metawidget: A plastic wind-up teeth thing with a googly eye. (chatter)

The holidays went by pretty fast — it felt like we were doing something social nightly for about two weeks. It's a good thing Oscar generally seems to like parties!

Christmas eve, we went over to Elizabeth's parents' place for the traditional nut loaf, cookies, rum balls and gifts. Christmas day, we drove to Ormstown and joined 17 or so family at my parent's place, feasting extensively and helping the new people get names straight. I had been a little sniffly on Christmas eve, but by Christmas day, I was full-blown sick, so a bit subdued. Boxing Day was sort of quiet, but three generations of my parents' next-door neighbours walked over to admire Oscar and say hi. The 27th was the annual Christmas bash with white elephant gift exchange (aka "steal the present") — last year there was one kid there, this year there were three and we were all starting to feel a bit grown-up. We got together at my friend A's parents' place, about 20km past civilization — Enterprise was out of compact cars and gave us something with four-wheel drive, which got some use as we were whacking through snow drifts to get there. On the 28th, we celebrated [personal profile] dagibbs' birthday with food and drink and cheer at his place, and on the 29th we celebrated [personal profile] frenchzie's housewarming and birthday. On the 30th was our mostly-weekly D&D game at our place, and on the 31st we stayed in and rung in the new year with the upstairs people from House of Flail, Ticket to Ride: Europe and Dominion, and some mead from 1999.

The most memorable presents this year were Ticket to Ride: Europe from Elizabeth (a rather addictive little game), a huge jug of Beau's Nightmärzen from my cousin Erica, and a medieval-looking Garden Weasel from my parents.


I've had two tasty gift beers lately. Most recently was Nightmärzen, from my cousin Erica, which is a bright amber beer, Beau's hoppiest beer and fall offering. It reminds me a little of a darker Grolsch — same fresh, sort of pungent hoppiness, with a bit more sweet, and kind of light and easy-drinking. It's got a nice fizz to it and a modest head. I think it would be most excellent on tap when I'm expecting to stay for more than one pint somewhere. A little before that was Fuller's 2010 Vintage Ale, from [livejournal.com profile] the_arachne — it's supposed to be a prime candidate for ageing, and I may get another bottle to stash away. Consumed at a few months old, it was like a light-ish, sweet barleywine (despite a lower alcohol content than most barleywines), with notes of somewhat rough port. It had big malty flavour as well, but definitely tasted kind of young and almost unfinished.
In resolutions and plans for the year, I'd like to build a trellis and get some peas and beans up this year, and maybe even manage to get pumpkins into our squash mix. I also would like to not buy stuff made with water that I could've reconstituted myself — juice from concentrate, any sort of tea in a bottle, and bottled water. This is inspired by seeing chai syrup for sale in our local fancy grocery store. I would also like to bike up into the Pontiac sometime this year, and get out on the bike sometime in every calendar month. To this end, I should really clean and lubricate my chain before I need a new one.

Places I've slept in 2010:

  • Eganville, ON.
  • Gatineau (Hull), QC. A lot.
  • Gatineau (Gatineau), QC.
  • Montreal, QC.
  • Mont-Tremblant, QC.
  • Ormstown, QC.
  • Ottawa, ON.
  • Quebec, QC.


In a little bit of rantiness, I've been fuming slightly over Google's ranking of restaurant pages. When I search for a restaurant, I probably want the official page (with menu, hours and phone) somewhere in the first hits, and failing that (or to help me decide), a review written by a real human with as much of that information as possible. The last thing I want is a listing scraped from the yellow pages, with Bing's best guess at where it is located, in which I can be the first to write a review or add information.

metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)

The week before last, I went to the annual meeting of the SSC and made a short presentation on a statistical disclosure control procedure. The rest of the time, I listened to what other people were up to, met statisticians from near and far, soaked up the conference atmosphere and explored Quebec a bit. I took a few photos on a couple of walks through the older parts of the city and along the riverbank:


selected photos, in order of taking )


Today, Elizabeth's adult students had a recital along with other students from the music school she teaches at. I've heard the piano accompaniment to some of the songs pretty regularly lately; it was fun to hear the students supply the vocals, and put another face or two to names. Afterwards we walked the length of South Keys, getting some pants for me and some food for both of us, and ran into one of my favourite developers and her boyfriend, who were shopping for nice ways to embarrass his daughter at her bachelorette. I like running into people in new contexts; I hope his daughter is ready to deal with realizing that her smiling, grey-haired parent and parent-partner aren't scandalized by verb/body-part dice...

metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
I'm enjoying work lately, working on one of those projects that's fairly fast-paced and has lots of finnciky, almost craftsmanlike aspects to it. The people are really nice, too.

Today, Elizabeth and I went to the Great Glebe Garage Sale with a couple of our friends from up here and their 3-month old baby. Babies make almost everyone around you happy, and hanging out with recently-parentfied friends is a little hard to arrange but so nice.

I made off with a stack of books and CDs, as well as a shirt and a grater (one of those nice four-sided ones with different surfaces on each side), for around $20. The baked goods tables scattered around the neighbourhood were tasty, too. It was a little disconcerting to see so many people attempting to navigate the sale by car — but the other 90% seemed to be on foot!

Next weekend is Elizabeth's and my first anniversary. It's been an eventful and generally happy year. We'll probably go up to Wakefield to celebrate, and eat at someplace we enjoyed last year as newlyweds...
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
It seems I've been doing these since 2003!

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
Got married, bought a house, got a driver's license, went to Peterborough, went on tour
yep, these questions again! )
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
Went to the craft fair in Wakefield with Elizabeth today... it was really crowded and chaotic in there, but we did find some promising-looking jams and jelly, and looking around was kind of neat. I ran into one of our client-division people from work, selling her wares, too.

We then wandered into town, chatted up some friendly shopkeepers, and started on a bit of Christmas shopping. Wakefielders seem to be almost universally friendly.

Upon returning home, I made some celery root salad while Elizabeth washed the dishes.

Last night we made some recycled ornaments from aluminum cans. Embossing them with ball-point pens gives a really nice effect.
Aluminum can ornaments: shooting star by me and fish by Elizabeth

A week from tomorrow, I'll be in Peterborough doing a survey. Two weeks from yesterday, Elizabeth will be performing at The Spill in Peterborough, at 3 p.m., and two weeks from today, she'll be doing her thing at Tranzac in Toronto, at 7 p.m. If you're in the area, be there or be square!
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
Some of what's happened in the past two months and happening this month:

We sealed the deal on the piano. It is in the living room.

I am developing my survey skills for six weeks and liking it.

I will be in Peterborough and T.O. in a couple weeks.

I've had nice meals with a few people for the first time (each), parties too.

I keep getting more and more units with each RRSP purchase.

I've started DMing a 3.5 gaming group in our front room.

Two Thanksgivings were really tasty and laid back; lots to be thankful for.

Some shows, some driving, some friends left for way out west, and a wedding.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
The final show in Elizabeth's tour was a house show in Bedford. The place was cozy and bright, and our hosts were very welcoming. Their kids were around for the show and wandered in and out, their elder son concluded the concert with a piano rendition of a Green Day song. Monique and George sent us (including Dusty Keeler, the other performer) home with a bottle of wine and smiles all 'round. I also found out that George uses some survey data that my unit at work deals with from time to time, and that he's looking forward to the results of some of my record linkage projects.

We had a relaxed evening at Dusty's place, crashed there, and then returned the car and caught our flight back the next morning. Returning on Monday, Elizabeth taught in the evening and I celebrated the 29th birthdays of two of my co-workers (the first 29th for one, the second 29th for the other).

Consequently, I had a short week at work this week: two days as I took a vacation day on Tuesday in case of exhaustion or delay — it was a good idea, I think. It looks like I'll be sharing my thesis with my division sometime soon, and I had a manageable pile of interesting work (and 84 unread e-mails) waiting for me upon my return. Next month, I'll help supervise some visiting interns from France.

Now, I'm in Ormstown at my parents' place, with cooking smells in the air and the woodstove popping and breathing nearby. Back to another short week on Tuesday, and then my first Scrabble tournament next Saturday.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
It snowed again in Halifax, driving in was pretty slushy but uneventful. Elizabeth and I wandered around downtown for a bit, picking up some plane food at Freak Lunchbox (to balance out the stuff we got at the health food store in Truro) and browsing through the books and goodies along Barrington street.

We ate at a pub where the table next to us had an ever-increasing gaggle of young Tories in blue everything. The beer there was mercifully very good, and the food was satisfying.

Ginger's was pretty quiet, probably due to the weather, but one of the artists, who goes by Le Skiv, had a dedicated local fanbase who braved the "snow and shit" (which became a running stage-banter theme). Elizabeth had a real piano (I guess apartment-sized) to play, so the set included piano-molesting songs. She played under a couple of spots with a little shaded table lamp for extra light and atmosphere (unfortunately my camera is borked, so no photos unless someone else took some). After a goofy set by Richard/Thomas, we then made our way to Ryan the promoter's place, where we were loaned a big mattress behind a closed door: couch surfing gold.

This afternoon: the last show of the tour — house show in Bedford, with bonus homemade soup!
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
We drove from Liverpool to Truro today, for Elizabeth to be a featured guest at the Truro Fair Trade Community Café open mic night. It turns out there are two FTCCs in Truro. We hit the original one on Prince Street.

We explored a bit, and Truro has a maybe-surprising number of health food, yoga, organic stuff and other hippie-ish shops. Later, our host Ray explained that the agricultural college here (one of the biggest in Canada) has a major organic food institute. Truro also has lots of nice red brick buildings and a really pretty park an easy walk from downtown.

The open mic night was a bit disparate: everyone else was singing mostly country, spirituals and hymns, and then late in the evening, a Cape Breton fiddler came in and wowed everyone. Folk-pop piano stuff was a bit out of the envelope, but it was still a really fun evening hosted by really welcoming people. Ray reminds me a bit of [livejournal.com profile] ramou in many ways (even his haircut is sort of similar), and he runs a really nice café. During the open mic, an older couple, maybe in their seventies, got up and danced every once in a while. Eventually, Elizabeth took me by the hand and we followed in their footsteps.

Today, bolstered by excellent coffee and blueberry-flax-apple pancakes, we will journey back to Halifax for a 10 PM show at Ginger's Tavern on Barrington Street.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
The show at Mersey House was a success musically. We had a moderately full room of people who were really attentive, participated (thank you, volunteer last-minute Soundman Stu) and generally warm. The two openers, Kristen Murray and Krystele Leveque Liverpool is really pretty, as was the drive up: it looked like autumn, and once we were out of Halifax, it was dead simple (actually, Halifax wasn't too bad either, although Saint Margaret's Bay Road is a bit twisty).

Next stop: Truro and the Fair Trade Café (I think it has more adjectives in there, but how many fair trade cafés with Friday night music can there be in a small town?).
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
Elizabeth and I got to Halifax yesterday in a little 50-seat plane, it was sunny and a little chilly with no snow on the ground.

Every transportation person we met was nice, from the flight attendant to the bus driver to Young Alex the rental car guy. The agency was out of compact cars, though, so they gave us a big black Magnum station wagon. The keyboard fits really well in the back but it does feel like driving a bunker.

We wandered around downtown Halifax a bit after arriving, picked up the keyboard from the rental place, climbed up to the Citadel gate, looked in a couple of shops, had a supper of nice fresh sushi and then proceeded to Gus' Pub. Somewhere in there it started to snow. Starting from dry pavement it didn't pile up too high, but it seemed to put a damper on Haligonians coming out on a Wednesday night to the North End. The music, courtesy of The Fool, Oh Dinah and Elizabeth, was fun despite the small turnout. I took some pictures but left my camera cable at home, so there'll be a big photo post in a few days.

We're crashing at one of the musicians' place, breakfast should be soonish and then we're off to LiverpoolTruro and Mersey House for show #2.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
In a little over a week, I will be off with [livejournal.com profile] rottenfruit to Halifax, being a general-purpose roadie, merch salesman, companion and driver on the Nova Scotia bit of the Eastern Tour (I'll probably be at the Cagibi show in Montreal, too). I'm still a bit worried that the rental agency will look at the vintage of my license and tell me "no car for you," but I've got the age, usually calm demeanour and untarnished-if-short driving record going for me.

Wedding planning is going well: I think we have most of the details at least sketched out, even if we still have to set one of the readings, post banns, and attend to many details. We finished a marriage prep course last week. It was fun at times and kind of intense at others. Our instructor seemed pretty positive about us, and we're still positive about us too! Coming home from one of our sessions, we took the bus in the wrong direction and the driver was new and got a little lost. Neither of us, nor the only other passenger, had any idea where to go. After a plea for help, the driver just stopped at a corner for a while and collected his thoughts — we got to South Keys eventually. We were hungry enough to decide to eat at Denny's in the parking lot, served beer, lumberjack breakfast and a veggie burger and beer by a chipper doctoral student before heading home.

At work, things are going well... last month I participated in the employee choir singing a Beatles medley, and I'm feeling pretty happy with my co-workers and my work. My unit is going to lose its supervisor (he got promoted), and I haven't found out who will replace him, but we've still got some time before he disappears (he clears out completely for July 1st). In any case, I'm getting to teach, write, tinker and snuffle through the library, and they're paying me for it. This week I'll be taking a couple of days for the public-service-wide orientation course (how we relate to the government, accountability, etc.) — it'll start early, but they're feeding us breakfast. I'm not sure how much will be new to me, but it'll be a different perspective from my rather specialized day-to-day context.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)

I finished my thesis yesterday and today I'm in Montreal handing it in and wandering a bit: lunch with an old high school friend, then wandering, then meeting [livejournal.com profile] denkizero at DemoCamp.

Here's the abstract of the thing that's eaten my summer:

A SYMMETRY-GROUP SEMANTICS FOR SHAPE GRAMMARS

more… )

I signed up for last.fm yesterday, I'll keep the scrobbler on unless it degrades performance when I'm listening to music and online. It gave me a nifty quilt thing:

I likka this moosic )
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
1. which places would you like to travel to in your lifetime?
I would like to see Boston and area and San Francisco and area as cradles of knowledge in the disciplines I do. I'd like to travel across Saskatchewan at a leisurely pace, checking out Saskatoon and sleeping in bed and breakfasts and campgrounds. I'd like to see Victoria and skip stones in the Pacific. I'd like to see Mumbai and Perth, Australia, partly to soak up the commonwealthy vibes. Mumbai is another nerve centre of geekiness (and by the time I get there, I'll probably admire someone from there as much as some denizens of Boston and SF), and Perth would be a chance to see [livejournal.com profile] big_red_dave and family.
2. pick one thing you could have everyone on the planet do to help the environment
I think if everyone flatly refused to buy overpackaged stuff and opted for reusable whenever possible, we'd be a few steps ahead (and I think it'd be the kind of gesture that would get easier as demand changed what was available).
3. favorite kind ov cookie :)
Buttery oatmeal cookies, textureful not too sweet.
4. what was your second school option had you not gone into the one you did?
I only applied to one graduate program, but in undergrad my second choice was honours in statistics. Funny how things work out, eh?
5. top 5 movies ov all time
I'm terrible at ranking movies, and my rankings change all the time.
Five movies I've liked a lot for a reasonable amount of time: The Never-Ending Story, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2001: A Space Oddyssey, Silence of the Lambs and 21 Grams (possibly the most harrowing movie I've seen).

If, in a comment to this entry, I feel a question-me vibe, I will come up with five questions for you.

Also, I've been pecking away at creating one of those lists of 101 things to do in 1 001 days… but unfortunately my list-making skills are bad enough or my productivity is good enough that it's coming together slower than things get crossed off. I guess I won't try too hard to overtake my doing with my listing for a while.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
I have arrived, luggage and all, in London. The flight was turbulent at times but on time and pretty uneventful. I've found where I'm staying but have to wait for check-in time, and I've found "London's cheapest Internet cafe," which won't let me do anything laptoppy... but it'll do for now. I remember there being one that was just as cheap and laptop-friendly, out near the V&A. I just need to refresh my memory and hope they're still in business...

Last time I was here, it was sunny and unlike the London one always hears about. Now, it is cool and rainy. To complete the Authentic London thing, I will now seek out some fish and chips while waiting to be able to unpack and take a shower.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
The first half of last week involved getting ready for a big night of sponsors, partners and company visiting the lab, then actually doing the night. We got a bunch of interesting and interested visitors: the evening was pretty laid-back, we had more than enough people to greet visitors, and got what I think was a pretty good response. Walking home from that was pretty wet, though: the rain promised most of the week came down in a gigantic dump Wednesday night.

Thursday to Sunday, I travelled to Subtle Technologies with [livejournal.com profile] rottenfruit. The festival itself was intense: we saw maybe two thirds of the thirty presentations, including some really hardcore chemistry ones, some beautiful art and music ones, and some that were just... weird. Like utility fog, for which I'm now on the beta testers list. We also traded off some of our worldly goods to Nancy Nisbet. [livejournal.com profile] rottenfruit acquired a negative ion candle and a ceramic vase-y thing, I got a nice bandana. There's now a Handmaden CD and an alarm clock and bus schedule combo in Nisbett's big truck going around the continent.

We also went out to Mississauga to have supper and kick around with my grandfather, aunt, uncle and one cousin, and wandered Kensington Market and Queen Street in the space around the conference. My grandfather's health is not so great, this may be one of the last times I see him. I'm glad he got to meet [livejournal.com profile] rottenfruit , and that she'll have more than just stories and photographs to know about him from.

We ate amazingly well... our good food sense led us well all weekend: vegetarian sushi on College (with ice cream and hot sake for dessert), amazing smoothies, burgers, fries and peanut sauce, free cookies (with coffee purchase)...

The trip felt a little packed, boxed in by both our work schedules. It's the longest we've taken together yet, though. We missed catching up with a few people (and didn't even attempt that many — too many friendly people in TO, not enough time).

Two days ago, [livejournal.com profile] rottenfruit's rat Apostrophe died. I felt more involved with Apostrophe than with Kiki, having been the rat-keeper for a week in February and having helped take care of her here and there since. She was energetic and social almost to the end (and had long lost her bite-y streak) and lucky to have such a caring owner.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
Got that perl/sh confusion sorted out with some help from [livejournal.com profile] pphaneuf, [livejournal.com profile] hub_ and [livejournal.com profile] swestrup. Thanks, guys! It has resulted in a repackaging of some work stuff so that it doesn't require too much geek-fu to play with.

Godfried Toussaint's rhythm/computation talk on Tuesday was good and pretty well-attended. I hope we can draw more of this kind of thing to Concordia (or that I can get out to see more of it this summer at Subtle Technologies).

I've got lots of work to do, still, but I think I'm getting up a head of steam. Take-home final season starts next week.

I may get off the continent again this summer. Still very up in the air, but we'll see.

Oh, and I just missed International Dadaism Month. No matter, it resumes on Saturday.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
A postcard from San Francisco arrived in the mail today, a fitting precursor to seeing Ellie again.

I'm not focussing very well right now, but that's pretty much OK.

poised

Feb. 21st, 2006 11:46 am
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
Stood up and gave the very distilled version of our research work to assembled guests today: I think they should've got some radio or TV documentarist to interview us and chop it into five minutes per project rather than try and get geeks to talk about interesting and complex stuff for only 300 seconds.

I'm planning a major assault on the bugs (I talked with one of the pros, he thinks a housecall is overkill but had some tips for getting rid of them for good) over the "break", and probably some vet time for Noisette (just a check-up) and dentist time for me (it's been too long).

I'm also reading up on a couple of festivals to hit this summer to soak up some (geeky) culture and hit the road with [livejournal.com profile] rottenfruit (maybe as a roadie of sorts — mailing her submission off today...).

Other things I'm up to are more art support type things, homework and rat-sitting.
metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
I am officially adding David Emerson to my Peter Mackay club.

Went up to Ottawa by train with [livejournal.com profile] rottenfruit this weekend. We had a bunch of plans, and although we didn't manage to skate the (closed due to warm weather) canal or see the (no longer free) National Gallery permanent collection, she recorded three new (to recording) songs with some help from me (clapping and singing along on one of the tracks, and and constructive [I hope] lay criticism), we saw [livejournal.com profile] hallelujah, ate some food, chatted and got Christmas gifts straightened out, played a couple of games of travel Scrabble and visited her parents and Tasha the cat. The visit felt really short, and wasn't quite what we were counting on, but I'm happy we went.

Work and school are insane. They would've been anyway, but the trip did cut into my panicking time. So I'll panic more efficiently. Starting by dumping my current state out on LJ :-P

Pretty close quiz result for one side of me, I think. )