Month: March 2007

I HAVE MADE THE RAIN GO AWAY

I think with the exception of two days, it’s been raining continuously in Vancouver for about over two months. There’s no need to look at the weather forecast because you’re going to wake up with rain, followed my more rain. Oh the day after that? Yeah, you guessed it Kreskin, it’s more rain again.

This fall and winter, I’ve been facing this torrential downpour with the crappiest of umbrellas. In an earlier post, I wrote about how lost my much beloved Backbone umbrella, given to me by the last company I worked for. My replacement umbrella was this piece of crap that I found lying around. It didn’t have a push button mechanism, so you had to manually open and close it each time. Also one of the arms detached from the fabric so it flapped around in the wind. The kicker was the catch at the top of the umbrella was broken which meant the umbrella didn’t fully stay open.

Well, I went shopping at lunch today and bought myself a proper replacement. I purchased a lightweight, fully automatic umbrella that takes a standard 5.56 x 45 mm NATO round. I might be lying about one of those features. Anyways, this baby clocks in at only 138 grams and about 25 cm. With a one- button press for opening and closing, I’ll be living the high life again.

Now with this kickass new umbrella, I can’t wait to try it out in this inclement weather. Knowing my luck though, now that I’m all excited for the rain, the weather will be nice and dry for the next few days. That’s just how my luck works.

So disregard the latest forecast, it’s sunny skies for all of us.

SKATER DOWN

The video game I’m working on, skate, features over a dozen pro skateboarders. One of them is Ali Boulala. Two weeks ago, Boulala was involved in a traffic accident in Australia. He was on a motorcycle and the accident claimed the life of another skateboarder on the bike. Shane Cross was killed but Boulala survived.

Boulala was left with a skull fracture and was put in a coma to help his recovery. Just a few days ago, he brought out of that coma and it looks like he’ll pull through. There’s no telling when he’ll be back on his board. At least in our game, he’s still pulling off crazy tricks. Let’s hope he gets better soon.

QUARTER MIL

On Monday night I met with my financial advisor. Now if that seems like I have lots of money to invest and grow, you’re sadly mistaken. My advisor is a friend of mine who I knew before he even was a financial advisor. He basically tells me where I should put the four pennies I have in the bank.

As we were finishing up some paperwork, he told me that engineers that he has as clients that are around my age are worth, on average, a quarter of a million dollars. That is, they have assets that total $250 000. I was amazed… but then I got a little sad. I’m not even worth a tenth of that. I’m like worth… a quarter in total, $0.25. In fact, a year ago, my net worth was in the negative.

I can see how some people could accumulate that wealth though. Say you work hard and graduate with an undergrad degree in engineering by 22 or 23. You immediately get a decent paying job. It doesn’t have to be spectacular pay but decent. You work steadily and receive regular promotions and pay raises. You don’t blow your money on frivolous things but make decent investments with your cash. Ten years down the road, yeah, that could mean a cool quarter million.

I know a few people that might be in that boat, all of them my classmates in engineering. One of them is a dude named Al. Al hailed from Kamloops I believe. He came to UBC to get his mechanical engineering degree. He had a job lined up even before he wrote his last exam. In fact, he wrote his last exam on a Friday and started his new job and career on the following Monday. He took the weekend to recover from five long years of study. Within two years he was married and had a kid. He’s kept on working. Al was balls to the wall and I bet he still is to this day. Quarter mil right there.

I, on the other hand, was balls to wall in getting my degree but had nothing left or didn’t want anything left after I circled my the answer on my last exam. Forty-eight hours after my last exam I wasn’t reading over the new employee handbook, I was on a plane to Hawaii.

I graduated from UBC when I was 23, which should have given me seven good years of income. I only worked full-time three years of out that seven and two of those were at $12.50 an hour or less. Two years were spent travelling and dicking around. The other two were at grad school (which I do not regret).

That is not to say I’m disappointed with my current situation. I have a great job that many people would knock down old ladies to get. I’m lucky to be where I am but it’s hard not to think where I might be if I had figured all this out when I was 23 and not eight years later.

THE KINGDOM IS SAFE!

As some of you know, I’ve been trying to renew my domain for at least four weeks now. If you’re ever looking for a deadbeat, piece-of-crap registrar in Delaware, run by a divorced guy that doesn’t return calls or e-mails, and runs a cat breeding business on the side, just let me know.

Anyways, last week I initiated a transfer of my domain from the deadbeat registrar to GoDaddy, the maker of fine Super Bowl commercials. Everything was going smoothly until it required some input from the deadbeat’s end of things. Surprisingly, it worked, which made me think it must have been some sorta automated script that worked since I don’t think that dude actually did a damn thing.

Long story short, we’re good to go for another year. I think we’re due for another “wang-flies” type series of posts. Go 2007!

NEW COMMENTS

It took some tinkering but I think I have a new commenting system! It required nuking all existing comments from the last seven days of posts but there weren’t that many to begin with. All previous comments besides those have been retained. So fear not, the first time you entered a comment has been saved for eternity… well, at least until Enetation decides to go under (which should be fairly soon).

I see two chances for irony (or close to the definition of irony): no one comments anyway with the new system and I begin to get spammed by comment spammers.

COMMENTING

I looked into fixing the commenting system tonight. Thinking it was going to take me about 15 minutes, I soon discovered I was wrong. It’s going to take a bit of work and I don’t have the time tonight.

Actually, the whole thing would have take five minutes if I was willing to switch to a new blog template but the ones Blogger aren’t to my liking. Besides, so many people use the default templates, my blog would wind up looking at like a lot of others.

Alrighty, I got some ironing to do.

JUST LIKE DAVID BANNER

I was in the designers area this evening to check out something in the game. I was at someone’s desk, when of the designers said, “I was talking to Cam and he told me you wrote about a Chinese restaurant in a basement on your blog. Let’s hear more about this place!”

The Cam he was referring to is the Cam who frequently comments on this blog. My first thought was, “Hmmm… someone on the team now knows I have a blog.” Before a second thought could enter my brain, a second designer piped up.

“You have a blog? What’s the address?”

I feigned not to know what he was talking about. It’s always interesting when people at my job find out I have a blog. I usually wonder how long it will take. At Backbone, it took about four months. Somehow, someone found out. I think they Googled my name. A few people started reading but now, I think only person reads it regularly.

So, about eight months in, someone on my team knows I blog. The good thing is that I always blog about work in very general terms. It’s a good strategy for you young kids out there. Always keep your stick on the ice!

Oh, the David Banner reference? It’s from the TV version of The Incredible Hulk. Dr. Banner went from town to town, waiting for the inevitable moment when people discovered he was the Hulk. I go from job to job, waiting for the inevitable moment when people discover I have a blog.