On the Year That Was

To those keenly-eyed among you, who also deign to read my webpage, you will have noticed that exactly 366 days have elapsed since I last scribbled new, incisive and witty prose on this page. Of course, my use of the word new implies that the former content was incisive and witty. This is very much open to debate.

To Amy, to whom I promised a 1-year update... 366 days is still a year. Yes, it's a leap year, and this isn't; but you weren't that specific. So I win.

And what an interesting year it has been. I have watched the Earth journey from wartime to peace and back to war; I've seen relationships flourish and wilt away; I've watched from afar, powerless, as hearts were broken, and trust lost, and I've had my faith restored as I've seen enduring friendships formed.

I started working at the User Support Centre in October, though it doesn't feel like I've been there for a year - it feels like I've been there for ten years. :-)

I've gone to Halifax more times than I can count; I've been to Maine twice, once for the heck of it, and once to see the National Touring Company of Rent, Jonathan Larson's musical, and perhaps one of the best pieces of musical theatre ever devised, for both it's wonderful melodies, and it's message, "...no day but today."

I've been involved in two car accidents; one with a police truck (the police truck's fault), and one with a deer. I allege that it's the deer's fault, but others disagree, citing that my car is heavier, made of metal, and has brakes. To each their own, I suppose.

The Branflakesmobile, in it's original incarnation, a maroon 1988 Chrysler Dynasty with painted-over deer-shaped dents, has gone on to sail better seas. In my driveway at home. Full of all the stuff from my apartment that I didn't really feel like dragging into the house. What a life [for the car].

It's successor, Branflakesmobile: The Next Generation, a 1994 Nissan Altima, is truly a piece of vehicular beauty. With too many miles on it. But you can't have everything.

Employment-wise, the South Shore Regional Library continues to own me. Over the past year, I have undertaken another redesign of their website, migrated them from Windows NT to Slackware Linux to Debian GNU/Linux, and from a government-run mail system which made us feel not unlike Oliver Twist from Dickens' novel of the same title*, to an in-house system.

Career-wise, I return to Acadia University for a fifth year in September. Eight precious months to finish my degree, and give me some breathing room to determine where to go afterward. Librarian? Or minister? Cast your vote today!

On the topic of ministers... having recently returned from the 78th Annual Meeting of the United Church's Maritime Conference, I must say I find myself shocked by the acrimony present in a gymnasium full of allegedly like-minded clergy and other faithful. That having been said, I admire the outward decorum that most showed.

In the year to come, I hope to have the boy update the webpage more often than in the past twelve months, and some-odd hours.

The boy, sir?

*He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: 'Please, sir, I want some more.'

A Great Adventure

"...as we set sail, we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous, and dangerous, and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."
- John F. Kennedy

As you probably know if you're reading this, I'm not a person prone to taking risks, or to doing something without obscenely preplanning how it's going to work out. I guess it's safe to say that this weekend was an exception to my rules, then.

Two friends, two pillows, a blanket, and some food got piled into my car on about five minutes notice on Saturday night (around 7:30), and off we headed to PEI.

We arrived on the island at 12:01AM Sunday morning, and, having gottten approximately no sleep the night before, proceded to find a place to stay. We found one (for about an hour) in the guise of a parking lot at Slemon Park, just outside of Summerside, until the nice security guard woke us and told us we had to leave.

Ultimately, we found ourselves in a nice, but obscenely overpriced room at Keddy's Linkletter Inn and Convention Centre in downtown Summerside. The comfort of a bed (compared to a car seat) and the prospect of sleep (compared to "not sleep") more than nullified our thoughts as to the cost.

Sunday - the true adventure begins. Our goal - visit all seven Cows stores in Prince Edward Island.

Cap it off with a last minute dash to the seventh store (and our ride home) on the MV Confederation, and some really good chicken-fried rice at the Magic Wok restaurant in Charlottetown, and it made for a pretty h3lla-sw33t weekend.

Pictures to follow. Also expect more updates and less general page-assness in the relatively near future (that is, days or weeks, as compared to never).

Hep!

Too Busy to be Alone

Exams are coming up. Time to go home. Find work. Sleep. Mmmmmmmm.... sleep.

I won't be writing for a while due to the impending business (exams). This is to let you now I'm not dead, and stuff. Though on occasion, I think I'd be less busy if I were. :-)

Catch y'all soon.

6000 Hours

6000 hours. That's how long a Sylvania 60-watt lightbulb is rated for before it will apparently blow.

This was determined after years of pain-staking examinations by a crack team of Harvard-educated scientists, extensive rounds of laboratory and animal testing, and finally, in desperation, as all these methods seemed to fail, looking at an obviously aged, sunshine yellow-tinted lightbulb above a table at JJ Rossy's (here, the subject of a case study by Acadia's Business department). There, in fact, under the saffron glow of that light at JJ's, is where most of this entry was written on February 8, 2002.

And he went on to say...

6000 hours sounds like an eternity, doesn't it? Dude... it's actually only a
little more than eight months. I've been single longer than that. Nearly twice as long as that. In the time that I've been single, think about the countless lightbulbs that have either been mutilated by power surges, been shaken or moved while hot (apparently, a Bad Thing), or who, after a long life of trying its best to be a beacon onto others, just decided to up and quit. Sounds like my life to me. But, then, let's be sure to recall also that I'm appalingly melodramatic. :-)

Remind me how much I hate Cyndi Lauper. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. And, to quote that old man in the bar in The Wedding Singer, "...and rip your heart out through your ass."

Vote overzealous melodrama.

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On This Webpage

Just for the benefit of the CUTC people who are probably coming to look at this page, I thought I'd draw some of the particularly quirky characteristics of it to your attention.

Firstly, I realize my page is not terribly flashy. That's intentional... I never admitted to being a graphics designer. I'm just a dull, boring fellow, trying to let people take a peek into my dull, boring life. That said, I designed this page to
show that interoperable, cross-browser webpages need not be completely bland. This page, for example, while not terribly exciting, looks exactly the same in Internet Explorer, Netscape, or Opera, and is still entirely usable in Lynx.

This site adheres to no less than three W3C standards for hypertext document design, namely XHTML, CSS, and WAI. Links to information for these standards are available at the bottom of this page, and for the first two standards I named, actually show you the validation.

I hope you enjoy this site.

On Death (and Life)

It had been a long time since I last talked to Miranda Himmelman. Or even heard her name in a sentence. She was an old friend from elementary school. She was a year or two ahead of me, and we lost touch after her parents divorced, and she moved to the next county. Since birth, she had suffered from cystic
fibrosis, a chronic illness of the digestive and respiratory systems. She died on Saturday from complications of her illness. She was 21.

Twenty one. I'm twenty. It scares the bejeezus out of me, sure. It also reminds me of how valuable every minute of life is.
Be happy. Spend time with friends. Love. And be loved. And so on.

Five minutes after that, I get an ICQ from my brother. He was in a car accident a few minutes earlier. He's okay, but he can't get in touch with my parents. So he ICQs me. The Internet paradigm taking over our world, indeed. Who knew? But we're glad he's okay.

So, in short, today wasn't a fun day. Foo.

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On the Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference

Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference

So here I am putting the finishing touches on my website in preparation for CUTC 2002.

Its hard to believe one year has passed since the blur that was my last visit to Kitchener-Waterloo. I blame most of that blur on bronchitis, as opposed to most people, who might blame the blur on beer. Or something. But that's another story.

I'm probably something of an enigma when one examines the plans of most of the CUTC delegates. Like many, I'm sure, I currently study Computer Science, but my career plans never once assumed I was going to do this. I was absolutely sure I was going to be one of two things: a minister, or a librarian. Both are very people-oriented professions. However, I feel technology will come to play an increasingly important role in such professions in the near future.

Obviously, in library science, computer cataloguing has improved markedly efficiency in tracking and locating library holdings, and the Internet has made available a vast treasure of resources to which access would have been very difficult just a few years ago. The Government of Canada has noted the need for library staff with a strong base of knowledge in information technology fields, and has created the LibraryNet program in response. Included in this program is a continuing series of grants which library systems can apply for to hire youth to work on IT-related projects, and to provide general support. I, myself, am currently on my third such grant with the South Shore Regional Librarytelevision as a vehicle to spread their faith, must start to look toward to the Internet, and/or whatever other new communications technologies present themselves as new tools in their mission.

Thus, logic dictates that people who choose to enter such professions have, at minimum, a solid background and a certain comfort level with new technologies. Case in point: the Acadia Divinity College, the seminary of the Atlantic Baptist Convention, has opted in to the Acadia Advantage program, ensuring that all its graduates have that essential familiarity with computer technology that is so important in a wired world.

Alas, I chose to be a librarian instead.

See y'all next week. [People in the Tech. and Society stream especially.] :-)