Saturday, March 11, 2006

Snow in March? In Victoria? WTF?

Yes indeed, not huge volumes like out East or up North but surprisingly enough to turn the lawns white for a little while, very unusual for March in Victoria. We have this very pink sunrise this morning , "Red in Morning sailors take warning".

Will have some loads to take to the landfill today, spent a lot of time taking down that sad rear deck of ours in preparation of one of the summer projects. De-construction is always fun, great for releasing built up stress. This also really improved the looks of our place, as much as removing that old shed did. Pictures below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cadwallader/sets/72057594078380047/

Speaking of pictures I have reordered most of them on Flickr, it was pointed out that they were showing in reverse order so when the slide show was played it was a little odd. Sorry about that.

X-Men fans unite, the trailer for the upcoming last installment of the series is on Apple's site here, it looks to be faithful to the comics with war brewing between the humans and the mutants. Looks awesome and has some surprises in store I am sure. The article on it can be found on the Hollywood North site. All the favorite X-Men are back plus some new ones including Kelsey Grammer playing Beast, other than the voice it's hard to believe it's him.

Some great news yesterday from JPL, with the success of the insertion of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) into orbit around the God of war. This is the most advanced orbiter to be sent to the planet with a very high chance of discoveries to be found by the MRO that may reshape our view of both the planet and our solar system. This was the second great space story in the week with the announcement of the possible discovery of water in a geyser-type flow on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, this discovery by the Cassini probe seems to have taken all the science teams by surprise, that liquid water should be found on such a small and cold satellite so near the surface was completely unexpected and so far unexplained. The full story on it can be found on JPL's site here

The sound in my deck in my Westy had started to oscillate (whether the engine was on or off), it was about 5 years old and was a present from the Wife so was hoping to fix it but that was just not going to happen. I replaced it on Thursday evening, (going to use the old one in the Pick-up) with a Sony Xplōd CDX-GT200 Deck that plays CD, MP3, WMA, 100dB+ EQ, and a front Auxiliary plug, (for my iPod). It was a very reasonable price and so I was going to get an amp installed as well. The Rep at FutureShop was very helpful, she took the time to go to their installation Department and came back advising me not to bother with the amp until I am ready to update my speakers or add a sub-woofer, (heh heh not a chance of that in the Westy unless I decide to never use it for camping - just no room.), which was both honest and surprising considering the store. Futureshop seems to be changing it modus operandi, before when you walked in the door you felt like a piece of meat that had just been dropped at the feet of a flock of Buzzards, now you always get a greeting but not a constant barrage, wonder if the influence of their parent company BestBuy is starting the change. Anyways I diverge, since I never shelled out for the amp, I decided to buy a Sirius Satellite radio, the Starmate and sign up for the one year subscription, (wanted to do the lifetime deal but $550 is way more than I have to spend) and asked them to install both. I also have the home kit for it. It is fantastic, 24 hour uninterrupted no commercials, 100 channels including some awesome rock and metal, plus Canadian news and music BBC world report. It's like having digital cable for your tunes. The deck is fantastic as well the output is crisp, clear and very loud, the speakers I had in the van were Sony Xplōd's as well so they tie in very nicely. It will be a lot of fun on our next camping trip to have capability for great quality sound, and a selection from Satellite to iPod, purchased Cd's or our own mp3/WMA creations. When we do our long road trip should be fantastic.

Doing the bach' thing now, as Madam has joined her Mum and Sister for a trip to NYC, Her sister's Choir will be performing in Carnegie Hall!! Can't tell you how happy we all are for her Sister, as well its great that the three ladies get a chance to take off together for a trip to the Clothing shopping capital of North America. I hope to hear from her while she is there, maybe an email or something, if I do I will post it here.

Going to be some busy times coming, I really need to knuckle down and get my Certifications done. Gotta get the Security+ under the belt then move forward with the MS stuff. Just been so busy at work, with so much overflow (take home stuff - yes unpaid - but politically the only way to maintain an upper hand.). I really hope that several things get sorted at work to alleviate these issues, stop the turf wars and in-fighting that is causing us to lose the relationships that had been built, pay equity/title matching roles and responsibilities which would go far to improving morale and self-worth. I imagine many large firms may be the same but I think it sad that while you are being patted on the back for performance that is considered "above and beyond" there is no will from above to provide proper wages to enforce that pat on the back.

Anyways, as stated have a full schedule today got a date with the local landfill. ;-)

EOF - LC

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