Where you will find my (documented) thoughts, worries, concerns, and issues
2010th
Entries
Sorry, kiddo, it’s been a while since I last wrote. I have no real reason/excuse, other than I just haven’t. That’s bad of me, and I will endeavour to write more often. Maybe one day, years from now, you’ll be able to …
Every year, the City of Vancouver puts on a light show in and around the miniature train in Stanley Park. Last night, after the kids had gone to bed, Allen, Jean, and I discussed the possibility of going. The catch was …
During one of her many perusals of the local newspaper, Jean (aka “Granny”) came across an ad for “North Pole, BC”, billed as a “gateway” to the North Pole via Maple Ridge. (Perhaps …
Not long after our trip out to the Lower Mainland entered the books, I hit up some old friends of mine through Twitter, to see if they’d be interested in a get-together. I hadn’t actually seen some of them in over a …
I remember the excitement as a kid on those early mornings where we got up to rush to the airport to fly somewhere. It was a hurried affair that I simultaneously loved and loathed. While most of me vowed to never deal …
On 23 December, the Calgary Farmer’s Market will close its doors in the old CFB Calgary lands forever. It’s a dark day for the Sowrey family, as the Calgary Farmer’s Market has been a fairly significant part of our lives …
A year ago tonight, my family returned to Canada from Costa Rica. We had lived abroad for a year and a half, and had done our best to make a go of a new life in a new country. But it wasn’t to be, and we finally came to …
Hi there readers! Sorry about the closed comments on my blog. I really have no idea why they decided to close on their own — I leave the comments open for a reason. It’s rather odd. At any rate, they’re open again, so …
Besides being the penultimate month of the year, November is also “Movember”, a campaign where men are encouraged to grow moustaches and raise money in the on-going fight for prostate cancer. I’ve known about …
Today was Hallowe’en here in Calgary, and your first real Hallowe’en, kids. Yes, Monkey, you could easily argue that you had your first Hallowe’en two years ago when we lived in Costa Rica. (It could be further argued …
One of the many things we identified with our home as needing improvement when we purchased it was the windows. Nearly all of them (save for an odd bay window added on an extension that seems to have gone on in the …
Okay, it wasn’t just Alex. Truth is, our “Florida Ceiling” bothered me from the moment we bought the house. In our original walk-around, it was one of the things I noted as needing “urgent …
Not so long ago, when I managed a team, I used to coach people in their career directions. (How well I coached people is another matter, and I can only leave it to those people to assess my real effectiveness.) I’d help …
If I were to summarise the last ten years of my career prior, specifically from about June 2000 to June 2010, it would look something like this: web developer, specialised web developer, senior web developer, junior …
For those of you not already following the story, I’ve sworn off Shaw. As much as I am tied — nay, symbiotically attached — to the internet, I would have been quite willing to end the service at home with the continued …
It’s been a long time since we’ve done anything significant to the house. The last time, we gutted and rebuilt the basement, a much-needed effort. It is now the most comfortable and pleasant part of the house (except …
There are times when I wish I could do Whatever I wanted And then I remember you There are times when I wish you could feel The aching of my heart And know why it is so There are times when I see your sense of wonder And …
I have a pet peeve with WordPress. (Actually, I have a few, but we’ll get to the rest later.) This one, I’ll admit, is limited to those of us who develop with WordPress. In short, WordPress hard-codes domains in its …
Before we returned to Calgary last December, we did a fair amount of investigation into what services we would get at home. In particular consideration were television, internet, and phone service. (In my ideal world, it …
Back at the beginning of the year, I took a different direction in my career. Until December, I’d been a career man — work for one company. Work your butt off, be the cog in the machine, and do the best you could to stay …
Well, kids, I’m not sure if you’re going to remember this August a few years from now (well, Choo Choo, I’ll be impressed if you remember today, tomorrow), but this has been a fantastic month. It’s been a long month, …
Well, Monkey, despite all your best attempts to drive Mommy and I to the brink of toddlericide, you made it to be three. It was your first birthday in Canada — your previous birthdays were both in Costa Rica. It wasn’t …
All I do is grunt and groan Hurts me to walk anywhere Went to see my physician, Dr. Jones He took my trousers off, told me to cough Doctor says there ain’t nothin’ to discuss He tells me any day I might have to wear a …
We were up perhaps a bit earlier than I’d thought we’d be up, but I’d also forgotten we were stopping in Redcliff to visit Marnie and her kids. Thankfully, Grandpa had enough sense to jumpstart us for the day. That …
Despite the nice appearance and newness of the hotel, the Canalta has stiff beds that are really meant for only one person — any movement is felt by the other person on the bed. The pillows are massive and overstuffed …
We were all slow to rise today, but we made quick work of breakfast. You said goodbye to your Great Uncle Ken and Great Aunt Marilyn before we headed to the car. Our first stop was to drop off Granny at the airport. She …
We were supposed to go out to a lake near the Ontario border today, but Mommy and I threw up the white flag and declared us all “done”. We need a break. Monkey, you’ve been very patient being trapped in the …
Wow, I wasn’t kidding, was I? It was a long day. A really, really, really long day. We were up and running and gone by just after 8:15 this morning, trucking our way up to an RV park just north of downtown along Main …
At least we didn’t have to get up too early today, Choo Choo, and you let us sleep a bit longer. That helped rest away the many kilometres behind us. We hit breakfast, also at the Chicken Chef (there ain’t a lot of …
Choo Choo, I don’t think you yet have a real understanding of time. And certainly, you don’t understand the idea of letting Mommy or Daddy sleep in. Today, I’ll admit, that wasn’t something we would fault you for, since …
Well, kids, today was a slow start to our cross-prairie adventure. The morning was otherwise ordinary, rising and having breakfast and dressing. But then I climbed into the car and took Asia away to her hotel for the …
A little over four months ago, Alex dragged us all out to see an eye doctor. It had been a couple of years since my last visit, so there was a pretty darn good reason to go back and visit. Not that I particularly wanted …
I sit here at my kitchen table, rubbing the weariness from my eyes. Not the things you’d normally hear from me, mind you — I haven’t been working too hard as of late (as you know, my big project is done). No, this is …
Earlier this afternoon, Sylvia Grace Jones (formerly Tisdale), passed away at the age of 97. She is survived by her children, Linda, David, and Brenda, her grandchildren Pam, Darren, Cathy, Jennifer, and yours truly, and …
Well, Monkey, you gave us perhaps the greatest scare of Mommy’s and my parenthood today. Sure, we’ve seen you really sick with a couple of nasty colds, you’ve cut yourself in a couple of nasty falls, and definitely given …
When we returned from Costa Rica, our plans had been pretty simple: take off the month of December to get settled, and then head back to work in January. Plans changed shortly after arriving back home, and suddenly I …
Hey kids, I know it’s been far too long since my last letter. Sadly, it’s that worst excuse of poor excuses: I’ve been working a lot. Back in January, I started with a new company, the Evans Hunt Group. The project has …
In my time, I’ve interviewed over 1,000 people (counting the screening interviews I’ve done at job fairs — I’ve done a number of job fairs). I don’t think that qualifies me as an expert — I don’t think that you can ever …
A couple of months ago, Alex arranged for all of us (herself, Monkey, and yours truly) to visit the eye doctor for a checkup. It’d been a couple of years since my last run, and given my age it was a wise idea. (I would …
I’m getting a little tired of this topic. I was tired of it about a day after Steve Jobs first showed the iPad to the world, and the infamous blue LEGO appeared where a Flash plug-in should have been. It wasn’t really so …
Once upon a time, I had it. “It” being my state of fitness. Back in early 2003, my friend Arthur put me on an exercise and diet regimen. Over the course of a few months, I shed something like 30 pounds of …
I’ve spent over a decade in the Big Leagues of interactive marketing. I started in the low rungs as a web developer, and slowly worked my past the coding to see the bigger pictures: what made marketing work, why certain …
Hey Monkey! You’ve been a big sister now for over two weeks. It was a period of time in which Mommy and I were worried about how you’d treat your little sister, Choo Choo. There’s always that fear that you’d hurt her …
Maybe I should actually have titled this: “Monkey’s last Easter where she gets all the eggs for herself”, but that just seems a little long. But it’s true, Monkey — next year, even if Choo Choo isn’t walking …
Well, kiddo, you made it. Despite all the worries about antibodies running amok and the placenta suddenly appearing in the wrong place, you made it into the station, so to speak, even if you were a behind schedule. (I …
No-one is ever born knowing everything. Like all animal life, we enter the world devoid of knowledge, having only the instincts innate to our species after countless eons of evolution, adaptation, and survival of the …
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate being sick? Well, add to that a very sick and very pregnant wife, and a sick toddler (which I suspect led to Alex and I becoming ill), and you’ve got a pretty miserable household. …
A few years from now, my kids will be old enough to ask me questions that will require a lot of explanation. Like, for example, what the internet was like when I was their age, how I survived without a mobile data …
It almost seems hard to believe, but we’re down to two weeks until you finally arrive, Choo Choo. Two weeks — well, pretty much right now — I hope to be holding you in my arms, holding you tight and letting you …
It’s just shy of three months since we left Costa Rica. Many people still ask us what it’s like to be back, if we’re happy to be back, and if we’ve acclimatised yet. There’s no quick or easy answer to all of that, as …
Yesterday, we went in for our now-weekly anti-K checkup. The process is fairly simple: toss the Monkey at some poor, unsuspecting friend to keep her out of our hair for the hour-or-so long appointment, truck over to the …
Dear Canada, I must, in true Canadian form, say “I’m sorry”. I doubted. All I could see was fault, all I could see was mediocrity, all I could see was the world laughing at our attempts to be more than our …
This morning was the first reoccurring ultrasound appointment, to look into Choo Choo’s ongoing health insofar as our apparent anti-k issues are concerned. It was an early morning, and getting everyone up and rolling …
In our Inconvenient Truth world, popular desire is starting to change the way some companies think. We’re seeing large companies produce “green” products, such as biodegradable detergents, packaging from …
Two weeks ago, I was sitting at my desk at work, plugging away on requirements documentation. It’s rather mind-numbing at times, but is often very helpful for the rest of the team. My phone rang. It was my wife, Alex. …
Every so often, someone asks me what I need to see in a senior developer. Why people ask me this is a mystery. I mean, besides the fact that I’m a Know-It-All, could it really be that several years of being a manager …
You’re not even born yet, Choo Choo. You’re still inside Mommy. You’re real, and you already exist in our hearts, but you’re still just a dream, a vision of the future, of what’s — or rather, who’s to come. A little over …
Absence makes the heart grow Fungus, decay, loss, sorrow, woe, and worry Emotional complex, broken A friend once told me “Life gets in the way” It was too long time ago he told me that Life has kept us apart …
I’m a Know-It-All. (Most of you know that.) I freely admit this because a) it sometimes gets me into trouble, and b) it’s something I need to try and control. It’s the need for control that brings me to self-reflection, …
At the moment, IE6 still holds about 20% of the market (according to today’s metrics from NetMarketShare). That’s far too large a share for a 8.5 year old browser, especially one that has been superseded by successive …
I still remember the day. December 6, 1995. I had been working at my part-time job at a computer store just off-campus, suffering through a wicked head cold. I’d begged my manager to let me leave early, but he’d needed …
There’s nothing like a birthday to make people feel young. Yes, young. You think birthdays make you feel old, don’t you? C’mon, admit it, most people think of birthdays as another notch in the Age Belt, and suddenly grey …
I was sitting at my kitchen table, poring over recommendations I’m writing for my client (partially communicative, partially CYA), when I had one of those sudden thoughts: I need tea. While I was drinking my tea — a …
Well, Monkey, it’d been over a month since the last time you swam in a pool, and I thought it high time we went for a swim. In fact, it was so overdue that I felt it was also a good time to go for a Surprise Weekend. And …
The late 16th Century was the dawn of the British Empire. England had triumphed on the seas, and had set its eyes on colonising the New World (before its enemies did). Patents were issued, companies were founded, and …
This is a joke you might not understand until you’re older, Monkey. For now, it’s one many of my friends will have a good chuckle at… You’re asleep right now, in your own room, on the mattress from one of our sofa …
Hey Critical Mass! I’m sorry I didn’t say “goodbye” properly. You know, the traditional email that goes around to cmassother, usually followed with the “we’ll be in the Ship starting at 5 …
The year past was one of the toughest ones I can remember. It’s been a year of extreme highs, some pretty darks depths; my share of awesome joys, mixed with an unhealthy dose of stress. And that’s not when you consider …
The New Year is always a reason for change. It’s always a reason to do something differently than you’ve done before. It’s a time when people hold to ages-old traditions, and make efforts to start new ones. It’s a time …