Drop-in centre

Graduate student? Be a TA in the Engineering Drop-In Centre. Sit around and do your own personal work most of the time, occasionally help students with simple problems in first or second year courses. 4 hours a week. 13 weeks. $2305. That's about $45/hr for doing slightly more than nothing.

Anyone still wonder why they need to continuously ask you for donations?

Open-source / freeware

There are some pretty amazing open-source softwares out there for performing small tasks, and some of them are simply unmatched by commercial software. Some of these you don't even realise you need until you become aware of their existance. A few examples include RenameMaster and DoubleKiller.
I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I want to see if I can replace some big applications with open source stuff... This way I don't have to pay big bucks for it, live without it, or find "ARRRRRR Matey!!" editions. The biggest thing would be replacing MS Office with OpenOffice. Obviously, MS will have capabilities that OO will lack, and compatability will not be 100% when sharing a file between the two softwares. But will this matter, considering I likely don't use many of the more complex capabilities? (I do use some features of Word that some might consider 'advanced' but aren't really... and off-topic, to those who think LaTex is god and MS Word is impossible to effectively format things and automatically create tables of contents and lists of figures etc.... the main problem I've seen is that people assume you should be able to use Word without having to learn anything about how to use it, then they run into problems. But if you spend a few minutes learning some basic techniques (likely less time than you'd spend learning latex), then you can go ahead and write a 200 page thesis hassle-free. Not that I'm saying Word is necessarily better, just saying it's not the demon some people think it is.) Anyways, I'll see how OO works for me.
Microsoft has created Express Editions of programming software which can likely replace commercial software for creating simple applications. To replace Matlab, I will likely check out Octave.

Dreams can come true

but generally it's pretty unlikely.

Kelsey Grammer (I don't know why, I'm not even a big Frasier fan) was apparently some external project manager type person for our company. He was just tasked with killing Project Manhattan (the project I'm involved in) so he came to me to try to find some good excuses to end it.

"Why We Fight"

documentary is on cbc thursday 8:00, heard it's pretty interesting.

Also, new Amazing Race starts sept 17.

Antarctica

Just for interest's sake, checked out the Calgary Zoo Conservation Outreach 'zoofari' tours... the antarctic one in January is already sold out! Super expensive anyways, but I think it'd be worth it if you can spare the cash.

Drunks

I'm still not too sure how to deal with people who have had more than enough to drink. One guy had had a fair amount, but still seemed probably okay, and he went to ride his bicycle home though we encouraged him not to. Should we have kicked his ass and said "no you're getting a ride" or something, or just let him go? (if it was a motor vehicle we sure wouldn't have let him go). At the end of the evening, a couple of the other guys were pretty drunk and we didn't just want to let them loose to get rolled wandering around downtown or whatever but it was midnight and they still refused to go home and were heading to another bar so eventually we just had to say screw it and go home. Don't know what to do in those kinds of situations. Hard to tell if people are capable of taking care of themselves or not. They're grown men, let them do what they want, but if they're not thinking or acting like it...

No competition

The question of who in this office is least satisfied with working here has been resolved, as my main competition has forfeited by leaving the company. Though really, that's more of a 'win' for him than for me. Hopefully I will follow shortly.

A little sad as he was pretty much my best friend at intermap, usually good for going for lunch, a walk, or hiking on the weekend (sometimes he was the only one to join me).

Up to date

Finally got my hike photos web pages all up to date (mainly doing the Elk Island and Castle Mountain ones that I had been putting off).

Groceries

It looks like I spent about $220 on groceries last month. It's hard to tell if I ate more or less than that since there was some food around before, some food after (probably ate more). Still, I'm curious, do any of you know about how much you spend on groceries in a month?

SoF buddy day

Friday is 'buddy day' at SoF. You're welcome to join in for one class for free. Let me know if you're interested (he says unexpectantly).

Calgary dragonboat festival 2006

Ok, you knew it was coming, the extensive chronicles of my calgary dragonboat festival 2006 experience.

Started off with hanging out a bit friday evening to get wristbands and set up a little. Not many people came down for that though, and soon headed home. Then, it was saturday morning, on site at 7 am... Calgary's still so cold at that time in the morning! The good thing about that is that you get to park fairly close. Poor Carol was kindof stressed as people were still arriving an hour late, but overall she did a great job with organization throughout the weekend. Congratulations also have to go to Arnold, it's pretty crazy keeping eight teams on track! Throughout the weekend we almost continuously had one team or another (or several at the same time) racing or marshalling. The saturday races are to seed you into whichever division for sunday's races, so although you may blow away the other teams racing, it's time that matters. Timing isn't the best way to compare teams, since water conditions vary so much, but it's still probably the best way to seed divisions. Had an early morning mixed race. Next was the 200 m mens sprint which was kindof neat. We didn't do so well in any of the mens races unfortunately, maybe we should do more than one practice! Also, the other teams were really strong, kudos to them. In the afternoon, while still holding a half-eaten sub in my hand, it was time to warm up for the next mixed race, since the festival decided to skip the lunch break and push up the races as much as possible. I guess it was in case the weather turned bad later. Similar to the morning mixed race, there was no real competition. We missed having the best time of the day by 0.04 seconds, but like I said, times can be deceiving. Later in the day once again it was the mixed and mens 1000 metre races. For the mixed, it was totally a last second thrown-together team, and we almost missed it, it was pretty funny. The mens had headed down first, and the marshaller was yelling "topmade dragoneers get down here!" and we were just standing around, we were 'inferno' not 'dragoneers' at that moment, the marshaller was screaming "topmade!?!" getting upset till the mixed team came sprinting down down to the docks. We (men) got to be sitting in the boat at the finish line as our mixed team came across, that was pretty cool. Unfortunately again the men didn't place so well, but still the race felt really good. Most people headed off after the races, but some of us stuck around in the somewhat windy weather for the Spirit of the West concert. They're pretty much my favorite band, of course I was going to stick around! And it didn't go on too late, so there was still time to relax in the evening and go to bed early.

Sunday again had a 7 am start, again pretty chilly. Got to see a crow chasing a golden retriever, that was a good laugh to start the day! Looking at the schedule, it was pretty cool to see that Topmade had got three teams into the A-division, including a recreational team! In fact, later in the day, they went head-to-head against the Topmade semi-comp team and came out on top I think, which is pretty impressive! Late morning was the div-A mixed races, now were against some real competition. Needed to come in first, or have one of the two fastest second-place finishes in order to go to the A-championship. We managed first, though the time-sheet showed it to be our slowest race. But everyone else in that race seemed to do slower than before too. Still, competitors who were also advancing to the A-championship were excited to see our slower time. Again shortly after lunch it was the mens race, and though we had a good warm up, we were still running down to the docks as we often seem to. I'd been appointed co-captain of the mens, and it was actually kindof fun shouting out the roster as we were hurrying down the docks to the boat. Once more though, we were beat out by the other stronger mens teams. Oh well, I already have the full set of bronze, silver, and gold medals for calgary mens division, it felt like a good race and that's important. With all the warming up, marshalling, and racing, had to miss some of the other teams final races, even though several friends were among the other topmade teams.

Div-A championship was (almost) the final race of the day, and boy was it a good race. In the end, there was only about 4 seconds between first and sixth place, see one of sheldon's photos. We didn't win, but it was still great! Guardian was first, and HSBC was 0.1 seconds ahead of us. Not only was it one of the most exciting races, it was the most exciting minute-after-the-race too! There was some sort of Karma, some cosmic forces at work, as we crossed the finish line and somehow lost control, swerving to the right and despite checking boat, rammed into the side of the next boat, capsizing it and sending the team into the water. Of all the teams, it had to be Guardian, the team that had split off from our club before this year. The other weird thing is that they were in the boat we own (so obviously we wouldn't intentionally damage our own boat). Wow. So then while we were calling to see if anyone was hurt, one of their guys Russel was in the water throwing a temper tantrum and swearing at us over and over, not giving a damn whether his teammates were hurt. After a bit he started cheering about them having won, still not concerned about his teammates. What a loser, I think if someone acted like that in our club they'd be gone. Anyways, they seemed to be okay, so we returned to dock and let the 'rescue' boats do their work. Thinking and discussing it later though, you gotta wonder, over the years there have been several collisions more severe than this one which haven't come close to capsizing a boat.

Headed up the dock and Marvin was there saying "scott, we need you on the UTS race." Ok, turn around and head back onto the dock. This was the final race of the day, the "oil sands cup". Had to do well in this one for one of our sponsors, and so we did, taking first place again. It was fun, but exhausting. At least I got to switch sides, we've been practicing both sides all season to be able to do both, even though one is usually stronger. My right's still generally stronger, but I had hurt my back a week ago and it hurt less when I paddled left vs right, so that probably evened things out a bit. Surprisingly, after a weekend of paddling, pretty back-intensive, it felt better than it had before the weekend!

Hung around to clean up, and then the awards ceremony. Most people who weren't getting stuff in the ceremony had already cleared off, and the rest seemed to head off pretty quickly after. Some of us went down to inspect the damage to our boat, and hung out on the boat/docks for a while, it was really peaceful feeling. I'd hoped to hang around a while and maybe go out to eat after, despite being exhausted. I remember having done that before. I remember it being dark too, I guess the races and awards ceremony and clean-up were all much later that year than this year. I remember some of us trying to subdue and tie up Byron. I remember finally heading off, and being a little sad to go, and then while at a red light, Charlene pulled up beside me and let me know they were heading to a restaurant in chinatown, so I joined them. I remember Monique almost falling asleep into her congee :) Anyways, those are all years gone by. This year, noone wanted to go out, except me and Arnold, so we were the last of topmade to leave the festival. Had some Y2K, chatted a while and finally headed home sometime after 9:00, and that was pretty much the end of the dragonboat weekend.

Family Feud

Caught a little "Family Feud" today. At the end of the show, in the fast money part, a question was (possibly different wording) "Name a chore your kids must do every day."
The first contestant responded "Mow the lawn!"
The second contestant responded "Watch TV!"

Yellow fever

After seeing the Yellow fever WongFu production and observing the phenomenon everywhere (like most of you reading this, all the couples I saw at a bbq monday, and how my university friends used to be) I was wondering why I'm not doing so well qualifying as an example. I started thinking of what it would take to thoroughly de-asianify myself. (yeah, some of these are a stretch)

. No more chanting at a temple sunday mornings
. No more Tai Chi
. Possibly even quit dragonboat (though that's changed a lot over the years)
. Stop having rice for lunch EVERY work day
. Reduce instant noodles consumption
. Reduce use of chopsticks, use more awkwardly, accept racist waiters offers of forks
. Less po-lay (pu-erh) and green teas
. Stop making oriental food for all potlucks
. Drive less of a rice car (definitely no big 'R' (or these days "S") on the back allowed)
. No chinese thing hanging from mirror
. Stop listening to "FM gau saap sei dim chaat"
. Stop choosing SE asia for every vacation I organize
. Don't decorate with stuff from chinatown and asian vacations
. Stop still living with parents in late 20s
. Make sure noone ever again has an excuse to ask "Scott, I don't want this to sound bad, but am I your only white friend?!"

Anyways, on another topic, speaking of WongFu productions that I mentioned earlier, they're actually talented (not just some crap that's shown up on the internet) and I suggest checking out some of their other shorts and music videos. (start at www.wongfuproductions.com)

International application

Applied/applying to some international positions with Fugro (hydrographic surveying). Applied to Aberdeen, but the application got messed up. Applied to Cape Town, but the response was "this is only for South African nationals." I see a Singapore position, will apply to it. And Aberdeen has reopened/continued their openings, will reapply to that. A little worried that Aberdeen will be too cold though!

My interest seems to be primarily on Great Britain and South East Asia. I guess while I consider myself fundamentally Canadian and always will, those are my two sub-cultures. Kindof like, the old and the new, the past and the present, the family and the friends, those things that combine to make us who we are. I dunno, there was a thought that started this entry but I can't seem to focus it.

Thesaurus fun

Be sure to choose your synonyms carefully for your context.

"I'd be a great fit for this position."
"I'd be a big league fit for this position."
"I'd be a titanic fit for this position."
"I'd be a colossal fit for this position."

Actually I kindof like that 'colossal' one, maybe next time I apply for a job I'm not very optimistic about.

Parents home

My parents got back today after being away for over a month. Yes, I saw the truck out front, and yes I saw the house door was open, but even without those signs, I could smell that they were home BEFORE I EVEN ENTERED THE HOUSE!! This is so disgusting! I think they got a case lot of super-extra-stink cigarettes from the US.

No holiday monday

Bad mood... I was just reminded that for us Monday isn't actually a holiday for me... something dumb from when we had just Calgary and Ottawa and Denver offices, because of family day Calgary had one extra holiday than Ottawa and they wanted it to be even. So they changed the rules so Calgary could either take family day or this august holiday, but not both. Of course, now we also have Munich and Jakarta offices which have more holidays (and germans get like twice as much vacation as north americans too), so things aren't even, but they're still not going to give Calgary back our holiday. I took off family day cause I hoped I wouldn't still be working here by this time, but I am, so I guess I'm supposed to come in on monday.

Dragonboat mens races

I guess since there aren't many mens teams, instead of having the traditional three races all the same, they've tried to spice things up. Now there'll be a 200m and 1000m race in addition to the usual 500m race. I highly anticipate the 1000m race, because it's 500m, U-turn, 500m. That dragonboat U-turn during a race sounds like a recipe for disaster to me! I wouldn't be surprised at all to see boats colliding, getting smashed up, people getting hurt, steersmen getting thrown into the water and losing the boat, etc.

I really shouldn't be this excited and smiling about potential for disaster.