093 - Revovery leads to... being productive?

I attended one class this week - the first class of the semester, as it turned out. And it was a busy one. It's almost overwhelming how much work there will be to do before April rolls around. But once it does, the question becomes, what to do then? Fortunately, I have well over a hundred days to figure that one out.

I did make a logo, though




I had surgery on Tuesday. Talk about a strange experience... One minute you're playing with the heart rate monitor in the operating room, trying to lower your heart-rate, the next a man walks in and plays with the IV unit... and the next you're struggling to make out one of any of the several clocks that adorn the recovery room. And your throat is beyond dry. And it hurts to move.

Then when you make it home, it's as if very little has even happened. "the pain's not too bad," you say, "it's been worse before!" And then you wake up the next day.

Pain killers have been a good friend ever since. But not one with whom I can laugh. That hurts too much.

And without the ability to do much, have I been watching movies or playing games? NO! I don't know where the time has gone, but I did make a logo!



And I gave CFFN Radio a bit of a new polish. The site needed it, and I don't know that I'm completely satisfied with it... but the organization's main website needs to be reworked. So there's opportunity there as well.

So to everyone who has enquired about my condition, I'm doing well. In some pain, and probably not yet ready to go out, even to check the mail... but I'm taking the opportunity to do a bunch of little things on my "to do" list. Like make logos.

092 - OC Transpo Strike Started a Year Ago

So the OC Transpo strike started a year ago. And looking back at it all, I still have these annoyed feelings about the fact that it happened, and they didn't really get anywhere, since the reason for it ending was originally on the table as a way to prevent it. And lately, I've been getting more and more annoyed with the service. I actually called and made a complaint about an issue, but that doesn't go far enough. Maybe I'll write them a letter old-person-style, stamps and all.

That first day of the strike wasn't unlike today - blizzardy. It felt like the first true day of winter - just in time for the Christmas season too! And only 9 more days until I'm done school for the year. Then a bit longer.

Then what? I do have some ideas, some of which (unfortunately) involve even more school. We'll see what grows to fruition.

Speaking of school, here's a sequence I worked on with my teammates for one of our final projects:

Dave, our model, is part of an ad campaign for Gillette's line of hair care products. We got a picture of him holding the bottle. While this was a start, it lacked what experts call "oomph". To fix this, I took a close-up picture of his hand holding the bottle, and with some Photoshop magic, made his picture come to life. Maybe I'll showcase all the ads next time.

And yes, I had a Wall-E cake for my birthday.

090 - OC Transpo gives me a headache

The conference room at NewCap radio, home of Hot899 and LiVE885, have very comfy chairs.I was there yesterday with my fellow group work team for a school project. It was a wonderful experience... I secretly wanted to see the actual offices and recording areas, though, possibly to make funny faces at John Moran while he's on the air. Or, you know, not.

I finally backed up my Disney photos to a dvd, so that I could finally delete them off my memory cards. I didn't want to risk losing them to technological snafus, even thought they are on two different hard drives. I did have a hard drive die on me, after all. But I bet losing all those pictures would give me a great reason to head back! Supposedly, Halloween is pretty fun 'round those parts, and then the next day, like magic, it's Christmas.

The other pictures, above, are various ones from the summer. Yes, I finally had breakfast at Cora's! It was quite delicious, and so big that it was worth my while to take the rest home.

Now I'm craving pancakes.

I read three OC Transpo-related articles today: One, Two, Three. I can't believe that deep into all these transit plans (that I personally think are taking far too long), the city never really got any formal approval from the NCC to expand on their land, especially given that the next leg of the transitway to be built kinda needs it. And the new bit that just opened to help save time and traffic actually uses up more time? Makes sense to me! And there won't be a Quickie at the new Baseline station. Silliness.

This city is so ineffective at getting anything done it scare me. Maybe everyone should go and learn how to make a plan and do research. I guess they should be in my classes!

088 - TV in 10 syllables

School + work + work is starting to get very crazy in those proportions. School + work + work + new tv season... I don't know how I'm still alive! I wonder if I can summarize what I think of the following shows in 10 syllables:

Heroes
Bryan Fuller put great things in motion.

How I Met Your Mother
Soft start to a funny season, I hope.

Castle
Less murder, more Beckett... ok for now.

Bored to Death
Have to see more to see where it will go.

Community
Strong pilot, funny could live, or could die.

Big Bang Theory
Oh no they didn't! Plus Star Trek spoilers!

Survivor
Season 19 started off pretty great.

I probably won't watch survivor anymore though because it gets boring after 2 eps. I'll need to watch Dollhouse everntually, too. Most of these shows I might have to just watch all at once in the winter, though, because school is going to be tonnns of work.

The Source, in my opinion, has the best mobile internet stick deal. You get the stick for $0 on a 1-year term. I wouldn't get a 2-year term (where it is everywhere else)... so I got it! We'll see how much I get to use it, probably lots because of all the downtime I seem to have when I'm going to work, or just after when I need to wait for the bus. Suddenly, the netbook just got a bit more valuable. However, The Source people told me they had the 21mbps stuck when the one I got was only 7.2mbps. Meanies.

082 - Transition

I never did catch up on the rest of my Disney trip blogs. I meant to, I just haven't yet found the time. Over the past month and a half (has it been that long?!), I've talked to many people about it, and I'm pretty sure I lit up each time, except where I talk about missing Carl and Russel (Up characters) by 6 days. Up, by the way, is fantastic. Go see it now if you haven't yet.

Time won't be an issue soon, so I'll catch up on all kinds of pictures. My last class for the summer is tomorrow. My last shift at Disney is Friday. It was a month ago I found out that the store is closing, and each day since then has been increasingly difficult. I may have only been with the company for two years - one of which was actually with Disney (the first year, the Store were owned and operated by The Children's Place), but in that time, I've felt I've found somewhere I belong. It's a company that I would love to continue working with, certainly in a position at an office if not in the field at a store level. The people have been fantastic, especially co-cast members, and especially the guests that I've come to know over time.

Thank you to everyone for being a family and for allowing me to enjoy being at work. For enjoying retail. It's mind boggling that I came so close to not accepting the job when Sharlene called me back about it. I've learned so much from everyone would do it all again in a heartbeat - even if it means hearing Hannah Montana's "Life's What You Make It" 30 times a day.

I once learned from a mediocre Disney movie to "keep moving forward" (clearly not Wall-E, or Up. Those are fantastic. Go see Up). As I look forward to the summer and fall, I have a new year of school (a last one, I hope... for now), a new job, a new position at CFFN, and a new Web site that I've gone back to creating. My life is a deck of cards, and someone is shuffling!

056 - Day 36

It's been cold walking to school, today in particular. Lauren Stone of Live 885 warned me at 6:45 this morning that it was -39C with the Windchill. Skin can freeze with 10 minutes of exposure at that temperature. As I snuggled the warmth of my bed, I wondered if it was really worth it to walk to school, a trek that could freeze my skin five times over. "Damned bus strike." Reluctantly, I pulled myself out of bed and spent the next half hour deciding exactly how to dress. Before stepping out the door, I had the following:

• Boxer briefs
• Long johns
• Black Pants
• Socks
• More socks
  
• T-shirt
• Long sleeve t-shirt (Nightmare Before Christmas, if you were wondering)
• 2006 (07?) CANADA Olympic Hoodie
• Headband
• Scarf
• Winter Jacket
• Gloves

I learned this morning that I have as much experience wearing scarves effectively as I do tying a Windsor knot, possibly because I never wear the darned things (both ties and scarves). Despite this, the scarf was instrumental in keeping me warm for my 50-minute journey.

All that preparation made me late leaving the house, effectively making me late for class. I was also slowed down by my inability to think ahead. Wind usually blows snow around, even though it wasn't snowing, the path that I described in an earlier post was partially snowed-in in some places. The one time I don't bring my snowshoes...

In other news, I'm really starting to like Clive Doucet. He's a city councillor for the Capital ward, central Ottawa. He speaks his mind, and usually his mind is on the people whom he represents. He thinks the 15ish million saved from the bus strike so far, and what they'll continue to save, should be funnelled back into making OC Transpo free for as long as possible once service resumes. This is probably the most brilliant thing the city can do to gain as many riders as possible. I'd also like to have $40 put in my pocket for the unused December pass I have at home (they cost just over $60 for students... a reasonable request considering I was only able to use it for a third of a month), but I'd settle for $20 February passes. $30 even. At least, this strike better not last beyond the confines of January!

I recently bought Nintendo's Personal Trainer: Cooking game - and I use the word "game" loosely. It's more of an interactive cookbook. I finally used it to make bucatini with tomato and pancetta, even though I substituted bucatini with linguine, pancetta with a mix of bacon and pepperoni, and romano cheese with medium cheddar. The result was actually pretty good. Many gamers complain about DLC (downloadable content) and how it can increase the overall cost of a game if you aren't too careful. I bought Cooking for $20, and spent another $20 gathering the necessary ingredients! And that was for one recipe. How's that for hidden game costs?! I use the word "hidden" loosely as well, even though there's no label on the front of the box saying you have to buy food to get the best use out of the software.

I bet I could sue Nintendo for that one. I'll keep my receipts!

055 - Day 30

Over the years, my wallet and my bus pass have developed a great relationship where they stick together. This help me, since I always know where my bus pass is (unless of course, I don't know where my wallet is, which happens on occasion). It also helps my wallet and bus pass, since the two of them can talk and cuddle in my pocket.

I've only recently decided to split the two up, if only to protect the pass from accidental loss or cold-related fracturing. Plus people make fun of me when they see it! Turns out that my leaving it behind wasn't premature - Transit workers voted to reject the city's offer. I've had an inkling since the beginning that this strike would last a while, but I'm really starting to get scared at how long it may be before all is well.

To add to my troubles, my laptop needs to be sent away for servicing. Supposedly, my laptop has a fan, and that fan is not spinning at the speed that it's supposed to be. As a result, my computer can become a makeshift hotplate when needed - and it just turns off sporadically. I've already been in the middle of videos or trying to burn disks or in the middle of fun conversations when it has just turned off without as much as a cough. I would hate to be in the middle of an assignment, or online quiz, or presentation.

On a somewhat related note, I must say that I'm impressed with the phone support that I've had to deal with of late - with Dell and with TD - the former in dealing with my computer issue, and the latter with a work-related issue. Top notch, helpful bunches of oats those guys are. Perhaps that isn't exciting as some of the hellish stories you can read about incompetent, rude, unhelpful joes servicing you needs from who knows where, but it's still very important to praise the good guys when they help.

Now, city and transit unions, please help me to get buses back. Or pay for driving lessons and car insurance.

054 - Day 26

Thursday. Thursday is the day we find out how much longer this transit strike of ours will last. There's a small part of me that is crossing his even littler fingers in hopes that the wonderful drivers, maintenance staff, and others will vote (thanks to some federal intervention), to have their say on the city's most recent offer, in favour of the offer. this means buses, after multiple inspections and revving up, will be back within one and a half weeks from now. The bigger part of me, ever sceptical, knows that the vote will ruin any chances of getting back to travel normalcy and that buses won't be back on the streets until the better part of January - at the earliest. A little Transit Union-run website has this lovely message for its members:

BREAKING NEWS - January 4th, 2009
Forced Second Vote On City's Latest Offer Details Known

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The vote ordered by Minister of Labour Rona Ambrose and conducted by Canada Industrial Relations Board will be held on:

Thursday, January 8th, 2009
6:00 AM to 8:00 PM
Civic Centre – Lansdowne Park on Bank Street
FREE PARKING AT LANSDOWNE PARK

Please be sure to bring photo identification with you as well as OC Transpo identification on the vote as the Board officers may require it.

Please be sure to vote to reject this offer and show the City our solidarity.

Your future, your families future and your Union's future depends on this vote.

Please, vote NO.

I have to wonder why this whole process is being drawn out, not unlike a kid looking to hear stories, tell stories, get water, and inspect for monster activity every nook and cranny to avoid going to bed. Any decent person would expect that both sides of any work stoppage, especially one that cripples a city, would work long and hard to resolve their differences. Instead of picturing a bunch of balding, middle-aged men sitting at an uncomfortable table in a windowless, cigarette smoke-filled room into all hours of the morning, I see text messages bouncing back and forth from one blackberry to another:

MaireLaire613: wanna go bak 2 werk?
ACorn279: R U GONNA WIN UR NEXT ELECTION?
MaireLaire613: i'll txt u after my ski trip.
ACorn279: CAN I COME? I JUST WAXED MY SKIS!
MaireLaure613: r u gonna win ur next election? lolz
OCMercy: burn!

Winter break is over and classes are starting. I imagine many students have worked hard at making exams when the strike started, then relegated their time to becoming hermits, just staying at home whenever possible (or a friend with a fancy car comes along). The weather for my walk to school tomorrow morning: cloudy with sunny breaks, and a high of ohmygosh I still need to walk a hour to get to school! And I shouldn't even be complaining all that much, because at least I can get to my classes in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of effort. All the walking I'll be doing this week will render my Wii Fit useless.

And it's -3C, for the record, feeling like -9C. Where's my scarf?

038 - Brains!

My Brain Hurts.

027 - Ho Ho Hold the payments!

School is done for yet another term! I celebrated this crowning achievement by cleaning my room. It was in dire need of a garbage bag and a bottle of Febreeze, or something to freshen things up. It's almost the way I like to keep it. I can't wait until we have little robots that know how you like your room and their task is to keep it tidy for you. And if it encounters something it doesn't know, it sends you a text message asking you what to do. Kinda reminds me of Wall-e to some extent.

Today, I used a fandangled piece of plastic to pay for things without money. I think young whippersnappers (wow, I love how my spell check knows what a whippersnapper is, but not fandangled) of today call a credit card. It doubles as a Student Price Card (Canadian retail discount card for students). At Yogen Früz, I saved 28 cents (10%) only to have to pay a 25-cent debit transaction fee. In a world of plastic, I need to learn to keep actual money on me. Actually, I find it interesting that the rate at which the government issues money is constant with the economy. People aren't necessarily using less coins and bills, even with things like credit and debit cards being so commonplace.

I bought my mom's Christmas present today. Shh, don't tell her. Funny thing is that she never uses the internet, let alone read my blog (and especially my livejournal), so I can post everything she's getting right here and she'd never know. Hahahaha.

Joseph Mallozzi also disappeared off the face off the Earth. I blame Replicators. Or rabbid Carson Beckett fans. Nah, Beckett fans wouldn't hurt a turtle... it's the Elizabeth Weir fans that did it. If only I had a secret cache of weapons that I could use to rescue him... Nah, I'll leave the hero work up to his pugs.

Chances are none of you understood that last paragraph. Except Cat.

Now I'm working a lot, which means I'll have some more money with which to do random things. Haven't thought that part through yet. Guests are so entertaining sometimes! There should be a blog for Disney Store stories. I'd definitely contribute. Unless it's against store policy. i don't see why it would be, but you never know. Maybe I'll read through that again sometime.

Pictures: Christmas present, cousin (forgive the compression, they aren't on flickr)

025 - Home Stretch, Snow Fall

Building Christmas


Shirley Temples


Fried Art


1408. Scary. OooOOoOO.


Long line of laptops.


Creative foot positioning


Guitar Hero is a game for "everyone"... but song on their slowest setting sound terrible.


The snow is falling!


A made a snowman in 2 minutes at Cat's suggestion.


The random snow-dirt on the bus reminds me of Santa's sleigh.


That is a sidewalk.


William Shatner is everywhere...


Pirates lamp. Expensive. Not for me.


Naturally, light bulb is not included.

Winter seems to be here. I was sceptical after the first bit of snow that we got, but since then, we've received a fair amount. Probably the same amount that we had by February last year. Then again, last year was a bit lacking in the whole frozen precipitation department. I just want the snow to be sticky enough to start sculpting!

School-wise, I'm in the home stretch. By this time next week, this first term of the new program will be behind me. To prepare for exams, I'm not working from Saturday through Tuesday, but I'm picking up those lost hours throughout the rest of next week. Talk about busy! As friends slowly flock back from various areas, I hope to have some fun.

Until then, I have things to finish. Still. I just thought I would update with some pictures. I have no idea where I found time to upload the pictures. But hey, don't complain!

024 - Snow on roads, snow in globes

I'm a year older, according to the tradition of stating one's age based on the whole number of years one has been alive. What happened to being "six and a half!" Somehow, that sounds really odd when you're become a twentysomething. Or does it also sound odd as a teen? "I'm 15 and a half!"... Maybe it works if you're looking for a job, otherwise, it's not as impressive.

I've also had next to no time to do anything! School, work, sleep, with the occasional meal take up the bulk of my time. It recently dawned on me that there's only a week left of school before exams, and two weeks before I'm finished for the term. Scary. This new program that I'm in seems to focus more on assignments and getting things done throughout the week, something that has thrown me off. I'm so used to the bulk of the marks going to midterms, finals, and lab work. Not so this time around. Because of this, I don't know how I'm going to fare when it comes to overall marks. We'll see!

I have so little time that I'm barely 40 stars into Super Mario Galaxy. Galaxy is such a fun game; it's the perfect blend of old nostalgia love and newness. The music is completely awesome. The levels are very interesting - smaller, but the whole game is made up of dozens and dozens of different ones. And Mario skates and axles in a way that's sure to make Elvis Stojko jealous. This game continues to surprise and amaze me.

Winter has arrived early! For the past few years, we've been lucky to get snow by Christmas, however there's already been a few decent snow days so far, and no real sign that it won't stay. Does that mean we're in for a long winter? I just want to make a snowman. Maybe I'll try making a wintery - albino Pikachu.

Last Friday was a big sale day at work. Being an American company, we celebrate black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. It was busy and packed in the store all day. It was so much fun, in the sense that you get to see all kinds of people taking advantage or slashed prices, but it was so busy that you don't get much time to talk to anyone, let alone sell them Ratatouille banks for only $1.99. In contrast, when I was at work on Tuesday, there weren't many people in the store at all. I had time to test out these cam-mounted RC cars (well, one is actually Cars, one is actually Cinderella's carriage) by driving them outside the store, into the food court. If only I could use time like that to do random assignments.

Pictures: Halloween at the chiropractor, snow, snow and dome, smiling newlywed, giant pooh, Ben and the Giant pooh, Mickey snowglobe.

018 - How far could a Klingon hit a golf ball?

I am famous. The following photo that I took a year ago has made its way to the Cheap Eats Ottawa blog:

You can even see Sebastian's shirt to the far right! It isn't the first time that a picture of mine has been used here and there, but aside from a time when I had stuff up on the Capital Music Hall's website (which apparently has changed how its photos are displayed), this is the most prominent display ever.

Thursdays are proving to be long days for me, including early morning class, afternoon class, and work in the evening. Today being Thursday means that my day will be super long. All summer, I would stay up so late - at times until the sky would brighten; the combination of school and work has pushed my internal clock back into the Eastern Standard timezone. It's unbelievable to people who know me when I mention that I'm in bed sometimes while still in the 10th hour of the evening.

I can rest assured that by next week, once I get a heavier homework and whatnot, I'm going to have very little, if any spare time. Maple Story might suffer the most since I'm 700 zombie mushroom kills away from attaining level 30, which is possibly where the game gets more exciting. Given the chance to earn imaginary mesos versus Canadian dollars (which is quite close with the American dollar. Why aren't videogame prices dropping? Super Mario Galaxy should be $49.99!), I would do with the latter.

One of the things I was looking to achieve for this term was to feel more focused. I think I'm definitely on track to achieve this. Especially when I have side projects with Prashanta's father.

Speaking of which, he had me make a couple of posters for upcoming conferences that the Canada Forum for Nepal will be hosting. I'll put them here because I realise I don't do that often enough.

The first one was based heavily on the one that someone else created last year. It just have more colour and has a cleaner look about it.

The second poster is for the broader conference that's going on. It was originally designed as a teaser poster, given that no information about the conference (ie speakers) had been determined, but I stuck with it.

This is the design that I originally wanted. The flat and bold colours and font choice gave a bit of a classic poster style. The background used to be brighter and more off-red, but it had to be changed to bring out more contrast.

Apparently, the powers that be didn't like the red, citing that it was too representative of a revolution, despite the fact that red is a dominant colour in the Nepal flag. In order to please, a blue version came about. The colour didn't match well with the original direction that I wanted, so I went ahead and changed up the background, making it a bit more interesting with a graded effect, and extruded blocks.

Lastly, a gray scale version was made fro printing reasons, though I still need to work on a higher-res version so that the print versions look reasonably nice. After all that, I think this version has some class to it. I need to think about using black and white more often.

Feel free to check out either of these events when they happen!