Frustration in Cyber-Land – Work, Play and Fun.

July 5th, 2011 Thomasso

I think “frustration” is the best word to describe this week so far, but only pertaining to my work, as the rest of my daily activities  are “awesome” for lack of a better word. Do not get me wrong, I am loving what I do, and everything else for myself is going great there, but it is what I am doing, the reaction from my co-workers, that is causing some heartaches in the work environment. I have been asked to take on a little side project, which is preparing the website for the company. I have total control over its content, and my guidelines are very general. The effect on the rest of the staff is huge though so tension is mounting.

First, we are switching servers. Yes, this means that for those who had access to it, they will no longer have the privilege of “tinkering” with it because it will be “off-site.” I have being calling for this for quite some time now. The disruptions in service in the past was huge and it was very frustrating. Since the initial migration to our off-site server, life has being normal, except  for a few who no longer get to “tinker” with it. It is they who are heartbroken now as they can no longer test their toys on the working server, or should I say, “play with the main server.” They still have the “old” one for their use, but I guess all the fun is taken out of it now for them.

Second, this means that our email and data service will also change. Yes, our connection will be purely Intranet based as everyone will have access to it universally. And as an added bonus, in my opinion, we are ditching our Microsoft Outlook becuase of cost, and problems with it letting in so many viruses and other junk that plugs up our servers disk space. So, if you want your email, you are going to have to switch to webmail – yes, w-e-b-m-a-i-l. This is in light of so many work stations carrying huge amounts of archived email accounts. People will have to let go, quit hoarding, and save space while our “off-site” server takes care of the data load.

Lastly, I have to train, or teach, the staff how to work with the new marvel of web based email. So this puts me in a position of power. With knowledge comes power, and with power comes fear from the masses; fear of the unknown as I see it. The problem is assuring the masses that there is no need for fear, and that all will be well once they embrace the unknown and it becomes second nature within their comfort-zone. I cannot wait! *evil laugh*

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

Mom in the Fort

June 12th, 2011 Thomasso

Since after the Convocation from Wednesday, me and my visiting Mother did some sight seeing around Fort Langley, BC. I have no vehicle right at this moment, so I could not take to her places that I wanted to go, so we did lots of walking and local sight seeing. We went to places I have not gone to in years. Yesterday we did the Fort Langley “Fort” heritage park, and the Fort Langley Farmer’s Museum.  It was amazing how much time went by when we were finished.

Above is a panoramic photos of the Parks Canada Historical Fort Langley.

We first went to the “Fort” where we could see what it was like to live in the 1820, or an re-enactment of life back then. I have to say that Fort Langley has quite the history, and I learned lots of interesting facts that I did not know about our little town up until now. The exhibits and the history of people there were very good and well put together. It was an awesome place to go and be, and very family friendly too!

Above, according to what I have heard from the tourer, is that this building is one of the oldest–still standing building in all of British Columbia circa 1830s 1840s (according to the handout Parks Canada gave me about the Fort). I have to do some more research to check into this, but I can say, the building is built out of the huge cedar planks, so it could have another 200 years before it starts rotting!

Then is was off to the Fort Langley Farmer’s Museum. This was a great place to walk around becuase they have everything form old farming equipment to general every day household times from the 1800s right up to the 60s and 70s.  Most of the times came from donations right here in the town of Fort Langley and the surrounding area.

This one made me laugh. It is a gasoline powered MayTag washing Machine (circa 1940s). Just imagine the excuses you could have with this unit!

“Mom, the washing machine will not start. I think it needs a new spark-plug!”

“Yeah, who forgot to fill up the washing machine… with gas.”

“How come the cloths are not done”? “The washing machine ran out of gas…” LOL

“Don’t over rev the washing machine – it’s not a race car!”

Posted in Around Town, Events, Family, General, Humour, Photographs, Vacation and Travel | 3 Comments »

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 »

The Butter Cup Effect

June 4th, 2011 Thomasso

Why? Why not. I did it, becuase. It was a cool photo. I took it while taking a break from the riggers of spring cleaning. It seems very rare thee days to have so much Sun, and the temperature so warm, so I snapped a few on my little camera.

I could swear that it was the middle of summer.

Yes, buttercups grow really big in my neck of the woods! LOL

Posted in Around Town, General, Humour, Photographs, Story Telling | 2 Comments »

The Transit Experience: Langley Style

May 20th, 2011 Thomasso

Now that I am using the transit system, again, it does not appear to be as bad as I thought it would be, but time will tell. I did take transit many many moons ago, back in the days when I first moved to Fort Langley. Back then, I had no vehicle, so I had no choice but to take transit then until I earned enough money to buy one, but that took a while. So I used the bus system a lot.

So anyway, here is what my day looked like at the crack of dawn. I was the only rider catching the very first bus of the day out of Fort Langley. This would be the 6:06am bus heading into Langley Centre from Walnut Grove.

About twenty-seven minutes later the bus dumps you off at Langley Centre where I waited. I have a choice at this point. I can jump on the 314 bus which will drop me off at the doorsteps of work, or I can hang around town, wait a bit, and walk that whole distance. My shift does not start until 7:30am, so I have over an hour to kill.

I bet you are asking yourself why I do not catch a later bus?

The next bus that leaves Fort Langley is a 7:06am bus which would get me into Langley Centre with just over ten minutes to travel a five km distance, so the 6.06am bus is my only option. Today I used my walking time to stop and take pictures. And I took several.

This image, (above) is Glover Road and Fraser Highway, standing in the little park. Note: the number of cars and people around. Even the vagrants are not up yet?

This photo makes me laugh: the broken water fountain (above). I have never seen it working.

And finally, on my way to work, looking at Langley City Hall, we have the sign and entrance. Do not tell anyone, but I think the lettering is real gold… <_< …>_>…?

So, I tried to take as much time as I could, and I still ended up arriving at work a half hour early. It was a good walk. Took lot of pictures, and enjoyed the early morning sunshine, but hanging around in an empty building was not much fun either.

And this was my morning commute into work today.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, Photographs | Comments Off

If I Had a Spaceship

May 14th, 2011 Thomasso

If I had a spaceship, where would I go? What would I do with it?

I have had a fascination with astronomy as far back as I can remember. With intense interest I would look through an old three inch refractor telescope that my father owned, and I would point it at anything in the sky that was bright enough to look at. Back then I had very little understanding of planetary orbits, and huge distances, and why the objects kept moving through the stationary field of view in the eyepiece. I remember looking through the eyepiece as the scope was pointed at the moon and seeing the craters so clear and bright on the moon’s surface.

Since those days of my youth filled ignorance, my knowledge base of physics and astronomy has exponentially leaped forward, and my seeing power has grown too. I remember when I had to calculate the distance of each planet from the Sun, scaling everything down, then measuring each plant’s elliptical orbit to the nearest kilometre, all on a roll of toilet paper to a ratio of 1mm:124^14km. It was fun, but nerve racking as my scale needed two rolls. It was good becuase I was using three-ply paper when everyone else was using single ply rolls.

So, if I had a spaceship, where will I go?

First my ship would have to go super fast. If the Sun was 10cm big, and the Earth was lass than 6mm in diameter at a distance of 3.27m from the Sun, then the nearest star would be just over 2000km away in Calgary. So the need for speed is indeed needed for the trip.

Second, I would need lots of time. Even with a super fast ship, just our galaxy alone has several billion stars in it, so I would need lots of sightseeing time.

Third, lots of friends, and food. Which would mean the ship would be fairly big. Anyone who thinks their Volkswagen would be ideal is not only stupid, but not at all that classy. I would want big, like hotel size, with lots of room and spacious accommodations. With all that time travelling between stars, we would need lots to do, so some recreation rooms are needed to pass the time away.

Once the ship is packed and everyone is aboard, then there is the question of where to go first?

I would start in the local group of stars, our stellar neighbourhood, then working my way further out towards the next groups of stars, somewhere in the vicinity of 6000 light years from Earth. That would probably be all the time I would have in my spaceship.

Posted in Art, Astronomy, General, Humour, Photographs | Comments Off

Personal News Summary

May 12th, 2011 Thomasso

I am just posting to let you all know that I am going to make a fairly large post tomorrow, begin that it will be Friday the Thirteenth, and of course the end of the week. I know there were a couple of you that I promised I would post today about some special topics, but I feel lazy today, so I will procrastinate until tomorrow.

Just some small tit-bits:

I have started a new part time job today. I will release more details about that very soon. Multiple employers is getting confusing, not to mention scary.

The graduation ceremony is set for June 9th, 2011. That will go ahead as planned.

It appears that I will not be going into a legal battle with the Harper Government Revenue Service after all. They have finally squared their accounting blunder and seen their errors. Another Canadian citizen spared with the wrath of bureaucratic incompetence.

The world is changing, as it should, for the better. I see very positive change coming! I am excited about that.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Graduation, Humour | Comments Off

ANGRY BIRDS by Pomplamoose

May 10th, 2011 Thomasso

I was just watching CBC News about two hours ago when their entertainment segment came on and they said that a music band had just released a cover song of the Angry Birds theme sound track. The name of that band is Pomplamoose (French for Grapefruit) who are a very well known You Tube band that does mostly cover songs. I was shocked, excited, in awe!

I know both Angry Birds and the band Pomplamoose very well, and I was surprised that they would be united together, especially seeing this on Canadian national television! Of course, in my humble opinion, they did a great job.

Musicians Jack Conte (mostly instruments) and Natalie Dawn Knutsen (lead vocalist) mixes their their music using a process that records both the video and audio together as a total mix (Wikipedia). The results are very amazing. They have become very popular, and using their talents and self marketing, they seem to be doing very well for themselves.

Please note that the spelling is lightly off from the French Canadian spelling of the word Grapefruit in their title.

Je vous présente le pamplemousse!

Posted in General, Humour, Socail Media, Video | Comments Off

A Message To Mom!

May 7th, 2011 Thomasso

Hi Mom, I am just typing out this post to remind you to turn on your Skype so that I can call you tomorrow for Mother’s day. I have sent you a couple of emails over the last while but I have not heard back from you yet, so I am putting it out on my blog.

So, I will leave my Skype on for the whole weekend, hopefully you will get my message and we will talk. If not, then I will wish you a Happy Mother’s day tomorrow here instead.

Posted in Art, Events, Family, General, Humour, Photographs | Comments Off

Dominion of the Dandelion

May 4th, 2011 Thomasso

The lawn mower just did a cut about two days ago, and just as it does every year without fail, (and a another sure sign of spring), the dandelions return, always seemingly having an edge up on the rest of the plant kingdom. Dominion of the Dandelion might as well be the curse the average lawn in British Columbia right now. They are beautiful, but if you want lawn grass to grow, they are one of your worst nightmares!

How can you fight such a resilient plant?

I just did a quick search online to look at what other bits of information is out there, and low-and-behold I am not the only one out there who has a love hate relationship with these bad boys. Sadly, as I found out, chemical companies have being trying to develop the perfect cocktail of ingredients that would eradicate them without taking the rest of the plaint world with them. So far, no mixture has been found by the chemical companies that is completely been effective yet. Right now Taraxacum, aka the Dandelion, will rule every lawn as far as my eyes can see this season.

The plant even has a list of  medical properties too! ..and you can eat it too?

And of course, Dandelions can live anywhere. Here is a shot of a few of the boys moving into a neighbourhood, taking over.

Posted in Around Town, Diatribe, General, Humour, Photographs | Comments Off