July 2008

If it isn’t a word, it should be. At this moment, like a couple of weeks ago, I am typing an entry on a 24-inch iMac computer. The primary difference this time is that I own this one.

After a long hard battle with Fedex (I’ve never had a good experience with them), I finally managed to get a hold of my computer today. Although for a time there this morning, I thought that the fates were conspiring against me, when my two potential rides to the Fedex depot fell through. Not to be outdone, I went anyway on the bus/train and when I saw that my computer was a tad bit too awkward to carry home on transit, I took a cab.

Got home with it, and setup was a breeze. Like setting up a laptop, with the extra step of plugging in the keyboard. And of course the OSX setup is simple and easy, especially since I have been through it a few times before. Everything is as I would expect, and now I’m going through the process of getting her set up the way I like. I’ve already synched my contacts and email info over .Mac and the rest is just downloading a few applications and I am on my way.

Her name is Hekate for anyone following my progression through the primarily greek deities. Hekate (sometimes Hecate, although I chose the former spelling for my computer) is the greek goddess of magic, witchcraft, ghosts and various other spooky things. Generally considered to be a pretty powerful and bad-ass goddess, she was also benevolent and well respected. I’m hoping for similar things from my iMac. :)

Here we are on the eve of the new iPhone 3G launch, and I can imagine that there are a lot of people out there sleeping in the streets waiting to be the first in line to get one. I would say, that in most countries, in most cities, that if you haven’t already ordered one, or are currently waiting in line, you likely won’t get one for at least a week or more. Has this ever happened for a phone before? Has this ever happened on this scale for anything before? Perhaps, but not recently.

That said, us Canadians have some potentially high rates to consider if wanting to buy an iPhone. Rogers, in typical Rogers fashion, has decided to not only charge upwards of $100 or more for the plans, which don’t even include unlimited data, but they are planning to lock people into 3 year contracts.

The UK on the other hand, seems to have it pretty well. For £35 monthly I could get 600 minutes of voice and 500 texts and unlimited data. All of that and only an 18 month contract—half of what we need here. It is almost enough to make you want to move to the UK. Which coincidentally enough, just might happen for me. I don’t really have any details, other than to say it is possible. But I would certainly be there long enough to fulfill one of these contracts.

So to answer everyone who has been asking, no I’m not getting an iPhone tomorrow. I want one, bad, but logistics and sanity have kept me from queuing up for the past few days. I will likely not get one in the next few months. If it looks like I’m not heading to the UK, then I will rethink my options, but until then I can wait. In the mean time I will download the iPhone SDK on my new Intel iMac and develop applications and play with them in the iPhone emulator. Perhaps if I make something useful and work related I can convince my company to adopt the iPhone. One can dream.

What a pleasant Saturday. After a great brunch, we headed down to the English Bay beach for some sunning. I, of course, was wearing my SPF 50 liquid sweater. And good thing, because the sun was relentless. We were also treated to some interesting spectacles to say the least. The heat brings out some real characters. But after a good sun soaking, a little bit air conditioned dining goes a long way. We had lunch/dinner at Milestones, which was a perfect cap to the beach front adventure. And now we are going over the Lionsgate Bridge heading into North Van to potentially catch a movie.

Hope the weather is treating other areas as well. Adieu.

First, I’m going to start this off right with best wishes to my friend Jordan on his birthday. He likely won’t read this for a while, and I have already wished him well in person, but there is nothing quite like immortalizing it on the Internet. :)

That is the celebration part. The welts are a result of a game of paintball today with my coworkers. Nine of us in IT plus one computer-savvy business user today went down to Tsawwassan Paintball where we had booked a private course for a couple hours. It was a lot of fun, and our good work dynamic made it all the more enjoyable. How often do you get to shoot at your boss? I will say that while I always enjoy playing, I’m not all that good at it. I guess my lack of first person video gaming combat became very apparent as I was often quickly dispatched by some of my more adept colleagues. And now I have a couple of relatively painless welts from some of my more devastating eliminations. Fortunately not anywhere that shows whilst wearing office clothes. While I did get shot in the mouth once, I managed to avoid catching one in my neck which happened to at least two my teammates.

All said and done, a very successful and enjoyable outing. I hope that we get a chance to do it again some time.

Dad and I are current driving to Whistler for my cousin’s wedding. About 10 minutes ago as we are driving along the Sea to Sky highway I had the.opportunity to yell out something that I can’t say I’ve ever had to before: “Bear!” A wayward black bear was walking up the side of the road— apparently to take a look before heading back into the woods. Of course we didn’t know that at the time and since we really didn’t want to slam into a bear, there was a bit of quick braking.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a bear in person in the wild before. Of course that is probably a good thing.