Vancouver

Pink.

2007-04-09T20:29:00.000-07:00

I love introducing my cat. This is Pink. Not fluffy, snowball, mittens, boots or kitty.

Pink.

She is not pink. She does have a pink tongue, however she was not named after the colour of her tongue. She is black. Pink does have one white spot on her chest. Oh, and about 5 (maybe 6) white hairs sticking out of her chin.

Pink is not cuddly. Pink appreciates acknowledgment, but not attention. She will bite. Pink bites because she cannot scratch. She still "scratches" things though, she likes anything with a rough nylon texture: backpacks, suitcases, bags, etc. She will occasionally play with a bag, box or laundry basket. She loves to be trapped by the laundry basket. She will comfortably settle in to a laundry basket cage. Maybe she wants to be a cage fighter? That might explain the biting.

Pink has a very uninteresting home life. She sleeps. When she wakes up, she eats. After she is done eating she sleeps in the living room some more. Then she eats. When Dori and I come home, she acknowledges us, eats and watches us. Then she eats and comes to bed with us. Sometime in the middle of the night she wakes up and eats. Then comes back to bed. In the morning she eats again. I think I missed a couple of meals in there. Pink eats 8 times a day.

We first bought Pink an automatic feeder 4 years ago. This was in desperation because even though we consistently fed Pink twice a day, she always woke Dori in the morning. I guess she was never sure if we were going to feed her that day. Her first feeder was like a wind up toy. There was a winder that lasted 36 hours. Over the course of a day it would rotate a lid, revealing a fresh food dish four times.

We thought this would provide four satisfying meals, but we left out the Pink factor. We started by filling all four dishes and letting it go. We suddenly realised that as soon as the next food dish was even slightly open, Pink would jam her little black paw into the crack and fish out food. Thus began the three-times-a-day battle of Pink vs. Food Dispenser. Food Dispenser had no chance. Pink has hyperthyroidism, which causes her to have an unsatiable appetite. This appetite meant that, at all costs, Pink would wear down Food Dispenser until she was able to get even just one piece of cat food.

Pink's unsatiable appetite was why she weighed so much. In her early pre-diagnosis years she ate as much food as she could. At one point, we shaved her back, because she was too big to clean herself. Once we removed her back fur dreads, she started her first diet. This was just before Dori moved, with Pink, to attend university.

When Dori and I started dating I had no idea I would be living with Pink. When I first met her she would not come out from under the bed... unless there was food... but only briefly. It was a tentative relationship, we understood that we had to live together, but weren't sure we wanted to. After years of yelling at Pink to get out of the garbage (she was always looking for food), we moved to Vancouver. This was probably the official start of the Dori, Pink and Dustin family. We all agreed to move. Well, at least I never heard Pink say she didn't want to.

The transistion to Vancouver was easy for Pink, though the move was not. She never left her litter box in the three days we drove across the western US. We even rented a hotel room so she could have a quiet night of sleep. Vancouver seemed to be good for Pink, as 4th avenue kept her busy in the window during the day and she loved the smell of the Vancouver spring.

After we moved from 4th avenue, we bought her a computerized feeder. This had a special timer with 8 programmable feeding times. A little research on the net revealed that cats should eat more often then not, so we calibrated the timing such that she would get a half a cup of cat food in a 24 hour period. Thus began the second war between Pink and Food Dispenser Version 2.

Food Dispenser Version 2 was much more clever. It could not be pried open an hour before it was scheduled to feed. No, Food Dispenser Version 2 was state-of-the-art. It had an auger that would run for 8 seconds, long enough to dispense just the right amount. Every three hours it would come on for 8 seconds, turn and dispense. The sound of the motor coming on was like a race gun. Pink would leap from deep sleep and slide across the floor to be there in time for the meal.

Not content to wait for her next meal, Pink would begin "digging" at the mouth of Food Dispenser Version 2 for just a little bit more. She usually won. But Food Dispenser Version 2 was smart. This meant the next time the motor came on no food would come out. She had eaten the next meal already. Food Dispenser Version 2 didn't care, it kept Pink in check. She ate her half a cup of food a day, and that was that.

I don't know if it was Pink repenting, or just old age making her soft, but she got nicer. She began to greet company, allow the occasional touch and she didn't bite me nearly as often. She never resolved her diffferences with Food Dispeser Version 2, but she did come to appreciate her human companions.

When her hyperthyroidism finally advanced three weeks ago she began to get lethargic. Well, nervous lethargy. When she had the energy she would pace about the house, but after lodging herself into narrow spaces she would get exhausted and sleep. For some reason her reverse gear stopped working. She would walk behind something, often a space she wouldn't fit in and just keep pushing. She would not stop and back out. It made for a stressful few weeks. We knew she didn't have much time, but she would cycle from what appeared to be near death to a happy smiling cat. We considered the options, but she seemed grateful for the care and attention.

On Sunday at 8:30 AM I awoke to a wheezing Pink. She was having trouble breathing and I didn't know what to do. I tried to comfort her. I tried to help her breath easier, but something had changed. I don't know when it happened. I thought she had worked through the breathing trouble, but the last cough could have been the moment. I didn't actually think she had died. I moved her to the living room and tried to comfort her. Not getting much of a response I grabbed our stethoscope. I couldn't hear a heartbeat, but I thought maybe I had it in a bad spot, or it was very slow and quiet.

I finally realized she had died at 8:50 AM. She hadn't moved. She wasn't breathing. Her eyes were still open and full of life, but her life was gone. Dori was away, and throughout the day I kept checking on Pink, wondering. I closed her eyes and continued to check on her.

I made a coffin. Pink deserved it. I bought a shovel and dug a grave in our backyard. When Dori got home we hugged and sat with Pink. The next day we buried Pink with her favourite blanket and a picture of us.

I miss you Pink.

Rain or shine

2006-12-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm finally home. I had a bit of wet bus ride home. Walked back from the climbing gym in a fairly serious Vancouver rain. Not by 50 metres out of the gym I splashed into a big puddle, twice. But finally being home now I kinda enjoyed it. Not sure why, but it felt childish, free of guilt. A little wet, it'll all dry and it was kinda fun. Kinda. The rainy season has started. Four more months of this before the weather turns to the light rainy season.

Sunday, sweet Sunday

2006-12-03T23:41:00.000-08:00

If I am going to start blogging again, I thought I'd start on a positive note. I'm working on an old project I did a long time ago to read GPS files into a format I could use to print out on top of maps. I used to host a site where all my hiking trips were overlaid on a map of the area. Unfortunately, whenI got to Canada I discovered that all the maps here must be bought. Because I'm cheap my code went into bit-rot. Lately, I've been working in Python and I love the language, but I figured I'd "spruce" up my old program and sharpen my C/C++ skills.

It has been fun, but frustrating. I forget just how verbose C is. How many pitfalls. How unreadable. It isn't all bad, but somewhat intimidating when I pick it up again after 5 years.

However, that wasn't really the point of this entry. It was Sunday, I had a great relaxing morning and then headed over to Duane's for a code review and a movie. After a casual review Duane pulls out the big guns.... Dorito based nachos. Probably a developer's worst enemy, but *oh* *my* *god*. So we dropped the code and watched the ORIGINAL Superman II. This is the version that Richard Donner orginally filmed, but was never released. Apparently the movie studios didn't want to pay him for his huge success with Superman. He got dumped and the new guy wanted director's credit so he redid the whole film. Now I'm not a big fan of Superman, but I was really impressed at how Donner's Superman II aged. It was still a solid story with good acting. The comedy was great and the violence was tame. Check it out, it was only released to DVD not to theatre, but should be rentable.

To top off a great day I found out my good friend Chris is defending! Duane, Chris and I all started school at the same time and we all had the same difficulty getting from start to finish. There is always "more work" to be done and at some point the student has to just stand their ground and say I'm finished. Well congrats to Chris, Duane and me for finishing! It has been a cool year seeing my buds getting their master's degrees.

Happy Sunday!

Winter is here.

2006-11-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

Wow this is like blogging all over again:

Start a blog.
Make an initial post about the weather.
Blather about some else.
Don't post for another two months.

For what it is worth. It has snowed 101 cms on my favourite ski hill. My company stopped paying me. I can't afford a ski pass. It's the ski pass that really hurts.

Ozland!

2006-09-15T23:10:00.000-07:00

Well it is almost week 2 in Australia for Dori and I and we are still amazed by the sights and wonders. We started our trip two Mondays ago by landing in Melbourne where we picked up our cool toyota yaris that we hired. Next it was off to Torquay for the first leg of our trip. This was the first surf stop, where we bought new wetsuits and launched our Novice Australian Surf Tour. The water was around 13 degrees and the air was about 13 degrees. Not too bad, but not exactly exciting either. We had a great time and checked out the Bells Beach Surf Competition.

The next step was to surf/camp our way up the coast. We stopped in all the little surf towns like Anglesea, Lorne, Warrnambool and Port Fairy. We didn't spend a lot of time surfing as it takes a lot of energy to cook breaky, tear down camp and face the cold wet wind. We did enjoy the turquoise waters and wonderful sandy beach breaks. I enjoyed Anglesea the most for a surf town, it had both a nice feel and a central location to some great surf spots.

I'm fairly certain we picked an ideal time to tour. The was no one around, schools were still in session and the weather was fair to nice. Any later in the season and I imagine it gets to be a little like feeding time at the zoo (aussie saying, check it out). The driving was interesting. Two main skills we needed. Remembering where traffic would be coming from and how to navigate two lane roundabouts. I had a couple of minor oopsies as I pulled out, but they were on empty roads where I had no point of reference and forgot where I was. The other sticky bit was the two lane roundabouts. It is a bit nervy to come blasting around a circle at 40kph when you're realy not sure where you're going. I finally figured out that the inside circle gets to go straight through, right or a u-turn, while the left hand lane gets to go left or straight thru. All in all it has been a good time with the driving on the left being quite natural.

After we left the coast we headed north into the arid regions of Australia. Not quite the outback, but definitely a bit remote. There were towns every 25k, so it didn't feel completely alone. After we passed through the Coonawarra wine country we camped in the bush. This was the most beautiful campsite I've been at. We were the only ones there. Well aside from the emus, at least I think that's what left that massive dropping... The amazing part was night. There were no sounds. Nothing. No crickets. No birds. Just silence. It was like being in a cave. We had a great sleep and discovered that we could see the wolf spiders at night. The wolf spider eyes were so big that they reflected like diamonds in our headlamps. You could see them everywhere in the sand.

The next day we pulled into Mildura, which is in another section of wine country. This area is heavily irrigated, and it grows a large portion of Australia's fresh fruit. The orange trees were everywhere! We even saw a *bag* of avocados for $2.00! We booked into the Grand Hotel, which is, well, grand! It was the most amazing package deal. Dinner for two by a famous Ozzie chef named Stefano, luxurious room with a balcony over the heated pool, followed by a gourmet picnic basket the next day. After we enjoyed the picnic basket on the river, we started the next day with a huge breakfast buffet. Back bacon, fried spinach, mushrooms, fried tomatoes, poached eggs and sultana toast. It was amazing! Today we enjoyed the complimentary coffees and we're head to the brewery tours next before we eat the the gourmet pizza shop (once again, all this was included in the package).

Tomorrows plan is to try and catch some yabbies and cook 'em up before we go to Wolf Mail and then the Grampians to begin climbing. If you're yearning for some great Aussie sports, catch the finals game of the AFL footy tourney. What an amazing game! These guys are animals. We've been loosely following them and I have to say I'm impressed by the sport.

Seattle

2006-08-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

So I like Seattle. As a town it is great. As a home? Well, I don't know. But I had a great weekend there.

I went into the wayback music time machine to 1988. This is when grunge was cool and I was a kid. Nirvana was still on Sub Pop and Mudhoney was trying to destroy that guitar sound. So I picked up these great finds:

Sub Pop 200

A find Mudhoney album

and a sweet promo album with this great artist

It was such a cool thing to revive the grunge scene.

Rock on Seattle.

Themes

2006-05-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

What is it about genres, themes and patterns? We are the strangest paradox -- we like the same thing different. If you like heavy metal music you don't want anyone to change the genre, but you want new music every time. So which is it? Different? Or Same? I went to a talk on Software development and managment. One point was that the most common solution to a problem is the reuse of the same solution from the past.

Just the man pushing you down

2006-03-19T17:26:00.000-08:00

So where do I begin? It's been a busy month at work. Two weeks ago I chalked up a sweet 80 hour week and finished it off by losing my wallet. Seems that being sleep deprived makes a person less likely to remember their previous actions. So for a week I mourned the loss of my wallet and of course cancelled all my credit cards. Apparently I made up with Karma and as I was waiting for Dori to drive us up to the ski hill I looked up and discovered my wallet. I had tucked it into the sun visor, because, well, I have no clue why.

Over the course of the last month my pickup has also been acting up. It decided to not start one morning. Turns out that the positive battery cable that I put on 2 years ago wasn't tight enough. Now after years of Vancouver moisture it was corroded and the battery was not getting charged.

Normally this is a trivial job, and I don't mind doing easy car work. I also like to do it "proper". Meaning if the parts aren't expensive then replace them with new. So I had every intention of replacing both the negative and positive cables with brand new cables and putting the battery through a good overnight charge. Instead, the battery cables are stripped do to corrosion and apparently a misuse of force that last time I changed the battery. So I replace the offending positive cable and get a 8 hour charge on the battery.

With a bit of success, I felt like I had overcome adversity and my pickup was back to a healthy state. Alas, three days ago Dori attempts to start the pickup and the battery is drained. Apparently something is keeping the battery from charging. The alternator? The heavily corroded negative cable I couldn't get off? A bad battery?

Not having time to take care of this problem during the week I waited until Sunday to fix it. After nursing a St. Patty's day hangover on Saturday my friend Duane convinced me that the "hair of the dog" was in order. So after a few beers and a Domino's pizza Sunday morning arrived. Having been a light night of drinking compared to Friday I bounded out of bed at 8am to fix the pickup. Duane and I headed of with tools and a hacksaw through the streets of Kits to find my pickup. Thinking that Dori had driven it last, I assumed she had found parking on a different block. Not having found the pickup after a walk around the two closest blocks, Duane and I jumped in his car to start looking. After doing a 2 block radial sweep I determined that I no longer had a pickup.

Dejected, I went home and released Duane from his mechanic duties. I decided that I was going to have to wait until Dori got back from her trip to find out where the pickup was. A few thoughts later and I decided the more likely case was that the pickup got towed. After a depressing call to the city impound lot I found the pickup.

St. Patty's day out: $150
Pizza with Duane: $22
Parking within 6 meters of a sidewalk: $40
New battery cable and battery: $157
Towing fee and 3 days of storage: $76

Memories of 2006 St. Patty's weekend: $445

The Sutus Solution

2006-03-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

Is a lot of a hours for their developers.

Well, actually it's a clever small business product that provides integrated information technology and premium ease of use. Telephones and internet come out of the box working and email, telephone extensions and a free domain name come from a simple 6 screen setup (optional). It's a great system. But it has been the source of many hours of work for many people in the last 2 weeks.

Aside from work, my wife and I have entered yuppie-dom. We now have a groceries delivered to us every week. A fine selection of organic produce selected from local growers. It's a local company called SPUD and they are a lot more then just organic food. They choose local growers, which supports small farm operations and minimizes the time our food sits inthe back of a semi-truck. It also provides us with seasonal variety, which livens up our lives with tasty foods that we might not have bought otherwise. In addition it provides a warehouse solution for food, which still promotes jobs, but reduces the need to build a big grocery store with a parking lot. Cool stuff!!

Don't call us, we'll call you.

2006-02-05T09:45:00.000-08:00

The check is in the mail! I just sent the government $550 in order to beg them to let me into Canada. I'll probably hear back in a month if I can actually apply for permenant residence at the federal level. In the mean time I had to ask the province if they wanted me. If all goes ok I double the amount of paperwork, get poked and prodded, and mail off another $550. Assuming the government likes what they see I get to pay them $1050 just get a card that says I'm a permenant resident of Canada, but I can't vote.

Curling

2005-12-17T18:01:00.000-08:00

Tuesday night is novice curling night at the Marpole Curling Club. I did a clinic last Sunday and played a game on Tuesday. What a great game! So much fun. So now I have to go back and watch Men With Brooms again.

Hurry. Hard.

Dustin

The brain and the weather

2005-11-29T12:58:00.000-08:00

I've noticed that sophisticated bloggers rarely speak about the weather. While I wanted this to be a post about the weather I decided I better camoflauge it as a philsophical obeservation of life.

Why are we so interested in weather? Is it hardwired into the brain?

There are a lot of automatic responses that humans and other creatures have. Rats for example have a set of wiring that makes them run from cats if they smell cat smell. A rat doesn't have to be taught what a cat smells like, and it doesn't have to learn to run from a cat. It gets all this stuff at birth. So do humans have a born in fascination with weather? It seems reasonable because of the direct connection between weather and survival. I know I get really excited when it snows. I like snow. It's snowing right now. <--- that's all I really wanted to say.

Pictoral Representation

2005-11-25T20:24:00.000-08:00

Here it is, the proof is in the pictoral pudding. I spose I could have staged this picture, but I think I have some witnesses that will back me up on this one....

Thank you all for your gracious support. I would name names, but I would leave someone out then. In a lot of ways I don't know if there was hardly anyone that wasn't a supporter. Said in a different way:

Thank you, for being in my life.

Dustin

Ceremony

2005-11-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

Today is the day. Three years of hard work and one day to sum it all up. I'm getting my Master of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering today. The ceremony is at 11am.

It's so nice to have family in town for this event. My grandparents took my wife and I to a northern Italian restaurant dowtown. By far the nicest dining experience I've had. We all had a marvelous meal and a fine bottle of white wine from the province that my grandparents lived for a year. Just a fantastic time. I woke up this morning thinking about it and just remembering all the people involved in our table. The maitre'd was wonderfully friendly and took our coats and helped seat us. Then the drinks order from a nice waitress, but the host, specifically came to our table to pour the wine. Yet another waitress helped out making sure we had enough bread. It was a wonderfully slow flurry of action. We must have spent 2+ hours at the table eating and talking and drinking wine. Thanks!

DNS and other strange acronyms

2005-11-03T00:19:00.000-08:00

So it seems I've been having problems with my DNS servers -- they cache my blog and it doesn't get updated with all the posts that I've put up. Which reminds me: I know way too much about DNS and other crazy stuff that has to do with the Internet. You see at work we make software that is like the ultimate IT guy. This is the guy that works a a large organization; who lives in the basement next to his linux box; and knows *everything* about computers and is happy to explain it all to you. Even if you didn't want to know. All you wanted was to get a new work account.

So we are trying to write software that encapsulates this guys knowledge and hopefullt doesn't give you too hard of a time about your weak password - whichreminds me to remind you - user name: dustin password: dustin. IS a bad password. (Don't do it!) So anyway our box will do all that nifty work like email accounts and telephone extensions in a simple easy to use way -- that doesn't require a guy who still reads comic books and doesn't understand "normal" people.

BTW - I was kidding abut all the "posts" that didn't get updated, I'm just lazy. and I've been working. and we're moving. but mostly lazy tho.

We're moving!

2005-10-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to tell you where, but that's just because this is the internet. If anyone has ever posted their email address to a website, you know how much spam you get. I don't think an address will do the same, but whatever, I'm still not going to do it. I will however show you what it looks like. For those that know where we live - we've moved 5 blks east. We upped our rent and shrunk our place. Seems wrong?! The plus side is, quiet, sunny, and *big* backyard. We both like the city, but the noise is tough.

So if you don't get a email or note that tells you our new address -- don't take it personal!! Instead, chew us out for being so disorganized that we didn't get your name on our list (that way we can update our list!). We'll probably move around the 5th of November, and then, who knows maybe an eviction party? (You know the kind of party that *should* get you evicted, but since you're leaving anyway....)

Other big news includes the Pottery show in Issaquah for Dori. She'll be in Issaquah, Washington for the next week selling her beautiful new line of dinnerware.

Question: Is $21 too much for a CD? The local record store - Zulu Records - has an incredible place, all CDs are available to be previewed and cool atmosphere. But $21? Hmm. I guess interms of entertainment per dollar here's a rough estimate:

Movie: $7/hr (popcorn and ticket)
Book: $3/hr (8hrs reading for $24)
Bar: $7/hr (too tough to estimate, but approx. assuming $6 drinks/including tip)
CD: $1.40/hr (45 min CD listened to 20 times for $21)

These are really rough numbers, but on this list CD's are by far the cheapest forms of entertainment.

Thanksgiving

2005-10-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

We missed Thanksgiving this year. But not really. My cousin Leah is now a married woman. Chris Schwartz and his family welcomed Leah (and hopefully our family) into marriage. So we had our Thanksgiving meal on Friday in celebration of the event.

It was a nice trip back to SD. A lot of family and good times. My buds Chris Konvalin and James Brunsch even got a mention in the local paper: Memsense article

These guys make cool gyroscopes and accelerometers.

Speaking of Stink.

2005-09-26T23:27:00.000-07:00

Refer to the previous post about The Eels song - The Other Shoe. In fact, put that song on first and come back and finish reading this post.

It turns out there are scummy people out there who wait for domain names that have an established traffic base to expire and then steal them! Yep. Happened to Brad. His now defunct website that used to live at www.invisibleinkstudios.org has been stolen by a squatter! In fact, some other scummy person even sells lists of websites like Brad's : http://www.cheaphostingdirectory.com/expireddomainswithtraffic.html

So basically the story is: Brad never gets a reminder that his website account will expire, it expires, and someone steals it. Oh the stink.

Reprints, New Posts and what is up.

2005-09-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

So I don't like to circumvent my source for something cool, but not making the link to the original poster. But this is just too cool to not repost. NerdTV, brought to my attention by MutedNoise (refer to the links section), is some revolutionary PBS stuff. Not only is it licensed under Creative Commons (search mutednoise.com for some interesting discussions on this topic), but it finally brings into our living rooms (or headphones in the office) some of the people who have indirectly changed who we are. This show is all about the people who have founded the basic parts of technology that is now the cultural items of our everyday life.

Aas far as new posts go, I hate the pathetic disclaimer about being busy and not having time for posting. As if the 2 people that occasionally read my blog care, but I've been busy! Well, not really. Basically, my priorities for doing other things in life are higher then my blog. What does that statement say about my readers? Hmm. Ok, maybe that's why those lame excuse come to play, because I feel guilty for not keeping your plate full. Or maybe I'm just selfish and don't want to lose readership. Either way, I'm sorry. but I can't promise I won't do it again. Between work and an Indian summer life has been full. And fun. Last weekend was a relaxing make applesauce, visit my mom, go climbing and do some oyster shooters weekend. Last week was work till 8pm or go out on the town with friends week. So the blog shifted to low priority. Sorry readers. You know who you are. (wait, I wish I knew who you were...)

The last tidbit forthe night (or your morning, or lucnh break, or well, my tomorrow when I read over my blog vainly looking at my witty thoughts) is some lyrics from The Eels:

from www.songmeanings.net:

The Other Shoe

It's a beautiful morning
The sky is black as ink
The city is sleeping still
And soon they'll wake up to the stink
And soon they'll wake up to the stink of life
passing them by
Wake up and smell the stink of their lifes

The garbage trucks are coming
To take your shit to the dump
You're smelling pretty now
Such a pretty little lump
A pretty little lump of flesh who's lost your way
Another night, another day

And when you sleep at night
Dreaming of the pretty things
Don't be too surprised when the telephone rings

I'll be sitting here
Waiting for the other shoe to drop

So take it for what you get out of it,but I love this song. Speaks most of my own thoughts while I have been living in a city of 2 million. Or maybe even more to the point, when I was living next to Wal-Mart in a city of 75,000.

Using results from RIAA-Radar, I recommend that you buy this album second-hand because they have chosen to use a label which is a member of the RIAA. Please support the band in other ways besides album purchases (which, ultimately don't support the band).

However, DEFINITELY pick up a copy of The Decemberists - Picaresque, because not only is it RIAA safe, it is a fantastic album! (If you don't believe me, read the linked review!)

Waking Up Pt.2

2005-09-06T08:13:00.000-07:00

It is interesting to me that that the hardest part of my life has become waking up. It used to be doing my thesis. Now it's waking up. I'm not sure which is harder.... I also notice that I can wake up happy, grumpy or just groggy. I'mnot sure why, but this morning I woke up grumpy. Sorry Dori.

Issue, problem, solution

2005-09-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

Had a cool day yesterday. Just one of those days that I felt really good. While talking to one of my co-workers I had some ideas about these words:

"An issue is nebulous. It's a red flag. There could be a problem, but not necessarily."

"A problem is half the solution. If you have an accurate problem statement, the solution becomes nearly obvious."

"A solution is specific to a problem and the unspoken constraints. A designer of a solution naturally gravitates toward the solution that is 'comfortable'."

Also I hit the 240km mark today! I've ridden my bike 20 times to work this month!

School vs. Work

2005-08-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

It's been 3.5 years since I was last working. That's a long time. I had forgotten just how much time 8hrs a day is. It's not that 8hrs is long, but 1 hour to get ready + .5 hour commute + 1 hour lunch + .5 hour commute +8hrs is a long time. I usually am awak 16 hours, which means I only get 5 hours to myself, and most of that time is spent relaxing after my bike ride home and making dinner.

I don't want to make excuses about why I can't write in my blog, but... I'm just so suprised at just how less personal time I have in my life.

Changes

2005-08-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

I don't always look forward to season changes, but this year I do. I can't wait to snowboard. I'm working on the North Shore, which means I'm all that much closer to ski hills. I can't decide what kind of pass to buy. If I get the usual, it's one night a week and 7 times on any day. The one night a week is great, but what about when I'm at work and it's just snowed 20 cms?! I'll really want to be there. But the tradeoff is that means I would have to drive everyday to work to "be ready" for snow. That goes against what I've been working towards, which is getting in shape and psyched for commuting on my bike all winter. Hmmm. I've already decided that I should really pick one day a week to drive over to North Van and then snowboard that night. The other factor to consider is that on days it's likely to snow, I probably won't want to bike anyway (but I was going to take the bus).

The real dilemma is that driving from Kits to North Van stinks. Bad. Sitting in traffic. Dealing with traffic. Sitting in traffic. Crazy drivers. Sitting in traffic. Bleh.

Biking is awesome because I'm always moving. Even if it takes me longer (and it isn't that big of a difference 30min compared to 20 min for driving.) I still get the high from getting good solid exercise. Although today I got squeezed a little by a big truck. Pounded the crap out the side of it and I still don't think he heard me. He did when I passed him tho. No profanity, but I yelled a piece of my mind. It's funny. I think I was less mad and more scared.

So anyways. Do I buy a 1 night, 7 lift pass for $280 or a full privilege pass for $520?

I am the liquor

2005-08-19T01:44:00.000-07:00

Randy...

I am the liquor.

So we hada fanatastic night tonight. After a brutal round of bocche ball and beers we got home watched an episode of Trailer Park Boys ansd then I called my Dad and Step mom in Australia. It's wierd ya know. I never expected my dad to move to Australia.

The Horror

2005-08-17T22:02:00.000-07:00

There was a massive slaughter in Stanley park this morning. The recent rain brought out numerous slugs, which chose to cross the sidewalk. Unfortunately, few made it. Bicycles were largely to blame, either the sharp slice of a road bike tire or a the unescapeable crushing force of a mountain bike knobby.

Waking Up

2005-08-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

Waking up must truly be complex. When I was back in SD for the summer I would pop awake at around 7am most days, regardless of the nights activities. However, back home I'm grumpily getting out of bed at 7:30 or later. It could be the night time activities, but the biggest difference I notice is lack of sun. While I was traveling in SD, I slept in rooms (or a tent), which received a LOT of sun. I would tend to wake up with the sun beaming in. What a pleasant way to start the day! So Dori and I are looking for a new apartment and that is the criteria. It must have lots of sun. At least in the bedroom and at least in the morning.

Tasklist Fear Syndrome

2005-08-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

TFS has stuck again. TFS, or Task Fear Syndrome, is a condition that I named. The symptoms are anxiety, depression, anger, remorse, guilt and sadness. It is caused by avoiding important tasks that need to be done next. There may or may not be a written tasklist, but irrespective it is usually the "next" thing that needs to be done in life. The task is often one of two types:

1. A very large ambiguous task with no clear beginning, end or milemarkers. Common tasks are thesis, re/design projects, new ventures (like a business or lifestyle change).

2. SImple tasks that require an action which is emotionally uncomfortable. Common tasks are making certain phone calls (calling someone you are worried about what they think), paying bills (when it raises other financial issues), cleaning (when the stuff will reveal uncomfortable issues or when it's "not fair") and writing in your blog.

Yep, this is an emotionally challenging task for me. I'm always worried about what people think. A normal thing, but it causes me to avoid certain tasks. Since I've started working, I haven't written in my blog because I felt I didn't have anything "good" to say. The truth is that I was avoiding the task because I was afraid to stop and say something. Anything.

The last time I had a serious case of TFS was during my thesis. I would avoid the entire project because I was afraid of doing the "wrong" thing. The thing is, doing nothing was worse then doing the "wrong" thing. Often times the "wrong" thing is just a deviation from the optimal course. If we use the analogy of driving, the optimal path is the shortest path from the current location to the destination. The "wrong" thing in this case could be an error in driving through a wrong turn, or finding out that there was a shorter path. However, it is rarely the case when timing is so critical that losing a 15 minutes when driving will ruin your life. But, not driving at all guarentees that you wll never make it to the destination. So what's worse? A scenic route that makes you an hour late or not ever leaving?

This is the reasoning that I use to overcome TFS. When I'm confronted by a task that I don't want to do, I now evaluate the stakes and recognize that I have more to lose by doing nothing then taking a "Wrong" path. Moreover, I think back to other emotionally difficult tasks I have recently done and recognize that they were not nearly as difficult once I actually started "driving".

Week 1 down

2005-08-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

I made it through my first week. Here's the highlights:

I had to install Gentoo Linux. This is the first task they give you. It's turns out to be a task that kinda seperates those who can and can't. Gentoo is a tweakers Linux distribution. This means that the amount of gory details you have to wade through should not be legal. Apparently I did pretty well for speed. Possibly, one of the fastest installs yet for a new employee.

We also have a dart ladder. So in order to move up your dart ranking you must challenge the person about you ont he darts ladder. To be fair to the new employees everyone starts at the top. I managed to defend my top ranking position twice before being badly beaten the second time around. This means I now hold third place.

The coffee there is strong. Very strong. Wonderfully, soothingly strong. I like the coffee.

We're right next to Capliano Mall, so over the next year I predict that I will eat a large amount of mall food. Which in this case isn't too bad. There are a couple of chain restaurants, but the one I like is a mom&pop mediterranean place. Last week was spinach and feta lasagne with a cold chick pea and cilantro salad. Mmm.

I work with a great bunch of guys. A lot of them are quite senior, with people from Convedia, Trillium and Intel and the former-CEO of Infowave who was also vice-president of HP/Compaq. I think this company is going places! I hope. After my last startup experience I'm a little less positive....

Bait Cars

2005-08-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

Ok. this is just too much... www.baitcars.com heh. This is reality tv at it's finest.

So for those that don't know, BC has a program called IMPACT. The idea is that they setup cars around problem areas with video cameras, GPS locaters and remote engine disabler. So a theif steals a car and immediately the police are notified and dispatched. The camera inside films it and they post them on the above website. Wow. Talk about funny. Like the one where the girls get in and say, "I hope this isn't a fucking bait car." Heh. So she knows about it, but, heh, why not steal a car anyway?

Hope

2005-08-01T19:38:00.000-07:00

And I don't mean that in a abstract way. We actually went to Hope. Chris and Browyn invited us to spend the weekend with Chris's parents at their beautiful home in Hope, BC. So we spent a night in their guest cabin and then headed out to Manning Park. We chose to hike the Skyline II trail to Mowich camp for an overnight trip. What a fabulous trip! The alpine flowers were in bloom and the weather was superb. If you have never seen subalpine meadows in bloom, then it is a worthy destination. The only thing I would have done different is made time to visit Mt. Hozemeen in Washington. The views of it from the trail were spectacular. Here is a sample of one of the many flowers we saw. In the vista above, we hiked around to the backside of the mountain on the right. The trail to Mowich was about 12.5km of superb fun!

Anacortes

2005-07-29T01:18:00.000-07:00

Some friends of mine, Brad and Mel, are going to Washington to vacation over the BC holiday. I was originally going to send this to them, but I think it 's appropriate to share the wonders of Washington with all who can google. So here's what can be done in Anacortes...

Camp at Washington Park - this is just outside of Anacortes proper and offers seclusion with quick city access.

or Camp at Fort Ebey, which even has potential surfing although this is a 45 min drive from Anacortes.

Definitely visit Deception Pass for the views. But you could go mountain biking in the Anacortes Community Forest Lands, with over 50 miles of trails and even stop by Heart or Little Cranberry lake for a dip. Even if you don't mountain bike, a cruiser can be rented here and you can hit the ferry and tour the islands. Although if the ocean is your thing... Saddlebag island is about a 2 hour paddle away by kayak, which can be rented here.

If you like climbing, Mt. Erie offers a lot of crags that have lots of routes! Plus you can take a dip at Erie, Heart, Whistle or Campbell Lakes.

I'm probably leaving out lots of stuff, but defiintely stop for a beer at the Brown Lantern and ask the locals about more stuff to do!

Dori and Briony's New show!

2005-07-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

Dori Luthy and Briony Morrow are having a show starting August 22nd until the 31st and the opening is on Aug 26th (a friday) at the Bayview Corner. A show opening in South Whidbey is always a good time so if you're looking for some culturin', get on over there.

Celebration of Light

2005-07-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

Duane, Dori and I went to go see the Celebration of Light last night. It is the first night of 4 days of fireworks here in Vancouver. Three countries compete by creating a musically synchronized fireworks show launched from a platform in English Bay. I'm sure it was a really good show, but we never quite made it. Instead we met for a beer before hand at the Cat's Meow. By the time we finished the fireworks were over. Then we took the AquaBus across False Creek to Duane's new place, The Discovery building. We finished the night with Duane's Ultimate Doritos Nachos and watched Dark City. Good times.

Countdown begins

2005-07-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been 3 years, but in under a week I'll be working again. For real. Not the "working" that I did at school....

Sleep-talking

2005-07-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when I walk into the bedroom and Doriis sleeping it will disturb her enough to make her speak, but not wake up. It can be really funny. I even try to carry on the conversation sometimes. This morning, Dori elicited the same response from me and I said:

"Anxiety... is somewhere between enthusiasm and a heart-attack."

Polishing a beltbuckle

2005-07-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

Apparently, years ago, certain dances used to be referred to as "belt buckle polishers". :)

BTW, I updated the Honouring the Mother post.

City life

2005-07-22T00:42:00.000-07:00

Dori and I have finally been getting out! We made it to the Celluloid Social Club for some movie screenings. Some really great shorts, including a documentary from Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier when they were still in film school at VFS. The screening was held at the ANZA club. So we got a membership. This makes us official members of the Australian New Zealand Association. If you ever want to go have a beer that the ANZA lounge look us up. Tonight we just got back from the Indigo Girls. It was a an amazing show with Sara Bettens opening for them. What a great crowd and show!

Tofino - Last Stop

2005-07-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

I got back from SD on the 14th and left on the 15th to Tofino, BC. This is a wonderful surf town on the West ("Wet") Coast of Vancouver Island. Ann, Dori, Keiko and I went for 4 days and 3 nights. I found surfing to be wonderfully fulfilling. It is the natural thing to do in the ocean.

Honouring the Mother

2005-07-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

So I was talking to Dori about this post. Apparently, I may have left some details out that explain this better. This is a picture of Mt. St. Helens and the current lava dome that is growning in the center. Compare it to this picture when it first started erupting.

http://www.pnsn.org/NEWS/PRESS_RELEASES/MSHphoto.jpg

It seems so significant to me that we are able to witness a mountain being born. This is one of the few geological processes that creates such a massive change in such a short time. Wind, water and fire come no where close to moving such a large amount of material and creating new formations on Earth. The beauty of this eruption is the feeling of birth, where the mountain is growing from inside the remains of a mountain past.

One more...

2005-07-12T06:45:00.000-07:00

I didn't get a chance to post this picture when I wanted to so this is a "retro" post!

This is the hay equipment that I spent the most time on. This is a called a "sweep" and is used to buck the raked hay into buckloads, which are swept into the hay stack for the stacker. The perspective of this picture doesn't show the 14 foot teeth that stick out in front of this old contraption. This is the vehicle that I learned to drive a standard.

Home?

2005-07-12T06:01:00.000-07:00

I'm heading home. It's so strange to leave "home" to go home, but where you live and where you're heart resides, may be two different places.

Here's one last photo of a two pitch climb I did in the Black Hills.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

2005-07-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

Well, actually just crappy old Ford pickups. I've been having a great time seeing Emily and Aaron (sp?) , plus hanging out with Jesse. Jesse and I would always work on our cars together, so my pickup kindly made it possible to hang out with Jesse for a day. The water pump decided to stop pumping water. Oh well. That brings the bill up to $550 US for pickup repairs on this trip. That's not entirely fair tho. The tires were well overdue for replacement. When I pulled them off the metal belts were sticking out. I guess that's getting the full mileage out of them, eh?

I'm off to the ranch to help prepare wedding decorations and stuff. Zack and Fiona get married this coming Monday at 6pm.

Four more days until I'm back to Vancouver and then off to Tofino!

Some pictures

2005-07-04T19:35:00.000-07:00

Here's some of what I've been doing. I went backpacking in Lander with Doug:

Then I came back and went 4-wheelin' with Keith:

This one is for Dori, she loves the Midwest skies:

The Winds

2005-07-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

I drove from Rapid City to Lander, WY a couple of days ago. Wow. What a trip. If you have never driven across the states here, drive I-90 and drop into Yellowstone and then make sure and drive through Lander and out Hwy 16. It was one of the most beautiful drives I have done.

I also did a great backpacking trip up in the mountains. They're called the Wind River Mountains, but the nickname "The Winds" is catching on. The mountains are all below 14k, but they are amazing.

Climbing Mt. Rushmore

2005-06-29T07:52:00.000-07:00

I had a fantastic time climbing Mt Rushmore last Sunday. It's somewhere behind the monument (you can't get very close to the actual carving) and must be the best crag I've climbed to date. A bunch of sport routes all the way down to 5.6. In fact, I sent my first lead with my new Black Diamond quickdraws.

The picture is a red rock formation I drove past in the Southern hills. It's a nice contrast to the the gray granite of the central hills.

Wedding Plans?!

2005-06-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

I was going to start with a chronological post of all the things I've been doing: kayaking, climbing and car camping. Instead, I'll just cut to Sunday night when I get to the Gathering of Eagles and find out that my father is getting married! Yep. Met Fiona who is visiting the Black Hills for a month from Australia. This happened last week and in two weeks is getting married (July 11th) and then leaves to Melbourne July 12th to spend a year or so in Australia. Congratulations Zack and Fiona!

Chorizo Soup

2005-06-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

I've been driving now for 2 days. Last night I stopped in the National Forest outside of Anaconda, MT. I had bought some CHorizo sausage for dinner and was very hungry when I started cooking. I haven't figured out how to use/make chorizo. So this came in a fairly large diamter casing and quite long. So I assumed it would cook up like a bratwurst. So I boiled it. What ended up happening is the case broke and the sausge remained in small parts. Basically, I had Chorizo soup. It wasn't bad, but quite spicy. Consequently, I left a small environmental hazard in the forest of Montana. So if anyone has some suggestions on how to cook Chorizo...

Portland

2005-06-20T00:25:00.000-07:00

Whew! Nice times! Portalnd has been fun. Went drinking Sat night with Noel. Hit a few really cool places and got up Sunday to do some hikes. Went out to Manzanita and found some waterfalls and beautiful views. Definitely visit the Oregon coast if you have the chance.

Schiavo

2005-06-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that people get so worked up over the fate of one person in a permenant vegetative state, but allow 1400+ young men and women die in an unjust war.

Road trip

2005-06-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

So I was goingto make one those apologies for not posting thenext couple of weeks because I'll be travelling, but hell, I haven't been posting anyways!!

I will be leaving to SD from June 19th until around July 2nd. I feel like a travelling salesman on these trips. I visit like one person a day and go from door-to-door. It's fun, but exhausting. Not to mention I'm the sort of person who likes to just hang out. This fast pace is hard to keep up.

Sorry,eh.

2005-06-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

I feel bad leaving my loyal readers without good blogging material. It's like your favourite show being cancelled before the season finale. WTF! So just in case you need an excuse: my friends Ira and Maris came to visit us from Latvia.

where does the time go...

2005-06-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

I attempted to blog a couple of days ago, but my computer froze mid-word. After that act of higher power I assumed that was not a day for blogging. But today is. Whew. I just need to relax. If you remember a few blog entries ago, I was extremely relieved by turning down an offer to write a journal paper. Part of the reason was that it just complicated the visa process. Well, today I went down to get my work visa and it was a pain. Jim was just not receptive to me applying at the border. Not that I wasn't allowed to apply, but that I *shouldn't* be applying. It's not his job, supposedly. He finally agreed that he could issue a work permit, but he couldn't post date. This meant burning two months off the other end of my one year permit (because I don't start until Aug 1st). So after all this confusing mess. plus an urgent fax from the office I didn't get my permit. Bleh. So I mailed it off. Ugh. I hate not having everything in place. So the stress level is back. I'm just feeling like I should have pressed on and gotten the visa regardless. Now I have to wait 45 days.

Presidents of the USA

2005-06-06T02:12:00.000-07:00

Wow. What a concert. Dori and I stopped into Bellingham on our way home from Whidbey Island and the new Cribbs show. We took an unsual route to get to Casa Que Pasa and passed by The Royal. We notice the marquee says the Presidents of the USA are playing tonight. So after polishing off mucho carne we picked up some discount tickets to the show. The band came on around 11:30 and played a fantastic set to showcase their new album. A fantastic weekend with a surprise finish. I almost forgot to mention the fluffy buttermilk pancakes with blueberries and strawberry syrup for breakfast.

Mmmm.

2005-06-02T11:52:00.000-07:00

One of the sexiest Landcruisers I've seen.

Somedays I can't think of a title

2005-06-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

I turned down an offer for a paper last night. After finishing my thesis my professor offered to fund me over the summer to write a paper. However, it had to be a journal paper. I just wasn't feeling good about doing it. I'm happy with the research I did, but I'm not convinced it was really great research. In other words, I think I could do a conference paper, which tends to be short and more of a report on your work. A journal paper is supposed to be the culmination of really thorough research.

craigslist

2005-05-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

So as I've gathered, many of you are familiar with craigslist. I know this because ofthings like, "I bought this from craigslist" or "Have you checked out craigslist yet?" However, my father passed this on. If you feel like your craigslist advert isn't quite making a wide enough audience:

http://denver.craigslist.org/about/space.html

Sleep and long weekends

2005-05-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

It's been quite the weekend (and week). I've had family and friends visit for the last 7 days. It's been one long party. Now I'm tired. In fact, I'm quite amused because I had a massive amount of sleep last night to catch up on what I've missed, but while my mind is sharp again my body feels like it is still tired. Hmm. With another weekend approaching I'm going to have to repent and get outside.

Greek Food

2005-05-21T22:35:00.000-07:00

I love greek food. Of course, I love most food. But Greek food is great because it is just easy to eat. Meat, potatoes and Greek salad. Mmmm. I have a bunch of family in town so I suggested some "exotic" food. I think it was a really hit.

On a completly unrelated note (well it's still about food). I *absolutley recommend Jolly's Bistro. It's not a bistro. I don't know why he calls it that. It's funny, because I think he just likes the sound of bistro. But it's amazing. It's the cheapest best Indian food you'll ever eat. (IMHO) The plates are around $9 and HUGE. They even come with Naan bread! Go there. Now. It's on MacDonald and 4th. Go. Quick. Now.

High Rollin'

2005-05-19T09:05:00.000-07:00

Dori just got back from a "donor's breakfast". She is donating 10% of her art sales from the "Synchroncity" show at Studio 2. The recipient organziation is the Family Services of North Shore.

Good Job Dori!

Orientation

2005-05-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

I had my "first" day on the job today. It's not official, but I will soon be working for Sutus. I'm going to be an embedded software engineer so it's time to brush up on the finer points of UML (warning this link contains explicit geek material). This will be a refreshing alternative to my last startup experience at Comuniq. Comuniq was a great place to work, but there was no software development process in place. This is quite the opposite and will require discpline to learn and use.

The company is in North Vancouver, which is fine by me. It turns out to be quite a nice bike ride from my house. However, they are planning on moving to Burnaby. This is fine except the bike ride is boring. Today, for example, I rode my bike over the Burrard bridge, took the Seabus and rode the Lions Gate and went through Stanley Park to come home. Two bridges a park and a boat. Now that's a fun ride. Burnaby is just a slog through residential housing. Not bad, but not great.

Hail to the Cheif

2005-05-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

The Stawamus Cheif that is. Kevin and I finsihed a 650 meter hike today to start off the season of hiking.

No pictures, because I'm embarassed by the crummy pictures my camera takes, but I can assure you it was beautiful. The rock is all granite, which takes me right back to SD and the heart of the hills. Though I wouldn't recommend the hike as causual climb. It is quite steep and a bit dodgy in places.

Planning my summer

2005-05-14T06:58:00.000-07:00

Well, things are already filling up. I'm talking about doing the West Coast Trail in August and surfing Tofino in July. But what about June and May? Hmm. It's tough, because I'd like to do everything. Maybe I'll check on prices to China... Visit my sister.

Good Morning!

2005-05-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

Finishing my thesis has been like waking up refreshed on a beautiful sunny day. You just feel like telling everyone,

Good Morning!

VC day

2005-05-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

Victory in Campus Day is offically May 11th, 2005.

I defended my thesis and was awarded a mark of 85. That's an A.

The battle is over.

D-Day Morn

2005-05-11T06:20:00.000-07:00

It's 6:20 AM and my non-adjusted morning eyes are squinting at the bright monitor. Dori and I packed up a bunch of our handmade coffee cups and we're going to pick up a 2-4 of donuts for the presentation. Gotta make sure people are happy. Fresh coffee and donuts is key.

I finally had a good run through of my presentation at 11:20 last night. I had previsouly been stumbling through it. I'm going to do one more run this morning before the final.

What a cool feeling.

See you tonight.

D-day Eve

2005-05-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is D-day. The day I defend my thesis. Everyone is welcome to attend. rm 418 in the McLeod building at 9:30AM. You are strongly encouraged to not come, because no one should have to start their day by listening to me talk about my thesis...

It shouldn't be that bad. I have been to a couple of defenses and they were not very impressive, but I don't think mine will be as bad. Of course, given the amount of rehearsing I've done to this point...

I used to really like presenations, but this one is just not exciting. I'm not sure if it's the material, the pressure or just plain tiredness.

Well, on with it. I rehearse all day today. See you tomorrow.

My wife is an artist.

2005-05-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

A question you hear a lot is, "What is an artist?"

Is it a self-proclaimed title? Or given only after some level of success has been acheived?

Well in this case, I am decorating my wife with the title,

"Artisan"

Congratulations on finishing you Bachelor of Fine Arts degree!

The Short History of (my) Computing

2005-04-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

Duane wrote an article about his introduction to computers. It sounded a bit familiar, so I had to write one too. I first started computing when I was tiny. I don't actually remember specifically when we got our first computer, but I remember what it was. It was a VIC-20. This computer came out in 1981 and is the precursor to the Commodore 64. I remember being thoroughly entertained by this computer. Copmlete with a BASIC operating system and game cartridges I spent a fair amount of time getting to know that machine. Even learned how to change the fuse at age 9.

However, school was a different matter. Apple has always made an effort to market to schools and thus I was an avid Apple user by age 10. A friend had the Apple IIGS and most schools had a MacIntosh. My parents begin dabbling in Zenith computers, but these were of little interest to me, because there were no good video games and spreadsheets weren't a big attention holder. Although the amber monochrome monitor was cooler then standard green found elsewhere.

Soon, mom was talking about buying a computer for the family. I assumed she would be buying an Apple. After all, it had great games and I was quite familiar with it. But she brought home a 100% IBM PC compatible. Heh. They didn't call them "PC's" They were 100% IBM PC compatible. By this time (1986), IBM had a stronghold on the business market and the PC XT and PC AT models were quite successful. But IBM (unlike Apple) had open standards and encouraged third party companies to make equipment, thus, the clone market exploded. Companies were making "compatible" periphial equipment for the IBM machines and soon companies made complete machines that were "100% compatible" to an IBM PC XT/AT.

So here it was an old 286-12Mhz, 40MB hard drive and VGA monitor. This was a fine computer, but I was devastated. This thing was not an Apple. But alas, the VGA monitor made for some REALLY nice graphics and soon mom showed me how to use the modem to call a BBS. These Bulletin Board Systems were orginally designed to just share communicaiton and data, but software is expensive and so many people started posting "free" shareware software also. This changed my world. I became a PC die-hard from this point on. I had discovered the way to continue to expand my computer for free. If a game got old and boring, I just downloaded a new one. If I wanted to tweak my computer I downloaded software. It was almost addicting it was so cool. BBS's and IBM PC's were hugely popular and the free software available for the PC compatible was easily 10 times that of Apple.

Afterwards, BBS's became a bit of a mainstay and I had online friends. I upgraded to a 386 40Mhz, which was my first AMD and a move away from Intel, which remained permanent. Somewhere along the way my HD finally expanded to 170MB also signalling the first dramatic shift in storage requirements for me. All of this downloading had strained my hard drive and stash of floppy disks. Besised those stupid disks kept going bad. Nothing worse then losing a great game because of a bad disk.

I have always been slow to upgrade my computer, mostly for financial reasons, but also because it has always "worked well enough". I skipped the 486 and first generation of Pentium processors going straight to the AMD K5 75Mhz. This was a hot machine and I had just started college and needed some extra gaming power...you know for studying. Somewhere in here my HD expanded by another order of magnitude going to 1.2 gigabyte. This was around the time that the Internet had become fully rooted, although not nearly as useful as it is now.

I've only made two major jumps in processor technology since then, once to the AMD K6-2 266Mhz towards the end of college and finally to a AMD Duron 700Mhz five years ago. Though my dad graciously upgraded me to an Athalon 1.33 Ghz just recently. I've roughly kept a five year span between upgrades, because like I said earlier, "works well enough". One thing that has been troublesome still: storage. That 1.2GB drive is long gone and after two more upgrades each being an order of magnitude, I'm still bumping my head on a 250GB ceiling. Time for another order of magnitude, bring on the 1 terabyte drive!

Well, I've left out some details (most of you are saying, "Thank you!"), but it was fun reminiscing. Computers have been a pleasurable part of my life. Video games aside, they seem to do something for me. I guess it beats TV. Maybe.

Ankles and Mantles

2005-04-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

Or is it Hips and Makers? (Kristin Hersh album, really good.)

So I fell on my ankle again today while bouldering. The crash pad is perfect for landing on, but if you land half on/half off it's hard on your ankle. Oh well. Pretty minor, but I did find out that you should stretch ankle sprains as soon as possible (and keept the swelling down). I guess it is more important to keep things loose so they heal properly. Also I'm supposed to build my ankle muscles more. Well, I don't think I'm hurting too bad in that department, but never hurts to add some ankle bulk. Heh. Ankle bulk.

In case you've never bouldered (but you do like to rock climb), this is my official plug for the sport. It's amazing. It's like the free weights of the climbing world. The moves are very powerful and require balance at the same time. So many of them are overhanging, which makes it really tiring. If you attempt a route and get muddled up, it's easy to burn all your energy half way through. Then you're too exhausted to finish. But the rewards for finishing is a pumped forearms and big rush.

Sand Dollars

2005-04-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

This weekend Dori and I spent some wonderful time with our friends Buffy and Bruce of Whidbey Island. They have a fantastic home near the beach of Useless Bay. One morning we were walking the beach at a negative tide we came across a huge collection of sand dollars. When I say huge, well, it might not be easy to explain. It appeared as if a dump truck had just unloaded an entire bed full of sand dollars. It was beautiful and amazing. Here's a couple of interesting points observed and later researched.

There were both dead and live ones. You could tell by the color. A dead sand dollar is white, while a live one is purple. However, it turns out that a live one is not *technically* a sand dollar, but more like a sea urchin.

The pattern on the back of a sand dollar is holes which can draw water in and expel it. They can use this to move underwater.

They have tube like feet and can bury themselves! Or, like we witnessed, move rocks accross their bellies where the cilia clean off the organic matter and pass it to the mouth in the center.

The reason there were so many in this one area is due to the type of sand. This was big loose sand that eased reproduction and the ability to burrow and move sand around so they can eat.

We saw one that was less then dime size, but before that they don't have a shell (or "test"). They exist in a larva form. Unlike some sea animals, they have distinct sexes.

Sunshine and summer

2005-04-20T18:56:00.000-07:00

The sun is shining and the temperature is about 16 degrees. It is fabulous. I had a nice day: print out a draft of the thesis and hand it off, chat with the grad secretaries and do some bouldering. Finishing a task and being rewarded with sunshine is supreme. Now I have the next challenging task of finding a job and making some eye candy for my thesis exam.

Viewers Like You

2005-04-19T18:07:00.000-07:00

Well it seems that some of my readers are a bit shocked by my wording. Apparently, expletives are not necessarily a welcome replacement for more lengthy descriptions. I suppose this, in part, has to do with the stress and excitement of finishing my first draft. However, I surmise there is a more gradual re-definition of my character that has occured during my time as a Vancouverite and college student.

When I first moved here I picked up the school newspaper and was equally suprised by the generous use of the word fuck. Specifically fuck. There are occasional references to excrement and warm places of permenant residence, but a (insert word here) of a lot more uses of the premium f-word. I thought, "Gee, Canadians will print anything!" But I was wrong. The f-word in Vancouver is just a part of the culture. It's not covered up or bleep'ed out. You just say it.

We could spend the next few paragraphs discussing urban politics, the demographics of my friends, or the lack of moral decency of the locals, but I think I'll cut to the chase. Canadians have taught me to embrace diversity. I don't mean the U.S. melting pot style where all cultural references are stripped and you learn to love McDonald's. No, I mean *real* diversity. The type where you ask, "What does your family do over winter break?" Or "Should I bring a non-meat dish?"

Canada will have at least two, if not more visible minorities in the next decade. This means that people learn to cooperate, rather then criticize. Yes, there is always tension. Of course it would be more efficient to have "one" way of doing things. But, if that's what you want, well, it's also easier and more efficient to transmit black and white TV.

Personally, I enjoy the differences that I experience on a daily basis in this city. The "color" of this city is fantastic. So I apologize for my "colored" language, but I can't promise it won't happen again. Besides, if you watch four seasons of Trailer Park Boys you can't come out unscathed.

Sessioning

2005-04-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

Well, very likely the last snowboarding session of the season was today. I went to Cypress and had fantastic time, fresh snow everywhere and fantastic conditions. Oh I might sneak one in up at Whistler if all goes well, but there's a lot to do between now and then.

Special Edition

2005-04-16T05:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, I couldn't resist.

I was sitting here trying to decide whether to go to bed so I can snowboard tomorrow, watch a snowboarding video or search the internet.

Well I searched the internet.

For porn.

Yep. I type porn into google and the 10'th link on the page

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/

A Frontline episode on porn. I'll be watching this. Frontline is amazing, they present a well research balanced arguement. If you're not too busy watching CBC pick up some Frontline from PBS, it's worth it.

Are you fucked in the head?

2005-04-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

That's right! New Trailer Park Boys season begins this Sunday on showcase (this link has lots of extras)!

So tune in, or if you out of the country try this.

Now that I've said the important things:
I finsihed my first draft!

That's right! (have I said that before?)

Submitted to email to my supervisiors Dr. Ito and Dr. Herrmann. That's a major milestone towards the path of graduation baby! Yeah. I'm feeling good right now. Even singing Modest Mouse out loud.

Although the thesis is getting expensive. I stayed past 2:00am tonight so I had to buy a cab for $14 back home. BTW, what is an appropriate tip for a cab? I gave em 15%, but I have no idea.

Little hook to get you to listen to modest mouse from "Bury me with it"
We were shooting at a mountain of dirt,
well nothing was broken and nothing was hurt
but I probably really should have been at work.
But if my free time's gone would you promise me this

That you will

Please bury me with it

Nabbed this from www.songmeanings.net that is the place to go for lyrics....

Now, watch TPB, listen to modest mouse and tell me what a cabby deserves for tip.

Go on. Do it.

The keyboard is mightier than the pen

2005-04-14T02:59:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3 and 4 have fallen and now reside in my Sent box, destination: supervisior.

That's right folks, In two weeks I have nearly completed a first draft of my thesis. The only thing that stands between me and graduation. Well , that and four other people that have to read it.

Aren't bloggers supposed to rant?

That was rhetorical question:
\begin{rant} % written in LaTeX'ese in honour of the thesis

Fuck I hate credit collection agencies.

These stupid people pick up the phone book call all the people with the name they're looking for and claim that "I need to speak to you".

First, question, "Can I verify your name and address?"
Second, "What is your social security number?"

FUCK YOU!

You haven't even told me what you're calling about. If you want to verify some information, why don't you first tell my WHY?

Well, people that owe people money are probably pretty deceptive. I can understand that. So they need to beat around the bush before they drop the bomb. You owe us money punk, and now that we know where you live you are going to suffer!

The crazy part about all this? I have never defaulted on a credit, or had a warrant issued for my arrest. (oh yes, there's more to this story...)

So circa '98 I get a call, "Hi can I speak to Dustin Harrison?"

"Speaking"

"Can I verify some information?" (you remember this part)

"No, can I find out what you want?"

"No, I need to know who you are first."

Stop the fucking ferry. Who called who? I don't know who the fuck this guy is, and apparently he doesn't know me. So why are we having a conversation?

To sum it all up, I find out that somewhere a Dustin H. has defaulted on his student loans. Can't possibly be me, because? I'm STILL IN SCHOOL!

Various incidents later, Dori is working the front yard when a man approachs her and asks if Dustin is home. VERY suspicious, Dori asks why. Apparently he has some "papers that need to be served".

"aaaaaaahhhh. you must be looking for Dustin H. But you didn't bother to find out if the Dustin H. that lives here is the same person that derserves a warrant did you?"

"I don't understand."

"You see the middle initial on that paper?"

"Yes."

"That is not the Dustin H. that lives here. Why don't you be on your way?"

Folks, that's not all. There are some BAD Dustin H's running around out there. One day I get a phone call:

"This is the sheriff, can I verify some information?"

"Well, you *are* a sheriff, what can I do?"

"Do you own ....?"

"No."

"What's your middle name?"

"Not that."

"Hmm, this might explain why you actually had the $3k in your bank account that I just withdrew. I think I made a mistake. I'll be returning that today."

"Yes. That would be nice."

So you see, I'm not fond of people who don't do their homework before accusing me of lying, cheating or whatever the bad Dustin H's of this world do.

\end{rant}

{\em Fuck I'm tired of writing in LaTeX}

Chapter 3 - zero draft

2005-04-13T01:47:00.000-07:00

Well not quite first draft quality, but close. Chapter 3 has fallen. Chapter 4 is next (don't look suprised) and the home stretch. Make up shit about my research.

Well, ok, not *make* up shit, but go on and on about how this graph implies that I can blah.......... and notice blah..........

bleh.

So close.

Chapter 2 Draft

2005-04-12T02:45:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, two chapters done and five to go. Well, I say five because my my discussion is still a chapter on it's own. I really am considering smashing that into something else.

So I dropped my pickup off at Fraser and 26th. I get the rear axle repaired tomorrow. I had the most wonderful ride through Vancouve at 2AM. The city is so beautiful when no one is driving around. I wandered down 14th st, which has some amazing places for rent. It's tough to decide where I would live in Vancouver. I *really* want to live near Jericho for the sailing and windsurfing benefits, but a nice quiet home near Main and 19th would be wonderful. That neighborhood is beautiful.

Well, I'm eating my 3AM snack. I dropped the peanut butter tonight, just went straight for the olive bread with mayo and cheese.

The magical feeling in my head

2005-04-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

There's some crazy magic going on in my head right now. It's as if I'm under a spell. I feel awake, ready to do something, but slowed down. Like the battery in my battery-powered head clock is about to die. Maybe's it has something to do with all the sandwiches.

What? Again?

2005-04-08T02:57:00.000-07:00

No way. I'm eating another peanut butter, mayonaise and cheese sandwich. This is too wierd. Do think writing a thesis is like being pregnant?

Mood swings, morning sickness (read: hangover), wierd food cravings....

The only part that doesn't work is pregnancy takes a LOT LESS time.

Chapter 1 Draft

2005-04-07T02:15:00.000-07:00

Well it's 2AM and I'm eating a peanut butter and cheese and mayonnaise sandwich and washing it down with homemade wine.

Why the carefree choice of ingredients?

Because I just finished my first draft of Chapter 1. While it's not the most dramatic of tasks yet to be completed it has a special place on my wall. I have my thesis outline taped to my office wall. Next to "Chapter 1" is a gold star. Well not an actual foil gold star, I couldn't afford those right now. Just a post-it note with a hand drawn star.

Tomorrow I tackle a major thesis re-organization and Chapter 2.

Oh by the way, did I mention I was looking for job? Feel free to hire me or send me links to people that would like to hire me.

I just joined (another) social network called LinkedIn. The idea is that it is more of a professional network, intended for everyone from executives on down to share contacts. Feel free to join up with me at https://www.linkedin.com/

Back on Track II

2005-04-06T01:21:00.000-07:00

I've been so damn back on track I've neglected my blogging.

So I'm using Yahoo's calender function that comes with their email. You can see mine at http://calendar.yahoo.com/dustinlharrison

It's really cool. I just add tasks and events and it posts them to the calender. Then I can check them off as they are completed. In addition it accessible wherever there is internet. I like it. It's fun to check off lists. I've been good so far. I've tackled my outline (2nd revision, complete redo). Tomorrow is draft of Chapter 1 and reorganizing everything I've written to match my new outline. Should feel good.

I'm still on track for a May 9th defense. AlthoughI haven't put it on my calender...... Be right back.... There it's official. Yahoo has it stored in there magic storage place.

So if I don't respond to your email. Or answer the phone. Or flush the toliet. It's because I'm working on my thesis.

Back on Track

2005-03-31T21:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I went to a workshop today designed to get people "back on track". Although lately i've been "on track" I felt it couldn't hurt to get a little more. And I was right. This workshop was amazing. The preseneter was fantastic, he was charismatic and encouraging. Reminded me a lot of Liam Neeson's portrayal of Kinsey (read a great review at here).

The take away point is that often times it's the emotional side of tasks that keep you from doing the next one. Things like calling people, or having meetings, or tackling a problem you don't know much about. These all feel scary, so if you can identify the specific "scary" step you can either ask for help, or just face up and do it. But left "undiagnosed" the scary steps moprh into generalized anxiety that prevent you from working on anything.

Good stuff.

Office Friends

2005-03-27T20:56:00.000-08:00

For all you Office Space fans out there:

Check out: Office Friends

The lip-sync is incredible. Especially the scene about the party. "O, o, o."

One thing I've learned.

2005-03-23T18:57:00.000-08:00

So as I'm sitting here writing my thesis I think about possible distractions. The distractions are easier to dismiss now, because I'm 7mths overdue. This is one I couldn't resist though. A moment to reflect on what I've learned.

I've learned that I'm at *most* a hair above average, but realistically I'm *just* average.

I've learned that I have poor prioritization skills compared to most. I allow my priorities to easily change to accomodate the situation. This relates to time management problems and solving large-scale problems (like a thesis).

I've learned that I like to "shoot the moon", where I make the problem too complex to tackle, which also makes prioritization difficult.

I've learned I don't like to make decisions. This one is wierd, because it is the stereotypical guy, which I never thought I was, but the summary is -- I don't like commitment. I waited 5 years to marry my wonderful wife Dori. It takes me 6 months to make a significant purchase (like outdoor gear, technology, etc.) and in general if I can postpone a decision to gather more information, I will. Maybe that's why I voted for Kerry.

I've learned that I'm very critical of myself.

Censorship and China

2005-03-21T11:18:00.000-08:00

My sister can't view my blog. She's in China and the Chinese government has gone to great lengths to prevent the people from viewing material that is inappropriate. Seriously. They actually run the entire countries internet connetion through government servers that have data monitoring software in them. Then if the software detects an offending website it is blocked from being viewed in China.

Now you may ask yourself, what has Dustin done to offend China? Then you might chuckle and say what DOESN'T Dustin do to offend China? Heh. Anyways, the point is why would my blog be censored by the government of China? Because it's not easy to watch every single web page that comes through, so if a site has enough "bad" webpages the whole site is blocked. In the case of www.blogger.com there are at least one (if not many more) offensive blogs that triggered the detection and caused the entire blogger site to be censored. These blogs can range from Falun Dafa supporters, to anti-Chinese censorship blogs or just plain old porn blogs. (Are there plain porn blogs? If so, what's an unusual porn blog?)

Other sites China blocks.
abc.com
Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Calgary/Banff Chapter
Ice Rink Management Asia & Ice Rink Resources
The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia

The list goes on... Refer to the above link for more entertaining sites that are blocked.

THE GOOD NEWS.

Besides supporting organizations like Amnesty International who have kept track of China's human right's records like this issue you can start your own encrypted proxy whichallows people to "hide" there interent traffic. Keep in mind though: In 2001 it was found the Chinese government allowed the death sentenance to be issued for viewing "inappropriate materials" on the internet.

The other thing you can do is "syndicate" your blog by publishing an RSS feed and then allow a program (on a server outside of China) to harvest the feed and convert it to email.

QUOTE from my sister's email to me:

cool. i found a rss2email script and am running it on my cs server.
so now i can get your blog through email. :) china's firewall once
again screwed! funny that the u.s. government's mission to have
a decentralized computer network that could not be taken down even if one of the
computers was destroyed by warfare....also leads to the discovery of a network
where you cannot censor "public" information (well, even some "private" for that
matter, see hackers). alissa

No way... Really?!

2005-03-21T00:41:00.000-08:00

The bus driver asked us for directions today. To UBC.

wow.

Flowers

2005-03-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

There's so many fantastic parts about spring.

Like walking down the sidewalk and being suprised by fresh flowers blooming.

11 Points of Light

2005-03-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

I had a meeting yesterday with my "advisor", because he "gives me advice" as he is "not a supervisior, who tells you what to do". Who told me to write up my conclusions with some defense and submit them. So I did. I came up with eleven. I think that's good. The list is in it's early stages so it could grow (or shrink).

Now for some shameless advertising: Check out the photo of me climbing. And if you'd like an inside scoop on Chinese politics and the free software movement go to my sister's blog entry.

Weekend relief

2005-03-14T12:37:00.000-08:00

Kinda. Had fantastic sunday up in Squamish rock climbing. Dori and I went with two friends Brad and Mel. What a great time. Enjoying the sun, being outdoors and challenging the body. Dori and I both woke up sore today. A good sign that we had a full day.

Darn thesis

2005-03-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

Man. I go through these cycles. I'll be happily writing my thesis and things look great and then, bam. Stupid thesis. I just hit one of those low spots. This one stems from the realization that I understand roughly what everyone else in my field already knew. In other words, I haven't done anything new. I know that I'm not supposed to be tremendously advancing the field, that kinda of research is reserved for a doctoral degree, but still. I'd like to know that I have done something *trivial*. Further, something that has alreayd been done. So I'm feeling like I'm never going to finish at this point. Well not really. I mean I know I'll finish or give up soon. (I'm kidding about giving up, mostly...well two days ago Iwasn't kidding...for a half-hour or so).

It's wierd. I think I'm missing a major piece of doing this thesis:
I do the research/experimentation it goes slow, but I think that's normal.
I do some writing/results graphing that also happens in bursts.

But somewhere (right now) I'm missing some piece. I have a hard time going back to what I've written and cleaning it up (and sometimes adding more). I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm unsure if my results and what I've written is even useful or if it's just a fear of doing lots and lots of work.

Well. On to tackling this. Again. Or at least trying.

Feeling Sore?

2005-03-07T09:05:00.000-08:00

Well the pickup is done. The fatally deterministic testing has been done -- we drove it across town and the brakes worked. It just feels so rewarding to clean up something mechanical like that and then put brand new shiny (or painted) parts back in. What a reward. I can't imagine what this job would have cost though. $200 just for parts. The bad news is the axle bearings also have to be done. This means either a lot more beer, or a mechnic is going to get a piece of my checkbook.

The really wierd part? I'm sore. It must be that after years of thesis writing all car working-on muscles fade into oblivion. Further, those muscles must be throughout your entire body. I'm sore. It's wierd, all I did was brakes. All though there was a lot of shoving, pulling, cursing, prying, holding, cursing, twisting, cursing, breaking, tweaking, cursing, forgetting, cursing. But why so sore?

Well I'm under the gun to write this post. I just got a call from my landlord that at 9Am the power is going off. It's 9:19AM. I got the call at 9:07AM. Heh.

Something

2005-03-06T09:37:00.000-08:00

Well, my March Madness ratings are dropping.... I'm actually getting hate mail from my fans now! Well, ok, that might be a bit much, but in response to the vast, loyal viewing audience -- here's to pushing that dumb hand image down to the bottom of the blog.

So this entry is a double header. I picked up a great book: How to Write your Dissertation in Fifeteen Minutes a Day and one of the recommendations is that you write. All the time. Everyday. Even just fifeteen minutes. Doesn't even have to be about the thesis. The idea is that you "exercise" the writing muscle in addition to just getting used to putting the nasty soup of thoughts down into written words.

I think her advice goes well with life. There is something motivating about writing about something, anything. It's almost like a mental cup of coffee.

Last thing. I cannot tell you how much I miss working on cars. I'm doing a real wheel brake job right now and, man, it just feels good to be getting greasy and fixing things. So if you want to support me in my pickup work today pick up a cheap beer (I recommend Pacific to my BC friends and Miller Low Life for the folks south of here) and turn up some classic rock. Cheers.

No Reason

2005-02-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

Space? Time? Spacetime?!

2005-02-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

So we all exist in space. Further it seems that time is manadtory. Eisten said it's even a bit more than that. Space and time are linked and what happens in space effects time (and vice versa).

I went to go see Brian Greene tonight. He is a physicist who has popularized string theory, because of his ability to make it accessible to people without math backgrounds. A couple of the highlights of the show were:

1. Just because we percieve it doesn't mean that's all there is.

2. There is a big difference between knowing something and predicting something.

3. If you know a lot about physics be prepared to be asked strange quesitons.

So point 1. Dr. Greene pointed out that Newton explained the world as he (and everyone else) percieved it. Einstein explained why gravity, space and time are all linked. The difference between Einstein and Newton is that things predicted by Einstein don't necessarily make themselves obvious. For example: A clock on board the International Space Station doesn't match with the national atomic clocks on earth. Why? Well space and time are linked and if you move in space you "drag" time with you. So if you extend this out, you could say that the present of the satellite is the past of people on earth. Whoa. That means that the ISS inhabitants are living in the past! Get with the times men (and women)! So the point is that perception (seeing hearing... believing) is not all there is. The math of physics predicts a more precise world. Which leads to the next point....

Predictions versus knowing. We know there will be weather, but wouldn't it be nice to know WHAT the weather is? That's the beauty of sceince. Deterministic (and probabilistic) understandings of the world allow us to predict what will be. But what is a prediction? It is to know the outcome, as opposed to random which is to not know the outcome. Physics has a strong ability to predict thefuture because it builds off of the very probable existance of the phsyical world. When we wake up tomorrow gravity will still be there and there will probably still be three dimensions that we can move in. I can predict that, so can science. Physics however, can predict some really crazy things (take the previous paragraph as an example), but sometimes we don't need that. Sometimes we just know it. Life goes on. Somethings are good some are bad. These are statements that are true, but they don't tell us what will be. BUT THAT'S OK.

Climate change is an example of prediction versus knowing. We know the climate is changing. Without a doubt. Change happens. What will come of the change is to be debated. Some predict a global heating that causes catastrophic failure, while other warn of irreversible changes. But we don't know know what will ACTUALLY happen. So to know something exists does not indicate knowledge of what will happen.

Finally my lasy point. Dr. Greene got asked a crazy question. You know the statement, "There are no stupid questions"? Well. Aaah. There might be. I truly feel there are no stupid questions, if the intention is to gain an understanding, but some poeple ask questions because they don't agree. Furthmore, they REALLY DON'T agree. So it's not really a question, but an oppurtunity to prove you wrong.

Dr Greene: String theorist's hope to show that energy is lost in super high energy collisions of particles.

Audience question: I don't think anything can be shown by breakingthings, you can only combine things, what do yout think?

Embarassingly, the audience laughed the man off the microphone. But for good reason. The tone of his question was not "what do you think?", but "say something that I can show you're wrong"

so there you have it. It must be tough being Dr. Greene.

Expected States of Development

2005-02-11T12:35:00.000-08:00

I watched Kinsey. Wow. What a movie. I didn't even think they had sex in the 50's, but apparently, some people even had really good sex. Apart from all the discussion on sex behavior one of the most interesting points raised in the movie was what is "normal". Because Kinsey was a taxonomist and also a statistician he firmly believed that to study something you needed to collect data, A LOT of it, and split it into categories and characterize it by the numbers. So this guy collects the sexual history of 10's of thousands of people and compiles it into a book (and here). So now that we have all these categories it is natural to look back and check out which categories are the most popular. Even more so, let's call one that "normal" behavior.

Wait.

That last statement may have been sarcastic, or maybe it's facetious, I'm not actually that good with words (I like analogies better, or is metaphors?). Ok I looked up all those words. My previous statement was both a little facetious and sarcastic and it is definitely analogies I like.

So the point is that normalicy is defined in many ways as the average or mean, or the most popular event of a random variable (like the speed of cars down a street). Where it gets hairy is when normal morphs into *expected* or even as far as *MORAL*. It may be normal for humans to have sex, but that doesn't make it moral. Furthermore, it my not be normal for girls to have sex with stuffed teddy bears, but that isn't immoral either (is it?). Because I'm a fan of my toolbar dictionary I like to look things up. Moral: "of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior "

So there you have it. is right or wrong? what's interesting about morality is that it is mostly a personal thing. It develops from the early childhood in the form of decideding on issues that are black and white and self-centered and then develops as you get older into more abstract concepts like what actions do to other people and society as a whole. However, it is the "mores" that gives us so much greif. These are the "normal moral attitudes" of a group. Mores (pro nounced More-ayes: too much dictionary time...) truly are the average beliefs of a group (although sometimes are biased by the leaders). So when it comes to sex, we look to the mores to define our own behaviour, rather than perform our own moral test of right and wrong.

So to get back to my original point (the title of the blog) I'll review what I've said (albeit maybe not well):

I don't believe that normal is always an appropriate measure.
Nor is popularity.
Sex is underrated and not talked about enough.
Go see Kinsey.

Those arguements aside, there clearly are things that are normal (statisically high chance of happening), such as growing old. And (I think) becoming entrenched in your battles (tilting at your windmills). So what I realized the other days is that my issues in life may be morphing into Quixote's windmills. Am I going ot get old and starttalking about how grand it would be if people could just talk about sex (without feeling guilty) and have an economic system that doesn't measure itself by growth alone?

Snowcave

2005-02-06T15:50:00.000-08:00

This is what I slept in last night!

The Varsity Outdoor Club held their annual WinterLongHike and we camped 2 hours east of Vancouver. You'll notice the tremendous pile of snow... Due to the shortage of snowfall this year we had to create our own snowpack. So now with a sore back I fondly look back at my cozy snow shelter and think about the fantastic fondue we had. (Yes, someone brought fondue.)

The Dire State of Snow

2005-01-31T14:08:00.000-08:00

According to the calender it's winter. Which usually means hills above 900m have snow. That does not seem to be the case. A snowboard session yesterday revealed that there is actually no snow below 1000m and a big lake in the middle of the ski runs.

But that didn't stop us! We head up to find a small patch of snow and proceeded to carelessly launch ourselves off eroded jump. Man I feel like I have overdue debts to the mafia today.....

Snowshoes Part II

2005-01-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

Well this has turned into the Winter Snowshoe Blog Report. My Dad has been visiting for a little over a week now and we decided to go out snowshoeing again. So here is an update of our trip to Seymour Provinical Park and our tour around Dinky Peak.

Here is the beginning of our nice 4 hour trip. The snow has been fanatastic. About 100cm of fluffy powder and cold temperatures to keep it from melting into ice.

Atop the mighty "Dinky Peak".

Snowshoes!

2005-01-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

So Dori and I rented some snowshoes with the intention of making it to Elsay Lake, but for whatever reason the trail was "blocked". We assumed there might have been significant avalanche danger and decided not continue. Rather, we headed back and took a detour up to Dog Mountain. While there might be other reasons for the name, to me, clearly, it was the amount of dog's that walked the trail. At the top we looked over an overcast Vancouver, but beautiful clear skies above us. It's nice to get out of Vancouver and remind yourself that the sun shines above the clouds.

Update: It turns out that the Elsay Lake trail is closed in the winter due to Extreme Avalanche danger.