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nOVEMBER aRCHIVESFriday 11.29.02 Had a fine game of golf today; putting really well, particularly on the back 9. I had a good string of pars, most of which should have been birdies. Coulda, woulda, shoulda... Paul was not able to join us as, I assume, he was engrossed in a toe-sucking session. The fog wasn't as bad as it looked though it did make the flags a little hard to see at times. After a somewhat meandering walk around the Stanley Park and the seawall yesterday, I figured that I would mount a more organized attack on it today with a goal of reaching the Lions Gate and then deciding to complete the walk or return. Best laid plans but I had forgotten about the seawall being closed for rock scaling between Third beach and the bridge. In any event I made it to Third beach in 35 minutes, walking at a pretty good clip and then walked along the beach where I could on the way back. The fog was a lot heavier than yesterday and I swear that the cold and damp penetrated my bones. Well, I'm off to Ardie's to fix her personal confuser... Be back later to watch OZ! Top Thursday 11.28.02 This damn XXXXXXX thing just won't die though it seems that the mystery is solved. DELETED DELETED In a way I am disappointed; I'd like to think that I am XXXXXXXXXXX... As far as Chris goes, thanks for solving the mystery but you should really be studying, or something. This site is just a waste of bits and bandwidth. To wit Top Hey! I think I like that: Wednesday 11.27.02 You may have noticed that I added the 'cam' pic to the page. It's a static image right now and I would like to do a little Java magic to swap the image for a day shot I have depending on the time of day. That will have to do until I can get a decent webcam. The shots were taken with Aya's camera and I really wish I had it now as there was the most incredible sunset tonight. Speaking of Aya, I talked to her today and she is back in Male now. It sounds like she really enjoyed her layover in Singapore and said that she treated herself to a facial. She was saying that she almost has enogh air miles for a free flight back if she decides to return. I have also decided to 'quit' my Safeway job as it just isn't worth the effort given the return. I am to be working tonight but I'm not going in so I guess that will do it. They called today to remind me that I am working and asked that I call them back to confirm but I didn't; they never returned my calls either so I don't feel bad about it. I have an Infoslave reunion next week which will be nice. Something like 50 people have agreed to go so that should be pretty cool. I guess it will have to be my Christmas party for this year! Carmen emailed me as well and oddly enough there is a StockHouse reunion planned for December; I think I'll pass on that one. I see Carmen a lot, Audrey is travelling somewhere in Europe and Andrea and I are still trying to schedule that coffee. They are the folks that I would want to see anyway as I wasn't there that long before the axe fell. I didn't really keep in touch with anyone else except Walter. Top Monday 11.25.02 Well, I sent Ayako off this morning after a really busy week together. It was hard to see her go but we really packed a ton of stuff into last week. We were out every night but one, the entire time she was here. Lots of dinners and visits with friends and family and just catching up. We were both pretty tired after it all and I think sleep will come early tonight. Met up with Carmen and Eugene again on Sunday and we went for a coffee and did some shopping. I even splurged a little and bought myself a couple of CDs and a couple for Aya as well. I wish I had some more cash as I would have got her something more than a couple of CD's but broke is sort of the name of the game these days. I guess I was to work yesterday. *sits here not caring* I think quitting would be a bad idea but I think I will just ignore them and hope that they go away, which they should. I have such a bad taste in my mouth that I don't want to go in anymore and the money isn't enough for me to get worked up about. I'll bet they call me for Christmas though... I decided to see if I could get a copy of Studio MX so I installed Kazaa and found it right away so I guess file sharing is alive and well. Morpheus sucks in a huge way but Kazaa isn't too bad so I am trying to think of what I want and then grab it so I can get Kazaa off my system. Top Friday 11.22.02 I added some pictures for your enjoyment! A few of Ayako in the park and the rest of the Maldives Islands. The island pics were not my first choice... I uploaded a bunch that I thought were great but they would not show up no matter what I did. I know that they are on the Shaw servers as I can see them and the page looks great locally, but they never worked live. I choose some others that Aya had sent earlier on and will swap them around once in a while so that they all go up. Actually, I plan to do a thumbnail page so that it doesn't take forever to load for my bandwidth challenged friends *shnewt* We went out for dinner last night to celebrate Rachel's birthday and had a good time with a nice group of friends. Tonight we are off to Neal and Ardie's and Saturday night to Brian's followed by a stop at Paul and Rachel's for her birthday party. With a pinch of luck we will get a visit in with Carmen before Aya gets back on the plane on Monday. It's been a busy week! Top Thursday 11.21.02 I had an encouraging chat with HR at jaalaM Wednesday morning. They had asked me to stay in touch and I had left it until now before I gave them a call. The first thing that I found to be encouraging was that they actually called me back after I left a voice mail. Secondly, they didn't really come out and say that an offer was coming but they did say that they have a budget for January and if I get an offer between now and January, I should call them. Third, they don't want to "have to go through the whole recruitment process again..." which I think was their way of saying 'hang on' without committing to anything too concrete. *does dance of joy* This is definitely great news, not just because it would mean a job (though that would be cool) but because they are the company that I want to work for more than any other that I have applied to. Plus, it would be nice to be getting up in the morning with some sort of purpose to my day. I have been trying to keep sending resumes out but it is a little hard when Ayako is visiting. I try to get up a little early and send some out before she gets up in the morning. She is having a hard time adjusting which is understandable given that Male is 13 hours ahead of us. We had a good time In Stanley Park and took some pictures. She also has some pictures of the islands that I will be putting up soon. She has a Sony Cybershot and it is a very cool little camera that takes great pictures. I'll post a link once I have uploaded the pictures; well worth a look. Top Monday 11.18.02 Well, the heavens have officially opened up so I guess all the drought talk can finally but put to an end. Paul is making reservations for Rachel's dinner and to surprise Rachel, I hadn't said anything about Ayako coming into town today. Apparently, the restaurant will not accept a reservation with out an actual, verifiable name attached to all of the dinner guests. Paul put the screws to me and I finally had to tell him that it was indeed Ayako and not J Lo that would be my dinner guest. I can't imagine why he wasn't buying the whole J Lo story... It could happen. It is great to have Ayako here again. She left for the Maldives at the end of December so it has been a long time. Unfortunately, she is only here for a week and then has to return to finish off her contract. The airport run was not without it's difficulties; her flight was delayed over an hour, and that information didn't make to the board in arrivals so I was sitting there wondering what in earth was happening. Do you have any concept of how many asian women there are in the international arrivals area at YVR? I must have hopped up a half dozen times before I planted myself and waited. To compound matters, I had once again forgotten my phone. Thankfully I had my Palm, but after the rebuild there were no games on it so I browsed the web. Life is hard... When we got back to my plush, well-lit apartment, we found that Mom and Dad had sent a dozed roses for her. *very nice* Top vERSION 2.0Monday 11.18.02 Well Sevenapril v.2 is now up and running... A bit different layout and and some new colors but no graphics yet. Soon, I hope. I'm not sure that I really like the new look but it is more in the direction that I want to go. The more that I look at the font color, the less I like it but I'm not into editing the file at this point. What's really stupid is that I having been screwing around with a hundred different layouts since I changed the front page and then threw this together in a few hours this evening. I got together with Paul for a coffee yesterday, just like we do every weekend. He was rambling on about this dog that he and Rachel are going to be looking after over the Christmas holiday. Apparently it's called a Shnewtoodle... I kept stating that in my opinion, anything with a name like Shnewtoodle is not a dog but he was insistent that they are breeding them now. Other people, not Paul... Anyway, as with all of our conversations, it went nowhere fast and the topic was quickly changed. "I thought you said you were getting a dog..." Top Sunday 11.17.02 Damn, yesterday's post was a joke for spelling errors. Sorry about that... One thing I forgot to mention was that I saw Smilgis on the CTV news talking about online shopping. I think it was Thursday evening but of course this will only make sense to the Infoslaves in the crowd. I couldn't figure out what was different until I realized he didn't have his glasses on. Top Saturday 11.16.02 I went out and voted this morning... I am always torn on voting; is the uniformed vote a better option than not voting at all? For what it was worth, my ballot is now in the mix. I got Brian a new computer after his died and in the process found a new geek shop that is really good. EGlobal has great prices and nice people who are willing to wheel and deal a little. I'm sure that they will be getting a few more of my dwindling dollars in the future. I had my typical game of golf yesterday... A painful front 9 followed by a much better back 9. Neal was was badly robbed on 12 when he missed a hole in one; rang it right off the pin! We keep saying that each week will be the last but so far, so good. We did miss the one game a couple of weeks ago when the course was closed due to the threat of rabid squirrels but at least the weather has been nice... For some reason my Palm has refused to complete it's sync cycle, getting hung up on my Contacts and yet I had made no changes at all. It would just sync until I was getting low battery warnings, which pissed me off mightily. After re-installing the software on my desktop and then hard re-setting the Palm it was still a no go. I ended up getting updated versions of all the software involved and it was working. Ask me again why I love computers? Of course I was happy to note that I can now sync to AvantGo over an encrypted connection! *geek* Top Wednesday 11.13.02 I'm busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest... Words of wisdom(?) from Roger (pronouced Rogé) during a chat yesterday. A very nice catch phrase; I may start using it if I ever find myself that busy again. Rogé is a big diving nut and his site is full pictures, most underwater, from said dives. If the site isn't up, (like now...) it's because his server has crashed again. He'll tell you that it's due to his anit-virus software, but I suspect he runing the site off a Pentium66! I met up with Rogé for lunch today and he was in fine form, as always and we had a good chat. He's doing time at Blast Radius these days and seems to be doing well. He's working too much but that is the way things are these days. If you have a job, you do the work of two. If you don't have a job, well, you don't have a job and your days are spent not wearing pants. So it is day two of the renewed job search and I am happy to report that technology companies across Vancouver are disregarding my submissions. I can't imagine why I ever stopped looking... Blah... Enough for now. Top Monday 11.11.02 Hi. Remember me? I didn't think so... I have been trying to convert the layout to something cool and stuff but evidently, I ain't smurt enuf. I'm still working on it though. I did hook up my aging camera and have uploaded a new picture for the cam, but that is about all. I still want to upload pics to the page but the camera I have is so old that it pegs my processor while it is running and I'm not about to fry a CPU to show everyone the same shot out my window. I might pick up a cheap USB cam or wait until I get working again and buy something a bit more advanced. I wish that Shaw supported CGI. If they did I would be using Movable Type for this page. Andrea has made the move and her page is really looking great. I'm still thinking about paying for hosting but as always, I'm not looking to take on another bill at this point. Today is Remembrance Day and it is the first time in almost ten years that I didn't go to a service. I had every intention of going and was kind of looking forward to the new and larger venue now that I am downtown, but time got away from me and I ended up watching it on TV. How very digital of me... I have also decided that I am going to start looking for a job again. I guess my time of sitting here doing jack is over. I just have had zero motivation to do it before and now I would like to get back at it, so I will get back on the horse. I do want to thank Spanky for all the leads that he has sent my way; I have followed up on most of them. The time off has been enjoyable but Sunday made it five months since I was laid off. FIVE MONTHS Holy shit... Top Wednesday 11.06.02 Not much going on around here these days. Thankfully my apartment is plush and well-lit so I am not too bothered. What does bother me is Safeway, but what else is new? After being admonished for for not checking the schedule I went down there to see when I was scheduled to work and found exactly zero shifts for the next two weeks. Nice. Luckily, I have my 'Problem Employee' program to fall back on otherwise I might be getting upset by it all... As you probably noticed, I have changed the front page and am experimenting with different code. I want to try some new things and move to something a little less bland than what I have now. I wanted to start out with something simple and understated and I think I achieved that but I also want to keep moving forward. I'm not really sure why I am bringing this up here... I guess I don't have a lot to say. Oh, before I forget, congrats should go out to Angelo as he got the job that he was applying for. I know that will be a big relief for him and that's great. There's nothing like a little financial stress to make you feel like your life is going to shit. I on the other hand, have done exactly zero in order to find a new job, though the desire is growing lately. I am just happy to be out from under my mortgage and the realated expenses that go along with it. If I still owned my apartment, I'd be looking but now, I can enjoy my 'vacation' and not be broke as my life has become very simple and I couldn't be happier about it. Top Monday 11.04.02 I have been giving a great deal of thought to some of the options that I have during my little period of 'restructuring' and have come up with a few ideas:
I came to this conclusion after having it out with Steve the wonder idiot at Safeway over the number of shifts I have been getting. I just dislike them so much that I laid into him even though I would be happy to just walk away and never darken their door again. The funny thing is that they really think that people should be begging for the 'privilege' of working there. Obviously, they haven't haven't given their heads a shake in a long time, though I guess that would be difficult given where it is currently located. I guess it is news to them that this 'job' is not a career, nor a means of garnering great wealth. Ok, enough ranting for now. Andrea, if that was you that called yesterday, try again! I forgot my phone when I went out. That is one of the downsides of living in a high rise; invariably you realize that you have forgotten something just as the elevator starts on it's way down to the lobby. Nothing that you can do... 16 floors down and then 16 floors back up and sometimes you just say the hell with it. Top Friday 11.01.02 With Brian in Kelowna, it was just Neal and I for golf this morning. We walked down and noted that the greens would be pretty fast due to the heavy layer of frost. Neal then noticed that there were no pins anywhere. We then saw the sign and the damn golf course was closed this morning "because of the weather". What the hell is that? Was it too sunny out? Too great a danger from falling leaves? We walked home dejected and decided to forgo the game this week. We also decided that we would send Brian down early next week. Went for a walk downtown and that was about the extent of my day. Safeway called again tonight which only highlighted their desperation as I didn't call them back when they called yesterday. I guess I'll call later this weekend and tell Steve, the wonder idiot that I was out of town. The reason that I didn't work yesterday was that I had volunteered to help Neal move Leslie into her new apartment. The new place was a block away and we figured it would be quick as Leslie was somewhat organized. What we didn't count on was the bitch in the new place refusing to turn over the key until I just got off the phone with Paul and he was pretty happy with himself over an email he had sent so I will post it here. The only reason I didn't was that I figured that he might think I was going to start posting WAV files of our phone conversations. Actually, that's coming... I was royally bored at school tonight so I said "Paul, either pick your nose, or go and read Mark's blog". No Paul, you a funny man. On a related note, I was able to show Paul how to change the hearts that trail from the mouse on his page to a picture of him! Be sure to visit and see the Pauls head merrily float past! Top On a Web site, a blog, a short form of Web log or web log, is a personal journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site and its purpose. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors. The essential characteristics of the blog are its journal form, typically a new entry each day, and its informal style. The author of a blog is often referred to as a blogger. People who post new journal entries to their blog may often say they blogged today, they blogged it to their site, or that they still have to blog. Definition from WhatIs.com Top |
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