You simply haven’t lived until you’ve seen William Shatner’s spoken word “interpretation” of the classic Elton John song Rocketman.

Wow. Just. Wow.

[via WWdN]

Tags: Shatner, William Shatner, Rocketman, Elton John, spoken word, Wil Wheaton

If you have a sense of humour, you need to watch this clip from last night’s episode of Scrubs.

Tags: Scrubs, Guy Love, Scrubs the Musical

This is something I haven’t ever had the pleasure of doing in Vancouver before, play ice hockey outside! As we were headed to Science World on Sunday morning, we happened to drive past a field near our house and noticed that there were a bunch of people skating on a large patch of ice there. It turns out that the field had flooded just before we had a cold snap, and the resulting ice is both perfect for skating on, and totally safe, since it’s only about two inches off the ground.

So we decided to turn right around, bundle up, and head out on the ice. We had a blast passing a hockey ball around, taking Milo for quick zooms around in the stroller, and otherwise just enjoying each other’s company under a clear sky on ice! Thanks to Fran for having the foresight to bring the camera and capture the moment for us to remember. It was so much fun that yesterday I cut out of work at 4pm and headed home to get Josh, and we went back and spent another hour and a half on the ice. I felt like a kid again, playing until forced to go home due to the encroaching darkness.

Today we’re getting slushy snow and rain, so I fear our spontaneous ice rink’s time is already up. I’m really glad to have had the opportunity to lace them up outside though - I’m sure Josh is too young to appreciate how special that is in these here parts.

Note, click on the thumbnails to see full-sized images.

Tags: hockey, ice hockey, ice skating, Vancouver, outoor skating, frozen field

So the last time I restored this site on the new server, everything was working fine except for a specific post, which happened to be the most popular post on this site. Try as I might, I was unable to get the post to work, so I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to the latest version of WordPress and this new swanky theme, and I’m feeling pretty good about it. And (I believe) everything is again working fine.

Sorry if you left any comments here over the last week; unfortunately restoring the backup destroyed them.

Please let me know if you see anything broken on the site. And, welcome - again!

Tags: website, blog, server, WordPress

We returned home from an overnight visit at a family friend’s place for New Years to discover that our furnace was not working. Once I figured out that the pilot light was going strong, and the furnace made a click sound when the thermostat was moved above or below the current temperature, I decided that something must really be wrong and called the company that had serviced our furnace a few months ago.

From my description, they figure it must be a bad gas valve (which is electromagnetically controlled - thus the clicks I heard). The estimate to fix it is $300 - of course that’s without actually looking at it, so we’ll have to see how that goes. Being that it was the first of January yesterday, there would be an additional $100 fee for a call that day. Considering we live near Vancouver, BC, and the climate here is typically mild, we decided to rough it for a night.

Last night was somewhat chilly, but manageable, and the furnace guy will be coming to work on it tonight at 5pm. So we’ll see how that goes.

Tags: furnace, New Years, Vancouver

There’s not much to say here, other than to suggest you watch the embedded video:

About a month ago I was interviewed by a reporter named Eric Lai for an article about Microsoft’s Office 2007 launch, and Outlook 2007 specifically. The conversation lasted about a half an hour, and covered quite a broad range of topics, within the context of email management.

The article that the reporter was writing was posted today at Computerworld’s website; here’s an excerpt:

December 21, 2006 (Computerworld)
– His real desk may be a mess, but Jason Clarke’s virtual office is as neat as they come due to his assiduous answering, filing or deleting of the 400-plus e-mails he gets each day.

“My feeling is that if you have more than a screenful of e-mails in your in-box, you’re being rude,” said Clarke, a technical sales and marketing manager at Wenco International Mining Systems Ltd. in Richmond, British Columbia.

Clarke is an archetypal “filer,” spending hours a day managing his Microsoft Corp. Outlook e-mail program.

While the gist of the article is accurate, it seems a few liberties were taken with a couple of the details. I don’t know if this was for readability purposes (artistic license) or simply the result of having interviewed tons of people about the same topic, but I thought it would be worth clarifying a couple of points in the article.

The first is my current job title; although I am in technical sales and marketing these days, I’m not the manager of the department. The other point is the number of daily emails I receive; at one time in a previous position Project Manager (at a previous company) I was receiving well in excess of 400 emails per day. Mercifully, today that number is down around 100, and often dips to half of that. And although I’d like to say the comment about my desk being messy is untrue, that’s unfortunately completely accurate.

Those details aside, I think Eric has written a nicely put together overview of Outlook 2007 and what makes it interesting in contrast to earlier versions of the product. I also stand by the point that while Outlook 2007 is much better than previous versions, to really super-charge your email management you need the help of ClearContext’s IMS Outlook add-in. Considering how often I pimp that product, you’d think I’d be throwing an affiliate link around - and I probably should. But I’d simply rather that you understand how much ClearContext can positively impact your email management if you use Outlook.
One day I’ll get around to posting my recipe for ultimate Outlook email productivity, using Outlook 2007 (although it works with other versions), ClearContext, and a competing Outlook add-on called Nelson Email Organizer, which I consider to be the best of breed email desktop search client available. I’ve touched on them both before, but I feel I’ve really found the sweet spot with these applications now.

Thanks to Eric Lai for choosing to speak with me for his piece.

Tags: Outlook, Microsoft Outlook, Computerworld, Eric Lai, ClearContext, NEO, email, email productivity

I liked to think that when I played acoustic bass with the Molestics, I was pretty animated on stage. Of course, I wish I’d seen this video clip - it sets a whole new standard for the term “animated bass player”. Plus, what’s not to like about an all female marimba band?

[Via A Welsh View]

Tags: acoustic bass, bass, upright bass, bass player

[Update] It seems Seth Godin agrees with me, at least that’s how I’m reading it. [/Update]

I’m sorry, but I don’t care in the slightest that Google doesn’t want people to use the word “google” as a verb meaning “to search” in general terms. In fact, to me it sounds a bit silly when spoken out loud. But their bellyaching (same link) actually makes me want to do it more.

Yes, you’re Google - at this point who gives a rat’s ass if your name remains trademarked? Everyone knows who you are.

I’m just not remotely feeling sorry for you.

Now excuse me while I go google some stuff using Yahoo’s search because I’m annoyed with Google.

Tags: Google, to google, Google as a verb, Google usage

Jack Black’s new tongue-in-cheek public service announcement asking users not to be pirates (video embedded below):

Via Jordan

BTW, there are other funny Tenacious D clips available as well.

Tags: Jack Black, piracy, pirates, PSA, public service announcement, Tenacious D

So, guess what happens when one spouse (say, me) leaves a dish full of one part dish soap, one part water mixture in the sink with all the other dishes - without telling the other spouse (Fran)? Well, she decides to do the dishes, which I of course can’t complain about, and doesn’t notice the fluid in the dish in question as it’s put in the dishwasher.

This post is just in case anyone else finds themselves in the same situation, with soap suds creeping out of the dishwasher at an alarming rate. (And so I have it archived somewhere, in case, you know… I need it again):

Here’s the fix:

• Dump all of your ice cubes into the bottom of the dishwasher to cool the water.
• Sprinkle salt on the suds.
• Pour some vinegar into the suds.
• Scoop out as many of the suds as you can.
• Turn your dishwasher’s knob (if it’s the old-school kind that has one) to the end of the last part of the cycle. It should be fairly straightforward to find the point where it actually starts draining the water. Usually this is right after the rinse cycle.
• Once it’s empty, turn it all the way around to the rinse cycle, and let it rinse then drain 3 or 4 times. The first time or two, monitor things so that the suds don’t get out of control. If you did the vinegar and salt thing, it shouldn’t be a problem.
• After about the 4th mini-cycle, you’re probably safe to do a regular load again to clean the dishes that are coated in dish soap. Again, monitor things, since the residue of dish soap on the dishes could cause a flare up of bubbles.
• If you noticed dish soap bubbles, yet one more cycle might be in order to get the dishes clean.

What fun!

Tags: dish soap, dishsoap, dishwasher, dishes, vinegar, salt, regular dish soap, suds, bubbles

We recently moved, and as always happens when you move, much of our mail has been going to our old address. We picked a stack of it up tonight, and as Francesca was going through it, she pointed out that we had received a notice from the North Delta Health Unit pointing out that chicken pox vaccination time was coming around for our oldest son.

That’s not all that notable, but the fact that at the bottom of the postcard there was a large section that stated “Listen to a podcast with Dr. Monika Naus on Chickenpox at: www.bccdc.org” sure was. As Fran said, it’s not that long ago that they started using email and pointing people to their website. Now they’re using podcasts? Cool!

Tags: podcast, podcasts, health unit, public health, chickenpox, chicken pox, mail