Welcome to my digital presence on the web. This page is a random collection of musing, links, humor, whatever.

I joined Facebook. I am quite impressed by it. In fact, it can do a lot of stuff that I wanted to do with my blog but didn't actually have the time to implement myself. I think I'm going to start using it instead of this page for most things... Once I get things moved over I'll make it official...
So, go join www.facebook.com.
posted by Charlie at 1:49 PM

Thanks to Conrad Black's trials and tribulations, I know a lot more about him. When I first heard of him, I think I assumed that he was most likely dislikeable and not even that interesting.

However after months of media coverage, and after catching part of the mini series that was produced on him, I have become genuinely interested in his life and would be interested to meet him. I'm looking forward to the upcoming verdict. Interestingly, all of the media pundits covering his trial appear to agree that he should not be found guilty based on the evidence presented. I hope they are right, or else it certainly will be less likely to know more about him the future.
posted by Charlie at 4:37 PM

I try not to post too many links to funny or interesting videos, but this one is too hilarious to miss -- funny soccer moments. It really starts with the stretcher sequence at the start, and along with other shots I love the goal scorer seeking praise from the empty stands and the fancy foot guy who does his dance until everyone else just stops and looks at him.

Second up, a video called "Battle at Kruger" (referring to a national park in South Africa). Lions battle with buffalo and crocodiles. It's long but be sure to watch to the end!
posted by Charlie at 11:37 AM

The flights to France sucked. We used my aeroplan points, but only to marginal benefit; we had to connect both ways through both London and Germany, and still had to pay $600 is taxes. Aeroplan sucks. Stay away.

While in Frankfurt on our way back, I was hanging out waiting while Mirela took a bathroom break. I was struck by recognizing a face; slowly I could place it to one I had only seen on the news: a Canadian politician. He was alone and wandered about someone lost; he make a pass through a duty free shop and then he came out past me again enroute to the washroom. Day! That conservative politician, formerly the leader. Doris Day? I couldn't place his first name... Rick Mercer had clearly corrupted my mind ever since he put out the online petition to change Stockwell's name to Doris, in order to highlight the stupidity of a conservative promise to allow 3% of the population to initiate referendums. He had a satchel that for some sort of international anti-terrorism conference, which would make sense since Day is now our Public Security minister or similar. I could only place his full name after he had left.
posted by Charlie at 12:19 PM

We're back from France. Good trip. Find the photos here. The food really is better in France. The French Riviera really is ridiculously expensive, and ridiculously overcrowded. The mediterranean water really is beautiful.
posted by Charlie at 12:10 PM

I Rube Goldberg machines. Fun expressions of creativity mixed with some engineering. And for every successful run, I can only imaging how many failures they had.
posted by Charlie at 1:41 PM

Cottage Party is the weekend of June 9th!
posted by Charlie at 12:24 AM

Man, I just can't keep up to blogging these days. I get so far behind that you know, you feel like you need to catch up with the news before you post that little quibble on whatever. Then there is the fact that while my blog wasn't bad four years ago, even a starter blog template is way better than mine... I really need to get around to updating it!

News: we've got a new dog. A miniature poodle. Smart and super cute. 'Noopy' is his name; 16 months old now.

We went to Cuba for a week before Christmas. It was excellent. Then we had a good Christmas.

The house is treating us pretty well and suits us. Of course, I'd like to be closer to work but Mirela gets to be just 5 minutes from her work so it's not bad.

We finally got a patio set last week. We spend so much time at the cottage, it has not been a big priority.

We leave Friday for France! Two weeks in the south of France: Cannes, Nice, Marseilles and 3 days in Corsica. I have no idea what to expect -- I think my entire knowledge of that area is based on the movie 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' (the remake with Micheal Caine and Steve Martin). That means my knowledge is very limited!

Mirela went to university for awhile in Sophia Antipolis, so we can stay with some of her old friends sometimes. We are going to miss Noopy terribly while we are on vacation.

As always, work is keeping me busy. We are finally spinning XipLink off into it's own company. Unfortunately, the scheduling for it has worked out such that it will mostly happen while I'm away!

I hope to get into some more detailed discussions later but at least I've got a 2007 date posted now!

GO SENATORS!
posted by Charlie at 12:07 AM

I picked up a ski pass a Jay Peak again this season. I went skiing for only 3.5 hours last weekend at Jay (though I skiied hard), and was absolutely exhausted afterwards. Going again tomorrow with Mirela! Finally, the conditions don't suck.
posted by Charlie at 8:52 PM

I went by the visit J while Joan was off travelling. He had a new toy: a 42" LCD HDTV.
It was nice. And of course it set me off at reviewing the current state of the art in HDTV. You can now get a lot of TV for a couple of thousand. So then I start obsess o n the shopping experience. Soon enough, I find a deal on a sweet Samsung 42" plasma that has virtually no negative reviews on the Internet. I even did this price match plus 10% of the difference at Best Buy based on sale at Future Shop so the final bill was $1970. This $2000 was the threshold I was waiting for.

Ok, that's four times as much as my last TV (8 years ago), but c'mon it's sweet. I haven't figured what J's share works out to just yet.

The plasma looks very good. I'm a bit nervous about the potential 'burn in' issue when I'm watching content that isn't full screen too much. But it had a definite price advantage on the LCDs, while looking better, so I couldn't help myself.

Now, I check the HDTV-capable channels when I'm checking to see what's on. Starchoice offers the HDTV channels for free, and I picked up a refurbished HDTV receiver when I got the installation so I'm all set. You quickly become an 'HDTV content' nazi -- this is particularily irritating for things like Hockey Night in Canada when there it the Make Beliefs playing in HDTV and while CBC is showing the Senators game as well, it's not, and the difference is quite remarkable.

But actually the channel that I watch a lot more of it's sports or primetime TV -- it's discovery channel and PBS in HD. Anyway, go get one.
posted by Charlie at 3:48 AM

Don Charboneau had his bachelor party the weekend before Lorne's wedding. It started at 4. We did a pub crawl and I might have bought and shared a couple-few shooters with Don. Later, I joined up with Lorne's friend who were going out for a part deux b-party. I was *done* by the end of the night. Mirela pointed out to me that she could tell I was drunk when I got home. Actually, she said something more blunt, but you get the idea.
So the next week I sign in to MSN and chat with Don. Here is the text:

аиб-key says:
anyway, I will say now I hope you have a good time on Saturday...it is depressing to think how little time I will have to chat with people

Ctrl-Alt-Delete says:
oh yeah, saturday was good fun
Ctrl-Alt-Delete says:
i hooked up with my bro around 12:15 or something at griffins and drank even more
Ctrl-Alt-Delete says:
i was a wreck sunday, didn't do much of anything

аиб-key's says:
you were a wreck...lol
аиб-key's says:
I had my first hangover in about 10 years

So, you would think from that it was just *me* who overdid it, as I did. I was a wreck the day after, and he just noticed that he might have drunk the night before. That is, that was my understanding until chatting with Don and the other party participants at his wedding this saturday and I learned that not long after wandered 1/2 block to Lorne's party, Don put on a public technicolour display of his stomach contents.

Heh. Guess I'm not the lightweight even in married life :)

I might be Ann's token representation of a 'bad influence' on Don now, I'm not sure. You only get married once Don :)

(How often does the term 'technicolour' get used, besides this context, these days, I wonder)
posted by Charlie at 2:59 PM

This weekend my brother is getting married to Caroline. I've started getting genuinely exciting about it. All the fun of being close to the married people and little of the stress of the actual operation :)

They are slated to immediately go on honeymoon in Thailand. Not great timing with the coup today.
posted by Charlie at 6:38 PM

I got married on July 8th to Mirela!

The weather, setting, dinner, party and fireworks were all great. We were so lucky.

There will be a lot of pictures to be posted, when I have a chance I will create a list of links.

I've been so damn busy in the last while, it's unfortunately than when you have the most to say you have the least amount of time to write. In the last month and a bit:

The cottage party rocked...

I had a great bachelor party...

Fury of activity to prepare the cottage and logistics for the wedding...

I got married!

The honeymoon!!!

I'm taking a break here from what will likely be an overnight proposal writing marathon. I need to get back to it. I just had to say something. Married life is good so far :) I'm a very lucky guy. Mirela is awesome.
posted by Charlie at 1:04 AM

Too damn busy to blog! Will have more to say later. It's one of the irritating things about a busy life -- less time for blogging.

Getting married saturday. Get yer directions here.
posted by Charlie at 1:25 AM

Cottage party is weekend of June 10th.

Went to a couple of concerts this last week: Xavier Rudd and Depeche Mode. Xavier Rudd is this crazy one man band thing, playing didgeridoos, vocals, hamonica, drums, various guitars, cymbals. I have a hard time carrying a conversation and clapping to an unreferenced fixed beat: this guy is ridiculous and the music is quite good.

But the highlight for me was the Depeche Mode concert with Mirela. It was fabulous, one of the most enjoyable concerts I've ever been to. It was at the Bell Center -- I'm usually not a big fan of the big venue concerts except for bands like U2 -- but this was good. It was about 5 years ago that I discovered "Personal Jesus" and lead me into more Depeche Mode. (I know, I'm not always in the current fashion. Pun on the band name intended).
posted by Charlie at 1:36 PM

So, uh, hi.

It's been a long time since I posted, I know. Moved servers -- the old server that I used to have parked at Paul Weston's no longer had an IP address assigned for it due to a change of their providers, so now this web site is hosted at Andy's place in Ottawa now.

It's been a good, busy winter. We've moved into the new house and it's good. It's pretty cool to be a homeowner, and I'm still quite happy with the choice we made and the value we got.

The house isn't without issues, but most of them make for good little mini projects. We've taken out walls, repainted a lot of it and other general fix-it work. It suits us pretty well and seems to be a good enough amount of space. We've still got a couple of more major projects lined up: redoing the kitchen and the sunroom. I'm not sure when we'll get to this with the wedding coming up and the associated $$$ required.
posted by Charlie at 1:42 PM

This is just so cool: a home grown Christmas light show. Remind me to do something like this if I ever find myself with significant free time.
posted by Charlie at 11:05 PM

Yes, I know my web page is kinda broken. I'll get to it.

Jen sent me a great article on the safety of S.U.V.s. Good article, and briefly mentions that a lot of the perceived 'safety' of SUVs is just absurd. One missing element we can't have from aggregate safety stats is the skill of the drivers on various cars; skilled drivers are more likely to buy some kinds of car compared to others.
posted by Charlie at 2:03 PM

Well, we've gotten ourselves mostly installed in the new house.

It's rather shocking how well we've expanded from a one bedroom condo to a 5 bedroom house. It's full.

We still have stuff to unpack. I've started renovations in the basement, at least the easier demolition part -- though I've gotten stuck for the moment due to a complete lack of a wood cutting implement, and these older homes were built solid.

Anyway, renovations will go on and on, so might as well dive into the housewarming. Saturday January 7th from 8PM.
posted by Charlie at 3:04 AM

We move into the new house starting tomorrow. It's exciting. Though of course moving is a big PIA, will be great to actually have the space to move everything in that I would like to have around. Still trying to get some things sorted like the alarm; whether to go primarily with motion sensors or door/window sensors. Motion is the best for 'away' security, and doors and such the best against late night breakins, the way I figure it.

Our new address:
1465 rue Barre, St. Laurent, H4L 4M5
posted by Charlie at 9:57 PM