Monday, July 31, 2006
Quick entry
I am starting to make a habit of working from home in the morning. That is basically because I do not get out of bed in time to get ready to catch my regular bus so I find it easier to just work from home and then, at lunch time, get a ride to work from my wife. My wife has much better things to do with her day than drive me to work so I would like to stop it from happening - after all I used to manage to get to work without problems before.

Just over 26 days 10 hours to go before the move to our new home begins. The packing (and cleaning) is proceeding in earnest. I did not remember having so much computer gear around the house: besides the 3 computers that we distributed, I have thrown out 3 more! And also a lot of old media as I mentioned previously.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 10:25 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Door frames beware!
I was coming out of the bathroom this afternoon and tried (quite by accident [probably did not have to point that out]) to put my thumb right through the door frame. Unfortunately for me, the door frame won. I managed to split my thumbnail about halfway up to the root. Needless to say (why do I need to say that since I will say it anyway?) that really hurt. And I now know how much I use my thumb to do things since I have to find other ways to do those.

We are continuing to get ready for the move, and are throwing a lot of things out. For example, today I threw out a lot of 5 1/4 inch floppies. Those are old enough that my own kids never used them. If I had to venture a guess (and it would appear that I will) I would say that those are at least 15 years old; probably more like 20! I know that I have not seen a floppy disk drive that can read those floppies in quite a long time.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:58 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Way to update Chris
Now here's an example of faithfully updating your blog - NOT. Not that there has not been stuff happening, I just am trying to get to bed early (you have heard that tune before) and I just do not find the time to update my blogs.

I have been sorting through some of my stuff for the purpose of weeding out the no longer needed stuff. And since some of this stuff I have not even looked at for years (!) the decision is pretty easy.

There is just over 28 days before the move begins so the fact that there is less than a month is really bringing home the fact that there is lots left to do before then.

Let us see if I will a little more faithful with my postings in the future.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:58 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Staying away from the heat
This is pretty much all that I have been doing here at home. We, and I am sure that is no news to those of you reading my blog, are in the midst of a heat wave with heat reaching over 30C - which is hotter than it has ever been here in Victoria.

One of the cooler spots in the house, besides the air-conditioned bedroom, is under the ceiling fan in the living room. That just happens to be in front of my computer as well as the TV which means that I have either been playing on the computer, on the PS2 or on the DSLite. I have started playing "Kingdom Hearts" and it is certainly interesting. I have not progressed very far, but that is to be expected: you don't pay a fair amount of money for a game to finish it in a few hours.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:25 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Saturday, July 22, 2006
What we needed: more toys!
We had been resisting buying another game console since we already had the Nintendo GameCube game console at home. We do, however, have some Playstation One games that we played on my son's console (Hi Brian!). So now that the PS2 has come down in price, we finally broke down and got ourselves one. My son (Hello again!) suggested a game that we might like to play "Kingdom Hearts" (the first one) so we have spent the last couple of days tracking down a copy. After checking a few Blockbuster stores and coming up empty handed, we ended up at EB Games at The Bay Centre where they did have it. My wife (Hello sweetheart!) has started playing it; it looks interesting - at least from the peanut gallery. I did play GT4 for a little while to make sure the PS2 worked (right......) before turning it over to my wife (MWA!).

I had been reading good things about the Nintendo DS Lite so I went and bought myself one today. I also bought a game (duh!), "Brain Age" for myself and one for my better half: "Tetris DS". I am liking Brain Age a lot so far. Tetris is Tetris.

Oh yes, if my son is still reading (Hello? Anyone here?); do you remember Ponderingses? I think it is in need of an update (smile).

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:59 PM | Permalink | 2 comments
Thursday, July 20, 2006
And it has arrived
On July 12th I talked about my experience with putting in my passport application. At the time, they said that it would take two weeks for my passport to be delivered to my house. Well this morning my passport was delivered and it only took 8 days! I am impressed.

The downside of that is that I was rushing to get ready to go catch my bus when the passport was delivered to my door; which meant that I was now too late to catch my bus. So I decided to work from home for the morning. I am fortunate in that there is very little I can only do at the office. Since attending meetings is one of them, I will have to go in this afternoon.

Good day!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:26 AM | Permalink | 0 comments
Monday, July 17, 2006
Fun with software
I spent a good part of my time at home today playing with the iWeb software that came pre-installed on my iMac. That is a really easy way to get a web site published. I am pleased with the end result to the point that I will let everyone have a look at it: The Empty Pew. Let me know what you think.

I have also been trying to see how I can use the Mac web browser, Safari, in my day to day activities on the web. So far, the only thing it does not seem to be able to handle is Blogger. I am using Firefox to do that.

A quiet day at work today, with just a dash of excitement to keep things from getting boring. One of our SATA disks went offline and a few of our backups failed. A quick reboot of the SATA by our Storage brothers and we were back in business. Hopefully that problem will not surface again any time soon.

Excellent roast pork and rice for dinner tonight. I ate entirely too much of the pork, and I will be taking the leftovers with me for lunch tomorrow.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 10:40 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Inching ever closer
I have not put the countdown to the move in my blog lately as I keep forgetting to do so. So before I do anything else, here it goes:

41 days, 11 hours

I have not had much sleep last night - as there was some work that was being done at the office that required me shutting down the backup environment before the work, and then bring it back up afterwards.

I basically was up until 2am, and then I was awaken just after 5am to bring things back up. That took until about 6:20 and then I went back to bed. I did forget my work phone downstairs when I went back to bed after 6:20 and missed a phone call from my supervisor. I thought I had sent a message to everyone, but maybe I just sent it to the contact person.

It would appear I am fading fast. I was going to say I had a great day - and I did, but now the fact I had less than 6 hours of sleep last night is taking its toll.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 10:07 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Mixed up schedule
I have been trying to go to bed early this week as I am getting up early (5:30am) to take my younger daughter to her work. Her shift starts at 6am and there are no buses that can get her to work on time.

This is throwing my timing off however. What is suffering the most is my blogging as I usually do that just before going to bed. I have not shortened any of my other evening activities so what usually happens is that I realize I have to go to bed just as I decide that it is time to write my blog entries.

Tonight I am writing this even though I should be in bed sleeping. Well I am in bed, writing my entry on my laptop, but I am obviously not sleeping. This should make for an interesting day tomorrow.

Well I better try and get some sleep.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:57 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Nothing
I have been staring at this space for the last 30 minutes in the hope of getting some ideas on what to write, but I must say I have not come up with anything.

Well I do have one thing: I just went to get my passport renewed. I completed my application online as opposed to doing it manually. After completing the application, you just print it out, get your guarantor to sign it and then take it to the passport office. So far nothing special, right?

Well I go to the office, get into the triage line, meanwhile noticing that there are three windows opened and they are serving number A103. The lady in front of me gets A107 and I am thinking that I will be there for quite a while.

So I hand out my application to the triage person, and after looking at it she tells me that because I filled my application online I get a special number and she hands me C900! I start heading towards the chairs to wait for my turn and I look at the board expecting A104 to show up and C900 comes up!

It turns out that you get to jump the line when you have filled out your application online. I kind of felt sorry for those people that had been waiting, but it was great to be able to get out of there so quickly. So I would recommend filling out your application online if you need to renew your passport.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 10:47 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Go to bed early?
Only a short entry as I will try to get to bed earlier than usual - which basically means I will try to be in bed before midnight.

Today was a typical Sunday: up at 8:30, church at 10:30, lunch at 12:30, and then spend the rest of the day on the computer. It was not all idle time, I did spend about an hour filling out the online form to get my passport renewed. Oh and I watched "Chicken Little" early this evening. Not the greatest movie, but it does have some quite funny bits.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:37 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Ahhh sleeping in
As I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, it was just great this morning when I was able to sleep in until 11am. And then I just checked my email on the laptop, still in bed, until after noon. I would be willing to do this every day, but I do not think that my manager would be too happy with me. I guess the best part was that I got 10 hours of sleep; I usually only get around 6 which I know is not enough (I am pretty sure I need at least 7 hours of sleep) but I always seem to find something else to do before going to bed that makes it so I am always late getting to bed.

Today was a pretty slow day. For some reason I was in a grumpy mood for some of it, but I would not be able to give you a reason for that. I accompanied my wife on a few errands, picked up my younger daughter after her shift at work, then worked on the presentation for the church service tomorrow. My wife and I then repeated our going out to the Four Mile House restaurant for the Saturday night special: New York steak! We repeated the outing since it was so good last week. I am happy to say that it was just as good this week. Highly recommended!

I almost forgot to mention that there is just over 49 days 9 hours left before the great move begins.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:41 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Thursday, July 06, 2006
We are done
Apparently, that is what the workers that have been working outside my window had told the building staff, so the staff moved my phone back to my desk. When I got to the office and saw that, I moved my computers back to my desk. It quickly became obvious that the only part that was done was the part where they might drop something on our heads as there was still a lot of banging just outside of my window.

Fortunately for me, my wife had an eye appointment this morning - the kind where they dilate your pupils and you can no longer see clearly. I stayed home (away from the banging outside my window) so I could drive her to her appointment. I dropped her off around 11am and then headed to the office where I moved the computers. Her appointment was supposed to take 1.5 hours, but she was done in half an hour. The plus side of her being done early was that we got to have lunch together. I then drove her home and went back to the office.

For those of you keeping track, only 51 days 10 hours before the great move begins. It is particularly daunting for us as we have not moved in about 20 years.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 11:02 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Temporarily evicted
There has been work done on the windows of the building where I work for the last couple of weeks. They have now gotten around to my side of the building and, since my desk is next to a window, I have to move away from the window for the next couple of days so they can do their work . I spend part of this afternoon, about an hour actually, moving all of my computers to the office next to mine. The hardest part was to get network connections for all of my computers (3 of them at the moment) as the office I moved into has no live connections. Fortunately for me, since I only moved "next door" so to speak I was able to just extend my current connections to my new desk.

Less than 53 days 10 hours to the big move. In the quest to find great furniture for our new home, my wife found a hutch, curio cabinet and mirror that will fit very well with the new decor. The only bad thing was that they could not wait until the move to deliver so we will be "hosting" those new pieces of furniture in our garage until the big move.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 10:28 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Monday, July 03, 2006
Wow - it has been a year
It was exactly a year to the day (3 July 2005) that I wrote my first entry in this blog. Hard for me to believe that I actually stayed in one place for a year. Not only that, I made over 260 entries during that year! That is just over 5 days a week on average.

Well, since computers are so good at counting stuff, I set up a countdown timer to let me know when the movers would be here to move us out of our townhouse. So in just under 54 days, 13 hours the great move will have begun.

It has been a very relaxing day today. I stayed in bed until noon and then just lounged downstairs until it was time to go return bottles at the bottle depot. A word of advice: do not return bottles on the last day of a three day holiday weekend because that is when everybody else is doing it! Then we went for lunch and afterwards came back home to stay cool as it has been pretty hot here today.

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 8:04 PM | Permalink | 0 comments
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Safely arrived
For those of you watching at home, my daughter made it safely to Naramata. She said she did get lost a couple of times, but really all she did was have a little trouble finding the correct street as they were not marked as the map said they would. I think it is just great how she managed to find her way back onto the beaten path; that is a much better skill to have than just being able to blindly follow a map.

I have been appraised that today is "M-56", which basically means we will be moving into our new house in 56 days. Stay tuned here for the riveting countdown and for updates on the many plans being made to actually get us moved.

I feel so much more relaxed just knowing that I do not have to worry about going back to the office tomorrow morning. Since this Saturday was Canada Day (Happy belated 139th birthday Canada!), Monday is a statutory holiday for me and I get a three day weekend.

We went and bought the cable needed to get my MacBook connected to the overhead projector at church; and while I was there I also bought iWork'06. The main reason for doing that is that what I really need is a word processor and something to make presentations: Pages and Keynote do just that and at just over half the cost of Microsoft Office (Student Edition no less). I tested running a presentation from the MacBook at church this morning and everything worked just great! I particularly like the capability of being able to see the current and next slide on the laptop screen, and the presentation on the projector. The only thing I did not test (I did not want to hold anybody up as I did this testing after church) was to see about the screensaver - to see if it kicks in. I am going to have to look at how to turn that off if it actually does blank the screen (which is the screensaver I have currently).

Good night!
 
posted by Christian Thibodeau at 9:55 PM | Permalink | 0 comments