Mon, 01 Jan 2007
2006All in all, this was a pretty good year.
- Me and Carolien are settling in to our Vancouver routine. I am starting to identify with the place.
- Went to Toronto, Seattle, Belgium, France, Halifax and visited some more of the extremities of British Columbia.
- Picked up yoga more regularly: my chi core is about the size of bowling ball now.
- Had some great visits from people we care for very deeply.
- Moved from one (small, hotel-like, clean) apartment to another (large, real, cleansed).
- Growing into my role(s) at Make. It is fun to be challenged and feel supported at the same time.
- Ate in more different restaurants than in the previous ten years of my life.
- Resolved some of my internal conflicts with regards to science, religion and spirituality.
- Felt overpowering Canadian nationalism at the Storyeum (which has closed since then).
- Started to read like a maniac. VPL: I blame you.
Ah well, and now for another one these "years"...
Mon, 19 Jun 2006
Rambling items
- Summer has decided to do her (or his?) thing again and is blessing us with some pretty nice days. Not going-to-the-beach-and-lying-around-in-water-compatible-versions-of-our-underwear nice, but pretty nice nonetheless.
- We have found a new appartment which is located even nicer than our old one. Not to mention it is twice the size, has character and does not have any clubs positioned under our window. Which is a good thing.
- My job at Make rocks. The people there rock as well. More about that later.
- Rented two movies yesterday: Dark water, which was ok, except for the toe-curling performances by directors and producers in the making-of section, and Coffee and cigarettes, which we still need to finish watching, but was already way too cool and funny. (Iggy Pop and Tom Waits in one scene: my nipples explode with delight)
- I am almost constantly listening to the new Radiohead songs. They have perfected making songs that sound unbalanced and weird on a first hearing, but after ten or so make you want to cry and put them on a constant repeat. Cases in points: There there, Wolf at the door, Videotape, 15 steps, ... Download the bootlegs of the tour they are doing. Please.
- A life where you can discuss operator precedence in the Natural programming language during the day, do a hike like this in the evening and have a loving and beautiful wife to share it all with is pretty much Up There. I am very happy.
- Qwantz is great.
- For the first time in my life I have been able to wear a cowboy hat without any irony, tipping the rim and saying "Ma'am" and all. Proof with too much hair showing.
Tue, 13 Sep 2005
Captain Sam BonneyThis years Talk Like A Pirate Day be comin' up, so I thought I'd make me blog post in pirate speak. me parents be visitin' and we had a great time in Lynn Valley last sunday; we will be headin' up t' Squamish next weekend t' do some hors aft ridin' and hikin'. I also phoned me sister a couple o' times and she seems t' be conquerin' Costa Rica pretty good: I be incredibly proud o' her. Am preparin' a good old fashioned rad trip with t' Guys for next summer that be takin' on shape: San Francisco, Las Vegas, an RV and Burnin' Man: what more could we possibly need... Arrh, ye scurvy dogs!
Mon, 05 Sep 2005
Visit to PNEYesterday, me and my sweet wife went to the Pacific National Exhibition here in Vancouver, and it struck me that I should probably talk a bit more about the cultural differences between Vancouver, Canada and Antwerp, Belgium. I have started of with some of the more basic ones. Forward!
People are nice here, they also talk to each other
When me and/or Carolien step into the elevator of our building, people say hi and will ask how we are doing. When stepping on/of the bus people thank the driver. When we were riding the bus yesterday we saw 3 ladies, strangers to each other, discuss the best brand of canned diced tomatoes. After a couple of weeks here I felt uncomfortable not to join them and add my opinion.
North-American TV is archetypical on a biblical level
When I turn on the TV and flip through the 60 channels, I can fit almost every program into one of a very small number of program templates. Some of these have a special meaning in my heart. I like Bollywood movies and Indian music videos a lot, although I probably never watch it longer than half an hour in a row. Huge dance scenes, Delhi style hip hop, slightly homo-erotic all-male duets and melodies that just do not get out of your head: what is there not to love? Other shows that we do like a lot: Family Guy, Seinfeld, Japanese Iron Chef, The World Championship Of Running Into Closed Doors and wood-work or car-engine DIY shows that alway seem to be recorded inside a parallel universe where the seventies never really went away.
Mountains rock
When I walk through the city and look up to the end of the street and see across the blue sea the peaks of distant mountains hug the sky, I realize this is one heck of a special place to be.
People are fly and sweet, dog
Every Vancouverite younger than 20 years old here thinks he/she is black and living in some ghetto. Nuff said.
Something is missing
Every part of me feels complete and satisfied here and the quality of my life jumped through the roof. Even then: sometimes there is a gap where family and friends should be. Come on guys, move over here, it would be really convenient for us, and you'd probably like it as well!
Thu, 11 Aug 2005
Fulgora 0.2I have released Fulgora version 0.2. It can be downloaded here.
There are quite a number of changes:
* Removed the configuration.pnut file for setting up the ActionManager, this is advanced usage and it should not be that easy to change
* Changed the exensions for the Shows and the Prepares to .show and .prepare.
* The ActionInterceptor can only be used as a Filter from now on
* Requesting an Action is done by giving the extension-less action name
* defining action sets is a lot more intuitive right now
These changes where done to simplify and straighten out the framework even more and were driven by a presentation of Fulgora I did at my new job. The current roadmap looks like this:
0.3: Maintenance release: provide full clean up, getting the extension points and abstractions right, test coverage and structured documentation
0.4: First release with Eclipse plugin support and component strategy
0.5: Public release with movie, article, ...
Wed, 03 Aug 2005
New apartmentWe've finally moved to our permanent apartment here in Vancouver, so my days of carrying boxes and bags around are over, for now. The weather has been absolutely great the last couple of weeks: blazing sun and Technicolor blue skies wake me every morning and a cool breeze calms me to sleep at night.
Right now it is 7:52 AM, I am sitting in my underwear in front of the computer with rays of orange light embracing green skyscrapers outside of my window, the first couple of white boats sailing out into the dark blue Pacific, and the sounds of a city waking up 9 stories below me, when the coffee hits my nose.
Also, if I get any cheezier, I will spontaniously combust into flames and turn into Celine Dion.
The family of Bert, my godchild, is in Vancouver the next couple of days and we will be having dinner at The Mill tonight, so that should be a good deal of fun...
Thu, 14 Jul 2005
The first couple of daysHere is a little update from our first couple of days in Vancouver. Just as we expected, this town rocks like Chuck Berry pushing a rockin' boulder over Jerry Lee Lewis' piano. We live in a short term rental right now that is located in the West End, a 20 minute walk from my future employer, a 5 minute walk from the beach and within walking distance of a couple of hundreds of restaurants and shops.
We already have bank accounts, a cell phone, a shiny iMac and filed rental applications for 2 lovely apartments. Yesterday evening we went for the Vancouver food experience: hot dogs for lunch, some great, and cheap, sushi at Tsunami Sushi for diner and cocktails at some fancy bar afterwards. Today we will be going to a BBQ at Make Technologies and try to seal the deal on the apartments. Fingers crossed.
Also: we have the first set of pictures online at http://futurestreet.org/gallery/?gallery=vancouver-2-2005 .
Fri, 01 Jul 2005
Work permits and city highsMiracle 1
Went to Paris today, for the second time (don't ask), and after a good deal of waiting received my work permit! This basically means that we are all set to leave next Saturday.
Miracle 2
When I returned to Antwerp afterwards, I had to go to the doctor because of a fish bone that was lodged in my throat since eating 'paling in het groen', = eel with vegetables, with my grand parents yesterday. So I arrive at the waiting room, 10 people ahead of me, wait a lot, and when it is almost my turn: swallow the bone. Long live Belgian doctors, it didn't even cost me a dime.
Miracle 3
While going back home from the doctor I walk through the city with my ipod on, listening to 'Bucovina club', and get City High! You know, that feeling that you live in a great city, that all people and their annoying habits are adorable and even a bus filled to the ceiling with sweaty and angry people can not keep a stupid grin of your face. My co-passengers probably thought I was some kind of pervert, but that's ok, I am going to Vancouver anyway :-) I'm glad I got another City High in Antwerp before leaving.
Miracle 4
My dear friend Michael calls me, tells me he is already back from Korea/Germany and that he will be able to attend my farwell party!
Life is pretty good to me....
Thu, 23 Jun 2005
My Jung TypeI am not really into typology, especially not the 'What is your spring eye-shadow color of 2005'-Cosmo type, but Darren Barefoot, a Vancouver blogger, pointed me to this Jung-Myers-Briggs test that was fun enough to actually complete. Apparently I am an INFJ and Carolien is an ISJF. Not really sure what I should do with that information, definitely not sure what you should do with it...
In other news: we are moving in 2 weeks now, getting packed and set, dealing with an unmoved landlord and his disciples, but enjoying the nice weather. It is kind of fun to say goodbye to people, conversations are a tad more intense and satisfying. Went karting yesterday with my ex-colleagues and had a ball. Afterwards we visited a little place called St. Amands, with the most excellent view: a blood red sunset with a decor of the Schelde and the spicky tower of a tiny rural church. People who live in Antwerp, or close by, visit it, it rocks.
Spent the last hour in a cold bath rereading The Great Gatsby. Roger out.
Tue, 14 Jun 2005
Axiom: The Axis Object ModelWell, I guess that explains all of my problems with Axis: their developers have lost it. They have now launched something called Axiom, a DOM-oriented intermediate XML data structure. We already have quite a few of these, they are called DOM, and when you don't want to lose it yourself, XOM. Now we have to learn another one, and, by a first glance on the code, they managed to make it look actually worse than DOM. Evidence:
OMElement documentElement =
OMFactory.newInstance().createOMElement(
"MyDocumentElement",
"http://chinthaka.org",
"myPrefix");
documentElement.setValue("Sample Text");
Sheesh, we can only hope for JAX-WS 2.0 to rescue us from this.