-
defining the problem
It’s very important to fully understand and define a problem before trying to solve it. I overheard a story that illustrates this quite nicely. A mother heard her three-year old son screaming hysterically in the bathroom, and ran over to see what was wrong. He was holding his hand up in the hair, looking at…
-
Cottages
Last week we were blessed with a weeklong stay at a cottage on Muskoka Lake. The weather didn’t cooperate, but we had a great time. Pictures are available here.
-
Geek Test
It has come to my attention that several people have claimed the status of ‘geek’ when it is glaringly obvious that they are not geeks. So here’s a quick and dirty geek test. You must pass the test to be able to call yourself a geek. Put your answers as a comment, and I’ll post…
-
the devil we know
I’m thoroughly disgusted by Canadians. We’ve once again voted in the Liberals. While they don’t have a a majority government (even with the help of the NDP), they are still the ruling party. I mean, they’ve only wasted a few billion on the gun registry, and a few more billion on the sponshorship hoopla… but…
-
windows
Wednesday evening Noah (four year old son, picture is elsewhere in this blog) threw a rock through our car window. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except the window was closed. Thankfully the windows are designed with this sort of mishap in mind, and don’t shatter into a million sharp splinters. Instead they explode into…
-
elections
Seven days and counting until Canada’s national election. Canadians are notoriously apathetic when it comes to elections, with something like 40% voter turnout. Mind you, that’s higher than our friends down south, but it’s rather poor, especially when there’s so much uproar about the current government. The issue of voter privacy is a very interesting…
-
test of version 1.2
I’ve just upgrade my blogging software to WordPress 1.2. Mostly I’ve done this because the new version can upload files, and create thumbnails. The only pictures I have to show are those of my two children (who thankfully finally went to sleep). So here they are:
-
campfire
Tuesday June 15 saw another successful rendition of the Campfire! Golf tournament. It’s held at the Guelph Lakes golf course. We had 144 golfers, and the weather was excellent. We raised almost $21,000 for campfire! Apart from a wounded bird (killed in midflight by an errant golf ball), a bruised Canada goose (stopped a 150…
-
symbolics
The original purpose of this blog was computer-related, so here’s my first related post. Last week I dealt with pessimisted entity beans. There are also optimistic entity beans. Wait! Before I lose you in what Dr. Seuss describes as goobly-gook, let me explain. Not what entity beans have to do with pessimism, but more about…
-
water
Last night we had a storm that dumped 100 millimeters of rain in less than two hours. Included in the mix was lightning, hail, and strong winds. There’s a waterfall coming down the Hamiton escarpment beside Highway 403 that’s normally pretty tame. Last night it looked like Niagara Falls. There was so much pressure that…
-
my kids
This post serves two purposes. The first is to shamelessly brag about my two beautiful children. The second is to test uploading of files to this blog.
-
Ads
Everything’s an opportunity for Advertising. Not my quote, but a colleagues’ quote after walking by some guy sitting in a lawn chair on a tiny piece of artificial turf on the corner of Yonge and Bloor in downtown Toronto. Looks like he was hawking Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Earlier in the day we walked through Union…
-
Hit Counter
After a bit of digging in between lectures and labs I have a rudimentary hit counter going on the bottom of my page. Not that anyone reads this blog…. but at least I can see how often I reload this page. 😉
-
Country boys in the big city
Today’s the first day of five days of training in Toronto. I’m with three other guys, all of us from Hamilton. Rather than the normal relaxing drive through the horrors of hamilton, it’s get up before the sun, mad rush to catch the train, brace yourself on the subway, and then pop up like a…