Searching for Tao, 7573 Kilometres from Home

January 22, 2004 05:43 +0000 | Geek Stuff Personal Life 0

pavel invited me out tonight to attend something called a "nerd rave". it was at a club we'd been to before where i'd had a nice time so figured: "why not?" here's why: it was rediculously lame. no offense to pavel who i'm sure enjoyed his time there, but it was a room full of irc geeks who all knew each other well enough to not need to communicate over the absolutely terrible music. i spent the whole hour and a half i was there getting my ear talked off by a drunken idiot named "mike" who just wouldn't stop talking. a really, really unhappy time was had.

however, when i finally escaped, i went for a walk on the frozen streets of toronto. at 11pm, the city is still somewhat alive, the occasional bar or cafe still open to passers by. i window shopped in at the long closed trendy stores on queen, passed city hall and wandered up yonge to the hard rock cafe where i stopped in for an $8 milkshake (last time i'll ever do that). it was cold out, but not brutal, and the wind was low. i chatted up a garbage man doing the recycling rounds, asking him questions about the amount of stuff that actually gets recycled and process of it all. you'd be surprised at how much people love to talk about their jobs -- and how much they know about something you might be interested in. next time, just ask... you might be pleasantly surprised.

January 17, 2004 23:59 +0000 | Personal Life 0

i recieved a package in the mail today from ruth (aka mom #2). she baked me some tasy chocolate chip cookies and they've been helping me put off lunch for about 3 hours now. thanks ruth! ;-) i'll have to call her later tonight with a real thank you.

i went out thursday night with a friend i met years ago back at moshpit. pavel called me when i was staying late at work and asked: "hey, you want to go out to night and drink cheap beer?". after explaining that i don't drink and getting over his surprise, i agreed to go out anyway -- if only to start havnig a social life in toronto. ...and i had a really great time! we went to a tiny little bar called "smokless joe's" where he bought their last bottle of $6 russian beer, dropped by an (overdone, and not very good) pizza place called "amato" and then went on to a techo/gothic night club that was pretty much empty (but what do you want for a thursday night?) truth be told though, it was a fantastic place. great music and amazing dancing.... each person on the floor was completely caught up in the collective groove of the room, some dancing as if they were the only person there. it was almost enough to make me get off my ass and get on the dance floor myself -- almost. we met some friends of pavel's, i drank copious amounts of coke (ew) and had a nice conversation with a guy named "mike" who seemed like he belonged in bc (laid back, hair in dredlocks, fascination with weed etc.) overall, really a great night.

oo, and interesting of note, wyrdsister's blog has had a face lift. check it out if you have time.

as a last bit of news, i have now compressed and resized all of the pictures i've taken since i left ottawa... to a total of about 155. i'll try to post them all up on the imager over the next few days.

January 10, 2004 17:14 +0000 | Employment Personal Life 0

angela came out last night and we went out with some local friends of hers. i got to meet the infamous "jen" and have unfortunately yet to recieve the "jen test"... apparently it's something like the usual set of questions any concerned friend uses to grill a new significant other, but souped up like tim taylor's lawn mower. i met darren, a movie maker / geek for hire that maintains servers to help corporations launder their own money (he's still cool though) and a few other nice young men that didn't talk much.

i've also finished my first week at the new job. it's kinda frustrating right now, 'cause i've not yet nailed down the "command structure" i need to function properly. i've got one guy in vancouver giving me orders from his office, and another guy in my office issuing (often very different) orders. i'm not sure who takes precident yet, so things are confusing. i have a pretty smokin' machine though, and i actually get to do development work too (as oppsoed to my last job that just had me fixing crackt-out buggy code). i got cvs and my sound card working now, so i'm pretty happy where i am. sure, it's advertising, and sure i'm helping rich people get richer... but we all have to pick our battles, and my passion isn't for that fight. i wish the best of luck to those who do -- maybe one day, when i'm finished with my own fight, i'll join you.

January 08, 2004 06:11 +0000 | Personal Life 4

there's new stuff all over the place. i've added links to two new blogs that i semi-frequent, so check them out if you've got the time. i've also put up two new pictures on my imager, the first of MANY brought back from vancouver, kelowna & calgary. as always you'll have to log in to the imager to see the pics (working on a better system as i write this), but in the mean time, i've included the two new ones here. hope the parents are reading this, they'll like:

oo! and there's more! check out my "time until i see angela" module on the left ;-)

January 05, 2004 02:22 +0000 | Personal Life 1

i'm just finished packing up now for my trip home. i should arrive in toronto around 5am and will have to somehow summon the stamina to stay awake 'till evening soas to help smoothe out my already confused body clock. i'm going to miss home -- in a way, i already do. i'm a cancer, and ask any of us -- we're all close to our family. i miss my cousins, and my grandparents, and most of all, my parents. they're good people who've done a wonderful job raising me to the person i am now... and here i am leaving them on the other side of the country to persue a personal destiny. i know it's what everyone wants for me, but we both have days when we just wish we were together -- screw the world, screw fate. family is just more important.

but i'll come home. i promise. i just have work to do first.

January 02, 2004 05:49 +0000 | Personal Life 0

sometimes i forget how very beautiful british columbia is. mountains, rivers, lakes... and this time out: snow! nearly a foot of it in fact. i've not been all over ontario yet, but somehow i doubt that i'll ever find anything that tops the sight of the rocky mountains overlooking english bay.

i'm on "the big stinky bus" now, heading back up to kelowna to stay with the parents a few more days before my return "home" to toronto. i'm sorry i didn't get to see everyone this time out, but i'm glad i got to spend time with those i could scrouge together for a new years party (well, jeanie did most of the scrounging really). my grandparents were very hospitable, but chris rhodes' computer just wouldn't behave. overall though, i think the trip worked out alright. i even got to hang out with quinn & paula -- two of my more entertaining friends. i miss you all. maybe now's a good time to think about saving up your cash and vacationing out in toronto eh?

January 01, 2004 09:35 +0000 | Geek Stuff Personal Life 3

i'm downstairs in jeanie's room trying to fix a number of seemingly broken things that blew up for the new year. my blogger's theme engine broke and right now, i've just hacked it to *look* like it's working. not only that, but my desktop box isn't responding to my login attempts, even though i can ping it... not sure what's going on there, but it can't be good.

new years here @ the sebastian household was kinda nice. i got to hang out with family #2 and quinn @ paula even came out to the party. i've missed everyone terribly and it was really great to see them. we're all spending the night and i'm looking forward to waffles come morning. then, if the roads are friendly, i'll be getting on a big smelly bus and heading back up to kelowna to spend my final days in western Canada. it's a beautiful place to live and i'm sure i'll end up here again someday.

when i was younger, i used to use new years to look back on the stuff i did over the year. and typically it was centred around the ladies in my life (why is this not surprising?). i think for now though, i'll end it here -- 'cause apparently "god" is calling for me to come upstairs. i think we're going to watch "pirates of the carribean". i'm sure jeanie's excited.

December 28, 2003 07:23 +0000 | Geek Stuff Personal Life 1

it's late saturday night here and i'm just piecing together the bits of my father's computer as i download the bulk of his backups i uploaded to my server yesterday. windows98 sucks dude. and getting it to work with scsi stuff is just plain bad. it seems that every time i nuke n' pave this box, i forget how i got it to work the last time... if anyone has scsi tips for this stupid os please let me know eh?

anyway, the trip up here with the parents has been really wonderful. kelowna is beautiful, though don't let the locals fool you, it's not a real city. everyone here still has that small town mentality, people know their neighbours and the weather isn't nearly as hostile as ottawa's.

meeting with the family has been great. it seems that i'd forgotten the special relationship i have with my cousins, namely ashley to whom i've long been very close. it's always nice to see them all around christmas and catch up on the details of their lives that i've been missing on the other side of the country. i hope one day that they'll find the time (and i suppose, the money) to make their way out to my place in toronto to visit.

lastly, i've found and fixt another bug in my blogger. this one being an issue with the calendar module that displayed links to blog entries outside of a user's privilege. once the thing's considered done i'll have to write up a changelog for this stuf.....

December 23, 2003 02:06 +0000 | Personal Life 2

so what do you think of the winter theme?

...it would appear that i'm going to be with jeanie and the extended fam for new years this year... come to think of it, i can't remember the last vancouver new years i had that i didn't spend with mom #2 and the sorta-sister. so yeah, chris, noreen, quinn and all: that's where i'm thinking i'll be doing my big thing, and as you can see in her comment from earlier today you're all invited. quinn, if you wanna come, you wanna do the meat?

i'm currently fighting off a semi-violent strain of the flu and a debilitating case of jet-lag as i type this into my dad's windows98 box (ew). apparently, my knoppix cd didn't like this box... actually no bootable cds seem to work dispite bios settings... must be this flakey cdrom. so yeah, windows it is.... for now ;-)

as foggy as my head is, i keep thinking back to this past weekend and how crazy it was... and oddly enough, about the amazing vegetable soup i consumed at the elgin street diner in ottawa. really excellent stuff -- i do reccomend.

i'm rather scattered though, so i'm going to stop now. happy christmas to all... or yule, or ramadahn (sp?) ...whatever floats your boat i suppose.

December 22, 2003 05:17 +0000 | Personal Life 2

i'm just now back from ottawa after a somewhat trying bus ride home. see, as a native bc'er, i'm not used to having more than one option for moving between points "a" & b", so when the driver deviated from the only course home i knew i started to panic. but after a few daydream fantasies of having to incite a mutiny, bind & gag the driver and take control of the bus, i calmed down and actually asked the guy:

"so... are we going to toronto?"

"yes".

"but, isn't this highway 7? that goes west doesn't it? isn't toronto south?" <panic>

"yes. this is highway 7. it goes to belville, then to toronto"

i didn't want to push, but didn't see the map in my head. so i remined somewhat panicked until i saw the lights of home.

that's a funny statement i think. thinking of toronto as "home". i never saw ottawa that way, and while vancouver is still my real home, toronto and i just sorta groove well. i just like the "hum" i guess.

but yes, i still hate ottawa, but angela is there, so i guess i'll be visiting quite often. any suggestions for mp3 players? i'm thinking i'd like to get one that'll double is a nifty pda that i can put linux on.

anyway vancouver's next. can't wait to see the fam. i'm really quite excited.