So life goes on

Well unfortunately I am unemployed again. Seems they just didn't have enough work for me at my job... I guess that's just the way it goes with really small businesses. When things get slow they don't have a lot of room to recover. I enjoyed my time there and I learned a lot of new skills there. The important thing is to stay positive and look to the future. I'm still finishing off a website for my previous employer on contract (well... a verbal contract anyway).

So related to that, if anyone has an leads on jobs in the Computer Technology area, please let me know! :)

I've also gone back to my old part time job at the mall to help offset costs a bit. It doesn't come close to paying all the bills I have but its better than nothing and I am very grateful to my boss for letting me come back on such short notice.

Employed!

I have officially joined the working world! (I don't consider part time jobs to really be the working world). I accepted a job offer for a local computer service store. I'll be working on fixing computers, setting them up, networks, and such for individuals and small businesses. Its not completely what my college program was for but its something I know I'll like to do none the less :)

Back to sch..... nothing?

Its a weird feeling seeing people getting ready for back to school when, for the first time that I can remember, I will not be going back to school on the first Tuesday of September. It's kinda nice knowing I don't have to go back to tests and textbooks but its also a little freaky still not knowing what I'm going to be doing 5 months from now.

I had my second interview since I graduated, the first being a total bomb. I have another interview tomorrow (just for a seasonal position though). Two more possible opportunities popped up today through people I know so things are starting to look up after 2 weeks of absolutely nothing :)

The last day

Tomorrow is our last day here and what an experience this has been. I will take back more than just memories and pictures. I'll take a less wasteful attitude for sure since people here never waste anything and its something North America really needs to survive. I'll also take back a better relationship with Leanne since we've spent every moment with eachother for the past six weeks. You really get to know almost everything about a person when you see them all day and can't just go home if you feel bad. And I love her more every day I spend with her :)

We went to the zoo today and I took so many pictures so here's one I thought was cool. I forget what these things are called but there was one in the movie The Lion King.



See you all back home!

I like ducks

So i've heard some pretty crazy news back home lately about my sister's plane getting messed up and losing her luggage and my cousin's car getting pelted by rocks from some stupid kids, but I fortunetly it looks like everything is working out alright and everyone is safe so that's really good!

We've been travelling around the area here the past few days and I've seen some pretty cool and crazy things. We were staying at Norbert's cousin's house a couple days ago and and couple weeks ago they had a huge hail storm which was much bigger than the one I was in. They had hail almost as big as baseballs! There was cracked windshields and roofs destroyed all over the place. Every second house has a tarp over it to keep out the weather.

We also went to the Black Forest which is where my aunt lived for a while. Here's a picture from a nice church we went to there:



We had to give up our nice car a few days ago because you can only rent one for 30 days and the one we have now isn't that great but that's alright because we're only here for a few more days anyway. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone back home soon. I miss you all and I'll have lots to show you!

Slowing down

Well we're into our last week and a half here and I'm going to answer a few comments right now.

Its nice to know I'm missed back home and I really can't wait to show everyone all the pictures I've taken. At the moment I'm at 764 pictures and two and a half hours of video. I've tried lots of interesting foods like Viener Schnitzel in Vienna but have yet to have a Frankfurter in Frankfurt. I had this spinach soup kind of thing and it was actually pretty good considering I hate spinach.

We took a tour of an old monastary today. The tour guide was a rather large phone-shaped device. It was interesting and here's a picture from there:



This is the dining hall. It once had big tables but there's chairs in it now because they use it for stuff.

Back to Germany

We're going back to Germany today. We didn't want to spend too much time here because the apartment we're staying at is about as big as my nana's old apartment, minus the bedroom.

We ran around Vienna yesterday, and I mean literally because we had so little time here. There was this really big castle we went to called Schonbrunn and it is so big that I couldn't fit it all in one picture.



I gotta pack now so see ya later!

Wiener schnitzel

I'm really suprised how easy it is to find open internet connections wherever I go. I'm not complaining though!

We're in Austria now and today we went all around Vienna which was once the music capital of the world. Here is Beethoven's grave:



Leanne: I couldn't resist the urge to include a little bit about Beethoven's life. He was born in the city of Bonn in 1770. His childhood days were extremely difficult since he had an alcoholic and abusive father. He learned to play the organ and harsichord and eventually became the organist for the court chapel. Beethoven's hero was Napoleon Bonaparte, because to him he embodied his own desire for freedom from monastic rule, but when Napoleon tasted power and crowned himself emperor, he lost all respect for him. At a young age, Beethoven started to lose his hearing, but he managed to compose his 9th symphony (with the setting of Ode to Joy) when almost completely deaf. He later died of illness in 1827 at the age of 58.

We also got trapped in an electronics store, which normally wouldn't have been a problem for me but I really had to go to the bathroom. They only had one way out and it was through the checkout so we had to wait through the whole line.

2 things I wish I had

I just remembered I wanted to say the two things I wish I had not left at home. Both of which I intentionally left there.

1. Mouth guard

Apparently I grind my teeth more than I though. Leanne says it actually kept her awake one night and she was worried I'd have broken teeth in the morning.

2. My debit card

Its really hard to use a credit card here. Not many places have electronic machines for credit cards and some places don't even accept credit cards at all or require a minimum purchase of like $20. I tried to get money from my credit card but the machine wanted a PIN number for some reason.

Off to Austria

Well we're sitting around here in a wind/rain storm so I thought I'd get my blogging time in. It was a really nice day up until recently. We went swimming by the lake and then got home, at which point an unnamed person locked us out of the house (not me). But it was ok because we used one of Leanne's canes to unlock the door through the cat's door :)

The high hasn't been below 30 since we got here so I'm looking forward to either cooler temperatures or A/C when I get home.

A few days ago we went to see the Matterhorn which is the highest mountain in the Swiss Alps. Its over 4000 meters and extremely snowy. Obviously we didn't go up to the top but we went pretty in any case.



Tomorrow we head to Austria and aparently they don't have internet at the place we're staying at so who knows when you'll hear from me again.

Heat and natual air conditioning

We haven't really done anything huge in the past few days, with the exception of yesterday. Mostly just relaxing, going swimming and such since its been in the mid to high 30s every day. We went swimming a few times too. The water was so warm.

I found that the best air conditioning in Europe is within mountains. Its quite pleasant to go from 35 degree weather into a cool cave in a mountain. We went into a gorge with a river going through it. Aare is the name of the river.



I can't concentrate on what I'm writing because of the talking in this room right now

The mountains never end

I find it amazing how easily I can get used to the scenery around me. The first time I saw the mountains around here I couldn’t stop staring out my window, but after just a few days here I can sleep through a beautiful mountainside drive. I guess that’s why the locals here travel to other places too. You always get used to your surroundings.

That being said, its still amazing to wake up and look out your window and see a mountain that touches the clouds. I don’t think I will ever get bored of it. We have 10 days here in total but there’s so much to do here that I’m sure I won’t get bored.

We went up another mountain yesterday in a cable car. It was called Betmerhorn. This one was 500 meters higher than the last one we went to and the best part was that it had a glacier on it. It was a hot day at the bottom but as soon as we got to the side of the mountain that had the glacier we had to put our jackets on. As Leanne said, it was almost too amazing to really appreciate.

It doesn’t look like it in this picture but this ice flow is actually a kilometer wide! It was almost like looking at a postcard when you were really there because it you see things like that in pictures but never in real life. Eventually it clicks in when you’ve been waiting there for a while and you really appreciate the view.

Here’s a picture of the mountain we went to the day before.

Now in Switzerland

Oh yes, its true. We've moved on from Germany to Switzerland and I tell ya... I've never seen any natural scenery like this before. The mountains are bigger than I even imagined and I got to go to the top of one of them. Its called Stockhorn and its probably about a medium sized mountains. It was above some of the lower clouds but it didn't have any snow on it. It was really nice because it was really warm at the bottom but it was so nice and cool at the top.

Its actually 11:45 pm now so I'm going to bed. I'll give pictures and more details tomorrow.

The Munster Zwiefalten

Yesterday we saw probably the most ornate church ever! Those were Leanne's words. She is helping me write this so she doesn't have to update her blog :)

Marc: I really enjoyed going to that church yesterday. There was so much to see there that we could have easily spent the whole day there looking at every sculpture and design there.

Leanne: There was a string quartet playing above, and they were really talented and that made it even cooler! I like the paintings on the ceiling and that pulpit thing.

It has sculptures of the snake with an apple in its mouth, sort of wound around the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It also has a sculpture of Jesus being crucified.

Marc: Not all the paintings and sculptures were very pleasant. There's one St. Sebastian being shot by several arrows and some other martyrs, but they're all very well done.



Overall it was a slower more relaxed day but it was cool to be able to see a church like that, and it was especially interesting because it was in a pretty small town actually.

Oh and since you guys want to hear about food here, we had some authentic Italian pizza yesterday that was almost the size of the table! I wish I had a picture of it. We ordered it from an Italian pizzeria and they brought it over in the original tray they cooked it in. I guess that saves on pizza boxes :)

So many castles

We went to see many different castles this past couple days. Two days ago we saw a castle called Hohenzollern and got a tour of it.



Then yesterday we saw three castles that were made by someone by the name of King Ludwig. He spent a whole wack of people's money to build some amazing castles. My favourite one from the outside is Neuswanstein. That's the castle I was looking forward the most to seeing here.



It is so amazing to see. Especially on the edge of the mountains like it is. The picture is nice but it doesn't compare to standing there and smelling the fresh mountain air and hearing all the waterfalls around you. Yesterday we also saw Hohenschwangau and Linderhof. Linderhof was great because it was quite big inside and the tour was actually in english so I understood what was going on for once. Yesterday was probably the best day so far in my opinion because I got to see so many things I've never seen before. I also got to drive through Austria so now I've been in 4 countries! Huzzah!

Went to the lake

Well I had two more firsts yesterday. The more positive of the two was that I got to see some serious mountains for the first time. We went to this big lake (relative to other lakes in Germany) and it borders on Switzerland. I got to see some huge mountains and I hear that I'm going to see even bigger ones! The less positive of the new things was that I got my first sense of European un-modesty. I don't want to go into details but lets just say next time I'm near a lake here I'm going to keep my eyes on either the ground or the hills :P

We got to go up in this lighthouse by the lake and see everything around. It was cool to see the lake and the city around but what was amazing was the huge mountains that were right beside the water. I'm sure there's stuff like that out west in Canada but I've never seen it fore sure. Here's a view of it.

Castles galore!

We’ve moved on to Reidlingen now and we are staying in a very nice house. I’ve noticed here that most houses have multiple families living in the same house. Like the first house we stayed at had Monika’s aunt and uncle living in it as well as their adult son in an apartment on the second level. It seems like a more efficient use of space at least. That house had 3 levels plus a basement. Its just a different mindset than we have back home because we have so much land overall in Canada and here they have to make due with what they have. You never see new subdivisions going up all over the place like we do back home.

This house is a similar situation. Two people live on one level, their daughter and family live above them but its all part of the same house.

Italy won the world cup yesterday but I didn't hear any horns at all this time. We could have been in a non-Italy-liking-district or something. The people we are staying with were cheering for Italy though.

We went to see Lichtenstein castle yesterday. It is a small but beautiful castle that was used by the duke of something as his residence and now is privately owned by his decedents. We got a guided tour of it. Here’s a picsha!

Headin' Out

Today we're moving on to another part of Germany for our accomidations. I can't remember exactly where but I'm sure I will eventually. If you haven't noticed already I am not the best with remembering place names :P

Yesterday I met with some new German traditions. First of all, Monika's aunt and uncle had their 50th wedding aniversary celebration. I guess here these kinds of things are almost as big as weddings here. They had a big cerimony at the church and then a reception at this fancy restaurant later. The churches all have bells they ring at certain times of the day and at the beginning of services too.

Another trandtion (which I happen to like a lot) is having coffee and cake before a big meal. That's what we did yesterday. There was sooo much good stuff but I limited myself to two pieces because I knew we were going to have so much food after. We even had eis (ice cream) after but I just shared one with Leanne because both of us are starting to put on the pounds here. lol

I also noticed that at get-togethers like that everyone shakes EVERYONE else's hand when they arrive or leave. Even if there's 40 people there they won't stop until every hand has been shaken. Its a lot of work but Germans are really about the social stuff... like at their farms instead of having them all spaced out like we do, they have all their houses in one little village and their land all goes out behind them.

I didn't take any pictures yesterday so here's a picture of a village from a few days ago.

Rhein River Tour

So yesterday we took a nice little tour along the Rhein River. Its this really long and wide river in Germany with many sweet castles along it.



We went on one really windey road that went up for a good 15 minutes. Amazingly our auto navigation system seems to know every single little road there is in the country.

Its really amazing how they keep the buildings in such great condition here. In every tourist town the buildings are all freshly painted and there's no garbage to be found on the street. Germans seem to be very clean over all. They don't even have big boxes of kleenex like we do at home. They're so much less wasteful here.

Crazy old Germany

I really wasn't sure what the title should be today. I didn't post yesterday because the internet was down. Probably due to the big storm we had the night before.

France won against Portugal but I didn't hear any celebrations which I believe can be attributed to a few possibilities:

1. French fans are more conserate of others than Italian fans
2. There are no French fans
3. I couldn't hear them celebrating over the lightning and rain
4. Combination of all three

I'll probably go with 3 because it was a pretty crazy storm.

Yesterday we went to Rothenburg. I can't remember where we went the day before but it had a big castle. I'll post two pictures today if it will let me.

Italia makes me angrylia

Ok I knew Europeans liked their soccer (football) but I didn't realized it was to the point it was last night here in Germany. Considering Germany lost the game last night I expected a rather quiet night while the fans here tried to take in the defeat they just experienced, but instead I heard cheers of joy and cars horns blasting throughout the city. And one nice person near us decided to bang on a drum from about midnight to 1 am! I hope the reason he stopped was because someone punched him.

On a lighter note, I got to make use of the mass transit system of Germany yesterday and it really impressed me. We wanted to go to Stuttgart so we got on the bus near the house we are staying at, took the bus to the train station, the train left about 10 minutes after we got there. Once we got to Stuttgart, we got on the subway (which is in the same building as the train station) and took it to this big tower we wanted to go to. Oh and during our trip to the train station the train drove by the road for a while and I saw there was a large traffic jam trying to get into the city. So Germany has a mass transit system that will actually get you to your destination faster than taking your car. I think that is the one thing missing from Canada's mass transit system. If you want to take the bus there you often have to double the time it takes you to get there by car.

Oh and by the way, no picture today because I forgot my flash card for my digital camera yesterday when we went out. Oh well.

Where's the water?

Yesterday we spent most of the day walking through Bietigheim. The have the old part of the town right in the middle of the city. They have a lot of cool statues like this horse one.



They really seemed to enjoy making sculptures of naked people too, but I chose not to take any pictures of those ones :P

It was really hot yesterday, over 30 degrees C. Hopefully its a little cooler today. I've found that its very hard to find bottled water to drink here. They don't really drink plain water here. They drink this other stuff that I can't pronounce thats kind of like carbonated mineral water. Its regular water is called "shtil vasser", which means "still water". We've got some bottles to fill up with water this time though.

We're taking the train into Stuttgart today. Should be pretty sweet!

Here is Germany

I actually survived my first plane trip! It was perfectly fine going up but coming down was pretty brutal. I got the worst headache of my life and was pretty nauseous, but I was fine once I got to the ground. I didn't really sleep on the plane so I had terrible jet lag. Fortunately I just had a 12 hour sleep so I feel much better now.

Its a beautiful day here in Germany. We're supposed to be going for a walk into town today. Not too sure what we'll be doing but I'm sure it will be rad.

An upgrade gone awry

So yesterday I got a Pentium 2.0A GHz Socket 478 CPU from eBay and I tried to install it in my system that had a Celeron 1.7 Ghz, but somehow I managed to break off part of the "retention mechanism", that is the square plastic thing that holds the heatsink to the motherboard. I also forgot that I'd need to add new thermal paste to the CPU for proper heat conduction. So I tried turning it on with a broken retention mechanism and barely any thermal paste for whatever reason and it instantly heated up to a nice 69 degrees celcius. Not exactly good for the processor. But thankfully a guy at a local computer shop had an extra rentention mechanism handy so I bought that from him, stuck on some new Artic Silver thermal paste and now it works very well :)

In other news, I'm going to Germany (as well as Switzerland and Austria) tomorrow for six weeks! Its going to be great especially since I'm going with Leanne and don't have to relive last summer. I'm very excited even though I probably won't be able to say more than "Where is the bathroom?". Leanne also payed for my plane ticket so I owe her big lol. I'll have to buy her some sweet German chocolate.

I'll try to post on here when I get internet access and hopefully some pictures too in my gallery.

Facing the MPAA

No this isn't going to be a post about how the Motion Picture Association of America is suing a single-parent family for downloading a movie. Its about a rating they have applied to a movie called Facing the Giants. This is a movie (which I have not yet seen) about a football coach that uses faith to motivate the players. This movie has been given a PG rating because some topics could be "unsuitable for children"!

When was it decided that faith and mentioning God would be considered equal with violence and brief nudity as some movies with an equal rating have received. I'm not saying that PG is a very severe rating, but it could stop a parent from taking their kids to see it, thinking there is something worse in it.

This is just more proof at how western culture is turning on the very values that founded it and stabbed it with many sharp knives. Oh sorry... I guess I should have warned you this post has a PG rating... because I said God.

Windows Vista: First Impressions

So here's my personal review of Windows Vista Beta 2 (Build 5384). I finally downloaded all 3GB of it yesterday and installed it. My first question is what could cause the installation files of Vista to be about four times larger than that of Windows XP. Is there a whole secret library of videos somewhere that I haven't found?

The interface is nice looking. Edges are all rounded and shading looks nice. One big thing I find missing is this supposedly revolutionary Windows Aero interface that is supposed to make windows look like glass and basically take advantage of the video card more. I'm not sure why I don't have this feature. My video card meets the system requirements. Very odd.

I tried out some of the software and came across this "Windows DVD maker" so I tried it out. But I couldn't get past the first screen because apparently my video card does not meet the minimum system requirements! Well this wasn't a cheap video card so are they expecting me to buy a video card that costs more than the whole computer? It could run Battlefield 2 in Windows XP without any problems so I'm not sure what they're expecting.

So far my hardware hasn't worked too well with Vista. Windows automatically installed video drivers but is missing many of the features of the drivers that came with the video card. I tried installing from the CD but was told the drivers could not be installed.

Wireless keyboard and mouse, and my flash drive worked fine as they should have. My Linksys USB wireless adapter was not even detected my Vista. Once I had installed the drivers off the cd it was found though I manually detected it and then it installed fine. Vista seems to support WPA2 encryption so that is one thing better than XP. Vista wouldn't let me install the Linksys connection manager though so I had no choice.

The biggest problem was the integrated sound. Vista installed drivers for it and it appeared to work properly but there is no sound in Windows Media Player and Winamp worked for a few songs, then lost all sound. Now I have no sound at all.

I think the best feature of Vista is the new version of solitare :)

In conclusion, I will be keeping Windows XP as long as I can. Either until I buy a new computer with Vista pre-loaded on it, or Firefox is no longer supported on XP :)

It begins

Well I've somehow managed to graduate with actual decent marks! I'd say at 78% average is pretty good. Better than failing anyway. I'm one of only about 5 people from my original group of 160 people that graduated. Mind you, many of them went into co-op but its still nice to know that I made it through without failing a single course.

So now begins the job hunting... I actually have an interview at Research in Motion next Tuesday for a job that I think would work out great for me! The only problem is that the Germany trip might conflict with it. It will be worth it even if I lose the job because of the trip. This is a once in a lifetime oppertunity and I will have the rest of my life to work :) If I got the job though and started working right after the trip that would be the most perfectest of all!

A Good Friday to remember

Well this past Easter weekend I was in Port Elgin to visit my relatives and Good Friday brought on a freak hail storm the likes of which no one had ever seen. There was at least golf ball size hail and no one's car escaped its wrath. I won't go into too much detail about it because some of my family already posted quite lengthy posts about it. But I have a video! Hurrah!

Make sure you have sound on before watching. You get the best effect that way.

THE END (of school) IS NEAR!!!!

I figured since its been a couple of weeks since the strike was over I figured that I better update this thing. Things are pretty much back to normal now. Not a big change in the schedule, just an exam or two pushed to the first week of may, but I can handle it. I really hope I won't have any issues passing all my courses. Every semester I'm convinced I'm going to fail something and I always end up getting through it so hopefully this will hold true this time.

Everyone should check out Leanne's new blog. Its really good!

The end of the school year and thus the end of my schooling will arrive very soon and therefore I must now being to look for a job. This is going to be a new thing for me since I have pretty much been given every other job I've had with very little effort. But I suppose it will build character so thats good.

Oh man I can't wait until I go to Germany. I'm going to take pictures and post them on here while I'm there hopefully.

Frustration sets in

Its now day 13 of the strike (if you don't count weekends) and the enjoyment of an extended reading week has long passed. I'm now getting worried that the school year might start to conflict with my summer trip to Germany with Leanne. I'm going on this trip no matter what because its an opportunity that probably won't come again for a very long time, and the plane ticket is already booked. But if I want to be rid of this school and all the politics that goes with it... I want to write my exams and pass the course and never look back. But with each passing day of the strike it looks more and more like I'm not going to be able to finish my year. I'm praying I will but I've had my plans messed up by unions so much that I feel that its inevitable. But I won't lose hope.

Attack of the unions

Well here I am at 11:34 pm hearing that I am now part of the third strike I've been a part of in my 22 years on this earth. First one: high school teachers went on strike. Second: BF Goodrich where I was forced into a strike as a summer student. Third: The Ontario college teachers union! Wow! Is this a fluke or is this common for people?

This particular time around it isn't a huge deal for me because I could use a few more days off to catch up and work on projects. I also had a midterm scheduled for tomrrow which is now postponed. Oh well... as long as this doesn't turn out to be another BF Goodrich then I'll be fine.

It finally came

Well the rebate actually came a couple days ago... $20 in the bank. Its not a lot but at least I showed some people at D-link's rebate center that they can't promise to send money and never do it. I'd say it was worth the effort.

I hate insomnia

I've never experienced it myself directly, quite the opposite actually. I usually can fall asleep in about 5 minutes if I'm really tired. But I might as well be experiencing it myself.

Leanne has insomnia and it tears me apart. Not the lack of sleep itself but what it does to her when she's awake. It takes a huge toll on her both mentally and physically. She wants to sleep so badly but she can't... and both of us feel completely helpless to fix the problem. I long for a day when I can say "How did you sleep last night?" and she'd say "I slept great!". I think that's only happened once or twice since I've known her.

Lack of sleep really takes a bite out of your immune system, so she always gets sick when she gets a run of insomnia. That just makes things worse because she can't sleep even more if she's sneezing or coughing.

She's tried many different things to help her sleep like the tips found here. But nothing works. Its like her body is revolting against her. Even with sleep medications they work for about 2 weeks then her body becomes immune to them. It's frustrating beyond anything I've ever experienced. I feel so helpless.

Why I hate rebates

This isn't meant to be directed towards one company in particular. Its more for the whole rebate system. But here's my story:

I bought a D-Link DI-524 wireless router from Futureshop. It was on sale and had a $20 rebate, so I bought it. The employee who sold me it said something along the lines of "Have you had much luck with these rebates? Because mine usually take months and sometimes I never get them!". I should have taken that as a sign.

I waited 2 weeks to make sure the router was working properly before I cut out the UPC bar code and mailed it in with my properly filled out rebate form in early September 2005. October and November pass with no activity. Finally in mid December I get a post card from D-link telling me that I bought my router outside of the offer date! I'm thinking, "How could Futureshop have printed me a rebate form when the offer had already expired?". So I came storming into Futureshop (or at least thats how I felt in my mind). And explained my problem to a very nice employee at the Courtesy Desk. She called D-link personally and, after about 45 minutes of talking, determined that my rebate receipt was dated 12/09/05. Futureshop prints their dates in the form of Day/Month/Year. D-link read it as Month/Day/Year. So they thought I purchased the router on December 9th 2005 instead of September 12 2005! So they reissued the rebate claim (or so I'm told).

So now its the end of January and I'm still waiting for any indication that I will get my rebate. I'll keep you posted.

Changed my mind

Ok well Geoff convinced me to not give up on this blog. I may change over to my website at some point but for now I will leave this here. You win this round Geoff!

Blog moved!

I have moved my blog to my official website. This will be my last post here.