one wish to become a full-fledged developer after being an arch tester for at least a month or two, it is a relatively short mentoring process to get there.
This is exciting for me as I've been loving the Linux/open source community since I became involved about 3+ years ago and I've been looking for a good opportunity to give something back.
I didn't really need anything else to do outside of my school hours right now as my other jobs seem to keep me plenty busy, but this is something that I consider important and will prioritize time for. I do plan on becoming a full developer at some point, hopefully early in 2006.
This is exciting for me as I've been loving the Linux/open source community since I became involved about 3+ years ago and I've been looking for a good opportunity to give something back.
I didn't really need anything else to do outside of my school hours right now as my other jobs seem to keep me plenty busy, but this is something that I consider important and will prioritize time for. I do plan on becoming a full developer at some point, hopefully early in 2006.
Google. World. Domination.
Well, following along with the belief that somehow Google will eventually control most of the information resources we will take for granted, there is speculation that Google is about to announce the next step in Their Plan: the Google database.
What a terrific idea! Store what you want in it with web access from anywhere. Surely they will be putting together an API to allow people to concoct all manner of wonderous sites to take advantage of it.
Surely this one will hit right at the heart of Microsoft who continues to try to shove the overly expensive and needlessly complex Access down the throats of every Mom and Pop store and Holly Hobbyist that wants to store some information.
Go Google!
What a terrific idea! Store what you want in it with web access from anywhere. Surely they will be putting together an API to allow people to concoct all manner of wonderous sites to take advantage of it.
Surely this one will hit right at the heart of Microsoft who continues to try to shove the overly expensive and needlessly complex Access down the throats of every Mom and Pop store and Holly Hobbyist that wants to store some information.
Go Google!
Bad, Bad Blogger.
I am such a negligent blogger. People have given up reminding me to blog because they know I'm not going to do it with regularity anyway. Oh well, that's me.
Honestly there hasn't been a lot of interesting stuff going on lately, but I'll sum up some of the recent happenings in Scottland:
Dropped computer vision to instead take it next year as a graduate course. This was necessary because of the next point.
Have to go back to Stoney Creek at least 2 more times before Christmas, possibly 3. To that end I leave Friday for my next trip.
That leaves me with only matrix algebra which I could ace without really thinking all that much about it. The midterm was this morning and I'm pretty sure I got perfect on it.
Went to Boston about 9 days ago to go to the swapfest at MIT. Spent the morning trolling through thousands of pieces of used computer equipment, which makes it incredibly difficult to actually decide what you want to get and then makes it that much more depressing when you go back to the vendor who had what you wanted and now its gone.
Several people in our group picked up Mac G3 boxes and other assorted Mac hardware -- actually, that seemed to be the theme of this trip. I was the only person to decide on a plain ol' PIII (which I'll be using to run Asterisk at my house).
That afternoon was spent at the Boston Museum of Science which I wouldn't recommend to anyone older than 9, unless they're from the east coast or are a student attending Ryerson in Toronto. It was all very...simplistic. The planetarium was built in the 50s and doesn't look as if it has been updated since. Oh well, now I know where not to go in Boston.
And btw, who designed the streets in Boston? A bunch of Ryerson students it must have been. I've never seen a town so backwards. We got lost a couple of times which was complicated by the number of trees seen to be falling on cars in our path (it was really windy).
Honestly there hasn't been a lot of interesting stuff going on lately, but I'll sum up some of the recent happenings in Scottland:
Dropped computer vision to instead take it next year as a graduate course. This was necessary because of the next point.
Have to go back to Stoney Creek at least 2 more times before Christmas, possibly 3. To that end I leave Friday for my next trip.
That leaves me with only matrix algebra which I could ace without really thinking all that much about it. The midterm was this morning and I'm pretty sure I got perfect on it.
Went to Boston about 9 days ago to go to the swapfest at MIT. Spent the morning trolling through thousands of pieces of used computer equipment, which makes it incredibly difficult to actually decide what you want to get and then makes it that much more depressing when you go back to the vendor who had what you wanted and now its gone.
Several people in our group picked up Mac G3 boxes and other assorted Mac hardware -- actually, that seemed to be the theme of this trip. I was the only person to decide on a plain ol' PIII (which I'll be using to run Asterisk at my house).
That afternoon was spent at the Boston Museum of Science which I wouldn't recommend to anyone older than 9, unless they're from the east coast or are a student attending Ryerson in Toronto. It was all very...simplistic. The planetarium was built in the 50s and doesn't look as if it has been updated since. Oh well, now I know where not to go in Boston.
And btw, who designed the streets in Boston? A bunch of Ryerson students it must have been. I've never seen a town so backwards. We got lost a couple of times which was complicated by the number of trees seen to be falling on cars in our path (it was really windy).
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Oh, and BTW.
Kerry, a good friend of mine from Timmins (who refuses to start a blog!!!), who now lives in Kap (Kapuskasing for those of you who haven't been initiated into the HOLE that is Northern Ontario), just began working for Canadian Tire. She finally saw the light and came over from the retail darkside of Walmart.
I swear, I convert everyone.
There are like 7 or 8 Canadian Tire stores in Calgary which are always looking for middle-management type staff. Pay is better than most entry-level and the benefits package for management rocks. I'm just pointing that out.
I swear, I convert everyone.
There are like 7 or 8 Canadian Tire stores in Calgary which are always looking for middle-management type staff. Pay is better than most entry-level and the benefits package for management rocks. I'm just pointing that out.
Back to Life.
Actually I've been back in Quebec for several days now, but they seem to have disappeared rather quickly.
The Stoney Creek trip went generally well, by which I mean we opened on Tuesday morning at 8am as the Corporation wanted us to. The nine days that I was down there simply were not enough to complete the task before me. Worse, my time demands made some unfair demands on the 'normal' process of transitioning an old store to a new one; for instance, I diverted several of the people who should normally be moving stock over to the new building to spend 2 days moving technology and office furniture which could normally have been left to last. Having to get back to school dictated that I had to get stuff going asap.
So, the store is up and running and all of the various office PCs and the lan that connects them (along with associated web server, mail server, remote access, etc) are running and should remain in good shape until I can finish the job in December when I plan to spend two weeks in Southern Ontario.
Part of the problem is that we wanted all of the new technology for this store; the old store contained a glut of long-expired and unsupported technology that the previous owner should have replaced years ago, but didn't want to invest the money. His office looked like something out of an Austin Powers movie -- that should tell you something. If the technology move was just to take all the old stuff and put it in the new store it would have been simple, alas, that was not the case. But in the end, all of the new technology puts us ahead of the curve defined by the average of Canadian Tire stores; everything is crisp, clean, new and fast.
Some very basic (and uncorrected) pictures are available in my Flickr account.
So now I don't have to work through any more 15 hour days, but that said, I've signed up to be an 'on-call' web developer for the university bringing my official job count to 3+research+classes. Should be fun right?
The Stoney Creek trip went generally well, by which I mean we opened on Tuesday morning at 8am as the Corporation wanted us to. The nine days that I was down there simply were not enough to complete the task before me. Worse, my time demands made some unfair demands on the 'normal' process of transitioning an old store to a new one; for instance, I diverted several of the people who should normally be moving stock over to the new building to spend 2 days moving technology and office furniture which could normally have been left to last. Having to get back to school dictated that I had to get stuff going asap.
So, the store is up and running and all of the various office PCs and the lan that connects them (along with associated web server, mail server, remote access, etc) are running and should remain in good shape until I can finish the job in December when I plan to spend two weeks in Southern Ontario.
Part of the problem is that we wanted all of the new technology for this store; the old store contained a glut of long-expired and unsupported technology that the previous owner should have replaced years ago, but didn't want to invest the money. His office looked like something out of an Austin Powers movie -- that should tell you something. If the technology move was just to take all the old stuff and put it in the new store it would have been simple, alas, that was not the case. But in the end, all of the new technology puts us ahead of the curve defined by the average of Canadian Tire stores; everything is crisp, clean, new and fast.
Some very basic (and uncorrected) pictures are available in my Flickr account.
So now I don't have to work through any more 15 hour days, but that said, I've signed up to be an 'on-call' web developer for the university bringing my official job count to 3+research+classes. Should be fun right?
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Double Eek.
They've moved the desired opening date of the new store up to Tuesday at 8am (from same time Thursday).
My next 108 hours are going to be, hmmmm, hectic.
My next 108 hours are going to be, hmmmm, hectic.
Eek.
Ummm, does this worry anyone else?
From the link, "If the shrinking trend continues at its present rate of 8 per cent a year, there could be no ice at all at the pole as early as the summer of 2060."
Not an isolated report either...the new evidence the report is based on is also being reported by the New York Times and CTV.
Apparently my plan to move to Alaska to bask in the wonderful coldness of it all may be short-lived. Well, I'll be almost 90 by then so probably not an issue for me. What I'm most worried about though is what the effect of all that 'new' water will be over the rest of the planet. That ice water floats sometimes hundreds of feet over the ocean surface for an area of some 2 million square kilometers. That's a lot of water.
It brings to mind that debate over the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" which involved the rapid onset of an ice age because of the sudden increase in melting of the ice over the north pole. Everyone agrees that the events depicted occurred far too quickly (like decades fast), but many scientists are starting to believe that those events could actually happen, just over the course of 30-100 years.
What was most interesting about the release of that movie was that the head of Nasa at the time forbid all of the agency's climatologists from talking to reporters about the potential truth behind the movie's pseudo-science.
I just say: "Eek."
From the link, "If the shrinking trend continues at its present rate of 8 per cent a year, there could be no ice at all at the pole as early as the summer of 2060."
Not an isolated report either...the new evidence the report is based on is also being reported by the New York Times and CTV.
Apparently my plan to move to Alaska to bask in the wonderful coldness of it all may be short-lived. Well, I'll be almost 90 by then so probably not an issue for me. What I'm most worried about though is what the effect of all that 'new' water will be over the rest of the planet. That ice water floats sometimes hundreds of feet over the ocean surface for an area of some 2 million square kilometers. That's a lot of water.
It brings to mind that debate over the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" which involved the rapid onset of an ice age because of the sudden increase in melting of the ice over the north pole. Everyone agrees that the events depicted occurred far too quickly (like decades fast), but many scientists are starting to believe that those events could actually happen, just over the course of 30-100 years.
What was most interesting about the release of that movie was that the head of Nasa at the time forbid all of the agency's climatologists from talking to reporters about the potential truth behind the movie's pseudo-science.
I just say: "Eek."
Teetering on the Edge.
Uh, yeah. I woke up this morning because 90km/h wind gusts are quite loud. Our forecast says these should be around almost all day. I guess that's one way to get rid of the old deadwood around my house.
I just captured that radar picture, it's just a few minutes old and shows that we're just on the edge of a large rain front that will also pelt us today. Yay.
I just captured that radar picture, it's just a few minutes old and shows that we're just on the edge of a large rain front that will also pelt us today. Yay.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Thank You.
To the anonymous someone who shopped with SAQ and sent a bottle of my most favourite wine straight to my home...
Thank You!
Thank You!
Better.
What's better than earning money while sitting in a lab doing my homework?
Earning money to sit in a lab doing my homework and playing poker for real cash at Ultimate Bet.
That remote desktop protocol for that little bit of wonderment.
Earning money to sit in a lab doing my homework and playing poker for real cash at Ultimate Bet.
That remote desktop protocol for that little bit of wonderment.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Monday.
Wow. Not much bloggin goin on here in a while!
Truthfully, that's because there's just not too much happening. Poker happened last night -- it was good, as usual, even though I ended the evening $5 down after three tournament games. Thankfully there was an abundance of red wine still left over from the CSC party last weekend. I consoled myself in it's cheap, stark redness.
(Aside: I'm a work. Someone just asked me what a USB port looks like. I sometimes forget that minutia like that is not necessarily common knowledge.)
Most of this week will be spent in preparation for my trip to Stoney Creek on Friday; I leave at 3am to hopefully arrive just before noon. It will be a phenomenally busy week as we make final preparations to open the new store. Over the weekend I'll begin packing all of my LAN hardware and PCs but I'll stop short of bringing anything over to the new building as the office furniture won't be in place until Monday morning. Sunday evening we have the 'gala' store preview for staff families, neighbouring store owners and invited guests from head office.
Monday morning, my crew of 20 will spend the day moving 22 PCs, 8 servers, 40 dumb terminals, 14 cash registers and all of the associated hubs, swtiches and battery units over to the new site. I'll have 1 day to get everything hooked-up and working before the 'go/no-go' call for Thursday morning opening. I'm not expecting any non-trivial problems.
I'll be back home in Quebec sometime on Thanksgiving weekend -- I'm thinking Sunday -- it all depends on how everything works on Thursday through Saturday technology-wise.
Truthfully, that's because there's just not too much happening. Poker happened last night -- it was good, as usual, even though I ended the evening $5 down after three tournament games. Thankfully there was an abundance of red wine still left over from the CSC party last weekend. I consoled myself in it's cheap, stark redness.
(Aside: I'm a work. Someone just asked me what a USB port looks like. I sometimes forget that minutia like that is not necessarily common knowledge.)
Most of this week will be spent in preparation for my trip to Stoney Creek on Friday; I leave at 3am to hopefully arrive just before noon. It will be a phenomenally busy week as we make final preparations to open the new store. Over the weekend I'll begin packing all of my LAN hardware and PCs but I'll stop short of bringing anything over to the new building as the office furniture won't be in place until Monday morning. Sunday evening we have the 'gala' store preview for staff families, neighbouring store owners and invited guests from head office.
Monday morning, my crew of 20 will spend the day moving 22 PCs, 8 servers, 40 dumb terminals, 14 cash registers and all of the associated hubs, swtiches and battery units over to the new site. I'll have 1 day to get everything hooked-up and working before the 'go/no-go' call for Thursday morning opening. I'm not expecting any non-trivial problems.
I'll be back home in Quebec sometime on Thanksgiving weekend -- I'm thinking Sunday -- it all depends on how everything works on Thursday through Saturday technology-wise.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Rant.
While I normally like to envision (or at least project) Bishops as some sort of utopic hall of academia, mostly due to our small class sizes and level of student/prof interaction, it is certainly not without its flaws. Those on my mind today follow:
Why is it that I work for ITS (Information. Technology. Services. !!!) and almost all of our correspondence is on paper? When I got hired, I had to fill out 6 pieces of paper. Why? WHY? Most of them even had duplicated information. When I work in one of the labs, I have to go over to H150 (the main lab) and write (WRITE!) my hours onto a timesheet. Why don't we have a web application for this? Worst of all...my supervisor is the web designer for the university. In all fairness to her, I get the distinct feeling that she is overworked and that she would probably be proactive about things if her schedule permitted it. I just can't shake the feeling that reliance on old methods is something that is clogging these peoples schedules.
Even my work schedule was only available on paper, well, until yesterday anyway. Now, with an email (wow...not actual paper) announcement last night I have been informed that it is now available as an outlook schedule and hence only accessible through the official outlook application or the official webmail. WHY? Our schedule doesn't change...it's the same until December. Why can't it be just a simple web page? There is no supposed confidentiality here, it just lists who is working where and when. But hey, we do take the confidential phone numbers (which we are reminded are c.o.n.f.i.d.e.n.t.i.a.l.) and post them in the labs so that anyone can see them.
My thought: Why don't we just have a web application for the consultants and other ITS staff - password protected - that has a page to enter hours, a page to get schedules, and a page to find staff phone numbers? ITS, let me introduce you to the open source world and a package called Mambo. It irritates a nerve with me that if I showed this to someone in ITS they'd probably immediately start a search for a product they have to pay for instead.
And, please, someone...800x600 is no longer a used screen size by those of us under the age of 105! Yet it is the default on almost all lab machines across campus. Speaking of bad desktop setups, the consultants workstations (at the front of each lab) are supposed to give us access to all kinds of 'extra' software -- like the printer administration, print credit stuff and password reset features. But not all the labs are set up this way. For instance, the lab I'm in now has absolutely none of it. The only reason that I'm actually here I suppose is to prevent people from walking out with computers because I can't really do anything else. We use Windows folks, which actually makes networking not terribly difficult. Why can't we just use roaming profiles with a consultants group policy so that it doesn't matter what work station I log on at, I have access to all of the tools I might need? I had never worked with any of that stuff, but I both learned and implemented it in two weeks in Stoney Creek over the summer.
And communication people! Right now Bishops is in the middle of a switch from Novell to Microsoft's Active Directory. It makes less than no sense why they'd wait until ALL OF THE STUDENTS ARE BACK to make this change, but whatever. Problem is, we've been in a state of half-way-done for weeks now. At Bishops profs use the R drive to put course materials for students -- this normally works very well. Now however, half of the profs' offices are on the old Novell system and half are on the new system. The ones that are on Novell continue to put things on their R drives entirely oblivious to the fact that that is the Novell R drive which is NOT the same one that all of the students access when they use the lab computers (which are almost all running active directory). No one is telling them anything!
Cheers to Doocing. Better yet, cheers to Doocing while I'm at work. Actually, I suppose it's not really Doocing per se, the people I work with are nice, but we're certainly lacking something. Last year, Kent (the former ITS head) was fired and we have an interim director in place. He seems both capable and personable, but impressions don't forgive inaction. We'll see how all this progresses.
Why is it that I work for ITS (Information. Technology. Services. !!!) and almost all of our correspondence is on paper? When I got hired, I had to fill out 6 pieces of paper. Why? WHY? Most of them even had duplicated information. When I work in one of the labs, I have to go over to H150 (the main lab) and write (WRITE!) my hours onto a timesheet. Why don't we have a web application for this? Worst of all...my supervisor is the web designer for the university. In all fairness to her, I get the distinct feeling that she is overworked and that she would probably be proactive about things if her schedule permitted it. I just can't shake the feeling that reliance on old methods is something that is clogging these peoples schedules.
Even my work schedule was only available on paper, well, until yesterday anyway. Now, with an email (wow...not actual paper) announcement last night I have been informed that it is now available as an outlook schedule and hence only accessible through the official outlook application or the official webmail. WHY? Our schedule doesn't change...it's the same until December. Why can't it be just a simple web page? There is no supposed confidentiality here, it just lists who is working where and when. But hey, we do take the confidential phone numbers (which we are reminded are c.o.n.f.i.d.e.n.t.i.a.l.) and post them in the labs so that anyone can see them.
My thought: Why don't we just have a web application for the consultants and other ITS staff - password protected - that has a page to enter hours, a page to get schedules, and a page to find staff phone numbers? ITS, let me introduce you to the open source world and a package called Mambo. It irritates a nerve with me that if I showed this to someone in ITS they'd probably immediately start a search for a product they have to pay for instead.
And, please, someone...800x600 is no longer a used screen size by those of us under the age of 105! Yet it is the default on almost all lab machines across campus. Speaking of bad desktop setups, the consultants workstations (at the front of each lab) are supposed to give us access to all kinds of 'extra' software -- like the printer administration, print credit stuff and password reset features. But not all the labs are set up this way. For instance, the lab I'm in now has absolutely none of it. The only reason that I'm actually here I suppose is to prevent people from walking out with computers because I can't really do anything else. We use Windows folks, which actually makes networking not terribly difficult. Why can't we just use roaming profiles with a consultants group policy so that it doesn't matter what work station I log on at, I have access to all of the tools I might need? I had never worked with any of that stuff, but I both learned and implemented it in two weeks in Stoney Creek over the summer.
And communication people! Right now Bishops is in the middle of a switch from Novell to Microsoft's Active Directory. It makes less than no sense why they'd wait until ALL OF THE STUDENTS ARE BACK to make this change, but whatever. Problem is, we've been in a state of half-way-done for weeks now. At Bishops profs use the R drive to put course materials for students -- this normally works very well. Now however, half of the profs' offices are on the old Novell system and half are on the new system. The ones that are on Novell continue to put things on their R drives entirely oblivious to the fact that that is the Novell R drive which is NOT the same one that all of the students access when they use the lab computers (which are almost all running active directory). No one is telling them anything!
Cheers to Doocing. Better yet, cheers to Doocing while I'm at work. Actually, I suppose it's not really Doocing per se, the people I work with are nice, but we're certainly lacking something. Last year, Kent (the former ITS head) was fired and we have an interim director in place. He seems both capable and personable, but impressions don't forgive inaction. We'll see how all this progresses.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Music To Code By.
I'm different from most coders that I know in that when I code I need loud metal music playing (well, that or show tunes, but that's a story for another day), generally the louder and heavier the better. One band that I've been listening to more lately than in the past: Disturbed (the link is a stupid flash site). They've always had some great singles in songs like Stupify and Prayer. On their new album this year, called Ten Thousand Fists, the latest (only?) single, Stricken, is a fabulous coding song.
On a related note, the address for The Edge (CFNY 102.1 Toronto) has changed for those of us linux users that use mplayer to play the stream. (They used to be shoutcast, but now they seem to have moved to Stream the World.) Anyway, this address should be the currently correct one: http://64.34.147.163/CFNYFM
On a related note, the address for The Edge (CFNY 102.1 Toronto) has changed for those of us linux users that use mplayer to play the stream. (They used to be shoutcast, but now they seem to have moved to Stream the World.) Anyway, this address should be the currently correct one: http://64.34.147.163/CFNYFM
Random Monday Morning.
Computer science party 2.0 was a fair success on Friday night, despite the frequent mini-showers. The outdoor component only really ended because the rain really picked up at 10:30 or so. We came inside and (those of us who were not falling-over drunk) played a $5 poker tournament, which I won.
The only sad point? (Coincident with the disadvantage of buying an expensive camera) I took not a single picture of the event. The constant light sprinkling of rain made me nervous to take the camera out of the car all evening (beyond showing it to Stefan, who is debating a digital SLR purchase in the near future). I'll just have to wait to see Dimitri's pictures, he was not so paranoid about water on his Canon EOS 10D.
Also: I reinstalled Gentoo on my main AMD64 box this weekend (partly because my old Gentoo profile had expired and it was no longer a trivial symlink switch to upgrade, and partly because after over a year I had built up quite a bit of dependency crap that I hadn't bothered to clean out). As such, anyone who had an account on it no longer does. If you would like one, just send me an email and I'll get you set up.
I also unmasked and installed Gnome 2.12 which seems to work terrifically. Evince is a vast improvement over all previous attempts at a document reader. If you're a Gentoo-er (ist?) and want the package.unmask entries for it, let me know and I'll send them.
A Windows (ghast!) partition is being set up tonight, only because I love photoshop and simply cannot stand using Gimp. It may have most of the functionality, but it has none of the usability.
The only sad point? (Coincident with the disadvantage of buying an expensive camera) I took not a single picture of the event. The constant light sprinkling of rain made me nervous to take the camera out of the car all evening (beyond showing it to Stefan, who is debating a digital SLR purchase in the near future). I'll just have to wait to see Dimitri's pictures, he was not so paranoid about water on his Canon EOS 10D.
Also: I reinstalled Gentoo on my main AMD64 box this weekend (partly because my old Gentoo profile had expired and it was no longer a trivial symlink switch to upgrade, and partly because after over a year I had built up quite a bit of dependency crap that I hadn't bothered to clean out). As such, anyone who had an account on it no longer does. If you would like one, just send me an email and I'll get you set up.
I also unmasked and installed Gnome 2.12 which seems to work terrifically. Evince is a vast improvement over all previous attempts at a document reader. If you're a Gentoo-er (ist?) and want the package.unmask entries for it, let me know and I'll send them.
A Windows (ghast!) partition is being set up tonight, only because I love photoshop and simply cannot stand using Gimp. It may have most of the functionality, but it has none of the usability.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
CompSci Party in the Woods 2.0
Late notice here but everyone should know anyway...
This year's Computer Science student/faculty/significant others/admirers/fanboys party is happening tomorrow evening (beginning around 5pm or so and continuing until we can't go any longer).
Location: My house! North Hatley, in the orchard.
What should you bring? Alcohol, food (there will be both a BBQ upon which to cook and an open fire for roasting things -- remember your marshmallows!), a cooler to keep things cold.
What else should you bring? Consider a chair if it's feasible for you to do so, I only have 9.
Anybody have any questions? Leave a comment and I'll reply there.
This year's Computer Science student/faculty/significant others/admirers/fanboys party is happening tomorrow evening (beginning around 5pm or so and continuing until we can't go any longer).
Location: My house! North Hatley, in the orchard.
What should you bring? Alcohol, food (there will be both a BBQ upon which to cook and an open fire for roasting things -- remember your marshmallows!), a cooler to keep things cold.
What else should you bring? Consider a chair if it's feasible for you to do so, I only have 9.
Anybody have any questions? Leave a comment and I'll reply there.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Updates from Academia.
My new job with ITS is not nearly as bad as expected; indeed, I have a tremendous amount of free time when working in the labs. This will prove especially beneficial later in the semester when I want to get homework done. Right now, I mainly occupy my time by working on Canadian Tire stuff (I am a Canadian Tire whore don't you know...), watching DVDs (which reminds me...Colin, if you're reading this, we're gonna have to get some sort of system going where I can borrow DVDs from you...I have watched all of mine many times and I only have 30 to begin with), and writing email or blog posts. Really, in a 4 hour shift, I would say that I only spend about 30 minutes doing any actual job-related work.
This morning I have a meeting with my research supervisors Layachi and Madjid to see what direction I should be heading during the Fall semester. Lately I have compiled a large collection of volume data to be used as real testing data for my programs. My collection thus far includes CT scans of a human head and an entire body and an MRI of a human head. The data comes as image slices at varying degrees of resolution. My program then takes that data and attempts first to extract important features from it, then take those extracted features and attempt to rebuild them into independent 3D objects. Trust me, it's exciting stuff. I don't see myself continuing past this Fall on it though -- what I really want to be working on, and the direction I plan on taking in my Masters, is what Layachi is researching -- multi-camera integration and it's applications in remote-sensing.
The two classes that I have this semester...well, they'll be exceedingly easy. It turns out that I already know most of the information from both of them. Oh well, I'll be able to spend more time on the jobs and research for this semester anyway.
This morning I have a meeting with my research supervisors Layachi and Madjid to see what direction I should be heading during the Fall semester. Lately I have compiled a large collection of volume data to be used as real testing data for my programs. My collection thus far includes CT scans of a human head and an entire body and an MRI of a human head. The data comes as image slices at varying degrees of resolution. My program then takes that data and attempts first to extract important features from it, then take those extracted features and attempt to rebuild them into independent 3D objects. Trust me, it's exciting stuff. I don't see myself continuing past this Fall on it though -- what I really want to be working on, and the direction I plan on taking in my Masters, is what Layachi is researching -- multi-camera integration and it's applications in remote-sensing.
The two classes that I have this semester...well, they'll be exceedingly easy. It turns out that I already know most of the information from both of them. Oh well, I'll be able to spend more time on the jobs and research for this semester anyway.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Tonight.
I can't remember the last time that I had an evening where I was this sad. Not pathetically or weepily sad...just in a profound state of reflection. I normally have pretty much only one emotion: normal. Not so tonight.
On August 4th of this year, sometime around 10:30pm my stepfather was going to work on his motorcycle. He loved his motorcycle; 2001 Kawasaki Ninja, green. He spent years doing everything he, my mother, his two daughters and my brother and I needed. House, cars, everything else before he bought that bike -- it was his only 'toy'.
He was killed instantly by a driver leaving a parking lot only two blocks away from work, only 51 years old. The other driver is said not to have stopped at the lot exit, this being a statement that I can't actually make until the police conclude their investigation, but after looking at the scene myself it is decidedly obvious that that was the case. He was wearing full protective equipment -- all body leathers, with bike boots and of course a helmet. He always did, even if he was just going around the block. They didn't help, but at the same time I give a new look of scorn to those bikers who don't wear proper safety equipment, as I pass by.
I got the call at 5am the next morning; calls from family before the sun rises are rarely good. Within a few hours I was on the road to Whitby. The whole way there I watched cars and bikes flow past and around...everyone's life just...continuing. I wanted to scream, "Stop the world! I want someone, everyone, to take notice that Greg is gone." Does everyone feel this when someone dies unexpectedly?
The next few days are a blur in my memory. The funeral was five days later, but so much had to be done before then. How can the government, the world in fact, expect a grieving spouse to begin filling-out insurance paperwork and visiting banks to deal with account transfers during the week of her husband's death? It's all deadlined...it has to be done...the spouse's financial solvency depends on it. We as a society have a long way to go in our treatment and handling of the survivors of unexpected loss. My uncle and I did as much as we could, but so much has been left to my mother. It aggravates the grieving process in such a terrible way.
The truly terrible and infinitely regrettable point for me is that I never truly got to know how great a person Greg was before he was gone. I know, we all say that right? But really, I always knew he was a terrific person because of how he made my mother feel -- she lived the last 16 years like none I'd ever seen before. Their relationship is one of the few bright lights that I've used to convince myself away from a permanent state of relationship pessimism. Anybody who could show that state of wonderful to my mother had to be a truly good person. But aside from that, I never saw a lot of direct evidence of it -- I mean, I never lived with them so I never had an opportunity to be around through the normals of daily life.
That week, the one before the funeral, really made me see. The number of neighbours, ostensibly in this day and age, strangers, that came and told stories about how Greg did this, or Greg did that. Took care of their lawns. Carried their groceries. Fixed their cars. Help with problems. Teach them things. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. One night at about 11pm I answered the phone after my mother was asleep and an elderly man asked for Greg. I began to explain what I'd managed to explain a hundred or so times by this point and he went to tears on the other end of the phone. When he was able to explain he mentioned that he only knew Greg from Don Cherry's (a local bar...a chain in Southern Ontario) but that Greg was the guy that would always take him to his doctor's appointments and to the hospital for x-rays. It became clear to me that he had similar 'relationships' with many people from Don Cherry's. Greg was just that type of guy.
The funeral was bigger than any I've ever attended. The sheer number of people that came was staggering. More than would fit in the chapel, the overflow wouldn't even fit in the standing room behind the chapel. Greg was a much-loved man. There wasn't a dry eye in the building, including the hundred or so coworkers from GM. People said wonderful things. I didn't get up and speak, I couldn't find the words to describe what I wanted to say. The funeral ended with myself, my brother, and four other family members carrying Greg's coffin and putting it into the hearse. What a surreal experience. I only remember it as barely being there...barely cognisant of that fact that we were carrying Greg, my stepfather, my friend.
Everytime I see those Lance Armstrong bracelets, you know, "Live Strong" yellow bracelets, I get this feeling that I want to make my own and I want them to say "Live Like Greg". His philosphy was just like Pay It Forward, but in smaller steps, all the time. We would all do well to live a life like that.
On August 4th of this year, sometime around 10:30pm my stepfather was going to work on his motorcycle. He loved his motorcycle; 2001 Kawasaki Ninja, green. He spent years doing everything he, my mother, his two daughters and my brother and I needed. House, cars, everything else before he bought that bike -- it was his only 'toy'.
He was killed instantly by a driver leaving a parking lot only two blocks away from work, only 51 years old. The other driver is said not to have stopped at the lot exit, this being a statement that I can't actually make until the police conclude their investigation, but after looking at the scene myself it is decidedly obvious that that was the case. He was wearing full protective equipment -- all body leathers, with bike boots and of course a helmet. He always did, even if he was just going around the block. They didn't help, but at the same time I give a new look of scorn to those bikers who don't wear proper safety equipment, as I pass by.
I got the call at 5am the next morning; calls from family before the sun rises are rarely good. Within a few hours I was on the road to Whitby. The whole way there I watched cars and bikes flow past and around...everyone's life just...continuing. I wanted to scream, "Stop the world! I want someone, everyone, to take notice that Greg is gone." Does everyone feel this when someone dies unexpectedly?
The next few days are a blur in my memory. The funeral was five days later, but so much had to be done before then. How can the government, the world in fact, expect a grieving spouse to begin filling-out insurance paperwork and visiting banks to deal with account transfers during the week of her husband's death? It's all deadlined...it has to be done...the spouse's financial solvency depends on it. We as a society have a long way to go in our treatment and handling of the survivors of unexpected loss. My uncle and I did as much as we could, but so much has been left to my mother. It aggravates the grieving process in such a terrible way.
The truly terrible and infinitely regrettable point for me is that I never truly got to know how great a person Greg was before he was gone. I know, we all say that right? But really, I always knew he was a terrific person because of how he made my mother feel -- she lived the last 16 years like none I'd ever seen before. Their relationship is one of the few bright lights that I've used to convince myself away from a permanent state of relationship pessimism. Anybody who could show that state of wonderful to my mother had to be a truly good person. But aside from that, I never saw a lot of direct evidence of it -- I mean, I never lived with them so I never had an opportunity to be around through the normals of daily life.
That week, the one before the funeral, really made me see. The number of neighbours, ostensibly in this day and age, strangers, that came and told stories about how Greg did this, or Greg did that. Took care of their lawns. Carried their groceries. Fixed their cars. Help with problems. Teach them things. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. One night at about 11pm I answered the phone after my mother was asleep and an elderly man asked for Greg. I began to explain what I'd managed to explain a hundred or so times by this point and he went to tears on the other end of the phone. When he was able to explain he mentioned that he only knew Greg from Don Cherry's (a local bar...a chain in Southern Ontario) but that Greg was the guy that would always take him to his doctor's appointments and to the hospital for x-rays. It became clear to me that he had similar 'relationships' with many people from Don Cherry's. Greg was just that type of guy.
The funeral was bigger than any I've ever attended. The sheer number of people that came was staggering. More than would fit in the chapel, the overflow wouldn't even fit in the standing room behind the chapel. Greg was a much-loved man. There wasn't a dry eye in the building, including the hundred or so coworkers from GM. People said wonderful things. I didn't get up and speak, I couldn't find the words to describe what I wanted to say. The funeral ended with myself, my brother, and four other family members carrying Greg's coffin and putting it into the hearse. What a surreal experience. I only remember it as barely being there...barely cognisant of that fact that we were carrying Greg, my stepfather, my friend.
Everytime I see those Lance Armstrong bracelets, you know, "Live Strong" yellow bracelets, I get this feeling that I want to make my own and I want them to say "Live Like Greg". His philosphy was just like Pay It Forward, but in smaller steps, all the time. We would all do well to live a life like that.
Friday, September 09, 2005
Fall 2005 Schedule.
I got the job I applied for with ITS - a lab consultant position. Yay me. How long has it been since I earned minimum wage? Oh well, it actually works out really well for me because I'll do Canadian Tire work while I'm sitting in the labs and get paid twice.
Anyway...click through on the picture if you're interested in seeing my schedule for this semester. Only two classes, but I have no doubt that I'll be busy anyway between research and two jobs.
Anyway...click through on the picture if you're interested in seeing my schedule for this semester. Only two classes, but I have no doubt that I'll be busy anyway between research and two jobs.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Ransom Demands.
Should the owner of this iPod Shuffle wish to see it forwarded, intact, to their new address the following demands must be met:
1. The owner of said iPod must fashion a costume at least vaguely resembling an aquatic creature. The iPodnapper would be most pleased if an octopus was chosen.
2. This costume will then be worn out to no less than two on-campus bars at which time pictures must be taken and posted to the blog of the iPod owner (public post only please).
Once the photos have been witnessed to be online, the iPod will be securely packaged and express-posted to its rightful owner.
Failure to comply with any of the two conditions above will result in the packaging being sent to the owner -- in separate envelopes.
1. The owner of said iPod must fashion a costume at least vaguely resembling an aquatic creature. The iPodnapper would be most pleased if an octopus was chosen.
2. This costume will then be worn out to no less than two on-campus bars at which time pictures must be taken and posted to the blog of the iPod owner (public post only please).
Once the photos have been witnessed to be online, the iPod will be securely packaged and express-posted to its rightful owner.
Failure to comply with any of the two conditions above will result in the packaging being sent to the owner -- in separate envelopes.
News.
- I don't have to go to Hamilton this weekend as previously thought. The new store is at a point right now where I simply don't have enough to do to fill up five days worth of work (or not work that I can't do from home anyway). Instead, I will stay here, there will be a regular poker game on Sunday night and I'll go to the John Deere equipment demonstration extravaganza on Saturday morning.
- Bishop's has a photography club. My new camera and I will be attending the first meeting, whenever and wherever that may be. Why they would put an article in the school paper, but not provide any seemingly important info like that, who knows.
- All of Petter's boxes should now be out of Quebec and en route to his new home in BC. Little does he know that I'm holding his new iPod Shuffle hostage. Proof of life photos and ransom demands to follow shortly.
Addicted to Workahol.
Stacey comments the other day that she is jealous about the fact that we are back to school. This is a feeling that I understand, the workforce is one hard taskmaster and if you happen to be fortunate enough to end up with some closet dominatrix as your immediate supervisor, well, you'll find yourself frequently wishing for a return to the security that academia provides. Nothing really matters here. Program submission deadlines and calculus midterms are the sole puntuators of a stress level that is constantly somewhere below Tense.
All that considered, every time I go to Toronto, I have to fight the urge to stay there. The work-world, although considerably more stressful and decidedly frenetic, offers an unparalleled sense of freedom. Sure, the stakes are higher; deciding to skip an assignment most likely will get you fired, you can't tell people what you really think about them and expect no consequence, and you will be in dire straits if you don't get a steady paycheque (well, unless your name is Phil Verlinden).
But real work has substance. Whether you're picking up dope needles in a park so the next three-year old to fall on his ass won't get stuck and die well before his time. Or perhaps you're ordering inventory for a store and you have pride in the fact that you've done your job well, so that when the five year old girl comes in with her father on a Saturday, to buy her very first bike; a bike which she's been talking about for days and dreaming about for months - she won't be disappointed. Or, you work in a law firm and help in the incorporation of companies - companies which employ hundreds or thousands of people - companies which provide families with opportunities they may not otherwise have.
For years now this is what I've told people. It is quite possibly true that you may never see quantifiable evidence that what you do has meaning; you may never meet those whose lives you have affected - this is where blind faith comes in. It is inexplicably difficult to convince the sixteen year old cashier that, by being happy, friendly and genuinely interested in each and every customer that passes through her line, she has the power to turn an argument with a spouse four hours later into a pleasant family evening.
Pithy? Perhaps. But true none the less. I prefer to live in the real world where what I do really does have meaning and it won't be soon enough that I'm back there.
All that considered, every time I go to Toronto, I have to fight the urge to stay there. The work-world, although considerably more stressful and decidedly frenetic, offers an unparalleled sense of freedom. Sure, the stakes are higher; deciding to skip an assignment most likely will get you fired, you can't tell people what you really think about them and expect no consequence, and you will be in dire straits if you don't get a steady paycheque (well, unless your name is Phil Verlinden).
But real work has substance. Whether you're picking up dope needles in a park so the next three-year old to fall on his ass won't get stuck and die well before his time. Or perhaps you're ordering inventory for a store and you have pride in the fact that you've done your job well, so that when the five year old girl comes in with her father on a Saturday, to buy her very first bike; a bike which she's been talking about for days and dreaming about for months - she won't be disappointed. Or, you work in a law firm and help in the incorporation of companies - companies which employ hundreds or thousands of people - companies which provide families with opportunities they may not otherwise have.
For years now this is what I've told people. It is quite possibly true that you may never see quantifiable evidence that what you do has meaning; you may never meet those whose lives you have affected - this is where blind faith comes in. It is inexplicably difficult to convince the sixteen year old cashier that, by being happy, friendly and genuinely interested in each and every customer that passes through her line, she has the power to turn an argument with a spouse four hours later into a pleasant family evening.
Pithy? Perhaps. But true none the less. I prefer to live in the real world where what I do really does have meaning and it won't be soon enough that I'm back there.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
And it Begins Again.
So school starts for another year.
This post was made automatically by Flickr when I sent a picture from my cell to my Flickr account. Yay for Moblogging!
This post was made automatically by Flickr when I sent a picture from my cell to my Flickr account. Yay for Moblogging!
Sunday, September 04, 2005
BTW...
Who else that reads this blog regularly has a Flickr account? Let me know so I can add you to my contacts.
The Triumphant? Return.
I'm back!
I wasn't really gone, but I was really busy. Now with the start of the new school season things will be a little more stable. For today however, two things, entirely related:
I caved, well, not so much caved as decided that I wanted to buy a new camera. I have been looking for the last year but could never bring myself to purchase. Well, it occurred to me that if I don't do it now, and I wait until I actually have the money to do it, I may never. So I did. And it's yummy. It's a Nikon D70S digital SLR. Besides my own exhaustive research on the landscape of similar camera fare, I credit Dooce and Jennifer and the wonderful photos both have published to help in my decision.
Second: I upgraded my Flickr account to a pro account which gives me unlimited storage and 2Gigs of upload per month. Expect Photos!
I wasn't really gone, but I was really busy. Now with the start of the new school season things will be a little more stable. For today however, two things, entirely related:
I caved, well, not so much caved as decided that I wanted to buy a new camera. I have been looking for the last year but could never bring myself to purchase. Well, it occurred to me that if I don't do it now, and I wait until I actually have the money to do it, I may never. So I did. And it's yummy. It's a Nikon D70S digital SLR. Besides my own exhaustive research on the landscape of similar camera fare, I credit Dooce and Jennifer and the wonderful photos both have published to help in my decision.
Second: I upgraded my Flickr account to a pro account which gives me unlimited storage and 2Gigs of upload per month. Expect Photos!
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Ugh.
It's almost 1 am. Here, at work, I sit waiting for the printer to complete its printout of a 3600 page report. Have you ever printed 3600 pages before? Even on this very expensive and quick-like-a-bunny printer of mine it has been going for over an hour and a half. Actually, I shouldn't call it my - or our - printer, you see, today is (was) changeover day. Ed has now sold the Mavis and Dundas Canadian Tire store and the 3600 page report is the inventory discrepancy that must be checked tomorrow.
In short, what that means is that our computer logs on-hand quantities for every one of the 48000 products that we carry. Today Western Inventory Service came in and counted all of the products in the store and the report lists the products that have a disagreement between what the computer thought we should have and what Western found.
3600 pages. I'm looking at the first 2300 of it now and it's well over a foot tall. :(
Oh well, I'm not one of the people that has to spend the next several days running around the store re-checking the majority of those discrepancies. You would have trouble paying me enough to do it -- it's the scut-work of inventory auditing.
Tomorrow, I'm splitting my day between Mississauga and Stoney Creek. Sometime on Friday or Saturday I will be back in Quebec.
In short, what that means is that our computer logs on-hand quantities for every one of the 48000 products that we carry. Today Western Inventory Service came in and counted all of the products in the store and the report lists the products that have a disagreement between what the computer thought we should have and what Western found.
3600 pages. I'm looking at the first 2300 of it now and it's well over a foot tall. :(
Oh well, I'm not one of the people that has to spend the next several days running around the store re-checking the majority of those discrepancies. You would have trouble paying me enough to do it -- it's the scut-work of inventory auditing.
Tomorrow, I'm splitting my day between Mississauga and Stoney Creek. Sometime on Friday or Saturday I will be back in Quebec.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
You Can't Brush What's Not There.
Back when I was in high school I began to lose my hair - no obvious (none of my relatives has a history of early hair loss) reason for it. Nick, my barber, told me one day that if I cut it really short, like under an inch, it would appear as if I had more total hair on my head. This revelation, as most optical illusions do, had some merit. Let me tell you a little bit more about Nick. He was this 50 year old Italian import with greasy hair and weighed-down with an abundance of gold jewellery, and short - 5'2" would have been a dream for him. He owned this little barber shop/hair styling place in a crappy mall and drove a corvette which he exchanged every two years for a new one.
Coincident with the short, greasy, Italian-guy stereotype, he always had a lot of women around -- seemed to be dating a new one every week. He only allowed women to work for him and think most of them were, ahem, 'professionals' before they were hair stylists. If Nick wasn't getting hummers in the backroom on a daily basis then I'm shocked. All that said, Nick was a great guy, he had great insight into the human condition and I learned a lot about people from him. Come to think of it, one of my sisters worked for Nick for a while. She got fired - perhaps she wasn't providing the requisite employer benefit...
Actually, I got fired from a job in that mall too. I used to work at the shoe repair shop for a guy name Dan. It was one of the best jobs I ever had because job satisfaction was easily obtained. Each day had it's own reward -- plus, you got to work with lots of really strong glue...for hours on end. I went home happy every day. Why did I get terminated? I had this tendency to stay out really late with friends and then, umm, forget to wake up in the morning to open the store. On day I woke up an hour after I was supposed to have opened the store, flew (FLEW) through my house and down to the mall only to discover that the shoe store across the aisle from us had called Dan and he was already in and working. He was mad, so mad I thought for sure he was going to hit me, and he was a really bit guy. Did I mention that shoe repair gives you gargantuan upper-body strength? No, well it does, and he'd been doing it for 30 years. The actual termination was somewhat anticlimactic based on that original fear.
Three months later I started with Canadian Tire, as a cashier, as the only male cashier my store employed (and, come to think of it, I have never seen or hired a male cashier in any of my 4 stores since). It occurred to me last week that I have been with Canadian Tire for 14 years now. 14 years.
I still stop in to see Dan at the shoe repair shop everytime I'm in Whitby. You see, I'm quite thankful to him for firing me. If he hadn't I may never have made a connection with Canadian Tire. I make no bones about the fact that he terminated me illegally - at least by Ontario's standards. I was too young at the time to really know otherwise, but he didn't have grounds. I have however, over the years, make sure he knows all of the successes that I've had with Canadian Tire over the years. You know, managing large 20 million dollar stores and such. There's a certain satisfaction in that.
Anyway, 15 years ago Nick told me that if I cut my hair to shorter than an inch all around, I wouldn't look as if I'd lost so much. I don't actually know about the truth of that, but I'll tell you, it leads to 'maintenance free hair'. Yesterday it all got lopped off. You can't brush what's not there!
Coincident with the short, greasy, Italian-guy stereotype, he always had a lot of women around -- seemed to be dating a new one every week. He only allowed women to work for him and think most of them were, ahem, 'professionals' before they were hair stylists. If Nick wasn't getting hummers in the backroom on a daily basis then I'm shocked. All that said, Nick was a great guy, he had great insight into the human condition and I learned a lot about people from him. Come to think of it, one of my sisters worked for Nick for a while. She got fired - perhaps she wasn't providing the requisite employer benefit...
Actually, I got fired from a job in that mall too. I used to work at the shoe repair shop for a guy name Dan. It was one of the best jobs I ever had because job satisfaction was easily obtained. Each day had it's own reward -- plus, you got to work with lots of really strong glue...for hours on end. I went home happy every day. Why did I get terminated? I had this tendency to stay out really late with friends and then, umm, forget to wake up in the morning to open the store. On day I woke up an hour after I was supposed to have opened the store, flew (FLEW) through my house and down to the mall only to discover that the shoe store across the aisle from us had called Dan and he was already in and working. He was mad, so mad I thought for sure he was going to hit me, and he was a really bit guy. Did I mention that shoe repair gives you gargantuan upper-body strength? No, well it does, and he'd been doing it for 30 years. The actual termination was somewhat anticlimactic based on that original fear.
Three months later I started with Canadian Tire, as a cashier, as the only male cashier my store employed (and, come to think of it, I have never seen or hired a male cashier in any of my 4 stores since). It occurred to me last week that I have been with Canadian Tire for 14 years now. 14 years.
I still stop in to see Dan at the shoe repair shop everytime I'm in Whitby. You see, I'm quite thankful to him for firing me. If he hadn't I may never have made a connection with Canadian Tire. I make no bones about the fact that he terminated me illegally - at least by Ontario's standards. I was too young at the time to really know otherwise, but he didn't have grounds. I have however, over the years, make sure he knows all of the successes that I've had with Canadian Tire over the years. You know, managing large 20 million dollar stores and such. There's a certain satisfaction in that.
Anyway, 15 years ago Nick told me that if I cut my hair to shorter than an inch all around, I wouldn't look as if I'd lost so much. I don't actually know about the truth of that, but I'll tell you, it leads to 'maintenance free hair'. Yesterday it all got lopped off. You can't brush what's not there!
Monday, July 11, 2005
Racoon Update
Up until last Monday I've had just two regular racoons that visit my house almost nightly. The first one I call Stumpy because he's, well, stumpy. He has almost no tail. The other one I simply call Mother for reasons which should be obvious.
Last Monday was the first day that she decided to bring her babies (all 4 of them) to the house with her. Before she had her babies she was very comfortable with me, she would take food from my hand with no problem -- after having them, she would come close but would never actually take from my hand, that is, until Sunday night. I think that was a comfort point she needed to reach in order to bring the babies with her the next night. (See a picture of one of the babies in my Flickr stream.)
She's an odd one really, I'm almost positive that she has had a lot of interaction with a dog. If not, I can't explain her behaviour at all. You see, when she's waiting for me to get her something, she lays down on the deck (which racoons do not normally do to begin with) and pants. Yes, pants. Just like a dog.
Just another strange animal spending time at my house.
Last Monday was the first day that she decided to bring her babies (all 4 of them) to the house with her. Before she had her babies she was very comfortable with me, she would take food from my hand with no problem -- after having them, she would come close but would never actually take from my hand, that is, until Sunday night. I think that was a comfort point she needed to reach in order to bring the babies with her the next night. (See a picture of one of the babies in my Flickr stream.)
She's an odd one really, I'm almost positive that she has had a lot of interaction with a dog. If not, I can't explain her behaviour at all. You see, when she's waiting for me to get her something, she lays down on the deck (which racoons do not normally do to begin with) and pants. Yes, pants. Just like a dog.
Just another strange animal spending time at my house.
Friday, July 08, 2005
Good Movie.
I watch Hotel Rwanda yesterday, in part because my aunt recommended it, then Oprah recommended it, but mostly because I was planning on renting it anyway.
It's worth seeing. Really.
In 1994 (the time during which the events in the movie were unfolding) I was 20 years old - yet somehow I have no memory of hearing about the killing.
I can honestly say that I've never been so moved to try to do something to assist the people of the countries that are still involved in this genocidal state. But what can we, here, do? I refuse to provide money to organizations that purport to help in the afflicted areas, my reasons being two-fold. First, I don't really have money to spare at this point, and second, I have very little faith that the majority of the donated monies actually makes it to the people who need it.
In the last few years, 4 million people have been killed in the Congo and Sudan as a result of the same genocide that killed the one million Rwandans in 1994. Why haven't I heard about it? Why aren't there daily news stories? Why doesn't the UN go in and stop it?
Better than that (and right up my alley in the vein of "U.S. -- World Police") why don't the Americans send a fighting force in there to stop it? Oh, wait, because the Congo doesn't export any oil. That's really sad.
It's worth seeing. Really.
In 1994 (the time during which the events in the movie were unfolding) I was 20 years old - yet somehow I have no memory of hearing about the killing.
I can honestly say that I've never been so moved to try to do something to assist the people of the countries that are still involved in this genocidal state. But what can we, here, do? I refuse to provide money to organizations that purport to help in the afflicted areas, my reasons being two-fold. First, I don't really have money to spare at this point, and second, I have very little faith that the majority of the donated monies actually makes it to the people who need it.
In the last few years, 4 million people have been killed in the Congo and Sudan as a result of the same genocide that killed the one million Rwandans in 1994. Why haven't I heard about it? Why aren't there daily news stories? Why doesn't the UN go in and stop it?
Better than that (and right up my alley in the vein of "U.S. -- World Police") why don't the Americans send a fighting force in there to stop it? Oh, wait, because the Congo doesn't export any oil. That's really sad.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Did You Ever Wonder?
Back when I was in high school (eek, some 15 years ago - this may have happened earlier as well, but I certainly have killed too many brain cells to remember) I remember looking around at 'the group' and wondering which of us would become a public face. I mean, I went to a large high school (almost 3000 students) so odds were that someone would end up doing something in which people would recognize them.
Also, when I was in grade 7, I made a video with a group of students for a school project. I remember it because I remember all of my videos - having a father who worked in post production meant that when we wanted to do a video in school we got it professionally edited on the same equipment that was editing some of the top television shows and movies of the time. Anyway, the video we did was a newscast about our school. It was anchored by a friend of mine named Nelly Gonzalez.
So I was watching TV the other night - a Winnipeg Global station - and who should come on? None other than Nelly doing a news update. It turns out that she is the nighttime anchor. It's nice to see the progress that people from my graduating class have made.
Also, when I was in grade 7, I made a video with a group of students for a school project. I remember it because I remember all of my videos - having a father who worked in post production meant that when we wanted to do a video in school we got it professionally edited on the same equipment that was editing some of the top television shows and movies of the time. Anyway, the video we did was a newscast about our school. It was anchored by a friend of mine named Nelly Gonzalez.
So I was watching TV the other night - a Winnipeg Global station - and who should come on? None other than Nelly doing a news update. It turns out that she is the nighttime anchor. It's nice to see the progress that people from my graduating class have made.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Other Bishops (CSC) News.
(Informing my far off brethren of the state of our school!)
Dimitri has moved offices! I must say, I find more than a little satisfaction that he has now occupied Kent Maharaj's old office. There is talk that Nelly will also move, to Sandra's old office, just across the hall. In that case, the plan would be that the southern wing of 1st floor Johnson would become the computer science wing and attempts would be made to hold most of our classes there and to move the linux lab to that side of the building.
(In Bishops IT related news) Rumour mill has it that not one of the people working in ITS (not one!) has a valid certification in anything. Doesn't that sound like a wonderful plan to set up an IT department? Very little official training and no official qualifications. It's not that I blame the staff here, most of them seem quite nice, rather I blame the former management and a university administration that would set it up this way.
Oh well, I hear that the new manager (who is only an interim appointment currently) is planning on making changes -- I'm at least slightly optimistic.
Dimitri has moved offices! I must say, I find more than a little satisfaction that he has now occupied Kent Maharaj's old office. There is talk that Nelly will also move, to Sandra's old office, just across the hall. In that case, the plan would be that the southern wing of 1st floor Johnson would become the computer science wing and attempts would be made to hold most of our classes there and to move the linux lab to that side of the building.
(In Bishops IT related news) Rumour mill has it that not one of the people working in ITS (not one!) has a valid certification in anything. Doesn't that sound like a wonderful plan to set up an IT department? Very little official training and no official qualifications. It's not that I blame the staff here, most of them seem quite nice, rather I blame the former management and a university administration that would set it up this way.
Oh well, I hear that the new manager (who is only an interim appointment currently) is planning on making changes -- I'm at least slightly optimistic.
All Linux Users...
Everyone has to try this. No, really, I mean right now. Within an hour I was able to get a working luminocity window that would (stably!) run most apps, taking full advantage of my Radeon's rendering performance.
Go here to try it out for yourself.
Go here to try it out for yourself.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Notes...A Little Catch-up
Okay, so it has been way too long since my last post. I want to return to a more predictable, er, regular blogging pattern, but my last blog software was just pissing me off too much -- too many spam comments to deal with (almost 50 a day), can't seem to set it the way I want it (without coding it myself). Blogspot is just easier to deal with.
A few updates about my life from the last month:
I went to see Cirque du Soleil's performance of Corteo in Old Montreal a few weeks ago -- it was my first time to see one of their performances, and it was terrific. I highly recommend it for a good afternoon/evening out if it happens to come to your town.
When we last left the story of J9, it was a little bit up in the air as to whether we were going to have access to that lab by the beginning of the next school year. It turns out we will. There is currently no risk we will lose that lab during the next school year.
Bishops Computer Science is confirmed to be offering a grad program to offer Master's degrees in both image processing/computer graphics and theory of computation. My research this summer and my involvement with the image processing lab during the final year of my B.Sc. next year will both begin to count towards a Masters degree.
More later... (not in a month!)
A few updates about my life from the last month:
I went to see Cirque du Soleil's performance of Corteo in Old Montreal a few weeks ago -- it was my first time to see one of their performances, and it was terrific. I highly recommend it for a good afternoon/evening out if it happens to come to your town.
When we last left the story of J9, it was a little bit up in the air as to whether we were going to have access to that lab by the beginning of the next school year. It turns out we will. There is currently no risk we will lose that lab during the next school year.
Bishops Computer Science is confirmed to be offering a grad program to offer Master's degrees in both image processing/computer graphics and theory of computation. My research this summer and my involvement with the image processing lab during the final year of my B.Sc. next year will both begin to count towards a Masters degree.
More later... (not in a month!)
New. Blog. - First. Post.
This is a test of the emergency blogging system. Had this been a real blog emergency your screen would immediately have been filled with mostly naked animals acting out the entire story of 1984 by George Orwell. When played backwards and upside-down, these animals would remind you mostly of mormons reading the bible while wearing latex fetish wear.
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