Restraint

I see you.

November 19, 2009 – 7:38 pm

Is there any place as universally disliked as a hospital? Sure, no one loves a dentist’s office, but the pathos of an intensive care waiting room can’t be compared to anything else.

The last time I was in an ICU, I wasn’t visiting. I woke up with no idea where I was, or how I had gotten there. Now, I can’t help but feel helpless when I hear the machines and smell disinfectant. I was not prepared for how shaken the visit left me.

…

Back in the real world, I’m slowly getting decisions made for the next iteration of my work’s website. Our daily traffic numbers are six digits long, so I’m taking my time with these.

  • Which microformats do we want to markup our existing content with? hCard is a gimme, but what about hAtom for press releases? Do we want hCalendar for the schedule of events, or even hResume for biography pages? (And how much work is it going to be to microformat-enable fifteen years worth of content?)
  • Frameworks! We’re happily invested with jQuery as our JS framework of choice, but do we want or need a framework for CSS development? Typography and print? Wordpress theme development? Maybe even a fluid grid system? For my last project (which launches today, in fact) I used Tripoli, Carrington, and 960 — and while Carrington was amazing (and 960 was pretty good), I’m concerned by the lack of development on Tripoli. The typography is great, but I hate using dead projects. Maybe I should fork it.
  • Do I care if our site validates? CSS 2.1, or should I say fuck it and jump right to 3.0? (Seriously, CSS 2.1 is for suckers.)

I really love nerdy problems.

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Who can tell us how?

February 13, 2009 – 7:26 pm

+ I (finally) have an easy-to-access turntable set up in my house.
+ I (finally) am listening to Jesu on vinyl.
- I bought a Behringer preamp and now I pick up Chinese radio stations.
- I don’t speak Chinese.
+ My work will be sending me to several months of paid full-time French school.
± English has been failing me quite a bit recently.
- I haven’t been writing very much at all.
- I’m realizing that while working hard to keep calm and still over the past year or three, I’ve also been quieting a lot of anxiety and negativity that has been waiting for an exit.
- I do not sleep enough.
- I do not tidy enough.
- I am stressed about money.
+ I’m slowly correcting a year-long drift in my job responsibilities, moving it out of web development and back into web communications.
- However, transitioning between the two means I have the responsibilities of both but with the same amount of hours in a day.
+ I am giving a presentation at PodCamp in Toronto next weekend.
+ It will be awesome.
+ I make great websites.
+ Also flyers.
+ I think I’ve figured out the packaging for the Ad·ver·sary remix album.
- I haven’t figured out the name of it yet. Or the tracklist. Or who’s mastering it.
+ The remixes are fucking great.
+ I am still listening to Jesu on vinyl.

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845

November 29, 2007 – 1:46 am

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BEAUTIFUL MONEY

August 24, 2007 – 12:44 pm

Today’s photo requires little explanation:

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Bonjour!

July 13, 2007 – 10:46 am

I’m off to Montreal this afternoon, to spend a weekend visiting friends and family.

Today’s Photo – The Bank of Canada atrium:

Or, as I like to call it, The Death Star:

The photo doesn’t do the sheer volume of the space justice; there are seven more stories before you hit the ground. On the left hand side is a walkway connecting the West Block and East Block, built on the roof of the old concrete Bank of Canada building, which is now mostly enclosed by the newer glass structure, as you can see here:

The executive staff work in the old building, and the back half of it has been converted into a museum and public garden.

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Ugh

July 10, 2007 – 10:19 am

Today fucking sucks.

So hard.

TODAY’S PICTURE: The hall leading into the Governor’s Boardroom Lounge.

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Out with the new and in with the old

June 5, 2007 – 12:32 pm

Today’s photo is of Canada’s first bilingual banknotes – The 1937 Series:

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Trauma Center

February 16, 2007 – 8:51 pm

…and so ends Jairus’s Albertan Teaching Adventures – class wrapped up today. Jairus’s Albertan Hotel Adventures will continue for another couple of days.

Class was good. The students are all pretty fun and friendly, so it wasn’t too tough. Mostly people I’d end up hanging out with outside class, if I lived in ALBERTALAND. The oldest student is sixty, but he’s easily the most fun. His daughter is a professional snowboarder, his son is an actor (Dead Like Me, Final Destination 3), and he loves industrial music. I might’ve sold him on coming to COMA in April.

In other news, I stumbled upon a Wii. It is sitting in a shiny white box, waiting to be loved upon my return to Ottawa – and loved it shall be.

I had more delicious burgers today, but paid the ultimate price for them: Hiccups. As the wise Siddhartha knew, life is suffering.

Delicious beefy suffering.

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white cowboys, red meat, and coloured help

February 12, 2007 – 11:18 pm

Some content, perhaps.

The trip started well. I touched down around noon after a slightly-delayed (but mostly boring) flight, and proceeded directly to pay Telus far too much money for wireless access that consisted of a “System error, try again later” page. (This is what happens when you forget to setup your ICMP VPN tunnel before you leave home.)

The hotel is alright, but the internet costs more than Telus’s, and the food is seven kinds of terrible. I have vowed to never eat here again, regardless of how convenient it is.

So, in search of delicious diner food, I scanned the ‘best of’ list of the local alterna-weekly (which has a 2/3 page ad for a darkrave/powernoise party “dedicated entirely to the harshest beats” on the evening I’m leaving), and found a seemingly delicious diner. Upon arriving at said delicious diner, however, I discovered a hole in the wall with a lineup of trendy indie rockers half-way down the block.

I then cheesed it to a nearby brew pub, which had burgers of such deliciousness as to defy description.

The first day of class went mostly okay today, although there are some technical issues to be worked out with the PCs. And they forgot to order the courseware for one of the students. Also they forgot mine.

I have discovered that my anti-discrimination hat, while indeed having the reverse effect here in Albertaland, does not cause nearly as much scorn and malice as learning that I’m from Ottawa does. I get the impression that they believe me to be some sort of comically evil landlord tax-man, delivered straight from the belly of the beast so that I can garnish their wages more effectively. Or something. I couldn’t really understand what they were trying to communicate through all the talk about oil revenue and housing booms.

In the end, I built a bridge of trust through the time-tested tradition of trash-talking Toronto, and was accepted into their tribe. We then engaged in celebratory ritual consumption of sate chicken at a Vietnamese submarine shop(!) downtown.

Now, to numb my mind with hotel television.

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