I had quite the journey trying to get back to Regina on Wednesday. Chicago got its first taste of snow (slush) that pretty much shut down travel in the area. My flight was scheduled to take off at 5pm, then 6pm, then 7pm, and then it was finally cancelled. I had to hop on the subway for an hour and a half just to get from O'Hare to Midway to catch a flight to Minneapolis, where I was stuck for the night. To top it all off, when I got back to Regina the next morning they lost one of my bags!
Nick picked me up from the airport close to noon and after a brief stop at my place to pick up some clothes we headed to Maple Creek. We stopped off in Swift Current for a bit, where I manged to pick up the new U2 album (the longest I have waited to buy one in a long time!). We arrived too late to hunt but after an awesome supper prepared by my grandparents we went over to my uncle's to butcher some hogs for the deer sausage we'll be making at Christmas time.
The next morning me, Nick, my dad, and Brandon got up early and headed west of town by Fort Walsh to see if we could find some elk. We toured around with a local farmer and his merry men in vehicle and on foot, but didn't see anything, even though a herd was known to frequent the area in the summer. After we bid them adieu, the four of us went closer to the Fort to see what we could see. Me and Brandon trudged up and down the hills across the north boundary of the Fort but didn't see anything except a huge moose. In the end, not only did we not see any elk, but nary a footprint was to be seen! We then headed north of the #1 to try and get some mule deer (Brandon and Dad having already bagged their animals in the days prior). We did see a number of animals but never got a shot away in time so we went home empty-handed :(
That night we cut up Dad and Brandon's mule deer in my uncle's garage. We decided that if we went out hunting on the Saturday we would never have time to cut them up and get back to Regina on time so that was the end of our hunt. The next morning we cleaned up the cabin and then went back to Maple Creek. We helped Grandpa and Grandma carry fridges and things from the basement since they are getting it re-done. They even donated an old wooden stereo to me that Brandon took back to Regina for me in the back of his truck! Me and Nick hopped in his jeep and headed back to Regina. We stopped at the airport to pick up my lost luggage and made it home in time to meet Brandon and Dad at my place to get my stereo. I'm happy to report that it sounds very good :)
Saturday night was poker night at Brad's, and it was a good time. Me, Troy, Blair (and his dog Zero!), Brad, Tyler, and Jerrod played cards, pool, and cranked the tunes until the wee hours. Unfortunately, as a result of the night's events I will have to buy Brad some new pool cues and maybe a new garage for Christmas!
On Sunday I wasted the day away. That night I went to my parents' house for supper and got a haircut. I got all my work paperwork done at the office and then sent off some wedding announcements in the mail. Pretty standard "haven't been home for a while"-fare as of late!
On Monday my flight was delayed getting into Chicago, but only by an hour so it wasn't as bad as before. I brought my winter jacket this time but haven't had a chance to put it to use just yet, although it's supposed to snow a few inches tomorrow. This weekend I am heading to Indianapolis to visit with Mike who will be there on holidays visiting his brother. It's only a three hour drive so that decision was a no-brainer. It looks like I am going to be back in Saskatchewan a lot this month, as I will be back in town for the weekends of the 10th and 17th for work Christmas parties and the like. I will also be home on the night of the 23rd for Christmas holidays until I head back to Chicago on Jan 3rd. December is usually a good month like that :)
Not much new to report other than work is going well in Chicago and that I hate my hotel, but since it's the cheapest and the closest I'm just going to have to suck it up and deal with it.
Last weekend I went to Mexico and had yet another great, albeit short, weekend visiting Sofi. On Saturday we went to a family gathering for her Grandma's birthday and it was a good time. That night we caught Swordfish on the TV and I have to report that it wasn't good. The elements of a good movie were there, like parts of a great action movie and good actors, but the bottom line is that the movie had no idea what its subject matter was all about. Maybe other people wouldn't notice, but the writers had no clue about the Internet or computers, and the entire plot revolved around them! Not a recipe for a quality movie! It was too bad because with a little refactoring it might have been entertaining. The company was great so at least the experience was a good one! The weekend as a whole was pretty much fantastic, and I'm hoping to make it back there at least once more before the end of the year, but we'll see.
I'm heading to the airport later today to catch a flight back to Regina for the American Thanksgiving holiday. Tomorrow morning Nick is picking me up and we're heading back to Maple Creek for a few days of elk and mule deer hunting. I'm going to be back in Regina on Sunday just in time to fly back to Chicago Monday morning!
If an item in your XML feed is a link to your website article or blog entry, I don't read it - it's that simple.
I don't know about anyone else, but there are lots of times when I read the contents of my RSS aggregator offline. My favourite thing to do when I'm on the plane is catching up on what's happening out there in Java and Internet land that I simply haven't had time to check out during the week. It's a great way to catch up and take advantage of some downtime. The problem is that so many posts from JavaBlogs and others are simply titles with a link to the actual entry, which means I can't read them - which means I don't read them!
I'm new to RSS-aggregator-land, but since I have a Windows XP laptop that I am mandated to use, the best RSS reader for me that I’ve found so far is SharpReader, so that's what I've been using. It serves my purposes okay, especially for the price. I don't know if there are any RSS aggregators out there that will follow all the links there and download them for offline reading, so maybe it's just the client I'm using. With that being said, forget about the client side of things for a moment - just having a "headlines" XML feed makes no sense when folks are terrible at coming up with headlines. For a newspaper, sure, you can usually get the gist of it from the headline, but for blogs "my thoughts on the economy" usually doesn’t cut it. I don't have a problem with summaries - I can at least understand where you're going with it and mark it for later online viewing (or like many you've got revenue models to meet and need folks to see your advertisements), but I just don't have time to do that with the millions of web sites out there that don't include any content in their feeds.
Wil Wheaton has seen the light, so why haven't you?
Ding, dong, the witch is dead!
Dear Mississauga-Erindale constituents:
What the fuck were you thinking?
Sincerely,
Me
P.S. - I don't know what pisses me off more, her or the fact that I will now have her wretched face on my website for all eternity!
As usual, the most insightful political commentary of this past election season (aside from Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire) was provided by South Park's season premiere - check it out if you haven't already.
It's been two weeks since the end of the US elections, and I for one could not be happier, both in terms of the result and because it's finally fucking over! I have spent the bulk of the last year in the USA and I gotta tell you, there were times when I was so sick of the process I just wanted to cry.
It absolutely amazes me the time, effort, and energy spent not only by the politicians and their parties, but all of America in their entire political process. It's an absolute shame that they devote most of their time talking and pontificating about different sides of issues when all they have to do is wake up and realize they are all on the same side - conservative America. As an outsider living in the country, it is painfully obvious to me that there is very little distinction between the two major political parties other than their rhetoric. The Republicans espouse right-wing beliefs and platforms and act on them. The Democrats sometimes espouse liberal left-wing beliefs but always act conservatively. I heard a great quote from Robert Novak during a post-election scrum on CNN: “[America] is a conservative country, and the fact is that John Kerry, he wouldn't even call himself a liberal." It's time for people in and outside the USA to realize that.
There are reasons why America is united through their actions as a nation in conservativism, and it boils down to the unabashed belief in capitalism as not only an economic system, but as the guiding principle of American life. If you work hard, you'll be rewarded, or at least have a fighting chance to get ahead. If don't work hard, you won’t. Anybody who can't stand on their own two feet does not deserve to stand up. Why do people in the USA work longer than anyone else in the rest of the world and take fewer vacations? Because that's what Americans do - work in pursuit of the almighty dollar. The only critics of the free market system in the USA are those who live in the ivory towers of universities and Hollywood, where the cold, hard consequences of the real world no longer apply to them.
It's also time for "liberals" in the USA to realize that if they truly believe in progressive platforms and causes, that they are going to have to start electing politicians and forming parties that actually believe and act on those ideas. America is not a two party system, it's worse: it's a one party system. If they are going to get anywhere with their ideals, they are going to have to do something about that first.
However, there was a big upside to the election this time around, thanks to all of the idiot hippies and haters who got thoroughly crushed on Election Day. To me, it was amazing how many people HATED Bush and how organized and dedicated so very many people were to get him out of office. How he still could have won is beyond me - unless you consider that every time some jackass said "Bush is a fucking moron and so is anyone who doesn't realize that" those of us who would choose Bush over Kerry didn't take it as an attack on Bush, but as an attack on ourselves. That's the key point in this election that the media has completely glossed over. People don't like to be called stupid. They will listen to an alternative point of view, but not if they are told it repeatedly ad nauseum and it is prefaced with "you are stupid and he's why ..."! Those folks took it personally and showed up to the polls!
That was only part of the reason why it was funny to me. The most hilarity came from the fact that people didn't understand or realize how little difference there was between the two candidates in the first place. To see a girl on the news holding her "Kerry/Edwards" sign in the verge of tears before the election at how angry she was at George Bush was hilarious. Thinking of that lady working to elect John Kerry, the senator in Washington who took the most special-interest money of anybody over the past twenty years, because she just didn't know any better brought me to tears - tears of laughter. It wasn't just that lady, either - thousands of some of the smartest and most influential people on our planet were doing the same thing. It was all very funny to me because most of everything I read on the Internet and otherwise from the "left" of America spoke of two things after they lost: their rage and their hate. Sorry folks, don’t need no hateration! I wish they could all take a step back and think of the last political movement based on an ideology of hate ...
I've also been wrestling with personal demons throughout this process, and I think I have grown as a person. I used to have a GeorgeWBush.com election banner on my website, which I now would like to think was more of a knee-jerk reaction to all the haters who don't like the man. Lord knows I agree with a ton of his policies because I agree with the principles behind them, but I also disagree with a lot of the execution of those policies, to speak nothing of the things he's done or might do that I disagree with completely. I still stand behind my support for his re-election, because a choice between George W. Bush and John Kerry is really no choice at all. What I am beginning to learn (something exacerbated by being in a country constantly debating itself when everyone is really on the same side) is to personally stop using labels to describe my political beliefs. This right-wing/left-wing nonsense is all bullshit. Most folks want to improve the world, so I'd like to move beyond that and start thinking in terms of how to solve problems instead of cutting the "other guys" down. Enough of this Crossfire he said/she said reductio ad absurdum, we gotta move the discussion to a higher level. Even further beyond that, the best lesson I learned from the idiots supporting Kerry is that for us all to get ahead, we gotta lose the rage and start thinking positive. THE RANT that has become so commonplace in cyberspace is really moving past its life expectancy for me. With that being said, this all might prove to be difficult since this post alone proves I'm having trouble eating my own dog food! :)
Are you tired of pop-ups, viruses, and spyware infecting your computer, no matter what you try to do? I know I am not, because unlike 99% of folks using computers I know how to avoid it, even though I run Windows XP on my work laptop.
With that being said, today is the day I finally made the switch away from Internet Explorer completely by downloading and installing Firefox, the best browser on the market today. I have been running it for a while on my home Linux machine for a while, but I finally got around to putting it on my work laptop as well.
If you are looking for a way to make your computer infinitely more usable and you just don't have the smarts that I do, Firefox will get you up to speed fast!
Well, I'm back at work, which has been a lot easier lately since the big deadline is over and things have quieted down. It's still weird though, when leaving at 7PM feels like you are leaving early, but I can get used to that. Last week I didn't leave that early, though, because I got into the office late on Monday and had to leave the office early on Friday, because I was heading to Mexico!
My flight to Mexico was awesome, because I am now a Platinum AAdvantage member! My flight was on Mexicana but since it was code-shared with American I asked and received an upgrade to first class for free - which was even more awesome because I was the only one in first class :) Anyways, as you can tell, I love flying first class! If only I hadn't bought lunch beforehand :S The flight was a direct flight (!!!) from Chicago to Guadalajara, which rocked even more. It was a great start to a great weekend!
Sofi, her mom and her sister picked me up at the airport and we went to Guzman. We had tacos before calling in a night since it was already pretty late. On Saturday we went to Sofi’s friend Suzy’s son’s baptism, which was pretty fun. There was good food at the party later and being outside in sunny +20C weather in November is fun :)
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That night me and Sofi and her dad went to the movies to see The Manchurian Candidate, which was a good flick, although the ending confused me a little. I haven’t seen the original but I would very much like to now!
Sunday was the highlight of the weekend as me, Sofi, and her mom went into Guadalajara. We picked up Vanessa and went to a bullfight! Now, I was skeptical about what I was about to see, especially after reading fat idiot’s account of the process, but I got into it once I got a handle on the whole process. You can really get into it just like any other sporting event you might think of. Is it cruel? Is it torture? I think the answer is probably “yes", but on the other hand this might just be one of those situations that is hard to explain. Fighting in hockey, for example, is seen by many as brutal and barbaric, and trying to explain to those folks that it’s an essential part of the sport (ask Wayne Gretzky) and an art in and of itself is almost impossible. Bullfighting might seem cruel, but unlike most every other animal consumed by man, at least the bulls have a fighting chance!
Click here for more photos of the fight!
I flew back early this morning after staying overnight at the hotel airport. This time I didn’t get to fly first class but there was nobody beside me and on Maxicana they serve food to all classes of service so there was no difference! I also couldn’t begin to tell you how much I enjoy direct flights!
P.S. - Go Riders!
I'm back in Chicago early after a successful antelope hunt! Me, my dad, Brandon, and Nick hit the road early on Wednesday morning and made it to Maple Creek in time for lunch. Grandpa joined us as we made our way northwest of town. It didn't take us long before Dad and Brandon had bagged their first does. Nick and I thought that if they were going to be that plentiful and we had a week of hunting left, we were going to get ourselves some trophy bucs. That was not the case, however, and as the afternoon wore on we made the call to get some does and call it a day. We made it home after sundown to skin the animals in my uncle's garage and then head to the cabin to hit the sack. The next afternoon we went back into town and cut and packaged the meat. By Friday afternoon we were on our way home after a very short yet successful hunt! That's all for now until the end of November when we'll be back out that way to hunt some mule deer and elk!
The impromtu weekend off was a chance for me to relax. I watched The Punisher, which was a good flick although way too campy for my tastes in a lot of parts. I also checked out Shanghai Knights, which was a funny flick but in the end pretty forgettable.
Saturday night was the big annual Halloween party at Brad and Steff's, and as usual they went all out. There were tons of folks there and tons of great costumes. I recycled my hunting outfit as a costume saving myself both time and money! It was a great time as always. I especially loved Brad's new garage decorations! I got home just before 3am and I actually left early so that gives you an idea of the fun to be had that night!
The flight to Chicago was decent since because of the time change it left an hour later than usual. This time I got to fly through Minneapolis instead of Toronto so my time in the air was a lot less than normal. The segment from Minneapolis to Chicago had the most turbulence I have ever experienced but both flights were pretty empty so I'll take more room in exchange for a few bumps any day of the week!