We've had the pleasure of entertaining company a few times in the last while. My mom came over for supper a few weekends ago, and Sofi cooked a fabulous supper for us. This past Saturday was my parents' 29th wedding anniversary, so we went to the Fireside Bistro (which was amazing, as usual). Afterwards my parents and all the gang came over to my place to watch the Riders kick some ass in their season opener. It was actually a pretty boring game since they won by so much, but it was great to visit with everybody since we haven't been hanging out with anyone too much lately.

A whole bunch of people at work got offered early retirement packages, so I've been attending a lot of gatherings to send them off. I had supper last Thursday catered by Memories, which was nice, and yesterday we went to New Yorx for lunch. After work we went to Earl's, which was good times even though I had to leave early to catch up on some homework.

Speaking of work, earlier I made references to potential job opportunities, and now that the smoke has cleared I can fill you in. I got a call out of the blue from a company in Calgary looking for a senior programmer/architect to join their firm, so I went through the motions with them. I was pretty excited about the opportunity but after pretty much bombing the technical interview I don't expect a call back from them. Based on their questions they were looking for a hardcore Java developer but that's just not me - I'm too "big picture" to waste my time memorizing APIs or care about writing hash functions. The experience did give me the impetus to talk with my manager at work about my salary, though, so I'm hopeful that things will pick up soon in that department to the tune of a big fat promotion/raise.

I also applied for the Chair opening at URSU, but I haven't heard anything from them and don't expect to. I gave up my position a year ago when I had to move to the States for work and I guess they don't want me back. My primarily goal was to put my name forward in case they couldn't find anybody, because when push comes to shove there is simply no one more qualified for that position than me, given my (now) long history with the organization and the incredible job flexibility my current employer provides me. I heard through the grapevine (hey, Regina is a small town, that should be Lesson #1 to anybody who likes to shoot their mouth off - I wish I had learned that lesson much earlier in life) that my two years of service there is considered by the recently-elected administration to be a period of time filled with bias, where my personal feelings interfered with my job on a regular basis. I have a pretty good idea who put that idea in their heads, but I digress.

The whole situation is actually pretty funny to me when you get past the hate, especially when you consider how far URSU has come since I was in office. When I started, our Chair was not only abusing his "power" (or, rather, the power he had created for himself) by trying to run the show, he had actually forged his contract and was stealing from the company. By the time I had left office and volunteered to Chair, I had learned from previous mistakes. I made it clear that I was an employee of the Board and made a point of not signing a contract. I had no interest in being there if I wasn't wanted, so I did away with the very notion of a contract. I understood that while I was an employee, I was an employee of a political organization and that means things can change with each new regime.

It's hilarious and sad at the same time to think that I tried to move the position as far away as possible from its former history of manipulation and deceit, and yet I am looked at by some as no better. I should have known better, because in the past I myself made the same mistakes. I am confident I said many hurtful things about Sean McEachern's administration(s) during my original URSU campaign, only to find out later that all the improvement initiatives that I wanted to see carried out were all things that he had tried but that had been lost under the sea of immature and unproductive student political rhetoric. I'm sure my unprovoked and uninformed orations are the reason why he pretends I'm not there when I see him at functions and I know it's the reason I can't get up the nerve to say more than hello even if I'm sitting across the table from him.

The bottom line is that I am human and like it or not I do have a "bias" in everything I do, so if it's their perception that I let it affect my job that's fine with me. I know it's just that, perception. Besides the obvious fact that I did not have any input at all into the direction of the organization beyond offering advice to the Board, the Board itself voted me as the best chairman ever! :)

Even though I left voluntarily, not being asked back still feels like I got thrown out with the trash after making a big contribution (like what has happened to others in that organization of late). While it hurts to think that anybody out there might think that my job performance was anything but fair and impartial, it hurts even more to see that some people still have to learn lessons the hard way that I have already learned (and am still learning). Watching the constant cycle of re-inventing the wheel and making the same mistakes over and over again is the most frustrating part of being involved in student politics for any length of time. I have no idea how Dale put up with that environment for so long, because in that respect I'm relieved to be no longer associated with the whole business. On the other hand, I do regret not being given the opportunity to impart some of my wisdom on the younger generation.

In other news, since we got back from our honeymoon, we've had a variety of things go wrong with the car. While everything has been fixed, we still have a bunch of recommended fluid changes, etc. to go through. By the time all is said and done, I will have spent more than $1500 on it in less than three months :(

This weekend we are leaving on Thursday night for the cabin and returning on Sunday sometime. Other than getting new tires on my car (add another $500 to my aforementioned car woes), I'm planning on taking it easy at the lake. Next weekend the forecast calls for camping!

I just drove by the Sevens Club today and noticed that "Hells Bells" (an AC/DC tribute band) is playing there this Friday. Me and Tyler saw them at the Owl many moons ago and had an amazing time. They are virtually identical to seeing AC/DC (the world's greatest band) live! I will be out of town so I will not be able to attend :( If you are in Regina on July 1 and don't go to see them play, you're pretty much stupid.

I took the website down last night for what I hoped was a three hour outage to upgrade everything on the server, but it turned into almost 24 hours because I am an idiot and have no idea what I am doing with computers or pretty much anything.

Watch this space if I get around to it for my guide to getting various things going on Fedora Core 4, tentatively titled "A big fucking waste of your time: Installing Apache, Java 5, and Tomcat 5 on Fedora Core 4".

As always, let me know if you notice anything weird with the site. If there's a problem, it's probably my fault.

I am going to be spending the better part of the near future upgrading my desktop and server machines at home to the latest and greatest version (4) of Fedora. I'm also going to be upgrading this website to the latest version of Pebble. Expect this site to go up and down over the weekend or whenever I actually get around to doing it.

Why am I installing Fedora? I might as well since I've used Red Hat software since version 5 or 6 or something and I'm used to it. It's also popular enough that I can find the software I need for it. The announcement of the creation of the Fedora Foundation is another check in the plus column. If you'd like to recommend some other distribution (like Ubuntu), feel free, but your time is running out!

I stopped using Windows a long time ago and I'm better off for it!

P.S. - Yes, I will buy a Mac the minute the price isn't double everything else for half the power and I stop getting the same functionality for less than the $150/year they charge for OS "upgrades".

I was so worried that I would have to stop listening to his music, so I am relieved. The man is (was?) simply brilliant. The King of Pop, indeed.

This past Wednesday afternoon, I had the honour of taking off work and sneaking my wife into the Centre of the Arts, where we witnessed the unthinkable - my buddy Blair graduating from university!

Me and Blair after his grad

The best part of the whole thing was not only the miracle of Blair's graduation, but how I organized a surprise dinner for him afterwards and he was none the wiser! We went to O'Hanlon's for pint after the ceremony and then his family casually led him down the street to Golf's, where he was joined by 18 of his closest family and friends. Though it took over 3 hours for some reason for them to finish serving us our meal, it was good eating and we had a great time. Congratulations, buddy, you deserve it!

Everyone at Golf's Steakhouse after Blair's grad

Last Thursday after work I drove around town with Mike and company picking up various things from him and Jenn's respective places to move them into their new pad. It didn't take very long and we had a big truck to help us move so it wasn't a big deal at all. It also helped that they didn't have anything too heavy!

Moving Mike and Jenn

Last Friday, Sofi and I went out with Sofi's friend Jessica and her husband Dennis to Mosaic. It was a long night before we shut it down just after midnight, but we managed to see the India, Francophone, Hungarian, Polish, Irish, Caribbean, and Scottish pavilions all in one night. The plain and simple fact is that multiculturalism just tastes good.

Dancers at the Hungarian Pavilion during Mosaic 2005

This weekend after many years I finally bought a new pair of glasses, which I hope I will be able to pick up in the near future. I also hope that I will be able to live in them, because for some reason the total came to $489. Oh well, at least I only do that once every five years or so :( I actually got quite a bit done this weekend, mainly cleaning around the house and in my car. Sofi and I caught a movie, the original Lethal Weapon, which is a classic. I had a condo meeting to attend, which was a fun visit with the neighbours. I also spent time brushing up my resume and mailing it out to a few folks. I have some job opportunities on the horizon but I am not going to elaborate just now on any of that - stay tuned.

Another thing that Sofi and I did this weekend was head to my parents' house to pick up their tent and sleeping bag, because we're going on a little trip this weekend. By little, I mean a 16-hour drive (one-way) to the World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa. We are going there because my obsession with bacon has obviously gone way too far! Just kidding (well, not really, bacon is the perfect food) - we are meeting up with Sofi's family, who will be in town for the event. It's a long drive but when your family lives a day's plane ride away, you gotta take advantage of these opportunities! We are leaving Wednesday afternoon and will hopefully be back in Regina in time for slo-pitch on Monday night. Whatever happens, it promises to be interesting!