Month: June 2006

A lot of shit is broken right now. I’m surprised I’m even this far along. Be patient.

I finally got a phone for my desk at work. Ya see, I’ve been at my new spot at the office since the end of May when I was moved over to be closer with my new team members. The day before I moved, they gave me a phone at my old sweet cubicle. I didn’t even have a chance to use it once.

I was miffed at first but then reality set in. No one knows my work number. No one calls me at work anyways. I still have my cell phone with me during the day. When I thought about those things, I wasn’t really missing my phone any more.

Yesterday, I got a new phone for my desk. Since our company is expanding faster than my waistline, they’ve had to get new spaces wired up for phones, data, and power. I was the beneficiary of such work since they made a new phone jack by my desk where none existed before.

I set up my voicemail but no one has called me yet. I don’t forsee my co-workers calling me either. It takes less than a minute to walk to anywhere in our building, so the phoning is just lazy. Plus, I don’t think anyone even knows where the phone directory is stored on the network. Also, with MSN, it’s probably easier and better to use IM to communicate.

Ok, on that note, here’s a list of superheroes and their (assumed) religious affiliations.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9QXyuUqKCs]

Yes, I said I’d try to post less videos but the Harvard Class Day speeches have become something of a yearly tradition here at et.com. It all started with the man himself, Will Ferrell, who introduced me to Harvard’s Class Day. His speech was fantastic.

Then, I featured the sensation from Staines, Ali G. He wowed the ivy-league audience with his street lingo where he mentioned movies like “Backdoor Burglar” and “Shaven Buffet”. Videos do exist of this speech but they are heavily edited. A full, unedited transcript of the speech exists for the history books and I recommend a read.

This year, Family Guy creator, Seth MacFarlane was asked to address the Harvard grads on Class Day. The video above is part two of four and features MacFarlane doing Peter Griffin. The rest of the parts can be found here. While entertaining, I will admit the speeches by Will Ferrell and Ali G were funnier. Still, Harvard seems to pull out all the stops for their grads. If only I were as well endowed as they are. Bada bing! I love university jokes.

Today marked the end of my first year as a software engineer. By all accounts, I should feel lucky to be employed in the video game industry in the role that I have. It’s been an interesting year. I still remember my first day at work. I was really nervous and didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before. Wow, I still had my apartment back then and was eating my dinners at SJC.

I know that I cursed the game I was on several times during the year but in hindsight, it was a good project because of the people I got to work with. I haven’t had a lot of luck with workplace mentors in the past but the lead programmer on my team was just the guy I needed to start off my career. Nigel was patient, good natured, and always understanding. He gave me just enough support until I felt I was a good programmer.

I know I worked a lot of long hours that first summer at the old office on Broadway and Arbutus but it was a lot of fun. Man, I miss that bus stop across the street. Our producer said that we were the most “giggly” bunch of programmers he’d ever worked with. We did indeed enjoy hanging out together and being immature.

There were seven core programmers that I worked with on my first game and only two of them remain with the company now. The rest have moved on which makes my current days a little less enjoyable. Oh what would I have done without Ron and “The Bet“? Nigel, I still have your gum collection in that beer bottle on my desk. And Tim, thanks for putting the collection of farm porn in my network folder.

I’ve learned a lot over the course of a year but I remain very much a padawan. There’s still lots to know. So, with a nod to the good times of year one, I look forward to year two at Hogwart’s.

It’s funny how when my web site was down over the weekend, I was cursing the downtime because I had all these posts that I wanted to make. Now that the server is up again, I can’t remember a damn thing that I wanted to write about. The impetus to post is such a fleeting moment. Sometimes, you cannot bottle it and let it out later.

I will tell you about my Sunday though. Checking the forecast before heading out, I decided to hike around Buntzen Lake. Seeing that thundershowers were scheduled for the late afternoon, I arrived at the lake about an hour earlier than usual to ensure I would finish before the rains came. I also stuffed a fleece jacket into my pack just in case. Why I didn’t go with the Goretex jacket still eludes me.

Anyways, the weather was awesome at the beginning of the hike. It was sunny and there was plenty of blue sky. Approximately a third of the way into the hike, the clouds came rolling in fast. When the trail stopped at a clearing where I could see more sky, I noticed what had been clear, blue sky had been replaced with all-encompassing grey clouds in literally less than ten minutes. The clouds were moving so fast, you had to turn your head to keep them in view.

As there was no rain yet, I kept on going. I’ve done the hike before in light rain and the forest cover is usually so dense, you hardly got wet. Then, it got more grey and I started to hear the thunder. Soon after, the skies opened up in force. The rain came down heavy and no tree cover was going to stop this. Heavy drops were breaking through and I had to put on my jacket.

In less than five minutes, my hair was drenched, my fleece was soaking, my shorts were dripping, and my hiking shoes were squishy. Passing other hikers on the trail, I considered myself lucky as people were out there in nothing more than a t-shirt and shorts. I briefly thought about turning back since I was less than half way around the lake. I didn’t want to cut short my exercise though and while I was wet, I wasn’t that uncomfortable.

I decided to press on, even while some of the smarter folks were stopping under more dense tree cover to wait for a break in the rain. When I rounded the north end of the lake about 20 minutes later, the rain did seem to abate somewhat. For the next hour or so, I walked in wet shoes and socks until I finished the hike about two hours after I started.

Upon arriving home, I can’t remember the last time I felt so good about taking off my shoes and socks. After having a small snack and showering, I looked outside and saw a most amazing sight. The thunderclouds that plagued me during the hike had disappeared and the sky was blue and the hot sun was again out. What the hell was up with that?

If you enjoyed this tale of survival and hardship, you’ll enjoy Garrett’s similar post. He too got caught in wild thunderstorm except was several kilometers east of me at the time.

Sorry for the downtime. No one was able to reboot my server over the weekend. It was very frustrating for me. I am thinking about getting “real” hosting now.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evccTPkgsHE]

I’m trying not to make too many video posts but this one was too funny to pass up. In this segment, Borat goes house hunting a with a realtor. Some of the things he says to the realtor are completely outrageous, including an inquiry about a windowless room for his retarded brother who has a small head but strong arms.

I have decided I’m going to try to eliminate, as much as possible, french fries and soft drinks (soda or pop if you will) from my diet. This doesn’t mean I won’t swear off them completely but as much as I can, I will try not to consume those items.

I had one french fry last Wednesday when I took it off someone’s plate during dinner. Previous to that time, I can’t recall when I had fries. The pop thing will be harder. I usually have one can of Coke a day at work for the caffeine. I didn’t have a can yesterday but I did drink half a can today because I needed a boost before a meeting. I’m trying to get all my caffeine, if possible, from green tea instead.

A co-worker of mine avoided pizza and french fries for an entire year because someone bet him he couldn’t. That co-worker is in China now… not because of the bet but because I just wanted to tell you that. Anyways, he did avoid pizza and french fries for an entire year. Good for you Nigel.

Here’s to healthier eating, which is a good step towards healthy eating.

I admit I am not a fan of participating in extreme sports. While others might find it exciting to do skydiving, whitewater rafting, base jumping, and so forth, those activities aren’t in line with my interests. Yes, that might label me as boring but I’m too old to start fooling myself into something I’m not.

There is one activity I would love to try, though I’m not certain it’s offered any where to the public. I’d like to learn how to fast rope out of a helicopter. I’m not sure what the appeal is of sliding down a rope with no harness from a hoving helicopter but it probably has to do with several dozen TV shows and movies I watched over the years. I’m also a big fan of helicopters and have never even been close to a working one (though there was that one time a chopper landed outside my window). So yeah, combine the helicopter and the jumping out of it and you got yourself a fun time.

It could be a like a weekend course. They teach you the basics and then you get to fast rope out in different scenarios. First, like a simple field to start you off slow. Then we ramp it up a bit and try fast roping onto the top of an office building. For the finale at the end of the weekend, they let the class descend onto a tanker ship out in the harbour. Because everyone pays a hefty fee for the weekend, there’s a BBQ on the beach, where we strap all the BBQ fixings onto our back and fast rope onto the sand.

If this was even remotely possible, I’d go do it… short of signing up for the military.

I left work an hour early today to go see my doctor in Coquitlam. I was getting my second of three Hep A/B vaccine shots. Leaving at 5pm as opposed to 6pm makes a big difference. There are a lot of people running around downtown just after 5pm. Everyone is trying to get home from work.

I expected a lot of people to be on my bus but there wasn’t too many though the bus I caught was an articulated one which is double the capacity of my normal steel chariot. I also expected a lot of traffic but this also did not materialize. Content with the world, I fell asleep on the bus, which sadly is probably one of the most enjoyable things in my life right now.

I got home a little before 6:30pm which was a refreshing change of pace. I arrived at the doctor’s office around 7pm and in the evenings, it’s clinic style which means it’s first-come, first-served. The place was packed with people. The receptionist asked me if I wanted to wait an hour and a half. Yikes. I said I would but I’d like to come back. She put my name down and then told me to come back in an hour.

I drove home and had dinner with my parents before returning to the clinic at exactly one hour later. The place had emptied out quite a bit but there were still people waiting. As I sat down, I noticed there were some pretty hurting people with me. One kid was there with his mom. He looked to be around 12 years old. He was in some discomfort which I couldn’t attribute to anything specific. One old lady kept a hankie over her mouth and just closed her eyes until it was her turn to see the doctor.

I waited an hour before it was my turn. As my doctor greeted me, he told me I picked a bad night. I gave him the shot and he went away to get a cotton ball with some alcohol. Returning, he rubbed my right arm and asked if I was ready. I said yes and he plunged the needle into my arm. It barely registered as he injected me with the vaccine. As he pulled out the needle, he asked me to press firmly on the spot with the ball. I didn’t catch all he was saying but he mentioned something about “the needle going in pretty deep”. I didn’t realize what that meant until he asked me to remove the cotton ball from my arm and I noticed that there was a lot more blood on the ball that I had anticipated. It hadn’t soaked through or anything but considering he had only made a tiny hole in my skin that was a lot of blood. He wiped my arm off and sent me on my way.

I get my final shot five months from now. Now, if only I could come home at 6:30pm without getting a needle.