Andrew Baxter's Blog

2007-11-25T01:44:00.000-07:00

My heart is pounding. It has been 45 minutes and I am still on a high.

A few months ago, I bid farewell to my old online poker haunt, Empire Poker to join the throngs at Poker Stars. I did this because I found Empire Poker to be problematic and because my friends were playing at Poker Stars (I am a sucker for peer pressure).

Late Friday night I was thinking about playing in a fake money tournament, where I always play, and I went to check my fake money balance before I decided how expensive of a tournament I would enter. To my astonishment, I noticed that in addition to just over $9000 in play money, I actually had $5 in REAL money in my account. I was perplexed. I asked around. Nobody else had mysteriously received money. I checked my “deposit history” and it said it had been deposited earlier in the week, but it didn’t say how or by whom.

I played my fake money tournament, and won. I was happy, and I went back to my account and there was the $5 still sitting there looking at me.

I started poking around the real money tables to see what I would have to do to capitalize on this micro windfall. After minutes of investigation, I found some $1 + $0.2 buy-in tournaments where first prize was $14, and the top 7 players all got SOME money back. All I had to do was beat 38 people and my $5 would grow. I know I can win, based on my experience in the fake money tournaments. I did some research and found that I have finished “in the money” 8 times out of 24 attempts in the fake money tournaments I have played, exactly 1/3^rd of the time. My fake money chip stack has grown from its original $1000 to nearly $40000 in the months I have been playing there.

I started thinking about these $1.20 tournaments. I could play in 4 with my $5. If I won all 4, I would have $56 at my disposal. If I then started playing $10 tournaments, I would be getting $140 every time I won. I figured all I would need to do is win 1 a day and I could quit my job. It was an alluring prospect.

Today, I hatched my plan. Soon after getting out of bed, I dropped my $1.20 down and entered a tournament.

Things were different here. Despite the miniscule stakes, people were playing much more conservatively than in the fake money tournaments. I buckled in because I knew it was going to be a long ride. I am a conservative player, but I am also a bit of a newcomer, and I made a few mistakes. I ended up finishing in 18^th place out of 45 players. Not bad, but FAR from the money.

I took a break. I chatted on MSN. I went out and got a roast for my dinner, and got it cooking. It had been a few hours, and I decided it was time to try again. I had 4 hours before my roast would be done, and nothing else to do with my time. I dropped down another $1.20 and prepared to get back into it.

This tournament went better. I won some big hands, but again, I made some mistakes. Eventually I wasted away all my chips and went out in 13^th place. This was a lot better than my previous result, but still out of the money.

I still had hours left before dinner and I still had two more cracks micro buy-in tournament supremacy. I dropped my third $1.20 and was off to the races. The race did not last long. I was out by the 5^th hand, mere minutes into the tournament in 44^th place. It was demoralizing. I knew I could do better.

And so I found myself staring at my last chance. I had $1.40 left in my account from my mysterious free $5. I felt I had no choice but to dive right back in. I was not going to beat myself up. I was going to proceed with my plan. I dropped my last $1.20 and got ready to play.

I won a few small hands early on and was slowly moving up the ladder. You always lose some hands along the way, but I was winning more than I was losing. I had more than doubled my chips when I got caught up in a very strange hand. I had over $4000 in chips when I got into the hand. I had good cards, but the flop missed me. I bet anyway, and got called. On the turn I did the same thing, but this time got raised. By now I had only $881 left. I had burned through over $3200 in the few moments this hand had lasted. A little voice in my head reminded me of the mistakes I had made earlier in the day. I decided I was better of with $881 than most likely nothing. I folded.

Things soon changed for the better. Within minutes I doubled up, and then I tripled up. I looked at the leader board. I had gone from short stack to chip leader in only 3 hands. I was ecstatic.

In due course, we arrived at the final table. The final table has 9 players, but only 7 will finish in the money, so you are in good position, but you are not safe. I had over $25000 in chips at the beginning of the final table. My next closest competitor had just over $10000. I was in good shape. Slowly players were eliminated until we were down to 7. I breath a sigh of relief because I know now that I will get SOMETHING back from this tournament, but my stack had not changed much since the beginning of the final table. More hands were played, and more players were eliminated, but as it came down to the wire, my luck changed. I was losing chips like mad. I lost the chip lead, I dropped positions, and I retreated. I reverted to ultra-conservative play with hopes of hanging on for higher position. The strategy worked. It came down to myself and one other play… “heads up.” I was in very bad shape. I had $10000 in chips and my opponent had $55000! I needed some VERY good cards.

At the same time, I could relax because I knew that second place would get me $10. That means the worst I could do was have doubled up my money on the day. Not too shabby, but I wanted to win.

And my fortune would turn. I got some cards. I played aggressive, and shortly I found myself with about the same amount of chips as my opponent. I was excited, but that would be short lived. The tide would turn again, and I would find myself in the same position as before, less that $10000 to over $55000. I would have to fight my way out of the basement again if I was to win.

I was undeterred. I bit the bullet and went for it. I went crazy. I raised anything. I battled my way out one hand at a time. I fought and fought and eventually found the tables had turned. It was now me sitting with $55000 and he had only $10000. I stepped back and went conservative again. I had a huge lead and I could wait for the right opportunity to pounce.

It came over 2 hours and 20 minutes after I had sat down. I got my opponent all in, and I had the better hand. The tournament was over, and I was the victor.

When I checked my account balance, I had $14.20. I had increased my balance by 180% in a single day of playing. No, I had not attained my fantasy balance of $56, but I do have somewhere to build from now. I am on my way.

2007-06-20T21:34:00.000-06:00

With summer upon us, the sun is warming the air, and thoughts are turning to ways of beating the heat. For many, the thought of and ice cold, refreshing Coca Cola Classic seems like a great way to cool down on a hot summer day. It is true that I have often used Coke myself in the summer. That was before I realized how crazy it was.

Consider this: there is another dark brown beverage whose carbon-dioxide bubbles froth up pleasantly as it is poured into a glass. It hails from Ireland, and is sold commercially as Guinness at many of this world’s finest pubs.

That can of Coke you have been craving will add 155 calories to your daily caloric intake, while an equivalent serving of Guinness weighs in at a paltry 133 calories, a net saving of 22 calories for each Coke you forego in favor of Guinness. Let’s say, for arguments sake, you would normally drink 2 Cokes per day to cool down. With summer being about 90 days long, you will save enough calories by drinking Guinness instead to account for a whole pound of body mass!

Don’t like Guinness? Other beer will work too. Corona and Keith’s each come in at 10 calories less per equivalent serving than Coke. You won’t quite lose a pound over the summer, but you will still be doing your body a favor.

Don’t like beer at all? Try cooling down with a refreshing chilled chardonnay then. While per equivalent volume, you are worse off, a 4-ounce glass of chardonnay has only about 90 calories. The choice should be obvious.

In addition to the caloric savings, you must also take into consideration the health benefits of drinking beer vs. drinking Coca Cola. While the medical community has acknowledged that beer and wine both have long-term benefits, I have yet to see any research indicating Coke is good for you in any way.

So, this summer don’t buy into the hype that the pride of Atlanta shoves in your face everywhere, instead reach for a Guinness, relax, and enjoy the sun.

2007-06-04T22:07:00.000-06:00

Hello blog, it’s me, Andrew. I am here to confess. I have been cheating on you. You see, a few months ago I got turned on to Facebook, and it was so fresh and new and hot, and all my friends were doing it too. It just seemed so right.

And don’t think you haven’t benefited in some way. My Google stats indicate that many of my long-lost friends make their way from Facebook over here to check you out. Of course you probably realized that without fresh content they are unlikely to come back.

With that in mind, I just wanted to let you know that I am still here, and I will try not to ignore you for three straight months again. I may even make an effort to fill you in on what’s been going on since I last stopped by. That is if you will forgive me.

2007-03-02T01:26:00.000-07:00

Joan was out of town this week, so I decided to hatch a surprise… and no, it’s not that.

Being a man, I see home improvement videos, books, websites, etc. and I think, “Man that looks easy.” I think the folks in the home improvement industry are among the most deceptive advertisers on the planet. Worse than politicians. Worse than big tobacco. Watch out for Home Depot, Rona, or whoever else want to lull you into a false sense of ability when it comes to renovating. You know you watch these videos and it shows them starting the project and then the screen blips and suddenly they are applying the finishing touches? Well, I think the industry should be forced to reveal how much time elapsed during the blip. It might make we, the deceived, a little more wary of pursuing home improvement projects.

Getting back to my story, Joan was away this past week, and I decided to surprise her by re-doing the bathroom. I started thinking I could replace the sink, which is a little dated. I thought about this long and hard, and looked into the different alternatives. Then in dawned on me… Why would I replace the sink before I replaced the floor? If I’m going to pull the sink out anyway, I might as well do the floor.

So my research changed. Instead of looking at sinks, I was now looking at flooring and gathering information on how to install flooring, what tools I would need, what options I had? There are lots of options.

I thought about it long and hard. I stared at the existing bathroom floor for hours. I knew that the instant I peeled even a corner of the flooring up, I was committed to the project until the end. On Thursday night I went to Rona to see first hand what they had. I looked at the laminate. I looked at the vinyl. I looked at the lino. I looked at the ceramic tile. A sales associate, no doubt trained to attack the most vulnerable looking folk in the store, asked me if he could help me. I explained to him that I was looking to install a bathroom floor, and that I was leaning toward ceramic tile except that I was worried about my oddly shaped tub. “No problem,” he proffered and proceeded to demonstrate how easy it was to cut curved edges into the tile using a simple scoring tool and tile nippers. I tried it myself, and it seemed not bad. Despite this, I still wanted to mull it over. I decided not to buy. I decided to sleep on it.

I went home and again looked at the floor. If only I knew what lied beneath. I knew that the instant I peeled even a corner of the flooring up, I was committed to the project until the end. I thought about it and thought about it and finally knelt down and pulled up the very corner of the existing lino. That was it. I had launched the project and there was now no going back.

Minutes later I realized that I was dealing with something more mammoth than I could have imagined. The lino was well glued down and it took a considerable effort to loosen even a small piece of it. I had to scrape away at the glue to get it all off, and as I was scraping away, I revealed the next nightmare. Whoever put the last flooring in hadn’t bothered to remove the previous flooring, which was some old school tile with a funky green splatter pattern. I thought to myself that these tiles kina had a hip retro feel to them, and I thought that maybe I had an opportunity to get off easy. Maybe I could just uncover these tiles, shine them up and voila, we have a hip retro 50s bathroom floor – the kind you cannot buy anywhere for any amount of money. I scraped the lino away with renewed energy. Within minutes my heart was broken. Some of the hip retro tiles had apparently come loose even before the lino was put down because there were patches of crumbled plaster directly under the lino. The tiles did not cover the whole floor. Sadly I was back to plan A. After two hours of work I had about three square feet of flooring removed. The floor is about 20 square feet in total. I’ll let you do the math. I worked until midnight and decided I’d had enough. I packed it in for the night.

Friday I talked to some people at work about laying tile. Everyone said it was easy. They all gave me tips, all of which proved useful. Part of me now wishes someone had told me not to bother. But it was too late anyway, I was now committed to the project.

Friday I went to Home Depot at lunch, just too see how their stuff compared to Rona’s. It seemed not as nice, and more expensive, so on my way home on Friday night I stopped in at Rona. I managed to get help from another sales associate, another highly trained marksman. He helped me pick out a tile. He fixed me up with all the tools he thought I would need. He fixed me up with all the materials he thought I would need. He told me I should rent a mixer that I could use with a drill to mix the adhesive and the grout. I thought about the drill we have and figured it would probably burn out in about two seconds when trying to mix cement. Then it dawned on me… I could use the Kitchen-Aid (just kidding, that’s to make sure you’re still paying attention). I went and rented the stirrer, and I then went back to work to borrow the industrial DeWalt hammer drill for the weekend. Hey, if I’m going to burn out a drill, it might as well not be mine.

I got home Friday and continued scraping away at the old floor. As I got to the edges, I realized to my dismay that the hip retro tiles were going to pose even more of a problem. Many around the edges were loose. I smashed and chipped away at them until only the soundly fastened bits remained. I did some research to make sure I could lay my tile over this tile, the jury of the internet came back with a verdict of yes. At least I didn’t have to chip away every single bit of tile. I finally got a break of sorts. I removed the floor to the edges of all the fixtures on Friday night and decided I would wait until morning to remove the sink and toilet to clean up under them.

I also decided to try cutting a tile with the tools I bought at Rona. They had made it look so easy there. I tried to score a tile and I couldn’t even make out my own score line. I tried to cut it and it laughed at me, I swear. I realized I would need more tools. It was too late now, I would have to wait until the next day.

By this time I had a couple blisters on my hand, and my back was begging for mercy. I went to bed formulating a plan of attack for Saturday morning.

I rolled out of bed bright and early Saturday morning… 10:30… My hands were sore. My back was sore. I stumbled into the bathroom and was greeted by my nemesis. A 3/4 ripped up floor. I fled to the kitchen to make coffee. A few hours later I gathered the courage to face the project once again. I made my way to Home Depot to buy the additional tools (tile cutter, tile file, tile nippers) I would need to move forward with the project. While I was there I saw one of the stirrers I had rented from Rona, and it was priced at not much more than the rental price. My Scottish blood began to boil, but I left anyway.

When I got home, I used the toilet one last time, and washed my hands one last time, and then began the task of removing the fixtures and the door. I started with the sink. It appeared to have 5 bolts holding it to the wall. I got my screwdriver and began turning one of the bolts. It turned and turned and did not move a millimeter. I figured they must have missed the stud with that one, so I moved to the next. Same story. In the end, only 1 bolt had been holding the whole thing in place. I am sure if anyone had leaned too hard on that sink at any time in the past decade, it would have come tumbling off the wall. But then maybe I am underestimating the adhesive power of paint.

I unscrewed the hinges from the door frame and lifted the door out of place. It was substantially heavier than I had anticipated. I guess in the 50s they still built doors from solid wood. I heaved it into the living room and was trying to place it on the floor when the phone rang. I let it go, and the machine picked up. It was Joan. I placed the door down as quickly as possible without endangering anything and ran for the phone. I was huffing an puffing when I picked up, and had to come up with a story fast so as not to blow my cover. We had a nice talk, and then it was back to work.

The toilet came out without fanfare to reveal even more of the crumbly plaster used to level the floor. Many of the hip retro tiles around the toilet had come loose as well. As I was chipping away at them I realized that I was going to need some leveling compound of my own. It was now early evening on Saturday. I hadn’t yet used my rented stirrer, and I knew I would need it for at least two more days just to get the tile laid and grouted, and that was if everything went well. My experience thus far made me think that I shouldn’t count on that. I set out once more for Home Depot. I bought some leveler and I bought the stirrer. I then went all the way back out to Rona and returned my rented stirrer. One upside was that there was no disputing that it was in the same condition as when I had rented it… I hadn’t used it at all.

The leveler claimed to take two hours to set. I decided that I would get up on Sunday, pour the leveler and cut the tiles that needed to be cut in the two hours. Once the old floor was completely removed I decided to lay the tiles out just to get an idea of how many I would have to cut. They fit beautifully and looked nice already. I had to cut a few to go around the toilet and a few straight cuts to fit against the far wall. The tiles around the tub would be a little trickier, but seemed manageable. I went to bed with a sense of optimism.

Sunday I woke up, had my coffee and began “holding it in”. For those wondering, there is a public toilet in the building, so I was not completely without facilities… I just had to leave the apartment to go.

I decided I needed to lay the tiles out again in order to cut them, so the leveling compound would have to wait. I laid them out, marked them up and began cutting. I started with an easy one. I had to cut the tile to fit against the wall, and then nip the corner. No problem. This was easy. I optimistically picked up the next tile. This one had a more extensive cut to go around the toilet drain almost halfway. I nipped and nipped and nipped. I placed the tile to get an idea of how I was doing, and I nipped and nipped and nipped some more. Finally it was almost sitting the way I wanted it. A few more nips and I would be done. I nipped and nipped and nipped, and then my heart nearly stopped. The tile broke. I was furious. Luckily I came to my senses and realized that this particular tile would be completely obscured by the toilet. I nipped a bit of the broken piece off to allow room for grout and I continued on to the next tile.

I had bought four more tiles than I had calculated I would need to allow for breakage. I had destroyed one already in my attempted cutting, and I had broken another while foolishly stepping on it when I’d had them laid out. I still had two spares. I got to the last tile I would need to cut. By now I was feeling like a seasoned pro. I scored the stile and went to cut it. I pushed down on the arm of the cutter and heard the normal snap, but when I looked down, the tile was in four pieces! I was glad it was the last one. That is why I had gotten spares. So I grabbed one of the spares, measured and scored and went to cut. Again, four pieces. Now I was irate and scared. I had a single tile left, and had just broken two in a row. If I broke this last one I would be on my way to Rona again. I did not want this. I felt like an athlete in a gold medal game as I nervously measured and marked the last tile. It was all or nothing at this point. I brought the arm down, applied some force and heard the crack. I looked down and there, before my eyes, was a perfectly cut tile. I was done. I breathed a sigh of relief. I may have even done a victory dance. I can’t really remember. I gathered up the tiles and swept up the bits of tile that were all over the floor (and over the next few days would be tracked all over the apartment).

The next task was the leveler. It directed me to mix 1 part water to 3 parts cement. I was dismayed that it called to be mixed by hand. I wanted to use my new mixer, but it would have to wait a little while. I mixed the leveler per the package directions and it turned into a big ball of mud. I cursed the leveler and added more water to see if I could liquefy it. After a lot more water, the compound began to look like I thought it should. I started applying it to the low-lying areas of the floor and smoothing it out as best I could with my smoothing tool. As best I could was not very good as it turned out. The leveler was as unlevel as the floor it was sitting on. I would have to sand it. But that meant I would need sand paper. And that meant one more trip to Home Depot. For those keeping count, this is trip number six.

I went to home depot and got the sand paper, and a few other minor things I would need to get the project done. Since I had to wait two hours, I also went out to eat. Both Saturday and Sunday I had only one giant meal each day. I had to stay focused on the task.

When the two hours were up I sanded the leveler and made it truly level, not fakey level like I had done before. Then I realized that all this dust could possibly inhibit the tile adhesive’s ability to stick. I would have to mop the floor and wait for that to dry before proceeding.

Once the floor was dry, it was time for the main event. I got out the hammer drill and the mixer. I got my adhesive mix. I put it all in a bucket. I started up the drill and dust went everywhere. I was mad because I had just mopped the floor to get rid of the dust, but then it dawned on me that this dust was the same stuff I was mixing up, so I shouldn’t have to worry. I blissfully continued mixing, not worrying too much if the science agreed with me. The hammer drill worked great. Too great really. It spun so fast that as the cement was forming, a bunch came flying out of the bucket all over the walls. I was irate once again. I continued mixing for the full five minutes (per the package directions) and then proceeded to clean up the walls in the 10-minute rest period (again per the package directions).

Once ready, I slopped a bunch of the adhesive onto the floor. I carefully lined up the first tile and pushed it into the goo. I felt a great sense of achievement having laid the first tile. The second went in perfectly, the third, no problem. I laid 19 tiles plus 2 partial tiles and finally arrived at the last tile. One last tile and I was done. This was it. I was getting ready to relax.

I put the far edge of the tile into the adhesive and brought the near edge down toward the ground. It hit the door frame before it hit the ground. The tile would not sit down. I had laid the tiles out three times before adhering to make sure everything would fit, and now the tile would not sit down. I was furious. I had to go get my nippers and nip the very edge off the tile, even as it was covered with adhesive. I finally got it to sit down, and I was done. I was relieved that this most critical part was over, but as I looked at the tiles I realized that some of the adhesive had seeped up between the tiles and was now protruding above the level of the tile. I knew the grout was supposed to hide that, but there would be no room for the grout. At this time there was nothing I could do, but I figured I would end up having to chip it out. However, I was done for Sunday. I went to bed.

Monday I got up and went to work. I stopped at Home Depot on my way home to inquire about my adhesive problem. The helpful man in the fashionable orange apron deduced that I had probably used too much adhesive and confirmed that I would have to dig it out before I grouted. I bought a chisel. I went home and chipped away at the adhesive until it was all gone. I swept and vacuumed and swept and vacuumed until all the dust was cleared up. What happened next had to be the most fun part of the project. I mixed up the grout using my mixing tool and borrowed drill. It mixed to a wonderful creamy texture, almost like icing. I blobbed it onto the floor and pushed it into all the cracks. All the dark adhesive disappeared, covered by the beautiful creamy grout. The grouting went easily and without a hitch. Once I was done smoothing it all out, I had to wash the floor 3 times to rinse away the excess grout. After all the excess was washed away, I finally saw the floor as it will look going forward. I must say I was pretty pleased with what I had accomplished, despite all the problems along the way.

Tuesday, I stopped at Rona on my way home from work to buy a brush to use to seal the grout, as well and a tube of caulk and a caulking gun to re-seal around the tub. The caulking was a breeze. Sealing the grout went smoothly. It seemed that I had turned a corner, and now everything was going my way.

Wednesday was the first day in a week that I did not go to a home improvement store. All I had to do was re-install the fixtures (that’s right, four days with no toilet of my own!), then my friend Jim came over to help re-hang the door. I took care of all the minor leaks, and the job was done.

It took a lot more time and effort and trips to home improvement stores than I had anticipated, but in the end it does look nice. Still, I would caution anyone contemplating a project like this to really think about what you are getting into.

Home Depot, in the spirit of truth in advertising, I encourage you to change your motto from “You can do it, we can help.” to “Don’t be stupid, hire a contractor.”

2007-02-20T23:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I have just been busy. Not only that, but we have been blessed with a string of beautiful weekends in the midst of rainy work weeks, so I have been getting out of the house quite a little bit.

I remember once when I was younger I was delivering newspapers at Acadia as I did every morning. It was the middle of February, so I have no doubt I was trudging through snow to get the papers to the eager students before they had to be off for those wretched 8:30 classes. While I was delivering the paper, and article caught my eye. It showed a picture of Vancouver where it was beautiful and sunny and warm and the flowers were blooming and spring was in full swing. The way the article talked, I thought this was a miraculous thing, spring had come early to the west coast. I now know better! Last year I visited the city early in February and I couldn't help but notice the grass was green and the trees had leaves. This past weekend, I was out for a walk and I came across one of the sure signs of spring - crocuses and snow drops in bloom in peoples gardens.

I am quite sure that in Calgary it was usually April before I saw these little flowers that spur such optimism that the worst is over, that we will soon be able to wear t-shirts again, that it will be light out after dinner. Sure Vancouver may be the most expensive place to live in Canada, but I am often reminded that it is totally worth it!

2007-01-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Do you want to win the Lotto 6/49? Better brush up on your stats. Ok, I’ll do it for you.

One evening this week I was stuck at work babysitting a contractor, and when I ran out of work things to do my thoughts turned to dreams of winning the lottery. It might help if I actually played, but I know the odds are stacked heavily against me, and I pay enough in taxes as it is.

I recently read a book about the MIT blackjack team who, in their heyday, frequently fleeced Las Vegas casinos through a complex system of card counting, statistics and codes. When I went to university (Acadia is roughly the Canadian equivalent to MIT), I was forced to take a few stats courses that I was sure would never come in handy. Recently I got to refresh my knowledge while helping Joan through the last course in her masters program, econometrics. I decided I would finally apply my stats knowledge to something productive, analyzing all the draws in the 6/49 ever to see which numbers come up most often, and if they are statistically significant.

I found on the BC Lotto Corporation website that I could download the results of all draws since the very first 6/49 draw in 1982. There have been 2402 draws in total, up to last nights (January 27, 2007). I pasted these numbers into a table in Excel and then used a countif function to ascertain how many times each of the numbers has been drawn. The average number has been drawn just over 343 times in the 25 years of 6/49 draws. Now comes the fun part, are there numbers that come up more often? (Excel required to view this link)

The standard deviation of occurrences of numbers in draws is very close to a whopping 20, indicating a pretty wide spread in what is supposed to be a purely random process. I used Excel to tell me which numbers appeared more than 1 standard deviation from average. There were 7 numbers (27, 31, 34, 43, 45, 46, 47) that appeared more than 1 standard deviation from average. Nothing too exciting here, but what if we go out 2 standard deviations, 40 more occurrences than average? There are 4 numbers (31, 34, 43, 47) that fall into this category. Kind of makes you wonder if some of those balls are a little heavier than others?

So then I took the 4 number that seem to come up most often and paired them up with 2 of the 3 numbers that come up next most often. I found that over the years these numbers would have paid out in 60 draws, or about 2.5% of the time. Sadly if you had played these numbers twice a week since 1982 you would still not be a millionaire. Despite the fact that they come up more often than others, the 4 numbers that occur more than 2 standard deviations from average have never appeared together in the same draw. Further analysis shows that playing these numbers in every draw is most likely to net you only $10 or $50 when you win. If you play every draw in the year and win 2.5% of the time with my scheme you will likely win about $45/year. It will cost you $208 to win that $45 though, so you may be better off putting that cash in your savings account. That being said, it is only a matter of time before the stars align, and all these significant digits show up in the same draw, and you would be an instant millionaire. If you apply my stats and win, please give me a cut.

2007-01-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

I have often wondered if Stéphane Dion reads my blog. I think that after his remarks today, which were an blatant rip-off of my commentary from this past May 6th, it is safe to say he does. All I'm asking for, Mr. Dion, is that you give credit where credit is due!

2007-01-07T16:49:00.000-07:00

Don’t blame Rona Ambrose, blame El Nino!

Earlier this week Prime Minister Harper shuffled his cabinet and assigned embattled environment minister Rona Ambrose to a new portfolio. I will always remember Ambrose for her laughably poor defense of the Conservative’s “Clean Air Act,” a watered down, non-Kyoto-compliant plan to sort of reduce emissions. It was yet another instance of our national leader looking south and drawing on the sage-like wisdom of George W. Bush to determine the policy direction for our formerly independent country. Ambrose, of course, was just trying to do her job, and really, I don’t think I would have had much more intelligent to say about such an awful plan.

At any rate, it turns out we have nothing to worry about anyway. With 2007 slated to be the warmest year ever (well, I expect it was a little warmer just after the big bang, but nobody was really measuring the temperature at the time), it has been revealed that greenhouse gasses are not the real problem, it’s that pesky El Nino again.

But wait, like most Canadians, I enjoyed a green Christmas this year. White Christmases are in the minority here on the west coast anyway, but a white Christmas in Winnipeg is something to talk about. A few days later I was surprised to read of a massive chunk of ice breaking free from Ellsmere Island in the Canadian North. I thought at first, “no problem, it’s El Nino.” Then I read further in the article and discovered that the ice actually broke off a year and a half ago, long before this round of El Nino was even on the radar.

So it would seem that maybe we cannot conveniently blame El Nino for everything that is going wrong with our climate. Maybe it was a smart move to get rid of Ambrose and hopefully get someone in who actually has a clue about environmental issues. But maybe we have not gone far enough. I think if we want real change, we have to stop shooting the messenger and go right to the source. I think it is time to topple our half-baked, watered-down, Bush-worshipping Conservative government and vote in leadership that has the strength and vision to come up with truly innovative solutions to the problems this country is facing.

In the meantime, I will be writing to Steven Harper to suggest he hold his next caucus meeting on the freely-floating Ayles shelf sometime round about July (if he’s still the PM by then).

2007-01-01T18:24:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year from the world famous blog of Andrew Baxter!

Before you accuse me of puffery or braggadocio, let me explain. 2006 was a year of extreme change for me.

I moved to Vancouver to be closer to Joan, and that has been working out really well. It is nice to see her every day instead of a couple times per month. Not to mention the fringe benefit of living in one of the most beautiful cities in Canada with green grass and flowers blooming year-round, great restaurants and more.

In February I quit my long-term job with EDS to go work for Rogers in Calgary, and then I quit that job to move to Vancouver. Now I am working in the best job I have ever had, the only drawback being my commute and my morning parking nightmare.

I had a whole pile of firsts in my life as well this year, some of which were more exciting than others. I got my fist passport, my first bonus, my first new car. I watched the World Cup for the first time with Joan. I drove from Calgary to Vancouver for the first (and likely last) time on my own. Over all it has been a very good year.

And that brings me back to my opening claim. While working at Rogers I was developing my search engine optimization skills. I came across some tools from Google that would allow me to track, in general terms, the visitors to my website and blog. Using Google Analytics, I now know that between my website and blog I have received visits from close to 1000 people from 5 continents (I wasn’t expecting any hits from Antarctica, but I am quite disappointed by the lack of visits from South America). So, in addition to all the other great things that happened this year, 2006 will also be known as the year this blogger became known throughout the world! It will be hard to top that in 2007, but I will try.

2006-12-28T23:05:00.000-07:00

Christmas 2006 has come and gone, and a good time was had by all. Joan and I got over to the Island and back safely with a little help from the Christmas angels to get us on the ferry. I am posting some pictures of Joan and I, one in front of the tree in Vancouver, and the other in front of the tree in Port Alberni.

Now it is back to work for a couple days, and then our second New Year's together here in Vancouver.

2006-12-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas

Joan and I will be heading over to the island later today to spend Christmas with her dad in Port Alberni. We'll be thinking of all our friends and family celebrating wherever they may be.

We did a Christmas light tour here in Vancouver the other night, and there were some beautiful displays. The newspaper printed a list of the most spectacular places, so we used that as our guide! The radio has been tuned to the all-Christmas-music-all-the-time station for the past few days and we are really getting into the holiday spirit! I hope you are all able to find your share of the spirit as well!

2006-12-11T22:58:00.000-07:00

“How did you know that?” is a question that I hear so often when playing games that involve a trivia component. I never really thought of it as anything outstanding, in fact, I always assumed that most of those questions fell under the category of “general knowledge,” but the more I get asked that the more I realize that perhaps the knowledge is not so general after all.

Now I am no Ken Jennings, in fact I am quite sure that in a game of Jeopardy I would lose quite handily to my old friend Matt Hobbs who I recall routinely got every question right before the contestants ever had a chance to ring in. That being said, I do seem to have some peculiar talent when it comes to trivia. I think one key element to this is that I am genetically blessed with an excellent memory. There seems to be a special compartment in my brain to house all of the trivial “when will I ever need this?” type of knowledge. For this I obviously have to thank my ancestors.

My closest ancestors, my parents, contributed a great deal as well. From an early age they laid the foundation on top of which everything I know has been built. My mom would read to me every night, and as far back as I can remember my dad and I would play the occasional game of chess (well, I think we started with Smess).

As I thought about this, things started coming together, but the question remained, where did all the trivial facts that are stuck in my head come from? As I reflected on a number of my more astonishing trivia responses, I realized the source of so much of this “useless” knowledge.

If you had asked me in high school if I thought I was wasting my time, the answer likely would have been a resounding yes. I would have much rather been dialing into the local BBSes or following the hockey Axemen at that time. If you would have asked me which courses in particular I considered unworthy of my attention, English would have almost certainly topped the list (sorry mom). Who would have ever though that the seemingly tedious pedagogical methods of Jim Fetty would lead me to a lifetime of dominance in games of trivia?

At the time, learning 200 new vocabulary words each year truly seemed like a waste of time. Surely if I needed these words, I could find them in a dictionary or a thesaurus! Studying affixes and roots and etymology seemed as amusing as watching paint dry. Learning the history of English and other languages (like Esperanto, whatever that is) seemed like squandering precious brain cells. I wondered about when I would ever need to know what a dipthong was, or a portmanteau word, or onomatopoeia?

Yet now, more than ten years later, scarcely a day goes by that I don’t draw on something I learned in those classes. How I have managed to retain so much of it is beyond me. I recall Mr. Fetty feeling “shortchanged by my efforts,” according to one report card, but I am sure if went back and wrote one of his tests today I would do as well as I did way back in grade 11.

I have had many other influential teachers in my life, but I can say with confidence that few have prepared me for trivia challenges quite as well as Mr. Fetty. Thinking back I still have no idea how some of it fit into the 11^th grade English curriculum, but at least now I will not be caught with my pants down when the subject of merkins comes up in a game of trivia!

2006-12-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed a bunch of spam comments in my blog of late. I have been deleting them as I notice them, but I have decided to change the way comments are submitted so that I will have to approve them before they are posted. That means your comments will not appear as soon as you post them, but instead they will show up once I approve them. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it is easier than having to constantly monitor and delete spam.

2006-11-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

Uh oh, it’s happening again. The federal government seems bound and determined to continue throwing good money after bad. This week we are being treated to the shocking news that former prison inmate ombudsman Ron Stewart may have swindled we taxpayers for the princely sum of $325,000 during his last six years in his post.

I assume it has already cost us thousands for Sheila Fraser and her crew to uncover this scandalous waste. Now our heroic Public Safety Minister, Stockwell Day, has got the RCMP involved. No doubt there will be some kind of inquiry and we will be on the hook for lawyer fees and whatever other bills might come of it. By the end of the day, we’ll have spent more “uncovering the truth” than Ron Stewart could have ever bilked us out of.

This seems to be a disturbing trend in government of late. I can’t imagine how much we spent going after the players in the “sponsorship scandal” only to recover a fraction of what was allegedly wasted. I understand that people have to be held accountable, but it seems a little counterproductive when the price of accountability is more than what goes missing in the first place. If somebody stole my wallet from me, I wouldn’t pay a private investigator $1000 to find it, I would cut my losses and get on with my life. Why can’t our government do the same thing?

There is one final insulting twist for us folk who will be footing the bill for all this. If Ron Stewart ends up being convicted and sent to prison, it will cost us over $80,000 per year to keep him there, or roughly $30,000 per year more than he is alleged to have taken in the first place.

Stockwell, I say we let him go.

2006-11-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I finish up my second week at my new job, and so far it has been quite nice. I have really hit the floor running and I have already been working on a number of interesting projects. My first big project, oddly enough, was setting up a Microsoft Project Server to help centralize and streamline project management in the organization. My other major achievement was winning the Friday night poker tournament the first Friday I was there. Luckily I have been invited back for another round.

One of the biggest drawbacks to this job is that it has forced me to become a commuter. Eleven kilometers is just a little too far to walk every day, as good as it would be for my health. It takes about half an hour, and parking is a nightmare, but so far I have not been too unlucky in that regard.

Since I am working again, I have started shaving regularly. I have been shaving now for roughly 14 years. I still have the old Gillette Sensor 2-blade razor that my parents got me for Christmas so many years ago, though I rarely use it these days. Somewhere along the line I upgraded to the new and improved Gillette Mach 3 shaving system which uses 3-blade cartridges. I didn’t realize just how good this razor was until my recent brush with abject poverty. The Sensor blades are considerably cheaper than the Mach 3 blades, but I know from previous experience that the Sensor blades are also much harder on my face. Sometime in October it came to pass that I needed new razor blades desperately. I went to my local Shoppers Drug Mart (I still shop there despite evidence of their ties to international terrorist cells), and I cringed at the thought of cheaping out on the Sensor blades. Then I found the miracle solution to my problem. Schick. Their Xtreme 3 razor had 3 blades and cost a fraction of the Gillette replacement blades. I quickly thought about how much I would save over the course of my lifetime and proceeded to the checkout.

The next morning I lathered up my face and proudly wielded my new razor. I took a few tentative swipes at my face and then a full-blown stroke. I cringed. It was as if I had taken some 60-grit sandpaper and pulled it down my cheek. By the time I was done I was bleeding in a dozen places. It would seem that 3-blade razors are not all the same. My face fell as I realized that I would no longer be saving on razor blades for the rest of my life.

I have heard it said somewhere that Gillette is the best a man can get, and I have to heartily agree. A few weeks after my torturous mistake, Joan surprised me with two packs of Mach 3 blades that had been on sale at London Drugs. It was very sweet of her, and now my face is pretty much back to normal.

Recently, Gillette has been pumping the new 5-blade Fusion. If the Mach 3 is so much smoother than the others, I can only imagine how incredibly smooth the Fusion must be. Sadly, the Fusion is too rich for my blood. The replacement blades cost nearly twice as much as the Mach 3!

With their constant addition of more blades, I envision a day when Gillette comes out with a razor with so many blades that you’ll be able to finish shaving in just one stroke. I would certainly be lining up to buy that product. I estimate that it could save me five minutes every day. The sooner I am done shaving, the sooner I get out the door. The sooner I get out the door, the sooner I get to the office. I could save enough time with the Gillette “whole face special” that I might just get to the office in time to find a parking spot. Wouldn’t that be sweet?

2006-11-07T17:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been an interesting week. I am no longer looking for work, but I am still not working. This has been the most blissful week for me since I got back from Mexico, I really feel like I’m on vacation. Starting Tuesday I will be a Network Administrator at Digital Payment Technologies, but until then I am making the most of my last days of freedom.

The typical winter rains have started here in Vancouver, and it is really too bad because this would be an excellent opportunity to get out and explore some of the outdoorsy stuff to do in Vancouver. It has cleared up a bit today, and if it holds off, I’ll make a point of getting out tomorrow.

Since I have been cooped up inside for the most part, the old PC has been my prime source for entertainment, and it has not disappointed.

Thinking back, one of the most memorable Christmas presents I ever received was the Atari 2600 game console. Like many people my age, I spent countless hours mastering the various games. I played it for years and years, and I am sure that it is still in good working order somewhere in my parents’ house.

The other day Joan was asking about whether or not I could get the classic Donkey Kong to run on my computer. I set out on the internet, and to her (and my) delight I discovered an emulator for classic arcade games that will run on my new PC. I have also discovered a treasure trove of ROMs captured from the original games, and I have been engrossed in some of my old favorites again. It is incredible how after all these years you can still remember all the tricks to play these games! The old games were ultra-simplistic in design since they didn’t have much hardware to work with back then. What they lacked in sophistication they made up for in addictiveness. Playing these games again, I take as much delight in trying over and over again to get past the first screen of Donkey Kong or the cherry level of Pac Man. I don’t think I will ever get tired of it, I just hope I can stave off the carpal tunnel syndrome for a few more days.

Now, if you don’t mind, 1982 is calling…

2006-11-04T16:22:00.000-07:00

Historically I have used this space to describe my own foibles as I struggle through everyday life, but sometimes I witness others at low moments in their lives and I just have to share these stories. Some would say I am making myself feel better at the expense of others, but I prefer to think that looking back on the humor of a situation is better for everybody involved. Today I feel much like the guy who recounted the tale of a would-be hit and run driver who was pummeled by a foursome of grannies.

About this time last year the Corb Lund band was rocketing up the country charts with their runaway hit “The Truck Got Stuck.” In this song they detail numerous attempts to free a pickup truck from a prairie quagmire. Who would have thought that yesterday morning, from my window high above Marpole Avenue in decidedly urban Vancouver, I would witness a near perfect reenactment of the song?

It would seem that the mansion across the way that is currently the home of the University Women’s Club has hired some contractors to assess the stability of their retaining wall. I think it was about 11:00 yesterday morning that I looked out the window and exclaimed about two trucks parked on the sidewalk across the street. There was a black pickup truck in the front and a blue full-sized SUV in behind. I thought it was a bit of an obnoxious place to leave their trucks, but if I had known how much entertainment they would provide, I surely would have kept my mouth shut.

It all started a few minutes later. Perhaps they decided that rather than walking to the next section of wall they would drive so they wouldn’t have to lug their equipment by hand. The guy got into his black pickup and hit the accelerator and the mud started flying. The truck didn’t budge an inch, and as people who have never been stuck in the mud before tend to do, the driver applied more gas and buried his tires deeper and deeper into the soft ground in front of the multi-million dollar mansion.

By the time the tire was in mud up to the lug nuts, the two decided they weren’t going to get out the easy way, and had more or less ensured that they would not be able to get out the second or third easiest way either. At this point a rational person would call a tow truck, but these two decided that they would use their own ingenuity to solve this little problem.

Plan A was to push the truck out. The driver would hit the gas and his associate would push on the tailgate with all his might. They succeeded in adding about six inches to the length of the rut they had carved in the ground, but the truck remained thoroughly stuck. Apparently they determined that there was too much weight in the back of the truck for this method to work, so they emptied the bed and tried again, once again they were thwarted by the mud. In a final modification to Plan A, the pusher decided to stop pushing and instead stand on the back bumper and bounce up and down while the driver hit the gas. I was staring out the window simultaneously hoping the truck would get some traction and send the pusher flying and hoping that if they did so, he would not break his neck. I got the portable phone just in case I had to call 911. As you can imagine, the truck remained stuck.

After these failed attempts a rational person would call a tow truck, but these two ascertained that with a little more traction under the tires they would be able to get the truck out of the rut. Not being on the prairies meant that there was no genetically modified canola seed around to put under the tires, but they did have at their disposal what could be considered to be the next best thing. Seeing as how they were working on the retaining wall, they happened to have in their possession a few bags of cement mix, and they started to unload it into the rut. Apparently the cement needed time to set because at this point, they proceeded to take their equipment by hand down the wall, and do whatever work they were supposed to be doing. It was fine with me, I needed a break for lunch anyway.

Some time later, having finished the work they were tasked to do, they returned to the truck to complete the more complex project of getting the truck out of the mud. It would seem that the concrete had time to set so they took there respective positions as driver and pusher and went about trying to get the truck out again. Despite the added traction of the concrete, the tires spun mercilessly in the mud and the truck remained stuck.

At this point a rational person would call a tow truck, but for these two a new plan was required, one that was a complete departure from things which had already been attempted. I can only imagine the sparkle in their eyes as they realized that only one truck was stuck and that they had a whole other truck at their disposal. The driver of the blue SUV hopped in the cab of his truck, and was delighted to discover that he was not stuck. He slowly crept to within inches of the black pickup under the direction of the black pickup driver. Then the driver got into the black pickup and the fun began. Ever so carefully the blue SUV made contact with the black pickup and began to push. At the same time the driver of the black pickup applied the gas and the tire started turning. In a manner of course the truck triumphantly rose from the rut where it had been stuck. There was traffic on Marpole Avenue, so he couldn’t completely get off the sidewalk, but he was out. The driver of the blue SUV backed off and the two exchanged hoorahs and high fives. If only they knew that this story was only half over their jubilation may not have been so overt.

At a break in traffic, the driver of the blue SUV took the opportunity to drive off the sidewalk and onto the street, where he promptly turned on his 4-way flashers to give the driver of the black pickup the chance to pull his truck onto the street without worrying about oncoming traffic. The driver of the black pickup is apparently a slow learner because instead of inching his truck off the grass, he once again stomped on the gas, and as you can imagine the tires started spinning once again and within seconds he was once again buried to the lug nuts in mud.

At times like this a rational person would call a tow truck, but with one truck on the road and the other stuck in the mud, the two came up with a brilliant plan. They decided to try and tow the truck out of the mud themselves. The only problem was they had neither a chain nor a rope. What they did have was an industrial extension cord. They determined that it would do. The driver of the pickup tied the cord to the frame of his truck and then took the other end to the back of the blue SUV. I was pondering how many seconds the cord would hold up under the strain of two trucks. I estimated fives seconds as they proceeded to tie the loose end to the trailer hitch of the SUV. I did not have to wait long to find out. The driver of the blue SUV hit the gas. The cord pulled tight. The pickup did not move an inch. The cord snapped instantly and fell to the ground, and the hapless contractors were back at square one, down one industrial extension cord. Not quite ready to give up on the idea of towing, they checked the back of another pickup parked on the side of the road, but they would not find anything worthy of a tow job. Traffic was backing up on Marpole as it was down to a single eastbound lane. They put their heads together once again.

Having tried everything they had, a rational person would call a tow truck, but these two decided it was wiser to build on previous success. They decided that pushing was the answer so they backed the SUV down Marpole while traffic scrambled to get out of the way. Getting the SUV back over the curb presented a challenge itself, and I suspect that about half the rear left tire rubbed off on the curb while the rear right tire was spinning in the mud on the other side. Eventually, after leaving a lengthy tire track in the grass, they got the SUV back up onto the sidewalk, and once again slowly crept up to within inches of the black pickup.

Again the driver got into the truck and they carefully locked bumpers. The blue SUV strained and the black pickup inched forward. The SUV kept pushing and the pickup kept moving forward. Eventually the truck once again triumphantly emerged from the rut and perched upon level ground. Another celebratory high five was in order, and then the two proceeded to bury the evidence with freshly fallen wet leaves.

It was about three hours after they first got stuck that they finally got both trucks off the sidewalk and onto the road. A rational person would have called a tow truck, but they both drove off presumably proud of their accomplishment, and perhaps with a few waning chords of Corb Lund’s song echoing in their heads.

2006-10-17T15:11:00.000-06:00

According to some unknown authority, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. When I am working, I rarely eat breakfast, except of course on the weekends, but then it is more like lunch. Lately, I have had the opportunity to enjoy breakfast almost every day. Unemployment has its perks.

One of my favorite grab-and-go breakfasts of all times has to be the Sausage and Egger at A&W, followed closely by the Sausage and Egg McMuffin at McDonald’s. Back in the day, when I worked at the meal hall at Acadia, they used to make a knock-off that they called an “egg-o muffin.” It was also delicious, and I would often enjoy one or two after my Saturday morning shifts.

Since I am now a penniless hobo, I can’t afford to indulge myself at our finer fast food establishments, and I have been forced to come up with my own knock-off breakfast sandwich. Fortunately it is quite easy, and I will share my recipe with you now.

1. Split an English muffin and toast

2. In a ramekin / coffee mug / small bowl scramble an egg with about a tablespoon of milk and some salt and pepper. Microwave 90 seconds at high

3. (optional) Butter the English muffin

4. Place a slice (or two) of processed cheddar cheese on the toasted English muffin

5. Place the cooked egg on the cheese and place the other half of the English muffin on top, making a sandwich

I hope you enjoy my famous breakfast creation. It sure is a lot easier to just go buy it at McDonald’s, but for those times in your life when you are struggling to make ends meet, or McDonald’s is just not accessible, you now have a viable alternative. Feel free to share this recipe at will.

2006-10-11T17:12:00.000-06:00

In my first semester at Acadia, back in 1994, I was taking introductory Economics from Dr. John Connor. I recall at about mid-term he started walking into class, and before he said anything he would write on the blackboard, “Nash, Harsanyi, Selten,” nothing more, nothing less, every day. Slowly he started to allude to the names and started asking people in the class if they had any significance. Perhaps weeks later, on a Monday, he directed everyone to an article that had appeared in the Globe and Mail the previous Saturday. The article was about the peculiar life of John Nash, a mathematician who did ground-breaking work in the field of game theory, which has since become an important branch of Economics. Nash suffered from schizophrenia for much of his adult life, but was able to get it under control and lead a relatively normal life starting sometime in the 80s. In 1994, John Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economics along with John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten, all for their contributions to the study of game theory. Nash’s life would be immortalized in the biographical film “A Beautiful Mind.”

It was Dr. Connor who really sparked my interest in Economics, and in fact when I decided to pursue my second degree, I went to him for advice on how I could make it work. I will never forget his advice at the time. He said (approximately), “Economics will do you a hell of a lot better in the long run.” Whether that statement is true or not is still up for debate, but one thing is for sure, I still remember everything I learned in Economics like it was yesterday, but if you were to ask me to write a program in Modula, I would be hard pressed to produce anything.

On Monday, the Bank of Sweden announced the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics. This year it is being awarded to Edmund Phelps for his work on intertemporal tradeoffs in macroeconomic policy. Every year when I hear the announcement, I think back to those early days at Acadia. I imagine how, if Dr. Connor was still teaching, a class full of freshman would stare perplexed at the name on the board until someone figured out to whom the mystery name belonged. Each year the Nobel Prize announcement reminds me of what a great five years I had at Acadia, and of course of one of the great influences in my life, Dr. John Connor.

2006-10-09T18:09:00.000-06:00

There is a new threat to humanity, and it is carrot juice. Apparently, tainted carrot juice is behind a string of recent botulism cases here in North America. This comes just a few short weeks after a bunch of fresh spinach was found to contain E. Coli.

This is Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, and as usual we prepared a chicken with all the fixings, and had a great feast. One thing I am always careful with is making sure the bird is done. I double and triple check it with a thermometer and let it go extra long just in case. I would certainly rather eat dry meat than have a case of salmonella.

One thing I would never imagine is that food that I trusted to be good for me could actually kill me. If I were to open a bottle of commercially packaged carrot juice or buy a spinach salad (OK, I ask you to use your imagination on both counts), I would not expect that I should be worried about ending up in the hospital. Unlike when I roast a chicken, there is really no way for me to determine if fresh fruits and vegetables are safe to eat. I guess we have to count on the producers to ensure that this food is handled in such a way as to not pose a threat to our health. These cases in recent weeks clearly demonstrate that they are not doing enough.

I don’t know what should be done, but one thing I do know is that I will not be going out of my way and paying a premium to eat “healthy food” if horror stories like this keep showing up in the news. I am pretty sure that eating vegetables from a can is better for me than needing kidney dialysis.

2006-09-28T10:29:00.000-06:00

Well, Joan and I got up to something quite exciting last night. Can you guess what? Now get your mind out of the gutter, and click here for a hint. New technology is great!

2006-09-26T19:29:00.000-06:00

I celebrated a couple “firsts” in my life this past weekend. I am more proud of one than the other. Let me know by way of comments if you figure out which one.

Saturday dawned warm and sunny here in Vancouver. A great day to get outside, and indeed we did. At least for the minute it took to walk from the building to the car. Joan and I were gearing up for a small gathering on Sunday night, and set out Saturday to obtain supplies and provisions. We had illegally borrowed a Costco membership card, and I could barely contain my excitement as we made our way out to Richmond (the City of Vancouver is too high-brow for Costco) for my first ever Costco experience. Well, technically it was my second ever, but the first time I tried to go in Ottawa I didn’t get more than three feet inside the front door before being asked to leave for lack of a membership card. This denial would not be repeated as we sailed in easily with our red-hot membership card. Finding a cart was a different story, so we sailed back out and walked about three miles around the parking lot before I finally secured a jumbo sized cart. We were now ready to begin the experience.

The first thing you notice is that everything is huge. The first bargain I found was on a 12-pack of Dove for sensitive skin. At one dollar per bar, it was too good of deal to pass up. I now have enough Dove to see me through to 2008. Life is good. I also happened across a bag of chips that was large enough that I could give it a hug. And I did. It was about that time that Joan started suggesting we should think about leaving.

We took our giant-sized cart full of giant-sized party food and made our way to the front. We were discouraged to discover giant-sized lines, but got into one and waited our turn to check out. A few giant-sized minutes later we successfully completed our Costco membership fraud and made our way to the car.

The party was a success, and needless to say there was plenty left over.

On Sunday, earlier in the day, long before the party, Joan and I took part in my other “first”. In order to wash the foul taste of excessive consumerism from our mouths we decided to do some volunteer work together. Joan had found an opportunity to help Variety, a local children’s charit y, sell 50/50 tickets at the race track on BC Derby Day. Sunday was another beautiful sunny day, and the track is mostly an outdoor venue, so we did get to enjoy the nice weather more than we did on Saturday.

Selling 50/50 tickets at the race track is like fishing with dynamite. I had been practicing my hawker calling for days, and got to apply it with reasonable success. We stayed for two hours and sold hundreds of tickets, wishing everyone luck along the way. More importantly though, every ticket we sold was benefiting a needy child somewhere in BC, and that is something everyone can be happy about.

So this weekend was a tale of two “firsts”, one helping myself the other helping others, one stuck indoors the other enjoying the outdoors, both with the most pleasant company imaginable. So which am I more proud of? Which do you think?

2006-09-20T10:02:00.000-06:00

So yesterday I was Googling and Yahooing and, well, you get the picture. I was trying to see how my sites were doing since I haven't done a Google Update here in a while. Anyway, I came across a little bit of personal history while doing so. When I searched for "Andrew Baxter" on Altavista, it returned a page I had created way back in 1997 for the Acadia School of Business! I worked that summer for the Acadia Institute of Teaching and Technology helping the School of Business gear up for the newly-created Acadia Advantage program. It took me forever to make that chopping Axeman. It's hard to believe that this very early work of mine is still floating around the internet. I guess Acadia has yet to pull the plug on this old server. I certainly hope the page is no longer in use!

Anyway, by way of a Google update, my blog is still on page 1! My personal website now shows up on page 2 when searching at Google.com, but quite far down when searching at Google.ca (odd). I'm up there on Yahoo again (at least on this computer), and on Altavista Canada and Alltheweb (a new one I found). I managed to get my blog listed on the Open Directory Project, which seems to have been a real help to its Google ranking.

My current project is to get my new company website moving on up the rankings. I hope I have as much success with it as I did with my personal page!

2006-09-14T10:13:00.000-06:00

There is an old saying that goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I am sad to report that this week I have had a shame on me experience.

As I have been settling into Vancouver, two major problems have arisen. First, where do I put my clothes, and second, where do I put my computer? If you answered Rubbermaid bins and the floor, you would have been correct for these past few weeks.

Now for the shame on me part. The whole laying on the floor to use my computer thing and rummaging through bins to get dressed was getting a little tired. Joan and I happened upon an Ikea store while out last weekend, and despite all past experience went in and purchased a computer desk ($29) and a dresser ($129) for me.

I don’t know how they do it at Ikea, but in the store everything seems solid as an oak tree. I figure they have access to extra fasteners or more heavy duty bolts or something, or maybe they just use Krazy Glue. I will have to find someone on the inside who will tell me their secret. They must also put something in the air to give you temporary amnesia, since you never seem to be able to remember previous Ikea nightmares when you are picking out your new stuff.

Anyway, as luck would have it, both of these pieces were small enough to fit in the trunk of Joan’s car. One thing I give Ikea credit for is fitting enormous furniture into tiny boxes. It sure does make it easier for the Cabrio drivers of the world. I am just waiting now for the Ikea house - a 1000 square foot bungalow that comes in a box that will fit in the back of a minivan.

Now, as everyone who has brought something home from Ikea knows, step 1 in the process often takes the longest. Step 1 is bringing the box from your car into the house, since the box conveniently fits in the trunk of the car (out of sight out of mind), this step can take days. I am sure some people forget they bought Ikea until they go to throw their bags in the trunk when heading off on vacation. Imagine their surprise when they discover that china hutch they bought 3 months ago! For me step 1 took just over 24 hours.

I started by assembling the computer desk on Tuesday (my priorities will never change). One thing I have learned in my Ikea building years is that the instructions are not optional. If Ikea gives you a 20 step process for putting a picture in a frame, you’d better follow each step exactly or you know something will be screwed up. I meticulously laid out the pieces and found all the odd shaped screws and got to it. A few hours later, my desk that consists of 5 pieces of MDF board was standing proudly in the corner. I went to set up the computer on it and discovered that it was sadly not as solid as the in-store model. In fact, I am glad that I got myself an LCD panel recently, because I am pretty sure if I put a CRT monitor on this unit I would end up with a pile of MDF sawdust. If this blog entry seems to end suddenly, you will know there has been a disaster.

After my reasonable success (hey, I didn’t accidentally build it backwards or anything) with the computer desk, I decided to take a crack at the dresser on Wednesday. The dresser, as you can imagine, was a little more complicated. When I saw the step-by-step guide was as thick as the New York City Yellow Pages, I knew I had my work cut out for me. Again I laid everything out and got to work. The thing I love about Ikea is when the pieces they say are supposed to fit together do not. In this case, once I reached the assembly of the drawers stage, the groove that the drawer bottoms was supposed to slide into did not extend all the way to the corner of the drawer. I learned long ago that from time to time undocumented Ikea modifications are required to finish an Ikea assembly project. So I proceeded to ding the corners of the masonite to make everything fit just so. I learned that trick from Bob Vila… honest. Somewhere around 10 PM the project was complete, and I now have a nice looking dresser – “looking” being the keyword.

At the end of the day, despite the below-par quality, and the hassle of RTA furniture, Ikea has solved a problem for me in an affordable manner. I now have a place to put my computer and a place to put my clothes. It may not be the swankiest solution, but it is a solution. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that somewhere in Sweden there is a man who is laughing at me.

2006-09-04T17:36:00.000-06:00

Well we are back from Mexico, and what an experience it was! It was like nothing I had ever done before, likely because it was something I had never done before. I have compiled a list of interesting observations from my trip.

1. Mexican people have got to be among the friendliest people in the world (right up there with Nova Scotians).

2. If you need to pass someone in Mexico, just pull out and pass them. Oncoming cars will actually veer onto the shoulder to give you room. This was a little unnerving the first time it happened on the bus to the hotel, but soon I learned it was the norm.

3. It seems only men are worthy of being offered tequila after dinner.

4. Do not get between an American and an all-you-can-eat buffet.

5. All Mexicans pronounce buffet "boofet" instead of "buffay".

6. Everything you look at in the market has a "good price".

7. In Mexico, you can get a sunburn in the shade.

8. No hangovers in Mexico

9. Most of the Mayan Riveria lies underground and is accessible via cenotes, basically big holes in the rock that expose the underground water. They are great for swimming in.

10. Lizards that may wander into your room are harder to catch than mice. It's best just to learn to co-exist peacefully.

11. An alarming number of people, when given the choice between laying beside a pool or laying on a beautiful sandy beach not 10 feet away, will choose the former.

12. Topless beaches are not nearly as exciting as they sound.

13. When it rains, it pours.

14. Iguanas are our friends, iguanas are our enemies.

15. It is easier to get into Mexico as a tourist than it is to get into many bars in Canada.

16. You can always get a better price.

17. Playa del Carmen sadly has a Wal*Mart.

18. The Mayan people had everything figured out hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived.

19. Everyone loves Superman.

20. If you go to Mexico with someone you love, you just might have the time of your life.