theducks.dreamwidth

We just spent the last two weeks in Perth.

While there, I saw alias_sqbr,alkland,ataxi,auntpol,azhure,bookbuster,carywin,distantcam,dr_jekyl,drayke_,ducts,e_bee,elaran,evilspyn,flyingblogspot,frenchiephish,frostlight1,grahame,greteldragon,hipikat,kadeton,lathiat,maelkann,miss_kittylix,mkj,nightmancyr,oliverm,originalnilson,paperishcup,reaps,stepham,tevriel,the_riviera_kid,tommmo,torque_635,unfoldedreality,utopos, and it was awesome.

On the way back, we got this stamp - which means we can stay in Canada as long as we want, which is also pretty awesome:



This brings to a conclusion secretprojectnumber5

But it's not all good - I think lost my iPhone SIM removal tool, and the Prius's battery was flat when we got back, so I took it for a jetlagged 45 minute drive yesterday.

Today I also had some fun installing an HP BladeSystem c7000 enclosure. It's about 40 x 40 x 100cm, and weighs about 150kgs, and is worth about $250k (in fairness, as configured, the one I installed today is only $120k). We have 8 of them already, most of them at the bottom of racks. Those are easy to put in - we have a cart, which can be jacked up to either put it at the bottom of a rack of servers, or on top of one already in a rack. This one needed to go at head height.

So cut about 45 minutes taking it down into component parts that can be safely lifted, and then installing it, and reassembling it in place. And to make matters worse, there's a chance HP will want this back one day (it was a freebie - buy 8 get one free.. kinda :P) and we'll have to do it all over again in reverse. Yaaay. 

(2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006)

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Went to Costa Rica, Went to New York Comic Con( Read more... )

Panels we went to, they were all REALLY amazing. We did have to spend almost an hour lining up for them though:

• Fri: Felicia Day Spotlight
• Sat: "Vintage Tomorrows" Sneak Preview
• Sat: Girls Kick Butt: Strong Female heroines in young adult fantasy
• Sun: Mad Special Video Presentation and Q&A
• Sun: The early works of Jim Henson screening, with special "Tale of Sand" discussion

People we saw:

• Stan Lee (comics)
• Mark Hamill (Star Wars)
• Peter Mayhew (Star Wars)
• Jewel Staite (Firefly, Serenity)
• Al Jaffee (Mad Magazine)
• John Ficarra (Mad Magazine)
• Ian McNeice (Dr Who, Hornblower)
• Cory Doctorow (The Internets)
• Kevin Sorbo (Hercules..)
• Sandeep Parikh (The Guild)
• .. and of course, Felicia Day (The Guild, Buffy)

Shops/artists to give props to:

• Imaginism Studios - did the character designs for Alice in Wonderland
• Amy Mebberson - Loved her art, and was fun to talk to another Australian living in the PNW
• Echo Chernik - Again, loved her art
• Laura Lee - Likewise, great artist
• Abram Books - Publishes some really cool books
• Sanshee - Tshirts
• TAG Galleries - Prints and stuff
• Level Up Studios - Tshirts

The artists alley is also an amazing experience.

Now that it's Thursday, I have to time to write about what I did last weekend..

Friday night: Picked up former UWA co-worker torque_635 from the airport. Went to Aberdeen Mall to show off Lamborghini dealership. Drove around Richmond, showing off the sights. Went to Cronos for dinner, then back to apartment. Showed him around the carpark while he drooled over some of the cars in it.

Saturday: Took torque_635 to UBC to show off some stuff, then along spanish banks into downtown. Did a bit of a tour through Stanley Park, then out of the city via East Hastings. Went to Hananoki for lunch - had deep fried Sushi and other tasty noms.

Dropped Liz off, then went to Lansdowne mall and bought a 100mm f/2.8L IS lens for my camera. Very spiffy. Went to Richmond Centre, he got some tea and saw the large Apple store, then we came back so he could pack up to go to another friend's place and we could pack for a weekend away. Dropped him off at his friend's place (nearby), then headed down to the border - 3 quick questions and they let us in, then drove to Tumwater for the evening. 

Sunday: Drove to Portland in the morning, and went to the Portland Zoo (Photos here). Took many photos. 100mm macro lens is also a good 100mm regular lens, and a lot less.. erm.. attention getting than the 100-400mm I have. And lighter. Tried to go to Portland Rose Garden, but it was too busy, so we went to Voodoo Donuts instead. I got one with Froot Loops on top. Met up with vampireborg , vampireborg  and Dawn at Old Wives Tales for dinner, as is out habit for Portland, then dropped them off, and headed off to McMinnville for the night. 

Arrived in McMinnville and saw that the crazy dudes of Evergreen Aviation had indeed built a waterpark inside a 747, but that it was closed for the evening. Went to Walmart looking for swimwear, but were unsuccessful in finding some appropriate. Went back to hotel and off to bed. 

Monday: Woke up early to get to Evergreen at 9AM when they opened. Saw the Spruce Goose and lots of other cool plane and spacecraft thingies. How do they get all this cool stuff? Well, they're essentially a front for the CIA, depending on who you ask, anyway. Saw a 3D IMAX film about the development of the 787, went to the Space Section of the museum, and then scuttled off to Eugene to see the always delightful tygati. Had dinner with her and housemate M in an old converted railway passenger car, then hung out for a while chatting and watching stuff. Stayed on their airbed.

Tuesday: Left Eugene at 11AM to head back to Vancouver, some 680kms. Stopped.. many times along the way, both to break up the driving, and to get fuel (a full tank on a North American spec Prius does about 550kms, vs I'm told almost 950kms on an Australian one, thanks to a fuel bladder to reduce emissions slightly). Got to Seattle near the beginning of rush hour, but took the express lanes that go under the city and avoided most of it. Yay! Did some plane spotting at Boeing Paine Field in Everett, while Elizabeth finished her book before taking over driving. So many brand new 787 and 747-8's waiting for certification and delivery.

Entry back into Canada was only a 10 minute wait and pretty quick. Stopped off at shops on way home to get milk. The future is almost awesome - self checkout, but my credit card's paywave chip is broken, so I actually had to put it in a machine. In bed by 11PM, then up for work at 6:30AM the next day.

Went down to Seattle on the weekend and went to concerts by Panic at the Disco, Fun and Tim Minchin.

Tim Minchin was my only first time there too. We'd seen Panic at the Disco in Perth some years ago and fun. up here in Vancouver a few months ago.

I used to know someone with a Mark Twain quote in his signature, that said "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness". My opinions of the guy in question are.. not worth repeating, but the quote is at least true.

Putting aside the whole issue of how amazingly mind blowing it is to go to another country for a concert, all of my previous trips to the US had been as a tourist, or a business visitor. I didn't really feel I connected with the people there as part of their society. But this was different - I spent two nights in a row with hundreds of Americans and we were all having a really good time. I think those two nights broke down a lot of barriers in my mind about them and us, whoever "them" and "us" are.

The language of fun is universal it seems.

Do you ever get the feeling that you have much to say, then you sit down to type it into update.bml, and almost forget it all?

Part the first - des vacances
- We're going to Seattle on the weekend, and seeing Panic at the disco and fun on friday night, and Tim Minchin on saturday night. Awes. May also see daguppian, for the first time since 1999.

- In mid July, we're going to Costa Rica, to meet up with lizbyrd's sister, since it's a lot closer than Canberra, and to see some of central America. It's our first time going to a non-first world nation, and today we're getting poked with various engineered compounds to keep us well.

- In August we're planning a weekend away in Oregon

- In October, we're planning on a visit to NY (don't think any of you live there?) and Washington (sup stvlive and shifuimam!)

- In December, Elizabeth's parents and brother and sister are coming to visit for Christmas. Plans are for the Island somewhere. We should book that soon.

Part the second - nous voiture
Following an unexpected encounter with a bike trailer, 'er majesty's Crown Corporation, The Insurance Company of British Columbia saw it fit to pay for a good whack of repairs to our car, and in for a penny, in for a pound, we also paid to get some other stuff fixed, original paint damage from before we bought it, and a few dents from not being quite used to its size/shape in relation to our parking garage.

It took a week longer than quoted, the car smells of paint, and the paint job is definitely not concours standard, but it is a whole lot better than it was.

For those interested in the source of the original covered damage, we were driving along one day, and a guy on a bike on the footpath was riding in the same direction. As we passed him, the rope fixation of his trailer came loose, and it fell into the road and onto our car, scratching from passenger mirror to rear bumper. Yeah. We stopped and talked to him, and the trailer had contained all the cooking and camping gear he used living on the streets. Feeling sorry for him and glad he was well, we went on our way.

When we bought the car, the hood (bonnet) and front bumper were covered in paint chips, and the day after we got it, I backed it into a pillar in our parking spot, injuring the rear bumper, quarter panel and cracking the tail light assembly. Then, while heading off to Whistler with droneboy in August 2010, I misjudged another pillar in our garage and scraped the rear door and quarter panel. Awesome, huh? We had a quote to fix all of this stuff for $1400. With the covered damage from the bike trailer, it was only $1100 to fix it, but since the other "driver" could not be contacted, it was a $300 excess, or .. $1400 in total. But at least I get $15 back from my 1% cash rewards credit card.

D'oh!

Part the third - en été

It's summer! Trees are blooming, birds are singing, it's not longer 10C and rainy. What a time to be alive!

We went out for dinner last night at our local Cactus Club Cafe, and sat on the "patio", as Canadians so politely term it. As it was also the equinox, despite it being almost 7PM, it was still broad daylight. As it was until 9:30PM. Thanks Canada. Thanada.

Part the forth - le immigration

There has been a postal strike in Canada for the last week or two, so no mail. Apparently it's being sorted out (through legislating them back to work.. possibly the only option, given some of the demands were less money and more totally reshaping Canada Post's business model to keep existing staffing levels in face of declining mail volume)

This is related since it will soon be 20 weeks since we submitted our Permanent Residency applications, which is the timeframe for initial notification of receipt of application. We sent it registered mail, and you can see on the website that it was accepted by Immigration Canada, but this is the one where they tell us we completed the craft project successfully. Hopefully.

This weekend also marks 2 years since we arrived here in Canada. It's been a lot of fun, so we're sticking around for now. I still miss the old country, and eagerly await jedinic's return, hopefully with Minties and musk sticks. Tonight we cut up a fresh pineapple - first time I'd ever done that. Good fun. On Saturday we found the last White Knight we brought back from Perth in Jan (it had been in the freezer), and we nommed it good and proper.

But it's not just the food I miss, it's the people too. It was sad not to be able to go to silverai's wedding, and seeing paperishcup in a video of it made me a bit teary, and it's been sad not to be around for mkj and Susie's first child being born.

More of you should add me on Skype - I'm theducks.org on there :P

Yesterday was National Aboriginal Day here in Canada. This is related, since 12 years ago I was also in Vancouver, and remember going to an exhibition in Robson Square. If future me had come up to me at the time and told me that in 12 years time I was going to be living in Vancouver, I would have been somewhat surprised, and my initial guess at possible reasoning would have been way off.

As I posted on twitter some time ago: "Short version: Adult life turns out fine. You'll never see where I am now from where you are now, but you like surprises, right? #tweetyour16yearoldself"

Part the fifth - le travail

Still the Manager of the Systems team, all 16 of them (14 of whom are older than me). I suppose it gets to a point where that doesn't matter, and I suspect I'm approaching that, but it's still a change from Arts, where of the 21 in my 3 teams, only 7 were older than me. We're interviewing for a new Manager this week and next, which should be good. I'm on the interview/selection panel for it, and I'm not motivated to apply for it, partially because it's only $50/week more, but also because it would mean a definitive move away from tech, and I don't think that's for the good of the organisation or really what I want right now.

I read through about 65 resumes for 3 jobs yesterday. Too much braining. But being on the hiring side of things does give you a good insight into how to write resumes. Looks like some good candidates there. I seem to have ended up on a lot of hiring committees this year. It's nice to be trusted, but I sometimes wonder if I volunteer because I don't trust other people to make these sort of decisions. Then I remember our helpdesk guy who insisted he could only give me a USB switch, not a USB hub, but that would be ok, since it was faster. So it's clear some people can't be /o\

It has been mandated that we start tracking how staff time is spent, in broad categories like maintenance, projects, admin and leave. Where have I heard that before? Hmm! Today I get to break the news to my team that we need to do it, and defend something that I know in their position I'd probably be initially peeved about. But I think it's a good thing.

Ahh yes, UCS, circa 2005. I wrote an application back then to do it (remember erikan, mtearle and grahame? :). I found a copy of it all, except the SQL schema, in a uuencoded attachment. So I've dusted it off, and mostly rewritten it (No longer requires Tcl/tk! now has client authentication! No longer requires pop3 auth to cyllene to login!) I hope that showing off this application and offering it to them will help with acceptance, as well as explaining the motivations behind the reporting requirement - transformation goals of moving from being reactive to proactive, avoiding overloading us with project work.

It was also fun to do some PHP again, after 3 years since I did much, and 6 years since I did a medium sized app like this. Elizabeth helped, and showed me in detail something she'd done for her team. jquery is pretty awesome, even though I didn't use it in mine.

In other news, we ipv6 enabled the university's main website, and I took the opportunity to setup ipv6 on my linode host, so theducks.org is also ipv6 enabled. I just need to make like an animated TRON duck or something to display to ipv6 viewers.

So that about wraps up this mega update..
#604insomnia, brought to you by Coca-Cola with dinner. A bad idea since 1886.