Awesome Angry Duck

It is rare that I let my TV sit on the Treehouse childrens network for longer than a second or two, but, by chance, I stumbled across this TV show which absolutely intrigued me. It is simply called Pocoyo (apparently it means "a little of me" in spanish, but it is rooted in the mispronunciation of a bedtime prayer by the daughter of one of the producers).

The animation is excellent, the characters are interesting and cute, but, most importantly, the duck is sarcastic! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.


Fussy Duck




The Big Sneeze

I like my car

For those who have not driven with me in my car, we need to go do on a road trip or something. Mostly because if you haven't ridden in my car, we obviously haven't been hanging out enough. But if you needed more of a reason, maybe an awesome video will convince you.

The list

Most people have a list of what they hope for in their future spouse. I've found issues with this method in the past, especially with the heartache and limitations it places on relationships which are clearly from God but yet don't fit this man-made mold. But there is one list which I love and keep close to my heart as I wait. It was provided by (at least try and look surprised) C.S. Lewis.

My Dear Wormwood.
So!

Your man is in love - and in the worst kind he could possily have fallen into- and with a girl who does not even appear in the report you sent me...

I have looked up this girls dossier, and am horrified at what I find. Not only a Christian, but such a Christian - a vile, sneaking, simpering, demure, monosyllabic, mouselike, watery, insignificant, virginal, bread and butter miss!

The little brute!

She makes me vomit. She stinks and scalds through the very pages of the dossier.

I've always believed that, apart from God, the ones who know us best are our enemies. They see us without rose coloured glasses, they aren't forgiving, and they don't pull any punches. Here is a list written as if by a demon, encompassing exactly what I hope for in a woman. I hope that she does truly stink and scald through the dossiers of hell.

A great big cup of gross incompetence

The title basically describes how I started my morning. A morning leading in to a day which saw me in the office of the vice-president of operations, in Banff under the scornful glares of a group of delegates from my company, and in the office of my manager who was threatened with dire consequences if he ever let anything of this magnitude happen again.

The setting:
The largest conference on remediation in Alberta (my company listed as a major sponsor of the event).
A booth space at the conference, paid for months ago with a cheque equivalent to a large portion of my yearly income.

I am in charge of organizing our delegation and the materials for every tradeshow that my company attends. This was the case here as well. What was different is that I somehow forgot to organize a volunteer to transport and setup our tradeshow booth at the conference.

An angry call from the VP yesterday to my boss (I was in class, so they didn't call me) saw two of my coworkers in a panicked drive up to Banff with the booth, arriving just in time to set it up on day two of the three day conference, after our spot (proudly labelled with the handy reservation tag) sat empty for 36 hours between the booths of many of our largest competitors.

Today was a blur from when I first arrived (glare from my boss boring a hole in to my skull) to when I left (glares from delegates arriving back from the conference). Sat through a meeting with the VP, fighting the urge to break down in tears or throw myself through the plate-glass window behind him. Spoke with my boss after his meeting with the VP, a meeting which basically gave him the promise of dire consequences should anything like this happen again...

I hate that I screwed up. But more than that, I hate that my boss was pilloried for this. He asked me to handle this, he is too busy, he shouldn't have to check in on me every 5 minutes just to be sure that I'm doing stuff right. I screwed up and I got a "do better next time" while he got blamed for it. That's not right, and it bothers me immensly. I said so, to both of them, but I guess this is how hierarchy works. It feels horrible though. Not only did I shame myself, but I shamed my boss and my entire department...

Tommorow's gotta be better.

(Note: Today wasn't all bad. Got a good email back from my beloved Sindy. I miss her, so it is very nice to get a dose of Sindy reality once in a while, even if only by email. I'm a pretty "set-in-my ways" kinda guy, not easily forced out of a rut. Sindy is one of the only people in my life who really managed to push me beyond myself, I am very thankful for it. I've got a long way to go, especially in the area of interacting comfortably with people, but I definitely give her credit for getting that process started within me.)

Weekend at Wyndham Carseland

Was out camping this weekend (actually still am, just in the city to drop my sister off at work). Wanted to toss these photos up.

The first two are different variations (minimal and heavy postprocessing) of the same photo. The latter three are longer exposures taken last night at around 11pm or so. The moon in the second last one is fake. I took two shots (same framing) and then combined them in Photoshop. The different shutter speeds (3 seconds compared to 1/100 of a second) were necessary due to the simple fact that the moon is quite bright. For those not well versed in astronomical trivia, the moon has an albedo of 0.07 which, basically, means that it reflects 7% of the light which hits it. This means that the moon, averaged, will be around 7% as bright as the sun (still rather bright).

The last photo is ugly and boring but I'm tossing it up here because I thought it was a neat experiment, a 4 minute exposure of a road near my camp site.






30 seconds, F/8


3 seconds, f/8


4 minutes, f/8