I got the sickness!

I have been trying to shake this cold all week. I'm not really complaining about it though because as far as colds go, this one is tolerable. But it would be nice to be done with it before returning home, where I am sure there is a whole host of other virii waiting to infect me.

At the very least, maybe I can pass it along to my fellow passengers on the plane. I'm sure they will love me once I start coughing.

One of the purposes of making this trip, aside from seeing family (that's really the primary reason) is to help get my parents set up with a computer that works for them. If all goes well, they might actually be able to read this before I return home to Vancouver. When I left the east coast back in '95 I rather naively assumed I would be able to keep in touch with folks back home with my computer. Turns out, I was about ten years too early by the most optimistic estimates. It will be exciting to get my parents hooked up - they already have internet and a digital camera so really all they need is a stable platform to connect it all together. Well that, and some typing skills, but that's another story. Sorry Mom, but it's true.

Homecoming visit
How much colder is it there?
That is the question.

The Time change is always best in Autumn

Here we are on the eve of another election. Not just any election, but the biggest presidential race in the world. Make no mistake America - the rest of the world is going to watch with great concern. After watching the last couple races I am not able to let myself get my hopes up too high. I have a training course tomorrow so by the time I get out of there things should largely be decided. Probably for the best, as I would have been watching the results pretty closely.

My wife was able to vote in this election through absentee ballot. The form arrived in the mail today which was the absolute last day that it could have arrived and still be valid. We mailed that ballot off and then went out for dinner in an impromptu mini-celebration over the fact that we made it. Knowing how the postal service works between countries, we had practically given up hope.

Today's photo was taken from the roof of our office building at sunset. While this photo does not show it, the sky had a vibrant colour that contrasted nicely against the skyline. The other thing I noticed, which you can see in this photo, is that the local mountains have received their first snowfall of the season. These two things (the sunset and snowfall) signify changes - hopefully ones reflected in tomorrow's polls.

Yeah - I bet you were wondering where I was going with that one, didn't you? Okay, time to close this out with a haiku

America votes
With the world as it's witness
Hopefully for change.

Weekend to recover

Let me just say one thing real quick: rum does not go well with root beer. Nasty.

Last night we rented another PS2 game, Lego Indiana Jones. Once again I seem to fail spectacularly at playing cooperatively but somehow we still manage to have fun struggling through. Of course, this morning I find myself humming the theme song, which plays throughout the game. My wife was surprised at how many details from the movie she still remembered since it had been years since she saw it last.

I would have had more fun if I wasn't fighting with a controller that was not working well. Since I normally play games on the PC with a mouse and keyboard, I had forgotten about issues with gamepads and joysticks. To say I was getting frustrated with it was an understatement.

I know this haiku doesn't have a nature reference, but here it is just the same: I call it neo-haiku.

When playing a game
of the console persuasion
try to keep your cool.

Haiku for You

Sometimes I commute
with headphones in, but no sound.
Hear a city breathe.

One bad habit I have is that I will sometimes artificially limit myself. I do this in subtle ways in most areas of my life and most times I don't even notice. One example of what I am talking about can be found right here on my blog. I often have ideas that I could post about, but don't for one reason or another. Sometimes they are valid reasons, such as the idea is not complete or well formed, but at other times, it is because I don't have a photo to go with the post. This is an artificial requirement I placed on myself. Often, the photo I include has absolutely nothing to do with what I am talking about, so why is it essential that I include one with every post? It isn't.

Another thing I have been thinking about is including a haiku poem with my posts. I often have little bits of verse floating around inside my head, so I am hoping this is at least one possible outlet for that. Today's poem came to me as I was walking into the office. I usually listen to podcasts from the CBC - it's the closest I can get to news radio on an ipod and overall it's an enjoyable experience. But a lot of the time my podcast ends before I make it into the office. Sometimes instead of switching to music (which is always available on the ipod) I just listen to the surrounding noises from traffic, the harbour, etc. I suppose I could always take the headphones out to hear things better, but somehow, leaving them in helps to remind me that I am 'listening' to something.

Maybe I should leave my headphones in when talking to my wife...

Avian street performer works the waterfront crowd

I don't know if it is because I truly like birds or if I just like finding things to take pictures of. But when I take Louise for her walks, I tend to notice a lot of the birds in Vancouver. Including this fellow, who was fishing in the fountain in front of the Westin Bayshore.

He was surprisingly close to pedestrian traffic and was not bothered by us at all. It kind of felt like being at a zoo. Keep in mind that my compact camera only has a 3x zoom, so I had to be closer than about 10 feet to get photos like these.

You know, I just realized that after getting the photos of this heron, I really didn't notice any of the other birds on the rest of that walk.

I was really hoping to catch him in the act of spearing a fish, but maybe that was too much to ask for. When the dog and I returned ten minutes later (after visiting the dogs hanging out at the newest Starbucks in town) I was a little surprised to see the bird still there. Crowds of people would gather for five or ten minutes and then just as quickly disperse. I'm sure if this bird had an upside down hat near the pond he could have made enough to buy a fish dinner.

I guess it's just another one of the cool things about living in Vancouver. It's not quite urban enough to prevent nature from dropping in.

Election Season

We are having an election this year, just like the Americans. I saw an interview of Stephen Spoonamore from back in 2005 on youtube and it left me disheartened about what might yet happen later this year. He basically suggests that election results can easily be fudged by whomever is able to hack into the electronic voting systems widely used today. Of course, he's completely right as well.

The ramifications are plain to see for the American contest, especially in light of the fact that the last two presidential elections were contested. But it made me think - is this also a problem we would face here in Canada? While I have not seen the touch screen voting system often criticized in America, I have seen Diebold voter card counting machines, etc. - all of which are equally non-transparent.

Why is it such a stretch for a company that builds ABM machines (such as Diebold) to apply the same standards of openness to certification? In the banking case, every part of the machine and code is scruitnized by both a third party analyst as well as a customer appointed one. No such practices are put in place for the voting machines, however.

If the Canadian election was to be stolen, that would be very bad in an ideological sense. But for the American election to be stolen, possibly again, well that would be a tragedy that has far larger ramifications for the rest of the world.

Woot! New Video card Installed

Once upon a time I bought a new computer. At that time, the selection of video cards was kind of sucky, so I decided to use the onboard video that came with my computer. The plan was, once a decent card arrived, I would then get it.

A lot of time passed by. Good cards came and went, I was busy rebuilding a patio, finding other ways to procrastinate. It took me over a year and a half to finally get a video card installed.
Getting the card was one thing. Getting it installed into my computer was a completely different adventure that fortunately has a happy outcome. But I was a little nervous at first. This is because like most cards these days, this one is substantially larger than any other card I had installed before. The fact is, video cards today are about 4 to 8 times larger in volume - so much so that the makers of my motherboard did not take it's size into consideration when mapping out where to put connectors.

As a result, I had to get special SATA cables that would fit underneath the video card housing and still do the job. On one end of the cable the plug is at a right angle which allows for more clearance, but also means my cable blocks the second SATA port. Luckily I only have one SATA hard drive and one SATA optical drive. I had to move my hard drive lower in order to make room for the card too.

It took me two days to get the card installed, but that was mostly because I had to run out to get the custom cables in order to do the job right. Luckily everything works and I was able to install the vista drivers with little effort (who knew!)

I booted into linux briefly and did note that my video drivers have been reset to default ones, but the install still works. Reconfiguring that will be an adventure for another day - probably soon though as I won't be able to use that OS with a resolution of only 800x600 - that would drive me nuts. But before I was to do that, I really wanted to see what my current games look like with the new card.

Wow. I now know what people with glasses feel like when they get their prescription updated and it is better. Thief 3 used to play, but I had to turn down the resolution and the people still walked in slow-motion most of the time. Now, it is as the developers intended. Test Drive Unlimited is now responsive, crisp and beautiful. Before it was so slow that I could not play it - just trying to accelerate would force the game to stutter. With the xbox controller I got from Chris last year, driving is smooth and precise, which is just what I wanted. Titan's Quest played pretty well on my onboard video but now I was able to bump up the resolution and turn on all the special effects. It just looks so much prettier now.

And of course, now I can finally try BioShock. It's one of the best from last year, which is the closest to playing a current video game that I have come yet.

IKEA Overdose

Over the past month, we have been making multiple trips to IKEA as we attempt to put some organization to our small space. We have been there so often that our routine has shifted. We rarely go through the store as IKEA intends - now, instead of going through the maze showroom like obedient customers, we usually enter through the exit, or at the very least take all the handy shortcuts they have to bypass at least part of the store. I figure doing that alone cuts out a solid half hour to hour of time for us, but even so it is rare to have a stay shorter than a full hour. I really wish IKEA was a store I could quickly drop in for a single item, but they are geared to keep you in as long as possible.

The multiple trips are in part to return merchandise that looked great on the showroom floor, but not so great in our living room. Or kitchen. Or bedroom. You get the idea. Luckily there are two locations in the Lower Mainland, as the Coquitlam guys were starting to recognize me in the returns lineup. I was the one who had the receipts and packaging all in order because I already knew what they would need for the fastest processing possible.

Our place is by no means 100% IKEA styled, but we do use a fair bit of their stuff. Especially the organization solutions, as we have limited space. But neither location is 'close' to us so I am looking forward to when IKEA trips can once again be a novelty and no longer a part of our routine.