Tag Archives: Life

Remembrance Day

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Spring Cleaning for 2013

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With Easter just around the corner and possibly spring coming shortly after–Canadians have to wait a bit longer for spring t0 properly arrive and winter to make her final exit–that it would make sense to update my blog.   Many things have changed in the past few weeks .  Like we have a new pope, Pope Francis, just in time for Easter.  (I’m not going to weigh in on my opinions of the decision of the Conclave, other than I have mixed feelings.  And each passing day does not ease my general feeling about unease.)  Some things have not changed.  Like most things in the world I guess.

With the slow coming of warmer weather, I have a good excuse for a bit of spring cleaning and growing myself.  In terms of spring cleaning, I have meant to really organize my activities and my surroundings.  Unfortunately since I had to make do without my laptop for a few weeks, that has not helped me get more things done.  Especially when it comes to dealing with my overflowing inbox.  Apologies for everyone expecting me to get back to them.  I’m getting there slowly.

I did get to play around with setting up Python on my hosting environment and with Clojure.  Clojure, while definitely useful still feels like an exercise in academics than industrial programming.  (Still one can write a full implementation of Snake/Nibbles in Clojure in under 100 lines of code?  Madness!)  Python on the other hand is too much fun to feel like work.  I considered using something like a static website generator like Nikola or benjen to port some of my websites.  But I think for kicks, I will go the route of using Flask and craft my own mini-site just because working with Python is a such a joy.

One unfortunately necessary bit of spring cleaning will be changing Linux distros again.  It seems that Canonical is doing a fair bit of wild experimentation nowadays.  Too wild and it smells like they are suffering from NIH (not invented here).  The idea to chuck out everyone’s hard work on replacing X with Wayland, with their own thing was just too much.  So it looks like I’m going back to openSUSE for good.  It is just a matter of when I get around to migrating all my systems over.  I have no real issue with Canonical doing what they want with their own distro Ubuntu.  I just don’t agree with the philosophy, and the needless experimentation, especially since I am quite happy with using a relatively standard KDE 4 desktop.

Hopefully once I finish all the spring cleaning I’ll get to finish up and show off some the projects I’ve been working on.

 

Grey Morning in a New Reality

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Outside the window, grey clouds fill the sky and raindrops stream through the air.  A warm morning for an early December day, the weather being more likely for mid-November.  The rain does not bother me as I am sitting in a GO train headed to downtown Toronto, and getting ready for the start of a new day.

Since I started working at Indusblue as an Android developer, my mornings involve a morning train commute to Toronto.  While taking the train and streetcar to work extends my commuting time, I can not complain.  I get about two hours each day of time for myself, to get work done.  Amongst other things, I use this time to write or catch up on past work.  Today I decided that instead of sleeping on may to work, I would update this blog.

After a summer of travelling to and from San Francisco and spending a good portion of my Fall travelling in central Europe: Poland, Germany, Austria and Italy; I finally am settling down at the end of the year.  While I love travelling and visiting new places, I am glad that I have returned to Toronto.  I am glad to be close to most of my friends, family and familiar settings.

Since my return, I have concentrated on catching up on overdue work.  So many tasks and delayed projects have piled up, that I feel the need to make progress on them or even finish them before the end of the year.  Amongst other things I started writing two pieces: a science fiction novel and an auto-biography of sorts.  Also I started working on justcheckers again, which I plan to complete as part of my portfolio work.  And I am working on a few other missing or lacking parts of life, that I can not comment on right now.  However I am overjoyed with the progress I have made, and the opportunities that linger on the horizon.

So while the mornings are grey and rainy and sometimes quite cold, I am grateful for the new reality of life I am in now.  It might rain outside, but I feel as if it were sunny.

Comments Off As Life Picks Up

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Life, nature or  the universe has a perverse sense of humour.  The next day after I posted my last blog post, optimistic of the future and looking forward to approaching life in a slower pace… well everything happens at once.  And it seems like someone decided to fall asleep on the ‘drama’ button in my life.  So now things are exciting, moving quickly and require immediate and decisive action.  I am not amused, by this turn of events.

Since this seems like a prevailing theme and trend recently, I’ve had to make decisions to simplify my life.  I have to minimize the distractions and maximize the impact my action have on my surroundings.  If that does not happen, I will simply get swept away and get carried off by the next big wave.

Today I realized I need to take my tasks and projects head on.  That means do the most relevant, NOW.  It also means putting up a single list of to-dos and sticking to them.  And I have to simplify life and remove distractions.  One such distraction is maintaining my blog.  I love blog, I love writing and publish my thoughts.  But I do not like having to administer it.  Hence I migrated to WordPress a long time ago.

 

And also why I am turning off comments on my articles.  I am sorry to my readers, but the majority of you don’t comment on my blogs.  I don’t mind that.  Most of my articles and journals are not something one can or need to comment on.  And the majority of comments that get queued up are spam.  Even with Akismet running in the background, I get too much crap.  These days I have precious little time to blog or do anything outside of the urgent.  And I definitely do not have time to read 200+ comments all trying to commit various forms of link spam.  I want to use my precious time for blogging and updating my sites.  So no more open comments on my blog.  Some articles I will open for comments, but most will not.  Sorry but it is just something I need to do.

No Need to Complain

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This post is dedicated to my good friend Rudy.

As I drove back from work on Monday with Rudy, I drove poor Rudy crazy with my complaints about work. Sure there are less than ideal situations that I have to deal with everyday. But I’m sure that everyone else who works, also comes up against the same. True, I was and still am recovering from a nasty cold. And I tend to be crankier in such situations. Still there really was no need to complain. And Rudy sensing a good opportunity to jump, cut me short in his trademark style.

Dorian, remember how we talked about you complaining too much?

Yes?

You’re complaining too much.

And he was right. I do complain too much. Yes, I do have tight deadlines at work. Yes, Life hasn’t exactly played out according to my plans. Yes, everyday seems to pile on more workand things to do, on top of the existing staggering pile. Yes, I sometimes wonder if I’m not behind my peers on the important things in life. Still I complain too much. And I’m good at it too. But I shouldn’t…

When I look at the things I am complain about, they really are good things in my life too. All that work at work, means that I am needed to build these apps and solutions for both my firm and our clients. At home, all my tasks and projects mean that I have a full, abundant, un-boring life. Could life be a bit more relaxed? Of course it could! But it is nothing to complain about. It could be worse.

I could be living without all my comforts. I could be without the work and getting paid regularly. I could be without some many things, like so many other people in the world are without. And yet I am fortunate to have all that. Even if it brings the occasional headache.

And I’m fortunate to have friends like Rudy, who remind me to be thankful with what I have. Thanks!

Messy

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I missed an update yesterday, but I won’t fudge it today and backdate this post. Things are a bit messy at the moment and behind schedule unfortunately.  I’m trying to fix this, but I’m not sure when everything will get back on-track.

So until that time, I’m going to keep the posts shorts and not necessarily daily.

As the Year Wraps Up

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Less than 37 days or so remain in this year, and so I almost want to look back at this year in nostalgia.  A lot of personal growth happened, even if my plans only now are starting to get realized.  I discovered the fullness of what it means to be human: love, life, hate, death, joy, sorrow.  A million different feelings and it has been quite a ride.  I feel  better equipped to handle whatever the future brings.   And I want to thank all those who I met, got to know and taught me many life lessons.  Some were joyful, others painful.  Still I can not say I am not thankful.  In retrospect, I would of done things differently.  But I would not trade those memories and lessons, for anything.

Life happens.  Life is messy.  Thats the beauty of it.

As for my projects, and my obsession with completing them…  Well I am at a stage that I wished I was at back in February.  So I feel a little anxious of how long things take.  But I’m hoping that I can wrap up this year in this month and in a bit, with some tangible achievements.

Anyways… back to work… there is so much yet to be done.

Realizations

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This past week gave me much to think about, and the long periods of silence that helps guide such thinking.  Amongst the many thoughts, worries, concerns and hopes, the hardest realization is facing reality for what it is.  Regardless of what people tell you, reality does exist.  And its existence is independent of your own.  Reality cares very little about your existence and cares even less about how your feelings toward it.  Accepting reality for what it is, is paramount… no matter how difficult or painful it maybe.  Such is the curse and blessing of realism.

I won’t lie.  Accepting one’s place in time and space is not always pleasant.  I’m at the same time content and discontent with where I am.  But now that I’ve accepted, it is only a question of what is the best thing to do with what one has.  Note the emphasis on has and not had or can potentially have.  I’m still searching for the answers to my questions.

Back in Toronto, Back to Blogging

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Yesterday I landed in Toronto.  I’m home again.  Back to the normal and ordinary.  But even as the airplane hit the tarmack, I knew things will never be quite the same.  The things I experienced, saw, heard and understood during my short stay in Europe, has changed my perspective, attitude and expectations.   I won’t go into the details, because there are far too many.  And far too many of them are deeply personal.  But I’m glad that I went there, and I gained a lot.  I’m still processing and digesting everything still.

With that said, I will return to my daily blogging schedule.  I hope that no new tragedy, will force me to change my daily routine.  Because there is comfort in a routine, no matter how mundane and un-extraordinary it may be.  However I realize now more than ever, I have to move forward on my personal goals.  I feel a bit behind in some areas of my life.  I have a huge amount of work to do.  And at the moment, there is a lot of catching up I need to do.  Life will continue its intense pace for next little while.  This year shows no signs of slowing down, but rather accelerating.  It feels exhilarating and downright frightening.

I’m still mentally organizing my thoughts and goals.  However a few things have come to the forefront.  I need to learn some more French, German, Italian and Polish.  I need to brush up and learn those languages, since they will come in very handy when I try to stay in touch with my friends and family in Europe.  Also I need to learn to drive.  I must follow through on my professional and artistic goals.  A number of my friends are expecting and excited to see the results of my efforts.  I also need to learn to deal with difficult and tricky situations in a more professional, efficient, pragmatic, diplomatic and proper manner.  And then there are all things, minutae and nice-to-haves…  Thinking about all of this is tiring me out.  So I’ll stop with it here.

I’m also planning to return to Europe, most likely sometime this year.  And this may be sooner than later.  So more planning, thinking, et cetera.

Anyways, I’m back!  Did you miss me?

Parting with the Somber

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I changed the theme for the blog again.  Back to the nice calm, natural feel that I so very much enjoy.  Also I am parting from the somber mood.  Maybe this is a bit premature.  Maybe not.  But I can’t help it… I want to bounce back to my cheery, crazy self again.  Maybe I should be less moody.  Or maybe I should just accept my nature for what it is.

Anyways, just a few more days before I go back to my normal routines.  Back to my life in Toronto, my friends there, and the monotony.  Boring can be fun too… so long as it is not overdone.  I’ll miss my friends and family here too.  But I’ll be back sometime in the future.  For some reason I always gravitate back here again.  This trip taught me a lot about myself, my place and everything in general.  As with any search for knowledge, it creates more questions and concerns than before.  But knowledge gives serenity, as it explains the uncertain and pushes back the unknowable a bit more.

I’ve done some writing.  I hope to have more to share in the future.  But if I want to keep this post short and not rambling.  Then I really, really should, just stop right here.