Random Thoughts

I think I am a good wingman. Or something like that. To date, I have facilitated 3 or 4 people's ability to get laid. Seriously. I seem to be able to create the  atmosphere for my friends to get busy with other people. Sometimes, even without copious amounts of alcohol. Which makes me wonder. What am I getting in return?  At any rate, my plea/advice/request to them is as follows: Do not blame me for how well or poorly this turns out for you. I am only here for to facilitate; any mistakes, diseases, children are not my responsibility.  In at least a couple of cases these folks have been friends of mine. As in, a guy I know got busy with a girl I know (and they have no business knowing each other in any other way). When it comes to that, my plea/advice etc has been to not make me take sides when things go sour. For I know they will.  But this isn't about them. This is about me. What am I getting in return for facilitating these things? For saying all the things tha...

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...

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 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 ...

It has been a busy few weeks out here on the Wet coast of North America. November seems to be zooming along at a great pace. Our future King made an appearance in Vancouver, sparking all sorts of debate about the role of the monarchy in this Dominion and whether it will end with the demise of our Queen. The final phase of Olympics tickets went on sale in Vancouver. I didn't get any tickets. And it has been raining like crazy here. Apparently about 220mm worth of it. I also went and met up with some people whose story is quite a good one. Let's start with our Prince. As many of you hopefully know, Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy. In rough terms, that means that we are part of a Kingdom or realm... in this case, one headed by the House of Windsor. We have a monarch. We like to call it the Canadian Monarchy. The Canadian Crown. This is rather important. For example, when speaking of the Queen in the context of Canada, she is Queen Elizabeth II of Canada (and then Great Brita...

One of the things I missed terribly while I was out of Vancouver was the lacking in my life of interesting events that I actually enjoy. Not the type where someone tries to break into the house... I mean pleasant things. I've done some interesting things in the spur of the moment... and on Sunday, my friend and I decided to drive all the way across town to get a burger. Not an ordinary burger mind you, this is one good burger. Except I didn't get one. Because I had already eaten. Anyway, to Vera's we went. As is usual with most of my friends, we talk about a few staples. I think most guys talk pretty much about the same things. Women. Cars. Sports (if we can agree on what). Money maybe. We somehow ended up on the topic of women. We pulled into a petrol station and there in the next pump was this absolutely gorgeous woman filling petrol in her car and then wiping her windows down. There was something incredibly attractive about that. It helped that she was indeed very good ...

I love travelling and going on vacation. A couple of weekends ago, a few friends and I went up to New York City. I met up with more friends there. New York city is awesome. And getting there from DC is cheap, fast and easy. You hop onto a bus right by the office, spend four hours on it and viola you're in the middle of NYC. So that's what I did with a couple of friends. We headed up to New York on Friday morning. We took the Megabus double-decker (with glass roof!) bus there and got seats on the upper deck. The bus got us there on time and we decided to go check into our hotel. The hotel is right across from the UN building and once we had sorted that out, we did what most tourists do in NYC, wander around. We walked a lot that day. We ended up going to a comedy show on the upper east side in the evening and because my friends smoke, we ended up meeting one of the comics. He was quite the interesting guy. He wants to change the world with humour and his ideas. He seemed to know...

Now, this is a bit of a touchy subject for some. Before you ride roughshod , huff and puff yourself faint and tell me I am a terrible person for thinking this way, stop a minute. And then think. And remember this is my blog. I get to put down what I think here. My thoughts. So there. Feel free to express your opinion though. Just don't think any less of me... not that you don't already but whatever. So, my good buddy calls me today on skype. That's awesome in and of itself but, that's not what this post is about. We did the usual... what's the weather like, what did you do this weekend, and so on. My stories since I moved to DC have been very tame... no more stories about trips to the Emergency Room or giving rides to questionable people or hookers snorting powdery stuff in the car (that didn't happen to me... thank god... but it did happen to my friend). My stories are more along the lines of... I went to Giant or I went and watched a movie or something lik...

Sigh. I am back in DC with my vacation at an end. I can't believe that it is over already. Every day that I was in Vancouver, I had more fun than every month that I have been in DC. I know I was on vacation and so Vancouver has that tinge and all that, but really, I think there is more to it. No, I know there is more to it than just the fact that I am on vacation. Every time I return from Vancouver to DC, I have this sinking feeling. I hate this place. Not because it is particularly bad; no, it is more because I am away from Vancouver. I need to be home. Not sitting in DC thinking of home, looking over pictures, entertaining myself with the Firefox plugin PicLens, looking for pictures of Vancouver on flickr and google. Or maybe it is the music, that reminds me of Scotland... mind you the music was written by a Serbo-Croatian composer and sung by folks like The Chieftans. So why do I miss Vancouver so much? Most things that matter to me are in Vancouver. My friends are. I ran into ...

I posted a while back about how I have been to 2 weddings in like 10 or so years... well, I got invited to one in DC recently (though I wasn't around to go) and maybe another one next year! I must be growing old... friends are tying the knot. I IM'ed my friend and mentor and hero Chris who was stuck in Hong Kong heading home (he taught me a lot and is an inspiration) and his girlfriend apparently said yes. I wished him the best back then when he told me all that was going to happen. Anyway, I am invited to not one but two (well assuming he's serious) weddings next June! One Indian, One Canadian/Dutch/something else exotic. I can't wait to see him again. Hopefully, I'll run into him when I go back home in late June this year. Below is a picture of Chris and his fiancé which I took when I went home last March! It has been a while since I've been home. In other news, I am quite unhappy with my job and working at almost 4am... doing shit for people who don't ...

The last few days have been a bit different. I'm in Texas for one. I've been talking to some friends of mine... and life is interesting. One of them moved back to Vancouver recently from DC. Lucky her. She sounds more happy than anyone I know of. Another guy is out for work in Hartford, CT... and is apparently going to propose to his girlfriend in New York next week. And then head off to Thailand for work. He just came from Mexico city... where he was working insane hours. Another one hates his job and wants to move back to Vancouver for good. As for myself, I miss my family, I bounce between not hating my job too much to downright hating my job. And now my work place is so much different. Three of the people that made it more bearable are in various stages of buggering off: one's gone to a new job that he loves I think, the second one is moving on because he found a better opportunity in the company... the third one buggered off home to work from there. So, that leaves me...

Well, maybe it is the holidays. Maybe its the fact that I just had dinner alone. Maybe it is because I am watching Virtual Users abandon with glee and spiteful disregard for my cheering them on. Whatever the case is, I do remember lots. I thought I would list a bunch of things I'd rather be doing today. I'd like to walk in the rain in Vancouver. Yes, I know the few of you that read this page think I am crazy. But I kid you not. Try it out sometime. There is something remarkably refreshing, one would almost say a soul cleansing quality, to a walk in the rain in Vancouver. I think I've come up with more good ideas and made peace with more things walking in the rain all by myself than I have at any other venue. Granted, it isn't the easiest. But it is something that I do miss. And no amount of walking in the DC rain makes up for it. For one thing, rain is a rare thing here. Secondly, it pours like crazy when it does rain here. And I am not inspired by the rain here. No of...

I'll say it is somewhat of a strange title for a blog post, but I thought I would blog about the second wedding I have had the pleasure of attending since I moved to North America. Let me give some background by saying that the first wedding I went to was of my friend from UBC, Reza. He married a girl he met at UBC and the wedding took place, what feels like eons ago now. I believe it was on the 19th of June, 2004 that they got married. And, last I heard, they are still happily married. That was an interesting one; he's Persian, she's from Central America I believe, she's Catholic, he's Muslim. It isn't often that one gets invited to a wedding. At least that is my feel for it. I have a few friends that have been going to weddings every weekend or so for the past few months, but I think that is the exception rather than the norm... and I am sure they realise how lucky they are to be present at such an important event. My co-worker and friend Dave (and his then br...

So, the Friday before I left, I met up with a few of my friends. Ivan and Tamara were there, so was Tomo and Nikola as well as Diana. We met up at Pub Med around 6:30pm (I got there around 7pm). I had invited a few more people, but many of them were either too late or didn't make it. One person missing was Voja. Now, its not normal for Voja to miss out on going to a bar. And I doubt he would miss it especially because I was leaving early the next morning. He called me at some point that day saying that he had already made plans to go hiking with Len and couldn't change it. He said we could meet up later and go for a coffee or something. I was a bit surprised, but I guess plans were made, and he had to go through with them. I was just a bit surprised that Len was that much more important than saying goodbye to a good friend... Voja calls me after 10pm and tells me that he's sorry he couldn't make it out earlier. He had just come back from hiking the grind and having win...

So, what have I done since I got back? Lets see. I went for DS on Sunday last week. I ate all sorts of things that I haven't had in a while. I also met friends from work who I haven't seen. We've moved onto other things for about 10 months now, but it is always, always, always a pleasure to run into them. Perhaps it is strange to some to want to see people you work with outside of work, but perhaps this is a testament to how much we care for each other and how much we appreciate each other's company. Not all of the folks I usually socialise with while in Vancouver did make it to DS though... so I need to find another venue to meet up. Liz mentioned sushi and I think I'll go for that. After DS on Sunday, I went to Samurai to each Sushi. We got late to DS and so we didn't have our fill (well, really, we did, but the gluttons that we are..., we had to eat more things). Then we wandered around Robson (I bought a shirt for the wedding...), then went to the Cactus Clu...

I am now a member of facebook. Except, I didn't really want to join. So my name says Full Name... and I can't figure out how to change it. Oh well. Why is everyone and their dog on facebook? Is it any better than things like orkut? I've been on orkut for a while... and I got to say, its fine. Facebook looks pretty neat, it is quite picture centric, I guess that's what it was meant to be. I don't entirely get the point of it though, I mean, there are plenty of these sorts of sites, but lately, it looks like everyone is up with facebook. I got old co-workers asking about me, I got friends messaging me about it, heck, I even have one of my not so technical friends on facebook and enjoying it. I guess he has finally found something he can use effectively, kudos to them. I say this often enough at work... we need to write instructions so my mother can do the task at hand... I think facebook has created an interface easy enough for my friend to use, and that should be wh...

Since I am leaving for Washington DC, my dear friends got together with me, had a meal and wished me the very best for my future. They also asked me when I will be back next, seeing as I have family here, I don't think it will be too long before I come back again. I had intended to have the event at Joey's in Coquitlam. There were about a dozen or so of us, so I thought it best to make reservations and I called Joey's. They told me that they operate on a first-come basis. We decided to meet there around 7... and that place was packed. We took a while to figure out where to go and finally ended up going to the Earls on Lougheed Highway near Boundary. That place was packed too. We begged, pleaded, smiled etc to get a table for 13... and after much waiting and complaining... we got it. We had the fine plush chairs. Then they went hunting for a server. Allegedly, servers are hard things to find. Oh well. We found one. No one else believes me, but I am certain she has a moustach...

I watched Borat on Friday. I haven't laughed so much in recent memory.

The time is fast approaching for goodbyes. The first set of goodbyes at work has started. On the 29th of September, most of our development organisation in Vancouver closed shop and left. They did release a fairly major application update as well, with 'Rock Solid' as part of the title. We also lost our beloved manager to Amsterdam. You may recall his lame goodbye party from a couple of weeks back. And he forgot to play foosball with me like he promised. That rascal. I will miss these folks. They have been part of my work world for the past 2 years or so. I have learned a lot from them and have a lot of respect for them. I am sad to see them leave. But I guess all good things do have to come to an end. Au revoir folks. But before they left, in true fashion, we had a celebration. Well, the whole week was one big celebration. Waffles on Wednesday, a film on Thursday, beer every day etc. Its the geek equivalent of Woodstock. Now, beer is a rather interesting thing. I have inhe...