Happy B-Day to my Sister JM

August 30th, 2010 Thomasso

I tried to phone you today, but you didn’t pick up. I tried to email you, but you haven’t replied yet. So, I’m sending in out a blog post to you. So JM, Happy Birthday!

[EDITED] I had to rewrite this post to clear up some words that did not describe my thoughts in the right light. Having a bunch of sisters hunting me down is not good either. I may still add and subtract some passages below.

For those of you who do not know me that well, or have not met all of my family, I have a lot of sisters. I’m the only boy in the family–nothing but baby sisters. What does this mean for me?  As one friend of mine said–”it is no wonder that you are not gay with that much estrogen floating around you growing up.” JM is the middle sister of four with an older and younger sister on either side of her based on age and height.

FYI, I’m the shortest, and the youngest is 3 cm taller. The trend is, the older you are in the pecking order, the shorter you are as an adult. I attribute this to having parents who heavily smoked cigarettes throughout our lives growing up.

Perhaps being in the middle of the pack, herd, or whatever you want to call a littler of children, is the safest place to be. You’re not the eldest, so mom and dad didn’t have to practice parenting on you when you were first being raised. You are not at the other end of the time spectrum either as the baby, where you remain the baby for the rest of your life as “the baby” of the family, permanently stuck with that label. And having older and younger sisters too, along with an older brother is a huge benefit–you can hide amongst the crowd during the inquisitions.

From my vantage point I think you had it good. You have a baby sister to blame stuff onto. You were not the final dumping grounds for the hand-me-downs. Plus being the middle child you could get away from embarrassing and potentially aggravating situations, such as helping dad out as being one of his test subjects for when he plaid the banjo, or being a taster for one of mom’s cooking experiments.

Posted in Birthday, Family, General, Humour | 2 Comments »

Twenty-Two Weeks, Two Courses, Two Degrees

August 12th, 2010 Thomasso

Today is a very special day for me. The clock is counting down and time is speeding up as the last of the work is just but a few weeks away. This is like having all the planets lining up to form a very significant astronomical event, my life long ambition of having my degrees will come to past, and then my new life will start right after that.

First, twenty-two weeks left of classes, and just two course left to complete. It will be part time as far as the workload goes, but I am sure I will keep busy with the work. Once done, I will have two pieces of paper to show for everything done since 2004, and 2006.

Second, planning has started. My applications have started getting replies and my current employment has been notified–officially.

Last, I have kicked my networking into super-fast mode. Just today I landed two very important employment opportunities that are right within my dream career path. The names and references fell on my lap, (speaking figuratively).

Today also marks the very last time I will have to travel for a class at the Surrey Campus. I will miss the place, but I am sure I will visit it in the near future for whatever reason.

My head is spinning. I never knew it would move this fast. I feel chaotic, but I am in control.

Posted in Criminology, Events, General, University classes | No Comments »

Stopping an Idea with Rent-a-Cops: A Warrning About Freedom of Speech

July 31st, 2010 Thomasso

Last Thursday I saw something that embarrassed me while I was sitting in my CRIM4301 class, a class on Human Rights. A fellow classmate who was supposed to be in the class with us was hurriedly walking past the classroom with two campus rent-a-cops in tow.   We all jumped up looked out the window from our second story view point when one of the students notice that he was outside in the parking lot being lured off of the campus grounds by four rent-a-cops, or campus security guards.

Why was this all happening? Emery Warner, who is also a student of Criminology, was doing a project similar to a project that I am doing in my Communications class, where he is brining to the attention of the students. facts and issues about the new company, Sodexo, who had just started taking over the cafeteria on all Kwantlen campuses. The issues range from Sodexo’s past and present job practises, and the quality of food they serve, not to mention the way they treat their employees.

Anyway, please read the on-line copy of the story that was posted in today’s Vancouver Sun news paper about Emery’s ordeal.

Kwantlen student cooks up a storm over cafeteria operators: Emery Warner says security guards barred him from campus for handing out protest pamphlets.

Posted in Criminal Law, Criminology, Diatribe, Events, General, Law and Order, Social Justice, University classes | 1 Comment »

Canada Day – What Does it Mean?

July 1st, 2010 Thomasso

I just did a whole day working on a new vehicle – thank you Diane. I am sore, as I spent most of that time standing in one position, arched over the engine with my head crouched under the hood. The good news is, I think everything looks good and the vehicle might pass through the inspection centre. We have this thing called Air-Care, or as some call it, the “mechanic’s Dream Law” because it force people to do maintenance on their vehicles in order to pass the emissions standards law. I think it is a great money revenue scheme, as there are ways to get around it if your vehicle does not pass the test–for another fee of course.   We can claim with this law that we care about air!

Canada Day, July 1, 2010 making the country about 143 years old.

What is there to celebrate? Well, this depends on who you are, where you are living and probably your age. If you are of Chinese origin, than July 1st is known as the “Day of Shame” because Canada had the Chinese Head Tax during the early part of the last century. If you are aboriginal, as some of my friends are, then they simply do not care and do not recognize Canada as a legitimate state, only the guns, segregation, land rights and poverty represent Canada in their eyes. If you are young, say born after 1990, then Canada day is just another opportunity for a long weekend and holiday to kick off summer with. If you were born between 1940 and 1965, then you would have a stronger appreciation for what Canada is; these are the baby-boomers. If you live in Fort Langley, well, it rained today, and it was not a great day doing the fun outdoor activities.

Personally for me Canada has all the problems that any other nation state has.  It has poverty and other issues related to economics and the care and well being of some its less fortunate citizens. I believe that we are over taxed, our Banks sucks, and the government does not adequately represent the people. But realistically these are minor issues because we are truly fortunate to live in a democratic government that at least is somewhat accountable to the people it servers and is more fare to us than other governments around the world. Any how, it was a great day to work on a vehicle.

Hummm, I sound so negative?

Good night and may the sun shine again soon.

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The Final Term – It is Cast in Stone Now

June 2nd, 2010 Thomasso

It is a weird feeling to know that this will be my last term, as an undergraduate, to go through the routine of signing up and scheduling for regular classes. I have developed a habit of always checking the registration website for classes. I think I will miss that? Actually, I will miss a lot of the routines I have developed over the last five years while going to classes.

I was kind of hoping for a better selection, but with just one elective and my mandatory language requirement, French, left to do, I found I will have my biggest hurdle to jump over yet. The only second level French class offered for next semester is a double split class, meaning two classes per week at two hours a piece, and it is in held Richmond – a one hour commute for me. I wanted to take my final Computer Science class to fulfil my Minor, but the French classes conflict with the timetable, so sadly, I opted for a Political Science class instead to complete my elective requirements.

I guess I do not care any more, other than completing my undergraduate, so whatever is available for courses to complete it with, works for me. I am tired and anxious to get it done and over with. This has being a long journey for me, and a very expensive one too. Including textbooks, roughly $25,000.00 and counting. $17,000.00 in fees and administrative costs, and these are the bare bone numbers, so you can see that see the University gig is very expensive. Now imagine what a student loan would have cost–on top of all this!

There are still more that I want to do with my degree. I would love to complete my honours. This would mean three more courses, a fifth year, and a mini dissertation that would take about twenty five weeks to do. That would be nice. But for now, I am focusing on the main goal, graduating with the BA.

So I have a few more bumps along the road to my goal to drive over yet. I hope I get through the Richmond commute next term. I hate driving to  Richmond!

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The Upgrade – 4 hours of Waiting

May 1st, 2010 Thomasso

I started the upgrading last night. I have four machine that I wanted kept current so I started the downloading of 10.04 around 5:00pm Thursday, April 29, 2010, just as the release of the Lucid Lynx was let loose. Overall I am very happy with 10.04, but I quickly found out that some of my hardware is rapidly dying from old age.

The first problem was my DVD burner. I tried two different types of ISO files from off of the web, and both seemed to have scores of errors on them. I tried an install right from the boot/start up on my second file I downloaded, and it went through about 40 percent, then displayed a bad DVD medium error. The first DVD I burnt, it did not even work. This was frustrating, but then I realized that my DVD burner was so full of dust and dirt that I switched over to my laptop to burn with. I had to start the download all over again because I didn’t have anymore DVD+ to burn with, and my laptop only takes the DVD- type disks. So, I fired up Ktorrent, and grabbed the next available bit-torrent to burn just for the laptop. That took 5 hours to download because my wireless is topped out at somewhere 1MB/s.

My second problem was setting up my encryption. Ubuntu 10.04 gives you the option of encrypting your user accounts, so I jumped on that. The problem there was my hard-drive, a LO-1 TB SATA drive. With so much space, and such a demanding encryption algorithm, this took a lot more time to do than if I just ran the regular option of a simple password. I take security very seriously, and LINUX systems seem to do a better job than the commercial product I have used on the market. So I hunkered down and waited while the upgrade took place. Hey, the encryption works good. I tried to scan with my Window$ machine, and it could not  even see the partitions and content – just a big empty disk that read full.

The Fresh Install versus the Upgrade debate. I learned that installing fresh is way better than upgrading. This dates back to my WIN95 to WIN98 days. I learned that boot problems just get passed along to each new upgrade without actually getting fixed. Things like rouge programs and third party software are rarely fixed, or never at all, and they seem to have more problems after each consecutive upgrade. So fresh is always better in my book. Also, I have noticed that if you just upgrade, you never really get the full benefit of the latest release. Your old configuration files always linger around on your hard-drive from one upgrade to another.

Once I get my main workstation back to user happiness, I will post my experiences, probably tonight when I things calm down around here. This, and my flat tire with the nail in it, are all that is on my agenda for today, so type to you then!

Posted in Events, General, Linux, Software | 6 Comments »

The Official End of Spring 2010 – Finals Start.

April 19th, 2010 Thomasso

What a day. I am very happy that it is over. All that is left are the finals, but I think those are going to be easer to deal with than all of the events that led up to today.

Describing today is so difficult becuase I am still processing it. I think the best way to start would be to describe the sky, the sun and how warm it was. Today was a day that was hard for anyone to want to stay inside if one had a choice. The sun over the campus was a brilliant bronze colour by 4:00pm. There were very high clouds, but they were evenly spread out across the sky making it look like a very fine silk shroud covering the entire horizon. The sun did shine with its brilliance though, but the colour made the walls of courtyard look like they were made of amber and silver. The water in the turtle pond looked a deep blue, as if it were bottomless, and the water fountain made pearls as the foam slowly dissipated away from it.

On the grassy knoll students bathed in the warmth of the sun, holding their book over their faces as they tried to get some last minute studying done. At the foot of the knoll every picnic table was taken up with students chatting away like birds, and across the courtyard more students walked, ran, and mingled in every direction from one building to another. There was a noticeable difference in how students moved in the courtyard today; everyone was moving faster, straighter, and spent little time with their groups as they moved.

Time stood still as people just moved from one point to another. There was no pattern, just people everywhere, walking about.

The giant doors to the library looked like mirrors as the glass doors moved a beam of light that reflected from the sun and it would shift across the courtyard like lightening.  People looked like they would appear, invisible one moment, then appear the next, as they walked through the giant glass doors out into the courtyard. When I walked through those doors, I was transformed into another world, a mechanical world where instantly the cool conditioned air met my nostrils and the light seemed to be dim as compared to the outside. Now I was inside a glass box. The skylights made everything look blue and gold, and human figures dotted every level, stair column and chair.

A beautiful female figure approached me, calling out my name. As she drew nearer, I could see in her hand a small plastic and metal stick. She smiled as she spoke, ” Tom, we have a problem, the paper is not finished yet, there are some problems with it, you need to look at your part again.” She places the USB stick in my hand and leads me over to a working workstation. I sigh. Only sixty-four minutes to go before the deadline is due. My group greets me. I am briefed and caught up to speed. The feeling of panic hits me. Now I wish I could stop time altogether.

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One More Done – Almost Finished!

April 14th, 2010 Thomasso

Today marks the very last day of my Statistics class, with just the final research paper to hand in, it is practically done. I am very happy indeed!

I have one more full day of class next Monday, French, which it truly the very last day of the spring semester, then all that is left is the final for that class, then I can take a nice long sleep. Then I wait for the marks, and I will have completed 92 percent of everything I need to graduate with for the BA (h) program.

I am very excited! Getting through Stats was a hell of an achievement for me becuase it is the most dreaded course among the entire curriculum. Even the most harden, geeky/neerded students, not including myself, were dreading it too. Although this semester was a double whammy for me, with two very hard classes,  Stats is the most prized class to finish – and if I pull off an A, well, then I’m a frick’n hero. My probability of reaching the coveted “A” is about 73.4 percent, if you needed to know that.

So, this is a great moment in my travels to the end-point of my under-grade status. I can hang up my  calculator and algebraic textbooks for good, and move onto bigger and better things, like more research!

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Another Big Day – Ready, Set…, Oh Wait?

March 14th, 2010 Thomasso

Oh wait, I think I might have piled too much on, and I can  feel my head ready to explode with all the things I have/need to do. Having the time sit and blog is a big problem too. I’m only typing this becuase I was actually about to do something else when I clicked on my browser and may web page popped from a previous session I forgot to close. Now that I’m here, I thought, I might as well through something in-so here we are.

Two TV shows that have riveted me to the monitor: Lost, and Caprica. Lost, for its obvious reasons, I have followed all five seasons, and love the plot with all its weird and twisted concepts. Caprica, well, this is the prequel to Battle Star Galactic, and at first I though, “what a dumb idea,” but as it turns out, I think the series is very good. I watch them on-line becuase I do not have time to park myself in front of the TV, so I watch them I’m between classes.

“Spring ahead,” really sucks. It is bad enough that my sleep is all messed up, now I have to deal with the loss of an hour. I hate this “savings time” crap. I’m sorry, but I need every second of time I can get, and the only place that I can take time from in my day to day routine is from my sleep time. Moving to Saskatchewan may have a benefit as it is one of the few areas in North America that does not do this time switch twice a year. We invented window blinds so we can simulate night-time inside our homes, so why do you care if the sun is up at 5:00am? Even when we lose this hour, for most of us, the sun is up before we are anyway–what is the difference? If I were a Vampire, well then moving to Antarctica would be my only solution, and I would have to fly by night too, so day light savings time would not work for me anyway either. Stupid.

Tomorrow is also registration day down at admissions. This will be the second to the last time that I will grace the halls of admissions. Hard to believe that classes will come to an end, and I will have to venture into the big world in search of a job with my piece of paper with the gold sticker on it. Of course finding a job will not be the problem, but rather, choosing where to go will be my dilemma. I have so many options, directions and places with my pool of knowledge, that sitting down to choose will be the challenge. Already one of my best friends from on campus will be leaving, graduating, in May, and she’ll be taking with her the B.A. But she has found her calling, and I am so happy for her. I will miss our time together–all the joking around and study labs together. There are about thirty in our little world, and when you spent so such time under pressure with these people, the sadness of leaving, and splitting up to move on, can be hard. Even the “hard-ass” Criminologists feels emotional too. But we went there for a purpose, so time to move on!

So I will be sad and happy. Sad that my friends are going on, and happy that we all made through the forty to fifty courses, and 300 or so exams and papers, and survived with most of our fur on us. For me, it will be forty-five courses, and a defence hearing for the honers dissertation. Then the choice of Masters, and Doctorate? What path should I take… gulp.

OK, must go. Time to cram for the French exam tomorrow. Yes, more French. Thank goodness there are only four more weeks to go of this.

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Happy Birthday Mom, and Valentine’s Day

February 14th, 2010 Thomasso

Yes, I know, this is a cheap way of doing it this year. But Mom, I have just being so busy to get out and send you off a proper birthday card. I know you sometimes feel that saying it public, like this, makes you uneasy, but at least this way I know will find it. So happy birthday Mom, and may this one be the best ever.

Also, today is Valentine’s Day, a day when you are supposed to give your “sweetheart” a gift of something that somehow conveys a romantic feeling to it. Because I have no “special” sweetheart in my life at the moment, I will dedicated part of this post to all those sweethearts who do not have that special someone in their life, and send out a blanket, virtual, Valentine’s day card to you all.

Maybe this will put a smile on someone’s face.  À bientôt!

[ADDED] I remember a long time ago when me and my father had a very deep discussion about the symbolism of the Valentine’s heart and the arrow through it, it left me wondering why we give cards to everyone when I was in grade school, and should it be a good idea if it is just a repetitious commercialised act we do today? He came up with some very interesting ideas of what could be alternative meanings to it, but when you start to add critical thinking to these ideas they start to loose their fun very quickly. Of course symbolism is the mainstay of why we use such things as cards and gifts on various days throughout the calendar like Valentine’s Day, but do we really know where they started from?

We know that the arrows come from the Greek myth Cupid, whose arrows strike those who have fallen in love. When the arrow hits you, you become transformed and fall love with whomever is near you, or the first person you see. I suspect that the kiss comes from this too, as the shape of the lips, in particular the top outer lip becuase it is shaped like a ancient bow from which you would draw an arrow from.

The heart shape we see today is where my Dad had came up with the weirdest part of this idea. We know that the human heart is not shaped like a Valentine’s heart, but rather like a potato or pear, and is not perfectly symmetrical like the drawings we see. Instead, what we draw today as the “heart” could very well be a symbolic representation of a woman’s buttock. Oh, it gets weirder yet: the arrow is like a pin, or mark that indicates that the buttock has being taken, or the sender wishes to take it. Tthe arrow could very well be a symbol of the penis, and putting it through the heart could be the romantic act in its purest form.

Although this conversation took place over twenty years ago, it still makes me wonder if it has any validity to it. I know that all societies have buried in their cultures dual meanings to their beliefs that we see today. All religions have their origins from older forms of cultural symbolisms that have evolved into what we see today. I never bothered to go out and research this, but perhaps I should? I would be interested in what other ideas there are that have laid claim to this symbol of love?

Posted in Birthday, Events, General, Photographs | Comments Off