Postings to hubbo.com will probably be quite irregular, if at all, until Aug. 16 as I will be with the Cathedral Singers singing at Stratford (Ontario), Canterbury (UK), Vimy Ridge (FR) and at Notre Dame in Paris starting tomorrow. Perhaps if I have time and find an Internet Café I might be able to make a posting. Otherwise I’ll probably just back date entries when I return.
Christmas in July was the theme for my older son and girlfriend’s party yesterday. Unfortunately it rained early in the afternoon so my wife and I picked up a dining shelter tent similar to the one pictured here. It worked! Almost as soon as we finished setting it up, the rain stopped for the rest of the day. This shelter was much easier to assemble than the one we had several years ago. Shock-corded poles and a simple design made set up a breeze. That old shelter required much assembly, lacked “awnings,” and it blew down very easily — in other words, a real pain.
I had a good time. It was interesting to see the “mating game” being played out between some of the young adults there. Something I remember playing when I was their age. My son’s girlfriend prepared red and green jello shooters for the occasion. Some of the young people were complaining about how “strong” they were. Yes, that alcohol taste was there; but, I could get up out my lawn chair and walk normally after two of them — Even after several cups of beer from the keg. As always, our “grand puppy”Cricket, the golden retriever, was the star of the evening. How can anyone get real serious with that playful inquisitive presence always about?
Well at least I’m fixin’ up the Intranet copy of the site. These web site kids (I presume they’re young anyway) write code like college class assignments. Instead of writing one CF menu template to be called by eight very small templates which just set some variable values: they copied the code eight times and made hard-coded string substitutions — Very messy and hard to change or test. So now I have a template to set up menus, and another to show index pages of links. Both are generated from database queries. This means I can have one or a hundred menus or indices using just one or two fully tested templates.
I have had two meetings, one with the VP - Sales and Marketing and the other with some sales and marketing types on what’s good or bad with the site. The latter meeting provided some useful suggestions. I’ve scheduled another meeting before I go on vacation next Tuesday to brief two VP’s on the suggestions and comments of the SM types. The one senior VP was in on the initial web site initiation and planning. Naturally none of the executives looked at the CF code. Of course, I’d much rather be coding than arranging meetings! Nevertheless, all these meetings will give me a greater appreciation for our choral singer vacation.
We heard the African Children’s Choir on CBC Radio on Wednesday morning. My wife looked up the information and discovered they were performing at the World Vision Canada office in Mississauga that very evening. So, she picked me up from the GO station, we grabbed a bite to eat and headed up to 1 World Drive on Hurontario Street just north of the 401.
What a great concert! Those 26 kids, ranging in age from 7 to 11, really know how to sing and dance. I especially enjoyed their “African”numbers with just singing, dancing and drumming. They have “North Amechanized”many of their concert songs with recorded backup music and typical songs such as “He’s Got the Whole World;”however, their delivery was superb. I could have done without the “give and give often”messages but, after all, the event was “free”and certainly not like those “free”trips to Collingwood where you’re subjected to a high-pressure sales pitch about condo living. I digress. In short I liked the African drumming, the singing and the dancing. The children didn’t need canned music in my opinion. Another added bonus was the number of pre-schoolers in the front rows and aisles dancing away. Very cute.
A man was wandering around a fairground and he happened to see a fortune-tellers tent. Thinking it would be good for a laugh, he went inside and sat down.
“Ah…..”said the woman as she gazed into her crystal ball. “I see you are the father of two children.''
“That’s what you think'', the man laughed. I’m the father of three children.''
The woman grinned and said, “That’s what you think!''
Seen in Clean Laffs email.
I was away overnight visiting relatives east of Toronto and when I came back the IP of this box had been changed by those people at Mr. Roger’s hi-speed neighbourhood. I thought I had taken care of everything but I now know I need to change the hubbo.com slave entry in /etc/named/zone and restart named and to also flush the routing. I realized the latter after I had made a call to Colin at Roger’s technical help desk and we worked through some possibilites. Rebooting the modem didn’t work. Rebooting the box did and I think it was because of stale routing entries. Live and learn.
“If you’ll make the toast and pour the juice, sweetheart,” said the newlywed bride, “breakfast will be ready.''
“Great! What are we having for breakfast?”said the husband.
“Toast and juice.''
From CLEAN LAFFS email letter.
The scanner makes it handy these days to copy pages of a particular movement from a larger work. I use imaging software to crop each page and expand/contract as necessary to fit on an 8''x11”page. Then its off to the copy shop or sometimes a little Xerox subsidy copying (but only on my lunch hour, of course 
). The choir will be singing at a wedding while I’m away (singing with another choir in Canterbury Cathedral) so I had to sort and assemble the repertoire as I’m the music librarian. The “rep”by the way consists of several Ave Verum/Marias, a couple of movements from Vivaldi’s Gloria and Wie lieblich sind die Wohnungen from Brahms' German Requiem. Someone will surely have fine music at their wedding.
In this CBC news article, Canadian Alliance MP Peter Goldring is pushing once again for Canada to annex the Turks and Caicos islands in the Caribbean as our 11th province. The islands are west of Cuba and north of Haiti. Sounds good to me—fun in the tropical sun without needing a passport.
In other (probably unrelated) news, the American travel guide folks at Fodor’s, for $600,000, published a magazine for the Canadian Tourism Commission. Several cities and a couple of provinces were left off the map while other names were misspelled. Look for the special fall errata issue!
The following questions and answers were collated from SAT tests given to 16-year-old students! Don’t laugh too hard - one of them could be (is?) president someday.
- Name the four seasons.
- Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
- Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink.
- Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists.
- How is dew formed?
- The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire.
- What is a planet?
- A body of earth surrounded by sky.
- What causes the tides in the oceans?
- The tides are a fight between the Earth and the Moon. All water tends to flow towards the moon, because there is no water on the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this fight.
- In a democratic society, how important are elections?
- Very important. Sex can only happen when a male gets an election.
- What are steroids?
- Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs.
- What happens to your body as you age?
- When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental.
“Everything is going up. The price of food, clothing, everything, I wish something would go down.''
“Take a look at my report card.''
“How far are you from the correct answer?''
“Two seats''
“Your essay, 'My Dog,' is the same, word for word, as your brother’s''
“I know. It’s the same dog.''
“Why are you late this morning?''
“Because of the alarm clock. Everyone got up except me.''
“How was that?''
“There are eight of us and the alarm was set for seven.''
“Can people predict the future with cards?''
“My mother can.''
“Really?''
“Yes, she takes one look at my report card and tells me what will happen when my father gets home.''
“In what battle did General Wolfe cry, 'I die happy'''
“His last?''
“What marks did you get in P.E. last year?''
“I didn’t get marks. I only got bruises.''
“If I cut a steak into two parts, what would I have?”“Halves.''
“Right. And then cut them in half again?''
Quarters..''
“And again?''
“Eighths.''
“Again?''
“Sixteenths.''
“And again?''
“Hamburger.”
I pruned part of the maple tree in the backyard because there are a lot of dead branches. There are several trunk and branch cracks in the bark so I went to the Internet to find out what’s up. Apparently these cracks in more mature trees can be caused either by frost or rapid growth in a mild wet fall after a hot dry summer. Either of these scenarios could apply to our tree. Therefore, not as much nutrients are getting up to the leaves because of these cracks, hence the dead branches. Anyway I found out what to do about the splits. Maples are susceptible to them.
While I was googling I also looked up maple tar spot disease — a kind of fungus. It seems to be common among the maples in our area. Apparently it’s not harmful, just makes the fall leaves look rather unsightly. I guess I should compost all those leaves and be sure and spread that compost only after the leaves have come out in the spring.
- Garage Cleaning
- With the deck building I did last fall and this spring I’ve just been shoving things around in the garage storage area. With cooler weather and showers off and on, it was an ideal day to start cleaning the garage. I had a pile of 87 cedar 2×2’s from the old deck railing taking up valuable floor space. I bundled them and put them upright. I think I will make a compost bin or two out of them—should look more attractive than the “holey”plastic barrels I’m using at the moment. I assembled a Tool Tower I bought at Costco last week. No more shovels and rakes falling off nails and bonking me anymore. Seeing as one kid has left home and the other is off to university this fall, I cleaned up some shelves of kids' toys, broken ones to the garbage and OK ones to Goodwill or the Sally Ann. That’s it for the garden tools area now I need to clean up my shop, though, if the weather is better tomorrow I will trim dead tree branches from the back yard maple.
- Local Mall Expands
- Our local mall, about a 10 minute run, from my place has been undergoing extensive renovations. The new model for malls seems to be satellite stores sprinkled throughout the parking lot. Anyway, the rumour has proved to be true, half the mall has been torn down and rebuilt to become a Walmart: I just saw the sign today as I ran past. I wonder how this smallish mall pulled off this coup?
My father-in-law turns 80 today. Pretty remarkable since he was turned down for duty in World War II because of asthma and just a few years ago he survived colon cancer. Perhaps he’s not as spry as he used to be but his sense of humour is still A-OK. He’s reached the “age of reason”— he can mistakes, forget things and people will say “Didn’t you know? He’s eighty.”Congratulations John!
The temperature reached about 20°C today and showered for quite a bit this afternoon. I ran home from the GO train station anyway as the wind and rain were at my back. And, unlike Monday when I ran at lunchtime in the rain, I could change my clothes as soon as I got home. Unfortunately the rainy weather slowed rush hour traffic so my wife returned from her course downtown about an hour later than usual. However, I had supper waiting for her when she got in.
Too bad. Last month I couldn’t declare, “Look Mom, no cavities.”I had the last of three “small”ones filled today. Usually, I take the first or second appointment of the day but this time it was at 10:20 a.m. The freezing didn’t wear off enough so that I could eat without chewing a lip, tongue or cheek until about 3:30 p.m. I was pretty hungry by then.
Anyway, while I was busy with my mouth open, the dentist and his assistant were discussing the Canadian Idol show. Then the dentist came up with what he thought was a brilliant idea for a reality TV show: How about getting somebody off the street and training them to do a solo performance with a rock band. The cameras would follow him or her through the training, the concert in front of thousands and the post-concert party. Then the two of them discussed possible candidate bands. Of course I had my mouth open with dental dam and stuff on my teeth. The dentist asked me to think about what rock band would be suitable. At the end of the filling process he asked me what I thought. My reply was along the lines of one, I don’t know the current rock bands, and two, I’ve already sung solos in front of hundreds and, in a choir or chorus, I’ve sung in front of thousands. No big deal really.
- The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts.
- If at first you don’t succeed—try management.
- Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether.
- Pride, commitment, teamwork—words we use to get you to work for free.
- There are two kinds of people in life: people who like their jobs, and people who don’t work here anymore.
- If you do a good job and work hard, you may get a job with a better company someday.
Seen on funny mail list.
- Surprised!
I was surprised (not surprising) and my wife was surprised (this is surprising!) on Saturday at the family gathering when the others presented a cake and gifts on the occasion of our 25th anniversary last month. It was a great party, my brother and his family are back from Thailand for a month and my sister and part of her family were there, too. I haven’t seen Frank, the golf pro, since Boxing Day. I wonder if he still exists — my cousin claims to get calls from him. My Dad and Helen II were also there, their last stop before heading back to Vancouver. I wonder how he felt being at least fifteen or twenty years older than anyone else including his wife number four. The pool, having only just been filled, was a rather brisk 15°C.
- 80th Birthday Golf Day
My wife’s family gathered on Sunday to celebrate my father-in-law’s 80th birthday coming up shortly. We separated into foursomes and played “best ball.”At first my father-in-law had trouble with the concept but after some explanation from my wife he finally caught on. I only lost one ball in the water and maybe three in the rough. My brother-in-law thought I was “engineering”my shots. It’s just a bit of physics and hand-eye co-ordination. In my case the former works far better than the latter. When I drove the ball straight I was usually best ball; however, this only happened on one or maybe two of the nine holes. The other times I was looking for those shots way beyond the green or hooked way out into the rough. It was fun!
After lunch at the golf course restaurant we went back to my sister-in-law’s place to swim in the 28°C pool and to have birthday cake and beer. (At least that’s what I did.)
In reviewing the company’s web site I discovered the outside contracter used SQL Server to save content pages. All their database tables are pretty simple really. In fact, I easily exported them to MS Access without any errors. All that raw power, so to speak, in the database is going to waste. I always thought triggers were a neat idea, that is, to do something whenever a row is inserted, updated or deleted. So I went to work: I added a new table to the Intranet copy of the company web site content page database which would contain content page ID’s and created, modified and access date-timestamps and counts. Then I created an on insert, update trigger for the content page table which would automatically update the created and/or modified times in the new table. This means that on the “real web site”I can create a new table and then add a trigger to the content page table without affecting or adding columns to the old table. I’ll also have to add a select statement to the script that displays content so that I can keep track of accesses and last access datetime-stamp independent of the web logs.
The new (at least to me) Canadian passport office is about a 20 minute bike ride from my house. My old passport expired last year and I had been delaying getting a new one. The first line-up out in the hall to get into the office and waiting room took about half an hour. Once inside we were pre-screened, that is, they checked we had the forms filled out, pictures included and ID documents ready. Then I waited another ninety minutes or so until my number showed up on the display. The passport clerk checked my forms and documents and collected the fee (about 80 CAD I recall). The passport will be ready in a couple of weeks. The woman behind me in the “pre-screening”line had a tale to tell. She was heading out to London, England tomorrow! and, because she was in the middle of a move, she couldn’t find her passport. Apparently for twice the price (about 160 CAD) and a plausible explanation you can get one day turn around for a passport. You have to make sure your guarantor and your two references are available to take the “Do you know so-and-so?”calls that day. Unfortunately she discovered she’d omitted to have her guarantor fill in the lost passport declaration once we were inside the office itself. Too bad — she was pretty and the conversation was interesting. However, I had a good SF library book, The Centurion’s Empire by Sean McMullen and that passed the time.
It was hot (> 30°C) riding home. I hadn’t finished the book and as the library books were due today, I stayed in the cool AC and read all afternoon.
“There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.''
Mary Wilson Little
Oh Canada, our home and native land… Now we are 136 years young.
We just enjoyed the holiday by relaxing and puttering around the house and garden. I ran my usual 10km in the morning, though I felt a bit worse for wear after hauling pavers all day yesterday. We spent some time together just drinking coffee and chatting, enjoying each other’s company. Next week I’m back at work and she’s taking an intensive two week Orff course. We’ll be busy!
Now that I’ve have hauled and cut pavers for a day, I’m thinking maybe I should get around to doing our front and side walks. The existing 2’ x 2’ patio slabs have been sinking, tilting and sliding apart. Great for weeds but not for footing. This will be a project for later this summer or next spring sometime. In the mean time I’ll look up resource material on the Internet.