A Quick Post to End the Week With

October 23rd, 2011 Thomasso

Just letting everyone know that I am still alive, and as usual, I got caught up on everything else and could not find the time to post.

I have two posts that I want to get up on here, but they are requiring a little bit more time than I originally anticipated. So, for now, I threw this up to keep you up-to-date.

I am working – a lot. This is good, but it sure takes a hit on my social scene.

For all my friends who have Ubuntu, there is an upgrade now, Ubuntu 11.10, as I posted earlier this week on, but some have already found a little bit too much, while some are OK with the learning curve. Time will tell, and you all will get through it. I am forcing myself to live with the new Desk Top, and I am starting to find my way around it, and I feel that I am adapting to it with a satisfactory level of efficiency.

It is getting cooler out. The trees here are now showing off their autumn colours. Very pretty for the camera. But the rain, the past couple of days, holy cow! Could this be a brutal winter, or what?

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General, Linux, Photographs | 1 Comment »

A Weekend of Stuff To Do

October 15th, 2011 Thomasso

I have so much stuff to do, I am way past laughing at it; I now just hit that stage where you just sit there and ponder the list, and mentally place priorities on each item. Of course, nothing goes according to plan. From winterising my place, to cleaning up unfinished projects, I knew time was not on my side.

I wanted to clean up my computer upgrade this weekend. Also, and unexpectedly, the latest upgrade of Ubuntu came along on the 14th, so I knew I had to get that done so that I could clean up all the parts and cases from the hardware I installed last week. When I started the upgrade, it went smooth, and quick. I was happy until I rebooted the computer and the dumb Unity Desktop popped up. I hate that desktop, so I went to switch back to Classic Gnome, and it was gone. In fact, a lot of the programs that I liked were gone. They were there, but they were not migrated over to Ubuntu 11.10, and there no plans to migrate them ever. So, I started searching for fixes to restore the Ubuntu Desktop back to the way I like it. This will take some time. I am frustrated about that.

The cost of things here in Vancouver are now starting to become noticeably high. I know the media is most always days and weeks behind on theses changes, but I do believe that inflation is creeping up at a faster rate then what I thought it was going to be. I went to buy some building supplies to start winterising my place and items like pink foam insulation almost double from six weeks ago when I bought them. Screws and nails really climb up in prices. I actually stopped short my buying spree, and focused on going back home and digging through my buckets of odd and ends for come items.

It is getting cooler out. I got out my winter quilt last night after I found spending more time wrapping my blankets around then sleeping. Maybe they are right, those weather predictor guys who are calling for a super cold winter this year, saying that condition are ripe for record breaking winter temperatures? I hope they are wrong, I really do.

Well, back to my list.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Diatribe, Graduation, Linux | Comments Off

Great, Fall Already?

September 23rd, 2011 Thomasso

When I got up this morning and I look outside, I thought to myself, “great, it’s fall, and I miss summer already.” But the day turned out really muggy and humid. It felt like 30C, rather than the 23C the outside thermometer was reading. I was sweating when I was moving stuff outside today. It also explained why the office had the air conditioning turned on during work too.

Even tonight it is really, unusually, warm out. Here it is, almost 7:00pm and it is twilight, and yet, the air and humidity is still warm enough to complain about the muggieness.  This is a screen shot of my Gnome  Calendar/Weather apt., from my Desktop:

What is cool about the screen-shot (above) is that it shows the night time period in real time, or dark side of the Earth, and it is a perfect rectangle, meaning that the Sun is right over the Equator. Usually either one of the poles is completely dark.

So, prediction time: What will this fall/winter be like? Comparing it to last year, I hope we get a better (shorter) winter for 2011-12. I am still bummed out from last winter.

Posted in Astronomy, Bitching about weather, Diatribe, Events, General, Photographs | Comments Off

The Labour Day Weekend

September 5th, 2011 Thomasso

Well, this is it, our last weekend of unofficial summer. From here on in we must start bracing for fall, or winter, which ever comes first. Right now it seems that summer can go on for ever, but experience tells me that all of this wonderful weather can end in a day, and the Northern hemisphere can be enveloped into darkness for the next six to seven months. What a dismal thought?

As a precursor to the fall season, I have already started on my Halloween costume. I want to have it done well before the festivities start. This year I will have the lights, the mannequins and scary photos adorning my home. I know this will spark a holy war with my neighbour who believes that anything pagan is punishable to public prosecution, but last year, we, as in the rest of my neighbours, asked him to mind his own business and stick to himself, and we would do the same. So far we are one big happy neighbourhood, but that could end at any moment. But that will not put a damper on my Halloween—he can move!

My friends are going back to their classes for their fall semester starting tomorrow. I already miss those days. Yes, I miss the new classroom smells, and that feeling of starting off a new term, and getting new textbooks and supplies. OK, I am happy that I have no more classes, and that I have money in my wallet because I do not have to give it to admissions, but damn it, I had so much fun back then. My friends look at me with envy, and I look at them with nostalgia. School, it conjure up both hell and happiness, I miss it.

So tomorrow, I go back to work. It will be a super busy day, like having two Mondays wrapped up into one. Fall is also a busiest time out of the year for us, so extra pressure will be on us to get the job done. In a way I am looking forward to it. I guess part of old age is knowing what to expect based on having been there and done that—the philosophy of a Gen-X’er. I am also mindful that our economy it still hurting, and that at any moment North America could come crashing down into a economic abyss. I listen, watch and prepare, while working as hard as I can but knowing that this could be a harsh year if the wrong path is taken. “We will see,” as my optimums friend says.

Now for some summer fun relaxation before the clouds roll in!

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, Diatribe, Events, General, Holiday, Humour, University classes | 1 Comment »

OK, where’s Summer?

July 16th, 2011 Thomasso

I’m going to jump on the bandwagon of crying for our summer season back and wanting sunshine and warm weather. I laughed when I heard on the CBCnews network yesterday that on Twitter, the hash-tag #bummersummer, is now trending as one of the most common tweets posting on social media network. What happened?

While Ontario and Quebec deal with a scorching heatwave, we on each coast, both in British Columbia and Newfoundland are experiencing spring or fall like weather instead, still with no change so far this summer. My Ontario friends are wishing that they were living hear becuase they cannot deal with the heat, yet, we are crying that we want at least a taste of that heatwave.

Last week we had a fairly bad hail storm in Fort Langley that only lasted about ten minutes, but it caused some minor damage around town. Lots of trees lost leaves and some branches, and along Glover Road a tree brought down a single house’s power line that shut down the road for a couple of hours. At one end of town that ground was completely covered with hail, that looked more like snow, while the other half was almost dry as bone.

This has being an interesting year so far for weather. What will we get next week – the mystery weather season?

Posted in Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General, Photographs, Socail Media, Twitter | Comments Off

A Hot June Night – I Love It!

June 4th, 2011 Thomasso

Now that is what I am talking about. Finally! A whole day uninterrupted from wind, rain and cold. Yes. It was our first nice day in so long, I cannot even remember?

The CBC weather guy said that this was Vancouver’s first day of 20C plus weather since last October. I just counted that on my fingers and it works out to almost eight months of cold.

I went is did a short walking down to Breay Island along the hiking trails to see nature in full bloom. The vegetation was huge, well probably normal, but being that we had such crappy weather for so long, lots of vegetation was a sight for sore eyes.

However, with such nice weather, comes the little pesky flies who do not hold back when wanting to bite me for a teeny-weeny drop of my blood. I hate them. I got several fly bites tonight. A sign, a very bad sign indeed.

Update June 5 2011:

We did not break the 20C temperature mark as promised. However, we should see it broken today, June 5, 2011. Needless to say, yesterday, and today were great!

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, General, Humour, Photographs | 3 Comments »

Less Than a Week Until Grad

June 3rd, 2011 Thomasso

Oh, is time ticking away. In less than week to go I will cross the stage to receive my papers and congratulatory handshake, deck out in academic regalia, to be formally welcomed into the world as a graduate in academics. Though not quite at the pinnacle of academia, but a full fledged graduate nonetheless. I have so much to do until then.

Yesterday I was swamped with both work and that huge “to-do” list in lieu of preparations for next Wednesday’s event. I had to brave the rain, or near record rain fall, by bus to get the tickets so that I can invite guests to the graduation/convocation ceremony. I was completely soaked by the time I got home. I smelled so damp, it was sicking. I even thought I was coming down with something after that little ordeal when I got home. I cannot wait until I get my truck back on the road. But anyway, I have the tickets for my friends, and Mom, who will be there to share this moment with me.

To get those tickets, I had to stop off  at Kwantlen Polytechnic University at the Langley Campus. When I went into the admissions offices, I was shocked to find the whole place completed, fully redone, with a brand spanking new look!  Yes, I snapped a few photos. It reminded of a lobby in a convention centre.

When I got home, it started to rain even harder. It was an awful night.

I spent about five hours emailing people. Mostly about the graduation, but I had so many emails from other issues that I finally gave up on the rest and just deleted them. I was getting frustrated. There is so much going on in my life right now, and I was getting frustrated about it all. Oh, do not worry, I only deleted emails that served little purpose and that were not part of my friends and family circles. But I needed sleep.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, Criminology, Diatribe, Events, General, Graduation, Photographs, University classes | Comments Off

The Test Trip – Ft Langley to Walnut Grove and Back.

June 1st, 2011 Thomasso

Today, not only being the first day of June, but is also the first trip shopping using only BC Transit as my means of transportation. I have to say that it was a resounding success, accept for a minor inconvenience, it rained like crazy on my home, but this could easily be overlooked as not being long term problem. I was really impressed with this. The round trip took 41 minutes from leaving my door to returning back home. This includes the short wait at the bus stop, the actual shopping in Walnut Grove, and riding the bus home and walking to my door at home.

I think for future trips I will take an umbrella with me if it looks even remotely close to raining. Although there are now shelters at each stop that I was at, you really need the coverage while walking from the shopping centre to the bus stop.

My shopping time can stretch out to about 15min giving me plenty of time catching the return trip. Today I did manage to catch the very same bus for the trip home.

Above, at the corner of Walnut Grove Drive and 88 Avenue. The rain was pounding the pavement just as soon as I left the store. I should of had an umbrella with me.

Final thoughts on Translink’s transit system

Since the days when I first used the buses in Fort Langley, BC, the system really, well, sucked, for lack of a better word. It was atrocious and not really worker-class friendly, so it suffered from lack of rider ship as a result. It really served no purpose for me using it to go to work. In fact, back in the 1990s, employers would often say that they are not accessible by transit, which was code for, “we are not interested in you if you are taking transit.” So adopting the vehicle was an necessity.

Today, I have to say that Transklink has at least improved its service to a workable level. The idea of having more trips per day, leaving every half hour during peak hours, has really made the system workable for using it for regular activities during the day. However, its service still needs improvement during the early hours as I still see very few people riding it to work, such as shift workers, who start at hours such as 7:00am to 8:00am.

I also like the idea that your transit ticket is good for 90 minutes. So my round trip cost only $2.50 for the trip! That is cool.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Photographs | 1 Comment »

Just Plain Old Tired

May 27th, 2011 Thomasso

Wow, trying to adjust to all these new and sudden changes to my daily lifestyle has really started to take a toll on my energy levels. The impact of work, or more precisely, taking transit, has left me with taking cat-naps when ever I get them. It seems no matter how hard and try and sleep, I still cannot force my body to sleep during these new hours, and waking up is like pure torture – brain is up, but body wants to go back to bed. I thought after a couple of day I would just smoothly slide into this new routine, but I do not seem to be no where close to fully adjusting to it.

For the last week I have been in perpetual tired mode. I even laid off on the amount of coffee I drink per day. Yes, coffee! So I guess it is all up to nature and letting my body go through the normal adjusting period.

I have had lots of comments on this too. Several of my co-workers, and friends, have noted how tired I look. I even noticed it whenever I look in the mirror at how tired I look. But feeling it is the worst – I just cannot snap out of it.

My theory is that it all has to do with the weather. The rain, cool temperatures, and lack Sun, must be a contributing factors to my prolonged adjustment problems to jumping back in to a work schedule. I know for the last couple of days I had to turn on my heat in the house becuase the nights started getting very cold. Last morning I thought it was March all over again. Waking up to that, well, was torture added to my misery of having lack of sleep.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General | Comments Off

Beautiful “Sunny” Spots in Fort Langley

May 17th, 2011 Thomasso

I was walking back from doing a bread run at the Fort Bakery when I saw how pretty the community building looked in Fort Langley this afternoon. The day was beautiful, as the Sun got a chance to shine through the clouds which have been so dominant this year, and that turned the gloomy grey town into a place of pleasantness and a beehive of activity. Having the Sun shine on through makes that much of a difference around here.

I was up very late last night working on upgrading computers. I did not get home until 2:00 ish am this morning. The full moon last night was just as beautiful as the Sun is today. I knew today was going to be a day to get out as the clouds started moving out late last night. I just wished I did not have to miss most of the morning as I slept. Now, my body is so far out of sync that my sleeping pattern is going to be affected, probably for the rest of the week.

Mayday Parade is this coming weekend! Yay! The weather should be super great, like it is today, so that will make for a great outdoor event. Nothing like watching your town swell up to ten times its normal population for half a day! Yes, I will have my camera, and will be out shooting up a storm. Attack of the shutter bug!

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