The Penalty Box

As per Chinese New Year tradition, I went home and ate myself silly, topped off with some of my mom’s awesome apple pie. Happy new year folks. Good health and prosperity to you all.

For those of you who didn’t know, I’ve been in China and Hong Kong for the past two and a half weeks. I got back earlier this week and have been recovering from jetlag. It seems coming back from the other side of the world is always tougher than going there. 15 hour time differences kinda suck. I still have about 900 pictures to go through, many of which consist of people walking through my shots. Sometimes it couldn’t be helped; the sheer number of people (17 million in Beijing alone) often causes no actual open shots. Other times it was just mindless douchebags. Speaking of douchebags, the tour guide in Xi’An was one. But let’s do a small breakdown of the trip.

Day 0 - Travel: A grand total of 16 hours in the air (around 13 to Hong Kong, then 3 to Beijing). One flight attendant was wearing some pretty rank perfume on Cathay Pacific. Flew Dragon Air to Beijing, and got food on a 3 hour flight. Hear that Air Canada? Also, a 5 star hotel in China is not the same as a 5 star hotel in North America. Though for note, China apparently operates on a 7 star scale. Still, the one thing I learned about hotels in China: if you stay at an international hotel (like the Hilton), you’re okay. If you stay at a hotel run by Chinese people not from Hong Kong, make sure it’s less than 2 years old because maintenance is awful. The shower leaked in my room and water stains on the wall.

Day 1 - Beijing: Met the tour guide today, her name was Rain. Apparently English teachers there helped pick English names for the students out of a dictionary. Rain has a friend named Apple (and not Gwyneth Paltrow’s kid). First stop was the Summer Palace, where the Emperor went during the summer to cool off (as much as one can cool off in a Chinese summer). If there’s one thing Chinese emperors knew how to do, it was to use manpower for luxury. There’s a 780 metre corridor at the Summer Palace to keep the emperor out of the rain. Every inch of the corridor’s ceiling has paintings on it, from parts of the known world (at the time) to nature to people. It’s amazing how it’s held up for so long. It’s a shame there hasn’t been more money put into restoration; in fact, they’ve actually turned a couple of the old buildings into bloody coffee shops. That’s the government for you. Oh and the reason why China lost the Opium Wars: the money that was supposed to build a navy was used to build this palace.

Day 1 also involved going to Tianamen Square. Unfortunately, Mao’s mausoleum was closed. There were, however, 5 CCTV cameras on one pole. Suck on that, UK. The Forbidden City was also on the stop list. It is big. The architecture and stone work is absolutely amazing though. Each building was crazy detailed and had symbols to determine who could go where and who lived where. The place had thousands of rooms; given the number of servants, concubines, officials and caretakers, the number of rooms isn’t surprising but I still had to stand in awe of the sheer size of it all. Even with the size of the place, people STILL got into my shots and I had to elbow my way into good shooting positions. Fortunately, I was like Yao Ming in comparison so moving people out of the way wasn’t a problem. Oh, another thing learned from China: don’t make eye contact with vendors and they’ll leave you alone; otherwise they’ll follow you for a block or two trying to hawk whatever trinkets they have.

Day 2 - Great Wall: There are two sides you can climb when you get to the Great Wall. One is steep, sort of like the Grouse Grind. The other side is near vertical. I’m not kidding. It still is something you have to see in person to appreciate the vastness of it all. The number of people needed to create such a monstrosity with no modern machinery to lift the stones. The bad air did make it more difficult to climb, but it was completely worth it in the end. The smog unfortunately did make the pictures not as awesome as they could have been, but the view was still spectacular. Second half of the day involved viewing the Ming Dynasty tombs (some funny signs there…gotta love the typos and literal translations) and an acrobatic show. The show was as good as Cirque de Soleil acrobatics-wise, but Cirque has the more creative and colourful costumes.

Day 3 - Travel to Xi’An: Here we met Frank, he was like a bad history teacher on meth. He rushed through everything: we got pushed through the Xi’An History Museum in 45 minutes. All in all, a general douchebag. If you ever go to Xi’An and your tour guide says his name is Frank and his name means “Great Ordinary,” you’re going to get rushed through everything. Slow down on purpose.

Day 4 - Terra Cotta Warriors: Movies don’t do this place justice. The scale is just ridiculous. Just before going to the tomb, we visited the factory where warriors are made in the same fashion they were when the first emperor ordered them made. It takes days to weeks to scuplt them (depending on size) and baking in the kiln for hours a day. All in all, one full size warrior takes about a month. Seven thousand have been uncovered so far. There are MORE. The level of detail is insane. Each warrior is painted, his face, armour, everything. Oh yeah, each one is also 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. Hollow. There are currently 3 pits open. One has infantry, another has calvalry and the third pit has warriors not yet put back together yet. And they still haven’t found the actual entrance to the tomb, which is supposed to have a non-full scale replica of the known world. Just thinking about the sheer manpower needed to create such a tomb, A TOMB, is nuts. The whole thing took about 45 years to finish, back when the average lifespan was about 50. So two whole generations built this tomb for the emperor. All under heaven indeed.

Overall China thoughts:

• Food was average to terrible on the trip, but since it was all covered by the tour, I think they just took us to the cheapest possible places.
• Sights, entertainment and culture are fantastic.
• I’m surprised hotel service is so poor given how complainy western tourists generally are.
• Manners in Beijing are fare better than Xi’An, likely from orders handed down from the government for the Olympics. In Xi’An, you can’t walk a block without hearing someone hock a loogie. In Beijing, only the people from the provinces spit.
• Driving is a “make up your own rules” kind of thing. The following things seem to be optional: lights, following traffic lanes, not driving on the sidewalk. Fortunately, everyone’s going only about 30kph because of the sheer number of vehicles so there is time to stop if something crazy is done. Which is all the time.

Hong Kong was a lot of eating. Every. Day. I have a bunch of aunts and uncles, and of course everyone had to take a turn buying dinner. And lunch. I don’t think I ever felt hungry during my time in Hong Kong, I just shuttled between meals. What I really liked was the Octopus card. Public transit is cheap, efficient and fast. Kind of the exact opposite of Translink. What made the Octopus card awesome was that it wasn’t just a transit pass; it’s essentially a cash card. You can use it to buy drinks from the vending machine or buy stuff from stores if they accept Octopus cards. Stuff is also really cheap there, given the exchange rate (currently about 7 HKD to 1 CDN). Cheap doesn’t mean bad quality either; quality control at most stores is even more strict than here in Canada. Clothes shopping was somewhat difficult though, since I’m not exactly your typically sized Chinese person. XL shirts barely fit and even the largest pair of pants was about 4 inches too short.

Oh in terms of more funny names, I saw a waiter named Box and a bride named Ice. Dictionary names ahoy!
All in all it was a pretty fun trip, douchey tour guide and jetlag aside. I only wish I could have stayed longer if only to see a few more things in Beijing, see Shanghai and spend a little longer in Hong Kong. I don’t know if I could live in Hong Kong though; everything is just so bloody busy.

Damn you XKCD, damn you.

Bonus extra old feelings for hovering over the image to get the alt text. For those of you who follow this comic and never knew that, you’re welcome for the sudden urge to go back through the other 600+ strips to find out the alt text.

Life, and the relationships within it, is often about perspective. Your particular perspective in a relationship with someone, be it working, friendship, familial or love, is different depending on how you interact with them. Everyone has some level of crazy in them; some have OCD, some are geniuses, some are in love and some enjoy the squishing sounds that a stabbing knife makes. How much of this crazy you see in a particular person generally depends on the amount and quality of time you spend with them. What gets in the way of this time is barriers, which can be people (like your parents) or physical (like an ocean).

Take, for instance, that neighbour of yours. You’ve probably seen him do something a little crazy; maybe he goes running in short shorts when it’s so cold out your boogers freeze. You don’t know him too well though, so you’re pretty far away from his personal Crazy Tree. Because you’re so far out, he appears lower in the branches. The barrier here would be the walls of your domicile…and the fact that you don’t want to see him in short shorts. Ever.

Another example might be “That Girl” at work. You know, the one that can’t seem to shut up about her gerbil. She’s over in Sales though, and your manager generally keeps a tight lid on things so you can do some work. If your manager is good at it, you’ll never even notice just how much crazy has been kept away from you. But you probably will notice the less subtle ones, like Gerbil Girl there. You’re pretty sure she’s high up in the Crazy Tree, but you’re not close enough to be sure; your perspective just tells you that (I mean really, who names their gerbil Pinky McSparklepants?).

Barriers skew your perspective of how much crazy you see. The closer you are to someone’s Crazy Tree, the more you notice how high up they are. They could be just dangling off of a low branch or they could be swinging in the upper branches, screeching and tossing turds at you. Think about it; how much crazier did your roommate seem when you moved in with him compared to when you just had beers every now and then? Barrier of housing dropped there, letting you closer to his Crazy Tree. That supervisor that seemed really cool during the interview for grad school? Well, now that you work in his lab, he’s a turd slinger. Barrier of unfamiliarity dropped.

Where am I going with all of this? Show some appreciation for the barriers in your life, particularly the human ones. Once they’re gone, you might find yourself in the Crazy Forest in the middle of freaking Crazy Town and wondering how all this crazy just snuck up on you. Hint: it didn’t; your perspective just changed.

…but that doesn’t make it any easier.  It’s a curious emotional roller coaster when layoffs happen in at the company you work at. At times, it’s worse for those that stay behind. Call it Survivor’s Guilt, call it resentment, call it whatever you want. A sense of humour usually appears to mitigate the negative feelings, although it seems the outgoing personnel have a better mood than the ones that keep their jobs (at least the ones that are confidently employable). I won’t compare it to death because that’s far too much of a dramatization, but despite any rational thought of being able to continue communication through other means besides “being at work,” there is a brief worry of “I’m not going to see these people again.”

Besides the people front, one also goes through thoughts like “Wow, I still have my job” and “Shit, I have all this work.” How does one avoid feelings of resentment and bitterness? I don’t know if you can; when you work closely with your co-workers and develop friendships as a result, you can’t just shove all of that under a rug and go to work the next day without SOME kind of effect on your person. Tempering such feelings has a lot to do with how your company proceeds next (ie how they communicate, take care of those laid off, manage work expectations with a reduced staff). Talking to former co-workers probably also has a collaborative healing process.

In any case, it’s better to not make any decisions in a raw emotional state. Process, think, seek advice, decide.

I am amazed that turned out as coherently as it did. If it weren’t clear enough, layoffs happened at my company, but I was not among them. If, however, you are aware of openings for the following positions, I would be appreciative of an e-mail so I can pass the necessary details onto some former co-workers:

• Web developer
• Development manager/Project manager
• Office manager/Executive assistant
• Accountant
• Semantic modeller

Now I’m gonna go toast ‘em off with some scotch. Here’s to you, guys. Been a pleasure.

Ever get your brain really fried over a problem that you spent the better part of 5 hours solving? Then only to find out you only sorta solved it when you got home? And THEN realizing it’s not even goddamn FRIDAY yet?

I am mentally exhausted and I still have way too much work to do. I should’ve taken a vacation.

One of the questions generally asked in interviews is “Where do you see yourself in five years?” At the time, coming out of university, I figured I would actually think about this so I wouldn’t look like a total goof when it inevitably came up. It ended up pretty standard: pay my dues, shoot for making senior developer, be on track to, if not already, holding down some major project and responsibilities. While my end goal still is to hit the senior developer rank, I’m not so sure I want it in the immediate future. Granted, I’m only 3 years out of school, so my mind may change in the next two years. However, just by working and discussing with my peers at my company, the role of senior developer comes with a lot of responsibility (which I don’t mind) and a lot of extraneous crap (which I do mind).

Politics is the nature of the beast, no matter if you’re in academia or industry. Simply by working with people you have to deal with conflicting personalities, different ideas and unusual processes. In a more junior position, one is generally shielded from a lot of the political crap that goes on behind the scenes. Your manager gives you tasks, you do them, and the only real conflict you may deal with is with others who are around the same level of the food chain you are on. Of course, your manager might be a douchebag too, but for the most part you’re dealing with people you work with rather than for.

When you actually move up to a lead role, even if you aren’t a manager, you start dealing with management crap. It’s more sophisticated and complex than peer-to-peer crap, and there’s often less you can do about it. How much you can do about it depends on the company culture; is constructive criticism encouraged, or is it merely dismissed as “negativity”? Are collaborative efforts encouraged, or is the term just a buzzword to fake an inclusive environment? How much does management listen to the troops, trying to understand what’s going on in the trenches? Not being able to do anything is one of the most frustrating things when dealing with crap.
In analyzing any situation, I always ask if I’m ready for it. Ready or not, life comes with some unexpected bumps and situations. Work’s thrown a bit of a curveball, and the ramifications are yet to be determined. Overall, the last three years have gone nowhere near what my original “plan” was, but it’s not like it’s been a terrible experience; far from it, in fact (aside from a couple of hiccups). It’s often said life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. I plan to just roll with how things come; dealing with the unexpected separates the good developers from the bad ones.

The Vancouver International Jazz Festival is back, and there are plenty of good concerts happening. Dal Richards on July 4, Shuffle Demons on June 29 and various quartets and trios. Canada Day on Granville Island is always good, especially taking in some sounds at the Taphouse.

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is holding a free concert on Sunday, July 12 in Deer Lake Park (Burnaby). I’ve never seen the VSO and have been told to do so at least once in my life.

The Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival is on August 9 from 1:30pm to 10pm, general admission type deal.  Tickets are $35 for the next month or so.

Who’s up for going to any of the above?

There’s nothing like thinking you’ve lost your cell phone, spending two hours searching for it and finding it sitting in the grass outside your place of residence because the stupid belt clip broke off of the carrying case. It’s amazing how, despite never using anywhere close to full minutes of my plan, my life becomes so much more inconvenient without a phone. There’s also the irritation of the prospect of needing to spend money on a new phone because I have a year and half left on my contract.
The ironic part is that yesterday I was researching how I could back up my contacts from my phone onto an old Palm Pilot I have that I’m not longer using for anything.

Lesson learned: don’t rely on belt clips that come with the phone. It’s going into my pocket now.

• Do not leave a mess when you are done. I understand that you have to cut pipe and that it is a bit of a messy job. Just clean it up afterwards. Do not leave pipe shavings and sawdust in my kitchen.
• I am not here to entertain you. If I am watching playoff hockey, that does not give you the cue to talk over the announcer to make small talk. I don’t care that your new truck is broken. I don’t care that you hate your landlord. Fix my sink, that’s your job.
• If you don’t have a part to finish the job, get it. If the hardware store is closed, get it the next day. Home Depot/Rona does not close on a Sunday. You have not finished a job, so you better make it a priority to finish it. I don’t care if you’ve had a bad day, you’ve made my weekend bad by leaving a leaky sink.
• If you are too busy to finish this job, you should not have accepted it in the first place. Learn to manage your time better.
• There’s more to being a plumber than pipes. There’s customer relations too. Not answering your phone when you have an unfinished job is unprofessional. If you do not wish to deal with customers, hire someone to do that for you. If you cannot afford that, then deal with it and stop acting like a thirteen year old pissant.
• Don’t get all Mike Holmes on me saying the builders did a crappy job with the pipes when you can’t even make a sink stop leaking. There are no specialty parts that you need to order. Stop making excuses.
• Don’t complain that jobs are always more complicated than you expected. It just means you’re unprepared.
• FINISH. THE. JOB.

It’s now been the better part of a week that the kitchen sink is leaking due to old pipes. Once I get the name of the company (he’s self-employed) from my landlord, I will edit this post to inform everyone to never contract the services of this plumber.

Edit: The name of the company is Precision Plumbing.  Tack BC on the end of that, add a .ca extension and you have his website.  I’m not linking it because he doesn’t deserve any help on his Google ranking. For extra lulz, here’s some quotes from his “guarantee” section of his site:

We guarantee your home or business with be treated with the utmost care and respect while completing your project.
We guarantee all excess material or left over parts will be removed from site with minimal or no cost to the home or business owner.
We guarantee all our work will be done right the first time and strive to maintain our name in quality.

Oh yeah, he ended up leaving the dirty pipes behind too. He just said to throw them into the garbage can. So yeah, don’t use this guy. Ever. Tell your friends.