Catching Up

The presentation clogged up my blog buffer.

*flush*

Making Money

Spent a few days power-washing a rather large driveway. I put on super strong sunscreen but I still got a little toasted. I’ll consider it nicely tanned. 🙂 The job will probably be the only paid labour I do all summer, which I’m fine with. I should have enough $ in the bank to last my school year and maybe even buy a couple geeky toys and enjoy myself once in a while. (Yay, for co-op.) I’ll still have my student loan, of course.

And I came home one day to find out a neighbour had called me twice. Someone I never usually talk to over the phone. They had just bought a router and were having trouble setting it up. “Yah, sure. I’ll take a look at it, tonight.” I walked across the street, spent 30 minutes leisurely setting stuff up, and said don’t worry about any form of payment. I emphasized it. A day or two late, the husband came over and gave me $30. I’m available for work. My new rate is $1/minute. 🙂

Rails and the Ruby that’s on it

Went to a Ruby-on-Rails workshop at UBC, last night on July 26. Met Shirley and her friend, KC, there. The presenter obviously knew his Ruby. And his Rails. But there was so much covered in 90 minutes that it was impossible to move along with the presenter. After being told to setup and bring a laptop to do exactly that, I found it a little strange. I was doing ok, until I encountered a problem. He even went over how to solve my problem (on OSX), but I didn’t catch what he said and he alt-tabbed away from the solution (jumping into the next step) before I could spot it. A video was made, and I think it will be a better resource as a video – with pause and scan.

School

Got my graduation checklist reviewed. All they did was add check-marks to all my credit tallies. After spending so long verifying everything and then waiting a month for a review, six red check-marks is somewhat of a disappointment – even though, it’s a good thing. But, as it turns out, I don’t need all the courses I’m registered for; I could drop a 400 level comp-sci, if I want. So I probably will. It’s nice, because it makes my last terms fairly manageable. Also, I’m taking world history to fill my arts requirements, so that should be interesting.

It’s funny, though. I was thinking I would be one upper level elective short. I was going to try and weasel my way in to a Directed Studies, because I thought that would be an awesome experience. But I’d have to find something I want to work on, talk to various professors, and write up a proposal… it would be a lot of work just to get into it. I still think it would be an awesome experience, but since I actually have an excess of credits, I probably won’t do this. Lazy, I know. Hi, my name’s Steve. 🙂

Spending Money

Futureshop is selling Casio Exilim S500’s for $200 (reg $350) and refurbished Canon ELPH SD400’s for $250 (reg $350). These have been tempting me for a long time. Well, over the last few hours, at least. I love my Canon IXY Digital 400 (or ELPH S400). The primary reasons why I would want another camera would be for pocketability, and more capable video. Both of these cameras would satisfy those desires, I think. The SD400 is about 5 mm thinner than my S400, and the Casio is about 5 mm thinner than the SD400 (1cm thinner than my S400). But the SD400 has better video and produces better quality images. However, neither of the cameras will work with my underwater housing (which I’m not ready to part with), so either way, if I got one of them, I’d still have my S400. This makes me lean towards the Casio. But I might just let this impulse slide by… then, of course, there’s the DSLite… hmmm.

Anniversaries

Congrats to Ben! I hear he’s officially old. Just kidding, Ben. 🙂 Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the party. :'( We shall meet soon….

And congratulations to Ben & Juliette! This Ben’s a neighbour of mine (not the router one). It’s so neighbourly, around here! I attended their wedding on July 29th.