<start cheesy Adelaide Baseball team song>
Are you goin' to the baseball?
Are you goin' to the bassball?
Come on, come on, come on, come on .......
Le - t's go to the baseball
"Play ball! <spit>", is what I heard from my catcher's position. I thought the guy was actually chewing tobacco (or "chewing baccy" as it's known), but this is a church comp. so it wasn't tobacco but sunflower seeds instead.
So their were 2 people that hadn't played baseball before (beside throwing a ball around) and they were myself and Anne-Reneé. Anne-Reneé was posted to outfield. Me? I was put in catcher. Logical, but I dont know if they knew I couldn't catch too well. Well - beter than Peter <chuckle>. He fell over twice (or was in three times) running for an outfield catch.
Kori's husband Steven sprained his knee and hit the deck like a sack of ... um..... of spuds after hitting a beautifull outfield ball. He came into the dugouts and said "Man, I wanted to run so bad...."
In all, most of the Hawkes family was represented. We had Tessa, Gillian, Maegan, Peter and Heather. Kori, Steven and Mikaelyn. Ashley and Gerry. Myself. Rueban and Anne-Reneé.
I had a great time, and Gerry's home built hamburgers and buns were fantastic.
Sunday 11th June 2000
A computer catchup day. Email, travel log and resume.
Monday 12th June 2000
The first day of the World Petroleum Congress, and it went off without a hitch. The Calgary Herald newspaper had organised a career expo held in the Saddledome. So off I went, and I talked to some very interesting people.
Tuesday 13th June 2000
At the Career Expo, I was talking to some of the guys from Shaw Cable
(cable TV and high speed internet) and they took interest in my stories
of Linux boxes I had set up. One guy in particular was interested, and
so organised a short interview. Very hopefull and positive.
Thursday 15th June 2000
The Air Musem of which my grandfather has put an enormous amount of effort into over the years held a gala dinner in order to raise money for an extension which will protect some of the WWII planes and other relics that are being destroyed by the weather. It was a $100 a head dinner, and very elegant by all standards. Held in the hanger of the museum, cleared of the planes excepting 2 magnificently restores planes, complete with brass band and professional MC, it was a night to behold.
It also marked the unveiling of a commemorative poster of "The Great Escape". It commemorated those men murdered after the tunnel was found. Interestingly enough, not a single American was involved the The Great Escape, much to the surprise (and a little disgust) of those who have seen the Hollywood portrayel of the event.
I had volunteered to help with setting the pace up, and in doing so,
landed the job of cameraman. So, armed with a Sony Digital Handicam, and
shot tonnes of film. Interestingly, I was approached by some of the people
present who wanted a copy of the tape. The tape has been sent to my uncle
John, who has quite a cool setup for transfer onto VHS and a CD-ROM with
still captures.
Friday 16th June 2000
Visited Peter at work, which was no easy task. I had been to the Harry Hayes building to submit my request for a Social Insurance Number (much like an Australian Tax File Number, or an Americal Social Security Number), and it was then I realised I had left all the info about Peter's office at home.
Having remembered the building name, I found it, but then had to guess which tower (out of 4) he was in. I guessed 2. Correct. Which floor? I guessed/remembered 37. Wrong, the elevator wouldn't register. Ah, that's right, the World Oild Show had forced everybody into paranoid security mode. I guessed again, 35. Ok, up we go. Get out at 35, no doors. Ok, keep trying up. I could go no farther than 35, do out I got. I found a door with Peter's company name on it, and a phone. I started guessing numbers for Peter's desk. No luck. Try the number written on the phone 601. Engaged. Hmmm. 601 must be the number of that phone. Try 625 (which sounded familiar), rock-on, I got Peter's voice mail. I sit down outside the door, and 10 seconds later Peter bursts out of the door asking, "Have you been there long?". His phone hadn't rung, and he was at his desk when he noticed that his message light on the phone was flashing. Thinking he might have drifted into dreamland and missed the call, and therefore I might have been there for ages, he rushed out the door.
So Peter and a co-worder and I went down to the local pub (which is in the ground floor of the building) and drank some beer. They had Guiness and McCaffrees on tap. From here we went onto dinner with Kevin and Lynn DeVillenfagne.
Saturday 17th June 2000
Old friendsof Dad's Dave and Brigette Conner and Sharon Barr came over for dinner. Much laughter. After dinner, I left the oldies with there coffee and went bar hopping with with Kirsten Barr and her friends. I met Andrew who works for IBM, and no, they dont do blood tests every week checking for caffeine addiction as I thought.
Sunday 18th June 200
We took Granny Gish (98) for a picnic lunch at Elbow Falls, where some
kiyakers went over it. That was interesting. Dinner with Mike Budd, and
Clarke taught me how to do an ice hocky slap shot. I wasn;t that great.
I also started a sims game.
Monday 19th June 2000
The Stronghold. Its a cliimbing gym in Calgary thats really quite huge compared to the ACME climbimg wall in Adelaide. I went with my cousin Lisa, who's mother is my Dad's cousin. She is a very beautifull climber. So elegant. Of course this is when I learn that she used to compete and train every day. She started to hate the competitiveness and quite - but kept her job and the gym. Eventaully she met anyther girl who was into it, but wasn't as competitive as the guys, and so took it up again. And loves it.
The gym's average wall height is 40', much higher than ACME, and one of them is a constant overhang, which blew my arms out. I'm going to have fun improving there.
Wednesday 21st June 2000
After a metaphorical kick up the rear from Dad, I got on the phone and started chasing down people I had sent emails to. Well, amazing how that started making the phone ring for me. I made two appointments for interviews, and I still have more emails and phone calls to make. It seems you have be very aggressive. No that that should come as any surprise, but I'm just stoopid I guess.
Also, for you geeks out there, I've finally set up my laptop's email system. It goes like this:
+-------------------------------------------+
| jpaq (laptop) |
+--------------------------+ | |
| zero.infinitylimited.net | <--- IMAP ---> | +-----------+ +----------+ |
+--------------------------+ | | fetchmail | <-- SMTP --> | sendmail | |
| +-----------+ +----------+ |
| | |
| v |
| local mailer |
+----------+ | |
| v |
| +----------+ +-------------+ |
| | netscape | <-- POP3 / IMAP --> | cyrus imapd | |
| +----------+ +-------------+ |
+------------------------------------------------------+
This way, I can use an IAMP server locally, and do funky things, and not have to worry about the LinuxSA folder getting too big, cause IMAP saves things a seperate files.
________
+----------+ +----------+ ( )
| netscape | <-- SMTP --> | sendmail | <-- SMTP --> ( internet )
+----------+ +----------+ (________)
The interesting thing about this, is that the mail server I'm contacting are allowing me to send them mail. I have no idea what
IP address my machine gets, nor if its resolveable by DNS, but I haven't had a mail server refuse me yet