William Matheson's Journal

What I Did During My Winter Semester

Sat, 12 May 2012 01:57:35 GMT

Part of a series: Fall 2011 - Winter 2012

Class	Description	Grade
APPD 1001	User Interface Design and Development	100
DBAS 1100	Database Development I	100
HDWR 1000	Hardware I	100
INFT 1300	Human Relations for the IT Professional	97
OSYS 1000	Operating Systems - Unix	100
PROG 1400	Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming	98
SAAD 1001	Introduction to Systems Analysis and Design	92

(The “portfolio page” links go to the course’s page in my e-portfolio.)

APPD 1001 :: User Interface Design and Development :: 0.5 credits (portfolio page)

This was a new class and the instructor was enthusiastic about the subject. Given that, I was surprised how random and arbitrary the delivery was, and I was disappointed in how much the instructor chose to motivate by fear.

Students should be aware that this instructor tends to negotiate final grades rather than follow a set outline (eg: Assignments 15%, Tests 30%, etc..). If you're ever in this situation and you've done everything that was assigned and gotten full marks on the things that were evaluated, you should ask, point-blank, "Why not 100?" It's not that I was perfect (audio recording level on my instructional video was too low, one of my "poor user interface" examples was a bit of a stretch, my paper airplane didn't fly the farthest (I actually asked about that one since the instructor left us with the impression that day that we were being graded on the distance), etc..), but there wasn't any concrete evaluation to justify taking marks away, and I think I'm justified in my justification. Also recursion is recursive. I think the only thing I got back with marks the whole term was the in-class Flash assignment, which was an exercise in learning to follow hastily-written directions for a completely foreign (to me) UI creation environment. Oh, also in battling your classmates for the instructor's attention. I'm a champ at that. ;-p

Grade: 100

DBAS 1100 :: Database Development I :: 1 credit (portfolio page)

I enjoyed this course; it was just challenging enough to be interesting but not so overwhelming as to feel hopeless.

We learned about fundamental database design principles and learned to work with SQL. (As with most things like this, it helps if you've seen the original.) We learned basic data definition language and data manipulation language, and we learned constraints, joins, and set operations and used them to solve a variety of interesting problems, given a pre-existing Oracle database. There were bonus point opportunities here and there that were critical to my getting full marks. :-)

Finally, I can say from personal experience that this course helps you to get the jokes in XKCD.

Grade: 100

HDWR 1000 :: Hardware I :: 1 credit (portfolio page)

The framework for this course was chapters 1, 2, and 4-11 of Jean Andrews' CompTIA A+ 2009 In Depth. The book appears to be designed to generate students capable of passing the A+ certification test, which qualifies you to work at Staples and, while maintaining a straight face, ask customers for $70 to configure their router.

Fortunately, we had lectures that delivered content not in the book, and we had plenty of lab exercises. Yes, some of them were taking A+ practice questions, and the "correct" answers were sometimes wrong in the system, and yes, it did count a little bit towards our lab grade, but no, I am not the least bit bitter no sir why do you ask.

I didn't do perfectly in this course, but I did get full marks because there were all kinds of bonus points available and I took advantage of every opportunity to get them. It was exhausting, and I even ended up doing the major final project by myself. I have trust issues.

Grade: 100

INFT 1300 :: Human Relations for the IT Professional :: 0.5 credits (portfolio page)

Most of this course was reading Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour published by Pearson Education Canada.

I found the book to be personally enriching and the information helpful. But I cannot condone the awful, arbitrary, and sometimes just-plain-wrong "MyOBLab" textbook quizzes, which were a required component of this course. I think it is also immoral to essentially outsource student grading to a textbook publisher, under any circumstances. There's not only a boy-you'd-better-have-the-late$t-edition conflict-of-interest, but also the remoteness and inaccessibility of the people responsible for administering your grades. If you are faced with a situation like this, I reccomend digging in your heels. I know I certainly will if I ever come across something like this again.

Outside of the readings, we put our knowledge to use by developing a fantasy high-tech product in teams of four. We didn't need to worry about reality and resource constraints - that way, we could focus on group mechanics. It also allowed our creativity to shine through. While I did most of the writing, the writing only came out as well as it did because there were so many good ideas. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience.

Grade: 97

OSYS 1000 :: Operating Systems - Unix :: 1 credit (portfolio page)

In this course we installed, maintained, configured services on, and created scripts in Solaris 10 and openSUSE 11.3. We also maintained a changelog as part of our weekly assignments. Well, I did. At the end of the course when it came time to submit proof, everybody wanted to copy mine. j/k

For our final project, we were asked to choose a Unix or Linux distribution and document its installation and the configuration of important network services. I did mine with Xubuntu 11.10, and got a few bonus points for sumbitting it early which got me up to full marks for the course.

Grade: 100

PROG 1400 :: Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming :: 1 credit (portfolio page)

This class was kind of haphazard - you were never really sure what you were going to get most days. Also, there's something to be said for making your own teaching resources (e.g.: assignment definitions and rubrics), since writing them yourself at least ensures that you've read them. ;-p I really think this was a problem in the beginning, but the second half was better.

The other problem is that we had a huge open-ended project that really killed the momentum of the course. It would have been better to go in bite-sized chunks while we were learning the concepts, then go for the big one. We basically had 1) a project to demonstrate understanding of OOP, then, when this failed for most people, we 2) redid it and then we had 3) small assignments that teach OOP. At least most of us got out understanding OOP and a teensy bit of Java.

Another problem was that people were coming out of PROG 1100 with vastly different levels of understanding. There was an assignment in my section that required us to create a class and instantiate an array of objects of that class. I didn't completely understand what I was doing and I relied heavily on the textbook examples.

This was the first time this course was taught in the first year, and it was a learning experience for all involved.

Grade: 98

SAAD 1001 :: Introduction to Systems Analysis and Design :: 1 credit (portfolio page)

This course is the most popular and universally beloved in the school - it's so good that once isn't enough for many students.

As far as I can tell, the aim of this course is to sufficiently obfuscate the principles of effective software design so that “software engineers” and “project managers” can justify their higher pay and social status compared to mere computer programmers.

We did a lot of UML modelling (frustrating), we made project proposals (bottomless pits), and we wrote a few reports. As part of the final round of reports, we got into groups (oh no! :-) and wrote and presented on various software development methodologies. My team presented on Extreme Programming, and my job was to go over its strengths and weaknesses (especially relative to sequential development).

Grade: 92

NS Skills Competition

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:52:07 GMT

7:43am - Am in the assigned room at Waterfront Campus. The Waterfront Campus buildings are gorgeous. The whole place feels a bit like an airport, though that might not be to your tastes. They had a guy in the parking lot telling people to go to the nearby Aviation Institute parking lot and get the shuttle bus from there to here. Wish I'd known that because I'd had my Breakfast of Champions™ at the Tim Hortons next door.

Huh. Apparently all students except for authorized carpool groups and mothers with children in the day care here must park in that Aviation Institute lot, every day, and take the shuttle. So I'm happy to be an IT Campus student. :-)

I have no idea how this is going to go. The competition category is "IT Software Solutions for Business". Here's the list of possible things that could be tested. It's probably going to be a bit of a gong show for me because the focus of my education has been programming and systems much more so than Microsoft Office minutiae. (This is kind of germane since my school is paying my registration fee for me.) Someone who's taking a pure business program will probably clean up with me. This is also a really really bad time for me to have to do this, as I'm juggling the ends of six courses (out of seven - one mercifully ended on Monday this past week) and am burning the candle at both ends and sticking it a frying pan. But I'll try my best. I joke that they'll probably ask me to prove Fermat's Last Theorem in real-time using an Excel PivotTable. If I'm not able to, hopefully they won't exclaim "How dare you not be able to do this?"

The instructors / judges seem pretty caz, though. They want people to have fun, so I'm not going to cry about this.

I guess I'd better put on my t-shirt!

Noon - Now lunchtime! Have now finished the Word and Excel portions of the competition. Word was ridunculous - not so much that it was hard, but there was a lot. Excel was much shorter, but the things that needed to be done were more complicated. Both were fun, though - I learned about a lot of features I didn't know existed while I was poking around. Generally, there's always something to do, so you won't waste a lot of time being stuck.

During the short break between Word and Excel, I was running for the toilets when I noticed a series of booths along the corridor. I half-thought they were port-a-johns, and was tempted to open a door and see! Kidding. Kind of. Anyway, it turns out they are portable soundproof chambers meant for ~~imprisoning unruly captives~~ practicing music. Remind me to get one if I ever take up an instrument or get a kid who does. Heck, they might even be good to sing in.

I didn't blog on the break because there wasn't really time (only 20 minutes) and we were chatting with each other in the hall anyway. I'm probably being a little antisocial by writing this.

As for the nuts-and-bolts of the competition, we have special logins (so, no, you can't load up your network drive with cheat sheets and other stuff! :-) and the assignments are copied from the network and delivered back to the network to a designated drop folder.

Lunch was delivered to the room on a cart - you grab a bag with a sandwich (different kinds), juice, fruit, and cookie. Pretty cool. Should be like that every day. j/k Apparently we'll have a full-blown pizza party at 4:00. But every time I think of "pizza party", I think of this. :-)

3:30pm - It's all over. At 5:00 we'll find out who won. I'll give you a hint - it ain't gonna be me. What was really funny was how I'm presently pulling above 100 in my database course and yet I can barely do anything really useful in Access. I thought about writing my queries in SQL, but I'm not used to Access' quirks and the stuff that they wanted me to do in Access might be beyond the stuff I'm doing manually with Oracle through SQL. Worst of all, they didn't leave enough time for a coffee break between "OK, PowerPoint's over" and "Start Access now". So I was dog-tired all through Access and I just wanted the day to be over.

The PowerPoint portion was kind of fun - I hadn't done animations before, so that slowed me down, but with another half-hour or so, I probably could have scored close to 100%. But the same could be said for the other participants, too. :-)

The folks I've met today are pretty cool. You probably couldn't go wrong by taking a businessy IT program here. You'd learn all kinds of mad skillz. It's kind of lame, actually, when I say my program is "IT" - it doesn't sound very specific at all. Maybe that's the point?

Anyway, this is a good time to explore for a little bit before pizza time. Though I see some guys coming in with them right now, carrying 7 or 8 boxes per person. Good time to logoff. Probably won't update again until I get home. And it'll be happening with a tall, frosty can of Sapporo, I can guarantee you that.

7:40pm - True to my word.

A few comments about the Waterfront Campus: The height between floors is astonishing. When you climb some stairs, signs speak of half levels. The ones that go directly from floor to floor without a turnaround landing rival in scope the escalators of Kyiv's deep-tube subway stations.

Also, the washrooms seem to be such a long way away from anything that popping out to use the washroom might be a 2-minute endeavour at the Institute but at Waterfront it might take you closer to 10. j/k

Pizza party: Didn't really merit or need the "party" appellation. "Pizza in the cafeteria" would have been sufficient and accurate.

Around 5 we had the medal ceremonies in the theatre. The MC announced at the beginning that, you guessed it, the "IT Software Solutions for Business" results weren't in yet. But we understood and we didn't envy the judges the tedium of clicking into each and every one of our file to see and test the work we completed. Anyway, I assume they were rushing to complete the evaluations* while the early medals were being presented because they did have the results ready.

* Allowing for some shortcuts - for instance, if I come out of the third part of the evaluation with only 40 possible points ahead of me to get and the current potential bronze is 41 or more points ahead of me, there's no point in even looking at my fourth part.

There was a new IT category this year, "Web Site Development" (ugh... c'mon guys, it's "website" already). My classmate Iman got a gold medal, overcoming the most fearsome and dogged competition imaginable - himself. Yes, I could have and probably should have done Web and given Iman a run for his money (he's talented, and so am I) rather than competing against a dozen people who've to a person taken advanced courses in the Office components I struggled with all day! Now Iman's going to go to Skills Canada, and I'm left wondering what could have been. But I'm happy for Iman because he likes web development more than I do, and if I get an Explore bursary that schedule-conflicts anyway it'll all have worked out. :-)

I told Iman I'd give him a ride home and so I listened to the nuts-and-bolts talk a coordinator gave to the gold medal winners. I was bemused to hear that they wouldn't be letting participants check a bag unless it was a toolbox, since they needed all the checked baggage allowance for skills with a lot of overhead (e.g. hairdressing). The coordinator even handed out Skills Canada carry-on bags... and said that she'd chase after people to get them back if they decided they weren't going to go! :-)

Finally, Iman and I ended up walking back to the Aviation Institute parking lot because they naturally stopped the parking shuttle before the event was completely over. But it was a pleasant walk in the sunshine, and I had the opportunity to point out the "NS", an important part of Nova Scotian culture.

Man, I hope I get that Explore bursary. :-) I got an e-mail today saying my status had changed, but it was just a false alarm - it was a delayed notification. I'd already signed on and seen that I was waitlisted, and nothing had actually changed.

7. Home

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 05:52:21 GMT

Newark. After a not-brief-enough wait on the runway, and a very slow opening-up and deplaning, we emerged into Terminal C running about an hour behind. I wasn’t fearful of missing my connection, and so I headed over to the gate where United maintains a shuttle to Terminal A, where my flight to Halifax was to be flying from.

I waited about 5 minutes in a special waiting room, and finally a stream of passengers emerged indicating the bus had arrived. They cleared and we boarded. And then we were off to Terminal A.

At Terminal A, I discovered three things:

1. None of the departure gates were saying “HALIFAX”.
2. My flight was going to be delayed by 70 minutes.
3. The flight changed gates – to a gate in Terminal C.

And so there I was riding the shuttle bus again. (If I had a smartphone with US data access, I might have gotten United’s e-mails, although as it pertains to the Halifax flight right now I only have a notice of the delay and not the gate change. But the website reflects the gate change, so I’m pretty confident I wasn’t just seeing things.)

I reached my assigned concourse in Terminal C, searched hither and yon for a free power outlet, and set up shop when I found one. Then I discovered that I probably left my $30 fit-over sunglasses on my first flight today. So I’ll be buying my third pair of those. Grumble grumble.

* * *

Ahh... nothing like a late night flight to keep people nice and quiet. We’re now aboard an Embraer EMB-145. It’s small but civilized. Bin space is at a premium because there are only bins on one side (starboard). On the other hand, I’m one of the lucky ones who sits on the port side, where there’s only one seat per row that’s a window and an aisle seat at the same time. It’s pretty sweet.

I’ve been thinking lately that it seems like it’s always the in-between services that are the worst. Short hauls on small planes usually go well and the crowds are manageable. The huge widebody jets that carry hundreds of people across the oceans are fit for their task. It’s the 2-6 hour domestic flights on narrow-body airliners that grind my gears. I don’t fly enough to have a weighty opinion, though.

Ha-ha, now I’m drinking a can of spicy “Bloody Mary mix” with no vodka in it and snacking on mini pretzels (free!). With class tomorrow morning at 8:30, I can’t justify the expense of buying drinks. I almost went into a bar at Newark, but I decided against it when I saw there weren’t any power outlets.

When I feel like I’ve done enough blogging and schoolwork, I’m playing a free console-style RPG called KQ. A package may already be available for your favourite Linux distro. It’s pretty good. The music is superb and the enemies are merciless.

Wait, I forgot – customs form. Hope the customs folks are friendly this time. :-)

* * *

Finally home. Exhausted. Here’s how ParkN’Ride works when you leave. You pick up their phone in the arrivals area and it plays a recording that says “By picking up this phone, you are stating that you are ready to be picked up.” They tell you to wait inside until you see it pull up. Then the bus driver takes you to your car according to the card the driver gave you way back when you first parked. Then you drive yourself out to the gate, where you’ll pay an attendant. (That part is kind of low-tech.) And then you’re back on your way again, probably wondering when there’ll be affordable transit options that serve the airport.

6. Homeward

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 01:52:20 GMT

I am now flying from San Diego to Houston. There’s an airport there named after the second greatest President of the United States (his son was the greatest).

This 737 is marginally better than the one I flew into San Diego on. There are actual entertainment devices in the seatbacks. Unfortunately, they are pay-for-play, unless you just want to watch Lincoln infomercials. So it’s a good excuse for me to catch up on blogging and schoolwork for free, I suppose. There are no power outlets on board this aircraft, though – good thing it’s a short flight to Houston. And the aisle still isn’t wide enough - “Cart coming through, cart coming through!”

It being the end of March Break, a lot of flights are jam-packed. They were calling for volunteers to give up their seats on this flight, and the compensation was generous: Hotel if necessary (if you were going to Houston, all the flights were booked), and first class seats and a $300 travel voucher that’s transferrable and usable anywhere in Star Alliance. Pretty sweet, but I need to get home for school. I have a huge scholarship application due the day after tomorrow, so I need to have my ducks in a row for that.

But percieving that I could still get back to Halifax tonight by taking a non-stop to Newark and skipping Houston, I “selflessly” volunteered to be switched to the Newark flight. It was just wrapping up boarding when I asked, but I had no checked bags, and they were desparate to free up seats on the Houston flight. Unfortunately, the Newark flight was full, too. The friendly gate agent thanked me profusely for volunteering. I also got my little rolling suitcase checked at the gate all the way to Halifax. At least United’s checked baggage scam makes me feel fortunate to have something checked.

I also want to compliment United on their print-at-home boarding passes. They are pretty slick. When you click the “Print Boarding Passes” button on the webpage displaing your passes, it automatically separates them into individual letter-size pages, and they utilize the space on each page very well. (Though I seriously think they should put IATA codes next to the city and airport names.) Anyway, among other things, you get a map of the airport(s) you’re arriving at and you get the weather at your final destination. For SAN -> IAH, I got a map of Jorge Ehch Dubya. For IAH -> EWR, I got a map of Newhat Liverpee. For EWR -> YHZ, I got... a Sudoku.

On the other hand United, the dumb video messages from your CEO about how you can’t manage an airline from a corner office would be easier to swallow (and the part about open, honest communication actually believable) if it weren’t for your ridunculous checked baggage scheme, absurdly long customer service phone call waits, dysfunctional rebooking, and abysmal on-time performance. Thank you for thaking me for flying United, Mr. Smisek, but overall I’d have to say, “You’re not welcome.” Like I’ve been saying, there are a lot of bright stars at United, and as a coprorate culture I see evidence that they want to make their employees feel appreciated. I am all for that, but the airline is currently being hobbled by some assinine policies and hurried technological transitions brought on by the merger. The fault for these must be placed solely on management.

Security at San Diego Terminal 2 was seriously backlogged. They have a snaking ribbon for their queue, and it moves painfully slow. While you wait, you can see videos on overhead screens that explain how much better and faster the improved terminal will be (“Coming soon: More security!”) on some sweet day in 2013. Meanwhile, you’re standing in line wishing you’d driven to LAX and flown out of there instead. But let’s give SAN credit for having free wi-fi like YHZ and the rest of the civilized world.

So there’s lots to talk about. Yesterday was a wet day, but the rain and cloud cast a pleasant mellow feeling on the day. Jim rang my phone sometime after 11 and said we’d all be going out. I should have showered instead of just blogging all morning, and I felt a little bit icky all day. But we all got pretty icky in one way or another because even though it was raining off and on, someone thought that we probably should see Balboa Park after brunch anyway. One good thing about it – there are lots of archways and alcoves, so you can duck in and out and wait out the worst of the downpours. I’m glad we went, even though I wouldn’t have gone were it up to me. In Balboa Park we saw a beautiful couple getting married – even though it rained, I think they were in good spirits. The archways and openings were making for dramatic photographs, and I don’t think they’ll be sorry when their photos come back.

Before Balboa Park, we had brunch at a Panera in La Jolla. That was fun – you order at the counter and take a number, and later they find your number and deliver your food. They bus, too. And you don’t tip! Just like every restauraunt in Japan! I am sorry to have to admit this to service industry employees, but I hate (the usual all-but-mandatory) tipping. I’d be happy to pay a little more and not have to deal with it. With a tipping system, I feel like I’m being judged every goshdarned time I eat or use other commonly tipped services. Anyway, at Panera I had an Italian sandwhich with chips and with that they let me add any pastry I wanted for 99 cents. The very friendly fellow at the counter (who let me keep 7 cents extra change because the order came to n.93) must have known I’d be reasonably stuffed after the sandwhich and chips, and so the pastry came in its own container, and that came in a bag. So I ate the pastry this morning at the airport while I was waiting to board. It was still good!

After Balboa Park, we went to Old Town San Diego and ate at a small Mexican restauraunt. I didn’t get to Mexico on this trip, but I’ve sure eaten a lot of Mexican food! Not that I’m complaining. Anyway, we all piled into this restaurant and ordered guacamole and strawberry margaritas by the liter. Mmmm! These margaritas were frozen and much more like the taste I would ordinarily expect. The guacamole was heavenly; almost the consecrated kind that people swear by all the time. Because we all know the answer to “What do you do with a rainy day?” is “Split it up among restauaunts”, we had been talking in terms of staying there for an extra few hours (keeping the drinks coming) and having evening dinner there, but I loudly came out against it because I for one was still full from brunch, and waiting around in a restauraunt for hour after hour isn’t much fun. I was still finding room for guacamole and margaritas, though. :-) Anyway, we decided we’d have supper elsewhere. It was all very confusing and wires were crossed many times. I wished for a smartphone, but my not having one absolved me of any responsiblity for research and planning.

We went back to the hotel and I basically had time to check my e-mail and change my clothes before we went out again, this time to (you guessed it) a Mexican restauraunt in La Jolla. (It had free on-site parking!) Barbara kindly treated us. I finally got to try fish tacos (breaded, with soft flour tortillas – just as good as fish and chips!) We had our last great conversational moments there. All good things must come to an end, but it was a slightly bitter pill nonetheless. We knew we had a time chock-full of activity and memories, because it seemed so long ago when we first got together and moved the liquor to the venue.

That night, we hung out in Mary and Brian’s hotel room and Brian shared some good craft beer while we talked about different things. We talked a lot about PEI and who would be going and what a good time to go would be. Brian minds the moquitoes – I think they aren’t as bad in August as they are in July, but they’re probably still going to be bad around dusk / in the woods no matter where you are. June and September are pretty good months to visit, though there aren’t as many obvious beach days.

I went back to my room and got a few hours sleep. When I got up at 4:30am, there was a slip under my door with the itemized charges from Marriott as of 2am. I was a little freaked out when I picked up the slip – I thought it would be a notice that they found me in violation of something or other! No, I’m not paranoid. Anyway, there was nothing but the standard room rate and fees and taxes, so the offer of complimentary internet was legit. But why can’t they have that all the time? I hate it when airlines and hotels decide to use value-added-but-critical services to fleece their customers. It betrays the fact that they hold their customers in contempt, despite what Jeff would have you believe. In situations where I have a realistic choice, I’ll pick a hotel that at least has free internet (I can live without free breakfast and I don’t really miss that), and an airline that doesn’t charge checked baggage fees.

Derek was catching a flight, for business reasons, at the same time I was, so I met him in the lobby at 6am and rode with him to the airport. It was in an extended wheelbase Lincoln Town Car (an L) but the driver didn’t seem to like my calling it that because I asked him, “Is this an extended-wheelbase Town Car?” and he said “It’s a limo, but not a strech limo.” I would have been happy to discuss the merits of a body-on-frame rear-wheel-drive car with tons of rear seat legroom and a silky-smooth V8, but his avoidance of my question kind of killed the potential conversation. After he dropped Derek off at the Commuter Terminal (he was going to LAX, then from there to the Great Blue Yonder), I said I was flying United from Terminal 2, but the driver just said, “Sure, United” and proceeded to take the lanes going to Terminal 1.

“I need to go to Terminal 2.”
“United is at Terminal 1.”
“Yes, but United flights to Houston and Newark depart from Terminal 2. If you look at the sign for Terminal 2, you’ll see ‘United’ and then ‘Houston’ and ‘Newark’ in fine print.”
“Oh! I didn’t know that. Sorry.”
Pleasant enough fellow, but if he’d said right away “I thought United was at Terminal 1” we could have saved the mortification and embarassment.

Anyway, this flight to Houston has been reasonably plesant – two cups of coffee were an excellent diuretic but other than that I’m astonished by how much writing I’ve gotten finished. Now I just need to deal with the San Diego / wedding venue photos. Visualize a glacier. :-)

* * *

At Houston now. This place is like an exurban shopping mall but without the charm. There’s a Bass Pro Shops and even a Fox News Channel store. (I doubt we’ll see an Al Jazeera English souvenir shop across the corridor anytime soon.) And there’s a huge shortage of free power outlets, but of course there are plenty of $3-for-30-minutes chargers and, as always, your major credit cards are more than welcome.

Impressions: Hot, overcrowded, lots of fruit flies. Free wi-fi? Ha-ha! But they use the same cartel as Newark, so I would have been able to surf teh interwebs had I had time.

Transferring from terminal E (where we arrived) to C (where I’ll depart) was just a short walk. I’m gnoshing on Wendy’s, but there weren’t a lot of value mainstays like Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers on the menu. They had plenty of power outlets in there along benches with bar stools, but it was too far away from my gate to hear boarding calls. As it is, I may yet be too far away, but I stopped as soon as I saw an outlet!

Anyway, I’d better hike up there now...

* * *

On the flight from Houston to Newark, we had a 757-200 that had power outlets and a much better (and mostly free) video entertainment system. I never did use my netbook because I ended up watching The Muppets (probably the only movie not hacked and slashed to death so as to neuter the wrath of the sensitive souls in the unfriendly skies), and then I played an interesting Berlitz “word traveler” game. You can select both your native language and the target language and off you go. It’s not going to make you a communicative speaker overnight, but it’s a helpful first step and kind of fun. I did reasonably well with the German and Spanish exercises, but Mandarin was a bit of an uphill climb! :-)

It must be mentioned that, as far as I know, non-Latin-alphabet languages are transliterated, so you can’t use the software to learn other alphabets. Also, some lanuages might not ordinarily use distinct words for, say, “afternoon” and “evening” (see Spanish ‘tarde’) but the software isn’t sophisticated enough to allow two pictures to be the right answers in these situations, and the “right” answer is completely random. I should probably file a bug report with Berlitz. :-p

Anyway, it was a pleasant diversion and I’m glad that I couldn’t get the Big Bang Theory reruns I really wanted to watch to play. As for The Muppets, I’d give them three stars. I think it needed much, much more in the way of funny sketches. Or funny in how they aren’t funny, like most of Fozzie’s routines.

We were delayed by yet another computer issue and I probably ended up watching half the movie on the tarmac as we waited 25 minutes for a takeoff opportunity. That’s one really nice thing about video-on-demand... the not-so-nice thing is that the playback controls are sluggish and don’t work intuitively. If you press “rewind”, the picture might go to fast-advance, even though your playback point is in fact going backwards. You press play while it’s flashing through two minutes ahead from where you pressed rewind, and then you end up watching from two minutes back. You have to count Mississippis to get back to where you want to be – needless to say, it’s really aggravating. I think, though, that this is a wide problem with VoD services as I’ve seen Rogers and Eastlink VoD have similar problems.

I also had an aisle seat but of course a mother and two children had gotten stuck with three consecutive middle seats instead of half a row, and she asked me to give up my aisle seat for a middle seat. D’oh! Anyway, it was alright – I was between two reasonably humorable guys, and it wasn’t as cramped as I feared it would be.

Almost home...

5. San Diego: Thursday, Friday

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:27:13 GMT

Thursday

Met up with Jim and Derek and one thing we did was pick up the alcohol and get it to the venue. I was under the impression that we’d be stuffing their rented Mitsubishi Lancer with so much booze that it would noticeably lower its ground clearance. I was prepared to carry a two-four on my lap at the very least. But it turned out to be five boxes of wine bottles and it all fit easily. Anyway, there were other vehicles involved in the operation.

We had the rehearsal at the venue, and I picked up a few jobs – walking in Art’s mom (Barbara), and co-ushering with Derek, Monique’s younger brother. So that’s cool. I’m not part of the wedding party but it’s almost kinda sorta close. j/k

The rehearsal dinner was at a Mexican restaurant – a really authentic one. Their margaritas are a generous pour. I needed to chase mine with a beer. I had chicken tacos but one thing my cousin Maria and her husband Chris say I should try are fish tacos. They didn’t have them there, but you can get battered haddock tacos elsewhere in San Diego. Almost like good old fish and chips! Except it’s corn chips, not potato fries. It was a good experience and we had a great time – the company and atmosphere were superb – but for food that I (personally) would like to eat, I would probably go to a place like Sombreros back in Tokushima – oh darn, they’re closed! Man, good thing we went when we did.

From what I’ve seen, this is a beautiful city. Even the suburbs are ornate. The roads are awesome, too. I’m loving the single-digit Interstate action. If I were on my own I’d probably try to go to Tijuana, although getting back into the United States is reportedly not much fun. If I went across on foot, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? Anyway, it probably won’t happen this time around.

Friday

Jim and Derek slept in a bit, so I had a chance to catch up on the e-side of things. We went out for brunch. Random thoughts:

1. If the bus guy instinctively says "Good job!" when he picks up your empty plate, maybe the serving sizes are just a tad big. Food was really good, though.

2. It seems like every restaurant urinal in San Diego is one foot off the floor. There must be an epidemic of dwarfism here.

3. One of us saw a Hispanic guy wearing a "I am not a second class citizen" t-shirt and mused going up to him and saying "I'm gay, too!"

(We were laughing about the ambiguity of the t-shirt, not the plight of Hispanic Americans.)

4. Diesel busses made to look like ye olde trolleys should immediately be banned in every jurisdiction in North America. (Charlottetown, I’m lookin’ at you too.)

5. I’ll be riding to the wedding with Barbara and her close friends Chih-Mei and Kathy. The sun’s out a bit now, so it might be a really good afternoon to walk on the beach a bit before everything starts. I wonder if I should go so far as to bring swim trunks and a towel and when the time comes, just stand around dripping wet in my trunks and help usher people as if it’s normal. Nah.

6. I’ve lost at least four Facebook friends in the past few days, so you can tell my views and opinions must be pretty good. j/k

* * *

(Writing this stuff Saturday morning.)

I wore a new pair of pants which fit reasonably well and have an elastic waistband. I bought them so I wouldn’t be ACK GACK I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS. They were more or less effective in this regard. I also spilled champagne on myself while I was filming something and it beaded and was really easy to wipe off. Anyway, I mention them because as I was walking down the hall to the hotel elevator, a maid stopped me and asked me to turn around. I thought I was in trouble. She then nonchalantly yanked a sticker off the back of my leg. Thank you!

When we arrived at the wedding venue, the weather was sunny and warm and the place was gorgeous. It was also easy to find – there were professional signs right on the road pointing the way to parking for the “T./H. Wedding”.

I became the video-go-to-person and shot the proceedings with Monique’s father’s camera. That was pretty easy to do; I think I’d rather do that than be tasked with taking photos, all things being equal.

The skies were overcast by the time the ceremony took place, but it was still a nice spot and a good moment and at least it wasn’t raining.

Afterwards, they had lots of different kinds of family photos, and there was one I belonged in, and they took that, but then they did another one and Maria and I got pulled away from conversations again and called up – but unnecessarily, since the second one was just siblings, not cousins. :-p The wedding crew were fuzzy on the distinction. It was kind of funny, really. When I was a kid, I was fuzzy on the distinctions myself.

The reception and dinner were a lot of fun and a great chance to meet a lot of new people. Monique has a lot of smart and powerful Ivy League-calibre friends and it again brought back the idea “What’s she doing with him?” j/k But Art is incredibly creative and funny, although there’s not a lot else I can say about him. Rob, a lawyer from Stanford, asked me “So what kind of stories can you tell about Art?” I replied, “Well, all the stories I have about Art are about Art telling stories. Kind of meta.”

At our table the following interaction generated enough laughter to grab Art’s attention:

E.: “My roommates’ boyfriend was a Navy SEAL.”
A.: “In my previous life, I was a Navy SEAL. But not in this life!”
Me: “In my previous life, I was a seal. Until I was clubbed by a Canadian fur trader.”

I also met G., a software engineer, to whom I complained fruitlessly about Java. j/k Also, she loved Extreme Programming. I should have told her I just contributed part of a small-time “paper” on it, in which I basically tore a strip off of it, thanks in part to Matt Stephen’s insightful and droll commentary. :-) But she’s had experience in the field, and I haven’t. If she’s a 10, I’m a .2.

When it came time to leave the wedding venue, we were stopped at an interminably long red light – I hopped out of the car to press the walk button and then we had a green. There was construction at that intersection earlier that day, and perhaps something they did disrupted the connection between the lights and a sensory pad in the pavement.

We finished off the evening with drinks in the hotel lobby. At first we were seated around a fireplace. Some of us were still wearing suits. We looked like a caricature of power brokers, so I opened with, “So, gentlemen, which Southeast Asian country should we invade tomorrow?” Jim soon jocularly retorted with, “We’re losing Afghanistan, no thanks to Canada!” Hah. It seems like we were there for the better part of a decade. Then I ventured some opinions on Afghanistan, including the absurdity of centralized government on a tribal system and that we won’t let them grow poppies since our value system is drugs = bad. It’s a big mess by any objective measure.

Anyway, sensing perhaps that I was prepared to go on an alcohol-influenced roll, one of our companions stated loudly and firmly, “I am from Israel, so I do not talk politics.”

Well, that killed that conversation.

But we had lots of other great conversations (well, they got better after one particular person retired for the evening), and we kept it going past 2 in the morning, up until the cleaner started vacuuming between our legs. I made the acquaintance of two of Monique’s friends that I hadn’t spoken to at the wedding or reception, and somehow I ended up speaking French with one of them. I think it was because Jim asked me to just start speaking French, so I did, and it turns out she studied French extensively. It was like opening a velvet box and seeing a huge diamond where you expect to see only a small one. I’m going to miss her – she was quite something.

And given how much I had to drink, I am in much better shape than I could have been. I pretty much stuck to beer the whole night, which was probably a wise decision. Beer tends to make me a little sleepy, which slows me down before I get into too much trouble.

Now it’s time to get cleaned up and dressed and find my cousins and/or something to do!

4. Morning in San Diego

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:47:18 GMT

Free internet in the room*! So now I’ve wasted about two and a half hours of my first morning in San Diego! :-) Most of the time I’m just playing Whack-A-Mole with notifications, though I am writing a fair number of new messages.

I don’t have an ocean view from my hotel room, but the condo where my cousin (Art) and his soon-to-be wife (Monique) are staying for a few days sure does – holy crap! Panoramic windows, waves crashing on the rocks below, a lovely night, lights along the coast, the limitless expanse of the dark Pacific – wow! I’d forgotten that I’d ever seen the Pacific before. I have – just from the other side. :-)

Art and Monique treated me to my first In-N-Out last night. I had a Double-Double. The burger is distinctive and worth being crowed about. The fries are distinctive too, but for my tastes they are a little too intense. I had a strawberry milkshake too, and that was pretty good. If I went again I’d just get the burger and a shake, though I’m intrigued about the “animal fries” on the secret menu. Speaking of the menu, that’s what I was struck by most – it was so small! But it’s sufficient and efficent. Good kind of small.

Jim and Derek (Art’s brother and Jim’s husband respectively) plan to be by around noon and we’ll go hang out for a bit. The rehearsal dinner will be tonight.

While we were at the condo, Art gave me some ideas for a story that I’ll see if I can put together soon. It’s delightful to talk with him because he can think of things that are completely off-the-wall absurd but yet somehow internally consistent and very funny.

Now I’ll have a shower and then I’ll go out in search of toothpaste. Hopefully in a 100mL (shoot, how many ounces is that? - OK, TSA says 3 ounces, but they consider the international standard “100mL” to be 3 even though it’s more like 3.38) container or smaller, so I can take it home with me. :-p

* - To "celebrate" wi-fi installation. :-) This is just for the month of March. Lucky me, though.

3. To San Diego

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:24:24 GMT

We’re now en route to San Diego. It is kind of lamesauce. It’s this fancy Boeing 737-800 but this configuration has no entertainment system at all. Fortunately, it does have power outlets, and if you are persistent and daring with your fingers, you will eventually find them. So at least I have my netbook for the whole trip.

Really, I don’t know why anyone would fly this airline. Why did I? Good question. I bit on the price. Next time I want to go to the US, I’ll try US Airways, though I have no reason to believe they’re any better. As for United, there’s no reason to fly it instead of a low cost carrier. Take WestJet. You have checked bags and seatback video all there for you. Yeah, the seatback video is just free TV, but here United proposes to charge for something similar. But they don’t even have the units installed on this aircraft, even though my flight itinerary said this aircraft would have it. There isn’t even radio. Lamesauce, lamesauce. And did I mention the on-time performance of this airline is abysmal?

United has lots of bright stars on their team, but I feel like they, as an institution, hold their Average Joe customers in contempt. Every goddamn thing is an upsell. Every employee robotically recites their upsell scripts. It’s idiotic. After this trip is over I’m going to go out of my way to avoid this airline.

Okay, that’s enough. I’ve been using United as a whipping post for three days now.

I was talking to a woman at the departure gate about various San Diego things and I brought up the subject of the Chargers. She mentioned that the owners aren’t happy with their stadium, but the fans still turn out for the games. What is it with stadiums and arenas – they cost so much to build, yet depreciate so quickly. Multipurpose stadiums were an unfortunate experiment that we’ve gotten away from. The NHL underwent a spate of stadium renewal not so long ago and they missed an opportunity to introduce a larger ice surface. I’m not really forming a coherent argument here. All I’ll say is that I think pro sports is an expensive toy, and there shouldn’t be public subsidies near it.

I’m looking forward to getting out of the air travel system. The whole thing has a certain unreality to it that kind of bugs me. But sometimes I wish I were wealthy enough to purchase a business-class round-the-world ticket and just fly to random places one after the other.

A fellow beside me on the plane said, “From Halifax, you’re really close to London. You could get there in 5 hours.” True. I’ve never thought much about going there because I don’t know anybody. It would be a big money pit. But it would probably be a lot of fun.

Where else? I’d definitely like to go back to Japan again. I still have to finish the Shikoku Pilgrimage! I think I would like to complete a formal Japanese language course or two first, though.

More than almost anything else, though, I wish my hands didn’t hurt typing this!

Man, this has been a long, tiring trip. We’re really squeezed for space on this 737-800. The aisle is really, really narrow, and it makes going back and forth to the lavatories troublesome. Multi-aisle wide-body airliners can be much more comfortable. I liked in Japan how they’d fly special short-range 747s on domestic routes, since they had the passengers to warrant it.

2. Warking

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:06:38 GMT

Newark:

Wi-Fi is $8 for the day, $10 for a month, or $15 for three months. Bah. Not really worth it. I might as well do something productive instead, like read my Hardware chapter.

(OK, I caved. I didn’t want to miss anything. I checked my e-mail and Art mentioned there’s a possibility of my being picked up at the airport! Super! However, I’m prepared to take a shuttle van to the hotel in La Jolla, especially since they think I’m coming in at noon when it’s going to be (ugh) 7pm. Deets below.)

I can’t believe it’s not yet half past seven where I’m going. I feel like I’ve been on the move all day already.

I was put on a 5pm ish flight to SD. But the gate agent said they were putting me on the 4pm ish flight! I found out from a gate agent that I was really on the later one, but he got me on the earlier one after all.

So it was going to be that I’d arrive in SD around noon but now it’ll be ten after seven.

As airports go, Newark looks kind of dumpy. They had an airside transfer bus to get us from Terminal A to Terminal C but it is probably a temporary implementation by the looks of things. You have to climb up and down steel stairs to get to it – stairs probably never intended for the general public. Better than not having a transfer bus at all, though.

So now it’s 10:30 and we board at 3:32. 5 hours! So this has taken about 6 hours off my vacation as I see it. Not worth crying about, though. But I left so early so I could have the maximum amount of day in San Diego. That’s really not going to happen now. But I do have all day Saturday to play with, and the wedding’s on Friday. Whine wine cheese.

I think all the cool airlines fly out of JFK. Air Canada and WestJet are stuck at Newark. So is Porter. Oh, but it looks like Air Canada has a few flights out of LaGuardia, too. I’ve never been there.

K, maybe now I'll try to read that Hardware chapter. "Installing and Supporting I/O (input, output) Devices". Sounds like a real page-turner.

1. Halifax to Newark

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:38:37 GMT

So, we are sitting here, delayed, on the tarmac. “Prepare doors for arrival.” We haven’t moved an inch, so that can’t be good.

They had a slight “technical issue” and in an attempt to solve it they shut down the entire aircraft for two minutes. I mean completely shut down – all the lights and everything. You could see the glow-in-the-dark aisle strips glow green.

The plane’s been here all night, so it’s covered with a thin layer of ice. Speaking of, driving here was kind of white knuckle. There was a bit of freezing rain last night, and that stuff terrifies me!

The United attendants are being nice about it all and paying extra attention to the children.

* * *

Park-'n-Fly operates a 3,200-vehicle parking lot a little ways away from the airport on Barnes Drive. It’s still on the east side of the highway, but it’s too far to walk, so they provide a friendly shuttle service.

I missed getting on one bus because it was full but there was another in just a few minutes. I wouldn’t do this if it’s a last-minute thing and you have to catch a plane.

(OK, they’re putting luggage ON to the plane. That’s good news.)

Being March Break, the lot was into overflow – something I realized might be a problem while I was in the shower. Would I park the car on the road and ask someone to come pick it up? Or would I open a line of credit and park near the terminal? Fortunately, the lot wasn’t full – the attendant told me what bus to take after I pulled in, and I headed in that direction and then took a side swing and found a parking space.

“OK, the ground crew has an update.” Silence. “Stand by for the update.” Silence. “Update not necessary. We should be good to go.”

* * *

Apparently de-icing a plane is a bit more complicated than a car wash. Whatever happens, it seems to take ~25 minutes per plane. And there was a plane ahead of us. This morning has been delay stacked up on top of delay. At least I’ll know to expect the worst the next time there’s freezing rain in my departure city.

If I remember correctly, they sprayed us with clear stuff, then orange stuff, then green stuff. The green stuff made interesting patterns on the wing as we were taking off.

I’m very tired. I didn’t sleep last night. The night before, I didn’t get to bed until after 4. Why? Well, there was a slight problem with my reservation – after United finished absorbing Continental, they changed some flights around and left me negative twelve minutes to connect in Newark. (Though I suppose that’s better than the negative hour-or-so I’m getting today.). The webpage advised me to contact United to have the ticket reissued. Problem: Getting through to United these days is like searching for a golden needle in a haystack underwater. I got on the phone sometime after 9 pm and I got an agent after 3 am. It is probably my longest phone call ever. The agent was very polite and helpful but oh wow the wait.

Ahh... coffee time. Anyway, so that business kind of helped throw off my sleep schedule. Even though I’m heading off to do something fun, I kind of envy the folks who are staying home all week to play video games. One of my classmates was pulling an all-nighter on Final Fantasy VIII while I was packing.

The attendants are saying that, after we deplane, a United rep will meet with everybody who missed their connections. Super. They had me freaked out earlier when they were saying, “Those of you with cell phones might want to call United at 1-800-UNITED-1... that's 1-800-864-8331." Like really? Just the thought of that kind of off-loading of responsibility is odious. If they’d prefaced it with, “Don’t worry, you’ll be automatically moved to the following flight, but if you want to get the details, phone the contact centre while we’re de-icing.” I'd be more supportive.

* * *

So I locked the car and raced over to where the bus was idling. Then another fellow told me, “Sorry, we have to wait.” “Bus full?” “Yep. They’re going to send another one.” And they did, lickety-split. I told you this already, didn’t I?

The driver was like, “OK, have you heard the speech?” He explained how there was a paystation ticket and a shuttle ticket. One will determine how much you owe, the other will tell the bus driver roughly where your car is so that you don’t have to mount a Corps of Discovery Expedition. The driver was also keen to ask if we were CAA, government, or military. Gotta get all the discounts we can! It was a good vibe riding the shuttle, too. I thought parking was going to be a real hassle, but the folks at Park-'n-Fly made it smooth and kind of fun.

However, I feel for the folks who are returning to their cars today to find them covered with ice. Somehow I don’t think folks returning from Cuba packed their ice scraper in their carry-ons. Also, whenever we get MetroLink service to the airport, the business will probably take a bit of a hit.

Anyway, so I’m in the terminal. I check-in, confirming all the “where I’m staying in the US”, “passport number”, that sort of stuff. And then it’s time for security.

100mL is small. Anything you have that you’d want to take with you is probably more than 100mL. I needlessly wasted a can of sunscreen and a tube of toothpaste because they were 173 mL and 135 mL respectively. Yeah, shame on me for not looking this stuff up, but it’s ridunculous all the same. So now I need to get toothpaste and possibly sunscreen if it’s hot in San Diego. It might not be. I brought layers.

So I wasted time with that, even putting my things in bags and wondering if I could get away with it. Then I envisioned myself spending the rest of March Break in a cell, and I thought the better of it.

The US-departure security area at Halifax isn’t laid out very conveniently – there isn’t enough space for people to deshoe and get all their things into bins. You have people reaching over each other and jockeying over a very small amount of counter space. It’s lousy. And on the back end it’s only slightly better. A sign saying “please move back!” might be helpful. I have also said before that I am in favour of a slow lane through screening, because I’d like to be able to tie my shoes and such without having to be in a stressed-out breathless hurry about it. Screening sucks!

And then there’s US Customs pre-clearance. I think we should set up some kind of customs union or common travel area with the United States akin to what exists between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It’s ridiculous that we’ve been parked next to each other and at peace for almost 200 years and generally on the same side of most things, and yet we do so much to mutually inhibit comings and goings. ANYWAY. Pre-clearance makes the imposition almost tolerable, and I’ve never had a problem with the US folks so far. It’s the Canadian ones that ask rude things like “What’s a Bedford boy doing in Portland?” Just ask what the purpose of my visit was, OK?

But this time, with the US folks, I forgot to fill out my customs form. Now wait a second. Virtually all the information on my customs form, I already had to submit to the airline just to check in. So why couldn’t they just key this up? I understand having a separate form for monetary instruments and things like that, but the data about where I’m staying and what my passport number is has already been stored somewhere. Why do I have to fill it out again? Anyway, I ended up going through the line twice.

The customs officer asked me what I did for work. I said I was a student and answered where. It was pleasant and I spoke carefully in neutral tones.

“What do you hope to do?”

“Programming.”

“Oh, you can go anywhere with that.”

“Yes, as long as I don’t have ‘immigrant intent’.”

She laughed. “Have a good trip.”

That’s another rant: shouldn’t you like your country enough that you figure people would WANT to stay in it? The fact that they screen NAFTA visas for immigrant intent is an abomination and we should demand, starting now, that this part be reopened. If you just want someone to come work and then leave, it’s all take and no give. I’d settle for just being able to prove that you can support yourself. Set up a system with checks and audits. However, I also kind of understand how countries don’t want to open themselves up to unnecessary liability. And someone who can support themselves on Tuesday might be out of work on Wednesday. So I kind of get it. But I’m having to hold my nose.

I get to the departure lounge and sit down and call my mother. And as I’m wrapping up that conversation, I hear, “This is the final boarding call for United flight 5152 to Newark. Passengers must board now or will be subject to seat loss.” So up I get! I would have been there in plenty of time were it not for the questionable roads, full Park-'n-Fly bus, and my consecutive brain farts with screening and customs. :-)

I go through the departure desk. My gate is Gate 26. But the signs are suddenly in the 50s! What gives? Oh, it looks like Gate 26 is also Gate 56 and a bunch of others are like that, too. Boy, I’ll bet that never confuses anybody. :-p My guess is that they switch them up so that sometimes it’s a domestic / other-international gate and sometimes a transborder gate and they change the numbers accordingly. I dunno – I don’t think I would have done that. Maybe I’d do it with a suffix. Like have a Gate 26-U and Gate 26-R. And for now it’s the same departure bridge. Anyway, I was seriously freaking out for a second – I thought I’d get lost between the desk and the plane and that they’d shut the doors and say to hell with me.

And then I’m on the plane. The usual foolishness ensues with me being in somebody’s way, somebody being in my seat but I’ll sit over here, then my stuff getting scattered all over the place. I love those 1+2 regional jets that have one seat up and down the left side of the plane. Book early and you’ve got a super seat. Bin space isn’t so hot on those ones, though. Anyway, this is a 2+2 regional jet, which is better than being stuck in a middle seat but there’s not much else really going for it.

And we had our technical difficulties. And the de-icing proceeded at glacial speed. But we did at last take off and the captain said as much that, “We’re going to fly this plane like we stole it.”

When I first got on, I had a nice chat with a lady (probably in her 50s or 60s) who then later volunteered to go up to the front to help balance the plane. Heh. I don’t think I annoyed her... In my defense, she was moving to a first class seat. This is a tail-heavy kind of plane so they apparently routinely have to shuffle people.

One thing we talked about is teaching (English) overseas – she has friends and relatives galore that did it – and when she asked me how I found my job, I told her that it was kind of rough and that I thought that my workplace valued appearance over substance. (Not that I was the world’s greatest teacher with beaucoup substance to offer, but it was disheartening nonetheless.) Also I was a little cheesed when I found out later that Saint Mary’s was operating a de facto employment agency under the guise that the purpose was to arrange international employment opportunities for their students - well, I thought it was for free, dammit, if only because I'd spent on the order of 20 large there on my academic program. (I should have probed deeper, but I was a trusting soul in those days.)

So what adventures await in Newark? As I write this we’re juuust starting our approach and my flight to San Jose should have flown about ten minutes ago. I’m excited to hear what the gate agent has to say. I don’t really have any great big song and dance planned for today in San Jose and the rehearsal dinner is tomorrow night, so I’m pretty flexible. 80 miles to Newark, 20-30 minutes, says the captain.

This Isn't Really Working For Me - 4: Highway 102 (and sequential exit numbering)

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:25:27 GMT

Most of these images are screen captures from Google Maps in Street View. You can go amazingly far in Street View and it's easy to ~~waste~~ spend hours tracking down unique interchanges and remote border crossings.

Let’s begin at the beginning. We’re heading north from the beginning of the highway (off Bayers Road in Halifax). The first exit we come to is Exit 1D. Why D? For “Dunbrack Street”, perhaps? This ramp also connects with Northwest Arm Drive, a four-lane express road that has a hidden designation of Trunk 32.

As you can see, the exit numbering system is off to a highly inauspicious start. We’re not even going to see the delightful Exit 0, as it is only accessible to southbound traffic.

Next we come to the turnoff for Highway 103. Since this is another 100-Series road, it’s a bit surprising that the exit has the -A designation. At least they were counterintuitively correct in leaving out the ’ from “Peggys”.

Given that this is where two freeways meet, there ought to be flyovers here instead of this trumpet configuration.

And now we reach “Exit 2” for Lacewood Drive and Chain Lake Drive.

And then Exit 2, serving Kearney Lake Road – wait, say again? Well, someone goofed – the Lacewood / Chain Lake exit was actually Exit 2A. Perhaps someone thought that 2 was supposed to come before 2A? Ha-ha, why would anybody ever get that idea?

They’ve since fixed the sign at Lacewood / Chain Lake to say “Exit 2A”.

What comes after Exit 2A and Exit 2? Exit 2B, of course, accessing Larry Uteck Boulevard.

Now we come to Bedford. This ramp at the Hammonds Plains Road exit was a 1990s afterthought. Even with kilometre-based exit numbering, this interchange would need to be split up into letters. I would submit to you that that’s the only acceptable occasion for doing do. I’d also strongly recommend going with N/S/E/W or N/NE/E… (if it’s a really complex interchange!) designations instead of A/B/C… because that way you can use the same letters for the same directions on the same roads in either freeway-direction and it’ll still make sense. (Since the southbound exit isn’t split, it’d just have to be Exit nE&W under an improved system. There’s another problem – what’s currently Exit 3 southbound should be Exit 3 A&B.)

Exit 3B is my daily exit. Also the Hammonds Plains Road, but going west instead of east.

Here’s what I would submit is the worst interchange in Nova Scotia (overhead view here). Two freeways meet here – Highway 101 and Highway 102. Someday they might even tie in the Highway 107 extension and the Bedford Bypass. Right now it’s an overloaded cloverleaf with weaving problems a-plenty. Using the inner ramps is nightmarish. Even this outer ramp, Exit 4A to the Bedford Highway (Trunk 1, briefly) is problematic – it ends abruptly with a yield sign; there’s no merging lane.

And here’s Exit 4B, the ramp to Highway 101 and Trunk 1. But the sign’s had a little bit too much to drink.

Here’s the overpass for the Bedford Bypass, a provincial road internally designated Trunk 33. (A “33” shield has been showing up on Google Maps lately – I’m not sure how I feel about that, since it’s probably going to confuse anybody that’s not seriously into roads.) In what is nothing less than a monumental oversight, it provides no direct access to Highway 102. If you want to use it, you need to get off at Exit 4B and turn around on Sackville Drive. That’s the only way that people from the west part of Bedford can avoid driving through downtown Bedford to get to Dartmouth. (Save driving all the way out to Fall River, but there’s a jog there, too.)

However, I might be able to forgive the planners if the Highway 107 extension is ever completed and if direct access is provided. You know that little bridge on Duke Street just on the Bedford side of the ramps? That’s there to allow a ramp from northbound 102 to eastbound 107.

4C, for Duke Street and Glendale Drive, straddling the line between Bedford and Lower Sackville. Has nothing to do with 4A and B except proximity. Now what will they call the ramp to 107?

Exit 5 in Fall River, accessing Trunk 2. Highways 102 and 118 merge up ahead in a flyover, but there’s no direct access from northbound 102 to southbound 118 or northbound 118 to southbound 102. For those purposes, you have to get off here. Sometimes we still come all the way out here anyway, as the short jog is sometimes better than driving down Windmill Road in Burnside, especially if we plan to take Highway 107 to get somewhere out the eastern shore.

I don’t seriously object to necessitating the little off-freeway jog here because if the 107 were extended, the need would pretty much be eliminated.

Here, way far away from Exit 5, we have 5A, for Aerotech Drive. Despite what Google Maps suggests, I don’t think it’s actually part of Highway 212. It may well be in Goffs, though.

It gets almost sensible for a while, starting from here. Exit 6 is for the airport (Bell Boulevard?). If I wanted to be fancy I’d say “Halifax Stanfield” and imply that we have more than one airport.

Exit 7, Trunk 2, Enfield

Exit 8, Highway 214 (Elmsdale Road), Elmsdale

Exit 9, Trunk 14 and Highway 224 (224 begins as an old alignment of Highway 102!), Milford Station

Exit 10, Highway 215. Long, long ago, this was actually Highway 15. If you dig around at the Nova Scotia Archives, you can find some old maps with the numbers that existed prior to the present 100-series / trunk / collector classification. (For my money, there’s so little meaningful difference between trunks and collectors that I think the classification could stand to be re-visited.)

Exit 11, Main Street, Stewiacke

Here’s a “reassurance” marker coming up on Exit 12. This makes me wonder “Why?” Why would anyone not believe that continuing on Highway 102 is the default? Worse, the indicator arrow is ambiguous – both the off-ramp and the continuing highway are roughly “straight”! The place for a marker like this is after the interchange, when you’re not facing any choices. (And then take out the arrow.)

Exit 12, Highway 289 (Pleasant Valley Road), Brookfield

Coming into the Truro area, we have exit numbering shenanigans again... (Exit 13A, Tower Road, Millbrook First Nation)

... followed logically by Exit 13, accessing McClures Mills Road, Truro.

Exit 14, Highways 2 and 236 (Robie Street), Lower Truro

Exit 14A, Highways 2 and 4 (Onslow Road), Onslow – 2 is multiplexed with 102 between Exits 14 and 14A. Note that there are only ramps on the south side, probably because of the proximity of...

Exit 15W, for Highway 104 West. Or at least the sign. This is where you’ll go if you’re in the left lane. I note that there’s nothing saying “Bridge to PEI”, which is funny because...

Exit 15E, for Highway 104 East, indicates the ferry to PEI. But there are a few problems here. As or after the 104 was twinned through here, the interchange was slightly reconfigured so that this turnoff would be gentler. OK, alright so far. But that also means that you need to turn off sooner. And it’s clear from this picture that they didn’t move this dowdy old wooden sign – and as far as I know, they still haven’t. They stuck a revised “ramp speed” indicator on it and that was it.

It gets worse. In the wintertime, where do you think the “Ferry Not Operating” sign goes? That’s right – it goes on this sign, underneath the arrow. But by the time you’re close enough to read it, it’s almost too late to get into the left lane to head for New Brunswick and take the bridge.

I'm passionate about this subject, so I've gone on at length. If I can only leave you with one takeaway, let it be that sequential exit numbering (at least on roads more than a few kilometres in length) is a bad idea. A much better alternative is to number the exits according to the kilometre posts. British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec, and New Brunswick are already doing this. The only significant holdouts are 1) Nova Scotia and 2) Newfoundland and Labrador (surprising, as their implementation of exit numbering occurred fairly recently).

Numbering according to kilometre posts has at least two big advantages:

1. Expandability – If you should ever build a new interchange, there’s no need to worry about an appropriate number to assign. You also avoid most A-B-C-D messes and can save the letters for compass directions at the same interchange and certain other situations.

2. Understandability – If you just drove past Exit 14 and your destination is off Exit 28, you know that you have 14 kilometres to go until your exit is reached. Better yet, with the kilometre posts that we have, you can easily track the distance while you’re between distant exits.

I admit at least one disadvantage: it’s going to mess you up if you’re accustomed to counting the junctions as you go by them (does anyone do this?), but even then that system is already broken by our haphazard implementation of sequential exit numbering.

Please Nova Scotia, let’s do something, before we face a tragedy like an Exit 5½.

Finally, if Nova Scotia’s Highway 102 isn’t enough to convince you of the folly of sequence-based numbering, let’s take a quick <ahem> gander at Newfoundland and Labrador Route 1:

Off the boat in Port aux Basques, you come to a sign that looks like an exit gore – you know, it has the word “EXIT” in it – but it’s really just pointing the way to Highway 470. But anyone who doesn’t know Newfoundland roads (including many of the people driving their RVs off the MV Sleepy Tucker) is going to think that’s an exit number. Anyway, this has nothing to do with sequence except that you should pretend this is signed “Exit 1”.

Now, 144 kilometres later, outside Stephenville, we come to Exit 2. Yes, they have sequential numbering on a 900+km road. I’m sorry, Newfoundland, that we in Nova Scotia were such a bad influence in this case. Sorry.

This Isn't Really Working For Me - 3: Faucets

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:22:45 GMT

This week I present a set of faucets that work (reasonably well) followed by a set that is more confusing.

1. Some faucets somewhere in my home.

2. They’re turned on by moving the arms. It would be nice if there were a way to tell that you’re supposed to pull the arms toward you (rather than away) but at least once you get going it’s readily apparent which faucet(s) are on and to what extent.

3. Both faucets fully on.

4. The faucets in the C-wing second-floor men’s washroom here at the IT campus. There’s no directional information or indication at all.

5. Both faucets fully on, but notice how similar it is to situation #4. You don’t know which one(s) are on and which way to turn them to shut off the flow.

6. Cold on, hot off. If you look from this angle at least you can notice that they screw up and down, and going up opens it further. Makes sense, but it’s really hard to see.

7. Both faucets off again (back to equal height).

Having easy / intuitive faucets is not only a convenience issue; when dealing with hot water it is also a safety issue. When you want colder water but end up with hotter, something isn’t working quite right.

This Isn't Really Working For Me - 2: Tim Hortons Wastebin

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:45:24 GMT

This is a wastebin in the Tim Hortons at the corner of Hammonds Plains Road and Bedford Highway. They are a location that has both a Cold Stone Creamery and a drive-thru window, and the building was originally built for neither, so they are a little tight on space. Apparently this compact square wastebin was part of the solution.

The problem is, it's impossible to tell which slot is for what. In the two images above I show two equally plausible interpretations for what's supposed to go where. Having shaped slots is a nice idea, and they have the potential to remove the equivocation, but the images above the slots don't show the corresponding shapes.

Inevitably I stand there for a few moments looking confused, and inevitably an employee at the counter pipes up and tells me which one. Sometimes they or fellow patrons have a little chuckle at my expense. I can't even tell what goes where by what's in the bins because I'm both 1) not the only person confused 2) one of only some who are conscientious enough to care.

I'd change this design by making the shapes meaningful though having them shown in the photos. Labels would work too, but then you'd have to have something printed next to the slot that could get kind of messy and / or worn out. Shaped slots are more elegant.

the coupon

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:32:29 GMT

Someone at McDonald's today had a fascinating understanding of how coupons work - she looked at the expiry date, rang in my discounted food, and then she gave the coupon back to me, because it hadn't expired yet.

I couldn't let her do that and told her that that coupons typically are a one-shot deal; the expiry date just means that you missed your chance to use it. But I didn't tell her that my order came out to less than I thought it was going to be.

I was supposed to get a free drink and fries when I ordered a sandwich. At my table, I checked my receipt and sure enough, I got a free sandwich when I ordered a drink and fries!

I wonder if she's on a mission to subvert Mickey D's? :-)

NHL Playoff Seeding and Structure Idea

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:20:46 GMT

Ah, the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs - my favourite half of the year!

By now you're probably aware of the proposal to move from a two-conference system to a four-division system, and also that they won't be doing it for next season (2012-13), but it could still happen for the following year (2013-14). (Here's a cool map of the proposed alignment.)

Ideally, there would be 32 teams, and I wouldn't be surprised if:
- They expand to Seattle and Quebec City.
- They move Phoenix to Hamilton.
Or some combination of the above. I don't buy the "second team in Toronto" thing unless they want to share the Air Canada Centre. Remember when Jim Balsillie came within a hairsbreadth of making Hamilton a reality? It could still happen, though I wouldn't advise any breath-holding.

So let's say they have 32 teams as that's much neater. Then 16/32 make the playoffs. But! I would only guarantee playoff spots to the top two teams in each division. And it wouldn't be a particular seeding either, just a spot. Teams with better records than you who happen to be in third or lower in their divisions will slot in ahead of you.

Then we do the whole playoffs as a pyramid and do highest-faces-lowest every round. Home-ice advantage would go to the higher seed. Probably would stick with the current (H: high, L: low) H H L L H L H format, but H H L L L H H (like in baseball) has it's travel-reducing advantages. I think it makes home-ice a bigger deal, though.

#1 vs #16 #2 vs #15 etc.. #8 vs #9

Subsequent rounds repeat in a like fashion, with the top-seeded survivor facing the lowest-seeded survivor and so on.

Such a system would help make it so the two best teams are more likely to play for the Stanley Cup. You could have Toronto vs. Montreal with this system, even though they would be in the same division.

Alternatively, we could go with a hybrid system (we all love that word "hybrid"!) where the first round is #1 vs #4 and #2 vs #3 in each division, definitely including a CFL-like crossover rule where #5 or lower teams with unambiguously better records (unambiguously as in not tied for points*) can steal those #4 slots and play as if they were a member of that division.

Then after that first round, the survivors are regrouped by regular season record:

#1 of survivors vs #8 of survivors #2 of survivors vs #7 of survivors #3 of survivors vs #6 of survivors #4 of survivors vs #5 of survivors

similar to the first system, repeating in a like fashion. The hybrid system has the advantage of encouraging divisional rivalries while still making it possible for the two best teams to meet for the Cup.

* - Bob McCown: "In the NHL, they give points for attendance!" That might need a re-think, too. I like shootouts, but perhaps winning them should only be worth an extra half-point.

This Isn't Really Working For Me - 1: The Microwave

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:31:34 GMT

This is the first of what will be an ongoing series of posts necessitated by my "User Interface Design and Development" course.

This is my grandmother's Frigidaire microwave. She has trouble setting it because she finds the button layout confusing. Or at least she did when she first got it - she's remarkably adaptable.

One problem is if she wanted, say, "1 minute 30 seconds", she'd push the 1 but if she didn't get on to the next number (3) quickly enough, the microwave was like, "Oh, easy set!" and went on for one minute.

Another problem is that it's not clear at a glance whether one should enter the power level first or the cooking time first.

My grandmother's previous microwave had a dial to set the cooking time. She much preferred it. Naturally, it broke, and there were no more microwaves with dials available when she needed to get a new one. If I were designing a microwave right now, I'd centre it around a dial but also include a LED and a digital power level selector that defaults to "HIGH / 100%" so that the complexity is there if you need it but otherwise it's entirely optional.

Sunday: A New Year's Day Football Extravaganza, or Week 17 of the NFL Regular Season

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:34:00 GMT

Here are two great charts to help get you prepared, both from Rich Eisen's blog. They show the playoff seedings that result from each permutation of the relevant games.

NFC Playoff Seeding Possibilites Chart

AFC Playoff Seeding Possibilites Chart

I suggest writing your channel numbers next to the games and times so that you can jump around the meaningful games with ease.

Now for some commentary. For sanity's sake, I'm restricting my comments to games that I'll be able to watch. Most digital cable subscribers in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island will be able to see the following games. As for the rest, you might be able to try a site like firstrowsports.tv to tune into some, er, "unofficial" streams. ;-)

2:00 PM

Buffalo at New England - CBS Boston, CTV Atlantic
Don't forget about Tom Brady - he's just 190 yards short of Brees for the single-season passing yards record. And with a win, New England clinches home-field advantage for the AFC playoffs.

Carolina at New Orleans - FOX Rochester
We'll get to see Cam Newton finish off his impressive rookie year. For New Orleans, a win and a 49ers loss (yes, to the Rams, but anything's possible), means they get the #2 seed. Even though the #2 seed is a remote possibility, they do have stats to play for: among other things, Brees will want to be the single-season leader in passing yards for more than one week. Could be a very high-scoring game.

New York (Jets) at Miami - TSN2
Jets need to win to keep their slim playoff hopes alive. How slim? I think they need a win, a Cincinati loss, a Tenessee loss, a Rangers loss, and a Knicks loss. In another early game, Tenessee is at the Texans facing a similar situation.

5:15 PM

Kansas City at Denver - CBS Boston, Sportsnet East
Denver's in with a win, but Kansas City QB Kyle Orton was replaced by Tim Tebow in Denver last year and will probably be itching for a big game. Meanwhile, for good and ill, Tebow defies consensus.

Tampa Bay at Atlanta - FOX Rochester
Atlanta needs this game (and a Detroit loss in their early game) to get the 5th seed instead of the 6th. It's the difference between facing the Giants / Cowboys winner in the 4 vs. 5 game, or going to (probably) New Orleans for the 3 vs. 6 game. They'd rather be 5th. Also, in the highly improbable event of both wildcard teams making the conference final, the 5th would host the 6th, but AFAIK this has never happened.

San Diego at Oakland - Sportsnet Ontario, Sportsnet West, Sportsnet Pacific
This is a must-win game for Oakland. If they win, they'll get in line for the AFC West or the 2nd wildcard. They'll need a combination of things to happen in other games.

9:20 PM

Dallas at New York (Giants) - NBC, TSN
Win and you're in. Lose and stay home. The NFC wildcard spots are out of reach for either team. The good teams had their playoff spots locked up by early December. With these guys I'd vote "none of the above" and fill in ... well, that's up to you. All teams with winning records are at least "in the hunt" going into Week 17. No truly good team can really be said to be on the outside looking in, though that does happen from time to time: In 2008 the Patriots went 11-5 and still missed the playoffs.

What I Did During My Fall Semester

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:04:44 GMT

Part of a series: Fall 2011 - Winter 2012

Class	Description	Grade
COMM 1100	Technical Communications	95
DBAS 1001	Introduction to Databases	100
INFT 1000	Foundations in IT	98
NETW 1100	Networking I	100
PROG 1100	Programming I	99
WEBD 1000	Website Development	99

(The “portfolio page” links go to the course’s page in my e-portfolio.)

COMM 1100 :: Technical Communications :: 0.5 credits (portfolio page)

I could have received credit for this course had I put together a résumé and a cover letter and perhaps a few other things. I decided not to for two reasons. First, it makes no difference in the tuition you pay. Second, I figured I could use this course to bring up my average. Well, you can see how that turned out. :-)

The course textbook, A Concise Guide to Technical Communication, was what it was. A particular exercise from a textbook-specific online resource (a “MyTechCommLab”) was required to complete the course. That’s all fine and dandy, but the textbook publisher, Pearson Education Canada, only sold access to the resource if you also bought the printed or e-textbook. I didn’t want to buy the textbook, so I borrowed it from another campus on Novanet.

I then purchased access to a generic “MyTechCommLab” which had the same sort of exercises. Unfortunately, the generic MTCL didn’t allow me to join the instructor’s class, so he couldn’t access my records from the exercises. Now if they were going to be this particular, they should have given people the ability to purchase the textbook-specific resource without the textbook.

The instructor wrote to the support people at Pearson and their reply was unhelpful – basically “How dare they take the class and not purchase the textbook?” The instructor ended up having to manually record my grade – I had my completed exercise printed in anticipation of this.

The final deliverable for the course was a solo presentation. I had fun putting mine together and afterwards I narrated my PowerPoint and generated a video, which I then put on YouTube. Feel free to watch, especially if you’re in the market for a display.

Grade: 95

DBAS 1001 :: Introduction to Databases :: 0.5 credits (portfolio page)

This course was an introduction to databases through the medium of Microsoft Office Access. Most of the course consisted of following step-by step walkthroughs in the textbook to apply things to, and generate items from, a large pre-existing database.

Not having been exposed to databases before, I found the course very useful, though a lot of the material was just getting to know Access. The exercises were sometimes a bit tedious, but I don’t think that could have been helped.

The signature deliverable in the course was an independent implementation of the things we’d learned, applied to a business or concept of our own choosing. I’ve been a Star Trek fan in the past, so I came up with a rudimentary “fleet management” application for a Starfleet Command bureaucrat. (The database password is password – it’s just there to show that you can have one.)

Grade: 100

INFT 1000 :: Foundations in IT :: 1 credit (portfolio page)

This course seemed to be structured with the aim of helping us choose our concentrations since that’s a choice that needs to be made (or narrowed down to one of two categories) by the end of the first semester, instead of at the end of the first year, as it was in the past. This was to our frequent chagrin, as there was generally enough experience in the classes themselves to catalyze the solidification of the decision.

Many deliverables and reflections and presentations (a gong would have been helpful) and even an unfortunate MBTI personality test were among the components of this course.

Grade: 98

NETW 1100 :: Networking I :: 1 credit (portfolio page)

This course largely consisted of Cisco Packet Tracer labs and hands-on exercises using both physical gear and virtual machines. I somehow picked up 1.5 bonus points along the way, so my mark should really be that much higher than what is posted, but you win some, you lose some. :-)

It was reasonably smooth sailing, but the textbook was really dry, and sometimes we were given the labs before we had the lectures or assigned readings required to make sense of them. We also had one of our scheduled class meetings at 8:30 am. To make it in time and not waste 30+ minutes in stop-and-go, I’d leave my house in Bedford just after 6am, then once safely ensconced on the peninsula, I’d have my breakfast at Tim Hortons. Next semester I’m going to have to do this twice a week. If only the classes would meet no earlier than 9:30 – it would make a world of difference.

Grade: 100

PROG 1100 :: Programming I :: 1.5 credits (portfolio page)

In this course we learned to create simple Windows programs in Visual Basic .NET using the IDE Visual Studio.

Even though this course was worth triple the database course or the tech comm. course, it didn’t feel like I’d spent that much time on it. Then again, once you’re in a groove of coding, hours can go by in what seems like minutes.

This course demanded perfectionism, and after a few opening bumps I was working at that level. If it weren’t for a few silly mistakes on the first two assignments, I would have achieved a triple-digit score here, too.

You can download my final project if you want, though if you just want to see what it looked like, here’s a screenshot.

Grade: 99

WEBD 1000 :: Website Development :: 1 credit (portfolio page)

I saved the worst for last. I hated this class!

I don't have a flair for design, so web development is probably not for me. However, I can code my way out of a cardboard box, which is more than I can say for some people. Speaking of which, there were many times when I could have taught the course better than the instructor. That wouldn't be so bad in and of itself, except that this instructor also had a particularly heavy-handed approach. (My-way-or-the-highway and wait-what-am-I-doing-here don’t make for a harmonious mix.) She labored long under false assumptions. She was petrified about appearing to be in the wrong about anything, and she took (the numerous) corrections with a put-upon “I’ve been told” attitude.

The final project was to make a portfolio. It’s live on my website – you can go see it right now. I’ll always be grateful for having been given imperative to make it – if anyone asks, “So what did you do?” I can just pass them the link.

That being said, the requirements for the portfolio were onerous, and there were half-a-dozen handouts, all with long lists of things to answer, present, or check off.

I went through this list. In fact, I spent more time on my portfolio than any other thing I did all semester.

Murphy’s Law was in effect: On the day I presented my portfolio, I learned that she had specific requirements for our list of skills – it needed to say where we acquired them and how long we’ve had them. This critical information wasn’t anywhere in the handouts. Yes, it was on her website, but it should have been in the handouts along with the 32,767 other things she wanted to see.

While other people presented, I hurriedly affixed the required information to my résumé, since it was required to pass. (You can see what I did here – look under “Skills & Interests”. Yeah, it looks last-minute because it literally was last-minute.) I lost points for the formatting.

Well, at least now I know how Armando Galarraga felt.

Grade: 99

Tingle Jolt jolt jolt Oww

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:13:53 GMT

I finally had my EMG and nerve conduction study today. It's relatively complex, and given the residents, doctor, and technician required to do it, I'm a little more understanding about why I had to wait since July to have it done.

You know those fancy check-in machines at the Robie Street entrance? I think that was the first time the magnetic strip on my health card had ever been used. Moreover, whatever you do, do not pick “not correct” when it's verifying your personal information. When the machine displayed:

RELIGION: INFO NOT SUPPLIED

… I wanted to see what the choices were, so I picked “not correct”. Unfortunately, that made the machine finish with “check-in not completed”, and I was obliged to check in with an attendant.

The comedy of errors did not end there. My sheet said my appointment would be on the fourth floor, and so I go to the neurology area on the fourth floor. My appointment was to be at two (though a 15-minute advance arrival was requested), and I sat down to my book at one-thirty.

At quarter after two, I heard a far-away voice call “William Matheson?” I stood up and walked towards the sound. “You need to be at the EMG lab.” She was very nice about it. Apparently there's some kind of ongoing glitch with the appointment forms, and they have this screw up every day.

The first part of the test was the nerve conduction. Now, in order to measure velocity, you need to know the distance. So, you mark with a pen where you apply the electrode and take out your tape measure. It was funny how much resemblance it bore to a first-year physics lab. At least they didn't make the poor guy propagate his uncertainties.

Then, they apply a series of shocks. It is very much like the shock that is delivered when you touch an electric fence, as virtually all farm boys have done. It was comforting to have a frame of reference.

The second part was the EMG itself. This is where they stick a very sharp needle into your muscles and your excruciating pain is transmuted into jagged, vaguely sinusoidal waves on a computer screen. It is less fun than it sounds. My knee was the worst; it's still sore now, hours later.

Well, at least some light has been shed on my disorder, right? No, not a thing. Instead, I had the worst of all possible outcomes: everything appeared normal. I was convinced that we were going to find a smoking gun, and I'm a bit disappointed that we didn't.

So the next thing I'm going to ask for is to have my back checked out. The physiotherapist did detect a degree of scoliosis in my spine, and I'd like a specialist’s feedback about that. I also may yet be referred to a neurologist. Heck, if it's idiopathic, I might even be referred to a psychologist. And that's how I'll know I'm really screwed. ;-p

Idea (with flakes): Behaviour of religious adherents as a function of a religion's age?

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 22:35:33 GMT

Wired: FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’

I love graphs. Graphs are a great way to quickly and dramatically illustrate a point. But graphs without data aren't worth the paper they might be printed on.

It's true that the three major religions in the graph fired up at different times (but though Jesus Christ was probably born by or before 3 BCE, I doubt that his followers were coming out of the woodwork while he was a toddler) and that can't be completely ignored if you're going to compare religions. There might even be a way to model violent behaviour* by adherents of religions** as a function of time and you might be able to come to be able to make the assertion that religions change in predictable ways over time. Maybe. This is otherwise complete bunk, and I hope heads roll at the FBI (figuratively - I'm not a murderer like Governor of Texas and Presidential-hopeful Rick Perry).

Graphing gives the FBI's assertions the illusion of true scholarship where there is in fact none. The graph is merely a vehicle so they can say:

1. Jews and Christians are equally pacifist in general, and Christianity has always been more violent than Judaism but it is trending to pacifism more quickly, therefore Christianity is actually innately better.

2. Muslims always will be more violent, since their violence is now at a fixed level and not a function of time like White People Religion.

They don't need any evidence, they just need a graph. Who needs evidence, anyway? The United States government's dim view of human intelligence was vindicated when the Iraq War was launched on spurious*** claims that Saddam Hussein was harbouring weapons of mass destruction.

To stop the War on ~~Terror~~ Freedom, I believe we need to take the hitherto embattled side on the War on Thought.

Follow-up: It seems that the FBI contracted the person who provided this 'training', and now that the materials have been leaked, they say they're no longer contracting him and that they intend to review their policies. God, I love the media sometimes. Would we have anything even resembling democracy without them? Here's a new article including some details of the FBI's about-face.

As much as the ball was dropped, I am oddly comforted that the FBI merely condoned this training instead of actually creating and delivering it, and that angers me - corporations contract partly to avoid the sort of liability there'd be doing things in-house.

As far as I know, there are no standards governing people who are flown into corporate offices to give seminars. Equally spurious BS probably gets thrown around everywhere all the time (if you have a consultant come in and she administers a personality test, run) - this is just hackle-raising because of the circumstances.

* - How do you quantify that? Let's for the moment pretend we have perfect statistics and competent statisticians.

** - Even the sects that live in the mountains and are hard to sample for?

*** - Even before the war, it was shaky. I admit a lot of us just wanted to see the US go in and kick Saddam Hussein's ass. We willingly looked the other way.

Owwltrasowwnd

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:21:08 GMT

Back when I was in PEI for a week, about two weeks ago, I got a phone call from my doctor's administrative assistant advising me that my ultrasound had been scheduled for the day after the next. Uh-oh! I told her that I was still in PEI - in fact, I told her before she booked that I'd be in PEI until Labour Day. Not that I'm annoyed with her - I'm really cheesed by the system. I finally have another appointment, but guess what? November 7th! It's like "How dare you be out of town for a week; for that impertinence, we'll just delay your appointment for two months!" Hopefully I'll still be alive by November!

It's doubly frustrating right now because I feel like I'm getting worse instead of better. I got some kind of lining for my lower teeth to prevent me from clenching my jaw at night. I don't think I was a clencher, or at least that wasn't the root cause, because my myofascial pain on the various surfaces of my head continues. The stretches and physiotherapy may only be staving off further progression. They might even be making things worse!

I really hope I don't end up with some lame diagnosis like fibromyalgia. "Gee, we don't really know what's causing your pain, so here's a catch-all diagnosis." I might as well just slit my wrists now and end the suffering.

I wonder how I'd be feeling right now if I'd quit that tech support job as it started? I had such a horrible first night on the phone that after it was over I stood around for ten minutes debating whether to hand in my headset to a supervisor and leave. On the other hand, that company had just spent $700 paying me to sit through training. If I didn't work for them at least a little while, it would have been really unfair for the company. But I hated my first exposure so much that I figured I'd quit anyway. I stood and waited for a supervisor to not be busy. I waited, waited, and waited. Then I figured, no, you know what, I'll do this. How bad could it be?

Ha-ha! Well, lesson learned: Don't work such a stressful job - it really isn't worth it.

Edit: I must disclose that part of the influence on my decision to stay was that I didn't want to be seen to be a call centre gypsy or be one of those people who takes the training and then quits - such people are the majority of some training groups! Also, I was desperate for the money so I could go back to school and try to get a better life.

I've filed a worker's compensation claim as regards my wrists, and it may turn out that some of my other pain is compensatory. But it could just as easily be from a pre-existing neck or back problem.

I still don't have an appointment for the nerve conduction study. I need the results of that in hand before I can see a neurologist. Fortunately, my doctor found a neurologist who's accepting new patients. I'm also going to see the doctor tomorrow afternoon (after class - nice not to have to miss class) and ask about getting a referral to someone who might fit me for orthotics, most likely for my feet. I can't even take my stepfather for groceries anymore. You try spending half an hour dragging your right foot around Costco! ;-p I thought that my feet and legs were getting better but the short-term evidence is quite contrary.

Just right now I'm noticing that reclining a little in this chair feels a better than sitting upright. I'd better mention that, too. I wish I could go into zero-g and float for a little while. I believe it would ease the pain.

* * *

Today I discovered that my locker is right across the hall from a shower that isn't totally creepy-weird! So that's convenient. I'll be trying it out tomorrow since I have class at 8:30am. I'd better not forget to bring a bag for my damp towel.

Class began at 9:30 and I left for it around 8:45, and I had time to stop for coffee. The drive was easy except for coming down the Hammonds Plains Road into Bedford - traffic wanting to get on the 102 Northbound was backed up all the way to Bluewater Road! Huh! So I think I might need to modify my route to take the 102 Southbound since I can skip the queue as the lineup is in the left lane and the empty right lane actually becomes the southbound ramp. That'll probably become a Monday and Friday thing. Tuesday I start class at 8:30 and plan to beat that by just leaving super early and breakfasting and showering here. The other two days start later (10:30; 12:30) and don't usually have traffic problems.

Leaving right at 4:30 hasn't been too bad - it's just slow getting through the Fairview Overpass. It's bottlenecked in my case particularly with all the people wanting to go left onto Bayview from the Bedford Highway. It's tricky because the crawl starts out with the left lane (the one I default into) being the quickest, but then at some point as you approach Bayview it becomes the right lane. Once you get past Bayview, it's smooth sailing all the way home.

NFL Week 1 on Atlantic Canadian TV

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:08:12 GMT

Yeah, I just like making lists. I like to know which games I can see and which I can't.

* - "National" games that virtually everyone in the US and Canada can access.
** - Digital cable, DBS or comparable digital service required.

All times ADT.

Thursday Sep 08:
9PM
* - New Orleans (34) at Green Bay (42), NBC (also carried on TSN)
(Great way to start the season!)

Sunday Sep 11:
2PM
Philadelphia at St. Louis, FOX (simsub'd to CTV Atlantic)
Pittsburgh at Baltimore, CBS (playoff rematch!)

5:15PM
New York Giants at Washington, FOX (also carried on RSN East, RSN Pacific**)
Seattle at San Francisco (another region's FOX game, carried on RSN Ontario** and RSN West**)

9:20PM
* - Dallas at New York Jets, NBC (also carried on TSN)

Monday Sep 12:
8PM
* - New England at Miami (an ESPN game carried on ABC and TSN)

11:15PM
* - Oakland at Denver (an ESPN game carried on TSN)

So we can see eight games out of the sixteen (if you have digital service, otherwise seven). Not too bad, I guess - if you subscribe to a special sports package with your provider that includes NFL Sunday Ticket, you'd be able to get all those other CBS and FOX games this afternoon.

Otto the Robot

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 14:44:33 GMT

I had a reasonably productive day yesterday. First, I took the car to a garage and got the heater switch replaced with something that works and that won’t burn one’s fingers. Apparently the wires behind the switch were rotten and arcing. In retrospect I could also have called around to various junkyards in search of a working climate control module, but I suspect that the A/C itself isn’t working, so it would be a deeper money pit to get all that stuff back up to spec.

At school we had our first programming class. In addition to going over the course outline and expectations, we tried out a “game” called Otto the Robot. If you’re running a Windows machine, you can download it and try it, too.

Basically, your job is to program the robot to respond to its environment – for instance, to get through a maze safely. Sometimes you know everything and sometimes you know less, so at the harder stages you can’t just say “step, turn, step, step, turn” like you would if you were giving somebody directions.

I got through the “easy” scenario on my first try, but the “normal” mode really got me for a while. I’d have the robot see if he’s touching something, then if it wasn’t the exit door, he’d turn (always turning right, the only turn he has), test again… if it was clear, he could then take a step.

Sounds good, right? Well, I came back from the hallway (I needed a quiet space to think) expecting that I had the problem licked, but when I ran the program the robot kept going back and forth over just a few squares!

When I got home I finally realized my problem – at any given “square” along the maze, there are two open routes. There’s the way forward, yes, but also the way you came! If your way forward is to the left of you at any point, my algorithm has you going back and forth in an infinite loop. And that’s pretty much what happened.

However, if you turn three times after every step, your problem is solved. It is a little bit inefficient because the way forward is often ahead of you or to your right. But with a robot that can only turn right, you need to start testing to your left – therefore, turn three times, then start your “am I touching something? –> turn if it’s a wall, step if it’s not” stuff.

But now writing this out, I realize I could have added a few more lines and made the robot’s progress much more efficient. He could also test (facing ahead), turn and test, then turn twice, then test. I think that was the professor’s solution, though I didn’t understand it at the time he was presenting it.

And lo and behold, writing things out is what Otto the Robot is actually about. If you just step up to the interface and begin plugging things in, you’re going to have a hard time of it. The scenario and the interface (it’s not exactly a top-flight IDE) conspire to make you draw out your plans (say, on paper) before you barge in. And as Dr. Scobey at Saint Mary’s puts it, “The sooner you start typing, the longer it’s going to take.”

A good lesson to learn. By the way, if you choose to try Otto yourself, don’t worry about the numbers next to the list of commands in the introduction. In the actual game, you will be able to just point-and-click – you won’t need to memorize those numbers. I assumed the worst and started writing down a list of commands before I saw that it’s not necessary.

Third Day

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 01:40:15 GMT

Our first class of the day was cancelled, as the prof had a death in her family. Before we knew why it was cancelled, one fellow was more than a little irritated because he’d been running late, so he caught a cab to get to the class on time.

It was supposed to be a networking class, so naturally our logins weren’t working. Somebody joked that that would give us something to do.

Update: We weren't actually supposed to be able to log in there. The networking lab intentionally has a different setup. Having now had my first class there, what you're supposed to do is use a generic login, then if you need to be logged in normally (for network drive access, for example), you can sign in to a web platform and open up a session that streams a virtual desktop to you - just like being at a standard workstation, albeit slower.

The drive was really easy – less than 25 minutes.

There are a lot of ex-military types in the program. One fellow is retired and needs to have a second career. A few others would otherwise be able to join the French Foreign Legion were they so inclined, but I guess you have to be 40 or under.

Many of my classmates are married, some with children. Some with children not much younger than the youngest of us.

We did get to have our web development class, where we heard the nuts and bolts and then introduced ourselves. I guess that, among other things, it’ll be an opportunity to give my neglected website some badly-needed attention! Between my nerve entrapments and a general feeling of ugh, I have no desire to open it up, and I’ve been putting it off for… what? a year?

And that looms largest – the nerves. I really want to get these tests done; I can’t stand the waiting. It’ll probably turn out that there’s nothing that they can do for me save perhaps palliative treatments, and I’ll suffer this for the rest of my life. But let’s say I do need surgery. Well, now that I think of it, if I’ve had to wait this long for the tests, think how long I’ll have to wait for surgery! I could be finished with the program by then! It’s really frustrating not knowing quite how things are going to go, not to mention having to express that frustration right here with tight, tingling fingers.

Second Day

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:26:50 GMT

I left the house at 8:00 and was involved in even more stop-and-go than yesterday. I got stuck behind a mini-jam at Bedford Elementary Academy (a private school for the semi-privileged) before I even got down to the Bedford Highway, which itself was backed up even before Kearney Lake Road. In my experience, the traffic in Halifax hits the peak of the shit pile right around 8:30, and I saw the view from the top of that mountain of manure. But today I didn't have much of a choice since we didn't need to be on campus until 9. Yay, I can use the extra time to sit in traffic! I suppose I could have left super-early, like I intend to do on future 8:30 am days, but I wanted to have a relaxing morning and didn't feel like kicking around campus looking for something to do (for instance, more recon runs and preparations are necessary before I try to use the gym - it's not like there's towel service here!). Tomorrow I don't need to be in until 12:30, so traffic shouldn't be egregious.

We kicked things off by having a long series of presentations. One of the first ones underlined the importance of professionalism - we were asked to pretend we were hiring for a position and to pick out traits we'd want to have in a new IT employee, and virtually all of the traits that came to mind were non-technical. The technical skills are a must, of course, but the people skills are that little bit of grease that makes everything work.

That's my own, original idea (though spun from my thoughts watching the presentation), so feel free to use it, and if you do, credit me for it. Yes, we learned about plagiarism! But I apparently could learn still more, as I still can't spell it without the help of a spell-checker. Let's change the spelling to "playjarisim" and screw the cognates! Any takers? Anyone? I think this is part of why attempts to spell English phonetically are doomed to look crude.

The excitement wasn't over: next up was ©pyright! Actually, even though I am mocking these presentations, they were necessary, and I must remember that when I was in high school I'd actually entertained the notion of just setting up a photocopying cartel in university (as textbooks would no longer be freely loaned). I even had the short-sighted conceit that I was the first person to ever think of that! Any way I would have known about allowable copying fresh out of high school? No chance in hell, so this was another necessary presentation, though just a pleasant refresher for me.

Hey, you know those people who always have some tangential über-specific thing to add to a long lecture in a crowded room where everybody just wants the presentations to be over? We've got one of those. No, besides me, I mean. I don't harbour the guy any ill will at all and to some extent people like that who do us an invaluable service by giving us people to talk about, but it was impossible not to chuckle or even resist burying my head in my hands and shaking my head, yet all the while grinning. You had to be there.

Incidentally, this place is Aspie Heaven™ and I'd wish that I'd come here years ago were it not for one important ingredient - I now have a bit of social awareness that back then I almost completely lacked. I've been the guy that I described in the previous paragraph. I'm kind of glad that I've waited, since adjectives like "older" and "wiser" really do apply somewhat.

They also gave us a couple of breaks, which helped - some of us took a necessary coffee run on the second. The lady at the Starbucks counter sent new cream out to the island. Where does Cereal Cream stand on the Blend-Coffee-Whipping Cream spectrum, anyway?

At length, we were released for lunch. Well, not quite: There was an IT-specific scavenger hunt, giving us "something to do over lunch". Yeah, how about, I dunno, eat? Because I for one didn't end up having time to, but I wasn't really super hungry anyway and there wasn't a free lunch going on like there was the day before. It was also frustrating when I thought the clock on the library workstation was correct and so, thinking the deadline was imminent, I left before answering all the questions I could have answered using the NSCC website. Going back to the room, my teammate Brandon suggested we use wi-fi over a laptop. He tried his, another fellow tried his, and neither worked, and I haven't even tried to configure mine yet. As the final seconds ticked down I felt helpless and foiled.

Anyway, our team (among others) busted our collective asses on the scavenger hunt, and we won... an increased awareness of the school around us. ;-p The 4-person team that won won 3 large coffees from the cafeteria. Umm, kay. Anyway, it was a kind of hectic fun and the experience also helped me complete the individual non-program-specific scavenger hunt on my own later.

In the afternoon we got into our class groups and trundled off to the labs to endure a presentation of how to fail to connect to our virtualization software and operating system download sources. Then we did our WHMIS and OHS self-conducted online training. I was able to speed-read the tutorials and pass the exams without much trouble. I had to stop and re- [better: "actually"] read a few things, but reading every word about when such-and-such legislation was passed is completely unnecessary. They could do a lot to trim out the fat and convey the key points in a format that's much easier to read.

And once we got that done, we were free. Driving back home off-peak is so much easier than driving in. Trundling along the Bedford Highway at a steady low-speed clip (say, 50 or 60 km/h), Mom's V8-powered boat of a Cadillac claims that it gets 30-35 MPG while doing so. I can't, though, ignore the fact that that number ventures into single digits in stop-and-go or going uphill! I suspect the overall average is in the teens, or the low tweens if I'm really lucky.

I'm looking at the class schedule, and it's not too bad: I have only two classes each day, and I only start at 8:30 once, and 9:30 only twice. The other two days are 10:30 and 12:30. On the flip side, four days end at 4:30 and one ends at 2:30. On the days that end at 4:30, if I'm not going to leave right at 4:30 I might as well stay and do assignments into the evening, since otherwise I'll be wasting a ton of time in traffic. Did I mention I hate traffic?

Yes, there'll be lots of time for assignments, though perhaps even the seemingly generous expanse of time we have won't be enough, and depending on how that goes there might be some time for socializing. I like how this campus basically has one society - the Student Association itself! I'm kidding, there apparently are societies. But the campus is small enough that you can have activities and events that theoretically target the entire student population. You can't really do that at a larger school, if only because it's really hard to get everybody's attention. This is more like a high school in that everybody knows the dance is next Friday. The sign-up sheet for XYZ is in the cafeteria. To talk about ABC, see Jane Doe in room 305. It's all so easy to keep track of; I love it.

It's okay so far - but let's just see how it will be when I'm given some work! Will I be completely grey by the end of this term? Stay tuned!

First Day

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:19:41 GMT

I left the house at 7:45 and was involved in more stop-and-go than I would have liked, but I suppose that can be easily corrected with an earlier departure.

Once there, it was easy enough to find street parking - much easier than at Saint Mary's. There were many people outside to greet us. We were directed to go to the cafeteria. Along the way, I looked about in wonder.

The cafeteria was well-packed. I picked my way to the far corner where there were still some chairs.

I surveyed the people. Wow, there are so many cute girls here!

"Dental Assisting, please follow Jocelyn."

And then they all got up and left.

No, that's not completely true. But the female-to-male ratio went from maybe 1.5:1 to 1:10. Ouch! On the plus side, the ones that stay are very easy to converse with since they tend to speak Geek.

It was to be a short day - we were further subdivided into classes, and then one faculty member took responsibility for us and conducted a tour. Then on our own we filled out forms and stood in line for things. A free lunch was offered.

It was kind of nice not to be subjected to the rah-rah-rah of a frosh week. I don't think I would have been up for that. I can already tell that the dynamic is different than university - I mean, I love university, but there's a notion that it's knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I'm all for that. The problem is that a lot of students (including me) weren't really focused on one thing. Here, everyone wants to get their training and get out into the Real World™ as quickly as possible. People seem to have a fairly realistic mindset.

So those are my off-the-cuff impressions of an institution before real classes have even begun. Take them with a ton or two of salt. In other news, I am a little bit worried about my nerve situation - my right leg, in particular, is killing me, and the stop-and-go traffic won't help that at all - and I almost wish I hadn't been in PEI last week because I missed the chance to get my ultrasound. Heaven knows when I'll get another shot!

The health plan here kind of blows. The vision care at Saint Mary's was pathetic; here it's non-existent. At SMU there was a cap on physiotherapy of $300, but you were covered for $45 per visit. Here there's the same cap, but you're only covered for $20. Balls.