Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Dave's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, November 7th, 2009
10:21 am	Ugh. Just Ugh. So I've been sick since Tuesday. And I mean really sick. I don't know if it was H1N1, a seasonal flu, or just a really talented rhinovirus, but it started with a cough, which wasn't too bad, but then Wednesday morning I was completely congested and had a pretty bad headache, and stayed home from work. I think I slept most of the day, and started to feel better toward the evening, enough to get a little bit of packing done. Thursday morning, though, it was back to square one - congested, headache, and now add sinus pain and runny nose to boot. I spent the majority of the day in bed, but it was off and on - I'd be able to spend about an hour out of bed at a time without feeling too awful, before feeling right awful again. Friday morning I felt much better, but decided to work from home since I was still coughing all over the place. I got through most of the day and even took a little bit of time to pack a few more things, until about 4:30 PM when I got hit with the worst pain in my head that I have ever felt. I'm no stranger to headaches and migraines, but this one was BRUTALLY painful, and very different from anything I've had before. Most of my headaches are just a dull pain, this was a stabbing, throbbing pain in my right temple and behind the eye. I took an Advil and laid down, and after an hour with no improvement I asked Jenn to take me to the hospital. I was in that much pain and I was that worried about it, especially after just being really sick. Jenn drove me to the Sturgeon up in St. Albert, the only hospital in the region that I know of has reasonably short wait times at Emergency. We waited just a few minutes for the triage nurse, less than 5 minutes to be taken to a bed in Emergency, and I think it was only about another 10 minutes before the doctor came to see me. They did a blood test, put me in for a CT scan, and then hooked me up to an IV and gave me lots of drugs (including a shot of morphine in the butt, funfun), which finally made the throbbing pain in my head go away (with the bonus side effect of making me all euphoric and tripped out, though strangely still able to hold a conversation). After an hour of utter discomfort in an Emergency bed with a hose in my arm, a blood pressure monitor on my other arm, a tender spot on my butt, and a surgical mask on my face (just in case I did have H1N1, though I did take it off for part of the long wait because it was so stifling), they finally came back and said my CT scan looked "perfect" as well as my blood work. Which was a relief, but still makes me wonder what caused me to get the migraine to end all migraines, and so suddenly. Another nurse (I think I'd met half of the Emergency staff by the end of the night) came by shortly after and unhooked me and I clumsily got dressed (whee, drugs) and Jenn took me home. Jenn was wonderful through the whole thing, and sat with me through most of it (except where pointy things were involved and once to go plug the parking meter), even though she hadn't eaten anything since lunch that day. After she took me home she went and bought some groceries (including some dinner for herself) and made me some tomato soup. She's such a sweetheart, I love her so much. She takes good care of me. So yeah, still feeling a bit woozy today, but my head seems to be not throbbing and I'm definitely getting over whatever it was that I had (no more coughing). But I think I'm going to need to wear long-sleeve shirts if I go out in the next few days...I have trackmarks from the IV. =P (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 26th, 2009
5:37 pm	Phase Shift I don't want to say more and give away the game before everything is finalized, but I think we can safely say we've moved from the "finding a house" phase to the "buying a house" phase, as it looks like the seller is set to accept our offer. I'll post as many details as I can once I have confirmation. EEEEEEEEE! (is for "Exciting!") (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
9:55 pm	Morning Commute, Hopeful House I've been thinking about something a friend said on his blog about how he wonders how many drivers can honestly say they enjoy their morning commutes as much as he enjoys his bike commute. I agree with the sentiment completely - I love biking to work in the morning, and one of the reasons is this scene above. I love that I can stop and take in the scenery before I head into the valley, or stop along the riverbank halfway along and ponder how some pioneering visionaries of the past looked at this same place and built a city perched above this beautiful valley, leaving the valley itself almost completely untouched for future generations to enjoy and share in equally. If that isn't the definition of stewardship, I don't know what is. So with that in mind I brought my camera and took just a few shots to show what I'm talking about when I say I love my bike commute into work, and because I can't stress enough just how friggin' lucky I am to live in a city like this. ( Three more ) Jenn and I have been feeling a bit frustrated by the house hunting...few good houses in our price range and in the areas we want to live in with the features we want. We didn't think we were being too picky until our options started drying up quickly, and houses we thought were ok and then wanted to reconsider were getting sold. We did make an offer on one house where the asking price was already pretty high, and they came back with a counter offer that was still too much. Wasn't meant to be. We started considering lowering our standards a bit, but it's hard to judge what sacrifices you want to make. We looked at a house in Sherbrooke, a neighborhood we hadn't considered before, and almost wanted to put an offer on it. It was nice, but it didn't wow me, and the location was...tenuous for me. But we eventually realized that what they say is true: location, location, location. I had too many doubts about the location, and feared that I wouldn't be happy living there long term because of it. So yeah, frustrations rising. But...BUT! Tonight we looked at another house, in a neighborhood we both like, close to downtown, decently close to transit. It's fairly "vintage," but well maintained vintage, and doesn't need major work that we can tell (except for new appliances maybe). We both like it. We're going to sleep on it and look at it again tomorrow, and if we still feel the same way, we're likely going to make an offer on it. Eeee! Crazytimes. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 21st, 2009
12:20 pm	Weird/Annoying Morning I'm having a weird/annoying morning. First off I missed the two faster buses going downtown (109 and 112) by about a minute. Then I waited about 10 minutes for another bus (and it was cold out this morning). Finally a #2 came,...in the form of an old, old GMC bus (I thought we were done with those?), packed to the gills. Fortunately another 2 was right behind that one, which was far less packed. Then traffic was just crawling on Stony Plain Road between about 130 St. and 121 St., thanks to the lane closure around 121 St. apparently due to a watermain break that remains unfixed. Finally the bus gets downtown and stops at Standard Life Place, where this rough-looking fellow gets on and flashes a ragged transfer at the driver while standing there ranting about how he's Mexican, not Native (I actually couldn't tell, but I think he really was Native), and how "Alberta bus drivers" "hate natives and brown people." The driver asked to see the transfer more closely and he goes off on a tirade about how she's being racist and how a white passenger wouldn't have been asked (incidentally, the transfer wasn't valid). The guy rips the transfer from the driver's hand (after one failed attempt to snatch it after which he says "whaddya think you're doing??" and to which she replied "nothing, you did that."), and he sits near me and continues his loud tirade about how all Albertans are racist and hate brown people etc. etc. Oddly enough, he then gets off at the very next stop, still going on about racist bus drivers even though the driver had been extraordinarily patient with him despite his loud and obnoxious behaviour and invalid transfer. After he got off, the driver pulls away and shakes her head saying, "he has issues." To which I replied simply, "yup." Lesson for the day: loudly and pre-emptively playing the race card in order to score a free ride on transit all the while ranting about racism is probably the real reason people don't like you, not because of racism. Work has been a gong show so far. I'm honestly getting tired of how what my department does (build, configuration, and deployment management) seems to be an afterthought, even though almost always we end up bringing up several issues when change requests come our way less than a week before the cut date. It's frustrating that we aren't consulted far earlier in the process in order to help flesh out these issues rather than be expected to deal with them at the 11th hour. I've brought this up several times, and I'm going to bring it up yet again. Think anyone will listen this time? Some of these issues, though, are the kind that should have been fairly apparent to the people in charge of these projects though, too, which is even more frustrating. Argh. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
9:24 pm	New Route (View large) So I discovered a much faster "express" commute home now - see the yellow line on the map. By taking 100 Ave. from 102 St. to 121 St., I bypass a great deal of lights and stop signs. Traffic is a bit heavier along this route, but the lanes are wide enough to pass on the right when needed. It takes just 15 minutes to bike home via this route. I haven't tried biking to work this way yet, but I'm not sure I would want to - traffic along 102 Ave. is much heavier and trickier. And I still like taking the valley route and "lungbuster hill" in the morning. Jenn and I did a short stint of house touring on Sunday. Nothing really "wow" yet but one house was pretty promising. Another one would have been promising, too, if not for a giant horizontal crack in the foundation... We're going for another round on Saturday. Fun times! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
10:30 pm	Winnipeg, Weddings, Mosquitoes, Old Cameras, and Large Investments We (myself, Jenn, and her parents) spent the long weekend and then some in Winnipeg for Jenn's cousin's wedding, in case I forgot to mention it. A lot of that time was spent on the road. We drove to Yorkton on Thursday, where we stayed the night, and in the morning Jenn and I took a short drive up to see my grandparents' old house, where my dad grew up. It looked just as a I remembered it. We got into Winnipeg on Friday afternoon and unloaded the car at Jenn's aunt & uncle's place, then Jenn and I headed off to Osbourne Village to wander, shop, and eat. ( More on Winnipeg and Weddings and Mosquitoes ) ( More on Old Cameras ) Jenn and I are starting our house-shopping this Sunday. It's hard to believe we're going ahead with this, it's exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. But we've found some really nice houses in our price range on MLS recently and figured we should start the ball rolling in case any of them end up working out for us. It's weird to think, it wasn't that long ago for me that I quit what had become a horrible sinking ship of a job, was flying halfway across the world (after busing across a quarter of it), wondering what to do with myself and making myself broke in the process. Now I have a decent job that I don't hate, a lovely lady who I will marry, and I'm about to wade into the biggest investment that most people ever make in their lives, and settle into someplace we can call our own home. It's just amazing what can happen in just four years and change. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
1:06 pm	Caturday Some weirdos out there think that today (9/9/09) should be a "Day Without Cats on the Internet." To that I say... ...screw you guys. The Internet is nothing without the cats that rule it. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 31st, 2009
10:07 pm	The Skyline Looked Beautiful on Fire X-Posted from the edmontonphoto community, because it is awesome and because it made page 2 of Explore for the day it was posted! That's the highest any photo of mine has ever gone on that list! I love it, I'm so proud of this one. Also, just for fun, I updated the map from the last post to add my commute to Kung Fu, to further visualize just how much biking I've been doing: (view large) Refresher: Red line = Usual commute; pleasant but vigorous, lots of hilly parts. ~6.6km Blue line = Express commute; usually faster (not always), but more starts and stops due to stop signs and lights and has some bridge hazards. ~ 4.6 km Green line = Kung Fu commute (how I get to Kung Fu class twice weekly); follows the LRT path mostly and is otherwise pretty easy. ~5.6km. Summary: Mon-Tue-Wed and Fri, (weather permitting) I commute about 13.2km daily on hilly terrain (red return). On Thursdays I commute about 22.4km (red+green return + blue), and Saturdays I commute about 20.4km (blue + green return both). Whew. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
9:57 pm	In case anyone was curious... ...this is what my bike commute usually looks like: (view large) Home is approximately the area on the left, work is on the right (Manulife). The red line is my usual commute through the valley, which is very pleasant and involves few stops and enough hills to get me in good shape. The switchback path in the middle is a particularly nasty lungbuster of a hill on the way to work. The blue line is my "express" commute, which is a little faster (not by much and not always), but also involves far more stop signs, lights, and two hazardous bridge crossings. The green area is a neat little ravine I checked out last week. It's very cool! Just felt like sharing that. ETA: According to Google Earth's ruler, the "red" route is a little over 6.5 km, the "blue" route is over 4.5 km. Two klicks difference, yet only maybe 5 mins longer taking the red route. Amazing what a difference it makes not having to stop every two blocks downtown. Also, that means I do over 13 km of hilly cycling almost every day. Oh, also, last weekend Jenn went to do a photoshoot with gambitsworld at the old Griesbach shooting range, and I tagged along to carry stuff and hold reflectors and flashlights and otherwise be a good lackey (while secretly observing his techniques for later study). Anyway, the amazing results can be found here. Dude's a friggin' awesome photog. And why yes, that is my black-painted Nerf gun in those shots. Worked really well for this! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 14th, 2009
9:06 pm	Lower Mainland BC In other news, 3.89%! I don't think anyone can beat that. Not that I won't try, but still, that's pretty darn good. It's a tiny bit discouraging looking at MLS, though. While there are lots of decent little houses in our price range, most better-than-decent, more-than-little, or otherwise awesomely-located houses are JUST out of our price range. They said prices have come down in this slump. Compared to what? The peak of the boom? There's not a lot that's under $350,000, not even much that's under $400,000. Unless we want to look at Parkdale, Cromdale, Alberta Ave., or other equally sketchy areas. Which we don't. Bleh. We'll find something ice, though, something that will work for us. It's just hard to see from here. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 9th, 2009
10:46 pm	Like a Lion (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 8th, 2009
11:54 pm	Watchful Not much to report, but wanted an excuse to make a photo post. The new bike is working great so far and I love it; since the weather sucked last weekend, I'm hoping to take 'er out to the trails tomorrow. Jenn and I are going to look at getting pre-approved for a mortgage this week...whew, big step. But the idea of owning a house is pretty exciting, challenges and all. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
11:23 pm	Lake Photo, Late Photos, Chubbo Salamanders, Moon, Clint Mansell, and a Kenyan Sand Boa Sunset at Mink Lake, June 27 2009 Still haven't processed Vancouver photos. If I can get it done tomorrow, though, I will reward myself with a nice long bike ride through the river valley on Monday, and hit up some trails I've never done before. I fed my salamander a fuzzy mouse today, because the Kenyan Sand Boa didn't seem to want to eat it. Have I mentioned the boa yet? I will talk about that in a moment I think. Anyway, the thing had to be 1/6th the weight of the salamander, but he happily snapped at it and carefully and slowly swallowed it whole. I think it took him about 15 minutes to get it down. And after that, he sort of lumbered away and hid under his rock with a look of "oh god, you guys...I can't believe I ate the WHOLE THING..." Probably won't need to feed him for a couple of weeks after that, though he was still snapping randomly at fingers just a half hour later. What a chubbo. Jenn and I went to see Moon this afternoon. It was an excellent movie, though it made me feel lonely, depressed, and a bit of despair toward the end. But I think that really means it got in my head, which is what any good movie should be able to do. Plus Clint Mansell did the music. Brilliant man, brilliant score. I have a Kenyan Sand Boa still, which was mentioned in this post. The Duméril's Boa is long gone to Nanaimo, and somehow I ended up with the task of finding the KSB a good home. If anyone reading this who lives in the area is interested in a small boa as a pet, I'm selling her and her 10g enclosure for about $100, but I'll take offers. Drop me a line if interested. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, July 25th, 2009
11:12 pm	I'm on a Bike, Muthafucka! (Title Reference) My wonderful and lovely Jenn drove me around the city today to help me shop for a new bike. Incidentally, the first place I went is where I am ending up buying one. We started at River Valley Cycle. The location is in an industrial park, which seems odd for a bike shop, but their store was well laid out and had good selection. We were helped immediately, and the guy was very knowledgeable and helpful, including helping me determine what size of frame I should be using. ( Details, possibly boring ) So in the morning after brunch, Jenn is driving me back out there to pick up my shiny new Rocky Mountain Vertex 10. I can't tell you how excited I am and how much of a good mood this has put me in. My old POS Norco is going to be donated to Edmonton Bicycle Commuters' Bikeworks program. Hopefully they can salvage some good parts off of it (I think the frame is still in excellent condition at least, as are the wheels and brakes). Next challenge: buying shoes for and learning how to use clipless pedals. I'm totally going to fall over at least a few times while I learn this shit. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
8:37 am	Vote for Us! Jenn and I need your votes! ETA: Tip: It seems to be based on average number of stars, not number of votes. In other words, it also helps to vote on the other entries with a lower number of stars. If you do this, at least try to be fair! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
9:57 pm	Fishes Last week while we were gone, one of our betta fishes, Perseus, died. Just this Monday we lost the other one, Apollo. They were a couple of years old so it's not totally unexpected, but they were very cute, pretty, and energetic, and we'll miss them. But! We already got a couple of new ones (it was a bit unexpected but hey). One of them is a light yellow-silver colour with a luminescent green tinge to his fins. His name is Icarus, because he tried to fly to the sun when I took him out of the bag and fell back to earth (well, he actually jumped, and it was toward the track lights, and he only fell to the floor,...but he's ok! He's good!). The other one is orangey with beautiful aqua coloured fins and his name is Orion. They're both really cute and pretty and so far energetic too. I'll have to try to get photos of them later. Yay, fishes! I love critters. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 13th, 2009
7:35 pm	Bikes and Vancouver and Stuff So the week before my last post, my bike broke, and it made me mad because it happened just as I was all pumped up and ready to take it out on the trails. It's actually just the seat that broke (again), but since I was planning on replacing this bike by the end of the year anyway, I think I'll just accelerate that plan a little and get myself a new one. I'm planning on spending a bit more than the $400 I spent on the last one (about 4 years ago...I think I've got more than $400 worth out of it in that time). So my budget this time is about $1000-$1200, and I'll be looking at an XC bike of some sort, which should be good for both city and trail riding. I actually knew very little about mountain bikes when I bought my last one, but I've learned a lot more over the last little while so I should be able to make a smarter purchase and get a more durable, comfortable, and appropriate bike for my needs. We got back from Vancouver this weekend, and it was a really great time. We stayed with my Aunt in Lynn Valley, in North Van, which is a neat area in itself. Some of the highlights of the trip: - Frequent trips on the SeaBus - Canada Day downtown Vancouver - Chillin' on the beach at Ambleside - Dinner with an old friend at a Microbrewery in Yaletown that has awesome gourmet pizzas - Dessert at an amazing dessert shop in the west end of downtown - Driving over the Lion's Gate bridge during the day and again at night - Buying shoes at John Fluevog's in Gastown - Riding the SkyTrain to Metrotown - Blodel Conservatory and the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden (again) - Delicious sushi at Lynn Valley Centre including fruit sushi - Brews with said old friend on Commercial Drive and finally meeting his pregnant wife - Hiking in Lynn Canyon - Crossing the Lynn Valley Suspension Bridge (not nearly as huge as the Capilano, but impressive nonetheless) We also made a trip down to Seattle. I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed by that city. It seems nice, but nothing I saw was truly spectacular, with the one exception being the Science Fiction Museum. That was very, very cool. While we were there, they had a great exhibit on Jim Henson, the man behind the muppets, showing some of his early artwork and some of his short videos. It was very interesting to see. While there we also saw the Pike Place market (including the famous Pike Place Fish Market, but no one was buying anything so it wasn't very exciting) and the Space Needle, which was pretty cool (not as cool as the CN Tower though). For dinner, we tried to go to The Crab Pot, which is apparently a pretty famous restaurant, but it was packed. We found another seafood place nearby on the marina, the name of which escapes me at the moment. The salmon there was very, very good. Though Jenn was doing all the driving, it was a pretty frustrating experience in Seattle. Some of the roads downtown are extremely steep, the one-way streets are extremely inconvenient (it didn't help that the map we had didn't indicate any one-ways), and getting back onto the I-5 to get out of the city was next to impossible. On the way back to Edmonton, we stayed in Jasper overnight. We didn't do much there but eat pizza and sit in the hot tub, but it was nice nonetheless. All in all a good vacation. Going back to work this morning was pretty hard to do. Sorry I don't have a photo to go along with this post. I took over 2000 photos and it will take me some time to sort them out... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
3:21 pm	This Week in Dave I guess I should update this thing once in a while. This was taken at Elk Island National Park back on May 22, where Jenn took me for my birthday and we hiked and picnicked and took photos and learn some very interesting things about the history of the place (namely how successful it has been at repopulating species that were hunted nearly to extinction). On to more current events. Jenn and I just got back from a Kung Fu camping trip at Mink Lake, where we stayed since Friday evening. Not a terrible campground, I guess, but too close to a highway and busy railway, sites are too close together without enough tree coverage separating them, and not enough tree cover to separate the sites from the lake. And too many noisy seagulls. Aside from complaints about the site, it was cold and windy when we got there, and then cool and breezy the next day, and then hurricane force winds this morning, cold, and a bit rainy during breakfast this morning. But overall it was still pretty fun. Tomorrow morning we head out on our drive to Vancouver, a bit of Seattle, and perhaps other points beyond, where we'll be for the next couple of weeks. Whee! Vacation! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
11:25 pm	Make a Wish (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
10:32 pm	Rawr (Comment on this)