Working On Work

There are a number of reasons why I haven't posted much here lately - the biggest single contributing factor, honestly, is that I haven't had all that much to say of late - but one of the more interesting causes is: I'm busy making up slides for an Agile 101 workshop that I'm being contracted for by a local company. Nothing's been signed yet, as far as I can tell, but the session does appear to have been approved internally. So now I've begun putting together what I hope to be about two hours of introductory material, to be followed by another couple hours spent on a hands-on activity that I'll be designing to give the attendees some sense of what working in an Agile manner feels like.

Anyway, more details later but in the meantime blogging will likely continue to be light... for a myriad of reasons!

Temporary Dog Ownership

Beginning on Sunday (six days from now), and running for about two and a half weeks, Vicki and I will be playing the part of dog owners. Julie's golden retriever, Cooper, along with her ragdoll cat, Finley, will be staying with us while their mistress makes her first ever journey to Africa.

Finley's arrival would be enough to throw our cat, Lucy, off her game (although she eventually adjusted to Charlie, the beautiful Siamese who we looked after for two weeks earlier this month)... but what Cooper's presence in the house is going to do to her, we can't even imagine! We're expecting that she may become an upstairs-dwelling cat for the duration, and so we're planning to have water, food and litter box up there for her use. Cooper's well-trained enough that we'll be able to keep him on the main floor, allowing Lucy to stay away from him if she so chooses. Finley, of course, will no doubt invade her space just as he did the first time he came over for a visit, back in February!

For whatever reason, this Spring has seen us taking in animals for vacationing friends of ours. If nothing else, it's forcing Lucy out of the comfortable and lazy rut she's been in since Rascal left us last year!

One Year Later (Vicki Sells A Book!)

I just realized that today is the one year anniversary of the Launch Day for No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help), and Vicki just happened to sell a copy of the book this afternoon! This was the first sale of 2011, unfortunately (unless we count the 2 Kindle sales I've had so far), which makes it all the more coincidental that it came today, of all dates! Go figure, eh?

Way To Go, Canada!

Things like this make me proud!

According to the chart at that link, 58% of Canadians believe that humankind evolved through the unguided process called natural selection (compared to 16% of Americans), and another 19% of Canadians believe in Evolution but give God some credit for it (compared to 38% of Americans). So that means a total of 77%, or just over three quarters, of my countryfolk understand that Evolution is real, with more than half of the country needing to find no divine intervention in the process. It's still a little saddening to see that 14% of Canadians (compared to 40% of Americans) actually distrust or are simply ignorant of all of the mountains of scientific evidence that disprove the Biblical claim that the Earth is only 10,000 years old, though!

As I continue to burn through Richard Dawkins' most recent (and amazing!) book I can at least take some solace in the fact that here, in the Great White North, a strong majority of us have the necessary perspective to appreciate what Mr Dawkins calls, quite appropriately, The Greatest Show on Earth.

Birthday Report 2011 (Part 4)

For the final installment of our 2011 Birthday Extravaganza, we traveled a few kilometres to Julie's house last weekend for a delicious dinner (chicken wraps... my current favourite!) and...


... presents!!

Vicki got a fire pot, some smelly stuff, and a lovely bag, while I picked up a new T-shirt (slogan: "Vegetables are what food eats!"), 2 books and a DVD called Earth: The Biography. Here we are, after being treated so royally, with a yummy ice cream cake awaiting us:


And for those who worry about such things: my drink, for the evening, was a non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice which was quite delightful.

And now, at long last, the birthday season is over... with just 9 months to go until Christmas!

You Never Forget Your First Avenger

As longtime readers of this blog know, my very first comic book featured one Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America. More than that, it just happened to re-tell his origin story, which is pretty much exactly what you'd hope for when encountering a new character for the first time! Keeping that in mind, try to imagine just how much I love this latest trailer for Captain America: The First America:

Needle Drops Explained

When I come across something like this, I can't help but want to share:

"In theatrical and television production, a ‘needle drop’ is industry jargon for the insertion of licensed music into a scene on a specific cue."

[Via a Newsarama article.]

Do Not Try This At Home (Especially Not At My Home!)

Almost too painful for me to look at!

Definitely One Of The Strangest Videos About Nuclear Fears

The Hottest Rock In The System

NASA's reporting tonight that the Messenger spacecraft has achieved Mercury-orbit, a first for an object launched from Earth. I can't wait to see what kind of photos and data comes back from our overheated neighbour (and I'm not talking about "ugly naked guy"!).

This Disposable Society's Gonna Kill Us All

Right now I'm typing on the 3rd laptop I've purchased in the last 2.5 years. My first one - an Acer piece of crap - was just a poor choice on my part, as I tried running Windows Vista on a machine with only 1 GB of RAM (hey, they were selling them that way!). (And thanks to a bizarre new keyboard, I just somehow managed to Publish this blog entry right in the middle of writing it. Sigh.)

Anyway, that misstep led me to buy a Toshiba laptop less than a year after getting the Acer, and I was very happy with that machine... until its motherboard died suddenly on Wednesday! Since I hadn't bought an extended warranty, and the replacement board was going to be almost as much as a new device, I opted to buy my 3rd one since August of 2008. While I'd planned to pick up an extended warranty this time around, the price ($100 for 1 extra year, $200 for 2 extra years) just didn't seem worth it. We'll see if I once again end up regretting that decision. If nothing else, I've got to get this whole 'moving to a new laptop' thing down to a science, including automating my backups.

As much as we enjoy how much computer prices have come down, I'm kind of nostalgic for the days when I'd replace one not because it suddenly stopped working when I least expected it but rather because its technology had gotten obsolete... you know, after 4 or 5 years!

Off The Air

My (less than 2 year old) laptop has decided it doesn't know how to boot up any more, and so my online activity has been relegated to my basement PC for now, while the repair shop takes its best shot at fixing that hunk of junk. In the meantime, there probably won't be much blogging or tweeting.

Birthday Report 2011 (Part 3)

Vicki's now received her birthday presents from me, which included a Traveling Wilburys CD, some Lush cream, a couple of mystery books, and...

... a Kindle!

That's right, the same handheld eReader that I've been porting my books over to is also the latest toy in Vicki's ensemble! She was genuinely surprised by the choice, but in a good way. I gave her a carrying case and a $30 gift card for it, as well, and she's already ordered her first eBook: Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer! It should be interesting to see what this does to her reading habits, now that so many possibilities are just a few clicks (rather than klicks) away!

Meanwhile, I'm working on the Kindle-izing of my More Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Year 2: Easier Said Than Done). I've had 2 Kindle sales so far, one each from the U.S. and U.K. stores, both for my Math book. It still remains to be seen whether there's any market for AgileMan in this eBook landscape.

Birthday Report 2011 (Part 2)

Tammy's now safely arrived for her visit, a mere 10 weeks after the last time we saw her! It was fun trying to think of all the things to update her on - "Hey, check out the cool coasters we got for Christmas after you left in December!" and "Oh, that's right, you haven't seen the new car yet!" - but seriously: that's too long between visits!!

And Tammy didn't come empty-handed: Vicki got a rice cooker for her birthday (a couple days early) and I received a book and 2 DVDs for mine (2 days after the fact). I got Naomi Klein's No Logo, which I can't wait to read, considering how much I loved The Shock Doctrine, as well as The Social Network and Inside Job, both of which I've heard good things about. Tammy always has such great taste in movies for me, and these two seem like no exception.

Now if only I could convince her to play some Killzone 3 co-op campaign with me...

That's Snow Fun!

I wasn't crazy about the big dumping of snow that we got yesterday, especially when I tried to shovel the driveway and felt my back go out on me!

On the other hand, when Julie, Cooper and I went for a walk in the woods last night, it was all worth it:



The trees were all bent over - or in some cases, knocked down! - by the weight of the snow, making for the most difficult passage that Julie's ever seen in 5 or 6 years of walking those woods. We were about two hours covering a distance that normally takes about 45 minutes, but saw some amazing sights... including this impromptu natural shelter that certain members of our party couldn't resist trying on for size!



If my back hadn't been so sore, I would've enjoyed the experience even more. But it was still a pretty amazing trek that neither of us will soon forget!

Birthday Report 2011 (Part 1)

Vicki made my birthday special today by bestowing upon me quite simply the largest book I've ever seen. The image to the left does not convey the enormity of Paul Levitz's 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking. I'd heard it was large; I hadn't realized that small children could be trapped under it! The thing actually comes in its own carrying case; that's how big it is!

I also received People First Economics, a book with many different contributors, including one of my current faves - Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine), as well as a couple of beautiful Thor comics from the Silver Age of Comics (the Thunder God has a movie coming out in a couple months, I hear).

Julie was kind enough to take me out to lunch today, and Vicki did the honours for dinner... meaning that I'm very well stuffed right now! Woof!

Tammy is supposed to visit this weekend, making her first return home since the day after Christmas! Assuming she makes it here, that may be the best birthday present of all! And the following weekend, Julie has invited Vicki and I over for a joint birthday/anniversary party at her place, meaning that the fun just keeps on coming.

AgileMan Headed To Kindleland

In a mere 4 hours tonight, I produced a Kindle-friendly version of The Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Lessons Learned in Going Agile), otherwise known as the first AgileMan book. I'm not sure there's really much of a market for reading that particular treasure on a handheld device, but at least now (or within about 2 days, following the Amazon review process), folks will have that option.

I'll almost certainly tackle the sequel soon, as well. I'm just not sure whether I'll bother with the Complete edition, though, as it seems a bit overkill. On the other hand, maybe I should, just because most of the work will have been done already. Whatever! I'll figure it out.

[Update Mar 11/11: And we're live!]

Rather Shocking: The Bechdel Test

If you've never heard of the Bechdel Test before, the following video will probably shock you (as it did me):



[Via Sheril @ The Intersection blog.]

Help Me Pick A Font

One of the more interesting criticisms I received about my last book was that my choice of font was rather underwhelming. I think it was Times New Roman that I'd used, which was admittedly not a very exciting selection. It was, in fact, more of a default choice, as I rarely think about such cosmetic matters as much as I should.

So... with a new book in the process of being written, I thought I'd put it out there: what's a good font to use for a novel? I'm certainly open to try something more exotic than TNR, although I may ultimately be limited by what's supported for whatever publishing option I choose. (Currently, I'd say I'll be using Lulu for that, but co-plotter Julie's already raised the question of whether I should try to find an actual publisher this time around. That sounds pretty daunting, and potentially quite depressing, but... we'll see.)

At any rate, now's your chance to try to sell me on your favourite font!

20 Years And Counting!

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary, and as Vicki said to me over dinner at The Keg: "Who'd have ever guessed we'd last 20 years?"

Now, before you judge that a particularly fatalistic comment for her to make, consider all of the people you know who were married to each other 20 years ago but aren't now. We ran through a quick, off the tops-of-our-heads list, and it was substantial. In this day and age, staying together that long may not necessarily be the exception, but it's also certainly not a given.

Anyway, I think I can safely say that we're both pleased and proud to still be together, and happy, two decades after we tied the knot at the Justice of the Peace's office in 1991.

And with that pronouncement out of the way, we begin our 21st year of wedded bliss. Bring it on!