February 2008

I’m not the type of person who is always going out on the town. At the moment anyway, I tend to just work and then head home, watch a bit of TV, waste some time online or chat with some friends and family. Sometimes I’ll really geek out and program something for my website. However, this past week was quite different.

It started Tuesday with a trip to the Bermuda attempt of an English pub, the Robin Hood. Nice place, and the food is good pub fare. And it is close to work. A few of us went there for drinks, which ended up lasting a few hours. And while we usually end up talking shop, it was a nice release from work, and the norm.

Wednesday brought a dinner out at Cafe Cairo. The atmosphere there was really quite unique, at least within Bermuda. As the name suggests, the place was ostensibly an Egyptian/Middle East restaurant, and while I have yet to visit that region in person, if I were to make a guess at what I might expect, this might have been close to one end of the stereotypical spectrum. My hummus starter was very tasty, and while my ravioli was also really good, there wasn’t much to it. I finished my meal in half the time as everyone else in my party and I was actually making a conscious effort to eat slowly because I knew I didn’t have much. And anything ordered between five and seven are 25% off.

Thursday was a busy day at work, which turned into a late evening at work. Fortunately I was able to get away in time to grab a take out sub and fries from Portofino and then meet a colleague from work and his visiting friend for a trip to Liberty Theatre to catch the late showing of Cloverfield. It was a very interesting film, which apparently ran quite a nice viral marketing campaign. I may post my thoughts on the movie as a separate post. Another late night walking home, another night of just crashing into bed.

And that brings us to last night, Friday. After another crazy busy day at work which caused me to miss our weekly work “Happy Hour”, I joined a couple of guys from work for a night out. It was a quick decision as they walked by saying I should join. After the day I had, I just wanted to go to bed, but what the hell. It was mostly IT, as are a lot of my sojourns, but this time we were joined by a “user”. A new woman who arrived in Bermuda while I was in London. She will be moving back to Vancouver shortly after I head there. The Pickled Onion was our first stop, where we had a couple of rounds of drinks and a few appetizers. After that we hit up two more places, Fresco’s and Docksider’s Pub The Beach. It was a nice time and I got to experience some Bermuda nightlife in some of the places I walk by going home many nights. The others in my group, bolstered by the social lubrication and artificial stamina of alcohol, were heading into a club when I had to part ways, citing extreme exhaustion. That was exactly the case. A returned to the office to retrieve some of my things and then caught the last bus out of town, quelling some of my walking time.

All said, it was a great week, and I would like to extend my thanks to those colleagues and friends who extended their invitations to me. Cheers mates.

Anyone who recognizes the above screen grab will immediately be transported back to the early 90’s. If you don’t recognize it… well don’t worry about it.

Not me, my laptop. Again. Only I think I know why. Recently we have had a couple of nice days during which I assume that my place is getting pretty warm. Since my laptop is usually running, it stands to reason that it too is getting quite warm. Normally not an issue since it sits idle most of the day. Yesterday however, I had it downloading some stuff, and then in the evening it was still quite warm in here when I was programming and then watching a video.

Normally this shouldn’t be a big deal. Only yesterday evening my computer started making a horrible noise. Not good. I knew it was not my hard drive, because that is in the front, this was coming from the back… where the fans are. I was concerned. My right fan had been pretty noisy for a while now, but this was extreme. So I remembered a tool that I had used before to help my father diagnose a defective track pad sensor, called Temperature Monitor. I also knew that this program had a big brother called Hardware Monitor. I download it and saw that it would be able to read my fan RPMs, if I paid for it. It was only $11, so I thought it would be a wise investment. Now having loaded it up, I can tell that my right fan was running at over 2500 RPMs. Not only that, but the left one isn’t running at all. Now I understand why my right one has been so noisy, it is working alone to cool my computer in a hot, humid climate. So I think the noise of last night was an over stress on the fan, and I think I might be taking my laptop apart again to investigate the dead fan. I might just be stuck or dirty and need some help, or it could be a loose connection. Or it my just be dead, and I have to take care not to let my computer get too hot.

Ultimate in the sense of last. Tropical in the sense that it could be, if it weren’t winter. But it certainly has been pleasant and I have nothing to complain about weather-wise. I am now starting to plan my relocation to Vancouver. Fortunately, I’m somewhat used to picking up and relocating, having drifted around Europe in the pursuit of my masters.

I am hoping that I am able to squeeze a bit of Bermuda into my time here. That should happen my final week, at which time my parents and youngest brother are coming down to visit me here. I am quite looking forward to it honestly. I always enjoy showing people around and area I am familiar with, and of course my parents are a captive audience. I’ve been planning an itinerary of touristy things to do when they are here… many of which I haven’t done before. So expect more photos from that one week than the rest of my time here combined. I know I have been neglecting my photos and I promised myself that if it is a nice weekend, I will try to get outside and snap some more photos.

PS: Happy Valentine’s Day…

I can finally say, after about 3.5 months in Bermuda that I have been to the beach. And not just to take photos, but actually swimming and sunning. My colleague Jordan mentioned that he was planning to hit the beach today, and wondered whether or not I would care to head over as well. I figured it was about time, and as long as the weather was decent, it would be a good time.

After a long hot trek over, on which I was met by Jordan, we arrived to the white sands of Elbow Beach. There we were met by another colleague Victoria. Jordan and I, still quite warm from the walk up to the beach, ended up going swimming for about ten or fifteen minutes. Afterwards we sat on the beach chairs and chatted. The clouds would block our sun from time to time, but it remained nice. The white sands and turquoise water were both quite surreal. I’m certain that this is the first time that I have been swimming at a beach in February. I have dipped my feet into the Mediterranean in December, but I would hardly call that swimming. And I wasn’t laying around in a bathing suit.

To all of my friends and family reading this amidst sub-zero temperatures, I apologize. ;)

Sand that is. After spending the morning lazing around, I decided to take my lazing to the beach since I had a good time last week. I didn’t feel like making the arrangements to meet up with anyone, and I didn’t really know what my plan was so I just head out on my own. This time I took the bus there. Walking the last little bit to the beach from the bus, I was glad to feel that it was still quite warm. Sheltered by walls and the foliage of the island, I didn’t realize just how windy it was.

And was it ever. There were a number of kite surfers at the beach… kite surfing, and I wandered down the sand a bit to try to find a sheltered area. There wasn’t one. Well, I did find a ledge behind a large rock formation which afforded some relief, but I have never before experienced such constantly blowing sand. It was getting into everything. So I walked down to the water, got my feet wet and that was about it. Not nearly as nice as last weekend. I caught the bus back and showered. And I’m still finding sand.