the second raid to be discussed another day (but oh, the hair!)

To-day I got to save a beetle that hissed at me, hissed at me! I saved it from the ground and saved it onto grass. It wouldn't move. It's legs would wiggle, but the only real movement was its hiss vibrating into my ears. It sounded like an empty aerosol can, trying to poison my dinner. Hiss- hiss- hiss! I wonder if it will survive the night or be silenced before the sun returns? Perhaps it was just asleep, hissing its nocturnal annoyance. Sidewalks make poor beds. Shoes make poorer blankets. Picture to follow?

To-day a ghost dryer helped me cheat the system and dried for me without charge. Just a little, here and there. Hopeful that no one would notice. I was complicit. I waited quite a while before betraying this charity to an employee, to whom, effectively neutered by the barrier between languages, couldn't seem to appreciate the consequence of the machine's crimes. 6 minutes/25¢ isn't that shabby, anyway. (Every minute after finishing, it would run for an additional 15 seconds, the door open or not (frightening, having your favourite thong flying out at you) until all your clothing had exited (what senses has it?!)).

To-day Liv and I worked on a culinary masterpiece. It's too good to describe. Photos must be supplied! To-day I got to be.

Yesterday I got wet. Thoroughly. Soaked, drenched, and then cooked alive. Boiled red? Fried dry. I attended a flashmobby romp in the park. Stanley Park, host of Vancouver's second annual waterfight. We came unprepared, but like any good team of mercenaries, improvised. Water-tight bag? Check. Discarded cup? Check. Alliances were made, and summarily betrayed. Wheee. My girlfriend was even a key figure in the background of someone's photograph!

Last week I go to work. A fair deal of overtime. I really don't mind it. I enjoy getting things done. I hope to better manage my non-work time, though. I am having sufficient levels of fun, it would seem, but I'm barely meeting schooling requirements, and Open Source contributions are, let us say, stalled?

Yay for life, and stuff. :)

From the 19th

Life

Pending

Harbour seals are what we saw from within that kayak. Purple starfish below. A jellyfish. Rocks that rise up from below to rip us apart. The sun. Geological and oceanic history. Milk chocolate Aero bar air pockets from the crunched-off rock face. Deer in the garden, banging on the fence. Sailboats sitting nicely in the sunset. A quiche, olives, egg salad sandwiches. The latter two once made me go "Yuck" but Michelle has mystic Montrealer powers to invert that reaction. Fritz and his fatal follies, welcome weeds and relatively economical ice cream.

It's partway stressful, partway calming to visit Pender Island and my girlfriend's grandparents (and sometimes uncle). Conversation does not flow so finely as among my own age group. But people can still marvel at eyeing the eye from withincomraderie the focal range of the concave speaker. Some opinions are out-moded and bite at the senses. I suppose it isn't easy sticking to the latest thinking fashions when you're isolated on an island. But are you? CBC radio plays podcasts on the Creative Commons. What a wild ride! Planet Earth plays on CBC in the evenings, what marvels! Wi-fi waves squeak between the floor boards and aromatise the first floor. As long as people thrive, it will be hard to isolate yourself on this planet :)

Oh, by the way, I don't really believing in so strong a segregation between this animal species and the rest of them - I hope that was clear.

And here I am, the environment I am paying attention to are a bunch of elemental right-angled divs with a flat solids of the coloured variety. Orange without(?) the cancer.

Discomfort and the Retreat

I retreat more from potentially uncomfortable situations. I used to be emboldened by them. Stand loud and stand proud. It was easier in Guelph, in Flesherton. Fewer consequences, perhaps? Now I'm wary, of what I know not. Perhaps I am descending into madness and paranoia :) Not really. I think that, perhaps, there are just too many people around and many fewer restrictions protecting me from them. I have to protect myself in a town full of freedom. Foolishness leaves me open as a target, I think I fear. How foolish s that!

Tim Tams and associated Edibles

I continue to be amazed at our ability to hunt down the inexpensive. We finally discovered a sane supplier of pitas. 1.09, 1.79! No more will we balk at the 4s and 5s we witness near everywhere else. Oh me, oh my! We had hummus (not humus, BoFIIers) again! And a jar of olives! I don't think the olives were the greatest deal (coming from SuperValu) but it was good to have them again. A little luxury to relax? How much relaxing can I afford? A lot of debt to repay right now. NOTE TO SELF: notify OSAP that I am taking a DE course :D.

I never thought I'd find crêpes as fast food, but low and behold, three Cafe Crêpe Expresses across a 3-block stretch! And, dun dun dun, we finally hit the recipe book down here! Onions, potatoes, and egg, oh my. I think I liked it more the second time around, at that. I need another cherry.

Oh, addendum: cheap cheese was secured! Well, relatively "cheap". Big bricks for $7. Almost an Ontario price, but just over half the BC fare. That and milk are proving difficult to secure at reasonable costs. I mean, I thought 4L of milk was expensive in Ontario: they won't even it sell it in such quantities here! Glass bottles are a pleasantry, at least.

Adventures ho!

I have only been writing about a fraction of the joy I've found out here. I wish I could show you all the late night view. There's so much to say and do, and I naively continue to believe I will fit it all in :) Mwahaha. Let me just get a day to set up my photo stream, eh? But even that will fair to capture Pascal, the non-hostile hosteller and pizza Subway champion.

I wonder what friendship will be like out here. There are few at my work who are quite my age, or share my Open Source aspirations. I don't have the fortune of fellow co-ops for auto-camaraderie. There are the pre-installed type, Ruth and Aidha. However, the former's a bit put out and doesn't seem very social, while the latter is too enveloped by the awesomeness of grad-osity at present. Fortunately for me, my girlfriend precludes the Old Anxieties with ease and agility unknown to mere mortals. I hope her home planet doesn't try to retrieve her.

Well, now to go on this righteous day for a walk to meet her and see the surrounding sites and sights. Maybe we can climb a mountain, too.

Update the Great

Virtual Jobs

My memory will work against me. I learnt many principles and their definitions throughout University. While I have integrated most of the principles (I hope) and can apply them as necessary, my ability to associate specific terms with appropriate definitions is questionable. I just had a phone interview with a job that asked me to explain a few concepts that I remember learning but couldn't recall what they refer to. In hindsight, I did know a couple, and I could properly define one of them now and could have defined the other then if I had a few moments to compose myself. A couple other ones I have had to look-up again. They concerned databases, and the principles that underly them are intuitive to me. I need to keep up better on my terminology, but I do not know how. Perhaps read more technical books? I suppose I should have my father mail me more of my textbooks :)

Virtual Play

I started work on a Java project called Duplicity for now. It's proving very fun, but it would be simpler if I could do something like this:

class CatOwner {
  ...
  public ArrayList getPets() {
    ArrayList cats = this.getCats();
    return cats;
  }
}
class Cat extends Animal {
  ...
}

However, I cannot convert a collection with a type into a similar collection of its supertype. It seems as though I logically should. Any Cat is also an animal, so why can an ArrayList of Cats not be known as an ArrayList of Animals. I am sure there is a good reason and I'm bound to find it eventually, but right now it's a nuisance.

Physical Location

I have migrated to Vancouver! My girlfriend and I departed Ontario on the 23rd via Greyhound and arrived in BC on the morning of the 26th. It was a spectacular drive. In summary, Winnipeg is sexy, Medicine Hat is funky, and Canmore is cool. Have you heard of the Legend of White River? If you're ever there and that awkward boy dances desperately before you, it's his method of speech and sustenance. Aid him! Most of my photos are spectacularly blurred or spotted (through the dirty Greyhound windows), but I intend on uploading a large amount to Picasa Web once I can afford a decent account.

We spent the first little while in Victoria among my sisters and my nephews. They are nearly 10 or 7 months old now (born 3 months early, so I say 7, going from when they should have come out). I don't get along very well with the younger of my two sisters, and her dog less, so it might be a good thing that I am aiming to gain employment in Vancouver. We are there now, borrowing my girlfriend's uncle's apartment for the month of May. It's situated downtown and on the 19th story. I am spoiled.

We've been trying to walk most places, including from Granville Island to Stanley Park. It's a blast. The weather has been fair and sometimes welcoming. The shops are all very neat. One bad thing that I'll discuss more upon below are the food prices, though.

Fan club

I am pretending I have a fan club. An acquaintance and a friend have moved to Vancouver, and another friend from Ontario has gone to BC to Vancouver Island, hoping to work on an organic farm. It's nice knowing other humans in the area.

I wonder, if I ever manage to accomplish all the things I hope to, whether I really will have a fan club, in the sense that the GNOME developers have fans like me. That aloof respect and admiration. Shock and confusion when someone criticises them. Hmm. ^_^

The Cost of Eating

Food prices here seem on average to be 25-50% greater than in Ontario. A 700g brick of cheese averages out at around $13 in most of the larger stores I've been into, while in Ontario I found it pricey at $9. Milk is sometimes cheaper, but we have a hard time finding 4L of organic milk. We're going to soy this week. The cheapest source of our vitals has proven to be Chinatown, and definitely not Granville Island. However, upon our wandering walks, we discovered a number of smaller shops that had the odd item at much better prices. We thought through most of the day that we had triumphed with Strawberries, 2 for $4! But before the day's end, we found 3 for $5.

In consequence, we are now cataloguing prices we encounter and tabulating them in a spreadsheet. We're doing it via Google Docs, and we if we can find any other suckers^wfriends to contribute, we'll share it with them as well. I feel almost certain that such a website must exist for Canadians (I know of one for the US) but I cannot find it yet. Hmm.

non-Linux related!

To eat, or not to eat.

There's quite a bit I'd like to write about eating with regard to myself and this past year. However, I cannot find the time to write it! I will mention that last year I complained that I frequently ended up in situations wherein I felt hungry. This year, the opposite: I spoil myself instead.

Wake up, the sky isn't falling.

What a strange sleeping pattern I've adopted. It is now in synchrony with my girlfriend's, more or less. I will note that this particular T.A. experience has been exceptionally rewarding. One of the major benefits has been a revival of my sense of responsibility. Due to overwhelming school load, I was beginning to feel irresponsible enough to make me doubt myself.

I am my most responsible when people entrust me with responsibility. When I don't feel trusted, my performance is impacted. Trust me, and I won't disappoint you!

Wait, what does being a T.A. and awkward sleeping patterns have to do with one another? Right! I spent the night completing my portion of the exam marking. The third page, the one I marked, was the longest of the three, but pleasant heuristics developed to expedite the process. It is fun, to work throughout the night and have something accomplished before (or shortly into) the morning. However, Tuesday morning saw me waking up at 6:15AM and waiting 30 minutes for a 7:00AM bus to campus. And this was wonderful. The snow has melted recently and spring is new. It was warm enough for me to feel cool with just a sweater on. The sun slowly rose. I met some of my students on campus, and found one sleeping on a couch. ("Wake up, the exam is in an hour!" I said, as I swatted her with a newspaper.) I did a fair amount of running between buildings too, as I looked for the other T.A.s before the exam was given. Mornings are very nice indeed.

Milk - in a bottle!

I have started using Remember the Milk to maintain a todo list. As does my girlfriend, I find it lacking. Mostly, it is cumbersome, and is lacking in usability. My intention is to use it in conjunction with tasque when it's ready. I am actually mildly alarmed about potential privacy issues with Remember the Milk, so I should really look into that some more ... :D Right now, I am refraining from providing private details, but perhaps street names are even too much! Mwahaha.

The last goodbye.

Since I am striking out on adventure soon, I am trying to say Goodbye to as many people as I can in person. Frank, Kate, Victoria, Vlad, Shane, Emily, Ashley, Danielle, etc. Good night Ontario crew. I hope you all fare well in my absence. (A likely story.) I am concerned for my dog (he's very old) and my father (he just turned 39/72!). At least my brother won't be leaving Ontario any time soon, now with baby imminent! Wow, life is hectic.

Signing off

I have to sleep to start studying for an important Friday exam, so Good Night.