I just got back after driving around for two hours, after standing for thirteen, after getting lost driving to a kitchen in the middle of a river through the rain. I have put a cooked salmon filet, a roast leg of lamb, and a litre of blood in the fridge. Plus, my right hand is numb and my back hurts like mad.
Damian has left after storing his backpack and things here temporarily. I think it's the best day I've ever had with him, and he seems pretty happy about it too.
Man, I love Service. I have to do this again soon!
For complete speed freaks, this aggregator is about 10x faster than PlanetPlanet.
I'm still overwhelmingly busy. So busy that I only seem to post journal entries about my current job, or my old one. Don't you fret, I haven't lost myself in work. I've just lost all the time to write in LiveJournal. Perhaps you could help me find it?
Maybe I should take some time out to write about last weekend. Would you like to hear about our Scrabble picnic? I bumped into Chris as I was walking to Parc Lafontaine, so I invited him along.
Benjamin spelt such words as B-A-T. And Amanda was wearing a perfect H-A-T.
C-B-A. Oh dear, that doesn't spell anything.
There's a party tonight and you're all invited.
The talented ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
tygrbabe will be catering tasty vegan food. The lovely gorbash_dragon and I will be preparing much of the rest. If you plan to show up for dinner, please have $10 ready. If you're going to surprise me by being hungry, we should be able to manage something for you.
I suppose I ought to go to sleep or I'll never be able to organise this in time. Busy, busy, busy!
Hug Day turned out wonderfully. According to Andy, we closed 65 bugs and triaged many more.
Hugs and thanks to everyone who showed up and helped out!
It turned out so well that we're going to have another one next week. Only, it'll actually last a whole day around the world. Next Wednesday, all day, from 0:00 UTC+14 to 24:00 UTC–12. That's fifty whole hours of bug-hunting goodness!
Daniel has announced today's Hug Day. The idea of this is that we all go on IRC, join the #ubuntu-bugs channel, and help manage bugs in Ubuntu.
Why is it called Hug Day? Because people gets hugs for doing good work, of course.
So join in! It'll be fun and edumacational!
Still no taxes on pollution though.
We'd like to say…
____ _
| __ ) ___ _ __ __ _____ _ _ __ _ __ _ ___| |
| _ \ / _ \| '_ \ \ \ / / _ \| | | |/ _` |/ _` |/ _ \ |
| |_) | (_) | | | | \ V / (_) | |_| | (_| | (_| | __/_|
|____/ \___/|_| |_| \_/ \___/ \__, |\__,_|\__, |\___(_)
|___/ |___/ 
Yes, it's sad to hear but Pierre and Susana are not just leaving Montréal, but they're leaving the continent all together. For good. So what can we do but give them a very big send-off?
gorbash_dragon and I are expecting a lot of people, so we're throwing a very big party. It's this Friday and it promises to be quite thrilling. Not only will it be exactly a month before Susana and Pierre hop on their transatlantic flight, but it's also the first Friday of May!
I'm very pleased that it worked out that way. And Pierre is too! You should not feel pressured into participating in this event.
But you should feel pressured into seeing them off on a safe journey!
We'll be hosting this staring from 19:00 at the NITI office. I will arrange for food to arrive and you should pay me $10 for your dinner. You will have to arrange for your own alcohol, which should be rather easy as there is a SAQ and a Provigo nearby.
What's the scoop?
- Why:
- To say farewell to two lovely people.
- Where:
- Net Integration Technologies Inc. 1450, rue City Councillors. Suite 650.
- When:
- Friday, 5 May 2006 at 19:00.
- What:
- Bring $10 (for food) and drinks.
R.S.V.P. in the comments below so that I know how much food to get.
Crossposted to ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
nopants_daily.
It's the beginning of my second week at Canonical.
The first week was absolutely hectic. Like many Canonical employees, I work from home, so my first contact with people was over IRC. Everyone was super friendly and I got to see a couple of familiar names to boot. But it was soon apparent that I would be doomed.
You see, I'm the new Quality Controller at Ubuntu. And we have a growing number of bugs to triage every day. With a release candidate coming out soon, this leaves little time for us to fix the multitude of bugs.
Doomed!
That is, until I heard about the BugSquad. These guys are great, they've been hunting down bugs left and right all week long. But it still looks like a losing battle. I quit working on Saturday with 1180 bugs, and we're now back to 1217. Oof.
I'll let Daniel announce it officially, but we'll be holding another Hug Day on Wednesday. This week, we'll be concentrating on crasher bugs: segmentation faults, assertion failures, if something just gives up and dies, we're going to triage it.
Don't worry if you're not a programmer! We need your help. You can learn how to sort out bugs, look for duplicates, and ask for more information. And if you are a programmer, maybe I can teach you a few tricks to find memory faults.
Wow. This release is going to be an exciting ride!
A couple of weeks ago, cloquewerk asked me if I wanted to see a show with him. A psychobilly show. Since I'd never gone to a psychobilly show, how could I possibly refuse? I agreed without even knowing the name of the band. Or any of the details. Which is good, because he didn't have them at the time.
Then, on the show date, I met up with messiahdivine at Café L'Etranger. The entrance appeared to be blocked by construction, which is a typical thing for this time of year, but we found a convoluted way inside. I brought along drheld and his girlfriend, who were staying at my place at the time. They left, wlach and _watchtower_ showed up. Then someone else, whose name I have now lost, showed up as well.
We walked to Club Soda, where the music was already thumping. I made my way to the front, where a small crowd was standing by the stage. Two people, wearing black T-shirts were busy flailing their bodies about in epileptic dance. I slowly navigated to front and centre, where I could try to get some photographs. Which reminded me that they had checked me for a "professional" camera as I came through the door.
I'm not sure I thought about Left Alone, who were very loud and difficult to hear. But the audience seemed rather pleased at it. Indeed, there were even people singing along, so I'm sure there were fans in the audience. The nice thing about this audience was that they were really into participating in the show. The poor thing about this audience was that their participation was not always constructive. Security guards were peppered liberally throughout the audience.
The Horrorpops were greeted by very loud cheering. Their setup was quite interesting, as they had dancers as well as musicians. This was actually a very good plan, because the dancers were not only fun to watch, but also good at inspiring the crowd to dance. Interestingly enough, the crowd's idea of dancing was very similar to moshing.
I had trouble standing still to take pictures. And my poor camera isn't very good at low light photography anyway, so I had to try very hard not to get jostled whilst protect it from flying bodies. It was exciting.
As the show went on, I began to acquire an appreciation for the music. But it was really the showmanship that was more exciting. One girl was wished a happy birthday by Patricia Day, and the girl was absolutely thrilled.
One of my secrets for taking concert photographs is to just keep on trying to capture moments when the stage spots get turned up. Typically, the musicians will pose, which makes for an interesting picture. But really, I do it so that I won't have to use the flash. Another secret is to keep on taking photographs, because most of them will turn out terribly. This is how I use probability to make up for a lack of skill.
By the end, my camera was full and I was sick of getting blows to the back. So I wandered towards the rear where I found Will moshing with some people in a less crowded environment. I stood around there a while, before I saw Watchtower trying to avoid the crowd. She was wearing these stunning heels, which were gorgeous, but not very useful in a mosh-pit.
Once the show wrapped up, we sat around outside on some temporary walkway and chatted. St-Laurent is being dug up again, so there are plenty of those to do that upon.
I've been terribly busy, as of late. This whole self-employment thing really keeps you on your toes. Oh yes, so does an impending release. There's barely enough time to have adventures, let alone write about them.
I really ought to. If I don't, I might forget. Plus, it's a nice excuse to show you some photographs.
Let's see. On the 16th, that's two Sundays ago, I went to Québec with gorbash_dragon. It's actually very easy to get me to travel with you. I'll even tell you how. The first thing you do is walk into a room and say, "Hey, who'd like to come with me to foreign city next weekend?" Indubitably, everyone else will make up excuses about how busy they are. I will mull it over in my brain and will likely say, "Sure, if I can afford it."
It's an exciting way to travel.
Gorbash and I took an early bus into Québec, but by the time we got there, it had begun to drizzle. No matter, we just walked about town trying to do things. We managed to climb all over the place until we go to the citadel where we took a guided tour. I tried to look for exciting souvenirs at the gift shop, but nothing caught my eye.
There were quite few tourists that weekend, most likely because it was Easter Sunday. We walked about the old city, trying to avoid them, found a place to sit down and eat lunch. Then we meandered off to a coffee shop for caffeine. It didn't really help.
Then we headed off to the chocolate museum outside the tourist district. We managed to find a lady boiling maple sap, and indulged in some maple toffee. Then it was off for more sweets. The store had opened scant days before we arrived, and it was full of people who were stocking up on chocolate rabbits. We looked at the exhibits and decided against gorging ourselves.
I think we walked around town for hours before we found dinner. I'll have to say, it was rather good exercise. We even got to see a decrepit building. We must have looked at four or five restaurants before settling on a place to eat. I had a rather nice conversation with a man from Gaspé who was visiting family in the city. He seemed very wistful as he ate his dinner, alone, by the window.
By the time we got back to the bus terminal, dusk had settled on the city. It was a peaceful ride home.
I am really, really confused.
This movie, Free Zone, was much longer and more painful than it really had to be.
There could have been some plot outside of political allegory, right? I'm desperately raking my brain for something really subtle.
I woke up this morning, rolled out of bed, and padded off to my morning toilet.
I had a shower and brushed my teeth. Shaving? Do I have to shave if I work from home?
I suppose I do. One has to be civilized.
Friday morning, I cleaned off denizsarikaya's memorial. People don't dust it often enough, but I thought I'd better before I said goodbye. You see, it was my last day working at NITI. At the end of the day, I fired off a last e-mail and packed my things away. As I slung my backpack on, I looked around the office and got that forlorn feeling. Then it was off to my farewell party.
Thanks to all who showed up to Hurley's. It's been a pleasure working with you, or almost working with you. One of the things I'll miss the most is sitting at work, late at night, talking shop. I love being surrounded by smart, passionate people.
Luckily, I'll still be your co-worker. I'm still going to be release manager for all our Free Software offerings. This is quite in line with our tradition of having people leave and still hack on WvStreams. Which reminds me that I still have a couple of bugs to quash before the next release can come out.
This weekend, I've been spending my few scant days happily unemployed. I spent Saturday finishing off my tax report. Since it was a rather dull task, I worked by candlelight. What can I say? I'm a Romantic gentleman. Today, I've lounged about in my housecoat reading books and sleeping.
Alas, I won't be retiring as a gentleman of leisure. Instead, I have become self-employed. Because I'm not a layabout, I actually have a contract. Tomorrow, I start working with Canonical, a very fine company indeed. I'll be working with them on Ubuntu, as their first Quality Controller.
Good thing I like control.
But what's the point in being self-employed if you only have one contract? What else do you guys think I should do to expand? I have a diverse set of skills and a sense of adventure. I'm thinking those things are in need in this world, don't you?
About a month ago, vierge_en_trop asked me if I'd like to see a concert with her. It's always a pleasure to socialize with her, so I agreed straight away. Even though I didn't know which concert we were to see, but I had faith in her taste.
She even brought over a sample of their music when we last had coffee. Olive was quite obliging to offer up musical accompaniment. It would be nice to have a portable device that stores all of my music. Sadly, I have yet to come across one that doesn't infuriate me terribly. I'm afraid that as I grow older, I find technology disappoints more and more often.
Anyway, Vierge and I bumped into each other on the street and arranged to meet up at this concert. So I bought a ticket and was all ready to go last Saturday, when I got a telephone call. It seems that I was to go alone. Since I'm always up for adventure, I set out with camera and notebook in hand.
The opening band was Action Action who had a pretty standard indie-boy rock sound. Sadly, the sound technicians really pumped up the bass for the opening bands, so it was quite difficult to hear anything. I wonder if bands ever consider running their own equalisers through their equipment?
Morningwood went on stage next. They've got a pop-ish punk sound that people seemed pretty happy to listen to. The gimmick they seem to employ, to the delight of their fans, is to have their lead singer, Chantal, display her ample cleavage. To be fair, I think she really enjoys the attention.
It's sort of creepy that most of the audience looked like they were still in high school. I suppose many of them were, though. Partway through their set, Chantal had an audience member get on stage. Whereby she was handcuffed, fondled, and partially unzipped. I think it took her a while to realise that something was wrong, because she seemed awfully embarassed afterwards.
It took a while for The Sounds to get started. In that time, the front of the stage got really crowded. I managed to catch the conversation of some kids beside me. Ah yes, high school students from the South Shore, drinking themselves sick. Brilliant.
The set they put on made the audience go wild. The girl standing beside me had been waiting to see them play for years, and sang along with every song. That was actually pretty good, since the techs had rejiggered the bass but it was still drowning out the lyrics.
They certainly put on a good show and the crowd seemed to enjoy it. They surged towards the stage often enough to show their appreciation. Although it's good to have a camera, it's quite easy to get crushed when standing up front. Or kicked by an errant foot, which came from a crowd surfer. I thanked the security guard, who stood close by, for keeping me conscious. I think he checked to see if I was a professional photographer.
It's been a very long time since I've sat up all night, hacking away with other people, all staring at the same code projected on a whiteboard.
Not only that, we ordered chinese takeaway from the Wok Café. It's a greasy spoon that does delivery late at night. Perfect for the discerning hacker.
Oh yes. I've once again justified my job title while bashing on the corporate Subversion server.
Ever since I've met gorbash_dragon, I've been bombarded with things to do. When I mentioned that I had yet to go to the Biodôme, I was informed that I had to go. Who am I to argue with someone who wants to show me things? So last Friday, I packed my camera and set off for Viau metro.
We met up inside the station and walked towards the zoo, which doesn't actually resemble a dome at all. We arrived rather early in the morning and already the lobby was swarming with children. We quickly paid for some tickets and walked inside.
There's a "tropical rainforest" inside that was pleasantly warm. Everyone else was taking off their coats, but I've been wearing a light jacket for a while now. There was lots of shrieking and screaming, again from the children, which meant that most of the animals were in hiding. I'm sure the animals are always stressed out on public holidays.
The temperature decreased gradually through the building as we moved towards more arctic environments. There was a simulated Laurentian forest, which had a noted lack of mosquitos. Then there were some aquatic exhibits and a whole lot of ice. The penguins were pretty popular, with people sitting down watching them swim about.
And throughout the entire ecosystem: ducks. The ducks were everywhere. I'm pretty sure ducks don't swim around in the antarctic ocean, but there they were, swimming about with the penguins.
I lost my computer, but I've found it again. Since I was without the Internet yesterday, I spent all of my afternoon preparing dinner. I had gorbash_dragon over, as well as my immediate boss and his lovely wife.
- Minestrone with pesto,
- Duck confit salad with a blood-orange and sorrel dressing,
- Yorkshire pudding,
- Roast beef with roasted potatoes, onions, and beets,
- Cantaloupe and camembert,
- Iced chocolate mousse with a strawberry compote.
It wasn't anything fancy. We even ate the pudding right out of the mixing bowl!
The good news is that I have a new credit card. I picked it up yesterday, at the local bank.
The bad news is that I left my hat there.
I know banks are safe places to put your money, but perhaps they are unsafe places to put your hat. With any luck, it'll still be there in the morning.
When I was in university, I didn't get very much rest at all. There would be weeks where I'd get by on two or three hours a night. This was pretty bad for cognition, and as I got more sleep-deprived, I'd get stupider and stupider. Of course, things would pile up near the end of the school term and I would just stop sleeping completely. I have no idea how I managed to pass my finals after all this dumbening.
At the end of each school term, after all my examinations were over, I'd sleep for thirty or forty hours straight. Then I would wake up and be just stunned at how intelligent I was. This is not because I'm a genius, but because I previously had the I.Q. of broccoli.
Once I was riding my bicycle to school, as I had to go to class. As I was cycling up campus, my body decided that this was too much consciousness and that it'd had enough. I woke up a little while later, sprawled on the grass, with a bicycle on top of me. I recall feeling strangely peaceful and well-rested. Until I became aware of the road-rash.
Now that I'm no longer at school, I don't do this anymore. I'm a much happier and pleasant person when I'm not fighting unconsciousness with every blink of the eye. It's also a lot safer now that I don't spontaneously fall asleep. But I still get pretty sleepy just after lunch, and I'd be pretty unproductive for the rest of the afternoon. At first, I thought this was just from eating something heavy, but even if I skip lunch, I would still get tired. So then, I decided to do something totally crazy.
I go to sleep when I'm tired. In the early afternoon, when my eyelids droop, I just walk over to the couch, curl up, and pass out. About half an hour later, I wake up again automatically. You won't believe how good that feels. Plus, I'm really awake so I get up and do some more work.
You should try it! If you can't take afternoon naps on weekdays, at least give it a shot on the weekends.
"5… 4… 3… 2… 1…"
As the clock struck midnight, a cork popped through the air as people cheered and tooted on noisemakers. I'm sure the people living underneath iangurudata's flat were absolutely thrilled by the noise on a Saturday night. I suppose it is a bit odd to be screaming "Happy New Year" in the middle of April.
I spent most of the night travelling back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. I chatted with lots of people whom I really don't know, but seemed awfully geekier than me. This, they all assured me, was because they went to Dawson Sci-Fi. Nevertheless, we found things to talk about, like the snake that someone was wearing around her neck.
A blackjack table had been carted into the living room, so people started gathering around that. Sadly, very few people knew how to play, so that didn't improve their chances at all. Then someone fell down in the middle of the hallway, and the party wound down soon after that. I have vague memories of sitting beside a girl puffing on a hookah and a boy counting his gambling money. I think that only the dealer won that night.
By the time the party finished, I found myself far from home. Ian graciously offered a day-bed and I collapsed upon that. Some other people slept on the sofa-bed, but they neglected to transform it into something comfortable. Next I knew, it was morning, and I was being greeted by the sun in my eyes. And cats.
It was a good party.
Through my network of friends, I heard about Montréal's Pillow Fight Club. Now I've heard about them before: Toronto, San Francisco, Seattle. I had missed them all! But everyone really seemed to enjoy them, so I figured that we'd have a pretty good showing as well.
Come Friday, I got Adam to come along with me. We trudged through the dusk until we got to the park, but we were about half and hour early. So we ducked into Dunn's and got ourselves some smoked meat sandwiches. At the appointed hour, we walked into the park and saw all these people milling about pretending that they should be there. Of course, this is silly. Nobody stands around in a public park while it is raining!
Oh, did I mention there was water falling from the sky? That's why these photographs are so damp looking. Other people showed up with fancy cameras and cellphone cameras. But I seemed to be the only photographer who walked into the fray and got beat up. But my camera is slow, so sacrifices had to be made. A journalist was interviewing some people before they ran away and beat up on a mischievous boy.
Poor little camera. But it is stalwart and faithful and gets me in the thick of the action. We were all very wet by the time we got back to the office.
Here's a good summery pudding that I served at last night's dinner party. Yes, I know it isn't summer yet, but one can't always be patient.
Sadly, my freezer wasn't cold enough to do a good job, so this semifreddo really was just semi-cold. Plus, it melts quickly on the plate, so you have to serve it promptly. However, its velvety texture and gorgeous yellow seemed to win people over.
I got the recipe from Nigella Lawson and have only introduced a pinch of salt to hike up the flavour. You really don't have to mess with such a good thing! It's ridiculously fast and simple to make and lets you enjoy homemade ice cream without any of the churning.
Honey semifreddo
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- 4 egg yolks
- 125 mL honey
- 300 mL whipping cream
- 1 mL salt
- 25 g pine nuts, toasted
Directions
- Get yourself a 900g loaf tin. You know, one of those big rectangular ones? Line it with clingfilm and leave plenty of extra on the side, so that you can drape it over top.
- Crack and separate your egg yolks. I find it easiest to do this with two bowls. Crack four eggs into the first bowl and using your hand, carefully scoop out the yolks. Let the egg whites drain through your fingers and deposit the yolk in the second bowl. When you've got four yolks in the second bowl, add the last large egg.
- Do yourself a favour and get the best honey that you can. You want something that smells of wildflowers and tastes of clover. It's really the only flavouring in this pudding. Measure it out and make sure it's liquid. If it's not, you can heat it gently in the microwave.
- Put a metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Pour your eggs and honey in to the bowl and whisk constantly. It should foam up before turning into a thick, pale-yellow foam.
- Whisk in a pinch of salt to the mixture and then take it off the heat.
- In a large bowl, whip your cream until it comes to stiff peaks. You want your cream to be very cold when you start, as this makes the process much easier.
- Fold the egg mixture into the whipping cream. You don't have to make this very even, swirls in the final product are beautiful.
- Now scrape it into your lined loaf pan. Thump it on the counter a couple of times to knock out any air bubbles. Then wrap it up with the overhanging film.
- Stick it in the freezer for a long while. Nigella's recipe claims two to three hours, but you'd be safest to do this overnight.
- When you're ready to serve, toast your pine nuts in a pan over low heat. Be careful, as they catch easily.
- Take the pan out of the freezer and unmold onto a plate. Scatter the pine nuts on top of the log and drizzle the whole thing with honey.
Serves 8.
I woke up with the sun streaming in the window.
Sleep! Splendid, sumptuous sleep. How I have missed you!
(Wait a minute. I'm still at the office.)
(Oh hush!)
Today's purchase, a drying rack.
On Tuesday, it started snowing again. Now, people were awfully disappointed, since they were really ready for spring. But as far as I'm concerned, winter came and went with barely whimper. Anyway, snowing. It was snowing as I walked out of the métro and started looking at the addresses on rue Ontario. As I wandered about looking quite lost, posixeleni noticed me and called out my name.
We went up to a two-storey loft that was quite large. Except for the fact that six people lived there. I spent some time meeting people and chatting in the kitchen. A group of people arrived shortly after we did, bringing food and noise in with them. Soon thereafter, someone came by with a jar to collect money. I threw in a fiver and then it was time to start the show.
You see, this was an indie show, being hosted at someone's place. A bunch of people sat around on couches, while I prefered the hardwood floor. It's easier to get photographs that way. By the light of a very old lamp, we heard three sets of musicans play.
There was a guitarist who was coming down with a cold.
And a man from Paris, who did a whole bunch of odd things. Like shake a tape deck. Or whistle sweetly. Or crank a set of chimes that were operated by paper tape.
The last set involved a duet with a guitar and some other instruments. What's interesting is that Alden remarked about how music can still be performed in people's homes. Of course you don't need tapes and equipment and stages to make music.
Strange world it is, where people think music has to come from factories! And the recording industry hasn't even been around for that long. People's memories really are quite short, aren't they?
I used to think that I was a simple man with simple wants. My university professors told me, "Simon, once you get out in the Real World, you won't want to come back to school." But I thought that this was silly.
But having disposable income makes me do increasingly erratic things. For instance, I had the most extravagant bunch this Sunday. It was not a particularly fancy meal, but the circumstances surrounding it were quite excessive.
It started with a simple trip to Toronto to see my folks. And a plan emerged: a completely ludicrous plan. I got up at dawn, got dressed, and failed to eat anything. Then I started Dad's gorgeous burgundy old-school Cadillac and drove downtown.
It was early Sunday morning, so Bathurst was clear of traffic and I just glided south. When I got to Graduate House, I just picked a convenient place to park. I arrived a little early, so I took a couple of photographs in that wonderful early light. University of Toronto's campus is really peaceful, sometimes. I started getting impatient, so I wondered if I could break into the building. As I was climbing inside, I noticed Neela walking out, so I abandoned by criminal activities, and met up with her.
Neela is my oldest friend with whom I actually keep in touch. This is particularly ironic, because she has no telephone, no Internet, and doesn't even check her mailbox. She is, I'm afraid, completely unreachable. Which is why I had to show up on her doorstep.
I drove the car onto the QEW and we started cruising west. It's surprising how well I drive, since I almost never do. Also surprising is that I managed to find the freeway without getting lost. I'm sure that I'm just tempting fate by writing such things.
Along the way, Neela and I got caught up with each others' lives. We arrived in Hamilton at record time. There, we pulled up to Cindy's apartment building and we broke inside. We had to do this because she deemed her apartment too messy to take visitors, so she wouldn't let us up, but that's only because she was holding herself to absurdly high standards. We knocked on her door until she opened it and then gave her a birthday cake.
After it was put in the fridge, we went downstairs and got into Cindy's car. It's far cuter and smaller than a full-sized Cadillac, which really is more practical for driving about. We drove to a chain restaurant that specializes in breakfast and discovered that there was a twenty-minute wait. Unsatisfied, we walked across the street to a "Sports Bar and Family Restaurant."
It was surprisingly good. Plus, the service was charming and friendly. Neela and I made sure Cindy didn't pay.
After an hour of conversation, we went back to Cindy's place for a bit of cake. Then, she gave me a map and sent us on our way. Unfortunately for Cindy, she is brilliant, responsible, and a doctor. Which meant that she had to be in the emergency room for her Sunday shift.
Driving to another city just for brunch? Decadent? You bet!
To justify travelling all this way, Neela and I did a bit of walking about the downtown. Hamilton is a sleepy city and a factory town. You can see the smokestacks lining the harbour-front. The factories are still there, just like the old days when shipping was how goods were… shipped. We passed a lot of closed shopfronts. Like many Ontarian cities, Hamilton just doesn't have the economy to keep its businesses running.
When we drove into the city, a huge building had caught our eye. Cindy suggested that we see Dundurn Castle, which was actually more a museum and slightly disappointing. However, we found that behind the cockpit was an interesting trail. It led down and down into a large ravine that was full of old tires and discarded beer bottles. When we got to the bottom, we saw a train yard behind a barbed wire fence. Being brilliant explorers, we soon found the hole that must have been there. We did a bit of climbing on the trains and were generally amused by the graffiti.
Soon, we were tired of this, and decided to go searching for the elegant building we saw before. It turned out to be a really massive cathedral. We tried to convince people to let us in, because we didn't have time to wait for evening service. Disappointed that we weren't able to see the stained glass, we nevertheless amused ourselves by admiring the architecture.
Then it was time to go.
Apparently, only three of my friends can actually write things out by hand.
The rest of you should be ashamed! Shame!!!
Not only that, you missed out on fresh cookies. We had to eat them all ourselves.
Plus, you didn't get high on licking stamps.
Where is your sense of adventure?
Other fun stuff this weekend included a BBQ at Joel & Rhoda's which included watching the horrible MST3K movie "Pod People". Friday, Jeff, Katelyn, Monkey and I went to see Shana Morrison (Van's daughter) up in Berkeley. The show was mediocre, oh well, it was good to get out.