Gubernatorial

It really is one of my favourite words. Just say it out loud, and slowly, letting those big, round, slippery syllables slide around in your mouth.

gu·ber·na·to·ri·al. adj. of or relating to a governor. Latin gubernator governor, steersman, from gubernare to govern — more at govern.

Why do I mention this now, you ask? (You know, of course, that I'm going to tell you even if you didn't.) Well, I spent a short period of today standing about three feet away from the Gubernatorial gentleman from this state.

Yes, Arnold Schwarzenneger, the Governator himself, was in the building, talking trade and stem cells and the environment. And he did, in fact, stop just a few feet away from me on his way out, smiling and shaking hands and generally having an informal photocall. The man certainly knows how to work a crowd, doubtless one of the benefits of having a pre-office life as a famous actor, bodybuilder and general popular guy. In the face of such star power, Poor Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty didn't even stand a chance.

Governer Schwarzenegger even stopped on his way in to the building, in more or less the same spot, to allow photos, then apologized that he had a press conference to get to, and told us (I kid you not at all), "I'll be back". I still haven't decided if that was cute, or cheesy. Probably a bit of both. But nobody else could get away with it.

Having finally gotten back to work, compared video and pictures (no, I didn't bring the Sony Monster to work, so I don't have any of my own), resuscitated one of our technicians who had a bit of a meltdown after Governor S. agreed to pose for a photo with her, and generally milked the event for as much conversation as possible, I realized a couple of things:

1. His suit, an unprepossessing tan affair, probably costs approximately six times as much as all of the suits I've ever owned put together. That would be 18 Ricardipus-suit-equivalents, roughly.

2. He's not as tall as I thought... Premier McGuinty, who I'm somewhat reliably told is six-foot-four, towers over him.

3. He's responsible for a state that has an economy and a population that are both considerably bigger than those of Canada. No wonder we pay attention when he visits.

4. He has a very good tan.

And that's about all I have to say about that event. It was different, it was fun, it injected a lot of energy into the middle of the day, and now it's over and we can all get back to doing something else.

Spot the difference

Gosh, all those long blog posts have left me completely tired out. So instead, you get this "spot the difference" photo quiz à la Misty:

Answers in the comments box, please.

Hint: one of the two started its life as a screamingly funny attempt to impersonate a fish. Well, Junior Ricardipus #2 was amused, anyway.

EAST COAST BLOGMEET A RAMPAGING SUCCESS!

Ok, it didn't exactly "rampage". Also, I am posting this very, very late because that's just the way I am. For a more timely review, go here.

As I noted before, after a lot of faffling around with different modes of transportation, I actually managed to find myself in an airport conveniently located about on the East Coast of this country, a mere 1,925 miles (that's about, oh, 3,100 km) driving from where I live, if MapQuest is to be believed. But only a badger-hop or two from where my partner in Blogmeet crime hangs out.

Let me tell you this... after the incredibly polite security people at Heathrow ("excuse me sir, I'm going to search you, is that alright? It's a random search, every twentieth person", and "I'm going to swab your laptop, is that alright?" - I hate to think what would have happened if I'd said "no" though), I didn't think it possible that people could be even nicer when they're looking for ways to deny you entry to a country.

Except that this is Canada, folks. And the East Coast, where people are notoriously friendly (so it's said). Smiley, happy, friendly Customs people, even at 1:00 AM or so. Amazing.

Of course, I *still* had to line up for long enough that the other blogger was beginning to wonder if I was going to show up or not. But I did, and there she was, all bundled up against the weather, grinning like a grinny thing on National Grinning Day in Grinland, and carrying a tote bag that turned out to contain:

Balancing fish.

And the visit was wonderful, a long and I dare say sometimes rambling chat over the course of about three hours or so, after which she pointed me at the appropriate stairway up to the gates, said "bye" and sent me on my way.

I've really nothing terribly profound to say, other than it was lots of fun. But I'll leave you with a few other observations:

1. I'm not convinced Dawn is quite as short as she may have indicated previously. Judge for yourselves. I'm about 5-foot-10-and-a-bit, plus a bit of Powerpoint head:

2. Dawn may, quite possibly, be the.nicest.person.ever.

3. She gave me a lovely T-shirt with pictures of trilobites on it, which I shall have to keep safe from Junior Ricardipus #1, who will appropriate it immediately if he sees it.

4. That was the first time I've ever been in that particular Province of this particular country. I shall have to return sometime and see it a) during daylight, and b) outside of the airport, pleasant and stylish place though it is.

So there you go. The East Coast Blogmeet, an unqualified success. And it was the First Annual one, allegedly. So stay tuned for next year!

It's really that simple?

Right, after all of this faffling around with various modes of transportation, I did, in fact, manage to attend the East Coast Blogmeet. Which I will tell you all about... shortly.*

After which, I flew from there to here (more or less), hopped in the rental car, and drove for about three hours to the other end of Lake Ontario where I attended a high school reunion. I didn't think I'd ever do that, but it was actually kind of fun. I got to revisit some old haunts, including the lighting cage where I spent many hours working on various school plays:


The dear old cage has lots of archaic stuff in it, including this rather attractive set of dimmer levers. If you look carefully, you'll see that there's an on/off switch under each. The wires leading to these switches are not terribly well insulated, and I gave myself a nice zap on one of them on at least one occasion.



But the best part is this:






Boys, Girls. On, Off. Who knew it was that easy?



*Dawn is going to kill me if I don't get around to it soon.

P.S. I just love how the Blogger image upload tool fails, gives you an error code and additional details to report, then fails to provide a link to report it. Try looking around the Blogger website too. Do you see a support link for reporting problems? If it's there, I sure can't find it.

And here we are again, in transit. Part two.

(Please note: this was all written last week. Or on the weekend. Or something. Oh, I don't know anymore. Anyway I hadn't been to the East Coast Blogmeet yet.)

---

Through the miracles of modern blogging, you may or may not see this part two before you see the first or even second parts of part one. You see, I’ve donated part one to Zoe who is rather busy with her not-exactly-top-secret project that may or may not have something to do with writing a literary magnum opus. So over at her place, you’ll see part one (in two parts, part one part one and part one part two) in two parts, said parts of which each may, in part, precede this part two.

At least, that’s my understanding of how it’s going to work.


EDIT: actually, part one part one and part one part two are already posted here, too. It's all very confusing really.

So – having spectacularly failed to update any of you my actual time at The Great Big Genome Centre That Isn’t Terribly Close To Anywhere In Particular™, I find myself on a plane.

Again.

It’s different this time though… one of those spiffy Airbus things with the back-of-seat, on-demand entertainment systems. You know, the kind where you irritate the person in front of you by punching the touchscreen to select your menu choices, flipping through all of the options just in case there might be something slightly better than Music and Lyrics, featuring that same baffled British actor as was in the movie you avoided watching crossing the Atlantic in the opposite direction, three days ago.

As I write this, I’m actually watching some concert video of Coldplay, live in Canada. And I can say this: they’re not as crap as I’d always suspected. So now you know. But the other options are just too dismal to itemize here.

Other things I have learned during this trip:

1) The pied wagtail is a very handsome little black and white bird that runs around on the ground in an endearing manner.

2) There is no free wireless internet in Heathrow airport, despite the prevalence of unsecured wireless networks. You connect, and are immediately presented with one of several screens describing in agonizing detail the various and assorted ways in which one might pay for internet access. Faced with this, the coin-operated terminals in the “overflow seating area” of Terminal 3 look positively democratic.

3) A cab from that Genome Centre to Heathrow is over 100 UK pounds. I have now set a new record, far surpassing the $60 US I spent getting from Phoenix Sky Harbor airport to Scottsdale.

4) Coldplay songs all kind of sound the same.

And I’m now on my way to a certain East Coast Airport where I shall, if all goes well, meet legendary Blogger, Theatre Person, Photographer, and Performer Of Many Choral Works™ Dawn, unless our plans completely fail. Either way, I’ll doubtless tell you all about it some time later, possibly appearing either before, during or after this post, part one of part one, part two of part one, or maybe just not at all if I can’t get the timing right.

It’s very complicated to be me.

And here we are again, in transit (cont'd)

Part II. Which you can also read over at Zoe's place. Posted very late as this actually happened last week.


(Where we pick up the story with your author, Ricardipus, on a coach somewhere in Merrie Olde Englande.)

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[Author notes: The bus I am currently sitting on juist stopeed [another note: I’m leaving those typos in cos I think they are funny] at some kind of uber-roundabout. I am now terrified.]

[Author notes again: we escaped. I now have no idea where we are. Some place with a College and a Civic Gardens, allegedly in between Heathrow and Cambridge. I suspect Luton. Wherever it is, it has a rather nice canal with verdant undergrowth, pretty trees and some attractive ducks. Not Scaryduck, real feathery ones.]

[Author notes a third time, and I promise it will be the last for now: I am in Hemel Hempstead. Only in England would you find a place with such a stupid name.]

Let me tell you this about Heathrow airport: I hate it. It is perhaps the Worst Place On Earth, unless you believe that achieving a discounted airfare to Uruguay by waiting in line for seventeen hours is a Good Thing. Mrs. Ricardipus and I once spent an inordinate amount of time circling around the place on foot and in various shuttle buses (one notably driven by a Wizened Old Gent, who was rather helpful as I recall), passing time and time again an oil company sign that, because of the curvature of the building it was displayed on, said "HELL". Which pretty much summed up our opinion of the place. Said opinion not improved recently by me having to walk from Terminal 3 to the Central Bus Station, which is conveniently located in Terminal 2. Approximately 63,457 miles from Terminal 3, through a series of ever-dingier and more horrifying underground passageways filled with pleasant illuminated signs cheerfully indicating things like "Central Bus Station, Right This Way!", "Please Be Careful Not To Fall On Your Bottom As You Exit The Mobile Walkway", and "Travel Insurance! Only One Pound Extra! So When Some American Git Sues You For Dropping Your Suitcase On His Toe, You Can Pay Out, No Problem!"** and things like that.***

Anyway, how and hoo, I am on the bus now en route to Cambridge, so that I can collect a horribly expensive taxi to The Big Genome Centre In The Big Back End Of Beyond which is where I will be visiting. Once there, I will have ethernet in the room, and wireless all over the place (so it is promised), so batten down your hatches, dig in to the trenches and be prepared for a blog barrage. It is coming, and I will be behind the (virtual, happy-shiny, not-death-dealing-at-all) cannons.****



** Slightly exaggerated, for effect.
*** OK, I think we now have a new winner in the longest sentence sweepstakes.
**** Discerning readers will notice that this is a lie. I did not blog squat while I was there.

And here we are again, in transit

You can read this over at Zoe's blog as well, but her waffle-powered Belgian computer has messed up all the coding and the links and all that. So you get it here, too.

---

Part I

I was on a plane. Again.

Fortunately, I slept through most of both movies (two movies? I guess it’s been a while since I flew trans-Atlantic. Such opulence!). Since the first was Eragon, which, truth be told, was an epic, not terribly well written, but nevertheless eminently readable book turned into a rather dreadful movie with a peculiarly muppet-like dragon, and the second was that Bridget Jones donkey with Colin Firth looking all manly and Rene Zelwegger doing her usual squinty acty thing, all references to a suitably baffled and annoying Hugh Grant incorporated by implication, I can’t say that I’m really upset.* It beats my usual experience of wanting to watch the movie and finding the sound to be completely shot, which, believe me, happens a lot more frequently to me, personally, than you might imagine.

Surprisingly enough, the airplane breakfast was quite tasty, a curiously flavourless fruit plate notwithstanding. Bewilderingly, the salt and pepper paper sachets were accompanied by a second set of plastic containers, these in the shape of miniature hockey pucks. The pepper had a slogan in Canada's Other Official Language™; something about “hockey being everything”. The salt, anachronistically, simply said “Have A Nice Day”. I was surprised by the AirCanadaOmelette, which was quite edible and came with some rather nice potatoes and a dollop of zingy but not-too-hot salsa. Believe me, it far surpassed the now-legendary Particularly Nasty Omelette™ that Mrs. Ricardipus and I had the dubious pleasure of consuming on a British West Indies Airlines flight to Antigua, circa 1991. A picture taken on that vacation is here; there is, thank goodness, no corresponding picture of the omelette in question. Bleeeeurgh is the only appriate [Author’s note – amusing typo left stet] descriptor that I can think of right now.

Bug spray on the plane, ground crabs the size of antelopes, everybody trying to sell you everything constantly, and airplanes that Air Canada saw fit to de-commission and sell to the suckers at BWIA, made up the rest of that vacation. Enough said, I believe, on that topic.


*That, my friends, may just be the longest sentence I’ve ever written.

---

Part II tomorrow.

As Sam Gamgee said:

"Well, I'm back".


And all I can tell you right now is to agree with Dawn that the East Coast Blogmeet was an unqualified success.

One or other of us will tell you all about it. Soon. In the meantime, I think she has some clues over at Flickr, but perhaps you'd better ask her all about it.


P.S. Note to Dawn - arrived home safely and am much more coherent now than I was at 4:00 Saturday morning. Ta again.

--

EDIT: Today I saw a banana-yellow Lamborghini Murcielago and a shiny red Ferrari 348, both as I was driving to the airport to return my rental Pontiac G5, an altogether much lower-powered beast. Oh yes, and there's a budgie perched on my laptop screen as I'm typing this. Taken together, all of this evidence is overwhelming, indicating that I must therefore really be home now.

I've been tagged

by Debi.

Argh.

Seven random things:

1) I am so jetlagged that I can barely type.

2) I have no idea where my travel alarm clock is. I'm guessing that "not in my hotel room" is a reasonable description of its current location.

3) I suppose that dinosaurs must have farted. I suspect that said farts would be really, really stinky.

4) It's either a) 10:56 PM (computer), 2:56 AM (watch), 12:00 midnight (unreliable cell phone), or some completely unknown, random time (television; no information available, typical UK useless crap)

5) "Arsinoitherium" is the name of a prehistoric mammal.

6) One of the Best Record Albums Ever™ is Dare, by The Human League.

7) Dawn will be the first blogger I've ever met in person, if all goes well.



I have no idea who to tag... so Scaryduck, Zoe, TRT, Dawn, Rikaitch, Wyldwoods, Alethea if anyone's listening (links to be added later, I'm waaaay too tired right now).

Leavin', on a jet plane

Well, I'm off to the sunny rainy British Isles on a whirlwind tour of Heathrow Airport, some bus route or other, and a large research centre in the Freakin' Middle of Nowhere™.

And you all know what that means...

ONLY FOUR DAYS UNTIL THIS.

I am supposed to be looking for a not-tremendously-tall woman with funky glasses, possibly carrying a beagle and/or wearing a badger, perhaps launching into Handel's Messiah at the top of her lungs, waving a chainsaw and shooting digital camera pix from the hip. In the middle of the night. In an airport I've never been to.

I'm hoping it doesn't all turn out to be a jetlag-induced hallucination.


--


w00ty w00ty w00ty w00t!!!!!!!!!!!!! More than 5,000 visitors! How gratifying.

The obligatory post with cars and pictures

Well, as I've been muttering recently, spring has finally sprung in this part of the world and the back yard is beginning to fill up with hanging baskets of flowers:


Petunias and some yellow things.


Unfortunately, the back yard is also filling up with weeds:


This is a dandelion.


And occasionally with hack photographers taking pictures of themselves through glass tabletops:


Ricardipus.


and really silly looking birds, too.


A Common Grackle, Quiscalus quiscula, marching along.

--

Oh yes, cars... well, recently, a bright red Ferrari (probably a 360 Modena) which my morning bus overtook on the highway; a white Lamborghini Gallardo parked near a waste transfer station (I suspect mob activity); and a spiffy, late-model Mustang GT at the local chopper shop (that's a "custom motorcycle modification and fabrication establishment" for you non-North Americans). A rather large number of convertible Mercedes seem to have crept out of the woodwork too, as well as the drop-top BMW M3 that I saw yesterday as it gradually left us behind on a country road. And there have even been some old muscle cars, escaping their winter garages: Camaros, older Mustangs, and the like. All in all, a good week or two.

HR has been notified, part III

Dear Sir,
find attached my Resume
Urs Faithfully


Sigh.

Also, if you're serious about the job, I strongly suggest actually including your c.v. or resume with your job application.

Sigh.

What does my daddy do?

For Junior Ricardipus #1's school project:


I am a Scientist.

I work at [The Big Hospital Downtown].

Things I do every day are discovering how diseases make people sick, helping other scientists with their experiments, reading about new discoveries and writing about our discoveries.

What I like best about my job is meeting other scientists from all over the world.


Lies, all lies.

Lazy blogging

Inspired* by Scaryduck's recent post about lazy blogging, I've also trolled through various hard drives, USB keys and the like, looking for random stuff. You know, the kind of things that are the equivalent of the "needs to be filed" pile on my desk at work.

So, we have:

A picture of a greebly guy that I drew, oh, more than 20 years ago:



A picture of a certain duck, screen-grabbed from one of the Scaryvision episodes and lightly edited:





And this really stupid cartoon version of my avatar-dude:




This concludes today's supreme, utter laziness. Well, here at the blog, anyway. Further laziness at home will doubtless ensue.


*In other words, I'm using it as an excuse to do the same thing.

How to make a website, part 1

THE SUBCONTRACTING METHOD
(Based on a true story. But only slightly. Actually it's more like little bits of several true stories all spliced together and liberally sprinkled with lies.)

First, find a web development company. There are many. They all have names like Inzizivon, or Terriblon, or VoNsTARtechnologiX. The sales people are all younger, better looking, better dressed and better paid than you are. The developers are all younger, smell worse, have worse clothes, and are better paid than you are. They also speak gibberish. Fortunately, the sales people form a firewall preventing you from interacting directly with the developers, and they speak fluently, although their conversation is littered with buzzwords like "market focus", "client-centric" and "enablement", and is fueled by caffeinated beverages that cost more than you typically spend on lunch. Wear sunglasses, their teeth are blinding.

The conversation will go something like this:

You: I need a website made.

Marketing person: We do that! Take a look at these excellent websites we did. Linky, linky, linky.

You: [Linky linky links] Those websites use Flash. My computer doesn't have up to date Flash on it and I don't seem to be able to upgrade it successfully.

MP: Oh. Well, go to our website and look at the linky links to other sites we did that don't use Flash. They're all listed, right there!

You: [faffling around with Internet] Your website uses Flash. My computer doesn't have up to date Flash on it and I don't seem to be able to upgrade it successfully.

MP: Oh. I forgot. Ha ha ha, let me buy you a latte. Here are some linky linky links to those websites.

You: [linky linky linking] Wow, those are kewl! Can you make me one? But, you know, it would be great if it had animated thingies on it. You know, with Flash or whatever.

MP: We do that!

You: Kewl. How much does it cost? You know, for a basic website with a half-a-dozen pages, and maybe a little feedback form so people can sign up for a mailing list, or send us a comment, or whatever? And I'd like one of those cool graphics like I saw on that other website you showed me.

MP: Sure! That will cost [types furiously on calculator while neither breaking a sweat nor losing expensive-looking smile]... eighteen million dollars!

You: Okay, thanks, um, I'll have to think about it.

You can repeat this process with as many web development companies as you like. The results will be the same, always.

Next time: part 2, the "Get your friend's nephew to do it" approach.*



*Guess what? This doesn't work, either.