General

Brace yourselves friends, for I am about to do something that I virtually never do. Those who know me will understand that talking about work is something that I rarely do, and usually only when prompted. The inevitable questions around 'what do you do' sort of bore me, because to me work stays at work, and when I leave the building, I don't take it with me. However, in an unprecedented case of giving a crap, I've decided to venture out and post a little something about my current work stuff. Don't worry, this site will not devolve into a diatribe about my daily grind. Trust me, both you and I are probably much more interested in my other life ;-). However, I've gotta get this off my chest, so please read on for a rare insight into WorkerSteve.

Howdy everyone, and welcome to ActiveSteve 3.0! Yup, it was time to throw the switch on the things I've been working on in the background for a while with respect to this website. In celebration of the fact that ActiveSteve has essentially been reborn as a result of getting the clean bill of health, I decided to get my portal re-vectored in anticipation of my future adventures :-) Although I've always been pretty happy with the site that I had, it was time to try some new things. Well, that and the fact that my server host has been sort of trying to get me to upgrade my underlying content management system (CMS), Drupal specifically. Of course I'm sure you're not all that interested in the boring techy side of this. You're probably just interested in finding out what exactly I've changed, what's new, and what you can do here at the new ActiveSteve. I'll keep is relatively short, but if you'd like to actually read about what's new, rather than just messing around yourself, click the link to read more.

Yes my dear friends, it's that time of the year. The air is turning cold, and the leaves have all changed colour and are fluttering to the ground. You know it's going to happen, but you're reluctant to admit it, and would just rather keep running in shorts and a tank top. Unfortunately, it's becoming readily apparent that something does have to give here. I don't have a really deep or meaningful story to share with you this time, but just a brief update on what was up on the weekend for me. The main event of the weekend was supposed to be a wine and cheese soiree downtown, but the host ended up falling ill, which meant we had to put the kaibash on that plan at the last second. Not to fret, there's always plenty to do, right my friends? Read on for a couple Seinfeldian paragraphs about 'nothing' to keep you entertained for a few minutes. You can also gander at some pictures that we snapped on Saturday.

Since I've got your attention on these matters, I think I'll also share another source of inspiration that I've unearthed. I was going to tack this onto the end of my last post, but decided that it was important enough to get it's very own post. This inspiration comes from an unlikely source. Well, maybe not unlikely, but undiscovered by me until just today. It came in the form of a news article shared to me today by Larry, an old co-worker of Jody's from her CREA days. This article was about a fellow by the name of Randy Pausch, who just died today from pancreatic cancer. He was a university prof with a very distinguished pedigree in the world of virtual reality. So just what is the source of inspiration from him? Well that would be his 1hr and 16min lecture that he delivered in September 2007, which was his 'Last Lecture'. Basically, profs at Carnegie Mellon are given the chance to reflect on their lives and give a lecture based on what they would say if it would be the last lecture they would ever be giving before dying. Well, in an odd twist, Randy was actually doing just that. He had already been handed his death sentence resulting from the cancer diagnosis, and had to come to grips with it.

Well, since many of you may also follow Kev's blog, you'd already be aware that he made the jump and actually stood in line to buy a new iPhone. Of course, he's already written up a post about that, and you can read it in all its glory, should you be inclined. I myself chose not to make that leap. I'll be holding off on either buying an iPhone or a BlackBerry until my employer opts to make it part of my everyday life. This may surprise some of you, and it was indeed a conscious decision and thought, but I just can't justify spending $1000+ a year on that kind of service. Why? Well, I've got lots of computers already. I have a couple iPods already. I have a cell phone, a work phone, and a home phone. I have several GPS devices (car, wrist, computer, handheld). Do I need to bring them all together just so that I can use them on a whim while walking or in the bus or car? Nope. I decided I don't. As exciting as the new tech may be, I think I still ascribe to the belief that dedicated units are better. Surely Kev will disagree, and I respect that, but I decided it isn't for me. However, that didn't stop me from jumping on a bandwagon just the same, and forking over the same amount of money. What did I get? Well, the XBOX 360 of course! When the price for the 20Gb model dropped to $299, I couldn't resist any longer. Read on for a little story about that if you'd care to.

Howdy folks! Well, the October of relaxation just rolls along for ActiveSteve. The weekend after my nice relaxing trip to Mont Tremblant I had a few fun little plans lined up. The first such exciting plan was a Halloween shooter party on Friday night, followed by the Terri and Adam wedding on Saturday at the Beantown Ranch. Both events were a great time, and are a good prelude to my upcoming hiatus from Canada to the warm winds of New Zealand. I'll keep the story brief this time, because frankly, I've been spending my work days writing, and have plenty of other things to keep me busy at the moment. However, just to keep things consistent, as always, you can check out some of the weekend pictures. They're all from the wedding, as the Halloween pictures were inconsistent, and not particularly great. Explanation to follow.. read on :-)

Hey gang! Okay, so the title is a little misleading. All the same, this post is about a little trip we recently took to Mont Tremblant. This trip was a week and a half ago, and was Alix, Matt, Jody and I who spent the weekend there. The weekend was actually a thank-you prize that I received at this year's Quest for a Cure as a result of being the team that raised the most money for the Ottawa Regional Cancer Center. I was given a free weekend at a 2 bedroom condo at Hotel du Lac, a resort located across Lac Tremblant . The reason we had to wait so long to use the prize is that I've been too busy with races and such up until now. However, now that I'm on my month of fun, it was a prime time to get out there. If you'd like to do so, check out a whole pile of pictures we took over the weekend.

Howdy sports fans. Well, I guess this really isn't a sports-related post, as my season is sort of over for 2007, but there are sports and games involved. That is, if you consider drinking beer and schnapps a sport! Yup, Jody and I returned to our October tradition of heading to Oktoberfest in Kitchener-Waterloo. In the past 7 years, I've been there 5 times, and Jody has been there 4 times. Each year, a different crew of us head down to Alix's parents place, where we sleep in the basement, have a delicious Turkey dinner on Saturday, and of course head to the local sights and Festhallen for some Bavarian treats. Although there's not a whole lot to tell you about the weekend (you sorta have to be there to understand it), I'll still give you a little sense of the fun. Also, you can head over to Flickr to check out some pictures from the weekend. On with the tale.