Stewing Ashes

Forgive me Blogger, it's been three months since my last notation.

Long or short, it happened just as it is. Three months of softball games and tournaments, three months of typing up emails and filling out job applications, three months of waiting and watching. Sickness, health, and wealth and stealth. News and no news. Top in Canada with the bottom of the barrel.

And after all that time, now it looks like everything else is about to happen in just one short week...

I like the Toronto Airshow, Labour Day weekend every year. The Hornet never fails to impress me, get my blood running -- zipping overhead as if it owned gravity. I'm a big fan of engineering at it's finest.

Re-tiring

It must be an odd feeling to be facing your last day of work... ever.

I mean, you're done, that's it, your part is over. You've worked your whole life to retire one day and all you have to do is walk out of that door and walk away from the work-life you've know for the past... 40 or so years.

It can't be that easy... Suddenly there is no definitive length of time to measure this new segment of your life -- no date to mark on your calendar, no party to mark your next achievement. You're on your own.

You can do pretty much whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want.

Is that too much freedom?? Sounds kinda tiring to me, to be honest.

Nice... Shoes?

I was walking back from the grocery store today, a bag in each hand, purse slung over one shoulder, black shoes hot in the sun. There's the usual traffic and construction going on along St. Clair Avenue, dogs walking in the parks, people strolling along in the sunshine for lunch, streetcars rumbling past every so often.

The lights at Spadina had just turned red. I slowed down a bit and suddenly, faintly, I heard somebody whistling nearby. But... it was one of those catcall whistles. Of course that wasn't directed at me.

Looking up, I saw a man in the second storey window of the corner house that's currently under construction inside. And he's looking directly down at me.

And he whistles again, slowly, now making eye contact.

I couldn't help laughing -- he was wearing a painter's mask to hide his face.

Anyway, he turned around and went back to his work and the streetlights changed and I continued walking home.

Quit It

Don't yell at me for not having a job... I'm working on it, all right?

Cutbacks At Work

I find it ironically amusing that, on my last day of work of my first real job, the coffee cup I bought this morning from Country Style says "freedom" on the side.

Freedom.

Freedom from what, from work? From usefulness? From salary??

So here is one of those new chapters in life that has another elusive title. Gosh, what the heck will I do next if I'm not testing smoke alarms?? Go back to school? Find a job that's within, like, a hundred kilometres of where I live? Move to a different city? Move to another country??! Travel? Change fields??

Crazy to imagine, exciting to anticipate, scary to follow through... Yay freedom!

Professional Practice Exam

Yep, tomorrow is the big day: I'm writing my Law & Ethics exam at 2pm over at good ol' U of T.

500 people, three hours, two courses, and zero open books = one PPE sitting.

Add to that the 48 months of engineering experience, 48 months of university nightmares, and three good character references, and you can get yourself a P.Eng. application...

Should be fun. :)

Taxing Routes

I know it's generally seen as horrid and long-winded and overly mathy -- and perennial -- but I have a small confession to make:
I actually enjoy doing my taxes.

It must be a throw-back to the days of yore when "Choose Your Own Adventure" books were hot ticket items and you could follow whatever path you wanted because it was all laid out for you.

Unfortunately for those books, I always ran out of fingers keeping the pages as markers so I could return to find out what Else might have happened... I had no patience to re-read the segments later.

And therein lies the fundamental likeability of taxes: there is only one route I need to keep track of... and ooh SNAP! it's all based on numbers! yaaaaay! :)

To Hell With Arguing

Because heart Attacks will always be quicker than cancerous Cells...

Because mortal Words cannot hurt as much as immature Thoughts...

Because being wonderful means Following others' wishes despite not believing in them Yourself...

... because what's the point of losing what you can't have anyway?

Pretend-She-Is... Free-Dumb

When did using the Internets become such a pretentious hobby?

Seems like you've gotta be wired up and plugged in to about a billion different user accounts these days because Hey, you gotta catch up with everyone in your growing infosphere, right?

"Thank you, Internets, for connecting my life for me."

So, 'essential' these days are accounts with MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr and possibly Blogger. You may be part of interest groups like RateBeer, your local library, or your friend's online book club or blasting forum. Add to this the glee of email like Hotmail, which always leads you to fun news stories on MSN, and Gmail, which saves all the emails you've ever received and will never read again.

Then don't forget to check all your fav comics, your best friend's blog, your horoscope (and your bf's horoscope), your other five email accounts, login to GoogleReader (to check out your 20 news feeds and jokes and blogs you've tagged on del.icio.us), check for smiles on LavaLife, Digg something funny up, and go watch at least three videos on YouTube during the course of the morning, all while browsing on your supa Flock browsa. rowr.

Then you have to forward alllll the funny bits to alllll your friends, just in case someone missed it.

... And all this fun can be yours for free! yaaaaay! :)

Project: Voice-Stress Analyzer

Now is the perfect time for me to gather materials to build a portable lie-detector.

A device that is non-contact, time-independent, and works for male or female voices, this gadget sounds much too good to be true -- and it just may be at that.

I found an article in my files that I had copied a long time ago from the March 1996 issue of Popular Electronics. It is still amazing to me: well-written, concise as necessary, and very inspiring for any electronics enthusiast.

What's also amazing (but not so surprising) is the enormous brouhaha brewing over this contentious issue. The technology of analyzing voices for lies is subjective at best -- and wrongfully incriminating at worst.

Why did the U.S. military and police departments buy hundreds of these machines, each one worth well over $10,000? Why do officials swear by these machines, citing 100% effectiveness? (Oh come on, is ANYTHING 100% effective??)

Who are we more likely to believe, the media or the government??

I'm on a mission to find out what's what.

My little project will cost less than $30, runs on a battery, fits in my pocket, and I get the fun of learning what all the components do, putting it all together and testing it out!

Anticipation is the key to fun in any DIY project.

As for other methods of lie detection, and I suggest reading about them because they are quite interesting, I found this article index citing a dozen articles from 1969 to 1997 specifically telling you how to build your own lie detector. Many involve contacting skin to monitor moisture levels and such. Why are there no DIY projects written after the year 2000?


Well, perhaps these may shed some light on the issue... I found a smattering of articles, papers, and websites on the Internet that particularly stress the untrustworthy qualities of this hoaky technology:

Article, "Innocent Until Proved Guilty?"
30-MAR-2006

Article, "Arguments rage over voice-stress lie detector"
(10-OCT-2005)

Article, "Research casts doubt on voice-stress lie detection technology"
(10-FEB-2004)

Study, "Psychophysiological and vocal measures in the detection of guilty knowledge"
(28-DEC-2004)

Website "The Truth About Voice Stress Technologies"

Website "The Anti-Conspiracy Symbol"

You would think that with all of these resources available to me that perhaps I'd be swayed to think poorly overall of lie detection devices. I don't know what I think at this point, but I do know that my regard quality information from Popular Electronics far outweighs the same fr omthe Internet, so I shall continue in my quest to find out for myself what the heck is going on with this technology.

My new project shall be dubbed "Operation: Ana-LIES" and I will commence construction shortly. If I find anything interesting, I will let you know...

You know what the best part is, though? Reading the schematic and explanation will improve my knowledge of how circuits and electronics work. Win win!

Bedtiming Tedium

Ahhh, bedtimes: crossing the paths of no pillows. I'm talking of the oft times you over-estimate your available evening hours. You do too much.

Perhaps, like me, you find yourself engrossed in a project in the early hours of evening, only to find out what seems like moments later is truly hours later and you have only a few short hours to rest your spinning/glazed/ready eyeballs before returning to the workmill once more.

Isn't it wrong to be at work and be able to say, "I went to bed six hours ago?" And Shaden being an hour away!

Oh, go on, you know you've been there before: geek by day, geek by night. You can't help it, there's a draw to the computer like a bugle to a boogie woogie boy. Like a sheep to a field of sweet, green peas. Like an apple to a... a pie. mmmm pie.

Just the thought of my nice comfy bed at this moment sends wonderful, relaxing, calming thoughts to the rest of my body, despite knowing that eight or nine hours of milling remains. And suddenly, counting sheep doesn't seem so out of place.

Wah wah wah. I know I know, suck it up princess.

All for the love of the database! My Febrewary moments draw near an end: I must squeeeeze the barley notes out as much as can be before Thursday's March... Oh-ho yes! I've accessed the master of art -- er, mastered the art of Access -- but still crave it's tabled depths to fill. Be thrilled my sleeping heart...

Fielding Green

Have been scanning for emeralds -- rings, that is. Just for fun.

It's amazing what you can find out there... A nice little platinum banded tri-gem number could be delightfully yours in exchange for a small down-payment on a city house. But seriously, what's not to love about the practicality and beauty of something engineered to perfection??

How do you choose one of these things, anyway? Who makes this decision?

Birthday Grrrl

Happy Birthday to meee... Yay Friday. Yaaaay weekend!

That's all. :)

The 4 F's: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing and Mating

I'm currently on a scented knowledge-gathering buzz, reading up on scents and sensuality.

Did you know that there are some scents out there that can create surprisingly primal responses in humans and animals, especially when it comes to those four basic responses of feeding, fighting, fleeing, and... mating?

Back in my OAC Biology days, I briefly learned about all this stuff for a project we were never supposed to write up and I realized recently that it's been in the back of my mind ever since. So, last month I put some books on hold at the library on this topic and have been reading through them... and lemme tell ya, it's still just as engrossing as it ever was.

I'm talking about Pheromones -- those natural or synthetic odours that affect hormones that affect animal behaviour.

Pheromones are usually known for their influence on sexual behaviour in animals, but what's not commonly known is their impact on how the brain develops, what we remember, and how we learn.

If you think about it, scientists tend to spend more effort researching the 'useful' senses of sight and hearing and touch over that taboo-ridden sense of smell. However, if you look at just a few of the numbers, Smell is sadly under-rated considering it's superior impact on mammalian development...

a) Olfactory receptors (for smell) are the only ones directly hard-wired into the base of the brain. Responses to the other four senses get processed before reaching the brain through other routes.

b) Your typical human has about 100,000 genes, where only 3 of them are used for sight receptors (red, green, blue) -- but more than 1,000 of them are developed for smell receptors.

c) Your typical human can distinguish between 10,000 to 40,000 different odours, with over 100,000 for whiskey blenders or perfumers.

One book in particular has caught my attention this week: "The Scent of Eros" (James Kohl, 1 or 2). It could have been such a boring book, listing all the in-depth physiological descriptions and chemical makeups of one-celled animals through various marine life and all the way up through to humans -- but it's really not. It's so much more. It's incredibly interesting stuff and it's written in a style as if the author was just teaching a cool lecture...

What can I say? It just makes scents.

Febrewary First

I earned me a Crown today at RateBeer.com for entering a hundred ratings.

This is quite a nice package for me for February, considering it's just in time for my birthday and (more importantly) my handle name there on the site is an old reference to a joke between my grandparents, who happen to be celebrating their 62nd wedding anniversary today...

... Camel asks, "Cuppa tea, Mabel?"

Re-Routing Humour

Last night en route to dinner at Jules, a lady stopped Juroo and I on the subway to ask us for directions.

Now, apparently there's a trick to asking for directions: you need to ask the Right Question.

She asked: "Is this the train that goes Southbound to King Station?"

Annnnd, since we were on the Eastbound platform, I immediately replied: "No, you have to go along that long corridor over there to get to the Southbo--" --by which time she had left with a hurried thank you. Meanwhile, we were left standing there, thinking, mulling over this response.

The truth was, we were also going Southbound. We just happened to be taking a different route.

Keep in mind that to transfer from North/South trains to East/West trains, there are two neighbouring TTC stations that do this: St. George Station (where you walk up or down a flight of stairs to transfer) and Spadina Station (where you walk more than 200 metres down a long scary corridor to transfer).

We were going to transfer trains at St. George, whereas we had just sent the woman off (going in the same direction as us) down that scary corridor.

So what happened? What was so funny?

Well, we got off at St. George Station to switch trains as planned. And we waited for the train to come... and waited... and yes, finally it came. We entered the car, we sat down... and lo and behold, There was the same woman, sitting by the doors, looking over at us incredulously.

She flashed us a hairy eyeball.

We had to move seats. (It became impossible to stop giggling.)

Po: Working Care = Caring Work?

'Po' is a word that Edward de Bono (the originator of 'lateral thinking') came up with more than 25 years ago. Po is to be used as a provocation word -- a word to provocate a thinking process -- but not necessarily create judgement.

For example...

Po: Employers provide day care facilities for their employees.

Read this as "Wouldn't it be great if..." & "What would happen if..." but all rolled into one thought.

The companies would save on time (and money) since less people would take sick leave or absences for emergencies or appointments. The money from contributing employees could be redistributed to fund the full-time staff looking after the children, thus reducing running costs. The reputation of the company would be fantastic in terms of benefits and generating the feeling that they're really taking care of their own. And -- perhaps most importantly -- it would provide a means for the typical working-parent(s)-with-child family to interact during the day, on a daily basis.

The employees would obviously save a lot of time and money usually spent getting to and from day care (since they're going to work anyway), or leaving early picking the children up, and organizing after-work activities would fit better in their schedules. They'd worry less, since they'd be closer in case of an emergency, and therefore have less on their minds -- which potentially increases productivity. They'd have a more flexible schedule to work with, again decreasing stress and increasing productivity. Interestingly, they could have lunch with the children, which not only gives the day care workers a bit of a break but more importantly they get to spend more time with their children...

The positives in this situation are too numerous to list.

Why hasn't this idea caught on more??

Monitor Switcheroo

Mr. CoWorker kindly drove me up the road to our local NerdMart yesterday at lunch so I could trip me a new TFT. Man, this LCD's got mad inches, a diggin' input and it's wided out, all for a sweet song. I was chillin'.

Old Anti-Glare CRT at home has been rubbing off on me for some years so it was high time I sought a new not-for-work monitor.

sigh. Yeah, so it turns out that Not-For-Work these days is fast becoming Much-Too-Fun... and Project-Dream-Time is not really considered Billable-Hour-Time by my employers, unfortunately. (Probably something I don't need to confirm with them.)

Sis says everyone does it. Maybe they just don't normally admit it.

Oh well, maybe the bossgods will take Old CRT in lieu and we can start afresh. That'd be a fun project, right? Uhh... guys...?

Saga Sucker

Saga: not necessarily the medieval Norse life histories in prose naratives, but rather the chronicling of lives of a particular social group told in a long and leisurely narrative. Yes, I freely admit that I am a sucker for sagas. Now, you don't need to tell me, but I am perfectly aware that many people out there (especially enginerds) consider sagas to have a different sort of sucking action in terms of horribleness (ahem, "This sucks!" -- which is funny because you could also say, "This blows!" and mean the same thing). I am not one of these... well, they're kind of sheep, in a way, following what everyone else thinks and sadly not always seeing one for Themselves. Anyway, to put things into perspective: many, many television series are sagas by definition. Just think about the content and longevity of some of your favourites.

Okay okay, the thing is, I also happen to have a thing for historical romances.

gasp!

It's funny how when most people hear these two words together, you can just feel the collective recoil from the world. I find that the general assumption made right after this reaction (approximately 2.4 milliseconds later) is that the Liker must therefore be interested Only in this Taboo Genre. Ewwww! Now folks, please keep an open mind here because I'm going to tell you something that may free you from the anti-saga sheep of the world: I happen to like all sorts of other genres. (mini-gasp!) Action. Adventure. Comedy. Sci-Fi or Fantasy. Animated. Whatever! I may not be too picky overall but I am perfectly aware of what I like. So don't put ideas into your head.

Hmm, is it more geeky or girly to like these 19-century type novels or movies? Considering the fact that I am, in fact, a girl, it is perhaps not too inappropriate for me to appreciate a good piece of olde script. I am more inclined to think it's geeky because of this, but perhaps I'm a little biased.

Actually, it's kind of funny looking back on some of the movies I've watched with my parents over the years. My dad and I loved watching Schwartzenegger movies with lots of things blowing up and all the gadgets and whizzing around and the intrigue and the rrrraaaawwwrrrr...! But another night my mum and I would just as easily become engrossed in the latest Jane Austen fifteen-part mini-series and we'd be all weepy and saying "I can't believe that scoundrel!" about the character we've seen a hundred times in at least three other versions of the same story...

The funny thing is, neither of my parents can stand watching the other type of movie. I'm not sure where my tastes came from but I like to think I got the best of both worlds. (Again, I may be a little biased.)

Anyway, as a parting gift on these musings, here's a bit of a twist for the uninitiated (or disenthused), courtesy of an admirably open-minded guy I know: Yes, in the end, the girl always gets the guy and off they go into the sunset, yadda yadda yadda. Just keep in mind -- the guy always gets the girl.

Pistachio Nut Case

You know those hard-to-open shells you get sometimes in a bag of nuts? Well, here I am at work thinking, Great, how am I supposed to open this little guy? Gosh it's hard to open. (I'm paraphrasing.) Now, my desk may be strewn with electronics and papers everywhere but somehow I managed to find the perfect substitution for those absent nutcrackers: handy-dandy needle-nosed pliers. Crack!

Speaking of Nuts: en route to the gym yesterday, I stopped to photograph a store sign boasting it was the "Uptown Nut House" -- and in the window, they also said they gave away free foccacia. Now that's nutty.

Adventures in Moving Apartments

The scenario was such that the two new occupants were both eyeing the Blue-East Bedroom over the Red-West Bedroom as her own personal sleeping abode.

The choice was clear: Blue-East perfectly frames the CN Tower between two other buildings, whereas poor Red-West does not even see the tower (nor does any other window in the apartment, unhappily). Other than this, the Apartment was a perfect choice: Shaden Manor.

But How were we to win Blue-East in a Fair and Enginerdly fashion?

Most people would flip a coin, or choose a number between 1 and 10, or roll a die for odd or even, or pick a card any card any card any card. Enginerds, on the other hand, count the number of resistors in the new apartment's smoke alarm.

The newly engineered Shaden Protocol proclaimed using the "Even-East-Karoo Rule" in such decisions, and since I was the resident expert on such a siren, the task was given to me to count away... And you know, I would have won too had I not bothered to look under the PCB -- for what else did I find there but one extra little resistor smiling back up at me? So close!

Two years later, we find ourselves with a newly replaced alarm (now evenly-numbered) and the blinds seem to be closed more often than not. Funny how little things turn out.

Scandalous Pussy

Delicious scandalaciousness was brewing up in the Alley last night. The rumour millers have been hard at work grinding out a certain swinging male leaving his young bun in the oven to go fire up a newer model. A pox on New Cow Syndrome, though it be fodder for my blogger.

Had this sexcapade occurred but ten years from now, or at a time when none of us could know them, who would really be aware of the meaty details? And scarier: who would care? After all -- after all that is bewitching in the idea of one's happiness depending entirely on one person...

Swing Out

Welcome welcome, Random Reader, et Bienvenue!

Now, I had originally planned to post the typical introduction, the usual tour of events to be expected from this website... Usual. Hah. But alas, I will not provide this information at such a time. For you see, such a time is this! On this particular occasion, the eve of the creation of my very own spot-o'-blog, the day from which all future musings shall commence, what choice have I made but to skidaddle the premises in favour of visiting our local swing dancing operation with my bestest buddy, Juroo? Tuesday's at Alleycatz comes but once a week, my friend, and this week is no exception. I shall regroup with tall tales to tell tomorrow...