Celebrities in my neighbourhood

Yesterday I forgot to mention that former Jays player Roberto Alomar was at the hotel across the way from our apartment building. Jeannette, whose program was having a conference in the same hotel, suggested that he was in town some kind of fundraising lunch. I really didn't know that baseball was big enough in Halifax for someone like Alomar to be a draw, especially in the winter.

Some how I missed it, but apparently Alomar was just elected to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. I have to imagine that he is the spitiest player there.

I wonder if he is still in town and, if so, whether or not I will see him today?

Score
Cameron 10
Neil 0

A Few Quick Notes 436

-Though there were a few overcast periods, my sense of things (now that I reflect upon them) is that today was generally a pretty nice day. For the past few days the niceness of the days has been something of a surprise as the forecasts have frequently suggested either rain or overcast skies. The continuing inaccuracy of the forecasts frustrates me.

-It seems that I have not completely resolved my spider mite problem. This afternoon I noticed that a few of my pea plants seem to be enduring something of an infestation. Shortly after first observing the presence of these unwelcome guests I sprayed the plants with some pesticide. Tomorrow I may try to rinse them with water and move them outdoors (where the mites will also have to put up with harsh Halifax summers). What a bummer.

-When Rebecca returned from Montreal a few weeks ago she brought with her a copy of the game Power Grid. Though in the immediate aftermath of her return we weren't able to play the game we have finally be able to find the time to sneak a few games in. Not surprisingly, Neil has won most of the games we have played. What has been frustrating is not that I have been losing (something I am used), but that I can't seem to figure out a better strategy. That I have been unable to make progress with my gameplay has been frustrating.

-I have been doing quite a lot of reading this week. Assuming that things go as planned tomorrow I will continue along this trajectory tomorrow as well (and also throughout the weekend).

-The Association of Canadian Archivists are holding their annual conference in a hotel just about a block away from our apartment. At least two of my library school friends will be in attendance. I am hoping that I will get a chance to see both of them before they head out of town once the conference is over.

A Few Quick Notes 404

-Today has been a little chilly, though this hasn't really been much of a problem for me as I spent most of the day indoors. More problematic is that it has also been somewhat overcast, which certainly makes things less pleasant than the need to be.

-I haven't yet figured out what Wednesday night's police action was. I was hoping that it would show up in their daily update blog but it seems not to have made the cut.

-Yesterday we had chicken pot pie for dinner while I went with shepherd's pie tonight. What's up with all of the not-pie pies? Am I going to have to make a regular fruit pie just to balance things out?

-It seems that the Association of Canadian Archivists will be holding their conference in Halifax this summer. The upside of this being the case is that at least one friend of mine from library school, Mary, will be making the trip East to attend the conference. I am hoping that a few more of the archives students may also make the trip, though I didn't see any their names on the conference program.

-Halifax is hosting this year's Brier. Neil attended the first round of this year's Ford Hot Shots this afternoon at the Metro Centre. We have tickets for two games on Sunday. The plan is that Rebecca and I will each attend one game while Neil will go to both of them.

I recently realized that I haven't yet asked Neil if he got a chance to see K-Mart (Kevin Martin) and team while he was attending this afternoon's festivities. Apparently they, along with their gold medals, were to be part of the event and available to sign autographs (I imagine that Neil might have also been able to ask K-Mart what he thinks of the nickname 'K-Mart').

-I should get back to work.

A Few Quick Notes 373

-Today was another great day in Halifax. Though it was above 10 for the better part of the day it is apparently forecast to drop as low as -2 tonight. I am somewhat curious whether this will actually happen or not. At the moment we need to drop another 10 degrees to get there (and that is on top of the 5 that we have already lost since today's high this afternoon).

-We had another tofu stir-fry for dinner tonight.

-Neil and Rebecca attended a few of the torch ceremonies yesterday evening. I was a little bit confused about when and where things were happening so I didn't participate (though I did get a free pre-torch Coke Zero while I was at Dal). Apparently they saw people like Dexter, Campbell, and maybe Crosby.

I guess I should also note that I am probably not a particularly big fan of the Olympic torch relay. The thing about it that I have been finding particularly frustrating is that every day they have been including a half-page story on page 3 of the Globe and Mail about the torch relay. This wasn't news to begin with and it certainly isn't news now that we are three weeks.

-I spent the afternoon in the Nova Scotia archives. While I wasn't as productive as I might have liked to have been, I think that in the end it should be considered a pretty productive trip. Not only did I find some of the stuff I was looking for, I also found a neat letter about Newfoundland in the 1920s.

-I just got back from the grocery store, where I had gone to buy another 10 pounds of carrots before the store closed for the night and the next week's pricing scheme was implemented. In the past week we have purchased 30 pounds of carrots at $1.99 per 10 pound bag. At the moment we have almost 30 pounds of carrots in our fridge.

-The German Marshall Fund sponsored defence conference is supposed to start tomorrow. According to a website I found a few days ago the protest plan is to picket the hotel's entrance tomorrow afternoon (if I recall correctly) and then hold the full-fledged protest on Saturday. I may or may not be here while the pre-protest is on-going tomorrow, but I will definitely try to grab a few pics of Saturday's events.

-I am in the midst of some marking, which is definitely going more slowly that I would like it to be.

A Few Quick Notes 372

-Today (Friday) was quite nice. It was about 10 during the middle of the day, though it has not dropped to just above freezing. For the past few days the weather has been like this, which is nice as it makes for very pleasant walks to school.

-We had pork chops, couscous, and vegetables for dinner tonight. I know that Neil and I were both pleasantly surprised with how tasty and moist the pork chops were. I think our surprise came not because of any inability to cook pork chops that I might have, but rather because the chops were on the thin side (so more likely to dry out).

-My tobacco harvesting has really picked up in the past few days. At the moment I have 13 leaves drying, and a few more basically ready to go into the storage container. At some point soon I am going to have to start figuring out what I want to do with them (a thought that regular readers of this blog will likely find somewhat repetitive).

-A few days ago I made a batch of rum balls. Much to my surprise they have been quite popular. When I was making them I assumed that I would slowly pick away at them for a weeks until they were gone. As things stand now I may actually need to make another batch in a few days if I want more.

-It seems that the German Marshall Fund and Peter MacKay will be hosting a big security conference from November 20-22 at a hotel near our apartment. A week ago I had the pleasure of speaking with a local peace activist who was kind enough to inform me that protests have been scheduled for the conference. While I wasn't to surprised to learn that protestors would be present, particularly when I started to get a better sense of who would be attending, I was a little surprised to learn that this would all be going down within a few hundred feet of our apartment. I guess we will just have to wait and see how things go. Hopefully I will be able to snag a few photos or some video of the events.

-This morning when I woke up I discovered that my shoulder was hurting (I don't think it is enough to worry about it). I guess what surprises me is why this might be the case. What could I have done to myself during the night to have caused such a situation? Hopefully things will be back to normal by tomorrow.

-Today I signed up for a Google Wave account. At the moment I am not really sure if I will have an occassion to use such a service but it seemed that it would be better to have access than not.

A Few Quick Notes 371

-Regular readers will know that we had some rather poor weather today. The worst part of the mess was the slush that resulted from the combination of the snow and rain. Fortunately, the precipitation seems to have stopped, at least for the time being.

-Earlier this evening I cut up a few vegetables. Of course it seemed like a good idea to make a time-lapse video of the ordeal.



[Embedded video]

-I attended the second half of a one day conference this afternoon. The conference was in honour of the 100th anniversary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I arrived just after the lunch break as the Assistant Deputy Minister was speaking. By coming in part way through his talk I kind of missed the gist of the whole thing.

-We might play a few games this evening.

-The tofu kick continues. We had a tofu stir-fry for dinner and we have another pound in the fridge, ready to go.

(last minute) Road trip!

Yesterday afternoon I received an email from a classmate reminding me the Atlantic Provinces Political Science Association conference that was to take place today in Wolfville and asking if I was interested in getting a ride with him. As I had been hoping to attend this conference but had allowed it to slip my mind I was quite pleased to receive this email, as it also included a way to get to the conference.

This morning I got up bright and early so that we could be on the road by 7:15, as we needed to register between 8:00 and 9:00. While the drive took a little longer than I expected, we did manage to make it with a little time to spare (though I wouldn't have wanted to leave any later).

Once we had completed the registration procedure we made our way to a local coffee shop to pick up some coffee. I am not sure if I had lower standards because of the time of day but my recollection is that the coffee was much better than average. I would definitely consider going back the next time I am in Wolfville. (The coffee break coffee was also great today, so maybe they just know how to make coffee in Wolfville).

Things started on a very positive note for me as the first presentation of the day was on the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly, a subject close to my heart. Eventually I was able to get a chance to speak with the presenter and exchange email addresses (I took his as he had cards and I didn't). Though not quite as close to my area of interest, many of the presentation topics were, nonetheless, quite engaging.

During the lunch break I was pleased to be able to talk with a faculty member of the education program at Acadia and a grad student from the University of Toronto. It seems that the grad student and I have a few mutual acquaintances, which is nice to know. The education prof was able to provide me with some information about teacher certification and the problems associated with moving between jurisdictions.

The other incredibly enjoyable parts of the trip were the rides to and from Wolfville. It was great to get a chance to talk Nova Scotia politics with the classmate giving me a ride as he is definitely a little more in-tune with things here than I am (given that he is from Nova Scotia, among other things).

A Few Quick Notes 309

-Though occasionally overcast, today was a generally nice day. As far as I can tell, it was generally warmer than predicted. Apparently tomorrow is to be the first very warm day of the year, with temperatures that are expected to go as high as 26. If this is the case, it could be a little warm for my liking.

-I am now 2/22 on this year's Roll Up the Rim to Win contest. As supplies of cups are running out or have run out, I don't imagine that I will manage to really improve my rather dismal record at this point. I guess I need to re-group and come at things strong next year.

-Just moments ago I woke up from a nap. Originally the nap was supposed to be 45 minutes at most, it turned out to have run 1 hour and 15 minutes. As I ended up setting my alarm incorrectly I guess I am luck that I ended up only sleeping for an extra 30 minutes and not several hours.

-If my most recent 'stache was any indication, it seems that temporary tattoos may last longer than mustaches.

While I was out walking last night I realized that I had a conference to attend today which. Though it may have been unnecessary, I thought it would be best if I shaved before attending this morning's opening session.



-The conference, which is on the European Union and is my first full-fledged academic conference, is quite informative. Unfortunately, I was relatively tired for most of the day (the 9:00 AM starts really hit me hard). There are a number of sessions tomorrow that should be quite good.

-It seems that the swine flu problem in Nova Scotia has only gotten worse since it was first reported yesterday. CBC is now reporting that it seems that the disease has likely spread beyond the original four cases, which should not be all that surprising considering that it is contagious. As you might have expected, this news hasn't really comforted me.

A Few Quick Notes 283

-The reported high today was 9 degrees, and as this temperature was recorded at the airport I would imagine that it actually broke 10 degrees in downtown Halifax. The high temperatures and clear skies have made for a decidedly springy feel. Unfortunately it has already dropped to just 2, and is forecast to head below zero for most of the rest of the week.

-Yesterday I attended a few sessions of a conference sponsored by Dalhousie's Centre for Foreign Policy Studies. All of presenters were graduate students studying some form of international relations. The events during the day were relatively traditional presentations with question and answer periods afterwards. The way they did the question and answer periods was rather strange. Instead of taking a question from the audience and answering it, they collected several questions and then had the presenters answer a number of questions in a row. I don't think that I would recommend this method.

In the evening I was able to attend the closing dinner at the Lord Nelson hotel, the event included an address from Canadian Senator Hugh Segal. What was surprising about the dinner was how sparsely attended it was by participants. I guess a number had already left town, but you would think that if you were in town you would at least stick around for a free meal at a fancy hotel.

-Between the final presentation session and the dinner I went to a classmate's house. Shortly after arriving I started talking with a few of my classmate's girlfriend's friends. All of a sudden I realized that I had attended high school with one of the friends, as well as the friend's older sister. Not surprisingly, this woman didn't recognize me as I don't think we spoke to each other during our entire time in high school (I only knew who she was because I was in the same grade as the older sister).

-We managed to lose another Ultimate game this evening. This game we forfeited because we had not female players, apparently none of them could make it. We ended up playing a scrap game, which was OK, but not quite the same as a real game. The frustrating part of the loss is that this is one of the few teams we have actually beaten, so a victory was a distinct possibility.

-I had to make a post-game trip to the grocery store. I was able to pick up both butter and celery, among a few other relatively standard items.

What's up with me

So it's been a while since I've posted. I'll start off with a quick summary of my last couple months.

In October, I got home safely from my trip to Georgia for the INTEGERS conference. November must have been pretty uneventful, because I don't remember it. Christmas was a little lame, haha, but good. In January I went to a conference in Banff. The conference was in my research area, Combinatorial Game Theory, and I was happy to meet Elwyn Berlekamp and Richard Guy among others. After the conference I spent a couple days in Calgary with friends (who shall remain nameless as per Cameron's convention). Then I spent about 24 hours in/going to/coming from airports, finally arriving back in Halifax. In February, March and April I was mostly doing schoolwork. However, in that time I attended talks given by Gwynne Dyer, Preston Manning and Art Benjamin (a mathemagician). Also, I went to the East Coast Combinatorics Conference (ECCCCCCCC) in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. In May, Rebecca and I found a place for the three of us to live in September. Subsequently our living room was filled with boxes shipped on Montreal.

Next week, Kirsten comes for a visit and we're moving.

Today, Rebecca's father arrives. He drove here via the Port-aux-Basques ferry. Also, I have a ultimate (frisbee) game today. I joined a team that played last year and has a couple of my friends on it. Today will be our third game. Our record so far is 1-1. Fortunately all our games so far have been at 'The Commons', which is within walking distance. Unfortunately next week's game is much further away, and thus I'll have a bum a ride with someone.

I'll finish'er off with a quick weather report. It is sunny, and the internet says it is warm. Our apartment is quite cool became the hasn't been hitting our side of the building for very long, and not much other than direct sunlight warms us up at 27 floors.

A Few Quick Notes 100

-Today is another less than stellar Spring day in St. John’s. This morning started with flurries and temperatures in the range of zero. Gradually the day warmed up a little, though still stay well away from double digits. At one point the clouds actually left and we had something approaching sun. Maybe in a few weeks we will actually have leaves.

-While moving some boxes at work today I managed to do something that I have never done before, which is to catch my back pocket on a door handle. Somehow as I was backing through the door I managed to have to handle enter my back left pocket. As I continued to move backwards I managed to have the handle punch a hole in my pants and allow me to be hooked to the door. Classy moves.

-As the Frisbee season approaches the number of Frisbee related emails have started to once again increase. While I seem to be getting a few this year it comes no where near the record that was set in my first year.

The process of selecting the team name sparked a flurry of emails. An early suggestion of ‘Nth Team’ gain early support but failed to maintain several of its original supporters. After several non-starters Combustible Huckstables was agreed upon. Fortunately I did not enter this debate to the extent I was thinking about at one early stage.

-Trivia seems to be taking up a pretty large part of my social life. On Tuesdays I have been going to the Rose and Thistle while Thursdays are for Bitters. Unfortunately all of this practice has not been paying off in recent weeks. For two weeks in a row at Bitters my team has mis-trumped and at the Rose and Thistle we keep getting the fifty-fifties wrong. Clearly more practice is needed.

-It seems that we are just about out of that batch of bread I made a few days ago. Hopefully I will get a chance to make a replacement batch on either Saturday or Sunday. Maybe this time I will up the batch size with hopes of the resulting bread sticking around a little longer.

-Last night I played an almost wheat-less five player game of Settlers. This resource scarcity really slowed down game play. At one part in the game I felt as though I did not get any production for about 20-30 min. My game wasn’t helped by the fact that I doubled up on 4s and 5s, an ill-advised move at the best of time (unless the 4s are due).

-If memory serves me correctly, I think that I spent a few hours looking through press releases today. The goal of the exercise was to locate press releases indicating the release of the report of a judicial inquiry. Fortunately most of these reports are accompanied by such press releases. The unfortunate side of things is that the collection of press releases that I was manually browsing is not complete, and it must be browsed manually with the assistance of a comprehensive index. Hopefully I only have a few volumes at the most to look through tomorrow.

-While at the CLA conference a few days ago I noticed that one of my main roles was not the provision of information, but to direct people to other who could do a better job of providing accurate information. This status was somewhat confirmed by the presence of an “Ask Me” ribbon that was attached to my volunteer badge.

To me this seemed pretty much like the traditional ‘See’ reference from the library world. Maybe next year they might be able to introduce a little bit of library humour and convert the ‘Ask Me’ ribbon into a ‘See Reference’ ribbon.

Comments on CLA Conference 2007

For a few days this week the Canadian Library Association (CLA) held their annual conference in St. John’s. While I was not fortunate enough to attend the event as a full-fledged I was able to be a volunteer, a position that allowed me to get a pretty broad sense of the conference (though there were certainly elements that I missed out on, namely the socials and receptions). As I was kicking around the conference facilities a few things struck me:

-So far it has been my experience that many library students wear cardigans, both males and females. It was not my experience than conference-attending librarians wear cardigans.

-Librarians are attracted to what they perceive as free food. The trade show was seemingly stormed each time lunch or snacks were made available to delegates. It was nice to see that many of these food eaters were responsible and wanted to properly dispose of all of their garbage.

-Free trade show giveaways are greatly appreciated. While acting as a trade show greeter (AKA badge checker) I saw people walk out with bags full of items though they had only been collecting these items for a few minutes. I myself picked up about a bag and a half of items and I was less aggressive than some individuals.

-Of all the demographic groups that would reasonably be represented at this conference it seemed to me that the young male group was the most underrepresented. During the conference I saw only a handful of males who looked to be under thirty.

-The quality of presentation really ranged. One that I saw was great, while another completely failed to keep my attention. The amount of time given to these presenters also ranged, and unfortunately the best presentation had only an hour while one of the more painful ones had an hour and a half.

-For some reason many of the presentations were done in a pseudo-panel form. I was never quite able to figure this out. To me it seemed that just having individuals, or people working on a particular project, might have made more sense. This combining of related, but not directly related, presentations just did not work for me.

-While a few library students did attend the conference, the number seemed quite small. This issue was to be dealt with by a resolution that was to be presented at CLA AGM on Saturday (obviously I did not attend).

-On the whole I would recommend that library students attend this or an equivalent conference at some point during their library school period of time.

A Few Quick Notes 96

-Today turned out to be a pretty a semi-typical Newfoundland day. When I went to work in the morning it was quite overcast and damp. This type of weather continued for some number of hours. Without my noticing the day somehow actually became quite nice by the time I left work. Though it was only about 10 degrees we didn’t have any wind to make it feel much cooler. This is particularly nice as there have rumblings of snow in recent forecasts. The strange thing is that we still don’t have any leaves on the trees, though as of the past few days some have started to show buds.

-Today was garbage day in my part of town. Under normal circumstance one might not think that this is worth noting, but for the past year or so a by-law has been in effect which has been forcing people to cover their garbage with the aim of preventing birds from tearing the garbage bags apart. Based on my non-random sample, most people seem to be using nets of one description or another. What is funny about this concept is that most of the nets I walk past on every garbage day come no where close to actually covering all of the garbage bags. If entire bags aren’t exposed, most lawns will have a least a section of a bag or two exposed. Compliance seems on to the letter of the law and certainly not to the spirit.

-Once again I went to the Rose and Thistle for their weekly trivia night, though this time with Dougal and Peter. While we did not win outright we did manage to tie the tie-breaker and split the prize. Amazingly, we still had some of our original winnings left at the end of the night.

-The CLA conference should be starting next week in St. John’s. We will be swamped with librarians. Unfortunately, only a few (or maybe just one) will be making the trip.

-For the past few days I have been eating grapefruit every morning. This is somewhat strange because I typically don’t eat all that much fruit. What is even stranger is that when we didn’t have any grapefruit this morning I definitely felt as though something was missing. Fortunately, some grapefruit was purchased this afternoon. I keep thinking that I should make up for this morning’s missed grapefruit by having one shortly.

-Occasionally on my way to work I stop at the local Tim Horton’s to pick a coffee to drink on my way to work. For some reason on at least two days this week (the only two days I have checked) the line has been extended past the door. In the number of years I have walked by this Tim Horton’s I have never seen this even once, and now I have seen it twice in one week. The only fortunate thing about this Tim Horton’s is that they seem particularly efficient when it comes to serving customers. One thing that seems to help them along is that they are very good at remembering the orders of regular customers and preparing them before the order is even placed.