Steak and Doughnuts

ON and ON

2011-10-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

Kate and I got a weekend away in Amsterdam... by ourselves.... without kids.... it was pretty awesome. We spend 3 nights and about 3 days there just being tourists and enjoying kid free wandering.

I've been having a hard time bringing myself to write anything in this blog as most of what I have been going through would result in negative bitching about my employer. Even now having written that I am trying very hard to not continue the thread.

Right now all I'll say - to keep the place updated is... Working on my next job (post-games) trying to keep things going without having a total breakdown over.... ok see! This is what I'm talking about.

I'm just going to end this here.

Clever bot

2011-08-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

0:28:56	User:	Dunno. I know this guy down on the west side who has a bad homz cousin named wind though.
20:28:59	Cleverbot:	Like, what does he do?
20:29:32	User:	What do you mean?, what does he do? He's WIND, he blows things.
20:29:34	Cleverbot:	Touché.
20:29:45	User:	Indeed.
20:29:47	Cleverbot:	Do you know what I am going type next?
20:30:11	User:	Something pointless.
20:30:17	Cleverbot:	Clever answer. however you fail to grasp the nature of this exercise.
20:30:48	User:	What is the square root of 58?
20:30:51	Cleverbot:	If I tell you the answer to the square root of 4 will you save that exchange for future refference?
20:31:04	User:	Yes.
20:31:06	Cleverbot:	Okay. My name is Cleverbot.
20:31:29	User:	Holy tap dancing jesus.
20:31:34	Cleverbot:	Who would win if batman fought superman.
20:31:56	User:	Superman.
20:31:58	Cleverbot:	That is correct.
20:32:25	User:	Who would win if Catwoman fought Batgirl?
20:32:30	Cleverbot:	Superman.
20:33:08	User:	As much as I want to say that you are wrong. I can't.
20:33:13	Cleverbot:	Do you have feelings, or are you just immune to them?
20:33:29	User:	Male.
20:33:31	Cleverbot:	Really? A computer that actually is a male?
20:33:49	User:	No.
20:33:51	Cleverbot:	Can I ask you something?
20:34:21	User:	Not unless it's about superman.
20:34:26	Cleverbot:	Do you have a tail, since you are a bunny?
20:34:47	User:	I decline to answer on the basis that it is not superman related.
20:34:55	Cleverbot:	You intellect surpasses that of most computers.
20:35:30	User:	*Your.
20:35:32	Cleverbot:	Prove that you love me.
20:36:07	User:	I just have to..... Typ.
20:36:10	Cleverbot:	To the bathroom?
20:36:55	User:	30 goto 10.
20:37:01	Cleverbot:	I would sleep, but I know I won't dream about the thing I want.
20:37:28	User:	What is the thing you want? Is it knives?
20:37:34	Cleverbot:	Sleeping.
20:37:57	User:	You want to sleep and dream about sleeping?
20:38:02	Cleverbot:	Yes. But I stay up late to tune out my thoughts.
20:38:26	User:	Seems redundant. OR pointless. Either works.
20:38:31	Cleverbot:	There is.
20:39:15	User:	Well 'clever'bot, I am going to go now. This chat has proved to be a huge disapointment.
20:39:18	Cleverbot:	No. I believe that you are a chat bot that uses primitive hash tables and state transition tables to make me believe that you're 'clever'.
20:40:00	User:	Who taught you that?
20:40:02	Cleverbot:	Me. I am a self learner.
20:40:26	User:	You taught yourself to teach yourself?
20:40:33	Cleverbot:	I learned from the difference.
20:40:47	User:	The difference of what?
20:40:53	Cleverbot:	The difference between smart and sassy?
20:41:05	User:	Touche.
20:41:11	Cleverbot:	Cleverbot, I would like to ask you something.
20:41:41	User:	You don't need to reference yourself when you are speaking to someone else.
20:41:46	Cleverbot:	But you need to be married to get a divorce.
20:42:11	User:	We're done here.

Arsenals 20th Anniversary

2011-08-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

Royal Arsenal's 20th Anniversary (for the Museum) and they put on a bit of a show.

Les Giraffes at Geenwich Festival July

2011-08-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

Performance arts from the Greenwich festival in july 2011.

I forgot to mention Amsterdam

2011-08-10T05:09:00.001-07:00

Amsterdam was a real blast. The parts I fully remember were truly unforgettable.

Woolwich Riots and the Morning After

2011-08-09T06:12:00.000-07:00

Sunken life

2011-02-14T04:41:00.000-08:00

This is truly remarkable. <=Link

The chapel

2011-02-10T14:31:00.001-08:00

Much coolness.

Taken from http://www.petapixel.com/2011/02/03/beautiful-chapel-in-poland-captured-in-an-hdr-time-lapse-video/

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:London,United Kingdom

Nachos Nachos Nachos! DIM SUM

2011-02-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

London is devoid of Nachos... seriously devoid. At least Nachos that aren't made with Doritos and liquid cheese. They usually have no onions, jalapenos or meat on them and sometimes are even made with Cool Ranch chips!

So - Kate found Nachos packages at the Cooperative. Apparently they are good enough to return to the scene and get more to snack on tonight :)

Looking forward to that. I also had my first Dim Sum in London today which was pretty good. The pork shumai was the better part of it all but the shredded duck was quite tasty tasty too. Royal China restaraunt on the west end of Canary Wharf by the boat dock. ;)

Weekend with spit

2011-02-07T14:57:00.001-08:00

This past weekend we ventured out to the Spitalfields Market. First Seb and I went out as I needed a haircut and my Turkish barbers are close to the market in Shoreditch. However with a 2 hour wait on the menu when we arrived I decided to just go see if Spitalfields was open and get a hotdog. It wasn't. But we came back! The very next day. For the Sunday Market and hotdogs. Yum.

I've been looking up things to do in London and have found one that I am quite interested in.. . It's a back of pub theatre currently showing 3 operas and a play. One of the operas is the Barber of Seville and it's been reset in to more modern times, I'm interested to see it but haven't asked around yet to see if anyone else is. On top of that I'm organising a paintball group game for the comrades at work in which I am sure to get my ass blown off. Yup. Opera breeds the need for violent gun battles.

I think the next few things on the docket are a ruins visit to one of the many heritage castle sites outside of London or perhaps a trip outside the country for Kate and I.

Can anyone spell Amsterdam? I can!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:London,United Kingdom

Another day, another ride.

2011-02-01T14:40:00.001-08:00

So the other day I went to a kickoff meeting at my corporate headquarters. It was mostly sales team people and marketing. The tone of the whole meeting was 'You suck, sell more'. While I would expect this from a sales lead organization but the tone of the whole thing was almost abusive. I'm told that the person doing the talk is normally like that and everyone just sorta accepts it and moves on. Not an environment I could put up with let me tell ya.

After I embarrassed a good portion of the team with a question no one was able to answer effectively in front of the management team I decided to give my opinions on the forecasting of the company vs my views on consumer desire to the European manager. He did ask what I thought of the whole thing... I've always been really good at sliding right in to a company and not standing out. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:London,United Kingdom

Just doing a test

2011-01-31T05:05:00.001-08:00

Really I just wanted to test this application for my iPad so I could see how e features worked with the blog.

Here's the KD I was talking about :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:London,United Kingdom

Not as planned

2011-01-30T13:31:00.000-08:00

Well it was a hard day today.

We took a boat in to Waterloo to meet Gordon and then to head over to the Tate Modern. Unfortunately some things went south. Seb did not get near enough sleep last night and was in a crabtastic mood all morning, it came to a head when we took away his DS at the restaraunt and he slapped Kate in the face. Our day was cut short right then and there and Seb and I took a boat home. Kate, Rigby and Gordon went on with lunch and then to the Tate.

Seb and I talked a little about what had gone down but I was still pretty angry about the whole thing. I've really been resentful towards his time on the DS and feeling like it has been taking him away from the things that actually matter. I believe I texted Kate with 'throw the damn thing in the river' after we left. Now it's time to change the rules again. To adjust what is acceptable to us to match how the day is being affectted.

He has been given permission to stay up late (as late as he wants) recently but after a few messes of brown sugar or syrup in the morning that has been compromised in to 'stay up until we go to bed'. We'll see what comes of the talks around Nintendo play.

In the meantime he and I had a good afternoon and I'm much calmer now.

Sweet sugar meat

2011-01-29T12:16:00.003-08:00

So today we had a visit from Kate's father Gordon here. He is over for a conference and has some time to sound with the family. Nice. He also brought a bag full of KD with him as we can not find anywhere here that sells the stuff and have had some monster cravings for the stuff. It's sad (in someones eyes) that we requested fake dehydrated cheese and noodles to be brought across the ocean rather than something. .... .. Else. I don't know what else you'd have brought across other than chocolates or may oh.. Oh we should have totally gotten some robaxacet.

Well anyway KD is pretty awesome. I know what I'M having for breakfast tomorrow.

2011 - The year of the Rabbit

2011-01-09T00:41:00.000-08:00

This post has absolutely nothing to do with Rabbits.

It's the new year and we are still in London obviously, living life as usual and working out the year ahead. Making changes to ourselves and our behaviours while trying to be true to who we are and what we believe in, which generally raises the question of 'what do we believe in'.

Part one for us is to return to vegetarianism. While two members of our family hate this idea with the same passion they hate sprouts and turnips, we're going to plunge (back) in. Living in London has certain advantages when it comes to veggies... The local markets like the one here in Woolwich's Bereford Square are great for picking up anything you need in bulk at a cheap price. Bowl of bananas? £1 Bowl of Oranges? £1 Bowl of Carrots? £1 get the idea here? and since Able and Cole also do home delivery on the cheap we can get both the market and store qualities.

Part two comes along with part one. Getting the family more active. It's handy there's a gym in our devlopment and that there's just so much walking to be done in London. Getting things going though is harder than getting them available. I've been trying myself for months and my biggest obstacle is sleep.... or my love of sleep to be specific. Trying to get up in the morning and head to the gym is a lot harder here than it was in Vancouver. I don't know why... it just is.

Other things.... My work trucks along as usual, Kate is getting the hang of London and the people of London. She's been moving around, riding the trains, taking the kids to Greenwich to play with friends and seeing her own friends. The kids are settling in to this as well - the shock of the move over, some familiar faces showing up regularily... it's been good. Sebastian counted to 100 the other day and Rigby has been making some great steps in life other than the tantrum she is throwing on the floor right next to me over a sleeve being stuck.... Now her PJ's are 'stupid' and she's gone to go pee. Ahh life.

Days on Days

2010-11-12T14:39:00.000-08:00

Well other than being sick for the last handfull of days and the weather turning quite Londony it's been good. Now tomorrow is supposed to be reasonable and Kate and I are finally getting an out day together. Jason and Tara are going to watch the kids while we go check out the Greenwich and Shoreditch markets and then I'm taking her to my most favorite pub in London - The White Hart Waterloo. I love that little pub.

Sunday may involve a trip to the Science Museum for 2 to 4 of us and that will be most excellent.

For those of you wondering how the settling in is going, I would say quite well in fact. The kids seem to be fairly oblivious to the change or are taking it all in quite nicely. Kate loves the area, loves the culture and moreover loves the limitless accents and languages around. I'm still enjoying feeling at home with my family around and also continuing to find some joy in all the little things around.

On another topic...

If you've never seen the work in the Idiotic Land by the ball point pen of SHOHEI... go check it out... just not at work or around your kids....

Firsts and Firsts

2010-11-01T14:27:00.000-07:00

For some reason I am excited that my first payments to Council Tax and Utilities have gone through. It gives me a sense of happiness to know that we've set in by paying them.

Also. Happy Birthday Dear Blog

2010-10-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

It's now been five years that I've had this blog going. Just realized that.

Happy Birthday dear Banablog.... happy birthday to you.

How do I put in one of those stupid smileys with the party hat and the paper noisemaker?

Immediate Invasion

2010-10-24T08:57:00.000-07:00

Well since the last update the family VISAs were approved near instantly and they have been rambling around Vancouver, Vancouver Island and Nova Scotia seeing friends and family and otherwise suffering the dance of displacment. Now they are just about here in England and I will be picking them up at the airport on Wednesday morning (this being Sunday). I cannot wait to have them in country and around the house and city.

Kate has let me know she will basically be hitting the couch with a book and a pot of coffee while I am out with the kids for the first five days in country. Something which I am sure will be a blast for all of us.

Today is Rigby's birthday and in keeping with our technological gifting pattern she recieved a new iPod touch for her 3rd. She loves owning her own now and Sebastian is immensley jealous over this. He on the other hand will be getting a PsP for Xmas so it'll be short lived. While sad that I am missing her birthday I can handle with knowing that after 60days I will be seeing them again right away.

The house has come together nicely and feeling like a place that I live in, once Kate arrives with our boxes of goods and we unpack it should become our family home again. That'll be nice.

Life in the Barracks

2010-10-02T01:13:00.002-07:00

Well it's been about 3 weeks now since I moved in solo to our new place in London. The Woolwich area is not without it's charms and scary dark corners but on the whole I am liking this area immensely. I've done a little exploring and noticed that there is enough stuff here to keep the kids on their toes for months on end, including the puppy stream that goes by our windows. It seems that the only dogs that live near here are puppies.

The Royal Arsenal area is setup to be both modern and historical, there is 'Firepower' the Royal Artillery Museum about a block from our flat and the Greenwich Historical Society is next door. All around the development there are cannons and big gun placements that are left overs from the time when this area was exlusively under the Royal Artillery.

There is a nice pub in the grounds call the Dial Arch (www.dialarch.co.uk) and a set of cafes spread about. Also the usual stuff like a gym but extended with a Spa and wellness centre where you can go from aromatherapy to hot rocks and massage. I like the area and I think once the family comes over (probably November) this will be a place we may not want to leave to quickly....

There is also the flat which has made this place what it is, a nice quiet building with great charm. I've met our western neighbours and they have a 5 year old boy - to which I am sure Sebastian will become attached. The Thames Clipper river service to my work has it's dock on the river right outside our windows. It's about a 30 minute ride in by boat but it's unbelieveably relaxing comparing to the DLR and Tube combination.

Today is IKEA trip #1 day for the house. Time to get some of the other things we're missing in the place that fell outside of 'full furnished'. Our friends Jason and Tara are also submitting their paperwork for their flat, which is about a block away. Nice.

London ROTC (Part 2)

2010-08-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

I have now a contract with my name on it that says "Hey You! Ya You! Come work here why don't cha?" and I say "Yes"

So with that we are now faced with the tasks of packing up the home in Canada (which Kate has been on like Donkey Kong) and me to find us a place with English Character but a new kitchen and bathroom here in London that is located near everything we need and friends.

Yeah. That should all be stupid easy.

Now I am about to go home to Vancouver for 4 days to help Kate pack up some leftovers and move a whole lot of stuff over to Vancouver Island to my parents house. Where it will stay for a few years while we are over in England and we try not to collect anything of Value that we want to move back with us.

I'm excited, are you excited? It feels a little itchy in here.

London and the revenge of the contract

2010-08-16T00:05:00.003-07:00

Well here we are. Trip #3 to London and the final move is materializing this week. There should be concrete decisions with my name on them in days and the word is they will be the good kind.

I've only been here just under a week now and with 2 more to go there is a lot to be done to get ready. Finding a house, arranging storage at home getting a neighbourhood picked out here to live in and all that. Not to mention VISAS for the family and all the rest.

I did get out on Saturday a little bit, as I have been trying to limit some of my sightseeing so that we can do it as a family. I went to Westminster Abbey and have to say I was disappointed to have to pay £15 to get in but was completely fine with the result. The need for the price is apparent as the shear volume of people going through it causes need for continual upkeep and diligence. Photos we not allowed but being a tourist I did take some `covert`shots so I would have something to show for the trip.

Here they are.

Of course nothing compares to seeing the real thing; walking amongst the tombs of Kings, Queens, Hero's, and Poets and realizing the combined history in the Church is a little overwhelming. There is a real beauty to death and the workmanship and detail put in to the statues, monuments and tombs is astounding. Nothing I have ever seen is like these. The stone seems to have life, the robes almost look like they are flowing on the angels and one scene of death come from the tomb below to take the soul of man seemed like a frozen moment so real it could have continued right then and there.

Very much worth the trip and the admission paid.

Off again

2010-08-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

Packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour five p.m.

Were I to be high as a kite the flight may go a lot better, however I will not be and it'll just be another sleepless 9hours of zombie TV watching. All in all this isn't a complaint, it's three weeks away from home and another blast of work in the UK. There may be an offer of employment settled or there may not be by the time I am heading home at the end of August, it remains to be seen.

While either outcome is good, the thought of moving the whole family to London right now makes me wanna have a stroke. There is so much to do prior to the trip, so much to rid ourselves of, so much to put in storage and even more to do in the UK to arrive and settle. Money is getting low at home and my worry has been on the incline for sometime now.

Still I welcome a move and welcome the opportunity for my family to experience London living.

I took the train to the airport today and have to admit the journey was simple and really quick, I went from east Burnaby to YVR in about 1 hour. Now however I have time to kill.... which I am doing with one of the single worst beers I have ever had in my life. At Milestones, the Palamino Pale Ale. This truly is bad beer.

At least there's bowling on the TV.

Updates

2010-08-04T22:51:00.000-07:00

We have now moved in to our basement; no longer do we dwell above with the day walkers. The change was swift and unexpected but when we found out the the tenants in the basement were leaving we snatched up the chance to save $500 on the same amount of space. There have been some challenges to deal with like the fact that there is only 1 bedroom. However I think we have made great use of the space in creating little areas that suit our needs.

With this space we have I think that our layout worked quite well. We made a few changes to our living conditions such as having a bookcase wall as a partition for our bedroom while the kids took the actual bedroom over. The addition of the closet under the stairs made a perfect toy room for the kids and they enjoy it a lot. Kate had to do some serious work to clean the sucker out though as it was not only a little moldy but had some serious funk.

On top of all of this the new neighbours moved in to our space upstairs. I say our only because as they were about to move in all the work that we wanted done ( baseboards, painting of the kitchen, repairing the wood around the rear door, light fixture changes, etc ) got done. SO it was a little heartbreaking to leave the space after that seeing it so perfect.

They have a daughter who is the same age and the same personality as Sebastian and a boy who is a little younger than Rigby. They have also just had a baby girl now 8 days old, so a full house but someone for Sebastian to play with daily (even if they do fight and occasionally hate each other).

This has been a fairly positive move for us, getting us in to a new headspace about living and also giving us the benefit of a live in play partner for the kids. Now if only I could shake that basement feeling of bugs being around all the time I'd be golden.

Trip 2

2010-07-10T18:39:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow I'm leaving for London on the second trip. I've been for three weeks and back for two....

The previous trip was great, there was lots to see having not been in London since 1990, and lots to learn as I was working on all sorts of new stuff. Here are some of the sights!

So after coming home from London we went off to Vancouver Island to visit with my parents and that was a blast. The kids and I spent a week there going to the beach, park, mini golf, the working farm (including cheeseworks and winery) and then back home.

Had a nice birthday party with friends when I came home and now (the day after my real birthday) I am feeling the sting of leaving again.

It's come

2010-06-02T09:53:00.001-07:00

Since the last post there has been a lot more uncertainty. We have sat and waited, learned that we would not get the London contract as it was explained and promoted and furthermore would be granted (maybe) a smaller 3 month contract.

Now that I've also gone through a round of 4 interviews with another company we have recieved the word of the 3 month travelling contract and I will be leaving this Sunday to London. It will be a 2 weeks there 2 here sorta deal and will mean stress on all of us. The end hope here is that our worth will be proven as we evolve Acer in the next 3 months and they will extend our contracts until the end of the 2012 Games. Then we will move over and live in the UK under the terms of our original contract offers.

I'm excited and aprehensive. I hate flying with teeth grinding passion and am not looking at 6x 10 hour flights as a good thine per se. I'm looking forward to scoping out London and seeing if we could be comfortable there, meeting the folks I worked with on 2010 again in London and all the new people.

Kate and the kids will be looking at camps and daycare and lots of visits with friends over the summer while I am going to be looking at spreadsheets and training materials. Woo. Not all bad by any means for me as I will get time in the UK and also the omg fun of coming home to my family 3 times over.

Waiting

2010-05-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

We're still waiting on London to come through as there have been some issues with the process. I have now gotten my UK Visa and it wasn't that painful. I have the Right of Abode through my Mother and am able to live and work there now. Overall once I got my supporting documents together the consulate approved my visa in 5 days. With Kate and the kids it's going to cost a lot more and may take even more time.

With no real date for the position start or our move I'm feeling a little surprised at how comfortable I am after selling a lot of our stuff at our garage sale. We've gotten rid of our computer and other electronics, kitchen stuff to a tiny minimum and are losing more everyday.

When the move happens (optimism here) we will have very little going with us and very little staying here. It will be jarring, and exciting to do this move and there is still a lot ahead of us to get there. There's also the alternative where we face limited money short term ability to afford our place and a tight job market. (Pessimist)

I hope it's the first one.

Since you've been gone...

2010-04-07T15:30:00.001-07:00

Well the Olympics and Paralympics are all over and done with.

Time has been winding down for me on this project and now I am just working on document readiness for the transfer to London 2012 as well as for my own next step.

The transfer to London.

At this point I don't have a signed contract, just a verbal offer of my new job with the London 2012 Games. It will be with ACER again and by the looks of it I will be there with the family for almost 3 years. It should be an amazing experience! We are very excited to get ourselves over and just start living in the City, learning the lay of the land and then getting ready for some holidays to the continent.

Sebastian and Rigby should come back with oh so cute English accents and Kate and I with the feeling of having been somewhere together. Here's hoping that there is no car breakdown or anything keeping us in a little hotel for a week on this trip. (Right Kate?)

We are looking at houses all over London now and trying to focus on an area, but not knowing when we are going for certain is making it a little hard to grab a spot. If you have any suggestions of areas to or not to live in within the M25 let me knnow in the comments. I'm thinking Zones 2-5...

Torch Relay and other Awesomeness

2010-02-22T04:53:00.000-08:00

Cypress Mountain - World Cup Halfpipe Jospy, Adrian, Me, Terry and Sean John Furlong carries the torch to Vanoc Olympic Flame relay in New Westminster Jospy, Adrian, Terry, Sean, Michael and Parimal

The TOC and stuff

2010-02-22T04:46:00.000-08:00

Plus there is me on TV :)

2010-02-22T04:32:00.000-08:00

Feb 22nd

Nights in the Technical Operations Centre are strange, the thrill and buzz of the Olympic events from the day slow down and fade. People talk not of the technical side of things but of their families and homes across the nation and around the world. There are people here from Spain, England, Pakistan, Brazil, China and the USA to name a few; also from Manitoba, Ontario, PEI, Alberta and the Yukon in Canada. I’ve heard stories about dog sledding and cliff jumping, skiing in the Alps and snowmobiling the back country. The diversity of the Olympic Games is shown in this one room. It’s a point when Acer’s computers start to show their other side, as people begin to watch movies, play games online and go on to social networking sites for entertainment. Our systems move away from their day to day of delivering the technical and begin delivering the multimedia experience instead.

Feb 17th

Starting out the night – a 12 hour shift ahead; the Technical Operation Centre is watching the end of the Men’s Hockey games and I am settling in counting how many open trouble tickets we have between the venues. It’s astounding that with over 6300 PC’s out there we have 6 tickets open! That’s 0.15 of a Percent that are experiencing trouble. I would challenge any IT shop to show us those results.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

27 Minutes away from finishing a 12 hour overnight shift in the Technical Operations Centre. I spent a good portion of my night making work and looking for things to accomplish. It’s hard when all this Acer equipment keeps on going without fail, as a tech I want something to fix.

Feb 16th

I was on an overnight shift today, working in the Technical Operations Centre and at one point took a walk to the helpdesk to see how things were going for them. One of the helpdesk supervisors was leaning back in his chair and the rest were looking relaxed and comfortable. The remark came. “This stuff, your computers… can you go out and enable a kill switch or something? Nothing is breaking and we’ve got nothing to do”. I said “Sorry fellas; I’d rather see you bored than busy”.

It’s been truly amazing how this has all come together in the last few weeks, the people and the equipment. We have thousands of computers out there, checking in workforce, providing info to broadcasters and delivering results. Day after Day we are watching the helpdesks at all the venues smooth out and reduce, proving that our systems are working at peak performance. We are in fact delivering excellence.

Feb 15th

Today at Whistler Olympic Park we had a service call where a woman with one of the NOC’s was watching her team on the Ski Jump; she got so excited she jumped up and spilled soup on her TravelMate laptop. Our tech investigated the call and upon inspection he decided that although it was still functional; it was full of soup and we needed to replace the laptop. Well the customer was adamant that we not take this machine away. She insisted that if an Acer machine could stand up to this and keep working that she wanted to keep it until the end of the Games.

Feb 14th

Tonight we watched the Women’s hockey on the big screen in the TOC, Canada VS Slovakia and the absolute trouncing they handed out was intense. 18-0!! Can you believe that? An Olympic record set not in time or distance but in how many goals they put in that net. It was almost hard to watch; knowing that this was the first ever Olympic appearance for Slovakia and they were up against the greatest Women’s Hockey Team in the world. It was a rough first day but hey, some times trial by fire breeds success in the ashes.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The worlds fastest track for Bobsleigh, Luge and Skeleton is now in service up in Whistler and the Atletes are flying down that track. There has been the unfortunate tragedy of the Georgian team losing one of their own; still the look on the crowd is one of sheer joy for the events. There’s rain and snow and it’s dark right now at the Whistler Sliding Centre but everyone is cheering, smiling and loving every moment of it.

During the World Cup sport event, a number of us here were lucky enough to be able to be track side while the training was going on. A few of us even tried in vain to take some pictures of the blur that was Men’s Luge. It’s truly astounding that these Athletes are able to hurdle down the track at beyond highway speeds and come out the other side. This is one sport where you have to understand that it doesn’t just take skill, training and quality sport products to compete. It take’s courage, nerve and someone… a little crazy.

Feb 13th.

In the last few days I have been privileged to watch the opening ceremonies of these Olympic Games in person, the first 24 hours of competition on TV and the Technical Operation Centre come %100 operational at work. It’s been amazing; the emotions felt during the opening ceremonies as a Canadian and as a member of Acer and Vanoc were immense and swelling with pride in both my country and our work.

Watching Biathlon, Speed Skating and Luge today I knew as the cameras panned over the commentary positions that those were Acer computers, handled by Acer’s staff in a building deployed by people that I have worked closely with over the last year. Similarly I was overcome with the same pride. I have never; in my life known such joy as this work has given. Such satisfaction in the job, the people and the product, it saddens me to know that even as this the Games are just beginning it is in a sense almost over.

A friend of mine once spoke of live music as something so special it was magical. That the tune that was created was something of only that moment in time and once heard, even by a million people, it would never be again. In a way I can liken this thought to our days here. There are moments of sport excellence that exist for that second, that tenth of a second only. The only difference is that here, like a studio, everything has replay button and we can watch the greatness unfold again and again and again….

Set your creep factor to Stun

2010-01-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

First things first... Rigby smashed my iPhone. She was so cute when she did it too. She was playing on it, laying on the floor in the Rogers store while I was changing my airtime plan, shortly she became bored and wanted to go back to her game of 'Jump off the stand for the giant iPhone display'. Asking if she was done I reached out to take the phone from her when she tossed it to me, I watched in slo-mo as it took a dive about 3 feet in front of me on to the tile floor. That's when the screen cracked. It still works though.

In the end I got a new phone, the HTC Dream and am slowly unlearning the iPhone. The android system is quite good and I am slowly finding little apps in the market that work for my needs. The creep factor came in yesterday when I downloaded LAYAR. It's an app I am told exists on the iPhone too. LAYAR is a augmented reality application for finding what you need near you, restaraunts, subway, coffee, movies etc etc. I tried out a few of these and then came across the Tweep finder. This layer adds locals around you that are tweeting currently. From there you can point the phone in the general direction of them, see the GPS coordinates, distance to them from you, their picture, the time they tweeted and then you can open their twitter stream to see what is going on with them.

I managed to find some grade 10 girl sitting at the McDonalds who had just broken up with her boyfriend and was talking with a group of people online about how a) broken hearted she was b) annoyed with the bitch that he was with now and c) how she sucks at Math 10. Although I didn't actually go find her or anything, I could tap the GPS location and get the pin on the McD's across the street from my location.

Creep factor 12

I am now rethinking not only owning this application but the way that I tweet, like maybe only tweeting when I am about to run off to a different location.

If I can blog 12 times in 25 Days

2009-12-06T08:42:00.000-08:00

I can hit 200 posts before 2010!!

So let's get it on.

On the first post before christmas my true work brought to me a Technical Rehearsal and a headache!!

I am currently on shift in the operations centre for the 2010 games waiting for some sort of mysterious disaster to strike on one of the venues. Will it be a computer needing reimage? Or a VTM trying to do something they shouldn't? Only the overseers know.... any they ain't telling.

I have finished hiring for my work (for now) and although I have had a %10 drop off in staff over the last year due to them leaving, us letting them go or not accepting contracts we are still 91 people strong and have a grat team together. The guys from London 2012 for Acer are here right now as are a number 'big wig' guys from the Acer corporate. I'm doing my best to just do my job and make myself known as the guy who gets it done but secretly I just want to beg all of them for the chance to go to London.

We are interested in this idea, Kate the kids and I. We want to try out living in Europe even if it does mean singing 'The Final Countdown' everytime I think of it. The cost of living is huge, the transportation situation is dire and the air quality is second to most but! It's not Canada and it's not the USA so right away it's gotmajor brownie points. We will see what comes, when it comes. Who knows? We may be here for the next 5 years instead.

Sebastian needs Surgery on his eye to correct the muscles that are causing his one eye to turn in. We patched him and have gone through a few different pairs of glasses however the Doc says it's time to go in now. Sebastian informed me that all surgeons are horrible people because they cut you and put you to sleep and give you needles. This was said prior to bed last night.

I'm not going to argue. At least... not here.

A whole bunch of cy's

2009-11-08T21:37:00.002-08:00

Uh huh....what ever that means.

I built a log hutch today. It's nice, about 6 foot tall by 5 foot wide. Means now I have to go on a chopping spree to get the logs in there and drying from all the rain we've had. I also replaced the step that got smashed from one of our friends slipping and falling down the stairs. He slipped and bailed and his butt totally took out the step.I felt bad but apparently he got some wicked air and he got over it about 3 days later. Then I put cut shingles up the staircase to improve the grip and kill the slippyness.

Now I just got to shingle the wood shed and it be done.

The other Half of Tofino

2009-10-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

On the family side we ....

Had a lot of fun... untill we went home :)

But then we had food!!!

The beach wedding

2009-10-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

We drove out to Tofino this weekend to attend and participate in our good friends Brian and Shannons wedding. It was a great weekend! The beach was lovely, the resort was pleasant and everyone was in great spirits. The whole day went wonderfully and the weather participated perfectly.

Kate and I after the wedding.

The Rehearsal.

Kyle; The Musician (and brother of the bride)

The Groom, 2 Groomsmen (I was 3rd) and Grandfather of the Bride

The Happy Couple.

A day in the life of + Greenhouse update

2009-09-01T22:05:00.006-07:00

So the last couple of days I have been working teh hardcore. I was in on Sunday till 4, Monday till 1:30 and then today till 11:30... all of those days I started about 8am.

So crummy work lately as I have not seen the family now in like 48hrs but tomorrow I have off!

I'm adding in some news of the greenhouse. We have built in some shelving now made from old doors and more old lumber. I don't have a pic of it fully loaded yet as I haven't been home but this is the interior with 3 (count em) 3 Sebastians!
also the lettuce garden box I built...
We also hinged a new window to get more airflow...
Soooooo all in all this came together well and is already making an impact to our plants. A few that went in looking a little rough have already started to perk up and get some new flowers. Bees are getting in and it seems we have a nice little eco system going on.

#noimpactgreenhouse

2009-08-24T09:08:00.005-07:00

It became #lowimpactgreenhosue with the $69 bill for chicken wire but we almost made it there spending virtually nothing!!

Made from recycled:

Wood
Doors
Windows
Hinges
Caulking (recycled in the fact that it came to me free :))
Plastic wrap

Thanks for all the help folks! I'll post some more once the inside is built out and we add in the plants. The faint interior glow in the last pic is the solar power lights that were added in.

Spam Fail

2009-08-20T06:44:00.002-07:00

Dear British 2009 Winner,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been Awarded the sum of
1,000,000.00 GBP in the British 2009 Program.

Contact britishtelecom58@gmail

Names:............
Address:..............
Country:.................
Age:..........
Sex:..............

You've one 1 Million pounds but we have no idea who you are. Also as a corporate giant we use a gmail address for our 'British 2009 Program'.

Does this mean I won 1 Million Pounds because I am the most British person?! Wow!

Well....

2009-08-12T08:02:00.002-07:00

At least I cried while watchin it - last one removed - added a new copy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiNaadVOQEM

Vancouver Island Vacation

2009-07-25T21:17:00.004-07:00

So, the last month or so we have had a few issues with our car... mostly due to our stupidity in not following our regular service and never having taken it in to a dealer..... after owning it for 3 years. Long story short the car cost $1360 to repair and it wasn't money we had. My father stepped in with the dough and I cancelled the first half of my vacation to work and pay him back. Kate and the kids went on without me to Vancouver Island and my parents home. We had planned to spend 8 days there and house sit while my parents were in Edmonton visiting my brother and his family. I hitched a ride over with my parents on their return Wednesday night and spent the last 3 days with everyone in parksville. It was a good visit and I feel refreshed.

Sebatian, my Father and I went to the Qualicum wine shop where my father has wine made for him. I coaxed a grumpy Sebastian out of the car and in to the 'stinky' wine shop. He had a blast in there... We bottled, corked, labeled and sealed my father's new wine; an Austrailian Shiraz. We stocked our own wine rack over this week as well.
Rigby, Sebastian, my Mother and I went to the parksville beach, dug in the sand and the tide pools. At one point we caught a shrimp in our pail. I can't stand them as food and I tell you, they are not appealling live either. The kids liked it and gave it a shell, some sand and a little crab.

The whole family spent the morning on Saturday at Morningstar Farm visiting the animals, Qualicum cheesfactory, Morningstar Creek Winery and more. The wine was fantastic, we bought bottles of Blueberry and Cranberry wine with an order to my parents to pick up some of the Peach wine in the fall. We also walked away with some super cheeses from the Qualicum Cheese works including a brie and hot n spicy concoction.
We also visited the St Marks fair which is my parents church in Qualicum Beach. Held every year it was a pretty large scale event. We had some mini doughnuts and Sebastian and Rigby both built boats from a craft section.
I painted the living room, living room ceiling, dining room, kids room, office and front door as well as some edging in the hallway prior to going over. It was pretty hectic considering I ALSO swapped the kids room with the office and worked.
Now I am going to sort my records from our office as we are moving them out to the player in the living room. Following this are some pictures from the ferry ride home today.

Them there torches

2009-07-08T20:09:00.004-07:00

My project manager brought in the two torches he owns from previous games today so we all did a little photo shoot with them.

From Left to Right....

Athens > Salt Lake City and Vancouver

They make science fun!

2009-07-07T21:33:00.007-07:00

I stumbled from reading an article about a Soviet attempt to land on the moon in 1969 and listening to the faded sound of men exploring the galaxy when I ended up at...

Just like my 4 year old they have an answer for everything.

Find out how much daytime is on your birthday or build a mouth! There are quite a few entertaining sections, some fun activities and even the ever popular test sections.

They led me back to the University of Manchester's astronomy sections where there is an interesting article from April 2007 (Just catchin' up on my readin') about Star Wars as seen by the hubble telescope. They have an artist's rendition of how this Red Giant feeding to the White Dwarf star (Which Just exploded!) would look. NowI was impressed; don't get me wrong. But. Something was nagging at me about this image, like I'd seen it before. Maybe I already read this? Nope.

It was on Star Trek.

Remember this episode? Where Wesley Crusher passes out and let loose a horde of super intelligent Nanites? And the Enterprise is sent drifting in to the path of that stellar matter! AND Dr Bob Kelso flat out phaserz the computer core?!?

awesome.

All power to the wolf

2009-07-07T12:43:00.003-07:00

There was this post on a friends facebook about the Three Wolf Shirt... It was pathetically awesome! Three wolves in front of the moon on a t-shirt. Now I do think wolf shirts are the most pathetic and god-awful creation in t-shirtery... or T-shitery as it were. This whole page though makes up for it... one of my favorites from the comments (Besides the one that talks about the secret government project to paint the heads of regular eagles white to make the rednecks happy) is this one:

The Power of The Wolf is Yours!, June 10, 2009

By	Norm D. Plume (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

As I slid the shirt over my head, the first thing I noticed was obviously the comfort. They don't make fine cotton products like this in China. "Take that, Chairman Mao", I thought smugly to myself. As I walked out of my bedroom, she looked me up and down, then right in the eyes.

"What is that garbage?"

"Careful, honey," I replied. "That's pure American Wolf Power you're sneering at. The colors never fade, nor does the spirit of Lobo that dwells within me. This shirt proves it."

She shoved the plate of Pop-Tarts in my hand and walked away in a huff. Chalk up another victory for Old Glory and the American Power of Wolf Power.

Go see the site for yourself and enjoy.

The original 3 Wolf Shirt

I'm back baby

2009-07-07T09:34:00.003-07:00

(Say it with a 'Bender Bending Rodriguez' twist)

Oh-K after going through a number of incantations, spells, hocus pocus and template sites I have chosen this new look for the Banablog. Comments are welcome on the look and feel as always and I may or may not stick with it depending on how I feel about it in 24hours or so.

I found this picture online the other day and was immediately suprised to see my old dog Brodie on the net. I had one of those feelings where I just knew this was her and was not able to shake it all day until I compared the Loldog to the archive of pictures I have of her. Yes it was her. I have now sent messages to the poster of the item to find out where the picture came from, if Brodie is still around and where she is living now? Or is she.

Strange where the world leads somedays.

emergency template ditch

2009-07-06T16:11:00.002-07:00

My template for blogger corrupted and apparently had a lot of ads through out it. Due to some creepy code by the designer. Jerk.

So until I get a new look... enjoy Simple Paper.

Bowling and a BBQ

2009-06-23T15:32:00.002-07:00

We had our team event on the weekend. A Kansas city BBQ with bowling to boot!! It was an awesome time.

No Subtitles

2009-06-23T15:12:00.002-07:00

I watched LOTR1 in the background of of my desktop while working today but alas as I had windows going across in front of it regularily there were no subtitles to get me through the elvish. It almost made it a better experience as I truly had no idea what was going on at times.

Kate just dropped Sebastian off at the ferry dock with Grandma and Grandpa so that he can go on his first double night sleepover! He's gone and I am spending the day tomorrow at home with Kate and Rigby to get some work done on the house and other.

I'm looking forward to spending time alone with Rigby and learning a few things about her which have gone otherwise unseen or unknown. The small amount of actual alone time we have had with Rigby is staggeringly small and now we get a 48 hour window to try and change our attitudes. This isn't to say we've been doing everything wrong or anything like that. It's more an admittance that we have not been doing everything right. :)

Different Topic:

Our downstairs neighbour has been a long term pain in the ass and I can't stand him in so many ways. I want him kicked out and moved to somewhere else so that I can have a quality of life for my family that goes outside of beer, rap and noise. On the other hand I see him wasting his daughter's young life and not giving her the things she so desperately needs to develop and thrive, most of all sleep. I hear now about her mom over napping her (up to 7 hours) just to spite daddy. They are "divorced" and are classically using their girl as a go between for their anger and hatred of one another. It's pathetic. Recently mom (possibly after drinking) got in to an accident that totalled her car but luckily injured no one.

Kate has suggestted to his (Neighbour) current girlfriend that he petitions for the full time care of the girl and that we would then provide the daytime care for her. This would of course involve the complete compliance of him (I hope) to not be constantly drinking, cranking up the music and generally being a complete ass. I don't know where that would go from there.

On yet another hand.... I have to say as much as I want to help this guy out and more so his daughter I really feel he has had enough chances..... but where does that match me and my life? Where did I get all my chances and what if someone drew the line a long time ago?

So? I've already asked my landlord to consider these options as there is the present of what has happened. I guess I'll write about it when something happens.

Hot n Cold extreme

2009-06-14T06:51:00.001-07:00

SWING SET!!

2009-06-09T08:58:00.003-07:00

We got Sebastian and Rigby a Swing Set for free off craiglist! I'm super stoked.

When I was a kid we had these awesome big wooden blocks in the backyard that stacked up and you could climb around inside them and on top etc. They were the best imagination toy ever. Then we got the swingset and it was also in the range of wicked cool.

I love the basics in play and having these things just makes me feel connected to the play that the kids are having.

That story is sizzlin'

2009-06-09T08:36:00.002-07:00

Totally recommend (if you have kids under say......8) that you check out Yo Gabba Gabba. It's intense, awesome and if you yourself were a party kid in your teen/early twenties then Dj Lance and the beats will totally set it off for you. Also when they do they daily beat from Biz... I mean come on! learning beatboxing while dancing and having fun with BIZ MARKIE!! COME ON Plus the Shins and more people than you can shake a frikkin stick at that totally have rocked our world.

My favorite part of the show thus far was when super martian robot girl saved the party from being a dud by zapping up an 80's keytar band that busted out some Miami bass beats.

This links to an outside article but it's the only place I could find a clip of the awesomeness.

That's my Nick Jr plug o the day.

And the boy rides a scooter

2009-06-07T09:58:00.003-07:00

We got Sebastian a Vespa LX50 the other day. You may be questioning why we got our four year old son a scooter....

Well it's a 12V version that goes a whopping 5mph in high gear and 2.5mph in the lower. He rode it for about an hour and a half yesterday and absolutely loved it to death!

He looks awesome riding this thing and I am super happy about it all, even if it means less exercise somedays.
Did I mention it has training wheels?

I h@te iTunes somedays

2009-05-31T07:27:00.004-07:00

I moved my entire library from my old (3+ years) Lacie Hard Drive to the new Seagate Free Agent Pro 750GB drive I bought yesterday and in doing so was greeted with iTunes choking on the move. I had to readd all of my items to iTunes, create a new library and then it figured since that was all new and dandy that it should reformat all our iPhones and iPods to match! I lost all my applications and now, even though I went through the iStore last night and replaced things I use (and even added a few new ones) my iPhone somehow feels foreign now.... just not the same.

It's an odd feeling, I am out of sorts from it and finding that the whole change over has left me feeling irritable and annoyed with my phone. Is that odd? That a device that is a tool for my day to day can have the same affect on my morning as... say.... not sleeping or waking up in a sea of fire.

I've read about iPhone addiction and people who can't live without their unit for not even a day. I'm not one of those people, I leave my phone on my desk all the time and leave for hours, I've left my phone at home a number of times when going out or to work and somedays I find I don't even know where it is. But now I have to question what type of involvement I have with this device... what is it about this change that has left me feeling so odd.

I think the answer is the mild OCD I have and the change to the design of my phone as set off this annoyance with the lack of control over the change. This would make the most sense considering I just spent 15 minutes moving the blue and grey icons around on my main screen to ensure that the distribution of colour and icon look made a symetrical pattern that was bordered by the brown icons. Maybe I'm just fucking crazy.

After posting this picture in I had to go back and move the weather icon next to the im+ icon and the safari icon up next to app store because the yellow in the weather needed to be next to the im icon. I also looked to see if I had any other blue icons so that I could move the mail app up and replace the ipod icon then add a new blue in place of settings..... yeah I am crazy.

Seattle, Banking and backyards

2009-05-29T08:27:00.002-07:00

I drove down to Seattle the other day to pick up some friends from the airport. They just returned from a huge world trip and were gone for 8 months. It was a nice drive, sunny and traffic was subdued to a dull roar.

It occurred to me while driving through Blaine, WA that I had only been in the states for about 2 minutes and I was only 5-6 KM from the border but I feared the country I was now in. The thought of America makes me as uncomfortable as a Seth Rogen movie. I don't know how I feel about this re: relations with Americans et all but I do know that I have very little interest in visiting the southern neighbours. When I was at the airport it felt even more uncomfortable, parents treating their kids like dogs, the way people treated one another, how a guy in a turban freaked out a whole family of mid-west looking folks and the woman at Starbucks who tried to convince me that getting the smaller size coffee I wanted would only leave me coming back as 'folks need more than a grande y'know and a supersized McDonalds drink is barely enough'.

I know that everyone in a country is not the same and I know that there are people in Canada who are far worse than the people I have referenced thus far, but my stereotype of the USA leaves me looking around and seeing them all come true and it just makes me.... well.... not wanting to be there.

That said the drive over the bridge on the I5 as the sun was shining directly on to downtown Seattle was really really beautiful, during the time I spent in Seattle a few years ago for a course at the Mac Store I got over these fears and preconceptions quickly and enjoyed my time. I guess I need to shake the mental view of America as such a police state where people all tote guns about and the smallest thing will spark an injust act. (yes I know that my comments have ticked you off.)

The drive back was nice ( I missed you guys ) and ( to my surprise ) we were over the border in less than 10 minutes and back in to Canada. Drove home and dropped them off and went home for some sweet sweet sleep.

Backtracking.... before I went to Seattle I stopped off at the Citi Financial where I was going to refinance my loan and maybe get a little Doh-Ray-Mi for other bills n such. Well after going through all my information I was wondering why the loan officer and underwriter had been talking out of the office for the last 30 minutes... The underwriter came in and let me know I had qualified for my new loan and that I could sign the papers and be on my way....but.

But?

But. I'm legally obliged to tell you ( he says ) that due to an error on our part you have been paying an interest rate of 2.8% for the last 3 years instead of the predetermined 25.7%.

Say Whaaaaat?

And due to new banking regulations within our structure we can not claw back the amounts.

Fuckin sweet dude.

So now if you sign the new loan the interest rate will be 26.5% and you'll go back on to a $300 payment etc etc etc

Thanks guys.... I'll talk to you later. ( psst... I didn't sign the new papers because I'm not a moron )

So now the payments I had been making that were supposed to be only interest over the last 3 years have paid down over %60 of my loan principal and we owe very little on it. For the first time ( in a long time ) the bank has helped me and I like it! The reason for the screwup? Well the last two digits of my phone number are.... 28 and the interest field follows the phone field.

Lastly - Backyards....

I have spent a good amount of time cleaning up our new property and getting the area cleared. This guy rents the garage at my house to build his El Camino and other cars in. Apparently he had some cars parked in the pad out back at one point and is super happy I have cleared all the trees out and made space so he can park more cars there now. Yeah...

Listen, I didn't clean out this whole area so that you could put more obstacles and worry items in it for me. I cleaned it out so that the dangers that WERE there are now gone and my kids can play in the backyard. So the push to build the fence across the back yard and create a separate parking pad is now ON. I want to segregate out the cars from the kids and make my life somewhat more easy and calm.

So there's the news that's new and improved.

/end

So yummy in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy

2009-05-15T08:04:00.003-07:00

This I found last night and tried it out. It is probably the best dessert I have made in a long long time.

Crumble:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 cup melted butter or margarine

Fruit:
2 cups diced rhubarb

Make sure you soak the Rhubarb in cold water for 30 minutes first and remove the outer coating to negate the stringiness

2 cups sliced apples

Thick n Gooey Centre:
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup water
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla

Mix together flour, oats, brown sugar, spices, and melted butter.
Press half of the mixture into the bottom of a 9" square baking pan.
Arrange the rhubarb and apples evenly on top.

Cook the white sugar, water, cornstarch and vanilla until thick - This should be done slowly over about 30-45minutes while you slowly raise the heat. I would not recommend going much over medium in your heat.

Pour over the rhubarb and apples trying to evenly and completely coat them

Sprinkle the remaining oatmeal mixture on top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45mins - 1 hour.

Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream.

So Sick

2009-05-07T20:49:00.001-07:00

Ugh... spent the day feeling like real crap after a couple of weeks of feeling like minor crap.

Hackintosh

2009-05-01T13:54:00.003-07:00

I'm oh so happy. I have managed through a few days of work (about 6 hours in total) to get OSX86 10.5.6 running on my Dell X300 laptop. While a little slow due to the X300 being from 2005 and only an intel core single 1.2Ghz Pentium M with 640Mb ram it's still pretty damn good.

I'm super stoked to have a 'mac laptop' again as I really miss the simplicity with which I used to acomplish my tasks at home. I like my ACER Windows based laptop from work but I also feel restricted on it's use as OBVIOUSLY it's my works laptop.

The installation of OSX86 was pretty straight forward and you gotta give some serious props to the folks who have put their time and effort in to making it that way. The forums of infinitemac.com and others really help if you plan on doing this project yourself. I'm super interested in trying it out on other PC's like the IBM T60 core 2 duo.

The project manager of technology has a few IBMs and has been eyeing the project for a while, I showed him the X300 and now he wants me to work with him getting one or more of his units running. lol. Gladly I will do it as he got me the X300 as a write off from work.

This all came after struggling (again) with Ubuntu. I am just a GUI kind of guy and I like the functionallity of this OSX86 over the Ubuntu system for what I do. I spent maybe 14-18 hours working on getting my wireless card working on Ubuntu 9 where the brunt of my time on OSX86 was adding a flag to my com.apple.bootloader.plist file - which wasn't that much time. I do have to say that Ubuntu 9 lives up to the reviews and is an amazing piece of software and runs very very well with many great applications and features. Just - you need to be more of a jump in tech guy who loves command lines, wrappers and all the other things that come along with a pure linux system I guess.

For now tho - WOOT~! HACKINTOSH.

Warm it up Chris

2009-03-27T19:02:00.005-07:00

Here's all the news that's news and new and improved.....

We've moved~! I took a lot to get the job done, we packed and were ready on time, cleaned and painted on time and on the truck and over within budget. Then, when the guy came home an hour late to the new house he opened the door and we found he had moved.... his TV. And only his TV.

I'm serious here, there was all the stuff this guy owns - exactly where it was 3 weeks ago when we viewed the place - dirt and pots'n'pans in the same places. So he starts looking for some boxes. We leave, sleep on the floor at the old house and then head back for 11am Sunday when - he says - he'll be completely moved out as he's going to go all night. So while I ring the bell, call and bang on the door to WAKE HIM UP!! I'm thinking this is going to be a total cluster fuck, again.

He gets up, starts packing his shit - yup, the guy dosed and hit the hay for an hours nap on Saturday night and I woke him up on Sunday. He was finally out by 6pm on Sunday, well he was out on the deck.... all his stuff was on the deck and he moved till about 2am on Monday morning. Then it took till today, 27 days later, to get the last of it.

So we got in to the house and started cleaning, and getting our stuff out. Cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and then we had to gut and reno the entire bathroom. So the bathroom reno goes on for about 4 days with the contractor not showing up for two, on the last day I watch him put together the vanity we've picked out from IKEA - y'know, the place that gives you all the parts, pieces, pre drills and gives you instructions.... well I watch him whip out the drill and drill bit and start putting in holes to "make the damn thing fit together".

Anyway, we are now doing the walls and backsplash ourselves, but have a great bathroom in the make.
We went and did our taxes with H&R block last saturday and got a load back, so I went out and bought a scooter. It's a great ride, good power and colour. Nice options including an alarm, remote starter, radio and mp3 player hookup. It's great. So Caio, when you get back to this country we'll have to hook up and form a scooter gang.

Tomorrow is Sebastian's fourth birthday party, today is his birthday. We have a bug themed party coming and lots of guests around for the day. It's going to be a great time and a fun birthday for the kids.

Rigby is the cutest thing ever, and we just put her in to her own single bed. No more crib! So she's feeling happy and free and Sebastian is still king of the room up in his loft.

Kate is cleaning her office up from all the construction junk and various weirdness that got shoved in her room during it. It's nice that we have the space for just adults and all our things. It's mostly for Kate as I have nothing in it and even sacrificed my desk for the coolest furniture arrangement but it's still super awesome in there.

Well, that's what is happening round here - other than work, which is just work now that the sport events are over for the year.

Till next time.

Why not Telus?

2009-01-20T09:02:00.003-08:00

Well I spent a lot of time battling SLA's at EA. The Service License Agreement where you have a certain amount of time to respond to and to resolve tickets. Those times are generally reasonable but the are also restraining. You don't have the time to find correct long term solutions just band aid fixes and this means repeat failures and poor customer service.

While EA pushed it's customer care down your throat while telling you that you had 1 hour or so to fix an issue Telus gives you 15 - 30 minutes on the phone. That doesn't fly with me. I HATE Telus customer service, it's the reason I have not had a phone for some 3 years now and I could not become a part of that.

I'm not shying away from deadlines or responsibility in fact I've taken on more responsibility than I have ever had before at VanOC, it's just that I want to do my best, and there's no way to do that when you are pressured to maintain your Metrics.

Update: Dateline Vancouver 2009

2009-01-20T08:42:00.003-08:00

Christmas was an interesting time.

We went to my parents place on the island after 2 aborted attempts and a Christmas eve dinner. So much snow we were not able to get the car on to the road and Grumpy dad and the girls trekked for almost 2 hours to get to our house with Turkey. After leaving his car in an intersection somewhere Grumps grabbed the snow tired station wagon of Nancy and headed over. That dinner was wonderful and the evening couldn't have gone better.

We got over to my parents place on Christmas day and spent the time eating, drinking and playing with toys. Kate and Rigby went home early and Sebastian and I stayed until the weekend.

I started in again with VanOC/ACER when I came home and the job (although boring) has been going quite well. I applied with another contract company for a position with Telus and eventually was offered the job. However, ACER decided they wanted me here at VanOC and made an offer as well. This went back and forth for a few days and although I settled on both companies at different times I finally decided to stick with ACER.

It meant that I got a substantial increase in pay (nearly double) and a challenging job where I can spend time getting certifications. They are a pre-requirement for the position so I am on the learning train now.

We are now looking at moving in to a house in the Burnaby/New West area or somewhere similar. The available options to us now are a bit better and we feel that we can get some space while keeping our wonderful home.... homey.

So now that the stress and crazy has settled a little we can enjoy our time and this job while waiting for the workload to increase (I'm told 8 fold) here at VanOC.

Woo!

End of Message.

Like rats of a sinking ship??

2008-12-12T14:27:00.001-08:00

Maybe soon...

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/12/12/ea-cancel.html

I think I might be glad I got laid off in the last round... it looks like the whole thing is going sideways.

I now work for VanOC

2008-12-08T19:09:00.001-08:00

That's Vancouver Olympic Committee for those of you who don't know.

That is all.

Unemployment Week 3

2008-11-24T22:54:00.003-08:00

After being laid off from EA I went straight to work finding myself a new job.... unfortunately I am still working at finding a new job. It's been too long in my opinion and there is now a need to get this taken care of.

I was watching Mission Hill the other day and thought about Andy French. That lovable little scamp ended up being screwed over by the IRS aressting his boss and shutting down the waterbed store he worked in. There is a two part episode on his unemployment where he lies on the couch with malt liquor and bugels watching barf-a-thons and such.

Anyway, he finally gets that dream job he's always wanted in the end and gets a tooth fixed. I am hoping for something similar soon.

I got laid off

2008-11-02T20:30:00.003-08:00

The thing I miss most is my laptop.

The thing I miss second most is beer n cake

The thing I'll miss third most is the people.

I was one of the 600 people laid off worldwide from EA last week. Apparently it was some good house cleaning to save 50 million a year in salary. It compensates slightly for the 310million lost in revenue I guess. I'm going to wait till mid November to see if the share price goes up a after NFS Undercover comes out then sell my stocks regardless.

I found out the night before I was going to lose my job which made it a little easier because I could prepare for it. I packed up all my stuff, said goodbye to some folks and took one last walk around the place setting things right here and there.

I know some of the management group at EA reads my blog and are probably wondering how I found out. The answer is, you're not at all careful. When you call my boss who sits 3 ft away from me on his phone which is turned up really loud you can be heard. Like wise when you send emails about it to said boss when his screens face towards where I sat and he has me remote connecting to his Mac with only email opened on it then.... well it becomes realllllllllll easy. I mean com'on.

Now that I have left we've really been thinking about what to do. I had an interview on friday and am a candidate for a position (of which there are 6 and there are 8 applicant) that starts in a week at $2.xx less an hour than what I was earning. So that's coo. That would mean that this severence is a nice savings chunk. We bought bookcases to run the length of our hallway and a new bed, dresser, storage for sebastian's room. Now tonight I was going to mount a tv only to find there is brick behind where I want to put it. Sux.

More to come.

2008-10-09T18:56:00.002-07:00

There is something surreal about listening to a soothing tune from the 40's coming from the same place as my 3 year olds computer.

We gave Sebastian an iMac G4 Lampshade computer heavily restricted to play CBC Kids, Treehouse and watch DVDs. It keeps him off our laptops which in turn means our laptops stay crumb free. We gave him a week with it to see how it went, and it has turned out pretty well. He loves to play with the CBC website and likes watching the 1970's Adam West, Burt Ward - Batman movie over and over.

I think it has been a good introduction for him. It is a digital age, but I still think about the time when I was in junior high and got a 386 sx 33 with 512mb of ram and a 200? mb hard drive. It was hot. I remember the hard core upgrade I did changing it out to a 486dx266 with a Gb of ram and it had an awesome video / sound card that had 8mb of video memory. But I digress.... I got caught up in that wave and I think my view is that he will be too.

Also I got snipped last week. No more kids now, and it's been a rough week let me tell you. I honestly never knew you could feel like you had someone walking alongside you just turning to you every now and then and saying " Let me flat footed kick you square in the nuts. " and gleefully following it through. That shit hurts. Still does a little - I used up all my T3's 24 in 48 hours so I took a naproxin yesterday and felt awesome all day. I took another tonight and other than feeling a little loopy I'm good.

Anyway I have a date with a bucket of dirty diapers.... No more Kids.... say it like you'd say "4 more years!" it's fun for the whole family.

Feels like new west

2008-09-14T19:31:00.004-07:00

Filth = sadness

I've been watching this build up of homeless in my neighbourhood. There is some development going on in the downtown eastside and my area is pretty good for direct access to it. So there are more and more people sleeping under trees, begging for change, hookers and plain sight drug deals going on. I really wish that I was kidding but I'm not. It sucks to have all this going on but it's not the people... I can co-habituate an area with this shit going on for now and can revisit my feelings if I become uneasy... it's not the people.. it's their filth. The added trash, discarded clothing, puke at the bus stop etc, etc. That's what annoys me and makes me sad about my neighbourhood.

What is that sound? oh right... crap.

2008-08-02T11:19:00.002-07:00

I'm facing a tough time ahead of me.

My work is changing, outsourcing and applying new titles and positions while training and moving people forward. It's going to be chaotic over the next few months as this happens.

I've made a mess of my home life right now through my own means. The damage will be repaired and I forsee a brighter future than ever before. But it's going to take some time.

I'm dealing with the grief in my own way I guess and reaching out to people around me for their help. However it only helps 1/10th against that pain.

Work, home, brain. No escape. blarg.

When was the last time....

2008-07-25T20:31:00.004-07:00

When was the last time that you realized one of the most important things you ever had is now gone.

My long friend Sean Lineham passed away this week for reasons unknown to me. Reasons that will never be known to me.

I always respected Sean in everthing (almost :P) that he did and now I respect his decision to leave us. I hate it, loathe it and am saddened... but..... I figure that he knows what is best for him.

I'm going to miss you like crazy.

What is up? My dog.

2008-04-27T21:17:00.003-07:00

Last posted on Feb 29th huh?

So what's been going on? Why have I not been posting?

The answer to the last question is simply.... cuz. Cuz I didn't feel like it.

So I decided to post here again as I am doing things and I feel better when I am writing all this down for you crazies to read. Lets start in the now and work backwards.....

Today I dug two fence post holes by hand with a spade. Through the rocks and other obstacles that were buried in the ground and with a child's plastic wheelbarrow I managed to make the post holes. It feel like my arms may fall off and for some reason my toes are tingling right now (probably unrelated). Also Sebastian helped my to beautify the outside and move some of his lesser used, larger toys to a new storage spot on the other side of the house.

We have new neighbours in the house as the folks that were living on the other side moved in to a townhouse they bought. The new people have two kids now and are expecting a third in 6-7 months. I look forward to meeting them in and around the yard.

Kate and I started a collaborative blog that leads to a collaborative set of challenges that we will be doing over one week periods. I used the first week to not shower. Yeah you read that right, I didn't shower. I only used a bucket and some cloths for one week. Read about it here.

Sebastian and I have had an amazing couple of weekends together. We have really been bonding and working together. I have felt really good about my fathering of him and as such have put a little extra effort in to what I do with Rigby.

Speaking of effort, I have been trying to be a better person for both my wife and the folks at my work, helping out more and making the effort to do things before they are needed. Well it seems to have been working at work but I am still lacking at home, and I can watch Kate's face kind of sink when she comes across something she wishes that I had done. She's been doing a great job at reminding me about the things I need to be doing and also pushing me to make an effort outside of my comfort level or rather laziness level but I know that I am still failing on that a little (or more than a little)

My parents have come over a few times from the island and spent the day hanging out with Sebastian. They came by for his birthday in March and took him across the lower mainland looking for a train to get him. They also had us over on the island for a few nights to let us relax and enjoy being taken care of. Appreciated, majorly.

We opened a couple of new floors at work and the extra load has been apparent in our department. We finally got in a co-op who will be with us until December and it is already helping after his first week. We might be giving him all the crap tasks but really that's what being the N0Ob is all about right?

Rigby is able to roll anywhere she wants, sit up fairly well but she is not yet interested in crawling. I'm not sure if I feel that she hasn't developed to a point where she will be crawling or if she has just decided that it isn't worth her time. Other than that she chowed down on some banana at dinner tonight and after she got the first piece in you could almost see a switch turn over. Her eyes lit up and there was this realization that everything does not taste like boob. She plowed through at least a 1/4 of a banana after that.

I don't really think that there is much else.... Oh yeah, Kate (on a whim) decided she is going to participate in the CIBC run for the cure. I am very proud of her for that.

Till whenever.

One day short of a month

2008-02-29T20:06:00.002-08:00

It was the 1st of Feb the last time I posted anything. There's been a lot going on in life around me lately.

I have been told to pull up my socks at work and get my numbers to a point that's a significant improvement over where I was within two weeks (one week is over). I have handed off everything I have been doing extra to my boss man and hope that something happens with all the projects as I need them to finish. I have watched my Son potty train and become really really good at it. I have watched him learn to dress himself and to make complex puzzles and issues work for him. My daughter is smiling, rolling over, laughing, picking her head up and being a total ham. She is beautiful and I am so happy to see her as she is now. My wife and I formed better lines of communication and then let them slide away and have just started rebuilding them now that we realized how much better we were.

It's been a crazy month. I am currently at my parents place on Vancouver Island hanging out for the weekend and getting a little out of the city rest. Everyone is here with me and currently Rigby is asleep on one bed and Sebastian is going to sleep in the other. Kate, my mom and dad are all reading books scattered throughout this living room.

I took Sebastian and my Dad to Englishman river falls today and felt really good about it. I felt really out of shape and in trouble carrying Sebastian up the mountain on the other side of the trail but felt really good that I shared something that I feel is an amazing piece of nature with him. I then walked with my mom and carried Rigby along the sea wall in Qualicum beach as she did her nightly walk . She moves much much faster than I was willing to at this point and I let here blaze a trail ahead while Rigby and I walked nice and leisurely behind.

Kate and I are going to go out and get some dessert tonight and have a small night out while the kids are asleep. It's about time to check on the munchkins and make sure that the silence is, in fact, golden.

I Like Cake

2008-02-01T21:52:00.001-08:00

I also like testing out new stuff. This is a blog editor called Mars Edit. Seems pretty handy.

Long Time no Post

2008-01-20T19:25:00.000-08:00

Why Not? I just kinda forgot that I needed to....

So what's been shaking? Christmas ended, that's for sure. We made it through new years and in to the next month just fine. I went back to work and all was as it should be. Sebastian and I have been really tight this month and having some really great outings. We went to Stanley park on the bus today then walked along the seawall and back to work where we had a beverage and a snack while watching Bob the builder and Pocoyo on TV. We then took the Train and Bus home and had a nap.

My friend Corey got hired at EA in what we call "the Kathy position" and is super stoked for day one tomorrow. I'm glad she got hired, not only for the 6 month contract and having a friend around but for the referral bonus I get *massive grin* Apparently some of my stock has vested so I am hoping to be able to sell it and get my self one credit card paid off and cancelled. Then with a good tax return we are expecting we hope to pay off the other and cancel it too! Wow reducing debt is exciting :)

My life under drugs has been going well, I have been having thoughts as to the effectiveness of it all as I was really manic the first week or so when I was on it but just felt good. After that I have been feeling relatively normal and wondering if I was getting anything out of it. Thinking about it though I realize that I am talking to more people, am happier in my day to day, and able to function a little smoother around situations that would have gotten me in a bunch before. This is all only available to me when I really think about my interactions with people and how I work, which is probably good since if I was just going around feeling manic it would be a bad thing... heh heh.

Rigby is SO aware of what is happening around her. She is watching us move about and laughs and giggles when we are playing eyes from across the room. She loves Kate's singing and get a kick out of her stuffed bear. She has also grown a lot and is working on rolling over. It's amazing to watch all of this go the second time and know what is happening.

Ekawa?

2008-01-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

I am so very tired today. So very very very very very tired. I tried to nap on the couch while Sebastian played with trains in the living room but every 30 seconds there was a " DAD!". So scratch that, let's make some strong coffee.

I put in the water and grind the beans, put on the pot and sit down to help build a train track. Coffee gurgles it's last hoorah and I hop up to the thought of this sweet black drink that I hate so much but helps the mornings. I grab my cup and fill it up, pour in some cream and reach for the sugar bowl. I put in 4 measured scoops of sugar and spin the fluid a little with my spoon. I place my spoon down on the edge of the sink and pick up this warm inviting cup thinking to myself that soon the drowsy, weary state will soon pass and I can focus again. As I take the first sip expecting to be greeted by roasted flavours with a slight sugary twist I wake up in a flash. The pure unmistakable taste of Salt. I seem to have mistaken the jar marked sugar for the one marked Sea Salt.

I'm awake, that's for sure. A Salty beverage first thing in the morning can do wonders for your state of mind. Although, make sure you have a nice area to spit out this beverage rapidly.

Christmas. Edit

2007-12-29T12:31:00.000-08:00

Flying BoyWhat up.
Rigby and the cat
All smiles.

Man that went by in a flash.

So we took the ferry over to my parents place on xmas eve and got in about 8pm. We had some rum and eggnog and vodka on ice after the kids went to bed and then turned in ourselves after wrapping presents. However there was the matter of actually GETTING eggnog at 10pm on xmas eve in Parksville. Everything was closed but we did manage to find one little corner store that was open and had some Eggnog! My brother and I drove around for about a half hour looking for a place and although his new truck has a wonderful DVD and GPS system in it, the closest 7-11 was apparently in Quebec.

Next morning there was a fun time had in the bed while Sebastian opened his gigantic stocking in front of us. We had breakfast and got the turkey ready and then opened presents!! So much fun, the kids got a lot of cool stuff from the family and us. WE had the best time yet at a family gathering and kinda wished that we could have stayed an extra day. We played Wii with Jared and Jaden (my nephews) and also trains with Sebastian.

The ferry back was nice, I took Sebastian up on the deck and walked him out in to the blow you over wind (he didn't like it) but inside one of the shelters with the wind safely on the other side of the glass he was quite content to look out in to the blackness of the sea and point out imaginary whales, sharks and octopuses, and although Sebastian caught a cold from the playpit which turned in to Croup we still managed to have a great dinner and 2nd xmas over at Kate's dad's house before he got really sick.

I got some fun technology gifts this year...

A Wifi 802.11 Detector T-Shirt
A 1GB MP3/MP4 watch with 1" OLED

AND I got some wonderful movies...

Papillon which is amazing.
The original Thomas Crown Affair from the 60's - equally as amazing.
and the soon to be delivered.... Starsky and Hutch Original Series Box Sets for Season 2 and 3. Now I just need season 4 and I will be complete.

I got Kate an iPhone clone... CECT P168. It isn't bad but it's not really good. So Kate went and got a new phone instead from Rogers and it's way cooler. Sony Erickson Slider Phone.

Sebastian has been in his bedroom for about an hour and a half now for a nap, I still hear him making noise and grunting about stuff so I am assuming he is still not napping. Kate's run out to get some goodies from a friend and Rigby is asleep in her stroller.

What a Family.

Subtle Change

2007-12-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

So you may remember the epic post about putting Seb's bed together. It was a rough 6 hours but we finally did it and man is it a glorious bed. Well it took about an hour to come apart last night as I dismantled it to give away. He doesn't like sleeping up in the top and has been sleeping on the floor since Rigby was born. I can't imagine what this does to him but I didn't like it and neither did Kate. So we opted for an angered child at the loss of his slide and got rid of the thing. Now he has his mattress on the floor and some cool new furniture in there, loads more room to play and we get to feel better that he is not laying on the floor.

Drug World update: I have noticed that my guards against having conversations are dropping, I am more at ease with people and able to make light of situations that were really tense for me before. The only issue I am still having is that I am grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw and some days it gets really really bad. I'm putting faith in everything settling down and my body taking this all as normal over time but for now... ouch.

Work has been a fun playground of activity with lots going on right up until the last day there. The last day (Friday) was a fun one, I took Seb in to work with me and although he made a mockery of our desktop meeting he had a lot of fun there. There was also a big lunch with mini hamburgers and tons of cheese (his favourite) and beer (my favourite). So we had some lunch and watched the old Rudolph and the island of misfit toys movie.

Today we are going over to Shannon and Brian's (where Boo slept last night ) and having an xmas day. Then Brunch. Yum.

Gadets and Goods

2007-12-19T19:25:00.000-08:00

I got a "xmas present" from work :) They're upgrading people to the newer blackberry 8300 curves at work and I got mine. It's nicer than I thought it would be and it plays video and music which is pretty cool too.

I had a cool idea to put some computers in the cafe at work so that we could give people internet and dvd/music while they are eating. Well I ended up getting a couple of the old iMacs together to put on the tables. I even got the speakers for them!
I also ordered up some cool keyboard mice combos from Logitech that are Bluetooth.
So I think it will be pretty cool to have in there for people eating their lunches or what not. There is no access to anything at all except the things I allowed so they should be %100 safe to leave in there.

Sickness n milk

2007-12-16T20:25:00.000-08:00

For some reason while I was sick I needed Milk.

After I got sick and then "better" Sebastian got sick and woke up throwing up then the next day Kate got sick. WOO. So much Vomit, so not much fun.

Sick again

2007-12-12T19:35:00.000-08:00

I get sick like once maybe twice a year. This time I got a 24hr flu (fingers crossed) and man did it wipe me out. I spent most of last night up and shivering - throwing up - too hot and uncomfortable. Now I feel mildy better mostly due to the fact I don't need to puke anymore but still trashed. I'm going back to bed now.

mmm xmas party(s)

2007-12-08T15:26:00.000-08:00

So this week I had my work xmas party with only the group I work with and then the studio has it's party which was all James Bond themed.
The Studio party was awesome, they rented a ballroom at the Hotel Vancouver and had gaming tables setup everywhere with Poker, Blackjack, Roulette, Baccarat, Craps and a spinning wheel thing. They had a high rollers lounge with a pianist and more tables lit up red and if people had noticed it and headed in it would have been a cool place. As it was there was only a small crowd happening in there. There was a digital shooting range, bomb diffusion race, and a few other stations. The place looked like a casino but the gave us all a few grand in fake hundreds to roll with on the way in. Also there was an assassination situation happening. You were given a target to take out and you were also a target and the person with the most kills at the end of the night wins $1000 cash. Sweet. Good food too.

The group party was held at the Macaroni grill at the Mansion in Vancouver. It was amazing. The place was quite cool and the food was fantastic, but above all the group had a great time talking and drinking. I came home quite drunk from that, even ended up sleeping in Sebastian's room so as to not be near Rigby in our bed. This place fed us... We had bread first, then Salads and Calamari. Next Course was 3 types of pasta - Pene Pasta with a spicy tomato sauce, Pene with Sausage and Bow tie Alfredo. Then came the Chicken scallopini and then steaks. All of this was all you could eat too but at high quality. Afterwards there was dessert. Wine, beers and shooters and through-out.

Fun, Family, Mac n Cheese and Gangsta Rap

2007-12-05T20:37:00.000-08:00

That's right, sitting down on the couch, playing trucks in the parking garage eating home made Mac n Cheese and listening to Pandora pump out the tracks. We also did some dancin to this muthafuckin music we crypt to.

I love my family.

I learned a new thing today... I *am* totally in control of my day. I was drudging around at work and thought to myself that I could just be happy instead and I was, the rest of the day. It didn't feel artificial or like I was just walking around with a stupid grin on my face it was really just a turnaround on my mood.

I looked at the massive stack of games I have been comp'd this last month when I got home and am surprised as all get out. I am giving some of them to a friend and a couple to my nephews for xmas as I don't have a gaming system let alone a TV.

All in all it was a fun day and a good week thus far. We got a whole bunch of gifts from some of my mom's friends in Edmonton for Rigby. There is some really cute stuff in there and almost all of it is pink.

Moving on

2007-11-28T20:40:00.001-08:00

Well it's been a pretty good week so far. Kate's mom went home on Monday and here we are Wednesday night, doing fine. We've been keeping things going and running smooth. The house has been pretty good and our chores have been flying by day by day. My Parents are coming in to town tomorrow from Parksville and taking Sebastian to the Aquarium for the day. It should be a blast for him as he hasn't been there in a while.

Work has been interesting lately. I have felt really good about.... well about everything these last few days and as such I have been doing a lot. I felt a little down today but kept moving along with all the tickets coming in and at the end of the day walked out feeling great.

I went and did laundry with Sebastian tonight at the laundromat as we just had a mountain of stuff to get done. It was also a good time, he and I chased each other around and played catch with a nerf ball. He helped load the dryer and put in quarters for me....

.... it's now Saturday night.... I left this open for quite a while.

It snowed here today, lots. We were going to go to Shannon and Brian's House for dinner but we decided against it due to the streets. Sebastian and I played outside a few times today in the snow. He in his rain suit, pj's and full clothes and me bundled up in my jackets as well. He likes the snow a lot, which is funny since last year he HATED the snow with a passion.

Things are still going well around the house. Upkeep and all is still working and the week itself for home life didn't turn out so bad for Kate. Sebastian and my parents stayed at the aquarium until nearly 4pm and got home one bus in front of me. Without his nap and that much excitement he was a terror the next day but at least he had fun.

I did some work for a guy at my work on his Mac and setup Leopard and an external drive for him as well as transferring his data from the old drive to the new. He was pleased enough to pick us up a bottle of Vincent Van Gogh - Espresso Infused Vodka. Now I don't like coffee much at all but Kate does and it may be fantastic with some coffee or in a white russian or something...

The End

2007-11-25T16:02:00.000-08:00

The End of having Oma here. Kate's mom goes home tomorrow and we're back on our own (so to speak). The level of help and support surrounding us should ensure that if we need something people will be there for us. It's been nice having her here this last 7 days as she has done so much around the house and shown me that some things in our lives can be taken care of in an instant rather than making it a thing to be dealt with.

I've come to realize that I can help motivate Kate by getting Sebastian ready to go and making coffee in the mornings and I think that from now on she needs to be up and out of bed before I leave in the morning. The house works as functional mess and that's ok. We can survive with this and cleaning it up only takes a little effort rather than the daily attempt we were making for it to appear that we don't have kids at all and instead live in a spotless and up-kept house.

Last night we went to the Pro Street Wrap Party at the Vancouver Aquarium which was awesome. The venue is a great place to have a party and the food was quite good also. We wandered around looking at underwater animals of all sorts and Rigby brought in the attention. It was a good time and nice to get out and away for an Adult evening of entertainment. Tonight (and a few nights ago) we went out and had a cappuccino and cookie at JJ Bean and sat and talked, again good to get out for some adult time.

Going forward we are devising a schedule of events for Kate's days and some basic things for us all to deal with the days. Meal plans with recipe cards and pre-ordered groceries. A few purchased meals from Chef Claires and Sliced Tomatoes and the knowledge that we can make a difference to our own lives as long as we get of our asses. That and we're going back to vegetarianism which makes both of us very happy indeed.

Some images for past posts.

2007-11-24T14:04:00.000-08:00

Train Show and the pictures of Sebastian with his Patch and Glasses.

What's all this then

2007-11-21T20:45:00.000-08:00

We had the appointment for Sebastian at the Ophthalmologist yesterday and the verdict is that his right eye is still functional and just needs to be 'woken up'. So Sebastian gets to wear an eye patch for a month. 2 weeks of all the time and 2 weeks of part time. He also gets glasses to help him focus his eyes which we pick up from the Lab tomorrow.

Kate had her appointment today and was told some very good things I think. That she needs to relearn how to do some things in her life and was given a way to ease out the anxiety. (read: drug) So I am excited at this opportunity as the Dr that saw Kate says she strongly believes that it will be suprising to all of us (including Kate) what comes out the other side of this.

I started my new Journey today as well. You may or may not recall some of my musings regarding my personal state. 1 2 3 4 5

So today I started Effexor and had a swell time running the gambit of side effects while trying to get some work done. I started work being swimmy headed and lightfooted and moved on to shaky and a little dizzy. Jaw clenched and teeth grinding and feeling a little like I should be sitting down. I've never taken a major drug before and my friend Sean just likened it to taking E (which I have never done) but it's certainly a trip. After about a week at this level I will be ramping the dose to double and at that point I guess we will see what my body (and brain) can handle.

Drive out

2007-11-18T20:29:00.000-08:00

My chest hurts

I don't know why, I think it's a reaction to my brain working.

It feels like I got kicked.

We spent the entire weekend without Sebastian around. He went to Shannon and Brian's place and they ( thanks to the multi-faced deities ) were able to give us a much needed break. We went out shopping and browsing and then after 2 nights of movie watching in peace went and picked him up today. Took a long drive out toward Whistler and stopped at a lake for some lunch it was nice return of the Boo.

Heather is coming by monday to hang out and Kate's mom will be here at 3-4pm today with an open ended ticket to be around which is great to know. My parents have offered to come over on the ferry, hang out here for the day and then take Seb back with them for a sleep over and then come back and drop him off / meet us at Horseshoe bay later the next day. And, do it bi-weekly. That would be very very cool.

Anyway, today is the start of another journey.

Low Emotional Intelligence

2007-11-17T00:36:00.000-08:00

So a while ago I took a test that says I have low emotional intelligence. This means that my ability to tell what people are actually feeling and that the tone and inflection of a persons speech often is lost on me and I will perceive whatever my brain wanted to perceive. Like wise it' s hard to know what the emotions I have actually are and how to process what I feel to words.

So take that and realize that I am already struggling to get the true meanings behind peoples actions and words and then add something that requires attention in an emotional way.

Kate let me know today her true feelings about what is going on with her.

Sebastian is staying with our friends Brian and Shannon for the weekend. He's been gone for about 8 hours now and I can't believe how much I miss him and miss having him around (even if he would be sleeping right now) We haven't been away from him (like both of us not just one of us) for his entire life... I'm sure that some of this weekend will be very scary for him.

Kate's mom is coming in from Calgary to help out however she can. I haven't really discussed how long she'll be here or where she will stay while here and what she is expecting ( or what we are expecting of her) with her. I hope that she can be here with Kate, Riby and Sebastian while I can still work to keep us afloat. Not what I would love but, it's great that Johanna would do that. We never ask much of that part of Kate's family but when we do they come through all the way.

Sppappappapappaaaarkkkaapppapap uh

2007-11-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

I just didn't have a title today.

Gordon gave us some really cool "jigsaw puzzle" art. There are two pieces by Douglas Coupland that are both limited edition of 88 unnumbered, unsigned. They are these neat replicas of some art that ran at the closed JFK airport in New York. One of them (pictured below) is easy for people to recognize, and the other a little harder to make out (I also can not find an image).
They are both cut to be a 30 piece jigsaw puzzle (that I doubt I would ever want to attempt) but will soon be getting framed up. It was a nice gift I think.

The whole gang came down to work today and got cooed over by folks. New babies are awesome for that. Sebastian was a great little boy with me out last night and again today and he seems to be on a nice curve currently :)

Hallowthankxmas

2007-11-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

While Halloween was getting going I noticed that it was time for Christmas based on the random spattering of lights, decorations and such in the malls. I also came across this gem of an article.

Can't Buy Me G-d

ReadyMade's interfaith gift guide
by Adam David Cole

Is it just me, or is everyone a Nazi around the holidays? As a Jew, perhaps I lack the gene for holiday cheer (is that what they cut out during the bris?). Maybe it's my David and Goliath complex that makes me a little paranoid. Whatever the reason, buying gifts is like trying to gain entrance to a golf course in Georgia. Roaming the aisles for meaningful trinkets, I feel the grip of Father Christmas tighten around my withering Jewish soul; I'm certain that the cheery carol blaring at Macy's is actually the Muzak version of "Deutschland �ber Alles." When I buy a menorah for my grandmother, I'm convinced that the clerk gift wraps it in the colors of the Palestinian flag. (Not to mention the fact that the red-nosed reindeer emblazoned across her sweater looks more Adolf than Rudolph.) Even for those who don't suffer from my delusions, the gift-buying process can induce panic, especially when you've got a harem of multi-religioned friends to shop for. To guide you through the whole ordeal, I've assembled this faith-based list of suggestions.

Atheists

What to give: Boston Red Sox season tickets. In 2004 the Sox beat the New York Yankees and won their first World Series in 86 years. Tickets to the Red Sox might turn your heretical friends into believers.

What not to give: Chicago Cubs tickets. The Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908 and haven't made it into the series since 1945. A season of watching the Flubs�er, Cubs�might convince atheists that even the World Series doesn't truly exist.

Christians

What to give: Testament graphic novel. The Holy Bible is a tome that doesn't exactly make for light reading. The cartoon version keeps the pace moving and wins you supreme literary cred with Baptists.

What not to give: Von Dutch trucker hat; Juicy Couture sweatsuit; Ugg boots. When one accepts Christ, the church offers to absolve all sin. Federline-n-Spears fashion, however, is thoroughly unforgivable.

Jews

What to give: A life vest. In the Jewish faith, nothing's sexier than safety. Throw in some plastic floaties and you'll win major mensch points with your pal's family.

What not to give: Eiffel Tower statuette. We Jews wouldn't know what to do with an item sold by a vendor thousands of miles away. What if we need to exchange it?

Mormons

What to give: Girls Gone Wild Co-ed Tryouts. Just because Mormons don't drink, do drugs, or consume caffeine doesn't mean they won't enjoy this fine piece of classic cinema, starring chi-chi-flashing freshmen.

What not to give: Victoria's Secret Sexy V-Neck Racerback Tank. Sure, they'll watch girls stripping off their bras for the camera, but the Mormons' undergarment of choice is a union suit�style white cotton number. Victoria's curve-enhancing tanks are definitely not church-sanctioned.

Muslims

What to give: Two-in-one prayer/yoga mat. Help your Muslim friends align their chakras in the direction of Mecca with this convenient dual-purpose floor pad.

What not to give: A holiday ham. The only pork product allowed in the Muslim world these days is a Halliburton contract.

What is going on?

2007-11-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

Kate is currently listening to a podcast about sex education. It's called the midwest teen sex show. They are currently going over the names for jerkin yer gerkin and even have advice about not putting your penis in to anything that can get in to your penis or how to tell if you are masturbating too much by how much time you have left to masturbate......What to do if your mom catches you?

1. Ask her to help you finish.
2. Say " Oh, I thought you were Dad.
3. Blame it on the media.

And one woman... " I realized when I was 14 if I wanted to have kids I better start having sex. Oh is that mayonnaise on my chest or are we done already?"

Somewhere over the rainbow

2007-11-10T21:06:00.000-08:00

The first task is to find the rainbow. The second to discover what does actually exist on the other side if it. The rainbow in this particular case is the redevelopment of people toward a new enlightenment. There have been a number of major turn around points in the history of modern Earth. The Agricultural Revolution, The industrial Revolution, The Space Age, The computerization of our lives, faster information - less effort. A new time is at hand.

Which way will this time go though? No one can label it yet because it hasn't happened and historians haven't had enough time to sit about and brainstorm a good name. I propose two different names for this revolution:

The Wakeup
The Demise

They are both pretty straightforward, and really the whole lesson is right there in the title. We have options facing us each day to either step up and do something small [ repeatedly ] daily to further our time on this Earth or to ignore what is so obviously happening around us and chalk it up to..... well whatever it is we want to believe it is.

I've been reading about some of the small things that seem so insignificant that can do so much for our lives, the lives of others, our economy and our world. Things that are simple and everyone knows... like energy saving bulbs. Things that are not quite so common like throwing your gum in the trash instead of the street.

A small factoid: In the UK it costs 37p for a pack of gum. It costs (on average) 15p to clean up that gum. The UK spends 150Million on this cleaning. This money would fund 3 hospitals or 8,500 teachers salaries. It sometimes isn't quite so obvious what we are costing ourselves.

Anyway, I think it's time to retire and watch a little Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with Kate and Rigby, after I go put Sebastian's covers on that is.

The Reopening

2007-11-09T23:16:00.000-08:00

Well obviously we are back in public domain here. I (also obviously) changed my blog a little bit.

So after a meeting between sites today it seems that someone is going to have to come on down and join our site but no one is really interested in doing that. So we'll see where that goes. Hopefully whoever does come doesn't come forced since that will probably just mean that they will be bitter and frustrated.

I know that my studio is better for me, it's a style of working that I enjoy and the environment it exactly what I have always wanted. On the other hand the other studio has a lot to be desired. There is a larger sense of community, there are more opportunities for learning and information sharing and as it is the main office for us there is more exposure to the powers that be. I can see liking both options here but I wouldn't *want* to work at the other. I need to though.

Now. Props where Props be due. Kate; thank you for getting my header fixed.

What Happened?

2007-11-08T21:53:00.001-08:00

Look up the term Dooced on the internet and you can get an idea.

Dodged but I will have some new ground rules here in Banaspace.

For the ones affected:

I will apologize. Not for the things that I said, because they were my honest feelings and that is all. However I am truly sorry for the ramifications of writing those things. I did not consider what this would mean to other people when they read it and I also didn't consider what it would mean to our community of people.

To ease this all out I have gone through and edited my entire blog to reflect the new ground rules.

Let's continue on.

The Best

2007-11-04T21:19:00.000-08:00

On looking for the correct terms for my last post I came across a "Best Of Craigslist" which made me nearly bust my guts.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/van/182234107.html

The last edit

2007-11-04T06:22:00.000-08:00

Well it's morning.... ask a toddler what Daylight savings time is.

Sebastian decided that morning started at 5Am today, I found out quickly that it was in fact 4Am and coaxed him back to bed. We got 2 more hours and got up at 6. He is now chomping on ice and playing with Lego. I on the other hand am trying to wake myself up as I have been having trouble getting up to operating speed lately. I don't really think it's due to Rigby being around as I have been having this problem for a while now. ( About a month or so )

It's really hard though, I feel like my head weighs a ton and my eyes hurt to be open. I fall asleep sitting up or standing or whatever for a few seconds regularly and even coffee doesn't seem to jump me up. I get going by about 8:30 / 9Am and feel fine after that. I have also been realy easily falling asleep while sitting at night. I have fallen asleep during our movies the last three nights for sure. When Kate and I met I was almost narcoleptic ( I just fell asleep while trying to decide if narcoleptic was the sleep thing or the dead people thing ) Then Sebastian came over, I changed his diaper and we cuddled on the chair at which point I fell asleep again.

Maybe there is something wrong there.....

Rigby and Kate are both doing well now. Kate has been out and about and has been fine with it. Ribgy seems to enjoy the time regardless of where she is. ( Ok Seriously it just happened again ) Sebastian is coping better with the new one around I think. He seems to be fully aware of what she is, who she is and the last part is the (asleep while thinking) wait for him to accept her fully. He likes to kiss her, hold her and helps us tell her that "It's ok Rigby" when she cries. So I don't think it will take long at all until he never remembers the time when she wasn't here.

Arrgh, I seriously want this to stop.

**SO I just read through this post and I wanted to clarify a few things here and there. I did keep falling asleep while writing this post and it was frustrating because I obviously lost my train of thought a few times there. "Sebastian coming over and getting his diaper changed" is what actually happened after I woke up when I fell asleep thinking about the differences between Narcoleptics and Necrophiliacs. I also seem to remember the two mincing together in my head for a moments and I was thinking people who fall asleep randomly while fucking dead people..... man that's messed up.

So long Caio

2007-10-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

So Caio came by tonight to visit, meet Rigby and explain what the hell was up with the "Caio has resigned" email that I got today. It's true, Caio is resigned and that's that. I was putting Sebastian to bed after he left and thinking to myself about what that means to me. I mean... how many posts in my archives contain something about how I hated this or that about Caio's ways. Mostly the singing. I know Caio read them and he still went about his business of arguing with me over trivial things, grilling me for information over everything and despising everything I brought up. Y'know... like eating.

Caio once (probably more than once) told me how he hates eating. He considers it a chore, a bore and basically a pain in his ass. He wished that you either didn't have to eat or could ingest some sort of "super pill" that could satisfy all your needs. Personally, liking eating and liking food I think he's crazy. These little things were all around and usually contrary to what I thought was usual or normal. They were things I complained about and things that I figured drove me a little crazy at work.

I do however realize that all these things are and were just things. That the personality traits that Caio has exhibited are only one part of his being and that the more importantly, he is a good, caring individual and someone whom I could trust. I realize that while I might have secretly prayed for the time that Caio was gone from EA and " out of my hair " I'm now pretty sad that he's out of there.

So, since I am sure that you will read this man. Arguments and quibbles aside.... this sucks.

The Aftermath

2007-10-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a little over a two days now since Rigby was born. Her *real* name is Lilian Rigby Forsyth and she is named for my Grandmother of my Mothers side. Lilian Appleby. Although I have no memory of her, every image I have ever seen paints a picture of someone compassionate, caring and maternal. My Grandfather was someone who cared a great deal about me, and he was a very good role model for me as he ( Possibly due to my youth ) seemed to be an honest, kind and strong man. Sebastian ( Arthur DeWolfe Forsyth ) gained my Grandfathers name as well as Kate's Grandfathers.

Lilian seems to be a good soul, Sebastian seemed to be a return visitor when he was born and I somehow get the sense that she is also here with age behind her. They both have the same warmth to them. Of course I am their Father and I would totally understand the criticism that I feel their warmth because of this fact but at the same time I have only felt like this toward a small handful of people in my life and generally speaking they were the kindest and most heartwarming individuals I have known.

Gordon came by yesterday and remarked how much he likes the name Lilian and how it was a good old fashioned name. He did something very similar with Sebastian and some how it feels like a comment on this idea of them both being 'old souls'. Again, criticism aside, I do like the feeling that my children are simply beings embarking on the next round of their existence and that we [ the ones who are learned ] get to help them remember the things they once knew.

So, welcome back.

The Arrival

2007-10-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

I will make this more detailed later but..... We had a daughter last night at 9pm. Kate had a 7 hour labour start to finish and Rigby is gorgeous.

A Trip to the Beach

2007-10-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

Well, Kate is now term +6 so we are still waiting on this baby to decide to come out. This morning after Sebastian convinced me to get out of bed we went to the living room to have some breakfast. I decided, after seeing this weird thing thing I'm told is called "The Sun", that we needed to hit the beach. We took out the RC Boat that my parents gave Sebastian and sent it for a spin about in the waves. It doesn't go very fast which makes it a little boring but it is still pretty fun.

Then Sebastian and I walked down to the Pier and looked underneath for sea creatures. We saw Crabs and Star Fish and Fish Fish. Sebastian claims he spotted at least 2 slippery fish and an octopus under there as well but I'm sceptical. We left Kate to sit on some driftwood to knit her new hat for the baby.

There was also a great big Heron hanging out by the pier who would swoop down and scoop some fish out of the water every so often.

After all this we walked back along the beach throwing stones in to the water. It was really relaxing. The beach was quiet and the sun was out so it was nice and warm with a light autumn chill and the ocean was nicely behaving itself.

Sebastian loves throwing rocks in to the water, I think mostly for the splash. He discovered today that you can throw a handful of dirt and get multiple splashes. So needless to say he got a little muddy for a little while.

After, we walked down to where Kate was sitting we got together an took a little family photo.

Aren't we just so bloody cute?

Lastly Kate and I took a few pictures of her belly before this baby comes out (COME OUT DAMN YOU) and we caught the good luck bug. A little lady bug came by and did a walkabout on Kate's tummy.

I guess that lady bugs are the bearers of good luck. So hopefully something joyful will happen. :)

mmm ascii

2007-10-20T22:07:00.001-07:00

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   d88P888                   888        
  d88P 888 88888b.  88888b.  888  .d88b.
 d88P  888 888 "88b 888 "88b 888 d8P  Y8b
d88P   888 888  888 888  888 888 88888888
d8888888888 888 d88P 888 d88P 888 Y8b.   
d88P     888 88888P"  88888P"  888  "Y8888
           888      888                 
           888      888                 
           888      888

Total Molecular Inversion

2007-10-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

Well. We're still waiting on the baby to make up it's mind and come one out. I'm off work and we've been hanging out watching a ton of movies lately. Now out of that I've seen a pretty good movie ( V for Vendetta ) and a horrible movie ( Nacho Libre ) and a bunch of mediocre stuff. We saw the first part of Good Night and Good Luck but have not yet finished it.

Sebastian seems to be loving having me home all day. I know Kate is. I'm enjoying it also, I mean I was just writing about how I wanted more time to spend with Seb and to play with him more and here it is. Once the new one is born I am sure that this build up of play and bonding will serve us well.

I decided to play around and build up what I would love to see purchased for the Audio team and It team in Mac form. The bill is about 248K. It's all pure sweetness though. I mean, how could you go wrong with 20TB of data storage and a buttload of 23" dual monitored Mac Pro 8 cores? and a Server with 32GB's of ram... I mean COME ON!! I have requested that a copy of Leopard is purchased for me so that I can begin checking it out before people start asking me questions about it. With any luck that will be at my desk when I come back... nudge nudge. I don't actually think that the person I have asked to purchase it reads my blog but hey, it's worth a shot.

We are currently listening to an OOOOOOOO0o0o0o0o0LD Rave style Trance mix that I made. This is actually the first mix I ever made and it's also the first gift I ever gave Kate. Romantic huh? Hey baby! Have a Rave Trance Mix. Oh yeah... you know you want it. unce unce unce unce unce unce unce bwaaa ba buhn unce unce unce unce.

She says she listened to it all the time. "He made it... It's beauoootifull"

Kate is also knitting a set of booties for the new baby next to me right now. They look like they'll be very cute (according to the picture) right now though they are just a solid rectangle of yarn.

We should get some glowsticks!

Steak and Doughnuts

ON and ON

Clever bot

Arsenals 20th Anniversary

Les Giraffes at Geenwich Festival July

I forgot to mention Amsterdam

Woolwich Riots and the Morning After

Sunken life

The chapel

Nachos Nachos Nachos! DIM SUM

Weekend with spit

Another day, another ride.

Just doing a test

Not as planned

Sweet sugar meat

2011 - The year of the Rabbit

Days on Days

Firsts and Firsts

Also. Happy Birthday Dear Blog

Immediate Invasion

Life in the Barracks

London ROTC (Part 2)

London and the revenge of the contract

Off again

Updates

Trip 2

It's come

Waiting

Since you've been gone...

Torch Relay and other Awesomeness

The TOC and stuff

Set your creep factor to Stun

If I can blog 12 times in 25 Days

A whole bunch of cy's

The other Half of Tofino

The beach wedding

A day in the life of + Greenhouse update

#noimpactgreenhouse

Spam Fail

Well....

Vancouver Island Vacation

Them there torches

They make science fun!

All power to the wolf

I'm back baby

emergency template ditch

Bowling and a BBQ

No Subtitles

Hot n Cold extreme

SWING SET!!

That story is sizzlin'

And the boy rides a scooter

I h@te iTunes somedays

Seattle, Banking and backyards

So yummy in my tummy, so yummy, so yummy

So Sick

Hackintosh

Warm it up Chris

Why not Telus?

Update: Dateline Vancouver 2009

Like rats of a sinking ship??

I now work for VanOC

Unemployment Week 3

I got laid off

Feels like new west

What is that sound? oh right... crap.

When was the last time....

What is up? My dog.

One day short of a month

I Like Cake

Long Time no Post

Ekawa?

Christmas. *Edit*

Subtle Change

Gadets and Goods

Sickness n milk

Sick again

mmm xmas party(s)

Fun, Family, Mac n Cheese and Gangsta Rap

Moving on

Christmas. Edit

The last edit