gwen's birthday
happy birthday gwen!
this is for you!!
this little treasure was found at elsewheres.com
nifty, huh?
:-)
definitions...
«The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year.» John Foster Dulles
a very cool thing...
… i wake up this morning with an interesting email….
for the past few weeks, i’ve been trying to mold existing web 2.0 apps into my handy dandy house tracking portal… none have been exactly what i want, and i had abandoned all hope ;-) and yet… today i receive an email from a guy at rrove.com
Asking me for feedback, etc… and so i did. and his responses were encouraging! Even tho the features i want may not get added, this whole incident has reaffirmed my love for the web, and the evolution of the web. Gone are the days of the automated message of "we will get back to you in 5 days"…. a real live guy asked me for input. (insert sigh here).
human verification...
i just realized…. every other blog i comment in, requires a little human verification test.
mine doesn’t.
does that insinuate that i’m not that picky if the commenter is human or not?
;-)
Happy Friday!
jumping on the torrent bandwagon...
i’m tentatively doing it - wading into the torrent stream… and i can admit freely that i am fairly panicked about it… which is silly for a pseudo geek to say… but i’m simply not good at it… not really… but a marketing guy gave me all the instructions i need… and i think, hell, if marketing ca do it….
:-)
(hug to friendly marketing guy)
now - the next step will be to see how to actually watch these little bits of demons…. i need a new video card. sigh. did i mention i’m not all that shite hot with hardware either?
my new favourite thing...
happy valentines day...
amid the chaos and work and insanity, the desire to leave one’s latop at work for the "big night" is strong and compelling… and as it turned out - there wasn’t time to even turn it on, which is likely a good thing, a verra good thing ;-)
i arrived home to bouquets of brilliance, with, of course, the requisite amount of love displayed as chocolate. then time for a wee nap, and off for dinner - our local japanese haunt… and by the time all was said and done, there was barely time to crawl into bed, giggle over the olympics and wish a happy valentines to all.
thank you mr rogers...
… for adding more bandwidth and making my internet experience less unsatisfying…
i feel like i am whizzing over the internet ice with a newly sharpened pair of skates.
Bless you. I’ll bet i gave you a deal on that same internet service. ;-)
the olympics...
… so - we are now thoroughly entrenched in what may be the oldest sporting event on the planet, and it never seems to amaze me - the IDIOCY of it all now… in times being as they are, to see such excess wealth poured into something that creates no real value, and helps so little. I think what finally set me off was reading that over $400 Million was squandered on the IT infrastructure alone to support the olympics this year…. wow. That’s ALOT of electroncs, not to mention the fact that ON TOP OF THAT, vendors couldn’t GIVE away product fast enough to support it as well…
i simply am boggled by it - the time and effort and cash dumped into something that benefits so very few. and for what? Oh don’t give me the old "it’s for patriotism, it’s for national identity" bullsh*t… are you going to be more heartbroken if we only win 15 medals? as opposed to the 25 we are planning on? in March, are you really going to give one fig about who won the 5000, men’s speedskating? Imagine how far $400M would go to places where you have to jig through a minefield to get to school? Or how about I move closer to home - and dump $400M into the school system of ontario? or michigan? Imagine a university grant for every kid who’s parents make less than $40k a year? Gee - here’s something novel - how about better/more/cheaper vaccines for avian flu?
don’t even get me started on the infrastructure changes the host city has to go through now to support the venues… It’s reported that the 2004 olympics sucked $12 BILLION from the Greek economy… What is Vancouver thinking? Bidding on the olympics is simply akin to asking for repeated punches to the soft, wobbly bits of the local population of the host area… we are eons away from the vancouver olympics, and already the costs are now vastly exceeding the estimates? Now all of Canada is getting dragged into the economic olympics sludge….
are you even going to remember the olympics in June? pfft… simply a waste of time, effort and money.
the olympics goes - we forget about it - but the host city gets to painfully remember it for the next 4 years, until another sucker city and it’s inhabitants gets to feel the pointy toe brunt of the economic "honour".
ohhh the agony...
… this post was originally titled " the antiquities".. and covered an outstanding evening of reuniting with old netcommies, who, if i say so myself are remarkably well preserved…. must be all that good clean living =)
… - i lost the whole posting whilst toasting toast - to make a PB & J sammmie, and the fire alarm went off, and in my hurry, a few extra power bits got turned off in the confusions….. and so did the computer ;-)
and so - all the netcommies….they are all spread out, in outstanding jobs, doing amazing things, and full of laughter… and i miss that. I miss that plenty.
it’s good to know that, like seeds, the netcommies have gone out and infiltrated all industries and all verticals…. it makes for many options, from my little point of view… bell, telus, at&t, EDS, CGI, sprint… you name it, netcommies are there…..and knowing someone is half the battle….
and now, here i sit. burned toast and all… realizing i have to get up and go to a meeting in 12 hours…
that sucks. stay tuned!
faking out the search engine...
…. silly….
sex and candy and kittens and beer and co-ed parties and lobsters and jello.
How ‘bout Osama and Bush and naked mole rats. Maybe add a dash of creative ice sculpture and the Olympics - don’t forget about Frank and Gordon, or Keiffer Sutherland.
There - that should do it. A wee blogger once wrote about silly ways to get search engines to find you... :-)
Now i too want to see what happens. With this site, likely nothing.
Pfft.
the guy who liked the cow....
forehead cramp...
no matter how many times i repeatedly rub my forehead, the twitchy sensation of a forehead cramp remains…. it’s that stretched out, taught like a tiger feeling that comes from being pushed and pulled in 42,000 different directions, and not one of them good. It’s the feeling of simply wanting to be away someplace else.
/me thows out the white flag.
my wish for web 2.0
can a web 2.0 guru make me something so that i can easily keep track of the houses and neighbourhoods i am interested in, and make a google map mashup that goes against the mls.ca listings for houses?
:-)
i can see i am going to have to go this alone - and see if i can cobble a few web 2.0 apps into doing this…. i remember some other silly map thing that lets you do more than the obvious….
stay tuned.
Update on 2006-02-06 22:48 by jules
Update on 2006-02-06 23:53 by jules
narrowing down the neighbourhoods...
… gulp.
the trick now…. satisfy the requirements set out before me, before we can really entertain the idea of moving, and there are MANY requirements, least of all the discussion of commuting…. this house is NOT 7 minutes from (the company that shall remain nameless). Crap.
oh - and the house to the left of this is NOT drawn to scale of the houses i am really looking at ;-) This house simply piques my interest, it doesn’t look like a subdivision house. This is key, and something hard to find in an area like the GTA, where damn near everything that has been built in the past 10 years looks like a cookie cutter version of everything else. The rule is, no cookies.
groundhogs and DNS...
…. whay back when i was a wee sysadmin type at an even wee-er isp, back in the good ole days, i got to be the one to register domain names…. wiartonwillie.org, wiarton-willie.org, mebbe even wiartonwilllie.on.ca
it seems that one of them has survived, which is always comforting. one likes to see the continuation of one’s work - like a legacy for those who come after ;-)
okokok - fer gawd’s sake, it’s just a frigging domain name - i got it. It’s still alive - and it’s been usurped by a higher power - go willie!
So - go out and see if you can see a shadow today. Good luck willie, you wiley little colour deprived rodent…
figtography
ok. whew. i have my breath back. there is an outstanding photographer hidden behind that link. good schtuff, interesting schtuff, with a keen eye and a martial interest as well. (go and see the swords!!!)
somehow i manage to rub elbows with people who make the art of photography look easy. it’s good, spurs me to keep at it, and to pay attention to detail, and to always remember to breathe.
;-)
great site network nerd.
consistency...
… there’s something to be said for consistency, if only to add a semblance of rhythm to your life, and to give people a standard by which the majority of your decisions and reaction can be based upon.
the smapp dog’s life revolves around consistency; knowing when dinner is, when walks are, what my reaction will be when she is caugh on the couch… consistency.
my life enjoys its share of consistency, wake times, home times, tea times, what to have for brekkie, if there’s brekkie…. but i think i’d like a little more inconsistency in some things…. something more risky, something more adventurous.
—— i don’t know where this post is going.. i thought i had it all figured out out in me head - but now it’s all come unravelled… i don’t know if this is leaning towards life, or towards repetition, or kids or what.
pfft.
rain...
how is it possible, when yesterday it was a balmy 12 degrees, spring coat weather, scarf-free weather, to be thrust into such wet conditions today. weather rules out too many good options with the chickadees… no outside rollerblading, no walking the smapp dog together, and not being able to just get the little dickens out of the house and out from underfoot.
there’s only so much entertainment in the tower, and then a head is likely to pop off.
so - today is now a day to make sauce. and stay sane. sauce is a given, sanity, not so guaranteed. guerilla grocery run, coming up.
my eyebrows are cramped...
… from struggling with work all aft… and not making enough headway… the company that remains nameless (tm) is definately full of challenges, yet there are days when i sit for a moment with the smapp dog and wonder about long term goals and all that must lie between now and then… pfft. I need a massage.
a good thing - went out with good and old friends last night…. no - not old age friends, long time friends… it felt very grown up, with wine and tableclothes and a waiter with an accent. it was quite good. and funny. and way too much food and giggles. thank you dwarf and lady dwarf :-)
this weekend will be another "weekend with the chickadees" - stay tuned for new episodes in hilarity. the wee chickadee is still malingering with illness… i hope she can turn it around before saturday…