Well, it's finally here...

My bloggin' year kinda fizzled out at the end here... not too much regularity to the posts... (perhaps I need more fiber) :)

I've enjoyed reading all entries of my blog-world and real-world friends... it's been a privilege and a pleasure being a part of your experiences for 2007. I look forward to continuing to hear more about your cyclocross adventures, your, um, suki-ness, your snaux-bike iditarod craziness up in Alaska, your second ironman, and yes, even your strong opinions about, well, everything (so long as you sprinkle in those stories about your students that make me laugh out loud) and of course, I look forward to my trip with Jim and our kids up to Algonquin (that goes without saying).

I wish all of you the absolute best for you and your families in 2008!

g.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

I hope you all have a very Happy Christmas! Enjoy time with family and friends and remember, it's not important that everything goes exactly as planned, it's important that you're together to enjoy each other's company!



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Cool Firefox performance tip...

Try this out if you use FF and haven't done this already:

Here’s something for broadband people that will really speed Firefox up:

1.Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages MUCH faster now!

from: forevergeek.com

If you're easily offended, don't watch this...

That is one of the funniest commercials I have ever seen! I especially like the girl at the photocopier:

girl: "poop"

guy in cubicle: "doesn't count!"

girl: "SHUT THE F@*K UP!"

Abso-friggin-lutely hilarious!

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I know it's been a while...

but I'm working on a few things that I can't really post about since there's a chance that some people may read this that shouldn't know just yet what I'm up to. I know that sounds all cloak and dagger but I can't let the cat out of the bag yet and it's gonna take about another month or so until things are finalized. This is nothing bad, just something I think is gonna be great for me and my family.

Anyway, I've been reading all the blogs that I normally read, I've just not been commenting. Work is quite busy right now... trying to jam in the last few deliverable before year-end so that's all that's really going on otherwise.

P* is really enjoying his hockey. M* is not practicing his guitar so the lesson are making very slow progress. D* is... well, D* is D* and just as funny as ever for a 4 year old. It constantly amazes me how funny he can be... he has a very developed sense of humour (that's "humor" for those south of the border :) ) My daughter is turning 1 in a week... I can't believe she's a year old! It seems like she was just born a few months ago. She has taken her first steps and has no problem standing without holding on. It's amazing to see her develop... I'd forgotten how awesome it is watchin' them grow. (and NO! we ARE NOT HAVING ANY OTHER CHILDREN!) :)

Well, have a great day everyone and have a great weekend too... I've booked a day off tomorrow so I'll think of you all workin' away!

g.

Okay, so it's ironic that I'm posting this article from work...

but I'm sure you will find humour in that, which I hope will brighten your day. :)

November 18, 2007
Career Couch
Every Workday Needs a Game Plan
By PHYLLIS KORKKI
NY Times Link

Q. You just finished an eight-hour day at the office and, looking back, you barely got anything done. Now you feel guilty and worthless. What happened?

A. Rest assured that you are not alone. Heightened demands at work, combined with endless distractions and interruptions, are conspiring to make some workers feel scattered, confused and unsatisfied. In response, they are either shutting down and going on eBay, or spinning their wheels by doing busywork that is at most tangentially related to the core mission of their business.

Q. So a lack of productivity doesn’t mean that you’re lazy?

A. Most people do not want to be idle or inefficient at work; they want “productive, rewarding jobs where they feel they are making a difference,” said Mark Ellwood, president of Pace Productivity, a company based in Toronto that studies how employees spend their time.

People may blame themselves, or blame others, but a lack of productivity basically means that “you really didn’t have a strategy for attacking the day,” said Julie Morgenstern, a productivity consultant based in New York.

Q. You started the day with such good intentions. What prevented you from finishing any work?

A. Perfectionism, which leads to paralyzing fear and procrastination, are major culprits, both Mr. Ellwood and Ms. Morgenstern said.

The false promise of multitasking may also be leading workers astray, Ms. Morgenstern said. As much as employers may sing the praises of multitasking, research shows that it is not actually possible to perform more than one job at any given time.

Workers trying to talk on the phone, answer e-mail and complete a report at the same time will be unable to focus completely on any of those tasks. As a result, they will certainly look and feel busy, but at the end of the day they will have little to show for it.

It is better to have a sequential approach toward work, Ms. Morgenstern said, and that requires priorities and discipline.

Q. Can technology inhibit productivity?

A. A compulsion to surf the Internet and check e-mail stirs up a “desire to be in the know, to not be left out, that ends up taking up a lot of our time” — at the expense of getting things done, Mr. Ellwood said.

If he had his way, he would cut off Internet access — but not e-mail — for a vast majority of employees, and set up dedicated workstations for people to use when they really needed the Web for their work.

Companies, he maintains, “set the table” for employees to waste their time by making it so easy to distract themselves on their computers.

Q. Will making a to-do list help you get things done?

A. A realistic to-do list can help create a map for the day, and it is satisfying to make the check marks that indicate a task has been accomplished, Mr. Ellwood said.

But being realistic is crucial, because “when you are looking down the barrel of an endless to-do list, you freeze,” Ms. Morgenstern said.

“And then you start doing things like procrastinate, and doing the small easy tasks rather than the big important ones,” she added.

Q. What other steps can you take to be more productive?

A. Shockingly, Ms. Morgenstern advises against checking your e-mail when you arrive at the office. She has even written a book on productivity called “Never Check E-Mail in the Morning.” She calls e-mail “the world’s most convenient procrastination device.”

Instead, she said, use your first hour at work to concentrate on a high-priority task. That will help you begin the day with a clear head. Free of mental debris from the start, you set a good precedent for the rest of the day.

Mr. Ellwood advises clients to imagine that they have nothing to do the next day: no e-mail, no phone calls, no meetings, no specific plans. Then he asks: What can you do to accomplish a long-term goal you want to achieve one month from now? This forces people to disentangle themselves from busywork, he said, and to focus on what is really important to their business.

Ms. Morgenstern urges workers to end their day with a plan for the next day, and for the two days after that. This reduces the chances that they will be stuck in “reactive” mode — continually responding to calls, e-mail and in-person requests without an overarching plan of their own.

It is also important to accept that interruptions are a part of the day, and to assess realistically what percentage of your time will be spent dealing with them, as well as when they are most likely to occur, she said.

Q. You have so many things to do. How can you decide what is most important?

A. Give the highest priority to activities that either help generate revenue for your company or help it save money, Ms. Morgenstern said.

Once you have defined these activities, you can work on what she calls the four D’s: choosing which work you can delay, delete, delegate or diminish.

Winnowing out the peripheral tasks and homing in on the most important ones will help you gain control — and “once you feel you’re in control, you’re productive,” Ms. Morgenstern said.

E-mail: ccouch@nytimes.com.

I thought this was an interesting article, in particular the answer to the question: "Can technology inhibit productivity?" Perhaps because it strikes very close to home for me.

I was also surprised about the advice to not check your e-mail in the morning. Once I thought about it, I realized that it was bang-on about the advice and that there are many-a-morning that I get distracted from my initial plan when I check e-mail and get sucked into some other "concern".

Anyway, I guess a good plan would be to shut this browser down and focus on my tasks for the rest of the day.

Have a great day everyone!

g.

Lactic acid: not good... or is it?

Take a read of this and let me know what you think:

Lactic Acid

Finally, the old theories of aerobic training are crumbling under the weight of new evidence. At the center of the breakthrough is lactic acid. You’ve probably heard of it, especially if you’ve ever had a coach or a trainer. Conventional wisdom said you had to avoid lactic acid because its build up in your muscles caused pain, fatigue and the soreness you feel after “over doing it”.

We were told to exercise aerobically and not cross the dreaded lactic threshold. To do so would mean an-aerobic (without oxygen) exercise, which created the damaging lactic acid. That sparked the aerobics craze that reached its peak in the 1980’s.

But this theory never jived with my real world experience of the benefits of exceeding your aerobic threshold (which would build lots of the dreaded lactic acid.) It turns out lactic acid is not only not your enemy. To the contrary, it’s fuel for your muscles.

Dr. George Brooks from the University of California at Berkeley recently found that lactic acid is taken up and burned for energy by your mitochondria – the energy factories in your muscle cells.1 What’s more, it can not create the after workout soreness because it is rapidly removed as you burn it for fuel. In other words, it’s long gone before you get sore.

A high output, anaerobic workout is exactly what your body needs to increase your lungpower, build reserve capacity in your heart and melt away your fat stores.

To move your workout into the anaerobic range, the key feature I use is this: Create an “oxygen debt.” Simply exercise at a pace you can’t sustain as in a short sprint. Ask your lungs for more oxygen than they can provide. The difference between the oxygen you need and the oxygen you get is your oxygen debt. This will cause you to pant and continue to breathe hard even after you’ve stopped the sprint until you replace the oxygen you’re lacking.

Let’s say you pedal as fast as you can on a bike for 15 seconds. When you stop, you continue to pant. This is the kind of high-output challenge I’m talking about. You have reached a supra-aerobic zone. This is very different from doing an aerobic workout for 45 minutes.

Aerobic exercise is low to medium output held for an extended period. Anaerobic or supra-aerobic exercise is high output, but short in duration. Why is this important? For one thing, it restores an element of your native environment. Our ancestors lived in a world where our food fought back. Predators attached without notice. They had to run or fight – fast and hard. These short bursts of high-output activity fine tuned our ancient ancestors and kept them fit. We still have the same physiology.

This is the basis for my PACE® program. I began using most of this program 25 years ago. I’m delighted to see University-based science catching up to the idea. More recently, I added progressivity to increase the benefits.

By making small changes in the same direction, your workouts can produce remarkable results. And you only need 12 minutes to achieve the desired effect.

In a matter of weeks, you can:

Lose pounds of belly fat

* Build functional new muscle
* Reverse heart disease
* Build energy reserves available on demand
* Strengthen your immune system
* Reverse many of the changes of aging.

Very soon, you’ll be the first to get access to my entire PACE® program. It’s almost ready for release. I’m setting down out easy to follow, step-by-step instructions – with over 100 photos. It should give you everything you need to get started.

So stay tuned… I promise you’ll be the first to know.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

1 Kolata G. Lactic Acid is Not Muscle’s Foe, It’s Fuel. The New York Times. May 16, 2006

Paramore - One of my new favorite bands

I know it's been a while since my last post...

There so much going on right now that I hardly have time to come over here and post. I was catching up on some e-mail and I got this video link from a friend and I just had to post it 'cause it's so damn funny:



Enjoy!

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Get out and VOTE!

Okay, for those of you reading this that live in Ontario, today is election day and I urge everyone to get out today and place your vote. As the ad campaign says, "Don't let other speak for you"

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Another good one from Lifehacker.com

This one is for all you Firefox users out there (and if you're still using IE then you should do yerself a favour and change over to Firefox).
Sometimes a web developer has created a page that only displays properly in IE and when you open it in Firefox it gets all jumbled up. Now there's an add-in for Firefox that will open that web page in IE in a Firefox tab!

You can read about it over on Lifehacker.com where there's a link to the add-in page and instructions on what you need to do.

If ya don't wanna click over there then here's what you do in a nutshell:

1. download the add-in
2. for the bookmark that you need to open in IE, go to the properties of the book mark and put this in front of the URL for that bookmark:

chrome://ietab/content/reloaded.html?url=

Viola! There you have it... a page that opens in a FF tab but uses IE.

Cool eh?

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Just a quick hello...

I just wanted to say a quick hello to everyone and apologise that I've not posted much lately... it's been a b!tch here at work and home life has been hectic... actually, hectic might be a slight understatement. It's all good stuff though... hockey, cubs, Marie's music stuff, general family activities, auxiliary events... work has been crazy busy which I like on one hand 'cause time flies by but on the other hand, it can start to feel like I'm barely keepin' my head above water...

I think that one of the people that has been feelin' my "absence" the most is Jim... Jim really is like a brother to me and I wish I could hang out more with him but the reality is my days are long and the things/people requiring my attention are many right now. I'm tryin' to figure out what the new routine is and once I get that down I can figure out what's left for my down time... I know down time is important so I will make space for it...

Anyway, I've managed to read a few blogs entries here and there and I hope everyone is doing well... running, climbing, biking, gardening, etc...

I'm gonna run now so have a great weekend everyone!

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Victor Wooten Bass Solo Link

Check out this bass solo by Victor Wooten.

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A potentially good site...

I haven't looked at it yet but this website looks like it might be a good information source... I know that new computers come with Windows Vista but I've used a laptop that was running Vista and because of that experience I intend to stay on XP as long as possible!...

How To's for Windows XP

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Do you know Jesus? I do...

well, at least I must if he's sending me e-mail. Yes, you read that right, Jesus sent ME e-mail. Isn't that AWESOME!?

What? Ya don't believe me?

Fine, I'll prove it. Here's a partial screen capture of my spam folder in gmail.



I know what yer askin'... why do I have Jesus on my spammer list? Well I don't, gmail put him there automatically. Now I hafta say I'm relieved that Jesus is runnin' an on-line pharmacy. I was gettin' a little self conscious of my um... manhood 'cause I keep gettin' all these e-mails tryin' to set me up with enlargement devices and such. I finally realized that it was just scum bags tryin' to make a quick buck but if it had been Jesus sendin' those e-mails... that's a different story... I may have had to take it seriously... I mean, come on, if Jesus says yer too small, he's prolly tellin' the truth, right? Jesus wouldn't say something that wasn't true and for that matter, he wouldn't lie would he.

Hmm... I just had a thought, what if Jesus' pharmacy sells the big blue pill? Damnit! Maybe Jesus IS tryin' to tell me sommit... Now I'm back to feelin' less than capable! Geeeez. I'm gettin' back to work, it's less depressing.

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Another good source for office suites...

Jim commented on my post about Zoho reminding me of another good source for office suite software:

Another alternative to office that is perfect for the average user...
www.openoffice.org

OpenOffice.org is a great alternative to MS offerings. It gives you apps that you can download to your hard drive. I've used it back when I was running a Linux machine at home. The thing I liked about Zoho was the fact it was on-line and available from any internet connected machine (and was free too).

Well, I'm going to my best man's wedding this weekend... a casual event at Balzac's Coffee. On Sunday I'm helping out at the local Terry Fox Run which should be good. I'm not sure what else is going on. If you have a moment, let me know what you're doin'... last time I asked, only Suki responded and she said she couldn't remember 'cause she was so fall-down drunk... KIDDING! She did say that alcohol WAS NOT involved but she still couldn't remember what she did.

(note: HA! HA! I googled "stumbling drunk" and a picture of Tara Reid came up! Now that there says something about yer reputation! Oh, and, no... I can't post the picture. ;) )

I do know that Jim is running in the Terry Fox Run and then walkin' in it with his family.

Anyway, the weather is supposed to be partly cloudy and the temps seasonal so it should be a good weekend to be out and about in the Greater Newcastle Area. I hope the weather is good in your area and I hope you get out and about too!

Have a GREAT weekend everyone!

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Good riddance MS Office licensing?

You have GOT to check ZOHO out! What's ZOHO you may ask... well here's what the FAQ says:

Zoho is a suite of web services offered by AdventNet. The different web services can be accessed with just a browser & an internet connection. The best part is you don't require to install any software on your computer.

I think this is really cool. Now, I haven't tested it extensively so I don't know what, if any, the shortcomings are. I will say that the idea of a free office suite is way cool. I've always struggled with the price Microsoft charges for their software and this seems to be a good replacement. I'm gonna try it out whenever I can and if I remember, I'll provide some feedback in the future. (I know, I'm not good at the follow up posts so I settin' the bar low here... :) )

Anyway, I stumbled on this when I was researching something over at TechRepublic and I had to share it with y'all.

If you try it out, let me know what you think.

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So I signed the boys up for Wolf Cubs

Boy are they excited! I have to admit that I'm pretty excited too... I'm lookin' forward to doing all the neat things that Cubs do... camping, hiking, learning how to tie knots, helping them earn badges. It is expensive though; $140 each, plus about about $60 minimum each for uniforms. I don't have to pay for my training but I do have to pay for my police check (that's kinda funny given the fact that I have police ID eh?) and I assume I hafta pay for my own uniform which will be slight more than $60. Oh well, it's gonna be worth it since I'll be creating memories for the boys and helping shape a part of their life experience that will stay with them forever. I still remember a lot of what I did in cubs and scouts and I would say that I use quite a bit of what I learned back then on a regular basis today.

Well, I've got a lot of meetings today at work so I'm gonna go prepare for them now. I hope everyone has a great day!

g.

What's my name?

Jim asked if I'd given any thought to what my "name" would be as a cub leader. Since the leader's names are based on the Jungle Book characters, I took a look at all of them and I think that the character that best fits me would be this one:

For a number of reasons, all of which may be evident to those that know me, I think Baloo is the name I'm gonna be shootin' fer. I hope I can get it! :)

Anyway, it's gonna be a fairly busy weekend for me so I'm gonna do my best to get outta here a little early today (the boss is off today!) so I can start the weekend.

Have a GREAT weekend everyone!

g.

So I'm an uncle again!

My sister Eileen gave birth to a baby boy yesterday morning!

Devlin is his name and he was born at 08:45 weighing 7lbs 5oz. Eileen and Devlin are doing well and proud daddy Cornelius hasn't stopped grinning since 08:45:01 yesterday morning. :)

Eileen and Cornelius has two daughters so this will be a bit of an adjustment to the whole family. I feel for Devlin, I only had two "moms" growing up (my mom and my sister!)... poor Devlin has four (my sister, my mom, and my two nieces!)... I got yer back buddy!

Since most of you may wonder about the name (okay, I wondered what the significance of the name was) I thought I'd share that with you. Before I do that though, I should share with you that Eileen and Cornelius are both interested in their Irish ancestry so that was on of the first considerations when they were picking a name. Eileen said that the name meant fierce warrior. I was unable to find reference to Devlin as a first name (although I did find it the other day but can't seem to find the link again) but it is a surname in Ireland. The Gaelic spelling seems to be "Duibhlin" or "Duibhlinn". Ya gotta love the Gaelic language eh?

I wanted to name daughter Naomh (pronounced NEEV) but Marie wouldn't hear of it. I'm okay with that now 'cause Gracie is Gracie to me and I can't imagine her having any other name.









Well, it's been extremely busy here at work and I feel like I haven't seen my friends or done anything social in a month so I'll have to change that. Jim and Tanyia came by last Friday for a few hours and that was really nice... we haven't done that in quite a while. We usually play board games when we get together, which is always a blast, but this time we just chatted and had some laughs.

Oh yeah, I forgot, we're going to a pig roast at a neighbour's house on Saturday night... we don't really know anyone except the people hosting the party so it could go either way - either I find someone that I "click" with and have some good conversation, or I don't find anyone and I spend the whole time sittin' in the corner watchin' people. I'm gonna do my best to mingle since I rarely get the opportunity to meet new people in town since I spend my time on the road between Toronto and Newcastle commuting.

The boys brought home a pamphlet about cubs and they really wanted to join. Marie and I had talked about this in the past and the only way that we would feel comfortable putting the kids in cubs is if I was a leader... so guess who's applying to be a cub leader? yep, you're lookin' at the next cub leader candidate. I think the organizer thought he'd been given a miracle 'cause the call went something like this:

Hi, Dave?

(in a kinda tired voice) Yes, this is Dave

Hi. My name is Gerry and I was looking to find out more information about signing my sons up for cubs. When is the registration and how much does it cost?

(again, in a tired voice) Registration is Monday night and the cost is $140 per child.

Okay. I was also wondering about how I would become a leader and if there are any openings for leaders... or are you just lookin' for parent volunteers from time to time?

(in a very excited voice) Oh no, we're always looking for leaders and we're in need of more leaders for the cubs since a couple of the leaders are moving on to the scouts with their sons. We pay for all your training so there's no cost to you to become a leader. You can register on Monday night when you sign you boys up. That's great. You'll just need a police background check and there'll be an screening interview... that's standard procedure.

Okay, thanks Dave, I'll see you Monday night then.

(again, in an excited voice) GREAT! See you then Gerry!

Hmmm... what have I gotten myself into...

g.