Archive for January, 2005

Well, today I skated the length of the Rideau Canal Skateway twice. Jenn and I met some folks from church at the middle — which is really close to our house. We skated north to the NAC and the back to the middle. Jenn and some of the girls had snacks, but George and I skated south to Dows Lake and the Ice Cafe. On the way back I realized my shoes and skate guards were in Jenn’s packsack which was probably at home with Jenn. I thought that I might have to run across the street in my skates and then skate up our street (which is totally covered with ice anyway,) but Jenn was waiting for me. Good old Jenn — I mean young, young Jenn.

In other skating news, after watching Bourne Supremacy tonight, we tuned into Youngblood and watched Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze play hockey against those hockey brutes, the Thunder Bay Bombers. Hollywood hockey at it’s finest! Whoah! Wait a second! I didn’t know that the Twins changed their name to The Bombers! No one tells me anything!

I figured that I’d haul out a website design that I’ve been fiddling with for quite some time today — seeing as I’ve a new host and have to transfer everything over to the new site anyway. It’s by no means ready for prime time, but a solid foundation for the work is done. Much of this design was developed while I was working on a site for the GCS/GRC late last year — and if we ever get going on that project again, you’ll probably see some similarities. Anyways, I just wanted to say I’m back and I’m glad you’re reading (and commenting on) my blog — which Doug pointed out today, isn’t worth all that much.

Oh, and Jay, the RSS feed is back — just for you!

Sorry I’ve been such a poor blogger lately. Anyway, I’m just posting to let you know that I’ve changed hosts again — this time to a reliable one. But as things propogate through the net over the next few hours there will undoutably be interuptions. I also will be hard at work working, not playing, so it might be a little longer than normal til it’s up.

Hmm, Robin tells me the interruptions are starting already. Oh well.

Three years ago today I was in Edinburgh, Scotland on Robbie Burns Day. I saw men in kilts running around the streets as the rain came down. I had my first haggis that day too — with tatties and neeps, no less. Dispite what you’ve heard, if you like a nice course sausage or salty meatloaf, you’ll probably like haggis. There’s no sheep stomach to eat. Sure, the haggis is cooked in it, but it’s not served in it and of course, it is well cleaned before it is used to cook the haggis. So, don’t let that put you off. Jenn and I plan on walking down to the Royal Oak after work today for a pint of Tennent’s and a taste of haggis to celebrate.

Scotland’s national poet’s Address to a Haggis

Jenn and I just finished playing name that tune for about three hours straight — and it was made really easy and fun thanks to iTunes. Because the clips are only 30 seconds long, it made for a realatively quick game, even if you couldn’t guess the song. We started by going through some “Celebrity Playlists” like Sarah MaLachlan, Nelly Furtado (what a flake) and Rufus Wainwright (or as Lance calls him, Roughass Whinewright.) Then we moved on to 70′s and 80′s tunes from the collections of iMix playlists.

Anyways, it was a whole lot of fun. Jenn surprised me by getting a few really obscure tunes and we had quite a few laughs trying to remember the words to songs as we were singing them (much faster than the samples were playing) so that we could get to the title in the lyric before time ran out. For example, did you know that in REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling the line is “And even though I wander, I’m keeping you in sight. You’re a candle in the window, on a cold dark winter’s night,“ not a corn dog late at night? You learn something every day.

When I first got this computer two and a half years ago I remember being worried about it. I think the first or second time I turned it on the screen wouldn’t turn on. It stayed black and made a crackle noise while everything else did it’s thing. I turned it on and off a couple times and it worked and then I don’t think I had any more problems with it. Last night, I turned the computer off — usually I just let it sleep and watch the white power light slowly pulse from normal to dim and back again. This morning, it crackled when I turned it back on but the screen stayed black.

After turning it on and off in rapid succession a few times (just joking) I decided I’d better unplug everything, move it to the floor and try it again with it upside down — remember, I used to re-align my Commodore disk drive by bouncing it on the bed (although, I didn’t have a little lego man living in my drive like Robin did.) It was so dusty underneath it was embarassing. I called Jenn in and asked what I should do. I figure I’ve got a better chance of her doing it for me if I ask for her “advice” instead of her “help.” In a few minutes she was sitting on the floor with me, the eMac and a bunch of Q-Tips cleaning it out for me. I took off the little door where the extra memory goes and poked around a bit then tried it again. It powered up with the screen looking lovely and we were both happy. But for a little while this morning while I was eating my toast and tea I was dreaming of a new iBook.

One of the projects that I’ve been working on at my new job is logo design. Yesterday I met with my supervisor and presented four final designs. We then cut two of them and will make our final decision in the next week. So, I present to you today, the penultimate logo cuts.

First off, I (more or less) liked all four logos that I presented. This was one of the variations of my first round of designs that I liked. It’s hard not to use an eye as a symbol for vision and that’s what this place is all about, vision. I like the simple eye shape cut out of the sides of the lowercase “n” and how it’s looking forward. I also like how the tail of the “y” sweeps back and sets up the perfect size and location for the slogan. I think I would have been very happy with this design. It’s contemporary without being juvenile. But, it’s cut!

This logo was much easier to cut. Out of the four I presented, I would have cut this one right away myself if I had to. The letters aren’t nearly as solid (which I read as trustworthy,) the “x” stands out but for no good reason and the “swoosh” is just there because everyone else is doing swooshes too. In one of the early meetings a swoosh was mentioned, so I figured I’d throw out a logo with one. I came up with a good rationalization for it though. The dot on the “i” represents an eye — the swoosh is the darkness that it’s hard to see in, the area inside the swoosh is our company aiding our sight in this darkness and the “x” is the danger ahead that we can now see. Cut!

As a postscript, I’ve been quite pleased with all the comments that have been posted during this last week on all my blog entries. I fear that this post will win me no comments. Oh well.

Yeah, I know, it’s a poor excuse for a blog post — but I’ve been busy. And at least I’m posting more often than Tim Lappala (c’mon take the bait already!) I think I scored so low because I don’t have any bio-hazard warnings and because I was only guessing at the chemistry stuff.

By the way, I answered honestly, I could have pumped my score up by giving the “right answers“ …see.

It being Jenn’s Birthday Weekend we went to Zack’s Diner for breakfast on Sunday morning — church was held in the evening this week. Anyways, I think I had more fun that Jenn did, but she had a good time too, I know because she was lauging at me. Besides the food, which was good, there were lots of things to make fun of and entertain myself with.

First the entertainment — at our booth, there was a mini-jukebox with 100 songs to choose from. The selections were mostly by Little Ricky and some other 50′s/60′s rocker. There was also some Neil Young and Sting which tempted me, but for a quarter, I chose George Harrison Give Me Love, Give Me Peace and Wings, Band on the Run. What was coolest about this mini-jukebox was that it played my selections over the diner’s sound system. So everyone had to listen to what I wanted them too!

Then, we got our breakfast, complete with homefries. That’s when we started talking about “That great potato flavour.” What potato flavour? Potatos don’t have flavour like licourice has flavour or curry has flavour or maple syrup has flavour. But, you’ve seen the comercial for french fries where the grown up french fry eater talks about the great potato flavour. How absurd — how funny!

Then there were the signs on the wall. “Popsicles, the frozen drink on a stick” You can’t drink it, it’s frozen. And my favourite for the day, “Pepsi: Any weather is Pepsi weather.” Ha ha! Pepsi, the all weather softdrink. Well, it was funny to us.

I had an idea for a cartoon yesterday, while I was listening to the news. But I didn’t have time to draw it — and don’t anticipate drawing in the future — so you’ll just have to visualize with me…

Picture a barnyard with chickens and pigs. The pigs are sitting on stumps by the woodpile and chickens are standing with them. A few of them are wearing glasses, some have pencils behind their ears, one chicken has a big old calculator with a paper roll dumping out scrolls. All the animals are working with pencils and paper, finishing a page, crumpling it up and tossing them over their shoulders. Cows, behind a fence, reach their necks though the fence and eat up the balls of paper they can reach. There are a couple of thick textbooks near the pigs with “Calculus” printed on the covers and spines.

The caption reads “Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is passed to cattle when they eat feed derived from other animals.”