crackerNews

Life Lessons from the Big Cracker

Big Cracker — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:21:59 -0400

If you recall, awhile back I posted a blog about regrets. The only comment was from Big T who advised, “No regrets! Forge ahead!” And I am.

But it’s been on my mind all the same. In fact, I’ve come to a bit of a conclusion: There come times in a person’s life where he has achieved a certain level of respect and expertise in his career and should continue for a few years to exploit the situation for inevitable personal success.

The problem is recognizing these times, and also being patient enough to get to this point. I admit I was never patient enough to recognize these opportunities.

Twice, so far, I’ve been in great positions; respected in the job I was doing and with a significant level of expertise. Neither time did I think, “This is it. This is the job I should be doing.” Not even that it was the right career to be in. Just that I didn’t like my manager and wasn’t willing to continue working for her, and that I was no longer happy with the town I was living in. (It was actually sort of the same both times.)

While I could have probably found work in another department, or simply persevered, and increased my expertise, I left. Moved half way across the country. Was it the right decision? We’ll never know. But I’ve now come to a realization that I’m in a position that is still part of the same career path that I thought I left, and it’s time to exploit my respect and expertise for inevitable personal success. Onward!

Expert by Pete Prodoehl is a Creative Commons image.

Sometimes Too Little Is Too Little

Big Cracker — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:38:39 -0400

Lifehacker mentioned a Small Notebook post about a hierarchy of cleaning. “That’s great,” I thought, “that should be a great place to get an idea for better scheduling my housecleaning tasks.” As you may have guessed, it wasn’t. And what killed me was the huge number of positive comments; at least on Small Notebook, Lifehacker commenters were less enthusiastic.

I saw the triangular hierarchy graphic, went to the original post for more detail, and there wasn’t any. WTF? You post a graphic like that with no other description or commentary? I want to know why things are grouped the way they are. What is the expected outcome of following the given hierarchy? How is this going to help me, when I don’t know what it means? There was also no indication of how the hierarchy was derived, leaving me clueless about how to customize it for my own situation. So, thanks for nothing, Lifehacker and Small Notebook.

What methods do you guys use for prioritizing housecleaning?

Flesh v. Flush

Big Cracker — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 13:11:58 -0400

I noticed this posted on Daily Writing Tips, but didn’t really think it was a thing until my boss said it the other day, “flush it out,” meaning that we would work out a response or solution.

For reference:

You flesh out a plan.
You flush toilets and flush out toxins.
You flush out game or people who are in hiding.

Mostly, I don’t think anyone should be flushing out their plans.

Kick-Ass

Big Cracker — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:19:44 -0400

So I finally managed to watch the movie Kick-Ass the other day, and I can understand why it didn't do well in theatres. It tried to be too much. Now I never read the comic book, so maybe it's very true to its source, but I doubt it.

We start off with a comic book nerd who decides to buy a costume online and become a superhero; good times. But then we're introduced to a real, Batman-esque superhero (i.e., a regular dude with cool gadgets), who willingly, and maybe purposefully, kills his enemies. These two pieces don't fit for me.

But the story requires the mistaken identity plot line to introduce and further a second comic book nerd's supervillain. I suppose the two comic book nerds are mentored and mirrored by the actual superhero and villain, but it doesn't ring true for me. It takes a comic, light-hearted premise and makes it dark and serious.

Plus, I'm not sure I approve of a 12-year-old girl chopping people's legs off or shooting them between the eyes.

It was a good movie, but the transition from teen comic book romance to dark pulp gangster killfest was a little jarring. 7 out of 10 saltines.

So Many Posts

Big Cracker — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:33:30 -0400

You may be wondering why I’ve been writing so many posts lately, and I’m going to tell you. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m using Typingweb to improve my typing. I also need to practice using the skills I’m learning.

Hopefully, I’ll get to the point where I can type at least remotely quickly enough that typing will be as easy as writing with pen and paper. I have a novel I’d like to write, but it is too much hassle trying to do it.

So there’ll be plenty more posts on the way!

More on Minimalism and Simplicity

Big Cracker — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:30:00 -0400

Further to yesterday’s post, over the last year or so, I’ve been keeping an eye on the domain Polonius.com. I was thinking that I wanted to start a minimalism, simplicity, and productivity blog, and Polonius provided sage advice. Unfortunately, the domain is still not available.

But on further reflection, all I would’ve done is reposted or quoted from existing sites, like Lifehacker, WorkAwesome, Zen Habits, and others. So I decided that I would just try to keep you all updated on my minimalism, simplicity, and productivity efforts.

I’ve already begun a few things:

Using Typingweb.com to improve my typing speed and ability.
Using the TimeLeft timer to keep me focused on tasks.
Using Remember the Milk to keep track of personal tasks, and Outlook for work tasks.
(In fact, I’m looking to update our Sharepoint project list to synchronize tasks in Outlook.)
Updating this site’s design to something slightly more minimal.
Automating more computer-related tasks (e.g., backups, updates).

What else should I be working on?

Minimalism, Simplicity, and Moderation

Big Cracker — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:24:41 -0400

Alrighty, so yesterday I read a post at miss minimalist about 100 Things I Don’t Own. When I went back today to review it and write this post, I found it had been removed. Which is too bad. Regardless of the response, I think that if that's what she wanted to say, then she should have said it and stood by it. But who am I to judge?

The point of my post remains the same. Miss Minimalist lives without a number of things, in my opinion, just for the sake of it. No dining room table or chairs (coffee table and floor), no couch (see previous), no art (bare walls). Granted, she lives in a 500-square-foot apartment and space is an issue, but that seems more like an excuse than a reason.

I'm all for minimizing possessions, but within reason. There was a response to the post, or a later post or something, where someone said they don't own camera and prefer to live in the moment. Really? And 20 years from now when you’d like to reminisce about a great event or an awesome experience, or share it with your kids? Too bad, impossible; you'd better be a great storyteller.

So, indeed, while I go through the exercise of simplifying my life, I may be digitizing my music and photos, selling or giving away my CDs, cassette tapes, and books, and scanning documents or receiving them digitally. But I won’t stop taking pictures, or collecting art, or listening to music, or generally acquiring things. I will give a little more consideration to what I'm acquiring and why, but I’ll stick to the saying, “Moderation in everything, including moderation.” How ’bout you?

Webhost Fail

Big Cracker — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:33:29 -0400

I'm not sure how many of you noticed, but the website was up and down over the last few days. Many of my other sites experienced the same fate, or worse.

My excellent webhost choose to advise me Thursday that they would be migrating my server Friday morning. They also assured me that the downtime would be minimal. They failed, however, to advise me that database connectivity would take several days to resolve, and that I would have to do it myself.

Because pretty much all of my sites depend on databases to some degree, all of them had problems. Some only failed to have content on some pages, while others couldn't even load. My apologies to everyone affected.

Thanks again, Netfirms, for terrible service! I wish I wasn't locked into a 2-year contract! (Well, I guess I'm not locked, but it's not really worth the money to switch right now.)

Telephone, Email, Calendar, Tasks, Books, Music

Big Cracker — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:14:17 -0400

With the iPad having sold over 3 million units, a new Kindle coming out, an Android tablet coming out, and Saskatchewan finally getting 3G+ coverage, I'm excited to have all kinds of gadget options available to me. But what do I want?

I definitely want telephone, text message, and email capability, and all the smarty-phones have those. But what about calendar, tasks, and contacts that can sync to Google and Remember the Milk? And then I need to listen to music, read ebooks, and take halfway decent on-the-go pictures.

Oh yeah, and smaller than a regular 200-300 page paperback. With headphones that let me listen to music, alert me to an incoming phone call, and then let me take the call.

Does such a device exist? Will it ever? And will it cost me an arm and a leg?

Holy Filing, Batman!

Big Cracker — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:30:04 -0400

I've spent a few hours a day over the last few days filing and cleaning out old files. I've come up with a stack for shredding that’s over 20cm thick. I've also recycled a stack about one-third that size. Part of that was a stack of stuff from my former employer that’s probably at least 12cm thick.

I found copies of cover letters and resumes dating back to 1997. And vaccination records dating back to 1974. And my skydiving logbook from 1996.

My overall plan is to go paperless, which is not as easy as you might imagine. I’m trying to update all my bills to e-bills and file my taxes online; my bank statements are already all online. But once everything’s cleaned out and current, my plan is to stay on top of the filing -- have a place for everything and everything in its place. As well, I’m using Remember the Milk and Google Calendar to keep track of tasks and appointments, and Gmail for all my contacts, all of which sync to my phone.

Paperless, eh? But what if your hard drive crashes? I'm trying to sort out regular backups and use Dropbox to sync folders and backup to the cloud. Any other suggestions or critiques?

R.I.P. Maury Chaykin

Big Cracker — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:59:29 -0400

Apparently, Maury Chaykin died today. That's kinda sad. He was always kinda fun to watch, in Mystery, Alaska and Dances with Wolves, among a ton of others. Here are some links to the news:

A Best Buy Adventure

Big Cracker — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:34:00 -0400

I went down to the new Best Buy in town yesterday ... what a nuthouse! The only reason I was there was for autographs from Andy Fantuz (I think that crooked smile might be permanent) and Darian Durant of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. And not even for me, but for little P&E. I picked up a cap and got the peak signed, but I'm not sure I cared.

The nuthouse part about it was that the autograph signing didn't start 'til 13:00h, and even when we got there at about 10:15h, we were already 75^th in line! There were a bunch of door prizes and daily specials that were only available to the first few people in line, and there were probably close to 300 people in line by the time the doors opened at 11:00h.

We wandered around for bit to see what was up, but the place was packed! And people were buying all kinds of things they didn't need. The best was people in some kind of small hatchback trying to cram a 50″ TV into the back!

Anywho, we got wristbands and didn't have to stay in line (although we had to be back in line around noon), so we were only in the sun for about three hours, rather than four. But we were able to get away for lunches and potty breaks.

Salt

Big Cracker — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:14:55 -0400

As a CIA officer, Evelyn Salt swore an oath to duty, honor and country. Her loyalty will be tested when a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy. Salt goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture. Salt's efforts to prove her innocence only serve to cast doubt on her motives, as the hunt to uncover the truth behind her identity continues and the question remains: “Who is Salt?”

Obviously, I went to see Salt this weekend. Obvious only because of the title of this post and the included plot synopsis. And what a good movie. Some good chases and escapes, things blowing up, people jumping from high-rise windows and moving vehicles.

But the best parts were definitely the plot twists that serve to provide and convolute the answer given above: “Who is Salt?” Maybe she's innocent and unfairly targeted as a Russian agent, or maybe she's a Russian agent so far undercover for so long she's forgotten, or maybe protesting her innocence is how she completes her deep cover mission. Or maybe ....

But you'll have to check it out for yourselves. 8 out of 10 saltines.

Taste of Saskatchewan

Big Cracker — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:50:40 -0400

Not to mock Saskatchewan, nor its purveyors of fine food, but A Taste of Saskatchewan is kind of stupid.

With 31 booths and 94 menu items, you'd think it would be a great idea and an excellent experience. But you'd be wrong. Admittedly, I didn't actually partake, but I feel comfortable and justified in my decision.

It was suggested, in my office, that we head down for lunch Friday. Not having seen any information about it, I popped onto the website to see what was up. That's when I decided not to go.

Almost a third of the booths were for restaurants I can find in pretty much any mall food court. And the price was exorbitant, especially for food court fare. For the most part, each plate offered by each booth was two tokens. There were fully 9 items (less than 10%) that were one token. Reasonable? Not really, each token was $2.50, and one of the one-token items was a cup of coffee. That had better be one hell of a cup of coffee!

For $5, I would hope for a fair-sized plate of food. But at that price I may have had one or two plates and a smaller dessert, so $12.50. But, again, there were 94 items from 31 restaurants; my three items would not have been any kind of representative sample.

My suggestion for the future is $1 tokens and proportionally smaller plates, with perhaps even more items to mix and match.

If you disagree with me, I'm definitely interested to hear your opinion.

Rain, rain, go away!

Big Cracker — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 11:10:04 -0400

I don't know about the rest of you, but this rain's starting to get me down. If it's going to rain all summer, fine, I'll accept it. I'll buy myself a better raincoat and a bus pass, and I'll suck it up. But when the forecast everyday calls for rain and then it doesn't rain, it really pisses me off.

I need to water my lawn, but it's going to rain, so I don't. I want to ride my bike to work, but it's going to rain, so I don't. And then it doesn't rain, but it still might, so what then? Do I water my lawn? Do I ride my bike? Grr.

I hope the rotten weather is treating you better than it's treating me.

Sandwich Fail

Big Cracker — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:47:53 -0400

I suppose I could have mentioned this Friday after lunch, when I developed my opinion, but I haven't posted here much lately and kinda forgot it was an option.

I popped into Subway for a quick, slightly healthy, sandwich Friday and thought I made a pretty good choice:a ham sandwich on flatbread, with lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, cucumumbumbers, onions, pickles, mustard, mayo, cheddar cheese, and pepper.

Sounds pretty good, right? As my sister loves to hear me say, yes and no. The sandwich was pretty tasty; the construction was pretty flimsy.

The bread is a square of flatbread that gets folded over to make the sandwich. The bread was a little dry, so when it was folded, it just broke in half. The problem is that all the ingredients were loaded more heavily on the open side, so when it broke, the sandwich was lopsided. It also lacked the necessary structure to hold all the ingredients properly, so they fell out, making a nice salad in the wrapper, but not a sandwich.

Subway sandwich on flatbread? Fail. Stick with the buns.

He he .. he said buns.

Riding the bus v. Taking the car

Big Cracker — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:56:26 -0400

So, I was on the bus today and there was this dude carrying a toy Firebird in his hand. Like, his hand was out, palm up, with the car parked on his palm. Weird. I wanted to ask him, “So, you always take your car to work?”

Web hosting

Big Cracker — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:52:59 -0500

Alright, everybody, I previously mentioned that I had to move my web hosting. Now I'm asking for suggestions for web hosts, because my current host is crappy. They seemed to have everything I needed, at reasonable prices, but it turns out that they don't.

Most notably, their support for scheduled tasks (cron jobs) is terrible. While the interface is terrible, the actual jobs also don't seem to run on schedule. I had a job that was scheduled to run every four hours; it ran every four to six hours. I have a job that I scheduled to run every hour; it ran every hour for three hours, then ran again six hours later, then never ran again. I've added another job to run every 15 minutes, and it doesn't seem to run at all.

As well, although it's not a huge issue, the host does not (and will not) provide the IMAP module for PHP, meaning that crackerMail will not run. Sure, I can use other programs, including the host's webmail service, but that's not what I want.

I can't set up multiple administrators. Maybe I was spoiled in being able to have multiple control panels for multiple domains, with multiple administrators, but it was a very useful feature.

So, if anyone knows of a good, inexpensive web host who might be able to provide all these things, let me know.

Silver lining?

Big Cracker — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:31:42 -0500

Boy, I hope getting killed in Olympic hockey pushes Alexander Ovechkin (and Alexander Semin and Semyon Varlamov) to get my Washington Capitals a Stanley Cup, for once in my 15-year fanshipness. The Caps are leading the league, I just hope they can keep it going!

Oh, and I guess (although the Olympics kind of bug me) congratulations on Canada's Olympic hockey win.

Regrets

Big Cracker — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:01:02 -0500

I don't know how many of you are aware, but I have a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering, and have never worked as a Chemical Engineer. No, no, don't be sad, I'm not really concerned.

But I do have regrets, I think. And maybe not regrets, but 'what if?' questions. I mean, I'm pretty sure I can narrow it down to one specific incident that threw off my schedule and led me to be less interested in chemical engineering.

I, admittedly, did not apply myself in my second year and had to repeat organic chemistry in my third year. Due to the timing of classes, I was unable to take one of the compulsory classes and was forced to take classes for a fifth year. This is pretty much when I started questioning whether I was really interested in becoming a chemical engineer.

So, what if I had applied myself and passed organic chemistry? Or had studied through the summer and taken a supplemental exam to pass the class? Really, what if I had been able to complete my degree in four years? Would I have become an engineer? Would my life be better? I don't know. Is it worth thinking about? Probably not.

What if I had not left the hotel business and moved to Toronto? What if I had moved laterally (and slightly downward) to Front Desk Supervisor and continued my career within the hotel industry?

What if I had stayed in Toronto and continued my web publisher work? What if I had looked for similar work at other companies and stayed in Toronto?

What got me thinking about this? Am I unhappy in my job? No. And I don't know. I think about this stuff every now and again and I wonder what my life would be like now, given some much earlier decisions. Even little things, like what if I'd been offered a particular job sooner and been able to take it, rather than having accepted another job?

I try to live in the present, but every now and again the past creeps up and I wonder about things. What makes you wonder?

PPF Neighborhood: Haiti Relief with M�decins Sans Fronti�res

Big Cracker — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:23:52 -0500

Hey Friends, I was up until one o'clock this morning finishing my part of this project, I hope you check it out and help out a great cause, and some terrific artists!

In an effort to bring aid to those suffering in Haiti, over 2 dozen like-minded friends in the independent arts community, many based in Toronto, and a few from abroad, have banded together to put together the PPF Neighborhood: a downloadable benefit compilation of music, visual art and photographs.

The project is a third party fundraiser for Medecins Sans Frontières (aka Doctors Without Borders) and all proceeds will go to assist MSF’s work with the victims of the earthquake. What we hope is that, even if you’ve given already, you’ll feel compelled to donate $5 (or more if you want) to help us make a difference in a tragic situation. In return you will receive 14 tracks of original music and 13 works of visual art and photography, packaged neatly in a pdf booklet.

Just go to ppfhouse.bandcamp.com where you can purchase the album through paypal or any major credit card.

Featuring a who’s who of award winning artists, the project brings together Juno Award Winners (and losers), U of T Art Professors, Underground Hip Hoppers, Latin Jazzers, Pop and Electronica Darlings, as well as Vanguards of Illustration, Animation and Photography. It’s an eclectic mix of “creative” types who are trying to use what they do best to offer a helping hand.

Thanks for your support and please feel free to let any and all know about the project.
The PPF House Neighborhood will only be available until Feb.11, 2010, the final day before the Canadian Government closes its pledge to match all private donations.

More information on the project and its contributors can be found at www.ppfhouse.com/haiti.

More information about MSF and its work in Haiti and elsewhere can be found at www.msf.ca.

To view MSF’s letter of endorsement for the project, please go to http://ppfhouse.com/msf-letter.php.

The end of an era

Big Cracker — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:14:00 -0500

Some bad news today: effective February 28, 2010, Externalgateway.com is closing its doors. Sad, I know, but true. Our six-year experiment in website hosting, development, and design has come to an end. The margins on hosting are such that we can’t be competitive and still make it worth our while.

In any case, this site may be up and down over the next day or two and my email may be a little temperamental, but I’ll get everything moved over to a new host and let everything settle down.

New year, new ... something

Big Cracker — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:54:23 -0500

(Just to note, I started this a week ago. I don't know what that says about my motivation.)

Alrighty, new year, new years' resolutions ... Or not. I read a ton of self-improvement, DIY and productivity blogs and all of them have had some post (or several) about making and keeping new years' resolutons. I've had a bunch of resolutions in the past and stuck to pretty much none of them. But I've also had a number of habits I've wanted to create (or break), new year or not, and I've been mildly successful.

So, based on all my reading and my own personal success, if there's a goal you want to achieve, determine an activity that will help you acheive the goal and do it. The more regularly you perform the activity, the easier it will be to continue doing it, and the easier it will be to get back to if you have to stop for any length of time.

For example, if you want to lose weight (and I'm pretty sure we've all thought about it), that's a pretty big goal, and involves a lot of work. But trying to walk a little more and eat potato chips less doesn't involve a lot of work, and will probably save you a little money (often another goal). And even if you don't walk everywhere you could or you eat a bag of potato chips every now and again, it's not a big deal, just get back on track. Eventually (hopefully sooner than later), you won't have to think much about it, you'll just do it. In the end, I advise baby steps and consistency and you'll make it happen. Happy new year!

And by the way, I think I like twenty-ten better than two thousand and ten. I don't know why, I'm sure it doesn't really matter, but I'm going to try to go with twenty-ten. (Another habit to form.)

Almost Xmas time

Big Cracker — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:40:29 -0500

We're well into December now and I haven't written you guys a real note in over three months. I have been a little busy, but not really, and noteworthy things have happened, but not really.

On my birthday, I let you guys know that Cracker's Marbles came in second at Trivia Night at the Yard. Well, two weeks ago, Mike, Jess, and I (Mike & Ike & Crackers) finally won! The categories were pretty varied, with general trivia, Oscar winners, and gemstones as major ones. It was a little funy at the end, because they announced the second place winner first, with 46 points. Jess was slightly indignant, “But we had 49 points!” And, the winner is ....

In slightly bigger news, my sister has acquired a dog. The Baron is an American Eskimo-Pomeranian cross (with probably another breed or two thrown in for good measure). In the picture, he's chillin' under my sister's desk while she works. We all need to get familiar with the dog's bodily cycles (yes, you know what I mean!), but I think it'll be good. Even if I'm crazy allergic!

And in even bigger news, I'm now gainfully employed! As opposed to being painfully self-employed. I'm a programmer in the institutional research office of the local University. The work is pretty much what the wikipedia link says; naturally, I work on the website (which is not actually in production, yet), ensuring that the information is usable and accurate. I'll also be working on a lot of product and project documentation as we get things ramped up. Apparently, the current incarnation of the office has a much-expanded scope from the last office, which was less than effective at providin useful information in a useful format. We're out to shift the paradigm!

Anyway, with Xmas coming up, I've got some gifts to wrap and decorations to put up, so I'll drop you a note sometime later. (Probably to let you know about all my awesome Xmas loot!)

That's weird

Big Cracker — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:44:26 -0500

Apparently, Zoo York has a Big Cracker hoodie (or, as we in Saskatchewan say, bunnyhug). No, I don't think I need one. (Lime green? Yuck!)