I couple of days ago I got an email from the CIRA announcing their “Tell Us Your dot CA Story” contest. At first I brushed it off thinking “I have no chance of winning”, but I decided, on second thought, to write something because I wouldn’t mind a new computer, and I figured it would make a good post. Looking at it now, I think it’s probably good enough to end up on my “About Me” page on my site! My entry:

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

— “Little Gidding”, by T.S. Eliot

The holiday season is drawing to a close, and for many of us, that means going back to familiar routines of school and work and life in general. I have always enjoyed the break the Christmas season brings, and the chance to catch up to friends and family, some of which I haven’t seen since the year previous. This year also brought the occasion to travel, and so I went to California for a week. I had an absolutely amazing time; I spent New Year’s Eve wandering through the redwoods and walking along the beach with a wonderful girl — it was the stuff memories are made of. But I discovered something more. As I visited the places, and conversed with the locals, I came to understand something of the differences between the two places — California and home. Things that I had rarely questioned were questioned, and I wondered the logic of some of the things they took for granted.

As a regular reader of the Gateway, I have read a fair share of ideas that are a little thought and controversy producing pieces, but thought I would add a little to the mix myself. I was reading the Editorial entitled “Armoured bears don’t threaten faith” by Ryan Heise in the November 26 edition. Although he raises some valid points, I think he has been rather simplistic and one-sided.

I have to admit I’m a bit of a fan of Google’s services, and tend to pay a fair bit of attention when Google decides to pick up a company - to me, founded or not, it signals that the service will stick around and has the financial backing to continue offering a good service on the cheap.

I got a kick out of a flyer that came in the mail the other day. The Alberta Cancer Foundation has launched its annual “Cash and Cars” lottery. The flyer starts with a display of the cars, some 26 in all, starting with the SLR McLaren. Following is a page for the cash prizes (valued between five and fifty thousand dollars), showing a pile of cash and the tagline “Consider it cab fare”. I guess everyone wins a “car”, even if it’s a taxi ($50,000 will give you quite the taxi ride!). It cracked me up.

I’ve decided to formalize some of my thoughts and launch a new series: Social Commentary. Just like the many interesting things I find on the net, every so often I come across something in the “real world” that I want to address - this will create an easy way to centralize (and then find) these thoughts. Enjoy!

If you missed it in the news, the bridge that takes I-35W across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis fell into the river last night. If you want a full report, you’ll have to look elsewhere (I can point you to CBC); some highlights:

I’ve had this little presence on the web for just over a year now, and thought I would make a list of the few things that I’ve learnt along the way, some from reading, and some from doing.

In case you took a weekend away from the computer, which I apparently didn’t, Google has just bought out Feedburner. I’m not sure what this will mean for me, although they have promised to keep the service up and running. I imagine there will be some re-branding, and I’m hoping for better integration with my other Google services, like Blogger, Analytics, and AdSense. I’ll keep my eyes open, and let you know if something really crazy happens.

Although Nexodyne continues to work well, I came across another site that allows me to add the nifity envelope to the image, so I decided to change my little “Email me” picture. The site gives you three options, but the downside is you have to host the image yourself (Nexodyne would host it for you) and it only works for GMail. If you have another email provider, check out Nexodyne, but if you like the envelope and have a Gmail account, get your own image here! (The only downside is figuring out how to get a transparent background - Photoshop doesn’t seem to like me today).