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Playing Catch Up With Opera, Choir, Secrets and Travel

March 05, 2009 07:11 +0000  |  Family Friends Japan Korea Linux Python Scrubby Travel 4

It's true. I'm still alive, though I couldn't blame you if you'd considered otherwise. I've been neglecting this blog of late. Actually, I've been neglecting most of my life lately but soon, very soon, I shall have a break and I wanted to get this Long List of Stuff out of the way before that happens so here goes:

Carmen

A little over a month ago, I attempted to expand my cultural horizons by taking in My First Opera at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. I accompanied Margaret, Dianna, and Aisha to the show and like good opera-goers we dressed up pretty for the night, then quietly mocked the yahoos who felt that jeans and a tshirt was appropriate.

For my part, I can't say that I really enjoyed the opera. (Sorry Diana). I didn't hate it either though. Frankly, it didn't do much for me at all. I found much of the music frustratingly simple when compared to a symphony or even broadway show, and the characters completely unbelievable. The emotion they conveyed (quite brilliantly I admit) didn't make any sense when the story seemed so trivial. I guess Opera just isn't for me.

I still have trouble getting over the fact that they would hold something like an opera in a venue that doesn't really lend itself to acoustic projection. The QE Theatre, while quite functional as a normal theatre, doesn't hold a candle to the acoustics you find in The Orpheum, yet they hold rock concerts in the latter and opera in the former. This makes no sense to me.

Choir

Not too long after my night at the opera, I went to my first choir practise in years. Simple Gifts, a local amateur choir run by Ieva Wool and for the most part, I liked them. The people I sang with had talent, the director was patient and helpful and overall everyone in the room seemed to really enjoy the whole experience. The only negatives were the average age of the singers (~50ish) and the fact that the practise was held on Tuesday nights... I had no idea how tiring a regular weekday practise from 7:30 - 9:30 would be, but it was.

I had the opportunity to try out the choir for two practises before I decided whether or not I was "in" or not, and the decision of whether or not to keep going came down to a simple gut feeling: I was just too tired. That is, the idea of going to choir on Tuesday felt more like a responsibility ("you're going to like, this so you have to go") as opposed to a joy ("yay! choir!"). I chalked it up to the general energy level of the choir (dear gods I miss Mr. Rhan sometimes) and my own energy reserves at the end of my work day. I just couldn't give anymore, so I declined to join.

If my situations changes for the next "term", I'll drop in again and give it another go, but for now, I just didn't feel like I was getting what I needed out of it.

The Super Secret Project

My father is an Idea man. Much like myself, he has new ideas all the time, though the difference between us is that his ideas are usually profit-driven while mine remain the betterment of mankind-types. His latest idea however has been snowballing into a full-blown project and will likely launch this year. Through the life cycle of his this beast, he's been coming back to me asking questions about how he could do "x" and I would work out with him roughly how everything would work... well it's time, now he wants me to build it.

I've done some research and it looks like I'll be installing Gentoo Linux on one of these running a really cool Python script I wrote that captures mouse clicks and logs stuff to the database and then pushes said data over the Internet to a master server via one of these things. It's gonna be fun.

Korea and Japan

And now for the big one: I'm going to Korea on Saturday and then to Japan on the 14th, then home by the 22nd. It's gonna be frickin' cool. My friend Susan, who's currently teaching English in Daegu, Korea was looking for company for a Japan trip and I jumped at the chance (finances be damned!). The way I see it, Japan is too foreign a country for me to be comfortable exploring on my own, and frankly, few of my friends have the money or the interest in making the trip. This opportunity was too rare to pass up... and so I go!

It looks like th total cost of flights, trains and accommodation will be in the neighbourhood of $3000CAD which may sound crazy high but you have to remember that it is the other side of the world -- the two trans-Pacific flights alone make up 50% of that sum.

It'll be fun to hang with Susan though -- we never spent enough time together when we were both in Toronto, so this will give us time to catch up :-) She has her heart set on a traditional costuming thing that they do regularly in a park in Tokyo, and I'm really stoked about both riding the subway in there and visiting the Nintendo headquarters in Kyoto... no, I don't know if they have tours, but I don't care. I just want my picture in front of the Nintendo sign :-)

I'm currently taking orders for stuff people want me to bring back, so if you want on the list, just drop me a comment. Also, if you think that there's something I should see out that way, let me know and I'll try to add it to our itinerary. The cities I'll be in are: Seoul, Daegu (maybe), Tokyo, Kyoto, Okinawa City, and Naha.

Alright, I figure that makes up for my rather long absence. I'll try to be more studious when I'm blogging on the other side of the planet :-)

INTJ

February 10, 2009 21:58 +0000  |  Family Self Reflection 25

My mother sent me this personality test today asking me to use it to learn more about myself. Based loosly on the Myers-Briggs test, it was pretty short so I did it as a break from my day. As it turns out, I did a similar test years ago where I scored INFJ, but this time through though I scored differently:

INTJ
Introverted (I) 75%Extraverted (E) 25%
Intuitive (N) 64%Sensing (S) 36%
Thinking (T) 65%Feeling (F) 35%
Judging (J) 59%Perceiving (P) 41%

Looks like I've gotten colder with age :-)

25 Things

February 06, 2009 07:46 +0000  |  Environment Family Friends Self Reflection Suburbia Why I'm Here Women Work [at] Play 14

People have been sending these my way for days now and the activity seemed so very contrary to my usual behaviour, that I thought that I'd give it a shot. I'm not going to "tag" anyone to do this though since this is my blog and not bloody Facebook, but if you want to share your own, you can post it or link to your own post here in the comments.

Here's the deal. This is a list of 25 random things about me. They're personal, so if you want to know more about me, this might be a scary place to start, but it's your call:

  1. I am a very private person. This may come as a surprise to someone who doesn't know me, as I do after all maintain a blog and all kinds of online profiles. Look carefully though and you'll realise that there's nothing all that personal about me anywhere. I don't share. I'm going to try to make this post an exception.
  2. I'm happy to listen to others though. People like to talk to me -- gods know why. I like to think that I'm a pretty good listener and that my lectures are often helpful.
  3. I never used to care about the environment. In fact, when I moved to Ontario, it was the furthest thing from my mind. It wasn't until I realised that so many people still burned coal to make electricity that I got involved.
  4. As part of a seventh grade public speaking exercise, I wrote a speech titled "Why Does Everyone Talk About Saving the Environment, but No One Does Anything About It?" (or something to that effect). I was then voted as the one to give the speech in front of the whole school. I was so terrified that I skipped a complete paragraph from my cue cards.
  5. I was, and still am, terrified at the prospect of public speaking. In recent years, I've actively combated this fear by repeatedly putting myself in situations where I must speak publicly in one form or another. It's working.
  6. I don't try to save the world out of guilt, or a feeling of responsibility. I do what I do purely out of a sense of principle: I honestly believe that there is a Right way and Wrong way to interact with this planet, and I fight to ensure the former. As Mark Twain said: "Always do right. This will gratify some and astonish the rest".
  7. I am seriously afraid that I will waste away here in Vancouver. Most days I feel as if any ambition I had was left behind in Toronto.
  8. It is because of this fear that I've avoided doing things "for me" in the past like joining a choir. I've always felt like I have a responsibility to act on the aforementioned principles and forgo my own wants until those goals are achieved, but the hollowness and lack of purpose I've felt since returning have caused me to consider some selfish options. I still feel that this is a mistake, but I don't know what else to do.
  9. I love my job. I love the work, the fact that it's constantly challenging and that I'm being given the power/responsibility to write some really fucking awesome code.
  10. I often burn 90% of my work day spinning my mental wheels trying to get my brain out of its funk. I believe this to be related to my poor diet and sleeping schedule... at least I hope that's the case.
  11. I'm so afraid of what it might be if it's not diet or rest that I won't talk to a doctor about it.
  12. I'm constantly concerning myself with others' impressions of me. Alone, at home working on my computer, walking down the street, writing a blog, or deputing at City Hall, the question of how my words may be construed 20years from now is a serious concern to me.
  13. I often catch myself reliving or daydreaming about past or potential future conversations. What was / could've been said, or what will be / should be said, and the rebuttals for each. These conversations sometimes cross over from the mental space into real out-loud annunciations for my part of the exchange -- though this is usually only at home as I'm getting ready for work.
  14. I've developed deep emotional attachments to a number of people scattered around the world. These feelings aren't romantic, but rather almost familial and definitely protective.
  15. I think that my unwillingness to share is likely directly connected to my inability to commit emotionally to someone. Either that or I just haven't met the right girl yet.
  16. My childhood was really quite horrible. My family was wonderful, but my school life in Langley has probably damaged me permanently. Don't raise your kids in the suburbs folks, it doesn't do anyone any good.
  17. My single bastion of sanity in high school was choir practise with Mr. Thompson and Mr. Rahn. They gave me something into which I could pour myself at a time when all I wanted was shut the whole world out. Had it not been for Thompson Tran, the guy who dragged me into choir in the first place, I think that I would be a very different person today.
  18. My parents actively discouraged me from taking music, art, shop, or drama classes in high school. I was told that such activities were for the dumb kids and that I, as a smart person shouldn't waste my time with them. I'm not bitter about this, it's just unfortunate that I missed such an opportunity for a creative outlet for so many years.
  19. I honestly do think that I'm really fucking smart about a lot of things. I don't care if this makes me appear arrogant, condescending or superior. The way I figure it, so long as I'm open to the possibility that someone out there is smarter than I am and I embrace their opinions when I meet them, then it's all good.
  20. I'm attracted to people who are smarter than I am, or have an understanding of the universe drastically different from my own.
  21. I have an image in my head of the girl I'm supposed to be with. I've had dreams about her for years. In these dreams she has long, straight, brown hair and wears a long, stretchy, cotton grey dress. She sings and plays guitar. I am aware that harbouring a fantasy image of a non-existent mate is counter-productive and I don't care.
  22. I'm sometimes frustrated by the maintenance a friendship requires. My feelings toward people don't change with the distance between us or the time between our visits, yet many of my friends seem to think otherwise and try to reconnect repeatedly. I don't begrudge them this, but it's also really hard to make time for everyone as well as myself.
  23. I vividly remember dozens of instances where I've been wrong about something. In all of these cases, I've been sure and was later proven ignorant. This is a serious concern for me so I usually use non-committal fragments in my sentences to assure my position as a non-authority on a topic... Unless I think that I am an authority, at which point any mistakes haunt me permanently.
  24. I cannot tolerate being called "stupid". It's a trigger word for me. I'm alright with naive or ignorant, though these words do flare me up a bit -- usually enough to get me to ask question after question until I'm no longer worthy of either word.
  25. I use the regret model for my decision making: I imagine how I would feel looking back on a situation 20years later and then decide to go with the option that I would likely lead to the least regret.

Shameless Plugs

January 24, 2009 00:05 +0000  |  Family Nifty Links Work [at] Play 1

Linkage is important to the Internet. Search engines index you based on the number of people who link to you and for the marketing types, the buzz generated by blog posts is important as well. With this in mind, I've had a number of people ask me to post about them in my own heavily trafficked blog (seriously, I only get about 15 unique visits a day for chrissake). But regardless, here are the people:

Downtown Eyewear in Kelowna, BC. This is my father's optical store in downtown Kelowna and in case you can't tell from the exceptionally bland aesthetics, I built it visuals and all. My dad's been working in the optical industry for something like 40 years and has own and operated his own stores for 30 of those. Some of you might remember what it was like coming to visit me back in the days of Focal Point Opticians in Willowbrook Mall back when we had a store there, well he's still doing much the same thing, though a lot of his stuff is custom work for the wealthy Kelowna folk these days. If you're ever in town, I suggest dropping by and having a look around, if only to say hi to my dad :-)

Work [at] Play here in Vancouver, BC. For those of you following my Twitter feed and/or my Facebook status, you might have noticed the bit about me now working at Work [at] Play Social Media Labs Vancouver. No, I didn't quit my job and find another one overnight, my company merely re-branded itself and has asked us all to promote it's new name with linkage and the like via Twitter etc. Frankly, while I see the reasoning behind it, I think the confusion generated around this whole tweet-everything strategy probably negates the majority of whatever buzz the brass hoped to produce. The site is cool though, and the new direction we're taking in the kind of stuff we're making is also cool. My new software project, Velocity is featured on the site's products page, and if you look carefully, you'll see the back of my fuzzy head there right in the middle.

Go-Go Carpet Cleaning also here in Vancouver is pretty damn cool. The whole business is one guy with a machine and he keeps pretty busy. He's friendly, professional and cheap ($70 for my whole apartment). I told him I'd post about him so here he is :-)

And that's it for me. I don't really like the whole idea of manipulating the linkage system with intentional links, but I like these people so I guess that's why it's ok in my head. Happy Friday!

Catching up Before the End

December 31, 2008 22:19 +0000  |  Django Family Friends Python 9

It's funny, I've had mountains of "free" time lately and somehow, none at all available to do the simplest of cumulative tasks. I've not replied to the nineteen emails sitting in my inbox, and keeping this site up to date has clearly not been a priority. However, in an effort to "clean house" so to speak before the New Year, I'll try to cover everything here. If you like to read everything, I suggest taking a moment to procure a beverage.

Carolling: A Reunion

Grandma Nana at Christmas dinner

Way back in October, I received a text message from my old friend Michelle containing a request to re-capture some of our better memories by going carolling this year, an annual tradition we once supported by hadn't attempted for nearly a decade. Excited at the thought of it, I agreed to play my role and she recruited Gary (another old friend) and a Soprano friend of theirs for the task. I did some digging of my own and managed to coax Merry out as well and with a group of five very out-of-practise choir folk, we set out on December 19th to bring some Christmas cheer to the suburbs.

The whole thing didn't go off nearly as well as we'd hoped at the start. The first neighbourhood we landed in seemed to be filled with people who didn't like carollers at all. No matter how hard we sung, no one came to the door. We quickly decided that Surrey sucked and that the uber-Christians in Langley were more likely to be receptive. We were right, and then tilted the odds even greater in our favour by selectively hitting neighbourhoods filled with Christmas lights and people we knew personally :-) This made the bitter cold somewhat more bearable since we were repeatedly asked in for free drinks and cookies. Had the night been kinder and our start been earlier, we might have hit more houses, but as it worked out, we collected $30 for the food bank and had a really nice time singing with old friends.

My parents at Christmas dinner

I'd also like to take a moment to thank Michelle personally for single-handedly organising the whole thing. Despite my best intentions, I contributed very little to the planning. Michelle is a rock star.

Christmas: Another Reunion

Fighting the odds, I managed to catch my flight out of Vancouver to Kelowna on time, bailing out of the Lower Mainland just before the Storm from Hell ravaged the area. My condolences to those who were booked on flights set to leave only hours after mine -- as I understand it, a whole lot of people spent Christmas in YVR this year.

I arrived here in Kelowna in preparation of two big events: Christmas and my cousin Ashley's wedding. Thanks to the latter, the former was filled with distant relatives whom I see to rarely as it is. Ashley's brother Fraser was here, all the way from London and he brought is girlfriend and their common friend, both from Spain. My (2nd) cousin Roy was here, as was his mother June and a big chunk of my uncle's family as well. All good people, all with interesting stories I've not heard before.

The happy couple: Ashley and Jared Nelson

In terms of a Christmas "haul", the biggest most impressive gift was a hand-made cookbook from my parents containing family recipes from all the big chefs in the family. My father's pastas, my grandmother's famous soup... it's all in there. A really great gift.

Oh, and Lara, you'll be pleased to know that I got six pairs of socks as well :-)

The Wedding

If you've been following my Twitter feed, you probably already know that Ashley's wedding was outside, in the dark, on a mountain, under the trees, in the snow... with bagpipes. It sounds insane, and it was, but it was also beautiful. Ashley wore a gorgeous gown, and covered it with a pretty white hood to keep her warm during the (mercifully short) service. The bride cried, the groom cried, and I think even the Man of Honour cried. Young love is so cute. The Groom wore a black tux with red pinstripes and a white tie and, along with his groomsmen, bright red skate shoes. They were awesome.

The reception was about as fun and exciting as most receptions usually are. Lots of old people, lots of 80s and 90s music (courtesy of my brother the DJ) and lots of dancing. The bride and groom had a few really great performances on the dance floor and much fun was had by all. Only one blight on the whole thing really: one of the guests, a bridesmaid's date no less showed up in jeans, a hoodie, a cowboy hat, and plumber's crack. I tried to convince my mother to lecture him on his lack of respect but she didn't go for it. But yes, this is normal out here.

Catching up

My brother the DJ

I decided before I came up here that I'd spend a great deal of time teaching myself a new web framework called Django. It's a real framework (as opposed to Drupal, which is in fact a content-management system) based on a relatively new language called Python. So far the experience has been two-sided for me. On the one hand Django appears to do a lot for you so code is smaller and easier to maintain, but on the other hand I feel like a lot of the simplicity and art in coding has disappeared. Where you once saw a long, easy to read set of files filled with a series of very short declarative statements, you now have something that reads more like a novel. More compact yes, but is it art anymore?

I've also promised myself that I'd get through my emails this week -- all nineteen of them. This task, along with fixing up Stephen's site (I haven't forgotten about you!) has proven ridiculously difficult though, since Internet connectivity here is terrible at best. I have to syphon access from a neighbour's flaky router that routinely drops connectivity for hours at a time. At this very moment in fact, I'm writing this post into a file in the hopes that I'll be able to acquire some bandwidth later tomorrow at my father's store.

So that's everything for now. It's 2:30am now, but before I go to bed I think that I'll put together some good images for this post. I'll try to find some good shots of Christmas and the wedding. Next up is my New Year's recap post -- not sure when I'll have time to write it though.

Butthead is Gone

August 07, 2008 04:11 +0000  |  Family 2

So it looks like my brother has patched things up in his life and with his girlfriend. As a result, he moved back to his old place tonight and I have my apartment back.

It's strange really. When he first moved in just over a month ago, I merely tolerated the disruption to my life. He is family after all and this is what you do for family. But as the weeks rolled on, I came to look forward to seeing him when I got home. He was a fabulous roomate: kind, respectful, and so very clean. It was nice to have him around, and now that he's gone, I kinda miss him. I'm even having trouble remembering what was so great about living alone in the first place, though I'm sure that it'll come back to me.

I helped him carry his stuff downstairs at which point, he gave me a hug and said thank you. I got a little emotional at that moment -- but didn't show it. I'm not sure that I know how to really.

I'm going to his place this weekend for a barbecue. If anything, this whole ordeal has really helped our relationship. If I didn't know how hard it was for him, I'd be thankful that all this took place.

Paws for a Cause

July 15, 2008 21:54 +0000  |  Charity Family 0

My brother is participating in the BCSPCA's Paws for a Cause Walk. It's the annual fundraiser for the SPCA, which does some good work with wildlife and other animals in BC.

He's aiming for $200, and he's got $90 so far so he's not doing to poorly, but if you've got the extra money and you want to support some Good people, this would be a nice place to start. Here's the contents of his email:

Hey Guys

As you probably know I love dogs more than people so I'm trying to raise money to save a few pups at the annual Paws for a cause walk.

Anything will help. I'm trying to reach a goal of $200.00

Thanks for your consideration everyone...

You have been invited to pledge Matt Quinn in the 2008 "Paws for a Cause...Walk for the Animals" - the largest campaign in support of animals in BC!

Online pledging is secure and easy. Secure online donations can be made with your credit card, and you'll receive an instant electronic tax receipt by e-mail.

To sponsor Matt Quinn click here.

Thank you in advance for your support from all the feet, hooves and paws behind our cause!

At the BC SPCA, we assist, care for and speak for companion, farm and wild animals province-wide. Last year, we rescued 41,884 animals; found new families for 20,067 homeless animals; reunited 5,911 lost animals with their families; and conducted 4,647 cruelty investigations. We are a part of local communities and classrooms through our humane education programs, and a voice for all animals through our advocacy efforts.

Together, we can make a difference!

If you have any questions about the campaign or how to use the online system, please e-mail us at paws_online@spca.bc.ca or visit http://www.spca.bc.ca/walk.

Good Day

June 27, 2008 07:52 +0000  |  CCTV Drupal Employment Family The Toronto Public Space Committee Work [at] Play 0

I'm trying to post more here lately as it would seem that since moving to Vancouver, my posts have been more and more sparsely scattered about the month. To that end, here's a quickie post regarding my relatively good day:

I had my review today. Good news: they like my work, and they're giving me a raise (w00t!) The only somewhat negative thing the boss mentioned was how I didn't know enough about Drupal yet. I can understand her position really, I mean, a large portion of our legacy code is in that horrible framework, so it only makes sense that as a senior developer, I know my way around it. I guess I'll just have to take a deep breath, bash my head in with a crowbar, and work from there. ^_^

Anyway, aside from the good review, I found a new sandwich shop in the area that serves giganimous sandwiches, and then discovered some left over birthday cake in the office fridge. This, coupled with the fact that I got a big chunk of work done today (and documented!) made me happy with my current form of employment.

I also fielded a 1hour call with a University student out of Windsor, Ontario to give him some background on the TPSC's CCTV campaign back when I was running the show. That was a bit of nostalgic fun -- kinda like talking to the press, but you can be a little more candid since you know that you're not talking to the uninformed public, but rather a well-read academic.

And then, to top it all off, I came home to a clean apartment AND new groceries in the fridge! Butthead had been hard at work and it showed. Having a roomate might not be so bad after all ;-) He's making a lot of progress with his own life lately though. I'm really quite proud of him.

I'm 29 Today

June 26, 2008 04:47 +0000  |  Activism Family Work [at] Play 6

No, really.

This is the one birthday when everyone tends to think that you're lying about your age. For some reason, everyone wants to be 29, but not 30. I suppose I'll understand this more next year, but at the moment, it just seems silly.

First of all, I'd like to say thanks to all the people who wished me a happy birthday today. Facebook is especially scary, with no less than 54 posts to my wall. Corinne sent me a text message at 12amEST which was pretty cool, and Theresa even called me from London! It's so nice to know that I have so many friends all over the place.

I'm sitting here on the SeaWall watching boats in English Bay and evesdropping on the conversations of passersby while I write out this blog post to be uploaded later. Sadly, despite the symphony of wireless networks floating around me, not one of them is unencrypted and of a reasonable strength to connect. I suppose I could try hacking into the stronger WEP connections, but that takes too much time and I just want to blog.

So a quick update on what's happening in my life lately. I have a new roomate. Well not so much a roomate as family staying with me for a few months. My brother, aka "Butthead" has had some trouble with the girlfriend of late and so he's crashing with me for a few months so he can get his life in order. To be honest, I'm less than thrilled at the prospect of having anyone live with me (I dig the solitude) but when family needs you, you go... or in this case I guess you just give them a key.

On the work front, everything came to a head today. We deployed a big hunk of code that's almost completely dependent on some very cool kung-foo I wrote. Unfortunately, I missed a very minor detail and the whole project blew up for about 3 hours today until I found it, fixt it, and thanked the other teams involved for being patient with me. That was less than cool, but it's working now and the hiccup was documented. I really don't know how the Brass at the company feel about my work of late though -- there's an odd feeling I get when I walk into the office these past few days. My review is tomorrow though, so I guess I'll find out then.

My activism has taken a back seat to my day job over the past few months, but I intend to remedy that soon. The VPSN mapping group I'm in needs a bunch of stuff done and they need it soon, so I've promised them a working model by the 15th. Time to get my ass in gear.

On top of that, I have a new Big Idea that Melanie has convinced me to actually move on. I've documented most of how it would (theoretically) work, but I still need to do some research on practical implementation. I'll post the details soon.

As for my actual birthday, I've decided to take the evening and do close to nothing. I suppose that I should be at choir rehearsal right now, but I just don't want to socialise today. Vancouver's really quite nice when you want to "get away" actually. There are lots of places just to ride your bike to sit for a bit and enjoy the scenery. Maybe I'll go to Stanley Park later, or the Planetarium... I dunno. Does anyone else do the solo thing on their birthday? Is this odd?

Alright, sun's going down. I shall hop back on Syria and see where she takes me.

Butthead at Celebrities

March 13, 2008 22:52 +0000  |  Family 0

My brother's got a big show tonight, a party he's promoted and spinning for and so I'm going to go check it out. It's also at a a prominent gay bar called Celebreties. If anyone's interested in coming along, Matt goes on at 10pm 'till midnight and I can bring whomever I want for free.

I'll let you know how it goes.