My Rants and Thoughts

How's the pandemic treating you?

2021-03-03T14:33:00.002-08:00

I almost forgot this site was here since it's been so long since I posted

I looked at my last post - wow time sure flies.

So, how's life been during the pandemic?

2015-08-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted here in a LOOOONNG time but I had a random thought I had to share somewhere

I was once interviewed by a client who wanted me to work for him full time - give up my self-employment as a consultant to work exclusively for him.

At the time I thought this was great - I'd be rolling in the cash - this was a big company (I thought) so they could afford to pay me lots!

He asked what my hourly rate was. At the time it was $50/hour - about average for my industry.

He then went on to say that if I make $50/hour - 8 hour day - 5 days a week - I must be making a couple thousand dollars per week. Was that the case?

No it wasn't - I was spending a good part of the time doing non-paid promotions as I was still trying to build my business.

So then he asked me to figure out what my "actual" hourly rate was. Turns out it was closer to $20/hour once I factored in all the non-paid stuff I was doing to fill out my week.

He then offered me $20 per hour to work for him full time.

At the time it seemed fair - the way he spun it made sense to me.

But I'm here to tell you it wasn't. I should have followed my gut and stayed at my regular rate. What I did was devalue myself.

I've since learned not to do that. I rarely take less than my normal rate - I only do it where there's the potential to earn a larger amount for less work. In other words, rather than make X number of dollars per hour, I make XXX number of dollars per week/month/year depending on the client. It still works out to be the same hourly rate - just spread out over a greater period.

My point is this - don't devalue yourself. You know what you are worth. Promises are just that - promises. In my experience they never turn out the way you want them to.

The guy I ended up working at $20 for promised me it would be "6 months at the most" and then there'd be a substantial raise, profit sharing, etc etc. None of that ever materialized. I did get a slight bump in pay, after I asked for it - after about a year.

Unfortunately I worked like that for almost 2 years until I realized that I would never realize the promises he made. The company was always broke according to him, which is why there was no profit sharing. That's also why I never got any raises.

So after 2 years I started to slowly built up my client base again. Even though I said I wouldn't, I had to - I was living paycheque to paycheque and that's no life to live.

That's why just after my 3rd anniversary with the company I no longer worked there. I had developed enough of a client base that I could afford to work for myself full time again. Sure it was tight for a couple months but you know what? My first full time month of self employment I made double what I made working for him. And I've never looked back.

Now when I compare my current self employment salary to what I was making there - usually within 4-6 months I've already made more than what I made in a whole year working there.

All because I chose to listen to his spin and devalue what I knew to be my own true worth.

Mozilla bug - can't get out of whistler

2008-08-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

I live in British Columbia, and as many people may be aware, our biggest city Vancouver is hosting the 2010 Olympics.

Well short drive north of Vancouver is the mountain community of Whistler where they will be holding many of the alpine events.

To get to Whistler from Vancouver you generally take the "sea to ski" highway. Earlier this week the highway was closed from a massive rockslide which they think will take another 4 or 5 days to clear.

This really sucks for those planning a trip to Whistler for our long weekend, but what of those people trapped up there? I should tell you it's not totally isolated - there are other routes in and out of whistler.

All this rambling of mine leads up to this: There is apparently a group of Mozilla developers "trapped" in whistler. They were there for a conference. As developers usually do when they hit a snag, they filed a bug report on their software bug tracking system:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=448604

Check it out and read some of the "solutions" It's good for a laugh.

What nature thinks of global warming

2008-06-05T09:05:00.001-07:00

This video speaks for itself

2008-05-06T14:18:00.001-07:00

I saw the strangest thing today

2008-02-26T09:24:00.001-08:00

I watched a woman drive into the parking lot at work today and completely wipe down her vehicle.

She had a chamois and she went around and polished the whole thing before she went in to work.

At first she started on the inside - I saw her polishing the door panels etc. But then she wiped down the doors too - not just the inside and outside but the edges as well.

She then went around and did all the lower parts of the vehicle - chrome, bumpers and wheels.

Normally I'd expect this from a guy who has a hot ride or something, but you don't usually see women fuss over a vehicle to that extent do you? I mean, she spent at least 15 minutes wiping it down.

More random thoughts

2008-02-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

Do they call it Chinese Food in China? Or Italian Food in Italy?

What is considered "American Food" or "Canadian Food" outside North America? Do they actually call it that there?

Facebook Randomness

2008-02-21T15:09:00.001-08:00

I was playing around on Facebook today and I found out there are 230 other people with names the same or similar to mine.

Interesting

Society is a funny thing

2008-02-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

I had a better idea for a title this morning. That's when this though occurred to me - in the shower.

What is with our society nowadays? I'm not religious which is why I think this is even more interesting.

Religion in general says that men and women should live together as a married couple, however, at least in Canada, there are more unmarried couples living together than married now.

As a married person myself, I don't get it but that's ok - to each his own. I don't preach about what I don't know.

So it's ok (I'm assuming) to religious folk to "live in sin" this way? I'm not judging, just posing a question.

But then another thought occurred to me (2 actually). If this is ok, then why isn't the legalization of Marijuana? Sure it's a "drug" but so are tobacco and alcohol.

And what about homosexuality? There are gay couples living together as well, and other who are just openly gay. (I am sorry if I am offending someone, just trying to make a point).

And my point is this: Why is it less morally wrong for a couple to live together unmarried than it is to use Marijuana (or any other drugs for that matter), or be homosexual?

Just a random thought for the day.

I want this

2008-02-06T08:39:00.001-08:00

Now that's a home theater.

More info here

It's super Tuesday

2008-02-05T10:18:00.001-08:00

Being a Canadian I don't much care who the next president is (usually) as long as it's not GWB. Thankfully this year will mark the end of his dismal career in the Whitehouse.

But this year I have been paying attention as a lot of Canadians are I think. That is because for the first time in history you have the opportunity to see a black man or a white woman in the oval office.

The only problem is that they are in the same party, however the fact that one of these 2 will become the leader of a major political party in the US and therefore have a really good shot at being the next president makes this an interesting story to follow.

Add into the mix the fact that I believe many Americans are tired of not only Bush politics but Bush's party altogether and the chance of a black or female president becomes that much greater.

So today is bigger than some people may realize because today's voting may decide who the next president of the US is.

Trailer Trash

2008-02-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

For a long time I've been lead to believe that the term "trailer trash" was a derogatory term.

But I've been thinking about this for a while and I realized that that is not the case. In fact I believe that I am trailer trash. Not only that I'm proud to admit it.

You see, to me "trailer trash" represents a person (or group of people) who just don't give a shit what anyone else thinks of them.

It has nothing to do with the fact that they may or may not live in a mobile home, it has more to do with an attitude, in my opinion.

For example, in the city where I live, lots of people are more concerned with keeping up with their neighbours, or what their friends think of them than should be.

I've lived my life these past few years just how I want to. I don't care what others think about me or how I live my life. And we've tried to instil that into our son - that he be more concerned with how he feels and not what others think. Because let's face it - you are never going to impress everyone, so why try to impress anyone?

When I say to other friends that I am trailer trash and proud of it, sometimes they snicker, but many upon thinking about it also consider themselves trailer trash. In fact many of our friends don't realize they are trailer trash. But we see it.

Once we point out the obvious it's like a lightbulb goes off and they realize that they too are trailer trash, but it's not a bad thing.

For example, I have one friend that lives in a big house on the hill, drives a newer vehicle that's all decked out. He's got the perfect wife, new baby, they own businesses and seem really successful.

However when you get to know him you realize that he is in fact trailer trash.

How do you determine if someone is trailer trash?

You can usually tell by their actions. For example, my friend likes to have a fire outside. Not too bad you might say, until you consider that most of his fires are raging infernos which can be seen for miles, and generally reach above the roofline of his garage.

Or the fact that he prefers to use his chainsaw to cut most things over a circular saw.

Or how about the fact that his 4 wheeled ATV is worth more than most people's vehicles?

It is indicators like this which help you easily identify the trailer trash among us.

How to NOT use Google Maps

2008-01-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

Google

2008-01-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

I've been a big fan of Google for a long time. A lot of my job has to to with knowing what Google is doing (or plans to do). As such I use a lot of their software - sometimes just to try, sometimes it becomes a regular part of my routine.

For example, I use Gmail as my primary mail client. I even have all my email addresses forwarded there. It's so much easier to check one location for all my mail.

Of course I use Google search, but also the personalized homepage. I like that I can get most of what I want there.

I use Google Reader for all my blog and feed reading - I can get through a few hundred new posts in a short time.

I have a jotspot account which I've been using to store stuff - it's kind of like a wiki but they also offer other things like project management. I've tried that stuff but haven't used it much. Google bought Jotspot a while back, so I'm just waiting till they integrate it into Google accounts.

Of course there's blogger, which I've just come back to - I'm impressed with the progress it's made.

I also use Google docs some. I'd use it more but I have to practice more - it's a bit of a change going from a desktop app that publishes differently that Google docs does.

On my desktop I use Picasa and Earth - also great apps.

Best part is all the apps above are free. Even if you've never heard of them, I'd suggest trying them out. While they almost all offer a twist on what you are used to you may find (as I did) that they are more efficient than other applications that you may be used to. For example, I find traditional desktop email clients lacking after using Gmail for the past few years.

Do you believe in conspiracies?

2008-01-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

Just watched this video and had to share it:

So, what do you think? was 911 a conspiracy that was foretold in the greenback?

So, whatcha been up to?

2008-01-21T13:27:00.000-08:00

I was kinda surprised to see how long it was since I last posted. I knew it had been a while, just didn't realize how long.

Lots has happened for me these past couple of years. That last job I had? I quit that just short of my 5 year anniversary. Some changes happened at the company that made me realize it wasn't where I wanted to be. Despite the fact that they wanted to keep their "small company" feel, it got too corporate for me.

I felt like I spent more time justifying my time there than actually doing anything creative so I left. I started my own company doing pretty much the same thing. I even managed to get myself a few contracts. Enough to keep me working for a couple years.

Then this summer, out of the blue I found out that one of my clients had moved to town and set up shop. Not only that but they may want to hire me.

Fast foward a few months and even though I'm still self employed, the liklihood of re-entering the work force is quite high.

On the home front, that house we moved into - we're still there. Kinda nice to be settled.

My use of linux has expanded. I've been using Linux exclusively for some time now. I use Fedora 8 on my home computer, Ubuntu on my work computer and home laptop. I even have my wife converted to Ubuntu. Just gotta get my son to switch now :)

So that's a quick update - there's been lots of other stuff but I'll save that for later posts.

I am back

2008-01-21T13:09:00.001-08:00

Yes I decided it was time to see what's new with blogger. I can see it's been a little while since my last post here.

Truth is, I have been blogging elsewhere but lately have found that I kinda miss a place to post my random thoughts and rants. So I came back. Did you miss me?

Probably not, but that's ok.

I think moving forward I'll play with the look of the site a little - it's still using an old template. I've gotten better at blog templates so maybe I'll take a stab at a refreshed one for here.

Gotta love Gmail

2005-04-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

I've had a Gmail account for a few months now, and recently (if you didn't already know) everyone got an April Fools day present - more capacity. twice as much actually.

Its funny though - My email inbox has sat at 1% capacity since then - even though I have been getting emails it's still at 1%.

What that means is that the inbox is growing. And it is - I started at 2053 megs and now its at 2098 megs. It seems to grow with each email I get.

I'm not complaining - in fact I like it. goodbye Hotmail!!

one month to the day

2005-03-16T11:24:00.000-08:00

When I started this blog I hoped to post at least a couple times a week. I thought for sure I'd have enough random thoughts and "what if"s that I could do this.

However I have noticed that it has been a month - one whole month! since my last post.

Time sure flies when you are having fun I guess.

So for the sake of posting, I thought I better do something now. I do have lots of thoughts and stuff, as the name implies, but right now I can't compose them quick enough. I need to sit down and take the time to figure out what I'm going to say.

So until I do that, this will have to do.

Is there such a thing as random?

2005-02-16T08:55:00.000-08:00

So I've had this weird encounter. It's not that the encounter was weird per se, but to me the conditions surrounding it are weird.

There is this girl, I have no idea who she is, but it seems like we run into each other on a fairly regular basis. I couldn't really tell you what she looks like, because I haven't really gotten a good look at her, but I know it's her every time I see her.

It's nothing wierd - I'm not stalking her, and I doubt she's stalking me, but it just seems that we end up in the same place, at the same time a lot. More than anyone else I know. I have friends that I see less than her.

The first time I noticed her, she was riding a bike across the street from my house. The reason I noticed her was because her bike looks a lot like my sons, so I thought she stole it.

I thought this because we lived in a rough neighbourhood, we've since moved.

Anyways, I saw her ride by and that was it - a 2 second look at the back of this person riding by. I didn't even know she was female until I saw her again a few days later - she was wearing baggy clothes when she rode by.

The next time I saw her was a similar situation - I was walking through city park with my wife and son and she walked by. Remember, I hadn't seen her face before, yet I knew (don't ask my how) that this was the same person.

A week or 2 later, my wife and I were out - different location in town, sitting on a park bench and she walked by again, and a few days later, I was at work, talking to a co-worker and this same girl passed me again.

I don't think she knows that she's encountered me in the past, but I definitely know it's her. And the other day, at work, I got a good look at her now. This is the first real clear look I've had of her. Usually she's wearing baggy clothes and sweaters with large hoods so I've never gotten a clear view of her face.

In any case it seems strange that we encounter each other on an almost regular basis at different locations throughout this city. The city is not huge - about 100,000 people, but not tiny either, so the odds of repeatedly running into the same person (or at least paying attention enough to notice them) much be huge.

I know this may sound weird, and that I'm probably into this girl, or after her, but that's not the case.

What is the case is that it seems strange to me that we can be in the same place at the same time so often, at random, which lead to my question - is there such a thing as truly random?

I know there is, but when it comes to people probably not. I would be interested to talk to this girl (I keep referring to her as a girl, but I'm sure she's at least in her mid 20's) just to find out what drove her to be at that location at that time.

Of course I would never do this, because I'm sure she'd want to know why I'm asking, and if I brought up the fact that I've noticed her around she might get a little freaked out.

Of course the other thing it could be is like when you get a new car. You don't really notice the make and model of the car until you own it, then it seems like everyone has one. Maybe it's kinda like that - maybe on some subconcious level, now that i've noticed her more, I will continue to notice her.

So what is it about her that stands out? I couldn't tell you - she is a good looking girl - no doubt about that - but not spectacular. Not one you'd normally forget what you are doing and look at her, but one you may notice on the street.

It just seems strange to me that a) I seem to notice her more and b) we seem to be in many of the same places at the same time.

Guess I'll never understand or know why.

It's Alive!!

2005-01-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

I had a breakthrough on the weekend and was finally able to install yellowdog 3 on a Mac powerpc 5400!

The problem I had was that the drive was too small. I got my hands on an old drive I had that I forgot about - a 2.3 gig drive onto which I put a 150 meg Mac os partition (8.5) and set up the rest for yellowdog.

Once I did that it installed like a breeze! It took about 6 hours from finding and installing the drive to completing the install and package updates. Now I have a running linux server on a mac.

Still playing at home

2005-01-20T15:55:00.000-08:00

So I've been working on a project to convert an old Power Mac into a Linux server. It's not really going so well, although in theory it's easy - I have probably the easiest linux distro to use in this case (Yellowdog) and I have enough ram and hard drive space, but it keeps crashing on me, when I go to format the boot partition.

I'll work through it and get it right but I have learned a lot on this project.

For example, I learned how to make a Mac boot disk from scratch. Coming from the PC world it was quite an experience for me. I also learned how to initialize and format (many many many times) a Mac drive, as well as how to identify the different hardware parts inside the mac case. (I didn't realize how difficult it could be to even get into the #$#^% cases!)

So I've worked myself through a lot of the hardware and software mac issues. I now have a Appletalk network setup on my home network (I have my Linux server actually hosting the appletalk protocol - seems to work fine) so that the Macs and the linux server can talk. I've even been able to download on linux and transfer usable files to the macs, as well as create disks for the macs from linux

I'm at the point where I'm ready to install the linux software on the macs (I have 2 to play with) but as I said, they keep crashing at about the same point in the install. In fact, the furthest I've gotten on the install is the package installation.

And it's not like I'm trying to overload them - I'm going a very basic install. No desktop, no fancy apps, none of that. I'm installing a barebones system to see how much space it will take, then I'll customize it by adding the packages I want.

But for now I still gotta work through the installation crash.

So that's my story for now.

what's new with me?

2005-01-05T16:09:00.000-08:00

Too much - I have work on my mind, as well as business ideas I'm trying to get off the ground, and a whole bunch of "what if" questions.

I have a vehicle that may not start when I get out of work (dead/dying battery), a friend coming to my house tonite with a dead computer (could be something as simple as a power cord, or something as major as fried components), and a ton of other things going on.

And I'm still trying to learn linux, although I'm proud to say that it's been quite a few months of strictly fedora now, with no signs of withdrawl. In fact I'm finding more, useful stuff in the open source world that is supplementing my need for MS branded software. The only thing I haven't found (mainly cause I haven't spent a whole lot of time looking) is a personal financial mgmt software like MS Money. But when the time comes (and it will be soon) I will find something I'm sure.

So that's where I'm at.

Christmas is over

2004-12-29T14:59:00.000-08:00

all I can say is yay. Christmas is over. Now before you go calling me a Scrooge let me tell you why.

I have a 9 year old son who loves gifts. He just had his birthday and is already telling me what he wants for his next birthday. He gets so wrapped up in the season that he can't slow down.

In fact, at Christmas 2003 he woke us up at 4:30 in the morning! We were only able to put him off by 1 hour so we were done all the unwrapping by 7AM. That made for a long day - especially when you've invited the family over for the traditional turkey dinner with all the fixings.

So this year we did things a little different - we had Christmas dinner on Christmas eve, and prepared what's called a "Wife Saver Breakfast" for Christmas morning - basically you throw this thing in the oven before opening gifts and after your done with the festivities you have a baked breakfast that's ready to eat.

So anyways, this year we were prepared - dinner was out of the way and breakfast for the big day was ready. We even had to stay up a little later than usual this year to ensure Santa wasn't caught by an excited boy. And guess what?

He slept until 7:30. Who would have thunk it?

Supersize me

2004-11-29T14:29:00.000-08:00

Just saw this documentary on the weekend. Scary stuff. Being from Canada I can't believe the sizes of food there, and how American's can consume so much.

Really opened my eyes to the excesses we all go through.