UltraCrepidate

If I am an overly emotional person, I’d say I was traumatized by the experience. Instead I think I will just laugh it off as a learning experience.

So I walked into my favorite hair salon in downtown to mow the lawn on my head and decided to give the new guy a try when he came over and get me, after all, the last time I let a new guy do my hair, he turned out to be an extreme careful and sharp person. I must’ve bragged about how fast his scissor was moving to all of my friends back then.

Right away, I noticed some warning signs from this newer guy as I watched him make the preparations before the cut. He was constantly checking the line of customers coming in to the saloon instead of focusing on the preparation itself. He has bad hygiene and his interactions with the machineries are very rough. I should have balked right then, but I didn’t want to be rude and make him look bad just because of what I think he might be.

Well, turns out I was right all along. After enduring him constantly pulled my hair off because he raised the scissor too fast and the fact that he had no deodorant on at all, I drew the last straw when I saw the knife.

I didn’t believe he was going to do it first, but when the knife got as near as 1cm to my skin, I begin to understand that we live in two different realities. He had picked up a knife from the counter, without washing and without changing the blade in order to trim my side burns. A glimpse of the blade shows shaving creams and hairs from his previous victim.

This is when things got loud, I shouted stop so all the shop can hear and told him promptly to change the blade. When he started arguing with me, telling me to calm down as if I am a spoilt brat, I just got up and left, without finishing the hair cut. I never returned to that hair salon again. It’s sad that one bad apple change my whole view about that place, but I just don’t want to see that asshole again.

I am in the process of updating the architecture of the blog and revamping the layout. So, torn in between getting the work done and finishing an entry. I opted to write something short and mediocre to show you some daily efficiency calculations that has become second nature for me.

I will talk about those annoying coupons that comes in through the mailbox with flyers. Efficiency 101 says that cutting out and using all the coupons is a waste of your time. If you earn $10 an hour, you should not spend time on a coupon that saves you $0.10 because you can earn more money working in the time you used to cut out the coupon. Later though, I started paying attention to these coupons again. Especially the fast food ones.

Due to the fact that I don’t have any family in the continent of America at the moment and my status as a single bachelor, eating is one of the biggest headache I face everyday. Eating out every meal is expensive, and cooking your food everyday is a waste of time. So what’s one to do when you are in this situation and lead an active outdoor life? This is where these coupons come in handy.

In an active life, the fat you take in can barely keep up with the fat you burn out. So in order to keep the balance and maintain your health, it’s necessary to use these coupons and purchase meals in bulk. Four 6″ subs is a great deal for $12. Anything that equate to $3 per meal is a steal with the current eat out meal averaging at $8. Even if you are stacked for food already, it is worth it to take an extra meal that day just to gain the extra nutritions. When you are burning nutrients at the rate I am talking about, anything helps.

If you’ve read any tips by the inspirational speakers, you will find this catchy term resonating between all of them. “Delegating your tasks to others.” It’s a simple idea, leverage other people’s time to do your own bidding. I call it a poor man’s dream of imitating the rich.

Have you ever try that yourself? What happens in reality when you try to delegate some of your tasks to others? They resist right? Not only that, your position will instantly decrease in the social ladder which they measure against. Unless your skill and the amount of tasks you have to perform is incontestable, you’ll be seen as a lazy bastard who’s just looking for a quick way out of an otherwise easy problem.

It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t delegate, by all means, if you are a boss of the company, delegate. You are paying your employees for something right? Try and imagine the situation where everyone in your company listened to the same speaker and suddenly choose to delegate all their tasks the next day. What would you get? All the work get handed to the sucker who didn’t go to the seminar the day before. Is it productive? Does it benefit the human race?

Which is why, I believe, that people with the power to delegate, should do so with considerations of others in mind. You should evaluate whether or not to delegate based on a few criteria, I can only speak for myself and list the ones I use for your amusement.

• Determine whether or not I more efficient than others at this task and based on this efficiency, evaluate the amount of time and the cost of my time against the others. Choose the cheapest route.
• Will I miss out on a great learning opportunity? Am I trying to delegate because I am afraid of the task?
• How many times will I encounter the same task in the future? Is the time that it takes to find/persuade someone to take the task better spent on actually completing and perfecting my own efficiency on the particular task?
• Is it a time critical task? Will the person be able to complete the task within the slack time I give to the task?
• How much effort do I need in maintaining a good relationship with the person I am delegating my tasks to?

These points are all valid points based on human nature. When people preach a great idea, they often forget about the basic human nature and when you take that into consideration, you will see the risks associated with it. In the case of delegating, you have to understand that human, by nature, will:

• Resist deadlines
• Slack off from time to time
• Feel injustice
• Get bored
• Become greedy

So the next time you hear someone preaches how he got to this point by delegating, ask yourself this question. How old is this person? Could it be that they accumulated all these wealth because of compound interest with time?

Everyday at lunch, I’d look enviously at the packed boxes that my colleagues bring to the table. Most of them still lives with their parents, or are already married with their own families. It’s something that eats at my heart whenever I sit down with them for lunch. Their multicolored boxes dotting the table, making my single cup of instant noodle stands out like a trench-coated lone gunman.

I am really missing my family, or rather, the comfort of one. Everyday I come home and it’s just myself and the multitude of problems awaiting to be solved. There’s never relaxation, only temporary escapes from reality. It’s true that you get the comfort of being your own boss, but at the same time, you don’t have the cozy feeling that someone’s got your back whatever happens.

There’s never any nice surprises that warms your heart. A nice meal ready after a hard days work, pre-filled gas tank when someone knows that you are driving long distance, or just the simple familiar question: “are you allright” when you have a bad day.

Nope, it’s just me and the world.

Letters from you. Bills from canceled subscriptions and the various document requests that I have to dig up for you because you can’t be bothered to look it up. Life is a pest, an annoying son of biatch.

I always thought that life would be simpler under your care, without all these forms made from black ink and white paper. I signed up for all these extra protection under the pretense that I have a choice when you are just as happy shoving it up my throat if I refuse. What do these serve? When the important time was upon me, where were you and your promises?

Really, I am just pissed off by how greedy you are. Sitting on your arse, not doing anything. Yet you ask for 67%  of the profits. Sure you are smart and sure you’ll be rich. BUT YOU ARE A FUCKING JERK!

A letter to the Canadian government.

Finally after two full night of playing, I can more accurately describe the gameplay experience and how everything balances each other out. If you haven’t read part 1 or part 2, please do so.

For the past year or so, I’ve been playing COD with my non-dominant hand, so the style switch to TF2 has a profound impact on my performance and play style.

Immediately, I noticed that it’s really hard to ambush people unless you are using a spy and the sound of footsteps play less of a role in detecting enemies. The only reason why you’ll need to hear, is when against an invisible spy and I don’t believe they make any noise at all. This fact is perhaps amplified by the maps themselves. Generally speaking, the maps are smaller with tighter quarters and less hiding places. Which brings me to my next point and my favorite class in any game: snipers.

Snipers are basically left out there to dry now, with a shooting hinderance resembling to that of the real world, snipers in TF2 are further toned down because they are stripped of the two other lethal abilities which normal snipers have. Lethal damage and good environmental covers. Spies further complicate the issue with their stealthing abilities and silent footstep. Add that to the fact that spy no longer bleed when disguised and shot by enemies, it is now impossible to do anything against a spy. I noticed that the sniper rifle doesn’t have a crosshair when zoomed out, further indicating the TF2 team’s devotion in making a sniper rifle useless in anything but sniping. To test out that theory, I used two strings and 4 short strips of scotch tape on my monitor as a mock up crosshair and proceeded to headshot people with the rifle zoomed out. I didn’t manage to kill anyone even after shooting them 3 times… if I manage to hit them that is.

If you are a fan of Unreal, or are switching to TF2 from Unreal engine, you’ll love the scout class. They are no longer helpless when caught red handed against an enemy. Its speed combined with its double jump ability makes scout the most maneuverable class I’ve seen in all games. The double jump enables the scout to change jump direction in mid air which means that you can basically kill everything but a sentry with your scattergun. I believe that a nerf needs to be done on the scattergun. It is basically a super double barrelled shotgun that can instantly hit an opponent as long as you press “shoot” when they are in the middle of the your cross-hair. During my short life as a scout in one game, I’ve caputred the flag twice, killed off 2 HWGuy, 1 soldier, 4 snipers, 2 engies, 4 medics and
1 pyro while getting my ass handed to me 7 times by the sentry gun. A good scout who has the good sense to run back home when health is low is basically not possible to be killed. Scouts are annoying as hell, but not as annoying as a demo man.

Facing a demo man made me understand the one biggest change in TF2 valve made. They made the dimensions every projective bigger. Jumping over a demoman’s pipe bomb is no longer a strategy, with the damage increase of their contact pipe bomb, they can score a one shot kill on a HWguy with a direct hit. In a tunnel, demoman is king. I myself is not a good demo, but I’ve come face to face with many and so far, the only reason I managed to kill one, is to take advantage of the intervals when they reload their grenade launcher. Even then, I run the risk of walking into their sticky bomb trap.

I’ve generally stayed away from using the spy class because I really suck at it in this version. I am too used to be able to feign death and throw grenades as a spy that the new abilities turned me off completely at the beginning. However, after seeing some 1337 spy pwnage, I decided that I might give it a try in the future. What eventually happened to the spy class is that they made an engineer/sniper completely vulnerable to the spy. I love using the engy and knows all the strategies of detecting spies, however, I find that often, even when I know the person is a spy, there is no way for me to perform any counter measure, except hoping for my soldier protégé to realize that the team mate I shot at is a spy. Even if they were discovered, they can just use invisibility and vanish out of thin air. This is not your not-so-invisible blurry transparent air invisibility. It is complete invisibility. So any class that finds itself walking alone will usually get picked off by a good spy.

With that, I think I can safely wrap up this review and say that. Although I didn’t like the initial changes, I find that the balance is good way to put all class in back in their shoes and that the game is still as addictive as ever. Be prepared to sacrifice the kill score so that your team can win though, because in this new version, it’s very easy for the other team to win if your team is only focused on fragging.

If you’ve missed Part 1 you should go and read it first. I talk about the history and general impressions on Valve as well as the details of the sniper and the spy. Part 2 will continue with dissecting the rest of the classes.

Soldier :

-Great news, they kept the rocket jumping. Although a bit less powerful than the TFC version. You don’t jump as high and it’s easier to get injured in TF2.

-The rocket’s blast radius and strength is reduced, perhaps as a counter balance to the increased damage of the rocket itself. Also, I don’t know what’s been changed, but it seems that it’s easier for the rocket to do a direct hit on another player compared to TFC. You can no longer kill the lesser classes by just shooting the ground, most classes will survive after 4 shots, except for the scout.

-Out of all the classes, I can say that the soldier is the one that changed the least

-Beware of spies soldiers are very easily stabbed from behind by a cloaked spy.

HWguy:

-The mini-gun is less accurate at longer range. A scout with a shotgun that’s outside of the effective range of the mini-gun will kill you.

-HWguy’s shotgun is the same as everyone else’s in this version. No super shotgun for him.

Pyro:

-Same pyro but with reduced speed and less range on the flame thrower. Say if a soldier is backing away from you, you have a fat chance of killing him.

-Pyro no longer have the fire rocket launcher.

Scout:

-Has double jump to replace the concussion grenade jump

-Scout’s shotgun is as strong as everyone else’s. Probably making the scout the best sniper killer. I noticed that the shotgun’s damage does not decrease as the range increases and is counted as an instant hit. Making a scout with a shotgun a very scary foe.

-Scout’s baseball bat is very powerful. Haven’t measured it scientifically yet, but enough to force you to run away.

Medic:

-Complete overhaul to become a pure healing class.

-The invulnerable ability is very effective against choke points. I can see some great dual player action emerging from this.

Engineer:

-Same sentry gun, same dispenser. The dispenser’s self destruct is no longer strong enough to kill anyone.

-Since the grenades are no longer around, I haven’t seen any team beat 3 engineers with 3 sentry guns together. Even with the spy’s special tool to disable sentry guns.

-Fully charged sniper shot can no longer blow up the sentry gun.

Demo man:

-Very strong grenade launcher. Able to one shot kill a soldier on direct hit. I obviously couldn’t use it very well, but a veteran with expert knowledge of the grenade’s arc can kill almost anything.

That’s it for tonight, I will talk about some game play next time in part 3. In the mean time, if you haven’t already done so, check out part 1.

My history with Valve

Having played the original Half Life and TFC for several years, the word TF2 brings back the memories of a good time. Back then, Valve Corporation released Half Life with TFC and Counter Strike mods. Players were getting the sweet deals of 3 games in one. It was a selfless act on the part of the company and have forever captured my loyalty since the day I heard of the feat.

The deal

TF2 news came and went over the past 7 or 8 years with no release date in view. I’ve heard so many of the possible releases that I brushed away the recent announcement of TF2 as just another fluke… They proved me wrong with The Orange Box. Another selfless act on Valve’s part, packaging 3 different games in one for the price of $49. Half life, episode 1, episode 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2.

I ordered my Orange Box over Steam, which gave me a discount of $5 for the whole box. Steam, is an online sales platform where you can order games digitally and download it when you want to play. It suits a CD-less lifestyle perfectly while keeping the hard drive squeaky clean. I can wipe the game from my system, knowing that Steam has a record of my purchase and I can re-download it whenever I feel like.

The Game

First impression of the game is a mixed feeling. I came back half looking for the game that I enjoyed several years ago, yet half wishing for innovation for more diversity. Well, I got what I was looking for: half half. It was the same style, same feel same classes. They event kept the rocket jumping for the soldiers, however, they also made minor changes that’ll mean a complete overhaul of play style for those of us who specialized to a certain class in TFC. I can understand them though, these changes are made, to facilitate team work. Forcing each class to be limited to doing what they are designed to do. Without further ado, I’ll get on with the classes.

The Sniper:

-You can only charge up and see the dot in scoped view. So no more charged shot without zooming. The scope also limits your periphal vision so you are more vulnerable to sneak attacks when scoped. These effectively render the sniper rifle useless in close to mid range battles.

-You can no longer jump while scoped, forcing sniper wars a pure matter of lag and aim. You also lose your charged dot if you try jumping to avoid a shot.

-Charging is done automatically when scoped and the shot is fired when you press the attack button instead of the moment you release the button. This adds some delay for those of you using keyboards to attack or jitter for those of you who assigned attack to the mouse button.

Spy:

-Secondary attack is assigned permanently to stealth, a very useful functionality to get past security, but also too powerful based on my opinion. The cool down helps nerfing this skill a bit, but not that much.

-Disguise is much improved, as it automatically matches the walking speed of the class you are trying to imitate (except for scouts) as well as allowing your ally know that you are in disguise. Making it an easier to use skill for the normal population.

-Feign death and tranquilizers are gone. Yes, no more playing a convincing death only to back stab people after they walk past your corpse.

I will discuss the rest of the classes in part 2 and maybe online impressions in part 3. Possibly adding grenades later. I don’t know what they plan on doing, but it seems that grenades are completely missing from the game.

Continue on to part 2 and part 3.

If you look at my resume, you’ll never see the word “Multitasking” under the skills section or within the description of any job I had. Multitasking is a modern buzzword created by people on an assumed possibility of the brain to perform in certain way. The assumption is that we never use more than 10% of our brain, but where did that come from? Ask any brain imaging expert and you’ll come to the understanding that, we never use more than 10% of our brain at the same time, but each function takes up a different 10% of our brain. In plain English, if we were to be able to do everything at once with full focus, we’d be using 100% of our brain. If that happens, we’d burn up all the sugar in our body in a short amount of time to eventually suffer a somewhat uninspiring death.

____________________________________

Let’s look at what multitasking is. Here’s a short clip from my life:

Phone rings

“MI department, Causa speaking”

“Hey Causa, it’s D, lead architect from T company speaking. I am on site and am kind of in a jam here. There’s an emergency on the production floor and I was wondering if we can brainstorm together to come up with a solution. If you can sit down for a minute or two to do that that’d help me greatly.”

“Shoot, I am all ears.”

• I cleared my mind of whatever it was that I was working on, took out my notepad and pen.

Long explanation of the problem including hardware specs, wiring, software

30 minutes later

“A few possibilities. If it’s a hardware malfunction, it could be cause by x or y or both, in that case, your best bet is to RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) the boards. If it’s a software malfunction, then you can try x and y patch or rewrite the code in z ways so that it can go around this possible bug. Based on my experience, a blue screen at this point usually means power up failure.”

“That’s interesting, I thought I’d already made sure that it doesn’t go into that state…..”

Long explanation of how the code works

“That’s true, it can also happen that way. Ok so here’s what we can do for now, you perform x, y and z on the system while I do a, b and c here to check a few thing, I will get back to you with an update if I find something.”

“Sounds good. I’ll give you a call back after my tests are done on this side.”

• I put down the phone and notepad, switching my mind back to my desk with my hand randomly scanning different objects, hoping that some familiar motion will tell me that it is what I was doing before the phone rang. Having failed that, I then looked at my computer screen and read the top most window that’s open to get an idea of the program that was running. The memory of what I was doing smashed me like a thunder, however, the creative thought that was going through a solution didn’t come back, I spent some time staring into the blank trying in vain to remember what the clever solution was. In comes the sales guy.

“Hey Causa, how’s it going!”

“Not bad, just got off the phone with T company, quite a nasty problem.”

“Oh yeah? What was wrong?”

Short explanation of the problem and solution

“I see I see, well, keep it up… Yeah, so , about that problem from Mr.A , have you made any progress on that? What did Mr. A say?”

“Mr. A?”

• Mind goes into deep search mode, repeating the name of the guy till another word surfaced, then I repeated the two names together, hoping to conjure a date, a problem, or a hint of a solution.

“Doesn’t ring a bell, which company or what was the problem?”

“It was company P and the interrupt problem when scanning at 500 fps.”

“Oh that! Well, no concrete solution yet, I am still writing some code to verify the bug.”

“Ok that’s great, keep working on it, oh and when do you think you can have the solution ready?”

“Hmmm, I don’t know, maybe 2 or 3 days. Say… next week?”

“Ok. Can you just email me with the latest correspondence you had with him and let him know that you expect to have something ready by next week?”

“Sure will.”

• Sales guy leaves the area, I sat down in front of my mail PC and checked some email. Answered the few that are quick and easy, flagged the ones that’s going to take a while to think and gets back to writing my program.

Phone rings

“MI department, Causa speaking”

“Hey Causa, this is T from logistics, I am calling concerning the box that you sent last weekend, I am just wondering what the cost of producing the item was and how much we are selling it to the client.”

“Huh?”

“The B brand camera marked here going to company B? It says you are the one shipping it.”

“Oh that! Uhhh, let me bring up my files just a sec…. Ok yeah, it doesn’t cost anything, the client sent to us for interfacing and that’s all done now, so it can be returned to the client.”

“Oh, ok, in that case, here’s the tracking number.”

“What do I do with this tracking number?”

“In case the customer asks for it”

“Oh yeah right…. I thought they’d call you guys.”

• We then bid each other farewell and hung up the phone. Having completely lost track of where I was, I decided to start a chit chat with my co-workers about some new policy or how much my wallet is hurting from attending all these important events for my friends. Half way through, my manager showed up along with my team leader to set a date on how to split the teaching materials for the training class. Then proceeded on to discuss a particular big name client’s development project that fell through the cracks.

20 minutes later

• I looked at the time, 3PM already. I contemplated between logging and organizing everything that happened in the past 2 hours or getting some hot water to boil my tea. I opted for the tea and proceeded on enjoying a 10 minutes tea time, surfing the net and answering questions from random colleagues that popped by.

And the day continued it’s hectic pace

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If you just look at the bullet part, you can see the thoughts that went through my mind and further feel the drag that macro-multitasking has on me. With each event fragmenting the previous, rendering it impossible to be reconstructed till eventually, I have to start a thought from the beginning and trace it till the point where I stopped to figure out the next step. The reason why these are so lethal is because they are completely unrelated field to each other: Programming, shipping, training to a few special client cases to recall on the spot without going through my files. Keep in mind, that all this time, I was micro-multitasking, i.e. making use of my mouth to speak, ear to listen, eyes to read and hands to write or type while shaking my leg all the while in nervousness.

In sum, I could’ve finished the program and be done with it if I didn’t have to multi-task. Multi-tasking have a tendency of forcing a person to serve several people at the same time and making promises that the person cannot keep in order to get them away whereas single tasking is the brute force behind working. It’s where real productivity comes from.

Yes, this story is not made up. This happened today and has continued happening since I-don’t-know-when.

I am busy going from place to place and attending different events and taking pictures all the while. Hopefully, the twitter update will keep you happy for now. It’ll be worth it because I am taking the time to format the pictures and spend more time on writing the entries. I will also be rewriting the first few chapters of the Dansons series and change the perspective from which the stories are told.

What do banks get out of all these offers? I looked at all the fine prints in puzzle because I don’t see any benefits for the big financial firms. I trust my judgments and experiences that these are right and the end result is money earned. At the same time, I also trust in the simple fact that, the bank employs several people who are a few hundred times smarter and more experienced than me in this matter which led to the conclusion that they got something to gain from this.

Then everything became crystal clear when I reread the fine prints at the requirements section. An income higher than $35000 annually. If you repackage people in this earning category with those of a high interest, but more risky credit card holders, you can resell the debt in forms of securities and bonds.

So basically, it makes the securities in question appears to be AAA grade to a potential lender because so many people with good credit is in it and the interest return on average is high. What they probably didn’t tell the investors is that the ones with good credit are charged at a low interest, while the ones with bad credits are charged at a higher interest.

Makes me wonder, what type of trigger will cripple these type of transactions. If all the more riskier person with low credit score, which makes up the main part of the interest generated by the package, suddenly bail out. What could trigger a country wide bail out like that? Massive layoff of the basic low wage industries.

It seems that I over estimated my frugalness and underestimated the social activities costs. So, most of my projects are yet again on hold because I don’t have the means to buy the materials. My financials are pretty complicated, but suffice to say that I can’t take money out at the moment and there’s a deadline of paying something. My cash value cannot support the money flow of debt to return.

Photography: $150

I can still take pictures, but I think I’ve pretty much explored most of the possibilities of a Vanilla camera. I’ve ordered the most basic lens hood for my camera for $20, but the rest is going to be on hold. Next item in line is a $110 external zoom flash self adjusts based on zoom level as well as the ISO setting. It is crucial for capturing movement in low lighting condition until the new night sensor comes out in 2009.  I also need about $20 in basic material cost to finish up the DIY photography backdrop for when I have models over…

Longer term, I will be getting a wide angle lens and telephoto lens for architectures and sports.

Home Improvement: $920

I am debating whether or not to finish my couch. It’ll cost about $200 in materials and without it, I only have enough sitting place to invite two people over at a time. $50 for a projector screen, $400 for a projector and $270 for Nintendo Wii. I should be set by then.

Longer term, I’d like to get a full set of kitchen knives and spices with a wide variety of sauces.

Computer: $512

Just bought 2GB of RAM for $60 complimenting the 1GB already in my computer. It’s just in time as my Photoshop usage often exceeds 1GB usage. However, I still don’t feel complete because a few games are coming out that I have to get: Half life Black box (Includes HL2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Portal and TF2)  $60, Spore $50. Probably spend about $100 on graphic card. Oh, and the materials to build my own computer case. Estimated at about $40. Then add a My book world edition to backup all my digital files. $130. Re-register domain $72

Longer term, I want two more computer monitors and eventually upgrade my cpu plus logitec’s airmouse

Self Improvement: $220

Need to finish my German class Level 2. Registration is $220.

Longer term, I’d like to back pack through Africa and take more salsa lessons.

Total: $1802
It’s not much, but I have to find a way to come up with this money. I am hungry and well motivated.

Ever since I started bicycling, I complained about the pot-holes and obstacles on the road with the most dangerous of those being absent-minded people who opens their car door the second before you pass by. People just aren’t aware of their surroundings nowadays, going through their days like a zombie. These difficulties made me dream about the biker’s wet dream: long paved and uninterrupted road without pot holes nor cars. In Montréal, it’s called the Green Line 1

I stumbled upon it 3 weeks ago and have diligently been trying to conquer it every weekend and as a result, I finally did manage on my third try. Let’s take a look at the path from Google map first. (Click here for the Google map location)

My first try was child’s play and I turned back after crossing the Champlain service bridge. It was an exploratory run with light gear, definitely not enough to sustain me through the brutal 42.38km trial now that I look at it with hindsight. But that day, I was happy, I had a smile that stayed on my face for the better part of the week. Co-workers thought I got laid big time. I believe, that you too will understand once you have the sea wind in your face, the sun behind your back and a long straight path going into infinity. Kind of like this panorama.

Here are some more picture on the service bridge.

My second try was another futile attempt because I couldn’t judge how far it actually is and drank most of my water half way through the path. I did however took some good pictures though.

I completed the whole thing on my third try. It was brutal and I was dehydrated by the end because I opted to bring my camera instead of an extra bottle of water. When you are biking such a long distance, a small change in weight can mean a lot. It was twice as long as I imagined and I fool heartedly charged through the end without thinking about the way back. End result? One hour to get there, two hours to get back.

Here is a panorama of the whole path.(This panorama shows the path that I took. It’s not a straight line)

Why did I go through with it? If I must bring it out in words, I can only say that it was the sun, the open endless road and the promise of a heaven at the end that drove me to complete it. I find solace in hearing the winds in my ear on a completely abandoned path where the end cannot be seen. Merged with the quiet noise of nature, there’s almost a mysterious beauty to it. Or perhaps I just love it because it gets me away from people. Too much people that suffocates my mind during the week.

So, if you are in Montréal and enjoys biking. Try it out.

“It’s all a fantasy”

Every movie about dancing has a hot and well established member of the opposite sex. Well, my story is no different, it is just funny when viewed in hindsight.

Miss T has brown skin (she contributed to my illogical preference in brown skin), long wavy hair, skinny and is an engineer. She is probably the only other person that I know who walks in between these two worlds. Try as I may, I never managed to find anyone else like her later in life. It is a proven fact that studying Engineering and studying dancing are mutually exclusive and she is just an anomaly.

I remember seeing her for the first time at the dance party. She was like an angel who descended from heaven with spotlights highlighting her beauty. I was mesmerized and afraid of her at the same time. By this time, I am pretty comfortable in a party setting and considers myself a veteran. But that night, I went home and I practiced like I never practiced before. She was my reason for constantly improving myself so that one day, I can dance with her and not bore her to death.

I thought to myself that night: “Until the day arrives, I will practice with air in my parent’s basement.” It was a valiant effort on my part and helped in getting me hooked to the whole charade of dancing. Later in my dance career, I realized that, I’ve been practicing all the moves wrong and had to spend double the amount of time to unlearn what my muscles takes for granted. Fantasies doesn’t pay.

But time soon ran out and I got accepted to Computer Engineering and must move away from my home town. So, at the last party of the summer, I sheepishly walked up to Miss T. held out my hand, realized that it was sweaty, swiped it on my pants and stuttered slowly:

“Would… would… like to dance?”

Looking away, I waited with thumping hearts for the relief of rejection. So that I could run home and hid myself from this whole dance thing for the rest of my life.

Next: First competition

Dansons Series Index

From the point of view of women, I have a serious flaw which most of them will not be able to overlook. Guys I know can probably brush it aside as free-willed thinking, but for the female species, this flaw is bigger than life itself. Up until the moment of this writing, whenever I mentioned this belief, I always receive the same strong responses from members of the opposite sex. I am, of course, talking about having kids.

It’s not that I am irresponsible or because I treat women only as fuck toys. I just don’t need one for two reasons. The strongest argument being that our sole purpose to live is to have a kid. Or to pass down the responsibility of doing something great to our child. Of putting all the hope for goodness in them because we screwed up our own so badly.
The second reason, is an extension of the first. I don’t have anything interesting to contribute to the future human gene pool. At least, nothing that I can see that’s unique to myself which is in my gene. What’s more important for me to pass on, if anything, would be in the form of ideas and revelations unless it was my genes that facilitated the type of thinking that I achieved. All these, is still conditional to the fact that my mind is worth preserving.

So there you go. Now whenever some girl gasps in surprise at my stance on having babies on a date, I can just refer to this article.

A long term consequence of blogging that I wanted to achieve is that of a consolidation of my different realities and identities. I hope, through the publishing of my deepest reflections and admittance to my own flaws, that some type of acceptance of myself, good or bad, can be gained with the help of public disclosure.

This weekend, I added a link to this blog from facebook without any fanfare and marked the final stage of bridging the discrepancies between my pen name “Causalien” and my Canadian name “Peter”. It was a small change, perhaps insignificant to others, but definitely earth shattering for me.

The bridge between my clique, my social contacts, my engineering colleagues and my dancing circle are now one and the same. No more secrets and no more hiding. I am now truth reincarnated and responsible for everything I say/write.

It’s not a big change or anything in my habit. Not that I’ve been lying or delusional in my past posts. The fantasy has been brought down slowly over the year to be integrated with the reality. It the fact that finally, whatever I say on this blog, is exactly what I feel in reality. I am also, not ashamed of it one bit.

Guess who’s online on a DRY DSL link? Yeah you guessed it. Yours and only bi@tch.

I ended up banging all the numbers at Bell even though I signed up with teksavvy. So, as usual, bell pulled their delaying you for 2 weeks and then schedule you for a dispatch but never show up till the last 15 minutes routine. I took it in stride knowing full well that this is standard procedure at bell.

But having Dry DSL and not having to pay for a land line is awesomeness. Now I just have to get my skype number setup and I am done.