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Notes from a bemused canuck

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Category: uncategorized

On the joys of powerpoint

Posted on June 22, 2006 By admin

I've just finished the second draft of a poster I'm presenting to the British Society of Proteomic Research in a few weeks. This afternoon, I need to finish more powerpoint slides for a research proposal for an EU-funded grant and then, all of tomorrow, I need to sort through a few hundred powerpoint slides for the presentation I'm giving in Poland.

Have I mentioned just how much I hate powerpoint? I blame it for dumbing down audiences and completely destroying what skills I had at business writing.

While I was hunting around for an eastern European plug adaptop, I got caught up in a discussion about data submissions to large databases, such as PRIDE, IntAct, SwissProt and EMBL nucleotide. My conclusions, from purely personal experience, are:

– Even with the best documentation you can give them, people will not use it, or find ways to make a square peg fit a round hole. You need to say in excruciating detail what you need, and still then, be aware there's a high likelihood you won't get it. Or only partially. But the wrong parts.
– The best way to get data from people is to give them a document template, preferably in some sort of microsoft flavour. Everybody loves excel, even if it is evil. If you give them a tool they need to install, they won't. If you give them a complicated tool to use, they won't. People love spreadsheets, even if 3/4 of the information in it is redundant. Copy-paste is the best method to extract water from a stone.

Hiho, Hiho, it's off to powerpoint I go!

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Kitty!

Posted on June 20, 2006 By admin 2 Comments on Kitty!

Got email from our cat breeder:

he is adorable, a right little character…loves his food and has the loudest voice, usually used when he wants his food!! Most of the pics I get of him are while he is asleep…or when he has just woke up. He has this habit of dashing around like a lunatic for an hour or so, then just collapsing on the spot and falling asleep!…lovely little chap.

He'll fit right in :)

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Yes, I do not feel social today

Posted on June 18, 2006 By admin 1 Comment on Yes, I do not feel social today

But given how crappy I feel, it's not hard to understand why. Last night was plagued by weird dreams an disturbing imagery. I think one of the allergy products I took yesterday didn't play well with the others. Visions of car chases, people with singing heads coming out of their mouths, pizza demons, and Karen from Will&Grace doing really, really weird shit with a book-that-should-never-be-opened did not make for a peaceful night's sleep. When I woke up sometime during the night, my eyes were all puffy and irritated, and I started a sneezing/sniffling fit right then and there. I was teh sexay, let me tell you.

So yeah, this morning, all I feel like doing in holing up in the bedroom and reading and waiting for it to all pass. I apologize for being antisocial, but I just don't want to deal with people today :(

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My sinuses hate me

Posted on June 18, 2006 By admin

My seasonal allergies have not been this bad for ages. Now granted, it's hot as hell and muggy to boot, and the pollen count is through the roof, but it's been years since I've had to take benadryl and a steroid-based nasal spray to complement a once-a-day antihistamine and still feel like shit and go through half a box of tissues. Not a happy bunny am I.

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Updates on the wedding planification

Posted on June 15, 2006 By admin 2 Comments on Updates on the wedding planification

–£200 for tux rental/shirt/shoes/haircut for me and Michel.
–£200 for bridesmaid dress/hair/makeup for Rita
-£600 for wedding dress/hair/makeup for Katy. Dress: £255.
-£1500 1725 for hall rental & buffet
–£300 for wine/booze
-£200 370 for wedding cake
-£900 1000 for wedding rings
–£100 for disposable cameras for guests

Stuff in italic, we haven't confirmed yet.

Costs we didn't know initially:
– invitations: £28.60.
– Certificate of Approval: £140.
– Notification of wedding: £60.
– Wedding ceremony: £250.
– Wedding certificate: £35.

And we still need to figure in the costs for:
– car service
– bouquet and flowers

Stuff we still need to do:
– making mixed CDs for background music
– planning the buffet menu

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Wedding stuff!

Posted on June 14, 2006 By admin 5 Comments on Wedding stuff!

Progress has been made! After weeks of fiddling in Photoshop and Illustrator during my lunch hour at work, the wedding invitations have been printed out, cut to size and folded neatly as you please. I'm inordinately proud of them.


I'm really fortunate that we have a kick-ass graphics department here at work. I was able to make use of their insanely expensive A3 printer and use all their paper handling paraphernalia. It took about two hours to get everything printed and cut to size to millimeter precision. I'm a geek, and a perfectionist (sometimes, when it's important to be). The Illustrator file is symmetrical to within a micrometer. Did I mention that I love Illustrator? I do. It rocks.

And the thing that makes me the most happy about the invitations? We made them. By hand (well, sort of, you know what I mean) and they're unique to us. Another thing that makes me happy, even though it sounds really bad when it's said out loud, is that including the nice stationary and envelopes and printing costs, our hand-made, personalized invitations only cost £0.50 apiece. (Yes, I know it sound like I'm a cheap sod, but we're trying to make the most of our wedding budget).

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My contribution to EBI Service Day

Posted on June 13, 2006 By admin 4 Comments on My contribution to EBI Service Day

Today was EBI's Service Day, where the various groups talk about what they do. I had to give a 5 minute lightning presentation on PRIDE. Didn't go too badly. Was nervous as heck, but I always am when I speak to a large crowd, so that's no biggie. I caught myself before I said a bad word in front of my bosses, so yay for self-filtering blathering. (The exact sentence was going to say “There are no entry points to browse the data, so if you don't know what you're looking for to use the query interface, you're screwed…pause…in trouble.

Amusing quote of the day was “I work in IT, I don't know what a tie is!”, which made me giggle.

It's been muggy as hell hereabouts for the last 2 days. A warm morass of humid air decided to hunker down and make us all miserable all of a sudden. For once, I wish it would rain. A lot. Maybe that would clear the air. It probably couldn't be worse than it is now. I have come to the conclusion that when we finally buy a house, the 3 criteria that it must have are a large kitchen, screens on the windows and fucking AC. The last two should not be a problem in a civilized country such as Canada, but in the wilderness that is Great Britain, it's near impossible to find. The whole concept is just… alien to them. Whatever. Barbarians, the lot of them, I say.

On brighter news, I've almost finished with the layout of ht wedding invitations, so I'll be able to get them printed probably tomorrow (and before the end of the week, for certain). I'm really happy about the results.

On more brighter news, we'll be getting the pussycat on July 22nd. The breeder is going to give him the last set of shots on the 17th, so he's ours any time after that.

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In other news…

Posted on June 9, 2006 By admin 3 Comments on In other news…

My coffee intake has been slashed dramatically! I'm down to one cup of coffee a day and drink green tea for the rest of the day at work. No caffeine and plenty of anti-oxidants.

The impressive thing is that I've not killed anybody yet!

uncategorized

On the complete irrationality of phobias

Posted on June 9, 2006 By admin 2 Comments on On the complete irrationality of phobias

I told myself today that I would walk to work with my arms bare and my head held high. I told myself that I would not fear the flying insects from hell.

So just to spite me, the universe had a laugh and I got buzzed at the back gate of the EBI and let out a little girl squeek.

I don't know why I'm so scared of flying insects, or where it came from. From my sessions with a phobia therapist, I've kind of come to the conclusion that part of my fear is because my allergies have gone rather haywire in recent years, and I don't know if I'll die if I get stung. I'm starting to wonder if that's all of it though. Rationally, the fear of pain can't be the reason I'm afraid of flying insects because, I'm not afraid of needles and, well, I've literally had my skin pierced a gajillion times in the course of getting my tattoos. Furthermore, I always carry enough allergy medication that I could probably swim in garlic and poison ivy and be ok.

I've also come to the conclusion that the trigger is the high-pitched buzzing noise. I'm forcing myself to go out more. When I'm cutting the grass, apparently I'm surrounded by bees and I don't flinch (mostly because I don't see them and can't hear them, so that may not count).

I don't know.

I just want to be able to enjoy summer like normal people.

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Métro-Boulot-Dodo

Posted on June 9, 2006 By admin

My life is currently mostly long periods of humdrum routine, broken up with random, high-intensity burn-your-stomach-lining stress. Then again, I guess I'm describing the life of most everyone I know, really.

Don't have much to say. Work is ok. I manage to get some interesting and useful code written and deployed. My bosses seem happy and my coworkers appreciate what I do, so that's always good. I'll be jet-setting for a weekend in Poland soon, though I'd prefer going with somebody because travelling alone sucks. One thing I'm noticing is that I'm falling back into an old and evil pattern of getting sucked into work and not taking breaks to socialize. I eat at my desk while trying to get work done. Not good. I used to go out for walks with Phil, but since my allergies have kicked back in and given the increase in activity of the disturbingly large insect population, I'm really not tempted to go out in the fields just right now.

The weekend should be relaxing. Probably going into town. I'd like to get some ring molds and pastry cutters. Maybe cut the grass. Maybe have a BBQ.

Mood is a bit up and down at the moment. I need to hit the gym more (which also ties in with being one with my desk these days). I'm worried about my dad's back, money, wedding preparations, and other sundry things.

I find myself missing the boys back home, while at the same time being rather cross with them for their lack of contact. I email them once in a while, but it's always me. Their shout-outs are few and far between. Make that, I haven't really heard from anybody except Michel in far too long. Meh.

Boy, I'm just a little ball of sunshine at the moment, ain't I.

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