a little cooler

It is a little cooler today. This morning, the wind was blowing, but it stopped and it was a much cooler evening. I had a nice blade tonight, except for the cars who resent me on the road and insist on honking at me as they pass. You have to wonder about drivers and the arrogance which is created by driving a big piece of metal around.
I am about 2.5km short (of a full load) of 1,000km with tonights blade. Feeling pretty good about that.

Looking forward to seeing the kids again on Saturday, if I can find them. Yes, they have gone missing. I am used to not being able to call them between my visits, it seems a little game played by my (now) ex wife to remind me that she has 'power'; however, I received a letter returned by the post office with the caption 'MOVED'. It will make for an interesting Saturday to say the least....just one more thing with which I need to contend in my day-to-day existence.

I rented Starsky and Hutch this weekend. Oh man, what a horrific movie. For some reason they decided to place it somewhere in the 80s, probably in the same timeframe as the original series, but it just did not work. The acting was awful, the story-line silly and there was not even any great action to keep my interest. I should have known better, should have checked the reviews first, but sometimes a good action-thriller takes your mind off things.

lazy days and Sundays

Sunday has to be my favourite day of the week. I enjoy having a coffee and reading the newspaper, usually the paper I just did not get a chance to read on Saturday.

Looks like it will be another hot day today. As wth yesterday, I went for an early blade to beat the heat, and hopefully the wind which has been ever-present this past week. Not sure what else is in store for the day, probably housework as I have a busy couple of weeks pending. My new corporate laptop has a wireless network card, so I want to pick up a wireless hub so I can 'roam about the place'. Ultimately, this will go up to the other house so I can access work and the internet remotely. It is a nice laptop, runs fairly warm though being a P4, but I like the keyboard and I am getting used to the mouse. Nice large screen which makes it convenient for working.
Our old machines were fast becoming a problem with our development. I was spending a lot of time 'watching grass grow', waiting for it to come back with a new file, etc.

It would be nice to get out and take some photos today, but it is promising to be just too warm. Being south-facing, my apartment tends to warm up during the day. Early mornings are wonderful, but afternoons are not the best time for staying here. Not sure what to do about dinner tonight, something cool again. It is promising to cool off next week, which will be nice, although I really enjoy the dry weather we are having.

Work continues to be very difficult. I had hoped that with a 2 week absence I would come back to many of the issues I had left, resolved. This turned out to be not the case. In fact, nothing had been accomplished, and it was only after I raised the flag that things were initiated. That makes this a very advesarial process, one that I particularly do not enjoy. I would like to change this, but I am powerless as it is another group who have defined the rules of engagement. We had our quarter announcement last week, and as expected we lost more money. I am beginning to wonder how much longer we have. However, even this announcement did not seem to change the people who are delaying our ability to deliver, and actually make money. Figure that one out.

Next week I have the kids again, but I am juggling work and their daycamp schedule. I picked up their itinerary yesterday and it looks like a pretty fabulous week is in store for them. The week following week I am planning to go to the island to visit grand-parents, which will be very nice. The kids always enjoy that. I am hoping to get to the coast, but we will see how our week goes with all of the activity we have planned we might have to skip something. It is amazing how quickly time goes. Once I am back I have a 3 week gap before labour day, when I see them again and our regular schedule re-commences.
I really enjoy having the kids, but it is a lot to arrange with me living here, and them there. If I lived closer it would be easier, but for now that is not the case, and not something which will happen soon, at least as I see it. I think they would enjoy and benefit from more contact as well.

ta-ta for now....

Lance

Way to go Lance (Armstrong). What an amazing feat, 6 time champion of the Tour De France. Well, I guess I should wait until tomorrow to extend that (full) accolade, but I think he has it pretty well wrapped up.
He has indicated he will not ride it again next year, chosing to attend other races. In one way too bad, but that might mean you can ride in the major Quebec race which is a couple of weeks before the Tour.

For us North Americans, we need to have a major star before we really start to see this as a sport. In Europe this is no issue, but here we don't really follow racing, and we do not have a lot of major events. This is too bad, we need to do some of this. This is the same for other sports as well, when was the last time you saw a cricket match here, or field hockey, or rugby or even soccer. Big in other countries, not really well attended here. Is it that we have low attention spans, so we cannot follow matches which may extend beyond one day (cricket or cycling), or need games which have constant scoring? Not sure.

Been trying to convince my son that it is not the number of gears which are important on the bike but how you use them. He is gear crazy right now, convinced that his 6-speed bike is not sufficient for his needs, wanting a 12, 18 or 21-speed. Trying to tell him that the bike LA rides only has 10 speeds, and that I never use more than 7 on my bike, despite that I have 21, but so far it is not working.
Only bought this bike last year, so he ain't getting a new one in any case, the bike is pretty cool as it is (wish I had a new bike).

Saturday morning

Saturday morning and again up at 6am. Looks like it will be warm here today. It has been very warm, mid-thirties, over the past few days. I am going to try and beat the heat and go for an early blade.

I received a new laptop at work yesterday. It is a lot of work to transfer stuff from my old environment, to my new one. Not sure what it is doing right now, tells me it has 3 hours worth of work to do, synchronizing my mail or something. I am hoping that I did not scramble it somehow last night when I was attempting to transfer my 15,000 mail messages I have accumulated. Probably. The way I use our corporate email is different than the way that they want us to use it. I prefer to keep my mail local on my machine, not on their server. In this way I can review my email wherever I am, on or offline. Why have a laptop if you have to be connected to the corporate network to review your email. Anyways, they make snarly faces when I do this.
I think it is attempting to send all of that email to the server. Oh well, just let it run I guess.

Since about 2000/2001 I have been running SetiAtHome on my machines, as many as I have control over. I see recently that they have changed to a new form, called BOINC. Berkeley will use this to distribute the software so that they can modify the algorithms without forcing us to download new software all of the time. I liked Seti@home before as it had a pretty nifty screen saver, showing its signal processing. I see that this is gone, or I have not been able to find it as yet. However, looks like this software calculates how fast your machine is and attempts to keep you ahead and pre-download stuff to do. So far it has not told me that I have done any work, maybe this is not yet running. In the old version you tracked your progress through the number of work-packages you completed and the total CPU time. I had 6-odd years of CPU time accumulated, good enough for 75,000 place if you can believe it.

I am not sure that I actually believe in the presence of ET. However, it is a neat idea to search for it using radio signals, who knows, maybe it will be found one day.

Been Away

I have been away for a couple of weeks. Just arrived back on Sunday, late. I enjoyed my time away, but it felt a lot longer than it really was.

My first week I spent in and around town with the kids. This was fun, we went bike riding and did a lot of swimming and some visiting. We then travelled up to the Okanagan and went to a place called Naramata Centre. This is a truly fantastic place. In the morning, each morning, the kids attend 'school' where they do crafts, music, outdoor activities and swim-like-mad at the beach. I attend my own school, but my courses are much different. The afternoons are free to do whatever you like, which normally means more swimming.
In the evening there are also activitivies.

This year we elected to skip much of the evening activities and head to the beach after dinner for more swimming. This was a really nice cool break from the heat as the cabin in which we were staying was not air-conditioned and for some reason I could not get the main windows openened. It got a tad hot, especially when I decided to cook.
You would think, that this sounds like a particularly relaxing week. However, by the end I am normally exhausted as are the kids. It is just so tremendously busy.
The course I took this year was the same as I took last year, photography of nature. It is an excellent course. I had not intended on duplicating the course again, but they cancelled my 'other' course at the last minute, so I had to take what I could get. I learn a lot from the course, so much so I now have a camera in which I keep slide film loaded at all times. This allows me to go out and take photographs anytime the weather, and my time permit.

Being back I am now back at work, groan. I am also back to my regular blading. I just passed 900km today, 2/3 of the way towards my goal. The winds have been tough, and being idle for 18 days meant I have to regain some of my fitness, but it should be back by the end of the week. July and August are normally low months for my blading, due to other committments, but I expect that by September I should have reach my goal. My prize, of course, is a new pair of blades and I am already salivating at the thought of this....

Later....

The Day After

Holidays which fall on a specific day, Canada Day being one of them, are weird. You get yourself all settled in to a week, into the rhythmn, and all of a sudden you are not at work, just for a day mind-you, but enough to throw the entire week out.
For me, working with American customers, it causes no end of issues as they are still working, getting Monday off this year, so they call expecting that you are diligently at your desk working away.
I might be the only one here today, the place is empty. Thursday being the holiday (day) this year, a lot of people took Friday off, making for a nice 4-day weekend. There was no traffic coming in to work, looks like it will be very quiet here.

Looking forward to a couple of weeks off, I need the break. It will be busy though, and the time goes by very, very quickly as well. Will be heading out of town after work today, probably arrive in Kelowna a little after 9pm. I pick up the kids tomorrow morning, and will head to Vancouver shortly afterwards.
Daniel is anxious to get his hair cut, so I might do that before we leave. Not sure whether Heather wants to get a trim. She really suites hair which is slightly shorter, bobbed, but she has been convinced to grow her hair 'like mommy's' and told that she lucks ugly in shorter hair. This is very unfortunate. She has very fine hair, similar to mine, which becomes quite difficult to manage when it is longer. It ends up being stringy.
I will talk to her, a slight trim would be nice for the holidays, clean up her bangs and the back.
It is funny how important their appearance has become to me these days. Maybe it is because I see their self-esteem as a critical factor in how they survive the constant chaos and difficulties which continue to exist. Not sure. I have spent a considerable amount of money lately on clothes. I wanted them to have new clothes for the summer. Most of the clothes I have been receiving in the suitecase have been too small, 2-3 sizes too small, and often ragged and worn. It is frustrating for me as I have sent up a lot of clothing in the past year, much of which I do not receive back again. Just recently, I sent up 3 pairs of shorts for Daniel, but I have not seen these again.
You have to wonder if he wears them, or if they are piled up in a box. It is a constant quandry I face as the kids like the clothes I buy, and ask to bring them home, but I don't see them again. So, do I force them to change before I send them home, or take the chance?

Music

What is the definition of a musician. But a loose definition, I would consider myself a musician.
When I was 10, a friend of mine started playing in a band. I had never thought of that before, so I decided I would do it as well. The West Van Band, at that time, was a very good band, I guess you would call it a brass band, not a marching band mind you, presentation band.
Anyways, I took up the trumpet which oddly enough ( :-) ) was what Gavin was playing as well.
Turned out, I was pretty good at it. Much better than Gavin, and I followed all of the way through the West Van Band, all of the way to the senior band.
At the same time, I had joined a couple of other bands as well as the orchestra at my high-school.
OK, I come from a wealthy community, the wealthiest (per capita) in Canada. The benefit of this was that our high-school had a lot of things which other schools could not afford. We had a full theatre and a computer. Without giving away my age, there were no personal computers back then, and I believe that we were the only school in the province to have a computer. I digress. High-School was really a good time for me. I was playing in the orchestra and also volunteering in the lighting/sound club. Our school had a pretty involved drama club, and once a year we put on a major musical production. The biggest, when I was in school, was Fiddler on the Roof. This was a mammoth production, but it was amazing to be a part of. I was at the school every day until late at night, weekends, all of the time and it was so much fun.

For a brief time, through all of this, I thought of music as a career. I am not sure I was good enough though, just a little under the bar which is set for someone who wants to do it professionally. Luckily, at the same time I had discovered computer-science and things were set.
NB: I had also considered being a doctor.

However, I have carried this love of music forward. I listen to all types of music, from classical, to light and heavier jazz, rock, country and varients. I am not a big fan of rap or some of the weirder stuff which is out there, but I can listen to it without committing suicide, and I do own a few rap CDs.
I am hoping to pass on my love of music to my kids, and teach them to listen to and appreciate all types of music. Usually, I have something different for them to hear when I come for a visit. A few years back I purchased a small MP3 player (hoping to get an i*Pod or the S*ny one soon), which the kids love. I have all of their favourites, or as many as 64MBytes will hold, which they can control. The bigger player will be nice as I could create playlists for each of them, and we could put songs that they like in there.

I am also hoping that the kids will be involved in music as they get older. I don't have a lot of control over this though, so I have to do what I can, when I can.

Happy Canada Day

I cannot say that I am a big Canada Day celebrator. Not that I am not a patriot, nor that I do not love this country, but more of a quiet, enjoy the day person. That might, in fact, be quite Canadian.

Planning to spend this day cleaning and doing all of the little household things which I need to do to get ready for Saturday, and the arrival of the kids. Just a lot of little things to do. I bought some more clothes yesterday, mainly so that I had a full set here and did not have to rely on what came down in the suitecase. Makes it much easier to plan things when you are not reliant on someone else to provide the essentials.

The weather is pretty perfect today. I think Canada Day is either fantastic, or awful - there seems to be no in-between. Anyways, this year is perfect. I will get out for a blade this morning, when it is cooler and there is less wind. That will be nice, been very hot lately when I go in the evenings. With it being cooler, I may be able to go for a longer distance, something I have just not been able to do when it has been warmer. As I am putting my blades away for a few weeks, it would be nice to give one last long one before I do.

The planes have been using the north runway a lot lately. From where I live, which has a south-facing exposure, and with the windows wide-open, the planes starting their take-offs at 6am can be somewhat loud. It was this morning. There are still a few of the older DC9s and 727s around, mostly the courier companies, and they are very loud when they take off. Most of the newer jets are not too bad, loud does not equal power. Please tell that to the Harley riders who remove their mufflers to create more noise. Funny, this applies to stereos as well. I have a pretty good stereo, and I used to go into stores and the salesperson would immediately crank the volume to show me how good it is. Wrong! It is how clear it is, and how well it handles the transients which is important.

More later