It's Labor Day weekend. First long weekend since July 1st (well, that wasn't technically a long weekend, but a lot of people made it into a long weekend.). Next holiday won't be until October (Thanksgiving). Then it's the long haul before Christmas.

Didn't really do much this weekend. My brother came up for a quick visit before he starts his clases on Wednesday. I think his days of idleness are over. Today we went for dim sum with a couple of friends. We went to this larger dim sum place in Chinatown called Ruby Rouge. It was alright. I think the food at Maison Kam Fung was better. But then again, it could just be a matter of when we got there and what day. It's like the luck of the draw with dim sum I think.

After dim sum, we went for some bubble tea. Yum!!! :-)

Bleah! Back to work tomorrow....

Well, after having managed to survive 2 weeks of hell at work (largely due to having about 5 people away on holiday at the same time), I took a few days off last week to "recover".

OK, I am at times a bit of a workaholic. While I was at home last week supposedly taking a short vacation, I actually went ahead and logged into work. Why? Well, there were still a few things that needed to be taken care of and more or less completed by Friday. So there I was logged into work from home and checking my emails and logfiles. Pretty sad, isn't it?

On a more positive note, I will be heading to Germany for a 2 day workshop with counterparts from other parts of the world. It will be a nice break from the usual stuff. On top of that, I mentioned to my manager that I plan on rounding off the week there by spending some time in Amsterdam. He was cool with it. Besides, if I flew back on the Wednesday (the workshop is Monday/Tuesday), then I would be left with Thursday/Friday. Not worth it in my opinion. My other half will be accompanying me. I don't think he's ever been to Germany, so at least he can keep himself busy while I am in a workshop.

It's been a while sincew I travelled for work, so I'm looking forward to it. :-)

Gary's Boring Blog This is one of the Japan blogs I read off and on. I've been following Rosie's saga for the past couple of weeks and was saddened to see the title of the latest entry. My heart goes out to Gary, Megumi and their family. It must have been a tough struggle for them to get through all this.

Nuff said..

The past 3 weeks have been somewhat hellish....

Week one... Started OK. Half the team was on vacation. I had some stuff to work on. I inherited some stuff from a couple of people before they left. Of course I was also left with team leader duties....

Of course, as soon as the last vacationer left, all hell breaks loose. Escalations and urgent issues out the wazoo! Week one produced about 55hrs of work in time reporting. :-p I barely had time to recover that weekend.

Week two... faired no better... Emails flying left and right about more urgent issues and other things. I was juggling the jobs of at least 3 people. Another 50+hr week.

Week three is better. A couple of people are back from holiday. Some semblance of sanity has returned. Team leader still on vacation which means I still have to deal with the crap issues. :-p At least I *KNOW* what I am talking about or dealing with. But I won't go there. ;-) Never know who's reading this!

Anyway, I hope to take a few days off this week just to breathe. But it's so hard to take days off in case something turns up and a bad decision is made.... Oh well...

<^_^>

It's been a rough week...

It started off slow... but I should have known that it was the calm before the storm. Silly me. I saw the signs. I should have acted sooner. Oh well.. I guess I will have to live with it.

Of course, half the team will be on vacation for the next two week. That leaves just 5 of us to do the work of 10. We are going to have so much FUN! Not....

We shall see what state of mind we will all be in after 2 weeks...

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of.... Packaging in Paradise!

Yet another Monday. I suppose it's become a mantra for many of us when we come into the office on a Monday morning. Bleah.

At least I had a decent weekend. The parents were by on their little road trip through Canada (Niagara Falls, Toronto, Montreal). The weather co-operated so we had a nice time checking out Chinatown and the downtown area. We had dim sum for lunch which wasn't bad. Got me some new Merrells at MEC and the boys picked up some KK while we were there. Picked up a few steaks at the local butcher as well as a couple of brochettes to grill for dinner. All in all, we had a nice time.

The folks left early on Sunday. The rest of the day we vegged and worked on some small things. Dave did a clean install of OSX on the 12 inch iBook. Had some problems afterwards with it communicating with the Airport Base Station. I couldn't quite figure out why it just won't see it. It could see a neighboring wireless network but not ours. After some fiddling around and resetting the base station, I managed to get it (and my iBook) to see the base station again. Before the settings for the airport were set to "Automatic". Now they are set to specifically connect to our base station. I'm wondering if it's because the other network was using 10.0.1.1 as well? Hmmm... Well, whatever the problem was, everything is working again. :-) I'm wondering if that's why we occasionally lose contact with the base station....

So, after much dicking around with that, we needed to pick up a few things from the store as well as a new toner catridge for the printer. That done, Dave was back to reading up on CSS. I think I'll let him become the expert on that one. :-) After having looked for and downloaded all sorts of documentation on CSS, he finally remembered that he had bought a 2nd hand book on DHTML and CSS when we were in Boston (gotta love that Victor Hugo book store on Newbury street). So I guess he'll be reading that for a while. In the meantime, I should get my own ass in gear and read up on some stuff as well. The problem I'm having is finding the energy to even get started. I want to learn a bit about Perl programming. I'd like to have a look at CSS as well. Oh well...

We'll see how things work out with the O2 as a server. Will have to investigate a bit further about ISPs.....

Paper cranes

Paper Cranes

A-Bomb Dome - Hiroshima 

Hiroshima Castle 

As mentioned earlier, some more pics from Japan. I just happen to choose a few shots taken while in Hiroshima.

The mind is such a terrible thing to waste... So, don't use it!!!! ;-)

Yet another day. I don't know if Tuesdays are any better or worse than Mondays. OK, so we're one day closer to Friday on a Tuesday than if it were a Monday. However, Tuesday is still closer to the beginning of the work week than it is to the weekend. Tuesday is just one of those days. There must be a conspiracy behind Tuesdays. I find that programming on TV for Tuesdays are quite boring compared to other days of the week. Why is that? Something to think about on a Tuesday, I suppose. ;-)

Day has been relatively quite. Like yesterday, I've got stuff to do, but nothing that's too overwhelming (thank goodness!). Yet, I don't feel that I am as busy as I should or could be. Look at this! I'm blogging during my lunch hour! I guess it's probably better I wasn't working and eating my lunch at the same time. I read somewhere that this is not really healthy for you. I suppose one thing that could happen is that you get indigestion or heartburn if you're stressed over work while eating. Not a good thing, I guess...

Maybe I'll post more pictures later. :)

Why is it that on Mondays I really don't feel like doing a heck of a whole lot? Or maybe there just doesn't seem to be a whole lot happening today. :-p

Clouds have been coming in and out during the day. There was a sprinkle or two in the morning. If the weather remains stable, I might decide to ride into work tomorrow. We'll see...

I hate days where I just sit around waiting for the next crisis to pop up. I've managed to do what I need to have done today done already. There are plans to do some other stuff, but that's only for tomorrow.

bored, bored, bored..... maybe I shouldn't say that. I might jinx things.... :-o

Quick Grill Idea

Marinate boneless, skinless chicken breast in some italian dressing for about an hour. Prepare as a side some veggies. Grill chicken breasts on the ol' bbq and VOILA! Dinner is ready!

Gotta love summer grilling. It's fast and easy. Another yummy idea: Chicken Satay. Follow the recipe on a jar of Thai Kitchen's Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce and you've got yourself some delicious chicken satay with some kick! :-)

OK... Just posted a few more pictures from Japan.. Hope you enjoy! Whoever happens upon this blog. :)

Sunset. 

The Floating Torii of Miyajima at low tide. 

Narrow stone street in Kyoto new Kiyomizudera Temple. 

Nummy Japanese snacks! 

It's Saturday. Do you know where your mind is? Somedays I wonder about that. I think it's there. But then, if I think, therefore I mind? Not that simple is it?

It's sunny. I'm listening to some Latin tunes courtesy of Putumayo. It's a change of pace from whatever is usually playing on the radio or the music video stations. Plus, my CD collection has been a bit stale lately. I haven't really been inspired by much these days in the music department. At work I usually tune into either Ministry of Sound or Trance Airwaves. Maybe it's because it's easy for me to push the music into the background while I work. I notice that when there is no background noise or music, it's a tad more difficult for me to concentrate on what I am doing. Strange, no?

The other half has gone off on a bike ride around the island. I think he needs to work off some of the stress he's been feeling at work as well. It's been rough since it's currently just he and his boss running the operation. Sometimes he has to pull some long hours. I'm just glad he doesn't have to go into work today. :-p

I suppose I should try to be a bit more productive today. Maybe I can try to finish Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It's been languishing on my nightstand for some months now. Hmm, better make that a year. I think I picked up the book not long after it was released. I have such a backlog of books to read. I recently ordered two books by Anthony Bourdain (A Cook's Tour on FoodTV) from Amazon.ca. I almost wanted to get some computer books at Chapter's recently, but then remembered that there was a library at work. Saved quite a few bucks right there!

Hmm.. Maybe I should look into trying some of the recipes in Flavors of Aloha. It's a neat little cookbook I picked up when we were in Hawaii this past May. It's put together by the Japanese Women's Societ of Honolulu. It's got a nice mix of recipes from the different ethnic groups that populate Hawaii. Quite a few of the recipes are traditional with a Hawaiian twist to it. I should mention that while we were there we did not have any Spam. We did have some poke which is quite delicious and is a different spin on sashimi. :)

OK, all this food talk is starting to make me hungry. I think it's time for breakfast. ;-)