Chris Maunder - Professional Profile

Why do people water their lawns (and footpath, and roadway) at night when they know it's going to be -7 overnight?

I decided to do something really stupid this morning - namely ride to the office when the windchill was -13C. Probably not the smartest thing to do all things being considered, but it seemed like it would be good fun at the time (ie when I was safe and warm inside my apartment). So I'm riding along the footpath along side a busy road in peak hour and notice the path ahead appears a little wet. My brain is thinking "Hmm - that's funny. How can a path be wet when it's -7 degrees?" Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer at that time of the morning I figured I'd just ride over that wet patch and continue on my merry way. It was just about the time my bike folded up on itself and launched me onto a concrete block and itself into oncoming traffic that my brain finally found the word it was looking for: ice.

Scary scary scary. Nothing broken but I think I took a few years off the driver of a poor SUV driver. You'd think I'd have learned by now. Ah well.

cheers,
Chris Maunder

Chris Maunder wrote:
It was just about the time my bike folded up on itself

By that do you mean you have a *folding* bike? My old maths teacher used to have one of those - it was pretty nifty.

You'd love it here in Cambridge - bikes are the main form of transport around the town etc. and it's pretty nice to ride round, if sometimes a bit dangerous Smile | :)

.

--
Andrew.

Last week David (a Canadian for all his natural life) and I (an Australian) were in Redmond. It was a cold, foggy morning and we had an hour to kill so we headed downtown (which sounds so much more impressive than it is. Downtown Redmond makes even my hometown look big) to get some breakfast.

We stopped at a petrol station to fuel up and so while Dave tried to work out how to fill up the tank I wandered into the cashier to ask where the closest good eatin' establishment could be found. Earlier that week I'd seen the movie 'Deliverance' for the first time and the guy behind the counter looked a little familiar. Anyway, he pointed out the nearest place and wished me luck. (no - not a good sign). I wandered back out.

Most petrol stations I've seen allow you to fill up, then pay. It was the morning after my birthday so neither of us were the sharpest pins in the packet and it took a while to realise that the sign 'prepay before filling up' meant we had to - get this - pre-pay before we filled the tank. So Dave wanders over to cashier and hands him a piece of plastic.

"What's that" says the guy.
"It's called a Visa card" says Dave.
"We only take cash or cheque" the guy replies.
"Hmm - you guys certainly make it a difficult to give you money". Dave was a little grumpy. Sugar levels and (more importantly) caffeine levels were dangerously low.
"It's as difficult as you want it to be" the guy drawled, reaching under the counter for a banjo (OK, so I made the banjo part up).

So Dave points out the car we'd hired and the guy brightens up. "Oh - you're with that other guy who was just in". "Yeah" says Dave, possibly evasively. "Yeah" the guy continues, "I thought you two sounded the same".

Now I know the reason for these personal forums: Chris' own personal blog. I thought there had to be some reason for that...

Funny story by the way. Don't worry...here in America, it doesn't take much to sound different (aside from live in the South) so all you foreign people sound a little bit alike...especially to the gas station attendents.;P

You will now find yourself in a wonderous, magical place, filled with talking gnomes, mythical squirrels, and, almost as an afterthought, your bookmarks
-Shog⁹ teaching Mel Feik how to bookmark

I don't know whether it's just the light but I swear the database server gives me dirty looks everytime I wander past.
-Chris Maunder

Chris Maunder wrote:
ign 'prepay before filling up' meant we had to - get this - pre-pay before we filled the tank.

Errr, keh? HTF is that supposed to work? Do you have to guess how much petrol your car needs, pay and then fill? What if you guess too little, do you then guess again, pay and fill?

What if you guess too much, do you get a refund?

I always just tell the African War Drum* wielding petrol attendants here to fill her up.

* As opposed to the Banjo Wielding Inbreds... errr Genetically Disadvantaged Members of Society I mean.

p.s. Being called Bluegrass and all we have the Dueling Banjos on CD in the office Big Grin | :-D

Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South Africa

Ray Cassick wrote:
Well I am not female, not gay and I am not Paul Watson

Naw. We just have gas cards over here that are just credit cards that they give you. Then it bills your account for however much you used. You can prepay with cash if you want, but you might pay too little. That's just how it works here.

You will now find yourself in a wonderous, magical place, filled with talking gnomes, mythical squirrels, and, almost as an afterthought, your bookmarks
-Shog⁹ teaching Mel Feik how to bookmark

I don't know whether it's just the light but I swear the database server gives me dirty looks everytime I wander past.
-Chris Maunder

(This was written last saturday but I was too lazy to post)

The weather. I can't go on enough about the weather (oh yes you can, I hear you say). I have this disturbing one-sided bet with The Weather Network. They make up a number, I make up a number, and whatever number is closest to the actual temperature on the day wins. This morning (saturday) at 9:30 they said tomorrow would be 9 degrees. My guess is at least 12. 11:30am and the forecast has changed to 12 degrees. 10 mins later (yes, 10 minutes!) the forecast is now 13 degrees. I'm feeling lucky so I'll stick to 12.

The real fun comes when you start to look more than 3 days ahead (called a "long term forecast"). In Australia a long term forcast means a month or so. "A forecast" means for the next 3 days or so. We normally get temps predicted within a degree or 2 up to 5 days in advance. In fact for some parts of Australia you can predict the weather based on the Calendar (For example, Christmas Day in Darwin: Hot, humid, chance of devastating cyclone. 32 degrees.) So back to the present. It's Saturday and they've gazed into the crystal ball and said "Thu and Fri 7, Saturday 5". I'm going out on a limb here but I bet all 3 days will be above 10 degrees. I *betcha*.

How can I be sure they won't be right? Many reasons:

Toronto is right on the border of the cold arctic and the warm southern air, and is often just on either side of the jetstream. Predicting weather is a mug's game. Roll a dice and you'll have as much chance as the met. office with their cray supercomputers
The weather network's entire appeal is in making people want to watch the weather. If they said "it'll be nice day. Again". No one would bother watching for the rest of the day. But if they say "There's a chance of freezing rain, tornadoes, plagues of locust and sunny breaks" then you're going to be glued to the set. Sunny (or even mediocre) days aren't going to have you sitting around watching radar images and ads about environmentally sound waterless toilets. Noah-like floods and Colorado Winter-bombs will.

So I work on the basis that all I have to do is be more cynical than them and I'll win everytime. I'm a developer. I use Microsoft products. I am very, very experienced at being cynical.

Sunday weather update: Thu 14, Fri 7, Sat 5. Hah. One down, 2 to go.
Monday evening update: Thu 10, Fri 11, Sat 14. Too easy.

cheers,
Chris Maunder

This thread is likely to be extremely redundant in about 2 weeks, but this morning we had our first cold morning. Cold by the standards of a guy still getting over the fact that he should be basking in sunny, mid-20's temperatures at the start of Spring, not watching with morbid fascination the Weather Network showing the average expected temperature for this time of year dropping 2 degrees each day.

Anyway, back to the anology I was attempting to construct. Canada is very poor at pretending to be a place that is hot. They get past the mid 30's, sure, but they insist on adding the humidex whenever and whereever possible in order to be able to say 'It's, like, 40 degrees today, eh?'. What the temperature is and what it actually feels like are two completely different things and I appluad any effort to provide real world data BUT you can't just throw on a humidex and suddenly ignore that other piece of Tom-foolery that is used for the other 9 months of the year, namely the wind-chill factor. Last week it was a rather pleasant 27C. Perfect weather. Hazy, slightly humid, a mild breeze. To me it felt like a slightly humid 27C tempered by a refreshing breeze. To everyone else though it was clearly 35C because of the humidex. I'm sorry, if you want to use a humidex then you have to add in the windchill. Fair's fair.

But I've digressed into a rant I promised myself I wouldn't succumb. Too late. The analogy, which by now has wandered off into the distance out of boredom that I was attempting to create was that of Canada. Canada pretends to be hot but after a bit of trying and a lot of being heckled by obnoxious people like myself it can turn on you. I've been in Canada where the weather went from T-shirt weather^* to ice storm in an hour. 18C drop in temperature. It was like something finally snapped and the Canadian climate hauled you out of your dreamy nonchalance and started slapping you with a wet fish. "So you don't like our weather, eh? <slap> Not hot enough eh? <slap> Then how about a bit of this then, EH? <slap, slap, whack>" Suddenly you're knee deep in ice and you can't feel your face.

So this morning I was once again reminded that while Canada can be kinda bad at Summer, it's very, very good at Winter.

cheers,
Chris Maunder

* That's Australian T-shirt weather, not Canada T-shirt weather. Canada T-shirt weather is anything above -40. They are mad.

Well that's Toronto for ya Poke tongue | ;-P

. Us folks back west never throw on the humidex for hot weather because it actually get's hot out here without any humidity (at least in the Thompson/Okanagan part of BC which is semi-arid desert). Low-Mid 30s for a good chunk of the summer, with the occasional 40+ is pretty good for a place everyone else on the planet thinks is a perma-glacier. Oh ya - we add the windchill out here 'cause we think it makes us look tough Suspicious | :suss:

I'm watching CNN pining for a newscast that wasn't solely dedicated to what the Prez had for breakfast, and one which wasn't constantly showing him leaning sideways on the podium while talking to the nation. He has the classic "someone pass that man a beer" pose. But I digress. They had a segment that finally convinced me that American culture is doomed. That mother nature will swallow the whole thing up and replace the entire country with wildebests and elephants roaming across savannah. They had a segment where political cartoons were explained. In detail. The artist who drew them would come in, show the cartoon, zoom in on the words, read out the bigger, more complicated ones, then explain exactly what the cartoon meant.

Now as an Australian it was actually very inciteful. Or would have been if my brain hadn't melted at the thought of what was happening. CNN, the network that is meant to brief a nation and make them able to stand up for themselves in the early morning arena of elevator conversation, was *explaining political cartoons*. Does anyone there think "if we need to explain the *cartoons* then why the hell are we bothering showing real live people actually talking? Do people understand what we are trying to tell them?

Maybe they should just make the whole thing into a cartoon.

Chris Maunder wrote:
They had a segment that finally convinced me that American culture is doomed.

I think you give American media WAY too much credit. They didn't invent that segment because we need it or asked for it. They did it because they're morons. Please don't make assumptions about our culture based on CNN unless you want us to make assumptions about Australia based on "The Crocodile Hunter". Poke tongue | ;-P

Mike Mullikin Beer | [beer]

You can't really dust for vomit. _{Nigel Tufnel - Spinal Tap}

Mike Mullikin wrote:
Please don't make assumptions about our culture based on CNN unless you want us to make assumptions about Australia based on "The Crocodile Hunter".

Too late! Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin have a lot to answer for.

cheers,
Chris Maunder

One thing I don't understand is bus etiquette. I come from a small city where public transport just doesn't happen. Everyone has a car or a bike or a good friend with a car and so travelling by bus is an event to write home about.

In Toronto 1 million people a day use public transport. And they are all on my bus. What gets me is that if the bus is super-crowded and someone vacates a chair to get off at their stop, the chances are that the seat will remain vacant. Huh? There's an aisle full of cramped, sweating, standing people who bared teeth to be first on the bus in the hope of getting a seat, but when one is presented to them no one takes it. I just don't understand...

Incoming emails this morning: 5334.

cheers,
Chris Maunder

Q172653: Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on His Own

Chris Maunder wrote:
Incoming emails this morning: 5334.

How the hell do you deal with that? Do you have rules set up to sort them or something? It must take you all day just to read the subject lines never mind read and action the mails.

I thought my account was excessive with about 50 a day.

Cheers

James

Chris Maunder wrote:
Incoming emails this morning: 5334.

That´s unfair. My highest was 10 mails...90% newsletter.

I am envious somehow. Cry | :((

Greetings

Sunny

I get every spam that's on the net - from Nigerian ex-presidents aids offering me 35% of 20 million (probably 10-15 a day) to offers to increase a certain body part's size (slightly less often than the $$$ offer - which says something I'm sure - I'm just not sure what). I also get a zillion bounces from the CP server (any message you post that is to a dud account I hear about), plus admin alerts, pleas to write people's homework assignments, various mailling lists, threats, praise, comments, suggestions, bizarre rants, pleas from time travellers (no, I'm not kidding) and bad, bad jokes.

cheers,
Chris Maunder

Q172653: Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on His Own

Chris Maunder wrote:
bizarre rants, pleas from time travellers (no, I'm not kidding) and bad, bad jokes

Maybe you should post these in the scrapbook. Kind of a hall of shame... Smile | :)

Cheers

James

Chris Maunder wrote:
What gets me is that if the bus is super-crowded and someone vacates a chair to get off at their stop, the chances are that the seat will remain vacant.

Buses (at least in Canada) have a special set of rules which are not unlike urinal rules in a men's washroom.

Don't sit next to anyone else if you can possibly avoid it. You should leave at least one empty seat between yourself and the nearest person.
Don't look at anyone else, especially the freaky, potentially mentally insane and/or drunk people. They might think you're challenging them.
Don't touch anyone else.

I was lucky enough to get my own special rule: when I'm late to the bus stop the bus will be early and when I'm early the bus will be late. After a while I actually brought a watch to keep track and it was uncanny how often this happened. Thank the internet that I now work at home. Big Grin | :-D

I rolled my eyes so much that my vision is now 20/20 from the exercise. -John C. Dvorak

Hi!

I have two "possible" explanations for you.

1. "IHHH! Someone sat already on this seat... It's warm now. I won't sit there..."

2.
Perhaps the people will leave at a near stop and thy don't seat, because they have the fear of "not-getting-out-anymore".

Have you already noticed, that the crowd crowds only in the space at the doors and not in the course between the seatrows?

Blush | :O

) life is fun!

Johannes

//still a newbie

How long is a piece of string? How many roads must a man walk? How many times must Windows Update update a machine until it's 'updated'?

We live in a complex world.

cheers,
Chris Maunder

Q172653: Sometimes Barney Starts Playing Peekaboo on His Own

*rolling on the floor laughing*

Sunny

---------------------------------------------

If I of my loneliest instants think - then someone always sat beside me

Chris Maunder wrote:
How many times must Windows Update update a machine until it's 'updated'?

You think too much!!!

Regards,
Brian Dela Smile | :)

you ever hear that old joke about the three strings?

---------------------------------------------

The greenest grass is NOT on the other side of the fence, its the grass you take care of. Have you watered your lawn lately?

Chris Maunder wrote:
Windows Update
You run windows update. OMG | :OMG:

Brave man.

I'm always too scared to let Windows phone home, 'cause then Bill&Steve&Brian are gonna know my JPG-count. Blush | :O

Cheers,
Simon

"Sign up for a chance to be among the first to experience the wrath of the gods.", Microsoft's home page (24/06/2002)

SimonS wrote:
I'm always too scared to let Windows phone home

Did you ever notice that the only thing XP didn't crash on was the product activation? Suspicious | :suss:

We brought out this new and very similar version of our expensive software because the old version was......old....It's a good enough excuse for Microsoft so its fine for us.

Chris Maunder - Professional Profile

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