My life's Adventure

I am on break from the newspaper delivery

I am just taking a smoke break and should be delivering 47 newspapers in the next hour and a half. The good thing about this is I get the news very early and this helps sometimes in my legal studies. It is hard work because the days I help on the paper is very heavy. I also insert the preprinted section and sleave the papers in plastic bags to make them sort of water proof. We are expecting rain today.

Yesterday was end of the month so our disability cheque came in and I paid some bills. The rent will be paid on Monday. Today my wife will go grocery shopping with her dad a senior driving. I will stay up from 2 PM Friday until later in the afternoon. I will help bring the groceries in and also take my homework to school and might also do some shopping before finally sleeping at 4 PM. Then tomorrow I have a 9 hour shift in security at a corporate charity event. I will probably be given a free hot dog and drink.

I got my final project submitted. I might do a little more on it by Saturday afternoon.

I worked about 20 hours total on my data mining final project and then submitted it via email last night. I confirmed with one of the professors that he had in fact received the files. So I could be done now with the winter term or I could do a little more work before tomorrow afternoon. I should also submit paper copies tomorrow in the afternoon at the professors office. This professor is very supportive in the past with my getting my first degree. I am expecting her to be in her office tomorrow and I can submit about 40 pages of print out. I need to take some time off and just read for awhile. I hope all this data mining I have learned gets some use I need some R projects now or I need to try these techniques in C or C++.

Bought blank videos for my summer law course

I will be studying public law this summer. The course is broadcast on cable television on the universities TV channel. I just bought 12 6 hour video cassettes to record the 24 lectures. I can get two lectures on each tape.

I also bought some more rechargable batteries. I also picked up some photos of our daughter I ordered printed over the web. I also got more blank CD's for recording data.

Doesn't look like R, C and J will be over tonight.

I told R I might not have a get together today so he made other plans. I think J is out at the police banquet and C won't come over unless J comes over. So it is quiet night at the computer. Maybe I will chat with my on-line Yahoo friends.

Won't be attending crime prevention and disablities symposium

I won't be able to attend this symposium today with the police and the centre for independent living because I have data mining homework to do. It would have been fun to do workshops and listen to speaches and attend the police banquet this Friday but I must stay home and work on homework. Data mining can be a very profitable job I am hearing.

Dealing with government support is going to get easier

I am hiring a lawyer to deal with our government support. I hope to get a trusteee to deal with our income each month and no longer be subject to the government arbitrariness. I was mighty angry yesterday after a 26 hour day to find out our cheque had been reduced 100$ because we are offering shelter to a friend.

I spell checked this blog for April.

I am saving my blogs in a word processor and printing them out so I can spend a few hours relaxing and reading them. I also just used the word processor to spell check and correct both this blog and my studies blog.

I spent a few hours surfing ebay today.

I spent a few hours surfing ebay today. I did not win anything which also means I don't owe any money right now. I bought a few coffees today and some lemons. We ate fish and rice and veggies for supper. Our roommate made a salad too. Tomorrow we need toilet paper and cigarettes. We will probably need beer for my wife soon too although she was sober today.

We are having a quiet day at home

My wife is watching TV quietly. I am working in my office. We are taking my wife swimming tonight. She has a lot of weight gain from her pills. She is swimming in a fitness swim tonight. I will go to a coffee shop and wait for her then we will take the bus home together.

Worked yesterday for 12 hours

I worked a fairly difficult Sunday shift in security. I got a ride to my bus stop from a fellow worker. I should be working there again next weekend on a charity run.

My glasses are ready at Sears

I am happy my glasses are now ready at Sears. I won't be able to pick them up until Monday morning though or Monday noon. That is something to look forward too anyways. I am also looking forward to work today and studying data mining this week. I really enjoy statistics studies.

Getting another older IBM Thinkpad.

I am getting my third IBM Thinkpad. This third one is also very old and only a pentium 1 computer. It still needs more memory and I might also buy some other accessories. I spent a lot of time surfing ebay to find and buy this.

I did only 4 hours on my data mining project on Saturday

Because I had planned to do 12 hours and only did four hours I am not so sure I can do the full 48 hours needed for my datamining project. We will see when I have to hand it in on Wednesday. I may have to miss the Crime Prevention Symposium at the end of the week so I can work on my homework.

Returning to my job today

I haven't worked at this security job in about 6 or 7 weeks. I am working today and since it is Sunday it will be quiet day and a good day to go back. I am also working a shorter shift next Sunday. I am all ready for work and need to catch the bus in about an hour.

Setting goals for homework/school work.

Again I am figuring out how much time to spend on some school work. I figure since most classes are 45 hours and my data mining final project is worth 55% of the final grade that about 55% of my time should be spent on the final project. Since it is recommended that one spend about 4 times the class time out of class. I figure about 180 hours are needed for each class out of class. 55% of this would be about 100 hours. Last night I figured I could still spend 48 hours on the project before I have to hand it in. I spent four of these hours last night/this morning on the project. I should put in another 2 hours before Sunday. Then Sunday I will not put in any hours as I am working on Sunday but I will bring a book about data mining to work to read when it is quiet at work. I am up now from 5 PM and I slept this morning at 7 am. So I got ten hours sleep and feel well rested.

Our countries government is falling.

Looks like there will be a new election shortly. I am hoping that the green party win a seat and that the New Democratic Party end up doing much better this time. I am also trying to find out the nature of the federal programs for the disabled and how to apply for these. I phone my MP's office and should have a report from that office shortly.

Here I am late at night surfing ebay

I am just sitting in my office bored and frustrated with my TV. I have been surfing ebay looking at older IBM laptops for sale. I should be studying. I have a union meeting later today and am working on Sunday for 12 hours. I should chat for some support at yahoo. I am going to help a little with Thursday's newspaper.

Scored B+ on my honours paper

Two professors read my honours paper and agreed to give me a B+ on it. They thought I had not dealt properly with the question as to how to determine if computer crime is a crime but that still I had done a lot of work.

Played Dungeons and dragons again tonight

I played dungeons and dragons again tonight. We generally enjoy our game killing creatures in the AD&D world. Tonight we killed snake men as we fulfill our Dwarven destiny. Somehow some Dwarves have involved us in a plot to save Farren the world of the Forgotten Realms.

After the game I came home and surfed ebay. I missed my volunteer meeting today. Yesterday I had dinner with the chief of police to celebrate volunteer week. I am feeling less stressed but still have some school work to do.

I got a KDE desktop working on an old 486 IBM Thinkpad.

I was finally successful at getting a popular Linux desktop installed on an old 486 laptop that cost me 55$ on ebay plus another 15$ for some more memory. It took me hours and hours to learn about Debian and many unsuccessful tries but I finally got it earlier this morning. Yahoo I am a Linux engineer.

Volunteer week event.

I ate dinner with the other volunteers in our victims support group. The Chief of police gave a speech and a city councilor from the police services board also gave a more political speech. This is the same councilor who sits on our accessibility committee. I had a good evening and came home and read.

My teaching assistant work is over for another term

At about 2 PM today I handed in my last marking work to my supervisor and ended my duties for another term. This means I have worked for five terms now as a mathematics and statistics TA. I am quite satisfied with this work. This term I was worried that I could not do the work load. I did get some help and will probably receive a good report on my work.

I am now getting back into security work which reminds me I should shave for tomorrows volunteer appreciation dinner.

I got distracted by my Linux project for three hours.

I was marking earlier this morning and updating blogs. I then got distracted writing a XF86Config file for my 486 Linux laptop. I am almost done that but instead turned off the machine when I realised it was taking too much time. I got back to marking later in the afternoon. I have two Q's left to mark and have gotten through more than half the assignments for one Q.

I booked a shift in security for next weekend so am going back to security work again. After this last marking assignment my work term is over as a TA. It won't start again until the end of May.

I did some marking this morning.

I did some marking this morning. I also read a little law. I will read some more research and do some more marking today and sleep at 2 PM again or 4 PM.

I had to go back to the Store again to get my glasses fitted.

After a long day marking, watching films I had to go to a mall to get my glasses fitted again because they forgot to take a few measurements. I came home exhausted and slept at 2 PM. I woke up at 2 AM this morning.

I am helping with the newspapers again this morning.

I am still marking statistics assignments but will now spend about 2-3 hours helping deliver the cities newspaper in my neighbourhood. I get a few dollars for helping the regular carrier.

I am still installing software on my Linux laptop. This time I used tasksel and am trying to install the desktop environment and X windows. I may run out of hard drive space doing this.

I have been reading about cyborgs, feminism, industrial safety, and public law

I have had more time to read library books this past week. I read a few chapter ones and also some magazines and newspapers lately.

I marked assignments in stratification and ratio estimation for 45 minutes.

I am up on a volunteer shift. I spent about 45 minutes marking papers and want to complete this work this weekend.

I worked on my Linux 486 laptop for an hour.

I booted up my 486 laptop and updated the required Linux software which included g++, gcc and Perl updates. I tried using mutt the basic linux email program. The computer then crashed.

I found new batteries available for this computer on ebay. The battery would cost 60$ plus 12$ shipping.

C and J came over and watched TV.

R was taking time off because he has been working odd labour jobs. C and J came over and we watched Stargate the movie. I was happy to enjoy the movie given my school work and stress is winding down. My wife watched Car Wash and Earthquake on the other TV.

My mom was in town and took some of my stuff to storage

I stored my old cold weather Russian Koren war era army suit. I also stored my grandfather's sheep skin coat. I also stored a bunch of books I no longer consult and old win 3.1 software. Speaking of win 3.1 i may boot up my 486 linux machine tonight and get it working again and attempt to transfer files from it to my more recent linux box.

I picked out new eye glass frames today

I think glasses are a key part of the teacher stereotype. I also think they are key in the graduate student image. They are also part of the cyber punk author image. My glasses have to function in all these roles. Thus I chose a fairly Matrix like pair of glasses with clip on sunglasses. I also chose a fairly functional pair of glasses that will have safety lens and also will fit under safety glasses and will be UV protective. They are also scratch resistant. The frames are titanium and light weight. I am finding wearing my ten year old frames that were picked when I was into military style, to be heavy after a day of wearing them. So basically my new glasses like my most recent pair three or four years ago function as an intellectual symbol of cool. The choice was also from the unisex glasses rather than a proscribed male pair of glasses. Although one could argue that unisex is also a proscription.

I am having a fairly relaxed day.

I have not done a lot of reading today but my marking is relaxing. I am almost done. I will go out in an hour to play dungeons and dragons with friends. We are in the middle of a large battle with Drow elves.

I am getting a new keyboard for my Apple computer.

I ordered a new keyboard for my Apple computer. Apparently keyboards can be the dirtiest places in our homes because keyboards are hard to clean and also the hands carry a lot of dirt. Hospitals have been replacing their keyboards.

I am also picking up a 512MM memory stick pro duo for my PSP game machine.

I should be returning to security work soon.

I have called my boss in my security work and should be getting some shifts soon. I also have been marking all day getting a fair amount done at least one question today. I have two short questions to mark and I will get the assignments back to the professor tomorrow. Then I pick up another assignment tomorrow.

Got a fresh bottle of Aspirin and a roll of medical tape.

I check for first aid supplies sometimes at our local pharmacy and did this this past weekend. I got some medical tape and a new bottle of aspirin.

I have been taking time off direct studies

I have now taken 24 hours of down time from studies. I feel much more relaxed and am breathing calm breaths.

I have been cleaning up paper in my office

I have been cleaning up paper in my office. About two times a week I sort paper into three piles, one pile goes to the garbage, one pile is recycled and one pile is kept.

Interesting painting in Estonian art museum

This is an interesting painting that seems like workers laughing or perhaps some sort of mental condition. Here is the link to this Estonian Art Museum and here it is again http://www.ekm.ee/english/kristjan_raud/. It reminds me of "the Scream" painting.

My own studies wind down.

I got my honours paper submitted today. It is like a dream. It is weird. Anyways my law BA is almost done now. I have done five sixth of the credits in the program now. I will study public law this summer probably. That's a whole credit course this summer on the universities TV channel.

I am reading in a relaxed state of mind this afternoon. I did a little ebay shopping for role playing books. I read a little about feminism and science. I also read a little industrial emergency planning.

School is out now. I have some more grading to do then I am done with work at school.

I am still working hard to complete my honours law paper

I have been up since 2 am working on my law paper. The procrastination I have experienced this morning is minimal but not nonexistent. I have now gotten about 28 pages of good enough text but need another 12-15 pages still. These final 15 pages need still to be proof read and corrected and some text still needs adding. Then the whole paper needs to be proofed a final time for footnotes. I hope to at least get the text done this morning and in the afternoon go to our school library and print a final draft that I can hand in if I don't get a chance to work on the paper on Monday when it is due. I should be able to print the bibliography and appendixes today in final copy. I will read the paper all the way through later today and finish it up by Monday.

I have been up all night studying

I have been up all night writing my honours paper. Now my wife is awake and I have to get some groceries. I will also go to school and buy some ink for my printer at the bookstore. On my way home I'll buy some pop for my wife. Hopefully no one drinks today too.

I attended a volunteer appreciation dinner.

I attended a volunteer appreciation dinner my self help group put on. Our president won the volunteer of the year award. I talked political corruption conspiracies and military security with other volunteers. I know this is typical paranoid talk. We kind of need to have language police at our self help group as some of the drop in members have been talking about sexual crime.

I have been having problems with my data mining course

I was not able to find enough time to work on my data mining assignment. I did earlier this morning do some more SAS programming with our final project. I was able to learn proc export and proc sort this past week or two. I have been making histograms in SAS as an adjunct to my R work. I was also able to make histograms in R again with the hist(variable) command. My professor has given me a chance to resubmit my third term assignment. But I may not have enough time this weekend to work on it. This assignment has a lower priority than my work and my law paper.

I got a new belt from a native store.

I feel uncomfortable often. This includes ill fitting clothes. I was able to buy a belt that is the proper size at a native store. It a nice Inca pattern on it.

I have also been buying Palm multimedia cards. I got Sim city for the Palm and a concise Britannia encyclopedia for the Palm. I also played my first game of Gretsky NHL on my PSP. I am in a tie game and am playing the Chicago Blackhawks.

C and J came over and watched TV.

C and J came over and watched TV. The person I detoxed remained sober all day. I reached out for help from a socialist activist and she emailed me back.

I got a fisherman's vest for carrying first aid supplies

I got myself a vest with pockets to carry first aid supplies and stuff in the summer weather. I put my CPR kit and flashlight and first aid pocket kit in the pockets and my pager. I was doing an on call shift this morning.

I did my first forced detox tonight

I detoxed my roommate tonight after she burned a hole in my Ecuadorian blanket while falling asleep smoking. She has been drinking 24-7. I used yahoo's NA chat to get some support to do the detox. Everyone except me is asleep now.

I am up marking tonight and finishing up my law paper. I am also on call in victims support over night. I will sleep at 9 am Friday.

Supervisor took some of my work.

My supervisor offered to take some of the assignments to mark. This relives me to work on my law paper more. I completed all the marking for one of the courses I am assigned to today.

I am also returning to security soon probably next week some time.

I am also working on the union web site and just did half an hour this afternoon. I hope to work on the self help group network web site too.

Just going out to play Dungeons and Dragons

I am going out to my weekly role playing game tonight. It has been a while since I had enough time to do this two weeks in a row.

I got my wife some Epsom salts for her feet.

I have been giving my wife foot soakings and even got salts for the water now. I have also been pushing her to do household tasks. I am also encouraging her friend to eat more and drink less.

Got some school work done and some marking done.

I am almost done the marking for one winter course and hope to finish it this morning. I also got a third data mining assignment done but did not have enough time to get a proper answer. I handed in what I had done but it wasn't error free or very good.

The server here was being changed.

I wasn't able to post clearly the past two days because the server was being changed. It seems to be back on line now.

Yesterday was a busy day shopping

I had been up since 8 PM Friday. My friend R dropped by and we watched some of his DVD called I Robot. We didn't watch the whole thing. I then studied getting some of my honours paper done and some surfing the web. I also was on call in my victims support work. In the morning after being up all night/Saturday morning I helped with the newspaper. I then went to school and got some books the library had on hold for me. I then went out and bought cigarettes and picked up a tea pot. I avoided spending on credit yesterday. I also bought lemons and coffees. I browser Chapters bookstore for math, philosophy, community and culture and wicca books. I came home and slept at 2 PM. My wife made tabuli salad later in the day.