keepin it real

Back..

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 11:43:45 GMT

Hey folks,

Sorry for the absence. It's been a while, but just wanted to post a quick message to let friends like Satori know that things are still ticking along here in Waterloo. Thanks for the concern! I suppose I haven't broken the news to most of you, but PK and I are having a baby! Actually, it's in a matter of days (maybe weeks). Our due date is Dec. 16th, so we're now pretty much around that time when it could happen any day. So yeah, pretty big news. We're pretty much prepared and excited.. :)

Also, as someone wrote in the comments section of my last post a new blog has been keeping me pretty busy - Google Maps Mania is a blog I set up back in April to just post links to neat new maps people were creating with Google Maps. The blog has seemed to attract international media attention and it's occupied a lot of my spare time online.. It's been pretty surreal actually - The New York Times, Canadian Press, USAToday have called.. I've even done a taping for the TechTV show 'Call for Help' where I show the blog and some of the maps I've found. Here is a list of all the places where it's been picked up or I've done an interview for lately.. This will help explain what the hell I've been doing! I think it's all pretty weird how much attention it's received

Swing by sometime and check out the new blog.. I'll try to keep this one more updated, and I'll for sure keep you posted in the days ahead.. :)

And now the weekend forecast... flash floods.

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 14:57:24 GMT

Something you don't normally see in the weekend forecast:

Hmmm...

Heading out from Hanoi..

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 13:13:10 GMT

It's funny to be oddly familiar with such a foreign place. Upon arrival to Hanoi airport the details of my last trip came brimming to the top of my mind. I could place the exact immigration wicket PK and I checked in through, the drive from the airport was familiar and I instantly recognized a corner shoe shop near the place we stayed where I bought a pair of flip flops in '02. I love Hanoi. I loved it then, and I love it now. There is just so much happening on the streets of this city. There is an energy, and activity about the place that is just interesting and uplifting to be a part of when you're here. I had the opportunity, while here on this trip to be here in a differnet light - business. That was very interesting. You see business people while backpacking on a holiday, but to get the chance to be invited into offices in a country like Vietnam and discuss your company and your product with them and learn how it could be applicable to them is very interesting. We finished our last of our sales calls in the late morning hours earlier today and have had some time to kill before our late night flight from here to Seoul tonight. I took my work mate around to see some of the things that I had remembered being interesting (pictures via the link below). We're expected to have an 8 hr layover in Seoul so I'm going to try to zip into downtown Seoul to eat some kimchi and *quickly* take in the vibe of Korea... Perhaps I can find a broadband connection and computer in the airport to make a post-in-transit. :)

Here are the pictures from the entire trip - you'll notice Vietnam starts after the in-flight world map..

Sunday morning in Bangkok...

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 01:40:36 GMT

..Here is my evolving slideshow of pictures of the trip. If you want to get big zoom-ins of any of them, explore them a bit
further here..

I'm just getting ready to head out to our final day at the technology show we're exhibiting here in Bangkok. Things have gone well and we have a full day of meetings booked up for our final day in Bangkok tomorrow. We managed a few hours yesterday afternoon to do a bit of sightseeing. Departing from our hotel we caught a public boat right here on the Chao Phraya River (see my previous picture I posted). We took in the sights and sounds of whizzing longtail boats, convoys of barges and locals scurrying on and off the boat each numbered boat pier. We were focused on heading to the Khao San road area - a world famous hangout for Thai backpackers (remember the movie - The Beach) but instead got off at the Tha Chang pier to walk by the Grand Palace. It happened to be opened so we wandered through the grounds. The reclining emerald buddah is sprawled out in a massive building and the sight is amazing. Take a look at this picture I tried to stitch together:

We then ended up over in the Khao San road area. Here, a small strip of of backpacker cafes, hostels, tattoo parlours and souvenir shops are enveloped by hundreds of shop-signs that hang out in the middle of the street while sidewalk vendors completely conceal any signs of a sidewalk. We got a small snack in a small cafe in the front lobby area of a hotel that PK and I spent 6 hours in one early, early morning after arriving in from the south of Thailand too early to make booking a room worthwhile. We hung out here sipping Coke and checking email and web stuff while waiting for the early check-in. It was in this location where we discovered the Mombasa, Kenya bombings on CNN.com before leaving Bangkok for that location the next day... Ah Memories. :) The shopping on this street is great. Pirated cds, shirts, Thai gift items.. all on sale here, and you can spend hours. I left my work mate who is with me here as he tried to re-compile a collection of old Pink Floyd cds he had lost.

I hopped on a tuk-tuk, a small three wheel motor-bike taxi to get to the nearest subway station to get across town to meet my brother and his fiancee for dinner. The tuk-tuk driver gave me the usual run-around - "I take you for free.. no charge.. if you go to tourist office, say first time visitor.. spend 20 mins.. buy nothing, then get back on". He claimed to get 300 bhat commission for the act, and I would get a free ride. Since I was paying him 75 bhat to get where I was going (well negotiated I might add), and I was in a hurry, I told him.. maybe next time. The transit system (BTS) here in Bangkok is so well marked and guided that I had no problem finding my way. Dinner - Pad Thai. AWESOME. Pictures of most everything above are located in the slideshow I linked to above..

I'm going to get ready to head out - I'll post some pictures of the technology show we're in before I leave Thailand...

Posted in Thailand..

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 01:01:44 GMT

I'll be in Bangkok until Monday so I thought this would be a good chance to post some updates for everyone that cares to check around here.. I'm here for a tradeshow that the company I work for is exhibiting in, as well as some sales and customer meetings.

I nearly fell off the treadmill this morning when I saw TORONTO PLANE CRASH come up on the screen in front of me. Fumbling for sound, I had to do with the captions below the images. All said, it was a good result, as far as plane accidents happen. It will still make me nervous to land there next week.

The flight here was good. I'm actually getting used to the long-haul flight. I stopped over in Narita (Tokyo) for a few hours. I'm just packing up now to head to the convention centre.

Here is a shot I just took from my hotel window:

Weekend Update

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 02:01:10 GMT

Air conditioning would be a good thing. I'm slowly learning the hot zones in our house. Our bedroom seems to contain the heat, as does the office I'm in now. We have a guy coming tomorrow to give us a quote on making the house cool. I will get around to posting some pictures of the property for you sometime soon. The grass is taking root and I'm not sure I posted any interior shots.

I'll be reporting to you again from 'out on the road' starting Monday if all goes well with an Internet connection on the other end. I'm going to Singapore for one week for work again. We're exhibiting in another tradeshow and I was asked to go along. I enjoy helping sell our company and the technology and product that we market. It gives me a chance to put some reality to the usual email and phone conversations I have with customers. I also find speaking with people in business in other countries fascinating. Especially when it all deals with a common industry.

Following the one week trip to Singapore I'll be taking a week off to spend with PK in Northern Canada - The Yukon Territory to be exact. We'll fly to Whitehorse and rent a car to drive north out of the province, dip into Alaska (if they'll let us) and then circle back to Whitehorse and return home. I'll fill you in more on that later..

This week consists of a convoluted packing job for a business trip to Singapore and outdoor camping in the Yukon. A fun dilemma.

Last post..

Fri, 27 May 2005 00:15:58 GMT

Just sneaking in what will be my last post. VERY busy here with prospect calls today following the show. I'll unplug here in the next few minutes limiting my pic-posts for the trip over.

Here are some parting shots:

The famous Sydney Opera House lit by the moon:

..And of course the Harbour Bridge!

Caught this cool shot of a dj in a small nightspot right near where I took these above photos..

Catch the full photo gallery of the trip here.

See you back in Canada!

Wednesday comes to a close

Wed, 25 May 2005 14:08:03 GMT

A really tiring but successful day for my workmate and I here. I'm a bit iffy about doing much blogging about work or our specific activities here for obvious reasons, so I'll stay slim on the details. Here is a shot of the show we're in. Cebit is the name of it, and it's basically a show that has consolidated many shows (Internet, hardware/software and wireless) together in recent years. Seems Australia is seeing the same decline of 4 big tech shows in one year, with just one big one happening now instead. Shows that the tech/Internet industry is maturing.

Much of the picture taking has been reduced to evening hours only - no time through the day since we're in the show hall all day. There should be some extra time on Friday afternoon to get down to see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Here is a shot I got of a building downtown when I was walking tonight.

Also - a feature shot of my dinner last night!! Japanese! Yum! We have a truly Japanese restaurant opposite our hotel that we sampled last night for dinner.

Complete photo set is here..

..Off to bed. :)
-

Coffee.

Tue, 24 May 2005 09:54:25 GMT

Coffee in Aussie (or NZ) isn't what you know it to be at home. You don't walk into a Timmy's-like establishment and order up the standard double double. In fact, the standard filtered coffee is pretty much unheard of as well. If you do want it, you'd need to find a large hotel and ask in the restaurant for a "drip coffee".. otherwise it's known as the fancy foofoo coffees you'd get at Starbucks (of which there are many in Sydney). A "flat white" is about as close as you'll come to just a regular "coffee" which my best guess has it being just a latte.

Heh, I just ran the search "flat white" through Google.com.au and here is the link I found. Here is what they have to say:

The flat white was created right here in Australia because many of us want the full rich flavour of the coffee without all the foam contained in a cappuccino
Cup size: 160 - 180 mls

1 shot of espresso and 1/2cm of textured (frothed) milk that forms a slight dome on the surface of the drink. <a href="http://www.dairyfarmers.com.au/internet/s14_crema/recipes/flat_white.jsp" target="_blank:>(Here is the link)</a></b> Regardless, the coffee's a must and this is what I'm drinking while I'm here. :)

Tuesday Morning.

Mon, 23 May 2005 22:19:33 GMT

There. One full 8-hr sleep is under my belt and I'm officially
in this timezone in terms of my body clock.

The Sydney Morning Herald was tucked under the door of my hotel room this morning. A very wide format paper, but not a tabloid style I was surprised the paper only had three sections and a few flyers. It was light and easy to pick up, unlike the Record or Globe you get from home that feels like an encyclopedia. The back of the main section has a really good summary page that *does* read like a tabloid when you flip it around to read the text. Very cool format. Take a look at what the front page said down below, and
take a read of the paper..

(this image will change each day)

Weatherwise this week, things are looking good. Yesterday was awesome. It was clear and sunny with very whispy clouds (the clouds are very unique here) and really nice conditions.. even into the evening you were okay with short sleeves. We were told yesterday that it's autumn and the winter weather hasn't arrived yet. I'm certain that can't be too bad compared to Canada though.. The paper said this morning that this kind of weather can be expected all week. Good times!

Off to the show we're here exhibiting at..

A few more..

Mon, 23 May 2005 11:53:43 GMT

We spent the afternoon in meetings with one of our largest Australian customers. The jet lag started to set in around 4pm but following our meeting I managed to catch second wind around dinner time. We set up the stall that our company will be exhibiting in. It was kind of weird being inside a trade show when it was being built. Tradespeople were everywhere, forklifts were beeping their horns to warn of their approach and some exhibits had literally teams of people wiring components to plexiglass display walls and countries like Germany and Korea building huge country showcases boasting their best in computer and network software and hardware. Tomorrow the show opens.

Here are a few more pics I took in the afternoon:

Until tomorrow (which for most of you is actually later today...)

I'm down under this week!

Mon, 23 May 2005 00:12:03 GMT

So it's been a while since the last post - I thought a trip down to Sydney, Australia would be a good chance to jump back into things.

Here are some shots of the last 24 hours for me:

..Coming over the Rockies en route to LA from Toronto

..On descent coming into LAX

..Watching the sunrise on approach in Sydney

I'm here in "Aus" for the next week to represent my company at a trade show. I just arrived after a Toronto -> LA -> Sydney flight which was surprisingly not as painful as I thought it would be. I rode my longest flight ever - 14 hours direct. I managed to sleep a bit, and I think the travel PK and I did helped me to bear the waking hours. Since we left LA at 10:40 and flew "with the night" it remained dark the whole way until arriving into Sydney this morning. We got here just as the Monday morning rush was starting - a news report on the radio in the taxi was about to mention what Canada is doing to redefine it's image to lure Australian tourists before we were let out at our hotel. That's where I am now.

I'll post updates and pictures of the next 7 days.. Check back!

Someone at Nike had better make a commercial.

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 02:32:45 GMT

Did you watch any of the Masters golf tournament today? If you did, you might have seen that shot that Tiger Woods made that arched way around, rolled down a hill and got closer and closer to the hole. As it got closer, it lost more and more speed before stopping at the edge of the cup and then finally dropped in.

Tiger Woods' already wearing 4 or 5 occurrences of the Nike "swoosh" (tm) also golfs with balls with that same emblem. As the camera zoomed in on one of the most unique made-shots in television golf, the Nike emblem was right there as the ball was the full size of your tv screen. I thought about how much extra exposure their brand received today as the Masters beamed itself into millions of televisions around the world.

So if I'm the product manager for Nike Golf I'm going into work tomorrow and starting to create a commercial, or an animation.. anything that captures that same black blur that I was watching today as the ball spun around, then stopped with a pause showing you the swoosh and then the sound of a golf ball landing in a cup...

It just has to happen. We'll see if it does.

Help! Attack of the Googlezon News Alert!

Sat, 02 Apr 2005 22:13:02 GMT

Does anyone use the Google Alerts feature from within Google News? Over the past week or so I've been getting multiple copies of any alert I have running. I use the service to get news based on keywords sent to me, instead of going out and searching it. I keep scans going on words that are relevant to the Disability News Ticker that I maintain, along with other words on stuff like news from my hometown and when the group that my cousin is with is mentioned in music mags and sites. I also get notified when my website gets linked somewhere. It's a pretty good service, but I prefer to get one alert, not 10.

Speaking of Google, CBC's ZED program had a cool short film on their show last night. I'm not a regular watcher of the show (although after watching it, I may start to catch more). They explored the role of blogs, webcams and tv on-demand in an episode about New-New Media. There featured a short film about Google in the future, and what it might become. The "GoogleZon" will be a powerful monstrosity that rules "old"-media types like the New York Times and knows everything about your information gathering patterns (don't they already?) through EPIC - the 'Evolving Personalized Information Construct'. The film plays as a timeline of the important milestones in the web and then with Google, the narrator playing a futurist role to predict stories that could come from the empire that Google is building. It's interesting. Masternewmedia.org (a great site) has a summary of the film with all the narrative.. Take a look. There are some links at the bottom of the the summary where you can view the short. It's thought provoking and most like spot on with their predictions.

Not another one..

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 18:54:41 GMT

This is not what South Asia needs right now.. Another tsunami is predicted and may reach Sri Lanka by 4PM Eastern Time today..

Canada's 50 top tracks (according to the CBC people)

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 00:44:28 GMT

Canada's CBC Radio has narrowed down the list of the top 50 tracks as voted by CBC's listeners...

Ipod Victoria envisioned..

Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:28:32 GMT

Found this most interesting iPod mutation on a blog this past week:

If Apple were to make this, I'd be tempted to buy it. I love things that blend old and new technology together..

This guy has some pretty cool ideas that he's created using Photoshop. Check it out here.

Spring is here..

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:47:45 GMT

Check here to see if you need a jacket today. Apparently in Toronto this morning, the answer is a resounding YES.

[via]

Google News customization

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 13:42:55 GMT

For those of you who use Google News, there is a cool new feature where you can customize news modules by your own keyword choices. The customization also allows you to drag around and reorder the various news sections.

It's pretty cool.

[via]

Flash Freeze Alert..

Mon, 07 Mar 2005 22:38:25 GMT

Sounds like something from a movie but apparently Environment Canada has it in their weather vocabulary and they've decided to use it today. :)

Let's hope it doesn't unleash the terror this little can of cooling action does:

Its Phriday..

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 19:56:35 GMT

Time for a little Photoshop Phun! This spot appears each Friday from SomethingAwful.com - (Credits to Mr. Zucker for tipping me off on this one..) :)

Bloody hilarious...

Changing of the Canadian Olympic Guard

Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:43:25 GMT

In the past few weeks Canada has witnessed a massive shift in the two staples of Canadian Olympic "coverage".

In one corner you have the network that broadcasts the Olympics. For as long as I can remember the CBC has been that entity - using their less-flash and more-content sports machine to broadcast all the events and provide the telecast for both summer and winter Olympic events. Brian Williams, as annoying as he can be at times with his hand gestures making the letter "O" about 30 times a minute is the guy you know will anchor the show. Ron Maclean has piped in a bit too, although I think for some reason he should be leashed to Hockey Night In Canada never to speak of another sport on the public airwaves. I can say though that while watching the Olympics each year I always wonder why other networks don't show interest. Well this year they did, and they won... CTV, or Bell GlobeMedia will bring it's TSN Sports property to bear in their coverage of the 2010 and 2012 Olympics.

In the other corner, the "coverage" is the clothing - I read in the Globe today that Roots has lost the contract to cover up the athletes with the trusty Beaver in place of another Canadian institution - Hudson's Bay Co. - or just simply, The Bay. I'm not sure where that comes from?? Are they just going to whip a cart through the various departments of the Yonge Street flagship store and then deck the Athletes out in whatever mish-mash they come up with? Or maybe they'll send everyone out in the classic Bay wool coat look, which, although nostalgic, would look pretty silly. I don't know of a "Bay" look that they can work with and I'm eager to see what they come up with.

From the tv side CTV's bid might be to cash in on the Olympics being in Canada (with 2010 as the warmup to perfect it).. which is smart. After Vancouver, they might turn it back over to CBC. Who knows what the state of Canadian television will be at that point anyway.. This same cash-grab might even apply for the clothing side as well although I can't see Roots standing by and watching. In both cases I'm a bit disappointed. I want to see CBC.. who I know, who I trust. I don't particularly care for the premium you-pay-for-us Sports entity taking over. The same applies for Roots. I wish them success. They are a true icon of Canadian clothing and they're one of the few big businesses I feel good supporting.

In the end, they're all good Canadian companies vying for the privilege of our national audience and look of our team that will be representing. On the upside, The U.S. Team will most likely still be wearing Roots and we'll still continue to steal men's and women's hockey gold from them.. :)

gooood burgers!

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 21:54:14 GMT

I have a new favourite place for cheeseburgers.. I had one from Mel's Diner here in Waterloo at lunch today. If you're ever in town, you have to go here. Good times. :)

Kinda spooky..

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 22:46:37 GMT

Recovered digital photos show tsunami wave - (See the gallery at the bottom right of this article).

A lot of people might ask why people that died on this beach didn't haul ass when they saw this wave coming. PK and I stayed in Kho Lak Thailand back in 2002 and this beach is actually quite violent, even on a nice day. There is deafening surf, a very steep beach that slips quickly into the sea and most days you can't swim for the undertow. I think if I saw this wave coming I might think it's an accelerated arrival of high tide that would simmer down by the time it reached where I was standing.

Regardless, this is kind of eerie.

mile high tennis

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 13:24:25 GMT

I suppose with no hockey, there is tennis from a hotel helipad.