Discovering Perspective

Get ready for an early morning and lots of cool finds. I'm excited.

The sign of the warmer weather are all the nasty bugs that come out of hiding to make your stomach turn. The one I hate the most I was lucky enough to never have to deal with in London but they've been everywhere in Ottawa. The house centipede. WARNING! They are really gross don't look if you can't handle it.

Last night I found one in the bathtub and smushed it without too much of a fight. But my stomach was turning and Mekki and I wanted to find out how to get rid of these yucky yucky bugs. After a bit of googling we learned that they are one of the least harmful pests to have in your house and they actually eat the silver fish and spiders we'd also like to get rid of. But I'd rather the spiders and silver fish to these things. So we'll try to keep the bathroom as dry and clean as possible and hopefully that will do it.

Anyways, this was 3am and I was feeling grossed out and didn't want to spend the night dreaming about them so I spent a good half hour on cuteoverload.com. I was feeling better and decided I'd just seal it off with the puppy pics and then I'd be ok for bed. I was showing Mekki one of the last pics when I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I thought to myself "calm down, you're over-reacting and seeing things." Then I saw it again, looked down and another one was scurrying its way across the room and under my chair where it decided to stop.

Good thing I was previously being irrational and had put my feet up on the desk for the previous half hour.

Mekki went to go get a shoe and when he came back the stupid thing was gone. Well, we can't go to bed knowing it's still around. And so began the hour long hunt around the office. It would peak its head out, Mekki would try to hit it with his shoe and back under the shelves or behind boxes it would go. Sort of like the gopher carnival game.

These guys know when one of their own has been murdered and then relentlessly play with you and creep you out. Just when you thought it was safe...

(And the feet are back up off the floor. Time for some more cuteoverload)

The big one on the to-do list every summer is teaching myself AutoCAD. In one day I've managed to review everything I went over last summer (which admittedly wasn't much) and am on to the next lesson.

The online tutorial I found is pretty decent but the big test will be trying to do a drawing from scratch and not just replicate the assignments. Despite all the criticism Carleton gets for not "teaching" us AutoCAD, I still think it would be a waste of time. Anyone who graduates from the program is smart enough and resourceful enough to pick it up without much trouble. The logic of how to design a floorplan is what requires the years of learning. The tool with which it is produced is trivial (to a certain extent).

Anyways, it's going pretty smoothly so far. I just finished the computer room assignment without too much trouble and in decent time. But I still like the look and feel of hand drafted drawings and I don't think that is likely to change.

For those of you who have recently asked the question "Why would you want a barcode scanner?"...

After three long days, we have the preliminary results.

634 books and 217 console games inventoried. (Well actually I didn't use the scanner for the games)

I used elibPro for the software to do the web searches off the barcodes. (http://songstech.com/elibpro.html) Though it's not as customizable as I would have liked, it was free and easy to use.

For those of you about to embark on the inventorying band wagon... I now know way more about UPCs, EANs, ISBNs, barcodes, etc. than anyone should know. A hint for you all. Look on the inside front cover of your paperback novels. That's the barcode you need since it references the ISBN.

I haven't played with formatting the information yet (there are lots of options including cover images, descriptions, etc.) but for anyone wishing to virtually peruse Mekki and my library/console game collection, check out:

http://www.mektek.ca/bookshelf/
http://www.mektek.ca/gameshelf/

Canada, do we really only have the Oilers and the Sens left? There goes the ratings for the CBC and Hockey Night in Canada.

What's left for me now?

I just heard back from the CCA and unfortunately I didn't get the research fellowship for the summer. I'm a bit disappointed. The application was a lot of work and a lot of stress in the middle of my finals at school and I was looking forward to the opportunity to work in a research setting. However, putting together the application was a good experience and I think it will help in the future. All my profs warned me that there is an art to this sort of thing and a lot of politics beyond my control.

So back to the drawing board, or maybe research table. I'm still decompressing a bit after the end of the semester and need to meet with my thesis advisor to figure out where I'm going and what I'm doing so that I can make the most productive use of my summer. I'll also try looking into some more job opportunities in Ottawa but it's slim pickings (ie non-existant). I've also been considering just looking into a few architectural competitions and some calls for papers and see if I can relate them to prep work for my thesis. Luckily with my T.A. position I'm not too worried about funds for the summer but I do need something to keep me occupied and sane.

It also means I'll be around for ultimate and other social events for the summer. And I get to spend more time with Mekki.