A Moment To Myself: Or Five Seconds of One?

March 8th, 2010 Thomasso

I have a moment to myself. I really wanted to type more on the blog, but life has being hectic as classes are gearing up for mid-terms.  Work has calmed down to the point where I can safely go back to my part-time status and still have everything run smoothly. I still get the odd Linux user asking/bagging for help, but time is of the essence and I can’t make more of it. If I could make a 25 hour days, I would hide the secret so no one could ever do it.

My French prof ask to talk to me after class today. He siad that I have developed some very nasty/serious habits with my oral vocabulary from the textbook. When I read from my textbook, I periodically pronounce the last letters in words when I shouldn’t.  He ask if I had someone to help me along with reading out loud. Sadly my last French helper has had to stop becuase he is too busy with his job. The problem with teaching French I find is that it is a slow process and getting it right is an ongoing process for the learner. My friend was very much into teaching it, but only if he had the spare time, like a half hour at a time kind of thing.  For him, English was his second language, so he preferred to stick with English, not the French, and I could totally understand his point of view.

Statistics, I’m rock’n. My grades are very good, however, I have this large paper due on Wednesday, and it is more work than I bargained for. I think the prof thinks I’m some kind of freak becuase I actually enjoy it. Apparently, you are not supposed to “enjoy” Stats–it is strictly a taboo subject and should be frowned upon. Oh well, I don’t mind the mathematics, and theory behind Statistics, and me and my lab partner have chosen as really good topic to do research on. Why not be happy about it? I wish I could apply this level of joy to French!

Anyway, that is all for now. I’m going to go to bed early and get some badly needed sleep. The four to five hours nights are catching up with me. Good night everyone!

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If You Drink and Drive, You Should Forget About Driving Ever Again!

February 20th, 2010 Thomasso

Last night while I was heading home from work, I was passed on the road by a rather rude driver who was just in too much of a rush that everyone on the road was in his way, so he tail-gated, honked his horn and swerved contently to get around you. Finally he passed me going towards Fort Langley on Glover Road, just pasted the 232nd Street turn-off to highway #1. I kept to my lane, gave him some extra room so he could at least have some space to make his manoeuvre before he had a head on collision with the on coming traffic, and then he was gone.

After I got home, I decided to do a little shopping. I hopped back in the truck and headed off to Walnut-Grove, where “low and behold” there was that same rude driver again, stopped by the police getting a breathalyser test. The officer has his stash of beer cans on top of his car, and I could see the look on the driver’s face as he was lead to the police car when I drove by.

I am somewhat perplexed that after all the TV commercials and anti-driving ads, that people still think it is wise to drive while having a few drinks? I mean honestly, you are endangering all the people around you when you are driving intoxicated. You are not in full control of your faculties–even though “you” think so. And with the beefed up laws that we have now, with costly fines and a possible criminal record, not to mention the loss of your driver’s license, you would wonder that people would think twice about getting behind the wheel of a vehicle and driving off after having a few belts.

I hope that the system has done its job and has taken one more inconsiderate driver off the road. If anyone wants to argue with me on this one, then I will start with by saying this is a safety issue from all aspects. Unsafe drivers need-not-drive.

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As I Walk Through the Valley of Steel

February 19th, 2010 Thomasso

This is going to be one of those posts where I may regret writing it. Normally I don’t like talking about the personal details of my life in terms of up to the minute details with commentary and graphics, but today is sort of a milestone of sorts. As the title says, “As I walk through the valley of steel,” this means, I am alive and well, and all is going great. Work is going so great too, that in fact, I have surpassed even my own expectations there. The Valley of Steel is all the steel shelving that I see everyday at my work. So, steel shelving is playing a big part in my life right now. Heck, it is even dominating it!

If you have ever worked with full-scale, massive sized warehousing steel shelving, then you will know what I am talking about. I am talking about the big orange and blue shelving that you sometimes see in the large big-box stores where you need a forklift to put things into them, and they tower up to twenty feet into the air. Well, for the last couple of days we have expanded our warehouse and started adding, rearranging and moving our steel shelving around inside the warehouse. I worked with a couple of very experienced and professional guys who know this stuff inside and out. They were worth every penny they asked for.

In the past I had worked with erecting and dismantling large siezed steel shelving myself, and it is not an easy job to do. In this warehouse, we all loath it becuase It is a tough job to do, especially with limited space and poor equipment. But when you have the right guys, the right equipment and lots of Will power, it all seemed so effortless. I am even kicking myself in the butt for not asking the professionals in the first place!

I could go on and on about cost effectiveness and efficiency, and all that stuff, but I am in the moment right now and I am not going to spoil it. In short, get the professionals–it will save you lots of time and money down the road.

But redecorating is like starting fresh again. It is like a second chance. On Monday morning I will walk into a whole new place. I am so looking forward to that. Also, knowing that things are the way “you” want them to be, is also a big thrill. A new desk, fresh coat of paint and a whole new layout, will greet me first thing on Monday morning–now that is the making of a happy worker.

Posted in Bitching about work, General | 1 Comment »

Once Again I am Happy it is the Weekend

February 12th, 2010 Thomasso

I am tired and sore from all the classroom time I have logged in the past week. On top of work, reading over 300 pages of high intents text about statistics is enough to drive anyone into a state of craziness. Between all of my classes I have to deal with work too as we have taken on new contracts that are extremely demanding. But my classes are my biggest chunk of the daily pie chart of time, and the search for sleep is getting out of hand as that part of the pie chart is getting nibbled away. Yes, I complain about this a lot—I know that. What can I say, I’m a whiner when I’m tired.

Statistics is a really weird subject because all most everyone in the class is suffering from denial, or they shutter like it was the new AIDS epidemic, or they complain about it like they are about to be tortured by the rack when they have to show up to class. The language of statistics too is really wired because you are using common words in the most unique way. For example, “mean” is something like average, or “regression” is really predicting the future. The formulas are really algebra on steroids. And worse yet, there are multiple version of the same standard used by the various profs who teach it, just ask about the “X-bar.”

I found myself daydreaming at work too from lack of sleep. It was the weirdest sensation as I was reading my email, and found myself drifting off thinking about taking a trip over to Europe. I snapped out of it when I thought I could taste the salty air off the coast of Italy. Then I starting surfing the net looking for cheap flights right after that. That was bad I tell you—never go on a holiday searching spree surfing the net while at work. Surfing the web while at work is not good if you are back logged with numerous tasks. Though I did find some sweat deals. But I need sleep, and a better schedule to maintain my mental health with.

I got another job offer in the mail today. Last September I attended a trades-fair at the University, and I have being getting a steady stream of replies ever since. This company is located in New York State and seems really eager to take on graduates from anywhere around the world in the field of Criminology, though not in Forensics, but in Psychology which is right up my alley. I think I would have an issue with leaving Canadian soil though, but there was a listing from a European company too that looked very interesting. The European one was looking for researchers/crime experts… gulp…, more Stats, but hey it’s closer to Italy than Vancouver is. I really don’t think finding work is going to be a problem when I graduate.

Well, another Friday night is upon us, so I’m going to read for a few hours then call it a day. I need to get up fairly early tomorrow to do some on-line work with one of my classes—those pesky lab assignments for French. Then later on I have a video-conference with my classmates on Chicago—topic, International Crime between Canada and the USA, which will probably be dominated by the “War On Drugs” that everyone is talking about here in British Columbia.

Posted in Bitching about work, General, Homework and deadlines, University classes | No Comments »

Is this Incredible Weather or What?

February 6th, 2010 Thomasso

For the last five weeks, I must admit, I was paranoid about having to go through another winter like the one we had last year in the Fraser Valley. For the first couple of week in December it looked as if we were going to endure another super cold one, but as luck would have it, we are getting California like weather in the middle of winter for 2010. Is this Incredible Weather or What?

I know that we should be worried about having such wonderful weather in a place like Canada this time of year because it is unnatural, and nature has a way of turning such a nice thing into a huge nuisance later on down the road. I am thinking of the mosquito problems we have here along the Fraser River. With every warm winter, there follows a wet spring, and mosquitoes love water to lay their eggs in. There are other bugs too that are loving this weather, take the Roach for example. Yes Fort Langley has Roaches–although some people I know will not admit it and call them something else, like a Termites. I saw one zipping out of the storm grate alone Glover Road yesterday when I was walking back home. That congered up bad memories from when I lived in Toronto, Ontario. Toronto is a place that has a huge roach problem. Also there is the infamous Pine Beetle that has destroyed a large portion of our Pine forests in BC–can  we say “Global Warming.”

Not having to deal with shovelling, huge heating expenses and the inconvenience of driving on snow and ice, I can enjoy this weather in the short term. I say keep it coming! I love thisI In fact, I am asking myself if I should even bother heading to Mexico, in stead, stay here where it is warm?

Posted in Bitching about weather, General, Humour, Photographs | No Comments »

The Sue-ability Scale

February 5th, 2010 Thomasso

Lawyers, you may not want to read this, this might be a tough pill to swallow? These are my personal thoughts based on my personal experiences with Civil Court.

Justice is a weird thing. I have studied it to death and it still leaves me scratching my head wondering, asking why-and the answers become as vague as following a white car in the middle of a snowstorm. I have found that justice in Canada is only for those who are rich, or are very clever. That in most cases if you are being sued in civil court, it is better not to participate than it is to waste your time with the process of jurisprudences; and flip side to this, if you are rich, you are an easy target than compared to someone who is poor and homeless. Seriously, of the five people in my life that I have brought to the halls of justice, only one took the pledge and participated. The other four knew the system well enough not to bother, and I found it (almost) impossible to seek my claim, costs, damages and compensation. In fact, the one time that I was the respondent, it was easer to go on with my life than it was to play the game. To this day, the company that I had an agreement with is still out the initial $72.00, but they are also out on their costs too, so it pays not to bother with Canadian Justice if you have nothing to loose. Was it worth my time to show up—I’m still evaluating that?

I now know that there is a scale that the professionals follow when they go out on suing expeditions. They automatically drop anyone who has no money; who is renting; earning a low wage; has no bank account; has little or no identification, i.e., drivers license or birth certificate; uses aliases and moves around a lot. However, for the poor there is this thing called Small Claims Court, or the Pauper’s Court as it is called in my circles, but you still need to pay to use it though. When I studied Medieval legal systems of European cultures, Small Claims Court to me has a reminiscent quality of early continental European courts where the jurist is free to adjust, amend, vary and control all aspects of the hearing and decisions—although you can appeal in today’s court. One day I was helping a friend fight for his money from a debtor, and once it was our turn, the sitting judge read the Statement of Claim, then threw up his arm up with the documents in hand and said, “You expect to me rule on this? I think you should go back and talk to this person and make the effort on collecting your money before you go into my court.” Perhaps it was because we were not wearing $900.00 suites at the time? I’m still in awe to this day about that?

If you do have something to loose like a house, wages, assets, or your respondent has too, then going to court is the way to go. I have also seen the dual effects of court at play many times as the monetary and psychological costs play their toll and all parties. The trouble is, court is not a guaranteed bet. Just when you thought you had the full force of the law on your side, you are hit with a sucker-punch and your case falls like a house of cards. In one case of mine, I filed for a garnishment of wages and the respondent’s employer decided not to cooperate. The business told me that he does not work in their department any more. I found myself having to take extraordinary measures to track down who this person really worked for before I could I proceed with the action. This involved two days of driving by this guy’s work every ten minutes searching for what door he came out of. Then once I saw him walking out to go home, I went into the building and had to do some quick lurking. I asked one of the managers that I was looking for my “friend.” When I confirmed that that was the respondent’s employer, I then went to the manager’s office to serve the garnishment order. I received two out of the five payment to fulfil the debt, but then they stopped as the guy quit his job and moved elsewhere. I just recovered only my court costs in that case. Was it worth it? At least I got to play the psych-game with him.

Posted in Criminology, Diatribe, General, Law, Law and Order, Social Justice | No Comments »

Status: Normal? I tihnk?

January 31st, 2010 Thomasso

Although this is the last day of January, 2010, and this is the last day of the week, I feel I did not accomplished everything I wanted. Sure, I fell behind on my readings and there are a few tasks at work that I have yet to do, but I get this weird feeling that I missed a whole section of my life. Perhaps this is what it feels like when you go without a good nights sleep for so long, or you try to make every second of every day count and be as productive as possible that you forget to smell the roses? Or you forget that you have a blog and you miss writing in it?

Interestingly I have one more week before the Surrey campus shuts down for the “Games.” Many weeks leading up to the Games I was pissed off that my life would be affect by it, for example, the Games being a major inconvenience becuase I would be loosing three weeks of classes, but now I do not give a @%#^* any more, and I am actually very happy that I will have those three weeks to collect my thoughts and barrel through all of my reading and write my research papers too. So loosing classes is not such a bad thing after all, I mean, we will get an extra week added in April, so it is not that bad. I think the university thought this though enough to satisfy everyone on-board.

Money is my other big issue too. I have a several large bills coming up. I have vehicle insurance, along with the Air-Care, which I have devised a plan for tuning my engine since the “Check Engine” light keeps popping up and my mechanic can not resolve this. Yes, the evil geniuses who pollute the Earth have found a way to circumvent Car-Care, without breaking any of the manufacturer’s tamper-proof systems. Big Oil does rule the people, and the government, as long as you play by their rules–like buy a 2010 SUV. Gasp! My Server fees are also coming up next week too. There goes at least $100.00 on top of everything else. The rent on my Post Office mail box is due too. Cow–I have to really what my budget this month!

well, I feel a little more happier now, I wrote a post on my blog. Do I feel better? Yes, but only to a small degree. I am still too tired to enjoy the moment though, and I do have a mid term tomorrow. Mid-term. Great. My moment of happiness just flew out the window. Wonderful.

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Rush, Rush, Rush-Push, Push, Push-Go, Go, Go!

January 29th, 2010 Thomasso

I love it when all of a sudden everyone around me starts realizing that the deadlines are right around the corner, and they have fallen behind, that they start to pass the buck onto me–do you find that for yourself too? A really good example is when you are part of a team and your project is due, and you have some team members who are “a bit slow,” and when the day finally arrives to submit, they freak out and start blaming everyone else except themselves as they show up unprepared. I have fallen victim to two such scenarios already this month, and my reaction has not being pretty.

First, I had a presentation to do with a five member group of which we were to present findings from our research on “Increases in Crime, Looking at the Correlation Between Policing and the Games in Vancouver for 2010.” We had set up a series of five meetings and only three of us made it to all of them. The other two members seemed to have put their parts off until the very last minute and literally left the rest of use hanging during the presentation. It was awkward! The second project was also class presentation, but this time I got to work solo. I like working by myself a lot more than in teams becuase I can achieve way more in a shorter period of time, and pass with flying colours. But, for whatever reason, the team concept seems to be the way corporate Canada wants to move, so the University pushes us in that direction–it is sad in some respects. I think it is just to match the slow and dumb with the fast and  smart, but who am I to judge the merits of what the world wants? But working solo means that you still need to rely on others during the process to finish, and my problems started from receiving the incorrect information from the library–a honest mistake–but no one wanted to admit that there was a mistake, or pay for fees from the first batch of files I had ordered. I refused to pay for the first set of text becuase they were not what I wanted. For some reason, the customer is always wrong, according to library’s resource department. The mistake was clearly theirs, and the acquisition paperwork clearly stated what I wanted, and it was very different from what I received the first time around. Perhaps this will get resolve soon?

Even my work has this problem too with fellow employees passing the buck and denial of wrong doing when the pooh hit the fan. Sure, this is natural, and every workplace has at least one bad apple in it. I use the “butt-covering” method to combat workplace buck-passers. In my department, I have learned to keep originals and only give out copies of important documents. I have already seen one employee try to “fraud” paperwork, and it did not go over to well for that person in the long run. I also learned not to panic when confronted with accusations by other employees, especially from other departments, but always give them space, let them talk, and allow them to sink their own ship without taking everyone with them. The art of working in teams has no bearing on performance or efficiency, I am finding, but it has everything to do with personal merit and longevity. Workplace attrition is always the best hope for those who are incompetent. So the lesson here is teams and buck-passing go hand in hand–trust no one, and look out for number one!

Now I am rambling.

The last 15 days have flown by so fast. My workload from my classes is incredible in my opinion. French is sucking up most of my time. To do the on-line work takes well over eight hours to complete for each chapter. That is way too much time required for the course. I know that the majority of the class is flying by in the course, but I never had any formal French, so I am aiming for just a pass. Yes, it take a lot longer for me to memorize and learn the spelling, but hey, I am starting from scratch. My instructor has so much patience with me–he deserve a lot more than he is getting credited for.

Statistics, or hard based Algebra? Woo-Hoo! No comment. All I can say here is that I am a SPSS sufferer, and I want to use open source so bad it hurts. Micro$oft can kiss my butt! Whoever thought that a crappy program that is worth $800.00 is a good thing for students to work with–they are sniffing glue. I will never pay for crap–especially $800.00 worth of it! I’ll take “R” any day over SPSS! OK, I am frustrated with SPSS–I admit that–don’t sue me.

At least it is Friday. Maybe I can catch up on some sleep? Naugh… An’t gonna happen.

A bientôt mon amis

Posted in Bitching about weather, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, University classes | 1 Comment »

Living in the Null Hypothesis World

January 23rd, 2010 Thomasso

It is 8:23am on a sunny Saturday morning here on campus in Surrey, (BC – not go get mixed up with my British friends who live in the original city of Surrey) and the birds are up, and probably there is a Bee buzzing around somewhere too as you would think it is April or May around here. I am here because I have no choice. If I want to pass my exam coming up this Wednesday in my Statistics class, I have to be here. It boils down to software and textbooks, or the lack there of.

Here is my rant:

There is a big battle among many institutions and their students and faculty members on what is, or should be, the accepted tool/product for statics. Right now in my class it is SPSS, which is a wonderful tool for spitting out any statistical information you need from your hard earned data, but it is not cheap, and as I found out, it is not the only game in town. To buy the licences for SPSS, with all of its modules and updates, it is a whopping $800.00 to get it working for one year. On the other side of the coin, there is “R,” which does exactly the same thing, and many have argued that it is less buggy that SPSS. R, is free under the GNU/ Open Source agreement, so there is no real intensive for the creators to push their ware, other than the textbooks. SPSS textbooks are about the same price as the ones for R, but SPSS seems to go through more revision than R, so their textbook list are always updating. I can hear the cash registrar ringing louder and louder as I type this out.

I am very familiar with R as I have worked with it for several years now. SPSS is a challenge because it is very different to use and operate, and its look and feel is like ridding a Volkswagen with no shocks when compared to R, the Ferrari, as I see it. Part of the problem is Micro$oft, since 80 percent of the computers on campus have it installed, there is a natural tendency for the Window$ salesmen to push the statistical Micro$oft product along with it. And when you are limited to running homogeneous software for that O.S., you will get the hook, line, and sinker with an $800.00 gorilla attached to it.

In the free world, the standard is set higher with R as I see more and more people running it for their research needs. R seems to be, in my world, the standard. But I am puzzled why I read that places like MIT, in the U.S., R is the software to use in research, while in my humble little University, SPSS is the benchmark. Oddly enough from the two comparisons I did, R and SPSS give you are same answers, and you still have to use a third-party software because each still has a lousy graph creation tools. The problem is that data sets are non compatible between R and SPSS.

I am on campus because I cannot run SPSS at home because I do not have the $800.00 to use it. Sure there are lots of illegal copies of SPSS floating around, but I am past that stage in my life. I have R, but it is totally useless to my prof if she can’t open my data up to mark it. I am also behind because I could not initially afford all of the textbooks at the beginning of the semester. For the first half of January I managed to live on $82.55 because the rest of my budget went to getting 3/4 of the needed textbooks. On my last pay day, on week three of the semester,  I finally got the last textbook, the SPSS book at a cost of $170.00. Now you know why I am so behind on my studying—it is very tough to do without textbooks when you can’t study for the assignments and exams.

I’m not going to use the world scam here because I know University is really only for those who can afford it. I do have the option of dropping the course and waiting for another instructor who would hopefully use another piece of software, with cheaper textbooks, but we are not getting any younger here—right. But I can make one guarantee, I will not be using SPSS in the real world, it is R for me all the way baby!

Posted in Diatribe, General, Homework and deadlines, University classes | No Comments »

I Applaud the BC Court of Appeal’s decision on Insite

January 16th, 2010 Thomasso

One of the greatest contradictions of Canada’s “sheepish” war on drugs as been the connection between the cost of health to our healthcare system and the battle to regulate what the State thinks is good or bad for its citizens. The criminalization of drugs is a recent phenomenon that is just over a hundred years old, and was born out of attacking specific marginal and ethnic groups. Canada has a very deep cultural love affair with illegal narcotics, and none could be more so than with marijuana. But for whatever stance you choose in your ideology, albeit the left or right, the drug culture in Canada isn’t going to go away any time soon, and we have to deal with that.

Insite was born out of long term thinking and the concept of rehabilitation; in other words, having a safe place to be that offers hope is a better approach than by pushing it underground and letting the long term effects eat away at our society. The logic behind Insite is simple: safety and hope. The people who use the facility are addicted to drugs, and are at the bottom of the social ladder. Further criminalization is not going to “fix” them, but rather push them deeper into marginalization.

The nay-sayers seems to start off with the line, “If you prohibit drugs and the use of it, then that will fix the problem… .”

I argue that the nay-sayer, has not found the root cause of the problem, but has only made it even worse than the act of using the drugs in the first place. The nay-sayer needs to ask why that person has chosen to take the drugs in the first place. However, it is easer to criminalize something than to fix it—well, that seems to be Canada’s current model. But to become homeless and drug dependant means that that person has issues that go beyond the act of taking drugs. Then you reach a point where you have no where to go, you become vulnerable, and as a result you become more visible. From Hitler to Harper, the right-wing thinking is to invoke prohibition against specific marginal groups that do not appeal to middle and upper class standards, and to simply criminalize something that does not adhere to those standards seems to be the answer.

What insite does is to give these people the chance to use clean needles to inject themselves with in hopes of stopping the practice of sharing needles. The AIDS epidemic, and many other diseases too, has a direct correlation with this group of people with the sharing of needles, so it would make sense to offer clean needles than to deal with growing numbers of AIDS victims. Safety too is an issue with Insite because if that user needs further treatment, or decides to move towards kicking their habit, then there are people right there on site to offer that help. When the user is in the facility there are staff on hand that can promptly offer help if that person is in distress. I think it is far better than having someone injecting drugs in some back alley in the middle of Vancouver.

I totally agree with the British Columbia Court of Appeal on their decision to keep the jurisdiction of Instie with British Columbia’s authority, and thus allowing the facility to stay open without Federal interference. The Federal government should stop wasting our tax money on fighting this. Remember that the majority of Canadians did not vote for Harper!

Posted in Criminology, Diatribe, General, Law, Law and Order, Social Justice | 2 Comments »