Ubuntu for teh win

A story from PEI. *Note: This story will contain references to my geekiness. Parents with young children may be advised to turn their faces away.
So we were at the Visitor Information Centre in Charlottetown and they had some computers set up with free access to the internet. I went over to check my email. Of the 3 computers 2 appeared to be running Windows XP, but the third looked different. I took a closer look and too my glee I saw it was running Ubuntu! (Ubuntu is a distro of linux, and quite a good one at that). So I checked my email and everything worked great and I felt quite pleased with the world. But then came the best part. My brother was using one of the other computers and was trying to access Facebook. It wasn't working. I went to the Facebook website on the ubuntu computer and it worked great! Victorious!
Later on I saw a couple of older ladies trying to use the ubuntu computer and seeming to have trouble. I thought they should have a good experience with it so I came over to see if I could assist them. They told me they were trying to get to an address. Unfortunately they had open a text editing program (not so useful for internet access.) I started firefox and showed them where they could enter the address. However the ladies didn't seem to be quite up on the whole internet thing as one entered her email address into the browser bar. Since it was hotmail I helped out by taking them to the hotmail website and letting them know they could put the username and password in and then get their mail. Unfortunately they had no idea what the password was. Oh well. 1 out of 2 is pretty good.

PEI is over

We are back from our trip to PEI. All in all it was quite enjoyable. If you're out of the loop we went out there for my youngest brother's wedding. It was the first time Evie had been on a plane and I was pretty nervous about how the flight would go. I am happy to report that she travelled very well. We flew through Toronto and the only time she was upset was in the last 10 minutes. 10 minutes out of 6 hours is pretty good. WestJet was a good experience. The TVs in the back of the chairs was nice since Evie gets pretty mesmerized by Treehouse.
We stayed at a cottage with my brother and his wife and child. The girls are 2 months apart in age so they seemed to really enjoy playing together. They sort of fight a little, taking each others toys and using each other to stand up, but that was just cuteness. They were also pretty much on the same schedule as far as eating and sleeping went so we were able to do most things together.
We toured most of the island. Sunday we didn't have our rental car yet but we all piled into my brothers car and drove 20 mins to Dalvay by the Sea, a Victorian-style hotel that is known as the White Sands Hotel in the Anne of Green Gables movie. We toured a little and went to the beach there and were joined by Damon and Sarah and Mom and Dad and Kelsey. The girls really enjoyed the beach. They crawled around in the waves and tried to eat the sand.
Monday we headed out to Cavendish and visited the Green Gables house. The scenery around there was beautiful, though it was much more touristy than the area we were staying. But you have to go there when you're in PEI.
Tuesday Mom and Dad and Kelsey came over to babysit while the four of us went back to Dalvay for a lunch. It was an excellent meal. Then we all headed out to East Point, the easternmost point of the island. It was pretty cool seeing the point where the gulf of st lawrence meets the northumberland strait. You can actually see a line in the water. We stopped at Basin Head beach on the way back and were joined by Damon and Sarah. There we experienced the 'Singing Sand', which was actually just sand that squeaked when we walked on it.
Wednesday we went to Charlottetown. We had brunch at a place called Cora's. It was quite good, with heapings of fresh fruit with the breakfast meals, except the Evie decided to throw a fit which made it a little stressful. We headed to the Visitor Information Center which had a museum in it called Founder's Hall. It was an excellent museum on Canadian Confederation. We learned a lot that we never picked up in school. I highly recommend it. We then went down to the Province House which holds PEI's legislature and the room where the confederation delegates met. We also visited St. Dunstan's Basilica which I think is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. The outside was sandstone and the inside was immaculate with soaring ceilings and stained glass. It totally gave a sense of awe standing inside. That evening Kris and my sister-in-law went to Anne the musical while my brother and I took the girls home to bed. Then we saved the world from robot aliens. Okay, we played video games.
Thursday we went back to Cavendish to go to Avonlea Village. Mom and Dad and Kelsey and Corey came too. Then we headed off to West point where we spent some more time at a beach and ate dinner at a lighthouse.
Friday we went to Charlottetown again for the wedding rehersal dinner (which was quite good) and we were able to tour some historic houses, Beaconsfield and Government House. Rehersal was also that night and we had all the Ramer family that was on the island over to our cottage for a BBQ.
Saturday was the wedding which went off without a hitch. Unfortunately we forgot our camera at the hotel so didn't have many pictures. The reception included a last-minute Ramer skit which seemed much more last minute and thrown together than most. But I think it was enjoyed anyway. So now all the brothers are married. That leaves Kelsey, but she doesn't need to get married any time soon. :)
Sunday we flew back in the evening so we had time to take a boat tour of the Charlottetown Harbour. As an amazing concidence at the airport I met a friend I hadn't seen in at least a year.
So on the downside we had borrowed Kris's Mom's camera to try it out, but the whole week was pretty much over before I found out that it was set to low resolution mode. 400+ pictures at 800x600. Booooo! Still Evie and her cousin were pretty cute.

Whaaaaaa??????

Sorry for those of you that follow this blog and aren't interested in hockey.
Bertuzzi is now a Flame?? That is crazy. I feel torn. On the one hand I haven't really been a fan of Bert since his sucker-punch incident. But he has been a skilled player and could work well with Iginla. His play has struggled lately but maybe played with an all-star is what he needs to get back on form. It's a 1-year deal for $2 million so if he has a standout year this could be a steal. Still, it could be hard to cheer for him.

I survived! So far...

Another bachelor week almost over. I even managed to cook every night, rather than order pizza. Of course I use the term "cook" rather loosely. I used to be fine with my cooking when I was in university, but now I have gotten used to good cooking again so mine is less appreciated.
Just over 1 week until we fly out to PEI. I must say I am getting a little bit nervous about the flight with Evie. I gotten a bunch of Dora and Sesame Street podcasts to keep her entertained, but 7 hours in the air is a long time. I will be glad when we are finally there.

Tagged

It appears I have been tagged. I suppose I will participate. It kind of feels like one of those chain email forwards, but Lindsay's items made me laugh so I feel it is now my duty to continue. Here's the deal:

The idea is to share six unimportant things about myself and then to tag six other people to do the same thing.

Here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry

1. I become obsessed with small things to the point of nerdiness. For example, the License Plate Game. I'm still going strong. Everyone else I know has given up.
2. I have spent the last 27 1/2 years getting flabby and lazy. Starting tomorrow, exercise every morning! (or maybe the next day).
3. I have a very hard time sleeping Saturday nights.
4. I hate the taste of coffee.
5. My feet get very hot at night. See number 3.
   
6. If you ask me to, I'll probably set up your home computer/network. I just like doing it.
   

Okay, I shall tag Lakin, Alex, September, Kris, Nate, and Mal (you don't have a blog but I think you should. You could post in the comments if you'd like).

a title

This was a pretty good week. I was able to hang out and watch the Stanley Cup final games with a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. Having Evie has kept us pretty busy. So it was really great to hang out and watch hockey and talk.
So Detroit wins the cup again. They were the better team. It is good to see the Cup back in a real hockey city, not Tamba Bay or Anaheim. I also think that losing will be good for the Penguins in the long run. I think they need to learn how to play together as a team better and not just rely on their skill to bail them out. Next year they will probably be much stronger.
Well this weekend is the Rodeo weekend in Brooks. That means the annual rollerblade/pancake breakfast/parade. It should be a busy weekend.
Here's my cutie:
Here's a few more pics:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/messages/viewthumb/8390483290-1212726870-20591/parm/page/1/15/

loss of weekend

So there was a big deadline at work so I was obliged to work late friday night and on saturday. Kris went out to Duchess friday for the week so I am spending a bachelor week. On the plus side I was able to go to the driving range today. On the minus side I am carless so I had to walk. Fortunately it wasn't too far away so it only took about 20 mins.
There's probably lots else I could talk about but I am not feeling overly writable. If anyone who reads this is going to Brooks next friday night I am hoping for a ride.

No writsey

Once again, my apologies for the lack of writing.
So the long weekend was fun. After a week of bachelorhood and late nights at work it was really great to relax. I got a ride home with my uncle the nabob. It is much more enjoyable to have someone to talk to on the drive, rather than staring blankly at the road. Mostly we just relaxed outside while the kids played in the sprinkler to beat the sudden heat. We visited my brother one evening and Evie got to play with a certain cousin who steals her toys. ;) It was cute. Evie and I spent an afternoon with my parents and she didn't even really cry. Yay! It's good to see her warming up.
So in other exciting news, I was mentioned on a podcast again! The may podcast from Zunior.com to be precise. He didn't say my full name, just my first, but I have the emails to prove that it was me he was talking about! At a podcast mention rate of once per year, I may yet be a pod-star. Anyway, Zunior.com is an online music store. They sell most albums for only 8.88 and they are in mp3 or flac format (lossless so higher quality) which means no DRM! Yaaay! They have mostly Canadian Indie music which is pretty fantastic nowadays. Check 'em out. You could start with Feist or maybe Wintersleep, but there's much more. It's a good way to fill up that 160 GB ipod...
I'll add some new Evie pics soon.

What do you write

It seems I have fallen off the updating bandwagon. Last week Damon and Sarah stayed with us the evening before her flight back to PEI. It was nice to see them briefly. Hard to believe the wedding is less than 3 months away. We have our plane tickets booked finally. I did some playing with Google Maps and found it very useful for plotting out our destinations.
We were gonna head back to Duchess for the weekend, but most everyone in Kristin's family were sick and we wanted to avoid that. Hope your bachelor party went well Damon!
We ended up taking Evie to the Zoo. That was a fun time. Evie did pretty well, even if she was more interested in people-watching than animal watching. There's a brand new elephant building that for some reason has a pool with rays swimming in it. The highlight for Kris was me spilling water all over her. So we got ice cream.Also that morning we went to the CBC/Calgary Reads Used Book sale. It was pretty great. We got a large pile of books for Evie and some books for ourselves. I remember as a child Mom coming home with piles of books from a garage sale. I hope Evie loves to read too.

The week that was

This was a pretty crazy past week. It started out promising with the Flames winning to force a game 7, but later that night we got a message about Kristin's cousin. He had surgery over the weekend and seemed to be recovering okay when suddenly he slipped into a coma. The doctors had no idea what was going on and the situation was very serious. On Tuesday I was able to visit him in the hospital. It seemed so surreal to see him lying in the ICU and remembering the last time I saw him when he was running around playing. It puts things like hockey into perspective when you are dealing with life and death.
Near the end of the week the doctors figured out what happened and were able to bring him out of the coma. He is pretty weak, but was able to finally get out of bed and into a wheelchair. He had a lot of people praying for him and I believe he is being healed.
Kris took Evie out to visit friends a couple of times this week so I had some evenings off. It was good to have some time to sit down and figure out what would be happening in PEI this summer for Damons wedding. I booked plane tickets and a hotel so it is really happening. I spent all Saturday with Evie as Kris was out most of the day and evening. That was nice as I hadn't really seen much of her the previous few days.
Hopefully the coming week will be a little calmer.
Evie sure is cute when she's eating
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view/8390439858-1209336421-35894/

Snowed In!

Yesterday it snowed and melted and kept snowing and freezing and now the roads in Calgary are a mess. Apparently between 6 pm and 6 am last night there were over 200 accidents. Yikes! I'm glad I got home early. But now the question is, can we even leave our house?
Well, we did and we survived. On Saturday we went to Mal and Gin's for Kelsey's Birthday Extravaganza. Mom and Dad and Corey came too. It was an excellent evening. Sunday we went to the Farmer's Market for some baby food supplies. Tonight is game 6. I am nervous, yet also tired. Now that you are up to date you may resume your life. Here's a more interesting picture:

less unbelievable

Well....the series isn't over yet.

So Evie has started trying carrots now. She seemed pretty confused at first, but seems to have taken to them. Or so I'm told. I tend to be at work when Evie is eating. Stupid work. Today is her 6 month birthday! Also, Happy Birthday Kelsey! Friday is 6 month vaccinations. I get a tetanus booster shot. Hooray!?

UN-BE-LIEVABLE!

We had guests over so I didn't start watching the game until the first period was already over. You can imagine my dismay to have a first image of Kipper being pulled and the Flames down 3-0 in the first 5 minutes. I was not overly confident in their ability to come back, but they really proved me wrong. Some people might have said not to get too excited when they made it 3-2, but the way they were playing, I had to believe. ;) From the 2nd period on, it was a very exciting game to watch. I couldn't believe that Tanguay missed the open net in the final 20 seconds. He is so snakebitten.

Dealing with Conflict

Welcome to todays lesson, "How to Deal With Conflict". Step 1, don't do what Jeremy does. Thank You.
(That's Menno Simons).

Yes, I do not deal well with conflict. My solution is to avoid it at all costs and if it does happen, then bury it and pretend it didn't happen. Unfortunately I think this response can lead to more broken relationships than the initial conflict. I don't know if this was just my temperament or has something to do with growing up in a Mennonite church where non-violence is important. However I don't think they actually ever taught us to avoid conflict, I just somehow picked it up. Whenever I heard "Blessed be the Peacemakers." I always wanted that to apply to me. Unfortunately the way I tried to be a peacemaker was to avoid getting into any conflict in the first place. It's not so hard to make peace if nobody breaks it. So I ended up a conflict-avoider instead. I think peacemaking is a calling in my life, but I haven't found out how yet.
Anyway I think it is time to do what I can to make peace in the conflicts I've tried to bury.

Better now

Don't worry; yesterday was just one of those days. But I'm feeling much better now.
The playoffs are now officially under way. Hooray for the Flames on winning Game 1!

Some pictures

Do you ever feel like there are so many problems in the world that you are sick and tired of it?

Here's some pictures from Easter that I was supposed to post a long time ago.
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/view/8390475732-1207109406-40091/83904

Here I go again on my own

It was a fun Easter weekend. Very nice to get 4 days off. Although days off are less "off" now than they used to be, but that's just become normal. On Friday we attended the Duchess Good Friday service. It was really nice to see many people I hadn't seen in a long time. I also found out more people read my blog than I thought. I know you're out there!
Saturday my family went out to Dinosaur Park. I hadn't been there in several years. It's much the same, but it was cool being there with Evie. She came hiking with us in her snugglie and seemed to enjoy it. I'm glad she likes walking. We got some sweet video of Evie and Kate together that I will have to post. She also got to try out Kate's jolly jumper and seemed to enjoy it.
Sunday we went to church again. Whaaat?! That's right, we do Easter proper. ;) Then there were two family dinner's to attend. Through all this Evie was pretty good. She is really showing her shyness. When people start milling around after a service and she feels her space invaded she gets quite upset. She seems a little more comfortable around Kristin's family than mine. I'm not quite sure what it is. Mostly I think she just needs to get familiar with my family.
Sunday night I got a chance to play some hockey. I was pretty slow but that was expected as it was the first time out this season. It was just pickup hockey with little equipment so that helped. I was also using borrowed skates so I can blame them too. ;) I missed hockey this year. Hopefully next year I can play.
On Monday we finally got a chance to rest. I took Evie to visit Grandma Wipf in the afternoon. Evie was quite good for her and even consented to be held a little.
Kris decided she wanted to stay in Duchess for the week so I headed home alone. I listened to a very frustrating Flames game on the way. They blew a big chance to take first place. However, as I wrote this entry they came from behind to beat Vancouver! Yay! So they have first in the NW for the time being. I love this time of year. All the games are important and exciting. I've been quite impressed by the push the Oilers are making. I actually hope they do make the playoffs, only for the chance of possibly having a Flames-Oilers playoff series. It has been a long time since one of those happened. The Flames-Oilers game on Saturday should be a gooder. A must-watch, I am thinking.
Of course those who follow my license plate ticker will notice the most exciting thing of all. I am one plate away from 100! Oh boy!
Well, I should take advantage of my bachelorhood to sleep.

Into The Wild

I've only watched half but it looks like a really good movie.
Fortunately this week is a short week. We get Easter Monday off too. Four days off will be very nice. We'll be in the Duchess area so there should be lots of family time. We can even see Corey and Wendy for the first time since before Christmas. Yay!
I've been car-pooling to work the past two weeks which has been good. Plus Kris can use the car during the day.
Evie has really been enjoying her exersaucer. She plays in it quite often. We've been trying to read to her, but she is more interested in eating the book than reading. She can almost sit up on her own too.
I'm tired. Next post will be more entertaining. Maybe.

Coach Z, how come you don't blog no more?

I really should be blogging more. I always think of great things to say, and then don't have time to write them down until I forget them. Lets see...
Oh yeah. Last week Evie and I went out in the evening to run some errands and do some grocery shopping. We went to the bank and she was fine. We went to the library and she barely complained. We went through all of superstore and she seemed quite content. I was thinking, "This is pretty easy." Then when we got to the checkout Evie decided to throw a fit. She wouldn't calm down until I took her out of her car seat and held her. I could feel the eyes of all the people in line on me as I held here with one arm and did self-checkout with the other. Once Evie was satisfied I had learned my lesson, she consented to go back into her seat. Her eyes said, "Just remember, I'm in charge."
I had to work on Sunday. Booo. But I got off a little early and we went to Kris' Dad's for supper. It was a great time as usual, with excellent food and excellent baby-minding services :)
So Kris and I have been chatting again about the possibility of working overseas for 6 months. I wonder what kind of opportunities are available? I'm thinking Engineers Without Borders or the UN or some kind of Aid agency. Or maybe just Ireland. They have lots of high-tech there. Possibilities...

Okay Okay

Well last week my plan was to have several updates, what with Kris being in Duchess and me having some free time. But Future Shop took back the laptop so I didn't spend much time on the internet. Again. You'd think I didn't like computers.
I was going to do some commentary on the Alberta Election. It was a little surprising that the PCs gained seats. I tend to fall left of centre on the spectrum, but I can't stand Kevin Taft, so I was somewhat glad they did poorly. Probably out of all the leaders Stelmach is the best choice. Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a political blog. Not that I have the greatest insight anyway.
It was strange how Evie appeared to have changed after only a week. Her hair is starting to turn quite blond. I'm afraid I have slipped down to her third favorite, after Kris' mom. How does she do that?
Here's Evie singing for her supper.