A Few Quick Notes 73

-Today was quite warm and slushy. The temperature seems to have risen quickly early this morning.

This quick change has made a mess of the large amount of ice that was starting to accumulate on the sidewalks and street corners. This problem is the greatest just up the street form me as we seem to have had a water mane break. This caused a huge amount of ice build up, which is now slush.

-It seems that Ms. Devereaux’s team lost in extra ends at the World Junior Curling Championships. They were up two going into the tenth only to give up a steal of two. They then gave up a steal of 1 in the eleventh for the loss. I was thinking they had it locked up when I saw the score after nine.

-Mr. Gushue plays tomorrow. A win by Newfoundland would be only second Brier win for Newfoundland. The first came 1976.

-As I received my tips last night and had some cash in hand I went grocery shopping today. Some of my first purchases were herbal tea. In total I ended up purchasing three flavours, two of them new to me. At Eden I purchased some Celestial Seasonings Red Zinger (my favourite) and some Stash Mango Passionfruit. At Lobos I purchased some Traditional Medicinals Organic Rose Hips herbal tea. So far I am not all that impressed with either the rose hip or mango/passionfruit.

My total is now nine flavours of herbal tea in my apartment and two in my locker at school for a total of eleven.

Most of my other purchases were either sale items or cheap produce, including a carton of fresh raspberries for a dollar.

-Today was a busy day at library school. All kinds of people, including myself, were in the lounge working on group projects. Hopefully my collection development project is nearing a completion point.

-My “Roll Up The Rim” losing streak has been extended by another loss. Maybe I will keep it going tomorrow.

Losing Streak

I am now 0-12 on this season's "Roll up the Rim" contest. Maybe I need to switch up my technique, so far I have been ordering the same thing each day. The problem with changing my order is that there isn't anything else that I would really want to order.

I guess I will keep at it with the extra-large black coffees, eventually I should manage to win something, if only a muffin.

Curling

It looks as though Mr. Gushue finished second in the Brier round-robin, guaranteeing him a place in the finals. Earlier in the week things weren't looking that good, I believe at one point his record was 1 - 3. Fortunately, he was able to turn things around and go on a 7 game winning streak to finish the round.

His first play-off game will be tonight with the finals on Sunday.

A Newfoundland team is also competing at the World Junior's. It looks as though Deveraux's team has made the playoffs in that competition also.

It is an odd experience to see people against whom I used to curl at the top of the game. One dosen't expect this sort of things from Newfoundland based sports teams. I guess the St. John's Curling Club after school program has some results to show for its efforts.

A Few Quick Notes 72

-Today is another chilly day in Montreal. At the moment it is almost -20, though with little to no wind.

According to the current Environment Canada forecast we should see above zero temperatures on Saturday and Sunday. Maybe this is the end of Winter that Nithum predicted a few days ago.

-My “Roll Up The Rim” losing streaks keeps going. I am currently 0 for 11 with no sign of things turning around. I guess “Roll Up The Rim” isn’t really targeted at me anyway, I buy the same amount of coffee each day no matter what the promotion is.

-Tefko Saracevic, a big name in the library and information studies field, will be giving a talk at McGill today. It is my intention to attend.

-Tonight is another work night at Thomson House. I think that there might be some event going on tonight, but I don’t know what that would be.

A Few Quick Notes 71

-Another pretty nice winter’s day in Montreal. I guess it was well below zero, though there wasn’t anything too intense to deal with. It seems that within a few days we may actually be in for some above zero temperatures.

-I had another full day today. The day started with laundry, not one of my favourite tasks. From laundry I headed on to class. From class I went to the lounge to work on a project with a partner for about four hours. From the group work I went to St. Laurent to buy some sinus medication and stop by my bank. Then it was back home, where I had some food and am back to work (though at a less intense pace).

-It has finally come to my attention that I am really in need of a haircut. While I don’t really mind long hair I don’t think that it is for me. The one very nice thing about long hair is that I don’t have to do that much and I don’t have to keep on top of getting haircuts. I guess it might end up going in time for summer employment. The downside of this would be that I will have not really experienced long hair in the way that I had hoped to because it still isn’t really all that long.

-Though we are in the midst of an election in Quebec I haven’t heard that much about it. My studies and napping have been keeping me away from my normal newspaper habit, something I am only indulging in on the weekends these days. Hopefully I will get a bit of a sense of how things will go before the actual election. Maybe I will even be as bold as to make some ill-informed predictions.

-My herbal tea consumption rate is as high as ever. I think that I must have used 5 or 6 bags yesterday, most of them after 10:00 PM.

A Few Quick Notes 70

-Another chilly day in Montreal. Apparently, with wind chill, it is down to almost -40. While this is the official story I am not sure that it is correct, at least where I live. It was certainly cold on my walk to school today, but not as cold as it has been at other points this year.

-As of today I have had my mustache for a week. While I don’t really think that it is much of an improvement over the beard, it does get more laughs. In fact, frequently when I look at myself in the mirror, say when I am brushing my teeth, I start to laugh. It is nice to bring a smile to people’s faces.

Another nice thing about the mustache over the beard is that I seem to be scaring people a little less. It seems that many people on subway platforms felt a little uncomfortable around a tall, unshaven, scraggily haired, shorts wearing guy. As I don’t consider myself to be a scary person I didn’t really enjoy getting this reaction.

-I have been suffering from a slight cold-type ailment for a few days now. While I have been taking some cold medication I finally switched to a sinus medication and it seems to have eliminated my sinus pain. Part of the problem is that it took me a while to identify the problem as a sinus problem. Even if I don’t get better at least I will be medicated correctly.

-I should get back to work. I have to head back to school this afternoon to work on a collection development policy project. Maybe when I get back I will try to tackle my case study.

A Few Quick Notes 69

-Another winter’s day in Montreal. Though it wasn’t all that cold during the better part of the day, the temperature has now started to drop. According to Environment Canada it is supposed to go as low as -24 with a windchill of -38. I am hoping that it will have warmed up a little by the time I have to head out for class at 8:40. This development also calls into question Nithum’s prediction that winter was on its way out and that spring was here.

-Next week will be a pretty brutal week for assignments. I have two due on Monday (for a total of 65% of the course mark), one due on Wednesday, and one due on Friday. The only one that I am looking forward to writing is the one for Wednesday.

-In preparing for Wednesday’s assignment I have had to read a few articles about the nature of bibliography. I seem to have fallen into the typical trap, just viewing bibliography as a listing of books. It seems that there is so much more to the field, and that this is actually seem in a derogatory way by some bibliographers.

One of the more complex areas of study is called critical or analytical bibliography. Much of the work in this field has to do with analyzing printing techniques and styles to determine the order in which various editions were printed, and by whom. Even though this sounds pretty impressive I don’t think it is for me, I think I will stick with enumerative bibliography, or the listing of books (of course by books I mean a wide range of textual materials).

-I need to do some laundry.

-Several days ago it came to my attention that Gmail has launched a new service. It seems that now one can access other email accounts in one’s Gmail account. Just this weekend I managed to have Gmail import my McGill email account. This has been quite nice, and was easy to set up. The only downside is that there seems to be a delay between the time the message is received by McGill and the time it becomes available in Gmail. A message that I received a few minutes ago seemed to have been delayed for about 47 minutes.

-For the past few days I seem to have had some kind of cold. It seems that many people in that I know in Montreal are currently suffering from a similar illness. The strange thing is that it seems to have remained stagnant for the past few days, not really getting very bad, but also not really getting any better.

Nuit Blanche

As some of you may know, tonight is Nuit Blanche, an all night party in Montreal. Instead of this being a traditional drunkfest, there is a surprising emphasis on family fun. One of the main elements of this evening seems to be that all kinds of museums will be free and open all night, or at least until 3:00 or 4:00. The event finally comes to an end at about 5:00 AM when a giant, free omelet is served to all of those individuals still on their feet.

My celebration (if that is the proper term) of Nuit Blanche started at Nicole’s apartment. She and her roommates had a few people over for some pre-outing food and camaraderie. Though we didn’t make it to the 8:15 flashlight tour of the Redpath Library we did make it to the kitchen utensil music at the Musee d’art Contemporainne.

The next general area was the Vieux Port. It seemed to me that the Vieux Port may have been the hub of the evening’s activities. Several concerts were taking place, as well as many other activities (including a 120 meter ice slide).

As I am feeling a little under the weather, I didn’t stay for the Silent Disco, gospel concert, or omelet. On my way home I ran into another classmate as she was making her way down to the excitement. Her suggestion was that I head to the Spectrum for the free blues show.

While I didn’t make it to the Spectrum I did head home with the intention of preparing myself some food. As I began the preparation process I turned on my radio to find that the show at the Spectrum was being broadcast live on CBC. So far I have been pretty impressed with the content, too bad I wasn’t up for a free concert.

A Few Quick Notes 68

-An absolutely beautiful day today, it didn’t even feel cold at all. I was walking around with my jacket open for the better part of an hour. Hopefully this is a sign of Nithum’s prediction coming true/

-The mid-term today went well. If I had known what to expect I probably wouldn’t have studied at all.

-I have had a bit of a sore throat today.

-I have posted another video on YouTube. This one is of my younger sister adding Mentos to Diet Coke.

[Embedded Video]

A Few Quick Notes 67

-Another not so cold winter’s day in Montreal. Once again as soon as I walked out of my building I realized that I had forgotten my sunglasses yet again. This was particularly problematic as I was walking across the reservoir on my way to Thomson House.

It is Nithum’s belief that we are on our way out of winter in Montreal. I am hoping the same just so that I can ride my bike and unicycle again.

-I am now pretty convinced that my beard needs to go. I am having a hard time recognizing myself in pictures or the mirror. The problem is that it is much easier to keep my beard than to remove it. Additionally, once it is gone that will mean a return to at least semi-regular shaving, something that I have never been very good at.

-The Oscar party went well last night, though I had to duck out before any of the big awards. I am pretty sure that I surprised a few of my classmates with my baking. For some reason they didn’t seem to expect that I could. I was also able to demonstrate that it is possible to whip cream by hand; something that not many people in attendance seemed to have ever done.

-I have a mid-term tomorrow. Hopefully it will go well.

-We have really come up short on blog posts this month. Maybe we will be able to do a bit better next month. Certainly in the summer when all I have to do is work I should be able to crank out this junk everyday, maybe even a few times a day.

-As I was studying for my mid-term I came across the term ‘capitalist.’ Once again this was used in what I perceive to be an inaccurate fashion. As is frequently the case, this term was used to refer to what I would call an industrialist or, in more Marxist terms, the owner of the means of production.

It seems that as capitalism is an ideology and not a status, this usage is somewhat problematic. In this framework it seems that it would be impossible for a non-industrialist to be a capitalist, and an industrialist not to be a capitalist. If we look at the analogous situation for socialism does this mean that only those who avail of social programs are socialists? Does this make it impossible to be a socialist with a social safety net?

I don’t think too many people would agree with this use of the term ‘socialist,’ so why do we allow such sloppy usage for the term ‘capitalist.’ It doesn’t help either side of the debate to have such possibly confusing terminology.

-For some reason that I don’t understand, the number of people that have viewed my YouTube clip of a train entering Mont Royal Metro station is now 180. In the past few days I have had surprisingly large amounts of interest in this clip, probably about 20 views today. This is particularly surprising as the clip is pretty boring, as are all of my other YouTube videos. Why has this one ‘taken off’?

A Few Quick Notes 66

-Today is not quite clear and not quite overcast. All in all it is not that bad. Maybe I am getting used to winter, but it really doesn’t seem all that cold outside. We still don’t seem to have any major snowfalls on the horizon, a trend very different from St. John’s were they seem to be having blizzards almost every week.

-The pigeons are back and seem to have adapted to the change in their habitat. Instead of meeting on the chimney like pedestal they are currently on the newly constructed roof section. I am still amazed that they are so consist in their behaviour. Until my repeated viewings, I would never have imagined that pigeons had such predictable and consistent lives.

-My gingerbread for an event this evening is currently in the oven, providing a recognizable odor to the apartment. Hopefully this isn’t upsetting Nithum.

The cake is for an Oscar party tonight. As some of you may have guessed, this will be my first Oscar party, as Hollywood movies haven’t really been my thing for the past few years. The up side of the party is that it is also a potluck, which is why I am baking.

The dishes are supposed to relate to one of the nominated movies or actors in some way. My gingerbread meets this requirements by being silent when consumed, something that is reminiscent of Dwayne’s vow of silence in Little Miss Sunshine. Additionally, it will be served with whipped cream, something that is similar to something being served a la mode, or at least that is what I keep telling myself.

I will also be bringing a few other, smaller, non-homemade food items that relate to other Oscar nominated movies.

-Reading week will come to an abrupt end tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to do a bit more studying this afternoon and evening. As of tomorrow I will have to start finding ways to dedicated significantly larger amounts of energy to school work.

-To coincide with the end of Reading week, assignment season starts tomorrow.

-Last night I dealt myself a few games of solitaire. Even without the benefit of auto-dealing it was a pretty addictive experience.

Laundry woes

Yesterday, after a good number of days I finally got around to doing some laundry. Because of the long period of time since my last trip and because I had some towel and sheet dirtying guests I had a slightly larger batch than normal.

Fortunately, none of the washers were in use when I arrived in the laundry room. I quickly loaded my coins and laundry detergent in all three. As they were filling I started some sorting. In just a few minutes all was taken care of and I was off to get a paper and a coffee.

With my coffee in hand I separated all of my non-dryables (mainly just my socks) and began the process of transferring my laundry to the driers. I immediately noticed that someone had left their laundry in my favourite drier. I was then forced to use the inferior driers. I got over my disgust pretty quickly.

With both available driers going I returned to my apartment to drink my coffee and ready my newspaper. When I felt that about an hour had elapsed I returned to the laundry room to learn that only about 50 minutes had elapsed and that one of the drier doors had popped open, causing the drier to shut off, though not having the same affect on the timer.

I quickly closed the open drier door and proceeded to become quite frustrated, mainly because my work shirts were both in the load that did not dry properly. I then remembered that they drier also goes through a 3 minute cool down period at the end of the cycle, something that wasn’t really needed with my cool damp clothing.

When the few minutes of drying did end I was able to see that it hadn’t done much. It seemed that my clothing was just about as wet as when I had put it in an hour before. I quickly slipped the wet clothing in my bag and proceeded to fold the sheets in the other drier load.

Upon returning to my apartment I quickly proceeded to spread my wet clothing all over. I had some boxers and napkins hanging from kitchen chairs, a dish towel hanging from a lamp, a towel on a radiator, some shirts in my bedroom closet, some shirts in the coat closet, and pretty broad selection of things hanging on the shower curtain rod in the bathroom. This last set had a fan trained on them to speed up the process.

My main concern was whether or not my shirt would be dry in time for work. Changing kegs is unpleasant enough as it is, I don’t even want to imagine doing it in a wet shirt. Fortunately, with the assistance the fan, my shirt was dry in time for work and my day was saved.

Another ten days and I will have to go through this all again.

A Few Quick Notes 65

-Another winter’s day in Montreal. While it was only about -8 today it seemed a bit cooler than that at time. The forecast suggested that we might be in for some flurries though these did not arrive.

-In the distance I can hear what I presume to be fireworks. On several occasions I have heard distant explosions, reminding me of an aerial bombardment, only to find out that it is a fireworks display.

-Tomorrow night is another work night. I am not really sure what to expect, as it is the last night of reading week. Hopefully tomorrow night will be pretty busy, at least significantly busier than Monday and Tuesday.

-Yesterday Neil returned to Halifax. It seems that his trip was without incident and that he is safely back in Halifax.

-On Tuesday evening my cousin Julia drove up from Providence, Rhode Island. I was really pleased that she as able to make the trip. Aside from a wedding this summer I hadn’t seen her since about 1998. She departed this afternoon and should be arriving just about now.

-Reading week is winding down and I certainly did not accomplish as much as I had hoped. Though in some ways I accomplished about as much as I expected.

-An election was called in Quebec yesterday. It seems that the vote will be on March 26. Hopefully I will be able to take some time to go to Thomson House to watch the count.

-My beard is definitely getting longer. I had been thinking about ditching it a few weeks ago but I now realize that I don’t have the energy for such a project at the moment. Something else that has come to mind is that if I shave my beard I will also then have to shave on a regular basis, something that has never been my forte.

A Few Quick Notes 64

-Today was a pretty nice winter’s day, not to cold and not so hot that I was sweating as I walked around. The only downside of today is that the sidewalks were a bit slush covered, a bit of a remnant of the snowfall earlier this week.

-Neil arrived safely, though about an hour and a half late, on Thursday night. Fortunately his bags came off of the plane quickly and we were able to take a taxi directly to Thomson House, where we had a few drinks and some good conversation.

-Today, after we woke up, we went out for some shopping/touring. On foot, we visited many of the major streets and shopping districts, as well as a few that weren’t quite so famous or well known. I think that we started of our day in the dollar store arena and then proceeded to visit all kinds of other stores. At one point we visited a discount tool store where they were selling the largest wrenches I have ever seen. Though we did not buy that much or any big ticket items we were able to each pick up a few things. My most significant buy was a plunger for about $1.29.

-As we were just about done with our shopping expedition Neil and I both noticed someone walking out of the music building that looked somewhat familiar. We both immediately thought that it looked like Ed Squires, but that it couldn’t possibly be him, even though this person was carrying a drum. As we continued walking we started to talk about the striking resemblances, and the fact that both people were percussionists.

After a few feet of this person walking behind us he called out, which I thought he was doing because I kept staring at him. It turns out that he recognized us and that we had recognized him, though just not really expected to see him in Montreal.

As it turns out, we were basically heading in the same direction and we were able to make sure that he found his way to his bus, I even hooked him up with a bus ticket so that he wouldn’t have to pay full fare.

-In honour of Neil’s trip I decided that I would cook a rabbit. I mentioned this to my classmate, Nicole, a few days ago and she indicated that she was interested in trying my rabbit.

So last night I made my first roast, stuffed rabbit. It was pretty tasty and easy. It turns out that it only takes about an hour to cook a rabbit, there isn’t too much meat on them. I was pleasantly surprised at how moist and tender the meat was. If they weren’t so expensive, about 17$ a kilo, I would consider buying them more frequently.

Post-rabbit we went over to Thomson House. All in all, the evening was very enjoyable.

A Few Quick Notes 63

-The so-called snowstorm did not really materialize, instead we had a pretty standard issue snow fall. If we had the slightly stronger winds of today and snowfall rate of about 9:00 PM last night we might have been able to get something going, but alas, Quebec weather let me down again. So far today has been a pretty standard winter day, clear skies, a bit of wind, and about -15.

-On my way to school today I turned the corner from Lorne onto Milton and almost walked into a paddy-wagon like vehicle. I then noticed some police tape as well as a few other cop cars. Immediately I tried to figure out what had happened. The police tape was a good indication of the location of the incident, though it was not immediately clear exactly what had happened. As I got closer, I noticed that there was a piece of yellow plastic on the ground, held down by various household objects. Around the sheet of plastic there appeared to be red splotches in the snow.

When I arrived in class it turned out that a classmate of mine had walked by a few minutes after me. By the time that she walked past the plastic sheet had been removed, but the vehicles were still present.

After class, when I walked by again it seemed that most of the scene was back to normal, except the red splotches in the snow.

-A news reader on CBC just talked about “explosive experts” being called into deal with a bomb threat in Quebec City. This doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. If you think that there are explosives present why would you bring in even more.

-I love that North Korea was able to negotiate its way out of the Axis of Evil, I always thought that the list had more integrity than that.

-As you may have already been aware, Neil should be here in a few hours.

-I need to work on my assignment.

Travel day

Just a quick post. My plane for Montreal leaves in less than 7 hours now. I stayed up late last night finishing things off and packing. I'm taking two bags, but I would only be taking one if it weren't for the blank CDs, Crispix and TP that I'm taking Cameron. I don't have much left to do in Halifax now other than dinner and a trip to the bank.

Last night I had both sauteed mushrooms and then sauteed onions for dinner. They were both tasty, but the mushrooms were a bit past their prime. The wind was howling last night, and the power was flickering. Last night when I went to see Rebecca, I took the stairs up to be safe (16 flights). I also took my hand-powered flashlight/radio. While I was gone the wind drove water through my bedroom window, but fortunately my roommate had the same problem then checked in my room for me. The wind also ruined the Tyvek-esque plastic on the building underconstruction next door. Last night there were police cars in the area which I presume to be because of debris from the building. This morning when I looked at the building it looked like a Godzilla sized cat had used it as a scratching post, whereas yesterday it looked like a freshly made bed.

I don't think I have told the internet yet, but I now subscribe to the Chronicle Herald, a Halifax daily newspaper. I'm a sucker for deals, coupons, delivery and puzzles. In early January when a guy came to my door and offered me a discount rate on a newspaper that was promised to be delivered by 5 am and a sign-up gift of coupons, I said yes. Today I got up at about 7 and I thought I would check on the 5 am guarantee. I was let down, no paper. It's probably because of the weather yesterday, but needless to say I'm not pleased. Hopefully it will be there when I go home (I'm at school now).

I also have a curling update for you. Gushue is going to the Brier, as is Kehoe (the 3rd favorite) from NS. Also, the junior women's team from NL won the national championship, and will go to the worlds.

So maybe this wasn't so short.

A Few Quick Notes 62

-Another winter’s day, though this one is supposed to be marked by a snowstorm. As of yet there have only been a few snowflakes and not much sign of a storm. On the other hand, when I looked at some RADAR and satellite imagery a few minutes ago it appeared that there was a storm just to the west of Montreal. I am really hoping for a snow day, but I am running out of time (all kinds of flights are already cancelled).

-Tonight is the 25th anniversary of the loss of the Ocean Ranger. CBC just had a segment about this tragedy. One of the participants is the son of one of the lost men, though his father died before he was born (making him about a month older than me). They finished off the segment by playing the Ron Hynes’ song Atlantic Blue.

-A few days ago I learned that there is a Lutheran church in my neighborhood that offers a weekly service in German. While I am not normally a churchgoer, this does seem somewhat tempting.

-I keep waffling on whether or not I keep my beard. It was originally to be just a Christmas addition, to be removed immediately upon my return to Montreal. As it turned out, that did not happen and it is still in place. A few days ago my mind was set on its removal, but now I am not so sure. I know that it is not the world’s nicest beard, but I have always wanted a substantial beard and this is as near as I have ever come to that goal.

-A project on ‘leadership’ has been taking up a fair bit of my time these past few days. I have to come up with a few examples of ‘good leaders’ as well as a few examples of times that I have acted as a ‘leader.’ It has been taking me a huge amount of time to come up with these examples. The use of the word ‘good’ was particularly problematic as it implies some kind of value judgment. One is likely more willing to say that wider ranges of people are ‘effective leaders’ than are ‘good leaders.’

On top of that, I had a very hard time coming up with a few examples in which I have acted as a leader. I can think of a few times I have tried, but they usually end in failure.

-Neil will be arriving tomorrow, a few hours after Nithum departs.

Cleaning and Classic Rock

After an exciting evening at the library I decided that I would head home.

Upon returning home I was struck by the dirt that had been tracked into my apartment because of the winter conditions. I had had enough, this black gravel and dried melted slush would have to go.

Within a few minutes of returning home I had cracked out the mop and was busily cleaning the front hall (or more accurately the huge wasted part of my apartment).

Shortly after starting, or maybe before I started, I decided to crack open a cold Hek and throw on some tunes. For the occasion I thought that I might like to listen to some classic rock (the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix, etc.). I quickly whipped up an iTunes playlist and was ready to go.

With my beer within reach and tunes in the background I have mopped the halls, bathroom, kitchen and my bedroom. Additionally, I have done some organizing in my bedroom (or more accurately, picking up old newspapers from the floor and putting them with the newspapers that have to be taken down to the recycling bin).

I guess I must be about forty minutes in to my project and I feel completely exhausted, though this may have something to do with the time of day (it is almost 1:30 AM).

Maybe I will be able to get through another few songs and beers, during which time I will put my room back together. The dusting may have to wait for another day, or night.

A Few Quick Notes 61

-It was not a particularly cold day today, though it was at least a few degrees below freezing all day. This has been the weather status for the past few days, nothing really all that extreme in either direction.

-I have not been posting much in the past few days because of a hectic work schedule and failed attempts to get some work done. Basically being at work until close three nights in a row is good for my pay cheque but not so good for my productivity.

-Neil will be arriving on Thursday. Unfortunately, I haven’t done as much planning for his trip as I should have, nor has he told me what he wants to see. Even though we don’t have many plans I am pretty sure that the time will fly by.

Amazingly, a cousin is planning on driving up on the 20th, and a friend of mine is scheduled to arrive next Monday on business. It will be a busy few days.

-I have been falling down on my paper reading recently. Each day I get a paper but don’t have time to give it much attention, the most I have been able to do is skim the obituaries.

-Hopefully I will be able to gather the energy to head to the library tonight. If I do this I might actually be able to get some work done. It is important that I remember to head to the store first to pick up some beer, as I won’t be able to buy any once I get back from the library.

-On Thursday night before work I was finally able to make it to Chinatown. For a few weeks now I have wanted to pick up some ginseng there. It turns out that they sell it all over the place there and I don’t really know that much about it. I ended up just taking was recommended to me by the clerk. It seems to be what I want and she cut a dollar from the sticker price, I guess I am a hard bargainer.

Maybe in a few years I will be courageous and knowledgeable enough to try to buy the whole root and try to make some kind of concoction myself.

-I don’t really know where I will be this summer or what I will be doing. If anyone has any great ideas please let me know. So far my main possibilities seem to be staying in Montreal, heading back to St. John’s or going to Calgary.

Men's provincial curling tankards

Ongoing in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as Nova Scotia are the Labatt's and Keith's Tankards, respectively. The winners of these tournament go on to play at the Brier.

I've been following and rooting for Gushue in NL, and I believe he's 6-0 currently, with only one close game. He shouldn't have much of a problem.

In Nova Scotia I don't really have a favourite, but I've been watching Adams and Dacey. The format of the tournament is very different in NS compared to NL, where they have a round-robin tournament to start. The NS provincial finals are being held at the Halifax Curling Club which is just 2-3 blocks from where I live. Tonight Rebecca and I went down to check it out. We went late, but got there before the 5th end break. We saw Dacey and Adams play, and Colleen Jones showed up as a spectator. The club is significantly smaller than "the curling club" back home. We didn't stay very long because we didn't have seats (admission was free/unwatched), and it was hard to see past those who did. It also seemed like most the people there knew each other, so it wasn't particularly welcoming. Dacey ended up losing, so the favorite is now only 1 loss away from being kicked out.

Math & Stats trivia

Last night MSgrads ran a trivia night at the Grad House. Rebecca was the host. The format was very similar to Bitters trivia, but without the trump round. We managed to get 4 teams together, which pleased me. Our team name was the math geek classic "Perfect squares" (or, as I prefer, perfect s9u4res). There were two grad student teams, an undergrad team and a prof and post-docs team. My team came second to the profs and post-doc team. We only had first places prizes, which was a round of drinks. We also offered the profs/post-docs a free drink for showing up, because we didn't think we'd get any otherwise (I think the plan worked).

Rebecca would probably like me to note that I'm biased, but I thought the hosting was great. The final scores ranged from 42.5 to 52.5 and there was no rounds where a team scored 0 and no rounds where multiple teams got 10 points (in fact I think the only 10's received needed bonuses). Also, almost every question was correctly answered by one of the teams.

The event was judged a sucess and we'll probably hold another one, although we don't know when.

I've also set up a group for MSgrads on Facebook, and I set up trivia as an event. My plan is to continue to invite the grad student body that is on Facebook that way as well, to try to get a few more people coming.

Parc to keep name

This morning CBC is reporting that Parc will remain park and not have its name changed in honour of Robert Bourassa. It seems that the mayor has changed his mind because Mr. Bourassa's family didn't like the controversy surrounding the matter. My question now is whether they will do the right thing and change Bleury to Parc?

A Few Quick Notes 60

-Another cool day in Montreal. Today was not as clear as yesterday and at times we experienced a few flurries. Tonight the temperature is supposed to go down to about -21, I guess I won’t be going out for my traditional 4:00 AM walk.

-The Colts won the Stupor Bowl. Google News is a very good way of keeping up with things in which you aren’t really interested.

-I have been coming to the realization that I drink a pretty large amount of herbal tea. I would guess that today I have already had 4 or 5 mugs worth, and I just brewed another.

-My uncle departed for New York today. This means that I will be visitor free until Neil arrives on the 15th. My cousin Julia is scheduled to drive up from Rhode Island a few days after that.

-My work schedule this week is not very nice. I will be working to special events on Wednesday and Thursday and then my normal shift on Friday.

-Though I have checked a few time, Google News still has nothing relating to the gas leak on St. Laurent. Our loyal readers have not been able to evaluate my on the spot reporting skills.

-Crap, I just remembered that I have to do some cooking before I go to bed. I guess I won’t be in bed in about five minutes as I had hoped.

A Few Quick Notes 59

-Another beautiful, if chilly, day in Montreal. The sun is out and there are no clouds in the sky. The other nice thing about today is that even though it is below freezing it is really not all that cold, only about -8.

-The peggle bike is no longer a peggle bike. The peggle was finally removed on Thursday evening. It turned out that the trick was to heat up the crank with a lighter. The only problem now is that I need to find a wrench narrow enough to remove the other peddle, that is if I care about having matching peddles.

I found it rather funny that I saw another peggle bike this morning. Maybe this person doesn’t know the heat trick, or maybe they don’t mind having a peggle bike too much.

-While I had to work last night I was also able to punch out at about 9:30. At that point I joined a few of my classmates for a few drinks. It was a very enjoyable evening with a pretty good turnout.

Most Viewed YouTube Video

It turns out that my clip of a train entering the Mont Royal metro station is my most highly view posted clip with 54 views (at the time of writing).

If you would like to see this very popular clip again or for the first time just watch it below.



[Embedded Video]

Gaz leak on St. Laurent

Earlier this afternoon I was walking along St. Laurent, making my way over to meet my father and uncle at their hotel. Just a block or so north of Sherbrooke I noticed that I was walking next to a water mane construction site and that there was a very loud noise coming from the pit. Accompanying the hissing was a strong smell. Though the employees didn’t really seem too agitated, I quickly figured out that this must be a gas leak.

As this idea was forming in my head a fire truck appeared on the scene. As I proceeded south several other fire trucks appeared. Still nothing in particular was being done to evacuate the area or prevent people from walking right next to the construction site.

When I reached the hotel I mentioned that I thought there might be a gas leak on St. Laurent. After a few minutes of preparation we headed out and approached the area. We very quickly saw that the street was now closed to traffic and that there were even more fire trucks. We also saw that there was a gas truck on the scene.

Though the street was closed to traffic pedestrians could still get pretty close to the action. So, as it was on our way, we walked towards the heart of the scene. It soon became clear that this was a pretty major operation and that for some reason the fire trucks were pumping water and had hoses out. A pretty large amount of water was flowing down the sides of the streets, though we weren’t able to see the source.

Maybe later tonight I will try to check some news sources and get official confirmation that the construction crew struck a gas line while doing routine work.

Anyway, it is likely that you read it hear first.

A Few Quick Notes 58

[Written on Tuesday]

-Another cool, clear day in Montreal. I believe that we started the day with a temperature below -20. Amazingly, we haven’t had much snow this year, only one semi-major snowfall so far.

-Work was incredibly busy last night. We had many more people than normal for a Monday, as well as a speed-dating event in the basement. Fortunately one of my co-workers stayed on for a few extra hours to help close, if she had not done this I think I would have been there until 1:00 AM, or later.

-Assignment season is fast approaching. I am really not ready for it this term, especially because of the various visits that are taking place over the coming weeks.

Texas sheet cake 2

Yesterday was Rebecca's birthday. As part of our spending quality time together during the evening, she helped me make a texas sheet cake. I first tried to make a texas sheet cake in the fall and it didn't work out as well as I had hoped; I have entitled this post to indicate this (and/or to copy Cameron's numbering). In the fall I deemed that one of the problems was the pan, so I bought a new one; I also decided doing dishes while making the icing and thus burning it was a bad idea. This time it mostly worked out well. The cake is rather flat, so it works best with a level oven, however (using my magnetic level from Santa Claus) I determined that my oven is off-level in multiple directions. Hence, my cake is taller on one half, but it still tastes good.

Work tonight

Once again, I have to go to work tonight. Mondays don't seem to be the busiest night of the week.

The up side of this is that I may do a bit more training on the bar. On Friday I sold a Guiness and a Smirnoff Ice.

The up side of me knowing a few of the basics is that I can then relieve the bartender when they are working alone.

Trivia in Halifax

It's been far too long since I last posted. I haven't done much, but that's more than nothing. A couple Wednesdays ago DAGS held a trivia night at the Grad House, which they own. DAGS was looking to grad students out socializing with each other, so it organized trivia by academic affliation. As I'm always up for a competition, and because it is my deputy as DAGS rep to tell the mathies, I put together a team. In the end it wasn't too hard to put together a team even on only 2 days notice (even though I'd known for 2 weeks). Rebecca was only able to come to the second half, because she had to work in the Math Learning Centre until 10.

Trivia started late, but not too late considering it was there first time. There were 12 teams there, which is more than was expected. As a result, they ran out of chairs. Just before we started they circulated a registration sheet ?! They wanted us to write down our names and student IDs to make sure we were all grad students. I thought this was a little ridiculous. They also wanted us to use our department names as our team names, and specifically not to make up new ones. We went ahead and made up our own anyway, the Dalhousie Derivatives, and most of the other teams did too. At my prompting, the marking was done as per the Bitters way.

We bombed the first round, but we did better over the next 9 rounds than any other team. In the end, we came 3rd. The evening was enjoyable and I'm looking forward to the next one.

The rest of the mathies enjoyed it too. We're planning on hosting our own trivia night at the Grad House and inviting the profs to come out. It should work out well because booking the Grad House is free. We only have about $350 to spend for the rest of the semester. Rebecca will probably be the host.

A Few Quick Notes 57

-Another winter day in Montreal today. There are a few flurries falling as I write, though nothing all that serious. It is also still about -10, though I must say that this seemed warm when I was walking around this morning. If it keeps snowing maybe I will go for a walk this afternoon.

-My father flew into Montreal this morning. He was on his way to Kingston. The original plan was that he would arrive yesterday and spend the night. Because of the “weather bomb” this did not happen, his flight was switched to this morning. The modified plan was that he would take the bus into town and we would meet for breakfast. Unfortunately, the plane was late leaving the airport, the gate was iced up on arrival, and then the luggage failed to arrive. With about 15 minutes before his train was to depart we met at the airport. Several items were quickly transferred to my bag, some hot drinks and a cinnamon roll were purchased, before we made our way to the gate.

If all goes according to plan, my father and uncle should be in Montreal as of this Wednesday evening. I am really hoping that things aren’t quite as rushed as they were on this trip. On the other hand, this is the fourth time that my father has been in Montreal since September.

-Last night Nithum and I went to a party. An open invitation was issued by one of my classmates so I asked Nithum if he was interested. After a little bit of vacillation he decided to go for it, his second party of St. Joseph in two days.

Though I was worried that we might be late, it turned out that we were really on the early side. It must have been about 30 to 45 minutes before anyone else showed up, and then another 20 before the first real group.

The heart of the party was made up of friends and classmates of my classmate’s roommates. As these people began to arrive Nithum started to recognize some of them as attendees of Friday night’s party.

It turned out that the party was infested with people that had connections to Newfoundland. Aside from Nithum and I, there were at least two and possibly four other people who grew up in Newfoundland. There was also a pretty large Nova Scotia contingent. Nithum actually seems to have wangled us an invite to the upcoming “East Coast Kitchen Party” that will be held in the same location in the coming weeks.

[Author's note: I forgot to say that I had an excellent time, sometimes I assume that everyone already knows the good things. I also forgot to thank Nicole for the invitation, it was nice to party with such a wide variety to attendees. It was also nice to hear those bawdy songs as sung by Oscar Brand.]

-As I arrived at McGill today I was reminded that today is the winter Open House. If I had a bit more energy I could probably manage to get a hold of some free stuff.

-Today needs to be a big study day. I have done most of the prep work already, I have the reading materials, the caffeine, part of the mental preparation, and the knowledge that it really needs to happen.

-Yesterday was the first day that I have not had ginseng in about four days. I am not sure I noticed much of a difference, but maybe the old stuff is not out of my system. Anyway, I definitely did not notice any downsides, and I feel as though I could even accept just a placebo affect right now.

Friday

Thursday night was a pretty good night. I was able to take care of some studying, though not as much as I would have liked, and then head over for Thomson House for a night of socializing. Based on my knowledge that the Archives stream had a class and my knowledge that they tend to go out for a beer afterwards I thought it would be pretty safe time to show up and meet some people that I know. It turned out that my timing was just about perfect; most of them were in line as I arrived.

I jumped in line behind them and order a pitcher of a blond locally brewed beer. While it is not my favourite drink I believe that it was what I was drinking all night.

In about an hour most of the archives people had left, but a few general GSLIS students remained. Gradually the first pitchers turned into second and third pitchers. It seemed that most people were having a very good time. One particularly enjoyable part of the evening, at least from my point of view, was the discussion I had with a separatist. I think that she didn’t quite know where I was coming from or what to expect as feel I took a pretty pro-Quebec stance, though was solidly against isolationism. Later in the evening we were swamped by Manitobans, there must have been 4 or 5.

At about 1:30 I finally realized what time it was time to head home. I was back in my room before 2:00, only a little worse for wear.

On Friday I awoke at about 11:00. For about 15 minutes I just stayed in bed listening to the radio. Eventually I got up and started doing the morning internet rounds (weather, news, email, blog, etc.). At about 11:23 I realized that I had been planning on attending the Faculty of Education Faculty Council meeting, which was to start.

After a few quick mental calculations I realized that I might have just enough time to take a quick shower and still make it. Unfortunately when I arrived at the bathroom I found it occupied, and with this my plans were ruined. I went back to my room and tossed on some clothing and got ready to go. Within about two or three minutes I was on my way, slight hangover and all.

As the meeting was to be in the Education building that was where I went. The only problem is that I couldn’t find the designated room, even though it was supposed to be on the main floor. After asking about 3 people and spending 10 to 15 minutes looking for it I was about the second person there. One of the only non-support staff there ahead of me was my cataloging professor. I continued to sit alone, talking to no one, as the others began to file in over the next few minutes. By the beginning of the meeting most of the library school faculty were sitting within a five-seat radius of me.

Eventually the Dean showed up and things began. As Friday was Australia Day we started with a brief themed slide show and Vegemite sandwich tray. Soon enough we were down to business.

The heart of the meeting had to do with Faculty of Education space allocation. It seems that the university is engaging in a major planning exercise of which we are a consequential element, particularly the library school. Unfortunately a few squeaky wheels dominated a fair bit of the meeting, even though the issues that they were raising weren’t really relevant to the current discussion. I was even able to ask a few questions, both of which I feel were quite reasonable.

Attending this meeting was quite good as it gave me a much greater understanding of several issues, including; departmental staff dynamics, faculty staff dynamics, McGill administration, strategic planning, and university committees.

After the formal meeting, with most of the faculty from the library school, I went on a tour of a potential relocation site. I, as with several of the faculty members, were pretty impressed with the potential of the building that we toured.

It was a damn good thing I didn’t back out just because I didn’t have time for a shower.

Da Bomb

According to an email that I received from Memorial University of Newfoundland earlier this afternoon, St. John's is supposed to be experiencing a "weather bomb."

Short clip of snow falling in Montreal

This clip was taken on January 15, 2007. It was snowing a fair bit in the early morning and afternoon (as you may recall if you read the posts from that day). I had to head over to Thomson House to drop off a key I had accidentily taken home with my on Friday. As usual, I took the short cut from the main campus across the resevoir. Just after reaching the resevoir I decided that it would be a good time to film some of the snow falling, as I did in St. John's.

Pay attention to the first few seconds if you want to see the action sequence, though it was completely unplanned and likely painful. This fall occured because the snow covered pre-existing ice, creating a rather dangerous situation. As soon as I saw this I figured out the problem and walked along the road next to the field.

If you are interested in viewing video clips that have been posted on this blog in the past use the label "YouTube" in the lower right hand corner of this blog to access these posts. If you do this my number of views for each clip will rise and I will feel satisfied.

Train entering Mont Royal Metro Station

Earlier today, as I was on my way home from Val's apartment, I was in the Mont Royal subway station waiting for my train. While there I decided to see if I could get a shot of the train entering the station, something that have enjoyed watching in person. After several false starts, the train did arrive and I was able to film it until it stopped.

A Few Quick Notes 56

-Another clear and cool day here in Montreal. Looks as though this should be the standard for the next little while. This weather isn’t really that bad as we haven’t had too much snow to deal with (though I personally wouldn’t mind a bit more snow).

-For dinner tonight I hope to eat one or two bratwursts that I purchased a few days ago. Hopefully I won’t forget to eat dinner as I did last night.

-Yesterday I tried some ginseng. Nithum purchase some a few days ago and offered a few vials as a sample (am I living with a pusher?). As of yet I am not really sure what I think, or if I even felt an effect. Shortly, I will try my second vial and see how I feel.

-I was able to do some laundry this morning. Doing laundry in public cities has caused me to wonder why it is people seem to almost never empty the lint trap. I find it one of the best parts of the entire laundry experience.

A Few Quick Notes 55

-Environment Canada is indicating that it is several degrees below zero, though I am having a hard time believing this assessment. Maybe it is a little cooler now that it is a touch more overcast.

-I learned that someone in my class found out about this blog from a friend. Apparently the friend was searching blogs and came upon this one. From information that she was able to gather she figured out that I must be in the same program as her friend. The relevant details, the URL, were passed along. I have been meaning to ask my classmate if she managed to read very much, or any, of our blog.

-I am thinking about taking a nap. This will give me a bit of a break before I dig into some pretty heavy reading that I need to take care of.

-Food would also be good, but I can’t say that I am that hunger at the moment.

-Today in class one of my classmates approached me about joining her group for a project. This was pretty good as I didn’t know what I would be doing for this project. I had been hoping that someone would just come up and ask me, which they fortunately did. The only bad thing is that we are still one member short of the required four, and we haven’t been able to finalize a project topic (preparation for this is why I have so much reading).

-Work was pretty dead again last night. It seems that Monday nights are not the big party night at Thomson House.

A Few Quick Notes 54

-Another cold day in Montreal today. When I woke up it was almost -20, nearing -30 with the wind chill. This is actually the first day that I have noticed frost on my window. For the next few days it is supposed to be below zero but not quite this cold.

-Yesterday was they day of my first intramural soccer game. We pulled out the win, though only because the other team defaulted. We then played a pick-up game with the two refs filling in on the other team. Though we lost the pick-up it was generally a pretty good experience. Possibly the best thing is that we learned that one of our players is pretty good in net, something I am not. I guess we will have to wait and see how our first real game goes.

-Yesterday while at the grocery store I decided to by a trans-fat laced raspberry pie. In addition to the pie I had normal purchases (frozen green beans, frozen concentrated orange juice, etc.) and a dozen bottles of beer.

When it came time to carry all of these items home I realized that I had a bit of a problem. I had to find a way to keep the pie relatively level and manage to carry a few bags as well as a dozen beer.

The solution I came to would be to cradle the beer in my arms and rest the pie on top. The remaining bags were then in my right hand. At times I drew my right hand up to assist with the cradling. This process quickly wore me out. Just as I was reaching home I was at the end of my limit.

Fortunately, another group was entering my building at the same time as I so they were able to hold several doors for me. I then had the pleasure of dealing with making my way up to the fourth floor. This was somewhat awkward as the groceries and beer were in front of me, just where my legs where each time they took a new stair. Without too many problems I made it to the top.

Possibly with my first step onto flat ground the pie slid from the box of beer and landed upside down on the floor, I was somewhat disheartened. All this effort to keep the pie in good shape, just to drop it 15 feet from my door. I proceeded to my apartment and put all of my groceries down and then went back to check on the pie, expecting the worst.

As I flipped the pie over I learned that it hadn’t really been damaged all that much. None of the filling was any more exposed than it had been before. In some ways this kind of worried me about the quality and nature of my pie. I think that in I would normally expect a pie drop from four feet to take a bit of a beating, not look the same as before it was dropped. Maybe that is what trans-fats can do for a pie, because this one certainly has a lot of those.

-Another comment about the pie was that as I was examining it I looked at the best before date. It indicated that the pie would be best before January 21. I thought to myself this would be plenty of time, literally days away. It was not until I returned home and started to unpack my groceries did I realize I had purchased this pie about 6 hours before its expiry date. Good job.

-There was a pretty long article on Stephane Dion in the Focus section of the Globe and Mail yesterday. Hopefully I will get a chance to read about it in the next few days.

-We had a staff meeting yesterday at Thomson House. Hopefully some of the suggestions I made, as well as those of other staff members, will be acted upon to help increase business. It seems that one major problem is the administrative structure of the PGSS council, it appears to be unwilling to properly delegate authority to regular staff and management.

A Few Quick Notes 53

-Today was a fair bit warmer than yesterday. Actually, since the low of about -24 things have been warming up. My understanding is that we are supposed to plateau at about this temperature and then dip again. Over the next few days we are also supposed to get a little bit more snow, though nothing to really worry about.

-A few days ago I heard a rumor that McGill would be switching to all e-subscriptions for it journals (presumably keeping the paper version if that is all that is available). This would certainly be a bit of a change. It is a rather thought provoking suggestion. My initial worry is that people will get out of the habit of going to the print version, thereby basically negating the existence of print-only volumes and journals.

-Yesterday I was able to fly through about 100 pages of a management textbook. It was some of the fluffiest/fastest reading I have ever done. On the whole much of the content was very superficial, not really going into any degree of detail.

-Apparently Domtar will be coming out with a anti-microbial paper in the near future. I am curious what affect this might have on the archival world as things like mould are problematic for preservation.

-For the past two nights I have had the pleasure of hearing many back-up sirens as the municipal government removes Monday’s snow. Though I know that they are working hard I can’t quite figure out where it is they are working as many of the streets surrounding my apartment building seem to still be snow filled.

-Apparently Royal Bank mis-interpreted some of the US rules relating to the US currency accounts it was issuing. Residents will be able to open US currency accounts. To me it still seems that there is a bit more to the story that has still not come out. I have yet to see the text of the regulation that Royal Bank is supposedly following.

-Tomorrow is another workday. This one should be a bit quieter than last Friday as there won’t be a large party. On the other hand, I hope that it is busier than the first week of the term.

-Apparently the Park Avenue issue is not yet dead. The commission of last resort has been issuing cryptic statements about some kind of compromise, though I have no idea what this might be. At one point it was suggested that the street be given a dual name as occurs in New York. I guess in the next few days we will have a better handle on what will happen.

Royal Bank, the US Government and the almighty dollar

Yesterday I briefly heard about Canadian dual citizens who had their American funds bank accounts closed by Royal Bank. It was suggested that the customers only found out afterwards. Furthermore, it is being reported that US government policy is the impetus for this activity, though I can’t quite understand why any reasonable person or institution would follow along (partly because none of the stories I have read have given any details about the US policies).

Mainly I am not quite sure why the US cares about this practice right now so much that they are causing banks to take this action. Many foreign nationals have been using US currency for years, without the consent of the US government. I would guess that many individuals will continue to do so in the future, even with the implementation of this crack down. Additionally, I am not quite sure how a country can control what happens to its currency once it leaves its borders. If Royal Bank, or any other bank for that matter, would like to offer accounts in foreign currencies it would seem to be up to the bank and the institution issuing their charter, not the country from which the currency originates (though maybe the international and inter-connected nature of the current banking system has caused this to change).

It would be interesting to know if the same rules are being followed in the US. In many ways I would find it hard to believe that the US is able to disallow dual citizens (people who are full US citizens) access to banking services, even if they wouldn’t want them to access these services. It seems somewhat hypocritical to expect more from banks located in foreign nations, though I guess they can boss these banks around without worrying about the constitutionality of the whole thing.

It seems that there is also an element of sloppy reporting in all of this. It was not initially reported that not all dual citizens were not having their US funds accounts shut down. The implication was that it was affecting everyone, something that is clearly not the case (as I haven’t had mine shut down). In stories that came out today it was reported that individuals would be able to have these accounts if they could demonstrate that they resided in Canada (a potentially temporary and possibly meaningless measure).

A Few Quick Notes 52

-The temperatures did drop to about -24 this morning, possibly the coldest temperatures that I have ever lived through. In a while I will be heading out into the cold.

-Last night I cooked a huge meal for Val and myself. I made some black beans, potatoes, vegetables, and a picnic roast. It was all pretty tasty and left me with plenty of leftovers. We then went to Thomson House for a short while and had a very enjoyable evening.

-I should get back to some readings that I have to do for class this afternoon.

-In the next few days I will try to add some of my books without ISBNs to Library Thing, though this may not be of that much interest to much of you.

Comments on Blog functionality

While many of the new features provided by Blogger make the upkeep and arrangement of a blog much easier it would be nice if a few complementary elements were also added.

I guess in particular I am thinking about the ability to add cross references (x-refs) in the label section, though this may just be a library student bias.

X-refs allow two things, referral to additional, possibly relevant, information or to the location where the location where the desired information is actually stored. The first type of x-ref is call a ‘see also’ reference while the second type is called a ‘see’ reference. In the days of the card catalogue these were quite common, and in some ways are still quite common in the world of indexes.

A ‘see also’ reference would be good when related information would be filed under two or more distinct terms. One example might be that a items relating to George Bush would be filed headings related to his position as President, as well as his position as Governor, and as a private citizen.

A ‘see’ reference might indicate that instead of information being filed under ‘Dubya’ it is instead filed under ‘Bush, George W.’ In other words, it directs the user to the authorized form of the heading.

With our current level of programming skill these references can typically be made available to the use in a very easy fashion. ‘See also’ references might be made available as a note with the label, while a ‘see’ reference might even be done automatically.

Some form of controlled vocabulary, or list of available labels, might be nice. Unfortunately, given the circumstances of the blogging world I don’t think that this is yet possible, though Neil and I could work on one for ourselves, though this would be aided by the ability to use the x-refs that I mentioned above.

More tinkering

As some of you may have noticed, I have also tinkered with the blog a little today.

I have been able to restore the Library Things widget, giving all our readers a view into my personal book collection (I am hoping to get some of my pre-ISBN books up soon).

A new addition is a listing of all of our labels (or as I would call them 'identifiers'). If you want to follow a particular topic that we have continued to cover, presuming that you don't want to go too far back, this should now be easier. Hopefully within the next few weeks will will be able to index all of our posts (keep in mind we have school and are fundamentally lazy).

Please pass along any comments about the changes (particularly relating to funcationality) or any suggestions that you might have about ways that Montifax could be improved.

New template/layout

Blogger wanted us to upgrade from having a template for our blog to having a layout. I have now done just this. As a result we've lost the FeedBurner and the LibraryThing. Since Cameron added these at the beginning I'll let him re-add them now. You might also notice the blog fits your browser window now and that you can see the title bar, these are both things that didn't happen to me before (it could be browser based too, especially with the title bar). Personally, I like the new layout better.

A Few Quick Notes 51

-We finally got a real snowfall, according to CBC it was in the range of 20 cm. On top of this the temperature has remained below -10 and is supposed to stay there for at least today and tomorrow. Actually, tomorrow it is supposed to go even lower, though not quite as low as was predicted a few days ago.

-The snowfall meant that while I was at work last night I had to do a few shoveling checks. By the time I was at work the main problem was not new accumulation but rather blowing and drifting. Fortunately, much shoveling had been done during the day so that my rounds were really just clean up jobs.

-Today is laundry day. Since I returned from my trip home I have had more clothing and been able to allow myself to go a longer period of time between washes. In the long run this isn’t really a great situation. My ideal is to have about 7 or 8 days of clothes and then wash what I am not wearing on the last day. Right now I have much more than this and have been able to go a good number of days without doing any laundry.

The big problem with this practice is the storage of dirty clothes. My apartment is so small, and made smaller by having my bike inside, that I don’t really have the extra room that this habit is taking.

-The free book box is back.

Already this year I have been able to pick up a half dozen or so books.

-There should be another YouTube clip coming in the near future. This one was taken yesterday during the midst of the snowfall. As I was filming the snow falling a woman in front of me, and in the frame, wiped out on some snow covered ice. I felt a bit awkward but as far enough away that I couldn’t have been of any real help even if I hadn’t been filming it (as you will see in the video).

-Aside from the previously mentioned shoveling, my night at work was pretty dead. The snow seems to have driven all of the customers away. For the last hour or so of the evening we didn’t have a single customer. Hopefully it will be a bit busier in the coming weeks.

Winter is here

Yesterday evening, according to Environment Canada we had a "winter storm". I believe a winter storm is a blizzard like occurence with ice pellets. There was enough snow to completely cover grass and it looks to be cold enough today so we won't lose it. Also, we have a freezing rain warning today. What seems very odd to me, is that in Halifax in the winter to seems to very consistently get warm overnight and cool during the day. Yesterday evening the temperature was about -7. This morning the temperature has risen to 0. The forecast predicts the temperature will fall to -6 by afternoon. The temperate is predicted to fall more in the evening, down to -18. I hope it warms up tomorrow night.

Unfortunately, Dalhousie is open this morning. It would seem that Dalhousie sends out an email outlining their closure policies if a storm is predicted that might close the University. This really has the potential to get my hopes up if it keeps happening.

Winter might finally be here

Today I awoke to find that Montreal was finally having a real snowfall. In the few hours that I have been up already the rate of snowfall has been maintained. The predictions are that we will have between 15 and 30 cm of snow. On top of this snowfall, the temperatures are actually below freezing. I must say that I am finding the entire thing quite beautiful.

The main downside to this snowfall is that I will have to deal with keeping the steps at Thomson House snow free this evening at work. I guess that is why I am hoping that the accumulation wraps up sometime this afternoon.

Ph.D. application

At least in the math world, this is the time of year for grad school applications. As I'm in a 1-year Masters programme, it was time for me to start applying to schools. This year I'm only applying to Dalhousie. This is where I would like to go/stay and I believe to be a shoo-in. I was told to have my application in my the end of the month so that I could potentially be nominated for a Killam Predoctoral Scholarship. If I were to receive one of these it would be worth more than an NSERC (the lower level NSERC). Late last week I submitted my application. The reference letters are still en route to the department. Hopefully this will all work out. I should find out almost all of this by the end of March.

Weekend activities

This weekend I was able take a trip to the part of Quebec called, in French, the Laurentides (in English the Laurentians). It is a pretty beautiful part of the world. When one drives there on a clear night in the winter the many illuminated ski slopes appear to be floating in the sky. The daylight scenery is also quite impressive.

Though most people go there for skiing we only did a bit or pretty standard sight-seeing, at one point managing to splash a lone pedestrian.

The following clip was taken just outside the town of Brebeuf. It is pretty short and just shows some ice flowing down a river.



This clip taken while driving through a covered bridge (as well as the time just before and just after). Just before we located the bridge is when we splashed the pedestrian, which was rather incredible because there weren't any visible puddles up to that point.

A Few Quick Notes 50

-The temperature dropped rather rapidly between early this morning and about 11:00 AM. As I was walking home from work it was still above freezing and by the time I went out to pick up my paper it was well below freezing. With my window open just a crack my room is freezing. A quick glance at the forecast indicates that this trend is supposed to develop with temperatures going as low as -28 by Wednesday. If this prediction comes true this may be the coldest temperature that I have ever experienced, and possibly a sense of the Montreal winter that I was promised by so many.

-Last night’s version of the House Warming party at Thomson House was pretty busy, though not quite comparable to Halloween in terms of numbers and energy. While there were DJs and dancing the numbers participating in these activities was somewhat disappointing. It seemed that much of the action happened in the main lobby and that people failed to even spill over into the adjoining rooms.

One odd element of the night is that there 5 or 6 people from Newfoundland there, including one person with whom I went to high school and had heard was in Montreal. I was actually able to hook two of these groups up, something that lead to an extended discussion.

-The bookstore still does not have one of the books that I need. Shortly after this discovery I decided that I would head over to the library and start using the reserve copy, which has only recently been made available.

-Our shower is definitely an odd experience with the new showerhead. It is pretty powerful and manages to move a huge amount of air.

Yum

I just ate a serving of very tasty scrambled eggs. The next phase of my pre-work meal is a fine looking serving of radishes. Maybe I will find something sweet with which I can finish the meal.

Soccer

Several days or weeks ago I mentioned that I would be playing on an intramural soccer team with other individuals from my school. Today we had our first “practice.”

What I had imagined to be getting together to kick the ball around in the gym turned out to be having our “team” join a revolving game in which the losing side switches out. Once we eventually figured things out and assessed our troops (we only had 4 of the needed 6 to play) we put our name on the list of challenging teams. It should also be noted that many of the individuals present clearly play regularly and well.

After about twenty minutes it became our turn to play. Unfortunately just moments before our turn came our captain decided to do a quick two laps around the field. As he was making the first turn we were in place on the field.

Almost instantly the game began and as goalkeeper I was quickly under fire. With a groping slide/dive I managed to stop the first shot and bring my team honour. Our team was able to get the ball down to the other end but it was quick to come back.

The second shot was not as nice to me as the first. Without even coming close to stopping the ball it entered the net. The rest of the game was pretty much like this. The ball would be put in play and then we would lose possession and be scored on. The only difference is that on the last shot I managed to tip the ball into my own net.

As we were coming off the field our captain returned from his two laps and couldn’t quite figure out how it was over already, but it was.

On improvement that I can already spot is my attitude. I don’t think that me thinking that we suck is really helping us. While I don’t know that I will be able to delude myself in thinking that we are the best team I might be able to keep the negative thoughts to a minimum. This might be hard when I consider that one of our players doesn’t have sneakers and will be playing in dress shoes.

Our first game is next Saturday. I will let you know how it goes.

New Power Shower

Yesterday we had a plumber examine our shower, though I am not really sure why. The main result of this visit was that the flow restricting devices seem to have been removed. Showering is now a very different experience.

One of the first things that I noticed is that there is much more air displacement. The shower curtain appeared to be blowing in the wind, or more accurately sucked into the stream of water, once it was turned on. The downside of this pressure increase is that it is harder to keep the curtain next to the wall and therefore the water inside the shower area.

A Few Quick Notes 49

-Today has been on the cool side but with temperatures rising all day. It seems that we should peek tomorrow and then drop again. The daily temperature change is quite impressive.

-Tomorrow is another work day for me. I am not really sure what to expect as Thomson House will be hosting the beginning of term party. Apparently this party last year was a dud, but the equivalent party last term was packed. I guess it is some about which I will just have to wait and see. If it is well attended I hope that I won’t have to stay too late as I don’t want my sleep schedule to be too far out of whack.

-Today I did something that I have not done in a while. I set my alarm incorrectly, off by 12 hours, causing my to sleep in and wake up after class had started. Fortunately because of my proximity to McGill I was able to miss less than 25 minutes of class. On the whole it was a less than pleasant experience, one that I hope not to repeat in the future.

-So just a minute ago I was digging around Blogger and I found out that Neil has started his own blog, a competitor to this masterpiece of creativity. We will see to which blog Neil manages to post more. So as not to lose readers I don’t think that it would be appropriate to pass along the URL at this time.

-I still have not been able to get a hold of the books that I need for my courses. I replied to several messages were sent by senior students indicating that they had books for sale but have still heard nothing. None of them seem to be on reserve and the bookstore does not have two of them and a third that they do have is not quite correct.

Contrary to a decision I made yesterday, I ended up purchasing the course pack for one of my courses. While I could get most of the contents on my own it is not all that much more expensive and I believe my time to be worth something. I think that it is also likely that I will read more if it is in a bound format in my room that somewhere on the web waiting to be downloaded.

A Few Quick Notes 48

-The temperature is now down to about -12, which is quite chilly. Though it is cold we still don’t have any snow or frozen water to talk about. It seems that it might be generally colder in the next few days than it has been over the past few weeks.

-Today before class I went to the bookstore to purchase a book for the class that I had yesterday. Though the book available was not the one that was originally ordered I decided that I would splash out for it. After the purchase I went over to school and started to read a few of the first pages.

What initially struck me about the book was that it was absolutely nothings special, just another textbook dealing with social science research methods. To me the greater than $80 price tag did seem special.

After class I decided to head back to the bookstore to pick up the course pack (collection of reading for the class) for the course that I had just had. While in the store I ran into three of my classmates. The discussion quickly turned to books that had been recommended. It quickly became clear that I didn’t really need to purchase the book that I had already purchased and likely didn’t need to purchase the course pack that I had gone to buy.

My plan is to use the library copies of the books and then get a copy of the table of content from the course pack and get each week’s articles.

This decision meant that I would have to return the already purchased book. So I went up stairs and attempted to do this. At first the process seemingly went smoothly. The book was handed over to the clerk and an amount of money refunded to my bank card.

Just before the process was over the clerk realized that he had refunded me too much money. This kind of threw him a little off kilter, he didn’t seem to know quite how to deal with it. Eventually he was able to figure out a way to get me to pay pack the money, though he insisted that I used my bank card.

As I have a limited number of free transactions a month I wasn’t really interested in paying for this $3 on my bank card. I suggested that I might be able to pay in cash, which at the end of the day would leave their till balanced.

This suggestion wasn’t all that welcome. The clerk eventually went to find an answer. Though it took a few minutes and didn’t seem to be a big deal to his supervisor, I was able to pay back the $3 in cash.

-Unfortunately none of the books that I would like to read for my courses is available from the library. It seems that they have all been checked out and recalled, though they might not be back for more than a week. This doesn’t really seem acceptable.

-My classes have been pretty good so far, though some of them could be a little spicier. Tomorrow’s class will finally give me a final view of my term.

-The free book box is back again this term. So far I have been able to pick up three free books. Score.

Weather

Today was a pretty normal day. Then all of a sudden it started to snow. After about half an hour it stopped and it is once again a nice clear day.

Just after it started to snow the group with which I was skating (Val and a friend of her's from France) decided to take a warm beverage break. By the time we returned to the ice it was covered in a few centimeters but no longer snowing. It was a pretty impressive show.

A Few Quick Notes 47

-Today has been a little cooler in temperature than other days, though still by no means as cold as it normally would be at this time of year. Amazingly, Environment Canada has a record high temperature for this day that is about 8 degrees higher than today. This source does indicate that the normal temperature range would be between -5 to -15.

We will see if the temperature drops as it has been predicted to do.

-Classes started yesterday. The down side so far is that I will have group projects in both classes that I have had. Hopefully I will get some good partners, making the whole process much better.

The first class, Collection Development, was quite nice. The instructor introduced the class and the topic and finished in an hour and a half, not pushing the limit of what was capable on the first day.

-The free copies of the Gazette are back at the gym. This should save me a few dollars a week. It is actually going to be a bit odd getting back into Montreal news after being away for a few weeks.

-McGill has failed to release all of my grades still. Apparently someone forgot to upload the last set of grades, only noticing yesterday. For some reason even though this problem was noticed yesterday yet it will not be corrected until today at the earliest.

-Last night, just after 5:00 PM, I received a call from my boss. He was wondering if I would be coming in to work. My response was that I didn’t think so as I wasn’t on the schedule the last time that I checked. With him on the phone I checked again and again found that he I was not on the schedule. Somehow he had intended to give me the shift but actually put someone else on the schedule. The other person didn’t show up for the shift (as they had class) but likely had already run the change by our boss.

As I already had plans for the evening I wasn’t able to go in and work. I have been wondering what happened. Who ever they got to work must have started on the late side of normal, hopefully this didn’t cause too many problems though.

Anyway, it sounds as though this will now be my normal shift in addition to my Friday shift.

Planning a trip to Montreal

For several months now I've been making mental preparations for a trip to Montreal. Actual preparation started when I became aware of a Viarail promotion which was selling train tickets from Halifax to Montreal and back at half price. My plan then became to travel to Montreal during my February "reading week". The expiry date for the promotion was December 31st, 2006. My plan had been to book these tickets some time before the end of last year. On the last day of the year I realized that the discounted tickets were only marginally cheaper than the going Air Canada $124 plane ticket cost (after surcharges) and that the travel time was about 1/10th as much if going by plane.

As such I decided my trip would still be over the reading week, but would have to be by plane (the reading week decision is mostly independent). My problem with the $124 ticket to Montreal is that the distance between Montreal and Halifax is about 1250 km, whereas the distance between St. John's and Halifax is about 1500 km and that ticket goes for $94. You can probably come up with some reasons for that (if you have any substanciated reasons, let me know), but what really gets me is that it costs more to go to Montreal than it does to go to Toronto. On my last two trips on Air Canada the price has dropped after I booked (even though there were good reasons to assume prices would go up from there out), so on Sunday when I saw the price drop to $117 I figured I had better not rush into anything. However, today I find myself regretting waiting as the price is already back up to $124.

The current plan based upon when the cheap tickets are available on Air Canada is to go to Montreal early on Tuesday the 20th of February and to return to Halifax on the evening of Saturday the 24th. To make my trip any longer I either have to miss class or pay more. Considering that I have 11 days in a row without class, I figure I should be able to avoid missing class. It conceivable that I would shell out the extra $20 to change the dates though, especially if the price drops. I could also save $35 by selling my soul to Air Canada and declining Aeroplan miles, the option to check bags and by forfeiting any ability to change my flight plans.

So far my schedule in Montreal is pretty open. At McGill I would like to see the math building, library and graduate student's bar. I would like to see Cameron's preferred grocery stores and have some of his famous beans. Although I own a Canadiens hat, I'm not likely to do anything remotely hockey related.


Side note: At 12:00 AM it was 10 degrees Celsius at Halifax International Airport (HIA). I have a feeling this has something to do with the fact that it's warmer in my apartment than I remember it being ever before.

A Few Quick Notes 46

-Today was another beautiful day in Montreal. Though it was a little cool and slightly windy, the sun was out and shining nicely. It seems that over the next few days were are forecast to have some cooler temperatures.

-I was able to make it out today, the main reason was to head to a local office supply store to pick up things for my classes. At about 10:30 I arrived in the train station, the location of the store, and learned that it was still closed and not scheduled to open until 12:00.

After this initial disappointment I returned to my part of town and went to the library and returned a movie I borrowed the day before. I spent a few more minutes checking my email and eventually thought that I had blown enough time so that the store might be open.

When I returned to the train station the store was still closed, though the clock was showing that it was scheduled to open in a two minutes, I decided to stick it out. While they were a few minutes late in their opening the wait was not bad. I was in and out with the desired products in just a few minutes.

-My term starts tomorrow. One very nice part of this term is that not all of my classes are early in the morning. The downside is that the two morning courses that I do have are the ones that I am not as interested in. It would be nice to have these courses in the afternoon when I would be able to do a better job paying attention.

-The more I deal with it the less I like the McGill computer accounting system. As far as I can tell it is not really automated and up to date. Hopefully everything will be fine with my account by Monday, though I should likely give them a call before class.

-Hopefully my free papers will be back this year. I will have to check tomorrow morning before class.

The pigeons were back again

Shortly after I awoke this morning, while I was sitting at my computer checking my email, I noticed my favourite neighbourhood pigeons on the roof across from me. As my camera was handy I decided to once again film them to show that their behaviour is really quite regular.

So I am back in Montreal

Much of my time back in town has been spent catching up on sleep or relaxing, though I was able to do a bit of skating last night. This has been quite nice as my trip to St. John’s didn’t really lead to too much sleep.

Aside from this sleep matter I have had the displeasure of dealing with McGill’s proto-automated system for students. While it appears automated I feel it has a few kinks to work out. One of the more noticeable problems is that they issue e-bills that don’t reflect the amount that is actually owed by the student, particularly if the student is receiving money from the University. Additionally, if money is to be credited to the account, say because of a refund, it is not reflected how this money is used on the bill. I just don’t recall having this problem at MUN, my account was just updated automatically and things were easy.

Another issue with McGill is the inability to use a credit card to pay, though they are quite willing to take credit cards for application fees or deposits. Students have to use online banking features, which might be pretty easy if one does this frequently. I have the problem that I keep forgetting my banking details so I can’t even access my account (though this could be solved by a telephone call to the bank).

The other McGill issue is accessing one’s grades. While most North American universities that I am familiar with seem to post grades within a few days of the exam period ending. This is not the case at McGill. I finished my exams in mid-December and still don’t have access to my grades, though I had expected that they would be up yesterday. It would seem that knowing whether students have passed or failed before the term begins might be of use to both students and administrators as it might cause changes to course loads (a problem that I am not expecting to affect me).

A Few Quick Notes 45

A Few Quick Notes 45

(From Wednesday, obviously before my departure)

-It seems that my prediction that the rain would eliminate all of the snow was incorrect. While the rain did eliminate much of the snow, the remaining snow has iced up quite nicely because of the temperature drop that we experienced last night and today.

-Today I was able to complete an online check-in for my flight home tomorrow. As I did not have an assigned seat this was a comfort providing exercise. Amazingly, I was even fortunate enough to have a window seat. As I should be flying in daylight I may actually be able to see a bit of Montreal as I arrive.

Back in Montreal

A few hours ago I made it back to Montreal. Hopefully within a day or two I will be back on some kind of normal schedule.

A&W now TFF (including fries)

Trans fats are now all but gone from A&W in Canada. I'm not sure about the US company of a similar name that isn't affliated.

Could this mean Neil and A&W are now BFF? We'll have to wait and see if the new french fries still taste good. At least until I get to try the new A&W burger and fries I'll have to claim it is my favorite burger and fries joint. Wendy's has made progress in this area in the US, but they have yet to clean up their menu in Canada.

Back in Halifax

As Cameron has informed you I arrived safely back in Halifax yesterday. The city appears to be fine and also happens to be totally snow-free. Both Rebecca's and my apartments are still here and in good shape. The maintenance guys came in and left one of Rebecca's lights on costing her what I estimate to be $2. I have a new roommate whose name I believe to be Mark. He's a fourth year mechanical engineering student from Cape Breton. He seems like he'll be a fine roommate. Our apartment now has a TV and George Foreman grill. The downside of this is that Rebecca can't borrow one of the two couches from my room.

I don't really have any new year's resolutions, but I am going to try to blog more. To paraphrase my Uncle, "my blogger was busted" in December (and maybe longer).

My school schedule is pretty open as of yet. I am taking one class, Functional Analysis, from 8:35 - 9:55 TR. I am again working in the Learning Centre for seven hours. Those hours will be set tomorrow. After that I'll do up a nice .pdf schedule and post it for all to see. This semester I'm really supposed to be going hard at research. I'm looking forward to it, but I'll really need to buckle down because I want to have lots done by the end of the semester.

My most prized Christmas gift is the Canon PowerShot A630 (digital camera) I got from my parents (I mention the model mostly for Graham's sake). For the average Montifax blog reader, this just means you are likely to see an increase in pics from me.

We all know the bread and butter is this blog is mundane details and stories of thriftiness, so I feel I should let you know I'm planning a trip to the mall (Halifax Shopping Centre) here very shortly, so that I can hit up the calendar store for discounted games (especially a Go board). I've been planning this since early December. I'm mostly sure that if Go is there it will be cheap because the store is probably packing up after this weekend.

Now I'm off to clean up and head to school. My first DAGS meeting of the semester is today. Yay free pizza!

P.S. After finishing the previous line I spellchecked to see if I had typed roomate instead of roommate (as I tend to do). I had done so once, but more importantly Google flagged the word blog and the word blogger. I can't believe they haven't added those yet. I don't think I'll send them an email about it because I know they are reading what I've typed anyway.

A Few Quick Notes 44

-Another overcast and rainy day in St. John’s. Though the evening’s raindrops were not that large they did seem to be effective, soaking me on a short trip. It seems that any snow that we did have will be gone in the very near future.

-Montreal is scheduled to be nice and warm, 11 c, by the time I get back. I am not really sure what to make of this warm weather. It seems that this may be even warmer than what I experienced in England. I may have to bring my bike down again.

-Several days ago I was finally able to have some penetrating oil purchased on my behalf. This product in conjunction with a proper wrench should help me remove my peggle once I return.

-Just moments ago I read a newspaper article by a professor of mine that indicated that Newfoundland and Quebec poorest funded public library systems, at least as of 2005 or so. Having lived in both provinces I don’t find this surprising, and it is even less surprising when learned that a small Saskatchewan town of 500 has a public library with more than one employee (I know that I should be providing a full citation but I don’t have the energy at this juncture, if anyone wants I can get them the details).

-Neil arrived back in Halifax today. It seems that he has not had the time to make a post alerting his faithful readers of this fact.

-Someone in my house seems to have misplaced my copy of Saddam’s obit. This is rather unfortunate, I had been hoping to read it as well as examine the associated pictures.

-My pigeon video keeps getting viewers for some reason. Each day I find that it has one or two new views. While it isn’t quite at the top of the YouTube charts it is clearly my most popular video with over 40 views.

-Hopefully the Christmas hiatus will be coming to an end with my return to Montreal. It is my hope to create some kind of quarterly report, though I might find that I won’t have the time for such frivolous pursuits once the term starts.