I h@te iTunes somedays

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

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

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

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

Hackintosh

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

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?

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

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??

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

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


That is all.

Unemployment Week 3

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

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.

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

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.

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....

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.

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

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

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

Long Time no Post

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.