We arrived back to Edmonton this afternoon without any problems (in fact the flight got in a little early). I’ve been taking it sort of easy since though, hence the lack of posting. Here are my weekly notes:

• We won the Wes Nicol competition! We also gave Leading Edge Technologies a run for their money in the VenturePrize competition.
• NewsGator renamed their Outlook product to NewsGator Inbox.
• Because I’ve been so busy and on the go, I haven’t read blogs as much as normal, but I did come across Mesh 2006, which is billed as Canada’s Web 2.0 conference. Looks very cool to me!
• The new provincial budget for Alberta was announced, which means that a new science building at the University of Alberta will get the go-ahead. The Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science will replace Physics and V-Wing.
• Speaking of the budget, I hope the government doesn’t send out any more rebate cheques. Invest it! Or better yet, since the surplus is due to oil prices, knock a few cents off our gas! It’s sick that Toronto’s gas is the same price as ours. It’s freaking refined and everything RIGHT HERE! How could it possibly cost the same?! There are absolutely no transportation costs! I just don’t get it. Well I do get it actually, pricing gas is more than a markup business…but still.
• I’m sure by now you’ve heard that Windows Vista was delayed again. I’ll end up getting the OS around the time I expected, but people hoping to buy new computers with Vista for Christmas are out of luck. I have a feeling the delay will be worth it.
• A virtual podcasting expo was recently announced. Looks interesting!

Here are my weekly notes:

• It’s been a busy last few days getting ready for our presentations this week. You can read all about our business plan competitions and follow along this week at our VenturePrize Experience blog.
• The real web 2.0 application has arrived. Here’s another humorous app.
• Man we sure got dumped on this week, so much snow! The worst part about all the snow is that the farmers still won’t be happy. No snow, they complain there’s not enough water. Too much snow, too much water!
• Amazon S3 is amazing; its truly game-changing. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the other big players copy them, and in fact, I hope they do. More services like S3 are what we need.
• Went to the Rush game on Friday night with Sharon because Tom was working (he got a job at Petsmart). I think she enjoyed the game, even though we got slaughtered 16-9. The next game is the 25th, with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders! I’ll be in Ottawa though…
• “Trip” by Hedley is my current favorite song. I also really like “Move Along” by The All American Rejects.
• Do you find the font size at Google or Yahoo or any other search engine too small? If so, Big.com is for you. The text is very, ahem, big.

Here are my weekly notes for this Sunday:

• The Oilers need a goalie! So far, Roloson does not seem to be the answer to our goaltending problems. I really hope Lowe deals for someone good in the off-season.
• Thanks Megan for the Bill Clinton ticket! We went to see/hear him speak on Thursday evening – it was great!
• The new projector is sweet! The only problem we have discovered so far is that it gets extremely hot underneath.
• It was a big week for Paramagnus! We won the Wes Nicol competition and were officially selected as finalists for the VenturePrize competition. We’re getting really close to the final showdown – the next couple weeks should be pretty interesting. We’re updating our business plan again tonight.
• Pick Pickler! Pick Pickler!
• Thanks for dinner the other night Annie and family! We watched Bend It Like Beckham, which I hadn’t seen and rather enjoyed. I like the way Keira Knightley says “bollocks”.

Here are my notes for today:

• I still can’t quite believe that we did some upgrades this week and didn’t encounter any problems! I guess we’re getting better at planning for these types of things.
• I hung out with my Dad yesterday on his way back from San Francisco. He’s got some really great pictures up in Flickr from his trip.
• Can’t wait to find out more on Origami. There’s an interesting video at YouTube on it too.
• Ever have french fries from Costco? They’re so addicting, and probably so bad for you…
• Looks like Crash has won the Oscar for Best Picture. I didn’t watch the ceremonies this year, and judging by some of the polls on sites like Canoe, neither did a lot of other people.
• Went to see the Rush last night with my Dad and Tom. They lost again, 15-11. We have a decent team, but we get way too many penalties, and I question the coaching sometimes.
• Tomorrow is the public announcement of the VenturePrize finalists, and the result of the Wes Nicol should be made public this week too.

What a week it has been, and what a month I have ahead. Here are my notes for today:

• I feel sorry for the students of Lakehead University, being deprived of wireless Internet.
• I watched most of the Shawshank Redemption tonight – I hadn’t seen it in quite a while. It’s a great movie, you really should watch it Felicia!
• My parents recently had an anniversary, and yesterday was Kim’s birthday! It’s a busy time of year for our family.
• The Winter Olympics are over now, and Canada ended up with 24 medals, no thanks to the men’s hockey team! I know the games are a big deal, but it will be nice for TV and everything else to get back to normal.
• My Dad is in San Francisco on business and has some great pictures up! Looks much nicer than here.

Yay for reading week! Here are my notes for today:

• It was a pretty good week for Paramagnus in terms of our business plan competitions. We made it to the semi-finals in the VenturePrize competition, and the finals for the local part of the Wes Nicol competition. We present to the judges on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
• My Dad was here this weekend too! Was nice to hang out yesterday.
• The Canadian Men’s hockey team lost again today! It’s a good thing we’re already in the quarter-finals, but something has to change. Shut out two games in a row – terrible!
• I think I am going to be starting a new notes weblog to exist alongside this one. Thing is, there’s lots of times I want to post something tiny, like a random thought or link or picture or even just a simple sentence, and this blog isn’t really appropriate for that kind of thing. With the notes weblog I can post a quick thought whenever it hits me, even from my cell phone! Fear not, this blog won’t change, it will just have a sibling 😉
• Interesting new search engine for programmers is coming soon, called Krugle.
• Look for more articles like this one over the next year: Ten Reasons to Buy Windows Vista. The article also includes five reasons you might not want to get Vista.
• Favorite song of the moment: Madonna’s new single, “Sorry”.
• A fairly large group of my friends are heading out for lunch tomorrow, on Family Day here in Alberta. Pictures to follow!

Some notes for this fine Sunday evening:

• Went for coffee with Megan tonight who I hadn’t seen in forever! Looking forward to Northern Voice this week.
• Cool news story today about Nunavut – no not where I used to live…this is the new territory – and how the Airbus A380 will be travelling north for weather testing!
• I think the plan to charge for “priority email” is completely dumb. Then again, I haven’t given it any serious thought yet, but that’s my gut reaction.
• I didn’t mention it last week (during my “disappearance”), but on Tuesday my group presented to our English 304 class on podcasting. I thought it went very well! We covered the history, the technology, the implications of adult podcasting, the effect of podcasting on education, and we did a “future” segment too. Initial feedback was very positive, and the mix of students was about what I expected – a select few who knew what it was, a few more that had heard of it, and the rest were introduced for the first time!
• Looking for virtualization software? VMWare is giving away their GSX Server, starting Monday.
• Who’s my hero? This guy, who was too lazy to move five feet to open the door to his office so he hacked together a software/hardware combo to do it for him. Pretty interesting actually!
• In the middle elevator (there’s 3) of our building tonight I discovered piles and piles of broken glass, yet all the mirrors inside the elevator are fine. It’s like someone took glass into the elevator and smashed it, and this isn’t the utility elevator which would normally be used for transporting stuff either. Needless to say, I am still trying to figure out how it got there…any ideas?
• Ahhhh high school…

Here are my weekly notes:

• I burned my lip on extremely hot pizza sauce tonight – doesn’t look too good. That will teach me to let it cool down a bit first! I love pizza though…
• While eating the pizza I watched China Rises on CBC. Tonight was the first two hours with the final two showing next Sunday. Pretty interesting documentary thus far! Would be so nice to go to China for the 2008 Olympics.
• If you’re reading this in an aggregator, you’ll probably notice that I now am using FeedBurner. The location of the feed and everything is the same, but with FeedBurner I can track statistics, and add the nifty little “Email This”-type links at the bottom of items. Let me know if you encounter any problems!
• It’s funny how simple things can make your life so much easier. In ASP.NET 1.1, you could tell IIS to let the runtime handle incoming requests, but if you didn’t handle one, it failed. In ASP.NET 2.0, if you don’t handle a request, it is sent back to IIS to be handled – so much better! I guess you won’t understand if you haven’t attempted to accomplish this, but take my word for it, huge improvement. If you’re looking for regex URL rewriting in .NET, check out this awesome site.
• Ah, LSD. The geek’s wonder drug?
• Couple interesting bits of Microsoft news this week. First, Blackcomb (codename for the version of Windows after Vista) has been renamed to Vienna – apparently it was a better “vista”, even though Blackcomb is a ski resort! The other more useful bit of news is that the MSN Search team has added about a million facts that can be displayed as an “instant answer”. Works great too, give it a try.
• The big election in Canada is tomorrow – make sure you get out and vote! I am undecided still, but I have it narrowed down to two. If you’re having trouble deciding, the CBC has a good rundown of the parties and their platforms.

I think one of the hardest habits to break is sleeping late and waking later. I intended to get to sleep early tonight, but just haven’t been able to (not for lack of trying either!). On the plus side, my insomnia did help me remember to post these notes I wrote earlier:

• A few days ago Sharon remarked that I should get new shoes. I told her that I liked these ones, and that I didn’t need that many pairs of shoes. Then last night my shoelace snapped in half! I think she did some voodoo magic on my shoes.
• The first week of school was alright. I am liking having class on only two days! And I’m glad I was able to register in a night class – I find I do much better in them for some reason.
• I finally registered for Northern Voice 2006 this week. Should be a good time, I’m really looking forward to it!
• Wondering how evil Google is today? This site is pretty amusing! So much for “do no evil”.
• Proof, maybe, that China did in fact find North America before Columbus? I don’t think there’s any doubt, but some people are just unwilling to let go.
• I’ve been reading John Battelle‘s “The Search” lately, and my oh my is it a fascinating book! I’m only through three chapters but quite enjoying it thus far.