Craig Box's journeys, stories and notes...


Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Niagara Falls

Monday, December 24th, 2007

Winter really isn't the time to visit, although I was advised it was worthwhile because you'd still see the mist.  It takes a fairly long and determined walk to get to it from the car park.

Niagara Falls - In The Dark

The shiny building is in the US of A, who really got shafted by the river.  The falls can really only be seen from the Canadian side.

Retrospectively, it might have been a bad weekend to go...

img_3214-small.jpg

I believe this used to be a thriving butterfly conservatory. Not today.

Oh well. We had a nice stay at the Sheraton Fallsview (with a great view of the mist) and can tick it off the list until summer, where it will require renewed attention.

We also stopped off at the thriving metropolis of Hamilton, Ontario, on the (very slow) drive home. This is the central mall on the Sunday afternoon - but I guess you can expect it to be quiet. After all, it's only 9 days until Christmas...

Hamilton, a mecca of industry.

New/Nouveau Part Deux

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

New car

Ontario drivers licenseWell, actually, no on this one.  I want to buy a car, but to do that, you need to get car insurance, and to get car insurance, you need to have an Ontario drivers license.  You can exchange one - hand in your New Zealand license and proof of over 2 years of experience, and go straight to doing the G2 (full license) test.  However, once you've done the written test, you're a G1 (learner) driver - so that means I could drive to the writing test, and not be able to drive home without my Mum in the passenger seat.  And it's possibly a two month wait on getting a G2 booking.  The system sucks, and I'm going to put it off as long as possible. Which means lots of driving a rental car, unfortunately with nowhere to park it as the underground garage in our building is being resurfaced.  The jackhammers start at 8.10am without fail.

I've received two parking tickets (two more than my entire driving history in New Zealand) and backed into one parked car.

Driving on the wrong side of the road is something you adjust to in stages - if you're a passenger first, you get used to sitting in the "drivers spot" and not having a steering wheel, and you get used to what side of the car to walk to.  Then you adjust to what side road signs are on.

When you start driving yourself, what side of the road you use is actually easy, assuming there's other traffic around. It's the other little things - the gearstick and handbrake being on the wrong side, the seatbelt being pulled down from the other side, and having to look over the other shoulder while reversing.  It's that final thing that lead to the parked car incident in the dark parking lot last Monday.

Eventually it all comes together, and you don't stress any more.  Except, of course, when you are changing sides again in six weeks, for three weeks...

New/Nouveau

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

New job

I've been at my new job for just on a month now, so it would make sense to tell you what I do and who I do it for.

I work for the imaginatively-named Software Innovation, who develop software for the engineering industry. The suite is called Coreworx and it is a web-based project collaboration system targeted at what is called EPC - engineering, procurement & construction. (Feel free to rewrite the crap Wikipedia article. In fact, because anything you write on the Internet is archived forever, if the article is good when you read this, assume that it was my request that caused someone to make it good.) It handles document management and workflow, and automates what previously was the time-consuming process of managing reams of paper from suppliers, consultants, designers, engineers, and people who just like wasting paper.

Our website has a cute elevator pitch which explains things in just the right amount of detail.

The recruiter who told me about the job had me hooked when he said they were looking for "a developer with a personality". My role is in the Professional Services team, so I'll be going out to our customers, all around the world, consulting on requirements, planning, installing, configuring, documenting and troubleshooting our software. To date it's mostly been learning, but I've already thrown myself in the deep end with some programming and am starting to look at planning a new deployment.

It's great working at a company that not only has a pool ladder, but often has the CEO at the top of it. He's got his own cue in a case. That's bad-ass.

New city

Software Innovation are based in Kitchener, which as you can see, isn't Toronto. It's a 60 minute highway drive in light traffic to get to the edge of Toronto, and then it's another 20 mins on the subway to get there.

Kitchener was known as Berlin until that pesky First World War thing. There's still a lot of German influence, from the yearly Oktoberfest and the schnitzel houses to New Hamburg just down the road.

The city is often referred to as Kitchener/Waterloo, because the city of Waterloo, literally 5 mins up the road, grew into Kitchener, and reciprocally Kitchener grew into Waterloo.  It's one big area with two local governments.  Kitchener had lots of factories and now has lots of homeless ex-factory workers.  Waterloo has two universities and RIM, the people who make Crackberries.

It has snowed twice since I got here, but only small flurries. It's going to get cold. Bring it on!

New apartment

When Fern and I moved out here, we stayed in a hotel for a couple of weeks and looked for an apartment. A lot of people didn't have room for a couple, or weren't interested in living with one - their loss, we're great roommates!

As life often goes, we went from a week of nothing to two great choices. We ended up moving into an apartment block called the Conestoga Towers, living with a guy named Chris. He has the Wii, we have the TV (see below). It's a good combination. He's finishing a PhD in urban planning and is here till April.

As the job will take me on the road a lot, it's possible that I could work from home for the rest of the time. Depending on what happens with Fern's job search, we're thinking of moving back to Toronto when that option becomes available. (She's currently temping while waiting to hear back on a bunch of PR and marketing jobs.)

New hobbies

I've been going to weekly improv classes at the Bad Dog Theatre in Toronto. It's been a bit harder since moving to Kitchener, which makes a 3 hour class into a 7 hour round trip, but the classes are great fun.  More to come.

New toys

I bought a 37" LCD TV. 1080p, oh, yeah.  To fuel it, we upgraded cable to Rogers HDTV and rented a PVR.  It's nice to not have to download TV to catch up on Prison Break and House that I miss by going to improv.

I also bought a guitar. I was going to buy a cheap guitar and then buy a nice Maton acoustic when I'm in the Southern Hemisphere next, but this one is nice enough that I might not bother. Not only does it have XLR and 1/4" output, it has a built-in digital tuner.  How cool is that?

We haven't named it yet.

Up up and away

Friday, November 16th, 2007

Have I told you how wonderful my girlfriend Fern is?

In July, before I left for my big trip, she told me she'd arranged a going-away present for me on Saturday morning, but wasn't going to tell me what it was (no drinking on Friday night!). Further to the mystique, she made me blindfold myself, and drove me off into the morning sun.

Unfortunately, she didn't count on my amazing knowledge of the local streets and spot-on internal compass... but more on that later.

Anyway, she took me here:

Craig and plane

where I got to do some of this:

Hamilton from the air

I would say "I can see my house from here!", but the airspace we were allowed to use didn't include flying over the university area, so I was out of luck.

Back to that story. Fern wanted this to be a surprise, so she tried to confuse me by driving me around some streets around the university first. Unfortunately for her, even without trying, I knew where I was - I had lived in that 'hood for so long I knew the feel of the turns and length of the streets (locals will know the snaky traffic islands on Dey St are a dead giveaway).As an interesting aside, I took a ride in the boot of a friend's car about 10 years ago. (Stupidly, but willingly, I should add. Ewan's a daddy now! He doesn't do that kind of thing any more!) Him and Austen managed to drive me no more than 2 blocks from where we started in Glenview, but I thought I ended up in Dinsdale.

After I successfully divulged our location, she took a more direct tack and headed out State Highway 1 south to Tamahere (which is a big speedy bit, followed by a slowing-down and veering left, a right-turn at a roundabout, then speeding up again, going down a hill and a sharp slow turn before the Narrows Bridge - another dead giveaway) and towards the airport. Unfortunately she wasn't sure what side of the airport she needed to go to, so she stopped at the terminal to ask - giveaway number 3 - airports are rather loud places!

What she didn't know was the Waikato Aero Club was a client of mine at IT Partners, and I'd been there a lot, so I knew exactly where it was. I suck at being surprised.

Anyway, the blindfold came off and said surprise, even if Fern thought it a little spoiled by my amazing guesswork and spidey sense, was fantastic. After a brief introductory overview and fuel check with the instructor, it was proverbial 'full steam ahead' - I was pressing buttons and pulling levers as early as our taxi to the runway. I got to pull back during the takeoff and pretty much had full control of where I went for the 20-25 mins I was up over the skies of Hamilton.

Then, it was gently back down to earth (literally - a grass runway) and into the waiting arms of my surpriser.

Actually taken the night before.

We haven't even begun on how much great stuff she got me for my birthday!

Good and goblin

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Good: being employed. I'll tell you more about it when it's not 10 to midnight.

Goblin: having your domain name (and thus e-mail address, blog, gallery etc) offline for the weekend due to someone billing your credit card and not renewing your domain.  And while we're on the subject, having the hotel you're staying in bill you for your stay, even though you told them the card was only for incidentals and the room was covered separately, such that your bank claims you're $700 over your credit limit.

I hear I've been missing some good parties...  someone fill me in on the details?

Things to know about Toronto

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

So, I'm in Canada now. Truth be told, I've been here for three weeks, but have been a little behind on the blogging! Here's what you will need to know when you come and visit me.

Toronto Pearson International Airport

Terminal 1 is great, very new, but miles away from anything. It's 60 mins to downtown by the public transport system.

The public transport system

The more things change, the more they stay the sameThe public transport system is good, but confusing. To generalise, the fare between any two points around central Toronto (the TTC system) is $2.75 - but you can start out on a bus, switch to a train at a subway station, get out at another and then get onto a streetcar (also known as "tram"). You do this by way of 'transfers', paper tickets you pick up either when you pay on the streetcar/bus or at a machine when you've entered the turnstile at a train station.

You can't use a transfer at the station you picked it up at - i.e. to go from Station A to Station B and change to a bus, pick up your transfer at Station A.

After a 2 and a half hour wait...GO commuter trains take you from Toronto to the surrounding cities. Avoid them. They're double-decker, air-conditioned and have their own TV station, but I'm pretty sure I can cycle, and possibly walk, faster, than the Lakeshore East service. That, and a fire last week left our train waiting a kilometre outside Danforth Station for two and a half hours, before being told we'd be turned around. We weren't - they eventually moved forward to the station (why didn't they take us there to start with?) and kicked everyone out, with little fanfare or explanation of what to do next. Thankfully a lady sitting near me had her husband come pick her up, and she offered me and another guy on the train a ride home.

Tax

Ontario has an 8% sales tax, which is not included in prices. (There's also a federal 6% GST here, but whether or not that is included varies). So, your $4 Baskin-Robbins milkshake, as well as bringing all the boys to the yard, will cost you $4.24. Please have exact change ready.

Money

Money wise, everything costs about the same as it does in NZ dollars, so if you were to start earning locally as soon as you arrived, you'd feel like nothing changed. Much better than the USA, the money is multi-coloured, and $1 and $2 are coins - but the 5c coin is still larger than the 10c.

Fern arrived later on the same day that I did and we stayed at a hotel by the airport for a couple of days before her friend Kim picked us up and took us out to Pickering, the next town east on the lakeshore.

Boston - A day downtown

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Old State HouseSara had left for a wedding, so I was on my own in Boston for the weekend. Boston was at the heart of the American Revolution: the massacre, the Tea Party (not the Canadian band), the Port Act and the Siege Of are all Wikipedia articles that have the word "Boston" in the title, and thus are probably somewhat related. As a citizen of the Rest Of The World, we only received moderate instruction in American history between school and Sesame Street, so I had to figure it out on the tour.

Unfortunately I had the tour guided by the little old lady who didn't remember much, rather than the tour by the guy in the period costume.

My Freedom Trail tour took me from Faneuil Hall, past the Old State House: from the balcony of which the Declaration of Independence was read, and the first seat of government in the New World. We went to the birthplace of Ben Franklin (inventor of the kite, or the $100 note, or something), the location of the first school in Boston, King's Church, a beautiful Old City Hall, and a butt-ugly New City Hall.

Afterwards, a British street theatre duo twisted themselves into shapes for my amusement, but couldn't really outdo the Edinburgh folk. Plus, his assistant was his 'sister', which seemed just a little too incestuous given some of his banter. They did, however, balance on top of one another on a big rubber ball, so mad props to them. Some other street theatre I caught the end of later seemed to involve 20 mins of set-up for a guy to jump over another guy. He wasn't worth a dead president.

Lunch was very Bostonian: Clam Chowder served in a hollowed-out bun, accompanied by Incan song.

Inner harbourFor the afternoon, I'd downloaded a podcast with a guided walk around the Boston Harbour. This is the inner harbour, and they have lots of water taxis out to the Harbour Islands National Park, and other interesting places such as the airport, which is right on the waterfront. There are a lot of seafood stores and restaurants waterfront, as well as some interesting sculpture.

I love this building. It's the Moakley Federal Courthouse. My brother wanted me to go see where Boston Legal was filmed: unfortunately, the answer is 'California'.

Craig on the RosewayI wanted to take some sort of boat excursion to end the day, and walking back from the end of the trip I passed an old schooner that I'd walked past earlier (where I took a photo of some passers-by for them, and they asked me when I was going back to England.) It sounded like fun, so I spent two hours out on the Roseway, a vessel owned by the World Ocean School, which does things like provide team-building exercises to underprivileged kids.

We passed right under the path to the runway of Logan International Airport, saw Fort Warren, the US Naval ship Sisler, and avoided being run into by oncoming bigger boats.

Overall, a fun day out, and my last day in Boston.

Boston - Pictures of fish

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

I work with Linux a lot, and the mascot is a penguin. So, here's a picture of a penguin taking a dump.

A penguin taking a crap.

This, and other assorted pictures of fish, was taken at the New England Aquarium, on the Boston harbour. It's a great building, built around a 750,000-litre tank, simulating a Caribbean ocean reef.

They have:

Out the back were three fur seals, which are always fun to see being trained and fed. Here's some feel-good video:

Boston and MIT

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

Two stops down from Harvard Square on the Red Line is Kendall Square, around which can be found MIT. MIT wasn't born here - it was originally founded in Boston in 1865, across the river from Cambridge (if you remember my little geography lesson) and originally known as Boston Tech. It moved to its current location in 1916, and as far as I know, has settled down and is planning to retire in its current location.

MIT is famous for:

Stata Center - stolen from Wikipedia. DidnThis little baby is the Stata Center. It was designed by Frank Gehry, famous for the Guggenheim in Bilbao, who appears to be afraid of 90 degree angles. It's named for some rich dude who went to MIT and donated the money for its construction.

No, Furby! Bad Furby!Down the road a little is the MIT Museum. They're renovating this at the moment, which is good, because it's pretty well hidden where it is. It's also a little out of date - for an institute who is leading the world with research, they look like they don't really want to give the museum their hand-me-downs for 10 years. This is Kismet. I think he mates with gerbil to produce Furbies.

They have some really cool holograms (although Jem was nowhere to be seen).

One of the coolest things at the museum is the artwork by one-time Artist in Residence, Arthur Ganson. He builds Rube Goldberg-esque kinetic sculptures that exist to do not very much at all. I like this one in particular.

Check out my other videos for a few more.

Boston and Harvard University

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

Oh no, Sara's not going to.. with the.. POLE, is she?I went on a Contiki trip around Europe a couple of years ago, and met some cool people. I put a call out to some who were close to Toronto and ended up with an offer to stay in Boston with a friend named Sara. Here's an out-of-context picture of her on the Metro in Munich.

Sara lives in Somerville, which is actually two cities over from Boston, but part of the "greater" metropolitan area. She works at MIT, which is in Cambridge (named for the city where this travel started a month prior), and goes to university in Boston.

Confused yet? Here's a picture. Pictures relieve boredom.

MBTA Map

The MBTA, locally known as the T, is much older and less tended to than the Underground I rode on to the airport I departed from earlier in that day. It doesn't go all the way to the airport, the cars are wide and creaky, and it looks like they stopped upgrading anything in 1984. But, it gets you where you need to go - I was staying a few blocks from Davis station. Buses ran semi-regularly but the walk was pleasant enough.

(I think I'm danger of becoming a metrophile.)

I had the usual "look the wrong way crossing the road" problem, and couldn't figure out this crazy 'fahrenheit' system. I'd adjusted to miles per hour though, having driven around England for a month; can't estimate distance in them though. (I grew up taught only metric, yet describe myself as 6 foot tall. Go figure...)

Tourists should do the "Unofficial" Hahvahd University tour, more popular than the official one by several orders of magnitude, and now, strangely, enough, official. Go figure again. It's a great insight into the oldest university in the US, and, erm, "most well endowed" in the world. In case you're wondering about the spelling, it's how they pronounce their Rs in Boston.

They're proud of how old their institute is - founded in 1636, it's older than the Declaration of Independence (1776), for example - but they don't really have a global perspective, being that their city is named after the home of the second oldest university in the English-speaking world, founded in 1209.

Boston is also very famous for its role in the foundation of America, of course, which we'll get to in a later post.

They play up the rivalry between the City of Cambridge and the University: the gatehouse building on the right, due to taxes, was the most expensive building, per square foot, on campus.

Cambridge wanted to build a fire station near the campus, but the university only agreed to give them the land on the condition their firehouse was built in the style of a Harvard building. This almost doubled the cost, and came back to bite them when Memorial Hall caught fire in 1956. Cambridge FD claimed they couldn't respond in less than 30 mins - to a building 100m away - because they hadn't been able to afford a tall enough ladder, due to the inflated cost of the building, and thus had to wait till the building burned short enough.

Unfortunately style changes over time, and in the 1970's they built this eyesore.

The tour guides are paid only in tips, but I thought the $20 suggestion was a bit steep, compared to other walking tours I'd been on.