Tag: Photos

As you’ve probably noticed already; I’ve finally switched over to the new look that I’ve been working on for CoffeeBear.net. It’s not 100% finished but it’s close enough that I wanted to go ahead and make the switch. My thanks go out to Root for his Trident interface/template on which this new look is based. Sure, my implementation isn’t fancy but it’s a nice change from the old look and is more mine than any other look that I’ve used.

Also, I’ve finally opened my Gallery for your viewing pleasure. Currently, the only thing in there are a selection of photos that I took during my Japan trip. I’ll be adding more to it later.

Enjoy!

Update: Err, I’ve noticed that the new look is busted up on my Portal page and on some of my posts. I’m working to correct that now.

Update 2: Oh and a word of caution, my gallery pages are massively picture heavy. I’ll see about sorting them out a bit later into smaller folders, but for now if you try viewing those pages over dial-up… You’ll be sitting there a while waiting for the thumbnails to load.

Update 3: I forgot to mention, my gallery is currently being powered by Paul Griffin’s Simple PHP Gallery

I’m back from Japan now. I have 2 more days of Japan to write up and a brief journal/paper that wraps the trip up, but I’ll get to that tomorrow. I’d also like to mention that I’ve started reading a book that was written by a friend of mine. That book is called Twilightners and is available from Amazon.com or from Lulu.com. For the record, while I may seem to complain about the trip a lot; I did enjoy it immensely. I plan to have some photos of it posted soonish but that might take a while as I still need to figure out how exactly I want to post them (e.g. what web-image gallery do I want to use). Once I have that all figured out; I’ll try to add appropriate images to the posts I made abotu Japan and will see about making an announcement that the images are available.

Today we went to Kyoto. We’d been warned that it was one of the hottest places in Japan, but I hadn’t paid too much attention to the warnings thinking that I wouldn’t really notice the difference after the heat I’d already been dealing with. Boy was I ever wrong! It was the single most brutal day of heat and misery that I’ve ever experienced. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d been wearing shorts, but AWelkin had mentioned prior to the trip that it was one of the more conservative areas of Japan and we shouldn’t wear shorts there because it’s just not done1. I have to say that if I’d known in advance how brutal the heat would be there; I would have ignored that cultural advice and worn shorts. It was horrific and it make matters worse, the main temple we’d come to see was more than just a little ways from the train station and all the walking was uphill. Before we got there though, we rode the local bus system which wasn’t too bad, except when it got crowded2. Once the bus desposited us at the base of the hill to the temple; we started the climb, ignoring all the shops on the way up. When we finally made it to the top of the hill; we found we had to go up a set of steep stairs to get to the actual temple area. I think we’d already visited another temple that day (I’ll have to go through all the tickets and scraps I saved from the trip to double-check) and so AWelkin allowed those students who wanted to; to rest at the base of the temples. Only about 5 of us (3, if you didn’t count AWelkin & Bryon) actually went in. It was the most beautiful temple we’d seen yet and had a view of the valley area below which rivalled (but didn’t quite beat) the view of the ocean at the one previous temple. Again, words fail me here so I’ll have to hurry up and see about posting some pictures.
(more…)

Before this horrid bit of legislation got passed; I was against it because I knew it was only a matter of time until the government was going to abuse it. Then like many people, I got distracted by my own life and forgot about it for a while because nothing was happening with it that affected me. Today, I happened across a link to Ian Spiers’ Brown Equal Terrorist website. The crap that Mr. Spiers had to go through is unfortunately all too believable and to me just proves that the USA PATRIOT Act should have never been passed.

The USA PATRIOT Act is an abusive law that gives the government excessive powers and as should have been expected by our representatives it was abused to harass an innocent U.S. citizen. Why was he harassed? Because there are still petty & shallow minded [insert explictive of your choice here] out there that think if you’re not a good, clean white-boy then you must be up to no-good.

Oh and for the record:

  • I am a white guy (part Scottish even).
  • I like to think of myself as an amatuer photographer and have taken courses at my local community college.
  • I carry a camera with me everywhere I go, but don’t take as many pictures as I’d like because I have nasty suspicions that somebody’s going to get the wrong idea of what I’m doing.

You’ve been here since the dawn of time itself, old timer, and you’ve been biding your time with your eye on the boss’s job.

You deserved to have a promotion. You’ve been here longer than anyone else. Your fingers have become craggy, and you see Excel spreadsheets when you go to sleep at night. More than half your life has been spent at budget meetings, advertising liason sessions, team-building seminars and pub lunches with people you hate. Yet for some reason you’ve been passed over every time in favour of younger, less competent workers.

No more. You’re at the end of your tether. Where’s your gold watch? Where’s your acknowledgement? Your raises? When does your time come around?

Your time is now, hombre.

Give me what's rightfully mine! Or I'll hit you with this brick.
Which Office Moron Are You?
Rum and Monkey: jamming your photocopier one tray at a time.