log 517

sigh….I hope work picks up soon. So far I’m bored. Haven’t truely learned much technical stuff in the last 2 weeks. Looking back, this is the first maintenance position I’ve ever took on. I’m so very used to charging head first into development. Of course, due to my perfection complex, my projects rarely require any maintenance unless the client changes the specs. And the conversation with my sis just a moment ago confirms it. My work at Redknee last year is still running flawlessly, no maintenance required. …….the lack of perfection with the current project is really bring me down. Today I was assigned a ticket to fix a rollover effect….turns out someone was trying to overload a javascript function. 15 mins of testing and you’ll know that’s not possible, how could it have been launched like that?

it’s been a while,…work is going great. Finally got the dev enviroment up on Wed and got some work done. I went out for lunch on Friday to my sis’ recommendation (http://www.petitdejeuner.ca/lunch.html). I had the 3 cheese omellete. It wasn’t particularly good. Certainly stands in no comparison to ones at Kiiva. Though from the name, they’d surely be better at French dishes. I will order something more French next time.

Today I drove far. I wanted to see some freaky people at Anime North. Too bad I did not anticipate the number of participants in the event. There were so many people the line-up to the entrance actually wrapped beyond the 2nd entrance, so I did not stay to find out how much time it will take to get in. Instead I drove to Woodbine Centre. In my mind, Fantasy Fair was far more magical. For some ood reason, I remembered it as something like an amusement park stuffed into a mall. The real thing was rather disappointing, and beyond that, the mall is the same crappy structure with 3rd string stores. It all reminded me how dry the architecture landscape is. Houses, business buildings, malls, plazas….they are all from the same cookie cutter. Don’t tell me the R.O.M. will make a difference. I want individuality and creativity, not monstrosity.

Anyhow, after running out of the Woodbine Center, I thought I would go watch a movie. A good movie might change my mood. Obviously that wasn’t the case. I watched the 3rd installment of Pirates of the Caribbean. It was such a disappointment. Waste of talents, waste of good effects, a big waste of my time. Disney, I want my $10 back! …..lame jokes, piss poor plot, idiotic dialogs, piss poor acting(only applicable to Chow Yun-Fat), the movie is a piece of shit. I really don’t know who casted Chow Yun-Fat. He just didn’t have the voice and status to bring in the atmosphere into every scene he’s in. …..damn it, I should have waited for the 3:30 spiderman IMAX. 

….pretty shitty day afterall….oh well, at least I got half my grocery shopping done…..if I’m up early Sunday, I might try getting into Anime North…not likely though. A nice brunch, more grocery shopping,…shoulds better to me. Also I wanted to hunt down the Peggy Hsu CD (thanks Ms. Marz for the update)

Thanks to EC, who organized today’s sporting event, I got a hell lot of execise. : )
We started with a game of kickball, follow by a short game of baseball, then ended the day with a game of soccer. I know for sure that I went over my physical limit today. Towards the end I think I fell 3 times while chasing after the ball because of fatigue. It feel great to be so close to 30 and still manage to kick out so much stamina. Granted I was even more physically capable in my youth, today still was impressive. And I was really surpirse how well I can play soccer. My passes were pretty accurate, for a guy that never played much of it ever. It could be the cleats I was wearing or the fact that I actually know how to kick the ball and applied my knowledge, but who cares, I was good. Honestly, I wasn’t planning to get this much execise. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remind myself that I have work Tuesday and should take it easy. Oh well, what is done is done.

Tomorrow EC has invited a bunch of his friends for a dinner + fireworks thing. I’m looking forward to it. The last time I played with fireworks was in highschool….not much feeling towards that event as I didn’t quite enjoy the people there. (for a period of time, I was sort of with the "in" crowd for no apparent reason. It just didn’t feel right. Those people were quite shallow.)

Oh and I found another solution to my router overheating problem. The heatsink didn’t quite cut it, as it was over sized. This week after reading some tutorials, I made my own usb powered fan to cool it. hmm…I was actually going to play with the LEDs I bought at the source but the fan was more practical. I am planning to build a second.

Haven’t bloged much or read much neither. This week started with an interview, and I’ve already gone head first into work. …well technically, I still haven’t started on the tasks assigned. I’m just having a hell lot of problems getting the dev enviroment setup. That websphere app server is one piece of shit work. First the http server didn’t connect, then there were config errors, now the dang DB2 changed permissions on its own and I can insert data. I’ve spent every minut of the last 3 work days trying to get it to work. Good thing my co-worker who’s helping me to setup is very patient. Oh well…there’s a first time for everything and this week, I’m doing a lot of them.  ^_^

p.s. (Sun One Server, Oracle, I miss you so much)

Things just seems to move me along without much need of my involvement. I stumpled onto the job posting, stumpled onto the interview, and stumpled onto the first day of work.

I was given the impression that today is the only contract signing and I start the job on the 16th but as it happens, it’s also my first day of work. : ) Luckily for me, I’m always prepared. So that’s how things got started. Oh and I decided to drive to work, since it cost about the same as taking the ttc, I might as well live in comfort. I am now officially a contributor to the ever growing congestion of the 404/DVP.

It happened so fast that I’m still a little shock at how efficiently things went. It all started last Friday. I was again browsing job boards just trying to find that perfect job. Not much luck with that, since the market I’m looking for isn’t something that I can just jump in right away, so I branched out a little and saw the name of a company I’ve visited and liked with an opening that’s a pretty close match. Being bored out of my mind, I decided to get off my lazy ass and start applying for a job. After spending an hour on fixing up the cover letter, I sent it out. It was 4pm already, I figure it will probably sit in the hr inbox and have a reply the week after. To my surprise, I got a call an hour later to schedule an interiew for Monday. I pretty much spent my whole weekend reading up on all the J2EE stuff prepping for the interview.  And so…here’s today. I went in, talked a little about my wide assortment of skills and projects I’ve worked on, and that’s it. Pretty much had it in the bag from the beginning. : ) 

After the interview, I walked around town. I walked from King W all the way to harbour front (I wanted to have lunch at Lago, the decor there looks interesting, but I didn’t, as I really wanted some sushi today).  I then walked all the way back to triangular building on Front street because that’s where the sushi place is (I saw that place on tv a year ago but never remembered the name or exact location, by pure luck that I found it today).  I had the matsu sushi set. It was a pretty good meal considering it’s the first time I ate meat in 3 weeks. I then went 2 doors down for some pistachio gelato. It was a really good day.

Enough sidetracking, anyway I proceeded to walk around Eaton Centre and there I recieved the call form the hr dep telling me to check me e-mail for the details of the offer. I frantically ran all around the city looking for a wifi connection. You seriously wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to get a connection DT. I even went to StarBucks got a really crappy cup of ice tea(luckily it only cost $1.75) to use their connection. The connection there is shitty as well, got connected but no ip. In a moment of desperation, I "borrowed" a demo machine in Staples to check my e-mail. Funny thing, the clerk there (old skinny asian guy) told me I shouldn’t be doing this, but allow me to do it anyway. After the confirmation of the offer, he was the first to congratulate me. : )

Anyhow, that’s pretty much today’s advanture. I’m going in tomorrow to sign the contract and I start work the day after. Smooth eh?

btw I’m breaking away from my vegy diet this week. For this week, I’m having shrimp curry. Bought the bag of shrimp on Sunday, as it was on sale. I guess it’s not back to a meat meat diet. Just a seafood diet this week.

after 3 weeks of vegy diet and execise, here’s the physical result. 

And you will probably never see me wearing this t-shirt out, unless I plan to not eat for the entire day, ha ha.

if you’ve watched the news today on CityTV, you’d probably saw that video of a guy on the bike getting punched by the driver after a dispute. The headline of the report seem rather one sided as reads "road rage".

I definitely agree that getting out of the car and punching a guy in the face is excessive force but here’re something most people don’t see.

1. The way the guy pick up his bike, you know he’s about to use it as a weapon. You don’t pick up the bike like that to get it off the road. (so it’s not assult, it’s a fight, guy on bike just got the worst of it)

2. WTF is that guy on the bike doing in the middle of the lane. Bikes ride between the lane and the sidewalk.

With that, you know that guy on bike is pretending to be the victim. I saw what you did, and I know what you were about to do. Now let’s just hope the police and whoever will be prosecuting this case will see it too.  If that driving haven’t thrown the punch, I’d bet he’ll be the one to loose a teeth.

今個星期比較熱、所以來煮個湯飯。

＝＝麵鼓湯飯＝＝
馬鈴薯
玉子豆腐
白蘿蔔
冬菇
金針菇

＝＝烤茄子＝＝
茄子＋鰻魚醬

seems like my plans to join a gym could be canceled. I seem to be doing well on my own. It’s been 2 weeks since the end of my courses. I’ve been on a a vegy only diet, execise regularly, and already I’m back to the original 150(from 158). If I keep this up, I just might be able to drop back to 130 (if that is the healthy weight for my height and build).

Btw, my all vegy diet isn’t some stupid grass eating hippy diet, I cook and season them. It’s not one of those crappy things where people eat salads for every meal. Unless it’s a hot day, there’s no reason to not have a hot meal for dinner.