Gyroscopic Wonders

Which Superhero are YOU?

2008-07-10T09:25:00.001-04:00

Take the test yourself here: http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com

Your results:
You are Iron Man

Iron Man		95%
The Flash		90%
Spider-Man		75%
Supergirl		75%
Robin		75%
Superman		70%
Wonder Woman		70%
Green Lantern		70%
Hulk		60%
Batman		55%
Catwoman		50%

Inventor. Businessman. Genius.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

I Am Walter's Father: Father's Day and the Inglis Picnic

2008-06-15T17:58:00.001-04:00

My mother's maiden name is Inglis - pronounced "ing-GLS" not "ing-GLIS". It's an old family, from the Campbellville area, and since 1952, the family has had a picnic each year. It used to be later in the summer, but it's been on Father's day for some time. This year was the lowest turnout ever - just 18 people - and from the demographics* this year might have been the last picnic. We're going to try some things to re-engage the "youth" (I find it hilarious to be considered a "youth" at 37 years of age). The gravestone is my great grandparents - my mother's father's parents.

In any case, we had a great time - good potluck lunch, lots of laughter, sack races (I won), balloon toss (mom and I came second), shoe toss (I won that too), and more. It was a good day.

This is the schoolhouse where we were this year:

Walter was a real hit with the ladies.

He wanted to join us for lunch...

...but he was relegated to the doorway.

__
*1 @ 6 years, 1 @ 12 years, 4 @ 30-60 years, 12 @ 60+.

I Am Walter's Father: Waterwork Walk

2008-06-13T21:41:00.000-04:00

No particular story - just a walk with a camera.

Life: Tired

2008-06-06T15:48:00.001-04:00

This pic should help Shelly through the weekend.

I Am Walter's Father: Why, Daddy, Why?

2008-05-23T21:28:00.001-04:00

He looks VERY pathetic, but trust me - he loves his new haircut.

The lady what shorn him at A Touch of Love.

See, I told you he was happy!

Wally so dashing in his bandana - Hannah so focused on the toy - Walter so focused on Hannah

I Am Walter's Father: A Gloating, A Blooming, A Grooming

2008-05-15T14:20:00.001-04:00

A Gloating:

I am among the few who can claim a bright, warm office with a hot blonde secretary with a nice tail and a strong desire to lick my face and fetch for me.

A Blooming:

My cousin Julie just completed her MBA. This is her dog, Amadeus, and her. Congratulations, Julie!

A Grooming:

Wally is a bit hairy and smelly - he keeps rolling in stench. He also knows that it's the Boo that makes the clothes, not the other way around.

A Bonus Gloating:

Unlike the first gloat, this is not my secretary, she does not want to lick my face, and I will make no comments whatsoever about her tail. I will put her picture up here in the hopes that it will stave off the next round of "Where's my pics-of-Wally fix?"

I Am Walter's Father: Lucifer

2008-04-29T10:09:00.001-04:00

If cleanliness is next to godliness, Walter keeps falling from Grace. Well, falling may not be the right term. It's more that he actively seeks out stenches - to be sprayed by (skunk last Friday), or to roll in (horse manure today). I see a movie title for this story: "Walter - The Fallen" or perhaps "Wally Him Fally"*

Definitely a boy.

Today is the coldest day of the spring I think (2C). Today, I had the pleasure of scrubbing down Wally in the back yard. Did I mention that we took him to Metro Hound on Sunday and spent well over an hour bathing him? Didn't even last 48 hours. *sigh*

Now Himself is Re-de-stink-omated, which involved a lot of pathetic yelping, much charging around the backyard, and the careful use of a hose. No, not to beat him with, but I was thinking it too.

And, finally, for those of you who despair because there just isn't enough Hannah on my blog:

___
* Sorry. SPIKE TV had the Jar Jar movies on, and putrescent though it is, his speech pattern is very memorable.

I Am Walter's Father: Haiku

2008-04-22T07:05:00.001-04:00

Oh, Wally, my boy.
You are so very silly
snapping at the dust.

I Am Walter's Father: Reskunkomated

2008-04-19T12:49:00.001-04:00

I got back from a week away (at the IFL for a serious - and superb - course), and was greeted by Fran with the words, "Smell your son."

"When did he get hit?" I asked.

"This morning, right up the street."

Apparently, he bolted out of Kath's hands, and into the butt of a skunk, again. It's only been a few months since the last incident. I hoped he might have learned his lesson, but nooooooooooooooooooo. Not Derwaller.

Kath did an excellent job giving him a stinkectomy, and there's barely an odor.

Derwaller is certainly a challenging dog.

Bachelorhood: Day OVER!

2008-04-12T10:09:00.001-04:00

In an attempt to avoid overly effusive language: Kath got back on Wednesday night. Twenty-odd hours of travel does a bit of a number on her tummy, so she was a bit of a mess on Thursday and Friday.

This morning she woke up, took the dogs for a romp, and SHE IS BACK!

*ahem*

The house feels like a home again.

Life: Yardwork D O N E for the week!

2008-04-06T18:32:00.001-04:00

It's not done, but I am. The plants have a place to grow now that the carpet of oak leaves is gone, and the winter of poop is scooped with the leaves. The house has numbers - finally! - and the little front patio I made last year is warm in the afternoon sun.

Bachelorhood Day 11: The Boys, Alone, Again

2008-04-05T13:49:00.001-04:00

After our three hour walk this morning, I came home and started to Spring Clean. That wasn't my plan for the weekend, but I have been so overwhelmed with work that I decided to do something that has nothing to do with BMO or IIBA. Hannah will be back later today.

I started with the windows - pulled all the screens from upstairs, climbed out on the roof, and started in with the squeegee. The bathroom window is the worst - difficult to disengage from the mechanism, and hard to reach from inside - but I got it. I hit noon part way through the downstairs windows, so I cooked up some chicken thighs with Tika Masala sauce, and ate it over rice. Gods, I'm making food. What the hell happened?! :)

To set the scene, I'm sitting out front on the little patio I built last year in my green deck chair, with a glass of red wine, and I can see my breath. The weather channel says it's 9C. Walter is on a long leash, beside me, enjoying the sun. I tied him to the stairs, with a length of line that will get him to the sidewalk, but not the street. The sun is warm - warm enough that I am wearing from bottom to top, my white shorts (from Florida), a t-shirt under a sweatshirt, and a Trinidad and Tobago bandana. I kicked off my new blue ~~ducks~~ crocs a few minutes ago. A red SUV with five women in it pauses to turn up Vic Park. The vehicle is tired: a green tongue - a jacket-belt - pants out of the door frame as they drive.

An older native man stops to ask me if I'm working on my tan. We talk for minutes about India and travel and dogs.

John stops by on his way home from the club (he practices karate just up the road and we have a nice chat. Wally is feeling protective - he leaps down the stairs with a growl to meet John, and later, he has a run at a German Sheppard. Mostly he's getting used to the mass of people wandering by.

Teenagers are completely different and totally the same as when I was one of them. One walks by with a scowl, hoodie, and cello in a backpack. A herd* of teens graze** by, wearing all manner of interesting hair and clothes, including one effeminate boy in a Batman t-shirt with matching bat-belt-buckle. Impressive.

Okay, it's time for me to get back to work. My wine is done (a glass to sip while I watch the world go by and listen to podcasts and type) and I need to finish up before mom and dad and Joy get here.

___

*The collective noun for teens of mixed sex. Girls are a 'gaggle' and boys are a 'bluster'.
**"Meander" seems a bit too lah-de-dah for teens.

Science! 1306 EST 2008-04-05

2008-04-05T13:06:00.000-04:00

And now the reflection is gone.

Science! 1259EST 2008-04-05

2008-04-05T13:02:00.001-04:00

The angle of the sun on this day at this time is such that an intense reflection is beaming into our house, from the roof-top windows on the water station. Neat!

I Am Walter's Father: Joggers, Joggers Everywhere...

2008-04-05T09:01:00.001-04:00

...And Not A Thigh to Bite.

There is an annual spring sprint on the Beach, starting at the end of the boardwalk (Trillium Trail, Station 10). The sun is shining, the air is crisp, and Wally is being *very* good. We're hanging out at the start/finish line, which has a lot of action - dogs and people. I'm chillin' wit Derwaller, watching the action. Hannah's over at Karen's at the moment - I asked her to take the girl Friday night.

Signing off to play now. :)

I Am Walter's Father: Separation Anxiety

2008-03-31T18:53:00.001-04:00

I'm sitting at my desk, working away. Walter is about to spend his first night at home without Hannah.

He's searched the house twice - once for Kath, once for Hannah. He's been quite whimpery and demanding, and won't settle down for his evening nap.

He's unhappy

Poor thing.

He did VERY well on his Walk With Judy, however.

Bachelorhood Day 6: The Boys, Alone

2008-03-31T13:59:00.001-04:00

"I'm cold, and there are wolves after me."
- Grandpa Simpson

Hannah bannannah is staying over with Karen tonight - Judy will be coming over at 4 today, and 6:45am tomorrow, to walk me and Wally* so the bitch** gets to spend a nice night with her favorite Auntie.

I swear, it's something about Monday that makes our dogs insane. Hannah was no angel - she was absolutely ruled by her nose, and was very anxious about other dogs. There were lots of them on the beach, busy romping in the cold, wet weather, and many of them were very interested in Hannah's toy. Just as I got her to look at me, Walter bolted after a squirrel. I missed the starting gun, even though I knew he was going to go after something: he was vibrating like a bridge cable in the moments before snappage. I didn't catch any change in his focus, alertness, etc. before he erupted. I understood how Kath felt when he did this to her - but hoped to never experience it. It's shocking to have the leash torn from your grasp.

It took some real effort to get them under any sort of control, but I did have some success with the techniques Judy has taught us. Back to basics - sit and hold, and loose leash walking. It took an hour to get to 2/3 of the way to the boardwalk and back, but we made it. Yes, I still love them.

The chicken turned out great, and I miss Kath lot and lots and lots and lots and lots. I will be able to make one kind of dinner for us now, which is nice.

___

*Yes, I did mean to phrase it that way.
**Yes, I meant to use that word too. Keep reading.

Bachelorhood Day 5*: I'm roasting a chicken

2008-03-30T15:58:00.001-04:00

Yeah, that may not sound like much - but I've never even thought of roasting a chicken before. I read several recipes, and then went for the common denominators: 2 hours at 350-375, on the vertical roaster (the lah-dee-dah beercan) with parsnips and potatoes and spices and beer in the pan.

I really miss Kath.

_____

*Days 1-4 are a haze of miserable loneliness, so you don't get to hear about them.

Ok, ok, I really miss her, but I'm not quite THAT pathetic.

Quite.

Joy Sammy Look-alike Meter

2008-03-29T12:57:00.001-04:00

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Julian Sammy Look-alike Meter

2008-03-29T12:48:00.001-04:00

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebs - Collage - Morph

Bachelorhood Day 0: She's Away

2008-03-26T14:37:00.001-04:00

yesterday's limo
carried my heart far away
a house of silence

yesterday's limo
carried my heart far away
a house of silence

Life: Being A Chauffeur

2008-03-23T16:58:00.001-04:00

I'm standing at YYZ t3*, waiting for Sisbo to arrive on KLM 691. After
many months in Ghana, she's come back to Canada.

I never got around to describing the adventure I had -

...She's here!

____
*Toronto International Airport call sign, Terminal 3.

I Am Walter's Father: Next He'll Want A Posse

2008-03-22T08:40:00.001-04:00

Now that he's the star of a music video, he's going to need an entourage, right?

I Am Walter's Father: At Least He Didn't Suffer...

2008-03-20T18:11:00.002-04:00

...much.

To those of you who panicked when I blogged about the death of Arthur C. Clarke:

WALTER.

IS.

FINE.

I happen to blog about other things on occasion, is all.

Based on Monday's very challenging lesson, we are walking Hannah and Walter separately. Judy (Let Loose The Hounds) did a lot of the leash work, and will teach me the same on Friday; Kathleen said it was a revelation for her, and that she had to keep telling herself, "Walter isn't suffering - he's just really stubborn." I'll report the details when I have them first hand.

Hannah did suffer, however; both of them suffer separation anxiety, and walking separately is very challenging for them. On Monday, Kathleen left first, and Hannah spent the whole walk freaked out that her Mother had abandoned her. Since then, based on Judy's advice, I leave with Hannah before Kathleen leaves with Walter. Hannah is thrilled - "I get to play with Julian!" - but D'Waller is quite upset. Kathleen said he sat at the door and moaned and wailed.

Poor thing.

Childhood's End

2008-03-19T07:01:00.001-04:00

A sad, sad day.

I Am Walter's Father: His New Name Is BADDOG!

2008-03-17T10:51:00.001-04:00

Kath has told me how stressful the Monday walks are - both Hannah and Walter being headstrong, dominant, etc. Now I have experienced it, and they're lucky they're new names aren't "stir" and "fry".

I started with Hannah who had no interest in me for the whole walk: she wanted to be with Kath. When she eventually changed hands she wanted to pull, pull, pull.

Walter started by pulling, and then ran out into the road, to chase an SUV. By the end of the walk we were exhausted, but they were starting to behave.

Back to basics.

Review: Explosm.net

2008-03-10T22:31:00.002-04:00

This web comic is reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally sick, and reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally funny if you like sick humour. This one is very tame compared to many. Don't visit the site unless this one made you chuckle happily.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Obviously, it makes me guffaw, at least.

Tech: One Future for Multi-Touch Mobile Devices

2008-03-10T12:03:00.001-04:00

This video describes a proof of concept from Microsoft. The main page, http://research.microsoft.com/users/baudisch/projects/lucidtouch/ gives more details about the device and the potential for the device.

I Am Walter's Father: The Second Thursday

2008-03-06T15:31:00.003-05:00

I have given up with sequential numbering. Too tired in the morning for that sort of silliness.

Last night the kids and I went over to the waterworks to play in the new snow - tons of fun! This morning - another 05:30 for Julian! - we went to the water to romp, and to meet Judy. She took us back up to Queen, where we practiced jogger acceptance with Walter, and sit-and-hold with Hannah.

The difference with Walter and Kathleen was amazing - she was great, and he responded. One half jump was the sum total of his badness! Kathleen's attitude was very strong, positive and obvious. Great work!

Okay, I have a meeting so before I go, I'll run 'the best of Wally' for your viewing pleasure.

I Am Walter's Father: Day... Day... What day is this?!

2008-03-05T17:58:00.002-05:00

Tuesday's morning walk was pretty good, from what little I recall. Judy was supposed to join us, but we reset for Thursday because there was *supposed* to be a major storm with major ice and nasty. It wasn't nearly so bad - the storm hit Tuesday evening.

We practiced 'sit' and leash training, and had a huge romp in the leash-free over by Kew Gardens - about a dozen dogs with half as many owners. Walter took a jump at a random girl walking by - no clue what the trigger was, or the warning sign.

Tuesday night, I took the down to the water to play, and did some hard work with holding a sit; they did reasonably well. Walter will hold until Hannah moves (usually). Hannah will hold until the toy moves.

Wow: I knew the US likes to lock people up

2008-03-05T12:30:00.002-05:00

...but I had no idea. This one deserves a whole new category.

From http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/crime/minimum-security.html, about Black's stay in Florida.

"…the U.S. has undergone something of a prisoner boom in recent years. According to a recent study by the Pew Centre in the U.S., about 2.3 million adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008, which is more than any other country in the world, including China with its much bigger population.

It is also a prison population that skews young: One in 30 men between the age of 20 and 34 is behind bars; for black males, the figure is one in nine."

Again, WOW.

I Am Walter's Father: Day 6 - I Am A Wastrel, Pathetic, Redux

2008-03-03T22:42:00.001-05:00

Verse six, repeated: I had a horrible night's sleep, and was a mess at 5:30. Kathleen was very kind and let me sleep so I would be functional at work. This backfired for her, into a D- walk for the kids. After yesterdays very successful training, the kids were on a horrendous tear - garbage, running around, not attending, you name it.

On the positive side - and there is one - this morning's walk of horror solidified her understanding that we have to discipline Hannah and a Walter now, for the payoff later.

I'll be up for the "walk" tomorrow. I say "walk" because the entire earth will be glazed in ice, and I'm not going to be too agile.

Goodnight.

I Am Walter's Father: Day 5 - Afternoon

2008-03-03T22:35:00.001-05:00

Kath has this misconception about herself - she thinks she's "a bad mother" to the dogs. In reality she doesn't want to be a disciplinarian with them, which I understand; I don't want to be that either. We need to be disciplined, not disciplinarians.

It was a pleasure to see Walter responding to Kath's confidence and presence. He's very stubborn - even Judy, our trainer, had trouble getting his butt to settle in reasonable time. Kathleen was able to get him to respond, obey, sit and stay, and to attend to her very well. Better than I was, actually. Hannah found the whole experience very stressful, but she also had a great time playing and obeying.

On a separate note, did you know dogs love to eat goose-poop? Yeah, neither did I until I noticed that Walter's chin was green while he licked my beard.

Yeah, that's what I said.

I showered for, like, an hour.

I Am Walter's Father: Day 5 - I am a pathetic wastrel

2008-03-02T11:54:00.001-05:00

Kath woke me up at 5:30, but I didn't make it on the walk. I can justify - or rationalize - my slug-osity: she needs time with the dogs to show she is top dog. When we all walk together, they (mostly) listen to me. But, really, that is a rationalization. I felt crappy at 05:30 and didn't want to go and Kath let me get away with it and I'm a terrible owner.

Well, not that bad, but still.

I Am Walter's Father: Day 4 - Why Training is Harder

2008-03-01T10:29:00.000-05:00

This post is satirical in nature, and should not be taken literally at all.*

The first day of March. I walk, just past somnambulant, with Hannah's leash in hand.

"Dog training could be the end of us, you know," Kath said, being dragged by Walter. Her tone evokes the feeling I get in my belly when a glass shatters between my bare feet: movement of any kind is likely to result in pain, mess, and quite possibly a limp. A gland somewhere deep in my white-matter squeezes. I'm no more awake, but suddenly, terribly, terribly, alert.

Gingerly, I attempt to place a toe on a bit of floor with no splinters of laceration. I say nothing, carefully.

"If we had children our parenting styles would be very different."

Toe bleeding. Pull back and try new tactic. Perhaps I can leap over the danger...?

"You think that it is a natural right for a dog to run free," I said. "I think that running free is a reward a dog gets for good behaviour."

*CRASH*

Why is it, no matter where you are, as soon as there is a chase scene two guys in overalls appear carrying a huge sheet of glass?

The difficult circular reality is that we never have the kind of walk we enjoy if we have that kind of walk now. Training walks have to be tightly controlled, to establish focus and concentration for all parties. Once we have them attending to us - that is, the dogs paying attention to the humans - we can change the parameters of the control, give them much more freedom, and be much more relaxed on our walks.

Special thanks to the father of Dawson and and Grace. We met this gentleman at the corner by Pet Value, with his Golden Retrievers. We stopped to say hello, and to let Walter and Hannah say hello. He talked about how much his dogs enjoyed their training, and that the consistent repetition paid off for many years. By the time we parted ways, Kath was feeling much better about being ~~trained~~ in a training program with our dogs.

____
*...Unless you were there to hear the dialogue, in which case it's completely true in all respects.

I am Walter's Father: Day 3 - Why Training is Hard

2008-02-29T15:14:00.003-05:00

1. Getting up at 05:00 or so. It just doesn't suit me.
2. Worrying about the tasty joggers.
3. Did I mention the 05:00? I can't remember through the haze of exhaustion.
4. Having to be a disciplinarian for the whole time.

We had a couple days off the training, Friday was day 3. Our next session with our trainer is Sunday afternoon. I'll have some more pictures up after that.

I Am Walter's Father: Day 2 - The Training Continues

2008-02-26T07:08:00.000-05:00

I'm exhausted.

Walter and Hannah are strong willed, and don't really enjoy the whole 'training' thing - at least, not the way we've started. I think we need to focus on making it more fun for them. I'll ask our trainer for advice.

I'm going back to bed.

Metablogging: Email Subscription

2008-02-25T15:57:00.001-05:00

I've added an email subscription box to my blog, so if you're desperate to hear about the happenings of my life you can get emails as well as an RSS feed.

Right, that's it.

I Am Walter's Father: Day 1 - The Training Begins

2008-02-25T11:05:00.001-05:00

Training the dogs is just as much about training the people. It's hard to change our habits. For example, I don't enjoy getting up at 5am to go on the morning walk. Have to, though, since neither of us can train Hannah and Walter together - at least, not yet.

The hardest things for me have to do with the things I say, and when I say them. For example:

Don't issue a command unless I can back it up;
Don't overuse their names;
Don't say "good dog" when they're just being dogs - say it when they do something specifically good.

Both of them are already getting better at not pulling, but that's not the big problem we need to address.

I had my first look at Walter's tasty-jogger attacks: he takes growling, snapping leaps at joggers, like they're prey. He's already 60 lb, and not getting weaker! That said, Walter hasn't got a chance to pull me off balance - unlike Kathleen* - so his leap ended mid-air with an ungainly flip and an embarrassing landing. (I had already moved him out of range of the jogger.) That's a behaviour that will change, and fast.

They're still pretty, though!

___

*Yes, you can read that two ways. Funny, that.

Waiting for Godot

2008-02-21T13:12:00.001-05:00

Walking Ft. Lauterdale

2008-02-01T14:12:00.001-05:00

Well, not a LONG walk.

I just had a fascinating lunch with some of the BAs I met last night
when I spoke at the IIBA South Florida Chapter event. Good
conversation and a good lunch.

The restaurant is a 10 minute walk from my hotel, and also a ten minute drive.

Yep. Between the lights and the U-turn and the traffic, I was able, on
foot, to cover the distance from the restaurant to the hotel in the
same time it took someone to drive me from the hotel to the
restaurant.

I had was afraid that I might have to fight them off - they looked
like they might try to force me into a car - but ever fleet of foot, I
eluded them and made my way back.

And now, back down to the pool.

Live Blogging From South Florida Chapter Event

2008-01-31T18:00:00.001-05:00

It's a real thrill to be invited to speak at an event like this - more
than 120 BAs and others interested in our profession have gathered for
a social dinner, with presentations on a variety of topics.
- Robert Goldman: President, S. FL Chapter
- Myles Cyr: CIO, Carnival Cruise Lines
- Mike Farasy: Director, TEK Systems
- Julian Sammy: Chief Architect, IIBA

Who knew I would see such exhalted company?

I'll post pics after the event (right back atcha, Glenn!) But for now,
time to schmooze.

Julian Sammy
Chief Architect

I Am Walter's Father: Dr. S Performs a Stinkecktomy

2008-01-29T08:30:00.001-05:00

I hate not having a browser on my mobile device (BlackBerry from work) - important questions like the difference between -ectomy and -otomy go unanswered. Both seem to describe the surgical removal or severing of some part of the body, as opposed to -oscopy, which I know is just lookin' around.*

In any case, today's surgery was performed in the O.R. more commonly called "the shower," and the organ being severed was the pungent gland called "skunk to face."
Yep. Waller had his first arboreal encounter with Pepe, and Pepe let him have it. As these things go, Wally was lucky, or Pepe was kind; one small sploit to the face (not the eyes) and the stink was easy to remove with a soap called S.O.S. Seriously good stuff. I did mention to Kath that skunks are nocturnal, and that she may want to re-examine he hours of operation.** Walter spent our special shower time yowling, moaning and generally unhappy, but he was pretty good.

So now I'm on the express bus to a 2h meeting (should just make it) and I REALLY hope that I successfully washed the stink off me, too.
____
*Definitions based in the terms 'append-', 'lobot-' and 'colon-' respectively.
**I was joking, of course.

A Visitor to Morningville

2008-01-26T09:14:00.001-05:00

I'm not, as many of you* know, a morning person. It's 9am. Kath has been up for four hours, walked the dogs, cleaned half the house, built a fusion reactor, bridged the divide between quantum mechanics and general relativity, and fixed up the disgruntlements in the Middle East. I made coffee.**

I find myself moving through mornings like a tourist lost in the wrong part of an unstable region: nervous, confused, and hoping to get out alive. Kath is one of the good residents - not one of the fanatical evangelists who blows up and blames the evil night people for our inability to appreciate her time.***

No wonder I love her.

___
*Okay, both of you.
**Mostly I made the coffee. I ground the beans and put the water in the machine, almost forgot the filter paper - saved that one - then got distracted by Walter and Hannah and forgot to pour the black life-giver. Kath poured it for me. I should add that to the list.

***When's the last time you heard a night person lambaste a morning person for 'wasting the best part of the day'?

A Fun Personality Inventory on facebook

2008-01-12T22:59:00.001-05:00

This test was well constructed, and I enjoyed taking it. Seems to have reasonable descriptive power (though the FB version is quite scant on the dysfunctional parts of the profile).

Respectful Inventor

The source site - http://personaldna.com/ - looks like fun too. You can display your profile in a DNA bar or a block (which I prefer).

Check it out.

Movie Review: Underdog

2008-01-12T21:06:00.001-05:00

Kath and I just watched Underdog - and quite liked it. The story was fun, the acting - live and voice - was good, and the CGI is excellent. It's not going to stay with me for the rest of my life, but it was good for a bunch of laughs. Worth renting with your woman, IMHO.

I Am Walter's Father: The Scoob Effect

2008-01-07T16:01:00.001-05:00

No, I'm not snarfin' down Scoobie Snax. I picked up the neighbour's dog for the afternoon (Zoe, a.k.a. Moose, Moosorella, Stinkorella, Moosie, Zo-Zo, Sweet Thing, etc.). Zoe and Hannah get on great, but Zoe is 8 or 9, and Walter is 7 months. Zoe starts to get reluctant about coming to the house around 30m down the sidewalk. Then she balks at Walter's licky-licky-wiggle-happy-licky-happy-licky greeting. He's so high on life that he has no clue why the old bitch snaps at him, and then goes to sulk in the corner by the foot of the stairs.

I threw some squeaky toys in the mix to see if they would help Zoe bond with the Waller, but no luck. She looked at him with an expression that clearly said, "Curses, you meddling kid!" I was prompted to write this post when she turned to me and (transcending language) said, "What did I do to you to deserve this?"

Poor girl. I guess she just can't keep up with the young pup. :)

note to self don't let girlfriend read this

Life: A Seasonal Antholpendium

2007-12-30T12:02:00.001-05:00

It started as a few pictures of Christmas in the Beach.

It turned into a two day project, learning to use Pinnacle Studio , all to create a 60 second video of Walter.

Life is good.

Observations: Sards in Sardineville

2007-12-21T17:57:00.001-05:00

I am jammed into the 501 streetcar, with a lap full of gifts, and a face full of ass. No, I said I was on the streetcar, not the street. This, the Friday before a Tuesday Christmas, is rather a busy commuting day. I walked a block West to get on the car at all. Many riders can not reach a hand hold, but no matter - there is no room to fall.

The red rocket is not just full - it is full of interesting characters: a drunk who asked the time, time and again; an elderly woman praying into a plastic bag; a gaggle* babbling about their adventure TTC adventure, laughing and hanging on to the poles in the doorway; a scruffy man yelling "Merry Christmas, man!" out the window to a friend on a bike; two men moaning and bitching about, well, everything; Santa - I mean really, he looked like Santa! - standing to my left.

Not a comfortable ride, but a good ride, filled with mostly happy, smiling - and tired - faces.

Happy Ho Ho!

___
*"Gaggle" is the official collective noun for teen girls: pod of whales, murder of crows, gaggle of girls. I'm not certain, but I think the collective noun for teen boys is a "bluster". Actually, that might apply equally to just one teen boy. And now that I consider it, is there one for commuters? A "quest" of commuters? A "rush"? A "crush"?

Business Analysis: My Professional IQ

2007-12-12T00:18:00.001-05:00

I just took this 'how good a BA are you' test at http://www.inquestra.com/baiq/index.html. Take the quiz before you read my responses, below - it will make much more sense.

Julian's BA IQ Test SCORE: 74%

PASSED [Whew. -Ed.]

Congratulations on your Business Analyst IQ rating. (Note: 75th percentile means that you scored higher than 75% of those taking this test.)

Category	Percentile
Your overall Business Analyst rating is:	Good
Analytical Thinking & Problem Solving	90
Requirements Elicitation and Analysis	75
Professional Knowledge	50
Logical Reasoning and Systems Thinking	95
Information & Process Modeling	95
Communication	100

SPOILER ALERT!

Julian's Answers and Commentary

Question

My Answer

"Correct" Answer

Commentary

The figure is cut out and folded along the lines to form a cube. What is the letter on the face opposite the face labeled A?

Did the rotation wrong in my head, and deserved the fail - I could have modeled the solution.

Which of the following statements do you most agree with:

b) While the sponsor may own the requirements, the analyst is responsible to assist in defining it.

Aside from the grammatical problem (plural in first clause, singular in second), the question is ambiguous. I think they were trying to say: "The BA is responsible for the definition of requirements, regardless of who owns the requirements."

The best way to identify data requirements is:

b) Through the description of business activities or use-cases.

This is true if the context for the activity is a Customer or User driven scenario. Like all 'Best Practices' it is only true in context. It is equally "best" to identify process requirements based on information needs - particularly in a highly regulated environment, where the data produced must conform to an external standard - regardless of how you produce it.

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of a good Business objective?

b) accurate

Poor question. Presumes that SMART (where A = Achievable) is the sum total of all 'good' attributes for a business objective. These are likely useful. They are not the whole story. I suspect accuracy - or rather, known degree of accuracy - is a fairly critical attribute of an objective.

An RRSP (in Canada) or a 401k (in the US) is best described as a:

d) investment

c) account

Um. Okay? I'm pretty sure I've got investments in my RRSP, and that daily withdrawals and deposits are not a big feature of the RRSP, and that it's money I put away to gather interest for a later time, but hey, I'm a bit of a monkey and I don't know what a 401k is.

Price is to Order as:

e) Cost is to Product

c) Balance is to Account

What sort of trick question is this? I just took six comparisons to get my answer. I wonder what they did.

	Price is:	Cost is:	Balance is:
A	a calculated value	:) a calculated value	:) a calculated value
B	charged to someone	:) charged to someone	:( charg… oh. nope.
C	based on the components of the Order.	:) based on the components of the Product.	:( based on the transactions to date
D	unique to the Order	:) unique to the Product	:) unique to the Account
E	fixed at time of Order creation	:) fixed at time of Product creation	:( recalculated with each new transaction
F	A five letter word - the same length as Order	:( A four letter word - not the same length as Product	:) A seven letter word - the same length as Account

A user enters a person's name to retrieve their customer profile. How many possible types of outcomes could there be?

d) 3

e) 4 or more

Outcomes are (usually) the successful results of the execution of the process - what the process is supposed to achieve. In this case there are 3: match 0, match 1, match many.

Perhaps 'types of outcomes' is the trick. This may mean categories of process termination states. But wait - there are still 3:

process completed successfully (built working car),
process failed successfully (built car),
process failed due to exception (factory evacuated due to weevil infestation).

I guess 'types of outcomes' means 'possible effects from the cause and other factors', in which case the answer is infinite. For example:

User enters name in Customer Profile Search.
System retrieves 0, 1, n matching names to User.
Meteor strikes computer centre (exception condition).
System displays error message "Iridium overload. Please devolve to dinosaurs." (exception response)
User bangs forehead on keyboard until shockwave hits. (exception outcome)

Infinite answers are not terribly interesting to me. Fun to tear apart though.

How many grammatical errors are their in the following sentance: Except for external documentation that affect legislation, the appropriate supervisor must authorize each document. This policy will effect all personnel and assure that we conform to recent corporate directives.

a) one

d) four

Let's ignore the spelling error in the question.

No, really, try.

*ahem*

The second sentence is out of scope. (Grammatical errors: 0)

Without the context for the first sentence, grammatical integrity may be ensured by pluralizing the word 'affect'. It's still meaningless, but grammar and meaning are separate concepts. (E.g. The sentence "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously." is grammatically correct in English, and also has no coherent meaning.) In this case, I'm not sure what sort of external document might influence legislation, but I do know that supervisors do not authorize them. (Grammatical errors: 1)

Did any of you feel ripped off when you discovered that there are really only 19 questions (not the 20 promised at the top of every screen)? Sheesh.

Good night.

Life: Vacations - Not just for goofing off anymore

2007-12-04T11:06:00.000-05:00

I'm in New York with Kath, staying at her father's house. The dogs love it here, even if it is a 9 hour drive - and I like it just fine too. This vacation is a working vacation - but that's because there is no clear division for me between being creative for work or for the IIBA or for myself. For example, in the last month I produced a 30 minute TV show for BMO, reviewed the extenisive notes that Mike and I made on Powers of Darkness, and created a technique for BABOK 2.0 (Requirement Configuration Management).

In each case I am creating something, thinking about things I enjoy, and having a grand time. Now if I could just add 30-40 hours to each day...

I Am Walter's Father: The Nutcracker Suite

2007-11-25T16:20:00.001-05:00

It's time.

Walter, born* May 16, 2007, is going to have his boys eviscerated. The mojo shall be no more.

Why yes I am a little sensitive about it kind of you to notice.

It's not that I think it's a bad idea. This cut is the kind kind**. My discomfort lies more in the realm of the sympathetic agony, and the ending of possibility. There will never be a puppy named Slobberface*** Walterson, and that makes part of me sad.

___

*If you're interested in the birthplace of the boy, see:

Denise Cranston
Tearanook Haven
8148 4th Line
Angus, Ontario
705-424-2801
tearanook@hotmail.com
www.geocities.com/tearanook_bouviers

**It took me some time to figure out how to put together a sentence where 'kind kind' kind of made sense, and with a judicious use of quotes, ' 'kind kind' kind' kind of makes sense too.

***Not necessarily the hypothetical non-puppy's possible name.

Travel: The Miracle of Third Gear

2007-11-22T16:43:00.001-05:00

For the record: I love winter.*

The best part of the first snowfall is the way it dramatically improves the way the world looks**, and also raises the skill level of the average driver.*** There were well over 100 accidents in the GTA this morning - I wasn't one of them, but it did take 90 minutes for me to get door to door, home to work.**** I got a bit excited when I reached the underground parking at Yonge and Sheppard - it was the first time I shifted from second to third.

The first statement is still true though - driving or not, I love winter.

___

*Not sarcasm.

** See *.

***Sarcasm.

****Scraping the ice off the car after searching for the scrapie after searching for the gloves after getting the doors unfrozen added 20 minutes to my total trip. C'est la vie (or as dad puts it, "Sest le vest!").

Life: Listening to Teenage Girls

2007-11-20T18:07:00.001-05:00

I am riding the subway eastbound to home, and two young ladies are like talking like about stuff and like family and stuff?

Okay, they really _are_ that yikesy likesy, but they never say 'um' - 'like' has replaced it.

They are also intelligent and observant. Much of their conversation revolves around family and friends, and the strange land called the past - where their parents live.

I recall having exactly the same conversation when I was a youth - I think it is a mandatory deliverable of childhood. I had a very rough day - they made me smile the whole way home.

So, thanks, anonymous young ladies enjoying life. :)

Technology: Demonstrating a "Live Blog Experience"

2007-11-13T18:18:00.001-05:00

Indy wanted to see what live blogging looked like, over a beer. We're in the bar off the lobby of the Grand Californian Hotel and Spa in Disneyland California.

Kevin says what I am doing is "awesomely geeky." We've been, well, competing over who's the bigger geek. It's neck and neck - I live blog, but he's written D&D books.*

Life is good.

___

*Not the first D&D - the D&D that came after the AD&D that came after the first D&D.
Yeah, we're geeks.

Review: Another Comic

2007-11-09T17:35:00.001-05:00

I just heard about XKCD on Buzz Out Loud (e588).While I recommend starting from the beginning, I read this one and thought "Mike will love this!"

Not for everyone. Very geeky, surreal, strange, and male.

Life: I Am Howard's Son

2007-11-04T14:55:00.001-05:00

Perhaps even more interesting than being Walter's father, I am my father's son. (I'm my mother's son too - it's just that the similarities are a little further below the surface.)

Dad wrote very funny letter to me for my birthday present - at least, very funny to me. Anyone else might also call it funny - meaning eclectic, obscure and odd, as in 'that's a funny smell'.

Mom and dad stayed over with us last night. Originally they were going to a concert - Autumn Leaves On Steel, 2007. We did some trading around - I went with dad, and mom spent the evening with Kath. They went out for dinner and talked (with My Big Fat Greek Wedding on in the background). I was treated to a great show - far and away the best pan I have ever heard or seen.

The format is different from the traditional steelpan performance; instead of a steelband or a few pan playing calypso or such, a set of pannists performed with a jazz ensemble - Bruce Skerritt and the Liamuiga Project. Here's the rundown:

Danielle Ng-Chee: 14, good lead pan performance. Played the theme from Phantom of the Opera. Student of...
Winston 'Pappy' Fredricks. Old time performer, played enthusiastically* on double seconds. Good Trini music.
Al 'Allos' Foster was actually one of my dad's students way back when in Etobicoke. Very nice guy, and a very good performer. When he finished his set with the band, I said, "I didn't know his hands could move that fast!" Al has been teaching Panache this year.

Plug: I performed on our CD, Simply Panache (scroll down to May 22, 2007). The money from sales goes to fund educational programs in Trinidad.

Talib Robinson started with a very fast classical piece. I'd estimate he was hitting the pan eight times a second for the entire song, which lasted several minutes. Spectacular! He's played with the Chicago Sinfonietta at the Orchestra Hall. Oh - he played some very nice jazz too. Talib is very good - I'd describe him as a solid professional performer.
Kenneth Headly came on after the break, and was even more spectacular than Talib. He was faster and had even more command of the instrument. If they were playing violins, I'd have Talib in the orchestra, but Kenneth could be the first violin. Very impressive.
Duvonne Stewart is a big boy. He sauntered out to his pan and put on a spectacular show. He displayed a level of virtuosity and showmanship on the pan that I have never seen: he played notes by reaching under; he sang while he played; he was faster - somehow! - than the rest; he is a virtuoso.

Amazing. I'm glad I traded with mom (not that (feeling the hole getting deeper) I don't value an evening with Kath (trouble coming) but it was something the boys enjoyed more than our ladies would).

(Whew!)

___

*And well - that's not a euphemism!

Future: Living in a Fischbowl

2007-11-02T20:14:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I saw a wonderful link to a thought provoking presentation about the future. I thought about typing it out, but searching is easier, and the source of everything is somewhere online.

The second link on Google had it. Mr. Fisch is a teacher, who was trying to help his colleagues understand what is coming. His presentation is spectacular.

Enjoy the blog post; in it you'll find links to the Video, PowerPoint and Text.

I Am Walter's Father: My Outside Child

2007-11-02T11:46:00.001-04:00

If you're a Trini, you'll get that joke.

Walter just woke up, walked over and flopped down on my feet. He doesn't lie down. He collapses with a resounding thump. I gave him some loves - too cute for words - then went back to work.

He got up, went to the back door, and sat looking outside - he doesn't bark or whine - just stares at the place he wants to be. I let him out, expecting him to walk to the garden to relieve himself. Instead, he flopped down on the deck, and basked in the cool autumn air.

I love my boy.

Oh, and now he's chasing motes of dust in a beam of sunlight. Almost painfully cute. Too bad about the bee-sting in his mouth next spring.

I Am Walter's Father: The Illusion of Growth

2007-10-31T06:00:00.001-04:00

At 10:00 on October 30, 2007, Walter weighed 45 lb / 20.4 kg.

Although it feels like his growth is slowing, Walter is still putting on at least 5 oz a day. He peaked in September, at 5.5 oz/day; now he's down to 5.1 oz/day.

I think the reason we feel like his growth is slowing is perceptual: he's putting on a pound every three days, but it's harder to see on a bigger dog.

___

Note: I was going to call this post "Walter takes his foot off the gas" as an allusion to our illusory perception of deceleration. Unfortunately, this is not an appropriate metaphor.

Future: Control, Chaos and a Faster Internet

2007-10-31T05:42:00.001-04:00

John Doyle, a CalTech researcher, has been studying and developing theories to describe the way complex systems maintain stability and control. For Doyle, the interesting questions are the deep questions: what are the common controls that all complex systems have? He cares about the nature of the system because he cares about real world impacts, but it is the deeper identity that drives him.

Real world, you ask? Right now he's investigating bacterial metabolism, but Doyle and his team have developed technologies that shatter current Internet speed records without requiring new infrastructure. Impressive.

I read about this on Digg. For a general introduction to the man, the theory and some applications, see this Discover article; for more detail, visit the CalTech press release page.

Life: It's Midnight, Devil's Night

2007-10-30T00:01:00.001-04:00

...and I'm officially 37. The actual time of birth was 03:40h or so, but for our purposes, midnight will do.

Woooooooooooohoooo!

*ahem*

Now, to bed.

Review: So I Like Comics, Okay?

2007-10-28T09:41:00.001-04:00

Several years ago, I started reading daily comics online. I became frustrated with the services offered by comics.com and ucomics.com and others pretty quickly; I don't want to sort through emails to find my comics, and I don't want to be online flicking through page after page after page.

The first solution I built was an excel sheet that generated an HTML document - a web page generator. Each line on the spreadsheet created a link to a different comic. As long as I opened the page while online, I could read the comics at my leisure.

After a few months, I discovered that my desire for offline reading had grown, and that there were some comics I was saving frequently. As a result, the Excel sheet was not a satisfying solution.

The next version - which I still use - is an Access database. I could have written something from scratch using Visual Basic or .NET, but the database solution seemed simplest. Since February 24, 2005, I have used it to download around 150000 comics. I have a big stack of editorials (a great way to zero in on the important news without being overwhelmed with hopelessness and jaded by sensationalistic reporting), and a few that I save to read again (as the mood strikes me). The long and the short of it? I like comics, okay?

___

My list of favourites:

From Ucomics.com

Ballard Street	Strangeness. One of my all time favourites.
Big Top	A Boy, His Clown, and the Talking Animals Of The Circus. (rerun)
Calvin and Hobbes	Brilliant. They are running the series from start to finish, one a day. (rerun)
Doonsbury	Political satire, with a Liberal Democratic perspective.
For Better For Worse	On par with Peanuts in it's heyday.
Foxtrot	Now a Sunday strip only.
Natural Selection	Really Strangeness.
Non Sequitur	Quasi-political observational strangeness.
Red Meat	Awful strangeness. I mean it. Not for everyone. Sick. Really.

From Comics.com

9 Chickweed Lane	Weird wordplay, romance, odd characters. Very imaginative.
Big Nate	The stories of a boy with many flaws.
Cow and Boy	Sort of Calvin and Hobbes-ish, but the Cow is real, and she talks.
Dilbert	Best. Workplace. Comic. Ever.
F Minus	Strange observational oddities.
Frazz	Brilliant story of a janitor at an elementary school. Sort of 'Calvin when he grows up'.
Get Fuzzy	Dogs, cats, weasels and humans can talk. But they're still dogs, cats, weasels and humans.
Pearls Before Swine	Animals that talk. Predators live beside Prey. Few humans. Horrible puns.
Tiny Sepuku	Weekly dose of twisted advice.

From Slagoon.com

Sherman's Lagoon

Sherman is a shark - a big, dumb eating machine. Thankfully, he's allergic to crabs and turtles, so a few other characters survive.

Tech: Using a new tool to blog

2007-10-26T20:38:00.001-04:00

I've only been blogging for a little while; already I find the idiosyncrasies of the Blogger / Blogspot interface frustrating.

Enter Windows Live Writer, one of the new onlineish applications from Microsoft. It's pretty slick. It gives me a WYSIWYG editing pane for my blog, and simplifies the placement of pictures, text and tags. In fact, I added the picture in this post by hitting ALT-PrintScreen (to get the active window only), and CTRL-V (to paste it into the blog).

Easy!

Work: Teaching about Blogs

2007-10-25T09:43:00.001-04:00

This is a blog about blogging.

I am the Chief Architect of the IIBA.

That was a link.

---

Okay, that inscrutable post was used to demonstrate the creation of a post with a link to the fine ladies and gentlemen at this learning day.

See, that made all kinds of sense. Right?

Work: Whither blogging? (from my table)

2007-10-25T09:40:00.001-04:00

Gilles is talking about innovation - I need to tell him about Phil McKinney and the Killer Innovations podcast.

You think the title is misleading? Not at all. One value of a personal blog is that it forms what I call public memory. Many of my peers already think of the internet as "external memory"; when I can't recall that actor's name, I check google.

Work: Thinking at the Liberty Grand

2007-10-25T07:51:00.000-04:00

The Liberty Grand is a beautiful place to have breakfast. I'm here for a work event on Web 2.0 - I'm going to help people I work with understand the power of blogging.

I Am Walter's Father: The Continued Growth

2007-10-22T12:33:00.000-04:00

Walter is, as you know, too damn good looking for his own good. Even in dog years he's only three! Much too young to be posing for billboard glam-shots.

(Hey baby, you lookin' goooood!)

I shouldn't worry. Most of the time he has this expression. Look at that face!

(Play! Play! Want play!)

Hannah, on the other hand, is occasionally jealous of her little brother. There are occasions where I fear for my life - the glowing green death-ray eyes might get me!

(Soon I Will Be Invincible!)

Unbecredible: Canadian Mint Sues City of Toronto

2007-10-21T10:46:00.000-04:00

I actually needed a new header for this one. 'Life' didn't seem to cover it.

Stunning. I am amazed that the federal government - through the Mint - is demanding royalties for the use of the "copyrighted" image of a Canadian penny and the phrase "one cent."

Really.

UNBELIEVABLE.

What, now that our dollar is worth as much or more than the US dollar, we've turned into lawsuit-happy Americans?

Politics: Track those pesky politicians

2007-10-21T10:27:00.000-04:00

PoliticalBase.com is a new site run by the former CEO of CNET. It is a wiki-based site, allowing you to add information to the encyclopedia of information about the people who want to rule the world. There are interactive maps showing the money donated to politicians going back to the '80s. It's US only - for now.

Fascinating.

Technology: Today is a Work Interuption

2007-10-16T12:18:00.001-04:00

...courtesy, your friendly neighbourhood Windows / Intel / IBM / Office PC.

*sigh*

The trouble with technology, of course, is that it is so powerful. Without it, there are so many things I can't do, I feel emasculated.

Ok, that's too strong a word, and ignores about half of humanity, but you get the picture.

For a brilliant rant - the most recent on technology - check out http://logicallycritical.com. Very, very funny. Very, very astute.

Life: One Ring to Rule Them All

2007-10-09T23:06:00.000-04:00

No, not LoTR. I'm a fan, don't get me wrong. I think Tolkein is perhaps the single most powerful creative writer in a century. I don't think he was very good at telling stories, mind you, but a potent creative force. I think the movies were much better than the books from that perspective.

But I digress.

On the weekend - thanksgiving up here, to you Upper Mexicans - my mom told several stories of the past; family history stuff. It was interesting, not least because almost all the stories had a new audience.

Then mom showed us a little ring, that she thought would fit on my pinkie. It is platinum, with three little white diamonds. It was my grandmother's engagement ring, which she accepted in 1931 and didn't take off for 60 years.

I'm wearing it now, and every time my pinkie hits a key (an 'a', usually) I feel it, and think of my mother, and grandmother, and grampa (as we called him) and I smile.

Thanks, mom. I know you were going to wait for my birthday to give me this ring, and that it was hard for you to do. It means a lot to me.

Oh, and for those who care, a gratuitous picture of the pups.

Life: Having a Turkey Baby

2007-10-09T08:13:00.000-04:00

This year, Kath and I hosted Thanksgiving - that is, her sister and my parents joined us for very yummy ham and turkey.* It was an adventurous meal - the turkey must have been in my grade ten chemistry class when Mr. Lafleur told us that cooking is a physical state change, not a chemical.**

Thermodynamics aside, the turkey didn't finish cooking when it was supposed to. Dinner was a casual affair - no big ceremony of carving or such - so it wasn't a big deal. I opened another bottle of wine, cut the drumsticks, wings and thighs off to cook in a separate pot, and we put it back in the oven.

I don't know that turkey's name, but she was very tasty.

___

*We will host American Thanksgiving too. There are advantages to a mixed relationship.
**Note for the non-geeks: Physical reactions are reversible in a trivial way; chemical reactions are not. The physical change of state from ice to liquid water is just a matter of temperature; wood won't unburn when it cools down - and turkey won't get raw in the fridge.

I Am Walter's Father: Bou Breeds

2007-09-27T13:25:00.000-04:00

Bouvier: Such a wonderfull breed. There are two attributes are missing from this reference. I have included them for your viewing pleasure.

Variegated Bouvier: This breed has spectacular patterns of black, grey, brown and white in it's hair. May include spots, stripes and swirls.

Baleen Bouvier: All bouviers, variegated or not, slowly metamorphose into baleen bouviers. The long fibres that surround their flesh are used to trap all manner of small edible items for later consumption.

I Am Walter's Father: And Hannah's Father Too

2007-09-25T17:36:00.001-04:00

Not a lot to say on this one. Just some pics from the day before the Sammy Country Lime.

Hannah, she so bootiful!

Dog wrestling close to home.

The Dao of Dog: I just missed it with the shudder delay - they formed a perfect, tumbling yin-yang!

Does this haircut make my ass look big?

Mad dogs! Mad dogs! (They were having a grand time.)

Dogs with the rips.

When I have pics from the event, I'll post them too.

Life: Lightning DOES Strike Twice

2007-09-24T17:09:00.000-04:00

Many people have ridden in many cabs. I have been in two cabs that were pulled over by the police. I'm standing on Victoria Park at Adair Rd, beside the second one.

The first was a long time ago, on the way home (to Hamilton) from a party (in the back-woods of Oakville) after a night clubbing (in Burlington) where I picked up (she was hideous (my "friends" should have beaten me - or maybe her - with a crowbar to stop that pick-up action)). I ended up at this party with her with no money and no way home. I collected travel funds from drunk and stoned people and left with a borrowed sweatshirt (the party was outside and it was cold).

As we rocketed down the QEW at 130km/h, I asked my cabbie, "Do the cops ever bother you?"

"No," he said. "We do our job and they do theirs."

Cherries.*

When the cop - an attractive woman - reached the driver side window she didn't give him the chance to ask what the problem was. She jammed her face in the car and snarled, "One twenty? I can accept 120. You blow past me at 30 over? Give me your license and registration!"

An hour later, approaching 5am, I drove the cab to Oakville (he had no license, registration or insurance - though he did have a court date for a DUI and another for a hit-and-run), and the next cabbie drove me to Hamilton for free. I ended up with $35, a sweatshirt, and a great story.

Today was much more blase, but there was a curious resonance. This cabbie was driving down Victoria Park like a manic. The cop pulled him over, angry, for going 20 over in a 50 zone. "I was passing, I was passing," the cabbie said.

"License and registration!"

sigh.

Of course his information was out of date, plates expired, insurance a photocopy with no back, the cab not operating legally for the day, etc..

This time it was simple: I told him to call me another cab. He did, and this time I had no romantic entanglements on the way.

___
* Flashing red lights behind us.

I Am Walter's Father: The Change

2007-09-22T23:27:00.001-04:00

Walter and I share certain characteristics - long legs, long hair, collecting burrs...

Oh. Wait. That last one is all Wally.

His romping and rummaging in the underbrush is a joy to behold - and a horror to repair. He does NOT like being brushed but (again unlike papa), has no trouble with scissors.

...Foreshadowing not subtle enough?

It started with a few surgically removed burrs - mere skirmishes in the coming War. All too soon I realized that there was no middle ground: Walter Must Be Shorn or the Allies Would Die!

If the noise he makes while being brushed are any measure, he is big on hyperbole too - like father...

In my defense, he loves his new 'do, and it will look better after he goes to the groomers this week, and all I had
to work with was a squirming dog and small scissors. I couldn't get it all one length - some burrs were to the skin - but I think he looks pretty good.

You be the judge.

I Am Walter's Father: Wagons North

2007-09-22T08:55:00.001-04:00

As a preface to the rant and gripe: this is a gripey rant.

It was a long drive to Mulmur. Normally a 2 -2.5h, the time was extended by:
a) being trapped behind an EVIL streetcar driver,
b) having to pull off the Gardner to push down the hood,
c) stopping in Caledon to get water and let the pups wander and widdle.

Each of these is a story in it's own right. The hood latch popped near the Yonge exit. I got out, but the first place I could stop safely was after the last on ramp downtown. Lakeshore was ok - even faster than the Gardner in spots, but still an extra 20 minutes. This, after sitting behind a streetcar driver who would open the doors and sit, no one getting on or off, for 30 - 60 seconds at each stop. People were going i n s a n e. Caledon was okay - just 1 person in line in front of me, with a dozen or so items, who took 10 minutes to finish paying.

One we finally arrived, the kids had a blast. Hannah and Walter rampaged across the land, exploring the tall grass, the gardens, the meadows. I pulled three burrs off Hannah's collar. Walter, on the other hand? I'm going to book Walter in for a shave on Monday or Tuesday. He h a t e s being brushed, and still squirms like crazy when I pull at the burrs, so I concentrate on the painful or hard-to-bite areas and leave the rest to him. He really does love the country!

Today is beautiful, windy, and autumnal. Leaves are changing, the air is crisp, and the sun low - beautiful light. The kids are romping again, chasing little tumbleweeds across the yard.

It's going to be a day full of work, setting up for the party. It will be a good day.

Until.

Future: Living La Vida Simulation

2007-09-19T14:58:00.000-04:00

"Life is but a dream" is a fairy tale song, right?

Right?

Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute (Oxford University) has an interesting arguement about the nature of reality. The basic idea is simple: when you consider whether we are brain-in-a-bottle simulations or not, there are only three possibilities - and one of them must be true. It's an interesting perspective, and it might even be testable - which takes it from philosophy to science.

ABSTRACT. This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

Meta: A Blog About Blogging

2007-09-14T08:13:00.001-04:00

If you've met me - and even if you haven't - you may have realized that it is rare that I have nothing to say.

This is true with this blog. My messages have been sparse, not for want of content, but for want of time to turn thoughts into content. For example, right now I am pounding my crackberry while waiting for a streetc-

Oop. It's here.

Bye!

I Am Walter's Father: Adventures in Walking

2007-09-10T22:26:00.001-04:00

He's over 30 pounds now (actually, last Saturday).

This afternoon, I took Hannah and Walter over to the waterworks for a romp. In the leash-free, I had a brainwave: I attached a pink-and-black 'hydroball' to the end of Walter's leash while he romped. Hannah was barreling after the Kong while Walter assaulted the ball-onna-string. I swear, he thinks he's a cat.

Later, I took them down to the water. Hannah crashed steadily through the waves, out to the Wubba. Walter chased that same ball - now on the end of a long piece of twine - along the shore and into the water. He even started after Hannah a few times. Bouviers are certainly capable swimmers, but they are herding dogs, not retrievers. Walter is thrilled to chase anything close to the ground. He will sit quietly when I throw a ball - even if it hits his nose. He just doesn't see it.

Regardless, he was having a blast in the water, romping with other dogs, and generally loving life, when a big (my thigh high) wave walloped him. Hannah just powered through it. Walter somersaulted and came up sneezing. I immediately gave him kudos and loves for courage and tumbles - his little tail was working pretty hard when I was done. When I threw the ball he dove in after it without hesitation.

Later, he slipped on the boulders that make the water breaks on the Beach, and wedged himself in. He didn't cry or whimper or panic - though he did look quite confused, lying half on a rock, hind legs in space. He waited calmly while I climbed over him and lifted him out, and then ran around the wall of stone to join Hannah and I on the other side.

What a cute boy!

I Am Walter's Father: Just How Big Is He?

2007-09-01T21:34:00.000-04:00

I've been neglectful - I have not been posting much about Walter. In fact, I have been informed that the lack of pictoral evidence of his existence is wildly inappropriate.

No more.

First, here's what he looks like when he amuses himself.

The question you're asking is: just how much has he grown? You may remember him back on day one - he practically fit in the palm of my hand. Now, he definitely will not.

He's become a big, beautiful boy, and he's still only about 1/3 his full growth.

Life: At least the editorial stance is clear

2007-08-31T09:38:00.001-04:00

But that's really searching for the silver lining. Today's National Post front page has a big picture of a Puffin. The headline: "Is this bird a Liberal?" The layout and text were reminiscent of "Is this man a killer?" (Note: the link to the online version of the article is not identical to the print edition.)

Sufficient to capture my attention, I crouched down to read the caption through cloudy, filthy plastic. It said, among other things, that the Puffin is Newfounland's official bird, that a Liberal MP has suggested it as a symbol to represent his party, and that it "...lays one egg a year, flaps it's wings a lot, and hides it's excrement."

I am no fanbay for the Liberals. I apperciate the wit and the sentiment. Oh, and I think editorials should remain on the editorial page.

Future: Traditional Bacn

2007-08-27T11:27:00.001-04:00

When I talk about the pace of change accelerating, I am not kidding around. I just read this on the CBC site:

Providing free SMS "...comes as Yahoo Mail faces stiff competition not only from traditional rivals such as Microsoft's Hotmail and Google's gmail, but also social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook."

How can a company incorporated Oct 22 2002 be a "traditional rival" to a company incorporated in March 1995? Gmail hit the scene as a beta circa 2004. Three years makes a tradition now? Less? Facebook is still a toddler in human years (started 2004, grew from 24 to 32
million users in June and July 2007).

The thing that really struck me about all this was that the word felt right. Google and Yahoo are mature web citizens. Facebook is a perky kid, and Microsoft is geriatric. The time frames for traditions are quickly shifting: already, they are o longer based on the last human generation, they are based on the last digital one.

So what's this "bacn"? Last week (Aug 18-19), at Podcamp Pittsburgh this term was invented. Pronounced "bacon", it's any email you receive that isn't spam, but isn't really personal either. An electronic phone bill; Facebook updates; Google alerts: these are bacn. (BTW, the 'o' is missing in homage to the current trend of dropped vowels - like the blubrry network.)

Today, only eight days later, the search "bacn +spam" turns up thousands of entries on Google. It's a legitimate word, invented and in common use in days. I remember my excitement when "pythonesque" joined the 'official' dictionary. Etymonline says it originated in 1975, but I know it didn't become a 'real' word for at least a decade (I can't find a reference for this one - just my memory, from high school, I think).

The singularity will always be just a moment away - but the moment is getting shorter, fast.

Life: I was sitting in a Tim's down in Miss'auga...

2007-08-27T10:00:00.001-04:00

...where it bubbles all the time like a great big carbonated Soda. Es oh dee ay, Soda.

All the references, implied and , are relevant.

I sit sipping, reading and writing for work and the IIBA. A figure: wrinkled and craggy; short and rotund; waddling walk into the shop; long ears; lips pushed up, cheeks pulled down; green tinge.

I spend a busy moment looking for a light saber or Frank Oz or both.

Then, as I examine the profile, I wonder: Yoda or Yodette? I can see only the left side. Gold earring. Old man golf clothes, but with that walk, not a golfer. Feminine shape to the face. Short.

I have no idea. I return to my laptop.

On the exit waddle, I see the person from the right. Much more masculine profile. Merlot shoes. No earring on the right.

Oh, I think. Wrong song; this soundtrack is by the Kinks, not Weird Al.

Technology: Vista my @$$

2007-08-24T23:23:00.000-04:00

I just spent hours trying to get a new Dell to connect to the internet, update it's preinstalled software and actually be good for anything at all.

*&#@!

The parts that Microsoft had a direct hand in were actually surprisingly simple - Outlook Express, and an Office installation were quite easy. Everything else was a horrible mess. Sympatico - I don't even want to type about that phone call!

*shudder*

The PC is mostly working now, but it's not there yet. I'll be back at my friend's place next week to try, once more, to make it go.

Damn Pakleds.

Libationary Pursuits: New Best Time!

2007-08-23T16:33:00.001-04:00

Not that this will increase my reputatation with the headhunters, but I hit my new personal best time: 5.55 seconds to down a Guinness.

Note: I refuse to pay for a sub-ten-second Guinness, so if you want to see it in action you have to buy it. It's the only way to keep a lid on the madness.

Life: Who Knew? BINGO!

2007-08-23T09:24:00.001-04:00

Day of excitement! I'm on a schoolbus (yellow), with 20 or so colleagues, on the way to Dave & Buster's, and just won a bottle of New Zealand Chardonnay playing BINGO.

Who knew a company off-site could be so much fun? The people up front are singing "Wasn't at a party" from the Irish Rovers.

I like my job. :)

I Am Walter's Father: He went galumphing back.

2007-08-20T18:38:00.000-04:00

Walter has been growing like crazy, but everyone who has seen the old pictures says, "But he's HUGE!"

He's also insane. I mean starkers. Really. Right now he's blasting from the back of the back yard to the front of the house, carrying a small piece of paper. Nuts.

He's been frolicking with Hannah, who has been frolicking back, and life is great. They spent over an hour rolling around today, entertaining each other. Hannah did get tired eventually (which is when Walter started to entertain himself) but then Kath came home and frolicking began again.

It's cold enough tonight we've put a fire on. Kath is sitting in front of it with a bowl of popcorn. Walter is trying to climb into the bowl. Oh - now she's feeding him a kernel at a time. Bad Kath! Bad! ;)

Did I mention the ice cubes? I have to get some video of him with ice cubes. He chased one around the entire yard, rolling around and growling at it like it was vermine in need of execution.

...and now he's chasing Sammy, who leapt onto the counter to avoid him. Never a dull moment!

Right, enough for today. From Walter, Hannah, Kath and I:

Good night.

Entertainment: the Mootrix

2007-08-16T20:58:00.000-04:00

Wulffmorgenthaler are a couple of whackjob comic writers with a freakish, bizarre and rude sense of humour. NOT for everyone. This one - I call it the Mootrix - is VERY tame compared to their others. You have been warned.

Questions: Why can't I see magnetic fields?

2007-08-15T08:30:00.000-04:00

The question is a bit disingenuous. I know that magnetic force and electrical force are the same force (electromagnetism) and that the wavicle (has wave and particle properties) that transmits this force is the photon.

We can sense photons, but in a narrow energy band, and frankly, our sensitivity is poopy (for examples, most of what we call colour is illusory (or reconstructed, depending on your point of view) ) and the resolution is terrible.

Wrong rant.

My real question is: How powerful would a magnetic field need to be to emit photons that fall in the visible spectrum - if that even makes sense.

P.S. I'm not worried about the damage such a field might cause to a person (for the purposes of the question, at least).

Libationary Pursuits: Whisky

2007-08-14T17:15:00.000-04:00

Today I was asked "What's your poison?" I answered 'whisky', which was easy, and then got curious, which lead to shame and humiliation.

Okay, not that bad, but still.

I learned that (for years) I have been using the word "libidinous" when I meant "libationary". Related? Sure. Same? Not so much. They're esoteric enough that people may have thought I was being clever (but not clever enough to keep that to myself).

Back to whisky. There's a lot of interesting information about the drink, so I thought I'd look at the word at dictionary.com (one of my favorite sites). They say:

whisky and vodka have the same etymological root: water.
there's no real difference between 'whiskey' and 'whisky'.
usquebaugh is the Gaelic word for the drink, and means water of life.

I happen to prefer scotch from Islay, if you're buying.

Next week: In libationary pursuit of Guinness.

I Am Walter's Father: A Massive Responsibility

2007-08-14T13:45:00.000-04:00

It's happened. We've crossed the 20lb mark.

The growing is not smooth - every few days he's suddenly stumbly, because his legs are longer.

Fun!

Business Analysis: It's all about the the toast

2007-08-05T22:30:00.001-04:00

When your mom asks you what you do, how do you answer? Some jobs are easy to describe. Mine? Not so much.

For years I was a computer programmer. When most people asked, there was no point going into more detail - eyes would glaze instantaneously. On an adventurous day, I might say, "When I'm not navigating the bureaucracy, I write programs to solve problems." I never got a date that way, though.

When I changed roles, to Business Analysis, Mom asked, "What's that?"

"Well," I said, "I work with customers to figure out their requirements, and then..."

Glaze.

It took the better part of a year to come up with a story she could sink her teeth into. This is (a version of) that story.

---

Every day my customer (let's call him Flxxl) - tells me, "I need a toaster. I need *that* toaster. It's shiney, and I played golf with the guy who sells it."

I am a BA. I respond by asking questions. "Tell me about this toaster," I say. Flxxl looks at me with a sad/funny 'Oh-I-didn't-know-he-was-challenged' look. "How will you use it in your kitchen?" I continue. "Will you use it at breakfast?"

"Yes." Now Flxxl is irritated *and* pitying.

My face is completely innocent. "And lunch?"

"What?" That one catches Flxxl off guard. After a few seconds his ire breeches the surface of his confusion, and he says "No" with a tone that intimates that the simians in my ancestry are rather more recent than usual for a human.

"No cluhouse, then," I say, "and you never have chilli with toast...?"

There is a long pause. Now Flxxl looks suspicious. "...I might."

"Ok," I nod, "great. Now tell me, do you make anything other than toast? Tuna melt? Cheese toast? Home-sliced thick bread? Bagels?"

Now Flxxl rebels. "That doesn't matter," he says. "I need that toaster!"

"Are you sure?" I ask. "It sounds like that toaster won't do you much good. It doesn't meet your needs."

A long pause. "But I need..."

"...a device that will make several kinds of toast and toast-related items. You have a selection of bread products, a selection of toppings, and a variety of circumstances for cooking them."

"...Why, yes," Flxxl says. "I do!"

"So let's work out those details. Then we can talk to someone who can help us find the solution that best fits your needs, your budget, and your schedule."

Flxxl, working through his cognative dissonance (now that he has discovered that he had confused a solution with his needs (and that the golfing salesman got'im *again*)), agrees.

---

So now my mom gets it: she understands that I help people define their needs so they can get solutions that suit their business.

Of course, she tells her friends that, "Julian? Oh, he, ah, he does, um...

"He sells toasters."

*sigh*

;)

***
Many thanks to my Mom, who is a great sport (and DOES understand what I do - really!).

Words: Pound, lb

2007-08-05T10:00:00.000-04:00

When writing about Walter's weight, I wondered why “pound” is abbreviated as "lb". Turns out, the Latin word libra means “scales, balances" and it also describes a Roman unit of mass similar to a pound; this is the origin of the abbreviation “lb” or “℔”. "Pound" itself it comes from the Latin word pendere, meaning “to weigh”.

Interesting side note: the plural form of “lb” is the same: "lb", with no“s” at the end. Units of measure do not have plural forms (I drove 100Km, not 100Kms; I bought 100g, not 100gs).

I Am Walter's Father: Weight Gain Stats

2007-08-05T09:57:00.000-04:00

Walter now weighs in at 16.8 lb.

Metric
Day 01: 4990 g
Day 21: 7620 g
Rate of change: +125 g per day.

Imperial
Day 01: 11 lb
Day 21: 16.8 lb
Rate of change: +1.93 lb per week

Rate of change as % of Mass: 153%

Yikes!

Human Interest: The Care and Feeding of your Introvert

2007-08-05T08:32:00.001-04:00

These are worth reading. I've certainly learned something. Jonathon Rauch is a writer for the Atlantic. A few years ago he wrote an article called Caring for Your Introvert, which sparked a huge response. He was interviewed about the continuous fervor over his manifesto in 2006 ("Introverts of the World, Unite!"), and the Atlantic has an interesting reader-response article on related topics ("The Introversy Continues").

Introvert, Extrovert...
I had heard most of what he wrote before, but never synthesized into a single, coherent description of the experience of being introverted. I kept having "Hey, that's me!" moments while I read - and many "Hey! That's [insert name here]!" moments too. I did some more exploring, both on the web and in my head, and discovered that 'introvert' and 'extrovert' are not exactly the right terms for me; in the same situation, I may act as either.

These terms are based on Jung's definitions of Introvert and Extrovert, which are a little different from the common use. From this perspective, there is no continuum between introversion and extraversion. The terms are not used to indicate sociability; instead, they indicate if a person is oriented to a subjective or objective attitude. Introverts find focus and energy from within. Extroverts find these in their environment.

...Ambivert
It turns out there is a third category, for people like me. There is some disagreement about the validity of the term. In my experience, most people have an exclusionary view of personality traits: that we are each one thing, and therefore not another, opposite thing. Some are obviously inappropriate stereotypes (beauty or brains); some are more subtle (empathy or evil (see psychopathy)). I think we can have many traits and modes of operation which we expose based on circumstance.

In the case of intro- vs. extro-, most of us have an obviously dominant mode, and no choice about acting in that mode. In some cases - me for instance - a person does not have a clearly dominant mode. For us, some combination of internal and external factors pushes us to one or the other. Sometimes we can even choose. I'm sure this makes it hard on our friends and families: how do you know what strategy to use when I'll handle a situation in radically different ways based on no discernible factor?

Temperament Sorters
One of the most popular, the Keirsey, divides people along four axes:

Extroversion (E) and Introversion (I)
Intuition (N) and Sensing (S)
Thinking (T) and Feeling (F)
Judgement (J) and Perception (P)

I've taken it many times, from many perspectives. In each case I have only two traits: high T, low F and high N, low S. I plotted it out and found this (each score out of 20):

	E	I	S	N	T	F	J	P
Max	18	18	12	19	16	10	14	15
Min	2	2	1	8	10	4	4	6
Average	11	10	5	15	14	6	8	12

If you'd like to take the short Keirsey, let me know - I'll send you an Excel sheet that calculates your scores.

Conclusion
After all that, you'd think I'd have a really serious payoff for the last paragraph, but I don't.

Life: Shadow and Smeagol and the Coming Conundrum

2007-08-02T17:27:00.000-04:00

I want to be an X-Man. Multiple Man, to be exact.

I've been splitting my time between my house and my home while my parents are in Trinidad for a wedding; my cats, Shadow and Smeagol, are there. They stayed with Kath and I for part of the winter, but Shadow was desperately unhappy with Hannah and Sammy (the current cat in the house), and I can't put him in that stressful situation again. Of course that means that I need to find a home for them before winter - a home with no other cats or dogs, so Shadow can be calm.

Feel free to spread the word - two black cats, 8 years old, sweet and friendly. Shadow is a puff-ball (we call him PuffShadow) and Smeagol is an absolute suck. They're not lap-cats - but they will lean against you and purr like crazy.

*sad*

Tech: FaceBook is Sloooo....

2007-07-31T22:56:00.001-04:00

......ow.

I just posted to FB, saying that it hasn't updated my notes since a week ago. This note will give me a time-delay on the blog-scrape.

I told you this would include random sillies.

I told you.

...Didn't I?

NSA: Nuclear Turtles Are Surprisingly Invasive

2007-07-30T22:51:00.001-04:00

Just to be clear, "NSA" means "non-sequitur alert" and this message is condition tope. Deal with it. You didn't expect my blog to be sensible, did you? Readable, sure. Not the other one.

So.

When I was fifteen, living in Trinidad, and every bit as odd as I am today (if less honed), Mark and I decided, with my sister and Pam, to arrange a gala variety show with my cousins.

It was specterrible, but the adults appauded and the 8mm tapes are lost, so that's okay. It's just that on occassion, for no reason I can identify, something triggers an amygdala-response and the sickening thud of an iron fry-pan impacting my skull to the refrain, "Duck, and Cover" from the classic 1950's paranoia piece, "Bert the Turtle" is ejaculated into my conscious mind.

I didn't say it was pleasant. I choose my words to share the feeling. "Yucky" is the word you're looking for.

Right. You read it, so you're stuck with it too.

Cheers!