Winter follies count down to Hawaii boast #2 · Friday November 21, 2008 by colin newell
Doing my 1st blog on an ASUS Eee PC 4G running linux and 1G of RAM – this is the primary gadget that will come to the Islands… along with radios (Shortwave, Ham, etc) in an attache case bristling with gear.
Prior to that I have some writing to do…
The seasonal coffeecrew buyers guide…
some reviews…
Have to register some of my stuff with Customs Canada to ease the passage back and forth…
Not mentioned anywhere else on here: I am now a licensed radio amateur with the call sign VA7WWV. I will be taking a Yaesu FT-60r 5-watt 2-band handheld UHF/VHF walkie with me – if that means anything to anyone. :-)
And on.
Watched a great Victoria Salmon Kings game tonight: VSK 3 – Alaska Aces 1
Summer food fun and drink - Tea fest comes to Victoria · Friday September 19, 2008 by colin newell
Tea. It is subtle and restful. Which is the polar opposite of what coffee is. If you want to chill, then pouring yourself a great big mug of Jump Up and Get Busy is probably not a good idea.
So it only makes sense that Victoria is hosting the Victoria Tea Festival
Because… after all, Victoria is one town that loves tea, tea houses, high tea, crumpets and tea, strawberry tea… but do not take my word for it…
So. Kick up your heels. Put on your granny glasses. And pour a cup.
You will be glad you did.
Summer food fun and drink - Who wouldn't enjoy a coffee scrub · Friday August 29, 2008 by colin newell
I enjoy a good cup of coffee from time to time. Ok. Every day. Sometimes several times a day.
I also enjoy a good shower once a day. Ok. Sometimes more than once a day… depends on what is going on.
And when it hit me… the water from the shower head that is. It occurred to me, that if I could combine these two simple pleasures somehow, I could save a step or two in the average persons day.
So I tried combining a coffee maker with a shower head… and then I tried pouring hot coffee on my body… that didn’t work very well. And I tried actually drinking my black coffee while showering… and the coffee was diluted.
Looking around the shower room for ideas… I spotted the soap… in the tub… in front of me. As I stepped forward, onto it… and slipping… it hit me… the back of the tub. After I died, I figured, that had I added the coffee to the soap or a sudsing scrub… an exfoliating product would have resulted that would fit my requirements perfectly; it is an exfoliant scrub, it sudses and it has coffee in it. Perfect.
Before I gasped my last breath, I passed along my idea to a friend who produces wonderful soaps and lotions – and here it is. Check it out. Buy some. I would have wanted it that way.
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Summer fun food and drink - Doing stuff on top of stuff and stuff · Tuesday July 22, 2008 by colin newell
Ever get the feeling that you’ve got a tad too much on the go? My mother reminds me of this, well, almost daily – Like, since when was a man too busy or too multi-tasked by working on his guitar, his studio, his photography, his writing, his work, his radio stuff (deep breath…) to take on one more thing?
There are 24 hours in a day after all. And it is not as if I do all these things at once. Because I don’t. One thing at a time. With lots of coffee breaks in between.
I am, quite seriously, not one of those people that sails down the Trans-Canada highway with one ear on the Sirius satellite radio, one ear on his iPhone (when he is not text-messaging head office) – all the while barking orders to his 3 kids in the back seat of his Humvee while contemplating that recreational property and the hostile takeover of Langford, British Columbia – Now that would be something wouldn’t it!?
Digression complete. One of the advantages that I have is that I am not a member of the Millennial Generation, The Gen-Y’s, The Gen-Xer’s… and… I am stopping there. Let’s just say that I was born prior to 1970 – actually watched the first moon landing…
Double digression.
I work with the Millennial Kids and lots of them (my Employer-A University)… And folks, it is interesting. A more suitable name for my clients would be the Me-menial generation because that is what they are all about: Me. I mean. Them. Themselves. And they really do not get the value of actual labor… of any kind. Paid or unpaid. And it is amazing that at a University of all places that so many of them do so well – when there is so much work involved.
But here are some observations: When Millennial Kids show up for work, they seem to be more ready to play; facebook time, hotmail time, blog time, twitter time…
Yea. Twitter. I kid you not. Twitter. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length…
140 characters. Limiting them to meaningful conversations like…
“Bro, what’s up?”
“Yea, I am just at the University with…”
“my GF and I need to get…”
Scintillating huh?
In my World, I operate on a team of tech dudes – a team whose size has not changed in over a decade – and our work load has increased by a factor of about 5. There was a time where I could start and finish a job. Now I get interruptions on the 3 projects that I am trying to finish and often that interruption will get jumped on by some higher priority in the queue… or an emergency will crop up.
A Millennial Kid would take one look at what I do every hour of my work day and plug in their iPod buds, crouch behind their Asus Mini-PC, turn the lights down… and tweet.
And that my friends… was a couple more than 140 characters… Good night.
Seen in passing - coffee time - as the crow flies · Wednesday June 25, 2008 by colin newell
I have coffee at 10AM and 3PM where I work (on a Vancouver Island University campus) – and I generally have coffee with colleagues.
Except today I had a special guest – a good old black crow. A friendly one at that. This one was different. It was banded!
As it turns out, it is from the United States of America – from the University of Washington – another campus in a different country.
The 1st thing that crossed my mind (as I mused out loud to the curious bird)…
“Hmmm – you are a American bird in Canada… I guess you are not on any No-Fly list, huh?”
Nyuk nyuk cackle.
I sat at an outdoor table and shared my multi-grain fruit muffin (make them myself) with the bird – hoping that there was nothing harmful to the creature in the recipe.
