That Damn Murphy With His Damn Laws and Shit
June 16th, 2005Heather just finished her panel. She kicked ass. I’m very proud of her. The discussion about what is “interaction”—what it used to mean in different media, and what it’s become to mean—was a good one.
Vancouver reminds me very much of San Francisco, but minus the U.S. part.
Also, 3hive is pseudo-down. We keep losing our log-ins and even after an mt_author table rebuild, we can’t get in. I think it’s a Movable Type bug, because none of the other installs I’ve done have shown this problem. Of course, this happens on a trip that’s supposed to be vacation…
Canada is lovely. o
June 16th, 2005 at 6:13 pm
sounds about as fun as tracking down how to kill zombie processes on Oracle/J2EE containers. And then there’s the bloody connection pool issue. And dont forget about the exceptions that the stored procedure’s insufficient privledges on the USER_EMAIL table are generating. ALL IN ONE DAY.
sorry, was this the QA Engineer Tech Vent forum?
June 16th, 2005 at 8:00 pm
Ah *swoon* I love, love, love Vancouver. I lived there my entire life up until November 2003 when we moved to Edmonton for my husband’s work. Aside from the dryer summers here in Alberta, which I prefer, I can’t think of a single reason I wouldn’t want to go back to Vancouver. Isn’t it just beautiful there?? I miss the mountains and the ocean, and the clean air. Well I guess you have mountains and clean air in Utah, too, so that much isn’t really new to you
But I hope you enjoy your stay in my city nonetheless!
June 16th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
I’m a Canadian who lives in Vancouver. I appreciate your kind statements about ‘my’ city. Funny how attached we get to the places we live. I hope you and Heather didn’t get panhandled to death…homelessness and crystal meth addiction are two of our biggest problems right now.
June 16th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
welcome to my hometown! if you think vancouver is like san fran go and check out the west end. davie street and english bay are a must see for sure. you’ve probably noticed that your laptops will be able to pick up lots of wifi. If you two are into really good food take a cab to commercial drive and check out havana for breakfast- IT IS TO DIE FOR.
have fun!
June 16th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
canada is lovely. i’m from los angeles, and i’m in vancouver taking some summer courses at the university of british columbia (UBC). the place has had a much needed calming effect on me. if you have time to roam around, i recommend checking out the beaches–even if its not beach weather– as i believe that you should stick your toes in the ocean every chance you get! there is also a cool collection of totem poles and other sculptures by local indigenous groups at the museum of anthropology (www.moa.ubc.ca) and finally, the nitobe memorial japanese garden (www.nitobe.org) is an especially lovely place just across the street from that museum.
have fun!
June 17th, 2005 at 9:57 am
MT problems? Well, what can I say. It’s written in PERL…
June 17th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Jessca: be careful! I moved to Edmonton from Vancouver almost 20 years ago and somehow never made it back. The only thing I really miss about Vancouver is the ocean, but if you can get out of town the giant skys around here are a pretty good substitute. Oh, and the 9 o’clock gun. I wonder if they still do that? It’s a small cannon on the eastern shore in Stanley Park that they fire at 9pm every night. It used to be my Dad’s way of getting us kids asleep when we were over-stimulated. Nothing like a car rides and explosions to get little boys to sleep.
June 17th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
I love the way you talk about your wife - the way you are so proud of her.
Got a twin?
June 17th, 2005 at 1:39 pm
Canada is super fuckin’ lovely. I’m glad you two get to see British Columbia (if you haven’t been there before).
Have a great remaining holiday!
June 17th, 2005 at 3:21 pm
Canada thinks you’re lovely too.
June 17th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Vancouver is such a beautiful city. Three years ago I moved to Vancouver Island from the prairies - and an escape to Vancouver is always wonderful. There’s fantastic food all along Davie - greek, thai, chinese, japanese, indian oh I could go on! Davie Street will probably quite remind you of San Fran, perhaps more than any other part of the city, heh.
Enjoy the rest of your trip!
June 17th, 2005 at 3:34 pm
Jon, thank you so much for saying nice things about Canada. It’s…refreshing.
June 17th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
glad you’re enjoying Vancouver, too bad the weather is so sucky
lovely photos
June 17th, 2005 at 5:30 pm
go to Bin 941 or Guu for dinner. they rock. rock rock rock.
June 17th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
i live here it rocks hard !
June 17th, 2005 at 11:59 pm
and i wrote a post about your wife cause you both rock.
June 18th, 2005 at 12:11 am
I’m glad you like Vancouver, sorry the weather’s not fabulous. I love visiting there myself. If you have a chance you should check out Vancouver Island, since it’s so close and so full of beautiful places and good restaurants.
June 19th, 2005 at 8:35 am
Hey Jon, happy first Fathers Day to ya.
June 19th, 2005 at 8:54 am
happy father’s day jon! (leta was here last year for father’s day.) hope you’re enjoying canada with your lovely lady.
June 20th, 2005 at 12:09 am
Have had my eyes peeled for the Armstrong’s all weekend. Well, I would have except I had to go inland for a vacation. Of course the weekend the Armstrong’s are in Vancouver is when I had to go away. Otherwise I would have felt like a stalker. It’s so fun for me to think of you and Heather in my city - I couldn’t wait to see your comments. I love that you think it’s lovely. I also love that Heather is travelling around based on the fabulousness of Dooce!
June 20th, 2005 at 12:35 am
we think you (and heather) are very lovely too!
let us know when you plan to move up here
I think it’s safe to say you’d be able to score free babysitting!
June 20th, 2005 at 4:39 am
brown nosing canada is sooooooo gay. that goes for you and your wife.
don’t forget, i am still canadian.
now knock it off.
canada sucks as bad as anywhere else no matter what that fat pig michael moore says.
June 20th, 2005 at 11:26 am
merkley,
Was not brown nosing.
You obviously need to get laid, hopefully by a Canadian or MIchael Moore. Canadians are, on average, 1500 times nicer than you.
June 20th, 2005 at 11:58 am
hi Jon,
Not sure if you remember me - I’m that girl who asked to interview you and Heather after her panel.
I did blog it as promised, and sorta tried emailing, but figured it would get lost in the blackhole of “the innernet” and this way might be better. If either of you have time to take a look, please let me know if there’s anything I ought to take out. 
I’m glad you enjoyed Canada/Vancouver/the west coast. It was so nice (rad, awesome, sweeeet) to talk to you both, and I appreciate you being so generous with your vacation time.
Thanks again!
June 20th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
The slideshow was breathtaking… I’ve never felt like I’ve wanted to actually take a vacation in Canada, but those pictures made me want to
PS, I HATE semi-down. It leaves me with false hope.
June 20th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
Sorry to hijack your comments, Jon, but Heather has posted an inaccuracy that *must* be corrected.
“You canít pause live television in Canada.”
Yes, you can. We just call it a pvr, not tivo.
Just wanted to make sure you had all your info right when contemplating the big move.
June 20th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
Just adding to MsSisyphus’ comment; you can actually even run TiVo itself. There’s an easy-to-install program that mimics the TiVo Listings Server, fetching guide data from DataDirect using a free WSDL service. Or you can get a Ti-faux from one of the cable providers.
Glad that you enjoyed Vancouver. Next, I’d recommend trying to find some conference / panel in Montreal or Ottawa. Or Calgary. Or Halifax. Or Toronto. Or just come to my friend’s cottage with us.
June 20th, 2005 at 11:33 pm
Ok. So we get it. You CAN pause live television in Canada. GOT IT.
None of you are Leta’s grandparents, so we probably won’t be moving to Canada soon. Unless Arnold gets elected President or maybe Frist. If Frist gets elected President… Gah.
June 21st, 2005 at 7:16 am
I have never seen so many pictures with Heather SMILING (Canada slideshow)! Must have had a super great time.
June 21st, 2005 at 7:53 pm
I suppose that would require an agreement on the definition of the word NICE.
I always have “nice” things to say about J. Armstrong. But that old grapevine — that pesky old grapevine…. not so nice that one.
anyway…. canadians are no more sincere or good than anyone else…
and — you get what goes to dooce — maybe that comes with the marriage stuff, i don’t know the legalities of blogs and marriage.
now if you’ll excuse me, there are some bunnies and rainbows flying out of my pants.
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:13 am
I visited Vancouver in December, trying to get away from Bushco and check out the alternatives. I fell in love with it too, and plan to move there as soon as I can (two more years to retirement.) Now that it has the Armstrong seal of Approval, it seems even more like the right choice. Hope that whacko Merkley guy isn’t based there…