Monday, July 09, 2001
Virtual Vacation in the British Virgin Islands
Tracked down all of the files for the pre-Blogger Web log I did for our vacation aboard the S.Y. Audacious that happened just over a year ago. Still love to make the Painkiller drink I first learned about down there, though I can't get the fabled Pusser's Rum here in Ontario. With my present knowledge of PhotoShop, was able to enhance many of the darker pictures from their originals.
Tracked down all of the files for the pre-Blogger Web log I did for our vacation aboard the S.Y. Audacious that happened just over a year ago. Still love to make the Painkiller drink I first learned about down there, though I can't get the fabled Pusser's Rum here in Ontario. With my present knowledge of PhotoShop, was able to enhance many of the darker pictures from their originals.
Must head back there someday.... ;-)
No privacy in the privy Article
Turns out that one of the products that the company I work for makes has been mentioned in The Economist. The "ViewRinal" combines a small flat panel display situated at the top of a men's urinal, flashing streaming ads at the, uh, viewers. So far this has only be included in a few select places in the U.K., but what with the ads I continually, er, run into here at home, there's certainly a potential market for such devices here as well.
Turns out that one of the products that the company I work for makes has been mentioned in The Economist. The "ViewRinal" combines a small flat panel display situated at the top of a men's urinal, flashing streaming ads at the, uh, viewers. So far this has only be included in a few select places in the U.K., but what with the ads I continually, er, run into here at home, there's certainly a potential market for such devices here as well.
As of this morning, I've just been given managerial (if not, as yet, actual) control of their Web site, so will have to beef up its content.
TCB Baby!
There are some things you only find out when you are out on the road. Here's one of them: Collingwood's annual Elvis impersonator festival. Saw a mention of this on a poster while we stopped at a burger place on the way up to Eugenia on Friday. Proving once again that not only is truth a stranger than fiction, but sometimes they pretend not to know each other when they pass each other in the streets. ;-)
Spent the early morning in my home office trying to explain to the CEO what I've been up to lately. This includes a wholly new Web site (which will be something of a first for me, as current plans will make it largely Flash-based), completely overhauling a product-line set of pages on a different site, and developing an internal Web site for the firm -- and those are only the big tasks. The Web stats also seemed to show a precipitous drop in hits -- until we figured out that the move to a different ISP completely mucked them up (total hits ended up being up overall. *Whew!*). Was also trying to get things assembled so we could get out of the city quickly in order to head up to the Kriz' place up by Eugenia (which is just south-east of Collingwood). So, in between bouts of emails and various Web work, I tried to pack clothing, toiletries, etc things away as well. Busy, busy. During my lunchtime I was determined to run a bunch of errands. They were: 1. Go to the Post Office in order to continue to get our mail forwarded from our old address (which expires as of Monday). 2. Go the Library in order to pick up fresh night-time reading for Vanessa (very successful: came away with Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel - which I vaguely remember reading as a child, a Babar book, and a Madeline book I had never run across before. All of this helps ensure that ol' Dad doesn't have to read the same stuff all of the time. ;-) 3. Get some reading material for myself. Found the book I had looked for in vain on Chapters.ca and in The World's Biggest Bookstore: Casson's Libraries of the Ancient World. (I know, I'm weird). Ended up getting a membership at the bookshop while I was at it, in part to reduce the purchase price of this book. 4. Stock up on that liquid Chai tea that Starbuck has (yes, I am addicted to it now). 5. Get the necessary ingredients for a Painkiller, which was my favourite drink when we were in the British Virgin Islands. One of the things I needed for the last item on the list was a container to put the drink in. So I headed to the local Pier One. There I found exactly what I was looking for: a large, sealable Mason-like jar -- normally used for holding dried tomatoes apparently -- which was enough to hold 8-cups' worth of ingredients. The idea would be to donate the jar as part of our gift. While at he Pier One I spotted a tri-clock, just like the one I picked up at that Webmaster's conference in Pasadena last year, but housed in a wooden frame instead of a zinc one. It was 40% off, it was the last one they had, and I thought that if my boss didn't want it (have caught him looking covetously at mine), I'd use it in my home office. So I got that too. Then back home to finishing packing, and finish work. The plan was to leave at 3:00pm, but with Vanessa still dead asleep at that time, and me doing last-minute stuff for work, we weren't in the car until about 3:45pm or so. I had also developed a mind-splitting headache by this time. The traffic heading out of the city had already started, and it was almost 5:00pm before we had made it out the eastern-most portion of the city. On the way, I couldn't help admiring how our Land Rover's V8 engine easily pushed us past other cars as we sped along in the passing lanes while climbing uphill. Love the purr of that engine as it makes its dearth of power known. Like father, like son: my father similarly had two old boats-of-car driven by massive V8's: a black Galaxie 5000 and later, a white Ford of early 70's vintage. Loved riding in the bouncy back seat of that Galaxie as a kid. And it was funny that just as I was thinking of that old car, along comes a baby blue convertible version of that same car (or something very similar), driving by in the other lane. Sweet.
There are some things you only find out when you are out on the road. Here's one of them: Collingwood's annual Elvis impersonator festival. Saw a mention of this on a poster while we stopped at a burger place on the way up to Eugenia on Friday. Proving once again that not only is truth a stranger than fiction, but sometimes they pretend not to know each other when they pass each other in the streets. ;-)
Friday, July 6 2001
Heading Up to the Kriz'Spent the early morning in my home office trying to explain to the CEO what I've been up to lately. This includes a wholly new Web site (which will be something of a first for me, as current plans will make it largely Flash-based), completely overhauling a product-line set of pages on a different site, and developing an internal Web site for the firm -- and those are only the big tasks. The Web stats also seemed to show a precipitous drop in hits -- until we figured out that the move to a different ISP completely mucked them up (total hits ended up being up overall. *Whew!*). Was also trying to get things assembled so we could get out of the city quickly in order to head up to the Kriz' place up by Eugenia (which is just south-east of Collingwood). So, in between bouts of emails and various Web work, I tried to pack clothing, toiletries, etc things away as well. Busy, busy. During my lunchtime I was determined to run a bunch of errands. They were: 1. Go to the Post Office in order to continue to get our mail forwarded from our old address (which expires as of Monday). 2. Go the Library in order to pick up fresh night-time reading for Vanessa (very successful: came away with Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel - which I vaguely remember reading as a child, a Babar book, and a Madeline book I had never run across before. All of this helps ensure that ol' Dad doesn't have to read the same stuff all of the time. ;-) 3. Get some reading material for myself. Found the book I had looked for in vain on Chapters.ca and in The World's Biggest Bookstore: Casson's Libraries of the Ancient World. (I know, I'm weird). Ended up getting a membership at the bookshop while I was at it, in part to reduce the purchase price of this book. 4. Stock up on that liquid Chai tea that Starbuck has (yes, I am addicted to it now). 5. Get the necessary ingredients for a Painkiller, which was my favourite drink when we were in the British Virgin Islands. One of the things I needed for the last item on the list was a container to put the drink in. So I headed to the local Pier One. There I found exactly what I was looking for: a large, sealable Mason-like jar -- normally used for holding dried tomatoes apparently -- which was enough to hold 8-cups' worth of ingredients. The idea would be to donate the jar as part of our gift. While at he Pier One I spotted a tri-clock, just like the one I picked up at that Webmaster's conference in Pasadena last year, but housed in a wooden frame instead of a zinc one. It was 40% off, it was the last one they had, and I thought that if my boss didn't want it (have caught him looking covetously at mine), I'd use it in my home office. So I got that too. Then back home to finishing packing, and finish work. The plan was to leave at 3:00pm, but with Vanessa still dead asleep at that time, and me doing last-minute stuff for work, we weren't in the car until about 3:45pm or so. I had also developed a mind-splitting headache by this time. The traffic heading out of the city had already started, and it was almost 5:00pm before we had made it out the eastern-most portion of the city. On the way, I couldn't help admiring how our Land Rover's V8 engine easily pushed us past other cars as we sped along in the passing lanes while climbing uphill. Love the purr of that engine as it makes its dearth of power known. Like father, like son: my father similarly had two old boats-of-car driven by massive V8's: a black Galaxie 5000 and later, a white Ford of early 70's vintage. Loved riding in the bouncy back seat of that Galaxie as a kid. And it was funny that just as I was thinking of that old car, along comes a baby blue convertible version of that same car (or something very similar), driving by in the other lane. Sweet.
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