dhunay.blog

Monday, June 30, 2003

An Armpit by any other name...

My morning routine is fairly simple, generally because I like it quiet in the morning. After meeting the basic hygiene requirements I proceed to breaking my fast and providing my internal piping the fiber that it so badly needs. I typically grab a bowl of Kellogg's Bran Flakes, which contains the highest level of fiber for a cereal that doesn't taste like cardboard. And while enjoying my bowl of bran flakes I like to read the Calgary Herald - the only true newspaper in Calgary. This morning while I was perusing the cover page I came across an article that suddenly grabbed my attention and had me intrigued. The title of the article was "Man armpit smell soothes women". Obviously the first question that comes to mind is "why are men drawn to topics of armpits, flatulence, or loud, volumous burps?" Getting back to the article...

"...new research by two adjunct professors at the University of Pennsylvania indicates the smell of underarm secretions makes women feel more relaxed and less tense. A sniff of pit juice also alters the length and timing of a woman's menstrual cycle, which in turn, affects fertility...the latest study is that the therapeutic smells studied...came from male armpits."

This is an absolutely great finding. We now understand why men's armpits smell the way they do. So why is it that after reading this article to my wife, she turned down my offer to let her sniff my armpit on a regular basis? I just don't understand women.

# posted by Nav : 8:08 PM

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Beautiful

Today was an extremely tiring day. I decided to spend the day away from my computer and focus my physical energies on my landscaping. Bright eyed and bushy tailed I stepped outside at 8:30 into what seemed like a backyard full of quicksand. The past 4 days of downpouring cloud juice had turned my un-sodded backyard into a bowl of cream-of-mud. And that cream was now sticking to my boots.

My landscapers arrived at 9:30 as usual. Boy what a life. Come into work at 9:30, leave at 3:30 and spend the entire day under a bright blue sky. These guys have it good.

2 of the landscapers spent the better part of the day cleaning out my pond. In the process I think one of them shorted out my water pump. Argghhh. The other landscaper spent the day putting together a single garden box. Now I'm no professional landscaper, but I would think that putting together a garden box wouldn't take 5 hours. And they're still hoping to have everything done by the end of next week. Anybody want a bridge?

... and this one goes out to all the girls I've loved before.

# posted by Nav : 9:26 PM

Monday, June 23, 2003

I://don_t.have/a/problem

A few months ago, I heard a woman on the radio mention the term 'Electronic Addiction'. It hit a nerve with me. I'd never heard the term previously, but had always figured some such phenomena waited to be identified. I've always been addicted to electronic stimulus.

There are lots of great sites about Internet Addiction. The most well-established seem to be The Center for Online and Internet Addiction and InternetAddiction.ca.

I didn't need this quiz to tell me that I have a wee bit of a, ahem, problem; but I did the quiz anyway. For the question, "How often do you neglect household chores to spend more time on-line?" I answered, "Often". I found it painfully amusing when I got to the end of the quiz and read the following:

"If you answered 'Often' to Question #2 regarding your neglect of household chores, were you aware of just how often your dirty laundry piles up or how empty the refrigerator gets?"

No comment.

Food for thought before you leave....why is it that drug addicts and computer afficionados are both called users?

# posted by Nav : 9:02 AM

Friday, June 20, 2003

When Will It Stop

My personal view on body piercings and body modification can be summed up in one word...yuck! And now body modification has been taken to the height of insanity. The latest trend among teens and 20-somethings who indulge in so-called extreme body modification is forking one's tongue like a serpent's.

The process is nothing short of gory. The tongue is clamped in place, numbed and slit 2 inches up the middle, looking uncomfortably like a piece of raw liver freshly cut by a butcher. Other methods entail tying increasingly tighter pieces of thread through a pierced hole or cutting with a laser. Blood gushes out of the mouth and over the lip for a few minutes, and is then abated with several doses of mouthwash.

Sounds like fun.

# posted by Nav : 8:14 PM

So Cute I'm Dying.

I read in a magazine today that pet prairie dogs have transmitted what was at first thought to be smallpox to several people in the American Midwest. Then it turned out not to be smallpox, but a strain of monkeypox usually only found in Africa. Two things: first, pet gophers? Honestly. The owners deserve to get sick. Talk to any Alberta farmer: gophers is what you shoots, not what you plays with. Second: "monkeypox" is just far too cute a name for a disease. You can't be alarmed by "monkeypox," "binkyitis," or "fluffybunny syndrome." Acronyms are much scarier: AIDS, SARS. But, double bets that several garage bands are changing their names to "MönkeyPöx" as I write this.

# posted by Nav : 8:01 PM

Friday, June 13, 2003

These things are supposed to be easy

U.S. President George W. Bush is pictured in this combo image falling off a Segway personal transporter on the front driveway of his parents' summer home June 12, 2003 in Kennebunkport, Maine. Bush arrived from Washington to spend the weekend with his father, former President George Bush, who celebrates his 79th birthday today and his mother Barbara. Bush was not injured in the fall.

# posted by Nav : 8:29 PM

Thursday, June 12, 2003

Stop It Or You'll Go Blind

CNN today reported that there is a sex problem in England. It appears that you lads are shagging a bit much.

Well I happen to be a Canadian that firmly believes that the American Revolutionary War was a clerical error. The only thing it achieved was to create a dysfunctional market. Americans can't get good fish and chips and the British can't make cars and motor bikes that don't leak oil. I think there should be a reunification of the two countries. Which will allow for such problems to migrate across borders.

Getting back to the shagging. Shag on and if you feel that you need help....

# posted by Nav : 11:31 AM

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Definition of RAM

RAM: attempt by certain large vendors to shove their proprietary technology solutions down your enterprise.

I am continually shocked by the number of, seemingly, intelligently run organizations that allow large vendors to dictate what systems they must use and what software they must run.

I think part of this is due to the fact that organizations still believe that they must stick to the current ERP paradigm of tightly coupled, seemlessly integrated systems. A paradigm that will change dramatically when web services become ubiquitous. I believe that the new services paradigm will allow for lossly coupled systems that don't require proprietary interfaces.

So should these organizations start kicking back at their vendors and demanding change? Or continue to have solutions RAMed down their enterprise?

# posted by Nav : 1:48 PM

Monday, June 09, 2003

Teaching Differences

This evening my daughter, who will be 4 this August, and I were watching a talent search show, similar to American Idol. This show, called Fame, showcased individuals that could dance and sing equally well. During this evenings show an individual that was of oriental ethinicity performed the Jackson Five hit "I'll Be There". I'll keep my personal opinion on his performance to myself. While watching his performance, my daughter turned to me and asked me, "why are his eyes closed?" The question caught me off gaurd. Immediatley I was not quite sure how to explain to her that his eyes were not closed but instead that is how is eyes are. I very much love the differences that exist between different races. I think the physical differences that exist between people is probably the most beautiful thing in nature. Could you imagine how boring it would be if we all looked the same?

Now what's the right way of teaching this to my daughter?

# posted by Nav : 9:28 PM

Saturday, June 07, 2003

Mother Tongues

Just like half of the world's spoken tongues, most of the 2,300-plus computer programming languages are either endangered or extinct. As powerhouses C/C++/C#, Visual Basic, Cobol, Java, and other modern source codes dominate our systems, hundreds of older languages are running out of life.

An ad hoc collection of engineers - electronic lexographers - aim to save, or at least document, the lingo of classic software. They're combing the globes 9 million developers in search of coders still fluent in these nearly forgotten lingua francas. Among the most endangered are Ada, APL, B (the predecessor of C), Lisp, Oberon, Smalltalk and Simula.

If your fluent in any of these languages, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me a line.

# posted by Nav : 9:45 PM

Thursday, June 05, 2003

Lesson Learned

A couple weeks back a good friend of mine helped me dig trenches to bury my irrigation system in my back yard. Trying to be a think ahead kinda person I also dropped in some electrical wiring for landscape lighting - the low voltage type. When everything was completed, we filled in the trenches and toasted each other with a bottle of Corona. Now we're in the midst of building a pond. The excavation is complete and we are ready to throw in the liner. I've also started shopping around for the pond equipment (a pump and a filter system (we plan on keeping fish in the pond)). Both these pieces of equipment will require power. And so of course I think to myself "this is great, we've already buried the electrical wire for this, so it should be a piece of cake". But then the guy at the pond store tells me that I need high voltage wiring for the pond equipment. And to make matters worse, by city ordance you cannot directly bury high voltage wiring - it must be encased in a conduit of some sort.

Back to Home Depot I go to buy some high voltage wire. I decide to purchase the type that is already encased in a metal and rubber conduit.

I spent the better part of this morning digging a new 70 foot long trench for the high voltage wiring that I require for my pond equipment.

Hopefully that's the last trench I will ever dig in my life.

# posted by Nav : 2:17 PM

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

I hate warm beer

One of the neatest devices I recently purchased was an Apple iPod. I've got to hand it to Apple, they've done a kick-ass-job designing and building this thing. I picked up a 30GB unit, which allows me to have my entire music collection with me wherever I go. To help with the listening in my vehicle, I recently purchased a Belkin Auto Kit. This allows me to charge my iPod while I'm driving, and it has a built in amplifier for amplifying the sound. My vehicle, a Cadillac Escalade, has RCA jacks which I connect the iPod to, so I don't need those useless FM transmitters. One thing that puzzles me, is that Belkin claims that the unit shuts itself off when the vehicle is turned off. I think they must have designed this, thinking that we're all still driving Henry Ford's Model-T. Todays generation of vehicles do not disable the power outlets when the vehicle is off. The power outlets continue to provide power continously, and therefore could drain your battery if you leave something plugged in for too long. If vehicles did disable power outlets, could you imagine what would happen to your cooler full of beer sitting in the back of your vehicle?

# posted by Nav : 9:31 AM

Monday, June 02, 2003

To Be An Expert

Recently I bought a sheet of clear acrylic from Home Depot. I was planning on using it as a frame for my in-wall web pad. While I was picking this up at Home Depot, I was approached by a CSR (Customer Service Representative for all you lay people) who asked me if I needed any assistance. I asked him if he knew anything about acrylic sheets and the best way to cut them. He very quickly responded that he was an expert and knew exactly how to cut it. I tried to listen very attentively but found it difficult to focus because the man spat excessively while he spoke. I wasn't quite sure if I was getting free advice or a free shower.

Today I decided to try my luck at cutting the acrylic using the exact method outlined by the expert at Home Depot. To make a long story short...I'll be buying a new piece of acrylic tomorrow. And as is the norm with the male species I'm blaming the instructions for the destruction of my acrylic sheet.

This incident made me wonder "what exactly makes an expert an expert?"

# posted by Nav : 11:42 AM

Sunday, June 01, 2003

Final Goodbye

My grandmother passed away May 19. She was a gentle, caring and loving person. Since then we've had friends and family in from out of town. The last out-of-town visitors left today. I very much enjoyed seeing my relatives again. The entire ordeal reminded me of how important family is. And how important it is for my daughter to know her relatives. I'm now committed to making sure that I stay in touch with my distant relatives. And since most of them have e-mail that should make it easier.

# posted by Nav : 10:12 PM

Archived

I have archived my blog entries prior to June 2003. If you need access please e-mail me and I'll post them.

# posted by Nav : 9:11 PM