I'm going to post pictures and such later, but we celebrated Leif's second birthday yesterday with 20-or so of us. He had a great time running around and dancing and seeing everyone.

As a fun side-effect, it was our first big house party. The place is finally setup enough that it feels like most things have a place to go. Yay! Sandy and Angie did a wonderful job with decorating while I was in California last week.

I think it's funny how the weather here drizzles snow like Vancouver drizzels rain. There's a light dusting of it coming down now, and this seems to be able to happen for weeks at a time at the beginning and end of winter.

I know so many people who are so sick of winter by the time March and April roll around. I suspect growing up in 200 days of rain per year and really liking Vancouver weather makes me a little more resistant to this than most.

You'd think that sometime before today I would've learned that Wacom and Watcom were not the same company.

And that I might've learned it from someone other than a non-geek friend who was bored in her Japanese business class. =)

Everytime I see people talking about "BSG", I think of the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory.

It's all Thomas Bushnell's fault.

According to the Service Canada website:

If you are using a Linux operating system (Red Hat Fedora Core 8 or Ubuntu 7.1) with Firefox 2.0.0.6 or higher we recommend using the Sun JVM 1.6.0_03 or higher.

Too cool!

Going to a party where the host is an obstetrician makes for some interesting conversations.

I learned last night that the reason flour is all enriched in Canada is because the government required that folate be added to the flour. Apparently the reason we don't have more births with neural tube defects is because everyone eats Cheerios for breakfast, and the 40% of pregnancies that are unintended have a base of folic acid in their system already.

I know that the US has these types of things as well, but coming from a place where it seems like everyone loudly wants the government to get out of the way to a place where good government is something we explicitly value is one of the many reasons I'm happy to be home.

I try to practice Inbox Zero, and this past year has been brutal far staying on top of my Inbox. When I started pruning the home email a week or so ago (having just gotten my work email box down to zero). It's giving me a pretty good review of 2008. And, umm.. wow:

Spinal tumor, surgery, hating Mountain View (the place, not the job there. My coworkers are pretty uniformly awesome), having a toddler, not being able to lift my toddler, crazy mood altering drugs, visa renewal, a funeral, unexpected pregnancy, weddings, buying a house, mid-term miscarriage, Angie's hospitalisation from that, pneumonia, a move home, having to withdraw from my Master's courses 3 times over the course of the year for medical reasons - eventually causing me to withdraw from the program. Extend it by another 3 months into 2007 (because while I'd love to believe that stress reset at the start of a calendar year...), and we have another wedding, a move to the US and a new job.

I've just gotten to an email where I took notes on what the risks were for the angiogram before I'd told many friends. There's a small pile of emails and such from people wishing me well that I never managed to reply to. I also find myself thinking back to the people I didn't hear from, and the reevaluation of my communities and friendships that came along with that.

The lyrics from Counting Crows come to mind: "It's been a long December and there's reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last."

Here's to 2009. =)

Launchpad's email handling is awful. Truly awful. I left a pile of teams I was on to reduce the noise, and vaguely considered leaving the core-dev team so that I would never have to see another "merge request" come through that I couldn't possibly ever care about.

But I have solved the problem!

I remembered that my email can cope with jbailey+FOO@raspberryginger.com and still delivery it, giving me something to filter on. So effectively immediately, all mail from launchpad now skips my inbox is tagged in case I do actually need it. The only thing I need to improve this is a feature to auto-delete emails after 30 days labeled with a certain tag.

What a lovely start to 2009.

We hosted a real live Christmas dinner this evening! We've done slight variations on it before. Y'know, invite people over and we sit on the couch and hang out. But this was a three-generational, guests-invited, have chairs to sit on, retire to the living room to hang out afterwards Christmas dinner!

I'm glad we got seating for 6, we'll have to do this again. =)

Angie's mom is in town, and she sent us off for a date night last night which was awesome. The funny part is that we forgot we city we were in. This is the city where you starve for lack of open *corner stores* on Christmas Day. We tried to go to Chu Chai and then kept walking down St. Denis. When we walked past the Subway that was closed, we started to get nervous about finding food. Luckily on Price Arthur there was an Indian place that was open and a dep a few blocks down for some wine. Totally lovely. On the walk home (along Prince Arthur and up St. Laurent hoping to find a bar or something where we might hang out for a bit) we found 2 other places open: A Greek restaurant and some sort of chicken roasting place.

I love that we're in a city where people aren't scared to say "Hey, go home. It's the holidays" Next time we'll even plan for it!

Merry Christmas or whatever winter holiday you celebrate, all.

Just saw the LF announcement:

http://video.linuxfoundation.org/category/video-category/-linux-foundation-video-contest

I love the effort, and I'm sure people will do great work, but there's a problem here. There needs to be *two* contests. The first, with the award that they propose, should be the serious one - The one that might get rolled out to suits and businesses everywhere, that we'd be proud to show off on our corporate web sites.

Then there's the second category. The "too honest" ones that get made for the equivalent "I'm a Mac" / "I'm a PC" ads and wind up on YouTube and email attachments. Not so much fan fiction as fan honesty. =)

I'm thinking start with a focus on a keyboard, crusted with Doritos and possibly an ashtray beside it, zoom out to a couple people playing Quake or Tetrinet or something that clearly haven't washed in days, zoom out, show that this is a dorm room. The room next to it (with cutaway walls and what not) has someone composing an email saying that either Gnome or KDE sux0rs. Further out, two floors, more rooms: Some people lit just by the glow of a CRT, decorated by Debian and Gentoo logos, maybe a vague outline of some porn on a monitor. The zoom out picks up to show ESR writing another book, maybe another ELER comic being written, someone "upgrading" their home wiring, various people arguing, one shower in the building total, and finish the zoom out and fade in the facade to the building: All shiny, glass and steel with a front door with a business person leading a tour past it saying "These are the Linux Development Labs, where all the magic happens. It's closed to visitors right now (points to goth in the back with a laptop who's probably running kismet), except you - you're welcome in." And then fade in the letters "We are Linux"

The soundtrack to this should be a background hum, just at the edge of what a TV speaker will play for volume. Queue in fifths and octaves during the zoom out, fade in some drum and base, some Simcity type of background talking and open up the chord as the words fade onto the screen.

(This is fiction, people. Noone expects another ELER)

When I was little, we moved around a lot. One of the things I was almost most excited by was the first night in the new place. My sister and I would usually stay there on our own, on the floor or perhaps on a sponge. I've always found moving exciting, with the new possibilities that come with it.

I notice, though, that as I get older the camping gets progressively more 'yuppy'. We might bring food and snacks, or a radio, or a laptop. As we're waiting for our stuff to get here, we've got shiny new couches, a new bed for Leif, and a new dining room table and chairs. Pictures will come soon. =)

We're all settling in well. We've almost completed the basic tasks of becoming a citizen of Quebec again. The driver's licenses are changed over, Angie and Leif's medical applications are done (mine will be done tomorrow). We have updated library cards, are signing up for Communauto this week. And we have been served with our Welcome Tax

I've really appreciated being able to check in with new and old friends. It's weird timing because so many people are returning home for the holidays, but still good because it means that we have a bit of time to get settled.

So happy to be home! =)

Quick post: -20 C outside, -31 C with the windchill.

Yes, I really did sign up for this. I love it.

When moving here, we figured out that it would cost us around $5k(USD) to ship everything we owned, versus the idea of spending something in that neighbourhood to simply replace everything we owned with stuff worth having. Much of what we had we got in 2001 when, unemployed, diverted to a weird city, and stuck far away from home we scraped by to buy for our tiny one-room apartment in Toronto.

So today was the Sears trip - the day to buy living room furniture, dining room furniture, and kitchen appliances. We went to Sears and it was a bit chilly. We left Sears to apparently a -27C wind chill, dusted snow blowing across the parking lot and 50km/h wind gusts.

We were *almost* dressed well enough for it, too. =)

Anyhow, the furniture comes on Wednesday afternoon and sometime after that we'll start inviting people over. Y'know, somewhere after we have somewhere to sit.

I found the camera this morning, but I haven't taken pictures of the new place yet. I think that'll have to wait until this weekend.

I'm sitting in the corner of what will be the office space. Right now, it's got the cordless phone, the wifi router, the cable modem, and the Vonage (codec? modem? codec seems likely, how wonderfully archaic). Off to the side is a sewing table of some sort that the former owners left behind which has the power brick for our cell phones and Angie's laptop on it.

We're running laundry for the first time in the washing machine downstairs, and seasoning the new cast iron frying pan. Leif had a bath earlier and actually went down at about the normal time. He woke up at 05h30 this morning, probably due to the lack of curtains. It apparently starts to get bright early, and none of us are sleeping well with three of us in a double.

Our furniture is due to arrive somewhere between the 15th and the 18th. I phoned today and the moving company told us that the stuff hasn't left California yet. Ah well. We've purchased a toaster over and electric kettle so far. We bought the stove, washer and dryer from the former owner. There was a spare fridge downstairs that we're using, but mostly we're using the step outside the kitchen door. We're back in Quebec and it's cold enough to keep things out there. =)

This place is easily the largest place I've lived in since my parents split up when I was 8. Angie and I are really trying hard not to fill it with crap, but actually think through what we need.

I signed Angie and I up for gym memberships today after work. Yesterday was cell phones. Angie picked up some new pots and pans. Tomorrow will be towels and some dishes.

Anyone know if it's better to buy a fridge and dishwasher before Christmas or after? =)

The new home number, cell numbers and such will be in Facebook and Orkut in a moment.

A brief distraction from moving - I find it fascinating that people should vaguely think that a coalition appealing to the Governor General is undemocratic. As far as I can tell, this comes from watching too much American TV. As Canadians, we don't elect the government or the PM. We elect MPs to fill seats, and the GG chooses the government based on the available people who can form the most stable government.

This bit is important! The MP you voted for is *still* your MP. Now the people elected to run the country have to try and figure which group represents the best chance of running smooth government. For those of us not around to remember the last time this happened (1926, Lord Bynd as GG), it's perfectly reasonable for the GG to ask the opposition to try and form a working government.

By some measure, this is extraordinary, but I think of going for another election 7 weeks after the previous one to be the equivalent of seeking marriage counseling 7 weeks after starting dating someone. As in, it's perfectly okay to write it off and try the other available options.

Time to get some sleep for our first night in the new appartment. =)

Just a quick update for those not following the microblog stream (identi.ca, facebook and jaiku). We've arrived in Montreal, cleared immigration, got our place, have Internet and phone, a bed is showing up tomorrow, have a toaster and are generally feeling good. Leif is adapting poorly to the time change so far, but we're starting to move his wake up time earlier. It'll be all good.

Tomorrow, I'm off to work from our Montreal office, and get us some cell phone SIMs.

I love the fact that the WTO could mean the "World Toilet Organisation". Seems like a decent thing to support.

Looking at:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/11/13/america/Gay-Marriage.php

It looks like Connecticut now has what we had a week or so ago. And isn't staring a proposition in the eyes to get rid of it.

Someone explain to be how gay San Francisco can't have weddings and somewhere-by-DC Connecticut can?

I wouldn't have wanted folks in Connecticut to have to wait any longer, but I admit that I'm having trouble overcoming my sadness at Prop 8 enough to celebrate this the way it should be. It's an awesome ruling, and I wish people many long and happy marriages. I love being married and think that everyone should be able to have the same shot at this.

Andrew: I had such high hopes for the US, until I check the ballot measure results
me: Yeah. =(