Let's Make Some Art, Dammit

January 30, 2017. This is another frame from the collection I bought at the auction, an apparently genuine memento from the Mao Mausoleum.

January 29, 2017. This is a take-hme from the auction. It was part of a 'box lot' - I paid $12 for a box full of rints and other art, mainly for the frames, but this gem was sitting in the middle of them, worth more than the box, the lot, and probably several other box lots. Love it!

January 27, 2016. I was back in Gatineau today at the Astocou where I condicted a 4.5 hour workshop with members of the Canadian School of Public Service. Lots of great content and conversation. I'll be sharing in the future but for now this is all a work in progress.

January 26, 2017. Just outside my office. Another day heads down on the CSPS project. At least it's not dark when I leave the office - well, not quite dark.

January 25, 217. Fcused on nothing but my CSPS report today, though I had to drive into the city to pick up prescriptions and groceries. No gas needed; it's still too cold to barbeque. Plus, I don't own a barbeque.

January 24, 2016. I'm working flat out on the School of Public Service project, and in the evenings playing some Civilization VI. This is the screen just before I ended the last empire, taking a win at the King level. As always, Civ plays weird: Steam will not run when I'm online (it just crashes), only when I'm offline. Go figure.

January 23, 2017. Spent all day working on a report, punctuated only by meetings. So my day was like this sky. On the way home I checked in at the pharmacy to see if they had a prescription (they did not) at the site of the future Costco, pictured. Some days are just gray.

January 22, 2017. Spent the day indors watching bit of dull football games, working on Vagrant, and - in my one productive act of the day - cleaning everything in the Microwave nook.

January 23, 2017. Spent all day working on a report, punctuated only by meetings. So my day was like this sky. On the way home I checked in at the pharmacy to see if they had a prescription (they did not) at the site of the future Costco, pictured. Some days are just gray.

January 22, 2017. Spent the day indors watching bit of dull football games, working on Vagrant, and - in my one productive act of the day - cleaning everything in the Microwave nook.

.@mike_holmesjr We ran some errands and then spent the afternoon at the Ottawa Home & Remodelling Show 2017, which features a presentation by Mike Holmes Jr. on home renovation. As someone who recently renovated a home it was interesting, and of course I'm always interested in seeing how people give presentations. It was a good talk, useful advice, and fun to see after we watched his show with his father through the season.

January 19, 2017. This is the equipment in the back of my building at the NRC campus. I have an industrial sort of day today as well, ploughing through resources and assembling research at an accelerated pace. Days like that are good.

January 18, 2018. This is Lexi. She is nt afraid to get her head right under th tap, all in the pursuit of fresh cold water. Today was a good day; several happy developments but nothing to report just yet.

January 17, 2017. Another great view from the kitchen window. A couple meetings today, and I'm a bit distracted by a side project (details later if I finish it). Things are beginning t o get busy again and I'm liking it.

January 16, 2016. Internet and email were spotty at best in the office so I came home early to get some work done, and was treated with this picturesque view of the home town.

January 15, 2016. This is my coffee cup. It gets a lot of use (so does the table surface behind it). I bought it in Aachen years ago. Good day today - ran node.js on an Ubuntu image on Docker, which was running on another Ubuntu image in Vagrant running VirtualBox on my Windows 10 laptop. Probably overkill, but I wanted to see if I could do it. Still one layer of port forwarding too many.

January 14, 2017. This is our vacuum cleaner, the photo taken in the middle of the living room as the last thing I did before going to bed. Did some spinning, some writing, some coding - a relaxed kind of day. Accomplishments: - review of a longish document

January 13, 2016. Chilly cold today. Forgot my badge so I parked on the other side of the building. This was the view outside the front window of my car. Couple meetings, some errands, and a little bit of actual work done.

January 12, 2016. This is the Nation River at the railway bridge where it crosses at Casselman in the foggy morning light. Good today, advanced quite a bit in my understanding of server virtualization.

January 11, 2017. These Pitahaya blanca, aka dragon fruit, were observed at the Embrun Indepenent grocery store, which is where I went for lunch when the power cut out in Casselman. We were in the dark most of the day, even though it was sunny and warm. But we had wind. A lot of wind.

January 10, 2017. I bought this Buddha when I was in Thailand; I selected it because it was the oldest and unpolished-looking in the set. It sits on my dining room table. I spent the day today partially in my home office and partially at the dining room table working (mostly) on making different Python sevrices run - get a website, store a website, run a little web server. Once I get a Mongo DB set up and running with Python, and the whole works running on Docker, I'll be set to roll with my new applications. Won't be long now.

January 9, 2016. This is the CSIS building on a cold overcast January day as seen from the parking lot where I work. Short project meeting, some more Python practice, a couple errands, and that was my day. Listened to a lot of Metric and Sara Barellis. Accomplishments: - completed Codecademy Python course

January 8, 2017. I spent the ulk of the day rebuilding my desktop software envirnment (would have been easierwith faster download speeds). The fresh new Windows 10 is zippier than the ugrade installed over Windows 7. Also did more Codecademy Python. Getting near the end.

January 7, 2016. Another visit to the zoo (aka Costco) today. This is out back, which was the only place to find parking. It's full of mystery. Is this where they store plastic wrap or (as I assume) where they dispose of it for recycling? Why is there still snow on the lids - are they not recycling? Why is the lable missing from one of the containers? Accomplishments - new seat for the spin trainer - some more Python badges on Codecademy - reinstalling Windows from bare metal on the main computer (sigh)

January 6, 2017. Quite cold today with a clear blue sky. I see this church every day when I drive in - it's at 'the turn' on the 417 just past Anderson Road. To take this picture, though, I went off the highway and down a back road to get closer. Accomplishments: - a bunch more Codecademy Python badges.

January 5, 2016. This is the side of highway 417 where I had to wait a few moments while they hauled a car out of the ditch. The blue sky means colder temperatures and that's what we got. Accomplishments: - wrote a short article on tech making us smarter - answered a questionaire on MOOCs - compiled and forwarded list of MOOC course resources - several more Python badges from Codecademy

January 4, 2016. We had snow today, and even a power outage for a bit, all on top of the ice from yesterday. This is what everything looks like. Just for fun, my snow day turned into a sick day as I fought a cold or something (happily, I got my flu shot in November, so I'm not among the hundreds suffering from H2N3 today). p.s. It turns out there's a major fire burning in the centre of Casselman right now...

January 3, 2017. Freezing rain today, morning and evening. So it was a slow drive in and out. The rest of the day was occupied with a couple of meetings and some work on the MOOC aggregation tool. This frozen scene is from across the road and down a bit from my house in Casselman.

January 2, 2016. Still working on Docker today, without a lot of success. Also went in to Costco, which was a zoo. These are trucks unloading at the dock in the back of the store. Where I parked.

January 1, 2017. Spent the day indoors working on my landscape document and also setting up an AWS/Docket environment. Unformtunately, docker-cloud had a bug in it, so it doesn't all work. But it's good experience and I like what I'm seeing.