I'll start the Boston Blog later this week ... just wanted to put out a "heads up" to regular fans.

I'm at Pepper Computer, Inc. now, on a short term contract. My NDA precludes my saying anything about it, so I won't. I can say that their product is "not available in stores" so you haven't missed it if you've gone looking. But it is pretty cool and very geeky.

How to Reach Me

I'm back in the USA, so my cellphone is back in service. Call 214 207 7812 to reach me. AIM is another way to get ahold of me, but if you are not on my buddy list, I won't accept a message from you. And of course, my email address is monitored pretty much 16/7.

Bill's Place

I've moved in with Bosney, into a room he formerly used for hobbies. It's snug, and I haven't fully setup my desktop yet so it's a bit slow going on the Toshiba laptop, but we'll get there.

http://blog.deltos.com/boston.

Enjoy.

Had my exit interview with Steve L. and checked out today. He told me he found my blog quite a while ago (Hi Steve!) ... but of course he didn't mention it until my exit interview. Whatever.

Did lunch with the Two Bretts at the Lone Star Texas Grill, skipping the QA group's trip to a big Chinese place on Woodbine.

Packing packing packing. Hope to be out of here by 9am tomorrow (but figure 10am).

Tonite: Visit Beth and Brian, off loading housewares, etc., pack clothes
Tomorrow: Finish at ATI, pack hardware
Saturday: Load the car in the morning, drive to Barbara's; enjoy party
Sunday: Drive to Worcester, possibly hooking up with Albany crowd for brunch

Looking forward to a change of pace and to moving in with Bill.

The Docks are on a jetty running out from the DVP and Lakeshore Drive, but inside the Toronto Islands. The view of downtown is rather striking.

I was assigned to "Team 6" which was composed of guys I don't work with very much. This didn't do much to endear me to the team.

The folks I regularly work with (from left to right): "Wilson" Wei, Nicholas Wu, and two co-op students. These guys are part of the QA group.

The first event Team 6 did was the "Gladiator" fight. I sat this one out, and we got beaten with a stick. Literally. Most of the guys just stood up there poking each other with the blunt sticks, not doing any serious fighting.

The next event was a four-man bag race. Reluctantly, I joined the race. We were beat with gusto by the other team ... and I was gasping for air at the end of the race.

The next event was a group-walk on a big plank. I joined the team on the second half of the walk (we had to swap in the team members not in the first half) and we won. It took a substantial coordination and was an indicator that our team was "gelling".

We proceeded to win the paint ball event, the trivia event, and the dreaded hoola-hoop event. In all, we won six of eight events, and I suspected that we were the first place team.

At the awards ceremony, everyone was in pretty good spirits, mostly because we knew this whole silly thing was almost over.

It turns out ... my team was in second place, losing to the top team by a single point. I was still pretty tickled by the outcome ... considering the irony (again) of "team building" when I was a "dead man walking" at ATI.

The winning team got a free pass on the crane swing. I'm not so sure winning would have been that good!

Another shot of "the Docks" area.

Looking south towards Toronto Islands.

I'm heading downtown today for an ATI "team building" exercise ... yeah, the irony didn't escape me.

Tonite I'm going to do triage on my housewares and pick out stuff that I'm giving to Beth and Brian as I won't be taking it with me (plates, cups, bowls, detergent ... just housewares I'd rather not toss) in my limited cargo space. I'm visiting them for dinner tomorrow night.

Thursday I am supposed to do lunch with Susan Hewitt, a manager here who's been very helpful with advice on how to transition to living in Canada. She is in charge of the product I tested the most while here. Dinner, as mentioned, will be at Beth's.

Friday I'll close out my work PC, submit my last timesheet, and go to the RI and start packing the Golf. I'll check out in the morning, eat one last powdered egg and Muslix breakfast, and then drive to Barbara's.

I am going to retire this blog and start a new one for my time in Boston. The URL will be posted as the last entry on this blog Sunday.

It is the ninth time the University at Albany -- a state-run school with an undergraduate enrollment of 12,000 students -- has been on the party school list. It was No. 1 in 1998 and No. 14 last year. The University of Colorado at Boulder ranked No. 1 last year.

"If this were a term paper, it would get an 'F' in methodology," university spokeswoman Lisa James-Goldsberry said in a statement. "The rankings are not to be taken seriously, and are certainly not reflective of the serious, hardworking students at Albany."

"It's pretty crazy," said Matt Kazimir, 21, a recent Albany graduate from Danbury, Connecticut. "There's always a party."

Still, some students say Albany's ranking isn't deserved.

"I wouldn't agree it's No. 1," said junior Brian Fessler, 20. "There are certainly a lot of opportunities to party, but it's also a great institution with some top programs. There are great academic opportunities, as well."

Brigham Young was ranked the top "stone-cold sober" school, the survey found. Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the toughest to get into. The happiest students overall were at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

Students most likely to vote for President Bush are in the Republican's home state at Texas A&M University; those most likely to vote for Democratic challenger John Kerry attend Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina.

Rensselaer considered itself "too professional to rate" in the 70s and 80s, but a school full of nerdy guys is not a party school. Trust me.

Meanwhile, I'm going to attend an offsite "team building" event tomorrow. Spare me the cries of "oh, the irony!" It's something to do other than read about XFree86 and wait for Friday. It's down at "The Docks" which I haven't been to (but have driven past) so it's an opportunity to see a little more of Toronto before I'm gone. Oh and they want us to wear our "minon" T-shirts.

Update: The big offsite event is cancelled -- again -- tomorrow. It's going to rain, rain and rain for the rest of the week.

We went back to their home in Aurora and chewed the fat until 11:30pm. My god, can I talk! (Tell them, Beth!) It was great seeing Beth again, and her daughter is a delightful handful. Brian is as loving and caring a father as I've seen and I'm so happy for them being together in a great country like Canada.

I'm so sad that I didn't hook up with them before the week I am leaving Toronto!

The whole thing is the brainchild of a Mississaga artists who bought all the Lego, rented a small hall in Niagara Falls, and built all this.

An overview. In the center is a full replica of the CN Tower as well as many Toronto buildings on the left.

What Lego exhibit is complete without a replica Golden Gate Bridge?

A stunning replica of the Taj Mahal, complete with elephant on the lower left. The artist said he just used photos of the buildings to replicate them.

Around the whole setup ran nine train loops with various Lego trains on them. I told the guy that he'd "achieved one of my fantasies in life -- having more Legos than I knew what to do with". He looked at me like I was a kook.

Skylon Tower, all 525 feet of it.

The main observation deck with easy-to-poke-camera-through fencing.

The Marriott Renaissance hotel that Anne and I stayed in when we were here in June. We were on the lowest glass windowed floor, near the middle.

The new Casino, plus our hotel and the Hilton next to it on Fallsview Lane.

The view our "fallsview" room didn't have -- of the American Falls.

A very busy Rainbow Bridge.

Closeup of Goat Island point and part of the Horseshoe Falls.

Closeup of the Walk Under the Falls on Goat Island and part of the American Falls.

The Maid of the Mist passing near Table Rock.

The falls spot light point (and some obsolete hydro equipment).

The American Maid of the Mist elevator and two of the ships.

He said he'd pick me up a concert T-shirt, so if you see me wearing it, be sure to remind me I wasn't actually there. Because I'll insist I was, and that the "contact high" blurrred my memories.

I don't want to bore you with all the navigational details, however this festival was out in the middle of nowhere. I had to drive out 401 to Guelph, and then up Hwy. 6. The festival organizers placed signs directing traffic to a back road (my GPS led the way) to the parking.

Fergus is farm country, folks.

The Festival is held at what looks like a rural civic center that is better suited for cattle auctions than anime conventions. Just inside the entrance was the strangest thing I've ever seen a bank do, an ATM embedded in a van.

The Festival was spread over several acres and fields, but the main drag looked something like this.

These being Scottish farmers, there was livestock on display. What Scottish Festival would be complete without sheep (and an open lecture on the perils of sheering said sheep).

A small barn held two "Scottish" cattle. They were substantially furrier than the Texas variety, better suited to living on rainy, cold rocks all year round.

A large area of the Festival was filled with netted tents, in which young women were constantly changing clothes in plain sight. After a while, I realized that all the shirtless girls in bras were getting ready for the next round of Highland Dance Competition.

A live bagpipe player accompanied the dancers who ranged in age up to 18 years. I assume that was so that each performance had to accomodate the tempo of a human performer and not a recording. The costumes are fairly simply but all featured a kind of doily worn across the chest by each young woman. Many were wandering around with the doily and and a brassiere (on top). I wonder what the ancient Scots would have thought?

Another major competition was marching pipe bands. I called Anne while watching these to tell her where I was and hope she could hear the pipes. She really likes bagpipes, and these bands (while not large) were quite audible. And also, quite good. Fortunately, few actually played Amazing Grace.

 

I saw (to my surprise) that you could tune a bagpipe. I imagine some kind of vise adjustment on the cat trapped in the bag. You tell me.

But perhaps the biggest draw, and certainly the largest crowd, was for the Highland Games. I only saw two events: Robertson Caber and Fergus Stone.

The Caber is a telephone pole toss. I mean, look at this and tell me it's not a telephone pole toss:

I had a number of funny captions in mind ("Scottish telekinetic lifts telephone pole" or how about "Man in Kilt 'heals' possessed tree trunk") but watching this insane "sport" just took all the fun out of ribbing it. This must be the original "X Game".

You gotta admit, that caber looks like the bone tossed at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So what sort of git comes to this kind of event? How about this lad on the left, who looks like he didn't have a SciFi convention to attend this weekend. More typical is the gent on the right, with full kilt and gear (getting coffee, of all things).

 

And speaking of kilts, there were more than a few around. Here's one for the handyman (it was called the "Utilikilt").

Fortunately, there were a lot of artisans selling their wares. This stunning image ased on Stonehenge caught my eye (the artist is inset).

Some beautiful Scottish wedding dresses were on display.

As were many sword vendors' collections.

What about food, you ask? Scottish food? You mean ... haggis? I have no idea what this booth actually served ... I was too afraid to approach and ask.

This eatery caught my eye because I thought the elephant theme would amuse Anne.

I had some local ale (Sleeman's Honey Brown Lager) just before I left, so I didn't leave without a proper drink at the pub. The lager was tasty with a hint of honey. Don't take my word for it ... I'm not a qualified beer drinker by any means.

They held a "Scotch Nosing" event that I would not have enjoyed, but which many of my dear readers would. Eight different Scotch brands were offered and a history of Scotch whiskey was presented with the drink. It would have been quite an interesting lecture if I could have stomached the drink. Alas, scotch is wasted on me.

So I'm going with the "sure thing" -- Pepper Computer in Lexington, MA. They've offered me a contract through the end of September with the potential for more work from home in McKinney.

The only annoying thing is I told my project lead today at ATI I was leaving a week early, and he disagreed. I guess he doesn't understand that I don't have to work for ATI -- indentured servitude it is not. I'm 95% done with the last cycle of testing and I can close shop next Friday with no work left undone.

Meanwhile, back at ATI, the same problem manager who derailed my vacation with Anne and the kids tried to tell me I had to work until the end of the month (and he meant 8-30, which is highly amusing since his manager told me I was done on the 27th). I told him I was finished with testing this coming week, and that I wanted to move on to Pepper. After thinking it over (after work), I don't really care all that much whether I stay the last week or not, but it might help with cash flow since I don't really know how long it will take to get the first check out of Pepper. Right now I have three paychecks pending from Oxford if I work at ATI until the 20th. One more week would round it out and I can delay the RI bill on Amex to boot, lessening the cash flow problem until the Pepper money comes in.

So who really knows what will happen. If I don't finish on the 20th, I'll drive down to Barbara's for the Decker party and return for one more week at ATI. Otherwise, expect me in Boston on the 22nd. Stay tuned ...