Journal Posts

I was doing a Google search the other day, looking for some photos of me at the last company I worked at, when I discovered US patent 7,958,276, Automatic Configuration of Peripheral Devices. When I worked at my previous company I started playing around with an algorithm to automatically configure a voice over IP device. One of the main problems people would have previously is that they would plug in a new audio device and have to spend a pile of time figuring out how to configure it. The same was true with video. So at the time I came up with basically a complicated priority list that would place certain classes of devices above other ones. For example, if you plugged in a $200 Plantronics headset, I considered it pretty likely you would want to use that over the internal microphone and speaker, so it would be configured automatically. […]

I went into my backpack tonight to look for my good buddy Waddles, but alas he’s nowhere to be seen. I’ve looked everywhere, but I just can’t find him 🙁 So, here’s the official wanted poster. One Argentine penguin. Answers to the name of “Waddles”. Last seen in Malta, but visited Rome briefly. Could be anywhere between Sliema, Malta and Novi Sad, Serbia. A handsome reward, in beer, for his discovery. Thanks.

In exactly four weeks from today, I’ll probably be waking up in Vancouver General Hospital after having my third surgery to correct some orbital fractures I received in 2006. I met with the surgical coordinator yesterday to complete all the pre-surgery documentation giving the surgeons my consent to operate on me, one more time. The surgeon performing the operation is one of the best in his field, even internationally. Years ago he helped start Singapore’s eye care centre, and he frequently travels and speaks at international conferences. He’s published several different books on eye surgery, and was recommended to me by pretty much all the surgeons I contacted in the United States over the last year. He recently retired from public practice, but after reviewing my case, decided to perform one more operation in an effort to help me out. Assisting with the surgery will also be Dr. David Rossman, […]

Vancouver has always been the only destination I’ve considered for the past few years to spend summer near. Last year unfortunately was a bit of a bust due to the weather, but I managed to spend four months around the Vancouver area back in the summer of 2011. I came back from Argentina at the end of June and spent a month in my home town, and am now in Yaletown for the remainder of August. For the first time in ages, I don’t have any travel plans at the moment. The main reason for that is because I am scheduled to have surgery on September 7th to finally correct a fractured eye socket that occurred back in 2006. I’ve had two similar reconstructive surgeries, one in 2006 and one in 2007 – unfortunately neither of them really managed to correct the root problem. This upcoming surgery promises to be […]

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done any sort of update on here, and I thought now was probably a good time to do one. I’m back from South America, and have been staying in Chilliwack for the last month. I just checked into an apartment in Vancouver’s Yaletown, and will be staying here for all of August. I haven’t lived in Vancouver for at least three and a half years I believe, so it will be nice being right downtown again. I currently have no concrete travel plans, other than a stirring desire to see Europe some time in the fall. I haven’t planned anything or purchased any tickets, so right now it’s just some random thoughts in the back of my head. Part of the reason I haven’t made any plans is that I need to be in Canada on September 7th for my 3rd surgery on […]

While I own several guitars, I previously have never attempted flying with a guitar. A quick Google search on the Internet reveals a lot of confusion about the process, as well as a few horror stories about damaged or stolen guitars. An infamous story of breakage ended in a viral internet video known as “United Breaks Guitars”: When I was in Argentina in 2011, I ended up having more free time than I thought I would have. In those moments, I really missed having access to a guitar that I could pick up and play. I went down to a local guitar store thinking I would buy something cheap, but it’s definitely hard going from a $1,000 – $2,000 guitar back down to a $100 one. Plus, I didn’t really want to deal with selling it when I was leaving. So for this trip I decided I would bring a […]

I’ve been spending a bit of time talking to Dale recently about life, careers, and where we both want to end up in the next few years. During one of our recent iChats, I was reminded of this Mexican Fisherman Story I heard a few years ago and managed to track it down. After I showed it to Dale he suggested I post it up here, because it has a fairly important message in it. An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.” The tourist then asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The Mexican said, […]

Without a doubt one of the hardest aspects of life on the road is saying goodbye to people you care about. Maybe it’s just a person you had an insightful conversation with at a bar one time, or maybe it’s someone that you spent a few weeks with traveling around a foreign country. But with that final hug (and it always comes unfortunately) comes the bittersweet knowledge that it will likely be quite some time before you get to meet them again. I spent eight months on the road this last year, and in that time met many great people. Since being home in December, I have watched on Facebook as one by one they have all made the journey back home. Some will visit new places this year I’m sure, but for others the journey is over for now and life once again goes on. In a little over […]

I decided when I got back from New Zealand that since I was going to be stuck at home for about four months I might as well try and get back in shape. Prior to all my surgeries and that bad infection I got that time in Vancouver, I was actually pretty skinny. But between all the recovery periods and the hardcore antibiotics I was on (vancomycin often causes weight gain in people and animals, probably because it wipes out a lot of the beneficial intestinal bacteria), I somehow put on a pile of weight. It also didn’t help that I ate primarily restaurant food for most of last year while traveling. I actually don’t really have a hard time losing weight. The trick for me is controlling all the variables though. That means cooking most meals for myself, spending lots of time at the gym, and knowing when to […]

As many people know, I suffered a few facial fractures back in 2006. The primary result of that incident was to put my cheekbone slightly out of alignment, as well as the complete destruction of the bone under my left eye (other than maybe a 1mm ledge on one side, there’s literally nothing there any more). I had one surgery back in 2006 to put my eye back in the right place. It improved things slightly, but still left me with a droopy eye and some residual double vision. About six months later the surgeon did a CT scan, which ultimately looked like this: The surgeon concluded at the time that the reason my eye was still droopy was because the orbital shape on the left side (which appears on the right in the CT image above) didn’t match the shape on the left. Effectively that leads to an increase […]