"I feel I'm incredibly fascinating and this blog bears witness to that simple fact. Friends, from far and wide, are often pestered to keep abreast of my life and opinions. I offer my most sincere greetings to random visitors as well."
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- British Columbia, CANADA
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Saturday, December 15, 2007
What to Do Over Christmas?
We've still not decided what we're going to do next weekend. Usually we manage to get away for a short time. The photograph above was taken in Victoria on Boxing Day 2005. Rather than going somewhere, it'd be a good time to paint the bedroom. Nah, I don't think so.Labels: travel planning, Vancouver Island
Friday, December 14, 2007
Tongue Tied
I nearly forgot about writing an entry today. That's pretty strange considering how long I've been doing this on a daily basis. I never seem to forget to do other daily things such as putting on underwear. So, I guess, I am not going to put down this temporary lapse to being an age thing.
Today, among the other things accomplished, I went through my neckties. I used to always wear ones to class in the past; however, I haven't been during the last few years. I was looking to weed out the collection. Some were really wide and others were extremely thin. I'm not so sure I know what is actually 'in' nowadays.
Looking at my ties was a trip down memory lane. I did find one I bought in Kuwait during my first teaching job. That would've been in 1981, so at least one of the ribbons of cloth was 26 years old. I used to joke that I had neckties older than some of my students, but I'll be damned if it isn't actually true!
Today, among the other things accomplished, I went through my neckties. I used to always wear ones to class in the past; however, I haven't been during the last few years. I was looking to weed out the collection. Some were really wide and others were extremely thin. I'm not so sure I know what is actually 'in' nowadays.
Looking at my ties was a trip down memory lane. I did find one I bought in Kuwait during my first teaching job. That would've been in 1981, so at least one of the ribbons of cloth was 26 years old. I used to joke that I had neckties older than some of my students, but I'll be damned if it isn't actually true!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Zune too Soon
There's a dearth of good podcast aggregator software for those of us who refuse to hop on the iTunes bandwagon. The Zencast software from the folks at Creative works well enough but it feels clunky and odd.
I heard rumors that podcasting was being integrated into the new Microsoft Zune software. It shouldn't matter much that I don't have one. I sort of believe there might eventually be one in my future. Anyhow, I simply wanted something to fetch my podcasts and arrange them nicely in a sub-directory on my hard disk. SyncToy would be able to quickly move them to my Zen Stone.
It works but I have a few comments about the Zune software. The first problem is that I live in Canada. That in no way sounds like a problem until I learned that excludes me from participating at all. I am well aware that the local shops don't carry the devices but there are major malls just across the border from most Canadian cities, eh? If I type in my hotmail address I get shown quickly to a page which says:
Even with Web 2.0 I still sort of like Redmond's insistence in having code sit on each local machine. I somewhat still agree that life shouldn't entirely be experienced though a browser. It is possible to just download the software alone, so I did. The software recognized my IP as being north of border!
I installed. The software seems to be typically Microsoftish. What that means is in about three releases from now it'll unusable. Then after another, it'll be rock solid and soon catch up in popularity to iTunes. That should be in about five years, I'd say. First off, software developers, please allow us to cut and paste into the add-podcast box. How did you let it out the door with that major fault? Nobody wants to type in an arcane xml URL. In addition, let us do a complete podcast update with single button. As it stands I have no idea when it's going to pick up my feeds. Lastly, it'd surely be nice to have it run in the background. You know what I mean. When I close, I want it running over by the clock and not be forced to keep it open on the task bar. These seem like such simple things that I cannot understand how it was released these annoyances. How come I never get to beta anything? Send me a free 80GB Zune and I'll give you more useful advice ...
The interface is somewhat appealing so I allowed it to rummage through my music collection. I think under most circumstances I'll probably use it to locate and play music rather than running MediaPlayer.
I heard rumors that podcasting was being integrated into the new Microsoft Zune software. It shouldn't matter much that I don't have one. I sort of believe there might eventually be one in my future. Anyhow, I simply wanted something to fetch my podcasts and arrange them nicely in a sub-directory on my hard disk. SyncToy would be able to quickly move them to my Zen Stone.
It works but I have a few comments about the Zune software. The first problem is that I live in Canada. That in no way sounds like a problem until I learned that excludes me from participating at all. I am well aware that the local shops don't carry the devices but there are major malls just across the border from most Canadian cities, eh? If I type in my hotmail address I get shown quickly to a page which says:
The Zune service is not yet available in your region.Yeah, thanks a lot, indeed.
Thanks for your interest! Please continue to check Zune.net for the latest news and information.
Even with Web 2.0 I still sort of like Redmond's insistence in having code sit on each local machine. I somewhat still agree that life shouldn't entirely be experienced though a browser. It is possible to just download the software alone, so I did. The software recognized my IP as being north of border!
I installed. The software seems to be typically Microsoftish. What that means is in about three releases from now it'll unusable. Then after another, it'll be rock solid and soon catch up in popularity to iTunes. That should be in about five years, I'd say. First off, software developers, please allow us to cut and paste into the add-podcast box. How did you let it out the door with that major fault? Nobody wants to type in an arcane xml URL. In addition, let us do a complete podcast update with single button. As it stands I have no idea when it's going to pick up my feeds. Lastly, it'd surely be nice to have it run in the background. You know what I mean. When I close, I want it running over by the clock and not be forced to keep it open on the task bar. These seem like such simple things that I cannot understand how it was released these annoyances. How come I never get to beta anything? Send me a free 80GB Zune and I'll give you more useful advice ...
The interface is somewhat appealing so I allowed it to rummage through my music collection. I think under most circumstances I'll probably use it to locate and play music rather than running MediaPlayer.
Labels: Creative Zen, opinions, podcasts, software, Windows
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Breathing New Life into Old Audio
Once in a blue moon, I look over some of the standard non-blogged information on my site. It's all so general that I almost never need to update it. I do periodically modify the date on my resume document; however, as I'm not looking for a new job, nothing else ever needs changing.
I did try to play some ancient audio files this morning. They were originally recorded on a cheap cassette tape recorder sitting near a transistor radio. I encoded them as Real Audio files at least a decade ago. Unfortunately, that file format is no longer very cool nor even playable. Nowadays, up-to-date the software cannot even the locate old, streaming codec of that era. I knew if I wanted them to remain at all useful, I'd need to convert them.
Fortunately, after a half dozen false starts, I found a piece of free shareware called AudioVideo_to_Exe. It converted the old steaming .ra files to standard .mp3 format. The conversion did triple the file size but, of course, could not improve the quality of the sound. Still at around thirty minutes each, 14 mb files ain't bad.
I'm such an armchair archivist!
MP3 AUDIO
Radio Archive 1994 - Dubai FM, United Arab Emirates
Educationally Yours. The HCT BBS: Mike Friganiotis, Moh'd Al-Shamsi, and of course, me (30:06 minutes)
I did try to play some ancient audio files this morning. They were originally recorded on a cheap cassette tape recorder sitting near a transistor radio. I encoded them as Real Audio files at least a decade ago. Unfortunately, that file format is no longer very cool nor even playable. Nowadays, up-to-date the software cannot even the locate old, streaming codec of that era. I knew if I wanted them to remain at all useful, I'd need to convert them.
Fortunately, after a half dozen false starts, I found a piece of free shareware called AudioVideo_to_Exe. It converted the old steaming .ra files to standard .mp3 format. The conversion did triple the file size but, of course, could not improve the quality of the sound. Still at around thirty minutes each, 14 mb files ain't bad.
I'm such an armchair archivist!
MP3 AUDIO
Radio Archive 1994 - Dubai FM, United Arab Emirates
Educationally Yours. The HCT BBS: Mike Friganiotis, Moh'd Al-Shamsi, and of course, me (30:06 minutes)
Radio Archive 1995 - Dubai FM, United Arab Emirates
Educationally Yours.
Labels: BBS, Dubai, file archives, Mediaplayer
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
I Was Absolutely Floored
This is what, we in the business, call a slow news day.
It smells really interesting out in the hallway. When people get off the elevator, they'll notice, I'm sure. No, it's nothing bad or strange. The carpet layers just installed new carpeting.
The last time we had carpet installed in the building we went cheap and it was soon pretty obvious one gets what one pays for. The carpet was easily stained and next to impossible to clean. This one is a bit plushier. It looks a bit more like a hotel in here rather than somebody's rec-room in the damp basement. Unfortunately, the new floor doesn't exactly match our wall colour. At last month's AGM, we decided to scale back our strata maintenance fee increase, so we'll be a bit mis-matched for a while. It looks like we've decided not to paint until next year but that's something I can definitely live with.
It smells really interesting out in the hallway. When people get off the elevator, they'll notice, I'm sure. No, it's nothing bad or strange. The carpet layers just installed new carpeting.
The last time we had carpet installed in the building we went cheap and it was soon pretty obvious one gets what one pays for. The carpet was easily stained and next to impossible to clean. This one is a bit plushier. It looks a bit more like a hotel in here rather than somebody's rec-room in the damp basement. Unfortunately, the new floor doesn't exactly match our wall colour. At last month's AGM, we decided to scale back our strata maintenance fee increase, so we'll be a bit mis-matched for a while. It looks like we've decided not to paint until next year but that's something I can definitely live with.
Labels: maintenance
Monday, December 10, 2007
Eliminating Stress
Well it's Monday evening, so I've started this entry from the BCIT computer lab. I'm with some students enrolled in COMM 0031 which is a course for practicing oral communications. Thankfully, we're in the lab. I can make use of special listening software here. I can also have the students practice recording answers on the computers. This is handy as they'll be officially taking the BCIT Spoken English Assessment right here on Wednesday. This will give the chance to practice with the microphone and headphones.
Earlier today, I corrected all the final examinations from my weekend course. It feels really good to speak about both the intensive COMM 0004 courses in past tense now. During November, I felt quite a bit of stress dealing with forty students at the same time and it surely provided me with a lot of correction.
I can't help but think how great my job is though. I really appreciate the project-like environment of taking on individual contracts. There is clear definition of the beginning, middle, and end to each course. I take preparation for my classes very seriously. I keep a very friendly environment in the classroom but I do accumulate a fair amount of stress doing the housekeeping end of things. So stress builds but then completely dissipates. For example, tomorrow I have absolutely no appointments. Better yet, there're no assignments to be corrected nor planning to be done.
I need lots of down time and some has finally come to visit. I look forward to walking around town with a camera. I did manage a one-hour walk to the Quay today.
Earlier today, I corrected all the final examinations from my weekend course. It feels really good to speak about both the intensive COMM 0004 courses in past tense now. During November, I felt quite a bit of stress dealing with forty students at the same time and it surely provided me with a lot of correction.
I can't help but think how great my job is though. I really appreciate the project-like environment of taking on individual contracts. There is clear definition of the beginning, middle, and end to each course. I take preparation for my classes very seriously. I keep a very friendly environment in the classroom but I do accumulate a fair amount of stress doing the housekeeping end of things. So stress builds but then completely dissipates. For example, tomorrow I have absolutely no appointments. Better yet, there're no assignments to be corrected nor planning to be done.
I need lots of down time and some has finally come to visit. I look forward to walking around town with a camera. I did manage a one-hour walk to the Quay today.
Labels: BCIT, feelings, New Westminster
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Please Gamble!
The more money people throw into the slots, the more it keeps my taxes in check. Our municipal government benefits from a percentage of the take. As a downtown resident of New Westminster, the Royal City Star has become a part of our daily existence. Even from the living room, we can look over the balcony and see the floating casino. Because of this, it is in many pictures on my Flickr account.
We've known for quite a while it'll be leaving. The gaming license will be moved to a brand-new facility in Queensborough in our fair city. When at the Walmart today, we drove another half mile up the road to see how things are coming along on the Starlight Casino. It looks like there's still quite a bit to be done before this week's soft opening.
We've known for quite a while it'll be leaving. The gaming license will be moved to a brand-new facility in Queensborough in our fair city. When at the Walmart today, we drove another half mile up the road to see how things are coming along on the Starlight Casino. It looks like there's still quite a bit to be done before this week's soft opening.
Labels: money, New Westminster
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