We had one of our garage door springs blow on Friday so we weren’t able to park the car inside our house. I called OnTrack to come fix it and wanted it fixed relatively quickly, so the came on Saturday and billed me a bunch of money for the mechanism replacement (which was fairly beaten up and needed some “theraputic hammering”). Then, wrought with rusty angst at having lost its true companion of 15 years, the second garage door spring decided it could not go on any longer in this world and drank poison which it had procured somehow from a local apothecary. The same repairman came and declared it dead by ironic means and proceeded to replace said second spring. When will the families of the right and left garage doors realize their folly and the tragic loss of their springy children? Never — they are just doors.
April 25th, 2007
Karen and I (after becoming a Brit) managed to get together and spend some short time with a long lost friend, Dale Wells (yes he’s on facebook) with whom we did improv oh so long ago. Karen said when Dale moved to the T that he would vanish to us living the simple uncomplicated life in Waterloo. We really haven’t seen much of him in the last 5-7 years, so it was wonderful that K and I got to spend at least a couple of hours getting reconnected with such a fun and great guy. Things are going well with him, he’s getting more active in performance again (after having taken a bit of a hiatus) and generally seems pretty happy. K and I vowed that it would be 6 months and NOT 6 years the next time we manage to get together.
April 23rd, 2007
Today I was sworn in as a citizen of the UK. It all started in earnest back in November and 5 months to the day, it was wrapped up (slightly off their time estimate, but still not bad). Karen and I filed into a room in Toronto at the consulate along with about 20 others who were applying for citizenship, I had to stand up and pledge my loyalty to the Queen and country (something my American friends think was a bit crazy, but hey I’m Canadian, so it doesn’t really matter much) and then I was done. Officially, I qualify for “British by Descent” which means that I derived my citizenship from my parents (Mom) and I am not able to pass it on to my children. Next step is to apply for a British passport (and work on my colloquialisms) so travel and work within the EU becomes that much simpler.
April 23rd, 2007
A bunch of us went to see Just for Laughs at CITS tonight. It was pretty funny, although there was some definite politically incorrect humour there (referencing KW and Hitler). Overall, some funny stuff, but inconsistent. I’d like to go see JFL in Montreal some time I think.
April 19th, 2007
Went to our Tally office for the first time in a while. Good visit in general, was there with Jim and Peter. Scared Jim in the car as Pete was driving. Overall good talks with both Dev and CS — I think there is some good cooperation potential there.
April 17th, 2007
Decided to go for a run today — that was sort of a mistake. I was doing fairly well and wanted to go quite a way (apparently 12K, didn’t realize that when I started), but I was doing my usual stupid stuff, jumping off here and there (and not wearing good shoes). Well, I must have injured my foot or something in one of those jumps because I ended up having to walk half of the distance rather than run (not sure I could have anyway), but my the last 2K, I was having a really hard time even walking. So, lesson for myself, set my expectations appropriately and don’t overdo it.
April 15th, 2007
There was a hilarious SNL short on tonight (really, the few good ones have really helped bring innovation back to SNL) — it was something I think that was based on the season ender of the OC and it was totally absurd and had guns in it (which means I like it more immediately). There was a really neat song in it as well that I think really accented it that much more, apparently the artist is Imogen Heap and the song is called Hide and Seek.
April 15th, 2007
Had my group meeting in Ottawa this time around to be a bit different (and since 3 of the folks are in or close to Ottawa anyway, it saves money). Lots of fun talk about cost of work (for example, spending $36K on authoring a document) and plans for how we be smarter going forward. Overall I found the meetings frustrating on our progress made - just need to keep at it to improve. Karen flew up a bit later we had some good tex-mex (see my earlier note on Mexican food in KW) and visited our friends Tim and Dianne in Carp to close out the trip. Had some fun snarkyness on the return trip from Air Canada and us attempting to sneak into the lounge even though we were on a WestJet flight.
April 12th, 2007
Hope people had a better Easter than this. Ate SO much turkey… ugh, much turkey coma.
April 8th, 2007
Yay! K and I went out on a date tonight — found a good Mexican restaurant (the Mayan Grill) in Cambridge which was nice (we sorely lack Mexican food in Waterloo). Then went to see Blades of Glory which was quite funny — I love the double hotdog scene, it made me keel over laughing. Finally we ended off with a suite in St. Jacobs which was very nice. Overall it was nice to spend some quality time and break the routine. If you haven’t done a date recently, you should, it’s nice.
April 7th, 2007
Had lunch with Storm and Cassidy today at CiaH where I finally got to hear what made them focus on something other than CIGI. I haven’t been great at keeping up with all the flurry of activities from their side and totally should since there’s a lot to be said for networking with smart people. So, not sure if I can talk about their idea (so I won’t), but it seems like a pretty good concept and well defined market they are going after (and unlike many people, they are not trying to dilute their proposition by being all things to all people). As it stands, we’ll see where it runs to over the next 6 months, but I think given the skills those two have (from an SME, customer and technical perspective) combined with the experience they have in an ASP business (both successes and failures), that they should come out ahead of the game.
April 5th, 2007
So, went and visited CIGI today (centre of international governance innovation) to meet with some folks and talk about what they have done. The funny thing is that they are all friends of mine (or at least the main ones), so it was mostly a waste of time for myself since I had a fairly good idea of what they do, how they did it and why (I do eat lunch with these guys regularly). Overall, it was funny being told details on hosted model/ASP technology/business when we as a team were largely the ones originally responsible in our company. Still, they are doing some more advanced stuff which is commendable. Not sure how it all fits into what we do. I was recruited however (for a programming position) — not sure I would be any good at that anymore.
April 3rd, 2007
Today was the day I sat down at got my hair cut. After 9 years of having long hair, I’m fulfilling an obligation (”I’ll get my hair cut when you make me a VP!”) that I made off the cuff about 7 years ago, never thinking I’d have to make good. A large portion of folks gathered downstairs at lunch to watch the cutting happen and encourage the scissor holders (and also support me in my time of need). Laura was very nice and also had her hair cut for charity which made me feel less alone in the ordeal. Polly had cut her hair for charity earlier in the year which was also a wonderful gesture. In the end the highest donation was supposed to actually do the initial cut of my hair, but Robert couldn’t make it, so it fell to Shae. Overall, it was a good cause with the hair going to Angel Hair for Kids, and $2500 being split across several charities. People took some photos of the event (so I could remember the horror) and Howard put together a wonderful video to help me relive the event to the end of my days.
Overall, I feel sad. I liked having long hair and not sure I suit having short hair although I definitely look like “the man”.
April 2nd, 2007
So today for work, we had someone in to help us understand our products whom formerly used to work with us. Lots of good information, however, one of the things that I was surprised at (and this is me saying this), is how unfocused and arrogant the person was. Jumping all around on topics, never completing a thought and all the time their view was the correct one. At the end of it all, I had to step back and look at myself, because often I feel that I’m the same way and thought to myself, how to people deal with it?
March 30th, 2007
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