Where do they come from?

So I was looking at the tracking reports for my blog tonight and thought WOW where do all these people come from? I see that tons of people get to me by searching for something that has NOTHING to do with me. Like Pro Tools 7.4 (that added an extra 10 hits right there) or some part of a movie quote that I have used.

So I have to say to everyone that comes here and possibly even stays here.... Add a comment somewhere, a shout out to say you were here from there and China... where you at?

This is Septembers countries vs my blog.

United States of America	39.19 %
Canada	25.68 %
United Kingdom	8.11 %
Brazil	4.05 %
Czech Republic	2.70 %
Other	20.27 %

Country	Visits	%	Trend %
United States of America	29	39.19 %	+59.6%
Canada	19	25.68 %	-52.8%
United Kingdom	6	8.11 %	+54.1%
Brazil	3	4.05 %	+131.1%
France	2	2.70 %
Norway	2	2.70 %
Czech Republic	2	2.70 %
Ukraine	1	1.35 %
Turkey	1	1.35 %

Sweden	1	1.35 %
Poland	1	1.35 %	-23.0%
Philippines	1	1.35 %
Republic of Korea	1	1.35 %	-23.0%
Australia	1	1.35 %	-61.5%
Israel	1	1.35 %
Germany	1	1.35 %	-23.0%
United Arab Emirates	1	1.35 %
Belgium	1	1.35 %

Baby Shower Today

Well Kristi, Shannon and Corey with the help of others threw us a baby shower today at the Coal Harbour Coop. It was a blast. I got to see people and kids I have not seen for a while, eat some chow and play in the park outside.

We got some very nice gifts from the folks who came out and even though they are all small things (like onesie's) they are just the things we need and are also just the things I needed to make upcoming baby much more real.

It's neat to think about the new baby coming along but when I really stop and think.... it's 31 days away.... I have a preschooler who still doesn't sleep through the night and who takes up to an hour to put to sleep some days. Those small things are the ones where I go.. whoa. Are we really ready for this? We're really doing this? Jeeze.

I am the excited.

I just found this awesome little application through the Apple Software site, called Screen Recycler. This app for Mac basically allows you to use any other Mac with a monitor attached as a second, third, forth or so on monitor for your own. Why buy another monitor when you can simply annex your neighbours computer!?

Awesome.

Second highest on my OMG that's sweet list was the application to allow you to use any (well almost any) application with your mac remote. There were two there but I think this one seemed to have the nicest interface. This one is called Mira.

Also Awesome.

Third highest is iRAPP. Now this is sweetness in a dmg. iRAPP allows you to use your mac from a PC. It runs your Mac fully, access all programs, all files and folders even have you system bar at the top of your XP session. Plus using it multiple users can use the same Mac or you can make your Mac a terminal server. How hot is this? and it's shareware. BOOYASHAKA!!

Lastly is this application called Passenger which allows non administrative persons (such as a help desk or what not) to add user accounts and do password creation with your OS X server without having to access the server. It's a nice utility I look forward to handing out at work.

So if you are on a Mac and are not familiar with this stuff, I would suggest checking it out.

A Week Without

Without Kate and without Sebastian. It was a long boring stretch without any real interaction with anyone. I painted Sebastian's room, did a whole bunch of this and that around the house, stayed late at my work a few days and saw a couple of friends for Beer and Cake on Friday.

I made this....

Man / Woman vs Toddler / New Bed

OH - MY - GOD!

6 hours of hardcore battle against the toddler loft bed of doom!

Well in the end the Man / Woman team won out over the Toddler and his new bed..... sorta. The bed is built and it is awesome.... however the toddler proclaimed " I DON'T LIKE THIS!!! WANT TO SLEEP BIG BED!!! " and lo... here we are, toddler in between us while we both write in our respective blogs about this epic battle.

Sebastian was amazing all day long, with all the shopping, running around and change of panning we did. He came through it like a trooper and in the end his crazy 9pm to 11pm run around and non stop talking while trying to put the last of the bed together was really not all that bad.

The bed, which we got free is a loft bed and has a nice little ladder up to it... and a SLIDE to get down!! Can you believe it?! Now we just have to move everything else in the room to make space for it.

Loss of control...

My child is infuriating. Why? Because he is no longer under my control. He is a follower who will obey the things I ask of him and I can always overpower him but he is also his own person able to tell us the things he likes and dislikes. He is able to assert himself both physically and verbally and he knows how to both woo and frustrate his parents. He also hits and it drives me nuts, I want to grab him and pull him away and tell him loudly he's doing things wrong and sometimes, just sometimes, when he hits *ME* I want to whack him.

The obvious issue here is that I can not do things like that. I can not hit my child, I can not be forceful over a child I want to instill gentle qualities in and I can not control him. Instead I know that I now have the arduous task of guiding him. I only say arduous because it's hard for me or Kate to do, it's hard to take a person with raging emotions and ideas that move more rapidly than they are explained. A person who can reduce to screaming and tears and bashing his head over the fact that you are offering him EXACTLY what he wants. It's hard to take that person and guide them to all the emotions and values that you want them to have while controlling all of the negative values you do not want them to be party to in yourself.

I think that in my mind I would relate it to trying to be a bar star while stopping a friend from drinking. It's something that you just can not do and be successful at it.

What does this mean to me? What does this mean for Kate? More importantly what does this mean for our dealings with Sebastian? I think it means that the qualities we are shooting to instill - completely relies on us to model and consistently display the qualities ourselves. This is a lot like being a good manager or lead. You need to model what you would want your team to look like.

This is a problem. Both of us are ruled by our emotions in so many ways.... we are going to have to change ourselves to change our son. I thought I would have seen this... those parents. Y'know the ones who seems almost hoity toity and are really "clean" people, not swearing in conversation (even without their kids around), modeling clean lives are the ones who I almost think have the kids who have those high quality values. But I could be wrong... It could be that those people really are just jerks and their kids are only good because they beat them... I'll never really know. In the end, I know that I need to make changes in me to adjust to a better work environment. Things like swearing in conversation. With luck those changes in me will start to help me mold Sebastian as well.

If you read this you really should read what my wife Kate goes through. She stays at home with Sebastian. Something that I have stated I would love to do but secretly know that I would do a horrible job by comparison. She deals with his sweetness and his unholy jerkiness day in and day out and not only tries to model good behavior and demeanor but, much to her own discredit, does a really really good job at it.

Advancements

Today my second server became a link aggregated 2GB/s network unit. It joins the first and is now the second server in EA using this connection type. So far my users are only achieving 70mb/s on the primary unit so I think they have some overhead.

RAM on the other hand might need to be increased as now that they can use so many other things [ Like streaming video ] they are using a lot more RAM on the unit. 3GBs out of 4 were being used most of today so I may have to order more.

I asked today for a new training class from both the infrastructure manager and from the COO of my studio. I figure that two chances are better than one. The only problem with this is that I *JUST* realized the course is in Calgary and NOT Vancouver as I originally stated. BLARG!

So now I either have to see if I can be sent to Calgary for 5 days or wait about until Vancouver decides to host the class. [ Which won't be until next year now ]

Well we'll see where I end up. ** I just talked to Kate and she doesn't want me going so close to her due date so I guess I wait till next quarter**

I also talked with my network guy today about the traffic that would occur if I added an Xgrid system to my work. Seems that it would be ok and if I can get the servers I want then he can even make them all 2GB/s to improve the connection speeds. Now I just need to see if he'll do it to a couple of users too.

I sometimes wonder if I am too demanding.

Monsterous issues.

It occurs to be me that I never wrapped up the post concerning the issues I was having with my Mac unit. So time to do that.

The problem: My server's authentication to Active Directory kept failing, making it very very hard for all of our users to connect / stay connected to the server. The end result was that people were constantly disconnecting and not happy what-so-ever. I was unhappy as I kept having to reconnect the server to AD every 12 hours. PITA.

The fix: Take the server off AD, turn it in to a Open Directory only server. Once this was done the server ran for 132hours without issue before I rebooted this morning for software updates.

The Lesson: screw windows.

So basically I do plan on taking cross-platform integration if possible through Apple, but that is another $2400 USD so I need someone to pay for it first.

I will create a monster

So. I now have two, count em, two Apple Xserves at work. I'm shooting for another 3.

Why you might ask? Especially if you work with me.... The answer is simple. Solidify my position make myself invaluable and then threaten to quit and ask for a raise. MUHAHAHAAHAAA

No really, I am just anticipating that with Pro Tools 7.4 coming and supporting the ability to have nodes like Logic Pro does right now that we will need some processing power that can be stored in the server room and listed as mission critical.

I have recently created a small node farm for the Music Audio guys and they are loving having it. Infrastructure at EAC however deemed it NON mission critical due to the fact that it is running from desktop machines. No fail-over, no rack mount, no need to worry about it seems to be their view. Well now I am stepping this up a notch or two.



That's how I want to roll. It's really the only way to do it. Have them all be 8core 3.0Ghz machines with 4gb RAM each. An 80gb and a 500gb drive to do generates and like WHOA Robert is your mother's brother.

Now the only thing standing between me and it is..... Money. Well that and convincing Charles and Marcel. Those should be interesting sells too. However when you look at how pretty, functional and stylish the above is... you can't help wanting to purchase when you look at what I currently am working with...

4 G5's in a network closet is hardly how I would like to be supporting a group of audio specialists.

My brain 'splode

Fantastic weekend

Sebastian and I played all weekend long. It was a hella amount of fun.

We hit the park, we played soccer, we played in the sandbox, we wrestled fooled around playing hide and seek and generally had a great time. It was the best feeling of 'dad' that I've sported in a while.

We went to the mall and hit the playpit and rather than sit on the sidelines I got in there and chased him around, directed him to go through and over and under and around stuff and made him scream with glee as I jumped out from behind things. It was a lot better than my usual sitting on the sidelines and waiting for him to tire out. Although I was tired out by the time Kate came back from the first store.

We hit up a photo booth and got our pictures taken and even got a good one out of it! Then ran about and kicked balls around the Old Navy store. I think a few of the Old Navy employees were less than thrilled about it. Who cares?

We watched (well me and Kate - Seb was asleep) Hot Fuzz on the weekend too. Man that was literally the best cop movie I have seen.... like..... ever. The 'surprise' ending of the movie made it even better. We also watched most of Snatch... I needed to see it again, it had been too long and I had forgotten so much of it. Most because Sebastian woke up right near the end and came to sleep with us.

66 Days until the new baby comes along! I am starting to get that going on a holiday excitement although I'm not too sure that my brain is fully informed of what is actually going on. Perhaps it's like those sunglasses in Hitchhikers Guide where everything goes black at the slightest glimmer of danger. I'm using some old internal defense mechanism to stop myself from seeing what's really going on...

Well, if new baby is even half as much fun as Sebastian is then it should be all worth it cuz man this kid not only has the crazy, but he IS the crazy.

Let's give em something to blog about...

Like construction! NON STOP! These people across from us have been rebuilding their house all day everyday and it's driving me nuts. They are out there till 9 or 10pm with circular saws and air nailers. They work on the weekends and somedays have gone until 1:30am! Like seriously.... SHUT THE FUCK UP! I finally registered a complaint tonight although I am so furious about them still working right now I want to call the cops too. The lack of respect for the people that they are about to live around is disgusting. How do they expect to not be hated by everyone around them when they've pulled this shit for a solid month now?

GAH!

Why don't I post everyday?

Have you read this shit?!

On Saturday night I installed my new server and it went quite well until I said the magic words.... " that went wayyyy easier than I thought it would. Was it really that easy?" BAM! Screwed.

In case you didn't know... That = "Well at least it isn't raining" or the very popular "well at least it couldn't get any worse".

After that bomb.com there was about 4 hours of network troubleshooting with my infrastructure network guru and at least an hour and a half on the phone with apple. In the end we got it all figured out and the systems was running with a nice 2gb/s network configuration. Some throughput testing hit 952mbs/s which is twice as fast as anything else onsite. Sweetness.

So I reckon'd it all to be wrapped up at this point. I went to the beach today with Seb and got a call from the Oncall Tech asking me to take a look in to some stuff with the server.... After 9.5 hours of "looking in to it" a $700USD call to Apple and 5 hours with another of the infrastructure team we are still no closer to having the windows connection side of things working. Everything looks to be configured correctly but it will only try the authentication locally instead of heading upstream to the AD servers. It sucks. I feel really crappy about the whole thing. I wanted this to be a swift and seemless transition that had people singing my praises and thinking things like "hey that guy deserves more money". Instead I feel like I've let a lot of people down and that the powers that be are going to look at this with a "shouldn't have trusted him" sort of view. Which Sucks don't you know.

In the end I have to call Apple again tomorrow and spend even more time on the phone and deep in the server config to try and figure this out. With one Game 2 weeks from ship and one coming close to this needs to be fixed like tomorrow.

The stress from this had my ankle hurting like I had snapped the damn thing in two all day.

And hey, this doesn't even touch on how much I feel I let my family down today being gone all afternoon and night...

All these here testings

100 Posts Achieved

Ok I have not updated my blog in a long long long long long long time... Why? I don't know, no time to do it or no urge to do it or what have you....

There has been lots going on as usual. There has been lots of work to do both at work and at home although lately I haven't been at home to do any work. I have been in at work late nights and such. I have missed out on the daily routine and delved down deep in to this barely awake zombie styled march of death. It's been funny but not like.. ha ha funny.

I erased the configuration of my server I had so painstakingly build in one swift movement and it pretty much nullified all the work I had done in those late nights all at once. Kinda sucked. To look at the bright side of things at least I now know how to do it even better and in theory it should take much less time to do it the second time.

Sebastian and I spent pretty much all of last weekend together doing this and that. We hung out with Corey and Corey's Mom (Susan) at the beach, we went to the park and we even let Kate go out to Harry Potter and Dinner while we did pizza and a movie at home.

Boss man (at work) has been getting the shaft from everyone and everywhere... All the people who should be relying on him as the lead of the tech department are circumventing him and coming to me instead. I could see this really pissing me off if I was him and as such... well he is really pissed off, and depressed. I can't believe how shallow the people around my studio are that they would just give up on someone simply because they are changing studios. I mean the MAIN freaking reason he is leaving is because of them in the first place. Really makes you want to walk around and give some *heads up / wake up* SLAPS.

Coworkdude is apparently going through his own mini hell when it comes to home. He is moving towards a breakup with his wife. It has been coming along for a while from what he's told me but I had no idea. Granted I don't listen much at work, with everything else that is going on my time for personal stuff is limited I think. That or I'm so put off by his constant singing ( if you're reading this I really mean it - STOP SINGING!!! It drives me batty) that I am just uninterested when it comes to talking.

Regardless, Coworkdude and I work well together it seems and the whole department has been doing well. Bossman is outta there on September 5th and our new lead starts on June 20th. We met him already and he seems like a good guy, even if he did wear a tie and sweater vest to the interview... All things considered he seems like a good manager with good skills both in the realm of boss and technician. He'll have to lighten up a little though to fit in to the culture of sloth and indolence.

Skate has gotten some kick ass reviews all around the globe. E3 and GameDev have been pretty happy with it. I know I am, I have it at my desk on a 360 and I play it every time I am waiting at my desk for things to happen. Need for speeds Pro Street on the other hand is more fun to play until the crash than to actually play... I'm not a driving fan at all but people say it's awesome.

I personally have had some stress over work lately and have been feeling that I might be in a little over my head. People are relying on me to get the new Audio server in seamlessly and have it work like 50x better than the old one but.... I'm not sure how to do it... yet. Trying to balance the time I need for it + the time I need to do my regular work (tickets) and the time I need to spend doing self training + the time I need to spend at home is extremely difficult and not really working right now.

And now... I am going to lay down some justice on the kids next door.

and save my banjo you bastard!

So the last few weeks have been hellish at work.... there has been so much going on with both teams finaling and (as usual) audio woes. However, I am pleased that Apple replaced my Audio Server and we'll be getting a sparkling new Intel one. Lots of tickets coming in and I've been doing a bunch of work getting the test bed server up and running. When the new Intel Server comes in I will have a lot to do, getting the system setup and working the Samba config. It should be pretty interesting.

Luckily to take my (and all of our) minds of things we are going to go to folkfest at Jericho beach tomorrow. Which is going to rock ass. Utah Phillips is there and so are The Wailing Jennies. It's going to be great.

Holy crap what a week.

So I was on call all last week and my Audio server at work was super unstable and useless. It kept on crashing and I had to be there to support it. Which meant that I was there most nights till 1am or so. Plus there was the emergency pager which kept on ringing getting me to do work for both studios at all hours. Talk about suck city.

So currently my almost dead blackberry is off and in the bottom of the fruit bowl. I have not signed in to work and they don't have access to my cell number. So I have been free to enjoy the weekend.

Speaking of the weekend... I played with Sebastian all day yesterday while Kate went to her Dad's and did laundry while he is away. Then after naps and lunch we went out to Kristi, Jeff and Imani's House to have dinner and play. It was great, I miss those guys. We have not seen enough of them lately for sure.

Sebastian went to sleep in 15mins for his nap and maybe 20 for Sleep last night so that was sweet.... no long drawn out battles or anything.

Today, Kate is doing more laundry plus going shopping for groceries so I think that I am on Sebastian duty again. Which is cool.

Loads of work to do tomorrow morning when I get in and I have a test server environment ready to go for configuration as well.

Tomorrow is also my 30th Birthday. Kate's Mom and Dad got me 2 Tickets to Folk Fest!!!!! yayayaayayaa!!!! OH and my Apple Server test is tomorrow morning.

So I should probably hit the work with Sebastian and get my book because I should have/be studying for that.

gah... I never get away.

Also I am cooking something up because I am nearing my 100th Post.

Cursed Food Eater... right here.

I am. At least I'm pretty sure I am. OR I eat more than my share of packaged foods... I dunno. Either way... do you remember this??

I do... Vividly... now here it is again. The good people at CanGroFoods apparently CAN grow foods... however they just CAN't stop putting it in the can. It's just too good to stop!

So I pop the lid on my Peaches and Pear fruit cup and start chowing down but after a spoonful or two... I get the (not so creamy) topping.



Now as much as I like fruit... even I know not to eat the stalk.

So let's go up the "food" chain...

CanGroFoods => Del Monte => Texas Pacific Group

TPG is just a Global private Investment Firm that takes over everything... trying for JVC right now.

ugh.

Anyway seems another larger than life company has given me the shaft (or stalk as it were)

The Low Down

Big Bird and Disco Snuffy

You watched it... you can't unwatch it!



Plus a blast from my childhood.



I really need to stay the heck off of youtube.

Big Ups to Kate for the Original Pictures

Do androids dream humans? Do Humans dream technology?

Ok so officially I have become too invested with this whole server course. I have had nothing but Server implementation dreams since we got back from Seattle. I keep having this warm and fuzzy feelings when I awake from them too. That's usually followed by this feeling of wtf is wrong with me? I've felt this urge to go to work the last few days aswell. To check on it, to make sure everything is OK, to start implementing my changes... I mean really is my mind so devoid of 'normal' activity that the nerdiness has run it over?

I bet I was smiling in my sleep thinking about configuring Open Directory and Print services on systems.

I'm going to file this one in /users/shared/oddasfuck

I'm Mostly naked right now

So I won't Video blog.

I just wanted to put in a little something about our trip back from USA today.

We got to the border and the guard was a little, well.... he was on his 1,000,000,000,000,000 car of the day I am sure and seemingly was checking everyone quite well in front of us. When we got up to the stand we handed over our passports and

He asked "where we came from?."

Seattle.

He asked "how long we were gone for."

I said what?

He repeated.

5 Days.

He asked "the total value of goods that we were bringing back."

I said What?

He repeated.

I said (as I grabbed some receipts) uh... we got some food worth $45 and some soap for about $10... and

he handed our stuff back and said "move on"

As we left Kate was laughing at me... At how dumb I had been playing with the guard. I said to Kate

"Well, I guess, the best way to play dumb. Is to be dumb."

Seattle

Well, I have done almost nothing but eat and sleep and train down here... Kate and Sebastian have been all over the place and done a lot. They've been to Pike place and the Zoo and the University Village and other stuff and don't want to go home because they have been having a ball!

I have also been having a (much nerdier) ball. I got to attend this Mac OS X Server course and it has been quite eye opening. I realize there is so much going on with our Mac server or rather... so much NOT going on with the server that we are losing out...

anyways class is starting so I am out.

You tube was down....

Here it is... although from a day before

A Change in format?

Well I can't be the only one who has noticed how videos are taking over my blog. I am addicted to in-blog video. Embedded is the way to go!

Well in the I think that I am going to start Video blogging and posting it to... well to my blog.. where else!? I know I know I might lose 1 or 2 of the 3 people who read my blog by making them hear and see me instead of just reading my words and thinking what they want and forming the mental image of me they want but... I am a nerd first and foremost so technology wins over friends.... you'd think I would have learned this lesson a long time ago but no... no I have not.

So look forward dear crazy lonely lost readers, I know you got here because there was nothing else to do anywhere on the internet and you're still waiting for your porn to download... look forward to the face of me... tomorrow.

Great for men

and just plain scary is....

Prepare...

Prepare to laugh whatever part of you is loosest off.



and to compare (they sync PERFECTLY)....

you will have to wait until the Full length One gets to the theatre outside and the music starts before starting this real one as there seems to be a NO NO NO when it comes to the full length MJ one on youtube....

QUARIUM!!!

We went to the Aquarium today and got soaked as it was POURING down and we took the bus. We took it in to Stanley park and then walked over to the aquarium, by the time we got there we were already noticeably wet. It's still pouring out now but we are home and safe.

There was a period of time where Kate's purse rode the bus to and from Metrotown mall, luckily the driver had it and he returned it to Kate when he came back. We were waiting about at the stop for the specific bus to show up as Sebastian had been reading the bus number on the way down so we knew it off the top of our heads.

We had a nice picnic lunch there (at the bus stop) and enjoyed the fresh air of the park while waiting. Luckily the buses coming in to the park are all electric so there is low pollution.

Got the purse back and went back to the Aquarium to see the Whales. and Sea Otters

Then back on the bus and home again. Too bad we forgot the camera.

We're going to Disneyland...

Not really. Really we're just going to Seattle.

However this is the 6th year in a row where I have taken a company paid Summer vacation out of town. I'm getting really good at this.

Well it came about like this... I wanted to get Apple Server training so I could take the server essentials test and combine the certification with my ACHDS certification to become an ACTC (Apple Certified Technical Coordinator.) So I asked my group to get me in to the training course and was told no dice. There was no money in our training budget this year to pay the $2000USD for me to go take the course. Well, it got mentioned to the COO of MY studio (and we HAVE money - lots of it) and in a meeting he approved it.

Now I checked with Apple and they are not offering this course in western Canada until October or later so I asked if I could fly to Montreal to take it. No Dice. Montreal Jazz festival is on and it was WAYYY to pricey. I thought I was out of luck at this point but my COO suggested California or Seattle instead. SWEET! Well anyway... San Diego was an option but instead I opted for Driving to the Seattle course and dragging Kate and Seb along with me. So that's that... I get my training AND a holiday.

If only I could have gotten him to go for the one in Honolulu on my Birthday in July.... hahahaah

Images

War in the living room

Seems the man 'Faithless' may be losing sleep again but this time over a different stress. Great video, good song awful to think how long this war has been going on.

21 years of computing: Zero Advances in Productivy

A must read for anyone who needs the latest and greatest computer.

Me + 26 = yum

+26 Degrees that is.....

It is so OMG nice outside today (well for the last week) and it feels great (although almost too hot). We went to the Vancouver Landfill today for their open house day. We took a tour of the back 40 (the dump area) and saw all the current and future areas to be developed. The showed up that from the place they started the are going up 39 vertical metres before they stop using the area and the system is still available for another 32 years.

They showed up the falcons and eagles they use to keep away seagulls and the well system for drainage and gas collection for powering greenhouses and returning electricity to the grid. We got Veggie dogs from their free lunch and were facepainted and Sebastian even got to hang out in their big sandbox.

We had a great time there today. THEN we came home and had some lunch and filled up Sebastian's pool outside. He hopped on in and had at least two hours of fun till I noticed he was blue and brought him inside to warm up and watch sesame street.

Now we are going over to Brian and Shannon's to play some games and hang out for a little while. Should add even more fun to today.

People just won't believe me.

yell and you shall recieve?

Well I don't get angry much and I especially don't get vocal about it but I really got in to it with Purolator today. A laptop that I ordered was supposed to arrive on Monday and didn't... Puro says oh it'll be there by Friday. On Wednesday I see that it's on delivery and get excited... Nothing. I call them and they have address problems. Aparently Apple didn't put my suite number on the package and even though it says Andrew Forsyth - company name on it the driver who brought a bunch of other stuff up to here didn't think that it could go there. So anyway, I correct the address... Apples fault really. Puro gives me a confirmation number and says it'll get delivered tomorrow. So Thursday rolls round and no Puro guy and the system is still spouting off that it needs address confirmation. So I call in and ask WTF is going on?

Well the guy on the line says that the package didn't get the address correction and now that they had tried twice to deliver it that I would either have to go get it myself or pay $32 to get it delivered. This is when I flipped out and got ahold of someone who promised me everything would be ok... I mentioned how tempting it was to move all my business to Fed Ex and the package somehow got driven over to me.

So now, I have said Macbook and all is good. Kate is on the powerbook beside me blogging too which is kinda funny.

Now for the techno part

Here is some really cool stuff I was looking at today.



and if you haven't seen this already it's pretty cool too.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/04/16/intel_catwalks_concept_pc/

bloogin outside, oh yeah.

Well I am sitting outside, Sebastian is playing with trains, cars, trucks and boats in the sandbox beside me and Kate is taking a little nap before going out for dinner with her friend Shannon.

We had a baby ultrasound today and hoped to find out the sex of the new little one. Alas it did the same thing that Sebastian did and keep it's little legs shut tight and we couldn't tell. We saw the heart beat (and heard) and saw arms hands legs and feet as well as the Head. It was nice, I was very happy to see the little one in there and that everything was doing fine. I still get a girl vibe.

Who knows really, beans can sprout in many ways.

OPEN YOUR FUCKING EARS!!!!

Or as Sebastian likes to say just... fuckin earzzzz

So I messed this one up. yup. Said it out loud and now it's a favorite. bah.

Went to Spanish Banks beach today after work with Burritos and some chips n salsa. Had a nice time and was reminded YET again of why we moved here.

Doing Yoga now and really loving the refreshed feel my body has after the stretching, opefully I will be able to keep doing it as it has helped my body stress reduce. My mental stress has gone down a lot lately and I feel almost like someone who has given up a drug. My mind is clearer and I can think through problems easier, I feel more alive when I am at work or at home and my energy is up which is weird considering I am doing more active thing.... oh wait... now I get it. cool.

F9 where have you been all my life?

I have discovered what a joy the F9 key can bring me on a MAC. It's beautiful.

it's cold a blustery outside and I am wrapped up like a cinamon bun in my duvet writing this. It's a nice feeling being all warm and safe like this.

I am loving work. Loving it. Turning my blackberry off and leaving at 4 is the best thing ever. Who would have thought that going home on time could boost a persons morale so much?

Time Warped post

This is an insert for some pictures of a wonderful day trip we took to White Rock.

it's a go

I have had quite a day.

I started therapy. I went and saw Dr Benno today and had an interesting hour with him where we explored some of what has been bothering me. I was so apprehensive to go to this all day and spent most of my time awake thinking about what I would end up talking about. Turns out one of my biggest problems is work.

I also went and wrote my Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist test today and passed. woot! So I now have my level 1 certification with Apple. It's great, it's the first piece of formal education with a certification I have gotten since.... well. .... ever. First school since high school.

that's really all I had to say right now tho. so.....

What Doesn't Happen?

Well I am digging work in new ways lately. I have gotten back on top of the ticket queue and I am able to get other work done. My work ethic has improved and I am taking charge of situations to make the place work for me. Sometimes this involves circumventing my lead and sometimes not but either way it makes work a good place.

I found out today that I lost 9 hours of banked time because we just don't do that anymore. Well pissed off as I am about that I am kinda ok with it. I know that I helped people and I got recognition by those involved that I made that effort and people (I hope) will remember this down the road.

I am creating a document for training my coworker on MAC's and it was alot of fun to do the first part today. It looks pretty good and I think that it will help get the system running well for him. The more that he understands the easier it will be in the future when I want to move on or leave.

I am also taking charge of my work and getting things done before they need to be. this is letting me have the confidence that jobs will be completed on time and without stress because... well because they are done ahead of the deadline... and when things like today (a user asked for a new hires machine to be setup today and they don't start till wednesday) I was able to because I worked on that system last week. So yay. I got something done AND I get to be a hero to that user because their expectation of waiting another 2 days was given instant gratification. Woot~!

I mean really the easiest way to make people happy in a job like mine is to just over preform but be able to set the limits and say No when it needs to be said. The minute that people start to take advantage of the situation is when it needs to be shut down. As long as that relationship is maintained then I win.

Let's see how long that lasts.

Ahh sweetness

Today, Today, Today

We are moving today....

It's crazy... I got the place ripped apart... there is still tons of work to be done around here but until all the moveable stuff is out that door I can't even think of what needs to be done... lots around here for sale that needs to get moved out but right now is just in the way.

I think once we move all the stuff out of here then it will look almost empty and the feeling that there is a million things to do will subside. Really though... I am sure that the next 15 days we have to get shit done round here will be filled with stress... we even have to paint the place in the end. at least there is no carpet.

Ah well it'll all be worth it right? The new place is a 2 bedroom and Seb has been sleeping in the empty bedroom by himself the last few nights... He got up and came in to our bed (which was in the living room) both nights at about 2 / 3 am and neither of us even noticed him show up. So as long as we can start waking up and taking him back to his own room then we can start to enforce that he needs to sleep in there.

Should be fun fun fun. Moving truck should be here any minute so I am out.

OMG WTF BBQ

You heard me.

Why do you need an excue when there are so many reasons?

Well that's that.

I can not eat meat anymore.

I have read and watched some horrible yet mostly mild things over the last day and apparently I have been quite receptive because I can not even think about eating meat without feeling sick. Not over the taste or anything but over what the animals had to go through to get that meat on to my table.

I've always known. But it never really mattered. I never let myself believe that things were all that bad. That everything that people talked about and told me about could actually be allowed to happen in our world. Now I know. Now I have seen it and I am disgusted. Horribly disgusted with the way it all works.

I have never been for a 'cause' or anything, I have floated along on anti-war and ethical treatment but have never actually felt that it was right.

I used to have a Math teacher that said "you know it in your BONES" Of course he was talking about how you'd have to be retarded to not understand the basics of polygonal math or something but....

I know it in my BONES. If I was crammed in a feed lot, cage or pen... never allowed to be free, never allowed to just be what hundreds of years of built in instinct are telling me to be. Fed, Drugged jammed in a truck being scorched or frozen for 500 miles in the open air.... It wouldn't matter if I was a cow, a bird or a human... I'd still be scared out of my mind when I was hung upside down to have my throat cut.

And when the blade missed? Or didn't do it right? When I was dunked in to boiling water to rid me of my pesky feather or had my legs cut off and stomach split open while I was still alive?

fucking terrified.

I can't do it. Never again. Their suffering isn't worth my taste buds.

Just an additive.

Realistically it all boils down to sharing.

It is all about not segregating duties and sharing them instead. I did some laundry the other day, and it made me feel much much better about Kate doing laundry a few days later. She really just picked up where I had to leave off. I did some dishes, she had put some away. I had cleaned a diaper but not yet rinsed it and she rinsed it for me. She made dinner and I put toys away. I had never really seen life like this happening before my eyes… I just realized that as long as we are both helping out in whatever way we can the house runs smoothly and it’s clean.

Overall I want us to have a great place to live in and I would love it if we didn’t even have to think about the way its upkeep happens… if we just went about our days doing all the things we do and in the end of things the house was back together it would be perfect. Although, perfect never happens so we’ll have to just keep on trying.

Work work work…. What can I say about work that hasn’t been said?

Well, my MAC work has been heating up… the guys are piling on more and more issues and I am battling them the best I can. I think I am going to have to devote an hour or so a day to doing reading on the MAC forums and such so I can stay abreast of some of the more common issues. Also so I can learn the fixes of old issues… like I know now with XP and such. Really this is pretty tough… learning a whole new operating system, a whole new hardware system and on top of that learning all the tips, tricks and roundabouts on how to do things both competently and with ease.

I know that both will come with time but my main issue is that work expects me to take care of these problems ready or not.

I put together a quality email today that explained how I am going ahead with server maintenance on the Apple Audio server we have regardless of how much I know because it needs to be fixed. The issues need to be addressed and if I am not going to dive in headfirst and start to figure out the problems then who is? WHO I ask you, who?! No one. That’s who.

So sink or swim it’s up to me, I enlisted the help of one of our infrastructure guys and he is going to test some of the network issues and try to help out on the back end of things. I’m really glad, this is a big deal for the audio guys and I. Fingers Crossed here.

So I guess we’ll see where that ends up. On Friday and I take over my new luxury condo cube by the window and with the couch. YAY. Looking forward to that for sure. New Guy comes in to work a week Monday and I am excited about him being down here. He’s a great guy and I think that we will help each other out a lot.

Our Moving:

Well we are working towards a new place…. I am looking at a nice little house in a great spot for us… We view it on Sunday and with luck we can rent it out and move in ASAP (y’know, providing it’s not a hole) Fenced yard, 800sq feet, with 2 bdrms, kitchen, dinning room and living room. So with luck it’ll be nice and they’ll like us enough to hold it for a little while. Not likely in the market I live in but it’s worth a shot. Who knows maybe I can sell all my records and turntables, make $2500 and we’ll rent both places for a month. We’ve done it before that’s for sure. So again, fingers crossed here.

Ongoing - ongoes

Here I am writing an entry on my new Macbook on the train today, I have a lot on my mind. Helping out at home more, looking after my pregnant wife, taking care of my customers at work and keeping the peace between two guys I work with long enough to get something done.


Home life is troublesome lately. It’s not that Kate and I aren’t getting along, and it’s not that we are fighting a lot. It’s just the thing we fight over. I say thing because it seems to be a constant issue. It’s me. My amount of help around the house and the lack of stuff I do to make it a better place to live in. How I don’t take the same initiatives to do things around there that I did when Kate was pregnant with Sebastian and how I am lacking on the duties that I regularly take care of (eg: Dishes). Now while I protest any attack on me and dishes, since I am almost always consistent about doing them and although I let it slide on the weekends I rarely ever forget or don’t have time to do them in the morning. When I do miss them however it’s the end of the world.

I can’t really argue this point though. I know in my heart of hearts that I am wronging Kate in the way I treat our house. I never feel at home in apartments, I think that has a small something to do with it. It seems that when we are in a house of our own I am dynamite dan around the place but when we get in to an apartment I am mopey and lagging on the duties of Dad and Husband.

I sat down and had an indepth conversation with myself on the train on the way to work today and decided that I am going to take new initiatives to make a better life for myself and for Kate. I will try to do this consistently instead of just a few days worth and then lagging out again. I made myself a sheet that I am still working on to outline what I need to do and when I am going to do it. I won’t let time get in my way because I am setting aside certain sections of the day just to do these things. Like doing dishes between 7 and 8, making my lunch for the next day between 8 and 9 and so on. I really hope this helps me because I loathe daytimers and have a very hard time sticking to a schedule of events that isn’t when I begin and end work.

We’ll see though…. One of the things I am going to do is use this laptop to track my activities and the things I did both during the day and the nights before hand. I hope that this constant tool (that I also consider pretty cool to be using here at the back of the train) will help out significantly. We’ll see.

Now that I've posted it.... I've made food for the next few days for lunch so I do not spend money... is that a start?

Ulitmately, let down.

My studio had it's bi-annual studio update meeting today. We held it at the CN IMAX Theatre at Paciffic Place. Nice venue, I mean IMAX screen, how could you go wrong?!

Well there's a great many ways you can go wrong....

1) Not tell IT what you are presenting untill 2 days before the meeting
2) Not tell IT in what format you are presenting
3) CHANGE your format 1 hour before the presentation
4) Not communicate with IT at all over the lead up to the presentation

Guess what? My company did all the above and it was a disaster. One IP didn't get to present any of their videos, one only got half their videos and as someone who was there watching the whole thing... it made both IT and the studio out to be a bunch of idiots.

The bad part is now the powers that be will try to make IT out as the bad guys in this situation because as far as they can see their footage worked at their desks and in their presentations elsewhere. My lead is probably going to take a lashing over the affair and all in all the blame may or may not land completely on us. Probably will though.

Sebastian doesn't want to go to sleep tonight. I was in the bedroom with him for 45 minutes and now Kate is in there and I am still hearing screaming. I'm out because someone is supposed to be here picking up aa 'for sale' item from me... but as yet... he just got here.

till later internet.

How could I forget the PSA????

This is Sebastian in his first "TV" appearance.

New Friends

We've gone out a few times now with this other family that has a cute little girl around 14 months old. Turns out her parents are awesome.

Jeff the Dad is a software engineer (programmer) and has pretty much all my interests and a very similar sense of humor. Kristi is a crafty girl and a real hoot all around. She's got these great braids and the bridge of her nose pierced.

Well we went for a walk in the park, we've gone for coffee twice and we went there for dinner on Saturday night.... They can cook, they have great conversation, their kid is great. I think Kate and I are in new friend heaven.

We needed BADLY to get out of the house yesterday, we were fighting and there was a general crappy feeling here. So Kate convinced me to go out, we got a burger and drove to Granville Island. On the way I was thinking about how it kinda sucked that it would be a while till we saw these cats again. However, as we were walking along, there in front of us was Jeff, Kristi and Imani. So we got to spend an impromptu afternoon with them and lo and behold, even with no mental preperation or forethough we all had a great time again!

So yeah, after 2 years of dealing with our friends that have no kids... this is great!

If life is a bitch...

...then when's the high quality make up sex gonna get here?

Although I doubt that life would let me stick it to it like it does to us... I do think that the fight has ended in a way.

This isn't to say that I gave up or anything like that but a number of truths have finally been accepted by me and now I feel that it's important to do everything I can to take these truths down to myth town.

1. I am depressed.
2. My relationship with my best friend and wife is strained.
3. I am distant from everyone I know because I am afraid of who I think I am.
4. Accepting that there is something wrong with me is the hardest thing ever.

My family has always been one that kept it's secrets. We never mentioned things like mental health or depression or even problems in marriage for that matter. My parents were always happy and together. Looking back I see that my parents have a distant relationship and they were always at arms length of one another. However, that said they are also very close and know more about one another than I do with Kate.

No one in my family has ever been depressed. Except my mom after a number of miscarriages before I was born and some post-partum depression after both me and my brother. Other than these instances everyone has been hunky-dory. I call bullshit.

My brother went through a long period of time where he was obviously having troubles and the whole family went through counselling that got us somewhere. I think I blocked this memeory... I used to throw up when we went to these sessions...

Speaking of blocking memories. I realize regularily that my memories of my childhood are very limited.... I can't remember events or details. I have trouble thinking about how my upbringing went along and what sort of things I was involved in.

For example. I know I was in soccer.... I don't remember anything about it though. I know I was in track and field.. nothing. I know I was in cubs and went to camps and such but I don't remember anything about it.... It feels like I am missing something, something important and something that I should have full memory of.

I wonder if other people have this problem or if something happened and I am blocking this. Also I have had several (3 or 4) large blows to my head that have knocked me unconscience in the past. I got hit in the back of the head with a dumpster lid (age 23). I fell down the stairs while moving in to my new house and was out for 45mins (age 27). I fell off my bike and had a concussion when I was somewhere near 10? So maybe these things have something to do with it?

Anyway, lately I have been really down in the dumps and my relationships all over have suffered for it. My family and my friends have been treated poorly by me for no reason and I have let people down in excess while doing everything in my power to please other that mean nothing to me or my life.

I have bad feelings about my self and how I see myself in this world. Negative dark issues with myself that affect how I deal with other becasue of how I think they see me. I know that I am projecting the opinions of myself on to others and that most of the time it's not how I am viewed but.....

Anyway, bordering on the longest entry I have ever made, I need to get some work done... so till later.... watch the indian version of THRILLER....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbvP7dT3Dx0&mode=related&search=

habberkazabber

So much stuff going on. Big network project at work that has me wrapped up in wiring and designing and troubleshooting... lots of fun though... better than sitting at desks.

Sebastian just got a new haircut and looks really cute but he also looks really different. To look at him you need to focus to know he's Sebastian.... he's no longer the mop topped kid. Looking at him right now while I scratch my head I realize I also need a haircut.



We just got Sebastian a bowling set and a Doctors kit. The Doctor kit has most of the same stuff as mine did when I was a kid. Lots of fun there. Now I just need to wait till he starts trying to fix Kate and I.

Anyway I am going to go make some coffee.

I've had these forever but never knew what to do with them.

So.....

A big ass rock.

And this is what they gave me....