Random Thoughts

In case you're a Canadian, you likely know that Conrad Black has got bail and wants to come to Canada. He wants to come home apparently. Whose home? His Lordship surrendered his Canadian citizenship in order to become Baron Black of Crossharbour. While I disagree with the then Canadian government's stance on Canadians being honoured by other countries, I find it quite amusing that Lord Black wants to come back to Canada after saying such lovely things about us as a plain vanilla place or, to paraphrase our distinguished travel writer, Jan Morris, “a good second prize in the Lottario of life”. More haughty wisdom from his Lordship can be found on this blog post .  I say we let him in. We're better than that. But your Lordship (for you are indeed a Lord in this country too), if you say such silly things about us... we are not going to be very keen to see you around here and you might just be the recipient of a nice pie in the face. What do you guys think of this whole af...

I wonder why there is so much unhappiness in the world sometimes. I'm currently reading R. K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma. The world the protagonist in the book lives in is a rather harsh one. And he seems to be quite unhappy. What makes one unhappy? Some days, I ask myself what the heck I am doing here. Maybe its because I have worked for the same person for 4 years and the same company for over 6. This was supposed to be a short-term job that would bring bigger and better things. I don't know what it has brought. I mean, I am doing better things. I am doing bigger things. But I don't know if it makes me happy any more. I don't wake up with the anticipation of hurrying to work to learn something new and make the world a better place. I don't know why. I suppose I have the ability to do that to a certain extent. Is it the lack of ambition?  Reading back to some of the earliest posts on this blog, I gave myself the task of being happy. Like it is somethi...

For those (one, maybe two people) who read this blog, you may recall that almost a year back, I did something I wanted to do for a while. Move. As in, move back to Vancouver and be happy. Well, that happened last year. The second half of that return home was to buy a place. That happened as well. It feels like months ago! Well, the next bit of that saga is happening now.  I got keys to the place a couple of weeks back and I have been unpacking ever since. I can't begin to tell you how awesome it was to move the way I did. This may sound like a bit of an advertisement, but who cares, it is my blog after all and I shall sing these people's praises if I choose to.  Firstly, the good folks at Certified Packaging & Transport from the DC area (Jessup MD I think is their home) did wonders packing my stuff. They came over, packed everything with hundreds of thousands of sheets of packing paper. The guys who did the packing and moving were pleasant and seemed like real decent f...

I witnessed something today that made me feel very sad for Canada. As I was walking home from my bus stop today, I noticed 3 of my neighbours standing by and talking to each other by the road. Nothing special right? Right. They happen to be folks who look like they came from the far east of Asia. Except, if I spoke to them on the phone or looked at their well maintained lawn and garden, I wouldn't know they were Asian. If I were to take a guess, I would say they are people like the average person here; they worked hard, squirrelled away money and bought themselves a place, paid their taxes and went on with life. A white Pontiac Grand Am was going by. It slowed down next to these people. The person in the front passenger seat threw something at them and then the car bolted out of there, turned right onto my street and disappeared. I wasn't sure what happened. I think those folks who got some kind of iced coffee drink on them were just plain stunned. I walked across my little st...

I fully intended to write about how awesome a time I had during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. I never did because I had too much fun during that time. If I were to be succinct, I would say that it was the best time I have ever had in Vancouver. EVER. The city buzzed with a veritable slew of happy (some drunk) people, running about, giving people high-fives, cheering on the athletes of all nations, talking about Canada's chances and generally having a great time.  Transportation worked. I was in downtown Vancouver nearly every day of the Olympics. I was able to get in and out in good time, within reason. I even drove down a few times and didn't run into major issues with traffic.   I went to a couple of curling games. I had an amazing time cheering the players and watching curling of all things with a huge crowd of people. I spent a lot of time in Robson Square watching the festivities there and hanging out with the crowds. I stood in many, many lines for hours to...

If you're eating or have any semblance of an appetite and want to keep it, stop reading. Or perhaps you are the sort that can handle it all. Anyway, the following story is a bit disgusting.  The last weekend was the Victoria Day long weekend when Canadians start doing fun summer things like going camping. Never mind that most people don't know that it celebrates the current Sovereign's birthday (and marks Queen Victoria's birthday)... Anyway, the rodeo was in town and along with 3 other friends, I decided to go see it. Or at least the Saloon portion of it. Which is to say that it is a large room (probably a gym or something), with a stage and lots of cheap, disgusting beer. Outside is a lot of carnival type food.  We proceeded to eat and drink while there... and some of us got a bit more tipsy than others. I had my bottle of water confiscated at the door to the Saloon because I suppose the folks who sell water inside the Saloon need to sell me a new bottle of water. A...

My legs hurt. My feet hurt. My back hurts. And I would do it again.  I finished running the second largest 10km race in the world, hosted in Vancouver. The Sun Run is probably the largest race type event in Vancouver, but probably not the most entertaining or the most hard core. I finished my race in 1 hour 03 minutes and 54 seconds. That's 6 minutes, 24 seconds a kilometre.  I placed 14739 (out of 51,419 people), 1657 in my age group (Males between 25 and 29).Technology is an amazing thing. My running, not so much. I really, really, really wanted to finish the race, injury free in under an hour. That was my goal. And I was about 4 minutes short. I am quite disappointed in that result to be honest... but I guess I can always try next year. Or I can sign up for the next race, dubbed the Underwear Affair , a race to raise money for research into stuff below the waist or something. Apparently, lots of folks in their undergarments go out and have a fun 10km race. Not being an ex...

A while back, I made myself a list of things to try and accomplish in the next little while. Well, let's see what I can cross off: Run the Sun Run (this Sunday) Buy a place Learn to ski (well sort of) Not bad. Well honestly, the race isn't until Sunday, the place isn't bought until I have paid for it in June... and I don't know how much I can really ski. But its a start. I am slightly healthier and fitter than I was when I wrote the list, so I suppose that is indeed progress!

Apparently, the correct quote from Field of Dreams is  If you build it, he will come. I haven't seen the film. Nor do I completely understand the context.  I work for a software company. We build software to make education better. Or at least that's the idea. I am back in school once more. It is a bit strange to be back in a classroom now. There are people there who are like 10 years younger than me. Its a bit weird listening to their conversations. Some things don't change. Video games are still the norm for the overweight young adult male. Except it is something called Call of Duty or some such thing. The platform used by the school I am attending is a rival platform to the one my employer builds and sells. We lost this contract a while back. This gives me a good opportunity to get to know this competing system and learn from it. Except... I don't see much use of it in there. The guy teaching my class has the simplest of things for the course. He has like 6 links in...

If you get an email from me asking to wire me money to get an even larger sum out of some Nigerian prince's bank account.... that's probably a scam. But... I am in a large amount of debt. I did something recently. I wouldn't call it silly. I wouldn't call it smart exactly either. Or at least, if I could go back in time and change decisions made in the past, I would have done so. So what have I done? Well, I went and put an offer on a small place. And the sellers accepted. And now, the bank and I own a little place. Well, mostly, the bank owns it. I have to pay them off, a little at a time for a very long time. This is all very exciting for me. And it was quite stressful while the whole process played out. I can't believe I managed to buy a place. But when I look at what I have paid for a few sq.ft of apartment, it does make me feel a bit sad. But such is the reality of the real estate market in Vancouver. It seems to have a mind of its own, forgetting that the res...

I just got off the phone with a friend who is at the airport who is making a journey to Brazil to propose to the woman he loves. Or something like that. I am very happy for him. It does feel a bit sad though, to lose a friend as it were. Yeah, I know, I am not really losing anyone, they are still the same old farts as they were before... its just that they need to ask for permission before they step outside their thresholds. Or something like that. Apparently, there is a baby on the way for another one of them, another one is getting married in a couple of months and so on. Houses are being bought, baby rooms are being decorated, talk has moved from cars and drunken weekends to ultrasounds and what school district is a good place to buy a place. And I am happy for them all. Or something like that. I knew this day was coming. I knew it wouldn't be pleasant. But the part that I am most saddened about is that it is happening so soon. Why couldn't all this happen in a few more year...

I've been reading more and more of late on Physics and Physicists and the sorts of work conducted in the recent past. I had come across this Airtel ad a while back which goes into some detail about the many people who have made India what it is and it got me thinking... what will be the names they use in the future? The ad is a bit off... for example, there were many others (like Tesla and Marconi) working on radio communication during the same time as Bose... It is truly amazing to me to look into the fascinating contribution of physicists from India. People such as Jagdish Chandra Bose and his namesake Satyendra Nath Bose (after whom the quantum physics particle boson is named) have made incredible contributions to our understanding of our world. But they are just some of the great names that come from the sub-continent. Still others like Ramanujan show a fascinating side of humanity; the need to learn, the need to be curious. I am a big fan of the advertising agency that does Ai...

I've been thinking a lot about why people do what they do. And the conclusion I have arrived at isn't one that surprised me nor do I think it will surprise many (or any if there are any) of the readers out there. People are almost always motivated by self-interest. While that probably isn't a revelation of any sort, I wonder why so many people couch it as some sort of altruistic thing. There have been many recent narcissistic activities I have seen including the minister in the Indian state of UP who has decided a police force is in order to protect statues of herself. Statues that apparently cost $1 billion. I don't know about the math, but this cult-ish activity of erecting statues of oneself usually ends up with someone else coming in and taking down the statues by force. Remember Saddam Hussein's statue? So, why do I care about all this? I guess I don't really. I feel bad for the tax payers of UP for their money being spent on such silly activities, though ...

I think I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard someone say that Stephen Harper was a Professional Rogue seeing as he prorogued parliament. While the sentiment expressed by that person is quite in line with what a lot of Canadians are expressing, I can't help but wonder where these people crawled out from. Canadian politics for the most part is a boring spectator sport. Our parliamentarians spend more time grandstanding and blaming each other for some silly thing than they do anything interesting. And I like it that way. I am very happy that I live in a country where the biggest parliamentary problem today is the fact that the Prime Minister pulled a cheeky move and shut it down until March. I don't mean to suggest that I am in favour of what Mr. Harper pulled out of the hat; quite frankly, I am appalled at what he has done. My outrage has more to do with the way these elected people treat our institutions and the lack of realistic work being done by these people. Thes...

I know I say this enough, but it is worth repeating. I am *so* glad that I am back in Vancouver once more. The past few years, I was quite bored on days like New Year's Eve. Most of the people I knew were not around. This time around though, I got to hang out with my friends here and keep the neighbours up till god knows how long. I got home after 5 and I got a text message at like 8 asking about whether I had seen a lost party animal... Days like this make me feel very thankful for the fact that I live here and have such awesome friends. Friends who open their homes (and I suppose hearts) to us so that we can have an awesome time. I spent a lot of time last night talking about what we as people from different parts of the world are doing in Vancouver. My drunk friends were listening to songs from their homeland (I think we all owe a thank you to youtube for helping us find obscure things we saw as kids on TV available once more), alternating from regular run of the mill pop stuff ...

As the year comes to an end, the various media folks out there are compiling lists of things that happened during the year and during the last decade. I guess we all started 2000 wondering about this scary Y2K thing. I remember people saying that the lights would go out and the VCRs would awaken and try and kill us all... But that seems like such a long ago. I remember I had a cellphone then. But not even in my dreams did I think that there would be a phone that plays music and videos and allow for emails to fly through the air and what not. A decade can make such a huge difference! One of the political countdowns had a picture of Arafat and Bill Clinton hanging out with Ehud Barak trying to make peace before the second intifada started. Seems like such heady times then. Since then, Arafat made an exit (permanently), Clinton went his own way, some lunatic bastards got on some planes and flew into buildings, George Bush started all sorts of wars and even he's disappeared from the fa...

As I sit here on Boxing Day , I thought I would look back at 2009. My main inspiration for such a compilation comes from an entry of a similar vein from someone I have learned a lot from... so why not apply what we learn eh? So, what happened in 2009? A lot of things happened. For much of the early year, I was, like many around the world (and most in the DC area and the United States) engrossed in the impending swearing in of the first non-White President of the United States. If I could use but one word to describe it, that word would be spectacular. I don't think I have ever been in a crowd that large and I will certainly not forget the sense of happiness and pride those people had. I know a lot of democracies cry about the disconnect between the voters and their government and the level of apathy that takes over the populace but the time leading up to the inauguration was indeed marked by the opposite. February and March seemed to creep by far too slowly. Most of it was filled...

This year, I kept track of every hike I made up the Grouse Grind. I think I've blogged about the grind before: its a really good hike up a local mountain in Vancouver. People call it nature's stair master and they're not kidding. My best time ever up the mountain was about 55 minutes. Sadly, I was nowhere near that time for this (shortened) season. Here's what my hike times looked like for 2009: The graph is courtesy of Google spreadsheets (part of Google docs). I wish the graph itself was more than just an image, I wish it was dynamic. I am sure Google will make that happen one day. In other news, I headed out skiing for the very fist time (ever) to Cypress Mountain (close to Grouse Mountain) today in the pouring rain. I have to say skiing is quite a bit different than snowboarding. The mountain was not busy on account of the weather and we had to drive through some wicked fog to get to the parking lot. I like that you can park the car, walk a bit and get on the chair...

I have been a (relatively) silent spectator to the various goings on of these much hyped climate talks in Copenhagen recently. But now that the circus is over, I thought I would jot down my thoughts on the issues raised there. There are still sceptics in this world who question whether climate change exists and whether it is a man-made phenomenon or something that occurs naturally. There are also people out there that question whether one Charles Darwin was high on some really good crack when he came up with the idea of evolution. But we will leave Mr. Darwin out of this one. Let me say that I believe that climate change is happening and that it is man-made. That is not to say that I completely understand the science behind it all, but I can say that I trust the people who say that change exists and I believe they are credible and worth listening to. In case you're wondering what I am not sure about, or interested in finding out about, I am curious to know how they measure green h...